See calm ahead or around us now reflects on where we are looking and who is with us.............

Thoughts at Christmas? Peace be still. Calm can come. Faith. All good thoughts. I was visiting with a man who is about 87 earlier this week. He had taken a fall and was going to be in a nursing home for 2 or 3 months now that he was out of the hospital. His mood was positive and he was very alert. I asked him to recall his favorite Christmas and tell us why it was a favorite. He remembered being a kid in his parents home and the year he got a favorite dog for Christmas.

Maybe a Christmas that is often ignored when one asks someone to remember their "favorite" is the Christmas we are now having. An answer to what was your favorite time could or maybe should be "now".

This picture is an interesting one I think. The "now" for those in the boat might be very different based on where those in the boat were looking or what their eyes saw. The picture was a painted as a portrayal of Christ just before he calmed the weather and the sea. I wonder if you were one who had been in the boat if you would look back at this time in your later years as a "favorite time" or a time you would always remember? What is better, to get the dog you always wanted or to have the seas around you calmed. It takes some faith to see the seas calmed around us sometimes. Maybe that is what Christmas really is, a moment to look closer at how calm the seas around us really are or what we have come through or who stands in the boat ready to help.

What we see around us depends on what we seek in life.

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another, of hundreds of others, in seeing the hundreds of universes that each of them sees. - Marcel Proust

Lotayear.................

Year end is a good time to look back. This year pictures have been useful in capturing some of the changes. This is a lot of things that remind me of the year just passing.

looking for 23

I was out running today and didn't see this sign. Guess something might be coming up soon.

12 days until Christmas and a E Card

I am going to send this picture and this brief note out as a "Christmas Card" or really instead of a Christmas Card this year. Doing it by email will enable me to add a message and a specific note to those that I send it too. Over a lot of years we have noticed the "newsletters" that a variety of friends and family have sent each year and it has been interesting to find out what has been happening in their lives. From this picture you will be able to see a lot of what has been happening to "us" this year.

One of us took a lot of pictures. We went to the State Fair, visited family, family came and visited us. We took some interesting walks. I changed jobs to a large Fast Food chain.

It has been a very good year and one that has made us appreciate a lot of things.

Ho Ho Ho, No Tree, No Tree, No Tree

Yep, "No Christmas Tree for us this year". No lights on the tree. We had some older trees and last year we were planning on selling the house and in an effort to clear out some room we took a run to the local Goodwill industries. We found that they don't want old trees but nearby we found a dumpster that just seemed to be waiting for a couple of old trees so we dropped ours off. Well here we are a year later. No tree. Maybe by posting a Christmas miracle will happen and we might find one between now and the "big day".

Looking Out to Understand First.

Looking out the window to my left. Wondering about the day ahead. Thinking some about lunch. The question of how to recap the interesting events of the last week since the last blog is worth some thought. It has been about a week since I finished my book on "Sitting Bull". I realize that biographies hold my interest the best right now. Habit #5 in Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is "Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood". Maybe really "understanding" another person is the key. It certainly works as far as enabling me to find a book of interest these days. Covey's principal puts the need "to be understood" after understanding the "other". Fact might be that once you really understand the "other" the pressing need to be "understood" yourself may just be a lessor need. When I opened up this blog today I noticed my prior blog heading.........."Thankful for now". I am going to go back and change it to Thankful For, "Now". Seems like my title may not have been reading the way I intended it to. I have thought a lot about whether I am really most thankful for "now" since Thanksgiving Day. Yes, is what I come up with when I ponder this.

Thankful For, "Now"..................................

On this Thanks-

giving Day I thought we ought to spend some time and think of something specific we are "Thankful" for. My idea was that today we would put a small box together with a hole in the top to put in our thoughts on a piece of paper and then into the box. As I blog this the box is being put together and decorated by the "Grand Kids". Into the box each of us will put as many as 5 specific things listed on a sheet of paper for each person here and each of us will put in the list in the box. We will then read those things and have the opportunity to share each others blessings.

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A month or two ago I saw a movie about a man who went to Heaven and the 5 people he met their. On of the ones he met was his wife who had gone before. She came to him looking young like she had looked the day he married her. He danced with her and they talked. He had met a few people before he met her and understood where he was and that what he was seeing was changing and could change quickly. As he danced with his wife he asked her if she could look like she had when she left and then she changed into the body of the older women he had known in their later years. His expression seemed to deepen as to how he felt about her. It seemed to me that he really saw her the same as when she was younger and if anything he seemed to loved her more for the years of time they had shared that was best reflected in how she had looked in her later years of life.

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It seems to me that for this man he loved her most for what she was, now, or in his case the time closest to it.

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Thankful For, "Now".

Thankful for who we are, "Now".

Thankful for the days together.

Thankful for the family shared.

The true meaning of life is that it takes a lot of hats to get through it

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I have a collection of pictures from doing this blog for the last couple of years + so some pop up and repeat. I like to look back through them and think about the days and weeks past and then what is going on "right now". I just checked out a "favorite blog" and found 10 things that my "favorite daughter" likes to do, "right now". The world would be a better place if more of those favorites were shared around the world by more folks. Of course maybe the world really is a better place than we think. Over the years my collection of pictures and thoughts and even opinions about whether the world is getting better change a lot.............

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I used to love positive thinking books. I now see how enjoyable people

are when they just are not negative.

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I use to wonder how I would ever pick one favorite color. I now see how the color of the sky and the mountains and all that grows is enough.

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I used to look for who was right and who was wrong when elections come. I now just hope to see who is willing to ask what is right and what is wrong.

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I used to wonder why anyone would spend so much time looking for their ancestors. I now hope that those ancestors might look for me.

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I used to think that accomplishment was necessary to just validate my efforts. I now hope that those I care for will in their accomplishments look for right and wrong and what is positive.

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I used to hope for more blessings. I now can't count all that I have had.

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I used to try to say more when more needed saying. I now hope I can say less.

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I used to hope to know and learn more. I still do, but I now hope to remember what I already know.

Don Q, or for that matter those that look always found what he was looking for, yep.

Lyceum. is an educational institution often a school of secondary education, or a public hall used for cultural events like concerts. Don Q on his journeys may well have learned more on the trip itself than in the "public hall".

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Cicero declared that "He who does not know history is destined to remain a child." The ideas of Voltaire (in Candide), Cervantes (in Don Quixote), and William Shakespeare (in Hamlet) illustrate how men remain children because of their ignorance or denial of the history of mankind, which is a history of corruption, greed, violence, and deceit. As long as an individual lives in ignorance of the past, he will see every experience as utterly new and will deal with that experience in the same way as a child who lives with no storehouse of knowledge or wisdom which would allow him to avoid past mistakes. The message of Voltaire's Candide is that the world in which we live is populated with people who live primarily in order to get what they want, using whatever means necessary, and always looking for innocent victims of whom they can take advantage.

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It seems to me that both Quixote and Voltaire often attacked religious and philosophical optimism. Both authors might find those in today's world who "picket and protest" to "get what they want" at the expense of society worthy of a story or two.........................

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Don Q. said.............and be not dazed

when thou findest thyself exposed to

the light of that sun

of beauty thou art going to seek.

Bookshelf, Sitting Bull, Monday in November 2008

Looking back over my shoulder at the scene in this picture beats the picture in my opinion. Each item on top of this shelf has an interesting story. Course that might be why I like to look at them.
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Today I went to the used bookstore to see if I could sell some books. I was surprised to find that only a few were wanted. I figured I would just use the funds to buy another book or two. As it turned out I just got one book? "Sitting Bull". This Indian Chief was described at "The greatest Indian enigma of his time, perhaps of all time." I have not read a book like this before so maybe that is enough to qualify it as a next read?
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Tiger got to hunt,Bird got to fly;Man got to sit and wonder,
"Why, why, why?"Tiger got to sleep,Bird got to land;Man got to tell himself
he understand.
-- A verse from the Books of Bokonon,
The Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

Ribbons, runs, and mile markers for the big picture

ok this post is breaking new ground. It has some pictures from my run today and of course I am not the one in the family that is best at taking nature shots. The air is cooler today but it is a great day for a run. "We" did a small walk first then the run followed. I suppose I will have to ponder what to really say about the ribbon for while so I will return to this post later. Needless to say it has something to do with a ribbon cutting event.

Rabbit day, today, Augustine and stuff

The

"Rabbit"

under the tree was

"officially"

our first "trick or treat er" this year.................................... Wasn't even dark yet!!!!!! On the other hand or maybe more to the point, Halloween, the day of the pumpkin, has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival. I suppose that since Welsh is one of the several languages included in the listing of of Celtic languages that they might have some of the blame for the "day". Pumpkins remind me of a large field of pumpkins near "Half Moon Bay" and a time driving by one fall day a long time ago. The also remind me of a lot of years where you would have found several neat our front door and in our house, this time of year. I have always been surprised by how "cheap" pumpkins are. I saw a big stack of them in front of the new Smiths store last Saturday and you could pick anyone you wanted for 39 cents. It is hard to figure out how growing pumpkins could turn a profit for a pumpkin grower. Most kids, I would think based on my own recollections, would remember the time that they got a big sack full to the top with a variety of "stuff" when they went out trick or treating. I don't remember people going to the elaborate work to dress up the entrances to their houses in years past as they do today. Since I haven't posted anything in a week plus I suppose I ought to find something "blog-worthy". Truth is I am at a loss to figure out what might be blog worthy. I was excited to order three books yesterday. I recall 26 blogs way back where I posted a list of books read for each letter so maybe getting excited about ordering three books yesterday is worth noting?

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Big Money "P.G. Wodehouse"

The Winter of Our Discontent "John Steinbeck"

Confessions of St. Augustine, "Augustine"

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Wodehouse is a writer that is easy to read. Funny. Different. It will be an easy quick read and will be a good diversion. Winter of our Discontent is a Steinbeck book I don't recall reading? Doesn't mean I have not done so but I figure he too is an easy enjoyable read. It has been a lot of years since I read Augustine. I recall that he had a great deal of influence on the development of Christianity. Development is different that someone who just notes the historical details. I am anxious to go back over his work and see how it may look against the backdrop of my own development of understanding. It will be something I will mark in red and re read and remember where it is on my shelf after I finish the first most latest read.

Fall

Fall colors,

Many of the "posts" that I have made refer to "running". Often I have just got back, or I am on my way. Today I only "think back" to running in the canyon in the fall or along mountain trails in the middle of trees full of bold colors. Something changes when you go outside and it especially changes when you run or find yourself in the mountains or surronded with the bright colors of fall.

Nothing up ahead, except miles, "maybe" .................part 3

22
Miles

Ahead..................

Saturday, still, 2:44 PM. On the one hand today's blog is about over. "Nothing" left to discuss, ponder or write about. Of course how we got to part 3 depends to a large degree on what parts one and two really were.

"What we see around us depends

on what we seek in life"

Moon, lights, and a few miles distant run, part 2 or so

Saturday, still. 11:43. Ran some miles, listened some some ipod songs. Got up this morning thinking about the words to an old song. Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies............Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show lyrics as a matter of fact. More songs on the "run". Then Lights of ABQ. Course it was about 5 years plus a few days ago that I drove in from the West one night and indeed saw the lights, seemingly a long way from home.

But I'm still such a long, long way from home,

And the road goes on, on and on, on and on.
But the Lights of Albuquerque, will soon be shining bright,

Like a diamond in the desert, like a beacon in the night.

And I wonder if she'll take me back, will she understand?

Will the Lights of Albuquerque, shine for me again?

"Out There", today, part 1

Saturday already and it is 9:44 and this may actually be post number 456 in a long line of posts. Then too as with many of them I am just getting ready to go out to run or I suppose I may have just got back by the time I add to this Saturday post? Speaking of 456 this place "out there" is a "place in space #456".

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More to follow, maybe

Things change: The world melts down, cookies leave, but the grass with the white plume in the backyard is still great

Since it was overcast and a little windy today I didn't get out to run. On the other hand today the International World Monetary Fund warned that debt-ridden banks were pushing the financial system to the brink of a meltdown. Confidence has been in short supply and panic has swept through the global markets. I did turn on the TV this morning. CNN's host for that moment mentioned that this was a good day since we were not losing any money at the moment since the banks and the markets were closed. A news broadcast mentioned that the "only thing we have to fear is fear itself". Having thought a little about "today's events" I figured I would look back to a time a little over a year ago. I recall being in El Paso. It was the middle of the night and I looked up and noticed that my hotel room window had the curtain open. I reached for my camera and wondered if it would take a picture in a dark room. It did. I wonder if it was just "cause and effect" and the consequence of my own decisions that took me to that room or if in some way how it all turned out was a blessing.

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Reality is probably both what you do to yourself and the result that has a mixture of blessings. Reality is "the state of things as they actually exist" or put another way everything that "is". Both the back yard and the mountain to the East seem to be about the same as they were a year ago. Their reality is about the same.

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Yesterday I came home from work and found a open bag of "Mothers Cookies". This company makes a number of different cookies and are perhaps best known for the little circus animals covered with frosting. These are good.

The bag was half empty.

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I could have said it was half full

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It was half empty because I didn't see any of the pink and white animals. You see reality changes when the stuff you want is missing. I was informed that there was more of them in the bag than I thought and that I was wrong to think that they were all missing. In fact I was later treated to several of the "found" critters from the bottom of the bag. This bag was an assortment of regular little cookies as well as the frosted ones rather than a straight shot of the good stuff. One could say that any bag of half open cookies sitting out when you come home is a great thing really, but then "Mothers Cookies" is no more................................. They exist right now but soon they will not be part of "what is". Keeblers has a fair cookie like this one I think. Then on the other hand things will change soon. They are going out of business I learned from a good friends blog.

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Next year looking back I may still remember the hotel room window from the year before. I might think of the world meltdown of the entire financial system that took place this last week. I might think of the day the cookies left the land of "what is". Hard to say.................

Today was the first day of the Balloon Festival. Probably if we had been up in a balloon this time we would have a picture a lot like this one but since we were not this one from a few years ago may work out fine. 650 Balloons will go up and perhaps a million people will watch the most photographed event in the world. At least it was once. Anyway it is also General Conference today and we enjoyed that a lot. I was thinking about the painting I posted yesterday. It was my first exposure, at least that I remember, to an artist and to a significant work of art. It was on the front wall inside of the 1st ward chapel where I grew up. This picture of that chapel is from a time around 1900 but then it no longer exists and I suppose that the picture is all I have. The picture for me is indeed art. Not just because of its impact on the senses but because of what it actually means to me.

Not Alone

Minervia Teichert is a favorite artist for me. She painted the mural on the chapel wall faced each week in the church that I attended as a young boy. She was born in Ogden, Utah and grew up on a ranch in Idaho. The history books show that she became the first woman to be sent by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on an artistic mission - first to study at the Art Institute of Chicago under John Vanderpoel, and then at the Art Students League of New York under Robert Henri.

Women and western themes feature prominently in Teichert's works. Teichert is known for a set of 42 murals from the Book of Mormon, as well as her murals inside the Manti Utah Temple

This is one of Minerva Teichert's most cherished works. In the image we see Mary Fielding Smith with her son Joseph F. Smith crossing the plains with their ox cart. To the right of the image we see the spiritual guardians that protected Mary Fielding Smith on her journey to Zion, hence the title "Not Alone". At the bottom of the picture, Minerva Teichert gives the title of the image and the date 1847, the year of the great migration to the West.
This is Teichert at her best as she portrays the tremendous faith and courage of the pioneer women.

And the real meaning is.......................

The fair is over. I suppose the real meaning of life wasn't to be found at the fair. We missed the chickens and then in addition to the art, which may be the real meaning after all, we wandered off into the part of the fair that isn't really part of the fair. I remember "Pleasure land" was the name of the little group of rides just to the North of Ross Park. A merry go round, a Farris Wheel, and a place that sold Cotten Candy come to mind. I remember the horses on the Merry Go Round. They seemed to have a "life of their own" and often over the years as I have looked a little closer when I see a MGR Horse and it seems to me that the Merry Go Round horses are a step into a new world. The new world I see when I look closer is fantasy to some but reality once you arrive..................... Perhaps the horse is just bored, maybe it was Alice who was bored reading her book. Maybe a white rabbit would soon run by. Bet he would be wearing a coat and carrying a watch, and just worrying about being running late. Folks in the real world who are late probably aren't worried about it, by the way. I suppose the horse wouldn't fit, but Alice would, so she follows and goes down the rabbit hole. In this new world, that is anything but old, one falls very slowly. She falls and at the bottom is a hallway and it has nothing but doors and they all seemed locked. A key is found, then a door, and it opens into a beautiful garden. I suppose Alice is still in the real world, that is also old, and she, in her earthly state, can't fit through the door so she looks around and on a table in the hall, did I mention that the hall of doors had a table, sees a bottle. The fine print that is pretty big actually says, "drink me". In this new world your food has labels telling you what to do rather than what is in it. It didn't say why she should drink by the way but it did causes her to shrink to a size small enough to fit through the door. Well that is the point. What I am saying is going through that door is the pont. Horses on Merry Go Rounds can be a way to slide into a new world, and get to and through the door, and once you do you learn the real meaning of life..........................................

a new post. the name will change soon, I suppose

This first draft blog will be added to later, maybe. Last weekend I had over 100 people from 7 or 8 countries come on to this blog. Now normally I have 5 or 6 at most on the weekends and during the week a lot less check this blog so I have to ask myself "why" did I have all those hits last week. A few seemed to stay on the blog for a long time? The blog meter that is a no charge way to find this stuff out gave me this information. Not that I go looking for this feedback it just automatically shows up every Thursday and is interesting, at least it was this last week. Maybe some word captured some sort of sort?

you can't rollar skate in a buffalo herd

You can't rollar skate in a Buffalo herd
But you can be happy if you have a mind to
You can't take a shower in a parakeet cage
But you can be happy if you have mind to
Lyric's by Roger Miller

















Today started out the day by talking to the cat. Not that this happens much but it is one thing that made today different. It sort of is a reality check . Then yesterday I misspelled "roam" implying that the buffalo had been in the "room" perhaps. Course cowboys don't spell but I am about as far off from being a cowboy as you can get. The other day I asked a young person how to spell nozzle. Somehow I had it in my mind that it must be "nossel" but that looked weird. So I asked and no one knew how to spell it. That seems weird looking back. How hard can it be to be able to find someone that can spell nozzle.