A "habit" we have on this Day, or maybe a "more excellent way"

It has been a habit to on this day have turkey, and "feel" thankful, and express thankfulness, and think of the things that mean a great deal to us. It could be that "we" might wind up on a day like this at some point in the coming years, walking together, just the two of us, somewhere, perhaps on our way back to the house for dinner. Nevertheless we seem to have three of us this year, and of course the "grand cat" is here. She is indeed a nice addition to our little group. When I think back about Thanksgiving I remember "Turkey Dinners" of course. I remember years with the TV on football. I don't recall watching Football and in our early years it was just a reason why the dinner would be very late. Holidays in general can put one behind a mask. You can either bury or hide your concerns and or find your self in the "play" which the day becomes............. or you can withdraw and really see how many good things you have to be thankful for. Masks really close you in or let you become different than you really are. Even to hide out behind the mask and be thankful seems to close out those that you are thankful for. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was on TV for years. Maybe it still is? Woody, 50 feet high, would come down the street. Sometimes the T day dinner is with a larger group. Seems as though those years are memorable but then it is just nice to see lots of folks, I suppose. It is, or should be, a spiritual day. It ought not to be, I think, just a habit to express thanks this day but it ought to be just a time when more of how we feel is experienced and expressed. A book that I like a lot and have read and re read is "Pure in Heart" by Dallin Oaks. In it he lists the motives for why people serve. Service may be a real key in understanding how to relate to each other on a day like this. He offers 6 motives from "least to the best". Giving thanks, remembering, sharing, and service are what Thanksgiving is about, it would seem to me. In this list of motives for service he starts with the least important motive, Earthy Reward, and then progressing towards the one of most worth:

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Earthly Reward

Good Companionship

Fear of Punishment

Duty of Loyalty

Hope of Reward

Charity

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The sixth reason for service, Charity, is the highest of all. It is what the Apostle Paul called

"a more excellent way". (1 Corinthians 12:31)

Charity is "the pure love of Christ. The greatest reason of all for service is Charity.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels

and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass,

or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy,

and understand all mysteries,

and all knowledge: and though I have all faith,

so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity,

I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,

and though I give my body to be burned,

and have charity,

it profiteth me nothing.

(1 Corinthians 13 1-3)

Forgive me but this road sign is in Err.

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The road to wisdom? -

Well, it's plain and simple to express:

Err

and err

and err again

but less

and less

and less.

by

~Piet Hein,

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The question is whether this is a proper blog for the day before Thanksgiving? Years ago the day was full of Football and TV. Good food and good company make the day better. Wisdom is thought to be something that can be developed by experience rather than being taught. The biggest problem that I see with this is that experience is full of mistakes and err. Patience is the companion of wisdom according to St. Augustine. I will have to admit that as time passes patience has been easier. Patience is the ability to endure waiting, delay, or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or to persevere calmly when faced with difficulties. So it seems to me that being able to forgive others and and especially ones self is useful in gaining wisdom.

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After all is one is going to err and err again

even if it is less and less

then it is probably wise to forgive ones self

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PS: The 416 mile trip looks like it might take 8 hours 13 minutes and perhaps 20 seconds or so, unless of course one was to err by speeding or taking out a lot of time for lunch.

a good thought, a great poem, and a guy who seems to have his home as the center of his life, lucky Dog.

Whatever is at the center of our life

will be the source of our security,

guidance, wisdom, and power.

quote by Steven Covey

byRobert Frost -

Acquainted With the Night
I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Pictures de la Mancha

The "Don" says, no way are we going up that road.
Well he doesn't know what a great running trail it is.

A friend in Tokyo sent me this picture yesterday, along with some others. I had sent my pictures posted on the blog yesterday to him. The picture with the balloons is about a month old. The one with the dirt road and signs is probably out of place among all the other pictures of the last two days but o well, I figured it was a great running trail and I liked the brown color in the fields. Fall is my favorite time of the year in New Mexico. It is the most predictable, if that ever really can be said about the weather, but the weather is just great. Yesterday I read an interesting blog about a politician named Cervantes. The blog author, a brilliant young man, by the way, thought that perhaps this politician was running because he actually had a sense of empathy. It was one of several possible reasons? Faced with nature and literature, politics is sure less interesting. I suppose it is important but I have to confess that this new politician found in Southern New Mexico made me think of the more interesting Cevantes writings and of "Don Quixote de la Mancha". (you see both the writer and this new politican have the same name sort of so guess who has my interest?) You may recall the story? A country gentleman who has read so many stories of chivalry and adventure, and perhaps looked at the mountains one to many times, descends into fantasy and becomes convinced he is a knight. So why take a serious look at politicians and drift off into Don Quixote? Well in the book, which for some reason is considered one of the best in literature, or at least in the second half of the book which is serious and philosophical, it talks about the theme of deception. There you go................. This indeed fits the mood of a modern day "blog rant" about politicians. Of course then the book ended in disillusionment, with the star sort of returning to sanity. Wish it were true with politics.

Quotes from Don Quixote

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Those who have been told the truth should not be taken for those who have been scorned."

Wish it were true with politics.

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And so, to sum it all up, I perceive everything I say as absolutely true, and deficient in nothing whatever, and paint it all in my mind exactly as I want it to be.

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Jokers find that they're the ones being fooled.

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that wouldn't be so bad, if I have to cure the world's problems by being everyones scapegoat

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I am in my right mind, now, clear-headed and free of the murky darkness of ignorance, brought upon me by my continual, bitter reading of those abominable books of chivalry

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Make yourself honey and the flies will devour you

Essential stuff, nice run, perhaps even a rut of tradition

Eight Miles...................a fine Saturday morning it was indeed. I took these pictures as I ran East to the mountains. Halfway through the eight mile run I was at the corner of Tramway and Tennyson and at that point I was my closest to the mountain. I remembered one of my favorite Tennyson Poems upon noticing the street sign:

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with cooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands,

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The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

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The Southwest is certainly an "azure world", close to the sun in the high desert, close to mountain walls. It was indeed a perfect morning. Had not even considered pondering anything business related. Why ponder big business vs's small or corporate vs's private on a Saturday run. Not that I haven't but "why" is still a good comment. That said, I was interrupted. .................This was my, as Thoreau would put it, my weeks "trip to the woods

I went to the woods, because I wished to live deliberately,

to front only the essential facts of life,

and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,

and not, when I came to die,

discover that I had not lived.

Yes indeed a van drove by. It was a silver van with a business name on the side. The van had was clean and had been polished. It stopped and a young man inside rolled down the window. He was a young man but he had a younger teenage brother sitting beside him. They were looking for a street. His business, "Complete Mobile Detail, had a customer nearby he needed to find. I told him what he needed to know. He then said, "wait, let me give you my business card, you might need some detail work on your cars?" The card has a picture of a custom 40's era ford on it. It has full moon hubcaps. It is lowered with a custom grill. Under the car it says, "we bring our service to you". Nice young man. Some passion about his business. The key to sales passion is to care. He cared. Probably an entrepreneur. So there you go. My effort to confront the essential facts of life lead me to run towards the mountains but then business found me.

O Well

By the way Thoreau said some good stuff:

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

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How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

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The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!

Married to an Artist......................

This is a favorite picture of mine. Kathy made it and I had it framed and it was on the wall of my office the last 4 years which included the last few months in my wonderful El Paso office. Then it came home and went to the garage where a lot of our stuff was packed. We packed it because we thought we were moving and it made the house look bigger to put all the stuff we really liked out in the garage. So adding this picture to the garage seemed only fitting. Anyway the picture is now hanging in my new office. It is great to have this to look at each day. The colors are great. It takes a real artistic eye to do something like this. So then that is the latest step in the life of this picture. Looking forward to getting another one back that is a collection of shots from the State Fair.

Grace

The interesting thing about these birds is that they take turns being the lead bird. Sounds pretty good. Then again flying alone is interesting too. I look at this bird flying over the water all alone and I wonder if he is tired? It makes you wonder if his wings just get so heavy that he could not continue would he just fall, alone, and drown. I saw a special on bird migration and at one point a bird had to fall back and was injured for some reason. Two other birds pulled out of formation and went with him and stayed with him for a time. Seems like a good thing having others try to help. Beats just falling alone. Good things to be thankful for: Air, water, sky, others who care.

conscioius effort will build and it will also tear down.

To be awake is to be alive
Henry David Thoreau-Walden

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake,
not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn,
which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.
I know of no more encouraging fact
than the unquestionable ability of man
to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture,
or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful;
but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere
and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details,
worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Having looked at the poem, again, I just say "amen". When we look at times that seem
critical or even times when we seem to have it all we need to look first at how blessed we
really are.

One can get to Wisdom without always having to go through this sometimes "sad" intersection

Wisdom and experience are different................................. Experience can lead to wisdom............ but the question is... "can you get there without it"? "Experience" may refer both to mentally unprocessed and immediately-perceived events as well as to the purported wisdom gained from later reflection on those events or interpretation of them. Wisdom is probably developed by experience but probably not taught by it. Aristotle defines wisdom as knowledge of causes: why things exist in a particular fashion. So then how best to know "why" is the real question?

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I was reading yesterday and found this quote that seems to go to the heart of the question as to what part experience has to have in gaining wisdom....................................

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Why will man not learn wisdom by precept at this late age of the world, when we have such a cloud of witnesses and examples before us, and not be obliged to learn by sad experience everything we know.

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Other Quotes of interest

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"Wise men say nothing in dangerous times." ― Aesop

"I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be." ― Thomas Jefferson

"Patience is the companion of wisdom." ― St. Augustine

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools

because they have to say something." ― Plato

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers." ― Alfred Lord Tennyson

"It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing

if the audience is deaf." ― Walter Lippmann

"All I know is that I know nothing." ― Socrates

"Beware of Pride" was the chapter heading in the book "Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith" that I was reading earlier today. The subject matter is one that I have been thinking about some recently. This from the book caught my attention:

"Beware of pride ...for well and truly hath the wise man said, that pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.............outward appearance is not always a criterion by which to judge our fellow man; but the lips betray the haughty and overbearing imaginations of the heart....................A fanciful and flowery and heated imagination also beware of; because the things of God are of deep import; and time and experience and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out."

My own blog suggests that even specific thoughts may in fact just be random........................... or maybe what it suggests is that even random thoughts are indeed specific having a connection to "something". Maybe that something is a trend or a direction, or a path to an influence that is good or bad. The best goal or the best choice about "thoughts" is to not let them be "Random" but to keep them directed towards good. The answer to the question, "does everything happen for a reason" is an easy one. Everything does indeed happen as a result of the direction your reaching for. Pride obviously is a wrong turn for reaching the right direction.

Seems a lot more serious when you have a tie on.

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If I could find a way to avoid seeing or hearing or saying the wrong things then it might help avoid "thinking" the wrong things.

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Or on the other hand if I could avoid "thinking" the wrong things it would be less likely that I would see, hear or say the wrong things. "Good thoughts" are a good goal.

The sunset and us............................

Maybe I am the exception but I would have liked to have known my "friend and companion" when "she" was a little girl. I imagine her to be a nice friend to have. She would be a solid friend and someone that you could rely on. She would listen but she would be interesting to listen to. She would like the sunsets and she would look forward to them. She might wear a hat but she would dress better than me. I would really like to hold her hand and the sunset would be better because we shared it. It would seem like it was "just us" and we would find more sunsets and treasure the experiences. This may be how it would have been but it is how it is.

Michelangelo and Me

Hopefully each day or more often if possible I will be able to learn something I didn't know. I also find that sometimes I learn something that I thought I knew and then again I learn something that I was sure that I knew but then what I learned was that I didn't know.

Today I started a new job. It was the same as the old job except it really wasn't. Things just keep on getting more interesting. Lots of nice people around. Change, isn't all that bad.

Breaking out, discovered......................................

“The Lord works from the inside out.

The world works from the outside in.

The world would take people out of the slums.

Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums.

The world would mold men by changing their environment.

Christ changes men, who then change their environment.

The world would shape human behavior,

but Christ can change human nature.”

Quotes by Ezra Taft Benson.................

Bad experience is a school that only fools keep going to.

You cannot do wrong and feel right. It is impossible

Be right, and then be easy to live with, if possible, but in that order.

Some of the greatest battles will be fought within the silent chambers of your own soul.

Q2,M31, lead me guide me

Comet Machholz, officially named c/2004 Q2, is not expected to produce the sort of spectacular display put on by comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 or the periodically stunning Halley's comet. Last night I saw this comet and it was not spectacular but then the reason, I was told by my astronomer friend, was that the sun was directly behind the earth and the light that this comet was reflecting back had the comet's tail behind it. A couple of days ago I posted a picture of M31. It was 220 light years away. Seeing it in the sky was a way to see something, the light, that had happened 220 million years ago. That same little spot that was M31 had within it over a trillion stars.

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Some things are just true. The light that left 220 million years ago can be seen today and there is no question as to whether or not it is light and it is reflected by M31 and that it came to us over millions of years. Seems refreshing to find something that people don't just line up to dispute.

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I suppose folks, if indeed a lot of folks read this blog, would line up to

protest the idea that I might think and believe this song is just as much a truth

as the light from M31.

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I am a child of God,

And he has sent me here,

Has given me an earthly home

With parents kind and dear.
I am a child of God,

And so my needs are great;

Help me to understand his words

Before it grows too late.
I am a child of God,

Rich blessings are in store;

If I but learn to do his will

I'll live with him once more.
Lead me, guide me, walk beside me,

Help me find the way.

Teach me all that I must do

To live with him someday.

Habitually Perceiving,........suffer it "be" so

Tonight is a philosophy club meeting for me and at least two maybe three other guys. We get together once a quarter and discuss the works of the particular author we are focusing on. We have discussed Plato and are still working on Aristotle.

Quotes of Aristotle below......................................

A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.

A friend is a second self.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly

Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.

Education is the best provision for the journey to old age

Happiness depends upon ourselves

It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it

Law is mind without reason

One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

To perceive is to suffer

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.

Education is the best provision for old age.

I grew up and saw a Mountain, or two

The big question may be whether one is into touch, talk or sight. Professions perhaps reflect where we are coming from. I of course have been pretty good in sales but I can tell you that for the last few weeks I may have just started to excel in running. I will finish this week with at least 33 miles on my shoes and maybe more. Last week was 27. Yes sir E Bob. I am on my way. at this rate I could hit big numbers. So yes writing is me, if you want to count emails that makes this one a shoe in. Running is me. Sales, yep. So maybe managing could count. What you don't see on this list is "painter of great pictures". That would fit under the sight skills you see, vs's touch or verbal. On the other hand I did see a great picture. A few times this week but yesterday morning about 9:30 I was looking East. The air was cool. The sun was strong and the mountain to the East was the picture. I have to say that it changes ever time I see it. The cool air seemed to brighten it. The clean clear blue sky seemed to frame it. The mountain seemed to be almost alive. It felt as good as a hand on my back saying "things are fine, your fine, glad your here, let's do this again". Yes indeed the Mountain touched me. It felt like the best picture I had ever seen. No reason to read a book or watch TV or even type a blog if you can run to the mountain each day....................................................................

M31 is out there, beyond understood boundaries

Finding the Andromeda galaxy, M31
The "Andromeda Galaxy M31" can just, but only just, be seen with the naked eye.

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Its light, 2.2 million years old.

This is the oldest light you can see with the unaided eye. The light you see no longer exists within M31. The Andromeda galaxy, M31, is the nearest neighbour large galaxy to our own Galaxy, the Milky Way. It is about 2.2 million light years away and about 100 000 light years across. Some directions on where the w is begin by first facing north. Somewhere up there by the North Star is the W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia. It will be to the right of the Pole Star. You may be able to see that Cassiopeia lies right in the path of the Milky Way as it crosses the sky. If you can, remind yourself that you are looking from the inside at our Galaxy and this is outside. Identify the larger and deeper of the two triangles which make up the W of Cassiopeia. It is the top one of the two. The triangle points to the right. Follow a line through the middle of the triangle, to look for M31. ( The third dot connected from left to right is the top of a W. It points to the small dot which is M31. Looking through binoculars in about the right place, you should pick up a hazy white glow. That’s the central bright region of the galaxy. Remind yourself how old the light is that you are seeing.

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What you see if you find this small white gloss is a galaxy that has more than a trillion stars. The light you will be looking at left that galaxy 2.2 million years ago. It is the oldest light that the human eye can see without the help of a telescope.

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When you look and think about this place in the sky and the light from the past it is hard to know what to think. How far can emotion or thought or experience or understanding go in understanding or does it stretch our soul to imagine and the depth and breadth of our feelings and sight? We all wonder this in different ways. Sometimes we express simple thoughts in ways that reflect what is unclear but felt, as did Elizabeth Barrett Browning in some simple thoughts. For here love is beyond the ends of being, with boundaries difficult to measure.......................................................

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I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need,

by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely,

as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely,

as they turn from Praise.

I love with a passion

put to use In my old grief’s,

and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints;

I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!

and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death

Working in or near Oz

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Some jobs are better than others but then it all might be in the eye of the job holder. Some mornings you might get busted for stealing the donut. Others you might just have to yell at the guy trying to sell you stock. Then again paper cuts do happen. All try stories in the land of oz.

I sign about music, risk, today and exploration

When? This could be a good question, having seen the sign, and having made note of the message? What if yesterday was not our best day and what if the days before weren't? Is best "all inclusive"? Is "it" the some total of the parts? Or does it instead reflect the experience you have had, and in a way make it impossible for your best to have every been yesterday? .................Doing ones best is by necessity something that can only happen today. ...............Interesting to think that if one was to embrace this directive that it may be at odds with the goal to "be perfect". Being ones best may, and probably always does, fall short a little of being perfect. If it draws from weaker yesterdays then the fact will be that tomorrow could then in fact be better drawing from today. Then again it is "today that we have seen the sign" on the side of the road. Today is always the only day we have to deal with.

T.S. Eliot quotes seem to be about "doing ones best"...............................

“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”

If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

You are the "music" while the music lasts

People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.