Bird Droppings October 24, 2021

Have we sold our souls for a few trinkets?

Morning is a special time for me, always a new beginning. Today I went out a bit early from the house to take out the garbage and just stand in the silence for a moment. As I drove from the house close to sunrise an owl was sitting on the road and flew away as I drove up giving me an exciting start today. That might be far too easy of a way to say what I am trying to say. But for me, several aspects of that start to the day are almost routine like taking the trash, running by the corner store, photographing the sunrise, and then sitting down for writing and reading each has become a significant part of my day. I walked out this morning and felt the coolness of another almost summertime fall day. Across the sky, clouds muffled the stars, but the silence was alive. The stars were crystal clear in spaces between clouds in the morning darkness, and the moon considered a showing was peeking through a veil of darkness.

“Life is raw material. We are artisans. We can sculpt our existence into something beautiful or debase it into ugliness. It’s in our hands.” Cathy Better

Yesterday I got into a discussion about a Bird Dropping from a few days back dealing with sacredness. In the course of the debate, I realized how much we have in our hedonism given away. I wrote a paper on the stripping of the soul from students as we demand and seek higher test scores as a means of showing learning. I listened last night to an update on the years ago shootings at Virginia Tech and the history of a young man and his anguish and angst that led to it. They pointed to his observations and experiences with the hedonism of our society. In his questioning and counseling, He mentioned over and over in his rants the materialism of our society. I began seriously thinking have we sold our souls for a few mere trinkets?

“It is not how many years we live, but rather what we do with them.” Evangeline Cory Booth

“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality–not as we expect it to be but as it is–is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.” Frederick Buechner

Last night I sat down thinking and trying to put down words, perhaps meaningful written pictures that may have significance. I emailed several people last night just touching base opening discussion about this idea of sacredness. But as I thought about the interactions and intertwining of daily life, those we seemingly miss and ignore. I talked with several high school students about how life is much like a puzzle interlocked one piece to the next, and we often miss seeing the tiny yet needed interconnections.

I watched the news and each new report bits and pieces of how and why the events of the past few days have spilled out around the world. I recall many years back when I suggested psychiatric treatment for a student and was told not my call. Six years later, he is sentenced to three life sentences for killing a young mother and nearly killing her two children he had babysat. Sometimes those at the top may need to listen to those doing the labor at the bottom.

“If, after all, men cannot always make history have meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.” Albert Camus

“The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.” Thomas Carlyle

As I moved through the day yesterday, sensing something was amiss and even after knowing it is difficult to offer from a distance any comfort to those in need other than keeping them on our minds and in our hearts. Most people, as the day finished, never missed a stride. I am sure that there were tears from family, friends, and those experiencing hardship and harm around the world. But as I tried to explain, even in tragedy, there is purpose and meaning. That concept is difficult to explain to people who live in a materialistic worldview.

“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.” Crowfoot

I have used this quote several times, and each time it seems appropriate. I remember as a child chasing fireflies across a meadow, gathering those life forces in a jar to light my room, and then releasing them into the night, watching them float away in the darkness. Life is seeing beyond the tangibles and foibles of our existence. Life is not the shirt, shoes, or coat we wear. Life is about what is in your heart. Life is about your soul.

“It’s not how long life is but the quality of our life that is important.” Roger Dawson

“Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.” Charles Dickens

In 1996 my brother passed away, and my family was faced with a new beginning. We all had built our lives around my brother. He was severely disabled, and our being in Georgia was directly related to him. As we celebrated his life, reviewing the intricate webs laid each moment, the many people touched and lives affected what seemingly had been was now an enormous outpouring of energy. Every day a new piece of that puzzle falls into place. It may be another teacher of special needs children, another person recalling the time spent helping with John’s rehab and how it impacted their life. Within our difficulties and disasters always there is hope.

“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really merely commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the planning, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chain of events, working through generations and leading to the most outer results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

We each approach the morning differently. I embrace the day and begin with my writing seeing each moment then unfold, trying to understand each tiny piece. Since 1996 I have taken many different roads and journeys, and as I look back, each has had meaning and direction and led me to now. I told a dear friend while I always wonder where I am to be, next, it is not because I do not enjoy what I am doing but because I may be needed elsewhere. It is about making and experiencing the journey.

“Life is about the journey, not the destination” Steven Tyler

Several years ago, I received a call from my nephew that a close friend had been in a car accident. As the night proceeded, I spent that night in the Athens Regional Hospital holding a young man’s hand as monitors beeped and droned as he lay unmoving. We were all hoping that the numbers on the dials would change; they did not. When I arrived home on my computer, a sticky yellow note from my oldest son, this Steven Tyler quote from an Aerosmith song. As I think even farther back and as I was discussing sacred yesterday with a student, in 1968, as I left for Texas for college, I received a book from my parents, which reads on page 596.

“To everything, there is a season, and a time, To every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;” Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

Many years ago, the late Pete Seeger, a folk singer, and environmentalist wrote the music and borrowed the words, and a song was born “Turn, Turn, Turn,” soon to be released by how appropriate “The Byrd’s.” “To every season turn, turn, turn there is a reason turn, turn, turn and a time for every purpose under heaven” the song became a hit.

“Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.” Robert Frost

So often, a poet’s words offer comfort or give direction back to a journey set off course one moment. There is no filling of a void, yet when looking at life and all that has been, there truly is no void when looking at the journey to now. There is a turn in the road, a new direction. All that has led to this has not changed and is behind us, lifting us, guiding us, and strengthening us as we continue our experiences. I remember back to a photo of my son crossing a stream in north Georgia already sopping wet from falling in but still intent on making it across. He clambered stone by stone, crossing the stream and a favorite Zen saying I often attach to the photo.

“You can never cross a stream the same way twice.” Zen Saying

Years ago I set up a website for a youth group and today I will close with the starting line from that website, “Friends are never alone.” We all can cross in our own time, and there are times when a hand is welcome. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and your hearts, and today keep those friends who may need extra support close at hand and always give thanks namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

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