Today I have been thinking about cause and effect. No matter what we do, or don’t do for that matter, there is always a result. It cannot be avoided. Just how much control do we have over the result of our actions? Sometimes I think we don’t have any and at other times it seems that I am definitely responsible for the outcome.
If we have anything to do with the outcome then we need to be careful. What I choose may have a result that affects someone else. Do I think about that when I make choices? Do I have a positive or negative attitude? It seems to me that having a positive attitude can change the outcome.
There is a difference between positive and negative attitudes. All of us have been with people who are always negative. For them, nothing is ever good. This can really wear on me and I don’t like being around them. Their negativity is just depressing. How we approach things is a decision that we can choose. I can get up in the morning and decide that it is going to be a good day and usually it works. Of course there are times when the day goes downhill anyway but not always.
We do have some control over our own mind. For those of us who have anxiety sometimes we feel truly out of control. It is hard to think yourself into a better place. Depending on the circumstances it may not be possible but that is what I am working on. Developing skills for handling bad feelings is a matter of training. It is just so hard to be disciplined.
Taking control of your own mind is a challenge but it is possible to do. It just takes consistent work.
Why is life today so stressful? I don’t remember it being like this when I was younger. I don’t know if the world has changed or I have. Probably both. Instead of hearing local news we hear news from everywhere and the focus is on the sad, tragic, violent and horrible things. Seldom do we hear about something nice. The one good thing to come out of the recent disasters from hurricanes to earthquakes has been the stories of people helping each other.
I read an article recently that talked about intuition. Something was said about how little intuition is respected. I think intuition is a good barometer and we should pay attention to it. An intuition is not necessarily a bad gauge to go by. There may be a compilation of experiences and learning that are prompting it and not just some feeling. It is like making soup. If there is just one ingredient it may not be any good but the combination of all the things we put in make it wonderful. All those things meld together to jog something in our brain.
Ironically we are a society that fixes few things. If my cell phone breaks maybe I will turn it in to get recycled or maybe I will just throw it away. Most of our small electronic things will be trashed instead of fixed. There is hardly anyone who runs a fix-it shop today. We see things as disposable.
Are we going to become disposable? Are we moving into the era of 1984 and Soylent Green. (If you haven’t seen or read these do so) As we grow older and are perceived as having nothing left to give will we just be ended and recycled as in Soylent Green?
Today someone said something to me that reminded me of a profound truth that I began to accept late in life. Having attended college twice with two different degrees it wasn’t until my 40s that I finished my nursing degree. Working with those who were sick brought home to me in a different way that there are some things that we cannot fix.
I have learned that we can’t dwell on the fact that it can’t be fixed but instead concentrate on what is possible to do to help. That way we give of ourselves…….the most precious thing that we can give.
Forgiveness can be a difficult thing. If someone has hurt us badly we can have so many different emotions…anger, pain, hurt, disappointment, betrayal and others. Our emotions may swing from one feeling to another. Forgiveness may be the last thing we think about. Maybe we don’t even want to forgive for to do that we would have to let it all go.
We have weathered Irma and are more or less back to normal. Our son, daughter-in-law and kids have been with us for two days since they still had no power. They left tonight and it is nice to feel back to normal.
We need to relearn patience….the ability to let things resolve in their own time. Life doesn’t run on our schedule. We cannot expect instant gratification.
When families lived together this was not the case. The elderly were respected for their wisdom. Those of us who have lived for a while do have insights that we never saw when we were young. Sometimes our vision is based on past experiences and is given to help someone not make the same mistakes. Someone once said that history is to remind us of what didn’t work.
Many of us are finding ways to help by volunteering where our skills are needed and appreciated. I hope this trend continues.
Today we are just sitting here with rain and wind. So far we still have power. We also have a generator for back up. We are just slightly off the coast of Savannah with more islands and lots of marsh between us and the barrier islands. Our tides can be 8-9 feet normally and is any surge hits us at low tide it will be meaningless. The kind of surge projected at this time for us would barely come up over our river wall and onto a small dip before it would reach our lawn. Odds are we will see some wind with things blown about but hopefully not falling trees. I hope we got those out last year.
I have been thinking about some of the reasons that people are leaving churches. Just as with most things the reasons are varied. I wonder if some trend can be drawn from the whole, We have blamed at lot of it on the business of families with both parents working and that is one cog in the wheel. Parents have little time to spend with their children and (hopefully) use the weekend to do that. Many young un-marrieds have said that they find the members of churches do not live out what they espouse and are therefore hypocritical, Of course there are those who feel that the progress of science has made God less believable. All of these things are possible. So what is it about church that is important and why does it help?
The last few days have been very strange. We have spent most of our time watching the path of hurricane Irma and preparing to leave. The Governor of Georgia declared a mandatory evacuation of Savannah. We were supposed to begin leaving this morning. However, the storm has moved so far west compared to its original projection that we are unlikely to get more than some wind and rain. So we are still here. The house is covered with storm shutters and feels very strange. As of today nothing is open where we are but most of the people we know have chosen to stay. We are not fools and have left several times for storms but essentially we would be driving west where the storm will be over land and still have high winds and rain. It just doesn’t seem logical to go toward the storm. Unless something changes we will stay. There will be some storm surge of water but we are not in an area for that to reach us.
With the world the way that it is I can imagining this sort of scenario. It is not a good feeling. Each one of us needs to do everything that we can to seek peace in the world. The sad part is that it seems to be religion dividing us. Religion being mandated by the most extreme factions. Sometimes I just want to cry over the hatred. I am learning to be more outspoken about following love. I suspect that I try to tamp down heated opinions but I feel called to step beg for love and compassion no matter what.
worry-less-journey 