Priorities

Time is precious and fleeting.

Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better
To paint a picture or write a letter,
Bake a cake or plant a seed,
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there's not much time,
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb,
Music to hear and books to read,
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world's out there,
With the sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair,
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain.
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it's not kind.
And when you go - and go you must -
You, yourself, will make more dust.


"Dust If You Must", Emily Rose
The Lady, September, 1998

  Keep in mind however, that everyone has their own story-- there is no point judging or comparing, so don't. Having priorities which stretch us and move us in the direction of our dreams is NOT about pressuring ourselves (or those around us) to make our lives look exactly like something straight off of Pinterest. Whatever our individual circumstances may be, we are born to walk the unique path we are on.

  "Perspective" is defined as: "the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance". We can only ever see from where we currently are, so putting our priorities in order naturally means making the best of the cards we have been dealt. Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is redefine our concept of success. Look at your life and your circumstances, and give yourself credit for what it means to succeed in your world today.

STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS.

  Dream big, push yourself, be honest about what you can improve... but be authentically YOU, and don't treat your personal victories as any less than the beautiful triumphs that they are. Love yourself, be grateful for every day of life you are given, and love people more than things.

  So anyway, dust if you must- there is nothing wrong with having a clean house. I am very much a believer that a peaceful, pleasant living environment is less of a distraction and more a source of positive energy. Then do your best under your present circumstances to see life from a perspective which prioritizes the people and experiences you truly value the most.

Reflect and Be Present

  I am a "big picture" kind of person, sometimes to a fault. Ever since I was a child, I have had an unquenchable desire to gather information and connect the dots. Seeing life as a constant flow of endless possibilities is the perspective that my spirit naturally resonates to. But lately I have been striving to be more mindful of today, because in reality that is all we ever get.

ONLY... EVER... TODAY.

Happiness is not just over the next hill, it exists today if we choose to look for it.

• Choosing to have gratitude for the things which are easy to take for granted, plants a seed in my heart which can sprout, and uplifts everyone who sees it. Slowly but surely I will keep putting one foot in front of the other, and turn my seemingly little steps into something bigger.
   
• A commitment to willingly learn from my experiences is the trunk that I can lean on when the wind blows... especially if it hurts too much to move. My own attitude is one of the only things I can actually control in this world.
   
• Opening my heart to the new perspective that comes from my own unique growth process is how I can branch out and expand my soul. Rather than view life's events as good or bad, I choose to look for what is valuable, regardless of the situation. Branches tend to not be straight and perfect, but each one is an important part of the whole.
   
• Making a habit of compassionately sharing in all the joys and pains of life is what forms a beautiful canopy of leaves to provide shelter and comfort to all who cross my path. I will embrace every opportunity to share the pleasant shade of positive energy with everyone around me.
   
• And finally, humility reminds me that every tree must pass through all the seasons...
  
  -- I will throw myself energetically into the growth of spring in my life. It is one thing to simply accept life's lessons, it is another thing entirely to actively want to learn from life every chance I get.
  
  -- I will celebrate my time in the green glory of summer, being present in my life and doing the best I can with what I have. I will not wait for a happier tomorrow before I decide to live my life like it's the only one I've got. I will be kind, and treasure every human life as precious in the sight of God. No matter how busy and hectic life gets, I will seek an immortal peace... a peace that soothes my heart from within like a gentle summer breeze.
  
  -- As the beauty of autumn unfolds in my life, I will freely share whatever colors of wisdom I have been blessed with. I will be brave but kind, passionate and patient. I will not judge the journey of another soul, for in judgment I am denying my own need for mercy. With every breath I will be thankful for each day of life I am given.
  
  -- Life can be harsh like the unyielding chill of winter. I may feel exposed and afraid at times, I may feel isolated and fruitless... but I will remember that there is so much more to life than what can be seen on the surface. Like a tree standing against a blizzard, I will draw strength from my roots. I will continue learning to love myself as a priceless creation of God, and I will respect others for who they are and where they are at in their own journey. I will remember that it is okay to feel brittle and even broken sometimes, it's okay to cry and be honest when something hurts. But I will not shut down and be beaten, I will make the best of things where I am planted. I will look to the Lord for his power to comfort and heal. Spring may not always come how or when I expect it to, but it will come- even if only inside my soul.

I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and become stronger.
I will look for the value in whatever comes my way.
I will reflect and be present for each day of life that I am given.

Happy Holidays!

Today is the first Sunday in December. It's time for a dose of the Christmas spirit, and Handel's "Messiah" always makes me feel like making hot chocolate and decorating a pine tree.  :)

Here's wishing you and yours a safe and serene holiday season!

The Value Of A Smile

Never underestimate the value a smile.

  Being someone who thrives on communication as an outlet, this boy's situation really tugged at my heart. I cannot imagine being stuck inside your own head for every minute of every day of your entire life...

  There are so many people in the world who simply need to be cared for by those who can help. May we all think about others more often, make the choice to feel compassion, and then take action to help make someone's life better than it was when we came into it!

A Constant State Of Creation

  Read this slowly... each thought is great. I recommend absorbing each line with a deep breath, a pinch of catharsis, and a dash of consciously choosing to build inner peace.  ;-)

  Keep in mind I don't use the term "inner peace" flippantly or superficially, it is something precious and vital which I have a deep love and respect for, it is something that saves me time and time again. The reason I talk about enduring peace so much is because in my own journey I have personally reached points where nothing physical could make things right, nothing external could comfort me, nothing outside the spiritual plane was enough to quiet my fears.

  The world in general, the people we come in contact with, our circumstances, and even our own bodies... are all variables. To have the kind of comfort which sustains us through thick and thin it makes sense that we must anchor our spirits to something constant, something we can rely on no matter what the weather looks like outside.

If you have been searching for positive energy 

and are having a hard time finding it, here is

a thought I will share with you today:

Peace is not found, it is created.

  The concept of "enduring" peace is quite interesting because our current state of being only exists in the exact moment we are living in-- not yesterday, not tomorrow, not a week or a month from now "when the dust settles". The idea that peace can be found from any Earthly external source does not seem right to me-- because even when God gives us peace and comfort, he gives it to us individually on a very personal level which means it still resides inside us. Peace and comfort come to our hearts as a living flow of positive energy that is created in real-time as we continually make the conscious choice to embrace the principle described in the Serenity Prayer.

  I think the reason we might struggle with hanging onto a feeling of peace in our lives is simply because we get distracted and use our power of choice to entertain some other type of energy. And when we radiate a spirit of peace around us and share that positive energy with others, it won't stay with them unless they make room for it in their own hearts and choose for themselves to keep creating more peace inside themselves on an ongoing basis.

  We are constantly in a state of creation, our power to choose has a much greater impact than we realize. Every moment of our lives we are creating positive or negative energy. To whatever degree of power we possess to be able to choose for ourselves, it is our choice which one we are willing to channel at any given moment: love, comfort, and peace OR selfishness, judgment, and anger.

  So anyway, find the line in the graphic above that means the most to you right now, and choose to create positive energy in your own heart and mind by validating what you are experiencing in life.

  The one that struck a chord the most with me right now is "it is okay to say you've had enough". It is so easy for me to get caught in the trap of always feeling like I need to be tough, like the answer to my trials is to just put my head down and push until I get through it or until I can do "enough" for those around me.

  I think one of the wisest things we can do is stop pressuring ourselves, let ourselves feel, and then after self-validating, refocus on what we can do instead of all the things we wish we could do. It's okay to feel tired, it's okay to feel bruised, it's okay to admit we are bleeding when life has wounded us and it's not just a scratch. Then it's important to believe, to have hope, to find things to be grateful for, and remember to laugh and smile every chance we get. There is an important difference between validating our hurts, and dwelling on them.

  God does not expect us to lie and pretend we like the painful things in our lives, but he has made clear what he does expect of us:

"Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."  (Matthew 22:36)

  We need to learn to love God in a way that teaches us how to view life with an eternal perspective. And with that broader perspective, we can learn to love ourselves the way He loves us. Then once we have learned what it feels like to self-validate our trials and love ourselves through our own ups and downs, we enable ourselves to practice a deeper, stronger level of compassion with others.

  There is a place for mortal strength, it is good to physically do the best we can in our daily lives. But true courage comes from our spiritual center, not the temporal body. The body without the spirit is nothing. Some people with the strongest spirits have some of the least functional bodies. I believe each of us can learn something by thinking about how that applies to us.

  Remember: all of us are constantly creating the flow of internal energy we call home, and we believe what we tell ourselves. Only when we pay attention to the state of our own soul can we truly make the world around us better place. By cultivating a positive spiritual space for our own spirit to dwell, we are building something beautiful that we can share with others.

You can do this.

Don't Call It A Comeback

  I love music; I enjoy nearly all genres and time periods with very few exceptions. In fact, I was a music major for my first 2 years of college. Something else a lot of people don't know is that I owned a successful pro audio business for several years during my twenties where I enjoyed a steady flow of DJ gigs, a contract as the PA announcer for a professional arena football team, and even a year of basketball play-by-play commentator work on local television. So yeah, I love all things audio/music/multimedia.

  I appreciate those who are talented at what they do, even if most people don't respect their given method of expression. For example: rap. Say what you will about a white boy from Houston loving hip-hop music, but I do. I admit it's pretty funny, and you probably won't come up with any jokes I haven't made about myself already. My enjoyment of rap and hip-hop began during my teenage years as a basketball fanatic. Basketball culture and hip-hop culture are very much intertwined, so I quickly grew to enjoy the combination of a buzzer-beater and a good beat.

  There is an old-school rapper-turned-actor (and self proclaimed ladies' man) named James Smith, who went by the stage name "LL Cool J". Among the early hits by Mr. "Cool James" is the song Mama Said Knock You Out. What does this have to do with anything? For comedic purposes, humor me for a few seconds and read the first part of this song as a soundtrack to the moment I am about to describe. I promise I am going somewhere with this, and hopefully you will get a little chuckle out of it:

Don't call it a comeback!
I've been here for years,
Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear,
Makin the tears rain down like a MON-soon.
Listen to the bass go boom!

Explosion, overpowerin!
Over the competition, I'm towerin.
Wreckin shop,
When I drop these lyrics that'll make you call the cops.
Don't you dare stare, you betta move.
Don't ever compare
Me to the rest that'll all get sliced and diced.
Competition's payin the price!

[Chorus:]
I'm gonna knock you out (HUUUH!!!)
Mama said knock you out (HUUUH!!!)

  So anyway, when I woke up yesterday morning my neck, arms, and legs were filled with pain and weakness in a way I haven't experienced for quite a while. When I attempted to get up and my legs did not respond by supporting my weight properly, I was honestly a bit scared as I flopped back down onto the bed. It was then that I heard a villainous voice shout out from somewhere inside my body, challenging me to an epic battle of mind over matter: "Don't call it a comeback!! I've been here for YEARS." And right then, I knew it was going to be a rough week.

------------

  For the last nine months or so, I have been blessed with a period of relatively improved health compared to the previous year. Granted, it's not very hard to improve upon constantly being in and out of the hospital, but I am very grateful for the blessings of peace and relief whenever and wherever they come.

  This is mortal life and opposition is a law, a constant which cannot be avoided. And in the last few days, time has apparently caught up with me. Some of my physical difficulties have made a bit of a comeback and functionality has ground to a halt. As before, it remains important to embrace the opportunity to not let fear take control, to be patient, to face my dragons once again, and to keep seeking the kind of peace that goes beyond Earthly pain-- whether physical or emotional, because one tends to follow the other.

  It's important not to let our hope for relief depend on the wrong thing. If the only way we feel we are being blessed is when hardship subsides and stays gone, we are bound to have a long frustrating ride in this lifetime. My physical trials went into a recession of sorts this year-- but it turns out that was primarily to make room for the mental stress of my wife and I buying our first home. Buying a home is something we have always wanted and something we are tremendously happy about, but is a big project and frayed our nerves almost to the max on several occasions.

  Swapping one type of stress for another may seem like a cruel joke, but I assure you it's not. It is a blessing for which I cannot express enough gratitude because I don't know if I would have been able to handle both at once. God knows exactly which lessons we need to learn while we are here on Earth, and he knows exactly what it will take to put us in a position to accomplish those things. Long before we get to a given turning point in life, God knows what we need to be focused on in order to make the right decisions. But it is entirely up to us whether our hearts and minds are open and ready to receive that guidance. We must be watching, paying attention, ready to see the blessings around us for what they are.

  Life has still been challenging this year, I have not been pain free by any means-- lots of things still hurt and my daily adventures still require caution and conservative planning in order to avoid winding up back in the hospital. The fact that my trials never completely went away is no surprise though. After all, as the song says- "[they have] been here for years".

  Accepting my challenges does not mean I don't have hope of seeing better days-- I do. But I have faith that God will lead me to where I NEED to go. Here's a thought that goes against the grain of our natural instincts: exercising faith does not involve expecting an easy journey. I am here on Earth to learn, and that is what I expect to do... even if it hurts to do so.

  So it's one day at a time folks! We are put here to walk the path before us and we cannot trade lives with anyone else... and there is a very good reason for that. God does not hurt his children on purpose just to teach us. We are dropped into the circumstances of our mortality, and then as a loving parent our Heavenly Father is interested in helping us make the best of our situation, whatever it is.

  My wife's job is doing in-home therapy with autistic children. I have enjoyed soaking up the stories she comes home with each day about experiences which might not seem extraordinary to the casual observer, but offer many profound lessons to those interested in seeing beyond the obvious. The amazing people my wife works with have provided many priceless reminders of the commandment to be non-judgmental and compassionate toward others, and the need to practice humility and grace in my own life.

  Arguably the biggest discovery of the the 21st century thus far concerning autism (and disabilities in general) came organically from one of my personal heroes whom I have mentioned once before: a non-verbal autistic girl named Carly Fleischmann. Carly and her family blessed the world with the revelation that there is a thinking, feeling person trapped inside a vehicle they just can't control. So through my wife our whole family is emotionally and spiritually invested in the journey of learning about what these amazing people do day in and day out to heroically work through their circumstances... come what may.

------------

  So here we are, each of us on our own unique path. There are precious few things we can actually control, and today is the only time that exists. We are given one day at a time to live, one moment at a time to choose to make a difference in our sphere of influence. That is why in the long run steady incremental progress will always out-perform big blustery bursts of success.

  I've said it before, and I'll say it again because it bears repeating-- it's up to us to choose to let go of what we cannot control, and focus on what we can control: our own attitude. Easier said than done, but a key to happiness nonetheless. Learning to compartmentalize our attitude from our circumstances is the great secret to enduring peace.

  God does not expect us to lie and pretend that we like pain, or frustration, or sadness. Hardship is hardship, pain is pain, and no amount of "toughness" is magically going to change the fact that trials are not fun-- but we don't have to let it break our spirit. What God does ask of us is to CHOOSE to live life with an attitude of humility and unconditional love. We would all do well to keep in mind that every day of life is beautiful in it's own way, and there is always something to be grateful for.

Don't think so? Just ask Alice Sommer:



  Alice was subjected to many nightmarish things by her Nazi captors, but gamma radiation sufficient to grant Hulk-like super powers was not one of them. What does that mean for you and I? It means that she has done what she has done with her life as a regular mortal of flesh and blood ...just like us. We can therefore believe that we have the power deep within us to become the master of our own spirit.

  Are there physical and mental limitations which can impair (or completely subvert) a person's ability to choose what their mind and body are going to do for them? Absolutely. I personally know the feeling of facing overwhelming odds with one hand tied behind your back. Apart from the other challenges in my life which I have spoken of at times on this blog, I also live with a mood disorder. I have had to learn to live with the fact that a part of my brain is permanently broken, and despite my best efforts this is going to complicate my life whether I like it or not. I empathize with the torture of not having the degree of control over your experiences that you would like to have. I know the anguish of wiping too many tears from your eyes because your plate is full and you wind up having to pick yourself up over and over from what feels like total failure.

I know what it is like to wake up each day and just... want... to be... a better person.

  But life isn't about fitting a mold of what other people consider the benchmark of success. Life is about doing the best YOU can with what YOU have been given. We need to try to view ourselves as our Heavenly Father views us: precious children who are learning to pick ourselves back up after every fall and continue growing in our own special ways. We need to stop judging others based on our own subjective perspective, and stop judging ourselves based on someone else's view.

------------

  Why do I bother publicly sharing my thoughts and feelings about so many of the seemingly unremarkable steps in my journey? Why spend so much time speaking about the good days and the not-so-good days? Because suffering can isolate us, it can make us feel alone. Connecting with each other and supporting each other is an antidote to being suffocated by our trials.

  So here I am sitting in my chair, writing... to you! I am sitting because I can't do much else today, and I am writing because it is a great outlet to counteract the boredom which comes from having to sit here all day. It's an interesting cycle to say the least, and I am happy to seize the opportunity to squeeze some positive energy out of it. I am grateful for the blessing of a perspective which prompts me to recognize and act on the opportunity to find the silver lining of a frustrating situation.

  One way I cope is by laughing and smiling over the simple joys in life as often as I can. And guess what? I believe you can make it through whatever is challenging you today. We can do this whole mortal life thing! It is up to each of us to decide what kind of energy we are going to harbor inside ourselves, and the energy we pass on to those around us. I cannot stress enough how important that decision is.

  On some level we are all in the same boat, and life is a journey best shared and explored as one big human family. If you read my blog more than once, you may as well just get used to hearing me say that, because it is going to be a theme for as long as I am writing about life on Earth. Plus it feels really, really good to look the dragons in our lives right in the eye, and roar back with confidence:

Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years! Mama said knock YOU out!!  ;-)