In the words of a broken heart its just emotion

There is no stronger emotion than love. Our world seems filled at times with emotions like hatred, envy and rage which are passionate and destructive. We turn on our computers and see one more story about murder, Palestine and Israel, another random shooting or broken relationship. All reminders of passion gone a muck.

I think our hearts long for love. It has authored countless songs of passion, love and loss. As the Bee Gees sang, ‘in the words of a broken heart its just emotion’.  Love makes the world make sense, it makes life make sense and when you find it and lose it and wonder if it will ever be there again, you could probably write your own love song, with your own words, your own names, your own memories.

I remember a friend preaching a sermon about Jesus passing by a crowd and he said, “Love passes by …and you must reach out to that love” Otherwise you live with a broken heart…and an unfilled emptiness.

Love: strange and fickle, deep and rewarding, rare and sweet. there is nothing like true love and nothing worse than its loss.

Duncan

 

Rock, pebbles, sand, water……

That seems like a recipe for a five year old having fun on a summer day.

The problem is we aren’t five anymore. We grow up or at least we grow older. Hopefully both. This analogy is really overdone..just google it; however it still holds some way of measuring what is important.

Rocks fill jar first..Relationships, family, God…

Pebbles…work, volunteering.

Sand..the myriad of distracting things that SOMETIMES have to be done, not as much as we think..and like sinking sand, can sink us from accomplishing the big rock things.

Water…everything else..that flows through our hands or around us..not all can be grasped nor should be, it is just there.

Another spin on this is how you would prioritize these things at different stages of life..not as you think you do…but try putting them in a jar as you REALLY are doing them. For example, is work really a pebble or a rock? Are your primary relationships really BiG rocks…

Finding out too late in life that you have mixed up the jar, crushes rocks into pebbles and pebbles into sand, and sand into mush…all caught up in the rushing waters of life.

Duncan

I should change the name to North of 50

Here I am.  I am a terribly undisciplined writer and perhaps person. The book of Proverbs says to consider the ant you sluggard.  As much as I get that I have never really aspired to be an ant or a sparrow.

After 50 you are usually habituated to being you. We change when we have to under pressure, however we usually are who we are. Having said that, there is room to explore and change, where possible.

I have lived 52 years on the planet and am learning some interesting and painful lessons. As much as I laugh and love to make people laugh,I fear like many comedians it just covers up pain. The pattern of pleasing people and being afraid to be me has cost me a lot in life. My fear of being responsible for others comfort and future has cost me my own happiness.

So like main have experienced, pain becomes our teacher. I have decided I don’t want my fear to stop me from being me. Indecision has crippled me and I have decided that even at this advanced age, I won’t let it anymore.

The journey ahead is gaining clarity and being responsible for me. I can’t control or change anyone else, nor do I have to live in fear of disappointing them.

I can change.  I will change. Step on the ants and shoot the sparrows.

Duncan

Are you ready for Christmas

There are some questions that make no sense. One of them is, “Are you ready for Christmas?”

I guess the answer is, it depends. If you are shopping the answer is probably no, especially if you are a male.
If you are working retail, the answer probably isn’t printable.
If you are homeless, what difference does it make?
If you are religious, it depends on where you are looking..
If your heart is broken does it matter?

Ready? Ready for what?

Duncan

Ho Ho Ho holy

Christmas is such a confusing time, really.

Is it about Ho Ho Ho or Holy, Holy, Holy?

I grew up with both. Santa was the jolly old man who bought presents and in return we left him a bottle of beer that was suspiciously the same as my dad drank:(hindsight). We also did the nod to God in a much less overt way: the proverbial Sunday school play and Christmas carols. Candy or Christ..Presents or Passion? One of my religious friends jokes:” Santa-Satan..a coincidence..I think not.”

Here I am, north of 50 and if anything the two camps are much more divided. You can’t celebrate Christmas overtly but you can celebrate shopping. You can celebrate the Holiday Season as long as you don’t mention Jesus. One is viewed as sentimental  the other as essential to the economy.

I compromised this year. I sat on Santa’s knee((sorry Curtis)..okay kinda on his knee, didn’t want to bust it and I will find a place, a quiet place and contemplate Christ -mass.

Hope you have a Ho Ho Holy Christmas.

Duncan

BUMPER CARS

One of the first experiences of childhood that is a lesson about life is Bumper Cars.

Remember you get to ‘drive’, albeit in a contained space that smells like burnt rubber. Everyone laughs and you learn strategy: you either engage with violence or avoid with a passion. Then it happens out of no where bam..your neck snaps when someone gets you or you get stuck..you can’t go forward and you can’t go back.

When you are ‘north’ of 50 you can experience in life those bumper car moments…smashed, stuck or on the run.

I am still looking for humor in my bumper car moments.

What is bugging you?

A few weeks ago I saw a bug in my rented room. Not recognizing it I assumed it might be a cockroach. Funny how the very name cockroach elicits fear and feelings of uncleanness . I texted my roommate. He thought an official inspection was warranted and a professional exterminator. My landlord was in a dither wondering what to do. He searched relentlessly through the internet to find out what it could be.

That fear was minimal compared to my brother. I happened to casually mention while on the way to his house I thought I saw a cockroach in my room. That was it. He made me empty all my clothes outside in his driveway and put them in a garbage bag to be shaken out later. He made me put my suitcase and laundry basket back in the car. And then he made me strip before I entered his house. It wasn’t  too embarrassing til his neighbor yelled out, “That isn’t a cockroach”.  There is only one thing worse than a ‘noid’ and that is a paranoids.

The mystery was solved by my diligent landlord who took the corpse and correctly identified it as a box elder bug..harmless. It was over, a tempest in a teapot.

Duncan

p.s. parts of this story may have been embellished for  comedic sake..just saying