"the Hour of Living Rightly"

Lest we mistakenly believe that this business of living “in the moment” or pursuing the “carpe diem” imperative is something of a “New Age” construct… Please consider these words from Horace.



"He who postpones the hour

of living rightly…


is like the rustic who waits

for the river to run out…


before he crosses."




Quintus Horatius Flaccus
(8 Dec 65 BCE to 27 Nov 8 BCE)


IMAGE through the gracious courtesy of Jon Sullivan, PDPhoto.org

Garnish That View

Even if we cannot change the things that present themselves to us today… we can, certainly, change the experience of looking at them.



Whether our personal window on the world is that

of an elegant life,

or a humble one…

a confined and limited view,

or an old, tired, and weathered outlook…








We can enhance our experience of taking in life’s sights today…

by improving the setting through which we take it all in.








The voice of a dear friend…

a cup of our favorite beverage…

the music of a cherished melody in the background…

fresh flowers placed strategically where we have them framing our activities…






All are simple and available garnishes available to us for the enrichment of our view of all that lies beyond our window today.

Look through fresh and enhanced lenses…

We can do little to change circumstances…

We have complete control over how we perceive them.




IMAGES through the gracious courtesy of Ian Britton, FreeFoto.com

Moments With You

Softly… delicately… the sweet song with warm mellow tones moves gently through the chords of my heart.

‘Tis the harmony, without structure or discernable melody, of united impressions, emotions, inclinations that join together as the instruments of an orchestra.

And the resultant sound… the completed effect… the blessing enjoyed is the music of a happy heart… to the tempo of an energized spirit… and soaring hope.

What concert hall… what conductor… what gathering together of elements can produce such a happening?

Moments with you.


IMAGE through the gracious courtesy of Ian Britton, FreeFoto.com

STOP !

In searching for "just the right images" to communicate the spirit of a message that I have been considering for some time... I visited one of my favorite places on the web. You who have read me, for any length of time, will be immediately familiar with the work of Jon Sullivan. I have been honored and blessed with the products of his photographic skills for a while now. So, today, I returned there for a new gift. And, in looking through offerings on his sight, I saw the image to the right. And Life spoke to me and said "STOP!"

Without either question or hesitation, I knew that what you, My Dear Reader, need today is not my idea. You do not have a hunger for my viewpoint. Life told me that what you require of me today is a respite... a moment of pause... a spiritual refreshment offered in the elegance and splendor of this creation of the Creator of us all.

So, my message (relayed to you from the Author of all thought and Life itself) is "STOP ! "


IMAGE through the gracious courtesy of Jon Sullivan, PDPhoto.org

My View of "My World"

You and I see the same world. The news reports transmitted to me are detailing, illustrating, documenting, and elaborating the exact same events as those offered to you. And it just may be that it is at this point that you and I take somewhat dissimilar paths in our perceptions of our world. For, My Dear Reader, I had the epiphanal experience of learning (many years ago) that there is a place known to me now, as “My World.” My world is defined by the borders and boundaries of my personal reach. Those persons, items, properties, and events within the radius of my individual potential to touch… constitute the world that I am responsible to… and for.

Though I am certainly cognizant of global circumstances with all of their complexities and overwhelming challenges, I accept only those elements of that natural world that are available to my influence, as part of my personal world. I have chosen to live in a phenomenological world that I am intimately involved in, and can have a responsible relationship with. A world whose pain is something that I can soothe. A world whose confusions I can gently address. A world whose inhabitants I can know and be known by. A world that can reach its own sphere of influence… touching and affecting changes in worlds of its own… beyond my personal knowledge and awareness.

Hence… I do not permit myself to be caught up in the frustrations of “world events” about which I can do nothing. I do not drain my emotional resources watching the images of starving peoples whose condition I can offer no relief for. I do not engross myself in imagery of death, devastation, criminal behaviors, or political foolishness that is beyond the reach of my direct personal intervention. For I have sufficient, and more, demand for my involvement in opportunities brought daily to my physical and spiritual “doorstep” by Life. And I dare not have squandered any part of my abilities to respond to these welcome visitors. I must be prudent and disciplined in the allocation and budgeting of my individual material, physical, emotional, and spiritual stores, lest I be found wanting in providing for them. (And if, or when, some of them attempt to take advantage of or demand excess of my resources… I dismiss them with the same disciplines that allowed my initial provision for them.)

This is my view of my responsibility to life. I offer it as a perspective worthy of consideration. It is a view not of my own creation… but thankfully learned from others far wiser than myself… and now offered to you. If yours is a life of scattered and ineffectual efforts and interests that frequently fall short of accomplishing their intended good… perhaps you might consider pulling back the “borders” of your world to encompass a land of more manageable and attainable involvements. If there are lives that you cannot give full focus to and find yourself feeling a frustrated guilt for neglecting… perhaps you (and they) would be better served by scattering less of yourself to the fringes of your present world… and concentrating a greater quantity of You on a smaller patch. Your reward could be in the fruition of hopes and dreams in lives that can then go out into those more far-flung fringes where they can accomplish what you now only dream of.

I bid you “Enjoy, appreciate, honor, and embrace your immediate world.” And trust the Giver of it to you with the care of all of those interests beyond your personal reach. As a practitioner of this discipline, I heartily recommend it to you.


IMAGE through the gracious courtesy of Ian Britton, FreeFoto.com

Indifference

Your cold indifference served as an instrument of cauterizing...

Against the open wound of my injured heart.


Sealing, with a searing, uncaring touch, the vessels that had been so alive and functional...

Just the moment before.


The operation complete, mine is now the task of post-operative care…

Mindful to guard against the infection of bitterness.



John-Michael/Tuesday, 26 September 1989
[Subsequent to a telephone call made to an indifferent ear]


IMAGE throught the gracious courtesy of Ian Britton, FreeFoto.com

Confirmation

How do you know that you are walking “Your Path”? What endorsement… what validation… what affirmation cements your confidence in the right-ness of your elections? Just like you, I had the need for certainty. My confidence skated on the thin ice of a fragile belief and wavering conviction that I was being the person that I was created to BE. I, like you, was challenged by the voices of loving, caring, concerned, and trusted friends who offered their opinions and perspectives on my life choices. And none… absolutely none of them could see the rationale for my determinations. Yet… I persevered on the strength of an inner conviction that I was in harmony with the leading of the Source of all that is true.

Then Life reached out with a steadying hand and a reassuring voice in the person of the only individual who could possibly command my absolute confidence and respect as a consummate human being… a respected and honored scientist and educator… and a deeply committed spiritual being. Inasmuch as he is no longer with me in physical presence (though certainly still-known in spirit) I can, and will, reveal his identity (want, as he was, to remain invisible, humble, and unobtrusive.) SWAMINATHA SUNDARAM, (Professor-Chairperson (Physics), University of South Florida, 1982 [B.Sc.; M.S.; Ph.D., D.Sc., Annamalai University, India, 1960]) became a dear friend, confidant, and joy in my life through our meeting as he placed his mail in the post-box at the curb, and I delivered the morning newspaper in the pre-dawn hours of the day.

It was during one of our treasured lunch visits together, that he (being a man of very few… yet each one valuable… words) said “You, My Friend, are a true priest. You walk your daily path as lead by The Spirit… minister to each life encountered along that path… asking nothing and expecting nothing save the meeting of your physical and material needs, at the direction and through the provision, of that controlling Spirit.” Confirmation! I can tell you, My Dear Reader, that I have never, in all of my life, been more honored, humbled, and moved than at that moment. Life had warranted and authenticated my convictions in terms that I would never have known to ask for or expect. And I can now share this story with you as my personal testimony to the certainty that you will know with sureness the appropriateness of your life elections if you will only exercise your will to follow the inspiration… the inclination… the leading of your own personal and individual “Still, Quiet, Inner-Voice” to (what may sometimes have to be) the exclusion of all outside influences.

I cannot promise you riches, fame, glory, or applause as an expectation resulting from such a disciplined choice. What I can, and do, guarantee you is joy, confidence, peace of mind and spirit that gives (in time… and with patience) rhyme, reason, and meaning to all of the conflicts, pains, disappointments, and sorrows of life. And (at that time and in that place, when and where you need, and are ready for it) a confirmation and validation (from the Creator of all that you are… from Life) that you are BE-ing that unique and particularly special individual, that you are equipped (by nature, inclination, and experience) to… BE. This is, I promise you, My Dear Friend, the greatest reward that can possibly be imagined. To know that you are living in harmony with the intention of your Creator in the world that is your daily walk. And it is to the encouragement, endorsement, and enabling of you, in your personal pilgrimage, that I am committed… as I remain;

Your constant Friend and unwavering Servant,
John-Michael


IMAGES through the gracious courtesy of Jon Sullivan, PDPhoto.org

Your Voice

What I have to say is of no great importance.

My motivation is to encourage you to give respect to what you have to say.





What you have to say to yourself...

being the first and undoubtedly most important.






Then, with due respect given your own inner voice,

what you have to say to that world that Life has surrounded you with.






My desire is to awaken your voice.

“Hey! I think that too.”

Is what I hope to hear you say.

Or even “No way!”



IMAGES (top to bottom) First three: Jon Sullivan, PDPhoto.org; Fourth: My Sweet Italian Daughter

"A Gentleman's Fantasy"

Alone in my solitary chamber...
I bring the day to its conclusion,
To the strains of a lovely melody.

I am waltzing with you…
You, positioning yourself...
Not with your waist against my hand...

But, instead, I am holding you in place...
With your head slightly cradled against my palm.

And as you execute a turn,
Your neck turns against my open hand.

Allowing, with each revolution
Our eyes to acknowledge each other.

An altogether appropriate response.
As my spirit immerses itself in a tune
Entitled “A Gentleman’s Fantasy.”


John-Michael/20Jun2005


IMAGE original source unknown

Half-Empty...Half-Full...?

There are, among us, those who insist that theirs is a better way to perceive life. We have all had various individuals represented to us as someone who “sees the glass as half-empty” versus the one who “sees the glass as half-full.” And, invariably, the one who is representing the particular “Glass Perceiver” is doing so with his or her own favorable or unfavorable bias.

Please allow me to suggest a somewhat different take on the matter. I would first offer that both the Glass/Empty and the Glass/Full present potential perils absent in the Glass/ Half-Empty… Glass/ Half-Full. For both the Half-Empty and/or Half-Full Glass offer an equal advantage over both the glass filled too the brim and the glass dry to the bottom. The glasses in a one-half state are both quite safe and benign in their freedom from either the threat of drowning in excess… or death by want. And, in so doing, once again bear testimony to the prudence of moderation. Which should allow both the “half-full” thinkers and the “half-empty” thinkers comfort with both their own and the other’s perspectives.

There… you see? Though admittedly silly… we have again shown that there is always a way to accept each other.

John-Michael/ 17 Sept 2004


IMAGE through the gracious courtesy of Jon Sullivan, PDPhoto.org

Loving You

I love you because I have consciously willed myself to succumb to my innate inclination to love you.

I could have denied myself this love with the implementation of any of a myriad of mechanisms including reason, logic, sensibility, rationale, normalcies, and standards.

Yet, I have opted to cast my lot with the leading of love.

Love alone... without reinforcement, endorsement, or license… in and of itself only.


I cannot describe this love to the world about me for it is governed, in its perceptions and understandings, by the constraints of all of the aforementioned mechanisms;

rendering it deaf to the music that I dance to;

blind to the beauty that surrounds me;

and incapable of feeling the stimulation of all that energizes me.


So today I live in the ‘otherworldliness’ of this all-transcending experience that is my love for you…

for you are my world (not geography nor physical structures)…

you are my life (not titles, organizations, roles, nor labels.)

You are Life’s gift to me…

and I am, of all men, most blessed.


Dear Reader,
Lest you wonder, in reading the preceding text, the identity of the subject of the writing… please allow me to clarify. The subject is, in all likelihood, you. For, my dear friend, this love expressed is not confined by boundaries of geography, availability, physical interaction or even familiarity of usual description. It has been my pleasure to learn through exercise of my willingness, that love for you is available for the simple acceptance of it. ; I can, therefore, at this moment, know genuine, unbounded, and conditionless love for you as a gift from Life. I bid you “Welcome” to this experience.



IMAGES through the gracious courtesy of Ian Britton, FreeFoto.com

"I Found My Dad"

“I would have settled… but I found my Dad and you wouldn’t let me settle.” I have never heard more precious words uttered in all of my life. To say that I was touched, moved, and quieted with a sense of awe would be a feeble effort in describing my emotion when I received her words. Life has given me ‘children’ to love, nurture, respect, and encourage. She is a daughter to make the heart of any dad swell with pride. Her father made the conscious choice, even before her birth, to not be her dad. I have learned, over the years, that fatherhood is one thing… being Dad, quite another.

Painful experience has taught me that a dad/child relationship is hinged upon the willing choice of both participants to engage in the experience… fatherhood, of course, does not offer the option of exercise of will for its relationship to be established. One is a genetic given, the other a free will election made by both participants. Having lost my “Dadhood” with my daughter by birth as the result of her choice, I am aware of the tangible reality of this truth. Likewise, enjoying free-will inclusion into the lives of several special people (brought to my life by Life) who now know and address me as “Dad”, has brought to my life the reality of the fruitful workings of that responsibility and blessing.

Hence, I had occasion to be discussing (actually… I was listening to the effervescing of a heart erupting with volcanic joy and ecstasy) my Life-Daughter’s newly discovered love. We were reflecting on the pressures brought to bear, by all of life’s forces, to just simply “sell out” our yearnings and deepest desires in favor of “settling” and accepting something far less than the ideal romantic vision of our hearts. It was at this point in our conversation that she voiced the words quoted earlier. “I would have settled… but I found my Dad and you wouldn’t let me settle.”

So why do I share this little bit of personal experience with you, Dear Friend? Perhaps because I know that you too are beset daily, even hourly, with the pressure to “simply settle” for something less than your desire.

And I offer this small (in the universally cosmic scheme of things… but monumental in the lives of the individuals involved) illustration of eminent possibility as an encouragement to (in the words of the scriptures) “wait upon [Life]”… “Be still and know.” If you have the option at your disposal to either move ahead with less or wait for more… please grant me the grace to offer my humble suggestion that you hasten not, but allow Life to bring to you that which your heart desires. It can happen… My Daughter now knows!



IMAGES (top to bottom) Tony Harwood-Jones and Ariel; Earl and Perry Robinson from Fathers and Sons; Fatherson; Father and Son Fish

The "HOT SAUCE" Couple (and DEVILED CRAB Friends)

I can develop an immediate craving for a deviled crab. (OK… I confess… never less than two will do.) [For you who have not been blessed by the taste gods with the deviled crab experience, I am talking about a gem of culinary magic that is a rolled cake of breading, seasoned with a healthy dose of spices, and surrounding a core of shredded crab meat. The resulting hand-size roll is tapered closed at both ends and fried until the breading is browned and just barely crisp. Then the crowning touch is added with the ceremonial pinching of the outer crust to expose the steamy interior along most of the length of this delicacy to render it a welcoming receptacle for a generous sprinkling of the hot sauce of your choice. The result… perfection.]

Can this treat be enjoyed without the opening and dousing with the sauce? Certainly… enjoyed, yes… but not celebrated. For, My Friend, while no one would ever (to my knowledge) slide a straw into the neck of a bottle of hot sauce (Crystal brand being my favorite) and draw a long taste of its flavor as a solo source of pleasure, the sauce is the elixir that brings the celebratory element to its host. Many have been my opportunities to be at a table of ravenous deviled crab fans and though the main attraction is the roll… everyone waits, however impatiently, for the passing of that sauce bottle.

This brings to mind two friends (well… one is far more than a “friend”… she and I agreed, some while back, that Life had brought us together so that we could fill a shared yearning… for me, a daughter… and for her a Dad… so she is now [and will be forevermore] my daughter… and I am her Dad… The other of the aforementioned “two” is her fiancée.)

They are the ‘hot sauce’ in the mix of their individually respective sets of friends. Their friends have, for the most part, been an extended family of comrades since their school years. They, in turn, have each been the element that lends the romance, the juice, and the pizzazz to the wonderful delicacy that is the beautifully blended group constituting their amalgam of long-standing friends. And now they have found each other. Two distinctly unique individuals who have, heretofore, been the source of flamboyant energy to those who have always seen to it that they were added to any opportunity for enjoyment of the friendships. When the presence of a ‘special someone’ to create an effect was called for… everyone in their respective friendship groups knew just who to summon. And they have always been delighted to respond and make the entirety of themselves available for the contribution of flair and excitement that is their hallmark.

But hot sauce is not a staple for the palate of the world… it is a powerful additive… while alone it is just that… alone. And this is what they have each been for a long time… alone. Until now, that is… now they have discovered each other and the desire is to pour themselves into each other. For, don’t you see, a powerful sauce, when combined with another equally powerful sauce, is transformed by a synergistically exponential reaction into a new product that could have never existed without the combined elements of each contributor. All of Them into all of Each Other. And now their friends are bemoaning the absence of their ‘favorite brand’ of long-known sauce for the enlivening of the group. The friends are casting accusations of “selfishness” at them for their not-understood yearning for the blending, the immersion of all of their individual romantic energies into all of the romantic energies of another. The friends feel betrayed because the deviled crab is such a large thing and can’t accept the fact… in fact has no way of understanding the reality… that the sauce is a small minority of life’s recipe that has desires quite unlike those of the mass.

For, My Dear Friend, these two individuals have, prior to this time, been finding the satisfaction of their yearning for romance in their bringing of romance… the passion, intimacy, and all encompassing ecstasy, that is the nature of their very being, into every life that they have touched through their lives. This is not an option for them… neither a choice nor an election… any more than the hot spiciness brought to the crab roll by the hot sauce. But please understand, the roll and the sauce are, above all else, different. They are different in their basic constitution, their make-up, and the elements that have combined to generate that thing that is them. Rolls can be easily blended with rolls and are comfortable in the blending… sauces can be blended with other sauces to create exciting new blends. And the two can be brought together, in the right combinations, at the appropriate moments, and in the fitting circumstances, to create an enjoyable result. But they, in and of themselves, have separate needs for integrity.

Heretofore, they have been walking through their lives alone… together with their friends. Now they are walking together… and desire to have their friends accept them, incorporate them, embrace them as a new and exciting flavor for the enlivening of that delicacy that is a new friendship group combining all of the wonderful ingredients that have been refined by years of perfecting and development particular to their respective lives.

I have labored through all of this cumbersome (and hopefully not too tiring) metaphorical presentation in the hope that I can provide some level of basis for acceptance, comfort, endorsement, and encouragement for them and their respective groups of friends. I am unaware of any other vocabulary to usher in such a platform for this mission. I beg your indulgence, grace, patience and forbearance in your consideration of my sometimes clumsy but always well-intended efforts. For, Dear One, our growth as accepting, respectful, supportive, and encouraging fellow pilgrims in this our brief journey through life together is my most sincere desire.

I remain, as always, Your constant Friend and willing Servant,
JohnMichael, 26 April 2005


IMAGES: Deviled Crabs: Herky’s Food Products; Hot Sauce: Crystal

Lunch in San Antonio

A refuge… A safe harbour… A respite from all that threatens without… My Friend… My Companion… What a blessing to find, in our moments together, if not renewal… at least a lull in the never-ceasing demands on our limited resources.

A smile, however weak, still ministers… Some silliness that means absolutely nothing… An uncomplicated touch… A pat – or two… A silent “it’s OK” given in the freedom of non-commitment… All elements of a survival dialogue between two minds in harmony.

Observations, reflections, spontaneous and unconnected thoughts… All can be shared without need for explanation… And even if volumes of overstated explanation do ensue… that too is endured generously.

Such is friendship…Thus was our gathering today (if two can constitute a gathering)… Where tenderly and almost imperceptibly we shared the same space but did not take any away from each other… Yes - we are there for one another… No – we don’t have to do or be anything beyond ourselves to make it so.

JohnMichael/ 21 September 1989


IMAGE: Elkader Bed and Breakfast

Just Be Nice

If you want niceness to prevail in the world around you… how about asking “Please Be Nice” instead of dictating in imposing tones that the reader of your car’s bumper sticker (me, in this case) “Just Be Nice.” I will confess to my something-beyond-normal attention to the “music” or the tone, or spirit of what is said. And, yes, I can perseverate on details that could easily be passed over. But… by golly… there is an undercurrent of unkindness and insensitivity that is growing into a major theme in our world. And I am becoming more and more convinced that it all is born in innocuous messages delivered by just the sort of message that is sub-consciously transmitted by the aforementioned bumper sticker. A bumper sticker that, no doubt, gave the driver of the car a feeling of having done a “good thing”… a feeling that can, and often does, give that person a sense of “Better than thou” that cancels any possibility of something nice coming from the exercise.

The phrase that is begun with the word “Just” is a phrase that is saying “All else aside… JUST_____”, or “I do not really care what your feelings, predispositions, or opinions are, JUST____.” The employment of that four-letter word is an indicator of the presence of an intolerance; a disrespect; a disregard for the personhood of the target of the comment to follow. “Just shut up and sit down” would be a typical statement utilizing the precedent “Just.” And added to the messages declared by such verbiage is the accompanying presence of an arrogant domination, flaunted in the assumption that a role of being in charge, and in a place of dictating to another, that the phrase carries.

Yes, My Dear Reader, I sense all of that from the passing of some stranger in a vehicle that that person has made the public display mechanism for a message chosen to represent them to the world. And the person driving that car is telling me “I don’t care what you think, who you are, or what you are dealing with right now (including any unhappiness that you may have with my driving and how it has affected you)… I am telling you to behave in a manner that I deem to be nice because I feel that I have that right and you are obliged to accept my command.”

Would it not be more in keeping with the supposed intent of that message to humble oneself, and assume a posture of niceness to be defined as:
1. Pleasing and agreeable in nature
2. Exhibiting courtesy and politeness
3. Showing or requiring sensitive discernment

But in assuming such a posture, one would have to step down from their pedestal of dictation, their sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance, or their assumption of superiority. It is not easy to be arrogant when asking “Please.” But, Dear Friend, I submit that there can be a new and fresh undercurrent of kind consideration created in our world… that world that you and I touch… if we will but do the simple thing that begins with a submissive, accepting, respectful, and honoring posture toward those whose lives intersect with ours.

All of this to bring to the surface of your consideration our world’s crying need for a lovingly caring and serving spirit from each of us to the other. And all sparked by a bumper sticker that was, no doubt, placed there with the best of intentions… though without the added moment of involvement in considering its implications. I would only ask that we all consider our opportunities to “Please Be Nice.” (Political statements included.)