On Reading the Obits

The late comedian and actor, George Burns, lived to be 100 years old. During the latter part of his life, he created a whole, new career using old stories and jokes. One he loved to tell was…”When I wake up, I read the obits. If I see that my name is not there, I smile, have a cup of coffee and go back to bed.” Great joke fodder for a guy who used his years well. Margaret Truman, daughter of a U.S. President and engaging mystery writer during the last half of her life, gave an emphatic viewpoint to one of her book characters. One of her crime solver’s mother was a lady well up in years. When her son asked how she was, her unfailing answer was, “Wonderful. I got up this morning, took a breath, and it worked. What more could I ask for?”

What more indeed?

What more indeed! I’m not sure how the young rolling out of bed think about the morning. I suspect they take it for granted, even though some rolling outs may be complicated with too little sleep, too big a hangover, etc. But I can tell you how those of us with more physical past than future see the morning. I’m like Truman’s character. I look for that fine, big awakening breath, rub the sleep out of my eyes and figure I’m good to go for another day. This is by no means a fatalistic approach; it is a simple admiration of the hours stretched before me and a consistent expectation of God’s wonderful surprises. Who knows what the day will hold? And I’m not willing to miss any of it!

A few more jokes...

Burns had it right too. There is something encouraging about not finding your name among the day’s obituaries. Makes you think that there is still learning to gather in, things to accomplish, healing to bring…and maybe a few more jokes yet to tell!

On the Summer of 1963

No one had seen its like in Washington D.C. before that time. People numbering 250,000 gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak of his dream where, as he said, his four children “would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” It wasn’t only African Americans who were there; people of all kinds and cultures were there, and they came by bus, train and plane. In an era without cell phones or tweets, it took about eight weeks to pull the gathering together, and life in America began to change yet again.

A Spiritual Breakthrough

For some of us that history lives in our memories, not in textbooks. It’s good to think again of the events and people that create openings in our lives. It’s good to remember that great strides are only beginnings and that they must be encouraged and kept up lest they fall back into the commonplace again. Dr. King’s speech was not only a spiritual breakthrough but a lens through which people in the United States could see where they had been, where they were then, and how far they had yet to go.

Much to do...

We’re better at knowing who we are, fifty years after that time, and we still have many more strides to make. It’s a little easier to see ourselves more as members of a shared world rather than as strangers separated by physical differences…a little bit easier. We still have much to do. We owe it to the immense vision of Dr. King…and to ourselves as human beings living in times that demand the best of us.

On Pain

I think I can safely say that there is no one among us who has not experienced pain. I say this because there are many kinds of pain, and not all of them are physical. When we think about it, we know that, at the very least, pain involves a disruption in the natural order of things. Any disruption causes discomfort, and this can go all the way from raging hurt in the body to great agitation in the mind when something does not proceed as we would wish.

We inherit a natural order of well being

Let’s sort out a few ideas here. I believe that we as thinking beings are inheritors of a natural order of well being. If we are believers, we accept it as one of the gifts of the Spirit. If we are not, we can see ourselves as a part of nature in action. At any rate when the natural order is disturbed, we experience pain. Anyone who has had a physical operation knows that it is a process to remove disturbances and let the body’s systems have their way again. The elimination of pain brings a return of comfort. Anyone who has borne a child knows that there is pain in the course of birth, but there is the wonderful pay-off of a new baby. People who are in chronic, physical pain, where there is not total elimination on hand, learn to manage it. This takes strength and courage and the determination that their lives will be under their control as much as possible, not waylaid by pain.

We are prisoners of our own thoughts

The pain that begins in the mind can be far more insidious. Enough mental pain will eventually affect the body, but before that happens, the raging discomfort in the mind will have unsettled the one who suffers terribly. Some are deeply troubled by unhealthy upbringings, failed relationships, lost opportunities, and experiences of loss…none of which can be changed. They can only surface in the mind. Memories of the past seem to intrude on the present so that the day is often overlaid by painful thoughts. I have found that these memories and the stories that form around them become very seductive. In a way they become almost like lovers, pulling us away from the things at hand, and they will take us hostage if we let them so that we are prisoners of our own thoughts.

Our minds belong to us

            Let us imagine for a while that the future has no pain. Yesterday’s memories may contain some and sometimes the formations taking place today do, but the future is still ours to shape. Those in chronic, physical pain know the practices before them and have honed their skills. Those in mental pain actually have the best chance of healing because they can choose how they will think and what they will think. Today can be current and full of possibilities. The past does not have to be invited in. Our minds belong to us, and we are the ones who determine whether we live in mental freedom or bondage.
 

Reader Comments

Dear readers,

Since the start of my blog four months ago I have been enjoying the comments and contacts from you. Here is a summary of the most read articles on this blog in the case you missed one and would like to catch up. I know I would love to hear from you.

On Dusting Off Home Plate - Baseball is the only game I really know. Oh, I know what basketball and football intend with their baskets and...

On Random Acts of Kindness - After 9/11 we Americans learned that our assumptions of general safety were not as unassailable as we thought. In fact we have become ...

On Compassion - We are not born with it…To be fully human I believe we have to learn and practice compassion....

On Brailling - My husband and I got together in the middle of our lives, which meant that we brought into our relationship our already established...

On The Verdict - Of course we are caught up in the news, decisions and actions of the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case. We would have to be on...

On Smiling - For several years my husband and I walked the paths of a neighborhood park most week days; for exercise, yes, but also...

On Stress - About fifty years ago a Hungarian doctor named Hans Selye coined the word, stress, as a description of any external demands made on the...

On Freedom - The ontologist, Ernest Holmes, has said that if God has a will, it must for us “to express greater life, greater happiness, greater power,” ...

On It Is What It Is - A Glib Set of Words ‘It is what it is.’ How often have we spoken this glib set of words when viewing something in front of us that...

On God - I am a believer. Not perhaps in the ways that some people are, but I came into life knowing I belonged to something greater than myself. ...

If you have enjoyed these posts, I know you’ll enjoy the Free Author Event at Stepping Stones Books & Gifts where I am appearing on August 30 and I invite you to join me to hear more about Essays on Everything


Blessings always,

Margaret Stortz

On Shoes

 I love shoes…always have, and anyone who has known me for a while knows this. I think shoes are a part of my spiritual DNA because the lure they hold for me is unmistakable. At one time whenever I passed a display of elegant shoes, I could swear I heard an unearthly voice whispering to me, “Buy me!”, and I wasn’t always able…or willing…to resist its siren call. It all began when I was a young teenager and bought my first pair of high heels…four-inch platforms, black patent leather, open toes with ankle straps. I wore them all day until my feet almost fell off. From then on I was hooked. Believe me, if my veteran hips and ankles could hold me up, I’d have a pair of the new, killer five inchers right now!

My fancy place

There was a good reason for my love of these babies. Shoes were my fancy place. Wearing feathered stitching on the seams and metal fittings around the toes, I would toss my head, kick up my heels and say to myself, “Watch me!”, as I stepped into what that time of my life held for me. It was exciting; it was wonderful…and it was then. Oh, I still love shoes, and I can feel the old beckoning whenever I pass an array of beautiful footwear, but they are not my fancy place any more. When I step out into what this time of my life has for me, it is no longer nifty shoes that carry me along, partly because my body can no longer handle the height and imbalance of super shoes, partly because I am not a mono-pronged person. I find that there is not only one way to create life situations but many means available, some of which I had not imagined in my shoe years.

Step out of it

I think that all of us have had a fancy place in us somewhere, not like mine perhaps, but a place we could count on when we participated in our own lives. It might have been an exciting place, a comfortable place or maybe a goad that provoked an uncomfortable jab to get us going. Whatever that place was, sooner or later it did not fit the growing human being that we were becoming. We had to step out of it. We can always love it for what it has meant to us. Whether it was difficult or friendly, it helped bring us to where we are . Still there are other openings, other places that are ours to follow, and we deny them at our peril. A single-eyed approach can create stuckness when it goes on too long.

Fear has its value

There can be fear, yes, and it need not keep us in one place. Fear has its value. It tells us that something before us needs our attention, and we are not yet willing to give it. We will, though, because the shoes may be just too tight now. Nevertheless I keep a pair of the fancies in the back of my closet…for old times’ sake.

On God

I am a believer. Not perhaps in the ways that some people are, but I came into life knowing I belonged to something greater than myself. Never had to think about it or even ask questions. I just always knew it was there…or maybe I should more correctly say it was here. In fact I didn’t know how to think about my place in the larger picture until I discovered a composed, spiritual system that helped me put my thoughts together. With a good spiritual foundation under my belt, I have been able to think rationally about my connection to the universe and also to know that reason could only get me part of the way. There had to be a place for intuitive awareness that operates outside the realm of reason, the place of faith, belief and inspiration, the openness to love.

Many of us seek God

Many of us seek God using many names. 20th Century German philosopher, Karl Jasper, had his existenz; his countryman before him, G.W.F. Hegel, wrote of the Historical Spirit spilling into time and space…and Victor was intimate with “Johnny!” Let me explain. As a young, WWII pilot flying for the RAF, my husband had the sense of something “whispering in his ear,” so to speak, as he pursued German Messerschmitts in his tiny aircraft. This “something” he called Johnny, not realizing then that he was touching a link to the largeness of life. And it appeared that God is not much concerned about what names we use either!

God is not a fact

So often the great thinkers have tried to prove the existence of an Infinite Spirit, but God is not a fact and should not be treated as such. In his search St. Thomas Aquinas created Five Proofs of God, but I don’t think of them as proofs; I find them mostly rational projections based on the Grand Assumption that a god exists. Proofs of God do not lie in pragmatic postulations; they do not lie in books, great sayings or the words of theologians. They lie in the heart of the believer, not as static edicts but as a moving flow of thoughts and experiences…sometimes uncertain. We just cannot put our finger on a divine certainty that will please everyone, and maybe we should stop trying.

There can be no holiness in holy wars

Perhaps we should concentrate more on the idea that if a pristine being exists with which we are intimately connected, how would we live to better reflect this? We may not have all the whys and hows sorted out, but what if there is a greater part of ourselves that informs our thoughts and actions? Do the ways in which we live our lives reveal this, and what better forms of worship could there be than if they did? Could there be a worse form of blasphemy than to engage in killing in the name of God? Surely there can be no holiness in holy wars.

Thank God, the God believed in, isn't

The philosopher, Ernest Holmes, in a moment of whimsy once said, “Thank God, the God believed in, isn’t!” Perhaps we could return to our churches, temples, mosques, gurdwaras, sanghas and simple quiet places once more to make the inner discovery, maybe for the first time.