Somedays We Forget to Look Around Us

as i look around the room in which i am sitting as i write, i see many things that awaken joyful feelings in me.  across the room, a cuckoo clock is ticking away.  in a few moments, the cuckoo will emerge to announce the time, two bird figures on the clock will feed their young in the nest at the bottom of the clock's face, and wooden figures will move in a circle at the top of the clock face while a music box plays a folk tune.  every time i hear the sound of this clock, i remember the happy day we bought it in an antique store about an hour's drive from our home.

not far from my chair, there stands a floor clock that plays beautiful chimes every quarter hour.  it reminds me of the happy christmas when my wife and i gave ourselves this lovely clock as a gift to ourselves.  several spanish porcelain figures sit on tables in the room, parts of my wife's collection of these pieces, and each one evokes a memory of the moment when it was discovered in a shop during one of our travels.  the room is illuminated by two antique lamps that cast a warm glow through their golden-hued glass shades.  these are also momentoes of our travels, and their significance in our lives is greater than their value as antiques.  indeed, they are reminders of happy times we spent together, times that we treasure.

on the opposite end of the piece of furniture on which one of the lamps sits, three porcelain vases reflect the lamp's light.  these creamware pieces are among my favorites, as i am a great lover of this off-white porcelain.  i remember a time when i turned in my chair at our informal dining table and knocked the tallest of this set off the hearth where it sat at the time, shattering it on the wooden floor.  we were both heartbroken that this beloved vase was ruined, but my wife began a search online for a replacement.   we were delighted when we learned that the vase was still being manufactured by the american company which made the one i broke.  we immediately placed an order for a replacement.  when it arrived our set was once more complete, and we delight in the beauty of the three vases every day.

my wife is a great collector, and one of her fascinations is small spinning tops.  on the table at the end of the couch, there is a wooden tray that was designed as a surface for spinning these small toys.  on it are about ten of the tops my wife found as we traveled.  one is a simple walnut top that we found in a gift shop in the train station in washington, d. c., on one of our trips.  it was rather expensive, but worth every penny because of the memories it kindles each time we spin it.  next to the chairs in this room are two small tables.  these tables sat at the end of the couch in my mother's living room for at least forty years.  when she passed away, we inherited them.  they are a constant reminder of my mother and of the happy times i spent in her company.

all of these things are important to me, not because of their monetary value but because of the memories they evoke.  this room and every room in our home is filled with pieces that bring back joys that have been a part of my life at some time or other.   the entire house is a summation of a happy life.  i hope that one day others will find as much happiness in these possessions as i have found.  these are not "things;" they represent experiences that are snapshots of our lives, like the pictures in a photo album.  we love them because of their association with the moments when we discovered them, as well as for their intrinsic beauty.

may we acquire objects and treasure them for their deeper meaning, not just for their outward appearance.  may we be grateful to all those involved in their creation, to those who made it possible for us to see and purchase them, and for the meaning they have in our lives.  may we remember that it is not the acquisition of things that is important, that what is important are the associations embodied in those things.  may we know that the memories remain, even when the things we love are lost.  may all that we have be an expression of the living of our lives and the love we feel for one another.  shalom.

Where the Clouds Are Far Behind Me

sometimes it seems that it is not the major events in our lives that cause the greatest suffering, but rather those petty annoyances that creep into our lives.  the garage door opener isn't working properly, it rains and we can't do the yard work we had planned on doing, the clothes rack in the laundry room falls from its position, or any one of a thousand little things that can go wrong does go wrong.  it is in those times that one wants to curse life and say, "why does everything happen to me."  it seems that as soon as we plug one hole in the metaphorical dike that is our daily life, another begins to leak.  

this past week has been one of those "leaky dike" weeks for me.  this was brought home to me in a dream i had.  in the dream, we had moved into a new home.  everywhere i looked there were little things that needed to be done.  the furniture and all our belongings were in place, so the major tasks were completed, but there seemed to be a million minor things that demanded to be taken care of.  my wife, as is her custom, was busily making lists of all these jobs that we had to face, and i could feel my frustration growing.  i was about to say in my most irritated voice, "stop with the lists.  it's too much!" when i awakened, relieved  that it was only a dream.  in that moment i realized that my dream was the summation of the petty annoyances of the week that i had not been very good at dealing with.

i was reminded of the part of my daily meditation where i pray, "may i be constant."  by that, i set an intention of remaining calm and peaceful regardless of the circumstances.  i hope to view all of life with equanimity, accepting the bad with the good and dealing with it all without allowing excess emotions.  what one intends and what one does are not always the same, as the past week demonstrated.  none of us is perfect.  my reactions to all the little mishaps that were part of my life in recent days reminded me that i am only human.  i always have work to do to become the person i intend to be.  everything worked out in the end.  all the broken things were pretty easily repaired or replaced.  the schedules that didn't work out caused only minor inconveniences.  life was still awfully good, even if it wasn't perfect.

may we stop and smell the roses.  may we let go of anger and frustration and appreciate all the good that life brings us.  may we do the work that is needed to live out our intentions.  may we be grateful for trials that teach us how to become better people.  shalom.

Let Freedom Ring

the country in which i live was built on compromise, a quality that we seem to have forgotten today.  during this month when we celebrate the birth of our country, it is fitting to think of one of our founding documents, the constitution.  we speak reverentially of our constitution.  it is a remarkable document.  some, including one of the members of the committee investigating the january sixth insurrection at the capital and one of the witnesses that appeared before it, have gone so far as to say that it was divinely inspired.  to proclaim divine inspiration for the constitution of the united states is to place it on an undeserved pedestal.

our constitution made our country possible.  it is a brilliant work, but it is flawed, as we have seen in recent times.  in order to secure the support of the former colonies for a strong central government, its writers made essential compromises.  they allowed slaves to be counted as part of each state's population, giving states with large slave populations more power than their voting residents justified.  one of the ugliest parts of the constitution declared a slave was only three-fifths of a person, relegating those held in bondage against their wills to sub-human status for political purposes.  without this compromise, southern states that thought slavery was necessary for their economic well-being would not have ratified the new constitution.

another compromise was the electoral college system for choosing presidents, rather than a direct popular vote.  smaller states were given more power than their populations justified in order to secure their support for the constitution.  this system gave each state a number of presidential electoral votes equal to the number of its members of the house of representatives plus its number of senators.  every state has two senators, regardless of the number of residents, while the number of representatives is based on population.  thus states with large populations had fewer votes relative to their population than did smaller states.  in the early days of the constitution's adoption, this compromise allayed the fears of states with fewer residents than the larger states, like new york and virginia, would have too much power in the election of a president.  this system has proven to be unfortunate in today's presidential contests, as we see elections decided, not by the will of the people, but by states whose population is small but whose power in the electoral college thwarts overwhelming majorities of voters.

now we have a supreme court on which the majority of justices were appointed by presidents with less than a majority of the popular vote.  our disgraced former president appointed three of those justices, and those appointees have swung the court toward radical right-wing decisions which threaten the country.  they have reversed gains in women's rights that were won half a century ago, they have gutted the administrative power of the executive branch to enforce the laws passed by congress, and they are poised to endorse a radical theory that gives state legislatures inordinate power over elections while stripping state judiciaries of their power to review election laws passed by the state legislatures.  one of the conservative justices has suggested that the right of people to marry the person they love should be revisited and possibly done away with.  since the constitution grants supreme court justices lifetime appointments, the only remedies for the current situation is for congress to adopt laws that counter the extreme rulings of the court or to increase the number of justices by act of congress so that the conservative majority becomes a minority.  supreme court decisions are final and become the law of the land unless altered by congressional action or constitutional amendment, so we are in dangerous, untried waters with the decisions of the present court.

the writers of the constitution were wise in placing mechanisms for amending the constitution as new situations arise or as provisions of the original document are seen to be in need of revision.  unfortunately, our current political landscape makes it unlikely that the constitution will be amended to correct problems that have developed in recent times, since conservative majorities are in control of too many state legislatures.  it is these legislatures that must ratify changes to the constitution.  the republicans who control many state legislatures have devised means for remaining in power through their drawing of congressional maps, even when the majority of the people in their states vote for democrats.  if the supreme court increases the power of these republican-majority legislatures, their control will be all but impossible to undo.

may our people awaken to the damage they do when they cast protest votes for republicans because of temporary economic conditions for which the party in power, now the democrats, is blamed.  may we see that electing a republican majority in the congress will further limit our ability to protect the rights of women, gays, minorities, and all those who are disenfranchised.  may we work together to strengthen our freedoms and make it convenient for every eligible voter to cast a ballot.  shalom.

And the World Stood Still

our daughter spent the past several days with us.  her stay reminded us of the wonderful person she has grown to be.  she is thoughtful, always ready to help us in whatever way she can.  her sense of humor has lightened our days.  her visit has filled us with joy.  on her final day with us, she gave her mother a gift that we had spotted in a gift shop that we visited together.  because the item she gave my wife was a little pricey, my wife wouldn't buy it, so my wife was thrilled when she opened the box our daughter handed her and saw the lovely gift.  this parting gift reminded us of what a sensitive person our daughter is.

as i reflect back on her visit, i wonder what we did as she was growing up that helped her become such a loving person.  i wish that we could take credit for her kindness and compassion, but i know that many factors combined to make her who she is.  as a small child, she was very obedient.  she only had to be told "no" once to stop her from doing something we disapproved of.  she was a happy child and easy to manage.  in her teenage years, though, she was rebellious.  we wondered if she would make it to adulthood.  she was determined to have things her own way, and we struggled to understand what drove her to be the way she was.  

by the time she had made it through her first two years of college, during which she lived a couple of hours away from us, she had matured into an adult with whom we could reason and come to terms.  seeing that it was a struggle for her to pay her living expenses in the college she had insisted on attending, which had no dormitories and where she had no financial aid of any kind, she decided to return home to complete her degree.  after she graduated from high school, we had tried to talk her into attending other schools where scholarships would have been available to her and where we could have paid all the cost of her education but she refused to listen to us, determined to attend the more expensive college, where our limited resources could only pay for her tuition and books and where she would have to work to pay the rest of her living expenses.  after she moved back home, she easily completed her studies and worked part-time to earn spending money.  her teenage rebellion over, she went to work as a teacher, fell in love with a young man, and married.

she and her husband struggled financially.  he had only a part-time job which he held onto in the hopes that it would lead to a more lucrative full-time job with the same company.  she worked a second job and, within a couple of years, they were able to buy a small home.  marital difficulties arose, and her husband left to take a job in a large metropolitan area about two hours away.  our daughter considered divorce, but she was determined to make the marriage work.  they reconciled, and she moved to be with her husband.  after working at a clerical job for a year, she went back to work as a teacher.   they continued to work on their marriage, and, with our help, they were able to buy a nice home in a quiet neighborhood.

as the years have gone by, they discovered how much they cared for one another and now are very happy together.  she is looking forward to early retirement from her teaching job at the end of the next school year, because teaching has become very stressful.  her husband has a non-teaching job with another school district that allows him the same holidays that she has.  we delight in the joy they have found with one another.  her kindness and compassion have helped her husband become a more caring, attentive person, so their marriage is one that brings both of them much joy.

i suppose nothing could be more satisfying than to see your child become a wonderful adult who is happy and who shares her happiness with others.  may she and her husband continue to grow in love for each other.  may all of us find the companionship with another human that completes us.  may we grow in lovingkindness and compassion each day and may we share those blessings with others.  shalom.

Music Fills Your Heart

for the past couple of weeks i've written about doom and gloom.  this week i want to write about joy.  despite my fears for the immediate future, i am a happy person.  every day i wake up surrounded by life's blessings.  i live in a comfortable home with a loving wife who is my best friend.  i have kind, caring children.  i have friends and relatives i enjoy.  i eat delicious food and can afford to travel wherever i want to go.  my health is generally good, though i am feeling some of the aches that come with aging.  my life is a good one, and i love it.

one of my greatest joys is music.  i have the opportunity to make music for others several sundays each month playing for a local congregation that seems to enjoy the music i provide for them.  each time i sit down to practice or to play a church service, i am transported to a world of beauty.  it is wonderful to take part in the creative process with some of the greatest composers in history.  this is the unique aspect of music.  when one plays music composed by another, there is a mutual sharing of the material.  without the player, the notes are static on the page.  the music only comes to life when the printed music is realized by a live player or players.  just as in a play where actors bring the playwright's words to life, a musical performer brings the creation of the composer to life and participates with the composer in making the music and sharing it with others.

beautiful, thoughtful music speaks to the mind and heart in a way that nothing else can.  as i listen to music, my mind is freed from the mundane necessities of life, and i am transported into the mind of another who may have lived far from me in a different time period and who spoke a different language, yet the language of music is common to us both.  when i am a part of making the music, the composer and i communicate not only with one another but with any who are listening.  there is a sharing of experience across time and space that is nothing short of miraculous.

may i continue to find the joy that music brings.  may i long to share that joy with others.  may music bridge gaps that are otherwise impossible to cross.  may we put aside our differences as we find common ground in the beauty of music.  may we make and listen to music that inspires the best in us, increasing our capacity for lovingkindness, compassion, tolerance, and mutual understanding.  shalom.

Through Paths Unknown

last week i wrote about the hopelessness i felt.  i am still disturbed about the prospect of a republican victory in the upcoming midterm elections.  i am troubled that the democrats in congress are not addressing the economic problems that so many face.  while people struggle to pay for the essentials of life, president biden and our party look for ways to place blame for rising prices of housing, food, and fuel rather than seeking solutions that demonstrate that government is not powerless.  indeed, there are many factors over which government has little or no control, such as the effects of the covid pandemic and our emergence from it, the logistical problems faced by suppliers of goods, the inability of oil refineries to meet the demand for gasoline, and the war in ukraine, that have combined to cause our economic woes.  

rising prices are disproportionally hurting those towards the bottom of the economic ladder.  most of us can tighten our belts a little and weather higher prices, but those who were struggling before inflation became so great had already economized as much as possible.  now they are caught by the need to make difficult choices in order to pay their bills.  all too often, the lower middle class and the poor are finding themselves choosing between health care and feeding and sheltering their families, making do with clothing that should be replaced, and buying unhealthy foods rather than more expensive nutritious food.

a few days ago, millions of us watched the first presentation by the house committee that is investigating the events of january 6, 2021.  we saw the beginnings of the case against donald trump and those around him.  it is essential that as much of the truth be made public as can be discovered.  at the same time, republican criticism of the lack of a plan for combating inflation is valid.  democrats hold the majority in both houses of congress and a democrat is the president.  it is their responsibility to address the needs of the people by finding ways to ease the pain of inflation on those least able to bear its costs.  republicans have no plan, either, and, if they take control of either or both houses of congress, their answer will be to attempt to enrich those at the top of the economic ladder while doing little for those at and near the bottom.  a republican majority in congress will be disastrous for the nation, and that is where we are headed unless democrats act quickly to demonstrate their concern for the pain many are feeling.  it will not matter how guilty trump and his minions are.  exposing their perfidy is important, but so is addressing the economic difficulties so many americans are facing.

may we awaken to the awful damage trump and trumpism have caused our nation.  may we turn from his misogyny, racism, and greed, and look to caring for one another.  may we rally to the cause of freedom based on the ideals of our founders.  may we recognize the dangers posed by christian nationalism and the followers of donald trump.  may we become a more tolerant, compassionate people, electing those who share our values.  shalom.

A Reason to Be Living

it is not often that i feel hopeless, but right now i do.  i know that this feeling will pass, but, as i think of the problems that we face, i see few solutions.  fuel and food prices have risen and continue to increase, putting a strain on the finances of many.  since democrats are the majority party in the congress and the president is a democrat, our party is blamed for this situation.  most americans know in their hearts that economic forces beyond the control of the federal government are the cause of inflation, but, when things are going badly, the party in power takes the hit at the polls.  the prospect of a republican majority in the house and senate is frightening, given that party's current state.

trump loyalists are in control of the republican party.  they are determined to carry the upcoming mid-term elections at all costs.  they continue to promote trump's big lie that president biden won the last presidential election fraudulently.  where republicans control state legislatures, they have passed laws that make it easier for them to hold onto power.  they have begun enacting state laws allowing them to intimidate voters in democrat-leaning precincts.  they have made it more difficult to vote.  they have taken control of elections away from impartial officials and given that power to the legislature.  under trump's influence, our basic right to govern by the consent of the people is gravely threatened.

those in the republican party who dare to challenge this program of harassment, voter suppression, and intimidation are ostracized and targeted for electoral defeat.  only two republicans have been willing to participate in investigating the incidents of january 6 and what went on in the days leading up to it.  other republicans have refused to participate and have joined the former president in calling it a "witch hunt."  a mentally unstable political novice has won the republican nomination for senator from georgia, a man who has been repeatedly accused of threats against women and who makes claims as outlandish as those of the former president.  the court have removed several republican candidates in michigan from the ballot for allowing fake signatures on their petitions to run for office.  a celebrity physician who has promoted phony cures for disease has become the republican senate nominee in pennsylvania.

we watch as mass killings are rampant in this country and do nothing about it.  we refuse to pass sensible laws that would keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill, violent, and immature persons.  we allow weapons whose only purpose is mass killing to be sold with few restrictions.  we have citizens walking around armed to the teeth with no laws to prevent this practice.  we listen as the gun lobby tells us that "people kill people, not guns," while we continue to tell the survivors of mass shootings and their families that "our thoughts and prayers are with them."  what good are those thoughts and prayers without actions that demonstrate our compassion?

our government is poised to take away the right of women to control their own bodies, as male-dominated legislatures pass laws that prevent women and their doctors from making private decisions about women's health issues.  as unwanted children are brought into the world, the same people who tell us that abortion is murder refuse to support the care of those children that women are forced to bear against their will or to take the necessary steps to curtail mass murders in schools.  we have allowed a right-wing-dominated supreme court to have the final say over reproductive and voting rights in this country to the detriment of democracy.

may those who believe in the ideals on which our country was founded rally to the struggle against the erosion of those ideals.  may we stop the movement to adopt laws and practices that will lead to authoritarianism.  may we reject trumpsim in favor of tolerance, diversity, and freedom.  may we again support the needs of those who have been left behind in our affluent society.  may we demonstrate true patriotism by rejecting demagoguery and misogyny and by having compassion for all our people.  shalom.