On Responsible Thinking

 

Whoever you are now, you’re not what you were. If something turns out tragically, can you blame yourself for trying?

If you front up in church you’ve already apologized to God. Some Christian gods are more judgemental than others. Some are ruthless, some too easy-going. Are you worshipping the jealous god or the plentiful in mercy? Or one that looks more like a mirror?

General Admin cleanup: Mrs. G. hasn’t lived here for 15 years. Still gets mail from government: do I return to sender? Ten percent off anything you’ve ever bought. Appeals from causes to which you once drew attention to yourself. Crises and disasters you were tangentially involved with but can’t relieve yourself of guilt. Things you ought to have done that you did not do, however long ago. The failings of others. Antique notifications of this and that. The complete story on installation of solar power. Political messages from everywhere. The innocuous and the incautious.

Is there a statute of limitations on regrets? Do we even have a right to get over it? Do we still have to solve it, when the pieces lie in fragments on the floor?

Hand it on. Less responsible thinking; more prayer.

 

On Not So Perfect

 

Euphemisms and platitudes. Hanging around on social media with all the bad news, celebrations and currying of fears, plus assumptions and expectations. The passive voice is a grammatical vice. Real help is specific IMHO.

 Those “experiencing” envy are many and some are already exceedingly rich. See Decalogue 10. On the other hand, most sins are not very interesting; so often they’re so much the same. What is interesting is the good stuff you do that you don’t know about. A lot of what you try to get away from is ingrained and so is part of you. Some of it holds surprisingly great results.

It's not so perfect, though. What if ‘perfect’ meant ‘wholeness’, ‘completeness’, “containing multitudes”? Not ‘perfect’ as frozen in time; time doesn’t freeze. Good for today might be doubtful tomorrow. Faultless is subject to change. Imperfect gives you room to move.

After spending most of my life trying to be lighter, stretching towards the heavens, I now seem to want to be heavier, sinking at each step towards the earth. Weightier, more relaxed and more peaceful. Making life lower. Simplifying striving. Making two steps out of one.

The world will be saved by smallness.

On Philosophical Daydreams

 

When the past looks at you what does it see? Does it feel good about its results with you or believe it’s done its proper job? Does it see room for improvement: how can it become a better past? Maybe it could be a worse past, maybe it really screwed up. Maybe it was a normal past.

We keep hearing about the new normal. Normal is not what came before nor likely what came after. What we’re observing is the normal normal. We think the current circumstances are stable but in fact they constantly change so in ten years you won’t recognise where you were. This applies across the board. Globally, the challenge between the past and the future shows up the fragility, not only of democracy, but of all existing systems. Things must change and are changing, but this is not a handsome process. Personally, we look at last decade’s selfie then look at the mirror: how did this happen? The cost of living is not what it costs to live.

What’s in the house with you? I live with a greyhound, fine and fast. I live with some ideas, too, maybe some are new. Or maybe only normal.

On the Paper Trail

Cleaning up for the New Year. Weeding out the paper files, sometimes twenty years old. There are some massive bureaucratic efforts hidden in here. I’d call them heroic struggles. Mainly but not always with government departments. All these matters of status and achievement, finished and accomplished, at far more stress than needed or worthy. A will also is part of a paper trail. (People can get evicted from homes or saddled with lifelong financial bugs by wills). Correspondence with the long deceased. Antiquated essays. Notes on plans: for holidays, revenge, retreat. Grudges, complaints. Hospital stays. Rate notices. Receipts for compensations that compensate no one.

Beginner’s mind is full of mistakes. We’re always beginners at life. This leads to unastonishing results not only in words and ideas but also in actions and relationships. You may have been in a role for which you were miscast. But what is it? Which role? If you knew what to do you’d already be doing it. There’s a confusing conflict between effort and result.

The broken can’t really be mended. You have to make something else out of it. Shredding paper. Saving what must be saved. Letting go: new file, New Year. 

On Forgetting

 

November begins with the days of the dead: Hallowe’en, All Hallows, and All Souls. Nothing is forgotten: the bad, the good, the ordinary sinners like ourselves.

Memories come unbidden. Despite lies, denies, neglects, twists and turns of fates and their perceptions.  Nobody forgets. The body doesn’t forget its ancestors. The dispossessed never forget the Country.  The past thinks toward the negative to make sure you don’t repeat it but this means you repeat it again and again. Bending what is into what ought to be. The use of force is a road into error.

If you own something you can choose to do nothing with it. Let it live its own life. If you don’t have the power to leave it alone, you don’t own it. Justice is the virtue that gives back to everything that which belongs to it, so don’t place faith in power of forgetting, or spell of denial.

            Time is carried on the breath. What part of the life of our time are you not living? To whom, to what, to where do you belong? What gift or charge belongs to you? Nothing is enough: do what your strength will bear. That, too, is not forgotten.

On Eulogy

 

 Eulogy is speaking well of the dead. Related to forgiveness, absence of judgement, resting in peace. The beautiful princess and the compassionate Queen. It fills a liminal time with holy farewell. Since grief is an archetype, expressions of personal pain are soon provoked. Grief is contagious. Grief uncontained. Grief in the wild. Grieving anger.

We must experience the events of our own time. Some deaths are not spoken of, or not enough, such as the deaths in custody. In the prevailing aura of loss, histories are constantly mourned. Justified and sanctified. In the beginning is eulogy. Soon imminent causes come forward. This progresses into criticism, then to comedy. Within 48 hours people take sides and conflicts arise. This is a spiral, containing direction and pressure: a mass phenomenon. We live in a culture of ambient anger. On all sides. Also, each life contains continuous waves of grief, only lightly sleeping. Each family, too.

Why, then, eulogy?

The mind of God must contain feelings that are unknown to us, because it is qualitatively different to anything mortal. We remind the immortal of the noble, the good, the tragic. We remind ourselves of both pain and beauty.  Keep it simple. Love one another.

On Choosing Regret

We often find ourselves regretting those things we can’t control, including especially the past. Regret is reality; seeking to avoid it isn’t a pure motivation. We may regret giving in to fear, or allowing others to suffer. Are we justified in giving a warning or pressing a point? But resistance, even very slight resistance, is a sign of a loss of trust. Do you intervene, and lose trust? Do you stay silent, choosing regret?

Regret is sadness, related to repentance. A cousin, maybe. Less is more, and more is less, and less is also less. The great thing here is to know when you’re choosing it. Maybe we failed to produce the strength to ask for help. Maybe we became overwhelmed and didn’t persist. Maybe we lacked understanding, to see a complaint required no action, just there for the relief and/or justification it provides.

The old prayer book confesses things not done that we ought to have done. Because there is no health in us. Anyone can confess to things they have done; they remember themselves. Healthy people, who have been healed, are justified in admitting weakness. There is more undone than we know. It takes faith.