Happy 2010...Every Single Day Of It!

"I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the year's."
Henry Moore, British sculptor

When I was a little kid, I remembered being simply terrified of the thought of death and dying. I can remember fearing what came after this earthly life; not necessarily because--at that time--my life on terra firma was all that wonderful or full of things & people I'd really miss. No, I feared death for the same reason most humans fear anything or anyone: because I didn't know anything about it. As a matter of fact, the first time I became intimately familiar with death was when my father died two weeks after his 69th birthday, on July 20, 1995, when I was 32 years old. He had died of complications of untreated hypertension (well, untreated until it was too late & his heart & kidneys had basically been destroyed). I will always remember seeing him lying in his coffin, with an artificial peace painted onto his face. The last years of my father's life were anything but peaceful, and anything but golden for him, or for his family.

Up 'til then, somehow God had spared me of such an intimate knowledge of that thing that seemed to have always frightened me. Looking back at my early childhood, for a good long while, I think I became obsessed with the thought of death, and wondering what sort of horrible fate awaited me "on the other side"...if there WAS an "other side". I guess my life experiences at that point were not the happiest, so I automatically assumed that whatever came after life would be at least as unappealing.

As I grew older, and as I learned about God and faith, and those famous streets of Heaven paved with gold, I (very slowly) came to understand that--trite as it may sound--death is simply part of the famous "Circle of Life", and that all who are born must--one way or another--face the end the of the world. To this primordial rule, there are no exceptions or exemptions, and no higher authority from whom we can seek a reprieve. We are all born to die, whether we are prince (or princess) or pauper; whether we are greatly loved or thoroughly despised. In the end, there is always an end. Always.

If you've read this far, you could not be faulted for thinking that the subject about which I am writing is such a downer, especially for a post meant to welcome in the Baby New Year, but I hope you will be able to see the method to my madness.

With the death of my father, came a realization for me that in pondering & fearing whatever awaits us all on the other side of the thin veil of this life, I was allowing my own life here to slip past me. I was concentrating on that one leaf on that one tree & missing the big, beautiful forest that surrounds us all. In devoting so much of my own time & energy trying to find a way to somehow prepare myself for the end of all things, I was leaving so much undone & unseen in the here-and-now. In that way, my father & I were exactly alike: in not seeking treatment for his illness until it was just too late, he didn't take care of his life; and I didn't take the time to enjoy & appreciate the time I have in each moment of life that was gifted to me--giving away time I can never again retrieve to fear instead.

Like most people, I am quite familiar with that old saw, "Take life one day at a time". Until recently, though, when my world was shaken so ferociously by the end of my 13-year relationship, I don't think I really understood the true meaning behind those words.

Now, as I learn to live my life alone (for a while anyway), I am almost forced to "get it". While I have noticed some marked improvements, the truth is that my new reality is still difficult for me to adjust to. I don't have the luxury any longer of planning my life years, months, or even weeks in advance. I HAVE to take my life "one day at a time"--sometimes an hour at a time.

Even in this new uncertainty in my life, and even in the midst of a heartache that still feels too sadly fresh sometimes, I am beginning to see the glimmer of a redemptive purpose to all I have thus far survived. I've begun to notice the quiet miracle of each sunrise. I've quite literally stopped to smell the roses. I've begun looking up again toward the heavens at night & trying to count a sky full of stars. These, and and all the other "small things"--commonplace to so many of us--are the REAL stuff of life, yet most of us--admittedly by necessity sometimes--are just too busy not taking it "one day at a time" to really take note of all that quietly comprises our lives...and we do so at our own peril.

In none of it, are we given a promise or a guarantee that what we have & whom we love will be ours tomorrow...we're not even promised a tomorrow. If I never understood that before, I do now.

So, though I loathe all those yearly resolutions I have never before been quite able to honor past the the initial week or two, as we begin the first day of the second decade of the 21st century, I hope to learn to have my eyes opened even more to the blessings--great & small--that abound in my not-so-unique life.

In being intentionally & even stubbornly cognizant of all the gifts in my life, I am now aware that the path I must tread to emotional & spiritual wellness is not one that I can even face one day at a time, but one small step at a time.

And for this, I am truly thankful...

Though I don't consider myself "elderly" (most days, anyway ;-), when I read this article on one of my favorite websites, Everyday Health, I thought about my own current situation--still trying to cope with the loss of my long-term relationship--and how much worse it all might have been had I not had my two loving beagles (Bela--named after the actor, Bela Lugosi--and Isis, the goddess) with me as I face a much different world than the one I had expected.

If anyone who reads this has ever had the blessing of being a pet owner, then you probably know well what I mean when I say that, in my beautiful 4-legged family members, I find so much more than companionship, I truly find unconditional love. It doesn't matter how long I'm gone away (10 minutes or 10 hours) but when I come back home, my beagles are jumping for joy and wagging their cute little tails off, so happy to see me that they wear themselves out & have to take one of their patented beagle naps!

On this first Thanksgiving without any of my human family, in the midst of trying to adjust to the not-so-sweet life of singlehood, I did as I have always done & took stock of all the blessings that I (still) have in my life, and (as usual) amongst the greatest of these blessings were those of the canine variety. :-)

Happy 233rd, America!

As a nation, we are still engaged in that most noble of pursuits: to truly make "self-evident" the fact that "all men [and women] are created equal" and that, as Americans & as children of God, we are all equally entitled to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".

I--for one--feel blessed to live in a country where so many of my fellow citizens understand that, for too many of us still working to claim our full birthright as citizens of the greatest country in history, these most noble of words are still just words. In spite of that fact, I take heart knowing that more & more of us are beginning to really understand the words of the American poet, Emma Lazarus, when she wrote, Until we are all free, we are none of us free.

From Schoolhouse Rock...

Happy Father's Day!

To all the fathers (and/or father figures) in the world, whether they are still with us or not...

Happy Valentine's Day (+1) To ALL of Us!

Recently, Suze Orman, the openly-gay financial guru, put her own unique economic spin on the argument for marriage equality for all Americans.

On behalf of Suze, I dedicate this belated video valentine to all those married couples whose government recognition of their promise to take care of one another brings them more than just financial security & to those who still fight to know how that feels:

Laboring More, Earning Less

This Labor Day, it seems the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations is reporting what so many of us have known for a while, U.S. workers are working harder than ever for less pay (in real terms adjusted for inflation).

Some of the most disturbing findings in the report based on information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The median weekly earnings for American workers have not grown in real terms over the last eight years. [emphasis mine]

At $6.55, the federal minimum wage is worth 40 cents less per hour, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than it was a decade ago.

Roughly 4 percent of the workforce wants to work full-time, but is working part time because they can't find full-time work.

So, while the cost of gas & other basics of life have increased (sometimes dramatically) over the past 8 long years, Americans are effectively earning about the same as they did in 2000. I wonder what happened 8 years ago that might have caused U.S. workers to lose so much ground?

I'll give you three guesses...and the first two don't count! :-/

This is the link to CNN's story about the report.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

Happy Labor Day!!

Happy Memorial Day!

It just seemed appropriate to me that, on Memorial Day--the day on which we remember all those American soldiers who have given their "last full measure of devotion" on behalf of the country they loved--we remember the words of one of our greatest US presidents, Abraham Lincoln, who helped to keep a young nation from tearing itself apart. President Lincoln's words were originally spoken on November 19, 1863, but they still remain just as true today as they ever were:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms & Moms-To-Be out there! Unfortunately, I won't get to see my mom today, but, like millions of other Americans on every 2nd Sunday in May, I will be calling her today to wish her a happy day today & to let her know how blessed I am that she's my mom!!

Below you will find a short history on Mother's Day from the good folks at Wikipedia, including the fact that it was originally intended by the woman who first thought up the idea in the U.S. shortly after the U.S. Civil War as a day for mothers (& others) to protest the idea of war. You can find a more detailed history of Mother's Day around the world & more info on how the original founder of Mother's Day in the US eventually came to renounce the day due to what she saw as it's over-commercialization at Mother's Day Central at http://www.mothersdaycentral.com/about-mothersday/history/.

The United States celebrates Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. In the United States, Mother's Day was loosely inspired by the British day and was imported by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the American Civil War. However, it was intended as a call to unite women against war. In 1870, she wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation as a call for peace and disarmament. Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mother's Day for Peace. Her idea was influenced by Ann Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker who, starting in 1858, had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers' Work Days. She organized women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors.

When Jarvis died in 1907, her daughter, named Anna Jarvis, started the crusade to found a memorial day for women. The first such Mother's Day was celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia, on 10 May 1908, in the church where the elder Ann Jarvis had taught Sunday School. Originally the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, this building is now the International Mother's Day Shrine (a National Historic Landmark). From there, the custom caught on — spreading eventually to 45 states. The holiday was declared officially by some states beginning in 1912. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

Nine years after the first official Mother's Day, commercialization of the U.S. holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become. Mother's Day continues to this day to be one of the most commercially successful U.S. occasions. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother's Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States.