A rough year(Sept. 2009)I've had a rough year, and in particular a tough six months -- both knees partially replaced and two other painful, bizarre surgeries which have left me at far less than full strength and doddering around like a much older man. Not that I'm not old. I'll be 53 later this month, and frankly, that's older than I ever thought I'd get.
When I was in my 30s, I used to annoy my wife by saying that when I was 45 I would just fade off into the Davy Crockett National Forest and never be seen again. Now, walking up the steps at work is a major chore ... never mind the forest.
Regardless, I refuse to become insignificant or ineffectual. If doing is difficult, I can teach, share, listen and just be there for my wife, sons, students and friends.
No one can be sure what the future holds. I just plan to take it day by day and thank God for the gifts, people and opportunities that come my way. So, like Father Time, I'll just keep inexorably marching (er, shuffling) on 'til my time comes. Too bad Missouri Military Academy won't allow me to grow back my beard!
Attitude platitudes(August 2007)
Sometimes, when I get low, it occurs to me that pity parties are for those who have the time to waste. Free time is far too precious to spend very much of it worrying.
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not; neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" (Matthew 6:28-30)
No one is ever going to accuse me of being Mister Energy or Captain Excitable, but I'm also only Eeyore part of the time. When I think my life is bad, I open my eyes, take a look around and remember that I have value, regardless of any outside problems or input to the contrary.
So, whatever's got you down, Bunky, remember above all that God loves you ... and for grins, reflect on Stuart Smalley's daily affirmation:
"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough ... and doggone it, people like me!"
For the birds(June 2007)It occurred to me ... as I drove to work this morning and watched the crows fly over wild Missouri fields and corn, hay and alfalfa plots, that there is at least some truth to an urban legend or longtime Texas tale: "Everything is bigger in Texas."
Well, maybe not everything, but the crows definitely are. That realization came to me one sunny afternoon as I drove the East Texas backroads en route to an assignment for the newspaper I worked for at the time. "These are BIG crows, I thought." The next day I looked them up in a birder book, thinking they might be ravens or something else ... but they were just Texas-sized crows.
Having grown up in Nebraska, my wife and I had seen our share of crows over the years, so we had a definite frame of reference. We used to amuse our oldest son when he was small by telling him to watch for the "giant flesh-eating crows of East Texas" and counting the birds when we went on road trips.
When we moved to northwest Arkansas, we had to change our tactic with our younger son, calling the plentiful buzzards of the region "giant flesh-eating crows." As he got older, he wasn't buying it anymore, though ... Guess I'd better watch it or this blog could be for the birds, huh?
Pop philosophy(June 2007)It occurs to me ... after seeing "Pirates of the Caribbean 3," that Captain Jack Sparrow has it slightly askew when he says, "The world is the same size it has always been. There is just less in it."
The world continues to grow by leaps and bounds in terms of population and discovery, knowledge and history. While it is lamentable that certain traditions, pleasant pastimes and some of God's creatures are gone (like Jack's giant squid/kracken), they continue to exist in memory, and are often replaced by new, interesting and sometimes better things. I try to remember that every person is a new horizon, and the imagination can take one anywhere he or she wants to go.
For me, it's a matter of positive perspective. We must never lose sight of how wide and wonderful the world really can be ... or we will sink into the perilous pit of lost identity and depression Jack found in Davy Jones' locker, a place none of us wants to visit.
Ain't pop psychology and movie philosophy grand?
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