What the...?

Hamfatter

Lana's Birthday

Lana turned twelve yesterday. I'm not quite sure why -but that's always been an important age for me. It's sort of the middle ground between child and teen I suppose. 12 was when I moved from Seattle to Minneapolis. It was a rough period.

Lana on the other hand seems to be taking it in stride. She's so creative and intelligent. It's a long way from when she was tiny and we called The Dali Lana. Although she did inform me yesterday that all her friends tell her that she's going to rule the world one day. I have no doubts about that.

A thought on theater...

"You know, I go to the theatre to be entertained...I don't want to see plays about rape, sodomy, and drug addiction...I can get all that at home".

-Peter Cook

The God of Reality

The God I know does not ask us to conform to some abstract norm for the ideal self. God asks us only to honor our created nature, which means our limits as well as potentials. When we fail to do so, reality happens-God happens-and way closes behind us.

The God I was told about in Church, and still hear about from time to time, runs about like an anxious schoolmaster measuring people’s behavior with a moral yardstick. But the God I know is the source of reality rather morality, the source of what is rather than what ought to be. This does not mean that God has nothing to do with morality: morality and its consequences are built into the God-given structure of reality itself. Moral norms are not something we have to stretch for, and moral consequences are not something we have to wait for: they are right here, right now, waiting for us to honor, or violate, the nature of self, other, world.

Parker J. Palmer –Let Your Life Speak

I am all about finding my vocation these days. Not what I want to do precisely but more about what I was meant to do. Why I am here. The quotes I’ve been citing lately are from a class I’m taking called Perspectives in Educational Philosophy and Planning. What I am realizing because of the class and because of my given circumstances, is that I really don’t know. I have no idea of what I could, or should, or ought to be doing.

I only know it’s not this. Not the corporate hierarchy I live in every day. I mean I can play the game; but the game has really lost its sheen for me. Obviously I have to work at something, somewhere, but I don’t necessarily have to keep doing what I’m doing now. It’s rather soul emptying, and a bit sad.

I read this essay last night about how much things had changed in Elizabethan England from the former dim, undemocratic, demi-nation. Yet Shakespeare, Wyatt, Sidney. Spenser, Bacon, Raleigh, etc all came from that period. They didn’t read great literature and ideas, they created them.

I want to create, I know that.

That’s a start.

Life is bigger than this

I found out yesterday that my former boss Paul Chagnon died on Sunday. We called him "shaggy". He was in CA talking to his wife on his cell phone and he had a heart attack. He was dead when the paramedics got there. He was 42 years old. It was shocking and surprising.

It makes me think and look at how unexpected life can be. We can drive home and die in an car accident. We can lose people in a heartbeat.

I think about where I am at in my life, what I've accomplished, what I haven't accomplished. It's just kind of stunning to consider.

There's so much I haven't done, haven't said. It's just sad. I'm in such an odd place in my own life right now that I could see it all changing in heartbeat.

But this has made really think about what I want. Who I am.

10. CELEBRATE

Get into the habit of asking yourself daily and writing in your journal (before you go to bed maybe?), what's been good about today. This isn't about adopting a Pollyanna attitude. But there is a universal law which says that we get what we focus on. So if we focus on lack or on fear of being hurt again, that is precisely what we will get. And if we focus on abundance, the world is waiting for us! Even an unexpected smile from a stranger or a beautiful sunset are worth recording. See if you can get up to 10 good things each day.And celebrate each step along the way. Reward yourself when you have completed a particularly challenging task that you may have been avoiding for a long time. Look back at how far you have come since those early days. Look at what you have achieved, no matter how small. You're on a journey of self-discovery and growth and you are well on your way to realising your dream. Isn't it a wonderful feeling!

Logan's Birthday

I remember exactly where I was 20 years ago today. I was watching my son being born. It was easily the single most incredible thing I had ever witnessed. He was slightly early and consequently had to be placed in ICU. But I remember looking at him in his little plastic cage and feeling so panicked about being a new parent. I put my hand into the thoughtfully provided gloved slot on the side of his cage. He grabbed my forefinger and squeezed. I remember that I was surprised at how strong his grip was. I mean he was only a few hours old.

He came into this world his own person. An individual I had never met before. I've watched for twenty nears now as he became and delivered that person to the rest of us. I'm very grateful for him.

Tonight Mary Belle and I are taking him to eat sushi, sans the plastic cage, thankfully. He's 20 years old and my amazement has never dwindled.

Tuesday Quotes

Control is the ultimate villian in destroying intimacy. We cannot share freely unless we are equal.

John Bradshaw

Respect...is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, in ways in which he or she is unique.

Anne Gottlieb

Common Senses

Unclutter yourselves. Open yourselves up to the fullest capacity -togive meaning to what you receive when you see, when you hear, when you taste, when you smell, when you touch.

Uta Hagen, -Respect for Acting

I'm pitiful

You're PitifulMy life is brilliant...

What, was I too early? Oh, sorry. Should I...Do you wanna start over? Or, keep going?
Okay, now? Now?

Your is brilliant
My life's a joke
I'm just pathetic
You're always broke

My homemade Star Trek uniform
really ain't impressin' you
I'm sufferin' from delusions of
Adequacy

I'm Pitiful (X3) It's true

Never had a date
That I couldn't inflate
And I smell repulsive too
What a bummer bein' me

WellI just can't dance
And forget romance
Everybody you know still calls ya
Shawn Pants
:
But you always have a job well I mean

As long as I still can work that slurpie machine

I'm Pitiful (X3) It's true

I'm half undressed
Eatin' chips of my chest
While you're playin' Halo 2
No one's classier than you

Lalala la
Lalala la
Lalala la Loser

You're Pitiful (X3) It's true

My dog would much rather
Play fetch by itself

You still live with your Mom and you're 42

Guess you'll never grow a clue
When it just sucks to be you

Soul Communication

The soul is like a wild animal -tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek.

Parker J. Palmer -Let Your Life Speak

Art Auction

I'm selling one of my oils on ebay. Go HERE to view it or buy it.

Listening to Life

"But if I am to let my life speak things I want to hear, things I would gladly tell others, I must also let it speak things I don't want hear and would never tell anyone else! My life is not only about my strengths and virtues; it also about my liabilities and my limits, my trepasses and my shadow. An inevitable though often ignored dimension of of the quest for "wholeness" is that we must embrace what we dislike and find shameful about ourselves as well as what we are confident and proud of. That is why the poet says, "ask me mistakes I have made."

-Parker J. Palmer, "Let Your Life Speak"

I'm really digging my new classes. This is an excerpt from one the texts I'm reading. It's a very interesting to place to be. I'm finding the classes I ended up taking this semester are really speaking to something in me that has never been explored. Transforming in many ways. I feel like George Bailey finally getting to go to college.

On Ham acting...

"Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art."

Stanislavsky

What? I'm doing homework this weekend....