Thank you, Thank you, and Thank You for all your good wishes for my birthday. I did have a good day.
Rolland
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Seventy-Five
Seventy-Five
Well, here it is! Three-quarters of a century. Seventy-five is both a profound, as well as, just a numbered birthday.
There are many other significant numbers in one’s lifetime, but this one, when and if you get here, is one of the biggies.
I will celebrate it with superb friends still here. My bride is gone, but I know she will be wishing and singing with all my other family members and friends on the other side. They know I will see them soon since eternity is their reference point.
There are many reasons why seventy-five is significant.
1. Not too many get there.
2. If you do, you’re surprised.
3. You realize nothing is as important as you thought it was.
4. Your goals are for tomorrow and not beyond that.
5. Appreciation of each courtesy is amplified by its grace.
6. History is indeed prologue.
7. Repetition is the failure of humanity.
8. Hope is eternal.
9. Love is the only answer to hate.
10. Each day brings an experienced expectation of new things.
My wish for this day.
Love one another with no conditions.
Well, here it is! Three-quarters of a century. Seventy-five is both a profound, as well as, just a numbered birthday.
There are many other significant numbers in one’s lifetime, but this one, when and if you get here, is one of the biggies.
I will celebrate it with superb friends still here. My bride is gone, but I know she will be wishing and singing with all my other family members and friends on the other side. They know I will see them soon since eternity is their reference point.
There are many reasons why seventy-five is significant.
1. Not too many get there.
2. If you do, you’re surprised.
3. You realize nothing is as important as you thought it was.
4. Your goals are for tomorrow and not beyond that.
5. Appreciation of each courtesy is amplified by its grace.
6. History is indeed prologue.
7. Repetition is the failure of humanity.
8. Hope is eternal.
9. Love is the only answer to hate.
10. Each day brings an experienced expectation of new things.
My wish for this day.
Love one another with no conditions.
Monday, December 5, 2016
Sunday thoughts
I am writing this on Sunday. You will read this on a Monday morning or later.
Sunday, for me, is always a day of reflection. Yesterday I thought about my granddaughter's birthday. It was Sunday, and I sent her a note along with gifts that her parents gave her during a family celebration. She reached a milestone number yesterday. Sixteen.
When I was sixteen Ike was president. The Edsel was Ford’s new offering to the motoring public. Steve Allan was hosting the Tonight Show. American Bandstand with Dick Clark started.
Today, at sixteen, it is a whole new world. Social media connects to the entire world in seconds. Communication is instant, via email, Facebook, Twitter and so much more. In 1957, if you wanted to call across the country or around the world it took lengthy routing from ATT and money.
Yesterday I lit a fire at my home and put in several logs to burn for the afternoon. Those logs were older that both my grand-daughter and me put together and then some. The light and heat they released in my fireplace came from the sun of over a hundred years ago. We need to think about those things.
My grand-daughter won’t realize the warmth and light connection for many years to come if she ever does, but I do. Everything is interconnected, whether it’s a log in a fireplace or the DNA of friends, families or even enemies. The miracle is not the oneness; it is the difference within the oneness.
Until humankind realizes the inter-connection of all things we will have contention and conflict.
Sunday, for me, is always a day of reflection. Yesterday I thought about my granddaughter's birthday. It was Sunday, and I sent her a note along with gifts that her parents gave her during a family celebration. She reached a milestone number yesterday. Sixteen.
When I was sixteen Ike was president. The Edsel was Ford’s new offering to the motoring public. Steve Allan was hosting the Tonight Show. American Bandstand with Dick Clark started.
Today, at sixteen, it is a whole new world. Social media connects to the entire world in seconds. Communication is instant, via email, Facebook, Twitter and so much more. In 1957, if you wanted to call across the country or around the world it took lengthy routing from ATT and money.
Yesterday I lit a fire at my home and put in several logs to burn for the afternoon. Those logs were older that both my grand-daughter and me put together and then some. The light and heat they released in my fireplace came from the sun of over a hundred years ago. We need to think about those things.
My grand-daughter won’t realize the warmth and light connection for many years to come if she ever does, but I do. Everything is interconnected, whether it’s a log in a fireplace or the DNA of friends, families or even enemies. The miracle is not the oneness; it is the difference within the oneness.
Until humankind realizes the inter-connection of all things we will have contention and conflict.
Friday, December 2, 2016
Beware what you think.
I sit here in my home office on a cold December night, and I think about the significance of this moment in thought as well as the monumental responsibility for it if in fact “energy follows thought” as some disciplines espouse.
Energy follows thought means ultimately all thought is creative or creating and continues once the thinker abandons it. If the intention is the yeast, then the dough energy component has the potential to manifest into a creation on the canvas of time.
This kind of thinking gets a little convoluted in its possible consequences, but you get the principle of the idea. OK, it’s a little weird too.
The idea is that once you think about something, what if that thought bounds around the universe bumping into and attracting like thought patterns that end up in a mishmash junk yard of collective possibilities? Hopefully, the thought trash heap is somewhere at the edge of the universe and away from any disorder the original thought could have created. It may be out of the way, but it’s still there.
I have no idea whether it could or could not happen, but I don’t want to take any chances with any errant or ill-conceived thoughts hanging out with other like-minded energy guys down at the corner of space, so what do I do?
I'm told there are two antidotes if you don't like your thought; all you have to do is say “cancel” and the thought energy dissipates and you can offer a prayer thought, the non-denominational variety, that basically says, “I release into the light any negativity created by my thought and ask that it be transformed into a useful energy for the good of the whole.”
These are just a few of the mystical mental wanderings that come on a cold night when a mesmerizing fire frees thoughts from the “what if” file in the back of my mind.
I’ll try to be more practical tomorrow. I’m off now to dream of Leprechauns and Unicorns.
Energy follows thought means ultimately all thought is creative or creating and continues once the thinker abandons it. If the intention is the yeast, then the dough energy component has the potential to manifest into a creation on the canvas of time.
This kind of thinking gets a little convoluted in its possible consequences, but you get the principle of the idea. OK, it’s a little weird too.
The idea is that once you think about something, what if that thought bounds around the universe bumping into and attracting like thought patterns that end up in a mishmash junk yard of collective possibilities? Hopefully, the thought trash heap is somewhere at the edge of the universe and away from any disorder the original thought could have created. It may be out of the way, but it’s still there.
I have no idea whether it could or could not happen, but I don’t want to take any chances with any errant or ill-conceived thoughts hanging out with other like-minded energy guys down at the corner of space, so what do I do?
I'm told there are two antidotes if you don't like your thought; all you have to do is say “cancel” and the thought energy dissipates and you can offer a prayer thought, the non-denominational variety, that basically says, “I release into the light any negativity created by my thought and ask that it be transformed into a useful energy for the good of the whole.”
These are just a few of the mystical mental wanderings that come on a cold night when a mesmerizing fire frees thoughts from the “what if” file in the back of my mind.
I’ll try to be more practical tomorrow. I’m off now to dream of Leprechauns and Unicorns.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Sensory Observations
I was in New York City the other day for a luncheon meeting with a friend of many years.
As I walked several blocks from the subway to a restaurant, I looked at all people differently. New York City is peopled with many races; White, Black, Asian, Indian, Hispanic and all cultures and races in-between.
New York has a large black population, but blacks are still a minority population in this city.
When I was in Nairobi, Kenya a couple of years ago, Caucasian was not even a minority race. Caucasian was an anomaly, and I felt the difference. It was not a negative feeling, but more of an observational and sensory one. Maybe it was just me, but I felt I stood out in the crowd so to speak. I was never fearful; it only felt different.
The proportional difference between blacks and whites in New York City is far more than that of whites to blacks in Kenya. In Kenya, it was possible for me to travel miles and hours and not see another white person.
In the one to one of health-care in Kenya we were all one. In the political discussions of what should and could be done is where the oneness diverges.
In New York, I watched all people more closely than I ever did before. I looked at black mothers and fathers on the subway with their kids, and I did so with a new awareness and appreciation.
I saw tenderness, concern, and caring. I knew it was always there, but I was not as aware of it as I was yesterday. I watched family interactions with admiration and with the distant memory of covering the civil rights movement in the sixties. Back then, as a young reporter, I covered services in Black churches and listened to preachers call for justice and righteousness in an affirmative chorus of “Amen’s.”
I have a wiser appreciation of human identity and dignity the older I get.
I think one has to experience being a minority before one can understand that minority and majority should mean nothing. The only things that are truly important in life anywhere are smiles, courtesy, dignity, tolerance, equal opportunity and the unconditional acknowledgment of the sameness of being.
As I walked several blocks from the subway to a restaurant, I looked at all people differently. New York City is peopled with many races; White, Black, Asian, Indian, Hispanic and all cultures and races in-between.
New York has a large black population, but blacks are still a minority population in this city.
When I was in Nairobi, Kenya a couple of years ago, Caucasian was not even a minority race. Caucasian was an anomaly, and I felt the difference. It was not a negative feeling, but more of an observational and sensory one. Maybe it was just me, but I felt I stood out in the crowd so to speak. I was never fearful; it only felt different.
The proportional difference between blacks and whites in New York City is far more than that of whites to blacks in Kenya. In Kenya, it was possible for me to travel miles and hours and not see another white person.
In the one to one of health-care in Kenya we were all one. In the political discussions of what should and could be done is where the oneness diverges.
In New York, I watched all people more closely than I ever did before. I looked at black mothers and fathers on the subway with their kids, and I did so with a new awareness and appreciation.
I saw tenderness, concern, and caring. I knew it was always there, but I was not as aware of it as I was yesterday. I watched family interactions with admiration and with the distant memory of covering the civil rights movement in the sixties. Back then, as a young reporter, I covered services in Black churches and listened to preachers call for justice and righteousness in an affirmative chorus of “Amen’s.”
I have a wiser appreciation of human identity and dignity the older I get.
I think one has to experience being a minority before one can understand that minority and majority should mean nothing. The only things that are truly important in life anywhere are smiles, courtesy, dignity, tolerance, equal opportunity and the unconditional acknowledgment of the sameness of being.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Seeing and Doing
Within the human spirit, there is an intrinsic, yet often-obscured desire to be of service. Service can be defined as an instantaneous response to a need or a simple observation that one can do a kindness. We see it all the time in selfless acts of courage when heroic action is spontaneous in saving a life or some other act of bravery. Philosopher Joseph Campbell calls it “a moment when you and the other are one, ” and nothing could change it even to the point of death.
Somewhere deep within our soul we acknowledge that we are individuals existing in the illusion of time but within an earthly density of a created and collective oneness. We are individual drops in the amniotic ocean of being. We are the individuation of the indivisible. We subconsciously, spiritually, know that life experience is not singular, but collective and somewhere in our awareness we know that if even one of us minutely achieves, all of us do.
Response to need is a simple process, but difficult to sustain on a daily basis when we have to contend with the duties of living, myopic worry and the ego’s constant harassment for self-aggrandizement. There are ways around the ego’s chicanery, but not many of us choose to be a mystic and master the art of meditation and its precipitate subjugation of the ego-self.
So, how to be practical in the request to help?
One way is to believe that “thought” has a power or energy. Good thoughts have positive power, and bad thoughts have negative influences. These thoughts, these pieces of energy, can be sent by the mind, in the envelope of good will, to any recipient and it will have an impact. Religions would call it prayer, but holistic physician Dr. Larry Dossey, in his book “Healing Words” calls it a general sense of well-being for another and has proven the power of positive thought with scientific experiments.
Our thought energy does not have to be specific but should have the imprimatur of well-being. Since we are part and parcel of the creating Source, we can leave the specifics of the solving to the omniscience of unconditional love, but the power we create and send through graceful thoughts becomes a free-will energy to manifest as solutions, compromises, and accomplishments.
Another way to answer the call to help is to do so within our sphere of influence for that too will affect the whole. To the observant, not a single day passes without numerous opportunities to serve. There’s the story of the little five-year boy who wanted to help an elderly neighbor whose wife just died. Upon returning home, his Mother asked what did he do to help. The child replied, "I sat on his lap and helped him cry."
Service is as simple as that. Poet William Wordsworth wrote, “…Even the daisy by the shadow it casts protects the lingering due drop from the sun.
In this time of change, it is more important than ever that each of us be of service to the whole. Act on it when you see it an opportunity.
Somewhere deep within our soul we acknowledge that we are individuals existing in the illusion of time but within an earthly density of a created and collective oneness. We are individual drops in the amniotic ocean of being. We are the individuation of the indivisible. We subconsciously, spiritually, know that life experience is not singular, but collective and somewhere in our awareness we know that if even one of us minutely achieves, all of us do.
Response to need is a simple process, but difficult to sustain on a daily basis when we have to contend with the duties of living, myopic worry and the ego’s constant harassment for self-aggrandizement. There are ways around the ego’s chicanery, but not many of us choose to be a mystic and master the art of meditation and its precipitate subjugation of the ego-self.
So, how to be practical in the request to help?
One way is to believe that “thought” has a power or energy. Good thoughts have positive power, and bad thoughts have negative influences. These thoughts, these pieces of energy, can be sent by the mind, in the envelope of good will, to any recipient and it will have an impact. Religions would call it prayer, but holistic physician Dr. Larry Dossey, in his book “Healing Words” calls it a general sense of well-being for another and has proven the power of positive thought with scientific experiments.
Our thought energy does not have to be specific but should have the imprimatur of well-being. Since we are part and parcel of the creating Source, we can leave the specifics of the solving to the omniscience of unconditional love, but the power we create and send through graceful thoughts becomes a free-will energy to manifest as solutions, compromises, and accomplishments.
Another way to answer the call to help is to do so within our sphere of influence for that too will affect the whole. To the observant, not a single day passes without numerous opportunities to serve. There’s the story of the little five-year boy who wanted to help an elderly neighbor whose wife just died. Upon returning home, his Mother asked what did he do to help. The child replied, "I sat on his lap and helped him cry."
Service is as simple as that. Poet William Wordsworth wrote, “…Even the daisy by the shadow it casts protects the lingering due drop from the sun.
In this time of change, it is more important than ever that each of us be of service to the whole. Act on it when you see it an opportunity.
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
What I'm thankful for...
I'm thankful for:
The true blue dream of sky - thank you e.e. cummings.
The fragrance of flowers.
The gift of life and the individual ways we can choose to live
it.
The memories of living and passed loved ones.
The love and experiences of sons.
The love and experiences of grand-daughters.
Each breath I take.
Each taste I enjoy.
Each friend I talk too.
My puppy McGee.
The awareness of All That Is and his/her unconditional love.
The power of following one’s passions.
The miracle of difference and the oneness of all.
Discernment.
The love I feel from Spirit.
The rejuvenating quench of water.
The mystery of endings.
The sound and action of ocean waves.
And so much more. The Iroquois confederacy embraced a thankful
ceremony that lasted three days. As they danced and chanted they thanked
everything they could think of. I wonder if each of us thanked everything we
could think of; would we have a less contentious society?
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