My experiences, thoughts and their expression: mi vida

Winter is leaving...Spring just announced its entry last week, on March 20th: date of the Spring equinox in which the day and the night are equally long. From now on, the day will be longer...more daylight hours...less - brrrrr! - cold. A transition. One more transition. Trees are starting to 'come up'; bulbs are sprouting, perforating the layers of soil that covered them all these months while they...slept? The Bradford Pear trees are blooming...and their sprouts' unusual smell pervades the area, dispersed around by the cool breeze blowing in from the north, or the northwest. And the idea of renewal is in the air, everywhere. Yet, what renews has to 'die' first. Father Ed was saying yesterday (his 'groupies' met, called by dear Mathew, to celebrate watching a DVD of his sermon of 14 years (?) ago on "letting go". But letting go is a practice of death and dying. Little bits...at a time. Little moments of surrender. Inexplicable, yet comfortin...

Remember when BO was elected? Feels like a generation ago. Phew!!! Remember when we saw the helicopter of the previous Prez (hint...the "Decider"...) flying out of Washington out of the White House? Can you remember how you felt in that transition? The possibility of possibilities occurring soon, taking you and I, all of us (US as in U.S.?), the World even!, on a new course, a new life, and renewed pride in the country? And then, for how many months have you sensed all that hope disappear, day-by-day, little-by-little, as the interaction between the ' rulers ' (yes, rulers, and that includes Government , Elected Officials , and the lobbyists such as the Chamber of Commerce , Tea Party 'ers, PharMA , rabid extremist Conservatives and Republicans who act as if 'they-can-not-accept-an-intelligent-nonwhite-but-Black-President-who-can-speak-coherently-for-more-than-three-words-and-who-can-debate-with-the-best-and-knows-the-Constitution-better-than-the-penguin-dr...

The awareness of surprises being so common in my daily life, was a specially meaningful one when it arose. I could ' see ' how my day was full of sharp mini-jolts as thoughts of fear of something about to happen, or of something that was supposed to happen or to be made to happen (by me) that didn't, or 'how was it possible for me to have done something the way I had', all - were accompanied by this jolt, this sharp rebuke-like energy flashing thru my awareness in that moment. The phrase kept on reading itself in my mind.  "Learning not to be  surprised  by the ways in which you are perpetually  surprised , you will learn to  rest  in an abiding sense of confidence...in God" . How accurately descriptive of my life's experience! As I processed, I began substituting the term "surprised" with other terms, verbs, that 'belonged' in the statement "Learning not to be surprised...(then) you will learn to rest..." . The idea ca...

Surprises. Whenever I am surprised, I jump. I am startled. (I like that word: it describes well all that goes on when an unexpected element ' startles ' me. Say that I am absorbed in a task, whether reading, looking at the monitor, or even daydreaming, and someone - even those close and dear to me - comes up from behind, or from the side, or encroach somehow into my peripheral range of vision, I jump! I might  even come out with a shout: i.e., I am startled ! Well, reading this book by an author that is real 'neat'...I am chewing every paragraph, every page...he writes that " Lovers delight in surprising one another with little signs of love ". He develops the thought  further, and writes:" They know this is what love is like - always delighting in catching one another off guard with unexpected manifestations of love ". Neat!...'been there, done that', no? Well, on a return trip from Albuquerque, where we had enjoyed several talks by the ...