What’s been going on here?
Believe it or not I have actually been pondering the notion of sitting down everyday and putting my thoughts down. Yah, I know I’ve said that before. I think it’s been about 8 months since my last effort and a lot has happened since then.
What, you ask, we’ll let me list the things: figuring out the new place we live; getting used to not being where we were for almost 30 years; stepping up activity in the church we joined; doctor appointments, lots of doctor appointments; interesting issues related to our growing family; never ending political squabbling with an up coming election; oh, and don’t let me forget the Coronavirus outbreak. Where do I begin? How about figuring out our new place?
Sun City West, Arizona. Wow, when you drive around and see it for the first time it appears to be like it’s a big resort. You know, the kind you pay big money to visit for a week or two in the winter. There’s golf courses, tennis and pickle ball courts, workout areas, swimming pools, fancy dog parks, bocce ball courts, miniature golf courses, wood shops, metal shops, auto restoration clubs, and the list goes on and on and on. The only difference between the winter resort you pay big money to visit and here is people live here, they don’t cycle in and out every week or two. After you’ve been here for a while you begin to notice that in addition to appearing to be like a big resort you also become keenly aware of the fact that the average age of the residence is up there pretty far. Duhhh, it’s a 55 and over community. There are walkers and canes galore, gray hair if there is hair, continuous discussion of health issues, and dying neighbors – yes dying neighbors. Before we moved, a few people mentioned in passing that they would never want to live in a place like this because there are too many old people, it’s not diverse enough. I always thought that was kind of disrespectful and uppity thing to say but I never really understood what awareness of our senior adult population was all about until I moved here. When you compare this community to typical communities it takes very little time to become aware of the fact that in our general population when you reach this age you are basically become dismissed and/or irrelevant. You are not on the radar screen any longer except for advertisements aimed at erectile dysfunction or incontanence products. That was a surprise.
The Distraction of Time…..
Let’s get this out right now, I’m a fairly conservative fellow – just so you know.
In a couple more months I’ll be 64 years old, so I guess that makes me both old and conservative. I can tell you that I have never been more discouraged by the public dialog than I am now. Oh sure there has been frustration from time to time: the “Nixon lied” years, out of control interest rates with Jimmy Carter, Monica Lewinski, and “W”, but never has there been such an outright disintegration of dialog as we are now experiencing. The sad part is very few folks, at least the ones who have anything to say about it, are saying anything about “IT”.
Why the disintegration? Is it because of social media and the explosion of virtual relationships where there really isn’t much invested with the delivery of a disparaging remark by the touch of a “send” button as opposed to a face to face delivery where the possibility of rebuttal exists, or is it the 24 hour news cycle and the continual bombardment by what often turns out to be opinion disguised as “news”, or maybe it’s the fact, yes fact, that now only about one in three folks say they have any religious affiliation demonstrating the subsequent loss of value placed on what was once held dear? What is it?
I submit to you it has something to do with our culture, a culture that’s evolved as a result of our affluence. Affluence that has enabled folks at all levels to exchange someone else’s resources, either parents, family, neighbors, or society in general, for the time to be drawn into second tier causes, causes that fall under the category of respectable but not essential.
I can already hear the outrage at describing someone else’s cause as “second tier”. Allow me to clarify, if I might. Think of the sinking Titanic. An essential cause that night was getting folks safely off the sinking craft and into a life boat, a respectable cause was trying to make sure no one used the “F” word in all the chaos. It’s about priorities and getting folks to agree on what the focus should be without keeping score.
The problem begins when, for what ever reason (I think it’s affluence), eyeballs have been taken off the ball and instead they are focused on the interesting noise in the stands. When this happens the next thing the batter hears is the ball smacking the catchers mitt and “strike three, you’re out of here”.
Come on people, lets get our heads back in the game. We can figure out what the interesting noise in the stands is after our turn at bat!
Last Things
I’ve been thinking a lot about “last things” recently. I guess what got me steered in this direction is the fact that we find ourselves at the beginning of the “last” official weekend of the summer again.
Diane and I are heading out of town on Monday for our “last” official fling of the summer, the annual Lanesboro bike riding extravaganza and as a result there’s a number of things to do and take care of before we leave. One of those things is mowing the yard.
If you’re like me you have a system when you do that. For me it’s filling up the mower with gas, rolling up the hoses and picking up the dog crap. That’s where it got interesting this time. You see, our dog Helga was put down yesterday. What does that have to do with anything, you ask.
When I first started the mowing project, I didn’t think it had anything to do with anything. But after I filled up the mower, rolled up the hoses, and stepped into the backyard with my shovel and bucket I began weeping uncontrollably when I couldn’t find any crap to pick up. I immediately thought of our “sweet girl” Helga and how just one short week ago I had a whole bucket full of goo and slime and crap and now there was nothing except an empty bucket and the memory of our “sweet girl”. How is it possible, that the coming to fruition of one of my fondest desires, not having to pick up dog crap again, could be such a painful occurrence? How is it possible that I was actually weeping about not being able to remember the last pile of her crap I picked up when she was still alive?
I think the lesson here is that it is a good thing for us to mindful of all things at all times because more likely than not some of those things will be last things and sometimes those things will have something to do with other things quite possibly very dear to our heart.
Therefore, be mindful of things, all things, while you can, for you never know which of those things will be “last” things.
One of the things I found my self missing today was Helga’s “last” crap in the back yard. Hmmmmmm……..
Churches
I’ve been reading a book by Richard Rohr titled “Everything Belongs”. There’s a chapter that’s called “Don’t Push the River”. Now, for what ever reason, I started thinking about churches as I read the chapter. Maybe it’s because Diane and I have been looking for a new place to settle into.
After about a month and a half of looking around I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two types of churches. There are ones that know who they are and ones that are trying to figure out what church is these days.
The ones that know who they are are comfortable with saying, out loud if they have to, “We are the church, come have church with us, it’s not that bad.”
The ones that are trying to figure out what church is these days look into your eyes and try to figure out what you think they want them to look like. After going through that exercise they devise a program that, if successful, will give them a vehicle to have church without you knowing it. Oh, they will certainly slip some “churchy” stuff in, but the goal is to have church without anybody knowing it.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting kind of funny already 😉
It’s come to this?
Last night on the news there was a story about a family in Massachusetts who went out to experience a pretty Fall afternoon. Seems that the mom, dad, and two small children thought a good way of enjoying the season would be to go to the country participate in a Corn Maze. That’s where it all went south.
Seems the oldest small child got upset after they were some 10 to 20 minutes into the one hour adventure. It got so bad, I mean the screaming and crying, that mom and dad got too confused to find their way back, which, by the way, was almost 25 ft from a road. So the question then becomes what does a family lost in a Corn Maze on a beautiful fall afternoon in the Massachusetts country side do? Yip, they call 911 to be rescued so Junior doesn’t have to deal with the possibility of PTSS rearing it’s ugly head at some point down the line.
What am I missing here?
Tenga familia
We went to the play “Over the River and Through the Woods” with some friends last night. Wow! It was one of those experiences that hit both of us powerfully & unexpectedly.
Perhaps it’s our station in life, you know – aging, with all the fun that comes with that. Fatigue, chronic pain, sore muscles, artificial body parts, the empty nest not being quite as much fun as it first was, the leaves beginning to fall, summer projects not done yet and it’s October 1st, the cool autum air reminding us of another winter soon to come, did I mention shoveling snow? Then there’s the kids.
The play shined a bright light on the differing expectations of generations, particularly the grand parent/grand kid set as it related to what it means to have a family.
As we drove home the four of us wondered out loud whether or not we, the generation between these two generations, with all we have given our kids – education, world travel, high powered career opportunities, have screwed it all up.
Have we destroyed the glue that has held everything together?
As we look around at where are, we think we might have.
Are you pushing my leg?
Some years ago, a good friend of mine, Erich Draht, coined a phrase that I have used frequently since. The phrase is “Are you pushing my leg”.
This afternoon, when I heard the UN has decided to expand their NYC facilities with a high rise expansion that will displace a park and that we, the American taxpayers, quite likely will be invited (expected) to pay for, I thought “Are you pushing my leg?”
The cost of this expansion is estimated to be nearly one half billion dollars. Yip, $500,000,000. What a bunch a crap. Especially when you consider that some of the leaders of this organization (at least assumed leaders) are some what questionable when you look at where their countries have come from. Check it out for your self in what ever format you want.
This is CRAP!!!!!
Are you pushing my leg???????
Birthday Tirade
I’m sitting here this morning by the fire with a cup of coffee taking it easy and doing a little surfing on my semi new iPad (after all it is my birthday). One thing led to another and I ended up diving in to one of the professional networking sites I belong to. Have you ever just meandered through one of those sites checking out the historical details of the participants?
I noticed there’s a new jargon associated with work experience. It’s seems that the more obscure you can make what it is you have exactly done the better – have you noticed that? Everybody is entrepreneurial , a developer, a coordinator, strategic, a launcher, good at team stuff, motivational, a communicator, and my new favorite, a synergy leverager. WTH does all this BS even mean?
I guess it’s another example of the influence the cottage industry turned keeper of the gate of actually doing something, “marketing & communications”, has come to have. Are we to believe that all you really have to do is figure out a way wrap things up in shiny words and then the ground work has been laid for things to magically accomplished – the heavy lifting has been done? If that is so then the notion of actually walking the talk has evaporated in to a mysterious irritating cloud that floats over what used to be a community of folks who actually made stuff that could be touched and took effort to lift.
There, I feel better.
Hmmmmmmm !
We just got back from the 10th anniversary of the annual DJK/MJP Holiday Season dinner out with our wives. Although I’m not sure we share the same political position I’m pretty sure we come from the same place on a variety of issues – both couples that is.
During dinner I discovered we all agreed that there was more than just a little sunshine being pumped up you know where lately. Example: December had one of the lowest consumer confidence numbers in a while and at the same time consumer holiday spending was the best in years. Another example: while jobs continue to be shipped over seas there are drums beating for how important it is for us all to buy local.
Perhaps someone can help me understand these things. Anybody?
Is Anybody Out There? 
Truth telling and true things…….
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I’ve noticed recently that there seems to be a lot of baloney being spewed about. It’s everywhere, pick any TV news channel, Good Morning America, the Today Show, name one. People are going out of their way to say true things, but they are not telling the truth. Let me explain.
Perhaps it’s a function of the plethora of “communication” degrees being crapped out of our institutions of higher education. Just what the hell is a “Communications” degree anyway? I just looked it up on the Google, here’s what I found out.
“Its a great career choice if you:
– Have an innate desire to understand and synthesize what you hear into a message you or someone else can use.
– you have strong writing and verbal skills.
– You display a caring, helpful attitude; a desire to teach or inform; a never ending curiosity about what’s going on around you.”
Hmmmmmm, sounds a lot like leveraging synchronicity to me.
Written by Mike
December 30, 2014 at 1:15 pm
Posted in General Comments