Ponderable

Garden Offerings, Better Late than Never, and a Thankful Heart

/ inkspeare
Yummy carrots (photo by M.A.D.)
Sweet potatoes that look like carrots (Photo by M.A.D.)

Here in the USA, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving Day very soon, on November 23rd. For many, it marks the start of the Holiday season; others call it Turkey Day, in reference to the main dish served, roasted turkey. When I think about it, there is so much to be thankful for, not only on that day, but every single day. From the moment I open my eyes to receive a brand-new day the simple blessings are many. Take a moment and think about it; even that first cup of coffee is a blessing not to be taken for granted.

It is easy to be thankful when everything is going well in our lives, but not so easy when things are not working as expected or when undesirable and sad events happen. It is then when a thankful heart, although difficult, will benefit us the most. It will open the door to peace within, even in the middle of the storm. Giving sincere and heartfelt thanks to our God when we feel “less blessed and challenged” will humble our soul and will be a step taken in order for us to appreciate what is good in our lives, which is plenty.

Being thankful in the midst of sad or painful situations is not easy, but it is a start, one that gets noticed by the same God that only wants to shower us with blessings. When everything is going fine in our lives, sometimes, we forget and take for granted many things, many people. We might want more, become unhappy with the status quo, and totally disregard our daily blessings. Sometimes, what brings us into focus are the same things we dread or fear, and those things become a tool to bring us back to a state of appreciation, and therefore, a grateful heart. Every day presents an opportunity to be thankful. Happy Thanksgiving Day!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace.

Romans 15:13 NIV

The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made.

Psalm 145:13 NIV

Let us come before Him with thanksgiving.

Psalm 95:2 NIV

At that Age

/ inkspeare
photo by Maria Antonia Diaz

I find myself at “that age,” when I finally feel that a bridge has been crossed, and the perspective from the other side of the bridge is very different from the side left behind. I can surely say that life takes a different meaning from that point of view. The things I wanted then are very different from the things I want now. One of “those things” that I have learned is to stop trying to “fix” people. What I thought in my younger years that people needed to hear, was not necessarily what needed to be said. Advice should not be given unless it is requested. Pretending to know what people need in their lives, how they should live or fix their problems, even when it is meant with a good heart, is wrong, especially when the advice isn’t requested. When we are young, we want to change the world and we might take that feeling and desire and translate it to offering wisdom from our “fresh” point of view, especially when the person is happy and satisfied with how a life is being lived. Why assume another person’s life is broken? Because it is not suitable to our standards? Why assume that our way is the only way, and the other person needs anything from us to be fulfilled, not left behind? Why “fix” their existence?

With age comes maturity. Many steps have been taken and the soles of one’s shoes are worn enough. I’ve stopped giving advice that is not solicited. I’ve stopped thinking that I have the right answer. I’ve learned that there is no need to prove a point, unless someone asks for my opinion. I’ve learned to love and shut up, to enjoy my way while accepting other people’s right to live their way without harming others, even when I don’t share their opinion of how they handle situations. There is a modern say, “You do you.” In a way, I understand it. It is not to say that I don’t care about what goes on, consequences, moral issues, the illnesses of a society … all of that is real, and needs to be addressed, first, in our life and circle, then by supporting the agencies that fight against the injustices and crimes committed in society, however, that is another subject, and very different from the topic of this article.

Crossing the bridge gave me a sense of peace and understanding of having been once at the other side. With peace comes understanding, with understanding, acceptance, with acceptance comes the realization that what I thought was good for me is not necessarily good for another in their own journey. Although many suggestions and opinions come from a place of love and genuine concern; however, it is not a “one fits all” reality. I might be hot-tempered at times, maybe somewhat opinionated, still dreaming of a better world, but no longer do I give or take unsolicited advice. The bridge has been crossed.

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye.”

Matthew 7:3 ESV

The Life that We Dream

/ inkspeare

“I’m standing here in summer sun, where rabbits hide, and small quail run… I listen to the prairie’s song in every breeze that comes along.” – Betty Lou Hebert, “Prairie Gentian.”

In our youth, we imagine life turning out a certain way; we are full of dreams and less experienced. We set out to conquer the world. As we mature, experiences, good and bad, have placed some weight on us, influenced our desires and dreams, and our footsteps hold firmly to the ground. Steps become steadier and more careful, less rushed, and bit more planned. Some of us find ourselves living the life we dreamed, while some of us might not, and others might be half-way there. For many of us, the life that we dreamed once might not be the life that we want to live now. Whatever the case might be, dreams remain. The adage, “When you stop dreaming you stop living,” might have a bit of truth.

From small dreams to larger dreams, it all seems to propel us forward in life, whether we want a fancy life or a simpler life. There are setbacks, new dreams, and things don’t always turn out the way we dreamed or planned for, but this doesn’t diminish the preciousness of life, and each day presents a new opportunity to dream again; each day, an opportunity to do a bit better than we did yesterday. After all, and on the way to a dream, we become our own judges, that is, in relation to our dreams in life.

What does a 90-year-old person dreams of? Maybe what we all seem to take for granted – to enjoy another day. What does a person with a terminal illness dreams of? Maybe for one more day amongst friends and loved ones. A person contemplating suicide? Perhaps for a better day, each day. In the end, no matter what one’s dreams were about or how these turned out, we seem to ask for one more day. In perspective, that is all we have, one day at a time.

Photo by M.A.D.

Columbus Day No More ?

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Yesterday, I happened to glance at the calendar in the kitchen and I saw it marked Indigenous Peoples Day. I was a bit confused for a moment, until I realized I had a woke calendar. Apparently, this is the right way to call it now because Columbus Day is offensive. It doesn’t matter anymore that the poor devil made the dangerous trip to America and put it in the map. Some say he was trying to find a new route; others say that he had other endeavors looking for riches, and lately, it is believed that he was a protector of the Jews living in the border between France and Spain, and might have been of the Jewish faith himself, which he hid, according to new letters revealing hidden symbolism. In Basque country, during that time, Basques, Jews, and Muslins lived in peace, until they were invaded by Spain. He was trying to find a safe place for his people, according to this new theory. No one will ever know for sure, I guess.

I also guess that we “old farts” should forget everything we learned at school long time ago and embrace the new ways of calling things (at the time of this writing, they are proposing to rename many military bases) because we might offend without intention a fragile soul, if we use an old concept/name. I always thought that the day celebrated or made a point of the discovery of the new world. I understand that with it, came genocide and slavery, a very sad and dark part of our history, and something we should never forget. Yesterday, we celebrated the indigenous peoples, which should have been celebrated long time ago, and not as a byproduct of wokeness.

I don’t like that in the name of being woke we are sweeping history under the rug, ignoring it, and practically erasing it. Erasing history is where the danger hides. A society that forgets where it has come from is doomed to end there one day. As for me, I will keep calling it Columbus Day, not because I like the old explorer, but because for me, it represented the day a new world was discovered, the one in which I live, and love.

One day, the world I grew up in will disappear, and things will not be called the same. Will I be deemed confused, disoriented or a candidate for senile dementia by some woke health practitioner? I can see an entire generation being misdiagnosed in their late years – “Patient does not know what day it is, makes up names for holidays, and becomes argumentative when questioned; might become combative at times, when corrected and reoriented.”

Assessing Your Strength and Building a Stronghold

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Photo by M.A.D.

I wrote this blogpost as a second part to the previous post.

After a devastating life event, how do you come back to living?

A devastating event will be different for every person, as well as its lasting effects, physically, emotionally and psychologically, as well as materially. When your life has been uprooted and turned upside down and around, how do you recover? During a life storm, everything is taken out of place, including your center, your sense of self and well-being, especially, your sense of self in relation to your Creator.

The recovery and healing process and timeline, assuming that you want it, will be different for everyone, but there are key steps that you can take to start and continue on your way up.

  • First, acknowledge the situation, what has happened, how it happened, but don’t linger on the why looking for blame. Just acknowledge it for what it is at the moment. Know that stagnation or the present condition are not forever unless you decide so.
  • Decide that you want your life back. You want to own your life again, and not be a victim of the circumstances.
  • Acknowledge that you need help, and that help doesn’t equal weakness or handouts. Help can come in many forms: as faith in a higher power, help from above, from a friend or family, from community resources or private resources …
  • Assess your strength. What is good right now? What do you have that is an asset to your healing and recovery? Whether it is in character, spirituality, people, or material resources, make a list of each blessing and look at it. You are not alone. You will feel better.
  • Start visualizing your stronghold, your safe place; it is unique to you. See it in your mind, but also in your heart, no matter how impossible or far away it may seem right now.
  • Start building your stronghold one brick at a time.
    • Brick 1 – Faith, in God and yourself. You need to strengthen it because this block will be the foundation to build over it.
    • Brick 2 – Velocity. Take it one step at a time. Learn to manage the little things first. When you are hurt and vulnerable, anything seems like a huge crisis, unsurmountable, and sometimes it is; however, when in pain, smaller issues are magnified.
    • Brick 3 – Strive for balance. When the weight is out of place, it is easy to feel off balance. Know that a sense of balance will come back as you start managing smaller issues and details one by one. It will strengthen you to keep on going and feel equilibrium. During this time, talk to God; He listens.
    • Brick 4 – Live with intention. By now, you feel a new sense of purpose and desire, even if that is only to come back to the living. Make your days count for you and your loved ones. Live intentionally each day. After all, each brand-new day is a gift the second you open your eyes. Do the best you can with what you have.
    • Brick 5 – Use any resources available to you wisely and carefully. Plan the application of these resources in your life. Don’t waste or overuse these. Develop a sense of responsibility in their inception.
    • Brick 6 – Become selective. Choose carefully the things and people you will give your full attention. This might seem common sense, however, how many times have we placed our attention on things and issues that will not benefit us, whether it relates to time management, frivolous pursuits, unfruitful projects, toxic people, toxic behavior or habits, unhealthy thoughts … Actively choose what enters your space, your sanctuary, your new stronghold. But also, what you will go after from now on, your pursuits.
    • Brick 7 – Build your financial security. This starts with an honest appreciation of your everyday blessings, whether material or immaterial. Be grateful for what you have now and learn to manage it well. Not until that will you be able to define financial health (or any other type of security) for you. However, during that time, you should be working on a few simple skills.
      • Keeping your expenses as low as you can so you can do as much as you can with what you have.
      • Managing your money/resources better. Budgeting.
      • Being intentional with every purchase and on/or below budget.
      • Eliminating your debt one step at a time. It will take time. Stay away from new debt.
      • Building savings slowly. Set an amount, even if low, to start. Savings never stop.
      • Defining your standard of living according to the needs of the stronghold you set out to build. That is why your definition of financial health is important. It will help you discard anything that does not fit in your safe stronghold, whether expensive habits, behavior, or unnecessary purchases. You cannot build a new stronghold while living in an old one that crumbled.
    • Brick 8 – Don’t focus on other people’s strongholds, mind your own. Their blessing is their blessing, yours is yours. It is easy to become distracted by other people’s wants and achievements. It is good to celebrate those and admire, even having someone successful as a mentor. However, when you take your eyes off your stronghold for too long, you will end up neglecting it and even devaluating it. Focus on continuing to build your safe place. Admire others, dream, but don’t neglect your own. This ties back to gratitude.
    • Brick 9 – Realize that stuff and money do not make you rich or more valuable, and it certainly does not make you secure. You do and are with the help of God. When you realize where your true sense of security comes from, that is when you will have built your stronghold. You might have started building it from the outside, in the material, little by little, one small step at a time, one small achievement at a time, however, you will continue to build and improve it on the inside, inside of you, and that is a lifetime’s endeavor.

You are your stronghold and in it reside God’s strength, love, and blessings, because you placed Brick 1 as the foundation.

Disclaimer: I know because I’ve been there.

Falling Up While Looking Down

/ inkspeare
Photo by MAD

The title of this blogpost may seem a contradiction, however, it is not. This blogpost is about when one experiences a life changing event, a sort of “life crash” that changes not only your life, but everything around it. A life crash might be different for every person. It is that event that touches your core, your inner being, and it can make you or destroy you. It usually comes in the form of a loss, whether of health, possessions, relationships, finances … It turns your world upside down.

In the midst of mourning your loss, and while you are still falling, it is then when you will make the most important decision. On that defining moment, when you feel that you have reached rock bottom, you will decide whether you will continue to fall up while looking down or you will stay down and never look up. If you decide to mourn your loss on your way up, you will still feel the fall and hurt, but you will be on your way to regain your balance, and later on your strong footing. With every small and unrushed decision that you make, your stance will become stronger, even when you are still hurting from that fall.

During that time of healing and recovery, faith will surely provide a foothold and a stronghold; however, still looking down on your way up is not easy but requires trust in other than yourself because you are broken down and vulnerable. Faith in a higher power and force will be the bridge that will make a big difference in recovery. Recovery of what, when your world is broken and upside down? Recovery of your self-esteem, your “feeling again,” your courage, your values, your determination, your self-knowledge, your humanity, and ultimately, your heart and soul.

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

Martin Luther King

“I shall walk in a wide space, for I have sought your precepts.”

Psalm 119:45

Monstrosities

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October is finally here, and with it, a few cooler days. We will have our first frost by Sunday, according to the local meteorologist. Those little birds were right once more. Nature knows best. If we would listen to it, we would know best too. I will be collecting what’s left on the veggie garden before Sunday, green or not. The Halloween vibes are louder this year in the stores. There are a few monstrosities on the shelves as well as on the food isles, pricing continues to go up. This weekend we will be cleaning up tons of leaves and branches left by the remnants of Ian. Thank God that is the only thing we have to clean up, because my heart truly goes out after the victims of its devastation in Florida.

Once October arrives, one tends to think of frightful things and pumpkins; it has been engrained in our culture for long. One of my favorite movies, if not my favorite, is Silver Bullet (Stephen King). When we bought this farmhouse, I found an old wooden baseball bat amongst the tall weeds. I cleaned it up and kept it, but I immediately thought of “the peacemaker” in that movie and named it so.

Inspired by Silver Bullet. Photo by M.A.D.

We got another dose of October fright when we went to pick up the pellet fuel. The increase in pricing will translate to $100 more per month ($2 more per bag) on a ton (50 bags/2,000 lbs.). We use about a ton per month. Is this type of heating worth it anymore at that increase? The electric companies are saying that the average customer will see the electric bill go up by $40-$60 a month, depending on who you listen to in the news. Will pellet stove fans revert to electric heating as a primary source? I think a wood stove or fireplace is the best choice, that is, if you chop your own wood. A cord of wood used to be around $250 on the cheap side of things, not anymore.

A month’s worth of pellet fuel. (Photo by M.A.D.)

There are lovely monstrosities as well. A week or so ago, I found the biggest mushroom I have ever seen. It was bigger than my hand, so I had to take a picture and send it to my sister.

Monster Mushroom that resembles a loaf of bread.

All this accelerated increase on the cost of living, a monstrosity, has me thinking and evaluating the way we do things around here, and looking for better alternatives. It looks like the whole nation is about to wake up and reevaluate its path, its core values, and at the home level, the paths we have taken so far, and the need to ponder and redirect our lifestyle.

Spatial Disorientation

/ inkspeare / 2 Comments
Photo by M.A.D.

We hope for fairness and constancy in life, but many times during our journey, we find ourselves on the opposite side of it, and most likely, not knowing up from down, and feeling that life has handed us the worst card, feeling sort of a spatial disorientation that numbs our senses and leaves us without a sense of direction, and many other feelings and emotions we rather not experience.

“It is not fair,” accompanies the anger and disillusion. During that time, how can we look up when we don’t even know where up is? Our compass, our radar, is not working properly. Everything might seem out of place in life, foggy, distant … It is hard to make sense of it all or make intelligent decisions. However, there is always a constant, one thing that remains the same when we don’t know our up from down, and that is the knowledge that help comes from above, wherever that might be. In an upside-down situation, help is a prayer away, and we don’t need to know our orientation because it is a matter of faith, and faith has no limits, no boundaries; spatial rules don’t apply here. When you feel that you have been handed your worst card in life, start by looking up, no matter if you don’t know your up from your down. All you need is a little bit of faith as your compass, and let God, the pilot, take you out of the storm and bring you to a safe place.

I will turn the darkness into light before them.

Isaiah 42:16

The Crossroad

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Photo by M.A.D.

One of the joys of living is not being able to tell the future. In that sense, today is the most important day of one’s life. People live and die, and whatever they live in between, that “life road” is different for everyone, even for the most dedicated and perfectionist planner. Life doesn’t give you guarantees but it may give you surprises, good and bad. How we interpret and respond to those surprises will determine the road we will take when in a crossroad. Some people go through more challenging times than other people, but no matter who you are, at least one time in your life you will be standing at a crossroad. Sometimes, the options are more generous and better than other times; however, there are times when none of the perceived options feel right.

When going left or right doesn’t seem to make sense, there is always a third road. It is the one you make when you don’t like the options. It is like leaving the paved highway and cutting through the tall grass to get to the other side. It might be rough, full of weeds and stones, and you might even encounter a few snakes here and there; however, it will be the right road taken, that is, for you, because you will pave that road with every step you take and with every lesson along the way. In the end, the solution was part of the journey. “You have arrived.”