Pages

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

I Wish for You Funny or Enlightened. You Choose


The Pink Flamingo riding a motorcycle is a Christmas ornament from my daughter. It signifies that The Pink Flamingos (us) are on Sabbatical. (Vibrance Real Estate LLC.) We don't ride motorcycles, but you get the spirit of them—freedom.

Incidentally, before Christmas, I parked beside a bevy of Harley Davidson motorcycle riders, about 20 or so, at a stop light. Every one of the riders was dressed in some replica of a Santa outfit, red boots with white furry tops, lights in a Santa hat, colored lights on their bike, Santa pants—gotta show their Harvey jackets, though. They were turning to go onto the freeway, and I was going straight, so I got the full benefit of them. A girl-rider and I gave each other a thumbs up, the light turned to green, the Santa lookalikes rived their ear-splitting motors, entered an on-ramp, and disappeared down the freeway, red hats waving in their wake.

Here we are on the last day of the year, and it's Tuesday, I think—I lose track.

Remember the Christmas pageants of Jesus being born, Mary and Joseph, the Shepherds, and the wise men, all that? I was distracted a few moments ago by a fabulously funny, quirky blog by Allie Brosh titled Hyperbole and a Half. I laughed at her version of the nativity. As a kid she looked forward to the pageant—but it was lame, so she went home and enrolled grandparents, and parents into her own rousing version—yelling at the innkeeper, wise men with no gifts, baby Jesus came flying in from stage right—since she didn’t know anything about childbirth—all that. I was glad I was sitting down.

Laugh yourself into the day—let's try that tomorrow on the first day of the year. I'll try. You try, and let's see what we come up with. Let's have fun and be nice again.  

During Christmas shopping on the day before Christmas Eve, I visited Barnes and Noble Bookstore—a coffee shop in a bookstore is one of my favorite things. After upgrading my buying card, where they gave me a great canvas book bag for free, 


I sat down for a break with a cup of coffee and began reading one of their books.

To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, one day, long ago, when my husband was studying at Lindfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, we attended the student production of Inherit the Wind. I still remember the superb actor who played Clarence Darrel, the lawyer defending the science teacher, John Scopes, who was prosecuted in 1925 for teaching evolution in a Tennessee public school. Darrel lost the trial but won the war—they now teach evolution in schools.

When Darrel slapped two books together, the Christian Bible and Darwin's Origin of the Species, stuck them under his arm and walked off stage, I felt I was hit by an anvil.

On some level, I knew science and religion didn't have to argue, but it took years to integrate them.

With that mindset, I picked up the book those two days before Christmas, and began reading The Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes. It was the combined 1926 version and the expanded 1938 version, as heavy as the dictionary I used to carry to English class because I was a poor speller. We students would get an F on our essays if two words were misspelled. However, we were allowed to use a dictionary, and thus, I passed the class.

When I read Holmes' words, we shouldn't accept the ideas presented by some who say that the world is full of hatred and all is rotten. "Your work," he said, "is to not to go there." I silently screamed, "I need this book!"

It was an expensive book by today's standards now that we are used to Kindle versions, and that book was two inches thick, at 776 pages—but I bought it and gave it to myself for Christmas.

Let's do a little sleuthing with the help of old Ernest Holmes. Interesting last name, Holmes.

The writer of Genesis in the Christian Bible says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God."

And he made everything and it was good.

According to Holmes, great thinkers of all times have taught that we live in a threefold universe: Body, Mind, and Spirit.  I always thought that was the holistic approach to health, treating all aspects of the person, mind, body, and spirit.

Yet, all around, we see threesome aspects. In science, it is Intelligence, Substance, and Result. (Or Idea, development, success)

The Law of Attraction says, Ask, Believe, Receive.

The Trinity of the Bible says the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Bible began by saying that God was the word. If we said that the Holy Spirit is the word of God, and God the Father is the one who gets things done, then the Son would be the result.

These are models, folks. We read for fun or enlightenment—here’s a little of both.

Earlier I mentioned that the arbor in our front yard blew over. See that long package on the table? That's our new arbor. Daughter's present to me.



 

Friday, December 27, 2024

Are We Having Fun Yet?



Who is reading me? I see that people are, but I don't know who.

My readership escalated when I was posting my memoir, or ranting about politics, but now my readership has dropped.

So has my writing about politics.

And I see that I'm not the only one tired of politics. Other people are tired of hearing about the shenanigans in high places.  We need a break. We are tired of feeling depressed over the election. We are tired of reading or listening to name-calling, lies, manipulations, the throwing of power around.  

And who voted Musk into office? Are you happy with him buying an election?

And then he was asking for a shutdown of the Government when he and his cronies weren't in office yet. Do we think that riches equate to governing savvy?

I have heard that doctor pilots often crash because they get the idea that because they are brilliant in one area, they are competent in all.

While we don't want to be engaged with the process, we do not wish to lessen our resolve to improve things, to take care of our people, to preserve our personal liberties, and not abandon our principles.

Some are afraid if we lighten up, we will stop caring.

We’re afraid it might be like buying a house; at first, we see what we want to change, all the improvements we’ll make. It seems critical. After a while, the flaws don't bother us. We get used to it. And then the media will sane wash whatever we were concerned about. We will drop into “Oh well.”

As Biden pardons or commutes death row prisoners to life in prison. T wants to up the death penalty. As T wants to ship off Immigrants, you know, those drug dealers, murderers, and rapists--why does he keep talking about them while  filling his cabinet positions with men with nefarious sexual repetitions. Then Musk says we need more immigrants, for we will lose our workforce.

We could have a clash of the Titans.

And stop saying we are lazy fat Americans living in squalor with immigrants eating our pets (lie) and raping, murdering and drugging us. Stop turning us against each other. We’re better than that. And we are more sophisticated that to believe we should kill people to punish them. (Folks, Capital punishment means cutting off a person’s head.) Stop putting women down, threatening her by withholding medical care, or when some male who got her pregnant could then stop her from getting out of it she so chooses. Can you kill a soul? Does the soul enter the zygote at the moment of conception. And stopping the morning after pill, for heaven’s sake, sometimes the ovum isn’t even fertilized yet, at least not implanted.

Plus, this "Alpha Male" thing is ridiculous. It is an insult to the strong, kind men of America. In the wild, an Alpha Male takes care of his tribe, herd, or pack. He is the protector, not the perpetrator.  And a pack that works together is stronger than one that is squabbling.

With horses, the strongest stallion stands as a sentinel, guarding the herd from predators so the herd can graze contentedly. He wants a happy herd. (And breeding rights, of course.) He doesn't keep them in a frenzy, scaring them, lying to them. He doesn't threaten them by saying he will ship them off or lock them up if they don't behave. He sends the young ones off to Momma to educate them.

It's the matriarch of the herd, the older mare who runs the daily business of living, raising the children, and teaching the male foals to be gentlemen. But we couldn't have a woman in office, could we?

And teach those" Alpha men" about biology and the environment and how to preserve the planet upon which we live. Have they forgotten they won't live in their underground bunkers for long if the earth becomes uninhabitable? And they can’t eat money?