A Welcome at the Pearly Gates

 

Jimmy Carter October 1, 1924--December 29, 2024, 39th President of the US.

 

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, tandem in life for 77 years.

 

Jimmy Carter was still hands-on building homes for Habitat for Humanity and could pound in a nail in about 4 strokes until he was 95.

 

In an interview with Thom Hartmann on July 30, 2015, Carter said this:

"It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it's just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and, U.S. senators and congress members.

So now we've just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election. …

The incumbents, Democrats, and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody already in Congress has much more to sell to an avid contributor than somebody who's just a challenger."

 

I did not know of his book until today.

 This version  of Carter's book is available on Kindle for Free, it is now in my library.

Carter describes his reactions to recent disturbing societal trends that involve both religious and political worlds as they increasingly intertwine and include some of the most crucial and controversial issues of the day. Many of these matters are under fierce debate. They include preemptive war, women's rights, terrorism, civil liberties, homosexuality, abortion, the death penalty, science and religion, environmental degradation, nuclear arsenals, America's global image, fundamentalism, and the melding of religion and politics.

Holy Moley this sounds like now.

You rock Jimmy.

One moment ago, I looked up from my computer—maybe I could type and still look out to the glow of sunlight that painted itself on our backyard. Have you noticed that the moment you say something, there is another moment? I figure the sun shone on the Dark Ages, too. It's strange; I always thought of the Dark Ages as dark, yet the sun didn't stop because people reverted to their most base nature. It just kept on supporting life on its planet.

Yep, without the sun, we wouldn't be.

Without the atmosphere, water, O2, breathing, and eating, we wouldn't be either. Yet we are fixated on our controllers, those in power who want to control us. What is there to say about this? It's an old story. Money talks.

So, I picked up the old Science of the Mind guy, Ernest Holmes, and read:

 

 "There is a source of good in the world, and you can use it."

That's refreshing.

How often have you spewed out some positive sentiment only to have the person to whom you spewed, discount it? It's discouraging, isn't it? I understand, though, that people resonate with the energy they are feeling at the time—like sometimes you are jiving with a song, and another time you turn it off because it annoys you.

Then, we want information that supports our point of view. 

Remember, if new information didn't come to us, we wouldn't grow. And I have concluded--to repeat myself--that I do not believe people are broken and need to be fixed. They need to grow.

Isn't that what we want to grow, become better, wiser, optimistic, resilient, generous, and kind?

Viktor Frankl, the holocaust survivor, said, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom."

I know you have access to great gobs of information via the Internet, and you don't need me to spew. However, I feel that sitting down and chatting with a friend has value and can warm our cockles—I guess cockles refer to heart chambers.

If I could, I'd offer you a cup of coffee and an ottoman to prop up your feet, but I'm sitting at my desk and you are sitting...where?

 Frequently I talk about creation with my grandson, so it is on my mind, and the other day, I was struck by reading this sentence:

"Out in space worlds are being made."

Where is the stuff of worlds coming from?

"Stardust," say some. That means that old broken up stars are being recycled. But where did they come from? Einstein said that "Matter is neither made nor destroyed." You could argue that a Creator could create the stuff at will, or we could accept Einstein's theory that it always was.

I might be rambling, but I do have a point. We could be grateful for the air, the water, the food, shelter, computers, family, lovers, spouses, children, pets, beautiful trees, flowers…

We could believe that there is a source of good in the world, and we can use it.

I want to live in joy, are you with me?

 

 

P.S. Maybe my mother didn't name me Joyce for no reason.

 

A 77 year romance.

 

 

Why is it Embarrassing to Wet Your Pants?

 

This picture doesn’t have much to do with this blog, except that I like it, it features a bathroom, and it could direct you to my book Where Tigers Belch. On top of that I was born in the Chinese Year of the Tiger.

 

“I laughed so hard I wet my pants.”

Well, that’s allowed. It must have been a good joke.  But any other time, it’s embarrassing.

And nobody wants to be wet.

Most parents are patient in training their child to pee in the prescribed place, and not to soil their underwear. Yet somehow it became shameful to have an accident. I remember a poor little girl in my second grade who, standing at the front of the room, wet her pants, and as she was dressed in the required skirt, the entire class saw the water splatter. What frightened that little girl so badly it scared her bladder? The teacher was a nun, and we students couldn’t imagine a nun ever going to the bathroom. Every child in the room was happy it had not happened to them. I bet every child of that class remembers it to this day.

Then you wonder how the rocket launch of a baby going through the birth canal can leave all the cables intact. You know, before birth control, women were having 10 -12 maybe more babies. Babies were “Gifts from God,” but a fertile couple who had many children, were considered poor and uneducated. (And kept poor because of all the mouths they had to feed.) The pressures we put on women—like the rape/incest, no abortion/the two wrongs don’t make a right attitude.

I read that Eleanor Roosevelt, being Catholic, used staying away from her husband as a means to avoid another pregnancy. In the first decade of their marriage, Eleanor was pregnant five times, four within the first four years. She had six children. It took a heavy toll physically and emotionally. When one of their children died in infancy, Eleanor fell into such deep mourning that she later wrote of feeling a bitterness toward her husband for a time.

My dear dentist boss sent a dozen roses to his mother on his birthday as thanks for not stopping after 10 babies, for he was the 11th. And his mother was a little woman. I’m not saying that any person born should not be here.  I’m into choices.

But I was talking about incontinence—that is, lack of bladder control.

Why am I talking about incontinence? Well, it’s on my mind. And I am reading the book the Bath Room Key by Kathryn Kassai (A Physical Therapist) and Kim Perelli—that is information on strengthening the pelvic floor. If we can talk about religion, politics, traumas, fears, how to become better people, or how to become enlightened, a good How- to book would be How-To avoid Wet Pants. Plus we can learn not to laugh or ridicule a person who has a wetting accident; first, you scare them, and then you laugh at them. Ridicule is one of the most feared punishments.

In tribal times, ridicule often became ostracization. A person kicked out of the tribe, essentially became lion fodder. Same with wild horses. Their worst fear is being pushed out of the herd.  And that is why they can become herd-bound. It’s instinctual.

Isn’t it amazing that animals, especially dogs, can train their bladders to wait until the door opens for them to go outside?

Dogs of working people usually manage being indoors for eight hours. And a cat can hold it until he reaches the potty box.

Why is human lack of bladder control such a widespread problem? Although I have learned that it always has been to some degree, just hidden. Some African cultures send a woman to her own hut when she becomes incontinent because she has an odor. (Lack of water for cleanliness?)

It is predicted that in China, for this year 2025, adult diapers will outsell baby diapers.

Incontinence isn’t only a woman’s problem. Although men are more apt to tell their doctors they have a bladder problem sooner than women. Women, on average, hide incontinence for 8 years before telling their doctors. Women struggle with pads, waking numerous times in the night, frequent trips to the bathroom, mapping out where store bathrooms are, fearing or avoiding some social activities like dancing. Geesh, before babies, I could flip on a trampoline and ride a horse’s trot.

And then there was a boy in my peripheral family who was repeatedly struck with a belt or a rubber hose to beat the bed-wetting out of him. Don’t do that. Children aren’t wetting the bed out of laziness or disrespect. Shame and punishment don’t work. They can’t help it.

And gently teach your puppy. Don’t hit a puppy for accidents; show him outside. It takes learning to get the idea. And we can train our bladders to wait for a convenient time. (Well, some of us can.)

I’ve been reading The Bathroom Key by Kathryn Kassai (Physical therapist) and Kim Perelli, and I will put some information from it on my other website. https://goddesses50andbeyond.blogspot.com/

Bio-feedback might be a way to go. I will look into it. Probably, your doctor will tell you, “Do Kegels, Do Kegels,” until you are blue in the face. After my vision training experience where we exercise, do the drills, and be faithful to our routines, still, until we FEEL what is happening, we don’t make the mind/body connection.

More to come on this.