What if...

What if there is no heaven, no spiritual afterlife, no freeing of the soul from its physical body to seek another plane of existence? What if when you draw your last breath and your heart beats its last…it truly is over? You would feel no sorrow because you wouldn’t feel at all. There would be no guilt over anything done or not done. There would be no regrets, no what ifs, no what might have beens, no disappointments lingering in your soul…because you wouldn’t have one. You…would be over. You would never know that you ever existed. To you it wouldn’t matter how richly or poorly you felt you lived your life or how you treated people or how people treated you because you…no longer exist. There would be no memories, no thoughts to look back fondly on, no judgement…no nothing. Your spirit and its amazing beauty, wonder, curiosity and capability to love, hate, hurt and heal…would stop with that last breath and beat. The end.
I find that odd. I can’t quite get my hands around the thought that a being capable of creating music…would not go on…somehow…somewhere.

To a gentle soul

I’ve seen you there every day as I drive by that place along the side of road. That place just at the edge of the woods next to the pond. A new snow softly covers your resting place this morning though. I wonder if anyone else knows you’re there. Traffic flows, lives are led and days go by, time goes on, but at the edge of the woods, next to the pond lies a gentle soul at final rest. A gentle soul who will no longer walk the woods in perfect silence or leap the streams in perfect grace or wake to morning in perfect peace. A gentle soul lying still beneath new fallen snow. I wonder if anyone else knows you’re there. Come Spring, when the snow is gone there’ll be no trace of you, but I’ll know that there is a place along the road…at the edge of the woods…by the pond…where a gentle soul once lay. Sacred ground.

Painful Decisions

“Tough choices I’m telling you, hard choices. We have to make some painful decisions here,” the congressman said, as the cameras rolled and he picked a speck of lint off his $2000.00 lapel. “Government spending is out of control and we’re going to stop it right now. And we’re going to start with those pesky entitlements…if you know what I mean. All that money the government is spending on old people, kids and veterans. We can get this deficit under control if we just cut out a lot that spending the government is doing on health care and Social Security for those old folks. We’ll save a ton if we chop the money spent on food stamps and hot lunch programs. And those unemployment insurance extensions…hey…need I say more? Tough choices I’m telling you, hard choices. We have to make some painful decisions here. Sure, some are going to have to choose between buying food or making their house payment…medicine or gas to get to work…the bill for heat or the bill for electricity. Hard choices…painful decisions, but America you are not alone. We all have to make sacrifices. We all have to share in the suffering. I’m right there with you. My three-week vacation in Hawaii is a thing of the past. Two weeks in Cancun will just have to do.”

Christmas Past

Well…Christmas time is over this year. All the outside decorations are looking a little windblown and tattered. The bows along the fence are all a little crooked and the garland is sagging a bit. And a few of the twinkling lights don't seem to have any twinks left this year. As I walk past the tree I can hear the sound of dry needles tinkling as they dance on decorations while heading to the floor. It's time to once again wrap baby Jesus up in tissue paper along with Mary, Joseph, three sheep, two camels, a donkey and two of the three wise men we have left in this old nativity scene and put them in the box marked living room. All the Santas and Snowmen come off the mantle and the last of the pistachios is gone. I'll vacuum up the fallen needles and fill the house one last time the smell of Christmas tree. It's time to move into this New Year and see what it holds. It's time to put the magic away for a while…but only for a while. See, it's only 11 1/2 months until Christmas.

A Holiday Gift

Every year, just before the Holidays, the student government of my kids’ high school puts on a dinner for the residents of one of our local senior citizens centers and homeless shelters. It’s quite an affair with roast turkeys, mashed potatoes...lots of gifts, games and songs. My daughter, being Senior Class President, was very involved. She surprised me by showing up back at home about halfway through the party. As she rushed through the door I could tell she had been crying. She threw herself into my arms...shaking with tears. “Dad”, she sobbed... ”There’s an old man there with no coat and a different shoe on each foot. We have to do something”. So, we gathered up a couple of unused jackets and a pair of pretty decent tennis shoes and off she went. She came home after the party was over and stood quietly by herself in the kitchen. I put my arm around her and asked how everything went. She told me that when she gave the shoes to the old man he said, “Thank you honey. I know someone who can really use these”. She said, “But these are for you”. He smiled at her and said these words. “Thank you sweetie, but see here...I’m lucky. I already have a shoe for each foot”.
Merry Christmas.

Un...or maybe Non

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk lately, hmmm, actually it’s been a lot of very loud talk, about the Constitution. Actually, to be more specific, it’s been about what’s Un-Constitutional. Social Security… Un-Constitutional… MediCare….Un-Constitutional…Department of Education…Un-Constitutional and so on and so on. These things are not in the original Constitution. Now that’s a fact, but doesn’t Un-Constitutional, the way it’s being used, mean against the Constitution…Anti-Constitution…evil, bad and nasty? Let me suggest something else that might help tone things down a bit. Maybe some are not so Un-Constitutional as they are Non-Constitutional. Things that are not in the original Constitution…true, but are actually conceived in the same spirit as the Constitution for the good of the people of this nation. Things our founding fathers could never have imagined there would be a need for…or laws for…or regulations for…or budgets for. Which maybe, is why in their incredible wisdom, they included such thoughtful flexibility in the way Congress can conduct the business of the nation and Article 5 that allows the Constitution to be amended to grow and change as the nation grows and changes. Changes from 13 states to 50. Changes from a little under 3 million people in 1780 to over 300 million people today. Changes from a farming society, when it was a lot easier to take care of Grandma and Grandpa when you were all still together on the farm and grew your own food, to an Urban Society with family scattered all over the country. Our founding fathers could never have imagined federal highway, train and communication systems that would need to be built, maintained and regulated for the good of interstate business. They never did get their arms around the possibility that someday there might be computers, television, the internet, global corporations, the importation of food and drugs…all needing new sets of laws and regulations. They were, however, wise enough to create a guiding document that includes incredibly wise ways for us to make it all work over 250 years after the original document was drawn up. Now, are there things that are Un-Constitutional? Absolutely! Maybe however, many things that are being called Un-Constitutional are actually just Non-Constitutional… for now.

My Father's Hands

I just realized that I have my Father’s hands. I doubt though, if I’ll ever have his touch. I guess maybe Dan Fogelberg’s “Thundering Velvet Hand” described it best. Strong hands that would “Thunder” when necessary. Loving hands that would comfort when needed. Knowing hands that would guide with wisdom that could only be learned from a life lived so well. I miss those hands. I miss that touch. When I was growing up those hands taught me skills, taught me lessons, patted me on the back and…other places when needed. When I grew into a man and placed my own babies in those hands I knew there was not a safer, warmer or wiser place that they could be. I can only hope I learned enough from my Father’s hands to touch my children’s lives with at least some of the love and strength that touched mine. I just realized I have my Father’s hands.