Happiness

from Robert Mueller’s book "Most of All They Taught Me Happiness":

I have ‘decided’ to love my life, to throw in my gauntlet for it, to believe in it, to find it exalting in every respect, at every moment, from the beginning to the end.

So easy to do today. I received a few kudos at work. The sun was shining on the snow-clad mountains. The crisp air, blue sky, and crunchy snow elated me.

Selling Out?

"Buy Nothing Day" on Friday. Unfortunately that's the day I'm going to Chilliwack to see a theatre production. I've purchased the tickets in advance so that's not the issue. The dilemna is that if I'm going to Chilliwack anyway, I need to make the trip a shopping time as well. This is to cut down on fossil fuel consumption that an extra trip would cause. I'm going to Value Village, so I'm not consuming new items. This has to count for something. In fact, I took the ecological footprint test in the Sun paper last weekend and one does get credit for buying used rather than new clothing. Oh and I'm buying power smart light bulbs for our Holly Days theme basket which is all about GREEN and all about raising money for food hampers at Christmas. Oh and yesterday was a buy nothing day for me.
Man, it's tough keeping my conscience appeased in this age, but I'm working at it.

Damned if I Do, Damned if I Don't

I don't wear a poppy. I never have. It is my small protest against celebrating war. That's what Remembrance Day is to me. It doesnt't matter how it's presented, how the speeches are sometimes about peace. There is a romantic flavour to the ceremony, men and women in uniform, marching, guns, the solemnness, the respectfullness. The remembering glorifies war. "Lest we forget", are you kidding me. In all the years that we've taken this day to "remember", has it decreased conflict in any way.

I say, let's have events of peace. Let's celebrate life, the good things, the helping, the learning, the growing, the unity in the diversity. Let's fight disease more, let's fight poverty, let's fight inequality in a conflict-less, meaningful way.

Now I'm off to the Remembrance Day service in our small town because my daughter is in the high school band and the band is part of the processional. Every year that I do this, I am torn between my convictions and the need to support my daughter. I guess I don't have it in me to stand up and fight.

Getting out

Imagine being a caterpillar trying to crawl out of its coccoon before it's a butterfly. Imagine being a baby, pushing out of the womb. Imagine jumping from a plane, going through a door, coming out of a tunnel, digging out of a landslide, squeezing through a crack in the wall. Imagine climbing out of a deep sleep, swimming to the surface, becoming untied, springing from a cage. Imagine running from the dark interior into the outside. Imagine rising from the dead.

I do this every day, all day, in one way or another.