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Blessing and a curse

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Deuteronomy 11:26a
26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse:

Later on, we read

Deuteronomy 30:15
15 See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil.

Every day, every hour, every moment we have a choice to do what we know to be right. It isn’t a religious guilt-trip thing either. It is actually very freeing.

We have a choice to get up on time or sleep in. We have a choice to eat well, to exercise, to speak kindly to people.

The past doesn’t matter. Our family or personal history doesn’t matter.

Every day, hour, moment we have a choice. Just because we ate a piece of pie doesn’t mean we have to eat a second one. Just because we have never gone for a walk around the neighborhood doesn’t mean that now isn’t a great time for it. Just because we have never gotten along with this person doesn’t mean that today isn’t the day to give it a try.

Every moment is a new chance. Now is a new chance, a new choice.

And if we do make a bad choice, we aren’t stuck. We get another chance to turn it around.

God doubles our energy when we turn back to what we know to be right. Just like in the story of the prodigal son, God comes running to us to make up the distance when we return.

I leave you with the entire text of chapter 18 of the book of Ezekiel.

The word of the LORD came to me again: 2 “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? 3 As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. 4 Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die.
5 “If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right— 6 if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman in her time of impurity, 7 does not oppress any one, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, 8 does not lend at interest or take any increase, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between man and man,9 walks in my statutes, and is careful to observe my ordinances—he is righteous, he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD.
10 “If he begets a son who is a robber, a shedder of blood, 11 who does none of these duties, but eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, 12 oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, 13 lends at interest, and takes increase; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.
14 “But if this man begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done, and fears, and does not do likewise, 15 who does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, 16 does not wrong any one, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, 17 withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no interest or increase, observes my ordinances, and walks in my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. 18 As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity.
19 “Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. 20 The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
21 “But if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die.22 None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness which he has done he shall live. 23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? 24 But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die.
25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? 26 When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die for it; for the iniquity which he has committed he shall die. 27 Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life.28 Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. 29 Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?
30 “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. 31 Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (RSV)

Stuck inside

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Sometimes it is about using whatever tools that will work. Say you have a child that is trapped inside a building in a war zone. You want to get the child out but the child is so afraid that he has locked himself inside. He has locked the doors and put barricades over the windows. You will use any tool necessary to get inside.

I think the same thing about mental-health help. I’ll use any tool to get inside. When we are suffering with grief, anxiety, and addiction we are in a war zone. We are so afraid to leave our houses, which are all of our familiar habits. We won’t leave, even if it is the familiar habits that are harming us. The devil you know is better than the one you don’t, right?

So when you are afraid you will retreat to the things you know best. Even if it is the things you know best that are causing you pain. More accurately, they are only relieving the surface of the pain, and not the source. They aren’t addressing the cause of the pain. So the problem just builds and builds.

People who are suffering from grief, anxiety, depression, or addiction all need help, but sadly we think they need to ask for it to get it. We let them struggle alone in silence. The last thing they are going to do is ask for help, because that kind of thinking is beyond them. In fact, thinking that a) there is a way out and b) they are worthy of help – would be the way out. The fact that they think their cause is hopeless is how they got stuck in that hole to start off with.

When people are having heart attacks, we don’t wait for them to ask for help before we take them to the hospital. Why do we wait for people who are having soul-attacks to ask for help?

I envision a place where people can learn how to break themselves out of their own houses. Perhaps we have to slip instructions through the windows. Perhaps we have to play music so they can hear it through the cracks in the walls. Whatever works. If it is a book on child rearing or something from Rumi or Lao Tsu or Buddha or Jesus or AA Twelve Steps, I don’t care. Whatever works to get them out of that house.

Because that house is killing them.

People trap themselves inside addiction and bad habits out of grief. They feel a sense of loss over a divorce, over moving, over a death. Grief comes in many forms. And if not dealt with, it manifests itself in as many forms. You can’t ignore grief and loss. It has to be processed.

But so many of us get stuck inside our grief and we don’t know how to get it out. In fact, we don’t know that we should get it out. We think it is normal and it keeps us safe, while meanwhile it chokes us.

I will use any lock pick, any sledgehammer.
I will cut open the roof.
I will go down the chimney.

We have to free people and teach them how to be alive.

Will power and won’t power

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It isn’t will power.
It is won’t power.

I won’t eat another piece of pie.
I won’t get a second plate at the buffet.
I won’t let other people control my emotions.
I won’t buy that thing to make me happy.
I won’t blame other people for my anger.

But when you give up something bad, you need to fill that space with something good. Otherwise the bad habit will come back even stronger.

For example –

I won’t waste my lunchtime. I’ll go for a short walk first.

I won’t watch TV all evening – I’ll write or read instead.

Your life is yours to control. Everything you do is your choice. How you respond or react is your choice. And there are repercussions for every choice you make.

Choose wisely. This life is yours, but it is short. There is no reset button.

Mental health day

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I’ve finally realized that my job doesn’t pay me in real money. It pays me in days off. That is part of government jobs.

And while I resent having to work another 14 years before I can retire, I’ve realized that I can kind of “retire” right now. If I waited until I was able to retire, I might be too infirm to do what I want to do. If I follow the path of my parents, I’ll not even make it to retirement time.

So I’ve started taking what in calling “mental health days”. Once a month I take off the Monday after I’ve had the weekend off. This means I have four days off in a row. I don’t do anything I have to do – I do stuff I want to do. I read, or write or work on art. I do the stuff I would do if I was retired.

I’m practicing being retired. But I’m also doing preventive maintenance on my soul.

Happiness is a front

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A Volkswagen bug is a car that brings smiles to people. People smile when they see it. I notice this every time I go for a drive. I think it brings back good memories from their childhood. I also think there’s something special about the shape – all curves and no angles – that is soothing to see.

But the new Volkswagen bug is very difficult to repair. It isn’t as easy as the original ones were. Apparently you have to take almost the entire engine apart in order to fix anything. The designers who created it didn’t think that it would ever break down, so they didn’t make it easy to repair. This means it costs hundreds of dollars in labor every time I have to take this thing in.

So behind the smile there’s a lot of pain for me. The bystanders don’t know this.

This is very true for a lot of happy people. They aren’t happy because nothing bad has happened to them. They’re happy because bad things have happened to them and they’ve grown through them and because of them. The bad things made them stronger. Other people see their happiness and it spreads to them. Meanwhile, they don’t know how much work was required to get to that point.

Container

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We need containers for our feelings just like banana bread needs a container in order to shape it in the heat of the oven. The container gives the feeling shape. The container is a ritual or a practice.

We have to have places to put our feelings. Rituals are the way to do that. Western culture has some rituals and ceremonies for how to handle big events – birth, marriage, graduation, death. But it doesn’t have rituals for much of anything else. Perhaps this is why so many people suffer from depression and anxiety.

When your culture doesn’t have the tools you need, you have to make your own.

Feelings are difficult to handle. Our culture tells us how to handle the feeling of having to go to the bathroom, but not other feelings. When you have the feeling that you have to go to the bathroom, you need to know what to do with that feeling otherwise you will make a mess everywhere. If you have that feeling you know what to do because you’ve been trained. That feeling you have is what lets you know that there something that needs to get out.

Other feelings are harder to figure out, but they are just as important to get out. There isn’t a physical thing that needs to come out of you, but there still is a need to release that feeling. Emotional, spiritual, and psychological pain will manifest in physical ways. Just like with having to go to the bathroom, you need to know how to deal with it.

When you have a sensation of tension in your shoulders, chest, or gut it is a sign that you have a feeling that needs to be processed. The poet Rumi reminds us that grain has to be broken up before it can become bread. But I’ll add that in order for it to become bread it has to be mixed together with other ingredients, poured into a form and put into the oven.

Difficult feelings aren’t ever alone – we aren’t just grain that has been ground up. And the form is our practice. It gives shape to our feelings. What do you do to stay balanced? Do you drift through your days, or are you intentional?

Our practice is our form, our mold for our feelings. If we don’t use it, our feelings will pour out all over everywhere and be a big mess.

When I found out that my coworker had died unexpectedly, I felt a pain in my stomach. I chose to sing it out. Rather than yell or cry, I chose to give it shape. Deep from my gut I sang out a long clear note, simply saying “Ahhhhh……” for as long as I could. Then I took another breath and did it again and again until I released the tension. I have since found out that this is from yoga. It is called “Lion’s breath”, except in yoga, you just breathe out hard. Here, I sang.

I have also used the technique “praying in color” to process my feelings. I have created some other art and started a prayer book that I will use to memorize prayers. I did all of this in his memory. I have chosen to use what I already do to stay balanced as a way to honor him and acknowledge his passing.

And, of course, I’m writing.

It doesn’t matter what you use to process your feelings – whatever form you use is good, as long as it works for you. What matters is that you use it.

Don’t wait until the storm hits to have a place to go.
Don’t wait until something bad happens to have a practice.

If you stick with your practice every day, then you will have something to rely upon when the inevitable happens. It will help you keep your balance and not get swept away. It doesn’t mean that you escape your feelings – it means that you don’t let your feelings overwhelm you. You still have them – they just don’t have you.

Now is the time.

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A coworker just died. His wife died about a month ago. He was young. They were both young.

He had been not taking care of himself for the past year, ever since she got sick. His blood pressure was high. He drank a lot of sodas and ate a lot of breakfast sandwiches. He ate fast food. He never took time to exercise.

He said that he used to take care of himself, but that he just didn’t have time now.

Now it is too late.

Pointless. Pointless. Pointless.

Such a waste of a life.

Jeff Russell was a good man. He was kind, caring, and funny. He could do any impression. He brought cookies and snacks for us all the time. He was good with the patrons. He was easygoing. He didn’t gossip or badmouth anybody.

And he suffered. He was quiet about his pain and his loss. He didn’t know how to handle life after his wife died.

He laid down because he wasn’t feeling well, and he didn’t wake up. His family thinks it was a heart attack.

His heart stopped. It was broken. His sadness filled him up and drowned him, and he died.

Now is the time. There is no other time to eat well, to exercise, to take care of yourself. There is no other time to rest, relax, and process your feelings. Now. Or never.

You have to build up your flame, or it will go out. You, and nobody else, can do this. You must do this.

Tomorrow doesn’t exist. Today is all you have. Use it well.

Drink more water

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I have discovered that water fixes a lot of problems. Two of the biggest ones that I have discovered are headaches and asthma.

If you have a headache, give water a try first instead of taking a pain reliever. Don’t have just a sip of water. Have at least a full glass of water and then wait 20 minutes. Then, if you still have a headache you can take a pain pill.

It is easier on your stomach and on your liver. There are no side effects to water. And, if you were to take a pain pill you would have to wait 20 minutes anyway in order for it to start working.

I wonder if the trick with pain pills is that you have to swallow them with a liquid and it is doing the work and not the pain pill.

I have noticed also this works with asthma. When I feel a twinge of asthma coming on I drink a glass of water and within five minutes the twinge of asthma goes away. It isn’t that water cures asthma, so much as asthma is a sign to me that I am dehydrated.

We need to drink at least eight glasses of water every day. I mean water – not sodas or tea or alcohol or coffee. Water. If we do this, then we will prevent a lot of problems.

Our bodies are made up of three quarters water. We need to replenish it regularly. We need to drink water throughout the day and not do it all at once. Even drinking tap water is better than taking a pill because the pills have dangerous side effects. Water also has no calories so if you are watching your figure it is one of the best things that you can do for yourself.

I have found it also helps with aches and pains and depression.

Don’t ask your doctor if water is right for you. Your doctor can’t make any money off you drinking water.

Pray without ceasing

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To pray without ceasing does not mean you have to quit your job and become a nun or a monk. It does not mean that you have to sit in a quiet room contemplating and in communion with God all the time. It does not mean that you have to read a prayer book out loud all day long.

It means to constantly seek to know and then act according to the will of God.

It means to ask God before you do anything, to see if it is something you should do.

Nonbelievers have come up with a term for themselves. It is “freethinker”. They think that believers are zoned out zombies who never follow their own thoughts. And my clarification of “pray without ceasing” sure sounds like that.

But why would I want to plug into a 110 outlet when my tool works better on a 220? Why would I want to use a 20 watt light bulb when I can use a spotlight?

When we pray without ceasing – when we are in constant communion with God, we are tapping into a huge power source.

We are also less likely to resist or freak out when something unusual happens, because we know it is from God.

So yes, pray without ceasing. Pray when you wake up. Pray while you are making breakfast. Pray before you start your car. Pray while you drive.

Don’t pray mindlessly – pray about what you are doing right then. Talk with God. Not to God, but with God. It is a two-way communication. That is the heart of what Communion means.

Sure, you won’t have the words to start off with, and you will feel awkward. Keep doing it anyway. It will start to feel natural the more you do it.

God loves to hear from us and to talk with us. God understands all about us, better than we know about ourselves. Just open up and be yourself, and that will be perfect.

How to be an artist

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Do you want to know how to be an artist? I can tell you in one easy step. Make art. That’s it.

It doesn’t have to be pretty. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have a plan. Just create something. Follow your heart.

Paint by numbers doesn’t count. Copying something doesn’t count. Both are training, sure. Both teach you how to use the materials. That alone is half of learning how to be an artist.

But to create art, you have to create. You have to make it up and make it happen.

What is in your head won’t be what happens at first. Just like learning how to do any skill, creating art isn’t easy at the start. You’ll stumble and wobble.

Just keep making art anyway.

Every day, make a date with yourself to make something. After a few weeks, you’ll start seeing real progress. After a few months, you’ll start getting really good. You still won’t be an expert, and you’ll probably try some new technique you aren’t good at or suited for.

That is fine too. Keep making art. That is all there is to it.

If you want to be an artist, just make art.