TAKE ANOTHER LOOK

From my study window the world is gorgeous. The Sun is bright, the sky is deep blue. The house across the street is splendorous in its adornment of sparkling white snow. How could the world be more beautiful?

Despite the beauty of the picture, I am weary of it. Very, very tired of Winter. I don't think I have ever experienced a February without one day above average temperature. The average high temperature for today is around 33F. We may reach 15F if we are lucky and if the average high is 33F, then in a normal year there are highs in the forties or even fifties.

We moved here on September 15^th. I was completely out of it. I could only walk from my bed or bathroom to my chair. Jamie had to wait on me hand and foot. I must have been improving all along but I didn't notice it much until the middle of October, by the end of November I could walk without a cane. I started improving rapidly after that. By January I was raring to go outside. I wanted to walk. I wanted to feel the outside air. I was able to go to the store by myself. I was able to do the family shopping, that was great, but it wasn't like really being outside. Our mail is delivered a short block away and I can walk down and get it. Everyday this February the road has been treacherous, it has been that slippery. I have to use my walker because if I fall down there would be no way to get up. That's no fun.

Oh yes! I long for a switch in the weather pattern that would bring at least normal highs for the day. The weather will probably turn on a dime the middle of March.

Okay! I will go back to that first paragraph and see only the beauty. Its there! Perception is everything.

What we see in the world is what we bring into focus. I listened to the Cohen testimony on Public Radio for awhile this Morning. What a painful, awful world is depicted. How could we be so crazy? How did we get there? Yet, like turning my chair around in my study and seeing the unquestionable beauty that is there, I can turn off the radio and see something else.

Perhaps we should not concern ourselves with changing the world. Perhaps we should concern ourselves with changing ourselves. Perhaps we should concentrate on changing how we see the world. If we choose to see only the love in the world, won't the world have to change?

We are creators. We expand what we see and love. We can't help that. We grow what we are in-love with. Why waste energy fretting and fuming about a hopeless world when we are quite capable of seeing the world we dream of; yes we are! We can see it in the eyes of those we love. We see it everyday in the smiles of strangers. It expresses itself when we laugh heartily.

Come on. Come on. It is a decision we make together. Look out upon a beautiful world. See the love. Look for that tsunami of love that is coming to engulf us.

Love and Peace, Gregg

THE WHOLE PICTURE

“Why is this happening to me?” Have you ever said this or thought it? If we create our own illusion which we call life, then why isn't it always as intended?

Let us explore this. First we must realize that we create at many levels. We may consciously wish something with all are hearts, but have a defeatist program [at feeling level] going on that says we don't deserve it.

But often we just can't see the whole picture. We are all creating together and separately. Sometimes what we are trying to create doesn't mesh.

Let us go back even further. We came into this world with an intent to grow. We wanted to see how close we could come to being unconditionally loving beings. We set up learning situations for ourselves so we would have the experiences need to reach our goal. We developed contracts with each other to facilitate our growth. These contracts can be experienced as very positive to quite negative, but in the long run they are all positive as they all contribute to our learning to love more fully.

We cannot see the whole picture! While we are in this life and in these bodies we will never be able to, we can't back away far enough.

So what do we do? First of all we remember a basic lesson. WE WILL NEVER KNOW ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY JUDGEMENT. Whether it be ourselves or our neighbors. Simple things like seeing someone park in a handicap space and get out of the car and seem to walk into the grocery store with ease. Do we really know it is with ease? I actually asked an old guy, like myself, why he needed handicap parking. He seemed okay. We chatted a bit. He told me his ticker was so bad that he couldn't breathe after a small amount of walking. His breathing became difficult just while we were talking. This was a pleasant conversation, he knew I was curious and not challenging. I had my answer.

From small things to big things we cannot see the whole picture. I told this story before, forgive me for repeating it. When I was working for an agency doing in-home family therapy we were dying on the vine because our agency leader did not particularly like the program and wouldn't do the necessary work to promote it. We started out with three therapist and we were down to two. I got a referral from a county we hadn't worked for and I was so excited because this could save the program if the county was impressed by my work and then begin referring more families.

The family didn't like me and it was probably my own fault. I typically saw a couple first before including the kids. It gave me a good picture of where things were at. Did they see the same problem? How was the problem affecting their relationship? I could fill a page with such queries. Many times I didn't need to see the whole family as the kids were acting out the marital drama and as the parents dealt with their issues the kids got better. In fact, usually.

Well in this case I was so enamored with my goal I didn't fully appreciate where they were at. They certainly didn't feel any need for therapy for themselves. They just had an obnoxious kid and their county social worker pressured them into seeing me. It was a shame as I was especially good at getting folks like this on board. I was blinded by a goal I had rather than being genuinely with this couple.

Without this counties participation our program was doomed to failure. They didn't give me a second chance. I was devastated. I had hoped to work for this agency for the rest of my life. It was just a matter of days after that I got a call from Anoka County offering me a job doing in-home family therapy for their Intake Department. Every couple years I was promoted until I was Project Manager for Family and Children Services. That is where I belonged. I retired eleven years later.

Whether it is a small thing in our life or big thing, we cannot SEE THE WHOLE PICTURE.

As we go through life, and it unfolds in front of us we can only accept it, as it is for us. It is for us, even when we cannot see why. Our choice is always to choose love.

We always come back to that, life gives us a continual opportunity to choose love.

CHOOSE LOVE!

HAPPY MONDAY!

Love and Peace, Gregg

BULLETIN

PET SCAN RESULTS

Completely free of cancer.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

DANCING WITH DEATH

It is early, only 8:37, we have a furnace man coming over to replace the blower motor sometime late Morning and I have an appointment with a doctor at 2:45. If I am going to bog, this is the time to do it.

The doctors appointment is for going over the results of my PET scan. In my last blog I mentioned that I am more sanguine about this one compared to the earlier one, yet I have some anxiousness. I don't want to be faced with anymore treatment decisions. Death is not an issue but how death might occur is. I wouldn't want to die by choking to death.

After one dances with death for awhile, death becomes a friend. It may sound corny and it is hard to explain to those who have no experience with the closeness of it. We become very experienced with the idea of death. The frequent doctors appointments the ongoing treatment is all geared to keep us alive.

Death quits being scary and takes on a restful quality. Of course, I have believed for a long time that there is no death and we just leave our bodies to continue life in spirit. That belief may have some comfort in accepting death............... I don't know............ maybe not much. We all have to deal with the powerful biological urge to stay alive and we don't want to diminish that and we have the unknown staring at us. No matter what we believe it is still an unknown. We can't remember dieing before, unless we have had out of body experiences or something like past life regression.

I think we all have to dance with death and find that it is not just scary but strangely cozy and comforting. It connects us with all those who have gone before us. It connects us with the ongoing stream of life.

I don't think I am nearly done with my dance and I hope to stay in this beautiful body for several years yet, but when we reach our 85^th year the dance becomes cheek to cheek.

It is amazing that we have such denial and fear of death. Are other cultures similar? I minored in cultural anthropology but I don't remember how other cultures regarded death. I have a daughter and daughter-in-law who work with the dieing and their families. It is extremely important work. In our culture it seems like we wait until folks are at deaths door before we learn to be cozy with it.

Yet we are obviously preoccupied with death. News show are filled with people dieing in many unpleasant ways. And the entertainment shows; if it is not a comedy somebody gets killed in every episode. Someone could point out that there is something besides comedies and cops and robbers shows. I know that but we do kill off a lot of people in these shows. I think it may be one of societies ways to deal with the fear of death.

I have thought for several years that we should have groups that meet to talk about death. That has come up in our social group a few times but nothing ever happened. Well the awareness of the need is a start. I think our culture is moving towards the direction of accepting death as part of the natural and loving cycle of life. When we look at Nature from a broad view we see only life; there is no death, life and death are one.

I have been breakfasting on cold leftover pizza while I have been writing this. It hits the spot. We can't find a better reason for living than that. Leftover pizza for breakfast, yum.

Happy Friday everyone!

Love and Peace, Gregg

OPTIMISM

We have a major snowstorm going on. We could get up to nine inches. My guess is that it won't be that bad. We had a doctors appointment this Morning. On the way, there were very few cars and the waiting room at the clinic was empty. On the way home the traffic had picked up considerably. The appointment was for Jamie. She was very pleased as she felt the doctor knew exactly what she was experiencing. She has hope.

I haven't heard back about my PET scan. I am oddly at peace about it; not completely to be sure.

I have nothing bouncing around in my head about what to write. I picked up a TIME magazine when I was in the waiting room. It claimed to be dedicated to optimism in a chaotic world. I leafed through it I missed any optimism. It may have been there, but between dozing off and observing my environment, I may have missed it, besides Jamie was finished before I could read much.

I mention it because I am continually startled on how perception of everything around us changes with our mood. As I learn how to lift myself out of a low place to a higher place I am really impressed at the difference. I can see how awful things can look when we are depressed or just mopey for some reason. There have been many books written on positive thinking. I am sure they have helped but the journey remains a personal one for each of us.

We each need to take our own journey. It seems such a simple concept but many of us resist it. The negative/positive value of what we think and say has crucial consequences when it comes to what we see. We are in charge of our perception. We create our life experience according to our perception. We are powerful creators and we see what we expect.

Fortunately the positive greatly outweighs the negative and we are 'one' so the individual gets help from the more positive thinking people around them. Everything is energy. What we think of as solids are energy in form. When our thinking and feelings are positive we emit positive energy which adds to the whole.

On a global scale the positive energy has been increasing. I know it doesn't look like it. But the craziness we see is the last gasps of the negative energy. Check it our for yourself, the negative energy coming from our idiot boxes is far worse than the energy we experience in the grocery or hardware store. Negative energy has been dominant for a few thousand years. Those who have emitted and encouraged it are losing their grasp.

All of us can help create the world we have longed for by paying attention to how we think and feel. Many Seers are predicting a tsunami of love that will engulf the planet. Like water breaching a dam, there is that last pebble or chink that needs to give way. Anyone of us can allow the tsunami of love to blanket the whole.

Love and Peace, Gregg

THE ILLUSION

Jamie came home from the hospital Saturday. Her stomach problems have cleared up. What was causing them? It is largely speculative. The low potassium was probably caused by her inability to eat for two weeks. She was unable to eat for two weeks because of severe nausea. Low potassium causes nausea so we have a circular argument. Nothing showed up on the stomach probe and Jamie hasn't got any feedback about the biopsies. If there was something significant they would have called her by now. Well whatever, the hospital stay seemed to have broken the cycle. That is good. She appears to be on the mend.

I had a follow-up PET scan this Morning. If it is clear I won't have to see the oncologist for six months. I anticipate it will be clear but that won't keep me from being on pins and needles until I hear.

I have been getting better and better at getting out of the turmoil of this illusion. What I call the illusion is this world we create individually and collectively, often heavily contaminated by our egos. It can be paradise or it can be hell.

I have been trying to understand 'Oneness'. I accept it intellectually and I am just beginning to understand it experientially. In a sense we have never left our Creator. We project part of our being into bodies to experience separateness. I don't know why we would need to do this and I have not been satisfied with the explanations I have heard. I can put off the understanding of the why while I am still in this body.

As I see it we are one with each other and one with our Creator/Source. Being one we have all the attributes of source and free will to create what we want to experience. The Garden of Eden may symbolize a time when we were in separate bodies but still knew our real Source and therefore could create only out of love. The Fall symbolizes the acceptance of the ego as our guidance. The acknowledgement of fear entered the picture. As long as we knew our connection with Source fear was impossible.

Following our egos lead us to extreme separation and an inability to imagine not being separated.

We can reverse this. Imagine Source never left us and we never left source. Imagine we are acting out this illusion while still underneath God's blanket of love, a giant bubble of Golden Unconditional Love in which we act out our individual dramas. We have free will and we can't know our ONENESS or the existence of Source as long as we are convinced we are separate.

The dramas we create out of fear and our belief in separateness do not really exist. They are only what we imagine. Only Love exist.

I have been testing this. When I finds myself over-stressed with negative thoughts, I can pause and imagine myself in a bubble of unconditional love, from my position inside the bubble of love I can see the illusion but not be caught up in it. I can go from being very stressed to very peaceful in seconds. How long can I maintain that beautiful place........ that is what I am working on.

I have been experimenting with bringing the whole world in my bubble, for indeed the whole world does share the same bubble I am learning to retreat to, we are all here together, only our belief in separation dictates otherwise.

That's right! Our Creator, Source, Allah, Great Spirit, Mother/Father God, it does not matter what you call our Ultimate Creator, her/his Being surrounds us. We are an integral part of this Being of Unconditional Love.

Yes we have free will. We can create the world we want. Unfortunately we do. Let us want a World created by Love.

I hope you are having a good Monday.

Love and Peace, Gregg

JAMIE

I am tired. I didn't get to bed until after 2AM and the telephone woke me up at 7:45. Here is the story.

Jamie hasn't been feeling well these last couple weeks. She has had flu like symptoms, it was hard to keep anything down. She felt better yesterday, but decided to call the doctor and get to an understanding of the problem. It was hanging on way too long for something that would pass by itself.

She got an appointment at 2PM with a Nurse Practitioner. She listened to Jamie's story and took several tests. Jamie really liked her. A scope was planned for later in the week or next week. We got back home sometime after three.

About four o'clock the telephone rang and it was the clinic saying they wanted her to report to the ER because her potassium was critically low. Off we went.

We waited. We waited and we waited. The ER was packed with very sick looking people. After an hour or so Jamie suggested I go home and she would call when I should pick her up. We are only ten minutes away at the most.

About Sixish I got a call and she told me they wanted to keep her as her electrolytes were wacky and they wanted to observe her further. I want to say at this point and now, neither of us are particularly concerned. In fact we are relieved and pleased that the problem is being addressed. The potassium and electrolyte situation is explained by her enforced fast of the last couple weeks.

I had a very pleasant interlude as Naomi and Bruce stopped in to check on my well being. We had a good visit.

This Morning Jamie called at 7:45. She was concerned because they were having phone difficulties and she couldn't make a connection last Night. I expected her to call before she settled down for the Night. When it was getting late I didn't want to call her and perhaps disturb her sleep. Sleeping properly was one of the struggles she had in the last two weeks. She was feeling better. A scope was scheduled for today and she expected to get discharged this afternoon.

We talked three or four times on the phone. On the last call she said that they wanted to keep her one more day. Apparently it has something to do with continued observation after they do the scope. She is not worried that they will find anything wrong as her symptoms can be adequately explained.

So I am sitting here in limbo waiting. I wanted to blog early so I could have time this afternoon to spend with her. She is in the St Cloud Hospital. The number there is 320 251 2700. She is in room 566. She likes to chat on the phone.

More on Monday.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Love and Peace, Gregg