Laughter...

Yesterday I dealt with sadness, today I am ready to lighten up!  I mentioned positives and negatives, Yin and Yang, opposite ends of the spectrum that hopefully have a balance point.

Think about laughter and it's counter emotional eruption, crying...fascinating things we humans do, and there is quite a bit of evidence that other animals do as well.  But think about it, what makes us move over the line from smiling to gutteral utterances of joy?  I'll bet our laughter types are all as unique as our fingerprints. 

Check this baby out!  Happy to be born, doesn't know about all that is about to happen, right?

I want that utter bliss and the loss of control that goes with it! Just like this sweet child!

 Of course Clooney laughs all the time, all the way to the bank, all the way to the next beautiful girlfriend. However he doesn't always laugh. He doesn't laugh at the other side. He seeks to help.  Oops, I'm slipping...laugh it up George!

Ah hahahahhahahaha, cackle, cough, oh oh oh, har, har, Ah hahahahaha!

Are you laughing yet? I hope so, if not think of one of the dumbest yet funniest things you have ever done, and let it go.  You deserve to laugh, you are created to laugh (and to cry) but today we are on laughter, so go for it.  Laugh it up!

LOOK, even forced laughter helps! In some cases it might be a matter of life or death!

Even Mona Lisa cracked up, during one setting! 

Are you laughing yet? Please do, let it go, hopefully in public, then watch those around you. You know it's contagious.  We could use an epidemic of laughter. It's therapy, and it will help us face the serious with more aplumb. After all there is sadness in need of repair. Think I will start with myself.  Ah, ha, ha......


Have a fun weekend, friends.

Positives?

I was just about to post a little thought about the balance of things, the positives and the negatives, the pros and cons, the yin-yangs of life, you know. Just before I began, I paused to read Larry James' Urban Daily Blog, which is always poignant, and often painful...today, particularly heart wrenching for me. 

Please take just a moment and read Larry's comments, regarding "Sadness, Deep Sadness", and pay special attention to the final call and question: 

Poverty creates a foreboding culture defined largely by deep, thick sadness.

Good news to the poor always involves driving the sadness out of life--a mission that can be accomplished only in a community that embraces sadness.  To deliver hope a community must live out of a commitment to understanding, honest self-evaluation, and radical dependence on those who know this sadness best, those who live it out every day. 

I wonder if we're up to it?

To answer Larry's question, we have to be up to it!  I know Larry and the fine folks of CitySquare face it everyday, while most of the rest of us choose to turn our mind's eye away. I am very grateful to CitySquare, who try desperately, yet methodically to help our neighbors. I also know that Larry and his team have a foundational belief that "the light shall overcome the darkness".  However, it is so hard to envision a necessary quorum of us, being up to facing sadness, bred of poverty and dealing with it, but we simply must be up to it.  

Larry, you have shown us a way, and the message lives vibrantly. In growing numbers we must open our eyes to the sadness, embrace it indeed and expand the solutions you have initiated.

******

In maturity one begins to see repeatable patterns in life. Yes, with good comes bad, and even negative events usher in new opportunities. Positive and negative charges make the world work elementally   Our decisions rarely yield perfect results, but rather the sets of good things and the not so good. Often, what seems a positive move, yields unexpected negative consequences. Pendulums swing from left to right, dark to light, and offer the possibility of balance, sustainability.

But the weight of sadness, profound sadness, seems not to have a counter balance...or does it? Is there hope? Is there even minuscule possibility for joy, true happiness? I think yes, if we are up to facing the sadness of our neighbors and believing in the potential for light.  If we can learn from the sadness, find hope, and participate in solutions, perhaps some sadness can be made to change directions.  Perhaps, just perhaps...   

Stitched up!!

"....stitched up, outta my mind..."lyrics from a John Mayer jazz duet.  Yep, went under the knife recently for a hernia repair.  Apparent cause - heavy cocktail lifting and over exertion on tee shots, and aging as a possible abettor!  

Oh well modern health care served me well...highest costs in the civilized world, not so much.  Great wife, self appointed recovery physician, priceless.  Cut me off of cocktails and golf for a while, but insists on a quick return to heavy sexual activity as therapy! Go figure.

I'm a lucky guy in all respects.  One thinks of such things while convalescing.  Having a great wife, meaningful work, super friends, fine children (grown and responsible).  I can't ask for much more.  

I have to include on that list many amazing new friends...glad to know you!  Thanks for all of your kind wishes and caring.  Now, back to work! We have a 2013 economy to build, a planet to improve, and peace to develop, one to one and globally...not for the wimpy. Let's start by dropping the silly battles.  Nobody is going to take your pistol away.  Get over yourself, think big picture, eh?

Harmony!

The beauty of voice harmony is quite a wonder.  I'm always amazed at talent...it's essence...what it says about humanity, what it might say about transcendance...the other.  Harmony however, speaks about the equation of talent...about being equal, while distinctively different.

I was just listening to the weekly "Prairie Home Companion" radio show, and they regularly feature harmonic voice pieces...basics you know, bass, baritone, tenor, alto and soprano. It's beautifully simple, and it spoke to me...well sang to me!

Each of us is given our own key, our octave if you will.  Some are quite talented of course, and the balance are perfectly pitched for our own ears, particularly when accompanied by a fine shower orchestra. 

Paul McCartney co-founded the fab four...the Beatles, and his harmonies with John Lennon created frenzied fan behavior.  He later wrote a song, "Ebony and Ivory" and performed it along with Michael Jackson.  A tribute to harmony, a salute to the value of the individual and the beauty of the combination.  Obviously the song's image is the key board, which indeed is visually incredible...88 perfectly aligned and entwined keys, that connect to 88 beautiful tones.  

Each key has its own voice and can be combined with other keys for perfect harmony and resonance.  Moreover, American jazz pioneers proved that even atonal sounds have their own special beauty...off beat rhythms can be respected and cherished.

Millions of hues make up our color, countless views form our consciousness, and in every mix harmony can be found, art can be created.  Beauty is there...appreciation is indeed the choice of the beholder!  I choose not to criticize art (talent) that I don't fully comprehend...I know the beauty and the harmony is there, even if I can't see it.  May each of us see more harmony in 2013.

The Untangling

Remember this photo?  Yep, that little tree on the right is the one of which I was so proud of it's decoration (and my work) a few weeks ago. I bragged then that it held at my estimate ONE MILLION plus lights.

Yesterday, my son and I began to remove those million lights. You may find this hard to believe, but it was unbelievably challenging.  I would have sworn that I just utilized a ladder to reach the top...but either I rented a "cherry picker" or the tree grew a foot or two!

My dedication to the "million points of light" created a tangle that rivaled a wire haired terrier's coat in appearance! The reindeer were removed before the de-decorating began. I wanted no audience whatsoever for this wrap of the season. Even still, distant chuckles could be heard regularly.

Nonetheless, another seasonal accomplishment was finally completed.  I even sorted the crates, to move Easter's equipment to the front of our storage barn.  I'm the poster child for organization for early 2013!  Happy New Year every one...may your days ahead not be tangled, and may you shine brightly!

Did you receive one...a Miracle of the Season?  I pray that you did, because I think I received more than my share.  If you noted my earlier "blahg" about seasonal decorating, you will remember that on the eve of my season of dread, one of those spirits that perhaps visited Ebenezer came my way!

That was the beginning, that was the turning point.  It's been miraculous and inspiring ever since.  I won't bore you with the details.  Few people really want to hear how good it is going for someone else.  Just know this: every wish (humble though they be) has been granted. My primary wishes, only one with an exponent. The best Christmas and Holiday season ever for my wife!

What would that take?

• Her daughter around for two full days, helping with the cooking, playing games, watching movies, and enjoying the seasonal giving, etc.
• Great meals, great friends, and warm Christmas family love and gift exchange
• A movie, a Christmas Home Decoration tour
• Nice but not extravagant gifts and stocking stuffers
• A white Christmas

Check, check, check, check, check. Christina was awesome as a house guest. The meals were fun to make and turned out exceptionally well. The three dogs and a cat that stayed at our house, wreaked very little havoc!

The movie was quite good, and as we came out of the movie at 3 pm.  I said, "sweetheart" take a look outside.  She screamed with glee like a small child, her "little girl" released in full! As she screamed with glee, tears ran down my face...again you know not how many other things have happened to me in the past several days, and it matters not.  Just know, I believe! And know this, I have a responsibility and still time left to make this a more joyful season for others.  I'm sure going to try.

Merry Christmas everyone and a very Happy New Year.

Getting in the Spirit

Ding jingaling, jingaling, jing!  I'm in the spirit!  I dreaded this past weekend--the annual (drag out the crates and "trim" the tree, house and everything that gets in the way) decorating weekend.  More negative than usual this year...I'm also thinking about how can I afford the gifts I need to buy.  Certainly I can't afford a decorating service like so many neighbors have.

Saturday morning comes along, and the Spirit of the Season apparently crept into me as I slept.  Up I get and off I go, gleefully to our storage area...happily I start on the outside, my wife and our daughter on the interiors...I pitch-in on that too, during some outdoor attention deficit moments. Check this out...

I put 1,347,989 lights on that little tree at our entry. Well, at least that's my estimate.  I can tell you that I returned to the bargain store twice and loaded up on lights for both the inside and out.  NEIGHBORS, you missed out!  I cannot tell you how much fun I had.  You should be envious of me...professional installations aren't near as much fun.  By the way, my super duper wife, begged the reindeer off of some guy, whose house she passed and thought he had too many! Hohoho (rather than LOL) He agreed!

If you think I am kidding you're wrong.  I've even tuned my satellite music to a couple of happening Christmas stations. I have never understood things of Spirit, but I'm in the grip.

Happy Holiday Season Everyone