Yip

This is pretty much like me trying to find my way back home after traveling anywhere new in MA:

The price of peace

Happy Halloween, boils and ghouls!

This holiday has been such a fun one for me already, which is kind of unexpected, since I was pretty upset coming into this weekend not to be spending it with any friends or family.

But as it turns out, at least from my re-thought perspective, no matter where you are and what you're doing, there are always friends and family around, right?

For instance, laying down not 5 feet away from me is O the cat. He and I are very close these days, and I am so happy that on this weekend, which is shaping up to be beautiful, warm weather, I can leave the porch door open, let the breeze blow in, and have O here with me to sniff the outside air, bat at the window treatments, and just chill out.

Last night I started off Halloween right by seeing Shawn of the Dead at St. J's. I had forgotten how heartwarming a story it is (The main character loves his momma, and his best friend so much that even when his buddy becomes a zombie, he keeps him alive by chaining him up in the shed in front of a video game system and contining to enjoy their "undead" friendship with a game or two now and then. And he gets the girl! Okay, well at least this is heartwarming to me). After I got home I downloaded this Thursday's episode of the Office, which was pretty awesome, and reminds me of just how much I am like Michael Scott in spirit (I agonize over who will be my T-Mobile Fave 5 and am constantly falling, though not into fish). Tonight I am going to carve our family pumpkin, with O likely interfering, and S on Skype to witness the tradition for himself (He promised to Skype me some of the trick-or-treaters who come to his house if he gets the chance.)

Today I slept in as long as O would allow me, and even a little while after he started scratching my face/biting my head/pulling my hair, etc. I woke up and got to stay in my jammies (t-shirt and sweats) to go to yoga class! I signed up for a year with this really great center called Healing Tree Yoga. I can take yoga, pilates, meditation, self-defense, etc., all included in a really discounted rate since I signed up for a year! Oh, excuse me, I mean 14 months, since that was also included in the deal! There are approximately 10-12 classes per week I am interested in, so I really think I will get my money's worth. Additionally, since I will be on-site in the evenings for work next week, at this lovely institution of learning, I will be able to take classes all next week in the morning, catch a quick shower, stroll into work around noon, and go off to my classes and workshops at said academy in the evening! It's so fun to shake a work week up a little bit, even if it means tons more driving and consequently tons more getting lost in the great New England state where I reside.

Since it took a lot of consideration, and weighing of pros (health, fitness, spirituality, friendship, routine, fulfillment) and cons (less money) to decide whether or not I wanted to commit to yoga this year, I got to thinking about this blog's title, the price of peace. I think we think quite often about this concept on a global scale, such as, what would it cost us financially and culturally to bring clean water, adequate amounts of food, health care, and political/economic stability to the four corners of the earth? We think about the American Red Cross, or international treaties, or the throwing over of the world's dictatorships. But maybe that's a little ineffective actually. How many international treaties have actually been honored, and how many times has the rejection of a peace treaty in fact brought about war?

Maybe peace, and its price, needs to start with every individual. Our tax dollars come out of each of our pockets and contribute to welfare, education, and development programs, so should our personal investments in peace start with our own development of disciplines and mercies that help us live in harmony with God's creation. In our finite case, that should be harmony with our earth and it's animals and our connections to other humans. In our infinite case, that peace investment should be in accepting ourselves as great in nature, yet sometimes flawed in action, eternal beings, and in getting to know, understand, and love our relationship with the greater existence.

In my life, peace comes in accepting who I am in character naturally, whether or not that is who I anticipated I would be, or who is different than, or alike me in character, and how I feel about that. Peace also comes in not holding people to expectations of goodness, but expecting good to be present, flowing, through interactions and situations that may outwardly seem positive or very negative. Peace comes in laughing at my mistakes as they happen, and in simultaneously engaging in a life-long pursuit to right the wrong thinking or wrong acting that contributed to them. My peace comes in seeing this life as a gift and part of a larger process we all will come to know through death, and we all have known prior to our birth.

Okay, now I'm certainly not always the most centered of people. Like I said, I get lost, I fall, I get irritated when people around me move "too slow" or "too fast" for my liking, and I deem myself a constant judge of others while remaining fully aware that I don't have the authority to take on this role. But I'm working on it, and I think that's more than half the battle! And I think thinking of what I can do right now to contribute to world peace is better than the alternative - disillusionment, bitterness, and desperation. Oh, and lots and lots of peace treaties.

Rubby Ducky...You're the one!

That's it.



I am leaving work, going home, feeding my chubby cat, and reading Wise Highs in the bathtub.

Good night!

Tis the season?

Now I know why everyone oohs and aahs at the beautiful turning of the leaves starting in August in New England. It's snowing here! In mid-October!

At first I tried to tell myself that I was being lazy today, and that after sleeping in the Sunday after my long business trip, my eyes were still sleepy and the rain drops flooding the scene outside all my windows just looked "fuzzy." I looked up the weather online, and it said there was only rain. But after being awake for an hour, unpacking, and cleaning, I am for sure now - there are tons of big fat snow flakes mixed in with all this rain.

To make matters more dire, I was a very good planner and made sure to eat absolutely everything in my apartment, save O's cat food, so it wouldn't go bad when I was away for 6 days. Now to eat, I must shop. And from the looks of outside and the 7 day forecast, I must shop for comfort foods, because it is going to gross,cold, and wet all week!

Just when I've gotten the hang of living here, paying my bills here, and not freaking out about how to get places and enjoy myself here, God throws in this new challenge. You see, I can't really even take a nice misty rain during a hot summer. I can't take it when the end of my pant hems get wet running to and from the car in the rain. Rainy days make me grumpy and sad. So this is challenge 2.0 for the new New Englander.Wish me luck as I stock up on soup and a serious scraper for the car!!

Hee hee heeee

My 71 year-old boss was on Facebook during work hours today. I love my job. I love my life!

"...everywhere life is full of heroism..."

I believe in a lot of things. One of the things I believe in most is other people's ability to teach us how to be our best selves when we open our minds and hearts to them and the wisdom handed down to them by their sources of strength and truth. We can't think people are bad, that just won't work for us. We have to trust. I think it's important to trust BOTH that we are so messed up sometimes, AND also that we are SO great always, as created beings. And the greatness always has a window that can be gotten through to help lift us up to greatness as a humanity when we trust and love and take personal responsibility for trusting and loving and growing with others each day.

I also believe in our gut. I get that we are not right a lot of times, that our heart can mislead us, can make us so selfish, even as it allows us to love. But our gut, I think that while the heart takes in the song of our soul, the gut, whatever that is, takes into our minds the voice and reason of our soul. The voice that says to us from our soul, it's not right to treat other people like that, even if my parent, school, church, heart, brain, television, spouse, office, country...says it is perfectly good to treat people like that through word and deed.

Believing in people and believing in the gut, I think it's incredibly important to look for mentors and inspiration from others and "the other" based on that gut. We have God, but we also have history and ancestors and those same parents, schools, churches, etc. who have had God before us. They were created before us for the purpose of sharing and teaching and unifying the existence of things in the space-time continuum. That's another one of those things I believe.

These ideas popped into my mind as I read a blog I follow where the author felt the power and necessity of making sure "we follow closely enough to be covered by the dust off the path our Master is walking" and through this, and only this, how we can achieve true sanity.

How cool. How true. How important to ask ourselves who and what ideas are our masters, are our "schools" - of thought, of nature, of society. How neccessary to ask ourselves if the dust that covers us from the path of our masters is of truth, health, life, love, or of other kinds of, um.. more dusty, dust.

Speaking of this, and of other blog-related ideas and projects I love, this is one:See? As M, one of my masters, tells me to read in the Desiderata, "...no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should..."

The Loveable Shmoo

Have you ever heard about the Loveable Shmoo?



I learned about this little guy in my medical sociology class, for some now completely forgotten reason on the syllabus that day, and S and I still think about him from time to time. Today S and I talked about how it may be okay to eat cows and pigs and chickens, because maybe they, like the Shmoo, just delighted in making people happy and being eaten by them.

Regardless, I'd love to have a shmoo or two. I myself delight in thinking about what might happen if we had shmoos to give to the most peaceful, loving, intelligent, and social-justice-minded individuals of our generation. Those shmoos would love and delight in constantly making those people happy by making others not only happy but bringing the world equity and dignity for all. Of course, if I had one myself, quite honestly, he might have to spend just as much of his time fetching me Chipotle and Starbucks as saving the world and rescuing mankind. So that is the problem of the Loveable Shmoo, and more importantly and pointedly, the problem with me.

Pax.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Apparently

Who knew that I would be at UVA today, just outside of campus in a lovely little Marriott Courtyard?

After a nice 3:30am wake up call, it's a treat to be in a comfortable college town with lots of 24-hour restaurants and free stuff to do for people who think, even sometimes for fun.

If I'm not passed out or talking the night away with R, maybe I'll grab something local to eat and go see The Lamarie Project. Or maybe I won't need to get food first, because don't all free college events come with free college-quality pizza? Ah, to be young again.

Tomorrow it's off to school, then east to Richmond, where my week is capped off by a visit from S! I can't wait.


But, until all of this happens, I will be napping!

Love is a verb..

. . so let's race!


Love cannot remain by itself - it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action and that action is service. -Mother Teresa

And they lived happily ever after.

This is sort of the way a wedding day should be. The part with the big crowd is all about the guests. And it is important to bring people who have helped support you as a couple into the celebration of your marriage. After you get married. Getting married though - that's about God, the husband, and the wife (Or the husband and the husband, or the wife and the wife, mind you). And in Jam's case, a baby and a waterfall.

Uh oh..

I'm having another one of these days..Help!

Do you agree?

In 1984, Turner observed:

"We jog, slim and sleep not for their intrinsic enjoyment, but to improve our chances at sex, work, and longevity. The new asceticism of competitive social relations exists to create desire - desire which is subordinated to the rationalization of the body as the final triumph of capitalist development."

Is this true? Is it more or less accurate today than it was in the 80s?

Does it bring up any of your thoughts and feelings about current social debates on health care and the economy?

What are our bodies, and how should we treat them?

I'm not a black hole!

It's lunch time, therefore time to take a bit of personal space from work and write a post! Of course, being the nerd I am, my post is about work. And how awesome it can be.

One of the things I like better than all others in a work situation is being able to give prompt responses. It is sexy to me, to get an email question or complicated query from someone and to have the ability to get back to them in lighting time with an intelligent, useful response.

Today that fatefully happened, and I am in such a good mood over it! My boss asked me give an opinion on the quality and potential of an 81 page cirricculum.

The organization hadn't been able to move forward with the cirriculum in the past because no one took the time to review it.

So I reviewed it, gave my impressions of the cirriculum's strong use of empirically validated health behavior change theories, and what we could do to get the cirriculum ready for publishing as a manual, and sent it back to my boss within 23 minutes, and he called me the anti-black hole of the organization! Ah, what luck!

This good fortune is of course opposite of my current work on a proposal due this week, a proposal I am clueless as to how to write, edit, take others edits, or finalize. C'est la vie.