EmPulse for Week of February 21, 2011

dyslectic dreams

All of us dream. Most dream in black/white. Some dream in color. (I have taste, aroma and altitude sense in mine.) But some of us have dreams that are so vivid that they are hardly discernable from being awake. Among many top businessmen their successes were first envisioned in dreams, then fleshed out in profitable enterprises. In times of war there have been people who can sense an ensuing battle, image it inside their minds, and plot a strategy for a victorious resolution. On the flip side, some people live in their dreams because reality is too threatening, too unmanageable. Dreams can be so much more beautiful, so much safer. They simply drop out of life and live the fantasy.

We live in an era of unrelenting bombardment of both images and information. As a result, our minds have lost some significant ability to distinguish fact from fancy. The interplay runs deep. We think we have done something we have not; we remind our husband/wife of something we are sure we told them earlier. Or did we just imagine ourselves telling them? Our dreams become woven within our realities and form an amalgamated memory, irrespective of their veracity. Thus, we oft get things backwards, upside down, or mashed together. What is actually REAL becomes convoluted in our perception. We see through a glass darkly…. if we are even aware that we should be sorting through the mayhem of multiple meanings at all. Cogito ergo sum. Cogito. (I think therefore I exist. I think.)

The end result of this multiphasic-mental interplay is a loss of what is REAL, and what is IMAGINED. Not only do we get our dreams backwards, we get reality backwards as well. Dyslectic dreams produce dyslectic decisions—we have our life-facts so confused that our decisions about people, projects, and planning are based on truly fallacious assumptions. It is truly a conundrum: we need to dream to stretch the perimeters of our imagination; and we need to remember real-reality as the proper domain of our influence.

So many mental moves come into play when trying to solve problems, provide solutions, repair interpersonal relationships, or build cooperative trust over issues. It is tantamount that we have a clear grasp of who we are, of our present, real responsibilities and commitments, and of our abilities to handle what life throws at us.  Remember we live in community; DEPEND on the insights of others. DO NOT waste time trying to solve a problem for which someone else has already imagined the solution. DO NOT isolate yourself to such a degree that you miss the strength of melding the hearts and minds of others with yours.

Final questions to ruin your day— How many of your dreams have gone unfulfilled? How much time do you spend dreaming about what might be versus making it happen? How can you check your “facts” with others to know if they are real or imagined?

Our lives have a time-frame. Are you within the correct boundaries at this point in your life to make a difference in our world?  OR, are you still daydreaming? And please, get your realities sorted out! Confusing dyslexia with clear thinking is clearly dangerous.

Have a nice week,

Gary

EmPulse for Week of February 14, 2011

relearning love

Some people are born lovers. They love life, people, challenges, projects & problems. They give freely of their strength and energy to everything and everyone. They seem to have boundless energy. They are the cavalry, the Knight in Shining Armor, the Hero who sweeps in to save the day. Their aspirations for service, sacrifice, graciousness and greatness seem boundless. You know people like this; they seem unreal in some ways. True, in some ways they might be faking-good, believing they cannot let others down. But in a another sense they may actually be what you see—individuals who possess an indefatigable ability to love. If you encounter such an individual, do not discount them, or be suspicious: thank God for them in your life, for they are rare.

When wounded, they have the strength and fortitude to bounce back quickly, to love and serve and sacrifice again as if little had changed. It has, of course. They have been diminished—cut deeply to the core of their very nature. Yet over time they have disciplined themselves to allow the cut to penetrate and to wound, but not to kill. They have learned that healing is quickened by once again serving, giving, caring for others. Do they need love? Of course. Do they need to be served? Yes. But their life decision to love supersedes whatever needs they may have. More likely than not, they have tapped into an inner source of strength to which the rest of us have thus far not discovered.

Most of us love and love again. We love and we are wounded too. But we do not bounce back so readily. We guard our hearts, often for quite some time. We also leave trust behind, afraid of being cut deeply yet again. Our defenses become fences become walls become fortresses become high towers, untouchable by only a few, if any.  We need to relearn to love. To grant access to the person who hides within our body, behind our smiles, past our pleasantries, underneath our civilities. For once facades become fixed they are not so easily shed. They become us, and we lose our true self within.

Relearning love is not as difficult as it might seem. It is no less than a frightening decision turned into positive action. Start small or start with your greatest fear; it matters not. Just start. Our God has surprised many an individual who has ventured to take the first step. For it you do not relearn love you most assuredly will not have to learn death… , for you already have.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Have a nice week,

Gary

EmPulse for Week of February 7, 2011

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons— for you are crunchy and good with ketchup

Dragons…, curious creatures to be sure. A friendly dragon. Hummm. Oxymoron? Dragons are mythological beings from an earlier era; never actually existed. Or did they? Surely there is nothing to worry about today; they’re no longer around. Are they? Are you sure? These thoughts flashed through my mind as I read the bumper sticker on the car in front of me. Do not mess in the affairs of dragons—for you are crunchy and good with ketchup. Not sure I like that chewy-crunchy part. Ouch! Guess I know what’s for dinner.

The point of the message stuck with me. DO NOT MESS WITH THINGS THAT DO NOT CONCERN YOU; ESPECIALLY THINGS THAT SEE YOU AS DINNER. OR TOAST. Yet that is precisely what many of us are called to confront, challenges that are greater than we can contend with, ordeals that might eat us alive or fry our energy to embers. Some of us plunge in head first; others research the situation to death; still others shrink back, afraid of being wrong or failing. Besides, it’s none of our business. Leave well enough alone. Dragons are too dangerous.

There are many fire breathing situations in life that unnerve us to the core. Getting married. Getting married again. Promotions on the job. Being the person where the buck stops. Driving in Boston. Driving in Damascus. Living a life of deception. Having an inmost sin revealed. Control types. Passive aggressives (silent killers). Discovering cancer. Sooner or later each of us will come up against our dragon—that which we fear to face. It may swoop in out of nowhere, nostrils blazing; or it may slowly awaken within, creeping up on us, jaws agape, ready to devour.

How do we prepare for the attack of the dragon? If your overall attitude toward living is one of fear, nothing will change; a dragon attack will only amplify your fear and force an inner paralysis. If you maintain a laissez faire attitude toward life, you may not even recognize a dragon attack until it is too late. If you live at the edge, always going for it, always gaining the higher ground, you probably have your sword drawn already. But most of us are simply not expecting to be devoured by our dragon. We lie contentedly beside them.

Life is not a see what happens next affair. It is either a conscious decision to live vibrantly or an unconscious decision to resign one’s self to personal fatalism. We were not put on this earth to “get by.” Ergo, some simple recommendations—

1.      Develop an honorable character. Having your sword at the ready still requires a skilled hand to wield it.

2.      A Fire Proof Shield is necessary to buffet fiery dragon breath. Find what you need to guard your integrity and stay behind it…, all the time.

3.      Surround yourself with fellow-warriors who do not share your strengths; most likely, they will not hold your weaknesses either. You dare not go up against a dragon alone.

4.      Make decisions quickly. Most decisions need less deliberation than we think; still, some need to be discussed at length with someone, anyone, more experienced that you.

5.      Learn from your mistakes & failures. DO NOT repeat them out of stupidity or precedent.

6.      Generally speaking, dragons are creatures of evil. Live within the greatness of God and leave trails of His graciousness where you journey. If you get lost, your friends (& God) can find you.

We are each called to mess in the affairs of dragons every day. Get used to it. Guard yourself against becoming dinner (or toast). Slay the dragon.

Have a nice week,

Gary

EmPulse for Week of January 31, 2011

genuine chocolate flavoring

Some things just don’t ring true, do they? Jumbo shrimp. Authentic reproductions. Fresh frozen. A definite maybe. Resident alien. Sanitary landfill. Working vacation. And my favorite— genuine chocolate flavoring. Not genuine chocolate, but genuine chocolate flavoring. Why!?! What makes it genuine? Is the chocolate genuine, or is it the flavoring that is? Why not Genuine Chocolate Syrup!? No, just chocolate flavoring. That just doesn’t ring true.

Too much of our lives are saturated with things that are almost authentic…; but not quite. Baking Soda Biscuits…, mostly pure. as Garrison Keillor often says. We have grown accustomed to accepting artificial ingredients, allowing for white lies, and settling for half-truths as if “the whole truth” really doesn’t matter anymore. (Truthiness, remember?) We live in those grey areas of our business practices because everybody does it. We even fashion our own “Designer Religion” to fit our fancy (Utne Reader).

All this casual acquiescence compromises our adherence to any ethical standard other than the ones we set to soothe our own conscience and to stifle that inner voice that condemns us of wrong-doing. What’s wrong with us? Have we lost our sense of right & wrong for the bottom line? Have we lost our commitment to commitment in lieu of a passing trifle? Or has compromise become the acceptable maxim of our era? It’s not about “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Rather, we ignore what the writers of Christian Scripture Peter and Paul had to say altogether. Why? Because it makes us uncomfortable and lessens our pleasure during our forages into the edges of depravity. Corruption feels so good—especially when you can get away with it and nobody knows.

True, responsible citizenship is based on the right of each individual to stand up and be counted, to make a difference in the things that matter, and to live for what we believe in corporately, as human beings. The right to pursue a livelihood, to earn an honest wage. The right to care about the needs of others. The right to privacy, solitude, and, with adequate forethought, the responsibility of free speech. We have been designed by our Holy Creator God to make positive contributions to this world, to raise our young to accountable adulthood, and to be just in our dealings with ALL others, of whatever faith or politic.

We are called to be forgiving when wronged, merciful in places of power, and trusting first, extending a hand of friendship to any who ask.

These are not vain platitudes. They are principles by which all of us must live if we are to survive our own human race. Our predilection to judge and condemn, to shoot first and ask questions later, to accuse rather than to understand, is a roaring beast that growls within our breasts far too freely. It’s time we all take a look at our own souls, to see what animosities and anger we harbor that gnaws away at our hearts and grinds down our moral underpinnings. It is time we decide to stick to the moral principles that make this world a better place in which to live. It is time we reasserted our right to be committed to something, someone, a code of behavior, a spouse, or a family, even to God. It is time we plead the case for those less fortunate, both in our courts and in our daily practice of giving.

Genuine chocolate flavoring. What good is it? Why not go for the real thing? Become the real thing, as a man or woman of the twenty-first century. REAL Chocolate Syrup, REAL whipped-cream…, and a cherry! Now that’s something to believe in! You do get the point…, right!?!

Have a nice week,

Gary