All I Want for Christmas

Please,

Let me have a morning where the snow is freshly spread like flour on a pie crust, all light and powdery.

Let me have a great big fresh-smelling pine tree, too broad for it's space in the room and so tall that the star on top has to duck a little to fit; that's full of big, fat, old-fashioned, slow-blinking lights making kaleidoscopic patterns on the ceiling.

Let me have a freshly baked pumpkin pie all steaming and bubbly, fresh from the oven and smelling like a spice rack.

Let me have a cup of apple cider from the apples in the yard, mixed heavily with orange peels, cinnamon sticks and whole cloves.

Let me have days on end of anticipation, music and family togetherness.

Let me have an evening with children dressed as Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, shepherds, wise men, sheep, donkey and an Innkeeper.

Let me have a reading of 'A Christmas Carol' with it's ghosts, memories and change of heart.

Let me have a concert of great music, prepared especially for the season, like a beautiful turkey dinner complete with all the trimmings.

Let me have a turkey dinner with family gathered around the table in thanksgiving for the bounties and blessings of Christmas.

Let me have one moment by myself to reflect on what it means to be alive.

Let me have peanuts and stockings, lumps of coal and oranges, candy canes and ornaments, carols and Christmas cards.

Let me have a morning too early, where, in the dark by flashlight or candle light, children rise and peek at the stockings hung for them on the mantle and gifts that were too big to wrap.

Let me have people to share with, people who need my help and people who just want to be with me.

Let me have all of this and more, every year, year after year for my whole life.

Is that asking too much?

I guess not.

Thanks

The Best Thing I Ever Did

When I am trying to think, it is a supreme distraction to me if there is movement, noise or confusion in the same room. Often, like Winnie-the-Pooh, when I wish to think about something or solve a perplexing problem, I go to my “thoughtful spot”, my bedroom, close the door and just sit in peace and quiet where ideas can flow freely without interruption. As human beings, I believe we all need a thoughtful spot, but I also believe that we need a thoughtful life.

I had three children and lived in a fairly large city when I awoke to the chaos around me. It happened one bright, sunny afternoon in our front yard while my children and I were out for a short walk. As we walked down the sidewalk returning to our home, a car came speeding over the little hill behind us. I thought nothing of it since we were on the sidewalk and kept my eyes on my children walking a few steps ahead of me. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the car dove recklessly toward my children. I drew a quick, gasping breath and prepared to scream. The car, just as quickly, jerked back onto his side of the road and went careening away from us, well beyond the speed limit.

At first, I thought that the boy driving the car had been trying to hit my children. I was angry and frustrated by my powerlessness in the situation. However, I soon realized that the boy had probably just been goofing off and had tried to frighten the children. This terrible and harrowing experience caused me to question the wisdom of living in such a place.

Within a year, we had purchased a small farm and were enjoying the wide open spaces around us. The first thing I noticed about living there was that if you had to drive anywhere, there weren't fifteen cars behind you, pushing you to go faster. You could drive anywhere and stop in the middle of the road if you wished and just look at the scenery. The other thing I noticed was the feeling of calm that allowed one to think. No one was hurrying anywhere and life just sat there like a blooming flower, waiting to be enjoyed.

Our friends were astonished that we would move so far away from “everything”. They complained that the drive into town for my husband's work would be intolerable to them. They liked that shorter drive, they said. Ironically, though further, the drive into town from our farm actually took less time because one did not have to fight the traffic, besides the fact that a leisurely scenic drive was far less stressful.

There are times when we have to be where everyone is hurrying everywhere through bustling, crowded thoroughfares. When that happens and life seems to be a mass of hurried confusion, it is helpful for me to step back from the crowd, turn off the noise, stop the car and find a quiet place to reflect. There are too few places where this is possible. Instead, life seems to offer more and more distractions, noises, fast-paced shows, activities, jobs, money-making schemes, products and advertisements. Not only that, but people seem to be in more of a hurry than ever to keep up, get ahead and stay afloat.

The other day, when offered the opportunity to assemble a simple project at a scout meeting, I overheard one boy say that he didn't have the time. Is life so fast-paced, even for children, that we don't have time to live?

Living takes time. Like thinking in my thoughtful spot, living has to be taken in with slow, easy breaths, enjoying it one moment at a time. I found it very difficult to live in a place where I was constantly dodging cars, being kept awake by noise and running as fast as I could to keep up. Real living began for me when I steered off the fast track and parked in a little field where I could think. It was the best thing I ever did.

Wildrose Music: Music For Everyone

The goal of Wildrose Music is to provide great original music, royalty free, that is downloadable in several formats. We have created a place where choir directors and musicians of all kinds can find good new music that is free and easy to download.

There is a need, we feel, to share the music that is being written. We feel that the copyright laws are too strict and actually restrict the circulation of great music. Some people feel that composers deserve to be paid for their work, as much as anyone. As a composer I have struggled with this question for many years. Certainly composers have to eat, but selling sheets of music is not the answer. Music is something you share. However, I realize that I am almost entirely alone in my opinion. I believe that people ought to be given the opportunity to have the great music that is being written. If it is of value to them, then they ought to give back what they think it is worth. However, I, as a composer will not hold the music ransom for money. In my opinion, this cheapens my life and makes me a slave to the dollar. What I write, I write for the good of myself, God and other people. I do not write it to make money for me or anyone else. I believe that the good music I send out will come back to me in the form of good will, good wishes and joy. It has already done so for these many years. I have shared all my music with anyone who asked me. I have been paid, again and again in things other than money. Once I make it a profitable venture; expecting money from every page printed, then the joy of giving is gone and the avarice of expectation sets in.

I choose to leave the avarice alone and live only with the joy of knowing that the music is going out and giving someone else a slice of happiness. That is enough for me.

The Real Thing

I'm the type of person who likes to do things herself. I like to have things to do and I like to be responsible for doing them. I like the feeling of knowing that there are people who depend on me for important things like meals and clean clothing. I also like to feel that I can do other significant things that are valuable to other people. These qualities about myself are, I'm sure, in no way unusual. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that these feelings are a common need among human beings. I noticed early in my career as a mother that children are extremely keen about their independence and desires for significant work. It is parents who discourage these qualities in their children and it's usually because they don't understand that it is a need.

From the first moment a child realizes that there is such a thing as a kitchen and that there are important things going on in it, a child is curious and desirous to participate in the action and work of this most interesting place in his world. To him it is an adventure in exploration and discovery. The child, if allowed will spend hours working with and experimenting on the tools and ingredients in a kitchen. However, as a mother who was interested in things like 'clean', 'safe', 'tidy', and 'convenience' I found it very difficult to overcome my feelings of frustration over the child's natural curiosity and desire to work at something significant. Often I would try to shoo the children out of the kitchen and away from the tools of my trade so that I could keep order and feel that I was a good housekeeper. But the more I tried it, the worse I felt.

I have known children whose bedrooms looked like a mini Toys-R-Us. The toys are so thick and so deep that it would take a week just to shuffle through them all, let alone play with each one. They are usually Christmas gifts which quickly lose their appeal after about the first 24 hours. They then get piled with the rest of the next-to-new toys that will eventually find their way to a thrift store. Parents are under the mistaken belief that children NEED toys. Every advertisement about children tells us this untruth in the most convincing ways. Even children will demand toys, saying that they need them in order to be happy, content and feel loved.

Children need one thing: usefulness. You can give a child the most expensive toy on the market today and still they will play with it for a few hours and lose interest, the same as if you had purchased a dollar store junk toy. In my opinion, most toys are an insult to a child's intelligence. They assume that a child needs and desires to be entertained. But this is a false assumption. Children need to feel that what they are doing is important to the people around them. Just like you and I, they need to have a work that gives them those feelings of self-satisfaction that come only from doing important work well. Toys are merely a distraction from life. Children need real life, not distractions.

It was the look on my daughter's face when I tried to get her to play with her toys instead of help me in the kitchen that taught me the truth about children. She was hurt beyond words when I told her that I wanted her to go out of the kitchen and play with her toys. What I was really saying was, “I will do the important work here. You are just a child. You can play with toys. You are not important enough to do something real.” The look on her face let me know that this was the message I was sending. When I understood that, I decided to put aside my personal feelings of frustration over a little chaos and let my daughter help me in the kitchen with whatever I was doing, regardless of the mess or inconvenience. The result? Well, she now cooks wonderful meals for hundreds of people, loves cooking, feels significant and important in her life as well as mine and is a happy, well-adjusted adult. She feels confident that she can accomplish anything she puts her mind to and has made her parents proud of her accomplishments more times than we can count.

Was it worth the inconvenience and extra mess? What do you think?

Choose to Choose

I remember a time when there were serious and continuous debates over whether people were the product of their heredity or of their environment. Each side seemed determined to prove conclusively that it was the only possible conclusion and each went to great lengths in the media to advance their opinions and make them widely known and believed. However, after living my life and witnessing first-hand the effects of both heredity and environment on myself and those around me I have come to the conclusion that humans are the product of neither heredity nor environment but of choice.

I was still a young mother when my sister came to me with a dilemma involving the disciplining of her children. I suggested a course of action which I myself had practiced and found both effective and helpful. It involved some thought and planning but in the end it was obviously beneficial to both myself and the children. My sister said that she could see that it would be effective. She agreed that it was a better solution than the one she had been trying and yet, she felt that she was not capable of such action. When I asked her why not, she simply responded that she had been 'raised that way'. She then went into a soliloquy about some of the parenting practices she had been subject to as a child which had affected her and which, she believed, somehow held her bound to continue.

I looked at her in disbelief as she enumerated and listed her various grievances until she had finished with a hopeless sigh. In my innocence I quietly replied that I had had the same parents and had simply learned that there were some things they practiced which I felt were not as effective as they ought to be, so I decided to find another and better way if possible. I said that I did not feel bound by my upbringing to practice certain faulty behaviors and then shift responsibility for my own actions onto my parents. I said I didn't think I ought to blame my parents for my own poor choices; that I was capable of choosing well, in spite of what they may have done to me.

It is easy to become a victim of life in a world where there are people who are dishing out unkind words and actions. Without even thinking about it people generally want to return unkindness with more unkindness. Children, especially, will exhibit this behavior automatically at a very early age. In my home I have always told my children that when someone was unkind to them, they ought to say to themselves “This is wrong and I don't like it, so I will never do this to someone else.” In this way, they take positive action toward the future by committing to be better. It also empowers the injured person with the strength to leave behind the poor choices of others and choose for himself actions he can approve of.

Still, there are some who would argue that choice is not entirely free; that it can be forced, stopped or coerced. But, when faced with this dilemma, I always go back to the mind and heart where choices occur. Humans use only a small percentage of their mental capacity. If we feel that our choices are limited, perhaps we should be looking harder for more choices. Knowledge is power, the power to choose. So if, instead of trying to make someone else choose something we like, or lamenting past choices of others that may have hurt us, we might try opening our consciousness to the vast array of choices available to us in the unexplored regions of knowledge, truth and wisdom.

The difference between me and my sister was only that I had chosen to expand my vision of choices that might be made while she was still choosing to be bound by the choices of others. She didn't even realize that she had made that choice but it confined her just the same.

Heredity and environment can influence and push us in certain directions and can even control our lives, if we let them. But ultimately, the choice to BE influenced or pushed is ours. When we realize this, then the freedom to choose begins and the tyranny of the past ends.

Here's to Freedom!

War And Peace

In my dictionary, Peace is defined as the absence of war or public disturbance or, a state of calm or quiet. These two definitions of Peace cover most of the applications of the word as we know it. But, as with many words in today's vernacular, Peace is being re-defined.

In the broadest sense Peace could be applied to the condition of large groups of people and the absence of strife between them, as in peace between nations. This condition however, is the same as peace between gangs only on a smaller scale, and the same as peace in a home which is on an even smaller scale. This inevitably leads us to peace between two people and finally peace in the individual. At this point one might even argue that within the individual their might be different factions striving within one person as in disorders of the mind or multiple personalities. More commonly, quiet voices within the normal mind speak differing opinions on any given subject, like when one is attempting to make an important decision and one weighs all of the facts and opinions on the subject in order to make an informed and intelligent decision.

Thus, it appears to me that Peace at any level is the same, whether in the individual or with a group of people, no matter how large. So, let's take for instance a person with multiple personalities who is not at peace with himself and becomes a problem to those around him and upsets their peace. Well-meaning people might take this person to an asylum in order to protect him from the rest of society, as well as to keep him from harming himself. At this point they have achieved Peace in their world but the root cause is still present, just ignored. Putting a person into an asylum does not create peace within the individual it merely keeps him from interacting with others in order to create the illusion of peace through the absence of the one causing the strife. Peace for the group can be achieved on a superficial level but still the individual does not know peace. Peace for the individual as well as the group would require healing on all levels: social, mental, spiritual, physical and emotional. If the individual were healed, incarceration would be unnecessary and a lasting peace would be achieved for both the individual and the group.

If two countries are at war there must be an underlying cause. One or the other or both countries may have experienced injustices which they are attempting to correct through fighting, which is usually preceded by extensive negotiations and treaties. When the discussions fail and they resort to war then everyone says we have lost peace. But, just as the man with multiple personalities has a disorder which is causing the strife among his peers, so nations have underlying problems which cause the outward strife which is merely the end of a long line of difficulty and the long-standing absence of peace.

Typically, people will treat the symptoms of a disease without actually healing or attempting to heal the disease itself. When a cold is contracted we are only interested in stopping the runny nose instead of finding out more about immunity, good health and healing. In health, marriage, communities, churches, states, nations and the world, there is always an underlying cause to any strife or pain. Peace can be obtained outwardly by treating the symptoms. This, unfortunately, always leads to more symptoms. Suppose you take a country which is at war with another country and you, with your large army, act the part of peacemaker and stand between the two warring nations and prevent the fighting...with fighting. You have obtained Peace with war. But this peace can only be a counterfeit of true peace which could only come by addressing the issues of both parties and healing the difficulty.

A true peacemaker makes peace within himself and others through healing underlying causes of strife or pain. Counterfeit peacemakers make peace by confining, ignoring or destroying those things that cause strife or pain. Both seem to create Peace, but one is real and lasting and the other is superficial and temporary. One actually creates Peace within individuals and nations, the other actually creates more strife.

The last definition of Peace is harmony or concord. This definition is, to me, the most instructive and helpful, for it not only teaches us what peace is but how to achieve it. And perhaps if we look at it in this way we will be less inclined to keep trying to create peace with war.

A Gift

In 1742 George Frideric Handel composed Messiah, a sacred oratorio for choir and orchestra. This amazing and beautiful work has lived on since the composer's death in 1759, a legacy to this man's genius as a composer. Originally designed and intended as a preparation for Lent, this work has instead become a traditional Christmas work, often to the exclusion of the crucifixion and resurrection images. Messiah, however, remains a world-wide favorite and the one work by which Handel is most widely recognized.

When I was a child, I discovered a recording of Messiah which immediately captured my interest. It continually drew me like a magnet to it's glorious sounds and messages. While my friends and other family members were engrossed in the Beatles, Elvis, Chicago, Styx, the Jackson Five and others, I was off in my own little world with Handel, listening to and conducting Messiah. I imagined a huge chorus and orchestra at my feet as I raised my hands to give the down beat. I dreamed of one day being in an orchestra or choir to perform that music, and I also dreamed of conducting it. Youth has no concept of the audacity of it's dreams. It only dreams.

When I got to college, I was still listening to my recording and conducting it in the privacy of my bedroom, but I also began using it in my conducting class. I learned all the techniques of conducting a complicated piece like “For Unto Us a Child is Born”. I never tired of hearing and conducting Handel's great work that seemed to speak to me across the years and give me a sense of direction and meaning in my life. During that time I was also given the opportunity to perform Messiah with the college choir and orchestra. One dream had come true.

When I began to have my family, Messiah was always at the back of my mind, waiting to be sung. Once, for a Christmas celebration, I asked my church choir to sing a couple of numbers from Messiah, which they reluctantly performed. I discovered that people are afraid of the music of Messiah because it seems so difficult. People who consider themselves amateur singers will rarely consent to tackle this work, partly because of it's imposing stature in history and tradition, and partly because they are afraid that they will do it badly. Thus, in all those years after college, it was a rare thing for me to be able to interact with the music of Messiah, except on a recording.

Two months ago, I sat pondering the question of a Christmas program. Budget constraints, economic challenges and busy schedules began to loom before me like a dark storm cloud. “People are having a hard time right now,” I thought. “What could we do that would not interfere too much with people's lives or be a burden to them. The answer came unexpectedly that instead of doing less, I should do more; that there is no better time than right now to give people an opportunity to both give and receive one of the greatest gifts ever given to mankind. The music of Handel and the message of Messiah are timely gifts for a time of trouble. I saw in my mind a choir and orchestra performing a large portion of Messiah to a grateful audience. “That would be another dream come true,” I thought.

The music of Handel's Messiah has followed me, taught me and helped me throughout my life. I now give this gift to my community with all my heart. May it bless your life as it has blessed mine.

Either Way

There are cultures in this world that value family life above everything else. Families live in close-knit groups, helping and supporting one another. Aside from the obvious economic benefits of such an arrangement, there are also social advantages to this type of life. In particular, I am thinking of the benefits of the sort of circular family life where the youthful and the aging occupy the same home and find mutual improvement.

When I was growing up, my Grandparents lived on a farm about twenty miles from our home. We visited regularly on birthdays, holidays and other occasions and we enjoyed their company often at our home whenever they would come. At the time, this seemed ideal. I had grandparents who were close enough that I could see them whenever I wanted and they had the privacy of their own lives whenever they wanted. Then, unexpectedly, my Grandpa died. This left Grandma alone on the farm and caused their children considerable uneasiness. What was once considered privacy was now called isolation. Quiet evenings turned into potentially dangerous situations and living twenty miles from her family seemed like hundreds.

The family decided that it would be best for Grandma to live in town, near all of her family members. I remember the arguments about the pros and cons of putting her into a nursing home, leaving her on the farm, renting an apartment. I also remember that Grandma was not at all happy after that. The only thing she wanted was to live out her life in the home she had built with her husband. She would have preferred to go with him when he went, but in lieu of that she just wanted to be as near him as possible, which to her meant being on the farm where they had lived happily together all their lives.

As a young child, I could not understand why this was such a hard thing for their children to understand and accept. Grandma just wanted to be home. What could be simpler? But they would not hear of it. They said that they loved her too much to allow her to die alone on that farm. For the next few years, Grandma was very unhappy. When I would go to visit her, it wasn't the same as before because to me, Grandma's house was as much a part of Grandma as anything. Without her house, she just didn't seem like herself. Her family visited her every day, cooked for her, brought her things, watched over her, took her to the doctor, etc. But the one thing she wanted most in all the world was denied her.

Since becoming an adult, I have pondered on this unhappy situation many times. I understand now that the chief motivating factor in bringing Grandma away from her home was fear; fear that she would fall, fear that no one would be there if she got hurt, or needed help or couldn't get up or had a stroke or any of the myriad possibilities they could think of. Fear, not love, is what motivated them to take Grandma away from the home she loved and put her into a place where nothing she did brought relief from the grief she felt in losing Grandpa.

There are cultures, as I said, where the families do not isolate their Grandparents. They live with their families, often in their ancestral homes where they mentor the children, help when they can and in turn are lifted and blessed by the energy and vigor of the rising generation. They are given the respect and reverence they have earned and deserve in an atmosphere of tolerance, family unity and love.

My Grandma died in the hospital, unhappy and troubled. In another culture, this would not have been the case. Grandma would have been living with her family, in her own home. Children would have been around her all the time, attending to her needs, listening to her stories and cheering up her heart until it was time for her to go. I wish now that I had been given that opportunity, not only to help my Grandma, but to learn from someone who has lived a complete life what it means to die. Death should not be something we fear so much that we are willing to put someone through hell to make them avoid it for a few more hours. Death is a part of life. 
 

When we isolate Grandma, we isolate ourselves from her wisdom. The absence of this wisdom is the cause of the fear that selfishly ignores the true needs of others in order to protect itself from the imagined threat. It's a little like what goes on today at the airport where they irradiate everyone because they are afraid that a terrorist might be among us. So, they definitely kill you slowly to protect you from possibly being killed quickly. Either way you are going to die. But why should we allow their fear of the possible threat of a quick and early death make us subject to the sure threat of death by radiation, which, though slower, is still a threat? I know what Grandma would say. She would say, “Either way...”

French Fries, Anyone?

I have to laugh when I hear some of the current political labels. I realize that a lot of people take these labels very seriously. A label can literally make or break a candidate. Sometimes the labels are self-assigned and sometimes they are assigned by others, either friend or foe. The labels vary from the sublime to the ridiculous and the effects of the labels seems to determine the outcome of any given election. Given the kind of power that labels can wield in an election, is it any wonder that people work so hard to establish labels either for themselves or their opponents.

A few years ago my husband and I became involved in local caucus meetings and found ourselves filling positions of service very quickly because we were young and willing. Most of the people in the community were sort of lax about the meetings and about politics in general. We had decided, as a family, that we wanted to be as involved in the political process as we possibly could because we believed it was the right thing to do. People were always saying, “If you don't like what's happening, get involved and be a catalyst for change”. So we did...we thought. What really happened was that we were introduced rather forcefully into the world of political labels, cliques, games, names, endorsements, compromises, promises and lies.

We discovered that there is a spectrum of labels to begin with and, depending on where you fit into that spectrum, you are considered 'mainstream' or 'fringe', (still more labels!). As beginners, we were a little naïve so we chose to be involved with the supposed 'mainstream' of political life which was given to us by our parents and based on some research into the stated views of the group we intended to join. These stated views are called a 'Platform' and each individual principle in the platform is called a 'Plank'. So we studied the platform and compared it to our own views and decided that they were pretty well in line with each other. We avoided extremes of either end of the spectrum and felt comfortable in our decision to be a part of a group that seemed to be making a difference.

I suppose our mistake was that we actually read and believed the party platform. I mean, the longer we were involved in the local political scene, the more we realized that politics was not about what you believed or what you were trying to accomplish, nor was it about making a difference, nor was it about honestly representing your community, state or country. None of these worthy goals was the real heart of the political scene to which we were introduced. In the end, it was all about the labels.

The only thing I can compare it to is grocery shopping. We go to the store and buy the items we desire. We read the labels and expect to purchase a product that is faithful to that label. In other words, we expect to eat what we read on the label, not something else. My daughter works at a potato factory. The other day she came home and said that she had something funny to tell me. She said that they had been packaging french fries for a large food chain. Boxes and boxes of those french fries went sailing through the machines. Then, after the order was finished, there was some new packaging brought in. It was for 'super-ultra-organic-amazing french fries' of some kind. The packages were very small, and we all know how much more expensive they are going to be. She said, “Guess what, Mom. They are the SAME french fries!”

That's politics. You shop for a label. You look for the one who's got the label that fits most closely with your views. You support, you cheer, you vote and finally you hope that he will deliver the goods as promised. But I learned first hand that they were all pretty much the same french fries. Some of them wanted to be labeled 'super-ultra, amazing, right-wing', some 'mainstream' and some 'hard-line left' but in the end, it wasn't a public platform upon which they were standing but it was a special interest money bag upon which they stood and to whom they owed almost exclusive allegiance. But they know that people want labels, so they use them. Just like people who buy french fries, I suppose you FEEL better if you THINK you are buying something amazing. I think I don't like french fries or politics any more.

Just a Word

I discovered the word, EXTORTION the other day in the dictionary. I had heard the word used many times in various settings and I thought I knew what the word meant. I had sort of a vague image of business crimes involving falsified books and things like that. However when I, out of curiosity, looked up this interesting word in the dictionary, I was intrigued. I started thinking about some of the places where I had heard the word and I eventually discovered something quite unexpected.

The modern, standard definition of the word 'extortion' is: The illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage. Thus, we hear of this crime often in connection with politics and big business. Truthfully, the crime is so common in today's world that we hardly bat an eye when we hear of it in the news. Those who indulge in it are nothing but thieves, but their position seems to lend an air of sophistication to their crime which in turn tends to allow for an easier public forgiveness. But it wasn't this word's connection with politics that interested me in the first place, it was something else.

Historically, extortion has also meant: The act of securing money, favors, etc. by intimidation or violence; blackmail. This broad definition might imply the involvement of a whole host of crimes besides theft. For me, it also conjures up images of gangsters and organized crime. The air of sophistication seems to be absent in this definition and we see the crime in all it's blackness. We could easily imagine these criminals being put away for long periods of time in order to protect others from their criminal actions. Still, this definition does not reach the heart of the matter for me.

One more definition of the word 'extortion' offers additional insight, I believe, into the interesting nature of this crime and brings it a little closer to home. My online dictionary defines extortion as: An excessive or exorbitant charge. Who among us has not been the victim of this crime? In fact, I would say that this is often considered a necessity in today's world. People charge exorbitant prices in order to survive in a business world where everyone else is also charging exorbitant prices. One high price leads to another in an endless chain of 'getting ahead'. “Profit Margin”, “Price Gouging”, “Mark-up”, “Business Savvy” and “Marketing”; all common business practices, carry with them the expectation of great wealth at the expense of an innocent consumer. A businessman is considered “Smarter Than Average” if he can figure out a way to 'get it' from the consumer, faster and smoother than anyone else. But, there is more.

There is yet one more view of extortion I found, that paints an unforgettable picture. The etymology of the word 'extortion' is from the Latin extortionem, meaning: a twisting out. Also, from extorquere, meaning: to wrench out, wrest away, to obtain by force. It makes me think of Prince John in the old Disney movie, “Robin Hood” where Prince John tells the sheriff to “squeeze every last drop” of money out of the people. Have you ever been 'squeezed' like that, so to speak?

Biblically, it was considered a sin to practice extortion. Men who planted crops were counseled to leave in their fields all that the reapers had dropped during the harvest so the poor might go through and obtain food. The image of Ruth and Boaz comes to mind here. Then I came across a very disturbing passage in Ezekiel 16:49 that changed everything.

I was taught that immorality was a crime. I was led to believe that certain people and certain cities were destroyed by deity for such crimes. Then I read this passage in Ezekiel and had to change my mind. About the same time, I came across the writings of a man who was researching some recently discovered ancient texts. He said that they had found references to the 'cities of the plain' as being places of great wealth. However, he said that they were considered by surrounding peoples as greedy and selfish. In one account, it was said that they put nets over their fruit trees so that the birds could not eat up any of their profits. Strangers in their city were not taken care of, but taken advantage of. I discovered also, that throughout the last half of the old testament these crimes against the poor were continually denounced.

Today, extortion is probably the most widely committed crime against humanity and apparently it can also make you fairly unpopular in they eyes of heaven. It's easy to blame and point fingers at the images on our television, but instead of looking at the crimes of big business, politics and other people, we might examine our own lives more closely and find that we could indeed create a better world for ourselves and our neighbors by relieving oppression in all it's smaller forms.

An Encouraging Word

“Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam; where the deer and the antelope play; where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day.” As I listened to that song the other day I had to wonder to myself, if there really is anyone left who knows what it feels like to live in a place 'where the buffalo roamed' or where 'seldom is heard a discouraging word'. I also wondered if there was anyone around who would WANT to. I mean, it all sounds nice in the song, but when it comes right down to it, I guess we're all just a bunch of wimps.

Take, for instance, buffalo roaming. That means a place where there are no roads, no electricity and no fences. Buffalo were pretty destructive of any other habitat but their own. Basically, where the buffalo roamed was a place where ONLY buffalo roamed. In other words, forget having a house, running water, electric lights and a thousand other amenities, because the buffalo pretty much take over the land. You could roam around WITH the buffalo, like some of the native people did, but permanent housing is out of the question.

OK, what about the deer and the antelope? Beautiful, right? Well, if the deer and the antelope can play, it means again that people are scarce, roads are non-existent and fences are out of the question. It means that if you try to grow something, they are going to eat it; that is, if the buffalo don't get to it first. There is a reason why there was only grass on the prairie when the settlers first came to this land.

Now, it sounds really nice to live in a place where seldom is heard a discouraging word but I've decided that the reason he seldom heard a discouraging word is because he seldom heard ANY word. There are so few people around on a prairie where the buffalo roam that anything you heard from another human being would sound like good news to you. I spent one day alone, with my horse, on the prairie, with no human being in sight for miles. One day was enough for me. I

Alright, skies that aren't cloudy all day...well, that's just not practical. I mean, no rain - no anything. I suppose in the song he means that there is very little trouble, or not a lot to worry about. Again, I'm having a hard time believing that anyone who is alone on a prairie with buffalo has little to worry about. I love the “Little House on the Prairie” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Those truthful accounts of a young girl's life on the prairie are a rare glimpse into the past. One of the first things you learn is that on the prairie, you always have some life-threatening danger to worry about. In reality, living in a place where the buffalo roam was anything but a romantic way of life, as the song suggests. It was hard, hostile, frightening and often extremely dangerous. The early settlers fought tooth and nail against the buffalo, deer, coyotes, wolves, the elements and sometimes other people just to eek out a meager living on the unforgiving prairie.

Today, if we don't get immediate reception for our cell phone that has to talk to a satellite and receive information from sometimes thousands of miles away, we pout and grumble that we are going to change providers. If our computer isn't lightening fast at streaming video signals from around the globe we complain that we just can't stand to wait for this 'awful connection'. We apologize to ourselves if our television isn't as big as the wall. We get uptight if the GPS has a glitch in it.

Maybe we need to spend a few days in “a home where the buffalo roam” so we can learn to appreciate the simple pleasures of indoor plumbing and hot running water. Maybe if we spent some time “where the deer and the antelope play”, without a car or a cell phone, a job or a boss, we might learn to appreciate what it means to survive when you have to fight mother nature for every morsel of food you get. And perhaps if we lived in a place like a prairie, alone, “where seldom is heard a discouraging word” we might awaken to the realization that people are great, and that families are precious gifts not to be taken for granted. And, I'm sure I don't want to be where “the skies are not cloudy all day.” I hope it wouldn't take a drought to give us an appreciation for the rain, irrigation, drinking water and good crops.

Still, the guy who wrote that song sounds happy. And I'm having a hard time imagining someone happily singing a song that goes something like this:

Oh, give me a home, where the cell towers roam

Where the Jazz and the Warriors play;

Where seldom is heard an encouraging word

And the skies are just smoggy all day.

Come to think of it, that prairie is sounding better and better all the time.

Your Song

If asked, most people would say they are not musical. They would say that they 'like' music and listen to it often, but they just aren't talented at music. From my experience, most people I encounter believe that music and musicians belong to a sort of elite 'club' that only the talented can join. They also believe that those people are born into this club, being talented from birth or even before. Predestination is about the only word I can think of to describe this belief. I have often wondered where this belief comes from and what I could do to dispel it. To me, it is a great obstacle to the growth and creativity of most people, because I believe that ALL human beings are musicians.

If that surprises you, it should. This idea flies in the face of hundreds of years of social notions and norms that separate the talented from the untalented. To me, it's a little bit like Thomas Jefferson putting those words into the Constitution that say: “All men are created equal...” while still owning slaves. It would seem that this idea is far-fetched; even preposterous. How can everyone be a musician when there seems to be such clear lines delineating the 'musical' and the 'unmusical'?

To illustrate, I recently watched a movie about a woman who was given charge over a baby who, in the view of the doctors, was going to die within a few days because of his condition. This woman had been working with the hospital for many years, taking care of numerous children who needed special attention which the hospital or parents were unable to give. Though they never had any children of their own, she and her husband worked together to help these children have a better life. The doctors said that the baby, an orphan, was without hope and they just needed someone to care for him until he died. Though aging and in need of care herself, the woman gladly took the child and said emphatically, “He is not going to die!” The doctor shook his head and left. Through her diligence and faith, the child did not die, but lived. However, he was blind and paralyzed. This did not discourage the woman. Every day, she talked to, worked with, taught, fed, clothed and loved that child. Miraculously, after many years of work, he learned to communicate and even to walk. Then, without warning, he walked into her piano room and sat to the piano and began playing one of the pieces that the woman had so often played for him. She thought it was her recording. When she looked into his room, she saw him sitting at the piano and nearly fainted. Could he really be playing it, she thought? He had had no instruction, no training, no aptitude, no sight, and according to the doctors, no ability whatsoever. Yet, there he was.

This story is only one of thousands of examples of people who overcome terrific odds in order to succeed. THAT, is music.

Each person is given a life. Life is energy; vibration, music. When you live it, you play music. Some people have some pretty sad songs. Their lives are an endless stream of self-pity and sorrow: “I never had a chance. I'm not talented. I don't have good looks. I'll never amount to anything great.” Others take life and turn lemons into lemonade. Like the woman in the story, they don't take life and sit on it, they take life and run with it. That's music.

Anyone at all, even a deaf person, can learn music. The so-called tone-deaf, can be taught, the blind can become proficient at it, the mentally handicapped, the physically impaired; in fact, anyone who is still breathing is a musician. Breathing is music. Life is music. If you have it, you are a musician. So, instead of being sad because you don't have musical talent, start being thankful that you have the best music in the world and start using it to sing your own song; whatever it happens to be.

The Difference

Children need time to daydream. To put it mildly, children have far too much stress in their lives today. Being behind a desk for hours at a time, participating in sports, dance, music lessons, homework, chores, television, video games and the demands put upon them by their families can create a world where there is no time to dream. The expectations placed upon children by life and people can completely close off the channel of mental freedom where dreams are born.

As a small child, I knew the joy of dreams in abundance. Gradually as I became older and fully indoctrinated into my culture, my dreams became less important. I began to modify them to be more in keeping with what I thought people expected of me than what I honestly desired for myself. In recent years, however, I have found hidden in the shadowy recesses of my mind, a small packet of dreams which, though full of the happiest of good things, was sadly neglected in my adult life because of the demands placed upon me.

Dreaming is the act of creating your own future. It is where we exercise complete freedom and imagine life as we desire it to be. Whether it be tangible goods or intangible relationships, conditions or feelings, those dreams, in my opinion, represent our life-line to the future. When those dreams are absent or buried beneath a mountain of cares and responsibilities, our lives can feel like an unbearable burden. But what is it that allows us to not just dream, but to take the leap of faith and fulfill our dreams? Where do we get the permission to do such a thing in a world where people are often slaves both to their wages and to the expectations of others?

This is where children come in. When we are children, we don't have to be taught to dream and dream big. We do it automatically and without reserve. Children will unashamedly tell anyone what they want to be when they grow up and the only restriction on their dreams is their limited knowledge. As soon as they find out how to dream bigger, they do it. They can easily dream of flying like a bird, breathing water like a fish,running faster than the fastest car, traveling through time,inventing perpetual motion or walking on the moon. Then, all too quickly, the children grow up and are initiated into a dreary world of 'No Make-believe'. We insist that children put their eyes and feet on the real ground. We reign in their dreams like a wild horse being broken. Dreams are put away as childish prattle and the child becomes an adult. In order to dream, you must be like a child and allow yourself this privilege. It is your own permission that allows this to happen.

Albert Einstein said: “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.” When we fail to dream honestly, and not just within the confines of current social expectations, we lose the opportunity to create our best future. Children seem to do this instinctively; adults, rarely. The problem, I believe, lies in the absence of the priority given to dreams and dreaming. Most people put a high priority on personal cleanliness. Every day they shower, shave, wear clean clothes etc. But how much time is spent on creating their own personal 'better world' through imagining, dreaming and planning for it?

Cinderella had the right idea when she spent time dreaming, wishing and working toward the day when she herself would be a princess instead of a scullery maid. If she had spent all her time just working hard or had simply become embittered by the cruel treatment of those around her, she may have missed her chance to change her world. Like a child, she remembered to dream big.

Thomas Edison said that his inventions were one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Most of us just have the perspiration. Giving himself the gift of one percent of dreaming in his life made the difference between Edison becoming a world-class inventor or being an ordinary,hard-working man. In this writer's opinion, it's a difference worth at least one percent of my time. That's fifteen minutes a day for the hope of a better life. What a bargain!

Greatness Defined

I would like to be a great conductor. No, I do not mean a train conductor, but a music conductor. This might sound funny, coming from one who writes articles in newspapers, has twelve children and lives in small town in Idaho, but it's true. I love conducting music. I love it more than I love eating; more than I love sleeping. So how did I get to this point of wanting, even needing to be a conductor, yet living in such a place as to make this dream something like a joke.

When I was just beginning my musical education, i.e. starting band, I had a wonderful band director, Mr. Sheets. He was famous in our little community for getting some of the most amazing music out of Jr. High and High School music students. He won awards, put on shows, concerts and productions and inspired the children to perform at levels previously unheard-of. When it was finally my turn to be a part of the band, I couldn't wait. I wanted to impress him and I wanted to show him what I could do. So, before the first day of class, I had already obtained my instrument as well as an instruction book. I worked almost constantly from then until the first day of class to learn the notes and play my instrument. When the first day of class arrived, I was super-prepared. I played a chromatic scale, two octaves up and down and could play any song in the book, as well as play the highest note on my note chart. When I finished showing him what I could do, he was indeed impressed and encouraged me to keep practicing.

From then on, I felt a keen desire to continue learning and getting better at what I did. Mr. Sheets always thought it was wonderful and he always listened and encouraged me. Then, after two more years, some rotten school politics and a mountain of misunderstandings, Mr. Sheets was fired. That summer, he was killed in a painting accident. That year, I decided that I wanted to be a great conductor.

I began learning all I could about music, in spite of some of the difficult music teachers I had to suffer through after Mr. Sheets died. I obtained a degree in music education, believing that this would best equip me for my chosen vocation. At the end of all that, I sat in a class of Jr. High band students as a substitute teacher and asked myself: What in the world were you thinking? You can't do this!

The rest of the questions I asked myself went something like this: How did he do it? How did Mr. Sheets inspire everyone around him to such great heights? How did he get such a wonderful music program? How did he take a Jr. High classroom from complacency and disobedience to anxious wonder and excitement? Essentially, I was wondering what it was he had that I seemed to lack.

I did not have the opportunity to spend many years in the Jr. High classroom finding out. Instead, I had my own children. I have had twenty-five years and twelve children to help me figure out what Mr. Sheets had and how to get it.

What I learned was this: First, he believed in people. He believed that whatever they wanted to accomplish they could accomplish, without question. Second, he wasn't in it for himself. He seemed to care more about everyone else's dreams and aspirations than his own. But, amazingly, he DID have dreams of his own and he often shared them with his students. Some of those dreams had to do with his students. That helped as well. Third, he wasn't trying to save his skin by being politically correct. He simply followed his heart even if it meant braking a few rules. Fourth, he never MADE anyone do anything, he LET them. In his class, it was a privilege to work hard, accomplish and excel. What teacher wouldn't give their right arm for a class like that?

So, I want to be a conductor; a GREAT conductor like Mr. Sheets. But the last thing he taught me was that you don't have to be in a big city conducting a famous orchestra to accomplish that goal. He changed my life by simply being an audacious band director in a very small town. One life changed IS great. One child inspired to fulfill his dreams is all the success he ever seemed to expect, but after seeing hundreds of children rise to his challenge I know that it was just the beginning of what he would receive. THAT is great.

It's a Wonderful Life... Really

Have you ever wondered what the world would have been like without you? We all remember Jimmy Stewart in his award-winning role as the distraught banker whose uncle has lost a deposit of eight-hundred dollars which puts him (George Baily) into an impossible predicament where he is forced to grovel at the feet of the man who has belittled him all of his life and who can't wait to take advantage of George and even put him out of business entirely. Ultimately, George prays and is given the unlikely opportunity to see the world as it would have been, without him. He realizes that he actually had a wonderful, useful, productive life. But more than that, he realizes that without him, there were dozens and even hundreds of lives lost or broken. This final realization causes him tremendous remorse and he wishes with all his might that he might just have his old life back, even with all the trouble he might have to face.

I have often reflected on the power of the information that George was given. He KNEW whose lives he had changed and even who would have been dead, but for him. That knowledge gave him the courage to face persecution, financial ruin and even prison with a cheerful heart. So, I asked myself: how can I gain access to that same knowledge in my life? How can I know who I have helped, what good I have done or whose life I may have saved? If it really is a Wonderful Life, how can I know it?

When I was a child, I had a lot of trouble. My dad was an alcoholic, my mother worked, and my brothers took advantage of the fact that I had no one to protect me. I tried to stay out of everyone's way and just be a fly on the wall, so to speak, but I also wanted to help my Mother so she wouldn't have to worry about the house. I wanted to help my Dad stop drinking and smoking because I knew it was killing him. I wanted to be safe from the trouble and pain that surrounded me. Many times as a child and sometimes even as an adult, I have felt like George Baily, standing on the bridge wondering if his life was worth anything at all.

Not too long ago, I went to the hospital. I was clinically dead, they said, but I was still talking, so they kept taking my vital signs until they got a reading other than 'dead'. I had lost so much blood that I became unconscious on my ride to the hospital. They could find no pulse and I was not breathing, as far as they could tell. After a few moments I regained consciousness with a jolt, like an electric shock. It felt as though I had been kicked awake. I don't remember anything about when I was unconscious, but I do know that after I woke up, I knew what George knew. What follows is a small part of that knowledge:

One of my older brothers was in high school when he got into a fight. He was so upset by it that he got into his car to get away. I was about fifteen. I don't know how I managed it, but I jumped into the car with him. We drove down a dirt rode for several miles at top speed. After what seemed like a long time, he finally stopped. “Why did you come?” he asked angrily. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know why I had come. Then he said, “If you had not been here, I would have driven off the road and killed myself. I just wanted to die.” He then began to cry and we talked until he felt better and we went home.

Today, my brother loves people. He helps anyone who needs it, whether they have money to pay or not. He has a large family. His sons and daughters have traveled the world, performing, dancing, teaching. Thousands of lives have been touched and blessed by this one man alone...and I saved his life.

When I got out of the hospital, my brother was at my home. He had driven five hundred miles that night to be at my bedside. “I love you, Kathy and wouldn't want anything to happen to my baby sister” he said. It really is a wonderful life.

The Land of the Safe and the Home of the Caged

The longer I live, the better I get at being 'safe'. I can skirt disaster, trouble, difficulty and contention so well that most of the time I live a pretty contented and happy existence. More than almost anything else, I believe 'safe' is the word I would use to describe the direction of humanity during my lifetime. It sounds alright when I say it, but the more I think about it, the more I doubt it.

A woman I know was talking about when she was a child, about sixty-five years ago I guess, when her and her family would pile into the car and go to church. She talked about how glad she was that they were able to go, then realized that if they had had to have seat belts for everyone they would not have been able to go at all. She said that she wasn't sure if things were better now, with seat belts. I would have to agree. However, seat belts represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of 'safety' with which we are encumbered today. With automobiles alone we are saddled with safety windows, safety locks, airbags, safety glass, mandatory insurance, radar-controlled speed limits, licenses, eye exams, and now they are introducing satellite controlled tracking for more efficient policing. These are just a few of the safety measures to which we are subject on a daily basis. Don't you feel safe?

We are told that going through an airport scanner or pat-down keeps us safe from terrorists. We are told that purchasing food from Government inspected sources will keep us safe from food poisoning. We are told that if we have health insurance we are safe from disease. And the list goes on and on. I don't remember exactly when, but somewhere in my past I awoke to the reality that life was dangerous. Waking up is life-threatening and living in today's world is an absolute mess of perilous circumstances. I cannot do one thing in the day which will not put me in jeopardy. This is no secret. I think everyone knows it. But what is different about today is that people are working overtime to eliminate ALL the risk of living. They do this in a number of ways.

When I was pregnant with my first child, the Doctor informed me that I was entitled to a free ultrasound of my infant to determine if the child were severely handicapped. If the child was found to be less than normal, I was then entitled to a free abortion. (When he said that, I felt like throwing up.) So, I learned that one way of dealing with a dangerous situation for me or my unborn child was instant death for the child. Hmm.

In the year 2002, we as a nation were subject to the amazing display of “terror in the skies” when the twin towers and the Pentagon were attacked. Everyone panicked and felt the dreadful pain of thousands of people being destroyed. As a result, new laws were passed, new wars were started and we all felt safer. Right? I learned that when your country feels unsafe, you take away someone's freedom and you begin killing someone else.

We used to live near a school in a small town much like the one in this town. There were so many fights in the halls and so many weapons being used that the city and the school decided that in order to keep the children safe, they needed an armed police guard on duty during school hours. Random searches, police dogs, locked doors and restricted movement became the norm in that school. I learned that to keep these children safe we had to put them in a cage with a guard.

A small farm in the mid-west sells raw milk and the FBI shuts them down for food terrorism. I learned that in order to be safe, we have to restrict everyone, no matter how well-meaning he is.

And the moral of the story is: if you want to be safe you either have to be dead, or in a cage; and we aren't too sure about that cage.

Skin Deep in November

It's been some years now since I have not been able to discuss politics with anyone except my husband and children. It seems everyone else is so convinced that their candidate is the next Abraham Lincoln that we cannot discuss political or economic principles without bloodshed, so I just keep my mouth shut. But, since I have no one here to tell me I cannot, I thought I would just test the water a little and see if I can avoid a fight.

This may sound strange, but any time people discuss politics or economics, I think it is imperative that the discussion focus around principles, not people. I know that some would disagree with this approach because it's so easy to like or dislike someone and accept or reject their politics out of hand. I learned a lesson about this that I will never forget.

I used to live in a place where there was a certain political candidate who was as popular as the day is long. He had all the votes he needed to keep him in his political position for the rest of his life. I had no reason to dislike him, but I admit that my gut feeling was one of skepticism. I withheld my comments because I believed that it wasn't the man but the philosophy of the man I should be looking at. On the surface, his philosophy sounded OK. Then I went to a political rally where this man was speaking. The organizers had a informal breakfast and chat session with the candidate so that people could 'get to know' him better. I had wished for just such an opportunity to satisfy my curiosity about this candidate so I went and put myself in a position to ask some questions. During the course of the breakfast, my questions were answered. I had heard about several pieces of legislation for which this candidate had voted. This legislation was clearly against the Party Platform, (the principles upon which the political party is supposedly founded and governed) I questioned his motives for such a course and suggested that if he consistently voted against the party's platform that perhaps he should switch parties.

The response I received from this candidate both surprised and puzzled me. He said with a sort of knowing smile that I just did not understand how things are done in Washington; that the way things are right now made it necessary for him to compromise certain principles. He said, if you want to get something good accomplished, you have to vote for something you don't want or even something bad in order to get it. Then he proceeded to tell us all the good he had accomplished with this technique.

This candidate is entitled to his opinion about how to perform his office. However, I realized at that moment, that I could not vote for him. His political philosophy was diametrically opposed to that of myself. I was glad that I was able to discover this about him and to confidently seek out someone who believed as I did.

Some people have made jokes about how political campaigns are either beauty contests or contests to determine who can lie the smoothest. If this is true then I guess we deserve what we get. I admit that it takes some effort to get to someone's philosophy. Sometimes it is carefully hidden behind a mountain of rhetoric. I personally do not want to be taken in by someone who has kept his real philosophy secret. I want to talk about and vote for someone who holds to principles to which I agree and who votes and lives accordingly. Anything else is foolishness in my opinion.

Sometimes the trouble arises from the fact that many people do not know WHAT they believe. In other words, they have no political or economic philosophy. This is a very dangerous position. People with no philosophy, or one that is unclear or shallow, can be easily taken in by fair promises. I believe that the time has come for people to educate themselves in these matters so that they cannot be deceived by smooth talking fakers. It is time that people dug deeper than the surface rhetoric to find the philosophy behind the man, because, I assure you, they have one. The question is, do you KNOW what it is, and do you agree. It really is not about the candidate, but about his philosophy and the principles for which he stands. Anything else is still a beauty contest.

What I Love

I love to sit and watch a beautiful sunset or to walk around on a morning when there is freshly cut hay and just smell the air.

I love to listen to a beautiful piece of music that makes me cry or to paint something colorful and watch the colors blend and run together.

I love to watch people dancing or to ride a horse through a field.

I love to be in the mountains in the summer when the pine needles are so strong-smelling it is almost intoxicating.

I love to feel the vibration of thunder when the lightening is so close you could almost touch it. I love to hold a baby when they have just been fed and they fall asleep with a tiny drop of milk on their cheek.

I love to look out over a green field on a late summer evening when the sun is sinking low, the grass turns a dark green, the shadows are a mile long and the air is an amber haze.

I love being on an ocean beach, feeling the power of all that water around me, hearing the constant rush of wave after wave washing away all the things that do not matter.

I love watching happy children play.

I love really good books that give you something to think about and inspire you to be a better person.

I love people who smile when they walk into a room and it feels as if they have just turned the lights on.

I love thinking about my Grandfather on his farm, puttering with his tractor, talking to me about make-up and boys, dating and love.

I love summer days going bare-footed.

I love fresh fruit, stolen from the box before canning and preserving.

I love trees of every kind; Tall trees that make you lean way back to see the tops, great trees whose branches reach in a circle and provide a wonderful habitat for humans who need shade, tiny saplings whose tender limbs wave happily in even the slightest breeze, stiff pine trees whose stalwart character remains calm even in the dead of winter and whose fragrance says “Christmas” like nothing else and the lovely shimmering Aspens whose leaves seem to come alive with movement and fluidity almost like water.

I love great tall buildings whose architecture is full of symmetry and mystery.

I love Mozart for the music he created because no one could have created that music out of a barren heart.

I love flying, although I thought I would not because I was always afraid of heights. But I love the feeling of being thousands of feet in the air... flying. There is just nothing in the world like it.

I love to be alone, in a tree, thinking.

I love when the weather is cold and the food is hot, the kitchen is clean and the fireplace is toasty.

I love being alive. And from what I hear, death isn't that bad either.

The Worst Show on Earth

I have to laugh when I think of the theatrical attempts to “balance the Federal budget”. I say theatrical because I believe that for the most part their public attempts at budgeting are largely for our benefit. In other words, I don't think they are really trying to balance anything except public opinion. This makes me think of another facet of life, and that is: pain.

No one likes pain. It hurts, right? Get rid of it, right? As a mother of twelve, I have experienced first-hand what I would call excruciating pain on many levels. Every part of my body (I think) in varying degrees and for varying amounts of time has been subject to pain which at times has seemed impossible to bear. At first, when I was younger, the answer for pain was a pain-killer. Your head hurts: take an aspirin. As I grew older and the pain became more complex, there were also more complex solutions. For instance, for a sore throat, the doctor would prescribe an antibiotic with the pain-killer. These simple solutions to pain were mostly acceptable until I had my first child. As I lay on the table being torn apart by the pain inside me, there was no amount of medication, short of complete anesthesia, that would stop the pain. I simply had to bear it. That episode of pain caused me to re-think my philosophy of pain.

I had been thinking that the solution for pain was to eliminate it through medication. As I began to experience many different kinds of pain, I realized that this solution was too simple and too often inadequate. So, I started looking for other ways to eliminate pain. First of all, I asked myself what was causing the pain. During my pregnancies, I often endured terrible back and leg pain which made it impossible to sleep or to walk. Pain medication during pregnancy can be dangerous for the baby, so I chose to simply endure the pain. That was easier said than done! Then I began looking for ways to eliminate the pain without killing it. I knew that pain killers, like their name, did a certain amount of killing; mostly of brain cells whose job it is to send pain messages to you. It would be like hiring a budget manager for your business who simply threw out all the bills you received in order to show on the books that you had plenty of money. I suppose it would work for a while, but when you found out what he was doing, you would probably have him arrested for fraud. Just so with the pain-killer. It doesn't really do anything to help the situation except to make you think that everything is OK, when in actuality, it isn't.

So, I took it upon myself to discover the source of my pain, which in the case I have been describing was a muscle in my back. I began reading about those areas of the body and was led from one piece of knowledge to another until I finally found a simple little exercise I could do every day for about fifteen seconds which would stretch the muscle in question and relieve all of the pain in both my back and legs. I laughed at myself for not finding it sooner and was able to complete all of my succeeding pregnancies with little or no back and leg pain.

Now a budget whose debt ceiling is constantly going higher is not a budget at all but a fiasco. No one is actually trying to 'balance' anything except their own position. The only way to balance a budget is to PAY the debt. Their answer is to PRINT more money in order to borrow more money in order to spend more money in order to pretend that we don't owe any money. It's like having a broken leg and instead of stopping to heal, you take pain pills and keep running. Eventually you will run out of brain cells to kill and you will collapse. At that point, you will be in much worse shape than if you just let the leg heal in the first place.

The “Balance the Budget” show is just that: a show. No one wants to stop, heal and pay debts. That takes time and sacrifice, patience and forbearance, knowledge and skill. Instead we will be treated to a carnival of “Kill the Messenger Who Dares to Speak of Budget Cuts.”, “A Fairy Tale Theater Where No One Ever Has To Pay Back Anything!” and the dizzying: “Look at the Amazing Men Who Can Avert Financial Disasters By Printing More Money!” Personally, I think I'll just stay home and balance my budget.