Marriage

My niece is getting married this weekend. She's a beautiful young lady, as all brides are. I shudder to think of all the trouble that she is about to encounter. A person might argue that one encounters trouble married or not and that facing trouble married is better because it is faced by two people rather than one, but I doubt the veracity of that. Her grandparents have had a struggle being married. Her mother has been married 3 times. Her own life up to this point is a struggle in many ways. I wish I knew an answer to the marriage problem. Unfortunately, marriage is not a societal arrangement only. Religion gets involved to the point that monogamy is the only game in town. Well, ABCs special on sex in America claimed that each adult in America has an average of 13 sex partners in his (her) lifetime. All I can say is, "Marriage is long." Good luck niece. Maybe God will give you a better than average American as a husband.

Death throes

A friend of mine died today. He was expected to die. He developed cancer about 8 months ago. Last Friday he slipped into a coma. Today he passed to the next life. I don't know what happens during the throes of the final moments, but I hope that the soul vomits out the troubles of this present world and accepts the bliss of the next world. Jack, a whole crowd of those who have gone before have welcomed you by now. I'll see you soon. Say hi to my son for me.

Convolution

The more the earth spins on its axis, the more it is evident that people look out for themselves. The more one tries to see singularity of truth about anything, the more diversity makes sense. The more people know about others around them (at work and during other places of socialization), the more they appreciate their own viewpoints. Nothing solid exists—everything below one's feet is jello, morphing and dancing to different tunes. I think I have learned that jello is tasty even if it is not solid.

Heart

Metaphors are great for people in understanding concepts quickly. But HEART is one of those metaphors that needs a revamp. Heart is courage, or understanding, or love, or kindness, or gentleness, or ad nauseum. English is big enough to offer a new word for each of the qualities incorporated by HEART. We need to adopt new metaphors because what does it mean when someone says, "Think with your heart, not your head." I know that originated before all the scientific revolution as did all of the meanings of heart mentioned above. Since that revolution, though, we have words like sensitivity if that is what the saying is asking one to have.

I give up. Use worn-out metaphors. Just know that you haven't articulated very well. Eventually you will have to get around to saying what you really meant.

Prayer

There is a lot of prayer whirling around my head lately. I hear it in requests between friends. I hear it in conversations about people's personal lives. But, what prayer exactly is or does esacapes me. I have uttered prayers before. I have read statements by Jesus asking his followers to pray. But in my lifetime, I never have been able to wrap my mind around the concept. Sometimes, I see the correlation between prayer and requests, but many times I don't see this correlation. Sometimes, I see God's intervention in a situation. But many times I see God's answer in the same light as the Supreme Court deciding on whether to take a case or not. Only about 3-5 % of the time does the Supreme Court take a case from an appellate court. So, I am left with many years of finding the patterns behind prayer. So far that endeavor is a dead-end road.

Night

Neil Diamond had a song called Thank the Lord for the Night time. I feel that way. It allows us all to lead a double life. Our image at work is so different from the image at home and alone. The image at work morphs from time to time, but the one at home is ever-changing. It's whatever we want it to be for the moment. It gives us energy to put on the work image the next day. Night time is fabulous.