Branching Out (Inspiration of A Tree)

One day, about three weeks ago (maybe a bit longer), I was taking a reflective walk around an old haunt... the grounds of the Sisters of Charity Motherhouse.  I have wandered these grounds for five years now whenever I had to sort through some things... I find the atmosphere to be conducive to organizing the jumbled mass of entropy that overtakes my mind more frequently than I would like to admit.

At any rate, I took a minute to sit on a bench in the cemetery and stare out over the river and surrounding landscape as the sunset bathed it in warm light.  The expanse of forest on either side of the river reminded me of the complex system of millions of neurons that compose our brain.  Just as each individual tree had its own place in the forest, it was surrounded by hundreds of other trees, branches intertwined in a growing embrace as they peacefully coexisted, stretching toward the heavens.  In the same way, each individual neuron relies on the hundreds of others immediately surrounding it to continue the conveyance of a certain thought or movement.

I wandered over to my old oak tree... I have unofficially dubbed this as "my" tree, because it is where most of my mental, emotional, and spiritual sorting has taken place over the past 5 years, seated beneath this tree... It towered as regal as ever, each branch stretching out, fulfilling its mission of simply existing as it continued in its photosynthetic dance.  Scattered on the ground around the base of the tree were dozens of acorn shells.  It dawned upon me that each acorn could be seen as an idea.  It may take tens, if not hundreds, of tries for an idea to stick in exactly the right way.  Yet at some point, the stars align, and that one individual acorn is planted in just the right way to result in another oak tree, just as great as its predecessor.

So I suppose the moral of the story would be to always strive for a vision, work on fulfilling that vision, and never give up on trying until those stars align, and all comes to fruition as it should.

Just my musings for the day...

Carried to the Table

Greetings, all... today's post is going to be quite short.  Just a small piece and a YouTube video.  However, this song - Carried to the Table by Leeland - has been a very prevalent one in my life the past few weeks... To the point of inspiring some ideas for a piece of writing that I may launch into working on here soon... We shall see...

At any rate, enjoy.  See y'all on the flip side.

The Beloved Community

Happy Tuesday, all, it's been a week since I've last posted, and quite a bit has happened in that week to get my brain churning.  One thing that I've been thinking about a lot is an awesome concept some have dubbed "the beloved community."

This past Saturday, I was fortunate enough to be a part of an MLKJ weekend celebration.  A group from Starfire met up with a group of students from Northern Kentucky University and a few community partners at Coffee Emporium downtown and read aloud the book Waddie Welcome and the Beloved Community, holding small group discussions afterwards.

On the first page of the book is the following quote by Jim Lawson:

"The beloved community is not a utopia, but a place where the barriers between people gradually come down and where the citizens make a constant effort to address even the most difficult problems of ordinary people.  It is above all else an idealistic community."

This quote hit me right upside the head from the moment I heard it, and it definitely impacted the way I interacted with the rest of the book... Waddie's story came alive in a whole new way than it did the first time I read this book (Saturday was my second time of taking part in such an event).  As I reflected on the events of Waddie's life - outliving his parents and siblings and being shuffled around from one nursing home to the next, meeting the first few people who began to form his "beloved community", moving in with Jeff Alden and taking the steps to life as a fellow citizen, and eventually seeing all of his deepest dreams coming true in the last decade of his life - Lawson's quote dwelling in my mind, I realized just how relevant Waddie's story is to both remembering and commemorating the mission of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ministry, as well as to the work that we must continue to do today to ensure that this very mission does not fall by the wayside.

"Beloved community" refers to those people who will be there through thick and thin, there regardless of what situation presents itself, no matter how difficult it may be to wade through.  In Waddie's case, as an elderly man with cerebral palsy, his "beloved community" was made up of those people who decided to overlook Waddie's label of "disability" and actually care about what his wishes and dreams were.  Above and beyond just caring, though, they actually (as my friend, Tim, likes to encourage everyone to do) bent over backwards and helped Waddie accomplish these things... And if they could not, they found someone else who could and introduced them into the "beloved community".

So why am I writing about this?  For two reasons.  One, we are each called to be the "beloved community" for those in our lives who tend to be overlooked.  Look past whatever labels or differences are present; these are merely superficialities.  Look, instead, at the innate humanity in each person who has been placed in your life.  Each person has so much to offer in terms of gifts, ideas, and just purely potential awesomeness.  The second reason is to remind you that you also are surrounded by your very own "beloved community", composed of those people who have your best interests at hand, who are genuinely concerned with you achieving your hoped for accomplishments and cheering you on, even when you have stopped believing in yourself.

I encourage each of you to take this challenge with me and live your life outwardly focused in a "pay-it-forward" mentality to include each person in this journey we've been called to make the most of... Always remember that everyone has something to offer their fellow humans.  All they need is an invitation to share this innate wealth.  You would want this opportunity; make sure everyone gets to experience it.

My Return

Hello again, blogosphere... I have decided to return after a long, 6 month sabbatical of sorts... It's time for me to start documenting my thoughts again, my ramblings, my musings, etc...

2012, for me, will be a year of change.  I am part of a book club reading The Artist's Way, authored by Julia Cameron, which is a self-help book of sorts, helping the reader discover/rediscover their innate creativity via a spiritual path.  We are in the process of starting to write a new show at the Studio, and I have been at Starfire for about 7 months.

I need to re-tune myself in to the Spirit, and I'm hoping The Artist's Way will help do just that...  At any rate, driving in to work this morning, I was listening to some gospel music in one attempt to begin tuning in again... the name of the song was "You Are Holy."  One of the lyrics states, "You are holy, oh so holy, You are holy Lord of all..."

As I listened, I began thinking about the actual text, which comes from a passage in the book of Isaiah... I found it interesting how you could take that phrase "You are holy Lord of all," and through the use of punctuation and homophones, you could drastically change the intended connotation of said phrase, with each different connotation being equally relevant to worship.  For one, the statement as it stands is a general declaration.  If you insert a comma - "You are holy, Lord of all" - it becomes a directive statement to God.  If you insert a comma in a different place, it drives more at the very essence of God - "You are, Holy, Lord of all."  Considering that God told Moses in Exodus 3 that God's name is YHWH, which means "I am Who am."  Placing the comma after "are" in addition to the comma after "holy" changes the connotation to speaking directly to God, addressing God as "Holy [and] Lord of all."  Again, this is a directive statement, but it changes God from a noun to a verb, reaching out to the very essence and nature of God that God has described God's self.

And considering we are all created in the image of God, what if we each begin to look at our own existences in the verb form instead of the noun form... It certainly is an interesting notion...

Just my thoughts for the day...