Secret Hope (#65)

I have a secret hope, a secret faith that people are basically more good than bad, more humane and loving and generous and cooperative, than self-serving. I believe that in every person there is something good and at least worthy of praise, if not actually loveable---that got me through 35 years of teaching secondary level (7th through 12th grade) public school; and that there are always, in every group, more good people than bad ones. I believe most people want good things to happen for everyone, not just for themselves and others like them. I believe in the power of faith and of people of faith working together.



About 2 weeks ago now, I received an email from a friend that struck me as extremely significant. It was inspiring and beautifully, wonderfully hopeful for our world. It has been quite a while since I received any idea I thought was truly hopeful, long range, for our world. I had just been pondering how to spread the message and blogging had occurred to me as a better way to reach a larger audience than merely forwarding it as an email. This week's Sunday Scribblings topic seemed to nudge me in the direction that this is the perfect format to share this beautiful hope. My secret dream is that we people, from all over this globe, by working together, can be a force for great good. It is really about restoring the equilibrium of the world.



There is a date on which we must act together. That date is July 17, 2007. There is also a time: 4:11 Greenwich Meridian Time, whatever time that is in your own time zone. At that time, for an hour we are simply to meditate and/or pray and think positive, hopeful, energetic or energizing thoughts, or simply reflect on our own beautiful positive memories. As I understand it, it is our united positivity that will help to Fire the Grid. The individual committment is to offer one hour of our time and positive energy toward the healing of this world and its people. I am asking each of you, please, to go to the site I am going to give you and read at least a part of what is there. I have never been taught to really create a link, so you may need to copy and paste this address. The address is http://www.firethegrid.org/index.htm The message is offered in 8 or 12 different languages. In English it is perfectly clear and eloquently grammatically correct. The message tells me what time 11:11 GMT is in my own time zone, I assume it is set up to tell you each what time it will be in your time period also.

It will cost many of us an hour of sleep. It will cost us each an hour of our time. But if it works, BUT IF IT WORKS ..... it will give our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren a lifetime to still enjoy all the good our world has to offer. Reading the information at the site will take some time, but it is divided up into managable chunks. Select and read it a chunk at a time. Read the background story first or the problem or the plan. Even the background music that will play while you are purusing the site is inspirational. I have not verified the site, I would not know how to start! But I find it inspirational. I simply believe!! I have faith in the good of people and this world. There is nothing negative, nothing dangerous about it. No committment is asked for, not even any information. No harm I know can possibly come to anyone, anywhere, as a result of an hour of prayer and meditation.

I have always loved the song "I Believe" (I would give credit to an author, but the site where I found all the words, listed 4 different authors) which begins with the words "I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows." It continues including the line "I believe above the storm the smallest prayer will still be heard"; and ends "Everytime I hear a newborn baby cry, or touch a leaf, or see the sky, then I know why I believe." It has always been a song I have sung to myself when I was sad or afraid. You too, if you'd like, can search the song by that first line and find all the words. It is a short song and very uplifting, very reassuring.

Perhaps you remember a movie called "The Abyss"; it was a favorite of mine. Made in 1989, it starred Ed Harris as the oil-rig chief and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as a scientist and his estranged wife. It was the story of an oil-rig crew on a mission to rescue a sunken nuclear sub. It was a perilous mission at best, exascerbated by a fierce storm. I don't really remember all the twists and sub-plots of the story, but certain elements of the story remind me a little and fondly of the initial background story for Firing the Grid, because when the Ed Harris character made the ultimate sacrifice, which was to dive to the bottom of the ocean to try, I think, to keep the nuclear charge from detonating-----he took a special small submersable down, knowing he would not possibly have the air to return, but didn't let his wife know there was no way he would make it back until after he reached the bottom----at that time, spiritual "creatures" (who appeared as beautiful pink lights, and whom we had seen moving around earlier in the show) came to him and saved him. It is a beautiful concept that if our motives are pure and totally altruistic, our goals for the good of ALL and the world, all spiritual beings in the universe can work together and have a positive impact.

The site I am trying to link you to and the plan are both called Fire the Grid.

We can do it! We can help to reconnect the world! My secret hope in this case is the belief that we as a people care enough about our world and its people to want to really do something to save it---something in which we work together, in a stong, united act of faith and good will.

Peace to you all and love, my blogging friends.

Eccentricities #64

What are my eccentricities?

I had to ask my husband. His answer wasn't very flattering, he said it is the things I do that drive him absolutely crazy, like the plastic cup I put under the dripping faucet in the bathroom sink, so I can use the water that drips instead of wasting it all. It's the fact that I can't throw anything away that still has usefulness in it, so even when I agree to give things up, they are still in a pile in the house til I can get them taken to somewhere they can continue to be of use---the church food pantry, the emergency shelter supply house, the battered women/families thrift store, or even sometimes just to a particular dumpster, not one close to home but nearer to where the homeless hang out in our town. JR tends to want to blame this eccentricity on my mother who was raised as one of 11 during the Depression. He does this so he doesn't stay furious with me; I understand and appreciate his motivation; and Mother, God love her, was gracious and loving enough not to mind, but I am willing to own my own eccentricity. "Waste not, want not." I am not sure from whom I first learned that. Mother is a good guess, but surely not the only possibility. But now it is my own and I believe it. Unfortunately, I live it too. I am the inveterate saver married to the frustrated tosser.

This tendency makes housecleaning, which is way way down my list of fun things to do, a much dreaded activity; and it makes the idea of moving, ever, a nightmare to be forestalled.

The other real eccentricity I can claim is lots more fun; and it is one my whole family shares. We anthropomorphize our vehicles. We think that is the right and proper way to handle one's wheeled family members. Each has a unique name and a story about how that name was selected. I trust them and talk to them and depend on them and thank them for loyal service and dependability. My first car ever, when I was 21 and just out of college, was Prince. He was my white knight, my stallion, my freedom, my wings--to my first real job, and back to Tallahassee to the man I loved on the weekends. After JR and I married, my car became "Prince Practical" because he was our everything mobile, and he wasn't anybody's idea of "hot" or "sporty" but he was up to every challenge. I cried when we sold him even though it was to get me a new car; Prince had over 100,000 miles and we were now young marrieds with a baby, JR was working 2 jobs and we needed 100% dependability in the car I would be driving. JR had his own new baby, a second hand Triumph Spitfire, "Joycey," one of the prettiest, but hands down, the most unreliable car we ever owned. My new car was the same make and color as Prince, so I called him "Cousin," Prince Practical's City Cousin. He was good and reliable also, but like his name, he lacked the charm and dash of my Prince. After Cousin, we had Mosby, the Gray Ghost, and Jake/Jakey, the VW bus, on whom I finally learned to drive stick shift.

Then we began my series of Honda's. My first was Shingo. We got him in December, in fact, on our daughter's 9th birthday. The first "Oh, God" movie with George Burns had just come out that year. One of the primary characters was the 9 year old daughter of the John Denver character. His daughter had the same name as our daughter and her little Japanese friend was also an important character. His name was Shingo; so it seemed appropriate that our first little Japanese friend become "Shingo." Our Shingo was a member of our family for 13 years, nearly 150,000 miles, and he was our personal hero in bad situations more than one time per family member. JR had now become interested in having a pickup truck and he kept saying, "Our next car is going to be a truck!" However, when a friend at school needed to get rid of a nearly new Honda sedan because he and his wife had just found out they were pregnant and needed to get out from under new car payments, they made us a deal that was toooooo good to pass up, so our next car was N.A.T. "Natty," Not a Truck. When we had to get another vehicle, so the kid could drive herself to her magnet school, she got JR's truck. We called him "Bear." Sorry to say I don't remember the derivation of his name. Anyway, we love our cars and respect them, and when they get old and we have to begin talking about getting a newer vehicle, we are careful not to do it when riding in the old guy or even where he might be able to hear and get his feelings hurt, you never know when it might just break the old guy's heart and his spirit, and he might actually just quit trying to go on because he feels unneeded and unloved.

You may have noticed that I always refer to these beloved cars as "him"s. I am a woman. I am proud of my sex and I love being a woman. But I am also of the age when we liked being taken care of and protected, having doors opened and heavy things lifted for us as if we might not be able to do these things for ourselves. We could, of course, take care of these things for ourselves if there was no man around, but preferred to be considered diminutive and delicate. This and my need for my "Prince"when he came into my life, undoubtedly influenced my creating male personas for my autos. But I must admit, it is true that women tend to be more temperamental, moody, and infuriating. Our one female car, Joycey, was the worst of all things feminine; she let us down in a pinch more often than we could count, and when we got rid of her, it was a relief. So it should be no surprise that we have had no more female vehicles. That undoubtedly is another of my eccentricities.

Town or Country

Am I a city girl or a country girl? Gee, I really am not sure.

Having lived so many years now with almost every convenience one would probably put on a "wish list" for the ideal place to live----from an international airport to a performing arts center with several venues to multiple huge shopping malls within a 45 minute drive, excellent authentic food of almost every ethnicity, grocery stores selling almost anything I would chose to try to cook, varied and competent medical services within 15 minutes drive, a plethora of gyms, dance classes and fitness programs, in addition to superb weather and a vast arena of employment opportunity---I would certainly have to admit, I am spoiled. It would be very hard to consider giving up these things, especially now that I seem about to have the time and the money to enjoy them more.

On the other hand, I hate the traffic and it just gets worse and worse. I despise the unchecked growth and development that progressively makes our roads and our water supply more and more inadequate, which removes our huge old shade trees and tree-lined 2-lane roads, which excises more of our flowers and shrubs, our groves and pastures, to fill up all those pieces of land with buildings and pavement. We have watched our general area go from one house per 1 to 1.5 acres to 2 or 3 houses per acre to new developments which plan 5 to 8 houses per acre. Water pollution is rampant---in our rivers and lakes, even in the bay. Air pollution is hardly worth mentioning because it is in all cities and ours is not as bad as some. Noise pollution and light pollution (I heard just a week ago that lightning bugs/fire flies may be dying out because they may need a certain amount of darkness to activate and regenerate the chemical in their bodies that causes their tails to light up) are ones I am becoming more aware of and appalled by recently. How I miss the dark nights of my youth in the country where the night sky sparkled with stars and we could lay on a blanket in the grass and find almost all of the major constellations, and where a full moon was almost like a lantern to find the way from the back door down to the dock on the our lake.

Where we live now has been a bit of having my cake and eating it too. Tho' we are bare minutes from grocery stores, gas stations and general shopping, our once bedroom community for the big city, still has some rivers and pastures and groves and woodland areas within a 5 mile drive from most of our homes. I cannot tell you how I love it that at the end of the street where I live there is a cow pasture. Not many cows live there (fewer than 15) so there is never an odor problem. But at least twice a year there are 2 to 4 calves playing, nursing, and generally frolicking there that brighten and lighten my spirits as I drive home at the end of a work day or if I want to walk back down there after I change out of my work clothes and shoes and just stand and watch them play. But at the far end of the pasture there is now a strip shopping center and some newer signs indicating a huge condo or apartment complex planned for those acres. My pleasure pasture may not be long for this neighborhood. So, selling the house and moving to somewhere less busy and burgeoning is probably in the cards for us within the next year or two.

When we choose again, we will probably look for somewhere "2 turns off the main road" as JR is fond of saying. I'd like to live again, like when I was growing up, on several acres, with neighbors, yes, but none who will see if I walk out to the garbage can in my underwear or nightgown. I'd like a bit of woods to go walking in in the autumn, maybe even enough to be able to cut down our own small pine for a Christmas tree. I'd love to see stars and fireflys in the sky at night instead of the reflection of city lights. I'd like to hear frogs and crickets and owls and whippoorwills through open windows as I lay in bed at night.

So am I a country girl or a city girl? I still don't think I am sure. But I think I want to live a country live style within 40 miles or so of a big university town---for the arts and the medical availability and the education-important atmosphere. If we select well, maybe we can live out our lives there before the city expands to usurp our little bit of country.