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THANKSGIVING DAY REBELLION?

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Thanksgiving Day is everywhere, but it isn’t.

I know this is a frantic time of year, and Commerce is King. But, can it not be king for this one day? Can we have one unadulterated, unaltered holiday? Can retail workers be re- assured of their humanity and value for this one day? They already work through the Christmas Holidays, every holiday, and every weekend. Can that be enough?

We all know it has gotten way out of hand. Forget the 12 days of Christmas! We now have the 60 days of Prozac. There is a daily Holiday Sale, beginning with Halloween.

Christmas ads and merchandise appear simultaneously with the Halloween costumes and candy and we become frantic at that moment without knowing why. None of us are happy to see this Holiday Creep, but it strikes us like a virulent virus, spreading from us to those we are in contact with. The hysteria lasts until every gift is bought and the Christmas turkey is nothing but a picked-clean carcass. During this period, Thanksgiving isn’t even mentioned except in conjunction with Christmas shopping.

Thanksgiving was the holiday that offended no one, except turkeys. Every person could understand the desirability of a day of reflection and Thanksgiving and participate. But, it has been watered- down beyond recognition. We need this one day, for family, food, football and the absence of a frantic frame of mind, to get ourselves ready for the holidays to come.

Can Thanksgiving Day please retain at least some of its original meaning; a day to pause, reflect on our blessings, enjoy our families and give Thanks? Can retailers not dictate the content and timetable for this one day?

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Here is the thing: True Thanksgiving cannot be achieved while running full tilt. Hurry and competition is the enemy to an attitude of Thanksgiving, which requires calmness and reflection. I for one am sick of it.

Bravo to the brave retailers who are allowing their often underpaid employees to be with their families this one day.

Can we just be content with massive sloth, gluttony, family and football—the things I remember from my childhood Thanksgivings– without feeling compelled to engage in hand – to – hand combat with our neighbors to get Frozen Barbie?

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I never have nor ever will set foot in a retail establishment on Thanksgiving Day. I may not have many absolute limits, but this is one. I do not for one minute believe that closing for this one day is going to put any retailer in jeopardy, especially, with Black Friday coming the next day. I believe that giving us all – employees, and customers, a day off can only produce blessings. I understand not everyone feels this way. If you care to, join me in the rebellion.

5 SHOCKING THINGS I LEARNED AT MY BOOK SIGNING

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5 SHOCKING THINGS I LEARNED AT MY BOOK SIGNING

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1)   In a word, gratitude. Please don’t tune out like I usually do when I hear this word. I don’t like to talk about it because the concept often seems trite and has been done to death. But, gratitude is important because it is the gate through which all blessings and miracles enter. It’s the gateway, because, in order to receive a blessing or miracle, I have to perceive and recognize it. For me, that can’t happen, when I’m living in my intellect. Gratitude only resides in the heart.

 

2)   I learned that I am the luckiest person alive, and 90 percent of the time I am unaware of it. I learned that I have the best friends and family in the world, and that more often than not, the miracles and blessings I’m looking and praying for, are embodied in these people.

 

 

3) I don’t recognize it most of the time, because my intellect is the biggest deterrent to faith and gratitude, and often my worst enemy. Any effort to control, any attempt resist what is actually happening in favor of what I want to happen, is futile and may erect a fence through which the blessing, the miracle, or the divine connection is blocked.

 

4) Success has nothing to do with book sales. Success for me as an artist has evolved to be about who receives my message and carries it on.  The people meant to get it will get it.

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I wrote a book called, Undamned, about a year ago, because I felt called to write it. Commercialism never entered my frame of reference. The result was a book that is hard to classify or “ market” because it is a combination of slam poetry, Spiritual Detox program, and memoir, using my own life as a parable.

For a long time, I couldn’t get a book signing to save my life. Being an ambitious goal-driven sort with a human heart, it was hard for me to process or accept this, until one day, it wasn’t.

That day, I was again unchained. I joyfully started work on my second book, re- acquainting myself with the creative process that gives my life purpose and joy and connects me to my ultimate Source.

Within 72 hours, I received notice that I was to be part of a multi- author signing at my own personal Mecca, Book People. This was the dream I didn’t dare dream for myself.

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Every artist’s nightmare of having an event where no one comes did not happen. I learned that I have the best friends and family anyone could hope for, who showed up in the almost freezing rain, many from some distance, for me.

Blessing—check. Miracle—check.

It couldn’t have been any better. It was fun, stimulating and the other authors are all amazing people I’d like to get to know better, which brings me to lesson # 5:

5) Blessings happen when they happen. Miracles happen every day. But, I have to let them fall, like rain. God has no set office hours. Someone up there consistently has bigger dreams for me than I even dare ponder, and that someone has a wicked sense of humor and timing.

 

 

 

WHAT ” AWESOME” REALLY MEANS

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When I looked up the definition of the word “awesome”, which I use any time I don’t know what else to say, I found this:

 

1) Inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear; causing or inducing awe: an awesome sight.2) showing or characterized by reverence, admiration, or fear; exhibiting or marked by awe.”

 

So, wouldn’t the real definition of awesome  be more like this?

 

“Greater love has no one  than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

 

Something that would inspire awe or reverence would be a person who voluntarily gives his life for a concept – like freedom, or for people he or she doesn’t even know. That person would be a hero. A person, who loves us, his country, so much that he forgets his fears, his own personal interests and lays down his life for us. This kind of love and sacrifice is almost beyond comprehension, like Jesus or Mother Teresa’s example.

 

But, some of you do this every day. You do this for us, despite the fear, awful conditions during combat, and often, when you get home. You do this despite the devastating financial hardships on your families.

Awesome is too small a word. So is Hero.

That is what awesome really is.

 

So, goodbye to my trivial and ridiculous use of the word “ awesome”. I’m retiring it and reserving it for those who truly deserve that moniker – those who are in the military service, now or then, alive or dead- The Greatest generation, the next generation, the gen X generation or this one. Your bravery and sacrifice and that of your loved ones are beyond my comprehension. My gratitude is beyond expression.

You are the true definition of awesome. You deserve so much more than my mere gratitude.

 

 

 

 

 

LET GO OR BE DRAGGED

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( Why and How to Meditate, If You Can’t Sit Still)

 

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone.

Blaise Pascal

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Having the attention span of a gnat, I find traditional meditation practices impossible.

This writing attempts to give a practical real world answer to the two questions most of us with short attentions spans would ask:

1) why should we attempt to martial our million –mile- an- hour- thoughts for even the briefest of time, and 2) how on earth is it even possible?

The answer to question 1 of this conundrum came from a bit of very popular culture, my favorite TV show, Scandal. I heard this sentence and it really got my attention. One of the characters said,

“ True power hides in plain sight. It is subtle and doesn’t’ swagger.”

An arguably evil fictional character spoke these words, but it started me thinking of how true they really are.

Real personal power cannot be acquired by sheer force of will or intellect. In fact, if we are in a mess and don’t seem to be able to get ourselves out, it is our best thinking that landed us here.

True power comes from the Source of all power, and that is never ourselves.

My thoughts can race out of control like a quarter horse on speed, circling around and obsessing about a problem, a goal, an anything, until I’ve made it worse.

It’s time to let go, or I will be dragged. The harder I clench down on a problem and focus solely on it, the more I will be dragged away from any possible solution.

The reason and the method are one in the same:

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us, and the power to carry it out.

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It doesn’t say we have to do this perfectly. It says we have to improve. We have to try. It also doesn’t say we have to be a cleric or a mystic to do this. We have to only seek the God of our understanding. He will do the rest.

The simple answer to the question of why is so we can let go of this world just long enough to link up with the divine world and remind ourselves that it and He is there, waiting for us to ask for help. Improve conscious contact….

 

The answer to how? Seek to improve conscious contact. Seek him.

All we have to do is let go of turmoil and questions, unclench, and seek our higher power for a few minutes, long enough to open ourselves to our power source and receive his infinite power, infinite love, wisdom, discernment and everything else that is good.

I have such admiration for those who can place themselves in a meditative trance for an hour, who have prayer closets that they visit regularly, or who write in their journals every day.

But, we don’t have to do that. I can’t do that.

For me, it is enough to go outside, sit in the sunshine, and listen to the wind chimes on my front porch for a few minutes. If the weather is bad, I have a meditation playlist on my iPhone that contains popular songs that inspire me. Some are worship songs. Some are not. It isn’t important what anyone else thinks about what they mean. I get what God is trying to impart to me. By letting go and listening periodically, I can keep his word and his will in my heart.

It is NOT easy, but it is simple and it is worth it. Anything can be a meditation or a prayer. A walk, a song, a journal, a wind chime. They key is finding one that works for you.