Crickets (2)

I was just out with the crickets again and now the crickets are inside my head instead of outside.

I've been pondering a metaphor that isn't quite finished but starts like this: things inside your head can interfere with things outside your head--that stuff we call 'reality'.

Like this: inside my head I think "Joe is a jerk". So when I encounter Joe out in what we call 'reality', he shows up to me like a jerk. It takes lots of evidence to the contrary to overcome the stuff inside my head even though Joe, out there, might be a kind, gentle, sweet soul.

In the workshop I lead we call the stuff inside your head "listenings". It does damage to the way we normally use the word 'listening', but the workshop is designed to play havoc with your assumptions. We say "listening isn't something you DO, it's something you ARE." We talk about the already, always listenings that we are. We don't condemn our listenings that we are--in fact, we are quite neutral about them and don't even care "where" you got a "listening" about young black men or strong, aggressive women or gay people or old people or people who don't seem as smart as you are. It doesn't matter to me as a leader of the Making A Difference workshop where you 'listenings' come from. You might find that interesting to inquire about, but I don't care. All I want you to do is 'notice' your 'listenings' and how they may be limiting the possibilities you have in what you do and who you can be. I don't think you can ever get rid of them but there is this: if you notice them, "you HAVE them". If you don't notice them "your listenings HAVE you." The difference between those two states of being is remarkable.

We tend to think of ourselves as some sort of 'recording device', taking in what is happening around us. I would contend that we are, instead, 'projection devices' and what we think of as "the reality OUT THERE" is what we have projected upon it in large measure. So, what happens 'outside our heads' is dominated and formed by what happens 'inside our head'. We need external 'crickets' so we can see the crickets in our heads are simply that--IN OUR HEADS--and not what's out there at all.

Is this making sense? I'm asking you to ponder that much of what you think you are 'observing' about life is what you are actually 'projecting' on life.

That request and that pondering can be a source of freedom and possibility if we can acknowledge and notice it.

Recognition is the beginning of ownership.

crickets (2)

crickets

I've taken to ending the day sitting out on the deck in the dark. Bern came out one night and asked me what I was doing. I honestly didn't know so I said, 'just sittin' (that's from an old poster I used to have that said, "Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits")

But I now know why I am drawn to the deck in the dark. It's the crickets. What I realize is that when I'm listening to the crickets they take away the ringing in my ears. It isn't actually 'ringing' that I have, it's crickets. I hear crickets in my head most of the time but when I h ear them outside my head the ones inside shut up.

Tinnitus is odd. When I'm really focused I am not aware of it until I listen.

Whenever they tuned the organ at st john's I'd go sit in the sanctuary though most people found the prolonged squeals and squeaks annoying. Those sounds too took my Tinnitus away.

So, if I could figure out how to have a sustained reed sound or a cricket always with me, I wouldn't hear the internal crickets any more.

passing along information--OK?

So I was listening to a program about words that is on late at night on Sunday on National Public Radio. I love it, but it is on late and you really can't have that show as background noise...you have to listen.

They explained the phrase "O.K.'.

I was telling Bern about the explanation and told her, "you know how people say 'naught' to mean nothing?"

She told me I was the only person she knew who ever said "naught' to mean 'nothing'. I was rather proud of that--being unique and all. I do say 'naught' and will say it more often now.

Any how, back in the 18th century spoken English had an antonym to 'naught' (meaning nothing) that was 'aught' (meaning 'everything'). And a saying came into being to indicated 'everything is alright'. It was "aught correct". However (and here's the rub) spelling wasn't regularized at the time and legitimate and acceptable spellings of 'aught' and 'correct' were 'ought' and 'korrect'.

Get it? "Ought Korrect" become OK.

This is just a corrective (korrective?) to the spelling police. If there hadn't been some give and take about spelling the saying we would have to indicate that all was placid and fine would be "AC", which would cause no end of problems since people would be thinking you were talking about electrical current or air conditioning instead of everything being OK.

OK? or, if you prefer, AC?

the hysterical district

Five years ago, much against my better judgment, I voted to become part of the Historic District of Cheshire. Then I forgot about it, ignored all meetings of the neighbors, etc.

Sunday, Paul and Allison down the street had a meeting to discuss the problems. One of the neighbors who is unhappy with the whole thing actually works for the Town Council. What I didn't realize is that after the vote--the two churches in the district, 1st Cong and St. Peter's Epis voted no, having some idea of the mischief that could occur--the Town Council passed an ordinance establishing the district and appointing the people who had done the preparation and vote taking to the Commission. That group--some of which didn't live in the district--has simply perpetuated itself for the past 5 years. Now only one member lives in the district and she is the self appointed Historic Police.

The depths of the problems were outrageous to hear about. One guy, who built his own house just before the district (and it is geographic) has had to appear before the commission several times and his house is only 5 years old....People can't get approval to put in those double paned windows that save so much in heating and air conditioning costs unless they have them covered with plastic so they resemble single pane windows in the way they reflect light. First Cong added a porch to one of the houses it owns on the green and it was all approved. Six months later they wanted to add the same porch to another house--same design, builder, materials--and were turned down! It was a hysterical crowd and each story was more ridiculous than the next. Certain kinds of paint are forbidden and Peter, a home builder, said those forbidden were the highest quality. The Historical commission thinks those paints are too thick. Window air conditioners--much to my surprise--are forbidden though we have four!

I suggested we have a sit-down demonstration at the town council--back to the tactics of the 60's, I say. But after over an hour of moaning and complaints, the group decided to begin with a petition to repeal the ordinance establishing the district. Obviously, the people at the meeting were in favor of repeal, but each told of 'others' who would join the effort. This is the kind of thing you can get involved in if you are retired. A chance to stick it to The Man! I'm already thinking of making a placard. Maybe the Tea Party folks who demonstrate in front of Town Hall would join us since 'all government is bad government' in their minds.

On a different note: One of the Proofs of the Existence of God that St. Thomas Aquinas neglected--Hummingbirds....

next time call me before you do the study....

Ok, tonight, while fixing dinner, I listened to an excited researcher on some medical show on Public Radio explain how his study had ascertained that people who got normal amounts of sleep were more able to perform their jobs than people who had been allowed to sleep only 3 hours a night.

Well, I'm stunned, I don't know about you.

It was like a study I heard about a few years ago that concluded that homeless people had more podiatry problems than the general population. Duh! My father, after 4 years of 'living outside" during WWII came home with a zillion more foot problems that I've ever had, since I've had almost none....

And gosh, isn't it a shocker to know that children who aren't read to and don't grow up with books test lower on reading tests than children who have bedtime books and grow up surrounded by books. Geez, what am I missing here?

Here is the open invitation to all funders of research to call me before paying someone to undertake a costly study to determine if people who take crack cocaine regularly are less likely to be on the Supreme Court than those who don't. I'll take half the grant and tell you what's so....

I'm a PBS junkie, but some of the reports I hear about what people spent money to prove--people who keep their weight down, eat well and exercise regularly live longer, for example--drive me to distraction.

Next time, just call me with you research questions....

sometimes the dog eats the couch....

I just read on line that the Jonas brothers visited the White House to sing.

My problem is, I have no idea who the Jonas brothers are. Life is passing me by and leaving me behind in the dust....

Years and years ago, before some of you were born, Bern and I lived in Morgantown WV on the 3rd floor of this great house on a brick street. We were on the 3rd floor and had the attic at our disposal. That's where St. Gabrial's Mission--a house church--met. About 30 people, all under 30 except for Snork, the priest and Mariah who was 82 and just liked young people better than the 3 piece suits and ladies in hats at Trinity Parish.

We met on Wed. nights, up in the attic. If your birthday fell in that week, Snork let you celebrate communion--no kidding. He did what he called the "manual acts" and told us it was fine. We had no idea how against the rules it was. Five of the undergraduates at St. Gabe's went on to be priests, if you can believe it. Snork letting us celebrate is what hooked us.

(I have the sneaking suspicion that I've written about that before--if so, chalk it up to my slipping mind.)

At any rate, the people on the bottom floor had a big black lab names Bysshe, after Percy B. Shelly. Everyone we knew were students and had secondhand furniture. One day Bysshe's owners came home and the dog had eaten the couch. They were just about to kill him when they noticed that underneath the upholstry was a piece of furniture that looked older than they thought. It was an antique and worth $4000. They kept bringing home secondhand furniture hoping Bysshe would do it again, but he never did.

What I was pondering is what if the way God works sometimes is like the dog eating the couch--like something that is initially a problem verging on a disaster 'unconceals' God in the moment.

Or when something that is so outside the lines, at first glance--like Snork letting people celebrate communion--turns out to give the church 5 very good, out-side-the-line coloring priests.

Stuff like that. I guess we can't replicate such events--Bysshe never ate another piece of furniture after all--and if I invited people up to try out celebrating I'd be defrocked by days end because someone would turn me in. (I bet only Mariah knew Snork was breaking about 14 hundred canons, but she wasn't squealing.)

They can't be replicated, but maybe we should keep our eyes wide open all the time in case some metaphorical dog starts eating the couch. Take a deep breath and look for God....