Pardon, The Interruption

Hi!  Pardon the interruption.  I'm sure you're busy celebrating.  Me too.  'Tis the season, after all. 

Pardon the interruption.  But you see, yesterday I was out in the neighborhood, wading through the holiday hustle, when I came across a man--a real human--an in-the-flesh human being--in a dumpster.  The Silver Bells were ringing as the shoppers rushed home with their treasures--no one seemed to notice as this real, flesh and blood human being stood, foraging, in a garbage dumpster--no cradle for his bed. 

Pardon the interruption, but something tells me that's what Christmas really is--an interruption--a disruption--a break-in.  Not merely an opportunity to rush home with our treasures, to glow with nostalgia, to bask in the familiar and over indulge, Christmas is a wake-up call to a repeating story: that the Divine is entering every day...maybe this time not in Royal David's City. 

Maybe wherever there is no room.

Pardon, the interruption.

(c) Fiechter, 2015

What Are You Waiting For?

Just three weeks ago our neighbor died.  It was sudden, though not entirely unexpected, and our lives without him are sorely diminished.  We miss him.  And in the aftermath of his passing we are all discovering how unprepared he was--how unprepared we were.  But why?

"The days are surely coming." 

They are here.  Look around!  Listen!  The signs are everywhere: the clarion gunfire, the whining siren, the grievous aftermath, the shocking rhetoric we'd hoped had died with the tyrants of the last century--complete with goose-stepping lemmings fanning the flames of fear--and our own neighbors spewing hatred.

How is it that we have never learned?

'Tis the season of waiting--waiting and longing--for celebrations yet to come, for shortening days to lengthen again, for the promised El Niño.  But that baby is already born, you see, because you are here.  And the world is waiting with bated breath--

What are you waiting for?

(c) Fiechter, 2015

May your celebrations be filled with joy and peace and purpose.  In the year to come let us all find ways to speak the truth and stand against the darkness and fear that dwell within.  You can change the world--it is already better because you are here.

Then How They Loved Him

So let me see if I've got this right-- 

He's rejected from his social group because he has what others perceive to be a disability.  He's ridiculed for being different and banned from participating in community activities.  But then, and only because of an unexpected change in circumstances, what they had once seen as a disability suddenly becomes beneficial for them.  Where he had previously been rejected he is now celebrated.  Those who once mocked and rejected him now "love" him and proclaim that from now on he will be celebrated in perpetuity.

And this is supposed to be a GOOD thing?  Seriously?

The other day I was singing along to the song when, rather suddenly, a light bulb came on over my head.  You might even say, "It glowed"  We do a lot of celebrating for the wrong reasons.  We celebrate narrowly defined 'beauty' and 'ability' and do a lot of rejecting of those who are even only slightly different from the norm, the mainstream.  We reject and we bully and we intimidate--and then we proclaim ourselves to be the victims.  We insist on assimilation--and only when those we reject can somehow prove themselves to be useful do we then proclaim our acceptance and 'love.'

Heck, we even sing about it.

This Christmas I'm going to try something new--I hope you will too!  Rather than accepting the norm as good and right, I'm going to question it.  Maybe the things we've been celebrating shouldn't be celebrated after all.  Maybe the people we've been rejecting should be included--and not only because they are useful to us, but because they are as good and wonderful as you and me and everyone else.

Who knows?  Maybe if we do, someday people will celebrate US for remembering that "love does not insist on its own way." 

Then we'll go down in history.

(c) Fiechter, 2015.  If you enjoy, please share!  If you want to reprint, please ask!  

Happiest of holidays to all...(and to all, a good night!)

What I Need to Set Me Free

It just popped into my head and suddenly, without even so much as a thought, I was whistling.  But you know how that can be.  Where do these things come from?

The guy on the bus knew.  He smiled and said he hadn't heard that one in years.

"They don't write 'em like that any more."

The woman walking along the subway platform smiled.  She knew, too.  A simple melody, a couple of notes, a pop tune from the past can have such power. 

From my lips to God's ear.

I spend a lot of time wondering if there isn't something more--more that I can do or say--to make this world a little bit better: to bring joy.  Maybe sometimes you wonder that, too.  Maybe in the end it all just comes down to a simple melody, a happy tune, a shared smile with a stranger.

Oh, and of course a yellow ribbon.  A simple yellow ribbon.

"So tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree...a simple yellow ribbon's what I need to set me free."

(c) Fiechter, 2015

Is Your Fear Winning?

No doubt about it, It's a scary world.  Unless you were already living in a state of denial and had already drawn the shades and pulled up the blankets, you know of recent events and you are witnessing the results:  fear.

And it's growing.  Fear is growing when we accept simple answers that seem plausible and just so happen to fit into our already limited world-view.  Fear is growing when we point fingers and roll up the sidewalks--when we slam doors in the face of those in need.  Fear is growing when logic is trumped by emotionality.  Fear begets hate.  Hate is fear on a bender.

Self manage.  You, along with everyone else, have a right to an opinion. None of us has a right to our own facts.  Is your fear rational?  Are you acting or reacting?  Are there two sides to your story, or only one--and where did you first hear it, your story?  Is it really yours?  Or is it the story of the loudest, scariest voice in the room, sweeping you along with the lemmings into a pile of disastrous distrust?

It's a scary world, no doubt about it.  What are you doing today to relieve the fear?  How are you writing a different story?

"Perfect love casts out fear."

How Refreshing

I was nearing the end of a strenuous jog when the light at the end of a freeway off ramp provided me an opportunity to catch my breath--and there I found myself standing next to a man.  To be honest, if I'd been in my car this would've been someone I'd have avoided by looking the other way or rolling up my window and shaking my head. 

He was holding some kind of a sign and was asking stopped motorists for money. 

But the funny thing is, since I wasn't in my car and had no cash to share, I found myself saying hello and asking him how things were going.  After a short conversation, during which he shared a broad smile, the light turned green and I got my sweaty self moving again.

And as I jogged away, I heard him call out to me: "Drink plenty of water!"

Now I'm wondering how many kindly interractions I've missed out of fear.  How many opportunities to acknowledge someone's humanity have I lost out on because I was feeling guilty or stingy or self-righteous?  How many times have I denied a fellow traveler the opportunity to treat ME with dignity and respect because of my assumptions? 

All of which leaves me feeling pretty darn thirsty.

So glad if you enjoy reading...and please feel free to share.  Subscribe via blogspot.  Please ask if you would like to reprint...thanks!

(c) Stephen Fiechter

Learning to Walk

Ever since I can remember I've enjoyed walking.  Whether it's down a country road or along a city street, walking connects me with the world and breaks my isolation.  It doesn't have to be a very long walk, either--though I'm amused at how often it includes a task--a stop for some groceries or to pick up the morning paper.

I've made a discovery as I walk...actually, make that discoveries.  Cash.  That's right...cold hard cash.  More often than you might imagine, too.  Oh, it may only be a quarter.  Sometimes it's a buck, or even five.  Last week I found a twenty. 

But I have to watch, you see, because it turns from a game into an obsession before I can say "easy money."  Suddenly all I'm finding is that my entire focus has turned to the ground around me. 

Being that focused on where I'm walking may keep me from tripping over uneven sidewalks, but it trips me up.

I looked up.  Was it the silvery light?  I looked up and there she was...a giant orb shining in the evening sky, and a silhouetted pair of palms: the moon and her friends, and I nearly missed it.  I'd been looking down, you see....for the cash.

Money is the past.  It is stored value that we can use today and maybe tomorrow.  Maybe. 

The moon is today.  She will soon be gone.  If we don't look up we'll miss her, and tomorrow we won't even have a yesterday to talk about.

(c) Steve Fiechter, 2015
 

Looking for Someone

We see ourselves in others.  Isn't that why we turn?

We see our hopes and dreams unfulfilled.  Isn't that why we hurry by?

We see our frailty, our vulnerability.  Isn't that why we, ever so carefully, step over?

We fear the other, the stranger.  We shrink from the odd clothes, the strange behaviors, the obvious oddities...and we become less and less and less.

Until we are hardly human at all.

Recently I read, in fairly religious terms, that "God doesn't make strangers, we do."  I felt power in that phrase, mostly because I've experienced it myself--the sideways glance, the unreturned smile, the blank look.  I've felt diminished by a lack of connection and I know you have too.  And I wonder if...no, I know...if we were to simply acknowledge the full humanity in others...even of those we fear...if we were to really see them and let them see us, this world would become better--connected, fearless, loving.

Isn't that what we all want?

Ism & Ogy & Ity?

She stormed in, fit to be tied.  She was angry and argumentative.  She was demanding and demeaning and derisive. 

We just listened. 

After a while--after the spew of poison slowed down to a trickle--after the walls came down--behind them we could see the stress, the anxiety, the fear. 

No one ever said it would be easy.  Believe me, that was no sin of omisssion.

It's not a religion.  It's not a creed.  It's not a doctrine.  It's not a philosophy or an organization or a methodology.  It's not a law or a rule or a guideline.  What carries us all through, what gives us all strength, what ties our tongues and opens our hearts so that compassion flows even as the venom spews, is--simply and unequivocally--love. 

It scatters the darkness.  It is our only hope.

Is there hope for you today?

"Love never ends."

So glad if you enjoy reading these...please feel free to share!  If you're reprinting, it's always nice (and legal) to ask. (c) 2015, Steve Fiechter

Too Late, Baby?

Omi.  It's a diminutive form of a German word for grandmother.  That's funny, you see, because to us she loomed large.  Our Omi was stocky and headstrong and orderly and insistent, only selectively sentimental and with little time for nonsense.  The framed cross-stitch on her wall said it for her:  "Cleanliness Adorns the Kitchen."  

She loved us a lot, but didn't tolerate us much.  There were certain ways one should behave and, once told, that was that.  We were welcome to visit, as long as we sat and listened. 

Don't slam the door.  No elbows on the table.  If you have so much energy that you need to run around, I'll be happy to show you the lawnmower or get you working pulling weeds or painting a fence. 

That was our Omi.  Alles in Ordnung....everything in order....even you.

She loved us.  She adored our Opa.  Later on, "I had the best husband in the world" would lead her mantra.  When he died rather suddenly she found solace in her orderly world, but from then on something was missing.

Always a bit of a prude, our Omi looked disapprovingly on any public displays of affection.  "Nah!" she would say.  But one day, long after our Opa died, she surprised us: seeing a young girl sitting in her boyfriend's lap, our Omi said, "If he were here today, I would do that."

Love conquers all--our stubborn habits, our ingrained ideosyncracies, our greatest inhibitions.  Love opens the door to a life of no regrets.

Hopefully, for you, it's not too late.

Enough is Enough

He can't help it, really.  After all, there was a time when he was all alone and on his own--scavenging, starving.  There wasn't enough.

But now his brain is stuck in that place, a place that screams "shortage." He spends most of his time reacting to the screams.  He's never far from the potential for satiety, the refill, the handout.  He's an addict.

I've thought about ways that I might help him overcome his insecurity and my own feelings of pain and frustration at his fathomless fear--I've thought about some kind of therapeutic intervention, some new gestalt. But there is no reason here. There is no reason to doubt that there will be a next meal, a safe harbor, a home....and there is no reason to overcome the doubt.  It is survival.

To some degree, we are all survivors of trauma, and victims of our own ensuing insecurities.  We may not hover around our food dish like Thomas the cat (who in the years since we took him in hasn't missed a meal or snack, has grown big as a turkey and rightfully earned the title "Fat Boy"), but we do hover.  We hover around that which will address, however temporarily, our shortages and shortcomings: the holes in our souls.  Food or clothes or shopping or politics or religion--the lofty and the lowly--we all seek to satisfy that which will never be satisfied.  It works for a while, whatever it is, until it doesn't work and we're back, hovering, hoping, longing.

Until we find the reason.

My NAY-bor

Mark this one "easier said than done."

I swear he's a walking oxymoron (with emphasis on the "moron").  He's generous and uncouth and caring and stubborn, at once as wise as Solomon and dumb as a stump.  He'll show up unannounced with his arms overflowing with gifts and then launch into a scornful Trump-like rant about immigration.  He'll snark about a friend behind her back but then be the only one to visit her when she's in the hospital.  He'll make fun of anything intelligent you have to say but never let your birthday go by without bringing you a bagful of gifts.

I know, it's not (always) easy to love your neighbor.  But here's the thing: the love we need to share is not a love based on good behavior and a generous spirit.  It's not a love to be withdrawn when the snarky comments fly.  It's just love--unconditional.

Except for one...the only condition...that we must.  There is no choice.

But something tells me that in the end it won't matter anyway...the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly...just the love.

"Faith, hope, love abide, these three.  But the greatest of these is love."

Always glad if you enjoy reading these...please feel free to pass them along.  Sign up to get future posts from Acorns.

(c) 2015 Fiechter
 

Stunned

When he said it, I was stunned.  And then I practically had to bite my tongue to keep from crying.

I'm privileged to work in a program that provides support and assistance to people who have been living on the streets longer than many of them can remember.  Some have serious physical or mental health problems.  The system labels them "chronically homeless."  We just call them people.  They are people who have been marginalized by a culture that glorifies the strong and villifies those who have had the deck stacked against them from the get go.  But don't get me started.

Not long ago, we decided that we would recognize the birthdays of each of our program participants. 

"What a nice idea," I thought.

Today one of our participants celebrated his 62nd birthday.  When we gave him his card he was delighted.  And that's when he said it.

"It''s been 31 years since anyone has given me a birthday card."

I can hardly wrap my brain around that...let alone my heart.  Thirty one years?  He hasn't gotten a birthday card in 31 years?   For half of his life he hasn't received so much as a simple birthday card--a note to tell him that someone cares that he is alive, that someone is celebrating his life on this planet?  Not one?

I'm so sick and tired of living in a world where people are tossed aside like trash.  I'm so sick and tired of living in a world where human beings are left to fend for themselves for decades without so much as a card to let them know someone gives a damn about them.  I'm so sick and tired of watching as people of privilege treat their pets better than they treat their neighbors.  And I don't care how weird or angry or cranky or stinky they are.  What really stinks is how badly we treat the people we should be loving.

Just a card, a note, a hand, a vote.  You can change the world.

One thing I know for sure, I'll never look at a birthday card the same way again.  Will you?

That's the Spirit!

Yesterday I listened as yet another person shared how essential his faith in a "higher power" had been in his journey from chronic homelessness toward a more fulfilling, healthy, stable and happy life....and I started to wonder.  

Spirituality has been defined in many ways, and certainly is expressed and embraced in a variety of fashions.  Some follow a very traditional route, via established religious codes.  Others forge a path that samples from different traditions (a friend describes himself as a "Jew-Bu" reflecting on his Jewish roots and Buddhist sensibilities).  Others create their own path, acknowledging their spirituality while avoiding or even rejecting traditional ideas about God.  Some reject notions of spirituality altogether.  Yet, even so…

What seems to be true across this spectrum of belief is an innate human desire to understand ourselves and the world around us--to create meaning out of our own experience.  We want to make sense out of our stories, and we want our stories to make sense.   But when our stories don't make sense, or they are too painful or difficult for us to embrace--when we we feel disconnected or ungrounded or struggle with mental illnesses that are a barrier to our finding positive meaning, that's when the opportunities arise for other elements to take the place of the meaning we all desire--things like drugs or alcohol or other numbing or distracting behaviors.  Ironically, the things we turn to in order to find meaning become the very things that keep us from finding it.

This opens up an opportunity for us, as people in the privileged places of helping others: how can we encourage people to explore their spiritual natures--to find meaning in their stories and continue on their journeys toward richer, healthier and more meaningful lives?  How can we help open up avenues of healing and hope for those we serve?

I'm not suggesting we promote any particular religion, perspective or path.  What I'm saying is that the paths are already there--and one way we can help people grow and break free of destructive patterns is to encourage their exploration; invite people to walk down a new path of meaning.

Genius!

There's only ever going to be one Einstein.  The mold broke after Astaire and Rogers. No bulb will ever burn with the same brightness as Edison.  As much as we may long for one there is no clone of Curie and no one ever met another Etta.

True genius is rare.  Or is it?

Of course it's true that the genius of people like Michelangelo and Mozart isn't common.  Austins don't abound.  Roosevelts are rare. Tolstoys don't grow on trees.  But is it their particular genius that we recall--or that they became known for it?  What if the next symphony is living on Skid Row?  What if the cure for cancer is working a minimum wage job because she only speaks Spanish?  What if....

What if genius isn't rare?

The truth is, each of us is a genius--a genius at being ourselves.  No one does it better (or, as Oscar Wilde quipped, "Be yourself.  Everyone else is already taken").  And each of us has, built in, a genius that is unmatched.  The trick is in recognizing it...and our gift to the world is in acting on it.

Many are taught early on that it's best to keep things hidden--under a bushel, out of harm's way.  We don't want to risk it.  And sadder still, many have learned, over and over, that there is no opportunity for them to shine--their genius oppressed because of their state of mind, the color of their skin or the curl of their hair.  But none of that takes away from the reality that each person on this planet has something to give. 

Maybe you can imagine a world in which the genius of every one of us is realized.

I think you can.  You're smart that way.

(c) Fiechter, 2015.  Thanks for reading...feel free to share.  Permission for republication is reserved. 

Born Blind?

"We are born color-blind." 

It's a recurring theme among people of good will in the wake of yet another horrifying and tragic act of terrorism against innocent people who have had to bear the terrifying burden of racism.  As we struggle to understand, as we are stunned and saddened by our own complicity, and as we search for a way forward many want to remind us that hatred and violence are taught and learned. 

"No one is born a racist," they say.

The science is more complicated and challenging.  The reality is, human beings have evolved with an uncanny ability to instantly recognize difference.  Before our conscious brains are even aware of it, we have made note of our differences and marked our territory.  It's a trait that evolved for our survival in a world in which there was little interaction between villages and cultures at a time when the ability to instantly recognize differences would mean the difference between life and death: survival. 

We are not born color-blind.  That's the problem.  We are born with a keen awareness of our differences.  The challenge is really what we do with that.  If we spend our time denying it, we'll be fooling ourselves and we'll get nowhere.  If we go on thinking it's OK to remain separate because of our differences, we'll all die a long and painful death.  But if we see our differences and celebrate them, work to understand one-another and join together as a single humanity to make this world better for all people, well, then, we might just find that way forward so many of us long for.

"Love your neighbor as yourself."

A Little Self-Control

Everything about her was larger than life: her laugh, her car, her hairdo--and most of all, her heart.  It's really hard to imagine that she's gone. 

It didn't take very long, I'm told: a winter diagnosis, a spring death.  And while the countless lives she touched live on all the better for having known her, today she has me reflecting on how little control we have in life.  Here today and gone tomorrow: what have we to say?

As it turns out, a lot.  True, there is much in life that is out of our control, and we really do live much happier lives when we heed the instruction of Wisdom to let these things go.  But we are fools wasting precious opportunities if we think there is nothing over which we have control.

My friend knew that.  That's why she spent so much time loving people.  It didn't necessarily change what they thought of her, but it did change what she thought of them.  You see, if there's one thing we DO have control over in this life, it is how we treat others.  Love is a verb--a call to action. 

I guess sometimes someone has to die to get us to notice.

"Love your neighbor as yourself."

(c) Fiechter, 2015.  Thanks for reading.  It's nice to share--so please do.  But remember to ask first if you're reprinting or publishing.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time....Right?

Winter here in Southern California is hardly harsh, but even so, 'tis a season.  And yet....

So here's what happened:  several months ago, when our days were shorter and the sun lower in the sky, a seed started to grow.  No one planted it.  No one planned it.  One day there was a little plant, growing from a crack in the garden path.  And it grew....and it grew...and it grew.

Wrong place, wrong time.

At first we weren't sure what it would be.  Large green leaves and long tendrils told us "squash, or something."  It grew some more.  Yellow flowers and little baby fruits starting to form, it grew some more.  Longer vines and bigger leaves ("Are we going to have to move out?"), it grew even more...and then we knew.  Pumpkin!

Pumpkin?  In February?

Wrong place, wrong time.  Right?

Now if my memory serves me right, Memorial Weekend is a good time to plant pumpkins for a fall harvest.  Yesterday I harvested five.  Five medium-sized pumpkins.  From one unplanted seed.  In May.

The ancient book of Ecclesiastes says that "there is a season, and a time for everything under heaven."  I sometimes think that we get so set in our ways, so rigid in our expectations, so demanding that things be "just so" that we miss all kinds of opportunities. 

"Wrong place, wrong time" and nothing grows. 

But then, every once in a while, nature throws a curve.  A seed grows out of nowhere, and suddenly there are pumpkins...in May.

I'm not sure what I'll do.  Maybe I'll carve a Jack-o-Lantern and hand out candy to passers-by. 

Now's as good a time as any, don't you think?

(c) May 2015, Fiechter.  Thanks for reading!  Please go ahead and share it--but if you're reprinting or including it in another publication, be sure to ask me first.

Funny You Should Ask

Even twenty-six years after her death, it's safe to say that Lucille Ball is still one of the most beloved personalities of all time.  Her groundbreaking work in television set the stage for much of what the world today considers to be funny.  And yet, when asked about what made her so funny, here's what that great comedian, actress and business woman told a reporter for Rolling Stone: 

"I am not funny.  My writers were funny.  My directors were funny.  The situations were funny....what I am is brave.  I have never been scared.  Not when I did movies, certainly not when I was a model, and not when I did "I Love Lucy."

Brave, indeed.  As it turns out Lucy had at least one of the great qualities of leadership: the ability to give credit where credit is due.  It is no small act of bravery to look around at one's life--at the successes that define us--and publicly recognize the reality that we have only succeeded with the help of others.  It's easy to blame others for our failures.  Naming those who helped bring about our success takes guts.

The truly brave among us live in the reality that the only thing "self-made" about us is the trap we fall into when we believe that we made it on our own. 

Avoidance

Over one hundred years ago tonight a marvel of modern technology laid in ruins at the bottom of the frigid North Atlantic.  As a stunned world blinked in utter disbelief, the "ship not even God can sink" was sunk. 

Decades of speculation drawn from the pieced-together stories of those who had survived tried to understand how the unthinkable could happen.  There was no shortage of theories.  It is only just recently that we have confirmation: the water-tight compartments would have kept Titanic afloat had she hit that iceberg head-on.  But because there was an attempt to avoid a collision, the gigantic steamer scraped alongside the berg and a gash was torn open in her hull--a gash that breached across the technology that had been designed to save Titanic. 

It's hard to imagine that a head-on collision would have saved Titanic--and the hundreds who sank with her.  But then again, more than a few lives have been sunk in the desperate attempt to avoid life's obstacles.

Apparently even technology can't save us from the disaster that looms when we fail to face our problems head-on.

What are you avoiding today?

Away

It's the land of wishful thinking, a place of hopelessly hapless dreams.  It's the land of crossed fingers and bated breath, of deferred payment and dismissed responsibility.  And it doesn't exist.

We have fooled and we have been fooled.  We have deluded ourselves into believing that there is a mystical, magical place where payment is never due and everything works out fine. Not a one of us has ever been there and no one has ever returned to offer a description, yet through the very clever, desperate, and sometimes despotic workings of our collective imagination we have created a convenient fantasy destination  We have bought the lie.

There is no Away.

There is no Away where we can banish those with whom we disagree, never to see them again.

There is no Away where we can send our neatly-wrapped problems, where they will be solved, rewrapped and returned, no postage due.

There is no Away where we can ship our broken lives for repair, waiting by the door for their neatly-packaged delivery.

There is no Away where we can send our refuse--the detritis of our overconsumption--where its effects will not be known.

I can't banish my enemies to a place called Away, and neither can you--because there is no Away.

I can't wish my problems Away, and neither can you--because there is no Away.

I can't throw my garbage Away, and neither can you--because there is no Away.

There is only Here.

We can continue the lie, that's true, and sooner or later the rising tide of reality will drown us all.  Or we can face the truth--and hope it's not too late.

Rise Up

It was early in the morning, and a Sunday to boot--so I might have expected those sprawling parking lots to be empty.  But it didn't seem quite right as I jogged my regular sunrise route through the conspicuously empty space. 

And then it hit me; it was Easter Sunday. 

In days gone by those lots would have been jammed packed with the cars of those who'd come from near and far.  Many will remember the great Easter Sunrise service at the Hollywood Bowl--each year drawing thousands from across the Christian landscape to trumpet the age-old early morning exclamation:  "Jesus is Risen."  This year not a soul had risen to come.

Another tradition gone, I thought, my shrug of indifference surprising even me.

Another dead tradition seems particularly poignant this year with the recent death of Robert Schuller and the reminder that a vision of a grand and glorious Christianity--with parking lots and pews overflowing with eager parishioners--is as dead as he is. 

I must admit, a small part of me is sad.  Death has that effect on me.  But the greater part of me is glad, because our traditions need to die.  And frankly, most of what passes for Christianity isn't really Christianity, it's merely tradition....and in the end it will die with us anyway. 

What will live on, however, is true and authentic Christianity--that which is based on the teachings of Jesus.  NOT what we say about him.  NOT the so-called "articles of faith" that we have devised about him.  NOT the traditions we make up that just happen to mention him....just Jesus. 

That's a challenging message for many, Christian and non-Christian alike.  But that's OK, because Jesus was all about challenge.  He didn't care about sunrise services and full pews and cathedrals (Crystal or otherwise) or whether people got their theology right.  Jesus cared about justice.  Jesus cared about truth.  Jesus cared about love.

Wouldn't it be great if what rose up in the place of yet another dead tradition was an authentic community proclaiming love and truth and justice, instead of yet another tradition that packs in the crowds today but will be gone as quickly as you can say "God loves you, and so do I?"

Then it might be Easter after all.

We Deceive Ourselves

It never ceases to amaze me how elastic many people become when faced with the simple truths of their lives.  Even when those truths seem to me as plain as the noses on their faces, the solutions to better, happier, more productive lives often seem to involve a set of mental calisthenics worthy of Rube Goldberg--with three words leading the routine:   "If only THEY..."

Why is it always someone else's fault when things aren't working out the way we'd hoped?

Now, truth be told, there are LOTS of times in life when we are justified in putting the blame for our unrealized potential squarely on the shoulders of others.  After all, we have as much control over how others treat us as they have over how we....um...er...treat them.  But were I a gambling man, I might wager that more often than we imagine, the keys to a happy and contented life are securely held in our own hands. 

Maybe it just seems too easy. 

So what is it that's holding you back?  Did someone say something that hurt?  Are you the victim of abuse or cruelty?  Is it time to share your story and take back the power they've stolen from you?

And what of those calisthenics you may have been doing?  Have you been bending over backwards to blame others for your own inaction?  Have you handed the author's pen to another and let them write YOUR story?

From what I hear, the truth will set you free.

My thanks for reading, and thanks for sharing!  Feel free to pass these "Acorns" along, and invite others to read and subscribe at www.realacorns.blogspot.com.

Happy spring!

Steve Fiechter

(c) Fiechter, 2015

    

Another Cat Story

He arrived as others had--uninvited but without a choice.  Someone moved and he was left behind--a sad story with no place to go.  Once upon a time he'd been well cared-for, warm and dry and fed.  Now the dangerous streets were his home--hungry and filthy and frightened.

This time it didn't take much convincing.  He would be better off in a home he hadn't chosen.  At least it was warm, and there was food.  The big cats who lived there were OK--maybe a little too cheerful, a little too touchy-feely....small price to pay.

It's been a couple of years now.  The once-nameless, homeless cat dressed in a ragged and flea-bitten suit is now sleek and shiny in his fancy tuxedo.  Quite a looker, with an appetite to match.  He's sitting under my chair as I write this, and I can hear him purring for no particular reason--or maybe for every reason. 

As I hear the strains of his song, I think how much we have in common--and wonder if my gratitude will ever match his.

Thanks for reading, sharing, caring!  Feel free to invite others to read--pass along a link or connect them with the blog:  www.realacorns.blogspot.com

(c) Fiechter, 2015

J'accuse!

As I grow a bit longer in the tooth I'm noticing something:  my memory isn't what it used to be.

It's typical, from what I hear.  As time passes, the human brain collects more and more information and so it takes a bit longer to sort through and process all of the data--sometimes things even get lost.

One thing it seems I haven't lost is my ability to swiftly accuse others.

It's only a pair of scissors, frequently used but ALWAYS returned to the same spot.  This time, as I reached for them, they weren't there. 

"Where did you put my scissors?"

The question flew out of my mouth without a moment's hesitation.  I knew beyond any doubt that I ALWAYS put those scissors back in the same place, and now they weren't there.  What other explanation could there be?  Someone else took them.

I must admit, even I was astonished at the speed of my accusation.  I just KNEW, and so I got to stew.  I was annoyed.  I needed my scissors.  I wanted my scissors...and I wanted them to be where I KNEW they should be!  Why would he take them and not put them back?  Where could he have left them?  Why did he need MY special scissors, anyway?

After a somewhat awkward confrontation, a denial of guilt, and a new search, I found the scissors--right where I'd left them.

I'm happy to report that my apology has been accepted.  Now I'm just wondering what other accusations, great and small, I've cast on others while I should have been pointing that finger at the mirror.

(c) Fiechter

Thanks for reading...feel free to share!  Read previous posts or subscribe to get these in your email inbox at www.realacorns.blogspot.com.

I Was There

The phone call from the Vice-Principal came at the last minute, and with apologies:

"Would you and your parents be able to be at the Senior Awards Ceremony this evening?"  Somehow my name had been left off the invitation list.

I had a hunch I knew what the award would be and I dreaded it.

Sure enough, as I sat biting my nails through the ceremony, watching my classmates receive honors for excellence in a variety of academic pursuits, the time finally arrived and my name was called.  I won:

Perfect Attendance.

That's right!  While my peers were taking home plaques and trophies in Art and English and Science and Math, I won an award for the unthinkable--I showed up every day.  I was presented a plaque over my protests:  "I'm SURE I was absent once in sophomore year!"

How would I ever live it down?  Seriously, High School had been an experience I was ready to forget; this would be the final humiliation, adding insult to injury.  To this day my face reddens when I think about it.

Now that I think about it, though, it's really OK.  In fact, I'm kind of proud of it.  After all, what more can really be expected of any of us than to simply show up and be ourselves?  For a deeply closeted, somewhat chubby, clumsy and red-faced teen it may have been a disaster.  But in the end, to have had the opportunity to live a full life and to have actually shown up for it every day is the greatest reward.

Carpe diem...there will only ever be one today.  Hope to see you there!

Stardust Memories

This week, just as it does every week, Wednesday will come and go.  But for a few, this one will be different.  They'll use this Wednesday to pause and to reflect, to look back and to look ahead...and to consider their place in the grand scheme of things.  Having set aside the revelry of a Fat Tuesday, they will gather with others of a like mind to practice old rituals--you may even see them with black smudges on their foreheads, mishapen and misunderstood.

"Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."

No matter how you look at it, there's no escaping the inevitable: the party will end and we will all return to the dust from which we were formed.  Whether you are one to believe there's something more or not, the inescapable truth is that life as each of us knows it is coming to an end--sooner than later.  A smudge of ash is a reminder that nothing lasts forever.  We will all die.

But before we allow that sadness to define us, it might be important to consider that the dust from which we are made--the dust to which we will return--is the very same dust that makes up the whole of what is--everything we can see and everything we can't:  Stardust. 

It puts a whole new (star)light on things, doesn't it?  We are made from all that was and all that is and all that will be--which sounds pretty hopeful to me.

Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain...

Member

Sometimes I sit, waiting to be rescued--by someone with a better idea, someone with a better opportunity, a better job, a better something or other...someone who will notice me and acknowledge my greatness--until it dawns on me that the only person who is going to do that is me.

Tradition tells us that we are all valued and needed--that there is no one part of the body that is greater or more important than another.  Yet how often do we sit quietly waiting, as if the eye will tell the foot when it's time to start walking, or the hand will tell the mouth when it's the right time to speak, or another brain will stop by to rescue us from our ennui.   But that's not how it works, friends, and deep inside we all know it.  That's not how it works in the Body and that's not how it works in the world.  In the Body, each part knows its role and does its task, orchestrated by a subconscious energy that coordinates our efforts and keeps us moving forward.  The mouth knows its job without the foot telling it (though at times that foot inserts itself....but that's another story).  The ear knows when it's time to listen, even if the mouth doesn't always know when to stop.  And those hands really do know the right thing to do, even if, more often than not, we find them in the cookie jar. 

So the next time you're sitting around waiting for instructions or an engraved invitation to action, remember this--you already know what you can be doing: walking with the troubled, offering a hand to those in need, listening with a caring heart, and speaking the truth in love.

There's More

Maybe you read it, too.  Hurtling through space, NASA's Kepler Telescope has sent back images of an ancient solar system; a sun with circling planets similar in many ways to our own.

It's not all that far away, either--only about 117 light years.  Why, that's practically around the corner!  Yet it's not its close proximity to us that is the remarkable thing about this neighboring solar system, but how old it is.  Scientists at the University of Birmingham (England...that's even closer--just across the pond!) are saying somewhere around 11 billion years old.  I thought I was getting old!  In comparison, the Earth is a relative teenager: by the time our Earth was formed, the planets in this newly discovered but far from new solar system were already older than the earth is now (about 4.5 billion years old...give or take).

Whether old or new, near or far, it all reminds me that my own little world is kind of small.  I tend to think and live within my own self-drawn boundaries, a relatively miniscule sphere of influence and activity, as if this is all there is.  That's kind of sad, really.  Because, in reality, there is so much more--much of which--MOST of which has yet to be discovered.

Science is a wonder.  It continues to insist that there is more, and continues to prove it, too.  Religion, on the other hand, more often closes rank on a rule-based world in which all that exists is already well-defined.  No wonder the two often clash, and that's too bad.  Because GOOD religion is not incompatible with science--in fact it seeks to do the very same things that science does: to live in the mystery while searching for greater understanding.  The challenge, for those religiously oriented, is to steer far and wide from any notion that we have it all figured out.  Because as soon as we say "we know it all" a new discovery will remind us that we don't...not even close.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

When the Dog Bites

It's mostly healed now.  Mostly.

On Christmas Eve, with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, I went out for an afternoon jog around the neighborhood.  Just up a nearby street, a small dog (with sharp teeth!) ran out to "greet" me with some Christmas cheer.  I limped home, but not after asking the man who'd called out after the dog if the dog had all his shots.  I wasn't particularly interested in getting a case of rabies as a memento of the holidays.

"Not my dog," he said, as he quickly walked into a house.  "Just helping a friend."

Now, you might expect that once he, or perhaps the dog's caretaker, learned that I'd been bitten there would have been some sign of concern for my well-being.  Unfortunately, whatever spirit they were in, it was not one of care or (dare I say it?) remorse.  Not even an "Are you OK?"

Like I said, the dog bite is mostly healed now.  There was no infection, no rabies.  But I have to be honest, there's a little more healing needed.  You see, the lack of concern shown me has left me bitter and angry toward these strangers.  I've thought about ways to get back--maybe calling animal control or putting up warning posters on their street...I even stopped by the police department to see if they could do something.  And while I have a genuine concern that the dog may be a menace to others less hale and hearty than I, at this point my real concern is this:  how do I let it go and forgive?  How do I truly heal?

Maybe you've been bitten a time or two in the past too. Maybe you've walked away from a situation or encounter feeling wounded.  Time has helped heal things, sure, but beneath the surface there's more healing that needs to happen.  What can you do?  Should you just let it gnaw away at you?  Would you feel better if it could somehow be resolved?  Is there something you can do to help heal the wound?  And what if the other parties involved aren't interested?  Then what?

Forgiveness is a tricky thing--it's hard to do alone and hard to live without.  But in the end, if we don't even try, those old wounds will never heal.  And maybe, in the end, it's in the trying--in the reaching out--in the desire--that the real healing happens.

"How many times should I forgive?"

Here's to a 2015 overflowing with healing and hope: less growling and more healing!  If you enjoy reading, pass them on--invite your friends to subscribe to these occasional posts too at www.realacorns.blogspot.com.

(c) Steve Fiechter, 2015

It's (not!) All In My Head

Not long ago I found myself challenged by some circumstances at work.  As I shared what was going on with a friend, I was (wisely!) reminded that there are many things that are out of my control.

"Steve," he said, "just remember, it's not all in your head."

It was good to be reminded that some things happen in due time and at the will of powers beyond my control.  There are limits to my reach.

There are also limits to that philosophy. Some things ARE within my reach and under my control.... things like my attitude and how I react to the situation at hand.

The trick?  It's in knowing myself and knowing the difference.

And maybe that's a good way to start off a new year--with a heightened sense of awareness:  what can I change, and how can I change?

So here's to a new year:

The serenity to accept the things we cannot change...

The courage to change the things we can...

The wisdom to know the difference...

Wishing you a joyful 2015!  If you enjoy reading, feel free to share, and encourage your friends to follow at www.realacorns.blogspot.com.  Thanks!

(c) 2015, Stephen Fiechter