Someone's Baby Once....

If you're of a certain generation you may remember a line from the classic cartoon, Broom-Stick Bunny.  Hotly pursued by a hideous and scary witch, and about to become part of her brew, the usually wise-cracking Bugs Bunny is suddenly reflective about his pursuer:

"She may not be very pretty now, but she was someone's baby once."

I think about that line every once in a while.  Everyone...no matter how grumpy or dirty or beautiful or thin or strong or mean or ugly or wrinkled or rude or happy or hurtful...everyone was "someone's baby once."  Remembering that helps me to love better--even those who may seem particularly unlovable to me at the moment.  Because, you see, while it's true that we all started out the same--small and naked and helpless--from there it didn't work out the same for all of us.  Some of us entered into worlds of abundant love, privilege and care, but many did not.  Sure, we were all "someone's baby once," but we weren't all loved.  Some of us were abandoned.  Some of us were abused.  Some of us were bullied.  Some of us were rejected because of the color of our skin or the kink in our hair or the people we loved or the things we were good at doing.  Some of us were starved--for food, for affection, for love. 

Many still are. 

Friends, we all make choices based on the opportunities that exist for us in our world, from the foundations on which our lives began.  But what of those who have no foundation, whose lives are built on the shaky ground of rejection and starvation?  We may all have been worthy of love but we have not all been recipients of it.  It may be hard for some of us to imagine, but there are many in this world who have simply never experienced that loving gaze that tells us, no matter what, we are loved and all will be well.

Maybe it's time we tell them.

(c) Fiechter, 2016

Thanks for reading.  Please feel free to share--ask permission for reprinting please.  And remember, love is both a noun and a verb...and sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Overload <3

Not long ago I heard something that about knocked my socks off:  five hundred years ago, the average person would have received the same amount of new information in their entire lifetime as a person today receives in a single day.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Five hundred years ago, you would have had your entire lifetime to absorb and process the amount of new information you now receive in a single day.

Have you ever felt like your brain was going to explode?  Have you ever felt that if you had to learn one new password, figure out how to use one new gizmo or gadget, learn one new THING, that you might just go bonkers?  Have you ever looked around and wondered how it's possible that you've suddenly entered an episode of The Jetsons?  Do you remember back when you would call someone on the telephone--it was called "dialing" for a reason, BTW--and you didn't have to ask them where they were?  E-mail, texting, Facetime...OMG...we used to speak using WORDS...LOL!. 

Have you ever thought that the only constant in life is change...and by the time you were done thinking about it everything seemed to changed AGAIN?

For generation after generation life didn't seem to change much.  If things did change, you usually had some time to catch up.  But now there's no time for catching up--if you blink you're behind.

It can be overwhelming.  Whether you're trying to wrap your brain around new ideas like "gay marriage" or remember that "google" has long-since become a verb, it can be a challenge to keep up.  That's not surprising; emerging brain science reminds us that the human brain is still catching up with the amount of information that crosses our screens in this age of technology.  And they say we ain't seen nothin' yet!

But believe it or not, one thing hasn't changed: the greatest force known to humanity.  It is the power to bring about change and deal with it, the power to heal, the power to grow, the power to transcend every challenge.  We call it love.

Always have, always will.

"Faith, hope, and love abide.  And the greatest of these is love."

(Happy Valentine's Day to all!)

All of a Sudden....

It was another one of those weeks.  It seemed to start out slowly and then, all of a sudden, it was Friday!  Funny how that is.

Come to think of it, January was another one of those months.  The holidays were over and then, all of a sudden, Punxatawny Phil was hunting for his shadow.  Funny how that is.

Come to think of it, last year was another one of those years...the last decade another of those...

Funny, how it is.  Or maybe you're thinking it's not so funny any more, just too fast.

It's something about how our brains are wired, or maybe it's that time is relative.  When we're younger it seems as if we have forever--only when we're looking back does it all seem to have gone by so quickly. 

Which is only to say "enjoy today" because, before you know it, today will be over.  And there won't be anything funny about that.  

Ready? Swing!

The other day my body reminded me of the truth of the phrase, I'm not as young as I used to be: not a big deal, but painful enough that I got the message.

Along with that reminder came the fear that, one day, I may lose the ability to participate in life the way I've enjoyed for so long.  It was that nagging fear, more than the sharp pain in my knee, that stung the most. 

Oh, it wasn't really a fear--not at first--just a thought.  But then it grew and grew, buzzing around in my head like an annoying fly stuck inside, trying to fly through a closed kitchen window.  Pretty soon I was swatting at it almost constantly, to the point where it had my full attention. 

Then I noticed something.  When I talked about it, the fear went away.  When I heard my own words, when I spoke my fear, it was as if the window opened and that annoying fly flew.

Thoughts buzz around in our heads all the time.  They bounce off the walls of our brains like flies trying to get to the light through a closed kitchen window.  Voicing our fears--talking about them--is opening that window.  It releases our fears into the community, where those who care are waiting and listening--

And holding a giant fly-swatter.

What are you afraid of today?  Is there someone who will listen?  Or is today your day to swat?

"There is no fear in love."

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!)