Random Thoughts

Hello.  I have a rates right up there new experience from today.  I went to visit the home of a deceased person to console their family.  I entered the mud room and turned the corner to enter the kitchen and right there, two steps from the door was the open casket of the deceased.  I fell backward out the doorway and my boss caught me.  A little warning folks.  My startled face seem to be a source of amusement for just a moment and then traditional courtesy set in.

After we left, I was walking along with my boss and said in my chock full of manners way, "Jesus Jim, that scared the hell out of me."  He laughed all the way down the road and apologized for not reminding me of the Russian Orthodox ritual.  I am learning much. 

I have had many, many people sit in front of me questioning how to reconcile their traditional Native beliefs with their strong faith and church beliefs.  I can only ask each person to look into his/her heart.  How does it feel to say, "My Grandfather believed..."  along with, "I am very religious and the church tells me opposite of my Grandfather?"   I cannot answer that for them.  Which brings me to this thought that I woke up with.

How can anyone else possibly know what is best for another person?  The sayings: If you only knew what was good for you would do this.  If you only listened to me your life would go better.  How can anybody else be judge and jury for anyone else?  The more connected I feel to Creation, the more individual I feel in the eyes of my Creator.  What is best for me is between me and my Creator.  What is best for you is something you, alone, can determine.

This understanding frees me up so much.  I don't have to have the answers.  I don't have to have your answers.  And, I already have all my answers deep within me waiting to awaken or right at the surface, easy to pick like low hanging fruit.

Can you hear my laughter?  My I feel free laughter?  I think these new experiences are jarring something loose in me.  I said recently, that being human is not an excuse to judge, being human would appear instead, to be a reason we are not qualified to do so.  So, as I peel the octopus tenacles of judgment off from me and hand them back to the judge, I lift a weight from me and give it right back where it belongs.  I love this being over 50 stuff.