Life

What a Difference a Day Makes

/ James Browning

There is good to be found in many things initially not seen in that light. I woke up about 4am Thursday morning with a nasty stomach virus that kept anything from staying down until about 6pm last evening. Between a fever, body aches all over and many trips to the bathroom my life was devoid of peace for over twelve hours.

This morning I feel weak and out of it, but the storm is over. Nothing makes me appreciate good health like having the flu or something of the sort. It’s the feeling bad that makes me appreciate feeling good when the latter returns.  Being temporarily sick is humbling and a reminder that many people suffer from illness and will not recover in a day or two as I will.  I have always been healthy and my adventure yesterday was a pointed reminder to appreciate my good health.

Short and to the point, I am very grateful the worst of the sickness is over and to be feeling better today. Wow! What a difference a day makes.

The greatest wealth is health.
Virgil

If you have health, you probably will be happy,
and if you have health and happiness,
you have all the wealth you need,
even if it is not all you want.
Elbert Hubbard

There is something in sickness
that breaks down the pride of manhood.
Charles Dickens

I Wear the Black

/ James Browning

Three quotes from Johnny Cash:

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space”.

“There’s unconditional love there. You hear that phrase a lot but it’s real with me and her [June Carter]. She loves me in spite of everything, in spite of myself. She has saved my life more than once. She’s always been there with her love, and it has certainly made me forget the pain for a long time, many times. When it gets dark and everybody’s gone home and the lights are turned off, it’s just me and her.”

“I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he’s a victim of the times”.

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity:
it must be produced and discharged
and used up in order to exist at all.
William Faulkner

Pictorial Expressions of Gratitude

/ James Browning

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then here are 10,000 words to express my gratitude this morning.

    

 

 

  

   

  

    

 

As I discovered these images each one provoked a positive emotion within: one of gratitude for life; for the ability to see, feel, hear, touch and smell. I hope they bring you a similar sense of awe, beauty and thankfulness.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet
and the winds long to play with your hair.
Kahlil Gibran

Much Remains the Same

/ James Browning

Stumbling across a site of early 20th century vintage glamour photography, I became mesmerized looking back through time. Letting it soak in that the image was captured about ninety-two years ago was a bit mind-boggling.   The twenty something woman glamorized in the photograph above taken around 1920 would be a hundred and ten years plus if she was still among us.  Much has changed.  Many things remain the same. 

The appearance of photographic images was different a hundred years ago. The quality of equipment and techniques in practice then gave most images a dreamy, misty and somewhat surreal look. The sense of seeing through to another time is enhanced by clothing, props and styles that appear rarely antique in an appealingly beautiful way. All together the methods and attributes of a hundred years ago cause the photographs to appear characteristically artful, much like a painting of long ago.

There’s something about seeing an image of someone who lived long ago that conjures intrigue.  Questions come to mind such as “who were you”; “what was your life like?”; “were you happy?”; “what were you thinking when the photo was taken?”; “what did your voice sound like?”.

Of course, there was plenty of ‘naughty French postcard” type photography of women taken in the early 20th century era that was exploitive. It was nudity simply for the sake of the nakedness done without any artistic bent. At the same time that sort of unappealing photography was being done in Paris, there were people like Man Ray who was making inventive and original works of art with a camera featuring the female form. His photographic work has been copied for a hundred years, but like that of his contemporaries like Dali, in their day the work was completely original, inspired and quite controversial. A good example is Man Ray’s ‘cello back woman’:

It’s interesting how today’s fashion appears contemporary while that of just forty years ago frequently appears old and out of style. However, go back a hundred years and old fashion and style appears “classic”. Clara Bow and her contemporaries emerge from photographs to have had their own unique class when viewed today.

Modern snobbery often gives the impression that fashionable beauty comes only from “now”. For hundreds of years every age has had its fashion of the day, current perceptions of beauty, preferred types of entertainment and ways of perceiving things. Ranging from what now appears elegant and classy to the laughable and near ridiculous, all ages of the past have their own “thing”.

All I have to do is see old photographs of myself in a 70’s wide lapel, baby blue tux with platform shoes on to have a good laugh on my self.  I wonder if in a hundred such a photo will be consider that of a classic gentleman. I am grateful for the smile remembering ‘my time’ brings. I am thankful for the slant of perspective that allows me to see into the past and respect what long ago was.  

Clocks slay time…
time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels;
only when the clock stops does time come to life.
William Faulkner

Three Sayings and a Poem

/ James Browning

Some mornings my gratitude is of a general sort instead of being focused on specific things. Today is one of those days when I woke with good spirits about being alive and feeling grateful about many things but impossible to sort down to one or two.  There is just too much this morning I feel thankful for. So instead, here are three sayings about gratitude and a favorite poem about what to be thankful for that in total encompass my morning thoughts and sentiments.

Learn everything you can, anytime you can,
from anyone you can;
there will always come a time
when you will be grateful you did.
Sarah Caldwell

Two kinds of gratitude:
The sudden kind we feel for what we take;
the larger kind we feel for what we give.
Edwin Arlington Robinson

The world has enough beautiful mountains and meadows,
spectacular skies and serene lakes. It has enough lush forests,
flowered fields and sandy beaches. It has plenty of stars
and the promise of a new sunrise and sunset every day.
What the world needs more of is people to appreciate and enjoy it.
Michael Josephson

Much of the lack that plagued my thoughts for so long is now filled in by gratefulness toward what my life already contains. Now there is far less of each day spent longing for more. Instead, one by one I am discovering my many blessings. What a wonderful feeling. It feels like uncovering life itself.

Be grateful for the kindly friends that walk along your way;
Be grateful for the skies of blue that smile from day to day;
Be grateful for the health you own, the work you find to do,
For round about you there are men less fortunate than you.
Be grateful for the growing trees, the roses soon to bloom,
The tenderness of kindly hearts that shared your days of gloom;
Be grateful for the morning dew, the grass beneath your feet,
The soft caresses of your babes and all their laughter sweet.
Acquire the grateful habit, learn to see how blest you are,
How much there is to gladden life, how little life to mar.
And what if rain shall fall today and you with grief are sad;
Be grateful that you can recall the joys that you have had.
Edgar Guest

Often a Sign of Love

/ James Browning

Saying “NO” is one of the greatest gifts I can give myself!  That was brought to the forefront of my attention through reading a couple of meaningful on-line articles this morning. I want to share what I came across.

A starter list of the benefits of “no” put together by Ron Edmondson points to just some of the advantages:

  • Saying “no” is the power to help resist temptation…
  • Saying “no” keeps you from the stress of overcommitting…
  • Saying “no” protects family life…
  • Saying “no” provides adequate time for what matters most…
  • Saying “no” preserves energy levels for prioritized work…
  • Saying “no” allows others opportunities they wouldn’t have if you always say yes…
  • Saying “no” permits you to control your schedule for an ultimate good…
  • The value of learning when to say no, and actually practicing it, is immeasurable!

In the “Health and Wellness” section on the website http://www.sheknows.com John Khoury made another list of benefits of saying “no” appropriately:

  • More energy. Not only will you be saving energy, the fact that you are now in conscious control will add extra energy.
  • More time. There are only 24 hours in a day, but from now on, more of them are for you.
  • More confidence. Saying “no” to others can often amount to saying “yes” to yourself. This is a back-handed “I love you” to the most important person in your life. Take it as a compliment and feel good about it.
  • More control. Saying “no” means you are behind the steering wheel and can go wherever you want.
  • More respect. You’ll respect yourself more and so will others. They might not like you as much, but if they were trying to step over your boundaries before, they probably didn’t like you much anyway – not really. At least you’ll have their respect when you show them your clear, no-discussion limits.
  • More fun. Yes, life is here to be enjoyed. When you stop working for others, you start working for yourself and start fitting in the fun.

What I need seems to appear on its own a good bit of the time. All I need to do it remain open and pay attention to what is brought into my path by a power beyond me. I feel no need to quantify that source. It is sufficient to me to instead express my gratitude. Today the message I received was saying “no” is frequently best and often a sign of love.

…there are often many things we feel we should do that,
in fact, we don’t really have to do.
Getting to the point where we can tell the difference is a major milestone…
Elaine St. James

Inexplicably Wondrous

/ James Browning

Here we are on a Tuesday that will feel like a Monday all day long due to the holiday weekend. We’ll be a little confused as a society often wondering what day it is all week. To help me focus and keep my path clear to myself, here’s an affirmation I have adopted as my own:

I can not control
what you think of me.
Better yet, I do not
need to, for how you
see me tells more
about you than it does me.

I am who I am
regardless of what
others think or say
about me.

I accept full responsibility
for who I am and how I
live my life. I do not seek
to please others, to conform,
to be anything other than
exactly how my Creator made me.

I am grateful for the three-day weekend and am thankful to have a job to go back to on this Tuesday after Memorial day. It was a delicious morsel of life to have three days off in a row. Four would have been near perfection! I must remember that for the 4th Of July…

Even though life is not easy,
it is inexplicably wondrous!
James Browning

Within the Walls of My Being

/ James Browning

I was conceived in a world
beyond my grasp, beyond my
knowledge. A world for me to be
born in…. and to die.
But what about the “in-between” time?
Can I connect birth, live, and death
into a flowing stream of consciousness?
The only decision that is truly mine
is how I choose to spend my days, hours,
and minutes.

Will I develop my “Being” into something
of significance? Will I find contentment
and enjoyment deep within the walls of my
being, or will I wander through life blindly,
unaware of my own purpose? Will I find this
for myself or will I perish? Only I can decide!

Those lines are from a book titled “Visions of You” by George Betts published by Celestial Arts Publishing during the latter part of the “hippie era” in 1972; the year my nineteenth birthday arrived. That time of “freaks” and “straights” is remembered well. The deep south of  Alabama and Mississippi where I grew up was behind me. Now my home was a rented cottage on Ruxton Avenue under the shadow of Pike’s Peak in Manitou Springs, Colorado, which at that time was a past prime tourist town. Rent was cheap and the empty houses and store fronts had been filled by a good-sized hippie colony.

The late 60’s and early 70’s was a special time when I could pick up a hitch-hiking couple and let them sleep the night on my floor with never a worry about anything bad happening. Those were the days we truly thought we were “brothers and sisters”.

Today the real estate in Manitou Springs is high-priced and vestiges of the 60’s and 70’s when I lived there are mostly long gone. But there still are people around the town you can tell by their hair and clothes still hang on to that time gone by.

I’m told the big turquoise ring I wear on my right hand, the bracelet on my wrist and my somewhat longer length of my hair signifies I too am one of those people. I accept the “old hippie” moniker gladly and am proud to be part of a generation that worked to stop a war, moved women’s and civil rights steps forward, were involved politically and brought sex out of the closet. We were naive, but really did believe in something hopeful and beautiful… at least for a little while.

I wonder if the author of “Visions of You” is the same George Betts who today on-line is found to be a professor at the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences in Greeley, Colorado. He’d be about 68 years old or about 10 years older than me. In the press photo for the school Professor Betts looks today mostly like a kindly grandfather. I wonder … is that how I look now? Being not much more than a year from being sixty years old there is awareness within that I became invisible to college girls decades ago and am also entering my “Grandpa phase”. Many might not think of me today as a “hip dude” as we once called guys who were “with it” and “cool”, but once upon a time that was me (or at least in my own mind I was).

I am proud of my life, my accomplishments and the peace that has been made with my mistakes (and I made some doozies!). My days have been colorful, my experiences rich and I’ve lived more fully than most.  There is still more to come; quite possibly the best parts. I am learning, growing, becoming more aware, finding harmony with myself and a spiritual path is unfolding for me. In some ways I’m picking up where I left off back in my early 20’s and that’s a good thing.

Peace, Brothers and Sisters!

He who takes a stand is often wrong,
but he who fails to take a stand is always wrong.
Anonymous

Buddha, Confucius and Franklin

/ James Browning

 

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt.
Doubt separates people.
It is a poison that disintegrates friendships
And breaks up pleasant relations.
It is a thorn that irritates and hurts;
It is a sword that kills.
Buddha

 

Life is really simple,
But we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius

 

Life’s Tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.
Benjamin Franklin
 
 
Inspiration can come from many places, but I have found few sources as consistent as the words of Buddha,Confucius and Ben Franklin.  Completely different men from greatly varied times saying much of the same things.  I am grateful for the bits of wisdom they left behind for me to benefit from.
 
Too bad people can’t switch problems
because nobody knows how to solve their own problems,
but they always know how to solve another’s.
Unknown

Poetry of the Senses

/ James Browning

Showing again my kinship with a number many are superstitious about, here’s another installment of thirteen’s. This time 13 sayings about loving and being loved.

1. It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return. But what is more painful is to love someone and never find the courage to let that person know how you feel, and then regret it.

2. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one so that when we finally meet the right person, we will know how to be grateful for that gift.

3. Love is when you take away the feeling, the passion, and the romance in a relationship and find out that you still care for that person.

4. A sad thing in life is, you meet someone who means a lot to you, only to find out in the end that it was never meant to be, and you just have to let go.

5. When the door of happiness closes, another opens. But often at times we look so long at the closed-door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

6. It is true that we do not know what we have until we lose it, but it is also true that we do not know what we have been missing until it arrives.

7. Giving someone all your love is never an assurance that they will love you back. Do not expect love in return; just wait for it to grow in their heart. But if it does not, be content that it grew in yours.

8. There are things you would love to hear that you would never hear from the person whom you would like to hear them from; but do not be so deaf as not to hear it from the one who says it from the heart.

9. Never say goodbye if you still want to try. Never give up if you still feel you can go on. Never say you do not love a person anymore if you cannot let go.

10. Love comes to those who still hope although they have been disappointed, to those who still believe although they have been betrayed, to those who still love although they have been hurt before.

11. Do not go for looks; they can deceive. Do not go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile, because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright.

12. The beginning of love is to let those we love just be themselves and not twist them with our own image. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

13. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past. You can’t get on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

I am grateful for eyes that see, a mouth that tastes, ears that hear, a nose that smells, and fingers that touch. But most of all I am grateful for a heart that loves.

Love is the poetry of the senses.
Honoré de Balzac