• fountain pens,  journal,  writing/reading

    This is not unusual…

    September 20, 2023

    It’s approximately a 40 foot walk from my front door to my car. This morning I had a half dozen thoughts racing through my head and at least two conversations by the time I reached the car. This is not unusual. Nor do I want these thoughts to go away, they are part of my humanity. However, what I desire is to let them pass on, allowing me to stay present to this world I am a part of. On those mornings when I do stay present, letting those thoughts pass on, I receive the gifts offered in being awake. When that happens I notice the squirrel hanging upside down on the tree, their eyes silently fixed on me. Or maybe I notice the small dew-drop globes of the spider’s web reflecting the morning sunlight. Or I notice the multicolored leaves-of-fall blanketing the grass. And, if I listen I can hear the jeers and clicks of a nearby blue jay. Those mornings when I stay present are so much more enjoyable to me. Today was not one of them. However, I think I was much more present to the mocha latte.

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  • horizons,  landscape,  rants,  sunrises,  writing/reading

    Let’s try something else!

    September 12, 2023

    Warning: Here comes a rant. Just over 22 years ago a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center began a devastating war, and I use the word war loosely here. This two decade long conflict has had a huge cost in money and lives. In this post I will set aside the money numbers with my rant focused on the human costs. In terms of human costs the numbers are staggering and these numbers are estimates. One report states the total number of deaths is 167,000 people killed by direct war violence in Afghanistan. I find that to be 167,000 too many. Which brings up my focus of this post: violence does not bring peace.

    I read from the Save the Children website that almost 33,000 children have been killed and maimed in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, an average of one child every five hours. Even if that number was half as many it’s shockingly too high. Again: violence does not bring peace.

    September is National Suicide Prevention Month so I thought I’d mention a few numbers on suicides of veterans. Since Sept. 11, 2001, just over 30,000 veterans have died by suicide — four times more than the number of U.S. military personnel who died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. That also comes out close to one veteran every five hours. I find it dumbfounding that we can support the idea of putting a uniform on a young person then training them to kill, placing them in combat situations and not expect them to have psychological trauma. Once again: violence does not bring peace.

    Even if the numbers presented here are incorrect by 90% they are way too high. They affect me at a deep level. Not sure it was a good idea to write this post but searching for these numbers has reinforced my conviction that: violence does not bring peace. Let’s try something else!

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  • coffee life,  coffee shops,  fountain pens,  journal,  quotes,  writing/reading

    Depths of Meditation

    September 10, 2023

    The truth is that we can venture into meditation only in our willingness to be, at times, perplexed. What is more, we must be willing to befriend our perplexity as a way of dying to our futile efforts to grasp the ungraspable depths that meditation invites us to discover.

    James Finley

    I’m heading out meet my daughter at a Greek restaurant and I’m assuming to over eat, again. Also, expecting rain later this afternoon. Let it begin.

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  • clouds,  fountain pens,  grass,  horizons,  journal,  landscape,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  Plants,  quotes,  writing/reading

    Who I’m Becoming

    September 7, 2023

    … the truth is that we simply don’t know — we don’t know where life ultimately leads, we don’t know what we want or what to want, and we don’t really know ourselves. 

    Maria Popova

    I’ve mentioned before my belief of how little I think I think I know. Yet there are times when some sense of knowing does rise within me. This knowing is not about having an answer or solution to a problem. It’s a knowing that somehow changes my perspective on life, this world, people, and myself. I find this knowing to be one of the adventures in life, a place of growth. I am slowly learning small bits of who I’m not and who I’m becoming.

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  • Art,  coffee life,  coffee shops,  latte art,  musings,  writing/reading

    A “to-do” list

    August 25, 2023

    I’ve noticed how several of my baristas, as well as other people, will often ask me what I have planned for my day. Some days that’s easy to answer because I do have a list of things. While other times that’s not as easy to answer because I have no to-do list. It got me to reflect on that what am I going “to be” today appeared more relevant than what I was going “to do.” So, in my journal I wrote answers to the question, What sort of human will you be today, Monte? My writings brought up some interesting thoughts. You can laugh at these, discount them, add to them or stop reading this post and get on with your day’s to-do list. Either way here is a short and incomplete list.  

    I want to be kind, loving, fully present, virtuous, reflective, forgiving, open minded, honest, prayerful, happy, my true self, caring, thankful, respectful, and a listener. I see that most of this list is my life lived through my attitude, intentions, and approach to life. Now the following list are roles that I can strive to do through my actions and efforts: to be a photographer, a writer, a creative, a student and the best son, brother, father, friend I can be. Seems it may be we need to be and do.

    There is no simple answer to this question except maybe “to be all that I can be”. Yet, I cannot be any of those without putting some action to them, which means a “to-do” list that includes how I approach living my life. Another good question to ask myself is if am I thinking about what I could do for others, what I could pack into the stream of life or am I just thinking of myself? Thanks for listening to my ramblings this morning, if you did.

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  • clouds,  landscape,  Meister Eckhart,  poems,  sunrises,  writing/reading

    Darkness & Light

    August 23, 2023
    Sunrise taken August 10, 2023

    When people ask me what they should do,
    I tell them this: Love others as much as
    you love yourself. If you find
    that you don’t love some people as
    much as you love yourself, then this
    is because you’ve not yet learned
    to love yourself fully.
    For what you do not love in others
    you’ve not yet learned to love in yourself;
    work on this and you’ll begin to discover
    what it means to love as God loves.

    Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness & Light

    I’m enjoying this third book by Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S Burrows, Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness & Light. I use it in much the same way I used their first two books, where I read a poem at a time and sit with it. I almost always find one word or a short line that resonates with me. I may write one of the poems or line or two in my journal because it helps me to retain it in my old memory banks. And, hopefully somehow these words will take seed and therefore potentially change the world, or at least change how I react to it. I would add to make a comment about he last line of this poem. I’ve read somewhere that if the God you know only loves the people you love, then maybe that God is too small. Because that group of people we can love is most likely a rather small group in relation to the population of this world.

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