• coffee life,  quotes,  shadows

    Our Character As a People

    November 19, 2024

    I leave at O’dark-thirty tomorrow morning (4:05 am shuttle pickup) to spend a few days in Phoenix with my 95 year old dad and my sister and brother-in-law. We will celebrate Thanksgiving a week early and I will probably overeat. I’m not expecting to post anything until I get back on Sunday. We have had blue skies with scattered clouds but it’s been a cold, blustery day, which makes for a good day to stay inside and pack for the trip.

    I love the shadows

    What the government will or will not do is finally beside the point. If people do not have the government they want, then they will have a government that they must either change or endure. Finally, all the issues that I have discussed here are neither political nor economic, but moral and spiritual. What is at issue is our character as a people.

    Wendell Berry, The Hidden Wound

    The above quote is near the end of Wendell Berry’s book, called The Hidden Wound. Even though the book was written in 1989 this quote seems to aptly apply to our situation today. I’m not a believer in looking to a government, a new legislation, or some leader to make our social, political or economic situations better, although they can help. For several years our real issues in our society, its government, and I will include the world, are really moral and spiritual. He’s right: What is at issue is our character as a people. What is sad to me is that people do not want, or even know how, to look internally at their character. Or, worse yet, many have no idea what character means. It’s much easier to point a finger elsewhere. Anyway, I will be off line for a few days.

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  • frost,  leaves,  quotes

    The Morning’s Frost

    November 17, 2024

    Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer

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  • animals,  bicycling,  quotes,  shadows,  wildlife

    Happy Friday

    November 15, 2024

    “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
    “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

    The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

    A brisk 31 degrees this morning in Colorado. I met Jeff for coffee and conversation. When I got home I found out I had an issue with my website. After a chat session with Bluehost all seems to be working again. I find myself feeling overwhelmed with technology even after years working in engineering. I know some of that is immediate panic and a voice that says “I’m screwed now.” I don’t consider myself a techy person but prefer sharing stories of our lives with a friend, reading a book, journaling or enjoying the few moments with this nice buck I saw on my bicycle ride this morning. Each of those is about what I am doing with the time that has been given me while living in these times. Happy Friday!!

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  • Art,  quotes,  street photography

    The Meaning of Life

    November 12, 2024
    BirdsEye mural by Ren Burke

    I think “the meaning of life” is something we have to formulate for ourselves, we have to determine what has meaning for us… It clearly has to do with love — what and whom and how one can love.

    Oliver Sacks

    We had another beautiful day yesterday, beginning with an orange sunrise then blue skies and sunshine. In the afternoon I headed to Old Town to walk the streets with my camera. I found a few images then did some journaling at Starry Night, enjoying an Earl Grey Tea. I believe so deeply in what Oliver Sacks suggests that the meaning of life is about love. So today I ask myself what and whom and how I can love.

    In 2004 as a collaboration between the City of Fort Collins Art in Public Places Program and Utilities Light and Power created The Transformer Cabinet Mural Project. Serving as a graffiti abatement program, the murals help lower maintenance costs while adding bright colorful art in unexpected places. The program also helps keep the investment local by utilizing local artists and non-profit groups to paint the cabinets. Since the start of the program, 20 years now, over 400 transformer cabinets have been transformed into works of art.

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  • fall season,  leaves,  quotes

    Tell the Tale

    November 11, 2024

    It feels like we are living in a time of apocalypse,
    an age when everything we take for granted is starting to collapse around us.
    It feels like the end of the world.…
    This situation is nothing new for me as a Native American.
    My ancestors already lived through an apocalypse.…
    Native American culture in North America has been through the collapse of civilization
    and lived to tell the tale.

    Steven Charleston, We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope
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  • coffee life,  coffee shops,  quotes

    Presence is wisdom!

    November 8, 2024
    Journaling with a chai latte, while watching it snow outside

    Wisdom is precisely a different way of seeing and knowing the ten thousand things in a new way. I suggest that wisdom is precisely the freedom to be truly present to what is right in front of you. Presence is wisdom! Those who can be present will know what they need to know, and in a wisdom way.

    Richard Rohr

    It began snowing in earnest about 9:30 am, offering us big, beautiful moisture filled snowflakes. I met Jeff earlier for tea and conversation, then stopped by the Arboretum Coffee shop to journal for a while. The small chai latte was a perfect pairing with my journaling. This coffee shop is a nonprofit that is striving to “create a community where refugees and immigrants can rebuild their lives with dignity, gain essential skills, and form meaningful connections.” I come here because I want to support that ideal. So far my interaction with all these baristas has not given me a feeling of working with a criminal, the drug cartel or that I’m  in any danger. The only problem I’ve had is our language differences but that is improving! What’s cool about that is we don’t throw up our hands but keep at it until I get skim milk rather than whole. I’m finding my name is strange to them and love how they sometimes say it. If I remain open and willing to encounter wisdom, then these baristas have much to teach me, to enhance my life, and a chance to be present to each other. Seems there is more danger around the white privileged who think they think they know. I much prefer Rohr’s notion that wisdom is precisely a different way of seeing and knowing the ten thousand things in a new way. I want to be a seeker of wisdom.

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