 The freedom from the ruling power, government, military regime or whatever authority reigns politically, and the freedom of soul from the bondage of self and sin. The price to remain shackled by the ruling power requires we submit our individuality and personal privacy to be dictated to by others. Big Brother seems determined to intrude upon every aspect of our lives but does he know that no one can conquer or oust the spirit within that continually seeks for truth ? The price for the latter, freedom of soul, remains the same. The truth shall make us free, according to scriptural teaching. Perhaps there is a way of looking at this rather than the human tendency for dogmatic persuasion, " think my way, or...", or, "anything you can do I can do better". Where true peace, true love, true mercy, forgiveness, compassion, kindness, patience, honesty, humility, gratitude,impartiality, influence ones living there will be freedom of soul - because without these virtues we are controlled by greed, lust, hate, jealousy, cruelty and every known malignancy that springs from self- serving egoism. All these latter traits being those found in in the likes of Big Brother, et al. So bottom line - perhaps there are not two freedoms after all but one ? If we are free in our soul, our spirit, does this free us also from man's passion for control? Or are we creatures who, when physically, politically or culturally entrapped, never free in spirit? ********** How does being truly humble present - humility being one of those attributes that the minute you think you have it and say or think so, you've lost it ? *********** I think all mankind experiences the mountain top and valley depth. While there have definitely been more of valleys than mountains in my own life I have been aware that fruit is grown in the valley and not on the mountain top. I would not shun the valleys, for a fruitless life is a barren one. We learn great and wonderful things from sludging in the valley that we could never attain when standing on the mountain top. However, on the peak we have a view - a clearer, more far reaching vision we could never see in valley depths, and this makes the mountain climb worthwhile. The Creator of both mountain height and valley length allows the sunshine and the darkness of both experiences. Both are, I feel, entirely necessary, or they have been, for me. "All sunshine makes a desert", just as all mountain tops would leave us barren, and all valley darkness would bring eventual blindness for a lack of vision. It has always been a comfort for all for whom life sometimes feels a deafening solitude, a silent scream, an isolating wilderness, that others "trudge the sludge", do peek the peak, and can share their valley fruit (the smallest can be the sweetest) and there, describe their mountain 'peeks'. Let us be grateful. *********** There are a number of definitions of grace according to the dictionary and I am watering this seedling thought to see what shoots will push their way to air. Grace would be all that meets my needs in ways I have not earned.. It is being loved when I am the most unloveable, being forgiven when I should get my just deserts. It is light being shone, even a glimmer, when night is all I fumble and stumble around in. It is the kind word, look, or touch given to me when I do not ask but am silently crying in my aloneness and despair. Grace gives me sudden strength to do something my coward heart shrinks from but from somewhere an unseen hand gently pushes me to do it. It is the inspiration from examples seen in other lives that give me answers when I am at my wits end and feeling out of options. Grace brings me music, writings, art and Nature, it brings me friends and love and warmth when these are needed most and my world feels empty for a space. Grace does not react from the place of humaness -it is not guided by, nor motivated from, obligation, duty or even compassion. I do not merit grace, I do not deserve grace, I do not seek grace - it is bestowed upon me in more ways than can be numbered and comes from more sources than can be named or expected. It is found, when we are the givers of grace, in the depths of our unawareness and expressed spontaneously in the outpouring of our heart towards a fellow soldier in this dire battle for life and liberty. It is unaware, because if we have to think about it and choose whether or not to give it, it then becomes a human attribute prompted by human partiality and grace is not human but divine. All I know, which is next to nothing - is that I have been the grateful and humbled recipient of my definition of grace, over and over and over. It has been undeserved and unmerited - and if by any means I have been able to share it with others - this again, has not been of anything I've learned, but prompted by a power greater than myself not belonging to time or what is earthly. *********************** Fear can be a devastating cause of blindness. Really SEEING can be terrifying in the seeing of so many previously unknown things - unobscured vision of oneself, of truth, of others, unconsidered consequences, a fathomless kaleidascope of glimpses, fragments and whole pictures yet to stand scrutiny against evaluation of our conscience and acknowledgment. Fear keeps a person searching for the Braille of Truth denial to keep the fingers busy feeling paper-raised interpretations that are not looked at with the eyes where clarity would be immediate. There comes a time I think, at least it has been my own experience, when like a cataract that grows to film the eye and rob it of its sight, Fear can be removed and vision cleared. It does, however, need skillful hands to do the surgery. I do believe that when the scalpel is held in the rock steady hands of Love and Trust, Fear can be excised and with Sight, no matter what the view, the object or the revelation, there is no greater sense of well being than to be rid of Blindness. **************** It isn't strength the mountain gives to me because a mountain can be flattened by man's technology - oh no, the gift I find is strength within myself to climb, for the mountain gives me challenge and a goal to discover inner resources yet untapped. ***************** My passion for music - music that needs no words, reflecting mood and message - teaches me the invaluable lesson of harmony. It is a oneness I would know with my Creator. I do not need to understand the form, technique, or manuscript. The secret lies in blending - body, soul and instrument a single flowing movement. One component indistinguishable from another, lost in the message and feeling of the piece. Music symbolizes the highest goal of those who enter Friendship's tryst, or surgical team performing life and death procedure, the metamorphasis from blank canvas to artist's dream, the marching of a regiment or a band - whereever oneness, unity and blending occur, (be it of note, of colour, or man with man), the smoothness of harmonious movement is the secret Beauty and the richness of experience. There is no substitute for harmony - it is the foundation of creativity itself, for were there not harmony between a writer's thinking and expression of his thought, between the colours on the artist's palette and brushed portrayal of his painting, between the shaping of a statue and the sensitivity of sculptor's fingers, or the melding of two kindred spirits conveying love and meeting of their hearts and minds - were there no presence of true harmony in these, could the loss be ever understood ? I know there could never be replacement. ***************** A tree does not gift me fruit just for the tasting and to sate an appetite. Like Love, it teaches me that fruit can only follow after seed is sown, roots gone downward, sap drawn upward, wind and rain and frost and sunshine testing how the tree can stand the weathering - and leaving fruit its final taste - sweet or sour. *************** I am a lover of Peace and hate conflict - a precarious disposition in a world so conflict-ridden. ***************** Why does our Creator allow laughter? Perhaps because it is healing and releasing and fills the soul with brightness. There is, in humor, a wisdom, cynicism, irony, foolishness and wit, all of which cast reflection of the human condition on the surface of our sober stuffiness and help us see how very often we can miss a glorious opportuntity to see ourselves in true perspective. Humour is a survival tool, a self-mirroring for those brave enough to use it as such, and a good belly laugh is better than a goodly dose of tranquilizers in my feeble way of thinking. *********************  
| SEEDLINGS A | SEEDLINGS B | SEEDLINGS C | SEEDLINGS D | | THE HEALING PROCESS | DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER | POETRY | Biographical Entries | THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE | STORIES FOR LITTLES (Pigmus and friends) | SEEDLING THOUGHTS TO WATER | |
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