Survival: Lesson #1

Survival: Lesson #1

It's about Good versus Evil. Or so it seems. It's actually about choices. Like selective hearing and so forth. 

We can pull from whatever floats in our atmosphere, our environment. Or we can just breathe, not take the choices in that second, minute, hour, day that enter into our realm. 

We can build a wall, a bomb shelter, wrap ourselves in barbed wire, or huddle in a cave.

Metaphorically, I've done all four of them.

Just like selectively, there are times everyone declares they're an empath. News for you, you're not. Most likely not. Yes, you 'got' feelings. But you're supposed to have them. And some, we have selectively groomed them in or out of our persona for our own convenience. 

I call it the "Chicken Little Response". Your sky may seem like it's falling, but not every time. The clouds may hover for you. So you think and then bingo! Just like that, they pass.

The news outlets we could blame for doing that to us. However, then we would have to blame our passions too. Like competing in any sport and not being number one. Or watching a team we want to win in a sport, we do our own blood pressure. Yes we do. Follow me, and I'll tell you more about yourselves of what you don't want to know.

The competition is often of our own devices. So you want to have abs like 'Suzie' or 'Arnold'. You try and try, so you think and wahhh lahhhh, not happening for you. By the way, you didn't try your best. You gave up. It's... "What's it to yah?"

Me, I was a simpleton. That is as a child. 

I'd pray every night that God would make me a hero. Yes, at age seven, I began to pray that God would bestow upon me a never ending fight to save the world. But one thing I knew even at age seven was, that I'd die and someone else would have to take over the reigns of saving the world. Because I knew the hearts of men. That the fight for Good versus Evil would continue long after I was gone. I knew I just couldn't be the only one weilding destruction against evil. But I also knew in order to do so, I had to remain pure in heart. I had to always do good. And I knew the potential sacrifice of my life and accepted it. I'd do my best and die young. Yes, till I got married it was all encompassing. But one thing I knew for certain, I'd pray for the answer on it. It was, could I forgive myself if I had to kill someone? I'd wrestled with that before, after and while I was in the Marines.

At the end of such a prayer, I'd say, "God forgive me. Because I need to fight evil and I may have to take an order to take lives for Democracy." Yes, that's the prayer I'd say. I knew war was murderous. But I also realized I'm an animal only with more dominion than a squirrel. So, with more responsibility. Knowing what I know, most responsibility is mine. The internal conflict of understanding I had more power because I knew I could make decisions that meant I could be considered a hero and a murderer at the same time. Or just a murderer, that too. And how would I feel about that? Would I go to hell as a bad Catholic?

Or would I guard the gates of Heaven? Fighting evermore? I'd wondered. I'd hoped I'd be trusted on some level. 

For many years, I'd believed most people were as deep thinking and soulful as I. I found out most don't select that depth. I had plenty of people, mostly seventy to ninety years old tell me so, who'd been clients of mine over near a thirty year period. Even my mother-in-law wondered how I could go so deep. She'd said it to me many times.

The downside of being human is hearing birds chirp, perhaps falling in love. 

However, if you're me you've realized the degradation that lies in the egos of humanity. That those humans, those egos are unconscionable. Sometimes you wonder how you could be related to that part of humanity. They don't want to save the world. They want to rule by any and all means necessary. Or they want to say, "That's just the way it is". Turning their heads only to their own dilemmas. Saying, "Look at me, I care... I gave a poor soul a quarter." When they themselves have warmth, the amenities of food, a place setting at their own dining table. And of course born with health that they've destroyed. And claim at age forty, 'That old age is a curse of some sort.' It'd be funny, if weren't so true, so sad, so ungrateful. Who are they serving? Not the health of a nation. I guarantee that. 

When a person is struck by an accident, that's a different set of circumstances. And as a friend yesterday pointed out to me. "You know why they treated you poorly? Because they were glad it didn't happen to them." I nodded in agreement. "Yep. Thirty-two years ago my husband even remarked such. He'd said, 'You know who your friends are when you go through this'." I heard the pain in his voice that day.

What I've learned was, out of fear, people are judgemental and a cruel bunch. Yes, they are. Most people are cowards. Yes, they are.

And cowardice creates chaos. Cowardice refuses to change. Refuses to progress. Cowardice doesn't hand over the reigns. 

Now, in my sixties I'm shocked that I'm alive. I've survived the unsurvivable. Hard stuff, yet not war in our country. 

As I recall and reckoned with the thunder clouds of life this morning. I look out our kitchen window, and I witnessed a cardinal and a blue jay at peace with one another. Ain't that something?---Jody-Lynn Reicher