To stay or go. . .

I'm contemplating moving this blog and embedding it in another of my blogs. A friend has commented that I have more blogs than she can keep up with. Not a problem, because I steer her from one to another when there's something I especially want her to see, but let's cast this within larger issues.

How fragmented do I want to continue being? vs. Without this dedicated space, will I continue to focus from time to time on the specific elements -- writing, joy, tranquility -- which is this blog's focus?

In imagination, I can do a once-a-week post on the other blog that focuses on spirituality -- tranquility -- kindness with suggestions on how to keep the conversation going for yourself, but in reality will I do so?

Pop on in with an opinion if you have one . . .

Annie

Annie is an old, plump, grouchy Chihuahua who loves nobody but my friend Jim. She steals the other family dog's bed at every opportunity. She can't see very well, and she's sort-of forgotten the distinctions between behaviors best completed inside and those best completed outside. And yet she remains a family treasure.

Now. Do you not suppose some of the people in Congress have pets? Do you not suppose they love their pets as much as Jim loves Annie? And do you not suppose that they are like us in that no matter how much they love their pets, they love their friends and families more? Are the people in Congress not duly elected human beings? Then what dynamic is causing the hysteria of some of the folks at town hall meetings? Why have they let the phrase "death panels" corrode their brains? Only a corroded brain would believe that our duly elected officials care less about the elderly, the ill, and the disabled than Jim does about sweet elderly, grouchy, blind Annie.

What does this have to do with tranquility, you ask? To begin with, I no longer will be railing under my breath about those folks. Also, it's just a recommendation, but if those town-hall ranters remind you of yourself, then you might consider backing off. There's a certain undertone that voices carry when their owners have gone off into the deep end. If you hear it in yourself, it's time to change. "Change what?" you ask. Can't tell you. Maybe you need a therapist or a different doctor or better medications or a vacation or an afternoon beside the pool or an hour walking beside a creek. Or check your diet; are you getting enough vegetables?

Or maybe you ought to turn off the television and find a good ninth-grade civics book (they still make those, right?) and read up on America's government, so if you ever run across a town hall agitator you can explain that at its creation our government was constructed to protect minorities -- and that includes the minority we'll all be part of if we live long enough: the elderly, the ill, the disabled.

Competition Is Not a Christian Virtue

You're looking at the back of a piece of mail art I'm sending to dear Richard Canard,who is a wonderful mail artist indeed. I thought it important for him to know -- and consider the significance of-- my post office being out of stamps for postcards yesterday, which led directly to my question: Do you think that means the revolution took place and mail art won?

At that point, I got distracted. Mail art, after all, is not about winners and losers. It's about giving and receiving, about casting art onto the waves, about how in freeing ourselves to follow where the art leads we alert others that such freedom is possible. Then I remembered a day back when I was institutionalized in religion when I preached a sermon titled "Competition Is Not a Christian Virtue."

The congregation took it well. They didn't believe a word of it, but they took it well.

I'm not suggesting that I'm not competitive. I'm just saying there are other choices; and that possibly they are better than the way we live now; but it's hard to know because that "I win. You don't." spirit infiltrates our way of being, even when it has no business there.

Check one:
True ____
False ____

Resurrection lilies

Resurrection lilies, aka magic lilies. Louisville, Kentucky, August 2009

What tranquility looked like one day in June

The camera and I took a walk. These photos are my favorites.

the first 40%

I was cleaning out files this evening and had an envelope in my hand to pitch when I flipped it over and saw this statement from Deb. I was on the phone with her at the time, and we were trying to finish up a project when she said the following:

"I always forget that the initial work takes 40% of the time."

Her statement lays out a problem most of us deal with over and over and over. We have in our heads an idea of the work to be done on a project. We reach the end point. And then we do all of the things that must be done for a completed project to move from our own personal brains out into the world. You know: the other 60% that's not done - heck, usually it's not even started.

The tenet applies to projects of all sizes. Deb and I were probably completing a book proposal when she made the statement, but I ran into the 60% this week while finishing my column for Today's Woman magazine. Got the big scene written that was to constitute the piece and drew what I thought was the conclusion -- except it only took up two sentences, and that was stretching it. Where I come from, that means there's something more important to say, if only I can determine what it is. I made a few reference phone calls, walked the dog a time or two, and generally bored myself half to death. Finally, I remembered a second story, one told to me years ago, that shifted my understanding of what I thought I was talking about.

I'd have guessed I'd done 90% of the work when I completed that first run at writing. Turns out Deb was correct, though: I was only at about 40%. With the new story included and a segue to glue the two stories together, I was at 100% -- unless you count the cliches and flat diction sprinkled here and there. Once the whole piece is at 100%, I do one or two (okay, three) final look-sees. That's my chance to plump up the pillows and straighten the comforter and put a vase containing a yellow posie on the dresser. That's my chance to end up with a piece that when I see it again in a few months or years I'll find something in it to admire, even if I disagree completely with my own conclusions. And that's how I reach tranquility in my professional life.

The Premise

I'm deconstructing my 2003 book -- literally -- and turning it into small artworks. (You can see them at my It's Only a Book blog. If you'd like one, just let me know.) A paragraph I ripped out today got me to wondering if a new religious awakening (not fundamentalism but a true springing forth of loving our neighbors and feeding sheep)is going to accompany the economic disarray in which we've found ourselves.

Here's the paragraph:

Even God makes more sense from the premise that life's a nightmare. Who needs God when nothing bad can ever happen to you because you have a late-model car, health benefits,and a retirement account? In that circumstance, God's a sidekick, a buddy, a fuzzy blanket you sleep with at night bcause it's comfortable. Then when disaster arises you whine because God was supposed to be your personal defense system, keeping you safe. On the other hand, if you know life to be a nightmare, then the presence of God is a sanctuary, like the shell of a turtle, traveling with your wherever you go, rain or shine, sickness or health, for better or worse.

This week, think and write a little bit each day about sanctuary: what it is; where you find it; whether your understanding of the concept has ever changed; what precipitated the change.