Mother Nature, Father Moon

All my life

 nature has been soothing 

     and kind

           and alive 

               and interactive. 

 Just like today. I am less alone because there are clouds and winds.

magic4walls.com

Thank you for your visit, 

Riverwatch

First Class and Free

Free at last. Free at last.

So, I received an excited call from my daughter who lives in SLC, Utah.

She has breaking news.

About the Mormons.

She lives surrounded by Mormons, immersed in a Mormon culture that is fostered onto the society at large.

Make no mistake. She has benefited from the caring of Mormon/LDS neighbors.

She has also endured having her personal boundaries crossed again and again by the "well meaning” Mormons/LDS.

She has been assigned Mormon visiting teachers when she is Presbyterian and she was too kind to disallow the visits and shelved her own feelings in order to protect "neighborhood harmony",

She has listened patiently to her next door neighbor bear her Mormon testimony multiple times when the neighbor knows my daughter is obviously very active in the Presbyterian Church,

She saw her hubby answer the door to an irate Mormon/LDS neighbor who screamed righteous indignation at her husband's “car hobby” in their back yard,

endured the humiliation of that same Mormon neighbor building a 10 foot solid fence clear to the street(it obviously was not just about their back yard) making a huge public statement about the undesirability of “his next door neighbors”.

She has had her children proselyted (unsuccessfully) and also excluded and also demeaned, and blamed unjustly for little things going wrong in the neighborhood.

At first, she (having been raised Mormon/LDS) didn't believe what was happening after she abandoned the Mormon faith and began attending a Presbyterian Church. Surely this treatment by Mormons is a fluke.

“I had heard these kinds of tales , Mom , but I never believed it until I saw it happen to me and my family. At first I blamed my kids and thought they should try harder. But when you see adults “dismiss” your children as contaminants, you finally see the picture.”

The exciting news:

This past week her “best, kindest most helpful” Mormon neighbor visited, drinking his coffee. Such a new behavior!

He, a first class citizen (never speaks ill of anybody), is old, as is his wife, but such good Mormons and my daughter had never seen him with a coffee cup before.
Fifteen years of visits and nary a drop of coffee.

“My goodness, Bill. What's with the coffee??!! I've never seen you drink coffee. Are Mormons allowed to drink coffee these days?!”

Bill smiled. “My wife and I haven't been in that brick building for months ! I did my 50 years. We are so done with that church and now we are so happy. We LOVE Sundays. And our hot coffee! Last Sunday we were hiking the Tetons and we looked at each other at the same moment and laughed, knowing what we were missing.”

Well, you are not surprised if the young take a hiatus from church when they leave home.

But old people bailing out of a church? 
It is picking up speed in Utah.



 I appreciate your kind visit,
                    Riverwatch

Peace Accord

Old age is a time of accommodation.  (And we aren't talking elder housing here!)

Accommodation is a settlement, 
an  agreement, 
an accord.
                            

 It is an adjustment.  We reconcile ourselves to a changing reality.

Old age calls for accommodation.  

It is what it is.                                                          

It was what it was.

We are kind of comfortable with that when we get old.  
We have learned to cope.

On the other hand, as attested to by some other bloggers, new things are cropping up for us as old people that we are having to .......accommodate:  

                         How people view us.  

                              How we view outselves!  

                                   How "dismissed" we are since our time is "running out".  

                                         Our waning finances.  

                                    Our waning health. 

                              Our dying friends. 

   

Accommodation, accommodation, accommodation!
Compromise, compromise, compromise.

It is often right to accommodate and compromise.  
Especially if married!

Especially if we want friends!

But peace through accommodation and compromise can be an uncomfortable peace.  

If our conscience is pricked by a lie we are living or simply "living on top of",  we have chosen an uncomfortable peace.

Sometimes we have to throw out an uncomfortable peace and go for "real".  
Not an uncomfortable social peace, but "real"  with real peace within.

I am who I am.

What do we have to lose 
that isn't already leaking away 
by being real?

.  

Old age can be a nice time of freedom to be the real you, the real me!  

Ahh, the courage of the aged.

This kind of freedom is one of those good things usually appearing only after years of experience.  

So glad you are hanging around for the blessings!





Nice seeing you,
and I hope you return.
Riverwatch

There is a problem.

There is a problem with the rich people.

pcwallart.com

My son popped in to visit.
Seeing my unsmiling face, he said with love and concern, "What's wrong, Mom?  You look so down."

"It's the rich people", I said.  "I am so sick and tired of them."

His concern deepened.
"Did some of the rich people be mean to you?"  he asked protectively.

"No!",  I cried out.  "That is just the problem.  They are so danged nice!  And they are so nice to me."

My son started to laugh. 
 "What's wrong, Mom?  Did the rich people not even leave you the moral high ground?"

Seeing the look on my face, he laughed some more as he put his arm around me.
"Damn them for feeding the orphans!", he said.  "How dare they!"





Struggling,                                                                 
but aware you visited.                                                
Thanks,
Riverwatch





feedmypeople.org.uk





   pinterest
                                                                       

indiatoday.intotoday.in






mashable

Understanding Dr. Strange (or not) is not a test for dementia.

So, I let the younger (but aging) generation talk me into going to see "Dr. Strange".
I did that because my 49 yr old daughter said she is a Cumberbitch
                    and all her brothers (aging) laughed!
                                       Of course I didn't get it.

I was shocked.
I just didn't get it.

My grown and aging children looked at me as though I just came out of a time travel tube.

" Dr. Strange is Sherlock!!  Surely you watch Sherlock!  His last name is Cumberbatch, Benedict Cumberbatch, and all the droves of his adoring female fans call themselves Cumberbitches."

So there!  Consider yourself educated.

I sat through a loud showing of Dr. Strange.
I shut my eyes through some of the highly overrated visuals, because they definately resembled some scotoma brain displays I have had with  my migraines.  No thanks.  I've seen this kaleidoscope before without leaving my home or buying a ticket.

"So far so awful", I whispered to my aging daughter.

Leaving the theater later, I felt so defeated.  What to heck was that show about?
I couldn't figure out the plot, the purpose, what happened.
I , being hyper vigilant to any sign of cognitive dysfunction (where 2+2 does not add up to 4), was devastated.
I am obviously "round the bend".  Surely this failure to grasp the movie is a sign of dementia.


cheatsheet.com

"What was the plot?" I timidly asked my 49 yr old Cumberbitch.

She was breezy.   "Who knows?!  I don't.  You're supposed to go see it again and also go to the next Dr. Strange in the series."

"Well what happened?"

"The buildings folded in upon themselves."
.
"So?  What was the point?"

"Oh Mom, you are so old fashioned.  There wasn't a point.  Weren't those visuals awesome?"


Hoping you do not judge yourself by your ability to understand today's entertainment,
I remain happy you came to visit.
Riverwatch

Freedom to Pay the Price

The Freedom To Worship As I Please

I think the freedom to worship as we please also includes the freedom to not worship if we don’t please.

What it doesn't include is the freedom to force religion on somebody else through trickery,

fraud,

or even the sword.

Or shunning. Or economic sanctions. Whatever.

That is one of the many reasons I left Mormonism

for a life of better alignment with Christianity.

Worshiping as I please.

Allowing others the same privilege.

Leaving Mormonism was for me a time of being shunned. Still is. Not quite as bad as that first five years, but there is no middle ground for those who defend their faith with closed minds.  There just is no middle ground available when one of the parties KNOWS they have the right info and the rest of the world doesn't.

An open mind will for sure learn something.  Guard against that.

In the last world-wide conference Mormons were advised (according to someone who listened)  to remember feelings that guided them to the truth in the past or in the first place.  

Avoid those textbooks and research, ye who know the truth already.

A closed heart is even worse than a closed mind, but many with closed minds do not close their hearts and they pray and weep for those who do not believe as they do. Still and all, no middle ground.

My bias is that if feelings are where it is at for a testimony, then everybody else's feelings are valid also.  
Or as one of my sons said as a teenager after an outing with the brethren, "No two people on the earth have the same religion!"  My son was disgusted but I thought he was profound for so young a boy.

One of the red flags of mormonism is the shutting down of perspectives.

Wikemedia Commons

Now don't get miffed!

As Donald and Mitt might say to each other, if you agreed with me on everything and every issue, I would only hate you 10% less.

Riverwatch      (and now you know why I go by an alias)

OK.    I will go ahead and admit Mormons are not the only people who shun me. But Mormon's shunning is tangled with religious freedom.  Not cool.

Who is the beholder of your life?

aboutislam.net

"What is meant for us will come to us.

What is not meant for us will never come to us."

Or so they say.

Who is the beholder of your life?


I love it that science, which used to say that "thoughts have no power", has changed its ever changing mind!

Now science admits that the power of observation has the power to change whatever is being observed!
From the petri dish to the clinical arena,  RMIT Gallery

beholding, with its resulting thoughts, causes changes to occur.

As a nurse I always knew this fact in some small way, because
 when somebody cares enough to watch, something "magical" happens.

Behold.  And something changes.

Lo,
and behold.
Right before our very eyes, change appears.

Perhaps those ancient people who thought it was God who sent the earthquakes,

 and fires

                and floods 

were not as off-base as some like to believe!

We need to get a clue.
We are being watched.
Observation impacts us.

Out of the flood the fire and the earthquake come changes, of course, inside the people so visited.

All altered in ways that are real and measurable 

and permanent (until more change comes).

What is less well known, is that even those of us who just watch, observing  from afar, 

alter the stuff of life by our mental & feeling outreach across the miles.

We are being beheld.
We are that important!

And we behold those who are important to us.

Who in your present life is beholding you?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being


Who is watching you as a role model?  Maybe somebody you don't even know?

Who are you beholding?
Who are your unacknowledged role models?

Behold.




Of course we desire to be beheld.  It strengthens us, yes?
The sound of applause is powerful to create changes in us, too.


Plagierizing from the masters,
Riverwatch

Thank you for dropping by.

The Rope Around the Ankle

The Rope Around The Ankle

An educated  intelligent man said this to me recently, "I am not spiritual.  I am intellectual, religious."

I may be misquoting him a bit, (I am old!).  
His remark caused me to think.

I could have sworn he was spiritual.

Then I ran across this insight on a Catholic man's blog:

"I am religious, not spiritual, meaning that the red tape of this world feels a lot more real – and more interesting – than the golden parachute awaiting the top performers in the next. The same is true, I daresay, for many others. Much as evangelists love to prescribe encounters with Jesus and compare conversion to falling in love, the fact remains that if Jesus were so accessible or so easily lovable, they wouldn’t have a job.

The rope around my ankle has always been people – living people who were nice to me, and whom I could relate to. "              

 by Max Lindenman  January 24, 2015

****

Is Mr. Lindenman spiritual?

I don't know.  He says he is not.

I do know that when the rope around your ankle is people , living people who are nice to you, and whom you relate to, you seem spiritual.

***

Maybe his road has not been as rocky as mine.
The rockier the road, the more spiritual the effect?

The Zen trail, St. George, Utah
video  3mins and 43 seconds    So Worth Watching

http://vimeo.com/16664206

Cheerio,

Riverwatch 

May You Never Outlive Your Stories

I knew it was going to be a disappointing afternoon when I turned into the Exit lane in order to access the little shopping mall.
Dear God!
 How could I have done this?

Quickly I turned on my Hazard Lights to warn the bicyclist that he needed to get out of the way!  Also I wanted to reassure him I saw him and I was aware of my mistake.

The cyclist easily hopped the curb leaving me windshield to windshield with a cop car trying to exit.
Damn.
The cop backed up for me and then circled the lot, pulled to a worrisome stop, and watched me enter Charming Charlie's.
I was so happy I was wearing matching earrings and lipstick.  The best defense an old lady can have.
The somber cop just watched.  I didn't quite match his D & D criteria  (demented? drunk?)

Inside the store I was dazzled by the glittering chandliers and vast array of costume jewelry....reds....a section on yellow......blues up the kazoo.....greens......rose golds.... golds....silvers......
torocon.com

What a delight.

Born a bit color blind, I asked the youthful clerk with her long bouncy vibrant brown hair if she would help me match some colors for autumn.

Happy to assist, she mostly just encouraged me.

Then, watching me, she became intent in her gaze.  I felt like I had a Hazard Light on, or something.
"Will this yellow go with the rose gold?" I asked.

She stared at me.

quartsoft

Then she patted my hand.
 "It's ok, Honey.  You've lived your stories.  You can now wear anything you want."

If I were quick witted, which I am not anymore, I would have said, "Good grief, I just lived another little story, and Sweetie, you are the star in it."

I did buy what I wanted, since it doesn't matter anymore whether I'm put together right or not.
Unless I need to fool a cop.

Like I said, it wasn't my best afternoon.
Hoping yours is better,
Riverwatch