On Stiff Necks and Self-Reflection

Gratitude- not for the stiff neck but for the reminder of the benefits of good health and the taking for granted when we feel fine that we expect to feel that way for however long we can get away with it!  It’s one thing to live life every day and not do so much reflecting on where we are headed, and quite another to reflect on how fragile life can be or how life the way we know it can turn on a dime.  So what; we can be killed walking out to the mailbox or anytime we get in our cars to go somewhere.  But we don’t usually.  You read a statistic, number of people killed on highways, or people that have been struck by lightning, or the number of those killed by heart attacks this year. It does not serve a purpose for me much these days to reflect on that.  I think for the most part I’m one who can become obsessive on the status of my life whenever I have the luxury of time to start abusing the time.  Time is a good friend, however, for the most part.  We can waste it and it seems forgiving. We can make use of it at any degree we feel like within reason in the routines of our day.  But in the end, the bigger perspective I find myself reminded of is that it really doesn’t matter what we do today when the end comes for us.

The thing that matters most to me no matter what I may be doing is a true sense of freedom, and the awareness of a sense of universal love and emotion that we as humans tend to control better than most all the other animals of the world.  Stewards of emotional control… some value that fact more than others. The love of a God who seemingly has the answer to the “what for?” as far as emotions and love goes. the privilege is in having lived long enough to feel like you just might know the answer to that “what for”?  That everything I do is all important and the freedom to choose what I will do is the point.  I am reminded when I write this that our nation holds these values still and I hope in my lifetime it will remain.  We could kid ourselves and say I am free to go in and out of my house when I want (said so-and-so under communist or socialist rule)  or free to do whatever my routine is as dictated by the society I live in.  But I think, for me,  that it can’t be practiced much better than the society we in America live in as a whole when it does come to the practice of freedom.  I can own my own land, build on whatever I want.  Live on it, or exist on it- whatever I want to do.  We need to do things to survive, and for that we do whatever in varying degrees- some to flourish, and others, just to survive.  Limited generally only by education and imagination, it’s the best thing going.  Introspection;  food to quench a hungry soul.  Sometimes we have solutions, most times, not really.  But  awe and beauty can be looked for whether there be a destructive storm that’s done damage on one’s property, or preparation to endure something unexpected.  The instinct of self-preservation when strong and at the forefront of all we do, I find, for me, often just guides me along  via a bit of humor and carefree attitude. Serves us well, even in the mightiest of storms that life can throw at us.  “And so, goodnight for now,” I say — until next time…