Thoughts on Moving

I had just about completed a post when the power went out for just a moment; just long enough for me to lose what I had written. It was a quite lovely, elegant and poignant blog about how much I would miss my daughter, son-in-law and adorable grandkids when they move to the midwest. Duh! Of course, we will miss them.

I have been given very specific directions not to induce any guilt. That is a strong family trait, perhaps even genetic. I had developed my own 12 Step Guilt Recovery program so I was not planning to relapse on guilt, and no I am not making fun of any 12 step programs, either. I had a friend once say that guilt is the gift that keeps on giving. True, true, true.

I hate moving. I still have nightmares about moving even if I'm not the one moving. Moving is not easier than it used to be, just different. I know this is a wonderful opportunity for my daughter and her family. It is a lovely part of the country where people are wonderfully friendly and caring. I lived 80 miles away from where Alexandra and her family will be when I was a little girl. Intellectually I understand all this, but my heart still aches at the thought of them being, as Carol King sang, "So Far Way."

College Columbine?

The news stations are all on nothing - but - the - shooting - at - Virginia Tech mode, but how could they not? One colleague said that we will hunker down and beef up campus security even though it will not stop it from happening again. Of course, there will be the copy cats, who want to be notorious even if they have to die to do it. At this point (3:29 MST) they haven't identified the gunman.

What is the lesson here? Could it be guns are too readily available? Don't you just love how the NRA will justify their weapons? Doesn't it seem odd that these are always referred to as "school shootings" rather than school killings? The lesson? The lesson? Will we learn anything from this? Will it change anything? It could.

These terrible things happen and this will be dissected ad nausea and fingers will be pointed (probably) at rotten teachers and terrible parents. Guess what? Most people who had rotten teachers and terrible parents get over it. Really. Will we find out that the gunman was flunking out like the shooter at University of Arizona?

And please, don't interview his neighbors who tell us how quiet he was. Is that some TV reporter rule? Go find someone who saw him across the street once and interview him? Whoever it was had a mental illness of the worst order, and he will forever be remembered for his egregious act. The number of people devastated grows exponentially.

My former colleague, whose son graduated from VT, will have to scrape the beloved Virginia Tech bumper sticker from her car. Her pride is now a heartache.

Dear Lord, please heal our hearts and help us to remember to forgive. Let this be the time we learn.

Yes, I read The Secret ...

Yes, I have read The Secret. It is, as written in a comment in Beso Mami’s blog, a theological “abomination”. There is so much about it that is egregiously bad as to make it a Saturday Night Live skit. Yet, tucked away are actual truths, and that is the conundrum.

I have always been an avid reader of self-help books, and over the years have taken a lot of ribbing about it. My husband calls them Think Tall, Be Tall books. I learned to cull from them what I felt was important, and ignore goofier things.

Several years ago I read a book by a woman named Lynn Grabhorn called Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting. She wrote about people giving off positive and negative and energy. This is not new and most folks have been around people who give off positive energy and we call that quality charisma. Bill Clinton has it. Jackie Onassis had it. People who give off negative energy have toxic personalities. Scott Peck wrote in People of Lie that those are the people that give you the creeps, and he wisely suggested you stay from them. We have all experienced that. In Ms. Grabhorn’s book she extrapolated that positive and negative experience into drawing that energy to oneself, or The Secret’s secret The Law of Attraction, and this is where it got creepy. Ms.Grabhorn wrote of people drawing horrible accidents and diseases to themselves because of their negative thoughts, just as was stated in The Secret. I totally rejected that idea because I know that is not how life works. It just doesn’t. People get sick or have accidents for a variety of often unknown reasons but they don’t draw them to themselves magnetically. That is not how God’s grace works. God’s grace is freely given to anyone not just to “good” positive people.

Lynn Grabhorn died of cancer not too long after the publication of her book. Did she magnetically draw cancer to her? Of course, not. For reasons we cannot understand, she contracted cancer. Period.

Unfortunately, many of the people who read The Secret are not particularly sophisticated. It is horrifying that there are still people who naively believe that all things published (or in the newspaper, or on Fox News) are true. “But they couldn’t put it in a book if it wasn’t true, could they?” I expect that from my 6th graders. Sadly, many adults have not matured, and do not question or do any research on what they read or hear. Just think of the forwarded urban-legend emails you receive from supposedly educated people.

In The Secret author Rhonda Byrnes promotes thinking positive thoughts over negative ones. That is just common sense, and that is something that is good and worthwhile, but when wrapped in the hokey disguise of being a secret, it has an appeal. It is rather hard to believe that anyone would actually believe that thinking about a new BMW would make them a magnet for a new BMW, but then the Nigerian email scams have suckered in millions of dollars, too. The marketing of The Secret was pure genius. It is right up there with Pet Rocks.


The Secret advocates being generous. Absolutely worthwhile. The Secret advocates being kind to oneself. Also Biblical, in the Golden Rule. There are many, many truisms that are good and worthwhile, but it is like a gourmet meal which is sprinkled with s**t : not something one would find appetizing. It seems a lot of folks don’t recognize the s**t.

The danger, of course comes, when people start to believe that their positive thoughts make wishes come true, but I think time, that great leveler, will smooth things out. People who sit on their keesters and wish for things will find out that life doesn’t work that way. I do believe that thinking positively clears your vision so that one is open to what is good in life. I believe that if one looks for the good in other’s it is there, and as I teacher I work to nuture that quality. Even Anne Frank believed that most people are good, and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that neither she, nor any other true victim in life, drew to her the horrible things that happened to her.

Plan Your Own Funeral

This past weekend we attended a not very good funeral. Can a funeral be good? Yes. Can a funeral be bad? Most definately. In fact, most I have attended have been anywhere from dreary to awful. Not just because the funeral was about somebody dying but mainly because they weren't very well planned! This past weekend's funeral included a warbleling teenager, and an octogenarian who blabbed on for twenty minutes - off the top of her dandelion head. Oh, dear! Years ago I attended the funeral of young man who was a member of my church who died of a chronic illness. He knew he was going to die (unlike most folks who really never see it coming) so he planned everything. It was a glorious funeral; really a life celebration.

This past weekend I was reminded that I ought to put some thought into what I'd like because I want it to be a reflection of me. It will definately have some Bossa Nova Music. Food should include copious amounts of chocolate mint goodies. Several of my favorite jokes and some of my favotite stories that my family will no longer let me tell. I should video tape me singing something, too. Ha! Mainly, I want it to be a really great party with great food and, of course, a lot of laughs.

A Moment in Time

There are several things of interest in this little snapshot. First, and dearest, is that I am clutching my grandfather's finger as he holds me by the shoulders. Note the poodle appliqué on my shirt. Was I into fashion then? My grandmother is leaning into Alfred. She, no doubt, had her sturdy black purse on the crook of her arm. I never studied this picture before. Now a whole drama unfolds.

Next, I know my grandmother was 70 years old when this picture was taken. Twelve years older than I am now. She was always old though. My mother said that her mother "embraced old age."

This is one of dozens of pictures of my blue-eyed brother squinting into the sun. Poor kid! He was a beautiful little boy.

What in the world has my sister so enchanted? My guess would be someone walking a dog, or perhaps my dad was doing something silly to catch Bonnie's attention. I have seen this same look on Bonnie's granddaughter Kendall's face, complete with glasses sliding down her nose.

My handsome and dapper grandfather bears an uncanny resemblance to the late actor, Donald Crisp, who played the mayor in Pollyanna.