Tracks In The Dust

A Father's Advice About Learning the Mission of Life

Archive for the month “May, 2012”

23 May 2012

Kindness

Another one of my life’s songs along with my previous post “Compassion” is this one from my favorite artist Todd Rundgren. It is called “Kindness”. It is an attitude and characteristic that seems so lost these days in some circles. There are people who show you kindness, and you have to remember what that feels like and share it back.

So much more anger and frustration these days leads to violence and uncaring attitudes. We all need to take the lessons of kindness and pass them on.

I don’t mean to keep posting music (let alone my fave artist) – but it hit me again how fortunate it is to give and receive kindness in our lives, and how often it may be missing on our mission here on Earth.

Kindness by Todd Rundgren

The one that showed me kindness
Was the one that taught me kindness
Though I did not recognize it
Still I might have died without it
And when I awakened
It was too late to thank her
If I live someday I’ll make repayment
And show someone the kindness she showed me

When my voice grows strident
When I feel important
I’m reminded of that kindness
And where I’d be without it
I’m learning my lessons
It may take me a lifetime
Give me strength to justify my being
And show someone the kindness shown to me

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged , , , , , , , ,
16 May 2012
2 Comments

The Parallel Lines of A Relationship

Some times life and the relationship with my life partner run parallel, other times they constantly seem to intersect.

 

Like two lines we are running along the path together, sometimes we are running next to each other on separate paths – close or distant but along the same direction. Other times we intersect – often make connections on many levels, physically, mentally, reflecting on life’s observations, agreeing on the trials and frustrations of the world around us.

 

Sometimes those lines are exactly on top of each other. Other times they are spiraling around like diving birds on the summer wind. But parallel or intersections, we continue to move on together.

 

Once in a while one of us needs to catch up, other times one of us will get far ahead. But ever heading forward, like 2 lines on a piece of paper drawing lines that move ahead in time. Sometimes opposites, but then they say that “opposites attract”. There it will be again: an intersection.


Parallel lines may mean some days we just aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on things. We may be so far away from each other that we ask “where have you been”? Other days we are intersecting with a rhythm of love, sex, and emotion. We love the sharing, we love the intersection.  Yet there are days thankfully that we are running apart, those busy times when we are both trying to grasp our own place on the line. Hold on to the path and forward the course of our time on this Earth.

 

Thank goodness that we are not always on the same line, I think we would struggle to not be ourselves. But just as thankful are those valuable times when the intersection is glorious, beautiful, what memories are built on… before the line continues again off on the plane of life. It is all good. Spirals up and spirals down, straight ahead and weaving back and forward with each other.

 

Relationships run like parallel lines that still may often intersect, and sometimes run together or farther apart. Live the line, follow the tracks. Don’t give up when the lines seem to never intersect, work harder to find the ways to make sure they do. Just don’t expect them to constantly be connected.

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14 May 2012
3 Comments

Your Love Story

My wife will tell you I am a sucker for a love story. Old movies in particular always showed up in my life since I was a kid. I used to watch the classics and the not so classic black and white movies from the 30s and 40’s every afternoon after I got home from school.  Not very masculine I know…but the “arts” have been my life since I was a kid so it just stuck.

Even as I got older I kept watching. Compact 2 hours or less of a story about a man and woman in love, out of love, after someone else, coming back to the one they loved from the start. Sometimes they were musicals, sometimes dramas, some where what they call “rom-coms” these days, romantic comedies. They weren’t all good, some where predictable, sugary sweet, silly plots with little to do than filling up the time it took to watch it.  

Yet some were works of art, with famous people like Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable. So many names that mean very little now to the young movie goers today. Yet as I grew older I remember falling in deep love with Ali McGraw in Love Story. Just because she dies at the end it made it all that harder to wonder what things would be like with someone like her. 

The saying “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” became famous as the book and movie.  The romantic notion that life is like a movie wasn’t passed on me. But I knew better. Life is more than that compact couple of hours. It has more ups and downs, and may not have those fateful meet-cute scenes where the star meets the starlet and they fall in/out/in love. And those silly mis-understandings that make up so many of the middle parts of the plot with that secret that the viewers know; and eventually the love interest will know and make for the happy ending. Or the sad one.

Love is more than that in the movies, it takes commitment beyond the final reel where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meet at the top of Empire State or in the park with Barkley (references you may not know if you don’t like these kind of movies).  I have learned that- but then I always knew that even back when I was in grade-school watching those classics.  It takes an effort to be in love, give and take, some good days and some bad. Creating memories and making plans. God willing you get enough time in your life to capture it and spend it wisely.  Some days are diamonds, some days are stones. Some people say that it us all part of your own life’s movie, others are not so oblique- they don’t see it that way at all.

In the end, love means what ever you need it to. Not everyone ends up with the “girl” or Mr Right. But love does conquer all…well sometimes. And it can move mountains…maybe just not the mountain you want moved. You may meet the person of your dreams, or you may dream about the person you meet. The real Love Story’s are ours to make. Get out there and make them.

What is your favorite love story? Book or movie? The one that captures it for you.  You have one? – share.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
11 May 2012
2 Comments

Stopping to Look at the View

All around us there are things to see. Yet so often we are in a hurry to experience the world around us. Sharing some views I love in nature and the world.

Whether it is in the backroads of the US or around the world or in your backyard, stop and look.

 

Glass Winged Butterfly

Lavendar Fields in France

Ladybug Lands with Style

The Edge of the Earth Austrailia

 

 

 

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged , , , , , ,
10 May 2012
3 Comments

Compassion

I have always believed that one of the most valuable things you can posess in life is compassion.  What comes of that is the heart of the Spirit that is “love,joy, peace,forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness and self-control.”

Here is one of my life’s songs. Compassion (Todd Rundgren)

You want more, and still more,
Until you get more than you ever bargained for.
Now its plain, clear as rain,
I’ve seen your symptoms many times before.

Lying on your bed of pain
What will you have now?

What are riches untold in a life without compassion?
For there’s no winter as cold
as a life without compassion.
There’s no prescription that’s sold
that can heal you like compassion.

Well you tried and you cried,
And let your disappointment make you hard inside.
You have doubt, you reach out,
Still you’re the only one you care about.

Hiding in your sack of woe
What do you need now?

For there is nothing so sad
as a life without compassion.
And even love has turned bad,
it was love without compassion.
And you don’t need what you had
‘Cause you did not have compassion.

Dying on your bed of pain
What will you have now?

You’ll get no judgment from me,
I can only feel compassion.
And if that’s what you need,
I will give you my compassion.
Just don’t forget about me
‘Cause we all need some compassion.

Open up your heart
so you can start to feel compassion.
Get down on your knees,
pray to heaven for compassion.
Everybody needs compassion.
If you want to be healed
then you know you got to feel compasion

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged , , , , , , , , ,

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