Tracks In The Dust

11 Feb 2013

Cleaning Out Junk In Your Life

DO you think it may be time to clean up the “junk” in your life? Over time it seems to pile up and get in your way. It can obstruct your vision. Make you see things that aren’t there, make you stay where you are at when you really should be moving forward.

The stuff that becomes more like “junk” gets so high that it seems insurmountable Old memories, old books and music, old letters and remembrances from another time. They hide in the attics, under things in drawers. They could be hanging in your closets, or even just electronically as part of your email contacts and messages.

They are not meaningless. They make up every bit of who you are. They may be significant in the course of time in your life, but they are behind you. You may think that at sometime holding on to them will be valuable, they will be worthy of a return somehow. They could be beneficial in some way in the future because they are going to assist you in moving even farther forward. That can be sometimes true, but more often they can be equally weighing down the opportunity for real progress.

They can be valuable. Okay. By now some may even be collectibles (cant say antiques -gulp) or something. Maybe you have a thought that you could share them with your children. Show them some of those things that mean so much in your timeline of life. But actually they will nod, say that they understand (although they can’t imagine you being younger than when they were alive). Only they nearly won’t ever cherish them the way you do. In fact when you ask them what they remember about their childhood, it is those things that aren’t often part of the “stuff” you’ve saved. It is more about the moments and places where they enjoyed being a family.

So now its time to hold up the junk to the microscope of today. What will it mean in another 10 years? What will it mean to you? To others around you then? Like cleaning up the clutter, cleaning up the stuff- the junk that memories are made of can be so hard to do. It is like taking pieces of what you once cherished and putting it on the curb. But it can be refreshing and feel like some weight has lifted.

Find what is really important. Search for what it really is.

Like the picture above. Clutter and junk pile up till you are hard-pressed to find the important things in your life…. Can you find the black and white cat in the picture?

One Year Later, Thank You Followers

So here it is exactly one year later since last February when I started Tracksinthedust.

Like so many others bloggers I have read it was not my intention to collect 1000’s of followers.

Yet it has been fantastic that some of you fellow WordPress bloggers are visiting from time to time, and for my Facebook friends to drop by- it’s always wonderful to get a comment now and then as well.

My hope is that in the course of things my kids catch some of it. They mean the world to me and my wife. Even for my oldest son who left home at 18 and has never looked back.

I will continue to share some of my journey on my fight with cancer on the Cancer Letters – I pray that isn’t a turn off but I wanted to get that down in writing. Probably more therapeutic for me than for those who would read it I guess.

It’s been fun touching on music, and lyrics and poems ( on my new page) Songs and Poems from Another Time

It has been great to make some bloggy friends along the way as well!

Most of all I have learned that no matter where people live in the world there are so many similarities. Worries and loves, hates and frustrations, wonders and kindness, spiritual needs and wanting to know how we all fit in.

They are all there in everyone.

Hope that some of you will continue to drop by and leave a comment when it moves you.

Here’s to another year for all of us!

Mark (Mgert)

Special shout to some of WordPress bloggers from around the world and right here in Texas who have dropped by for comments.

♥ Hope the Happy Hugger for all your wonderful comments and inspriation

Istopforsuffering for your spiritual vision

NoBlogintended for your views on life

Mari for your such beautiful prose

Aix for your insight on living

InWonderland (Audrey) for being such a genuine person

Posted in About mgert123 and tagged being remembered, Blog, Blogger, choices, Faith, Gertenbach, Grace, Lyrics, Music, Poetry, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, tracks in the dust, WordPress

06 Feb 2013

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The Lost Art of Listening

In my daily life at work and at home I have noticed a trend about “listening” .

It seems like a lot of people today have lost the art of listening.

Yes, we all listen to things. The TV, the movies, the music we listen to… we listen to our teachers.mentors, bosses, or spiritual guides and take note of their wisdom (many times to our own chagrin as we find it necessary to help pass the course). But listening and hearing things can often be different I think.

The lost art of listening, as I see it, is the motion of listening to what someone says and understanding it. Making sure to understand the meaning and the context in which they say it, and better yet understand their personal reason and viewpoint for saying it in the first place.

These days it seems like we don’t take the time. Perhaps it is because we are in so much of a hurry. We move so quickly through our digital lives to meet the goal of accomplishing it – that we often miss what people are really trying to say… in fact we are so busy trying to think about what we should say next, that we take a sound byte from something to start to respond without really “hearing” what was said. Without acknowledging it.

Perhaps the reason that “texting” has become more of a popular way to communicate. After its a 2 way communication that requires that each actually reads the statement made in the text message. No need to call and have two way communication that may certainly require listening.

Sure, maybe the texts aren’t spelled correctly, perhaps they are sound-bytes themselves, but at least they come over just as planned. Indeed texting doesn’t require actually listening at all. But there is still something lost in the transfer. The persons inflection and the world of meaning that comes with the tone of it. Of course there is time to consider the response, immediate responses come from the volley of discussion. None needed in texting.

Listening has evolved in so many other ways. In this “surround sound” world we are looking for the thrills and impact of the movies we watch. Instead of dialog, we are looking for stunning sound and special effects. Driving the beat instead of the message is nothing new, but so often today the music gets lost as we are looking for. It gets lost in the next pop-star to come along. Those artist & musicians that have survived had something more to say… and for those music greats it is about the “listening”.

So maybe for me, its time to stop and take a listen. To appreciate what people are trying to say with their words. The meaning of it. To take the time to listen to the sounds around me, that surround me in such a much more simple way. How about you?

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Art, being remembered, Communication, Hearing, Listening, Music, Postive Thinking, Slow Down, Text messaging

05 Feb 2013

Mortality is Not A Choice

The Cancer Letters #2

I grew up in a northern town in the Midwest US. It was near Lake Michigan ( the largest fresh water lake in the US). During my childhood the US was growing up from the post-World War age. Moving into the modern age. But not quite there. The city had its share of blue-collar foundry’s and factories. There were churches in every neighborhood, small grocery stores,old-fashioned movie theaters, and pre-war buildings that had already begun to show their wear.

We had large sandy beaches on the lake that we would go to every Sunday after church, and sit in the sun and listen to the transistor radios as they bellowed out the new rock-and-roll pop songs. There were pockets of ethnic ares in town, with their restaurants and tight-knit neighborhoods. There was the Lions Clubs and the YMCA. Town square and 4th of July parades. It was the time of the transition to the “space age” and also to the stark reality of a Vietnam War and all its injustice.

But those years were genuine, they were times to remember. Like so many others, growing up had many tremendous feelings of the taste of being young, but also yearning to get older. Older so that we could have a “life of our own” and be able to do what adults get to do- with all the freedom. My self and many of my friends always seemed to be in a hurry. And OH what we thought we knew. We saw ourselves as wise beyond our years. Is that a feeling you have experienced?

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As life has it, you can only look back to see what you thought you knew, but really didn’t. Perhaps the confidence of the young, perhaps just the blissful ignorance of youth. Either way. Facing mortality head on is a difficult thing. Even that reality is somewhat distorted, because after all we do it every day in our lives. Just stepping off the curb can be the last thing you do on Earth.

So now, in my life facing the reality of a cancer diagnosis and the clock that begins to tick toward an ultimate end, those days gone by seem so much more precious. And the time ahead does also. So many days in the past where I could have cherished them in such better ways, so many days where I could have looked at the positive things that God had provided me. But you cannot relive the past, or should not spend each day ahead full of regret. So there is a choice to make. It is the same choice you have if you didn’t have a cancer diagnosis but it is a choice.

Choose Grace. Choose compassion. Choose to make a small difference every day in someone elses life.

Posted in The Cancer Letters and tagged Acceptance, Cancer, Change, cherish, Faith, Grace, life is precious, Reality Check, Sprituality, Who Are You

03 Feb 2013

1 Comment

Introducing The Cancer Letters

Sharing my story with my kids (and anyone who will read it) I will be writing:

The Cancer Letters

Cancer Letter #1

When I was much younger I remember that feeling of being so invincible. I mean I had my share of childhood illnesses, some afflictions that made its way through grade school years. But overall the thought of succumbing to more treacherous illness or terminal disease was reserved for older people, adults that had “complications” because of their age or the way they lived put them in harm’s way.

Then in middle school I was friends with a girl named “Patty” who our teacher announced one day had Leukemia She was out of school for a while and then actually came back to class. She even went on the class trip to Washington DC. I got to know her and spent hours on the bus ride on our school trip talking with her about many things and about nothing at all. She was a very insightful person. Weeks after we got back from our trip she stopped coming to class. It wasn’t too many weeks later after that she died.

I spent months not clear on what it was that God would do to take someone like her so young and leave the rest of us to feel empty about her not being in our lives anymore. I think I played Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell music for hours on end and created angry artwork (I guess it might have seemed very Bohemian at the time).

So as I grew older and got married, my wife and I had children. And of course as parents we have spent our time worrying about them as they head out the door every day for school. Now as they are out of school and growing into adulthood, we still worry about them. Admittedly we still watch for those things that could indicate more serious issues, we still take a moment when we see them to tell them that we love them.

It was over 20 years ago when my parents passed from this earth to a better place (more about that later). Both of them were in their 70’s and had me when they were much older. But they still would care immensely about my health and safety. In fact when I got older and married, I used to cringe some when I would see them and my mom would dote over me. After all I was a parent myself. I miss that now.

Years went by- living with all of the ups and downs, and then came the day when the Doctor decided that “further tests” were needed. That was the beginning of a life changing event that shook my world, my wife’s world and my family’s world.

To share my story with my kids (and anyone who will read it, I will be writing more of The Cancer Letters.