Tracks In The Dust

24 Jul 2012

Faith In Trust and Hope

Trust. There’s something so mystical about TRUST. Who you should trust, why should you trust them, and how do you continue to trust someone. There is a very fine line between love and hate, there is another one between trust and the lack of it.

I have noticed that for some people it is very easy for them to take that step over the line and start trusting. They have the ultimate faith in the world and humankind that most people have a purpose that is ultimately good for all. Everyone starts out trustworthy and then it is up to them to break that trust, it is a fragile thing indeed but it starts with the “glass half full” I suppose. Maybe even more than half perhaps. That kind of openness comes with a lot of risk for hurt and wounds that don’t heal very well in the emotional sense. It requires a lot of resilience and may mean some added hard work to maintain the proper frame of mind. But happiness is just in the next step just as much as the hurt, and we have to have faith.

There are others that seem to trust no one. It can be so drastic that is sad. Sort of like functional paranoia that everyone is out to get you and that anyone who wants to have a relationship of trust better damn well start earning it. It goes…those who want trust need to explain themselves, then show that they are what they say they are. It is a safer place for these people with lack of trust. After all, trust no one- then there is no chance of getting the injury from trusting someone and then having them let you down or even belay that trust with denial or worse. But that safe place comes with a price. The price can be loneliness, isolation, lack of connection with anyone on anything other than a surface level.

Sadly the world today seems to perpetuate the lack of trust. There are so many examples that get laid out in the news, politics, social networks, and even religion. People who cross that fine line of trust to become human monsters, trusted people who have taken a path of destruction and evil that make us want to run the other way. Stay locked away.

Make sure you have an understanding that even with all the evil and hate in the world, in all the immediate places that surround our lives each day there is hope. Hope is a partner with trust that allows us to make it through each day. We want to be at peace with ourselves, we need to be at peace with the trust in what we know to be right. Trust in the Lord. Don’t run away. Be mindful that there is a purpose to all things under heaven. You are part of it.

23 Jul 2012

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The Foundation of Lies

It is said that “A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Whether Mark Twain said it or some preacher in a sermon long,long ago… it seems to be more true that ever before. Today’s world-wide web can help make even the ugliest lies seem like truth. People read them and then pass them on to tens of thousands of others because they want to believe in their version of the truth, however unreal it may be. If it fits the perception of what someone thinks it should be, then it goes on and out to more. If something t was said by someone you believe also thinks like you, “it must be the truth“. Right?

So we maybe people are building “their” reality on lies. For others they could be building their friendships on half-truths or fabrications, which sadly pass on things like hate and prejudice. Very often I have seen relationships between couples of many years that have gone into a spin because of simple things that have blossomed into lies and flared up into full-fledged fires. All because of one person’s version of the truth that gets created to fulfill personal need.

Lies can hurt, lies can also motivate others to do things that are right or wrong. Sometimes lies are justified, maybe bolster our own confidence to do things that are seemed to protect others from hurt. But we cannot let them control our sense of right and wrong. We need to make sure that we understand that our truths are what needs to guide us in our love and our life. We have to clear the way to not listen for what we think we need to hear, but we listen to our hearts and heads without the noise. Be mindful that we can be motivated to even lie to ourselves. And those lies can perpetuate in the worse way to effect our future.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Change, hearts and heads, Lies, life is precious, Love, Postive Thinking, relationships, Truth

18 Jul 2012

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The Music and the Album Experience

I have always loved music. From as far back as I can remember I had something in my life that would play music. A portable radio (they called them “transistor” radios for a while), a record player, a boombox, a Walkman, a CD Walkman, an I Pod and a smartphone. I always loved my stereo system ( because at one time they had mono systems I guess). There was always music playing around me. In the background, in the foreground 🙂 in the car, at the beach near our house, at friends houses, parties, late night on the back porch.

There was one thing that really changed how I listened to music and made the difference on what I listen to today. I will show my age by saying this but for a while in time the “record album” was part of a renaissance of modern music that made listening to an artist or group different from before. It wasn’t just about one song (although that may be one of the reasons to listen to the album), it was about the complete experience of understanding the artists and their music and the atmosphere it brought when you would play several songs in a row by the same artists. Sort of why they called it an “LP” – long play record.

Since it was hard to skip through/scan through songs on a record without picking up the needle (amazing a sharp little thing that scraped along a groove in plastic), it was easier just to let the “side” play. One half of the album would play out its 4 or 5 selections and you would listen. And somewhere along that time you would get to know the artist better, and actually appreciate the songs that weren’t likely the hit-single playing on the radio. In some cases they all folded together into something that felt more like a drawing or painting of a mood.

And even now, as I scan through songs on the Internet or program selections or shuffle a playlist I still stop to wonder about those “other” songs. The one or two I missed because they were part of a more complete picture in sound. I could even get nostalgic about how the album cover and art were part of the experience. Don’t get me started about those albums that would include the words to the songs, or “liner” notes from fellow musicians who wanted to speak to the listener about their heroes and peers.

I am too much in a hurry now to sit through a whole album (or at least one side). Sometimes when a song doesn’t grab me in the first 10 seconds I hit the forward button and go on. Letting songs pass by without a passing thought.

Don’t get me wrong. Theres something to be said for technology allowing us to experience new and different artists online, streaming or downloading musicians you may never have heard before – when record companies had to pick and choose for you. But that album from the artist that fought their way to the label had character as a “physical thing” to be collected, and replayed and shared with friends as an experience.

Posted in Before and After Things Change, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Change, LP Record, Memories, moments, Music, Opinion, Record Albums, Rock music, tracks in the dust, Vinyl Records

17 Jul 2012

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What Do You Do With It?

There is something about being told by a doctor how you might leave this Earth that is kind of creepy. I mean we are all going to go someday. Like my previous post “time waits for no one”, it moves on and there is no way to halt it or turn it around. There is not a way to stop the end. People search for the fountain of youth, do as many things possible in some cases to make themselves look young. They take miracle drugs and infomercial remedies that are supposed to make the look and feel younger. But in the end we are all headed for the mortal end.

No matter what the future looks like , there are many times we don’t see it coming. I had a niece who was a wonderful girl with a hopeful future who wanted to see what life would bring, but in the process she took too many chances with her life and lost it at an age before she experienced her 24th year. In other cases we may be able to wait for age to catch up and maybe somewhere along the way we physically wear out, or a disease or other plights gets the better of us. When cancer is a reality, there are so many other realities you may not be thikning about- like that inevitable sudden step off the curb, or the last adventure to take-on the mountain or obstacle worth tackling that brings the end.

So I am really sure that it will end for all of us. I think you probably believe that too. What we do with the time we have here on Earth is the way to put value on our life while we have it. God tells us that we are going to have a place here in the world, and after we leave it. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

But some how, for some of us, we find our ways to cycle through the hours, days and weeks and wonder how they often get past us with little difference. We get frustrated because we havent felt we have been significant, we aren’t very sure if we have made the time between those major events in our lives worth it when they are just “living”. But we can make it worth it every day, by being there for the people around us, living with the spirit of goodness and all its attributes always.

So we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that life goes on forever here on Earth. That our tracks in the dust will last forever here. We have to wake up each day and cherish it for what it is and what we can make of it. Enjoy the simple pleasures, celebrate the victories however small or large they are. Be thankful for the people around you and the people you have known over your lifetime. When the time is over, be confident that because you believe, you will have another place to be for eternity.

Posted in Before and After Things Change, Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged being remembered, cherish, Eternity, fountain of youth, life is precious, Love, miracle drugs, moments, Sprituality

14 Jul 2012

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Time Waits For No One

I have heard it said that “time waits for no one.” Time is ticking away and as far as we know we have no control over it ( we could argue time travel here i imagine). We try to hold on to the special moments in time. We have many yesterdays that we would work hard to hold on to because they are so unique; they signify something that is special that makes a place and time part of what we are. We would love to go back and experience them again, or change things that went askew, because they have seemed to go by so fast, but meant so much.

But time wont wait. Its time that we want to to remember but even time erodes the details of what made it so special. So we move along the linear thing that is what we call time. Holding on to yesterday with the best of intention, but yesterday is gone. It makes up the fabric of today, but it cannot be brought back to be relived again. It can’t be erased to make bad things go away, or reversed to correct a wrong. So that’s the way God planned it, that’s the way He meant it to be. And it becomes a treasure of a time we can cherish in our memory, or be that day or moment that changed everything after it for the rest of your life and perhaps even beyond that. Indelible, Unchangeable.

That is what we have to do with every day. Look at it as that self contained part of the building blocks that make up who you are today and who you will be tomorrow. But then let it go and look forward to what is next, because time waits for no one. No one but you can own that moment you have experienced behind your eyes. All those unrecorded seconds in time are yours alone. Share them with others, but they will never be as unique as your own experience. They are yours until your last breath. And even time has that one figured out as well. Eternity in the end will be what matters.