choices | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “choices”

09 May 2013

Behind Every Door

Behind every door is a story. And every one of them is personal.

Recently in Cleveland Ohio USA, three women emerged from the horror of being secretly locked up and tortured and raped for ten years, while the rest of the world moved by the house and the doors and windows where so much pain and anger was hidden. It is one that was discovered, but you can’t help thinking there are so many equally terrifying stories. People living in the private walls of their lives in a way that most may not understand, while yet others may recognize as their own…

So we pass by doors of people’s lives every day, some real, some just figuratively. We may often ignore the idea of what is behind those doors.There stories for every door, so many stories. Stories of loneliness, pain, anger, sadness, hopelessness, guilt and so many more of the agonies that we humans have been dealt. We try to reflect ourselves on those doors. In our heads and lives we see those doors as similar or identical to ours, of we find ourselves threatened by the idea that there are things much worse.

Behind those doors there is certainly good and bad, because everyone has their own demons and challenges. I know someone who is living the pain and challenges of a brain tumor. His family is dealing with all that emotion, all that goes with the disease and the stark mortality that is a constant part of their lives. It is the struggle behind a door that many will pass every day. Most will never know.

Seems like in this world of high-speed connections, Internet friendships and text messaging – the opportunity to have those relationships we need- those connections behind those doors have been damaged. It is lost behind the locks of the doors that divide us. That contain so many stories that deserve compassion, deserve to be discovered. Need to understand there is hope.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Acceptance, choices, Compassion, Emotion, Faith, Fear, Happiness, Hopelessness, isolation, Reality Check, Salvation, society, Who Are You

01 May 2013

The Trust May Be Gone, But Keep the Faith

Recalling a “time of trust” in our world, things have seemed to change.

In the old days we would believe sales people at our local stores, we would rely on news from the network TV newscaster to see a window to the world from a trusted person we let into our living room. Even more so , in the days gone by we would believe our politicians.

Were we naive in the old days? Very likely we were not worldly enough because our perspective was contained inside a smaller circle – local stores, one newspaper, 3 TV stations to choose from. Perhaps we were stronger by faith itself.

It seems like that has changed. Have we just learned our lessons over time and got smarter? Or likely we have gotten just more jaded?

We have lost faith in our politicians – ( in the US that really happened in the early 70’s with the Watergate scandal I think) I know many of us couldn’t imagine some of our past US Presidents being under the scrutiny they are today and coming out as unscathed as they had in the past. These days the news media, the social media has started with the premise of dis-trust. And in a matter of seconds the trust (or lack of it) shoots into the ether-web and becomes someone else’s truth.

Today I couldn’t imagine taking an order to buy a high tech device or an appliance simply on the recommendation of the 20 yr old in the big-box store. That itself as led to the demise of so many of the retailers this past decade.

Today I couldn’t imagine just believing everything you read just because it was in-print or accept the news – like back in the days when the US landed on the moon… Walter Cronkite said “that’s the way it is”. Yet it seems in some ways people still do believe way too much of what they read on Internet- listening to extremes from so many talking heads who have no perspective on facts or truth- then they even write books about it.

Then roll all of this up this with our society’s ever decreasing attention span, and layer in the endless amount of choices we are exposed to – and throw that into the sea of anonymity. For many… top it off with the lack of spiritual faith- in-something- bigger leaves so many with no trust, faith or foundation in the Truth. It has left way too many people as distrusting skeptics; with each other, with our leaders, with the information we are presented every day we seem to view the world as hopeless. It is truly not, we need to keep the faith!

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Belief, Change, choices, Definitions, Faith, Fear, God, Media, Opinion, Reality Check, Sprituality, Trust

09 Apr 2013

The Pending Storms of Spring

You know that feeling you get when you hear about pending storms. Watchful on the horizon. Brewing for a change. Some see it as a fearful thing (rightfully so) and yet perhaps more.

The summer storms often bring colder fronts and fresh air. They bring that smell of green things growing. Before it arrives you can taste it in the air. The bugs sing a song in the trees. There is a sense of it in the pressure of the atmosphere.

But the spring storms however seem to queue up to help clean away the winter. Take away the dust and dreariness that can encapsulate the winter months. They come as the light of the day starts to expand and the plants and trees around are working on a new set of leaves and seeds. The birds arrive back ( maybe they weren’t gone, but the seem so much more vocal). The storms come in on windy days that seem to be designed to blow the seeds along for a summer plan.

Here in Texas the spring storms have begun, they often come with predictions of hail, and sometimes the size of quarters or golf balls. Most storms whisk by with strong winds that line up and rearrange things… fences, lawn furniture, trees and roofing land in the most unexpected places. But still the storms come. They will always come.

When they do you have a chance to see them as renewal of the new pending season. You can work toward acceptance in the anticipation. Perhaps see it as a way to change and change with it.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Acceptance, Change, choices, Emotion, moments, Postive Thinking, Storm, Texas, Weather

08 Apr 2013

Roll Call

We do this thing from time to time in our family and with our closest friends.

It’s “roll call” time for blogger buddies. Checking in to see that everything is okay today and where your head is at.

So ROLL CALL!

Let’s have some fun.

3 Questions

Who is ” now playing” on your digital music player (iPod) ?

Mine: Little Black Dress (Group from Dallas, TX) and Air Review (also from Dallas, TX) and The Album Leaf

What is the last movie you watched that you enjoyed and thought was worth the time it took to watch it?

Mine: Just finished watching Charade with Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn (still holds up great for a movie from 1963)

Who wrote the last book you read, and what was it?

Mine: Under the Dome by Stephen King – long book but finally put aside the time to read it (1000+ pages).

YOUR TURN! Roll Call?

Posted in Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged choices, Dallas Music Scene, Definitions, entertainment, Favorite Music, Movies, Music, Opinion, Rock music, Stephen King, Under the Dome

02 Apr 2013

The Yearning for Home

I realized over the weekend that in some ways we are all yearning for a place called “home”.

It feels like for many of us, we continue the journey each day trying to embrace the concept of “home” in our lives. The place that we can feel comfort and safety, surrounded by familiar things. Familiar (root word family) in such a way that it creates an ideal combination of the emotional and spiritual things we desire in our lives.

Some say home is where the heart is. Indeed that is an element. Others get a taste and smell of it with “comfort foods” that can allow them a type of time travel back to a time of feeling safe- perhaps with their parents or a wonderful time with their friends or just alone time. The smells of the food, the texture, the way it tastes triggers the senses and the memories that go with it.

Some of it may be the colors that surround you, the home and hearth of another time and place that can make you change a bad mood to a good one. A comfortable chair perhaps. A warm blanket, a sunny afternoon in the yard, the fireplace, the smell of the ocean. Add the things together like a recipe for home in your head.

And home is not defined by one persons idea of it. It could be the home in the woods, or on top a skyscraper over looking metropolitan landscapes. It could be near water or on top of a mountain. In the end as we travel the journey of our lives, many of us will continue to reach out for that “home-base” in our lives. Just that reality check that we need in some way to make the rest of reality tolerant. It’s wrapped in the senses of our spiritual place and needs our attention.