life is precious | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “life is precious”

05 Oct 2012

No One Gets Out of Here Alive

We all know it. We don’t often talk about it except when someone passes on in our lives or we know someone who has lost someone. That time is unpredictable, for some more than others. For a lot of us we all hope we can live to a ripe old age, be aware of life and all it has to offer right to the end of it all.

So we know it. It will be a day some day in our lives. We need to live till we die. And along the way we have our mission to share what brings us purpose. Many people seem lost and angry these days, so many unsure of the meaning of it, while yet others ignore their lives meaning altogether, and live with no purpose at all.

In the last couple of weeks I have known two wonderfully God-centered people who have experienced a loss in their lives. One a father and another a husband. They are mourning like those of us left here on Earth are supposed to do. They are also comfortable with the fact that there is a place afterward that their loved ones will be. Happy in the place that believers will be for eternity after this life. This grace continues to be profound in my life. Something I cannot ignore. That is something that is in the heart of a Christian.

So the reality of it is – no one gets out of here alive. ( Thanks Jim Morrison) No one lives forever in this life on Earth. While we are here, we touch other lives and make a difference in a million ways through our timeline (it’s not just a Facebook thing).

We can choose to be part of that movement in our life.

The lost choices lead to hopelessness, confusion, being unsure about the future or the present or eternity. Sadly there are so many out there that will spend that life until the end without purpose. How empty that must be. The found choices can be to make life what it is- a journey, an adventure, the opportunity to give back to those around us the grace that God has give us. Until the next eternal life. And since each moment could be our last, we need to cherish them and make them count.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, cherish, choices, Grace, life is precious, life on earth, Postive Thinking, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, Who Are You

17 Sep 2012

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Life Can Be Like A Wheel

“Some people say life’s like a merry-go-round
I think it’s more like a ferris wheel
‘Cause sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down
Sometimes you just don’t know what to feel” (Todd Rundgren)

It is just the way it seem to be. When you ride life’s wheel you have to be ready for the motions that make up the turns. You have to be prepared to know that there will be downs before ups, and know that the ups may not just be the opposite of the downward ride. It may be a whole new place to rise the height of the wheel.

Part of the trip ahead is the anticipation as things start to change. Not worth resistance it is the place you should enjoy as the wheel turns. When you see it heading down you can do things to help turn it faster the other way. On the other hand, when it is turning up you may not be able to slow it down, or it may take more time to get to the top.

“We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life.”
– James Freeman Clarke

Sometimes hearing the expression “just roll with it” reminds me of that. Making sure to roll with the changes, move with the day as God provided to us. Do the most with it, because how we spend each day is how we spend our lives.

Posted in Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Advice, cherish, Ferris wheel, Grace, Life changes, life is precious, moments, Self-Awareness, Slow Down, Todd Rundgren, ups and downs

10 Sep 2012

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Reliving the Past

Our pasts are so precious. After all every moment we have lived up to this second is what makes us who we are right now. We have our memories to cherish, we have our experiences to formulate our opinions and shape are personalities. There are plenty of minutes in our lives where not a thing has happened except that we have taken another breath, which we can certainly be thankful for.

We should be proud of who we are- if we can count our accomplishments in a way that has helped others, or we have helped to make shape so many people around us by simple things we may have said or done. In other cases we may have profoundly changed so many lives of those who have since moved on to other circles of friends. But we left our mark on them, we may have ever so slightly changed their course, or perhaps made great changes. But there we were in that past.

But there is one thing that seems to be very true about our pasts, yet so many try to defy it. We cannot relive our past. We can recall it, we may even be able to reenact it in some way. But the ever-changing world does not allow us to go back and relive it just the way it was. Even though some of those moments were profound for you. The birth of your children, the first meeting of a love of your life, the simple victories and celebrations of life, sharing thoughts and philosophies with friends that ultimately indelibly put a new spin on your existence. Or perhaps just that simple clear day where the sky is blue, the sun is shining and you can take a deep breath… Or that day that you made a regrettable mistake that you would rather have not, and would do anything to change it now.

But you cannot go back, just like you cannot predict the future an( see my previous blog). You have to appreciate it, but cannot wallow in it. There is really only the here and now. You have to appreciate the here and now. The moment. And every one after it for as long as you are allowed. A while back I had posted “No Day But Today”. There is only that- only this moment until the next.

So don’t spend your time wishing the past back, it cannot be done. You should not forget it. You should not dismiss it. You cannot relive it.

So now what? What can you do?…. Be the person you have become… through this journey, take the next steps in whatever adventure life allows you ( and then more) and make the day count for something positive, in your life it could be the most significant day ever- but then in some ways they all are.

RELATED POSTS

Predicting the Future

No Day But Today

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged being remembered, choices, Faith, life is precious, Memories, moments, Postive Thinking, Sprituality, the future, the past, Who Are You

04 Sep 2012

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Predicting the Future

There are some days that I think how great it would be to predict the future. You would be able to know where things would be going. You could be confident that each day would be set. There would be no guessing about the challenges ahead. There would be less fear of the unknown. No worries about tomorrow. You could help so many others and yourself in so many ways.

Knowing the future would mean you could win the lottery or buy the next big stock (if I had only bought Apple stock when my friends told me). You could stop bad things from happening, and be present for the exciting things. Yes I know all the complicated science around changing events on the space-time continuum – they have made movies and books about that and site all of what Einstein was theorizing (even though many more have gone further in this whole thing). Even Dr. Brown explained it well ( for you Back to the Future fans). Still it might be cool to know. Maybe.

Then I realize that there’d be little to desire, not much to dream for. It would constantly be sad for the surprise and the adventure of our God-given life on Earth would be gone. We would know things we don’t want to know, and see things we could not change even as we knew they were coming. Even our own fateful demise would be waiting off in the predictable future. Our sense of self-value would be distorted. If we are all going to die eventually, does it benefit us to know when? Or should we instead be spending every day as the precious thing it is.

No.. Not really a good thing to know the future. All of the negatives would far outweigh the positives. Time is forever marching forward and we are moving ahead as it unfolds (okay there are scientists that will argue that one too). We are in Gods hands and our own path is ours to choose. Not really in the here and now though as much as in the choice for eternity after this life.

We can take each day as it comes and make it work for us. When so many people in this world cannot predict where their next morsel of food or drink will come;we should consider that “fortunate” predictability in our futures, and be thankful. Take consideration for the unknown. Realize that life is there to be cherished, and worry will not overcome you. Even as we know life will end, we can take this next moment in the future of our lives to be grateful for e opportunity to be here, to have known each other.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Change, cherish, Doubt, Fear, Future, God, Grace, life is precious, Postive Thinking, Precognition, tracks in the dust

21 Aug 2012

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Dreaming of Magic Again

Some times it seems almost hard to believe. I am not really good at remembering dreams. I wake up and I can recall a dream for about 5 seconds, and then it starts to fade. But there are a few that keep coming back, like a late nite movie that keeps showing up every week and you can’t stop watching it.

There are a few things that are in black and white, and a few that are in color. I noticed that they seem to incorporate a lot of things in “real” life, but things that are not really connected that way. They are associated somehow in my sub conscious I guess, and so they get thrown into the soup of the dream.

What dreams do you have that keep coming back?

Okay so there is a huge psychological process to interpreting them and having them end up determining what kind of person you are. Not so into that, I think there is some merit to it, but really. Some of my dreams just come up because I have weird food before I go to sleep (like Frito-Lay products with spicy flavors-can you say “Doritos”?) or because I saw a strange movie (anything by Stanley Kubrick) or listened to some music (like Explosions In The Skyincredible music). Some are just there for whatever reason. But like I said they disappear in the morning fog of the first cup of coffee.

So this one dream. It has a soundtrack and a mysterious lady. The song (perhaps the inspiration after all) is Magic by Ben Folds Five written by Darren Jessee [see below]. It seems like a mysterious song on its own, perhaps about someone who has passed on, or who has lost their life or perhaps their life’s memory (through Alzheimer’s perhaps)… but it is always the sound track. I am watching it from above and it plays out with a lady dancing by the light of this huge moon (some times it looks like it is my wife, sometimes someone I don’t actually know). Along the way I the whole thing becomes distant, and then again really close. I am sad but happy at the same time. In the end it makes me calm that the world will continue and this person is in it somehow.

That’s it. All you dream interpreters can have a hey day on what that all means, and I guess I could spend a lot of time in analysis to discover my mom or something was at the root of all of it. But no matter what I do, it just pops up.

What dreams do you have that keep coming back? How do you deal with them? Where do they take you?

Magic by Ben Folds Five

From the back of your big brown eyes
I knew you’d be gone as soon as you could
And I hoped you would
We could see that you weren’t yourself
And the lines on your face did tell
It’s just as well
You’d never be yourself again

Saw you last night
Dance by the light of the moon
Stars in your eyes
Free from the life that you knew

You’re the magic that holds the sky up from the ground
You’re the breath that blows these cool winds ’round
Trading places with an angel now
Saw you last night
Dance by the light of the moon
Stars in your eyes
Free from the life that you knew
Saw you last night
Stars in your eyes
Smiled in my room