Face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet.
Black Elk
******************
Hello Ernie
******************
I know an actress named Emily who says that her daily prayer is "God, give me peace." I can relate to that. Oh, how I yearn for the quiet day. My heart, my mind and my whole being hopes of the day when the vultures spread their wings and fly off, when the vipers slip silently back into their holes, and when the catalogue of my mistakes is flung into the fire to help warm the cold night of winter. I yearn for the end of sorrow. I long for the repair of my broken heart and the gathering up of broken dreams.
I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
When the city sleepsAnd
I'm the only one and I walk alone
(Al Dubin/Harry Warren)
I walk alone but try to stay on the good road at last. I hope for the biting winds of winter to become the gentle breeze that clears my spirit. To have a sweet person bring me Christmas dinner on a freezing cold December night and then to learn that the sweetness was a lie and the person a deceiver is a breaking of the heart. The love I still have for that person keeps me on the good road.
Walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. (Proverbs 2:20)
To be unable to do the work I love because of where I live is a breaking of the dream, but my heart still holds the hope that I will step upon a stage again one day. I walk alone with that hope clutched in my heart.
The good road is a lonely one and I have to keep checking the signs to see that I stay on it. But through all the sorrow, fear, noise, pain, scorn, disappointment, discouragement, loss and failure, I still walk the road believing that there will be at last a day of quiet.
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up************************
SUMMER QUESTION
I recently received a peck on the cheek from two members of the female persuasion. Besides those I haven't experienced a real kiss in many, many years. I have no flowers. There is nothing growing outside, no trees, no bushes, no flowers, just a few pathetic weeds here and there. That, thankfully, does a lot to discourage the mosquito population, but it doesn't give me much in the way of flora. So I pose this question for those of you who have more experience in these matters.
-------------------------------------------------
Which is more important, a flower or a kiss? Why?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
Showing posts with label Proverbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Proverbs. Show all posts
Friday, July 6, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
More Life
What's past is prologue, what's to come in yours and my discharge.
Shakespeare
*****************.
Hello Sienna
*****************
I have been writing and posting entries in this Vagabond Journey for many years. (Don't believe what it says in the side bar. It's been more years than that. I don't know how to change it yet.) There are about 1,400 entries not counting Vagabondisms, all of them original documents of my own musings and devising. And what does it all mean?
I am not one to moan about years gone by. I would rather look forward than back. That's the only healthy thing to do. But it is easier to look ahead when your young, there are less anchors to weigh.
The recent traumatic experience of lies and betrayal by a friend, which can only be explained as some sort of insanity, has left me sad and frightened, sad over the loss of friendship and frightened because it has the hint of a last chance gone, with no further life or love to know. That's the kind of suffocating fear only an older person can know.
I look back at some of the vagabond journeys I've been on and I can read a lesson of growing, learning, turning experiences into metaphors for life, finding light in the dark places and not giving up.
I think fear is our worst enemy. That's been said before by wiser men than I, but it is a fundamental truth. Fear of failure keeps people from trying. Fear of loss keeps people holding on to things they should let go of. I've recently seen paranoia turn a man into an enemy of everyone around him. Fear of death is a constant in some people's lives. But even worse is the fear that there is nothing more to live for, that there is no future, that the past is all there is. It is a frightening thing to consider. It's like being entombed without light and without human contact but being kept alive anyway. Fear of having nothing to look forward to.
I am facing up to this fear right now.
The Bible says "Where there is no vision, the people perish." (Proverbs 29) And there is the answer to what happens to many and how to fight against it. A few days ago I wrote an entry entitled "Worthy Life" and in it I said "Only the man or woman who is willing to look at themselves with stern objectivity can measure aright the person they see and thus compare it with the person they could be. To change, to improve, to become better than yourself is a noble task for the benefit of yourself."
But one can't just arbitrarily decide to be someone or something, can one?. Along with the fear of death or fear of aloneness comes the danger of the feeling of futility and despair, of being trapped, the loss of enthusiasm and excitement about life. Making some choice about the future may not be the best choice but it will open up the thought to being led to a better choice and once enthusiasm lights the fire there's a vision, there's a future, there's more life to live.
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
Shakespeare
*****************.
Hello Sienna
*****************
I have been writing and posting entries in this Vagabond Journey for many years. (Don't believe what it says in the side bar. It's been more years than that. I don't know how to change it yet.) There are about 1,400 entries not counting Vagabondisms, all of them original documents of my own musings and devising. And what does it all mean?
I am not one to moan about years gone by. I would rather look forward than back. That's the only healthy thing to do. But it is easier to look ahead when your young, there are less anchors to weigh.
The recent traumatic experience of lies and betrayal by a friend, which can only be explained as some sort of insanity, has left me sad and frightened, sad over the loss of friendship and frightened because it has the hint of a last chance gone, with no further life or love to know. That's the kind of suffocating fear only an older person can know.
I look back at some of the vagabond journeys I've been on and I can read a lesson of growing, learning, turning experiences into metaphors for life, finding light in the dark places and not giving up.
I think fear is our worst enemy. That's been said before by wiser men than I, but it is a fundamental truth. Fear of failure keeps people from trying. Fear of loss keeps people holding on to things they should let go of. I've recently seen paranoia turn a man into an enemy of everyone around him. Fear of death is a constant in some people's lives. But even worse is the fear that there is nothing more to live for, that there is no future, that the past is all there is. It is a frightening thing to consider. It's like being entombed without light and without human contact but being kept alive anyway. Fear of having nothing to look forward to.
I am facing up to this fear right now.
The Bible says "Where there is no vision, the people perish." (Proverbs 29) And there is the answer to what happens to many and how to fight against it. A few days ago I wrote an entry entitled "Worthy Life" and in it I said "Only the man or woman who is willing to look at themselves with stern objectivity can measure aright the person they see and thus compare it with the person they could be. To change, to improve, to become better than yourself is a noble task for the benefit of yourself."
But one can't just arbitrarily decide to be someone or something, can one?. Along with the fear of death or fear of aloneness comes the danger of the feeling of futility and despair, of being trapped, the loss of enthusiasm and excitement about life. Making some choice about the future may not be the best choice but it will open up the thought to being led to a better choice and once enthusiasm lights the fire there's a vision, there's a future, there's more life to live.
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Worthy Life
Try to be better than yourself.
William Faulkner
*******************
Hello Arlene
*******************
I used to remark that all those self help books began with Chapter Two. Chapter Two is entitled "You can have whatever you want out of life if you really want it" or something similar. Chapter One, which isn't in the book, says "You can know yourself well enough to know what you want out of life." If you don't know what you want from life all those self help books are useless. Eventually some books were written which addressed the topic.
I also used to think that the purpose of improving myself was for other people, due in part to my life as an entertainer where how I appeared to others was crucial to my work.
Lately however I have learned to turn the other cheek on myself and find the flaws, my failings as a human being and the ways in which I don't come up to my own standards. The smack on the cheek comes because we aren't as aware as we ought to be about the things that cause us to drop from those standards. We go through a wrong door and wonder how we got where we did. We make choices without considering the consequences. We respond impulsively and not from thought. We simply may be fooled by something or someone. We do dumb things and think we will get away with them.
Maybe some people will spend their whole lives and never take stock of themselves. But I think those people will live worthless, wasted lives, as a life lived in a pit of shame and self disrespect never noticing it. Pity them.
Only the man or woman who is willing to look at themselves with stern objectivity can measure aright the person they see and thus compare with it the person they could be. To change, to improve, to become better than yourself is a noble task for the benefit of yourself. As Janis Joplin said "Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
Along the rocky road of existence stumbling is inevitable, but it won't matter if the steps you take are sincere: not acquiescing to the wrong, not answering folly with folly, avoiding immoral circumstances and people, testing every thought and theory against the touchstone of your own standard, seeing the hills and valleys of your life as only part of the journey, approving of yourself and congratulating yourself for every victory over selfishness. "In the way of righteousness is life." (Proverbs 12:28)
It's a simple journey, one step at a time. But the destination is a worthy life.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***************************
William Faulkner
*******************
Hello Arlene
*******************
I used to remark that all those self help books began with Chapter Two. Chapter Two is entitled "You can have whatever you want out of life if you really want it" or something similar. Chapter One, which isn't in the book, says "You can know yourself well enough to know what you want out of life." If you don't know what you want from life all those self help books are useless. Eventually some books were written which addressed the topic.
I also used to think that the purpose of improving myself was for other people, due in part to my life as an entertainer where how I appeared to others was crucial to my work.
Lately however I have learned to turn the other cheek on myself and find the flaws, my failings as a human being and the ways in which I don't come up to my own standards. The smack on the cheek comes because we aren't as aware as we ought to be about the things that cause us to drop from those standards. We go through a wrong door and wonder how we got where we did. We make choices without considering the consequences. We respond impulsively and not from thought. We simply may be fooled by something or someone. We do dumb things and think we will get away with them.
Maybe some people will spend their whole lives and never take stock of themselves. But I think those people will live worthless, wasted lives, as a life lived in a pit of shame and self disrespect never noticing it. Pity them.
Only the man or woman who is willing to look at themselves with stern objectivity can measure aright the person they see and thus compare with it the person they could be. To change, to improve, to become better than yourself is a noble task for the benefit of yourself. As Janis Joplin said "Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
Along the rocky road of existence stumbling is inevitable, but it won't matter if the steps you take are sincere: not acquiescing to the wrong, not answering folly with folly, avoiding immoral circumstances and people, testing every thought and theory against the touchstone of your own standard, seeing the hills and valleys of your life as only part of the journey, approving of yourself and congratulating yourself for every victory over selfishness. "In the way of righteousness is life." (Proverbs 12:28)
It's a simple journey, one step at a time. But the destination is a worthy life.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
***************************
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