Hands Across The Net

Remember we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.

Emily Kimbrough
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" Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish,
here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish."
(Thomas Hastings)

I'm introducing a new journal. It has come to me that there are people out there who suffer from acute or chronic problems, physical, emotional, psychological, social, ethical and otherwise, who need to talk about them.. In many cases a person has no one they trust to talk to and it is more helpful to write things out.

I know it was palpably therapeutic for me to write out my fear and pain during my recent nightmare months of February and March. I also know that a lot of people avoided reading it because of various reasons. And it was semi public at the time.

But then I believe Guido had some success with his Calls For Prayer. My new journal is not asking for prayer but a place to weep, rage, complain, beg, plead, and give up (temporarily) if you want to.

If you have the option to write anonymously, please do that if you want to, no one will erase your entry.or refuse it. Give me your trouble, your wounded heart, your terror and your anguish. Let your words flow into the warm hands of those who care. I'll take all your good news also and celebrate with you.

The new journal is called Hand of the Vagabond and it's at http://vagabondhand.blogspot.com/

Vagabond Journeys will keep posting things of the inane, insane and germane for our reading pleaser, yours and mine.

DB - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
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In The Beer

The worst sin - perhaps the only sin - passion can commit, is to be joyless.

Dorothy Sayers
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Hello Diane
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Troublesome times are still floating in my glass of beer. Unanswered questions plague my heart. I can't bear being tricked.

I posed the question should I cry in my beer or laugh in my wine. The consensus of opinions seems to be that I should do both. The sound that you hear is me opening a beer.

We are now in the time of mid winter. This is and has always been a very grim time for me as it is for many people. The Farmers Almanac says that by February 5 I should have half of my wood still left and half of my hay. But it doesn't say anything about my spirit. As the song says "This weather makes a man feel old."

I try to think about the future. I don't like to think about the past or the present. The past is full of regrets and the future is full of fears. I carry with me every day all the passions of a reconstructed teenager. But with the added burdens of a life time of accumulated knowledge. I know better than to expect happiness and harmony every staggered step I take down the street. But I don't know myself well enough to know how to avoid the rocks and puddles of my own feelings.

Why have I removed my heart from my sleeve and left it out on the front porch? Why does my imagination which allows me to write and paint and dream also construct sorrowful scenarios to plague me like daemons? I hide, like Scrooge, from a wicked world, but without Scrooge's money. I take pleasure in small things but ignore the dangers in the bigger ones.

Inside this mortal lump of clay my passions bubble and foam, like the beer in this glass, for a pure and happy life, contentment, peace and certainty. And joy. I want, but don't expect them. I expect the opposite. Threats, shocks, pain, and trouble. And sorrow.

Why should that be? I know I deserve better. I deserve not to be cheated out of my joy. In all the tumbling I've done in and out of righteousness over the years I have at least learned to laugh at my foolishness and discipline my thoughts. Then why am I sitting here right now, today, in fear and sadness over things I can't control?

I don't know what the future is, who does? But I know I have one and I want it to be better than the present. Today I will hide in the bottle. Tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that I will face the pain and take the staggering steps necessary to make some brighter day appear, I hope.

DB - Vagabond
Never give up.
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Birds And Blossoms

If I keep a green bough in my heart, then the singing bird will come.

Chinese proverb.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
One green bough. One song bird. One heart.
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Today my phone is working again. I'll see what tomorrow brings.
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It's Easter, Passover, Spring. It's the time for resurrection, release and renewal.

I read a lot of journals. I enjoy reading people's news. Some journals take on serious issues and stomp for some righteous cause. A few stomp for some unrighteous cause. I read them anyway.

I've been told that Vagabond Journeys is silly and without substance. Maybe it's because I don't take on serious political and religious issues unless they relate to some historical scenery. It isn't that I don't think about those things, it's that as one solitary individual, alone in this community of writers, it is the hope and plan of my journal to send as many sparks of light as I can into a world of troubles and struggles, and not to light destructive fires.

When I got my phone on this morning there were 8 messages on there, most of them threatening calls from law firms. They will all be handled one way or another But not now.

The only things that impact and influence my journal writings are personal observations, the conditions of my own life, natural curiosity, the thoughts of the wise and the otherwise and a constant yearning to understand and appreciate beauty.

Walking home from an errand yesterday I came upon a small tree growing out of a plot of earth on the sidewalk. The sun was shining joyfully through its array of small pink blossoms with dark red fingers pushing out the ends of its branches. It was breathtaking. It was by itself on the sidewalk, There were no other trees around. I stopped to admire the gleaming light of that small tree and touch its pink blossoms. It was beautiful.

As I approached home I stopped again to listen to a solitary bird in the tree behind the house. It was chirping the sweetest song, all by itself, singing because it wanted to.

What is it that would keep one from noticing these things and enjoying them? Is it the snarling and hissing beasts of trouble and worldliness? If so then it must be fear, and someone, even if all by himself, should offer an antidote to that fear, should extend a green bough for the singing bird.

So call me silly and without substance. It's easy to say don't be afraid. But that's not good enough. I know about fear. I know how it can darken the clearest sky and silence the prettiest music. It can grip the mind and the emotions and even turn into hate, if not faced down. It is fear that says hope is dead and buried, there is no escape and we are destined to life's cold winds and bare branches forever.

But it is Easter, Passover, Spring. He is risen, the Pharoah has been left behind and the tree is blooming. So weep for your troubled life, by all means. Tears are sacred things. But then hold out your heart for the singing bird.

DB - The Vagabond
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Magnificent Minutes 9/26/09

Every moment that you spend facing down fear and trouble makes a difference in the world.

DB - The Vagabond
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Glad to see you.
__________________
Fear is bondage. Trouble is slavery. When we are beset with frightening difficulties the things we are forced to do about it deprive us of the real life we could be living. It is very tempting to just give up and let trouble have it's way with us. That's why it's important to stand up to the complicated details and unpleasant activities that must be done to bring the trouble to it's knees.

The thing to remember is that it's alright to be afraid in the face of danger. depressed by the magnitude of problems and frustrated by delay. Those negative feelings are part of the attack, but they are not the problem.

During the recent trouble I went through I got a lot of reassuring comments from people telling me that all things would work out fine in the end, I knew that. What I didn't know was how much agony I was going to be put through before they did, Not having the information I needed and having to wait for weeks to get it made my burden very heavy. I also received some sympathetic comments from people who knew the type of trauma I was going through. I am grateful for both.

One never knows what effect one's actions can have on others. Standing up to frightening things and not caving in to them, maintaining as positive an attitude as possible and vigorously opposing anything that tries to make one feel unworthy are essential forces not only for the individual but for society as well.

Back in the early Naughties, when I first got my computer, I called to get online. It took my ISP 45 days to do it. They kept screwing up, canceling, reordering and canceling. Every time they put in a new order they sent me a modem. I had a stack of modems on the floor but no Internet. All during the 45 days I was patient. Finally they promised to have it done by the 12th. The day before I got a message saying it would be done by the 15th. That's when I hit the roof.

I had kept a log of all my phone calls with them, as I usually do. I told the last person I talked with that if I wasn't on line by the 12th I was going to make copies of it and send it out to all the Chambers, Associations, Bureaus, and Commissions I could think of, simply so the next poor sucker who came along wouldn't have to go through what they had put me through. I was on line the next day.

DB
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Let there be kites in the wind for you.
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Saturday Contest.

IKQ/ZDQNIJUS/--/VUDFT/

DSAQNIAJVIQT/NDXRYAJSQ/

EYAOYAQ/JS/IKQ/YIFYSIJV/

UVQYS/XQ/AQJSNIYIQT?/--/

EYN/OUAQRUNI/JS/QLQABUSQ'N/

RJST. HUKS QJNQSKUEQA

2 correct answers so far.

Good luck.

DB

Beneficial Behavior 7/20/09

True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by.

B. S. Bouton
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Be my guest.
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Every day should be accompanied by benefit and beauty in some form. That may seem like a hard struggle for you if you are suffering. The temptation is to dwell only on the ugly notes if there is nasty work to be done. Life should be one harmonious line. When the unusual becomes the usual and the only things that seems real and true are dead and stinking fish in the barrel, we forget that.

I think it's a matter of looking for, instead of looking at. I'm remembering the story about the freed slave, I believe it was Booker T. Washington, who was ordered by his employer to clean out a shed. After several tries, she still was not satisfied and told him to go back in and continue. When he finally succeeded it occurred to him that it took him so long to do the job because he had never seen a clean shed before. He had been looking at the chaos and not the order. This is another bit of legerdemain we perform on our troubled selves. I have a problem with this one.

I have so many troublesome messes in my life that I honestly am not sure I remember or can imagine what my life would look and feel like if the messes were all cleared up. Then what would I do? Create new ones? Maybe. I hope not.

But today's quote says there's a better way of looking at things, a different way. There are blessings to be had today. They may be already sitting around on your desk, or they may come in the mail or they may be something you have left unthought about. Why not look for and expect some of those things, instead of cherishing the troubles? It isn't a matter of looking on the brighter side of things. It's a matter of looking for brighter things. Sure it's a mood swinger to do that, but it's also a wisdom earner. Looking at only the wrongs, positive or negative, pulls the shade down on the sunlight of the bounty that belongs to you.

I once had a roommate who was a very religious man. He took a job as an unskilled construction worker. This man had a lot of personal problems to solve and he had to work very hard. But whenever he came home his acknowledgement was always a positive one about his day's work. He would say things like "Today the Lord taught me how to install a ceiling."

What are you going to learn today? That's the question.

DB - The Vagabond
___________________________

Come on, I want to see a smile.
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Careful Calculation 11/16/08

Never was good work done without much trouble.

Chinese proverb
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This is a Chinese version of Murphy's Law "If anything can go wrong. it will."

Too many people think expecting the worst and planning for it is dark and pessimistic. My mother was not known for having much wisdom, but one of the wisest things I ever heard was from her when she told me that when I was driving to always expect the other driver was going to do something foolish. That advice has saved me a lot of trouble and maybe even my life. If more people practiced that caution there would be a lot less road rage, I bet.

One of the most important work ever done in the history of the world was the establishment of the United States of America. From standing up to and defying our government, to finally beating them and throwing them out, was ablaze with troubles.

We didn't have the manpower to fight the well trained, well disciplined British Army. The money was not coming from the colonies to pay the troops or supply them properly. The politicians were all arguing with each other over what to do. Some of them wanted to stay in the British Empire. Others were putting their lives on the line to be independent. There were so many times we almost lost; so many times we almost gave up. There was nothing easy about it and no lack of trouble.

George Washington knew what serious trouble was first hand, starving troops, men dying of wounds, or abandoning him. And yet he went ahead and won. If he had lost he would probably have been taken back to London and died a traitor's death, being tortured to death in a public square.

Even after we won some of the conservative colonists wanted to make him king. And that would have put us right back where we started from. Fortunately Washington refused. He was a smart man.

We have our country today because he and others were willing to put up with the trouble and to get the job done. Thank you.



DB - Vagabond Journeys