Personal Absolution

I am watching my mother die as I write this post.  I don't say that to seek the solace of you dear reader, but simply because it is true.  Further, because it is the setting in which I have been this past week and in which I have become aware of the fact that to a greater or a lesser degree, we all seek absolution for the wrongs of our past.

Absolution, synonomous with pardon, amnesty, forgiveness, remission, remittal, meaning the forgiveness specifically of one's sins, usually granted by a priest.  Absolution, whether we define it in the clerical sense or not is something that we all crave.

My mother has been cursed with a slow death, and she has been blessed with enough time that she can set right all that is pending with other people.  For other people who sense that they have unresolved matters with my mother (myself having been one of them) this time of her slow passing has presented a window of opportunity to seek absolution with her and to bring everything to a close while she is still alive.

As I have watched my mother slowly spiral towards her final rest, I have made the observation that I want to die differently than her if I can.  I want to go quickly, in the blink of an eye so that my children do not have to help me to the toilet and eventually to help me to my bed and to wash me and care for me.  I want to go from a heart attack while I am climbing a hill, or hiking a mountain trail.  I am afraid that I am doomed by my genetics to live a long life and suffer a slow death.  Of course, we do not have the luxury of both choosing how we go, and dying a natural death.   I am destined to die on the schedule defined for me by the universe or by God, or by what ever power you feel runs your universe, and so I am faced with the need for personal absolution.

Personal absolution; the idea that we can give ourselves the gift of forgiveness when we are truly sorry for our errors and we accept credit for our failures.  Personal...  Because it is a condition that comes upon us simply by our own actions and not by the actions or words or deeds or rites or any other devices of another person or congregation or gathering of people.  Absolution... because once done, we are completely and finally absolved of the emotional burden encumbered unto us by the offense in the first place.  This should not be confused with bearing no responsibility for our actions and the impacts there of.  I speak only of guilt when I speak of personal absolution.

This act of personal absolution; it can be as grand as the repayment of debts; as small as voicing a heart felt and sincere apology for a failure or an offense.  Personal absolution is simply the action taken by a person to be responsible for the errors that they have made, and to the best of their ability to make them as right as possible.

These days I find myself seeking personal absolution at every opportunity.  Because I may not have the luxury of a slow death with lots of time to make things right.  Every day I try to make things right so that there is no more debt, no more regret, no more baggage holding me back.

Personal absolution is a gift that I give myself every day by accepting my errors and doing everything that is within my powers to correct them.

I live in Texas. This is the land of the drive through liquor store; because running in to buy a six pack simply takes too much time. Oh, it’s not that we are as fast paced as down town LA on Laker’s game night, or New York City’s Time’s Square. But we are fairly fast paced here in the Dallas metroplex. I find myself caught up in it all the time. Hurry up!

I love to have coffee in the morning. Of course I am always in a rush. So the Bunn-O-Matic three minute coffee pot that I purchased five years ago seemed a dream come true. At night when I go to bed I would load the pot with water, the basket with coffee, and in the morning, on my way through to let my dogs out for a run I would flip the switch and in a mere three minutes I had steaming hot coffee. Ah… the marvels of modern engineering!

Recently, a friend of mine introduced me to the French coffee press. This is frankly, a technological step… Actually several steps backwards in time. It’s down right slow! But, oh my, is the quality of the coffee superb!

In order to make coffee in a French press you actually have to put water in the kettle and bring it to a boil. (Do you remember kettles? Do you even HAVE one? I didn’t. I had to purchase one. More on that later.)

While the water is boiling, you add fresh coffee grounds to the bottom of the French Press, and then just as the water comes to a perfect rolling boil, you fill the press to the top. Then… you wait. SIX AGONIZINGLY LONG MINUTES you wait, while the coffee steeps in the hot water. Then, finally, about twelve minutes after you started, you can press the coffee grounds from the coffee and FINALLY have a cup of coffee.

Truthfully, I do not know what makes the coffee taste so good. Is it the methodology of the preparation? Is it simply the fact that I have to slow down and wait, anticipating the coffee for bit? I honestly have no idea why it is so good, but I have become a victim of my own culture having gone for the instant gratification of fast everything. It is not lost on me that coffee has slowed me down a little bit.

Of course this post is not about making coffee. It’s about making sure that I don’t cut corners just for the sake of speed. My coffee induced observation is simply this: I have become so focused on lightning fast everything that I have come to accept mediocre as the new good, and just barely acceptable as the new average. But in slowing down, and returning to a process that is time tested, and a little more detail oriented, I am reaping huge rewards. At least when it comes to coffee.

In closing, however, let me, the ultimate technology lover point out that I have not moved into a cabin in the wilderness. I am not posting this from a stone tablet wired to a windmill. I still love technology. I still want all that engineering and technology have to offer. Simply put though, I am reminded to slow down just a bit to make certain that I am not sacrificing quality of experience for expedience.
Oh, the kettle… There is a new electric powered kettle that can boil 1.5 liters of water in about two minutes flat. And THAT is a marvelous advance.

I Am Not Happy With What I Accomplish

I just received a "Quote of the day email" from an old friend of mine who has made it his daily habit to send out a quote each day to what I can only imagine has become a list of thousands of email addresses.

It said:

"Satisfaction does not come with achievement, but with effort."

Mahatma Gandhi

I often quote Gandi.  How did this pearl of wisdom escape my attention prior to today.

How very true this statement rings for me.  I am not happy with the things that I accomplish.  I never have been.  I have climbed three corporate ladders and fallen from the pinnacle each time.  As soon as I stop moving, I start falling.  Professionally, or personally.  I am not satisfied with accomplishment.  It is the effort that it takes to accomplish things that brings me joy.

I prefer the road to the destination.

Trying To Get Lost

"It is not until we are lost that we truly begin to understand ourselves."
Henry David Thoreau

So then the question becomes how exactly am I to become lost to myself?  Think about that one a moment!  Take your car keys and try to loose them.  Try your hardest to loose them.  Concentrate upon this task with all your might.  The harder that you try to loose the keys the more tightly imprinted into your brain is their location, and you fail in trying to loose the keys.

Such is the case in trying to loose oneself I think.  The more that we focus on ourselves the harder it is to loose ourselves and in the process of finding the way back out of the wilderness discover our true identity.  The more that we focus on getting ourselves lost, the more that we are focusing on who and what and where we are at the moment.  The now keeping us completely distracted from the time and place where we have the opportunity to learn what it is that we can be.

For me, I know just fine what I am right now.  It's what I could be that intrigues me.

The Great Paradox Of The Heart

Hearts are like ships.

The ship that is built but remains tied to the dock does not sink, but it also doesn't go anywhere.  That is not the purpose of a ship.

The heart that does not risk does not love and that is not the purpose of the heart.

The analogy holds true.  But there is more to it than that.  If we leave a ship tied to a dock, it does not sink.  But it also falls into disrepair from failure to use it for it's intended purpose.  The ship slowly dies.  Our efforts to protect the ship from harm are in vain.

And so it is with our hearts.  We isolate to protect our hearts from injury.  In the process we are blocked from love, both giving and receiving.  The heart demands to love and to be loved or it dies.  And so we have the great paradox that the only way to insure our hearts remain safe is to actively risk them to the safe keeping of another.

In the end, love wins.  It has to, because the concept of a world in which it is not so is far too horrible to contemplate.

They Don't Understand Life

A kid goes to school and is asked on an assignment what he wants to be when he grows up.  The kid responds "Happy."

The teacher flags the assignment commenting that the kid didn't understand the assignment.

The truth is that the teacher doesn't understand life.

Urabamba Province, Peru, Fall 2009

Along the bank of the Urabamba River, in south eastern Peru is a small town called Aguas Calientes.  It is the town that is at the base of the mountain upon which you find Machu Picchu.  It is a place accessible only by a five hour train ride or a five day walk.  It is where I met these two little girls, playing in the tourist's market.

The tourist market is packed with every kind of trinket that you can imagine that bears the name and image of the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu.  In the Quechua language, Machupicchu means "The Old Mountain"  The city carved there by the ancient ones is truly one of the great marvels of the world.  It is a place that should be on everyone's bucket list.

Working in booth after booth are the descendants of those ancient ones, the local Indios who are now a mostly modern people, but who descend from the great Incan people who ruled that part of the world for hundreds of years prior to the Spaniards conquering everything in the name of the church and destroying cultures and people in the process.

Sorry, this never started out to be an anti-western European polemic...  I will write one of those later.

In the market are all of these booths with all of these women working.  They almost all have children, and the children play in the market.  These two girls were playing and laughing as they splashed dirty water around from that soap pail.  It really struck me, how little it takes to make a person happy.  These girls had clothes on their backs, a loving parent right near by, and they were as happy as could possibly be just splashing dirty water around in a plastic pail. 

I plan to remember this at Christmas this year and try to be just a little less commercial.  Just a little, hoping that in the process I can steer my children towards what brings them real, lasting happiness instead of a short time of pleasure.