Hwangyong Hamnida

I have just met two very sweet young Korean men who might be coming to stay with me for a while.  So shy, but very nice.  I am hoping this works out as I continue my multicultural existence.  Maybe I'll learn to cook Korean dishes?

One God, by Hugh X. Lewis

Millions of stars placed in the skies by one God

Millions of men lift up their eyes to one God
So many children calling to him by many a different name
One Father loving each the same

 

Many the ways all of us pray to one God
Many the paths winding their way to one God
Walk with me brother, there were no strangers after his work was done
For your God and my God are One.   Amen!

When I was a little girl, I used to swing in the rope swing tied to the big oak tree in the back yard, and this was one of my favorite songs.

As my friend Michael would say:  Namasté!

I was just thinking about love, specifically romantic love.  An acquaintance of mine is newly in love and she speaks voluminously about her beloved's every wonderful quality.  Even his defects are seen as charming, nothing at all to be concerned with.   So I think that's how the bonding process starts, the superglue of relationships begins with a willful belief in the wonderfulness of the loved one.  Once strongly bonded together as a couple, hopefully the inevitable disillusions will seem paltry compared to the essential strength of love and gratitude we feel for being in such a partnership.

All that being acknowledged, I was musing about what it is that goes wrong, that lets us drift apart and become bitter.  I think a lot of what we believe about our lovers in the beginning is merely a projection of our wants and needs, so we lovingly twist and pat and force into place all the hoped-for ingredients in our Pygmalion quest for perfection.  I suppose if our lovers prove to be close enough to the template, then this projected image holds.  But all too often, a word, a habit, a behavior that we find unacceptable begins to inform us that our hologram is malfunctioning, that the reality is far from the creature we had hoped to fashion.  

There begins the anger and resentment.  How dare they to have failed us?  How dare they not be who we wanted and needed?  But just now I find myself wondering, how is it that we cannot acknowledge that it is not our lovers who fail us.  What fails us is our projection, our stubborn demand for perfection, our selfishness in failing to appreciate the person before us for the qualities that they have.

I strongly believe that if God chose to put that person in my life, they are there for me to love and learn from, whether they be a lover or a friend, and to the extent that I wilfully deny their true essence as a human being, I shortchange both them and myself.  

Spring has arrived in Elgin...

Do we ever really believe that spring will come again after the barren grays of winter?  But there it is at last, the beautiful fragrant flowers of spring that uplift our souls and remind us of the Resurrection!   Even though the cherry tree seemed dead throughout the long, dark days of winter, yet we had faith that it would come back to life in that miracle of renewal that comes with every spring to thrill our souls anew.