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Friday, April 04, 2008

Monday, January 21, 2008

  • Commemoration of the Birth of Martin Luther King Jr.

    As we commemorate the birth of an extraordinary man of hope and vision, Martin Luther King Jr., I ask myself how far have we come, really? Afterall 2008 could be the year that an African-American or a woman is elected to our nation's highest office.
    mjk  

    But then I spent yesterday in Indiana's heartland and overheard the following conversation: "I like that Huckabee. You know his wife doesn't wear a lot of make-up. She's kind of a plain Jane. And he seems pretty down to earth too." Now there's a well informed citizen with a solid grasp of the real issues we face.
    huckabee

    And then there was this observation: "You're not ever going to see me vote for a black. Mark my word if he were to get elected, watch out for Oprah. He and Oprah have a thing going on. They're an item."
    obama and oprah

    And, finally, there was this observation about the Governor of the State of Michigan:  "I can't see why people voted for her with all those warts all over her face."
    granholm

    How far have we come? Not very. No wonder we've seen such polarization and division the past couple of decades. No wonder we can't get past the gridlock and begin to tackle the very real problems and issues that we face. Perhaps we need to recoin "Home of the brave" to better reflect what America really is: "Home of the gullible."



Wednesday, January 16, 2008

  • Talking to Myself

    Although this may sound a bit strange, 2007 helped me to rediscover the value of conversing with myself, something I intend to renew in my life using good old-fashioned xanga.  My life became an unexpected and unwanted out of control ride down the white water rapids of futility. There is no such thing as "done" or "mission accomplished" in my work. Every day it automatically resets itself to "behind" mode. Piling on of additional responsibilities last year made my job a difficult burden, a consuming exercise in mental gymnastics that left me so exhausted and spent by day's end that there was literally nothing left. No imagination. No creativity. Emotional numbness. Void.

    When you don't talk to yourself, you soon lose touch with who you are and what you're all about. I realized that is what had happened to me while watching the newly released Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson movie, "The Bucket List." Overlooking the great pyramids Carter tells Eddie Cole that the Egyptians believed whether you made it to heaven or not depended on how you answered two questions: "Have you found joy in your life?" and "Has your life brought joy to others?" Good grief! Joy? That is something I haven't experienced in a long time. And bringing joy to others? Certainly not to those for whom I feel responsible being a catalyst for joy. What a wake-up call!

    Part of talking to myself is selecting a topic that I have feelings about and choosing the right combination of words to express those feelings. Another part of conversing with myself is to read what others with whom interests and tags have identified as our being on a common journey have to say about what impassions them. In the exchange we mysteriously and wondrously connect with each other and with our self.

    Yet looking back I realize there were times when xanga itself became consuming. Without access to a high speed internet connection, hugh chunks of time can be eaten up waiting for pages to download. So how do I find refuge from burdensome work through the potentially burdensome xanga? By respecting boundaries. I certainly can't see myself reading every word of every page of the New York Times, so why would I paint myself into a corner with the expectation that I read and comment on what everyone on xanga has to say on a given day? There may be days when I only connect with the ideas of one or two other xanga bloggers or perhaps I may not connect with anyone at all. That will be okay.

    So, xanga, gentlefootprint is back looking to rediscover joy! 

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Monday, December 24, 2007

  • Christmas 2008

    I can't believe it's been so long since I was last here...
    To anyone still out there who hasn't switched to myspace or facebook or moved on to something else...

    Christmas...

    When the answer to our deepest hope and longing is found in the most unexpected of places...
    When following the star isn't about personal gain and fulfillment, but about giving and thanking...

    Peace and Love to you all...
    ~gentlefootprint

thejourneyhomeward

  • Visit thejourneyhomeward's Xanga Site
    • Name: gentlefootprint
    • Gender: Male
    • Member Since: 7/29/2006

About Me

  • You could say I've spent my entire 56 years trying to figure out what this riddle called life is all about. It seems the pieces to this puzzle - good and evil, purpose and meaninglessness, contentment and restlessness, opportunity and hardship, joy and suffering, self and humanity, life and death, eternal and mortal, Creator and created - simply do not (or cannot) fit together. At this point in the journey I've come to appreciate that the answers I've sought - at times desparately - were never "out there," but were instead within me all along just waiting to be discovered. The spiritually enlightened commonly tell us they offer nothing we do not already possess. How true. How very true.

Pulse

thejourneyhomeward has no pulse!...