Rinse and Repeat

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a sense being on a too-familiar path.

I conceived of this religion from a point of desperation, a borderland where hope for humanity and the expectation of happiness seemed in danger of falling behind me, while ahead lay only desolation.

Have you been to this place? Have you seen too clearly the warts and wickedness that people choose to show the world, while joy and decency appear only as far-off heat shimmers in a desert? Having reached and been disappointed by too many mirages, do you now doubt that the desert itself has any end at all?

Well, if you are reading this, then you have proof that things are not so bad as you fear.

I am no mirage. I am real. I care about people -- I care about how the world turns out. If you feel the same way, then we have cause for jubilation. This life is not all carelessness and hurtfulness and callous disregard for others.

You are there, and I am here, and between us, I assure you there are a thousand like us, a legion caught by our own ability to imagine a world much better than this one.

What we must do, you and I, is to stop seeing that imagination as a curse that holds us in a place ever-inferior to our mind’s green landscapes, and see it instead as a gift and a tool.

For without those who can imagine a better world, how can the world ever improve itself?

Let us step off the path that leads into the desert -- because the desert, too, is just a figment of our imaginations.

Stand with me, clear-eyed, in the real world, and remember that all our imaginings have been spurred by true things, by things we have actually seen. Having seen good, we can create better. We must simply have the will to try.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the ability to recognize, to remember -- to rededicate.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Philosophy from a 1914 Pulp 55

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a not-so-literary reference to a book that I have not actually read. Nonetheless, it is a source of wonder to me.

Pellucidar:

The interior world

Vivid ever with its unsetting sun

a realm of eternal day

untameable

wild with life of every imagined sort

and with those too

that have yet to be dreamed

Vastness

gloried and mysterious

shrouded in stone

A sky inside - impossibilities made real

Fear not

Doubt not

Find your way ...

to Pellucidar

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Thank you, goddess of love, for Edgar Rice Burroughs, a man who walked a fascinating path between the real and the fantastic -- perhaps because he understood that what is real is also fantastic.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Lessons

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a bit of the spring taken out of my step.

A few days ago, in another forum, I let myself be egged into saying a mean thing. I knew as I said it that it was a mistake, and yet I somehow bought into the delusion that expressing my frustrations in a mean way would make me feel better. Other people had been saying plenty of mean things, and crazy things as well, and I let myself get dragged into it, trying to show them what was what.

Predictably, the whole thing ended up with me feeling even more frustrated, disgusted, and angry than ever, but with the added benefit of feeling guilty and entirely foolish as well.

I relearn this lesson every once in a while: that it is the particular talent of real evil to suck even well-intentioned people into a vortex of anger until they find themselves infuriated with one another even though there's no good reason for it. It's a stupid thing, once you're in that vortex, to swim deeper into it. But at least in that instance, you have the excuse of already having your judgment clouded.

Far stupider is to stand outside that vortex, see the raging blatherers within it, and then dive in to tell them how ridiculous they're being.

Thank you, goddess of love -- not for the first time and probably not for the last -- for humbling lessons.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

A Touch Across Miles 55

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with the following wish:

Be well, because the world needs you.

Be well

in body

in mind

in heart

in soul.

Be well, because the world deserves you

and you do not deserve its rough handling

its slings

its arrows.

They will strike at you.

But let them touch not

that shining brilliance

glowing

within you.

Be well,

always.

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Thank you, goddess of love, for friends faraway and any chance that I have to help them.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Let Us Raise a Glass

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you from those strange borderlands that lie between happiness and discontent.

It is human and natural to yearn for an improvement in our lot -- to want more of what we have that is good, and less of what troubles us. I've experienced some exceptionally good things this week, and yet I find myself chafing at the fact that these have been irregularities and exceptions, not dependable parts of my everyday existence. I wish for a life that consists more of such high points. I wish for a way to keep them near at hand, accessible upon demand -- comfortable and familiar instead of surprising and rare.

My everyday existence is perfectly fine. It mixes a considerable amount of physical, emotional and financial comfort with only a modest dash of stress and aggravation.

Why, then, does the exceptional moment so make me pine for a more exceptional life?

In part, I suppose, it is because I desire the fulfillment of dreams. I write my novels and dream of publishing them and earning a living at it. I listen to music and watch movies and dream of existing in a constant state of aesthetic satisfaction. A great deal of my life is lived inside my head, and because there are so few limits in there, I find myself constricted whenever I return to the confines of the real world.

But in part, it is also simple greed: a failure to be satisfied with the riches within my grasp.

And what does it really take to overturn that greed? I think that it can be done with just six words, if they are taken and held to and believed.

"Look at all that I have."

It's not merely a question of whether the glass is half-empty or half-full. If you think about it, all glasses are always full. It just happens that sometimes they're partly full of air. And no, you can't drink air -- but you need it to live, and it's all around us.

Do I have a full glass of sweet and blissful nectar? No. But the portion of my glass that holds no nectar is not empty. It overflows with the stuff of the world. It is filled by an atmosphere that I need to live.

Even if people occasionally pollute that air with their smoke.

"Look at all that I have."

Thank you, goddess, for a world and a life that are always full -- and for drinks that may not hold all the volume I would like, but sustain me and bless my tongue with flavor nonetheless.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Strangers in Need

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a story.

Earlier today, I passed a woman crying on a bench in the Denver airport. She had her head in her hands, and for a moment I assumed this was simply another stranded passenger among many, waiting exhaustedly for a delayed flight. Then I heard her sobbing, and I knew better.

An instinct struck me, to ask if she was all right. And then, just as quickly, that instinct capsized beneath a wave of doubt. Would she be angry at the intrusion? Embarrassed? Would I do more harm than good?

I walked on. I checked in at my gate. I pondered my noble impulse and the cowardice that had tripped it up.

I walked partway back.

She still sat there, wiping her eyes now. Had she recovered from her moment of grief? I looked out the windows at planes on the taxiway.

I looked back down the hallway again. Other passengers walked by the woman. One glanced at her with a look that suggested she must still be crying.

I made up my mind to do what I knew I ought to do. I walked over and asked if she was okay. She didn't quite hear, and asked, "What?"

I repeated myself. "Are you okay?"

She nodded and said something quickly, "Yeah" or "Uh-huh," just enough to shield herself from an admission of her pain. Her eyes met mine with an uncertain mixture of confusion and gratitude, as though she couldn't quite understand why a stranger would be expressing concern.

"Good luck, then," I said, "with whatever it is that's bothering you."

She said, "Thank you."

And she meant it -- I knew she really meant it, even though she didn't say anything else.

Sometimes you can tell these things.

I hope she's okay.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the opportunity to help -- even if only in the smallest of ways.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

The World 55

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a quick poem.

You cannot change the world.
It is too big. Its ugliness is too ingrained.
There are over six billion people upon its ancient surface,
each of them flawed, many of them badly so,
especially some of the ones in charge.

You're too small
and too weary.

You cannot change the world ...

alone.

But we can.

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Thank you, goddess of love, for help.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee