Jonathots Daily Blog
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Canvassing, Part 1
(tap the picture to see the video)
art by smarrttie pants
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1 Thing You Can Do This Week to Relieve Depression
Place Your Problems in Perspective
If you don’t do this, your daily difficulties will line up, each insisting it is more important than the other. Pretty soon, all you’ll be able to hear are your problems screaming for attention.
I like to use the number system, starting with 5 and going down to 1. Let me show you:
5 is a situation that requires immediate attention.
4 is one that can be set aside for the afternoon.
3 can wait until tomorrow
2 is in no big rush—seems to be no hurry
1 is one of those bugaboos that might just work itself out without your interference
If you don’t assign numbers to your trials, they will all start seeming to be “1’s,” until suddenly you fear them as “5’s.”
Each day has just enough time to handle the necessary aggravation.
There you go—that’s it.
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Iz and Pal (Bedouin Buddies)
Jonathots Daily Blog
(4043)
Sitting Nineteen
Karin was perturbed at herself—“perturbed” being the most civilized word she could come up with after rejecting some more colorful choices.
It seemed she had totally lost perspective. No, that diagnosis was much too clinical. She had just downright screwed up. Plainly, she had let sentiment take over her better judgment.
There was nothing wrong with being sentimental—as long as the work you set out to do gets done, the children are safe in their beds, the fire is lit and all the cows are in the barn. (She had no idea whatsoever why she had chosen such a rural metaphor. She was trying to be completely practical, and nothing seemed more “earthy” than a farm.)
After all the excruciating activity of the day, it turned out that she had not improved the situation whatsoever. Arrogantly, she had tried to solve all the world’s problems. She was aware that this was not her job—her actual job was two-fold: to keep from being a problem to the planet and try to keep all the crazies around her from doing outrageous things.
She considered—if each person with a lick of sense would just try to stay out of trouble and take a few moments to care for friends who couldn’t make things work, well, to quote the old song, “what a lovely world this would be.”
But she had not helped two boys stop their insanity. She had made it worse. After all, before she came on the scene, they were two young dudes out in the desert, chomping on food and giggling. Sure, they had a hand grenade—but they didn’t know how to use it. No, she was the one who provided that information to them. She brought the soldier. She caused the conflict. And she got those two friends spitting mad at each other.
Karin realized that she could work a lifetime and not tally such a disaster again. Yet she had done it in a single afternoon—not to mention losing the respect of her editor.
What perturbed her most of all was that she could not figure out why she had acted so “girlie.” She had been trained better and had certainly learned better. Frankly, she had never bought into the lingo of the day, which claimed that men and women were hopelessly non-communicating misanthropes. If men were from Mars and women were from Venus, why couldn’t they just build spaceships and travel to this good ole’ Earth and live together as humans?
The whole thing was rather ridiculous. But—and a very important “but” it was—she needed to do something. Her soul and conscience refused to stay out of the affair. It was frightening, considering this was how she got into trouble in the first place. Yet Karin Koulyea had a heart to be part of the solution instead of remaining a jagged edge of the problem.
So she pondered—a rather exhausting task after completing such introspection.
Then she remembered what the editor said. He was going to make some calls. Well, she knew how to use a phone. And God knows she would be safer in her apartment contacting people instead of in the desert, threatening to blow up little boys.
She opened up a book she had never used before:
The local Yellow Pages.
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1 Thing You Can Do This Week
1 Thing You Can Do This Week …
To Be Happy
There is no such thing as the whole enchilada. Enchiladas arrive in parts and need to be put together.
Most of our joy is taken away from us when our contentment is disrupted because we have not prepared ourselves for how things are actually going to roll out.
Once we realize that provision will be made in stages, we can teach ourselves to be excited about the arrival of each portion.
It’s a very simple statement to remember:
MAKE PEACE WITH YOUR PIECES.
Nobody ever nervously achieves success.
Nobody ever maintains a smile while fidgeting about whether a missing detail is delayed.
Find your peace in your pieces.
What do I actually have in front of me?
What can I start to do with what I have?
And how can I slow down the process and be thrilled with my pieces?
Happiness is when we really believe that we have enough–and if for some reason we don’t, that all things do have the ability to work together–as long as we maintain our perspective.
So take this week and work on this one thing:
I will have peace with my pieces.
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Good News and Better News … February 26th, 2018
Jonathots Daily Blog
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I dig faith.
It’s what I claim to believe. My belief, though, is constantly challenged by problems and fatigue. Truthfully, faith does not sustain me. Rather, it is there to energize my hope. It causes me to reach for more.
I live off perspective. I do not see faith. Perspective is what I do see, and how I process it.
It begins with tinglings and inklings in my being, whenever I hear the word “Earth.”
What is the Earth to me? Is it an accident? Is it a punishment? How about a planet that is damned?
The Garden of Eden–a hopeless experiment? An orb floating through space, in rebellion to the Force, waiting to be disintegrated if it doesn’t comply?
My perspective of Earth is also my passion for life. If I think that I’m stumbling–trembling my way through 70-plus years of sorrow, to finally be rewarded with a heavenly utopia, then I will claim to be a person of faith, while acting like a miserable son-of-a-bitch.
On the other hand, if I try to make the Earth the center of the Universe, the Great Mama to be worshipped and honored, I will soon become angry with all the Homo sapiens who infest my surroundings as they gradually destroy our Mother.
Now, this could make me nasty.
People often wonder why there is so much belligerence on Earth–why folks seem so cranked and ready to fight.
It’s because their faith is greater than their perspective.
It’s an easy thing to believe in God. It’s not so easy to find God in what surrounds us. To achieve this, we must gain the correct perspective:
- We must realize that the Natural Order is geared to rain on the just and the unjust without apology.
- We must understand that whatever we sow we will certainly reap, even if we just came back from a seminar on grace, informing us that we are free from responsibility for our actions.
What is your perspective?
To be a Jesonian person is to understand the heart of Jesus. Jesus was thoroughly committed to the notion that the Father’s will could be done on Earth as it is in heaven. He put it right in the middle of his favorite prayer.
If the Earth is cursed, then aren’t the inhabitants equally doomed?
Will there be only 144,000 people salvaged?
Is everything meaningless?
Are we just here to confirm our salvation, awaiting the gates of heaven?
The good news is, I have faith. It bolsters my hope.
The better news is, my perspective tells me to value this planet, with the understanding that my passion for my life and work here will be infused into Eternity.
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Jesonian… April 8th, 2017
Jonathots Daily Blog
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The Disagreeable Disciple
Disciple: I love you, my Lord.
Master: Well, thank you. So let’s get to work.
Disciple: I’m all ears.
Master: Love your neighbor as yourself.
Disciple: I pick up that the key word there is “neighbor,” which connotes they’re neighborly. If you mean being kind to neighborly people, then I get it.
Master: Your neighbor is everybody.
Disciple: I understand your heart, but that seems a little unrealistic.
Master: Judge not lest you be judged.
Disciple: I hear you. Gossip is a horrible thing. But there are things that need to be spoken against. Things that you, yourself, certainly don’t condone. So I believe there’s a difference between speaking up against evil and judging people.
Master: What if I told you that I don’t make that distinction?
Disciple: Interesting.
Master: When you pray, enter your closet, and when you shut the door, pray to your Father in secret.
Disciple: At our latest prayer seminar, we were discussing the power of thousands and thousands of people praying together over a common theme. Sometimes my personal prayers seem so anemic–lonely, if you will.
Master: And the Father who sees in secret shall reward you openly.
Disciple: Once again, interesting.
Master: In the Kingdom of God there is neither male nor female.
Disciple: Yet you want is to keep our social roles, am I correct? Women as mothers, men as fathers. Also good to study the different personality traits and emotional leanings. Is this true?
Master: Kingdom of God. Neither male nor female.
Disciple: Much to think about.
Master: And whenever you’ve done it unto the least of these, you’ve done it unto me.
Disciple: Now I know we’re on page! We have a food pantry at the church and we take care of hungry kids in after-school programs. We’re tracking this one down.
Master: By least, I don’t mean social order or poverty. I mean the ones you personally consider the least among humanity. The prisoners, the terminally ill, the outcasts, the individuals who don’t necessarily conform to your moral code.
Disciple: Sounds like you’re suggesting we condone sin.
Master: No, I’m telling you that you’ll be judged by how you treat the people you have deemed to be least.
Disciple: Wow, you’re sure giving me a lot to ponder. But you have to be pleased when you see your people gather to worship you every week in church.
Master: In vain do they worship me, because they teach their traditions as if they are commandments of God instead of mere preferences of this generation.
Disciple: But you do like praise and worship?
Master: Worship should be in spirit and truth–a mingling of our hopes with the impact of reality.
Disciple: You know, I haven’t thought about these things from this perspective for a long time.
Master: I’ve never thought about them from any other perspective.
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Dear Man/Dear Woman: A Noteworthy Conversation … January 30th, 2016
Jonathots Daily Blog
(2829)
Dear Woman: A couple of days ago I read an article in a magazine…
Dear Man: You’re just trying to impress me with the fact that you can read.
Dear Woman: Actually, I’m trying to impress you with the fact that I read something and retained enough to have a discussion. Anyway, in this article it said that men and women should appreciate their differences because it grants each of them a “unique perspective.”
Dear Man: A unique perspective?
Dear Woman: Yeah, that’s what I geared in on too. What does that mean?
Dear Man: That means I have a way of looking at things that’s different from you, and you would garner great insight by listening to my feelings on the issue.
Dear Woman: Do you think that’s true?
Dear Man: I was taught it was true. Matter of fact, I grew up believing that relationships were 50-50. Somewhere along the line, that got pooh-poohed, and now we believe that it’s gotta be 100% and 100%. It’s the me plus me equals us.
Dear Woman: We don’t believe that. It’s a war with an unsettling truce. Men pretend that women are smarter while still retaining the power.
Dear Man: Well, how do they do that?
Dear Woman: By telling you that you have a “unique perspective” which they value hearing and enjoy ignoring.
Dear Man: So what you’re saying is that telling someone they have a unique perspective is not a positive?
Dear Woman: Absolutely not. It’s never positive. Saying that someone has a unique perspective is only two argument points away from the classic, “We’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
Dear Man: So you believe that’s why we have so many stalemates in discussions between men and women?
Dear Woman: Yes. Every idea has a genesis and an exodus.
Dear Man: Explain.
Dear Woman: That wasn’t very clear, was it? What I’m saying is that the word “unique” is a genesis, but as the word “unique” goes through the human experience, it changes to other words. And by the time it evolves, our emotions interpret it in a much different way.
Dear Man: So you’re saying that “unique” doesn’t really mean “unique” to us?
Dear Woman: Exactly. “Unique” is translated in our brain as “different.” And different is not something we enjoy. It’s something we tolerate. And we always tell people they need more tolerance.
Dear Man: So how do you build a relationship on tolerance?
Dear Woman: You can’t. You kind of end up faking it.
Dear Man: So let me try my hand at it. After “unique” becomes “different” in our heads, “different” can quickly become “alien.” In other words, people from Mexico have different customs than we do, so therefore we view them as aliens.
Dear Woman: Very well said. And of course, once something is alien, we stick it in Outer Space. It’s not really allowed past our borders, is it?
Dear Man: So if I convince myself that your feelings are unique and therefore different, which makes them alien, it’s very easy for me to turn a deaf ear and view them as intrusive.
Dear Woman: Yeah. I’m an intruder on your girl power.
Dear Man: And I’m an intruder on your macho.
Dear Woman: So we end up tolerating each other to get what we want.
Dear Man: And when we don’t want it so much any more, we decide to get rid of the intruder.
Dear Woman: So as long as we look at each other as unique, instead of finding common ground, we will focus on the differences, become alien to one another and eventually, in a bit of disgust, consider each other intrusive.
Dear Man: It’s kind of funny. Because if either one of us found ourselves stuck in the jungle, we would quickly learn to adapt–find our inner monkey–instead of insisting that the monkeys have a “unique perspective.”
Dear Woman: You should never consider yourself a monkey.
Dear Man: You know what I’m saying. To survive, we find commonality. To fail, we focus on differences. That’s just life.
Dear Woman: Except when it comes to men and women, right? Then we think we’re so damn clever by highlighting the uniqueness.
Dear Man: So you don’t think I have any uniqueness?
Dear Woman: Yes, I do. But it has nothing to do with you being a woman. It has to do with your experience. Your faith. Your charity. Your hope. Your sense of humor. That’s what makes you fresh to me.
Dear Man: So how did it get all screwed up?
Dear Woman: I guess the way it always gets screwed up. One night, one member of the sexes didn’t want to listen to the other one, so he or she decided that the other gender was unique, and therefore incomprehensible.
Dear Man: So I am going to give you a blessing. You are not unique. You are not different. You are not alien to me. And you are not an intruder. It’s my job to figure out how the culture screwed us up … and how we can get back to the Garden.
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