Tag Archives: climate change

Brighten

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Brighten: (v) make or become more light.

The passing years have taught me to sniff out potentially awkward situations and therefore be able to avoid them.Dictionary B

It is a blessing in a station of life that is usually cursed with wrinkles, balding and intolerance for jalapenos.

But no matter how hard you try to scrounge out all the possible weird moments, something always slips through.

Maybe you’ll end up in the middle of an obtuse conversation about God, politics or climate change.

Sometimes you get stuck with a family member who normally is given kitchen duty so no one needs to talk to him or her.

Or all the preparations you made for a journey are mocked by your vehicle, which decides to have a mid-warranty crisis.

You’re trapped.

It is in those junctures that we discover the depth of our intelligence, the breadth of our faith and the circumference of our willingness.

If we could just make a covenant with one another to take all of these “itchy encounters” and decide to brighten them up with humor, passion and concern, the human race would not have to run so fast and could stop for water breaks.

When I was a child there was a song that was often performed on what my mother referred to as “the hillbilly shows.” (These were local broadcasts which offered Country Western music from people donned in bangles, sparkles, ruffles and various incarnations of cow hide.) Even though my mother made fun of them, she occasionally watched them, and one of the songs that stuck with me had a closing lyric which has always rattled around in my soul:

“Brighten the corner where you are.”

We all get cornered.

We can act like frantic bugs, fearing we’re on our last multiple legs–or we can try to turn that corner into some sort of miracle that we’ve been dreaming of for years–and pretend it is the best thing that ever happened.

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Ancillary

dictionary with letter A

Ancillary: (adj) providing necessary support to primary activities or operation of an organization, institution or system.

It’s a two-step process. At least, I think so.

This thing we call life–or the pursuit of it–affords a dual purpose:

  1. Find out what’s really important.
  2. Get behind the importance.

I’m tempted, like the next guy or lady, to be distracted by temporary terrors and fleeting fads. Matter of fact, I suppose to some degree there’s a certain amount of excitement in chasing your own tail.

But in the long run, or even in the short run, the most fulfilling way to live a human life is to be supportive of important things.

They are few. Isn’t that good? If there were too many important things, we could quickly become overwhelmed.

I remember when my mother-in-law died, her attorney explained that it would be our responsibility to make sure that final expenses and bills were paid. So feeling the need to come across as officious, I asked him to send us these expenditures quickly.

He laughed and said, “There’s really no hurry. After all, your mother-in-law’s not worried about her credit rating.”

Absolutely.

So even though money, status, clothing, food, family, houses, cars and possessions are always jockeying for our full focus, they really are not important.

They are needed–just not the kind of ideas and goals that should encompass our thinking.

So it really boils down to two things. Well, actually three:

  • God
  • Me
  • People.

And I am warned in the Good Book that I should take care of “me” first. Otherwise, I will be constantly nervous about covering my own behind.

And then, miraculously, God and people sort of merge into one project. Because truthfully, whatever I feel about people and how I treat them is the same thing I feel about God.

The Golden Rule is the most sensible concept ever devised. It tells me to find out what I want, then to assume that others also have wants and needs–and to be equally as sensitive to theirs as I am to mine.

It is the only way to be ancillary to the needs of our planet. After all, whether global warming or climate change is exaggerated or not, it certainly won’t hurt me to address kindness in the direction of God’s creation.

Whether there is crime in the world and immorality is insignificant to me finding my peace of mind and spreading that as a gift to others.

I will tell you as a friend, if you continue to chase the whim of our society, you will end up ignoring what is truly important, and therefore pass your time with trivial details, never being supportive of greatness.

Find out what’s important, and then suddenly everything you do … gains importance.

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