Peaceful Acceptance

On another note, I wanted to mention the Buddhist practice of peaceful acceptance.  When you feel angry about something, it's usually because there is something that you perceive as wrong that you can't change.  However, this presupposes something else was suppose to happen in life and that the event that occurred was wrong in some way.  I am not Buddhist, but I think that this has applications for everyone.  I have been trying to remind myself about this concept but am really bad about it.  So, I am going to look for the good in the way this morning went.  Perhaps God will work somehting for the better out of it.  Perhaps I will be a better person for it than I would if my morning went ideally.  Great things occur out of imperfect experiences, not out of a utopian life.  Speaking of which, when I was previously writing about my idea of the perfect morning, I was doing so a little tongue in cheek.  I just finished reading Thomas More's "Utopia" and am reminded that the Greek U Topos can either mean "good place" or "no place". 
In so much philosophy, reasoning and meaning is dependent upon a differential.  In looking at the difference between my ideal morning and the reality, the difference really is that in one I am alone and in the other, I am connected to so many other lives.  There.  Now I can smile and feel grateful.

Lacking Inspiration

Well, here I am.  It is a morning that is decidedly brightening and a part of me feels that as the sun comes up, so my spirits should rise.  However, I am finding that quite the opposite is true.  I believe that in my mind, I have a pleasant idea of how mornings should run and when they are chaotic and frustrating in the first half hour after one gets out of bed, it just imposes the banality of the world upon a psyche that would, indeed, find inspiration in the fresh sunlight flitting upon the dew of morning grass.  In my perfect world, I would rise to the sunshine hitting my eyes through the open window.  I'd shower and dress, applying lotions to keep my body soft and wrinkles at bay.  I would attend to my nails and any necessary hygenic matter.  This would all be done in a sparkling clean bedroom free from dog hair or dirt of any sort.  Classical music would play in the background, maybe Pachelbel.  Hmm...this area needs more thought.  Still, I would go downstairs to either a steaming pot of the finest and most robust coffee, so good that the hair in your nose prickles in delighted anticipation. I'd pour a cup and sit at the table with that and a morning paper.  (Which, of course, would magically appear on the table).  I'd hear the bird's sing and contemplate all that is good with the world.  What really happened this morning was: I woke at 5 something a.m. to the sound of our littlest dog, Diana, barking on the back porch.  That gets our other two dogs, Jake and Bailey, up when they had been perfectly happy sleeping.  I go downstairs with them, after trying unsuccessfully to pretend the repetitive ear hammering obnoxious barking does not exist.  Downstairs Bailey jumps up on a couch with a bone and gives me a look like "I really don't want to go anywhere" while Jake heads to the bathroom to drink water out of the toilet.  I get Jake out of there and drag Bailey off the couch, all to the musical melodies of 9 month old barking puppy, who is still on the back deck.  I try to open the door and can't with both collars in my hands, so I mistakenly let go of Jakes and he makes a beeline back to the toilet.  I again retrieve him from the bathroom, this time making sure the door is solidly shut.  He gets away and runs around the other side of the stairs.  I now notice a very unpleasant odor, but continue on!  I have Bailey in one hand and try to get Diana off the back porch with the other.  It does not go well.  I end up bringing Bailey to the enclosure, checking the food and giving new water while Diana runs around the house like a wild thing.  After trying to catch Diana 4 or 5 times, I finally nab her when she stops for a drink and get her into the enclosure as well. I retrieve Jake from inside the house, where he has waited patiently.  Good Jake!  I deposit him into the penned area and notice Diana has knocked over the extra water bucket I was going to fill.  I go into the enclosure with the same trepidation that Dante exhibits traveling through hell in "The Inferno".  At this point I am clawed and gucked up by Diana, who has taken her few minutes in the pen to become as dirty as possible. I right the water bucket, half-fill it with water and wander back to the house.   Getting an idea of my morning yet?  It gets better.  Because when I get back to the house, I notice that Diana has pooped (a lot) on the back deck and my daughter, who is in charge of giving her dog love, care and attention has not been doing many of the afore-mentioned to any degree of sufficiency.  I take care of the dog poop.  Please note that I am still in my pajamas.  I then go inside to be assaulted by the terrible odor my husband refers to as "dawg poopay".  Yes, that's right.  Diana has done number 1 and number 2 right next to the table.  I clean this up.  I go to shower because now not only am I covered with mud and who knows what else, but I realize I need to take my daughter down to a store to ask for a donation for the cheerleading team.  I go into a messy bathroom (this is what Anjelica was doing while Diana was barking - the noise of the water must have pleasantly masked the incessant barking).  Feeling pleasantly surprised to find a towel on the floor that I can use to step on, I clean the shower a bit and step in.  It's not until afterward that I find Anjelica has used the last towel.  I am, in fact, probably stepping on it.  I will now have to run dripping wet and naked through the house.  Perhaps I should grow my hair longer so at least I can think of Lady Godiva as I do this, since this seems like it is getting to be a common occurrence.   Ok, Lady Godiva sans horse.  I get upstairs, dry off with a towel I have stashed in my closet for such emergencies and give Anjelica a talking to about meeting her responsibilities.  Then I get dressed and look out the window to see the sun rise over the tree tops and realize that I feel completely uninspired in the day.  I think you can see why.

In the Beginning was the Word

   It's a beautiful Saturday morning here in Kennebunk.  Now that Earl has passed through, there are cornflower skies and breezes that smell of the salt sea.  The leaves on the bushes and trees ripple like waves on the ocean.  All the world seems bright and new.  So... I thought this would be a good day to start a blog.  Produced solely for my own satisfaction and to provide me with a sense of order and structure, I thought I would take the time to post my own writings and the things that I found most interesting and beautiful about God, the world and the english language.  Hopefully, this will elucidate the connections between them all and my own psyche.  (I just finished a class on Jung and Fairy Tales which highlights the process of individuation and relation to culture). 

   There is something wonderful about a sense of schedule and structure as a rebellion against what seems to be the chaos of my life.  Since I believe that God is always there waiting for us, I hope this blog gives me time to meditate on the great blessings he has given me and offers a sequeway into a scheduled prayer time.  I think I've always tried to comply with the way other people do things and it hasn't worked.  Somehow meditation for me involves writing - even though the two may seem to be mutually exclusive.  Although I'm attracted to metaphysical understanding, I believe that God has shown me that no matter how much humanity learns or ascribes to understand, we can never know or really, truly ken the world or God's purposes and plans. 

   The title of this blog has multiple meanings: 1) Believing there is a rhyme and reason to our lives and that God is in control of that 2) Knowing I will never understand the rhyme and reason for the great ideations in life: matter, functioning, and spirituality 3) Enjoying how verse can appropriate an experiential ideal in use of both rhyme and reason and 4) providing rhyme and reason in the literal sense, ie. allowing me to post rhymes and think through the everyday of life.  So here's a virtual toast to the best of intentions and auspicious beginnings!