Thought for the Day: I Remember

The look you get from a child should remind you when you tell him, 

"Wait until tomorrow."

Thought for the Day:Illusions

The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.

Alexandr Pushkin - poet, novelist, playwright (1799 - 1837)

Thought for the Day: Persistence

In life as in the dance, grace glides on blistered feet.

Alice Abrams

Thought for the Day: Knowledge

If you don't know, ask, then two people will believe the same thing.

©Herb Ratliff

Why Not Dance?

If we’re kept within a prison

there’s no lock can make us stay.

Lest our hapless, weary posture

simply let’s us waste away.

And if songs are sung around us

in the Winter or the Spring

But our voice is deathly silent

It’s not the fault of quieting.

When the wren darts to the sill plate

of the window we look out

And the song bursts from his small heart

lauding life and love, no doubt.

Dare we not release the handcuffs

which lock us down each day

And find somewhere within us

Something good or kind to say?

Reach out farther, oh my brother,

give your heart and mind a chance

Lift your spirit and your heels

It is your life, so why not dance?

Herb Ratliff, January 4, 2013, All Rights Reserved

Charity, Christmas and an Angel

I got this from a friend that I have known since I was a child. I have no personal proof of it's truth but I find the story full of truth.
Merry Christmas
Herb

I would like to share with you a Christmas story that was shared in a meeting last week in the Training Zone. The story is written by Tamara Stitt and is an account from the diary of her great grandmother. She presented this account at a  Christmas Party in Rexburg, Idaho in December of 1990. The story is true.

"The true meaning of Christmas is charity. And the true meaning of charity is the unconditional love of Christ, which is the unconditional love of our fellowman. My great-grandmother, Beth, left me this story, which has had a tremendous impact on my life. She kept a detailed journal and this entry took place in the year 1900...

Carl, my great-grandfather was a rough, tough old trapper man who homesteaded what's called Burnscreek, Idaho, which is 15 miles above Heise, above Kelly Canyon. He took a team of horses and a sleigh and he built the road that you travel on today. He trapped furs for a living and sent them back east to Boston every fall, and every fall the fur trader in Boston would send him a check for the furs that he had received, until the year 1896, the fur trader had no money. But he was a man of honor so instead of sending him money, he sent him his 17 year old daughter as a mail-order bride and she was to become my great-grandmother. I think the reason she kept such a detailed journal is that's the only way she kept her sanity, as she wrote how badly she hated Burnscreek, Idaho. What a cultural shock it was from Boston, Massachusetts, and how she never could quite forgive her father for doing this to her.

In December 1900, when she made this entry in her journal she was 24 years old and pregnant with her fourth child. She wrote that she had asked Carl to take the remaining furs to the valley and trade them for the things she'd asked for in her Christmas list. She was embarrassed at how much she had wanted that year, for on her list she'd asked for three things: peppermint, chocolate, and a little piece of yard goods to make her only little girl a dress for Christmas.

She wrote that Carl had heartily agreed to take the furs to the valley and to trade them for supplies and for the items on her Christmas list. He told her that he would be home early on Christmas Eve morning and that he would bring with him a tree that he would stop and chop for his children. He left her in fine shape with lots of wood chopped and that the only thing she needed to do every day was to go out to the barn and milk the old cow.

The first day was delightful. They made ornaments for the tree that their father would bring home. They also made Christmas pudding. Late that night a tremendous storm hit the mountain. It snowed and it blowed like nothing she had ever seen before. The storm did not subside until early on Christmas Eve morning. When it finally died down enough that she could hear herself think, the wind was still howling, but she could hear that poor old cow in the barn bellowing to be milked.

She wrote how she tried to get the front door of the cabin open and physically pushed and worked for one hour and ten minutes. She could not get the door open. She knew that something must have frozen on it from the outside. Even though logic told her to stay calm, she panicked and she took the axe from beside the hearth and chopped the hinges off the door to slide the door over. She was faced with a tremendous ice strip that had fallen off the top of the cabin, so she took her axe and shopped a hole through it, big enough that she might step out to the other side. She couldn't believe the devastation that the storm had left, how high the drifts were, and how hard it was still snowing, and how hard the wind was still blowing.

She could hear that poor old cow in the barn bellowing to be milked, what empathy she had for it. She said that she was afraid that she couldn't make it out to the barn herself and back again. So she tied one end of a rope to the doorstop and one to her waist and started out towards the barnyard. She got less than a few yards when she realized that being with child she dare not go any farther because the snow was over waist deep, so she stopped in her tracks and said a silent prayer to her Heavenly Father that Carl would hurry home early that day and that the poor old cow might forgive her.

She spent the rest of the day waiting for Carl in great anticipation...Christmas Eve came and ...went and Carl had not returned home. She was just about to put three cranky children to bed when she heard someone outside the cabin. They all rushed to the door where she slid if off its hinges once again to peer out the little hole of ice.

She anticipated seeing Carl. She wrote how her heart sunk, for there on the other side of her doorstep stood the dirtiest, straggliest old trapper she had ever seen. But to three little children on Christmas Eve, an old man with red long johns, a long white beard, a tree in one hand, and a pack over his back, was a most welcome sight in their home. Those children gleefully explained, "See Mother, Santa did find Burnscreek, Idaho after all!"

She said that he looked at her and must have felt her great anticipation of where her husband was, and felt her hesitation at letting him into her house so he stared her straight in the eye and said, "Beth, don't be afraid. Carl's at Table Rock at Spaulding's trapper cabin with a lame horse." He said, "I was out on snowshoes this night and told him I was going to check my own lines and that I'd stop off and tell you that he was alright, that he'd be home early in the morning and bring you this straggly old tree and this pack that he'd sent from the valley."

So she brought him in the house and fed him stew from her fire. She wrote he helped set up the tree and helped the children decorate it. She judged him to be a man of fine character because he could recite the story of Christ's birth by heart from the Bible. He carried the children to bed and helped her putout her meager Christmas gifts. The old trapper chopped more firewood and milked the cow. he told her he had no family of his own, but  thanked her sincerely for letting him spend such a wonderful Christmas Eve with her family. He asked if it might be all right if he spent the night in the barn and he would leave early in the morning to go on up Black's Canyon to check his traps. She told him only on one condition, that he join them in the morning for Christmas breakfast. He heartily agreed, thanking her once again before retiring to the barn.

She wrote that that was the very first time  she'd had a chance to look inside the old, worn, leather pack that had been sent by Carl. She went to bed a happy woman, for there inside the bag was peppermint, chocolate, and little piece of yard goods. She woke up the next morning to the children's gleeful sounds underneath her tree and it grew late into the morning before she realized that the old trapper had not joined them.

Just as she was going to the barnyard she noticed Carl was coming over the horizon. They all gathered at the front door to welcome their father home in wild anticipation and to tell him, "We have Santa locked in the barn!" Carl looked stern and tired and sent the children into the house. He asked her who was in the barn. She said, "Well, Carl, it was just the old trapper who came last night and brought me the tree and the pack and to tell me that you would be home early this morning."

He said, "I never even made it to the valley. I made it as far as Table Rock when the storm hit, and I went to Spaulding's trapper's cabin and tied my horse to a tree. Another old trapper had tried to water his horse at the river and had fallen through the ice. It took three of us to fish him out, and we could tell he was a goner but we took him into the cabin and rolled him in blankets, and laid him by the fire and stayed with him until early on Christmas Eve when the storm broke. We hesitated and pondered what to do, but all three of us were anxious to get to the valley so that we could return home to our families on Christmas Eve. So we stoked up the fire a little, wrapped him a little tighter, and left him lying in front of the fire.

We saddled up our horses and started down the lane.  I got less than a few hundred yards when a tremendous feeling came over me that I could not leave that old man alone on Christmas Eve to die. I sent the other two trappers on to the valley and I returned to the old boy where I held his head in my lap. Once in a while when he would regain consciousness. I would tell him about you and about my children and how much I loved them and how disappointed you'd be that I never made it to the valley to get the peppermint, the chocolate or the little piece of yard goods that you'd so desperately wanted for Christmas. Early on Christmas Eve night the old boy died in my arms, but it was too late for me to come home so I waited until today."

She said right at this particular moment she couldn't understand what was happening to her as she ran to the barn to show Carl that there was an old boy in the barn. So Carl followed her out, showing her that there was no man in the barn and there were no snowshoe tracks. She stopped, she pondered, and she prayed, and she got a wonderful peaceful feeling as she said to Carl, "I read in the Bible once that when you show charity to a fellow man, Heavenly Father sometimes lets you entertain an angel in your home. (Hebrews 13: 1-2) Carl, I think I had a blessing last night to entertain an angel underneath your roof."

Carl scoffed at her and told her there had been no angel in his home, until she took him by the hand and led him into their home. She showed him the tree and underneath the tree she pulled out an old worn leather saddle bag, and inside showed him a small bit of peppermint, chocolate and a little piece of yard goods.

Sixty years later, in 1960, great-grandmother was at my parents house when she died on Christmas Day. I was just a little girl and my great-grandmother left me her diary, this story, and a little piece of yard goods wrapped in white tissue paper with a note, 'This is never to be used.' It was fabric from an angel and a reminder that true charity and the true love of Christ was to be shown 365 days a year."

Herb Ratliff, December 21. 2012

Nothing but the Truth

I've been trying to remember the earliest event in my life that I can recall in some detail. Most memories of early childhood are more akin to a panel or two from a Sunday Cartoon page. Not because they are funny or a vehicle for satire but because there simply isn’t enough trapped information to give it a beginning, a middle and an end. The other difficult part of such memories is memory.

I have been writing stories about my life for about nine months now. They have not been based on any chronological order just what I remember. In one such story about my father, my sister, Jo Ann told me the information in my story was incorrect. That has to be true because her story didn’t have the same details as mine but as far as I am concerned it’s her story that is wrong. And I know that is true because I have the memories to substantiate it.

So what, exactly, is a memory of a childhood event if not a combination of history, belief and idealization mixed with a little fantasy? The truth is what is in your head. It isn’t as if you are knowingly reorganizing or manufacturing data to misrepresent an historical fact. The story my sister took exception to was as clear to her as my recollection was to me. The big difference in that particular incident was two other sisters who agreed with her memory of the story. I’ve always felt like an outsider, who wouldn’t as the only male among five sisters?

I read an article once that described what happens in memories. What I recall is this: When an incident occurs we almost immediately lose a large percentage of the details of the event. A large percentage of those lost details are gone forever. The parts that are most important remain in our more immediate memory and are retrievable but not necessarily accurate. Then there is the matter of the connecting material.

What happens is the brain realizes the story has to flow. If part of the story is missing the flow is interrupted. The brain doesn’t like interruptions or premature ends to its stories so it fills in the missing information with plausible or preferred flow material. That changes the story but might even make it a better one. We may like that story better than the real one so that becomes the story. See?

You are a human being with a brain that does what it wants sometimes. That does not make you a prevaricator or inaccurate purveyor of historical events. It makes you an extemporaneous historical information creator who smoothes out the potholes of failing memory. It just works better if you can avoid people who were at the same places you were when the events happened.

In no way is it my intention to appear critical of my sister(s), I’m only interested in enlightening my readers with relevant information about these stories I tell. I applaud their interest in the accuracy of my meanderings. I just beg their indulgence and yours when there appears to be a discrepancy in the facts. I would never deceive you dear reader, never.

Herb Ratliff, August 29, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Justine's Part 2

Her smile was relaxed and easy like she was greeting an old friend. She waited for an answer.
I was having a little trouble finding my voice.

She was very attractive and still in that ethereal place between the picture and reality. I'd been going since 5:30 AM and it was now past 9:00PM. I managed to utter something.

Then, she said, "I'm Justine."
And, capturing the situation perfectly she quickly took control and began a commentary about the food, what was fresh, a little about home grown vegetables and then how splendid the weather was and wasn't it a pity the Gazebo was full? It's such a fine place to have dinner.

She was so elegant, so charming and so welcome after the long day I had spent criss-crossing the country. I asked her if she would like a glass of wine.

Her reaction was measured but swift. "Yes", she said, so I stood and held her chair.

She asked if I would mind if she had a bottle of her favorite wine brought out and then began a conversation filled with interest and coincidence of remarkable proportions.

Things like that don't happen very often. As a matter of fact, I can say with considerable certainty that nothing like that will ever happen to me again. You never know when you lift your head from the pillow what the day holds for you, so no matter how it goes for the the first few hours, do not despair. What is waiting for you at the next bend in the road may make it all worth while.

I know that you would like to know a bit more about that evening and frankly, I would enjoy spending a bit more time remembering it, but I've shared all I am willing to. She was as much a lady as she appeared and I was as much a gentleman as I ever hoped to be.

The restaurant was closed a few years ago, 1995, I believe. The name and facility was auctioned off but the ambiance was not for sale. So, while you may be able to find a restaurant named Justine's in Memphis and a few other places, you will not find the one mentioned in this remembrance.

©Herb Ratliff, June 12, 2012, All Rights Reserved

I'm going to......

Thought For The Day

One of the more difficult concepts to integrate into daily life is how important it is to manage your thoughts.

What you believe is not nearly as powerful as what you think. I know, you don't agree with that on the surface but let's take a look at the bottom line. Let's look at what you do and what precedes what you do. Yep, what you think.

Let's take a walk together. As we walk down the street or path or sidewalk lot's of things start rolling past the monitor between our ears. Maybe what happened last night, that could be a good thing or a bad thing and that will influence how you feel and if it's good you may start skipping. OK, you'd have to feel exceptionally good to skip but you get the idea. If you did something bad or hurtful then your steps might be heavy or slow and you might plod along the way.

Whatever mood prevails gets to pick the things you think about. So, if you're happy and skipping you might fancy yourself a ballet dancer, or a decathlete in competition for the Olympic gold metal. You will be focused, alert, positive and you will believe that your actions will be beautiful, winning and inspirational. And, guess what? They will be, in a relative sense.

If you watch Tiger Woods play golf and frankly, this is why so many people do, you can almost see his belief in his skill and his intent. So when he makes the sixty foot put to win the Masters, you find yourself captured in the moment because you believed it too.

This is a dangerous skill. It works no matter what you think.

I know you can't help what you think every moment of every day, we are human. But here is what you can do. You can believe that you own your thoughts and that they answer to you. So if they get out of line, you have a short meeting with them and explain that you prefer looking at the bright side and pulling for the good in life. It doesn't always work, but it does a lot of the time and as I practice I have noted that I don't have to stay in a bad place. I can think my way out of it the same way I thought myself into it.

Finally, look at it this way. You are going to think yourself into the next thing you do. Why not make it a force for good. It is for you

©Herb Ratliff, June 4, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Dew Drop In

Thought For The Day

The air is heavy with moisture,

orb webs beaded with droplets

of dew drape like bejeweled tapestries.

The birds sing with more insistence,

their voices loud in the early morning light,

bright with promise, each singing 

just a bit louder than his neighbor.

And my neighbor because we live next to a pasture,

insists a rooster belongs here with his brood

who crows victoriously and teases the hawk

who lives in the tallest pine across the meadow.

The great red tail lifts his voice to the chorus

It is morning, time to celebrate.

Herb Ratliff, April 17, 2012, All Rights Reserved

New!

Thought For The Day

October 2011 St Joseph, MI

There is no certainty in any day. 

We awake and have plans or not, 

but waking is not a given, 

it's a gift. 

What follows is never routine

even if it's the same thing 

you did yesterday morning 

because, it's new. 

You are new,

life is new,  

possibilities run wild across your path.

Herb Ratliff, April 12, 2012, All Rights Reserved

The Great Ones

George B. Dorr overlooking the land he loved

I've always had a naive side to me in spite of the great desire I have had to be worldly and sophisticated. So it always comes as a surprise when I discover that something I thought I knew is all wrong or a bit like a Disney Movie. The desire to be great lies in all of us. The desire to accomplish great things lies only in a few. The passion, persistence and refusal to accept defeat is in but a handful.

Part of the reason for the sophomoric view of greatness in my case is the requirement that whatever I propose to be great about has to meet certain criterion. Some but not all of the criteria are honesty, the common good, adherence to a Christian ethic. But here is where the difficulty begins. Who that we as a culture list as the great leaders of mankind can claim even those three aforementioned qualities as a basis for their greatness? For that matter, what institution can make such a claim?

I have been lied to by so many for so long that I find it miraculous that I have any faith in truth. I have been sold the idea of the common good by self serving snake oil salesmen in the suits of public servants and the Christian ethic, beautiful as it is in theory is rarely if ever practiced by any of the leaders and but a few of the most sincerely converted. It turns out that in most cases honesty and truth are nothing more than a tool by which the dishonest milk the naive of their hard earned money.

But George B. Dorr is one of the few who truly had a dream and backed it with his own money and the wealth of his well to do friends. That is a story worth knowing.

It begins with his love of Mount Desert Island, the death of Charles Eliot at the age of 38 and Charles' father, Charles W. Eliot reading an article his son had written proposing the formation of a trust to protect the island from being controlled by a few wealthy landholders and made available to the public. The result was Acadia National Park. It started with one man's deep love for a part of the earth and a desire to share it with his fellow man.

So, naive or not. don't give up on your dreams.

Herb Ratliff, January 23, 2011, All Rights Reserved

New Beginnings

I was just under six months old when I began my first new year. My prospects were pretty good. I had parents, a home, food at the ready, comfort was available and hugging was plentiful. I had an experienced sibling that had been around for nearly five years to survey the new digs and help me negotiate the new terrain. I can't give you much in  the way of details but overall my needs were met. Other than the parents being a little slow on feeding and cleaning sometimes, life looked like a pretty good gig.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, Henry A Wallace was vice president, Population was 136,739,353. The National budget was 78.56 billion, Federal debt 142.7 billion, unemployment was 1.9% and it cost three cents to mail a first class letter. You could send a post card for a penny.

None of that meant a thing to me personally but it affected how my family lived. The president froze prices, salaries and wages to prevent inflation. Withholding taxes on wages were introduced. In the world of medicine Selman Waksman discovered streptomycin and coined the word antibiotic and Doctors began to use the pap test to detect cervical cancer. Finally, the Pentagon was completed and became the largest office building in the world.

Our world is different now but the point of all this is to say that the potential for change is not theoretical. For all of us there will be tremendous changes in our lifestyle. For some the change will be minimal because they will not be here long enough to see any substantial changes. For those who stay, the infants, the toddlers, the prepubescent, the teens, and the collegiates, who have the benefit of knowing pretty much everything anyway, the change will be driven by them and so it will be tolerable. But here is the challenge. You personally can create or influence the change. If there is a condition or a crisis that needs to be addressed, you can have an effect on its outcome. Everything that happens in this world starts with an idea or a problem. So, if you are unhappy with the world or love it, you input counts. Adolf Hitler was one person. Steve Jobs was one person. Sam Walton was one person, from Arkansas for crying out loud.

Do not ever sell short what you can do, never. And, don't be afraid to fail. Failure is a part of the process and as sure as your next breath but it is O.K. Check out the number of things Thomas Edison tried to use as filaments for the incandescent light bulb before he came up with an ideal substance. You are as powerful as your dream.

Herb Ratliff, January 2, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Victoria's Secret

 Thought For The Day

Once upon a time there was a chubby, black, white, orange and yellow, striped, caterpillar, named Victoria. Victoria had a very pleasing smile and walked very gracefully for someone who had twenty-eight legs. She climbed in and about the milkweed bushes of her neighborhood every day, careful not to wander too far from home. Although she lived in a beautiful, open field, Victoria was not very happy. She was not happy because all of the other creatures in the garden called her pudgy and said she looked like a neon sign with legs.

Now, it is true that Victoria had a pleasant roundness of features, but that seemed only natural for a caterpillar with such an enormous appetite. She simply felt hungry all the time. No matter what she ate the next leaf she came across looked even more tantalizing than the one she had just finished eating.

So Victoria began to hide from the others in the garden. She would carefully look around to find a place to munch on leaves all by herself, until one day when she began to feel very, very tired. Victoria needed sleep. She began to look around for a quiet spot that would be safe and snug for a nap. Her curiously huge appetite had gone away. She began to feel groggy and disoriented. It became a great problem to figure out which foot she should start with. That had never been a problem before.

 It was early in the morning when she began her hunt for the quiet place and now it was growing dark. She felt like she could not take another step when suddenly, she tripped on a new leaf shoot and would have fallen to the ground but caught herself with her twenty-seventh foot. "Whew !", she gasped, not even being able to imagine what might have happened if she had missed the stalk. Carefully and slowly she worked her twenty-eighth foot into position to hold on to the branch. "Gotcha", she whispered, and fell fast asleep.

She awoke a few hours later with a feeling unlike any she had felt before. A little voice inside her was saying, "Look like a leaf." Victoria was very confused by this little voice. But, she heard it again. "Look like a leaf." Now Victoria was a pretty smart caterpillar, as caterpillars go and she was more than a little put off by this curious little voice telling her to look like a leaf. She felt even more ridiculous when she heard her voice saying, "Why should I look like a leaf?", and her chubby little cheeks began to glow red with embarrassment for talking back to an imaginary voice.

It was just at that moment that a very curious thing indeed happened to Victoria. A lovely silken thread appeared before her that shined with all of the colors of the rainbow through the light of the very full moon. And without knowing why, Victoria began to wrap herself in between the folds of a leaf with this wonderful silken thread until she did indeed look like a leaf.

Things in the garden continued to bloom and grow. Days turned to weeks and  finally one sun-streaked day Victoria woke up. "Oh my, she yawned. "Where am I?" She felt very cramped and crowded in this dark place. So She began to struggle to get out. She wiggled and she wriggled. She bent and stretched. She oohed and she ahhhhed until she saw a tiny splinter of light. That encouraged her to try even harder until she saw the full light of the sun.

 It was so beautiful. The sun, the flowers and the leaves on the trees were full and rich in colors. But Victoria felt wet and weak. She felt like she needed to stretch and stretch and stretch and so she did. It was then that another strange and wonderful thing began to unfold, her wings. She stretched and straightened and stretched and straightened until every part was straight and flat. The cool breeze felt terrific and then she noticed something incredible. Her wings were large and graceful with swirls of orange and black and white. They were beautiful, she was beautiful and she wasn't fat any more she was light and graceful.

Without any warning her foot lost hold on the limb to which she had so carefully attached herself and she began to fall. She began to struggle and in her struggle waved her wings frantically only to find that she could fly. What a happy day. She was beautiful and she could fly. And so, she did, because you see, Victoria had become a Monarch Butterfly.

Her heart was full and she was excited about her new wings and the lightness of being that she felt. She wanted to fly and fly and fly, but that is another story.


Herb Ratliff, December 29, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Up on the Housetop

Up on the Housetop

I went to my grandson’s concert last night; he, Joshua Kingsley’s in the eighth grade. Thirteen, do you remember? Wow. There were several groups of musicians showing off their new skills, sixth, seventh and eighth graders. They did such a good job. I was great fun. The finale was a little horse-play entertainment around the reading of “T’was the Night Before Christmas”.  I’m a big fan of band experiences for kids. It’s one of the finest places for building character, cooperating, showing off, and experiencing the power of being better by joining together with others who share your same point of view.

The music was traditional and predictable except for a very nice version of “Il est ne, Le Divine Enfant”, He is born, the Divine Child. But what I enjoyed most were the traditional songs. One that resonated with me last night was “Up on the Housetop”. I swear I could hear my mother and dad and sisters singing it.  I particularly remember the phrase, “First comes the stocking of Little Nell , Oh, dear Santa, fill it well.” My mother had a sister whose name was Nell and I thought they were talking about her and I wondered how she got to be in a Christmas song. There is a lot of magic in the air this time of year if you are open to it.

There is a lot of difficulty in the world these days, serious difficulty. There is a woeful lack of leadership in this country. There is a staggering focus on filling our own stockings and a lot of anger with the scams and greed that show up day after day. But, there is beauty too. There is charitable giving at record levels and as American as apple pie hope that still gets us from one day to the next.

This is a picture of George and Mary from a stage production of "It's a Wonderful Life". That's my daughter, Dora Watson, who portrayed Mary. Isn't she adorable? No pun intended.

When the days dwindle down to a precious few

and chestnuts roast on and open fire.

When the sleigh of St Nick is covered with dew

and music is sung by a heavenly choir.

When children are nestled all snug in their bed

and fires are doused for Santa's arrival.

When  visions of sugar plums dance in your head

And all disagreement is naught but a trifle.

It must be Christmas, I'll tell you right now,

Let your eyes lift to heaven let joy take a bow.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Be joyful if you can

Happy will be OK

Thankful isn't bad either

If you are still having trouble

Try a little gratitude

To put you in the mood

If you've been misunderstood'

Herb Ratliff, Decmber 13, 2011, All Rights Reserved

The Magic of Believing (Part II)

This behavior, some might call it “expectation”, and what it does, lays the groundwork for later actions. Sooner than later, there is a minor shift created by parents, television and the community at large. (It is that early work with fictional characters: The Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Leprechauns, Gold at the end of the rainbow, The Great Pumpkin and I won’t even say it but, you know who I am thinking of. (The business Anne Rice started with Vampires a few years back and now the Zombie thing has left me speechless on those issues.) It all creates a theater which asks us to withhold judgment, go with the flow and buy into the commerce and creativity associated with holidays. But hold on, there is a lovely side to this world of imagination.

There are things that happen in this world that are often not of it. The stories of these events emerge from real life and imaginary circumstances. My favorite Christmas Story is “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry. It is my favorite because it represents love so unselfish that what is given to one another is the most important material possession each of them have and it is given because each of them can see that and wish to honor it. You’ll have to read it if you want more than that.

The Saginaw News, the local newspaper in my home town, would run a serial story during the season that culminated on Christmas Day. My sister, Jo Ann read it to me before I could read it myself. Sometimes it took her an awfully long time to get around to it but, she read it. Each segment would take you to a cliff of expectation and leave you hanging on it till the next day and then the same thing would happen again. Following the crescendo of expectation the little boy or the little girl would have a magical experience that had seemed out of range before that.

There are many stories that come from believing so sincerely that the event occurs as a manifestation of that belief.  The magic is the believing. Call it faith, trust, or hope, it doesn’t matter. When you are fortunate enough to have a small child to hold in your arms during the Christmas holiday season, do it. Then, as you are holding them sit in a chair and rock and remember your childhood, your children’s childhood and your grandchildren. Now, believe that their lives will be filled with wonder and beauty and work as hard as you can to make it possible. That is the magic of believing.

Herb Ratliff, December 11, 2011, All Rights Reserved

The Magic Of Believing

In many ways life is a lot simpler when you are very young. You know who is in control. You have a pretty clear idea of what they want you to do. You have a strong sense of self and a pressing desire to meet your wants and needs.  The difficulty begins when you come to an impasse built of your needs coming into conflict with your providers belief that they know more about the importance of satisfying those needs than you. Here begins the seed of misrepresentation for self benefit. For example: Crying.

Crying is useful, necessary and conditional. It is communication that works when vocabulary is limited and need is high. There are, of course, a lot of different forms of this emotional display of dissatisfaction. We are familiar with most of them through personal experience. The problem is the action occurs without labeling. There is not a distinct cry for "I'm hungry" or "I'm thirsty" or "Ouch, I hurt myself". What crying elicits in parents is an immediate response, attention and some cuddling, warm milk or both. The satisfaction derived from this activity persuades us that crying is a very useful tool indeed. In a fairly short period of time we find that it is useful for any number of manipulations that result in cuddles and warm milk. O.K., we say, this is worth remembering.

So, crying is great until we are found out and while even being found out does not lessen the overall effectiveness of crying it does grow tiresome and can result in some distressing behavior from the tall people who bring the milk.

As we grow older, begin to wander around the house and participate in activities in our small community we discover the art and magic of believing. This is something that comes from training. We are conditioned to peak out appetites at certain times of the day for convenience and order. When we do that we expect food to magically arrive when the desire for it arises. Television soon finds it's way into the scheme of things and we are presented with a whole new world of desirable things that are made for us which can be delivered to us by the same people who bring the cuddles and milk. And you get them by being adorable or crying or both.

(So here is the problem. I meant to write a short piece on this but I find I am already over the self imposed limit I set for myself so rather that make this too long to conveniently read in one sitting. I'll finish it tomorrow. O.K.?  I hope you aren't disappointed.)  Don't cry!

Herb Ratliff, December 9, 2011, All Rights Reserved