Almost a year between posts?!  Guess I got a bit distracted……my distraction?….happiness.

I have admittedly been a bit overwhelmed with how to approach this site.  I am still not completely sure of what I am doing and as a result this may or may not be making it out to the greater internet universe?  So maybe I am just going to catch up with where I am since christening this site.  This column, will be a free writing session. Fret not….I will get to the headline topic.

As you might recall this site is intended to explore the wider world around me and my relation to it….to challenge myself and that same wider world in the hope of discovering some truth.  The irony of this ongoing exploration may be that I will end up right back where I started?  To that point, I believe that I only really know 2 things:  that change is the only constant and I don’t know, what I don’t know.   Let’s start with change.

The older I get the better I understand the old guys who sit around bitching about how things are and how much “better in our day” things were.  Often followed by “what is wrong” with young people today? Sure some of it is just the insecurity of watching a faster world pass us by; and the feelings of fading relevance that accompany it as it all happens before our unbelieving eyes.  We are older, more experienced…so we know better right?  When do we actually forget how the older generation once viewed us?  Maybe it really just comes down to comfort and security?  In fact, the greatest discomfort…comes from our self-induced and steadfast emotional resistance to change.  Maybe it is as simple as:  expect change…accept what you can…and make do and live with the rest?  I, therefore, end up where I started….

I don’ know, what I don’t know?  There is a peace in making and acceptaning that thought.  Take me….for years I resented God…never denied or questioned God’s existence, just resented him…questioned him on why innocent children like my sister and I had to endure such painful and damaging childhoods?  What had I done to deserve it?  I had my epiphany during the separation of my first marriage.   My anger, my resentments were almost exclusively predicated on my asking the wrong questions based on a me-focused view of the world?  God didn’t do this to me or set my fate….after all, we do have free will?  Was it the choices of my damaged mother and my deadbeat absentee father?!   Still, I came to realize that blaming them did not ease the pain?   It was at this time that I forgave God, then I forgave my parents, and eventually, I learned that I would need to learn how to forgive myself.  As I learned more about my parents’ lives (which were much worse than my own) I realized that they did not know what they did not know…too?!  Moreover, it was apparent that they never learned what I just had?!  At such a moment all we have left to do is to forgive.  Sure, forgetting is a lifelong struggle but the grace of forgiveness enables us to learn from those things we are unable to forget and eventually arrive at mercy….and empathy.   Then we are on the path of goodness and true happiness.

What does all of this mean?  I have come to know that as long as we are learning we are growing.  Growth is the journey toward self-enlightenment, peace, and happiness.  Although it is true that we may never know all that we hope to know, it is the hope that comes with each day and with the new opportunities to learn that gives life purpose and meaning.  Rest assured, change will happen and not all of it is good.  Yet, if we find a way to accept that we ourselves are and can be the change then it seems logical not to fear or resent it.   And how did I do this?…By accepting and embracing each and every day the peace and hope of understanding all of this…..of understanding, accepting, and embracing that “I do not know, what I do not know”.

Peace, Understanding, Mercy and love to you….until next time.