What Zeb said

I was wondering how to offer thanks to a fellow blogger who has appeared in my netconsciousness recently. Someone who speaks a similar life language as I. How do we find each other like this? How do kindred spirits end up connected in a universe of countless constellations, stars, and planets? Wait, I don't need to know. I'm grateful it happens. That's enough.

So this fellow writes a response to my last post in an artful, poetic way about how we all suffer in similar ways. I am not the only one with this experience. I got lost in his words. I wasn't sure how to respond, how to offer my two bits to the conversation chain. I'm not a smile and be happy kind of comment leaver. Then Zebulon Walton came to the rescue. (How did it happen that the episode I watched tonight was so appropriate to the topic at hand?! And how about fiction as a source for answers about ALL important things in life?!!!)

Old Zeb said, "We can think our way into anything." Simple as that. He had seen a falling star and believed that this was portending his death. His father died after seeing a falling star, why would it be any different for him? So a healthy man took to his bed and bemoaned his quickly approaching passing. He wouldn't eat. He wouldn't get out of bed. He clutched his bible and waited for what he knew would happen. It was just a matter of time. But he did not meet his maker in this the first season of The Walton's. No, something happened that made him forget all about the falling star. His lifeblood flowed back into him as if someone had unkinked his garden hose of chi and he got out of bed. There was more living to do.

Zeb had it right. We can think our way into or out of anything. We all get stuck from time to time. Some stay stuck and spiral down deep into the mud. Some don't even know they are stuck, blissfully unaware of the rooster tail of mud they are spraying on the rest of us. And others have the spiritual traction of the Dalai Lama. They motor their way out of the mire, lovely lotus blossoms rising towards the sky. Very few people do this alone. Thinking is the problem, but what the heck, we are thinking creatures. We just have to work with it. Perhaps thinking is also the solution. Or at least an awareness of our thinking. Like DBS, I believe we all have the potential to lift ourselves from our self-induced pain and find some real peace. But let's not do it alone!

If you have a hankering for some 39-year old TV, here's the good part of the episode I watched tonight ... by chance.

Speaking of the Waltons, I love the idea of "the recipe." The Baldwin sisters are society bootleggers. They are unaware of this sinful implication and see their home-based business as a way to produce a lovely cordial to share with friends and neighbors. A way to contribute to the joy of life. That's my kind of whiskey!



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