Roy’s Sunday Letter for August 4, 2024
** The word Community has been heard often this week. The Paris Olympics have encouraged Community across borders, language, and teams to form International Communities. Toyota ads promote joining the “Toyota Community.” The rapid growth of online global Communities provides everyone, whether urban or rural, a way and place to belong. My heritage and understanding of Community is best formed with people who do not look like me, don’t talk like me, or observe the world like me. A true community holds me, and each other accountable. A true community is a challenge to create, and another challenge to maintain. The choice of a primary individual life or a life lived in the Community and common vales of others gives us energy, vision, and purpose.
- The Fort Worth Star Telegram has announced a reduction in print newspapers to Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. Home delivery will by the US Postal Service. The reduction may provide short time help for the paper to survive…longer term thriving is an unknown. I wonder what my parents would say?
Booker T Washington (1856 – 1915) was an educator, author, orator, the first African American invited to the White House, and founder of Tuskegee University. In a speech of another time Washington said, “Wrong does not become right and evil does not become good just because they are accepted by the majority as true.”
** Michael, my Santa Fe forever friend, and I talked had a good long conversation this week. We talked about feeling over-whelmed by the number and complexity of world events and issues; of being unsure if our lifetime of skills and passion still held the capacity to create change: how to make a difference in the world we know today. We both understood the growing daily reports of meanness in America, but now a meanness with guns and knives. Michael and I reaffirmed the “still here” parts of who we have been, are today, and are still becoming, even in this second stage of life. Does our call match to you and your sense of over-whelm?
- In 1971, a young classroom teacher purchased the book, “The Geranium on the Windowsill Just Died, But Teacher Went Right On.” Beth wanted to be reminded while teaching the lesson plan to always see and be mindful of the kids, of their young lives, and their families. She has continued to be mindful of the geranium on the windowsill during the decades of professional service to others.
Roy, loving that 1971 educator!
Being mindful of the children is a much more difficult task in today’s teaching environment. The emphasis is more on teaching to a test and pushing children beyond their age limitations. The education community is so different than it was in 1971, I so wish we could go back, but that is unrealistic.
Hold tight to thge truths you both know.
And then creative new ways to continue…..Roy
Relevance and impact. Two big words for me! There were times in history where wisdom and lived experience were deeply valued by younger generations. Today the blinding speed of change and hyper (e) connectivity has truly changed that.. the new, the next, the instant has changed that. Has that magnified the routinized “meanness “ and made deep communication so difficult.
My hope is to remain relevant, even if to a smaller circle, by caring and sharing.
You two will always enrich my life. I am filled with gratitude!🙏🙏
Sunday breakfast with couple friends. Debbie had already read the Sunday Letter and Community.
I asked what is still “normal?”
I urged us 4 to hold tight to brought through the decades….and not drift or be pulled away by th e glitter of the new.
Roger, you are rock solid about OK paths, and those not.
You will care and share, as will we. We know no other path. Roy
On thing I love best about your Sunday Letters, Roy, is the community that we, your readers, create week after week. We enjoy catching up and commenting on the stories you and Beth share and we often share bits of our own stories. We learn entrancing things about one another and feel closer together in a world that sometimes seems riven by fear and anger. Be well, each of you, be happy, and especially love and be loved.
Yes, we learn from each other’s stories and shared events.
One good outcome we feel closer, less alone in our small boat in the big ocean of life.
Mike and I had honest real time words.
Just like you and I have had, will have.
Forever friend Marcia (I like keying those words)
Roy
One of the joys of my retirement years in Santa Fe, has been finding a new community of friends who provide the enrichment, energy and prospective to want to remain relevant and have an impact, however small, in this crazy world. Thank you for friendship and opportunity to grow..
“remain relevant and make a difference”are the right outcome goals.
And, we do so together, which is the best way……
roy
Sometimes we just have to be like Mary, the sister of Martha (the organizer) and sit at the feet of Jesus and just absorb what is being said in the moment.
Hugs for the insights you bring to all of your readers, Roy.
You and Harry have settled into your own community and making a difference there.
Yes, sometimes being still and sitting calmy is the right energy flow.
We learn together…….Roy
Roy my friend – we are entering the stage that we used to laugh about in our younger days when we heard the “old” people talking about the fact (in their minds) that “the world was going to hell.” This was so sad to hear when we were young, ambitious and felt like we were going to right the wrong in the world.
Let’s look at it a different way. These elders had fought the good fight, had given all to make a better world for their children, and yet, the same old problems kept breaking through. They were tired, they were exhausted, and they were being placed on a back shelf by a society that only rewarded dynamic beings.
Besides the societal rejection, their bodies were deteriorating, their friends were dying, and they were no longer in control. We too are finding this out with the privilege to live this long, that this is a very uncomfortable situation to be in. A good reason to feel overwhelmed.
Overall, we have to see that our world is making progress. As a nation, we did away with slavey and now are working on discrimination, we have some programs in place so that some help is available to many, and we have a democracy that sometimes gets it right. Our world is made up of many troubling problems and many glorious solutions.
Let us remember that our feeling of being ove4rwhelmed is probably parallel to our personal feeling of losing control
Wisdom from the guy who has lived the life, led the causes, knows both the podium and the back chair.
No surprise here.
We did fight the good fight, for decades.
Both out as individual and also in both small and larger community.
Your thoughtful comments make me, make us all better…..Roy
How I stay hopeful and resist overwhelm, though not always successful:
“Drink water from the spring where horses drink. The horse will never drink bad water. Lay your bed where the cat sleeps. Eat the fruit that has been touched by a worm. Boldly pick the mushroom on which the insects sit. Plant the tree where the mole digs. Build your house where the snake sits to warm itself. Dig your fountain where the birds hide from the heat. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time with the birds – you will reap all of the days’ golden grains. Eat more green – you will have strong legs and a resistant heart, like the beings of the forest. Swim often and you will feel on earth like the fish in the water. Look at the sky as often as possible and your thoughts will become light and clear. Be quiet a lot, speak little – and silence will come in your heart, and your spirit will be calm and full of peace.”
Saint Seraphim of Sarov
Nature is talking to you, are you listening?” I start and end everyday in nature, the nectar of the soul. My love to you and Gratitude.
Tai Kwan Do:
Beautiful!
A new saying for me….and a good one.
We all are in the cycle of how best to respond to the pressures surrounding our safe places.
Your writings keep me in touch with my own reality.
You be special…..let’s continue on…..Roy
Radiate the Love of which you are made. Paradoxically, Love is also the great magnetic attractor of truly enduring community. The community can be as big as you can acclimate to, say a partner, family, city, nation, academic circle, religious flavor, motorcycle group, global, a Universe of galaxies, stars and inhabitants, or perhaps simply you and the Source, the Creator, God, if you need to say it that way. The community is based on acceptance of its members with each other in relation at various levels of depth and meaning.
Particularly, i am deeply interested in the “third” stage of Life, of consciousness. We are conditioned, taught and reinforced about the nature of our material and individual lives, the first stage. Simplistically, this is the part about finding an identity, accumulating stuff or money, friends, perhaps notoriety or fame. To play it safe we learn how not to rock the boat of cause and effect. Joining smaller communities with their intrinsic interests may happen here. The second stage until corporeal death may be a lot more interesting. How to make sense of the overwhelming cacophony of human folly is of great concern to many folks worldwide. It is about realizing equanimity to a greater degree with all creatures great and small, plants, the dirt, atoms, ideas, other smaller communities. It’s becoming a member of a much larger group, being accepted by and accepting other even while recognizing the sacredness of individuality. A pretty special wisdom here. Oops, and then you’re dead, or are you? The Red Road, Mysticism, Buddhism – all paths of purpose and heart, are each a gateway into higher consciousness, the community that knows no bounds, the great mystery.
To morph from stage two to the next level requires one to be accepting of a much Higher Alchemy of being- another name for Love with a capital L Time viewed from a stage two perspective of minutes to billions of years dissolves into the infinite Now. Ram Dass knew it with, “Be Here Now.” The myriad is known simultaneously as one. These are just two of the great paradoxes which become clear among other, more mundane occurrences.
I always like to ask of inquiring beings, “How big is your Now?”
Too much to handle? Simply radiate the Love of which you are eternally made. You’ll rattle a lot of cages along the way.
With Love, enough for Now
Cameron McRostie
Wow….all that took some time to key. Thank you for both words and efforts.
I do not morph we. I am more slow unfolding. Patience required.
I well remember one of the young Amarillo staff talking with me about her excitement over a new learning, life lesson.
After she left fot her next client, I returned to my deak and working the cash flow report to meet payroll.
Thus, we all balance, however rocky the journey.
I will keep writing….and you keep reading and sharing Comments. Roy