DeeEl's Mo Chroí Scríofa

Eggs-actly!!

I have been going through a financially difficult time lately.  This is due in part to a medical condition and in part the recession.  Last week a friend I used to work with came by to take a letter to mail for me as I was having a bad day physically and couldn’t get out.  When he came he brought me some tomatoes and eggs from his father’s farm.  He commented that the eggs were colorful.  I kind of chuckled and mentioned that they were all still eggs.  I couldn’t get this thought out of my head.   Seems when I am feeling my worst, my tornadoes really start to twist and turn the words around in my head.  I thought about how some folks say that brown eggs are the best and others aver it is the white eggs you should choose.  I have never tasted a difference in either.  After I was feeling better, I took the carton of eggs from the refrigerator and just looked at them.  There they sat, ten eggs of various shades of white and brown.  there was even one that was a kind of rusty color.  It was almost as if the hens which laid the eggs wanted to celebrate the Christian holiday of Easter.

My thoughts weren’t just about the eggs as eggs.  I kept thinking how I said that eggs were all the same no matter the color.  This is like people.  No matter the color of your skin, eyes and hair, every human being is the same.  I recall the old movie Tammy And The Bachelor.  During the course of the movie, the uneducated swamp girl, Tammy makes a startling statement about war.  In essence she said that if people would remember that under all the armor and clothing there is nothing but flesh and blood, perhaps there would be few wars.  Oh, the innocence.

Those who have followed my blog for any length of time have already figured where I am going.  My favorite topic to write about in here – PEACE.  Just like those eggs in my refrigerator, people are the same.  We may look different on the outside, but inside we are flesh, blood and bones.  The shell may be different sizes or colors or perhaps shapes slightly off; but inside there is a yolk and the whites.

When we focus on the differences we have there is strife and war.  It will only be when we focus on what we have in common (i.e.: being human beings for one) that we can truly accept others and bring about peace in the world.  Greet people without noticing what is on the outside.  Nearly three years ago, to escape the illness that has invaded my body, I entered Second Life (I have a blog just about that and have mentioned it before).  I began getting to know people where all I could see of them was their avatar representative.  After a while I was getting to know them not as their Second Life persona, but who they are in the real world.  It hit me one day that had I been walking down the road in the real world and passed most of these people, at the most I would have just given them a glance, but we would never have become friends.  I used to think I was not a prejudice kind of person, that I was very accepting.  I learned how wrong I was.  I can now boast that I have friends from all walks of life, skin colors, religions, races, nationalities, etc.  I got to know them as people keeping in mind that there was a human being on the other side of the computer, not just a bunch of pixels.

To the rest of the world I offer this advice – Put your blinders on and meet some eggs.

We ARE At War!!!

A year ago I came to learn of a song.  It isn’t a new song by any means.  The song “War Is Over” was written by John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, in 1971.  With the US in the midst of the Vietnam War, John Lennon was very vocal in his anti-war beliefs.  At a time of war it is usually construed that Anti-war is the same as Pro-peace.  Pro-peace is so much, much more than just being against war and violence.  Some say that true peace can only come from Yeshua.  Others believe good Karma and meditation are the path to real peace.  All of this is good and so many other things as well.

I came to know this Lennon song after losing my hearing.  I knew I liked the music but didn’t know what the words were saying.  I did know it was played in the course of a Christmas segment of some sort.  I had a conversation with a friend who loves music and is a wonderful DJ in Second Life™.  I told him some of the words and finally he said it sounded like I was talking about John Lennon’s Happy Xmas.  I promptly went to Google and found myself listening to the song streaming on YouTube with the lyrics showing on the screen.  I listened and read for about 3 hours.  Yes, the same song for three short hours.  I cried so hard as my heart listened to the words as I read them.

War Is Over speaks of reaching out to others; other races, cultures, ages.  As humans we pride ourselves in 20/20 vision.  Perhaps if the entire world population were blind and deaf we would stand a better chance for peace.  We learn to disapprove and even hate those who are different from us.  We are so intent on revising and editing each other to chisel out a world-wide society that is identical to us.  We are alike.  Every human-being all over the world.  We all have bones and blood beneath the skin and hair that holds us together.  We all have hearts that beat and pump the blood through our veins.  We breath air into our lungs.

Where we differ is in our appearances, our beliefs, the way we think.  Yes, some of the ideas we hold are in error (i.e.: thinking ourselves better than everyone else), but not all of them.  It should be out differences that bring us closer together and give us the opportunity to learn from each other.  Perhaps I don’t like to eat pig, does this make those who do evil for doing so?  My skin is pale and I have green eyes.  Does this mean that a person with olive complexion and dark eyes can’t be a good person or my friend?

There is a war that we are all involved in.  It doesn’t matter our age, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation.  WE ARE ALL AT WAR.  The war is for peace.  I will post later regarding fighting.  But when we say we are a peaceful people, we should live it.  Thanks to the wonderful world of Second Life™, I have made friends with people all over the world.  They are of different races, cultures, religions and even sexual orientations.  We met on a different plain and got to know each other and accept each other as human-beings without adding prejudice and bias.  On this last day of  Chanukah, I hope those who celebrate it each received a set of blinders.  I hope those who keep Xmas will also receive some and then for Kwanzaa the same.  Put on your blinders and use ear plugs to fight this war.  Use your heart to get to know other people who are not like you in the way you think and believe.  No one says you have to change your ways and believe as they do.  Education, understanding and acceptance will be our weapons.

Listen and watch John Lennon and do so with your heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvNRHrKyaX4

Only From My Heart

Since I was 13 years old and sitting in my Seventh grade English class learning the art of poetry, I have been writing it. I was painfully shy in junior high and found it difficult to say what I wanted to say. When Mr. Leggore led us through the poetry course I found the way to express my heart. Since then I have written what is in my heart. Whether it be poetry, song, essay, short story, article or novel; my heart (and the tornadoes that control my pen) dictates what goes on the empty page.

I quit writing in July of this year. Too many things were happening and I couldn’t keep with it all. Being without a job and not being able to find anything in the writing field. My health and dealing with the residual effects of Meniere’s Disease. People being more critical of my work than requested (i.e.: telling me my book is technically not published due to the publisher). Just too many things pressing on me that I quit. However, John Lennon would not allow it to remain so. I was having sleepless nights and nights of tossing and turning due to dreams that occupied my sleep and waking hours. Then the end of July I read a quote by John Lennon and he related about song writing and I equated it to my writing. He said it’s not a song til it invades even your sleeping dreams and keeps you awake. Then you know it has a life.

Well, Mr. Lennon was actually briefer in his quote, but that is what I got from it and started paying attention to what was going on. I told my friends about this and they wagged their fingers at me and said “Told you so!!” I am meant to write. It fills my being from my heart and soul outward. It encompasses me. Writing is the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins ~ Writing IS who I am.