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Original Message
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"I'm Hopeful"
I'll be 45 soon. I've worked, hard, since I was 18. I'm currently self-employed. By choice. I left a corporate existence to pursue a life that was more spiritually driven. I live full time in a modified gypsy caravan (an RV) and make my home wherever the wheels find me. I often work for free, but am always provided for.
I've lived in poverty and I've lived in wealth. I once brought in over six figures as a Business Analyst for the worlds largest telecommunications company. I drove a Lincoln LS and lived in the suburbs. I never knew my neighbors.
I formed and maintained a community for student artists and writers. I know every neighbors name and support only local establishments. Many of these places allow me to run a tab. I know the names of their children and wives.
I'm hopeful that humanity will soon come to some form of enlightenment of the unity of all people. That the need for welfare states will be abolished. That we will come to see everyone has an extension of our self, and that caring for one another will replace our lust for wealth and status.
I'm hopeful that people will throw away their televisions and get connected to each other instead. That they will realize that the media is a fear-mongering entity that cares about nothing more than lining their pockets with your hard earned cash in the form of advertising dollars to sell you products that you neither want nor need, but will buy because you don't know what else to do.
I'm hopeful that all things will move in accordance with the Divine purpose and will, and that some of those things will include the chaff as well as the wheat.
I'm hopeful that we can all one day learn to accept each others differences, cultures and religions without that being a threat to our own beluefs; that we can discern when we are being led to a fear-based propoganda by our government to see 'Muslims' as being the enemy instead of the mouthpiece feeding us their biased intent. I am equally hopeful that 'Muslims' are as smart as we are about such things, and confident that just as every Christian doesn not condone Abortion bombing, hate crime and/or governments that bomb innocent children in the name of greed and power, neither do our brothers and sisters in other nations.
I believe a human being should be judged by actions first, words second and never by any other thing, including race, religion, sex, sexual preferences nor by the color of his skin. I'm hopeful that all things will come worthily to those that them, and that we will accept that throughout the history of our nation, many actions have been necessary to balance the odds because of those who would assert otherwise, including sufferage to secure the right to vote for women, the plight of the Native Americans.
I think it's irrelevant that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation. I am not blind enough to think that anyone sitting in that seat is not performing hand-shaking behind the scenes, regardless of who sits there, and most particularly with reference to the Federal Reserve, or they wouldn't have been put there in the first place.
I'm over the news media, whose only intent remains to instill a constant fear in those who partake of it in order to secure ratings to sell more and more advertising dollars. I am aware that every medium has its own bias, and refuse to get caught up in the details when those details do nothing to make me a better, wiser, more compassionate, more alive human being.
I am relieved that I threw my television out years ago and spend that time with the people that I love instead.
I'm encouraged towards tolerance realizing that, despite its glaring inconstincies and flawed governmental priorities, we still live in the best country in the world.
I'm happy to lower my standard of living to fight indifference, and believe that any proof for or against global warming will prove itself out in the end. I'm more concerned with genetically modified and irradiated foods which are a threat and danger to all forms of life, and serve only to line the pockets of corporate greed.
I am happy for those who have much, but aware that having more than what you need only makes you tired.
I'm tolerant of those who battle their own addicitions, regardles of whether those addictions are drugs, alchohol, promiscuity, pornography, gambling, shopping or food. While I don't necessarily know whether addiciton qualifies as 'disease' in the medical sense, I do think it is caused from dis-ease. I know well that there is a hole in many peoples lives that they can never fill, and that that void is painful beyond comprehension.
And I'm unmoved by anyone who thinks it necessary to judge my life for anything I choose by the power of my will to do, and choose not to judge anyone else regardless, believing that what this earth needs is not judgement, but Love.
I'm encouragedby true heroes. Not wealthy athletes, entertainers, and politicians, but by those people that, though seldom ever make the front page, are regularly making a difference. Those who volunteer. Those who extend grace. Those who do not merely say that are Christian, but make the whole of their lives an example of His Love.
Speaking of Love, I love living in a country where poor includes people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars. We are truly the richest poor in the world.
I'm turned-on by people who take responsibility for their lives and actions and choose to make this a better world to be in. People like Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey, the man that runs the small, mideastern deli next door despite the fact his shop has been targeted over and over again in hate crimes; the people in my impoverished neighborhood where I am staying right now who rise to the occasion, cleaning paint splattered obscenities off the doors and walls fro free because they realize we are all fighting. I'm proud of the good news I hear every day and that, despite our frailities, inconsistencies and ability to wreak so much havoc on our fellow man, there are still regular occurences of those who lay down their lives for strangers. The unsung heroes.
They are each of us, and they make this world a better place to be.
Yes, I'm damn hopeful. And I'm also glad to be 44. Because, I'm going to get to see the world I am making. I'm even more hopeful for my daughter, and the subsequent generations to come.
Nepenthe is a world-travelling inkslinger who looks for the beauty in all things, and believes wabi-sabi should be a term in everyones lexicon. She also likes to bite.
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