Pride.....more puny than powerful

PRIDE PRODUCES MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Humility gives insight

PRIDE PROVOKES ARGUMENTS

Humility brings peace

PRIDE PREVENTS INTIMACY

Humility builds closeness

PRIDE POSTPONES RECONCILIATION

Humility admits mistakes

PRIDE PROMOTES ITSELF

Humility encourages others

Tripped over this last week via a FL Radio Blog so I thought it was bout time for me to get around to sharing. The author wrote that the Bible mentions PRIDE 62 times. (I'm going to take their word on it....for now....although I do like to do my own fact checkin'...someday;>) I do have a hunch that few of those mentions would be positive. Humble....humble.....humble....maybe if we turned it into a catchy kids song it would be easier to remember. It does rhyme with quite a few words: humble, bumble, tumble, heck throw a thimble in for good measure......just sayin'!

       ~Enjoy this Tuesday Train O' Thoughts Derailment  segment....Tomorrow brings a tour at the Port of Seattle AND a vessel!!!!!!! Not sure if my puncation usage properly relays my exCITeMeNt!!! Only thing that would make it better would be if 20 or so containers of Hawaiian Cattle were being loaded onto chassis while we were there! ....another tour for another season;)

CrazY cowBoy DrEAm

Crazy Cowboy Dream

“The miles that I have traveled, the places I have seen

Just won’t let me put a saddle on this Crazy Cowboy Dream”¹

          

A few days ago I took my niece up on the invitation to join her at school for “hot lunch”. When your nephew and nieces range in age from 13 down to 7, it is easy to see the GIANT handwriting on the wall. Those pending teenage years have the possibility to make those invitations a thing of the past ! A scheduling conflict resulted in the need to move our original lunch date from the coveted “salad bar” day to a standard “hot lunch” day. Have no fear, this school brought it’s noon hour A-Game. My nephew and nieces attend a private Catholic School in Yakima. Most of the teachers recognize me by now as I have been picking up at least 1 child a year for going on a decade! Despite what most folks would consider a less-than-friendly locale, the school proves friendly & welcoming to the weary lunch maven or afternoon courier. On this recent voyage I found myself likening their school to a small, rural town. The kind of town where the lunch is hot, the smiles are warm, & crazy cowboy dreams are still dreamed.

Back at the cafeteria my small town euphoria was kindly interrupted by a sweet voice, “Aunt Jenna, would you like milk?” Don’t tell the health officials, but typically the only time I reach for milk is when it comes served as a double in a tall glass with ice, a few choice ingredients, and a name that sounds suspiciously like a famous handgun!  On this day, nostalgia won as chocolate milk beckoned its way to my tray. As I found my way back to a table surrounded by 11 year old girls and not a boy in sight, I found myself wondering when that fateful day arrived so many years ago that took away the choice of chocolate milk and took our crazy cowboy dreams right along with it.

One of the great blessings life throws our way are the times when a philosophical theme of one kind or another takes residence in our mind. This philosophical battle invokes pondering that may last for days, weeks, even months. As we drive to and from the kids’ school, ride through that group of pairs, or fix the familiar fence line we may not even realize what our brain fervently ponders day after day. If we are lucky we will reach the pinnacle of all great pondering…the much lofted after revelation. Cattle ranchers are blessed to be an intricate part of nature that includes few others. They are able to take in the wide open spaces, fresh air, understand the delicate balance of all life that surrounds them. All that oneness with nature is great but let’s face it; 'em ranchers are slightly scant on human interaction! It has been a long time since they saddled up to a lunchroom table with their chocolate milk, unless you count those bi-yearly trips to the sale barn cafe!  However, this lifestyle makes them far from short on philosophical ponderings or even a profound revelation now and again. Rather than send our ranchers to “Mingling 101” down at the local Eagles, let’s keep them out on the range & tap into that pondering mind. How intriguing it is to sit down at the lunch table and hear a group of folks whose crazy cowboy dreams may very well be alive and kickin’.

My penchant is strong for anything that takes me back to a time when the worry was less and the “living and doing” was more. Typically that means a great deal of enthusiasm at every 2/$1.00 candy rack where the packaging hasn’t changed since Reagan was in office. However, if you look beyond the Cinnamon Bears, Bubbletape, & Slurpees you just might catch a glimpse of the “good ole days”. The Good Ole Days are not limited to the 1880s or the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder. We all have our very own version of good ole days. That school lunchroom with its choice of “white milk or chocolate” is just one small peek into our glorious yesteryears. Those days when our minds were full enough to be present yet empty enough to dream.

Someone reminded me this week of the saying about doers and dreamers. My personal rendition goes something like “There are three types of people in this world: Dreamers, Doers, and those that let others do the dreaming and the doing.” I believe we cannot successfully do until we have successfully dreamed. When is the last time you let yourself dream or even turned those dreams into something you did? We all know that no one has successfully ever kept us down without our consent but sometimes it takes a good hot lunch, carton of milk, and a kickball game to remind us to start living our crazy cowboy dreams.

“....The miles that I have traveled, the places I have seen

Just won’t let me put a saddle on this Crazy Cowboy Dream”¹

(¹ Robert Earl Keen. “Crazy Cowboy Dream.” Bigger Piece of Sky. MP3. Koch Records, 2004.)

Originally published in WCA Ketch Pen November 2010. 

Just an old chunk of CoaL, but I'm gonna be a DiaMonD some DaY

The greatest part of modern technology is the ability to have the possibility of interruption to one's own thoughts now and again! If you are like me those thought interrupters tend to just encourage more head-scratchin thinkin'. While I was pushing the ol mower around the lawn turned pasture this evening I found company in the shuffle mode of my MP3 player. Some days the shuffle feature alone is enough to get my mind to wandering crazy, insanity filled bits just on the overwhelming gratitude I possess towards the talented soul who invented SHUffLE! Tonight my mind was more entrapped by the musician himself. Shuffle landed on a tune by Billy Joe Shaver from his Storyteller album recorded live. "Just an old Chunk of Coal" would be played four more times before it was settled this bittersweet tune efficiently would sing September to a close.

My blogging habit has proven my attention span well....short-lived! ;) My last hiatus from posting comes from the sudden surprise of another Ketch Pen article already due, an interesting situation I found myself in...ok not interesting but about the only polite thing I can call it, as well as an impromptu trip to Texas..YES another one:), and a very poignant one year anniversary that has been annoyingly never far from my mind throughout the year. This tune's timing in my ears may be far from fate but it is not far from being exactly what my heart needed to dance to.

I'm just an old chunk of coal now Lord

But I'm gonna be a diamond one day

I'm gonna grow and glow until I'm so blue pure perfect

I'm gonna put a smile on everybody's face

September 18th was the day my father made his debut at heaven's gates & the Lord's feet last year. September 26th was the day I led my family up the aisle of a church with one hand gripping my mom's and the other gripping my niece never so aware of the need to present myself with the tallest posture I was capable of. "Successfully" not allowing one tear to slip by until after the words I needed to speak in front of 400+ had been said and my well-heeled feet had taken me back to my pew. I do not believe I have ever been so aware of being alone until I stood watching my one emotional link to "family" lowered in the ground. Less than a half mile from our home & standing in the cemetery our ranch surrounds, the day I was most fearful of had arrived. Everyone surrounding me had a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on, and I just stood...once again as tall as my 5'9" posture could stretch. Last week, I had a second interview for a job I never wanted more in my 26 years. I was asked what I still think to be a peculiar question, "What is your biggest fear?" Honestly I wanted to wrinkle up my face and say with every bit of attitude I easily possess;) , "Umm Seriously? Believe me...you do not want me to really answer this question!" Right, wrong, or indifferent I proceeded to tell the nice man interviewing me the only way I knew how to PROPERLY answer: honest but still withholding what I so very much wanted to unload..."Well, if I may be incredibly honest, the very things that feared me most, it seems life has brought me face to face with over the last decade. I guess the only thing that remains to be afraid of is something I've been chiseling away at this last year: waking up one day or even ending my life without achieving true peace or contentedness within my soul." ........YEP...that was my answer. Trust me, I will not be giving Interviewing 101 lessons...EVER! Fortunately I believe we have a truly & astoundingly merciful God....and I will now be employed by that interviewer;) Back to subject at hand: Coal. 

When you think of coal you might think of Santa Claus? I think of something that people don't really see a whole lot of worth in...its dirty, its mined dirty, it burns dirty, its just blghh. When you might think of diamonds, you might think of something you yearn for or even something you think is neccessary for happiness. Diamonds don't really appeal to me I won't lie...but diamonds do sparkle. Whats so significant about sparkle? I hear that word and think of a person...not any person...that person. I don't think of the status and love that women tend to joke or perhaps seriously think comes from Diamonds. I think of the analogy this song so beautifully paints. To me, sparkle might just be one of the most awe inspiring words used to ever describe someone. You can't buy sparkle, you can't curve it up or skinny it down, you can't paint a face on it...you just can't spruce sparkle. To sparkle so bright that others can see it, sense it, feel it, and be encouraged by it...can you imagine? So when Billy Joe Shaver sings about being an old chunk of coal and he's gonna be a diamond one day, that's a whole heck of a lot of sparkle he gives a gal hope in;)

I'm just an old chunk of coal now Lord

But I'm gonna be a diamond some day

Oh I'm gonna be the cotton pickin rage of the age

I'm gonna be a diamond some day