Today I choose to be optomistic

Sometimes the world pours in and overwhelms. It would be so easy to despair, to throw your arms up in hopeless surrender. North Carolina legislators have got to be some of the dumbest, most malicious, self-absorbed idiots on the face of the planets----thank God for Texas! Voter ID, women's rights to their own bodies, anti-education, etc etc
But that's not the subject for today. It is fall, a crispness in the air, and time for school to start again. For the last seven years I have had the privilege of working with high school sophmores in a program called Early College that is a collaboration of AB Tech and Buncombe County Schools. I teach World Religions every fall. Can you imagine that!! World religion taught in public school! It is possible and legal. Of course, there are guidelines, e.g. I CANNOT prosylitize (sp) and I never would. These kids are bright, thirsty, and energetic. Their enthusiasm is contagious. It is an awesome responsibility to invite and encourage these young minds to enter, explore, consider, accept the beauty and integrity of other traditions. The rewards are not always immediate. There are some, but I swell with pride when next year or years down the road, a former student stops me to say, "Remember me? You taught me World Religions. It was a great course!"
Young, enthusiastic, eager, open----they are the future, full of hope. The future is in good hands!

A small pond in the backyard

When we built our present house in Asheville in 1986/87, we left the backyard landscaping for awhile. It was natural and exuded the ambiance of country/forest dwelling. But after a year or two, we decided it was time to do some aesthetic improvements. So with a design in hand from a local landscape architect, we asked him to do the basics and I took on the rest with the exception of a small [4 feet high, 4 feet wide, 6 feet long and 3 tiered] waterfall. Over the years, despite a leak that I have not been able to locate requiring refilling once every two days when it gets really hot and the pond runs constantly, it has been a constant source of relaxation and reverie. Sitting in the cool of the evening listening to the gurgling water, the pain and challenge of the world dissipate. Over the years that pond has become a metaphor for life to me..
Like creation (Big Bang and childbirth) it had a beginning, and when I am dead and gone, it too will have an end.
The changes through the seasons are a marvel and humbling. Spring brings the cycle of new life, green, colorful, promising. It is now the home to at least two frogs (who knows how many next year?). Summer maturity is lush, exciting, energetic, evidencing a sense of indestructibility. Dogs, birds, frogs, and snakes consume life and sustinance from it. But inevitably faint curling and the slightest loss of color signal the coming of autumn. Dappled shade of summer evenings yield to dappled palette of fall's decline. Then, despite our deepest dreams and hopes, the hands of time conquer the cursing cosmos. But that cosmos guards a profound secret. Its surrender is temporary. Hope, life, and love present victory for those who will enter the miracle.