HORSES IN OIL, NURSING MAMA IN WATER

THERESA VILLAIRE

Thanks to Theresa for the wonderfully uplifting scene on the right.  After I invited you all to become famous by allowing us to reflect and meditate on the results of your artistic efforts, she is the second one of our generation to enhance our lives with an emotional expression of motherly love. It is so impressive to look upon the picture and to be immediately drawn into the soul of the artist.  It is especially true when there is a personal connection with the work and the person.  It is fairly rare that I can walk among a collection of paintings and be attracted to any of them on a meaningful level. You have all had the experience of coming up on a lawn exhibit of paintings.  There they stand all of them begging for attention.  If the exhibitor is the lone producer of the work, it becomes clear after a short perusal of the inventory.  All of the pieces have a certain resemblance.  All of them join in a nearly monotone chorus of mediocrity.  True that there are some high notes, but it is also true that the creator will more than likely not graduate from the front lawn exhibit level.  Why?  Because it takes a lot of inner energy to create an artistic expression of such quality that it can reach out and embrace a stranger's soul.  It takes an abundance of personal "spirituality" in the artist to cause the transference of emotion from him to a stranger through an artistic expression.
We all know someone who has a "ton" of talent but who could never quit his "day job."  The product draws oh's and ah's but no connection. No one has the slightest temptation to have it hanging in the living room. We all know someone who has produced a house full of admirably creative things that no one else wants.  In my case, the people I know who fall into this category are not related to me.  Thank goodness!


The two first artists who reached out to us did succeed in embracing at least one soul...mine.  So, reach out and touch me.  I dare you.  


Thank you to Emelie and Theresa  

UNIQUE TALENT? WHO, ME?

PUNKIN HEAD!

This is an experiment.  You are going to help me to decide what my unique talent is.  I have decided to answer that question here and now.  I have been spending more time on the Internet than any mere mortal should.  About 80 % of it is in job search mode.  Over the last month or so I have come to the point, finally, of realizing that I have to decide what I want to be when I grow up.  Imagine, after close to 50 years of  "advising" people by telling them that in order to be happy, they have to know what they have and what they want to do with it, I am digging into my inside to find the answer to those questions.   I came to this down to earth truth when I got an email from a man who was responding to my cover letter to his company.  Here is my cover letter:

I don't need a job, I need work.  Put it in front of me and I'll do it.  Not BS, BATB [Beating Around The Bush] just plain and simple work.  I'm a 75 year old dude.  I've already had a career.  All I need now is a job.  If you have one that you need done from a computer station, stop twiddling your thumbs and send it to me.

Ready.  Get set.  Go!

Now, if you owned a company and you got a cover letter like that what would you do?  You can be honest with me.  Actually, you're sitting there wondering just what it is that you would do.  Well, here's what the man who received this cover letter did:

Paul

If you end up applying, pls tell me so I can review your application myself. Liked your writing style on your blog
Keep in touch,
Steve

So now I have to answer the question on the profile that asks: "What is your unique talent?"  There is no way that I can answer with the smart Alec retort: "I awready tol'ja, WORK."  I have to be smoother than that, after all, this is a job interview.  Right, Steve?  I always have some trouble answering that question.  You would think that at my age, I would have the answer.  I do, but frankly, I have always, until right now, given people the answer that I thought would line me up with the income stream that I so desperately need.  This time I have decided to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the heartfelt, deep down gut shot, take it or leave it truth.  I have the unique talent of being a chameleon.  Put me anywhere on earth and I will blend into the woodwork inside of three to six months.  Now, that is not going to earn me a living.  The reason for that is that I did not marry an anthropologist.  So, I have kept that as a bragging point taken from my spotty past.  My equally unique talent is to be able to use words that indicate absolute values and make them relative.  Like "unique" maybe?  But all humorous sophistry aside, I am really good at writing and teaching.  I have a facility with words.  I have the ability to be logical and to make deep concepts make sense to anyone from the baby sitter to the college graduate.  I can do this across a fairly wide band of disciplines, but most of all, and very importantly, especially Theological truths.  On this blog you don't get to see the Theological side of me, so you have to take my word for it.  If you want to see some of my work on the church side, just click here for a sample.  

So, Steve, now that I have answered that question, coupled with the quote to which you answered, I can say that this blog post is my application for work at your company, www.lifebushido.com  

Stay tuned.

HAVE YOU EVER FAILED? BE HONEST

Now you know that this is going to be deep stuff.  I saw the cartoon and couldn't help but listen to my brain whirling around looking for a wise-crack about "feel" versus "sure" and "failure."  My brain didn't deliver one to my satisfaction, so you have to be satisfied with what I got.  Actually, I got a lesson in personal failure the other day.  It is not a very good feeling, but it is an honest one.  It reminded me of some of the other times when I have come to the point of realizing that I had reached the limit of my talent in one field or another.  One of the things I was not very good at, and in fact, lousy at, was hand to hand combat...you know, fist fighting.  It took me a while before I realized that many of the people whom I strongly disliked could lay me out in lavender before I got the second jab going.  Yep, I took some pretty good shellackings.  The other area of failure for me is mathematics.  I can't fault myself for not trying, but I suppose if I reflect on it long enough and deep enough, I might wonder about the quality of the effort.  "Suppose" all I want, that's all I'm going to do.  I took my last and best shot at math when I was 38 and I got a "C".   That night I went out and bought an ounce of the best "Sensimilla", joined my friends and came to the conclusion that this was the crowning glory of my mathematics career.  I've been a failure at math all my life.  You can tell that I have accepted it because I have learned to laugh at it.  It was harder for me to accept that I was not as good as I thought in baseball.  I accepted it at about 19 years of age, but I still can replay, pitch by pitch, play by play, some of the games in which I proved to the world and to myself that I had better find something else to do with my life.  It was not so hard to realize that I would never amount to much in sports that require indirect contact with the ball, the bird or the puck.  If I have to use a paddle, a racquet or a stick, I am a failure.  I am also a failure at basketball and volleyball. Period.  
Cards?  Cards, you ask?  I am a good pinochle player, a slick cribbage guy, a so-so bridge partner and a terrible black-jack table pretender.  
Puzzles?  Good interlocking picture puzzle assembler, slightly better than average crossword puzzle doodler (Thursday's New York Times level).
There is one area of life in which I can say without equivocation that I am BAD at:  Accounting.  Even the simplest, easiest repetitive task is going to turn to dust in my hands.  I know that is is because I am so distracted when it comes to details.  Especially that kind of detail.  Maybe even any detail.  I wonder how many of this blog's posts are 100% error free.  More than likely, none.  Why?  It is beyond me.  I reread them all at least three times before pressing the button to publish and at least once after publishing.  About 9 of 10 times I have to recall it and make a least one correction before announcing it to the community.  There are some things that I do well, but, as you can easily see, there are also some that I don't do well at all.
The one thing that I do well, is to be able to be honest with myself and with others.  I came to know that self directed honesty is the road to happiness here on earth quite a while ago.  I have come to know who I am and that tells me what I can or cannot do.  That doesn't mean that I don't participate in some activities that are outside my area of weakness, but I don't take myself seriously while doing them.  That's OK in games.  It's not OK in activities that should be serious.  It's difficult for me to be serious when I am in a weakness zone.  This attitude becomes problematic when serious life situations demand breaking out of the comfort zone and forcing my "square peg" into a less than square hole.  I suppose we all have to do this sometimes, but we all hate to be something that is not "me."  
I am happy to tell you that since I have had the joy of failing at something and living with the consequences for about a week now, it becomes more and more satisfying to write to you like I do.  I also have other things that I now have time to do that I excel at.   I wonder where it is all going to lead me.  Isn't that a question that we all have?  May the answers all bring peace, joy and happiness.