Stoney Creek Farm - Breeders of big, blonde, boxy Golden Retrievers

11/11/2024

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31/10/2024

27/10/2024

THE TUMBLEWEED CHRONICLE
Why is This Such a Struggle, part 3

Funny thing about grief is we hide it. Funny thing about love is that we want it on display. Suggestion as you find yourself in the struggle - start right where you are, don’t hide your grief, just like you don’t hide your love. The suppression of grief will require that you dampen down and re**rd your love, too. Don’t do that. Embrace. Embrace it all.

part 3 - Visible Scars and Unseen Wounds
Growing up in the Southern Illinois in the shadows of St. Louis’ there is a gravitational force that cannot be denied. The gravitational pull in the Midwest draws all toward the shores of Lake Michigan. Chicago is the epicenter for all social, cultural & political effort and exertion. This is true today. This was true yesterday. And it will remain true for the foreseeable future. One of our yesterdays in The Windy City is the focus, Tumbleweed.

The late autumn and winter of 1958 in Chicago was one like no other for recent memory. It was cold. Colder than usual and colder sooner than what was anticipated. Temperatures were well below freezing in November. And many days – especially those around Thanksgiving - the temperatures struggled to maintain single digits. The sun made every attempt to warm the city by the lake as sunny days were the norm. Accompanying this pattern were starry nights that discouraged the city from developing that heat bubble that is often the case in cities of Northern latitude. It was cold both day and night.

On the West side of Chicago city planners built neighborhoods for living and working. Their objective was to construct community. They built a boulevard system that allowed for trees and greenspace and sun light. The best parks of the city are found there: Humboldt, Garfield and Douglas. The area was meant to appeal to immigrants calling Chicago home. It retained a certain old-world charm not seen in most American neighborhoods and suburbs. The area created became the destination for the baby boomer families post World War II.

Today, Humboldt Park has newfound claim as the most recognized and largest congregation of Puerto Ricans in America. The Latin charm of these streets is a newfound reality built upon the struggle of the original Irish, Italian and Poles that built and dominated the neighborhood. Originally this area of Chicago was marshy and swampy and rather uninhabitable. Today, it is recognized as the premier park of Chicago. Famed landscaped architect, Jens Jenson, knew this as home. Known as the father of modern landscape architecture his influence abounds today, and yesterday, in Humboldt Park. This was the place to build a new life and raise a family in Chicago.

The Irish came first and that meant so too did the Catholic Church. In 1894, Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church (OLA) was erected by Franciscan priests and with the end of World War I, a thriving Italian and Polish community shared the streets with the Irish. Scattered throughout the neighborhood metamorphosis were Germans and Lithuanians. As the 20th century matured this was the mosaic of modern-day America. This was a diverse society. This was a vibrant neighborhood community. While the last names were of varied ancestry the common thread in the fabric of life was the Catholic Church.

As the neighborhood swelled so too did the parish. OLA had need of a school as the public school system was stretched beyond its means. In the early days of 1900, a school was built and soon to follow were The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Finding their roots in Dublin this order was given to education. They eventually build a convent across the street from the school where upwards of 37 Nuns found a life given to the education of young children. The Sisters were so adept in teaching and instruction the school grew abundantly and on those frigid days of 1958, 1600 students meandered the halls of OLA. Extra desks had been added to classrooms across the school. Class rosters exceeding fifty were not uncommon as a Nun and lay teacher formed a teaching team for nearly each classroom.

Humboldt Park harbored an iconic way of life in post-World War II America and at the center of our mosaic was OLA. The ebb and flow of life in this west Chicago neighborhood was OLA. The OLA community was the foundation for home, for faith, for work and for play. Ethnicity and diversity were the norm.

Boilers in homes and apartment houses labored amidst that frigid cold that was the week after Thanksgiving, 1958. The first day of December saw the mercury percolate to 20 degrees – a real heat wave. And on this cold winter day in 1958 tragedy would disrupt the very foundation of life in this idyllic Chicago neighborhood.

In the early afternoon a troubled 10-year-old boy asked to be dismissed. He descended the two flights of stairs of the back stairwell which was the original wooden staircase of the 1894 parish hall. At the bottom of the stairwell, he gathered loose notebook paper and newsprint together in a barrel. He struck two or three matches leaving the barrel to smolder there in the stair well.

Because of the craftsman like construction of the school air flow to the stairwell was restricted. With doors shut and windows closed there was little opportunity for draft air to feed the impending flames at the bottom of the barrel. The heat however grew as the contents of the barrel smoldered. The heat in the stairwell grew. It grew to the point of breaking a single pain of glass. The fracture allowed entrance of what amounted to ammunition for a fire preparing to explode in the classrooms of the second floor.

Adjacent to the incendiary barrel was a ventilation shaft connecting this basement location with the expansive attic above that wing of the school. As the draft fed the flames the by-product of the fire – superheated air – escaped the confines of the stair-well via the ventilation shaft. Superheated air is a force multiplier in any combustive event. The attic became the ticking time bomb for the events to follow.

Somewhere around 2:30pm the bomb exploded. The stairwell engulfed in flames. The attic continued to build superheated air as if the fire were stalking the second-floor classrooms. Older boys began to collect trash of the day to take to the basement. Some children near the single hallway and wall adjacent to the stairwell began to feel the heat rise thinking it was just the generous efforts of the boiler combined with the elevated ambient air temperature outside colliding making for a warmer than normal classroom. A boy making his way with trash to the basement opened a door and thick, oily black smoked rushed into a classroom. The transom window above another classroom door gave way to the heat and quickly the combustible ceiling panels caught fire. Incandescent bulbs in the large ceiling lights rained glass down on the students. Nuns prayed. Students huddled to escape the smoke. They ran to windows seeking fresh air and rescue.

A janitor saw the smoke. He enlisted the housekeeper to call in the fire. Chicago’s finest arrived in less than seven minutes to fight the blaze. Staff and neighbors threw ladders to the windows. Priests sprang into action scurrying up ladders and from balconies the rescue began. The firemen attacked the stairwell with hoses and all the water that could be mustered. The single alarm event went to five alarms immediately. Hook and ladder companies were on seen in minutes. The attic and second story classrooms of one wing of OLA were totally engulfed in a fiery, smokey inferno. Hell erupted at paradise that December afternoon.

Woosh! Thud!! Onlookers were witnessing students jumping from windows to escape smoke and flame. Many jumped. All experienced the rapid deceleration from a speed of 9.8 meters/second squared. Several perished. One hundred and sixty faculty, staff and students were rescued from this tragic fire. Eventually, ninety-two grade school students and three Nuns would draw their last breath from the events of this day.

I often get the age-old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The fire at OLA in 1958 is testimony of the reality that the normality and pleasure of life is upset by the aberrant choices and behaviors of the few. The fourth grader that started this fire was discovered in closed court actions stemming from a series of arsons in 1962 in the community of Cicero. He was referred to a reform school and soon after release at age 16 or 17, joined the Army and was shipped off to Vietnam. He returned from the war to live in relative anonymity never addressing the actions of this day though he did bear wounds from the conflict of this day as he himself was the victim of child abuse preyed upon him his mother and stepfather.

In all ages we are met with trauma. The tragedy of this day brought suffering and grief in no short order. The fire of Our Lady of Angels in 1958 received international attention. Headlines pervaded America and Europe. A blue-ribbon counsel was assembled in days to better understand the cause of the fire and subsequent rescue efforts. Building and occupancy codes across the landscape were changed to better protect the most fragile among us.

The neighborhood community laid witness to visible scars and unseen wounds. There are those that say when an infant baby dies it becomes a dream yet when a son or daughter pass all too soon it remains a dagger in your heart throughout the ages. Fractures, lacerations and burns were recorded in the emergency room at St Ann’s Hospital that day; however, absent were the stab wounds of the daggers suffered upon mothers, fathers, brother, sisters, grandparents and neighbors.

We find ourselves Tumbleweed forever reconciling explained events and unexplained phenomena via spiritual solutions. The reconciliation required in a time of suffering requires a bridge from brain to consciousness. This is a transcendent event. The failed reconciliation of our unseen wounds lands us in that emotional wasteland of grief and depression. Man’s error in this life is found in every attempt, ever so subtle, to be self-defining for man is neither self-organizing nor self-sustaining. Self-contrived spiritual solutions are a prime example of the subtlety of this error.

The object of life is to know God, love and serve God, love and serve man. In Thomas Aquinas we grasp love is “to will the good of the other”. The purpose of prayer and meditation then is to develop intimacy with God. The first and necessary object in prayer is to grasp the essential reality that prayer is our means to combat the struggle, while the second, and parallel, objective is to align my will with the will of God. Prayer connects us to a loving and living God, Tumbleweed. Prayer is not a technique to get what we want. Prayer is not our trip to the cosmic checkout counter of life. God’s expressed and intended use of prayer to bring about alignment of wills, desires, wants & needs.

Hope is the ordering of one’s life towards a transcendent objective or end. Meditation is the practice of hope. Stillness and reflection are essential ingredients of meditation and when here we fall into the transcendency of God. A transcendent experience can be known as a sacred joy. A transcendent experience is that peace that exceeds all understanding. In that transcendent experience we become more present, accepting and understanding.

Definition of the Transcendent Experience
1. existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the physical universe - embody the metaphysical.
2. surpassing the ordinary; exceptional.
3. beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience.
4. a meta-physical experience
5. existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the physical universe - embody the metaphysical

Revelation of a world known beyond that of the five senses is an experience unique and common in all the religions of the world. It gives us clear knowledge in the reality of transcendent life. Mystical thought is the consistent and relevant backdrop for understanding contemporary life today, and yesterday.

Prayer & Meditation are the objective instruments necessary in this life for ordering and examining unforeseen events and unexplained phenomena. The empirical and repeatable results in the realm of the meta-physical rival the scientific method. The wisdom of the ancients, saints and sages, are recognized in the experiences of earnest practitioners of Prayer & Meditation. The compelling consistency of those of faith practicing Prayer & Meditation is just as real as the science discovery of gravity. Scientific experiment and transcendent experience indeed should be viewed on equal footing.

To Be Continued…Next week let’s venture into the habits and skills of meditation that lay the foundation for a transcendent experience aimed at examining unforeseen events and unexplained phenomena.

Be well, FLS

20/10/2024

THE TUMBLEWEED CHRONICLE
Why is this Such a Struggle, part 2

From last week...
Funny thing about grief is we hide it. Funny thing about love is that we want it on display. Suggestion as you find yourself in the struggle - start right where you are, don’t hide your grief, just like you don’t hide your love. The suppression of grief will require that you dampen down and re**rd your love, too. Don’t do that. Embrace. Embrace it all.

Why is this such a struggle?

PART 2
The struggle can be confounding, Tumbleweed. It’s confounding in lieu of it's chronicity and participation. As is the thesis for this series let’s answer the easier of life’s questions first, participation.

Participation in the struggle is not exclusive. The struggle is all-inclusive. The struggle is laden with self-doubt and questioning. It manifests as the dilemma, “Is it just me?” To wit the resounding answer is, “No!” It's not you, Tumbleweed. It’s all of us.

The self-doubt characterized by “Is it just me?” promulgates solitude and aloneness. Unmitigated and unresolved thoughts as these transmute to ideations of separation and isolation. Once here we construct barriers to healthy communication and relationship as this thought pattern gives rise to loneliness. And loneliness manifests as the trilogy prescription: trauma, suffering and grief.

The essence of the struggle is one of belonging. The inclusivity of the struggle to belong demands we are all in this emotional wasteland at one time or another. The necessity of the question is not one of participation but one of navigation. And I imagine Tumbleweed that’s why we come together here every Sunday morning.

“Is it just me?” suggests the need and want of belonging has origins in the here and now. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is one of those age old frets of life. The struggle is that point when expectations are left unmet. This is the essence of conflict.

With respect to participation, “No, you are not the one and only!” and with respect origination (acuity and chronicity), “No, this issue of unmet expectations, this element of not belonging, this feeling of loneliness did not start with you.” While the struggle did not start with you it is manifest today in ways I doubt recognized or foreseen at any other point in the human experience. Overall, my work with patients over the past year reveals there is a personal level of soulful loneliness in America as I have never seen in my seven decades of life.

Stepping aside from the interpersonal perspective of which we routinely speak, for a brief moment, let me address this reality upon our societal plight given that we are in the election season. This bed bug of separation and loneliness is manifest on the right at astounding levels currently. Their candidate is fraught with likability & personality problems. Should the presidential pendulum remain to the left these hurts will magnify. In the event the current administration - where we have a candidate fraught with extraordinal policy short comings - gives way to a pendulum shift to the right, the left will encounter a trauma of separation and loneliness at cataclysmic and epic proportion.

So, to the reality of the election season, both left and right, require ample dose and self-measure of forgiveness, fore bearing & patience. Pick your friends based on personality. Pick your president based on capacity for governance. And that Tumbleweed is my political discernment of the day.

And one more thing, Tumbleweed: Oremus Pro Invicem

On to the pesky issue regarding the acuity and chronicity of the struggle next week.

To Be Continued…

Be well, FLS

13/10/2024

THE TUMBLEWEED CHRONICLE
#83 Why Is This Such a Struggle? 100724

Sunday afternoon is beach time for Deaglán and me. We are both at our best when we get a healthy dose of vitamin D and beach induced by Sun and wave. It reminds me the enormity of this world and our Creator, Tumbleweed. I am reminded here today of one of my favorite quotes regarding Sun, wave & surf . . .

Because there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.
~ Sarah Kaye ~

Provided I don’t stroll Shelter Cove, my regular haunt here on HHI after Mass is the Tiki Hut. They re-modeled last winter and somehow dogs aren’t welcome any longer, so I have resorted to my original beach side fav - Pool Bar Jim’s (PBJ).

In the summer PBJ is a young man’s destination. With most of the tourists in retreat PBJ resorts to what it is after the autumnal equinox – a destination for more “mature” (read as old and overweight) local itinerant NFL aficionados. A guarantee this time of year is surely that they crowd the bar gazing the single screen, tipping beers and going “glory days” on all that would listen.

When you come Tumbleweed forget the healthy eating and go for the Fries-N-Blue on the appetizer menu and an order of Buffalo Wings. Rumor has it Jim and the wing recipe were early emigres from Buffalo NY back in the day. And BTW - I am nameless, faceless and anonymous here while Deaglán has local celebrity status! My other guarantee after a day of chasing sea gulls on this September Sunday is a trip home sweaty, stinky and tired.

One day soon I am gonna take time to write about the cast of menagerie that grace these beaches. It will include the half dozen “independent women” vacationing from Ohio because they hear it’s not so hot, the golfing foursome from Michigan that make Titleist deposits in every pond, creek & marshland of Sea Pines, the gender studies professor from Connecticut working on they/them memoir, the young couple that just moved here from New Jersey after they making it big in the sanitation industry, the white collar retirees from New York that want you to believe that are from upstate NY claiming it’s nothing like NYC, refugees from Cali claiming the middle and acceptance of ill and all yet disparage all that is the wonder and beauty of the South, and the third generation HHI real estate associate that laps up the shekels all these migrants leave in their wake.

As I sit at PBJ enjoying the view and every Boston single ever released, I get a DM regarding the most recent Chronicle. I love the comments I receive from all the Tumbleweeds out there in this virtual community. I am much the better for the insights y’all send me.

This was a two-part message. First, the last two paragraphs arrived. The paragraphs that dear Tumbleweed referred to were the final two paragraphs in #82, Where Were You in Your Forties? Those paragraph’s read:

“Look for challenging, BIG talk opportunities because it is at this juncture when communication is of utmost importance in your relationships at work but more importantly at home. We tend to avoid the uncomfortable especially when it comes to conversations regarding matters of the heart.

Love is the goal with those most dear to us. Not rocking the boat in order to keep the peace does not always service the love. We must have hard conversations as a means to service of our love relationships. Embrace hard talk in the service of your love. Make love the goal and peace & happiness shall surely follow. “

Then the dilemma. “Why is this such a struggle?” We chatted briefly and recognized the challenge in this moment in the journey was not to succumb to the grips of loneliness, suffering & grief. And then silence. It was necessary for that Tumbleweed to recognize the restorative nature in the alchemy of tears. I know when I begin to get this type of comment it’s time to lean in and see where the conversation leads.

I was struck the reader didn’t ask, “Why is this so hard?”. Hard is just a descriptor. Hard is difficult. Hard is rigid. As a descriptor it describes the thing. It is not the thing. When I field non-declarative questions and statements it seems my counterpart is yet to fully embrace the issue at hand. They are ready to talk around and about the subject rather than taking on the subject straight on.

The most interesting part of the dilemma was the use of the word struggle. Notice the reader did not simply say it is hard. The reader proclaimed “struggle”. Struggle is an important reference. As a word, struggle is both noun and verb. It is the thing! It is the action! There is no ambiguity when one uses the word struggle, whereas the word hard is nothing more the word that describes the thing. Using the word struggle in such a declarative sense makes the discussion that much more important and necessary.

By definition, struggle refers to forceful, even violent, efforts to get free. It denotes we are engaged in conflict. It reflects difficulty in coping. It draws attention to the challenges and ever-present resistance to gain freedom.

When we speak in a declarative sense, Tumbleweed, it is clear we are engaged in whatever it is while when we place emphasis upon descriptors, we remain at an arm’s length from truly engaging the dilemma. When we speak in declarative fashion like this, we have put away airs and embrace our hurting self in hopes to reclaim a far better version of ourselves. The beauty in those with capacity to speak in such declarative terms is their capacity to embrace both their weaknesses and strengths. All too often we are too prideful, selfish or fearful of being so revealing to one another. This is a very vulnerable position to put oneself in yet necessary to conquer suffering and grief.

While a very young man someone very dear to me suffered immensely. They were struck with life’s most crushing blows. One right after the other. Empathetic, as I try to be, I asked a simple question some years later in the aftermath of their trauma. I asked, “Are you healed?”. Wrong question. Not necessary a bad question but certainly the wrong question. The better question then, just as it is today, “Are you healing?”. It’s not about getting over it necessarily as it is about learning to live in it. “IT” in this case are those traumatic events that take us to our knees. HHHHmmmm . . . ‘take us to our knees’, time for a segue. I think there is a Father Martin story somewhere in this today, Tumbleweed.

Not too very long ago I was with my favorite priest, Father Martin. He asked, “Fred, do you know what my psychiatrist friends tell is the #1 condition they treat?”. And of course, I had not a clue. The answer: grief . . . that dreaded emotional wasteland. Some of us loose our way there and just wander in grief’s bo***ge. Some of us suppress it and never embrace the journey. Ignoring is never overcoming. Some of us take time to methodically CHOOSE work our way through the precarious pathways required and CONNECT with wayfarers on a similar journey when struck with life’s most crushing blows. There is no by-pass. Navigating glife in such a fashion to COMMUNICATE our needs in the midst of grief is just plain hard. Grief sucks, yet it is a dessert we all traverse. There is not a technology solution at play here.

One if my most favorite people of all times was a fella I knew as a friend and as a patient. He was successful in every sense. Beautiful relationship with his wife. His children adored him. Great man in the community. Successful professional career. Insightful and witty. He lit up the room! Great workout partner. He always pushed to be better and along the way he took all those around him. However, at times he was a little bit much - and that’s exactly what I loved in this man – he magnified life in even the most routine of the day-to-day.

He got sick. The cancer bug bit him. Vibrance gave way to entropy. He died.

The 11th of October was his birthday and while writing this piece today his wife’s post flashed in my FB feed. I always enjoy her posts, and this one was especially beautiful as she wrote, “I miss him every day but look to find the happiness without him. Don’t wish for time to stop, keep living and loving and laughing.”

Funny thing about grief is we hide it. Funny thing about love is that we want it on display. Suggestion if you find yourself in the struggle, Tumbleweed - start right where you are, don’t hide your grief, just like you don’t hide your love. The suppression of grief will require that you dampen down and re**rd your love, too. Don’t do that. Embrace. Embrace it all.

Why is this such a struggle?

To Be Continued…

Be well, FLS

06/10/2024

THE TUMBLEWEED CHRONICLE
I’m Forty Something. What Do I Do Now? - part 2

We are now a week or so after the hell that was and is Hurricane Helene. I’ve been touched in many ways by this event. Maybe it’s because I live a short distance from the “upstate” where the devastation resides; of the five hurricanes I have experienced the effects of wind and rain were real and right here; maybe because I went to grad school at Ohio University which sits on the Hocking River in Athens, OH in the Appalachian foothills; maybe it’s the fact that my father is from there and many of my recreation and vacation memories are up in the mountains; or maybe it’s because of the sheer magnitude of trauma and suffering that are the by-product of this storm.

Whatever or whichever or whoever is not likely the takeaway from these recent events. There is a value lesson to be had someplace in all this, Tumbleweed.

Last week we spoke of this notion of synchronicity, and I closed with this paragraph:

“Look for challenging, BIG talk opportunities because it is at this juncture when communication is of utmost importance in your relationships at work but more importantly at home. We tend to avoid the uncomfortable especially when it comes to conversations regarding matters of the heart.

Love is the goal with those most dear to us. Not rocking the boat in order to keep the peace does not always service the love. We must have hard conversations as a means to service of our love relationships. Embrace hard talk in the service of your love. Make love the goal and peace & happiness shall surely follow.”

I posed this question to you Tumbleweed, “Are these experiences the unravelling of a common thread in the fabric of life? Are these experiences Gods means to avoid remaining anonymous in our life?”

While working with somebody this past week, they said to me, “I am not into God. I am a total atheist.” I responded with the simple question of, “Why’s that?” And the other party in this conversation said with a touch of shock, “Nobody had ever asked me that.” I thought it the most normal and necessary inquiry. They went on, “I think its because I was not raised believing and then when I wanted to, I found I could not.”

Later in the week I was working with somebody that had experienced a great loss of life. They spoke of a beautiful experience after the passing of one they loved they believed to be a message from the deceased. Time and space won’t allow details today - we will get back to this story one day soon I am sure – but know that I responded in like fashion as I did in the first experience. I asked, “Do you think there was an element of faith and belief in God at play in those events?” The response, “I just don’t know.”

I’ve never lived anywhere in which mysticism and spirituality is so amazingly evident and present. It’s crazy living in the Low Country in that respect. Had I not experienced some of these things firsthand, I would not believe in the palpable presence of mystic forces at play in the everyday life of people like you and me.

I arrived in the Low Country in the shadow of the chaos which was the 2020 Memorial Day holiday weekend. I had ceased my own Tumbleweed travels for a few months to be with some family in Indianapolis that needed a dose of Uncle Fred. I lived in this beautiful rooftop apartment in downtown Indianapolis just a bit off the city circle. It was a beautiful place! And then y’all know what happened next, the summer of love riots descended upon us all. I have never been one to watch from afar so I stayed out all night on the streets absorbing all I could for four nights in a row. In other editions we have ventured into some of those details and today I will tell you of an epiphany I had on the second evening.

I’ve also spoken in limited fashion here of the rigors of finding my father’s birth family up in the mountains of Appalachia. That quest began in 1978 and culminated in the early 2000’s. Along the way I had opportunity to dig deep and get first-hand accounts of stories that were past to me from my mother and father. One of those stories was about the most famous woman you’ve never, ever heard of. Her name was Izetta Jewel. I could keep you here for hours if we were to go down that rabbit hole but that’s not why we are here today.

In my research I came across a story of fame, intrigue, lies, deceit and destruction. It was a story worth telling but I needed a voice, an advocate, a narrator, a hero. The story needed to be personified. And my epiphany of personification came amidst the sound of gunfire and the acrid smell (taste, too) of tear gas during the riots of the 2020 Memorial Day Weekend. The epiphany was to tell this generational story via my children. With my personification need met, I reached out to one of my dearest of dear friends to help me. She is an amazing liturgist and has toiled her life crafting her skill. I originally told her the story in 2012. Right then and there we pledged to write together.

There are now two versions of this work. The first rendition entitled Jewel. And another entitled Izetta. It was the experience of writing this screenplay in which I first was exposed in person to the mysticism that is the Low Country. If you are familiar with Pat Conroy, you have tasted a bit of it. My screenplay endeavor cast me into a group of people in whom I had not circulated before – writers, actors and artists of every sort. These souls are sensate and empathic to the nth degree. Set this alongside the barrier island people known as the Gulla and hello to all things mystic. This cornucopia of characters offers a real-life walk in the garden of good and evil.

There is this thought that there is a reality beyond that world perceived by our five physical senses of sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. It’s oft referred to as the meta-physical. In Greek, meta essentially translates as ‘after’ so the doctrine espouses there is a reality, there is an experience beyond the perception of the physical senses. These are those studies of what cannot be reached through objective studies of material reality.

The thread connecting the physical and the meta-physical was, is, synchronicity, according to Jung. Synchronicity then possesses some sort of explanatory connection between these two realms. In Jung’s world view, the entirety of the human experience – historical, sociological, psychological, emotional and even spiritual – has been codified by archetypes and discerned via synchronicity. As an expression of the level of credence he placed in this world view he had a line referred to often, “The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.” Subtle was the nature of Jung.

Jung came to this belief pattern as we all do in most things – a revelation, an epiphany, if you will. He was counseling a patient encountering great stress and troubled as to life’s direction. A perplexing circumstance for the patient was the recurring appearance of a beetle of some sort. As Jung sat conversing, he heard a pecking upon his window. Intent on making his patient feel important and valued he ignored it until ignore it no more he could. He opened the window to capture the intruder and rid himself of the incessant pecking and what did he find? A scarab, the ancient Egyptian symbol of rebirth and transformation. And with this clarity was brought to the perplexing circumstance of this patient. An awakening began that day for patient and counselor alike.

Are Jung’s theorems of the voice of the universe really anecdotes of what the ancients described as the helper? Are these experiences important signposts connecting what we feel on the inside with the actuality of what we see, hear, feel, smell and taste of the physical world? I ask you again, Tumbleweed, are these experiences God’s means to avoid remaining anonymous in our life? Are these experiences the unravelling of the common thread in the fabric of life?
Can much of Jung’s work regarding synchronicity be summed up in one simple sentence offered by the Apostle John: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever”, John 14:16? There is a Greek word known as paraklētos (παράκλητος) found in the New Testament which literally translates as “someone who is called to come alongside someone else.” In the Gospel of John this helper is mentioned four times with direct reference to the Holy Spirit. Is it likely the helper, the comforter and Holy Spirit exist in parallel and tandem fashion as one in the same?

Jung contends it is incumbent upon each of us to find our own understanding in these meaningful coincidences of life. I suppose our own brand name version of “me” is at play in deciphering life. What then influences the make-up of “me” must certainly be a relevant question as we all might likely agree perspective is everything. What flavors your version of “me” and my version of “me”? If “me” were a color – say blue for instance - I think we might all likely agree that we all possess a subtly varied color of blue as our brand name version of “me”. What then drives our very own unique shade and or tint of “me”? What are essential tools required for grasping meaning in life’s struggle?

Emotion. Emotion is a certain driver in comprehension of and living of life.

Located in the area above the brainstem and underneath the cerebral cortex of the brain resides the limbic system. The limbic system plays a vital role in regulating our emotions. There is this concept referred to as MacLean’s Triune brain model and in it is reference to the limbic system being the emotional brain. Neural activity of this portion of the brain is on high display during emotional experiences. This sub-component of the brain is crucial in regulating emotion, memory and arousal. Pleasure, fear, anxiety and anger all reside here. You’ve often heard me speak of our basic emotions as mad, sad, glad and scared – it is here they find origin. Doesn’t it suck that at face value only one of these attributes of emotion has a positive connotation? I guess it makes sense its incumbent upon us (“me”) to reign in and make better use of our (my) my mad, sad, scared part of “me”.

Changes in mood and impulse control are often associated dysfunction in the limbic system. How do we keep the limbic system healthy? We prioritize sleep. We seek and take full advantage of opportunities for exercise in the gym and physical endeavor in life. Manage levels of vitamin D, enjoy time in the morning sun, drink more water. We must avoid inflammatory foods (read as processed foods) and pursue whole foods. Manage the mad, sad, scared “me” with these simple life skills and enhance the physical and meta-physical life you live. Improve the health of your limbic system in order to regulate mood swings and impulse control.

Personality. Personality is a certain driver in comprehension of and living of life.

Coming out of Psychology 101 at Southeast Missouri State University back in the day I only scratched the surface of grasping personality. In the years to follow I fell upon tools offering clarity to the dynamic we know as personality. I see personality affording two key insights, one internal, one external. The internal component allows understanding me and my actions. The external component of these tools affords insight & understanding of those around me. The key remains “me”. Understanding “me” is paramount. Remember intimacy is really “into me I see”.

The tool I lean into is the Enneagram. The Enneagram is a tool that’s been employed for 2,500 years according to some sources. The Enneagram describes nine personality types. Once I started using it regularly in business, I was rarely surprised in staff performance. I knew how they would respond well ahead of the stressors they were surely to encounter. Once I started using it regularly in my personal life, I became a much better friend and partner. Take this test and dig deeper into you as I dig deeper into me in order better grasp the dynamic we know as the struggle, i.e., life, https://www.enneagraminstitute.com . Don’t try to understand personality by what your girlfriend told you or the last article you read in Glamour. Get serious dear mouth breather. This is vital.

Spirituality. Spirituality is a certain driver in comprehension of and living of life.

Boy, oh boy, GPS sure makes my life so easy…WAIT, that’s not correct at all! GPS makes navigation easy…WAIT, that’s not quite correct, either. GPS makes travel in a car easier. It’s easier because I get lost less often, I discover places I’ve never been all because I have a technology tool I can trust.

Here is what’s interesting about technology. Its task specific. Technology tools are rarely capable of doing multiple tasks and working in multiple dimensions. A GPS offers navigation, yet we must rely on another piece of technology for communication. By its very nature technology is self-limiting. That statement will likely raise eyebrows. Remember, context is everything.

Recently, I was with my favorite priest, Father Martin. He asked, “Fred, do you know what my psychiatrist friends tell is the #1 condition they treat?”. And of course, I had not a clue. The answer: grief . . . that dreaded emotional wasteland. Some of us loose our way there and just wander in grief’s bo***ge. Some of us suppress it and never embrace the journey. Ignoring is never overcoming. Some of us take time to methodically CHOOSE work our way through the precarious pathways required and CONNECT with wayfarers on a similar journey when struck with life’s most crushing blows. There is no by-pass. Navigating glife in such a fashion to COMMUNICATE our needs in the midst of grief is just plain hard. Grief sucks, yet it is a dessert we all traverse. There is not a technology solution at play here.

Funny thing about grief is we hide it. Funny thing about love is that we want it on display. Suggestion as you start right where you are, don’t hide your grief, just like you don’t hide your love. You know just maybe the suppression of grief will require that you dampen down and re**rd your love. Just maybe. Relationships certainly suffer in the presence of unresolved grief. Grief’s bo***ge can be stifling at best and paralyzing at worst.

In only one way life is like that GPS. How so, you ask? In order to get where you are going, you have to start someplace. And where you start on any spiritual awakening or journey thru grief is right where you are.

Getting back to the life lesson in the aftermath in the trauma and suffering that is Hurricane Helene, that life lesson we must grasp in variance of emotion, personality & spirituality that is you and me, that life lesson necessary when abundance, questioning or absence of a belief in Christ rules the day. The life lesson is found in the reality that both hope and horror exist simultaneously in this world of ours. This life we live is not a dichotomy. It is not, either or. We suffer full dose and, should we choose, we enjoy full measure.

Now a week or so after the disaster, many went to sleep last night to be greeted by nightmares of turbulent flood waters and loss – loss of everything and, in some instances, of everybody in their life. We re-live and share their trauma and suffering in nearly every SM feed. That is the horror of Hurricane Helene.

Now a week or so after the disaster, we all awake to the heart & soul of our fellow man as donations and volunteers rush to Appalachia. We awake to see kindness and compassion on open display with every hug and handshake. We awake to see hill Billy ingenuity at work. This is the hope of the Appalachian people.
We awake with a belief that the people of Appalachia will rebound – that’s what they do. They are a breed of people that know anguish all too well. There is this thread of hope innate in the fabric of Appalachian people. Bred deep into the people of Appalachia is a belief in an eternal and everlasting God. Y’all will see that unfold in real time and in short order. Maybe there is a Jung moment for some in all of this. Maybe there is a spiritual awakening for many among us here. Maybe its time to start right where you are, right here, right now, Tumbleweed.

Be Well, FLS