A penny for your thoughts....

Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts...
Mid- fifties, cute navy blue patten leather flats, scarf, sunglasses and a very complacent look although I cannot see her eyes hiding beneath the large dark sunglasses...
A Banker deeply enthralled in his reading of the Wall Street Journal...
The old Chinese woman just picked up in China town, her old crackling fingers clinging to her pink grocery bag...
An exhausted working mother, tired and quite preoccupied with her blackberry...
The girl who looks like she is scowling at the world but I think that's just her rest face... she is probably really pretty when she smiles...
The guy next to me, reading "Dance, Dance, Dance..."
The list goes on as I take a look around my fellow bus passengers. Up and down, off and on, silent and still... and I just wonder- What are they all thinking about? Thoughts about the day, about what to do when they get home, about friends in distress, about troubled relationships, about what to wear, losing jobs, about war, daydreaming about love, worrying about the kids, financial concerns, news, books, problem solving, who knows... to each their own thought I suppose. It would be so interesting to get a glimpse of all the thoughts that pass on a simple bus ride home (perhaps frightening). It's kind of amazing that everybody is thinking all of the time. So many thoughts, both big and small. So many thoughts that are so fleeting because a new thought so quickly follows that most of them are never explored. And how is it that some people claim to just not think sometimes? That really baffles me. It's interesting how our thoughts really make up who we are- we must think in order to do, and we must do many things to survive in life. Our thoughts determine our beliefs, our moral code and thus how we determine to live our lives. Our thoughts alter our conversations, our habits and our relationships. Our thoughts determine our happiness, how do we look at things? And although I realize that thoughts and feelings are often viewed as opposites, I really think the line is quite blurred, and it's just those who "think too much" that try to define their "thoughts" as the logical thing to do, and their "feelings" as what they want to do.... But really both are just different kinds of thinking. Thinking can get complex and drive us in circles sometimes. Thinking too much or too hard or too fast can get exhausting and confusing at times. Thoughts beget thoughts, and everything around you begets thoughts... they are quite impossible to avoid. I think this is why we need to sleep- so at least we don't know that our brains are still thinking... That's another thing- I am no scientist but do thoughts really come from the brain? Or are they in our spirit? Our soul? It seems that thinking is an element beyond the body. It's all very interesting to me and probably quite boring to other people. Perhaps it's my intrigue with thoughts that makes me willing to share mine from time to time, because I think I would enjoy hearing the thoughts of somebody else. Oh my, if I really had a penny for each of my thoughts, or yours... I could be a rich girl!

"That's the most beautiful part of God, eh? Being almighty and yet not forcing Himself on anyone."-- Mother Teresa

I stumbled across this line in my recent reading and loved the simplicity of such a statement. I love and appreciate that God gives us agency. I am a firm believer in agency, although I know that this sometimes comes with the sting of accountability, it just makes so much sense. I think that God lets us know that he is there, ready and willing and waiting to help us, but we must come to him by our own choice. Although he is almighty and could certainly control our lives and choices for us, rather he guides us and we are taught principles to follow, but we still have our own choices to make of how to live and govern our lives.

Natures?

Too many thoughts today... They have been building up... One moment I am walking through the city- people, stop lights, taxi cabs, business lunches, high heels, men in suits, cell phones, cable cars, electric buses, shopping, cafes, sunshine peaking through the clouds and glistening from one sky rise to the next.... and I think, "I love you city." I'm not sure why, these things usually provoke stress and chaos... but in some strange sense I could see nature behind it all. Like looking at a beautiful beehive oozing in honey with busy little bees swarming about. But then I asked myself, if both the city and the hive can be natural developments by their creators, their species.... then what is unnatural? So often people assume that anything "man made" is unnatural, but perhaps those things are the natural course of man? Where is the line between natural survival of a species and unnatural behavior? Perhaps there is no such thing as unnatural, perhaps there are just different natures... The nature of one animal from the next, the nature of man, and the nature of God. Sometimes they conflict or overstep other natures, but perhaps this is the natural course of life...

Sometimes I envy the homeless

It’s true, sometimes I envy the homeless. It’s an interesting lifestyle, living so unattached. No phone to answer or emails to reply to, not even an address to find you. You kind of get to fall off the map and have a free pass to break all of the rules that society throws at you. You don’t feel obligated to go to expensive dinners or buy gifts. You are on your own clock, you get a lot of free stuff and you don’t have to pay taxes. You can be, do, wear and say crazy things and really nobody cares! Where some of us live in a life that we must have a job to pay the bills… the strange thing is that all too often that job that brings in the money also takes it right back. We must pay for clothes to wear to the job, and a phone to answer to the job, and transportation to get to the job and on top of these other things that add up, we must pay a third of that income to the government for having a job. It’s like a massive penalty fee, and a bunch of little service charges along the way that makes some of us wonder if the return is really worth it. Ok- you get my point and I’ll stop at that because I don’t want to seem too ungrateful and I don’t know if I even dare post this for fear of jinxing myself. I really am so happy to have a job, a home, a bed and a shower and means to provide food and to be connected to friends and family. I know that these are all wonderful things and I am lucky to have them. But sometimes- every once in a while, I confess that I have a moment of weakness where the pressure feels too heavy to keep it up and then I have a fleeting thought where I envy the homeless.