Do you ever ask yourself—–WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

I do. 

When I see so much that seems upside/down.  When things are explained away that still don’t make sense.  Or when things aren’t explained at all, I start to get a little gritty inside myself—-and I don’t think this grit is going to end up in a string of pearls.

I always believed in that old DUCK THEORY—-the one where when it walks, quacks, and looks like a duck—-you should bet on the duck, not the zebra in the top hat.

There is a natural order to things, to us, to the world.  When we disturb that order, individually or collectively,  we pay a price, individually and collectively. I think we are in the midst of a reckoning of sorts—on a global basis–but we are also experiencing very personal tests and trials, challenging our beliefs and championing our faith.  There are some things I have seen lately, experienced up close in my own life, or with friends and family, that makes me want to crawl out on the tiny twigs for a comment or two……….you may not like what I am about to say—but here goes anyway.

Call me corny but having a child without being married, or without having two parents as yin and yang, as individual role models, as partners modeling a loving relationship, is just not that cool.  A child deserves a chance at balance and stability—they deserve to see and experience commitment in action—they deserve to know that they were loved  enough that a commitment to a life together was made for them.  The opposite is certainly glamourized in the media. If Brad and Angelina can do it, so can I. 

But remember when Angelina wore a vial of Billy Bob Thornton’s blood around her neck? Not only did it not go with a single one of her outfits, it was just plain gross and wacked out. Now she’s Mother Theresa? I am trying to make light of what I see—but the reality is that, all we really see of these “care-free and glittering” people is a snapshot of something that seems easier–and more visually appealing than the lives we have created for ourselves.  We call them STARS but what they are, are people who think they can make their own set of standards without regard to the big picture or the far-reaching effects—and they do it in the limelight of fawning media types which somehow seems to also give their behavior a societal “check-mark”—-as if this sets a new bar for the rest of us to accept and emulate. 

If the truth be told, I don’t know a single mother who would not rather be married to someone who loves her and their child and who accepts the commitment and responsibility for being a lover, friend, husband and parent. Period.

All of us have those same STAR choices.  We can live in any fashion, with anyone we want.  We can work in any circumstances, making money any way we want to.  We can chose to party all night, sleep all day and collect unemployment if we feel like it.  We can chose to eat cow dung  or sheep’s heads if we want to—but there are consequences and results for every bad AND good choice that we make.  We can run every credit through the roof—-but one day the roof will cave in—and is the anxiety of that impending doom worth the new belt or boots or IPhone you just had to have?

Filing bankruptcy can take care of wiping away your debts.  But what does it do to your self-esteem?  What does it do to your standing in your own eyes?  How do you recoup your core spirit and life force?  How long can you pretend that you were clever enough to “beat the system” and feed good about it? 

You can have affairs—-they are glamourized in the media too (except for the movie Fatal Attraction—rent it if you are thinking about having one).  But I know for sure, from the couples I have worked with—-that if you end up marrying someone you had an affair with—-you will never completely trust that person not to do the same thing TO you that they did WITH you. It’s just human nature.

There are things that just ARE.  You can short cut, side step, ignore, and/or thumb your nose at these things—but they will remain the same and irrefutable, eventually.  There is a natural order in the universe.  The idea that there is a season for everything may sound quaint, but it is so very, very true.  We are part of the giant clock that is ticking away the minutes in our lives.

At the foundation, for all of us–our nature— is simply the desire to love and be loved.  To find our purpose in life and to fully express it.  Food, clothes and shelter are important too—-but at our very core there is order—-a natural progression of living and breathing, of cause and effect, of comfort and discomfort.  We can honor that order—-tapping into its power—-or we can test that order over and over—-and mess with the miracle of our own lives.  We can do or be anything we chose.  For every action, there is a reaction. Some of those reactions come to us on angel wings of realization, others hit us like a freight train.  Every day is a chance to course correct.  Every day is a chance to step into our own personal truth and shine a light on our lives.