Bob! A New Paradigm...

It has been more than a week since I have posted a journal here. It's not that I have been too busy. I'm retired! You'd think I have lots of time on my hands now. No, it's more of "a shift" I think, in what is "interesting" me now. I've been thinking about it quite a bit. There is a subtle change in my motivations and interests that I'm finally able to accept and deal with. I don't think my "basic values" have changed but maybe some of the urgency has slipped away.

I originally started this Blog almost a year ago now. (May of '05). This is the last day of April, '06. Yes, a whole year of "reflecting" on my life and how to preserve it. ie. my memories, my current activities and what I wished to share with the "internet world" and my "loved ones"...mainly my sons and their families. It was born partially out of frustation in not being able to "influence" them much anymore (or ever) and also just to share my "point of view" and "advice". The over-riding theme was..."Bob!" ...the verb, meaning to "ride out the wave" and "float" through the good and the bad. I've tried to do that. Raising and supporting our large family, Betty and I did alot of that. There were "good" and "bad" times and I'm sure, I remember more good than bad. I knew, when I started the blog that it would probably be my last year of "employment" for someone else. Thirty-eight teaching and six selling R.E. is quite enough for me. I wanted to have time to "follow my bliss" and do my own "self employment" (or not) in my last years on this planet. I've mentioned that I wanted to "write" and study music (probably not perform) I still love to work with kids, like I used to but now, on a volunteer basis where I can come and go and set my own times etc. I'm starting to do that too.

However, yesterday, at a "group meditation" in the desert I think I may have come across a new "paradigm" for my life and for this blog. I'm still "bobbing" but it isn't so much to stay afloat and survive. I'm attempting to "dive" and then "bob" but not in an cognitive/active way. I'm not "trying" to force anything but just allowing it to happen. This is a new pattern which is used in our type of meditation. The metaphor is still there, floating on an "ocean of consciousness" not just my own either but...the universe's... Yes, it sounds strange but there really aren't words to describe the experience or the feeling (physically). I just know that it has given me, over the years, a new and different perspective. I believe it has helped my health and stress level and that it will continue to.

C.S. Lewis in his "Screwtape Letters", which I just happened to read (a passsage) today, explains this "law of undulation" he calls it. "Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. (a revolting hybrid) As spirits, they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation the repeated return to a level from which they fall back, a series of troughs and peaks..." Hence, the "bobbing" and "diving" that I am experiencing and will continue to experience, hopefully on a deeper and more profound level.

I'm not saying that I won't be just as involved with my "loved ones", especially my grandchildren. I may be even more "involved" at a "deeper level", a more "enlightened level" Who knows? My sons are all grown and have been for many years. I'm as involved with them as much they will permit or want me to be. This is the way it should be. They have always been very independent. We raised them that way. We are proud of them. They have chosen their own "paths". So, this blog, will not be about "advice"...it never really was. There are and will be "key transitions" ie. from boy to man, from son to father, from father to grandfather. We all have to do our best with these and still maintain "the boy", "the son", "the father". It's not easy. Living it, is the best example and really the only one I can do now. Sure, there are always going to be "frustrations" and "misunderstandings" along the way. That's life. How I deal with them is now my focus. What I share through this "journalling process" is going to change. It won't always be "therapy". Some of my "bobbing" after "diving" won't be shared, can't be shared. It will be my personal journey. This is as it should be. So...this is "30" for "Bob! Your Life Preserver" and quo vadis(?) to "Bob! My Life Preserver... Enhancer... Enricher... Enlightener"...Bob!