Post 3 #NanoWrimo2017 Nanowrimo in progress write 50,000 words in November = Book

Post 3 #NanoWrimo2017 Nanowrimo in progress write 50,000 words in November = Book

Unedited!

The saying painted in ancient letters below the painting was  - “the biggest trick the devil every did was convincing the world that he did not exist”.

We throw up one final prayer for those we love and who have left us. Putting on heavy jackets we slowly move out into the cold dark night, snow has turned back into rain making it feel even colder. Raw tear stroked cheeks are drenched with freezing moisture from the sky. And we walk, walk in silence to a place where we will all talk more joyously. We walk through the night each filled with thought of loved ones remembered and thinking about life.

Funny how fast we can shift from mourning to jovial when given the proper time. We arrive in a great mead hall lit with candles and a warm fire billowing on each side, 4 in all.  A light music is playing from a pair of harps and mandolin players in the corner. Against the longest wall is a table filled with meat and cheese, drinks and deserts. Not a person enters without looking and smiling at the feast that is  to come.  A small bell is hit with a hammer over and over, the eating and talking commences.

I walk to the table, small plates and forks are piled. I take mine and move forward, roast beast with cheese, pickled horny toad with crumpets, elk with eel sauce and Asian worm chocolate cake fill my plate. It is so heaped that a chunk of roast beat falls off as I walk to my table. A lap wolf runs over to the meat on the floor and quickly gobbles it up. The table I sit at is huge twenty people around with a giant candle in the center surrounded by a hundred smaller candles. We greet each other with a wave and hello and seat to feast.

The laughter and smells make a mood so loving you would hardly know we had been praying on departed souls only moments earlier. A server brings by tea and mead and espresso made of dried beans excreted from a cat. I ask for a goblet of all three and back up to make room on the table. Even though the table is very large every square inch is covered with food and drinks and peoples elbows as they converse close to neighbors. What a joy it is to take the time to talk about loved ones and all that brings us together in the fabric of humanity.  We all eat and eat and eat until no one can fit another morsel into their gut. There is still much food everywhere but in fear of bursting everyone is done eating. The fires are stoked and the harp gets louder. The newly formed family begins to say good byes and coats are brought out by helpers. The rain has shifted back to snow and there is now a thin layer of ice coating everything outside.

As we walk back to our electric carriages we drift off in small groups and mutter about the night. It sure was a nice service, the meal was over the top, the conversations and people were great. We commit to come back again next year. There will always be more death and there is always a need for prayer and community. We are mindful that we take the time needed to remember those we have lost and spend time with those still here that will be for a long time and are close to passing over.

The journey home is not a long one, dark and dreary with a certain delight you can only feel after mourning is over. The night is young but it is black as pitch. The road is wet and slippery. We pass a few other people on their journeys somewhere into the night.

When we think back on places and times that

Day 2 #NanoWrimo2017 Nanowrimo in progress write 50,000 words in November = Book

Unedited day 2:

We find ourselves driving across a plane of life so full of noise and busyness that we can’t concentrate long to see the endpoint on the plains in front of us.  If we lose track of the long game of life we may ne be prepared for everything it has to throw at us but if we don’t allow ourselves to be consumed by the craziness of now we risk losing time all along. One of the hardest things to do as a human is to live in the now. Not in the past or in what we will be doing in the future but living in right now. The present is just that, it’s a gift and we will never have it again. As children time seems infinite, as old age sets in days fly by like sparks and time grows ever faster. Take time now to embrace the crazy, smelly, dirty, hard and fun. Life throws a lot at us and we need to try our best to take that lot and run with it.

I was once told that life is change and that growth is optional. I don’t disagree but sometimes its much harder to change and grow than we would like to admit. We get pretty stuck in our proverbial rut and even if its not going the way we want we don’t give ourselves the power to turn the steering wheel and head cross country into the jungle on that next adventure.

At a vespers service for those who have passed we take a pause, marked in a book the silence fills the great expanse of the cathedral. It feel good, right, a little strange in our loud and ever to fast moving world. Singers and a lone violin paint a chilling and bright background to remember those we have passed and speed them on to heaven with prayers. Together we weep for those we will not embrace again on this earthly plain. We know we will see them again in another place in another time maybe in another life. We dream that at the end of what is now, there is a better place, heaven to some rest to others. The ancient greeks would pass and walk the elysian fields the Vikings go to Valhalla and  everyone will go somewhere. Those with not faith in a higher power have a more morbid belief on what happens after we pass. A burning of the bones, worms eating and crawling through our brains. I prefer to have the happier though that we go to a better place and join our friends and family and maybe also pets that have passes before us.

We pray that those who passed not knowing god will be allowed to enter heaven through gods grace and our prayers as an entry key. Imagine a loved mother sitting at the gates of heaven and looking down into the black abyss of hell. Knowing at that point that there is a god and a devil.  Maybe she should have though a little more about it when she was on earth. Maybe she could have lived a better life. Lots of maybes but this one is not lost. As this mother sees the devil claim others she sees a light. Those who she spend time raising have given her the key and god has granted her mercy. Although she did not know god directly while she walked the earth she moved in his image. She worked all she could to raise her family, she helped the poor, she did not embrace a life of heavy sin. There is salvation and there is a solice knowing that living a good life can be just in itself.

The ancient ones painted a story depicted by pictures in an alley. The alley was in a castle long forgotten and in ruins. What was on the wall was a man who was dressed in robes helping the poor standing next to a man in a suit smoking a cigar.  The picture depicts the trick that happens in life when the good are so humble they blend in with everyone but the devil can also blend in with those who he is most like. 

NanoWrimo Unedited day 1 writing start Mindful life be happy and chill

I am currently doing the NanoWrimo from time to time this November my blog post will be unedited sections of my ramblings. I do this to be creative and while children run screaming around me. I will be back to my normal weight and child focus writing in December. Enjoy!

Day 1:

Today is the start of something amazing. Shouldn’t every day be amazing?

I wake up in this space that I created. I have the ability to be positive and creative and make today my day, my world needs me and needs more than anything for me to love myself and be kind to all. I wake up and look at the ceiling and it’s a blank slate.  A place for my mind to imaging all of the wonderful things I am going to do today. I can walk to the coffee maker and put on a pot of my favorite coffee, I can let the dog out in the backyard, I can go out and get the newspaper that has been waiting for me for hours just to pick it up. I can also walk to my couch and do some writing or lay in bed with my wife and relax a little longer in a comfortable bed and be warm.

When we wake up in the morning we should be happy, when we wake up in the morning we should be free of the restraints of anything. This day we can be who we want to be. If there is something we don’t like we will take positive actions to change it for the better.

When we practice self love we can then give more to the world and to other. Self love is not something pornographic or sexual it is simply loving yourself. If you don’t know what this means think about slowing down, taking personal time away from everything including technology, relaxing and giving your mind and body a break and time to regenerate.

One way we can do this is to spend the time we need in life to get past things that upset us.

I was recently at a funeral for my last grandmother. She lived a great life and was 90 when she died. I took the time to mourn. Although this was not as sad of a funeral as some that I have experienced. Grandma grew up very poor and in a farm family. They seldom wore or could afford shoes and they would walk miles and miles on weekend to fish in the creek. They would then bring home and eat any fish they caught. Not a picky bone in grandma when it came to eating fish or wild game.

She lived as much at peace in life as you can be. She had a lot of challenges, most she overcame in her 90 years of life. One of the things she always pushed was prayer and love for family. She did not embrace wasting a lot of time on technology. She spent time at church or at home and that is where you would find here. You could call on the phone and she would almost always pick up on the other end of the line with her wired old style phone.

In the last years of her life I made sure to visit as often as I could. I really did and I feel grateful for this. I learned a long time ago that you don’t want to feel regret in life because once you feel it seldom can you change anything.

When I heard grandma passed I cried and then prayed her home to heaven. A week later  was the funeral. Grandma was a Catholic and wanted a traditional funeral. Wake with prayer service was filled with family. Mass at church. I said I could help.  I read a couple of things. One was the time prayer. A time for this and a time for that. Today I take time for me. I was also a Eucharistic minister and a pall bearer. The bible passage was the same one I read at my other grandfathers funeral. I think its funny that there is a time for everything in life but most people don’t take time to mourn or time for themselves as they race through life.