Things to be thankful for.

It's time to be thankful.  If you aren't you must not be doing things right.  I know why you aren't happy, you're still wasting your time with that bad job you have.  You also spend too much time on that hobby of yours.  You can't possibly be happy if you haven't figured out how to be with each side of your family on the day of giving thanks.  Worse, if you want a quiet Thanksgiving at home with your immediate family then you really must be ungrateful.  I thought we taught you better than this.  And look at your children we certainly wouldn't let our children do what yours are obviously being encouraged to do.  You made pies?  But you didn't make a blueberry one.  Come on taste this pumpkin pie,  I know you SAY you don't like it but you haven't tried it the way I make it.  Wait, you're not spending the night?  Shouldn't it just be assumed that you'd spend the night.  Come now, you'll feel a lot better driving home in the morning after sleeping on our beds/couch/floors/etc.  You say that you had a busy week last week?  Well I'm sure if you just planned a less busy schedule and grew your own vegetables ahead of time and switched detergents and used a different dig food you wouldn't feel so busy.  I know you don't have a dog but you should.  Every family should have one.  You would certainly be more happy if you had a dog.  It would give you some purpose in life.  Wow, you really don't have your degree yet?  Or that promotion?  You know I figured that by now you should be making well into six figures.  Your sibling does.  Just be more like them.  Hey maybe they could give you some pointers.  Can you believe how dry this Turkey is.  We probably should have had ham but then you always struggle cooking gam so the turkey is fine. We need to discuss how often you're going to visit in December.  We're really busy so you'll have to come visit several times but you need to plan it in advance so we're not overwhelmed.  Remember that person you used to date in highschool?  We didn't like them but they turned our to be so very successful.  Too bad you couldn't make it work.  Imagine what that would be like.  At least you're not as much trouble/annoyance/needy as your sibling so and so, keep this to yourself but we sure don't think much of what they're doing.  By the way, did you ever get that tree planted that we suggested?  That's an interesting way of making potatoes.   Wait! you mean the gravy spilled in your car while driving an hour or more to get here?  I guess a bullion based gravy will do.  You know why it spilled don't you?   I could have told you it would if you'd have run your transportation plans by me.  I could have helped you prevent it in 16 easy steps.  But you always have to do it the wrong way.  Oh, next year you'll be at your in-laws?  Or with just your family?  Well you KNOW don't you that we want you here too.  No pressure.  Just know that you can come because we want you to.

Scrutiny

No one can live up to the scrutiny the world requires.  Are people really worse now than decades ago?  Has there been no progress?
I think people are no worse.  I even think there's been progress.  But progress or no anyone, everyone, public eye or not, is under a microscope.  A 60 year old changing careers could have an unpaid parking ticket from their teens come back to steal their future. No matter what they made of themselves.  A person does wrongs all through their lives.  Other people are affected whether we're smart enough to realize it or not.  Whether forgiveness is asked or given or not eventually people move on.  But one day we could decide to take that thing we put behind us and pull it out.  Hold it against someone.  Get revenge.  Sometimes we are the perpetrators AND victims.  We dredge the past and decide we can't forgive ourselves. Whether ourselves or others when we pull it back out we call it justice.  It's not.  It's just vindictiveness.  And it's everywhere.   No single person out there will ever have every quality that "I" think is important ever including me.  If someone did happen to have them they surely wouldn't have "popped" into existence that way.  Their lives would been a travesty of mistakes, sins, misdeeds and wrongs when all laid out in one moment.  It seems there will never be tolerability in this world again.  The world is only tolerable within the walls of my own little world.  Going beyond them anymore is pointless.  If the world has not torn itself apart before the day I expire then let me not have to look at it.  Others can watch it burn.  I would rather sit in darkness because there I can at least have the light of my own thoughts.

Lies we tell ourselves

Uncle Rico bragged about his football prowess. 
Doesn't everybody brag?  Remember way back when the world hadn't beat them down and hope spewed forth from them like an open hydrant.
Take that into consideration when I say that those young days I see someone only tolerated.  Tolerated in choir because I could sing what needed to be sung.  Tolerated by friends who were at times amused at the lengths I would go to be liked.  A pet, a mascot.  Someone who could be talked into calling a bunch people to gang out when the others got bored and wanted a new scene. 
Of course, like all of us life only came to tear down what little confidence one has.
Uncle Rico may be stuck in the past but at least he was ON team.  He wasn't the mascot.
So I sit here now longing for the past when I didn't realize just how much I was merely tolerated.  I could pretend.

Breathe hope, in my disconsolation.

For me, verse about spiritual things should be steeped in the misdirection of metaphor.  Disguised to only allow the meaning to reveal itself by someone who needs or wants it greatly.  This is the philosophy behind my own poetry concerning sacred things.  This way it's holiness or sacred meaning is protected from those who might try to tear it down or destroy it.
I say this because today I wrote something very much unlike myself.  Though it may have metaphor in it, it is used as an enhancement, not a shield.  The message is plain and simple. This leaves me vulnerable as I intend to post it.  So as I do, understand that sharing it is a leap of faith for me.

Breathe hope in my disconsolation
My lord, O wash away my tears.
Bide with me through my tribulation.
When I'm succumbing to my fears.

My Savior tary with me longer,
Be with me til the winds are fair.
Be with me so that I need not hasten,
My Restore to heaven, to be with you there.

Inside my heart the tempest rages,
My vessel beaten by the sea.
Thy voice, the tossing sea, assuages,
Be still my soul, deliver me.

My Savior tary with me longer,
Be with me til the winds are fair.
Be with me so I need not hasten,
My Restore to heaven, to be with you there.