Common occurrences seem to exemplify the bigger pictures in life.

There are little things which pop up from time to time.  It makes me want to say…. Holy Smokes.  Is that thing ever metaphorical, or what?

You know.  Like when someone plucks a fading dandelion from the ground… and proceeds to blow on it.  Then all the little swirly-gigs go floating through the air…. in every which direction.  They float up and away. They go all over the place.  All over.  Some of them travel out of sight, others land on the ground, and some alight on the tips of dogs’ noses.  Who knows.

Those Little-Big Pictures of Life come about any where.  Any time.

When you pass an old, long, stone wall… and there in the very middle… is a little green growth of leaves.  Right in the middle of nowhere.

It stops you in your tracks when you notice the beauty of it.

You say out loud.  “Holy Smokes.  How did that ever grow right there? I wonder why and I wonder how.”

There is no logical answer.  And you really didn’t expect to get one.  But you had to say it out loud regardless.

I wonder how and why.

“The few wonders of the world only exist while there are those with the sight to see them.” – Charles de Lint

“Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to” – John Ed Pearce

I know I have said it here before, but it bears repeating.  I’m not so crazy about the phrase “It is what it is.”

To that I say… “Wellllll…….  Is it?   And IF it IS what you think it is….. just how can you be so sure?”

To me, the better phrase might be:  We don’t know what we don’t know.

I am always reminded of something like The Land of Oz.  You know…. when Dorothy steps out of the wind swept house… and in to the land of lollipop flowers and toadstool houses.  Then it all goes…… from Black & White to Color.  And she looks at her little dog, and says… “Toto.  I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Oh.  You might be walking down the street tomorrow….. on the corner of Main and Maple….. and are absolutely sure about things like blue mailboxes, and traffic lights, and corn flakes…. you might even walk around saying “It is what it is.”   Then.  Suddenly,  you blink your eyes…. and  everything looks extremely different and foreign.  Like….   Yellow Brick Roads, and Flying Monkeys.  Poppy Fields.  Horses of Different Colors.  Scarecrows who can talk.

The Lollipop Guild serenades you.

And you are not quite sure what it is you should do next.

Yep.

Simply.  We don’t know, what we don’t know.  And we welcome you to Munchkinland.

Many of you know that my Father passed away, a little over a day ago.

This afternoon, someone asked me how old he was.  I said “He was 90.”

They responded… “Ninety?  That shouldn’t be so bad.  I mean, at that age, what do you expect?”

Well, at age 90, I then expect 91. And so on.   Because I loved my Dad, a lot.  I know we can’t live in our human bodies forever.

But no matter how many years you have with someone you love, you still experience an incredible emptiness when the leave.
The empty pit.  An ache.  A terrible void.  An abyss.

… …. … ..Just ask my Mom.

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” – C.S. Lewis

Oh, we are all looking for THE answer.  The secret of the universe.  The way of the world.  The reason “Why” of it all.

And who better than Mr. Smarty Pants to tell us.  Yep.  Here it is.  Today is the Anniversary of Albert Einstein’s Birthday.  There he was.  Born on March 14, 1879.   He died some 76 years later on April 18, 1955.

What a man he was.  Very smart.  Incredibly kind.   Extremely wise. (Albeit, not so faithful…)

Yet. The world has always wondered what his last words were.  But here is the whooping deal of it.

When Albert Einstein lay dying in a Princeton Hospital, the dang nurse assigned to him didn’t speak a lick of German.  And guess what Al’s native tongue was?  German.  And guess what people do when they die.  Well.  It depends on the person.  But Albert, old smart Albert, spoke his final words auf Deutsch.  (In German, the language of his birth).  So the great physicist’s last words have passed by without meaningful comprehension.

Until now.  You see, I just learned that the nurse said it sounded like Albert Einstein said “That side’s bitter.”  Well I know German.  And this one is easy-peasy.

That side’s bitter.  In German, that sounds just like… “Das Salz Bitte”

And that means… Pass the Salt Please.  Hmmmm.  Pass the Salt.  Puhhhhhlllleeeeeassssse.

And there you have.  The ways of the universe.  Explained.

Just as I suspected.

“I want to know God’s thoughts…the rest are details.” – Albert Einstein

…. And just like that.    He was gone.

This is the great flood of 1913, in Dayton, Ohio.

Prior to this image being made… the skies opened up, and it started raining.
The ground swelled.  Yet.  It continued to rain.

All that water had nowhere to go.
No way to leave.  All the exits were blocked.

Yet.  At some point…. the water finally departed.  It left somehow.
Like Houdini.  It figured out the Great Escape.

It figured out a way to go.

And then the world got dry again.

“The part always has a tendency to reunite with its whole in order to escape from its imperfection.” – Leonardo da Vinci

Here is the deal.  Tonight, I was going to write about “Which Came Firsts” –  You know.  Which came first?  The fishing pole or the fishing line?  The nut or the bolt?  NBC or CBS?   All of this…. because one of the things that has been on my busy brain today is this.  I wonder which came first….. the CAN … or the CAN OPENER.   Now the chicken and the egg always seems to be the big dilemma.  Oh we have heard that line a thousand times before.  But the answer is clear to that one.  After all these years… WHO really gives a CLUCK?

No.  The big “Which Came First” is definitely the can or the can opener debate.  I see no other way around it.

But.  We will have to save that discussion for some other night.  Yeppers.  We will open that can of worms down the road.  Be that what it may.

Tonight, I have bigger things on my mind.  Like…. all the good things in my life.

The Feast of Blessings.   I dine at the table every day of this feast.  Each moment, bringing some new and spectacular dish of life.  Some I savor.  Others I gobble down.  Some of them, it seems…. I just can’t get enough of.  I keep going back and back, time and again, dipping my ladle in the pot.

But now that the bowl is getting empty, and there are no reserves left in that big huge pot,  I must simply sit back in the chair — and be thankful.

Thankful for all the goodness I’ve just been treated to, at this spectacular meal.

There will be other meals.  Just not the same as this one.  And I will have to learn to be even more grateful for the next.

I just hope someone has a can opener handy.

“Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast.” – Norman Vincent Peale

Tonight, I think…  I am questioning everything.

I question.

How it all connects, and hooks up…. how it is all wired.

I don’t understand one bit of it.
There doesn’t seem to  be an logic it to…. whatsoever.

Yet.  It continues to work.

“Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

On March 9, 1969, a Dayton, Ohio family became quite alarmed, when the youngest child  made an all-out attempt to consumer her entire Easter Basket before Catholic Mass.

Not  the candy.

She had dumped that on the ground moments earlier.

No.  The young girl tried to eat the basket, and the plastic grass there in.

From that point  on, they knew she was not quite right.

This had an echoing effect on the entire family.  The youngest boy, joined the Mafia three days later. The eldest brother started designing women’s clothing.  And the four sisters formed a singing group called “The Bowling Pins”

Do Wop.

“There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same” – Chinese Proverb

I love this photo of my family.   Look at my six siblings… my brothers, my sisters, and my Dad.  (Mom was behind the lens.)  How stinking sweet is this?

Ann just out of rollers.  Sue so melodious (and tan).  Ed filled with glee.  Jerry at attention.  Jane with her shoulder shawl.  And Julie… clutching some sort of large dead rodent, and sucking her thumb.  And my Dad.  Just as proud as could be of his clan.  But so gentle in nature.  So full of love.

It is a moment in time.  Captured.  They stood where they stood, but could not see the future.  Oh.  “Little did they know.”

This was taken during the year before my birth.   By my best estimates…. as the dates go in the photo album go… Mom may have already pregnant with me.  If so… it was barely.  Yep.  Only six kids… but soon to be seven.

Yes… this photo was taken before I entered into this world.  Before I came in to being. Before life as we know it.

As we know it.  Holy Smokes.   Little did we know.

Yes.  It seems we have a certain discernment about our existence.  Here.  Here on this earth, here as humans.  Our only physical perceptions begin when we are born.  But there is much more to each one of us than the physical.  There is the  the intellectual, the emotional, the psychological, the spiritual, the intuitive, the mystical.

Then there is that ONE thing.  Call it what you may.  It could be the sneaky feeling, the knot in your throat, the brick in your gut.  It could be the itchy nose, or the burning ears.  Perhaps it is the “something” that tells you to look at your watch, and make note of the time…. for no reason at all.  Or the coincidence.  The serendipitous event.  The penny… heads up on the sidewalk.

It could be Skylab falling from the sky… crashing right into your living… while you watch reruns of Lost In Space.  “Danger Will Robinson.  Danger.”

Maybe someday we will get.  Maybe not while on this earth.

For a smart as we think we might be… I somehow have a sneaky felting…. that in fact….  there is little that we know.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
– Socrates