{"id":2412,"date":"2022-01-27T21:42:48","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T21:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2412"},"modified":"2022-01-30T19:44:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-30T19:44:39","slug":"half-fast-living-must-this-be-another-winter-of-discontent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2412","title":{"rendered":"HALF FAST LIVING: Must This Winter Be Another Season of Discontent?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL, as the snows of another pandemic winter cover Mother Earth. Henry David Thoreau was right when he wrote, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By RAHN ADAMS<\/strong><\/p>\n

BOONE, N.C. (Jan. 26, 2022) \u2013 Some 35 years ago when I worked at The Brunswick Beacon<\/em> in Shallotte, N.C., Wednesday mornings were my favorite time of the work week. That week\u2019s edition of the newspaper had been put to bed the night before, and the newsroom was quiet for a change, at least for a few hours. It was then that I would compose my new column that would appear a week later when the next Beacon <\/em>hit the newsstands. I didn\u2019t mind having to think a week ahead.<\/p>\n

Now, as a 62-year-old retiree whose working life has seen four distinct seasons\u2014as a hardware clerk, newsman, teacher and coach, and writer\u2014I\u2019m beginning to wonder if maybe I was wrong all those years ago, whether I should have simply flown by the seat of my pants, as some folks say, instead of worrying so much about staying on top of things, getting ahead, being proactive\u2014whatever that character trait is called. Or is it a fault? Maybe so, depending on the situation.<\/p>\n

Several things this past year and specifically this winter have convinced me to take another look at how I approach day-to-day living. The ongoing pandemic, of course, and the resulting deaths of people close to me have had the greatest impact. A year ago today my mother died about a month after testing positive for COVID-19 and then developing pneumonia. An elderly aunt had suffered the same fate a couple of months earlier. At least three classmates\u2014three that I know of, anyway\u2014have died of the coronavirus, while other family members and friends have survived bouts with the disease but still feel its effects.<\/p>\n

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MY MOTHER’S HANDS play “The Lost Sheep,” a song she composed in the late 1960s in memory of her late father and for a homecoming service at Brookwood Baptist Church in Morganton. This image comes from my last video of Mom playing the piano, in 2014.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other recent passages have affected me\u2014not the deaths of media celebrities, who can live and be celebrated forever in their images, sounds and accomplishments left behind, but the shuffling off this mortal coil of friends and close acquaintances whose memories are about all we have left to remember them by. Unlike some COVID-19 victims who stubbornly place their so-called faith in false prophets and cults of personality, three of my friends\u2014all three cancer warriors\u2014fought hard to live and trusted knowledgeable doctors and evolving science to ensure their best chances of survival.<\/p>\n

These three believers did more than just pray, and so should we all. Not only are we instructed to ask for what we desire, we are commanded to seek it.<\/p>\n

Along with the anniversary of my mother\u2019s death today, two other events have put me in this melancholy mood: first, the release earlier this month of the third and final season of Ricky Gervais\u2019s dark comedy After Life<\/em> and, second, this past weekend\u2019s passing of Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh. All three seasons and every episode\u2014but particularly the last one\u2014of After Life<\/em> are compelling in the \u201cI laughed, I cried, it became a part of me\u201d kind of way. And without going into the details of Thich Nhat Hanh\u2019s life, Thay, or Teacher, as he was called, was all about mindfulness or awareness of one\u2019s breath, the inspiration and expiration of one\u2019s very existence in the moment.<\/p>\n

Heading into the third year of a global pandemic when so many believers in some sort of god are struggling just to breathe and then dying needlessly, maybe we all should recognize that God\/religion and Nature\/science are one and the same. As Franciscan priest, writer and speaker Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, N.M., observes: \u201cThe tragic sense of life, the absurd sense of everything, that\u2019s the Gospel.\u201d In a recent talk about Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton, Fr. Rohr also noted that \u201cGod <\/em>is just another word for everything.\u201d True? Then so, too, is the converse of that supposition.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve said before, God is<\/em> good, all the time\u2014but God is also bad and everything in the middle, all at the same time. What may be heaven-sent for me can be hellish or something in-between for someone else\u2014or for everyone<\/em> else, even. What is wholly good? What is wholly bad? Nothing\u2014and everything. It all depends on one\u2019s focus, either on oneself, or on humanity and the universe of which humanity is just one part. Even then, we struggle to keep good things good, don\u2019t we?<\/p>\n

Sure, I came close to swearing off planning ahead in this meditation, this New Year\u2019s resolution four weeks late. But there are three things I want to do in the year ahead\u2014three trips, in memory of the three angels that Timberley and I lost in 2021. First, I want to go someplace again where live music is played, to honor one sweet friend who lived for it and danced to it, whether with her husband or by herself to his music. Second, I want to revisit Brunswick County, where so many of our friends live, as did the second friend we lost. Third, I want to finish our recent pilgrimage to Frankfort, Ky., that we aborted in transit before we could attend our third fallen friend\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n

Eventually, I\u2019d also like to organize a gospel singing in memory of my mother, a church pianist much of her life and a published composer of hymns. Even before she died last January, I had a good idea of where to stage the event and whom to invite, but I will continue to hold off with those plans until we can safely gather together to memorialize Mom with her own hymns and with other gospel songs she loved to play and sing. I\u2019d like to be left with something positive to remember my mother by.<\/p>\n

Those are some of my hopes and dreams for the year ahead\u2014and, yes, my plans<\/em>, too. I just can\u2019t help myself, as I live and breathe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By RAHN ADAMS BOONE, N.C. (Jan. 26, 2022) \u2013 Some 35 years ago when I worked at The Brunswick Beacon in Shallotte, N.C., Wednesday mornings were my favorite time of the work week. That week\u2019s edition of the newspaper had been put to bed the night before, and the newsroom was quiet for a change, … Continue reading HALF FAST LIVING: Must This Winter Be Another Season of Discontent?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2412"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2430,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions\/2430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}