Author: Bev

Have you ever fallen for a scam?  The word, scam came from U.S. carnival slang and was first used in 1958.  I guess prior to that date people were honest?

A scam is a dressed-up trick or sleight of hand, designed to look real.  It’s fraud, plain and simple and designed entirely to make money off of the unsuspecting. 

I grew up hearing synonyms of the scam as being rooked, gipped, shortchanged, or conned.  It all has to do with money, more specifically taking yours through fraudulent means.

What about spam?  The word, spam in its popular use is from a Monty Python sketch in which the canned pork product was referenced as being everywhere, unavoidable, and repetitive.  So, spam in today’s parlance is junk mail or nuisance phone calls, texts or emails sent out in bulk to reach anybody who will bite.  The purpose of spam advertising is commercial, or to make money.

Spam doesn’t directly steal your money like a scam, but it steals your time.  And time is money, right?  I spend a significant amount of time in my work day, sorting emails into what’s real, what’s spam but maybe worthy of a second look, and what’s just plain nonsense.

Trying to unsubscribe from certain spam emails, and don’t get me started on the uselessness of the “do not call” list, is difficult if not impossible.  After all, scams are meant to trap you into giving information or purchasing something that you did not initiate.  They are called a “come-on.”

Earning money, making a living, selling and buying, are all legitimate commercial and social endeavors which fuel a capitalistic economy.  We all benefit from money.

An oft misquoted Scripture is from Paul to his mentee, Timothy, about the love of money.  Based on this Scripture, people frequently say that money is the root of all evil.

As in the one little letter of difference between the words, spam and scam, Paul warned Timothy that money is not the root of all evil, but the love of money that is at the core of much that is evil in the world.  One word in a sentence can change the whole meaning of the stated idea.  This is the case with the I Timothy 6:10 Scripture.

What is the love of money?  The fancy word for it is pleonexia, “the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others.”  It’s greed; wanting money more than you want God, or people, or goodness or kindness, etc.

Before you quickly cast stones toward the rich, the relatively poor are equally capable of loving money as those who are relatively rich.  I’m reminded of John D. Rockefeller, at one time one of the richest men in the world, who answered the question, “when would you consider that you have enough money,” with “one more dollar.”

In fact, lack of what one perceives as enough money, can make you hungry, even starved for more, so much so that you will do almost anything to get it.  Even people with sound moral and ethical principles, will contemplate an easy answer to offset lack.

Chasing after riches is probably at the root of much crime and lawlessness in the world.   Even legitimate businesses scam us with “just legal” practices that exploit our vulnerability.  If you need a product or service, you are at the mercy of those qualified to help.  Some of them will take advantage of your desperation.  Can you say seven hundred dollars to fix a refrigerator ice maker?

Have you ever felt like a fool for falling for it?  You’ve heard the saying, “fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?”  Well, when the scammers change their tactics or tug at your heart-strings, you are never a fool, even if it’s a third, fourth or twentieth time.

Scams prey on kind-hearted people with the best of intentions to change their circumstances in some way, to  help others, or to save money.  Lost animals and lost children can sometimes be scams.  Why?  Because people care.

In commercial scams we’re usually expected to make a quick or hasty decision, with a time-limit.  Beware of free trials.  And, grandparents, get a call-back number before sending bail-money over the phone to get your grandchild out of jail.  That’s not how the real process works.

Advertising fuels our economy.  We’re all familiar with pretty images catching our eye and our attention.  We may not need or even want thus and such, but a mouth-watering picture of a steaming burger, makes you hungry for one.  An image of a family vacationing on a yacht makes you really hanker for a vacation on the water, even if you get seasick on a pond.

So, are most ads scams?  I guess one might say yes considering they use perfect models who could literally wear a feed-sack and look good in it, to sell you clothing that no way on earth you can pull off.  It’s in one sense a trick of the eye.  It looks great on her/him but when you try it on, not so much.  The steaming hot burger that looked oversized and delicious in the ad, comes out of your sack, flat, lukewarm and kind of sad.

I’m wondering if we can better live with spam and scams, if we’re aware of them.  It takes a certain alertness that frankly, sometimes we don’t have in the barrage of email, phone calls, and texts, that we all receive on a daily basis.

One part of me wants to unsubscribe and be rid of spam, but the practical part of me has learned to just hit delete, every day.  Stay alert out there and polish your scam-guard.

I’m a little bit miffed with my experience with nature lately.  Having recently met with an outdoorsy illness from a spider bite, I’m not keen at the moment with the great outdoors.

Some people are outdoorsy, others are not.  Who do you picture when you think of the word, outdoorsy?  Someone skiing down a mountainside?  A person dressed in flannel, chopping firewood?

When you think of “outdoorsy,” I’m guessing you don’t picture a person attached to an IV bag filled with antibiotics, fighting off the effects of a spider bite.  Or, you don’t think of the person carrying an inhaler or oxygen tank, trying their best to breathe through the fog of particles in the air.

“Outdoorsy” elicits images of vitality, movement and synchrony with nature.  We’re talking free-range chickens, not the ones cooped up indoors.

Two instances come to mind when I think of the outdoors.  First is from a television show that I enjoyed quite a few years ago.  It was a comedic detective show starring a man named Monk, who was afflicted with somewhat severe OCD.  The line that I remember was something like, “nature’s all over me, get it off,” as he frantically brushed leaves or some such “dirt” off of his jacket.

Notice that people who are not so fond of nature, would definitely call soil, dirt.  Folks who are keen on nature, would possibly call dirt, earth or something similarly holistic.

The other great outdoors thing that my husband and I often reference comes from the great French post-impressionist artist, Paul Cezanne.  Comparing the beautifully lit, nature-rich Aix en Provence to Paris, which he called “nature starched and tormented.”   Have you ever noticed people, who’ve chosen to live surrounded by nature, sweeping the dirt and vacuuming the leaves outside?

Nature and the outdoors are considered entirely in the eye of the beholder.  Nature, for instance, is not all roses, bunnies, bluebirds, fawns, and soft beds of leaves.  It’s also decay, thorns, ticks, vultures, and hornets.

Zero degrees and 95 degrees Fahrenheit are the most hideous extremes.  I’m reminded though, that all the complaining in the world won’t change the discomfort we feel at these extremes that are natural to the summer and winter seasons.  That’s nature.  It’s probably human nature to complain about it.

Some people are oblivious to nature until some aspect of it hurts them.  Maybe they get a sunburn, suffer respiratory torment from breeze-borne plant reproduction, gesundheit by the way, itchy skin from this bug bite or that, a deer obliterates the hood of their car, a bird poops on their car window, a porcupine sends their dog to the vet, a root finds its way into their living space, etc.

Then there are folks who make sport of nature with hiking, boating, floating, rambling, hunting, skiing, fishing, planting, gardening, seeding, feeding, watching, preserving, conserving, and protecting it.  These humans are probably first thought of when you mention “outdoorsy.”

Nature and the great outdoors are double edged swords.  They’re not one or the other, they cut both ways.

Nature can be both heartbreaking to the human soul as well as delightful beyond description.  Animals can be terrorists as well as the most beautiful creatures ever made.  Nature is the very definition of dichotomy.

Nature is by definition suitable to the outdoors.  Spiders, ticks, mosquitoes, raccoons, bees, snakes, foxes, and such belong outdoors.  I’ve always felt somewhere down deep that we humans have invaded on the natural territory of these species.  Then there’s the Genesis scripture that tells humans to subdue and take dominion of these co-conspirators of the earth.

I think in twenty-first century earth, we humans just once in a while crave the simple, uncluttered life of nature.  We may want for a moment to trade in the conveniences and distractions of civilization because these things can literally make us sick.

We sometimes want to participate in the reality of nature in a “life imitates art” kind of way.  Because in art, nature is perfect and beautiful.  But nature, in reality, can be devastatingly intrusive to the civilized way of life of us folks acculturated to convenience and comfort.

When spiders come indoors, bees sting, ticks bite us, and mosquitoes infect us with disease, nature is seen to have gone too far.  In summary, when the great outdoors comes indoors, we humans rebel against her.  She’s only to enter indoors by invitation.

We invite nature indoors via house plants, stuffed animals, domesticated pets, books, and home-extensions such as porches, decks and window gardens.  We have taken that Genesis scripture and domesticated it to our twenty-first century liking, subduing nature and making it work for us and not against us.

Thank God for medicines, many of which are derived in some way from nature, much of it essentially homeopathic at its core.  We seem to work with nature to fight nature and that’s the direction we’ve gone.  I guess, in that sense, we’re all outdoorsy.  We’re indoor-outdoor carpet, so lie down and enjoy it.

Note to self, look up the origins of the phrase, “The tall and the short of it.”  This was one of those rare times when I completely had it wrong.

There is no such phrase.  Correctly, the phrase is “the long and the short of it.”

Okay, that changes things, or does it?  This should really be the editor’s motto because it is a noun phrase that means that you’re making a brief statement telling only the most important parts of something.

That’s what an editor does.  We slash long passages of prose from wordy originals into concise and to the point masterpieces – or so we think.

I am an editor in my day job.  Specifically, I edit front and back matter in collections of music and sometimes the body of longer books, with lots of prose.

When I’m editing someone else’s work it’s relatively easy to see the forest from the trees and cut out all of the “extra” material in order to let the most important parts stand out and shine.  The writer or owner of that material thinks every tree in the entire forest is important or it just isn’t the forest that they know and love.

My second job, and frankly my favorite one is as an essayist.  An essayist is probably by definition, verbose and the bane of an editor.  We do like to elaborate.  There are lots of trees in our forest, and of many varieties.

My work is therefore a contradiction in terms and from time to time is reflected in my columns.  I’m getting better at self-editing but once in a while I’m compelled to go on and on, impressed with one idea after another.

For example, a good editor would probably have slashed my first paragraph describing how I started this column idea with an erroneous assumption about a non-existent phrase.  This is not important material.  However, it’s interesting material to an essayist.

This essayist will tell you something I find interesting albeit not important.  I don’t think interesting things are necessarily unimportant, even though they are often completely random.  For instance, why do you think I mixed up the tall and the short of it with the long and the short of it?

Tall and short, fat and skinny, manic and depressive, big and small… are all on a spectrum of extremes.  I suppose that makes average or normal, the standard, maybe even the goal.  But I’m increasingly not sure that’s my goal in life.

Freud would probably say I have a problem with being short, or brief or concise or even average.  I want to tell the long story and avoid making the long story short, if I can.  It’s not as much fun.

You’ve seen the image of a domestic kitten looking into a mirror, seeing a lion looking back at him.  Well, this editor looks into a mirror and sees an essayist looking back at me.  Or maybe more colorfully and with my lame attempt at a walked into a bar joke, an editor walks into a bar, drinks too many words, gets happy drunk on ideas, and comes out an essayist.

They say that if a hiker crosses the path of a bear, you should stand as tall as you can, look big, and ominous.  Look as bog-footy as you can.  That’s what that kitten-to-lion does in his mirror.

When you’re encouraging someone to “stand tall,” you’re telling them to stretch, have courage, go forth, and conquer.  This is proven to work in the form of the fake smile.  If you’re sad or having a bad day and you force or fake a smile, the very act of the smile articulation causes a surge of happy hormones.

Usually in the end, both sides of my writing personality conjoin and I present a work that you can and want to read in less than an afternoon.  Sometimes that may be a tall order, or even a tall tale, but one thing I won’t give you is short shrift.

I would wager that editors sleep better than essayists.  This essayist slept two hours then awakened thinking, “I need to work on that ‘standing tall’ column.”  When six a.m. rolled around, some research was completed and the long and the short of it never materialized, but a nice million-word essay developed.

Perhaps tomorrow night the editor will get her essential eight hours of sleep, satisfied that the most important material was covered and the point made.  She kept the word count reasonable and she cut out a few of the fun puns that the essayist originally wanted really badly to include.

There was a sacrifice made to make the long and the short of it.  But she looks in the mirror and, in the end, it turns out she’s standing tall after all.

Leaps and bounds or a snail’s pace?  We’ve each got a style for getting there.

Where’s there?  It’s probably everywhere.

Individual goals are set daily, weekly, annually.  Maybe you have or had a five-year plan.  At any rate, you’re getting there.

A bunny or a turtle, different styles but sometimes the same peril, crossing the road.  Because someone is in a hurry to get there.

Creeping or crawling; running or jogging; different ways but getting there.

Some people are there already.  Others will always be getting there.

Up and at em or lallygagging, both are strategies of getting there. 

Wide awake or half asleep, sooner or later we’ll get there.

The sun rises and the sun sets, reassurance that we’ll get there.

With a little help, a lot of help, invisible help, or no help at all, we get there.

Is there, here, or is it out there?  Is it over there or nowhere?  Nevertheless, we live and strive to get there.  And we’re always, almost getting there.

The question is, what kind of expectations do we have for getting there?  Realistic expectations are based on experience, logic and reality.  So, I guess unrealistic ones are based on hope, fantasy, and idealism.

You’re not foolish nor wrong if you’ve been duped by your own unrealistic expectations.  You’re a genuine, optimistic, and real human person.

If you’ve beaten yourself up because of some of your unrealistic expectations, just stop it right now and join the club.  Even if you’re usually logical, super realistic and wise with age, you’ve surely been disappointed sometime because you expected one thing and got another.

Most of us have excitedly bought something from a catalog or on the internet, and when we received it, looked at it in utter disbelief.  It was in reality nothing like it looked in the picture.

Don’t even get me started on home repairs or remodeling projects.  Oh, dear Lord, I must be the queen of disappointed expectations of home repairs.

I think I can truly advise you not to expect any repair to cost what you had hoped.  It will cost more.  Also, don’t expect it to be quick, because it will seem like it’s taken forever.

Now, I’m not a pessimistic person.  In fact, I’m quite optimistic, but this is my problem.  I expect things to go okay most of the time.

Experience has, however, told me many times over that this situation or that one is likely to go badly.  Hope takes a hold of me and sucks me right into expecting it to be different this time.

I mean, something that seems like all it will take is just a tweak or two, in reality takes massive reconstruction of all the plumbing in your ancient house.  This is crushing to your optimism.

After all, you thought your house was quaintly vintage.  In reality and sadly, your cute little abode is deemed by the plumber to be, just plain old.

In the end, whether we have realistic or unrealistic expectations about anything, we’ll get there.  Maybe we should rely more on our knowledge and experience with the journey.  Since we’ve been on many a trip in our lifetime, I solidly recommend that we keep the faith that we’ll get there.

When contemplating this column, I found myself researching what seems like a simple word, “difference.”  As it turns out, “difference” is what is known as a polysemous word, not a homonym.

“What’s the difference,” one might ask?  Or, maybe most of us don’t care, since when we were youngsters, we automatically learned the differences in the usage of words.  All we did was exist, and listen.

The word, “difference” can mean, unlikeness, as in “we have differences of opinion.”  Or, it can mean, distinctions have been made such as, “it is my opinion that generics have important differences from name brands.”  Also, it can mean, a significant change in a situation, such as “idealists really want to make a difference in the world.”

There are many different meanings for the word “difference,” depending upon context.  A homonym, on the other hand is really two or more words spelled and pronounced the same.  For example, “bark” is a homonym, because it can mean the outer jacket of a tree or the sound most dogs make.

I’m rather certain that at least a few of you are thinking, “wow, she’s really different that she thinks about this kind of stuff.”  In contrast, because I write about such random tidbits, perhaps I made a difference to just one person who is distracted for a moment from their everyday problems, concerns, or hullabaloo, by my writing.

The fact that you are a reader, makes you more powerful than me as a writer.  You can “beg to differ” with anything or everything that writer’s write.  Considering the fact that the “begging” in that phrase is usually intended not as an act of contrition or humility, or asking permission to disagree with a writer’s stance, but a sarcastic comment regarding a difference of opinion.

There are certain powers in this world that make “all the difference” in the lives of others.  Prayer is one of them.  Even if you are an unbeliever, the fact that someone, or many people have prayed for you, makes all the difference in a difficult situation.  Prayer is the ultimate act of human caring, not to mention faith.

Prayer is people’s effort on your behalf to reach a higher power, beyond themselves.  Maybe it’s a recognition that they can’t help you in their own steam so they are going the extra step to seek better help for you.

Prayer is not a last resort, but the first act of faith toward the best outcome.  Prayer is the first step of counsel, as it confers with “The Mighty Counselor.”  Second steps of counsel might be a doctor, a chiropractor, a surgeon, medicines, a therapist, herbal or alternative remedies or treatments.

So, when someone offers prayer, whether you are or they are believers or not, it is the ultimate compliment of care for you.  Accept it, it can make “all the difference.”

Having a supportive partner, makes “all the difference” in life.  I can’t personally speak to the opposite, but I’ve seen the struggles of those who lack a partner who has their back.

Pets can make “all the difference” between a bad day and a better one.  Just the simple act of petting your fur-baby lowers one’s blood pressure, offers us a bit of peace, and redirects one’s attention toward your pet and away from yourself.

Knowing origins and history makes “all the difference” in understanding customs, mores, traditions, and cultural ways.  Our lives are so very informed by the historical past.  I think we should know from whence it all comes.  Knowledge of origins and history can make “all the difference” in how we perceive various customs, songs, stories, or ways.

Simple conversational gestures such as “thank you” or “I’m sorry,” make “all the difference” to someone who is challenged by their day.  Genuine compliments, like “where did you get those wonderful shoes?” or “I like your necklace,” can remarkably brighten someone’s day.

Have you ever noticed that the kindness of appreciation, a helping hand, even a gentle touch on the arm or shoulder makes “all the difference” in how someone feels about themselves?  Even, that you notice them is a powerful acknowledgement that a person is not invisible, but seen.  These things make “all the difference.”

That someone tells you that they are in the same boat as you, can make “all the difference” in how you feel about a difficult situation.  Feeling alone in a negative circumstance doubles the pain.  But, when someone tells you, “I’m going through the same thing.  I know how you feel,” it truly makes “all the difference.” 

So don’t hold everything close to your chest and bear the burden alone.  It might help someone else if you discreetly share your frustrations with someone else now and again.  I’m not suggesting that you overshare your most intimate dealings, or go around broadcasting all of your dirty laundry – I said discreetly!

As it turns out, sharing your vulnerability with another person really just reveals your humanity.  People may have been under the mistaken impression that since you don’t share your struggles, that you are superwoman or superman, but in reality, you are just another one of us.

You’re no better than me or worse than me, or just like me.  But we all have “things” …. and it makes “all the difference” that people know that.

Neighbors, whether we’re next door, in the same block, across the road, down the street, upstairs or downstairs, will most likely not share the same perspective on every matter.  In fact, couples, co-workers, committee members, let’s just say, none of us, will always see things the same way.

It’s my opinion that most neighbors experience either literal or figurative boundary issues from time to time.  However, most of us do not escalate to a real nineteenth century Hatfield and McCoy situation.

It might just be human nature to mark your territory, defend and protect it.  Your “place” may be a humble piece of the earth or maybe it’s grand as grand can be.  But it’s yours and you want the people around you to know it’s yours.

I’ve offended my neighbors and my neighbors have offended me.  The awesome thing about “neighborliness” is that in time, we all chose to drop the offense and get on with life.

Because most tiffs just don’t matter that much in the scheme of things, we agreed to disagree on this issue or that, where we don’t see eye to eye.   We still don’t see some things through the same lens, but we’ve agreed to overlook the offense of it and adopt an “it is what it is,” stance toward some things.

Speaking of not seeing eye to eye, there are terms in local ordinances, such as “annoys,” “offends decency,” or “offends senses,” which would seem difficult to legislate to a 21^st century general population, in my estimation.  I mean, something that annoys you, I may be able to overlook in favor of a personally more important sensibility.  Something that I see as “common decency,” may be a cultural quirk of your subculture, and considered normal for you and yours.

I don’t speak lawyer-ese, nor am I trained to interpret the law but I am a half-decent cultural observer.  It seems to me that the “common good,” of democracy where the majority rules, has been truly supplanted in this century by our republic’s concept of neighborliness.

What then, is neighborliness?  Let me start with the biblical suggestion that one should “love your neighbor as yourself.”  Even the disciples to whom Jesus directed this precept, asked “who is my neighbor?”

Basically, our neighbor is everybody.  And, how do we love them as we love ourselves?

Well, you see, the Bible’s wisdom literature, which is loosely pretty much all of it, has an understanding of human nature well beyond most of our understanding.  To love others as we love ourselves places us right where the rubber meets the road; at our own doorstep.

We fundamentally, base all of our understandings of others on how we think, feel, live and love.  So, if you and I aren’t much alike, we’ll probably disagree with each other commensurate with how different we are.  Therefore, the Golden Rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is the best arbiter of how to treat others, and it demonstrates neighborliness.

Are you kind?  Do you go out of your way to do something for someone else, unasked?  Do you automatically help people?  Can you respect someone else’s differences?  Must your neighbor do things the way you do them, in order for you to consider them acceptable human beings?

“Your dog…no your dog…no your dog…”.  Must little aggravations escalate?  Do you really have room in your life to argue, fuss, and feud over this and that offense?  Are your sensibilities so piqued that you can’t take a breath and concentrate on something else in your life for five minutes?

Is it necessary to take every offense to a lawyer or cite the ordinances that defend your offense, rather than move on and take care of your own life.  Do you really have time to fight everything that doesn’t go your way?

If there isn’t a “grandfather clause” built into the ordinance by which you wish to defend your sensibilities, let’s pretend there is.  Some of us lived with a bit looser interpretation of “what’s right,” way before the new ordinances came into existence. 

We were freer.  We were more casual.  Fewer people cared about every jot and tittle.  We left our neighbors be.  We respected their right to live how they saw fit, keeping themselves to themselves.  People were left to care for their “place” to the best of their ability, given the complications of their lives, which the rest of us may have known nothing about.

So, in the 1940s there was a Looney Tunes cartoon featuring the line, “that’s mighty neighborly of you.”  I don’t know from whence I heard the saying, but apparently it stuck with me.  I’m not that old.   However, it is my sincere hope that we didn’t abandon neighborliness to history and instead, pick up the tone of it in the 2020s and beyond.

In between then and now, there was a pretty heinous cultural tone which may have been intended to defend one’s individual rights, but it served instead to promote selfishness, and the self-centered assertion of self above others.  It was, “look out for number one.”

That assertion seems just plain icky to me, just reading it.  Neighborliness, on the other hand is a much more genial show of friendly, kind, considerate, gracious and cordial character, worth emulating into the 21^st century, don’t you think?

What is peace of mind?  I think it might be the absence of agitation, or fear or worry.  We don’t walk around pondering if we have peace of mind, or do we?

This may seem silly to some people.  But there are moments, usually in the middle of the night, when I get a fleeting feeling of what I sense as happiness.  It’s not ha-ha happiness, but more a sense of contentment, well-being, peace, wholeness or “all is well.”

For example, while I was playing a game on my phone late one night, I startled myself by thinking, “I’m full of joy.”  Have you ever noticed that you can be thinking something, and working on something else, all with the same mind?  I wonder sometimes if one of those functions is one’s spirit, and the other one is one’s mind or brain.

In this instance, I wasn’t thinking about anything, I was just challenged by the game.  I wasn’t particularly happy or joyful nor unhappy or melancholy.  I wondered if maybe it was my spirit reminding me what peace of mind is, and I’m full of it.

Some folks are ha-ha happy.  You can hear or see them laughing all the time, it seems.  They wear happiness on their sleeves and are laugh-out-loud poster children.  Why am I skeptical?

These guys are foreigners to those of us who are happy inside.  We giggle once in a while but rarely roar with laughter, or laugh until we cry.

My mom and my father-in-law were models of this sort of silent happiness that creeps up on you privately.  Although we can be the subtly sarcastic life of the party usually with a self-deprecating amusing story, we’re more likely standing outside of the center of attention, observing others.

I’ve come to treasure those sorts of rare nocturnal confessions of “I’m happy.”  There is no discernible physical pain to speak of.  The weather isn’t expected to be extreme.  No decisions must be made, right now.  I have no impending hassles to think about.  I might have accomplished a thing or two, the previous day.  There’s no immediate due date unhandled.  All of my relationships are in peaceful pause.  I’ve got creative thoughts, if not sleep.  I’m happy.

Maybe I’m not using the right word to elucidate that feeling of wholeness, nothing broken, nothing missing, or “discernibly and eerily okay.”  In fact, one definition of Shalom, is complete peace, including all aspects of wholeness. 

The Hebrew greeting, Shalom Aleichem, in English means, “Peace to you.”  To continue the polite greeting chain of events, you may respond, Aleichem Shalom, “to you, be Peace.”

When I hold my grand-baby while he naps, I usually pray that when he awakens, he will do so in peace.  I’ve experienced the opposite with him, and it’s heartbreaking.

I relate the disoriented, panicky or unhappy awakening from a nap to my own occasional experience.  Have you ever taken an afternoon nap, having been worn to a frazzle?  I have, and sometimes when I awaken after sound slumber, I have no idea what day or time of day it is.  I look for signs to help myself orient, like is it daylight or dark, what are the sounds in the house, and so on.  It’s really quite freaky.

As recorded in the book of Mark, Jesus once commanded a storm to settle down, with three words, “peace be still.”  Settle down, “peace out.”

The phrase, “peace out” was used by hippies, anti-war, or anti-establishment folks in the sixties.  “Peace” meant to get out of the war in Vietnam; combined with “out” which was the radio communication for signaling “the end.”

To re-appropriate a word is to use it again after it has been relegated to disrepute by certain groups.  I’d like to re-appropriate the phrase, “peace out.”  Why couldn’t the phrase become an everyday greeting, or wish for wholeness, completion, and every good and perfect thing, offered to another along your path.

Since I’m not Hebrew, I feel a little funny saying Shalom, to others; maybe even misappropriating the Hebrew culture.  But I’m of an age that I can probably get away with saying, “peace out,” and get away with it.

Mind you, not every time that I’m awake in the wee hours of the night, am I getting those messages of peace, along with Bob Marley singing to me, “every little thing is gonna be alright.”  More often than not, I’m thinking a thousand thoughts about what and how I’m going to do this that and the other thing tomorrow rather than, engaging in “peace be still,” tonight.  That’s why it’s startling when peace so clearly announces itself.

So, please have yourself some peace of mind, even if it comes around when you’re busy thinking of other things.  Apparently, we are capable of entertaining all kinds of thoughts all at the same time.  I hope that one of those thoughts is “I’m at peace, or full of joy, or happy or ….”