Commentaries by Cynthia

I cannot tell you your heart’s desire, only your heart can tell you.

I cannot tell you your path to God, only God can tell you.

I cannot be a replica of you or anyone else, for I am uniquely my own person.

I cannot be your sidekick, blindly following your wishes without regard to my own inner development.

I cannot impose my will upon you without repercussions to our relationship and vice versa.

I cannot intentionally invade your thoughts or your sacred space as long as I am honoring your right to BE, the most basic human right we have.

I cannot follow the path of condemnation when I have chosen one of love and grace.

Dear Father,

I love you, Dad. And I forgive you for whatever grievances I have held onto for so many years. But I also feel sorry for you. It can’t be easy to have a daughter who rejects so much of what you believe in; no easier than it is to have one who writes about personal family matters in front of the world. Perhaps if I’d gotten some counseling in my childhood, the writer in me would not have been born. So I don’t know whether to thank you or criticize you for telling me to suck it up and be strong, because out of those military-sounding commands, I learned to go inward and discover my own connection to God.

A song I would like to dedicate to my father....

It wasn’t what I wanted or intended, but it happened and I have to face it.

In a previous post, I wrote of my father and how close we are – close enough to overlook our differences in religious and political matters. Then, yesterday, everything blew up in our faces.

My father took a stance with me – why, I don’t know. I suspect that other members in the family have been horse-feeding him information about my spirituality, and the parent/Sunday School teacher/Deacon in my father felt the need to steer me back onto the narrow-minded, fundamentalist path that I have so grown to deplore.

A friend recently purchased a CD of the greatest pop hits of 1978. I spent most of my recent holiday listening to these old songs, feeling like I was back in the seventh grade again. Although I hadn’t heard or even thought of it in years, when the song Jack and Jill by the group Raydio came on, I gleaned a bit of insight as to why so many romantic relationships fail (or more precisely – why lovers stray.)

In case you haven’t heard the song and are interested, here are the lyrics:

Jack
Wanting someone to feel
Sat up on the hill
And waited all day for Jill

Well, it's either a past-life memory, or I am creatively insane, or possibly both. When I read this poem to my editor, he said it sounded like an old country song entitled Omie Wise.

On a serious note, I'd like to say that at no point in a woman's life is her safety more at stake than when she is pregnant with a child that is unwanted by its father.

Mists of Betrayal

In the mists of the caverns
Rests a truth
Of a life that was mine
In a long ago and forgotten time.

He knew, he knew!
He knew I was not guilty of the crimes I was accused.
My crime was greater still

Routines – we all have them. We get up roughly the same time each morning, then we get ready for our day and take off for our destination – which is usually where we work.

She had no idea that today would be different. She had no idea that two women who were holding a grudge against her would take out their violent aggression on her as she walked through the parking lot and alley on her way to work. Even though it was broad daylight and other people were in the area, the perpetrators were not deterred. They pounced on her, knocking her to the ground and beating her viciously. Luckily, a coworker and two ministers were in the area who rushed to the scene and broke up the fight. When someone mentioned calling the police, the two women ran to their car and quickly drove away, leaving the victim very shaken and battered and bruised, but cared for and assisted by several good-hearted people.

I’m not sure about other areas of the world, but alcohol and drug abuse are very prevalent in my part of the state. And it is my natural nature to question… why?

As I ask this, I am reminded of another John Lennon quote: “The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?”

In the last decade, citizens in my area have watched helplessly as factory after factory has closed their doors and relocated their operations to third-world countries where companies pay very scant wages and offer no benefits to it workers. And new jobs aren’t coming in to replace the ones that left, so people find themselves working at big-box stores or in fast food restaurants, which rarely pay sustaining wages or offer benefits for the worker or their family. Perhaps some of these people turn to other substances to help numb the pain for all the losses they’ve suffered. It’s very hard to watch a once-growing area reduced to empty factory buildings, warehouses and vacant store fronts. And then these misplaced workers have to face the same people who caused these losses – people who often point their finger at them and say… “Get a job. Get health insurance. Get a retirement plan. If you’re living in poverty, it’s your own damn fault.”

If I continue along this mystical path, I believe I will change the bi-line of this site from “A blog about Life, Love, God, John Lennon, and Taking Up for the Underdog” to “Commentaries by Cynthia – Newspaper Employee by Day and Mystic by Night.”

Last Friday, a friend and I set out for a five-hour drive to the coast. Somewhere about halfway there, a stillness settled over me, then something told me to look up at the sky. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I saw in perfection a profile of Jesus himself. My mouth fell open as I instinctively reached for my friend, patting her knee and exclaiming, “Look, there is Jesus in the clouds!”