February 7
You can watch the shadows come up the cliffs when the sun sets in Sedona. All the cliffs have lines created by layers of rock and form a timeline stretching back thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. The shadows climb this wall of time and the observer can get lost between the meanings of time’s passage just how much time is there when it is endless? Albert Einstein famously said we have time so that everything doesn’t happen at once. He said time was really a function of speed and that in dark holes time does not exist.
The shadows just claimed another few 100,000 years on its way up the cliff. I’m figuring the cliff has about 20 minutes left before the earth spins it entirely into the dark. Speed is a function of light, or at least that is how we measure according to the famous E=mc2 equation. That speeds has profound effect on mass, and at this point I get totally confused. So does time exist or did we make it up and everything is really happening all at once..... Ooohps, I’m wrong. The cliff has lost its sunlight. That was fast.
So this cliff will be here another 500,000 years after I have gone. Each day is less than a flash in that time frame.
If I am to become a better person I better get cracking. There is not much time for anything it seems. Or, better yet, maybe I am already a better person because.....
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Sedona Votex Strikes again
February 6
A young man named Lalo Esquer is putting in dish TV at the house where I am staying.
We talked, and he told me this story.
He was driving his daughter Mirabel to Cottonwood AZ when something broke on his truck. The truck rolled and his daughter was thrown from the truck. Everything in her upper body was hurt or broken. She damaged her lungs, heart and brain. For 28 days she was in a coma. Three times the doctors came to Lalo to tell him his daughter was about to die. Twice they told him she would be blind for life.
Lalo is a long time Sedona resident; his extended family is well-know. When his daughter was in the hospital in Flagstaff the resorts took turns sending food to the people who had gathered at the hospital to pray. Lalo learned over five thousand people gathered in South America to pray for his daughter. Because of the Internet, Mirabel’s story is known to many and so they pray.
Lalo tells this story calmly and with a compelling sense of purpose. It is now six years, and he cannot count the times he was told Mirabel would not walk, would not see, not regain mental acuity, would not reclaim her old self. Lalo gestures with both hands in front of his chest, and his brown eyes water when he talks of his daughter’s amazing journey, the prayers, and community support.
He never said, “miracle” but he did say the doctors have no explanations for her living and then recovering. “God is big,” he says. “We don’t know how big until something happens.”
We shake hands and then hold hands. He has honored me with his story; simply told and packed with unsaid meaning. We wipe our tears and he goes back to work.
I look up from my writing to a solid red rock cliff with the markings of a million years. “The doctors only know science,” Lalo told me. “They did not really see my daughter. They do not know Maribel.” That explanation works for me.
I’m claiming the famous Sedona vortex. I don’t understand it, can’t do the science, but here in the Sedona swirl, I find myself joining in prayer for Mirabel, thankful for all I do not know, and a big God. Sometimes when you add it all up, the score is larger than the sum.
That is the lesson I was offered today in my effort to be a better person.
A young man named Lalo Esquer is putting in dish TV at the house where I am staying.
We talked, and he told me this story.
He was driving his daughter Mirabel to Cottonwood AZ when something broke on his truck. The truck rolled and his daughter was thrown from the truck. Everything in her upper body was hurt or broken. She damaged her lungs, heart and brain. For 28 days she was in a coma. Three times the doctors came to Lalo to tell him his daughter was about to die. Twice they told him she would be blind for life.
Lalo is a long time Sedona resident; his extended family is well-know. When his daughter was in the hospital in Flagstaff the resorts took turns sending food to the people who had gathered at the hospital to pray. Lalo learned over five thousand people gathered in South America to pray for his daughter. Because of the Internet, Mirabel’s story is known to many and so they pray.
Lalo tells this story calmly and with a compelling sense of purpose. It is now six years, and he cannot count the times he was told Mirabel would not walk, would not see, not regain mental acuity, would not reclaim her old self. Lalo gestures with both hands in front of his chest, and his brown eyes water when he talks of his daughter’s amazing journey, the prayers, and community support.
He never said, “miracle” but he did say the doctors have no explanations for her living and then recovering. “God is big,” he says. “We don’t know how big until something happens.”
We shake hands and then hold hands. He has honored me with his story; simply told and packed with unsaid meaning. We wipe our tears and he goes back to work.
I look up from my writing to a solid red rock cliff with the markings of a million years. “The doctors only know science,” Lalo told me. “They did not really see my daughter. They do not know Maribel.” That explanation works for me.
I’m claiming the famous Sedona vortex. I don’t understand it, can’t do the science, but here in the Sedona swirl, I find myself joining in prayer for Mirabel, thankful for all I do not know, and a big God. Sometimes when you add it all up, the score is larger than the sum.
That is the lesson I was offered today in my effort to be a better person.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Sedona Super Bowl
February 5, 2012
First night alone in Sedona.
I am amazed at how much stuff I leave around on counters, floors and any flat surface (as Kathy likes to say). My “better person” list now also includes shutting cabinet doors, the microwave,door, garage door and putting chairs back under the table.
Went to the local bar to watch the Superbowl. I was hoping for a blow-out so I could get home early. No, It ended up coming down to the last play. The good news – I sat at the bar with a couple who had just moved to Sedona. We ate chicken wings and told each other our stories. They have invited me over supper later this week. Turns out they are at hole 16 on the golf course. He goes up to flag each day on a construction project. Some people I know from Facebook also saw from a FB post that I was in town and invited me over for dinner. Just saying about Facebook.
Yes, Pache slept in the bedroom last night, not in the kennel. She barked at me twice for twitching around in my sleep. Seems the dog expects me to settle quietly into sleep and not disturb her.
Today on the 7:30 am walk around the golf course Pache and I happened on the doggy party tee. People who regularly walk their dog gather at a place on the golf course to let their animals play. Pache loved it. I felt like a young parent again at the park watching my kindergarten child play on the toys. I worried the whole time that Pache would start humping another dog, however.
Watching the Superbowl in a bar makes hearing the game impossible. The crowd noise muffles the sound. I could not hear the game, commercials or the half-time show. Here is my take. Clint Eastwood seemed serious about something and did his old trick of putting half his face in a shadow. It was the best visual of the night.
Madonna does not prance like she used to and her show looked like a Las Vegas interpretation of an Olympics opening ceremony. She still rocked my world. I did see the “finger” from that nice young girl. Mostly, I felt like it was 1990 again – everyone searching for a happier time. The ad visuals now are edited so tight it is like ice skating on content contest. You must learn to speed skate even before you can watch a commercial. Our brains are on an emotional slip and slide. And yes, they work much better when we don’t know what is going on.
Football is still compelling with only intermittent commentary. The bar ended up being a great setting for watching without really hearing. No wonder a sports bar is so much fun. A whole new commentary emerges that is more visceral and community. Ain’t it grand that people no longer can smoke in so many bars. I actually had a good time again in a bar.
First night alone in Sedona.
I am amazed at how much stuff I leave around on counters, floors and any flat surface (as Kathy likes to say). My “better person” list now also includes shutting cabinet doors, the microwave,door, garage door and putting chairs back under the table.
Went to the local bar to watch the Superbowl. I was hoping for a blow-out so I could get home early. No, It ended up coming down to the last play. The good news – I sat at the bar with a couple who had just moved to Sedona. We ate chicken wings and told each other our stories. They have invited me over supper later this week. Turns out they are at hole 16 on the golf course. He goes up to flag each day on a construction project. Some people I know from Facebook also saw from a FB post that I was in town and invited me over for dinner. Just saying about Facebook.
Yes, Pache slept in the bedroom last night, not in the kennel. She barked at me twice for twitching around in my sleep. Seems the dog expects me to settle quietly into sleep and not disturb her.
Today on the 7:30 am walk around the golf course Pache and I happened on the doggy party tee. People who regularly walk their dog gather at a place on the golf course to let their animals play. Pache loved it. I felt like a young parent again at the park watching my kindergarten child play on the toys. I worried the whole time that Pache would start humping another dog, however.
Watching the Superbowl in a bar makes hearing the game impossible. The crowd noise muffles the sound. I could not hear the game, commercials or the half-time show. Here is my take. Clint Eastwood seemed serious about something and did his old trick of putting half his face in a shadow. It was the best visual of the night.
Madonna does not prance like she used to and her show looked like a Las Vegas interpretation of an Olympics opening ceremony. She still rocked my world. I did see the “finger” from that nice young girl. Mostly, I felt like it was 1990 again – everyone searching for a happier time. The ad visuals now are edited so tight it is like ice skating on content contest. You must learn to speed skate even before you can watch a commercial. Our brains are on an emotional slip and slide. And yes, they work much better when we don’t know what is going on.
Football is still compelling with only intermittent commentary. The bar ended up being a great setting for watching without really hearing. No wonder a sports bar is so much fun. A whole new commentary emerges that is more visceral and community. Ain’t it grand that people no longer can smoke in so many bars. I actually had a good time again in a bar.
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