The older I get, the more I realize ...

History is like a rich storehouse of treasures to which you can go for help, inspiration, and instruction. 

It is not a house you move into, or else you would leave your life, your impact in the present, and your vision for the future.

It cannot be used as a trailer, dragging behind you lock, stock and barrel, because that is too heavy a weight for anyone to carry.

It should not be ignored, because why should you start over with nothing when your ancestors have worked so hard to provide you with starter seed for a beautiful garden?

Pick and choose from the history storehouse which family values, which examples of heroism, which cautionary tales you will use to build your own life story.  Use your history wisely and you will be richer than anyone around you.

LDM 10-30-2014
Born in January (the month of Janus who faces two directions).

A Positive Legacy of Deception – Part 2

If you have followed my reasoning so far (in Part 1), you can see that there is another essential component that is needed in order to protect oneself from evil in this world, something more than goodness and the belief in goodness. 

That element is cynicism, or a suspicion about evil, and idealists lack it. This is a disturbing conundrum for the positive, happy people in the world.  Positive people don’t really want to think about evil at all.  They would rather assume that everyone is just like them!

[If you’re a cynic, you’ve already got this one down, and you’re probably even wondering why I have wasted all these words to say something so obvious.  Feel free to skip this blog!]

Here’s why I am writing this:  I love the idealists and dreamers, and I want to protect them.  I want all dreamers and Pollyannas and happy, positive people to go on doing what they are doing – making the world a better place – but with this one addition -- the recognition of evil and how to stand against it.

So here’s to all my friends in rose-colored glasses.  Don’t get bitter; get smart!

Tip Number One – Say this out loud to yourself, “There are evil people in this world, who desire to hurt me, or don’t care whether they do, and I will occasionally cross paths with them.”

Number Two – (Quick, before you react to that last statement!) “I can truly protect myself from most of the damage they try to create.”

Number Three – I commit to paying attention to any “red flags” that my intuition gives me about certain people.  This intuition is my “early warning system.”

Number Four – I commit to using all my other senses, including rational logic, to verify the source of the uncomfortable feeling coming from my intuition.

Number Five – I will never negate my intuition about a person, whether verified or not, by placing myself or a loved one into a vulnerable situation with the person in question.

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Anyone who does these five things will significantly reduce the chances that they will be taken advantage of by a predator.  That is not to say that there will be no attacks from predators, but if we have not placed ourselves in compromising positions in relation to them, (i.e. spouse, business partner) we have much greater ability to get away from them or repulse their attacks.

So, how about it?  Ready for some mental jujitsu training!

Thankfully yours,

Lorraine

A Positive Legacy of Deception – Part 1

I have decided that there was one very positive benefit to my catastrophic experience of being in relationship with a pathological liar.  Now I know that there is such a thing as a pathological liar.

Considering all of my pain and the losses I endured, that might seem like a very high price to pay for this knowledge.  It isn’t.  Or, at least I can say that God must think the suffering was worth it.

To give a little perspective, let me tell you what some of those losses were.  I lost a 25 year marriage, my reputation, my bank account, my in-laws, an extended network of sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews, and my family.  But even all of that could not outweigh losing my mind.

And that is exactly the price a pathological liar inflicts.  Insanity.  The loss of your mind, your reason, your perspective, your self.

You can’t immerse yourself in lies and remain sane.  Sanity is based on reality and logic.  It is a proper relating to “that which is” as opposed to “that which is not.”  So whether you are the one perpetrating the lies, or the victim living with the liar, you are in danger.

Now that I have recovered my mind, sanity, perspective and self, I have new insight. I was always a “Pollyanna.”  I believed the best in people.  I knew that evil existed, but since I tried to avoid practicing evil, and tried to avoid people who were obviously evil, I thought I was all right.

I wasn't.  

It sounds like a good, positive plan, doesn’t it?  Wouldn’t you be happy if you saw your children avoiding evil people and evil behavior?  Yes, we all would. 

Yet there was something missing.  What was it?\
Stay tuned for Part 2!

Thankfully yours,

Lorraine

(PS. I have since received back some of what was lost, and God has given me much besides.)

DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN (If Madea ever had got over a depression ... )

Now, I can plan and remember stuff

I can do a bunch of stuff at once,

I go to sleep when I lie down

I get hungry and eat a lot

I like music and dancin again

I like to sit on my porch, and watch the fireflies and smell the breeze

I can stand it when someone gets mad with me

I can talk without losing track of my words

I can work hard

I can do my work in order

I can decide what color to paint the livin room

I can take a leap of faith

I've got hope and energy 

I sing in church like there's no tomorrow

I'm not worried

I can take it when things don't turn out

I don't have to sit down every five minutes

I can keep going

I wake up after 7 hours, and don't have to sleep 10 or 12

When I get hungry, I eat

When I get thirsty, I drink

I do most of my jobs every day

Time just flies by because so much is happening

I remember to get everything at the store

I'm getting things done more ev'ry day

My house is scrubbed and redded up

I water the plants and they're perky

I feel like I have something to look forward to

I can take care of myself and the neighbors too

I laugh at people's jokes

I cry when someone else does

I don't lie around and set around all the time

If you ask me ahead of time to do something, I'll agree to it

I don’t have to  make excuses all the time and be embarrassed

I don't stop people at the door, but invite them on in

I don’t say, “if people only knew how bad my life is"

It's so good to have energy and be out with people again

I don't lie in bed in the daytime no more

The “dark cloud” went away

I don’t have any weights on my arms and legs

I can hear bad news with no panic

I'm not so overwhelmed and thinking everything is hard 

If there's a job to be done, or a need, why, I just get up and do it

And if I don't want to do it, I've got a pretty ___ good reason!

THE DRAWER OF JEWELS

            Once there was a little girl who loved jewels.  Blue jewels, yellow jewels, green jewels – any color would do.  They fascinated her.  She could sit and stare at them.  She could run her fingers through them and watch them sparkle.  She loved to pick one up and hold it to the light and see the sun through its many faces.  At night she would dream of jewel fountains and jewel rainbows and jewel waterfalls.

          Now, in loving the jewels – it may not seem so – but the little girl was very naughty.  Her mother did not like jewels.  They were not holy.  Her father did not like jewels.  They cost too much money and he was very busy working and spending all his money on food and clothes for the family.  The older sister did not like jewels.  They did not please her mother.

          In fact, the older sister had collected a whole drawer full of jewels and then had stopped wearing them.  They lay there in the dark, quiet drawer, day after day, with no one to admire them or play with them or watch them sparkle in the sunshine.

          This was too much for the little girl.  She wanted to see those jewels every day, but she was forbidden to open the drawer.  Often she would go to the doorway of the older sister’s room, and look at the chest of drawers that contained that special drawer, and think about running her fingers through them.  But then someone would come down the hallway and she would scamper away so as not to be caught standing in the sister’s doorway.

          Oh, how the little girl wished her sister would give her some of the jewels.  If she didn’t want them, why should she let them lay in the drawer?  It seemed so wasteful of a precious treasure.  She longed to walk into the forbidden room, open the drawer, and run her fingers through the strands of pearls and many-colored gems.  She could picture herself trying them on and spinning in front of the mirror.

          One day the temptation was too much.  None of the rules of the house seemed to matter, nor did displeasing her mother or angering her sister.  No fear was so big that it blocked her plan to play with the jewels.  

It didn’t take long.  Her dad left for his work of painting houses, her sister left for school, and her mom was baking in the kitchen.  In she went, tugged open the heavy drawer and stared in guilty pleasure at the contents.

There was no stopping her now.  She picked up one necklace after another and slipped them over her head, walking to the mirror on her big sister’s vanity table to admire herself.  She did not see a five-year-old girl in a muslin night gown with tousled brown hair.  She saw a princess in a golden tiara wearing three pearl necklaces!

Then she heard her mother’s heavy footsteps in the hall, and the magic was over.  She was scolded, sent to bed for the day, and that evening was subjected to her sister’s angry silence.

The next day there was a lock on the drawer!

But there is no lock on dreams.  Or on the imagination.  The girl now had a dream that someday she would own all the colorful jewels that she wanted.

She grew up and took a job.  She worked hard.  She never made much money – not the kind that buys real diamonds and gold and silver – but fortunately there were jewelers who made beautiful things that even poor girls could afford.  And she bought lots of those kinds of gems.  She bought pins and brooches and many-stranded necklaces.  She had gold metal and silver metal jewelry of every shape and description.  She collected clip-on earrings, and screw-type earrings, and – after they invented them – earrings for pierced ears.  There were luminescent pearls of amber, pink and rose, and many, many strands of ivory pearls – long, loopy strands, double and triple strands, and short chokers with a single teardrop pearl.  If there was any shade of red, green, yellow, orange or blue that she didn’t have in her large jewelry chests, I haven’t seen it!

Her jewelry was fascinating, and reflected the history of her life and loves – from the picture locket her true love gave her during the Great Depression to the last piece she wore to her granddaughter’s wedding.

She was a great lady with many-colored jewels, and she always shared them generously with all the little girls in her life.

THE END

Ldm 5-22-14

[Story loosely based on my mother's life.]