The Long And Winding Road

Recently, I read a book by Wayne Dyer (one of my faves) called “The Power of Intention”.  Dudes, read the book.  It is wonderful, thought provoking, inspiring, blah..blah..blah.  Anyway, enough with the selfless promotion of Dyer’s book.  In the book he talks about how over time his books have come to write themselves.  According to my old friend, Google, he has written 30 bestsellers in his career.  I’ve read several of them and they all changed me….like, forever!  Anyway, in that vein (or is it vane?..who cares?) I thought I would spend the next several posts or maybe all future posts doing that very same thing.  Just let you into my stream of consciousness…I don’t know whether to apologize or say congratulations.  I suppose you will have to decide for yourself.  Anyway, I am not asking for permission…always best to ask for forgiveness anyway, right?

So, the long and winding (see ending song) road of that little intro is going to lead me further down a circuitous path that hopefully will reach a crescendo where you will see how it all connects.  As I read back that sentence, I hope I can see how it connects.  Oh, and speaking of writing itself, that is the first time I have ever written the word “circuitous”.  That has to be divine intervention!   Doesn’t matter, I’m going with it…..

I think the best format for this little exercise is a series of a few questions that I desperately hope you will answer by leaving a comment on THIS BLOG POST.  I do appreciate the comments on FB, too, but humor me just this once, will you?  And I am going to issue a GIANT disclaimer before I ask the questions.  I don’t have the right answers!  As a matter of fact, I doubt there are any wrong ones, so be honest.  There will be no judgment from yours truly and if any other readers judge any of your comments, well them screw ’em!!

Question #1

I have to give you a little background on this one so you will understand where I am coming from.  Today, I went to a Bible study class as a guest of a good friend.  I was in the room with about 15 or 20 lovely ladies and I enjoyed the class very much.  Thanks, Emilie, for the invitation.  I am a person of great faith and have spent quite a lot of time in church and Sunday school, Bible school, etc; but, I am almost afraid to admit this.  I have never read the Bible in its entirety.  Sorry, God!  Anyway, someone made mention of “self-help” books in the class.  The moderator made a comment that brought a question to my mind.  She said (drawing comparison between self-help books and The Bible) that self-help books focus on “Self” and The Bible focuses on “God”.  So, the questions is this (drum roll, please)……Is there a separation between the two…self and God?

And in all fairness, I suppose I will share my opinion on that one…  I believe that God lives in all of us.  I kind of suspect that the “self” or “soul” or “heart” of us is comprised mostly of him.  I am not suggesting that I am Godly or anything like that; but recently I read something by Esther and Jerry Hicks in the book “The Vortex” (which I highly recommend as well) about how when we are born we are more connected to our spiritual source (God or whatever you call it) and that through the course of life, we tend to chip away at that connection and feel more like he is up there and we are down here.  Anyway, I kind of believe that….there is NO separation between God and self.  Like I said, my answers aren’t right.  They aren’t wrong.  They are simply mine!

Question #2

Yesterday, I spoke to two old friends that I have known since I was about 6 or 7 years old.  Literally, two of the most beautiful and funny people you would ever want to meet.  We have had more fun together than the law could ever allow.  I haven’t laughed that much in a few months, seriously, so it was quite therapeutic.  Thanks Wanda & Lisa…you can bill me if you want to.  Back to it, Lisa was talking and she said, “You know, Lori, you and I both love to laugh….”  There was more to the sentence which I won’t go into; but it was a wake-up call for me and when I relayed that comment to my husband, I could see his wheels turning.  You see, my husband has a great infectious laugh and he is very funny; but, we have not been very silly in our home lately.  So much so, that my husband looked puzzled because he hasn’t seen that side of me in a while which brings me to my next question.  “Why do we spend so little time making the conscious effort to laugh?”  (Self-Promotion Note:  Did you read my last post entitled “Laughter Is The Only Medicine”?)

My answer:  This is a multi-pronged answer.  We focus on the wrong ball(s) (Money, status, BS).  We still buy into that nonsense about “having to struggle”.  We take ourselves WAY too seriously!  We watch too much news (not me, by the way, gave it up 5 years ago).  This could become a long list so I’ll stop right there.

Question #3

Okay, this is quite personal subject matter than I am about to discuss.  I told you guys about the death in my family recently and a few funny events occurred during the 2 weeks prior to Brandice’s death and continued through the day of the funeral.  Someone very close to me (I will NOT name names on this one.) is particularly good at using trivial distractions to get through crises.  Let me explain.  On a phone call one day in which we were discussing Brandice’s health she said out of the blue, “I sure would like to go get some peaches.”  Okay!  Then, she chastised someone else closer  to me for not coming over to see her new curtains and help her install the caps on the ends of the rods.  Then on the ride to the funeral in between the obvious tears and lamenting she looked back and said, “Does this pocketbook go with what I’m wearing?”  (I guess I should also mention that the morning after the funeral she called to say that she really wanted to go pick some figs.)  I have to admit this even though it pains me greatly to do it, I really judged her harshly for it.  And, I love her; and I am sorry I wasn’t more understanding.  So, the question, “Why do we judge everything?  Even those of us (me) who preach about being non-judgmental do it.  Why do we believe that our way is the right way?  Is there really just ONE right way?”  God, that is a lot of questions, isn’t it?

My answer:  I don’t know; but, I think it boils down to this…we are judging ourselves too harshly.  We are trying to hold ourselves to some standard that is obscure at best.  Then, we turn and project our own self judgment onto the world including the people we love the most.

Alright, folks there it is.  I thought this would be a short post; but, it took on a life of its own which is what I told you would happen in the first place……Thanks for listening and thanks for talking back!!

Much Love!!

Lori

PS:  “The Long And Winding Road” was actually the very last single ever released by The Beatles.  It was written by Paul McCartney.  He said that when he wrote it on his farm in Scotland that he envisioned Ray Charles singing it.  Phil Spector  produced the single and Paul was less than thrilled by the “post production modifications” made and even cited that fact as one of the six reasons he wanted to break up the legal entity that was “The Beatles”.  He actually said that in court.  Don’t you just love Wikipedia?

Click here:

The Long & Winding Road

PPS:  Paul was right, this was the Spector produced version and it is a little weird; but, one of the greatest songs ever written, in my opinion, of course.