Good, Better, Best

You have wonder how this little, low budget movie was one of the top money earners of all time? Perhaps we identified with the characters and the situations a bit more than anyone would have expected.

US & THEM

(My version of “Us and Them”. See: Colorless Green Ideas)

Taxonomy

Taxonomy, 1. the theory and techniques of describing, naming and classifying living and extinct organisms on the basis of similarity of their anatomical and morphological features and structures, etc., 2. the practice or technique of classification. From the Greek taxis = arrangement.

And God Said

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.’ And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.” – New American Standard Version of the Bible, Genesis 18-20

The first job ever listed in the Bible was sorting and naming all the animals in an effort to find the perfect first mate for the perfect first man. Once done, we all know there needed to be something new and very special created -- so it was sort of the first gap analysis, if you think about it.

Sorting People

There are so many ways to sort people. We all do it, all the time. In fact from recent studies we know that in the first 30 seconds you identify race first, then gender, then go on to run through a list of other sorting mechanisms we all use typically or specifically with regard to our own identity.

We sort to make every day decisions of who to speak to at a social function or who to call back first from a list of possibilities. We sort as we make life-changing decisions as to whom we will marry or partner with. Sorting occurs at great turning points in history -- “and whose side are you on anyway?” We look to see who is standing with us or against us in any situation or whether we choose to stand-alone.

We sail through our lives in many roles too – all of our roles and loyalties and associations call for different types of sorting. We may be a father, son, husband, lover, mate, brother, business man, athlete. We are part of many groups and loyalties at once, such as a woman’s leadership forum, an industry association, a parent-teacher group, a conservative or liberal political party, an American or an Aussie, a Hindu or a Christian or Muslim.

Pain in the Choosing

Can you remember a time in school when they were choosing up teams for say a softball team? Ok two “captains” are chosen. Instead of doing something that doesn’t hurt the ego, the teacher tells each of the “captains” to choose their team. They do this by prolonging the agony and humiliation of those to be choosen, by taking turns one at a time calling the name of the best softballers in the group to the “Bad News Bears” left at the bottom of the barrel. Potentially soul-destroying if you are in the last few or the last one to be picked by your colleagues! And being choosen first or last continues throughout your life.

There are many other ways we are sorted, including obvious ways such as through gender or race (although we are no longer officially “supposed” to do this).

We all start our lives with being a good girl or a bad girl; a bad boy or a good boy; a good student or a bad student; someone who scores well in college placement tests or goes to work or a technical school. Once we apply for a job we will be sorted by the way we fill in an application or get to the interview on time.

Sorting "Tools"

There are a variety of fun to professional sorting tools that are “deeply probing psychological instruments” that can tell us conclusively whether we kiss well or don’t kiss well, are good in bed or not (Cosmopolitan Magazine type tools) to professional tools such as birth order, Emotional Intelligence, Birkman or Myers Briggs -- all are created to help us sort everyone into “us and them”.

After many years of creating and facilitating a workshop called, “Corporate Dancing” even I felt compelled to create a tool call “The Key Relationship Management Tool” to help people identify and sort those they work with in an effort to help them more easily “get their way in a business setting”.

We all know how to sort people around us. (There are still people who will deny they do this, but you can't walk through life and see another person and NOT do this. So just get real and quit being in that group that denies they are human!) We begin sorting people the moment we can recognise this is Mommy or Daddy and this is NOT Mommy or Daddy.

Some of us are far better at being accurate with our sorting than others, but the end result of sorting can be disappointing as we mature into adults, especially if we spend too much time on this or use criteria that is not actually beneficial (such as sorting people because of their eye or hair colour or perceived race, handicap, political or religious associations).

Our world, whether real or virtual grows more divisive every day. Some -- who have so much to offer -- are still waiting in the bunch to be called for a team. Look around you today and see if someone -- who may initially look insignificant -- might actually make great allies or friends, teachers or guides. Think carefully about the criteria you use to sort -- because you could sort out the very person or people who will change your life -- or love you forever.

I Dreamed Last Night!!

It is said the human being is the only animal that goes to bed when it is not sleepy and gets up when it is!

I like that quote because it is so true. I don’t remember the last time I dreamed. I average about five hours or less of sleep each night and have averaged this amount since about January this year. I seem unable to sleep longer and when I try, I get massive headaches. Yet it is the dreaming I have missed. The truth is we all dream, we just don’t remember our dreams, especially when we don’t get enough sleep, or at least that is one theory.

Well I dreamed last night! And it was a dream of unrequited love of 18 years! Eighteen years ago, I met this wonderful man when I was just beginning another relationship and would never consider having two relationships at the same time.

But one weekend I travelled to his city and we went to see The Phantom of the Opera. I stayed at the famous Windsor hotel, a most remarkably romantic, Victorian-era hotel. He met me in the foyer and we had a little snack and glass of Champaign before strolling to the theatre. I had secured fourth-row centre seats (right under the chandelier). The play went perfectly and he was surprised and thrilled at the music and the drama. He was also very attentive. It was fairy-book!

Afterwards, we strolled hand-in-hand back to the hotel, went into the grand dining area and had some supper and another glass of Chamaaign. Then, he walked me to my room. My heart was racing. From the day I had met him I had fancied him and even though I had not known him long, I loved his manners and gentlemanliness around me. He treated me like I was special.

And here he was at my hotel room door!

He took the key from my hand and opened the door and held it open as I walked through it. Then he stood at the entrance holding the door open and I leaned against the door jam with my heart screaming at me. He leaned in to kiss me and…I pulled away.

He smiled gently and bid me good night and I stood at that door and watched him walk away.

In all our eighteen years of wonderful and close friendship, he never again attempted a kiss! And I have kicked myself a hundred thousand times for the lost opportunity.

Well last night in my very long and very vivid dream, he kissed me (and that is all that happened for you perves because I woke up like Sleeping Beauty at the touch of his lips on mine)!

As I woke and realised what I had been dreaming I thought perhaps I was dying because of the unlikelihood of the dream – for I have not once, not EVER dreamed of his kissing me.

In fact, I have made up my mind that I am going to call him today and TELL him about the dream….because, who knows, people die suddenly and they never get to tell people how much they mean to them. I would hate to think he never hears about this silly dream or realises the longevity of my silly “crush” after all these years. And…perhaps he will come and kiss me just once, so I can tell how soft his lips are.

Is there someone you are dreaming about? Be brave and tell them…anything can happen today -- and when you least expect it.

To Be, To Sleep, To Dream

To Sleep Perchance to Dream

“To be, or not to be,--that is the question:--Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortuneOr to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them?--To die,--to sleep,--No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heartache, and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to,--'tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish'd. To die,--to sleep;--

“To sleep! perchance to dream:--ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause: there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,The insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,

“To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,--The undiscover'd country, from whose bournNo traveller returns,--puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?

”Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;And enterprises of great pith and moment,With this regard, their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!”

- Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1, William Shakespeare
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I tried to research grief with respect to fatigue, but didn’t find as much as I hoped for. But I am tired. I am tired of the way things are going in my land of virtual dreams, I am tired my new partner has been away so long and hasn’t been around to comfort me through this dark time and I am tired that my Dad took leave of this world without my being there with him to hold his hand through the moment.”

Three. My Dad was wise. In fact my Dad was the wisest man who ever lived (that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it, so don’t try to convince me otherwise!), and one of the things he always said is that bad things come in threes. So I’ve had my fill now and the quota is full and I can take leave from dark events for a while.

What this means is that I have wandered into a deep valley but am now, albiet it slowly, walking back out of it. The funeral for my Dad is over and Doris is sorting out her new solitary life.

The (never to be called great again) Turner has promised to have victory over the T-1 cable provider this day and after he does all the important stuff in his virtual life, has told me he would finally catch up with me again if he has time (makes me feel really important, that does – there will be a payment to extract for such an attitude to be sure).

And my virtual land….well that will take time. Evil is afoot and growing stronger. Some of us remain there to be part of the solution and I am one of them…even when the going gets tough, discouraging and even dangerous. I love my realm and want to help the people who live there and visit there and I have great hope.

So today I will do my old rounds and look for familiar faces and embrace those who also need encouragement with my 90-second, Sheridanne’s-special hug (the one that leads to giggles and helps people de-stress) and hope that will help make just a small difference as I heal slowly.

For today….that is all the energy I have. So sharing it will be enough for as long as I can share it and then I must rest again and continue to regain my strength from a month of three challenges.

An Ordinary Knight Has Passed

Boromir was a brave and faithful man who tirelessly and valiantly defended those weaker than himself at any cost, including giving his life for others. It is the way he lived and it is the way he died, or that is what we know of this mythical man from Tolkien’s wonderful stories.

I’ve chosen this video to mark the passing of my second Dad, Owen Smith, who never held a sword but cut a million heads of hair with his trusty scissors while his golden smile and sweet wit held peoples attention. He was an ordinary man filled with extraordinary courage and hope -- and most of all love.

He fell in love with a woman he spent over 55 years with -- his beloved Doris. To me I can’t think of one of them without the other, it as if that Biblical concept of becoming one flesh was manifest in their every reflection, word, action, deed, song.

Yet he was the quiet one to me, the one always ready with a smile that could melt an iceberg. So sincere whether he was mucking out the stables or milking Goaty-Goat in the back yard or making Doris her hot cup of tea served in bed every possible morning of their wonderful relationship.

One year, he dug a pond on their land and laboured more hours than I could imagine, making it just perfect for his sweet Doris, the family, friends and strangers. And it was a constant labour for him from the day it was just a dream - but he fished there and we ice skated and went swimming there. It was wonderful!

A Gentle Knight

He taught me gently about his love of the Lord and the simple act of praying “just regular and from your heart”. In fact I never heard a high-flung word from his lips. He was living lessons to me, never preaching, never even correcting – unless I was about to jump out of the hayloft and break a bone.

I would have loved to be there with the rest of the family during this time but I know he knew just how very much I loved him. I wanted to say something profound about him – words are all I know – but I have no more profound words to say than this Scripture passage to mark his going home to be with his Lord and Saviour than these unlikely ones:

Jesus taught: “’You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour, and hate your enemy’; but I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

"For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax gatherers do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.’” Matthew 5:42-6:1

He was just an ordinary knight, who never had armour or a sword; and his horse was little and slow and not even white. But he is the only knight I have ever known who knew what it was to stand for something so gently and so faithfully without attention or praise, never wavering his entire life – faithful to a concept so few can conceive of. He stood for the Lord and for his beloved Doris with GRACE.

My life has been so enriched by him and I will miss him, but will never forget his lessons. And there will be no greater reward than his at his homecoming.