Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Prayers Please

We had an incident happen early Saturday morning, right here on our street about a block down. It has me kind of upset, no  it has made me plain out mad.

Now I seem to be a creature of habit. I start every morning sipping my coffee while reading the newspaper but huh, my newspaper wasn’t there. Now that is really unusual, it is always there. As I think of it I realize I really don’t know much about how it got there. Well other than the obvious,someone came quietly in the middle of the night and dropped it off, so that it is there for my convenience as I read while sipping my coffee. Who this mystery person was, I had no idea. I just remember a neighbor telling me the paper is delivered between 3:00 and 3:30am. I think good for you mystery stranger, I am sure glad you have the energy to be out and about at that time of the morning.

Now my missing newspaper was not what made me mad. It was the reason why the paper was not there that has me riled up. It turns out our newspaper delivery man was savagely beaten and left unconscious on the ground. Because of the time of day it is estimated he may have laid there for up to 3 hours before being discovered  as hypothermia had begun to set in. I have learned the gentleman is 70 years old and slight in stature. I have read he was a very gentle man, dedicated to his job. Why would such a thing happen? It is just so sad, prayers please for Mr. Raymond Desrochers.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Building Ourselves

Something has really has been rambling around in this head of mine. There is one and only one person each of us individually will spend our entire lives with. I mean every minute of every day. That person that we will spend all that time with naturally is ourselves. Do I enjoy spending time by myself/with myself? Or am I not satisfied with spending such time and need some sort of external influences to make me feel happy, content? Am I proud of the really me that I know and only I know, the real me that lies hidden beneath the layers of masks I put on to show the world?

If I am not totally content with the person I know lies deep within me, doesn’t it just make  sense to work towards becoming the person I want to be. I have the rest of my life lying before me and this very minute is the first minute of the rest of my life. Doesn’t it just make sense to work towards becoming the people we want to be and isn’t now the very best time to begin that.

I was thinking about all of this and it reminded me of a post I remember having put up at some time in the past.I went looking and found it almost immediately. This following bit is from a post from way back in o2/07.

I spend so much time reflecting back on my life. I seem to see things so differently now. Via email, I received one of those inspirational type messages. It was the story of a very skilled carpenter that took great pride and care in ensuring every job was done well. After many years of quality work, it reached the point he decided to retire and informed his employer of this. On hearing this his employer practically begged him to build on last house. Out of loyalty and respect for the employer he agreed. But as the construction began it was obvious his heart wasn’t in it. He began taking short cuts, using shoddy materials, putting forth less than his best effort, anything he could to just get through each day. Ultimately, the house was finished, on the outside it looked good and only the carpenter in his heart knew of the inferior work contained within. Upon completion the employer handed the carpenter the keys to the house, gifting it to him in recognition of the years of good work. Now only when it was to late did the carpenter regret the quality of the work he had put into building that house. Only then did he regret, every thing he had done. Things he had done just to make it a little easier to get through a particular day, were coming back to haunt him.

I see this as such a good comparison to life. Our inner selves our true selves are a continual work in progress, constantly, “under construction”. Our bodies are our personal houses. Housing the true us, our spirits contained within, during our time on this earth. Do we want to end up as the carpenter did? Reach our end, with our houses (bodies) looking good or at least OK. But, in our hearts knowing of all the flaws and defective workmanship contained within.

Is it possible to attain perfection, of course not. At least not in this physical world. We are human and as such will always have some internal imperfections. We can though at least try our best. Our every day, every act is one more step in the building of our internal selves. Our every act whether and act of love, kindness, cruelty, deceit or what ever put another brick in place in the construction of our inner selves. Every time we take the easy way over what we may know to be the right way, another brick.

If only we would stop and see the big picture, today is not just today. It is an important day in the building of the true me.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Power of Nature/hearts of people

AsI look around this wonder and awe, leaving me feel humbled, tiny and insignificant. Two of those many things are unfolding themselves right before me, here in Southern Manitoba. The raw power of Mother Nature can at times be beyond anything we can even imagine.

Now, it seems like every year flooding is an issue at least to some extent or another. This year in areas it is being described as a once in every 3 hundred year flood. huge areas of land are under water. Many of these areas are usually high and dry. Thousands have been evacuated, countless homes and businesses destroyed or severely damaged. Untold numbers of acres of farm land now a huge lake. for the first time that I am aware of a special state of emergency has been declared for farm livestock. I read somewhere that at least 100,000 head of cattle have to be relocated to higher dry ground, but where?

The army has been called in. Dikes are being reinforced and raised but that water just keeps coming. Countless families are building sand bag dikes around their home, separately trying to hold the water at bay. For many this is all for naught. The government is planning a controlled breach of a dike, purposely sacrificing some homes to try and save many more. And the water just keeps coming.Prayers for all affected please.

As I see the devastation happening around me. I see something more, I see the beautiful hearts of so many people shining through. Filling bags with sand and then placing them around a home to build a dike is dirty hard heavy labor.  It is something I don’t think anyone would enjoy doing.Yet there is a real need for help in doing it.

The love, the goodness, the kindness contained within the human heart,humbles me, leaves me in awe. Where help is needed total strangers are showing up to help. I was told some are taking and using vacation time from work to be able to go out and help. Acts such as this just leave me speechless.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Special prayer request.

Extra tired today. I received a prayer request from our blogging friend Cat. Her request and my response:

This seems like a good place for a prayer request:

I am a supporter of Texas 4000, which is a team of University of Texas students who ride their bicycles 4500 miles from Austin, Texas to Anchorage, Alaska each summer to raise money for cancer research. One of the 2012 team members, a young man named Ruel Bobet, has recently been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of stomach cancer and is about to undergo a long and difficult treatment plan, including two eight-week courses of chemotherapy, radiation, and then surgery to remove a significant portion of his stomach. You can read his blog here if you are interested: http://www.texas4000.org/journal_entry/list/10403

Please keep him in your prayers.

hi Cat, my prayers are most certainly with this brave young man and with all of the riders for this wonderful cause. I visited the site and it is a wonderful project they have undertaken. I couldn’t see how to leave him a comment on his blog but got his email address and will be contacting him directly. Thank you my friend
Bill

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Best thing about Life/Living it

I just read a comment left by our dear blogging friend Mel.  It was to the effect that I am not defined by my medical conditions, I am ME. Yes, I have serious medical conditions that do play a part in  my life. That is the thing, they play a part in my life but they are not my life. My life is still mine to live. I and I alone am responsible for living my life and how I live it.

The vast majority of us dread the thought of dying even fear death and will go to almost any measure to prolong our lives for as long as we can. This must mean we value our lives, we value the time we have on this earth. A question keeps rolling around in my head. If we value this time so very much, why do we waste it? Why do we stop living life and start to just endure it? What do I mean by enduring life? Struggling just to get through each day, just to get up and do it all over again, and again and again just seemingly waiting for it all to end. We stop living life long before it physically ends.

How to we get to the point where we finally realize that each of us individually is responsible for his/her own life and then actually takes responsiblity for how they live it. We pass responsibility for our lives to others, to past events or current situations.  I would but I can’t because……. There are millions of excuses why internally we emotionally just curl up in a ball and stop living long before our physical death.

My medical conditions do not determine who I am They may limit me, my activities in some ways. They do not stop me from living my life.

Accepting physical limitations with declining health is a difficult adjustment to make,it is very humbling. But, again these limitations are but one part of my life and do not have to define my life. I still have a life to live aside from and apart from all of that.

I know what I am trying to say, does that make any sense at all?

Dying Man’s Daily Journal – Quotes on life/death

Not feeling so spry today. It is just the seemingly overwhelming worn out feeling, really tired.

Wanted to share a couple of quotes contained in a message sent to me by our blogging friend Meg.

“I was reminded today of a quote from the well known Indian mystic Jiddu Krishnamurti which felt so appropriate for my experience of your journal so I thought I would copy it to you:
 
“Death, talking about it, is not morbid.  It is part of our life.  From childhood maybe till we actually die, there is always this dreadful fear of dying…We have put it as far away as possible.  So let us inquire together what is that extraordinary thing that we call death” 
 
In a lighter moment I also recalled the wonderful Woody Allen quote, ‘It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens’, which also has relevance to my day to day feelings right now.

Dying Man’s Daily Journal -Understand the dying

Ever have a bad day? That is a silly question, of course you have, every one has their own bad days. Each of us has our own individual definition of what a bad day would be. I think for most a bad day would be a day in which someone did something, or something happened that took the shine off the day for us. Maybe even made us feel frustrated, irritable, crabby or whatever.Hey, it happens, we are human and are entitled to bad days.

Let’s see and argument with a spouse could cause a bad day. The kids acting up could cause a bad day. A stressful day at work, running late, getting caught in traffic, long lines in the grocery store. Ah,there are just a million things that if we let them can cause us to have a “bad” day. We have all had those days, know what they feel like. We understand what it is like to have a day like that and when we see some else having one of those days we tend to cut them a little slack and understand when they may be a little crabby, grumpy or what ever. Please just take a moment and think back to what caused you bad days. Think of the things that made you crabby, grumpy or what ever. Feeling to which you justified as ones you were entitled to, for what ever reason.

Now try to image what your day would be like, if on that day you heard the words, you are dying, come out of your doctor’s mouth. Hearing those words certainly take the shine off of your day. In your mind you can try to imagine what that would be like and what it may do to your day, your week, your month……. How do you think that might affect your mood? Now if we just naturally allow some slack and understanding to someone that had a bad day at the office and is feeling down or grumpy. What should we do for the person that has learned they are dying?

Meg, is a lady that has left us a few comments here on the blog. I am honored to have become a friend through the numerous emails we have exchanged. Meg is just a fountain of wonderful information and ideas. Now emails I always consider private from the blog as many know. Meg has graciously granted me permission to pass on and insight I may gain, and that I have. I thank you Meg and do hope you will join us right here on the blog with your sharings. Meg and I have discussed the level of understanding others have of what it is like to know you are dying. This is a poem Meg shared with me:

Don’t tell me that you understand.
Don’t tell me that you know.
Don’t tell me that I will survive,
How I will surely grow.
Don’t come at me with answers
That can only come from me.
Don’t tell me how my grief will pass,
That I will soon be free.
Accept me in my ups and downs.
I need someone to share.
Just hold my hand and let me cry
And say, “My friend, I care.”
 
                                                                                                                           (Author unknown)