Strength, and belief___my beloved Joyce Hifler who comforts me and inspires me. The way the world is at this time we need strength, belief, and inspiration. Hifler writes, “So many people give thought, strength and belief to bad as being equally as powerful as good. In doing so they create unbelievable barriers they cannot cross. Their very lives then become absorbed in ritualistic effort to escape those things that return again and again to torment and twist meanings and definitions of life’s simplest problems.” The problems we face are no longer simple. At this point, the problems go back a very long ways! And what efforts that have been made have not had sticktoitiveness applied to them. Not by enough of we humans. What does sticktoitiveness mean? It means having a dogged perseverance. What kind of things should we have stuck with and solved in better ways? There is an extremely long list as you know of what’s wrong with the world. And did we have a role in any of these issues? Asking such a question does not seem helpful as it leads to blame, or the need to blame. But pointing fingers about would of, should of, had of, or who of____ does not help. Giving up and not getting involved because its “not my problem is not the answer either!”
There are components that do factor in. For example, where I personally grew up, I did not meet many black Americans or people of other races. When I did it was exciting to me! I wanted to know about them! What I learned was they had different experiences, and that those experiences were not unlike my own. There was a lot in common, and as far as what was different that made them interesting to me. I hear other people saying the same thing. Then I hear other people say things that shock me such as racism does.
There is a root to this hatred and hurt. It has a source. People move into hate and then don’t know how to stop or don’t want to because of what they have come to believe. Hall Mark Movies spin out reasons, some not far off. But these examples of changing things up___the “feel good” does not stick. The words I write those of my own efforts and not Hiflers are meant to give hope and ideas, and these only last a while unless they truly can inspire change. We need to think on these things, and act accordingly; we need to believe we can make a difference! Others need to share their own ideas to bring hope to others!
We can survive Covid and the craziness! I am not giving up on having hope, and faith in other people! We need to look at what we have as examples of how to live our lives. We are so used of seeing violence___and now we create it like we are in a reality show. The arguments that games or tv do not influence us___I don’t buy that. We do not have to maintain this kind of acceptance. How much blood and gore you want? Now it’s happening live! Is it enough yet? That’s my anger what I allow of it. That’s my fear for the ones I love sneaking out. We have to start using our brains besides something other than a hat rack!
Hifler continues, ” They are surrounded and plagued with infinite uncertainty and therefore are prey to continual fear and anxieties from which it seems impossible to escape. It drains their normal thought and action and soon they can practice nothing but mental pictures of wrong and dire consequences, and thus the ritualistic effort to flee from it.” Just wow! and this book was published when? Try 1969! What was that timeline like? What happened in that world? Why would Hifler write like this?
She continues, “When man can see his God as love and all good, and all good only, and give his complete thought to the knowledge and affirmation of this. his mental attitude will release those things that once held him spellbound, and the thing that plagued him will melt into the nothingness from which it came. It requires patience and intestinal fortitude to dispose of the past. Our worries and fears do not all go at once, sometimes they have the second and third match.
For years I wondered about God, and my spiritual self. I found what I can believe in and that is that God if you will, is within us and we are a part of what we call God. To my intuition, this feels like the universe and we are all connected. Just as to what or who this God is___what I am sure of is that spirituality, having, and being a soul is real. We needed this God to have a name because we feel him? Her? And we feel guided, and we have answers that work for us. This God includes everyone, this makes sense. For we are like a ripple on a pond. We are the universe and we all matter! Whatever this is we have it is a connection to one another. Being good, know what is good___living good lives. That is what we want. One of the things we want. At the root of any adult, there is a child that grew and become from his experience of all that he came into. If we have our God within we take more responsibility than if God is out there somewhere. We need to stop being adolescent and conditional with how we carry ourselves. We are all responsible for our words and actions! We need to parent our children again. We need to takes steps to find what works! we need to find the source for trust, respect, and belief in ourselves so we can apply it to others.
.
Anisette Studios & Shibui Fine Arts 