Don't Kill the Doves

      In the last two days, I have been struck by the fact that, as of this morning, three times I came upon a dove in the road in front of my car. Each time I had to slow down, and this morning I had to come to a full stop so as to not hit the dove before it timidly decided it should fly away. I am not sure if this is random, and my vivid imagination is making more of it than it should, or if it means something in some strange way only the universe knows at this time. Whatever the reason, I feel compelled to write this, "Don't kill the doves."

Doves need a little more time to make decisions. That's OK. Be patient with them. If not, and the doves are killed senselessly for anything other than to feed the hungry, the world will be bereft without that mournful but lovely sound they make after a hard rain or just when the sun has risen on a hot, summer morning. Maybe, more importantly, our metaphor for peace would be destroyed. Too much that is good is being destroyed these days. Now more than ever, pay attention to the road ahead, and don't kill the doves.

Can you find the dove?

Neither can I. 😄

Peace. Love, Linda

Sitting on the Apex

 Sometimes we are sitting on the apex looking things over and feeling as if we did it. We made it to that place that just feels right. The sky is blue. The world is busy, and we are it. It is a good feeling everyone should experience from time to time. However, it can become a dangerous vantage point if we ignore the 360 surroundings because our vantage point becomes "the point".

As a matter of fact, while sitting at the top, looking at the blue sky ahead, there may be tremendous outcomes, both good and bad, going on behind our backs that we are missing. That tends to happen on the "we are it" perch. We are living a turning point in the history of the United States of America that is both terrifying and magnificent. It is not necessarily the ones that are suffering the negative effects of this turning point that will forget their patriotic duty this upcoming election. They are desperate for change and looking for an alternative answer. They are protesting in the streets and crying out for justice. It is the ones on the apex, the ones in the feel-good spot that need to watch and listen and turn around and inspect this nation with full focus. Otherwise, our apexes may disappear, and we won't even know what happened.

Vote Biden/Harris in November. Peace. Love, Linda

BAM!

     A regular customer of mine came in this morning hobbling on crutches. His foot was in the healing stages after having been pinned and stitched back together. He was in good spirits, but if he had not been such an accomplished driver, I may have never seen him again after his harrowing mishap. He was coming home from Melbourne on his motorcycle on a dark, country road late at night. He was riding 80 MPH. He maneuvered a curve and BAM! A wild boar ran into the side of his bike. If you have seen a grown, wild, Florida boar, you know it was as if he hit a bolder running on legs. Thankfully, his story ended well.

     I felt that BAM! myself a few years ago when I hit a deer, or I should say, a deer hit me on Narcoossee Road early on a Saturday morning. I, also, felt it in the middle of the night on election night 2016. For some reason, I woke up sometime after 2:00 AM. I had watched the election as late as I thought I should since I had to get up for work quite early the next day. I felt an immediate desire to turn on the television and see what had happened while I slept. I got out of bed, and the computer screen on my desk in the bedroom flashed brightly for some reason and then went off. It cast an eerie feeling over me, and I hurried to the living room to turn on the television. The results were in and BAM!; I immediately felt ill.

     Donald Trump is in his final year, and I say that because I believe with all my heart Americans have had enough of his crassness,  his cruelness and his total lack of knowledge toward the hardest job in the world. I believe we will turn out in droves to vote him out, and I believe we will heal from this superlative mess he has spoken over us. We will come out stronger and wiser than ever because good rises up out of chaos and BAM!; we WILL be on the path to recovery! Thankfully, our story will end well.

Peace. Love, Linda

On the Path to Recovery

Why Alphabet Soup?

Do you remember eating alphabet soup? Little pasta letters floated in a red, soupy base. I think there may have been a few little carrot squares, but I don't remember that. I just remember the little pasta letters floating around. Someone decided it was a good idea to build machines to cut out pasta in tiny letters and put it in a can of soup. 

Letters were not enough. Someone, also, decided to make pasta stars and that became part of a soup. I don't remember eating stars, just letters. Why is this important? It's not. It is a distraction, noise, trivia from my past, but harmless. Not all distractions are harmless. Watch out for dangerous distractions as this election gets closer. 

This election, in my opinion, is the most important voting opportunity in my lifetime. I truly believe that if we let Donald Trump have four more years, he will sell us out to every strongman in the world and build himself a power position that we may not be able to dismantle because our democracy will be dismantled. Alarmist? No. Realist. If you believe what the Bible says and most any religion says in there own vernacular, "You reap what you sow." We are, right now, feeling that chaos from our choices as a nation, and we are "reaping the whirlwind" of Trump's callous decisions.

I am confident we can change this because I have an overwhelming belief in grace, but our choices matter now more than they ever have.

I am signing off for today, but not without saying this: whatever you do in your life, whatever is happening whether it be sickness or health, hardship or wealth, please go out and vote for Joe Biden this fall. Our democracy needs you. Don't let letters and stars get in your eyes. Look closely at the outcomes of Trump's choices and his countless scandalous decisions. Then, cast your ballot. See you at the polls or the post office. Either one will do. They are both valid ways to be heard.

Peace, Love, Linda

HEED THE SIGNS!