Day 11: "Courage is a love affair with the unknown"

 "...to choose fear as a companion during hard times is akin to wearing a weighted vest instead of a life jacket when you're learning to swim.  The goal is to learn to coexist with our fear.  To see it clearly for what it is and understand where it comes from.  To think of fear a worried relative -- the nervous, hand-wringing cousin who's quick to anticipate disaster.  If that prophet of doom has to be along for the ride, I'm choosing to carry it around as a passenger but I will never let it get behind the wheel."  (Gillian Deacon "A Love Affair with the Unknown") 

I am reading a book, although a slow process, called" A Love Affair with the Unknown"  by Gillian Deacon.  It's one of those books that has come along beside me on my journey... not to convince me of changing direction, but to encourage me that I am already on the right path.  

Embracing the unknown like a welcome companion is where I am heading.  Certainty, for me, has been an abusive partner.  I finally had enough.  There are still unsettled waters on this journey, but I am far less concerned with the outcome.  

I am not good at making new friends.  Acquaintances, sure... but friends... that is challenging for me. I am far too comfortable with people who have been my life for decades.  They either know a lot about me and still love me, or they found out things about me and are not as excited as I am to reinforce the relationship.  I am comfortable with both.  I expect that some will stay and some will be more distant.  I try to balance the flow of information for those who are staying so they don't get too spooked.  For the most part, people who have invested decades in a friendship aren't that easily knocked off their horse.  

Making a new friend, that comes with a load of challenges.  What do I reveal about myself in the first few meetings?  How often to do we need to meet up to establish a friendship?  What are my obligations, if any, to be on my best behaviour.  When will I be able to be really real?  How long do I have to wait to call them a friend? What if they move in next door?  

When there is space between people, there is less expectations of a lot of time requirement.  However... what happens when you can just walk across the street to their house?  

The picture in today's post is of a beautiful crabapple tree that bloomed in our neighbour's yard for as long as I lived at my house.  We enjoyed it's blooms every spring as we could see it from our kitchen window.  Last year that tree was cut down as the house and yard underwent a massive renovation.  This month, there is a new homeowner.  

I've had the chance to visit her and enjoyed my initial meetings.  But that passenger, that cousin that rides in my car is distracting my driving.  Fear is creeping in and I'm not sure how to address it.  I have lost friends.  How do I not remember that feeling?  

I have spent the last year writing to strangers and far away penpals.  They seem safe.  They aren't close enough to require more of me that one or two letters a month.  But I can't hug them.  I like hugs.  I gave one to my new neighbour yesterday.  

Day 10: The Beauty of Benign Beliefs

"Beliefs aren't right or wrong... they are just interpretations of the data given.  Maybe the actions that arise out of those beliefs can be labeled as right (or helpful to the common good of humanity ) or wrong (unhelpful to the common good of humanity).  The beliefs in and of themselves are just beliefs and benign for the most part." (RN - Day 10, 2025) 

This is a postcard that I am letting go of today.  I have held on to it for at least twenty years.  Today it heads to Germany to meet up with a donkey lover and maybe a new friend.  

I wonder how fitting it would be for this postcard to be mounted in a lot of the organizations in this country.  Would it speak to a truth that no one wants to verbalize?  How many organizations are headed by a committee of people that for the most part don't behave much more dignified than these "asses".  It would explain the marketing behind such a postcard.  

Through all four readings today, I found a quote that stood out on beliefs.  It seems to line up with my donkey image quite well.  Beliefs would be okay if they were something that stayed in a person's individual being as a way to navigate life.  But so often, beliefs end up around the board room table.  That is where things get messy and breed conflict and wars.  It makes me wonder if the donkeys would have been better at those kinds of meetings than humans.  Maybe less destruction would occur if there was just some simple braying at the nonsense of consolidating beliefs into a doctrinal statement.  

I want to laugh hard when I see organizations declare beliefs as their foundation.  It seems ludicrous that when you gather a certain amount of human beings at one place, that you would think there would be an authentic consensus on previous agreed beliefs.   There has to be just as many beliefs that come to the to party as people.  But it seems necessary for these organizations to label certain beliefs as what that organization embraces as a whole.  Do all the individual humans then just automatically "believe" just because it is written down that the organization embraces those beliefs?  Why do I highly doubt that?  Conform yes, but believe, I doubt it.  

I think for people to want to be a part of the community, they will agree to sign on the dotted line as agreeing to the beliefs... and then no further thought is required as to whether they actually believe them.  I was one of them that was willing to sign without real thought as to what I was signing.  

If you gather a bunch of donkeys, their braying may sound similar.  To our human ears, we can't make any distinction between what one donkey is saying to what the other donkey is saying.  It's all noise.   That is what happens when individual minds don't have a place to be heard and understood.  In most organizations, the individual mind is not beneficial to the operation of the organization.  It is crushing for some people to figure that out after they have invested most of their life in to that system.  It's heart breaking to wake up and realize that it was never about you.  You were only a cog in a machine.  

I embrace a lot of things now solely on "belief".  Beliefs are core to every human.  They can change over time, but they are still a vital component to our existence.  What devalues them is when they are taken from the individual and forced into a corporate structure.  

I wrote last year that beliefs were benign.  Maybe they are... but benign still means they are present, they are just not dangerous to life...  until they get to the board room.    

Day 9: Curling up in another corner

"I can't understand what is so threatening about not believing in something.  There is a world of things not to believe in and a world of people not believing in them.  So why does my not believing in this one little thing make it such a big deal.  Maybe because in some people's worlds, that one "little"thing... isn't so little.  It is everything.  Maybe my not believing in "it" and being okay means that "it" may not be that big of a deal as a whole.  I can understand then that unbelief may come across as threatening.  I hope humanity evolves past this and sooner than later." (RN... 2024, Day 9)  

I have a cat bed on my puzzle table.  For the most part my cat Twinkel sleeps there.  He's the boy of the family.  I share that picture on Day 3 this year.  It keeps him off my puzzle.  He is well behaved for the most part because he has a place where he is included.  

Yesterday our other cat Sofie, came and curled up on the puzzle table bed.  She has a few other options in my office, but she chose that one.  After twelve years of sharing our house with these two feline furbabies, we have come to know a few things about them.  They like their own places, but those places are also free to be encroached on by the other.  So sometimes there might be a quizzical look from the one cat when the other cat is curled up in a spot more commonly used by their housemate.  There can be one of two responses.  One cat can chase the other cat out... which is more of a Twinkel response than a Sofie response.  The other option is that the displaced cat finds another place to curl up.  That happens more often.  

I found the opening quote in one of my Day 9 readings this morning. I think I am quite lucky to have two cats that for the most part can find another place to curl up.  That isn't how most humans behave when someone encroaches on their well established territory.  We still don't know how to share well on this planet.  We don't know how to dwell together in our differences.  We don't know how curl up in another corner when our bed has another cat in it.  Oh how I wish we could see more of that in our world.  

Day 8: The Questions I want to ask my New Doctor

 

I woke up this morning pondering how my first meeting with my new GP (Doctor) will go.  It's been over six years since I have been in to see a medical doctor.  But to my credit... I haven't been sick or sick enough to warrant a visit.  Because of that, I lost access to the clinic I was a patient at for ten years and a doctor I had for the same amount of time.  

My Mom turned me on to a female physician who is accepting patients in a town close to her home.  I jumped on that.  I have an appointment in a month to see her for the first time.  

I want to interrogate her.  That is the energy I'm feeling right now.  I guess I could just be a subservient patient and just get along with her protocol.  But I am a little more interested in what she can do for me.  I realize that because of our Alberta Health Care system, I don't have to pay (aside from my taxes) for her services.  Maybe that comes with a lot of baggage.  Maybe I don't have a right to be picky.  But that doesn't stop me from wanting to ask some questions before I commit to our "relationship". 

Do you eat meat? (I'm a carnivore.  I would like to know if she can support that regimen as a valid way of health for me.  It will be a little more challenging if she is a vegan. ) 

How old are you? (Maybe I don't have a right to ask that question.  But if she's in her 30's, then I will know that she hasn't experienced menopause yet and all her knowledge of it comes out of books and other people's anecdotes.) 

How do you view sugar? (This one is a no brainer for me.  If she hands out lollypops for the children that are in her care, then that is a red flag for me.  That tells me she's not very concerned about nutrition as a way of promoting health.) 

Will you still accept me as a patient if I refuse cancer screening? (This one is a big one for me.  I figure if I have a problem, I will address it at the time it happens.  But I am beyond needing preliminary cancer screening as I see it has  become a money maker for the medical system. I don't need regular invasive procedures just to pad her pocket book. I am already doing everything I can with my food intake to ward off cancer. News Flash... stop the intake of sugar.  Cancer cells love sugar. ) 

I can't think of any more questions right now... but I might have more given enough time.  After all, doctors here in Canada are in high demand and it's not like "Little House on the Prairie" where you can just walk into Dr. Baker's office and have his full attention.  That world doesn't exist anymore.  

I added a picture of a Ribeye steak that my husband barbecued for me.  It was delicious.  This is a picture of what keeps me alive now.  I hope I can convey that to my new G.P. somehow.  Maybe I can't ask her all the questions I want to in the ten minutes I get for our initial meeting. But maybe I can show her a picture of this ribeye and let her know that I'm in better health because of it.  

I posted about my Carnivore Journey during Lent in 2024 on "The Carnivore Atheist" .  It's been a two year journey for me so far.  I don't want to go back.  I only wish I could express that to my new doctor.  

Day 7: The Hardest Part of Love is Letting Go

 

I wonder, sometimes, if letting go gets any easier the more loss I have.  I look ahead to the possibilities of what can happen to someone I love and realize that loving them means letting go of my desire to have them around all the time.   This is a lesson I have learned so many times before.  

I was a teenager in the 80's and I heard a lot of songs back in the day.  But what escaped me a lot of the times was the artist behind the song.  A song can be so familiar, and yet when I Google it, I find that I know nothing about the band or singer that made that song so popular.  "Letting Go" is one of those songs.  

The Band is called Straight Lines.  They are a Canadian Band.  Who'd thunk!  I just learned that today.  I've had that song go through my head countless times when I have had to let go in some form or other.  What is so amazing about the lyrics is that they can make you cry over any form of love.  It doesn't have to be romantic love.  

Nine years ago, I had to let go of someone very precious to me.  Letting go the last time was preceded by a lot of previous times I had to let go of that boy.  My nephew Ben was 26 when he died in a vehicle accident.  Just that would have been enough to make it tragic... but there is much more to the story that just added to the tragedy and the additional practice of "Letting Go" involved.  

When I listened to this song this morning, the tears flooded out of me.  I looked at his picture on my wall and then looked over at the picture of his Mom who died in a motorcycle crash over two years ago.  I had to let go of her too on numerous occasions.  They are both gone and my pain is brought to life again when someone still living requires me to let go again.  I am tired of so much tragic loss in my family.  Letting go again seems like giving in to the next heart ache.  But the choice is mine to embrace the "Hardest Part of Love".  Maybe that is where Love shines the most.   

"Letting Go" by Straight Lines

They say that if you love somebody
You've gotta set them free
And if you really love somebody
You gotta let them be

Well, I don't wanna tie you down
We both need room to grow
But it's so easy havin' you around
And the hardest part of love is letting go

It's easy to depend on someone
To be part of your life
And all the time you spend with someone
Could make you hold too tight

Well, I don't wanna tie you down
We both need room to grow
But it's so easy havin' you around
And the hardest part of love is letting go

The hardest part of love is letting go
The hardest part of love is letting go

They say that if you hold on to it
It's gonna slip away
But if the feeling's really true
Then you know it's gonna stay

Well, I don't wanna tie you down

We both need room to grow

But it's so easy havin' you around

And the hardest part of love is letting go

Letting go

Letting go

The hardest part of love is letting go

(Released in 1981:  Writers David Sinclair and Bob Buckley.  Key members of the Canadian band Straight Lines included: Bob Buckley: Vocals, Keyboards; David Sinclair: Guitar; Peter Clarke: Bass; Darryl Burgess: Drums (original); Peter Padden: Percussion; Geoff Eyre: Drums)

Day 6: Labels are good for puzzles, not people.

It seems ironic that on Day 6 both Jean Meslier and Kate Cohen show up to inspire me.  

Jean Meslier, a Catholic priest, hid his atheism for his whole life.  His writings were only discovered after he was dead.  Kate Cohen, a former columnist with the Washington Post,  wrote a book encouraging people to embrace the label of "Atheist" if it was safe for them to do so.  I have both voices in my head at this juncture of my life.  

This is what I wrote in 2023 on Day 6... 

"I have to admit, it is easier to call myself an agnostic than an atheist, even through I may literally be both.  When it comes to labels, The agnostic label is a lot softer than atheist and requires less explaining.  It's why I don't like labels because they rarely define me or my journey. I don't know what lies beyond my senses, and I often don't know what lies within them.  I also can't navigate my life without  believing in something beyond myself... I just don't call it "God" and definitely don't call it the "God" I embraced for most of my life ... thus applying the atheist label, I guess."  ( RN - Day 6 - 2023) 

I am still there on the label idea.  I think labels work for puzzles.  I was at a senior's facility recently and I saw a puzzle that I might want to get one day.  I took a photo of the front picture, but realized, I needed to get the name of the puzzle as it would be easier for me to find it to order it.  

Labels don't work so well for people, even though Kate Cohen thinks they might be helpful in some circumstances.  A puzzle is what it is... a human is more complex and when looking deeper in to a person's story, it really can't be labeled to match such a mass defined term as "atheist".  I'm Ruby... I'm not Richard Dawkins, or Matt Dillahunty or Kate Cohen.  I think the biggest problem of labels for me isn't how Webster's defines them, it's how other people define them... because those definitions are much more varied than the ones you find in a dictionary.  

I am thankful for perspectives like that of Neil Degrasse Tyson.  He doesn't need a label either to describe himself.  He just tells you how he sees life.  He doesn't need to be confined to a label that can lead to so much misunderstanding.  

"I think I am scared of people.  What other explanation do I have that keeps me from being honest?  I must be scared of them.  The other option is low self-esteem.  Maybe I still don't feel like my perspective matters as a whole.  Maybe in my own world it does, but when I step out of my space into someone else's space, I am a lot more cautious.  It's not because I think peoples opinions are more valid than mine.  I can see through a lot of bullshit now, but that doesn't mean I am good at calling it out.   Kate thinks if I can... I "should".  Now I just have to figure out if I can... then doing it might actually be possible." (RN: Day 6 - 2024) 

Day 5: Giving up the need to hide myself... if only for 45 days.

 Today, I spending more time on a Sunday morning organizing my Authentic Lent posts.  I have been reading the corresponding days from the last four years each morning before I write my blog post for the day.  My organization chore is to make that process more accessible by having links for all the matching days available in a Pages Index without the need to go through the archives and find the days.  

I realize that at a touch of a button, this whole blog could disappear.  I am grateful and reliant on whoever runs Blogger to keep all my content up and available.  I could copy every blog post I've ever done into a medium that I can secure myself, but am I even going to read it once it's in storage.  Probably not.  I've written so much that most of those writings may never see the light of day again.  So I will continue to use Blogger as long as they keep the program running.  

This is an exercise of living in the moment and not having too much hold on the future.  I realize that in 5 billion years, the sun will explode and if there is still an Earth to be dissolved at that time, there won't be any memory for anyone of anything left.  Even the legacies of Tom Hanks and James Cameron and everything they've done will be gone.  That realization makes it okay to just write and not be too concerned about longevity.  

Authentic Lent isn't about having something profound to say every day for forty five days.  It's about having a space to be authentic when I don't feel like I have much space for that during the rest of the year.  I would hope that for others too.  I guess that is why my ramblings are on a blog platform and not in my computer on a Pages document.  I would hope that if anyone actually reads my words that maybe it will encourage them to find their own space to be authentic at least to themselves.  Maybe I'm not the only one who needs forty-five days to "give up the need to hide herself".  

Day 4: No truth of my own

I feel my eyes may deceive me today

I see you, but I don't

What are you really

Will I ever know beyond what others tell me

Is that the only hope I have for most things I know

That others have known them first

Am I only the carrier pigeon of someone else's discoveries

If that is the case

Then I have no place to stand

No defence

No truth of my own

Maybe my only response this morning to this picture is poetry.  I am excited at the prospect of the Artemis II mission.  I was and infant and a toddler when humans were exploring the moon up close.  But I keep my enthusiasm close to my heart.  It is only a story I embrace in my limited understanding.  I have not platform, no podium, no place to proclaim.  I can only embrace what others have discovered as what might be.  

If I lived in a world where everyone embraced the possibilities, it would be safe to share my enthusiasm.  But not everyone embraces the possibility.  So I get to stay in my own little corner of the Earth and maybe find one or two that also embrace the possibility and then we can share our excitement.  

I have lost hope that humanity as a whole will ever understand a common "truth".  There will always be discord in that which is.     

I have a Robert G. Ingersoll quote in my quote book... but he talks about God, not the moon.  But the same idea is there.

"Is there a God? 

I do not know

Is man immortal? 

I do not know

One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can change the fact.  It is as it is, and it will be as it must be."  

 

Day 3: "I don't have to be anything."

This is a picture of Twinkel sleeping on my desk this morning.  Something in me wishes I could sleep as long and as often and as free as he does.  I slept in today... to 6:20 am.  Well that's not entirely the whole story.  After being awake a few hours after my 8:30 pm descent into bed, I was just trying to catch up.  It's been three days of interrupted sleep.  

My cat lives in the moment and I wish I had more access to that superpower.  I wish a lot of things didn't matter.  I wish humans had the freedom to just be in this world.  I wish, I wish, I wish.... But that is not who we are.  We have the blessing and curse of being aware of who and what we are.  I look at humanity and see billions of coping mechanisms to try to deal with that.  It's not easy.  Life isn't as easy as find food and shelter to stay alive long enough to procreate and then die.  

I found the following in my AL readings today.  

"Dad read the National Geographic and Mom read children's books to her children. So maybe all I had coming out of my childhood was an appreciation for nature and some bible stories. They couldn't give me the wisdom of great thinkers anymore than they could give me blonde hair and blue eyes. I guess I can forgive them both" Day 3 - 2022

After 4 years of trying to figure out who I am in forty five days, I am a little more envious of Twinkel because he doesn't have that burden.  He just is.  Maybe my approach to other humans needs to be a little more like that.  Just be.  No need to be right, no need to be philosophical, no need to be defensive, no need to be understood, no need to be liked in the moment... just BE as much as you can BE. 

 Maybe that is the lesson I can take forward from this season  of Authentic Lent reflection time.  I'll be 58 in a month and nine days. Why do I need to be anything other than who I am.  

Day 3 of 2024 gave me Abraham Piper.  I will leave with one more thought... (and a Youtube Link) 

"I don't have to be anything." Abraham Piper.  

 

Day 2: Arthur's Car

"In my world, I feel if I use the word "God", I have to add a two thousand year old, virgin born, resurrected Jesus to that identity.  I have to add church as a necessary place to find that "God".  I have to perform rituals proving that I believe and follow and worship.  None of those things connect me anymore with the source of who I am and where I am.  I understand I am connected to something, and my agnostic brain says that I have no clue what that is, how big it is, how old it is or how involved it is.  All I have in my arsenal is admiration for an artist that made something incredible.  Who or what that artist is... no clue."  

RN: Day 2, 2023 

Hubby and I were on a road trip to drop off a heater in a tiny rural community not far from Drumheller.  Across the road from the house where we dropped off the heater we noticed this car.  Hubby immediately identified it as a Rolls Royce.  We were on our way back home when we remembered we forgot to drop off one part to the customer.  We headed back.  Thankfully we were only a few miles away before we remembered.  

It was on our return trip that we mentioned the car to the customer.  It was then that he told us it was actually "Arthur's Car".   Arthur was a movie from 1981 starring Dudley Moore.  In that movie he was driven around in  a 1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith touring limousine.  The car somehow had made it out to this little Alberta community seventy years after it was built and forty five years after the movie.  

We were both interested.  I took a picture of it.  I wasn't sure who would even care about our story.  It seemed significant at the time, but maybe old news.  To us, it was a Wow moment, but we didn't get to excited to tell anyone else.  I guess some Wow moments are only meant to enjoy in the moment.  

As I was reading through the Day 2 readings today I came across something that made me think a bit more about the way I look at life now.  Does it really matter, to anyone else than me, how I understand life?  Should it really matter?  I am one of eight billion people on this planet and there are eight billion different views of life out in the world.  Just not all of them have a megaphone or a platform for convincing others.  Each human sees life through a different set of eyes and conforming to any dogma or belief system doesn't change that, it only causes it to go into hiding for a lot of people.  

What if we all had Wow moments in our own journey that were special, honourable, and worth the time to reflect on... but didn't need to be immediately broadcast to the rest of world or even to friends and family.  What if that was that was just a way to do life?   

I've written so much about how I see life and yet, I worry about what to tell people if they ask me directly about my journey.  Maybe I should just redirect them to my words and if they don't want to read them, they don't get to know.  Maybe I need to give my written words the light of day instead of struggling at an impromptu explanation that is so inadequate.  

"If you want to know my thoughts... read them.  I haven't hid them from anyone.  A quick internet search under my name will bring them up."  

It sounds like a good way to move forward.  I have lots of stories... and I have written a lot of them down.  If someone takes the time to read my words and wants to have a conversation after that... I might entertain a deeper dive.   If someone asks me one day if I've seen a Rolls Royce, I can say yes.  If they ask me what the story meant to me, I can tell them that I wrote about it... and tell them were to go and read it.  

Day 1: Starting the Journey again

It's Day 1 of Authentic Lent... otherwise known as Ash Wednesday.  It's -26 C and I am tired from all the snow shovelling I had to do yesterday.  We had a significant dump.  Maybe a foot of snow over the day, maybe a little bit more than that.  I didn't have the tape measure out yet.  With the wind, it's hard to get an accurate depth.  In some places there are two foot drifts.  Those are even more "fun" to shovel through.  

This is the fifth year of Authentic Lent.  Three of those five years was spent in community with Peter Rollins and the AFL participants.  This year, I will travel through the next 45 days alone.  If I see the view numbers on my posts gain some ground, I will assume that it is internet fuzz more than interested humans in my journey.  I probably won't be notifying anyone that I am back on the blog trail.  Experience has taught me that it seldom produces any feedback or community.  So this year... Authentic Lent is once again the diary of my time during Lent.  

This morning I read the previous Day 1 posts from the last four years.  There were different takes on the beginning of the journey.  Maybe I will read my blog again and catch up with my thoughts over the last four years.  I don't know how the next six weeks will unfold as my fingers take to the keyboard again.  

I've added a picture of a jigsaw puzzle that I am in the process of assembling.  It has been a frustrating assembly for the most part, but I haven't given up on it yet.  I just put it aside when I get frustrated and work on something else.  I was initially attracted to the image because of it's colour and sunset image. But what's left doesn't add much colour to the puzzle.  There is a lot of blue, green and brown.   I don't know if it will be finished, but as I reflected on it this morning, I saw my own life in the story of this puzzle.  

Life, in general, has not been an easy one to add a piece to every day.  Some pieces are easier to place than others.  The image doesn't give me as much hope as it used to.  I feel like the best days are behind me, like the easiest pieces are behind me in the puzzle.  

"Words connect with other words and that is how stories are born.  Words connect with other words and that is how we share our feelings.  Words connect with other words and that is the invitation for me to share my narrative."  (RN September 9, 2024) 

This is a quote from a book I wrote last year called "I'm Still Somewhere".  There is only one hard copy of it, written and read only by me, and it sits at my desk.  It has 44 chapters and one section of quotes.  It sounds like a great way to spend Authentic Lent.  I can read a chapter a day and then on Good Friday and Easter Weekend, I can peruse the sections of quotes I have collected at the end.  Maybe I will keep up with the other four years of Authentic Lent and find some more inspiration from those readings.  All I really know is that I don't know if I am ready to stop writing, just because I believe that I am the only one reading my words.  I still like to write.  Maybe those words I stuck together over the years don't mind being read again by the author herself.  

Today is Day 1.  What have I concluded?  Not much.  But I started.  Sometimes, I just need to start and then tomorrow will be easier to continue the journey.