Remember… Accentuate the Positive!

SAT., SEPT. 1, 2001, 3:33 PM
FARM, STUDY

It is a warm but comfortable day in what actually is… or is in the month of… the beginning of the Fall or Autumn season. You have seen one tree, the leaves of which are already “turning” in color, but “not yet” on this tree in front of you. It is a fine season ahead, and you shall not miss the sweating of summer. Yet this has been a good summer for you, even with the uncomfortable feet.

This Teaching shall be a sort of “warning,” about losses, “problems,” and other “downers” in your life. The warning is (and you know this of course) that it is rather easy to fall into focusing on the negatives, taking for granted all of the blessings you continue to have. I push and pull you, yet again, to realize and focus on the positive aspects of your life and how it is being lived.

As the positive “counter” to your losses… you still see well enough with your left eye, and the peripheral vision in your muumuu right one continues to help you adjust to distances. Your heart often beats erratically, but you have no pain there, and you’re still able to do all that you want to do, physically. Just realize, of course, that now into your 76th year you can’t do all that you did in younger years, without some feelings of “is this too much?” You can still do all that needs to be done here, but you just have to pace yourself differently. You are doing this now, but you’re not as comfortable with the “outcomes” as you might be. You’re still developing this “retirement pace,” and it is not as easy for you as you had hoped.

What are you accentuating? You have this fine (for you) Farm-place, with work to do, but very little that needs to be compulsive. (The grass will all get mowed, properly, before it stops growing for the cooler months.) You enjoy it here. You have no thoughts about or plans to be traveling “somewhere else.” You did just about the right amount of that in your active years as a professor/health educator. You don’t feel that you’ve “missed anything vital”… in places or people. You almost feel that it is time for folks to visit you, as you did with your elderly parents.

Another related positive, of course, is the nearness of son John Patrick and his family, extended now, and of son Matthew. Relations with both of them are good, and you hope they’ll remain so. You can do your part to maintain these… and you will.

You are not having the non-family visitors that you had, in former years, and you feel basically good about this. You could do better in writing letters. You were once quite “good” about this, but not now. You remember how you enjoyed your Mother’s letters… and then how they were “no more.” Consider that you are “quitting” a bit early in your life. BUT… don’t see it as some onerous “duty.” Just don’t give it up completely. (Maybe “notes” rather than letters would be a compromise.)

And, as I’ve accentuated before, you have what seems to be plenty of money, and fewer demands upon it, in contrast to much of your life. You are pleased that you “made it through” with no actual major “struggles.” You can’t quite convince yourself, however, that the time of honest apprehension is really past. I can’t assure you of this, either, but I do urge you to be HONEST, at least, and appreciate what you have now, for living well and as a “cushion.”

You are free of church responsibilities, which allow you, worry free, to be in your “home church” or “elsewhere,” as was your “way” last Sunday. Appreciate, positively, that, as a dedicated Christian, you are welcome in several congregation in this area, so take advantage of his “positive,” worrying not about “where you belong.”

You don’t think of your life as being “nomadic,” but you have lived in quite a number of “settings.” You recounted these to yourself, in the garden. Since your memory is becoming less dependable, you should write down this progression… from Wilmington to… Hwy 51, N.