Empty Spaces

Empty Spaces  

By John W. Vander Velden

 

In what is lost, something must be found. 

How can we endure, if piece by small piece

Things slip away from us, leaving but a void unfillable.

For in life there is the gathering and the losing.

It is the way of things. 

But when we lose what matters,

When love or hope or those precious that

Were once near are stolen,

It rips from us part of what we are.

Tosses aside a portion of our heart. 

It is then, we, the broken, need to seek

Though have no desire to do so.

It is then, by enduring, a bit of life seeps in.

A small piece that moves about the soul’s cavern.

A flicker of light within the dark

That wishes overpower us. 

Though pain remains, slowly, unnoticed, it fades.

Never gone, but at last manageable. 

So strength and courage grow,

And perhaps that is the greatest thing that we can find.

To help us endure….the empty spaces…

Facts and Knowledge

Facts and Knowledge                 

By John W. Vander Velden

Facts and knowledge are not the same things.  Facts are like the stacks of brick on a building site.  They are an important material for the project at hand.  Knowledge is like the finished structure, made up of the bricks properly arranged, bound together by mortar. 

There is a skill set needed to turn the brick into the building.  The man that has those skills is the mason.  It takes a skill set that turns accumulated bits of information into usable knowledge.  Not everyone has gained that particular set of talents.  You see it is not enough to regurgitate things we have been taught.  It is not enough to go constantly seeking new facts to memorize.  To fill our heads with data but not with the ability to turn those facts and figures into…something.

Years have taught me a great deal.  My head is filled with facts innumerable.  But I have also learned how to sift through all those bits, and where to search for the truths to add to what I know, and gathering and assembling those pieces I need, put together the package that might get the job done.  It was a hard learned skill that even at my age I have not perfected.

Knowledge is more than facts, it requires seeing things from other sides.  Using my own eyes to see how the facts fit, or how they do not.  It comes from using patience, open mindedness, even compassion to be the mortar that binds together the sharp edged facts into a beneficial product that helps me and those around me.  I understand that knowledge is not something to be hoarded.  It is not something I might greedily keep for myself.  True knowledge makes the world better.

There are those that demand the memorization of facts.  Those that believe that facts themselves are the end of all.  “Follow the facts and rules carved in stone,” they say, “and everything will work out.”  But it generates an existence without thought, for thinking is not required to follow a memorized list.  They do us an injustice, by closing our mind.  They live by facts and facts alone and expect everyone to do the same.  They point their fingers and condemn any that have forgotten one of the rules while bragging in their own ability to remember.   

But wisdom comes from knowledge.  And knowledge come from the conscious assembly of truth.  It comes by asking the right questions.  For truth never fears questions, and questions cannot change what is true.  So for us, that wish to add a bit to the world that surrounds us, we take the things we know built upon the facts we trust, ask the questions that clarify, and teach those willing to learn the things that make up the hard won knowledge we have acquired.  But perhaps the most important lesson we have to offer is that facts and knowledge are not the same thing….

(490 Words) 12-19-2017

All the Pieces

All the Pieces                    

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Life is not like putting together a scrapbook.  It’s not like filling a photo album either.  You see life doesn’t give us the ability to pick and choose what things we would like to include in our days.  No, life is more like a jig saw puzzle still in the box.  It is for us to take all the pieces and fit them together…

It takes all the pieces to complete a puzzle.  When all the pieces are arranged in their proper places we can see the whole picture.  In the winter of 1962 we returned to Indiana.  We found a puzzle in the house, left behind by those that had lived there before us.  I liked puzzles…then.  But my childhood puzzles had just a few large pieces and could be put together in a matter of minutes.  I remember the box, an image of a basket weaver surrounded by perhaps fifty examples of his work.  It must have contained 500 or more pieces, a challenge for any ten year old.  But worse, not all the pieces interlocked.  Many just butted against its neighbor with a wavy edge that matched no other.

I remember working for days, and as in all puzzles the more I assembled the easier it became.  But what “burst my bubble” was that three pieces were missing.  Now in the grand scheme of things what are three pieces out of 500?  Nada. I mean there was enough to see the whole of it.  But those three pieces left a hole…an incompleteness…

Perhaps I should have been pleased that I had found the “right” place for the 497 pieces.  That I had used my determination to finish a difficult task.  But in my mind it was not finished.  Those three missing pieces made completion impossible.  I never worked that puzzle again.  In truth, I have done very little puzzle work since the early months of 1962.

It seems to me that life is like a box of puzzle pieces.  And we are not allowed to pick and choose which pieces we will place on the table of our life.  The pieces that are sunny days and happy times are mixed in with other pieces we would choose to avoid.  But it takes all the pieces to finish the thing we call life.  It takes the dark days as well as the bright.  It takes the difficult times as well as the easy.  It takes sadness to contrast with the happy parts of our living.

So on those days when I face frightening dark painful times, times of illness, times of loss, all those days I would wish I could place in the box and forget, I will do my best to remember that I cannot.  For life takes all of the pieces…and I must go on.  (470 Words)  1-8-2018

 

 

Looking Forward

Looking Forward

By John W. Vander Velden

It’s early January and it seems a time when we wonder about the year in our wake.  First we are astonishment how the days have flown passed, and deposited us here in another year.  As we look back, we question our actions, wondering if we did our best last year.  There are times that stand out in our memory.  Happy moments and disappointing ones as well.

The calendar has rolled over and it is fitting that we examine these things.  How else can we hope not to fall into the same pitfalls that ripped us up last year…or the years before?  Those lessons were hard learned, but in learning…well, we grow. 

But we must not dwell only on the dark days, feeling that they foretell a bleakness before us.  No!  Now is the time for optimism.  A time to see that, overall, sunny days are ahead.  Yes, they may be blended with overcast days of rain or snow, but we need to look forward to the sunshine.  Cherish the special hours and days, and use them to fuel us when things are harder.

Winnie the Poo’s friend Eeyore stood in his “gloomy spot” swallowed by a darkness he carried with him, and we loved him for it.  But it would be an unpleasant life if we all shared his view.

So looking forward, I see possibilities.  I expect failures, but remain steadfast that those failures are but stepping stones that lead to successes.  I try to be optimistic.  It is not an easy thing, for it seems simpler to brace ourselves for lesser circumstances.  But optimism gives me hope, and hope gives me energy, and energy will be needed every day, as I march onward.  So I look forward and cast the blankets aside I might wish to hide beneath, stepping out into another day…another year.  I hope you will look forward too….   

(316 Words)  1-3-2018