Beginnings and Endings

Beginnings and Endings 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Through my life I have had many chances to see the sun’s rising and sets.  The windows of the milking parlor faced east so there were very few mornings when the sun’s advent went unnoticed.  However for the same reasons I needed to make the effort to, on most occasions, see the sun depart from the western sky.  As a photographer I need to understand light.  Sunsets are different than sunrises.  The sky is cooler in the morning and the colors tend to be as well.

 

But long days taught me more than the color of the fading sky.  It taught me about beginnings and endings.  People are mortal beings.  We are born and die.  Beginnings and endings seem so much of our lives.  We measure days, weeks, month, and years.  Arbitrary slices of this thing we call time.  Time matters to us…excessively. 

Even so throughout our lives, we deal with beginnings and endings.  Our first day at kindergarten to our final graduation.  The first day at our first real job until retirement. The first kiss to our tearful parting. Each thing has its beginning…and its ending.  Thoughts about endings make us morbid.  We place too much emphasis on the beginning and the ending, that we forget all the between.  Yes, the light of day begins with the sun’s rising and ends when the orb sinks below the horizon…but it is the in-between…all the hours, minutes, moments of life that matter.  The sun’s advent and departure might be sights to behold, but make up such a small part of the day.  Is it not the same with all things?  Captivated by fresh new beginnings we overlook the miracles in each moment.  Fearful of endings, we can stagnate unable to see the joy that surrounds us…now.  Yes, life is filled with beginnings and endings, but it is the grand in-betweens in which we live.

And I see another lesson, hard learned.  The sunset ends the daylight portion of the day… but the day goes on.  We have picked midnight for the instant of one day’s end and the next one’s beginning.  But in truth time flows along from dark to light to dark again.  Much like a stream of water.  The day does not truly end, it’s just the way we keep track.  So I take you back to the beginning of this post, or near the beginning in any case…to our mortality.  I have no doubt that my ability to breathe does not, exclusively, frame my existence.  I am certain that I was alive before February 8th 1952, my birthday.  I have confidence that I will live long after my heart pumps its last beat.  Endings are not always…endings.  Most times they are gateways to something different, maybe something better…maybe lots better. 

So I should take hold of each day, with gratitude, and live it.  That I do what I can to help others…at this moment.  To be kind.  To try to understand.  To be someone’s friend.  To share the love I have been given.  To be patient, as much as I’m able.  To look forward to new opportunities that will certainly come along.  To recognize that change is not the enemy.  To be fully engaged in life…each and every moment of it.  And to care…really care.  

I should not dwell upon all the beginnings I have seen…but I probably will.  Kinda’ human don’t you think?   But as I draw a breath and look forward to all the things that lie ahead…I do not fear.  For life is filled with beginnings…and endings…and beginnings again… 

(603 Words)         7-26-2016

 

 

 

It's About Attitude

It’s About Attitude

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Though I believe that time is a teacher, I know that I must be open to learn the lessons that life offers.  Life is ever-changing.  It is up to me to get the most out of each moment.  You see, it is about attitude.  Jackie will tell you that I do not always have the best attitude…but I try.  Trying may not be enough but it’s my best shot.  Over the years I have faced disappointments and challenges along with some pain.  I know that my problems have been less than those faced by others.  But like everyone, my problems are my problems, and they seem the most important problems, when I face them.  Those days place a damper on my moods.  Times I wear the world on my sleeve, but most times I carry the weight hidden.  Those are the days I must remind myself once again…it’s all about attitude.  And it is! 

Few know about the darkest days I have faced.  Few need to be bothered by knowing.  This post isn’t about dealing with that darkness, but rather recognizing that dawn follows the night.  Wait for it.  It’s comin’. This post is about the gift each of us is given…today!  Twenty- four non-repeating hours.  Fourteen hundred forty unique one time minutes.  Rising in the morning I remind myself of this grand offering placed before me…a new day…and the possibilities that lie at my feet.  Get up and go John.  There’s things to get done. The day’s closing may find me disappointed in what I have managed to accomplish, but if I have given it my best…well that’ll have to do…and more…it was enough. 

It is about attitude.  God has given me today.  Hopefully I accept that gift with gratitude…make the most I can out of it…and not insult the Giver.   

(311 Words)                8-11-2016

Skins

Skins

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

It seems that each of us look no deeper than the surface.  That we notice the “skin” but never consider the essence within.  It is like when we see a beautiful lake.  We stand in awe of the sparkling water as it lies before us, unaware of the worlds that are so near but out of sight.  We feel content…even overjoyed at the rippling wavelets sparkling beneath the sky and give no thought to all the fish, frogs, and all the life unseen within universes invisible to us.  What is worse we are content with the “skins” we observe.  But things are much more than surface “skins”, and everyone is much more than they appear.  

Too easy we take first impressions and outside appearances to form our understanding of someone.  Too easy we allow past situations to define future possibilities.  We see only “skins” and believe there is nothing more.  But would we want to be forever condemned by our own history.  No!  For just as a house is more than the shade of paint smeared on its surface, each person is so much more than “skin”.  Shouldn’t we remember that everyone has much in common?  That each, though unique, share many of the same wants and desires.  Do not each of us have dreams, hopes and aspirations for the future?  Do we not love our children?  Have we not concerns for our health and community? Can we not laugh…and cry?  If any are pricked will they not bleed?  For the world is filled with…people…all different…yet the same.

Should we not look deeper?  See beneath the surface.  For isn’t the surface…just that…the surface.  Should we not take the time to see deeper?  Take time to understand, to be open, really open to a world beneath, be it situations, organizations, but especially people.  Let us take the effort to try to understand…to see deeper than “skins”.  

(321 Words)         8-2-2016

What Ifs and Somedays

What Ifs and Somedays                          

By John W. Vander Velden

 

We face a new year and find ourselves in hopeful wondering.  It seems the time to remember…to anticipate.  Too easily we wrap our minds around the “what ifs”.  What if I had taken that new job?  What if I had said something differently to a friend?  What if I had taken the time to….?  We all have regrets and looking back can make us wonder how things might be, certain that our life could be better.  “What ifs”…..

The season also drives us to think of “somedays”.  Someday I’ll have more time to exercise.  Someday I’ll visit my family.  Someday I’ll write that novel.  Too busy, we tell ourselves now, but someday…

It is good to remember the past…the real past…the whole past.  It is good to make plans for the future…realistic plans.  But we must take the greatest care not to let the “what If’s” and the “somedays” rob the TODAY and all the possibilities that this collection of hours contain.  To understand that the past is filled with missed opportunities and debatable decisions.  We are after all imperfect people.  But didn’t we make the best choices with the information at our disposal.  Surely things “MIGHT” be different, but we cannot know if things would be better.  Life is what it is, not what it might have been.  We should learn from our mistakes, but we should not let them determine who or what we are.  It is important to remember that we move forward from THIS place, not some imaginary possible location we might have found ourselves.

Just as our present can be stolen by past’s regrets, we can allow now’s value to be eroded by postponing the things we need to do into a vague “someday”.  This demand or that demand tugs at us all, and it difficult to say no.  We will never accomplish everything on our “bucket list”, but that does not mean we abandon the “pail” entirely to an indefinite future.   Hoping that “someday” offers opportunities which seem presently out of reach, is the best way to accumulate the  “what its” of the future.

So a new year has begun and with it new challenges, but also chances to reach new goals.  We should not put off all...our hopes...our dreams…or our health…until someday, because the right someday might never come.  Balance the daily demands with a few moments for other things. Grasp the chances as they come.  Stretch your mind.  Reach toward new heights.  For if you really take care of today, then there will be no need to worry about the “what ifs” or “somedays”.    (450 Words)  12-29-2015-1-8-2015

Jingle?

Jingle?                                   

By John W. Vander Velden

Jingle, jingle, jingle, sounds of the season.  Some might think bells surround us.  We hear it in the music, “Jingle Bells”, and the sound of the few coins that remain in our pockets.  Santa’s sleigh has bells, or so I’m told.  Never seen it myself, but I don’t think their lying.  Bells decorate stores and homes.  It is a rare Christmas tree that doesn’t have at least one bell dangling from its branches.  December seems the month for which bell choirs practice all year.  And hopefully we hear the church bells as they ring in Christ’s birth.

Yes, the season seems filed with “bell” sounds and that’s great.  But we should not allow all the jingles to overshadow Christmas.  We should not allow the glitter and the noise to overpower the “Light”.  We should not allow all the “stuff”, we gather while shopping, to bury the child born in a manger.

Shouldn’t the jingle, jingle, jingle remind us of love, love for one another, and the love poured down from heaven.  For love is the real essence of the season.  In a world that races about, chasing the clanging of this or that, the faint pure tones calls to us.  For God so loved…!  Shouldn’t we love as well?  What are the bounds of love?  How far does love reach?  How great a price does it gladly pay?  Those are the questions we should hear in the bells.  So listen carefully to the bells, to the jingle, jingle, jingle, open your heart, let love in…let love out.  For God loved you enough to send his Son, a child born in a stable…born for you and born for me.  When ultimate love is the question…then Christmas is the absolute answer.

(291 words)                 12-16-2015

 

Crossroads

Crossroads

By John W. Vander Velden

 

There are times when we find ourselves at the crossroads, faced with a multitude of possibilities.  For we understand that we can continue straight ahead, go to the left or right, or turn around and go back the way we came.  But we must make a choice.

 

On occasions we take drives, headed in some general direction to see what there is to see.  On those outings we have no specific destination going on back roads not unlike the car rides our parent took us decades ago.  Both Jackie and I were raised in farm families, and an hour or two wandering about county roads more than cheap entertainment for us all.  It gave our fathers a chance to “compare notes”.  I remember one time late in my father’s career he and mom drove north on vacation.  He returned disappointed.  “There’s nothing to see up there…just pine trees.”  What he meant to say was he missed the cropland, the corn and soybean fields, gold expanses of ripened wheat, and the rolling green of hayfield and pasture.  My father was a farmer, down to his bones…maybe deeper.

So it does not surprise Jackie, if I suggest we just go for a ride, and we find ourselves on some chip-and-seal road not so far away, looking over miles of crops and farmsteads, considering just how much the “country” has changed.  But those drives should remind us of other things as well.  For though we may not have a set a goal or destination on those jaunts, as we go along, we come to crossroads, and whether we place more than a glance as we pass, each requires a decision.  Do we go on, shall we turn here, or have we gone far enough with a need to retrace our path?

Those questions should not be reserved for the time spent behind the steering wheel. For each day we come to crossroads. Some come expected, others…not so much.  Some offer opportunities that make the choosing of direction easy.  Others are locals of difficult decisions, and we wonder which direction is best.  For meandering around the countryside might be an acceptable pastime, in our lives we understand that each road can lead to a different destination, and not every cross road is marked, nor is the map we hold at times sufficient.  But the sun is yet overhead and we are bound to travel on.

As we go through our lives we understand that the choices we make affect our lives.  We know when we reach these crossroads that the choice of direction is our and ours alone.  No one can choose on our behalf, and though there are times we would wish others might, we should never surrender the right of the choosing. So throughout our lives we must choose, and each decision we make might be right, it might be wrong, but we journey on.

On our travels at times, it is certain, will head in wrong directions.  There will be times we find ourselves utterly lost, certain we have ventured so far from our hoped destination that to reach it beyond possibility.  It is but life.  It is that we are but human.  For we wander a road none has traveled before, and miss-turns are part the learning.  However those that walk the road of faith understand that we have a companion on every part of our journey.  Someone that will not abandon, no matter whether or not we choose our direction wisely.  Someone that can help guide us as we move through life’s maze of forks and crossings.  Someone that can help to shape and clarify the destination we hope at last to reach. 

I hope you do not travel alone, that, at the crossroads, you choose your path wisely.  That you find courage when the way becomes difficult.  Have the humility to ask for directions when you travel lost or confused.  Understand that you can move back toward familiar territory when forward motion becomes impossible.  That each day you take a breath and understand you stand at a new place, and understand the road ahead has many crossroads.

(689 Words)                7-31-2015

Brave New Wings

                         

By John W. Vander Velden

 

I remember watching young swallows as they grew.  During the summers of my youth as I cleaned the milk barn, I would look up to the two or three nests that had been built upon the planking.  How quickly the young birds grew and soon filled the small space, their home.  Then suddenly they would leave the only place they had known, on untried but brave new wings. 

Events in our household reminded me of those summers long ago…it reminded me of the young swallow’s first flights.  For our son faces a new and grand adventure…one for which we as parents hope he is prepared.  He stands on the very brink with feigned confidence, not daring to show anything less. It seems ignorance and optimism, powerful allies for those that leave all they have known behind.   For the unknown that lies ahead has long been anticipated.  And just as the swallow that has never flown does not doubt in its ability, our son is prepared to leap.  For the nest has become too small and the great wide world awaits.  What lies ahead none knows…that remains the challenge that each face, young and old.  We each should remember when we confronted challenges and the possibilities seemed endless.  We each should remember the time when we felt fearless and knew failure impossible.  These are the things I need to consider as I watch Nick while he prepares to venture into a new world, on brave new wings.

(249 Words)

The Doorway

The Doorway 

by John W. Vander Velden

                          

We stand at the doorway uncertain what waits beyond.  Remembering too well, all that lies behind us, our pains, our failures.  The road traveled, each mile unique, a pathway with bumps and chuckholes.  For each, the journey has made us.  Are we not formed by the years…by the challenges…by the hardships…by our achievements?  Step by step we move forward, down one hallway, following another, around corners unexpected, often facing the greatest resistor…our own feeling of inadequacy.  Knowing ourselves too well, seeing all kept hidden from others, our weaknesses drives our fears.  For with each day doubt’s strength grows.  Certain we are bound by our past.  How can we lift ourselves above the mire…this time?  Yet optimism, as we face the future, a tool worthy of hope’s possibilities, for we once more stand in the doorway.  Though the future beyond…hidden…surely offers both risk and great triumph.  It is for us to choose.  Charge forward, chin high, eyes set, seeking what can, ignoring those that say nay…or to cower fearful, made impotent by the lies of smaller minds.  What do you choose…?  For we stand at the doorway!
 

(191 Words)