Constructive Living Reflections On St. Augustine's Ten Homilies

David K. Reynolds, Ph.D.

These works are protected by the Creative Commons license.

Preface

Dear Reader,
I want to borrow your mind for a while as you read these words. Some of what you read here may have crossed your mind already. Some of it may read like common sense, although it both is and isn't. Be sure to probe the spaces between and behind the words as well as their obvious meaning. The spaces, too, are borrowed.

Homily I.

I'll pass along to you words about life as I understand it. If my understanding checks out with yours then we have a bond of shared vision.

What is perfect is without blemish by definition. You and I are imperfect, another shared bond. It is foolish to say that we can be anything we desire to be or do anything we want to do. Imperfection implies limits, again by definition.

Don't fool yourself. We are all sometimes wrong and bad and hurtful. You know this truth. And yet something causes us to recognize our moments of sinfulness, and something causes our surroundings to keep on supporting us in spite of our faults. We know what we ought to be doing, but we don't always do it. To point out this characteristic is not to excuse it.

The fact is that trucks deliver goods to stores for us, manufacturers fabricate stoves and cars for us, electricity flows for us, income appears for us, people respond to our health concerns despite our errors and failure to thank or even notice these resources.

It is time to acknowledge and begin to repay our debts. Consider your debt to truck drivers as you drive on the highway. Consider your debt to electricity as you turn on and off lights. Consider your debt to your company as you put in a day's work.

You can trust your own experience of Reality based on your own behavior. Words are slippery and sometimes slide into murky fantasy. Reality has been here a long time, at least as long as you have been here. Reality itself is worthy of your attention and respect. You need not like all of it or understand all of it. Nevertheless, it is here, concretely, for you. It appears in specific and detailed form to keep rescuing you from nothingness. Translating your salvation into words abstracts and distances it, but nothing eradicates it.

Your attention to Reality keeps on reaffirming it. Yet it is not your construction. It is a gift to you, to us. You are Reality's witness, reconstructing it moment by moment. Whatever you add to the sun by interpretation and imagination and label, it continues to warm and light the earth. However you choose to explain the sun's origin and existence you continue to benefit from its warmth and light. You can connect that fiery object in the sky with the letters s-u-n or not, but the letters will not warm you. Reality warms you.

Thus, Reality keeps reaffirming you. You are not your construction. You are a gift to you, to us. Reality is your witness. Others look at you when you speak. Others call you by your name. Chairs and clothing and doorways define the dimensions of your body. You are reconstructed moment by moment.

So your life is that exchange between you and Reality, that mutual reflection of you and Reality, that merging of you and Reality. Life is a dance, a solo or duet depending on how you look at it.

Those who recognize and appreciate the dance experience satisfaction. They are not always joyful or relaxed or free from worry. Moments of anxiety and fear and anger and sorrow are natural for us imperfect beings. Peace without ripples would be unbecoming to the living. Desires create both suffering and stimulation. Dreams create both pain and hope. Poverty creates both freedom and limitations. Wealth does, too. Uniting creates the possibility of separation. Don't sell misery short. But don't revere it either. Change keeps happening.

Reality that is touched cannot be denied. You fondle Reality every day. Reality allows you to confirm itself. How kind! What we have not touched directly word-extensions indicate, almost like telescopic fingers. It is a good idea to test the reliability and validity of those verbal digits now and then. They may become benumbed with overuse, sending blurred and inexact sensory images. Round out yourself and Reality with action.

The past is gone, is going right now. Memories don't stop its backward progress. Memories serve only to coat it with lacquered reflections. Fortunately, we have some choice in the quality and tone of the lacquer. We can cause the past to appear glowing or murky, layered shifting shimmering sheen. Verbal fingers painting, painting...

Reality has teachings just for you. Reality has messages just for you. Sometimes you learn quickly and sometimes not at all. What have you learned lately? With borrowed mental radar we sweep our borrowed environment for borrowed signals and make sense of some small part of the input. Then we blame the environment for our poor learning and credit ourselves when we pick up something useful.

"Every day is a good day" means "Every day is a borrowed day." We tweak our glimmers of information from the free flood of lessons and consider our evaluations top notch. We paint elaborate pictures of pinholes. Finite eyes don't see infinity; finite minds don't fathom infinity. Infinity is just a pinhole word.

Do we get extra credit for recognizing that our minds are pinhole minds? Does recognition of our limits put us somehow outside those limits? Can we thus bootstrap ourselves out of finitude? Not a chance. We are inside looking at boundaries, not outside.

Yet we can take some pride in acknowledging our limitations. There is no shame in having borders. Every word we own has them. Those who promise that "you can do anything!" are lying. Truth is narrower, but truth is truth.

It is impossible to think as someone else does. But as our behavior converges, so do our thought processes. We can make educated guesses about others' thoughts. But guesses remain guesses. We never know why others do what they do.

To believe that a religious or psychological or legal professional knows what you are thinking and feeling is childlike foolishness. To believe that such people can put you in touch with your "true" feelings and thoughts is similar idiocy. What you are not feeling you are not feeling. What you are not thinking you are not thinking. Grow up!

So, then, how do we improve ourselves? The clearest and most direct route is to change what we do. Thoughts and feelings will follow like the tides follow the moon. You may ask, "Where does the desire to change behavior come from? Where do the energy and motivation to change behavior come from? How can I make myself change what I do?"

The simplest answer is that no one knows. Just change what you do. Later, you or someone else can make up mythical tales about why you did what you did. Beware! Don't entangle yourself in creating these myths beforehand. Storytellers become good at telling stories, not necessarily at changing other aspects of their behavior.

Here is good news! Whether we improve our behavior or not, the world keeps taking care of us. We keep on receiving oxygen, food, sleep, and shelter. The world responds with ordered regularity. We can usually make reasonable predictions about Reality's response to our actions. When we are good and when we are bad chairs support us, pens write for us, glasses hold water for us, lights turn on for us, clothes cover us. Whether we notice it or not, whether we thank it or not, whether we feel grateful for it or not, whether we deserve it or not we are supported moment by moment.

We limit ourselves by doing what we know is wrong. Sociopath or not, we all have a moral standard built into our understanding of reciprocity. We all fail to live up to our own standards. Much less do we live up to any standard of perfection. The saddest and most hurtful move is to give up on ourselves, limited though we be. Faking perfection and appearing to give up and claiming to be uninterested in this matter of doing wrong are all lies that merely add to our self-imposed chains. You will find a sense of comradeship with those who are honest about these matters.

Where do the decision and strength to overcome our hurtful activities come from? Why is this moral sense impregnated in us? Such questions lead to the door of religion, for science has no answers now, and perhaps can never answer these questions. You may decide to knock on that door or not. But you cannot avoid confronting your conscience now and again. Forgiving yourself may be difficult or easy. Forgiving others is likely to be relatively difficult. That is because you wish to see yourself as less the taker and more the giver, less the troublemaker and more the troubled. But wrong remains wrong, however much we may wish to squirm away from responsibility for our actions. So what do we do next? Confession may provide personal relief while burdening those who listen to our outpouring. Redress may be (conveniently or inconveniently) impossible. Always, always, so what do I do now? What must be done now? What to do?

Reality watches our actions and responds to them. Though our actions may be good or bad, wrong or right, the consequences follow. Consequences may be just or unjust, expected or unexpected, enjoyed or despised, but they will inevitably follow. So, again, what needs doing now? And again. All the while this dance goes on, Reality plays the music, provides the dance floor, offers partners and costumes and table fare. I write here not of humility, gratitude, or love. I write here of being realistic. Realistic means recognizing Reality, acknowledging it, responding to it. Feelings ebb and flow, surge up and fall back. They are not the whole of it.

It isn't so hard to appear righteous if you don't let others look too close, wear the right clothing, and use fancy words. Others will usually cooperate in making one appear holy. They want to believe it is humanly possible; they want to bask in the golden glow. They want an inside track to godly power. Get off that bus before it gets underway. Become neither driver nor passenger. Bus stops are few and the ride isn't as smooth as you might think. Traffic accidents happen.

You might think that you can get away with doing wrong because the world takes care of you anyway. You might think that you can trouble others because you do more good, on the whole, than you do wrong. You might think that you deserve the support you receive from shoes and chairs and tires and plates and water faucets. You may not yet realize that every "small" offense locks you in a momentary jail. Lying, for example, puts you in the solitary cell of remembering so that the lie won't be revealed. You keep on creating your personal heavens and hells. I write here, of course, from the desk in my own cell. No one gets a free pass from the prison of transgression. And looking around at other prisoners offers no relief.

So what can we do to work on our debt? While striving to keep ourselves free we must also do what we can to keep others free, too. We teach and model and ask pointed questions and pick up trash and give to others what they know they need. We offer our borrowed selves using borrowed energy and borrowed education and borrowed time. We are merely putting things back in proper place. To do so is nothing special.

It isn't necessary to love everyone. We need not smother joy at victory or strangle remorse at defeat. Anger and despair are companions on our Reality road. But we can greet our enemies and invite them to join us as we walk along. We can congratulate the winners when we are defeated and prepare breakfast while in despair. We can laugh at ourselves when angry and wash the car while crying. To do so is human, realistically human.

When angry or upset or despairing at the actions of other humans it is often helpful to search for their viewpoints. What are their purposes? What are the meanings involved for them? What are their histories? What are the situations in which they find themselves? We may not forgive them (who are we to forgive others?), but we may better understand them and come to see some part of ourselves in them. We are, after all, much more alike than different, however unique we appear on the surface. We shall all die.

We aim for perfection, never attaining it, always disappointed in ourselves and others. Others, too, fail to meet our standards. Something keeps our standards high. Something causes us to keep reaching for them. Something wants us to be the best possible human. We are both our own best heroes and our own best enemies.

So I recommend to you that you treat your alter enemies with kindness. To love them is to love yourself, but there again is a standard beyond us most of the time. When we actually respond in this way we are momentarily gifted. Gifted. Do kindness even while feeling unkind. It is not hypocrisy; it is transcendence. It is no great feat to be kind to those who treat you kindly. Yet even then the balance is not so neat as you might think at first. We all take trainloads and return tokens.

What causes us to change? What causes us to select a moment of transcendent behavior? What urges us to live above pettiness and revenge? What is the source of our disappointment in ourselves for our self-imposed limitations? Even our righteous moments are mysterious handouts. Just as are these written lines. We can take no credit for their miraculous appearance to us.

Do you wish for a support group so that you need not bear the burden of selfhood alone?

There will be moments of social support, eyes meeting in recognition, but you are always alone. Yet you are always supported, as well. On borrowed legs you must stand alone. Do what you know is right, with or without the approval of others. Such is your contribution to Reality's show. Otherwise why would you find yourself on stage? However, if you find the company of those with many shared moments, then treasure them as you treasure mirrors and windows and eyeglasses. They help you see clearly.

Some will call these words severe; few will follow them. Life is like that. My role is merely to present them to you. Go for the ride or leave them parked on the shelf. Both are examples of Reality's ramblings.

Criticism tells us much about the one who finds fault. Criticism is a peacock display of values. Don't neglect to examine your own feathers. Facing out is one way of avoiding facing in. Facing in is one way of avoiding facing out. Lift your face now and then.

You need not like everything about everyone else. You cannot like everything about everyone else, even if you tried. So forbearance is necessary. After all, they are forbearing you, too. Hating blinds us to another person's worthiness of forbearance. Being unnecessarily blind makes us unrealistic. Blindness causes various experiences of stumbling and colliding. So make a special effort to see clearly, even when hating. Think wide.

It is difficult to trip over a mountain, but many do so. The mountain is right before their eyes, huge and imposing. Yet they don't see it. They try to walk right through it, and express surprise when they fall. Climbing is out of the question until they get a handle on the size of the mountain confronting them. Do not be deceived. The mountain has your name on it.

Homily II.

We never met, perhaps, but we know each other, don't we. We have shared some moments already, you and I. Just us humans. Here. Now. Just us two. We represent a larger "us," as well. We are temporary markers for consciousness, rather like mental fireflies. Our awareness flashes desire and meaning and recognition. Please don't forget your membership in this company of fireflies. Sometimes we flash in unison. Then our fireworks chorus lights up the sky.

Flashes from fireflies or lightning or fireworks cannot be preserved in their original form. This writing is a sort of photo of flashes. There are many other such records, of course. Even the recordings can be illuminating. But they are not the same as the original lights. You must glow for yourself. But please do notice all the flaring going on around you. Much effort is being expended to produce those glowing moments.

In fact, it is necessary to give up something in order to glow. We sacrifice ourselves in the flashes. We lose our sense of time and our selfhood and our separateness in the glow. And then, afterward, there we are again. Moments of illuminated dying will become permanent someday. No firefly lasts forever, at least in the common firefly form.

I remind you to test Reality for yourself. Do not rely solely on words, however academic or poetic or sacred. Reality is truth. Reality requires handling. Science is a particular form of getting a handle on Reality. Of course, we don't have the time or training or equipment to touch Reality in all possible ways. So we may rely on the reports of others for information about truth. Science, too, is a matter of trust. Choose those you trust carefully. Learn to trust yourself by acting in trustworthy fashion. Be true to yourself means be realistic.

Become intimate with Reality. Fantasies may be fun, but they won't give you a lasting relationship. Marry yourself to the way things are then work to change them as you see fit. All the while you work on them recognize the favors they offer you and the troubles you cause them. With open eyes and bowed head act to improve what is. A good place to begin improving the world is to update yourself. Keep yourself current with regular inside/outside checkups. Discover your own boundlessness. To be sure, we are both boundless and limited.

Hating yourself is foolishness. Who are you to hate yourself? Why do you value the credentials for hating of the one you hate? Hating yourself requires slipping back into valuing your own standards for hating. You dance a two-step again and again. Honoring yourself makes more logical sense. You value the one who values you. Honoring yourself is just one aspect of honoring all of Reality. You are neither more nor less worthy than the rest of Reality. Good enough.

Let's talk about talking. Each of us speaks a private language, some of which is shared with others. Aim to hear the nuances of each other's private speech. Do your best to translate your speech so that it is understandable to others. Have something worthwhile to say. Thoughtless speech steals others' time and ears, causing them temporary thoughtlessness.

Where do words come from? How do they drift up into one's mind and one's voice? The words were learned in patterned array, but they sometimes form themselves in never-heard-before configurations. Amazing! You may think that you are doing the organizing. But sometimes the new arrangements just pop into your mind. This arranging is happening to me as I write. I don't intend to write these words except in some general way; no author does. Words just appear. How kind of Reality to send us words as needed. I don't understand this process. No one does, in spite of wordy theories about words that appeared mysteriously in the minds of psycholinguistic theorists.

We are reborn many times. Overcoming illnesses, sleeplessness, adolescence, lost love, and outmoded dreams causes rebirth. So does each new year, each morning, each breath, each thought. New life is ours, moment by moment. Such new life is neither more nor less miraculous than that promised by religions. Notice it and another variety of new life begins. The words "adult children" take on new meaning.

Sins are actions committed with our own convenience in mind at the expense of the convenience of someone or something else. No human has the authority to forgive us of our sins. We may achieve psychological relief by confessing them to someone else. We may repent and resolve never to commit them again. We may publicly state our repentance and resolutions. But no one can erase them from our personal pasts. Redefining them as non-sins offers only superficial escape. What we did continues as real past. There is no running away from what was.

The solution is to encompass what was and is. Expand your being to fit the whole of Reality. Then do properly what comes next to do.

What do we owe our ancestors? The vast majority of them we never met and know almost nothing about. Their hard-won survival enables us. Like a fleet of sailboats we look behind to see long wakes of ancestry, ripples crisscrossing in history. Occasionally we should drop overboard petals of thanks to those long-forgotten members of our fleet. What becomes of the petals is anyone's guess. It is the scattering of petals that is important.

Boundlessness cannot be comprehended because the word itself binds it. Infinity and eternity and God and Reality are similar word problems without solution. Terms such as foolishness, depression, neurosis, and genius also circumscribe and distort what is. On a more basic level of abstraction all words fail to point to Reality. They only point to other words, and sometimes not to the right ones. Thank you for reading this foolishness.

What is worth fighting for? You must decide, of course. What is worth creating victors and losers for? What is worth viewing the vanquished for? Fighting creates foes, both during and after. If you fight, be prepared to fight again. Fighting with yourself produces the same results. Accepting and absorbing one's foes reduces problems in the long run, inside and out.

Your hard-won knowledge will become obsolete. Outmoded or out-of-fashion or out-of-touch you cannot sustain scholarly status. All the books and journals and lectures and prizes and research grants and positions and students cannot stop the mind's march toward mud. So use this moment well. Use that hard-won knowledge well. Use yourself well until you become useless. Leaving behind a trail of arranged data bytes is not the same as living. Such immortality is only a word-equivalent. This moment is all you really have. Just like everyone else. Just like everything else. Eternally gifted.

There is no earthly way to become worthy of these momentary gifts. There is no way to earn them. Even noticing that they are gifts offers no extra credit. The noticing, too, is something received. And, of course, we soon forget again. While taking in these fresh moments we can invest some of them in efforts to repay. But whom do we repay? Fortunately, Reality's representatives surround us intimately. Now this keyboard, now that book, now this cup, now that sink. Keep working on your debt while falling further and further behind.

Reality surprises us. It sends us the unexpected, the unwanted, the unacceptable. Thus it teaches us about ourselves--our expectations, our desires, our standards of acceptability. Reality gets our attention. It is up to us to learn Reality's lessons well. Don't let them pass over your head or beneath your gaze. Become realistic. Learn to empty yourself so that you can take in more. Learn to exchange your tiny reality snapshots for wide-angle, full-motion Reality shows. Pay attention!

You put a foot into eternity when you lose yourself. You lose track of time and so gain timelessness when you are engrossed. Of course, objective time goes on, and you continue to age. So what does timelessness offer you? It offers nothing more than moments of timelessness. Do you want something else, something more? Ah, here comes another of Reality's lessons.

Purposes offer crevices and toeholds as we scale Reality's surface. Emotions make the surface slippery. Effort pulls us up. So many safety lines support us. Thanks, Reality.

Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by emotions, habits, stereotypes, expectations, history, or social custom. You are responsible to Reality's representative, yourself. Do right. Watch the prisoners around you, and remind yourself of the presence of prison life. Visit inmates and offer them freedom, but do not demand or expect freedom from them. Prison life is so safe and predictable that many inmates refuse even temporary release.

Don't get so involved in noticing and appreciating Reality that you fail to see the "giftedness" of it all. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you deserve all of the richness of it. We are all feeders on Reality's largesse. There is no way to earn this abundance. So, while thanking and apologizing, we partake. You may search for a Giver, or not. But be assured that Reality is given.

I do not suggest that you abandon food or drink or other aspects of life's necessities and pleasures. There is a proper time for enjoyment, too. However, if you believe that pleasure and happiness are the most important aspects of life you are cheating yourself and setting yourself up for major disappointments. There is a special joy in doing what you know needs doing, doing what you know is right in this moment even if the doing involves delaying pleasure or even causing discomfort. There is both honor and satisfaction in opting to act for the convenience of another.

Behind those who seek or claim extraordinary powers is a selfish desire for adulation. Those who use ordinary abilities to their fullest are more worthy of respect and admiration. Greatness lies less in great ability than in great use of the ordinary. Our limits are tested and defined as we strive toward great goals. Reality defines us.

Corporate executives, too, die. No post deserves special praise. All positions are partly-earned, mostly-received as a gift from Reality.

Homily III.

A lot of people will get your attention. So many people compete for your time and your mind and your body and your money. You are an investor of all those aforementioned assets. Invest wisely. Something sends you information about how to invest wisely. That something requires your attention. It does not appear in ordinary advertisements.

We are like children who need to relearn walking again and again. Walking requires falling and supports and getting up again and bruises. Walking requires accepting ourselves as occasional tumblers tumbling. Walking is worth all that effort and discomfort. Please remember that no one ever learned to walk on his or her own.

To recognize the details of our daily salvation is likely to generate curiosity about the source. I fail to merit all this continuous support and teaching. I am sometimes thoughtless and foolish. I am sometimes selfish and greedy. I kill other living creatures (including vegetables) in order to live and to live comfortably. Too often I consider my own convenience at the expense of that of others. Yet Reality continues to provide food and work and sleep and other benefits of existence. What is Reality up to? Please search for your own answer to this question, if answer there be for you.

Time is in short supply. And there is always just enough time to do what needs doing now. Use time well while time uses you.

You can avoid sharing some of human suffering by ignoring it and by distancing yourself from it with media words. But when a suffering human comes before you then you become suffering, too. Please do your best to relieve unnecessary suffering in others. By doing so you reduce your own suffering, too. And mine. Thank you.

Some of you will enter this trailhead and follow it to its conclusion. Others will be distracted by the scenery and will detour in one direction or another. This path is occasionally steep. It requires attention to avoid spills and injuries. You must sometimes search for a good campsite while weary and exhausted. No one walks this trail without stumbling. The views are worth the climb.

Reality never lies. There is truth behind every piece of information you receive, even when it is not obvious on the surface. Don't deny or ignore truth. Truth doesn't deny or ignore you. We sometimes trip over truth. It is worth the tumble. Senses can be fooled, but more often it is our evaluation of sensory input that is at fault.

Watch what people do as well as what they say. Watch how they use their bodies and their time. Watch what they consume and what they discard. Watch what they avoid and what they prefer. Watch what they praise and what they criticize. Notice whose convenience they adopt. Notice their followers and their foes. Choose your companions and your teachers wisely. Often they are the same persons.

There are no excuses or explanations for our actions. We do what we do. Don't waste your time blaming parents or society or race or education or poverty or genetics for your errors and suffering. Just do what needs doing next, and do it well.

There is nothing I have done that makes me worthy of my existence. What gives me worth is my membership in Reality. That membership arrived unmerited when I began to exist, and was available to "me" when "I" began to exist. When I acknowledge and praise Reality, I am reaffirming my own worth, as well. My humanness, with all its perceived limits and faults and ugliness, is also Reality. So I must swallow the universe as it swallows me. Thank you, Reality/me..

So what is the payoff for doing good, for hard work, for diligent attention, for considering the convenience of others? The reward is heaven now. The reward is eternal life now. For doing good is timeless. Time disappears as we lose ourselves in action. Hurtful actions, too, bring eternal life in this sense. So you must decide how to invest your eternity. Will you work on your unpaid debt or ignore it or bankrupt yourself as Reality's representative? You do what you do. In a larger sense, you ARE time. So you have the opportunity not only to do time well but also to be time well.

How is it possible to understand these things? Understanding is also a gift. We can read and ponder and discuss and then, sometimes, some of the information finds meaning. The more we live this path, the more changes we have to learn Reality's teachings.

Homily IV.

Reality is our teacher. Written and spoken words may be useful in directing your attention to the teachings of Reality. However, you must do the noticing and the learning. How many socks did your mother wash for you as a child? How many animals died to fuel your car today? How many traffic lights changed for your convenience (not just the ones directly in front of you)? How many drivers kept you alive today? How many architects and engineers and construction workers protected you today? What is the best way for you to get ready for bed tonight? What have you learned about eating? About talking? About silence? Who are you, really?

Sometimes it appears that doing wrong brings positive rewards. Sometimes it appears that those who do right are vanquished. Life doesn't appear to be fair in any obvious way. But, then, our judgments on the matter are only our judgments. Our evaluations of right and wrong, success and failure apply only to ourselves. There is no need to compare ourselves to others. Yet we do. Proper evaluations lie, in part, in knowing details. We know the most details about ourselves.

Reality never lies. We may not recognize the truth hidden in Reality's depths, but it is inevitably there. "I didn't do it" may really mean "I don't want to be punished for doing it." Can you see the truth behind the lie? Truth loosens up your thinking rather than ratcheting it down. So acceptance becomes easier. Always look for truth. Then pass truth along to others in a form they can understand. Put the debris of confusion in order with straight talk. There is satisfaction when others perceive Reality in the same way you do. You will be drawn to spend time with such folk.

Lying to yourself is easy and costly. You have to keep your lie covered so as not to reveal the truth behind it. You must generate more lies to support it as Reality sends fact messages your way. Accept the distressing truth you are trying to conceal. Accept your attempts to conceal it. Accept yourself accepting. Get on with life. That gift deserves to be viewed straight on.

To whom would you confess your lies? Because everything around you, including you, is Reality's representative, any ear will do. Cars have ears; so do computers and pets and, of course, people. It is both easy and hard to lie to a car or a computer. In another sense it is both easy and hard to lie to a human.

Fighting with yourself, fighting with your habits, obsessions, addictions, and fears, is difficult and unproductive. Give up the struggle and just change what you do. Little by little, changes or sweeping changes in what you do will be more fruitful than directly trying to fix your mind. Accept your obstacles; surround and encompass them without resistance; and then go ahead and change. Don't waste time on wishing you were different or regretting what has been or obsessing on how things ought to be. Shoulds and oughts and what-might-have-been's are distractions from this moment's purposeful action. Don't miss life's boat while daydreaming on the shore of inaction. Strength to overcome one's own life obstacles is a gift, too. We make effort, but the effort, too, is given to us. Use your gifts wisely. Your contributions are Reality's tools. Your contributions are perfect.

Not everyone will appreciate your contributions as perfect. You may not do so yourself. Yet they are so. Within your imperfection recognize your perfection. To do so is not to build self-esteem. It is simply to recognize Reality operating through your existence. Reality-esteem is properly placed.

A variety of stimuli cause mental static. Desires, regrets, hopes, fears, and some conceptions cause us to misperceive and misunderstand what Reality is about. Note the three meanings of the word "about" in the previous sentence. Anyway, keep on searching for truth. The diligent search is already the goal. The process is all there is.

Words carry us only so far. Step out beyond their terminal. Go beyond comparison and imagination and theory. Walk beyond walking. Believe it or not, you have arrived already, so no map is necessary.

Are you discovering your ever-changing environment? Are you keeping in mind your environment-generated purposes? Do you pay proper attention to your longing, without letting it direct your life? Feelings are real, too, but they are not the whole of Reality. Empty yourself so that Reality can fill you.

Hopes and dreams are real, too. But they don't directly pay the bills and weed the garden. Do what needs doing to bring hopes and dreams into objective reality that others can see. Turn them into paid bills and weeded gardens. No one is debt-free, but some have larger debts than others, and more weeds in their gardens, too. You cannot file bankruptcy in life. Even suicide incurs more debts and more weeds that require tending.

Sin involves missing the point of Reality. Doing what you know to be wrong is tedious and short-sighted. You have the chance to mold Reality while it molds you. You can sculpt a work of art or a pile of trash. Sculpting art is the more satisfactory of the two. You cannot sculpt for anyone else.

We all live by faith. We trust other drivers to stay on their side of the road and to avoid pedestrians on sidewalks. We trust light switches and knives and our native language. We trust our lungs and our kidneys and our endocrine system. We trust time and space to behave in an orderly fashion. We count on Reality. Why do you suppose Reality is like that?

We are prone to comparison. We rank ourselves in comparison with professional sports figures and beautiful movie stars and clever speakers and those of power and wealth. We see ourselves as superior to the poor and the poorly educated and convicted criminals. We scale ourselves with our past selves finding gains and losses. Knowing that such comparisons are unnecessary does not prevent us from continuing with them. However, there is really only just me, here, now.

And that me, here, now is enough. Perfected imperfection.

The end