{"id":84120,"date":"2020-02-05T23:35:28","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T05:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=84120"},"modified":"2020-02-05T21:46:34","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T03:46:34","slug":"the-view-from-the-balcony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-view-from-the-balcony\/","title":{"rendered":"The View from The Balcony: “The Curve Balls of Life” by Randy Weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We have met the enemy and he is us. \u2013<\/em>Pogo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A certain preacher always prays long and with enthusiasm<\/em>
for thieves and muggers that attack people<\/em>
on the street. \u201cLet your mercy, O Lord,<\/em>
cover their insolence.\u201d<\/em>
He doesn\u2019t pray for the good,<\/em>
but only for the blatantly cruel.<\/em>
Why is this? his congregation asks.<\/em>
\u201cBecause they have done me such generous favors.<\/em>
Every time I turn back toward the things they want.<\/em>
I run into them, they beat me, and leave me nearly dead<\/em>
in the road, and I understand, again, that what they want<\/em>
is not what I want. They keep me on the spiritual path.<\/em>
That\u2019s why I honor them and pray for them.\u201d<\/em>
Those that make you return, for whatever reason,<\/em>
to God\u2019s solitude, be grateful to them.<\/em>
Worry about the others, who give you<\/em>
delicious comforts that keep you from prayer.<\/em>
Friends are enemies sometimes,<\/em>
and enemies, friends. \u2013<\/em>Rumi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes life throws us a curve ball. It has thrown me more than a few. Every now and then, that curve ball, I have discovered, boomeranged and landed right at my own feet, giving testimony to my flaws and poor choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

How\nwe face adversity, self-inflicted or otherwise, says much about our character. Most\nof our hard times are a mixture of circumstances and choices. When we cast all\nthe blame for problems we face on others, we deny ourselves the chance to grow.\nWhen we include ourselves in the equation by asking what our part in the situation\nmight be, believe it or not, we open the doors of opportunity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nmust thank my late father for a gift he gave me in a strange way. Most of the\ntime my Air Force officer dad was a strict disciplinarian. Sometimes he was\nlight and fun. Then there were times he was excessively harsh, and many of\nthose times seemingly came out of the blue, sudden and fierce, leaving me fear\nstricken. The zig-zag of all this kept me on my toes and taught me that I had\nto think ahead\u2015to consider all possibilities and outcomes before I spoke or\ntook action on just about everything, but definitely for those hot-button\nissues, which were legion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\ndefense in those times was a total shut-down of my emotions. Like a possum\nplaying dead, I did nothing. I went into survival mode and became an observer\nof my own experience. Because of that programming, now, when disaster strikes,\nI am one of those who will usually keep my cool and act logically until the\ncrisis has passed. If I\u2019m going to have a meltdown it will come later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nthen what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asking\n\u201cWhy?\u201d about adversity is not altogether a bad thing, but, in most cases I\nthink the question \u201cWhat now?\u201d is more valuable. We may gather advice from\nfriends, family, professionals, books, or social media, but ultimately, we must\ndecide for ourselves what our next step will be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No\nmatter the hardship that befalls us, if we\u2019re going to make it, eventually we\nhave to get a grip. Whether the blame is ours or not, at some point we must do\nsomething or die\u2015figuratively speaking, of course. My good friend, the Sheik,\nsays that hindsight is 50\/50. If we\u2019re going to grow through our hard times, we\ncan\u2019t afford to have blurry vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nwe get real with ourselves and are willing to accept responsibility for our own\nstuff, we free ourselves from the weight of pretense. The way is not always\neasy. Sometimes it is littered with guilt, shame, and embarrassment. But we\ncannot go around those things and fare well. We must go through them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nme, getting real with myself usually means a realignment of thinking and\/or\nbehaving through a return to the basics\u2015those tried and true disciplines that\nare at the foundation of living with integrity\u2015coupled with an openness to\nthinking and\/or doing some things in different ways. I\u2019m usually a better\nperson for having done so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nfor being thankful for having fallen flat on my face, it\u2019s counter-intuitive\ncontrary action. (I know a lot about contrary action!) Still, if the result of\nthe adversity is that I\u2019m made better through it, I can at least be grateful\nfor the results, if not the process. And there are two things you can\u2019t go\nwrong with: gratitude and kindness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026and\nthat\u2019s the view from The Balcony. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have met the enemy and he is us. \u2013Pogo A certain preacher always prays long and with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":39753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11902],"tags":[10286,10878],"class_list":["post-84120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-randy-weeks","tag-randy-weeks","tag-the-view-from-the-balcony"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-5-11-View-from-the-Balcony.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}