Strength and power

I have been reading some of my old blog posts this week and wondering if what I had written still resonated with me and my world. I found one post that did but I need to say that I sometimes feel we are losing our right to speak out about our world and I sometimes feel I am in an experiment designed by someone wanting great power. So here is an edited version of what I wrote several years ago.

‘As the world that we have known crumbles around us, let us stay strong and focus on peace. It will come one day at some point, maybe not in my lifetime but in that of my children and grandchildren.’ These are the words I wrote recently. As we look around us we can see everything that we have known and felt to be safe is now crumbling down around us.
I am older than many and remember the hardships following a war. Since that time, we have changed in many ways, not just ourselves but our country and our world. Some things have got much better but others have got much worse and there are large gaps between different populations.

Many years ago I felt that we were approaching a fairer world but that was not to be. There are so many people around who are greedy for money and for power. But they don’t understand what power really is. They think it is about controlling others and that is not the case. Politicians say things they don’t mean and make promises that they have no intention of keeping. But those words and promises lead people to think that they are good which give the politician a feeling of power.

What does power mean to you? If you look up the word in a dictionary you will see that there are many different meanings but the most ‘popular’ one is about being able to do something
in a proper manner and having the ability to do something. For me maybe it means the ability to do something, to help others, the ability to search for truth, To offer thoughts of peace and healing to others is also what I see as part of my ‘power’. We often hear the words ‘people power’. What do these words mean to you? To me they mean people getting together to do something which can change the way we live in our world. But we are not ‘allowed’ to do that at the moment. I feel that there is more to our pandemic than is seen on the surface. Time will tell of course.

Taking things for granted

Earlier in the week I was thinking about this blog and found a really good word for the title. Now it escapes me and I have had to use the words ‘taking things for granted’. However I was looking at what we take for granted, here in the UK at least. Most of us take for granted that we may have a job, a house or other residence, enough food and enough clothes. We take for granted the electricity and gas that power our homes and we also take for granted the water we use. Some of course have other sources of power and some even have a well not piped water but we do have water.

So what else do we take for granted? We often take our relatives and friends for granted too. We expect them to be there for us when we need them and can get upset when they don’t help. We take our public services for granted. I know we pay for them but we get cross when they don’t work. We take for granted that our politicians will do the best for us even though we know they won’t but we seem unable to get them to change.

One of the main things we take for granted is our health. Although many of us have various kinds of health problems we expect them to be dealt with by doctors and hospitals, but don’t fight for the nurses to have better pay so they can do an even better job of looking after us. But the health problem hit hard this week. I have been having a lot of pain and swelling in my hands and wrists and am waiting to see a consultant. But I have been busy sorting out lots of paperwork from years past and this has not helped. I woke up the other morning unable to use my left hand at all and my right hand only a little. Have you ever tried to wash and dress yourself with the use of only one hand and the partial use of the other? It was quite difficult and it brought home to me just how much we use our hands and take them for granted. We use our hands to wash and dress ourselves, to clean our teeth, to prepare food and cook it and to do so many other things it is too long to list them.

So what do you take for granted in your life? How do you deal with things that go wrong unexpectedly with what you take for granted? I love to read your comments some of which give me other lines of thought and different ways of perception so thank you all for those comments and keep them coming.

 

Strength and power

‘As the world that we have known crumbles around us, let us stay strong and focus on peace. It will come one day at some point, maybe not in my lifetime but in that of my children and grandchildren.’ These are the words I wrote yesterday. As we look around us we can see everything that we have known and felt to be safe is now crumbling down around us.

I am older than most of my readers and remember the hardships following a war. Since that time, we have changed in many ways, not just ourselves but our country and our world. Some things have got much better but others have got much worse and there are large gaps between different populations.

Many years ago I felt that we were approaching a fairer world but that was not to be. There are so many people around who are greedy for money and for power. But they don’t understand what power really is. They think it is about controlling others and that is not the case. Politicians say things they don’t mean and make promises that they have no intention of keeping. But those words and promises lead people to think that they are good which give the politician a feeling of power.

What does power mean to you? If you look up the word in a dictionary you will see that there are many different meanings but the most ‘popular’ one is about being able to do something in a proper manner and having the ability to do something.

For me maybe it means the ability to do something, to help others, the ability to search for truth, To offer thoughts of peace and healing to others is also what I see as part of my ‘power’. We often hear the words ‘people power’. What do these words mean to you? To me they mean people getting together to do something which can change the way we live in our world. Think back to the effect of the ripples in the pond, the gathering together to spread words of peace. What are your thoughts? Let us stay strong like a tree even when its branches bend in the wind.