The Day After....

Good Morning My Confidants

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day. If you are in a relationship or not. The weather here was pretty nice, 50°,

especially when you consider the temperatures in past years. I do like that feature on Facebook where it tells you what you posted a year ago, and two years ago, and three, etc. So, I can tell you that three years ago in was minus 8° here in Kansas City! In mid-February. Noah couldn't get his car started and had to take my car. So, I was quite happy with our 61°, even though I am not a cold weather person.

RBear had the day off and then Noah, plans up his sleeve, made us a wonderful meal! I set up the table and he brought out wonderful New York strip steaks, lobster tail, baked potatoes, asparagus, and then for his vegetarian diet, jackfruit and a veggie sausage. And then he made a wonderful chocolate cake that was only 8 Points per a rather nice sized slice.

There was a terrible tragedy here in Kansas City yesterday on the day of love. We had our first major shooting. While at the huge celebration for the Chiefs winning the Superbowl when the shooting broke out with one person dead and at least 21 others injured, including 11 children between the ages of 6 and 15. The shooting took place west of Union Station, outside near the garage, as Chiefs fans were leaving, according to Kansas City police. Three suspects have been detained, and at least one firearm has been recovered.* The only thing that can be said about this is at least the person(s) with doing the shooting was actually caught and maybe we can learn something about why this horrible thing happened.

And I thank God we are all right. RBear works very close to where all this happened, Noah was at work, and of course I was home, with no interest in the rally. But what a terrible, terrible thing. The day began with such joy.

Only saying what I like to remind us all ~ that "you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away." (James 4:14)

Over the weekend we went to a shop in Lawrence, Kansas called Calamity Jane's. It was closing after 42 years in business. It specialized in gorgeous Stevie Nicks-type clothing an amazing jewelry, and it happened to be the favorite shop of a friend of mine named Celeste. When I was hired, three different people warned me we would be oil and water, and yet she became one of the best friends I've ever had in my life. I loved her so much. We were like brother and sister: we could have shocking fights and turn right around and hold each other tight. We could say rough stuff to each other, but if anyone else dared to do so, we were only them hard. Don't say that about my friend!

We actually were having some kind of fight the week before Christmas. I have no idea what it was about. But on the last day of work before the holiday weekend, I went and apologized and we hugged so tight, and laughed and cried. It was beautiful.

It was also the last day I ever saw her alive. She had an aneurism Christmas Even night.

I will never be more grateful that I said those words: "I'm sorry." Otherwise, the rest of my life I would have lived with the fact that our last words were in anger.

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”

~ Ambrose Bierce Read

My dad and I had a disagreement, and I wasn't answering his calls the last week of his life when he was very suddenly taken from this world. I don't feel any guilt about it all, I am sure he understood. But I miss him so much. He was a great father. I wish I had had one more chance to tell him a terrible joke or just tell him I love him.

Yesterday was as symbol of love. The origins of the celebration have roots in both Christian and Pagan traditions. However the history of Valentine's Day—and the story of its patron saint—is shrouded in mystery.The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.**

While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial—which probably occurred around A.D. 270—others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus. It was outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian”—at the end of the 5th century.**

By the middle of the 18th century, it was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by 1900 printed ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one’s feelings was discouraged. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Today, according to Hallmark, an estimated 145 million Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year.**

For lots of reasons there are people who refuse to celebrate the day, including saying it is nothing but a commercialized way for Hallmark and candy companies and florists to make money. That love can be celebrated any day.

But is it?

I celebrate holidays as reminders to do what we so often forget to do.

Boycott Thanksgiving if you want because for you it symbolizes the taking of this country from its indigenous peoples. I celebrate to remember to be thankful for all that I have. Skip Halloween because you believe it is evil. I celebrate it because I love to dress up and I think it's a really fun day and brings back all kinds of wonderful childhood memories. Skip Valentine's Day because you believe it is nothing but a holiday for big business (although I might tell you that there are 33,420 florist businesses in the US as of 2023, and you are supporting small businesses,*** and flowers actually last longer when they are cut). I celebrate Mother's and Father's Day to honor the wonderful (if flawed, and who isn't) people who brought me up in this world. I celebrate the Fourth of July, because with all its flaws, the United States is a wonder place to live. If you knew how many people contact me a year asking for help in getting out of countries like Bangladesh and Africa so that they can live here!

We have the power to see this world as we wish. If one chooses to see it as a nasty place to live, full of corruption and evil, then they can do so. They won't be disappointed. There is a lot of nastiness and corruption and evil. And what we think about, we draw to us. If that is what a person wants to draw into their lives--shrug--they should feel free to go for it.

And even if one doesn't believe in the Law of Attraction, they can't argue that the more you focus on something, the more it will fill your conscious mind.

I personally choose to focus on balance, beauty, and delight. I want to draw in love, honor, freedom, and more things to be grateful for. Even if there is no such thing as the Law of Attraction and it's all mumbo-jumbo, the more I look for the good, the more it will fill my conscious mind.

Yesterday was a joyous day. A day to celebrate love and to remind us to tell those we love that we love them, whether they are a romantic partner or not. Yesterday was a day of joy in Kansas City. Their team won the Superbowl and it was a giant celebration of that fact.

Then shooting broke out and killed Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a DJ at KKFI 90.1 FM, and injured at least 21 other people. There are people today, who didn't even go to the Chiefs celebration, living in terror and dread and fear on a day that began as a celebration. They are forgetting that no one knows when it is their time. They are forgetting to be thankful that they are safe and alive and able to hug those they love. I hope they didn't forget to hug those people tight, or at least call them and tell them how much they love them.

I spent two years focused on hurt and fear and dread and anger and disappointment. And it got worse and worse and worse. The more I focused on the evils done to me by my place of employment and the people who worked there--well surprise!--the worse it got. The more I hid in the dark watching endless hours of Netflix, the worse it got. The more I complained, the more I found to complain about. The more I was hurt by rude and mean things said to me in social media, the more rude and mean things came my way.

It was only when I went out of the house and absorbed some love and beauty and sunlight, which generates production of vitamin D, supporting my bone health, lowering my blood pressure, preventing disease, and promoting good mental health.

I am the captain of my ship voyaging through this Universe. Sometimes there will be icebergs. Sometimes there will be the sight of gorgeous breaching whales.

I will see what I look for.

What are you going to look for?

A happy and loving day after Valentine's Day to you all!

Namaste,

BG "Gentle Ben" Thomas

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* 1 dead, at least 21 others injured by gunfire at Chiefs Super Bowl parade in Kansas City, by Emily Shapiro:  https://abcnews.go.com/US/shooting-reported-kansas-city-after-chiefs-super-bowl/story?id=107238682

** History of Valentine’s Day: https://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day-2

* Floristry and Floriculture Industry Statistics & Trends (2023): https://www.petalrepublic.com/floristry-and-floriculture-statistics/#Us%20Floristry%20Industry%20Tre