I’ve been struggling with some newly learned information today from a close friend. It’s put me in a funk while I search my brain trying to understand her reasoning. Understanding and reconciling are different from acceptance. I accept what she’s doing but my system is out of sorts with it. To say the least. I’ve been consumed by her decision all day.
My close female friend is voting for Donald Trump. I hyperventilate typing that sentence. She’s an intelligent, kind, talented, lovely person with high emotional intelligence I’d say. I often gain a different perspective of things when we talk. But not today. Today I’m flummoxed, deflated and depressed.
She’s a devout Christian, one who participates in Bible study each week. And she believes that Jesus chooses broken people when he wants his work to be done. And that belief allows her to vote for Donald Trump to be President of the United States. Yup.
I’ve tried to counter that argument, haven’t and won’t succeed. After everything she knows about what kind of person he really is – how he cheats, scams, avoids taxes, demeans women, forces himself on women, cheats on his wives – not to mention his temperament, bullying, lying viciously, multiple bankruptcies, lawsuits, knowing absolutely nothing about economic and foreign affairs and not having the patience, or interest to learn – she’s voting for him.
So now it’s my problem to handle. I’m a person fiercely driven by principles. While I’m not sure I could ever have an abortion, I absolutely believe that others should have the right to make that choice themselves. I’m not gay or a transsexual, but that doesn’t pre-empt my feeling that those gender identity people have the same inherent rights I do. I think that’s what Jesus taught – love, compassion and forgiveness. I know she feels differently. She’s a bible literalist I think, though I’ve never been to her bible study group. And it’s those issues and other “family values” that’s driving her vote. Never mind that Trump is not Christian and that he’s the antithesis of Jesus Christ. There’s nothing noble about that man. And yet he will get her vote.
This election season has agitated my constitution. Other than Trump’s cult members I can’t understand why anyone would think he’s fit for the highest post in the world. Donald Trump? Are you kidding me? Would the same people vote for Charles Manson if he ran on the Republican ticket? Or Hitler? Even the Republican brass is renouncing him as their choice. Where have we gone as a country?
Alas, this is my problem, the need for people to look at the facts, objectively. Maybe if we had a less divisive opponent, someone other than Hillary, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for people to take their heads out of the sand. I won’t go into why there’s such hatred and distrust directed at Hillary – just suffice it to say that the smear campaign lasting years and years has been effective. Forget all her years of family and children activism, and her successful track record. The haters hate.
I put this out to the universe from the depths of my soul….
Please let the vast majority of people and delegates elect Hillary. The planet is in peril otherwise and the rest of the world knows it.
actthreedotnet 
Conjuring Awe
Posted in musings, spiritual, Uncategorized, tagged commentary, Health, new life experiences, observation, personal growth, reflection on June 27, 2026| Leave a Comment »
The few steps it took to walk from foyer through dining room to the back deck journeyed through a portal to a new dimension. An expansive view of the Long Island Sound filled my senses. The ocean was interrupted only by small pink granite islands plopped down in various spots, each one hosting an impressive residential house. The sky was so big and the air so salty that when I took one breath the stress of driving for 2 days in a cramped car melted away. That feeling of awe stayed with me for the duration of my week-long stay. At the time I didn’t realize that it was awe making me feel light and bright and open and so aware of being alive – lasting through hikes across marshes, bridges, over rocks, while exploring an island designated as a public wild life sanctuary and in my conversations with strangers who crossed my path everyday.
What was this magical sensation and why did it fill me up like air? For days I mulled over the phenomenon until synchronicity intervened, delivering this blog by Scott Barry Kaufman, a humanist psychologist I’d discovered a couple weeks ago. He called it awe and wrote that it can be conjured up at will in surprisingly easy ways. So I decided to test it and notice the little things on my morning walk as though I was looking at them for the first time, as a child would.
“That’s the whole instruction,“ he wrote, “You go for a walk — anywhere — but instead of walking to get your steps in or to grind through your mental to-do list, you walk to be surprised. You deliberately go looking for things that are bigger than you. The scale of an old tree. The architecture of a cloud. A kid noticing something you stopped noticing decades ago. The point isn’t to find something Instagram-worthy. It’s to let your attention widen past yourself for a few minutes.”
It works! Trees and underbrush I’ve walked past dozens of times in my neighborhood suddenly came alive in ways I hadn’t recognized until I stopped to consider the surprise of them.
A skinny vine winding its way up a tree made me realize that it’s actually a parasite sharing the tree’s nutrients that can ultimately lead to the tree’s demise if it gets full enough and grows long enough.
The little suckers, babies, trying to be branches growing on the side of mature, established trees. Will they survive?
Look at this young sprout striving to grow, and somehow thinking a suitable place will be inside a dead tree stump. How long will it last growing there? Did longevity even matter to this hopeful plant? Doesn’t everything consider survival as a pre-condition to growth or is growth alone the only consideration?
Did you ever notice all the different barks on trees co-existing in close proximity? Oak, Maple, Evergreens – all living together, sharing the soil and sunlight. Made me wonder how we humans can take lessons from nature to co-exist – and thrive- even with our differences.
Fractal geometry at play, the language of nature and propagation. Trees and shrubs and plants of the same species grow millions of leaves shaped the same way. They efficiently distribute resources to every cell with minimal physical space and energy. In fact human circulatory, respiratory and neurological networks are fractals too. Nature is amazing with no written rules!
Evidently the drive to grow and live is strong enough to allow a little seed to propagate between the curb and the street. How big will it get, if allowed to stay?
And the beautiful Mimosa tree, considered a nuisance tree to gardeners but to me its beauty is to be appreciated and the scent is intoxicating. How can a “nuisance” be so wonderful in many ways?
I came home filled with awe, surprised that such mundane things, seen everyday, could be so amazing. So yes, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman is right. We call all conjure up awe, regularly. Try it! It’s utterly gratifying.
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