We meet many and varied experiences in a lifetime, but do we know how to enjoy the vast majority of them?  If you were marooned in the Vatican for one day, would you know how to enjoy the art displays, chatting with a Swiss guard (most are bilingual) or appreciating the sudden appearance of the leader of the world’s most populous religion?

By that same token, as a family man or woman, do you appreciate seeing the maturation of your granddaughter, the growth spurt of a nephew, progress by a certain relative against alcoholism?  You have to be on the beam with your emotions to utilize such experiences.

Social usage calls this being aware, cognizant, present, and it means so much in getting the most out of life.  Some of us just do it naturally; others have to learn the steps one at a time.  Whatever, don’t complain but be grateful for what you have.  If you had them all you’d be God.

It was good to see Franklin Graham (son of Billy Graham) leading the Christian March on Washington today, and it raised hopes of a Christian block again in the election, so that we restore peace and justice to replace the rioting and tent cities of the homeless.  Those homeless don’t need what the Democrats offer, they need a firm and wisely directed program, since most of them are mentally ill in one way or another.

Mental illness is seldom discussed in public, but if you give those people firm directions with sensible options, that’s the way out.  But the firm directions have to come from a safe source, and the government has to be reliable.   The way through medication is not yet possible for all, but better medical care for all is on the way.

The Christian impulse to give aid cannot be used for selfish ends or to gain publicity; it has to be authentic.  An evil motive is still too readily  apparent in the Cuomo-like actions in New York State, but we can hope for better changes.

Out West, near the badlands, is a national park called the Garden of the Gods.  Whoever named it had at least a facsimile of an idea that it was created by the one God we call the Creator.  As Teddy Roosevelt would say, “Bully for him.” 

We have, in this instance, glorious rock formations, indications of the wonders the Creator has strewn in our path.  But you don’t have to travel west to see these wonders.  I just got back from coffee with my World War II friend, Armand, who in his constant conversation would have me join a German genealogy club to find out about my ancestors.  I’ve emphasized I’m Swiss, and I can trace my ancestry back to 1400 in my Swiss town hall, and even further to the Helvetians and Romans.  Buy that’s Armand, a testimony to the greatness in Italian immigration.

So  you see, Armand is part of the Garden of God, and his ancestors were among the first in our great Western Civilization.  I only wish he were more aware and proud of it.

My son, the ex-banker and successful businessman, made Loretta and me a present of an iPhone, and spent an hour and a half last night explaining how it works.  I am certainly not the first to see his talents—Maria Helena, his mother-in-law (now deceased) spotted him the first time her daughter, Paula, brought him  home.  She started to cook the most fantastic empanadas for him at a later date, not to mention real manly breakfasts.  Well, anyway, he has latched on to Western Civilization’s  latest invention (which the Iranians  and Chinese are desperately trying to copy)—the iPhone.  Now these sell for about $500, but they’re a wonder of technology.

I’m a modest  retired teacher-author who gets along well with a personal computer (PC) but this was a telephone and computer combined on a hand instrument.  I’ve spoken about chance, but this was providence, a reasonably helpful twist of fate, if you will.  I maintain that nothing happens in this universe without a cause, and that goes back to an ultimate cause, if you can’t go back further than the Big Bang.

For having received a son and daughter-in-law like that, I owe the author of Divine  Providence a hundred years at the gospel typewriter, and 2020 is the start.

As we get into old age, we revisit the mental attitudes of our youth.  We see into them though.  We understand why we developed crushes, why we became obsessed with certain behaviors, and we now sympathize with those who are going through that now.

Old age is a time of understanding, and I suspect poets like Keats aged prematurely, at least mentally.  There are poems I read as a youth that I can now see into, and I am the richer for it.   The following is from Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”:

                        Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
  What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
  Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
  Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

He fortunately never lived to go through that, so well-imagined. (He died at 26) But for that, he missed out on some of life’s great experiences.