Ink Blot

I got this from Dianne Sylvan who I believe got the original from St. Patrick. Obviously, it’s been edited from the original.

I rise today
through the strength of Earth
the courage of Fire
the wisdom of Air
and the resilience of Water
By the grace of the God and Goddess,
May I and all in my heart be blessed.

Dianne’s point in posting this was (I’m paraphrasing here) that some manner of daily meditation/prayer/ritual can make it easier for people (me, anyway) to go through the day in a more focused, spiritual way. </paraphrasing> I would imagine this is true for any spiritual path, Pagan, Christian, etc.  Having less defination to my faith than most, I find it immensely helpful.

Choices are something we do every day, from what to have for breakfast to a general attitude to how we face the world. Nearly everything we do has to do with choices and whether or not we make good one determines our place in the world to a large extent. Are choices good? Do we want to be able to choose our leaders? Our laws? Our shoes? Choice adds stress, and is that stress worth the cost?

I have *always* known that I do not DO confrontation. I would rather jump out of an airplane than confront the person who curses me out in the store for whatever trivial offense someone committed. It’s not that I *can’t* stand up for myself, I just don’t. Unless you are my Mr. Ink, and then I will argue insignificant and trite things with you all day long.

In my somewhat successful attempt to psycho-analyze myself on this issue, I follow this train of thought. Confrontation = standing up for myself, which not everyone will agree with. So if someone doesn’t agree with me, they might get offended, or WORSE, I might be seen as rude (a grave sin, my mother assures me).

Confrontation also works better with practice and I have not had a great deal of practice talking in general.  The first time I ever spoke up in school voluntarily was as a freshman in college.  I don’t know that I suck at it (I hope not all the time) but I am certainly less than good at it.  I am usually happy at living in my head, with minimal interference from the outside world.
Also, for those who don’t know me, I speak with a stutter, which does not help my cause any.  In most debates, it is important to at least make a clear, concise point. Try doing that when it takes 10 seconds to say the word ‘What’.  Really. 10 seconds. Stop right now and TRY taking 10 seconds to say 1 syllable.  I’m not saying this happens every time I talk, but it happens often enough that it is prohibitive from getting me to voice my opinion in a crowd.

So far we have me scared to be rude, out of practice and very often physically incapable of speaking fluently.  Though really, if I could fix the first one, the second would come in time, and people can just deal with the third.

The inspiration for this entry is Mr. Ink. Who is my hero for many reasons, one being that he is absolutely unafraid to say what he thinks to whoever is before him, all else be damned.  Today he did something I consider truly heroic… he went to the home/place of business of a former associate. One with whom we had a grave falling out with. He did this with no build up, or air of concern or really much thought to how the meeting would go. He was able in 20 minutes to re-establish the relationship (or at least the beginnings of it). I would have fretted about such a meeting for a week, gone in, tripped and tumbled over every third word that I spoke and when nothing good came of the event, gone to my car to cry.  Very sad.