What Keeps Me Goin

Our friend George Dunn joined us on Thursday morning for our Free Store conversation and said that he had been thinking about construction.  He said his ideas took shape initially as he was noticing some big cracks on the walls of the basement of a house he was looking at.  He suggested that it would take a certain kind of knowledge to be able to determine if any of those cracks signified a fatal flaw in the foundation.

We talked about how every person and every religion has a foundation.  That foundation could be a book or an idea or even a person.  George said that it is very important to examine our foundation to know if it will support what we are building in our lives.  The question was asked, "Are the foundations secure?"  Someone said that we need to carefully look at what we believe to determine if there was something deep within us that was broken.

Someone said they had a sister that believed that everyone was basically good and nice until she had an experience with a very bad person which made her rethink her assumption.  George told us that over the years he had to re-evaluate many things he had once believed.  He said that at one point in his life, "everything came second to my job" but he had discovered that relationships were far too important to sacrifice for work.  Someone mentioned the Harry Chapin song, "Cat's in the Cradle" that illustrates the sad effects of putting work over family and relationships.

George also said that at one time in his life he was very patriotric and believed that America was the good guy in world history.  Then he read the book, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" which recounts the displacement and slaughter of Native Americans by the US government in the late nineteenth century American West.  He said that book opened his eyes to a reality that caused him to queston his former belief and develop a new perspective.

At this point the question was asked about what beliefs or ideas were so foundational in our lives that they gave us stability and strength when everything else seemed insecure and uncertain?  I told the group that I thought that life is beautiful and that regardless of how things appear on the surface there is a real glory in the human soul.  From what we could understand we think our friend Donald said that he believed in God and in his friends at the free store even though we are white which made us smile.

Our friend George Hunt told us that when he was in prison he drew strength from his art and learning new techniques for drawing.  He also said that he worked out a lot and could bench press five hundred pounds at one point which we found quite impressive.  Rick said that he was haunted by  his past when he was rich but said, "I try to forget that and keep going because I've got new friends now."  He said that although he had lost a family he had also gained a new one and that he was happy where he was at now.

Our friend Liz said that she tried to keep in mind that everything has a purpose.  She said that even little things that seemed bad don't happen without good reason.  She told us that even though it might not feel like it when we are going through tough things that God does love us and is always working for our good.  Mickey said that he likes to make people smile and that from what he knew it took more muscles to frown than it did to smile.  Although we didn't know enough about facial anatomy to know if that was correct it did make us smile.

As our conversation moved to a conclusion George Dunn said that something that was foundational for him was that he could always talk to God and friends which had a way of helping even if there were no easy answers or solutions.  Our friend Janice said, "What keeps me goin is that though I'm not where I wanna be, I'm not where I used to be."  She told us that on May 17 she had celebrated being clean for twenty-seven years.  At this we all applauded and made celebratory noises that somehow made us feel better and more alive.