I would love to able to tell you that I am this extremely dedicated world traveling "almost" professional photographer who is so passionate about capturing just the right shot at just the right moment, that even on a rather cold Christmas morning I jumped out of bed and made a beeline straight to the "wilderness" to capture "Christmas on the Desert".  I'd love to tell you this an make an earnest attempt to urge you to find your true passion in life and pursue it too, but if I told you that this is what I did yesterday morning it would be an extremely far stretch from the truth.  Obviously, I was out of bed and I did capture what for me turned out to be just the right shot at just the right moment, but it wasn't planned.  But I did jump out of bed and I did make a beeline, straight to the kitchen, only to discover despite the fact I had just been to the store on Christmas Eve and thought I had not only planned for everything I had also found the Power to carry out my plans, I had missed something.  I was out of coffee!  For me to plan this poorly and not have coffee on any morning is just short of catastrophic, on Christmas morning of all mornings, well it is just all wrong!  It's not like I was caught up in a house full of people, or hustle and bustle, or was even a part of huge holiday plans that I had to ensure I was prepared for because I wasn't.  It was just me and that was okay and when I got up the only thing I felt I needed more than anything or anyone was a cup of coffee.  Undaunted and being of single purpose I did make a beeline, straight to the closest gas station for 24 ounces of my favorite - French Vanilla.  I was on a single focused, single purposed mission, code name:  Caffeine!!  At that moment it was the only priniciple I cared about, and I couldn't wait to take my first sip so I could reclaim my personality.  I don't have much personality without it, and this is in fact a principle if you were around me you would accept as a fact.  As I was driving, with my eyes as open as they could be without my personality, I had just enough awareness to realize it was dawn.  I guess you could say dawn was dawning on me and these are things that come to my mind when I have not had my coffee so forgive the personality.  The sun was not quite up but I knew by the time I had my coffee it would be and it "dawned" on me I should take a picture.  I was looking for "higher ground" to get a better view.  There wasn't any and I was not in the "wilderness", I was in a suburb amidst office buildings, apartments, a freeway, and oh yeah - a gas station!!  Even after I had my first sip of personality and felt a tad enlightened, I did not see a place to take a pic from which I could actually capture the sunrise.  See, I had planned to take a pic the night before of the sunset, and like the coffee I totally forgot to do what I had planned.  So I decided I was being given another unplanned opportunity and perhaps I should go for it so - I did!!  However, there was no "higher ground" from which I could get a clear shot, but despite my grogginess I was and try to always be aware there was and always has been a "Higher Power" in my life and when I remember to be aware of that fact I am able to find myself to and from whatever wilderness may be found along my path - planned or not - be it of mice or men.  Sometimes these plans turn out clearer, and prettier, than if they were left up to my personality or my principles for that matter.  Sometimes, I can find more of what I need than what I think I want just by looking around and being aware.  So after my "sip", I remembered  on my way to get my coffee  I had noticed a few blocks away across from the apartment complex amidst the concrete was a clearing.  So I went there to check to  see if there was a view of the dawn on Christmas morning since I had missed the sunset on Christmas eve.  There was and this is it what you see above, and ironically (or perhaps on principle) all that is missing is a little town called Bethlehem, a few wise men, and some animals and I will leave it to you to allow your personality to perhaps paint a picture as you see it to fit your personality and the meaning of the day as to how it falls in line with your principles.  Afterall, the song does ask the questions do you see what I see and do you hear what I hear and we are all free to have it mean whatever it is we need it to mean to us - just for today.  As I get older and hopefully wiser, for me what it means is if I just look, even an older seemingly lifeless tree can frame the dawn of new day with enough Light and enough Power to find and accept that it is not always imperative that my personality gets appeased first, or at least if my mind is open to the principle that a Power much greater than myself is guiding me to all that I need, I can and will more clearly see and be grateful for each day even if it was not a part of MY plan....that maybe my plan and the God of my understanding's plan are similar and not quite the same, blocked perhaps by my personality and lacking clearer principles, which gets me to thinking....which I often do.

It gets me to thinking about words written (or typed) on yellowed paper.  Words and paper that were written and then put away either in a box or a drawer, moved around several times and then left to yellow to seldom if ever be looked at, read, or touched again.  Seemingly have little or no value, importance, or even "personality" for that matter and were left to gather dust and turn yellow both due to my personality and my principle.  The personality being that "I wasn't good enough and nothing I did or said "or wrote" mattered, and the principle being that accompanying this lack of belief in myself, I was also not worthy of being the recipient of a gift, much less be grateful for it or anything else for that matter.  I touched upon the evolution of how my writing has developed in Book One, "The Power of Surrender" and how I wrote poems well over thirty five years ago and put them away and "let them yellow" and in my recovery have found they were more than just words, they were a part of me and my search not only for myself but also for this Power much greater than myself.  What I have not shared is how this all "works for me" when I work it, and how I have come to understand and feel grateful of the awareness that "how" I do this is a gift for which I have chosen to no longer deny.  The principle being, as I have stated many times, is that I am still walking this earth because it is God's will for my life - a plan - that I share His gift.  So how does it work?  Long before I knew anything about prayer and meditation and improving my conscious contact with the God of my understanding, I had this ability, this gift if you wil, l but I had no idea what it was nor its purpose.  I could (still do) look at something when I paused and got still and "felt" and either an image or a few words would come from within and reach my mind and I immediately had a title to a poem, but had no idea what it would say.  I have included some of thse older poems in the books, like "Signs", "Telephone Lines", "Birds" etc which were combinations of what I saw around me and felt within me.  They always ended up having to do with something about God in the end, but never started out that way.  It just was what it was.  Nor did I then, nor do I now, spend painstaking hours trying to find the words to rhyme, or search a Thesaurus for meanings and words, or take days to conclude a poem or even writings on this site.  In fact, I have never spent more than ten or fifteen minutes on a poem as it all just "flows" and most of the time my fingers do not type fast enough to keep up with the words, feelings, and thought flowing throughout my mind and soul.  They just come and I have no idea what is coming next, yet somehow it all connects.  Part of the evolution has been that as my recovery and acceptance of my gift has grown and become more a part of me and my clearer understanding of this will for my life, is that if you look at my poems closely you will see that either the last verse or the last line have the title of the poem in it.  In other words, I have a beginning and an end, and the rest is filled in for me by this gift i.e. this Power greater than myself.  I do the same thing with this blog.  I have one thought or theme, I either chose an already written poem or write a new one, and I ALWAYS have an image that applies that I have taken myself or has come to me.  That is my part, the rest is filled in and like many times in my past I feel used, but in the best of ways, and I am grateful for the opportunity.  And like my personality and all of these thoughts that come to my mind which they so often do, I have to keep one principle in mind - for me the one most important that I have learned and hopefully become wiser and more stable like the old tree - for when I do this principle keeps my personality in check and this one thing?  Well it gets me to thinking ....which I often do.

That no matter how withered, battered, weathered, weak, or when I have done what I believed was my best planning and gave it my all and it just wasn't enough and I feel I may never get it right - and especially when I forget to buy coffee - I am never alone, never unloved, and NEVER worthless even on Christmas morning of all mornings because the principle that overrides even the weakest parts of my personality is the simple fact that we all have gifts, every morning of everyday, and the greatest gift we have is a loving and caring God of our understanding who loves us unconditionally and the only thing that can block this love is our very own personality.  Regardless of your beliefs, religious value system, or none, for me the only truth I need to know is that on Christmas morning and every morning which always follows "One Night" my personality will always stay founded in the principle that if God can love me unconditonally just as I am, then don't I deserve to give this same gift to myself?  It goes great with French Vanilla, and a cup of Grateful !!  Turn the page for The Power of Surrender