Almost the Holidays & Playing our part

Finally put up my autumn "wreath" - as I got around to putting the components together - My husband brought in the dried branch I had found, and I added the dried berries and a yard sale harvest decoration to it - voila! a nice door thing.  It will only be up for a week or so until we put up the Xmas stuff - but I DID IT.

Having a hard time getting things done, as my mood swing is in the down position.  I try to be upbeat here - but I go up and down myself.  Luckily it's chemical & they know how to sort of deal with it nowadays.

One quote I ran into at Beliefnet.com (a great inter-religious site) talked about how things can't be done in one lifetime - and we can't really see how our contributions fit into the big picture.  That was a revelation to me - because I thought about at the projects that I have been involved in over the years, all the productions and so on - How can I know what little piece of pleasure had an lasting effect on someone?

I know that living in this apartment complex, I have done my part to talk the old landlord out of paving over the front lawn - and in helping my immigrant neighbors get oriented in the American ways of public life.  I have picked up litter and called the city to haul away old furniture and complained about dumping problems to the city councilman - among a few things.  And this apartment building is now a pleasant place to live.  We have roses in the flower beds, which until a neighbor and I started to cultivate them, were dried mud and weeds.  And there are more around the front lawn area.

So - we play our part in civic life.  We can't see the moves in the great game - but there was study recently in the Netherlands that found out that people would litter and steal mail and so on if the street area was untended, with graffiti, dirt and litter! So the condition of the environment was a factor! That's the broken windows theory, which I have always believed in.  Fix the broken windows and clean up and the level of the surrounding area gradually rises. Maybe that's a metaphor for us as living social beings. I find that very comforting.  What do you think?

0 Comments

Playing our Part

Our little good deeds do count.