What I didn’t know then was that these bums would come to the rescue of my friend.  In the later years of her life she had Alzheimers Disease.  She would often get away from her caretakers.  Those bums on the corner, the winos – she’d go there to hear the stories.  And they would look out for her until someone came to get her.

I had the opportunity to watch a friend work for the Census Bureau.  She conducts the tests to see if you can be on the teams that go door to door to get the census information.  I’ll tell you – all kinds of colorful  characters came through her door.  Some were drunk.  Some were crazy looking.  Some were just strange.  I asked her how she stood it.  She said “I don’t judge.  You just never know how smart someone is.  Besides, one day that could be me.”

I’m taking a look at how I prejudge people based upon my first impression.  I’m learning that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, can you?

This post idea came from my friend Bubba – What I Learned From A Colorful Character http://middlezonemusings.com/wilf-colorful-characters/ Belonging to a writing group is a great way to practice your blog posting!

1. Live in the moment.      It’s great to plan and dream — but let’s not forget to enjoy where we are at this very moment.

2. Breakfast is a good thing.  A bowl of fiber cereal, maybe an egg and bacon, or just a protein shake.  Breakfast can change your world.  You set the pace for the day – and if you don’t eat breakfast, your body thinks it is starving and will save up all those calories as fat storage.

3. Toys!  More toys! We learn pretty early that toys kick start our imagination.  Little kids play with legos and learn to create cities and worlds out of little pieces of plastic.  As adults – what toys are you using every day?  I like my Blackberry Pearl, my iPod wannabe, and my laptop.  Use your toys to spark your imagination.

4. Walk away from mean people. Kids have the ability to determine if someone is worth their time.  Mean people?  They just ignore them and walk away.  What if we did the same thing?

5. Repeat repeat repeat. Kids repeat what they hear.  They say things over and over until they get it.  They repeat it to their friends.  It’s how they process things.  We could repeat the good things we hear for a change! (come on – we hear the news all day long, and its the same thing at night that you heard in the morning – and mostly all bad news.)

6. Ask for what you want.  I just got back from a road trip to Kansas.  My 5 year old great nephew asked for some toys.  He was very specific.  He wanted a Walmart sword, some Scooby Doo little plastic people and a Kansas tshirt.  Not a Missouri shirt – he had one of those already.  He got exactly what he asked for.  What do you want?

You can thank my friend Bubba for this post.  He asks that we write a blog post on a specific topic around What I Learned From (WILF)…  You can read some of the other posts over at Middle Zone Musings.

I receive Brave New Traveler in my email. They had a link to 20 Questions for Every Spiritual Seeker – and I thought that would be a great read.

It is – it’s also a great exercise to set a benchmark on where you are in your spiritual journey.

I am going to answer the questions next. At the bottom of the page is the instructions on how you can do the same. Do me a favor – please comment and leave your post for all of us to read as well!

20 Questions For Every Spiritual Seeker

1. Why is there poverty and suffering in the world?
Its always a choice we are given. Free will and all that. Contrast is necessary so that one can determine what it is they don’t want. That covers the poverty part of it. As far as suffering, I’m still searching for that answer. The answer feels close to me – like I’ve almost got it. There’s surely an answer that makes sense. I just haven’t grasped it yet. Talk to me in ten years about that.

2. What is the relationship between science and religion?
Depends on your definition of religion. If you are talking about religion as a group of people that do the whole group thing – they tend to chase science away. Religion defines science as something that changes – the definition is different as we age. Religion pretends to know everything and science is just a fluke.

Now, if you define religion as a form of spiritual belief in something greater than yourself – that religion and science go hand in hand. Science is a field in which the answers can change and it’s okay. So is religion in that description.

3. Why are so many people depressed?
Because they choose to be. It works for them on some level. It allows them the opportunity to get the attention they need. They choose to look at the world one way and one way only, never realizing how you look at something determines how that something is for you.

4. What are we all so afraid of?
Hmmmm … don’t put me in that category. Fear nothing.

5. When is war justifiable?
I’ve not been able to justify killing another human being.

6. How would God want us to respond to aggression and terrorism?
With love. With reason. With compassion.

7. How does one obtain true peace?
One imagines it. One ’see’s it. One becomes it.

8. What does it mean to live in the present moment?
Think about what you are doing this very moment. If you are washing dishes, feel the hot water and the soap on your hands. Marvel at the beauty of the dish you are washing.

9. What is our greatest distraction?
For me, thinking ahead. I tend to be in my head somewhere in the future and miss what is going on right now.

10. Is current religion serving its purpose?
For me it is. I belong to a small rural church and it brings me into conversation and communion with my friends and neighbors. RELIGION in the world however is another story. Strong rules and regulations just isn’t the way I see God communing with his people.

11. What happens to you after you die?
Heaven, reunited with those who’ve gone on before you. I don’t think our physical bodies reunite. I think our souls all become one again.

12. Describe heaven and how to get there.
I think we all go there – it’s like a big stream of consciousness and all points of view are necessary to make sense.

13. What is the meaning of life?
To love and share love and be love.

14. Describe God.
We are all God. God is the great stream of love that runs through, around, in, over and under us all.

15. What is the greatest quality humans possess?
The ability to love one another.

16. What is it that prevents people from living to their full potential?
We choose not to. We refuse to step into our greatness out of fear.

17. Nonverbally, by motion or gesture only, act out what you believe to be the current condition of the world.
(I move my hand like a wave)

18. What is your one wish for the world?
That we learn to love one another.

19. What is wisdom and how do we gain it?
You live life and listen to what people are talking about. Then hear their hearts.

20. Are we all one?
Most assuredly.

Instructions for you:

Copy and paste the questions below into a blank document or blog post. Answer each question with as much detail as you like, then publish your answers on your personal blog.

Leave a comment below with a link to your post.

20 Questions For Every Spiritual Seeker
1. Why is there poverty and suffering in the world?
2. What is the relationship between science and religion?
3. Why are so many people depressed?
4. What are we all so afraid of?
5. When is war justifiable?
6. How would God want us to respond to aggression and terrorism?
7. How does one obtain true peace?
8. What does it mean to live in the present moment?
9. What is our greatest distraction?
10. Is current religion serving its purpose?
11. What happens to you after you die?
12. Describe heaven and how to get there.
13. What is the meaning of life?
14. Describe God.
15. What is the greatest quality humans possess?
16. What is it that prevents people from living to their full potential?
17. Noverbally, by motion or gesture only, act out what you believe to be the current condition of the world.
18. What is your one wish for the world?
19. What is wisdom and how do we gain it?
20. Are we all one?

My bubba buddy, Robert reminds me it’s the beginning of the month. This is when a group of us write a blog post on What I Learned From … This month, the topic is What I Learned From the Plant World.

1. Garlic scapes are some of the best food grown in the garden. You can’t really buy them in the store, you have to grow them in the garden. I’ve been cutting the tops of my garlic plants all summer and adding them to food. They are not as strong as garlic, but just as good. My favorite? Put them in foil, add a little olive oil, barbeque on the grill – and eat. Here’s a recipe for garlic scapes pesto.

I learn patience from my garlic scapes. You have to plant the bulbs in the fall, wait all winter and watch them grow in spring and summer. We’re talking half a year of waiting!

2. It usually rains when you don’t want it too. This summer, it’s rained a lot. I’m on vacation this week and the first day out – it rained. So instead of running around here and there and playing on the beach and being in crazy mind for vacation — I took a nap. A great, stretched out over the bed laying in the breeze Oh My God kind of nap. That nap set the pace for this much needed vacation. It slowed me down. Way down. Made me breath deep. Take a moment for myself nap.

How’s that tied into the plant world? Plants need the rain and are not on the same schedule we are. They don’t set their growing schedule, God does. Their schedule works for them. God made a plan for plants and pretty consistently year after year they follow it. They have to have the help of others though — rain, sun, warm air. Plants are teaching me to create a schedule that works for me. Part of that schedule is consistent down time – it’s necessary for growth. The rain made that possible for me yesterday.

Patience and planning — two very important elements to a successful business. Wouldn’t you say?

Here’s the link to Robert’s site, just in case you might want to join the group writing project.

I must have embarassed myself a lot as a kid, because I don’t remember being so embarassed as an adult. That’s not to say I don’t remember doing stupid things. I do them on a pretty regular basis. My friend Clemmie would say “it’s all a part of growing up kid.” In the back of my head is the constant thought ‘ what am I supposed to learn from this?’ I believe if you don’t learn something, you’ll repeat the error bigger and better until you do get the lesson! Better to be slapped upside the head than hit over the top of it with a 2 x 4.

I worked at an adult bar in college. Hold onto your hat – I wasn’t topless! I was a waitress. I saw an ad in the paper for a waitress. At the time I was working at Dairy Queen and just could NOT get the damn soft serve ice cream to make a decent ice cream cone. I was a day away from being fired. So I went down the road (literally) and talked to the manager. This was in 1973 and he was a real sleezeball. But he said I’d get paid $5 an hour and TIPS. The idea of getting extra money for being nice appealed to me. My first introduction into the world of money for being nice! I started that night. My shift was 6 pm to 2 am.

Here’s what I learned.
Adult bar means topless. Duh. . I mean you have to be old enough to drink and (hopefully) you are already an adult.

Most of the women dancing needed the money. For kids. For drugs. For a better lifestyle. To them, they were just doing a job. They liked the whole tips idea too.

Men that go to adult bars turn into pigs. They can be the nicest guy in the world in the daylight. Step into that dark, smoky bar with topless women and a switch goes off in their brains. Loud, rude comments. Misogynistic behavior. Married men? They leave their rings at the door (in their minds). You’d never know they had a woman at home. You’d think they had never seen a naked woman.

It’s a tips based business. It’s true, the harder you work – the more money you make. But there’s a compromise. You gotta be willing to do and say things you would never do in the ‘real world’. I had to flirt with the creeps. I had to be willing to put with a touch here or there. I had to ignore those guys when I saw them on the street

You need to know just what you are willing to do. I learned pretty quickly this was not the business for me. Yeah, the money was great. But I would wake up in the morning dreading my day – thinking all day about what I had to do that night. I made myself sick. I really hated that job.

It lasted about 2 months. Then I went and found a job as a lineman for the phone company. The first female in the state. But that’s another story for another day!

I came to think about this post when I read Bubba’s What I Learned From Group Writing Project over at http://middlezonemusings.com/wilf-embarrassing-moments/ It’s not too late for you to post what you learned from an embarrassing mistake.

Sailing Lists Group Writing Project