What if we …?

This could be a better world …

• if we would imagine walking in the other person’s shoes for a mile before drawing conclusions.

• if we walked a mile more often.

• if we shared our potato chips with our dogs.

• if we ate potatoes instead of deep-frying them into salted chips.

• if we listened before throwing stones.

• if we made our own decisions.

• if we lived within our means, spending some and saving for harder times.

• if we all hugged more.

• if we honored vows and kept commitments.

• if we thought with our brains and not with other anatomical parts.

• if we spent more time with nature.

• if we turned off the electronics.

• if we made music more.

• if we shouted less.

• if we accepted responsibility.

• if we all became the change we want to see.

• if we gave each other space to be.

• if we knew what Billy Joe McAllister threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

• if we loved God as much as we say we do and listened for His call.

• if we smiled on our brothers and sisters and tried to love one another right now.

• if we played like children.

• if we worked at making this a better world.

• if I worked on making me a better person.

• if dogs could talk.

• if we stopped trying to make political points.

• if we stopped looking for a free lunch.

• if our noblest “ifs” became “whens.”

• if we hate the sin but love the sinner.

• if we worried about our own sins and let the other sinners worry about theirs.

• if we extend a helping hand whenever we can.

• if we give more than we take.

• if we give more than was asked.

Upon this time

If this is it, then what was that?

If now is the time, then what came before?

(Part 3 of 3)

So, what happened in this once upon a time? What or who was there? And why does it matter so much that the story must be told, or retold? All will be explained if you’ll kindly give me a listen.

Ah, but first I must conjure the answers to your questions, because they are my questions, too, at the outset. I cannot begin to fathom any of it until I pick up the pen and write, “Once upon a time.” Those are impactful words, an invocation if you will, and they call upon the instincts in my soul that tap into the memories of our culture and draw out the events that brought us here.

The past helps explain the now and offer a path to a better future.

“Now” only happens “once,” upon “this” time, and so it behooves us to understand what “that” was, for next time.

That is a surprise: We are back to my original questions. I honestly did not expect any answers.

The meaning of words

If this is it, then what was that?

If now is the time, then what came before?

(Part 2 of 3)

Once upon a time, there … Wait, “once upon a time”? What does that even mean?

OK, this happened once, which suggests a unique happening in the past — and the reference to a time also suggests the past — but how do you get “upon” a time? Time is a figment of our collective imagination; there is no “time,” there is only now, this moment, so how do you get “upon” a time?

(What a time it was, too.)

It probably depends on what “upon” means. In the far distant past, did it mean something somewhat different than it does now? Or was time originally something corporeal and visible that we could literally sit upon?

Those are questions for another time, for I am committed to sit in this chair and muse, not perform research.

And there’s another interesting turn of phrase: By saying I’m sitting “in” this chair, I describe a different chair than if I had written I am sitting “on” this chair. I am suggesting arms on either side of me and padding that I sink “into” when I lay my ample posterior on top of it.

To be continued.