I need to go outside and eat some grass…

…so I can come back inside and yark it upon the living room floor, as I’m sick to my stomach; just spent the last hour working on a post, only to have it inexplicably vanish, and it was a good one.

Mom and dad are tearing up the carpet in the bedroom, the stains and dirt underneath similar to the rings on trees in that they represent the passage of time; the proof of fifteen years, two kids, and countless dogs and a Casa well lived in. No regrets, but sometimes we have to let go of the past, both good and bad, so we can get on with the future.

I have been trying to be of assistance, but mom is convinced that having three dogs in attendance is somehow distracting to laying carpet, so I have sequestered myself in the living room until the carnage is complete.

Some days the words come effortlessly, but with the events of the past week, or even months, it becomes much more difficult. Then when bad events are exacerbated with shrill rhetoric and political posturing, well, it makes this girl just want to tuck her tail, take her dog bone, and crawl under the covers.

But then I remember: I have a purpose.

Remember the story of Johnny Appleseed? His real name was John Chapman, and he lived in pre colonial America at a time when apples were in very short supply. Rather than cursing the situation as most were no doubt doing at the time, he decided to make a difference; he bought a sack of apple seeds and began sowing orchards across the northeast. He sowed with no thought of recompense, but his altruism had a unexpected result, as people began to buy his orchards, which in turn financed more orchards, and he became a wealthy man. This allowed him to engage in other philanthropic efforts, to continue to “pay it forward”, so to speak.

While there is no shortage of apples in America today, this is a shortage in good news, or so those that would seek to advance their particular agendas by sowing hate and mistrust would have you believe.

Well, they may be selling, but I ain’t buying.

I want to be a Johnny Appleseed of ideas; I realize that I have been given a rare opportunity and have no intention wasting it. This blog is the equivalent of an electronic bag of seeds, and it is my mission to plant those seeds with no concern for the outcome, plant the seeds and move on.

Will they all take root and produce fruit? Probably not; I’m sure some will get choked out be weeds, others will be consumed be drought while others will be washed away by flood. But if one brings comfort, or even if it doesn’t, it will be worth it, as I will be fulfilling my ministry, and we all have a ministry.

What’s yours?

It may be as simple as turning off the news for a day and “sacking up” with your own particular bag of seeds; don’t buy into the cycle of hate and rhetoric, as he/she that angers you, controls you,. I’m the Charlie, and I refuse to be controlled; I have extreme difficulty even controlling myself, so why should I grant someone else the privelege? Instead, concentrate your efforts on the good that you can do instead of the bad that is being done to others.

It sounds like the work is winding down in the bedroom and it is time to call it a night; this us my sign to crank it up a notch and drag out my most obnoxious squeaky toy and chew the everloving crap out of it until dad uses The Voice. By then my actions my actions will have agitated Mia and Max, and anarchy once again reigns supreme at the Casa!

Charlie out.