If You Could Do It Over..?

 I call it the Devil's Question.

"If you had it to do over..?

For one thing, it's futile; we don't have anything to do over, and while learning from mistakes is smart, going back and building alternate universes in your mind is something for science fiction...bad science fiction.

For another thing, it's ungrateful, and often unkind. I've made many bad decisions in my life, and can be considered, without prejudice, a worldly failure. Never quite made it to my dreams and aspirations, except for saving a lot of stray dogs (at huge cost to relationship, including and especially marriage...we typically have to step outside to talk...yes, Barb is a saint, because of the barking when we start to speak, and friends are consigned to lawn furniture by the workshop for a visit).

And they were a choice, one that took the place of so many other things...travel, dining out, hobbies, serious writing.

But those dogs had literally no other options, and they've made up in love what they have cost in care...would I reset my life, if I could, and consign them to the oblivion they faced?

In a more prideful vein, the poetry thing...had I the money (again, choices!) and the health (well, luck)h, I would have been working on aeroplanes and racing cars...but from what I have been told, I've done a bit of good through my words. Far more than if I'd followed the Machines Of My Dreams.

But there is something beyond being grateful for the blessings of the 'road taken'...our failures, and the dreams that fade and crumble, can open our hearts to compassion, to deeper love (for how we yearn to be comforted, as children, when our toys are broken!), and through these to a Visitor.

If we let Him in, God drops by, in disguise.

“Do you ever sometimes wish you had

done the whole thing differently,

replacing with good what went bad,

and drinking deep of victory

instead of failure's bitter brew

(that you know so well by now!);

tell me, is this what you would do

if, perhaps, I showed you how?”

I looked back on my book of days,

and they looked back into my eyes,

to offer not reproach nor praise,

for either would be scarlet lies;

life's not defined by what is gained,

but by the hidden God we've entertained.

There's a lovely cantata, composed by Lars-Erik Larssen, called Forkladd Gud (God In Disguise); below is the movement (#8) that has always enchanted me. I hope you like it (and please click here if the video doesn't come up on your device).

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.