The World of Grandpa Don

Don Plefka
10/09/2003

I don’t like to talk about things that are negative. Sometimes it is unavoidable or it presses on the mind so much that it demands release. Recent events kept me awake because I became aware of a person who, I believe, is the victim of bitterness. I was upset, very upset. So, in the morning I took my concerns with me to the Gazebo and I prayed. God would know what to do. After I placed my worries in His hands, I glanced at my Naked Angel. What did he see deep within ... and beyond that rock? 

We all have disappointments in life. Things go wrong, … sometime small, sometimes momentous. Events are not as expected or desired. And sometimes there is even a series of such happenings. We can become discouraged. This discouragement, if we dwell on it, can lead to bitterness. There is a feeling of deep personal hurt. Bitterness festers and grows on itself. Soon we begin to view everything in a negative fashion, seeing opposition to ourselves at every turn.  

We see ourselves as victims of the incompetence of others. We see ourselves as victims of the evil designs of others. Soon we find it difficult to find the good in anything. Everything and every one are viewed with suspicion, if not outright distrust.  

Someone said that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond to what happens. Negativity breeds negativity. It becomes a mindset. On the other hand if we look for the good, we will find it. No one finds a lost key if they sit down and lament its loss, complaining that it is gone. No one is the recipient of love if they continually complain that nobody loves them, thereby becoming someone to avoid.  

The secrete is in (to paraphrase a famous prayer) “fixing the things that we are able to fix”, “avoiding … or, if necessary, living with what we can’t fix” and most importantly, “knowing the difference between the two.” The Naked Angel knows that all this in which we put so much importance is transient. Knowing that, we can put up with the folly of others and even their (perceived) stupidity. We may also be able to realize that sometimes it is we who are in error. We can learn not to be so quick to judge.  

In striving to understand the reasons for our disappointments we can work past them. In looking for the good in people we can find the good people and in doing so encourage them to persevere on their journey. The best of people have faults but the good will show through if we look for it. So let us “accent the positive” in our lives and in the lives of others. We each can do our little bit to make this a more joyful place to live, … until we are born to Eternal Life. Then like my Naked Angel we will have no need of all the “things” to which we have become attached. Then we will all be basking in the love of each other as we finally see our brotherhood as children of God with all our faults dissolved into their proper prospective. 

Now I understand a little better. It will not help my bitter friend, but it helps me. I can move on knowing the situation is not something I can fix.  Some prayer may help. I can do that.