If the shoe fits… But check yours first

IF THE SHOE FITS— 

So this is not fashion  blog and  believe  me  if you saw how  I dress most days you would  say…”if you  ever write a fashion blog we will have to cancel your access to  the internet.  It is a comment on peace and joy and helping each other out a bit.   Please read along and stay  with me till the “end” of the path here and pick up whatever  you might along the way—thanks

Right  now I have four pairs of shoes.  They are a pair of  functional winter dress shoes (if you live  in a snowy land you  know what they  are-fairly dressy on top but  not to slippery  on the bottom (like no moonwalking).  II have a pair of New Balance tennis shoes that will never see a tennis court, however they are comfortable for  wearing on walks and  around the house and they  have flat strings  so they stay tied pretty well.  I have a good pair of snow/ work/ hiking boots that resort of a pain to lace, but they are really warm and comfy.  Fianally I have a pair of green covers all-Stars that  my daughter gave me for Christmas (well because they  were part of a costume she was  making and turned out to be just my size.  

Now reading about my shoes has to be  a little boring, or maybe not…how many pairs of shoes do you have and  what do you have them for?  No matter what your answer is….I bet it is more than one and you understand their function.   So now let me get  to the point.  

Most of us  make a reasonable  attempt to predict  how our shoes will fit,  how they will meet our purpose or purposes and are happy when they meet several purposes, and yet we really  don’t expect one pair to  do the whole job.  

Okay this is a blog about ideology and here’s why I started with shoes.  We don’t expect one pair of shoes to do everything we need  done and we don’t spend too much time analyzing other people’s  shoes or  comparing our choices  in shoes to someone else’s  in a terribly skeptical or judgmental  way and we expect them to  have more  than one pair that  will fit more  than one situation. 

What I’m getting at is this—-we do not determine  the whole person’s  value, character, or  worth us  depending upon the  shoes they have on at any given time.  Why then  do we expect our politics  and religion to be that way?  Policy makers why can’t you accept that the person  across from you  could change their shoes to fit another purpose  and why  do you think they are afraid to change them?  Are we  that desperate  to define others as either being like us or  not like us and  with 100 percent certain we will never  have to reconsider   our  opinion.  In fact why can’t we  look at opinions like shoes?  They  may fit  for one thing, and lo and behold they might  not be at all functional for some other things.  Someday we will throw out or burn (inside family reference) almost every shoe  we own because it didn’t fit anymore or it  wasn’t  functioning in the way  we neededit to.  Aren’t politics  at their very  core ideas that  may fit for a long time but not forever.  Every now and then we need to  throw out a political concept because  is  not working, but that doesn’t mean  none of your other ideas no longer work.  

Okay I need to getto the peace and joy part, but I’m coming  back to this  a couple more times this week.  

Stepone.  Peace and Joy is almost  impossible  to experience if  you are  not comfortable in your own shoes and do not  know a little about  walking a mile in someone  else’s  shoes even if you would never  choose the pink platform heels.

We  don’t  need to assume  that just because  someone has  one pair of shoes (or one idea)  today  that they won’t have a different  pair (or idea)  on  in the  future and we  don’t  need to call them a flip flopper—unless of course they put on flip-flops and then  well go ahead  but just for that day.

Finally in the next couple of posts I’ll talk about keeping  your  feet  happy  and choosing your shoes wisely… because seeking peace  and joy is a journey and  confortable  shoes are  important.

Since we don’t  always  know where the road will lead us

We  might need some heels or adidas 

Peace and  joy takes some  reflections

And many steps in  all directions

And yet  agin  some  day we’ll surely learn 

We will head  down paths that  twist and turn
you’;; meed  many shoes I’ll truly swear it

And  when the shoe fits be proud to wear it.

More  soon….