Don’t cancel your culture but revisit revising?

 REVISITING REVISIONS ON THE PATH TO SEEKING PEACE AND JOY

So it was on this date in 1743 that one of our most notable founding fathers was born.  You may know him as the man who purchased Louisiana-and a few other states.  You may know him as the owner of the largest library in America and the driving force behind this country’s first public university.  You may also know him as a hypocritical slave owner who had no intention of freeing slaves but figured making babies with them was really just fine.  Oh and you may know him as the primary author of the Declaration of Independence .  If you don’t him by now...let me introduce to you the third president of the United States of America....Thomas (movin’on up) Jefferson.  

Well this entry will not pass judgment  on the great or dreadful deeds of TJ,  that is not the task intended here.  This entry is  more interested in saying...”hey look how many times we have revisited the life and story attached to Tommy Boy.”  

So it is with seeking peace and joy and the experiences we will revisit and revise meanings for.  Oh and just as we revise meanings for the experiences of others...other people often revise assumptions about our experiences.  The thing is...one of the most interesting aspects of seeking peace and joy is  creating a balance between what others tell us about our experiences and what we think and feel about them.  We will revisit our processes. For seeking peace and joy and our meanings attached to experiences often so it seems.  That is how failures become lessons and lessons turn into actions and how actions turn into  experiences and how experiences turn into  meanings and how choices about meanings  express our values.  

We hear a lot of talk these days regarding what our founding fathers intended....and it is reasonable to use documents like the declaration and the constitution as substantial guideposts.  It is also wise to understand that we are creating contexts that may have changed the meanings of certain things for the founding fathers.  After all haven’t we all done something of consequence and then in the future said to ourselves or others...”if I had known then what I know now...” or maybe  we take the Bob Sefer stance and wish we didn’t know now what we didn’t know then.”  

To summarize.... seeking peace and joy will often mean revisiting  meanings and revising your story and even if you don’t  others might attempt to do it for you.... Sometimes the wisest way to survive change is to think of it as an experiment in revising meaning.  That is start by “trying on” a different perspective for a while—look most of us wore those ‘elephant bells”—what you don’t. Know what elephant bells are—then you’ve never tried them or pulled them out of your bicycle chain.  Experience the world from a different perspective for a bit and revise if needed.  

Happy Birthday Thomas...you were a bad man who did good things or a good man who did some rotten things...it’s a big club—anybody else have a membership card in it?