Life is Good!

Ideals

(May humble I be forever “young” enough to believe value-virtue in “Ideals”!)

 

     When I was a tender three, life revealed perfection: Perfect! Parents, Poppy, Grandma, Granny, Granddaddy, warm, loving relatives and friends. Life is Good! Then, one day, as mom came in from the store, I hid behind the wood stove in Grandma’s kitchen, got a bit too close to the hot chimney and burned my cheek. I remember that incident; I do not recall crying though the pain must have been intense, I’m sure. Mom quickly grabbed up her baby boy and applied lard to the burn; no scars. The tragedy? To me, forgotten immediately. I steered clear of hot stove pipes ever since that day. Still, I reverted to the ideal of family perfection. Life is Good! To this day, I refuse to allow that truth to dissolve. Yes! I still believe in the ideal value-virtue of Good!

     By seven, I wanted to become a priest. Religion had awakened a reverence within a tender heart and saring spirit. Life is Good! In my twelfth year I took the entrance exam to enter the seminary. Yeah! Me!? The story goes, told tongue-in-cheek by myself, that I met a Protestant girl that year and fell in love; thus, the end to any white collar dreams for an all-American boy! Still, the ideal of reverence persisted. My heroes, Superman and The Lone Ranger, yeah, again, of course, they would have to be fictitious for an impressionistic dreamer to emulate them, somehow cast an indelible persuasion upon a young personality. Oh! I confess! Certainly this boy was, and, is, no saint, but, I have known several, and, a few angels, too; myriad transgressions stained what I wished to be a pure soul, regrettably, with full knowledge and participatory indulgence of intent and with purpose; several times I tasted the wicked bite of a disappointed father’s leather belt for such jackanapes behavior; “Thank God” I didn’t get caught more often. On reflective thought, maybe I might have turned out somewhat better if I had, that is, been caught and tasted the tanging sting. Still, life is Good! I cherish that ideal of Grace.

     Along the trace of nearly seven decades, now, those fictions are yet my heroes, my ideals. In a world of my time and my space where I lament missing the adventures of 1154 a.d. Cadfael of Shrewsbury Abbey or the great western frontier of 1870’s Colorado Rocky Mountain excursions, I have come to appreciate those long-held value-virtue ideals succinctly condensed to a trinity of meaningful words dear to my impetuous soul and free-soaring spirit: Faith! Family! Freedom!

     Life is Good! ’Tis true: There ain’t no box! I self-imposed such inviolate parameters upon myself, a code, necessary to set personal behavior apart, a means, if you will, to Salvation!

     I confess: Twice, with evil intent and pernicious purpose I transgressed those limits relegating my soul to need of Redemption in lifelong penance seeking to regain Salvation. Such, I pray!

     It’s agreed by critics, many, and conceded by one who matters, me, that I have never grown up; probably have no chance to do so; not in that sophisticated, erudite, “Royal”-understanding of those who know best as they strive for “celebrity” vacant acceptance---Of whom? Or what?

     I “Thank God!” for naiveté! I pray: Allow humble I remain young enough to treasure: Ideals!

     Thank You! Lord! For: Life! For: Love! For: Laughter! For opportunity to triumph.

     Let me worship as a “child”---Forever! In innocent: Praise! Honor! Glory! To Thee!

     Forgive my seeming “irreverence” toward the world; accept it as Reverence offered Thee!

 

Life is: Good!

 

Amen!