Category Archives: impediments

Hands and Knees

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

May 9, 2026- Hana used her knees to move herself forward to day. She crawled forward without anyone serving as a backstop for her feet. This has been something she’s wanted to do for at least three weeks, and today, the connection clicked. She is not a quitter, and I told her I was proud of her.

Seeing the little girl keep at something, until it happened, brought me back to her father learning to ride a bicycle and, a few months later, how to swim. He was five. The earlier milestones he met all happened when I was at work: His first crawl, his first steps and his first unmimicked words. I will be around for Hana’s little victories.

Many times in life, both individually and as a community, setbacks are faced. I don’t know the cosmic reason for this. Maybe it is a matter of needing to revisit a situation and deepen one’s skill sets. Perhaps someone else involved in a process needs the same, and you are just along for the ride.Maybe those opposed to forward progress need to revisit the situation, in a position of power, and be shown, one more time, why their backward focus doesn’t work.

Regardless, getting through the situation, with the equivalent of the hands and knees working in synchronicity, is always essential. Whether the cooperation involves two people or a thousand, commitment, consultation and mutual understanding are the keys. Whether it entails the use of hand tools, power tools or electronics, making sure the devices are appropriate to the job, are in good working order, and that the instructions for their use and care are read, understood and followed, is imperative.

Every task comes back to the hands and knees.

False Equivalence

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, Community, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

May 8, 2026- I read a post, this evening, in which a grown woman complains that a 6-year-old, who has been diagnosed with autism, “conveniently” reins in her tantrums-when there are no flashing lights and sudden noises. My, my!

I am mildly autistic. Much of my more “inconvenient” behaviour has fallen away, over the past few decades. It’s been a while, since I was six year old -or thirteen-or twenty-five. Learning which foods aggravate my neural functioning, and avoiding them, has helped. Meditation and daily prayer also help focus my energies. Maturation, though, has been largely responsible, for changes in my behaviour.

I will say, though, that we still have a society which is poor at recognizing developmental differences between young children, adolescents, young adults and people of “middle age”. I spoke yesterday about magical thinking. People like the complainer in the above-mentioned post tend to indulge in wishful thinking. Too lazy, rigid or ignorant to recognize and accept differences in people, they stage public shaming rituals and look under rocks for reasons to excoriate those with disabilities.

While I, out of common courtesy, have made a concerted effort to evolve my own behaviours in a positive direction, If I encounter a confrontation between a neurodivergent child and an adult, other than a parent*, who is passing judgement, I will stand up for the child. There are ways to calm and refocus an autistic or other neurodivergent person. Confrontation and “tough love” are certainly not among them.

Beside, saying that a 6-year-old should be held to the same standard as an adult is false equivalence and says more about the unmet needs of the complainer than it does about the child.

  • Parents of neurodivergent children are most often supportive of their child and seek non-escaltatory solutions to situations that arise, involving their child.

Magical Thinking

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Fiction, Historical, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 7, 2026- Hana pushes herself to reach certain places on her crawling mat, but was showing a bit of frustration at being limited to the same route, day after day. It was time for another segment, so down went the multi-modal quilt, with its alphabet, colour bar, shapes and illustrations of animals and objects. This doubled the area that she has to navigate, and she took to it right away.

My granddaughter had been acting as if she should be able to go through walls or pieces of furniture, getting frustrated at this also, so Papa has the task of gently encouraging her to turn, when confronted with a barrier. I even showed her that my almighty self can’t go through a wall, which she found amusing, while getting the point.

Many of the old stories I am reading her now, European fairy tales, present magical solutions to harrowing scenes. I choose to focus more on the character-building elements that are embedded in the tales, rather than the amazing feats of derring do. It only touches a slight level of her consciousness, of course, but I can recall, from my own toddlerhood, having a sense that I had heard stories that pointed the way to correctness, even earlier in my life. So, we go down this path together, She will retain what sticks in her mind and re-learn the rest later.

Much magical thinking comes from being used to having certain things happen almost instantaneously- like fast food being prepared and served in minutes, or AI popping up with answers to questions, in mere seconds. Another friend, examining the matter, points out that experiencing something, even several times, does not mean that it will be integrated with one’s psyche or behavioural repertoire. “I spent a week in Sweden” hardly qualifies me to claim any more than cursory knowledge of the country and its people. “I changed the spark plugs in my Ford LTD, back in 1975”, does not make me anywhere near a skilled auto mechanic. It is integration, not encountering, that determines the level of any change one wishes to see in life.

There is also a larger process at work, sometimes called “the arc of history” and in other forums, “the Major Plan of God”. We on the ground can only understand a smidgen of it, but here’s the thing: Just as a motor vehicle can go either forward or in reverse, it moves most efficiently forward. Reverse is meant only for short distances, like backing out of a parking space, or going a few yards back to where a loved one is waiting to communicate a last-minute thought. Going backwards in society can only be temporary, mostly to correct errors made in moving ahead too quickly. It cannot be done with a view towards reinstating the “Golden Days of Yesteryear”.

I will have more to say about this in an upcoming post.

Further Direction

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Posted by on in children, Community, impediments, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Striving

May 6, 2026- Hana did three new things today: She crawled onto a clean sheet that I had spread out, specifically for the purpose of giving her more of a mobility path. She sat up, with minimal assistance, and she stood up, long enough to look out the window. Small bits of further direction arose, as she moves through her fifth month on this Earth.

Most of the changes a person undergoes are small, subtle. I have shed behaviours that annoyed me and those around me, almost without thought and over time. Likewise, my skill sets have increased, with practice in some areas, yes, but also over time and with little notice. I see those around me also going through skill set build-ups that, to them also may seem imperceptible.

Another blogger recently pointed out that institutions and communities can change, one directive, one new form, one small procedural adjustment at a time. This could be the work of would-be authoritarians, of those seeking to expand the numbers of people taking part in the civic process or just those honestly looking to streamline meetings or daily procedures. Further direction can simplify the work of an organization or it can stymie that work. Quite often, these changes are not noticed until they have accumulated and become a noticeable roadblock or until they inconvenience a critical mass of people.

In any event, it is always a good idea to take stock of changes and adjustments in one’s life, on a daily basis. Nothing is really too small to be of no consequence.

Domino Effect

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Posted by on in Social, collaborating, impediments, Service Activities, Personal Values, Family, Striving, children, Community

May 5, 2026- My granddaughter had a fairly good day, considering that both of her parents had to work at their sites and got home a bit later than usual. Hana is only 4,5 months old, but she puts two and two together pretty well. When she sat and watched me preparing dinner for the family, which has only happened one other time,and no one got home before the meal was ready and put on low heat, she got agitated and wept disconsolately.. Her father got home about ten minutes later and held her for a while. She recovered and was happy again, even more so, once her mother also got back.

It’s hard to know what goes on, in the mind of a pre-verbal child, but body language can give one a fairly strong clue. She enjoys being with me, AND needs her parents. She sleeps through the night, knowing that they are in the room with her, and is most relaxed when one of them is working from home. That will change in June, with both of them having to go back to the office, five days a week. By then, she will have had a bit more time to have it explained to her enough to make an impression. Plus, she and I will be able to take outings in the stroller, with a city park a ten-minute walk. Hana will thrive, given the strength of her bonds with the three of us.

This all brought to mind the thousands of children, from infants to teens, whose family bonds are tenuous, at best. Organizations like Save the Children and Children International have been able to step in and offer educational, recreational and mentoring programs, in various nations across the globe. Another such organization is New Era Children’s Foundation, headquartered in Phoenix, AZ, and with programs locally there, as well as in East Africa and South Asia https://necf.asia/north-america/

Both involvement and neglect have domino effects. People who are abused and neglected in childhood will pay that abuse and neglect forward. Several people who were interviewed in a recent podcast were unequivocal about being perfectly willing to beat, and even kill, children of an ethnic minority in their country. When pressed further, they each said that abuse and neglect had been the dominant features of their own childhood. On the other hand, those who experience a stable upbringing are more likely to treat children well, even taking on the roles of mentor and protector. What comes around, stays around.

In my case, forty-six years of working with children, who were in various degrees of social stability, have left me that much more determined to see a highly intelligent and sensitive child build a solid life for herself. She has grounded, stable parents, so the odds are good.

May Day

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Family, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

May 1, 2026- As another gray day dawned, yet in a new month, Hana and I looked out at the squirrels frolicking on the lawn and in the trees, as they went about their day of climbing and parkour. (Squirrels are premier roof-vaulters.) For her part, my granddaughter was focused on army crawling and semi-crawling, as she is now able to move with her hands and knees in sync, though not yet with her torso fully off the ground.

Several people, across the country, and in some other nations,observed a day of protest. Many were on strike. May Day is traditionally a day for Organized Labour to call attention to its grievances, and on this particular day, concerns are many. We did our shopping earlier in the week, so it was not hard to honour the call to refrain from discretionary commerce. Son and daughter-in-law had light work schedules, and I, being retired, had only my labour of love to engage, as I have done every day for the last four months and two weeks. So, we were, in a de facto sense, in sync with the day’s mood.

Protest and criticism often rankle their targets. A parent may take umbrage at a child’s refusal to go along with a directive. Government officials, increasingly these days, don’t like it a bit, if citizens stand up and voice a contrary opinion. I watched a program this evening, in which a judge ordered a witness to break confidence, and the witness refused, thus invoking a contempt-of-court citation and time in a holding cell. (The judge’s move backfired, as the witness’s confider took the stand and spoke truth to power. The jury then convicted the defendant-who was a friend of the judge.)

We are all made different, distinct from one another, right down to our basic building blocks. Even identical twins have differences. So, there is no way that any two people are going to agree, 24/7. Yet, there is, especially among insecure people in positions of authority, an increasing intolerance for criticism, either public or private. The operative word here is insecure.

A better course of action is always to hear out the criticism, find points of truth in it, and examine how those points of truth could help one improve. That requires reflection and trust in one’s basic abilities.

Bugs

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 30, 2026– When my son returned from a shopping run, this evening, among the items he brought out were two electronic flying insect zappers. This sparked a conversation about the pests that occasionally find their way in from the outside-the houseflies, mosquitoes and sewer cockroaches. We maintain roach motels for the latter, which only show up after a heavy rain. So, the zappers should take care of the rest.

To be clear, we maintain strict standards of cleanliness around the house. With a baby becoming more mobile, we take no chances. Besides, who wants to “share” food with flies? The kids loathe them, and even I, in my sanguinity towards all life, will wield a fly swatter or kill a mosquito with my hands, before seeing either harm anyone in my family.

This brings up the place of scavengers in nature. Aram would gladly burn all vermin, if given the chance. So, what would the planet look like, with no flies, cockroaches, mosquitoes, rats (which we don’t have, thankfully) or carrion-eating birds? Since all living things eventually pass on, I daresay the planet would be far more of a mess, if not for the clean-up crew.

Further, I have been in places where there is either irregular trash pick-up, or none at all. My penchant for being a good citizen and picking discarded paper or plastic off a sidewalk and depositing it in a trash receptacle would have seemed ludicrous in such communities, The animals are, in such cases, fully “on the job” and humans have their work cut out for them, in maintaining hygienic boundaries in their homes.

So, we carry on with the balance of cleanliness and dirt, life and decay, conflict and resolution. The effort is a constant-and the bugs will keep getting zapped.

The Knowing

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 26, 2026- Virginia Roberts Giuffre died a year ago today. In that year, halting progress has been made in finding justice for her, and the thousands of other victims in the Epstein Network. There is a long way to go. In that year, justice was found for Gisele Pelicot, as 51 males were found guilty of raping her, while she was drugged by her then husband. In that year, CNN brought a “mainstream” website to light-it being openly called “Motherless.com-Rape Academy”, viewed over 62,000,000 times. In that year, serial abusers from across the political spectrum were called out-even one, Cesar Chavez, who is long dead.

I have shared a Substack post about the meaning of the term, “motherless”, on Facebook, and can only hope it gets read and taken seriously. I was raised by an exemplary mother. The idea of denigrating her infuriates me. I would have done anything she asked, even though I was a difficult child at times. My son was raised by an exemplary mother. He treasures her memory to this day, even though he was a difficult child at times.

I don’t know many openly misogynistic men, but many men I do know have areas in which to grow-as do I. Suffice it to say, those who hate women also harbour self-loathing. Many tell themselves otherwise, weaving fantasies of greatness and irresistability. They project themselves as monumental figures, as men of consequence, legends in their own time.

I once was deep among them, always wondering why I had no success in finding a mate. When I did find a woman to love, it was only because I had begun to rein myself in, take stock of my behaviour and put sexuality in its place-not as the be-all of life but as one aspect of a committed relationship. My wife initiated the process of my maturation. It took until she passed on, for that maturation to fully take root.

All those who viewed “Rape Academy”, and took its misguided message to heart, are only fooling themselves, damaging their own lives and those of any women hapless enough to become their victims. Humans, our animal form aside, are primarily spiritual beings. What one does to another person, to another sentient being, even to another life form, affects the spirit. It is not a matter of Heaven or Hell, but a matter of behaviour and consequence. Some of those men who have been publicly exposed as rapists and abusers have also done good, even great, acts for the betterment of humanity. Yet, in the end, Christ’s admonition-“Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto Me”- refers as much to the harm we do others as it does to what we do that is of help.

The physical, however enticing and pleasurable it may be, is as nothing in the eternal realm. Power, the driving force behind most rape, does not carry over into the next world, but the lessons one must learn in this life are put off by the reckless pursuit of power-and must be learned, with considerably more difficulty, in the next.

Growth can come only with the Knowing, and its practical application to life.

Rounding the Corners

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 20,2026– Hana has taught herself to turn, when she gets to a corner on the crawling mat. She had been getting frustrated at the presence of a baseboard and wall, but understood, when I lightly knocked on them, that the choice was to either move left, onto the carpet or right along the north edge of the mat. She chose to turn right. She later had a very satisfying army crawl session, and went completely around the mat, turning at all four corners.

My granddaughter’s early demonstration of common sense shows that it doesn’t necessarily take a command of language, in order for the thought process to engage. Perhaps there is a lesson here for some who either overthink things or whose minds are so bollixed up that common sense appears to have gone on permanent vacation.

I am hardly proposing “Are You Smarter Than A Four-Month Old?”, yet we could do without some of the word salads that are coming out of the mouths of some prominent people, including a few who are in leadership positions. We could do even more without the defense of inanity that follows such diatribes, in certain elements of the media.

Life is a series of rounding corners, and in many cases, of following a path out of the square or triangle into which one has been wearing a path. Hana has already figured that out, also, and has communicated to me that she wants to be able to crawl outside the mat. Once her parents and I set up a safe, clean route for that, it’ll happen.

No matter what age one is, there is no need to turn a path into a rut.

Snapped

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 19, 2026- The news about a man killing seven of his children, and one of their friends, hit hard. It happened in Shreveport, 2 hours and 49 minutes from here. There are a thousand reasons why anyone would be prompted to kill his/her own offspring-and none of those reasons are good. There is speculation that the suspect, himself now dead, just snapped. There are survivors of the day’s events, and maybe they will shed some light on what led to the slaughter. It will pulsate for a long time.

Life, especially when stress levels are not addressed, preferably by family members who have cache with the suffering one, can be overwhelming. In my extended family, interventions have been timely and effective-in saving marriages, mentoring wayward teens and young adults and, in one case, saving a life. My parents had cache on both sides of the family, and were not shy about stepping up to help, when they saw a problem.

I had a dream last night, that Hana had been spanked for crying-not by her parents, and certainly not by me, but by another family member, indeterminate. In the dream, I was yelling at the punisher, who just shrugged their shoulders and said that’s how it is here. To be sure, in real life, none of the three of us are inclined to use corporal punishment, for any reason. Certainly, an infant would be kept safe from such a thing, especially for self-expression. Once she reaches toddler stage, her parents vow to be firm, saying and meaning “No”, when necessary, while still acknowledging her feelings and offering some limited, acceptable alternatives. The same will continue throughout her childhood and adolescence. I will support them in their efforts.

Eight tender souls, their lives snuffed out, as someone on whom they should have relied turned on them and became their executioner. It could be laid at the feet of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, on our culture of anonymity, on the shifting sands of spiritual connection, or lack thereof. It is always a wake-up call-and how many of these will be needed, before each community takes stock of its members?