Meandering In My Mind

Sometimes when you look at a blank page it is a reflection of your mind. That is how it is tonight. I have no clue as to where this post is headed. This week has provided so many high points that one wonders what can come next. Each day this week has brought another example of the goodness that can be found in others and how others can affect the world at large. Today I received a Christmas Card with a DVD in it from Ted Trent at Out OF The Closet TV. The DVD contained the USA Movie produced by Ted and OOTCTV "The Great American Christmas" and told the stories of 6 different families in the week leading up to Christmas. The families were as diverse as America and each had their own story to tell. There were Black people, Hispanic people, White people, Gay people, Straight People. The whole range that makes up this country. Not everyone was represented. America is home to all faiths Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and even people of no particular faith, agnostics, atheists, spiritualists, Wiccans. Ted wrote on the inside of the card "Uncle Gerry, Thank you for saying such nice things on your blog. Just like me, you never know who you are reaching with your life. Keep up the good work, I'll be watching. Out to make a difference, Ted Trent". The point here is that all Americans in their diversity have their own part to play in the panoply that is this country and this world. We can not as Ted says know whose lives we may affect by our actions. When I started Nichevo, I had no idea that I would be able to reach the people or acquire the friendships that I have. Yet in the title bar I made the statement that I was looking for friends wherever I may find them, so it should come as no surprise that I indeed have found new friends. The surprise though is the diversity of those friends and the number of places they come from. People like Ted (it still feels funny to call someone famous by their first name knowing that they know who I am!) and Enzo, Bob and Woodsmn, Ryan and Mike, the blokes in Australia, those friends in China that I have yet to meet. They each have played a part in the happiness that I feel at this moment. I have been told "Nichevo is a place where Smiles are born and Hearts are warmed. It is a place of Love". To know this is how my readers feel warms my heart as this is a labor of love and an effort to express the feelings I have inside of me. I had no idea that I could touch so many so quickly or that they would respond as they have. Even the Cluster Maps people contacted me and had me change the frequency of the archive rates for the maps as I had passed the threshold for the number of visits allowed on the plan that I started with. It is amazing to me in my humble home to be able to count you all as my friends and to receive as much if not more from you than I have given. Yet I cannot stop giving of myself. If I only affect one life in a positive way, then my mission has been accomplished. In the story of my life, many experiences are not pleasant, many are. The highs and lows that I have experienced as related in these pages may prove to have some value to someone, somewhere I least expect it. As I said to Bob the other night I quoted the Bible "What you have done to the least of these my children, you have done unto me". Now I am not at this stage a particularly religious man, as we have all experience the wrath of the fundies, I am not alone in that. But this lesson I learned from my mother at an early age and it is a fundamental part of my character. So I guess you could say I come by giving of myself as a natural course of events. Even when I have been at my lowest, there has always been an opportunity to give to someone else something of myself that helped them in some way.

This Christmas season has been a time of rekindling of the Spirit of Christmas within me attributable in large part to you, my readers and other writers in the blogosphere. For this I thank you as it has been many years past since I have celebrated the season or had a reason to. It is this renewing of the spirit that I hope to share with you on our journey. The journey is by no means over, as you have not heard even half of the stories I have to tell. Each of you has a story too, and bit by bit I am coming to know them also as you write and tell them to me. My life affects your lives, your lives affect my life, a mutual journey to greater understanding. Our lives affect so many others we do not know or realize how or why this is. It just is, one of the mysteries of human nature in its capacity for goodness. We need to nurture that goodness, strengthen it and pass it along to others. Each time we pass the goodness on, we affect the lives of countless others we may never meet. Yet our lives have had a positive affect on theirs. This is how we make the world a better place. This is how one day all mankind (and womankind) will reach the understanding of equality and liberty.

The phone just rang, Gal Pal is on her way over, so I had better get on with it as when she gets here, there is way too much distraction to be able to type coherently if indeed I have been coherent so far. Sometimes Nichevo writes itself and other times it is a struggle to clarify the thoughts in my mind. Every writer experiences this at one time or another. Tonight is just another example of looking at a blank page and finding a way to fill it. I hope I have made some sense, I am sure you will let me know whether I have or not. There is still a few days left to vote for your choice in the header photo poll, young hunk is still leading but that lead is shrinking, so make your voices heard, visit my friends in reads and links and join me again tomorrow as I once again relate the story of my life and the adventures therein. Thanks for reading and until next time as always, Enjoy!