In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. ~ Khalil Gibran
We see them everyday on our Tumblr and FaceBook feeds these little posters with funny clips and sayings. So today a few of my favorites to raise a smile and help you have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
The original AARP group after their climb out of the NOC
Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community. ~ Anthony J. D’Angelo
These days on the Appalachian Trail we really have it easy in some respects, primarily in communication and keeping track of our fellow hikers. On the trail we have cell service, we stay connected to our group through texts or Facebook. A lot of us blog and allow others off-trail, including those who’ve had to leave the trail to follow our progress and stay in touch. That wasn’t always the case.
Recently, I was contacted by a former AT hiker who truly missed his past hiking community. Mike had to leave the trail due to a fairly severe injury and never got a chance to say goodbye to his trail family and 20 years later still thinks about them and misses them. This is what he had to say when he first wrote me:
As a 40-year-old that has never been the same since that adventure. I truly miss my trail comrades. My hike was pre Facebook and I didn’t have email, not sure if anybody else did. I dislocated my hip near Delaware Water Gap and wasn’t even able to say good-bye to my hiking crew. I long to share a beer or sit around a campfire with them. They are long-lost best friends. ~ Mike aka Freebird 1995
We’ve all felt like this, I’ve written previously about the sense of community on the trail, and even those of us in touch with our hiking family feel the same way Mike does. It would be beyond wonderful to be able to just sit and hang out with those folks. Your trail family becomes beyond precious to you as a hiker.
So, let’s put the power of the internet to good use for a change, share this post far and wide, get the word out to all of the older hikers you know, hostel owners who’ve been around etc… Let’s see if we can’t hook Mike up with his crew, here is some more information to help us find these folks.
Mikes two closest hiking companions were Nickname or Nick Lovetro (sp?) from Boston if memory serves but not written anywhere. Also T-Rex, Rex Blunck, retired Air Force. T
Also, the next catagory, people I would like to meet up with in some sort of reunion camp out situation: Kevin aka King, Wayne aka Professor, Joe aka Snore-a-saurus, Wolverine, Weeble Wooble and partner Joe, Pathfinder, Bloodroot, Crazy legs and Dutchboy, French Fry and Ketchup, McP’s (Claire and Malcolm) from Scotland. These people or couples really helped make my journey very pleasant and got me through some hard times.
Let’s help our a fellow hiker, again, please share this post out and if you have any leads you can refer them to me here at the Ministry of Happiness at my e-mail, Happinesskane@aol.com.
Please friends, I really think this would be an amazingly cool and kind thing to pull off for Mike, especially around the holiday season, I know you’ll help because your hikers and we look out for each other, thanks in advance and have a happy day. ~ Rev Kane
Appalachian Trail Happiness: Trail Community
Recently as many of you know I lost my grandmother, so it seem appropriate for tonight’s Happiness Resources post to address tips on overcoming loss. Hopefully this will be useful information that you will not need very often and that you’re having a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Coping with Grief & Loss – This is a really thoughtful and deeper piece, I really like it.
Mental Health: Coping with Grief & Loss – This piece is from WebMD and is a bit more clinical
Overcoming Grief & Loneliness – This piece from the Joyce Meyer Ministry comes at grief from a more Christian/ spiritual direction
Grief and a Mindfulness Approach – A really nice piece about using mindfulness to stay focused on your grief and actually use it as a positive force in your life.
A 9 Step Action Plan for Overcoming Grief & Loss
How to Overcome the Death of a Loved One
Granny doing her best Lou Reed impersonation.
Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself. ~ Walter Anderson
Tonight my Granny passed away and as the quote says I can wallow in sadness or I can choose to focus on the best part of her being in my life. It is sad, of course it is, and I will shed my share of tears, but not so many because the good far outweighs my loss tonight.
Those who know me, know that I suffer from no lack of confidence. The question has been asked by others and by me, how the hell did I get this way? The answer lies squarely with my granny and my POW, her husband my grandfather, who passed away in 1969 when I was only five.
My POW and I in 1966
You see I was the apple of my grandfather’s eye and he being my granny’s everything, and me being her first grandchild, well, I suffered from no lack of attention. During the four and half years of my life that he lived they both showered me with attention and made me feel like the luckiest kid alive. My granny continued to make me feel like the luckiest kid alive every time we talked up until her death.
My granny lived several lifetimes, you know the expression “dirt poor” well my granny grew up with dirt floors sleeping on cardboard with her siblings. She once told me about getting her first pair of shoes, she was much older than you would assume. My grandfather pulled her out her home and she spent many years as the doting wife. Then, far too young, my grandfather passed away over 40 years ago.
My granny’s next life was as a single widower in the 70’s, she had a lot of fun and brought me souvenir prison shirts from all over the world. She partied on Bourbon street and was known to drive exceedingly fast, as kids we used to shout “go granny go” when she put the petal to the metal. She was one of the custodians at my junior high, she would slip me away to the nurse’s office and buy me a milkshake when things didn’t go well for me.
She used to take me to Bingo, she placed my very first bet for me at a race track, CC Byrd a 20 to 1 shot that came in and paid me $100 in 1973. She made great meatballs and those Christmas cookies with the little Hershey’s kiss in the middle. But more than anything else what I will miss is the pure joy in her voice when she heard mine of the phone.
She was human, she had her flaws, we all do, but she gave her love freely to me and for that I’ll be eternally grateful, confident and happy my friends ~ Rev Kane
The first weekend I settled into my new home happened to also be the weekend of the Great Gulfcoast Art Festival. It was a wonderful little festival, lots of different types of art, food, music and a lovely Sunday afternoon for wandering around Pensacola’s downtown. While walking through the festival I spotted a booth for local authors and it was there that I met Susan. A. Lewis and picked up a copy of her book, The Happiness Habit.
Susan starts out the book with an excellent question, why does it take tragedy to get us to look inward and learn to be grateful for what we have, to learn to enjoy the precious moments of our life? I love the quote she chose to open the book:
The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be. ~ Marcel Pagnol
I really like this book, it is filled with little vignettes of happiness, snippets of wonderful advice about looking at the world with positivity. As Susan said to me when we talked, “the silver linings of life.” Here is one of them from the book:
Just because you’ve been doing the same thing for a long time, it doesn’t mean it has to continue…Sit down and ask yourself, how can I better serve my heart? What would make me happy? Inevitably your happiness becomes the happiness of everyone surrounding you. It is priority.
The book reminds me of Deng Ming-Dao’s 365 Day Tao, a book of daily Taoist meditations on life. Susan doesn’t give us 365 days’ worth but this book would be wonderfully read at the beginning and/or end of each day, one page at a time to remind us to stay positive and have a happy day. I highly recommend it, if interested you can find it on Amazon on the title link at the beginning of the piece, or you can contact Susan directly by email at Susanlewisbooks@yahoo.com. Copies are $10 each plus $3.00 shipping and in the book she relates she’s happy to sign copies. From meeting her I can assure you that’s accurate, in addition to writing a good book, she’s a very pleasant person. If interested drop her a note and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. ~ Lao Tzu
Our weekly tour around the web to bring you the kind of good news you don’t normally get from cable or national news, enjoy and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Happiness is not something ready made, it comes from your actions ~ Dalai Lama
So I’m at the end of my first full week inside of my temporary new life here in Florida. I’ve figured out all of the necessities, where to work out, to buy groceries, do laundry. I’ve quickly become a fixture at the public library where I’m writing this piece, it’s quite a nice library and a good place to work and read.
I’m settling into a routine, unfortunately I’m having to force myself into being more of a morning person than I really want to be. Unfortunately, it makes too much sense not to be, now I just need to convince myself to go to sleep at a more reasonable hour. Between working out pretty hard and diminishing sleep I’m getting a bit tired, but that will change.
A little Arctic sunset shot and a tease for my photos for my upcoming posts on my Polar Bear trip
The big upside of course is I’m writing, at the moment quickly catching up on blog responsibilities, getting ahead on my daily posts and prepping for my annual anti-holiday depression posts. I’m nibbling at the books I’m here to write, hopefully I’ll dig more deeply in next week now that I have a bit of a routine. I have a few goals for myself while I’m here, I’m hoping to drop 15 – 20 pounds and add some muscle back to my upper body. I’ve got 4 books to get done and a fifth to outline so I’m going to be pretty busy. I also want to get this blog back to daily posts and more consistency.
Of course, this existence of pretty much nothing but gym time and writing also allows me a lot of time to think, that’s good and bad of course. It allows for lots of introspection and planning, but it also leads to time to dwell on the negative. Of course, the upside of dwelling on the negative is that is when I’m most productive on the poetry front so I’ve been writing a bit on that side. Here’s a sample and remember, this is how I burn off negative energy.
It’s that moment
where you want to scream
throw punches
kick at the walls
punch holes
in reality itself
Followed
by the sinking feeling
that it will make no difference
change nothing
but the alignment
the structure
of the bones
in your hand
Weeping
never really worked for me
but the tears will run
like condensation
on the tent flap
on a colder than you want morning
I’m broken, damaged
but I maintain
not just moving forward
but the very mask
that is necessary to protect you all
from the monster below
I’ve been called
an emotionless robot
the surface theater
more necessary
than any realize
I’ve always been
a great liar
a great actor
the difference
eludes me
The surface calm
necessity
for what lies below
dangerous chaos
an active minefield
unnavigable
by the average human
I’ve watched those who’ve tried
torn to shreds
their souls twisted
into unrecognizable piles
So I sit
the very center
of the deadly storm
unable
perhaps unwilling
to calm the winds
or map the mines
the island
my safety
my sanctuary
my unbelievably lonely safe space
So a new journey is underway, one that will hopefully be productive. I’ve also planned a little getaway for Thanksgiving and a farewell to this life by celebrating Mardis Gras in Mobile, AL Things are certainly less adventurous than they’ve been in a while but looking forward to a whole set of challenges and of course, happy days. ~ Rev Kane
It is better to sit alone than in company with the bad; and it is, better still to sit with the good than alone. It is better to speak to a seeker of knowledge than to remain silent; but silence is better than idle words. ~ Mohammed
It’s very easy in our world to become cynical, I speak from experience. I’ve always been a very cynical person, it comes from living in a world where people let you down, with consistency. A world where our politicians will say anything to get elected, where elected officials are more concerned with opposing the other political party than actually governing or trying to help people. I see on TV every day advertisements from coal and oil companies talking about how much they love the environment, pretending that we can burn petroleum free of consequences. We are bombarded on a daily basis from a hundred directions manipulated by expert advertisers whose job it is to tell us what we like, what we care about, who to vote for, what we should look like and even who the good guys and bad guys are in the world. It makes you wonder at times if any of your thoughts are your own.
Last night in Paris, terrorists attacked and slaughtered over one hundred people. In our current world this happens all too frequently, the 1995 Tokyo Subway attacks, 9/11 in the United States, the 2008 attacks in Mumbai and decades of attacks between Israelis and Palestinians. It would be easy and seemingly rational to become cynical about mankind and our world. We could decide to hate Muslims, immigrants or anyone who could possibly be labeled them, instead of US. Individual men will always be capable of making heinous choices, violence will occur, you could get run over by a bus tomorrow or hit in the head with a piece of space debris. As I was told before I began hiking the Appalachian Trail this Summer, I could be attacked by bears or villainous men on the trail. I could be bitten by rattlesnakes, struck by lightning, killed by a falling tree, get infected with the West Nile virus or Lyme Disease. All of these things likely happened to someone hiking the trail, but I went anyway. You can choose to live in fear and anger, but is this living?
It is a quick and easy path to cynicism for those of us who think and feel. However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve begun to see a dark futility in being so cynical. That time-frame of that realization, not so surprisingly, fairly closely corresponds with the birth of the Ministry of Happiness. In creating a happier life for myself, it seemed appropriate, maybe even necessary to share and help others; perhaps altruism, maybe it was just about having some company on the path. Through this journey some of the cynical edge to my view has begun to dissipate and it has helped me progress toward a happier life. Part of what has helped me accomplish that is to work to give up the fear and the anger I possessed, fear is a liar, anger leads to regret. It’s not easy to let these emotions go, but you have one life as far as I know and I want you to be as happy as you can be, I want to be as happy as I can be. So my suggestion to you is to work to replace fear and anger, with gratitude and kindness.
The irony is not lost on me that the attacks in Paris occurred on World Kindness Day. The cynic in me wants to suggest terror is winning out over kindness, but I don’t think it is and that’s something I learned on the Appalachian Trail, people (strangers) can be incredibly kind and giving and I’m grateful for that and the opportunity to be the same.
At the head of this piece I purposefully used a quote from Mohamed juxtaposed with the Eiffel Tower peace symbol, we can mourn for the dead, we can have sympathy for the wounded and the families left behind in Paris and we can also understand that Islam, like all religions, on paper is a peaceful religion. However, individual men can do horrible things in the name of peaceful religions. Think the Buddhist attacks on Muslims in Burma, the Crusades, or Northern Ireland, few religions are immune from violence carried out in it its name. The cynic says damn all religions, but in addition to the bad, so much good has been done in the name of religion, think Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Ghandi or Martin Luther King.
So the choice I’ve decided to make, and one I hope you’ll make, is to let go of the cynicism. Instead of throwing up hateful words online, or blaming anyone but the actors for what happened, take that energy and be kind to someone. Be grateful for what you have and for the good that exists in the world, you’ll be happier for it. Hopefully some of what we do here will help you as well, and as always, have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane.
A warm smile is the universal language of kindness. ~ William Arthur Ward
Happy World Kindness Day! I used the quote above for a specific reason, we often see things like World Kindness Day and think, great another day where I’m supposed to go out and do something and I just don’t have time. Let me, let you, off the hook a bit. Reread the quote at the top, all you need to do today to be a bit kinder is just remember to smile. Easy enough but a simple smile can be an amazing thing.
So in honor of World Kindness Day here are some of my previous posts about kindness, enjoy and have a kind and happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Random Acts of Kindness & Happiness
There are Angels Among Us: A True Story of Kindness & Giving
Random Happiness: Stories of Kindness
Videos: Inspiration, Kindness & Gratitude
The Dalai Lama on Kindness & Compassion
From The Oatmeal
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. ~ Victor Hugo
Two of my favorite humor sites are the The Onion & The Oatmeal. The Onion operates like a satirical newspaper and frankly the headlines are often far funnier than the posts, but they are timely and humorous and put a smile on my face. The Oatmeal posts a wide variety of cartoons (comics) both worth a look and here are a few pieces below to raise a smile on your Friday and help you have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
When your house is burning down you should brush your teeth
The terrible & wonderful reasons I started running long distances
Why the Mantis Shrimp is my new favorite animal
I used to suffer from F.O.M.O. (Fear Of Missing Out)
Nation Figured Everything Would Run On Some Kind Of Cubes Of Blue Energy By Now
Everyone In Family Compliments Grandmother On How Small And Feeble She’s Gotten
Scientists Find Strong Link Between Male Virility, Wearing Mötley Crüe Denim Jacket
The Ministry of Happiness 