What about sports? Well, I kind of lost interest when the Dodgers left Brooklyn, though flipping channels I come across the occasional football game. It was while watching the cheerleaders for the Dallas Cowboys the other night that the thought crossed my mind those girls were probably missing choir practice, making the sacrifice in order to inspire football players. Yes, it has been some time since I followed sports.

We all know how ugly life can be, but those of us so fortunate as to be able to make some parts of it beautiful have an obligation to do so for the sake of a healthy mind. Just as we choose our friends we choose what books to read, what films or TV programs to watch, what music we listen to, how much time we devote to things for self-improvement. It is all too easy to get caught up in the anger and frustration of the times in which we now live that diverts attention away from the things that make life really worthwhile for those of us so fortunate to have the choice.

Many of us attempt to keep up with current events, but to light a candle rather than curse the darkness remains good advice and why subject yourself to feeling like throwing something at your TV when some politician appears? At my age I try to watch my blood pressure and avoid those things over which I have no control that only serve to arouse anger and frustration, and talking to the resident cat and giving her pets being rewarded by her purr of contentment in return sure beats shouting at a TV screen.

But don’t you sometimes wonder why some people seem to thrive on being just downright ugly and spiteful toward others, inviting these others to be just as ugly and spiteful to them in return? Like Lee Marvin put it in Death Hunt: “I never did have much luck praying,” but if I could prevail on God it would be for people to be kinder to one another knowing among many other things that life is short at best.

When I was a boy my mother took me to see the film A Girl of the Limberlost (1945 version). She knew I had read the book and wanted me to see the film, and there was one scene that really stuck in my mind. Elnora was hated by one of her schoolmates and knew of the girl’s love for the Limberlost and its creatures. During a school function a beautiful butterfly had flown in the window and alighted on a curtain. As an enchanted Elnora stood looking with tender wonder at the beautiful butterfly this other girl ran over and just to hurt Elnora out of spite, envy, and jealousy used her scarf to swat and destroy the beautiful butterfly right before her eyes!

The homily is self-evident; it is my belief the Devil hates the children of God and goes out of his way at every opportunity to swat and destroy butterflies, to either hurt or destroy anything of beauty in any way reflecting the goodness of God’s Creation in which his children find the evidence and comfort of God together with the kind of inspiration for the best we can do in gratitude to both God and beauty.

It is well said there are few things more boring than listening to someone in love. Much like hauling out the pictures of children and grandchildren such things are only of primary interest to those actually involved. We may share some of the joy of friends in such things, but we should remember there are some pragmatic facts about them that come with the territory, and friends while observing the proprieties should not be held accountable for a lack of enthusiasm at times over the things we feel are of great import.

As I write I know there are many who can relate to my enjoyment of this small corner of the Sequoia National Forest in which I dwell. As I sometimes write of the various birds, butterflies, and baby lizards I find so enchanting there is much for others to envy, but most would not begrudge the enchantment I find in these things. However, I would not be so presumptuous as to think some others would not find writing of these things at length to eventually be boring. The fact is that most people have to live in a dangerous world, even dangerous surroundings where neither they nor their children may ever see the stars at night or a baby lizard in the wild.

In the film Tombstone Josephine tells Wyatt she is always happy; unless she is bored. I’m seldom ever bored here where I live surrounded by natural beauty and forest critters, but even Henry Thoreau admitted to the need of society in his life, and even the local gossip. It is in the manner we treat of boredom and attempt to allay it there is often found a difference between kindness and meanness.

At this time some are attempting to demonize Governor Sarah Palin for the unwed pregnancy of her daughter. Alas, it happens in the best of families; but when it comes to politics as with love and war anything goes and all any well-wishers like me can do is wish the family well.

But I have the advantage in not being involved, as the Psalmist had it, in things too far above me. There is important business at hand for which I do feel responsible, things in which I can be involved which to me are of primary importance, things like butterflies, baby lizards, and watching the stars at night while giving the resident cat her pets. These things while not of any great import in the scheme of things serve to remind me that all things pass away with the using, even this mortal body, but time spent in any act of kindness or a kind word of encouragement, of contemplation of beauty as with fishing a pristine, wilderness trout stream is not deducted from my measure of years.