Friday, in a few hours I will depart for St. Joseph, Michigan.  The plan is to spend 5 days at a lake house, for an all-family vacation.  It is a special occasion for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and children to spend extended time together in conversation, play, swimming in the lake, enjoyment of the beach.  Relationships are the true interface for  societies function, for fulfillment of our distinct individual destinies.  Upon reflection, I hope make the most of the family vacation on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. 

Life is a matter of conflict, the clash of multiple forces, of interests.   Everyone is involved in the quest for survival.  Perhaps that sounds grim.  With good fortune, friction does not erupt into unvarnished antipathy, blood.  Collaboration, cooperation, a focus of the life-force for mutual care is the way forward.  There is no other way ahead.  Such skills are acquired by practice.  Empathy is learned.  Is there a better venue to practice the give and take, than a few days at a lake house on the Lake Michigan shore?

These photos were taken over the last several days walking about the backyard, also along the fringe of Braeburn Marsh.

Why the photos of the Buddha images you are asking?  Are you a Buddhist?  Upon reflection, it is difficult not to accede to the viewpoint advanced by the Buddha.  To be alive is to be discomfited.  The moments of happiness are temporary, fleeting.  I am not sure that I’ve ever learned anything from an interlude of complete satisfaction, as rare as those have been.  Does happiness teach us anything?  I learn, become a wiser, a more adept human from accepting that striving, the work-of-life is a given, not to be resisted or repudiated.  Acceptance goes a long way toward making use of the elements of one’s heritage, one’s lot-in-life, fate, — difficult though that may be.

No doubt, I’m a part time Buddhist.