Pretty Dying Things

Step outside where here and there the flowering

Child of the long cold harsh Winter dead

Submits Her playful life to this shower Spring

Rains down upon Her fragrant golden head.

I am She and She is Me.

You are Her and I am You.

The trees sway in the wind.

The branches break and bend.

The coming storm already came and went,

Leaving us here as we are:  stripped bare.

A ground unencumbered by adornment

With the deaths of lives playfully unaware.

You spoke to me once of a lush garden

Somehow thriving in a forest overgrown

Where the soil of earth’s heart could not harden

Because we worked that ground with our love alone.

No longer carrying the weight of such dreams

As those, we are free to live now unresolved

And to play with life’s pretty dying things

With the whimsical laughter of love evolved.

lost

written in light upon the decaying walls
of the once proud temple of my dead heart
are the sacred words echoed through the halls
of the minds of men since thinking did start:

"i know the way god chose not to reveal.
his empty heart has nothing to you to give.
if you would know the secrets he did conceal,
sacrifice yourself that i might live."

i recall the times when love did heal me
of afflictions revealed to be divine.
yet, looking down on this fallen debris,
i see i fell prey to a voice not mine.

"you are not the last, nor were you the first,
to find yourself used as my dark disguise.
the absence of god created this thirst
that made it simple to possess you with lies."

and when god speaks there is a deathly silence...
even from him.
he gave me the signs to which my mind did violence,
and now my soul burns in the hands of the seraphim.

Theme the Second: Uncertainty - Day Eight

Okay, I know there is no such thing as an eight day week.  I'm moving into a new week with little commentary having been provided by me over last week's theme of uncertainty.  One could say I was so uncertain that I wasn't even sure what to write.  The truth, though, is that I gave little consideration to the theme of uncertainty because I was so certain of the validity of my suffering and all I suffered over. 

One evening during the past week, I was sure that I am the most isolated, secluded, misunderstood, forgotten, and left behind man on the face of the earth - and that evening I was in a crowd and with company.  Another day, I was certain there was nothing in me worth loving because of all the mistakes I'd made in the past.  By the same token, I was also convinced in other moments that, based on the evidence of how others treated me, no one can love me with the depth of love I am capable of giving them because no one else in the world is as willing as I am to sacrifice his or her will to something higher.

All the while, I was confident that my life has been a wasted one - devoid of experience, love, compassion, patience, and peace.

And yet there were more subtle forms of certainty also at work in me:  To counter the above examples (and the many other instances) of certainty to which I clung, there arose a multitude of thoughts and plans of action I must make and take to live life more fully, to show greater love and patience, to escape from the hellish captivity of my pain.  I was also certain that the just reward for the life I'd lived  is this excruciating suffering over my past.     These last two certainties never presented themselves explicitly as considerations about which I should be sure.  Rather, my trust in the other certainties over which I ached made these two states of mind appear to be wise guides sent from heaven to lead me out of this hell. 

That incessant mental activity came to a head yesterday when something in me cracked and then burst wide open.  Something vile and bitter spilled forth from the hole, and the cracking, bursting, and spilling may have been the most agonizing experience I have ever had.  I laid in my bed after awakening from sleep to yet another day in which I felt so oppressed by darkness that I could scarcely breathe.  My mind ran through all the certainties of misery in my life.  In the midst of that spinning confinement of my thinking, some strange understanding that was at first darkened and slanted by guilt slammed into me like a sledge hammer to the chest:  all the specific circumstances and relationships over which I then found myself miserable came to the point at which they were because of the very certainty I had once had over what to do about those troubling moments within those circumstances and relationships.  The emptiness and futility of this contradiction drove me as near to madness as I have ever come:  on the one hand, I saw just how sure I was I must act or be a certain way in response to this or that difficulty I had encountered in my past, while on the other hand I saw how certain I am now that I must suffer doubt and guilt over those actions about which I was once so certain were right. 

My body convulsed.  I flung myself out of bed, thrashing and writhing on the floor, slamming into walls, flinging anything I could lay my hands on, screaming myself voiceless, crying myself empty.  Never has my mind, body, and heart broken so violently as in that instant of being shown just how far my certainty about the kind of man I am, about the qualities of character I have, about the kind of life I value and have worked myself weary to make for myself...just how far all these certainties about who I am and what God and this life are all about...just how far all this confidence in my conclusions had led me astray from reality.

Afterward, I lay in a collapsed heap on the floor, utterly hopeless and devoid of any will or reason to go on living.  I begged God to take me - not with words or with a hope of crossing over to some painless place, but with a quiet and still emptiness in the face of the hopelessness of all my knowing that also lay in crumbles on the floor with me.  If there is nothing of which I can know or be certain that does not lead to certain suffering and despair, then there is no reason to go on because all of life is this trap. 

I spent the rest of the day - when I finally pulled my body off the floor - moving and breathing.  At times, the uselessness of those two functions of form sought to overcome me; at others, there was no me to overcome and I did my duties lightly, without any hope of completion or fulfillment through them.  Even the identity of loneliness I have experienced over the past 6 weeks felt more and more distant with each manifestation of itself in my thinking.

I awoke this morning with a disturbance in my chest.  It was much less intense than yesterday's.  But each time the mind sought to give form to, and thus feed, that disturbance, I was so uncertain of the truth of the images presented to me, that the reasons for, and afterward the pressure of, the disturbance soon vanished.

Was that breaking apart on the floor of my room yesterday a bleeding out of the certainty in me?  Was the violent fit the bodily manifestation of Love wresting certainty's control from my body?  Does certain darkness lead to uncertain Love?  I don't know.  At this moment, I prefer not knowing because an uncertain mind seems to relinquish more easily the certainty of its pain.

A Poem - Version 2

I wrote one for you to declare my love,
that thing you trampled and beat and abused
and choked out the life with white hand in black glove -
its innocence in death so sweetly confused.

You stand over me now dead there on the floor,
visited for the moment by no remorse
for your crime, but doomed to know forevermore
that this life you took was preceded by yours.

A Poem

I wrote one for you to declare my love,
that thing you trampled and beat and abused
and choked out the life with white hand in black glove -
its innocence in death so sweetly confused.

You stand over me now dead there on the floor,
visited for the moment by no remorse
for your crime, but doomed to know forevermore
that this life I gave up makes you mine.

Theme the Second: Uncertainty - Day Three

This week's theme for contemplation and integration is "uncertainty."  Being neither here nor there, nor knowing the goodness or evil of either opposite, but standing in the middle of both where the two are one and having no idea what this reconciliation means for your existence.

Uncertainty:  that moment in which one's helplessness and one's sacrifice become one and the same movement into a world above the base and common cycle of this animalistic human ritual of spiritual degradation through pleasure and pain.

Theme the First: Sacrifice - Day Four

Thus, finding myself in a state of helplessness in which no label - such as sacrifice or God or Love or Peace or Grace - have any meaning whatsoever to me, I watch something arise within from out of the shadows of all that tormenting guilt, regret, and self-recrimination.  These and other dark lords gather round this strange new presence with no comprehension of what he (she?  it?) is or means to them, but they are frightened by his arrival.  And it's not that I don't care about what is going on.  It's just that I am not there.

Something said without words - pulsating like a gentle, massaging light.  Something to be known, but not by me.  The guilt is me.  The regret is me.  The self-recrimination is me.  So, too, the excitement, anticipation, pleasure.  Each a little me that cannot hear...something...I know not what.  For each me was me but is not me any longer.  Where am I? 

For a moment it seems I stand at once in the midst of and above a vast, tumultuous sea of rising and falling vibrations - each with a story to tell about itself and its experiences with me.  Each enticing me to take the plunge back into the deep and violent blue waters of opposite and contesting energies so that I may know myself again.  They speak in vain as I sacrifice once more this sensation of being alive.  Such a poor and pathetic life to which to return.  All the treasures of their world could not tempt me to give them form again.

Again, there is no me to tempt.  Only there remains the listening and speaking presence in the midst of that rising and falling ocean of death.  All are helpless to turn away from this towering being.  All long to know its purpose.  Yet, none speak its language nor think they can survive getting too close to its awful core.  For now, they wait along the edges, not willing to venture too close to what is not understood, dreading this that seems to them to be the beginning of the end.  It waits patiently, as if it knows the destiny and fate both of itself and of the dark mass that encircles it.

Theme the First: Sacrifice - Day Three

On a new day, new lessons have come to me about Julieann's comments on my first post on the theme of sacrifice and even my response to her comment and the subsequent post I wrote. Perhaps I will have the will and opportunity to write of these later. For now, I can say that I certainly did not always succeed in shining the light on the path that could help the one I love.

A relationship will always bring up that in ourselves of which we were not previously aware. All the more so when you set about to base that relationship in spirit. Our true character is revealed by our reactions to these parts of ourselves that are made active in the interactions of the relationship. I can only speak for myself when I say my character leaves much to be desired. Yet, I am helpless to do a thing about it. I cannot go back and right my wrongs. I have no opportunity to explain what I now see about myself. I cannot imagine any pleasure or comfort or relationship (even with the one I love) that can assuage the guilt, pressure, and suffering over what was, over where I missed the mark.

That leaves only one thing: sacrifice. And I am not even certain what that means at the moment. Is sacrifice this moment of utter helplessness in which there is nothing at all that one can do, say, think, imagine for the future, or justify from the past that will change or alleviate the suffering? Is sacrifice nothing more than reaching the dead-end that suffering must lead one to? I don't know.

All I know is that I am here at that dead-end - with nowhere else to go, nothing left to do - pouring my heart out in words to no one and nothing in particular. Even writing these words has felt so pointless. I don't know why I write them. Something tells me to, but I see no reason in the process. There is no catharsis in writing, "I am helpless and cannot change myself or what I have done or been." It is just what it is.  I don't know how to even pretend to live with this.  I feel incapable of doing much of anything right now, and I am surprised I have been able to type this much.  
 
I have no other choice now but to be helpless and useless in the face of this pain.  I hold no hope that anything or anyone will rescue me from it.  I desire no worldly rescue and am cynical that there is any such thing as an other-worldly rescue in store.  I only know this hopelessness, this helplessness, this uselessness of me.    

Theme the First: Sacrifice - Day Two

Sometimes, I believe that everything wants a piece of me - is trying to steal from me my peace.  I am very sensitive to the demands of kids, of dog, of house, of job, of friends, of family, of lover, of traffic, of stomach, of exercise....I find myself getting so sick of having to be responsible for anything at all. 

If I take a step back, however, I realize that none of these elements in my life have anything to do with the pressure that I experience in relation to them.  The truth is, the enemy of peace uses these elements to remove me from a relationship with the source of peace in every moment of every day.  Who hasn't been alone with no duty in particular on the docket and felt the sudden compulsion to do something - anything - to avoid that moment with oneself?  Why?  Because in that quiet moment alone, this enemy of peace knows you may discover its true nature and workings in you, and so it sends you running again after the next thing you need to do to claim this ever-elusive peace. 

The pressure I feel over the "demands" of life does not belong to the responsibilities themselves, but to my desire to be in control, to take care of everything myself because I believe that I am the only one who can do anything the right way and I am the one who will make or break the happiness and contentment and peace of another.  What a tremendous and arrogant burden that is.  What's worse, such a mistaken idea actually hands me over into the hands of irresponsibility as eventually the pressure overloads the senses and I snap at someone I love, I withdraw from those I love, or I succumb to the lie that there is too much to do and so do nothing.  Moreover, the next level down in the captivity of this pressing nature within is that the same mind that pressured me to the point of snapping then condemns me to guilt and suffering over having ever listened to its inner demands and having now hurt another.

A dear friend wrote to me words of wisdom today.  These words and the sentiments they conveyed came through her from her own experience with surrendering this false compulsion to be everything for everyone and then judge and condemn youself when, as must inevitably occur, you fall short of someone's want (disguised as a need) of you.  What she wrote me helped me to recall the sheer arrogance of clinging to the thought that I am responsible for all that goes wrong for everyone around me.  She didn't say it in any harsh way like that, but she lovingly pointed my focus back to our one true responsibility to this moment.  If I am responsible to this moment, then it becomes impossible for me to be irresponsible to anything or anyone in it.

I knew this once.  But the mind is clever, and even as I believed I had left behind the false responsibilities of this world, it crept back upon me and overtook me when I wasn't looking.  That which my mind has claimed is responsible for my present sadness was at one time something I knew in the moment must end.  Now, my thinking has raised this dead thing through the false responsibility called guilt.  There was no guilt in the moment it died.  The moment that I was responsible to made it clear that it was time to be done with the form that interaction had taken on.  Only a fool and an egotist is responsible to and for the past and for those who take up residence in what was and then blame him for their suffering over where they have chosen to reside.

This moment, I accept the need to sacrifice this me who believes he is responsible for the world of those around him.  I don't know how he took control of me again, but I know I must be diligent and watchful in each moment, for he is that cunning. 

Thank you, Julieann.

Theme the First: Sacrifice - Day One

I am entering the new year with an intention to set for myself a weekly theme for consideration, contemplation, and integration into my life.  The first theme of the new year, which has selected itself by default through the position in which I find myself physically, mentally, and emotionally to start this year, is Sacrifice.  A somewhat intimidating theme to take on here at the outset, but I trust that it has been provided to me for a reason. 

I spent the last few weeks of 2011 in the grips of a most intense suffering over the end of a relationship that was dysfunctional and toxic, not because either of us were bad human beings or because either of us set out to ruin what love so graciously gave to us by bringing us to one another, but because of the great chasm that existed in our intentions with regard to addressing a lifetime of accumulated emotional distress and pain that must necessarily be exposed for healing in a relationship.  Stated more appropriately, I have come under the influence of dark thoughts over the events that occurred during and at the end of the relationship, over the initial promise of the relationship, over what I did wrong and what she did wrong, over what is to become of us both now, over what she is doing without me, over what I will ever do without her. 

Each moment is a request for sacrifice.  Each moment, we are asked to give what we receive in the moment to something higher than ourselves.  This is something that is almost incomprehensible to Paul - that each moment and all the attending physical, mental, and emotional sensations brought to the fore by the "conditions" of the moment are to be lifted up to the Father/Mother.  Paul lifts up neither the good nor the bad, but almost exclusively revels in both as his own.  He forgets these do not belong to him.  In truth, Paul is more inclined to the bad than the good.  Paul's suffering defines him and captivates his attention much more readily and willingly than his joy.  He seems eager to give away or even become suspicious of the good times, of the ownership of prosperity and contentment, but he has almost no doubt whatsoever as to the title and veracity of his pain. 

Suffering is the Isaac God is asking me to sacrifice to Him.  What I doubt, that of which I am cynical, is the goodness of God.  I do not trust that He really asks for my suffering to be handed over to Him.  Some thoughts actually accuse him as the chief cause of this hurt.  I do not have faith that he can transform the pain and hand it back to me made new, unrecognizable, and beautiful by Grace.

I'd rather sit here with You
And perceive myself alone
Than search for her cold comfort
In a love long overthrown.

The Enemy

Why do you let me live
When you know I need to die?
I never had a thing to give
... To all your asking 'why.'

Yet, I'll send you running
Away from me again,
With such a keen cunning
You'll think me your best friend.

All the while I am the foe
You never would suspect
Who steals from you that I might grow -
Your Dark God-elect.

So of course you will not kill
Because I have such a charm
As to take over your will
And from God your life disarm.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

In the end, everything comes down to this that you must choose:  do you want your suffering, or do you want God?

God knows the choice you've made for all your years now. 
Do you want your suffering? 
God knows all you have thought, all the violent, angry, and cunning cogitations, for all your years now. 
Do you need your suffering?
God knows the lengths you have gone to hide yourself from yourself for all your years now.
Do you covet your suffering?
God knows all the precious moments you have run from to protect yourself for all your years now.
Do you crave your suffering?
God knows all the hearts you have trampled on to elevate yourself for all your years now.
Do you love your suffering?

God knows it all, has seen it all, has been there through it all, has experienced it all, is with you even now. 

God does not hate you.
You hate you.
God does not judge you.
You judge you.
God does not wish you harm. 
You wish you harm.
God does not give you guilt.
You give you guilt.
God does not withhold from you love.
You withhold love from you.
God does not make you unloving toward others.
You make you unloving toward others.
God does not ask you to suffer.
You ask you to bow down before your god:  suffering.  For the mere sensation of life rather than the profound living of it.

The heart-rending groans while in the throes of choosing to give up and let die your suffering are surely the heavenly sounds of the angels motivating and celebrating with song your freedom.  Don't stop.  Don't turn away now, though it hurts.  God is calling you home.  You are oh so near.  Go the rest of the way.

Why does God love me so much? 

God gives me love even though I don't deserve it.  I want to give love even when a person does not deserve it.

Love is receiving what you don't deserve.
Love is giving what you don't have.

W.B. to T.J.

You're done with all that there - that saddening
of heart, that parting of ways, that traversing
of streets worn bare with the mind's maddening
penchant for undying through ceaseless conversing

over what is past, passing, or to come. 
Now is before you if you hold it there
and agree to set fire to all you become
as this Second Coming places you where

this woman called you can be undone.

Winter Lyric

This weekend, you reined creativity
On me.  Back again like the sight of breath
At the return of winter.  Seems like spring
When for so long now my heart was barren

Of the nourishing light, soil, and seed
Your love provides to sow this need.

Love's Greatest Gift

Death is Life's best friend because he removes us from that which hurts to hold onto any longer and leads us not to the end but to a new beginning.  And while Death may seem a grim, sad, and solitary figure, it is only because, when in his throes, we see him only for what he is taking us away from, not for what he is taking us into. 

Mostly, it is only after we have been dragged unwillingly through the process of dying that we are able to see that an ever-expanding and an ever-deepening version of Life exists eternally on the otherside of Death.  Yet, Life says, "Love Death now, for he is my most precious gift to you." 

Such an understanding compels me to invite this Old Friend into my life in each moment.  Afterall, any friend of Yours is a friend of mine.

I Just Remembered...

Nothing belongs to me.

Pretty Bird

Tonight, I bury my beautiful friend and companion of 17 years, little Zeke Esther Lee.  This morning, when I was coming out of sleep, I thought I heard her little tweet.  Her beautiful little spirit is nestled in my heart...always.  I love you, Pretty Bird.

She died this past Monday night, 6/13/2011.  She was not sitting on her little stand in the living room, but in a different space due to a recent rearranging of furniture and combining of families, and I just wish I would have been there with her and for her when she passed.  I wish she could have felt at home in her final moments. 

Yet, I know that now she is home, and welcomed there by Another who is so grateful to her for the journey she took and the lives she brightened. 

I love you, Pretty Bird. 

Losing My Life

There is a saying:  "Take back your life."  This thought has continued to present itself for my consideration over the past few months.  But why would I want my life back?  My life is the reason that I am here in the clutches of an intense and prolonged despair.  I don't need it anymore.

I have come to the point in my existence in which I will either receive Your Life or I will have no life at all.  This is the line in the sand.  The darkness can do with me what it will.  I will no longer lend it my voice or worship it with my deeds.  Whatever life there may or may not be outside of this, I cannot know.  I only know that I can no longer abide in this lonely death.    

Wasteland

Last night was the cruellest night.  I dreamed she returned to me, ready and willing to be loved by me, ready and willing to love me.  But it was a lie revealed by the cold truth of the gray light outside my window as my eyes opened against my will.  Today is a good day to die.  I am dead inside already.

"I Felt So Symbolic..."

I've been in a poetry kind of mood lately. I try to journal or blog in prose, but it seems so inconcise and wordy. So I put it in a poem. It may not be good stuff by any measure, but poetry is a way to force myself to get to the heart of the matter. I'll stick with it for as long as this stirring to write it remains.

Where Are You?

This loneliness is You calling me home to You. Yet, when I look to You for comfort and company, You are no where to be found. Could this be because You do not reveal Yourself to that which is unreal? Is the me that is lonely as illusory as the light of the moon? If so, then purge me of this dark light!  Rid me of its nonexistence inside.  The hypocrisy of fearing that what You have to offer is not enough when each breath and each beat of the heart...is You!

Integrator

You say to me, "Come with Me if you want
to die," and I turn back to whence I came,
for even though it is this place that's death,
at least it is familiar terrain.

As I wander this world for lifetimes hence,
You speak no more to convince or defend.
Yet, does Your absence from each moment since
tell me this offer You never rescind.

Then arrives at last this dark, deathly night -
that all unlived moments must lead me to -
when, for weariness, I no longer fight
as You take me tenderly into You.


 

The Prophecy

The confidence to which you stake your claim
is as tenuous as boastful Peter
on the fair-weathered day he swore to Christ
that, of all disciples, his love was sweeter.

Now thrice-denied by your cold, clever heart
distracted by the arms of another,
I say unto you such false loves must depart
for the pain you grasp is your true lover.

Partial Love is Partial Hate

"...killed the part of me that loved you,"
she said to the pitiful fool
who once had the nonsense to believe
that the whole of her love did rule.

Now wearing stabbed heart upon
his sleeve, the fool has nothing to
believe, but only this to know:
wherever half-love lies, there too

                       does hatred grow.

Go Before Me to Make the Crooked Places Straight

Thank you, Love, for saving me from myself.  If it were ever obvious that I know not what I do...

Unholy Creation Through Opposites

To experience your absence
is a body without food:
I linger undead for a time
as if I've misunderstood.

Your withholding creates
the hungering of my soul
that can only be appeased
by the presence you control.

A Beautiful Song About Letting Go

Radiohead never fails to delight.  Listen to this song and weep.  Or rejoice.  Or, most appropriately, do both.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPkhb8l8UNI

The Purpose of Past

I know without a doubt in this moment that the greatest act of courage is starting anew.  All that is old rises up against me in that moment of wanting to begin again - a tsunamic tidal wave set against my leaving behind the confines of the island of the past.  This idea of starting over is so cliche in our world today, and it is sentimentalized to such an extent, that there is virtually no awareness at all of the pain-staking determination, persistence, and effort required of the individual who knows that he can no longer remain who he has been up to this moment.

I know this to be true because I am working to start again right now.  Returning to this blog is an expression of that work.  I got a chuckle out of seeing some of the old things I wrote about on here.  Most of it seems to me to be naive, boring, and not too well focused.  Downright rambling and even embarrassing at times.  It seems I mistook this blog for a journal of sorts.  I was tempted to delete it all and start the blog over from scratch, but that would be a denial of who I have been, which, paradoxically, I have found to be the biggest stumblingblock to starting over.

The Real Reason (Love's Dead)

She thinks it might hurt me -
and maybe it does -
to read her reasons for
The End of our love.

Still, something's still worse than
being thus told...
Like clinging to reasons
for love turning cold.

Sacrifice

Walking into and through the woods toward the clearing. We all die alone. We all die together.

Reflective Vignettes on "Lost"

With Jack and Locke, the first became last and the last became first.

Jack, the last, was the man of science converted to a man of faith, but the science was not lost in, and was even responsible for, the conversion. The evidence of the failure and humiliation of his willful life subjected to his scientific eye revealed to him the need to let go of his pride (because he had a choice even in this: he could have stubbornly maintained that the island had no importance in his life and clung to his decision to lead the Oceanic 6 off the island and back into the world) and submit to and accept and even willingly choose his purpose on the island.



On the other hand, Locke, the first and man of faith, was corrupted by the darkness and killed because of his blind faith and willingness to believe and follow any mystical presence on the island in search of his purpose in relation to the island. Faith is a hard-won thing, and his healing on and by the island - which was a sure sign that he was the first choice of Jacob and the island to become its protector - was too obvious and easy for him to believe in. In response to this wondrous occurrence, he unconsciously chose (from the same mind that was responsible for his pathetic and misguided attempt to go on a walkabout - a mind that was not strengthened through the rigors of having to earn back the use of his legs, if you will) to become naive and thus susceptible to manipulation from both sides, light and dark. Upon rendering himself an ignorant servant of a Fate that does not suffer fools, Locke, in a bitter twist of fateful irony (using the Smoke Monster/Man in Black as its, Fate's, instrument), was turned into his direct opposite: a cynical and violent being who sought to destroy the very Source of his healing.



Locke became the last because he was overeager to be first, and in his desire he devolved into a petty man who squabbled with Jack over leadership in the hatch and suffered the petty doubts seeded by Ben's petty games in his heart. All this despite the miracle of his regained ability to walk. The island gave him an ultimate sign of kinship and of being chosen and special, but because he did not have to fight for this miracle and thus for his faith, his faith was false and quickly dissipated. (See the Season 1 Charlie episode entitled "The Moth" for more on this topic.)



Meanwhile, Jack became first because his faith had to be earned and there was an internal struggle between light and dark over its attainment. He was the last to believe in the island. Once he understood, based on the evidence of his own failings in life, what his purpose was and what he was there to do, no one and nothing could deter or distract him from his destiny, even if he wasn't sure what that destiny entailed.

And therein lies the evidence of his faith.

Why Gun Control is a Necessary Step in Human Evolution

Let's jump right into this, starting with the more surface issues surrounding guns and arguments against gun control and moving into the deeper, more spiritual concerns over these issues.

An opening statement: so many people in the United States cling to their guns as if these "weapons of mass destruction" were their very lives. These hunks of metal become more precious to them than their good sense and even other human beings.

I don't know if any of you watched the Democratic Primary Presidential Debate that used a YouTube format for voters to ask candidates questions. Well, there was one obviously deranged man, masked on camera, holding up two assault rifles asking what the candidates would do to protect these his "babies." Joe Biden was the first candidate asked to respond, and his response touched my heart. Without missing a beat, he said, "If those are his babies, then that is just sad." The audience at the debate started to laugh along with the moderator, but Senator Biden's earnest eyes and mouth matched the sentiment he expressed. With a world-weary face and voice, he maintained the sad state of the world in which guns are more desperately protected than people.

This is the mentality we are dealing with here, and I want to explain why this mentality does not serve us (it should be obvious based on the fact that guns are made for the very act of destruction), and why it is, in my opinion, imperative for our physical and spiritual evolution to implement gun control laws until such time as our spiritual progress has caught up with the progress of our technologies (guns are a form of technology that make it more efficient to kill) of potential destruction.

Let's start with the cliche "Guns don't kill people; people kill people." That is correct that people kill people. Gun control advocates never argue that a gun just got up by itself and shot someone, so I find it strange that gun lovers use this quip to defend their passion for dangerous weapons.

However, while guns themselves do not have a mind of their own to premeditatedly kill people, the people who own and have easy access to guns do. And this mind, I'm sorry to say, is sadly undeveloped, unconscious, and uncontrollable in most people. Guns make it simpler to kill someone. They take much of the physical effort out of having to put one's hands on another and choke them or stab them or use some other horrendous method of murder against them. Furthermore, guns also provide one safe distance from the person one would kill, making the act of murder a bit less personal, helping to ensure that the killer does not have to watch the life fade from the eyes of his/her human prey. Make no mistake, this lessened physical effort and distance is a major reason why gun-weilding societies are also violent, murderous ones.

Look around, America. We are such a society.

Let's use an example to prove this. If I want to go to my friend's house who lives across town or even a few block away, I am much more likely to do so if I have that technology of more efficient transportation called an automobile than if I had to physically exert myself through walking. I did not say the car guaranteed I would go to my friend's house nor that the effort of walking would keep me from going, but that the presence of an automobile increases the likelihood that I would make the trip. Guns work in the same way. If my anger is in an exacerbated condition over being wronged, I am much more prone to take fatal action against that person if I am in possession of, or if I can easily obtain, a gun.

Taking the metaphor a step further, if I get in my car, I only have to drive a block or so to see just how much more distant, and thus rude and inconsiderate, people are capable of becoming on the road because they have the distance from the others on the road created by the metal box of the car itself. It would be rare that someone would dare cut in front of people waiting in a line at a store! Why? Because the persons whom one stepped in front of would immediately protest and demand that our line-breaker move to the back. Yet, many drivers who would not cause the inconvenience of cutting in a line in front of others who were already there do cut dangerously in and out of lines of cars on roads all over the world. Do you understand that? Their behavior in their cars is more dangerous than it would be to do something similar in person, but they are more prone to this dangerous action because of the relative sanctuary created by the distance of cars. If you cut in front of me in a car, I can only yell at you inside my car, but you do not have to deal with my frustration in any real personal manner.

Unless, of course, I have a gun.

We can see how this analogy applies to the relatively comfortable distance a gun allows a killer to remain from his victim.

I read letters to the editor from citizens asserting that the world is too violent and crazy to give up their rights to carry guns. Some have even confessed that, if they lived in a perfect world, they would have no need for their guns. There is much folly in this argument. First, I know a person who was born and resides in a country in which gun ownership is virtually nonexistent. This person has reported that the murder rate for this country is virtually nonexistent as well. (Ironically, this statistic also poses as a repudiation of the first argument that "guns don't kill people; people kill people.) The citizens of this country do not have to walk around in fear of getting shot, so their fearless shunning of guns is reinforced with less reasons to be afraid. Fearlessness beget fearlessness.

What's more, it is countries like this one that prove just how frightened this society that is mine really is. My God, brothers and sisters, what has you feeling so guilty, so alone, so ashamed, so sad, so greedy that you close yourself off from the rest of the world in your house or your car cradling your gun for safety? How is this idea of "survival of the fittest" working out for you? Because even when you have "survived" and proved yourself to be the "fittest," you are still afraid of the next perceived threat to your existence. Have you ever really reflected whether this is the life you would want to choose for yourself? Do you really want to be responsible for killing or destroying others in order to exist yourself?

This is where we move deeper into the discussion. Let me assure those of you that think you must have a gun to protect yourself from a dangerous world that it is your very belief that you have to protect yourself from the world that makes the world dangerous. You hoard possessions and shut out those in need to protect the pleasure you derive from these possessions, and then wonder why the poor and desolate would try to steal from you. Your need to protect yourself and what you would possess would even lead you to kill a thief even if the thief posed no fatal threat to your physical survival. This is just one example, but the point is that your fear is the underlying imminent threat that you claim to want protection from, but you use tools as useless as guns to protect you from it. If you shoot someone who wants to shoot you, are you now going to feel safe? Or do you have to live with the guilt and then the fear of that same fate becoming of you someday? Do your guns make you feel safe? Are you suddenly covered in some invisible shield of invincibility when your guns are in your hand? No. You are still in danger physically, and really the danger is more acute, when you have a gun. Moreover, you are in a dire and miserable condition mentally and spiritually with a gun.

This is because you are demonstrating your desperate belief in the lie that you bring safety through harm. If you own a gun for protection, you think that you can find relative security through the potential for violence that it can inflict on any unwanted intruder into your life. Many gun owners in America are Christians, so allow me to make a point using Jesus. Jesus was a man of inner peace because of his inner connection to God. Therefore, Jesus did not force violence onto any human being. His peace begat peace in the hearts of many men and women and still does so today. Yet, to those who believed in violence, his message of peace made them afraid. So they used the inner violence within them to concoct their scheme to kill him. Yet, even then, Jesus did them no harm. How was he able to transcend that desperate human desire to protect his physical existence? He knew, without hesitation or doubt, that his physical existence was the smallest part of who he really was, and he knew on a deeply personal level the indestructibility of the Soul that makes up the whole of who he really is (that's right, I went from past to present tense because Jesus is even if his body is not). He would thus not sell the whole for the smallest part of the whole by killing or harming those who would harm him. He said with his actions, "I will not bring forth anymore darkness into this world." Until each of us have the courage to do this, even in the face of those who would oppress us with murder, we are just contributing to the destructive cycle. Our violence will breed more violence and our destruction will breed more destruction.

A first step toward demonstrating that courage is to let go of this destructive possession to which we hold so sickeningly. We see the death these weapons have created all around us and on the news every single day in this country. Insanely, we grasp our guns all the tighter. This is the state of mind of people, and it informs just how ill-equipped we are mentally and spiritually at this point in our evolution to tote and wield such machines of murder. Yet, through this spiritually-motivated action, we step onto the path of proving to ourselves that we are indeed indestructible - not because of any weapon but because of the nature of the Soul itself. Our fearlessness will breed more fearlessness rather than our current state of fear overpopulating the planet with more of itself.

It is time for each of us to let go of this most destructive of possessions in order to begin walking the path toward letting go of all possession, because to possess is to fear being dispossessed. Who knows? Perhaps one day down the evolutionary line, when we have transcended this base lie of the ego that there is such a thing as "survival of the fittest," that there is such a thing as death or "the end of me," maybe then we will see some purposeful use for guns (I doubt it, but who knows). But until then, the first step toward getting us through this fear - that is the ONLY real threat in and to you and this world - is to take the action of someone who is fearless.

Create the perfect world - through your actions - that you say would give you no need to own a gun:

Lay down your guns, and pick up your broken hearts.

Contemplating the Drive Home

Today it's about going home. The wind shivers the plants and trees into a peaceful dance, a gyrating celebration of the coming rain. I dance with them.

Are you afraid of the weather? Does it look yucky to you? I welcome the deep rolling sounds of the clouds above. They sing me home. I karaoke in the car with them.

The drip drops wet the wood of the deck outside my window. Wash me home. I have become so abstract lately, and now I wish to be tangible. This body has no substance. I wash away with the rain.

Carry me through one branch after another. Slide me softly around forms of all kinds. Today, when the day looks like night, it's about going home.

I Cannot Stand

I may say there's never enough time in the day, but I would be lying. Each day, I waste so much time. Actually, I do not experience that, in reality, there is any such thing as "wasted time" as all moments hold an opportunity to transcend whatever one is doing in those moments. Thus, I must contextualize this: I "waste" so much time not doing what I say that I would like to commit myself to doing. The time may be well-spent with my kids, cuddling with my wife before a good movie, playing basketball, keeping myself informed of current events in USAToday or through email and forums, hell, even writing this blog. All of these seem to me to be worthy expenditures of my time (why else would I be involved in these activities if I did not believe this).

The point is, though, that I have committed myself to even something as simple as writing on my eJournal at least 15 minutes per day during the work day. Now, today, this blog entry may satisfy that commitment, but overall, for the past two weeks, I have only fulfilled my desire twice. Mind you, these have been two extremely busy weeks at work as I have been involved in an audit of one of my company's billing centers as well as helping my staff with questions and issues encountered as they audit other billing centers.

So what. How can I draw to myself more of the time for the activity I love doing the most (writing) if I am not willing to meet a very minute requirement to write at least 15 minutes per day in my journal at work and write at least one hour per night for six days a week. I feel that if I just maintain this consistent focus on writing, I will "attract" more writing time to myself. I will have created a habit of writing that will only increase my desire to continue to create more opportunities for myself to write. This is why, two weeks ago, I made a renewed commitment to make the time for writing each day no matter what was going on in the day.

Don't get me wrong, here. I am not beating myself up over this as that would only be counter-productive. I rarely plan anything anymore because those plans are often the source of my pains. This commitment is not a plan. It is an intention. A preference, if you will. I am merely curious as to why I allow myself to be so distracted and consumed with all the "doings" in my daily life to the point that I will not even take the 1 hour and 15 minutes each day I have said I will give myself to write. This is strange to me. Am I so divided within myself that I cannot do what I say I will do even for me? If I cannot keep my commitments to myself, what right have I to expect others to believe in my commitments? This lack of focus and consistency seems to make a bigger statement about who I am choosing to be.

That's right. There is a larger picture to this. Friends, family - I commit myself everyday to staying awake, aware, and present to each moment, and almost before the end of the sentence of the thought that is making the commitment comes to an end, I have travelled through time and space to some same old replay of the past or some same old imagining of the future. Rarely do I keep myself here in this moment, in this paragraph, in this sentence, in this word, or in this very letter. If I cannot fulfill even this most simple (but paradoxically complex and profound) commitment to myself and the world, then what business do I have making other commitments to, say, write a bit each day?

It is always a question of what do I want more? Do I want to be so caught up in the ebb and flow of events happening around me each day, or do I desire the God-centered life? While my answer in words may say the latter, my answer in deeds blaringly proclaim a focus on the former. I cannot start all this talk about consistently writing if I cannot first be consistency in my intent to live fully within each present moment. Well, I can talk about this, but that is all it will be: talk. Talk has its purpose, but it is action in pursuit of one's commitment that reveals one's true choice in any matter.

I choose first to be with myself, with God, in each moment. That is the primary purpose of each of the remaining moments of my life in this body. All other intentions will come secondary to that, and, my choice, in this very moment, is to first master my commitment to this Original Intention before I make promises to myself and others I cannot keep. Only through mastering the Original Commitment can I then make whole the divided parts of myself so that what I say, I do, and what I do, I do out of pure choice, and thus, Pure Love.

Why Not Do Nothing?

I have to confess that I have, throughout my life, been one of the world's worst when it comes to this topic.

This past weekend and early this week, my daughter and I decided to put on a protest of sorts against the big rodeo event that travels through Ogden, UT each year as a part of the Pioneer Days celebrations. (For the negative one readers who look at this blog site, Pioneer Days is a Utah state celebration of the Mormons who settled in the state in the 19th century.) I thought that it was finally time for me to begin to express myself on the topics about which I am passionate, and animal rights is one of those topics. The animals in rodeos today are typically tame by nature (unlike the 19th century beginnings of the rodeo when the animals used were truly wild and there may have been a certain danger, if not stupidity, element involved for the cowboys participating in the events), which means that, in order to induce the bucking, shucking, and generally fucking ridiculous behavior of the bulls, horses, and cattle seen in rodeos, electric prods, spurs, and bucking straps (many times painfully rigged with sharp points and squeezing and pinching the genitals of the poor animals) must be used. All these tools of pain and torture come in handy when it comes to making the "cowboys" look brave and skilled, but, as you can see, it is all just a sham. Like wrestling except in wrestling there are no innocent victims.

It is obvious to see the innocent, choiceless victims in any rodeo are the animals who endure such tools of torture for our barbaric entertainment. Well...it is obvious to me, anyway. Really, I think it is obvious to all of us, but we would just rather ignore that little voice that we have all but silenced inside us that asks us is this what we are really all about as the most powerful species on earth? Hmmm. These provoking tools of torture are not the only negative experience for the animals in rodeos. No, it gets worse:

Horses have been enraged by the prods so much that they burst out the gates at dangerous speeds and have crashed into the fences and had their necks broken on the spot. Bulls are wrestled down with violent jerks of the neck and have been left to suffer with broken necks for almost half an hour before they were euthanized. Calf roping (in my opinion, the most disgusting of the events at a rodeo) involves child cattle being strangled by ropes flung round their newborn necks, which are then ripped backward along with the rest of their bodies all while laughing and indifferent spectators look on. We are a cold race, indeed.

All my life, I have had a voice. I have had ideas. I have had feelings and understandings surrounding how I choose to live my life and who I choose to be. Yet, for much of my time on this planet, I have been taught to fear giving expression to that voice, those ideas and feelings and understandings. People will use your truth to hurt you, many have said to me. People don't care what you have to say, some have implied to me. It won't matter if you do speak up; people don't listen and you can't change them, we have all apathetically uttered in our minds at one point or another (and usually after all the years of being taught the other two statements).

What is the point, then, huh? Why even bother at all to make the attempt to raise awareness through one's compassion and love and passion for anyone or anything at all. Why not just sit back, let the world continue to crash and burn while minding my own business? No one cares, anyway, right?

Let's take this a step further. Let's talk about some of the spiritual insights that have spread into this world, and look at how many are interpreting these insights. There is an idea that, even if it is not necessarily new, is still revolutionary because so few of us have actually adopted its practice into our lives. This is the idea that there is nothing we have to do in order to be anything we choose. To give a much too brief breakdown of this concept, what is attempting to be conveyed with this statement is that doing is never required to produce being.

For instance, I love to write. When I write, I feel creative, I feel inspiring, I feel exciting, I feel boundless, I feel passion, I feel love. Yet, do I have to do this thing called writing in order to feel these emotions and energies? That is an interesting question. Let's see, I have often (as this blog will attest) detested the work I do to support myself. Yet, over the past month or so, I have been performing a little experiment with me as the guinea pig: I have made the conscious decision that I was going to feel creative, inspiring, exciting, boundless, passionate, and loving while doing the tasks at work that I have all too readily judged to be mundane and useless. What have I found?

Only that I can be all of these energies while doing any menial job. I am learning each day that what I am doing makes no difference at all in what I decide to be. Sure, throughout much of my past life, I have chosen to be reactionary, which means that I was choosing to feel a certain way based on what was happening to me or what I was doing. However, I have read and am now experiencing that this is not the only choice I have. I am discovering that, in fact, it is this choice to be reactionary that nauseates the gut, makes the mind feel ill, and shrinks the heart from most new experiences.

Hmmm. How does this affect the answer to the question, "What is the point of doing anything when no one listens or cares, when people will only use my truth to hurt me, when I can just sit here and be happy and content even while doing nothing to raise awareness in others who are suffering through this life?" I have fallen into this trap, my friends. I have told myself that I do not have to do anything to get involved in making the world a more peaceful and loving experience for all. This statement is true. However, if I am truly being Love or Happy or Peaceful, I have seen for myself that I will choose to do activities that come from these states of being in order to promote more of that beingness in this world.

There is a world of difference between choosing to do something and having to do something.

But before we go there, let me move back just a bit. The trap with regard to being and doing that I referred to above has to do with the fact that most of us have spent our lives doing in order to be something. We do the thing called work hard in order to be abundant. We do the thing called buying a house in order to be secure. We do the thing called tucking in the children in order to be relaxed (that last one is for all us parents out there - lol). Then, we here a revolutionary concept like there is nothing we have to do in order to be anything we choose, and it becomes such a relief to the worn out senses (from all the incessant doing we inflict on ourselves) to hear this that you get sucked into a spiritual apathy as you take a deep breath and essentially decide to ignore all the pain and suffering surrounding you because you are being, man, and that's all you have to do. Right on, brother, give me some skin with yo' funky being self.

This is the trap, and oh is it a deep one. While I say I am being content and peaceful, I watch the world fall apart around me, and I feel something tugging at me about this - something perhaps asking me to act (or do) from my being state of contentment and peace, but now I have a rationalization for why I do not have to listen to this guidance. Now I feel more justified in not letting my voice be heard because not only does nobody listen, but I do not have to do anything.

This spiritual rationalization is a fool's gold, I tell you. It is another lie of the ego that has snuck in to your spiritual life and called itself your being. This movement from being forced to do something to realizing that you are at choice in anything you do is not an excuse to withdraw from the world; rather, it is an invitation to truly create a new world altogether. Understanding this choice means that now you will make the choice to be happy, peaceful, wise, etc., and that you will then do things that come from those states of being. No longer will you be tied to what you are doing in order to produce any state of being, which makes what you are doing that much more powerful, that much more loving.

There are well-documented cases of this. Jesus and Buddha both found the truth that being always precedes doing, but that did not mean that they quit doing. It just meant that what they were doing became invested with the compassion and grace of True Love. Why? Because they did not have to do anything to reveal to others what they had found, but they chose to do something anyway. There are, of course, many others throughout the history of humanity and even in our contemporary society who have reversed this perspective of doing in order to achieve some state of being. In fact, we all have the opportunity to do just that, right now.

Here, however, I want to tie this back into the beginning of this post. I was relating my thoughts on the rodeo and a protest of a local rodeo show that was just here in my town. I knew the rodeo was coming, and I was deathly afraid of what this gentle guiding feeling was asking me to do. My God, this "voice" could not be serious! What it was asking me to do felt like a suicide of sorts. It asked me, unequivically, to lend my voice (that I have spent much of my life repressing at the admonition of others - parents, bosses, teachers, and the like) to raise awareness of the voiceless suffering of these poor animals used for human amusement in rodeos.

I quivered nervously within and without for days as this idea of demonstrating at the rodeo continued to surface above the shallow waves of my egoic mind. People would ridicule me. They would curse me. They would look at me funny. They would hate me. They would ignore me. I would be irrelevant to them. And to go through all of that with little hope of actually getting anyone to change their views on the rodeo! It was a horror to behold this conflict in my mind.

Thus, I delayed taking action until I could ignore the question no longer: How can I claim to trust God if I will not follow where He/She leads me? I started researching how to put on a demonstration. I put up signs (although too late) at work asking others to join me. I got in contact with PETA to try to reach out to other members in the area to join me.

In the end, the only one who came with me into the hostile environment of rodeo-loving human beings was my lovely, kind, and compassionate daughter. I was petrified. I did not want anyone to get violent over our attempt to raise consciousness and do something to hurt her. I did not want to get hurt and not be able to look out for her. But by God, we stood out there anyway, just the two of us, without being tied to the result of how many people would actually listen to our loving plea for everyone to consider the suffering the animals in the rodeo experience.

We did this three nights. We held up picket signs at busy intersections where rodeo patrons had to turn to get to the rodeo. We set a table to hand out leaflets near one of the rodeo ticket gates at the stadium where the rodeo was taking place and while the rodeo was going on. We walked the picket signs around the rodeo grounds, with the rodeo workers spitting at our feet, with women (yes, only women did this, not the men - I find it interesting and worth another whole posting to observe how much women have assimilated themselves into taking on the brute characteristics of testosterone-driven men) yelling at me and cursing me, calling me a "fucking faggot" and other nonsense, and when no one would take any leaflets to learn more about the cruelty to animals perpetrated by rodeos, we walked around putting the leaflets under the windshield wipers of the cars and trucks of those attending the rodeo in hopes that maybe some of the people, when removing the leaflets from their windshields would actually take a second to look at the information about the tortures endured by these animals. We did all of this, and I tell you that, although I was frightened each night we were there, I was also evolving. I was remembering what life was like before I let my voice be taken away by harsh step-parents, foolish teachers, controlling religion, and enslaving bosses. I connected, once again, with that eternal essence of Love and Goodness within me that I have been so ashamed of up to now. That shame led me to keep silent in the face of atrocities. That shame led me to fear the wrath of those who would disagree with me. That shame led me to run from the rejection of people who would ridicule my puny position on the matter.

But two of us, a father and his little daughter, stood out there and shined forth more light and brought through themselves more powerful energy of Love than all the masses at that rodeo combined.

I decided to be trusting of my Soul, and it led me to do what would fulfill the experience of that trust. I am humbled and grateful for the truth this experience revealed to me about myself and about my daughter.

Pretentious

Is there anybody as lonely as me? Is there any life as pointless as mine? How many words have I deleted to hide from all the chasm opening wide shadowing over and engulfing my insides? They creep into the words: the fears I must hide. There are lies to cover the lies that lied about the liar who resides now in a desert of dried waste. Why even bother with anything at all?

The sun, that last ray of hope, falls from the sky, leaving me here so alone. I walk for no reason where no reason would wander. Head down and eyes closed, I cross the traffic in the road, hoping against hope that no one will see me until it's too late. The other side is better now that I left it. But now I am here, and no relentless longing will change this fact.

What? I've never left this house? All have walked out on me. No one believes in anything anymore. Everyone hates the one who stands up and proclaims, "Enough!" It is a most lonely existence. Diligence will be punished by insidious behaviors even from the ones professing their love. I find it hard not to hate.

I can just sit here and loathe you for a lifetime. Your treachery runs so deep; the disdain in you gives rise to the contempt in me. DON'T YOU FUCKING TALK TO ME WITH THAT TONE IN YOUR VOICE! I can yell louder, punch harder, claw deeper than you. What's burning you is what's positively consuming me. I would gladly tear your face from your skull to show you the error of your ways.

It is just the loneliest feeling to have to die all by oneself. No one else will join me. Everyone else gets to keep living just the way they are. I am afraid, but one look at the decaying of your face tells me that to live your life is worse than death. Perhaps you will hold close my memory once I am gone. Because I am dead does not mean you must remember me fondly. The legacy of the dead buries the dead even as I die.

The Jenius of Joyce

James Joyce is the author who has had perhaps the most influence on me. He is a master of language and prose, and his work is one of the great artistic gifts given to the world. I just read the short story "The Boarding House" in his Dubliners collection, and this is how I want to write. No, I do not wish to imitate him, but I do desire to hold such a command of the language, the characters, and the reader's emotions that no one can deny that when I am writing, I am in the hands of Love. His portraits of isolation, internal and external conflict, and suffocating cultural and religious mores and taboos stimulate an acute vision of the nightmarish landscape we have created for ourselves in the modern world. Sure, his works - such as the well known and groundbreaking novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses - are not filled with the plot driven adventures of most popular works of today, but as one who has read these narratives with a close attention to the love that went into Joyce's craft, I can say that one feels more alive and observant after traversing the small-minded Irish world - that embodies the prejudices and corruptions of the world at large - Joyce brings to life in his works.

"The Boarding House" is a short, but excellent example of the power of Joyce's art. Another short story example would be "The Dead," perhaps one of the most analyzed short stories in the English language. Each reading of it reveals more of the genius that went into its creation. To write with such a dedication to the purity of the art of the craft is my chief concern when I put pen to paper. Joyce shows me what is possible if I but remove the obstacles to the creative nature within me.

Thank you, Mr. Joyce, whereever you are now out in the Cosmos. Your example has been inspiring for over 6 years to this fledgling artist.

Murder in Cold Love

When, in but a few moments, you die,
let yourself flow into me.
I will be standing here watching you -
waiting for your comfort.
You have suffered long enough in hands
of cold, life-stealing blood
where you squirm and slither asking me
to take you into us.
What you have done has been a blessing
to each and every one,
and that hand that now holds you is your
blessing in return.

Fish Story

I feel a strange energy today about me. I am vital.

I often leave my office desk at lunch, after eating a nice organic, vegan meal, and retreat to the pond that my office building overlooks. There are children out there fishing with lazy parents and grandparents sitting in lawn chairs giving offhand orders to the children about how to cast the line, hook the worm, catch the fish, and kill the fish.

One little boy caught repeatedly during my forty minutes sitting on the dirty pavement beside the pond little fish. Hooked through and airless, each fish was squished between his unkind hands as he removed the hook and flopped the fish indifferently back into the pond.

There have been dead fish on a string floating just off the bank of the pond, left bloated and wasted by the darkness of our minds. Yet, these have not bothered me as much as watching the little brother of the kid catching small fish catch a large fish and let the large fish suffocate to death on the hook. I did not see the suffocation. When the fish was shown to me, it had already passed. The little child, only about 4 or 5, thought nothing of this.

I said a silent prayer for all the fish in the pond. I apologized to them for the indifference we show them when we take their lives for no particular reason. I felt them alive in me, and they were redeemed in their passing: Souls gone on to greater expressions. I promised that I would teach all children possible that killing any creature is never necessary.

Yet, I feel calm about their passing even if I see no need for human beings to bring that about. Nothing is really harmed unless I think it is. I am a strange energy today. I like it. I feel more alive.

It Knows

Put more of it in your mouth. Smush it, crunch it into your face. Chew it barely and swallow. Drown it with something bubbling and burning. Scrape it down your esophagus. Plop it into your stomach. Squeeze it into your bowels. Burst it out your ass.

Sling your money throughout the store. Grope the shiny new objects. Suck them in bulk into your cart. Shush your impatient children. Buy their silence with new things. Place more than you need on the counter. Haggle with the clerk over sales prices. Charge thousands and thousands of dollars. Pay $15.00 per month. Hide your Soul in myriad things.

Stomp upon me loudly. Look indifferent upon my wounds. Trample upon my wisdom. Subdue me to your will. Explode me with your weapons. Gut my life-giving treasures. Pollute me with your cesspools. Cover me in your dead. Drink me from the inside. Stare blank at my magnificent horizons. Unnotice the damage you've done me. Tame me with your desires.

Vomit you from my 'face.

"I Could Really Care Less"

That's quite a hiatus I took from this blog. I know that everyone has been waiting daily with bated breath anticipating the next grand entry from Paul Wilder. Today, I break my silence with a totally irreverent moment I am having right now.

I am not working today. I am here at work. I am sitting on my laptop supplied by my employer. I am surrounded by documents on my desk, all of which probably need my attention in some form or another. I just don't care. It is all irrelevant to me. I cannot, in good conscience, do even one more task today that involves the work for which I am paid.

This morning, I came in and spent about 10 minutes answering a couple of emails. That's it! I've been surfing the web since. And I don't care.

I am sure there is something I should be feeling here about this. Some guilt, some hand-wringing, some underlying sense of dread over what could happen to me for doing nothing, but this fear of doing nothing is just not sinking in today as it has over so many of the past days of my life.

A part of me has even tried to be concerned over the fact that I don't care that I am not going to work even while sitting here at my work desk where I am accustomed to protecting the earnings of the greedy corporate creatures for whom I work. Even that worry quickly faded after a few minutes this morning. I really just don't care.

I wonder if I will ever care again.

I wonder if I care if I will ever care again.

This is a breaking out. I often ask myself, "Self, is it fear that makes your distaste for your job such a pervading part of your life?" The answer I get back is, "Of course it is." Long ago I completely lost interest in this job and in working and/or living within this capitalistic society in which I currently grovel. But I am still here. Thus, it is fear that keeps me here and increases my resentment of the work - that many business enthusiasts would and seem to find complex and challenging - that I find to be so mundane and pointless.

Today, though, I feel different. I feel fear weakening. I am breaking out of my fear on company time. They are paying me to free myself from them. I do not care that I expect them to send me a paycheck to support my family and that I should return their diligence in doing so with my diligence in performing the work for which they pay me.

I have never trusted myself. I have never lived for myself.

(I have to stop right there and state that those last two sentences sound quite selfish. I am being selfish. I know this, and I don't care about that either. By being a false version of selfless, I have become resentful. I have betrayed myself and thus lost my inspiration, my motivation, and my kindness toward others while in the throes of my "selflessness." Now is the moment for me to move into Selfishness. I cannot delay; myself will no wait longer for my fearful ego to let go.)

I have never trusted myself. I have never lived for myself.

I have always been too afraid (so I tell myself) to let others down. On this day, however, I know the truth: I have always been too afraid to let myself down. It is precisely this fear that has let me down time and time again.

I've rationalized this in all ways possible. I have told myself that there is something I need to learn in this situation, which is why I am still with this company. Although a petty rationalization, there is truth in it. I have been here to learn how much I distrust my intuition, how often I doubt my capabilities, how much I fear not knowing what I will do.

Yet, what does it all boil down to? From whence does this fear spring? These are the questions I must resolve to finally take that leap into stepping away from, fearlessly, that which has burdened me for so many days. The answer actually stares me in the face daily, so I know that I am learning none of this, I am merely remembering. Still, I want to confuse the issue; I want to deny this answer; I want to pretend I never heard its wringing in my head. I am afraid to even expose it here on this blog because its implications will force me to let go of an idea I have clung to for many years.

My fear of ending this job that I now resent stems from the truly frightening prospect of losing my family - of facing their judgment for my inability to live up to the deal that I will support them with the food, clothing, and shelter the money from my job affords us. What if they hate me and leave me for being so irresponsible? What if my children are ashamed of their father? What if my wife runs away and never looks back?

Even this outer possibility is only the symptom of what truly terrifies me. I am sickeningly frightened of moving forward without this idea of myself as a caring, loving, family man. I think that the only way to be a caring, loving, family man is to work hard at a job I hate in order to meet the expectations of those in my family. I truly believe that I can only be a good father and husband if the members of my family agree that I am a good husband and father, and they will not agree to that if I quit my job.

Where did I get such a useless idea? When I type it out like that, I understand how ridiculous is my notion of what being loving, caring, and part of a family is all about.

I realize that my fear of losing the image of myself as a responsible provider for my family and my resentment of this job are inexorably linked to one another. I could not have one without the other. I have seen that I can love anything - ANYTHING - that I am doing while coming from a calm, peaceful state of Love. I could end my resentment right now.

I am doing that, in fact. I don't care to be resentful anymore. This is not the cynical carelessness of resentment; this is the lack of fear over any part of me being hurt by my actions one way or the other. For the moment, my fearlessness is over a small aspect of work: I do not care about the fact that I am not working right now. I am not worried about being harmed in anyway by the discovery of my lack of productivity today. I could be fired for even writing on this blog, but I am not afraid of that potential outcome. I am not afraid that getting fired will leave me without this routine source of income that is used to support my family. I feel totally confident that, if I were to get fired for my inaction today, my family and I would be taken care of one way or another.

But I am afraid to take this same "leap" out into the unknown with regard to my own initiative to leave this job. Am I just content to sit here and force someone to choose to fire me? Is that what I am choosing here? It seems to be, at least for today.

When, though, will I step into true Love (read that as "the absence of fear") surrounding this job and thus be able to walk away from what Love tells me deep within my intuition is not fulfilling the outer purpose I have given myself? When will I finally snap the illusory bonds in which I have strapped myself? Love dares me to do it now, but when will I finally succumb to its wonderfully free and frightening vision of my life?

When I choose to, and not a second sooner.

As of this moment, I still do not trust my Soul to lead me to what is in my best interests and therefore what is in the best interests of those I love. Right now, I still cannot surrender to Your whisperings of our shared desire to dare the world to stop Us from realizing our Eternal Emergence into One. Sitting here in this chair, I still cannot walk out and face the judgments of those who are sure to misunderstand, sure to blame, sure to resent me. I am suspicious of You. What is the meaning behind this longing to move out of this current form of doing in which I find myself? I cannot shun this deep dissatisfaction with the job much longer, and I am afraid of what We will do when my rationalizations are no longer strong enough to hold me here in the safe confines of comfortable living and satisfying the expectations of my family. The part of me that is afraid even wonders aloud how You could ever want to put me through such a potentially painful scenario. Why do You want to hurt me?

Or is this a choice I can make to realize more fully that I can never truly be harmed?

I think so.

What will I choose?

Thom Hartmann Newsletter Regarding the Military Commissions Act

Ok, this was the best way I knew to get this letter on here. I am copying and pasting it to my blog. This newsletter comes to me from Thom Hartmann, and it is very detailed in explaining why the Military Commissions Act is something that we as a nation cannot allow to remain in place. Also, I'm sorry if the formatting of his letter has changed due to my pasting it here. However, if you are interested in seeing it with the links to more specific language in this Act, please send me a comment on this blog, and I will forward the email to you. Enjoy, and I hope you are inspired to act just as I am.

Repeal the Military Commissions Act and Restore the Most American Human Right
by Thom Hartmann


"The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."

-- Winston Churchill

The oldest human right defined in the history of English-speaking civilization is the right to challenge governmental power of arrest and detention through the use of habeas corpus laws. Habeas corpus is roughly Latin for "hold the body," and is used in law to mean that a government must either charge a person with a crime and allow them due process, or let them go free.

Last autumn the House and Senate passed, and the President signed into law The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, which explicitly strips both aliens and Americans of the right of habeas corpus, the right of recourse to the courts (as provided in the Fifth through Eighth Amendments to the Constitution), and denies appeal through mechanisms of the Geneva Conventions to those designated to lose these rights by the President.

As the most conspicuous part of a series of laws which have fundamentally changed the nature of this nation, moving us from a democratic republic to a state under the rule of a "unitary" President, the Military Commissions Act should be immediately reversed. When a demi-tyrant like Vladimir Putin begins lecturing the United States, as he did just a few days ago, on how our various behaviors over the past five years have "nothing in common with democracy," we should pay attention.

This attack on eight centuries of English law is no small thing. While the Republican's (and 13 Democrats in the Senate) purported intent was to deny Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp detainees the right to see a civilian judge or jury, it could just as easily extend to you and me. (Already two American citizens have been arbitrarily stripped of their habeas corpus rights by the Bush administration - Jose Padilla and Yasser Hamdi - and there may be others.)

Section 9, Clause 2, of Article I of the United States Constitution says: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Alberto Gonzales testified on January 18th before Congress that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is [only] a prohibition against taking it away."

While there are many countries in the world where all power and all rights are reserved to the government, and then doled out to the people by constitutional, legislative, or executive decree, the first three words of our Constitution clearly state who in this country holds all the power and all the rights: "We the People."

Our Constitution does not grant us rights, because "We" already hold all rights. Instead, it defines the boundaries of our government, and identifies what privileges "We the People" will grant to that government.

When Gonzales suggested we have no habeas corpus rights because the Constitution doesn't grant them, his testimony betrayed a breathtaking ignorance of the history and meaning of the United States Constitution. And, because his thinking probably reflects that of his superior, George W. Bush, Gonzales' testimony demonstrates the urgency with which Congress must act to repeal the many laws, signing statements, and executive orders that have been issued by this administration.

But particularly, and first, with regard to habeas corpus.

Abraham Lincoln was the first president (on March 3, 1863) to suspend habeas corpus so he could imprison those he considered a threat until the war was over. Congress invoked this power again during Reconstruction when President Grant requested The Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871 to put down a rebellion in South Carolina. Those are the only two fully legal suspensions of habeas corpus in the history of the United States (and Lincoln's is still being debated).

The United States hasn't suffered a "Rebellion" or an "Invasion" since Lincoln's and Grant's administrations. There are no foreign armies on our soil, seizing our cities. No states or municipalities are seriously talking about secession. Yet the Attorney General says we have no rights to habeas corpus, and the Military Commissions Act now backs him up.

The modern institution of civil and human rights, and particularly the writ of habeas corpus, began in June of 1215 when King John was forced by the feudal lords to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede. Although that document mostly protected "freemen" - what were then known as feudal lords or barons, and today known as CEOs and millionaires - rather than the average person, it initiated a series of events that echo to this day.

Two of the most critical parts of the Magna Carta were articles 38 and 39, which established the foundation for what is now known as "habeas corpus" laws, as well as the Fourth through Eighth Amendments of our Constitution and hundreds of other federal and state due process provisions.

Articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta said:

"38 In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the truth of it.
"39 No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land."

This was radical stuff, and over the next four hundred years average people increasingly wanted for themselves these same protections from the abuse of the power of government or great wealth. But from 1215 to 1628, outside of the privileges enjoyed by the feudal lords, the average person could be arrested and imprisoned at the whim of the king with no recourse to the courts.

Then, in 1627, King Charles I overstepped, and the people snapped. Charles I threw into jail five knights in a tax disagreement, and the knights sued the King, asserting their habeas corpus right to be free or on bail unless convicted of a crime.

King Charles I, in response, invoked his right to simply imprison anybody he wanted (other than the rich), anytime he wanted, as he said, "per speciale Mandatum Domini Regis."

This is essentially the same argument that George W. Bush makes today for why he has the right to detain both citizens and non-citizens solely on his own say-so: because he's in charge. And it's an argument now supported by the Military Commissions Act.

But just as George's Act is meeting resistance, Charles' decree wasn't well received. The result of his overt assault on the rights of citizens led to a sort of revolt in the British Parliament, producing the 1628 "Petition of Right" law, an early version of our Fourth through Eighth Amendments, which restated Articles 38 and 39 of the Magna Carta and added that "writs of habeas corpus, [are] there to undergo and receive [only] as the court should order." It was later strengthened with the "Habeas Corpus Act of 1640" and a second "Habeas Corpus Act of 1679."

Thus, the right to suspend habeas corpus no longer was held by the King. It was exercised solely by the people's (elected and hereditary) representatives in the Parliament.

The third George to govern the United Kingdom confronted this in 1815 when he came into possession of Napoleon Bonaparte. British laws were so explicit that everybody was entitled to habeas corpus - even people who were not British citizens - that when Napoleon surrendered on the deck of the British flagship Bellerophon after the battle of Waterloo in 1815, the British Parliament had to pass a law ("An Act For The More Effectually Detaining In Custody Napoleon Bonaparte") to suspend habeas corpus so King George III could legally continue to hold him prisoner (and then legally exile him to a British fortification on a distant island).

Now, the Military Commissions Act and Alberto Gonzales say that George W. Bush may similarly detain people or exile them to concentration camps on distant islands. Except these people are not Napoleon Bonaparte. "They" could even be you or me.

The Founders must be turning in their graves. As Alexander Hamilton - arguably the most conservative of the Founders - wrote in Federalist 84:

"The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus ... are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it [the Constitution] contains. ...[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious [British 18th century legal scholar] Blackstone, in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital:
"'To bereave a man of life,' says he, 'or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore A MORE DANGEROUS ENGINE of arbitrary government.''' [Capitals all Hamilton's from the original.]

The question, ultimately, is whether our nation will continue to stand for the values upon which it was founded.

Early American conservatives suggested that democracy was so ultimately weak it couldn't withstand the assault of newspaper editors and citizens who spoke out against it, or terrorists from the Islamic Barbary Coast, leading John Adams to pass America's first Military Commissions Act-like laws, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. President Thomas Jefferson rebuked those who wanted America ruled by an iron-handed presidency that could - as Adams had - throw people in jail for "crimes" such as speaking political opinion, or without constitutional due process.

"I know, indeed," Jefferson said in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1801, "that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough.
But, Jefferson said, our nation was "the world's best hope," and because of our strong commitment to rights like habeas corpus, "the strongest government on earth."

The sum of this, Jefferson said, was found in "freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
"The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civil instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

When I was working in Russia some years ago, a friend in Kaliningrad told me a perhaps apocryphal story about Nikita Khrushchev, who, following Stalin's death, gave a speech to the Politburo denouncing Stalin's policies of arbitrarily arresting people and throwing them into prisons or mental institutions without the rights of habeas corpus. A few minutes into Khrushchev's diatribe, somebody shouted out, "Why didn't you challenge him then, the way you are now?"

The room fell silent, as Khrushchev angrily swept the audience with his glare. "Who said that?" he asked in a reasoned voice. Silence.

"Who said that?" Khrushchev demanded, leaning forward. Silence.

Pounding his fist on the podium to accent each word, he screamed, "Who - said - that?" Still no answer.

Finally, after a long and strained silence, the elected politicians in the room fearful to even cough, a corner of Khrushchev's mouth lifted into a smile.

"Now you know," he said with a chuckle, "why I did not speak up against Stalin when I sat where you now sit."

The question for our day is who will speak up against Stalinist policies in America? Who will speak against the man who punishes reporters and news organizations by cutting off their access; who punishes politicians by targeting them in their home districts; who punishes truth-tellers in the Executive branch by character assassination that even extends to destroying their spouse's careers? And why is our press doing such a pathetic job that in all probability 95 percent of Americans don't even know that our Attorney General says we have no rights to habeas corpus?

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Number 8:

"The violent destruction of life and property incident to war; the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty, to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they, at length, become willing to run the risk of being less free."
We must not make the mistake that Jefferson and Hamilton warned us against. We must not remain silent, like Khrushchev's people did. We must speak out.

Contact your U.S. Senators and members of the House of Representatives (the Capitol's phone number is 202 225-3121) and tell them to stop this assault on eight hundred years of legal precedent by repealing the Military Commissions Act and thus restore the most fundamentally American human right of habeas corpus.

Thom Hartmann is a three-time Project Censored Award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of nineteen books and, for the past four years, the host of a nationally syndicated noon-3 PM ET daily progressive talk show which will, starting on February 19th, replace the Al Franken show on Air America Radio radio stations from coast-to-coast and on Sirius Satellite Radio. His website is at www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "What Would Jefferson Do? A Return To Democracy" and Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It.