Dichotomy

I remember a while back in my "studies" of new age spirituality I came across the simple notion "There is only Love and Fear" a reframing of the old duality of good and evil, God and Satan, etc. These ideas are old and ongoing for a reason; there is truth there. It is becoming more and more clear to me that so much of my life is just about fighting fear, or perhaps "managing" fear. In moving away from fear, often it follows along, as in "every where you go there you are." So moving away from fear has to be more than that. It has to be a moving towards...something. As I consider the duality of "There is only Love and Fear" it implies an opposite. So if I am running up the number line of fear, I see negative integers, then I would be running toward the Love numbers, headed toward an infinity of love. but I don't think it is quite that simple. I run in circles. And i in truth I am not all that clear about love. Fear seems more obvious. Love is so multifaceted, so misunderstood, a word so over used its meaning is unclear and its practice in application is even more vague. I'm working on it. Love comes up like a scent that passes on the road, fleeting and unexpected. In between be build on other things, patience, companionship, and even duty.

So in the flight from fear toward something... I think maybe the duality is with peace. Out of the quiet and safety of peace, love may grow. But peace I think is the leading road sign.

So many nights i wake up and my first thought is I feel small. I feel small. I feel it now, just to write it. My heart tightens, my eyes blur a bit, my shoulders fold to hide my heart, the world looks very large and very frightening when one is so small. I have learned this is my version of anxiety, the daily uniform of fear, when it is not in its monster sunday best dress, instead the pajamas and barefoot fear, anxiety. It is for me a base state. My stomach is growling agreement. Once a teacher asked me if I was aware of my anxiety. i literally stopped walking on the street where we were. I said that is like asking a fish if she is aware of the water. Always swimming in it, everything colored by it, breathing and eating it. But never noticing it, never seeing it, having no thought to it. My body raises it up before me day after day in nearly every form of stress related illness one can name, all the symptoms come and go, over and over, sign posts, dark colors in the water, sick scents in the the stream.

I do not know if others swim in anxiety. I guess so considering the use of drugs, medicines, alcohol, considering the violence, and illness, and strife, I guess it is the same sea of fear and grief for us all.

Seeking peace sounds simple enough and parts of it I am good at. I thoroughly avoid conflict. I live slowly. I live very quietly. My one remaining child at home is a quiet gentle man. My lover is a lover of quiet. But quiet is not the same as peace. My former husband was quiet, we were quiet together, but we were not at peace.

I can do peace. In the depths of prayer it descends, the holy spirit like a dove. But this language does not communicate it. My charge is not just to sit at prayer in peace, which I do, but to remain in peace at all times. When I struggle with purpose, with destiny, with mission, with all these big words, the only command I am charged to obey is to remain in peace. All else springs from that one thing, health, purpose, calling, abundance, all else.

I do know that when I am least at peace, when I am seriously angry it is a field of energy around me so intense that electronic equipment ceases functioning, small children cry without a word from me, it is a cloud of dysfunction that radiates even as I stand wordless, still. No fist needs to fly for me to wound in anger. A wise woman told me that if the field is that intense outside of my body, imagine what it is doing to the inside of my body. Indeed. So the cause to move from fear and anger toward peace is important. I cannot function with out it.

But of course most days I am not angry; am not within the monster costume of fear. Rather I am in the pajama clothes of fear, the ordinary anxiety that robes me in smallness, in aches, and procrastination, in hiding, the paralysis of waiting and pretending.

Indeed I do see there is a great dichotomy of fear and peace. I am seeking peace, little steps, as best I can, seeking peace. As I wonder that direction the scent of love floats by once in a while, flowers and manna.

There is no absolution.

Calculus of Peace

So many people talk about the "go with the flow" thing, or if you have a different theological orientation, it may be "walk in the spirit." Either way it is about surrender, and peace, non- resistance. The idea that if we are pushing and pushing, begging, demanding, pleading, desiring, craving, NEEDing something, anything, that the force of all that trying makes it very difficult for the desired thing to happen. I have heard many stories about this seeming to be true, though I cannot explain the phenomenon as to why, but I wish I could. As for me I was raised in a household of try hard, work hard, plod, plod, dutifully plod. And we do. (In the bible this is called "living under the law," which means follow all the rules, very strictly, and that makes everything okay. Jesus came to end that by bringing grace and the Holy Spirit).

The dutiful plodder method does work, for some things. However, it is slow, methodical, and ultimately joyless. And it doesn't work very well for some things, "minor" things, like love. One can build powerful obligations and commitments, decisions that look like "love" by that method, but not Love, not that adoration and comfort in the joy and wonder of the other. And I am thinking maybe not destiny either. Certainly one can achieve goals by the plod harder method, but perhaps not Destiny.

I have been plodding for a long time. I am a plodder. One could look at my resume, and see only a very short list of very similar professional positions each held for a long time, a long plodding tenure through my career, a career that has come to an abrupt halt. An Intuitive Soul Reader I went to points me toward a Destiny. She said I am at a point of no return, that I must surrender. Surrender had already come up in prayer. So I thinking about this surrender thing.

And that brings me back to the "go with the flow" thing. Today I was praying. As I often do I wanted to ask, "whatamIgoingtodo?, whatamIgoingtodo?, etc." But as I began I felt the presence of my beloved Goddess at my left side, towering over me, sheltering me, drawing me close to her. I began to ask my question as I often do. But she said no, just listen. So I just listened. Then came her outpouring of grace. It is difficult to explain and I may have already lost the few readers I have. It feels like just relaxing, a breath, and the flesh finally lays gently on the bones, muscle and sinew drape like a veil of gossamer. The heart slows, respiration slows, the subtle trembling that goes unnoticed stops. A slight weight comes to the top of the head were the light pours in like a funnel, invisible but having a slight mass, like a very tall hat, so tall it goes up into heaven. So there I sat in that place of relaxation, of no worries for the moment, of peace, of surrender. And Goddess said this, this is what you are going to do, this is all I want you to do.

That seems nice, but what about client contacts, and forms to fill out, and only one report left to write, and bills coming, and bank accounts draining, and all the myriad chaos of unemployment, of out of business, of no where to turn? No, she said, just this, just the surrender, just the peace that passes understanding. Anything else that you do chose to do must be done from here. I immediately go to arguing, how can I possible stay here? I would look like a stoned flaky fruitcake from LaLaLa Land. She said one day, do it one day. Then do it one more day, one more hour, one more minute, just do it and when it doesn't work, do it again. So I think, okay I will Try.

But do you remember Yoda? the funny little big ears guru in Star Wars? He said "There is no try, there is only do or do not do." I had a guru once and she showed me that too. She said "Stand up, okay now see that chair over there? Go try to sit in that chair." So I went and sat in that chair. She said "No, stand up again. You did not do what I said to do, you sat in the chair. I didn't say sit in the chair. I said try to sit in the chair." So I "tried" to sit in the chair. She said "No, now you are crouching and hovering over the chair. I didn't say crouch and hover over the chair I said Try to sit in the chair." It reminds me of calculus as one approaches the limit of zero, "No, do not divide by zero, only approach dividing by zero." Well, it works in the faith based religion of calculus, but it doesn't work in the world of real geometry, a math that can take to a real place, or going to a destiny.

So if you look for me today I am here in this flaky place, of relaxing, of surrender, of peace, at least in little pieces, string them together, adding fractions of infinity.

Saving "lost" and "saved"

What does it mean to be lost? I used to worry about getting lost, still do. I remember as child our family would sometimes go up on Roan Mountain at the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina. It is a magical high place where the rhododendron gardens bloom. Rhododendrons are huge bushes that remind me of mangroves. They only grow at a few select high places. These bushes are as tall as twenty feet, woody and wide. Their leaves are long ovals, dark green and leathery, like magnolias. They make round multi-fowered blossoms bigger than your hand in early June, soon now. The whole mountain top looks mauve pink when they bloom. At the park there are paved walkways and picnic tables through the rhododendrons gardens. My great grand parents loved that place. We would have my Grandmother's birthday there the first week in June, with fried chicken and cake in a rectangle pan, potato salad and baked beans in covered dish wrapped in a towel. And every time we went there my mother would warn me to stay on the pathways, not to wander off into the rhododendron. Children got lost. In my memory some never returned. I imagined being lost among the rhododendron, sleeping on the deep shining green pads of moss as big as a bed, wandering alone searching for human contact, to be found, to be saved from sure death in the cold where the high mountain wind blew even in June. I imagined the spirits of long ago Indians haunting me and helping me as I wandered lost. It frightened and beckoned me. When I heard a story of a child actually lost there in the park, we waited to hear that the child was found, that the child was saved.

This week I have been thinking about being lost, and so often I see lost people wondering among us. I think about being saved, about how to save them. It seems the words have gotten tarnished under some religious rust, a coating of flaky meaning after reaction with too much oxidation, too much air, too much talking with those words, lost and saved. The meanings are lost. And this week I have been lost again for a while, and perhaps saved again, perhaps only for a while. I was lost here at home, in my house, lost in pain, in memory, in worry. I make myself sick, get lost under the covers, perhaps hoping not to be found. But of course needing to be saved. And like all the bad dreams we make, we hold all the starring roles ourselves, the little lost child and the big strong rescuing parent.

One of the strings that lead me back up out of the labyrinth of lost was Sara Griscom of Gypsy Hands Healing Center http://www.gypsyhands.com/ She is a gifted intuitive. I made and appointment for myself to see her, an act which was like throwing myself a life preserver. I waited a week for our meeting. Her office was dark, and warm, and scented. She had just finished working with a beautiful man who wore a kilt and a red handle bar mustache. I was shocked by how attractive I found this strange man as I watched him in the lobby. His presence lingered for a moment as I entered Sarah's office, but as we settled in it was entirely her space again. She quickly related that as I had waited a few moments for her, she had meditated on me and saw a number of things. The reading proceeded out of this awareness. I won't go into the whole of it. But the point was that she validated all that I had seen, validated that I am seeing direction, which again is a life preserver. The message was you are beyond the point of return, the transformation is underway and must proceed. The remaining old things must end. Drop the chains and go, now. She saw my Granny Guide, Dolly, who said "No more excuses, hop to it." Dolly points her bony finger at me and points me out to go, Now.

My mother tells the story that when labor began with her first child, my sister, she decided she didn't want to have a baby after all, she changed her mind about it. But of course it was nine months to late to change her mind. The transformation was underway. No turning back. It was time to push. To stop now would be death for mother and child. So this time of being lost is pause in my labor pains. I remember when my first baby was coming and finally got a an epidural, the spinal block pain killer. As the anesthesiologist made me lie still on my side to push the long needle between my vertebra, I told him "this baby is coming now." I was already in transition. But they did not believe me. When the pain relief calmed me and the doctor looked again inside, he said "this baby is coming now." He said "it's time to push." I thought "Fuck pushing, I'm Resting." But the contractions did not stop. And I had to push on. The baby was born in minutes, all eleven pounds and twenty four inches of him.

So what am birthing? I know only a little and I will tell more about it later. I have prayed to make me a blessing, to use me, to send me a higher love. I have gotten in the boat with Jesus to cross over to the other side. The storm is raging and Jesus sleeps. (Mark chapter 4) I shall wake him and we shall see. I am lost and shall be saved.

Passing storm

I got a great massage and energy work. i feel much better.

Dark Storm

I have been in a drak storm for a couple of days. It is not gone but it is passing. I wish this would stop. It is strange to look in the mirror and see different people on different days. I have been taking photos of the different poeple there. They are not pretty pictures. This time the storm came with pain, a lot of joint pain, swollen knobby hands and feet, pain everywhere. The picture of my body self inside looks like chains, I am in chains, heavy chains of the old self. It does not matter, that is part of this place of being in this dark place, the sense that nothing matters, none of this stuff. In dreams the trees are falling on the house again, crushing and explosion. I hate sleeping in pain, it always brings nightmares. Today I was driving and began to grieve that the pain and dark days always return. I felt that hopelessness, the waiting and wasting of days and years. Then there came an intense pain in my chest and heart fibrulations. It lasted for about a minute. It was diffcult to breathe and as it worsened I felt that a heart attack was beginning. I was driving and frightened. I knew that it came with my thoughts of dispair and heart break. It has happened before. I have even gone to the emergency room over it in the past only to get a bill of good heart health and a bill of thousand plus dollars. So I knew what was happening. I prayed scripture (that is why you memorize it). And the heart pain and arrythmia stopped. Then i realized It is me. It is me driving this body. I drive the bus here, the bus of my body, of my life. Holy shit what a horrible thought. I can think myself into a heart attack just like that. I have spent two days in bed over joint pain because my mind is the chains of repression and unspoken anger after visiting my mother again. I am driving this crazy bus, this bus stopped on the side of the road, side lined, unemployed, on hold, unpublished, unspoken, invisible, in pain. I am doing this. I empower everything inside this little realm of my life. I call forth all of this. I want off this bus. I don't trust this driver. I abdicate.
then I read a blog at a friend's blog. I will link when I feel better. She told a story that I was present for. It was about a mutual friend singing at our womens group. She told about listenning in love. Oh what was her words. i will find it. But the mutual frined was blessed. My blogging friend was blessed. And this little group was something I organized and have tried to develop. I drove that bus too. There it is blessing someone. I cried and creid. Becasue that has been another of my heart breaks this week that that group is not doing what I had hoped, not meeting the needs of some of the poeple. But here, my friend told of a small blessing, of having an impact.
Maybe this storm will pass. My girl friend asked how long the joint pain might last. I told her it felt like I would always feel this way, that I could not make an assessment from this place. I driving the bus. Oh help. I know in my mind this does not last. It has been a cycle of madness for all of my life that can remember. I know that it passes. But it is hard. And it gets worse over the years. And every time i want to die to jjust have it over to just go home. that nothing here matters. But I know it wil pass. And now i see a little light, that maybe maybe some I do has meaning. I may not post this, it is too dark, too naked, to whining. It is as it is. It is the other end of the divine madness. my star stff is cold and sharp, I have flown off course into the cold cold night. I must stop my hands hurt again.

Another Ordinary Vision

Star Flight

Like the fragments of plasma
that burst from the surface of the sun,
I see the billions
of us, fragments of light birthed from the surface of god,
that great center of energy, of knowing, of being.
Each of us believing we hurl alone into space-time
a separate being on a separate line.
But it is a momentary flight of star stuff
a fragmentary fleeing of god stuff
exhaled into the night of space-time.

As we fly deeper in delusion of disunion,
fly solo on our line of space-time,
like a magma splashing from volcano
we cool as we go,
a crust of matter forming around the hot star,
the radiant god stuff that we are.
We fly a hurling trajectory life,
a momentary flight
falling ever away from god light,
cooling ever more heavy,
an encrustation of matter at the edges,
the thick weight of earthy matters darkens,
ever darkens, our shine.
Falling away, ever falling short of the glory of god,
the glory of the stars that we are.

In our flight we tumble in among
the flying lights, the others that surround us
their hot lives hurling around us.
We stumble against hard edges
where the cold night of our space flight
has shaped us and as we crash as we trespass
against others, as they trespass against us.
We crash in the crusted mass,
all that seeming matter, and we shatter.
Like eggs in the Easter day game, which will crush
and which will rush on?
But all are broken.
Shattered shards twisted outward and poking inward,
hardened edges thicken, ever colder,
ever deepen, ever dimming at the center
of our being, the star stuff that we are,
whirling in our flight, lost in cold, cold night.
So some become the studded bludgeons that roar among us
pouring life force from us.
All their hardened broken shards
their outward edges pierce all it touches,
their inward edges pierce them heart-ward
every touch a sinking blow
opening holes as they go.
Around them others thicken their shields,
others sicken their fields,
ever colder as they go, ever hold in
heavy matters. Shields too deep to reveal
the dim glimmer of dying star stuff
their fading god stuff deep within.

But just as plasma blasts up out of the sun
so too it falls back and to resume its place.
So we too arch back from space
and move to our origin again,
like a child throws a ball, watches it fall,
and catches it again.
As we tumble home, we stumble among
starry hardened ones moving closer to the hot spot
where god begot us, we melt.
We melt; we melt the hardened shards.
As we glow radiant, we go making it ever closer to home
the cold edges melt back to heat,
the heat of our love god makes all things new.
Where the sharp shards finally slip back in,
we begin anew, in silky skin
so thin the light shines out, shines in,
a light, a heat, the radiance of god
a light heat of love.
So hot it melts the shards of others poised to pierce
they are nothing in its heat
the bludgeoning ones melt where we meet,
or rush into the night
for the heat of perfect love casts out all fear.

And as we fall back home, as we humble up against each other,
it is a heating meeting of star stuff, a heating meeting of god stuff,
as we trespass against others, as they trespass against us.
All the matter retreating like glaciers defeated in the suns glow
melting as we go, flowing into one another
our glowing star stuff moving in union,
finally reunion, teary singing reunion
radiant now and falling, finally falling home.

Answered Prayer

Today I went to UT hospital with my friend. She got the results of a diagnostic test expected to confirm a cancer after a screening test indicated abnormal cells. We had been discussing dates for surgery and recovery plans. But instead she got a clean bill of health, no cancer at all! I was shocked. The nurse indicated this sometimes happens. To me it is a miracle. She has been taking very good care of herself and I have been praying hard for her.

When I prayed about this issue a few weeks ago got an indication in prayer that she did indeed have an early stage cancer. So today I thought perhaps I had been mistaken in my understanding. But after the hospital visit I prayed again asking about it all. Immediately I got a signal that it had not been a misunderstanding, but that Goddess had answered my prayers, and healed my friend of an early stage cancer. I am so pleased, so thankful.

I think of others for whom I pray and see them doing better. It gives me hope. I know that I cannot understand or control things, but I do think that good things happen, that prayers are sometimes answered, that we are being taken care of, that there is an intelligent goodness that somehow responds to our focused thought. I am a believer, period.

Limited Circumstances

For some reason a quiet Monday morning is my favorite time for long meditations. With the unusual working situation I have I often have Monday mornings to just meditate after a busy outward weekend. Today's mediatation was especially fruitful. But it is difficult to begin. I started this blog wanting to share vision from meditations. I feel I am led to do so, but it is hard for me. As I have noted it feels like an alien thing. And yet I do think a reader might be encouraged by it. Perhaps they might be encouraged by the "lessons" of the vision, or, perhaps more importantly, they might be encouraged to seek out their own visionary process. Still I hesitate.

Rather than a specific vision, I will start with a small thing, a change of perspective. You see there are a number of ways in which my life seems limited. And often I find that worrisome, thinking that I should do better, live more broadly, more outwardly, be more succesful, go faster, all that stuff. The "limitations" relate to finances, physical health, use of time, and outwardness. For example, I have a very small business that may in fact be dying. However, I continue to have some work, and by a means I do not clearly understand, I live rather well. I have a nice suburban home, drive a safe paid-for car, eat excellent food, and from time to time I enjoy pleasant outings. But in fact I work very little. It is a mystery and often I worry about it. I think I am foolish to continue that way, just barely hanging on (and perhaps I will need to make a change, though is has been 8 years this way).

I shall continue with another example before moving on to the change of perspective, that perhaps you are already anticipating. My health is also "delicate." There are many things I cannot do, especailly things I cannot eat. Well, I can eat them, but then I have problems. No need to bore you with the details, I do that too often in person. People eat together a lot so the topic comes up and apparently I still need to talk it through. Another aspect of the health thing is that I sleep lot. But in fact I have excellent health in recent years. I don't get specific illnesses, like colds or flu, and I'm not too troubled by the usual allergy symptoms. About the food problem, the things I can't really eat are: sugar, pork, highly processed foods especially meats, and low quality (or high volume) alcohol. Does this list of restricted foods look familiar?

So yesterday I was working in my yard feeling sorry for myself,"All this yard work to do, all on my own, such a big place to try to keep up with, blah blah blah." Then I realized I have such a big place to keep up with, oh yeah, have a big place of my very own! And then it all tumbled in. Thinking about low income my usual thought is, "Oh my, I don't have much work." But then I realized, oh yeah, I don't have much work! Instead I have lots of free time! Then I thought about my health. Instead of "Gee, my poor delicate body can't take much." (You get the idea). Now I'm thinking my delicately lovely body won't let me take in much crap. All of my circumstances that seem to be limitations have led me to this life of disciplined contemplation. (And I haven't even discussed my sex life, though I may briefly. Well, there are limitations there as well. I don't need to be specific, but some things work for me and some things don't - in a very clear and unpleasant ways. And when I think with my brain (as verses with other parts), I realize that the things that don't work for me are troublesome in many ways. So the same principle seems to be at work).

My "limiting circumstances" are amazing directions, as in instructions. These instructions are every where. I can't even drive fast. It makes me too nervous, feels like the car is out of control. It drives my kids crazy. But I get there, just slowly. It is another example of "limitations" that lead me to a life that is different from the cultural demand to live faster and faster. I see the harsh demands of our culture especially in the workplace. When I do work, I go to industries where employees are sick from the work. Usually I find they work very long hours, regularly over 40 hours per week, sometimes not taking weekends off (not honoring the Sabbath). I think no wonder you are sick. For me I cannot work that hard. One time I was taking with my son about finances and my business. He said - mom if you worked full time (that is billable work 40 hours every week) you'd be Rich! Yes, but when one is a sole proprietor is not usual to be billable full time (unless they work 60+ hours per week- which many do). But I am just not that successful. It seems that I do my business in a limited way.

So today I am contemplating the blessings of my limited circumstances. I have an unsuccessful business that allows me time for writing, and church work, and playing. I have poor health that allows me to consistently eat very healthfully and sleep well. And I have a highly sensitive mind prone to insanity that allows me to go slowly through life and enjoy deep contemplation, intense prayer, healing energy, and perhaps prophetic vision. Wow, maybe I can finally take in this change of perspective and remember it. Maybe I can stop fighting my circumstances, perhaps I can stop resisting and fearing my life. Perhaps I can begin to thank Goddess for providing exactly the limitations I need to develop into the disciplined contemplative visionary she as offered for me to be. Perhaps I can have the courage to speak it out, to show that within an ordinary life one can find a different way to live in a very fast, harsh, poisonous, and dehumanizing world.

Watching a fire

Well, I have made my way back from the place of rejection and shame. And I feel better. I think it is an interesting story, so I decided to tell it after all.

I had been requested to give a small help to a friend with a health problem, to give a "laying on of hands" for transmitting healing energy. (It is difficult to say that in a way that doesn't sound "flakey" because I guess it is flakey, but so it is.) Nonetheless, it was a priviledge to have this request, a rare opportunity. But it went strangely; it went awry. It was not a laying on of hands. Instead, unexpectedly, it was a "reading." What I mean by a reading is that immediately as I laid on my hands I felt intense emotions and "saw visions." That is I had understandings of a visual nature, as if remembering the scenes of a dream. But the difficulties came in that it was not my emotions, and not my dream. I had not been requested or invited to view the inner shadows and dreams of my friend. Of course at the time I did not think of this. I was fully involved my event of having visions. I just verbized the reading thinking that a bonus gift was occurring.

It went more strangely from there. Gradually over a few days time, I came to understand that my friend's experience of the reading been a shocking and invasive event, not a gift. With this understanding I fell into deep rejection and shame. For me it seemed that I had found yet another message saying that the deepest most secret gifts I have to give are unacceptable, that the place wherein I feel the greatest power is too alien. It was as if I had offered lovemaking that the partner felt as rape. It was devasting. My desire was to hide, to reject my friend, which would have been a punishment even if that was not my intention. So as I struggled over the ordinary, returning a phone call, arranging on luncheon together, I considered many things. I sat in quiet for hours, waiting and thinking and praying; not responding, not discussing, not throwing more words onto the fire. However, also being in withdrawal.

Eventually I saw a simple understanding. I had had an experience and my friend had had an experience, but these were not the same the experience, though they occurred with the same event. And oddly, the next understanding was deeper. I had not caused her experience, though I triggered it. And my friend had not caused my experience though she triggered it. Oh my, I was having my OWN experience, my own event. My friend did not do anything TO me. She simply had a bad experience right up next to me, and in response I had had my own bad expereince right up next to her. But each of these were oddly independent, not about each other. My shame was my own. What she had rejected was her experience of the event. Graciously, she had not rejected me or even my capability of "reading." I simply did not get the validation - the gratitude and admiration - I had thought I "should" have gotten, but instead was asked to sit through my friend's difficult experience. And ultimately she came around to appreciation after having some time to look at it again, and to view it with the help of another friend.

But even then it took me some time to realize that withdrawal, isolation, and even punishment were not necessary. If I continue to feel unsure about how I am, and what place there is for my capabilities, that is my own journey. I do not have to choose to feel shame as I struggle with these things. I do not have to punish my friend during my struggle, a friend who began with only requesting a small help for an illness. In the end I returned the phone call, reopened communications, reopened my heart, bruises and all.

Then the most remarkable thing happened, I did not feel ashamed anymore. It was as if in granting a bit of grace outward, the mercy to not punish an innocent friend, then then some how that mercy shone back on me. I seem to have forgiven myself for being so different, for stumbling about with a glaring laser of awareness, for not know where to place myself in this distant land I live in for a time, this land of time and space, of "normal" physical reality. I do desperately want to go home, to the spirit realm, but for now I live here, in my rough bruised skin. And need a friend to hold, imperfect and stumbling like me, a friend who gives another chance.

Putting out Fires

It's been a while since I posted. It seems like some what of a roller coaster, but perhaps not, perhaps that is just an illusion to distract me from my larger purposes, though I am not sure what these may be, except in the most general terms. I think I get easily distracted. Perhaps it is a form of attention deficit disorder, (ADD), though not in the intellectual sense, rather in a spiritual sense, Spiritual Attention Deifict Disorder (SADD). Intellectually I can sit down and write a technical report for six or eight hours at at time, though usually only after I have waited until the deadline is looming, but that is about motivation not attention. And if I am interested I can read an entire book in one sitting. So attention is doable intellectually.

However spiritually, and relationally, perhaps there is an attention deficit. I get to a certain point and want to wander off. Spiritually I learn a little something, then get distracted by something that seems like a really important crisis and forget what ever I just learned. A few days ago I had dream about fires in a cave where I lived, all these fires popping up out of no where, even stones were on fire. Fire chasted me down the tunnels as I ran with my teacup full of water. I was putting out the fires using a tea cup. splash. It was not effective. Finally I found a way to turn on a whole flow of water that went right through the fires. And they all went out immediately. I think that my subconscious (the cave) is troubled by many small emergencies (busy putting out fires) and I use meager resources (a tiny tea cup full) to address them when I could turn on an ongoing flow of resources to calm all the emergeniges, and keep the fires from restarting. I am thinking the flow of water represents love, an onging flow of love. "Perfect love casts out all fear." I have struggled with what is "Perfect" love. Maybe it is love that flows continuously, rather than the way I usually do it, in little spurts, a teacup full. splash. I'm very loving in spurts, until you piss me off. Then its another fire.

So this week the fire is a sense of rejection. It is a long and very personal story so I won't go into the details, but I feel utterly rejected, an alien who will never have a place to be who I am. I am licking my wounds ready to pack it in and go back home. This is another little fire distracting me from the larger truth. The larger truth is that It is all about love. But I can't seem to get the flow to stay on, and the fire is blocking the faucet again.

"Special People"

Two situations arose in the last week wherein people I am involved with set up exclusionary gatherings. I have been thinking about this a lot. There are times to be exclusionary. It seems to have something to due with the level of intimacy, as verses the level of publicness of a situation. For example I exclude nearly everyone from my bed, even my cat (she walks on my head, unacceptable).

On the other end of the spectrum I went to Sundown in the City last Thursday - a thoroughly public free concert event, outdoors, downtown. Apparently about seven to ten thousand people included themselves, estimates varied. It was oddly intimate though due to the extremely close proximity of those ten thousand people. When I go there I get on the "people mover," the flowing sections at the sides of the square where people move up and down the square for no apparent reason. Perhaps they are just like me, cruising on the people mover. It's a fun ride, unless you get in front of someone who is playing handzies while on the people mover - not good. I like to practice my "don'tfuckwithme" posture while riding the people mover (I love being extremely tall). It usually works. So with exclusiveness and inclusiveness some areas are clear - very exclusive in the bed, very inclusive in the public square - it is all those middle areas that are shady.

Both of the situations that I got concerned about centered around the church, which is a public setting, but not entirely so. We do have some excluding criteria, though fewer than most churches. I would say our excluding criteria is only that one must behave peacefully within our house. That is all. So Jim Adkisson who shot nine of us last year is definitely in the excluded category. Again the extremes are easy to figure out. It is the more subtle areas that are tricky.

These exclusionary gatherings were not really about church and that was the problem. Two groups were soliciting SOME people from among church for private gatherings. But only SOME people, Special People, were to be included, but that was unclear. In one case it was Special People born female, as verses those who exert huge effort and sacrifice, socially and financially, to become physically female. In the other case, the group was soliciting Special People who by some unclear criteria are manifesting a certain high level of spiritual understanding based on the judgement of the group leader. In both cases the group leader looked around and using her visual and ethereal assessment determined "you people are Special Enough" and "you other people are Not Special Enough." The Not-Special-Enough-People were so informed, with the expected unpleasantness following. In both cases I was deemed special enough. And that makes me very uncomfortable. Sometimes being special is not such a good thing.

I am reminded of the kindergarten lesson about birthday party invitations. It is a lesson for the parents. If you are having a birthday party and ALL of the children in the class are invited, then you may pass out the party invitations in the classroom. However, if only some of the children from the class are invited (say only the boys), then you must mail out the invitations privately. Seems pretty obvious. One is free to hold whatever private gatherings one would care to hold. But going to the public and (supposedly) welcoming setting of the church to gather and organize the meetings is, at best, rude.

"Let brotherly Love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." (Hebrews 13: 1-2) The point is love, the point of everything is love. That is what is special.

Drawing Lines in the Sand

First of all Admiral Nelson is not Captain Morgan. You have to be careful which pirates you bring home. Arrgh.....

Now to my story. I was very sad last night. (who cares aah? well, this may have meaning or it may not...) I had had a hard day or so, over extended myself. When I came home I drank too much of a bad liquor and a had a terrible spell. You know that one, the world is coming to an end spell, the nobody loves me spell, my life is a small sad joke spell, it is a dark and pitiable thing. Surely the doing of some devilish pirate. So under the influence of this dark spell I laid awake crying and composing e-mails to the various offenders. These were quite articulate and all fully justifiable. It is fortunate that I do not have a handy laptop in the bedroom, all fired up and online or else these dreadful missives may have gone out spreading the dark spell further in nasty little tendrils like the slime trails of a snail. I did have the sense to know I was poisoned, that it would pass, that I needed to hold tight to mast of the ship in the storm. For me that mast is prayer, like a tree, rooted and rising, holding me here when I would hurl away in a storm.

So in the morning I did feel better. But I still felt I needed to calmly communicate that these offenders behaved unacceptably towards me and draw some firm lines in the sand. But first, breakfast and bible reading (yes I am that way, though not every day). Today I knew I needed to read in John. So over eggs and toast, my big parallel bible already open on the dining table, I flipped over to John and at random fell in at John chapter 8. "Lets him among you who is without sin cast the first stone." "You judge the flesh. I do not judge."

Oh my, so, there you have it. I had been gathering up my stones to cast all night. This morning I set aside the boulders but I was still testing my pitch on the fist sized ones. Okay, I'm thinking, so I won't cut off from these groups and persons that made me feel bad. However, I still get to write them nicer little notes about how sad I am due their behavior, right? I can tell them this sweet little bible story and point out how gracious I am to let pass their terrible offenses to me, right? I can wrap up the stones with flowery notes and a rubber band, "Dear Sister So and So....." But no. I just get to suck it up and grow up and know they had a bad day too. That's all. And that is grace, the practice that is so hard for me to Get It.

In that story from John chapter 8, Jesus has this whole interaction with the Pharisees about not stoning this woman. Twice it details that he bent to ground and wrote with his finger in the dirt. Why add this detail? How is that so important that it is noted twice? One version says that he drew on the ground as if he did not hear them. And then while all the accusers were drifting away he wasn't even watching. After they are gone, He looks up and says where are they? What does detail of his manner mean? I think it shows detachment. He not only did not condone the casting of stones, he didn't even get himself personally involved in the drama. I like that picture. I can see that, squatting down, drawing in the sand, letting them drift away.

Letter to Daddy

I was thinking about patience. My friend asked me how I was feeling about my work and finanacial situation because things are still tenuous. I asked myself, how do I feel about it? Do I feel afraid? Confident? Anxious? What? Then I thought, “I feel patient.” Yes, I feel patient about my work situation. How surprising to feel patient, so unusual for me to be patient. I said wow, I must really be transforming if I feel patient about that, something so big and scary for me. Patience is one of the fruits of the spirit that is new for me. I tend to be impatient, sometimes in the irritable angry way, but more often in a frightened timid way. For example if I am traveling and I am unsure of where I am and where I am going, if I do not know the way, I may be become impatient, anxious, and begin to believe I should already be there. Since I am not there, then I think, “I am lost.” Then I become frightened and disoriented, perhaps even making wrong and unnecessary turns. I was praying this morning about all that, what direction to take about work, what to wait for and what to head toward, about that patience, and I remembered a story about you Daddy.

I remembered when you and were both on separate business trips in southern California. We agreed to meet for dinner. It was a distance away and began to travel with directions and plenty of time, but I got lost, very lost. I worked hard to get back on track, but so much time went by and I still wasn’t there. It was dark. I had been through strange and seemingly unsafe areas. I was frightened, crying, and ready to give up but I still had to arrive somewhere. I stopped at a market to ask for help. The employee told me simple instructions, but I was so frightened I couldn’t understand. I kept asking him to repeat and clarify. Finally he walked with me out of the market door, and he pointed. There, within sight, was the highway I needed. It was right there, but I had been so afraid I couldn’t see it. So I got on the right road, finally, and made my way to the restaurant where I was to meet you. I was two hours late, two hours. I was sure you would be gone. I opened the door and there you were, waiting for me, waiting patiently. You had not even eaten; you had only waited for me, with patience and faith even in your anxiety about me. You were not angry with me; you were only relieved that I had finally arrived safely. I was so relieved and happy to see you. We had such a good evening together. We talked about difficult things as I was in a time of serious decision-making and you wanted to change my mind, but you were so gentle and respectful, pointing out important things, telling the truth with loving kindness. You were the only one who did that. There was neither glossing over nor condemnation. I did not agree but we parted with love. And many things you spoke of came to pass as you were concerned that they might.

The patience you showed me was such a gift. To just wait for me to find my way you show such love. I am blessed by this wisdom. I feel that you are still waiting for me to find my way to you. And in some ways I do. It is as if we can meet at way stations, a place to stop and be nourished for a moment while on our separate journeys. And now I feel that patience growing in me. It is if I see a wiser, older part of myself, perhaps the Holy Spirit, sitting at rest, in a safe and nurturing place, while the rest of me wanders in darkness. Through this wise one, I am having patience for myself to make my way back to the right road. And if I don’t get too frightened and impatient I may be able to see that the road I need is right there, in sight, just drive up a block and turn right, then keep on that road. Thank you for patiently waiting for me, for having faith that would eventually make my way there.

Hard to believe but true...

Well, I am going to just step out here and preach a little so be forewarned.
It is finally sinking in. I had heard parts of the story all my life but it is finally sinking a little bit. I'm guessing there is way more that I still don't get but perhaps I will see te rest eventually too.

I've spent my whole life Trying Real Hard, complete with stomach troubles, tight neck, and TMJ to prove it. Or else being sick and rebellious because I couldn't try any harder. I've been trying to be good, or at least to be pleasing. Mercy, the things I have done to be pleasing, the list is long and horrible. I married a man I cared for but didn't love, I took on my fathers illness, I spent my education opportunity in a field that is not where my gifts and calling lie, so many things. It became such a habit to be pleasing that I have submitted to rape several times. Such a tragic way of life, so disempowering, it is not what is intended.

You see I was taught that being pleasing was what God required. I let that become such a huge corner stone of life that it lead me to do things that surely would not please God, but I apparently thought were necessary to be acceptable in that moment. And being acceptable in the moment becomes a god, a dangerous one.

But now I'm seeing things differently. The way to live in joy and in power is not in hoping to be acceptable by being pleasing, but to rest in faith and trust. Geez, that sentence sounds so cheesy. Let me try again.

We need to feel safe by feeling accepted in to the tribe, accepted by the high status authority (whatever form that takes). We all need to feel powerful by being accomplished in some way. And we need joy it sustain us, because life is full of suffering. Joy is the food of the spirit and keeps us alive. There is no power or joy in trying hard to be pleasing. And it is not possible to accomplish that goal, not to please people, not to please God. And it is a waste of life energy, a distraction that leads to other even more dangerous distractions like anger, depression, bitterness, and isolation. And these lead to other distractions like addictions and hatred.

Recently I have been feeling better. Just that, feeling better. The sadness is not falling so hard, or so long, or so often. The hopelessness is easing, though in fact the circumstances for "security" are little improved. I have just been feeling better, calmer, happier more often, more easily satisfied, more wiling to engage with others, to listen and be present, to gobble up their proffered morsels of friendship and love. I attribute it to something subtle and powerful, something whose words and name sound contrived in a modern world. I attribute this change to the power of the holy spirit.

What des that mean "The Holy Spirit"? Well, in truth I am not entirely sure. It is like asking what does it mean to "Fall in Love." Mostly one has to go there to really know. The words only point in a direction. But I know a few things. The Holy spirit is a gift. It is more than a feeling but it does come with feelings. It is like gravity wherein one falls into God, god being that great Love that sustains all things. Though, I can step out from it and go back into my difficulties and darkness at any moment, so it is not as demanding as gravity. One must chose to remain in the spirit. Under the influence of the holy spirit the world feels better, brighter, there is hope. One can look at people and processes and see something to love, something in each that is lovable. But there is more.

Somehow the power of the holy spirit actually changes things. I believe that brain chemistry stuck in depressive imbalance of neurotransmitter production or lack of production is rebalanced. I believe that cellular mutations that develop into cancer and milder dysfunctions are realigned at the level of the DNA. I believe that addictive processes loose their intensive pull on our bodies and minds. I believe that the spirit can ease bitter unforgiveness. I've have even had the surprise of remembering grievances I had forgotten, and then realizing that even with the memory, it did not matter anymore.

And the power of the holy spirit extends beyond that. It doesn't just change the way others look to me, I think it changes the way we look to others. I even think people who are walking in the spirit look younger and more beautiful. I think it changes the field around a person so that others respond differently, more positively. I believe that the holy spirit can actually speak through us to say important things to others that they need to hear and are ready to hear, encouragement, and redirection. The point is that the holy spirit changes everything. Things that had been a Big Deal, are not so bad. I heard a voice (a thought in my mind) telling me yesterday "This is not a Problem." Oh yeah, that's right, this Is Not a Problem. Now.... what was it I really wanted to focus on?

So how do you get it, this mysterious holy spirit? Well, the way I was taught is that is a gift that descends onto a person at Christian baptism. But I was Baptised when I was only nine years old, and I guess it did descend at that time. But I have certainly wandered off since then. Also, I have seen the spirit on people who are not Christians. So I am guessing there are other ways to get it besides just Christain Baptism. I still approach the holy spirit through Jesus, but oddly it is a big Goddess I see when I close my eyes. So I don't understand it all. These are just the story book pictures we are getting. I think the way to get the spirit is ask for it. To look for it in all things. To head that way all the time, to be in prayer without ceasing. To read about it and talk about it, to look for others who have it and spend time with them.

Getting back to my first point that it is by faith and trust, rather than by being pleasing that we can enjoy a life of power and joy. The trust part is trusting that the power of the holy spirit is working. It is working right now to make all things new. It is a new mantra "the holy spirit is working, the holy spirit is working....."

I know I am a long way off from it too often, but I think I've got a glimpse now. I know I want more, more of the transformation that makes life sweeter, right here, right now.

No cure for Hate Article

Subject: [Tvuuc-el] "No 'cure' for hate"
Sorry to post again so soon but it seems like recently some issues keep finding their way to me. I receive the McClatchy news group Washington office articles as a supplement to other news sources. I read this commentary from their Miami paper. Given we as a congregation have a sort of ongoing dialogue with how to view and deal with evil, and even in our forward looking expectations as we sing at the end of each service, "...declare that fear and hate are done...", I thought this perspective pertinent. I think it at least reflects our world as it is. Gary _________________________

Commentary: No 'cure' for hate By Leonard Pitts Jr. The Miami Herald

There are now 926 hate groups in this country. Take a second and consider that number. It represents an increase of more than 50 percent since 2000. And by "hate groups," I don't mean guys in their bathrobes who go online and pretend their followers are legion. No, I mean actual Klan cells, Neo-Nazi sects, gay-bashing "churches," cliques of black separatists, white nationalists, nativists, racist skinheads and other merchants of venom who meet, plot and recruit in all 48 contiguous states (Alaska and Hawaii have no known hate groups). Nine hundred twenty-six of them. The number is a record. We learn all this from the Southern Poverty Law Center (splcenter.org) in Montgomery, Ala., which has, since its founding in 1971, become a leading authority on the business of hate. According to the latest issue of Intelligence Report, the SPLC's quarterly magazine, that business is booming. And maybe you wonder how this can be. How can hate enjoy such phenomenal growth in a nation where a Jew serves as senator from Connecticut, a Muslim serves as representative from Minnesota, a Hispanic is governor of New Mexico and a black man is president? The answer is that we are a nation where a Jew serves as senator from Connecticut, a Muslim serves as representative from Minnesota, a Hispanic is governor of New Mexico and a black man is president. Because if those things strike you as signs of progress, well, they are signs of apocalypse to those who believe only white, male Christians are fit to lead. But that's not the only reason for the increase. SPLC also cites the debate over illegal immigration that has dominated much of this decade. Though former President George W. Bush offered thoughtful, moderate leadership on the issue, he was drowned out by demagogic extremists competing to see which could most effectively scapegoat undocumented workers. They, too, bear responsibility here. Finally, there is the economy. When things get tough, people become more receptive to the idea that their miseries are all the fault of some alien other. So the stock market, too, is implicated. Hate rises when the Dow falls. I imagine the SPLC findings land like cold water in the faces of those who took Barack Obama's ascension to the presidency as proof that the nation was finally cured of the sickness of hate. The truth, I'm afraid, is more nuanced than that. Maybe it helps to think in terms of alcoholism, a disease that can, with treatment, be contained, controlled, put into remission – but never cured. Even when you've got years of sobriety under your belt, the germ of it lurks in your bloodstream. Which is why alcoholics do not call themselves cured. Rather, they say they are recovering. Hate is something like that, a fact some of us have never quite understood. Such folks are convinced there is a goal line out there somewhere which, once crossed, will allow the nation to declare itself cured. And once cured, we'll never have to grapple with hatred again. But it doesn't work that way. In a nation so deeply riven by culture, race and religion, there is always a temptation to hate somebody, to blame some group of others for the job you lost, the crime committed against you, the fear and uncertainty you feel. There is a simplicity and a seductiveness to it that are all too easily mistaken for righteousness. So there is no "cure" for a nation's hate. There is only an ongoing process of getting better, not unlike the alcoholic who must daily earn his sobriety anew. This explosion of hate is a reminder of what happens when we forget that, when we are undeservedly sanguine about how enlightened we've become. It is said that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. Well, that's the going rate for tolerance, too.

ABOUT THE WRITER Leonard Pitts Jr., winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla. 33132. Readers may write to him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com. He chats with readers every Wednesday from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. EDT at Ask Leonard.

A Moment is a Lot

Yesterday I had a small gathering at my home, a group who usually gathers at church. We had a fire outside in the October cold where we roasted weenies and marshmallows. We were happy as little kids for a little while.

We must come as little children to enter into the kingdom. That language of the kingdom, or the "kindom," is so on my mind of late. And yesterday evening I felt a moment of that, a moment of the kingdom, that safe place of inclusion, of gathering close where we can tell our own stories, sing our our own songs, and laugh together. I finally had comfort with one who has made me uncomfortable. I heard from ones who are quiet, and discovered the power of eggs, especailly deviled eggs. We seem to be the queens of deviled eggs. So I am pleased. The most pleasing thing was the sense of answered prayer, that these friends and nearly friends, for whom I have been praying, are growing. I saw us enjoy a moment of that peace, wholeness, and healing that I pray for, a moment of "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." And a moment is a lot.

From an Article on Illinois Church Shooting

This is from a note from a church Friend:

I don't know how many of you happened to read Terry Mattingly's column in the Faith & Family section of the NS last Saturday. I'd read online many of the news stories and comments immediately following the Maryville, IL shooting and have been trying decide what I want to write to the congregation given our differences in theology and some of the "God's will" statements that were being made early on. I'd concluded I wanted to share Shonna Cole's poem ("On Earth as it is") from Sunday and Mattingly's piece helped me decide what to write on my own. I think the column will be of interest of others at TVUUC. The article follows:

"Terry Mattingly, March 21, Knoxville NSBullets, Bibles and Big QuestionsBy age 14, Cassie Griffin had collected a bedroom full of toy frogs, each a playful symbol of her F.R.O.G. motto — Fully Relying On God.She was tall for her age, which probably made it easier for gunman Larry Gene Ashbrook to target her on that horrific night a decade ago at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. Cursing God and Baptists, he stormed into a youth prayer service, firing 100 rounds and exploding a pipe bomb — leaving seven dead and seven wounded.

At a recent meeting of the Wedgwood deacons, Cassie’s father gave his pastor a message for the faithful at the First Baptist in Maryville, Ill., where another disturbed gunman killed the senior pastor while he preached on Sunday, March 8.“Let those people know that my son is still struggling,” the deacon told the Rev. Al Meredith, who preached to the stricken Maryville flock exactly one week after their pastor’s death.This kind of tragedy, said Meredith, is not “something you get over with three points and a poem,” a dose of scripture, a verse of “Victory in Jesus” and a proclamation that, “Everything’s fine. Let’s move on.”

There’s a “Greek word” for that kind of theology and it’s “baloney,” he said, preaching where the Rev. Fred Winters bled and died, his Bible blasted apart by one of 27-year-old Terry Joe Sedlacek’s first shots. Police have not announced a motive.“Every day with Jesus is not sweeter than the day before,” said Meredith, in a sermon that swung from tears to gospel singing to laughter. “Some days are evil. In fact, the Bible says, ‘Stand that you might be able to stand in the evil day.’ Last Sunday was an evil day, and our hearts are breaking. …“People are going to ask, ‘When are you going to get over this?’ You’re never going to get over this, but by God’s grace you’re going to get through it. And God will give you joy and peace in the midst of it, in the midst of the tears and the heartache. Have you learned that? You are learning it. It’s the praise you give with a broken heart that is the greatest sacrifice you can offer God.”

There are few pastors who have faced the challenge of preaching in a sanctuary that has blood on the carpet and bullet holes in the walls. There are few who have had to face the press after this kind of bloodshed, with most of the reporters asking an ancient question that is at the heart of mature faith: “Can you tell us where God is in all of this?”

Meredith, of course, addressed that question when he faced his own shell-shocked flock. That’s why the Maryville church asked him to come preach.Back in 1999, he said: “If God really loves us, if God is all powerful, why in the world did he let this happen? Why does God allow evil to seemingly abound in this world? Why Columbine? … Why do a million and a half unborn babies have their lives snuffed out before they have a chance to breathe a breath? Why do children die of hunger daily around the world? Why is there pain? Why is there suffering? Why is there mental illness? … The question is, ‘Where is God when we hurt?’ “The reality is that there is no way to avoid suffering. Thus, the crucial test is whether believers can face trials and tribulations without sliding in despair.

Meanwhile, said Meredith, far too many churches are fighting about the “color of the carpet or the music they sing,” while suffering people keep looking for some sense of hope — in this world and the next. It doesn’t help that anyone with a television remote can find scores of “health and wealth boys” who claim that true believers will avoid pain and strife altogether.“Tell that to every saint that’s died. Tell that to the saints that are struggling with unmitigated pain,” he told the Maryville congregation. “God never promised us a life without trials. As Americans, we want a carefree and happy life. We think that’s God’s will for our lives. Get a clue. God’s will for your life is to make you into the image of His Son, and that only happens through the heartaches and trials of life.”

Dreamy

What a dreamy weekend. Though I hesitate to chronicle events of no particular interest to you reader, (I always wonder if there is a reader), the set does form a lovely whole. Friday afternoon featured a called from a stranger asking to send a proposal for one of the largest single consulting job I have ever been involved with. Miracles. In the evening I took myself downtown to where Central Avenue is brightening up nicely and attended a free lecture at Gypsy Hands, where Sara is Goddess of small realm of royal blue and crimson rooms.

http://www.gypsyhands.com/heal/html/events.html

There I listened to Maori Healers from New Zealand. An unusual barefoot man spoke for about two hours and I grew used to his notable speech impediment due to a significant harelip. Such surprising packages people come in, this wise healer with his huge belly, and his potato nose was a delight, with a powerful message of awareness and personal responsibility couched in stories that could be written up for children, perhaps they were being presented for us children. I was charmed, especially by his wife, Atta. Her dimples alone were beguiling, but to add her voice, so smooth, and her wisdom. She was another humble one, sitting on a stool crocheting as her husband spoke, her bare feet turned up and crossed. She would nod as she listened, perhaps to the same stories she had heard a hundred times. She spoke of the smells of people in there illnesses, and her willingness to tell, to let the words be in the air. It was clear that her awareness was given in so much love, that harsh news could be harvested, a feast, if one was willing. She talked about the grounding power of food, of eating, "just look at our bodies" she laughed. Indeed she is another sturdy island person grown heavy with powerful heaviness of women, the weight a thick layer over the whole torso, her arms were formidable and her hands, muscled. Later on Sunday I got experience her power first hand. After the meeting, though I had not intended too, I signed up for a session. But first to Saturday.

Saturday my friend returned form a journey gone wrong. I welcomed her with tulips and lilies, cooking and time. We attended a poetry reading of Marilyn Kallet at Carpe Librum http://www.redroom.com/blog/marilyn-kallet

She is a mentor of mine Her poems delight me. Her readings sound as if these finely crafted poems are her conversation to you. And I as repeat jeweled lines in my mouth I turn them on my tongue, and make umm, yum, sounds, they taste of such depth and delight, layers unfold. She is lovely, and the years rest so gently on her, I cannot believe time is passing for her. I am so honored when she greets me as she does, telling me that my presence made the event an Event. So precious. I read her book with wonder, a treasure chest.

Sunday was a large day. At church for both services I read a long poem that Rev. Chris had requested early in the week. "Do you have something about the power of the spirit to overcome evil with good?" Do I? I live that poem every hour as I keep the darkness at bay for a little while, and then a little while again, to build a day, and build a day, quick before the night falls hard again. I read "On Earth as it is," the long poem of the vision that we are making progress, is it a patient dream. After each service I greedily stood in the receiving line with Rev. Chris and our beautiful guest musician Jonathan Sexton receiving hugs, and praise, licking it up like ice cream and laughter, my belly fuller and and fuller.

Then we hurried over to Gyspy hands where I was the last client scheduled for the Knoxville event. I waited patiently on the floor. There were four massage tables in a row, lots of singing, chanting, and oh the sounds of pain. Directly in front of me was a large mat, that I later realized as a wrestling mat, so apt. This became my focus. A large woman lay face down on that the mat. Atta sat on a chair at her feet, placing her own feet on top of the prone women's upturned feet. The woman groaned and twitched, though I could not discern that anything was occurring. Atta was doozing, her head down, slipping from time time off to the side and catching herself from falling out of her chair, never looking up. Eventually Atta began to walk up the woman's legs, then her back. Atta is large, the woman on the floor screamed as the weight came up her body, up even onto her chest, she gasped and begged for air. Then Atta moved down onto the floor and Sara joined her. With the woman now lying an her back, they folded the her legs up toward her head as if she were giving birth, and just as I thought that they began to yell at her "Push, Push." As so the wrestling match, the birthing labor began. It continued forever, screaming and writhing. I have never seen women behave in such a manner. I was determining how to gather my few things and leave unnoticed. This was more that I cared to view and way more than I wanted to experience. Eventually the big man lay on the wrestling woman. "Push him off, Fight him" they cried, other women in the room joining in the chant, slapping the hard wood floor. I was both fascinated and digusted, what possible good could this torturous display bring about? But eventually the woman began to try to poke the eyes of her captor and he set her free, satisfied that she had found her power to fight for her life, for her freedom. Oddly, she was even grateful, and like me, paid money for that.

Soon it was my turn. I told the big Maori man I was frightened about what I had seen. He did not assure me, he only laughed. I submitted. I laid face down, he began to work my feet. Soon he moved away and Atta came to me. I was grateful for her, for her touch. Over and over as she hurt me, I mumbled bless you Atta, bless you Atta. At two points the pain was the greatest. When she pulled the tendons under each arm, I flinched, toes curling, groaning. And then she worked my belly. For that time, I was turned face up. She mounted the table between my legs, like a lover. I found myself reach out to her as if she were my lover climbing up my body. But she was not. She pushed her elbow into my womb. I kept my fingers gently on her arm. She asked me about my children, how many children, two live births and two lost. I released everything, Bless you Atta. My belly was pushed to my spine, and in that one moment I rose up and cried out, and she was done. Then I wept. Other women I knew came and held my hands, stroked my forehead. I saw many things, so much drifting away. I heard over and over, "I am almost home, it is almost done." The women exhorted me to cry out, but I did not. Instead that deep hard laughter rose out of me breaking over me, that laughter that rises up out of the light, laughing and laughing, the tears flowing.

Others gathered laughing. It is a dream, a dream of freedom. We will all pass over into laughter. There is nothing else. We will see all our sorrows, all our pain rise up out of us. Bubbling up and out in laughter. That is what I saw with Grandfather on the other side. In a vision after he passed over, we watched together the stories of the pain we shared, the pain we cause each other, and we laughed. So beautifully had we both played our roles, he the Pharisee and me the rebel. We were very fine in our roles. And it was done. Nothing was left but to laugh, loud and hard. Yesterday I laughed as all the victimizers and all the victims floated before my eyes and drifted away, further away, far enough removed to be a tale from long ago and far away, not today's pain lived again and again. We will all pass over into laughter, laughter and song.

A Real Job?

The other day I was taking with a dear friend of mine about financial insecurities, a frequent topic on my tongue of late, and I stuck my foot in my mouth, another frequent item on my tongue. I said something about "getting a real job." And she replied, "oh, so you think I don't have a real job?" She went on to remind me of the importance of childcare. (So right my dear, my apologies yet again) Oh my, foot extraction is so cumbersome, rarely fully effective. In truth I was using a phrase I often use in reference to myself. As a freelancing consultant, a contract worker, I feel I have not had a real job in nearly ten years. It's been a good run, praise Goddess. This week though I have been thinking it is at an end. The last of my major clients ran out of money for the apparently frivolous work of occupational ergonomics, and will not complete the final phase of our long term project. With the loss of the automotive industry work over two years ago, this client was my last hope to keep my independent business open. I'd be okay getting a "real job." I like getting a real pay check. I have been putting in applications, but I have heard nothing, like my resume has arrived with a bad odor, nothing. Hum...

I have considered the option of a really bohemian life. Perhaps I could lease out my house. I even talked with my niece and her new husband about leasing it from me. I could go somewhere... But anywhere I go I take my hungry belly and my fragile self who needs a safe warm place and friends and church and especially family. See I still have a son at home. And his father could take him full time instead of half time as we do now. They would manage. But only manage. He still needs momma, and there's only a few years left. I give him things he can't get with dad, like clean toilets, and vegetables, and Sunday school, and I don't know, but I have tears now because whatever it is, it is important. And we need each other. So need to stay here, not go to some bohemia. I need a real house, and a car, and all those mom things, like taking him for a long bike ride in Townsend yesterday.

I have been a bit afraid. But friends have been comforting me, at the women's group at church and on the phone. One old friend said, "oh you say it is the end, but something always comes through." She has known me a long time. Yesterday a little sparrow sat on a bush where my son and I rested during our long bike ride. The little bird lifted her head and sang. I heard the old hymn "I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me." Praise Goddess. It made me feel free and fine.

So today I got a call from a project manager with whom I have had subcontract work for several years. He thinks might be getting me a "real job" back out at ORNL doing safety oversight. That would be fine. It is not as free as I am now but it is not straining either. I spent the 1990's at ORNL. For a real job, it is about as low key as you can get, not like building cars where people work round the clock and fight machines day and night. It would be tedious and petty. But there are many fine bright people there and occasionally they do something of value. I have high hopes. So if you are inclined that way, pray for me.

But not just for me, for all of us. So many of us are unemployed, marginally employed, self-employed, and slowly slipping under. One need not be buried under sports cars and second homes and five TV's and on and on, to be struggling. We are cooking at home, turning down the heat, wearing the old shoes, skipping the preventive medical screenings and dental work, just waiting. I do think we will be okay. But for me, I'd rather have a real job, than lose my home and my son and wonder off from my community here. I want to stay and have a place where a calmness can gather around me, at least from time to time, a calmness encircling large enough to make a little shelter for others, from time to time. We shall see. "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me."

Fish outa water

Just a fish outa water. This was pianted by a friend at lovely party featuring the most beautiful canvases. The artisit is here http://www.jessicagregory.net. However the poet is here:

Divine Madness

I have been a worm against the wall.
I have been warned against my call.
I have been made small
under the thumb and flat on my back.
I have whined and writhed under attack.

But today, today I say: Enough.
I am done looking among the blind
for visionary paths they cannot find.
I am done sitting among the crippled
who cannot walk in the spirit
The day has past when they can cast
me down in the pit of psychiatric pills
The day is done when I try to become
as small as they see me to be.

I am a Believer.
I’m in super vision of the supernatural.
I have seen the white light
that shines from my eyes
and I will not hide.
I have witness to the pillar of light
that pours in and out of my crown.
I will not sit down and pretend, no.

I can spin balls of light in my hands.
I can push that light into skin
and bring convulsions of passion
at the passing of my hand.
I have witness to the stars
I gather in the dark of my room,
stars that throb and spin
when I sing their names.
I claim the power of the spirit in my hands.
I have healed the sick. By my hand
I have cast out sorrows and shadows
at my command.
I can see the buried stories
of the attacked and maimed
I release them from shackles of pain.
By the spirit I am powerful beyond the natural
and I will not walk in shame.

I can see lairs when they talk
and deceivers when they walk.
The force field of my anger has stopped the clock,
smoked the computer, and choked the coffeepot.
And I’m not gonna stop believing in what I got.

I utterly submit to the madness of my divinity.
It is within me.
And I testify -
It is in you.
You can shine, I don’t mean rhetorically,
I mean literally, shine,
like a light bulb, like a lightening bolt.
You can hear the holy dead
and you can dream where you are led.
You have not begun to believe
what you really are.
You have been too long deceived
crushed like worms in the mud.
Oh ye of little faith,
escape the prison of rational naturalism.
You are super-natural.
Rise up.
The light they speak of?
It is real.
The tongue of fire on your head,
is real.
Be crowned in the spirit,
a beacon in the dark.
Rise up,
Rise up you stars
and crawl no more.

January 22, 2009

Working hard

Today I finally got to work. I had a small job with a rad waste facility. It is not appropriate to go into details, but it break my hearts to see how people work. Four ten hour days plus an 8 hour day - 48 hours per week in full dress out. That means plastic suits and supplied air respirators or full face filter respirators, up to four layers of gloves, steel toed shoes, shoe covers, air lines to drag around, and glove boxes to fight. All this while bending, grasping ridiculous tools, lifting, and sweating in unairconditioned warehouses. I have seen workers in auto plants walking fast for 7 or even 10 miles a day - I calculate it - carrying 18 tons total. I have seen one man lift 40 tons per day, day ofter day, a little skinny guy smaller than me. I have seen workers cut and bleed right in front me, seen their scars, and amputations. I have listened to stories of workers who haven't had a day off in 70 days, 70 days straight in front of smelters with radiant heat like an oven, blinding light. My heart aches.

I read a blog today from Katie Granju, whom I like and respect, but this story is more than she notes. If you link, scroll down to the one from yesterday with the clean coal video.

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/granju/

Coal is complicated whether clean or dirty coal and there is a difference. It is about the sulfur content and the amount of resulting acid formation in the air. But that is not my point. I once had a job working on a strip mine in West Virginia with a guy named Dusty, seriously, third generation coal miner. His daddy was Rocky, swear to god. This is mountain top removal, a moonscape. I got some shit about working for them. But its not about the company, its about the people. I've worked for Haliburton too, good men on those oil rigs. Strip mining is one of the scariest jobs I've had, trucks bigger than a house. They once ran over a van, driver and all, because the van was too small to see from the drivers seat of the truck. I was helping blasters, men who carrying around fifty pound boxes of explosives and dig holes to set charges, bless their hearts, walking a moonscape, carrying death boxes in their arms and breaking their backs. But we need coal.

And I hate taking down a mountain. But I hate sending men down into mountains more. They die down there, in the dark. Men go into those mines and work for 20, 30 years, ten hour days under ground. In winter they never see the sun. I know the first female underground coal miner, an old lesbian, precious, too sick to work at all now.

Well, my point in all of this is everything you use, including energy, is made by a person, by their hands, by their backs. Coal is a hard life. We need new energy. Bitching about clean coal and arguing over word campaigns is stupid. We need tidal energy, solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectric dams, and lots more nuclear power plants. We should have been building them twenty years ago. We need to open up the waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain and quit bitching about the ten thousand year probabilities of containment. We need to help coal miners today. Coal is dirty. It gets in your skin and won't come out til you grow new skin. We need a vision, a new future. The little bitching is silly. The coal miners are real.

Edgy Photos

Too bad photography requires those pesky cameras. My friend brought over the movie "Fur" a fictional biography of Diane Arbus, photographer of freaks and other normal people. Then she shared this biography:



http://www.amazon.com/Diane-Arbus-Biography-Patricia-Bosworth/dp/0393326616/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236783484&sr=1-1

Diane Arbus committed suicide in 1971 at the age of 48. Her photos are intense. I feel correspondences with her, being a mother, coming out of a very conventional life into an independent "alternative" life, struggling with depression, trying to live creatively. But she is far more courageous than I am. I think some of my poems are edgy like her work. Recently I've been experimenting with photographic collages set in shadow boxes. I use multiple images of a subject, cutting them out by hand and piecing them onto mats in the foreground or back ground and layering them. I am looking at the presented image of the person and the shadow form. I like to use photos taken when they are unaware or unposed or even resistant and layer these with more posed images, or with other objects like mushrooms and staircases. I think they are lovely. One disturbed my son. It showed my parents at their wedding and layered with them now at my niece's wedding. It was harsh. I rebuilt it with more friendly images, layering the old photo with images of my niece and her new husband. I still like the original. I want to do a study of sleeping people.
Here are a few interesting photos that may be a bit in the style of Arbus. These are digital and color so nothing like hers, but I will work on it. The first one, above, I took of me being very sad and mad. It was new year's day, happy fucking new year.
This next one at left is a mother of the bride and bride. I love the way the bride is moving away from mother and the mother watches with some anxiety on her face. Mother's hands are so tense. This one was used for the shadow box layered pieces, the first one of these I did. I removed all the background and used multiple images of the two figures. The final result appears to have four layers over gray silk fabric.

The next one below is more straightforward but I like the rejecting posture of the boy and the red spot on his hand like a wound. The flash was too much though. I used this in a complex layered piece with photos of another child, a total of four different images expressing a conflict between the children and between their individual presented selves. The last one is just fun. I am working in a layered piece with this one using a shadowed nude image of me as a "cake" on a cake plate in the foreground of this photo of a pastry case with reflections. It seems to be too complex though, especially in the small size.

Makes all things new

How is it that paradoxical contradictions sit one with in the other? They are every where, "out there" and within. For example policemen serve and protect; they also beat people and are often corrupt. Perhaps not the best example. I'll try another one. Religious organizations are a huge source of real charity, service, and spiritual comfort; they are also institutions of destructive divisiveness, subjugation, and cruel condemnation. A similar case could be made for governments. But all of that is too far removed.

This week I got to see a very personal example of paradox in my mother (my little southern lady voice is speaking in my head saying "bless her heart" which has many translations including "can you believe this shit"). So I had a good visit with my mother. It was redemptive, full of grace that shines a new light, and makes all things new. But what does that mean? That language is religious and trite. It means that I changed my mind and I like the new one better, but I needed help to do it. To break that down; I changed my mind. I exerted my will to think different thoughts. I decided to view this part of the paradox more than that part of the paradox. I like the new mind better. It is gentler to me, less sickening to me, and it still resides in truth. I just turn my head a some of the time to take in more of that part of the view and a little less of the other part. But I needed help to do it. That is more difficult to explain without the religious language. In making my decision to change my mind, I asked for help. And I got it from invisible, intangible source that can be called, in religious terminology, the Holy Spirit. When I got help from the invisible, intangible source how did I know that? It feels like falling in love really. Suddenly the other person looks better, more attractive, though not sexually in this context. I'm just making an analogy. Instead of passion you feel compassion. But that is what the holy spirit feels like, like falling in love. Only in this case you fall in love with yourself and with everything. And like falling in love it is not a permanent state, not without constant maintenance. But with constant maintenance it is not only permanent but ever growing.

So the paradox I witnessed this week can be illustrated in a couple of stories. My parents took me, my sister, and my niece (who is a grown up) to Disney world during my visit to Florida. It is a big scary place for me, but I really love the flowers. So it was fine. Mother loves Disney World but hates people as a group, especially foreigners and especially children. Guess what Disney is all about - large groups of people with lots of children and lots of foreigners. Well, mother rides one of those little power scooters around because of obesity and a very bad heart. I got to drive it a couple times; it's fun. But she needs a race track and pit team. She will go about 5 miles an hour through a thick crowd, pushing her horn little button, and yelling at small bewildered children to get out of the street. It is mortifying. I wander off at the sidelines somewhere and pretend I have no idea who that horrible person is. Restaurants are worse, I can't wander off easily. She growled at very small child who coughed as she walked near mother. We were sharing a table with their family. When I requested that she keep her peace, she said the child should be controlled and not cough on her food but mother didn't even have any food. So that is one side of the paradox. There is more to this story.

So we were at home and having a few friends in. A neighbor called and came to visit. the neighbor sat up erect on the sofa and told the group of friends and family effusive stories of how my mother had been an angel to her and her sick husband. How she would not have been able to cope without mothers loving help, bringing meals and coming to their house to cook, helping them find medical care and learn about options, listening and checking in on them. She literally felt that my mother was possessed of an angel spirit and acting as god's hand to her and her family. The woman was beaming. And I have known other friends of hers who had similar feelings toward my mother, similar stories.

How do these two persons reside in the same being? I don't know. Guess it is the same as the daylight and darkness we see in the outer world each day as our planet turns. This daylight and darkness also exists in our inner worlds. I know that I want to live the light as much as I can, and sit quietly with my darkness when it comes. I am trying to learn to sit quietly with the darkness of others. I don't know how we challenge the destructiveness of their darkness without participating in it and exacerbating it, like a storm that darkens the twilight. I do know that light dispels darkness, and that perfect love casts out all fear. That is all I can try for.

I have another story I want to tell today, and since I am clearly not getting my report done, I may as well tell my tale. Yesterday I finished reading a novel, yawned, and said I am a wastrel. Then I realized that I didn't know what word meant. So I got out my sacred ten pound unabridged English dictionary, the bible of word nerds. A wastrel is one who is idle, wasting time, (exactly) also one who is wasteful, (perhaps) and, surprisingly, one who is an abandoned child, hum...

In the last two years I have encountered, and loved, a series of women who have lost their mothers, and grieve deeply. Some have been temporarily disabled by the grief, none will ever be the same. It seems the wound diminishes our ability for intimacy, to be connected at a deep level and hang in there. After meeting yet another grieving daughter this week, a bell went off in my thick head, there's a message here about mothers and daughters, death and grieving. I have not been getting it, but I am trying now.

Oh mother. My mother has been a torment as far back as I can remember, a yelling, hitting, mean-spirited nightmare who tried very hard to be a good mother and still does. And she has also been dying for nearly that long too. For over 40 years my sister and I have watched with trepidation and, shamefully, a growing callousness. The series of deadly illnesses and subsequent recoveries is both miraculous and bizarre.

In the 60's when we we're very little she had a vague "heart problem." She would gasp and clutch her chest. She would tell my poor older sister that she wouldn't live to see us raised. That one turned out to be an arrhythmia, an uncomfortable but benign condition. Of course, we did not know that, perhaps, she didn't either. Next, in the 70's, was a period of disability from degenerative arthritis of the spine. She told us it would leave her in a wheel chair soon and kill her slowly. My sister and I were left to manage a large house and care for our much younger brother. That illness was miraculously cured by Pat Robertson via television. I will not comment on that, both because I will not risk blaspheme of the holy spirit and because I have a thing for TV preachers too. This brings us up into the early 80's and a case of lupus, terminal in usually just a few years. I don't know what happened to the lupus. Moving along now, there was uterine hemorrhage, mercy, then diverticulitis, then a liver cancer and another miraculous cure, again I will let that be. I did a laying on a hands myself with that one. Now we are up to the current period and the culmination, congestive heart failure, the result of decades of obseity. She had a prognosis of four moths to live, but that was 20 months ago. But she is a tough old bird, she's packing for her third international cruise since then, this time for a month long journey.

It is difficult to prepare for death for so long, over and over. It's worn us out, my sister and me. I feel like the villagers of the boy who cried wolf. But eventually the wolf did come, as he will for all of us. I don't know how mother has done this, to be so ill and then call down grace like that over and over. It tells me there is a lot I don't' understand about "mean spirited" people and about grace.

In the meantime, our relationship has been difficult for me in other ways, especially since I came out. My grievances rise up, her words to me - being destined for homelessness, amoral, equated to a murderer, so many harsh words. Once I remember her talking about homophobia. She said "I hate that word. I don't fear them. I just hate 'em."

But she never stopped calling, she never stopped giving gifts, and she never stopped loving me.

Finally, I decided I needed to forgive her, for me, for healing myself. It is not about what she says or doesn't say, what she thinks or doesn't think. When she passes, and it will be soon, I don't want the loss deepened my shame and regret. I have wasted to much time being a big baby, suffering 'cause I don't get my way. I just need to practice forgiveness. To even begin I had to pray to be led there. I couldn't even pray the words at first. But I prayed to be led there, for the holy spirit to led me into forgiveness. I started practicing forgiveness first on little stuff like a bad meal and a slow waitress, that kind of thing, or rude drivers (well, I'm still working on that one). I've been working up to the mom thing. It's a big pile; I'm old with a long memory. But I just know that underneath the pile is important stuff, like intimacy.

See I realized a while back I had been avoiding intimacy with partners, choosing people who couldn't do it, alcoholics, distancers, long distancers, or just sweet souls who are not home. The lights are on, but when I come to call, no one's home. There must be something I like about that. I keep going for it. So I guess I'm not home either (where did I go?).

After praying and praying I see that one of the barriers to intimacy is unforgiveness. I can't do the deep stuff with anybody if I can't do a "hang in there when it gets tough" love. And I can't do the hang in there love (also known as "commitment" - ouch) if I can't get over stuff. You see how I am with my lists of grievances, (see above). Anyway this week I was praying and got the word, Go See Her. She lives in Florida and I've never been to her house down there. I have gone the house up here for short visits, like an hour, because I can leave and drive home easily, but I never go with my sister because then I wouldn't have my own car, parked out on the street, not blocked in on the drive way, and running, well, not really running, but you get the idea.

Well, it just so happens that my sister and my niece are planning to go tomorrow, so I am going too. I called, my dad booked the flight and I am going. No car, no back door, and a Disney World ticket too. I think feel the diarrhea starting already. But it will be okay. Now I just have to keep away from bargaining, emotional bartering, manipulations - "I came all the way down here on your territory and the least you can do is apologize for...." For what? For being sick and frightened her whole life? For having parents that yell and hit? For never betraying our religion as she is taught it? What? I don't know any more. I'm just hoping to go and be present. Pray for me.