Memorial Day 2009

Here's a local newspaper clipping from some 60+ years ago. Long before we decided to become an empire, we reluctantly joined a global conflict to fight rapidly expanding Fascism. Back then the nation, once attacked, rolled up it's sleeves and got to work - everyone -- and we had a clear under-standing of what we were fighting for.

My grandfather worked in a war plant, his brother served in uniform. My grandmothers three brothers, cited in this clipping, all served as well. It took about four years, but we met the challenge and brought peace to Europe and Asia.

Sadly we now have a military that is the only hope for an economically wasted lower and middle class - who's sons and daughters strive for honor in a less than honorable world. Billions of dollars are tossed around and war has become just a part of our day to day routine. However, 65 years ago, we were all involved in the fight and we wept, prayed and rejoiced together.

Today we bomb Afghani villages to bring democracy and freedom to their country, often killing innocent civilians in the process. Iraq is still mostly gutted and charred from all the years of that pointless war. Dick Cheney and his cronies have filled their war chests though. We repeatedly scorch the earth half way around the globe and here at home we worry about who's winning the American Idol contest. The children of our lower and middle classes are killed by roadside bombs and guerrilla fighters, or come home permanently wounded or scarred to a broken VA system and no jobs or future.

So on this Memorial Day, not only due I pay honor to those members of the Great Generation who sacrificed and won. I also remember the thousands of young men and women who have sacrificed for a much less honorable cause yet have bravely maintained their sense of honor and duty.

End the wars now! Peace.

Rock, Paper, Scissors...

Apparently in the dog version "garbage" beats "bunnies." You see - it's a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning here, low 50's...gorgeous! Now that the snow is gone I can go back to letting the dogs hang out in the great room while I exercise the bunnies in the screened porch while I clean the hutch. I have this strict two door rule - two doors between the dogs and the bunnies when they're not in the hutch. This drives Frankie and Lola crazy - they sit on the back of the sofa and whine and paw. For some reason bunnies in the hutch?...boring. Bunnies on the ground?...kill, kill, kill.

So today I bring the dogs in, lock the screen doors on the porch, and free Thelma and Louise for a good romp while I clean the hutch. I'm busy scooping and sweeping and slowly it dawns on me that there isn't a single dog in the window watching, whining, and waiting for a chance to get 'em. Then I remember the big bag of garbage I left on the kitchen floor well within reach of prying eyes, teeth, and paws. Forgetting my two door rule I fling open the front door and sure enough - garbage all over the floor! And, so, in doggie games - garbage beats bunnies. Yes, it's not a logical comparison, but thankfully dogs don't think like humans and so it makes perfect sense to them!

I Really Like Where I'm At

Last week this was one of my status updates on Facebook: I really like where I'm at. Does that make me crazy? Some of the comments:

"No, wise and serene." by Jane Redmont

"No, it makes you fortunate to be living your bliss." by Carolyn Heyman

"Yay, Larry!" by Gina Shropshire

I know I'm an odd duck. It's been awhile since I've posted on my secular monasticism. In true American fashion, I believe that I live a simple life - in my log home, gainfully employed, a belly that would make Friar Tuck proud, a very well stocked personal library of books, DVDs, & music--call it 21st Century American ascetic (is that the right word?). Mostly I come home to be alone with the dogs in the woods in the quiet. At times I think it's more Garbo that grace. I just want to be alone.

In Enneagram I am a "Five: The Observer" and I live in my head. Practitioners would say that's why I like to hide in the woods in my home. What I have learned from that paradigm is the need to seek out real contact with people and live the emotion in the moment. That has contributed to my sense of balance and well being -- that and the right dose of medication for my anxiety/depression.

I work very hard to live in the moment - exist in the now. It is so easy to ruminate over the past and worry about the future. Letting go of the past doesn't mean forgetting, but rather keeping the proper perspective. In the words of the Serenity Prayer, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." The past should be one of the top items on the list of things that cannot be changed. It's a lesson Dick Cheney is struggling with these days. Worrying about the future could mean that as you sit there at your child's ball game you are mentally thinking about your next work day or the grocery list or anything along those lines. Shut off your cellphone and BE there for your kid - in the moment.

At times I feel guilty that I feel so content. There's plenty to be upset about these days, I know. Yet, life is so damn short - accept where you are now and find some contentment. Don't be like I used to be - I'd climb onto that ride at the amusement park and begin thinking how short a ride it was going to be, and start to anticipate that it would be ending soon, and sure enough when it was done, I thought damn that was too short...and I'd miss the butterflies in my stomach and the exhilaration of flying through the air, and the joy of screaming your head off. I knew it was a short ride and I wasted it thinking about how short a ride it was. Peace.

Are We Drifting?

This is the final engraving of a series of eight by William Hogarth in 1733 entitled "The Rake's Progress." This particular image is "The Rake In Bedlam." I saw this series of images for the first time many years ago at the Art Institute of Chicago. What really captured my attention in this panel are the two well dressed ladies towards the back of the room. In 18th Century London the privileged could pay for the pleasure of watching the mad folk housed in Bethlehem Hospital otherwise known as Bedlam.

By the 1990's television carried quite a selection of talk show/confrontation as entertainment television - Ricki Lake, Judge Judy, Jerry Springer, et al. One afternoon as I sat watching one of these shows with a friend of mine, we commented on the similarity between what we - the viewing public - were doing and what was shown in Hogarth's engraving. Once again the "mad" were on display for our amusement. Having clucked my tongue at the obvious exploitation of the insane in the engraving, I have never been able to watch any of those shows the same way since.

So what then to make of our behavior in the blogosphere? Through a series of unfortunate events and misunderstood reactions, two bloggers in the Anglican/Episcopal subgroup of bloggers are struggling to find a way to reconcile. Many of the rest of us have been active spectators in this fray, invited in by the public postings and comments of the two main individuals. Think of the way the audience is sometimes invited to make commentary on Ricki Lake or Jerry Springer. The angry, trapped family member or ex-boyfriend on stage is stuck there publicly to take the abuse and ridicule from a stranger.

Are we not doing the same thing? Are we not all participating in something expoitive in a way for our own amusement? I have been following "The Troubles" very intently over the past few days. I was convinced that it was purely out of concern for the participants. Today, I began to realize though that it was not purely that. Concern was a major part of it, but I must be honest and admit to myself that there was a perverse entertainment value as well.

So I ask again, are we drifting? When we fight with "trolls" and argue to the point of name calling with our cyber friends, are we not drifting towards a new form of perverse voyerism that finds enjoyment in the feebleness or weakness of others? And if we are, what can we do to rise above it? We are humans after all, we find it very hard to drive past an accident without gawking...we are Pandora and we can't help wanting to peak in the box.

Be Interesting!

This was the command put forth at the start of a new sub-blog by one of my cyber friends. I hope he will not take what follows personally as he has had quite a tumultuous few days and it is not my intent to pillory him. However, I find his use of the command intriguing. Be interesting! It was a dictate to follow before posting or one risked the consequences. And what exactly does it mean? This? Or this? Or this?

I was struck by the thought of the emperor Caligula. The guards bring in some poor soul. She is placed before the throne. One of the attendants turns to her and sternly commands: Be interesting! The gods help her if she is not.

So the friends of this particular blog are forwarned. Black Bart has pulled out his six shooter and commanded them to dance. The irony here, of course, is that we bloggers hear that command all the time in our own heads. We are chained to our blogs and live in fear that we will lose our readers if we are not interesting. Two other bloggers I know have tried to set their blogs aside and failed within days of making their big announcements. Those words keep whispering in our ears as we type, cut and paste, download, upload -- be interesting.

Maria has a wonderful post up at her blog today. It's a discussion of freedom, obedience and Benedict. What I got from it is that true freedom requires choosing from conscience and conscience requires understanding what you are choosing to obey. It is this meditation on obedience that has wrapped itself up with that dictate to be interesting. What rules are we obeying? What rules have we absorbed from our culture and guide our choices...of dress, of language, of theology, of civility?

Many of us on the progressive left think that we are defying all those rigid, dogmatic rules - that the rules are set forth by the right wingers and our role is to smash those paradigms. We don't always see that we have our own rules and paradigms. That we can be equally rigid and dogmatic.

Jesus said love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. Those were the two big rules. Everything else was negotiable. Over the centuries our squabbling over the negotiable rules has led to much bloodshed, revenge, anger, divisiveness. I live in the belief that God is the love that exists between us and "evil" is that which strives to destroy the bonds of connection. "Evil" is that which isolates us in our little bubbles, stewing in our own pain until we lash out.

Trusting in God, trusting each other, understanding when we are slapped and turning the other cheek instead of slapping back, loving our enemies. We try and we often fail. We are not divine. In our exhaustion, in our pain, in our fear, in our frustration...we say and do regrettable things to each other. Perhaps our devotion to our rules, that which we choose to obey, drives us on in our damaging behavior.

There are far too many ways our culture tells us that we are less than, not good enough, encourages us to feel failed, wronged, weak. If we absorb these messages and do not meditate on how they effect the rules we make for ourselves, the beliefs we blindly obey...then we are not free. We are slaves to something "evil."

Brothers and sisters - be yourselves, accept yourselves, love yourselves. All the rules are negotiable but two - love God and love each other...and "eat the lunch you brought." (Perhaps you should listen to the song below to understand that last bit.) Peace.

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