Not one. Not two.

I am using a book by Sr. Joan Chittister as a daily meditation.  Her book, The Rule of Benedict:  A Spirituality for the 21st Century takes the Rule and breaks it down into daily chunks to which she adds some wonderful commentary.  For example, below is the commentary to yesterday's selection.

Benedict, whose whole way of life is steeped in the psalms, relies heavily on the psalms here to prove God's probing presence to the individual soul. God, Benedict says quite clearly, is within us to be realized, not outside of us to be stumbled upon.  It is not a game of hide-and-seek we play in the spiritual life.  It is simply a matter of opening our eyes to the light that drives out the darkness within us.


"How does a person seek union with God?" the seeker asked.


"The harder you seek," the teacher said, "the more distance you create between God and you."


"So what does one do about the distance?"


"Understand that it isn't there," the teacher said.


"Does that mean that God and I are one?" the seeker said.


"Not one. Not two."


"How is that possible?" the seeker asked.


"The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and the song. Not one. Not two."


I find this tremendously comforting.  Despite the "His eye is on the sparrow" mentality that tries to assure us that we are each the focus of God's undivided attention, the bottom line for me is that smacks of too much making God in our own image - as if God is some amazing multi-tasking, control freak.  Whereas this emphasizes how we are all part of God, God is within and around us.  God "knows" us because we are the body.

The examples are all the more fitting for their transient nature.  The light, the wave, the song all dissipate in a moment as do we.

"Love The Warrior, Hate The War"

This post originated as a comment on Mimi's blog.  It got too long, however, and so I place my thoughts here instead.  I can't remember how to make that link so just look over to the left there on the blog page.

Love the Warrior, Hate the War?  Make me wince as much as the phrase it is playing with.  With the exception, perhaps, of the marine corps...I wonder how many kids (and I DO mean kids) in the military would define themselves as a warrior.  Soldier, sailor, zoomie (sorry I never could figure out what Air Force enlisted call themselves)but warrior I suspect would not be top of the list.

I responded to a comment thread on FB about saying "Thanks" to vets.  I often forget that I am a veteran.  I joined the Navy at 18 as a way to get out of the house on my own terms.  It was peace time.  It was the Navy.  It was a big adventure.  It also felt very normal and average.  When folks have said "thanks" it reminds me that what I did at 18 was not normal and average.  It was exceptional and I did it by choice.  Not once in making my decision did I think "Yeah, Baby, I'm gonna be a Warrior!"

Which brings me back to that phrase.  Yes, we continue to carry cultural guilt over how we treated our Vietnam Vets.  The anti-war  crowd, angry at the pro-war crowd forgot that most of the little guys were drafted.  Further, they ignored the fact that many of the gung ho "Warriors" rapidly changed their minds after some time on the ground in Nam.  Beyond that the pro-war folks had to deal with the fact that we lost.  We went from the glory of WW II victory to the stale mate of Korea to the evacuation of Saigon.

Somewhere along the way, we decided that we shouldn't punish the kids who sign up - even in an alleged "volunteer" military.  Yet, the power brokers seem to have turned Support the Troops into a modern version of America, Love It or Leave It.  There is a strong sense among many that supporting our troops means shutting up and not criticizing the war effort.

I understand the spirit of "Love the Warriors" even if I don't exactly agree with it.  For starters I would begin by  eliminating the use of "Troops."  Troops is too close to describing the human beings involved as if they were military hardware.  In a way it is how we have sanitized the casualty reports.  We say that so many troops were killed, rather than identifying them as so many marines, so many sailors, so many soldiers, etc.  I believe part of how we got here has to do with the fact that the Pentagon didn't want us reminded of the fact that they placed sailors on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan...we might question why Navy personnel were being used in that capacity.  Yet, the 3,000th casualty in Afghanistan was a sailor.  Folks have argued that "Troops" just makes it simpler reporting the casualties.  Why should it be simpler? Other than we don't want to look to closely at death.  It makes the war go down easier.

After eliminating the euphemistic use of Troops, I would force the government to go back to calling it The War Department...who are we kidding but ourselves calling it the Defense Department?  Iraq and Afghanistan were both scams as war.  Need I remind you that Osama was found in Pakistan?  One of our alleged allies.  Need I remind you that 18 of the 19 terrorists on 9/11 were Saudis, another one of our allies.

Maybe if we could initiate changes like these, stop the spin and marketing of bloody, destructive war, we could bring an end to the need for a Memorial Day holiday.

I'm Ba-a-a-ack...

As Elton John once sang, "The bitch is back..."  Once I had given up on home internet access it became very difficult to blog on any kind of regular schedule.  For the most part I prefer to spout off extemporaneously.  I never could get used to creating posts on my lap top and then uploading them later.

Then I purchased a smart phone and had internet at home again, albeit it without a keyboard and on a very tiny screen.  This too proved too much for my blogging skills.

However, I finally investigated on unused function on my phone - "3G Hotspot" - and stopped into the Verizon store today to see what the added cost would be.  Turns out that for $20.00 a month I can now use my phone to create a wireless connection in my house and Bob's-Your-Uncle my lap top is ready to go and so am I.

Let's see...updates.

Health:  I am almost completely weaned off the prednisone - down to 2 mg a day.  Hopefully, the weight that I gained last summer will begin to slip off.  I have a grossly swollen left forefinger.  I am back now with the local rheumatologist and she concurs that my level of pain is better than advancing to the next level of treatment, which for me would involve preventative meds to avoid hepatitis.  I use pain meds every night and can live with this level of disability.  As there is a strong correlation between my autoimmune disease and inflammatory bowel disease I am now also seeing a GI doctor and he has scheduled my very first colonoscopy for July 2.  I'm back to oral meds only in controlling the diabetes.  

Work:  All I will say is that the hospital has been sold and they are hammering out the deal.  That is stressful but as this is a public blog I will not say any more about it.

Travel:  I finally took a well needed vacation and did a 1500 mile road trip.  I zipped over to Minnesota and visited with my good friend Lisa.  I also bought some fat man clothes as I am too large these days to shop at the local stores.  I highly recommend J.C. Penney's Big and Tall section and with the Ellen DeGeneres thang - they are the latest GLBT Corporate Heroes.  From there I headed due south on US 63 all the way across Iowa and into Missouri where I had my very first Internet/Blog/Facebook meet up with my awesome cyber-Sistah Maria.  I too was HER first house guest in her newly renovated space.  From there I headed through Illinois and stopped over night at the folks' house to have a family birthday dinner on the first day of my Jubilee year (yes I will turn 50 next birthday).  It was the first time the family was all together in quite awhile. I also got to meet my youngest niece for the first time.  I took Frankie with me.  I had a bit of a scare a month or so ago and want to have some quality time with him before he crosses the rainbow bridge.

Animals:  Frankie is hanging in there - he'll be 15 in July.  Skittles is doing great.  Both of them have been started on Rimadyl though for arthritis pain.  Not sure it's helping Skit though which leaves us wondering why she's not fully weight bearing on her left back leg.  The other girls are doing fine.  Abby the cat continues to hang in there despite her FLV diagnosis from over 16 months ago.

That's enough for now.  I'll put up a link on Facebook but please tell your friends that Renzo is back.

Peace.