BEEN THERE...STILL THERE

2012-01-28T14:20:00.001-06:00

Here Go/Go Here:

The bike was a Giant but it was too small for me: Confessions of a Cincinnati Pedicab Driver.

2010-05-02T12:10:00.005-05:00

Light at the End of the Tunnel

"An idea without action is a daydream.

Action without an idea is a nightmare." -google it.

As mentioned, after getting in over my head in matters of "community," marriage, and home ownership, on top of parenting, working, and being silly me..

There has been light at the end of the tunnel. The key to this was recognizing that I had options. Even when it didn't seem like it, I held onto to the alanon principle that we always have options.

When the capitalist bought our house, we soon found ourselves needing to move. We found a house nearby which fit our needs and rent was reasonable. It turns out that we are probably better off at the new house than we would have been at the old house for a lot of reasons. But this isn't the light I was talking about earlier.

When I first decided to move to Cincinnati, I had thought I was moving to a community that "got it," because in this community, Ken didn't need support services from the state. I was impressed with this and wanted to be a part of it. As soon as I married him, the only thing the community got was that the help Ken needed would now come from me. I don't think I will ever get over this, and the experience has completely divorced me from church in any way, shape, or form. I count this as a blessing.

When the support Ken had before I married him evaporated, it took me a long time to figure things out. It was a process, and by the end we knew we needed to chuck the idea that the "church" was responsible toward us, and to ask for the help we need from the state.

Now two of the assistants Ken has started receiving help from are from Ghana. They have come so far from home and they "get it." What they get is that Ken deserves to have the same things in life that everyone else does, and that he and his family deserve a little help to make it all happen. They don't see themselves as saints, and they don't see themselves as doing us any great favors.

That attitude in itself is a great favor. They are the light at the end of this dark tunnel.

(PS. This blog will be closing down in a few short weeks. I'm gleaning from my archives and the rest of this dross will disappear!)

2009-12-10T10:54:00.005-06:00

Marriage and Disability

Not much time, but I want to convey a few things. Ken and I married in 2005. Here is a bit of what we found.

He and I were both losers on social security when we met. You will try and argue with the loser part, but I'm going with the bias of this society. When you're on social security you feel the shame in your bones, every day. One of the first things we did was to check with social security to see how marriage would affect our economic security.

Mine was a survivor's benefit. I would stop getting it, but my kids' benefit would continue. Not so bad. The assumption here: marriage improved my economic condition.

Ken's was a disability benefit plus medicare and medicaid. He would stop getting all of it. The assumption: if you're good enough to marry you must be earning a living, or you've found someone to take care of you.

I've heard men rightfully complain about women trying to hook up with them for security, and to get onto the man's health insurance. I've heard of women rightfully complain of the men who are freeloading off of them. Keeps the gossip circles going. All that is legit, (except the gossip.) But what I'd like for you to consider here is what happens when someone marries the one that they love regardless of lack of benefits. Makes a strong case for choosing a mate on the basis of security, doesn't it? Who's gossipping about this outrage? And to me, the outrage is this: this system discriminates against people with disability by making it economically unfeasible for them to marry anyone.

Okay, I lied to you. Ken and I did not get married, not legally anyway. Hopefully you see why. A struggling, single parent raising two kids does not take on an adult dependent. The last thing a man wants, disabled or not, is to give up what little autonomy he has and become solely dependent on a wife. (Not to mention the havoc extreme dependency can wreak in a marriage.)

I would think this stuff would be common knowledge, but I have found that the ignorance of the state is just the tip of the iceberg. I did say I am giving up blame for Lent, starting in Advent, so I will try to convey this in a benign manner.

The best way to say this without blaming is to admit and when Ken and I got together, we both had a traditional setup in mind. (As did everybody.) And what is that? I was going to take on the wife's role. We all know what that is. A-Z caretaking. Traditionally husbands have a role also, and when you have an obvious disability, you're expected to do..what you can. (I could claim disability on the basis of chronic insonmia, but face it: I look fine on the outside, ie. no disability.)

Okay, I lied again, sort of. I knew I could not do this. I knew I would need help in order to function in a family with two dependent children and a spouse with a disability, not to mention my own issues (including chronic insomnia.) I communicated this to his then support system, and it was communicated back to me in a variety of ways (that I will not get into) that this support system would remain. For a variety of reasons it did not, but the number one reason is because of the assumptions we all make about marriage.

There is a light at the end of this dark tunnel, if now you even percieve the tunnel we are in. That is what I will hopefully blog about next!

2009-10-03T15:07:00.006-05:00

Are You Exempt?

I am thinking about blogging a series of short posts about things that have been on my mind lately. This first one concerns something that people have told me from time to time: that I have a gift with people with disabilities. Some people tend to view this as "my thing" like others might be into skiing, or animals, or gardening.

To get to my point quickly, let me suggest we replace this with another demographic. How about black people. "You have a real gift with black people. I just don't know what to do when I am around them." How does that go over?

Once at church someone who uses a wheelchair started coming. Immediately some people started looking for Ken and me so that we could get together with this other person. Let's try this on another demographic. "Hey Raul! There is a gay visitor this morning! I hope we can get the two of you together! Isn't this special!"

Okay, so I have to admit that in thinking about this, I was thinking of how my daughter has a bit of a gift with children. And frankly, at this point with my children in high school and beyond, children aren't really my thing. But children aren't necessarily an oppressed demographic as a whole, held down by the mores of our society. Gays and blacks and people with disabilities are. I will be posting much more on disability and oppression later.

So what do I want to say to people who tell me I have a gift in what I have chosen in both work and my personal life? First of all, thank you. Like Emilie does with children, I do sort of have an affinity for supporting and understanding some people with disabilities. I will also confess that sometimes when I encounter certain individuals with whom I am not familiar, I am fearful, and my tendency is to not want to expend the energy to learn about this person and how they relate or communicate.

I want to stress that my so-called gift does not absolve others of their responsibility to be aware of things that are oppressive in our culture for people with disabilities, and the first of those oppressions is that most people do not recognize that this oppression exists. I do not believe that the Episcopal church has a gift for their embracing people who are gay and lesbian. This is social justice and it's not a favor, it's only right. I do not believe that President Obama's mother had a gift because she had a black partner and raised a black child. This idea would be ludicrous!

By saying people who work with people with disabilities have some kind of gift, people deny the humanity and dignity of that entire demographic. Saying you really admire me, but it's just not your thing... this is oppressive.

2009-09-09T13:26:00.007-05:00

Spiritually Speaking

I am surprised at the church. I am confused by the church. I rack my brain trying to understand the church. I used to take the church personally--the way it would smile congenially and then shut me out, how it welcomed all yet made a quick exit from me, how it would invite me to share and then implement it's own agendas. This made me crazy, wondering how I might alter myself to fit. First I tried to be interdependent with others. Then I tried to be as charitable as I could. Finally I tried to be self-sufficient, to prove that I wasn't a taker. Nothing worked. I was never really a part, so I gave up. One day I noticed the scraggly neighborhood kids on the front steps. First they played, and the church did nothing. Then they made a ruckus, but the church did nothing. Finally they began throwing rocks and finally, the church did something. After the police left, I no longer wondered about the church. I no longer took the church personally.

2009-05-12T17:45:00.004-05:00

Houselessness

Ken and I are soon to be houseless, which should not be confused with homeless, that wretched and ignorantly glorified condition.

Between you, me, and the fence post...I have a lot of feelings about this.

We bought the three family house in 2005. I had no idea how we were going to make it work, but I had hopes. For starters, we had support from our community. Verbal support as in, this is a good idea, there are a lot of people into renovation here, "we" can knock out this wall here, "we" can put a wall there.

Ken and I also knew we would have to refinance in order to do some of the major things the house needed, like windows. I was recovering from eight years of using the Klonopin "professionals" thought I needed and figured that eventually I would recover and sleep, and work full time. Ken had hopes he would get Happy Hands Press off the ground.

A few years later, in 2007 our refinance fell through. We were told that the house was not worth what we paid for it. Dollar bills floated out of the windows in the cold months, sometimes to the tune of 950.00 a month. The furnace went out that winter and we replaced it with an energy efficent one. This did not change the heating bill.

We were fortunate to have Kenny next door. Ken would tell him we needed help with this or that and I came home from work many days to find Kenny helping Ken with things like the water filters in the kitchen and shower. Andy made many trips to our house and the upstairs apartment where he fixed the toilet a time or two. Sam lived on the second floor and renovated the entire space in exchange for rent, which was a great experiment in interdependence and he didn't let us down! Steve helped us early on, and again later when he and Thurman and Becky helped us paint Emilie's room in Pepto Bismol pink. Our housechurch, at Steve's suggestion, put up a fence in the back to keep the dogs in.

Still, the house stressed me out. There were leaks in gutters and bathrooms and under sinks, some of which I had fixed, only to leak again. Things like frozen pipes during my week off made it seem like a second job, really. If not in actually upkeep, then in worry. The washer and dryer both kept breaking until we finally bought new ones, charging them to credit cards. I'd get a leak fixed on the back roof only for it to leak again, and ruin our living room wall. I'd call contractors and never hear back. When someone would come it would cost out the nose. It didn't seem like there were many breaks, or maybe this just wasn't my thing.

At one point I worked full-time. I would lie awake three and four hours in the night, finally getting back to sleep around five-thirty only to have the alarm go off at six. That kind of thing day after day. It was pure bullshit and I got sick of it. I decided I didn't care what happened, I wasn't doing that. I got my hours changed and even now, if I think I'm overdoing it, I'll slow down some more.

Ken has been overwhelmed just doing basic things he needs to do. A lot of times, because of my own stress and then seeing his needs go unmet, I have really lit into him. I feel responsible for too much and I resent it. We sold the car and started making use of public transit, both Metro and Access. Ken was on a waiting list for the longest time for a personal assistant. We are close to hiring someone now.

I am not necessarily objective when it comes to the kids, but I regret being so stressed out and for putting so much into something that we are now letting go of. I realize this is a time they are naturally pulling away from me; what would I have been doing, smothering them? : )

So I am telling myself it was never our house, it was our education. I didn't really know Ken and I didn't really know the community, and I didn't really know me after eight years being drugged by a system that needs to drug people. (I can't let that go.) Now I have a four year degree.

Now I think I know what is what. I know Ken better, know that I love him, and know that the things about him that irritate the crap out of me don't have to be a big deal. I can focus on things that are good, and positive, like the way he gives everybody a chance, and shows unconditional positive regard toward people who I think should be stomped on.

I think I know this community better. It is not as interdependent and committed to Ken as I had envisioned, but there is still time, and I'd like to think there are more than a handful of us who aspire to "be the change." When the talking stops and the doing starts it is a beautiful thing. That's the part I want to remain a part of.

I learned that I cannot do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Sorry to all you Christians, that's just my reality. I can only do what I can do and I don't apologize. I am not superhuman no matter what I took on or who I married. I ain't no saint. I don't wanna be a superhero. I don't want to bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan, and will damn sure let you forget you're a man as long as I live in a society and culture that expects me to be a suffering saint, all the while sticking me with the interest, fees, and hidden charges.

It will be interesting to see what trouble I get into next.

2007-10-03T20:51:00.000-05:00

Holocaust Mascots

What is a holocaust denier? I recently heard the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is one. Invited to speak to students at Columbia University in New York, he was vehemently condemned by many in the US for being a holocaust denier, among other things.

I decided to look up the words. I found that a holocaust is a thorough destruction, especially by fire. The Jewish holocaust was the specific one mentioned, although the term is not limited to the Jewish holocaust. I looked up deny, and it means what we all know it means: that a person believes, states, or acts as if something isn't what it is.

I thought about this for a while. The Jewish holocaust loomed large in my consciousness, bringing up images of emaciated bodies, pointed guns, and barbed wire. I took a deep breath as my thoughts settled into an uncomfortable physical heaviness. To deny the holocaust is to deny a people, I thought. It is like hearing the report of a brutal rape and saying to the victim and the world, "It probably wasn't that serious. Do we even need to concern ourselves with it?"

Was this crazy, or was it ignorant, or was it arrogant? I thought it was more than all of these. The word diabolical came to mind so I decided to look it up: extremely wicked or cruel, evil, of the devil, it said.

Yes, it fit. To deny a holocaust in which millions were cursed as the enemy so they could be systematically eliminated – to deny the theft, murder, and destruction of a people and their lives – this was, I thought , in every sense, diabolical.

After having been given a strong dose of many American opinions on just what people in this country think of the evil, Iranian holocaust denier, President Ahmadinejad boarded his jet that carried him back to where he came from, to Iran where he belongs. Far from the American soil.

Friday night in the American homeland things were business as usual, where communities gather on fields and in stadiums to support their children's sports teams. In this proud nation, bordering both the North Atlantic and the North Pacific Oceans, between Canada and Mexico, hundreds of US teams with names such as the Braves, Bombers, Chiefs, and Redskins, pull out sweet victories while their thousands of supporters cheer wildly in the stands. This, a decades long tradition in all forty-eight states, plus Alaska and Hawaii. A Bombers team proudly sports an emblem of a mushroom cloud, like the ones that hovered over the death and carnage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I myself watched the Walnut Hills Eagles get savagely slaughtered by the Norwood Indians before and after my son's marching band show at half-time.

No, it's not crazy. It's not ignorant. It's not even arrogant. After all, there were good reasons for why our country has behaved the way it has, and even if some people were wrong, do we need to concern ourselves with it now?

It will surprise me if we haven't begun the bombing of Iran by the start of next year's season.

2007-09-14T17:40:00.001-05:00

Capitalist Gardener

I felt that my flowers betrayed me
After I planted them in the sun
Perennial smart investment
Low maintenance, easy care
Yielding crops of blooms while I do nothing.

I felt that my flowers betrayed me
Lying horizontal after the rain
Leaning heavily upon
Stakes and string and me
Well into the drought
That wiped them out.

I felt that my flowers betrayed me
As I flew to Boston
Polite society walked past
Acting responsibly
It was no one's job to water them
One week. Record temperatures. No rain.

I felt that my flowers betrayed me
As I put them out of my mind
Pursuing self-interest
In lockstep with a society
That leans heavily upon
Trickle down theories
And notions of all the world's poor
Pulling up by their bootstraps.

I felt that my flowers betrayed me
As I butchered them in my disgust
In a rush, my face flushed
Out of sight
Soon out of mind
As I must have been out of mine
At planting time.

2007-08-29T15:32:00.000-05:00

Monkey hear monkey speak

Notice how many people have been saying "Gotcha!" lately? Come on! Do we really have to do this?

Stupid post? Gotcha!

2007-08-20T10:15:00.000-05:00

The Wrong Tree

I have been a consumer of goods

I have been a consumer of services

I have been a consumer of food

I have been a consumer of entertainment

I have been a consumer of ideas

I have been a consumer of opportunities

I have been a consumer of information

I have been a consumer of entitlements

I have been a consumer of advanced medical care

I have been a consumer of fine wine

I have been a consumer of fair trade coffee

I have been a consumer of enrichment activities

I have been a consumer of crash tested cars

I have been a consumer of regular dental checkups

I have been a consumer of privileges

I have been a consumer of organic vegetables

I have been a consumer of recognition

I have been a consumer of unique artistic expression

I have been a consumer of free grocery samples

I have been a consumer of alternative therapies

I have been a consumer of anti-depressant medications

I have been a consumer of vocational choices

I have been a consumer of zen enlightenment

I have been a consumer of purified water

I have been a consumer of the holy eucharist

I have been a consumer of the latest scientific findings

I have been a consumer of spiritual advisement

I have been a consumer of homeland security

I have been a consumer of military protection

I have been a consumer of diversity training

I have been a consumer of yoga instruction

I have been a consumer of superior phones

I have been a consumer of unlimited text messaging

I have been a consumer of annual pap smears

I have been a consumer of professional advancement

I have been a consumer of fluorescent light bulbs

When might I have Peace?

2007-06-17T12:12:00.000-05:00

Helping

My job consists of "helping" people. I get monetary compensation for this help, which is only right. Let me never lose sight of the fact I'm a person in need of help, too.

It's taken me a while, but I've finally recognized that people who need help, who I am paid to help, don't always need my help, nor in the ways I think I should help. This helping business gets a bit tricky, come to find out.

How so you ask? I find myself repeating a pattern. It goes like this: I go the extra mile...then I get shat upon. Yeah, yeah, co-dep 101. First things first, and first you gotta see it.

When it all comes down, I have generally helped people because I want to feel good about myself, not necessarily because of the person's need. I mean, there are good reasons, and then there are real reasons for doing the things we do. To get to the exact nature of what's going on in my life, I have to confess that the real reason has everything to do with the fact that, by myself, I don't feel very good about me. My love, then, has tended toward being more a compulsive reaction to the needs of others in order to feel good about myself, rather than the mindful, constructive action that I would like for it to be.

Can I be more specific? Not really. I'm not saying my good-doing is so useless as to make the airing of it desirable. Anyway, this is not all I have discovered about the nature of my giving.

It is true that when I was growing up, I suffered intensely between ages four and seventeen. I even had a conscious desire at times for someone to take action on my behalf. No dramatic rescue was performed, however, until I took action myself, and at seventeen I got the hell out.

So the mystery of other's suffering, why God allows unimaginable injustice to occur in the lives of innocents, doesn't hit any distance from home. I continually wrestle with this mystery, and as I do, I want to rescue those who hurt.

I know there's a lot of talk nowdays about people being God's hands and feet in this broken world. The idea has been suggested that instead of us asking God, "WHY," God might just ask us that very question. I like that. I believe in that.

Yet in my own suffering and subsequent compulsion to rescue, the only way God has factored into the equation has been by apparent ABSENCE. Acting as if God couldn't or wouldn't take care of His own, I have attempted to fill in for God's supposed absence. I should know better. I do know better.

Why is there suffering in the world? Why doesn't God do something? When I try to be God's hands and feet, why do I end up expending all of my energy until I am totally burnt out and spent? Why do I get kicked in the face by those I try to rescue?

Maybe the more approperiate question is: what has prevented me from learning and consistently applying principles that enable me to quit running on self-will? Perhaps learning to cooperate with God is a better use of my time and energy than my mindless, compulsive "helping."

2007-05-31T10:33:00.000-05:00

Glad you asked

Q. I was wondering why you don't have comments on your blog anymore.

A. A couple of reasons..probably the first being addiction. I literally had a compulsion to check my blog several times a day, especially when I first posted something. It is simpler for me to remove the feature than to try and resist one more compulsive behavior.

I also felt that no matter what I wrote, if it appealed to someone, they would leave a comment like, "Wow that was a great idea," or "Wow you are a great thinker," or some other kind of pat on the back. Something about receiving that kind of feedback publicly made me uncomfortable. Without any real debates or discussions going on, it started to feel unbalanced.

I learned a great deal in the days I was an overactive blogger because of the interesting comments and discussions. Since my blog habits and topics have changed, so has my audience. Fewer people are reading and only a few are commenting. This had become somewhat grief producing. My old "life" is gone and I miss my old friends, of whom you are one!

2007-05-29T12:46:00.000-05:00

More

(The camera on my new phone isn't as good as the one on my old phone.)

2007-05-20T11:48:00.000-05:00

More Will Be Revealed

2007-04-29T10:33:00.000-05:00

A New Attitude

I woke up this morning and expressed gratitude for the mistakes I will make today. Hopefully, with lots of help, I will learn from them.

2007-04-12T06:42:00.000-05:00

Got Worms?

I am excited! We are adopting a pound of worms. They will arrive in the mail in about two weeks. They're gonna eat our garbage and feed our plants. Lovely!

2007-03-27T18:26:00.000-05:00

Consider This...

A friend from my Roh's Street job writes a newsletter on disability issues related to mental illness. I wanted to pass it along to everyone, and found the best way to do that was to put it into a blog. Keith liked this idea. Please visit:

Consider This.

2007-03-18T17:19:00.000-05:00

Uncle Tom's Cabin

I thought the above title might be a good read during lent. It's supposed to be somewhat controversial, although I don't yet understand why. It was first published in 1859, and Fredrick Douglas highly praised the work. Later, Malcolm X would denounce it. I want to understand where they each were coming from in their different eras.

My main motivation for reading, however, is to hopefully gain a better understanding of human use and misuse of power. I am trying to wrap my head around the ways we humans are blinded by the power we supposedly possess, causing us to act as oppressors toward one another (as well as the whole creation) without even knowing it. Some notes follow on thoughts I have had while reading the book thus far.

The preface begins:

"The scenes of this story, as it's title indicates, lie among a race hitherto ignored by the associations of polite and refined society; an exotic race, whose ancestors, born beneath a tropic sun, brought with them, and perpetuated to their descendants, a character so essentially unlike the hard and dominant Anglo-Saxon race, as for many years to have won from it only misunderstanding and contempt."

ignored by the associations of polite and refined society

polite: refined, cultivated. marked by correct social conduct.
refined: freed from impurities. cultured, cultivated.
cultivated: refined, improved.

Is there not massive pressure upon each of us from our births to hop onto one of various conveyor belts of "polite and refined society?" There are few genuine rebels. "Polite and refined society" striving onward toward bigger and better, faster, tougher, brighter, shinier, more impressive, more unique..you get the picture..these rule the things of the day. We are blinded, intoxicated, and thoroughly impressed by our own activity. Like moths to a light, every one of us seems drawn to this in one form or another.

ignored: to refuse to take notice of. overlook, slight, neglect.

We do not see what is really there (in another who does not fit into our narrow view of things), because of our blind drive toward whatever version of "polite and refined society" we choose to participate in. Exclusion is learned behavior, and we perpetuate this ill by our striving, which is in reality our misuse of power in an attempt to avoid being the weak and excluded ones. Who do we exclude, ignore, overlook, slight, neglect? Those who are socially constructed by our striving to appear weaker or inferior. They do not fit into our plans because of the way we consent to order them. Yet we are not above using others to prop ourselves up or to advance ourselves materially. The less powerful, when we are not using them, are outsiders, afterthoughts.

contempt: the act of despising. disdain.
despise: to look down on with contempt or aversion. to regard as negligible, worthless, or distasteful.

We ignore (deny) what we can't stand, and we can't stand perceived weakness. More than that, our egos cannot handle easily if at all, the fact that we have been wrong. We become insecure with the notion that who we define as inferior and/or weak may in fact have have more to contribute or something that we do not. Since we are threatened by this knowledge, we either consciously or unconsciously end up kicking people who are down, and if that doesn't work, we become blamers of the victim.

A list of examples:

*A man with cerebral palsy writes a blog on the issue of urban poverty. His blogroll is limited to a select group of men who also have an interest in the subject.

*A woman who would be well qualified to be on his blogroll is an independent media writer. She covers a vast array of social justice issues but overlooks disability issues because she is one of many well meaning social activists who have not yet become familiar with disability activism.

*A caucasian man who sometimes stutters when he talks is the groundskeeper at the non-profit agency that the media writer volunteers at as a youth advocate. He has an interest and growing knowledge of issues affecting teens, yet because of the blue collar nature of his job, he is automatically excluded from conversations pertaining to youth advocacy.

*When this groundskeeper gets into his automobile to leave work, he sees two black teenage boys approaching and quickly locks the doors and rolls up the windows.

*A black woman who is caring for a fifty-four year old developmentally disabled man refuses to accompany him to apply for jobs saying that he could never perform a community job.

*A job coach who is enthusiastic about helping the developmentally disabled maintain community employment goes on vacation. At the airport she suspiciously eyes the dark skinned gentleman who accompanies a woman wearing a burqa.

*Later the woman in the burqa hastily takes the money from her elderly mother's hands to count it out for the cashier at the pharmacy because the mother is moving so slow.

*The pharmacy cashier counts change for a man using a wheelchair using a loud voice as if speaking to a kindergartner.

*A store this wheelchair user would like to enter sells entirely fair trade merchandise, however he will have to call ahead and make arrangements to get into the building since it is not accessible.

The actions described in this list are intentionally mild because I want to take note of how so-called normal people behave, not "the bad people." Seemingly benign, the effects of these unconscious rejections are cumulative and perpetuate exclusion. Most of us in situations as these don't see ourselves doing anything wrong, yet in some if not all cases, we tend to resist the empowerment of the people we are unwittingly oppressing.

I am not trying to downplay the heavier subject of Uncle Tom's Cabin. I am pointing out that something akin to that hatred motivates human society, even when we're trying so hard to "be nice."

2007-03-14T14:58:00.000-05:00

Am I Happy?

Another blogger wrote on the subject.

When I think about this question of whether I'm happy or not, I simply note that I am not deeply depressed, therefore I am happy. Once you have experienced deep, harrowing depression, the presence of happiness becomes less important. The goal is mostly to feel okay.

I feel okay.

I'm grateful for happiness when I have it though. And I have it quite often these days.

Meaning, on the other hand...

This is what makes life worth living, I think, and I find a lot of meaning in life. Seeking after truth might initially make one unhappy with what one finds, but who needs to be happy if it costs you your soul?

Seeking after truth in time becomes kind of like putting together a puzzle, and at forty-one, it is satisfying to see some of the pieces fitting together in some pretty amazing ways!

I still haven't figured out how to reconcile the many blessings of my life with the extreme poverty of so many other's lives. This fact alone is enough to prevent me from being happy on even the brightest of days.

2007-03-05T22:53:00.000-06:00

Lenten Prayer

Recently I began praying my own version of something like the Jesus Prayer. It goes like this:

"I fail. You are the Christ. Have mercy on me, O God."

I fail. (Just as in step one, I am powerless.) Søren Kierkegaard has written, "to need God is man's highest perfection," so I try not to get too down on myself when failure is constantly staring me in the face. In fact, when my own failure is not staring me in the face, I can be sure that I am in denial. Not good.

You are the Christ. I think of Peter's saying this when I pray it. There is so much freedom implied in this statement! (This is a power greater than myself: second step.) Soren Kierkegaard has written that you cannot overcome yourself by yourself- that one cannot be stronger than oneself. (I don't know why he keeps coming up, but there it is.) So because I fail, I turn to Christ.

Have mercy on me, O God. I just added that because then it resembles the Jesus prayer. It's not exactly "turning it over" like the third step, but if I pray these words with that intent, it's like taking the third step.

Even during Lent it is difficult for me to sustain this. I am a fits and starts type of person. Saturday I picked up a book at the Goodwill Store and have been totally absorbed in it, and in nothing else, ever since. Better than self-absorption, but I start to wonder if all my learning isn't just another form of self-absorption. So there you have it. I fail. Addiction is such a cunning and baffling enemy.

2007-02-01T14:18:00.000-06:00

String on my finger:

Love

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked anything.

'A guest', I answered, 'worthy to be here.'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look at thee.'
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
'Who made the eyes but I?'

'Truth, Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.'
'And know you not', says Love, 'who bore the blame?'
'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down', says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat.

--George Herbert

"If God invited you to a party and said,
'Everyone in the ballroom tonight will be my special guest,'
how would you then treat them when you arrived?
Indeed, indeed! And Hafiz knows that there is no one
in this world who is not standing upon His jeweled dance floor."

--Hafiz

"Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls.
And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand."

--Romans 14

2007-01-23T04:30:00.000-06:00

Man was that ever a cheesy post...

I swear sometimes us bloggers take ourselves way too seriously. I know for the past couple years, while adjusting to life unmedicated, my blog has taken a real beating.

When we first started these things, I remember someone saying "It's just a blog!" That's one of my favorite sayings. It is in that spirit that I keep writing on this thing.

Ken and I have had some really good discussions lately. I can't really go into much detail since we don't want to be burned at the stake. But I've always found him to be someone whose words are liberating, especially when others are unintentionally putting five-thousand pound boulders on my shoulders.

Thanks in large part to him I feel free to be who I am, and think what I think, and do what I do, and then not feel too terribly awful for it.

As a side note: I have changed the subtitle above St. Julian, and no, those aren't the words of St. Julian.

2007-01-21T14:44:00.000-06:00

Latest Discovery

The best thing that has come from my new job at Rohs Street Cafe is having found a couple of books there about Simone Weil. I am totally in love with this person and much of her thinking. She was a French philosopher, teacher, factory worker, and Christian mystic, among other things. She was odd in many ways, and at the same time, a brilliant thinker and seeker of truth and justice. I haven't gotten around to reading her works, but am still reading about her, and other's commentary of her works. This promises to keep this mind occupied for some time, and I am truly grateful for that!

Oddly, no one I talk to seems to know of her, nor has studied her. I hope anyone who is familiar with her will leave a comment here. I'd love to know other's thoughts on her.

2007-01-15T14:41:00.000-06:00

Charity or Equality?

"Fredom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
--Martin Luther King Jr.

This MLK Holiday I cast a vote for equality.

2007-01-10T12:10:00.000-06:00

Why Bother?

For seven months I have been searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I am here to report what I have found:

A cow pie.

A note to readers: this blog showcases why I stay in my house. I figure if you're reading, you don't mind me. Otherwise, you're just sick.

Anyway, I am not faithless about this matter, but for now, this is a rant.

In July I began the process of obtaining an independent provider number from the State so that I could provide services independently, cutting out the agency which takes at least half of every dollar I make. A lot of nothing has happened in seven months:

I have gathered documentation, filled out applications, obtained and paid for background checks, made loads of phone calls, dealt with people in "high places" who were disrespectful, who wouldn't return phone calls. I have mailed and then remailed applications when they were lost. I have driven out to the consumer's home three times, without charge. I have waited, waited, waited..and then been told to hurry to meet the deadline when they found they needed more documentation than I was first told.

I finally got my provider number in December and was called for what I thought was training to the consumer's home in January. During that visit I casually ask if I would be able to bill for that visit and was sternly told "no" by the consumer. Since I now had my number and I was familiar with another aspect of support services that probably would have paid me for my time and effort, I said I would check with the case manager just to be sure. It was then that the consumer blew a gasket.

I had offended her because my comment implied that she was "stupid." That she didn't know what she was talking about. I don't know, maybe it made me look greedy as well. At the end of her powerfully angry delivery she reminded me that the other staff person there was showing me the ropes out of the goodness of her own heart.

She left her cigarette smoldering in the ashtray on the table and returned to her work in the kitchen. I sat speechless for what seemed like a very long moment, then slung my bag over my shoulder and left.

Like Han Solo famously once said, "No reward is worth this!" I really don't know the moral to the story except that I am still pretty much speechless. "Out of the goodness of her own heart..." this person who was being paid for her time, this person who brings her kid to work and lets her f up the consumer's remote control and drop things down the toilet.

I do know one thing. People with disabilities might be next to worthless to society, and second to them are the people who would like to provide services for them. Don't believe it? You should take this crash course for yourself.

Seeing is believing.

2006-12-25T10:58:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas!

Not totally off the subject of my last post, are the cookies and milk you left for Santa still on the dining room table? Were there no presents under the tree when you got up this morning? Are you wondering what happened to Santa Claus?

An explanation can be found here.

2006-12-20T09:22:00.000-06:00

Thots on Murder

I really like the Roman Catholic Church and here's why: It's purpose is simple, to maximize the chances of GRACE or LIGHT to enter the souls and lives of individuals. Anything more particular than that is like putting words in God's mouth. The Roman Catholic Church figures God can work out the particulars in the lives of individuals who recieve that GRACE. At least that's how I understand it.

A human being who has been around other human beings for any length of time is in the process of acquiring a virus of sorts. A social, spiritual virus. Depending on the severity of the virus in those humans, a personality can become a little distorted or a LOT distorted. This virus always leads to murder in one form or another. A main feature of the virus being it's carriers are unaware and like it that way.

While there is no immunity to contracting this virus, we are both murdered and murderers, the only hope we really have against it's work in us and in the world is GRACE or LIGHT. I think all religions have been important in the sense that they have been the means through which some individuals have been able to open up to GRACE. I say, whatever works. I'm sure not saying everybody should be Roman Catholic.

As human beings, our only hope is to find ways to participate in the process of receiving this GRACE. I like the idea, yet I am lazy, and most days I don't really want to look at the fact that I am a murderer. I want the illusion of control. Quick, what can I do to numb myself?

Life is a constant struggle.

2006-12-07T19:13:00.000-06:00

From Krohns Conservatory Christmas Collage

2006-12-06T12:17:00.000-06:00

What's up

The year is winding down. Here's some of what's happened/happening:

Ken and I will celebrate our one year anniversary December 21st. I'm sorta thinking, though, it's a kind of two year anniversary since his visit to Kansas during Christmas of 2004 was so magical. This first year of being married was not easy, but it feels like we've made a "payment" of sorts toward our future together. It feels good to have simply built upon the changes made in the previous year, instead of making more and more changes. Life right now seems more about solidifying what we/I have got going than in making any more changes.

Today Emilie is 16 years old! I am so proud of these kids and amazed by the way they're maturing. Emilie tends not to become involved in activities while Aaron is in jazz band and karate. They both care about their grades and get pretty good grades. I am in awe of them, which is independent of accomplishment, totally. They are just genuinely good kids. I look up to them even. I mean, they're not perfect, and I hope this doesn't sound like a bunch of bragging. But I love these kids just for who they are.

I really feel solid in my job(s) right now. I have been working with the same four individuals for a little over a year and it feels good to be a part of their overall supported living. We got health insurance the same month Emilie got appendicitis, which seems now like a total miracle. The most significant happening on the job front is that a person with blindness who I requested to provide services for and I completed a process through the state of Ohio that will enable me to make a living wage for my work with her. (And others in the future.) This was supposed to be a five week process, but turned out to be a five month process. We both hung in there through the red tape, waiting, and what not. This just means I have more options vocationally, options I will need now and in the future if I want to both assist individuals with disabilities and earn a living wage.

I purchased a small laptop for a writing project I am excited about. I figure this will be either a book or a series of blog posts, and I really don't care which as long as I enjoy and complete the process. When my mom passed two years ago I got custody of my eldest brother's baby book and some other things she had saved related to his admission to a neurological hospital. He had been born with a disability and only survived until age four. I am using that history to contrast the social view of disability in the early sixties and earlier to changes that were just starting to take place at that time and which are still taking place today. Right now I am in the process of outlining what I want to write, as well as gathering information and processing the whole idea. Like I said, I am excited!

That's just a little of what's up. Thanks for reading!

2006-11-26T12:22:00.000-06:00

Social Justice at VC

I'm gonna put my .002 cents on the blog.

I think social justice is an inside job. We are a part of a system that is oppressive to certain people, sometimes those people turn out to be us. To the extent that we remain unaware of the ways this system/these systems affect certain people, we are oppressors. This is what we constantly want to turn from.

I am ignorant. That's probably the first and most important thing to get my head wrapped around and to keep my head wrapped around. I've got a lot to learn about a lot of issues and I need people to help me and keep me focused through their advocacy in those areas. I have to become more open. I have to learn to listen better. I've got to change the way I do things.

My pitch is Disability Issues. The civil rights movement for people with disabilities is today where other civil rights movements were in the 1950's. Most people today who consider themselves progressive in the areas of social justice, poverty, racism, sexism, etc. are not tuned into disability issues. Disability is largely seen as a personal problem, and ignored are the barriers we, the able-bodied, create and maintain that exclude people with disabilities in the society in which we all live.

I maintain that we cannot be who we say we are without becoming progressive in the area of disability issues. The improvements we make to our buildings scream: WE DON'T GET IT. Not that accessibility is the only or main issue. Most disabled people will say the main issue is prejudice and the attitudes of the temporarily able-bodied. Inaccessible buildings are just one reflection of those prejudices and attitudes. Beautiful is that which says, "you are welcome here!" I am grieved because I know this is the beauty we value most, and yet we have overlooked the message it sends when our improvements are for the able-bodied only.

I have considered myself a disabilities advocate since 1999, yet I have largely overlooked these issues. This is a great time to wake up. There is social change happening and I want to be a part of it. I want you to be a part of it too.

2006-11-25T02:49:00.000-06:00

Quandry

Sitting here reading Mother Teresa because I'm not sleeping. I'd put up a quote, but I'm too flippin' exhausted to actually do that. So I'll give you my latest blah, blah, blah.

Here's the issue: our spirituality calls upon us to serve, give, love. There are so many who need to be served, given to, loved. I mean, that's everybody.

There are a couple of people whom I have encountered, in my path, who have had a profound need to be served, given to, loved. So I have. I saw their poverty and I wanted to make a difference. But I guess I also thought if I gave them enough love they would...change.

So then you have this relationship with this person in which you aspire to serve, give to, love. But they're acting an ASS! You wanted to help them but after a while you became aware that they were more than happy to take you for what they could get, and if need be, try and manipulate you for more.

So who's the grand manipulator? The poor person or the person who's giving with the hope the poor person will change? So nothing changed...why am I so discontent all the sudden?

I'm tired of being affected by sick people. Sick people need people too. Too bad I'm also sick people.

I know. That punchline is getting old.

2006-11-10T08:27:00.000-06:00

Get Real

When Emilie and later Ken were in the hospital, the nurses and doctors would always ask what their pain was on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst pain.

I think this question should replace the standard "How are you?"

Face it. Nobody answers that question honestly. It's a useless question.

How is your pain on a scale of one to ten?

2006-10-19T08:14:00.000-05:00

This letter landed in our inboxes yesterday...

Ken and Laura,

Aaron (little Aaron ) was telling me in the car the other day : " Mom, Kenoster is my favorite friend. Mom, when I be a big man, I'm gonna have baseball team and I want Kenoster to be on my baseball team. Mom, if Kenoster, he runs on his tippytoes das gonna be okay. "

A already seems to be a good judge of character at 3.

J.

Those Barr kids...gotta love 'em!

2006-10-16T18:38:00.000-05:00

I can't stop. I'm like an energizer bunny who needed to stop long ago, but keeps going, going, going, going. My motor is about to blow, and after the *poof* there will be a cloud of black smoke, rising slowly from my tired achey head.

I can't wait.

2006-10-10T17:58:00.000-05:00

On the Mend

Emilie may never be able to say she left her heart in San Francisco, but as of yesterday she can say with all confidence that she left her appendix at Jewish Hospital. Thank God it's out! Finally!!

Hospitalizations. Three times in three months. Missing school, missing work. Sheesh! I can't wait to get on with our lives. I know anything can happen to anyone at any time. Still, I like to pretend there is some semblance of a status quo in daily life.

2006-10-09T18:43:00.000-05:00

Undeniable Denial

Thirteen years ago the kids' dad and I were involved in an incident that impressed upon me that we were not who I had thought we were. Long story short:

We were steadfast members of a Charasmatic Christian Church and young parents. We were Bible believers who thought we knew a lot and that our lives were to be a "witness" to others. (Go ahead...puke...I feel like it too.) However, one night one of our fights got out of hand, both of us ended up with marks, and the police became involved.

I never quite got over that night. I mean, I'd lived violence throughout my childhood and this was much like fighting off an older sibling, but it was the issue of finding out who I was not that really, really cut me.

I've done a lot of learning and growing over the last thirteen years. I've suffered, and God knows suffering ought to produce something. I'd thought I should become something other than what I saw that night. So maybe this day I think I'm something, and maybe if I am honest I will admit that I am not.

Sin sick and broken is what I am, (not that I'm alone by any means.) I am especially grieved because I now see how this communicable sickness has been passed along to my kids. It is too late for this not to happen. I couldn't have prevented it from happening. I kid myself if I let myself believe I am a healed, whole, human being passing along to my children a functional set-up for life. What they get is sin-sick dysfunctional, though not quite as dysfunctional as I had.

I don't want to decieve myself about who I am, except that the nature of who I am will cause me to do just that. I am a liar and a sinner. The damage is done.

Stay tuned for the good news, (although I can't guarantee there'll be any.)

2006-09-25T11:08:00.000-05:00

String On My Finger

re·proach (ri-proch')

tr.v., -proached, -proach·ing, -proach·es.

1. To express disapproval of, criticism of, or disappointment in (someone). See synonyms at admonish.
2. To bring shame upon; disgrace.
n.
1. Blame; rebuke.
2. One that causes rebuke or blame.
3. Disgrace; shame.

As used in a sentence:

"The just one shall live on your holy mountain, O Lord. Who harms not his fellow man, nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor."

ad·mon·ish (ad-mon'ish)

tr.v., -ished, -ish·ing, -ish·es.

1. To reprove gently but earnestly.
2. To counsel (another) against something to be avoided; caution.
3. To remind of something forgotten or disregarded, as an obligation or a responsibility.

As used in a sentence:

"I am writing you this not to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children."

2006-09-15T18:49:00.000-05:00

Quote for the Day:

The value of the average conversation could be enormously improved by the constant use of four simple words: "I do not know."

--Andre Maurois

2006-09-14T20:08:00.000-05:00

What gives?

So we met with the surgeon who feels confident this last bout of infection had nothing to do with Em's appendix, but to do with the removal of the drain from the first bout of infection. I still asked if the surgery date could be moved closer and surprisingly he said yes. Then I looked at my schedule and realized that the date they gave us, which is a week earlier than the date it had been, was when I had totally arranged to work massive overtime to make up for the time I had lost during her first and second hospitalization. SO...I had to call and have the date moved back!

All that aside, today is the first day I have felt half way normal since three weeks ago, when I took Emilie back to the ER. I am not as afraid that she might become reinfected. We will forge ahead until her surgery, and after that, hopefully be in the clear.

2006-09-13T15:21:00.000-05:00

So that's what's happening...

When God can seem to take too long
To hear our heartfelt prayer,
It doesn't mean He hasn't heard
Or simply doesn't care...
Rather, like that Bible says,
"Take this as a sign;
The mill of God grinds very slow
But also very fine."

All right, so I'm being ground up, like beef or something. That's refreshing.

Ugh.

I hope what I'm about to say isn't inappropriate. I know that I have opted to take on a lot more responsibility than I might be able to handle. I know I am responsible for meeting my obligations. I realize that I might have to chuck some things, let some things go.

That being said, I feel this is where life has lead me. I'm gonna take it a day at a time, learn what I need to learn, grow in my capacity to respond (hopefully), and let go of stuff where appropriate. When Ken and I hooked up I was apprensive about my responsibilities in regard to our life together. He assured me the help of community would be there. Community has been there in many, many ways and I have been totally blessed by that.

Now, however, I will complain about a club which I have also belonged to, so do not take this as holier than thou or judgement. It's just that right now I feel like I am really vulnerable and on top of the stresses that seem to want to break me, I am also affected by a few person's irresponsiblity. If you think I am talking about you, I might be, but maybe not. In any case, this is a general rant which is not directed toward anyone in particular.

If you told someone you were gonna do something and didn't do it, this rant's for you. If you borrowed something and returned it broken, and you pretty much had to know you messed it up, this rant's for you. Mind you, you aren't the only one, and mind you this rant's for me too.

But what's the point of being community if we're going to do each other like that? Aren't we here to bless one another? How does speaking words of good will bless if action doesn't follow? How does using someone's stuff and returning it broken make us responsible community members? Do we continue to look great and feel great about ourselves while in reality our actions add to another's burden?

Let's ask ourselves: How do my actions affect others? How does my inaction affect others? Do I complete the things I say I'm gonna do? How do I want to be treated? In what condition do I want my stuff returned?

Rant's over. Back to the Holy Grindstone.

UPDATE:

If you're reading this, please don't take my rant personally. I have heard from a couple of innocent bystanders who thought this post was about them, and I really didn't intend to affect people that way. I meant more for us all to do a little personal inventory, but nothing like making amends to me! : )

2006-09-04T13:53:00.000-05:00

Enduring

After Emilie's first hospitalization we went to Home Depot and picked out some flowers to plant in front of our house.

We brought home four plants, a pink Tickseed variety called Heaven's Gate. We planted them in a row in front of our porch, and lo and behold they did not die! After a few days, when it rained, we noticed one of the plants got pummeled with torrents of rainwater spilling down from the porch roof.

Emilie was hospitalized again. This wasn't supposed to happen. Who gets apendicitis twice? Now she's home, with apendix ruptured, but still intact. Surgery isn't scheduled until October.

I can't really explain what things are like here. For me it feels dark. For me it feels heavy. And I don't really like talking about it because I think my poor coping makes people uncomfortable.

The rain keeps pouring down on that plant. It's no longer as together as the others. It's stems are completely sprawled out after a rain. I pull some of them out from under the mulch to try and get them to stand upright again. On the ends of a handful of it's stems are the surviving pink and white blooms. When the sun shines the plant recovers.

Then, it rains again.

2006-08-23T07:18:00.000-05:00

Kid Stories

Remember the kid story posted a few days ago about Emilie's experience while babysitting? I found another cute Barr kid story on Janet's site:

My youngest is actually a foreign agent trained in thought control, mind torture and manipulation. Nevermind he is 2 and 1/2 feet tall, sucks his thumb and carries a red blanket with him everywhere. That is just his cover.

You gotta read it. Cute!

2006-08-21T08:28:00.000-05:00

Hold the Roles : )

Ken and I are kinda funny. We decided before we got married that nobody would have any roles in this marriage. Ha, I know...now. I especially wanted to thwart the traditional role of "wife," because I am fearful of cultural expectations as well as my own. He and I are having a little bit different adjustment than most couples, I would suppose, because of an assortment of challenges we each face- his being physical and emotional, mine more mental and emotional. (I'm the tard.)

We are finding that our "no expectations," and preference for "no roles" in this marriage are completely unrealistic, or should I use our agreed upon and much prefered term: bullshit. (One word, not two...we've hashed out the important things...like how cussing will be done in our home.) Fact is, we each are finding that as soon as we begin to define and start to fulfill our, ahem, roles, the quicker we'll be on our way toward some marital harmony.

With our challenges, we'll have to be creative without the license. I have faith though.
I have faith.

2006-08-06T18:50:00.000-05:00

Serious Question

What exactly is God responsible for?

The reason I ask is that I'm getting the feeling I'm assuming too many of God's responsibilities. Perhaps it's as simple as: God is responsible to guide us; we are responsible to be open to that guidance, period.

I am overburdened and tired. I get this way quite often. I second guess myself at every turn and I can't sleep at night because of it.

Anybody got any thoughts on this?

2006-08-05T11:41:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah

I have kids. I think I almost forgot. Emilie's trip to the ER and subsequent week in the hospital with a ruptured appendix and abdomen full of infection was a wake up call. Not only do I realize I have kids, now I realize that I love them. Love them a lot.

I don't know what it is about being a parent, after a while we think our job is to manage and boss. Put food on the table, wash the laundry, exist in the same house. Add to that the burden of single parenting and it can rob one of the quality of relationship that might be had under less stress.

I knew in the ER that things had to change. I knew that the kids had to start mattering to me more, and other things less. I realized that there were a lot of things competing for my attention, and using my energy, and I was shortchanging my kids.

I think one of the coolest things about my kids is that they still like me. They know me like no one else and they still like me! I fuck up and fail in my parenting and they still like me!

I am truly blessed to be related to these two.

2006-08-04T08:13:00.000-05:00

Today...

I'm not ready to blog.

2006-07-16T13:19:00.000-05:00

Divide and Conquer

A couple of blogs have me thinking about why it is so good to be in this community. We have been here a year now. The best way for me to start is with a random thought I was thinking yesterday:

I really desire for my kids not to have to suffer many of the painful realities I have experienced in the course of my life. That might be a great wish for them, but the reality of life is, they have the same enemy as I've had. Unfortuately, they've already experienced a fair amount of loss. The rules of life have not changed and will not change just because I care about my children. (Although I can say in all honesty, I was not on my parent's radar at all in regard to suffering. At least my kids have a parent who thinks about such things.)

The enemy of our lives will not spare our children any more than it would spare us, (and it wouldn't.) The only thing, I'm convinced, some people have got going for them is unity. Unity is everything. Unity is the only thing. In my eyes at least.

People are born into and live in environments. Environments matter. They in large part shape us into who we are. Here at VC, I find the environment to be like a terrarium in which we are free to grow. For me, I have found the near complete absence of criticism, judgement, competition, and talking behind other's backs to be totally freeing. As I remember this past year and think of the people we've started to know here, I'm amazed at their faithfulness in these matters. In place of criticism, judgement, and gossip have been healthy doses of encouragement, and if not understanding, then tolerance. I can live with tolerance.

I've been surprised by the freedom of religion here. This is a Christian community, but you don't have to be a "Christian." You can just be yourself. Where for many months I had wondered if anyone was really in charge, I'm now starting to think that the absense of control is a real reflection of faith.

One year is barely scratching the surface. That's been the story of my life: barely scratched surfaces. Maybe by practicing the spiritual principle of unity I can change that.

2006-07-09T13:18:00.000-05:00

Reading Thoreau Again

I like this (dead) poet's ideas. Most recently I read:

"In short, all good things are wild and free...I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization; and because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited disposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures broken that they may be reduced to the same level."

Which goes right along with the classic:

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

Of manners he wrote:

"One man lies in his words and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners and enjoys a good one."

Van Wych Brooks (whoever the hell that is) wrote about him:

"Henry's notion of the art of living was not too comprehensive. Nor his notion of friendship, either, exacting all and giving back so little. What he gave was solid...As for friends, what were they, for the most part? Bubbles on the water, flowing together. Very few were ever as instructive as the silence which they shattered with their talk."

Often, while reading Thoreau, I have felt somewhat vindicated. I'm not sure whether my feeling of being "not like everybody else" stems from the brokenness that causes my addictions, or whether it might also be something like Asperger's, which he has been posthumously diagnosed with by some. Maybe, like Thoreau, I am just different and that is okay.

Last evening during my walk, I tried to view the world/neighborhood in the ways Thoreau might if he were alive today. First of all, I'm pretty sure he would have chosen a more rural area in which to live and walk. Still, I am here and this is where I walk.

Customarily I would walk faster paced, either taking stock of the many thoughts in my head, or taking stock of people's houses and flower gardens. I would pay attention to the kinds of flowers a person planted, their patio furniture, and things like architecture and stained glass windows.

On this walk I slowed my pace and sought to focus on all things wild: the different species of birds (which I only really know a few,) squirrels, rabbits, ants and other insects; different species of trees (of which I wondered which trees and bushes were native and which were brought here;) the sky, clouds, and the setting sun. He had said:

"Really to see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to a universal fact, would preserve us sane forever."

I noted the contrast between well groomed yards and flowers, and the brush, trees, and wild flowers growing up along the old railroad tracks. I even sat in a small, shaded thicket for a while, hearing wild bird calls in the foreground, interstate traffic in the background. Nearing home I took note of grass growing up in the sidewalks, and the ways in which the natural growth of things tends to overtake our efforts to control, if we fail to maintain our landscaping.

I got a notion that we are a real bunch of control freaks, and what was so wrong with the way nature put itself here to begin with? Better than that, I felt in tune with something bigger than myself and you, and all that we've got going here. I was refreshed. Usually walks in the city don't leave me so refreshed.

I think I'm going to keep on reading Thoreau for a while. I'll keep you posted.

2006-06-24T09:01:00.000-05:00

Not like the hole in my head

Turns out, all the screaming uncle stopped as soon as the third floor tennant moved out. I'd had my sights set on that space for the better part of the past five or six months. Call it a guest room, call it storage...to me it's the pure oxygen I could never take into my lungs while submerbed in relentless, busy family life on the first floor.

I don't know how many people can understand this, but my need for space isn't like, say, a need for a car when you could get by taking the bus. It's not like a need for air conditioning when you get by with a box fan in the window. It's not like wanting Skyline when having Raman Noodles would do just fine. It's not like that because it's really not optional to my emotional health.

I don't need a lot of physical space. I love smallness. I do, however, need time alone. I need not to be needed sometimes, not to be bothered, not to be distracted. My thoughts are not the same in the constant presence of others. I cannot hear my true thoughts without a space in which to hear them.

I don't know if this is rare, or if this makes me odd, and I can't really afford to worry too much about how this makes me. I just know that this is WHAT IS, and my reality says I've gotta have it.

Space.

2006-06-16T08:12:00.000-05:00

Let the idiot speak

My baby girl flew home from Kansas on Tuesday. I forgot to stress the importance of carry on, so we paid the astronomical gas price to go up and retrieve her suitcase from Dayton. So what? She's beautiful!

The third floor tennant has a real love for running up the energy bill. We got the full blown Jerry Springer treatment when I tried to convince her that cool air could be drawn into an apartment on a cool night using a window and a fan. So what? They are moving Sunday. I'll wait at the bottom of the stairs and put a GIFT BOW on my air conditioner when her boyfriend carries it out.

Her behavior is a great motivator for me to work some overtime. My job is hounding me to work overtime while they withhold a full two weeks pay from late April, early May. But so what? My children's deceased father is carrying us through life. Guilt for that is enough to shut me up.

Ten thirty last night I was pulling the covers up cozy when I remembered the shift I'd agreed to work at eleven. I hopped outta bed and into the van with just enough time to get there, but the Norwood Lateral was closed for overnight construction, making me three minutes late. Natural consequence was, again, Jerry Springer, but so what? All this visceral hate pushes my imagination toward grotesque murders and similar "accidents" of the Poe variety. I'd like to think that puts me over the top into a very special catagory of unusually fucked up people.

On a brighter note, I recieved a handout from a friend who is in a local drug treatment program which actually acknowledges the existence a post acute withdrawal syndrome that can last for months or even years. The catch is, this syndrome only exists if you've poisioned yourself with drugs or alcohol. The drug pushers who prescribe brain disabling drugs simply deny the damage, calling symptoms your original illness. So what...People gotta understand that injustice is a way of life, a lifestyle of sorts.

Uncle already! Friggin' UNCLE!!

2006-06-11T13:59:00.000-05:00

Worship Thots

This morning I went to the weekly gathering because I had a function: to run the powerpoint overhead during the service...which meant pushing up and down arrows on a computer every couple minutes or so. Ha!

Going to church exposes me to things I haven't been exposed to in a while. Jesus, for one. If I am to be honest about Jesus, I have to admit that my flesh hates the True Spirit. (I am an observer of this, not the author of it.) I can't pretend it away. Proof lies in my lifelong pursuit of little, hollow things. False gods which comfort for but a moment and then turn to rend me. In my flesh I'd rather self-destruct than turn to Jesus. (Who is this Jesus, anyhow?)

Church reexposes me to Christianity. (Well duh.) Christianity irritates the religious baggage in me. If I am to experience true Christianity I have to do something different than I have done in the past. I don't worship because it feels like lying. Worship tends to makes me angry with a God who seems both Almighty and Absent. I am sure seems is the operative word, though. How did my mind become so dark, twisted, and wrong?

Previously I had latched onto a quote used by Kevin in today's message:

"In conversion you are not attached primarily to an order, nor to an institution, nor a movement, nor a set of beliefs, nor a code of action -- you are attached primarily to a Person, and secondarily to these other things... You are not called to get to heaven, to do good, or to be good -- you are called to belong to Jesus Christ. The doing good, the being good, and the getting to heaven, are the by-products of that belonging. The center of conversion is the belonging of a person to a Person."

-- E Stanley Jones

This is no longer true for me. I mean, it never was to begin with. I thought I was attached but I wasn't. I thought I worshiped Christ but I didn't. I have been, for the most part, sick and disconnected.

I don't know what it is with addiction, why such seriously troubled souls are so entirely unaffected by the usual means for salvation and redemption. Why is the God of regular church so All-Powerful in the lives of saints, yet sinners like me slip completely under the radar?

Nowdays an order, an institution of sorts, a movement, set of beliefs, a definite code of action is the only hope for freedom I have. Actively working a 12-step program alongside other recovering addicts seems to be the surgical procedure that gradually causes my eyes to see and my ears to hear. Layers of callousness are tediously removed from my heart that I might come to feel and know the God of my understanding.

Probably Jesus.

2006-05-25T20:23:00.000-05:00

An Act of Confidence

A few weeks back I attended a gathering for caregivers at St. Xavier Church downtown. After hearing the speaker, a clergy person gave each of us a small "tract" containing
An Act of Confidence in the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Saint Claude La Colombiere, S.J. I have been praying this several times a day, every day, since it was given to me. Interestingly, it pretty much covers the first three steps of AA. I have put in bold the parts that seem to fit for me, and I've edited it a tad:

Sacred Heart of Jesus, teach me to completely forget myself, because this is the only way we can enter into you. And since everything I do ~~in the future~~ will be yours, see to it that I never do anything which is unworthy of you.

Teach me what I must do to attain the purity of your love, for which you have inspired me with such longing. I feel within me a great desire to please you but, at the same time, I feel totally unable to do so without your special light and help.

Accomplish within me, even in spite of myself, your will.

It is up to you, divine Heart of Jesus, to do everything within me; if I become a saint, only you will have the glory of my sanctification. This, for me, is clearer than the light of day but for you it will be a great glory. For this only do I desire perfection. Amen.

His Act of Confidence in God

My God, I am so convinced that you keep watch over those who hope in you, and that we can want for nothing when we look for all from you, that I am resolved ~~in the future~~ to live free from every care, and to turn all my anxieties over to you.

"In peace, in the selfsame, I will sleep and I will rest; for you, Lord, singularly have settled me in hope.

Men may deprive me of posessions and of honor; sickness may strip me of strength and the means of serving you; I may even lose your grace by sin; but I shall never lose my hope. I shall keep it till the last moment of my life; and at that moment all the demons in hell shall strive to tear it from me in vain. "In peace, in the selfsame, I will sleep and I will rest."

Others may look for happiness from their wealth or their talents; others may rest on the innocence of their life, or the severity of their penance, or the amount of their alms, or the fervor of their prayers. "You Lord, singularly have settled me in hope." As for me, Lord, all my confidence is my confidence itself. This confidence has never deceived anyone. No one, no one has hoped in the Lord and has been confounded.

I am sure, therefore, that I shall ~~be eternally happy~~ recover, since I firmly hope to be, and because it is from you, O God, that I hope for it. "In you, Lord, have I hoped; let me never be confounded" (Ps. 30: 1). I know, alas! I know only too well, that I am weak and unstable. I know what temptation can do against the strongest virtue. I have seen the stars of heaven fall, and the pillars of the firmament; but that cannot frighten me. So long as I continue to hope, I shall be sheltered from ~~all misfortune~~ my disease; and I am sure of hoping always, since I hope also for this unwavering hopefulness.

Finally, I am sure that I cannot hope too much in you, and that I cannot receive less than I have hoped from you. So I hope that you will hold me safe on the steepest slopes, and you will sustain me against the most furious assaults, and that you will make my weakness triumph over my most fearful enemies. I hope that you will love me always, and that I too shall love you without ceasing. To carry my hope once for all as far as it can go, I hope from you to possess you, my Creator, in time and in eternity. Amen.

2006-05-11T09:56:00.000-05:00

Disease of Addiction

That I have the disease of addiction means that I have an extremely strong tendency to avoid life on life's terms. The disease has caused me to deny the reality of things as they are, and to accept faulty thinking based in self-centeredness. It has caused me to spend my life in dead end messes instead of taking responsibility and really living. My disease has made relationships with others, healthy relationships, difficult if not impossible. It works against me day after day, and by using drugs and/or getting caught up in other destructive forms of denial, I give the diesase consent to wreck and rob me. I am blind, for the most part, to my disease.

By humbly asking God for the willingness to surrender, I can become openminded enough to accept that I have not been honest with myself or others about the condition of my life.

I have not been free from deception: not free from the receiving of it, nor from the dishing it out. It has come from a source I no longer want to associate with. Call it a disease, call it an enemy, call it whatever. This is a foster parent I can no longer afford to cling to.

I have not been openminded: I have held on tightly to my rigidly fixed preconceptions. For example, I know how things should go, how people should be, and what's going to cure me and the world. Hmmmm. Forty years old and still fucked up at square one. That should give me a clue.

I have not been willing to change inwardly: Change jobs, change clothes, change cities, change friends, change the channel...sure. Read about change, consider change, think change is a good idea? Sure. But change, doing real inner change? I have not been inclined, ready, prompt to act or respond, nothing voluntary, nor without reluctance. My will has staunchly said, "No."

I have lacked humility: I have been pretensious in my thinking, and hiding that hasn't made me humble. I have not been unassuming...I assume a lot of things and they aren't usually positive.

I have resisted surrender: I have not readily nor steadily yeilded to the Power of Another because I've been convinced in my sick mind that I am the best person to handle my affairs. "God ain't big enough for the job. I'm the only one who can do this." I and my disease have been telling me.

I have refused to accept life on lifes terms: I have not received willingly nor agreed to the process God has arranged for me to live in and learn from. I have bucked and kicked and spit and resisted.

Welcome to my addiction. Heroin it ain't, and lots of people DIE this way.

2006-05-04T08:21:00.000-05:00

Janet

I met Janet Ray on the Vineyard Central website about the same time I discovered Ken. I liked her poems. She became a pen pal and sort of mothered me and supported me through some things. When I met her in person in July of 2004, she could no longer speak. I have only heard her voice once, on the phone. The kids and I visited her at the Old St. George bookstore. She wrote with pen and paper to converse. Later, after many tests, it was discovered that she had ALS.

When I moved to Cincinnati I began visiting her on a weekly basis. It was/is difficult for her to leave home because she is in a wheelchair and cannot move. She was able to come to our wedding with the help of some friends and neighbors. Ken, the kids, and I visited Kansas for Christmas while at the same time, Janet went into a hospice facility. Janet did return home but I didn't know about it, and so I ended up working on the days I would usually see her.

I let way too much time pass before I visited her again. Ken and I have visited twice since Christmas. We visited her yesterday afternoon. She is hanging in there, able to nod her head a little, on oxygen more time than not, still able to communicate some on a special computer. She said before we left, "This suctioning is for the birds!" She cannot swallow anything so they use a suction machine to get secretions from her mouth. She has not been able to eat for several months but has used a feeding tube.

Jack and Janet have faced this illness realistically. I often wonder if that is why they don't get a lot of attention. They know what they've already been through, they know what is ahead, and they are not asking God or anyone else to do anything heroic. They hang in there, faithfully, day after day after day, no matter what. They face many challenges, and struggle with unmet needs, yet you feel the Lord's presence helping them though.

Not that I'm trying to convey that they don't need us. They do. But they are faithful, regardless.

2006-04-24T16:17:00.000-05:00

Record of my Insanity

I recognized today one of the most ridiculous things I have been doing for the past 20 years at least. See, I have always known on some level that each and every one of us has faults. Character defects that produce shortcomings. Right.

Let's get right to the insanity part: Many times I have acted as if some people should not have any character defects. At least not any that affect me! So a common response of mine to people with character defects has been to not trust them. How idiotic!

Now I have a friend (trust me, you don't know who this is) who wants to help me. I want her help, but her character defects (I perceive they are her's, anyway) are getting in the way. Someone outside this relationship cued me in on the reality that SHE'S LIKE ME! She HAS character defects. That doesn't mean I can't trust her, and I really value this relationship for all of the growth she offers me.

You really wouldn't believe how much misery I have caused myself by not trusting people over things as simple as forgetting to pay back money, or not following through on something they said they would do.

At least today I recognize that people are patient with my defects of character, and so I should also be patient with theirs. I may learn what can and cannot expect from another individual, but I need not make sweeping judgements about their whole character and trustworthiness!

"Ooooo, I just can't trust anybody!" My sickening mantra.

Full of shit.

Dat was me.

2006-04-19T18:58:00.000-05:00

Obsession/Compulsion

Earlier today I was busy trying to figure out just what's wrong with me...ha! Tall order.

Anyway. I've found through some inventory taking that I have an inordinate need for space. An addiction to privacy. To solitude. To alone time. Part of that could be my personality. I am introverted and outlandishly sensitive. I can't take a whole lot of other people, attention, activity, or noise. Still, it seems to me sometimes that I have an unreasonable desire to hide away. I CRAVE down time. And isolating is a big no-no for addiction-prone people like me. You can't recover AND isolate. It's impossible.

Nowdays I'm letting God in a little, and so this is what I think was shown me:

My good doing, caregiving, and other ways of giving is not really living life, it's a compulsion that I undertake because I don't think I'm anything if I'm not giving. This becomes horribly tiring because people like me are continually giving but have a hard time recieving. The only time I feel like I can rest, then, is not with other people (with whom I have either a compulsion to give to or else feel incredibly vulnerable and inept with,) but in complete isolation where no one can reach me, judge me, or require anything of me. My obsession with rest and isolating goes hand-in-hand with my compulsion toward overactivity, and both are part of my not having learned how to relate well with others. This, then, is what they are talking about when they say, "our lives had become unmanagable." I'm expert at messing it up.

Forty years of that frying pan hitting me in the head is how long it has taken for me to wake up and face this reality. I won't sweat it if learning to live a new way takes me a few short years. I am grateful for natural consequenses. They suck, but they're necessary.

2006-04-07T16:16:00.000-05:00

Road Rage (without the road.)

Last night I stopped to get gas at Thorntons on my way to my 11 o'clock shift. I was sorta in a hurry and so when I couldn't get the pump to work, I started over several times, following the instructions (I thought,) but each time the transaction cancelled. The woman working in the store kept saying something over the intercom, but all I heard was static because the intercom didn't work properly. Finally she impatiently came outside and yelling at me across the parking lot while walking toward me. I still couldn't hear her.

By this time I was rather frustrated too, and so I said, "Then YOU show me how to do it." She did not, but kept telling me that I had been terminating the transaction (maybe I was,) and so I started to tell her exactly what I had been trying to do to get the pump to work. She interrupted me mid sentence to continue her barrage and so I said, "Fine, I'll just go across the street!" She said, "Fine!" plus a few more things, and then she went her way, I went mine.

I was so pissed, serenity was the furthest thing from my mind. I had a bad feeling about all this, even up into the next morning. I was like, "God, how come you allowed me to get bent out of shape and act like this?" It was road rage without the road even. (Well, maybe not "rage" but still, I was really frustrated.)

For the first time in a long time in my prayer life, an answer came directly.

Thing is, I have been to this same station a handful of times over the past several months, and nearly EVERY time I have done business there, similar problems have occurred. One time they were servicing the cappuccino machine and I couldn't get my cappuccino. The very next time they were completely out of decaf. I said something about this and the guy was just like, "Well we don't sell a whole lot of decaf." One time I was there no one could do any business at all because all of the computers were down. So more times than not, at that station, I have left empty handed.

Now this probably seems obvious to anyone reading this, but it wasn't to me. Why did I keep going back? So I thought about this. I saw a pattern here, not only of going back to this unreliable business, but a larger pattern in my life of consistently relying on the proven unreliable.

This, folks, is insanity. (Doing the same thing expecting a different result.) For some reason, it sinks in today that I am worth more than this, and that I am defeating myself by MY OWN behavior. (Well, I know the reason, something to do with anonymous, but just for today you won't catch me making myself a poster child, ha.)

Interestingly, earlier this week I had a dream about other ways in which I "settle." Kinda like receiving a burlap gunny sack and my acting like I just got a heirloom quilt my grandma might of made in 1915. Come on, that's just insane. I need to stop that!

Well, I don't know now what my point was exactly. Maybe something to do with growth.

Thanks for reading.

2006-03-26T10:06:00.000-06:00

Random Tidbits

A couple weeks ago I donated another ponytail to Locks of Love. Geeze my hair grows fast! Maybe I'll have another crop in two more years? Anyway, I'm posting this to my blog 'cause I want my reward in the here and now. You can drop it off at my house, ha!

Trying to ascertain the motives behind my "giving." Not the Locks of Love crap, but the more involved aspects like being a caregiver and enabler to everybody and their brother. I doubt I'm who/what I say/think I am. I know I am a hard case, that there is a traitor within me, and that usual measures for spiritual health are no measures for me.

Ken and I are making some plans for the house. First off he's gotta have a ramp since stairs recently became too much of a risk. Next we are looking at flooring options for our first floor apartment. And then, after a winter of robbing Peter to pay Cinergy, we are hoping to get financing to pay for new windows. I don't know if we're really going to pull this house thing off, but I am excited about the opportunity.

I'm convinced Tai Chi will save our marriage. We took a break from Tai Chi classes in order to work on what we had learned and solidify that. Then our marriage went all to hell. (ha.) We're signing back up next session!!

I gave up Lent again this year for Lent. Not what I intended. I don't know why that always happens.

2006-03-14T15:33:00.000-06:00

Memorial Fund

I vaguely mentioned in a post below the unexpected death of a fellow St. E's housechurch member, (and blogger,) Chad Canipe. On the right in the side bar is a link to a memorial fund for his wife, Renee, and two sons, Colin and Aiden. Anyone who feels led to can make a donation.

Although I didn't have a chance to know Chad very well, this event has been rather close my heart and the hearts of my two kids, Emilie and Aaron. Their dad died suddenly when they were 7 and 9. I've felt a little uneasy bringing it up because this past week has not been about us, it's about the Canipes. But my kids especially know the shock of the sudden death of a parent, and the news about Chad hit them both in the gut at first.

It means a lot to me that a couple of people have expressed sincere concern about how this might be affecting Emilie and Aaron. And you reading this know who you are...Aaron K. and Julie G. (ha.)

Anyway, it's about the Canipes. May the Love of God surround and support them. May our Love continue to surround and support them.

2006-03-13T16:19:00.000-06:00

Considering things, (sh*t) that happens...

I don't believe anymore that God is in control of everything. I don't believe He's necessarily got a plan laid out for anyone's life. I don't think God woke up one morning and wrote in a book that these kids over here will grow up fatherless, and those over there will be blessed with two loving parents, and those will by killed by an axe murderer.

Here's what I think:

God is the creative power of Love, period. We live in a fallen world. The natural law of things in that fallen world is toward decay, atrophy. But not with God. God's creative powers counter all of that. Love is building, growing, creating. Sh*t happens, love grows around it. God is not the author of that sh*t. God doesn't plan the sh*t. God plans what good can overcome. God creates. God overcomes. When Sh*t happens, God's creative powers make something beautiful of our suffering, though we will not see or understand this mystery in this life.

I was thinking about the parable of the sower. Someone said that a baby is God's statement that the world should go on. Babies are born into so many adverse situations. Is the seed to be blamed for what ground it is sown onto? But whenever the seed is sown onto hazardous ground and still, it grows, flourishes, thrives! Maybe it is sown there because if it chances to make it, to overcome, it is worth so much! Maybe the seed which doesn't flourish (sh*t happens) isn't to be blamed, but to be thanked: thank you for you suffering, thank you for trying. Maybe?

Sh*t happens. God isn't to be thanked or blamed. He's got nothing to do with it save to help us to pick up the pieces and make something more beautiful out of the debris than we ever thought imaginable.

That's what I'm gonna believe anyway.

2006-03-10T09:16:00.000-06:00

Prayer

I've struggled with prayer my whole life. Call me faithless if you must. I know I'm not the most positive person.

I don't pray a whole lot. I don't really ask for anything. I know God is here, and I know He is able, and I know (think) that nothing I utter will change a thing.

I learned a long time ago that we can want, we can ask, and whatever happens will be what happens. I have watched people pray for the sick, and I have watched the sick die. I think those prayers are priceless. I even pray those prayers.

Disease happens. It just happens. Inner, outer, mental, physical, spiritual. Disease is a power greater than we are. He that is in us is greater than this power of disease, and yet we are oftentimes left at the mercy of disease.

I don't really get that. Everyone and their brother prayed against the darkness that took Chad. Those prayers were for something, but apparently they weren't for what we thought. He died a physical death anyway.

I'm wondering, really wondering, how to avoid wasted words and false hopes in regard to prayer.

2006-03-07T20:46:00.000-06:00

Tom blogs his Lenten journey:

"If I do nothing else today but continue to choose Jesus and follow his voice it will be a good day."

2006-02-25T08:53:00.000-06:00

One Gun Two Bullets

It's weird how a simple, spoken phrase can take you clean back twenty-four years, against your will. Forget the present context- it doesn't matter. "One gun, two bullets" in the tired corridors of this fragmented soul leads inevitably to white hot anger.

"One gun, two bullets" and one dead dog happened as I waited for the school bus when I was maybe fifteen. I don't remember exactly. Ernie had been a stray grey poodle mix that, surprisingly, my parents permitted me to keep. Probably had been dumped on the gravel road along the stretches of farmland where we lived...I often wondered how people could do that? I took the ragamuffin in, gave him a bath, and cut the prickly burrs from his matted coat. I remember how utterly exhaused he was as he lay there while I took scissors and snipped the rats out of his curly gray fluff. I was never able to do that so easily after that as Ernie turned out to be a waggly, scaggly, hyper sort of mutt.

I don't remember exactly how old I was, or what time of year it was, or how long I actually got to keep Ernie. I remember, though, that he was my very own. Like most dogs he was a nuisance now and then, peeing in the house when it was rainy and hiding under the bed when we tried to get him to go out. But I grew attached to Ernie just the same. Like most small dogs, he had a lively disposition and loved every member of our family unconditionally.

In just about any Kansas county, an alcoholic farmer and a cattle-chasing mutt are a foredoomed pretext to "one gun, two bullets." In this case it was the dry drunk who I had the unfortunate occasion to call "Dad" terminating my own dog, Ernie. It went down like this:

Waiting for the school bus, the sun's rising in the east. Without a moments notice, Ernie spooks the lot of new, unbranded cattle in the west corral. The raging farmer, loudly cursing, is seen charging into the farm house and back out again with rifle in hand, and now aims it at the injudicious creature and pulls the trigger. Simultaneously the yellow school bus is seen on the horizon barreling down the gravel road toward us, leaving a haze of thick dust in it's wake. Ernie yelps alarmingly while charging in a terrified mad scramble to avoid bullets, taking refuge under a twenty-two foot cattle trailer. The farmer is now belly down in the dirt like a toy army figure wearing coveralls, aiming the rifle at the horror-stricken animal under the stock trailer. Another blast, this time fatal, and it's done. School bus doors open, I climb aboard.

Years have passed. Noon mass on Friday, my mind becomes sarcastic and brutish with mean thoughts about the liturgy and God. Words spoken innocently, twenty-four years after the murder of the dog have caused a reaction in me, the unfair nature of which I only detect about two days too late. My displaced anger, taken out of context on someone whose crimeless words placed them inadvertently in my line of discontent, was for the real killer who is now six feet under without the slightest hint of remorse. "One gun, two bullets" being just one association of hundreds I must have to the malignant spirit who killed my dog (among so many other things.) Reactions to associations a usual fare for being in relationship, and I associate the well-intentioned with father, many would-be companions with father, Heavenly Father with father. It is now I who functions as the irrational, crazy dry drunk.

The Holy Eucharist before my eyes, I'm inclined to quietly make an exit. I do not want to receive unworthily. But I stay, extending and cupping my right hand in my left to receive the Body of Christ. I place it on my tongue. Amen. Soon it is soaked in a generous portion of His Blood. I make the sign of the cross, swallowing the entire lump of wafer and wine. The warmth of the wine as it washes down bespeaks unmistakably of Presence. I absorb this Presence with a dawning realization...this is the only good thing in me.

Indeed, He is the only good thing in us.

And He is in us.

2006-02-19T13:42:00.000-06:00

Four Things

OK, I've been tagged, and challenged by Ms. Scriptorium to come up with 4 things:

4 jobs you have had in your life:

1. Nanny for a year.

2. Drywall sander.

3. Personal attendant.

4. Reader for a press clipping service.

4 Goals You've Set for This Year:

1. First one that comes to mind: Don't kill anybody.

2. Get health insurance.

3. Recover/become less self-obsessed, more social.

4. Uh...spend more time with the kids?

4 Movies You Could Watch Over and Over:

1. Napoleon Dynamite

2. The Rescuers

3. Christmas Story (You'll shoot your eye out!)

4. The Breakfast Club

4 Places You Have Lived:

1. Topeka Kansas

2. Eskridge Kansas (aka: Hell)

3. Valley Falls Kansas

4. Cincinnati Ohio

4 TV Shows You Love To Watch:

1. Becker

2. Local on the Eights (Weather Channel, lol!)

3. Gilligans Island (but it's never on.)

4. Uh...uh..Lifetime movies?

4 Places You Have Been On Vacation:

1. All over Kansas ("Sunflower Journeys" we used to call them.)

2. Estes Park,Colorado

3. Katy Trail in Missouri, yea!

4. Mt. Vernon, Ohio

4 Websites You Visit Daily:

1. Been There Still There (Well it's true!)

2. Last Call

3.The Kedge

4. Yahoo benzo withdrawal message board

4 Of Your Favorite Foods:

1. Peanut butter and Grape Jelly on white bread.

2. Anything chocolate..brownies, cake, fudge, you name it.

3. Skyline Chili (Anything on the menu with chili in it.)

4. Enchiladas

4 Places You Would Rather Be Right Now:

1. Here.

2. I'd say somewhere warm, but I really wish it was warm here.

3. In a hot bubblebath.

4. Uh....Pakistan?

4 People I'm Tagging to do this:

1. Julie (Because she doesn't blog enough.)

2.Angie (For her sense of humor.)

3.Jadon (Because he doesn't write @ himself enough.)

4. Michelle (Hoping she'll break the silence.)

2006-02-08T10:23:00.003-06:00

Warm Bodies Inc.

I met a poor person yesterday. I went to his house to be his new staff person on Tuesday mornings. I'd worked with him last fall, yet something was different about him yesterday. He was very quiet as he sat at his kitchen table and took small bites from a pop tart. In front of him was a prescription for an anti-depressant.

"I'm losing too much weight." he told me.

I asked him what he's been doing for fun and if he was still doing all of those social activities he used to have posted to his refrigerator. He said since a certain staff person quit a few months back he no longer did those things. I looked at his staff schedule and asked him what he did with this person, and that person.

"I don't do nothing! Except watch TV," he said, "And Katherine doesn't stay the whole time."

"You mean she leaves before her shift is over?" I asked.

"Please don't tell anyone!" he begged me, "Please don't tell anyone!"

"I'm not looking for trouble." I reassurred him.

One of the things this person had done with his former staff was go to Saturday Mass every week at his church. With both parents deceased it is the agencies job to ensure that he get to do the things he likes and wants to do. He's thoroughly in the system now.

I wondered who at his church missed him. I wouldn't blame them for thinking the agency was taking care of him. Yet, I thought, if it's not the church's job to keep in touch with gentle souls as this one and to watch out for their welfare...

Taking care of the developmentally disabled too often is more about making a buck than adequately seeing to the needs of individuals. When you see someone spending lots of time with a retarded adult, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that person is getting paid. Perhaps fifty percent of those people do an adequate, even caring job. But nearly one hundred percent of those people would not be in that person's life without a paycheck. Nearly one hundred percent of person's served in this system cannot stand up to the system and advocate for themselves when the system takes advantage of them. And taking advantage is not the exception, it's the rule.

How many of your most significant relationships are with people who are paid to be with you? People change, and they change jobs. These in the system, then, get rotating family. "Family" who sit on your couch and watch the shows they want to watch (on your TV), not necessarily the shows you want to watch. "Family" who not only gets paid to spend significant chunks of time with you, but who weekly drag you into stores with them while working their shift with you, and spend your time and the money they make off you (on themselves,) and rarely shop for you because you are so poor you don't have any spending money. "Family" who watches the clock at your house because they can't wait to get home to their house. "Family" who may or may not double check that diagnosis the doctor gave, and who will get all those prescriptions filled without second thought, and administer the drugs to you religiously without really knowing what side effects to look for. "Family" who considers it unimportant to help you build any other social network save the one you have when you accompany them in their life (on your time.) "Family" that will one day inevitably walk out your door never to be seen again, (unless you and your new staff/"family" run into them at the mall on the new staff's shopping adventure.)

Agencies only need send a warm body in order to bill the government for the person's "care." I've not worked at an agency yet who didn't end up settling for warm bodies. Now I'm privledged to work for one that prefers warm bodies over caring ones. Hence, me and my Tuesday person are keeping quiet, for now.

I'm not quite begging to be fired...yet.

2006-02-03T12:49:00.000-06:00

When I doubt my life will improve,
When I fear my choices in the past
will dictate my future,
When I worry I cannot resolve my
inner struggle,
I pray.

When I am insulted by someone's words,
When I am abused by his actions,
When I am degraded by her beliefs,
I pray.

When I see others hurting,
When I feel another's pain,
When I hear someone's cry for help,
I pray.

I pray my faith will never weaken,
I pray my hope will remain strong,
I pray my love will reach others,
I pray. And it is enough.

Oblates, January-February 2006

2005-12-16T14:03:00.000-06:00

Ghost Writer!

Wendy, my sister, writes in a Sermon on the Mount type fashion:

Do not be fooled by fancy speech nor fancy clothes. A man/woman of integrity is not about windowdressing. They shine regardless and are comfortable no matter what the attire. It is a reality that no matter what one says, one is measured by their own action. (And what is said about them - it is up to you whether to live up to it or down to it.) To live free - is to be deaf to insult and blind to snub - mute to gossip - soaring to great heights with no baggage from trying to haul others who insist you can't. Do it and let them go along for the ride or leave to distract someone else.

2005-12-01T07:37:00.000-06:00

Words to live by

Alan sez...

"If you haven't come up with real, deep, positive reasons why you are doing what you're doing, where you're doing it as far as church is concerned, then do so. It's time for much more of that and much less just doing nothing because you're tired and pissed or doing something else... just because you're tired and pissed. Think! Of course there will be some degree of reaction in this thing, but think and pray and think and read. Don't merely be a reactionary. It doesn't carry you very far. So, live in your own context and know why you are doing it. Don't be so much all up in the business of something that you're not a part of. Don't hesitate, though, to say what you believe to be the Truth. Try to be calm. Try to be as peaceful as you can about it, but don't wishy-washy yourself down the drain."

I meditated quite a bit on this and a few other things yesterday. I came up with a two word conclusion.

Manifest Love.

It doesn't really matter what we're doing or how we're doing it except that the result should be Love Manifested.

2005-11-26T10:16:00.000-06:00

Vacancy

The torso of our common good
Gets snatched away so easily.

The sudden interruption
Dislocates us like shoulders
That try to snap in place.

We dangle like limbs in shock.

We outstretch our arms
If only to embrace
The corpse that let us function.

It leaves a vacuum...

We bundle up like sticks
But it doesn't seem the same
All broken up with little to embody.

That is the rub we cannot touch.

--Jadon Androsoff

I wish I had written this. I would have titled it: Alcoholic Family Holiday.

2005-11-20T05:22:00.000-06:00

From Cyberspace to Realspace

This getting to meet bloggers face to face experience is pretty all right. This weekend I met the writers of two of my first read and favorite blogs at a gathering here at Vineyard Central. Granted, this always reveals about me that my social skills are about as shitty as my writing skills are "not shitty." On the upside though, I'm not inclined to troll anyone in person, and I'm sure Alan appreciates that!

Meeting the Creech family was pretty much like seeing old friends (but that you don't actually know yet.) Meeting Liz was especially cool. She has a warm sort of presence that I didn't necessarily expect. I also met a lot of other bloggers whose blogs I've read occasionally and heard a lot about from Kevin's blog. I have to say that I was pretty much surprised by the ways most of these bloggers were different than had I imagined while reading blogs/comments.

Sometimes I feel like by moving to Cincinnati have stepped into the internet! I first got online at a time in my life in which I was just starting to experience loss after loss after loss. It's interesting how loss can make you an outsider. Life isn't about loss as long as you find ways to avoid it. Denial isn't a river in Egypt, but it IS drug of choice for every one of us, unless what someone is dealing with is in your face, and even then...

Yet I found a voice I could identify with. I found a community of people who would journey with me a bit from a distance. I was comforted by these connections and it helped me to both avoid and deal with my pain.

I'm on the other side of the connection now. To be with is everything. Why I spent so many years banging my head against a wall trying to be with people who were unwilling or unable to be with me I don't yet understand. Those old connections still mean the world to me. Probably even more since I've moved away from them. But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I must have taken that test a thousand times, dropping my bucket into the muddy well of dysfunctional relating and drawing up bucket after bucket of dirty water.

Our tendency as human beings is to be very ugly and hurtful toward one another. I find in the "emerging church," or whatever this is, an unwillingness to go there. Not that we're perfect, but we're trying. Always trying. Weaknesses and faults are overlooked, not poked at. Gossip is almost non-existent. Loving concern replaces competition and backbiting. While it is a struggle to resist denial and to be with those who are experiencing loss, people are willing. People are trying. My muddy water is increasingly diluted by the pure water of the Spirit here.

In that sense, I think may have stepped into a miracle.

2005-11-11T20:58:00.000-06:00

Latest Obsession

I'd rather advocate than abdicate. Here's part of a letter I wrote today:

“Behaviors” are often the only way some of our developmentally disabled consumers know to communicate with us. When we begin regarding all such communication as undesirable and then work to stifle and control it, our service becomes a disservice to these consumers. We become their keepers and they are reduced to being our paycheck.

As service providers, to the extent that we are not empowering these individuals, we are oppressing them. To the extent that we make anyone an exception to the rule of self-determination, be it for “behaviors”,” guardians wishes, or any other reason, we imprison that individual, bringing the institution to the home via support services. When we fail to listen to the complaints of the real experts in the field--the consumers--we further disenfranchise the disenfranchised. Behaviors often improve when quality of life issues are addressed, and when there is a daily effort to maintain the consumer in as much control as is attainable. Behaviors are guaranteed to continue when a consumer is not heard.

What is not only not good for consumers is not good for us. What is not necessarily criminal can nevertheless be profoundly wrong. Did we not choose this work because we care about people? How can we bring more integrity to our work?

2005-11-06T02:38:00.000-06:00

Go ogle!

I found this little idea on Alan's blog. Google your name along with the word "needs." It's pretty fun, actually. Here are some of the things Google says Laura needs:

1. Laura needs your support.
Well, that goes without saying.

2. Laura needs a roommate.
Actually I'm already getting one for Christmas, so, no thanks!

3. Laura needs plastic surgery.
Like where?

4. What Laura needs to do to save at-risk kids.
No, what Laura needs to do is take better care of her own two kids.

5. Laura needs our help.
I think number one pretty much covered that.

6. "Laura remains a sympathetic character who readers know needs a hug."
Story of my life.

7. Laura needs to learn a few things.
Goes without saying.

8. Laura needs to, like, back off.
Whatever happened to sympathetic character?!

9. Laura needs some fixing too.
I think they're turning on me here!

10. Laura needs help to obtain air transportation.
Yep. Shipping me out!

2005-11-01T13:31:00.000-06:00

I Cooperate With You!

"Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends".
--Ambrose Bierce

I think the word "love" should be banished from the English language. It's not that I'm bitter, or that I have been burned, although I suppose those might be the origin of my feelings about the word. Keep it in quotations as "love," not love. One needs a safe distance from a tricky word like that.

Nowdays when someone says, "I love you," what they really mean is, "I feel sentiment toward you." So why not just say that? You feel a connection? Great! Say that.

To me, the word "love" could be replaced by "cooperate with." If I love God, I want to cooperate with God, not sit on my ass praying up a bunch of sentiment. If I love my brothers and sisters, I want to cooperate with them in their lives and plans instead of passively saying how much I care for them. If I love my enemies, I may not feel so well toward them, but I will cooperate enough in their lives as to understand them better, and to learn that they are not all bad. Cooperation can be as little as listening sometimes. But this is the real kind of listening, not the "uh huh" listening we all like to do to one other.

One of the best applications for this, I think, is in cooperating with your children. This would have been unthinkable in the household I grew up in, and I don't practice it well, either. But to actually aspire to cooperate with my children helps to remind me that they are not mine. They each are someone else who I can love best by cooperating with.

Lord, help me to be honest about who/what I really love. I pray for your grace that I might cooperate more and more.

2005-10-23T08:27:00.000-05:00

For the heck of it

On the yahoo benzodiazepine withdrawal/recovery message board was a response from someone that is just too beautiful not to share. This person has been off Xanax for 3 years now. She's responding to another poster who reports being embarassed because her mind and memory are so affected that when people she should know recognize her in public she doesn't know who they are. This is a really good response:

"I have gone thru all the wondering what era this is, and wondering what happened to the functional portion of my mind, and just where I might have left it, just like everyone else.

"As far as not recognizing someone in public and having them ask me if I were going to say Hi or not...I would just say, "Sure, I was just going to wait until I connected with your part of my reality." You don't really have any apologies to make
to anyone. They are not apologizing to YOU for not being a Rhodes scholar, or Nobel prize winner are they? Not likely. You don't have to be any more than you are able to be at any given second in time.

"Hell, one day at a time is all any of us has, and there are too few of them alotted to us to spend them jumping thru anyone else's hoop. No matter what group function you are dealing with, whether it is in a supermarket, or class, or group meeting of some sort...you are there for YOURSELF. Don't let anyone exercise their desires to
flex their little ego muscles on you. That little "weren't you going to say Hi" thing, is to make you feel less than what you are. That makes THEM feel empowered. Let them be empowered some other way. I am not telling you to pick up a brick and hit them or anything...although I know a lady who keeps crashing into MY periphery that is courting just such a happening...but I AM saying, you are just as precious to the universe as the next creature and you are just as valid as the one next to you, or across the room, or in the next county. You don't have to prove it just because someone wants to jerk your strings.

"Us sufferers who are going thru this withdrawal/recovery thing need all the validation that we can give ourselves. Let the others sharpen their claws somewhere else. While you are relearning how to do what you need to do in the world, take very good care of YOU. You are your most precious commodity. Don't let anyone make you feel any less. We all have shortcomings. Mine are no better than yours, hers are no more special than mine...etc. If you are not actively wronging someone, then they have no right to make you feel that you are somehow lacking. A first grader is not lacking in twelfth grade skills. Only a twelfth grader can be held accountable for those things. I am not responsible for something I am not equipped to accommodate. I will find a way to do it when I get to it. I am not a rocket scientist. I am not launching a thing into space. What in hell am I going on about? LOL!! I guess I am trying to say that if you are breathing and trying to make sense of the world and do
well by it, then that is all you have to say grace over. Regaining or learning to create coping skills is one of the hardest things in life to accomplish. Had it been easy, or already accomplished, then none of us would have ever taken any of these drugs.

"Everyone take care, be kind and tender with yourself. You are a precious part of the universe, and you are supposed to be here. If not, you surely wouldn't be here. Creations are not mistakes, sometimes just mistaken, if you follow that."

Yep, I'm pretty much still stuck on this tangent.

2005-10-04T20:54:00.000-05:00

From Palmer's Journal:

"There is hope in the midst of hopelessness. Death is not where we lose; the onset of hopelessness is the great defeater. So allow hope to rise up within you. And when it seems that hopefulness is the least appropriate response in this situation, let is rise up even more. Whisper your hope when you lie down at night; scream your hope when you wake in the morning. Live your hope as if it is the one and only thing that sustains you in this ravaged world. You will not be disappointed."

I don't have any boring commentary to add to that. Thanx goes to Alan for linkage.

2005-09-21T13:35:00.000-05:00

Love is...

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."

--Rebecca- age 8

"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different.
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."

--Billy - age 4

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your
French fries without making them give you any of theirs."

--Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired."

--Terri - age 4

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop
opening presents and listen."

--Bobby - age 7

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a
friend who you hate."

--Nikka - age 6

"Love is when you tell a boy you like his shirt, then he wears it
everyday."

--Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still
friends even after they know each other so well."

--Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I
looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and
smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore."

--Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night."

--Clare - age 6

"Love is when Daddy gives Mommy the best piece of chicken."

--Elaine-age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he
is handsomer than Robert Redford."

--Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him
alone all day."

--Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old
clothes and has to go out and buy new ones."

--Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little
stars come out of you."

--Karen - age 7

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if
you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."

--Jessica - age 8

2005-09-20T08:58:00.000-05:00

River in Egypt

Now that society has nailed those sleazy, dirty, Catholic Fathers to the wall, (didn't that feel justified!) when will the righetous campaign against the sleazy, heterosecular, biological fathers begin?

It's freedom to accept that we live in a fallen world. I need to remind myself of this more often.

2005-09-15T08:10:00.000-05:00

Off the Bench

"Take on a project that fuels your passion and there are
never enough hours in the day." --Wendy Garrett

Wendy just returned from spending time rescuing dogs in hurricane devastated areas in Mississippi. Not a lot of photos or observations, but you can tell she has a lot of energy and commitment for the task.

2005-09-07T16:42:00.000-05:00

From Boing Boing:

Famed musician and New Orleans native Charmaine Neville's account of being stranded, attempting to rescue others, and "being treated like animals" by the federal authorities who were tasked with protecting and saving citizens.

2005-09-04T07:56:00.000-05:00

Priorities

"In a Friday New York Times article, Brian Wolshon, a Louisiana State University engineering professor who served as a consultant on the state's evacuation plan, said not much consideration was given to New Orleans's "low-mobility" population -- those too sick or poor to evacuate themselves.

"When the issue came up at disaster planning meetings, he said, 'the answer was often silence.'"

After Hurricane Katrina one thing is clear: God doesn't take care of us; we take care of each other.

"Poor people continue to die, as they´ve had to watch buses pass them by in unbearable heat and humidity. But for those with money, it was a different story.

"At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the [Hyatt Regency] hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line—much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday." (USA Today, Sept. 3) The tourists were clean, shaved, had recently eaten and were mostly white."

I pray we do a better job than this.

2005-08-25T08:16:00.000-05:00

Ghost Writer

This morning I found a letter on the yahoo message board for people dealing with the fallout from benzodiazepines that was quite an encouragement. I'm just reprinting here for the heck of it:

"I was c/ted off of klonopin 18 months ago and was
truly joyless for well over a year. To this day I still
find it very difficult to experience joy, but it is there
to be found somewhere in the dark clouds. Lately I have
compared myself to a character in a Harry Potter book
after being around a "dementor"...I guess in our world
benzos are real life dementors...they rob us of our
ability to experience "joy"...we don't necessarily
recognise it while we are taking them, but in
recovery, their affect hits us like a brick in the
face!

"As bad as your life seems, I guarantee it will get
better. My creativity has flourished since I got off
the poison, and now finally I am seeing a light at the
end of the tunnel. I don't know how far along you
are, and you may be distressed to hear that I am still
not "better" after 18 months, but I have the hope and
certainty that I finally am able to experience
unadulterated joy and pain and sorrow and pleasure for
the first time in 10 years! Isn't that what life is
all about? We can all beat the "dementors" in our
life...hell, by getting off of benzos, at least we are
all heading in the right direction."

2005-08-16T01:07:00.000-05:00

I can't understand why....

I slept so good for the first three weeks after the move, and now I'm waking up at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning again. Except that the predictable "honeymoon" period could be getting over.

Still.

It's got me thinking in the direction of advocacy for people affected by benzodiazepines again. I mean, I'm up anyway. Might as well use the time thinking constructively instead of worrying about everything under the sun.

I went to a job interview for a teacher's aide position today and this is how part of it went:

Principal: So how old are you kids?

Me: Uh...(thinking hard, long pause, looking off into space) Ninth grade and seventh grade.

You know, I'm not trying to say Klonopin wrecked my whole life. I said and did stupid things before ever taking Klonopin. But yeah, Klonopin has pretty much wrecked my whole life. Fortunately, Google understands:

"I don't think anyone really knows what long-term effects the benzodiazepines are likely to have on brain tissue. But research reported at a neuropsychopharmacology congress in Jerusalem in 1982 suggested that the benzodiazepines may affect memory. Research has shown, for example, that volunteers who have taken benzodiazepines are unable to remember things like telephone numbers and map routes."

This was 20 years after they started making their millions. It's 20 years later and they STILL DON'T KNOW. ha.

"In addition to these suggestions that the benzodiazepines may damage your brain cells and produce real physical damage to your thinking processes, there is also the risk that the benzodiazepines will cause psychological damage. So, for example, there is the risk that while you are taking one of these drugs your emotional make-up will be dramatically changed. You may no longer suffer acute attacks of anxiety or depression while you are drugged. But, at the same time, you may also fail to enjoy the peaks of pleasure in your life. You may become 'zombie'-like in your attitude to life, and boring and uninteresting to those around you. As a result of these definite and obvious changes in your personality your relationships with other people may change. You may lose friends, you may lose your job and you may find that your marriage breaks up."

Don't expect it to happen overnight, though. These pharmaceutical masterpieces take time!

2005-08-07T11:14:00.000-05:00

Once Upon a Bowl of Oatmeal

"I'm having juice for breakfast!" A spirited three-year-old announces to the world.

His daddy suggests, "How 'bout some juice and oatmeal?"

"No...I'm having juice for breakfast!"

"How 'bout juice with oatmeal for breakfast?"

"I'm having juice and oatmeal for breakfast!" The three-year-old announces to the world.

Moments later he's got a new idea. "I'm having juice and toast and oatmeal for breakfast!"

Later at the table his daddy suggests, "Let's have some oatmeal now with your juice and toast."

"What? What did you say?" The preoccupied three-year-old asks, taking another bite of toast.

"Here...let's count five bites." His daddy holds out a spoonful of oatmeal.

They say together, "One..."

The three-year-old takes another bite of oatmeal. "What number is that? How many bites?" His daddy asks.

"Three!" The boy replies as he guides his toast through the air like an airplane.

Five people sat down for oatmeal on that hazy August morning. Four bowls of oatmeal were consumed...plus five bites.

The End.

2005-07-30T15:02:00.000-05:00

Napoleon Dyamite Quiz

You are Tater Tots. Go get your own!!

Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

So this is what I get for going vegan?!

Hat tip to Debi.

2005-07-28T14:07:00.000-05:00

Still Alive

Moving to Ohio was the easiest hardest thing I've done in my whole life. This has been like a birth, really. All the pains happened in Kansas and now I barely remember them. Things here are new and exciting and yet still a little stressful.

It seems amazing how life has been unfolding since I kicked the Klonopin. That I was able to do that at all is a sort if miracle in itself.

I realize I've been pretty vague on this blog and it's getting vaguer (haha) by the minute. Still, it's a transition so I'm not sure what direction the blog will take.

2005-07-20T08:33:00.000-05:00

Security and the lack thereof

It is a difficult transition when one starts choosing in life instead of reacting to life. It just makes you that much more responsible and who wants to be responsible? So much easier to roll with the punches saying "I didn't do it!" than to actually take risks intentionally, to willingly cause change.

I believe in my choice to move my kids and I to Ohio. This is one of those "optional" life choices. There seems to be a lot of security in staying put, in not changing anything intentionally. So much security, in fact, that at times I wonder how anyone moves at all?

Last night I had so much anxiety (magnified by my new reality without Klonopin. Yes, it does take that long to adjust.) I couldn't sleep, and got to thinking really, really hard about security. After finding a buyer for this house, arrangements for the move on Friday a go, some things about the new house seemed like they might fall through.

I got to wondering, what is security, anyway? Klonopin made me feel a little more secure, for a while. My home made me feel pretty secure. Income makes me feel somewhat secure. I got to thinking about how people here in our country get security from the fact that our military is "keeping us safe." (I would argue safe to shop at Walmart, but I suppose that's getting a little too political.)

How much of this security is real? From what might we be getting a false sense of security? In different circumstances I would probably say that we get our security from God, and in a sense that is true I suppose, but lying in bed last night feeling just a little homeless, faith didn't cut it.

Then my thoughts turned to Jesus and I asked myself, what sense of security did He have? Even He spent three days in the bowels of the earth; do I dare expect security always be handed to me? After thanking Him that I suffer, I was finally able to drift off to sleep.

2005-07-13T07:15:00.000-05:00

Wednesday Rambling

Been thinking some lately about cynicism verses faith, especially as it concerns how people think about romantic relationships or anything else that entails risk. There seems to be (at least) two ways of thinking about it. One in which trusting and risking is okay, and one in which it is not. In that case, the "wise" thing to do is to be on your guard. Not to risk, not to be taken. The bottom line is your Self.

Most of us have probably been conned or "taken" at some time or another. Or we have either made or seen others make some foolish and painful mistakes. We want to avoid and protect ourselves and the people we love from that ever happening again. Yet this concern easily become cynicism, which I might argue, is sin.

How can one help facilitate the creation and growth of something beautiful in their own or some elses life if they are constantly on guard against what could possibly go wrong? I don't mean healthy caution, but someone who is constantly looking at the dark side of human nature, believing in failure more than love. Isn't that the complete opposite direction from faith?

When people are cunning and shrewd about risks and relationships, their own or others', doesn't this demonstrate and encourage a lack of faith? How can anything, ANYTHING grow from that? What if all the people who are (again) watching and waiting for the fall, waiting to say "I saw that coming" would have a little faith, take things at face value and instead lend their support? While all the encouragement in the world could not make an unhealthy venture work out, non-support and cynicism on the other hand is a sort of pulling down with your own hands something that might have stood a chance.

I shudder to think of all the things I've helped to tear down with my own "hands" of cynicism. We each have more influence than we probably know. No one sits out this game. There really are no spectators. You're either tearing down or building up. And I am talking as much to myself as anyone else. We've got a lot to learn, or at least I do.

2005-06-28T18:01:00.000-05:00

Afternoon at the Lake

Yesterday we went for a drive with Josh (goof ball neighbor kid) to Lake Wabaunsee. We have lots of photos on our fotopage. (Most of which are not, unfortunately, nature photos, but goofy photos of us washing the van in the spillway.)

2005-06-17T19:49:00.000-05:00

Blog of the week...

I like my dog's blog better than my own! Chances are...you will too.

2005-06-15T03:54:00.000-05:00

Ready or not...
brought to you by Debi! AND Jadon (who both tagged me)

*How many books do you own?

Thanks to a recent cleaning out I only own about a couple hundred books. That's an estimate because they're all in boxes ready for the big move.

*What was the last book you bought?

The Great American Detox Diet by Alex Jamison. Actually it's not a diet book, but a book about good nutrition by Morgan Supersize Me Spurlock's girlfriend. She's a vegan chef.

*What was the last book you read?

The whole thing? That would be For Fidelity by Catherine Wallace. Pssst! It's about sexuality! Of course, I'm rereading it.

*Name five books that mean a lot to you:

Well dang...they're all in boxes and you know my memory. Here goes anyway:

1. Walden and Other Writings by Theorau. I read this one like a Bible.

2. Circle of Simplicity by Cecile Andrews. I loaned this one to someone and never saw it again. I forgot it's title until the other day when I was rereading one of my journals from 2000. You can listen to it here.

3. The Complete Katy Trail Guide Book by Brett Dufur. The next best thing to riding the Katy is reading about the Katy.

4. The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck. This book had me with it's very first sentence, "Life is difficult." That was, uh, twenty years ago...nothings changed.

5. Rogets Thesaurus Attempting to explain my attachment to this book would be like trying to define Love.

Okay Shawn, Cheryl, and Julie...you're IT!

2005-06-11T12:17:00.000-05:00

101

"When I was young, I was sure of many things; now
there are only two things of which I am sure: one
is, that I am a miserable sinner; and the other,
that Christ is an all-sufficient Saviour. He is
well-taught who learns these two lessons."

--John Newton

and

"God will never, never, never let us down if
we have faith and put our trust in Him. He
will always look after us. So we must cleave
to Jesus. Our whole life must simply be woven
into Jesus.

--Mother Teresa

2005-06-10T09:01:00.000-05:00

St. Grandma

I'm kinda down but don't want to be. Yesterday I felt too good, as Grandma left me her antique china cabinet to try and make up for Dad leaving me out of his will a couple of years ago. The boys got the farm, but I got some Love. But I still don't know how to feel about my adopted brother Ken. He was left out of Dad's will too, because he's a little slow. He only met Grandma about 4 years ago, but he's got the Fritz name. He didn't mind, he said, but he was left out of the obitituary and was not offered a chance to pick out one of the paintings she had done like the rest of us were.

Still, yesterday felt a little like justice which isn't something that ever happens in this family. I can forgive myself for not knowing Grandma and just learn from this. I'm more like my dad than I'd like to admit. Yesterday was okay, but last night I started getting really sad and was really, really missing Mom. Something about losing Grandma just makes you think of all that history. Plus the fact that the cemetery plots are all filling up. One of our great grandmothers was Native American, I guess. Jesse Justice was her name. She and her husband Frank are buried out there with Grandma, Grandpa (who died in 1966), and Dad. With Mom also in the ground, at another cemetery, it just feels weird.

2005-06-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

Grace
(1910-2005)

I remember one day she visited us when we still lived with our mom. I was four. I was waving to my grandma out of the big picture window with my floppy little hand. I thought it was funny, how I was waving.

I remember going with her to my cousin's house to deliver a baby carriage for my aunt's foster child, I think.

I remember days we had visited her yellow house with black shutters in Rossville. She would open up the front door and exclaim, "Well Laura Ann!" Then she would give me a hug.

I remember the time my four older siblings went to 4-H camp so I got to go to Grandma's. After a week of hanging out, eating yummy popcicles, and having stories read to me, she announced it was time to go home. I told her "no" because the other kids had another week at camp. She laughed her distinctive Grandma laugh and later told the story to my step-mom. Step-mom wasn't amused.

I remember when I was around eleven we had Grandma over for a nice supper. She and Dad had a disagreement at the table. He picked up her paper plate, peas and potatoes in it, and smushed it all around in her face. She got up and acted as if nothing had happened, but walked out, never to walk in again.

I remember the following Christmas when she mailed our presents. I remember my dad and step-mom with their unusually reasonable demeanor, talking me out of keeping the necklace she'd sent me. (Which I loved, by the way.) God I hated that committee. Dad returned the box of presents, leaving it on her porch.

I remember visiting her in Rossville after I had finished both junior high and high school, after learning to drive, after half my childhood without Grandma. I learned love and connection well from my old man...I didn't know her, and I didn't care.

The committee had their reasons and now it all seems so insane. The funeral is tomorrow, but I must have let go of Grandma a long time ago.

I wish I hadn't.

2005-06-04T19:52:00.000-05:00

Six BA's for Parents

Be assured - Know where you're headed in your personal life. Your self-assurance will encourage and reassure your children to follow your guidance.

Be attentive - Keep alert to the persons inside your children's bodies with real and very important emotional, spiritual needs. Listen hard and keep in tune with who they are.

Be available - Have time (make time) for your children. Book their events into your calendar just as diligently as you do any other engagements.

Be affectionate - You can never give too much love (even to stand-offish teens!) Make sure you express your love in ways that your children can receive.

Be authoritative - Everyone needs to know how to identify the boundaries and limits of life. Without "fences," children run scared or huddle in the middle, afraid to explore life.

Be affirmative - Believe in your children and value them for who they are (not for how they fulfill your frustrated fantasies.) Encourage them - that is, "put courage into them." Inspire them - that is, feed their own unique souls.

--John Anderson

2005-05-31T11:55:00.000-05:00

Fatigue Blogging

Yes, it IS all about me. (Can you imagine Jesus saying that?)

Here are the things I am too tired to blog about:

Bright idea: The latest on Teen Screen- coming to a school near you. Government mental health screening (ie. drug pushing) funded by taxpayers, obviously the brainchild of those all-to-helpful pharmaceutical companies.

Next idea: Let's take away their drugs! Thanks to congress, starting January 2006 Medicare's new drug benefit completely excludes benzodiazepines. Not sure if they will correct this, but if not, a lot of people are in for some serious withdrawal and possible brain damage. Oh, I know, like gulf war syndrome: this doesn't exist.

Too good not to blog about: For the ladies, you can save a lot of money, and the environment, using one of these. Of course the multi-national consumer products manufacturing companies are counting on us not to, so that's reason enough to, don't ya' think?

Last but not least: We finally watched the movie Supersize Me. I thought I understood what junk food does to people until I watched this movie. Turns out, it ain't even food. And do those corporations ever get tired of raping the public? Never!

2005-05-27T04:07:00.000-05:00

Stand up Insomniac

Restaurant manager: "Hey, why did you drop another burger on the floor? Not enough sleep last night?"

Cook: "No, sir. The customer ordered another one, prepared just the same way."

--Melvin Durai

2005-05-26T12:07:00.000-05:00

Family- the spectator sport

I can count on my family. I can count on them to 'listen.' I can count on them to judge. I can count on them to talk behind my back.

Lord, help me to keep moving toward, not away from. Amen.

2005-05-24T06:43:00.000-05:00

Quoteth

"The spirit we have, not the work we do, is what makes us important to the people around us."

--Joan Chittister

I don't know about anyone else, but I have a vested interest in that idea!

2005-05-23T03:41:00.000-05:00

Clarification

Not sleeping...what the hell, I'll post something.

You all (all two of you) know that I quit taking Klonopin 8 months ago. You know I am a self-admitted addict. (Second of all, this is a blog not a medical journal, so act accordingly.) Here's the clencher:

My regular use of Klonopin and subsequent withdrawal had nothing to do with addiction.

I am totally addicted to information. If I'm not online, my tendency is to lose myself in a book, any book with information I'm interested in, no fiction please. I am addicted to food from time to time. Since my mom passed away I've been a regular food junkie. I am addicted to isolating. Given the opportunity I will be alone for hours and hours even though that's painful too. In all of these things I am an addict because of the compulsion I have to do these things.

Klonopin use, on the other hand, (and I speak for the vast majority of benzodiazepine users) has not been the least bit addictive. There is no compulsion in taking your prescribed medicine as prescribed. Maybe a little more or a little less depending, and that's okayed by the prescriber. In my case, almost always a little less.

So why the hell have I experienced withdrawal? Simply, addiction is not the same as dependence. If your brain stops producing the chemicals that are now supplied by the drug, that doesn't mean you're an addict, it means you're dependent. Many of us get confused because we have become physically dependent and therefore we accept the label "addiction."

I don't give a shit (well i do, but...) about what people think. What I do care about is that the problems people have with benzodiazepines are understood to be addiction problems, therefore people are not even looking out for the REAL problems: these drugs can cause dependence because they disable the brain! Brain damage is brain damage, not addiction. People think benzodiazepines will only be a problem for people prone to addiction. Not so. Benzodiazepines can become a problem for anyone with a brain. It's important to recognize this.

Terms such as "accidental addict" do not serve us well. It's not a case of "whoops! my doctor prescribed me this medication and now I use it compulsively to zone out or get high." It's a case of "whoops! my doctor is in bed with the powerful and preadatory pharmaceutical companies and now they both are making big money by causing millions of us to become dependent upon brain damaging drugs thereby ensuring we will always be in their 'care.'"

See? It ain't addiction, and it for sure is NOT accidental.

2005-05-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

Hi, I'm Laura and I'm an addict...

Welcome. This is an open meeting for internet/blog/google addicts and I will be your chairperson today. (Sorta.) I doubt that anyone who needs this meeting will be attending this meeting since internet/blog/google addicts need to stay away, and those who don't are in denial. (I know I won't be here!) I'm sure you understand.