An Unbroken Heart Gathers No Soul

Tinman can be quoted as saying "Now I know I've got a heart --- 'cuse it's breaking"  It hurts, getting your heart broken.  Whether it is your emotional heart, your intellectual heart or your social heart, all need to crack the crusty shell, shatter it's once held beliefs and sentiments in order to grow. Luckily for us and Tinman, our hearts are like a Timex watch: Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking.

This isn't some dumb-ass war cry to go out and break every heart you can get your hands on, it's not nice to be the breaker and even less fun to be the breakee.  I'm saying be open to the breaking, so you can grow.  So often I've walked around town, driven through blighted areas in the urban areas and hold my breath until I'm back in 'safe' surroundings.  I try not to see the disheveled people leaning in doorways to keep warm and dry.  "It's their choice", is one of my favorite emotional barricades to hide behind, which is right next to the second favorite of "It's the City's job to take care of them."  That's not to say I don't help out when I can.  I put coinage and sometimes even cashy money into poor boxes when asked, I'll buy a meal for a someone who says their hungry, you know, doing my part.  Not that I need a pat on the back from anyone for doing that, I'm quite adept at patting my own back, thank you very much.  But it's not enough any more.

One of my favorite made-up words is ectopherisis (ekto-fer ee sis), it's a combination word of ectoplasm (If you're a Ghostbusters fan you know that word) and Pheresis which is the process of separating out the different components of the blood in order to harvest white blood cells and plasma.  Together it is the process in which our spiritual selves shed our ephemeral skin, like a snake, in order for us to grow spiritually and emotionally to the next level.  Just like a snake it normally requires you to bang your head on a sharp rock, or for the sake of this blog, get your heart broken to get things started.  When our hearts are frozen from the banality of every day life we turn a blind eye to the suffering of our own and of the world around us.  If you are suffering you look at your fellow sojourner and proclaim to yourself that your suffering is far more painful to theirs.  That egoism is a trap, it's the mortar that helps seal your heart behind the excuses for not taking a step to fix the problems in the world.  To be perfectly honest, it's a very comfortable place to be most of the time.  But then it happens.  Something, someone, somehow you are exposed to something truly touching or thought provoking or personally painful and your heart is shattered.  Then what do you do?  You're in pieces....

I say revel in it.  Don't try to pull the pieces back together because you will never be the same person you will be before it broke.  And, honestly, do you really want to be that person ever again?  Some people do, some people abhor change (and seriously, I'm one of them), but you need it to grow.  If you don't turn the soil, add fresh compost and new seeds you will never reap the harvest of a well rounded soul.  We only have this life to live, shouldn't we live it mindful of ourselves and mindful of the pain around us?

The impetus that brought on this blog was watching Dianne Sawyer on 20/20 showing us the Hidden America: Children of the Plains.  I realized my simple "They choose to live like that" or "The Government should fix it, that's why we pay taxes," doesn't cover the horrific lives the Lakota Sioux Indians are living at Pine Ridge, SD.  Though I'm not faring much better financially, I'm determined to get a box of school supplies together, even if I have to raid my own personal stock-pile of office supplies and send it to them.  I hope, as my employment betters, or if my book is published, I will be in a better position to help more.  My heart broke when I saw the drawing of a little girl showing herself hanging and both of her wrists slashed with puddles of blood on the floor.  This was a doodle, it wasn't a psyche evaluation.   It was heart-wrenching.  Not just because she is too young to have those thoughts but because I know what it's like to have those thoughts.  The tribe helped her in many ways, one was to give her an Indian name, something like, She Who Stands During Storms.  It gave her strength, and seeing her improve over the course of the hour gave me strength.  And so my heart ticks anew.....

Remember, Tinman always had a heart, he was just frozen for so long that it took the loss of his friend to hear it ticking again.

Have I Forgiven the Terrorists of 9/11?

The US is a nation that prides itself on freedom of religion.  We have the most religions, I believe, in the world.  We cover everything from the classic minister and congregation to Paganism with their nature deities to fundamentalism in every sect.  We are, in that sense free.  Each religion demands a sort of forgiveness for those who trespass against us in order to be forgiven.  But can we forgive the selfish and senseless actions of the pilots, the fierce intent to kill the infidels?  I'm still not sure it was a religious attack, just perfectly hidden behind a religious facade.  The politics are too convoluted for a non political chess master.  So, I am left with my Christian roots and blooming Buddhist values.....Can I-Have I forgive the terrorists that took away the innocence of the United States in an attempt to force us into an extreme way of life to make them heroes in their heavens?

I don't like calling them murderers, even though through the first degree murder description in the CPC calls for a show of "real intent and malice aforethought".  They definitely had forethought and will a real intent they took to learning to fly, to setting their affairs in order and got on the planes with every intention to kill and to die. 

I'm trying to pull back and look at their intent.  Yes, they were motivated by a heaven full of virgins for their sacrifice.  It was all the rage to make jokes about it after 9/11 and at times are still used as punch-lines today.  I feel that is as wrong as spitting on the Pope.  No, I don't approve of their form of proselyting, but that is what they were doing.  Missionary work, no matter what the religion, its intent is to change the fundamental attitudes, lifestyle and eternal path of the average person.  I was a missionary, though I didn't have a personal fatwa to convert or kill but I did have a jihad to help as many people as I could to make their lives better....one child at a time.  What they did with one devastating sweeping gesture (requiring people to change their ways of life) I did by walking door-to-door handing out books and teaching lessons in homes.  (Yes, you need to take out the whole killing part...which I admit is hard)

I go back to the general question....have I forgiven them?  No, no one I knew died in the towers or in the field or at the Pentagon.  I was blessed in that regard.  Having used our inept security measures against us, destroying lives, forcing us into a new political paradigm based on fear instead of freedom, and destroying my idealism of the US and shaking my concept of general security?  Have I forgiven them for taking away my innocence in the wars of the world?  I don't think so.  Not because I have tried, because I haven't.  Once my mind was numbed from all the reports on TV, the comedians trying to lighten the situation by easing pain of our losses, the chatter on the street as well as then my personal unemployment, my general hatred of life in general and abstract, I just walled it up and tried to never visit it again.  So, I would have to say I've never said the words to the masterminds (symbolically of course), to the terrorists that flew the plane, etc.  Of course the fear comes up: If I forgive them does that mean I condone what they did?  Does it mean I'm okay with them doing this again, and again to us because we are turning the other cheek? Does this mean I am sullying the lives lost of the men and women, children and heroes of that day?  I think all those answers are a general NO.  Forgiveness isn't about hurting, it's about healing.  God will sort out and judge/punish as He sees fit.   To forgive means you aren't carrying around so much baggage that when it is time for the blessing of forgiveness to wash over you, you will have full redemption and it not be sidetracked by trying to pry your judgements off you.  It's not just saying the words either, you have to forgive.  True, it's easier for me, like I said before, because I don't have a dog in the fight, so they say, but I did loose my child-like wonder of being an American. 

No, I haven't forgiven them.  Dragging up all these ideas has made me dislike them even more.  But, today, I plan to take a moment of silence and express my forgiveness to them as I ask a  blessing for the families of all to be blessed with the charity of the heavens to help heal the wounds of such violent intents.

Monkey In The Middle

I had two brothers who, in general, never came together on anything.  One was a sweet, innately loving soul the other was a vicious sociopathic bully.  The one thing that built the bridge between them was the opportunity to terrorize their three younger sisters.  Their favorite game? Monkey in the middle with anything of value to us.  It's not a game that the person in the middle ever wins.  It normally ends when the two perpetrators get tired and go away to reek havoc somewhere else.  The Monkey never, ever wins because brothers that are 11 and 13 years older than you will always be bigger and stronger than you.  The only hope for revenge is to wait until their children are old enough to have special attachments to dolls, balls, or teddy bears and return the favor.

Why bring this up you ask?  The whole political climate has made me feel as vulnerable as that little girl was being terrorized by the two opposites in the house.  We have the Right and the Left fighting for their values, not for the people they represent.  Instead of getting things done (the teddy bear between them) they are constantly volleying it back and forth to each other in verbal skirmishes so nothing gets done.  The teddy bear goes back and forth while the monkey (middle-of-the-road citizens) are exhausting themselves with trying to make due with their shrinking finances, the fears of loosing their job, the anxiety of trying to find a job while raising the next generation in a pseudo-economic depression. (I know they call it a recession, but that's like calling an iPad a chalk slate....they both record information...sorta).  The political pundents are more concerned with their ratings and will say just about anything to tip the scales in their favor.  Taking words out of context or adding a word to fluff up an image of intelligence, or in most cases, idiocy in order to inflame their more slack-jaw viewers arming them for their personal political rants with their friends of the other political persuasion. The media would have you believe that the majority has voted these idiots into office, but the truth is the majority of the people that vote voted these idiots into office, or they vote like me....the lesser of the evils....and then the lesser evil pulls a Jekyll/Hyde us.

The one thing that really annoys the beegeeses out of me is with all the ranting, all the railing against one another in DC, no one takes the time to suggest a fix.  Each side is cemented in their dogma of, to quote Mr. W "My way or the Highway" position.  I'm not talking just Republicans here, but Democrats as well.  If they take the time to write a comment for the press, couldn't they spend just as much time to make a suggestion for a fix so both sides can be happy....or at least less miserable.  Too much time is spent posturing to each other and the monkeys in the middle are too busy to stand up and tell them to put a sock in it and get back to work.  Which is what literally needs to be done.  If any of us spent more time on office politics than getting their job done we'd be hitting the bricks with the other millions of unemployed.  It's just that simple.  However, when you are in the service of the people, apparently office-politics is all you have to be skilled in.

So, here I am, saying that they need to come up with a solution instead of fighting between each other.  There is no difference between the ordinary (me) person and a politicians so here are my solutions for this situation....

• Every one, no matter what your political interests are, VOTE!  And vote for the ones that aren't in the extremes just because they are they are your party d'jour.  Study out the candidates and then find the one that you feel will best serve your interests.
• Set time limits on bills writing, rebuttals, votes and passings.  For example, if a need arises, a bi/tri/multi party committee is pulled together and given three months to write the best solution to the bill that is possible, taking into account all the parties idyllic ideas and then present it for rebuttal to the heads of each party, who would have six weeks to come up with changes, modifications and deletions.  Then the original committee would have three weeks to fix it, if they feel it should be fixed.  Any time spent denigrating the bill in the media is deducted from the time for that group/committee has for making adjustments.  Then after about six months bills should be able to pass through and we wouldn't have the congressional constipation that seems to keep things from passing.
• All politicians should be required to keep a wiki or a blog that explains why they voted the way they did, especially if it's against the way their constituents want.  Their constituents should have access to a voting application on that site where they can go in and cast a vote or post an opinion.
• No "extra" stuff on bills that have nothing at all to do with the bill itself so their won't be any more bribes for votes any more.  All monies need to be accounted for an posted on-line.  We have the technology people, we should be using it.
• If a politician doesn't show up to vote, they don't get paid.  If I don't work I don't get paid, why should they?  Why can't we hold them to the same work standard as the rest of the US.
• They should have to post every meeting they have with a lobbyist, special interest, the minutes from those meetings and any contributions/junkets/parties that take place.  They should be limited to how many they can see and heavy penalties to their office (their paycheck, I mean) should be levied for every infraction.

There are a few more but this should give you an idea of what can happen if we all get involved in shaping our future.  Yes, we are at almost the very bottom of our economic foundation.  Everything we have always come know and believe in in our government is either gone or in a state of flux.  This is scary, yes, but it is also a blessing.  We have the opportunity to rebuild the United States to our own ideals if we just take a small amount of time to vote, and to email our representatives and tell them what we feel they should be doing.  It's a leap of faith that we will be heard, but by not doing anything at all is only going to guarantee yourself misery.  We, the monkeys, need to rise, step out of the middle and demand what is rightfully ours!

Pinch Me.....I think I'm dreaming!

You know how life goes, your down on your luck, you have a dour outlook and life gives you back what you put out; crap.  I'm learning this, or rather, been taught this, over and over again.  Living Buddha, Living Christ tells me I need to meditate to gain mindfulness in conjunction with Christ.  The When Anger Hurts book concurs with meditation to stifle the dark swirling emotions so I've been 'chanting' I Know Heavenly Father Loves Me from the Primary songbook using each phrase as a cue to breathe in and out and focus on the images it invokes. Or Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow, but either way it's the calming and security that I love from these exercises.  It's keeping me from spiralling me out of control.  So, my outlook as been a little more hopeful.  In order to to keep hope alive in my everyday life I've added a Hope journal to my journal and I mindfully choose the ideas/concepts/items I am hopeful for.  Just hoping is a new start for me. (Yea Me!)  So, what does all this have to do with my life?  I'll tell you....

• My sister has been promising me and promising me a job with the company she works with.  She has a had this possible job for me for months now.  It's a fast growing technology company and they need someone to do grunt type work.  It's, as she calls it, brain numbing, but I have enough going on not to want something that's going to take a lot of brain power.  And the plus side....it is real money, forty hours a week, no pressure, no required overtime, etc.  So, win-win-win for me.  Thank you C!
• I am now in charge of all of Mom's hours again, so, again money.  Not that I only hope for money, but trust me, I'm very mindful when it is absent.  I'm looking forward to being able to buy a few necessities as well as a few niceties.  Thank you Mom!
• This one is the most surprising, touching and generous act I had never expected.  P. was talking about selling his car because he doesn't want to have to put out extra money for something he feels he can live without.  Mom probed him as to what he would charge me if I were to buy the car.  Without hesitation he says's "If Aunt Pam needs it I'll give it to her."  Yea, I know, my jaw bounces off the floor every time I think of it.  He's my favorite right now.  True they have to teach me how to better handle a manual transmission, and though she doesn't know it, my best friend is going to have to teach and sit with me as I try to navigate the hills of San Francisco, but I feel like I'm up for the challenge.  To sweeten the gift, it needs about $1k of work, which C. is going to front me the money so it's running and safe for me learn on.  And the ABSOLUTE best thing?  It has AIR CONDITIONING..  You would understand if you've lived in California during heat waves and not have air conditioning for over 8years or so.

So, now I am on my way to supporting my little family again.  Sammy will be reacquainted with her vet, Mom will have all the things that make her life special and I will have a source for a savings, a little pot for the chance of a vacation, and maybe just a touch more for me. 

I change my mind, don't pinch me.  If I'm dreaming I don't want to wake up because I don't want to leave this world of hope that seems to be springing up around me.

-

Turning To The Window

There is saying that when a door shuts, God opens a window.  I've spent far too much of my life mourning at the door closing and not turning towards the widnow.  I've been feeling the walls close in on my tighter and tighter as money evaporates before I get it. Just when I think I'm about to suffocate in the empty room a window opens and a rush of cool, fragrant breeze freshens the room and light tumbles into the dark confines.  I am truly blessed, truly loved.  I am so grateful for the celestial hands that hold me securely in His care.  I need to be more grateful for the the little things, the big things, and the things that I don't even realize are there until I get smacked up side the head to make me realize I am NEVER alone when the door shuts.

Mammon Mammon Everywhere But Not A Thought To Think

Okay, strange title I know. I'm in a strange kind of mood. I'm observing Lent for the first time ever. Parts of it, I'm regretting, like the exercise part, but I'm enjoying the 30 minutes of reading every day for pleasure. So, not the books I should be reading for school, not the books I should be reading for Church, not the books I should be reading when I exercise, a pleasure book. So I chose Paradise Lost by John Milton.

I know, you're thinking, what kind of pleasure reading is that? Patrick wasn't very helpful, he told me the ending....The Devil did it. Well duh. I'm not that dumb to not know that. I was however caught off guard in regards to Mammon. I always equated Mammon with Manna from heaven. Which is why the verse in Luke confused me...you can't serve God and Mammon. If you substitute manna with Mammon, you'd think like I do that you're turning your back on the physical gifts from God to serve Him. But serving him, even if it meant ignoring the blessings from Him was the path we were to take, so the path was correct, the intention behind it not as clear. So, it didn't make sense, turn your back on the blessings of Heavenly Father to serve Him in which you will gain more blessings to ignore. (The title should start making more sense to you now, hopefully).

Today I read....

"Mammon, the least erected Spirits that fell

From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,

Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed

In vision beautific"

Mammon isn't bread that falls in fluffy clumps from heaven but a demon, or a really ungrateful Spirit. But how often I find myself looking at the ground (figuratively) completely engrossed in the things that I don't have. I don't have a lot of money, I have too many things (but in my defence they all fit in my garage now). No, I don't have the shiny brand name uber-expensive cars, I wear my clothes until I pinch every last bit of value out of them, and I don't always have the rent in one place when I need it. But I am so blessed. Unlike Mammon I look up, I walk confidently towards my blessings and trials because by looking up I have my Father and His Son to guide me. To be hunched over, or downward bent, is to welcome more weight onto your shoulders and honestly, who wants to serve THAT? Not I. But it is EVERYWHERE you look. I'm not saying I don't have the odd flash of "Gee, I wish I could buy a new car." "Golly, I wish I could go out to eat at fancy bistros and restaurants," Or "Jimminee, why can't I win the lottery like those rednecks, I'd use it for good, I promise,". More often then not they are just fleeting thoughts and I move on.

Something else I know to be true is who you serve in the name of Heaven you become more heavenly and when you serve Mammon, you become more hunched, more downward bent, more hyper-focused on the pavement that you become trapped in Mammon's snare. When you look up, when you see the infinity that is the sky and space beyond, you see that nothing is impossible, nothing is more limitless than serving. So, yes you end up focused on the manna from Heaven when you learn to stop looking for pennies on the ground to appease Mammon.

First Storm of The Year

I am so grateful fall and winter are finally here! You would be too if you didn't have a working air conditioning unit in your car! It's un-freaking-believable to have the season nip at my nose and to come in dripping wet from rain instead of sweat. We are so abundantly blessed! Okay, maybe it's just me. The rain is playing havoc with Mom's arthritis, she doesn't want to come out from under the heating blanket.


I think of how desperately the Bay Area and parts south need the rain, and how lucky we are to have it. It seems though every blessing is a double edged sword. If too much rain falls in the fire ravaged areas then it will cause ashy mud slides, and in some towns where the elected people didn't keep their word, will be underwater if the storm is as ferocious as the weatherman promised. For now though, I'm not going to think of the mud, the ash or the floating towns. I'm just going to enjoy the sound of the rain as it dances on the pavement to the song of wind in the rose bushes outside my window.

Fear and Loathing in Silicon Valley

First my desktop dies, then my car dies. I get my car out of the shop at a $700+ ransom and using my Internet-less laptop, and borrowing other laptops to get other things done beyond the walls of my temporary prison. Then, in a fit of rushed anxiety the housing of my thumb drive came off. One would think it wouldn't be too bad of a mishap, in light of my computer being down, my car being broken, oh, and did I mention I was running late to my appointment with the Cannery so I could fulfill my calling as home storage guru for the ward? But that one particular thumb drive had my current working document of my novel "Hearts of the Mothers". I had just concluded I had over 2/3rds finished. I tried to quickly save it to my laptop desktop but it wouldn't and it completely killed the application. The only soft copy that I had was the twenty six pages I started with in January. It would be okay if I hadn't written over 300 pages since then. I was dying inside.

I refused to curl up on the floor in a fetal position and give up though. I tried to put the housing back on but that didn't work, and I also knew that handling the actual components of the drive I ran the risk of sending some sort of static shock to them so I plugged it back into the laptop I was using and then my 4 gig thumb drive I've been meaning to update everything to and quickly moved all the files over. But when I tried to call the file up the computer wouldn't work. Even without the knowledge that my work was saved I went to the cannery, printed up my backup work there and then came home and took a sleeping pill and prayed that all will be well.

All is well. I was able to pull the actual 321 page document up and save it to my desktop on my laptop, saved it to the desktop of my sisters laptop and I will save it to this desktop of Patrick's laptop. I'm never EVER going to loose that much work again. I can't say that I hate computers, I think I hate more my dependency on them.

The Price of Blessings

View all problems as challenges. Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow. Don't run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate.

-Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, "Mindfulness in Plain English"

Very appropriate that it came today. The challenges to me normally come in mechanical packages. I went to the opera on Saturday in the City (That is San Francisco for those who aren't in the know), it's about 50 miles from home. I kept Lulu (my car) at a brisk 75mph all the way there and got through the basic streets towards Portola and Laguna Honda just fine. I started to climb Pacheco to get to 9th. street and there was a major hesitation in the car before it lurched forward into motion. I came to the next stop sign and I figured it was just a bad press on the accelerator on my part, but it happened again, and again I figured I was at fault. I always presume it's a PEBCAK* (Not the same for a car, but the premise is valid) so I tried it again. And again I had problems. Carol, my friend, lives on one of the steepest hills I've ever seen. Not one of the steepest hills in the City, but too steep to walk unless you want a coronary. So parking requires that you pull up to the curb, back up and curb your tires. Even with the emergency break on I wasn't able to control or hold my position on the hill well enough to maneuver into position. So, I backed out of it, using gravity and then went down the street thinking it would be easier to park on the flat of 10th instead of the hill of Ortega...but true to form, there wasn't any parking on the flats. So, I pulled up the hill again, trying to be as close to the curb as possible so I could curb my wheels and just turned her off and went to the opera.

The opera was FANTASTIC. Beautiful, lush, brilliant, everything that I had hoped and wanted in an opera. It almost made me forget about the looming problem ahead of me. Driving home. Well, don't fret, I didn't drive. I stayed over at Carol's and worked at finding a place that had a diagnostic department open on Sunday and had the techs on staff to do the work. Well, I found one....IN PLEASANT HILL. Which meant a $180 towing bill. Well, they couldn't diagnose it until Monday (today) but I was pretty sure it was the belts. To my knowledge they haven't been changed during the whole life of the car....162,000+ miles. It seemed about due.

Carol was kind enough to drive me home after Church. And I arranged with PJ to take me to work this morning and Isis to take me to Pleasant Hill tonight to pick up my car....which is all moot now because, well, it won't be ready tonight. It would be good if I can pick it up tomorrow.

Well, the good news is it's not the engine. The engine diagnostic came back fine. The bad news is, and you know there's always bad news when someone starts the sentence with good news...the transmission is shot. It's shot to the tune of $1,528. You know, horses don't cost that much and when they break, you can shoot them. I can't complain, I really can't. Like I said, I've got over 162,000 miles on her and I've only had her 10 years....you do the math. I can be assured with the new water pump (put on at the beginning of the year), the new (yet used) transmission, and the new tires (put on at the beginning of the year) I should be set with her for the next few years or so which is when I intend on putting the rest of the miles on her so I can trade her in for a hybrid of some sort. I'm hoping by that time competition will have driven the prices down.

But like the quote above says, look at challenges as opportunities. It's an opportunity to insure my safety, it's an opportunity to keep my car for as long as I want to/need to until it's time to upgrade to a more ecologically friendly model. And it has taught me to stop trying to think of ways to comfortably get out of going to church because if you look hard enough, Heavenly Father will provide you a way. I'm blessed that this didn't happen while I was trucking along at 75mph, or while I was at the top of a hill with someone behind or worse, with a person behind me. I could have hurt myself or worse, someone else. I am truly blessed, even with a $1500 price tag.

*PEBCAK: Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard