If You Fall...

I have been somewhat remiss, possibly even lazy, about many things lately. But since it is coming down to the wire for me to share anything more in 2012, I offer a single metaphor.  I credit Meredith Vieira's  recent TV Guide interview wherein she recounted her experience in a Broadway production of "The Lion King."  She recounted some advice given in the event she had a problem as one of the bird women in the "Circle of Life" number: "If you fall, don't get up. Just lie there and wait until the ambulance comes." 

What an inspirational metaphor!  

I do find it hilariously applicable in a literal way when I ponder my prospects for successful cross-country skiing.  I have only minimal experience in this sport, and since I am much older than my old skiis, and eons older than the boots I bought a few years ago, getting upright after falling does present quite a challenge. It's not only because the barely-broken-in-boots don't release from the skiis very easily, but my bones and body are less than lithe (if they ever were). Add the MN winter temperatures and you grasp that I might indeed  perish from the cold before an ambulance crew could find me!  

But metaphorically, there are many applications that occur to me. Some, but not all applications, are admirable.  Obviously, one has to recognize when passivity is virtue.  One has to discern between futile efforts at change, and change that is actually possible.  This can be even harder than skilled cross-country skiing! Nevertheless, whether one figures it out or not, it seems to me one has to forge ahead and, somewhere in the process, it will become clear when to just lie there and wait.  

Probably no one outside my own skin will ever know what fears cut into me most deeply, and sometimes I, too, am slow to see them.  And then there's the fact that terrors can survive even while lying there waiting, feeling  alone  even as I hear the sirens and see the flashing lights.  It can be a rather surreal sensation, and deeply spiritual.  

Going into a New Year, like any adventure, is exciting. The possibilities ahead are imagined and unimaginable.  I certainly hope for health, security, safety and sanity, resilience, steadfast faith, hope and belief in the triumph of goodness, love and peace. And I try to stay mindful of the many real blessings I've received, praying they will ever shrink the obstacles obstructing my path, allowing me to lean forward and happily move on.  

And this is the prayer I make for everyone else, near and far, in 2013 and beyond. (I might make one exception, albeit a political one, but only because I cannot stomach the subversive, self-serving "elements" in congress!  Forgiving their evils does come hard... )

MN State Veteran's Cemetery, Camp Ripley

Signs of Intelligent Life

What gives me great joy? Signs of intelligent life!  

But there is a rather formidable paradox here.  Truth, Beauty, Goodness get specific in all kinds of ways.  For example, a genuinely holy person compels my attention because I perceive an integration of all the most admirable human qualities.  And  such  beauty is so rare and exceptional that it stops me in my tracks, just as exquisite physical beauty does.

I began to feel this pulse more strongly this past week.  Now I'd like to examine why. It won't be easy, but it's worth a try.

Recent election results, as well as voter choices locally and nationwide, have stirred passions and challenged minds.  The good news: it is a widespread phenomenon. The bad news: it is a widespread phenomenon. 

So what's the problem, and why has it got my attention? 

 First, I found an actual Facebook Page titled "I Love It When I Wake Up In The Morning And Barack Obama Is President." Second, I learned that a pastor said from his pulpit that: "We are a people who are severely disappointed over the fact that our positions and our candidates lost.” 

I love the Facebook Page's candor, probably because It is actually and really how I have felt all week. The pastor's candor  not so much.  (And I have 'believed' longer than he has been alive!) I do not agree that "our" positions and candidates lost, and when a pastor becomes partisan in the pulpit, I am outraged.  But this gets at the key thing about intelligent life.  We need to recognize that no person nor political party has a franchise or monopoly on grasping total truth about issues and candidates. And separation of church and state is a good thing! We have a pluralistic society, and that also is a good thing. We honor that, and we honor those who died to ensure it.

What is so on the back burner is tolerance and respect for an opposite conviction. Shouldn't the differences still incite huge interest in understanding, learning and integrating all the political and  spiritual  issues and their philosophical and ethical basis?  Couldn't we find a way to reject tea party extremism since we know it promotes a scorched earth, kamakazi, jihadist mindset?

It is not an easy task. And, certainly, education is crucial.  But it has to go deeper than just the simplistic "I know what is right" or a wholly un-nuanced and fundamentalist, fire and brimstone belief system. Yes, I believe there is good and evil, right and wrong, BUT minds that can grapple with  the enormity and complexity of the universe, the mysteries of the human body and psyche, should also be humble enough to admit we can be quite stupid about a lot of things every day! 

I recall that I never thought in vitro fertilization would happen because God would not allow it. But it did happen (many times).  It is what it is.  And the ethical issues?  That's what we get to figure outI!  So I wonder why people are poor, or cruel or greedy or selfish or power-hungry or bigoted.  I wonder why kids get cancer, or AIDS, or abuse.  I wonder how dumb people get rich. I wonder why tyrants stay in power, why crops fail, why tsunamis, earthquakes, and hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy bring such incredible devastation. I wonder why "religious" belief turns into so many diabolical aberrations. I wonder why good people who value life also accept capital punishment, torture and pre-emptive war.  I wonder why people don't sufficiently see the evils of unbridled capitalism and how it  insidiously undermines democracy. 

And then I remember and am glad for signs of intelligent life. That's what fuels my survival in the face of the batshit crazy political person shouting disguised obscenities in the marketplace.  I remember that the God I believe in has created  us free. And the country I am citizen of endorses that freedom. And I am convinced that most of us barely grasp  even a tiny bit of what this means. And I wish I understood much more about the function of law in a civilized society, and  why multiplication of restrictive laws can destroy people.

However, I will never be convinced that the messes I make, or that others make, are anything but ours.  All the great belief systems, whether spiritual, political or scientific focus on problems and solutions and each finds empirical or mystical proofs that matter.  (And, yes, because mystical theology is experiential, it is empiricle in my estimation.)  But we often get it wrong.  Often we cannot add two and two and get four.  So then we blame God!  Example?  Most churches and  peoples were initially incapable of responding appropriately to the AIDS pandemic. Preoccupied with righteous blaming of victims, compassionate love for them was lost.  And way back when our Founding Fathers did their best for us, they did rather overlook racial and civil discrimination, and were themselves loathe to lose status, privilege, wealth and power. 

So this is a stab at expressing why I am now actually curious about the study of political science, and why I know it is never good to get stuck in what I have already learned - even if it still serves me well. There is no end to what I might yet learn and assimilate.  Life is hard and then we die. But the exhiiaration experienced by awareness - well, that's something extremely good and beautiful and true. 

Arlington Cemetery, May 2007

Table-Talk

These six friends all take their current jobs very seriously, as well they should. Why? Perhaps it's wanting to ensure that something they started when they started their own families continues well. But very likely they simply enjoy their work tremendously. To me, that their kids have kids is amazing. That's probably because I am just an observer, but I think they feel it too.

Anyhow, a few nights ago, our after dinner table-talk meandered from antique guns and bootlegged liquor to longevity of ancestors to winter getaway plans to medical insurance rates to the virtues of downsizing to pros and cons of Facebook friending and blogs.

What became apparent to me was that all politics is local, and varied sensibilities aren't  problematic at the kitchen table. This was just one time around one table that I noticed this, but it was not the first time.  Is it the gathering, the meal sharing, the physical proximity, the personal connections that kept us there? At some point we probably each had a felt need for the cushioned couches that were steps away, but  no one sought them and no one left until the hour was late and  the apple crisp a faint memory. 

It is good to have friends, to have time with them. Conversation is naturally on the larger menu when we gather, but the kitchen-table phenomenon distilled again (for me) the "all politics is local" vintage. The problem, the question, lurks: Why is it that we can't all get along? Having the job means doing the job, unless we play just for fun in the sit-down marching band. 

Half Moon Bay, CA - Michael R Ruhland

Binders Full of Women?

The Alpha Male would use them again tonight, those women in the binders. 

Were any of them Alpha Females? Did they detect his desperation? Possibly. 

I notice his plutocratic CEO nastiness surfaced again, probably from force of habit. The "I can do it, I know how to do it, I've been doing it all my life" mantra rang more hollow than ever.  But lust for power over his opponent exposed his inadequate manhood.   Predatory glances and repeated  insistence that history pay attention came to nothing, or less than that for him because he got it wrong, he kamakazied.  It is on the record.

Way back when "castrati" sang the songs of their lords, who knew what they were thinking? Maybe they felt important.  Maybe they felt used.  Or maybe they felt an Alpha Male overcompensated for socio-political impotence.  

Purissima Creek Redwoods, CA - smruhland

The Sky is Falling?

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" No. The sky is not falling, but ya gotta stay tuned!

Sometimes there's little comfort in knowing that it takes all kinds, but on second thought, it  does calm me.  It does take all kinds, and the village to raise the child.  Comparing and contrasting serves me well when I pay attention. The bones are all connected. And the eye is not the ear is not the heart is not the hand is not the foot.

Nevertheless, while rejecting the pious propaganda so widely published by those who try to box me in (or out) of their falsely select  block of "believers," I still stifle no small rage at the insult. Efforts to insinuate disbelief are presumptuous and their premise is completely stupid, but it's not the first time that Jesus and the Bible were clung to out of fear or sold like a snake oil remedy. Fire and brimstone, hell and damnation blather?  Easily blown to bits by fairly simple arithmetic: Bible + Jesus = Love.  No doubt about it.  Exclusive, unmerciful,  faith-based politics that denies personal and religious liberty, well, the math is just wrong.

 And it's not rocket science. Staying tuned can be a mixed bag, but what's the worst that could happen? I suppose the sky could fall. And if darkness covers the earth? It never lasts.

Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA - smruhland

What's The Matter In Visuals? (Three Samples)

1.  For awhile, on a chilly, gray-clouded yesterday, I caught sight of a drab-capped, blondish, pony-tailed guy paddling downriver.  Red canoe, unbelievably blue paddle.  Another fine picture pushed into my memory bank, even as the imperceptible splash refreshed my bystander guilt and pleasure.

2.  Barely noticing anything else, I first identified the Macarena song track - which elicited the  happy memory of a cousin's wedding. Only then did I follow the smart image sequence which led me to the product. Kudos to the HP madmen/women, who masterminded this pleasantly painless office-jet printer pitch!  They got me dancing, took me boating and caught me happier at the end! Too bad I already have an Epson!

3.  Seriously superb film/TV graphics still make me covetous. Cinematography too.  And  experiencing them I say: 'Yes! I'd sign my name to that in a moment, unabashedly, unhesitatingly, admiringly!' When visual art is excellently visual it speaks for itself. But saying something that way is a difficult and wonderful process, one I am familiar with. I love the uniquely creative gift that selects, skillfully juxtaposes, smartly manipulates and playfully engages me as I have also managed to sometimes do. And even today, I am bouyed at the memory of having favorably impressed a remarkably gifted fellow-artist whose process differed so much from mine. The end-result is crucial, but so is the creative process. I love knowing that. Awareness of everyday art, as well as the fine art of awareness itself, requires no admission nor ticket price. However, without attentive sensibility and a somewhat alert, aesthetic appetite, everything fades to black. That makes living hard. 

Lake Itasca, Itasca State park, MN - smruhland

Shifting

The burden of her struggle and the weight of her pain are, even as I write, shifting onto her nearest, dearest loved ones. The classmate I barely knew, will die in peace, and soon.  She  occupies that space between here and there, a place holy and preliminary. Going through the doorway, she leaves us all behind, waiting for our turn. 

But I want to tell them this is how it works, so they can see and precisely say later on, that she did not suffer at the end. I think it's important for them to know they were the ones to do that, beginning now. They are the ones suffering at her end, and knowing this brings comforting clarity. They take up the task of being brave and uncomplaining even in their confusion and grief. She's done with it now, even though she's still here. I need to tell them I have seen it hundreds of times (even if they disavow actual heroism on their part): the weight of their present grief is her struggle lifted, shifted onto them. 

They do not know me. Why would they listen? Why would I intrude? Professional expertise and spiritual support are better offered directly and in person. So I find this way to assist. Ultimately, I have staked my life on believing that distance cannot prevent my participation in their journey or hers. 

Eyes haven't seen, ears haven't heard, and  wise hearts know they know next to nothing of what is prepared for those who love. Still, we make conjectures, and rely on them more than anyone might guess.  

Olympics, Los Angeles, CA - smruhland