How to love and be loved

How to love and be loved featuring Billy Ward at TEDxFoggyBottom. Is there someone in your life who could use some unconditional love?

Depression and spiritual awakening

Depression and spiritual awakening -- two sides of one door
Lisa Miller

"When you hear the knock, consider the invitation."

Sometimes depression can be a door to spiritual awakening and change. If we choose to listen, we can hear what the universe is trying to tell us.

Is and Was

Each moment is unique, now "is." And, "is" is the only reality. Yet, each "is" will become was as soon as you utter "is" the reality of it is "was."

We need to pass Leelah's Law

According to a post from the President:

On Sunday, December 27, 2014, Leelah Alcorn a 17 year old transgender youth wrote a suicide note, posted it on Tumblr and then walked in front of a semi-truck tragically ending her life. Leelah explained how her parents had forced her to attend conversion therapy, pulled her out of school and isolated her in an attempt to change her gender identity. 'Conversion therapies' have been documented to cause great harms and in this case, Leelah's death. Therapists that engage in the attempt to brainwash or reverse any child's gender identity or sexual orientation are seriously unethical and legislation is needed to end such practices that are resulting in LGBTQ+ deaths. We respectfully seek your help to ban the practice known as 'conversion therapy' and name the bill in honor of Leelah Alcorn.

One of my best friends in High School is a trans woman. Last year she and I spoke about her transition process and her life since she transitioned. She told me of a job she lost after her boss, rejecting her decision to transition told her, "God does not make mistakes." I said to her, no, God did NOT make a mistake, God made you transgender! Who is to say that's a mistake?

Conversion therapy does not work. We are who we are. We need to pass a law against misguided parents forcing it on their LGBTQ kids. We should do this in honor of Leelah Alcorn.

About Orientations

I think we do not pay enough attention to orientations in our culture. What do I mean by orientations?

To me orientations are those things that we are born with. Orientations differ from lifestyle choices because orientations are not choices. Orientations can be resisted but not eliminated. Orientations are part of who and what we are. Like feelings, orientations choose us, we do not choose them. Orientations always have to be part of the equation when people are making lifestyle decisions. In my opinion orientations are hard wired in.

It used to be people thought folks could be cured of their orientations. For example, after the misery of attempts at “conversion therapy” most rational people now accept different sexual orientations as being something folks just are.

Yes, we do pay a lot more attention to sexual orientation (thank goodness) than we used to. In fact, it is rightfully against the law for people to be discriminated against for their sexual orientation (thank goodness) and legal same sex marriage has become the norm in our society.

Gender orientation is often included with sexual orientation, which is a good thing because it makes discrimination based upon it actionable. In my opinion our gender (our wiring) is sometimes very different from our sex (our plumbing.) I think the truth is orientations are generally a non-binary spectrum as opposed to say sex, which tends to be binary. I believe almost all of us have both male and female in us, no matter what’s our plumbing.

I think another kind of orientation that’s coming into realization is relationship orientation. This is emotional romantic orientation not just sexual sexual. In fact some folks are attracted to one gender sexually and another romantically. The hetro-normative standard is male-female monogamy. To me that is just one option, of a landscape of options. Polyamory is just one other possibility.

Almost all of us have met people who just cannot be sexually and/or romantically monogamous. In the past these folks have often been shamed for being who they are and have had to either cheat or deny themselves. Thankfully, that seems to be changing. Oh yes, and if the statistics for infidelity are any indication, monogamy vs. non-monagamy seems to be a a non-binary spectrum as well. Even people who profess to monogamy seem to struggle with emotional infidelity as well as sexual infidelity. No, I don't think cheating is right. People are responsible for their actions.

Folks need to know who they are. People should not be shamed for their orientations, as long as they act ethically. People need to be able to see themselves for who they are and consider what kind of ethical commitments they make based on those orientations, before they make them.

People should accept their orientations and live them, when possible, in a way that is ethical, sane, safe and consensual. If people live a lifestyle that differs from their orientations they need to be prepared for a life of internal conflict. Everyone who ethically lives their orientations should be respected and accepted by others who do not have the same orientations. They are living their lives as who they are. That, to me, is what freedom is all about.

Cheryl Strayed: Love, Life and Lessons Learned in “Wild”

Required listening after your required reading of her book, Wild. Some of the most profound transformations we can go through are not those that can be seen from the outside; but they create a new truth. That is the truth we take forward.

Popeye got it right!

Maybe you have heard it to many times, (or maybe you have said it to someone,) "You are too..."
The next word might be one of the following:

Manly, feminine, mental, dumb, intellectual, feminine, masculine, girly, butch, fat, thin, sensitive, insensitive, negative, optimistic, pessimistic, shy, withdrawn, happy, not happy...
Or, it may be something else.

The point is someone is trying to judge another based upon their own opinion of what they consider "normal." People often like to put labels and categorize others and say what is normal, like they are the keepers of the yardstick of normalcy. Maybe they have had it done to them and have had their own individuality repressed and feel threatened by people not afraid to express their own uniqueness.
In reality, we are all as different as snowflakes or zebra stripes or fingerprints. As long as we are not hurting or oppressing others we should cherish that which makes us unique. We are entitled to having and expressing our own feelings and lifestyles as long as we are not hurting others.
Yes, as individuals we have a right to choose whom to spend time with, our friends, our lover (or lovers), our life partners. But, we do not have a right to shame others and/or chastise them for being themselves.
I have a male friend who got emotional and started to cry and another male friend told him to "man up!"
That just rubbed me the wrong way. People have a right to be sensitive no matter their gender.
When I think of this I think of Amelia Earhart who said, "Women must try to do things as men have tried." Amelia Earhart was controversial in her time. (Even I remember when some folks believed it was improper and not "normal" for women to work in men's professions.)
Most enlightened people today know that particular sexist attitude is incorrect. Yet, I have heard men who think of themselves as enlightened (and even women working in male dominated fields) complain of men whom they judge as not being masculine enough. Hey folks, even though it's different, it's the same thing. It's sexism folks.
Popeye got it right! Let people be themselves.

Letting go of the lead weights

It's  hard to rise to your potential when you don't let go of what is pulling you down.

Turn Away

My journal entry from Tuesday, April 23, 1991, 6:40 a.m., Doctors' Hospital, Modesto, CA

OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD!...

I am sitting next to my middle son's bed. My four year old youngest son is in the next room. The news is on television. My son just closed his eyes. Candy is dead! It is so hard to write, much less understand, what has gone on...

Beck's Lyrics to Turn Away

Turn turn away
From the weight of your own past
It's magic for the devil
And betray the lack of change
Once you have spoken
Turn away...

In my 10 week Spirituality class we were asked to identify what was holding us back, and in essence, write a mantra about it. Mine focused on forgiveness. I have had really shitty things happen to me in my life, but none of it bore the weight of what happened that night. I was mad; mad at God, why did she die so close to home with the kids in the car?

I was crazy mad at circumstances and most of all mad at myself. Why wasn't I there? Why wasn't I driving?

Saturday night my wife Candy went to her mom's to tell her about the divorce she and I had recently filed. I had spent the evening at my oldest sisters in Dublin and we went out to dinner. On the 60 mile drive home from Dublin I bought a bottle of diet 7-Up, to mix with Seagrams when I got home, to make some good, strong drinks.

When I got home to Patterson, I called my dear friend (and former sister-in-law)  to see if she heard if Candy had talked to her mom (about the divorce) and how it went. Marie said she hadn't heard from Candy. So, I called Candy's mom and ended up talking to her about an hour about the divorce. I then drank my second drink, put Bonnie Raitt on the stereo and went to sleep. I was only asleep about five minutes when I got a call...

Survivors guilt?

It's been a brick in my heart. I have cried so many tears. Our decision to end our marriage was mutual and very painful. But, we made it together, intent to part as friends.

We were each even anticipating the life we could have separately that we could never have had together. Suddenly everything changed. We shared our dreams of lives apart with each other. I was the only one who would be able to live that life...

I have a great and happy life in the here and now. Yet I am, almost 25 years later still afraid to let go and forgive myself, perhaps lest she die a second death?

Here I am playing this song over and over...

Turn turn away
From the weight of your own past
It's magic for the devil
And betray the lack of change
Once you have spoken
Turn away...

My mantra?

I am forgiveness, I am forgiving

Therefore, I have to forgive myself. Let that part of her go. But, I don't have to forget, do I?

What if

What if all the times in life one thing could have happened but another thing did, whether good or bad, that was fate?
What if all the bad things that happened in life, and good, were exactly what it took to make you the person you are now?
What if right here and right now it were up to you to decide just what to do with that to make you who you will be tomorrow?
What if that was the only thing that matters?
What if that is why you are here?

Science, faith and the picnic

Science is many things including a belief system.

Science is a belief system of values built upon the concept of the scientific method. It calls for measurement, testing, application and more measurement, testing and application of the results. It provides for rewards based upon the ability of the method to create things that can be monetized. We call that technology and capitalism. The problem is it is not so good at solving fuzzy problems that can't easily defined and/or monetized.

Capitalism is very good at monetizing solutions to technology problems that can be defined, that people with monetary resources want. That's why we have so many solutions for erectile disorder and no cure for ebola. The research, technology and rewards goes where the money is. That's, also why we have global terrorism.

Science is great at meeting the definable, technical and monetizable problems. Science sucks at providing for fuzzy needs that are hard to define, test and monetize; but no less real despite being fuzzy.

Science and Technology creates widgets that entertain us and poison the planet. Science and Technology gives us virtual technical solutions that can leaves us lonely and isolated from physical and emotional human contact.

Religion meets fuzzy human real needs for physical and emotional human contact but the cost sometimes is the need to either accept the ways that religion contradicts science, or reject one, or the other.

Science and Technology disenfranchises whole third world cultures while it rewards others. Is it no wonder some of them use technology as a weapon? Jihad is an example the rejection of science for the sake of religion. I think it's no accident that Jihad is most at root in societies unable to benefit from science and technology.

But, what about the cool-aid? I don't think you need to drink the cool-aid if you want to go to the picnic. Faith based belief systems are far from perfect, but so is science. Stay away from the cool-aid!

"I will take a heap of science and a scoop of faith, I want some of each, thanks. No, I don't want the cool-aid, thanks, I am having a beer."

Shopping for God

I am not sure about God, on one hand I feel if there is a God, God has a lot of explaining to do for things like the suffering of children, massacres, the holocaust and of course the awful untimely death of my first wife in front of our kids.
But, there are many people who I love who have died and whom I would love to see again. I like to think my first wife is an angel waiting for me in heaven, along with some other angels like my parents and sister and some dear friends.
I like to think some day my first wife, my current wife, kids and grandkids and lots of other special people in my life will get together sometime and throw a hell of a party!
I do not understand or believe that God would create thousands of religions then leave it to his and/or her creations to decide, out of that mess, which particular religion is real.
What if God was a choice, like a coat? What if we could shop for a religion, maybe have it tailored for us?

Here is what I would look for in God and a religion:

• It needs to be life affirming.
• It needs to value love and acceptance over punishment and hate.
• It cannot use guilt and fear as leverage over its members: for example to date only in their religion or pay the church a tithe, not out of love, out of fear of dire consequences for non compliance.
• I believe we are all perfectly ourselves: I do not want any religion that says you owe anybody an apology for being yourself or being true to yourself is a sin, as long as you are not hurting others.
• It needs to be sex-positive: I do not want any religion that forces celibacy on its leaders and/or says a sexual practice, including kinks, that are pleasurable, not physically harmful and are between consenting adults; is a sin.
• It needs to be respectful of the diversity of relationship styles: I do not want a religion that tells folks how they must define their intimate relationships, including marriage and divorce, or tells them if they are non-normative that they are sinners.
• It needs to be trans friendly: I do not want any religion that says a person does not have a right to be the gender they know in their head and heart they are, no matter what kind of genitals they are born with.
• It needs to be accepting: I do not want a religion that says non-believers are condemned to eternal torture in fire.
• It needs to be non-misogynist: I do not want a religion that says women who have gotten an abortion are murderers or denies the right to women to determine what is right for their body.
• It needs to be shaming free: I do not want a religion that says it is a sin to celebrate your body and that you have to hide it in layers of shame.
• It needs to be based in now: The test is it has to make you a better person, to respect people without shaming of ourselves and each other. The test is will practitioners live a better life even if there is no God, if you are your own God and/or if we all are each other's God.

To me this leaves out many mainstream religions that punishes people for their spiritual beliefs, and practices not to mention sexual practices, sexual and/or relationship orientations and/or their gender.
I believe now is the only time that's real. Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment said, “It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”
Putting off, or deciding not to, live a whole life for the sake of an afterlife seems to me to not be life affirming but rather to be life denying. That seems pretty sad to me. That is not what I want in God. That is not what I want in religion.
Mark 8:36 says, "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?" Does forfeiting your soul mean to waiting to start living? Does this mean you have to be intolerant because the Bible tells you so?
Is it forfeiting your soul to live in the present, to respect the rights of others to be who they are, to fail to live life as well as you can, to ignore the well being and diversity of the human experience? Does the Bible say, thou shalt be a bigot?
I don't think so. I refuse to accept that.

Is the US a banana republic?

"Banana Republic." -- A banana republic is a commercial enterprise for profit by collusion between the State and favored monopolies. In a banana republic the government is unaccountable to its nation, the country's private sector–public sector corruption operates the banana republic, thus, the national legislature usually are for sale, and function mostly as ceremonial government.

Our country is a banana republic. When you have 400 people in this country with more wealth than half the population and the government giving handouts to the wealthiest members of our society in the form of unprecedented tax cuts while at the same time cutting services to the most needy, it is hard for me to come to any other conclusion.

What have they done with President Obama?

Krugman correctly asks, "What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular?"

I am very disappointed in Obama. He has failed to live up to the hope he offered up in his campaign. He has only delivered mediocrity and failed to stand up to reactionary extreamism. As Krugman said, "But if you ask me, I’d say that the nation wants — and more important, the nation needs — a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that’s not what we’re seeing."

My opinion on the Federal Budget Mess of 2011

There is an old saying, if you tell a lie long enough some people will believe it. Apparently, that's what is going on in Washington. If you read Paul Krugman's post, "the G.O.P. plan turns out not to be serious at all. Instead, it’s simultaneously ridiculous and heartless." Krugman goes on to say:

Republicans have once again gone all in for voodoo economics — the claim, refuted by experience, that tax cuts pay for themselves.

What does voodoo economics mean? It's a term used by none other than George H. W. Bush in reference to President Ronald Reagan's economic policies, which came to be known as "Reaganomics". Karl Case & Ray Fair, Principles of Economics (2007), p. 695 pointed out:

The extreme promises of supply-side economics did not materialize. President Reagan argued that because of the effect depicted in the Laffer curve, the government could maintain expenditures, cut tax rates, and balance the budget. This was not the case. Government revenues fell sharply from levels that would have been realized without the tax cuts.

The basic issue in a recession, like we are seeing now, is a shortage of money. This leads to downward pressure on incomes and prices as money becomes more valuable. People (and corporations) who have money don't spend it, they hoard it, thus people (families) who need money to pay bills can't get it.
This continues the downward spiral. What does not go down, however, is debt.
Folks are worried about inflation, but the greater worry is deflation. According to Wikipedia, "In economics, deflation is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the annual inflation rate falls below 0% (a negative inflation rate)." Wikipedia goes on to say, "From a monetarist perspective, deflation is caused primarily by a reduction in the velocity (spending) of money and/or the amount of money supply per person."
As people's income is reduced, a point comes when folks (families) just walk away from debt. People will feed their kids before they feed the banks. You can't get blood from a turnip.
If you think the mortgage crisis was bad, just wait until families start defaulting on massive amounts of consumer debt in great numbers.
When people (and corporations) with money won't spend out of fear; someone has to spend, that someone has to be the government. The government is the spender of last resort.
In my opinion, the risks of not spending are greater than the risks of spending. This is the worst time possible for massive reductions of government spending. We need to tax the people (and corporations) who have money and feed it into the economy in ways that helps the families that are at most risk of defaulting stay on their feet.
In a nutshell: The Republican plan will drag our nation into the gutter.