My Blog Has Damn-Near Destroyed My Computer's Delete Key

All those periods of silence in my blogs, believe me, were not always so silent. I've written many things (and got started on many others) that I thought better about posting, and so they were deleted.

 

This morning, on the way to attempting a little update about what's going on with me, I've experienced three more aborted attempts. I aborted and deleted a couple of attempts yesterday and finally just gave up and stuck a movie in the DVD player. 

 

Right now my job is driving me nuts. And yet another stick was added to this camel's back on Friday. Not being able to go into any detail (because I don't want to take the chance of something I write being used against me), I am being forced to suffer in near-silence.

 

I said near-silence because I was fortunate enough to score a date with my lady friend yesterday (we are both dissatisfied with our inability to connect more often) and I was able to vent my spleen to her over some hamburgers (not the cheap, fast food type!), onion rings and "homemade" banana pudding.

 

That helped a little. But it also served the purpose of reminding me how much I enjoy her company and wish I could have more of it. Bummer!

 

I think a conservative estimate would be that I've deleted at least four times as many ramblings as I've published. And many of the posts I finally did put up were painstakingly edited for content (I know I really ought to do more editing for style and grammar, but if I took the time to do that my output would really trail off). I really worry about things I say coming back to slap me in the face.

 

My dad was the strong silent type. Me? I'm the strong mouthy type. I feel better when I get things off my chest. But discretion being the better part of valor and all that, I guess I will suffer in relative silence for now.

 

You see, I don't think my depression is bad chemicals in my brain. There really are some annoying things that are eating away at my feelings of well being and contentment. Perhaps I'm not always doing as well as I should or could in dealing with these things, but I'm not as young as I used to be, either.

 

There was a time when if a job made me unhappy, I would walk away. Not so easy when you're older and less attractive to potential employers, when you have established yourself with an employer over a long period of time with seniority and benefits, or when you have responsibilities towards others, such as I feel I have with my aging mother.

 

I think that trapped feeling is what does it for me. I like options - lots and lots of options. About the only real option I have for most of the major things that are chapping my cheeks right now is finding a way to make the best of them.

 

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change....

 

Anyway, having finally got to the end of this update without more than two dozen or so deletions, I'm going to sign off and put a movie in the DVD player and think about other things. I'm going to watch Gore Vidal's Lincoln. I saw it once (most of it, anyway) over a decade ago and remember enjoying it. Heck, it anyone knew how to navigate with the rough seas of life, surely it was old Honest Abe.

 

Now the next time you hear from me I plan on being a little more upbeat. Right now I just can't seem to pull it off. Maybe tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow! (How am I doing at faking it?) 

The Greatest Of All

This morning, before I left for work, I was reading a passage from the writings of the Apostle Paul. It is the famous "love" passage. The good ol' King James translation - from which I'm about to quote - uses the word charity, but I think most of the newer translations use love here; therefore, I am going make the substitution:

 

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love (I Corinthians 13:1-13).
  
I mulled over that passage today while I was on my job.

I tend to think a lot - maybe the majority - of my Christian friends might think faith is the mightiest weapon in their arsenals. Yet, Paul said love was greater. The greatest, to be precise. Piety without love, plainly speaking, ain't piety.

And I rather get a kick out of what the apostle says in that first verse. I know, and I'm sure most of you do, too, a lot of folks who play loudly in the orchestra, but are lacking in the love department. Their own Holy Books condemns them.

Now my thinking is - and for a long time has been - that I don't care what religion a person adheres to, it is just so much posturing if it doesn't produce good, kind behavior. In other words, I'm just not at all impressed by those folks who have not partaken of the "milk of human kindness."

And I'm not slighting my friends who are not religious. I don't think you have to believe in gods to believe in the power of love. But I say I really appreciate the humanist nonbelievers.

"But Doug, I thought you didn't believe the Bible." How many times have I heard that?

Actually, I can't convince myself that the true God wrote that little book called the Bible - or any other of those kinds of books. I may be wrong, but it is something I just can't force myself to believe. However, that is a long way from saying I find nothing of value there, or in the other scriptures of the world's religions.  I've slaked my thirst at many wells. When I find good water, I drink it. And when it stinks or looks polluted, I pass. (Yeah, yeah, I know some water looks and smells fine and is still full of nasty little microbes that will do a body harm; but let's not press analogies to extremes.)

I tend to divide humanity along the lines of those who care and those who don't. Why bog down over trivial matters?

A Depressing Anniversary

I chronicled at my old blog the sad events that were taking place in my life a year ago. As I look back I see I was in a bit of a funk at the time. I still am. Same funk maybe intensified now?

 

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon that I remember well. I was sitting here at my desk reading. My cell phone rang and I saw the familiar number of an old friend (really a former lover who I remained friendly with after that phase of our relationship ended). To my surprised it wasn't her voice I heard, but rather that of her sister. My friend was in the hospital, having been diagnosed with lung and liver cancer. After a brief conversation I asked my friend's sister to please have her sister call me when she felt well enough. 

 

It was two weeks before that call came and I heard my friend's weak voice. We talked for maybe 15 or 20 minutes. There was so much I wanted to say, but couldn't think of a way to say it all without sounding like I might be saying good-bye forever. I couldn't do that because she was talking about fighting that thing with an eye towards beating it (as in fact she had almost twenty years previously when she developed colon cancer). 

 

She was to begin treatments the next week and she was even planning on going to work cleaning houses with her sister. Alas, it wasn't to be. Her strength and life steadily ebbed away. One week from our conversation, she died suddenly at home when her heart just gave out. It was the next afternoon, Sunday, July 14, when again I was disappointed again to see her number come up on my phone only to hear someone other than her at the other end. Her son had called let me know. She died on his twenty-fourth birthday.

 

It was beautiful again that Sunday. The sun was shining brightly and my sad mood took an even sadder turn, and I resented the sun. But I remember putting down the phone, and after a period of sorting through the rush of thoughts and memories that were sweeping over me, I decided to get up and go cut my mother's grass. I need to go do something, but I think I needed to smell the earth and the grass. Being close to the earth that way always reminds me of life, and the mystery thereof.

 

All that happened in a three week span about one year ago. It isn't that I am purposely immersing myself in it. No, the way sun is hitting the trees in my yard, the way the weather has been, the fact that I was cutting my mom's grass the other day in the familiar heat, all these things and more bring those memories back, whether I want to deal with them or not.

 

Just a short while ago I woke up from dreaming. For some reason I was spending the night in my friend's home and sleeping in her bed - an impossibility, as her home was sold a short while ago. But you know how dreams can be. I remember looking around her room and feeling that I really didn't want to sleep there. It was too painful. Everything looked as if she was still alive and still there, but even in my dream I was aware of her death. And then I looked at her dresser and saw, hanging on the corner of the mirror, a coat hanger that held her pajamas. I remember taking her pajama top and holding it to my face, trying to catch a lingering hint of her scent.

 

Well, I call this lady my friend. She was actually a former lover. When circumstances in our lives compelled us to go our separate ways, we remained friendly. Sort of close in a distant way, if that makes sense. Over the years I've lost to death friends, classmates, coworkers, family members - but this is something different. This is the first time I ever lost someone I had shared that intimate part of my life with. We had lived together for two years. We had shared a bed, meals, dreams, all the things that lovers share. Most of our time together was sweet. Obviously that is why there were deep feelings beneath the currents, for both of us.

 

I have often thought about one of our early dates, when she had invited me over to her house for dinner. Afterwards we went into her den to watch her favorite movie, that oldie Somewhere In Time. I had never seen it before. I don't know how many of you might have seen it, but it is certainly a haunting experience if you are a romantic at heart.

 

Burned into my memory is scene where the old woman places a locket into the lead character's hand and implores him to "come back to me." Also burned into my memory is that haunting theme song from the movie.

 

It was a long time after my friend's death before I was able to play that song. But for some reason it was a thing I felt I had to do. I don't think I could watch the movie again without getting really depressed. Maybe someday I will watch it again. It's just that I remember so well that night she and I watched that movie, cuddling together on the couch.

 

I wish could go back to my friend, if only for a short while. The good times were so good, and during those times I was so happy. And even later, as close friends, we still had fun together. I think of lots of meals and shopping sprees together, lots of evenings spent here at my place just talking and listening to music as the sun went down and room darkened into a romantic glow. I would love the chance to relive some of those good times. Unfortunately such things seem only to happen in fiction, like the movie she loved so well.    

 

So yes, this is a sad anniversary for me. Or maybe I should think of it as bittersweet. For as surely as the pain of losing my friend is unpleasant, the memories of our time together are something I wouldn't give up for all the world. Surely it isn't just her sad death that I am recalling now, but also the happy times we spent together.  

A Visit With My Mom

Great gal, my mom, even if I do say so myself. 

 

Well, today was her over-the-phone-pacemaker-check, which is always done at my place because she doesn't have a land line. Because I don't get to spend as much time with her as I'd like, I took a vacation day from work in order to mix a little personal visit into the occasion. (By the way, her pacemaker battery is still working fine.)

 

Now of course, as always, the subject of religion was brought up. We have something of a truce on this. I encourage her church work and attendance - it seems to add quite a lot to her life. Meanwhile I continue to insist to her that I am much more of a religious pluralist than she is.

 

Mom is very careful in trying not to offend me, and I appreciate that. She also does quite well tolerating my expansive view of the subject (no matter how much she inwardly disagrees). At the same time I try to tippy-toe around her feelings and pitch the biggest tent I know how in order to keep us somewhat in fellowship on the subject.

 

That's not so hard for me. Her religious viewpoint, of course, was the starting point of my own journey - although I've branched far, far, far away from that starting point. What's more - unlike some religious or spiritually minded folks - I'm prepared to say: hey, it may all just be one big illusion; I may be totally wrong in my worldview. (Being wrong wouldn't be difficult for me because a lot of my belief system is tentative and malleable - and purposely so; it's a work in progress, and nothing more.)

 

Sometimes my mom surprises me with her candor in admitting that she doesn't really know all the whys of what she believes. She seems - as best I can tell - mostly to trust her inner light, but she uses that only to validate her very-narrow Christian worldview. I should explain that. By narrow, I mean there are some things that are nonnegotiable, and really that is, I believe, due to a very consistent underexposure to rival viewpoints. As for the conservative viewpoints she has been exposed to, she discriminates rather pointedly among them.

 

Now the above is just my perception. I sort of dread to think what my mom's take on my outlook might resemble. I think she thinks, as one of my friends at work put it, that I'm too broadminded, falling almost into that "if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything" category.

 

I feel that Mom - and I lovingly told her this - has, and has always has had, a difficulty in stepping outside her viewpoint to allow others a difference of opinion. She seems constantly surprised at how much the world has changed, especially with regard to what is deemed right or wrong and proper or improper. Heck, I sometimes marvel at the changes, too, but remember that she has nearly three decades on me! The difference is: my morality is more in line with humanitarian thought, whereas she spends way too much time (in my opinion!) trying to please a deity. 

 

My mom and I are just never going to agree on religion, and that's okay. But we have learned to disagree in an agreeable fashion, for the most part. Love bridges any spans between our viewpoints. Love, and the acknowledgment that humans are quite fallible in their reasoning.

 

Love can do some amazing things along this line.