Lighten up Francis

I was ‘mad-dogged’ by a 65 year old lady yesterday.

I pulled up a little too far in the road trying to make a left hand turn. There was plenty of room for an oncoming car to go around. But the lady drove by real slow and gave me the ‘stare down.’

Now, how can I put this tactfully, the part of Long Beach where I come from, ‘mad dogging’ doesn’t go over very well. But then really, what was I going to do anyway?  

So I smiled, gave the obligatory ‘my-bad’ hand wave, and drove off.

While driving home, I started wondering why people are so ticked off with one another these days. It seems like we’re running a little hot. More like a slow burn just below the collective conscious.

I notice it in our public discourse, where a lot verbal  mad-dogging is going on because, God forbid, someone states a different point of view.

All this recent posturing and political mad-dogging one another, you’d get the feeling we don’t like each other very much. Were at each others throats, and in my opinion, that’s just where the politicians want us.

We need to take a collective breath; get a hold of ourselves and lighten up.  

In the 1981 Bill Murray movie Stripes, there’s a character named Francis, who threatens his Army unit, telling them “if you call me Francis I’ll Kill ya”  Then without blinking the Sergeant say’s “Lighten up Francis.”

We all have a point of view, let’s give one another the common courtesy of voicing it without verbally mad-dogging them.

Disagreement is not hatred; it’s just a different way of looking at the situation or issue-period.

After all, there are more important things in life for me than getting upset at a 65 year old lady or a political demagogue who can’t keep it together.  

Lighten up Francis…peace.

Dreams expose our hidden concerns

Dreams tell us things our conscious life won’t.

And if we listen to what they’re telling us, we can learn about the hidden side of ourselves, and in time, be comfortable in our own skin.

Sigmund Freud breaks down a dream as “data taken in from the day’s residue and if images are important enough to be incorporated in it they must be reinforced by older, meaningful, affect-laden concerns.” (Yalom)

I have a recurring dream where I am lost in a house that’s falling apart. The house is from my past. In the dream, I morph into myself as a boy. In the dream I wander through the house, lost in a vaguely familiar world of long ago.

I wake up with this sense of sadness and loss. My dad past away a few months ago and it hit me; “I’m next.”  

The dilapidated house in my dream represents a past that is long gone.  It represents the aging process. I’m not as vigorous as I once was. I’m falling apart.

Dreams peel away the masks we wear in public and come very close to our true self. They reveal the hidden and ultimate concerns we grapple with daily.

An ultimate concern that lurks just below the surface is ‘ones impending death,’ which I believe my dream reflects. One day I will die. And in 100 years I may be a footnote in some family member’s ancestery.com.

Life, like time goes on; with or without me. Like the house that is falling apart in my dream, all things fade. I can no longer hang on to a past that is no more.

My dream is helping me move on. And live out the remaining days accepting myself as I am now; being comfortable in my own skin.

Freedom from a tyranical King; a true story

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
I know it's long, but read it, especially this 4th of July, and place yourself there that day when the agony of choosing liberty was born. Happy 4th! 

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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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Sign of the times

When Borders Books closed it's doors, Crown Books moved in. But by the looks of their sign, everything is in small print.

Must be the Sign of the Times!

The man of straw

I know a man who’s perpetually ‘ticked off.’ He finds enemies everywhere.

He’s rigid in his beliefs. He creates these straw-men and then feels like he did something ‘important’ when he tears them down; a life of empty victories.  

I often wonder about such ideologues who can never take time off from their ‘self righteous cause’ long enough to see the humanity of others; much less their own humanity.

It seems to me, people who hold on rigidly to their religious or political dogmas, become cold, legalistic moralizers who make declarations on how others should live.

They have this incredible insight into the lives of others but blind to their own depravity.

Then one day death comes knocking.  

And what contribution have they made in life? Not much.

In a hundred years, no one will be around to recall their empty and vapid life. A life made of straw; much like the 'straw-men' they waste their lives on.   

I wonder if their tombstone would read:” Here lies so and so he died for nothing.”

He died for nothing because he lived for nothing; such is the life of a 'man of straw.'

You don’t listen to me!

In an age of tweets and twitter, the ability to listen; I mean to really listen, has taken a hit. There are a thousand and one ways to get our message out, and yet we long for that simple person to person connection. 

On any given Sunday, in churches all across the Inland Empire, the pews are filled with lonely people, longing for community.

Influential psychologist and author Rollo May that “communication leads to community which then leads to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.”

We cannot, nor should we, put the technological genie back in the bottle. However, our challenge today, especially as believers, is to nurture community; making connections and re-learning the basic skills of communicating with one another.

Communication involves a lot more than the spoken word. In our world of talking points and diatribes, we are not deficient in getting our point across. It’s the ‘listening’ part we need to prop up.  

And a good place to start is with the 5^th habit of Stephen Coveys ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ which is "Seek first to understand then be understood."

Listening involves understanding what the other person is saying. Our natural inclination is to be understood first-then, if there is time, to understand the other person.

By switching it around and Understanding first, we open up a deeper and more meaningful conversation. At first this approach feels unnatural, but through practice, you cultivate a skill called ‘empathic listening’ or as Carl Rogers would say "to listen unconditionally with empathy.”

It's not just the words you listen to, but the meaning behind the words. When a person listens with empathy, they begin to understand life as the other person sees it; to walk in the others shoes.

We all desire connections with others and to be understood, so give someone the gift of "understanding" in your next conversation. And begin the path of building community.

Voices of the family from 'Shoe Creek'

About thirty five miles south of Charlottesville Virginia, you come upon the small mountain town of Lovingston Va; nestled in the heart of the "Blue Ridge" Mountains.

Parade down Main Street Lovingston Va.

Heading west out of Lovingston, along Crabtree Falls Hwy, up into the Blue Ridge mountains, you'll come across Perkins Mill Rd. Take a right, and drive till the pavement ends. 

At the end of the road you'll discover a popular off road spot called 'Shoe Creek Trail' and you will need a four wheel drive to traverse the rocky terrain.

"Shoe Creek Trail Head"

But if you travel further along the trail and back in time; over several decades, this 'off road' trail was home to my mom and her family. 

'Shoe Creek' trail was the path that mom's family would go back and forth, to visit other relatives. Several of her cousins and their  families lived on the mountain. 

Or they would go down to Lovingston for supplies, and then head back up the trail to Shoe Creek.

Mom's oldest brother Bill says "our transportation was when our Uncle Rufus would lend us his old horse. He was the only one up there who had cars; a Model A Ford and a special built Dodge touring car made to haul his Moonshine whiskey to Lynchburg Va, which he sold for twenty five cents a pint." 

"Sometimes we would go with Uncle Rufus to the grocery store which was 8 miles away and the post office was 12 miles away. And then walk back carrying our groceries in a hemp sack on our back" says Uncle Bill.

 

The Homestead, Shoe Creek Va.

Living up in the hallows and narrow mountain roads, made Mountain families a hearty bunch.

To get the the house Bill says "you must navigate across the same creek 7 times, no bridges or anything except rocks to get to our place. We didn't mind wading thru the creeks as we were always barefooted." 

Then at the end of the trail we would be home." 

Mom's family had very little in the way of material things, but they had each other. 

As my Uncle Bill says "we never had but a pair of shoes until about November and if they would last that long, it would be Christmas time before we got any. But we didn't mind .We didn't know any better."

If you happen to go to Shoe Creek today, pull the Jeep over to the side, kill the engine and listen. You will hear the running water from Crabtree Falls and the wind blowing through the hickory oaks.

But close your eyes and really listen. You will hear voices from the past; the voices of children laughing as they walk along the creek bed; voices of mothers calling out to their kids to come home for supper.

These are the voices from the Mountain Family who lived along the Shoe Creek Trail.

But all of us have 'voices from the past' that whisper in our memories and in the stories our families tell.

These voices tell us who we are and where we come from.

Every once in a while it's nice to go back and listen.

Faith and the ‘Man of God’

“Sometimes I'm a liar sometimes I'm a fake
Sometimes I'm a hypocrite that everybody hates
Sometimes I'm a poet sometimes I'm a preacher
Sometimes I watch life go by sitting on the bleacher” ~ Audio Adrenaline “Man Of God”

My friend once asked me "what would a man of God act like?" I told her “a man of God is no different than a man of the world, with the only exception that the man of God has been redeemed by a Holy God.”

I am both a man of this world and a man of God. And in this tension, I live out my faith. I live in this world as a believer; I am not immune to the things of this world which sometimes pulls me in its direction.    

My answer to my friend could also be seen in the song 'Man of God' by Audio Adrenalin:  Sometimes I’m a man of God and sometimes I’m a fake. 

Sometimes I snap at my kids or become impatient with wife. The person who I show in public is not always the same person in private. Sometimes I mess things up. And sometimes I get it right.

The moment I understand that life is pretty much indifferent to my needs, and I alone am responsible to make my path, it’s only then will I find true happiness. And it is where God meets me in faith.  

‘Perfection is the enemy of the good’ so they say. The more I try to be perfect, the more miserable I am. It’s the law of diminishing returns.

I’m a big fan of reality. Reality has a way of tempering my illusions of who I think I am. And this is where God reveals himself to me. I stand before him, and the’ phoniness’ that culminates in my life melts away.

When the illusions crumble, and all the worldly knowledge fails to answer the big questions, it is here that God finds me and my faith is animated.   

Faith is found in the everyday humdrum of living, and not is some sanitized cathedral; faith is found in the muscle aches that come with age, the loss of being ‘cool’ with the younger generation, the pain of losing someone I love, the heartbreaks, the worries and joy’s, all serve as the reference point.

I leave this topic with the chorus of Audio Adrenalins’ Man of God:

“Sometimes I don't feel good
It's hard to start the day
It's hard to climb the obstacles
That sometimes come my way
If I make it, I'm a good man
Am I a bad man if I fail?
I know I'm never good enough
so I let grace prevail”

The ‘Congressman’ has no clothes

The modern politician speaks in empty platitudes and hollow slogans; fancy words that have no relevance to the daily life of Americans they represent.

But strip away the layers of the pompous ‘poli-speak,’ and you will find the congressman has no clothes; they speak in these abstract talking points that are regurgitated to them by handlers and consultants.

Politicians are politically correct ‘empty suits.’  There is no ‘humanity’ in political correctness, which is the mother of all this empty-talk.

Maybe this is why there is a visceral contempt for our elected officials. It’s no surprise that congress receives a 76% disapproval rate. The hallowed chamber has become a hollow chamber.     

American Novelist Walker Percy said “politics is disappointing. Most young people turn their backs on politics, not because of the lack of excitement of politics as it is practiced, but because of the shallowness, venality, and image-making as these are perceived through the media.”

Politicians have become larger than life celebrities. And it’s our fault; we have put them on pedestals. In the long run, idolization leads to cynicism and cynicism lead to callousness.

And this callousness is illustrated in our public discourse. We no longer can have a conversation among one another without it becoming heated and demagogic.

We don’t even have a common language as a starting point. Instead we converse with others who see it our way,. We live in these tribal echo chambers, rarely stepping out to break bread with our fellow Americans.

The politician only reflects a culture that has become tribal, empty and isolated.  The politician may have no clothes, but neither do we. And until we clothe ourselves in a genuine humanity, we will be cut off from community.  

In a hundred years, all this stuff won’t matter.  ‘All things fade,’ as they say.

I wonder what future generations will say of us. We will not be measured in our fancy and empty words, Instead we will be measured by how we treat those who we disagree with.

We are either enemies in isolation or Americans with diverse points of view in community.  Let us be clothed in a common human bond.  

"To be governed": by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. 

To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. 

It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. 

That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."   Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Reflections on my Dad: Don't take life too seriously

My dad recently passed away. And it’s only now that I’m finally learning the lessons from his life. Whether he or I knew it at the time, my dad was teaching me life lessons.

I am up to the third life lesson. The first two were, 'actions speak louder than words and the importance of self sacrifice.'

 Life lesson # 3 is: don’t take life too seriously:

I learned from my Dad not to take life too seriously: My dad was born in Brooklyn, New York, during the great depression; a time of devastating poverty, joblessness and outright destitution.

Rising out of this human calamity, was a belief that worldly possessions are fleeting, and life is indifferent to ones survival. 

It was from this background, that the conviction ‘not to take life too seriously,’ became embedded into the culture of that day. Why? Because you never knew when life as you knew it, would come crashing down.

My dad’s attitude towards life reflected author Fredrick Buechner’s admonition: “here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.”

As a boy, I saw my dad as physically strong presence. And to witness his decline, reminded me how fragile life is. Yet my dad’s determination and attitude towards his ‘life circumstance,’ kept him from despair.       

During the last few years, I observed the slow deterioration of my dad’s health until he became wheelchair bound. I asked him ‘do you ever miss doing things you used to do?” And he said to me, “I don’t worry about that son, there are people in this world worse off than me.”

In the months leading up to his passing, he was hospitalized with severe pneumonia and he could barely catch a breath to speak to the Emergency intake nurse who asked him to rate his health on a scale of 1 to 10: 1 being poor and 10 being good; he told her it’s a 9, ‘my health is ‘good.’

We all thought dad was in denial, but he was very much aware of his condition, he would not allow sickness and pending death to dictate his attitude towards ‘the cards’ life had dealt him.  

He was living out of the principle 'don’t take life too seriously;' in spite of what life had handed him, he left this earth on his own terms.