And now a word from the Big Guy

I read this and though I'm still on the fence about divine existence I do agree with the statement. We should all live with such authenticity.

"Go ahead and do what you really love to do! Do nothing else. You have so little time. How can you think of wasting a moment doing something for a living you don’t like to do? What kind of a living is that? That is not living, that is a dying.
If you say, “But, but. . . I have other who depend on me”. . . I will answer: If you insist that your life is about what your body is doing, you do not understand why you came here. At least do something that pleases you-that speaks of Who You Are."
-Conversation with God , Neale Donald Walsh

Let's play ball

After reading many lengthy opinions (including my own) on the whole same sex marriage thing, I decided the issue is too visceral to be settled in the courts. They tend too be clinical and logical. I have a more lively solution in mind.

Let’s have a football game instead. On one side would be the biggest contributors in the latest round- The Mormons. Kind of ironic they fought the issue since they challenged traditional marriage with polygamy in the 19th century. Representing them would be the team from Brigham Young University.

On the other side would be those actually affected by the ban-some very pissed homosexuals. Every closeted ex ball player, tough butch leather daddy and a good number of lesbians, would create a team of the toughest, roughest bunch imaginable.

The result of such a contest would be staggering. Think of the TV ratings, think of the sheer drama and aggression the teams would display on the field. Think of the way cooler uniforms the gay guys would wear.(Not to mention the cheer leading squad- but that’s another story).

Yes, let’s return to a time when champions in single combat would settle disputes once and for all-where the stronger ideal prevailed. In this case them sissies at BYU haven’t got a chance.

Uh technically it's still fall

All week the weatherman has been warning us “BIG SNOW STORM COMING!! LOOK OUT, TAKE COVER”.Well by Sunday the temperature dropped but otherwise- nothing, zip, nada. I even skipped going to a movie for fear of getting caught in snow .So much for that.

When I looked out the window Monday morning there was a few inches of snow on the ground. Finally! The news made it sound like the end of the world with cars skidding and crashing on icy roads, schools closed, the big storm has arrived. Please.

This isn’t a snow storm, this is a light dusting. I grew up in Pennsylvania. I lived the cliché as I walked to school every day in winter through a foot of snow -uphill -both ways.(“and we liked it like that “). A real snow storm is when you can’t find your car parked in the driveway because you can’t find the driveway. When it’s so cold your nose hairs freeze when you take a deep breathe. When the snow is deep enough to build a three story apartment on your front lawn. Until then weather wimps, save the hyperbole for a real storm.

The House of the Spirit part 2

It’s a cold and clear day as I sit on the porch soaking up my daily requirement of vitamin D from the sun as I contemplate the small house taking shape in the corner of the yard.

To call it a house is ambitious. It’s a shed really, the floor space a mere six by six feet and clad modestly in plywood siding. As I gaze at the unfinished, rough framed building I see a reflection of my own life. Jobless, broke, half done -I’m nearly 50- and alone. An insubstantial little house constructed as time, energy and funds allow. A niche waiting for refuge from the harsh realities of life. A place of quiet meditation, inspiration and nurturing for the soul.

Instead of enjoying the process of how the tea house grows, the low doorway that requires humility to go through it, the choice of having the garden face away from the house and distraction, I fuss over endless details to complete the task.

Again I see the strange parallel to my life.

Like every morning while I sit and drink tea, and figure out how to get through another day. Instead of quiet stillness there is noisy inner chatter. Like myself, the tea house yearns to be an original creation to share with others and embrace it’s purpose. But for now neither knows when that will happen.

Let's NOT have a kitschy holiday

I used to be big on Christmas. I loved finding the right presents, wrapping them in elegant paper to place under the tree. But times have changed, I’m running low on people I can shop for, paper is wastefully ripped through and I am not putting a dead tree in my living room. Sorry. Christmas is still good, I share it with friends of mutual affection, I love how christmas lights perk up the gloomy darkness and being an artist I still like to design my own cards and presents.

There is one big stinking blight on the holiday landscape. I am referring to the hideously tasteless inflatable decorations. Snowmen, Snowballs ( complete with blowing snow) and Santa's on motorcycle are bad enough, this years models are illuminated. Non denominational kitsch is to be expected I suppose, in support crass commercialism but I draw the line at the inflatable crèche. Jesus, Joseph and Mary help us. What’s next an illuminated inflatable menorah? Oh wait I have seen a hanukah balloon.

Let’s return to the real meaning of the winter holiday. From the pagan solstice, celebrating the return of the sun and daylight growing longer to the Christian celebration of another son. Let’s have a simple string of lights or candles in the window to brighten the inky gloom. Let’s have friends and family gather to dispel the cold and loneliness of long winter nights. Let’s have a good meal and presents to show our love and appreciation of one another.

Let’s also show some tasteful restraint to the outside world. I have asked my sister’s husband Chuck, who is an avid archer, to please, please take out the one of the those god awful inflatables in his neighbors yard with a flaming arrow. Now that would be a great display.

Man vs. Wild vs. Survivorman

Two of my favorite shows are “Man vs. Wild “ and “Survivorman” on the discovery channel. Both features ways to survive in the wildness. Bear Grylls is an attractive Englishman who tries his damnedest to kill himself with techniques that are patently dangerous. This often requires him to remove his clothes and jump into freezing water, mud, or swamps. I enjoy the nudity but fear for one or more of his body parts getting broken in the process or devoured by some unseen creature.

Les Stroud of “Survivorman” is an amiable, guitar playing Canadian who is patience and skillful at living off the land but is the very definition of lousy hunter. He would flunk Indian Scout school due to starvation. Bear on the other hand, is not afraid to kill animals and will eat anything- his military training has done him good.

Bear gives the impression he is roughing it but it turns out he and the crew were sneaking off to a hotel when night fell. Les really is alone as he often grumbles about hauling camera equipment along on his treks.

God I really would love to see these two guys get together. Bear can’t build a raft worth a dam. In one show he had to thrash back to shore when one of his half baked creations sank. Les, however is inventive- making a fish hook from a glass hook or a pop can tab. I say put the both ot them out in the middle of nowhere and have a crew stalk them at a discreet distance and see what happens.

Gays vs. The Marriage Police

Here we go again. In California, support for Proposition 8 banning same sex marriages, passed by 52 percent of the vote.

“It was a great victory, . . .we saw the people just rise up.” said the Rev. James Garlow, senior pastor of Skyline Church in San Diego County and a leader of the campaign to pass the California measure, as quoted in a NY Times article.

For many this has become a highly charged issue but amid all this drama and legal battling I wonder what is the big frigging deal here? So a few thousand people of the homosexual persuasion want to get married, settle down and have a normal life like everybody else, what’s the problem ?Most of the argument hangs on the definition and meaning of the word marriage.
So let’s take a look at what that means.

Religious conservatives foam at the mouth-excuse me- say in grave tones, that same sex marriage is a threat to the sanctity of traditional marriage. The mere idea of them sharing in a loving, monogamous relationship like theirs is corrosive. How? It doesn’t infringe on heterosexual marriages, doesn’t put limitations on or change the purpose of marriage. Gay marriages are legal in Canada, Spain, England, and the Netherlands with no discernible effect on traditional marriage.

As for the sanctity of marriage, how is it valued when anyone from a mayor to the captain of a ship or a minister of the church of the universal light dressed as Elvis in the chapel of love in Las Vegas can marry anyone-except gays?

Marriage is for procreation the conservatives insist. The Washington State Supreme Court agreed in it’s ruling that upheld a 1998 ban on gay marriages: “limiting marriage to opposite sex couples furthers procreation, essential to the survival of the human race and furthers the well being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children’s biological parents.”( they mentioned children three times) Yet these same critics have no objection to heterosexual marriages that do not or can not produce children. Marriage doesn’t necessarily promote procreation, but procreation certainly can promote marriage. (My parents married after mom got pregnant. ) With six billion people on the planet procreation isn’t the sole purpose of marriage anymore.

Traditionalists claim homosexuality is a choice yet there is growing evidence that homosexuality is genetic and occurs naturally in other animal species well. Heterosexuals have the potential to procreate, they claim, but homosexual don’t as if their plumbing doesn’t work. Thanks to modern science and artificial insemination, gays and lesbians are having children.

Another claim is same sex marriages harm children despite numerous studies that show otherwise. According to a comparative study of lesbian and heterosexual parents “Healthy development outcomes for the children in this and other studies support the view of Charles Patterson and others that neither father presence not parental heterosexuality is crucial for healthy child development” (David Flaks et al, Developmental Psychology 1995).

The ruin of the traditional family are dysfunctional parents, shifting social and economic demo graphs, high divorce rate, and daddy preferring to cruise the internet for porn rather than talk to the family. Conservatives claim they are not anti-gay simply pro family but when you strip away the poor logic of their arguments, they really just hate gays.

Religions, for all the communal fostering they bring have also historically created conflict to the point of wars. Gays on the other hand have done little damage to society (when was the last time there was a heterosexual bashing by a gang of gays?). As conservative Andrew Sullivan points out on his blog www.andrewsullivan.com : “What social conservatives have to grapple with is that openly gay people are not going away.” This was dramatically demonstrated by recent protests across the country against the passage of Proposition 8.

Banning gay marriages will lead to further discrimination. What’s to stop religious conservatives from going further? Will they demand that all marriages be sanctified in the church of their choice or the union will be null and void and the children considered bastards like the good old days? Louisiana recently voted to ban heterosexual civil unions as well as same-sex marriages.

Marriage isn’t defended by preventing people from marrying. Reducing the 51% divorce rate and stopping spousal abuse are more positive and productive ways to protect it. People once believed that interracial marriage or allowing women to vote would weaken the American family. It hasn’t and I doubt allowing gays to enter into a monogamous, loving marriage is going to either.