Convenience Store Clerk Fatally Shot
He reluctantly left a family party to return to work.
This is just two days past Christmas, 2008; a local murder.
I am crying as I read this headline. What tragedy, what pain.
Needless suffering will fall upon a family who loved this youth.
When is the thick skin required to live this life supposed to form?
Pastor Rick
You sit there so smug
in your Dateline interview
with Ann Curry.
You continue to state what you believe
are morally correct notions of why
homosexual women and men should
continue to be despised.
Continue to be scapegoated by the world.
Just as “good” men of the proverbial cloth
(the cloth which hides their own sins)
continued to state what they believed
were morally correct notions of why
Jewish women and men should be despised.
Were they not vermin, non-human, capable
of the vilest deeds. Thus their suffering
millennia of murder, abuse, belittling, was
deemed acceptable, justified.
Marriage has always been between a man and a woman.
Every single religion says it’s so.
It’s been this way for 5,000 years; so you say.
And for 5,000 years, give or take, slavery too was
deemed acceptable, justified.
You accuse us of sins against your beloved bible.
Our acts of loving go against “nature.”
Man lying with man is an abomination.
Thus we harbor the hate of the world,
condoned by you.
Well Rick, surprise; my “sin” hurts no one,
not even me.
My love for a woman is as blessed and tender,
as Holy and Profound as any human love is.
The coming together of soul to soul, in shared
compassion, and passion,
is no sin. Ever.
But you sit there, righteous, large,
still digesting your too big meal.
Evidencing Gluttony in your entire being;
your outgrown shirt, pants, suit jacket
and huge double chin under your goatee
of Hubris and Gorging.
Your sins will wreck havoc on your body,
will cause your immune system to fail,
will cause your heart to break,
will cause the fire of heartburn in your
God forsaken throat;
and will cause your penis to lay flacid
as you watch the beautiful women
you wish to penetrate.
Your sins will wreck havoc on the body of the world,
will cause hate to be justified,
will cause beatings and death from ignorant fear,
will cause the true gift of Christ and other Masters
to be lost yet again.
Pray for Obama
I’m telling everyone I can to PRAY each day for Obama;
for his health, his well being, his ability to hold up under
all of this immense pressure; and most importantly,
for his safety.
We who experienced JFK’s, Martin Luther King’s
and Robert Kennedy’s death, the shock and raw pain
of their passing
do not want another fallen Godsent.
When I tell them about my pain, my grief, my not wanting to live,
They worry.
Might she take her life? Is it that bad?
They say, Call me anytime. Day or night. I’m here. I’ll listen.
Well, that won’t do.
It just won’t do.
If you knew, you’d know what a phone call lacks.
Touch.
I don’t need an ear 3,000 miles or even 2 feet away.
No, I need an ear here.
Close. Connected to a body. Right next to me.
Touchable in physical reality.
I’ve not had physical intimacy for near 3 years.
Not sex, which has been absent even longer;
But touch. Human, intimate touch.
Hugs help, but they’re much too brief. Even long,
heartfelt bring each other in hugs. Still too brief.
Charlestown Rhode Island, summer of 2007, lying next to Lydia,
close, listening to her story of how she opened her heart to Lizi.
This was good; it helped greatly; but still lacked intimate touch.
Holding a face, a body, a hand, a foot, for long minutes, even hours.
Skin to skin. The exchange of comfort. The feel of another’s skin.
The give and take of shared time and space.
Shared here and now.
Holding. Touch. Physical intimacy.
Babies die without it.
Adults too?
Thank you Miss Rosza
The nights that I must drop something into
our park’s common waste bins,
dog do or my kitchen scraps, my habit is then
to find the nearest rose,
pick some petals, ones you would pick anyway,
smash them between
my fingers and the palm of my hand,
then hold them all to my nose
and d e e p l y, s l o w l y, smell.
(I believe that flower petals were the world’s
first Kleenex.)
After picking the petals, I would always say a
Thank You Blessing
to the rose. Something from my heart.
Tonight I picked, smelled, and continued walking;
but 20 or so paces later I realized that I had not
thought a Thank You Blessing to the rose.
So I went back.
And stood there just looking and appreciating this rose,
with several dozen blooming flowers. Beautiful, elegant.
A floribunda.
Pink. Delicate smell when rubbed.
I gave appropriate appreciation and Thanks to her.
I appropriately acknowledge her gift to me, to the world.
As the Neville brothers sing Thank You Miss Rosa (Parks).
Let us give proper appreciation and Thanks to her the Mother
of modern civil rights. She sparked a pent up need for Justice.
The song acknowledges Rosa’s gift to the world.
I can’t but help think of this song as I acknowledge the Rose.
Is acknowledgement the same as appreciation?
Thus the same as gratitude?
Thus Holy?
Let us continue to acknowledge, give thanks to the things
we take for granted.
The rose (rozsa), the wool sweater keeping me warm,
The difficult struggle to be seen as equal, to comprehend
that We Are All One.
The Greater God, the Creator of All Things, properly She.
Let us never forget to be grateful, never forget to acknowledge.
The Night Before the World Turns
Are we on the verge, finally, of realizing the birth of
The Age of Aquarius?
Is She ready to come fully into this world?
To begin Her life of Hope, Love, Trust, Promise.
We who were directly touched by the eloquence of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Feel our hearts stir when we listen to Barack Hussein Obama.
So what if he were Muslim, so what if he is Christian, so what if he were Jew.
Thank you Colin Powell. You have throughly redeemed yourself.
Dare we hope that we can feel connected again as One
With ourselves, with the entire world?
As we did long ago;
Having friends, personally, enter into
Service via the Peace Corps.
Dare we hope for
Brightness, Hope, and Peace
vs.
Fear, Hate, Fight.
“I will fight for this country. I will fight for you.”
“I’ve been fighting since I was 17 years old; and I have the scars to prove it.”
“I know how to fight.”
And dare pray kind sir, What else do you know how to do?
Is it too much to ask for a World Kumbyaya moment?
Is it too much to believe that I am living through
The night before the world turns.
The Ones Left Behind
We go on living.
We decide slowly, gradually, painfully,
To not give in to despair.
To trust again
That the ones left alive
Will continue to be there
While I am still here.
These friends and family provide
Precious history; balance to the
Chasm of loss.
They allow me to tip the scales to again embrace life.
The ones left. Ahead. Not behind.
They are my future.
(I wrote this July 19, 2008)
Release into the Almighty
I allow myself to fully release into the
existence of God, the Almighty,
twice daily, while taking my walks.
For at least a third of the time,
a precious ten or so minutes, twice daily
I am fully at One with the Almighty.
I give myself up to Her sky, Her smell,
Her morning, a new day,
Her stars and moon, visible in Her pink twilight.
I feel God’s love and caring and subtle embrace.
I feel sweet, sweetness pervade me.
Love and sweetness.
I pledge then that I am ready to become One.
To give up any and all future bodies. To be One
With You and All.
When I am taken Home.
Until that time, I want to impact with good.
With each step of my twice daily walks, I say
a syllable of the Five Holy Names of God, in Sanskrit.
Often, I’ll get caught in the five syllables of the First Name.
I’ll repeat this First Name as if it were the Only One.
And why shouldn’t She be?
She is the First, the Last and all things made conscious
or which have consciousness residing in yours’.
As with the beautiful beach stone,
Which delighted your eyes, your senses
With its color, shape, imagined form.
Then picked up by you. Washed of sand in the ocean,
Brought home, and lovingly placed on a bookshelf.
Later, when held, looked at, remembered, it is loved by you.
Your love, your consciousness allows
the God in the stone to come out. To affect your heart.
To love back.
To show Herself again to you.
May all things, all souls, get this chance
at least once.
The Smell of Death
Acrid. Foul. Pungent. Just plain Nasty.
Death smells like cigarette smoke.
Lexi tried to hide the smell of her husband’s and mother-in-law’s smoke.
She bought scores of Irish Spring and Dove soap bars. She placed them in her clothes, in the hallway linen closet, in her bedroom closets, everywhere she could think to mask the offense.
Going through her clothes after her death, the cigarette smoke smell clung to each piece; undeterred by her efforts to neutralize its impact.
Her primary lung cancer was partially from her own smoking years ago, from her late teens to her late 30’s. Her own twenty years of inhaling death was contributory. But the cancer really hit because she lived with second hand smoke and stress. Stress of having to house your divorced husband to help pay the bills. Stress from living with a mother-in-law who disregards and dismisses you. Stress from a son who became psychotic and savaged his wife and family. Stress of knowing that she will never be able to retire; her mortgage and bills will require her to work into very old age. And her lung cancer came after being a five year breast cancer survivor.
Walking tonight with Reilley, I smelled cigarette smoke, and felt immediately offended. Invaded.
As I feel when confronted with an “air purifier”, those ubiquitious, cheap attempts to cover up normal human odors.
I have been invaded by Death for three plus years; I know how it smells.
It permeates the cells, creating a constant sense of being dragged through Hell. Acrid.
It takes away pleasure. Foul.
It takes away caring, about anything. Pungent.
It made me long for my own death. Just plain nasty.
Sarah lauds this Joe Six Pack. He has become the Repuglican symbol for American Freedom.
He is the embodiment of a lifestyle carefully crafted and wooed by the Titans of American Corporations.
Joe is the the driver of the Chevy Silverado/Ford F-150, 18 mpg trucks (maybe even a Hummer); the guzzler of Fast Food; the football fanatic; the one pound plus steak griller and eater; the one who drinks sugared Coke/Pepsi and RedBulls; the Independent One who “lives the American Dream”. He is in his mid 30’s to mid 40’s; has become overweight, if not obese, after teen years playing sports and downing far too many burgers, cokes and fries. He has mild to moderate high blood pressure and is pre-diabetic. He will need the pharmaceutical drugs for impotence very soon, if he’s not already using them. And if he’s drinking a 6 pack a day, he’s an alcoholic.
He is the epitome of a Repuglican campaign which supports a lifestyle of excess and ignorance.
A lifestyle which has impoverished its citizens and keeps us trapped in sub-prime health and earlier death and disease for our children. He is certainly NOT the sort of American who we should attempt to emulate.