Out of the Loop

Sorry. Been basically MIA for about three weeks now. I'm back and will post more regularly in 2011.

Embarkation

I left this morning for a new kingdom. It is the same journey I take every day. And though I never come back to the same place I began, I find that I get no closer to my final destination either. I am starting to suspect that the journey is, in fact, the destination.

Kenya believe there's more?

Kenya say this play on words is getting old? I knew you could... ;)

I'd like to continue repeating some of the stories that I heard from Merci Chidi in Kenya about the foundation of Ripples International - her organization which was started with a desire to help those suffering from AIDS. Some of what I'm about to repeat is speculation and some is from remembered conversations from almost a year ago. So if there are any mistakes in facts, they are all mine.

After getting Ripples underway by concentrating on building an organization that helped people get free testing for AIDS and then help and support for those with AIDS (with generous help from USAID and other organizations) Merci became aware of a growing need for a infant rescue center for abandoned babies. Not having funding for this project, she decided to do what so many others have done - she decided to sell stuff on the internet. Her idea was to make crafts in Kenya and send them to America where someone would sell them on the internet. All proceeds would go to the Infant New Start Center. She did some research and found a connection in Minnesota (I believe). Since she was flying to the US to report to USAID anyway, she decided to take a detour to Minnesota to make sure that this internet company was on the up and up.

As she flew, she met a lady who was from Wisconsin and who was intrigued by the work she was doing. She told Merci that if she was ever in the Racine area, to come look her and her church up. Merci arrived in Minnesota and went to visit the internet store and discovered that it was just a fly by night operation. The owner, who was completely gracious, told her that he doubted her plan would work. She was now stuck in Minnesota with a few days to kill before heading to Washington, so she decided to call this lady she'd met on the plane. Well, one thing led to another, and before she knew it this woman's husband was her biggest donor (and owner of several TV stations in the Wisconsin market). She'd gone to Minnesota to land a small internet company and she ended up with her biggest donor in Wisconsin (where the Board of Directors are now located, by the way).

The following year, as Merci was preparing to head to the US for more discussions with her various partners, she was confronted by her staff. They had been noticing that a lot of young women were coming in for AIDS screenings after having been victims of rape and incest. Not only was this heartbreaking to her staff and Merci, but it was felt that they ought to do something about it. Merci, however, knew that there was no money in the budget for such a project, so she informed her staff to collect the documentation and to pray for some divine help.

When she got to the US, she discovered that her Wisconsin donor's wife had prepared for Merci to give a talk about her organization to some influential politicians and their wives. Right before the meeting, Merci's staff sent her all the documentation they had accumulated about the young girls. Merci was rather upset by the documents and prayed to God for some help. She doesn't remember the talk going all that well because she was distracted by thoughts of the other thing.

The next day, as she was sitting in the hotel's restaurant having breakfast, this middle aged woman walked up to her and introduced herself saying that she had been at the talk the day before and that she wanted to help. Then she handed Merci an envelope and walked away. Merci, thinking the envelope to contain some sort of small donation, finished her breakfast and then got ready to leave for the day. At a stopping point, she decided to open the envelope.

It was a check for $20,000 US Dollars - more than enough to start a program for young raped and abused women. Merci thanked God for His intervention and then called the woman to thank her and tell her what the money was going to be used for.

When she was done speaking, there was silence on the other end. For a second, Merci thought she had somehow offended the woman, thinking that perhaps this woman wanted the money to go to AIDS care or something. But then she heard the woman on the other end sobbing.

This woman had been a victim of rape and incest when she was a child. She had never told anyone and had lived with the stigma all these years, just having confronted it within the last year. She had been looking for someway to reach out to other people who had been injured and, after having prayed to God, she heard Merci talk and decided to give money to help in Kenya. She was so overcome with emotion, the woman told Merci to start up the project and send her all the bills - she would pay for everything.

I can honestly tell you that after hearing stories like this from Merci and many others in Kenya, I knew that God was not only actively at work there, but that people's reliance on Him in their lives was making profound impacts. If there had been any lingering doubt in the reality of God before going to Kenya, they were gone by the time I left. And what I especially found to be profound in its impact was the matter-of-fact nature of God's working in people's lives. These people acted and spoke as if God was just around the corner - not some far off and nebulous cosmic figure that you had to struggle to think existed. His existence and intervention in people's lives was taken for granted - not something that had to be proven to anyone. I struggle for such a connection to God - though my connection to Him has been greatly bolstered.

Tomorrow, come back for a big announcement!

Kenya say Inspirational?

I knew you could...

This weekend, we were visited by one of our Kenya partners, Mercy Chidi, who is in North America for a conference and also to visit her charities various sponsors - including Lakeside. On Sunday, at church, she shared the following story. Any mistakes in the retelling are due to my faulty memory...

After growing up in Isiolo (a town about an hour north of Meru), Mercy went to University in Nairobi. After graduating from University with a degree in Social Work, she took a job in Nairobi, got married, settled down and had kids. She was living a very normal life. But then, one day, everything changed.

Her best friend was dying from HIV/AIDS. For months on end, she would spend every weekend driving from Nairobi to Isiolo (about 8 hours) to tend to her friends health. At the time (about ten years ago) there was a huge stigma against AIDS. If you had it or were dying from it, you told no one. So Mercy was her only friend that even knew she was dying. She tended to her care as best she could, but, of course, AIDS is still a death sentence. When she died, the stigma was so strong, her friend's parents simply told their daughter's friends and community that she had emigrated to the United States rather than admit that she had died of AIDS. Mercy was heartbroken at the loss of her friend.

She turned to God in prayer and asked for some guidance because she saw how many children were affected by AIDS in Isiolo and Meru and she wanted to do something about it - maybe something to do with prevention or education. God told her to move back to Isiolo. To do so, she would have to uproot her family, quit her job, and force her husband to leave his well-paying UN job. But God told her what to do, so she did it. She moved her family to Isiolo and began to work with AIDS education and treatment.

The organization she created from scratch at the behest of God now serves over 12,000 children and just recently opened the first Pediatric hospital in all of central Kenya.

I can tell more inspirational stories... and I will... but the real inspirational part of this story was how normal and human and Christian this woman is. She laments the fact that because her organization has grown so big, she can no longer go to the local hospital and visit the children in the Children's Ward. She was telling us about confronting the heirarchy in her church by being seen with a known drinker at a bar who had been so excited by Christ until the church had discovered her secret and rejected her. Every time I get a chance to spend time with her, I come away even more inspired than I was before.

More to come tomorrow...

The More Things Change...

Nope. Not gonna comment on the Election. Or the World Series. Just not going to happen.

Instead, I want to talk about my new blog, The More Things Change, and invite you all to jump aboard now. This is going to be a daily serial (or as near a daily serial as I can manage with my busy schedule) that I've been hemming and hawing over for a while now. Mostly, I just miss writing a cliff-hangerish kind of story that's fun and silly and non-thought provoking.

At it's heart is a story of one nuclear family, and particularly it's protagonist and narrator, Taylor, who has a twin sister named Jess. As is typical of any TAC story, there is nothing typical about Taylor or his family - as he's about to find out. Beyond that, I don't know where the story will go. I have ideas. I'll take them as I come to them. Short, sweet, cliff-hangerish episodes. I hope you'll come along for the ride.

Here's the link... I hope...

From ECBN - East Coast Bias News

11/02/10

Boy, the Texas Rangers really have their work cut out for them now. Down 4-1 in the best of seven series, they not only have to win the last two, but convince the commissioner that the first game shouldn't count. However, as these Texas Rangers beat the Yankees, anything is possible for them.

Last night, once again, the Texas Rangers defeated themselves with a lack of hitting and above the fence defense. They didn't exercise plate control, swinging at pitches that they clearly couldn't hit, and not swinging at ones that they probably could have hit had they just swung. Also, on one particular play where the wind aided a pop-up by Edgar Renteria to clear the fences, they were not in a position to leap above the fence and catch the ball. However, these slight mental errors by the Texas Rangers are mere aberrations on what will otherwise be a glorious comeback for their first ever World Series win over that other team.

Any other outcome is inconceivable.

The Milquetoast Job - A Tale of Two Legs

I love the story of Job because its a story that continues to play out day after day, year after year for all eternity. But I was really thinking about how much my life resembles this story of a guy who had it all but then had tragedy strike him and all the time that he is suffering, his friends continue to offer him advice. Only my version is decidedly less than earth shaking in its impact.

When I returned from Kenya, full of vim and vigor, I was ready to go out and conquer the world. This time I was really going to make a difference - hike, walk, whatever it took to lose weight. I even made plans to run the Bay to Breakers. I had a plan. I started to walk. I was ready to shed those pounds.

Three weeks later, my knee hurting a little from all the walking I'd been doing, I started on a particularly long and hard hike, figuring that I would "walk off" that nagging pain and feel better after the fact. I did walk off the pain, only to have it return as a crippling pain later in the hike. By the time I got home that night, I was in real pain and could barely walk.

Two days later, I went to the Emergency Room because I was in severe agony. No amount of icing or ibuprofen was helping. The Emergency Room doctor jabbed my knee with a needle to lessen the swelling (it didn't, but that's neither here nor there) and then took me aside. "You know," he said cooly, "You really ought to lose some weight. That's why you're having knee problems." Sitting on my ash heap at the time, I calmly explained that I'd just finished hiking eight miles on a bum knee to try doing exactly that. "I'm just saying," the doctor added.

Eventually, I got my knee swelling down though I continued to hobble. All the time I was metaphorically kicking myself for damaging my knee. As soon as I felt myself return to 98% of recovered, I hobbled out and started walking again. Bang! Out went the other knee.

As I now hobbled on the other knee, friends and family members continued to offer constructive advice, "You should take it easy. You keep damaging yourself. Let your legs heal, first." So I did. I let my legs heal. Long after they were healed, I had a relapse - and I hadn't been exercising at all. Then I healed my relapse, let my long period of sitting go on even longer, then started walking again - slowly. Hobbling. Eventually, after several weeks, I was actually able to hobble about a mile.

I drove to Vegas. No problems. I wandered up and down the Vegas Strip. No problems. I drove back home. No problems. YET, I still did not consider myself healed.

Finally, after a couple more weeks of walking normally, including one week where I walked more than I had since returning from Kenya, I finally made plans to go for another hike.

Then I twisted my ankle. Everyone saw me hobbling again and assumed it my knee - assumed that I had reinjured it. I explained that it was my ankle - a temporary setback. I hobbled for most of the last two weeks - taking it easy.

Yesterday, I threw caution to the wind for a good cause. I walked a little over five miles in a rain storm to raise money for Crop Walk. My legs, though stiff, did not fail. My ankle felt fine. I did develop a shin splint, but those go away relatively quickly (in fact, I can't even feel it now). I walked further than I'd walked since that day I blew out of my knee.

And when I reported the news to my Dad, he said, "See... all you needed was a little exercise."

I love the absurdity of this whole situation and try not to assign any cosmic significance to it other than the things that I thought before I started the whole process - I'm getting older and I need to lose some weight. The commentary has been, without a doubt, the most enjoyable part of it - like a Greek Chorus that is lagging behind the narrative by about three acts. I think when it comes to our health, human beings are at our most hypocritical. We ignore our own aches and pains while at the same time diagnosing dire ailments for anyone who dares to mention, or who is unable to hide, their own infirmities. I'm frankly surprised we don't have more hypochondriacs out there. It is, of course, the physical manifestation of the parable of the man trying to remove the splinter in his friend's eye while he has a log in his own eye. It is rather remarkable how the more the world changes, the more human beings remain the same.

As a final addendum to this lengthy discourse, I'm planning to hike again this Saturday - assuming I can make it through the week without something else falling off. My goal of losing weight, though many times thwarted, has never changed.

Choke on the bile of Free Speech

A little background: My sister was quoted in an article on the down-turned economy. She is a lawyer who has been laid off due to the lack of law work out there. As she was just getting her feet underneath her as a lawyer, the timing was rather unfortunate. Anyway, this article was posted at a reputable newspaper site and has since become a magnet for the kinds of vicious and scathing comments that are reprinted below.

 The most recent iteration of these comments came when a Blog for Temp Law Clerks reprinted the article. I read the comments and was really incensed. I wanted to complain and followed the link on the blog that said, "Report this blog."

Apparently, these comments are not regulated at all on the internet. In trying to make a complaint to Blogger, I received a message that basically said - We aren't liable, so we don't care.

I'd probably be mistaken to say that any air of civility this country once had has been completely eroded - I'm not entirely sure we ever had civility to begin with. Maybe we were just better hiding our lack of it in the pre-internet age. One thing I am certain of, these sorts of comments, left festering for all time on the internet for anyone to read, are destroying any chance of civil discourse. If someone can say some of these things without any worry of repurcussions, then why should any sort of commentary be banned? Why can't I say the N word? Or the F word? Or tell people what I think in the foulest, basest dialog imaginable?

Of course, I won't use that language - not because I can't, but because I was taught better. And that's my point. What are we teaching future generations if we won't clean up our commentary now? If any sort of commentary is allowed now, then what sort of restrictions on commentary will be followed in the future? The one undeniable fact of history is that the pendulum swings both ways. If we are allowed to say whatever we feel like now and we push the envelope far to the left, then eventually that pendulum will swing back the other way and our freedoms will be willfully repressed in the other direction - (Think 1950's to 1960's as a comparison). We need to address this now before it gets out of control.

Here is an example of the stuff people are saying: Keep in mind that this comes from a blog for Lawyers (those eloquent speakers and maintainers of civility and law).

Anonymous said...

She looks like a slob. She looks like the perfect candidate for S&C.

10:33 PM

Anonymous said...

True dat 10:33. At least lay off the potatoe chips and go running or something.

10:44 PM

Anonymous said...

Not as uncommon as you may think. I know several succesful female attorneys (some fairly attractive) who support lazy, stay at home freeloading man bitches. If only I could find a succesful woman to support me. To hell with pride.

10:52 PM

 

Anonymous said...

She's got the right look for a gestapo type staff attorney.

11:13 PM

Anonymous said...

She would fit right in with the middle-aged staff attorney cows like Lucy Cow and sloppy Big Mamma.

11:17 PM

Anonymous said...

Agree. Just what biglaw looks for in a staff attorney. Ugly, fat, and trapped in the position for monetary reasons. All she needs is the nasty, sadistic attitude.

Anonymous said...

I too have a hard time believing the the fat, dopey looking white broad actually made $100K in law. Not attractive enough. And men, with cunty women & their homo allies taking your jobs, their is no shame in being a daddy day care on their dime. Its about time they do the lifting. Its what they get when the get what they hoped for.....the total emasculation & N-wordization of the straight male.

Anonymous said...

I do not mock..I simply state truths in the real world. It is very unlikely that the subject woman was making $100K in any real law substantive job. But I will grant you that she may have done so in doc review in San Fran where labor laws are more strictly enforced. They make them pay good OT over there unlike in NYC. Perhaps she was a staff attorney. Whatver the case may be, she, and most other legal lemmings are now toast. I will say that I do think that such folk who are in such blatantly tenous and bullshit 'professions' such as law, are being foolishly irresponsible when they pork up kids on purpose or by mistake. Many lawyers have no healthcare or benefits & can't hold a job regardless of whether its their fault or the game's fault. How they could be so stupid as to put innocent children into the equasion is beyond me. The moral of the story is is that such a woman should have been able to take a gander at the mirror and known that she was not cut out for law.

1:29 PM

Anonymous said...

Everyone keep your hands off Big Mamma's cookies!

1:44 PM

Anonymous said...

To the dingbat who posted at 1;45....The poster above who states "that's what you get for going to a tier III school" knows the deal. She went to Golden Gate. Most likely not much 'intellect' or great chance of a late life blossoming there. I would take you up on your bet. She is toast. I would be shocked if she went to anything cornell. She appears to have gone to Hormell & eaten too much spam. Why were you so shocked by the fat folk you saw at Cravath? Why so 'horrified'? Because you, like most of law made a scathing judgment. Your profile of me is weak at best. I have been on the fringes of biglaw but am mostly a TT toileteer. Big gap between LS & UG. No hep from me folks ever. Not in HS, UG or LS. I am a guy and clearly you are just another PC, lala land living in, head in the sand dingbat broad. If she had the kids before law school then she is just another victim of the TTT law school scam. She got taken. If the kids came while in or after law scam the she is an irresponsible, deluded & possibly arrongant fool.

Anonymous said...

Wow.That last post was deep. Very much confirmation of the la la land dreamworld mentality that many a dumb biotch displays. 'Broad' was my attempt at politeness. Dumb biotch is definitely way more appropriate. Ratings are established by our vile, evil, classist & racist overlords to discriminate and marginalize those who are not they. Ratings...from the LSAT on greatly affect most non elite folks' lives & career. They most often preclude la di da surprises from happpening for the regular joe or decent folk in general. I would love to be as priviledged as you to have smoked whatever Alice in wonderland bullshit that you smoked. Let me know when your'e coming back to visit the real world.

Anonymous said...

$100K? MAybe! Fat and unattractive people have a tendency to be the worst supervisors. Hell mgnt loves them. They can be the evil twin of the boss. They do all his shit. But, KARMA works. They are the first shit canned and the cute ones are kept in the end.

The Lies We Swallow

We're told lies by our government and by Wall Street all the time and all we can do is shrug our shoulders and hope that someone will come along and change things. But it doesn't help when people will actually defend these lies as truth. I want to put two of these lies to rest right now.

During the gas price surge from the late 1990's all the way until the collapse of markets in 2008, the big lie from the oil companies was that there was always a reason for the gas prices to rise. Prior to the late 1990's there was a natural ebb and flow to gas prices, but, in general, they remained pretty stable - fluctuating, on average, about 25 to 50 cents a year. Starting in the late 1990's however, whenever the price inched upwards, it never came back down. Once gas crested $3.00 a gallon, the public started to take notice, and that was when the lying began. We were given every excuse under the sun - oil refinery fires, hurricanes, solar activity, war, famine, you name it. If something bad happened somewhere, it was a cause for gas prices to rise. Though I'm no economist, it was obvious that the people raising gas prices were looking for any excuse to justify their greed.

When the whole economy came crashing down shortly after gas prices reached $4.50 a a gallon, gas prices fell dramatically - and then rebounded slightly until they reached the $3.00 a gallon (CA price) average that they've been at since 2008. Two years... no huge increases despite dozens of natural disasters, oil refinery fires, etc... All of those things that previously caused the price of gas to jump 25 cents in one day suddenly have no effect on the price of gasoline - thus refuting, once and for all, that these things had any effect on gas prices in the past.

In much the same way, I think we can look at the incredible bonuses paid on Wall Street (a record amount this year) and really quell anymore talk of Trickle Down Economics. Again, I'm no economist, but it seems that the more money paid to Wall Street execs, the less money there has been on Main Street. There is no such thing as trickle down economics. It's a complete BS economic theory. So anyone still spouting off about giving more money to the rich so that that money can then stimulate the economy for the poor should just have their heads examined.

Now, I'm not talking about tax breaks for companies to hire employees or help for small businesses to pay health care costs or things of that nature. I'm talking about some whacked notion that we should give tax breaks to the wealthiest few because, somehow, the money saved by these few people will then trickle down to the rest of us in the form of jobs and other subsidies. It's just not going to happen. It never has. And it never will.

Historically, empires have sprung out of countries that recognized the wealth that came from the Middle Class (Don't believe me? Then ask yourself how the Dutch became a world power). It's not all that hard to understand why. If you put wealth into the hands of the wealthy few, they will defend it and not let it out of their sight. But the middle class aren't as controlling. They will spend most of that money to maintain their lifestyle and what they don't spend they can be enticed into giving back to the government in the form of taxes and fees to pay for the things that everyone needs (like roads and clean water). All fiscal policy should be set to increase the middle class and control the excesses of the rich. That's just good economic policy. Trickle Down Economics is not only a lie, but its bad economic policy.

Okay, enough real world stuff now... back to fantasy... have a good day!

Missed opportunities...

Our society seems so intent on punishing wrong doers that we sometimes mistake the forest for the trees and miss opportunities to correct problems before they occur.

I read with sadness the story of the young man who chose suicide after being cyber bullied at Rutgers recently. This young man was so clearly distraught about the bullying behavior of others that he chose to jump from the George Washington Bridge to his death.

Since then, others have come forward with other stories of cyberbullying and other forms of bullying that have caused young people to do horrible things - suicide, etc... While it is sad to hear of such behavior, it is nothing new. Technology might have made it more widespread (to those who care to look for those things), but the anti-social attitudes represented by bullying teens are well-documented and rarely punished.

Had we Americans reacted to stop bullying after its most shocking incident, we might not have been in this situation right now. But we didn't. Instead, we looked upon the two young men who were bullied and villified them for their reactions to their incessant hazing (and rightfully so) without also addressing the people who bullied them.

I'm talking, of course, about Columbine. Lost in all the discussion about the evil actions of two disgruntled teenagers was the fact that these kids had been hazed and bullied by many of the people on their "hit" list. Instead of going to the nearest bridge and leaping to their deaths and a tragic suicide, they reacted to their bullying by buying guns, making bombs, and going after the people who had bullied them and a community of students that had done nothing to prevent the bullying from occurring.

I'm not justifying their reactions - far from it. I think they were completely wrong and totally evil in what they did. But I can also see how in their own eyes, they were justified in their response.

Some people who are bullied simply take it. They are miserable and depressed, but they don't fight back. Some people complain and are usually ignored or given the old, "boys will be boys" speech. But a few others fight back and stand up for themselves and for others who have been bullied. The longer and harder they were bullied, the more vicious the response can be.

In Jr. High, I was bullied (who wasn't really?) My response, most of the time, was to try and ignore it. But one time, the bullies crossed the line. The squirted mustard in my Dad's baseball glove. I walked over to where they were playing handball, waited patiently for the ball to come to me, and then I tossed the ball as far away as I could throw it. The bullies were ticked. They couldn't believe that I had fought back. They complained to the school dean. I told the dean what had happened and showed him the glove with the mustard in it and all he did was basically call it even. (Hardly...)

As a corollary to this, a friend of mine was also a frequent target of bullies. One day after school he came up to me and told me that he had gotten even. What I didn't know was that he had beaten a boy so severely that he had ended up in the hospital. Since it had been a mutual fight (though one sided) the only action taken was that my friend was suspended from school. But this was a much more severe response to bullying.

I am happy that people are finally talking about bullying. With the internet, such behavior can now have very serious and real world long term effects and so perhaps it has become time to end this type of behavior for all time. But it seems to me that with bullying as the main cause behind the most horrific school shooting ever, we probably should have looked at the real world consequences of such behavior back then. Either way, bullying should end now and its up to the parents and teachers to see that this kind of behavior becomes a thing of the past.

Banned Books Week

I was reading with some interest the list of books that have been most likely to be banned. Harry Potter topped the list and the rest of the list included some pretty similar pop-cultural icons - hardly the sort of insidious cultural damage that I was expecting. Apparently, the types of books most people try to ban these days shows a clear lack of imagination on the part of the banning public. There are some truly horrid books out there that nobody is reading, much less banning. Our banning public needs to get out and read more.

I've read Harry Potter. It contains elements of witchcraft and dark magic. These things are warned about in the Bible as being bad. Apparently, the worry is that children reading these books, and being exposed to their teachings and glorifications of this lifestyle, would then become witches and warlocks as well - thus completely subverting Christianity and bringing about the end times (which are coming, no matter what, when we least expect it).

I'm currently reading a book from Oprah's book club called, "Say You're One Of Them" It is a collection of short stories by an African writer that, while fictional, are based on real-life horrors in Africa. The story I'm currently reading is about an uncle who agrees to sell his niece and nephew into the international sex trade in exchange for a new motorcycle. Hah, Magic and Witchcraft! Take that! I'll see your occult and raise you pedophilia and slavery! Can you imagine the outcry parents would have if their kids were asked to read this book in school? And yet, nobody is trying to ban this book.

I think it's clear that the people who wish to ban books are clearly not the best read people out there. If instead of fighting their ire by seriously considering their ill-formed requests, we simply agreed and replaced the Harry Potter books of the world with the Say You're One Of Them books of the world, I'm guessing that the banning public would demand Harry Potter back on the shelves and this nonsense would be over.

So next time you hear a parent ranting and raving about a particular book with bad words, inappropriate scenes, or some other mularkey, agree with them and suggest that the bookstore/library replace the offending book with a copy of Mein Kampf or some other such work. Quite frankly, it's about time we raised the literary level of our banned books.

The Heart of Admonishment

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump...

I was lying on my bed. It was hot. Was that the beating of the fan blades? Or a Huey come to take me back to 'Nam? Did it matter? I was still beached. And bored.

They came with an indecent proposal. Seems one of their own - a Colonel Lie - was missing somewhere in the jungle at a place approximately one mile from the beach. He hadn't been seen in months and nobody had heard from him either. They asked me to take a boat up there, to fight my way to him, and to bring him back.

Or, if I couldn't bring him back, I was to do something drastic... replace his lawn, perhaps. Co-coach T-Ball with him. I could only imagine the horror.

I guess some people really miss his homilies. Me? I'd rather sit here on this bed listening to the drone of my fan. Cause it's hot. And that's how I roll...

My First New Temptation

My behavior this weekend was boorish. There's a certain appeal every once in a while to cast off that respectable you that you've spent years developing in order to wallow in that old neanderthal self of your college years. The only thing is, I never really had any college years. By the time I was in college, I was already too old and too mature for the kind of college years that most people refer to as THE COLLEGE YEARS. So my approximation of my college years filled with boozing, partying, gambling, lascivious behavior, and other outrageous stunts, was mostly reduced to a kind of crude humor not normally allowed outside a locker room - and it got old in my mind really fast. I only maintained the pretense because nobody goes to Vegas to discuss theology, politics, or the complexities of life. For every moment when Shakespeare was in my mind, I masked it well with some half-baked discussion of some girl's anatomy and had another beer.

Las Vegas style temptation no longer has any appeal to me. Gambling (or should I call it throwing money away) is no longer fun. Drinking lost its appeal years ago. I'm too old to wander around picking up chicks. And all that drunken frat boy stuff stopped being fun after about one semester in college.

As I sat inside the Paris casino waiting for a friend, I watched all the women go by, dressed up for a night on the town, no two alike, no one really having "fun", and it occurred to me that I'd much rather spend time doing something real. Vegas suddenly seemed so artificial to me - a fantasy where the curtains were rolled back and the tiny wizard had been revealed.

Though I may have overdone it before - Kenya, Mississippi, Church, etc... - prompting a need to escape to Vegas for some counter-programming, the rightness of my path became crystal clear to me this weekend. There is a true power and a true desire for real relationships and real fun and real celebration that is other-centered. There is more fulfillment in a quiet moment of real laughter or real tears than in 10,000 nights of the artificial revelry of Las Vegas. I began to see the temptation such a REAL life could hold.

So God has dangled the temptation in front of me - to follow Him without reservation and to leave the glittery world behind. The question is, will I yield? Or will I remain boorish in some vain attempt to stay part of a world I no longer feel any connection to?

Aw heck... I give up. I'm trading in Vegas for a real life.

The Worst Idea For A Romantic Comedy...

Upon leaving the Navy, I was all set to get my life started. I returned to my San Francisco home (now in Pacifica) and my fiancee and got ready to start college and get a job. Shortly after arriving home, I moved into an apartment with my good friend and fellow Navy buddy, Jay.

During the next six months, I had the sorts of adventures and life-changing moments that you see in hundreds of coming-of-age college type movies. Parties, women, crappy jobs, college, sports, and all sorts of crazy exploits surrounded me and my eyes were definitely open and my brain was definitely recording.

At the end of these six months, however, my fiancee dumped me and I was so heartbroken that I decided I'd rather live at home and spend money on a car rather than rent. As it turned out, my friends parents wanted to move back from New Hampshire - so they simply reoccupied the apartment that they had left for my friend and I.

It wasn't until a few years later, however, that I started looking back on this period with a sort of nostalgia. The heartache was still there, but the other events that happened during those six months were almost the stuff of legend. Certainly, I thought, they would be good fodder for a movie script. I began developing this idea for an autobiographical story that would be this romantic comedy.

Except that in real life, I was dumped. And miserable. Mixed feelings about this period aside, I began to play with ideas for a story.

And play.

And play.

And play.

A few years passed (Okay, more than ten, less than twenty... so far) and I started back to film school. After a rather successful attempt at making a horrible movie, I started thinking about the subject of my next film. The idea came back to me. I still hadn't figured out how to tell a romantic comedy where the main character gets horribly dumped and spends most of the movie moping around, but I started really developing the idea further.

Development always stopped however when it came time for my character to get dumped. It wasn't that the pain of being dumped had somehow inhibited my ability to write after all these years, it was more the fact that it was just so depressing of a story development that there was no amount of cool stuff that could overcome this momentum killer.

I pretty much gave up on the idea as a lost cause. But three weeks ago, in a moment of pure, brilliant insight, I suddenly realized that by moving some of the events around, by changing the actual event's orders, I could alter the momentum just enough to launch the story properly. Being certain that it had to be a mirage and that once I started writing I would realize that it couldn't possibly be that simple, I sat down on August 25th and started writing.

Last night, I finished the movie script. It took me three weeks to accomplish what it took me fifteen years to think about. The script isn't perfect, yet, but its a lot better than it has any right to be. I have finally succeeded in writing a romantic comedy about the end of my long standing relationship.

And I even managed to keep some of it still based in reality.

Oh... and best of all... No Star Wars references, whatsoever.

Free Speech? Really?!

I know this might seem reactionary, but I've been letting this storm brew in my head ever since I heard about this a couple of weeks ago. It was stupid then. It's even more moronic now that plenty of peers have weighed in on the idea and they all think its a bad idea, and the guy is going ahead with it anyway.

I'm talking, of course, about burning the Quran. Look, here's my point, plain and simple. If you're a Christian Pastor and you have to defend your action by saying that Constitution supports your right to do something, then you're probably NOT doing what God wants.

There is free speech and there is Christian speech and the two aren't always the same thing. If you want to come out and say that Abortion is bad - I may disagree with you, but I respect your right to say it. And I imagine, God respects you for saying it as well. But if you want to ATTACK someone with your "free speech" then you are NOT being Christian whether the Constitution supports your right to do so or not.

What part of Love your Neighbor is not clear? What part of Do Unto Others As You'd Want Them To Do Unto You is murky?

You are a Christian Pastor. You are called to a higher standard than the U.S. Constitution. You have the right to burn a Quran as an American, but you don't have the right to do it as a Christian. In fact, you have no right to do this and call yourself a Christian. This is Hate Speech and a Hateful Act. And to say that God wants you to do this, well, you need to go back and take a few theology courses, buddy. You are like a little kid hitting your sister and then saying, "Dad told me I could."

Sorry, but there are not many things that I see as absolutely wrong. This is one of them. There is nothing you can say or do that justifies your actions.

Sorry, Stephen Hawking, but you're wrong...

It's funny about the timing of some things. I just had this revelation two days ago and I've been mulling it in my head, trying to figure out how to phrase it. Then the news breaks today that noted physicist Stephen Hawking has decided that physics alone can explain the universe and that God is not needed. Well, quite frankly, he's wrong, and I can actually prove it using scientific theory.

This is a bit convoluted - which is why I was trying to figure out a correct way of phrasing it - but I'll give it a shot.

The Big Bang theory suggests that at some point roughly 40 billion years ago (give or take) the Universe existed as a single point without space or time. For whatever reason, this point then exploded with enough force to create the entire universe out of hot gasses and matter. My knowledge of physics here is a bit shaky, but I will concede the fact that the Big Bang did occur. The issue is whether the Big Bang occurred randomly as Stephen Hawking contends or whether God was its instigator.

Here is the gist of the problem with Stephen Hawking's idea. His theory is that the universe was created randomly - that the laws of physics clearly show that such a thing is possible and that, therefore, it must have happened that way. However, if the Universe was created randomly, it could have also NOT been created randomly. Random events are, well, random. They happen, or they don't. But in the only example that we have (our universe), the event DID happen. The Universe was created. And as a result we are here to speculate about whether the universe could be created. If the universe wasn't created, we wouldn't be here to speculate about whether it could happen. Therefore, we have a determinate outcome - the Universe WAS created. It does have a reason for existing. If it has a reason for existing (even if that reason is only so that we can say that the Universe does exist) its creation could not be random.

Think of this theory as a giant cosmic version of I Think, Therefore I Am.

By Stephen Hawking's rationale, there were two possible outcomes to the Big Bang - that it occurred randomly, or it didn't occur randomly. But obviously it did occur - the mechanics of which are not important to the discussion. Science clearly dictates that any fact must be repeatable scientifically. The Big Bang has not been repeated. Anywhere. So, the big idea that a universe could just form randomly has yet to be shown and can't be repeated. Also, the idea that the universe could NOT just form randomly has also yet to be shown and can't be repeated.

The problem with science is that it must, by its very nature, explain everything. Some things don't have explanations - no matter how much science wants to come up with one. If the universe could just randomly appear, it could also just randomly not appear - in which case this blog would have a seriously small audience. Since the universe is here, especially in light of the fact that the science shows that the universe is not a foregone conclusion, doesn't that argue for the fact that there is a reason the universe exists? If there is a reason for its existence, someone must have determined what that reason is. The idea that all of this is just here, with no grand scheme or design, is much the same argument you might have with yourself when you say, "What if I don't really exist?" What if you don't? Then your argument doesn't matter. If the universe was created for no purpose, completely randomly, then anything we discover about it, or about ourselves, also has no purpose. We exist randomly. We have no meaning, no purpose. We might as well not exist - because in the end, its just a different toss of the dice.

Another Darn Historical Day

That's right, its Another Darn Historical Day in America. It seems that the news media has just discovered that the government (read here: Democratically controlled government that can't fix the economy even though they've had 18 whole months because its run by a Muslim Facist who can't even produce a quality fake birth certificate) can spy on Americans by tracking their movements on their GPS devices. The media can't say whether the government would actually do such a thing, but I mean come on... these guys want to control EVERYTHING!

Every time I think America is beginning to learn to think for itself, I see something like this in the media. Its not that this information is untrue. It is true. Every last word of it. The only thing left out of the story is that GPS has been around for more than 25 years now and the capability to track objects with GPS has been around just as long. But knowing that information would require two things - an attention span longer than about ten minutes and some knowledge of the world greater than that offered by the news media. Either America is no longer interested in the rest of the world or just doesn't care. Either way, look around and see the results.

I am not terribly enamored with the Obama administration right now - but I'd like to be able to judge the guy on his own merits. Instead I feel like an adult caught in the middle of a fight between two five year old kids. "You started the Depression." "NO, YOU DID!" "NO WAY! YOU STARTED IT WITH YOUR POOH POOH BREATH!" "NO, YOU STARTED IT WITH YOUR COOTIES!" And this is the professional media that seems to be slinging this hash around like it was news - hell of a lot more entertaining than actually digging up real news stories I guess.

Neither political party is perfect, neither is entirely to blame - yet everyone involved with running this country should be ashamed of themselves. This is the Greatest Country on Earth - and we look like idiots right now. If Obama gets bounced in two years, it'll mostly be for that reason. Instead of reacting to the stupid baiting actions of his immature political rivals, he should be showing their actions for what they are and ignoring their insipidness. Its okay to want to have inclusion in your government, just make sure that the guys you're including aren't complete morons. Anyone responsible for the mess we're in now need not apply.

But ultimately, the fate of this country isn't up to Obama, Pelosi, Boehner, Palin or the Mad Hatter - the fate of the United States is ours. We're the ones who have to demand more of our leaders. We're the ones who have to tell them to stop all the fear-mongering, name calling, and stupidity, and go get us jobs. I'm not against the rise of a new political party, but I don't want a Tea Party that is even more broken politically than the two Parties that it hopes to replace. What we need is a new leadership that will get the job done even if it has to make some hard choices and compromises for the good of the American people.

So, people, you can sit in your homes because you're afraid the government is tracking you with GPS, or you can start telling your leaders that enough is enough. We want real reform. The kind you can see. The kind you can taste. The kind that puts people back to work. (If it don't affect your bottom line, does it really matter?) Not more speeches about how great they are and how evil the other party is. Reform. Change you can sink your teeth into.

Jobs

The biggest thing about poverty is that people tend to focus on the fact that someone who is poor doesn't have enough money, as opposed to the fact of why that person doesn't have enough money - education, lack of a good job, health, etc... As a result, many of our efforts to stem the tide of poverty are focused on getting poor people more money and not on helping poor people overcome the things that caused them to be poor in the first place.

If you look at the current policies in place here and abroad, you will see that we are generally focusing on the wrong things. Our health care bill, while addressing the issue of health as a means for creating poor people, left out the fact that health care costs are much higher than they should be. You can't solve a problem of making poor people healthy if you make people rich off the health of the poor. Its not a sustainable policy. Health has to not only be available to all people, it has to be affordable to all people as well. Same thing with all these bailout initiatives being thrown around. They end up saving large companies from going bankrupt, but do nothing to create jobs, help educate people, save health care benefits, etc... We'd rather throw money at unemployment benefits than use money to create lasting employment of people.

I think where this issue can really be seen is in the new proposal by the 50 top billionaires to give away half of their money to charity. I think that's an admirable goal and I won't even mention how they got that money to begin with. However, the idea, while great, is wrong and won't actually do anything to help poverty in this world. It would be far better, for instance, to use that money to create jobs doing things that were previously considered impossibly too expensive.

As an example, Africa needs roads. African people need jobs. Put that money into road building projects throughout Africa. Build their infrastructure at no expense to Africa. Hire Africans to do the labor. At the end of all that money, Africa's economy will be far more robust than it would have been had you just thrown money at charities and they'll have new infrastructure in place for many years to come.

The same could be done here. I know that there are many initiatives on the books by the Obama administration. Its time to start fast-tracking them. Americans need jobs. Take the first 52 projects that are off the shelf and fund them. One a week. Each project should hire at least 1000 Americans and pay them a decent wage. If that doesn't work, double it, or quadruple it. Let's rebuild our own infrastructure. Let's upgrade our energy distribution network. Let's rebuild some of those nature trails.

Let's put money in education that doesn't come with strings attached. School teachers working is a hell of a lot more important than school reform. How about school nurses? And new gymnasiums? If you're really serious about getting obese kids healthy, how about spending some money on gym teachers and gyms?

America needs to let go of the last twenty years of bi-partisan bickering and start taking its problems seriously. I say this as a Democrat with a Democratic Majority - we Americans are tired of all the infighting and backstabbing and name-calling. Its not important whether Obama was right or wrong about some Mosque in New York - he was wrong to have even mentioned the subject. Our problems are much greater than that. Put people to work and they'll have no time left for tea parties or Quran burnings or isolationist politics.

Oh, and we need to put people on Mars... but that's the subject of another post...

Somewhere along the road...

One of those things that can't be taught to writers but that has to be experienced is the moment when your story first comes to life.

A writer will think up a story and imagine it in its finished glory. He was do the research and create the characters. He might write a synopsis or take notes. And then he will start writing - long, laborious nights in front of a keyboard imagining everything in a story from setting to dialog to action to motivation. This is the hardest stretch for a writer because the story is all work at this point.

But at some point, there is a subtle shift. You see a moment that you hadn't seen before - a change in a line of dialog or a character doing something that you hadn't imagined them doing. You write the words and voila, suddenly the story is vastly improved and much clearer - like you've reached a summit and can see the entire world before your eyes. It doesn't mean you don't have to keep working, but the path is all downhill from that point.

The story comes alive. It's characters start to breathe, to suggest words and actions to you. As a writer, you had trouble before remembering what came next in the story - you constantly referred to your notes - then, like a light switch being thrown, you now know the whole story, all the characters, and how they will face each challenge you throw at them.

The next step in the process is my absolute favorite - its the point where you have to tell your characters to shut up so that you can finish the story. Your characters will continue pounding your brain for bigger scenes, greater dialog, and grander and more glorious finishes. It makes for fun speculation, like fans at a Comic Book convention arguing over who would win a fight between the Millennium Falcon and the USS Enterprise, but it doesn't necessarily make for a good story. At some point you have to remember that you are the writer and they are the characters and that you are in charge. Such is the problem when your independent creations take on lives of their own.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about my story right now. The heroes have moved on from Saipan. If you'd like to know their next destination, you can keep track of it on my facebook page by checking to see where I currently reside.

(For the rest of you, here's a little homework... its July, 1937. You're in Saipan. Where would you go next, nearby to Japan, where some sort of historical turmoil is about to break out. HINT: The answer is worth an awful lot of tea.)

How do you solve a problem like Judas?

I just finished all the monologues for a play I'm writing for Holy Week. In my take on The Last Supper I have each of the disciples arriving for the meal and, at some point, delivering a monologue to the audience showing their innermost thoughts about Jesus, their journey, and what they believe is about to happen. The first eleven disciples showed varying degrees of difficulty related to what research I could do on them and the various inner monologues that I was giving them. (My favorite is Nathanael/Bartholomew.) But today, after nearly two months working on this project, it was my turn to tackle the 12th disciple - Judas.

There's not much known about Judas prior to the Last Supper. He was one of the twelve disciples. John accused him of stealing from the group's purse (He was supposedly their treasurer). And Judas had that famous exchange with Jesus about the price of perfume that was used to anoint his feet - the one where Jesus said, "The poor will always be amongst us." That's really about it.

We do know, of course, that Judas took the 30 pieces of silver from the priests, betrayed Jesus with a kiss, and afterwards knew that he was cursed and hung himself from a tree. Ironically, it was here that I started in my quest to unlock what Judas might say in the moments leading up to his betrayal.

Had Judas merely been evil, Jesus' arrest and death would not have made Judas commit suicide. This was no Thelma and Louise style self-sacrifice - Judas wasn't surrounded by cops and decided to kill himself rather than face the music. On the contrary, Judas might have been regarded by some people in the establishment as a hero - the man who finally rid them of Jesus. No, Judas felt guilt - the kind of guilt so terrible that it makes you wish that you were dead. He realized, too late, that he had betrayed his friend and killed him.

So, back up. Judas knowingly took 30 pieces of silver. He knowingly kissed Jesus. And only after the fact did he have guilt about it? What was Judas thinking?

When I wrote my first novel I had to go to some pretty dark places. How does one write a rape scene, for instance, from the point of the view of the rapist? Its not an easy thing to do. I discovered that the only way into such a scene was to approach it from my own point of view and then skew it so far out of whack that I could imagine myself doing that horrible thing. In the case of the novel, I had to take an idea of lust and give it steroids to the point that the rage and the anger and the passion all combined to make this character rape another character. It was a very dark thing to write and it was a very hard thing to imagine. After writing that scene, I knew that I wanted nothing more to do with stories that dark again.

The reason I mention this is that I had to somewhat the same thing with Judas - but I think it was a little easier this time. I started with what I knew about Judas - that he was a thief, but that he was also a disciple - and I added what I knew about Judas after the Last Supper - that he was so remorseful that he killed himself - and I came up with a scenario that worked in my head.

Basically, I have Judas leaving a somewhat blameless life - human, not perfect - who succumbs to temptation. I simply extrapolated a situation where I succumbed to temptation into the story. Judas takes some coins from the purse for his own gain - not out of any perceived notion of greed, but simply to pay for a better meal and a nicer place to stay while on the road. Its still theft and its still greed, but its easily justifiable to Judas' way of thinking. Since he's in charge of the purse, he knows that he'll be able to pay it all back without anyone knowing about it. Except that maybe it worked too well. He was able to pay it back and nobody noticed or said anything. So he did it again. And again. And... then John started to suspect Judas. Judas became paranoid that they were on to him. He needed to pay back all that he had borrowed. He hears that the priests are offering 30 pieces of silver to anyone who helps them arrest Jesus. So far, Jesus has been able to make the High Priests look like fools every time he's dealt with them. A little arrest will be no big deal for Jesus. He'll make the priests look like idiots again and then they'll all continue on their way. In the meantime, Judas can put the 30 pieces of silver into the purse and nobody will be any the wiser. Of course, if his plan works, he swears that he will never borrow money again. Maybe he'll even suggest that someone else take the purse for a while.

Of course, we all know that the plan backfired. Jesus was arrested, flogged, put on trial and executed. Judas, seeing it all spin out of control, and knowing that he was the one responsible, would have known that he was cursed. So, he kills himself.

There is no evil mustache twirling villain here. Jesus was not so blind as to have the greatest villain in history as one of his disciples. The real tragedy of this evil is that its the sort of evil human beings perpetuate every day of existence - the lie told to ourselves, the delusions, the greed, the belief that they can get away with it without anyone knowing. As Jesus was the greatest of all human beings, unfortunately Judas was the worst case example of where sinning can lead us - the epitome of what happens when we sin and become separated from God forever.

In the Zone

So, not much to report here lately. I get that way when I'm writing. Its like the rest of my life goes on hold and I have to be reminded to go out and smell the roses once in a while. I have purposefully not been in the Zone for quite some time - at least a few years now - because the last time I was in the Zone, I was there for almost two straight years.

This time, my new novel is shorter, more focused, and a lot less involving - but a lot more fun. It involves a certain favorite hero of mine traveling through the last days of the life of Amelia Earhart (as amended by wikipedia ;) So far, I've written about her espionage against Japan, the crash of her plane, and her rescue by a Japanese submarine. In the near future, Amelia Earhart will face a Japanese firing squad. So much fun!

It has helped my writing process immensely that two fine actresses played Amelia last year giving me a great range with which to work for her character. Amy Adams played a young, feisty Amelia Earhart in Night at the Museum 2 - Battle of the Smithsonian. I love Amy Adams and she was great in this role. Unfortunately, her character was a little too cartoony for a serious attempt at portraying Amelia Earhart. But then, Hilary Swank played the title character in the movie, Amelia, opposite Richard Gere. She brought a more diplomatic approach to the character - deciding to make her a real person versus a fictional portrayal. Unfortunately for Amelia, the script gave Hilary Swank little to work with and one was left wondering just who Amelia Earhart really was and what drove her to be the kind of person who would want to fly around the world.

I opted for a middle ground on Amelia Earhart knowing that I need only keep to the accurate historical portrayal of her during the hours leading up to her ill-fated last flight (which was the first chapter of the book). After that, I was off in fictional speculative territory anyway. I've tried to keep Amelia real, but also offer some of the backbone present in Amy Adams portrayal. The more I write, the closer I think I'm getting to my ideal portrayal of this American icon.

Anyway, I'm enjoying writing again. I don't think I'll ever become the hermit I was during the writing of the ill-fated First Novel, but I might be a little more flaky as time moves forward. So, don't be surprised if I blow people off in the near future to spend more time with the lovely Amelia and her charming and enigmatic time traveling companion.

A new Non-Religious thought puzzle... Deep Waters Ahead!

So I had another errant thought the other day and I haven't really had any free time to play with it. So I thought I'd open the idea to the entire blogosphere to see if anyone has anything deep to add to the discussion.

The question is basically this: Is Time Fixed?

Now what got me to start thinking down this road are two things: first was the idea of relativity. In that, our perception of space is relative to our movement through it. Or to use the thought exercise from Einstein, if you are on a train, everything is whizzing by your window, but if you're outside, the train window is whizzing by you. Applied to time in a practical manner, does time itself alter the further away you are from events? Or does time remain static and only our view of it alters as we get further away from the event?

This led me to my second road: entropy. Or to put it more bluntly, nothing ever remains the same. Physical properties of all substances are constantly breaking down, transforming, etc... But since Entropy seems to be a function of time, does it also have an effect on the physical properties of a fixed event in time?

How does this all break out? Well, let's say that time was not fixed. Using an example of Bob the Caveman inventing the wheel, that fact might remain true for say, 1 million years. But eventually, as you got further and further from the event, the facts behind it would begin to erode. Time, itself, would begin to unravel, to fade, to be obliterated by all that follows that event. It would mean, in a practical sense, that after a certain point the past would be a meaningless blur.

We, of course, would take this for granted. We can't possibly know who invented the wheel, right? Its before there was any recorded history. But what about the events of yesterday. Are they fixed? Did what you did yesterday have any permanence whatsoever? Or will it fade from history and memory when there are no forces left to leave it in physical place (i.e. Its not recorded and there is no memory of it by any still alive)? Is this a natural function of space/time? Or is this only a function of limited human knowledge?

Anyway, I was just exploring cool ideas about time. I don't think we can suss out a real answer to the question, but its certainly fun playing around with it.

Paradigm Shift

I can't believe how convoluted this story is.

It started a few weeks ago. I was trying to think up a new story idea and I had a sudden brilliant thought. My story would involve a writer (me, basically) who wakes up and finds himself stuck in a world of his own making. But there's something wrong with the world that he's in - its heart/soul is dying. So the writer has to find the source of the problem and fix it. Only... what would be the source of the problem?

I realized that romance always sells so I began to devise a plot that involved finding a girl who was the source inspiration for all of his female characters (and all the female characters in the world that he was stuck in). The catch was that the female characters don't look like any girl he ever remembered meeting. So the writer has to retrace his life history to find this source girl who so inspired him. (I really thought this would give my female actress something to do - playing a whole bunch of different variations of one main source character).

Now this is where the story starts to get convoluted. You see, in thinking back on my own life to try and find a source character that could serve as an inspiration for this main female character, I actually remembered a girl that I had known many many years before who, now that I thought about it, really was an inspirational source for all of my female characters. But the thing is, this girl was someone I had known when I was in third grade.

You see, there was a brief period in third grade of about two weeks where I was in love. As I recall, a new boy came into the class and had no friends. The teacher decided that I'd be a good friend, so she asked me if I would play with him at recess. Well, I did and we had fun. But this boy had a twin sister who was in another class. As she didn't have anyone to play with either, besides her brother, she joined us. Well, she was beautiful, spirited, funny, and full of joy. I was like a moth to the flame. We played at every recess and after school every day for that entire period. And I even walked home with her after we finished playing. Of course I was in third grade and to me she was just a friend.

At the end of two weeks, she didn't come to school. I went to her house after school, but nobody was there. I found out the next day that there had been a divorce and the kids went to live in Sacramento. I never saw her again and I was really crushed.

In looking back on it, I suddenly realized that the things that I find attractive in women were the qualities this young girl had. So, in this case, art was indicating life. I was following the path of my own plot.

Now, the nebulousness of my thinking really took over. With this sudden revelation I began to see the world in a new light. I realized that my one truly decent relationship had been doomed all along because as much as I loved my ex-girlfriend, she was nothing like the young lady in third grade. My Ex was very similar at first, which is what attracted me to her, but as time went on, she grew further and further from those attributes that had attracted me in the first place. I overcompensated for this lack of attributes by trying to change, which led me to join the Navy, to try and become a serious writer, and generally everything else that has followed. I left behind the things that had made me happy in order to become someone that could maintain a relationship that was never going to work. When the relationship fell apart, I no longer had that ME to fall back on - I had changed so much that I didn't recognize myself. I realized that I had stopped being myself so many years before and that I'd been kind of stuck in this person that wasn't really myself ever since. See... nebulous.

What does it all mean? Now, this is where it gets interesting.

So here I am, being bombarded with one revelation after the next about who I am and what I want and how come I haven't felt the same as I did 25 years ago for a long time, and suddenly I realize that the one thing that I've been missing the most is Joy.

Joy. With a capitol J. As in the sort of light-hearted, pure spirited unconditional love that bubbles over from your center and makes you glow with giddiness. I used to be full of it. I used to drink it like soda. The last place I experienced it? You guessed it.

Kenya.

It all made sense now. 25 years before, lost and confused about my relationship with the girl I loved enough to propose to, I set out to join the Navy to make something of myself, but also to find out who I was. I have spent years looking for that answer, but there was no answer forthcoming. I learned patience. I went back to God. I learned to give back, to love my neighbors. I learned film making for some reason. And then, I went to Kenya and rediscovered Joy. The one thing I'd been missing all along. The one piece of the puzzle that I hadn't yet placed. Why show me Joy? God showed me Joy so that I might be healed and become whole again - so that I might come full circle.

I'm right back where I was when I was 16, except that I'm 24 years older and wiser. I've been given permission to go back to being who I was back then - to let go and be the insane Will that I remember. I spent the first 16 years of my life confidently drawing outside the lines, and the last 24 learning to draw inside the lines in order to impress some girl who did not have any Joy inside of her. I'm ready to draw outside the lines again. I'm going to restore the heart and soul to a world of my creation.

Action

I didn't originally mean for this post to have such a religious bent, but my renewed inspiration for it came from reading the Bible last night. In particular, this:

³⁷When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. ³⁸But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised.
 ³⁹Then the Lord said to him, "Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. ⁴⁰You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? ⁴¹But give what is inside the dish ^[j] to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
 ⁴²"Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.
 ⁴³"Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
 ⁴⁴"Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it."
 ⁴⁵One of the experts in the law answered him, "Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also."
 ⁴⁶Jesus replied, "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.
 ⁴⁷"Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. ⁴⁸So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. ⁴⁹Because of this, God in his wisdom said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.' ⁵⁰Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, ⁵¹from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.
 ⁵²"Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."

I have been struggling for the past year or so with this notion that perhaps reading the Bible was getting me nowhere. Now, let me explain what I mean by that. It seemed to me that I was trying to seek God through knowledge - like God could be found by studying for some kind of test. I realized that my search for God had kind of stalled out at the research stage. I had read all the books. I had read the Bible many times. I had taken classes and participated in discussions and sought out experts. But in the end, I didn't feel like I had come much closer to God than when I had started. I understood a heck of a lot more about Christianity, to be sure, but I hadn't yet really experienced it.

My thirst was still there.

At first, I decided that maybe I was over thinking all of this research. I'm one of those people that can get down into the nitty gritty when I really try. I remember when I was named education Petty Officer in boot camp that I was trying to explain naval history to my fellow recruits and a good friend of mine looked at me and just said, "We don't need to know that on the test. Just tell us what we need to know." I've taken that to heart over the years. Nitty Gritty is fine and fascinating and all, but it takes time to learn and ultimately doesn't change what you already know.

There are over 400 something laws in Jewish life and yet, Jesus boiled them down to two. Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul. Love your neighbor as yourself. In these two commandments are the LAW and the PROPHETS. Talk about your summaries.

But what I think Jesus was trying to explain to the Pharisees in the above passage was the same thing that my friend was trying to explain to me in boot camp, "You're missing the point. I'm not in the book. I'm not in the law. Those things are only ways for you to find out about me." Jesus says that the true leader would be able to not only follow the laws but also practice justice and show the love of God.

Jesus's whole ministry was about taking the word down a peg and augmenting it with the deed. It wasn't enough to just be knowledgeable. If there was no practical application of that knowledge, all that was heard was a clanging cymbal (a noise without meaning). You could follow every commandment to the letter, know every law, do everything that you read about, but if you weren't also willing to sell all your possessions and follow Christ's example, everything you'd done would amount to nothing.

Action follows thirst. After doing all that research, after studying about compassion and love and righteousness, the only logical next step is to practice those things. To be in the world means that you need to study it, but also to experience it. It is not enough to donate off hand so that somebody else can do the work for you. You need to be out there doing the things that God wants you to do. The words are only there to point you the way to the well. You still have to physically go there to be filled.

Of course what action you take is dependent on what you need to satiate that thirst. For me, it was going to Kenya. For you it might be raising a family or educating kids or just being a shoulder to cry on in a time of need.

I don't think our actions have beginnings and endings. I think our actions become a way of living, a way of moving through the world and experiencing it. Visiting a homeless shelter once and dropping off an old coat is a good thing, but it is not a lifestyle. Actions should permeate our lives like yeast. They should move through us and raise us up and transform us until we are complete.

Knowledge is a fine thing, but learning about things and not being inspired to do things because of that knowledge ultimately does nobody any good. Knowledge comes first. Actions next. But neither works without the other.

Thirst Continued

There is an aspect to thirst that only occurred to me about thirty minutes after writing yesterday's blog. It was not a new thought, just one that I had not considered at the time I wrote the first part of the blog.

For me, it is not enough to be thirsty and to seek some sort of refreshment that will slake that thirst. I have to seek the best, the ultimate form of refreshment. In the past, I would tell people that I was a perfectionist. I knew that that adjective applied to my makeup, but one look at me would cause people to doubt my words. If they could have seen inside my mind, they would realize that while I often did not achieve perfection, perfection has always been my goal.

It is not enough for me to simply have a coca-cola. I want that coca-cola in the best possible way. I want it in just the right glass, at just the right temperature, during the perfect moment of the perfect activity in the perfect location. For me, it is not just the need to fulfill my desire, but to do it in such a way that that desire is permanently fulfilled. I can't just find a job working in the film industry, I need to be the next Walt Disney. I can't just write a book, I need it to be the Great American Novel. I can't just go to Kenya, look around, enjoy what I see, and come back, it needs to be an EPIC JOURNEY!

As you may imagine, I am constantly disappointed. My thirst can never be slaked because I make the conditions of being satisfied impossible to fulfill. I use my need for perfection as a wall against enjoyment.

I wonder though if this is a bad thing. Jesus said that he was the water of life and that whoever drank from him would never be thirsty again. Now there are two ways of interpreting that. The first way is that once you've had the Jesus drink, you never need to drink again. And the other way is that drinking of Jesus is the only way you will ever be satisfied - his drink is cool, refreshing, perfect and never runs out. Drink early and drink often and come back as often as you want. These are two different interpretations that both spell out as Jesus being the only true satisfaction to our thirst - but one way means that you can drink from Jesus and never be Thirsty again, and the other way means that you will continue to Thirst, but Jesus will always be there to slake your thirst.

I can never have perfection except through Jesus. But having Jesus, does my desire for perfection go away? Does my thirst for justice and peace and that ultimate sunset and ultimate love ever diminish? Of course not. Nor should I want it to.

So I have this problem with thirst. I get thirsty. I want to find the perfect way to slake my thirst. I try to find the ultimate expression of any earthly thing that can help to satisfy me, but fail every time. And yet, I know where to find that satisfaction. I know where to find that perfection. Thirst motivates me to do things. But the thirst I have creates impossible goals that can never be achieved. So I set myself up for failure at every turn. What I need to do is learn to become thirsty for the one thing that is perfect and that I can drink to my heart's content - Jesus.

I had a taste of this water in Kenya. My trip there was far from perfect and yet it was the most rewarding trip of my life. I want more of that. I want to drink deeply. God willing, I will.

Thirst

I remember going with my Dad and Uncle to a track meet in Berkeley when I was a kid. Ronaldo Nehemiah (before he was a 49er) was running the hurdles at the time and he just flew down the track, clearing those hurdles like they were nothing. Hurdles was never my thing. I always thought I'd have been great in Steeplechase, however. But I digress... The day was boiling hot, one of those rare plus 100 degree days in the Bay Area. We were in an exposed area of the bleachers and there was nothing to break the sun. Finally, after three hours, we left and walked back to our car. But just as we arrived at our car, we spotted a corner grocery store about 100 feet from the car. My Dad went in and bought three cokes. I kid you not, they were all gone before we reached the car. The coca cola evaporated in our mouths in less than ten seconds. I had never been so thirty in my life.

Thirst is a good synonym for desire, because we all thirst, and many times we quench that thirst with things that only make us more thirsty. Coca Cola, for instance, does not quench our thirst. It's slightly salty formula actually causes us to need more liquid. But on a hot day, a coca-cola will seem like an oasis in the midst of the Sahara Desert. When we are at our most thirsty, we will drink just about anything wet to slake that thirst.

On the other side of that equation is the knowledge that many of the reasons we are thirsty is not actually because we need hydrating. Sometimes our mouths need washing out. Sometimes we have become attuned to drinking things that aren't good for us - our desire for particular beverages having more to do with fulfilling other needs than for drinking itself. The need for liquid refreshments is more often than not a desire to quench something other than actual thirst.

When it comes to thirsts, however, I can often become a virtual camel. I can go for days or weeks without any sort of thirst at all. I merely wander through the desert of my life, ambling from place to place, with no particular thirst or desire guiding me. This, to me, is the quintessential definition of existing, not living.

To me life requires thirst. It is the one human trait, both good and negative, that defines us. When we wake up in the morning, if we are not thirsty for something, we will have no desire to move. We aren't satisfied. We aren't happy. We are merely existing - taking up space, breathing air, with no real impact on ourselves or anyone else. We are not getting in anyone's way because we are not going anywhere. Until we have a thirst, or desire, to properly motivate us, we have no direction.

Unfortunately, most times my desires are such that I will consume the first wet thing that comes along - regardless of whether or not it actually quenches my thirst. When I finally attain my desire, I discover all too quickly that I am still thirsty - that this thing didn't do a darn thing to satisfy me. If I feel the need to travel, I will find something that I've never done close by and I will go there on the weekend. I will no doubt enjoy myself. But come Monday, I will quickly discover that I still feel the need to travel. So I will then plan a longer vacation - maybe a week in DisneyWorld. And I will go there and spend enormous sums of money and have a "REALLY" good time - well worth the money I spent. But when I return from vacation and unpack my bags, I will realize that I still need to travel. Another destination, perhaps? A different destination? Maybe. A once in a lifetime expedition - couldn't hurt to try? But in the end, when I've tried everything and have traveled to all parts of the globe, and I still feel that desire, that thirst - perhaps I need to examine that thirst a little more closely and ask myself, what do I truly desire?

My Play Station Experiment

Over the weekend I decided to upgrade my 1970's tech and buy a relatively new game system - the Play Station 2 (Hey, I said relatively new... compared to an Atari). I was looking to score some cheap game playing action and add a new wrinkle to my entertainment experiences. But truth be told, I was after something a little deeper - escape. In all areas, my experiment failed miserably.

Since Kenya, I've been floundering. There hasn't been a natural replacement for my interests or enterprises. My second movie Dane failed. And my novel is coming slowly. I've been floating around without a direction looking for the next big thing to latch on to. And short of that, I've been looking to distract myself from this lack of direction. Hence, the Play Station experiment.

(Ironically, I went through the same thing at almost exactly this same time last year. It was resolved when I suddenly had a vision of walking in Kenya and I realized that I would be going there. My desire for a Play Station dissolved quickly after that.)

The problem with the Play Station 2 isn't that it isn't distracting - it excels at that - but that it brings into focus for me that which is most causing my floundering spirit. It isn't real. It's a facsimile of real. It's a fun facsimile of real. But ultimately, it is someone else's idea of a real world. Despite the game designers desire to give the players freedom to roam and do things, the players in the game lack any real free will. As a result, there are no consequences - only frustrations at failing a mission and having to do it over again. It is the simulation of life without the stimulation of life. It is the equivalent of a never emptying glass of water - no matter how much you drink you can't get to the bottom and you never are satisfied.

Kenya was real. In focus and sharp. In depth. In black and white and color. It was everything that a photo or a movie or a book or a game is not.

I was thinking about that and wondering if it was the games I had selected that was causing this feeling to occur. But I realized that no matter what entertainment source I chose, it was always going to be a simulation of real life.

I have outgrown simulated adventures. I have outgrown my need for a Play Station. I want to go on real adventures now, with real consequences, and real rewards. I want to affect change. I want to interact with real people in real time. I want to see the real world and be a real part of it.

Anyway... those are my words. There will be more to come.

Local Woman Saves Us All!

A local woman using an XRF gun discovered that McDonald's Shrek Glasses contained too much cadmium and sent an anonymous sample to Representative Jackie Speier. Congresswoman Speier then sent the glass to the CPSC for further testing. After testing, the CPSA contacted McDonald's about their concerns and a recall was issued for all 12 Million glasses. This anonymous woman should be commended. Who knows how much damage could have been done to the children of the world had this recall not been undertaken?

Of course, the fact that the glass's cadmium levels fell underneath the current Federal Guideline levels should not let us pause in thanking this woman from saving us all from certain death. Also, the fact that these glasses are not exclusively sold to children, should also not deter us from thanking this woman from saving an entire generation of children from gruesome death. We shouldn't even consider the fact that McDonald's recalled what was legally an entirely safe product made in the United States and that this recall will cost someone $24 million. Money is no object when certain death looms just around the corner.

No, no, let us Thank God that we live in a country where a woman with nothing better to do can go around buying perfectly safe products and testing them willy-nilly for potentially dangerous amounts of chemicals so that these products can then be recalled even though they are perfectly safe at the cost of several million dollars to American manufacturers. Where would this country be without such safety provisions in place? I mean, besides still having manufacturing jobs and low insurance rates, that is.

No, no, we live in a great society that understands that the cost of our potential safety is way more important than a few hundred jobs. I know I sleep better at night knowing that such people are out there to keep us safe - even if it might mean losing my job because some random person decides my product isn't safe, regardless of what the courts might say. The court of public opinion, after all, is the only real court we need.

So let us commend this anonymous woman and perhaps give her a parade and a meddle. She has truly saved us all from certain destruction!

Good call, Bud Selig... and other things I thought I'd never say.

We all feel for this Gallaraga kid that lost the Perfect Game. But for once, Bud Selig made the right non-call. While it would certainly be justified to correct a mistake by the umpire, handing over a perfect game after the fact would be a bigger mistake.

Its hard to imagine that there is any integrity left in Major League Baseball, but in general, one of its inviolates has been its scoring decisions. Right or wrong, blown call or not, once the next play happens, the call stands. It can not be undone by anyone. The game can be played in protest. The umpires can admit mistakes. But once play resumes, the call stands.

As egregious as this mistake was, coming as it did with the 27th batter in what would have been a perfect game, once the call was made and the next batter entered into the books, the perfect game was over. To reverse that decision and rule that the 27th batter was indeed out and the game was over, would be to say that the 28th batter was never in the game and that the pitcher never pitched to him.

This might have been fine for this one time, but what's to prevent an equally disagreeable call from occurring with the third batter of the game. Same exact situation otherwise. Do you then go back and reverse that call as well? How about home runs that are called foul or doubles or fan-interference? The game could have changed on that call. Do you undo those calls? Let's face it, reversing this call would have opened up a whole can of worms that nobody wants to deal with. At the very least, the 21st Perfect Game would forever carry an asterix and some notoriety as having been called perfect 24 hours or more after the fact.

As it is, this kid will now go down in the history of the sport as having pitched the Perfect Game That Never Was. His feat will be unique in the sport, not just another in a long line of great pitchers who threw perfect games.

On the other hand, I miss steroids. I'm tired of all these damned perfect games. I dig the long ball!