Grey is the Color of the World Today

I feel closer to the beginning of my learning now than ever. Clearly I am closer to the end than the beginning, so funny how life works that way. Each time I wash a dish or cook a meal my mind wanders to thoughts of how fragile all of these moments are. While I wish I was somehow savoring these actions, in some way making them grand learning experiences, touchstones on the road to in enlightenment, I am merely setting the table or cooking an omelet. However the fact that I am aware of the short time I will spend doing this seems important.

Seeking the Good

We seek good but we find disturbance. We cry for peace but there is none. We trust too much in ourselves really. It is time to let go and trust in the divine. Seek the holy.

Another day will fly by today. Sitting in a suit and tie I will be listening to people tell me stories (some credible, some not believable and most falling in a very murky soup between the two), of redemption from addiction. I will hear man of the same phrases again and again repeated as if they were part of a catechism of recovery. One day at a time, you are only as sick as your secrets, meeting makers make it and a plethora of other maxims will be recited in my general direction.

And then the day will be over.

Another night will then fly by with “events”. Sunday was hockey in metro Detroit, Monday was the school board meeting, Tuesday was my wife’s investment club meeting, tonight will be hockey in Jackson, tomorrow will be psychologist & young men’s choir & a Michigan Tastes dinner, Friday will be hockey and so will Saturday. Sunday will be Thanksgiving at the church. Then the cycle will reset except that there will be a bit of time spent on the road for the feast of dead bird.

It is hard to seek the holy in the endless rush between “stuff”. Still, you have to do it.

Last night at 11 p.m., I stopped the rush and committed to making a Vietnamese noodle soup to serve my family for breakfast. Rice noodles soaked, star anise, cinnamon, beef stock, onion, and ginger boiled. Pork was sliced thin. This variation on Hanoi noodle dish became breakfast today. As it cooked for the hour it took to make last night the house smelled of wonderful oriental neighborhoods in big cities. Taking each step of food preparation in its due time I stepped into the holy. The stock boiled until midnight. As I changed the water in the noodles to continue to allow them to soften I was lost in doing the job right.

I search for good. Sometimes I find it in simple acts for others.

Take a Moment and Exhale

Thursday, November 10, 2011

What must we do to break through the undifferentiated and uninterpretable noises of our modern life?

Merton has said a grand gesture (his example was a Vietnam protester who immolated himself) while riveting becomes contestable in three days and forgotten in ten. I think in 1965 when he wrote this he was right. Merton however was writing when the news cycle consisted of a morning paper and the evening news cast. Then the local news broadcast was about 15 minutes and the national feed was ½ hour. The home delivered paper could be dispensed with comics and all in under a half an hour. Now six hours is the time frame for contestable and 24 hours maximum for forgettable. We are inundated with media; cable, internet, radio are all pumping information non stop.

My concern is that the blaring noises drown out or ability to clear our minds. If we opt to unplug and tune out we lose hold of the cultural fabric and become irrelevant. If we hold on we become overwhelmed, our attention spans are lessened and our direct one on one interaction with others becomes muddled or lost. Maybe that is why I am drawn to mediation right now. We have to establish a ritual of silence.

Sitting in quiet trying to empty one’s mind is then when real perspective returns. The act of clearing one’s mind allows the clutter to dissolve away to the point of relative importance each piece of that jumble should hold. Let go of the world’s madness for a few minutes each day, don’t be the monkey holding the banana in the empty gourd, trapped by your own inability to let go.

The problem is that we must make time for the quiet. We have to disconnect manually and regularly from the world at a time when our mind is still active. Seeking quiet is not something we should be doing just before bed when we are tired. It can be morning, midday or evening but we must have something left of a spark in us when we sit down to meditate.

We make time for our bodies at gyms and by running and walking. We need to make time for our minds.

Kindness wins

Today’s start played out like this. My younger son Secundus, who is in an advanced English program at the local university, had to be at the university by 8 a.m. My older son contrary to his normal behavior slept in. Having made breakfast and put it on the table, biscuits and condiments, I wanted decaf coffee. None was available at home because I brew Kenyan Roast MAXIMUM caffeine for my wife and oldest son each morning. Primus’s teacher’s view this as a fair alternative to his sleeping through hour one and two.

The oversleeping by Primus derailed the well oiled machine of ritual. Confusion and kafuffle ensued. He was rousted while Secundus was already in the car. Primus was decked in rain gear and sent on his way by foot to the high school. Luckily we live close. I was dropped off at the coffee shop about 14 minutes walk from my office. Wife and Secundus sped off to pick up my son’s mate who is in the class with him and who also needed to be at the U by 8 a.m.

Once inside the coffee shop, that place of rich aromas I ordered my coffee. I added skim milk to this hot brown water. I stepped outside ready for the day. At that moment the rain was beginning to fall somewhat harder. Looking about because I was carrying an unopened umbrella, a brief case and a cup of coffee I placed the coffee on a ledge by the door and commenced to open the umbrella. Right then someone else exited and the vibration caused to coffee to jump off the ledge. As the paper cup hit the ground it exploded spilling hot decaf on my walking shoes. Distracted by free fall of Biggby’s best decaf my focus was on the ground and I missed the oncoming tine of my umbrella. The expanding umbrella poked me in the eye causing me to flinch and almost lose my balance.

Wet with ran and coffee I refolded the umbrella and picked up the empty cup and its now distended lid. I walked back in the store refilled and got a new lid. I walked back out and commenced the walk into my office.

It was only after I crossed the large and busy intersection situated between the coffee shop and the path to my office I realized the cup had been damaged and the lid would not stay on and was not preventing the hot coffee from dripping onto my hand every so often. Youch. Despite wanting desperately to sip some hot coffee for the cold rain had picked up I couldn’t because the lid would pop off and the contents would pour out on my garments. So on I trudged grimacing at each uneven spot on the sidewalk as coffee dripped onto my hand.

By the time I reached work the coffee was cold. Ugh. I threw the cup in the micro warmed it and put it into a real cup I have at my desk.

The only thing that made it all better was opening my e-mail and finding a daily inspirational blurb from my Buddhist magazine. I attach the blurb here. Reading such an affirming piece was like a cosmic kiss on the boo boo that was the day’s start.

During a lecture while I was interpreting for the Dalai Lama, he said in what seemed to me to be broken English, “Kindness is society.” I wasn’t smart enough to think he was saying kindness is society. I thought he meant kindness is important to society; kindness is vital to society; but he was saying that kindness is so important that we cannot have society without it. Society is impossible without it. Thus, kindness IS society; society IS kindness. Without concern for other people it’s impossible to have society.

– Jeffrey Hopkins, "Equality"

No matter the rushing, the spilt coffee and the general aggravation I feel today I have vowed to say please and thank you and to offer an empathetic ear. Kindness wins out over mere aggravation.

Refreshed/Not Refreshed

My wife was gone for the weekend. We have friends who have a gorgeous and spacious “cabin” on Lake Michigan by Elk Rapids. She went up and met with her female cadre that used to get together once monthly for a “bitches brunch”. This was ergo the “bitches weekend”, their terminology not mine. The weather was perfect and she came back refreshed and invigorated. Ugh. Might I be fighting off some jealousy? Yup. Could envy be involved? Sure.

As for me I was with the kids and it was as you might imagine a battle of will and wits. Secundus had to work on a paper. Being in an advanced English program he has a 3-5 page paper due each week in English. This week his mission was to compare and contrast the behaviors of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with current psycho-medical thought on multiple personality disorders. Such work requires online research. Online research means Secundus was using a computer. Using a computer leads to gaming. Gaming leads to Dad getting apoplectic. Arggh. Did I in my envy mention that my wife was enjoying one of the most beautiful weekends of several recent falls sitting on a beach by a campfire watching the horizon on Lake Michigan. Drinking wine with good friends too.

On Thursday Primus got the word he did not make the hockey team for our local high school. More on this will follow in a subsequent post. There is bitterness involved.

On Friday before my wife left to go eat ambrosia and walk long stretches of beautiful beach I got on the horn and started searching for somewhere Primus could play stick hitting hard rubber biscuit on ice. The local league refused to put a midget team on the ice this year. The cause might have been the dope smoking by several team members last year. Or the brawling amongst ourselves and without teams or maybe it was just the pain in the ass factor of it all.

Having no local teams we had to look elsewhere. Most midget teams are either in Detroit metro or in Grand Rapids. I got lucky in that there is a team in Jackson half the distance to Grand Rapids that needed bodies. From what I saw of them on Saturday they can use a little muscle. Many e-mails and texts followed. Eventually I got another kid to sign on to play who also got cut from our local high school. Thus we will have a plan of transport for alternate weeks.

Primus and I went down to Jackson with the other kid’s family on Saturday night. We watched the last few minutes of their game. Turns out a couple of players used to play in our league but when they realized they wouldn’t make high school they shifted to a less expensive league than our local one. It was good to see some familiar faces.

Sunday was spent waiting to see if the kids got rostered. If you aren’t on the roster you can’t get on the ice. There was a game Sunday and if they were rostered they would have played. They didn’t so we have to wait until Wednesday to hit the ice and it will only be a practice. Such is life. But the waiting and calls and texts burnt up half the day. The other half a day I spent weed whacking and doing winter prep on the exterior of the house. I ache today.

Back to my wife, with her new Iphone 4s she came home refreshed showing me the well shot and quite lovely video of the warm wonderful campfire on Lake Michigan at sunset. She talked about how invigorated she was. She looked at me and said you really do need a night away from the kids. Double Argggh.

Life and nothing but. I need some time away. Triple Arggh.

Okay I am better now.

Sometimes You Have to Let Go and Let the Wheel Throw You Where it May.

I believe that we can dream and that we ought to dream things writ large. I believe that we can try to and in fact ought to act to make those dreams real trying with every fiber of our being to obtain or to make something better.

If we fail after hard work and honest effort we should learn something from our not attaining, not achieving, not finishing. We are sinew, blood and mind for only a short time and some knowledge should be taken from every moment that fate or the fates or God or Gods allow us.

If we succeed let us hope the reward was worth the cost.

The Clouds Over Me

Life and death, as my teacher used to point out, are just different names for different states. These are not permanent states. If we have to give it a name, Life with a capital "L" is the basic reality. Ours is not an inert universe, it's an alive universe; so what we call birth and death are just temporary states, temporary transformations, names for our true self at one time, and in one situation.

– Philip Kapleau Roshi, "Life with a Capital "L": An interview with Philip Kapleau Roshi"

Friday, October 14, 2011

Most of the time I get to think about anything that is not a perceived urgency is when I am waiting for a bus. It is almost a time of meditation for me. Today the clouds were moody in the way Joni Mitchell described them in a song on the work Hejira. Let me look up that lyric quickly.

Ah I couldn’t grab the lyric but here is the link.

Today I was thinking about just the ritual of life, the cycles that nature imposes on us. Day falls into day. Bus ride follows bus ride. Work is what work is. Existence does not allow for easy enlightenment. It takes work, it takes practice. To transform what we do with this “L”ife we have to work at freeing ourselves from the easy capture of our minds/our souls in ritual. Just saying.

Don't Let This Beautiful Day Slip Away

I have reached that point in life where glorious perfect days seem a thing of the past. My memory will hold onto a few for a time and then they will be gone.

Imperfection surrounds me, at home, at work, in my public service. In the past couple of days I have been dealing with the skullduggery of the political world I haven chosen to inhabit. In the background I have been hearing a conversation somewhat akin to Bill Clinton and the mother of all political parsing, “ it depends on what the meaning of is is”. Also I have been sorting out/motivating a child to sort out an E in Geometry. What happened to F? I liked F. Got a few of ‘em, those bad boys were drawn in red Faber pencil and they were motivators to me. My feet hurt. My brother is in recovery from cancer surgery still. An uncle I like is in hospice. In reality I think all the perfect days are gone.

But it is okay. Jimmie Dale Gilmore summed up what I feel most days as I awaken. No matter what has occurred or will occur I will accept it eventually.

Tell me now that you know how to greet the dawn each day.
Fearless and unfettered, stand before the sun and pray.
There's no controversy, let silence judge your plea
For justice or for mercy, they both will set you free.

It's a braver, newer world you've found,
Rolling 'round and 'round and 'round and 'round
It's a braver, newer world you've found.

Show me know that you know how to play the winning game.
Laughing 'til the sky stands still with neither praise nor blame.
There's still time for heaven, though we're already there.
The daily bread will leaven all hope, all pain, all care.

Jimmie Dale Gilmore appears from what I can to be a Buddhist influenced cowboy singer. While his stuff is hit and miss for me, when it hits it is really awesome. This song every single time I play it takes me to a different far calmer place than the one I occupy before I sit back and listen to it. It is that last lyric that rings so true. The perfect days may be gone but there is still time for a kind of heaven with acceptance.

In searchof connection

Paying attention provides the gift of noticing, and the gift of connecting. It provides the gift of seeing a little bit of ourselves in others, and of realizing that we’re not so awfully alone. It allows us to let go of the burden of so much of what we habitually carry with us, and receive the gift of the present moment.



-Sharon Salzberg, "A More Complete Attention"

Walking in a Dark Alley

In the past several days I have been in a bit of a pressure cooker. Against all advice last year I ran for an elected position. I won. The position has turned into hell. Do you know how many people are willing to say I told you so in such a situation? A great number really. They usually begin with a “Thank you for serving, I would never do it, it is an untenable spot you are in.” The I told you so you come in the second burst of conversation after this.

Two nights ago I endured a public hearing where I was called a racist, was compared to a Nazi and was told I was the agent of white privilege. C’est la vie. I won’t take my time here to spout my leftist credentials but they exist. Okay I will spout them a little. I had my own “red” file back in the day when the state’s attorney general maintained them. I have my arm bands from numerous marches for equal rights. I studied equal protection from one of the drafters of the government’s brief in Brown vs. Board.

The core issue for me is one that is a much larger one than the particular battle I find myself caught up in. It is an issue of the stratification of class in America and our inability as a public to deal with that. We as a people have lost all perspective and it seems we have lost all our common sense as well. Somehow we have to deal with providing education to our children at a high level of quality, provide infrastructure for the conduct of civil society and care to those who cannot care for themselves. Raise taxes, cut spending, do one or the other, but don’t just let the issue sit.

I do believe that lobbying has screwed us up. Just saying. Both parties have claimed they were going to clean up the system in the past few rounds of elections but neither side has done squat.

One thought I return again and again is that maybe Vonnegut was right, as a nation we are too large. Maybe we should be divided up into a number of smaller countries that are more responsive to the individual needs of the geographic region’s peoples. Maybe not. Maybe the red state and blue state regions should divide and provide libertarian and socialistic governance styles to their respective approving populi. We could mutual commit to fund defense and interstate highways and not much else.

My choice that I am facing is to whether or not to close a school and if a school is closed to pick which one it will be. I will make a choice and live with the consequences because that is what people have elected me to do. Personally I think I have to vote to close a school, maybe more. Remember I am a socialist and this is a hard choice to make.

I don’t believe it is all for nothing it isn’t written on the wind to quote Jamie Robbie Robertson. We take on the job of public service because it needs to be done and because we all owe an obligation of public service to the commonwealth we reside in. Just because I make a decision that does not satisfy you doesn’t make me comparable to those who relocated the Jews of Europe to the death camps.

Now I have now gotten that off my chest. I will not speak of it again. Soon I will go back to ruminating on the ill advised adventures of my youth or perhaps the surreal moments of living with an ASD child, an unnaturally bright child and two demented cats. The vote is a few days off and so I may not be posting or e-mailing much before then.

Doing this job has really been turning me toward Buddhism. Today from the Tricycle’s daily motivation blurb I offer the following small part:

We can receive teachings on the nature of suffering, compassion, or emptiness, but when we sit down to practice, no one can show us how to integrate these teachings. What we end up doing with the wild and unruly character of our thoughts and emotions still remains a question for us. How we bring the practice to life is something personal, and it can’t be taught.

– Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, "The Power of an Open Question"

A Darn Good Quote on Religion

I recieve a daily comment from Tricycle a quarterly periodical on Buddhism with a tie to how American approach this "faith". Today's quote was:

Right Speech and Religious Diversity

Right speech is a vast, important topic in Buddhist training, and nowhere is it more important than in delicate conversations across religious lines. In our current context, arguments or debates about religion are counterproductive and only produce more sorrow and anguish. As Buddhists, we want to avoid participating in or contributing to the contentious atmosphere that permeates much public discourse about religious diversity

I liked this quote but it was in the comments section I found this quote and I really like it. Thus I share.

Let us never forget that the purpose of all religious techniques should be about liberating ourselves from suffering. Which tradition or traditions they come from are largely irrelevant, as the teaching itself will either hold water and be adopted or not and be discarded. The whole where it came from and who thought of the technique first debate is interesting intellectually but from a skillful means perspective is largely irrelevant. Does the man dying of thirst question the religious pedigree of the water before, probably not or he dies.

Buddhabrats

The Boy Abroad-For a Day

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

The mysteries of the teenage mind or otherwise; they so define the changing being that is my son. There are so different from the mysteries of the minds of the old.

Primus was placed on a bus this morning to head off to Stratford, ON to see Richard III by Wm. Shakespeare. It was part of a high school English class boondoggle. Primus has been to Stratford on many occasions. Into his pocket I shoved $25 CDN and gave him advice on the exchange rate. We are on the losing side of that proposition right now.

Despite his numerous stops in Stratford he had no clue as to where he was headed. I mentioned the odd five point intersection. No recall. I mentioned the high street and the river street and the stairs that ran from one to another betwixt the store facades. Nope that didn’t jog any remembrance. It was not until I mentioned two places, the science store Quark Soup and the toy store with the bugs and air cannons. Restaurants, ice cream stores, etc., did not jog the memories but a toy store that sold some miniature plastic ants and a science store where he bought a plushie of the mad cow pathogen these illuminated his memory. At that point he knew the place.

It was at this point he did remember the lamb curry they served in Bentley’s. Ah the synapses must first be fired by the joys of toys and then the food memories come back. Although I didn’t think of it until know if I had mentioned the fine china shop with the five or six cats that roam freely among the plates and tureens that too might have awaked him to a sense of place.

I am old. The stars by which I steer and remember the paths of my journeys are restaurants and pubs where good repast was had or museums and places deemed by others mostly to have “significance”. My son is young and he steers by reminiscences of simpler joys.

Autism-A Starting Point for Parents

I am attaching below a link to a website tied to Michigan State University's ASD-Michigan Project. It is a good starting point to find resources to help face the challenges of Autism.

http://autism.educ.msu.edu/parents.html

It is important to realize that Autism Spectrum Disorder is a growing reality for many Americans. Teachers, educators, parents, coaches, the police and people in every walk of life need to be aware of and be proactive in dealing with ASD persons. If you are a parent and suspect your child is on the spectrum follow up. If you are a person in a position of authority over such a child, educate yourself. The impact on your life and theirs will be immense.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20110913/NEWS05/109130313/MSU-study-Autistic-students-needs-sometimes-overlooked

Hope Brought by Song

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

On the way into work today I was listening to K.D. Lang sing. It was beautiful. I will post the link below of the song that I was hearing. Methinks I will also post the lyrics because they are so hopeful, so right for a moment with so many dark currents swirling about.

The music came from Hymns of the 49th Parallel. So moving, so wonderful are the tunes contained on this shiny round piece of plastic that the dashboard of my car swallows and then aurally renders. The four song cycle that this song sits in the middle of includes, After the Goldrush, Simple, Helpless and I Could Drink a Case of You. All of these songs are wistful, longing, romantic and ultimately hopeful. There is a shininess to them that lifts me out of any funk I might be in.

Three of the four of these songs were created by 1970 when the zeitgeist was a belief in unlimited possibility. It was a time when freedom, justice and love were the touchstones; well they were the watchwords at least. I think we did okay on the justice part but we really bungled it badly on how we handled the love and freedom part. Still, when I can tap into that moment as when a song like this and its mates touch those memories of the era I remember what we, what I was striving for. When I feel that feeling again it is easier to face a day filled with the petty grievances, the failed schemes, the greed and the myopia that so surrounds us.

Motivated by a lyric sung high and hopeful I can focus again on love and justice and freedom in a world that seems to have lost its way.




Flawless light in a darkening air
Alone...and shining there
Love will not elude you

Love is simple
I worship this tenacity
And the beautiful struggle we’re in
Love will not elude us

Love is simple
Be sure to know that

All in love
Is ours
And love, as a philosophy
Is simple

I am calm in oblivion
Calm, as I ever have been
Love will not elude me
Love is simple
Be sure to know that
All in love
Is ours...
Is ours...

That all in love
Is ours
And love, as philosophy
Is simple...
And ours...

Manic Day

Monday, September 12, 2011

I can hear the lyrics of that Prince penned tune ringing in my ears, “Just another manic Monday…”

Starting the working week is like practicing for an imminent disaster at my house. Lunches are being shoved into bags, people are asking for coffee stat and books and papers are being sought out with frenzy. Freshman, Junior, Director of Marketing and lawyer; all are running about searching, packing and ranting. I don’t think we all actually sit at the table for breakfast at the same time. Might be an overlap occasionally but it is not something that usually happens.

My commitment to the American way, my valiant effort, is to insure that Monday’s breakfast is a decent one. My wife this morning got grits with cheddar cheese and heirloom tomatoes mixed. Secundus received dry toast and a bowl of raspberry applesauce (homemade) and Primus got a mini-melon fresh from the farmer’s market. I scooped out the seeds from that puppy and they are drying in a paper towel for next year. Me I had oatmeal with walnuts, currants and half and half. 3 of the 4 bleary eyed maniacs got black Kenyan coffee and one opted for milk.

The two moments of the weekend that stood out. First, while having dinner at a Chinese restaurant my oldest borrowed my iphone. When I told him to given it back after about 10 minutes he let me know he was in the middle of his physics homework. Apparently it is all math and all online. With the iphone’s scientific calculator and the web interface he was good to go. My how the world has changed, if the parents’ conversation turned boring do your physics homework online.

Second was the issue of the artistic temperament thing we have been dealing with. On Sunday I found out Secundus was trying out for a role in the Scottish play. Banquo, Duncan, McDuff would all be good parts. But as a frosh he might just get to be one of the assorted murderers. The way it came out was that he had an opportunity to audition for the MSU children’s choirs.

For years Secundus has wanted to be in the choir. But yesterday he seemed to just not care. ADHD/Depression whichever it is he was in a funk. In the end it came down to cajoling him by couching his audition as a dry run for auditioning for Mackers. While others were told the choir master would be in touch Secundus was accepted on the spot.

It is hard to watch a child with talent struggle so. To see why he was accepted so readily into the choir, see below.

Dream

There are moments when I dream images of a café somewhere exotic.

This phantom bistro is probably not France; the language is too harsh too many consonants are crashing one into the other in the staccato speech I overhear. Also it is not France because it is at the end of what should be summer the air on my exposed skin is a little too crisp. Horse draw carts pass motorbikes on cobblestone streets. Little Vespa-like rides bob this way and that. Under a bit of an overcast sky I sit outdoors at a street side table and listen to the noise of life as it is building through the morning. My time here is measured in leisurely hours.

My assumption in this dream is that this is all taking place on a Sunday morning. Some people sweep in front of shops that are not opening today. The boulevard before me while broad is not packed with persons traveling too and fro, however it is not empty either. The auguries of traffic patterns aside what really makes me think it is Sunday is that there is a certain elegance to the dress of those who are passing. Maybe they are on there way to, or perhaps, from mass. Dark haired and swarthy of complexion wearing black suits and cream colored blouses the people here convey a firm and solid beauty.

Colors on the buildings have faded. Once this place must have been prosperous for marble arches can be found in many building entrance ways. The marble is dirty with soot and grit now but there is still the elegance of a dowager refusing to accede to her fall in status. The city is neatly kept if worn and tired.

The air smells of the nearness of large water. There is a cleansing from the saline quality the air acquires near the ocean. Perhaps that is why I am here. Could it be I have come for my health? Whatever the reason I am in this place I am alone as I sip strong coffee and eat a breakfast pastry. I read as I observe this world. What I am reading is old, a battered copy of The Return of the Native. I know I have read it before but maybe it was all that I could find in English here in this place.

Sipping the dark strong roast I hear a seagull. Looking up I see it soaring up and over the roof of the row of buildings across the boulevard. I hear other birds erupt into screeching once it has cleared the roof-line.

And then I am awake and the place is gone. I feel a sense of loss at waking.

Tumult in a Small Town

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Grey morning today. It seems warmish but the overall feel is one of melancholy. Fall is waiting just around the corner, waiting for the page to be ripped off my Dilbert comic of the day calendar. Some leaves have fallen but they are not enough to motivate me to do anything in the yard, not yet at least.

My life is filled with turmoil right now. Last year I ran for the school board. Little did I know I would be the swing vote on a number of issues. My last name has a consonant near the end of the alphabet and when vote time comes, I am the last in the roll call. Thus when the vote for the board president occurred I was the deciding vote. Again when the vote to close a school occurred I was the deciding vote.

Each of these votes was significant and I think the first vote has played a part in many of the decisions of the board since it occurred. I think the second vote being another 4-3 split had coloration from the first vote. It is a shame too. Everyone on the board has commitment to the welfare of our students but we all bring with us the resonating vibrations and emanations of experiences past.

An Axe was Found in the Barn amongst the Crates of Vienna Sausages and Vanilla Scented Candles. So was a Copy of Darwin's Origin of the Species

In Which Part Our Half Naked Hero Newly Arrived on the Scene Wearing Just Pajamas and Peanut Butter Obtains a Working Set of Correction Department Handcuffs

Zen practice isn’t about a special place or a special peace or something other than being with our life just as it is. It’s one of the hardest things for people to get: that my very difficulties in this very moment are the perfection. “What do you mean, they’re the perfection? I’m gong to practice and get rid of them!” No, we don’t have to get rid of them, but we must see their nature. The structure becomes thinner (or seems thinner); it gets lighter and occasionally we may crack a hole right through it.

Joko Beck, Everyday Zen p. 138

Last night I voted to close a school. It is a decision that has been percolating for a long, long time in my community. The decision was not easy; the vote was 4-3. The outcome was not satisfying. But life in these times in schools in every district across our country is not easy nor is it satisfying.

Our country is facing challenges brought about by our national myopia, greed on a scale not seen in generations (both individual and corporate) and by institutionalized hubris. While the dismal state of our economics seems to be the focus of the pols and the news dissemination services, our core communal morality is at risk. We collectively seem to have lost sight of values that were instrumental to our moving forward as a nation, as a people.

While those short statement set forth in the paragraphs above may sound conservative, I am not conservative by tea party or Republican standards. Duh. Not a xenophobe, homophobe, social Darwinist, libertarian, or a socialist (although I claim to be) I am merely an average citizen truly worried about what happens next.

I believe in some basic constructs:

• We should live within in our means,
• We should expect a solid effort from all of our citizens to the extent of their abilities,
• We should engage in democracy and not simply be observers on the sidelines,
• We should take care of those who cannot take care of themselves,
• Education is a core value,
• Taxes are not inherently evil,
• Taxes are not a panacea,
• We should accept people for who they are,
• No one has a right to a free ride,
• No one should be expected to carry more than they are able to,
• No one is entitled to privilege by some right of birth,
• The middle way or the golden mean, Buddha or Aristotle, is what we should be striving for, neither excess or deficiency, and
• We should live the golden rule.

Maybe a nation of 300+ million people is too large to be manageable. Maybe Kurt Vonnegut was right and we should be Balkanized, that is cut up into small countries. In a smaller nation state maybe a individual voice has a greater chance to be heard and individuals have a greater more direct stake in the outcome of political decision. I just don’t know.

In Which Part Our Half Naked Hero Newly Arrived on the Scene Wearing Just Pajamas and Peanut Butter Obtains a Working Set of Correction Department Han

Zen practice isn’t about a special place or a special peace or something other than being with our life just as it is. It’s one of the hardest things for people to get: that my very difficulties in this very moment are the perfection. “What do you mean, they’re the perfection? I’m gong to practice and get rid of them!” No, we don’t have to get rid of them, but we must see their nature. The structure becomes thinner (or seems thinner); it gets lighter and occasionally we may crack a hole right through it.

Joko Beck, Everyday Zen p. 138

Acceptance is hard. For me it is a daily struggle. Last night was rough. More to follow in the next post.

Another Summer has Come and Gone

Monday, September 05, 2011

Labor Day in Michigan is like hand reaching out to a wall mounted light switch and flipping the switch down. Labor Day clicks off to summer invariably. Looking upward and to the west the sky is grey. Today the temperature will struggle to be in the sixties. Many days will follow like this.

As I took about a 40 minute walk through the town, empty now with those celebrating the holiday gone to points north, there were trees that had gone from green to red. So quickly the color will fill in the rest of what is green in the picture now with yellow and orange and dusky shades of brown. One day not too far off those colors will be gone and the trees will be bare. There may be a couple of warm days between now and mid-October but the switch has been flipped.

Journeys to apple orchards and hockey rinks await. The transition of clothing is coming too. First will be the hooded fleeced shells and light denim jackets. Next there will be the addition of a down vest to the ensemble. Shortly thereafter will come the use of gloves and hats. As early November rolls in the bulkier coats will come out of the closet. I joke not. Halloween is always a dicey proposition with the gear ranging from costume alone to full winter jacket over the clown outfit. Sleet, snow or Indian summer; October 31 can be any and all of these things.
Summer has vanished like a quick afternoon.

All the months of my life are now like fleeting hours. Just a moment ago I turned to do a few simple tasks and when I turned back from my work my life has flown by.

Can't Sell You No Beer

The weekend flew by. On Friday night there was a high school football game for my community. Both my children are now in high school. Secundus is in the band. His membership in this organization has motivated my attendance at the mini war. Our team won. Under the lights last Friday it was a great moment for the blue and white colors of the uniforms. We beat the read and black (I think).

During the time I was at the game I spoke to about thirty people. I saw the head of the school district, the principal, the vice principal, the dean of students, the head of the band boosters, the school districts bond counsel, a former client from my days in private practice, the athletic director, another former client, a political activist I worked with on John Kerry’s campaign and a fellow school board member. As you might guess I did not really see the game.

3/4ths of my time was spent talking about the need for/how to get money to build the school new buildings. Some of the time was spent talking about band events like the party afterward. Secundus went. He loved it. Some of the time was spent on the fact that the thug who was long term suspended last use for a interaction with a law enforcement officer and who was banned from school activities was present. Most of the time I found myself talking to any person that took a moment to grab my arm and bend my ear.

It was a great thing, okay a good thing that our laundry prevailed this time. But it is in moments like these that you figure out how small a world it is. My first old client was at the game because he played college football with the coach of our team. The bond counsel was at the game because her daughter plays in the band with my son. The same was true of the second old client. The political activist is married to the bond counsel. Etc, etc.

There is an old song by James McMurtry called small town and the lyrics are apropos.

Blue Sky Meditation

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

What do I need is the question Thomas Merton asked of me this morning as I picked up his book instead of the Zen one. A simple question this one like the questions of most sincere seekers has no ready pat answer. The question was posed on a beautiful Kentucky morning as the monk wrote in his personal journal.

Merton’s answer, at least on that day as he wrote long hand into his moleskin or spiral bound there in his hermitage was, “If necessary I can get by with plenty of mornings like this. Seriously, I need silence, though and solitude to enter into myself and see and touch reality, to live a contemplative life.”

I can agree with some of what he has said. The air today right now is 63 degrees F, the air is pale blue and absolutely free of clouds and there is no humidity anywhere. As I look up I am filled with the thoughts I had as a young boy thinking of travelling great distances in spaceships and of kite flying and of going swimming to “waste’ an afternoon. I can get by with a morning like this. It is not enough my spirit wants something more but there is value to being here/being now in a day like this. We don’t get many like this in our lives now do we?

Staring into the pale blue morning sky is a Zen meditation in itself. It is also a prayer to an almighty God in his goodness giving thanks for all this is right with this world. It is an act of openness to possibilities that lie outside of my self.

One of my struggles with Merton is a thin line that I think exists in the realms of those who would live apart from the “world”. It is the divide between solitude to clear away the clutter of the world and allow us to focus on the core essential aspects of being or of the divine and solitude that becomes self absorption taken to its ultimate narcissistic conclusion. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think Merton crossed that line but pulling back from the world can easily result in the world becoming the boundaries of your own ego.

Like Merton I want solitude so that I may have a time to meditate, to think about the broader aspects of life and its meaning. I must guard against misdirection and complacency. I don’t want those times I find solitude to create my own little world. Sitting on a stoop, surrounded by a cacophony of sounds, staring into a blue sky with an open soul beats sitting on a mat in a dimly lit room where I am trying to clear my mind but instead refocusing again on me and my issues.

Monday, August 08, 2011

No illusion, no deception, I remain aware of all the wrongs I have done. In moments of meditation all my masks must fall away with a noisy clattering sound. These masks are of odd material some hard some pliable but all have been constructed with years and years of choices. As a result of the accretion of poor choices made over time they have become quite heavy.

It is in the solitude of meditation that I strip away the masks, the grinding burdensome weight of the years. Silence alone with your soul does not tolerate lies. Quiet contemplation is akin to walking with a pebble in you shoe. You cannot countenance the irritant long and so it must be cast out. You stop, you consciously search for what is wrong and then you throw the pebble away. To take a few moments each day to sit quietly emptying your mind is to cast out the pebbles that stop us from being fully empowered, fully away, fully in acceptance.

No Coffee for You!!!

After some chest pain the other week I went and saw my cardiologist. My bike and I had trouble getting up a hill. The quack and I talked and he told me that the chances were that it was not my heart. However once you are in a doctor’s office you will not leave without a test. We did a stress test, well actually two one without isotopes and the other with. Afterwards he okayed me to travel and do all the normal stuff.

As has often been the case when I visit my cardiologist I was read the riot act regarding caffeine. “G Manitou” he said with impatience, “You have got to cut the caffeine out totally”. Urggh I thought. Caffeine is my life blood. I am not a coffee drinker mind you but I have since about 10 years old consumed copious amounts of ice tea. Urggh I thought. Ice tea equates to the happy days of my youth as much as Tastykakes and cheesesteaks did.

Right now I am at two weeks without caffeine. I am making do with drinking dirty brown water in the form of either decaf ice tea (it I make it at home) or decaf McDonald’s coffee (once a day). At least the smell awakens memories.

It is only when you fall outside the norm you see the existing paradigm. As the Manitou family travelled last week I discovered how hard it was to find decaffeinated beverages. Once you are below the mid-point in Indiana it is impossible. America is addicted to this common stimulant to the degree we don’t even converse about it anymore. Opting to not drink caffeinated products is like making a choice to ride a bicycle to work or to wear only union made/American made clothing. You pretty much stand out as a freak.

On the road you have 20 or more choices of caffeine based products. Coke, Pepsi, diet colas, energy drinks with beastly sounding name cram the walk in coolers. If you want something else you have two or three choices at maximum, Sprite (or its variant produced by Pepsi or the local bottler), highly sugared sweet soda pop like orange or plastic bottles filled with water. I don’t need the calories of Sprite, I don’t like fruity drinks and I don’t want to add to the land fills so I don’t buy bottled water. Most of the time I went without a beverage to quench my thirst on those long ride segments.

One good thing that has come of it is that I am sleeping better. Without question when my head hits the pillow I am ready to take my rest. Also I am hitting the sack earlier. When you hit that wall of tiredness at 10:30 I have no reserves and so I just hand the day on the nail and pack it in.

In the long run I will probably be better for this. But for right now I miss my caffeine.

On a Hot Morning a Search for the Good

Blazing hot stuffy air, barely moved by a little breeze…
Meadowlark sitting quietly on a fence post in the dawn sun, his gold vest bright in the light of the east, his black bib tidy is turning his head this way, that way. This is Zen quietness without comment.

Thomas Merton

On those mornings that I do not read something spiritual I find myself lost during the course of the day. It need not be a holy text but it must be focused on something beyond the day to day demands that our urgent world places upon us. Thoughts about meaning and value or simply directions to practice zazen that is silent meditation these prepare me for those challenges I will see in any given cycle at the office.

Prayer, meditation and ritual all faiths seem to involve one of these. Many a person without faith has ritual. A morning stroll for a paper and coffee or an evening beer on the back porch these can be as important as a vespers service. Maybe we are hard wired for this stuff. Maybe it is something we need intrinsically.

Dance in Light-Gratitude

One of the Buddhist maxims I stumbled across last night said that as a part of ritual to start the day I was to look at someone with gratitude. Other things involved in the ritual for commencing the day involved carefully preparing my meal, washing my bowl afterward, meditating and reading something silently.

Most of the stuff I do already. It is funny but one can be very mindful when preparing oatmeal and tea at the start of a day. And I usually read something spiritually/morally focused before I begin my first case.

When I first thought about the suggested look of gratitude I wondered how difficult it would be. Conveying gratitude is conveying appreciation or thankfulness. While I have contact with many people during the day, their acts carried out toward me are just done in the normal course of the stream of existence; they aren’t favors or kindnesses. Most people are just part of the world and on a basic gut level it doesn’t seem like I owe them thanks just for being.

As I thought about this I circled back to the concepts of mindfulness and acceptance. Each person I interact during each day is a sentient being and I owe them respect. Their lives are as fraught as mine with sadness and pain, struggle and doubt. In many cases the people I deal with are more tormented than I am. Many have sought refuge from the burdens of this world in chemicals and have allowed addiction to overcome their selves. Still it is easy to think that I don’t owe them thanks.

The people I work with as coworkers are just trying to make it from sunrise to sunset. They do what life has trained them to do in giving their effort. For the most part they are not overtly hostile. Sometimes they are downright helpful. Okay sometimes I owe them thanks but it is not a continuous thing.

However as Pablo Neruda said in his Noble Laureate acceptance speech we are all doing this clumsy dance of life together before a fire in a great unknown wilderness in an infinite night. Life is the fire itself in my mind and the dark wilderness and night is all that lies beyond this life. Using this metaphor I can appreciate that each and every person I come into contact with is doing the same dance that I am. I can look at them with gratitude for I am grateful they are willing to dance with me in the light and warmth of life’s fire.

Do not speak- unless it improves on silence.

Ah my soul felt empty this morning. The kids are home from school and camps have not begun. Things that might benefit them like reading books or riding their bikes are not even on their radar. Instead the allure of computer gaming draws their focus. The house is disheveled. My school board meeting last night was brutal so I spent the hour between its end and my going to sleep by watching a weird science fiction show that I really don’t care about. But I was drained. When I got up my soul was empty.

When that happens I have to pull out the tried and true resources, the Bible, Merton, Portals of Prayer, Moon in a Dewdrop or maybe my new read Everyday Zen. Merton won out this a.m. Merton’s reflections today in my Year with Thomas Merton were tied to a visit from a fellow monastic who was versed in both Christian and Eastern faiths. As Merton noted the visit he noted his perturbation with a loud tractor in a field near the monastery. It seemed to him that this year’s model was louder and more aggressive sounding.

To paraphrase Merton, our new machines, our bright shinning “improved” tools represent our fury, our restlessness, our avidity and ultimately our despair. Around and around both our machines and our “paths of progress” go; he viewed it as so many meaninglessly pieces of clanking metal on a giant circular path. In search of something better we travel on an empty sad path.

Our desires to get the next thing to fill a hole in our life never actually fill it. And we have repeated the cycle often enough to know at least at the subconscious level that the new boy or girl friend, the new blouse, the new car will not change us and make us happier. So often our attempts at making “it” better leave the problem (or perhaps a better term is the emptiness) worse than it was before.

There is an ad out now trying to sell an upgrade program at a big box electronics store. In essence the advert goes like this, if you buy a computer today the computer with the x factor will be released tomorrow and the little kid next door will make fun of you. If you buy into the optional upgrade program you will get some allotted portion of your current purchase price applied to the next best thing when you buy that. Did I mention meaningless clanking? In this case the meaningless clanking becomes ritualized. What we need is acceptance of ourselves in place in our world.

I guess this is just a long winded way of getting to the point of acceptance and mindfulness as a way to approach the day. What is mindfulness? “Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn't more complicated that that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.” Sylvia Boorstein said this. Take today on its own terms mindfully you don’t need to fill any holes. Maybe it is better to say lose the passion to fill the holes.

The beauty of life is, while we cannot undo what is done, we can see it, understand it, learn from it and change.

So that every new moment is spent not in regret, guilt, fear or anger,
but in wisdom, understanding and love.
Jennifer Edwards

Stuff in our Father’s Drawers-Performance

According to my child’s psychologist and his physician my youngest son is suffering from moderate depression. There have been suggestions that the relationship with his brother with Aspergers may be playing a significant part in gestating the depression.

This is a difficult time for me. Trust me when I say I too understand that living with ASD as part of the household, almost a family member in and of itself, can be hard on the psyche. Many a night I have lain down to try and take my rest only to find my mind racing with what ifs of now and of the future. Only when I take a stance of mindfulness, that is letting my mind empty and simply watching the wild thoughts fly by, do I ever find rest.

Since the diagnosis of depression has come to light I have been trying to address some things that are challenging to my youngest son’s life. While I thought I had been making time for him in the past I am clearly setting aside time for him and him alone. Being with him alone and talking to him seems to have had some benefit. Some days now when in response to my questions about how did school go, the words “suck” or “sucked” don’t come out in the first sentence.

Secundus is a fledgling pianist. For whatever reason he has ditched learning classic tunes. In the past year he has moved into the study of what we call the standards. These songs are the compositions that Nelson Riddle arranged around the voice of Frank Sinatra that made women just want to jump his bones backstage at clubs in New York. These songs are the pieces that Nat King Cole and Miles Davis each took to completely different but very beautiful places none the less.

How we got here was a one of those flukes. A couple of years ago when Halloween rolled around Secundus could not come up with a costume. He searched magazines, he looked on the internet, he confabbed with Mom. It was only when he was surfing You Tube that he saw a clip of Sinatra singing “Fly Me to the Moon”. He knew he could pull off that style. He grabbed an old rat pack hat and an old jacket and memorized the song. As he went from house to house he would sing the fist four or five lines while adopting a hipster’s pose. He pulled in more candy than anyone. At that point he knew there was something to this.

Last night was his spring recital. He had opted to play “It was a Very Good Year”. His piano teacher encouraged him but had her doubts. In practice his use of the pedals was on the mark but transitions between parts of the song were not fluid. He would almost get it right, but in reality the piece was never quite right. Even up to the moments before we left the house for the recital he was seemingly struggling.

One of the last acts before we headed out was to get him dressed. He put on some chinos and pulled out a white French cuffed shirt. I don’t remember where we got the shirt but he had never worn it before we had never gotten him cuff links. With the performance imminent I had to drop back and begin the search for links. Through drawers and boxes of knick knacks stuffed in my highboy I rampaged. I knew I had some cuffs from when I was his age. In the 1973 French cuffs were all the rage. I believed I had at least one set because they had been my father’s and had set on his dresser in ashtray with pins pulled from new shirts for the majority of my life. When he passed they become mine. They were nowhere to be found although I did find an old hash pipe, a beer stein from my German trip in 1972 and my ticket to the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City.

Never did I find a matched set. What I came up with was one blue and one ruby red cuff of completely different styles. Secundus loved ‘em. Putting the cuffs on him you could see he was ready to perform.

It wasn’t the cuffs that made the difference and I know that. Secundus is a performance junkie. Whether it is debate or singing or recitals the rush of being in the public eye charges him and changes him. I know in my heart of hearts he loves the spotlight and that he cranks it to level 11 each time he walks out onstage. The cuffs were nothing more that a thread connecting him to the men of his family through the years none of whom shied away from the spotlight. Not Dad, not Granddad, not uncles; this larger than life onstage persona is probably genetic.

My thought is that so is depression. While Secundus’ challenges are impacted by his environment all the men in my family have had dark moments, dark periods. Nobody stepped up early to help us manage it. Nobody had a name for it, or a course of treatment for it. Me I went for positive thinking ala Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and years of reefer therapy. Eventually I came to sober quiet reflection/meditation/writing and I am okay with that. My hope is that by using a psychologist I am doing the right thing. My hope is that with some external insight emphasizing positive approaches to life Secundus can come to a point where he knows how to get back to balance when things start to grow dark.

I don’t want him to lose the joy of performance. Neither do I want him to have to travel the dark roads I have seen in the past. Being a parent is a balancing act and while others can offer suggestions a parent is ultimately the person who has to make the tough calls.

My Oasis

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Another month has sped by. Memorial Day the first holiday of the summer has come and gone. Time is taking me quickly to that indeterminate place called old. My good friends’ last child just graduated from high school. Oh how that makes me feel aged.

As I said the first holiday of the summer passed and I did very little. I watched a movie; I watched part of a TV marathon. I cleaned my desk about 2/3rds of the way toward functional. Oh there was that hiding in the basement for the tornado warning thing, I did that too.

In the silence of the afternoon all is present and all is inscrutable. –T. Merton

On one of the three afternoons of this long weekend I did spend a few moments reading out by the fountain in the backyard. I sat at a chair and listening to the bubbling of the water for a time. Shifting locales I lay in a hammock for an hour or two also.

Being there in the small space behind my home I can offer that there is no silence in either nature or in a suburban locale. However there is a sense of presence in the world. I can’t put my finger on why sitting in my backyard reading about losing anger feels right but it does. Maybe the distance from the world I sense in my act of focus on the article while hearing background birdsong is what Merton was talking.

Bicycle Moment

When I was young I was fat and socially isolated. My situation was not helped by the fact that due to nystagmus I was nearly blind. What social skills I possessed were abysmal. No matter what I did the outcome never seemed right.

Only when I learned to ride my bicycle did I find a place of respite. Living in a farm town there were miles of empty roads to ride about on. Some were smooth, some were bumpy and some had big dogs that chased you. When you rode down those roads your butt bounced, you wheels slid and you lifted you feet up to the handle bars so the dogs in pursuit wouldn’t get a nip of your ankles. Most of those dogs would chase you no farther than the edge of the yard in front of the farm house that was their abode.

Every day unless it was pouring outside I rode my metal flake purple W.T. Grant sting ray bike about two miles. I really didn’t have a destination I just had a duration of time to be spent on the road. One route went down and across Oldman’s creek and back, another took me out to Lerro Lane and then to B.F. Goodrich and then the Baptist church and home. Or maybe I would ride to the church first and then down Straughn Mill Road over Freed Road and then up the Pederickton-Woodstown road home.

Whatever way I went I knew every divot in the macadam and every stone that would fly out from under my wheels. I knew when to pedal like a madman and where to coast. Time passed but I am always in that moment on my bike free of my daily worries. Time does not just fly away in the passage of hours and days.

If time’s flight were its only function then you would be separate and distinct from time. You are not. Understand the time being is not time just passing you by. All things in the world are linked with one another in moments. All moments are the time being. All of these linked moments are your time being.

Vigorously abide in each moment in the time being. Lift your feet up and fly past the dogs of existence.

Where I Am

Equanimity, poise, and a state of calm composure I am trying to develop these. Each day I dip my toe into a little aspect of Zen. I read a passage here or there. Either I go out to the Tricycle online Buddhist community or I read a bit more from Master Dogen’s writings. Some of the things I find are as odd as you would find in any other organized religion, maybe even odder. But there are small bits about non attachment and awareness that just draw me into a sense of wonder. At my age a sense of wonder about anything is good. Take a lungful of air slowly and let it gently escape.

Next to where I work is a little exercise store. The other day I went and bought a mini workout mat. It is simply a little piece of foam. Each day at noon I lock my door here in my office. I turn off all but one of my lights. I turn on some ancient hymns and I sit legs folded on the mat. All I try and do is clear my mind. For 10 minutes I simply try to think of nothing. Thoughts fly by but I try not to grab them and I let them pass. It isn’t real Zen I don’t think but it sure does seem to help the day seem more manageable. $8 of foam rubber and 10 minutes of time can and do make a difference.

Magic

I picked up a card the other day at small store in the Old Town section of Lansing, Michigan. The card states it is a tree free greeting implying only recyclables have been used in its creation. Such a thing is a plus.

What really caught my attention was that the exterior envelop contained the following inscription:

THERE ARE STILL A FEW REMNANTS OF MAGIC LEFT IN THIS WORLD

What a great thing to say. What a hopeful thing to say.

Do I believe in wizards wielding wands, crones stirring despicable ingredients and hope against hope kids turning time back magic? No. Do I believe in a twinkle in the eye do a good random deed magic? Ubetcha. Do I believe in the magic of a word well spoken? Yes, yes I do.

The magic left is this world is a combination of the passion and good that is within our hearts; it is manifested in the good we act on. A kind word, a hopeful (hope-filled?) note or an act that is for the betterment of the world no matter how small and unseen; these are all magic.

Dig out that remnant of magic within yourself. Act with magic before the sun sets.

A New Tweak

Blogger has come up with a new tweak. If you want to follow by e-mail and just get updates when I post I gather you just type an e-mail address in and viola, when I post you get it. Given my sporadic posting this might be a better way to go to really see what I am saying. The gadget is to the right side of the blog.

Day 2 Max and Trauma

April 22, 2011

My grand vision for this blog currently is to finish my stories of the beach and reviewing the components of On Caring by year’s end. With my having taken on the role of school board member in a community with a large multi-million dollar budget deficit my time at the computer will be sparse. At least the time I spend at the computer for my own purposes will be rare. Thus while it is my vision, it may not come to be.

I will however note here things in passing that catch my attention. On Tuesday of this week the episode of Parenthood on NBC dealt with a teen being involved in a drunk/drugged driving accident. After the wreck she was taken to hospital. The family gathered together at hospital to await word. I have been at a number of these gatherings being part of a large extended family. (Someday I will talk about the pot luck at the funeral home during one of my family funerals, it is both one of the saddest and most wonderful memories of what family means for me.)

While the Braverman television family awaited word from the surgery on the prodigal teen Amber, Max the child with ASD lost it. He had a complete raging meltdown in the waiting room. Max to the untrained eye, that is someone who doesn't live with Asperger's on a day to day basis, became irrational. The story developed that he had been promised pancakes as a motivator for him to go and wait at the hospital. When the hospital stayed exceeded what he could tolerate he lashed out in a logical but clearly inappropriate manner. Max even implied that whether his cousin Amber died or not should not stop his trip for pancakes because he and his father were not doctors and their presence was therefore of no aid or relevance. Strictly and clinically speaking this was true. Obviously this was viewed as hurtful by all the non-ASD folks in the room.

The character of Adam who in the story is Max’s father struggled with this and with many other issues during the hour. There came a point however when he tried to explain to Max what the gathering in the waiting room had really meant and tried to explain empathy. My eyes filled with tears. The disconnect between what I define as empathy and what my oldest son Primus understands as caring for others was once as wide a gulf as depicted on that show. Eventually Max asks his Dad if he is mad at Max for having Aspergers. I misted up again. I have lived this argument in my own head many, many times.

Time has changed my son. He seems to have reached a point where he has created scripted responses to emotional situations to try and work his way through them. He has learned patience and he has learned to remove himself from situations where he might get caught up by miscues in reading others' emotions. The hope is that the television series will deal with Max’s approach to living in a world of neurotypicals who sail the world by the constellations of emotions.

I guess what I am trying to say is that in the moment when Max asked his Dad “Are you mad at me because I have Aspergers?” I felt the barb wire pull tight around my heart. You try and try to reframe constantly and knowingly work with the situation and with the aspects of who your child is. Still there is always the fear that you are reacting to the condition and not the person. More importantly there has always been the fear that my actions no matter how well intended somehow might be perceived by my son to mean I somehow think less of him because he has Aspergers. This is something that is as far from the truth as it could be. My life and feelings are painted broadly and his are much more nuanced and exacting. I hope we always find ways to bridge our two worlds. I think more than anything that is what Adam is seeking in Parenthood.

Day 1

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Yesterday I turned 55 years of age. I was born in a time when the apex of technology was a large rectangular TV screen that got three channels and a party line telephone. I now have a cellular phone that streams video and can search the internet. When I was a kid I wandered the fields behind my house and played army often recreating what I had seen on Combat or some other battle show that had been on television the night before. Now my kids play video games until their thumbs are ungodly strong and their bellies match the guys at Moe’s bar.

The surface of the world has changed but the world itself has not. It remains a rock in space with life forms tentatively clinging to its surface. I am a part of this rock and it is part of a larger series of rocks and together with more rocks and gases this existence spreads far beyond the imaginings of even the brightest of my fellows here. My being is while not for naught, it is damn close to naught in any real sense of the immensity of creation.

In aging I am challenged with the question of meaning in my life. What I can tell you is that I feel best when I have acted selflessly. Really. Such acts don’t happen often. My goal for this year is to make those acts just a little larger part of my life. This is day 1 of my year of being 55. My hope is to make this year matter.

Discernment, truth, relinquishment, and calm.

As I sit and listen to Stile Antico singing ancient church music I am mentally taken to a place that is akin to meditation. It calms me. Mentally it moves me into a cool stone edifice filled with light from stained glass windows. If you are standing in the beams of the royal hues of red and purple the sun warms you.

In my mental calm surrounded by an ancient hymn I let go of the world and its problems, just for now. My breathing slows and I feel real rest coming to my bones and sinews. With my thoughts clearing I can see, I can discern something that lies partially within me and partially beyond me. It is a real truth that stretches out forever and compresses into the smallest space of a heart. I cannot put this truth into words. I cannot assign it a name. It isn’t a philosophy, a theology, an ism or any method or path. It just is. Discernment, truth, relinquishment and calm these are the things needed to touch what I perceive in this sacred space and these are what this larger force offers. It is a conundrum isn’t it.

TV Top Five-Aspergers Edition

I am not running apps on Facebook anymore. By making the choice to get low and into the background of America’s favorite anti-social addiction means that I can’t use that Social Living program anymore. You know the one I am talking about; it lets people list their five favorite foreign films or five favorite books by Latin American authors, etc. But I miss that one application. Telling people about entertainment you like is fun. The mental selection process takes you invariably to the good that you remember about the contenders in whatever category you are picking the top five in. So I decided I would jot down a list of my five favorite TV programs right now and do it as a note. The result was surprising to me.

My current favorite choices were in no particular order Bones, Parenthood, Big Bang Theory, Justified and Fringe. After I had jotted the list down I had to go over it a second time and think about what qualities these shows had that drew me to watch them. Reviewing those titles what struck me was that there were two unifying thread among the batch. The first thread and this covers all of them is that they are fluff. My time is not spent watching news wonks or shows on how to build stuff on the cheap. These are stories, mostly episodic and mostly light as air. Television for me is escape and I make no apologies for using it that way.

The second thread only covers three of the five series. The first three programs listed are shows that have prominent characters with ASD/Aspergers. My life is not defined by ASD/Aspergers but it is impacted by it. For three shows on three different networks to have an ASD character is pretty amazing. I should say to have three shows with positive (mostly) ASD characters is amazing. Shows like CSI, Criminal Minds and other police procedurals often trot out an ASD character as a soulless, conscience lacking villain. Really is that how we have to define people who are different than ourselves?

In Bones the Temperance Brennan has made optimal use of the clinical precision of her exacting mind and limited (by neurotypical standards) emotional attachments to others to prevail in her field. It is a popular myth that because a number of persons Aspergers have an inordinate (by neurotypical standards) focus on specialized areas that savant like behavior is rampant in their population. The writers of the show have imbued the Brennan character with a focused genius status. The writers take care to make the degrees she hangs off plumb from the norm seem quaint. They resolve stories without real estrangement from those around her due to her ASD. This is accomplished by surrounding her with highly educated understanding people. Real life isn’t necessary like that. Still for the odd person out dramedy the show is fun.

On the other hand Big Bang is a typical Chuck Lorre production with oversexed people mouthing double entendres left and right. Sheldon like Temperance Brennan has climbed well into the firmament of the scientific community based on the edge ASD has given him in the intellectual arena. He is however a total social buffoon. This gives Lorre’s writers the chance to play the awkwardness of ASD for all that it is worth. The lack of Sheldon’s due interpretation of social cues coupled with his obsessive tics and irrationally patterned behaviors are worth a belly laugh from time to time. Sheldon may be ASD but he is way not real. (I do have to say that the episode when Sheldon ordered Penny off of his spot on the couch is a guilty pleasure of a memory for me. While watching this episode Primus was in my home almost simultaneously ordering Secundus off his spot on our couch so he could sit down to watch Big Bang. All the while he was laughing a Sheldon’s buffoonery. It was meta-hilarious beyond words for me.)

Parenthood is just about people, pretty people (this is television), highly sexed people (this is television) of whom three or four have to deal with the realities of a clearly identified Aspergers child. God sometimes it feels like the writers have hidden camera in my home. I hadn’t checked in with the show for a couple of episodes because the plot line of having one brother sleep with the hired specially trained aid for the ASD child thus compromising her continued employment just seemed a little too icky for me. I sped the DVR through that and the subsequent episode stopping only when it was clear a major expository moment was happening.

On this week’s episode Adam the father of Max the kid with Aspergers gets into a fight at a grocery store. The start of the fight was Max reacting poorly to the person ahead of them in the quick check out lanes being 7 items over limit the 10 item limit. Eventually Max is sent on an errand elsewhere in the store to defuse the situation. Know that strategy well. The aggrieved cheater mutters about Max being a retard and Max’s father belts him. (I did hold back from cheering out loud others in the house were asleep). When Adam finally discloses to his wife what has happened he is ashamed and he admits he is angry. His anger is about not being able to do more for his son. For being stressed at work. For being lost in life.

Watching the episode was cathartic for me. I get it 100%. I will never punch anyone but I can get my hackles up verbally and have in meetings with teachers and others who don’t want to factor in the Aspergers when dealing with my son. I know I can’t be sure that I will protect my child from the fate of Sheldon and I know Temperance Brennan is a fantasy. She really seems to turn her ASD on and off or dial it down or up in different episodes and it just isn’t that way for Primus. All I can do is work with my son to try and teach him ways to meet the neurotypical world in a manner that he won’t threaten its peoples and in a way they won’t take advantage of him.

Yeah that is why I watch Parenthood. It is a good story for me and for my family. It is well written and it gets how the issues of Aspergers impact on a family. Bones I watch because I am drawn to seeing how many gross ways the special effects guy can make a corpse fall apart. Big Bang I watch because everyone including me likes to watch geeks screw up. And as to Fringe I watch it because I like good science fiction with characters that are not just two dimensional. Did you know that the guy who came up with the theory of an infinite series of universes arising from every decision point we act on was the father of the lead singer of the Eels? True fact.

I guess I watch Justified because it is an emotional release. I like seeing angry rednecks from Kentucky talk in rapid word play crafted in the style of Elmore Leonard. When they shoot people and brawl my angst and anger dissipates. Plus I wish I had Timothy Oliphant’s accent.

Anyway these are my current picks for good television.

Bite Me Earl

Last night I left the office early. Departing before 5:30 I left so as to avoid having to be the person to activate the alarm. Going out early meant I had to walk about 10 minutes to the nearest Panera Bread Company, a chain sandwich, coffee and pastry shop. My wife was going to meet me there.

On the way to our meeting point I had to walk through a park. As I took the paved but cleared path from one side of the park to the other I saw a small Kroger shopping cart. Wheels up it sat in a snow drift. I pulled the cart out and decided to be a good doobie. My thought was that I would take over to the front of Panera. Panera and Kroger are three doors apart with a World Market in between. My hope was that the Kroger cart kids would round it up at the end of the business day.

I have no vested interest in Kroger. Moving the cart closer to the store from whence it came just seemed like a nice thing to do. Like Earl and his list of wrongs maybe I needed to work out some karma. I mean thirty years ago I took a Kroger cart from this self-same Kroger and loaded my very loaded wife in it and pushed her back to the dorm. It was after an evening at the long gone, often lamented Boom Boom Room. The name of the bar should tell you what kind of place it was.

Whatever the reason I took the cart back. Ah, but I am sure now there will be consequences and not the ones I intended. As I pushed the cart back I took my briefcase off my shoulder and put it in the basket. From the point I picked the cart up I had to traverse the park, several store front facades and then a large parking lot. It didn’t click to me until I was almost to Panera that some passing cars were giving me the once over as they went by. Limping with my bag in the cart I looked well odd. The looks were beyond glances but didn’t really reach the level of glares.

How long will it be before my wife gets that first call about whether I have gone insane or become homeless? I can hear the call, “Mrs. T. I saw your husband shuffling through the mall parking lot with his belongings in a grocery cart. Is everything okay?”

I guess that is the thing about large scale spiritual forces. Trying to do the right thing isn’t like putting your money in a soda pop machine and pressing a selection. In the case of the drink machine you hit Diet Coke and you get Diet Coke. On the spiritual side when you try to do the right thing, when you try and address the deficits of the divine in your life what comes to you in return is not an automatic pass for something you did wrong that day (or thirty years earlier). Often the response is enigmatic or more likely it is a sideways response.

A simple act is like a stone thrown in a pond. The ripples move out and touch things you never contemplated. I hear you thinking but nobody has called yet.

I have been at this long enough to know they will. It may not be a call but someone will bring it up, I promise.
Last night I left the office early. Departing before 5:30 I left so as to avoid having to be the person to activate the alarm. Going out early meant I had to walk about 10 minutes to the nearest Panera Bread Company, a chain sandwich, coffee and pastry shop. My wife was going to meet me there.

On the way to our meeting point I had to walk through a park. As I took the paved but cleared path from one side of the park to the other I saw a small Kroger shopping cart. Wheels up it sat in a snow drift. I pulled the cart out and decided to be a good doobie. My thought was that I would take over to the front of Panera. Panera and Kroger are three doors apart with a World Market in between. My hope was that the Kroger cart kids would round it up at the end of the business day.

I have no vested interest in Kroger. Moving the cart closer to the store from whence it came just seemed like a nice thing to do. Like Earl and his list of wrongs maybe I needed to work out some karma. I mean thirty years ago I took a Kroger cart from this self-same Kroger and loaded my very loaded wife in it and pushed her back to the dorm. It was after an evening at the long gone, often lamented Boom Boom Room. The name of the bar should tell you what kind of place it was.

Whatever the reason I took the cart back. Ah, but I am sure now there will be consequences and not the ones I intended. As I pushed the cart back I took my briefcase off my shoulder and put it in the basket. From the point I picked the cart up I had to traverse the park, several store front facades and then a large parking lot. It didn’t click to me until I was almost to Panera that some passing cars were giving me the once over as they went by. Limping with my bag in the cart I looked well odd. The looks were beyond glances but didn’t really reach the level of glares.

How long will it be before my wife gets that first call about whether I have gone insane or become homeless? I can hear the call, “Mrs. T. I saw your husband shuffling through the mall parking lot with his belongings in a grocery cart. Is everything okay?”

I guess that is the thing about large scale spiritual forces. Trying to do the right thing isn’t like putting your money in a soda pop machine and pressing a selection. In the case of the drink machine you hit Diet Coke and you get Diet Coke. On the spiritual side when you try to do the right thing, when you try and address the deficits of the divine in your life what comes to you in return is not an automatic pass for something you did wrong that day (or thirty years earlier). Often the response is enigmatic or more likely it is a sideways response.

A simple act is like a stone thrown in a pond. The ripples move out and touch things you never contemplated. I hear you thinking but nobody has called yet.

I have been at this long enough to know they will. It may not be a call but someone will bring it up, I promise. Really I just wanted to get to Panera to read a little more from Tricycle the Buddhist monthly.

Midwinter Joy

A few days back mid-winter’s oppression broke for a day or so. Snow melted. Birds sang. Hearing a bird singing and trilling a song carried across warm air had a way of lifting even my darkest thoughts.

Clear high notes aflutter in the heavens, at least for me, cleansed all corners of my soul from winter depression. The break did not last long. Snow has returned and chill air remains. Still, I am holding that memory of that aural joy close to get me through the waning weeks of this season away from the sun.

In a bird’s song I became part of creation, I was a thread in the divine world. Joy lived if only for a moment.

Interlude in Silence Before a Challenging Day

Without a focus on the divine life is trivial, distracted and not in a place of balance. We can allow ourselves to think that this errand or that cause has meaning but if we don’t have a tie to the deeper well our lives while busy will become arid places. Today my hope is to be in the moment struggling to stay connected with the universal.

Aspergers and the Rink Revisited-Beat Down Epiphany

A week ago after another nothing hockey game Primus was on his way off the ice. The game had been chippy. Geez the boy’s team has averaged less than a goal a game, well less than a goal every three games in reality and the scores are usually double digits to zip. Frustration was high on the team. Eventually this was going to boil over.

As I understand one of the 15-18 year olds (I don’t know which team) called another of these testosterone driven boy-men a “homo”. A player on our team also offered up the “finger” during the end of the game handshakes. Then a punch flew. Within seconds the ice surface was a donnybrook. I was at the gate letting players off the ice when all hell broke loose between the boards. Players were in clumps of twos and threes all wailing on each other and engaging in pro wrestling moves picked up off SyFy network. I swear to God I saw the camel clutch come out of retirement. (And yes I know what the camel clutch looked like I represented the Sheik years ago).

Until helmets and gloves come off a hockey fight does not pose that much relative risk for injury in a normal youth game. The greatest risk comes if you end up on the ice and parts of your arm and leg get exposed to errant sword-like skates thrashing about.

My problem was that from the gate I could not see Primus. Eventually one of the other dads, a team representative holding a coaching card pulled Primus off and led him to the door where I was standing. At that point the whole of each team was trickling off the ice. I ordered Primus whose helmet was half off and who seemed to be nursing a whack to the solar plexus region over to our locker room door.

Between one of the team mothers and me we used our outdoor scary crazed adult voices and sent the players into each of their respective locker rooms. It was tense and it was daunting because some of these kids still wanted to go at it. On skates these kids were way bigger than we are but with the right tone of psycho in your voice you can make almost anyone cowl and cower.

After the kids were in the locker room the coach came out to find me to tell me my son had been suspended for two games for fighting. I was a little pissed because the buzz I had gotten from people who had seen the fight was that he had not started the fight he just responded in self defense. Of course I was talking to parents from our team.

It became clear when the names of the others on our team and the numbers of the players on the other team were know the refs had simply done what refs are wont to do, suspend the big guys. Six players on each team got two game misconducts. Our goalie deserved it and so did one of their players whose number I heard mentioned. However there were a number of other names and numbers I had seen involved that got nothing in the way of penalties they much deserved. Once you are like Primus six foot one inch tall and 200 plus pounds you get tagged for whatever crap happens near you on the ice.

As a father of a child with ASD this situation gave me fear because of one thing, his lack of proportionality. When an aspie gets hit and harassed his tolerance level is way high. Primus with his version of ASD puts up with it, puts up with it, puts up with it and then he blows. I know Primus’s tolerance level is far higher than mine but I also know that when he goes he goes all in. Apparently from the coaches it wasn’t that way this time. Primus and the other kid had each other in a headlock and were just trading shots but it never got close to totally nuclear.

When I finally had the chance to talk to Primus I began my commentary with the phrase “I am not proud of you but neither am I angry with you. Fights happened in hockey. What happened?” What came next was, as all things are in these situations, so filled with mixed messages and emotions that it was hard to respond with anything other than an “I see”.

According to Primus as he was coming off the ice the melee commenced behind him. He words, “Dad, I looked behind and saw one of my team mates getting a beat down. I couldn’t ignore that.” Holy shit Batman, my kid-the universe until himself-made a choice based on what was happening to another person and came to that person’s aid. As a Dad I view this response as a huge, really, really huge milestone in personal development. He didn’t know who it was but it was “his team mate” and he wasn’t going to let that beat down happen.

Sitting stunned I mulled over what to say next. Eventually I offered this. “Primus, you have Aspergers, you know that. You also know that you have trouble stopping your anger once it boils over. Right?” Nodded agreement happens here. Me continuing, “You always have to think about consequences. In this case you got involved in a fight not of your own making, most likely started by someone on your team that you don’t even like or care about. You put yourself at risk and it cost you. There are six games left this season and you have thrown away a 1/3 rd of them. Does that sound like the best and most rational course?” A head shakes no.

As I continued I told him that it was okay to use his size, to make clean but board rattling checks and to defend himself if someone was acting with a real intent to injure him. But I also told him if you get into a fight in this day and age being who you are you have already lost. Then I ran down the list of good plays I had seen during the game that day and told him that I was proud of him for who he is. Period.

All I can say is that the feelings I get from this are truly conflicted. I see the danger but I see the growth.

Several nights later when he and his fellow suspended team mate stood at the glass watching their team play without them, they talked nonstop for the entire game. This is a child that three years ago wouldn’t say hello to a next door neighbor he had known his entire life if he saw them outside in their yard. Killing time at the rink today he talked in extended conversations with three or four team mates. Wow.

This is one suckfest of a season if you measure in wins (if only there was one) and losses. But if you measure it in Primus’s building bridges to a world outside himself it is pretty darn awesome.

Of Books and Beach VIII Glowing Waves and Trust

Nature is present in beach world at every moment. All the artifices that humankind employs cannot deny nature its due. No matter how modern and wonderful a structure built of sticks and wood is, or even if that mansion is made of the newest composites sand will pound the cracks, edges and crevices. Eventually those countless grains will erode the façade enough to create a way in. People tracking in and out of the house will also bring with them the sand from the alley ways, the beach and from the street. Sand is nature at its most elemental.

Moisture is another part of nature that will not be denied in beach world. No matter how efficient the air conditioning the humidity will find its way in too. Any pillow used down at the shore will become a rock within a few weeks. Soaked with sea air those feathers become leaden, it is just the way it is.

If you go out into the ocean you have to risk crab bites, kelp and various sediments thrown at you by the churning waves. It you body surf your snot will mix with the saline water. If you don’t respect the water’s power you will die. ‘Nuff said, swimming can equal death in a rip tide. But once and again you will be greeted with a moment when nature will show you a moment of wonder.

One night when Don and I went for the 25 block each way walk of cosmology, that is we would smoke four or five cigarettes apiece and talk about the meaning of life and what the universe is really composed of. On one of those kinds of nights we saw a once lifetime thing, luminescent jellyfish.
On that moonless night as we walked down the strand the waves seemed to shimmer as they crashed. At first the odd light was very, very faint. But as we walked further the waves grew brighter. There was no natural illumination of the water that night. As wave after wave crashed we had trouble believing our eyes. The Atlantic was glowing.

Don and I walked down toward the water’s edge. As we reached that part of the beach where the waves had already hit and then receded it looked like lightening spreading out in all directions. Faint electrical pulses shot off in every direction from where our feet fell.

We stopped and with our toes gently poked at the sand. There were hundreds of silver dollar sized jelly fish lying in the shallow ¼ inch of water that remained from the last wave. Any pressure on the sand near the jellyfish and they lit up with little lightning strikes heading out in ever directions of their little circular bodies. We stopped and really looked out at the waves hardly trusting our senses. Each time when the waves crashed the jellyfish lit up all down the length of the crest. There was a cool mint green light that spread out as the water rolled and roiled along the shore’s edge.

We had to stop and step back to insure we understood what we were seeing. It was something so unexpected on the Jersey shore that we didn’t believe our own eyes. We didn’t trust our visual sense. We simply had to let nature be what nature would be and let it show us what was true and real.

I don’t know who this fits in with Section 8 of On Caring-Trust. This section focuses on trust. In some ways it might be possible to try and tie trust to our doubts about our experiences that night but it really doesn’t work. I guess in this case the story stand alone. The analysis too stands alone.

Trust is in the way the author first structures his discussion a bit of a misnomer. It is a continuation of knowing and honesty. I trust the other to grow in his or her own way and to make mistakes. Inherently I have certain knowledge that mistakes will be made or divergence from what I view as the path of growth will occur. But if I am honest about growth being the goal I will allow these things to happen.

I must know and have faith that I learn and grow from experience and mistakes. I must be secure in my judgments. If I am always second guessing my choices then my trust in the other to likewise learn and grow will be tentative and tainted. Trust requires I have a sense of balance as to what is an isolated problem and what requires a course correction in the other’s growth.

The other having knowledge that we are allowing this process is liberated to grow. Trusts frees the other to make choices and then to return and discuss the resulting experience and be subject to examination and potentially criticism. Risk and unforeseen consequences may follow but growth requires choices be made and experiences accumulated.

A failure to offer trust, to be overprotective means we are not being responsive to the needs of the other. This stifles growth. If we wish to dictate every course of behavior and outcome we are really trying to protect ourselves from pain and disappointment.

Trust is not an abdication of responsibility. It is not undertaken indiscriminately. We do what we can to insure that the conditions exist where trust is warranted. We offer opportunities to learn and experience but we watch to make sure the other is not unnecessarily at risk in trying to grow. This is a delicate balance.