Let me preface this blog with two things:

I venerate every one who sincerely follows a faith or no faith - anyone who seeks to live out/embody ethical values such as compassion, justice, and mercy.

For the word "god" in the post, you can substitute:  Holy Mystery, Sacred Presence, Cosmic Heart - whatever you view as deepest, truest, most compassionate, just, merciful.

Moral Hazards

She was a professional woman.  Raised in a strict, churchgoing and dysfunctional family.  And she was gay.  That's what brought her to my doorstep.  Seeking a way out of her dilemma.  Seeking, but not finding, something I could not give her.  Because she was also trapped in her own mind - her beliefs and her self-evaluations and her view of God so powerfully stuck, so resistant to change.

Her church was telling her that what her mind and body felt were sinful longings.  As to behavior, she really hadn't done much of that.  Too much rejection from family the one time she briefly lived with a woman.   Church was important to her.  Her main source of social interaction outside her family of origin.  But God was, for her, a demanding judge, someone to fear.  And the bible hadn't seemed to help either - as she tended to focus on those passages which, she feared, would be in waiting for her when her behavior came to "Judgment" one day.

She really didn't make much progress, I think.  As her mind was so fixed - like concrete that had set long ago.  And she finally stopped coming.  Still depressed, but no longer suicidal. 

But though she left therapy, her therapy did not leave me.  Her plight was not just one of being rejected for being gay.  Though she had been.  More than anything it was related to a failure of religion to be there for her.  A failure of her faith community to provide solace or even a chance to open up.  A failure of her church to reassure her of God's care and protection and love; God's ultimate delight in her and fervent wish for her well-being.  But it wasn't only that.  Our image of God is powerfully affected by the image we form, based upon our parents.  Our conscience is formed from interaction with parents.  And she just couldn't take the risk of "giving up" her long-ago cemented ideas about God, sin, faith, religion, and the parental rejection they all symbolized.

Somehow she could never chip away at that cement:  For the Bible told her so.  And she was so closed-off, from having to hide so much of herself, feeling so ashamed - that it prevented her from forming a close enough bond with me.  A bond that might have given her enough "security" and "safety" to risk letting go of what kept her imprisoned, unhappy, unfulfilled, isolated.

She needed to protect herself.  But in doing that she was also (unwittingly) hemming herself in.  She was too fearful of parental disapproval, church disapproval, bible disapproval, God disapproval.  So what did it matter if I was OK with it?  She herself disapproved.

One thing about being a therapist.  So many people get better, move on.  There's a sense of completion.  But you never forget the people you couldn't help.  That thought nags at you.  Especially when, like this person, part of the problem lies in society and in religion.  You get concerned about the many ways churches hurt people, rather than helping them.  You cringe at so many ways that society hurts and fails to help.  Of course you knew that before, but that was before you knew this person.  (And naturally, it's not just one person I'm thinking of.  I just picked the one that's nagged at me - about this - the most.)

That's why civil unions alone will never be enough.  People like my former patient need compassionate pastoral and communal care as well.  God is Love.  Love is of God.  So long as we are faithful to the one we love, how could that love possibly displease the One who first LOVED us?  Who literally loved us - into BEING?

Long ago I decided that if I had to choose between moral hazards, I would prefer to err on the side of love.

Seems to me I picked that up from an itinerant Jewish Rabbi "who spoke with authority" and whose actions, according to his own testimony, were meant to reveal his Father's Love - love especially for the lost and forsaken, the excluded and the outcast.

.................................................................

Update:

Well, well, well, well, well..... I have just come across an address by an ELCA Lutheran Bishop Emeritus, apologizing (just 5 days ago!) for his former rejection of homosexuality - in a public context - which was reported by Minnesota Public Radio.  You can read the brief text here.  (I am profoundly moved by this.) 

I think I understand
what is happening
in our land.

It's the solution
that evades me.

There is a huge fissure in the social fabric.  Indeed there is, on the part of some, an inability to even see the social fabric.

To those who cry for personal freedom and decry efforts, of whatever type, to care for our brothers and sisters (the least among us, the excluded, the poor, the sick, the illegal immigrant, those who cover their heads or use a different name for god, those who ask simply to marry the one they love), selfishness is a god, not freedom.  But they don't seem to see that.

What pains me most, what makes it nearly impossible to write at all, is this deeply ingrained selfishness and greed, which asserts that individuals are somehow "free" when they most disregard their fellow human beings.  Oh, I'm sure they wouldn't see it that way.  They think of themselves as fine, upstanding patriots - who are only interested in urging others to "stand up" and "fend for themselves".  Yes, they would say this to the sick and the lame and the poor and the downtrodden.  They would tell them, without performing any miracle, to "take up your bed and walk" - something that Jesus is described as saying.  But when Jesus said it, there was a gift of healing.

I am at a loss
for how
to get across
to folks
who are the haves and have mores
that we are put
upon this earth
to share
and care.

This is my dilemma.  This is a source of great suffering to me. 

And if you are reading this - and you fail to understand my suffering or what I've written - then please... this is not the blog for you to comment on.  Because apparently your heart seems unable to open up.  And that is exactly what is paining me.  Truly.

How do we first get people to open their hearts?  This is breaking my own heart!

To dwell with the suffering,
 in the suffering,
 that is sometimes all we can do.

 Hoping,
 that somehow,
 if enough of us are willing to dwell there,
 it will become some kind of black hole -
 which pulls others
 into it.

Peace upon all. 

True presence is the only real compassion. How can we make the big guys more present?

I am reminded of that thin woman standing by the roadside where cars rush by so heavy and fast on the way to the highway. I have to buy a bag of groceries, stop my car and hold up the other traffic to pass it to her. Then I will have been present.

leftyloosey

How can we make the big guys more present?

That is the real question.  And that is also a huge problem.  For it seems their Hearts have gone astray.

So the next question is:  How to change hearts....

Well, I have some wishes....  But first consider this.  (Because I suspect that to seek the "lost hearts" we need to make sure our own hearts are in the right place.)

"Purity of heart is to will one thing."

Kierkegaard

We need to think on this.  To ponder it.  Over a long, long time.  Because I suspect the answer is not something we can come up with once and for all.  I think it grows on you.  It changes over time.  As you distill your answers down.  Purifying them. 

Leftyloosey has given us a start.  So has DD:

When I was a kid I was constantly told that

LIFE IS NOT FAIR.

We should at least work, every day as best we can to make it fairer.

This all makes me weep a little.

That I can do so demonstrates that I am still alive.

Maybe what we need to do is approach some very 'strong' people and help them weep a little more.

So how do we get the "big guys" (the very 'strong' people) to weep a little more?  To ponder the "one thing necessary"?  To open their hearts to what really matters?

Like Martin Luthor King "I have a dream."  I envision all the King's horses and all the King's men.... well, you know what I mean...  I envision all the big wigs (men, women), all the "movers and shakers" and the would-be leaders - civil, religious, you name it - I envision all of them somehow compelled or ideally choosing to go off to places where they remain in silence and solitude for maybe 10 days - each year.  Pondering.  Weeping.  I picture these places as monasteries or other places of meditation.  Places where they are exposed to men and women who choose to spend a lifetime in such places: pondering; meditating; holding the hearts of others in their own hearts - seeking to will that "one thing" that is purity of heart.  Seeking Presence, Holy Mystery - whatever name you prefer.  Something you could believe in.  Trust in.  Or wish you could - even if you doubt it.

Now lately I've had this feeling - more than once - that I am not meant to be on this earth.  Don't panic here.  I don't mean I'm suicidal.  What I mean is that sometimes the woes and the sufferings, the greed and the lies, the wars, and the poverty and injustice just get to me.  And the "distance" between what humanity could be - if we all got together to share our blessings - and where it's NOT.... is so great, I can hardly bear it.  And my inner heart, like DD's, just weeps.  Sometimes I can feel those tears just beneath the surface.  And other times, yes... they come.  I've had floods of tears at times.   Presence and suffering enlarge your heart.

So my dream would entail at the very least placing the "big guys" where they might have to face their own hearts and ask themselves some questions.  Maybe even weep.  For what they've failed to do.  And what they might do.  And what others are going through.  For I wouldn't just "place" them in silence and solitude, but I would make sure that every day, several times a day, they encountered real suffering people.  People who suffer illness and want and disability.  People who lack the money and prestige which insulate the "big guys" and prevent them from seeing, hearing, facing what drives some of us nuts because we just can't get the healing message through.  And these suffering people would speak from their hearts!

I know this is pie in the sky.  I know it.

A few days ago I ran across a chapter in a book I read a few years back.  And this chapter spoke to my sense of estrangement.  It told me that such experiences are akin to what Abraham felt when he was told to leave his land and go to a "place of promise".  That anyone touched by Holy Mystery begins to feel like a foreigner or to have a sense of inner estrangement, the further they go on the "path of promise".  That book has another chapter called,  The loneliness of the just one, which speaks of this in a different way - based on the first Psalm, where "two ways" of life are compared.  The way of the "just" is a lonely way, though "watered" by sacred texts (choose any tradition!) one ponders day and night.  The way of the "wicked" is full of companions (mockers in bleachers, so to speak, laughing at the just ones, while urging the greedy crowd to lie and cheat and steal and murder).  Really this is all saying the same thing:  Even thousands of years ago, men pondered these questions.  They suffered.  They wept.  They felt estranged from the world around them.  They knew it could be different.  They felt mocked by the Fox and internet Trolls of their day. 

I find it oddly comforting to know that thousands of years ago, psalms were written expressing feelings and yearnings I have today.  At the same time it almost brings you to despair!  Thousands of years.  And it's still the same....

So that, my friends, is why in some sense I have nothing more to say.  And I have nothingness to say.

I'm pondering.  I'm stuck in this place of estrangement.  I'm choosing the lonely path.  The only path I can choose:  Heart Streams in Dry Land, I called it once. Trying to plant a few "seeds" - hoping they'll grow, wishing we could plant some more to get the "big guys" to be present.  And to weep.

Sometimes the back story says more than the front story.  From Doxy last night:

TheraP--I am really honored! I've had over 1,100 hits on that post since Tuesday. That's pretty amazing!

The only post I've ever done that surpassed it was my post about my friend Terri-Lynn, whose untimely death is what got me so energized about healthcare reform to begin with.

By publicizing this so beautifully, you are helping me to honor her memory. And for that, I am truly grateful.

Pax,
Doxy

So today let us specifically honor her memory.  Meet Doxy's "reason why":

Elegy

She was beautiful. Big brown eyes and a veritable mane of dark brown, unruly hair. A crooked tooth gave her a interesting smile.

She was sarcastic and wry. I was always glad that I wasn't the subject of her witheringly funny scrutiny. She could cut through bullshit in about two seconds flat. You never wondered what she thought about anything--she was always happy to tell you.

She grew up in a beach town and she was in love with the ocean. Her blog carried a quote from Isak Dinesen: "The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea." She knew something about tears--and she knew how to laugh, too.

She was fiercely loyal to her friends, including me. And she was loving--to her son, to her family and friends, and even to a few people who didn't deserve it.

She exemplified Jesus about as well as anyone I've ever known. She gave up on organized religion after her young son was diagnosed with a chronic illness and the faith community in which he was baptized at sunrise on an Easter morning never called to see how he was or visited him in the hospital. I can't say I blame her for that--in fact, it grieves me in a special way, because those apathetic folks were "my people"--Episcopalians. But she walked the walk a hell of a lot better than most people who just like to tell you about their love for Jesus.

She never caught a break. She never went to college. Never really had much in the way of a career--certainly not something with benefits. Her one great love broke her heart when he left their marriage. Late in life, she had the son she loved above all with a man who didn't deserve either of them.

She was a loving, good woman, friend, and mother, and she never caught a break.

*********************************

She died of cancer yesterday (e.g. 5/25/09). She died at age 50, leaving that 10-year-old boy with the chronic illness without her fierce love and protection. God only knows what his life will be like now.

She died because she was poor, and because she didn't have health insurance.

She died because, when she started having pain and other symptoms almost five years ago, she didn't go to the doctor because she couldn't afford it. What might have been easily curable had it been caught early was a death sentence by the time she was no longer able to bear the pain and dragged herself to the emergency room.

She died because the people in this country are so fucking selfish that they have fought healthcare reform tooth and nail.

She died because she didn't have the good fortune to be born in a country that doesn't CLAIM to be "Christian"--like any developed nation in Europe or the United Kingdom. (Where my mother, who suffers from chronic health problems, has received the best healthcare she's ever gotten...so spare me your ignorant diatribes about the National Health Service in the U.K.)

My friend spent her last years suffering not only the pain of cancer but the indignity of having to worry about how she was going to pay her rent and feed her child. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer 2½ years ago, and was able to get Social Security disability payments only nine weeks ago.

It sickens me to type that.

If you are one of those people who believes that universal healthcare is a socialist plot and has fought reform that would enable every American to have decent healthcare, I hold you personally responsible for her death. You are complicit in murder, and you should fall to your knees and beg God's forgiveness for your selfishness and your hardness of heart.

If it were in my power, I would force you to look that 10-year-old boy in the face and explain to him why it is okay that his mother is dead so that you could have a few more dollars in your pocket for your Starbucks lattes or your cable television service. Or why it it was okay for you to keep your "Cadillac healthcare plan" while his mother had none.

If you could do that, you are beyond help and may God have mercy on your soul--for you will get none from me.

If you could do that, I hope that you at least have the grace not to call yourself a Christian.

And if you couldn't--if you couldn't look that sweet boy in the face and say something so hardened and callous that it would make the angels weep--you need to be on the phone to your elected representatives, telling them to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Demanding that they make changes--no matter what the cost--so that no person on this earth will die in agony, and no child will be left motherless, because we don't have the will to do the most basic thing that Jesus asked of us: "Love one another."

**********************************************************

This is what my friend, Terri-Lynn--funny, loyal, loving woman that she was--wrote about herself (scroll down at Doxy's blog).

Let us think on this a bit:

"There are places in the heart that do not yet exist; suffering has to enter in for them to come to be".

Leon Bloy

Dd has a blog up that speaks eloquently for the "reason why not"  (dispassion, lack of caring).

But to care is to suffer.  Yes, this one's by me.  From Nothingness:

The Mystery of Suffering

It was Thanksgiving Day. But nobody knew that there. We'd gone to visit my father-in-law because he was gravely ill. He had already gathered his children (all grown) and tearfully asked for their forgiveness - for any wrong he had done them. That was before our trip could be made. I'm sorry we missed it.

My mother-in-law was a saint. And I'm not kidding you when I say that. When she died, some years after her husband, the whole village turned out. The priest spoke of how he had learned so much from her. She was a benefactor and a friend to many. Always quietly, discreetly.

I had asked her for prayers many times. Especially for my work with victims of abuse. I had asked many people actually. Even strangers. Leaving little notes on bulletin boards (the kind where you could leave such a message): "Please pray for victims of abuse and for their therapists." I'm not kidding you.

Was I the one who wanted to ask the Carmelites to pray too? The tiny convent of aging nuns in this obscure village in Andalusia? Friends and recipients of my mother-in-law's kindness and financial assistance. I can't recall who proposed it.

But on that Thanksgiving morning we walked through the narrow streets to the Carmelite convent. My husband. His mother. And I. Through the closed gate. Under the stone arch. Through the wooden doors. Down a short hallway. Into a tiny room with a grille, which looked into another tiny room. Where, after a short wait, two nuns appeared. Women who had been here for decades, I'm sure. Women with little more than a grammar school education, who'd been in this enclosed environment, gradually turning into saints.

I expected my husband or his mother to do the talking. But no.... They turned to me. Everyone was waiting. The two nuns behind the grille. The three of us, on tiny chairs, crowded together on our side of that little grilled window. And in my broken Spanish I briefly told them of my work. Asked them to pray especially for one person. Made up words to convey that she'd been abused, even tortured as a child. That her own mother had participated in this, earning money from her daughter's suffering. That, for her, this defined her worth. At which point I burst into tears and could say no more.

The one nun began speaking. In Spanish. An elderly woman hidden except for her kind face poking through her veil and plain brown robe. I could hardly understand a word. It seemed she spoke at length. And I tried to be polite and pay attention to the stream of words, picking out phrases like " the Big Teresa" and "the Little Teresa" (the foundress of the order and someone also known as "the little flower"). Both had suffered in different ways - and I presume the old nun might have referred to that - but honestly her words were not making much headway. Until she said: "Pedir a Dios para la fe de aceptar el misterio del sufrimiento." She might have repeated them. She must have seen from my expression that they went straight to my heart. That she'd given me what I needed: "Pray to God - for the faith - to accept the mystery of suffering."

Maybe it was something she had learned from the "Big Teresa" and the "Little Teresa". Maybe it was something she had gathered on her own. I will never know. She also gave me some momentoes of these saints - a keychain, a little triptiche. But mostly she gave me those words. I repeat them sometimes. I love the sound of them in Spanish. I can feel her presence, almost, as I say them.

I've followed her advice. I have to say I think it's helped.

When someone suffers, it is their suffering. It belongs to them. No one can take it from them. If they let you in, together you can sit before it - or with it - patient, reverent, accepting, caring, letting it seep into your heart and soul.

There are words you can say. But mostly I think it all comes down to presence.

Suffering is a mystery. And so is presence. I think they complement each other - in some way that is also a mystery.

Compassion:  Willingness to face suffering with another.  That's the reason why! 

Healthcare for All!

Oh, wait, it's a Trojan Horse!

Posted on behalf of Doxy, whose "Open Letter" is just too good not to go viral:

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina--My Open Letter to My Scumsucking Insurance Company

When I collected my mail today, I had this piece from my friendly health insurance company, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina:





Here is my response:

Dear Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina:

Who wants Federal government intervention in the private health insurance market? I do!

I want a public option. In fact, I want more than a public option--I want single-payer healthcare. Want it more than a kid wants candy at Halloween and presents at Christmas. Want it even more than I wanted a pony when I was 8.

Why? Because I think healthcare is a human right, and I don't think it should be a profit-making venture. Because I think insurance is nothing more than legalized extortion-and I'm tired of having my pockets picked, only to be told that you won't cover X,Y, or Z. Oh, and by the way...you're raising my premiums by nearly 30%.

You bill yourself as "nonprofit," which may make some gullible people think you are looking out for their best interests. But I know better. I've done my homework, and I've found the numbers:

• In 2008, you paid your top 9 executives a total of $13, 369,133 in salaries, bonuses, and other compensation. That averages to $1,485,459 per person. You gave your top execs raises that ranged from 20%-32% that year.
• According to the same regulatory filing, in 2008, you paid the 13 members of your Board of Directors a total of $494,459--an average of $38,035. Just for comparison, according to the U.S. Census bureau's most recent data (2005), the average salary for a family of 4 in North Carolina was $59,481. That means that a BCBSNC director made 64% of a NC family's YEARLY income for attending 5 meetings a year.
• You reported profits of $186 million in 2008---and raised our premiums in the worst economy in living memory. (I'm still trying to figure out how a "nonprofit" has profits....)
• You have a 72.5% market share of individual and employer-provided health insurance in North Carolina. That means, for many North Carolinians, you are the only game in town---the 800 lb. gorilla no one can ignore.
  

I've got to hand it to you, BCBSNC. You've got chutzpah. You can corner the state health insurance market, make millions in "nonprofits," pay your executives whopping salaries, raise my premiums while cutting my benefits--and still find a way to spend my hard-earned money trying to get me to lobby against my own best interests!

But you forgot one thing...I'm not a mindless FOX News drone and I'm not easily manipulated. I had been feeling tired and worn out with the whole healthcare debate--but your little mailing gave me an energy boost!

You see, I have my Senator's and Representative's phone numbers programmed into my phone. They both got calls today about the mailing you sent me. I doubt you'll be happy about what I said.

And that postage-paid postcard you wanted me to send to Senator Kay Hagan? The one that asked her to "please oppose government-run health insurance" because it would allow the government to compete "unfairly" with the private sector? I crossed out your message and wrote her asking her to support a true public option.

It gave me great satisfaction to know that you'll be paying a few cents of the money you have extorted from me over the years to lobby against YOUR best interests. It also gave me great pleasure to discover that I'm not alone, and that others are taking action too.

We take our victories where we find them.

Sincerely,
Doxy

Please send this everywhere!  All the credit goes to Doxy (and do not miss her follow-up post that I just linked!).

My thanks to Bwakfat for suggesting I put Doxy's letter up on a blog.

__________________________________

Update:

Message from Doxy, which makes this post even more poignant and your response here even more wonderful!  From a comment to me on her blog:

TheraP--I am really honored! I've had over 1,100 hits on that post since Tuesday. That's pretty amazing!

The only post I've ever done that surpassed it was my post about my friend Terri-Lynn, whose untimely death is what got me so energized about healthcare reform to begin with.

By publicizing this so beautifully, you are helping me to honor her memory. And for that, I am truly grateful.

Pax,
Doxy

What a fitting tribute to her friend.  I am just deeply, deeply moved by all of this. 

Could any of us forget Wendy's great blog in Feb when she invited us to participate in our own TPM "It was a dark and stormy night..." contest?

Now it appears that the dark and stormy night has descended upon Wendy herself.  A southern woman.  A woman of dignity.  A woman of eloquence.  A woman who has extended a hand to others.  And now may need one herself.  A woman perhaps too proud for her own good... but thank goodness, she's let us know.... 

I'm just beginning a very busy day.  So I won't be around to comment much.  But I'm hoping we can put our heads together on behalf of WW. 

If you're wondering what I'm talking about, read dd's blog - and especially the thread below it.

This blog can be used as a working blog for ideas of how to help Wendy.  Whether it's finding her a job or a place to live or both.  (unless somebody else has a blog up on this - in which case we link them together)

Peace to all.  We can work for justice through blogging or by helping one another.  Let's put our money where our mouth is! 

I would like to thank the right wing.

I never thought I would write to thank the right wing.  But I'm living and learning every day - and now I see that the right wing wants to make sure I will not be euthanized when I sign up for Medicare next Spring. 

This is maybe the first time ever that I have found the right wing offering to do something to care for citizens.   Especially, caring for the weak and the old.  They are apparently willing to go to any expense to keep me, a confirmed left winger, alive!  In my old age no less!  Even if I go senile and no longer know who I am!  Even if I am suffering from being intubated and with lines into every part of my body.  Even if I am in great pain from cancer, there is no way they will allow me to have enough pain meds - to permit a comfortable (and quicker) demise when the good lord is ready to take me.  No, due to right wing caring I will likely be kept alive and alert - to the very end! 

This is truly amazing!  They will fight to keep a left-winger alive - and alert!- no matter what!

Now, let me assure the right wing that I fully intend to stay alive - quite possibly for as long as 30 years on Medicare.  I intend to do everything to keep my health, my strength, and my mind.  Please be advised, right wing, that I currently have 2 living parents (92 and 87 - with no sign of dying any time soon) and their parents lived to ripe old ages - one of them almost to 101 - in full command of her faculties!

So, thank you right wing!  For once you are Right!

Due to right wing generosity:

I can now guarantee my peaceful opposition

 to any immoral policies of theirs

- without fear of being bumped off -

till my last, peaceful, dying breath.

Please join me in gratefulness.  Light a candle for healthcare!

(TPM Candles)

Do thugs disrupting meetings care about their neighbor?

  Do they want their neighbor to care about them?

A long time ago, a young seeker confronted a complacent, self-satisfied society with a message of love and healing.  He was asked:  "Who should I love?"

And the wandering hippie of his day answered the question with a story, which went something like this, updated for today:

A guy set out to go to a meeting.  And on his way he was set upon by thugs, bent on disrupting the meeting.  They beat him up, called him names, and left him in the gutter.

An insurance exec passed the person in the gutter and gave him a kick.  He reassured himself that the guy in the gutter was probably a drunk.  And was glad to recall that none of his company's money was allowed to care for drunks - or anyone who let themselves get beaten up.

A lobbyist passed the person in the gutter.  He gave him a kick.  And when the man groaned, the lobbyist heaped scorn on him.  Told him to get on with his dying or get up and find himself a way to serve the god of money and power and influence - if he ever expected anyone to give him help.

Others passed by too.  Perhaps you can tell us those stories. 

Finally, a family came along.  And a little kid asked his parents why this person was lying there and nobody was helping him.  The kid asked a bunch of questions.  Why would a city let people just lie in the gutter?  How could people walk by and do nothing?  And why do they tell him it's his fault if he's sick?

This little kid was like the one who noticed the Emperor had no clothes.  He just wouldn't stop asking questions.  And he wouldn't let his parents go any further.  Till they answered the questions and did something!

You can imagine what they did.  And write about it below if you like.  I suspect it's a story with many chapters to it. 

Each of us here has likely done something - maybe many things - likely unknown and unsung, whether related to health care - or some other kind of caring for a stranger or a friend - who needed help. 

How can we hold our heads up in the family of nations, if we pass by and ignore our fellow citizens in need?  How can we hold our heads up in the family of nations, if our media are broadcasting images of thugs verbally bashing health care advocates and disrupting public, democratic discussions?  

I'm throwing in my lot with that hippie of long ago.  With peacemakers of every tradition.  I don't care what group you belong to - but if you advocate peace and compassion and justice and caring for and about your fellow citizen, then we can work together. 

Majority Rule is not mob rule. 

Peacemakers, it's time to stand up!

Quietly.....    creatively....

__________________________________________________

Like this:

Light a Candle for Health Care

Click on the candle below or the link above.  It will guide you to light a candle.  You can join the candle group "TPM" or start another candle group.  You can add a message as well as your name and your location before you light the candle.  Once you've "lit" one, you will be given an opportunity to email your candle.  Let people know you prefer to light one candle than to curse the darkness of those who seek to disrupt health care legislation.  Ask others to join this quiet demonstration in favor of justice and health care for all.




You can click here and see the TPM candles and read the messages.  You can also light a candle directly from the TPM candle page. (just click on an unlit candle and you'll be guided)

Namaste.   

Light a Candle for Health Care

Click on the candle below or the link above.  It will guide you to light a candle.  You can join the candle group "TPM" or start another candle group.  You can add a message as well as your name and your location before you light the candle.  Once you've "lit" one, you will be given an opportunity to email your candle.  Email it to your representatives in Congress.  Let them know you prefer to light one candle than to curse the darkness of those who seek to disrupt health care legislation.  Ask others to join this quiet demonstration in favor of justice and health care for all.




Health care is basic caring for our fellow citizens.  It is a way of being a Good Samaritan.  We cannot turn our backs on those in need.  And we must find ways, quiet peaceful ways, like this one, to demonstrate our determination that our country take care of all citizens, especially its weakest and most vulnerable.

I urge you to copy this candle and place it on your blogs along with a link so others can make use of it to light a candle.  Each virtual candle lasts for 48 hours.  We need to keep them lit and relit.  If mirror sites are needed for this, then those who are adept at code and the internet can provide them.  We need to keep this vigil going until health care legislation, which is just and equitable, is passed by our Congress and signed into law.

We cannot sit by and let thugs define America.

Let us define America as peaceful, just, and caring.  Let us blanket our land with candles.  Candles for peace.  Candles for love.  Candles to show We Care about our fellow citizens.

_____________________________________________________

Update:

You can click here and see the TPM candles and read the messages.  You can also light a candle directly from this TPM candle page. (just click on an unlit candle and you'll be guided)
 

I'd like to start a little healthcare Healing Energy action for our dear Rowan.  And this will be a very short blog.  Because it asks you to do one small thing.  Light a candle.  A candle for Rowan's healing.

As many of you know Rowan has had two neurological ailments in the past few months.  One was "taken care of" through radiation.  But radiation to her head!  It was a tangle of nerves, a nerve bundle near her ear.  The other is a very painful condition called Trigeminal Neuralgia.  It causes her severe pain on one side of her face - not even the entire side of her face.  But an irritated nerve - imagine the pain of a toothache in just one tooth.  Well, even if it's just one tooth you're glad when you dentist can do something to take the pain away.  But there isn't a way to just take away Rowan's pain.  Or to speed her healing from the radiated nerve tangle.

Now the purpose of this post is not really to describe Rowan's ailments.  (And I haven't giving away any information here that Rowan herself has not provided here before). But to let you know that I, for one, am concerned about her.  I've been sending her healing energy, positive thoughts and caring feelings.  But I'm convinced we need an all-out campaign - so I'm asking for your help.

In Rowan's case it's not a lack of health care or medical assistance.  It's a need to promote healing - body, mind, soul, and spirit.  To make sure she'll be able to teach this Fall - as she loves to do.  As we know, from Saladin, she does so well.

So here's what I'm asking.  Please light a candle.  Not just any candle.  Click on the one just below:

Namaste

Restful. Deep. Breath. Light a Candle.
 
When you click on the candle, it will take you to a place to "light a candle."  And here's what I suggest.  The site you'll end up at, sponsored by gratefulness.org, has a way to designate a "group" when you light your candle.  I propose the group "Rowan" - and I've already started it. Here's a link to the candle I've already lit for Rowan.  

Once you've lit a candle too, you'll be able to search for the group "Rowan" - and there, for 24 hours at least - we can see a visible sign of our care and concern for the health of one of our own.  Here's a link for the Rowan Candle Group so you can watch the candles multiply.  (You can also light a candle directly from there!  Or from my Nothingness blog - on the sidebar, just scroll down.)

Health care.  It's about more than legislation.  It has to do with caring about your fellow person.

Peace to all.

I'm saying it for you first - slowly, peacefully....

May you be happy, peaceful, and free of suffering.
May no harm come to you.
May no difficulties come to you.
May no problems come to you.
May you always find success.

May you also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination, to meet and overcome, the inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.

Now you can say it.  First, for yourself.  Then for me or anyone else.  You can say it again and again, moving from the most personal (family members, friends) to those you do not know, to those toward whom you feel neutral, even for enemies or those with whom you are in conflict, and finally for all beings.

This Loving Kindness Meditation comes to me via Kusala Bikshu, a Buddhist monk, whom I met at a conference a few years back.  Different versions of this meditation are used by many Buddhists to cultivate compassion and to transform suffering.  (I hope you took time to click his name and watch the video of Kusala.  Once you meet this man, you never forget him!)

I have found it particularly helpful to say this meditation for someone with whom I am having a conflict.  Somehow, if you repeat this - again and again - for such a person, you will find yourself feeling differently toward them.  And your meditation, your compassion and beneficence toward them, may allow the conflict to loosen up and dissolve.

Namaste.

The title for this post could just as well have been:  The Wisdom of Humility.

As I've sometimes said, oleeb's is a prophetic voice.  Thus his comments here.  Which I should not have doubted.  As it turns out, I have Nothingness to say.

From time to time I will post at the link above.  It is something I swore never to do.  But, live and learn...

I find myself keeping watch over my dearly beloved here at TPM Cafe.  Not commenting.  But checking sometimes.  Recommending a few times.  Thinking about you.  In a deep caring way. 

Mostly I've been reading.  Meditating.  Pondering.  Which I will continue to do.  Reading the kinds of books you'd not find reviewed here.  Pondering things close to the heart, that might attract unwonted nay-saying - to no purpose - if posted here.

I found I did have one thing to say - in poetry and prose.   I may have more.  I can't predict.  I just wanted to leave a link, for those who might be interested.  The whole endeavor turned on whether I could name the blog after a post of DD's.   And it came to pass...  (Just as oleeb might have predicted.)  So, DD, in honor of this post, a post which sparked much pondering and a wonderful exchange with Lux Umbra Dei,  I've named it:  Nothingness.  Nothingness, as well, sparked its first post and its reason for being. 

While comments are possible there, they will be moderated.  At a later point it seems there is some way to allow certain "members" to comment freely.  (I'll have to look into that.)

Sometimes Turning Points turn out to be turnings we had never expected.....

"At the still point of the turning world."

                                          [TS Eliot:  Four Quartets, Burnt Norton]

I cannot really explain it, other than in that phrase.  Or the stillness of this icon.  Pointing to "heart-work" :   Deep calling on deep.

Four Quartets, a poem I have long pondered.   Now read this!  says this exquisite review of it, from which I select one pertinent quote: 

Perhaps the greatest conundrum of human existence is time, its evanescence balanced by its relentlessness. We can only understand it in the presence of things, such as the "drained pool," itself a metaphor for time; and we can only understand things in the context of time, their creation, existence, and passing. And, beyond that, most crucially, is what we cannot see or hear or experience as duration, what those of a spiritual bent, "the unseen eyebeam", perpetually seek: "for the roses/Had the look of flowers that are looked at". For Eliot, as he says later in Burnt Norton, we can only find that "at the still point of the turning world", where time and being eternally intersect

                             [Christopher Guerin's review of Four Quartets]

Turning Point:  To the still point.

"A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)"

                                       [TS Eliot:  Four Quartets, Little Gidding]

For a long time I've been torn two ways.   Always I have struggled with that.  Always, till now, the need to engage actively pressed upon me.  Not now.  Now, it would seem, I have said and done what needed saying and doing.  I have no more to say.  Not here.   Not now.

Some know how to contact me.  Others know who those "some" are.

I hold you in my heart.  Even more than before.  I am drawn deeper.  Everything points in that direction.  I am at peace.

I bid you Peace as well.

A little light bulb went on for me last night.  And a bunch of dots got connected.  I'm calling it the Grand Unifying Theory of the cheney's family's recent panicky efforts to influence the media.  The light bulb was triggered as I read down this emptywheel thread, related to Liz Cheney's latest meme:  Calling Dick a Torturer is libelous. 

You may have noticed that about a month ago, cheney started a media blitz.  Out of the blue seemingly, a man with a "So What?" attitude has gone to great lengths to combat the "what" of torture and the "so" of war criminal.  Not only that, two weeks ago a strange ad appeared in the NY Times, an ad traced by some of us to cheney's wife, an ad chastizing the media for using the word, Torture - while using that word over and over.  An ad full of lies, the same lies being told over and over by cheney in his media blitz. 

Following that ad, cheney's daughter started appearing on TV.  Telling the same lies.  Over and over.   

We all thought it was only about the torture.   Because more and more has been coming out about that.  Torture memos.  Torture photos that might include rape and murder.  The report of the Senate Armed Services Committee, that showed how torture migrated from military prison to military prison - like some new and contagious flu virus.  Evidence that the torture itself preceded the memos purporting to "legalize" it.  Evidence that psychologists designed and sold torture services.  That lawyers who wrote memos to "legalize" it have been cited in an internal DoJ investigation for professional misconduct.  And other forthcoming reports.

So when the cheney crime family began its lonely media blitz to refute TORTURE, when his daughter accused any, who say the word TORTURE and TORTURER in the same breath as cheney, of libeling Daddy Dearest, it seemed this was simply political theater, designed only to head off investigations and prosecutions. 

Till last night I put all that together - with an interesting tidbit of news that had come out the very same day as the Times ad attacking media use of TORTURE!

Ok, now I have your attention.  You're waiting for this news you missed.

Americans frustrated by the lack of accountability of the Bush-Cheney White House may get some satisfaction from the knowledge that the administration ran the main businesses it was tied to the same way it ran the country -- and there is some rich accountability taking hold in that realm.

Riding high for the last decade on its unabashed crony connections, pulling down mega-sized, no-bid government contracts and creating fast fortunes for its execs -- including for Dick Cheney -- Haliburton and its subsidiary KBR have come to rack up some of the largest criminal fines in history.

And, almost better than any Congressional impeachment ...   we get Haliburton and KBR shareholders suing the companies and their current and former directors, including Cheney, for criminal mismanagement, gross incompetence and corruption.  Shareholder of course, being the people whose interests companies are supposed to serve, in this case are a perfect non-partisan non-ideological stand-in for the American people.

[N.B.  Press release, NY Times:  same day as Times Torture ad!]

You can read about it here, here and  here.  And you can savor the Law of Karma, which has come to haunt the cheney family - politics and money combined into one unifying word - financial and political TORTURE!  

Not even a score of months ago did I meet dd.   It was in deep December, when .. lo.. I happened upon  a post titled:  NOTHINGNESS.  It was a philosophical post.  It inquired into stellar science.  And, for whatever reason, it grabbed me.  I not only wrote one long response, I wrote two.  I had an amazing interaction with Lux Umbra Dei there.  And later dd as well.

That was my introduction to dd.

Apparently dd, at that time, had no faith in his writing.  And regularly put up and then took down his blogs.  I later learned he'd intended to take this one down too, convinced of its utter worthlessness.  But he was tired.  He went to sleep.  And woke to a new day!  A new dd!  A huge long thread!  To his own blog!  Already there.... waiting for him.

And thus was born a friendship.

And thus was rebirthed our very own dd, our Dickon.  Our Bard.  Our storyteller.  Our truth-teller.  Our poet.  Our historian and legal expert.  Our writer of reminiscences.  Our own pajama-wearing, lonely-hearts expert, turned internet sensation, dd!

On Wednesday, dd likely wrote the blog of his life.  Then again, he's probably going to top that by Saturday! 

This is a short blog.  It is a Double D blog!  It is a Birthday (Cake) Blog!

Happy Birthday, dd!

This is not a blog for me to write in.  This is a blog for people to make into an interesting thread - a tribute to someone who came into his own at TPM Cafe.  Someone who held inside him images and words and stories no one seemed interested in - till he arrived at the Cafe - and people began to read and wonder at the man who had come among us.

Peace be with you, dear Double D.  And may you live long.  And live that life in song!