30 April 2006

VIII-We will not steal.

We made this promise-we would not take anything that was not rightly ours. In making the promise, we also agreed that we would not justify stealing by saying something we'd taken was rightly ours if in truth it was not.

Through the millennia I have watched some horrifying thefts occur under the guise of convoluted justifications that reminded me of nothing less than an obscene playing out of The Emperors New Clothes.

And never more than now.

29 April 2006

Yesterday, after having reached the halfway point in my consideration of the Ten Commandmants, I asked how any reasonable person could find issue with the application of the Ten as a perfect way to live one's life.

After I'd logged off I realized my question has a tragic answer-the objection is that the Ten Commandments come from God.

"You're not the boss of me!"

Yeah, OK, fine. So how come you sent Moses up the hill to bag some rules from someone in charge because you kept getting yourselves into trouble and then tried to buy yourselves an out saying you didn't know any better...? Ya know, maybe it is time to scream about the dumbing down-if you read the Bible, you would know the people really did send Moses up the Sinai-after begging God for centuries for help, BTW-not the other way around.

God wasn't walking by, saw a struggling people, and said, "Hey look at those ignorant savages. They need me to set them straight. Think I'll be their boss."

Which you would know if you troubled to read the Bible and use your noodle to think about it before your knee jerk reactions to the truth pissed you off and you turned away because really, how can you claim ignorance if you know..."They had Moses and the prophets..."

YOU ASKED HIM TO. And then, after He gave this rather elegantly simple set of rules with which to govern yourselves, and He tried to get out of your way, YOU INSISTED HE SET HUMAN JUDGES OVER YOU; THEN YOU INSISTED ON KINGS! And every time He tried to point out to you that you really didn't need kings, because the Law is so simple, you acted deliberately to prove Him wrong.

If you, dear reader, have kept up, you know that I am around 5k-I believe in re-incarnation and can show you where, even in the much tampered with texts that constitute the commonly accepted Bible, not only does Jesus espouse this belief as true, but going much further back into the less tampered with texts of the Old Testament, where the belief is commonly accepted as well as a viable alternative to "life ends at death."

I was taught that the books of the Bible that Christians call "The Old Testament" are really the Torah-the setting down of the oral tradition of the Jewish people.

I was taught the men entrusted with this task were carefully vetted so as to ensure the recounters would be utterly responsible to the sacred mission-and therefore able to withstand the temptation to 'spin'. And I was taught by the best teacher of all-experience-that for the most part, these men have been scrupulous and deeply committed to their responsibilities.

Since I really was there, I promise you that the cats who took down the "New Testament" were almost as careful, but the jackals who decided they need to be in charge were not, are not, and sometimes I give up hope they ever will be.

Oh Constantine-what a delusional! Little hint here-you and yer ma got a lot to answer for. The road to hell is paved with delusions, especially the one that tells you it is ok to 'tweak' things to protect the grubby masses from themselves...

Meanwhile you are living in the lap of gobsmacking lux while your people are starving and being raped. Not good. Not good.

You asked Him to be in charge. He told you the terms of the 'deal' and you accepted them. By reneging now, and worse, trying to legislate everyone else into reneging, you are not coming up with anything new.

Which you would know if you were not so uncomfortable with the truth that by your current attempts to wipe faith based behaviour out of your lives so as to avoid the responsibilities of it that you won't read the Bible.

Because the next truth is that a whole hell of a lot of people, men, women, and children, have died to protect your right to read a reasonably unvarnished history of what happened.

By effectively behaving like dogs-lifting your legs and urinating on the work that has gone into giving you what you asked for in the first place-you demonstrate your commitment to prolonged immaturity, not your 'power' to render their lives a vanity.

Lord, how do You stand us?

"This people will not recognize evil..." Well hell no, then they would have to behave better, and that's no fun!

VII-We will not commit adultery nor cause another so to do.

Another no brainer, but then you would not be able to get away with feeling ok about porn, sleeping around, divorce so you can marry someone else because hey, the grass looks a lot more sexy over there, right?

Who does that outdated control freak God think he is anyway, telling me what I can and can't do. What a prude! Sex is great, the human body is beautiful...blah, blah, bah.

If it is all ok, how come sexually transmitted disease infection is on the rise and never more than in the under 25 set?

"Occasions to stumble will come but woe to the one who sets a stumbling block before these; the faces of these children's angels are always before the Lord..."

Well who wants to hear that? Takes all the innocent fun out of being turned on by Catholic school girl uniforms, and girls in cheerleader outfits, huh? Not to mention the bitches on MTV...

"Get over it, those rules are for olden days, not now!"

he whispers because he deludes himself that you will shout for him and thus cover him-love covers a multitude of sin, right?

How come a domestically abused woman is in the most danger when she LEAVES her abusive husband-who has usually infected her at least twice with an STD?

How come men and women are increasingly KILLING the cheater with escalating means of violence-you try being run over three times by the Mercedes you bought your wife the last time you were busted for sleeping with your nurse, and then tell me that wasn't messy and rather painful.

How come it is OK for you to flirt with your co-workers and maybe even go for coffee, but you A-wouldn't tell your partner because he/she wouldn't understand, and B-you would be thoroughly pissed if you found out your partner was doing the same thing including using the same justifications you are?

How come it is OK for you to watch strippers, use porn, fantasize about your neighbours wife/daughter/sister/mother, but you are angry if someone asks you why you wouldn't want someone doing the same about yours?

One last question.

Why do you react with such vehemence when it is pointed out that you asked God for these rules, you promised to abide by them; when someone who still abides by them tries to point out the very least benefit of the commandment (to not sleep around or rape someone and then pull a jailhouse lawyer and claim your victim was there too and so equally as guilty-I despise sophistry) is that by following it you are safe from STD's (another BTW, do you fools really think AIDS is the first incurable STD?) badly timed pregnancy, death by pissed off partner?

To me, though, I think God felt the following most important-

If you manage to remain unjaded, the day will come that you are really and truly in love with someone.

Word to the wise-no sex, NONE, compares to the kind you have with the person you really and truly loves who loves you back-it is beyond sublime and transcendent and makes Guatma's little nirvana look stupid-I'll pass forever on that merging into a meaningless blob if it means I lose the wonder of real marital bliss.

And sadly, there are few pains that compare to the pain engendered by regretting you are not the first, and only.

28 April 2006

VI-We will not commit murder.

I was taught this Commandment meant that we would not commit murder for profit.

The Lord inscribed the Law on tablets in the written language of the people. The word He used in the Fifth-ratzeh -meant cold blooded/brutal/particularly heinous infliction of termination of physical life. It imparted the knowledge that to take someone's life in an effort to gain materially was an act of serious evil.

I would rail against the dumbing down of the 21st century except we started arguing the meaning early on.

Almost as soon as Moses brought the second set of tablets off of the mountain debate began as to the letter and spirit.

But it is pretty simple.

We accepted the Law; we promised-we won't kill anyone to gain materially.

Now, if you read the Bible, especially the section known as the Old Testament, you know the Israelites were so difficult that God had to clarify. If you need to refresh your memory, try Deuteronomy and Leviticus-hey, you know why people groan about Leviticus? 'Cause in that book God spells it out. No ambiguity there, so there could be no equivocation. You'd think.

Obviously, I love the Law. I have a lot of trouble understand how anyone takes issue with it.

Short, concise. What could be better, easier? What could be a better way to live one's life-the Ten Commandments are universal. How can anyone be offended by them; how can anyone find fault in ten simple rules that if everyone abided by, life would be simple, and fair?

Please note that no-where in the Ten does God say, "You will ONLY be Jewish/Christian?Muslim/whatever..." Please.

Please note that all He asks of us in the Ten is to give credit where due-He brought us "out of bondage, so a little thank-you would be nice but most importantly would you not get yourselves into the same fix with false gods again?

Would you please not abuse my willingness to help you by asking me to hurt someone else on your behalf?

Would you please take a day off to contemplate your navels?

And would you please not tear each other to pieces for money/ox carts/land/political gain/or any other form of gratification that requires you take someone's life in order to take what ever it is they have that you think you should have instead? Please?"

And we said-"Yes."

It's called a covenant/oath/promise/vow...

God is.

I'm sorry that is a problem for someone, because that someone is working overtime to bring about Armageddon in hopes of having company in hell.

That someone has too much help now, during this Time of the Winnowing, and I hurt for the families who are going through so much horror as a consequence of so many choosing to accept the sophist whispers of that someone and thereby becoming that someone's minions.

God gave us a perfect Law. A law everyone could live with.

I believe those who say "Life is not fair" are people with an agenda that does not include the commonweal...and those are the ones who take issue with the Law, because it gets in the way of their agenda.

If after careful consideration, you find you cannot attend a Law that asks you to not worship money and celebrities, or lie, cheat, steal, murder, have promiscuous sex, abandon your parents, or work yourself into an early grave-I think you have some dangerously serious issues.

Ones that make me deeply reluctant to be your neighbour.

Duh.

27 April 2006

TIME OUT: I woke thinking of a lost sister and how grievous is that she did not live long enough to dance with her adult sons.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I trained as an abnormal psychologist in hopes of pleasing my father whose hopes included my joining the FBI. My honourary uncles, two of the U.S.'s finest (may they now walk in peace), added their voices to the dissent-the dissenters prevailed.

Then I OJT'd as a hospice chaplain in a personal hope of one day becoming one officially, while still doing all that I could to stick to God's plan for me in particular, and His hopes for the world in general.

I took a time-out from it when a four year old died a couple of days after her mother's so-called pastor came officially to tell the dying child that she needed to "...Get right with God to avoid the sulfurous lake of fire..."

I tried to beat him to physically to the bloody pulp he has beaten his soul into after spending hours trying to help that little one find the courage to get some sleep-she was terrified to fall asleep because she didn't know how to ensure she was 'right with God' and thought, thanks to a bedtime prayer, that God would send her to hell from a slumber.

FINALLY: Life shouldn't be compressed into a sound bite. One of the greatest problems we face today is the drive to make it impossible to fully explore-to get to know before making a final decision on or about any topic or arbiter thereof.

I'm talking about the taking of multi-tasking to extremes.

Think about it-how come we are too damn busy to think about it?

Who gains? Not us.

Who loses? Well, we do. I know from personal experience just in this lifetime alone-no living breathing being can go 27/7/365 without more of a break than to inhale some gruel and bag 5-8 hours of sleep.

To feed the Machine's bottom line, the war on faith is escalating-Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Which brings me to:

IV-We shall honour the day of Sabbat, to keep it holy.

26 April 2006

III-We will not take the Lord our God's name in vain.

What is prayer? I have always believed prayer is our way of reaching up to the Lord to establish a direct communication with Him; an act of faith, that Someone is out there listening for our calls. That He will listen, and then respond.

When we attempt an act of communication with another, we use their name in hopes that the use of that name will direct their attention to us, and that others who may have heard the call will understand we were addressing someone specific-someone else, and ignore a call not meant for them. It's called privacy, amoung other things...

So. When we utter the name of God, we are using it to gain His attention. His, and His alone.

I've also always believed to merely utter the name of God is to commit an act of prayer. Faith leads us to understand that He knows completely the contents of our hearts, our souls; very often we are incapable of knowing precisely what is the nature of the need to reach out to Him-but He always knows. When we call out, He knows we are willing to open our hearts to his guidance. (God is great-He is not going to intrude, He prefers we ask Him.) Thus it follows that to use His name as an exclamation is probably not a good idea if we weren't asking for His assistance.

And, on the surface, to casually use His name to damn someone or something IS a violation of the Third. This should be patently clear.

However, I know there is more to the Third. His name is all encompassing. His name is love, mercy; His name is forgiveness. His name is everything. Therefore, to take His name in a request for assistance to bring down destruction and misfortune on someone else is to present one's own soul for judgement. You need to ask yourself-are you ready?

In other words, asking for His love and mercy while simultaneously asking Him to deny it to someone else may be the most dangerous of vanitites...

I truly believe all things WERE created by God, given the most precious gift of the right and freedom to choose, and I most certainly do believe in Intelligent Design.

(Interesting how that has become politically incorrect-another convenience for someone heavily invested in wiping faith out of the heart of Man. Why does it so terrify some that Someone is out there who is in charge; Someone who designed evolution, genetics, Man; Someone with our best interests as His driving force? I mean, this too should be a no-brainer! Who do you want to hang out with? The guy who wants to help you have and defend your freedom, or the guy who needs your cash to make his beamer payment??)

I believe He, through His Intelligent Design, made sure that you had a mind to go along with your heart. You should be able to take the lead I give, and through use of your mind, come up with some questions and answers for your self. Ones that hopefully will infuse you with the strength to choose for yourself a life that will up your self esteem, and help keep you from being a burden or a horror to others. One that will give you few if any regrets.

Today you should look up the word vanity and consider all the nuances as regards the Third Commandment.

Let's talk about it.

25 April 2006

II-We will take for ourselves no false idols, gods-nor graven images of idols, made by human hands, to bow down to and worship in His place.

For millenia I have watched as the very guardians of the covenant have betrayed this-sat horrified and afraid in the great congregation as the priests feasted themselves while around them and before their eyes the people the Lord had set them to keep starved physically and spiritually. Appalled, as they seemed to do so with an utter contempt, and apparent impunity! How many they have led astray...or murdered in their attempts to maintain the status quo.

Yet I have watched, too, in every lifetime, the glory of those shepherds who took up staff and led the Way-who taught their congregations that the Second Commandment spoke not to a childish immaturity that Man is incapable of discernment, but to the trust the Lord had in us when he expected we would need not argue in any wise the letter. However imperfectly, these leaders held the responsibility of the gift of leadership as a sacred trust, and when ever they faltered, opened to His guidance. (A rather lot of them died, badly, for their attempts to lead their flocks to grace. That old, old status quo thing...what, you thought the Pharisees died with Caesar?)

Our souls crave. A constant craving for grace and beauty, a need that when it goes unfulfilled, we try to satisfy ourselves. We create-not in an effort to outdo the works of the Lord, but because when an article is somehow right, it becomes a thing of beauty-inarticulable save with the display-that fills our souls with a sense of rightness, a rightness that leads a logical and reasonable soul to ask important questions of him or herself, such as "If I made this, who made all that?!" 'That' being all of creation-a power work of beauty and grace. The contemplation hopefully leads us to a completely satisfying relationship with the Father.

This article of the Law, this Second Commandment is no 'order' from on high to never carve, paint, or sculpt anything. Except that which defiles-DUH!

That which defiles...a wise judge once said "I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it." Or hear it. We are all born with a conscience. Some of us spend lifetimes beating that inner voice that says-"Uh oh, not good..." to a pulp so that we can indulge in personal defilement. Others, when they try to resist the inclination toward debasement, are led astray by false shepherds.

The Lord, when He chose to trust our growing maturity, believed we had the capacity to understand that giving ourselves to any other 'master' was to choose to be enslaved.

When He carved those words on the tablet, He was NOT saying that we were not to be artisians, He was trying to say to us-"Look kids, I love you. I'm hoping you are smart enough now to see that some of your actions when you turned away from my guidance-you know, not really been there done that so much as I do kind of have some years on you and might know what I'm talking about-what, are you lab rats that you have to learn over and over from your own mistakes-you can't learn from your mistakes, or hey, here's a thought, learn from someone else's??-resulted in the consequence of your being vulnerable to abuse by the less than decent, and so to protect you from yourselves, while not taking away your freedom, I am putting this all in writing so that you will have a reminder, something to pass along to your coming generations-if you choose to take for yourselves a false ideal, you will once again put yourselves (and worse, your children) in danger of being consumed by it. So don't become over-invested in demonstrations of dross-not good, kids, promise."

Bad enough to have been kidnapped and sold into slavery. Worse still to effectually spit into the Hand that set you free by going right out and carving out a new slavery!

"A man cannot serve two masters." Jesus was sent to remind us of that, amoung other important points God had been trying to get across.

False (gods) ideals? Hmm, let's see...

The Bottom Line.

What's yours?

24 April 2006

I intend to examine the Ten Commandments for the next ten days. I believe by them we are given an owner's manual, so to speak, on how to get through each day without spreading fear, pain, or suffering on the innocent; I believe the Ten Commandments are THE WAY to making life fair and good for all souls as accept God's perfect love. I've been walking around a fair amount of time. I've lived nearly every place on this world, been a child in those places, grown to adulthood (most of the time) in most of the majour religions. Please do not trust me in the following-I think you should look this up for yourself-all of the majour religions of the world have some version of these as their foundation. Even the Buddhists, in the Ten Golden Precepts.

I-Hear O' Israel! He alone is the Lord, our God, he who brought us from the Bondage in Egypt-we shall have NO other!

II-We shall take NO other before him, to make images of false gods, these idols, to bow down to and worship in place of Him!

III-Nor will we abuse the use of His holy name.

IV-We will observe and keep holy the day of Sabbath.

V-We will honour those as have been set by Him as our earthly parents.

VI-We will not commit murder.

VII-We will not commit adultery.

VIII-We will not steal from another.

IX-We will not bear false witness against another.

X-We will not covet that which is the right of another.

An Examination of the First:

Yesterday as I went about my Sunday, I tuned the TV to a History Channel program about Biblical disasters. I could not help but take issue with something discussed in the program, a dispute about whether or not the Israelites were actually being held in bondage.

HUH?? When even today man, woman, and child are being abused on an ever increasing scale in forced labour, and the call to fight the scourge of slavery is being trumpeted from the pages of every civilized nation's news sources, I was frankly astonished to hear educated men and women questioning the veracity of the whole Israelites in bondage to Egypt thing. I mean, if you consider it for a moment, it forms the very basis for the One God thing, doesn't it?

Scroll back up to the top (a small hint-you are looking for the one printed in bold italics...) and read the words of the First Commandment. Now, if there was no bondage, how is this very first issue of the Law valid?

Not to digress, but how terribly (and I DO mean terribly) convenient for anyone wanting to destroy the very fabric of faith!

OK, so Yahweh leads us from the forced labour camps of Egypt. And after the plagues, the people of Egypt are so very glad to see the Israelites depart that they line the streets and throw money, provisions, and even the jewelry from their bodies.

Having been in what amounted to bondage in this lifetime, in this country, I think I have some understanding of what defines slavery-keeping someone economically crippled to render that someone unable to leave, and reinforcing the economic crippling with threats of further economic assault (as in "If you try to leave I will make sure when you do you will not have so much as a pot to urinate into...") and threats against the health and welfare of the someone's loved ones. American slave holders in the antebellum days routinely separated families in an effort to eliminate the emotional strength of physical unity with loved ones in addition to the extra cash selling off slaves brought in. Today Massa threatens health benefits, wages (oops, didn't God say something about cheating servants of their wages?), and the mental peace required to spend quality time with one's family-hard to focus on the family hour if one's employer is constantly threatening to fire one if one doesn't focus 24/7 for the employer-crikey's, what a vicious cycle that is! And is the textbook definition of slavery.

Right. The Egyptians controlled the lives of God's Chosen, and they weren't very nice about it. Please DO NOT take my word for it, look up the digs near the pyramids that yielded the information that the lives of the labour forces building the damn things really bit-HARD.

Archeological evidence indicates those poor souls suffered terribly, and with the exception of a lucky few, were NOT given adequate diets, housing, or medical attention.

Hey, sounds like bondage to me-someone kept those people from the FREEDOM to attend personal needs...

Then God sends Moses. Through Moses, God lets Pharaoh know He is less than impressed with the treatment His children have endured at the hands of Egypt, and He warns Pharaoh ahead of time that if Pharaoh does not let the people go there will be serious hell to pay.

Fast Forward: we all know what happened.

So. Now the Israelites (us, in case you missed that. Technically, some of us are Jews, true. But I am thinking symbolically here. Come on, try to stretch yourself some, huh? Or would you prefer to let your mind atrophy because you don't want to be giving some credit where it is due by telling yourself that God gave you a working mind for a reason...) are free of the forced labour-free to attend their wounds, free to come or go, free to make their own choices about their destiny.

Now. I ask you, how in the name of freedom, a mighty precious gift that unfortunately less and less of the population are willing to appreciate until it is gone, can you possibly want to have anyone else for a god than the cat who reached down His hand and brought you out of slavery???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Who gave us the freedom to choose how we would live our lives-including the freedom to reject His love, guidance, advice...and who promised that He would NEVER take away that freedom, even if in not doing so, we were therefore free to commit horrific acts against each other. He did however, warn us that should we turn our faces away from His gifts, He would turn away from the sight of our transgressions, and leave us to our own devices.

It seems a no-brainer to me. He set us free, he gave us a Law so perfect that if everyone followed it, the world really would be reasonably fair and safe. He has ALWAYS kept His promise not to take our freedom to choose away from us. Sounds like God to me.

He alone is the Lord-even Jesus refused to accept anything more than the title of His child-and there simply is no other. Scary as it can be sometimes, He who gave us our freedom is my Lord. To Him and Him alone to I ascribe the fealty of my soul.

23 April 2006

Well, it is Sunday again. Wow, this week went by rather quickly. Not bad, though, for my first ever vacation.

I really have had a great time. My co-workers kept asking me where I was going; I replied "No-where." But the truth is that I went to Atlanta:)

So. What I Did On My Spring Vacation, by FoxsMom...

I cleaned the bejeebers out of my room-man! Am I organized now, or what?

I was knocked to my literal knees by a whopping sinus infection-did I mention that one of the things I like about the 20th and 21st centuries is the narrow spectrum antibiotic?

I found out that although my roommate can be at times something of a, um, uh, never mind; what I found out is that when push comes to shove, he is rather dependable. Reassuring, that.

I got my wardrobe sorted out-business casual will no longer confuse or bewilder me!

I did several other personal organizational things.

I'm ready for the business week.

22 April 2006

Like most upright sentient beings, I prefer a routine and when that routine is disrupted I strive to reassert the routine.

The past eight years have been deeply, profoundly difficult. My routine has been deliberately disrupted-that I think, is the single most painful aspect of the past eight years after the realization of just how horribly wrong my son's life was going.

One of the most important items on my daily do list list that comprised my routine was the Daily Office. I would reach for the Book of Common Prayer, and my indexed copy of the New Standard Revised Edition of the Bible, and I could count on the Daily Office to make the start of my day good and worthy. Reading the Daily Office, after reciting aloud the Ten Commandments gave my day a strong start. It was a re-affirmation of my complete dedication to not wasting the day, but rather making each day worthy of the great gift of God's love and promise to me personally, and to the entire world.

Slowly over the past eight years, and especially after taking the job with the storage facility, the morning habit slipped away, and as it did, so did my personal strength.

First, the habit was assaulted by the incredible gall of my neighbour and her two children-she would send her brats across the street to listen under the window, and then would go about Dothan telling people that I talked to myself. They mocked me to anyone who would listen-especially my son, who made friends with both of them and the mother too. I did not understand they were doing this, and really thought the mother was someone I was going to be great friends with. I accepted her coffee invitations, extended ones of my own to her, and generally opened myself up to the terrible shock that some people enjoy hurting others and justify it by saying the strong survive-it is their duty, apparently to pull the wings off butterflies in an effort to rid the world of the weak.

I found out about it when the girl was in a school play, and one of the skits was about me and my morning habit. The family invited me, I accepted thinking how nice it was of them to do so, and then sat there in horrified hurt as I realized they'd done so to embarrass me. All around me people roared with laughter at the thought that a person still breathed who really believed in God, beauty, grace...My only comfort was that Fox, apparently in the know, had declined to come. Nice to know that at that time my son still had some limits...Which wore out quickly, as a few months later my son told me to stop praying for him, and that he was thinking about becoming the Anti-Christ.

After moving into the storage facility I quickly came to understand a few more terrible things. One that my job was not a real job after all, it was a 24/7 exercize in futility-truly it did not matter what time of the day or night, my employers and my tenants thought I was a machine and could function professionally (in the case of Mr. And Mrs. Boss read serviley) without eating, sleeping, thinking, or any of the other things normal people do after putting in what ended up amounting to a 12 hour business day. I would no sooner begin a personal project-after business hours-when either my employers or one of my tenants would simultaneously ring the bell, pound on the doors/walls/windows, and hit redial on their cell phones. The dog and I became quivering messes over the next three years and ten months.

And once again, people thought it delicious gossip that I read from the Bible aloud to start my day. My employers were especially savage-they accused me of putting on airs, especially when I played Bach while reading. (That one sort of amused me, because of course by playing Bach, I was putting on airs-get it?) Mr. Boss actually snorted and made comments about God only helping people like him and his family, not 'white ni__er trash' like me. HUH??

Since getting a computer in 2004 I have been going to the online Lectionary. I've tried to make it the first thing I do after booting up, but am often distracted by the items on my homepage.

But this morning I managed to make it there first. Hopefully I will regain the habit.

I've been quite sick the past couple of days. So unwell that I am actually on antibiotics. Sinus infection, and man, did it hurt Thursday night! My roommate was incredible, Johnny on the spot for me and I've no real idea how to thank him. He has very generously forgot some of the things I said while delirious-including the grief about Fox, which I go out of my way to inflict on no-one but God, and the rare reader who stumbles across this blog-hey, I started this blog to find my way out of the mess without burdening anyone else.

The pain was so bad Thursday night I actually went into shock-now that really scared my roommate! Finally, last night about 2200 or so, I woke from a doze-off to find the pain so receded I had to think about it for a moment to find it's ghost. Then, about 0230 this morning, the fever broke.

Doesn't it figure-I take my first ever vacation from a job, and get sick:-)

Still, although I pushed aside the awareness that a majour breakdown loomed, I got a whopping lot of things ticked off my 'DO' list. I actually have a clear path to the sewing machine!

I should have known I was getting sick, but no-where, not even in the back of my mind did I get how bad off I was until Thursday afternoon. This morning, after reading the Daily Office, I thought back, and now realize my body was trying to tell me something.

20 April 2006

I got a library card yesterday, and registered to vote. I felt like a real person, but I also felt a strange awe at the ability to have a card to borrow books, and the ability to vote. It got me thinking.

I remember the Watergate scandal, and how distressing it was to know that integrity, honour, and common decency had just jumped out of the car barreling down the freeway. I named a stray cat I rescued after the chief prosecutor, and when Nixon resigned, I naively thought things would get back to normal.

In spite of all that came after, I hung onto that until Bush II ham fisted his way into the White House back in '00. I told my son that G.W. would get us into a Vietnam like war in Iraq-I really do hate being right-and I tried to find some hope.

However, when bullies are successful, the success encourages the escalation of incivilities. Life, already unpleasant with all of the uncivil liberties being taken by wanna be robber barons, took a turn for the worse when Bush was able to bully his way into 'power' and things are not getting any better any time soon I don't think.

It's scary. Scary to watch, scary to know from past experience how all of this mess is going to resolve it's self, and scary to be going through it alone.

Yesterday was the anniversary of a number of historically important days-Lexington/Waco/OK City...While I did not go searching for commemorations intentionally, I looked out from the corner of my eye-the only mention of any of the events was a blurb at the bottom of one of the dailies about OK City, and a small piece at a couple of news feeds remarking on the upcoming release of some of the Branch Davidians.

13 (Waco) and 11 years (OK City) went by and many people died, and for what? How does an ultimately insignificant little no-body boot-licker spin doctor like Scott McClellan (spelling probably incorrect, not to be rude, but his name is less important to me than mine is to him, and I'm not in the mood to bother looking up the spelling of someone I feel so much disdain for-is he going to chase ME down and punish me for having an opinion? Probably, some land of the free-hey, thanks Georgie!) manage to knock the importance of recalling what happened to our country on the 19th of April off the front page??

I've tried not to buy into the conspiracy theory mess-I prefer optimism. But all of this is looking rather like a smoke screen to me, and it makes me wonder at the inaptitude of the so-called majour players, that a displaced homemaker can see it.

Gas prices are incredible, and will get much worse; nothing any of us regular folks can do about it, and I hate thinking that this is part of the 'plan' to disenfranchise those of us barely hanging on to the merest vestiges of the middle class 'splendor' we'd manage to attain.

I spent so much on groceries yesterday that I am now overdrawn at the bank. And no, I didn't buy fancy cuts of meat, or frivolities-unless you count milk and butter, ground chuck, and some bananas as frivolities.

Hell, from what Mrs. Bush-former First lady-said after Katrina, maybe my audacity at wanting fresh fruit is just that, an outrageous display of my audacity to presume that I should have so much as the merest scrap of a decent life. Gods, I really woke up pissed this morning!

I think what put me over the edge was the gas I put on my debit card @ a whopping $2.91 a gallon, going into the grocery and putting only the bare necessities into the cart, and then getting to the check-out counter only to find that walking out of the store was going to cost me extra by invoking overdraft protection.

DAMMIT! I am not the only one, and trust me that doesn't make me feel a damn bit better.

19 April 2006

Yesterday being the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco quake of 1906, I ran into all sorts of new coverage while reading the dailies I have delivered to my inbox. One, from Space.com, included a reference to the San Fernando quake of 1971, and all of the nightmare of that event smacked me so hard it took me a few hours to stop crying.

I was 14 years old and having always been an early riser, was lying on the sofa in the living room watching early am L.A. TV (one of the few things about the late twentieth century I love is TV; OK, Caller ID is pretty cool, too) as the program did a spot on the shape of area VA hospitals.

The spot had just started talking about the one in Sylmar; the reporter was doing her feed from in front of the hospital so the camera had a great shot of the hospital behind her.

Too great.

As the 'quake began I remember thinking, "What the...?" and the camera seemed to be shaking and rolling in time with what was going on at my house. Stunned, I stayed on the couch, conveniently located under a large stabilizing beam across the living room ceiling. Our house, built in the late 1800's, had been built on 'rockers' and as such, merely gently swayed with the 'quake instead of jumping and twisting-we sustained NO damage, not even a book out of place in the cases. Even the carriage house on the back half of the large property we lived on and which my older sister and her husband had converted into a cottage went without damage through the seemingly forever 'quake.

And when the quake was over, I was determined to 'get the hell out of Dodge' just as bloody soon as I could! (I have an earthquake story from my first life, and one from a subsequent life-both memories came rushing back to me that February morning in 1971-I HATE 'quakes and I am not especially fond of volcanoes either!) Three years later, I was sooooooooo outta there!

But what I never forgot, and what has truly been the nightmare to me since that morning, was the sight of the front of the VA hospital, built in 1926, collapsing, and patients shooting out of the wall-less front into the air, on their hospital beds, to their deaths. On camera, as the reporter screamed, and the cameraman tried to decide, obvious from his camera direction, if he should continue filming the scene. Over 45 people died there that horrific morning.

I didn't try to put the scene out of my head, I just tried to get on with the clean-up. We took truck loads of relief supplies into the San Fernando Valley; my step-mother rented a couple of U-Hauls, parked them in front of our house and put a sign on them saying we were accepting donations. Those trucks filled fast, our first load went the next morning after the quake.

Yesterday I finally found out what happened to the Sylmar VA hospital. The new knowledge has and has not been a comfort.

The government chose not to rebuild the hospital. Instead they turned the site into a Veterans Memorial park.

18 April 2006

Yesterday was the anniversary of the day Peter North and I rolled a Jeep International Scout off an 80' cliff out in Blackstar Canyon near Silverado Canyon, in Orange County, California. It happened in 1973 on the first day of Easter Vacation-I still have the headaches; Peter was so injured he was told his dream of being an ice sculptor was over. (I told him that was nonsense-use pulleys, lever-DUH! Never Ever Give Up On Your Dreams!)

Just before we went over, I heard a voice in my head say "Fasten your safety belt-NOW!" So I did. Peter wasn't wearing his, and was thrown out after a few rolls. Later Fire Rescue told us they believe he was thrown forward of the jeep, and subsequently rolled over by the tumbling jeep. That would account for the broken arms, legs, and smashed pelvis he suffered.

I stayed with the vehicle, and fully aware through the wreck-I can recount EVERY roll. End to end, side to side; I gripped the seat bottom with my hands and concentrated on keeping my face out of the windshield.

I blacked out when the car finally stopped rolling, pinned between two car sized boulders in the creek. I remember climbing out, and unhooking my lip from one of my canine teeth in the side view mirror of a derelict truck a few yards upriver.

I found Peter about half way back up the hill. He was totally out. I took up one of his arms and tried to wake him, or move him-the voice said "No, leave him, he is badly injured. You must go for help now."

I was nauseated, frightened, and quite wobbly, but I really believed the voice was that of my guardian angel, and I set off on the road to find help. The voice told me to call out for help as I walked; every time I was tempted to give up and lie down the voice urged me on.

My calls were heard by a group of what we then called Jesus Freaks. They'd come out to make an 8mm film about the ministry of the Christ.

Yeah, I DO believe in angels!

17 April 2006

Lent is over. Easter Monday is here.

I am looking at it this year as the 'first day of the rest of my life.' Lent is a very good thing. I gave up hopelessness for it this year, and I think it took. Truly, God is good.

I say that because of all the wonderful, and wondrous, things He does for us, even when we don't want to admit that we need Him in our lives.

One of the wonderful things He does is to ask us to PLEASE observe certain Holy Days. Now, frankly I think Lent is an invention of guys like the late and greatly UN-lamented Fr. Torquemada. That said, I think that Lent was his answer to the Jewish High Holy Days, which are pretty spectacular as a method of self-examination that leads to real enlightment and the path to self-improvement. So, God is the original self-improvement/self-help guy. I like that.

I observe The High Holy Days, and I highly (no pun intended) recommend them to those sentients who still give a hoot about the world outside of themselves. For those who are Christian, I also suggest the real observance of the Lenten season. It helps. A lot.

I spent part of Easter Sunday 2006 on the putting aside of the grief that my son and grandson are not involved in my life anymore-they were at my house last Easter, and it was a deep sorrow that in my hard copy journal I was so depressed by the day that I failed to even mark that it was Easter Sunday.

Somehow the hard copy got into the box of things I retrieved from my storage unit last week while down in Dothan, and I didn't get around to opening the box until yesterday morning. I flipped through the pages looking for the entry-couldn't find it until I looked up the date for Easter '05. For about an hour after reading what I was doing that day, what I'd been hoping for my grandson's first Easter, and how it actually came home to me that day that my son was too angry to reach and will be for a long time, I mourned the loss of my family. I prayed for my beautiful boy, and his son, and while I did, something happened to me that I cannot articulate. The only thing I can say is that something shifted inside of me, and I felt some strength and some comfort flow into me that opened me to some new insights that I believe will have a profoundly positive effect on my life.

I am FoxsMom. I always will be. But I am ME, too and I have got to reclaim all of the things I liked about myself before all of this insanity happened, and tried to crush my spirit into the dust.

I really believe there exists a nasty little gob out there who has as it's sole purpose to break people. I believe it has declined the invitation to be a person, and so deserves no gender recognition, no proper noun, and frankly, only as much attention as is needed to recognize the lack of worth in it's efforts. I think this nasty little git oozes around the real world looking for the vulnerable-to infliction of pain, and to the participation in the infliction thereof.

People like me, who can be so nearly destroyed by the loss of all that is important (my family)-preyed on by the machinations of this little gob' all too willing minions in the infliction and spreading of hurt. It thrives on the grief it uses people like my my ex and my former employers to inflict.

There is a reason this thing is called the great deciever-Crusty and Mr. and Mrs. Boss think they have some sort of 'get out of jail free' card because they listened to it's blandishments, and thus my efforts to live a clean life were nothing but a reproach to them, although I certainly did not mean to be such to them.

Hey, I really have always been more concerned with the great log jam in my eye than the merest mote in their's or anyone else's eye. But the crude sophistry required for them to justify the wrongness they tried to put on me really is born of their foolish willingness to listen to steer droppings, and it borders on evil to try to continue it by saying that love covers a multitude of sin-"You can't really be a Christian who really loves us if you won't stand there and let us trash your life by cheating and stealing from you, slandering you, and taking advantage of the fact that you are alone in the world! So, that reluctance to put up with us is what makes it OK to knock the stuffing out of you. After all, if God didn't approve of what we are doing to you He would stop, since He hasn't it must be OK."

Um, no. And now that Lent is over, and my sense of hopelessness has been overcome, I am going to work on trying to stop hoping that the sanctuary roof collapses the next time any of them try to so much as look at the lintels of my Father's house!

And so I go forward from here.

I am the sum of all my parts. I've been around a rather long time, and the scars that I have threatened to distort my person, as we used to say. For quite a while, from 1998 until yesterday. This past Lenten season has not only scraped them away, but somehow has healed them.

Yes, I miss my family terribly. But none of them like me anyway, so I am not going to pound my head against their walls. An unwelcome guest? Not me, not ever.

When I was a little girl in this life, a boy whose voice I heard only in my head asked me-"What do you want to be when you grow up?" I told him "A granny." He said, "Oh, I think you have to be a mummy first." I miss him. I always thought he was a ghost. Lately I think not. I told him once that I would marry him when I grew up-he was horrified. I think now that is because he knew he was not the man intended for me by God.

I believe God had a plan for me and the guy he meant for me to marry. I believe that Crusty did everything he could to thwart that plan. I am sorry for Crusty and the damage his choices caused, for one thing because the guy I should have married dropped out of med school 5 weeks before graduation. If I'd been there with him instead of locked in the deep south with a gun to my head, the guy would have graduated, and would be one more doctor in a world facing terrible shortages. Fox would probably have finished school, and would be teaching physics. If I had a grandson, I would be a part of his life.

But I still believe God has a plan for me. And I am ready to hear of it, and get started.

Lead me oh Lord.

16 April 2006

"He is risen!"

Of course it took a few days for the news to arrive in Rome, and to trickle down to those of us who were trying to live so called normal lives.

The words, though, spoken in a whisper, were filled with awe-"He is risen!"

"It is said his followers have seen and spoken with him, that they have broken bread!" And later, as the months passed, the word came that it was a woman who'd seen him first, the sister of Lazarus, that she'd gone to the tomb to finish properly the preparations for entombment so hastily done two days before, only to find the guards, and the remains, gone.

(Here I should inform you that this was the duty first of wife if there was one, mother if she yet breathed, sisters, and any other female blood relative, to prepare the remains-you may take that as you like, I merely tell you what I know. I also now give witness that in his sect, to have remained unmarried would have been a noted scandal-remarked on. As it was not, thou may infer that he indeed was married. I never heard different until nearly one hundred years had begun to cover the truth.)

The testimony of the centurion also became known. The last hours of the man we'd begun to call the Christ were described by a horrified (and apparently grief stricken) soldier who then disappeared. Certes, we knew his recountment may have been embellished, however, the basic story remained intact no matter how far it was spread.

"He is risen!"

Hope, even in the most hopeless of times, as those of us who were not Jewish yet had always known The One True God-The Almighty Light, struggled to protect our families from the ruthless desperation of the idolators, the covetous, the frightened.

The time of Christ were a frightening time, filled with acts of bestiality and overwhelming filth. Then as now, those responsible did all and more to cover their evil and protect their status quo. Oh yes, he filled them with fear.

"He is risen!"

Alleluia, alleluia, he is risen!

Hosanna, hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna, Lord, hosanna, send us now success.

14 April 2006

A couple of thoughts...

I commemorate Passover-I believe that we are still required by God to observe the Holy Days especially if we dare to call ourselves Christian. The Passover is the retelling of the Great Exodus, our salvation from slavery in Egypt. The Passover story is a much reminder of the First Commandmant-

"I am the Lord, your God, who led you from bondage. You will have no other before me."

So I am reading the news this morning and am disappointed to read that because of the unhealthy spin some Christian congregations are putting on the Seder, rabbis are speaking out against Christian celebrations of the Passover.

"I came not to abolish the law, but to uphold it!" Jesus said a lot of things, but to me the two most important (and sadly, the two least noted) things he said were that he DID NOT come to tear down the law-sorry Saul, AKA St. Paul (of the miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus). He also, when asked which of the Commandmants were the most important, made clear that he DID NOT consider himself a deity-"Hear O' Israel, the Lord our God is one, there is no other..."

Can't say as I blame the good rabbis.

ALSO; this so called Gospel of Judas. OK, I'm just going to ask one question-am I the only person on the planet who gets that this is just so much steer manure?

OK, so the paper can be dated back, big woo.

OK, so it is unfortunately true that the Roman church has continued suppressing early texts in a drive to control what we know about the early church; this suppression has had horrific consequences starting with a deeply divisive mistrust in a lot of good people of anyone wearing a red hat.

But much of the New Testament they let us have access to has been archaeologically vindicated-do we need mention the Old Testament vindications too?-so how come this document is the only one that has ever been found that spins Judas into a hero? Why do NONE of the Gnostic Gospels make any effort to 'justify' Judas Iscariot?

Instead, for nearly two thousand years, his name has been the textbook definition of rat bastard. Gee, I wonder why...

And now, finally, it is once again Good Friday.

I was in Rome, but we'd heard of this Jesus bar Joseph ben David, of course. He was becoming a political threat, being of the House of David-the Caesars owed his house a lot of back taxes for one thing.

(You don't have to believe me, look it up kid, it was called tribute. Kind of like rent the Caesars paid to the real kings of the land they were occupying. What, you've not read the Bible? You don't know that Herod was a distant cousin, placed on throne of David by the Caesars to keep some really pissed off young Jewish guys from starting the Mossad a couple of thousand years early? Ya know, those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it. At the very least, when you think, well, OK, Jesus died for us once...trust me, logic won't follow this time. Jesus was very clear about what would happen the next time he came here...)

And about the only thing that I can say, having been in Rome, and not at Golgatha, is that although it has been very nearly two thousand years, I promise you that Jesus was not on the cross a mere three hours.

As recently as my early years in this lifetime, I was taught that he was crucified on WEDNESDAY morning shortly after sunrise, and was hanging there from that day until just after the noonday on FRIDAY. I went along with it because I knew it was true. I was really surprised and frankly frightened when all of a sudden people starting saying he was only up there for three hours, instead of the three days that he really was.

I remember it quite well. There were all manner of rumours..."Well, someone must have helped him along, my dears, certainly no healthy strapping man as he was would have died so quickly!" "Must be a defect in the bloodline for him to have died so quickly-we have done the House a favour, exposing the weakness!"

The centurion talked, oh course he did, and the story of the repentant degenerate spread faster than Nero's little BBQ fire to come. Most of us who were secretly rejoicing that the Chosen One had at last come held fast in our mourning to the story as a hope of forgiveness. I don't recall precisely the savage's crime, just that it was an unspeakable thing to have earned him death by crucifixion. (Probably animal or child rape...OK, NOW do you get why that manner of execution was so horrific?) But he was forgiven, because he was utterly repentant, and the Christ made it known through the centurion. Who disappeared soon after, it being let out that he had gone mad and went raving into the desert never to be seen again...

To say the Christ's suffering was a mere three hours is to make a vanity indeed of the tremendous sacrifice he made for you, and for me, and for all of us. He could have been saved from it had he but asked! But he knew the awesome miracle of the rescue would enslave you forever-Jesus died on the cross to PRESERVE YOUR FREEDOM TO CHOOSE!

(I am so very nauseated by the non-thinking who claim his murder was a proscribed bloodbath for their filthy sins! How primitive, how pagan, how convenient for those who want to claim his name while whoring right up to the last second of breath!)

Finally, what he is supposed to have said as he died is this:

"O' my Father, it is finished. Into thy hands I commit my spirit. LORD, OH LORD, WHY DO THEY FORSAKE YOU?"


11 April 2006

Roomie asked me to help him get his mother's car down to her in Dothan, so my week's end, which I'd planned for the usual room cleaning, laundry, and sewing marathon, turned into the Road Trip From Hell-Part Two.

The drive down wasn't all that bad, although we drove straight into some ghastly weather that spawned four tornados back in Atlanta. I was driving the Honda CRV he is swapping his mother his little Ford Focus for, and I was able to enjoy some relative peace and quiet while the dog stretched out across the way-back. Nice, really.

Things went south in a big way once we crossed into Houston County. Although he'd said we were going to stop at my son's on the way in, he went straight for his mother's, where she reacted to mine and the dog's presence with what seemed to me to be surprise-expressed in her usual unpleasant way. My reaction was to grab the dog and take a long walk, during which I decided that I would abuse my overdraft protection by checking into a cheap motel.

So of course when I informed Roomie of that decision, I was cast as the unpleasant one who went inappropriately on the defensive...

I could go on, but why? Suffice it to say that the weekend reinforced my total joy at being the hell out of there! I LOVE ATLANTA!!!!! Small people from small towns...tre boring, dear ones, trust me:)

The ride home, during which Roomie decided he needed me to drive while he played every song on his computer that told his life story, was an exercize in patience.

Lord, send me into companionship with adults-You know the kind, the ones who ask "How was your day?" and then listen to the answer. The kind who are aware there exist OTHERS in the world along with them.

Roomie's fiancee rang at 01something this morning-I couldn't get back to sleep, and have been using the time to think about more important things than how utterly inconsiderate, unthinking, and disrespectful today's citizens are.

I did get to see my son. Oh dear, that was horrid. It will be a long while before I see him again, I think. He makes clear by his actions and words that he doesn't want to see me, speak to me, or feel anything other than abused by me, so I will not force my unwanted presence on him again. He knows how to find me if he ever grows up. I asked him if we could talk, he informed me that I was not allowed on the property-I left.

The world is a colder place than it needs be; this embrace of cynicism and vulgarity is depressing-all these Donnie and Debbie Downers!

Crusty was like that too. He hated my optimism, my faith and hope, my joy in life. He wanted life to be horrid. He did all of this to show me how ugly life is.

What an ass. What a waste. What a shame.

08 April 2006

I've done a lot of thinking the past seven years about forgiveness.

If you have been a regular reader, and you are willing to believe that I have tried to be honest about what happened, and why I stayed, you know that I have a lot to forgive of a lot of people.

When all this exploded in my face back in July of 1998, I was not in possession of all the facts, I wonder today if I have all of them today; what I do know today is far worse than what I knew in '98, and it has been a struggle to hang onto my willingness to forgive.

In August of 2002 I came to understand how incredibly evil people will be when money is involved, I thought I knew about evil until then, and I have to say that the enormity of what was revealed is one of those things you NEVER 'get over', NEVER 'get past', and NEVER 'get through'.

These bastards will never be prosecuted for what they let happen-in full knowledge-but they damn sure will face God, and two little girl's angels. For the first time in any of my lives I hoped to be able to see them sent to Hell, may God help me forgive myself.

March of 2003 I found out a few more things-the new information put me on the "grief diet" but interestingly, saved my life at the same time; what I found out in the fall of 2005 was the so-called final straw.

I have never been all that big on revenge, but justice means quite a lot to me, and I while I know that God is in charge, and that the people responsible for all of this will meet God soon, I am rather hopeful they meet what we used to call Caesar's justice first.

It wasn't just our lives, but several others, and the ripple, or what I call Crusty's little snowball has become an avalanche of horror.

I've always been a reader of the Psalms; one has lines that speak often to what I felt and still feel:

"...Had it been an enemy that vaunted himself against me, this I could have borne, but it was you, my companion, my good friend, with whom I'd broken bread, with whom I entered into the sanctuary..." (PS-not talking about Crusty here, I knew he was the enemy from Day One.)

I've learned a lot about forgiveness in the 5K years I've been walking around.

I didn't need to re-learn it, and I didn't need it to be tested.

If God is willing to forgive, so am I.

But the need for these people to take real responsibility for what they did is what it will take to earn my forgiveness, and God's.

Because it is the penultimate act of jailhouse lawyerism to think that you can ask God for forgiveness without also-FIRST-asking the people you hurt on purpose. Anything else is avoiding real acts of responsibility while expecting God's willingness to forgive to grant you an 'get out of jail free' card-trust me, this amounts to breaking the Third Commandment by abusing His name, which is MERCY. As Jesus taught, you cannot expect mercy if you did not extend it...

I talk a lot about jailhouse lawyers-my utter contempt should be patently clear (is this what is known as 'disclosure?:) as regards anyone who commits evil by choice and then looks for a loophole to avoid the just consequences.

I often say that God doesn't do jailhouse lawyers, and that there are no adjoining cells in Hell.

You'd think that a serious "Duh!" moment, nah, people will lie, deny, and buy any out they think will pass.

I'm going to start saying that God is merciful-not stupid.

He is willing to forgive us anything, even utter evil, if we will truly take responsibility for what we have done; I am going to keep praying that every one of God's children who needs it opens their heart to it.

But, He doesn't do jailhouse lawyers, and He isn't stupid.

Just so's ya know...

Trust me.

04 April 2006

"I have been young and now I am old, yet never have I seen the child of a righteous man begging for bread..."

Until now.

I remember, even when I don't want to. The memories are painful, especially the ones I've accrued in this lifetime. Particularly when I feel no-one is interested in what I have learned from them, and worse, when all around me seem determined to punish me for wanting to learn from them.

What are memories? Memories are the recollection of one's experiences.

Wounds are what memories leave, sometimes; scars are the result of 'getting past' the wounds that go very, very deep.

"You have to forgive to go forward." Well meaning, and well intentioned (usually) advice from mouths of those who are uncomfortable around those of us who are struggling to 'get past' the intentional infliction of wounds to body and soul. If the struggle goes on for a period of time deemed too long by those above mentioned well intentioned, the well intentioned have a habit of slipping away-they don't return calls, they avoid us in the streets, they whisper to each other that we've really become impossible...It is called secondary wounding and because it is inflicted by the very people we've turned to in our grief-friends, family, pastors, the secondary wounding is the trauma that sends us spiraling into a very bad place.

Depending on one's psychology, this bad place can take many different forms and have many different names-religious fanaticism, nervous breakdown, a life of crime from acting out, bitterness, promiscuity, complete rejection of God, Hell on Earth...

Since Thanksgiving night 1998 I have been struggling-mightily-with the mere notion of forgiveness.

I confess to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have often, these past years since I have come to understand the depth of Crusty's perfidous intentions against Fox and me, slipped far lower than anger into hate and bitterness. It has at times led me to think my very soul has been shredded.

"As often as my feet have slipped, you oh Lord, have upheld me..."

A fairly well known poem tries to reassure us that the times that we feel the farthest from God are the very times He is closest to us-we see one set of footsteps because those are His in the sands as He carries us during our most difficult times. I believe that.

Many saints write of 'the long dark night of the soul' they experience after a particularly intense spiritual experience. They write that they worry that they have missed something, since they feel so far from Him, and cannot understand why this distance is being experienced when they'd soared so very high.

Many souls who'd thought their faith in God strong enough to withstand any horror find themselves engaged in a horrific struggle equal to or actually more so after an experience that has left them staggered (consider Job's plight) and bleeding to virtual death from the pain.

Frankly, how wretched of anyone to blithly say, "You have to forgive to move on!" in that chiding tone reserved for the annoying grief stricken neighbour, sister, parishoner who just will not get over it and stop whining about the pain, and asking how to get past it all-the loss of: their child, their marriage, their livlihood, their homes, their dreams, hopes, faith, trust.

Most wretched to say we have to forgive while witholding the tools with which to forgive-the very essential information that will snap on the light in the mind and heart and show the way to the person who needs to forgive to move-on. And how useless!

Jesus taught that we must forgive, even as many as seventy times seven times that the sinner repents.

Key word? Not forgive.

Repent.

Smart guy, that Jesus.

He taught us a prayer that unfortunately has had some of the meaning and intent lost in the translations. Gentle reader, you may recognize part of it although I deliver it here to you in the correct translation:

"...for Thou art willing to forgive us our tresspasses as we strive to remain willing to forgive those as trepass against us..."

Key words? Not forgive.

Willing.

I know God is willing to forgive me any sin-the minute I truly admit what I have done and make every effort to make it right-to atone, in other words.

How very unfashionable, and how dreadfully inconvenient for those who will insist on playing jailhouse lawyer while in full sadistic wear; full on ready-willing-and happily able to make the victim accept the evil of the perpetrator's crimes against the victim-our society has made the very word "victim" a slur in it's sophist drive to acheive impunity!

And because God is willing, I am led to know that it is certainly the gravest of sins to with-hold a like willingess toward others while expecting it for myself.

'Nuff said.

02 April 2006

A very brief post to hopefully explain my previous one...

1-I want so very much to hope for my ex-husband, my former employers, and others in my life who have abused their gift of free will to hurt me. I want to hang on to this hope for them because I know God does, and because I know that Jesus is praying for them in hopes that one day they will be fully reconciled to the Father.

Since I know this to be true for me when I err, how can I begrudge them of the same?

2-I truly believe that God is willing to forgive us ANY sin, any crime against another, if only our repentance is full, sincere, and therefore meaningful.

"Thee is willing to forgive us our trespasses as we strive to be willing to forgive those who trespass against us."

3-I am carefully writing a Word.doc about forgiveness (I am giving the subject an extra lot of attention lately) that I will be posting in the next few days.

I hope you will check back in, say around Tuesday, 4th April. I would like very much to have all of your feedback-hey, you, blog'lurker, yes you, in the back trying to duck...Leave a comment.

Within reason, the only stupid question is the one not asked in the sole hope of avoiding embarrassment:)

Um, one last thing.

Crusty, I have some reason to believe you may be one of the blog'lurkers.

Trust me that while I am truly hoping you turn your heart back to God and all that is good, clean, and right, I promise you that I am not hoping you and I will get back together.

I want the guy God planned for me back in 1981, before you (hey, let's be honest here, OK, for yours and Fox's sake) put a gun to my head, and changed all of our lives forever.

No going back, and I'm only concerned with the past in so far as learning from it benefits the future.

Mick, you need to understand something-what you did nearly 25 years ago did not take ME or FOX out of God's plan, but it may take YOU.

I hope you chose to put yourself back into His plan for you. He loves you, and I know He has tremendous hopes for you.