All Are In the Self I See

When one lives life as a sacrament, it can become too intense for others to enjoy. Upon the death of my youngest brother, my mother curled up in my arms and wailed that the last words she had shared with Albert had been harsh. I got it in my mind that I should live every moment with every person as if it was to be my last. I wanted every encounter to end on a high note.

The more I loved a person, the more important it became to me that we would never let the sun set on our anger. Other people don't act like this; they trust that the relationship will continue no matter what words are left in conflict. I have consequently become a big burden for others to bear.

The near-deaths of several friends and family members and the losses of so many relationships during Hurricane Katrina only added to my sense that I had to end every day with peace among those with whom I usually share good will. To say that I became obsessed with peace is simply an understatement of immense magnitude.

All of this was also impacted by the whole heaven and hell system of my mother's religion. She said that she believed that only those following her faith would make it to heaven, but her child died without notice enough to "get right with God" before he passed away from us. The same scenario subsequently happened when a sister and older brother died. All of them had moved on from the faith of our father and mother.

It became totally unbearable when my daughter was diagnosed with cancer. She is a devout follower of the Christian religion in her religious, professional and personal lives. I, who follow no religion, still had enough of the fear that informed my mother's faith that I became adamant about finding a way to assure that my daughter and I would share peace in the hereafter. I could find no words to assist us in sharing our beliefs and I didn't know how I would celebrate her life with her and others if I didn't have the proper words to describe what she meant to me and those around her.

I also didn't know how to handle the fact that her religion teaches that people like me don't see our loved ones after they have passed from this earth. For years I have pondered this problem in solitude, giving up relationships rather than continue to run the daily risk of offending someone I love. And talking faith and religion is the fastest way to offend. If I don't interact with people, I certainly can't offend them.

What I came to realize is that energy shared with another lives on in each person, place, or thing that we encounter. No matter how much I may have fought with another, the good memories will always come back when I least expect them. Their energy has become a part of me that I also observe in others. Every time I cook, I feel my mothers in my kitchen with me. When I write, I feel my daddy informing how I think about things. Every beautiful day brings back my baby brother, and ironing includes the person who taught me, my older brother.

I never visit our bayou family without taking along my deceased sister who shared in their hospitality when we were sent to the country for summer vacations. My daddy, who my sister fought every minute of her life, is also laughing along with me in his sister's living room. I don't know what others may see from their places  in the hereafter, but I know that I will never stop seeing them in myself and in so many people that I know.

Watch out world, here I come again!

Sanity Is Simply Too Terrible

It seems that the only sane thing is to accept the "inevitable." Those who dare to see outside the box of recurring human errors are destined to be marked either crazy, visionaries, or miracle workers. It is amazing how many crazy people in their own time on earth are admired as saints and geniuses after they are dead.

I have long grown weary of those who look to our abusive ancestors for ways to follow their purported faiths. Isn't it time that we understand that many leaders have come for the express purpose of leading us away from our recurring human errors?

I can imagine that Moses was sent to put an end to the foolishness of offering physical goods and flesh as homage to a god outside of all earthly experience. This seems to have been the first inkling that the way to honor our origins is to take care of ourselves and others in a manner that improves responsible compassion on earth.

I am fairly certain that the reason Jesus lived and died the way he did was to carry the concept and example of responsible compassion away from the belief that it was born into people. I believe his main message to Homo sapiens is that full humanity is a choice, freely made by each individual. I believe he also meant to lay to rest the belief that there is a spiritual salvation gained by accumulating and hoarding physical things to show great virtue by offering these things as sacrifices, as we lord it over others.

When will we move past the desire to offer to gods that which is already part of the very essence of what is sacred on our earth? All we really have to offer is what we are to each experience on our earth. What we leave behind is what we have offered, both negative and positive, to all. It will all become blessed in the end; it is up to each of us to either expand the positive or to eventually completely disappear.

I accept that these thoughts must mark me as insane, but the alternative that I was taught as sanity is simply too terrible for me to bear.

Fight, Flight and Our Future

Is anger the only effective fuel against fear? Aren't humans supposed to have the capacity to cope with more reasoned means? While it is true that other animals may only have capacity to flee or fight, Homo sapiens are supposed to have the ability to back away until we put our energies together in forming productive plans to make changes that will effect the future course of our earth.

Those who believe that Homo sapiens are destined to continue committing the same sins, because of Karma or the words of our ancient ancestors, look forward to peace only after we have destroyed our earth. I refuse to subscribe to a heaven other than what we are creating in our physical universe. I don't believe that I will see those who have lived and died after I'm dead, except as my own energy contains the energy that they already shared with me.

In this life, I see and hear my sisters and brothers, fathers, mothers, and all the friends who have touched my life. In my dreams, I actually feel their touches, as I did while their bodies were still on our earth. Who is to tell me that my dreams aren't simply parts of my life here on earth? I don't enjoy interpreting them, but I do often embrace them.

I simply don't see the difference in definition between then and now, the physical manifestations and the energy existent in the universe. I do expect that those who want to be treated as humans, not simply Homo sapiens animals, prove that they have the ability to channel their energies into progressively positive endeavors, for their own generation and all that come after theirs.

It is time that we define humanity as separate from the animals called Homo sapiens.

Golden Rule Gone Awry

I submit that it is dangerous to equate the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." with what Jesus meant when he is reported to have said, "Love God with your heart soul and mind, and you neighbor as you do yourself." I have had too many friends and family live and die by this misinterpretation to stay silent on the subject.

I believe that Jesus came to earth expressly to give us a new view of "God," based not on Abraham's interpretation, but on the need to "get right with our earth" as the only way to "get right with God." Jesus's greatest ridicule, we are told, was toward those who believed otherwise. This says to me that Jesus expected humans to see The Sacred Spirit inside themselves and in others around them, like him. He also expected us to honor The Sacred in ourselves enough not to do ourselves or our children harm. He, and his earthly family and friends, exemplified how to do this.

In interpreting his great commandment as The Golden Rule, we allow ourselves to deny The Sacred Spirit alive in all who embrace it in ourselves and in others. Addicts share their substance and sex induced bliss with each other. Those who deny control over their own actions take their children, and the children of others, under their wings of lust and greed. Doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, without a higher purpose than lust fulfillment for our lives on earth, is fraught with the danger of destroying all that is sacred about our physical time on earth.

What we sow, not only do we reap, but all on earth reap what we have sown, both good and bad for many generations that follow our physical manifestations on earth. This is what we each should remember as we pretend to have the keys to heaven in hands that harm and/or hoard all that is holy right here on our shared earth. We must first acknowledge The Sacred in many manifestations on earth, then share only, and all, which is sacred with others. For this ideal many martyrs, including Jesus, have given their lives and have died. Most of us are only asked to give our lives over to the effort.

I Wish I'd Been an Oldest

I wish I had been born an oldest because I'd be certain of all that I do;
Oldest child, oldest daughter, oldest son; any would help me through.
Unfortunately, for my authority, I had an older of both sister and brother;
This secured my position of inferiority, with them and with our mother.

When siblings reached to me for guidance, food, or a loving home,
I welcomed them with open arms, no matter where I roamed.
It only caused much jealousy when my younger siblings came to me;
Their complicity in my persecution was something I couldn't see.

I'll never know how I, with no authority, have come to be blamed,
For so many of the family problems, and many yet to be named.
The oldest of our brothers is dead; our oldest sister is a living saint.
Somehow, their authority continues to, my reputation, taint.

I am not the one who tortured our siblings, at our mother's insistence.
I am not the one who brought down our father's wrath, with my resistance.
I am not the one who beat our ineffective mother in front of her children.
I am the one who offered to share all my resources, and those of my men.

Still, I am a pariah, when I share family secrets that have been told to me,
Hoping, through them, to define family values on which we all could agree.
The problem which I see is that many are convinced of absolute truth,
No matter what, in human history, has been shown to be power's abuse.

I cannot deal with those who refuse to acknowledge progress in humanity,
Believing that all who protest for human progress are victims of insanity.
I have turned myself inside out in attempting to understand their positions;
To defect from their versions of humanity has become most sane of my decisions.

Only those who walk in paths that lead to peace while still on earth
Will be, by me, seen as the messiahs for which they were given birth.
Any father, god, or prophet that hopes to control me by inflicting fear
Will never be a god or leader that I will hold, in my values or life, dear.

Goodbye my sisters and brothers who believe in parroted dogma and rules.
Goodbye to those who believe that all worth knowing is learned in schools.
Goodbye to religions that believe in anointed gurus, prophets, and priests.
I believe it's time for all hierarchical religions and caste systems to cease.

Preparing Progeny

There are people in the pool and sailors on the seas. How can the view be better than this? Watching others enjoy the blessings of their being is probably the greatest pleasure I have in my leisurely life.Can it be possible that appreciation is a vocation?If so, I have certainly found my reason to continue breathing the air gifted to me.

The boats are back for summer sailing classes, a yearly event that draws me to live on the water.
So many seasoned sailors freely donate their time to teach young people safe sailing techniques. It takes days of preparation and intermittent harbor patrols, I assume to check for sunken obstacles and placing buoys to mark what is unseen in the brackish water's depths. It is a delight watching the smooth sailing, and an equally enjoyable activity watching the young capsized sailors regain mastery of their crafts.

I have always wanted to be a teacher, but my lack of confidence in myself always leads me to over-identify with the struggles of others. This is not a good trait in a teacher, as a teacher must exude confidence and a certain detached superiority to which a student must aspire. A teacher must also have infinite ability for repetition of tasks, as the students repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

I was, unfortunately taught that all mistakes, once being told the "right way," are punishable offenses. Instead of punishing my students, I learned to punish myself for not explaining the process properly. A bit of this tendency may be compassion, but too much of it renders me helpless to keep my own boundaries intact.

Meanwhile, I love watching those who can guide and protect the progeny of others, never doubting their own abilities to give them the skills and strengths they need.

What Energy Will Exist in Eternity

How can we say that we value life when we focus most of our funds on killing? We tear out full forests; thereby, killing entire ecosystems and assuring the deaths of complete civilizations. We poison water supplies in the quest for energy sources that could be obtained with more patient processes. We wage war to claim and cage lands that are able to thrive only in diversity. We produce pools of poison for bathing, next to seas of soothing salts. We've harnessed the nuances of nature in order to create illusions of permanence in our physical destinies, destroying our earthly experiences of peace in the process.

We don't allow pre-term babies to be loved while they live, insisting that they will be better off under lids of incubators instead of in their parents' caring arms. Our dying are shocked, prodded, paddled and protected from peaceful passing, as our living are driven to greater and greater acts of desperation by those who hoard what our earth so freely gives. We don't even allow our dead bodies to be used as new sources of earth's energy. Will we ever leave well enough alone in order to embrace what works best in natural rhythms?

What is wrong with feeding our bodies to the carrion who take our spirits soaring skyward? How horrible would it really be to have the energy of your flesh and bones feed a new tree? Would you rather have the arms of the ones who most love you wrapped around you, in an effort to soak up the last bits of your earthly energy, or would you prefer to have your body continue to use the medical resources that could save a young mother or child?

How have we come to a point where humanity means honoring outside appearance, while the core energy of the universe is being denied eternal life? When will we realize that our skins are simply wrappers for our spirits and the spirits of those who have impacted our own? What we create from our insides is all that will live on after our physical selves are expired, and the best of life is dependent on sharing and diversity.

Those who spend their lives destroying and hoarding don't know what they do. They are not only destroying the earth that they see around them, but are ensuring that their energies will die as our honored universe is repaired. I don't believe in Armageddon, where the hoards will be either saved or left behind by a great god. I believe Homo sapiens are self-selecting, with how they spend their lives, what energy will exist in eternity.