Life

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, hath had elsewhere it’s setting, and cometh from afar, not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home: William Wordsworth   “Immortality.”

 

I love sports and good books and classic rock. I love beautiful women and good old shoot em ups at the movies. I enjoy watching the sky at night and seeing the stars, planets and satellite’s along with the moon which I seem to find endlessly fascinating. Coffee in the morning my wife’s smile before I go to bed my son rushing quickly through the house saying a quick hi on the way to computer mysteries and endeavors I know little to nothing about. Simple things like playing my guitar (however badly) and plunking at the piano. Putting in the Eagles on the cd player in my 20 year old truck or at times putting on Foghat playing “Slow Ride” as loud as I can and screaming out the lyrics and  feeling about 40 years younger for a few minutes.  Thinking about the most beautiful girl in the world from that era (no I won’t say who) and besides I’m a happily married fat little old man now and glad to be here.  

I think about my grandparents who raised me and the dark haired spitfire that was my mother and in who I still look at times and see just a little of that person in the gray haired little old lady who talks mostly about God and my sister these days.  I think about my Dad who I reconnected with due to the magic of facebook in these later years and all the years missed due to hurt and silly ego and the human condition. 

I lost a friend who was more of a brother than a friend this year to early onset dementia and finally his body just stopped. I wonder where he is now. I know he wasn’t always there during the illness and I like to think he is free now and fully himself again.

 I think of bike rides around Walnut Park which was the best neighborhood in Alabama City which was the best part of Gadsden, Alabama growing up. I think of hot asphalt and dirt country roads in the little coal town of Altoona, Alabama and girls and beer and a little smell of pot on hot southern nights. Hearing Queen or Nazareth or once it got cranked up Lynyrd Skynyrd.

I say all that to say this. I love life. I have seen good and bad. I’ve seen the time when I was so afraid to put my debit card in a gas pump because I wasn’t sure there was enough on it to get gas and seeing it declined would put a hole in my stomach and a funk on my soul. I’ve seen times when $100 was not a problem and if I lost it I would hardly miss it. I’ve seen empty cupboards and full pantries and I’ve felt the sky topping soul soaring feeling of that “new job” or finally a good paycheck.  This past year I experienced heart failure and complications from surgery that looked like it might take me out and I experienced healing from an incredible medical team in repairing the leak of the new valve that replaced the leaky old valve.  It gave me a different view of rich and poor. Although, I still don’t recommend poverty as a lifestyle I found out that good health tops all.

I have often felt over the years that this world is a pale reflection of my real home. With all of it’s wonder and love and hope. With the tragedy and sorrow and injustice. The lust and the desire and  the needs of life. I fought to stay in this world when I was sick. I struggled to draw that next breath and prayed my thankfulness when I inhaled and felt my lungs expand. Thank you Jesus, God the Holy Spirit and the whole universe. Thank you science and technology and evolution and all the ships at sea. It felt like heaven to breathe again and not feel my life force slipping away with every labored breath. So, I’m not knocking this world. This isn’t a self righteous rant of how I’m a pure spirit and have no fear of death. It also isn’t an admission of secret atheism and fear of physical death either. I learned or had it reinforced in me that health is the key to contentment. I can face death so much better when I’m well. It’s not the dying now that scares me so much. Like Woody Allen once said “I don't mind death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Well I don’t mind death so much since it’s a constant in this world the same as birth. I just don’t want to suffer endless bad health along the way.

I am in my 6^th decade on this earth. I have some life experience and some lucid dreams and even what I believe to be past life memories. I have no desire to prove my theology to anybody else. I have no desire to listen to anybody trying to convert me to the fire and brimstone faith of my upbringing. I  been there and have the t-shirt. I also have no need and no desire to hear an atheist tell me that it’s a wonderful journey even though in a very real sense it means nothing at the end. It just all ends in nothingness praise Darwin and Dawkins. I have no religion these days except to treat people the way I want to be treated. I more often than not treat people the way they treat me. But, my belief is to treat everybody the way I would want to be treated.

I find great peace and spiritual and mental resources in prayer and meditation. I find that in my sixth decade of this journey I don’t try so hard to prove I’m right or justify myself in anybody else’s eyes. I also don’t demand anybody else justify themselves in my eyes. Do I still feel  some things are worth fighting for? Yes. But, I’m not much of a joiner or follower these days. I no longer believe in a one size fits all religion or political movement.

When it comes to social issues like universal health care and shelter and clothing and food I’m absolutely liberal. When it comes to abortion I’m reluctantly pro choice not because I think abortion is a holy right of womanhood. But, simply because unless you are going to provide care and shelter to the mother and the child until the child is completely grown then you are pro birth and that isn’t pro life anyway. Also, it’s the woman’s responsibility. I hate abortion but the truth is as some wise woman once said “If men got pregnant you could get an abortion out of a vending machine.”  I do believe gay people should have the right to marry and leave their belongings to whoever they choose as long as it’s consenting adults.

On the other hand I’m very conservative on some issues. I don’t buy the victimhood game these days.  Everybody want’s their 15 minutes of victimhood. Grow the hell up. I think Bernie Sanders would bankrupt the nation and if you can’t see Donald Trump is an asshole and has limited mental capacity then I’m sorry. You’re just willfully blind.

 If you have a penis you are a man I can’t help how much makeup and dresses you wear. If you have a vagina then you are female and cutting off all your hair and putting on a suit won’t change that. You have to go to the bathroom? It’s a freaking non issue and most of us know that. I never look in a stall to make sure the person using it has the right equipment and unless you make an issue of it I’ve never seen the police called to check on the biology of the person in the next stall. God, we strain at gnats and swallow camels in this society. So, if I have to choose I’ll be over here on the left with the liberals. But, I will still cringe at the self righteous identity politics and the silly culture wars of the left.

Still, I’m from Bama and I’ve seen the far right wing keep a whole state poor and fighting with each other while the politicians get richer. I’m sure right wing folks can point to Detroit or California to show what far left wing politics can do. So, choose your side I guess. But, don’t try to convert, bully or belittle me for not thinking like you do. I will give you the same privilege.

All in all I’m just trying to navigate life without harming anybody else along the way and being true to myself and my journey during this incarnation.

Peace.