Love Me

The word "my" should be banned from the English language, except as it relates to inanimate objects like the TV. I can watch my TV. I can turn it on or off. I can move it from room to room or smash it and throw it away.

This evening, my husband came over and began caressing me. I was busy. It annoys me to be interrupted when I'm busy. I brushed him off.

"What?" he exclaimed in a psuedo-injured tone. "I can't help it. You're so sexy. I like to caress my breasts."

"They aren't your breasts," I say.

"Our breasts, then," he capitulates.

"They aren't our breasts either," I say. "They're mine."

But are they mine? Without serious damage to me, I cannot take them off nor move them into another room nor, no matter how much I hate their drooping programming, can I smash them and throw them away. Certainly I could pay someone else to knock me out to do the deed, but I cannot force my will on them. I can't force my will on any part of me, except maybe my hair or nails, which I can cut off. But once it's clippings, it's inanimate.

I better not "try to take better care of my heart," as if I can get it tuned up or have a new one installed, like in a car. If it goes, I go. We are one. It is a part of me. Not mine. Me.

Then we take this obscene possessive noun and apply it to the individuals living with us. "My husband." As if I can force him to talk or listen to me, as if I can turn him on or off, or place him in the part of the room I find him most suitable. Or, if I don't find his picture quality satisfactory or if the sound isn't coming out right, I can't, or shouldn't even if I could, smash him up and toss him out.

The children in my house are not mine either. I cannot force them to eat their vegetables or fall asleep on my timetable or think what I want them to think.

My will cannot be forced on anyone else without harming them and it is exceedingly frustrating to try, only leading to abuse.

"Love your neighbor as yourself."

"Do unto others what you would have done to you."

If you are faithful in the small, you will gain greater responsibility.

Do I love me? Do I treat me with respect? Am I faithful in the care of the only person over whom I can actually assert my will? This is not a case of selfishness or self-spoiling, which is not self-love. This is true self-knowledge, even of the bad stuff, self-acceptance despite the knowing and self-respect. If I can't learn to love myself, if I treat me as a possession, how can I possibly know how to treat in a loving manner the man who has chosen to live with me or
the children whom I have birthed?

I won't. I will treat them the same way I treat myself: manipulating, communicating dishonestly, behaving disrespectfully. I will be unloving, possessive, as if they is mine; my objects to place and use at will.

I don't want to teach my children to be responsible and behave unselfishly. I don't want to parrot "Do unto others what you would have done to you." I want to teach my children, by example, something altogether different. I want to learn self-love and have it spill over, thereby teaching them self-love; self-protective, self-accepting, self-determining love. And their love will spill out and over. And we will love our neighbor as ourselves. And we will be perfect. As God is perfect.

At least, sometimes...

Epilogue

I want you, Mommy. Where have you gone? It is two years since I've seen you.

Is that you there, that lady with the short dark hair? Will she turn to embrace me? No. Her own children consume her. Is that you online, editing my work with a sure and steady mind? No. Her mind attends to her own family. Is that you, taking up my children, to teach them as you loved to do? No. Her arms open to recieve her own grandchildren.

I struggle to find her, desperate to see some piece of her to comfort me, to thrill in my offspring, to laugh at my husband. Clever, critical, intelligent, detailed, ingenious. I cannot find her.

Who holds the memories of my childhood? They are lost. Of family occasions and traditions? In imperfection I struggle to uphold them. She who knew dates and hows and whos... she is missing. She is not with my Dad. She is not here. She is not, but in my heart.

My hands remember her instruction as I peel potatoes. My ears recall her voice. My mind replays memories my eyes will never see. My skin yearns for her soft, cool hands, sometimes gentle, sometimes firm, but always hers.

To whom can I ask those questions only my mother can answer? They hide in my heart, unasked, like lost children in the shadows of desolate buildings. They don't know where to go. They hunger for knowledge, but starve.

"Are you my Mama?" I cry to the women who pass. No. They shake their heads. Their eyes fill with fleeting pity. A rememberance of their own loss, or perhaps a recognition of what will come.

The faces, the hands, the embraces are not hers; will never be hers. Lost, the woman who, with the complete knowledge of one who nursed, weaned and reared another, gave unshakable love, honest friendship, and immovable acceptance.

I grasp desperately for the bough from the tree that seeded me, but it has been hewn. The boughs of my beloved shade tree have been carted away to be burned. Ashes. I sift through the ashes. The wind lifts them away... voice, touch, laughter, opinion. Gone...

So I weep.

The Power of Words

And they are powerful. Their nuanced shades shape both individual thoughts and social mores. An example?

Fair. My computer thesaurus provides alternative words such as equitable, bright, favorable, blond, creamy light, beautiful. How about Dark? Alternative words include clandestine, ebony, tragic, threatening, evil. I am fair skinned. My friend is dark. The subconscious trappings of each word flashes through the mind, casting each of us in discriminatory colors. 

In the book, The Shack, by William P. Young, God the Father is painted as a large black woman. The perturbation in my mind astounded me. Why did it feel wrong to characterize God this way? Because I have been worshipping a graven image, and she was not part of it. Words have had such an affect on affect on God, the modern version of a white haired, bearded Father figure has ceased to be simply a representation of a greater God. Rather, the image has become the god. Like all idols, this god has lost the power of imaginative thought, the flexibility of alternative forms, and the movement of life. He has become frozen in time, a graven image of words, as static as stone. The only few who can relate to this effigy are the ones who created him, after their own image.

The Word became flesh and called him "Father." The Son also used a hen as a visualization tool. Would it not seem foolish if we felt blasphemous referring to God as anything other than The Hen?

Until I can shatter the Father image, until I can see the face of God in a Young's "Papa," until I expand my vision to see a facet of God in every person who crosses my path, I cannot know the Divine. God is so much bigger. Every face is an image of I Am. He is, she is, I am.

Discovering the Feminine Divine

Since watching the 2001 movie "Laura Croft: Tomb Robber," I've wondered what a strong feminine role model would look like. Somehow, a testosterone based character with a sexy body and double barreled guns wasn't what I was looking for. In the cinematic world, in reality, and in Christianity, women are usually cast as innocent virgins in need of rescue or as sexy vixens.

Women and men are unarguably different. Physiologically, from conception, the Y chromosome oversees the building of a man, the double X's, the sculpting of a woman. Leonard Sax, in Why Gender Matters discusses research after research supporting the differences between the genders. The partitioned male brain versus the integrated female brain, movement focused male eyes, face focused female eyes, even at day one. Fascinating.

That rules out both men and Laura Croft as my feminine role models.

Now I find myself in the midst of reading Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine, by Sue Monk Kidd. As the author points out so clearly and without rancor, modern Christianity is a patriarchal system, with women in a subordinate, supportive position, never equals. Although God is acknowledged to possess both male and female characteristics, God is, nevertheless, referred to as "He." We are "His" creation, "He" is our "Father in Heaven" or "God the Father." So that the mountain of "he's" and "mankind" and God the "Father" serves to tip the balance toward a male God through pervasive use. As Ms. Kidd says, "the word God does not register in us as neuter... what registers and functions in the mind is male" p. 140.

So deeply is the masculine pronoun ingrained, it feels blasphemous to call the Divine, "God the Mother." It feels as though God would be so offended by a degradation to the feminine "He" would strike me with lightning, perhaps through this very keyboard. After all, was not Eve the first to sin? Doesn't she, therefore, deserve to shoulder more of the blame for humanity's depravity? Wasn't it she who tempted Adam into eating the fruit, precipitating the damnation of mankind? Well, that's another discussion altogether...

Most churches have made it their policy to protect the masses from the vixen and her feminine deceit by the prevention of women's ordination, preaching, lead teaching (except in the children's classes, of course), and any other task but those of ancillary and supportive roles. When women pastors are allowed, they continue to labor within the greater patriarchal system, ministering for a overwhelmingly masculine God. This further diminishes a woman's ability to understand God as One who loves womenkind with equal fervor and value as mankind. How can "He" have created me in "His" image, as it states in Genesis 1:26 and 27, when I am a "she?" How can this traditional, paternalistic Divinity understand me?

The closest approximation of a feminine divinity Christianity has is the Catholic Virgin Mary, reverenced to a great degree by Catholics and even by some Protestants. As a holy figure, she poses threat to neither the supremacy of a masculine God, nor as a temptress of men. She is naive, a "handmaiden of the Lord," denied any form of sexuality. Her unrealistic lifelong celibacy (No children are referred to in the Bible until Jesus is an adult, then his brothers are mentioned. See Matthew 12:46. Furthermore, the Bible says Joseph did not touch her until after Jesus was born. See Matthew 1:25) is a golden halo on her brow, her blue robes a shroud to conceal any sensuous curves, her face is a picture of childlike innocence, untainted by the cares or desires of the flesh.

Other prominent Biblical women include Mary Magdalene (tainted by unsubstantiated rumors of prostitution), Martha (yikes, too much hard work), Jael (pounded a tent peg through Sisera's head), Deborah (a judge of Israel: promising, but not enough information), Lot's wife (a pillar of salt), and El Shaddai (God, the breasted one), the Mother who birthed us with hard labor (Deuteronomy 32:18) and who would gather us under Her wings (Matthew 23:37).

Would She make a good role model? Perhaps I could get to know Her better? The next question would be: How?

Darkness

Three years ago, I was helping take care of my centenarian grandfather. On week days, I would take my toddler boy and infant girl to my parents' home, where Grandpa was living, to help with his personal cares. My mom was midway through the last five years of her life, battling daily pain from a radical surgery that removed a lung infested with mesothelioma. My stress and grief were heavy. Some girlfriends sent me away for a short weekend's respite. At that time, while hiking along a stream and witnessing a log bridging up a small waterfall, I wrote these dark poems:

Why?

What is life about?
We are born and die.
We are there and gone.
Babies born, die.
Knowledge, wisdom, personalities, individuals.
Black.
All is darkness.
Black.
Darker than night.
Blackness without stars.
Darkness without memory of light.
Black.
Thick, all consuming
Black.
Are you there?
No.
There is nothing.
Nothing before.
A flicker.
Nothing after.
Pain between.
Nothing to nothing.
Who cares?
Why send your son to save that?
It doesn't make sense.

Dead Ladder Up

Stark, grays and browns.
Hard, creases and crevasses.
Points, sharp and slivered.
Warped, smooth and rounded.
A ladder of dead, rising up a waterfall

Gushing and roaring, white with life
Over green, dripping and cool.
Wind rushing and cavorting,
Aerating water, leaping and falling
Under dead ladder up.

Little moss,
Soft and fuzzy
Cool and green on dead.
Growing life persisting,
Continuing, proliferating
Over dead ladder up.

Climbing.
Fearful, slipping and sliding.
Carrying, clutching memories.
Chasing, comforting, surrounding me
Crawling on dead ladder up.

What is there?

Heartbeat pounding, shaking.
Adrenalin rushing.
Found the sun.
Sitting, watching water falling
Under dead ladder up.

Life unto life flowing down, around.
Caressing, incorporating death into life perpetually
around dead ladder up.

Tree grew tall by stream and fall
By brook and flowers, reds and greens
Watched life grow for centuries
Flowing, drying, living, dying
Seeding, drinking, branching, feeding.
Crush, break, dam, boom, death.
Becoming dead ladder up.

Grandpa is an aged tree
Who doesn't want to pass.
Roots entangle deeper,
Clutching life's rich soil.
Roots grown feeble.
Too weak to extract life's essence.
He feels his blood slow,
His branches yield,
His leaves dropped brown
Coat the ground.
Dimly aware, the trunk stands,
Weaker and weaker.
Rocks tumble around, breezes blow.
None strong enough.
None strong enough yet.
But soon.
Too soon for tree, it seems.
To yield it always seems too soon.
He will fall and become
Dead ladder up.

My Love and I

"Look!" says Life,
"My partner, my Love,
Always peaceful, always giving.
Each incarnation provides change,
Food, renewal."

"Look!" says Life,
"My Partner, my Love,
All grays and browns.
Coupled to me by rock and stream.
Fully combined in the richness of the soil,
My Love and I.
Death and Life."

Life and Death merge
In ecstatic union.
A climax for a moment
When all else begins to weep.

Fallen Trees

The dead are like fallen trees.
Feeling nothing.
A memory of their relationships
Stories of their lives
Continue to enrich those who knew them.
Yet those memories decompose.
Fragmenting with time
Until they disappear completely.
A new generation of trees have fallen,
Changing the landscape
of each person's mind.

Definitions

The Facebook picket on the socialization of medicine came to an abrupt conclusion with name calling. I was branded a "typical WASP," an epithet laced with the rancor of a racial slur, with no more information then the perusal of my blog. 

Does my labeler believe all blacks condone irresponsibly? Or that a Latina couldn't squeeze family vignettes between gang shootings? Or maybe that all Asian women are so subservient as to be unable to blog on the feminine powers of persuasion? In attempting to define me so narrowly, by pushing me into his WASP box, by inferring the dark hues of ethnocentrism on a portrait of me, he has splattered that very paint on himself. 

And yet, can I blame him for his anger? No one likes to be defined, except perhaps by words such as handsome or beautiful, generous or powerful, but I defined him, with nothing more to inform me than two short paragraphs. By disagreeing with my position on socialized medicine, he cannot help but assume I consider him an illogical spoiled child. If he were to saunter along this dusty path again, he would find I essentially added "racist" to his list of attributes. 

Not fair. Really, it's not. I don't even know the guy. Not were he's been, not what he's seen, and I will never truly know what he thinks or why.

A year or so back, Imus insulted a black basketball player. I remember reading an editorial soon after the event. It was well written, but disturbed me. Not because the woman complained about what he said, but because she allowed his comments to define her. She actually felt less beautiful because she lacked European features. I recall glancing up at the lady's picture in the corner, as I read, and seeing an unarguably attractive woman whose writing demonstrated her intelligence. I thought, how can you let an incredibly ugly, loud-mouthed old man be your mirror? His comment defined him, no one else.

Who am I? I am an African American. Although my father was an American citizen, both my parents were born on the African continent and immigrated to America in their twenties. My mother had to apply for citizenship. Must I be black to love Africa? I hope not. It is an incredible continent full of astounding beauty and heart-wrenching struggles. I am a Native American. Born in California, my pulse beats in time to the waves of the ocean, my mood elevates with the warming sun, my mind wanders with the wind. Must I be red to love this soil? I hope not. It is an amazing country where unlimited potential tangos with innumerable problems.  I am caucasian. Does that mean I must love where ever it is my genetic ancestors came from? I hope not. I wouldn't know where to go. I would be lost.

Do not let me fool you. I've allowed others to define me all my life.

But this is Earth. It is one planet. We all are human. We all belong here. 

Let me be me. You be you. Let's grow from each other's unique perspective and avoid the illusion of categorization.

A Professional Economist's Opinion of Health Care

I highly recommend that you listen to Dr. Jeff Bauer's 9-minute
commentary
on the Obama Health Care Reform. It's presented with the compliments
of Audio-Digest.

WEB ADDRESS: http://www.audio-digest.org/obamahealth

Another Socialized Medicine Opinion

This was sent to me from a friend living in Europe:

"Just happened across your blog & as I don't want to sign up for yet another account -- just too many passwords & stuff to remember! I'll comment here. I totally agree with you. Especially after living in Europe where it is socialized medicine. There are a few countries that I hear do have great socialized med. like Denmark & the Nordic countries but their taxes are like 75-80%! Don't think American's would appreciate that either. Socialized med is not great. Either you don't have qualified/well-educated MD's & nurses or you have to wait FOREVER to get in to see the doctor. I hear horror stories of my friends who have lived in UK. One friend went to the MD to find out her 7 week old fetus did not have a heartbeat. They could not schedule her in for the D&C until 10 weeks (& they wanted to make sure she didn't have her dates wrong as to how old the fetus was - however why couldn't they have done that the following week?) So she had to go around for 3 weeks knowing her baby wasn't dead. Another friend had such severe pain from a herniated disk in her neck. At one point she could not even move her left arm. She has a 2 year old boy & couldn't help take care of him. She had to wait over 6 weeks with this pain before she was able to HARASS her way in to see a specialist (the normal wait to see the specialist is 6 months).  She called every day until they finally got her in. Then they told her they wouldn't do surgery - she needed to do therapy & take STRONG pain medicine for a year & then they'd re-examine her. It has now been a year. On strong pain meds she's doing a bit better, but by no means healed & waiting again to see the MD. "TIME" means nothing really here. Doctors/nurses take their time - as they are in no hurry. You have LONG waits at the doctor's office. Anyway I don't think socializing medicine is the right step. I do think health insurance is too high. I don't know what the best option would be, Ok my thoughts."

A Rainy Day

I have GOT to vent! Friends of a friend on FB are in a discussion - well, that would loosely define it as individuals espousing differing opinions, which they aren't - so they are picketing, really, for the socialization of medicine in the United States.

Have they LOOKED at other countries with socialized medicine? Have they not seen that the English people die before they can be treated for curable cancers because of bureaucracy from their socialized system (except, of course, the very rich, who can afford private care)? Have they not heard of the seventy percent tax in Canada? Did the USSR not collapse? Are we actually behind the times, moving from capitalism to socialism? What government do they suppose will pay for this? From what part of our gazillion dollar national debt will we appropriate enough money to keep an entire nation of irresponsible gluttons healthy under a governmentally funded health care system? The government run Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac collapsed, will we put our very lives into the hands of the same incompetent politicians? 

Where is the logic? Where is the enterprise that made America great? In a country full of spoiled children, where are the adults?

I'm beginning to wonder if the institution of insurance isn't to blame. Before insurance, one was expected to be wise enough to save for that rainy day when one might slip in a puddle and break a leg and need a doctor's tender care. Now we are so accustom to depending on another to pay our bills, we feel entitled to "free" care.

Perhaps, instead of dying of cancer because of an obscene amount of bureaucracy, we should abolish insurance. While we're at it, we might as well get rid of all the other governmentally funded socialist programs. Sure, the rich would live longer and I'd die early along with the rest of the masses. But think, each of us would hold the reins to our own destiny. And, here's the clincher, the government could actually significantly lower taxes. I could use that money buy a LOT more toys and jump start the economy. Or, maybe I could put it aside for a rainy day... 

Waving Goodbye

I'm almost late. My appointment in thirty minutes is half an hour away. Jack trails me to the door.

"Hug and Kiss at the door, Mommy," he says. I'm not surprised. Jack always wants a hug and kiss at the door. It can't be a tight squeeze in the playroom or a quick kiss between zooming cars through the living room or a little smooch in the kitchen. It must be a hug and kiss at the door. The fingers of one hand tangle purposely into my ponytail. The other hand squeezes uncomfortably about my neck as he pulls me in for a kiss and hug. I squat to kiss and hug my boy.

"Okay," I rush breathlessly to stand, "I've got to go, Jack, I'm late."

"One more kiss and hug," he strangles me back to his level, pecks at me with his little wet lips and swipes his cheek to mine in a hug. I feel snot on my cheek where his runny nose left its mark.

"Okay," I repeat, untangling his fingers and pushing myself from him to squeeze through a slit in the door, "I've really got to go."

"Lots of hugs and kisses," he demands, pulling me back, "and then wave at the window." I nod. I really don't need such specific instructions after the hundredth time. I'm not so dense. With machine gun rapidity, he taps me on my mouth with his. Then, "a hug for each kiss," the cheek gets smacked against mine ten or twelve times.

I irritably wonder why his father hasn't gotten up off his chair to come rescue me from this affectionate assault so I can make it to my appointment on time. Probably sensing my exasperation, Daddy speaks. His voice floats absently down the hall, "Jack, Mommy has to go." Great, thanks, I think.

I submit myself to one more set of "lots of hugs and kisses" and then shove myself through the door. As I slip away, Jack bounces anxiously up and down and reminds me, "Now wave at the window. Not too fast and not too slow, Mommy."

Striding to the car, I wonder what he means. It's a new final phrase. I think he means, don't leave before he gets to the window, but also, don't leave him waiting there too long. Probably added after trash day, when Daddy delayed his departure to take the trash to the street.

It's dusk. I back out of the garage, move down the driveway, and turn left. My window is already down, my arm sticking out, slicing through the chilly air, moving obediently back and forth. My foot impatiently waits to press harder on the gas pedal. I stare dutifully toward the office window where I know my five year old is standing. Yes, there he is.

The room glows golden, my son haloed by the light. His fragile hand is raised, he is pressed up against the window, his mouth seems to move. I can almost make it out, I can almost hear it, even though he's behind dual paned windows, "Bye, Mommy, I love you," my eyes blur, my heart aches, my foot rises. I soak it in.

I absorb the adoration shining through the window as he's waving goodbye.

Suggestions, Mr. President?

Obama's inaugural speech was magnificent. Perhaps he will not usher in an era of socialism resplendent with the trappings of additional debt, perpetual and purposeful unemployment, and burgeoning social services. He asked us, instead, to get up, take personal responsibility, and work. What a concept. Is this the path to fulfill his promise of hope? If America will rise up and follow, there is hope. If the American government models fiscal responsibility, there is hope. If Americans take personal responsibility, there is hope.

What is this hope? A desire to be debt free, economically stable, militarily secure, with liberty and justice for all... of course. What a relief our new president has crowned his presidential debut with the enforcement of the freedom of information act, thereby opening his actions to scrutiny. Responsibility is easier to avoid in a culture of secrecy. Looks like he plans to walk the talk. But how will he get the rest of us to go along?

My kids haven't signed on. During their "rest time" today (Annie refuses to close her eyes to sleep and Jack is too old to nap if we expect to go to bed before the cock crows in the early morning), a car flew from the bunk bed they share out the door and into the hallway, where it struck the wall, exposing the white beneath the yellowish brown paint. I stomped in. I suppose that's not the stance to take if I expect to hear the truth, but stomp I did, complete with a scowl, "Who threw that?"

"Annie threw it," my quick talking son cuts in.

I glared at Annie.

She defended herself with the traditional, "Jack did it."

"You better not be lying to me, Jack," I glared at him.

"No, no! I'm NOT LYING. Annie did it."

Both regarded me with angelic innocence. Not a crack of the facade to reveal the true perpetrator. "Well, don't do it again or I'll take away your toys... and spank you," The first threat was truth. I added the second for the fear factor. You know, like God said, "Don't eat the fruit or I'll toss you out of the garden... and you'll die." Only, they really did die.

I never did figure out whose hand threw that car, but it didn't happen again. Not sure which threat was the obedience motivating factor.

So, how do I teach personal responsibility to my two angels? The comment section is open, Mr. President. Feel free to let me know. I'm sure whatever method you use for the country will work for my kids.

It's All My Fault

Responsibility has fled the country. In this culture of self-absorption and blame, the typical American, across gender and racial lines, sings a song of "Gi'me, gi'me, gi'me. It's not my fault. I have a right to have it all for free." The black blames the white, the woman blames the man, the worker blames the boss, the manager blames the staff, "It's not my fault! Somebody take care of me. Somebody make it right." And now we've hired the right socialist democrat to get us there. Higher taxes promised for those who work to provide services for those who won't. "Down with capitilism," is the general cry. Give us food and medicine, but don't make us work. Bail out the bankrupt, recycle the irrisponsible managers, print more money to pay the debt.

Can you imagine a country in which every person took responsibility for his or her fast food bag rather than throwing it out the window while driving down the freeway? We'd probably save billions of tax dollars in cleanup. Or what if the man who didn't want to support a child prevented the undesirable by wearing a condom. Maybe if our country can't afford some necessary social services without destroying the value of the dollar by printing more money, the government should cut back on some aid going to other countries who have displayed their own lack of responsibility. Rather than promoting accountability, this country careens down the path of destruction, placing the mirage of fiscal bandages on gaping wounds to stop the hemorrhage.

Can we expect anything else? In order to be elected, politicians don the gown of blamelessness. Anything undesirable in their past is buried and if not, attributed to another. When have we seen a politician, without an arm painfully twisted, accepting responsibility for his or her mistakes? Without the strength and wisdom to be forthright about their own humanity, how can they govern the rest of us?

Perhaps it is a plague of human nature in which we all run madly after Adam and Eve droning the same mantra. You know, Sin. I hear it from my kids, starting almost as soon as they can speak, "he did it," "she did it." The other night my husband blamed Annie when he, himself, broke a light bulb. Even I, with my self-righteous ramblings, succumb to the blaming game.

The incredible thing is, responsibility is empowering. The more blunders I can accept accountability for, the more power I have to change not only my own behavior but also situations in which I place myself. Discovering mistakes in my past allows me to improve my future. Thus, programs such as affirmative action dis empower the individual because they encourage blame rather then responsibility.

So, here we are, skidding down the slope into the greatest depression the United States has ever had, by all accounts. In the spirit of the moment, let me take the opportunity to let you know, it's all my fault.