Quote of this Blog: "I play Wheelchair Rugby. What's the worst that can happen -- I'll break my neck? Again?" -- Mark Zupan, quadriplegic, rugby athlete.


To fight against the odds. To live in spite of death's taunts. I am blown away by all who can strive to live when peril is all around them.


Knew about a girl in a Michigan high school who had no arms or legs. She wasn't born that way, but when she was an infant and toddler, her parents thought that it was a good idea to throw her out of windows when they were upset. Eventually, she lost the ability to use her arms and legs, and they had to be amputated. If you could have met her, you would not know she suffered such abuse and pain. She gave back peace to the world which gave her pain.


I know of others so consumed by their pain -- or their imagined pain -- that they do nothing but cause disharmony to all those around them. Or they invest in causing additional woes within their own lives. I am so saddened by this inauthenticity. I have friends and loved ones involved deeply in drugs, in alcohol, in depression, in self-hatred, in anger, in the awkward loneliness, in disconnection; they are my friends and loved ones; I do not reject their presence, their lives; I surround myself with all shapes and sizes in hopes that my love will be a link to a higher love, a connection to a life unfulfilled.


The beauty of this life often shrouded in mystery or under some sandy lot or locked away in a remote canyon alludes all of us at times. The mountain blows its message, yet we fail to see the sun's voice, the wind's shadow. We fail to know love, not our creation of love, tattered and bruised with ego and jealousy and possession; love -- one on one, one soul touching another. To risk it all -- broken neck or not; to be fueled by this passion that does not quit because of hurdles, because of brokenness -- that is this life. That is this love.


"What you dream in the mornin', may you dream at night
May your love light be so bright it diminish the darkness
That comes without warning and in no particular way
And threatens to blow you away . . .
I wish I could tell you all the pain's in your head
That it all would be better if you'd just do what they said
But if the voice that is talkin' is never your own
There's no one to tell you that you've finally come home"

-- Ferron, Never your own

Quote of the day: "Since the American broadcasting system has more restrictions against sexuality, you can get away more with amplifying violence than you can with amplifying sexuality. It results in this weird sadistic element. Putting women in these sexual situations is a backdoor way of getting more flesh in." Jeffrey Sconce, associate professor at Northwestern University


I read this quote in Entertainment Weekly. It triggered a few thoughts that I would like to share with you. This quote, along with the larger article about violence toward women appears to be a theme that is being played out in much of my reading lately. I am currently reading this book called, "Because I Remember Terror, Father I Remember You" by Sue William Silverman. By far, this book has been one of the most unsettling books that I have read in a long time. It is the autobiography of a woman who survived sexual abuse. It is a tough book to stomach, not because of overly graphic details, but because of the nature of the material. And if the material were not enough, add Saskia, my daughter, into the equation. It's hard to comprehend how or why a father would invade, dismantle a life he partly created, yet it happens too frequently, and girls are the overwhelming target of this tragedy. Humph!


Why so much violence toward the female gender? Why does this hunger for power over girls and women exist in so many boys and men? The networks are increasingly having story lines where women are raped or tortured. Why? Is there an unspeakable sexiness about putting women "in their place," by any means necessary? Even in the most purest and noblest forms of our society -- RELIGION -- we are besieged by the overt sexism and patriarchy that exists in the texts. Look at Christianity, Judaism, and Islam -- look at their texts: the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an -- all subtly and overtly make harsh distinctions between men and women, with women on the losing end most of the time. If the holy books do not bring about true equality amongst gender, what's that to say for everyone and everything else?


I listen to bar talk from men about women. I have heard sermons preached about women submitting themselves to their husbands. I have seen female friends stay in abusive relationships because they justify their man's behavior. I know of a guy who spoke openly of his fantasy of tying a woman up . . . then putting her in the trunk of his car -- (and this is the fantasy that I can actually mention in my public blog; there are more disturbing ones than this one). I watched my parents embrace this gender atrocity. Growing up, I benefited by having a later curfew than my sister, strictly because I was a male.


I get tired of men, of me, being male. I hate the fear in a woman's eye when I walk past her during night time, if she is alone. I'm tired of the women who don't have the strength to leave when they are being abused -- because of commitment, or love, or religion. I understand fear. I know women who stay because they fear for their lives. I understand this. I am not tired of these women who stay for this reason, but I am sickened by the men who make these women feel this way; who threaten out of their own illness and weakness. I'm tired of men making women feel less than what they are. I'm tired of my own voicelessness, my own loud silence.


O, men! We are so pathetic, so pitiful. We believe we are greater because of physical ability. We believe we are greater because we are ordained to be the head. We are nothing but a pathetic lot.


I pray for women around this world. I pray that you will be able to stand against us; fight back, and like Sojourner Truth speak it with passion. "Sojourner Truth: ex-slave and fiery abolitionist, figure of imposing physique, riveting preacher and spellbinding singer who dazzled listeners with her wit and originality. Straight-talking and unsentimental, Truth became a national symbol for strong black women--indeed, for all strong women." She once addressed a man who was trying to put women in their place by saying: "That little man in black there! He says women can't have as much rights as men: 'Cause Christ wasn't a woman.' [Sojourner] stood with outstretched arms and eyes of fire. "Where did your Christ come from?"
"Where did your Christ come from?", she thundered again. "From God and a Woman! Man had nothing to do with him!"

To all my friends and family who are girls or women, I say -- Stand up to the fathers and brothers, the uncles and bosses, the boyfriends and husbands, the religions and governments who have tried to steal your souls, who have tried to make you less than what you are: a Princess, a Queen, a Brain, an equal, a Goddess.


much love.

It's Sunday. My mood is elevated. I'm in Atlanta until tomorrow. I have a show this evening for a Foster Care conference. Oh, no! I've come full circle. When I was in grad school, I worked as a foster care counselor for three years. At times, it was a rich and rewarding experience. I am thinking right now about what "tricks of the trade" I will use tonight. I love doing things differently each time. Repetition breeds contempt; not always, but often enough.


How are you today, friends?


I received an email the other day from an individual who was asking me how they should handle the situation when a friend just stops communicating with them. No rhyme or reason. A complete cease fire.


That's a toughy. I've been in that situation a good few times. What do you do? It depends. If you think that your friend is just going through a tough stint and needs time to sort things through, let them have their space. Make a reasonable amount of gestures, but learn to let go. I do not say these words lightly. Trust me. It is one of the most difficult things to do. I struggle with it. In fact, if I make frequent attempts to communicate with those whom I love, and if they fail to remotely give something back, it P's me off! Not right away, but if the communication ceases for months upon months, after numerous attempts of phone calls and emails, I get charged. I have a mean streak; not so much directly belligerent, but more torturous, more subtly annoying; mono as opposed to pneumonia; an aching back as opposed to a fractured skull; dripping faucet as opposed to finger nails on chalkboard; stink bomb as opposed to hand grenade. I'm much more innocuous, than vicious. Yet, I am well skilled at getting under someone's skin. In another life, I must have been one of those "special" agents trained to relieve individuals of information. I truly believe this, but I digress.


What should be done? For starters, be above their behavior and reach out to that individual, if they say that nothing is wrong, accept it . . . at first. If this condition of ignoring you persists, challenge them on that theory. If they still refuse to be honest with you, begin that slow process of letting them go or at least giving them enough space. Hopefully, if you give them their space, they will start to recognize their behavior as being dysfunctional for healthy relationships, and at the very least, give you an honest response to your inquiries. Or maybe they won't. Or maybe your friendship or love relationship has come to a transitional period. Adapt.


There have been friends with whom I was much closer at one time, but because of life we have gone separate paths. At times, it was my choice to separate, and at times, it was the other individual's choice. What frustrates me is when the other person assumes that I'm an idiot and gives me garbled answers of, "I'm doing well. Everything is o.k." or "Nothing's wrong. I'm just busy." or "I'm fine." And I do not need to tell you what F.I.N.E. stands for. At least, I won't say it on my public blog.


My response to people's evasion becomes very calculated when I feel unsafe. I do not take life very lightly. I think most people do. I think we divide ourselves over stupidity and nonsense, then when death hits us, it's "I wish. I wish. I wish." I can't take my relationships with that level of flippancy. It irks me to no end. I understand that people are busy. I do, but please don't insult me when I call you on something and I'm correct. Ugggh!!!!! I don't have much respect for that.


As I write this response, I realize that there are four individuals who swirl in my head. They withdraw without warning. They leave me clueless. I can confront, but if they don't respond truthfully, what am I supposed to do? Aah, we're back at the question.


Here's are a couple of successful stories. My darling kindred friend, Jennifer has been disconnected from me for quite some time. About a year ago, she had a daughter. I knew that this would create flux within her core, and it did. I must have called and emailed her more than a dozen times. No response. The only response I got was mass emails. (This action, by the way, for all my friends who think about doing this in the future, is NOT the best direction to go with me. It doesn't count as a response. In fact, it counts as a negative for me.) I figured, if you can write a mass email, could you not write a line to me? No such luck for months upon months. Then I had an epiphany -- let Jennifer go. Contact her no more. Withdraw. Create safety within yourself again. And I did. I withdrew. I refused to call or write, then one day (very recently) she wrote to me and explained. She's been struggling with adapting motherhood into the other pieces of herself. I wasn't surprised by this response -- like I said, we are kindred souls. I've struggled with the same issue. We just handle it differently. I need to write it out or talk it out, not always, but certainly more often than not. Today, I sent her a copy of my blog reflecting on fatherhood. I told her that I still have deep love for her. I can't wait for her to emerge. I miss her.

The other success story comes in slight reverse. It involves me less frequently touching base with this dear soulful, kindred friend; a true d-girly for sure. We would communicate through email almost everyday at one point, then my schedule got more hectic, and the email exchange cut back to couple times a week, then to once every other week, mostly because of me. The communication has picked up lately, which is beautiful, especially since much of the disconnect was due to me. She continued to pop emails over to me, and I would at times leave a message on her work machine. The success of this story is what I did. I did not totally disconnect with her and I let her in to what was happening in my life. I refused to totally disconnect. Being busy or my personal life problems were not enough to disengage completely. Not good enough as an excuse for me. D-girly let me know that she understood, but I know that she understood in part because I did not shut off completely, and I made her feel safe to know that it was not her or my rejection of her as a friend. Very critical.

So, I understand this struggle my friends about what to do in these situations. I live it. Every day. Jennifer is a success story -- relatively speaking, of course, but there are others who still perplex me and withdrawing is the only avenue I know. Ultimately, I don't feel safe with them, though I have a lot of love for them. And it makes me wonder from whom do I withdraw? Have I made those people feel unsafe because of my conscious or unconscious withdrawal?


Hmmm . . . I need to call my older friend today. He's a good soul and sensitive like me.


PEACE.

That I could go this long without even whispering a desperate word . . . now that says a lot. Truth be told, it is not that I haven't had plenty going on in my life (for believe me, I have), but where does one start when one is buried underground? How does one dig up when up is as relevent as time is in death? My soul, deep in its cavernous state, searching for meaning amongst a whole host of hurdles and doubts and questions and emotions, all with teflon durability, has been clawing for peace; but peace, comes in stillness, and stillness is one wave that has only erratically visted my shores.



But today I begin a new leaf, I am not completely to the surface, but in my stillness, I am emerging.



Fatherhood
Why is it that people often glamorize (to a fault) or pessimize (not a word, but you can follow my meaning from the root pessimism) a given event, tradition, or experience? This reaction shortchanges the gestalt of the experience. Take fatherhood. As you are aware, if you've read my blog, I am a father. My baby, Saskia, is 13 months today. I love her deeply and desperately. I do, but when I listen to the rhetoric of many parents it follows some drafted, mundane script: "It's the greatest experience ever." "I think everyone should be a parent." "I've grown so much as a person by being a parent." "Having children is the greatest thing I've ever done." "The early years are the best years, before they hit their teenage years and just drive you crazy." And so forth.

What people cower to say are the things they don't like about it. As if by uttering any disagreeable word, they will jinx the experience, or they will somehow be less worthy of parenthood. Bullochs! My intention, right now, is to do just that. I am about to qualify, because some of you readers need qualifications to calm your qualms. Qualifyer: I love Saskia deeply. I would not trade her for my previous life. She is a wonderful blessing, and for however many years or days she is given to me on loan, I will do my best to institute love in all my actions. Now the meat. I don't like what fatherhood has done to me, thus far. I have become more anxious as an individual. I have more nightmares now than I did as a child. I worry about her constantly. I have dreams of her falling down stairs; of her being murdered; of kidnappings and rapes. I am nervous most days when I am around her; my breathing is altered. I am more disconnected with my friends. "What's the use?" I say to myself. "I won't be able to go to there or here with them, without feeling chided in my spirit for leaving her solely with Tessin." It is easier not to call my friends, (though I've refused to adopt that principle completely). I know how to be a father; there exists no awkwardness in my comfortness towards Saskia. I enjoy my connection with her, but there exists a schizm within myself. Parts of Mykee gets lost. I am less integrated, and I do not like this. I know time will take care of many of these concerns, but then I ask, "But will it?"

I look at my father and I see him as a father or a religious man, but I do not see the child in him anymore. Where did it go? Is this result the culmination of years of fatherhood? Where is the spontaneous man? Where is the boy who travelled to Scotland? Where is the youthful man who hid in the closet to scare his children when they came home with their mother? Where is the teaser? the prankster? Where did he go?

These are the questions I have today. This is only part of the soil which has choked me, and I share this with you my friends who seek to know me beyond the stage.

The Rise of Propaganda for the Sake of War

I've had quite a few discussions with friends regarding the Red Lake incident that happened most recently. Inevitably, the question is stirred: "Is it just me, or has the media covered this incident far less than Columbine?" I will respond that it is not just their imagination. The media did fail to focus on this terrible tragedy. I will follow up their question with my favorite three year old question: "Why? Why did they cover it less? Why was it less of a tragedy (for others) than Columbine? Why? Why?"

There are certainly factors that pull for Red Lake, MN to be less of a focal point than Columbine, but as a nation, are we discussing these issues? What are some of the pertinent issues involved in this mass cover up?

For starters, I will acknowledge that the media had a much more difficult time accessing the Red Lake community because of its placement. The Red Lake community is a reservation; cameras are not as readily allowed to intrude on this sacred ground. The media was more restricted by the laws governing the concentration camp . . . I mean, the community . . . than they were in Littleton. So, I acknowledge that much. However, this is not the whole of the story. Dig and you shall find gold.

When Columbine took place we were not in a war. September 11 had not happened. The nation needed to make its outcry of violence. Government powers needed to institute violence prevention/anti-bullying programs. There was a great outcry to decrease the pain, increase the peace. My business soared. My phone was overwhelmed with schools who wanted to stop violence. Sadly, we are not in the same state now. How can this nation focus on Red Lake as a tragedy when we are GUN(ho) supporting war? How can we with serious face scream "stop the violence!", when we don't care about those being killed daily? When a government justifies its action as defense against terrorists? Jeff Weise was terrorized as well. Kids routinely picked on him. Pushed him around. Called him harsh names; ostracized him. Did he not have the right, (according to our governmental policies) to defend himself against these terrorists? What makes the attacks by adults any more legitimate than those delivered on children? And ironically, it is our children who we are sending to fight our adult battles. Remember, there are a great number of children, (no more removed than a couple of years from high school), fighting on our front lines, dying daily. I speak of our American troops. I speak of the Iraqi lives. Why is our government outcry concerning violence not heard? Why are there no peace programs being instituted. It is NOT a liberal or conservative agenda. THIS IS A HUMAN AGENDA. And I know I know -- it is unpatriotic to speak out against the war because it is not really violence; it is defending our God bless(ed) America(n) freedom. It is defending the faith against the Evil One. It is engagement (like marriage) and friendly fire (like water guns) and bad guys (like Hitler and Kunta Kinte and Leonard Peltier) and good guys (like Clint Eastwood and Superman and W [pronounced Dubb-ya]). It is about never showing a soldier with exploding bullets screwed into the head, because we mustn't think about such things. Their sacrifice is just another name for being reborn. They shall never be forgotten. And I truly hope to God that they are NOT forgotten.

But before I start sounding like a raving lunatic or a flower child or a bohemian or a peace advocate or a descendent of Martin and Ghandi and Mother Theresa (their loins birthed me), let me just breathe. Let me realize that peace is more of a figment of imagination than the reality; that war is real and peace is only the time to prepare for war; that war and death are lascivious lovers, where peace is only the flirtation; and death is Life's greatest certainty.

I recently completely a book called, A Terrible Love of War by James Hillman. This was a powerful, erudite book discussing the truth about war. How we as people need war. How war is inseparable from our existence, our mythology, our faith. I found it to be humbling, because though I am actively seeking to bring about peace in the world, I am entralled by great action flicks, fight movies, photos of war's remnants. I shake my head by the images of pain that human beings do towards each other, yet I seek out the images, through photos and videos, of the same destruction that so offends me. I will visit Og****.com to view the latest in pain. What does this say of me? Am I not a product of the very structures I fight? Perhaps it is in this knowing why I desperately wage war. Perhaps it is against my very essence that I fight; that "waging war" and "fighting" is infused in my language, because we are nothing without war, those who support it as well as those who oppose it. War brings immortality for our mortal minds. Hitler as a painter would have buried his work with his bones, but as a warrior, he sculpted a canvas that few will discredit and the destructive montage of lives will be forever added.

I have two quotes to share with you. I got them from the book. The first one is by Mark Twain: "next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutation of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

The next quote comes from Hermann Goring. He was a Nazi leader with Hitler. This comes from his trial at Nuremberg. "This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

I don't know about you, but those two quotes are rather frightening to me, especially to know that these men were not talking about America's present situation. Hmmm . . .

More later on other factors affecting Red Lake.