Return To The Center

why don't you come?

 

happy stumbles..

Dorothy and I had a great July 4^th cookout last evening.  We grilled and had some deee-licious (some would say legendary) corn/avocado/lime/cilantro salad.  The nice breeze in the early evening kept all but the most determined of mosquitoes off us as we finished eating out on the back patio. 

After cleaning up, I said “Hey – you wanna take a ride?”  Doro agreed, so I handed her the keys and said “Great!  You’re driving!”  After some perfunctory kvetching about not wanting to drive, and not knowing where a good place for a drive would be, we were off.   Our first stop was Lynn Beach for the sunset which was lovely.  I thought to myself “Hmm.. this orange sunset sky, the gas tank and apartment buildings silhouetted….perfect fodder for an apocalyptic blog rant on energy..”   Turns out – obviously – that I didn’t go with that direction for this post.  You’re welcome. 

The second stop was Marblehead where we stumbled onto that town’s fireworks display.  Dorothy, in a brazen display of throwing-caution-to-the-wind, pulled into a parking lot (which I’m certain was for residents only..) and parked up on a slight hill.  Turns out we had *fabulous* seats for a great fireworks show.  The whole experience was made more vivid by the tingling sensation that we were outlaws.. outsiders that had slipped through the net of law and order.

It’s been like that for us over the 35+ years we’ve been together.  It is the unplanned, spur of the moment activities which have yielded the most fun and adventure.

2009:07:04 14:28:49

 

 

 

Now playing: Supertramp - It's Raining Again - The Very Best Of Supertramp

Perseverance pays off in the end..

After an endless parade of long days, longer nights, and countless false starts, he was cautiously hopeful that this version of “The Self-Portrait–O-Matic” was going to be a winner..

 

Now playing: Supertramp - Take The Long Way Home - The Very Best Of Supertramp

All that remains....

 

Basho verse floated by while
I was cooling my feet
on the banks of the
Whiskey River

 

 

 

 

Now playing: Steve Harley - Riding the Waves (For Virginia Woolf) - Poetic Justice

July 4th 2009

Nothing says Fourth of July like ‘burgers.
Right off the grill, with maybe a slice of tomato,
and maybe some yellow mustard.

Row after row,
enough for everyone -

Well…
not really hamburgers…
Cookies instead.
‘Nilla wafers, Mint chocolate cookies, Red & Yellow Frosting
After assembled, they get a drizzle of honey
and a sprinkling of sesame seeds to
complete the look.

2009:07:03 09:52:45

 

Now playing: Ryan Adams - Wonderwall - Love Is Hell

jesus on the mainline

When I got back from Italy and Greece, I had to visit my foot doctor.  The walking I’d done in the new shoes I bought in the US before the trip, damaged the toenail on my left big toe.  Sparing everyone the gory details of the toenail’s removal, I will instead focus on the meditation / prayer tool that could have been used whilst the good Doctor was plying his trade. 

Let’s run down some possibilities first shall we?

• Softly and calmly chanting Om Mani Padme Hum – Mantra of the Bodhisattva of Compassion
   
• Softly and calmly chanting “Kwan Seum Bosal” – Invoking the name of the Bodhisattva of Compassion
   
• Softly and calmly chanting “Ji Jang Bosal” – Invoking the name of the Bodhisattva who helps beings in hell realms.
    
• Softly chanting the mantra of self protection
   
• Calm mindfulness meditation focusing on the breath
   
• Tonglen – Gently breathing in the discomfort of the procedure and breathing out comfort to all sentient beings.
   
• Reciting the Heart Sutra and focusing on Emptiness

So – the method I chose?  None of the above.  Instead, I laid back in the chair, scrunched my eyes closed as tightly as I could, balled up both hands into white-knuckled fists, and through tightly clenched teeth, recited the Jesus Prayer to myself over and over and over – “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”  In my fearful state, I even visualized Jesus in the procedure room sitting next to me in a chair.  He was the kindly surfer dude Jesus with the nice tan, blonde brown hair, kind eyes, and neatly trimmed beard.  The Melrose Jesus, the North Shore Suburban Jesus, sat with me while I was de-nailed.  The prayer and the Company helped take my mind off the clanking of small body pieces falling into the metal catch basin underneath my foot. 

This isn’t the first time that when really pressed, really distressed, that all my Dharma tools flew out the window, prayer flags released from their tethers, and it was Jesus on the mainline. 

In honor of my imposition on the Lord to come sit with me at the Podiatrist’s office, I just made my first set of Orthodox Christian prayer beads upon which the Jesus Prayer is usually said.  My Nephew C, a fellow Rosary maker, helped me.  I copied them from another set I got from Spencer Abbey while on retreat there.  Those ones (pictured above – the black ones) were made by a hermit that lives on Abbey land inside the Monastic Cloister.  Typically, Orthodox Prayer Ropes are made out of knotted black wool.  I don’t have the skill to make the intricate knots yet, so I stuck with beads this time around.

96 8mm Nangka Beads
4 10mm Bayong Marker Beads
1.2mm Nylon Twine
All Barrel Knots Flame Locked and Sealed With Nail Guard
Cotton Floss Tassel

Not much of a Bood.
Not nearly what might be called Christian.
Apologies to All concerned

Let’s let Ry Cooder take it home.
 

 

Semper Vigilans

Every morning as the first few photons of light pass by the front of our house, John Alden – House Wren and Singer Extraordinaire – is up and at it.  He sits out on the telephone wire just above his and Priscilla’s tiny home and keeps a sharp eye on things.  This morning, seeing as how it was cool, damp and foggy, he had to plump up his feathers to stay warm.  The front yard of our house is no longer visited by other bird species.  John and Priscilla are tiny, but they are fierce – and mighty.   

In between moments of high-alert watchfulness, John Alden will tip his head back and sing his territory song, over and over and over again.  D and I have been waking to John’s singing every day since he and Priscilla moved in.  While John sings and keeps watch, Priscilla is busy tending the nest.  I am not certain whether there are eggs yet, but they’ve stopped bringing construction materials into their house, which might mean they’re done building. 

While I can’t connect with John Alden’s behavior towards other birds that happen to live close to his home (breaking eggs, pushing out babies, confronting other bird parents…),  I do connect very much with the deep down need to protect my children from the vagaries of the world.  It’s not a cool rational need.  It’s not a sophisticated desire.  It’s one that comes from somewhere deep in my human past.  It’s purely animal, pre-verbal even.  I felt it for the first time when I held my Son in the delivery room.  The kindly Delivery Nurse handed me this tiny pink creature wrapped up in a hospital blanket and a small skull cap.  His small mouth formed an almost perfect “O” as he cried and cried.  I bent my head down and kissed him on the lips.  That was all it took.  I was overwhelmed by the urgency, the absolute imperative to keep this little squalling person safe. 

So – John Alden – as a Dad – I’m with you buddy.  I feel you. 

Semper Vigilans.

(but please go easy on the neighbors, big guy)

 

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

(image: www.soaw.org)

What gift has my country given to the poor of South and Central America? 

Here’s some hints:

• The gift has trained 11 Military Dictators, many of whom were responsible for egregious human rights violations
   
• It has trained 60,000 soldiers.
   
• Low-Level Alumni massacred over 900 people in El Mozote, El Salvador in 1981.  Men, women and children were killed and buried in mass graves.  Women and girls as young as 12 years old were raped before being killed.  Tots under the age of 4 were slaughtered as well.
   
• In 1989 other enterprising graduates murdered 6 Jesuit Priests.
   
• In 1990, 2 of the 3 individuals who assassinated Bishop Oscar Romero while he elevated the Eucharist during Mass, were gifts of this United States Governmental Institute of higher learning.
   
• 3 of the 5 rapists and murderers of 4 U.S. Nuns were proud graduates of this US Taxpayer  funded institution.
   
• Our gift to the western hemisphere has taught its students how to torture.
    
• We’re so proud of our gift, we recently spruced it up to the tune of a $30M rennovation.
   
• It’s a gift that just keeps on giving, year after year, most recently to the people of Honduras, where the 2 top Generals staged a coup against the democratically elected government.

Give up?

Why it’s the School Of the Americas of course, recently renamed to Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

Father Roy Bourgeois a Maryknoll priest, and someone not reticent about conflating the teachings of Jesus and his goal of curtailing our bloody gift to the poor, has spent the last 19 years in nonviolent opposition.  During that time Father Roy has spent 3 years in US Federal Prisons, sometimes enduring month long sentences in solitary confinement.

Below is a PBS film about the SOA and Father Roy’s campaign to get SOA shuttered.  It’s long, and in places it’s fucking ugly – but it’s good.
 

 

Father Roy was excommunicated from the Catholic church at the end of 2008 for attending the ordination of a woman priest and for supporting the continued ordination of women priests in the church.

 

Why would we give so violent and deadly a gift to poor folks?  It’s all about the Benjamins.  As Thomas Friedman (my favorite corporate shill) wrote in an unguarded moment:

"The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist -- McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force and Marine Corps." (A Manifesto for the Fast World, New York Times Magazine, March 28, 1999).

As Smedley Butler, a Marine Corp General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient, said in a 1933 speech:

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Mow.

 

Nay.

 

We’ve set up SOA to outsource our dirty work and to assist in installing “business friendly” government of the populations.  As Sister Antoinette used to say to her 3^rd grade class at Saint Patrick’s in West Lynn when we (collectively) did something she didn’t approve of:  “Well – Bully for us.  Bully for us.”