Tag: Wisdom (Page 6 of 6)

The Final Breath

September 28, 2012 / Tom

♥

He laid there, the immense pain in his chest beginning to numb under the realization that he was dying. Just moments before he was alive, enjoying the morning with his beloved, laughing about the memories they had created the night before. Now, he was sprawled out on the living room floor fighting for air, and wanting so desperately to talk.

She was there, above him, her hands holding his face as they had a thousand times before. The worry in her eyes was clear as she begged him not to leave her. “I love you baby, please stay with me. We never have to be apart again, I promise. Stay with me, I love you so much. Please…please.”

He wanted to talk, but the words just would not come out. He wanted to remind her that he loved her too. He wanted to bring her back to the many moments they shared. As her blue eyes cried the rains of hell onto him, he wanted to bring her back to Heaven, the place that they shared when their bodies meshed and their minds fell into each other. He wanted so badly to comfort her as she tried to comfort him by touching him, kissing him, and reminding him that yes, he was all she ever needed. All he could do, however, was lay there. As the tears streamed down from the corner of his eyes he could only stare at her and beg whatever gods there were that this would not be the end.

His desperate struggle for air began to settle as his mind drifted back to the first time he saw her. It was a picture, and her eyes had enveloped his senses and drew his attention. He couldn’t explain the feeling, he only could utter something to himself that he would say to her a short time later: “beautiful”. She stole his attention to the point that despite loving the mountains he did not notice them behind her. All he could do was look at her face, those eyes and that smile. He felt he knew her once, although he couldn’t say when. He also felt he needed to know her again, although he couldn’t say why. So, he sent a simple message, and then came her reply.

He could remember the reply, the poetic way she stated her emotions of the moment. He could feel her presence despite never meeting her. In a brave and courageous moment this man had sent that woman a message and she had replied. He knew then that something was happening within him.

A sudden shift brought him back to his reality. “I’m going to get the phone to call 9-1-1. Baby, please hold on!”

“NO!” he wanted to scream. “Please stay here with me. I need you baby, hold my hand. Kiss me. I don’t have much time left. I have so much I need to say to you.”

She was gone, and although only a few feet it seemed like a million miles had separated them. They had begun their relationship hundreds of miles apart, and although they had settled into a routine he could remember the pain of being separated from her. So many days had to be spent missing her and wishing she was there with him. In the early days he had often doubted that this woman could love him. He had often doubted that she could stay true to him. He often caved to the frantic fear of his mind created long before he ever met her. Even at its worst when they ended for a short time, she came back to him proving that he mattered, and that he had value to someone. She loved him, he could see it in her eyes and feel it in her touch, and now as he heard it in her voice as she frantically begged the dispatcher to get there as fast as he could. As she screamed at the phone, he only wanted her voice to become sweet again like it was when she said “I love you” or “come to bed baby”.

“Please sweetheart, let me hear you sing” his mind whispered as his mouth remained silent. “Don’t cry, just whisper in my ear and laugh. God, let me here that laugh please. I have a joke here somewhere, please just laugh.”

He could almost hear her laugh. It made him tingle to hear it. Her eyes would light up and her mouth would curve “just so”. It was no wonder everyone loved her so much. It used to drive him crazy, and he often felt in the beginning like she liked them more than she liked him. She paid more attention to them, and he felt relegated to a dark corner of the room. He believed she gave them more of her than she gave him, but once he began to listen and to see the truth he realized what a fool he was. She gave him so much more of herself than she had given anyone else. She loved him, and offered to him parts of her he was sure no one else had ever seen. She even gave him what he asked for, and in the process showed him the truth. “What a fucking idiot I was” he said to himself. “I want my fucking life back, I want to love her like she deserved to be loved from the first time we met. Please God, give it back to me, I won’t waste a second…”

God’s answer was a gasp for air and an intense pain in his chest. He shook his head angrily at the reply, and then focused as he had learned on the beauty around him. He could feel his children in his arms again as they had been as babies. He could hear them say “I love you dada” and feel their little hands take his index finger as they struggled to walk. He could feel them cuddled next to him when they got older as he read their favorite book. He could remember the lectures to his son about sports, the diatribes to his daughters about boys, the millions of laughs and the relatively small numbers of tears. He loved to make them laugh, and he would often make himself the butt of his own jokes to get them laughing hysterically. As he looked into his woman’s eyes something must have told her, “please tell my babies I love them. Please don’t ever let them forget.”

“I won’t. But you’re not going anywhere. You will tell them yourself.”

“God I wish” was his heart’s reply. His children were the first people he ever felt pure love for. They taught him what it was to love and be loved, and the woman who now cradled him softly taught him how right he was. His children gave him value as a father, she taught him value as a lover, together they taught him value as a man. Even now as he spent his last moments in this existence she was here, showing him his value and the true meaning of love. It wasn’t in the nifty words he could string together. It wasn’t in the sex. It wasn’t in the outward show of affection. It was in the truth that made all of those things possible, but not necessary. They were necessary to the ego, the truth was necessary only to itself and it owed something only to itself. He had understood that early on, but it took him time to get over himself to actually use it. His past had once so cluttered his mind that it stole precious moments away from him and from them. Moments made even more precious by their imminent end.

He could feel the end coming. Within him became a mixture of peace and pain, of darkness and light. He realized this interesting parallel in the life we all lead. It seemed what we call death is just like what we call life, a mixture of suffering and joy. Even now, as he suffered intensely amid the final pathway to peace he couldn’t go there. Not yet. He wanted to spend one more moment with this woman who had changed his life and brought the sunshine where none existed. For that he would bear whatever pain that had to be borne. He suddenly became calm, and the pain seemed to subside. This, as it had been his entire life, was the power of Love.

He looked at her and felt healthy. His breathing seemed to return to normal, and the pain in his chest subsided. He shook his head slowly, although he was not sure at what. It felt like the first time they met, with a mixture of excitement and anticipation followed by realization and love. Then she laughed, oh God she laughed. Through the tears and sniffles she laughed. His head, now on her thighs as she stroked his head and wiped the tears from his cheeks, shook a bit with each burst of laughter. He was able to lift his arms long enough to wipe her hair from her face and stroke the contour of her jaw line one final time. Suddenly, he found his voice for one last poetic verse to his lover.

“Baby, I love you. Since the dawn of time I have loved you. It may be here, or it may be there, but somewhere I will be loving you. Please, know that it is you, and it always has been you. I am grateful for last night, and for every night I have had with you. I am also very grateful for this moment and that it was with you. I love you…I swear.”

As she bent to kiss him, he closed his eyes, grateful that the last vision he would have in this lifetime was of her, his lover, his friend, his guiding star. They kissed sweetly with a passion that had never left. With that, he inhaled deeply and headed toward peace.

♥

Single Touch

September 26, 2012 / Tom

In the candlelight lays destiny

In the moment there is a mountain of truth

Wanting…needing…knowing

Reaching out for an answer to the call

Seeking for each other’s hand

Longing for that single touch

Than another

And another

Until there are too many to count

And we are lost once again in a place without time.

In the morning awakes destiny

Aglow with the passion of a remembered lust

Searching…reaching…taking

Not letting go and grasping all the same

Needing each other

Reaching to give that single touch

Than another

And another

Until they become too many to count

And the Earth stands still as the Lovers dance.

There are no questions

In the moments of honest ecstasy

Longing…sweating…falling

The two become one in the soft voice of forever

Eternity is calling

Demanding nothing but a single touch

Than another

And another

Until they become too many to count

And the mind’s defeat resounds in the sounds they have never made before.

They are one

In that single touch

That never ever ends.

∞

A Trail to Destiny (Creative Writing Exercise #2)

September 19, 2012 / Tom

Setting: at a meeting in a conference room on a dark, rainy day

Subject: the raindrops on the windows

I stared out the window as the rain pounded against the glass, making a tapping sound that reminded me of a thousand boots marching out of time during a parade. My head felt like it had been hit by an avalanche, and the weather certainly wasn’t helping. That damned numbness-mixed-with-a-dull-ache just wouldn’t go away as I sat my ass down on one of the plump leather chairs surrounding the large oak conference table. The meeting I had just attended was over, and after the cordialities had been dispensed with I just had to get away from the bullshit being thrown around the office. Everyone was acting so nice, so fucking nice, and I needed to get away from the act long enough to gather my senses. The often strong exterior I donned before leaving my apartment was beginning to crack, and I had reached my limit of fake smiles, jokes and laughter for one day.

It’s tough when a person just doesn’t feel like enough. He can’t imagine being good enough for his partner, strong enough for his family, smart enough for his bosses, or there enough for his friends. He feels pathetically weak in even the most benign of situations. In many ways he was just like the raindrops now finding their way to the window in his gaze. He was helpless, and even though he would give life to whatever he could he went largely ignored unless he was seen as a nuisance. He would never be noticed unless he was stealing away the sunshine or ruining her hair or creating havoc whether intentionally or not. No, he…I…we, would never been seen for the beauty we gave to the world and instead would spend this lifetime in certain role in a certain way.

I followed one raindrop as it hit the glass near the top of the window. It hung on for dear life there, reminding me of my need to hang on. I chuckled at the irony as I stared at that tiny drop of water just stuck there, unable to let go and unable to follow its natural destiny. It would fall, eventually, but for now it just stayed in that one holy spot fighting for its own survival. Or was I? I was in a job I didn’t like. I was constantly trying to be “the one” to my woman I wasn’t good enough to be with. I wanted so desperately to be accepted by my peers, to be noticed among them even as I wondered anonymously between them. Here I was scratching and clawing to remain stuck to the glass, desperately fighting my destiny.

Much like this raindrop I had no idea what the truth was. I had no idea who I was or what I was doing here. I just knew that I had been thrown on this piece of glass and now hung on without ever truly knowing why. I could not look down for fear of seeing where I was heading. I could not look up because, well, “up” had rejected me. All I knew was at this moment I was married to this piece of glass, and if that glass wouldn’t accept me all I could do was try to accept it while hanging on for fear of falling into the abyss.

I could see the raindrop slowly losing its battle. I realized that the battle it was having was not with the glass, but with some unseen force that was dragging it downward toward its great unknown. Some may call that force “God” or “fate”, but I like to call it “destiny”. We are all slaves to destiny it seems, for whatever war we wage to hold on to our piece of glass the truth is that we were never going to outwit or out fight our destiny. As the raindrop slowly began its way toward destiny, I could only wonder what would happen if I just let go and let the chips, or raindrops, fall where they may. In truth I had no idea what would happen because I had never done it. I’d always took the path more traveled and then suffered the consequences.

The raindrop was heading downward now, and I followed it to the known end of its journey. It was gone, save the little piece of itself it left as a trail down the window. Like a tear-left stain marking the spot where sadness had reigned, I followed the trail from its beginning to end, and that was it, a metaphor of my life, which had begun inconsequential and would end meaningless and forgotten.

I wanted so desperately to join that raindrop in its end; to dive out of the window and meet my destiny anonymously and without fanfare. I could feel me falling. Free. Done. Forgotten. I would hit the ground with a splash and soon would become lost in the enormity of it all. Yes, destiny certainly could be a cruel Master but at least it never played games or fucked with the minds of its victims. It just was, unintentionally cruel and unforgiving as it doled out truth to each and every one of us.

Just then the door to the conference room opened. I snapped back to attention, donned my fake smile and forced laugh, and began the role renewed. The fall and freedom would have to wait for another time and in some other place. I would happen, though. After all, it is my destiny.

Our Love Heals

September 13, 2012 / Tom

Photo by: David N Cooper

When I met her I felt I must be dreaming. I had to blink once, twice, a million times or more before I finally saw her as real. This great dream came true before my eyes, in my arms, now, then, forevermore. I still, a lifetime or two later, have trouble believing what I see, feel, or want to be true. I need to heal.

She smiled and the Sun rose above the horizon, exposing a fog lightly hugging the fragments of my life. I could see the firm ground where there was firm ground, but beyond that I could see a fine, white mist hiding parts of me I simply never wanted to admit existed. There was a fear there, a timely loss of awareness born as she slowly burnt away the veils that hid what laid beneath. Cracks in solid ground appeared as she dusted off those parts of me I had always felt and had always tried to forget. There would always be a shaky patch of ground in the otherwise solid earth, and she sought through no ill will to expose all of it. It was who she was, without excuse or apology.

Let’s not fool ourselves. There is a price to be paid for burning away the shrouds a man has donned in order to find security in this life. Fear shows itself to be a devil’s tool, a torture for the minds of even the strongest of men. Take me on physically, and I will stand firm. Challenge my fortitude and you will find layer after layer of a stone wall built by years of facing the shit thrown at me. Seek to find a trust from me and find a fear that can often create a Mr. Hyde running through the streets of our life. Even the most docile of creatures can become vicious when you touch their wounds, and I am no different. I don’t mean to react, I don’t want to react. Yet I flinch when the pain arrives and I suffer the moment I realize I have reacted.

These wounds are a strange thing. They are there, and they speak whispers whenever I flex the area around them. I’ve learned to ignore the whispers, but they become shouts the moment they are poked. There is my Beloved, running freely in the fields with me until she pokes unwittingly. I react, I pounce on my tormentor without ever realizing who is actually doing the tormenting. It is not her, it is me. I have not yet learned to ignore the wave of pain or the sinister thoughts that suggest she is somehow to blame for it. I cannot stop it, I cannot change it, I simply ride that wave as it crashes all around me often sweeping her up in the carnage. I try with all my might to stop it, but I am no match for the wall of water that has, by now, dwarfed even its creator in size. I simply stand by like a child as it destroys the landscape, ending the run and the freedom as the once-pristine fields become a muddy swamp of lost promise and torturous memory.

All of this because she unknowingly swept away the mist and touched the wound that laid beneath it. The ground shook and the wave came, and now if I am lucky we stand before each other locked in a steady gaze. A part of me feels grateful for her survival, for our survival, and a part of me seeks to protect her from further inundation. I want to take her to higher ground and leave her there, in tears, so that she may never have to swim for her life again. I am unsure and like a child again searching for her arms, her breast, her soothing voice. The tears I cry are hidden by the salty remains of the wave I let loose on the world, but they are there. Sometimes best cried in solitude, other times best hidden, especially from the parts of me that want to let them flow.

I know I have nearly drowned in myself, and I don’t want to take her down with me. I want her to leave, but I don’t have the guts to ask her to. I need her, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars as clearly as I need the breath inhaled upon rising from the wave’s remains. Where she stands is steady ground, and I want so desperately to be there. Yet my feet are stuck in the mud of my own design, and even as she demands me to “walk” I can’t even lift my leg. I stare at her, often hiding the grip of helplessness and fear that dominates my mind. “Please don’t leave me” I utter to her in words she will never hear.

She gives it to me. She gives me her embrace, her breast, her soothing voice. I exhale as if the air itself is burning my insides, but it is not. It was simply holding me up like the man I was taught to be, and without it I collapse into her completely. She accepts me. She loves me. And I am home.

I want her to love me, and soon I will forget this miracle. Another wound will be touched at some other time. Another wave may come, another time of reaching for her will arrive. I will touch her wounds, and a wave will hit me square in the face as she reaches for me. We both survive by loving the place where we stand together, strong and immovable even in the brutal face of human nature. The waves come so that we can experience each other after the crash, and in that experience we are healed.

I want her vulnerable even if she tries to hide it well. I want her to collapse into me after the storm as she exhales her strength into the void between us. I want her to need me, want me, and know that I am there. I don’t offer more than to suggest that I will be vulnerable if only to her. I will collapse into her waiting arms and embrace her with whatever strength I have remaining. I will need her, want her, and know that she is there. The power of that awesome place we stand is found when the waves come, and together we face the storm and survive it knowing something that most may never see. There is a safe place. There is a harbor here. There is a heart that beats for you and arms built to embrace you even when you are soaked to the bone. Especially when you are soaked to the bone. You will find warmth. Yes, you, too, are home.

Imagine such a place called “home”. Imagine even a single piece of ground so steady and strong as to survive all things. Imagine a Love so real as to know humanity and Divinity in the same place at the same time. Then close your eyes and see her and know that it is real. Feel it in the essence of the man you are embracing the woman she is. Feel its power. At that moment you realize that you did not choose it, it chose you. You are powerful and powerless all at the same time just as you are in all of this existence. You fight it in your humanity and surrender to it in your Divinity.

Now you see it. The scars begin to heal. The wounds no longer matter. You freely expose the tenderness that makes you the man you are. You allow the tears that form in the corners of your eyes at the sight of her to freely spill onto your face. You have found your true strength that goes beyond the physical prowess you have developed and the mental rigidity you have been taught. There is a firmness there, on that ground you share with her, and you will not relinquish an inch of it to fear. You no longer see yourself as “just a man” and you realize you can stand up to the wave. True strength does not show itself as that rigid, emotionless, tough man you were taught to be. Rather, it shows itself in Love, compassion, and an unbridled devotion to be who you are outside of who you were taught to be; who you have chosen to be.

Want to know what strength is? Cry in front of a crowded room. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Surrender to the woman who shares your love. Forget. Forgive. Love. That’s where real strength is shown. Remember. Don’t ever forget who you are in spite of what they told you.

Your love will heal you. You love will heal it all. Just trust, and you will see.

The Unkempt Man

September 12, 2012 / Tom

A man walked into church one day. He looked haggard, tired, unkempt and his clothes were unwashed and wrinkled as if he had slept in them for days. He could not help but notice the stares of the congregation as he moved to a pew near the back of the building. He could not help but feel their disdain for him as he took his seat and removed his worn and battered baseball cap.

One woman seated directly in front of him whispered to her friend loudly enough to make herself heard by the man. “Have you ever seen such a sight? That man has no respect for anyone! Just look at how he came to church. I can’t believe it!” Her friend offered no reaction or judgment.

“My dear,” replied the man. “I have the utmost respect for you. In fact, I saved your life once.”

For some reason, the woman’s mind traveled back to a time when she sat alone in her bedroom with a bottle of sleeping pills in her hand and a picture of her dead husband in the other. As she contemplated taking her life, her deep despair lifted and she felt a calm and loving presence sweep over her. “You are loved, you are needed. Lift yourself up off your bed and share yourself with the Universe” came a voice from somewhere. She just could not tell where.

She put the picture down, and as she did she knocked over a small vase. The single rose it carried fell to the floor. As she picked it up, she remembered the time when her husband had given it to her just a few days before his accident. She held it for a moment, and then placed it down next to the picture of him. Both the picture and the rose would make it inside her husband’s coffin later that day.

Back in the present moment, the woman stared straight ahead at the empty altar at the front of the church as the man continued.

“Do not let my appearance make you forget who I am. Do not see my clothing as a sign of anything. Do not judge me for what I wear or how I appear, but for who I am. I saved you for this purpose.

Rather, see those who taught you to judge as in need of your Love. Those who see wrinkled clothing as a testament to truth need to see the reality of their condition. Those who taught you that the veils mattered more than the core are in need of forgiveness.”

The woman remembered the feeling and the tears that flowed when she left the room and saw her children. She cried openly then as they hugged her and told her how much they loved her. Yes, Love. It saw her through her suffering.

“Yes,” said the man. “That’s what you need to share. That’s the feeling that matters most. You can now leave this building, for you have found God’s house. It is where that feeling resides.”

Tears flowed down the woman’s face as she slowly turned to see the man. As her eyes made their way to the spot where he had taken his seat just moments ago she saw that no one was there. The seat was empty save a single rose laying alone on the wood.

Miracles happen daily. Some we see and most we don’t. Embrace Love, it’s the only miracle you’ll need.

∞

Is This the Forgotten Side of Aurora? A Firefighter’s Sacrifice

July 25, 2012 / Tom

Photo: Fire Rescue 1

Firefighter-EMT died shielding girlfriend in Colo. theater shooting

As a firefighter, I get to work next to some of the most amazing human beings I have ever met. I also get to work to assist some of the most amazing human beings I have ever met. I never met Jonathan Blunk, but I have met hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women just like him. It’s why most of us in Emergency Services shy away from the word “hero”. We know so many of them.

He saved his girlfriend’s life. He shielded her, he protected her, and he died for her. Many of us would do the same thing for someone we love. Yet, how many of us would do this for someone we don’t even know? I know hundreds, if not thousands, who would and some who have. I’ve lost friends and acquaintances; brothers and sisters who simply wanted to help another human being in their greatest time of need.

Jonathan’s girlfriend, Jansen Young, summed it up quite nicely.

Young said Blunk would have taken a bullet for anyone in the theater Friday.

“You know, the nearest person sitting next to him, he would have been like, ‘This person needs my help now,'” she said. “That just who he was and everybody knew it.”

Yes, that is just who he was and everybody knew it. Even those who have never met him. He’s part of an amazing brotherhood of sinners and saints who want nothing more than to save you; to help you, to be there when you need them the most.

You did us proud, my brother, and may you rest in peace having shown the greatness of Love in the most trying times of fear. May we have the courage, the ability and the discipline to do the same when called upon to act. Be humbled, my friends, because greatness like this doesn’t always shine from the darkness. If it did, we’d all be firefighters, policeman, EMT’s and in the military. I remain in awe of those I serve with, and of those who have paved the way before me.

So, while we get caught up in the mundane but necessary political debate over ways to keep us all safe, simple men and women are doing remarkable things to get us there. In my experience, tragedy happens in order that we may bring the best out of ourselves and in each other. Perhaps we need to focus on that “best of ourselves” in order to best honor those who have shown us the best of themselves. Maybe we need to focus a little more on the hero and a little less on the monster.

Peace.

Freedom is Not Free (Gun Control is Still Control)

July 23, 2012 / Tom

“We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.”
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

The tragedy in Colorado has surely renewed the debate over gun control and Second Amendment rights. It is also surely going to further divide a nation already fractured to its core. As typical on social issues such as this, I am lost in a sea of what I feel/want versus what I know to be true. Things like this are never easy, and such things often exercise our minds versus our values and should, if we exercise these things carefully and with awareness, leave us with a resolution to adhere to our values. Character demands nothing less.

As true with my attitude on abortion rights (I am pro-life but believe everyone has the right and should have the freedom to decide for themselves) my views on gun control often inspire a reactionary event in those I know, love and/or discuss with. I would shrink from the discussion if it were not so important in our national discourse. My personality and my character simply does not allow me to hide in the shadows. That being said, I am nothing more than some anonymous blogger who loves people and values life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as inalienable rights bestowed upon us all by our Creator.

I feel a distinct and immutable sadness over the death, suffering and destruction created in Aurora. Tears well up inside me as I empathize with those who have lost a loved on to such a heinous act. My heart bleeds for those who were injured. My soul prays for healing and yes, it even prays for forgiveness for the person who created caused it all. Yes, I wish him healing and love as surely as I wish it on the victims. If that offends you, I am sorry.

I am no longer a man prone to violence, and I see it as the lowest frequency of human vibration. I see violence as fear’s lowest low, the moment when our human minds become their weakest, and our hearts lose their hold on the smaller part of us. In that light, I cannot react to violence with violence and expect the world to become a better place for my existence. I must find the strength, resolve and love in my heart not to beat you down but to find a way to lift you up when I feel you have done me wrong.

That is my way. It may not be yours, and I have found it take great resolve and strength to act in accordance with that vision even in the most benign of circumstance let alone in an event like the tragedy in Aurora. I struggle with adhering to this vision daily and certainly know the strength it takes to not react in fear’s grip when it is so easy to do so given our societal instruction from birth. I understand that we are taught “an eye for an eye” from birth, and that “domestication” creates in us a reactionary personality that feels the need to do something when we feel a wrong has been done. Sometimes stillness should be the answer, but we weren’t raised that way as a collective and certainly were never taught how to exercise that restraint. That “domestication” often makes hypocrites out of even the most peaceful and well-meaning among us.

Control is Control and Control is Oppression

To me, it is this simple. The mechanism by which a deranged human being carries out his fantasies is not the issue. A man bent on killing others will find a way to carry out is will regardless of what weapon we put in his hand. One such example was at the Happy Land Social Club, where an angry boyfriend used gasoline to kill 87 people. A difference here is that there is no “right” to gasoline, a gas can, or matches. The Oklahoma City bombing was caused by fertilizer and fuel oil. You simply do not need a gun to carry out acts of terror, vengeance or anger on other people.

So, while I personally see no need for anyone to have an assault rifle, I can’t inflict my attitude on those who do. As a vegetarian, I see no reason for people to kill Bambi at all, let alone with an AK-47. I read somewhere that about 13,000-14,000 a year, far greater than those who are killed by assault weapons every year. While speeding is against the law in the United States, I have heard no one propose that we take cars away from those who speed. They may lose their driver’s license after about umpteen tickets, but they still have their car. Guess what, there is no “right to own a car” written in the Constitution anywhere either.

While this argument may sound silly to you, the idea of punishing law-abiding citizens whose pursuit of happiness involves owning a Uzi because of the handful of deaths committed every year at the hands of assault weapon owners is just as silly to me. If they want to own a Uzi, fine, they should be free to own one. As long as they don’t shoot up innocent people as a result. People should be free to make choices for themselves.

Attitude is a dangerous thing, especially when some try to force others to adhere to their own. Gun control is not about controlling guns, it is about controlling others. It’s about keeping them from doing as they wish and distorting the Constitution to fit that attitude. The Second Amendment is not about bearing arms as part of a “well-regulated” militia, it is about ensuring that the People can both keep a well-regulated militia as well as ensuring the right to bears arms is not infringed upon by the Federal Government (study Tench Cox and the opinions of the delegates on the Second Amendment). Both things, the militias and the right to bear arms, were a direct result of real fears of our founding fathers pertaining to tyranny. They wanted to ensure that the government could not keep the citizenry from both militarizing and protecting itself from a government.

“Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.”
Noah Webster (1758-1843)

This was a predominant fear, particularly of those who fought against the European monarchies and tyrannies. Understand that many Americans did not want a strong central government just for this reason. There was a real fear that everything they fought for against England would be lost by creating a government that could usurp the power from the People. The Second Amendment was considered, debated, and approved under that auspice; the People can fight back whenever the government becomes too tyrannical.

So this isn’t about Bambi, or Aurora, or Columbine. It is about the real fact that we have a right, liked or not by all, to keep and bear arms in this nation. That right exists more clearly than the right to abortion, the Separation between Church and state as well as many other “principals” many of us hold dear.

Freedom is Not Free

The price of freedom isn’t always about currency. It is not always about fighting foreign dictators or evil empires. It’s not always about liberating the oppressed. Sometimes the supreme sacrifice made in the honor of freedom is found in movie theaters, in schools, in dark alleys, or on college campuses. Sometimes those who die for freedom are not part of a well-trained military unit, but our neighbors, friends, husbands, wives, and children. It sucks to say this, in fact it pains me greatly to say this, but we can’t honor those who have died for freedom by eroding that freedom out of fear just because we don’t happen to like something.

Yes, my attitude may be dramatically different had I lost someone close in Aurora. Anger does that to a reasoning mind. Sometimes we have to allow cooler heads to make decisions for us when in the throes of an angry reaction. I sincerely want the person who did this to be punished for his crimes, but I don’t want to punish everyone for them too. I don’t want to allow this government to take any freedom away from you, from me, or from anyone else. I simply don’t trust it enough.

I realize this may create some angry reactions. Understand that it is very hard for me to not only take this position, but stick to it. Stick to it I will if only because I am sick of being told what I can and can’t do because of the attitudes of others. I have to wear my seatbelt (I always wear it anyway, it is the have to I dislike) for instance. Hey, if I want to drive down the road without my seatbelt and suddenly wear my windshield as a necklace that’s on me. And for the love of all that’s holy don’t tell me about the monetary costs created by those who don’t wear their seatbelts. Freedom is not free, and sometimes we pay a monetary price to allow others to exercise their own.

I pray we can have intelligent, wise and controlled public debate on this issue. To me, freedom is the issue here, and what we are willing to sacrifice in the quest for a false sense of security that will never exist.

Peace.

My Garden of Gethsemane

July 17, 2012 / tomgrasso

In my Garden of Gethsemane

I walked along with her

She could not know my suffering

A worm stuck in my own cocoon.

The wounds I bore

She touched them

And they opened

I screamed silently until I could be silent no more.

She did not mean it

She could not see they were there

And I hid the bleeding

Until our river ran crimson with untold memories.

By touching them

She healed them

The flesh, it tore

But allowed the Light to enter.

There are some Souls

Who bless our lives with presence

Who heal us even amid the suffering

Such is Love.

I wonder what wounds I touched in her

And I weep at the thought of the injury

Even as I pray that I healed her too

A reflection of the Light she is to me.

I can see her now, clearly

The clouds of torment gone

The attention to wounds forgotten

Love eternal reigns the day.

In the ending a new beginning

In the loss a prize eternal

I bask in the tears I shed for her

Such medicine the salty rivers give!

I feel her now not through a pain soaked curtain

But through a warm vessel of Light

The Sun, the Moon, the Stars

The Glory of a Dancing Tigress.

I felt the Universe unfold in beautiful awe

As she fell into my arms weeping

Telling me a million stories

Without ever saying a word.

And I heal…

That moment I came down off my cross

And turned it into just another tree

I fell in love with me.

Right there, in my Garden of Gethsemane

Where the Beloved showed me who I am

Right where the wounds became no more

Right were she touched where no one has touched me before.

I wrapped my arms around her

Our sweated Beings merged

I loved in that moment like I’ve never loved before

I swallowed all of her she’d allow me to have.

I ceased to be in that moment still

The final thread of my veil fell away

Or so it seems that weighted cloak is gone

Lifted by a selfless act of Love.

I do not pretend to know tomorrow

There are many crosses with many weights to bear

Yet in this instant I fear no more

I am free in this, my Garden of Gethsemane.

Sister Assumpta – The Story of the Monk and the Scorpion

August 24, 2011 / tomgrasso

When I was but a wee lad (that’s the Irish in me) there were many difficulties facing me. Those difficulties translated themselves in tough times both behaviorally and socially. This was, of course, no more evident than in my school life.

Needless to say, the fact that I was having a very tough time was an understatement. Yet, through it all, there remained this tough old nun (I went to Catholic school) who was there for me in some of the darkest moments of my young life. Her name was Sister Assumpta, and although she was tough I have yet to meet a person who offered such unconditional love to me as she had. In some ways she was a savior to me, and although it took many more years for my savior to arrive, she was there to do her best in guiding me through a time when I was utterly alone.

So, in this post, I wish to honor her, and you, with a story and explanation. The story is one that she told me during one moment when I felt an intense anger and was suffering horribly from it. This moment was a harbinger of things to come, but in this instance she was there to try to light a different, truer, path for me. It is with tears in my eyes with love in my open heart that I offer you this memory in honor of a loving woman who will live eternally in my Soul.

♥

A monk was walking besides a river swollen with torrential rains looking to see if there was anyone he could help. As he scanned the raging river, he noticed a scorpion struggling to stay atop a boulder. It was surely going to be swept away as the river rose.

The monk noticed a tree near the river’s bank that offered a sturdy branch reaching out directly over the scorpion. Without hesitation, the monk climbed the tree, shimmied across the branch, and reached out to grab the scorpion as a large crowd gathered to watch.

Each time the monk reached out, the scorpion would sting him. Still, the monk persisted until finally, after many, many tries, he successfully grabbed the scorpion and carried him safely to the shore. The amazed crowd watched as the monk let the scorpion go, staggered, and fell at the base of the tree surely to die.

“Why would you kill yourself to save a scorpion?” someone in the crowd asked. “Surely you would know he would sting you and you would die!”

“Of course I did,” said the monk. “Yet just as it is the scorpion’s true nature is to sting in fear, it is my true nature to serve in love. We were just being true to Who We Are.”

And with that the monk died, a free man true to his Self.

♥

Now, I altered the end a little to more fit my current understanding. I simply added those seven words that, to me, sum up the moral of the story. What Sister Assumpta was trying to tell a young boy losing himself in sadness, anger and chaos was to not lose sight of the true Self. Even then I understood what she was trying to say, but at that stage of my life I wasn’t sure who my true Self was. It seemed my true Self was the one getting me beat at home, teased at school, and in trouble everywhere. I simply did not have the tools or the experience to take that understanding and do something with it. Frankly, those few moments with Sister Assumpta just were not enough to stem the tide of the raging river within me. I eventually changed from being the monk to the scorpion and back to the monk again.

Actually, in my current understanding, I have always been the monk, the scorpion and the crowd. Those experiences are “who I am” in this lifetime. Today, however, I understand I have a choice. I have no need to protect myself. I have no need to cater to fear. I have no need to worship the ideas of who you are or who I am; I simply have the understanding that we are truly no different except in those meaningless ideas. In those moments when my ego rears up I try to go back to that scared and angry little boy. I see the smiling face of Sister Assumpta as she grabs my cheeks in love to share some light. This time, however, I smile back and tell her, “thank you, I understand, and I love you too.” Those moments of focus are coming quicker to me now as the hold anger has over me evaporates with the ideas that spawns it.

See, the scorpion allowed the monk to be who he was in shining glory. “No greater love is there than when a person dies for his friend.” In return, the monk allowed the scorpion to be who it was. Both allowed the crowd to be who it was. All accepted and none suffered.

I love you. I can’t help it. Even when the scorpion decides to sting (both when I am the stinger and the stingee) I love. As my mind conjures up ideas about you and yours about me, we both love each other in ways we simply have yet to recognize. I have to find ways to recognize that love in myself and express it to you. That’s the light that needs to shine. If Sister Assumpta tried to do anything it was to shine a light for all to see, and I will be eternally grateful to a woman who can still inspire a warm feeling of love within me.

Anyway, I hope this foray into memory and love had some meaning to you. I look forward to seeing your light shortly. Peace!