Beer for My Horses

I am not a beer drinker. In my youth I was. I could drink beer until I became beer. We would frequent a local pub where you got a free pitcher for every four you bought. Lots of nights we would end up with 20 pitchers on the table, empty. Hard to imagine now. And I actually thought I could drive home - whoa. Time does change one's perspective. Of course in those days I don't know if anyone was ever completely sober so there were a lot of accidents out there waiting to happen. And some did. Few of us grew to be 50 something without knowing someone in our social circle or neighborhood or high school who was a victim of their own bad choices. One friend of mine died in a bathtub with a needle in his arm - whoa. Another died in an accident with a blood alcohol of 3.8, legal limit now is .8 - whoa. Another decided to fly out a 4th story window and forgot to flap - whoa. None of this is funny but 3 decades later it's not nearly as tragic as it was then either. None of these people deserved to die and certainly none of them was doing anything much different than their friends were. And yet they suffered the most serious consequences imaginable for bad behavior - death. I wonder sometimes about what they would have done, or who they would have been, or what their children would have looked like if they had lived. No answer.

So today I'm reading a Time article about a Jihadist. This is a 19 year old in training to die for his religious beliefs and take out a few infidels as he goes. He describes his training, his prayers, his focus, his isolation. He has a family, friends, a life. He doesn't give it a second thought though. He is totally resolute in his desire to die killing others. He believes he will earn a place in heaven through this action. He is eager to be called. He has friends who have already taken their turn at the wheel of a car with explosives strapped on their bodies. He plans to reunite with them in heaven. He isn't sure he wants to kill innocent bystanders and hopes his target will be military or police related but he will kill bystanders if he must, innocent or not. He is ashamed of the one vice he has, smoking, and assures the reporter that before his time he will stop and complete his purification to insure when he takes his last drive, or walk, he will be completely ready for Allah. Whoa.

The irony of feeling bad about smoking as you contemplate murder - whoa. The irony of a new generation of almost adults who don't drink or use drugs and are totally clearheaded in their desire to murder and die themselves - whoa. What world do we live in now? I sometimes feel like the worst acid trip imaginable could not compare to a world like this one. We mourn the deaths of friends, family, acquaintances who die not because of their bad choices but because today they chose to get up in the morning and board a bus or train or plane. We mourn the deaths of friends, family, acquaintances who think their duty is to try to fight back, to wage war on these misguided youth, the soldiers of Allah. We mourn that the world we live in is a world of hatred, where power is sought through any means possible by people who send these youngsters to die. And what if they win? Will the world of our children's children be dominated by fanatics, zealots? And if they lose? Will the world of our children's children be dominated by fanatics, zealots? Will we wonder about all the lives cut short by this war - what would have become of these young people if they had lived and grown old? Would they have made the world better by living? No answer. They believe they are making it better by dying.

I think I grew up in the wrong world. In the world of my youth we didn't want to die, we wanted to live. We didn't want to wage war, we wanted peace. We didn't want to take up arms, we handed out flowers. Where did we go? Was it too much beer, or pot, or cocaine that flung us into this nightmare? We watched our bravest young men go to war and die and we stood up and said NO, this isn't right. Now we watch people blown up on an almost daily basis and we are numb, and sober. Sober?

What can we offer these young men so intent on dying that compares with a promise of heaven? They see a world that is without hope or promise or security. They don't believe in pacifism, in capitalism, in our madison avenue promise that "we try harder." They think we are bloodsucking, ransacking, muckraking plunderers. They believe that we would sell our own souls to possess theirs. They compare us to the devil.

It will take minds greater, hearts stronger, and souls braver than the ones we are showing to come to grips with this brave new world. It will take more than we've got to find the path through this nightmarish maze. We will need not only to be sober, but strong, and clear, and certain. We will need to be like them. With one important difference. The path to heaven is not littered with the bodies of the innocent.

High Test

Before the days of unleaded premium gasoline if you wanted the most expensive stuff at the pump you asked for high test (that was also in the days when someone pumped the gas for you, washed your windshields, and checked the oil while you sat behind the wheel). High test was the gas with the highest octane and many cars used it because back then most of them had V-8 engines and lots of get up and go. High test was the gasoline of champions.

Today I was thinking about high test but it came to me in another train of thought. I met a friend in a coffee shop and she was talking about an ex-husband who had been mean, manipulative, and philandering when they were married, back in her 20's. She ditched him after 2 years which certainly sounded like the right choice. I drifted into a reverie about our 20's and the hormonal excesses we were subject to in those days. We females were constantly complaining about the mood swings, irritability, bloating, and just plain uncomfortable days before, during, and sometimes even after we menstruated. This lament continued as we aged, changing from PMS due to youth, to PMS due to post partum readjustment, and then the worst PMS of all, PMS associated with peri-menopause. If you are a woman you can relate to this. You remember all the conversations that have taken place over the years between you and your female friends, sisters, daughters, and mothers concerning the woes of hormonal fluctuations.

I was wondering if men have these conversations and I realized that was a really stupid thing to wonder about. Of course they don't. Men don't sit around and relate their irritability, competiveness, anger, weight gain, and philandering to hormonal fluctuations. I am inclined to think that men don't even know they have hormones. They know they have penises, which of course, they think about a lot but I don't think they talk to other men about that. Do you know any men intimately who tell you tales about their penises, the names they have for them, their pride in them? yYoung sons will regale you with tales about this stuff but my guess is they don't quit thinking about it they just don't talk about it after a certain point, at least not to other guys. So, the point here is that even though they are very familiar with their equipment they don't tend to understand that underlying not only it's functioning, but also in many case their moods are those ubiquitous hormones. As my friend was discussing her ex-husband of years ago it struck me that that guy had too much high test(osterone). He was afflicted with too much hormone and too little sense.

Would we live in a gentler world if men could acknowledge their hormonal afflictions? Would we be better off if they sat around bending each other's ears with their tales of woe? Could we relate more compassionately to male hormone madness if they could confess their complete lack of control over the surges of high test(osterone)? Any woman will admit to moments of utter insanity brought on by hormonal changes. We know what it's like to feel out of control and irrational and we know what causes it. And knowing what it is makes it easier to talk to other women, and men, about it, to seek rest, solitude, or drugs, or massage to ease it. We know we aren't always mistresses of our own fate. But perhaps the key is that linked to raging male hormone is the desire to dominate, control, and copulate without thought. Face it, when men are in the throes of hormonal excess the last thing they want to do is seek solitude or chat. They want to take on the world.

Fortunately, hormones, both male and female, eventually level out or peter out (no pun intended). That's why those 50 and 60 year old guys seem so much gentler and kinder. And I hope that it's also true of us. The real irony here is that as our estrogen abates we get more high test(osterone). The most obvious manifestation being those chin hairs that appear at the most inopportune times. But of course, being women, we won't be going through this change without relating this new hormonal woe to every friend. As my husband becomes the man I always knew he could be (sweet, gentle, kind) I am looking for new worlds to dominate. I'm looking forward to having a little bit of Tony the Tiger in my tank. So look out world, here I come - and oh by the way fella's - talking really does help to tame the savage beast.

Homesickness

We have to stumble through so much dirt and humbug before we reach home. And we have no one to guide us. Our only guide is our homesickness. — Hermann Hesse

When I was a young girl I went to camp one summer in the mountains of Colorado. It sounds like a long way from home but was actually only about an hour, in time, from my home in Denver. I really wanted to go to camp and was very excited about this new adventure, until I got there. I suddenly realized that I was surrounded by strangers, in a strange place. It was very disconcerting. At night I would cry myself to sleep. I did not want anyone to know how badly I was feeling but it must have been obvious because within a few days my counselor was hovering over me urging me to do things and get involved. Slowly but surely I recovered and was able to enjoy the experiences of camp. I returned every year after that until I was 16. By the time I went the last year it felt like returning home to pull in the gate of the camp. And yet even that last year I would feel the familiar tug of homesickness albeit briefly during my stay.

When I went to college, in Iowa, I felt the familiar tug of homesickness my first year there. Everything seemed so different to me, the people talked differently, the place looked different, my mountains were gone, my family far away. I couldn't wait to get home for Thanksgiving. The irony was that in that first visit home I didn't feel at home, everything there was different, my room had been rearranged, my parents were busy with their own stuff, my brothers and sisters felt like I was intruding. By the end of that week I was telling my best friend from 7th grade, the only one who still seemed predictable, that "you can't go home again." And being my best friend she nodded in sympathy and gave me hugs and waved goodbye at the airport.

Two years ago my husband and I moved to the mountains of North Carolina. It was the culmination of a lot of dreaming and planning that we had done over the years. In every regard it was a dream come true. We moved from our home of 27 years in Florida, leaving behind our many friends and our children, both in university there. We had planned for everything except for the sense of loss, loneliness, and emptiness that overtook me last winter. Finally, the pain of my homesickness drove me to seek help. When I sat down with the counselor the first time all I could say was, "I feel homesick and I don't even know where home is." She said nothing, which being a counselor myself I figured meant either, figure it out yourself - or I don't have a clue what you are talking about. Silence is a wonderful tool in the therapists toolbox!

So, once again I sat with my homesickness. Over the years there have been other occasions when I felt that sadness and yearning. Almost without exception loss of the familiar has ushered it in and almost without exception seeking out the familiar has not put it to rest. Instead, I have had to force myself to open up to the new, the different, the challenging. I have not been able to go back and have dreaded moving forward. Usually I think hiding will help but it doesn't and then I am left to "stumble through the dirt and humbug." During this latest occurrence I realized the truth in my words, ..."I don't even know where home is." The truth is that no matter how much I love my surroundings, my friends, my life, my children, these things are all temporary. I cannot depend on them for that sense of "home" that I long to find. I have not lost any close loved ones as an adult but friends who have describe the same sense of loss of bearings. It's more than just the loss of that person, it's the sense that you have been cut loose from your own moorings. The sense that no matter what stays the same everything is different. When I read Hesse's words I said "yes!" I am not the only one who has this sense that home is out there but I have yet to reach it.

Is this heaven I am seeking? Or God? Or some universal heartbeat that merges with my own? I can only guess and yet I keep being pushed forward by this "guide." Forced to face the impermanence of most things, I sense that somewhere not too far from here, is the home I seek. Perhaps an hour away, a day's drive, a quick flight. I don't know how I will get there, only that I will. As much as I dread the feeling of homesickness I appreciate that it is what pushes me on. And as I stumble through the dirt and humbug, worrying over each misstep, I realize that the trip is one we all share. When I was the saddest I could be at camp in those long ago days, my heart breaking as I hid beneath my sleeping bag, a calming stillness would wash over me and I would sleep. And on waking stumble some more.

Crying Over Spil't Milk

Please read the following and if you weep, do something.


CPTnet 3 June 2005
FALLUJAH, IRAQ: An unnatural disaster
by Joe Carr
Fallujah is devastating to drive through. There is more destruction and rubble than I've ever seen; even more than in Rafah, Gaza. The U.S. has leveled entire neighborhoods, and about every third building is destroyed or damaged from U.S. in April and November 2004 air ground assaults. The city looks like it's been hit by a series of tornados. Rubble and bullet holes are everywhere.
We visited a family's home in a neighborhood where every structure is damaged or destroyed. Their home was full of holes and black inside from fire. They said that they'd left during the fighting with their home intact, and returned to find all of their possessions had burned. Three families, more than twenty-five people, now live in this three-room burned-out shell of a home, including four infants.
U.S. checkpoints continue to strangle the city. One shopkeeper said that farmers from around Fallujah can no longer deliver their produce unless they have a U.S.-issued Fallujah ID. The shopkeepers have to go out and pick up the produce. He said the trip takes him around four hours because of the checkpoint delays. "They mistreat us," he said, "they point guns at us and insult us, even the women." Both U.S. and Iraqi troops search through the vegetables roughly, sometimes dumping them on the ground and smashing them.
Iraqis from the rural areas surrounding Fallujah are now dying of treatable illnesses because they can't get through the checkpoints to the Fallujah hospital. One hospital employee said that many patients also die when they try to transfer them to hospitals outside Fallujah. "It's better to take them in a civilian car than in an ambulance," he said, "because the troops delay and search ambulances more."
A Sunni cleric told us that during the first invasion, several families near his mosque took cover in a home. U.S. troops used megaphones to order all them out into the street and told them to carry a white flag. They complied, but when they all got out, the soldiers opened fire and killed five. He said one boy had run to his mother who'd been shot, and Americans shot him in the head. A U.S. Commander cried as this happened, "but what good were his tears?" he asked, "He didn't do anything to stop it."
During our meeting with the cleric, a man told us, "The Americans shot and killed my 15-year-old daughter, was she a terrorist?" The U.S. military denied killing her. "With all respect to you," he said, "I hate Americans; they killed my family. They shot and killed my sister-in-law while she was washing clothes, and my other brother's hands and feet were blown off." He apologized for interrupting, but said that he had to tell us because he's in so much pain.
Someone once told me, "You can't bomb a resistance out of existence, but you can bomb one into it."
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Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of the historic peace churches (Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Quakers) with support and membership from a range of Catholic and Protestant denominations. Supporting violence-reduction efforts around the world is its mandate. Contact CPT, POB 6508 Chicago, IL 60680; Telephone: 773-277-0253 Fax: 773-277-0291; e-mail: peacemakers@cpt.org.

Truckin'

I live in a county of about 23,000 people and about 50,000 trucks. These trucks come in all sizes and shapes; SUV's, old and new, hauling stuff and from out of town; pick-ups with toppers, with crew cabs, with fifth wheels, with hitches; old trucks with rigged up wooden sides and bad paint; new trucks with shiny chrome wheels, air conditioning, and sound systems; delivery trucks with advertising on their sides and wide mirrors; and most especially dump trucks.

These dump trucks get your attention partly because every 3rd vehicle you see on the road is a dump truck and partly because when they move you move. No one argues with a dump truck. You see them heavily loaded with gravel, dirt, and trees. You realize that there is a lot of earth being moved around which is why so many dump trucks live here. There is a quarry near my house and at any time of the day you see the trucks going in and out filled with rock of all shapes and sizes.

I particularly like the dump truck drivers, they all wear hats and grin at pretty girls and their left arm is eight shades darker than their right arm. In this part of the world most of them have a southern mountain drawl, real slow and easy. They talk like they have rocks in their mouth so it takes some getting used to but once you get an ear for it it's like no other kind of talking. Most of these guys (they would say boys) listen to country music while they drive, or bluegrass. They all have an ear for banjo pick'n and a lot of them play the banjo or the guitar or maybe the fiddle and they all have rhythm. Some of them have shiny new trucks that they wash religiously and others have trucks that you swear will fall apart under the loads they carry but somehow they don't.

I often wish I was up there in the cab of one of those trucks riding or driving. It seems like it would be so much fun to be king of the road. You could look down on the rest of the vehicles on the road, puny little cars without power or size, and you could haul loads of stuff to out of the way places and push the levers to make the back raise and the load slide out. I see the men standing on the top of a load sometimes pulling a tarp tight over it and they move so easily, climbing up on the load and over it and then jumping down like there's nothing to it and these are guys older than me which is pretty old to be moving so effortlessly. I think dump truck driving would be more fun than race car driving. You couldn't go fast but everybody would pay attention to your passing. And if you honked your horn you would surely get a response.

Our county may not have many people but we got lots of trees and flowers and trucks. I like it.

Fantasy/Reality

I watched the season finale of "Desperate Housewives" with the same guilty pleasure I have enjoyed all season. This may be a soap opera, mindless, poorly written, or another 20 adjectives that the critics use to express their dismay but I gotta tell you for me it is the best intersection of black humor, mystery, and just plain fun on t.v. The only show in my mind that might have the same possibilities is "Grey's Anatomy"but it's too early to tell on that one.

I love to watch interesting/entertaining t.v. I don't consider it a mindless waste of time or a frivolous use of time. It is entertainment pure and simple and if my idea of entertainment is different than yours - there's something for everyone. At work I deal with people all day long who are in the throes of various difficulties. And then there are the just cranky ones who make life difficult. And don't forget the sweet ones who love to drop by and chat for hours while I'm trying to type the Sunday bulletin. Admittedly, these are small problems in the world but it's fun to forget about them when I go home and tune in to shows like "Desperate Housewives." I don't watch t.v. 7 nights a week, I don't even watch every Sunday. But to be able to check out once in a while is great. My husband and I have a running debate about this because his idea of the best t.v. is all things sports, which could be a 24 hour a day deal. He insists that sports has a greater value than the shows I watch because it is "real." Also, stupid, macho, and steroid driven, but hey who am I to be a critic. He watches his stuff, I watch mine. And never the two shall meet, although I did catch him watching Housewives one night when he was surfing but I think it was because Eva Longoria was in the bathtub. He would agree that in addition to sports, sex will always get his attention, for real or on t.v.

In my youth I loved to use artificial means for checking out, the specifics to remain known only to me and a few close friends, but in the wisdom of advancing age I no longer partake of anything stronger than a very occasional glass of wine. For me the fun of a well written t.v. show serves the same purpose (well almost), it provides a break from everyday reality, and I don't even have to wake up feeling yucky. Some would call me shallow. Perhaps.

But I deal with the same realities the deeper thinkers of the world are dealing with. I know about the crisis in Darfur, the war in Iraq, the Bird Flu in China, the crisis in Social Security, the Real Estate bubble. I am charitable to those in need, work in my church's food pantry, write letters to my Congress people, read the papers, wring my hands, shake my head, recycle my trash, and watch my fossil fuel consumption. There's more in the world to cry over than to laugh about. But isn't it great to have the opportunity to laugh. Doesn't it feel good to have those belly laughs. I don't want to lose the ability to see the fun in life, to enjoy the fantasy, to participate in pleasurable activities.

I think it's what I hate about the conservatives. They are so serious. Actually, the liberals too. Everything is a crisis, a reason to despair, a fight waiting to happen. Can't we all just chill out? There is no indication that our overzealous, hyperactive, argumentative, confrontational, sky is falling dramas are truly achieving anything more than pissing us all off. Or worse yet putting us all to sleep.

So for me, some t.v. is an antidote to desperation. Maybe the "housewives" need to watch more of it. If one or two hours a week of escape helps me do more and be better the rest of the time then I'm all for it. Perhaps I am just part of the brave, new world, where people escape into their soma driven fantasies but I prefer to think that moderation, in all things including escape, is the best way to remain effective and happy. For those of you who agree, do you think Mike is going to get shot? And for the rest of you, if you don't know who Mike is tune in next season and you'll find out.

Living and Dying

Our son's fiancee's father has terminal cancer, just diagnosed, in every bone in his body. Not much life left according to the medical personnel. My husband and I are trying to console our son and help him with this but we realize that this is a hurdle we have not crossed. We have four living parents. We have not had to deal with the messy end of life issues with our parents yet although we find ourselves, more and more, trying to approach subjects with them that were avoidable for many years. How do you talk to your parents about their finances, their end of life wishes, their imagined legacy, their spiritual thoughts. We are having a hard time in our 50's and our son and future daughter in law are 23. I find myself at a loss for words as he asks me questions about what to say to her, to them, how to get information, provide support, deal with medical people, on and on the list goes.

Although there have been times when I have not been able to answer his questions over the years I now find myself struggling not only to help him but also pondering for myself how to grapple with these big issues. Our parents have been so self sufficient and independent that there have been few openings for these serious conversations. It is in the nature of parents to say, "don't worry about us, we have everything taken care of." But do we?

If nothing else this has been an awakening for me in terms of how I want to talk with our children. I realize that the earlier these conversations start and the more willingness we show to discuss the hard stuff the easier it will be for them as we come to the time in our life when we need them to worry about us and take care of us. I hope that we don't have to burden them with our cares but the reality is that the only people in our lives who care about us as much as we care about each other are our children. I wish that our son did not have to take this on right now but there is no good time. We won't know the time or place of our death. But we can lay the groundwork for ongoing conversation with our kids about the tough stuff. I want them to know about our vulnerabilities as well as our strengths even if that is scary for them and for us.

We die alone but we don't have to die uncared for. How much support and love we receive in the end is related to how much we are willing to be open to receiving it. We are walking through the grocery store today picking over heads of lettuce and discussing these big, tough subjects. I love to shop with our children, the grocery store has been the center of a lot of good conversation over the years. I hope we have a lot more years of shopping together, picking over the lettuce, and debating whether to buy the chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies. I love our kids, I hate it that they will most likely have to deal with our dying, and I thank God everyday that we have them in our lives. We may die alone but our love for them will live on.