You Should Have Been Fried in the Electric Chair

A police officer commented after I spoke for MADD once in Dakota County, that I should have been “fried in the electric chair” for killing Little Timmy.  This gentleman was required to attend my speech because of reasons I won’t go into, but let’s just say he and his family were there for Cause and had he not attended, he would have a judge to answer to for non-compliance. 

It was ironic we look at the Letter of the Law problematically, rather than consider the Higher Law which granted me life and had me speaking to students at Earth School.  Funny how many people don’t see a Higher Message, even when it is staring them in the face. 

Anyway, I responded to his concern, saying that if he believed the crime I committed didn’t match the consequences, that he should take the matter up with legislators who hadn’t deliberated death as a reasonable punishment for my crime. 

I suggested he try to change the law if he didn’t like it.  Right or wrong, it was the law and nowhere in our country is the death penalty assigned for this type of offense.  I served my time, finished supervised released and have been law-abiding for a long time. 

Likewise, if we don’t like any given law governing our lives, we should just try to get it changed rather than just complain about it. Complaining is Fake News.  LOL!  

In prison, I filed lawsuits to redress my grievances. Occasionally I prevailed.  Effort, not outcome, might be the Higher Message.

Eulogy for Flibbertigibbetting

Gossiping about someone without giving them a chance to color the evidence is cowardly, harmful, and wrong. Gossip is born in mind, passes the lips like a subtle hiss, and brings down the greater good, ironically giving a painless birth to the lowest common denominator. Gossip commonly serves as a tool to make oneself feel superior to someone else. I've rarely heard accurate information transmitted regarding a person who was not present to hear it communicated. This same mistake broadly applies to religion, science, politics, management/HR, family, homelessness, race, gender, income-levels, etc.


 

Bobby Fischer, the 11th World Chess Champion that many esteem as the best that's ever been (probably a higher percentile of Americans subscribe to this notion than abroad), taught a lesson on chess that I absorbed as a life truth. He said it is paramount to look at every square on the board that every piece can move before committing oneself to a move. Sounds like great advice for life in general, right? Silence and circumspection should attend every important decision that one makes before pulling the trigger.  This training readies us for real life when we might not have time to flesh out all the possibilities.


 

When we are in training or otherwise have time, here’s what has helped me through the years.  I call it T-3, and in certain circles, it is an axiom or Slogan. "Think, THINK, Think" has for me become a lifestyle, akin to Bobby Fischer's' prescription for winning chess. 1-T) Think. I briefly consider the matter at hand, then separate myself quickly from it to suspend my judgment, then return to it with objectivity. 2-T) On important issues, I consider every aspect of it as deeply as I am capable, analyzing the interplay of ideas, moves, and relational outcomes consummate to the task at hand. Then after holding on to the possibilities that seem most promising and dismissing the chaff, I select the strongest sequence of moves available, and then I WALK AWAY or daydream about anything other than the plan. Then, 3-T) Returning to the decision I made after the thorough consideration, I reconsider my options confidently but without conceit, looking for things I might have missed.


 

In tournament chess, the hard and fast rules are, "Touch Move, Touch Take." If you touch the piece, then you must move it or take it. Touching is a total commitment; just like speaking is not easily unspoken, one should weigh it out carefully before committing to it.


 

Then comes the clincher for clarity. I free my mind of everything I think I know, then reach for the piece to move, and deliberately 'almost' touch the piece several times. With the spirit of humility and gentleness rather than fear or agenda, I wait for my intuition to reveal what my logical mind missed. I can't begin to count the number of times the intuitive mind shows me what I missed in my 'Think, THINK, Think' processing.  Emily Dickenson said, “Dwell in possibility.”  How can we gossip about a thing that doesn’t feed our ego or anger?  Gossiping is a strange form of lazy supremacy.  Rise above it, and you’re bound to taste the sweetness & peace you’ve been desiring.

"Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes homines." ~Seneca

Here's a total mishmash, hodgepodge of unedited drivel:

Growing up unclean and unworthy, I only wanted to eat the crumbs of love that fell from other people's lives. Like pieces of intellectual property, if they caught me, they would try to wrest it from my mind. The bits and pieces they missed falling, I now realize, were but 'the ones that would bring the ones' they loved the missing pieces of their lives back to them "some day". The lost would be found.

When I fell a long way from the plate of The Master, landing hard and hitting concrete, knocking both the good and bad sense out of me, it left me powerless, leaving nothing but surrender. Predators came to see what fell, saying, "See, he has a record."

But like a wild animal, I ate myself to survive. I ate my history and it became Highstory.

Being alone with no one to pick me up, no one to feed me and dress my wounds, I was left without an Enabler. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Sometimes we have to give ourselves the love we want from others until we are strong enough to give love to those who are too weak to feed (on) themselves. We 'Pass It On', feeding on the IMPOSSIBLE to give life to the possible.

As Emily Dickenson said, "Dwell in Possibility."

How Can He Be 'The One' If He's Dead? The Cost of Success

An incidence of abuse cited by a female friend of mine (a man ‘Flashed” her from his car) has caused me to deliberate on life. As terrible as this may sound, one could view this moron's action as an excellent opportunity for spiritual growth. When such impactful things happen to us, maybe one’s Higher Power is accessing a wounded part of ourselves that needs healing?

My youth was filled with both abusive and peaceful opportunities for deeper growth, and then I went to prison.  I used to wonder why God (my Higher Power) allowed me to see the awful underbelly of humanity.

Then I sobered up, as they say.  I wondered what people meant when they said they never killed anyone while driving under the influence. I used to wonder why I was born to a mother who couldn't take care of me properly (the State of Minnesota deemed my situation ‘the worst case of abuse they had seen in Minnesota’ at the time...today it would not seem so unusual). I could go on and on.

But forgiveness always runs deeper than the wound or offense that required its presence. If there was no offense, forgiveness as a virtue could not exist. The wound was a wonderful opportunity for spiritual growth. Oprah said, “Make your wounds your wisdom.” 

A friend of mine asked why she could not stop drinking. Everything else in her life was OK, she said, but drinking wasn't. I didn't say that maybe what she was going through was for OTHERS. Sometimes we go through things to help others reach a brighter end of their healing journey.

In God's Economy, nothing is wasted. I was suicidal without ideation for years, but 1) because I had given my will and life to God, my life was not longer mine to take.  I couldn’t steal it, and 2), I also realized that IF I committed suicide, then when someone needed help getting through their grief, THEN I couldn’t help because I’M DEAD.  I NEEDED to pass the test for OTHERS.  Like Cypher said in The Matrix, "I mean how can he be the One if he's dead?"

The Dark Night of the Soul is dreadfully difficult, but also terribly beautiful.  I wouldn’t trade one day of the pain during those darker days.  To do so would be to reject a part of myself.  I would lose my wholeness.  A person cannot be Holy without Wholeness.  Everywhere we walk is Holy Ground because we are there.  We paint the future with our lives.  The world is our canvas.  The images we create can be ugly or beautiful. 

Still, for some gravely wounded poetic warriors, healing might be a lengthy process.  I am in no way saying that the offense that caused the injury was right or justified. The offense was wrong, yes, but what are we gonna do about it?

Many are called to attend the Higher Learning Centers of Life, but few are willing to drop the Victim Mentality, hang up the ego-centered Blamethrower, and bring the darkness to the Light. One's things' for sure, shit happens. A dung beetle loves and makes shit its home, lays its eggs there even, and if we are not careful to wash the actions of others from our unconscious minds, we might do the same. Taking our power back is imperative. Only dogs get mad. Humans are supposed to look at what caused us pain, consider the highest possible message, and migrate our consciousness by 'life on life's terms.'

Changing our minds will change our lives. Stick with the winners, and never get into a pissin' contest with a skunk.  When can experience peace no matter what the crazy world of ours is doing, right?  Must we attend every fight to which we’ve received a RSVP?   Choose your battles wisely.

My Worst UBER Rider

As some of you might know, I am an UBER Driver.  

I drove a minister when I first started UBER (my first day, maybe my third ride). I asked his permission to tell a joke, which dispensation he granted. Mind you; I related a joke that a friend of mine who is a minister said during a church service. I thought I was, "Good to go" in the I AIN'T GONNA OFFEND department.

Well, it seemed he got irate after I delivered the joke and asked if he could tell me a joke. I should have known by the tone of his voice I was in trouble, but my wanting to be friendly, said, "Oh, sure!" He then said, raising his voice with each word of the 'joke,' "Once upon a time there was an UBER driver who didn't mind his own business who got his face smashed in with a truck!" I asked if that was his way of telling me not to tell any more jokes, to which he responded with a classic passive/aggressive ‘Minnesota Nice Voice,' "No."

I ceased all nonessential communication, dropped him at the airport, remain above the negativity the best that I could with one exception:  I started playing Christian Music from my IPOD for his listening pleasure since he certainly hadn’t endured what he purportedly praised as the Exemplar of Christianity.   Like Gandhi said, “I like your Christ, but I don’t like some of your Christians.”  The rider awarded me my only 1-Star rating.  I gave him a 5-Star rating.  Be kind to those who have issues.  Who knows, maybe that was the last day he wore his collar because he got fired for people falling asleep in the pews.  Or worse yet, maybe he was on the way to a funeral for a friend and the joke was bad timing. 

I guess you might want to know what joke offended him so?

A minister died and went to heaven.  While standing in line observing Saint Peter checking in arrivals into their new digs and giving out various mansions with a key, the minister was enthralled.  When he saw a bus driver who was in line directly in front of him get a 5-Star Mansion, he got excited!

Feeling entitled due to performing the Lord’s Work for forty years, he expected a top-of-the-line Mansion, fit for a king!  But, he only got a run-down shack!  He complained to St. Peter, asking why he only got a shanty when the bus driver got a mansion! “Well, sir,” St. Peter said, “while you were preaching, people were nodding off. While he was driving, people were wringing their hands in fervid prayer, asking that they would make it home safely.  You do the math.” 

I always did have a way of pissing off even the most patient of souls.  Frankly, I would have rather driven someone drunk on alcohol than drunk on ego.  Bit it takes ego to know ego, so I didn't argue with him.  As my Sponsor taught me, "Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk." 

Surviving Incredible Odds Makes Up Beautiful Beyond Description

As a young person, I used to run toward a train when it was coming toward the bridge. I would time it as closely as I could, but sometimes miscalculated the speed of the train.  A couple of times I didn't beat it, so had to cling to the large wooden tresses which bounced vigorously (no easy task holding on) as the train passed above me.

Anyway, I look back on that and think a part of me had a Death Wish. I constantly felt alone and hurt.  I only felt alive when I did things that were crazy. Glad I healed from that, but admit it took a long time.

Glad you are here, my friends, to care about people like me. Never give up, right? The world needs your (our) love. Others struggling need those of us who prevailed against those hard patches.  I believe those of us who make it through tough times become beautiful beyond description.

You've probably heard that the definition of a friend as someone who learns your song, so when you forget it, they can sing it back to you.  

Spiritual Freedom

Installation of Spirit is not necessary because we are all BORN with it. That we have forgotten who we seem to be at the crux of every problem. THAT'S the real issue at hand. But I hope there's hope at the end of the tunnel.  

 

Maybe we can AWAKEN that innate Inner Sense (not moral sense, for morals, they are transitory and manufactured). There can be a sudden, revolutionizing experience, one that raises one from the unconscious state to the conscious one.  

 

Only the Divine Spirit can reawaken the Divine Spark. If we come at one another with the spirit of separation, us/them unconsciousness, then we are doomed to become the oppressor of the oppressor.  WE BECOME THEM!

If we forget to believe in each other, we slam the door in the faces of our spiritual family. It is IMPOSSIBLE to oppress the free, for freedom is an INSIDE job. Taking out power back comes from within. Only then can we see the inside of others.

 

We rest in the web of deceit and imprisonment is to give ‘our’ power to hierarchies outside of ourselves.

 

To destroy a Police State with Love seems impossible, but Impossible is God's Favorite Word. If we walk on water, the only ones who can follow us...is us. We can shift the planet by realizing the planet is already shifted. But then, I might have been dropped on my head as a child, which might explain my belief in Love. LOL!

 

Burn it into the consciousness of every person, we can get well regardless of what has transpired or is transpiring in our personal or community lives.  No one gets well until everyone gets well.  One for all and all for one.  We may not all be in the same boat, but we’re all on the same ship.

Comparative Mind/Competitive Mind & Good Enough

"If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me," said WH Auden.

A friend of mine reflected on the following and it gave me pause for thought, too:  

""Someone said to me...
..."you think you're so special - don't you"

I asked them...
..."what would you say to a child who asks you if they're special?""

If I grow up in a loving family, giving and receiving love, surrounded by love, then everything is unified and nothing is "special" or "less than". Love, only love.

My foster dad reminded me frequently that I was the "smartest idiot" he ever knew. I evicted the shame from my head, but the words remain just the same.  It's not what happens to us that matters so much as what we do with it.  

The comparative mind is difficult to dig up from the root, but really, even that's not necessary. No two roots are equal in the Sequoia Forrest. The way individual trees survive is through the root structure. The roots of surrounding trees intermingle with one another, which in the big picture 'holds up' the entire forest. We are in this together.

Einstein said either everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle.  Similarly, either no one is special or everyone is special. I am unique, just like everyone else.

A sense of entitlement might arise when we feed the ego, but we're all human and have an ego, so no use making a big deal about the defects it feeds. As my foster mom was fond of saying, 'don't throw the baby out with the bathwater'.

Feed everything with love;  forgive everything.  When I feed all of the parts of myself with LOVE, the defects I sometimes abhor actually get healthier (weaker defects). Many people believe loving the darker parts of ourselves is to give it approval and the weakness will grow, but, it grows peaceful and might even RIP some day. LOL! Love one another.

Simple, but not always easy, but always worth it.

Pushing Pawns Above & Beyond

When a pawn makes it to the opposite side of the board, traversing the ENTIRE board to the opposite side, the pawn is "Promoted" to whatever piece other than a King or another pawn. Usually such a promotion changes who wins and loses the game. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory comes when we give up pushing our pawn to the opposite side of everything we think we know.

Why Chess?

The 'game' of chess has taught me lots about life. I encourage every child to learn this marvelous game. While there are a lot of people who play a better game than me, by the rating I had (I was B-Class, bordered A-Class) I am more accomplished than 98% of players. But what's more important, I connect the dots between the game and evolving to a more peaceful, patient lifestyle.

But some people are competitive and waste the opportunity to translate experience from a place of unified love. I am an intuitive player, not a logical one. When I lose a game, I am grateful, for losing teaches chess and winning maintains only what we already know. But when I lost because I don't care about winning, due to compassion for the other players' feeling, I wasted an opportunity there, too.

Learning to play with grace is an inside job, and it has nothing to do with winning or losing. Who am I to rip someone off of this opportunity to grow beyond losing (or winning)?

My boxing trainer said I will never be a good boxer because I don't have the "Killer Instinct," and the same applied to chess. He was a good chess teacher, too. Eventually, I beat him in chess more than he beat me. He didn't understand the real love of this beautiful, silent language called CHESS.

I would enjoy teaching young people to play chess and might start classes somewhere or maybe instruct one-on-one professionally. I think that would be fulfilling. Maybe someday.

Repetition is the Mother of all Learning. Be Not Weary. Fake It Until You Make It.

Repetition is the Mother of all Learning. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results might be insane, but it's also the definition of persistence. The hardest pushups are the Alpha & Omega pushups, the first and the last ones.

Be not weary. If we are tired, we are drawing from our own finite energy, rather than surrendering to the One who has all Power, which has been gifted to everyone and is always available, free for the taking.

The ego has a hard time believing nothing is wrong in life and would rather spend its days pretending to eat from the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil.

When something happens, some people complain, and say, "Oh, GREAT!" Others say, "GREAT!" or "Another wonderful opportunity for spiritual growth!"  

Don't just fake it.  Fake it until you make it.

More Dark Night Musings

During the Dark Night of the Soul, I had breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough until I realized "it's just another breakthrough and who knows when this will all end". It's a process of mysterious dimensions through which knowledge has no impact or value.

Once we have 'EVERYTHING (we know)' burned off of our existence (a painful reality to feel illusions of love seared from one's spirit nerves), then and only then do we have a chance to release from the Chrysalis organically.

This is a condensed version of what it's like to birth the death of this world and live in the reality of Love. Rumi understood this when he offered to meet you in that Sacred Space beyond duality. Jesus raised from the dead to release the damned from hell (CS Lewis said the gates of hell are only opened from the inside, so Jesus went there and opened the gate). Buddha exited the comfort of his castle and worldly wealth to find himself and found the Flower of Life to which Jesus alluded when he said Solomon in all his glory didn't compare to the simple grandeur of The Lily of the Valley. That is, Buddha, is attributed to saying (falsely, I might add) that 'if a person were to see a single flower clearly, it would change their life.'

In some circles, they say, "KISS," Keep It Simple Stupid. I always considered the "Stupid" part as condescending and irrelevant, so my ego changed it to "Silly" or whatever popped into my head that started with an "S". It takes ego to know ego. The truth seems to be that God talks to us all differently, hoping we'll tell each other.

Beating people with the truth is cruelty, which proves there was/is/will be no truth in force. Forcing solutions can only break the breaker, and out of this wreckage of 'this truth' grows whom we have always been, which is good enough. Therefore, every mistake is useful.

When I died in prison and came back of my own free will, something had shifted in the spiritual life as I experienced it. Things of this world mattered little. But deeper growth and pain was still to be experienced years later, bringing me to a deeper understanding of who we are. In Lakesh.

Forgive Everything

A universal truth. A person is as happy as they make up their minds to be. I forgave my abuser and it freed me. Holding myself hostage in anger was keeping me sick. He was not even paying rent to be in my mind, so I evicted him (even if he paid rent, I'm no prostitute anymore, so nursing the pain is not an option). Taking our power back and hanging up the blamethrower ain't always easy, but it's worth it.

Grief as Praise

I don't believe this statement about being scared about being forgotten or missed us when we're gone. My ex-wife told me that if I died tomorrow, none of my AA friends would know or care. But would I want my friends to forget me or not?

 

Yesterday, I was watching The Alaskan Bush People. Ami, the Matriarch of the family, was sick and in physical pain. She flew to California for testing, and doctors found growth in her lungs they suspected was cancer. Ami was crying, and her hubby and family were sad yet trying to comfort her. She was crying and couldn't stop. Ami said she didn't know why she couldn't stop, but her hesitation before and after saying it, her looking at her hubby, and my intuition reflected that she knew exactly why she was crying but didn't want to say why. I think she was crying because she didn't want those who loved her to experience the pain she knew of a certainty they would endure. She was not crying for herself, in other words, but for others.

 

If I died tomorrow and nobody knew it, perhaps that would be a kind and good thing for those who love me. But on the other hand, I wanted to be at the Memorial Celebration of my Sponsor who passed, but I didn’t know she passed until reading a Facebook comment after the fact. I knew ‘in the Spirit’ she was leaving Earth School, for I had a Vision to this end, which ameliorated my grief.

 

Grief is Praise!

 

Grief is evidence of love, for we cannot grieve that which we never loved. We also can’t rob someone of their High Opportunities to grieve in life. So I hope you will laugh and cry, both remember and forget in balance, bringing to mind the good and forgive the mistakes we learned at a price. When we forgive ourselves, there is nothing but sweet loving acceptance in all of its brilliant brushstrokes of experience.

Treatment Victim Mentality & Recovery

Treatment is a place where we pay money to find out recovery is free. I worked at Hazelden and other places helping late-stage chronic inebriates, alcoholics/drug addicts, stay alive and maybe even recover (if they have the 'capacity to be honest'). Therefore, I am NOT saying treatment centers are bad. They are good. I've noticed people with negative attitudes blame others for their unhappiness when in reality they are their own problem. A person is as happy as they make up their minds to be. SPIRITUAL IMMATURITY is responsible for most anger in this world and I've noticed Minnesotans are notorious for passive-aggressive perspectives and behaviors. To evolve past these issues, we (yes, we, WE and I included...WE live in this world TOGETHER and need one another to rise to our highest potential). FORGIVE EVERYONE FOR EVERYTHING. Hanging up the Blamethrower is never easy, but it's worth it.  St. Francis of Assissi had it right.

Before We "Knew" It

Before we could form words through our mouths, we could successfully navigate the freeways of laughter.  If you have forgotten what it means to be alive, the evidence is in the laughter.  If you don't laugh anymore, it might mean you're overthinking everything, that you have quit truly living.  QUIT THINKING!  Surrender every thought, your entire will, and life, to the wordless meaning for laughter that is innate to every living human on Earth School. Forget everything you THINK/KNOW and roll with the flow of surrender, of trust, in the truth that your entire life is governed and created by this innate choice.   

 

OK, that's annoying.  I worked on this Blog for 30-minutes and lost most of it after publishing it.  Laugh to keep from crying?  Ironic.  LOL!