Category Archives: distraction issues

The Road to Diamond, Day 25: Resurgence

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 23, 2024- I made my customary Monday morning visit to a coffee group, this morning. I was met, in the lobby of the apartment building where the gathering is held, by four of the regulars, and told that we would practice physical distancing today, as COVID and the flu were all over the complex. I spent about an hour talking with them, with the large lobby, then went back to Home Base and fortified myself, so as not to relapse into the flu state that hit me, 1 1/2 weeks ago. The diseases are resurgent, but not in me.

There is a resurgence of another form of disease, fear-based nationalism and hatred, being fanned by those who seek the quick fix to those issues that they have identified as posing a threat to their profit margins. Fear is an understandable response to uncertainty, and it is also a self-defeating response. If the French Revolution and the Chinese Cultural Revolution are any indication, exacerbating people’s negative emotions en masse will lead to a far different result than what the wirepullers imagined. Stubbornness and excessive pride, alas, are also resurgent, and the same lessons may well be destined to repeat themselves.

Good things are resurgent as well. Certainly, the spirit of love and fellowship always seems to take center stage, at this time of year. This evening, I was delighted to help serve a three-course prime rib dinner to the disadvantaged, at Solid Rock Soup Kitchen. Rather than having the people stand in line, we served them at table, bringing plates of salad, prime rib and fixings, followed by small slices of cake for dessert. Everyone was overjoyed at being treated like royalty, in the true spirit of Christmas.

There are hope and connection in the wind again, also. Thinking matters through is a practice that is resurgent, at least at the local level. I am meeting more people who see the way forward, the way out of the widely-perceived morass, as pursuing and practicing a path of actual civility. The more of us there are, who are not drawing invisible lines of division in their daily lives, the better it will be-first at the community level and then on up the chain.

Let there be light after the diseases and the mayhem.

The Road to Diamond, Day 24: White Pills

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Posted by on in Community, distraction issues, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 22, 2024- A red pill is still a pill-a quick fix; so are a green pill, a black pill, a yellow pill, a jagged little pill, and a white pill.

The conservative writer, John Stossel, whose work I read whenever I encounter it-usually in our local newspaper, The Prescott Courier, spent his most recent column discussing a book by a self-styled anarchist, named Michael Malice (“Malees”), who hails from Russia and survived life in the Soviet Union. This book is called “The White Pill- A Symbol of Hope”. Mr. Malice means no measure of the other word that’s spelled the same as his surname. Yet, his focus, alas, is with the enemy he knows: Authoritarian socialism, communism, Marxism-the “foe” on the Left. He skips over authoritarianism on the Right: Illiberalism, revanchism, Fascism. He placed, at the time of his interview with Mr. Stossel, more trust in the judgment of Elon Musk than in that of any actual politician, including Donald Trump. That was then (a month ago).

A white pill is still just a pill; a quick fix. There is no substitute for hard work, when it comes to maintaining civility, equanimity, democracy. Before anyone jumps in and says: “But this is NOT a democracy, it’s a republic!”, let me remind you that a republic is a derivative of democracy (Demos kratos-people power, in Old Greek). Any government where the citizens have an actual voice-Republic, constitutional monarchy, parliamentary system, is a democracy. Any government of the few is an oligarchy, whether the elites are “conservative” or “progressive”.

Mr. Stossel promises to continue his debate with Mr. Malice. In light of Elon Musk’s recent praise of neo-Nazis in Germany, I will continue to follow the discourse.

The Road to Diamond, Day 22: Fortunate Language

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 20, 2024- Today was the day of least light, in the Northern Hemisphere. Solstice, now recognized in its global sense, was also the day of most light, south of the Equator. Either way, Solstice is a day of reflection. Each of us, in this day and age, is accountable for our own behaviour- and no one else’s.

When I was an adolescent and young adult, my behaviour and its accompanying language were intemperate. There is much for which I have had to atone, though fortunately nothing that merits civil or criminal justice. I never hurt anyone physically, or impaired anyone’s good name. Still, once committing on my present spiritual path, I let go of several habits and the accompanying tendency to use profane language.

Many people, even some in my Faith community, regard profanity as part of free speech. That is true, a person may speak in a manner that expresses her/his mood, sensibility and belief-even that which is momentary. My own take, though, is that a person can find words that express emotions, from joy to exasperation to sorrow, that are accurate, and are intelligent. Profanity is just plain unfortunate. It only adds a layer of insult to the exchange-and the insult is actually a two-way street.

I was once prone to admonish people about excessive use of profanity. Now, though, it is just white noise and does not convince me that the speaker is in any way right. Speaking only for myself, I would rather get my listeners to understand the cogency of my words. There is no cogency in cussing- unless the purpose is to convey anger or exasperation. Even then, are there not other words, which can make the point as well, or better?

Solstice is a day of reflection.

The Road to Diamond, Day 21: The Spot

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 19,2024- As she served my coffee cake muffin, warmed with butter, I exchanged Thanksgiving stories with the proprietor of the small coffee shop, on the first floor of Prescott Antiques. A gentleman entered, and after a bit, the conversation turned to jukeboxes. He is a collector of the appliances, and was preparing to take ownership of the Wurlitzer model that had sat in the corner of the shop, for about three years. It seems, unsurprisingly, that there are over a dozen brands of the machine. Wurlitzer is the brand that I have seen most often.

When he and his team removed the jukebox, there was a white area on the mostly yellow wall. The barista fretted a bit about the appearance of the spot. Before long, the store’s owner came down and also noted that the area was two-toned. He got some yellow paint, a medium brush and some newspaper, and painted a small test area. I told him it looked a bit brighter than the rest of the yellow, but that is the difference between fresh and faded. So, he continued to paint the rest of the spot.

I left the coffee shop, after finishing my muffin and drink, and went upstairs to the minerals area. The owner and his wife were still discussing the paint job. I felt it was fairly routine, but to them, it was the center of the morning’s activity. My center was picking out two emerald green stones to bring to my friend, in late January. Everything is relative.

So, on we go, inching our individual and collective ways towards a Christmas that appears to be an after-thought, or an impediment, to many in positions of civic responsibility. Governments, at the Federal, state, local and even tribal levels, are fighting among themselves over matters that are even less important, at their level, than the bare spot in the corner of a ground floor room is to the owners of the business.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, in the small French city of Avignon, an indomitable woman, who had been assaulted by no fewer than 52 men, over a period of ten years, won her case against them, with the support of her children and siblings. He former husband and his partners in crime were found guilty of all charges. This is what really matters, in the larger scheme of things. May the case of Michele Pelicot resound worldwide, as loudly as the Dreyfus case did, in 1906.

In times of confusion, priorities can be scrambled. Clear-headedness, then is all the more vital. The people in the antiques store tended to their fairly small task with dispatch. The court in the Rhone Valley took longer, but sorted the details and served justice to the unwavering victim and her family. Will our governments here in the U.S.-and Canada find their bearings?

The Road to Diamond, Day 7: Songbirds

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 5, 2024- I received a video from the Baha’is of Manila, showing their newly renovated Center. All of my concerns about a safe workspace for the caretakers and kitchen staff have been addressed. It is a great day!

A Filipino expatriate here in Prescott told me, at a gathering this evening, that his mother recalls people in Palawan, the western island of the Philippines, sounded like birds when they talked. It was in reference to people going to that island, from other parts of the country, and speaking in dialects that others could not understand-like different songbirds not knowing each others’ trills.

I thought of how this dissonance happens, even between people who speak the same language, with the same accent. When we hear things through our own filters, rather than what is meant by the speaker, it’s as if there is scant understanding. One’s sweet warbling can even sound like the squawk of a parrot, or croak of a corvid. It is often best to run what you heard by the speaker, to dispense with any possible misunderstanding.

In any case, there is no need for long-term schisms between people of good will, when clear communication can be maintained.

The Road to Diamond, Day 6: Cred

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 4, 2024- There are reports from Washington about the current group of nominees for high office. Some appear estimable and competent; others, not so much. I will not get into the name game, as it’s more effectively played by others. Besides, partisanship is a losing proposition. Skill sets, though, are important in the day-to-day business of what we are given to call “adulting”.

I was not the greatest classroom teacher, by a long shot, especially in the early days of my career. Personal struggles kept me down, and only the Faith of Baha’u’llah helped me get back up. The raw materials instilled in me, by my parents needed that extra push to come to the fore. It was only in my thirties that credibility began to accumulate. That “cred” endured, even during the period of Penny’s decline, which took my eyes off the prize, out of necessity.

I mention this, because the recent trend towards “looking outside the circle” for people to head various organizations, is like a game of “Whack-a-Mole”. Some of the candidates are quick studies, and will bring their native intelligence to bear on whatever job they are assigned. Others are tough sells, for various reasons, and would no doubt struggle with some of the more difficult decisions that would land at their feet. There is never an easy way to fill positions, especially at the higher levels of an organization. Credibility, therefore, is something that needs constant attention, early on.

I look forward to seeing competent people, political stance aside to a certain extent, being tapped to manage the affairs of state. It is principle, moral fiber, and not ideology, that is the bottom line here.

The Road to Diamond, Day 5: Seoul

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 3, 2024- As I wrapped up my visit with Aram and Yunhee, stopping for a satisfying lunch at a Pollo Regio branch, just down the street from HB II, a drama was unfolding in Seoul, South Korea, that may have worldwide implications.

As Aram and I drove to DFW, and he jockeyed for position on the road with at least one driver who didn’t know what he wanted to do, much less know where he was headed, thousands of people in Seoul found they had been betrayed. These were young men, who had voted into office a man who told them what they wanted to hear, that he felt their pain in the midst of a world that no longer put them on a pedestal, and that he would reverse the course of society and make men the center of the Universe, once more. Now, that same President was declaring martial law, placing himself on a pedestal-for the first time since 1989, when the last authoritarian President left office.

I lived in South Korea, in the final years of Chun Doo-hwan’s regime. My little family and I were not treated badly, but I noticed that those who dissented publicly were routinely dispersed by pepper-spray and water cannon. I noticed that the riot police themselves were not treated much better, by their minders. There was wire-pulling going on, setting the common people against one another, 24/7. This lessened, to a great extent, after a series of democratically-elected leaders, beginning with the conservatives Roh Tae-woo and Kim Young-sam, and followed by progressives, themselves alternating with conservatives, proceeded to bring South Korea into a wider world.

Liberals and conservatives alike are fond of using phrases like “There’s no turning back” ,and “New World Order”. The two groups’ meanings are, at first blush, polar opposites of each other. There are, however, commonalities. Both see a world in which common people have a voice and the power brokers are reined in. Where they differ is with regard to exactly who those power brokers are. Conservatives see the “enemy” as Hollywood, “the Global Left”, Planned Parenthood and international financiers. Progressives see their foes as “the Christian Right” and mega-donors who control the levers of the media-both mainstream and social. In fact, those who stand in their way are the same forces-individuals and groups whose agenda rests in exercising control.

This is where what happened yesterday in Seoul matters to the world at large. The young men who voted in Yoon Suk-yeol, in 2022, are very similar to those who have voted in authoritarian leaders across the globe, in the past six years. Their locus of control is external, so they see any attempt by society and government to reduce the marginalization of women as a threat to their own well-being. This, as well as for different reasons that are specific to countries like Argentina, El Salvador, Hungary and the Netherlands, has brought similarly authoritarian leaders to the fore. Those, both male and female, who see themselves as being buffeted by forces out of their control, are bound to turn to the first, and loudest, appeal to their sense of well-being. I give you Weimar Germany, post-WWI Italy and Spain, resource-poor Japan of the 1920s and ’30s.

When Yoon Suk-yeol tried to return South Korea to the militarized days of 1960-88, the people found their inner locus of control-and took their country back, in short order. This looms large, for those who see authoritarianism as the wave of the future. “It ain’t necessarily so”-Ira Gershwin.

The true New World Order will arise from those whose locus of control is internal.

Thanks, for Friends and….

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Posted by on in animal and plant life, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 28, 2024, Grapevine- Today marks another instance of the latest date that Thanksgiving can fall, by U.S. custom. There is grumbling, in some quarters, that this shortens the Christmas season. I, though, am more than happy to have T-day fall on this day in November, because it’s my birthday, and sharing the day with our national community, in our biggest holiday of the year, is to me, a blessing.

There has been, of late, a mini-tempest, wherein a relatively small, but vocal, group has called for the day to be recast as “Friendsgiving”. People can call the day of sharing whatever they want. To me, thanksgiving is not about Pilgrims and Wampanoags, per se, nor about false promises and the resulting oppression.

It is about gratitude-for friends, yes, and for family. I am grateful for all, in Arizona, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maine, all across the West and across the continent. I am grateful for progressive friends, conservative friends, Baha’i, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Wiccan, agnostic and atheist friends.

I like the company of my fellow veterans at Post 6; fellows in faith at devotionals, Spiritual Feasts and Holy Days; and my little family, whenever we get together, for meals, outings, board games and watch parties. My life is enhanced by the energy of children and youths, the drive of adults and the wisdom of elders. I treasure the company of the woman I love most, and all of our mutual friends, when I get to see them-either physically or online.

Of course, we must work, diligently, to address and overcome injustice. Let us, though, not replace one imbalance with another. Equilibrium is a delicate state and requires loving attention. It cannot be sacrificed for whimsical ideas, nor for the sake of a contrived sense of “purity”.

I am, as I turn 74, grateful for the Creator’s provisions-our food supply, paths to health, bounty of nature and all the varieties of terrain, bodies of water and living things that make our world such a treasure chest. I am grateful for our solar system and for the Universe, I am just grateful for being.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

Storage

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Posted by on in collaborating, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 25, 2024- One way or another, sometime next year, much of what I own and choose not to give away or sell, will be placed in storage. My game plan for 2025 will be discussed with my little family, over the next eight days. There are three options, but time in my current residence is getting short. More on what will transpire, as we go along.

Things can be placed in storage; feelings cannot. Many people stuff their emotions, either because they are internally uncomfortable or because they are unacceptable to those closest to them. I used to try and stuff my feelings. They came out anyway, in highly counterproductive ways, ranging from physical uncoordination to social awkwardness. There was, in retrospect, no real reason for this, except my misconception that being myself was an imposition on my family and would not be accepted by my peers.

This conviction was somewhat, but not completely, erased by marriage, career and parenthood. The emotions that remained “in storage” were rooted out later, when I was responsible for Penny’s care and for getting myself together, after her passing. There were those who understood and encouraged my growth, and there were those who would not cut me any slack. Fortunately, both contributed to the release and dismissal of those demons.

Storage has its place-and that is for temporary safeguarding of material possessions, like keepsakes and books that are not immediately needed. Feelings, though, should not be subject to “safekeeping”-at least not long term.

The Face of Unity

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Family, impediments, Matters of Faith, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

November 20, 2024- “The core of a child’s education starts with the mother.” Upon my uttering that statement, a chorus of naysayers erupted with their buts, howevers and whatabouts. Methinks they missed the word core. A father does indeed have to stand alongside a mother, and augment the child’s learning. Grandparents and other adult relatives are the second layer of learning reinforcement. Teachers and neighbours, the “village” that it takes to raise a child, are the tertiary layer, and on outward it goes. No, friends, the entire village cannot be on top of the child, all at once.

Several of us were gathered in a comfortable Southwestern-style home, to ponder the question, “What does a unified community look like?” Much of the time was spent in putting forth, and sifting through, various and sundry individual points of view and reflections on life experiences that emanate from life in an often harsh and imperfect world.

Unity starts with respect for, and from, the individual. It proceeds outward, only when one has self-respect and when genuine respect for others emanates from oneself. That respect has to be a two-way street. A political conservative, even a reactionary, cannot advance real unity, without having respect for liberals and progressives. The converse is equally true.

Unity continues with each one having what my father called the courage of your convictions. True courage involves recognizing that what I think and feel does not have to be what anyone else thinks and feels-and the converse is also true. I can be equally at home talking with the members of my American Legion Post, or with conservative Christian friends, as I am among Progressive groups or those committed to social justice. Their opinions are not their souls.

Unity necessitates that the group be able to separate fact from fancy. It also goes back to respect: No adult has the right to live their life through their child, or even through their spouse. We live for our loved ones, and with them. Arriving at a point of unity means talking with the significant other, with the offspring, ascertaining everyone’s wants, needs, dreams and seeing what is most important for the group, and for each of its members. Penny’s mantra was “Consultation is finding out.” I can think of no better way to put it.

Do you think that submitting to the dictates of a strongman will solve the problems of the community, or of the nation? How does that affect the future of your children-both in the immediate and in the far future? Do they not have a say in the matter?

Want to invest in bitcoin? How will that impact your family or group of friends? Should you not discuss this fully with your near circle?

Wish you had a son, instead of a daughter-or vice versa? Does that give you the right to talk him/her into transitioning, even before full adulthood, or even before full puberty? How will that impact the life of that precious soul-tomorrow, next year, and ten, twenty, fifty years from now? Is that not an informed decision to be freely made by the person in question, as a mature adult?

It is well-known that I have deep feelings for someone who presently lives far from me. I also have deep feelings for my little family in Texas, for my siblings and extended family, across the continent and for all manner of friends in this community, and beyond. Any decision that I make, that impacts the life of any one of them, will actively take into consideration their thoughts, feelings and sensibilities. That is my path of unity.

The impact on unity of our decisions is large and small. Slight disunity is like a pebble in a shoe. Major disunity is like a brain tumour, or an abdominal stone. Most, if not all, of it can be avoided by consultation. The greater the chasm, the longer the bridge.

We did not arrive at a picture of what unity looks like, but we did leave the house with an overall sense of respect for one another. We did arrive at the realization that we are each primarily spiritual beings in physical bodies. We will proceed from there, in our deliberations.