Category Archives: Inner Struggles

The Road to Diamond, Day 107: Shelter

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 15, 2025- It started off in less than stellar fashion. As I went to put my backpack in the rear of a co-worker’s Jeep, the coffee cup I had set on the median caddy toppled over. Fortunately, the liquid was easily drained off the rear splash pad. Then, his door netting got caught on a grommet of my boot, and it took a bit of teamwork to get the net loose,without damaging it.

The shelter simulation started off slowly, like most of what I do. A few people showed up late and it took a fair amount of digging through the back of the Red Cross trailer, to find two large and fairly essential items. We did well, though, just by staying the course, and as our chief supervisor said, not acting like headless chickens. We did well on all but one scenario, and that one was more a matter of fatigue-towards the end of the exercise, and is not something either of us involved would repeat, in real time.

I relaxed alone at Home Base, after the day was finished. After a nap, I reflected on the way in which Home Base is itself a shelter. I watched the rest of “Long Bright River”, noting the ways in which people provide shelter for one another: Siblings, colleagues, kindred souls living on the street, parents and children. I saw the ways in which people can make good choices and strengthen community. I saw the ways in which people can make bad choices and drive wedges between themselves and those they otherwise love.

I have chosen the concept of shelter as my love language of sorts, and will be involved in it, one way or another, for the rest of my lucid life. The simulation only reflected how strongly I feel about this being a birthright of every human being, of every sentient being. Let it ever be thus.

Here’s a version of “Gimme Shelter” that you may not have heard, from 1970.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gimme+shelter+merry+clayton&client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=cd29d8d78246c2c7&channel=entpr&udm=7&biw=1280&bih=639&ei=7GDWZ9nMOvbckPIP-trpkA0&oq=gimme+shelter-Merry&gs_lp=EhZnd3Mtd2l6LW1vZGVsZXNzLXZpZGVvIhNnaW1tZSBzaGVsdGVyLU1lcnJ5KgIIADIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB4yBhAAGBYYHjIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB4yBhAAGBYYHjIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB4yBhAAGBYYHjIGEAAYFhgeSJVGUPgNWP0zcAF4AJABAJgBa6AB0wSqAQM2LjG4AQHIAQD4AQGYAgegAsMEwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR8ICCBAAGIAEGKIEmAMAiAYBkAYIkgcDNi4xoAeLKg&sclient=gws-wiz-modeless-video#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:46afeb7c,vid:AHvXhWJ0oHU,st:0

The Road to Diamond, Day 99: Invisible No More

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 7, 2025- It was in the mid-1990s, and three young girls felt that their safety was at risk, at their school and in the nearby area. They bolted and hid in a remote spot. I was school counselor back then, and while I had earned the trust of most students,including the girls, they weren’t taking any chances with possibly having to deal with their adversaries. I was left to notify their parents that they had absconded and to enlist the support of the local police and the Superintendent of Schools. Several of us were out looking around, and by nightfall, one of the girls had made it back to her mother’s house. Early the next morning, I got a call from the other two. They had found their way to a safe house for the night, but were ready to go back to their parents. I went and got them, bringing them home.

This was in a Native American community. What is important here is that Native American women and girls, in both the United States and Canada, have been disappearing at an alarming rate, from both urban and rural areas. 5,800 women and girls disappeared in 2023; 74 % were children. I would estimate that this number has, if anything, only increased over the last 1.25 years. It has been called a “silent crisis”, but it is hardly silent to the First Nations.

On January 27, a young girl named Emily Pike left the group home where she was staying, possibly aiming to get back to her parents on the San Carlos Apache Nation. She never made it. She was found dead, killed in a gruesome manner, on February 14 along the route back to San Carlos from Mesa, where she had been living. In a hideous way, Emily at least was found and her family can get a small measure of closure. Many women and children are far less “fortunate”.

There has been an invisibility problem, with regard to indigenous people on this continent. It is probably true elsewhere in the world, as well. Here, though, various bad actors have been able to choose victims from across the First Nations of the United States and Canada-whether trafficking the women and girls, or systematically raping and killing them, with the sense that “no one will notice.”

The families notice, and now, the rest of society is beginning to take stock, as well. It is high time, and it is past time. It has also affected young men-and not too long ago, I paid my respects to a mother who lost only son, a young man only a year younger than my own son. They knew one another, during our time on the Reservation. He, too, disappeared and was only found after nearly two years of search. It was too late.

We have an anonymity problem across our population. With customarily shy and wary First Nations people, it is all the more pronounced. They are, however, not deserving of invisibility. Their gifts, dreams and skills are every bit as valuable as anyone else’s. They were put on this Earth by the Divine, just like everyone else. It is an ongoing stain on this continent, that their lives are undervalued.

No one’s life should be.

The Road to Diamond, Day 92: Plotting Course

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

February 28, 2025- Just before waking, this morning, I dreamed that I was climbing up a ladder made of tree branches. At a certain point, a key rung in the ladder snapped off. Unable to safely continue up the ladder, I got off and followed a dirt path, that wound around towards my home. I was walking contentedly along the path and came upon two groups of youths who were tussling and wrestling, in front of a primitive lean-to, thatched roofed house. I felt composed and detached from what was going on, and kept walking-at which point I woke up.

I now feel somewhat composed and detached, regarding the current back and forth between liberals and conservatives in our nation. I know that I am not willing to kowtow to anyone who seeks to impose their will, in an ad hoc or ex-oficio manner. I have noticed people on both sides, “yelling” online-typing responses in capital letters and cursing at people they deem to be not meeting their expectations. That is the mark of a desperate soul, expressing fear of the “other side”. I have also seen people on both sides expressing their opinions in a calm, but firm, tone of voice, not yelling-but not giving way, either.

I covered a few small classes today, with little to do other than take roll and remind one or two people to not use their cell phones during class. While the students were working on their Chrome Book lessons, I read some initial chapters of a book on the German Army, 1933-45. It was instructive to find that Adolf Hitler did not, initially, take the full reins of control over the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) and that he initially trusted the commanders to build up their own fighting force, even pushing aside his paramilitary force, the SS. He seized control, of course, around 1938, and the result was the horror that the world experienced, until 1945.

Technology,and the pace of events, has quickened in the past 80 years, so it is unlikely that we will see any leader bide time and leave matters to chance. The course of human events, moreover, will proceed at a rapid clip, in some ways, and whipsaw back and forth, in other areas. This is why it is best to keep an open mind on many issues, and not assume that those expressing points of view other than one’s own are somehow to be taken sharply to task and fiercely set straight. We do ourselves an injustice by plotting our own courses using a route of fear and trepidation.

The Road to Diamond, Day 81: “The Last Ten Minutes”

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

February 18, 2025, Hong Kong- I actually have time to sit and enjoy this spacious facility, after a brief and pleasant hop from Manila.

My friend, Kathy, has a descriptor for the late phase of any event, activity or process: The last ten minutes. She mentioned, in last night’s coming to terms between us, that we were, generally speaking, in that phase of our lives. My silent retort was that I intend to soak up every nanosecond. She later, independently, gave voice to the same sentiment, regarding her own life. Vindicated!!

We have had far more interesting conversations today, with the vagaries of romance having been set aside. One of the points she brought up was that one can really only do justice to one major personal event or process at a time.

For me, this would be taking the lead in Red Cross Disaster Cycle Response for Yavapai and Mohave Counties, Arizona- particularly from late May to early September, aka the Fire and Flood Season.

It makes no sense to play juggler. Rushing back to Manila would be little more than an act of giddiness, and I’m a bit long in the tooth for giddy.

She has some equally cogent plans, helping her younger son complete his education and a possible upgrade to a Baha’i- owned property in Metro Manila. We are pulling for one another. At some point in the next few years, I will visit “the Phils” again, because several people would like to see me again, and some of them will be visiting here, over the next little while.

For now, though, I’m in a good place, headed back to a place where I might “shine” as my friend put it.

The Road to Diamond, Day 71: Smoothing Rough Edges

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 7, 2025, Manila- The otherwise courtly man awoke from his nap, and marched into the kitchen: “Where’s my coffee??” As the rest of us have been fixing our own caffeinated drinks, for as far back as I’ve been coming here, I was a bit nonplussed. The ladies in the kitchen were, however, furious, as was the construction project lead, who is every bit as much an advocate of women’s rights as I have been. The visitor got his cup of coffee prepared for him, with the understanding that any refills would be prepared by him, alone.

We are in an age of smoothing rough edges. This state of affairs means that each of us must bring ourselves to account each day, work on those weak spots and give some grace to those who stumble in one area or another. The visitor was, in general, polite and considerate, and was more than generous to the kitchen manager’s teenage son, after realizing that he had offended people with his earlier demand.

Back in the United States, it is particularly urgent for people to look at one another with the eye of understanding. Overlooking the viewpoints of other right-thinking people will not, inherently, change those viewpoints. Rather, it will only increase the likelihood of a return to policies that are seen as shopworn, anachronistic or otherwise counterproductive. The other thing that will guarantee revanchism is overplaying one’s own hand. For example, forcing others to adhere to one’s own orthodoxy-even if that belief system has some redeeming social value. People need to be persuaded, not coerced. That persuasion has to appeal to the hearer’s understanding of the world.

That means giving the “other side” the tools by which to smooth their own rough edges, while one smooths his/her own.

The Road to Diamond, Day 67: Stay Brave

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 3, 2025, Manila- Over the weekend, people without security clearances gained access to sensitive information. So is the news coming our way from North America. People here in Manila have been, understandably, not overwhelmingly feeling bad about the internecine battles in Washington. This was, to them, and to many in struggling countries around the world, the mother of all First World problems-until the USAID closure.

It will take time for the President of the United States to sift through the programs of USAID and figure out which programs, if any, are “corrupt, and worthy of dismantling”. In the meantime, thousands, if not millions, of lives in countries across the world, will be at risk. This is not a simple matter of rooting out “crazy, ultraleft, socialist, wingnut policies”,as someone back in Prescott once characterized USAID. This is rule by swarming, done by individuals with little or not knowledge of the larger effects of their actions. It evokes the scene in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, where Randle McMurphy leads the gang in party night, getting even a hydro-cephalic patient intoxicated. We will see where the present state of affairs leads, in short order. It will not be as easily resolved as the scene in the movie.

To anyone, anywhere, who is being affected by the turmoil in Washington, DC, and elsewhere: Be brave, stay focused and live your truth. Some may lose much, if not all, of their nest eggs, but judging from the slow recoveries that those before us have seen, in crises past, the losses will not be permanent. Be watchful, be vocal and do not let yourselves get distracted by multiple crises seeming to occur at once. Be discerning, and do not let less than savoury actors rule the day. Above all, follow the law, even if it looks like those in the driver’s seat are not.

Justice will prevail.

The Road to Diamond, Day 66: Not The Same Old Stuff

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 2, 2025, Manila- It was hot here today. I am far from the cold hills of western Pennsylvania, so there is no anticipation about what Punxsutawney’s groundhog will “prognosticate” about the course of the winter. Ditto, with respect to the forecasting rattlesnake of the Sonoran Desert. I am in a place of never-winter.

February 2 is, at least for me, a day to wrestle with my own feelings of being “less than”. I don’t know where this subpar self-concept came from or who might have set it in motion. I know that some, on both sides of my family, struggled with their own self-worth. Growing up, and even through the course of my marriage, those closest to me were put off by my self-criticism, to the point where, on a few occasions, I was someone with whom they were “making do”, tolerating.

In time, I have learned that in order to counter such diatribes, I have to do more than tolerate, or make do, with myself. I am up front, with the person I love most now, about my struggles. Though we are far from sure as to which direction our friendship will go, she is far more understanding and supportive than many were in my past. Looking back, they had their own self-doubts and struggles; so, they could not be of much help.

On the bright side, our communication is much better than the channels I had with those I loved, in bygone years. So, despite my lingering misgivings about self, I know that those will not be fed from outside of me. K and I will be friends forever, and as with some others at Home Base I and across the globe, we will always have one another’s back. My self-concept will not get in the way of being here for others. I want what is best for those I love and that also goes way back.

Unlike Bill Murray’s hapless Phil Connors, in the film Groundhog Day (1993), I don’t have any need to loop counterproductive attitudes and behaviours, in order to achieve what I either think I desire or genuinely want. So, today’s sitting in on a group that was mostly speaking Tagalog was actually time well-spent, as hearing a language other than English, for an extended period of time, leads to internalizing the tongue. I found this to be true of Spanish, French, Korean-even Navajo, Hopi and Persian, to some extent. I can at least pronounce words in print, having heard them spoken for a time.

That is just one way in which my time here is proving to be helpful, on a personal level. I look forward to experiencing others.

The Road to Diamond, Day 65: Lipa

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Entertainment, Hiking and Nature, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

February 1, 2025, Manila- I have been hoping for a diversion from the turmoil back in the U.S. My friend here, who has her own priorities, gave me just such a diversion today: Six adults and a child piled into a van, and were chauffeured down to the mid-sized coffee-producing city of Lipa, which has Batangas Province’s main cathedral and is its largest city, by population.


Our first stop in town was in a gated community called Miracle Heights. There, we met our local host for the day, Marilyn, who also goes by the sobriquet Geen-Geen. After a light lunch and a visit to her son’s tattoo studio, Geen accompanied us to Casa de Segunda and to San Sabastian Cathedral. As it happened, there was a wedding just starting, but we were allowed to enter through the vast courtyard and and observed the proceedings on the sidelines. It was greatly comforting to see two people who love one another confirming that sentiment and starting their life together.

Here are scenes from Geen’s garden, from Casa de Segunda and from the Cathedral.

Dragonfruit tree, in Geen’s garden, Lipa, Batangas.

Casa de Segunda is the preserved home of the Luz-Katigbak family, having been built in the 1860’s. Segunda Solis-Katigbak was, in her youth, the first love of Dr. Jose Rizal. He went on to give his life for the cause of Philippine nationhood. She went on to marry Manuel Mitra de San Miguel-Luz, becoming with him, the parent of nine children and a patron of the arts.

The entrance to Casa de Segunda. The gate is of heavy oak.
Here is a view of the main dining room.
Here is the exterior, from the courtyard.
A local resident came along and greeted us.

At the cathedral, we noted the following views.

Porta Santa, Cathedral of San Sebastian, Lipa.
Chancery of cathedral, from courtyard
Exterior of main cathedral.

The wedding saw the cathedral at its finest.

The interior of San Sebastian’s dome.

Here is a long view of the wedding aisle.

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

From the cathedral, we went to Cintai Coritos Garden, in nearby Balete. There, we enjoyed a sumptuous dinner of low mein, followed by a dessert of sticky rice dipped in chocolate. A relaxing walk in Coritos’ grounds, at dusk, finished the day.

Friends view the green lagoon at Coritos.
Here is a small pavilion shrine, which reminded some of the friends of Bali.
Here are more Bali-esque images.

The day was typically well-packed, and had the desired effect of getting me to lighten up.

The Road to Diamond, Day 60: Floating and Weaving

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Posted by on in animal and plant life, Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

January 27, 2025, Hong Kong– When I was a teen, boxers would speak of the technique of bobbing and weaving, as a means of dodging an opponent’s punches and getting in blows of their own. On a long-distance aircraft, the techniques for safely navigating an expanse of ocean, or of continent, or both, require knowing when to move aside an air current and when to “float” through it. The flight crew of our Cathay Pacific craft handled the turbulence over the mid-Pacific very well tonight.

It is the time of Lunar New Year, ringing in the Year of the (Wood) Snake. The holiday in general leads thousands upon thousands of East Asian people to travel to their ancestral homes, and there was quite a multitude in LAX, on our flight and others like it, and in the transit lines at Hong Kong International Airport. We moved, sometimes in flow and at other times haltingly, but there was only a minimal delay in take-offs and in deplaning upon landing. What issues arose were mostly because of scanning issues, with regard to passports and boarding passes, or because people did not understand the concept of facial scanning. It could be construed as a privacy issue, but to me, the government knows what I look like already and I have nothing to hide from any given national authority, so I look straight into the screening device and am waved on my way.

Wedged as I was between two Chinese men, both bigger than I, on the fifteen hour haul from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, it was nonetheless a stress free leg. The three of us had an unspoken agreement that when Window Seat passenger needed to answer nature’s call, we all found our way to the Comfort Room, Aisle Seat passenger going last. There is plenty of leg room and a fairly ergonomic seat construction. Even though we were at the very last row before the galley cabinets, room was still made for us to recline our seats. In fairness to everyone else, who had to bring their seats upright at meal times, we uprighted ours as well. The meals themselves, dinner and breakfast, were fully balanced and appetizing, by airline standards.

I slept for probably 6.4-7 hours, during the flight, availing myself of three films, during the waking portion. “The Wild Robot” explored the notion of adapting Artificial Intelligence to interpreting and communicating with non-human sentient beings. It also considered the adaptation of AI independence from possible future orthodoxy and repression. “Kingdom of Heaven” followed one man’s spiritual progress through the terrifying time of the Second Crusade, and the overarching climate of relative harmony between Christian, Jew and Muslim up until the time that a boorish claque of English and French nobles used the death of the Christian King of Jerusalem and Acre (Akko) as a pretext to seat one of their own on the throne and to wage war against the mighty Saladin. Various documented aspects of the actual Second Crusade, which ended with Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem were incorporated into the film’s narrative, but the story was greatly embellished. “High Noon”, a classic Western of the early 1950s, is a film I had not seen, though I was named for its lead actor, Gary Cooper, and its themes of the nobility of a true hero and the fecklessness of both politicians and the average “get-along” citizen are quite remarkably presented. The film is about 1 hour long,and its plot concerns itself with one hour in the life of a small southern New Mexico town of the 1880s.

So, my time crossing the Pacific was well-spent, and now I ready myself for the final 2-hour flight to Manila. Much will be decided, these next three weeks.

The Road to Diamond, Day 45: Seniorhood

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 12, 2025- Two men, about my age hung around me last night, at The Raven, as a diverse crowd of us took in a concert by CheekTones, one of Prescott’s premier bands. Don Cheek and three or four bandmates have been rocking various houses for about twelve years now. They invariably pack whatever establishment they’re in, to a great measure because they can hold a tune for six or seven minutes-sometimes longer.

At any rate, one of my age mates is given to want to have conversations, while the band is playing. That doesn’t work too well at a CheekTones gig, and he was visibly frustrated, both with me and with the couple whose table he was sharing. in a mild bit of projection, he asked me if I was having fun. I was, actually, especially when the band was in full roar. The other gentleman, who lives just up the street from Raven, comes in and either stands with other people his age or takes the wooden chair by the house piano. He rarely speaks to anyone, but likes to hear CheekTones and one or two other bands. If I manage to get a table, I am glad to share it with whoever needs a seat. Life is too short for anything less. It’s hard on a night like that, to actually get a seat, but I did, when a wary, guarded woman who had been sitting by herself got up and left. By then, the silent man had also left, otherwise, he could have joined me.

I mention all this, in consideration of my being in the middle third of my eighth decade on this blue planet. Years ago, a long-time acquaintance, then in his early nineties, sported a bumper sticker on his SUV: “Aging-if it’s not your issue now, it will be.” At the time, aging was my issue only in regard to my in-laws, who were in their mid-eighties and my mother, in her late seventies. My primary issue then was adult care of a middle-aged disabled person, my wife. Children’s issues were important, too, but secondary.

I have, however, always recognized the import of the matter. Being the oldest of four surviving siblings, every year I live is also a beacon of hope for my sister and brothers. Besides, I agree with someone who remarked this morning at breakfast: “I love getting older.” Before the brickbats start flying, let me say that I enjoyed being a child and a teenager, and being in my 30s and 40s; 20s and 50s, not so much, but much of that was on me.

It helps that I have feelings for someone, who I will see again soon. It helps that I have a strong network of friends and a loving family. Mostly, though, I have come to be a self-contained unit, comfortable in my own skin. Mom taught us that, by her own example. She liked being with people, but when alone, she was quite happy. Love from others cannot really mean anything, without a healthy self-love.

So, despite the aches and pains which I see around me, and which may someday hit closer to home, I am good with seniorhood.