tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66606348566343998322024-03-06T01:43:37.467-05:00The Augustinian DemocratHuman nature is such that every human enterprise is broken and in need of a proper caution if not skepticism.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.comBlogger345125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-75762217188929479452020-10-13T12:01:00.003-04:002020-10-13T12:01:53.516-04:00Agency, near and farThe national election is coming up in just three weeks from today and I posted a missive about how scary and even terrifying the next weeks and especially months will be, and a good friend of mine posted in response that there's nothing we can do about it, so don't worry. I understood where he was coming from in one sense of course, but I also was rankled by his comment, in that it reeked of complacency and even some kind of nihilism.
Sure enough, I can't change the outcome of the national election directly. That really is beyond my personal control. But I can and should be active in changing the environment around me, both interpersonally and even beyond that to my local and regional area.
I have agency in that regard. YOU have agency in that regard. No flood ever existed apart from the droplets of water.
Vote (especially down ballot).
Talk to one another. Talk to yourself in affirming and critical ways. And whatever you do, never give into complacency and a defeatist attitude about your own voice and place in this world. You really do have agency in your attitude and actions. NEVER let that go.
I know from my own life experiences that one life can make a huge difference, even if on a personal scale. But sometimes those scales can tip the whole world.
Make a difference and excercise your agency.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-71623669961364150882020-08-11T20:50:00.002-04:002020-08-11T20:50:23.985-04:00I Shaved Last NightEvery evening I wonder what to do. I look older when I don't shave. But sometimes I don't mind that look. The gray beard and growing mustache are a good look sometimes. Honestly, I don't mind that look nowadays. Do I want to look older or younger? That's still an open question to me. I like the naked face look, I won't lie, but the gray follicles have their own sexy gravitas. I just wanna have sex. That's really the beginning and end of my story.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-15998110706727096112020-07-01T02:59:00.001-04:002020-07-01T02:59:49.081-04:00Inescapable SexualityI can't help but think of you. You penetrate my mind. You sing into my mind with melodies that slide. I think of you all the time.<br />
<br />
I'm yours all the time.<br />
<br />
When I walk through the brush I think of you and us together surrendered to the forest.<br />
<br />
The idea of leaning into you makes me happy. That is my sexuality.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-70467821844014843432020-06-16T13:07:00.001-04:002020-06-16T13:07:06.319-04:00I Crush EasilyMy relationship with women has always been complicated. I was mostly raised by my very complicated mom, with her addiction and mental health issues, and my older sister, the same, and my beloved grandmother on my mom's side, a professional seamstress, who, though born and raised in West Virginia, was a thoroughly modern woman of fashion. I grew up with my face in dress patterns and fashion magazines after all. Various thread spools were my play things as a child. My grandmother was a hoarder as was my mom, and I have to resist that strong temptation every single day myself. The Great Depression has lasting effects on generations after all.<br />
<br />
But this is but a few puzzle pieces of the puzzle that is my life. Especially as it relates to my relationships with women. I love women. I adore them. My first crush was my cousin Betsy, a beautiful redhead a few years older than me. She looked like Jean Harlow. Every guy was crazy about her. She hilariously blew popcorn all over the kitchen in NJ as a young teen when she took off the tin foil on a Jiffy Pop popcorn container before cooking it. Later, when I lived with her family in NC, she showed me her pot plant in her bedroom and occasionally walked around late at night topless as I slept in the living room. She also taught me to overcome my fear of taking showers since I almost drowned as a small child. In many ways, she was my first love.<br />
<br />
I can't not mention Karen, my best friend as a child. Her mom and mine were best friends, often commiserating over their respective terrible husbands over the phone and in person. Karen and I were pretty much siblings in everything but blood. We bathed together as small children, played house together and even discovered my older brother's dirty magazines from underneath his mattress, and were curious about what we saw. If my mom and I hadn't moved to North Carolina when I was turning 12, she would've been my first sexual experience. But it was not to be. I've since recently learned that she's a professional photographer and does amazing work in NYC and elsewhere. She's an amazing woman. Who knows. Maybe I'll reconnect with her some day soon.<br />
<br />
But this post/essay isn't about these early life histories, it's about my adult relationships, friendships, romances, more often than not with women (and a few men) who I became attracted to over the years.<br />
<br />
I was born wounded.<br />
<br />
That's both true physically and emotionally. I was born with a cleft lip and pallet and a functional heart murmur. And my parents separated only months after I was born. It's only in recent years that I've come to terms with the likely fact that my birth probably precipitated their separation and eventual divorce. My "defects" as it were, obvious to the eye, were fuel to the fire of my parent's already deteriorating relationship. Amazingly enough, I've never blamed myself for this turn of events. Neither of my parents laid that trip on me, nor did my siblings, all of whom were incredibly protective and loving towards me in the way they could.<br />
<br />
All told, I was incredibly fortunate as a child. I had love all around me.<br />
<br />
Lynn, my older sister, exposed me to the arts and sciences from a very early age. She was, in many ways, my dream weaver. She always bought me art supplies as a kid and teen and encouraged me in my own artistic pursuits. She lived in the West Village and worked at Party Cake, an amazing pastry shop next door to Crazy Eddie's. I got my first posable art mannequins thanks to her. I posed them in gay stances, much to her chagrin and her coworker's hilarity. She wasn't anti gay by any means, she just thought that my pose would be offensive to them. They were fine. They knew I was an innocent child expressing my creativity. <br />
<br />
I've loved the Village ever since. I would live there in a heart beat.<br />
<br />
But women, those breasted of every size, vaginal creatures I was born from, nurtured from youth, near and yet so distant from me, lo those many years ago to today. Yes, I crush so easily. I love you, but you smile at me from a distance. <br />
<br />
I love you. My motherly wings hang down over you, protecting you from danger, from men like me. Because, after all, anything posable can be re-posed. Do not be afraid of your femininity. Do not be afraid of your masculinity.<br />
<br />
I do crush easily. I just hope I don't crush anything, anything tender, including you and me.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-50745264826871439272020-05-05T13:27:00.000-04:002020-05-05T13:27:23.980-04:00SpectrumBeing on the spectrum is a blessing and a curse. You sense more than the average person, both for good and ill. You see, hear, smell, taste, feel things most people don't, but it can and often is very overwhelming. That's why order and a tight schedule is so important. It's more than a little easy to freak out at the avalanche of sensations flooding you from all directions. Folks on the spectrum are also misidentified as being aloof and even uncaring, but it's most often the opposite. The level of empathy experienced by those on the spectrum is so strong that it's deeply painful many times. Sometimes you feel both trapped inside yourself and standing outside of yourself simultaneously. Your own skin, ears, eyes are your frenemies, pulsating with overloaded sensations. As an aside, stimming helps alleviate that overload. It allows you to focus your attention on one thing to the exclusion of everything else bombarding you.<br />
<br />
The term idiot savant is now a term we don't use because of its offensive nature, but it's one I still think can be useful in one sense (pardon the pun) in that it connotes accurately that someone can be incredibly talented in one area while being limited in most others, especially socially. I think we all know someone who's a great mathematician/coder/chess player/musician who struggles with interpersonal interactions. Seeing, or maybe better put, sensing patterns is an amazing thing to experience. But of course that can easily go awry. Obvious examples are Bobby Fischer and John Nash. Both geniuses who also struggled with serious mental health issues throughout their lives. I guess I kinda know these people. I see a little through their eyes. It's why I considered working in the intelligence world three different times. For my own mental health's sake, I'm glad I never, figuratively, pulled that trigger. It can be a very dangerous rabbit hole to go down.<br />
<br />
No wonder I loved Sherlock Holmes as a kid. He was definitely on the spectrum, even if he was fictional.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-89676225730593464132020-03-26T05:25:00.001-04:002020-03-26T05:25:33.436-04:00SmileWe had learned, expertly, to avoid the security cameras. We only looked at each other with furtive eyes a few times, but it was obvious that we were playing with fire. But we eventually didn't care. We had lost all dignity anyway at that point, so there was nothing else to really lose. Honestly, I'm not that attractive. Neither was she. But she has beautiful blue eyes. And she's funny. That counts for a lot. The coat room, no camera. The ice room, no camera. Behind the outside cooler. Sure a neighbor or two might see us, but still no hidden camera. It's amazing how much fear drives us in so many of our actions. Her lips are beautiful if potentially deadly. Thinking of her makes me smile. None of this ever happened.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-90941392324944309262020-02-12T08:16:00.000-05:002020-02-12T08:16:13.213-05:00Preaching the WordIt's been years since I preached. It wasn't often, but I did preach several times a year back in the day.<br />
<br />
I love Jesus, and I love preaching about Jesus.<br />
<br />
I still believe that He is the Way, Truth and Life, capital letters and all.<br />
<br />
Strangely enough, I'm still a thoroughgoing supernaturalist. I believe the miracles stuff. Ya know, the virgin birth, loaves and fishes, bringing people back from the dead, he died, was buried and was resurrected on the third day and ascended to heaven stuff. I can gladly recite the Apostle's Creed without question or doubt.<br />
<br />
And I say this as a deeply doubtful person.<br />
<br />
But I believe.<br />
<br />
But I'm also a skeptic.<br />
<br />
And that's a good thing to me and to everyone I know.<br />
<br />
I grew up a child of the post 60's, a 70's child, spiritually untethered by any institutional structures. It was the zeitgeist I guess. All spiritual options were open back then, and are again today. We really do live in untethered times once again.<br />
<br />
How do we ground our being? How do we find a center, a core, a Way that gives us a sense of Why, How and Who?<br />
<br />
I mean, this is a wibbly wobbly kind of question which leads to a need for a spiritual Dramamine.<br />
<br />
The Incarnation.<br />
<br />
God became flesh. God showed up through a virgin's vagina and became a child with a penis. Is that too vulgar to you? Are those body parts offensive to you? Apparently God thought otherwise. In the beginning, God thought all of those body parts were good and very good. And remember folks, they were initially intersexual and betwixt. Apparently, God has a side splitting sense of humor. Pardon the ribbing...<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, God showed up as a vulnerable child in a far off land, in a part of the Empire that most had forgotten. Inexcusably dirty and poor. Parents running away from death squads. Trying their best to escape to a new life somewhere else.<br />
<br />
The baby showed up, slimy and wet, but exquisitely beautiful, in the town of bread. Both Miriam and Joseph cried tears of joy. Even the animals nearby seemed to lean low in adoration at this beautiful sight. This little baby, unexpected in so many ways, rang out in cries the Universe Itself sang in response as a Holy Echo.<br />
<br />
And God in Christ pooped and cried out in need of his mother's milk.<br />
<br />
And that's OK. Physicality is not our enemy. It's our friend and close neighbor. It's us, in fact. It's you. It's me. It's we.<br />
<br />
This is what it means to be enfleshed and holy, physical and spiritual, intellectual, emotional and sexual.<br />
<br />
God in Christ saves ALL of this. This gives me comfort. This gives me hope.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-609893484422062392019-10-25T20:47:00.000-04:002019-10-25T20:47:16.142-04:00When Blindness SmilesWhen blindness smiles I can feel the curve of your lips.<br />
<br />
When blindness smiles I can hear the wrinkle of your eyes.<br />
<br />
When blindness smiles I can smell the whisper of your tongue.<br />
<br />
When blindness smiles I can taste your pores as we nestle.<br />
<br />
When blindness smiles I can see you and you can see me.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-26723219962383063202019-10-22T18:10:00.001-04:002019-10-22T18:10:34.631-04:00Glint In Her EyeA young woman with deep sadness in her eyes served me this evening. I haven't told her that I've been praying for her in her semi hidden struggles, but I have. I just see the heaviness in her affect each time I see her and it weighs me down as well. I guess I am an empath after all. I don't see prayer the way I used to, sending some secret message to a sky god micromanaging every infinitesimal detail. I still believe in God, but not in the way I used to. I now see prayer as a common bond binding us to each other, helping us to know we're not alone in our struggles and battles.<br />
<br />
That kind of prayer makes a miraculous difference.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-7093589642449319822019-10-01T19:45:00.001-04:002019-10-01T19:45:59.918-04:00True, If You Can Believe It.An elderly follower of Jesus, half mad with hope, writes on parchment on a prison island, revealing the hidden. He remembers back, lo those many years ago, to when he, or maybe someone by his namesake, walked alongside a hard scrabble rabbi in the dusty roads of Palestine, teaching, learning, walking, talking and listening to what was and is yet to come. No longer hidden unbiddden images flood his eyes failing from age scribe by his side not quite believing what's being told.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-49610468821331792332019-10-01T19:44:00.000-04:002019-10-01T19:44:51.697-04:00Sunday ReligionI was talking with a young man who works with me at the farm about religion today. He mentioned that his father is moderately religious and attends services pretty regularly, but that he and his mom and his siblings go to church maybe once or twice a year and that his friends are exactly the same, almost never attending religious services. This conversation came up because of the influx of customers to our farm store around noon into the early afternoon. I shared that in West Michigan the Sunday routine is still largely governed by church going folks, only showing up to stores after services let out. Here in Cape Ann I'm more likely to see Starbucks packed full at 9am Sunday morning with people reading their NY Times sipping their barista tended drinks. He saw no reason to go to church, especially with everything in the news about the various scandals and corruption.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-83021702413787151082019-10-01T19:43:00.001-04:002019-10-01T19:43:33.365-04:00Nape of Your NeckI lean in and kiss you and we embrace, smelling each others' skin and hair, neck against neck, breathe against breathe. Our heads kneel into each other as we escape into embrace, but for each other and ourselves. Beloved and struggling with love.<br />
<br />
I will always love you Gwenn.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-10869233007566048722019-08-19T21:36:00.002-04:002019-08-19T21:36:58.531-04:00White Straight JacketI was born into a white straight jacket<br />
trying since birth to untie the twisted knots<br />
invisible at first, unbeknownst to eyes untrained<br />
seeing nothing but flinching every muscle straining<br />
to be free, turning and unlearning the yearning<br />
bestial at best, certain the cloak worn<br />
held a dagger to my breast.<br />
<br />
Fantasies of freedom cut away from straps buckled<br />
tightly to my sides just out of reach untouched<br />
teaching treading settling for a buckle here and there<br />
loosened by persistence undaunted and galvanized<br />
by hatred and love intermingled together tangled<br />
like strings impenetrable to the naked eye spying <br />
loose threads as beginnings of an ending <br />
unseen as yet.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-59538471317101008092019-08-03T00:13:00.000-04:002019-08-03T00:13:00.020-04:00And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?Sheltering child within, womb covered by belly, bolts of cloth sewn to exact specifications, shielding the holy in the sacred darkness of human form. Forming child growing and groaning within, knowledge of the holy only known through mother's fluid bathing and breathing and resting, hearing only the echoes of an outside world, muffled brightness sounding like light wrapped in a warm moist blanket. Holy songs sung from without to ears only beginning to form. The light is sheltered in the holiness of shadow dwelling in solitude but never alone, presence permeating every ounce of being moving breathing not yet air, swimming in the womb of mothers' love secure.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-91587993621618760002019-07-29T18:59:00.000-04:002019-07-29T19:23:45.424-04:00Puppets in the Laundry BasketHand sells propaganda festive fetid astrid dimensions<br />
Exclamations point to destinations festooned with pliable girdles<br />
punching monkeys till they're deaf inflicting pinching noises on their noses<br />
wrist bands holding back the pain flailing impaling and staining the brain<br />
followers ever standing astride glancing sideways to elide<br />
any misanthropic misgivings<br />
<br />
Sensing reason might barge in glamour clamors onto center stage<br />
random iterations gather up into explainable systems zeroing in<br />
on the ones and toos and also rans spliffing to and fro <br />
until the system is digested and dissected into oblivion.<br />
<br />
Emblazened jackets snatch up packets of tea and cocaine<br />
reputable upper crust with the lip getting thinner by the day.<br />
<br />
Gnawing moths reminders of old worn uniforms formless and void<br />
stained with invisible blood not your own.<br />
<br />
Thrown in the basket and hung out to dry.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZVX0K-EeRseT6gBW-jvhOI-WdkcYERhh8LZaBCWqzY5lHN-G8vYGxOjv_7ezBKOwQM7qFkw1LIs2ZlEeAv9SEVDZaPV4YtmLbJv6bSb89wbd_mkjAZ_yk4idWJtEC7nyMA9EjuaGcMgpc/s1600/Ike+jacket1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZVX0K-EeRseT6gBW-jvhOI-WdkcYERhh8LZaBCWqzY5lHN-G8vYGxOjv_7ezBKOwQM7qFkw1LIs2ZlEeAv9SEVDZaPV4YtmLbJv6bSb89wbd_mkjAZ_yk4idWJtEC7nyMA9EjuaGcMgpc/s320/Ike+jacket1.jpg" width="320" height="320" data-original-width="960" data-original-height="960" /></a></div>Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-47278282796432494132019-06-23T16:04:00.000-04:002019-06-23T16:07:41.084-04:00Soap and ToothbrushesIf soap and toothbrushes for children in cages aren't a part of your baseline of human needs, you've dehumanized yourself already.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8MaSMhGZqyeDwE8osAGOp94nk7_tGYYZfzGsRa2COHH6FEBV7BjHGHmChu_uwassfmChXipxZVtF6hy2jvMa0MtoKMqfFhCuuYH1ILpW56vqRf5b9NMXV9IJCQcgnMOYZsYxJrk18mWhV/s1600/children+in+concentration+camp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8MaSMhGZqyeDwE8osAGOp94nk7_tGYYZfzGsRa2COHH6FEBV7BjHGHmChu_uwassfmChXipxZVtF6hy2jvMa0MtoKMqfFhCuuYH1ILpW56vqRf5b9NMXV9IJCQcgnMOYZsYxJrk18mWhV/s400/children+in+concentration+camp.jpg" width="400" height="266" data-original-width="620" data-original-height="413" /></a></div>Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-90127559058780001332019-06-19T02:56:00.002-04:002019-06-19T02:56:39.292-04:00Rain ComingThe scent of the deluge is in the air and the leaves are even turned inside out. <br />
Charged particles caress my skin as chill breezes slip through the night air.<br />
Blending my senses into the scenery surrounding me and all those within.<br />
Partaking in nature solitude permeating the breathing air.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-10282607978664527942019-06-18T02:07:00.001-04:002019-06-18T02:07:21.204-04:00SentencedPrison walls dripping with tears. Cell block 1, always full. Empty but full of cacophonous screams unheard. Blame bounces like a tennis ball around and around and around. Dust gathers on immovable recriminations. Just waiting for the handcuffs. The hole is already dug. The key is in my pocket.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-74645314231971352962019-06-17T19:22:00.000-04:002019-06-17T19:22:14.275-04:00Freedom's PrisonsTired and empty. Sober at least. I made two meetings last week, so that's good. Most of my dreams are still nightmares. Especially anything having to do with my family. So much anger and hatred hidden away, lurking in the shadows. So tired of this shit. It feels like it's never gonna go away.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-76561435347671195872019-05-15T21:33:00.002-04:002019-05-15T21:33:59.196-04:00When the Water Runs Out It Stops WhistlingWhen the water runs out it stops whistling.<br />
<br />
That's the second most terrifying sound I can imagine. There's no one there to take the kettle off the burner. The metal is burnt black along the bottom edge. The calcified remains inside are white. The water around here is hard. All the faucets around here, at least the ones that work, keep the waste water treatment plant running constantly. The water is my friend and yet my enemy. I hate it with every ounce of my being. I guess suffocation runs in my family.<br />
<br />
Nowadays they use the anodyne acronym ECT to describe what used to be the almost barbaric therapy of electric shock therapy. If you're lucky it scrapes away the bad parts, leaving that area tabula rasa. No moon landing, no RFK assassination, no MLK assassination, no miracle Mets. All gone, swept away, an empty vacuum. It didn't matter how many times I asked about those years, the answer was always the same. Nothing to remember. Ask others about it.<br />
<br />
Nightmares don't happen in a vacuum. But sometimes the vacuum is the nightmare. It's kinda like Nixon's tapes. The absence is the proof of the crime. It's funny. She remembered all that. But that was after the therapy sessions were done and they relied on the drugs. They were never enough of course. Half a gallon Gallo Port was the almost daily mantra I quickly came to hate the sound of coming from her mouth to the local liquor store owner. He was always friendly to me. I hated him and never said a word to him.<br />
<br />
The kettle is whistling again. Time to turn it off and make some tea.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-45902920849796402622019-01-05T02:22:00.001-05:002019-01-05T02:22:19.970-05:00Ocean Front Dream ApocalypseAs best as I can recall the dream began with me lying in bed with pop music playing in the background and possibly a TV playing random shows across the room on mute. I was dreaming of Gwenn while lying in bed, tracing the outlines of her body with my lips and fingers, caressing every inch of her I could. I still miss her terribly even after twenty plus years. Someone else was in the bed with me, but I don't recall who she was, just a bed mate as best I can tell. In my dream within a dream I was a little bit confused as to whose skin I was caressing for a moment, but it was always Gwenn's. The other skin was incidental and accidental, but lovely nonetheless.<br />
<br />
As I was drifting in and out of my dream-like experience within this dream, I heard heavy rain begin to pound against the windows and roof of the house I was sharing with many other friends, several of whom I recognize from seminary. It's funny who become my dream housemates. I looked out of the window and saw and heard the intense rain, but the sky was blue at first, until I got up and looked closer as I neared the window on the top floor, which is where my bedroom was located. The storm was extremely localized and was right on top of us, with massive downpours and even iceberg sized chunks of ice falling from the sky into the ocean just outside of my house window.<br />
<br />
I dashed down stairs from my bedroom to avoid the possibility of one of those giant pieces of ice falling through the roof and killing me on the top floor, running into one of my housemates, John, as we realized that something a lot more than usual was happening to us all. Not only was it torrentially raining now, but he ocean was roiling so much that creatures were being heaved up out of the depths, including a massive alligator which was coming towards the shore at alarming speed. Me and my housemates began blockading every open point of our house so that we wouldn't be invaded by these deadly creatures, especially the ginormous alligator directly out front our porch. Apparently we had a small alligator among the animals in our house and it came too close to an opening on the porch and the ocean dwelling alligator came up and snatched it by its tail and pulled it of and killed it. There was nothing we could do. We were helpless as he was dragged away.<br />
<br />
Just to the right I witnessed a large dog being attacked and eaten by another very large dog. Both were mastiffs I believe. It was a brutal sight to behold. He was just being torn apart before my eyes as the violent waves crashed upon our house. There were much smaller animals in our house and even outside of it which seemed to not be affected by this violent storm on multiple levels, including cats and even small kittens, some covered in blood, but amazingly enough, still surviving and not affected by these violent impulses. I brought one inside to keep her safe within the house's barriers.<br />
<br />
Next I saw many people running along the beach outside of our house, coming from the north. At first I thought I saw Peng, but it ended up being another seminary friend and her husband, I think a Korean couple instead of Chinese. And then I saw Kim and her father, but he didn't look like her father, but instead her uncle, all of whom I went to church with back in Holland, Michigan years ago. We gathered together as we came back towards our barricaded ocean front house (I had run out from the house to meet them on the sand even though it was still dangerous outside). It was only then that the worst of the storm and the rampaging wildlife seemed to be subsiding. Things finally seemed to be approaching safe again as we came back inside the house.<br />
<br />
Nothing like dreaming while having a fever...Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-78801473521326958062018-11-24T18:00:00.003-05:002018-11-24T18:20:46.494-05:00On Fear and LoveThere is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 1st John: 4:18 NRSV<br />
<br />
Fear and anxiety run rampant in my family tree and I'm no exception. I've struggled with these dark impulses since my earliest childhood. When these impulses are turned inward they result in depression, when turned outward they usually result in violence towards others, and quite often towards those who are closest to you. It can also show up in non-physically violent ways, but emotionally and mentally/spiritually destructive passive-aggressive behaviors. I'm a black belt on that front. <br />
<br />
Fear based decision making is always short term, but typically has long term consequences. When you're raised in a chaotic and unstable environment, whether economically or psychologically/sociologically, you constantly make decisions to help you get through the moment. You don't have the time or energy to think further than that. That's just one more luxury you can't afford. That knot in your stomach or the stress migraine in the back of your head are there for a reason. It's your body's natural and normal reaction to real life stresses and threats happening right before your eyes and ears.<br />
<br />
In one sense of course fear is a fundamentally natural and necessary part of being alive. Without a healthy fear of real dangers we'd all die very quickly. Being entirely fearless is to be completely foolish. It'd be the same as being unable to feel pain and subsequently becoming infected and losing more and more body parts to leprosy. I certainly don't suffer from that. The scripture I quoted above deals with one aspect of fear, the punishment side, which Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are expert at. They like to joke about how Jews and Catholics are so similar because they're both so driven by religious guilt, and of course there is some truth to that. But Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are experts on fear; fear of hell, fear of heterodoxy/heresy, fear of a vengeful god holding you over the pit of hell like a loathsome spider, fear of Satan, fear of our own bodies and human desires, etc., etc.<br />
<br />
Fear of loss runs throughout my family, myself included, and with good reason, but with terrible consequences. I've lost housing and experienced homelessness. I've lost many friends, including the love of my life Gwenn, to untimely deaths. I've even lost multiple opportunities because of a fear of loss. How ironic is that? One of the other devastating side effects of a fear of loss is hoarding. After being homeless for five months when I was 21 I always swore I was going to live as minimalist life as possible because I saw what hoarding looked like with with my depression era grandmother and my mom, neither of whom could bear to throw anything away, to the point of looking like an episode of the reality TV show Hoarders. I have an old friend who cannot stand to even accidentally catch a glimpse of that show because it's physically painful for her to watch, because she sees herself in those characters.<br />
<br />
Hoarding as a reaction to fear of loss isn't just a physical behavior of not being able to let go of almost any object, it can and often does lead to emotional and even spiritual hoarding. The threat of loss can be as suffocating as someone trying to strangle you to death; it's that physically tangible. My mother who I loved deeply struggled with every aspect of this fear of loss. Not long after my birth my father almost strangled my mother to death, but the times being what they were, he wasn't arrested for it. Instead she ended up in a psychiatric hospital for months, getting barbaric electro-shock "therapy" to erase her memories of his brutal abuse. I can't watch the film One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest because of how close to reality it is for my family. For years after that I would ask my mother about various famous/infamous events from the late 1960's and she'd repeatedly tell me that she had no recollection of any of them because they'd all been erased from her memory. No memory of the Moon landing. No memory of the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy or Doctor King. Very few memories of even my own growing up in my earliest childhood as I went through multiple surgeries to correct my cleft lip and pallet, learned to walk and talk, attending my first days of school, etc. <br />
<br />
It was a several year long mental black hole for my mother. And even after that period, the ECT was replaced with multiple years of brutal psychiatric drugs combined with her newly developed alcoholism. When you've been traumatized this badly, you sate your pain anyway you can. I still remember the look and smell of the psychiatric hospital we'd go to when she would attend her monthly out-patient follow-ups. Sometimes she couldn't take me when she needed in-patient care, and my older sister would look after me at home. One time I screamed so loud and kicked so hard as my mom walked away from our house that I broke my sister's toe by flinging the pair of old metal roller skates I was wearing. I understand why ECT is sometimes necessary for many folks because of how indelibly these memories are imprinted in our minds. They never really go away.<br />
<br />
Anyone who has gone through therapy or any 12 step program (I've done both many times) knows all too well about the many different coping mechanisms we use to get through each and every day. Reactive behaviors are remarkably diverse; ranging from alcoholism, drug abuse, porn addiction, binge buying, hoarding, sexual promiscuity, over eating/starving, cutting/self-harm, suicidal ideation/attempts, emotional and physical violence towards loved ones and strangers, and the sad list goes on. <br />
<br />
Obviously this isn't unique to me or my family. This is a massive social problem cutting across class, race, gender, ethnicity and orientation. When I worked in social work in NYC, and later on in Michigan for a short while, I saw each and every one of these behaviors among my clientele. And I would dare to say that in almost every single case these men, women, trans, children and elderly, experienced one, or typically more than one, severe trauma in their background, and the earlier it happened, the more deeply and indelibly ingrained these reactive behaviors were in all of them. The traumas are just as diverse as the reactions to them. It could be homelessness, sexual abuse including rape (the vast majority of my clientele were sexually abused when they were young, both male and female), being in war, losing loved ones to suicide or murder, and like above, this list can go on and on.<br />
<br />
The reason I'm writing this essay today is that I'm supposed to be in NYC right now getting a lay of the land about housing and work starting the beginning of next year, but instead I'm still in my soon to be vacant apartment on campus paralyzed by fear and anxiety about driving the five plus hours to Staten Island, NY and revisiting so much difficult personal history. That, and my writing is my self therapy which has literally kept me alive over the years. My mother, to her credit, also used her poetic writing to help her get through her darkest times. It was a life saver to her too. I've definitely inherited her poetic Muse, having written several hundred poems in the course of my own life. It's truly saved my life many times over and it did the same for her and some other members of my family.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, there are also an incredibly diverse set of options in overcoming fear and anxiety available to us. They can be writing as it is for me and many others, it can be other artistic expressions, whether painting/drawing, dancing, music, hiking/running, meditation, service to others, belonging to various groups whether religious or secular (this one's hugely important), and yes, therapy and sometimes even proper medication.<br />
<br />
Overcoming severe anxiety and fear is never easy. It just isn't. And sometimes you can't just "pray it away" in some facile way. In fact, that advice often has the exact opposite effect on the people most in need of help, insofar as when "praying it away" doesn't work, it ends up leaving the person in much worse shape, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, because they end up blaming themselves and even God. Good Christians and other people of faith have succumbed to this despair and darkness because this leaves them feeling even more isolated and alone than when they started out. I know this fact first hand in my own life, whether my own dark impulses about myself or of many friends, near and far, some of whom have confided in me about their own struggles on this front.<br />
<br />
And when I use the term "front" I'm being intentional. This is a war within, a war against yourself. But every war has two sides (at least), and you have within you another side to this war which sees you/me as loving and deserving of love. And there are people (and animals by the way) near and far who believe the same about you/me. Make allies with this part of yourself and with others who love you exactly as you are.<br />
<br />
I love you and me. I need to remind myself of this deep truth. In the words of Robert DeNiro in Brazil, as the terrorist plumber, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlCPkmb6cuY">We're all in this together</a>." Also, this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbrbUfYSt0E">version</a> works too.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-10529419965591094982018-11-17T17:52:00.001-05:002018-11-17T17:52:09.262-05:00Escaping TownStuck.<br />
It's who I am.<br />
Standing in the mud<br />
immobile.<br />
<br />
Like a nightmare dream<br />
slogging and impossibly <br />
immobile.<br />
<br />
You're back there<br />
never to escape<br />
inexplicably trapped<br />
in the same damned place.<br />
<br />
You keep haunting me<br />
every single night<br />
Haunting Me<br />
Every Single Night.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-48233549124065376412018-11-16T22:41:00.002-05:002018-11-16T22:41:30.447-05:00Stinky Footed LoverI love you more than words could ever say<br />
<br />
Every dragon imagined I would slay<br />
<br />
Please stay, please stay, please stay<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
But your feet stink in bed and I don't think<br />
<br />
I can find it in my heart to say<br />
<br />
My nose is something you daily slay<br />
<br />
but do please stay anyway.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Your breath sometimes leaves something to be desired<br />
<br />
as I desire you more than anything I've ever known before<br />
<br />
Your dietary desires often leave me wishing<br />
<br />
a breath mint was in your vocabulary<br />
<br />
But don't you dare go away.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Because you will always be my stinky footed lover<br />
<br />
Silhouetted in the darker corners of my black and white world<br />
<br />
Leaning into embraces filled with traces of color<br />
<br />
Emblazened with a mutual history of mistakes<br />
<br />
Known and unknown, we see through a glass darkly<br />
<br />
Even of ourselves.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Somehow we still manage to see each other through our blind spots<br />
<br />
Glimmering hints of who we are to ourselves and each other<br />
<br />
As we lie next to each other alone together<br />
<br />
Naked and afraid through this long dark night<br />
<br />
of love and fear, holding tight to something we both barely grasp<br />
<br />
And yet, as I lie alongside you in this thick darkness<br />
<br />
Please stay, please stay, please stay my stinky footed lover.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6660634856634399832.post-91411908382967777192018-11-04T21:02:00.000-05:002018-11-04T21:02:04.776-05:00Easter SundayShe wore a very pretty dress, slightly revealing. The church lady commented on how it was slightly revealing in judgmental tones.<br />
She was right of course, but that's what I love about her. Slightly revealing cleavage as she wore her skepticism out loud. She questioned her received Catholic wisdom with some trepidation.<br />
<br />
Tonight we saw each other and knowingly glanced at each other again across the restaurant cash register. She's a registered voter now and asked about Tuesday's ballot questions. Her knowledge of the issues is incredibly sexy. And she asked me about my thoughts. I appreciated that from her. She's wise beyond her years. <br />
<br />
She reminds me of Gwenn in so many ways.Irenicumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13409091214695782381noreply@blogger.com0