Thoughts on Repeal/Replace

Below is a post I wrote just the other day, only to find that the next step seems to be a side-step. I wonder how many people are more than halfway wishing they could recall their Representatives and (especially) Senators right about now? Unfortunately, that's not an option.

XXX

Apparently the Republican Senators have (finally) managed to agree on something when it comes to the ACA.

That's a step in the right direction.

From what I read and hear, division continues regarding how to proceed from here, and that's to be expected. Different populations in different States have different ideas about what they want from a health care system; their Senators are duty-bound to represent those different ideas.

And me, to whom it doesn't personally matter one way or another, I'm sitting here thinking about it because what DOES matter to me is everyone else in my nation.

Some want this; some want that; some flat refuse to even consider alternatives ... but alternatives it's going to have to be I think.

Last week I think it was, I heard an echo of what has been in mine own head for a while now.

How about a compromise?

Before you start in on the concept as either selling out or being pig-headed, remember the vast variety of opinions that are represented in our Senate. Each and all of them are just as important as every one of the others, all have equal status. It might not seem that way, and no doubt plenty of folk don't really believe it is that way, or should be that way. BUT it IS that way.

Back to the thought of compromise.

For the folks who insist that a 'single payer' plan is the only thing they'll even consider, why can't we give them that, within reason?

For the folks who insist that they want to be able to choose their own plans and have no interest whatsoever in any kind of government interference in their health care (or their lives at all for that matter), why can't we give them that too, within reason?

The thought is to provide the best of both to everyone.

People get (or not) whatever insurance they choose for themselves to cover most things; that's a bow to those who refuse to 'not get to choose'.

But set a limit on what those policies have to cover (and what the premiums can be) with a 'safety net' single payer (government) coverage for catastrophic types of things; an equal bow to the other end of the spectrum..

The reasoning is that there are plenty of objections to an overall plan where the healthy don't get to choose whether or not they're going to foot the bill for folks who, for example, take their child in for every runny nose.

There are also justifiable objections to outrageous premiums for those whose very lives are dependent on what have become extremely expensive medications, and/or those whose lives are abruptly interrupted by an accident with the accompanying out of pocket expenses that can and do break them financially.

So why can there not be something that considers both sides of the whole thing?

You get your own insurance to cover your child's runny noses; the 'safety net' is in place if one of those runny noses turns out to be a life-threatening situation that's not covered by your insurance policy.

People who might object to paying for you to take your kid to the doctor for every last little sniffle are probably the first ones to organize a local fundraiser for someone who has been in an accident. While they might not see the logic behind covering somebody else's (preventable) sinus infections, they are likely absolutely willing to kick into the kitty in cases of emergency.

Insurance companies might appreciate having regular customers (who, having to pay for their own basic health care might actually start taking an interest in preventive measures and not use their insurance quite as much) without having to try to cope with huge claims (because that's where the 'safety net' comes in) and make their basic premiums reasonable, maybe on a sliding scale that takes into consideration individual income and health history.

Health care providers might feel the same way and make their basic care costs reasonable.

I'm not too sure about pharmaceutical companies making their products reasonably affordable but have a feeling that any who DO would find themselves with a lot more customers.

Medicaid and Medicare are in place, and will remain in place, for the vulnerable among us. That's not the issue here as I see it. We all kick into the kitty for that and the individual States choose for themselves what they're going to do with the funds we provide them with for the care of our vulnerable.

Balancing personal responsibility with societal responsibility seems to me common sense.

Those who are so attached to the ACA that they cannot let go of it will retain the societal responsibility associated with it via that 'safety net'; those who are of the opinion that people need to start contributing to their own health and well-being will be vindicated as personal responsibility becomes expected.

It's a win-win in my opinion, but what do I know?

I'm more an advocate for personal responsibility when it comes to health care issues, but I am not the only person in the whole wide world and I full well know it.

There's no reason in said whole wide world that a reasonable compromise cannot be reached that will meet the needs/demands of everyone involved. I'm not talking about 'replacing' the ACA but repealing it in toto and developing an entirely different plan of action on behalf of all of us - a reasonable compromise among reasonable people who actually care enough about one another to respect each other's needs and are willing to meet halfway.

Integration vs Segregation: Role Reversal In Progress?

Something has been nagging at the back of my mind for a while now, presenting me with a sense of unease because I couldn't quite identify what exactly was bothering me, couldn't get a handle on it enough to figure out what was behind it.

My mind kept going back to a time in my life when I was in college (for the third or fourth time as Life kept interfering with my education). One of my jobs was Recording Secretary for the Standing Committees of Student Government, the allocating committees that were assigned budgets and had to dispense funds to cover the different needs of our university population.

When a brand new committee was formed in the second half of the eighties, I kept records of its meetings. At the time it was called the MAC - Multicultural Awareness Committee - soon changed to Multicultural Activities Committee. I was asked, and accepted, a dual role: Recording Secretary and full member.

The population of our university wasn't huge at the time, maybe ten thousand, but the variety of folks was more than you might expect in an upper mid-western environment. The groups who organized themselves into Student Organizations came to the MAC for help in funding their activities and events. The principle goals of the Student Organizations were two-fold: first to offer support and friendship to their memberships; second to reach out to the larger university community to share the unique cultures of the different organizations. Some groups were large; others not so much. Even so, each and all shared those common goals.

The thing that sticks in my mind about those days is that the different organizations seemed to be simply wanting to share what made them unique, to present to the community of which they were a part information about the wider-than-expected diversity encapsulated within the sphere of our university environment.

I thought then and believe still that each and all of us have an inherent need to be understood and to be accepted as an integral part of a greater whole. I thought then and believe still that this nation, the United States of America, epitomizes that concept. We were doing our best in our own small way to exemplify that.

Quietly and generally without a whole lot of fanfare, we celebrated the inclusion of those of us who were maybe in some ways a mite different from the majority of the community we shared. It was informational, and fun, and I think it helped all of to grow as we learned from each other.

A couple of decades before my (too brief) time on the MAC, things had been different. We had among us those who remembered those times all too well. They remembered segregation, had battled with all that they had in them to bring it to an end.

I think that what has made the United States strong enough to have survived has been un underlying powerful belief that the forging of the strength of this nation lies not in her diversity per se but in the one-ness that makes the sum of the whole much greater than the parts.

There are any number of instructional articles and videos about the making of steel. There are any number of uses said steel can be put to.

That's sort of how I view our nation. We are forging something that will stand the test of time here.

To do it requires many different components put to many uses in many ways. It requires the integration of the many into the whole. Each standing apart cannot become what is needed. By the same token, the whole will not be indeed what it needs to be if any of the components are left out.

And so ... for a time the vision was to forge a new way, incorporating all of the parts necessary to make the whole as strong as it needs to be.

Have we lost that vision?

Because just lately it's come to me what has been nagging at me for so long.

I see and hear an entirely different version of our vision, and yes it bothers me.

Are the various parts now struggling to return to segregation, leaving the strength of an integrated whole? Do any of you recall the old catch-phrase 'separate but equal'? Seems to me that didn't work out all that well. Separation is not exactly much of a sign of equality, if you ask me. Yet it seems factions are developing that desire separation, and equality is left in the dust ... or the ashes ... take your pick.

You know, just because one group is smaller in size doesn't make it less vital to the forging of the whole. If you took it out of the mix, the result would be different all right - probably not nearly as strong. Try leaving one 'minor' ingredient out of a recipe once. It might still be okay but it surely won't be what it was supposed to be. The same goes for forging steel and just about everything else - including nations.

So really. Those who seem to be trying to 'set themselves apart' ... stop it. Just stop it. We are all just as important as each other, no more and no less. We will not become less than we are as a nation, and this re-segregation is not going to work.

In closing (I heard that sigh of relief) I refer you to the stars that grace the Flag of the United States of America. Yes I know they represent each and all of the States of our Nation. They can also represent the forging of this Nation, one made up of many. You notice that each of those stars is the same size; each is equal to all of the others. The fact that Texas and Alaska are far bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware is entirely moot. They share equal status, and our Flag needs ALL of her stars to be complete. Not a single one of those stars carries a label but together they, and the stripes of red and white that flank them, represent one nation. One. Recognizing and respecting individuality in NO way diminishes what that means but enhances it.

God Bless America

Indivisible

QUIT WITH THE TANTRUMS AND THE TAUNTS

Honestly, enough is enough.

Because I’m neither democrat nor republican, I might be justified in feeling a bit of an outsider in mine own nation.

Watching the two political parties has gotten beyond entertaining, believe you me.

The democrats are behaving like spoiled brats who have been denied what they want but think pitching fits every which way from Tuesday might get them their way.

It won’t.

The republicans are taunting and gloating, which is reprehensible and serves no good purpose but to retaliate against people who are already down for the count. Since when is it okay to kick someone when they’re down?

Stop it.

Just stop it.

There is no reason in God’s green world that all this stuff has to be happening.

More than half of us were labeled ‘deplorable’ last year. We didn’t appreciate that, not the republicans nor we independents. Do we want to taunt? Of course we do. That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Justice has already been served up in generous portions to the one who spat in our faces. We can smirk and snicker all we want, but we don’t have to do it publicly.

So stop.

The vindication has been, is, and will be self-evident. It doesn’t need to be rubbed in.

No, it’s not to be expected that the tantrums will stop any time soon, but we don’t have to react to them as though they’re even worth our notice.

There are, you know, many valuable issues that do deserve attention.

That’s what we want to see more of.

We want updates on the progress that’s being made in the background while the tots are trying to keep themselves center stage with one dramatic fit after another after another.

Parents: when your toddler is pitching a fit, the last thing in this whole wide world you want to do is pay attention to it, other than to make sure it’s not doing actual harm to said toddler or anyone else.

The democrat party can cry if it wants to cry if it wants to cry if it wants to; you might cry too if it happened to you. Which it hasn’t but it’s not going to help anything to keep giving in to their craving for attention. It’s flat not worth it when our energy could and should be spent on better things.

Like what?

Pick a spot, any spot, and start there.

We’ve got a war on, in case nobody’s noticed lately.

We’ve got jobs growing and being filled.

We’ve got violently-disposed individuals about to be checkmated.

We’ve got technology ramping up to take on the renewables and get them into play – putting to use our non-renewable resources to get that job done. In case you weren’t aware of that.

We’ve got new options coming at us on the education front, as the current system has dramatically failed.

We’ve got agricultural choices to make.

We’ve got financial decisions to tackle.

We’ve got independent, individual, freedoms to define and to defend. Yours stop BEFORE your fist hits my nose; mine stop BEFORE I hit you back.

You know, stuff like that.

The times we live in are some of the most exciting in the lifetime of Earth.

Why in the name of anything you might hold dear would we choose to focus on drivel when the universe is unfolding before us and we could be celebrating all of the above and a whole lot more?

Balance will be restored and yes we do need to do our part to help that happen. Tantrums and taunts don’t help.

Change the focus.

If the media doesn’t, change your own focus and forget about watching or listening to the tantrums and the taunts. Look around yourself and see what you can see. If you’re going to go on line, check to see what’s going on in some of those marvelous and changing areas. If you’re interested in one or more of them, for goodness sake educate yourself.

The tantrums aren’t worth our attention. Neither are the taunts.

We get to live in a time that’s truly worth paying attention to, so start paying attention to things that are worth it.

A Rambling Meander (yes I know it's redundant)

2016  12  26  random thoughts

Got home from work this morning at about 0830 or so and slept for almost eight hours straight, a change for me from the fragments I’ve been able to manage lately (as in for the past eight months or more) so I’m amazed to find myself both awake and halfway alert. It’s also a bit of a surprise to find myself inexplicably ‘tuning in’ to things that generally are reserved for the times I’m going into that ‘universal’ mode thing, whatever you want to call it.

Par for my course, my first thoughts are of my family and friends up north – they’ve got serious Winter coming down on them and I’m grateful that they’re all both smart and experienced enough to keep themselves safe.

Next on my mind comes the situation of my nation and the world in which we live in.

Then the Characters, having allowed me to think about all that other stuff for a while, come to the fore.

After that comes, briefly, a bit about mine own situation.

Stories for younglings are likely to be on our agenda, along with a bunch of short stories about whatever anyone happens to come up with.

You see, my daughter has an email account for my littlest grandling, and I get to send stories and such to her. Of course she can’t read yet as she’s only nine months old, but one day she might want to read them – and there they will be just sitting there waiting for her.

Onward.

Per the Winter that’s settled in up north – we did pray for something other than one of those ‘winters that don’t show up’ years this year, to get the outsiders to go home – and so Winter obliged. Now the prayers are for an early, cool, long, slow Spring – to minimize flooding and get all that water soaking into Earth where it can do some good.

Onward.

As for the world in which we live in – my thoughts are both hopeful and a bit worried. The thing is that I can never be quite all the way sure that my ‘thoughts’ are entirely mine own or if I’m picking up on something that’s kind of ‘free-floating’ in the air around me.

No, I’m not delusional; I’ve gotten stuck with an INFJ/P personality type, which I certainly didn’t ask for and would have most assuredly chosen a different, more ordinary one, if I HAD been given the choice.

I also have this cast of fictional Characters for whom everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, is grist for the mill of fiction. Hence my view of the world in which I live in is always perhaps more geared toward seeing it in a context that’s quite a bit bigger than my own little bit of personal energy …

I suppose, for all practical purposes, it doesn’t really matter much does it?

Whether mine own or whatever else might be contributing, there are ‘thoughts’ that refuse to be polite enough to not come where they’re not invited.

That Hope is by far the first to come to mind, and the strongest, is a real big encouragement, I have to say. 

There are those who are in despair, which is understandable, and some of those I honestly do know and love … and hope to high heaven that they will soon pick up on the Hope part of the equation. Whether it’s mine own or our world in general, a person would have to look askance at me when I say it’s at the top of the list and dominates, but it’s definitely right there, and it is definitely dominating.

Maybe it has something to do with Hope springing eternal and all that, but for the past months, probably for the past year or more actually, it’s been powerful and growing. In the midst of it have been (thankfully brief) times of sheer and utter horror, but overall has been that sense of a swelling Light.

It’s impossible to explain but it is very much *there*.

And that, my friend, is Hope come calling in no uncertain terms. It’s associated with Healing, which is a tremendous relief; and Faith; and Peace, another huge relief although perhaps a bit puzzling given the circumstances; and its primary source seems to be something to do with the Balancing of the Spiral.

Yeah, I know that sounds kind of mystic maybe, esoteric no doubt, and probably about as unrealistic as a person can imagine.

But there you have it.

It is what it is.

Despite those who seem bound and determined to make of Earth a battleground, still the vast majority of what I’m *getting* is NOT all about fighting, or conflict, or any of the uglies that are besetting us and will continue to beset us. By far there seems to me a sense of growing determination that we (humanity) are going to find our balance and that the uglies are not going to be able to unseat it. Not permanently.

Because there are lots and lots of folks (with very loud Voices) who want it to be otherwise, mine own little Voice is going to get no attention and I’m all right with that. Because, you see, this little Voice is but a very small indicator of something that’s one heck of a lot bigger and stronger. So I’m not going to fret myself about coming across as a lunatic.

Yes there are worries – there have to be else we’d not be able to deal with what we’re going to have to deal with. The worries poke at us and keep us from falling back to sleep.

Will the United States, Russia, Israel, China, Argentina (where did that one come from – what the heck), Australia, Scandinavia, Canada, UK, India (???), and France (???) … do what? … I don’t know … do what has to be done on behalf of everyone who wants Peace?

And what will be the price of that Peace?

Again, I do not know.

What I do know is that what I have felt rising is not diminishing in either nature or intensity – and that’s good news.

Maybe it’s the Buddhists and the old Indian understandings of Peace and Unity that have been (at last) reconnecting themselves to the positive flows and exerting some of their old influence?

Maybe it’s partly a reawakening of our own North American Elder Folk’s spirit, the one that goes back to before fighting became the ‘norm’, which is a long way back indeed considering the tribes have been at war with one another for millennia.

Maybe it’s got something to do with the political situation finally prodding folk all over the world into actually paying attention to what they perhaps had come to take for granted. Asserting their own Faith in opposition to something being used for the harming of others … and I’m talking about the kind of Faith that rides deep inside, not associated with any one creed or dogma or definition.

Me being me, and our Characters being themselves, putting it in terms of the Justice, Mercy, and Peace of the Mother coming into play tends to make the most sense to me.

In other terms, there’s an inherent Balance that’s the fundamental Law of the entirety of our world, the one that stretches from infinity to infinity – the one whose fractals are part and parcel of every aspect of the whole thing, the triangles of which are immutably woven into spirals at every level, all of them moving and moving and moving from infinity to infinity in constant unremitting motion. That would be Energy, at times taking on form as Matter.

And that’s a scientific train of thought that nobody wants to follow any more than anybody wants to follow the esoteric one that is actually the exact same train of thought.

What, people want to know, can we expect in the coming Time?

Warfare, for starters.

Not what anyone wants to hear, is it?

What happened to that whole big Peace thing? What about all that Hope that’s supposedly infusing the atmosphere of our world?

Well, those things are what are behind the warfare, as always.

To get to one, you generally have to get through the other – Peace will not come on its own without conflict because there is some powerful opposition to Peace.

Otherwise, Balance would never become.

Can’t have one without the other, and that’s just the fact of the matter.

People can try to deny it, they can try to avoid it, they can try to say it doesn’t have to be that way – until the cows come home they can try to convince themselves and everyone else that there’s a different way (and I for one would dearly love to believe them) – but Pi in the Sky wishes have zero chance against PHI in the Sky reality.

Warfare is what’s coming?

Warfare is ALWAYS coming, in one form or another.

But I write fiction; I’m not a prophetess, so don’t take my word for it. I just have a hunch that what’s ahead for us isn’t going to be all that different from what’s behind us, that’s all.

We can (and we do) try to make our reality fit into the frame of what we want it to be – and that’s fine because that ability and that instinct is a gift to us and we’re obliged to use it whether we would will it or not – and so we can, for millennia on end, use that gift to help us get through what we have to get through, to do what we have to do when we have to do it, and to ultimately survive for as long as our species is going to remain viable in our world. It is not a vain pursuit but one of a more vital importance than even the most dedicated of us realize.

It is a source, for good or for ill, of the Balance which will be kept no matter what.

So yeah, to say that it’s important is something of a massive understatement. Our universe is going to continue to unfold as it should, something folks have been aware of for a lot longer than we might imagine or that many of us want to believe.

And that’s okay.

Infinity is eternal, remember.

We aren’t going to be able to wrap our heads around that concept and we don’t have to.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t the reality in which we live in.

Anyway, warfare is pretty much going to be a given – until we’ve almost destroyed this very world in which we live in, or at least our little bit of it (which is of vital importance to us because it’s the ONLY bit of it that we DO live in).

Eventually, hopefully, we’ll figure out how to exist without overt warfare.

Don’t go holding your breath on that, because it’s liable to be a long time coming and carry a price tag that we, of our time, are not going to be willing to pay.

But the time will likely come that the conflicting ideologies will indeed come to agree to disagree and warfare will just stop.

How?

Well, the only thing that comes into my fiction-oriented mind is what the most idealistic of us (including me) will not even consider. That is that the fighting will stop when Earth is divided fairly equally among the ideologies that wish to dominate the whole.

Sooner or later everyone is going to reach the conclusion that there’s no way any single choice of belief systems is going to ever be able to dominate the whole. Humankind is flat out not designed to accept any such thing.

And so the division will come, likely after a couple of things happen.

One is a no-brainer – warfare that will come to within a hair’s breadth of utterly demolishing a very hefty hunk of Earth herself.

The other is a more natural thing, and when the two come together, at the same time, there won’t be so very many of us left to come to the conclusion I just mentioned (that ‘peaceful cohabitation’ of conflicting factions is not going to happen).

And the survivors will agree to separate and to keep themselves to themselves – to develop their own ways independently of the others.

Fictionally speaking, this concept is where the world of DANANN comes from – that’s one of the books of SONG – where the Quadrants are each self-supporting and closed to the others.

We haven’t gotten into what it is exactly that each of the Quadrants is like that makes them so different from one another but I suspect it has to do with both politics and religion since those seem to be kind of the things that divide folks. Not skin color or intelligence quotients or anything else, at least not that I can think of.

People tend to fight about both territorialism and expansionism, for both political and religious reasons.

So in the end (temporarily at least, relatively speaking) it will come down to eliminating both of those concepts by giving each a ‘safe place’ in which to do whatever it is that they want to do, so long as it doesn’t interfere with or harm any of the others.

So what are the divisions going to be?

Elephino.

As I said, I write fiction; I’m not a prophetess.

My best guess would be that Northwest would be for the people who, at the time of the division, are in favor of theocracy.

Northeast might be set aside for those who are ready, willing, and able to blend many diverse cultures into one.

Southwest could provide for those who wish to live simply with Earth and with one another.

Southeast could well be where the ‘spiritual-minded’ can live unfettered as they choose, to follow whatever paths they want without being judged by anyone, so long as they do no harm.

And so the divisions are defined, borders are laid out, resources of each quadrant are assessed to be sure everyone has plenty of what they need to be self-sufficient, and the quadrants are fine with leaving everyone else alone and being left alone in return.

And so there is Peace.

There’s no trade, but no trade is necessary.

There’s no interaction or communication, but no interaction or communication are wanted.

There’s no travel between the quadrants and little within them (except for those too independent-minded to have been able to choose any of the four options and so they are assigned all of the islands of Earth for their own), but ‘no travel between quadrants’ is part of the solution that eliminates territorialism and expansionism.

Politics and religion take a little longer to deal with but they eventually end up irrelevant because there’s no real purpose in ‘preaching to the choir’.

So things change and it doesn’t really take all that many generations before the quadrants are the norm that nobody bothers to question or even wonder about.

Part of the ‘ease’ by which this whole thing is accomplished stems from the fact that, at the time, technology has begun to reign supreme.

There are no books, for one thing. What few are left by the time the near-destruction of Earth is complete are gotten rid of while everyone’s focusing on survival. Books were a big part of what caused all the trouble in the first place, or so it is perceived, so nobody wants them anyway; they’re reminders of what the survivors of humankind want to leave behind.

Technological communication is all there is, and it is naturally edited to eliminate references to anything to with the things the people of Earth so desperately want to leave behind that they agree to ‘the quadrant option’ in the first place. When the time comes that knowledge of the Histories of Earth is completely deleted from the technological system by which Earth has come to be governed, nobody even notices.

Meanwhile, technology has come up with solutions to most, if not all, of the physical and psychological ailments of humankind. They’ve all become things of the past, too – and nobody wants them back any more than they want the books back, or to be reminded of ‘the bad old days’ in any way, shape, or form. In less time than a person would expect, nobody even realizes that there ever even had been ‘before times’.

Do I think any such thing is really going to happen?

How would I know?

But I’m not going to bet against it.

Take away the reasons for conflict and give everyone what they want while replacing their need for self-governance with a set of computer-generated ‘laws’ that apply to everyone … and spend several generations ruthlessly enforcing said ‘laws’ by way of technology and electronics (so that actual people are not involved in the enforcement), with the assent of the survivors of humankind … and you’re gonna end up with Peace.

Everybody’s living in their own utopia; nothing left to fight about.

With nobody to try to convince, it won’t be long before the religions of the world won’t even have to be outlawed; they’ll die natural deaths as their followers won’t have anyone to argue with about anything and the folk will turn their minds gradually toward survival and development of the resources at their disposal within their relative quadrants.

Politics likewise. With no opposition, there’s no point.

So.

In the wake of the *theoretically inevitable catastrophe* of humankind-created all-out war (and other man-made factors) in a deadly fatal combination with to-be-expected natural events (let’s go with an impact, earthquakes, volcanic activity, climate change, tectonic plates shifting, etc.) just exactly WHO is going to come up with this ‘reasonable alternative’?

My guess would be the atheists, scientists, futurists, techs, and the Dalai Lama.

They’re probably the only ones that anybody is going to be ready, willing, and able to listen to.

Why?

Because they’ll be basically the only ‘neutral’ folks on Earth at the time, with no bones to really pick with anybody. They’re apolitical and non-religious. All they care about is having the resources they want to develop the knowledge they want, with the Dalai Lama thrown in to represent a spiritual aspect (which by that time the rest of them will have long since acknowledged as an inherent part of the whole PHI thing). They’re also the best prepared to ride out a catastrophe.

Plus, by then they’ll have developed the technology to be able to provide the neutral enforcement of the only real ‘law’ everyone has to go by: Harm None.

And they’ll succeed. For a time, they’ll have their Peace.

Yep.

And then the whole thing is going to start all over again, because it has to. That’s the deal. Balance is what makes the world go ‘round.

You know the Norse legends? Ragnarok and all that? The basic story line is, I think, probably dead on. People being people, there have to be ‘characters’ that folks can relate to and be interested enough in to keep the Story alive, but the point is always the bottom line cyclic nature of the whole.

I have a feeling that none of the story lines of our ancient myths and legends are linear as opposed to cyclic in nature.

Just as we will never be able to wrap our heads around the concept of there being no literal ‘In the Beginning’ we also cannot wrap our heads around the concept of there being no literal ‘The End’.

And really, we don’t have to wrap our heads around any such thing. I doubt much, if any, of all this stuff is going to be happening any time soon, probably not in the lifetimes of anyone who is now alive at least.

Each and all of our individual lives do have a Beginning and an End. Each and all of us are made up of energy, waves and particles, and it’s up to each and all of us to Choose to contribute the energy that belongs to us, however temporarily, to whichever ‘side’ of the Balance of all the energies of our world we want to support.

Keep in mind that both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ have to be equally represented, if that makes any sense. Keep in mind that apparently ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are relative terms. I think that the whole concept of PHI is based on opposition being a requirement for Balance. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ don’t actually come into play at all – only ‘opposite’.

Back to politics for a moment here, can anybody be truly surprised at the response in the United States by a long-quiet (and apparently presumed dormant) population? As long as there was a relative Balance going on, said population had no reason to assert itself. When there came a threat to that relative Balance, with overt ‘we’re going to dominate and you can’t stop us’ behaviors … well … guess what.

For me, the fascinating part of this whole scenario is that we all seem to be functioning instinctively. Ask us to explain and we’re liable to come up with all kinds of ‘reasons’ for why people are as they are. They make sense only up to a point, because most of the factors have been a part of the equation for a real long time. So why NOW have those factors all of a sudden become issues?

I think it’s not so very different from any of the cycles of power our world has been through.

It’s kind of like physics, right?

Actions produce equal and opposite reactions and the chain of events spirals ‘round and ‘round ad infinitum.

Instinct kicks in on some level that we as individuals aren’t even aware of.

Aggression triggers retaliation, no matter on what scale.

If I could believe for one instant that what’s coming could be prevented or avoided, I’d be first in line to try to figure out how to do it.

But I think the best we can hope for is that, when all is said and done, the survivors will recognize the requirement for Balance, and put their energies into keeping that Balance not by the cycle of aggression and retaliation but by focusing on maintaining Balance by refusing to try to tip it.

No, I don’t see that happening, which is a sadness to me because it would be really nice to be able to believe such a thing might be possible.

Bottom line?

Because apparently there are plenty of people who are bound and determined to be aggressive, there are going to be just as many who are bound and determined to take the opposite position. Neither side is going to ‘win’. On the other hand, neither side is going to ‘lose’ either.

The cycle might, for a time, seem to favor one or the other but no matter how much jockeying for position goes on the result is going to be Balance. Even if these particular ‘sides’ annihilate one another, more will pop onto the screen and keep the cycle spinning. Even if, somewhere along the line, a time comes that Balance is kept by maintaining a fragile Peace, it ain’t gonna last. Somebody will choose aggression; retaliation will be the answer, and …

Man.

What a kind of depressing sort of thing to be thinking about, huh?

*laughing*

Depressing only because I haven’t included the multitudes of wonders and joys and beautiful times that, honestly, really do make up the bulk of what I’m *getting* from every direction.

Because, think about it, what is GOING to be the response to this deep darkness that seems to be threatening the world in which we live in?

THAT is what seems to be in its ascendency right now – that response to darkness, which is Light.

Threatened by aggressive Hatred, what is the retaliatory response going to be?

Yeah.

That wheel, it does indeed go ‘round and ‘round, doesn’t it?

For my part, the getting to Choose thing is a no-brainer.

Choosing to go with the Light when threatened by the Dark?

No-brainer, like I said.

It’s recognizing what’s coming at us, and focusing with everything we’ve got in us on the antithesis of that darkness that seems to be at work here, and it’s that focus that makes our lives truly a journey of love and peace and joy and all of the things of the Light.

The best part of the whole of it is that Light-filled journey so very many of us are sharing, whether many of us are aware of it or not.

One thing that the Dark will never understand, never ever ever, is that the harder it pushes, the stronger becomes the Light. You’d think that too would be a no-brainer, but (being as I happen to like the Light I can say this without compunction) nobody has ever accused the Dark of having the wit to figure it out.

Maybe that too is part of why the Dark seems to always want to be the aggressor, who knows? Maybe that part of the whole has just enough wit to have figured out that the Light has something the Dark is missing, and so is constantly trying to take what would be so freely shared. I reckon maybe there’s half a wit involved in that.

Did I just call half of the energies of the world half-witted?

Yes, I do believe I did.

Since everything has to balance, I suppose that means the energies of Light are blessed with having a wit and a half.

Whew.

That’s a relief.

Justice comes in all sorts of ways that may or may not make any sense to us; so does Mercy. Peace is something we all might be able to understand, but we have to go through the first two before we get there.

Justice is the Balancing. Mercy is Survival. Then (maybe) comes Peace, with or without a price tag but probably with one.

And that’s kind of a view of the world in which we live in from the unique perspective/s of our Characters.

Onward.

Mine own situation is that there are challenges but I’m managing to make it through them one by one. The losses of this past year have broken me in some ways but yammering about those losses isn't going to do the least bit of good. Better to focus on what is left to me.

WHOOP! Brainstorming Windstorming

Here's a thought for you.

I love the Arkansas Valley of Colorado.

You know.

The Valley that has gone dry because of water rights going downstream and no more irrigation canals.

The Valley that is dying right in front of any eyes that care to look - which don't seem to be very many.

The combination of thinking about the dire straits of the Valley - and wishing for, yearning to build, a little cabin on our family's homestead that lies south of said Valley - and figuring out how to generate enough power from its existing windmill to run my computer - and a question from a lady at work - and an article I just read about Aspen, Colorado being the third city in the United States to fill its own needs with wind-power - and a mention of the Wind Farm (which I've seen and it is awesome) south of Lamar, Colorado (not too far from said homestead) - and remembering fighting my way through tumbleweed storms in the winds coming off the mountains that lie west of the Valley - - - 

Are you following my train of thought?

Yes.

I hope to high heaven I'm not the only one who's on this particular train of mine.

Agriculture in the Valley is dead in the water (out of the water, more like) or at least in the midst of a very long hibernation.

But the damn wind still blows.

Right down said Valley.

Lots and lots of wind.

Lots and lots of farm land ... 

Lots and lots of down-river customers who NEED all that water - send 'em another natural resource, one that's not likely to short the Valley in the process and might even bring its farms back to life - Wind Farms this time.

Believe It Or Not, There IS A Method To My Madness

Appearances are important, there's no denying that. 

But appearances can be deceiving if they're not built on a dang strong foundation, a healthy one, one that meets fundamental needs. Otherwise those appearances are nothing but a facade, fake, deceitful, a lie to save face.

If something is going to be put to hard use, best be sure you take the time, make the effort, and put forth the resources it takes to build something that's going to be able to stand up to that hard use. Make it attractive, absolutely, but under that attractiveness had better be something of substance. 

Really.

First you build your whatever it is as strong, as tough, as resilient, as task-oriented as you possibly can. You build it from the foundation up, and you build it to stand the testing. You make it meet specific requirements and you make it endure what it's going to have to endure. 

Then you refine and shape it.

THEN you make it pretty.

The paint is the last thing to go on.

You put a pretty facade on something that's not built to last, and it's deceit plain and simple.

It's like putting an overlay on a road that needs a re-build, for cryin' out loud. You can put those overlays on relatively quickly and cheaply (and it looks great!) but that road is still going to be weak and it's gonna give out sooner or later, taking all those over-layers with it. You've just wasted time and effort and money, not to mention putting others at risk. Because you KNOW that road is rotten underneath.

Yeah it takes a lot more time, effort, and money to do a re-build - but when you're done that road is going to stand up to the traffic load it has to carry.

So I suppose it's a matter of what you're setting out to do. 

If you want your whatever it is to just look good temporarily, go for the facade by all means.

If you want it to last ... ummm ... different story, huh?

Me, I'd just as soon be putting my own efforts into something that's liable to still be fully functional and strong long after I'm no longer there.

But that's just me.

The method to my madness in this case is based on that. Otherwise it would be simply madness. I'm not one to indulge in madness without method.

So I'm doing what I do, and keeping an ear to the ground to see if the road I'm on is one that will endure or not. If I find that it is not stable, and that there is an overlay going on instead of a re-build, why in the name of all that's Holy would I continue to risk my life on said road? That would be madness without method, believe me. 

Not My Circus

Not My Circus

It was long ago and far away, in a waitressing kind of world. 

The young woman’s face showed traces of recent tears.

She grinned cheerfully at me and started chit-chatting about the weather or some such, laughing.

A touch on her arm stopped her mid-sentence.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing!’

A little too emphatic and no eye contact.

Hmmm …

Silently I just looked at her and finally I caught her eyes.

‘No. Not here. Not now. I can’t. I have to go.’

‘Later.’

It was not a question.

‘Yes.’

And off she went. Both of us had jobs to do and so we did them.

In the pit of my belly I felt what she could not tell me.

She was hurting, in pretty bad pain. Her belly was in knots worse than mine. Her heart was bleeding from wounds my own could only just barely feel. Her soul was torn, rent so raggedly that I could hardly find a place to get a hold on it, like a hundred broken-winged birds trying to fly.

Later came.

This time there was no hiding anything. Tears rose, coursed her face, fell. Her heart and her soul were in those tears, little rivers finding their way down the pretty face of this young woman. Swelling as pent emotions began to locate the breaches in walls that had been for too long far too effective, little rivers became raging torrents. Torrents became lakes only to overflow banks and continue on their way. The room in which we sat was soon flooded.

This is what it feels like, folks.

In those tears are the very sharp and dangerous shards of the little pokes and snarky words collected over time. In them are the snickers and laughter (not quite accidentally) loud enough for her to hear. In them are averted eyes. In them are greetings not spoken, encouragement not given, respect withheld. In them also are pain of loss, poverty, hopelessness, worry, doubt, fear. In them are also many other powerfully destructive interactions which cannot bear being named.

Riding atop the tumultuous waves is the will to continue of this person. It looks fragile, so very fragile, by comparison. Yet it has survived.

When you knowingly and deliberately add to the pressure of the burdens the tears of this young woman represent, you are doing her harm.

When you allow, or worse yet instigate, behaviors designed to encourage others to do harm to this person, culpability lies at your feet. Guilt lies heavy on your shoulders. Do you feel the weight of that unholy mantle?

You will never see the tears. You will never feel what you wreak so heedlessly in this young woman. It is not to you she will come when those tears can no longer be stifled.

Around us roils the tumult of emotions of others, the ones that are beginning to leak out past the too strong walls. That you are impervious is no doubt a blessing to you. Were you actually able to experience the devastation of the environment you have wrought, it would overwhelm you. It often threatens to overwhelm me, and I’m not even the guilty party here.

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

You created the circus. It IS your circus; they ARE your monkeys.

Fortunately the young woman of this post did manage to hang on to her will to continue. The effects of that long ago time linger - they have tended to make her stronger over the years.

So really what are you accomplishing? 

In this case, motivating one of your monkeys to escape. 

In other cases perhaps more dangerously effective consequences could have resulted. 

For all you know (or care) your choices may well have contributed to (or directly caused) permanent harm to another.

Not your circus? 

If you create the circus, they are your monkeys.

Own it.

Taking a Stand

We see things on line all the time, inspirational ditties, encouraging photos, touching stories, and we share the heck out of them, hoping their messages are getting through to the people who need to hear them.

I write books. 

So what, you want to know.

So what?

For me the words I write, and especially the ones I publish, reflect something inside of me - they aren't just words to fill up dialogues in scenes.

So if I'm faced with a situation where I have to make a decision, my own words haunt me. The Characters of those books take their stands again and again and again because it's the right thing to do.

Every time we see some little thing that one person is doing to harm another in any way, whether it's name-calling, belittling, physical, or any other kind of mean thing, we get a chance to prove ourselves. Nobody is likely to know the difference if we choose to just let it go, pretend we didn't hear or see or know, and sweep it under some rug in our mind. It's a personal, private, choice.

The thing about that is this:  Every time we let something go, we're just strengthening the guilty and our silence adds to the harm. When a person has been hurt and nobody stands up for them, what message do you suppose they're getting? When a person harms another and nobody stands up to them, what message are they getting? When you let something go, what message are you giving to yourself?

Your answers are your own, for your own self to think about.

Mine are already on the public record. Every time - from the moment Drustann and Alianora took their stand in the very first book of SONG and thought they were all alone, to the unity at the end of DANANN - every one of those times binds me to follow the lead of the Characters I write about.

But, I tell myself, the Characters always have one another. They never have to take their stand all alone. I don't have anyone to stand with me ... so I hesitate. I'm not sure I'll be able to handle being alone if I take a stand.

Well now.

For starters, how alone do you think that person feels, the one who is being harmed while nobody comes to stand up for them? If I stand up for them, they are no longer alone and neither am I. A third person might see us standing together and come to stand with us. Another one might see our little group and come too.

Lots of time, even just one person taking a stand alongside of another will be more than enough to make a bully stand down. Add another to the equation, and another, and another ... the message becomes clear. We don't behave that way here. We tell you 'NO' and we mean it. You will not harm others.

One person alone who believes nobody will come to stand up for them is likely to just keep on taking whatever gets dished up to them. Fear is a paralyzing thing, something that can and does and will keep a person from standing up for himself or herself.

I tell you this: you cannot advise someone to 'stand up for yourself' and then turn and walk away. Unless you are ready, willing, and able to take your own stand alongside of them you'd best keep your yap shut and go hide in a hole somewhere because you've just done harm to someone already hurt. You have swept them under the rug along with whatever else you have deemed rubbish.

Who among us has never felt all alone, hurt and afraid, thinking that even if anyone knew they wouldn't come to stand up for us?

Hmmm?

I've felt that way and I bet you have too at least once in your life.

What would you have given for even the hope of one person standing up for you?

If by chance someone in your life has once stood up for you, you are bound by that person's choice to choose likewise when it comes your turn to either take a stand or stand aside.

The Characters of SONG are not creations of a fertile imagination. They are based on people I have known and now know.

From DANANN:
"... believe you me, we intend to ... put a stop to this ... "
"What if it's dangerous?"
"Then it's dangerous. We will do what we have to do when we have to do it. Our ... own ... will not be treated thus, not if we can help it."

The above words are not a direct quote from any particular person of my acquaintance. They are a distillation of the essence of the determination of many I've been lucky to have known ... and in direct opposition to others who want only to sweep things under a rug already lumpy with what's under it, to minimize, sugar-coat, ignore.

Yeah.

See, the problem with sweeping things under that rug is that they stay there. Eventually they build up and make lumps under the rug, and grow into big wrinkles and such that people trip over, even the ones who swept them under there. It gets to where people don't want to risk walking on that rug for fear of what all's under it. They can't see it but they feel it.

Sometimes it's little things; sometimes it's important stuff ... whichever, the accumulation is inevitable and so is the fact that one day the rug will have to be taken up for cleaning.

Every time we let something slide, every time we stand aside, every time we look away we're adding to the collection that's growing under our rug. And we begin to stumble over the lumps and wrinkles.

Comes a day when it's time to clean house, folks. All of those things we so carefully swept aside under the rug, they're going to be a foul find indeed.

One day I'm going to have to clean under that rug and I will find all those things I let slide, I'm going to see all of the times I stood aside, and I'm going to see all the times I looked the other way.

And so are you.

So are you.

I know I'm guilty. Mea Culpa. I can't change the past, but I can stop sweeping stuff under that rug today. 

For once, just for one time, let today be the day that you don't let it slide, you don't stand aside, you don't look the other way.

'What if it's dangerous?'
'Then it's dangerous.'

'Do what you have to do when you have to do it.'

One day you might be the one all alone. Be the person who chooses to stand up for someone else, because one day you will be that someone else. Do you want to be swept under a rug?

Huh? What?

Before we begin, I must make it clear that my own personal Faith is based on the Holy Trinity: the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In no way is the following to be construed as anything except a part of my own journey as I seek Guidance from the One who does the Guiding. My religious education may be searched; my Faith is quite very secure. There is but One God. Each and all of us human beings are Mind, Body, and Spirit, in the likeness of God. On this my Faith stands.

I just read two articles of interest to me. The first is a blog post about a young person deeply affected by thoughts of Hell ...

The other one showed up in a related comment and has something to do with the validity of Hell. 

Both are worth looking at, but I kind of fail to grasp the real connection between the two, to be honest. 

I'm no scholar of any kind, let along a Biblical one. I've read it, and my father was a Southern Baptist Preacher, so I heard plenty about it growing up, but I'm by no means an expert.

Being as I'm an alleged 'grown up' now, and me being me, I went looking for answers in more educated minds than my own.

" Does the word hell appear in the Bible " is the question I wanted an answer to.

And I was shocked out of my Baptist-trained mind at what I found.

Look it up, my friend. That's the best advice I can give you. 

My next question was in reaction to my discoveries.

Me being me, I wanted to know where on earth Hell came from, since it didn't come from the Bible.

Here's another link that I found interesting. I've got thoughts that go along with it and might get to them here, or save them for another post, or both ...

" Development of Hell " didn't come along until Jesus had long since been born, lived, died, lived again, and went on up to Heaven. Hell was not in the vocabulary of Jesus, nor in His teaching, and most certainly not the Hell we've been raised to fear. Jesus never threatened anyone with eternal hell-fire. Ever. Not once. 

Look it up, my friend. That's the best advice I can give you.

And here I will insert an aside.

Here's a quote from the above link:

'... The Jewish Yeshua and those in the Jerusalem church, especially James, Yeshua's brother, held a traditional conception of the Messiah. The Messiah would be a man, perhaps descended from David, who would be anointed by God to rout the occupying army, the Romans, and establish an earthly kingdom ... '

I've only just this moment had the following 'ah-ha!' moment.

As a part of the research for the Mamm Books, the change-over from the Roman Empire to the future Holy Roman Empire demanded some looking into as it is pivotal to the development of the SONG series. And I connected the dots between the survival (and widespread growth) of the early 'Jesus Movement' despite Rome's best efforts to annihilate it, Rome's subsequent toleration, and finally its adoption of this tenacious Faith - which just so happened to 'coincide' with the 'fall' of the Western Roman Empire.

There were plenty of factors at play during that whole time span. It's just my own thought patterns that lead me to say, 'God works in mysterious ways, and it is not for us to know the mind of God.'

Me being me, in the fiction I write, behind the assortment of 'barbarian' peoples who ultimately brought the Western Empire to its knees was indeed a 'conspiracy' of a sort. It was led by those who saw the 'politicizing and militarizing' of their Faith as a threat to its true and original meaning. Our fictional Characters, who historically had no reason to much like what Rome had dished out (tried to) to their people so far, weren't overly trusting of this new interpretation of the Faith they had been celebrating for centuries. 'Rome has replaced her legions with priests and her governors with bishops,' was their take on it and they wanted no part of it.

And what on God's green earth does this stuff have to do with Hell?

Nothing.

There was no such concept in the teachings of Jesus, nor in anything anywhere at the time that the foundations of the Faith of the Characters of the Mamm Books would been laid. What references there were came from belief systems to which our Characters would not have adhered in the first place and so would most surely not have been part of their Faith.

And so I have to conclude that 1) the second of the above links, while no doubt the author sincerely believes what he says, is based on absolutely zilch that makes any sense, and 2) the author of the first of the above links has been, like many generations of us, tormented by something that has no basis in reality, and 3) people need to be taking a closer look at what they 'believe'.

Pointing fingers is a pointless exercise at this point. The fabrication occurred so long ago that the statute of limitations has long expired, along with the fabricators. The effects ... those have lingered ... but there are no living feet of flesh and blood at which we can lay the blame. Just because a hundred or more generations have believed something does not necessarily make it true.

When I was a kid, the grown ups used to ask us, regarding peer pressure, 'If they all jumped off a cliff would you jump too?'

So does this mean that Hell is no longer a cuss word?