I See The Stars ...

Then sings my soul ...

Security

Too long ago now, I worked at a casino in Cripple Creek, Colorado (USA).

There hasn't been a moment since I left that I haven't missed it, some times a lot more than others, but there's always a hole nothing else can fill.

Not having been a patroness of casinos in general, it was a new world for me and I was extremely fortunate to find myself a home at Johnny Nolon's. I'm a writer but, you know, I'm not sure there are words to describe exactly what that place - even more, the 'family' - means to me even now years past. It was home; we were family. 

But before I get all maudlin I'll get to the point of this post (I heard that 'whew'!)

One of the things I wasn't sure I would be comfortable with was the security.

A small town girl just isn't used to being on camera ALL THE TIME. Not just one camera, mind you - I worked in what they refer to as 'the cage', and there were like five cameras on us at all times, from all different angles. Hunter, in his lair, kept an eye on scads more than just those. The whole place was under his beady eyes. Floor security people roamed around as well, adding their human eyes to the electronic ones monitored by Hunter in his lair.

As it turned out I soon almost forgot about the cameras. Fretting about the perfection of my hair or whether or not my shirt was tucked in straight didn't last long. There was way too much else to focus on.

One day I'll post stories about some of the things Hunter and his electronic eyes came in handy for, but not tonight I think.

Tonight I'm thinking about the times since then that I've sorely missed those all-seeing eyes. You would think they would feel intrusive but it wasn't like that at all. They did indeed provide us with security. When I finally moved up to the Crick after having had a LOOOONG commute, I found myself appreciating the fact that those cameras kept an eye on me almost all the way home. I lived directly across the street from the Johnny Nolon's parking lot and Hunter could see me safely home from the comfort of his lair. There's a significant reassurance in that.

I didn't quite realize how much I had come to depend on Hunter and his electronic eyes, and the sense of security they provided, until I wanted to confirm something at a subsequent job and got blank stares when I asked about the cameras. Oh. Oh yeah. Duh. Dang. WTH

There have been a lot more than a few times I've missed those eyes, I tell you true.

I've also missed having security personnel around, just in case. As a general rule those guys (and gals) were more prevention than intervention but if/when needed they were BANG right there within seconds. And I'll tell you something: if Big John and Zeus (not his real name but if the shoe fits wear it sez I and that man could have easily filled the boots of Zeus) suggested that a person leave the premises post-haste, said person wasn't likely to stop to debate the meaning of the word 'haste'.

Now I have Duke, a big White Shepherd.

He's darned handy. Never in his life started a fight or indulged any other dog who wanted one (although I have to say no dog ever pushed the issue too hard), never threatened anybody unless you call a bit of a warning growl a threat. 

When we travel he gets lots of attention because he's flat out a gorgeous animal - but unless I said so nobody ever got too close, either. Just sayin'. Nice and sweet as he is, he does have that look about him, the one that says, 'Take care now, okay?' 

So at home or when we're out and about I'm well protected. But Duke isn't Hunter, nor does he have as many eyes, nor is he allowed to accompany me to work.

Yeh.

Kinda miss that kind of security at times I do.

I miss a lot of things about Johnny Nolon's and try not to think about it too much or too often as it tends to make me weep.

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?

William Carlos Williams 1883-1963

“The Red Wheelbarrow”

so much depends 
upon 

a red wheel 
barrow 

glazed with rain 
water 

beside the white 
chickens

2015 09 07

2015  09  07
1500

A few days of high stress and intense emotional trauma leaves me feeling as though I've taken a physical beating. All I want to do is sleep; heaven knows I didn't get any rest last night.

Begin to Become

Last night I found a comment thread in which someone asked if Pope Francis is 'for real'. The conversation was between others so I simply read it with interest and didn't jump in.

It did, however, spark my brain synapses enough so that I woke up this morning with the question in my mind.

Not being an expert on anything in this world, let alone the Church, all I can do is think about the question, ponder it, patter a bit, and let it be.

I want to say, 'I was raised Baptist and have strong Quaker leanings; what do I care about the Pope?'

But the question, it seems to me, isn't only just about the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

In that question I sense a tentative, fragile, hope.

And it makes my heart ache, it does.

Nobody asks if the Dalai Lama is for real; they don't have to. Buddhism, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, hasn't spent a couple of millenniums trying to bully the world or to rule it. Nobody has to wonder if their leader is 'for real'; they already know he is, even if they've never met the guy.

Me, I would like to meet this Pope Francis.

Why?

Well, because I'm curious, too.

And I'm INFJ, a 'people reader' so to speak.

Not that it matters, not really.

Still, it would be nice to find out for myself if the man is 'for real'; he is perhaps a very good actor on the stage of our world; maybe he's a 'puppet pope'; maybe he's ambitious and happens to have a glib tongue. On the other hand, it may well be that he sincerely has a grasp on what Jesus really meant by what He said way back when and truly does want to see that (finally) begin to become 'for real', the way it was supposed to have been all along.

Again, it doesn't really matter. Although it would be nice to find in this man the essence of the Holy Spirit, it isn't particularly required.

Don't jump all over me for saying that. We live in a politically charged world and we are polarized whether we would will it or no. Most people aren't going to really deep down give a hoot if this guy is 'holy' or not. 

They (we) want to see positive changes happening; we want something, someone, to believe in. Unfortunately for Jesus (or maybe He planned it this way who knows) His people seem to have acquired characteristics which may not be altogether in tune with His instructions. When the head of 'His' biggest and most powerful Church comes across in such a positive way that people find themselves asking : This Pope Francis, is he for real? : another question rises. Why the suspicion? And the answer to that is writ large in all of the history books.

But we do not have the past.

We live in the present.

Whether Pope Francis is himself 'for real', his words and actions are. The world in which we live can wonder all they want about the man. What is not in question is the message he seems to be trying to convey. What a challenge it must be for him, after so many centuries of hurt and pain and controversy, to try to bring Jesus' instructions to fruition. He's swimming against the tide with courage and tenacity.

Whether the Church, weakening for a long time now, has found a new strength we have no way of knowing. Whether it has, at this late date, finally come to understand that men cannot be God, we don't know.

And, you know, it honestly doesn't matter. Sometimes things work in strange ways.

People have asked me many times why I sing all the time. They tell me how nice it is to have such a happy person around.

What they don't know is that many times I sing not because I am happy but because I want to become happy. The Song often helps that to begin to become. The 'happy' is in there always; sometimes it needs for me to seek it. And so yeah, I sing. The effect it has on the people who happen to hear and appreciate the Song adds to the 'happy' as it begins to become. Next thing you know I am indeed singing because I am happy. The whole process kind of becomes a habit. It helps to balance the bad that is ever-present and at times threatens to overwhelm.

Anyway, we can't know for sure whether Pope Francis is 'for real', but we can know that the Song we're hearing from him is. Like the people who respond to someone who sings as they work, we respond to this man's Song. 

He is reminding us of something that was supposed to have been always, something we've too many times lost sight of, lost faith in, lost hope for. And deep inside of us we recognize it when we do see it.

And we respond with that tentative, fragile, hope.

Could it be? Against all odds, against the tide of our world, could it be? Might this man truly be 'for real'? Our hope is tentative. It is fragile. But it exists in places within our very selves that we have long forgotten. If this one man, this Pope Francis, might be 'for real' then so too might our hope be 'for real'. And we might actually have a chance of finding it, of hanging on to it, too.

Just as the 'happy' is in there always, waiting for me to seek it, so too does Hope wait within us each and all. 

As we first hear the Song and then begin to sing along, others hear us and their own responses and voices strengthen it - and we together begin to become as we were meant to be. 

Do not, deliberately or otherwise, misinterpret my words. I am not advocating a sudden sweeping mass migration to the folds of the Roman Church, believe me I'm not. What I'm saying is to be aware, to seek and find the 'happy', the Hope, that might be dormant inside of you. Sing so others can hear you, even if your Voice, like mine, might not be opera quality. Watch for, listen to, the responses of others - those responses will come and they will make you stronger. As you begin to become what you sing, so too will those around you.

So yes, people, Pope Francis is for real. So is the Dalai Lama. So am I and so are you and so is Hope. Against all odds, against the tide of our world, against all who would crush it, Hope begins to become 'for real'. Nurture it within your own self and it will survive, it will grow, it will spread, it will prevail. If we fail, there will be no balance for our world, and then what?

Grandling on the way!

My daughter finally made her announcement so now I can too!

Come March 2016 my grandling count will get upped to four!

This little old gramma lady is mighty pleased.

*contented sigh*