Focusing

Yes I am finally getting my groove thing together and coming to the two reasons I built this blog.

Reason 1: To talk about myself. Because I am (slightly) self-centered and enjoy speaking about, you guessed it, ME! :D

Reason 2: To talk about spirituality. I am a somewhat new-agey character, and am always wanting to relate my latest spiritual experience. Sadly we don't talk about that sort of thing too often in casual conversation so that is why I am here, writing. To talk about it. Because I want to. So deal, okay?

Sooo...

Last night (technically early this morning) I had a very clear, wonderful prayer meditation. I was able to fully empty my mind of thoughts and I felt the Holy Spirit come upon me.

For me meditation has always been more about prayer than saying "ommm", in fact I feel it is a much better name for it. But when you say prayer people tend to think of sitting in church, not sitting in the lotus position in the shower. So oftentimes I call it meditation to avoid confusion, but it has always been an intensely divine experience for me. I am more at one with the universe, with the All, then than anywhere else.

You can feel the energy (I think of it as the Holy Spirit) from the All, from God, from Jesus, from whatever you want to name it, pouring into you. Filling you up like water pouring into an empty glass. Everything seems intensely clear and simple then. I often burst into laughter at this point in the meditation because all of the worries and problems of life seem so strange, so out of place, so completely ironic. Irony is a type of humor appreciated across the universe I think.

So yeah...Awesome time last night, I love talking about my experiences, I hope you enjoy reading this. ;)

Ships Logs #1

What follows is the troubled tale of a ship's captain in his quest to go cold turkey from caffiene. Reader ye have been warned.

Captain's Log: 11/29/10.

Third day without caffeine. Headaches have diminished and throat is no longer dry. Sense of smell slowly returning to pre-caffeine levels; must investigate further.

Crew upset, there is talk of a spirit on board.The men have taken to only going in pairs during the watch. I have ordered an extra share of grog for all the men to help ease their minds.

Crew's Response:

3 crewmembers liked this. 

 Able-Bodied Sailor Alston: "There's only one option. Take on water!"

***

Captain's Log: 11/30/10.

Up early, working on my papers. 4th day without caffiene. Back of my throat tastes like poison. Possible side-effect? Also had zit on the top of my foot. Who gets a zit on the top of their foot anyways?

Spirit sighted again by crew, I will be taking the evening watch myself to see if there is any truth to this tale.

Discourse with Captain

First Mate Ardmore: " ‎...ewwwwww.. lol :P"

Captain: Captain's Addendum: zit may be possible side-effect of being regularly befuddled by a certain girl. :P"

First Mate Ardmore:  "Pfft I'm made out of vitamins and phytochemicals and other healthy things..I cure zits, not cause them. :P"

Captain:  "The zit got confused and ended up where it shouldn't have. Clearly it got befuddled."

First Mate Ardmore: "Well not by me! :P"

***

 Captain's Log: 11/30/2010 (evening)
I've seen the spirit that has been haunting the crew! A most befuddled ghost, it called me Hamlet and told me there was trouble in the house of Denmark. I was obliged to show him my world map and point him towards Europe.

No caffeine still. Sinuses continue to flucuate. Weak work out at gym today. Remarkably I have gained no weight over Thanksgiving.

Crew's Response:

1 crewmember liked this.

***

Captain's Log 12/8/2010:

Caffeine freedom ended sometime yesterday. The ship's supply of Prozac was depleted and the crew was forced to being consuming the Dr. Pepper. I was amongst them. As a result we had the largest night-watch in history, over half the crew.

Must find new supply Prozac lest the entire crew and myself... drink too heavily of the caffeine once more, it may result in mutiny...

Discourse with Captain:

Able-bodied Sailor Walker: "Couldn't you have Prozac and Caffeine? hehehe"

Captain:  "Captain's Addendum:

That would be detrimental to my quest to end my caffeine addiction. Sadly I self medicated after lack of a certain prescription so I wouldn't fall into a depression.

The resulting crash afterwards has dissuaded me of thinking that the theory has any merit."

 

They pissed me off, so i'm writing about the bastards.

I friend recently confided in me about some sexually harassing comments that had once been said to them. Other friends in the past have told me stories of how they have been used, mistreated, and shamed by friends, family, and strangers alike. I also recently read a story about how the runner-up for America’s Next Top Model had been raped by her friends after she was intoxicated at a party.

Her friends did this. Oh, and to add insult to injury the entire party didn’t do anything, they just stood by recording it with their cell-phones. That’s right, they recorded it and drank beer while they raped their friend. When I hear stories like this I want to explode. Part of me wants nothing more than to grab the nearest sharp implement and make a lasting impression with them.

This sheer apathy angers me, the fact that these people care nothing for those around them, the fact that how they are acting may hurt other people doesn’t even occur to them. I remember watching some crime drama back in the day and in it a rapist broke into a house and started to attack a woman. She begged for mercy but he refused to back down, when she shoved him off and grabbed a gun he began to beg for mercy, begging her not to shoot. He begged for the mercy he had previously refused to show.

This is the idea that people are objects, that only your feelings are the real ones and that the souls and welfare of others are not just as much your responsibility as it is theirs. And it is exactly that type of attitude that seems so prevalent at times, especially with the current generations of young men. Perhaps they skipped the class where they taught moral decency? Funny, because somehow I doubt they missed the class where they put condoms on cucumbers.

The truth is we do have a responsibility. And although I cannot understand why it appears that this responsibility is something that people aren’t quite grasping. So let me sum it up so that all the people who don’t quite get it can at last understand.

Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.

Bile

I was a watching a man today I wanted to kill. I kept picturing a knife running along the edge of his scalp and down his face, I could see the skin separating and pulling back. I imagined slowly chopping off his fingers with pruning shears. I didn’t know him, he merely irritated me.

How dark have I become?

All thoughts I seem to have lately are negative. Especially those about myself; after fighting to earn self-esteem I am once again back in the red. I hate myself once more, loathing seeps out of my every pore like a thick soup. Why? Why now, why like this, why me, why do I hate as I do?

What is it within me that worms its way back into my mind after I banish it for the umpteenth time, what is it that slowly secretes its way through my neurons and into my heart like a poisonous ooze? It pumps through my veins, heavy like mud and black as tar.

What is its name?

It tells me I have failed, that I am not a hero.

Not a hero.

I haven’t changed the world, I haven’t fixed any wrongs, I haven’t supported my family, saved a man’s life, opened the eyes of the blind, or fought fiercely for what I believe in. I am not a hero.

And that is killing me, slowly but surely it is killing me. Do I dare measure and compare myself to those people? Do I hold myself to their standards? Yes, I do and I don’t know why. And so I am dying on the inside, as this self-hate for my incompetence, my failure supersedes all other emotion. Slowly it taints my mind, turning the world darker around me. Tunnel-vision is setting in, it is only a matter of time before I am focused entirely on my own failings.

So now, desperate, I attempt to extract the poison. Pass me the scalpel.

-M. Powers

I can't help what I won't talk about

I need to talk. These thoughts and arguments have been bouncing off the inside of my head for several weeks now and I can't help but think that if I just put them down to where I can read them it may all make sense.

Somehow I doubt it though.

There has been a recent rash of suicides across the United States. Or perhaps I should say that there has been a rash of "publicized" suicides across the United States. In particular there was 18 year old Tyler Clementi, an up and coming violinist at Rutgers University in New Jersey; 13 year old Seth Walsh from central California; and 13 year old Asher Brown from Houston

Tyler jumped off the George Washington Bridge succumbing to the ice-cold river. Seth hung himself up from a tree in his backyard, he died nine days later in the hospital. Can you imagine his parents finding him like that, strung up by his own hand and swaying in the wind? And Asher? Well Asher took a gun and shot himself in the head. A 13 year old boy shot himself in the head.

All these boys had one thing in common, they were harrassed, abused, and mistreated for being gay.

Tyler's room-mate left a hidden camera in their dorm room and broadcast Tyler making out with another man via the internet. Seth and Asher were both harassed at school by their classmates. Telling them that they were worthless, that they were lesser, and filling their ears with all sorts of evils.

That makes me mad.

I have a great many conservative friends who think that homosexuality is immoral in someway, and I have wanted to stay quiet so as to preserve those friendships. But even as my own conservative leanings tell me that I disagree with the homosexual lifestyle, I know in my heart that what has happened to these boys is a far greater sin. And I cannot help but feel guilty in some small way for not speaking my mind on the subject till now.

I do not know what it is like to be a homosexual and suffer this sort of mistreatment. While I endured my own fair share of teasing in grade-school it could not compare. And the more I think about it, the more disgusted I become. To drive a person to that point is wrong. To attack a human being, your brother or sister, your kin, your FAMILY, is wrong.

 I find people quoting the book of Ephesians from the bible to me rather frequently when the subject comes up. The talk about how explicit it is in regards to homosexuality; as if that somehow justifies the wrongdoings of others.

I wonder how well those people remember the story of the good samaritan. In it Jesus confirms to us to "love thy neighbor as thyself", and when asked "Who is my neighbor" he relates the story of the good samaritan.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

 ²⁵On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  ²⁶"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"
 ²⁷He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'^[a]; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'^[b]"
 ²⁸"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
 ²⁹But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
 ³⁰In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³²So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two silver coins^[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'
 ³⁶"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
 ³⁷The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
      Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise." ----------Luke 10: 25-37

It was not the holy man, nor the fellow practioner of religion, but the man who was deemed by the Jewish people to be a sinner who was this man's neighbor. I can understand a desire to adhere to religion, but whose words are greater in your eyes? Those of Paul's? Or Jesus? I am not anyone of importance, but I watch and I listen. I hear the words that are said, I see the comments left scattered across the internet. I am saddened by this lack of regard for one another.

I dislike quoting the Bible. And I wish hadn't had to bring it into this; spirituality is something that is inherently private. It is not something that should become embroiled in the happenings of every-day life so openly. But I feel like these points must be raised. And I cannot help but wonder who I would be if I did not speak up.

Call me a fool if you must, but this may be wisdom. That life isn't given by chance, so who are we to criticize how others use it? Are we so holy? So superior?

I certainly don't feel that way.

Goodnight and good day.

-M. Powers.

P.S.

Ellen hits the nail pretty close on the head. Maybe I should actually start watching day time television?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br7nbQSIyhg

A New Hope

I have a friend. I am sure many of you can relate.

This friend has a blog, she is self-confident, a self-starter, and successful in most people's definition of the word. I envy her a fair amount, not as much as I like and respect her, but a fair amount nontheless. So in an attempt to jump-start my life into overdrive I have decided to look past the social conventions of a "think twice before you speak" lifestyle and voice my opinion. Too often I have thought twice and committed the far greater sin of not being true to myself.

Truth is a funny thing that way, it can make you and it can break you. So many people want us to be truthful with them. My sister (along with her role-model Dr. House) would say this is false, that people want us to lie to them and just say that this lie is the truth. I want to expect the best in people but I can't help myself occasionally agreeing with them in silence.

I believe we live in a lie, that we have so much invested in maintaining that lie that when the truth begins to tear down the walls of the world we have made we do everything we can to fix it. To get things "back to the way they were." You know what I am talking about, you have said those words along with every other soul on the planet. All of us have wanted things to go back to the way they were, back before they got complicated, back when we were happy, back before everything went wrong.

We get stuck, we feel like we are fumbling around in the dark looking for a replacement lightbulb. We can flip the switch and illuminate our world after a great deal of effort in replacing the bulb, but eventually that bulb will burn out again and we will be back where we started. Trying to regain that single glimpse of the room that surrounds us.

We are slaves. Slaves to our minds, our thoughts, our preconceptions of what life should be. And few people are more manacled than I. I am not saying I have had some epiphany and am choosing to enlighten you, I am saying the weight of my chains is so heavy that I cannot help but notice them.

I look at people I know and I see the lies in their lives. I try and say something, sometimes they hear me, othertimes I might as well be talking to a brick wall, usually I just do more harm than good. I can see how we are tied to our ideas, our notions about what we need to survive, what life is suppossed to be about. But in the end we do know the truth deep in our hearts. We realize that eventually we will run out of replacement bulbs altogether and be forced to move on. To get on with our lives.

Because the truth is, we can never go back.

 -M. Powers