I stand

I stand

Upon a precipice?
In a queue?
For something so I don’t fall for anything?
On my own two feet?
Thanks to someone who did something for me?
Behind someone who needs support?
Because I learned something?

I stand.

The Purpose of Writing

And so you come here to see what the writer has to say. Does He have an insight in to your problem? Does he have comfort and reassurance? Are you looking for his outrage, anger, disgust to wallow in for your emotional pleasure?

You need to understand this, a writer is not simply a monkey pounding on keys, slapping words on a page for some external goal, like a paycheck or banging groupies. A writer is not a celebrity nor a prophet nor a prancing show animal. A writer is someone seeking to get words out of the headspace and out on to a page for reflection. The writer has a storm of concepts, idea and emotions whirling around in their brain. They manifest as glimpses of action, snatches of scenes or half formed soliloquies that sound good with in the confines of their brain space.  

 
Once out of the confines of the brain space, the words show up on a page, or a computer screen. The process of reflection starts up. Did she really mean “sexually hot for her teddy bear” or is that just a way of saying she wants to go back to the visceral enjoyment of childhood? The words are out there, on the page, sitting. They are put there by a writer who slapped the letters on a keyboard with or without the intent, innuendo, inflection, impression, comprehension of the reader. It sounded good at the time. Why do you turn away?

 It’s just an idea, unless you work for thought police who have twisted their consciousness to believe “thoughts have consequences.” Just because someone writes “Tom proudly slept twelve hours each night for the remaining sixteen weeks” doesn’t mean that they are encouraging sloth. It doesn’t mean that is a prescription for happiness through slumber. It might just be a reporting of a “fact” or a relaying of words the subject conveyed to them.  How the reader recognizes, hears or comprehends them can be very limited.

The writer is only disruptive to the barren page, putting letters, numbers, symbols and other visual markings on it to arrange their thoughts, then rearrange them and encase them in punctuation and proper emphasis markings based on a culture, maybe not the culture of the reader, or the writer.  The reader then interfaces with this mélange of visual chicanery.  It is in this transportation of idea from writer, creator, arranger  to reader, interpreter, disassembler that mental mischief, skewed perspective, predisposition, bias, ignorance or malevolent reinterpretation occurs and communication between people breaks down.

Then again, I could just be typing this to get it out of my head so I can fall asleep tonight.

Poem for the day

There Are Days

by Paul Ewert

There are days that I want to curl up in a ball

And lie still, quiet and do nothing at all.

Feel the hurts inside my head

Rolling around in misery, despair and dread.

 

Then it occurs to me that this is exactly

What my assailants wanted to do to me.

To put me down, degrade me

make me less than human

 

To give in and accept defeat, allows them to win

To continue to stuff my humanity in

To deny my beauty, my strength, my mind, my heart

Let’s them trip me up as each day starts.

 

Yet the Me that I hold back is the very thing

That they sought to attack.

My life is my own, no one abuses and hurts me

I choose to live my life and break free

 

It has been said that “living well” is the best revenge.

Not allowing a setback to determine my whole life

Not making for me misery and daily strife.

The secret leaks out in my actions and words

But I shall conquer fear, despair and doubt undeterred.

I shall turn the other cheek

Not mocking or damaging the quiet and the meek.

 

For they too have their lives to live,

Their wellness to maintain

Their hearts, minds, beauty and strength

Shining bright possibly burning out an emotional stain.

 

I am but one being, one gift from God

Who had been through much

And down many paths have trod.

Those things have been exposed to my soul

My bright, strong, helpful, compassionate soul

I can only see what I have around me,

But my actions have consequences

And I make them to be the best

Not only for myself, but for others

Who have passed me by

And go bouncing and interacting

In my wake.

 

Let the bright days begin

Pass the sorrows and fears in to the refuse bin.

For my heart fills with joy

My mind with fills with peace

My humanity again blooms

Because Life will never cease.

 

About your life. Random inspired reflection

Once you die, you are prohibited from adding actions to your biography, the story of your life. What is left in your passing is the reiteration and repetition of descriptions of the actions you took and your stated reasons for doing so.

When you die, when you stop living, your life changes from biography, the nonfiction recounting your life's actions and events, to fiction, the interpreted retelling of your life with the translation through myriad of voices passing it along.

You no longer have input about what your words and actions mean to you. Your words and actions become the grist for others to do and say things. Those people may say that you made a statement but the meaning of your statement is filtered through the motivations, intentions and desires of those persons passing along that statement. So it is for the common person, so it is for the prophet.

This is the danger of time; the danger of change. Humanity discovers new things and processes. The beliefs and opinions of past generations must be adapted, altered, tailored to current events and items. The brand of car that would have been driven by Mohammed or Jesus is irrelevant, but the respect given by the driver to others and the reciprocal respect given by others to the driver can be found by reflecting on writings found in Sacred and Holy writings pertaining to each prophet. Most notably and respectively the Qur'an and Holy Bible.

The intention of the reflectant must be set aside to understand the universal truths of humanity.

Random thought on God.

We can define God as the Unknown, the Unseen or the Unreal, but we cannot define God as the Imperceptible. If we take the time and are able to alter, change or break our current perceptions, then we can feel that God is with us the way we feel our spouse, children or colleagues enter a room when our back is to the door.  We know that something has changed and if we shift our focus, or turn around, something will have changed.

It's not you.

People look at me
Ask what'm I gonna do
I stop, Look at 'em
Say 'Oh no, not you"

People look at me
Ask what'm I gonna do
I stop, Look at 'em
Say 'Oh no, not you"

People look at me
Ask what'm I gonna do
I stop, Look at 'em
Say 'Oh no, not you"

People look at me
Ask what'm I gonna do
I stop, Look at 'em
Say 'Oh no, not you"

The real "threat" of gay marriage.

Well, same-sex partners who are legally married are eligibloe for federal benefits in the same way as heterosexual couples. It is a real no brainer for people who believe in equal protection under the laws of the United States of America. After all, the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  The Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 clearly established a bias against same-sex/homosexual couples. "Section 2. Powers reserved to the states. No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.Section 3. Definition of marriage In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife." 

The definition of marriage in DOMA singles out one type of marriage union, that of a man and woman. The union of a man and woman is also the only natural biological way people can reproduce. It takes a man's "stuff" and a woman's "stuff" to conceive a child. It is also the sexual behavior encouraged by majority religions. However not all religions solely recognize men & women. Other religions have vague definitions of appropriate sexuality or address "proper sexual behavior" head on. These are religions that focus on the spirit rather than the organization of the religious congregants. It is the classic "spirituality religion" versus "organized religion" clash. 

This spiritual church versus organizational church clash is where it bigotry in religion falls apart. While not everyone fits in to nice neat spiritual boxes, the organizational church wants people to fit in to their rules. Even those that admonish that "God works in mysterious ways" look for people to act and behave within their organizational rules. It makes "running the church" easier for those who can't, or chose not to, acknowledge conflicts arising from the spiritual teachings and maintaining an orderly organization. 

This definition of marriage in DOMA establishes a respect for the "organized religion" while prohibiting the free exercise of "spiritual religion." Period.

The antagonistic alarmists love to raise questions about what else might be covered as "free exercise of religion", but all I hear is people who want to keep their behaviors in line with what an organization has told them.The antagonists are looking for proper ways to behave and can't fathom how other people can go through their church and come up with different answers. They want to stick their noses in other peoples' business and then try to force those people back in line with the organization religion. They don't consider the spiritual pain or anguish they inflict on  others just to keep their organization religion in their sense of order. 

This need to control the behavior of others is the threat. Going beyond my understanding of what God, or however I define a greater power than myself, and defining how I should behave according to someone else's definition of God. Placing the outside influences on myself above my own understanding derived from my experiences, thoughts and understandings. 

Antagonistic alarmists are afraid that their attempt to force heterosexual marriage on unconvinced groups of people will result in a backlash. Since they used force to try to achieve their goals, they are afraid that they will be forced to engage in homosexual behaviors regardless of their beliefs. They are afraid that they will have to take their own "medicine" as it were. 

In summation, the real threat of Gay Marriage isn't people of the same sex being involved in a committed relationship. The real threat is that people will be emotionally and thoughtfully assaulted to change their beliefs and actions; people will be bullied to change and further bullied if they don't conform to the changes.