All I want for Christmas is my two back teeth

Okay, so I was blessed to get a 12/23/14 dentist’s appointment at 2:00 p.m. for the searing pain that was filling the right side of the roof of my mouth.  There was one tooth – a back molar – that was clearly tender, but there were no signs of cavities, so I figured it a gum got infected when I ate pork (couldn’t resist it at Otto’s Brauhaus) & had spread. 

Not that I wasn't already without serious teeth issues.  I have a large cavity in a lower right molar & the same molar on the other side is completely gone.  Reality check - when there is no money for dental care, there are no options.

Mind you, I had a plan.  It turned out to be a pipe dream, but I did have a plan.  Had heard that dental care would be included as part of Obamacare.  Figured it would cover a good portion & I’d seek support from our local community welfare fund to cover the remainder.

Hey!  There’s a community welfare fund?  Why not just request help right off the bat?

Here is the truth about private institutions rather than government providing assistance to folks without health care coverage.  When it comes to health care coverage, mine has been a riches to rags story.  I went from having the Cadillac of health care plans when I worked at US Healthcare & Prudential & BISYS Financial Services to COBRA to, for the past 12 years, none.   Over the past years, our wonderful local welfare fund has helped twice with root canal work.  But what message would that sense the Universe if I made it my fall-back funding?  Third time was not, for me, an option.  If I have to explain that to you, I can't - you understand it or you don't.  

 When the cavity on my now decayed away tooth appeared, the Affordable Care Act was in the wind, then passed.  All I had to do was wait.  Was that foolish?  Yes, but when you have as little money as we had back then, what seems sound to those with might not seem as rock solid to one without. 

Then, two things happened – it turned out that we didn’t make enough post-tax money to qualify for the ACA & my state’s (PA) Republican governor chose to not expand our Medicaid program.  So, today, am still uncovered.  And Dr. Krevitz told me on Tuesday that private dental plans are usually not very good, in any case.

Please pardon my long prelude to explaining that I suspected an infected gum when I went into see Dr. Krevitz.  Flaming periodontal disease, not gone, baby, gone teeth.  I did not expect to discover that my two back upper molars are basically decayed to nothingness.  Sure, they looked fine - they were my capped teeth! 

Of course, regular dental exams, like I had most of my life, would have revealed the damage.  The weird thing is that the pain wasn’t like tooth decay.  I know the pain I have from the lower right molar, the incredible pain with the long gone lower left molar.  It felt like a tender gum, not a cavity.  So I was shocked at Tuesday’s discovery.

Feeling blessed that Dr. Krevitz – covering for my “usual” excellent dentist – and his staff were so caring & tender in their treatment of this wayward patient.  There wasn’t even a suggestion of a raised eyebrow or arch tone in talking to me.  Totally focused on my well-being. 

While Dr. Krevitz handles his own extractions, the teeth are too far gone for even that, so he referred me to an oral surgeon with strict instructions that I get them removed within the next three weeks.  He filled out prescriptions for penicillin & Tylenol with codine, then sent me on my way, best wishes for a Merry Christmas ringing in my ears from him & his wonderful staff. 

Interesting place to be.  To my surprise, two teeth I never suspected of being decayed need to be removed by a top-flight oral surgeon.  Which translates into cost of the surgery, the related drugs, and time lost from eldering for the procedure & recovery. 

I was about to write “On the up side…” but then realized that ALL of the past year, even this, has been clearly on the up side.  We have enough money in the bank to cover our next tax installment and next Tuesday’s car inspection, with even a little wiggle room.  We continued 2013’s upward trend & feel confident that 2015 will see our income streams flow even more strongly.  

This current situation wouldn't surprise the ab fab Barbara Sher, who, with Stephen Covey, was my earliest author-mentor.  She warns that when you set out on a bold path, one that promises to lead to important places, expect all sorts of obstacles to rise up, doing their best to distract & deter.  In the religion of my birth, it's called the hells attacking - set out on an important task & expect all manner of problems to hit.  

Barbara & those teachings are in utter agreement - the more important a goal, the more intensely you can expect whatever negative forces are out there to strike back against it.  Sher & Swedenborg would both understand why instead of feeling overwhelmed by my present calamities, am reinforced that my life work is as important as I sense, as essential for the direct well-being of my few grannie clients & the indirect benefits I hope to bring countless more.  Dark forces hit hardest when they feel the most threatened.  So, my response is not woe, but wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

And take a moment to consider the timing - if I hadn't been tempted to order pork rather than a trio of veggie side dishes, then I would have eaten meat on Monday night (was going off my vegetarian diet to join a friend in the Luger-style steak at Pineville Tavern).  The problem with the tooth would have flared late Tuesday - and no dentist was available from late Tuesday afternoon through to next Monday.  By the time I saw Dr. Krevitz, the pain was NOT manageable - would have ended up in the ER.  What a blessing!

But you didn’t seek dental care when you needed it!  Yes, but that is as much about not being employed in a benefits-eligible job as it is about lack of funds.  Without company-sponsored health care coverage, it would have been – until the ACA - beyond my reach, no matter how much I make.  A pre-existing condition would have ruled me out from the very start.  (That’s another posting)   Also, as Dr. Krevitz pointed out, while companies offer good dental plans, private dental plans tend to be expensive while offering less than stellar coverage. 

There are so many things that I could write about this present moment situation, very little about the actual problem ~ ~  about what my situation says about the  American health care delivery system, about the not surprising timing – that as I gear up to request funding to underwrite my elder care anarchy work, this exploded in my face, about how this dental emergency seems proof that my work has me on a divinely inspired path, about the problems behind the premise that private charity works more effectively than government sponsored.   Smiling, realizing that the issues this situation raises most have nothing to do with pain & suffering or even the fret of financing the dental work (remember – there’s still the crater on my lower left & the cavity in the lower right that need attention).

As has happened so many times over the past couple months, I keep wondering why a sense of panic, foreboding, shallow-breath fear hasn’t swept over me.  Wondering about the sense of calm – seemingly so out of place, given the circumstances – that refuses to be supplanted by insecurity & night terrors. Then, it dawns that this it feels like, this grounded calm is the very thing I've consciously worked toward since the dewey-eyed age of 24 - almost forty years! 

Bottom line - my most basic reality isn’t tooth decay.  It’s being on, staying on, moving along a life path that leads to engaging, energizing & empowering all ages – especially older friends. 

I find myself, especially yesterday & today, being guided by a bit of wisdom that has wrapped itself around my heart since childhood – For peace has in it confidence in the Lord, that God leads all things to a good end.  When you believe that – really, truly, deeply & forever – what’s a little tooth decay?  

 Notice the timing, realize it is not accidental, don’t let it distract or discourage, figure out a solution, and keep moving forward! 

All I want for Christmas is my two back teeth – but in lieu of that, will take another dose of pain relievers

Can we handle the truth?

I am fascinated that the president of the NYPD police union believes a statement from NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio contributed to the deaths of Officers Liu & Ramos, slain by someone from Baltimore.  I read it.  Strikes me as a call to consider what is reality for many Americans.  True, it is not rosy.  But it strikes me as right.


Most folks outside of NYC don't know that Bill De Blasio was elected mayor largely due to his promise to reform a police department that intentionally arrests people for "crimes" like jay walking, subway dancing, graffitti, or - in Eric Garner's case - because they suspect them of selling "loosies" (single untaxed cigarettes).  Although he hasn't made much headway in reforming the department, there's been a high level of low to no trust between Gracie Mansion and 1 Police Plaza since Day One of the mayor's administration.  

That's reality.  Let's look at reality in present day America.  A prosecutor handling the most sensitive situation of the year openly admits calling witnesses before a grand jury that he knew were discredited, but did so because "the jury had to hear all the witnesses."  No.  They should only have heard from credible witnesses.  Reality is that there was a video in the case of the death of Eric Garner & the police officer freely admitted the actions he took.  That wasn't enough to bring in an indictment.  It wasn't that prosecutors couldn't get a conviction;  they couldn't even get indictments.  Why is it important to bring such cases to trial?  The facts get to be aired in public, the closest we get these days to transparency.

That's not opinion, that's reality. All Mayor De Blasio did was to share his biracial family's reality.  If his statement created a "firestorm," then maybe it's because people can't handle the truth.   

"This is profoundly personal to me. I was at the White House the other day, and the president of the United States turned to me, and he met Dante a few months ago, and he said that Dante reminded him of what he looked like as a teenager. And he said I know you see this crisis through a very personal lens. And I said to him, I did. 

"Because Chirlane and I have had to talk to Dante for years about the dangers that he may face. A good young man, law-abiding young man who would never think to do anything wrong. And yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face, we've had to literally train him—as families have all over this city for decades—in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.

"And that painful sense of contradiction that our young people see first, that our police are here to protect us, and we honor that, and at the same time, there's a history we have to overcome, because for so many of our young people, there's a fear. And for so many of our families, there's a fear.

"So I've had to worry over the years. Chirlane's had to worry. Is Dante safe each night? There are so many families in this city who feel that each and every night. Is my child safe? And not just from some of the painful realities—crime and violence in some of our neighborhoods—but is safe from the very people they want to have faith in as their protectors.

"That's the reality.

"It conforms to something bigger that you've heard come out in the protests in Ferguson and all over the country. This is now a national moment of grief, a national moment of pain and searching for a solution. And you've heard in so many places, people of all backgrounds utter the same basic phrase. They've said "Black lives matter." And they said it because it had to be said. It's a phrase that should never have to be said. It should be self-evident. But our history, sadly, requires us to say that black lives matter."

None so blind...

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

How many times did Mom say that to us?  I look around this evening & find myself thinking those same words, over & over, in an endless loop.

Two Brooklyn police officers, sitting peacefully in their patrol car, are suddenly shot to death where they sit, so fast neither had time to pull out his service revolver.  

The shooter, from Baltimore, kills himself as police close in.

He claimed it was in retaliation for Eric Garner's death & the grand jury not indicting the policeman who held him in an illegal chokehold, who was filmed ignoring Mr. Garner's eleven cries of distress.

So, the conservative press are blaming Mayor Bill De Blasio, President Obama, and who knows how many other Democrats for the tragedy.  

Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly weighed in with, "When the mayor (Bill De Blasio) made statements about how they had to train his son, who is biracial, to be careful when he’s dealing with the police, I think that set off this latest firestorm."  Seriously?  He does know that the shooter was from Baltimore, not Brooklyn, right?  BALTIMORE.  Not even in the same state. Scary.

As former Mayor Rudi Giuliana told Fox News, "We've had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody should hate the police. I don't care how you want to describe it -- that's what those protests are all about." 

My guess is that Mayor Giuliani faces a challenge troubling many of his fellow conservatives - they see issues in simplistic black & white terms. One reason the GOP has become so powerful is that they've culled moderates from their ranks, leaving a base that tends to see themselves as totally right, making others totally wrong.   They take what President Obama says & turn it into a call for everyone to hate police.  Where did Mayor Giuliani get such a notion?  He doesn't say.  He makes the inflammatory statement without any context.  Amazing.  It is stated on Fox, then reported around the networks & blogosphere.  All emotion, no specifics.  

One problem with people who are used to being fed "dog whistle" words/phrases is that they won't or can't believe others don't too. Please, anyone, show me where the president gave the message we should hate the police? 

For Mayor Giuliani to say so, without context, is alarming shocking scary.  He sees protest as prelude to anarchy.  

The fault lies not in partisan politics, but in a morass of issues BEGGING to be discussed, not swept under the rug by people we should be looking to for leadership, who seem to prefer going berserk to giving actual guidance.  We need people of vision, of integrity & intellect & the imagination to get us out of our Pit of Despair.  What have we got?

simple & straightforward

Last week, a man whose intelligence & depth of world experience I greatly admire said that while torture has always seemed unquestionably beyond the pale, now he thinks differently.  As he explained it, if his home, his loved ones are threatened, then he it is sometimes morally acceptable to use any means possible to protect him.  Including torture enhanced interrogation techniques.

Excuse me, but torture being sometimes okay strikes me as being a little bit pregnant.  It is or it isn't.

Personally, I was raised - by my teachers, faith & family - to believe that torture is never acceptable.  As an adult fast approaching the big 6-5, I am stunned at the reversal in how Americans regard waterboarding & even more horrific forms of torture by our intelligence agencies.  It's more than the impact of 9/11.  It was a shock, but there is more here.  Maybe it is a coarsening of the American spirit.

Things that once would have horrified us now roll over like rain drops over an unbrella.  The architects of an utterly unjustified war, people who misrepresented & lied & fed our country fear like a babysitter bribing children with candy weren't held responsible - Dick Cheney, the darling of Sunday talk shows, makes it clear he'd do it all over again, that even if there was 1% chance that someone had vital information, it was our duty to take whatever means possible to get it out of him.  If it turned out the man was innocent, he's collateral damage in a just safeguarding of freedom & liberty.

Freedom & liberty.  Do we even remember what those words mean?  Or, as some people now claim, that they are AMERICAN values & virtues, ours & ours alone.  

If it is okay for my government to take whatever means necessary to protect our shores & people, then it is okay for anyone to do the same.  The men who brought down the Twin Towers, who slammed into the Pentagon, who ended up in a Pennsylvania field instead of the White House or Capitol, didn't do it simply because we are infidels & need to be wiped off the face of the earth.  Have we, as a country, stepped back to consider what it was about US - rather than other Christian countries - that so deeply stirred their anger & hatred?  Much easier to react from the heat of emotion than to respond with at least a suggestion of wisdom. 

American torture program - to this child of the '60s, that seems the ultimate oxymoron.  It's the OTHER guys who torture, not us.  Never us.  

To me, it's pretty simple & straightforward - the use of torture is okay for everyone or no one.  If that's the new consensus in America - and it seems to be, since the only person who's been held accountable for our use is the whistleblower who brought it to light - then we need to admit that we no longer hold by the Geneva Conventions* (unthinkable in my youth) & that using torture is fair game for any & all.  What we can't do is say that torture is okay sometimes, under some situations & circumstances.   

Our American character is changing in astonishing ways.  State laws make it increasingly difficult for the old, the poor, the urban, the student to vote.  That's not opinion, that's fact.  Corporations share the same rights as an American citizen, without any responsibilities;  they relocate headquarters overseas to avoid US tax laws without loss of perks & tax breaks back home.  The new Congress will include more legislators who feel deeply about passing personhood laws.  We are back peddling to pre-Griswold v. Connecticut, with contraceptives being demonized as another form of abortion.  Creationists, climate change deniers & advocates, union busters, weakening of Wall Street regulations, a growing divide between classes & races, "stand your ground" laws & militarizing our police, a culture that seems to make our personal worlds smaller & more frightening.  These are our DAILY challenges.

Reread that last paragraph.  Is it any wonder that so many just don't care about torture?  They are worn out - emotionally, morally, ethically.  Over six years ago, Barack Obama made his fool-hardy comment about how hard-pressed rural folks cling to their guns & religion.  But he actually said more - "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a ways to explain their frustrations.  

ANTIPATHY - noun, a deep-seated feeling of dislike; aversion.  synonyms include hostility, antagonism, animosity, aversion, animus, enmity, dislike, distaste, hatred, hate, abhorrence, loathing.

I'd say that one word is about as simple & straightforward as it gets in describing of the sense what seems to be gripping our nation at this incredible point in time.  And THAT is scary, because power brokers of every sort love moments like this, when they can so easily turn people against each other.  Or, when it comes to torture, against our better self.  


* For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.   This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Registration - spin span spun

Tonight, driving to the grocery store, as we came up to a stop sign in a neighboring development, John pulled the car all the way over to the left.  I was, naturally, astonished.  Especially since a car was pulling up to the stop sign on our left, signaling to turn right - directly into our car.  

When I asked why he had done such an amazing maneuver, he explained that he thought I'd suggested it to avoid the sharp dip on the right.  To this very moment, hours afterward, part of his brain still believes I suggested it, completely forgets that the way I handle the car-jarring dip is to come to a full stop & proceed v e r y slowly.   

Just now, feeding Gryf the wet cat food that Rennie so dearly craves, I was seated on the toilet, where I had held Gryf when we administered his nightly meds, and John was - I thought - standing outside the door, protecting it from a marauding cat.  Imagine my surprise when not one but two cats burst through the door, Rennie & Lakota, dashing into the room & leaping up on the counter as Gryf leapt down & whisked out the door.  

Naturally, I called out for John.  When he entered the room, I asked, in (admittedly) brittle disbelief, "Did you go into your studio?"

John's answer - "No, I wasn't."  Which stumped me.  He clearly hadn't been by the door.  He could not - could not - answer that he was in the studio.  The words would not form.  He explained that he answered no because he thought I'd asked if he was in the front room.  

My next question - "Did it make any sense for me to ask if you were in the front room?"  John could not give me a yes or no response.  Instead, he went into an explanation of how he heard me say front room.

The front room (formerly Mom's bedroom) is my yoga room & one of the places where the cats hang out.  Me & the cats, not John.  It made no sense that he'd go there.  It made complete sense that he might have popped into the art studio, which is right next door.  Which is where he was, at least until I cried out when Rennie & Lakota disrupted Gryf's meal.  But he could not bring himself to say it made no sense to say the front room.  It's not that he wouldn't, he couldn't.  He could no more bring himself to say that than he could bring himself to say, "I don't know," when he moved into the left lane from the right right before a stop sign.

This is an interesting dynamic that's bedeviled us for over 25 years.  Don't know the roots, don't care.  I do care that his brain works the way it does because it puts me us others at risk.  

If something could possibly put an action of his in a questionable - not even in a wrong, just a questionable - light, his brain swings immediately into back peddle & I am the one responsible for whatever it was, whether telling him the best way to handle a bone-jarring dip is to head into the other lane or asking if he was in a particular room.  Whatever the reality might be just doesn't register.  Like the other day, when he came to a complete stop in the middle of a road & when I asked why answered that he was moving forward - as we sat, dead still.  

I'm not trying to be right, just alarmed that his brain can so completely separate from what is happening.  To say that you are moving when actually at a complete stop is astonishing.  To defend saying it, given the circumstances, is even more incredible.  But what's actually happening just doesn't register.  I can fuss & fume & throw a zillion hissy fits - he still isn't going to get it.  It just doesn't register.  And nothing that HE does is going to change it.  It's not about reason. 
Here's my great hope.  That someday he gets to the point where he stops immediately pointing the finger of responsibility at me.  But in light of the fact that's it would be spectacularly hard for him to do that, since (in my opinion) it springs from subconscious roots, I'd settle for him getting to the point where the situation plays out & is repeated back to him & he can just say, "That doesn't make any sense."  

Because it doesn't.  It didn't when we were at a full stop & he said we were moving forward.  It didn't when I asked why he'd pull all the way over to the left lane from the right - at a stop sign with a car signaling it was going to turn directly into us.  It didn't when he heard me say the front room instead of "your studio."  I don't dispute that he experienced the car moving when we were at a full stop or that he truly thought I'd told him to swing over the wrong lane or that he heard front room.  But not one of the three makes any sense.

Maybe if John gets to the point where he stops rationalizing how he came to do or hear what he truly believes he did & can just step back & say, "That doesn't make sense," maybe then some higher power can step in & change whatever in his subconscious triggers it in the first place.  Maybe it never will.  But I sure do hope that John gets to the place where he can, because it will mean the world to me to at least know that he can detach enough - even if just an itsy bitsy bit - to see how the situation, whatever it might be, just doesn't make sense.  Because, frankly, it's flat-out dangerous.

BELIEVE and PERSIST

If you believe in the very fiber of your being that something is possible, that something calls out to be DONE, don't let doubts get the upper hand, don't let the practical & reasonable drown out the clamoring to make it so.  Persist.  Persist & follow through in every way possible.  Maybe that deep belief won't happen, maybe it will.  But what you DO in its pursuit will forever be a blessing.  So, be irrational & impractical, follow your heart & your beckoning muse.  There are worlds waiting to be conquered by the inspired illogical pioneer!

an unexpected gift

Tomorrow is my oldest brother's birthday.  He will be 76.  I am 62, 14 years & an entire generation younger than Peter.  He graduated from high school in the heart of the Eisenhower administration;  I graduated the year after the Summer of Love.  

Our relationship is...  complicated.

It has always been that way, from the days when he asked Mom why his baby sister had to always talk such drivel to the present here & now.

Had decided a couple months ago to do something special on his birthday.  John & I are taking over his favorite Chinese dinner from his favorite take out place.  Just dropping it off, with a card - I have a history of exasperating him.  Call me cowardly, but would rather not risk getting That Look.

Stopped by Golden Dragon on Wednesday for our own take out & mentioned we'd be coming by on 12/15 & why.  Which was when I received a most unexpected & deeply treasured gift of my own.

The two women behind the counter started talking about their impression of Peter.  How kind he was, how much he cared for others, how he connected with them & their families when he delivered hoagies or pizza for a local pizza place. "We don't even like the food from there that much, but we got it just so we could visit Peter when he delivered it," they said, with huge smiles.

That is the brother I always sensed existed.  The one I got to fully experience over the two or three years - in the mid 1990s - when he was the best sort of brother.  The person who, in my experience, was carefully & as completely as possible buried under layers of something he wasn't, isn't.  

I expected to drop a present by for my brother tomorrow.  I got an unexpected, priceless gift, in return.  About as wonderful as life gets!  

Power of Stupid Beliefs

Oh, the power of stupid beliefs, especially ones that feel part of the very warp & woof of our being, but which seem to be without any apparent origin.  When we can pinpoint origin, we have a better starting point for stepping past the folly of whatever beliefs are driving our lives into the ground.  When there is none, it's harder to know where to start giving it the old heave ho.

I have now bought two laptops that I've never learned how to use.  The first turned out to have a disfunctional mother board; since I never attempted to use it, didn't know that in time to exchange it for one that worked.  All that money, down the drain.  Now, am coming up on the final payment on my current QVC-purchased laptop - a honey of an HP - and have managed to turn it on.  And go no further.  It's Windows 8.1, which intimidates me, but my reluctance to USE what I've spent good money to purchase goes way beyond that excuse.  Something deep inside me, a belief about something that keeps me from doing the most natural thing in the world, puts an icy hand on my heart & screams STOP!  

Weird.

There are a lot of things in my life that clamor to be changed in order to let life work more effectively.  Praise be, have addressed a lot of them & continuing to make fabulous strides in others.  But my computer still sits in the hallway closet, a big, expensive paper weight.  Because something imparted a belief that I can't identify that keeps me from doing something I invested good money in being able to do.  

Which led me to the thought, in the wee small hours of this morning, about racism & prejudice & other stupid beliefs, some of which seem part of the warp & woof of our national being, often without apparent origin.  If it is HARD to get rid of the ones that keep me from doing the very things that would clearly benefit my life beyond imagination, how impossibly harder is it for people who don't really want to be parted from those beliefs to really get past them?  Yet, we like to think we - as a nation - have.

Some people, the blessed few, are graced with parents & families and/or important others who went past teaching them the fundamentals of a healthy, whole life ~ the power of focus, of hard word, of inspiration & creativity, of knowing the outcomes you do & don't want to get, of sticking with something until it's completed OR setting it aside if you realize it's not a good use of your time & energies ~ to showing them, by word  & deed, how to make those fundamentals part of their everyday life.  Many of the rest of us were graced with parents & families and/or important others who taught about those things, but didn't take the vital step of helping us make them part of our life, in most cases because they weren't really part of theirs.  And a sorry number were either never taught that those fundamentals exist or were taught they weren't cut out - for lots of different reasons - to master them.

It takes focus, hard work, inspiration & creative thinking, knowing what outcomes we find acceptable & which we don't, sticking with our efforts to completion or setting them aside if we realize they aren't worth the effort to get past stupid beliefs.  I've been working on it for decades & it is still HARD.  

People talk about getting past inbred racism & prejudice - and I'm talking on all sides - as if it is as simple as realizing it's harmful & just stopping.  Look around the USA today - it is a boiling pot of fear & distrust, just a few degrees short of boiling over.  It didn't get that way from a cold start - the pot was simmering, simmering for decades.  But it was easier, is still easier, to just think that as reasonable people we can put our rational above our emotional.  Look around.  Rationality doesn't have a very big part in what is happening right now.  Just as the heart will always lead the head, the power of our emotions will overcome our ability to reason every time.  

Even our leaders glorify it.  When he wasn't able to come across facts to support his suspicions, Congressman Darrell Issa dismissed the lack of evidence (reason) by saying he knew in his gut that people were lying.  While liberals howled with derision & disbelief, conservatives nodded in agreement.  Emotion won the day.  When the leaders of our nation make it okay to lead with our gut rather than our head, what chance is there of convincing the rest of the importance of putting the rational ahead of the emotional?

Yesterday, I was part of a current events discussion at a local senior residence.  We got onto the topic of the recently released report on the CIA's use & abuse of "enhanced interrogation techniques" since 9/11.  A man whose intelligence I highly admire acknowledged that torture is morally unacceptable, but when his castle is attacked, his family is in jeopardy, he is permitted - called to - use any means possible to defend them  & make them safe.  His heart, his emotions, completely overruled his reason.  When the people I love are at risk, I am allowed to use any means possible, however reprehensible, to keep them safe.  Wow.  

When someone as smart & worldly-wise & reasonable as that man is reduced to such an argument because what he loves is threatened, what chance is there of someone who really doesn't want to give up generations-long prejudices or expectations put reason over emotion & walk away from them?

 
People have argued to me that there are times that prejudice is reasonable.  Usually, I can talk them around by just pointing out that the word means to pre judge - to judge before hearing the facts - and it's really hard to imagine a situation where that is reasonable.  Prejudice is never reasonable.  It is anti-reason, appealing solely to the emotions.  Reasoning might bring us to a place where we can see the right - that Americans have always regarded torture utterly contrary to our national character - but emotion will assure us it's okay to do whatever is necessary to defend our loved ones, whether it's dropping the atom bomb to spare a million American lives or using torture to get information that might spare US soldiers or civilians.


It's HARD work to move past stupid beliefs - even ones that hamper & harm us, like my fear of my laptop.  It's even hard for the older friend who spoke up yesterday at current events, whose heart tells him that defending his loved ones from harm gives him a green light to do things he otherwise would consider horrific - and HE seems to embody focus, hard work, inspiration & creative thinking, knowing what outcomes he wants & which he doesn't, determination direction persistence!!

When I look around at a country that seems to be whacked out, where so many of the physical civil spiritual ills we worked to cure are resurfacing in frightening ways, when emotions seethe under our daily lives like the river of evil in Ghostbusters 2, when the power of one person's stupid belief slams up against that one's ...   well, I'll remember my fear of a laptop, think about my friend's willingness to toss what he believes to be MORALLY inexcusable when if & how his heart is at risk, and realize anew that (in ways I never imagined) Pascal was totally spot on ~ ~  the heart truly knows reasons that Reason does not know.  

My heart & head join in saying, "That's scary."  

Now, about that laptop...

a shower of tea cups

Once upon a time, long long ago, in a place not too far from where I am right now, a dashing fellow fell in love with a lovely maiden  & asked her to marry him.  In course of time, the friends in his small town rejoiced in giving the fair maiden a wedding shower.  She was all excitement & anticipation.  His friends had exquisite taste & most of them were well-off & many were downright wealthy.  

As the beautiful maiden entered the marvelous mansion where all her fiance's friends & family were gathered, spread out in the grand room before her, her eyes lit on a table filled to overflowing with lovingly wrapped presents.   She noticed, to her surprise, that none were very very big.  In fact, they looked to be surprisingly uniform in size.

And well they should have - her fiance's friends threw her their very favorite sort of bridal shower.  A tea cup shower.  Each woman gave her an exquisite tea cup.  They were so happy, thinking of all the tea parties she would use them at, that she'd think about all of them every time she brought them out to use.

And she did - every time she looked at that incredible collection of tea cups, the memory of that shower came back to her all over again.   Although not in the way they expected.

She'd expected the gifts to be grand & glorious in a different way - she expected, knowing the deep pockets of most of her beloved's friends, to get very expensive presents, with each person vying to be give the greatest & most glorious.  She learned that afternoon that wasn't how this particular small town rolled.  They didn't opt for the big & splashy, but the small & meaningful.

I thought of that story twice over the past few days.  Earlier this week, as I cleared out the china cabinet  & came across a half dozen of those very tea cups, with their great & glorious pedigrees emblazoned across the bottom of each bone china cup & saucer - among them Royal Albert, Doulton, Waterford, even Tiffany.  
  

 
They came into my possession on birthday, on Christmas (once, with the original gift tag still in the box!).  My only regret was not to have been given the whole stunning collection.  

The other time this story came to mind, why I'm writing this posting, was when I came across the list of my own wedding presents.  One of the very first presents received was from a very dear friend, an exceedingly wealthy woman who could have given, without blinking, the most expensive item on my wedding gift registry.  And who gave me my very own exquisite bone china tea cup & saucer.  Do I think of her every time I look at it?  Absolutely.  With all the tender thoughts & loving memory of her special friendship & mentoring over the years.  

When that dashing fellow & lovely maiden married, almost 50 years ago, my little hometown was famous for not throwing its money around, for priding itself on giving the small & meaningful rather than the big & flashy.  In many ways, they still were when I married 25 years ago.  In many ways, they still are.  It is the personal, not the extravagant, that touches their hearts, both in giving & receiving.

Am sorry that the lovely maiden was spitting mad at the paltry haul she made that lovely afternoon.  And happy that so many of those priceless tea cups came into my possession, that I see the shining, happy faces of the women who so carefully selected & lovingly presented them.   I treasure each of them almost as much as I treasure my own, from Emilie - a shower of tea cups reminding me of a long long ago embrace of love & friendship from so many women whose faces are forever in my heart.