The Power of Positive Thinking.

We had a discussion today in group about books that focus on the power of positive thinking, and I totally support all of the positive thinking that can be thunk :) But when it comes to trauma, and this is what we talked about today, the idea that the bad feelings will simply go away just by thinking positive thoughts is pure garbage.

Healing from trauma is sooo not about positive thinking. . . .so I'm glad that this group isn't at all about changing negative thinking to positive.

I have wondered (over the years) why I tend to scoff at the "positive thinking" genre. I thought it was because I also tend to be sarcastic and jaded in nature. . . .lol. But that's not what it was about. . . .it's because these books on positive thinking actually minimize and invalidate the damage that trauma has created in my life. Positive affirmations have their place in personal growth and development, but all the positive affirmations in the world aren't going to make the panic go away or stop the sleepless nightmares. And it's downright offensive to imply that if I would just think more positively that everything would miraculously feel better.

Life isn't always about being "happy" and filled with love and sunshine all of the time.

I need a place where I can let the clouds form and the thunder roar. That is what I mean when I talk about looking for "Friends of Jesus," people who aren't afraid to walk through hell with me. I don't want my friendships or relationships to be the place where all of this darkness gets expressed and sorted through. I need a place where all of that intensity doesn't overwhelm the people I love....and who actually do love me. I can't completely separate that out, but I absolutely need to be able to roar and let the rain pour down and put out the fires burning out of control across my beautiful spirit, scorching and scarring as it burns on. And I also don't want to be alone when I return from this land of perpetual pain.

The hardest words for me right now are "I need. . . . "

One of the things I love about living in Northern Arizona is the summer monsoon season. I relate to that kind of intensity. It feels good to have that kind of raw power wrap itself around me, then pass on as if nothing had really happened, because that's how my own process feels. There are these moments of process that expand quickly, like dough rising with fast acting yeast. . . .lol.. . . but then the moment passes, and I'm back to being me. I can't stop it. . . .and there's nothing that anyone else can do to help me through it. It just is what it is, and then it ceases to be a part of me any more.

The hardest thing about being a human being has to be watching someone we care about and love going through pain or suffering of any kind. I can't imagine having a child with a seizure disorder, and the powerlessness that comes with not being able to do anything but ride it out, praying that your child will come through unscathed. So I'm sure that's how my friends and the people who care about me feel as they watch me go through this unwrapping process of a history that still binds and oppresses my spirit.

I really miss the canyon right now. The grand canyon is the only place where my spirit has felt "contained." It's as if that huge giant chasm mirrors my spirit and embraces me in a way that I don't have language for. I understand that it's just a place, but the spirit there. . . .I just can't explain how it heals and invites me to go deeper into my self. And in this moment my spirit aches to be walking through the canyon I have come to love and call my home.

But for now, I am here. . . .until I am no longer here, but there. . . . wherever there is :)

Pandora's Box

My friend Nancy reminded me recently about a box she once made for me. On the outside were words and pictures that described me as I presented myself to the world, and on the inside were words and pictures that described what I am like on the inside, that part of me that I don't readily share with the outside world.

I think we're all, ultimately, just like that box that Nancy made for me all those years ago.

Right now I am "forced" to look at those parts that I hide away inside. Someone will ask how I am, and I'll say, "Fine." [Lie] And if I attempt to speak some semblance of truth I might say, "Just a little bit sad." [Lie AND Minimization, because I'm not a little bit of ANYTHING right now....full on, raw and intense....that's the real me].

I notice myself saying "just" a lot lately....and every time I hear it, I am holding it accountable for how much it minimizes the truth! But if I were to go with how I actually feel, I might respond with something like, "FUBAR!" lol. . . .but this is also not true, and is a hyperbolization of the truth, rather than the minimization of it. So somewhere between Fine and FUBAR lies the truth. . . . .lol. . . . .so, who knows.

I've been saying "fine" for so long, the word no longer even holds any meaning for me.

I understand the importance of the word "fine" in social, polite conversation. The person at the grocery store isn't really asking me how I am. . . . they are being "polite," and so I respond with my own "polite" response. But the problem is that beyond these social contraptions, no one really knows who I am. My best friend in high school was shocked to learn how depressed I had been during those early years, because her one word to describe me was mirth. . . .a perfect word to describe our crazy antics as Lucy and Ethyl. But she never knew. . . .no one knew.

The core of this dichotomy is the belief that if someone really knew me, they wouldn't possibly like me, (or love me), or want to spend any time with me at all. . . . .and so I dance around this truth like dried out moth balls stuck to the back of my aching throat.

If you really knew me, you would feel so overwhelmed, you would turn around and walk away.

Yes, I would definitely say that would qualify as a "stuck point." And so I avoid the truth to make other people feel more comfortable to be around me. If I'm laughing, and joking, and having a real "hoot" of a time, then people want to spend time with me, right? And just for the record, I'm not talking about spilling my guts out when I meet someone for the first time as a status quo for speaking truth, either. I'm not completely dense :) And I do know how to stop talking when I notice someone's eyes start glazing over and their skin turns pale shades of mold and gray. . . .or they change the subject without responding to anything I've just said. . . .lol.

I get it. . . . not everyone is cut out for walking through hell.

I need people in my life who aren't afraid of walking through hell, and I quite surprisingly find myself wishing that Jesus were alive today. I would love to have a living, breathing friend like Jesus, because he would absolutely walk through hell with me, and even coming face to face with Satan wouldn't faze him the least bit. Jesus wouldn't feel overwhelmed at all by the truth of my life, either. . . .and he certainly wouldn't turn and walk away. I don't mean any of this in a religious "lord and savior" sense at all. . . . I mean it in the most real and concrete sense that I possibly could.

If there were a "religion" that taught us how to have a relationship with Jesus, a living breating friendship so that he could mentor and model how to walk through these living hells on earth, then I might be able to get on board with it. But the idea of needing someone to save me. . . . well, it just holds no meaning for me. I have to get up each day in a crazy mixed up real world, and I need to know how to do that with the grace and dignity of angels. . . . and quite honestly, I haven't found ANYONE on this earth who has been able to help me do that.

So I wish there were a group where I could learn from a living, breathing Jesus, because I think that's the only program I can really get on board with. In AA recovery, the groups are often called, "Friends of Bill W." So I think I'll start looking for a group sign that reads, "Friends of Jesus," because these are the people that I need in my life. . . .the people who are learning how to walk through their own living hells on this earth.

Sometimes I surprise even myself with the truth that speaks itself up from beneath the dusty corners lurking just below the surface. . . .

The Long and the Short of It

It's been a while since I've posted a blog, but that's because there's been a lot going on, and I haven't really been clear about whether I wanted to post about what's really been going on. . . .so I've waited. . . . waited until I knew what I wanted to say.

The bottom line is that I have nothing to be ashamed of. . . .and my silence only serves to reinforce that I'm damaged and broken, so I'm going to share this part of my journey. . . . because it's simply the truth of who I am.

I'm on an extended leave of absence so that I can address what I have come to understand as the PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) that has plagued my adult life, only I didn't know that I had PTSD. Even with all of my grad school education and mental health training, I never made the connection that the panic attacks and the insomnia and the nightmares and the anxiety were all related and actually created a disorder as a collective whole (until a work environment so severely triggered them all at the same time that I was finally able to get diagnosed correctly).

I've been feeling like I'm holding myself together with twigs for so long that I'm not sure I can actually trust this process yet. . . .

The counselor I've been working with has been most intrigued by the fact that I work so hard during sessions to try to convince her that the chronic sleep deprivation was a problem. Week after week she would ask me, "Why are you trying to convince me that the sleep is a problem for you? I believe you, I do!" Two weeks ago it finally dawned on me that it wasn't her that I was trying to convince. . . . it was me. I've spent so much of my life minimizing my own "stuff" that I find myself almost 50 and I'm having to convince myself that nearly 30 years of panic attacks and insomnia is really a problem? Good grief!

The awareness that I was working so hard to convince myself changed everything. . . .well that, and the fact that a second counselor told me that she was concerned about the "compromised way" I live my life, a lifestyle of "avoidance and isolation." Yeah, that's enough to wake up anyone. . . .lol. She reinforced the need for sleep medication (which I now have). And she said something else that the part of me that needed to hear it heard it. She told me that I needed to be in an "environment that supported my needs." And she is right. So I have reordered my entire life around this extended leave of absence to deal with the PTSD.

The treatment group is actually very interesting, because the modality used doesn't focus on the specifics of the trauma at all. The underlying core of the treatment involves identifying the "stuck points" (what I call belief structures) that keep us "stuck" in one place or another. The idea is that there are certain beliefs that get formulated about a trauma event, and once these beliefs are formed, they create identity structures around which "manufactured emotions" are then generated (such as shame or guilt). So when a person's identity is formed around a faulty belief (such as "It was my fault"), the behaviors that result tend to be "escape" and "avoidance" behaviors, which only reinforce the faulty belief structures.

It's all pretty simple, really. . . .identify the belief structures created around the trauma, and the anxiety releases itself. Simple, yes. . . . .but some of the most difficult work a human being will ever have to do.

The funny thing is that it's not like I don't already know this stuff. Identifying faulty beliefs that create problems is exactly the same kind of work I did with my own clients. The beliefs weren't necessarily structured around traumatic events, but it's the same thing that can disable or limit anyone. When we have beliefs about ourselves that limit our ability to function well, or have positive self esteem, or feel happy at least some of the time, these beliefs need to be restructured so that the state of our personal union can once again see healthy economic recovery and growth. . . .lol.

But I know this stuff already!

So why did it take so long for me to be able to see this truth about myself? I don't know. . . .maybe it's true that "my broke self can't fix my broke self." But what I DO know is that Simon and Garfunkle were definitely wrong because I'm not a rock, and I'm certainly not an island. I am actually living proof that we absolutely need other people to help us see the truth about ourselves, no matter how much education and training we've had, and especially when that truth is ugly and painful (a truth that nobody else really wants to look at).

And I guess Barbara Streisand was wrong too, because people who need people aren't always the luckiest people in the world. . . . .but they just might be some of the bravest and most courageous spirit warriors that I will ever have the privlege of knowing. . . .so I'm trusting this process. . . .one faulty belief at a time :)

Creating an American Afghan

I love to crochet, but I essentially know only basic stitches. I have friends who can crochet amazing things, but not me :)

I have been thinking a lot about this 30th high school reunion, and why I feel so obsessed by it. I wouldn't have been caught dead at the 10th reunion, thought I had resolved all of my "high school issues" by the 20th, but was then slammed with unexpected emotional intensity once I arrived that left me speechless and processing internally all night. . . .lol. So I find myself quite unexpedtedly surprised by this excitement and reunion fever that seems to have overtaken me with the 30th.

When I sit with myself long enough to understand why, what bubbles up is this sense of shared history. There are people from high school that I have known (and they have known me) since we were all in the 6th grade! These people may not have all been my friends per se, or I theirs, but together we have a shared history that is as irreplaceable as it is inescapable. Yet I am still surprised to find this history having such a grip on me now, when it seemed all too easy to disregard as it was unfolding in my life.

Many people hold on to their history by crocheting their life afghan as a constant flow of yarn. The skeins may run out, the dye lots may not match, and the colors may change from one life transition to another, but the afghan is created as a relatively continuous process. These are the people who remain very connected and in close contact with people from their lives across time and space. I know a lot of wonderful spirits who have created their life afghan this way, and I admire that kind of connectedness, even though I do not understand it myself.

Then there are others who have created their life afghan as a collection of tiny little granny squares, each made individually and distinctly from one another. This is how I am creating my own life afghan. I have the high school piece, the cancer piece (actually, I have three of these), the college piece, the grad school piece, the marriage piece, the divorce piece, the army piece, the Chernoby piece, the boat piece, the private practice piece, the social work piece, the McDonald's piece, the Rockland piece, the Palmdale piece, the Napa piece, the Forest Falls piece, the Lunsford piece, the Bevis piece, the Rugg piece, as well as many, many more pieces (some I love. . . .others? not so much. . . .lol). And I have toted these pieces of life experience from place to place, creating new ones as I journey along in life, but they've pretty much remained not more more than a collection of disjointed life experiences. . . .until now.

I am finally at a place in my life journey where I have enough pieces to create an afghan.

Now begins the long slow process of placing these pieces side by side, balancing out the conflicting colors, finding harmony in patterns that were otherwise unseen, and then weaving them together in a cohesive whole with a yarn that binds and connects the tiny pieces into something warm and functional for the very first time.

Reconnecting up with these pieces of my history feels like a precious gift, one that I can never again take for granted. We have already started losing some of our fellow Tigers, which leaves me feeling sad in a way that I would have never expected. I feel like just as I am beginning to understand the importance of connection between these disjointed pieces of a shared history they are already starting to fray and unravel leaving little holes and gaps that can never again be filled in or replaced. So I don't care what it costs, or what it takes, I'm not going to miss out on this amazing opportunity unfolding through the ethers of Facebook.

I may have only known the most basic of stitches as I made my way through life creating one disjointed piece at a time, but I am falling in love with this life afghan that my journey is still in the process of creating and weaving through my history. So it just goes to show how even knowing only the most basic of crochet stitches can still create a most glorious work of art. . . .even when it takes a life time to collect enough pieces to finally create an afghan worthy of remembrance :)

What Difference Can One Person Make?

Change is not easy, especially when we have to put our money where our mouth is. But that is exactly the only change we have.

My friend Melinda posted a comment that so succinctly hits the nail on the head: "I guess that brings me to another little bit of 'activism'. If I recognize a company like OV, that at least appears to be using natural, organic practices, I will purchase their product even while I'm struggling to make ends meet. We simply MUST put our money behind what we believe, or it will fail."

We simply MUST put our money behind what we believe, or it will fail.

When dealing with such huge issues as environmental decay, it's all too easy to feel overwhelmed by the big picture and lulled into the deadly illusion that one person couldn't possibly make a difference, and so they don't. But every single person has GREAT power in the course and nature of change, because every single penny that we have in our pocket is a weapon within our personal arsenal of change.

We can't impede commerce? Like hell we can't. . . .every single penny has great power to change the world. . . .every single moment. . . .of every single day!

My cousin Laurie has talked about how every choice we make casts a vote for the change we want to see in the world. That means that every single dollar I spend (or save) is a direct vote in the market of commerce for the course and direction of change that I personally want to see. If I purchase food that's processed, then I am supporting all of the environmental consequences involved in the making of that processed food product, even if I am not directly involved in that process. My money is voting for that food product, and so I am complicit in the consequencs that result.

Every single dollar I spend is a direct vote in the market of commerce for the course and direction of change that I personally want to see.

So it doesn't matter how much or how little money we have in our bank accounts, it's all reduced to the change that constitutes our personal power. I think the problem is that we keep turning our focus and attention onto a single individual and asking for the change we would like to see in the world, feeling constantly disillusioned and disappointed, but this kind of thinking is just wrong. Each of us needs to be the change we want to see in the world, and that change is transacted in the micro exchanges of the pennies in our pockets for the products and services we choose every single day.

So how much difference can one person make? One person can make all the difference in the world! Just like Melinda is making a difference every time she pays more for the Organic Valley milk becasue she chooses to vote for organic and environmentally friendly milk. You rock, Melinda!

As for me, I do not intend to squander my personal power any more, and I refuse to cast my consumer-driven votes for the corporate-greed-driven status quo, because the bottom line is that every day is voting day when personal power is found in each and every peanut and penny within our arsenal of change.

So vote wisely, my friend. . . .vote wisely :)

Getting Right with God

I often hear people talk about "getting right with God," and while I don't know what they mean by this in a personal sense for them, I do know what this is beginning to mean for me.

I posted the following Facebook status yesterday: "We are supposed to be stewards of the earth. God bestowed that responsibility upon us. Every choice we make as humans that betrays this responsibility is like slapping God's face. We may not like that we can't just do whatever we want when we want, but that's what being a good steward means...that we make SOUND choices that allow for a SUSTAINABLE future for everyone. So, yeah...it's not going to be fun to change the lifestyle habits that the earth can not sustain, but we must!"

Getting right with God (for me) right now means stepping up and becoming a good steward of this earth, and that's requiring me to take a long hard look at my life style habits and then do the really hard work of aligning my lifestyle with my Godstyle, aligning my habits with my spiritual values and ideals.

I think it's all too easy to self-justify the lifestyle choices when they are such tiny grains of sand in the big picture. We fill our gas tanks, take out our trash, and make an endless array of choices throughout the course of the day on whatever it is that we buy, but we are completely separated from the reality of the invisible strings that attach us to the long slow environmental decay. But each and every single tiny choice that we make as individuals is another chink in the fading armor of the earth (or not).

I want to live as green as humanly possible, although this will be no easy task.

So today is the first day of my "Getting Right with God" project, which means that I will be making one commitment each and every day, a commitment to my relationship with God by changing my very human lifestyle so that I can align spirit with action. I may not be able to change the choices made by any other individual on this earth, but I do have the power to change my own. . . .and so I will. . . .one commitment at a time.

There are Worse Places to End Up

I feel stuck. Not just because my car is on the side lines again, but because it feels like I am perpetually standing on one side of a chasm trying to figure out how to get to my life that awaits me on the other side. So if this is my life, then I don't want it. Send it back. Can I dispute the charges on my life visa card? I want my life back.

As a little girl, I never dreamed I would end up where I am. But the hard truth about some lives is that we all too often end up in places and circumstances that we would never want to be. I didn't want to be rained on by Chernobyl radiation. I didn't want to be sexually abused or assaulted. I didn't want cancer. I didn't want the divorce. I didn't want my mom to die. I didn't want my wonderful boat to get shredded. And I didn't want to grow up in a set of family systems so chaotic and dysfunctional that my neuro development was altered in such a way that I live every day with the resultant PTSD that changes everything about how I live my life. So, yeah. . . .I didn't want a LOT of things to happen. . . . but they did. . . . and I can't change them. . . . .so here I find myself at the edge of a life I don't always choose, wondering how to escape the weight of a journey so difficult at times I feel like I'm going to suffocate.

But is this the worst place I could have ended up?

I live at the Grand Canyon, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and I absolutely love my life here. I may not have the big fancy house or the brand new car, but my back yard beats anyone else's hands down! I hike this amazing canyon whenever I want. I have a wonderful little apartment that I love, a home where my furry family is able to live in peace and safety with me (and where the rent is so ridiculously cheap it's almost like living here for free). My bills are paid, my housing expenses are tax free, I'm able to put money into the savings account every month, and I have as much expendable income as when I made more than $40K per year. I walk to work. I have no commute. No smog. The daily traffic jam involves the local elk or deer meandering across the roadway. Snow in the winter. Rain and amazing wildflowers in the summer. Beauty everywhere. Free train rides whenever I want! So, yeah. . . . there are definitely worse places I could have ended up.

Yet I still feel stuck.

I feel stuck because there's no place for me to go. There's no "home" out there waiting for me, no place to look forward to spending my holidays, because that kind of home disappeared for me when my mom passed away. I am like the tortoise. . . .I carry my home on my back, and I am free to move about as I so desire, and as the circumstances of fate and fortune will allow. . . . so why do I really feel stuck? I think I just need to settle in to this amazing life that I have here, feel grateful for the amazing blessing it is to be able to create my home here, and seek God in all that I do. If I can do just these simple basic things, then I will have a blessed life, indeed.

So trudge on, tortoise sister. . . . trudge on. . . . .

Making a Difference Every Day

I created a Facebook Page today called Making a Difference Every Day. I'm tired of feeling powerless to make a difference, so I am doing what I can. I have been reading a wonderful book (Swim Against the Current: Even Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow), and I am finding myself refreshed with the knowledge that I am not alone in my fight, that there really are people AND (more importantly) businesses out there that are figing the same fight that I'm fighting, and I love feeling empowered and connected to the world again.

I once had a dream. Dreams are very important to me, so what happens in a dream holds great signficance. Anyway, I had a dream, and in the dream I am angry and afraid for what's happening in the world, because I can only sleep for so long. (In this dream, the world's healing and protection is facilitated through the dream state of the people who are sleeping.) But then it dawns on me that when I am awake, there is a whole other side of the world that is sleeping, and in fact, there is always someone sleeping to more than cover the 24 hours in a day, so I am relieved and feel free to go about the business of my waking life because of the dreamers on the other side of the world. Profound dream.

I am angry. I'm not an "angry person" per se, but I find that I am angry a lot of the time. If I were angry for no good reason I would think this was a problem. But it's not a problem, because I experience anger about things that a person SHOULD feel angry about, and so I do. Perhaps I feel this anger more intensely than the average person, but I don't care. I refuse to silence my anger when it is an appropriate response to inappropriate circumstances. I rock the boat when it needs to be rocked. I make the hard phone calls when they need to be made. And I rise up in protest when there is no other option left, even when there is great pressure for me to just sit down and "behave myself" like a polite little girl.

I can't be polite when there is foulness afoot, because the anger rises up inside of me like a red hot volcano with no place else to flow but up and out.

But I also find that anger alone isn't enough. Feeling angry without having some kind of resolution just keeps me angry all of the time, which is exactly what happens. I need an outlet for my anger, a productive outlet, and this page (Making a Difference Every Day) is just the outlet that I need, because it's going to connect me in solidarity with other people who are angry about what's happening in the world and are finding creative ways to make a difference in their every day life, too.

It is my hope, that by sharing this information, it will inspire others to think creatively and outside of the box so that there is a sustainable future for us all. . . . .

Sophie's Choice

I love Meryl Streep. . . .and one of my absolute all-time favorite films is Sophie's Choice. I love this film because it so poignantly makes clear how the human drama has a long reaching grip upon our lives, but also because it shows how ignorance shapes human expectation.

When we first meet Sophie, we can't understand her. We can't understand her present condition, because we don't yet understand the past that brought her to where she is now. It is only when Sophie's story is slowly revealed that we begin to understand, and I think that's the same for all human beings. It's all too easy to judge a book by its cover, or judge another person's story by the way our own story has unfolded, but to truly understand we must take the time to learn the personal history that shapes and defines (and even sometimes confines) a person's present life story.

My weekend in Mesa Verde included a side trip to the BLM visitor's center about 10 miles north of Mesa Verde. They showed two different films in a beautiful little theater: one of the films was about the history of Mesa Verde, but the other was a spiritual film of Native American descendents of Mesa Verde and their plea for the rest of humanity to walk through their history with grace and respect. But the one part that continues to stand out the most is how they talk about time. For these indigenous people, they are not even concerned with the future, because they believe that it is their history, their past, that defines who they are in the present.

A person without their history, without the stories of their past, is a story that is completely out of context, thus subject to dire misinterpretation.

I think it's all too easy to judge and pathologize another person's "odd" behavior and ask ourselves what is "wrong" with them. But the truth is that for most of us with "bizarre" behavior, there is actually nothing wrong with us at all; we simply were shaped by invisible and incomprehensible histories that the rest of the world can't possibly understand, and so they sit back in judgment and wonder what is wrong.

On one level I'm very grateful for the way my life was shaped by the dark stories imposed upon mine because I am not afraid of walking through hell with another person. My personal history (and my journey to walk through my own personal living hell) helped me to understand the "emotionally disturbed" foster children on my case load.  I was able to take the time to understand the personal history that shaped and defined their "odd" behavior because I had taken the time to understand my own. And once I took the time to understand the invisibly embedded why to the very visible what, well, their behavior wasn't really all that odd, at all.

There is a statement in the very beginning of the DSM (diagnostic manual for psychological/mental disorders) that makes it very clear that if there are envioronmental circumstances going on in a person's life that better explain the behavioral symptoms, then a diagnosis of a mental disorder should NOT be made. To clarify, this means that a mental disorder does NOT exist. This is all too often never read or understood by clinicians of all professional pursuits, but this single statement was my saving grace in grad school because I scruffed and muggled endlessly over the idea of diagnosing people with mental disorders when I could so clearly understand why they were behaving the way they were. And very often, once the environmental conditions are changed, then miraculously the behaviors automatically change themselves, because they're no longer responding to disordered environmental conditions (which is the real problem in the first place).

So, yes. . . .I understand Sophie, and I also love that she has at least one person in her world who loves her in spite of her history, and doesn't judge her pain. But it takes time to understand a personal history, and that is a luxury that most of us do not have, or that many even want to take. And as for me, I have a very small cluster of friends who have taken the time to understand me and the personal history that continues to shape and define who I am, even with my "bizarre" emotional behavior that makes the rest of the world wonder at times what is wrong with me.

God Made the Garlic

There is a new me emerging, a me who wouldn't make a very good southern belle, a me who isn't really caring very much about what the rest of the world thinks about what I think or have to say about anything and everything, a me who is beginning to understand just how important it is to realize that God made the garlic.

Yes, that's what I said. . . . .GOD made the garlic.

In the midst of a trend to conceptualize everything that's happening in the world as spiritual warfare (i.e., the battle between "good" and "evil" or God-vs-Satan), I am grounded by the very real fact that God has made this world to include some very unlikeable things (like garlic, or skunks, or maggots and flies--and even Satan).

The funny thing is that many things get assigned arbitrarily as "good" and "bad" (or "evil"), or as "positive" and "negative." I see over and over again how God is associated with love and sunshine and rainbows and all of the good and positive things we love and want in this world. Typically, what we don't want or don't like or don't want to accept in ourselves or others, THIS is the stuff that gets lumped into a very different set of associations that are labeled as bad or negative or evil. Butterlies and caterpillars are good, but flies and maggots are bad. They are essentially the same thing, but butterlies are good and flies are bad. Flies are even directly associated with evil, which is just interesting to me on so many levels right now. Flies, ravens, snakes, spiders. . . .all associations of evil.

The point of all of this is to say something very important: If God had wanted only "warm and fuzzy" things in this world, that's exactly what would have been created. But it's not. We have garlic and skunks and cactus and an endless panoply of creatures that bite and sting. All of these things were made by God, to live and coexist in one world. God didn't say, "Let there be good things only, and no bad things;" God made things as they are, and saw that they were all good.

And when I look at the world as God has created it, I don't see a very "polite" world at all. There's nothing polite about being hunted down by a cheatah and eaten for dinner, or crawling into your safe cubby at the end of a long day of having escaped the hawks and eagles stalking you from above only to be swallowed alive by a cunning snake that has been waiting patiently for you to return. There is also nothing very polite about having your head eaten off after just having mated, either, but it happens. . . .lol. . . .more often than a male praying mantis would like to think about, I'm sure.

Politeness. . . .social appropriateness. . . .these are all man-made social conventions, not mandates by God so that I can get into heaven like a good little girl. Maybe you don't like that my emotional language is profanity, or that fuck is my favorite word, but that's not my problem, because God made the garlic just the same as God made the gladiolas. So, yeah. . . .some of us are a whole lot more pungent than the average bear, but that just makes us who we are, even if we don't fit inside of the socially appropriate boxes created by man to. . . .what? What actual purpose does politeness serve? Seriously? So that we don't "offend" one another? Good grief!!

Are we really that sensitive as an "evolved" species that we have to hold all of our "negative" thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and feelings inside so that we don't "offend" anyone's sensibilities? I'm not talking about doing or saying things that maliciously or intentionally hurt someone. . . . so I'm clearly not advocating the "death stalk" or "biting each other's heads off" as the new social norm.

But I also don't want to live in a world where everyone is expected to keep their mouth shut just so that we can all get along! There is more than one way to coexist in a world where garlic and gladiolas grow side by side! I believe that we can all be who we are, even with our "bad" or "negative" feelings and opinions and STILL get along. We don't deserve to be personally attacked, but we also deserve to be able to speak what is real and true for us in a way that doesn't get attacked at the same time!

And why is it that we watch and listen with rapt attention to someone airing another person's dirty laundry, but when someone airs their own dirty laundry they are being socially inappropriate? Most "news" is really nothing more than a glorified and very public airing of other people's dirty laundry. So I roll my eyes at the idea that what happens to us (if we talk about it publicly) is considered airing one's dirty laundry. Did anyone ever consider that perhaps the laundry remains dirty for so long because no one will ever take it outside to wash it?

Dirty laundry. Holding one's tongue. Socially appropriate. Not talking about what happens in the family to outside people. Polite conversation.

Somewhere I have a comic of a man walking all slumped over in a frumpy trench coat, clearly sad and depressed. But when you look at his shadow behind him, he is very clearly angry and full of rage as the shadow raises its arms up in a vain attempt to shake the rage away. A sad statement about what all of our politeness has done for us where trying to survive everyday life in a crazy mixed up world is enough to make anyone angry. Why do we feel like it makes us a better person if we hold our feelings inside and don't talk about what makes us angry? Because someone has taught us that it's not "polite" to do so?

If God had wanted a polite world, that's exactly how it would have been created. When did we become so damned virtuous?! (And how do we make it stop?)