Revisiting an Old Story; or . . . The cat comes back

I assume that it's natural for everyone to be a little bit of a conundrum. Even if they are not, they probably think they are from time to time.

I am often quite amazed at what perceptions people express having about me. For example, Penny and I used to attend services with a small congregation. After we had been attending from more than a year, one of the women of the congregation – one  for whom I had developed a fondness for the insights that she offered during Bible study classes – casually dropped into the conversation we were having the comment that it must be difficult for Penny to live with me. Most of the time my response to such a comment would simply be to grin through tightly pursed lips, shake my head slightly, and shrug my shoulders.

However, this comment seemed to be a complete non sequitur in the conversation we were having. So, I asked what made her think so. She replied, while Penny was standing there listening, that she perceived me to be such a quiet man and that this must prove difficult for Penny. To her credit, Penny did not guffaw. She did not even strain to hold back the laughter that I am sure she was suppressing. She just quietly stated something to the effect that not everything is as it seems.

Last Sunday, in a not so subtle attempt to get me to talk about myself a little bit, the person doing the morning introduction to the class asked several simple questions about me. I am sure that the response that I gave was not satisfactory.

However, it strikes me that it is appropriate for me to give the class some insight into who I am. Given how little I like to talk about any of my personal achievements (or maybe because there are just too few of them for me to remember), I struggled a bit with trying to come up with something that would be meaningfully revealing about me. As I tried to come up with something to share, a note written by an old friend – which note I had stuffed between some books on my desk – fell to the floor.  Seeing the note reminded me that my friend never got tired of being reminded of (or of trying to tell in his own words) the following story which I e-mailed to a small cohort of my friends shortly after it had happened. The story appears below as it was written – typos and all – while I was still on serious pain medication following the events related in this story.

The subject line as it appeared on the e-mail was "A New Story ...."  The text of the e-mail follows:

... which I am dedicating to my sister, Wanda, who says that she appreciates my "life experiences" because she gets to hear me tell about them in a way which makes her appreciate that her own life has a living "Malcolm" in it to amuse her ....

Was it only last Thursday evening that I was laying at the foot of the ladder, sucking for air and caught between the wondering whether I would be able to turn over and get up and the absolute determination that I was going to get to the house, get my keys, get to the ER, get some painkillers, and get back before Penny got home  ...

But then, some people just do not seem to understand just how I get into these situations.

Penny rescued a cat.  A cat?!  She's rescued ... but I digress.

Penny's rescued cat got out on Monday, made it into the backyard, and, as best as I can surmise, despite the fact that this cat plays around in the house with Penny's pack of rescued dogs, this cat decided that these same dogs in the yard were sufficiently terrifying so as to prompt the cat to climb the tallest pine tree in our backyard.

By Thursday, I had gotten tired of the more or less constant sound of pitiful mewling coming from the top of that tree -- with some emphasis by the cat in the effort to shout a chorus to the world between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 1:30 a.m.

So, I went and rented a ladder - a 40-foot ladder (this I know, because the invoice says so), and I brought the ladder home, and I placed it up against the tree.  I was setting up the the ladder to the length which would permit it to be anchored right below the circle of branches beyond which I had been unable to climb before.   (I had earlier used our own ladder and then had engaged in scaling the tree using the branches, but I had been unable to get anywhere near the cat.)  My intent at that point was to cut two of the offending branches acting as a barrier, extend the ladder out to its fullest length and then climb up and get the cat.

As I was just completing that task, Penny gave me her theory of comparitive values:  Husband with broken back was less preferable than removal of annoying sounding cat from tree.

My response was to adopt my ever-calm and rational tone.  I sighed, and I explained that there was nothing about which to worry.  After all, she knew that there is no one in the world who has a greater fear of heights than I do.  Heck, there are times when I stand up and get dizzy.  But, then there is that thing about men trying to talk to women ...

In any event, Penny walked one way, and I walked another, and neither of us mentioned the ladder again.  She then got her stuff together and went to work.  I went to Court and pretended to care about what I was doing ... all the while setting in my mind that I would get home early and get that darn cat down.

Of course, Court lasted longer than it should have. 

But, when I got home, it was still light enough to climb that ladder with the saw, cut the branches, go back down, and extend the ladder out to its full length so I could get the cat down.  So, up I went, battery-powered handsaw in my hand.  I cut a few branches, and I came down to survey the tree and extend the ladder.

If you've ever played around with a 40-foot extension ladder and if you're as afraid of heights as I am, you take plenty of time in wrestling the ladder out to an appropriate length and then re-setting the ladder to make sure that it's set up sturdily against the tree.  When you're a big guy who suffers from fear of heights and from a fear of things breaking when you are on them, you take extra care in setting up the ladder against a tree at heights in excess of 30 feet.

Well, that ladder was locked in place and it was not going anywhere. 

I was probably going to have to go up  cut one more branch and then come back down and extend it again.  But, with absolute comfort in the ladder's sturdiness I went up again. 

Darn that cat, it was just out of reach.  It was willing to increase the crescendo of howls.  Worse, it refused to come past a circle of branches between it and me.  But, I knew that I could get it down as soon as I went back down and extended the ladder one last time.

I've thought about that string of moments -- a series which I doubt lasted more than a few seconds -- with a serious desire to make sense of what occurred, and I still have not figured it out.  I do not know whether it was the angle of the ladder, the tree, and the very steep slope of the hill on which the tree and ladder were located; whether it was the fact that the day had progressed into the deeper part of dusk, whether it was the fact that I was wearing my bi-focals, whether it was a sensory report from my foot possibly hitting a branch on the way down the ladder, or whether it was some combination of those factors.  My own conclusion is that, despite whatever appearance of intelligence I put on that has led to the curse of being viewed as having "potential", my own innate lack of common sense combined with that lack of sensory nerve to muscular coordination which kept me from being legend in the game of football resulted in some sort of misfiring in my synapses ...

So, while I was still (for purposes of this story, and because I have told Penny she will never, ever learn from me the true details of how bad this really was) ... ohh ... let's say 4-5 feet from the ground ... I decided to step off the ladder ...

No ... really ... in an Alzheimer's-like sense of disorientation which kept me from realizing exactly where I was, I just stepped off ...

The reality of where I was snapped back in that instant that my body realized that I was not standing on solid ground ... but then as I said, it was a series of moments which hardly lasted more than a few seconds ...

I landed on my butt, driving my body like a spring-powered shock absorber directly into the ground ...

When I was 12, I jumped from the roof of that old abandoned farm house over the hill from where we lived.  It's one of those things that male children have to do when the other male children with which they are forming a pack engage in chest-thumping, pecking order activities.  Carmen McGuire jumped from there; David Linko jumped from there; Wayne Proctor jumped from there, so I jumped from there. 

Not just once either ...

I remember the last time I jumped from there.  I was by myself.  To whom did I think I had to prove anything?  **sigh**  But, jump I did.

I came down real hard on my right foot, and it felt like something had exploded in my ankle.  When it gave way, I rolled loosely on the ground, holding on to that ankle, and groaning through the pain. 

But, hey, I was young ... I was immortal ... and I was going to be damned before I would admit to my parents that I had been jumping from the roof of that abandoned farmhouse. 

So, I got up.  I hobbled back home, wrapped up my ankle, and within a day I was moving around, though painfully, well enough to cover my injury as one of those "childhood" accidents.

As I look back on both events, the one in which the pain of the moment has been clouded by time (but which leaves me with an ankle that even now  hurts in the routine of life) and the one of last week from which the pain is still a present and, at times, overwhelming reality, I realize that my body is not nearly as resilient as it once was.

So, there I lay at the bottom of the ladder ... trying to find air ... and all the while realizing that I had really hurt myself with this one ...

... but that one overwhelming thought drove me through the pain ...

... even if I had a broken back, I was going to get into the house ... get my car keys ... get to the hospital ... get the prescription for painkillers filled ... and get home before Penny got there ....







The effort that it took to get to the house was sufficient in and of itself to give me pause as to the getting the car keys and going to the ER without taking some preliminary steps ....

So, I called Wanda's house, hoping she was home.  She was not. But Bob was. 

Bob, for those who don't know, is a medical doctor licensed to practice somewhere (or so Wanda and he have been telling the family).  So, apologizing for the question I was about to ask, I still had to ask ...

Briefly explaining, I asked whether he would recommend heat or ice for some immediate relief as I got ready to seek medical attention.  Bob comforted me by saying, "You know that's not the type of medicine I practice."  To which I responded with some remark like, "Yeah, I know.  But you did take some courses in basic medicine, didn't you?"

Bob, reminding that he has gotten his disclaimer out of the way, then added additional comfort (I came to conclude from this brief exchange that bedside manner and the immediate ability to bring comfort to a human being so obviously in physical distress is clearly one of his strong suits) by saying, "Well ... there's a split of authority on that ... some suggest heat; some ice; and some suggest alternating heat and ice ..."

"OK, Bob.  Thanks.  What would you do?"

"Oh me.  I would probably go for the heat," he says, schmuttling something through the haze of my pain about skin, circulation, yadda, yadda, yadda ...   

In one of those instants where his voice came through more clearly to me, he said  something like "You might want to try to get into a hot tub ..."

"That actually sounds good, Bob.  But what if I get in and I cannot get out ..."

"You've got a point there."

"OK, I'm going to buy into this 'heat' thing.  Now, tell me the truth, is this really no different than sending the guy to boil water when the baby is being born -- one of those useless activities designed by doctors to give people the feeling that they are doing something which actually has medicinal value ..."

<Laughter ...>

Hey, I'm cool under stress and pain; and as I said, bedside manner is one of Bob's strong points ...

So we finished with a brief chit-chat a bit to fulfill those social obligations in having started a conversation ... mostly about the "moose quote" (but that's another great story and it's really Wanda's and Bob's) ... and I tried to get my act together to await the inevitable arrival of my wife ...
==========================================
Break to a couple of days later, as Penny and I are laughing at my story about lying there at the foot of the ladder, sucking wind, and being driven by that one desire to get myself back together again enough to be able to act like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred ...

Penny says that she was driving home, thinking that I have not called her on the telephone.  She was thinking:  Ray Kelley (she calls me that, go figure) ... Ray Kelley has not called me on the phone on my way home.  He always calls me on the phone on my way home.  That idiot!  He's climbed the ladder, and fallen off.  When I get home, I am going to find him lying at the foot of that ladder, back broken.

So, she gets into the house, walks around taking inventory of the dogs and cats and looking for me.  She sees me sitting in the recliner and knows immediately from the look on my face that I have fallen off the ladder.  But, she's not going to say anything until I do, because, well ... at least I am alive and I was able to make it into the house ...

Oh, yeah ... she notes that the cat is still in the tree .... 

========================================== 

Break to a few moments later at the same dinner in which she has told me her recollection of her thoughts and feelings --

In the middle of laughing over whatever we had progressed to talking about, she looked at me and started laughing again ...

... before I even started to say it, she knew it was coming ...

"I don't care what you say.  You were wrong.  It was not dangerous.  In fact, it's your fault ..."

She started laughing harder, managing to get out "I wondered that you had managed to take this long in verbalizing that one ..."

Laughing along with her, but trying to get the seriousness of my point across, I tried to explain to her just why she was wrong.

It was not dangerous.  The fact that I might be stupid does not necessarily make climbing a well-anchored 40-foot ladder dangerous.  In fact, if, instead of criticizing me for setting up the ladder, she had been supportive <another burst of laughter>, I would not have chosen to climb the ladder while she was not there.  In fact, she would have been assisting by her presence, and I would have known while talking to her that I was not at ground level, and I would not have stepped off ...

Oh well, I got it said, although I doubt that she heard it all through her gasps for air as she was laughing ...

========================================== 

Oh yeah ... the cat ....

The next day, my wife tells the neighbor, whose house has a patio open toward the howling cat, that, yes, the cat is still up there, and, yes, her husband did fall from the ladder.

Much later in the afternoon, while my wife is at work (notice the pattern here), and under the influence of serious medication, I climb the ladder excrutiatingly slowly with an extension rod to which I have taped a dish and some food.  The young man (the kid in his mid-20's) who has grown somewhat concerned about the cat, sees me up in the ladder and knows the story about my fall ...

He offers that he used to work for his uncle in his uncle's tree trimming service.  He asks if he can help.  I tell him that I am not asking, but, if he's offering, I won't stop him ...

He climbs the ladder, scales the few remaining branches (which but for having fallen, I think I could have done too) ... reaches for the cat, ...

and the cat jumps .... down 20 feet into the liquidamber tree right next to the pine tree ....

... so, Mark (our intrepid young hero), being young and immortal, quickly climbs the branches of the liquidamber and the cat ...

jumps 20 feet to the ground ... and takes off running ... drawing a pack of dogs ...

Penny came home and found the cat next to the front porch area and brought him in ....

==========story's end==============================

I am not sure what the story (or my willingness to share it) says about me. I do know that Wayne enjoys the story immensely. So, with the hope that this will give some insight into me, I am printing off copies of the story for the members of the Sunday school class.

Rediscovering a voice -- my voice

I have never been one enthralled with what I have to say nor with listening to myself say it. I do not like listening to recordings of me speaking. This is true even when I get compliments for having spoken. More specifically, the sound of my voice gets on my nerves.

I am less annoyed when I read some of the stuff which I have written over the years. However, usually having said whatever it is I had to say, I am seldom moved to reread whatever it was that I had written (with the exception of re-reading something of mine quoted by someone else or to which I have to refer in some later piece that I am writing).

Anyone knowing that about me might be intrigued by the title of this blog.

However, there is no inconsistency between my acknowledged predispositions and my admission to having rediscovered my voice. A little less than a year ago, I bought voice-recognition software to use with computer. I did so because of the increasing effects of neuropathy on my hands. It had come to the point where there were times that even trying to rest my fingers on the keyboard resulted in severe pain in my fingers. It was only because the pain had gotten so bad at times that it adversely affected my doing what I had to do at the computer that I succumbed to the suggestion to begin using voice recognition software.

Oh, I was quite aware that many people had made the transition to using voice recognition software for dictation and other routine computer uses. I am not exactly sure why I was hesitant about making the transition to using voice recognition software, but I was. As I think about it, I'm inclined to believe that I felt that the very act of typing and composing were linked by virtue of habit. In fact, there may have been a bit of subconscious self fulfilling prophecy in my original approach to using voice recognition software to write anything which would be transmitted to someone else – i.e., it seemed to me that I was holding back in my dictation early in the use of the software.

Without realizing it, I was slowly becoming more and more dependent upon using the voice recognition software. Then, it happened. Reading one of the e-mail advertisements from the company from which I had purchased the software, I became aware that an update had become available for the software. I attempted to update the program using the program's "update" feature.  The voice-recognition software froze. Nothing that I attempted we get the program running again.

I used the computer for a couple of days after that without the voice recognition software. I quickly discovered how dependent I had become on the voice recognition software. Not only was it difficult for me to adapt to the pain of using a keyboard (let alone trying to get up to a speed which was comfortable) but I had also become used to dictating at a speed which put text on the screen faster than my best typing speed.

It took several exchanges of e-mail with the technical support staff of the company which produced the software, but, thankfully, I was provided with excellent support which allowed me to completely remove the installation existing on my computer and to reinstall the software. The first thing I wrote after getting the software up and running again was the thank you note to the technical support person who helped me.

Since then, I have been able to catch up on some e-mails to which I had fallen behind in responding. More important, however, I was able to get my lesson plan together for my Sunday school class and I was able to get some research material put together for an article I am preparing.

It took only the short period of time without the voice recognition software for me to realize how dependent I have become on using it.

So, despite my dislike for hearing my own voice, I have become dependent upon the use of it to work at my computer. I was surprised to learn this, and part of me still hates to admit it (to myself, let alone to others).

Still, as a result of this interruption in my use of voice recognition software, I have rediscovered my voice, discovering for the first time in it a value I would have never guessed was there.

La, la, la-la-la-la, la.  ;-)

Interlude after 10th Anniversary of Sep 11 tragedies

I wonder at my sense of wonderment
at the manner which labels are easily spent
from the mouths of those whom I admire
in reduction of an idea's or a life's content
to single ideological sentiment
without regard to that which shapes competing desire.


-- Written after thinking about things said in a Sunday school class held on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 tragedies, which thinking was prompted by a close friend's Facebook comment on a question her son asked her upon coming home after having seen a movie in his grade school class.

Dear Fiona:

Dear Fiona:

Yeah, this week it's in the form of a letter to you.

I am bewildered. My life has become interwoven with a dependence on computer technology. I use voice recognition software as a necessary compliment to mouse and keyboard. Yet, I fail to utilize fully the most simple aspects of the software found on most computers.

Despite the fact that I was engaged at length yesterday with the attempt to get something posted on this blog to amuse you as you sit there in your room in China, I missed completely the fact that it was your birthday. 

Happy Birthday!  

Oh, I know that you will appreciate the birthday wish despite its tardiness. That is one of the things that makes you a wonderful friend. It is the awareness of your friendship which acts as a salve to the cut that my ego has taken by virtue of my having missed wishing you "happy birthday" yesterday.

I had made up my mind to write this entry in the form of a letter to you before I realized that yesterday was your birthday.  I decided to do this because your recent e-mails had  emphasized the way your reading the entries in this blog provided you a connection to aspects of your life here in the States.  

I had actually written an introductory rhyme and some lengthy text (which I was in the process of editing and finalizing) on the subject of worldviews.  This was because it is a subject as to which I was still receiving some reverberation because of my comments on September 18 regarding the conflict I felt sitting in a self-denominated "Christian" Sunday school class, listening to some extremely jingoistic comments lauding very nationalistic perspectives which were felt on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center towers.  I had tried to temper the impact of my comments by expressing my appreciation for the American experiment in government and the results therefrom which benefited me personally as well as every other American living within the protections to, and quality of, the society existing in the United States today.  Yet, I am not surprised to have had it reported to me that not everyone took well my expressing (1) that God is not a Republican or a Democrat -- not even an American -- and (2) that some of the comments which I had heard made in a group of people calling themselves a "Christian" church seemed to me to be in direct conflict with the text of Matthew 5:43-48.

In developing the idea, I had wanted to include the text of a Facebook comment by a friend, which I felt opened the door to some further discussion on the subject on a very personal or family one-to-one discussion level. However, I had attempted to do some housekeeping on my Facebook account, and I managed to lock myself out of my Facebook account for a period of time (which the pop up on my computer said would be 24 hours but which turned out to be significantly longer before I could reenter my Facebook account to retrieve the comment by my friend.)

Further, while I was sure that my friend would ultimately accept the point that I was going to try to make, I felt it would be best to ask her permission before using her comment in this blog.  Discretion makes me realize that, as Penny has pointed out to me in the past, I sometimes have a way of expressing myself which tends to be perceived by the person to whom I am talking as the equivalent of "where did you get such a silly idea," even when I do not mean it to sound so blunt or demeaning and even when my relationship with the person is such that, as in Penny's case, she usually comes back in good humor after having considered my comment and in doing so having found herself echoing with a bit of a smile "where did you get such a silly idea."

My timing was not the best in attempting to obtain my friend's permission to quote her here.  So, I found myself late in the evening of your birthday having failed to wish you "Happy Birthday" and having failed to get something posted here for you to read.

But, it gets better!  In the middle of the night last night, after having engaged in some research reading and a lengthy "discussion" with God about the nature of interpersonal love in general, the nature of interpersonal love in the age to come, and the nature of God's love in se and as the foundation for the former two, I was awakened from my sleep by a litany of words echoing in my mind almost poetically developing a series of thoughts specifically related to that researched reading and my prayer time. As words came to mind, they formed a vague shapes which demanded better words to refine them into more clearly recognizable concepts.

Without thinking twice about it, I found myself hooked to the computer, dictating to a blank screen something far more interesting (at least in the immediacy of its impact on me) that I wanted to share with you via this blog site.  However, the rhyme which began last night is not in finished form – not finished enough for me to be comfortable posting it on this more public forum – and the text to accompany the rhyme is at this time still a series of words on the screen acting more as reminders of what things I want to make sure get put into the text than as anything structured.

So, even though I did not express "Happy Birthday" on your birthday, I was thinking of you on your birthday.

I am not sure if Penny shared with you the fact that she told your story about the elevator not working in your building and your having to walk down and up 16 stories to take your dog for its necessary walk.  I am not sure that members of a Sunday school class should so readily find humor in this situation let alone come up with the comments making light of your plight.  I, of course, remained appropriately somber throughout the jocularity.  No.  Really!

Just so you know, it is my understanding that Jim was not able to record today's lesson. Penny tells me that at least one person expressed disappointment at not being able to hear my rambling again during the course of the week. By way of a status update for you, earlier this week, Penny told me that it was Week 5 of my time to cover the text of Hebrews and that I better cover some verses from Hebrews this week. 

I sincerely hope you're enjoying your time in China. Penny assures me that things at the County Counsel's Office are just not the same without you there sharing the presence of God in your words and conduct. Me? I just miss sitting at the table with you, Bible open, listening to you raising questions and making comments in a manner not unlike Talmudic pilpul.

Oh, by the way, "Happy Birthday?"  <<Hmm.  I wonder.  Have I said it enough to make up for not having said it yesterday, especially since it will probably be the Chinese equivalent of tomorrow before she sees this?>>  As always, my prayer for you is that you be permitted to be constantly aware of the blessings of God in your life and of the blessing of God that your life is to others.

Your friend,

I am back, or like to think I am. But, from where . . .

A friend e-mailed me and hinted strongly that she missed seeing recent posts in this blog.  So, here I am.  Again.  But there is no opening attempt at a more colorful introduction.  This is not because there is naught from which to be inspired.

Today is one of those days of mental confusion or fatigue or both.  It is difficult at times to accept pain -- physical and mental -- with the sense of "rejoicing" to which the Scriptures affirm as appropriate.  I have found that it can lead to questions or comments from others implying something pejorative about my authenticity or my sanity when I finally achieve anything close to that goal.

I will admit to not having recognized until re-visiting this blog that it has been a tougher year on me than I realized.  It does not seem as long ago as the time conveyed by the date shown on the screen since my last blog.

Despite the medications (two handfuls each day) and conscious efforts to follow the regimen ordered by the doctors, the neurapathy is winning.  If it were not for the blessing of voice recognition software, my ability to "write" would be severely limited by the pain in my fingers from just touching keys on a keyboard.  Feeling of anything other than pain is gone from my feet as well.  The creep of the neurapathy up my legs and up my arms is both sinister and mentally intriguing to sense occurring.

In addition, the essential tremor which used to only come in occasional fits now seems to be a permanent invader taking possession of arm and hand any time I try to concentrate on using my right hand.  No.  Really.   The recent experiences of trying to get a spoonful of soup from bowl to my mouth has resulted in soup showers for me and my table companions -- not at all among my personal recommendations for ways to share a shower with someone loved.

I just recently received a diagnosis that these conditions seemed due to more than just the creep of neurapathy from conditions originally stemming from diabetes.  I was told that I now have arthritis in the area in my neck which was broken in my youth.

We flew back to Ohio and Pennsylvania for a couple of weeks, and came back with cold/flu thing which turned into pneumonia.

Yet, it was as much the psychic pain as it was the physical pain which kept hammering at me.  I know that most of us who have not altered significantly the traditional wedding vows have said those words referring to "sickness and health" and "better or worse."  But, at such a time as one's wedding and absent the presence of obvious circumstances which force some attention to those words, none of us really consider very much having to take care of one's spouse let alone the sense of being a burden to one's spouse as such conditions arise.

I have a friend whom I love dearly.  I would sacrifice a limb, an organ, or even my life for her or her family.  She is that unique kind of friend for whom there should be an eternal life because she evidences the character that must arise from the existence of a God that cares.  In my own quest through seminary, she was one of those who willingly acted as a sounding board for me as I was wrestling with things I needed to wrap my mind around before sharing my thoughts more generally.  As we discussed the nature of love  -- human and Godly -- she asked me one of those questions about my love for my wife and whether it fit the standards with which I was engaging in intellectual abstract.

My immediate answer to her was a joke in deflecting the significance with which that question struck me as vitally important.  I do get accused of over-analyzing such things, so I am not surprised in retrospect that I gnawed at that question for some time before I considered my answer satisfactory to myself.  While convinced of where the line really was for me between loving my wife and the quite different concept of loving the fact that she loved me, this recent foray in the slow entombing of my mind in a body defying feeling or control  by me has given me cause to appreciate just how blessed I am by God.  There was in these weeks in my blog hiatus an epiphany of indescribable wonderment at the realization that, despite what has happened so far to my body and my mind, she still looks at me with that same sense of personal delight and amusement which I first saw in her eyes as the reason for marrying her.

More than than this personal awareness of her in my life, I was convicted of just how much I should be loving not just her but even those people who annoyed me or hated me.  Despite a sense of joy that came with wrestling with the idea and knowing that through an awareness of and a surrender to God that the latter was possible, I have felt physically and mentally exhausted during this period in trying to redirect my life's direction in a manner that this awareness was translated into practice in my life.

So, I am back.  Co-opting the title of Brandon Heath's song, let me say that, despite the brevity in my time away from here, I'm not who I was.

Wishing you rest that can only be found in the peace that is God's shalom,

Ray.

Genesis ...

      Ever have I known you my aging Father
      as a shadowed pool of mists and more.
      I've been tossed in your raging torrents
      and lapped on your slower peaceful shores.
      Time, from futures uncertain you've created to last
       more enduring than diamond the unchangeable past.

Beginning.  Beginnings begun.

I have a friend who, in his forties, shared with me the story from when he was a teenager.  He went with his father to a Wednesday evening men's prayer meeting at the Baptist church their family used to attend.  He was the only teenager among a group of men ranging in age upwards from their twenties. The prayer meeting ended with an invitation to come forward and make a commitment to surrender one's life to Jesus.  To him it seemed the invitation continued unduly long.  He began to have a nagging suspicion that this lengthier invitation was being done so that he would come forward.

In telling the story, he gave a little half-laugh, and said that he went forward.  His father proudly accompanied him as he did so.  He said, "Y'know, I had no business going forward at that time because I had no idea what I was doing, except that I had pleased my father in doing so."

In concluding the story, he reflected with somberness, "Still looking back over all the years that have passed since then and my later commitment to my current faith in God through my belief in the saving grace represented by the Christ of the cross, I cannot say that my going forward that evening was not significant in shaping my life and in my adopting my current religious faith."

I have often wondered about the roots of what I have come to adopt as my own belief system, especially the fact that I have come to adopt a theologically-centered weltenshauung.  I have a memory similar to my friend's.  I was still in grade school,  I went forward at the altar call at the end of a Sunday morning service in the Holiday Park Baptist Church.  This resulted in my getting dunked in the baptistry a Sunday shortly after that.  Reflecting on these as one connected event, I feel that I had no more business having gone forward and having gotten baptized than did my friend in going forward at the prayer meeting.  Much of the life that I have lived between then and now reflected a person more at war with God than one who believed a loving relationship with God was possible.

Still, as was the case with my friend, I cannot say now that God was not faithful to what that event should have meant to my life nor that that those moments had no effect in shaping the faith that drives my life now, almost 50 years later.

another example of not keeping my mouth shut

I suspect that the above title could be used by me were I to describe most of the occasions when I leave the bubble of home and dare to mix with members of society at large.

This weekend, as usual, I attended the Sunday morning Bible study which Penny and I have been attending for the last couple of years.  The teacher/facilitator of the study is someone with whom I share a friendship, as well as a kinship in our mutual experience of diabetes.

The class is composed of people who come from a wide variety of Christian traditions, Catholic and Protestant, Wesleyan and Calvinist.  Notwithstanding our mutual friendship and the fact that we shared a similar distant background exposure to the Reformed tradition in Christianity, my friend and I we do not always see eye-to-eye in the interpretation and application of the Biblical text.  So, it is not to be unexpected that his insistence in teaching the Reformed tradition as "the only tradition" has also been the cause of some restless stirrings among other members of the class as we have proceeded through the Biblical text which he has been assigned to lead the class during his turn on the rotation.

Every now and then, he arrives at what he considers an appropriate break point, and he will ask for questions or comments.  Occasionally, he is surprised when, upon his reaching such a point, no one asks a question or offers a comment.  At such times, he is not above a teasing remark addressed to any one of a few of the class members from whom he expects some point of difference.  I am one of those few.  

Often, simply his turning in my direction and mentioning my name causes an undercurrent of laughter.  Yet, I beg you to remember my having said previously that  I do not think I am all that funny.  Still, my personal opinion does not seem to amount to much good in reducing the laughter when it occurs. 

This Sunday, however, after one such break where he specifically asked me if I had any comments, I replied by shaking my head in the negative.  He shifted his focus then from the primary text which he was presenting to include Biblical text that talked about "the world" deriding Christians for their holding to the faith.  He got particularly loquacious in presenting the fact that this still occurs in American society.  He began to cite the names of people along with a few comments about these people as examples of such criticism for their stand for their faith.  Had he been brief, I am sure even now that I could have kept my mouth shut.  

He mentioned Sarah Palin as one of his examples.  Had he just left it at mentioning her name, even then I think I could have kept my mouth shut.  When he reached the point in his presentation wherein he said, "... and we all have seen Sarah Palin get trashed by the media when she invokes her Christian faith, and ..."

Whatever followed in that instant was not heard by me, as my mouth starting moving, and as my ears heard a voice coming from inside my head saying, "Sara Palin gets trashed by the media because she is a nut, not because of her claim to being a Christian."  

The outburst of laughter gave me some relief to my own chagrin at the momentary look I got from my friend as his exhortation was interrupted.  And, to his credit, it did not stop him from quickly moving on.

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Comments may be made by clicking on the word Comments in the box below.  Feel free to comment, to offer suggestions, or even to throw stones.  But, in doing so, please note, my request for a certain deference to decency in language and civility in tone.

Memorial Day

"Mr. President, in our effort to accommodate many Americans by making the last Monday in May, Memorial Day, we have lost sight of the significance of this day to our nation. Instead of using Memorial Day as a time to honor and reflect on the sacrifices made by Americans in combat, many Americans use the day as a celebration of the beginning of summer. My bill would restore Memorial Day to May 30 and authorize our flag to fly at half mast on that day. In addition, this legislation would authorize the President to issue a proclamation designating Memorial Day and Veterans Day as days for prayer and ceremonies honoring American veterans. This legislation would help restore the recognition our veterans deserve for the sacrifices they have made on behalf of our nation." (1999 Congressional Record, page S621) 

                                                                             -- Senator Inouye, Hawaii

My first memories of Memorial Day are from a time when I was so much younger, when for many years my parents and I would visit a so very small plot of ground on a hill overlooking the Conemaugh River Valley.  My mother always brought along flowers to be planted.  My father wielded a spade, turning over the ground before a marble block, until a rectangle of turned sod was formed.  Carefully, the flowers were planted.

The block had my sister's name on it.  But, of one thing I was certain, whatever it was that lay in that ground was not my sister.  In many ways, to me, my sister was life itself, and it was I who had to climb the stairs and wake my parents that morning that she was so sick, sick enough that even the child that I was knew that I had to get one of them to come down to help her.  I had come to grips with "dead," when my father's stepfather died.  But, Nancy?  

I knew that something lay down in the earth below those flowers.  Each year's maturity and exposure to the concepts of dead and dead bodies had, I am sure, an effect on what I believed might lay below the ground.  But, that whatever it was that had made that thing my sister, I was sure was not there.

By the time I was in high school my parents no longer made me go with them, if they still went at all.

But by then Memorial Day had begun to present different "religious" symbologies:  One of barbeques, baseball, and the Indianapolis 500; the other one, more somber, of women wearing red poppies, of parents reliving tales of World War II, and of young men dying for a cause which had once seemed so clear to a high school generation before ours and which would only be remembered as vague pictures on the news by a high school generation once removed after ours.

I served in the United States Army for 3 years in the early 1970s.  My own military service was "interesting" and the use of the quotation marks is intended to emphasize the distance that irony put between the world in which that service obligation operated and the way that the rest of society -- at least as I had been exposed to it and imagined it -- operated.  I am blessed that I worked directly for the Colonel who was the V Corps Adjutant General, if for no other reason that, to this day, he periodically sends me e-mails to keep me informed of what he is doing and to take the time to remind me that he still remembers me and appreciates the job I did for him while working for him.  The irony even in that is not lost in me, because ... 

"Colonel Zahm?"

"Yes."

"I have to take about an hour this afternoon."

"Is anything wrong?"

"No, sir.  It is just that one of the requirements for my out-processing {me waving my paperwork at the Colonel as I spoke} is that it has to be signed off by the Recruitment office, and I checked with them and they told me they could see me this afternoon.  In fact, I am not sure if Sergeant McElhose or Captain Sonstein laughed louder at the thought of seeing me."

"Let me see that paperwork."

He was the Colonel.  He was the Corps AG.  I worked for him, not he for me.  The Recruitment office staff also reported directly to him.  I handed him my paperwork.

"Where is the part that has to be signed off by the Recruitment ..."

"Right there, sir."

"... office?"

He signed off as to my having met the requirement to hear the reenlistment talk, and as he handed me the paperwork, he said, "I love the Army, Specialist Kelley, and I really like you, too.  You were not made for the Army, and the Army was not made for you."

I knew I never fit in the military as a career soldier, and as the last of the drafted soldiers with whom I had been serving were leaving all around me, I felt it to be even more a reality.

Yet, for all the truth that the Army and I were not meant for each other, there have been few men in my life that I respected more than the two colonels with whom I worked so closely during my time at V Corps, Colonels Zahm and Cockill.  Over the years, I have known others who made the military their careers and those who have given their children to military service that gave back bodies that were not their children.  

At this age, the joyous family celebrations on the holidays often nowadays without thought of the those who gave their lives does not bother me as it did from time to time between then and now.  I have come to accept that, like most heroes, those who served and even those who died, did so never intending that what they did be remembered as anything other than doing their job.  

But, this Memorial Day weekend, I will  ...

... in the midst of the rejoicing in another day given to me by the Good Lord, I will also take time for sober reflection, even in the midst of celebration.

I will take time to listen to the Memorial Day Concert, and in doing so I will reflect on those who have served this country and given their lives.

At 3:00 p.m., wherever I am on Memorial Day, I will stop for the National Moment of Remembrance.

In addition, on this Memorial Day, I will set aside part of my daily prayer time to think pray specifically for the people who served from Concord to Afghanistan, for those who will answer the military's call tomorrow and in time to come, and, in a moment of purely personal remembrance, for my, now two, sisters whose bodies rest beneath a carpet of green grass.  I feel it an honor to give my time in reflection on them.

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For more on the Memorial Day Concert, see:   http://www.pbs.org/memorialdayconcert/
For more on the National Moment of Remembrance, see:  http://ngl.org/

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Comments may be made by clicking on the word Comments in the box below.  Feel free to comment, to offer suggestions, or even to throw stones.  But, in doing so, please note, my request for a certain deference to decency in language and civility in tone.

working toward an ability to share the "big kicks"

          "You see, I get so much fun out of thinking that I don’t want
          to destroy this pleasant machine that makes life such a big kick."
                                 — Richard P. Feynman,
                                 Surely, You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!  Adventures of a 
                                 Curious Character


I enjoy this quote.  I do not pretend that the meaning intended by Richard Feynman is the meaning I have given to it when I took to liking it as representative of an aspect of my world view.  But, I do enjoy it nonetheless.

I suspect -- but do not know due to my own sense of alienation from others (whether virtual or real) -- that every person has moments of feeling that as if one were a ghost unable to touch things in a tangible world or of being unseen (or worse, of being seen but seen as an alien) in a crowd.

One of the reasons for my attempting this blogging effort is that I often feel deeply deeply inadequate in my own inability to communicate.  I do get a great deal of joy in thinking -- and in meeting thoughts of others -- but way too often not so much in actually meeting others.

There are several reasons for this.  One of them is that I undoubtedly have a misplaced sense of personal value.  I have been told that it is misplaced because I find it odd that anyone would find what I have to say interesting, because little of what I have to say that does not sound heretical -- and even some of the heretical as well -- has not been said before by someone else.  I have also been told that it is misplaced because I do not think that I am all that funny, certainly not as funny as my words or mannerisms seem to evoke that reaction in others.  Many is the time that I have shared a personal observation aloud, to which others, upon hearing it, laugh.  I have one friend who, upon hearing my first words to him in greeting whether in person or over the telephone, immediately breaks out into laughter.  I have mentioned this in the past to my wife Penny.  The last time I did so, she just smiled that smile that carries with it the same message contained in what she offered aloud in her response to me:  "So {dragging out the "o" so that it sounded like sooooooo}, is it you, or is it everyone else?"

I once worked for a living making arguments on motions in a courtroom.  When a judge took a brief recess (pun appreciated but not intended) from a motion calendar, it was not uncommon for the attorneys who knew each other due to frequency of having run into each other on motion calendars to share recent courtroom adventures, to talk about some new case, to ask for advice or about how to approach a judge in arguing a matter, or what to expect from a judge.  On one occasion, a younger attorney asked a question fitting into the latter category, to which I gave what I thought was a quite serious answer, and the small group attending broke out in laughter.  As they calmed down, I said, "I wasn't trying to be funny.  I was quite serious."

Responding to my reaction, one of the attorneys in the group said, "Oh, you did not say anything that most of us were not thinking.  I do not think any of the rest of us would have said it, and certainly none of the rest of us would have used the same phrasing or the tone of voice you do when you offer your opinions."

Now, I will admit that I would like to think that I am completely oblivious to what tone of voice he was referring.  But, to my personal chagrin, I assumed then (and believe even now in retrospect) that he meant a sarcastic one.  I repeat, again that part of my assertion of being unsure, if for no other reason,  because I was not trying to be sarcastic.

A salve to which I look at times when the feeling of other from such moments occurs is the memory of a televised biography of Groucho Marx.  In it, the narrator stated that there was an occasion when Groucho had hosted a party for his frends at his home.  According to the narrator, after this party, Groucho told a family member (in a manner conveyed by the narrator that indicated Groucho was bothered) that many of, and possibly most of, the times, Groucho had made comments during the party that he had intended to be serious, people laughed at them as if they were comically funny.

Despite the awareness that this feeling has been experienced by another, as do most people I suspect, I can remember (almost with hyper-clarity) occasions in which it seemed that I was the target of the laughter, or worse, the target of some exchange in which I was among the intended audience but about that which was being said I had no clue. 

One such moment occurred when I just did not understand the punchline of a joke.   My mindset was completely unreceptive to entertaining the intended joke at the time.

I was in second grade.  My family had just relocated from a very small hollow in the middle of the Pennsylvania Appalachian mountains to what then was a rapidly growing suburb of Pittsburgh.  The move occurred in February, past the middle of the second grade school year.  At the end of the first week in my new second grade class, I was introduced to the fact that the class held a weekly spelling bee.  I do not know if I remember this event as well as I do because, in the recess that had preceded it, I had been laughed at for my lack of ability in shooting marbles or if I remember the recess because of the spelling bee.  But I do remember both.

The bee started with one-half of the class along one wall and the other half along the wall facing them, with one simple rule:  Misspell a word and you must return to your seat.

As the spelling bee progressed, a slight buzz started to occur among those who were seated as the sides were whittled down, with those remaining correctly spelling more and more words before a misspelling occurred.  I only came to understand much later that such a buzz is normal in such groups (and not just among second grade children).  Within established groups, the members form expectations of other members, in the case of the class spelling bee, the expectations centered on which person or persons would left standing at the end of the spelling bee.  As it was my first week, there was some surprise on their part that I, the newcomer, was still standing among that few.  In retrospect, I understand.

However, as time passed then, the number of students left standing had thinned to the point where I was left standing alone on my side and there were still a few left facing me.  The bee went on.  One of them was given a word to spell.  I was given a word to spell.  I was not sure where the words came from.  I knew I had been given a spelling book when I had joined the class, and I assumed it was from that book that a list of words to be learned that week had been assigned.  But I was new, and if I been apprised of the details, they it had been lost on me in my coming to grips with the mid-year transition to a second grade class having at least double the number of students of my former class.

As I stood there, the pattern repeated:  Word to me, spell, word to one of them, spell, word back at me.  I felt the number of words increase for each one of us before one of us had to take our seat.  My whole attitude at the time became one of survival -- a survival which was a mixture of survival of whatever personal pride a second grader presumes to have, of survival in trying to attain to rank or standing within the herd, and survival of simple acceptance by them of me -- who was now more than simply the new kid, but in some ways by my seeming to have inserted myself into one of their defined select groups, the interloper.

In the end, I was left standing {pfwhew}.  Yet, I did not feel like the victor.  A few more words were tossed my way as I stood there alone.  I like to think now that this was done as a matter of completing some existing list of words, or maybe even the words from lists yet to be assigned to the class or, alternatively that this was done as a matter of curiosity about the newcomer (after all a perfect score tells one nothing about the limits of the person achieving it).  But, at the time, all I could think about was survival.  This was my first bee of this sort, no matter that it was routine to the others and the teacher.  I spelled the next couple of words {when does this end}.   Then, then I heard the teacher say, "Spell blind pig."

I did not hear the tone of intended joke.  Yet, I was about to discover that there was indeed in the instruction a joke -- a joke, it would turn out to be, shared by the teacher and the the entire class.

I resolutely responded, "b - l - i - n - d -- p - i - g," and the class erupted in laughter {why is the whole class laughing?}  The teacher, too {what is going on . . . did I wet my pants }, erupted in laughter.  Then, the teacher said, "Wrong."  {What?!!}

Then she said, "Class, . . . "

And they all covered their eyes with their hands as I stood there becoming even more confused {why is my face so hot . . . should I cover my eyes . . . why am I pouring sweat all over my body}  In that moment, I had no comprehension whatsoever of the nuance of the homonym that followed, hearing, as I did, only the words as my mind comprehended the sounds being relayed to it by my ears from the mouths of the teacher and the class speaking in unison.

". . .  a blind pig has no "i"s."

I headed for my seat, feeling humiliated, all the more because I had no comprehension whatsoever as to what had just occurred why they were laughing {Penny's voice again, this time intruding in my mind as I write: , "with you, Ray"}  at me  {I complete stubbornly despite her laughter mentally poking at me}.

Upon my being seated, the teacher went on with her classroom instruction.  That it took several hours for me to come to realize and appreciate the play on words (of "'i's" to "eyes") only added to my sense of self-mortification for not having understood it immediately.


I am sure that few from that Renton school class remember me let alone this incident so close to the surface of my mind today.  {foolish class . . . ignorant teacher . . . a pig with eyes can still be blind . . . **pfft**}

That last mental thought was shared here in self-mockery of my own retention of this incident  -- and I even now have a vivid mental image of Penny smiling at me, and I can almost hear her saying just barely more than a dim whisper and with a hint of laughter in her voice, "Let it go, Ray.  Let it go." 

So, why am I writing this.

In last few days, I was involved in a series of written exchanges as to which I am working hard to honor Penny's instruction.

I do so enjoy thinking, and I do so like hearing the thoughts of others.  But, I hate making gaffes in the process of communicating my thoughts and in leaving people with the wrong impression or, worse, hurting the feelings of another.  It troubles me to think that what I intend as humorous  -- let alone what I mean to be a serious question or a serious comment or even a discussion evolving out of a question or comment originated with me -- might have caused someone to feel as if I have demeaned them or that I was intentionally speaking above their heads, especially when the person or opinion is in my estimation valuable to me.  I consider it valuable even when I am being told that I am being too hoity-toity and need to bring the conversation back down to the more intelligible "that dog won't hunt" standard of communicating.

I have the further problem of tending to engage in self-disparagement when I conclude upon re-examining words that I have used  that I have imposed upon another's courtesy or sensibilities simply because I sometimes -- usually when I find myself communicating with someone with whom I let down my normal guards -- tend to become overly excited in the expression of something which occurred to me.  Such things that I wish could be undone stick with me, undoubtedly more than they should.

It is my hope that I can through this exercise of writing a blog attain some level of casual written communication at which I feel comfortable even when the subject is about things which are quite important in my estimation.  I know that some of my own distress comes simply from my later over-analyzing my own attempted communication as well as over-analyzing things expressed to me.  I have to overcome a long-ago decision to isolate myself from most casual communication with others except on the most shallow level of conversation or on that level which I consider minimal to accomplish a communication necessarily imposed on me to make.  I know that the whys for my doing this come from things which shaped my world view more than 40 or 50 years ago, and I know that many of them are not normal. 

Yes, it might be easier to take the drugs available to me by prescription.  But, in my estimation from experience, their truncation of dissatisfaction too often came at the price of having my moments of joy equally lopped off.   Nowadays, I no longer am required to interact with people in the agora as a necessity of employment, and I enjoy too much riding the lightning of where my thoughts take me -- so much so that I am willing to forgo the chemical alternative even if the price is some alienation, even from my friends.  What I hope is to develop new habits to replace my current predispositions which tend to misunderstanding.  One such habit is to slow down in writing, to rethink what I write before I share my thoughts so that I can avoid unnecessary alienation, especially of my friends.

Maybe someday I will be able to capture into appropriate words what I do intend so that I can adequately share that about which I enjoy thinking.  I hope that at least one or two of my friends will stick around to be there should I accomplish it.
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Comments may be made by clicking on the word Comments in the box below.  Feel free to comment, to offer suggestions, or even to throw stones.  But, in doing so, please note, my request for a certain deference to decency in language and civility in tone.

searching for a Voice

Staring in the dark for what I seek to find --

        a dark that seems quite different from
                                                                       the end . . .
        the end of where, the end of when,
        the end of all that once was our world; 

        not dark which filled the naught of
                                                                       all untime . . .  
        untime no now, untime no then,
        untime before space-time itself unfurled --

staring in the dark of seeking to unwind
a pathway
                        to my fingers
                                                     from my mind --

Wond'ring all the while, whether there's a choice --

        a choice of Muse that guides the Fates
                                                                       to cleave 
        a life felt lost, a life by others tossed,
        its life's strands weaved on someone else's loom;
 
        or a choice that's mine:  Of silence
                                                                       or to leave
        some trace behind no matter what the cost, 
        to strike a chord that cuts away the gloom --

Wond'ring all the while, whether you'll rejoice
on reading --
                            or will have tired from --
                                                                     my voice.


I feel I need to get several things out of the way.  By way of emphasis, I repeat from my first text in this blogging endeavor:   I consider [this blog] an experiment in which I get to use myself as the test subject.  The primary object in my doing this is personal.  The subjects will be those of personal interest to me.  The exercise of writing, even when I do not want to write, is to aspire to a personal goal.

I suppose that everyone who writes in a public venue is cognizant of the fact that others may read what has been written.  Most, including me, have enough vested interest in the effort so as to have some desire as to the response evoked in the reader.  One thing of which I am sure, while there are certain people of general repute whose comments I would consider an honor, the reaction of my wife or of my friends is paramount to me.

I recognize that the anonymity of the internet has changed the standard of what is acceptable expression of one's ideas, but it is my blog.  I have tried to set it up so that comments are permitted, but it is my blog.  So, say I am old, say I am out of touch, lay whatever condemnation you feel you must upon me, but I will protect certain aspects of this blog, such as limiting obscenity and maintaining some level of decency in the discussions, because . . . it is my blog.

In the personal experimentation that occurs within the blog is a self-examination of my habitual approach to writing.  All of that portion of my life in which I have been engaged in the exercise of writing -- before this, usually at the behest of someone else -- I have been for the most part a stream of consciousness writer.  The first draft has usually been the final draft (with the exception of modern access to running whatever spell-checking software was imbedded within recent word processing programs when spell-checking came at no additional charge to the purchase of such programs).

On occasion I like to tell people these habits became ingrained before I entered junior high school.  My hand-eye coordination never managed to attain to legible my use of pencil (regardless of hardness) or pen (regardless of tip) after cursive writing was forced upon even those of us with impaired meat hooks for hands.  As a result, I began in fifth grade to use, what was even then, in the early 1960s, an old, manual Royal typewriter that one of my parents had put away in the basement.  I had no access to "Liquid Paper," "Wite-Out," or correction papers.  Error correction was a choice between restarting the page or erasing and trying to type over that which I had erased.  It was difficult enough for me with my lack of dexterity and with that typewriter to roll up the paper to a point where an eraser could be applied to the paper and then to roll it back down to exact realignment.  My attempts at erasing without leaving a hole in the paper were of a skill level comparable only to that of my cursive writing.  I considered it a success when I achieved a sufficient reduction in the erasure smudge -- even though the paper had been thinned to the point where only one or two more passes of the eraser would have made a hole bloom -- that the newly typed letters were somewhat legible.

In no small part because my cursive handwriting has not gotten any better since then, I believe that the teachers were better off for my having used a typewriter -- despite the unevenness of letter quality due to my childish two-fingered pounding on an old, manual, inked-ribbon typewriter, the several smudged up places on each page, and my first-draft-final approach to writing -- than had I turned in handwritten pages -- illegible in cursive or painfully scrawled in printed block letters, with several places on each page smudged from fingers dragging across inked page or from pencil erasures, and what I am sure would have been my first-draft-final approach had I been forced to endure the "curse" from which -- and despite all denials that have been foisted upon me, I still believe -- the term cursive when it is applied as a modifier to writing is derived.

Even when engaged in stream of consciousness writing, different voices often appear in the text.  I have more than once been told by recipients of personal letters from me that they heard my spoken voice in their heads as they read the text.  When the recipient is due a more formal correspondence, there is, of course, the obligation to a certain precision attendant to the nature of the correspondence, but my own mental process often involves adopting an entirely different voice representing a different character which I am playing on life's stage.

It never occurred to me how easily I had slipped into this habit of role playing until it was commented upon by a newly-hired attorney who was getting some training by watching me in court (way, way back when I only had a couple of years of experience myself).  After the court appearance, in a meeting with me and another staff attorney, this new staff attorney asked whether it was essential to the job "to develop a split personality?"  Almost simultaneously the other staff attorney and I asked what the new hire meant by the question.

She said that she had never seen anyone change personalities so radically as I had between the time we entered the elevator up to the courtroom and the time we left the elevator after having come down from the courtroom floor.  She then went on to describe her impression of what had occurred.

When we got to the courtroom, the only persons present other than the court reporter was the respondent to the motion brought on behalf of our client and the attorney for that respondent.  She noted that, before the hearing began, the respondent's attorney and I were chatting so amicably she assumed we must have been personal friends.  She was startled, however, at how vehemently I presented my argument for our client, especially our request that the attorney be required (as the law permitted in this matter) to disgorge all of his fees back to his client.  (It is my recollection even now that this fight over his fees was the part of the hearing which got the most contentious between us.)  But, what shocked her the most was, despite my argument personally directed at the disgorgement of fees by the attorney based on the attorney's own failures in the matter, he and I were chatting as if the whole hearing had not happened as we rode down in the elevator after the hearing.

Prior to this, I had, at most, only incidentally thought of as acting the various ways I approached the different phases of my life.  Since then, I find myself inclined to wonder often, which of any one or of any combination of the different aspects of the personality I play is me.  

As Shakespeare penned:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts . . .
     -- "As You Like It," Act 2

And each part we play has its own voice.

I have certainty as to some of the people who will read this blog.  I have some idea as to the subjects about which I wish to write, and I want to get through a certain part of my list of those subjects.  Still, I recognize that my desires may change with time and my own mental evolution about this endeavor.

I have no idea yet as to the voice which will develop during this effort.

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The world appears not to have begun the violent end predicted by Mr. Camping.  Or so I suppose as I sit here in the dark of my room, with only the darkness of the night outside my window, my desktop lit by a small desk lamp, and two computer screens and the light of my fish tank adding to an ambiance that could be restful, eerie, or humorous depending on the music playing in your head as you envision this.

Penny and the dogs went to bed hours ago and the only sound is from the fish tank motors (ignoring for the moment the ever-present sense of sound which is a tinnitus resulting from the medications that keep this body alive, from old age, or from both).  In this moment and from this thought what is called to mind surfaces from 40 years ago -- times when I used to come up from the sluice way under the roll bars in the Braddock steel rolling mill during a break:  Upon seeing no one else on the floor, it occasionally crossed my mind that the final trump could have sounded, and I would never have heard it between the rolling noise and the rush of the water, and I alone remained . . .

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Blogging as a modifier, as in the "blogging" irony

The world is ending -- a "The end is now" the world is ending.
    Some preacher that I never knew proclaims the Word has said it's so.
    And Bin Laden so filled recent news, that this week's just seemed way too slow.
Despite that Reason it's offending, the newsman says our end is pending




{Sooooo . . .


Let us for the moment pretend that the news that the world is ending this weekend  and not just some distant and far flung future is true (if you do not already believe it thus).  Could not this have occurred a week earlier, if for no other reason but to have saved me from the effort of learning how to set up a blog site?}

Dawn of a New Day

         Dawn of a New Day

I thank God for having truly freed me
to live again -- not from that which lasts:
The enduring, the glimpse of rare beauty,
the moment that transcends so many pasts --
but of that which all futures from life takes:
Desire's hope reduced to death-wish aches.

To paraphrase a line sung by Eric Burdon:  This really blew my mind, the fact that me, an overfed, long-haired leaping gnome should be have the word "blog" attached to my name. 

I consider it an experiment in which I get to use myself as the test subject.  I wrote the above poem as a preface to an entry I made in a journal I once kept.   I had just experienced an idiosyncratic epiphany . . . {can I say that without being accused of some level of redundancy?} . . . at a time late in my life in which the theoretical concept that my life had value became something about which I had the experience of feeling that it was not just a propositional statement but had real meaning. 

Like most people, I have experienced new beginnings in my life several times.  Whether this is a beginning or simply a shot in the dark only time will tell.  

Thanks for dropping by.  My name is Ray . . .