Gay Marriage

I'm not gay, but I have friends that I love that are.

I have nothing against hardly anyone, no prejudices to speak of. My mother raised me to believe that there is no difference between any color skin, ethnicity, religion or socioeconomic status.

But, there is one group that I have a problem with, and it is bigots. Whether it is a group that hates a certain minority, religion, or lifestyle, I have a hard time being patient with them.

So, hence the people that support the S.C. Marriage Amendment. Read more here: Hartsville Today

I put myself out there on this one, but felt that if I didn't, I'd never forgive myself. I do not negate the poster's right to post, but I do have a problem with the whole debate. To me, to deny anyone the right to live they way they choose, and to have a ceremony and relationship that affords them all the rights that straight people have, is un-American. Especially when it comes to choosing to be monogomous, isn't that what conservatives would rather everyone do? Pair up, stay with one partner, be faithful?

Homophobia mystifies me, it is like the last group to hate. My dear gay friend laments, and says that this type of legislation is what keeps people in the closet or makes them drink themselves to death.

Ah, it is tough being blue in a red state.

Praying

My youth group kids had a Disciple Now weekend kickoff last night at a local Baptist church. ((it goes without saying that Southern Baptist is radically different from the "Maine" Baptists, but I perservere)) It's a neat concept, an Interfaith Experience with all the youth groups in town meeting for fellowship, mission projects, and fun. The other youth group leaders and I have bonded, and I think that since the kids go to school together and are friends with everyone, why the separate islands?? It's nice to get together.

So, last night the speaker got in from Nashville TN and got up to talk. He is young, about late 20's early 30's, dressed in jeans and an untucked white button up shirt, sleeves undone and flapping as he spoke, hair a bit gelled and spiky, tousled and looking "cool". He started talking, and the kids were rustling and some not paying attention...then, he got them. It was amazing. He really connected with them, and started talking about how God is not a tired counselor, a bored listener, and always has time for them. That no prayer is insignificant, no conversation with him unheard. If he knows every hair on your head and your name before you were born, he knows you, and wants to hear from you. Quite a concept for some of these kids that were taught not to bother God with little stuff because he is busy with the big stuff.

I, myself, pray outloud a lot. I feel closer to God when I am outside, especially in the sunshine or the moonlight. Or, just sitting up in the middle of my bed, cross-legged, in the middle of the night, just talking. I have even had what some mystics refer to as rapturous moments, but, after studying the release of certain chemicals in the brain that are pleasurable when in moments of deep meditation, I suppose it was more of a brain feeling than being touched by the spirit or an angel.. but, hey, I didn't knock it. I have only told a few people about the sensation, it has only happened a few times, but when it did, it was amazing. As if you don't dare to breathe nor exhale...it is like a warm cloud of soft electricity embracing your every cell. Just amazing. Better than an orgasm, better than a good buzz from a great bottle of wine, just this overwhelming feeling of contentment and pleasure. Really wild stuff, and I had previously thought it a bunch of silliness.... until it actually happened to me.

The first time, I was berefit...had a kid that was going through a lot of struggle, all alone a 1000 miles from home, and an ex-husband too wrapped up in his golf game and his new wife to help. I sat up in my bed, pitch black at night, and prayed outloud. And talked, and pleaded, and begged God to get off his ass and help me. Then I started to be thankful for what WAS good, and what was going well. I listed everyone and everything I was grateful for. I prayed for everyone I could think of, to nations to family, and just prayed like there was no end to prayer. Then, that indescribable feeling. I was overwhelmed, and scared, but then peaceful. And, then, I got it. What Rumi wrote about centuries before, and mystics after. There are studies and I can't recall them now, but actual physiological and psychological studies about this phenomena and it is tied to a place in the brain that releases endorphins much like what happens when people run and "hit the wall", that rush that flows over a runner's body that is pleasurable and allows them that extra oomph to run more.

So, I watch these kids. I know that probably half have tried alcohol and pot, and many more will in the future. What if someone could talk them into trying to get this natural high? How wild would that be. Instead of the moronic kids huffing inhalants, getting into trouble for DUI's and possession of pot, what if they all sat around in ashrams and meditated and prayed to get this kind of free, healthy high? I used to roll my eyes at the concerts of Christian Rock bands, and think that it was ridiculous...but, now that I am more in touch with the Christian side vs. the Spiritual side, is there really something that we intrinsically need as humans?

I have a dear friend going through alcohol addiction, and he says that you absolutely cannot quit without a deep spiritual commitment.

with so few people today taking religion seriously these days, it makes you wonder. Not so much the dogma, the "give us your money and you'll be saved"..but the old fashioned, sit home and be still.... pray... spend time just talking to the ultimate source of all live, which I feel, is simply LOVE. Love, the love for all sentient beings (buddha) Love for all (Jesus) Love of parents, friends, family, the pet and the ant on the sidewalk. Just as the Beatles sang, all you need is love.

so, if you happen upon this post today, it is my wish that you go find a great quiet place each day to just be still and pray. and that you will someday feel that cool feeling, and realize that whether there is just one central energy source that created all of us of if it just happened, there is power and energy in prayer and it will certainly help you and never hurt you. So, pray.

passing afternoon.

Passing Afternoon

by

Iron & Wine


There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn but the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from their piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children 'till she let's them go at last
And she's chosen where to be, though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can't recall, blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers, rolling 'round the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned

There are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the windows closed, she'll sit and think of me
But she'll mend his tattered clothes and they'll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

here it here: www.myspace.com/ironandwine

I can't even begin to say how much this song resonates with me. It is like this man took my diary. Especially the third stanza;

"And she's chosen where to be, though she's lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds"

Catharsis, I know, it's just more catharsis. Why can't I ever be over this. Did I keep so busy that I never got to feel it enough to get over? What more can I do. Yes, there is a baby in my bones that is still so scared to be left alone. I hate that this song did this to me this morning. But maybe this is just what I needed to hear, to read, to feel... precisely at this time, this morning, this moment.

NICK DRAKE

Northern Sky Lyrics

Album: Way To Blue



I never felt magic crazy as this
I never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea
I never held emotion in the palm of my hand
Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree
But now you're here
Brighten my northern sky.

I've been a long time that I'm waiting
Been a long that I'm blown
I've been a long time that I've wandered
Through the people I have known
Oh, if you would and you could
Straighten my new mind's eye.


Would you love me for my money
Would you love me for my head
Would you love me through the winter
Would you love me 'til I'm dead
Oh, if you would and you could
Come blow your horn on high.

I never felt magic crazy as this
I never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea
I never held emotion in the palm of my hand
Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree
But now you're here
Brighten my northern sky.

Here it here

why do we blog and/or post?

Have you ever looked at www.43things.com? well, go ahead and look.

Its a site all about listing what you want to do, giving yourself time limits /goals to complete them; pretty neat, right?.

But, really weird reading while you are there, however.... you can be such a voyeur, the posters put more on there than the average blogger.

which leads me to think: between this site, www.postsecret.com, MySpace, blogs like these, why are we so ready to put our "stuff" out there for strangers to read...yet, we rarely open up with the people that we love and love us?

It's that whole discussion explored in the film "Crash"-Quotes:

Graham: "It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

Do we in fact live so far beyond deep, meaningful conversation that we are compelled to share our thoughts in any way possible? Do we long and need to open up our heart and our thoughts on such a deep level that this anonymous "look into the closet of my soul" is what keeps us going?

Case in point, the man I dated for several years was hurt, shocked and surprised when he read this blog. I felt the same when I read his. And this is someone that I have talked to on the phone almost daily for 3-4 years. Like we would have anything the other didn't know about? Yet, we did. And do.

Maybe we want to be be private, but with all the mediums that are available to us for free, 24 hours a day, the channel to let our thoughts out. Because a stranger won't judge. Unless you are a "found" blogger, and suffer the wrath of judging from perfect strangers. Which, strangely, is still better than being critiqued from someone we care for.

Well, maybe this song is the greatest song ever

Thunder Road

Bruce Springsteen


The screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
darling you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright
Oh and that's alright with me

You can hide 'neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven's waiting on down the tracks
Oh oh come take my hand
Riding out tonight to case the promised land
Oh oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road
oh Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey I know it's late we can make it if we run
Oh Thunder Road, sit tight take hold
Thunder Road

Well I got this guitar
And I learned how to make it talk
And my car's out back
If you're ready to take that long walk
>From your front porch to my front seat
The door's open but the ride it ain't free
And I know you're lonely
For words that I ain't spoken
But tonight we'll be free
All the promises'll be broken
There were ghosts in the eyes
Of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets

They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines roaring on
But when you get to the porch they're gone
On the wind, so Mary climb in
It's a town full of losers
And I'm pulling out of here to win.

greatest song ever

The Psychedelic Furs

Pretty in Pink


Caroline laughs and
It's raining all day
She loves to be one of the girls
She lives in the place
In the side of our lives
Where nothing is
Ever put straight
She turns herself round
And she smiles and she says
'This is it'

'That's the end of the joke'
And loses herself
In her dreaming and sleep
And her lovers walk
Through in their coats

Pretty in pink
Isn't she?
Pretty in pink
Isn't she?

All of her lovers
All talk of her notes
And the flowers
That they never sent
And wasn't she easy
And isn't she
Pretty in pink
The one who insists
He was first in the line
Is the last to
Remember her name
He's walking around
In this dress
That she wore
She is gone
But the joke's the same

Pretty in pink
Isn't she?
Pretty in pink
Isn't she?

Caroline talks to you
Softly sometimes
She says
'I love you' and
'Too much'
She doesn't have anything
You want to steal
Well
Nothing you can touch
She waves
She buttons your shirt
The traffic
Is waiting outside
She hands you this coat
She gives you her clothes
These cars collide

Pretty in pink
Isn't she?
Pretty in pink
Isn't she?

now listen to it here:


http://www.myspace.com/dahustler1