Bound

I am only bound by
what I am unwilling to know
and
what others are resistant to teach.

I can only be stopped by my fear of pain
and
the threat of death

I am only as free as
my willingness to let go,
and
only limited by the
control I allow others to have over me

There is always a way when
"good" is the direction

There is always truth
when questioning "love"

I can "bound" but
only after refusing to be
"bound".

Conversion

If my God was about converting I wonder why people are evangelizing Christianity, I think He would have converted all to Judaism, as He practiced Judaism. This Easter I am reminded that God came and was an example to the Samaritan, Roman, Gentile, and Jew, without needing to convert cultural tradition and life. This leads me to believe faith wasn't discriminant or oppressive. He led by example not at the expense of tradition, but by tradition. I am a spiritual critic guided by own mistakes, sins, hypocrisies, and limitations. World! Don't argue with me, show me how I should do it healthier. God has given me a mouth to eat, and I foolishly use it as a weapon for my mind, at the expense of my soul. And lastly I have in the past appeared to be Holy, but in this phase of life I desire and aspire to be Holy.......Happy Easter! With love, Enjoy the rest of Spring.

Loosing connections to pain

Has tradition been replace by dogma, a hierarchy of needs, or something between? I see how many Americans, including myself, have had to leave their birth cities, their connection to their past, or their connection to their pain. I assume the top reasons for the migration is to find work, better pay, explore, or follow family. Many Americans are adopting a tradition of moving away. I too, felt this was the thing to do. I see now that it disconnects me from learning the history, struggles, and lessons learned from my great uncles, grandparents, and community elders. I see how it deteriorates a family's bond. I see how it corrodes the connection from the pains of the past. It is that source of familial pain, that I see as necessary for me to go beyond the dogma of tradition.

I can see how I learned to be mistrusting. I know now where my anger came from. I can see that my families traditions are being altered, by me and life. I see clearer that I have become independent with hypocritical dependencies. I must risk trusting that things will be alright, knowing I say this often. I feel alright one day and tossed in despair the next. I must trust that I can survive and thrive in any phase, democracy, or climate.....foolishly .... with God's grace.

I think I am aware that I need comfort to be happy. I think as I harden as a man I will be less dependent on laws, conveniences, and luxuries for my content. I might even consider suffering a joyful understanding of the paradox that gives way to death. It is getting too easy to point out hypocrisy in our American politics. It is getting too discouraging when my peers can't recognize it. Or maybe I am just on a fools journey and the joke is on me.

Today as a radical Catholic, a radical believer in Jesus Christ, and a revolutionary wannabe, I see my ego at work and my senses remind me I am only a man, no more, no less.

Lessons Relearned....maybe!

When a country creates laws, it creates precedent, which often create patterns resulting in a culture of condemnation. This judging culture is susceptible to dogma that lurks in the shadows. As seen in the union disputes around the country. I am a man who is wading through a tsunami of dogma, in my faith and economic communities. We will need to relearn our laws and regulations because I have become lazy in understanding the struggle that created those unions. The convenience factor created by the exhausting efforts of people in the past has allowed me to ignore their struggle. I no longer can feel the pain of struggles past and therefore allow the tearing down of safeguards. This will be interesting because it isn't bad....yet. I think it means that those folks must once again learn the lessons that inspired regulations and laws. It will be a struggle for some, but I also see how it is tearing away at dogma.

I think with bias that pain is the source of conflict between the liberal and conservative. To the liberals detriment it has created fear. To the conservative it has done the same. I even think we fear the same crap. Except for liberals its focused around liberties and with conservatives its focused around prosperity. I can see how the teacher's unions are afraid that they won't be respected, treated with care, or valued. I have to say I think conservatives are afraid of the power educators can have. Both equally mistrust the other.

I recognize this fear in love. Having experiencing a painful divorce, I am afraid to revisit much less relearn the lessons of love. So I can see how the conservative wants to relearn the lessons of bargaining. I can see how teachers are afraid to trust that they will be valued. We don't have a consistent track record on either side. The education system knows it isn't great, and the we as a society expect the best without investing in making it happen. I am excited that change is happening. It inspires me to also risk breaking apart my laws and regulations created from being wounded and relearning the lessons that keep me tucked inside my unions.

Loving the game!

I think I have learned what the most challenging aspect of a man's life is.

It is loving a partner fully, completely, and purely. I have trained and prepared for many challenging things in my life. I have had coaches teach me skills and techniques in preparation for games or events. I have had the discipline and self motivation to be committed to preparing for all the anticipated aspects of competition, and trained for how to deal with the unexpected. In baseball I crafted my defense, I conditioned regularly, and I made a point to improve always. In individual sport events, I transferred this mindset into my workouts, research, and dedication. I learned to become my own coach and learned the quality of self discipline. Unfortunately, all these qualities worked well for me in competition, but seem detrimental to my ability to love. My professional career has embraced and leveraged my athlete's mind or warrior spirit. I am learning or becoming aware of how useless these skills are, when it comes to love.

Love is not a competitive event. So most of what I learned in my young adult life has not helped me love. In fact it has taught me how to love with my mind versus my heart, which for me is not loving at all. I also can't remember having a love coach. I don't recall ever having love workouts. I rarely made time for learning how to love. My coaches never made room for love in their warriors curriculum. I was filled with anger, focused rage, and a thirst for strength. I was told that losing sucks, and its all about winning. Not much love in this message. If it takes a man to lose his ability to love to gain a championship then I welcome the losers bracket. I was not taught how to hold ferocity with care.

So as I open my heart to the concept of love, I see how my competitive mind distracts my God given thoughts. The heart doesn't compete. My heart is waiting for my mind to rest long enough to be coached in the language, rules, and spirit of the game called love. It is a game where if played for the right reasons everyone wins. It is a game where the best are the example and the worst are honored for participating.

The most challenging thing I have done in my life is to live for another. I have questioned and still question my ability to commit to one lover. Loving is so much fun...this is my exploitation of love. I am loving for its fruit and I have become unwilling to learn the complete love lessons that are learned in sacrifice, self control, and discipline. I am a love tycoon, seeking to tap into loves aquifers, drill love's lands, and mine love's bedrocks. I have not let go of my addiction to the profits that come from using love, like infatuation, pleasure, or thrills. I am an adolescent lover. This game called love has put on its full court press, it has brought in the hard throwing lefty, and I am in the middle rounds with love's best pound for pound lover. I am excited, because love respects my stupidity, arrogance, and foolishness, it won't use it against me, but for me.

Through Him, with Her, and In Them.......

Amen!

Internal politics

Around the country I see a desire for exploiting resources, gas, oil, minerals, forest, addiction, and sickness. I see a desire for deregulation believing this will solve economic crisis. I see a desire for limited collective power and the elimination of unions. I see a desire for traditionalism and fear of moral chaos. I see admiration for self struggle. I see pride in innovation, capitalism, and free-markets. I see an upper middle class arrogantly cheer how possible it is to achieve. I see an elite group of resource hogs talk about how sensible capitalism can be. I recognize me.

I see......how wrapped up I am in my own fear of being alone, experiencing pain, and having pure freedom. I understand you, conservative. You are in me. I remember believing that all I had to do was work hard, get up early, stay late, and put in work. I remember thriving in this individual effort to get me closer to wealth, which I believed would make me, my family, and my community better. Well unfortunately, conservative, you're truths for me are incomplete.

I belong to a community of spiritual people who have instilled in me a respect for community, a commun-ism, no not the communism that makes you cringe like a little lamb, but the commun-ism that teaches me to incorporate cosmos, earth, water, enemies, sick, and foreigner. My commun-ism looks on you with pity, compassion, and empathy. I belong to a community of wise, simpleminded, and rooted people. But conservative in me, don't be afraid, I need you just as much as you despise me.

You have taught me how to push myself beyond the limits my weak body believes it can go. You have instilled a fire in me that motivates me to improve. You slap me in the ass when I am scared, tired, or frozen. You help me to clench my fists. You taught me how to function when alone. You gave the courage to embrace the darkness on my own. So conservative in me, when you have beaten me down, I will be ready once again to join back with you to seek the truth.

Individualism

I think individualism is the most convenient theory I have come across, but it is at the same time only infallible in fiction. It is straight forward and responsible. It is a very objective understanding of reality, which for me doesn't jive. It is a great tool for pointing out how dependent others are on a systems, organizations, or belonging institutions. It rarely reveals the importance of dependence or acknowledges the value in help. What it doesn't account very well for is dealing with the consequences when people aren't being "responsible" individuals. We are a species that is dependent on our senses and responding to others. We are also an impulsive group of beings. Reality is not very objective for me, and I find it impossible to see how the world can be so clear cut for others.

In society we have institutions that deal with the consequences of those who are struggling to contribute to society in healthy ways. There are governmental and private systems that serve these populations. In most cases these are passionate people who believe in helping. It is a very devalued way to earn a living. But these people organize and collectively contribute to helping those who live in the reality that life is not a simple series of objective decisions that lead to accountability and healthy outcomes. I am happy for those people who have the fortunate communities that reflect a belief that they are being successful "individuals". I am discouraged when self centeredness is called being a good individual. The line in-between is thin and how you perceive it is extremely "subjective". I don't devalue my individuality but I aspire to live interconnected.

Si se puede!

I used to think that César Estrada Chávez was Mexican. I used to think he fought for immigrant rights. It was by economic circumstance that most people he fought for were immigrants. It was by life circumstance that he was fighting to be treated respectfully. It was by social circumstance that the voice took on the look of a Mexican. It was by spiritual circumstance that his voice was herd. I used to ignorantly hold pride in his name. I used to believe that he was a brown man fighting "The Man". My perceived ideas were angry and possibly misguided.
"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me" (1 Corinthians 13:11)

Now I'd like to think I am no longer ignorant. I have since learned that he was born in Arizona. He was American with Mexican heritage. I have since learned that he fought for every worker's human rights, in the form of appropriate working conditions and fair wages. He was like Juan Galt, in that he invented a motor that propels peoples' belief in themselves. But unlike John Galt he was real, not fiction. He did not discriminate...openly. He did not seek to be treated as an oppressed, but asked that he and those like him be treated with dignity and respect. He was an advocate for fairness, justice, and dignity. He was educated, but not by schools. He served in the United States Navy. He was a boy who learned how to be man who could lead men. He is one of my American Heroes.