I’ve been practicing this spiritual way of life for many years now. It sometimes is put to the test. Not the principles. My ability to incorporate them. The ability to embrace what I’ve been talking about for nearly half of my life now sometimes requires a perseverance I wonder if I have.


It is the ego of course that drives me to want to adhere to these ideas of making amends. Ego, that I somehow now have to walk this talk that I’ve been espousing to anyone who’d listen. I’ve spent hours in gatherings and talking from a podium to folks at these gatherings about the spiritual healing that occurs from this practice. The practice of attempting to make restitution.


I say attempting because restitution is relative.

Restitution = 

Reparation made by giving an equivalent or compensation forloss, damage, or injury caused; indemnification.

There have been times when I’ve been more successful than others. Sometimes reparation is not possible. If you’ve smashed something to smithereens – like trust. How can you restore that? Sometimes I can’t. That doesn’t mean I should not make the attempt. Sometimes the very attempt is where the spiritual healing can occur.


If I look inside my heart, and my intentions and then align my actions to match – a miracle can occur. Not that forgiveness is always given. That’s not the miracle. The miracle that I have expanded my conscience to genuinely not to repeat a behavior that causes others harm. Sure, it’s causing me harm. If it didn’t – if there were no consequence – to me – directly – I quite likely wouldn’t see the point. I am, still at heart, a selfish being. That, would appear, unfortunately is part of my human existence. Maybe others have transcended this selfishness – I have not (yet). 


There will be times when even the superglue of intention, heart felt regret, and action cannot mold back together something which lay in smithereens.


Sorry never held much sway or power in my life. Whether people were conveying it to me (mostly because I knew how little it meant coming out of my mouth) or whether I was trying to convince you I was sorry. I think this was mostly because:


a.) It didn’t mean I truly was
b.) I didn’t want you to think that it meant I wouldn’t do it again tomorrow under the same circumstances.
c.) I didn’t want you to think that it meant I wouldn’t do it again tomorrow under different circumstances.


Basically, that selfish nature prohibits me from matching my sincerity in the moment to a long lasting memory of the consequences i.e. pain I’m feeling right now. Thus – the humbling act of restitution provides a cost. A tangible way of remembering the cost of my actions. The price to be paid for arrogance and disregard for others.


In this latest instance, I’ve attempted this act. And, it would appear it’s a situation of smithereens. I have no power over this. I can only make the offer of an attempt to set right a wrong. And, whether people then choose to broadcast my shortcomings – to brand me with a scarlet letter – well, maybe that’s the cost. The consequence. The price.


So, even if I’m branded whatever the term dujour may be, what’s most important to remember – is that somewhere in here there must be a lesson in humility. My instinctual response to want to strike back only would exacerbate this situation. It would certainly defeat any purpose or lesson which may be garnered from this. And, in the end, that may be all there is to gather from this debacle.


I don’t think this event is going to alter the course of my human experience. I don’t know that I’ll not sin again next year. Next month. In the next five minutes. What I pray is, that I don’t repeat the same mistakes again. Then – I’d have to say I’ve found no value what so ever.


But – I believe I have.

C!

C!

C!

So, I guess, Somehow I’m supposed to work up a tear, or sigh an exhale of – isn’t that wonderful that this ‘fairytale’ has a happy ending.

http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=xa-4be9943c2de1875b

For years this bigot-acting-straight-wanna-be has thrown the community under the bus. Now, he would seek to have us sigh a sigh of relief that he’s now on ‘our side’. But, from the many people I know in my life who have a change of heart, after finding themselves in handcuffs – I’m certain he wouldn’t be the rainbow flag waving supporter he’s attempting to portray himself as if he hadn’t been pulled over and made to pirouette on a straight line.

While I’m happy he’s no longer actively legislating and advocating against human rights – It’s going to take far more than an apology to erase the years of advocacy that has undermined the community he now has the fortune to find himself in and on the receiving end of some of the intolerance that for years he has fostered himself. Like anyone who indicates “I’m sorry”. I’d rather see “action”.

In the famous words of Miss Janet Jackson “What have you done for me . . . lately?”

I understand this politician is ending the his tenure at the end of this legislative session – but I hope he will aspire to a position of true advocacy, rather than taking a retirement and sulking away with the hollow “I’m sorry” still ringing in our ears. I will hold my empathy/sympathy until I see what the Honorable Roy Ashburn does with this new found appreciation for all things humane and born-again fuzzy feeling for the community he’s bashed for years. THEN, I may work up an applause. Holding til then.

Wow. Recently I was speaking with a young person. I know young is a relative term, just like “old”. But, for the sake of this conversation, let’s say – under 25.

And, “Jake”, not his real name – was recounting a recent sexual escapade. I didn’t find this particularly shocking or even strikingly interesting. It’s not uncommon for young people to launch into detailed accounts of their personal lives, particularly as it relates to sex.

Hell, when I was under 25, I’m certain – if my recollection allows – that this WAS the forefront of my life. After all, there was no mortgage, no health issues, no other life distractions which come along sometime usually after the late teens, so what else would be the focus??

But at some point in the conversation, when I was admittedly half-paying attention. (Remember, I said it’s not uncommon to have these types of open-frank discussions with young people. I guess my status as now ‘officially’ old enough to be their father, AND being openly gay, AND being in a long-term relationship engenders me some sort of good-listener-potential-good-advice-giver status) Any way – at some point I stopped thinking what I was thinking, doing what I was doing and brought the full force of my attention to the conversation and what this young man was telling me.

“What?”

I made him repeat what he had just recounted. I don’t know if it was the force of my voice, or the look of my face which was quickly contorting to disapproval against all the efforts I was exerting to remain stoic and unaffected.

“What?” I repeated. Mostly because I needed time to digest what he had just conveyed, rather than not hearing or even disbelieving what the topic had moved to.

It appears that Jake’s boyfriend may have just passed HIV to him. How can that be, I was formulating my question to my lips but he offered that their love-making had been without benefit of protection – as though he were reading my mind or fending off the first volley in a litigious cross examination of how this occurred.

To be fair, to be discreet and to be respectful, I’ll end this portion of my discussion with Jake now. Because I wouldn’t want him to read this and think I’m being disrespectful of our conversation or the implied and explicit discussion that followed about privacy. So from this point forward will just be my view.

Perhaps it’s because of the generation I’m from. Perhaps it’s because I have known what a world with HIV is like before there were drugs and treatments to keep it in check. But, I fear some of our young people don’t have the same approach or hold the same fear over this disease that say someone “old” like me would. I don’t know whether I should be sad, or apalled. I guess some of each. I’m trying to maintain an open mind about such things. Sure. Okay. Yes – there are drugs yes which render the virus nearly a non issue in most people’s lives. And, more and more everywhere I turn, as a gay man, you’re in the minority if you DON’T have the virus. But, this just appears to be fostering an acceptance, if you will, with something I still view as unaccpetable. Accepting that you that you should just go on ahead and have unprotected sex, because A.) it feels better. B.) not doing it might imply you don’t care as much or trust the person you claim to love or C.) you’re going to get it anyway, so what’s the use.

The personal responsibility for one’s health is not something any of us should take lightly or approach with a cavalier attitude (and Jake, I’m NOT just talking about you – I’m talking about me and all of us).

Watching many of my friends die, as young as Jake is right now, in the late 80’s and early 90’s still is seared in my mind. It would appear that it has definitely imprinted it’s impact on my approach to the subject.

I think about my friends who have died. Some who meant, truly a great deal to me. None, who I knew shrugged when they talked about HIV. None, who would not have gone back in time and taken a different approach to sex and their health if science permitted. None, who wouldn’t trade places with any of us to be here with us today. These are people who desperately wanted to live! And at that time, there was no choice. HIV was a preliminary sentence, on the way to AIDS which was a death sentence.

So maybe rather than asking here today that my younger friends try and understand where I’m coming from – maybe I’ll ask myself to try and re-look at the whole topic. I don’t know if I’m out of step, or that folly of youth which fools us into believing we’re invincible because we can’t conceive how much time and life lay ahead. A lifetime of taking drugs to keep a condition in check just can’t be a solution – especially if it’s for something preventable.

Or maybe I should just shrug, like everyone else. Or cry. I can’t decide.

Rob knows the answer

We are in a Texas Schoolhouse

What on earth is the President and our country doing welcoming this man here. His latest rantings and dangerous behavior warrant a shun, not a full diplomatic reception and red carpet. Our country, while admittedly not the most effective in Afghanistan, still has done much to attempt to support the country and raise it up.

And maybe not effective in Afghanistan is too simple a description. Certainly some of our attempts in that country have been just bad.

But we’re talking about a country that, when we entered, openly harbored and supported the very people who undertook the attack on America in 911. Viewed in those terms, I don’t think we necessarily owe them any courtesy. But, trying to understand that the complexities of the political situation – I concede that if we merely went in, took out the taliban and departed the resulting vacuum would be a potential breeding ground for worse and more radical regimes. Good. Got it.

But, Karzai, who was supposed to be our partner in the endeavor of limited rebuilding and our departure seems to be milking us like a cow he can’t stop embracing. That’s with one hand. While he has one arm around the cow that is the United States, the other has a torch in it he keeps setting to our side. Ouch.

Ouch indeed. His statements about joining the Taliban are not laughable. They are to viewed in the most serious way and should be immediate cause for dismissing him as ignorant, a mad man, dangerous or all of the above. (I vote for the last choice). I know we keep hearing we have no alternatives but to support him. Really? Isn’t that the precise same thing this county said/did during the Hussein regime in Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war? Years later, he was the great Satan.

It seems like history repeating itself. Why on earth would we not believe he’d bite the hand, when he’s already nibbling. Duh.

It’s time to come up with a strategy of withdrawal, vacuum be damned. I don’t want to hear the arguments about it being another Vietnam either. It was a failed strategy the moment Bush diverted his attention from it, split our focus and resources, to settle the family vendetta in Iraq with the man that threatened his father’s life. At that point it became hopeless. It’s time to admit it, and depart before the continued spending there costs higher and higher dollar and lives.

To be blunt. I care far more for the lives of our troops than what happens in that part of the world at this point.

No. For real. Republicans – I’m speaking of Joe Liberman, so for all intense and purposes – Republicans are proposing having the power to strip Americans of their citizenship on the basis of their affiliations or beliefs. Wow.

Well, that’s an end run I didn’t see coming. Actually – I don’t think any ‘sane’ person could have seen that coming. I’m not throwing out the insanity allegation as a quick put-down to someone I disagree with. Really – I call into the question of any of these conservative leaning types who cry for less government, still less government and then come up with all manner of ideas which put the very power of our citizenship in the hands of the government.

Ok. Maybe insane is too generic a term. Maybe full on schizophrenic is more accurate. These inconsistencies which show up among the conservative nay-sayers, make me scratch my head. I think I have a bald spot from all the scratching. Perhaps you can explain it to me? I’d love to hear from you.