A not so old... New England Memorial day

I grew up in the typical small New England community of the 50's and 60's. Our neighborhood was the usual mish-mash of Canuck, Pollock and assorted American mutts. My street was an oil sprayed, dirt paved road topped with a large white Baptist church. Three houses below that stood the Catholic church. Seven houses below that lay the proverbial "package store." A small Polish mom & pop operation that sold cigarettes, booze, meat and a huge array of penny candy with an assortment of anything else that you might need.
My mother would faithfully tend to the graves of our deceased family members on Memorial day. Her routine varied little from year to year. She bought the same kind of flowers and tended the graves in her usual stoic way. Talk of the yearly parade would always gravitate towards an attempt to get my Dad to march. He never expressed much interest. He was one of the few WWII vets that we knew, except for the few friends and co-workers and VFW members that we occasionally met.. Most of my friends had fathers younger than mine. I estimate that my father was thirty nine years old when I was born. My father was a P.O.W. in WWII (see picture 2nd from left) and I think that he just wanted to forget those days.
As kids, we faithfully watched the Memorial Day parade from the lawn of the Baptist Church. From there, we would scurry across the railroad tracks and jump over the stream that fed the Depot pond. We would rush up to the two cemetery memorial sites from which we would wittiness to the 21 gun salute. Memorial Day parades never included the throwing of candy for the crowd of parade spectators. The empty shell cartridges with their smell of powder and heat was for the young men on the precipice of the Vietnam war a greater reward than any peanut butter twist or lollipop. It became ironic that some of those that once scurried for those very shells were now laid at rest where they once played and fantasied of guns and war.

Blinded by the light, Revved up like a deuce, Another runner in the night...or, How to map out the Edison Light

When we bought this house twenty eight or so years ago, this room sported a bottom half covered by a very cheap barn-board like paneling. The top half was covered with a velvet orange wallpaper containing raised gold designs throughout the pattern. The ceiling light was a pull down lantern. The doorway from the kitchen had swinging saloon doors. And yes, there were mirrors stuck on one wall above a makeshift bar. It was truly an East meets West bar lounge. Did I fail to mention that all the woodwork was painted black?
After some major renovations we finally opted for a three light ceiling fan. Looked nice. I could have passed into old glory or the nether worlds without ever exchanging the light for another. But as wives do, she began to obsess about the light. She needed a new look. She bronzed the base and stain-painted the paddles. She made new shades. But she was not satisfied. Then came the Pottery Barn Edison Light.
The light came with no instruction on how to map out the placement of the lights and their cords and clips. It took some real study on how to best make it fit.
Of course that is where I come in.
If anyone needs instruction on how to map out the placement of the light, cord and clips, please feel feel to e mail me.

The low, slow, growl of the Ghia

Weddings and graduations

My Ghia Girl

Loneliness is such a....drag

"Spiritual friendship, association with wise and noble friends, and wise and noble deeds are the whole of the holy life." the Buddha

I,ve been watching some of the recurrent thoughts that arise to chastise me and one of the little buggers is the thought and the subsequent feelings of loneliness.
When I was studying and reaching for a life as a Christian pastor, I felt a like-mind with several brothers and sisters that I had met along the way. Sometimes it seemed easy to extend grace toward one another. It was a time of embracing. There was value in "not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together."
This friendship has not been duplicated since. I bear some responsibility for this. The level of fundamentalist Christian teaching that I withstood, questioned, and then left behind, left me lacking in trust of an organized anything: (see previous post)
I have since relied on some of the friendships that developed through blogger to replace that which was not present in my every day life. (Loser?)
The sportsman's club that I belong to bases all friendships within the framework and ritual of getting drunk together.
My older sister and older brother have written me off since me mums death in July of 2004. The older sister wanted me to help her overthrow my older brother as executor of the estate. I would not. My brother put off my help to aid him in the physical removal of home items until it was the most convenient time for him and the least convenient time for me. He cursed me out when I now asked him to delay for a week. I placed several calls to the both of them shortly thereafter in attempts to restore balance but they would not return my calls. And they have not since.
The lodge of Freemasons reminds me that I am a stranger in a strange land. I am most at home with fellow spiritual seekers; Buddhists, Taoists, Shamans...that are free of the stink of religion. You can spend time with them and be completely at ease without saying a word. They embrace you just as you are....how rare is that these days?
But even the blogger relationships that I developed are subject to change. When I spoke out against the war, I lost some friends. As I suffered and tried to deal with some of the fallout of what it really means to be human in This Being Human....loss of income, daily pain, attempted suicide for a family member, confusion, desperation and anxiety...to quote the kids, "You're bumming us out. Dad."
Who in the hell wants to read that crap every day?

Intergration

I've been working diligently on trying to reconcile the various aspects of This Being Human... There are too many sides to that which makes up for me being Tao1776. That is, being from the "West" and having been born American and raised as a Christian creates a common indelible flavor that doesn't exist in many other parts of the world. And to top it off, many of us are genetically nothing more than mutts. This is not noted as something that is either good or bad, it is just my observation. Add to this the feeling that America has grown into a complex conglomeration of humanity; a mass of shallow one celled amoebas that live by being fed by a doctrine of constant consumerism. A nation of hungry ghosts with large bellies and mouths too small to be filled fast enough. I am often left feeling as if I'm living in a world of reality TV Talk Soup clips.
Entering the stream of a more universal sort of observation, I have splashed about in the waters of the Christian mystics, Taoist sages and Buddhist Lamas and Roshis. How I entered into the Lodge of Freemasonry is both amusing and a little befuddling.
I have found it necessary to separate my writings into several blogs and blogger attempts to address this conflict within myself. Rebel/pacifist. Buddhist/Christian/Freemason/Taoist/agnostic. A mean mutha fucka that hides behind a very real sensitive and frightened self.
I am tuned into the driving voice in my head teaching me to never be content. lust. Anger and sloth. Anxiety and doubt. I work hard in the hope that I will transcend it all, undefined as the wind; "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going." As the mirror in Zen that reflects nothing.
As a common working man, like many of you, I have sought to better my status and to take care of my family. I've never been one to shit on others while I climbed to a higher position. I've always found it disturbing that some could behave as such so readily. This Being Human...was constructed as a vehicle to help me come to terms with such Machiavellian dealings. Losing my job, my position, my pay, hit me harder than I ever imagined possible. And it is time for me to let it go...
I've decided that it was necessary for me to return to some very basic Buddhism while examining my anger and depression. Feelings that I feared to feel. Where do these suffocating thoughts come from? When and how do they arise? If I observe my anger and the subsequent feelings of depression without judgment, would my thoughts pass on as clouds on a midsummer's day? Would I then be able to observe my thoughts and not be buffeted about by them?
I began to mindfully use the acronym R.A.I.N. as my guide. Recognize the thought as and when it appears. Accept the thought without attachment while being objective. Investigate whatever the thought may have to reveal. Practice non judgment in regards to the thought.
For example, during a meeting that I needed to attend a short while ago, my mind played an unending recording of thoughts that told me how awful it was that I wasn't as articulate as the others. That I had nothing to offer. I found that instead of having the usual response to these thoughts, which drove me deeper into myself, I used the RAIN approach. It was extremely liberating. I felt a sort of, "Is that so" come over me. Almost a "So what." It was non-violence against myself. I stopped beating myself up. I felt myself smiling and flowing with the moment instead of warring with the little schoolyard bullies of the mind.
I've begun to observe how often it is that Ir hold to some sense of injustice. Injustice does take place in the world and my focus is all too often drawn to that one single reality. There are those characters of history such as,
Clan Gregor of the Highlands (to whom I may be of blood),
Daniel Shays,
Tecumseh,
inhabitants of the Western Mass flooded towns,
and Smedley Butler, that I feel most akin to. I relate so very well and I don't really understand why. It is not that I have been so dispossessed of land and livelihood or reputation such as these. I've observed how it is that I hold to a cynics view of Government; that Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, was a short lived spurt of idealism that disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared. My experiences and observances are shaded by these deep seated feelings and the need to see justice and freedom be won again and again from the oppressors of the world regardless of how big or how small.
Freemasonry has also presented for me a degree of conflict and one of compromise.
The Chaplain is an appointed officer of the Lodge opening and closing each meeting with a secular prayer. As Chaplain, I am in charge of that duty.
Although Freemasonry believes that religious belief is important for a man, Freemasonry does not care what religion a man believes in. Freemasonry is a system of morality, veiled in allegory, illustrated by symbols. Our Order is NOT a religion, but religious in character. It is a philosophy of ethical conduct, which imparts moral and social virtues and fosters Brotherly love. Its tenets have endured since man turned the first pages of civilization. They embody the understanding by which man can transcend ordinary experience and build "a house not made with hands" in harmony, with the Great Architect Of The Universe. The Chaplain is an appointed officer of the Lodge opening and closing each of our meetings with a secular prayer. As Chaplain, I am in charge of that duty.Freemasonry believes that religious belief is important for a man. Freemasonry does not care what religion a man believes in. Freemasonry echos the sentiments of many of our founding fathers (many of whom were masons) that established the first amendment which prohibits the government from interfering with a person’s practice of his or her religion. Religious freedom is an absolute right, and includes the right to practice any religion of one’s choice; even to the extant of having no religion at all.
This is the true religion of America.
And to all this....It is no secret to some that I am a practitioner of Buddhism. But there are very few Masons within the Lodge that are privy to that information. Nor would most of them care; nor understand what that might mean. Not unlike Freemasonry, Buddhism is often most misunderstood; believing that Buddhists are atheists and that Buddhists do not pray. And although it might cloud the issue even more, let me say that being an atheist or praying in the traditional Christian sense requires "belief" and that for a Buddhist beliefs are ideas about truth and not truth itself.
And to all this....It is no secret that I am a practitioner of Buddhism. Not unlike Freemasonry, Buddhism is often most misunderstood; that Buddhists are atheists and that Buddhists do not pray. And although it might cloud the issue even more, let me say that being an atheist or praying in the traditional Christian sense requires "belief" and that for a Buddhist beliefs are ideas about truth and not truth itself.