Paradigms...where shift happens!

Further on a parent's grief

 A follow up on the Sheehan Post:

 

I receive the following from an old friend who has buried a son. I asked her permission to use it and she agreed: 

"An interesting post about Cindy Sheehan.  I too am a mother who has lost a son and it is possibly the worse thing that can occur to anyone.  We are meant to die before them.  I guess what bothers me most about her approach is that she has totally overlooked her living children and her marriage. Those remaining children are experiencing a huge amount of pain--I saw this with my own kids-------and I am always a bit wary of protestors.  My viewpoint on protesting is---fine go and do it---but there isn't enough time put into solving the problem.  Am I making sense?  I hope I am. But, do I understand her pain?  Yes, most definitely.  When B was home for Thanksgiving she went through old family photos and cried----we visit those times so infrequently due to the pain that comes forth." 

 

And then after I asked her permission to use her thoughts she followed with this:

 

"I re-read what I wrote and I feel every bit of her pain-----but to totally make your life around one child is so unfair to the rest of her family.  When [my son] died----[his dad} and I made a very pointed decision to live well in his memory.  The last thing he would have wanted us to do would be to disfigure the family landscape over zealot thoughts.  I guess the same thing also goes to being a cancer survivor----I am [who I am]-----not all about my cancer or my child that died and when one faces such horrendous tragedy------I think it should be faced with faith----and an understanding that I do not live with tragedy-----but rather try to learn and go on."

 

There you have it, another mother’s thoughts.

Cindy Sheehan

I've been thinking a lot about kindness recently. Back near the first of this year, I posted a piece here about New Year's resolutions. This year my intended resolve, I said, would focus on trying to be kinder. This is not going to be a confession of failure at that although there is plenty of room for personal improvement. In the last month or so I've witnessed two instances of un-kindness that really didn't need to happen at all let alone in the personal way they did.

In one, a young woman was brought to tears in a public place and in the other a young man (also in a public place) already upset was goaded into deeper anger by totally unnecessary additional confrontation. How little understanding it would have taken to keep these hurtful actions from happening. Only a few people witnessed these two moments; millions have seen the unkind and emotional brutalization of Cindy Sheehan.

The right wing of our political spectrum calls her a shill for the anti-war movement and there are parts of the left who see her activism as a rallying point for their views. She is probably some of both. She is also a mother who has buried her son, the child who came home almost daily with another wrinkled kindergarten masterpiece destined for the refrigerator door, the same little one who was bursting with anticipation at seeing the look on his mother's face when she unwrapped the first Mother's Day present he ever made himself.

Her baby boy is dead. There will be no more Mother's Day presents, homemade or store bought with a few crumpled dollars dredged from the depths of a little boy's pocket. She will never hear his "Hi, Mom!" greeting on the phone again.  Her present reminder of his life will be his name and dates of birth and death etched into a piece of cold stone. We don't have to agree with her but we are bound as fellow humans to honor her grief without judgment.

Have we become so polarized in our views that we can only view a mother's grief in terms of our own political agenda?  Do we really live, as it is beginning to appear, in a zero sum world?

New reading that's really, really...

...worth your time!!

The little list of the blogs I “always read” is a short one (upper left corner of the home page) because I only include sites in it that I truly find worthwhile reading…sites that stimulate or move me or in the case of Uncle Jack’s blog, make me laugh out loud. I’ve see many good postings on various blogs but the overall quality is what will move me to add a site/author.

I have added a new one named “This Is My Body, This Is My Blood”. You should read this lady’s writing. It is moving at all times and quite funny as well. Most importantly it has the ring of truth.

Robo-Yule

I get promotional e-mails from Linens and Things. In the last one they were promoting a 7 ½ foot pre-lit remote control artificial Christmas tree with “850 lights that change from clear to color in seconds.”

Pre-lit? Remote control?  And the scariest part? When I went to their web site to see what this 7 ½ foot bauble looked like I found that it was temporarily out of stock due to the fantastic sale price of $99.99, marked down from a paltry $299.99. P.T. Barnum was right…there is one born every minute.

I’m trying to imagine kids looking back on their childhood Christmas memories and getting all misty eyed as they talk about the annual ritual of Dad simply plugging in the tree. Talk about a Hallmark moment…ummm, maybe not so much….

Wouldn’t it be cool if the tree just snapped into shape like those easy set up camping tents? Or better yet, when Easter rolls around it works like one of those "Transformer" toys and with a few deft hand motions Dad changes it into a pre-lit 7 1/2 foot Easter bunny....

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it…

Black Friday

What is it with Thanksgiving? Does anyone else feel that the last Thursday in November seems to be degenerating  into a pre-game show for “Black Friday”?

Maybe it’s just my holiday cynicism that makes Thanksgiving feel like a pre-game meal for the Shopping Super Bowl.

New photos...

I've been meaning to get to these for some time now but you know how guys are...

Robertson redux

Pat Robertson has heard another message from God. The folks in the Dover school district in Pennsylvania are in God's crosshairs because they voted out their school board over the intelligent design issue. If it made the news on "Buenas Dias Caracas", Hugo Chaves' approval rating will go through the roof.

This comment from my friend Mike at coffee this morning proves the Dover voters were right:

Pat Robertson's very existence proves there is nothing to the theory of "intelligent design".

Just say no to...

...to telemaketers!!!

Our government loves to do things the hard way. On November 20th, cell phone numbers are due to be released to the telemarketing industry (if you care to call it an "industry"). Seems to me that the whole process would be much more compact and efficient if, instead of a 'do not call' list they used a 'please call me list' where people could sign up to get telemarketing calls. They could probably fit the whole list onto a 3 x 5 card with room left over.

In any event just a friendly reminder as follows:

JUST A REMINDER, November 20th, 2005, cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls. YOU MAY BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS!
These telemarketers will eat up your free minutes and end up costing you money in the long run. To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888/382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time.

It blocks your number for five! e (5) years.

PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.

You can register on line at: http://www.donotcall.gov

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it....

An election choice in Virginia

Today is Election Day here in

Virginia. I did my part and waded through the one person in line in front of me in order to cast my ballot.  The candidate who had, in my perception, done the least amount of mud slinging got my vote.

 

That’s the first time I have ever voted on that issue alone…it felt good.

Administrative stuff...

A couple of Admin notes here:

1. I have received an interesting comment in response to my “Rock & Hard Place posting. I’ve asked the poster to provide a source for the information before I approve the comment for posting here. It seems to me that if claims are made about individuals there certainly should be some attribution. In this case, no names were mentioned but I’ve chosen to apply the same standard. Maybe I’m hyper-cautious but there you have it…
2. Since I began this blog, I’ve used a mailing list to notify readers, friends, relatives (and others who are too polite to complain) when I have posted a new item. Although I know it will cost me viewers or readers or whatever, I’m going to discontinue that notification process. For future postings you’ll need to either bookmark my blog or e-mail me that you would like to continue receiving notice. There is an e-mail link at the bottom of the right hand column. Your e-mail address will absolutely not be shared or given away to anyone for any reason. I’ll hope to hear from you but I’ll also understand if you choose not continue. The only two exceptions to the revised notification process are my two daughters who are required to continue reading this in order to remain in my will.
3. All comments come to me first for review before they are posted. I'm doing this to stop comment spam and gratuitously insulting commentary.

That’s my story for now and I’m stickin’ to it….

Grande mocha skim latte frappe to go!!

As of this morning we have 4 Starbucks outlets here in Fredericksburg. It seems as if it was just a month or so ago that there were only 2 and a few hours ago there were just 3. Could there be some process going on here that we do not fully comprehend?

Are Starbucks stores mating with mushrooms or 7-11s under cover of darkness?

Are there strange cloning experiments going on in some lab in the Pacific Northwest? 

Has some computer hacker discovered a method to propagate these stores in the same way they do computer viruses?

Or is it the worst possible scenario; has the number of stores reached critical mass and are the stores able to now spontaneously recreate themselves on any unoccupied piece of real estate without human intervention?

The Rock & The Hard Place

Has there ever been a time in America when we have had so many contentious issues in the news, so many demands on our attention? It would be so easy, perhaps even inviting to throw up ones hands and retreat into apathy.

It reminds me of a forest fire scenario. Just when it appears that a spot fire may be under control, two more ignite near by.

Politically we are so severly polarized we are virtually paralyzed.

Apathy and withdrawal are inviting but altogether too easy.