Christmas 2012

I don't have a wife and children. No matter how much marriage I did I didn't get a family which I took for granted would come out of marriage. My generation, Canadians collectively, my age anyway, are more of a 'divorce' culture. I've watched others take more pleasure and interest in divorce than weddings. The whole matter of dating has left me bitter, with legal bills, horrendous financial burden, loss of direction, displacement and the shame of it all. My friends who avoided the whole matrimony thing, had kids, paid the bills and lived together or didn't did better in the long run, except maybe those older than me. There's still a Rockwell picture in it for some.
50% divorce rates, higher rates of failure on second and third marriages. The legal lottery of divorce pays the highest to the best lawyers whereas the East Indian marriages survive often because of mutual jeopardy and the requirement that with divorce the wedding gifts are paid back. The only marriage in Canada anyway is the 'prenuptial aggreements', the courts showing little respect for the state or religious marriage contract. A third of the children of parental DNA test show that the children aren't the fathers who has often paid untold child support to a woman who can without abort a father's child leaving him feeling as I have felt, bereft, powerless, unmanly, devastated and disheartened.
It's been called a 'death culture', not just for the celebration of divorce that gives fetal Murderer Morgentaller the Order of Canada. It's like putting Hitler on the cover of Time. There's no rhyme or reason to these days. I'm jaded.
That's Christmas for single people. I celebrate my family and the winners in the social sports. I feel a loser this time of the year. I long for the parents past and the aunt and the family scenes of nostalgic childhood and Christmas dinners, and fireplaces. Friends have been great. They've even shared their families and homes and hearth with this silent scrooge. It's not polite to bitch and rant about Christmas, the social celebration, the consumer image and brand.
I'm just glad it's over. I have too much pain from the Christmas's that followed the years of separation and divorce and the death of family and the thought of the abortion of life.
I'm a recovered alcoholic too. 15 years ago I partied with the best of them, partnering with drug addicts and drunks but I got clean and sober and made amends and left that scene which was for this binge drinking, monumental at the Christmas New Year's hub. In the darkest nights of the year I lit up. We wouldn't drink for half a year but Christmas was a time of parties that began Christmas Eve and ended with the January hangover. Today I just don't like the drunks driving on the road and the smell of booze on breath and the chaos of the consumer frenzy with all the inducement to drunkeness. It's a time of the year I often go solo sailing to the islands. Just to get away. I have a dog who loves his extra treats, the bones and squeaky toys. He's never seen me drunk and I don't like the memory of arguments with drunken women or hung over women. I don't like dry drunks either, those short fuse, critical judgemental people with lots of blaming others for their unacknowledged depression, anxiety and anger. I don't like the angry entitled young men either with testosterone and expectation of respect for stupidity. I don't like going out at night on the streets even during the Christmas season. Mornings are great.
I love the church today. I love the trumpets and horns and caroles and the warmth of congregation. I love meetings too where we huddle together against the cold of the year.
This year Gilbert and I left the precarious heat and water of the sailboat and took a luxury hotel in Seattle. I had showers with endless hot water, turned the heat up high, watched the recent movies on pay tv and ordered in room service. The Alexis Hotel was extremely dog friendly and Gilbert met friends everywhere and the staff called out his name. I loved it. It was decadent. I listened to Michael Smith on the Message driving to and fro Seattle. I attended Trinity Episcopal Church and was delighted with the welcome Gilbert and I received in this loving inviting church. I opened the gifts from my family and friends Christmas Day and I didn't cry. I can nurse self pity with the best of them and think it's something more than just self absorption. I took delight in a friend volunteering her services caring for others this Christmas. It reminded me of the years I've worked Christmas and Hannukah because I didn't have children and could cover for those who did have family. It's often where us single people gather, helping others.
This year I had a cold and was glad to get over the bronchitis with rest and relaxation.
I know it's Christ's birthday. I know that Jesus wasn't born this day but that mid winter was a holiday the church tacked the birth of Christ too. Good a time as any since no one knows when he was born and even the year is suspect. Some question Bethlehem as his birthplace. I don't. I was there and whether it's the spiritual centre for millions of worshippers or a special place of historic significance, Bethlehem will ever remain a sacred moment in my memory. I really must get back to Israel. If ever my faith falters there's no better place to be. Walking in the steps of the man who was a 'servant king' who washed the feet of his disciples, raised the dead, healed the sick and preached the Good News, the Gospel.
I have a family in the church. I know that. I have a family in my nephews, neices, cousins and friends. I know that. But I'm Canadian so I define myself but what I don't have and what I'm not. I'm not American and I'm not European. We're all immigrants here, even the First Nations. Maybe only in the Middle East do people belong which is why they kill each other more over any piece of land than any other. A space ship probably landed the first Australians there and they bred with the locals giving rise to Atlantis or cro magnons whichever theory suits. They still can't explain why a Chimpanzee with more years than the Big Bang could never play Mozart. Alot of weasel room and fudge data in the theories that become political fights once people get mixing up the 'facts'.
I'd like to be levitating. I'd like to be singing Hosannah with arms outstretched but mostly I'm trying to block out the complaints to the college. Every Christmas I get a complaint to the college, mostly from drug addicts or alcoholics who I've refused to sign their chit. They get pay back. For every doctor a complaint to the college costs thousands of dollars and hours of time and only the most mediocre of doctors, those most protected, the best business men, the least risk takers, the ones who avoid the psychiatric patients, the prisoners, the sociopaths and psychopaths, who look on medicine as a good job, like the good administrative jobs that are so safe and well funded and pensioned in medicine, not the frontlines where disease exists. We're lead from behind. There are no leaders who lead their troops. There are none anymore who put themselves in harms way. They're all Monday morning quarter backs. No doctor can show pain because that's where they poke you if you do. They say open up and let your defences down, solely to know your vulnerability, while they hide in 1950, living lives of ivory tower perfection and delusional. I pray for them. Ee Cummings called 'them' , 'thosepeople', one word. It's the 'other' and Martin Buber said the great question is whether to love or fear them. I work on loving them. I love them and know they fear and hate me and I love them more wondering always if this is a good idea because sainthead seems to attract crucifixion and I'm too much coward and softee to want to tweak the nose of the beast these days. I want to slip away into old age or die quickly with my boots on. I 'm afraid. The future isn't trusty. I've done pretty good with mine so far but there's a lot of doubt in the air. Media, doubt, booze, economics, terrorists, talk of war, all that is hard to keep outside all the time especially with all the beggars and theives grabbing at one.
I can slip into a rant like the great Canadian Mercer. He calls politics his spectator sport. He's concluded the leadership should just stay home as they're increasingly irrelevant.
It's that time of the year. I'm going to get into gratitude for New Year's Eve,
I'm grateful, really. I read the secret. I know that my thinking has caused all the pain I've had. It's all my fault as my mother would say. I've also read Job and shit just happens because shit can.
Hallelujah! Hope is what Jesus brought. Hope not in this life. This life isn't real. The next one is. Heaven is real. This is just a kindergarden or training ground. This is where we learn that what we do has consequence and there is a thing called Karma. It's called divine retribution too. It's the number two law of Jesus. Number one was Love God. Since God is Love and Love is everything we really have to love even our enemies, bitch that that is. So much for fear, anger and self pity. That's all the doubt that sinks a Peter walking, preventing him from walking on water. I feel like that. Everytime I feel like I'm walking on water I think . It's like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Anyone can walk on air if you don't think about it. Then Jesus says "Love your Neighbour as Yourself". The price of gold these days and that's still called the Golden Rule. It's the law that Trumps Donald Trump and Einstein and Newton and all the laws of this world. It's tough because I'm here learning love , probably sent to earth as an interdimensional insane asylum. That's the best explanation for The Lord of Flies leadership ideas I encounter in the committee room geniuses who live above real consequences.
Bodily disease is what we think. As Jesus says it's not what you put in your mouth but what comes out of your mouth that counts. This is from the guy who avoids uttering profaniety but is cursed with vulgarity by the truly vulgar who don't know the difference. No surprise the Rapture left me behind.
I've hauled a hundred liters of diesel down to the boat for warmth. I'm going to exchange a gift for the right size. I've got more cleaning to do. I'm praying. I'm asking God what I'm supposed to do with this life. I'm begging him to point the way and give me direction. I'm feeling like I'm sitting on the bench a bit but that's another thing that happens mid winter. I'm always restored by the crocuses and they're only weeks away. It's like the morning after the dark night of the soul. There's always a dawn. The day Jesus was born the universe knew a new dawn. God entered creation. In the east they have saints escaping life, becoming God like and no longer having to do another term on earth. But Jesus was God coming to earth, the second Adam. Eve was Mary too. Eve the slut became Mary the virgin. Both gave birth to the human race, one secular, another sacred.
Some people life flat liner lives, like drug addiction and lizards. It's all concrete with no inner life, no emotional life and no spiritual life and no unconscious and conscious. The man with the most toys, money, power and lust objects and addictions wins. But without Love you have nothing. Love is all. Thank you Jesus.


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