Monday Morning

I am up. 6 am.  I woke first to a dream of driving in mud and sleet unable to see the road through the windscreen. I stopped the car.  Then lying semi awake old resentments poured in. I saw an axe going through the skull of history.  I began praying for the past.  Praying for enemies. Praying for God. Praying for peace. Praying for love.  Resentments are taking poison and hoping the other guy will die.  Abortions are abortions. The gifts the girls give.  We truly are a death culture.  I think I like Christianity partly because it’s real.  Hanging death about our necks we hope for eternal life but know that hear and now they’re burning our churches.
Gilbert jumped up on the bed as I was leaving.  Little fur ball.  Monkey dog lying on his back. I rubbed his tummy. Chucked his ears.  
Toilet.  The Emmett Fox book on the counter.  Usually Emmett is uplifting.  I can’t say what he said this morning. In the eyes, out the ears.
I moved onto meditation. Sitting cross legged in the living room.  A half hour of prayer and quiet time. Hard to unbend.  Stand, turn the lights on.
Make coffee.  Open fridge, eat yoghurt.  Fragments of ginger cookies. Share with dog.  Coffee, evaporated milk and honey.  Ah.
Internet slow.
The alarm goes off. I shudder. I thought it was the phone. Patients calling me at dawn, midnight, 3 am. Nurses calling me every half hour. Screams in the background.  Blood curdling screams.  Squeaky toys that suddenly stop.  Human sized moments.  The dog is looking at me.  It’s just the alarm.  The illusion of control.  Sometimes the prayers work better.  Today I’m still sleepy.  Almost go back to bed.
The mail isn’t so bad. Not like some days.  No emails from patients. No cries for help. No threats of suicide. No angry threatening litanies.  Just irrelevance.  All irritating with the slow internet.
Then Facebook.  It’s Monday Morning.  The friends aren’t doing much better.  Still in the trenches. Gathering to go over the wall.
How many times like this have I thought I could phone in sick?  How long will I remain self employed before I lose my business? How many mental health days can a psychiatrist take? Meanwhile people are killing people elsewhere and getting medals for it.  Others are burning churches and destroying 2000 year old art and patting each other on the back. Meanwhile millions in refugee camps are wondering what they’re going to do today to get on with life.
When I lived in an apartment and the water wasn’t rationed by the amount in the tank or the size of the water heater, I’d stand forever under the hot nozzle and pray for the power to dress and get out of the house.
Now I’ve a sports car or a motor cycle.  I must only think as far as which to ride.  I barely survive any ride on my motorcycle in Vancouver.  The decision to ride my motorcycle is a death wish.  No one in Vancouver uses their turning signals. The drivers are looking through a maize of marijuana smoke at the roads under constant construction.  We’re due for another episode of Falling Down with Kirk Douglas.  It could be filmed in the Downtown East Side where the zombies on drugs stagger about the streets marked 30 km/hr.  Riding my harley they veer off from staggering and come at me to  touch the bike and stroke my leathers.  Gilbert rides in a box in back.  I’ve thought of getting him a toy shotgun to set the mood for rides in the city.  Better to take the sports car.  Fuel efficient.  Top comes down.
Dare I look ahead to the weekend.  Dare I think of joining friends in the United States to talk about life in the fast lane, to get away from the people who negate your daily yearly decade after decade getting up to go to work working early working late working weekends and think it’s all unfair.  I should be sitting smoking a big cigar rather than working in the car wash.  The anger is palpable.  It’s there in the office.  “If you don’t give me drugs, I”ll get you. I’ll get you. I’ll get you.”  Thinking now about the guys with guns wanting benzodiazepines.  I must go visit my friend whose face was slammed when they came and took his jewelry.
Some of us work.  Others take.  Some of us give. Others take.  Most days I’m thankful my mother potty trained me. These boys and girls didn’t have mothers like mine.  They destroy and hate while men and women create.
This is all just self pity.  This is all avoiding getting up and going out the door.  I remember thousands of days I was afraid to go out the door.  Nightmares.  Omens.  Fear.  It’s just a matter of getting into the shower.  The structure and routine will take over. I ‘ll soon be in the chute that takes me to the workplace and another cup of coffee. Somehow that second cup of coffee at work does it. Then I’m just reacting. The problems comes through the door by the dozens, hundreds and hundreds of complaints a day. I’ve only answering the question about the eye tick when I’m being shown the rash.  Always the papers are pushed in my face. Always I’m being bullied to sign my name to something I don’t know if I agree with. I’d like more time to think about something but theres the phone calls and the faxes and the constant threats from above.
I think of Bob Dylan, “You’ve got to serve someone, may be the devil, or it may be God, but you’ve got to serve someone.”  I believed in the Prime Minister until his anti male prostitution laws. I remember the day the Liberals brought out their anti male gun laws, their anti rural, anti western, anti woman little girl gun laws.  Now here are the Conservatives playing the same kazoo.  I’m supposed to support and trust those above me.  I’m supposed to support sanity but if I look closer I think the bars on the asylum are to keep the crazies out.  I understand all too well why people stop getting out of bed.  I understand all too well why people drop their pens and clipboards, computers and iPhones and walk away from the War.  I understand why Lenin’s promise of getting out of the war was so attractive to the men back then.  Of course he didn’t say they’d just have to do Stalingrad and Leningrad because the paperwork always piles up over weekends and holidays. Nothing ever goes away. That’s Karma. Retribution.
The shower is waiting. Gratitude lists work. They really work.
Thank you God for Gilbert. Thank you for life. Thank you for work. Thank you for love. Thank you for showers. Thank you for coffee. Thank you for locomotion. Thank you for my fingers and toes. Thank you for the love I’ve known. Thank you for yoghurt. Thank you for this day. May I serve God and do good. May I become the best man I can be. May I serve my patients with the respect they deserve and may I be a channel for your healing.  Thank you for the memories. Thank you for sleep. Thank you for prayer. Thank you.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, the sinner.