Life and gratitude

I have a good life.  My mind is still a problem. I see the half filled glass as half empty.  I have shelter, heat, food, clothing, family , friends, work and as secure a future as anyone. I am grateful for all these blessings. I am thankful for life, air, and the sun and the moon. I’m thankful for my mother and father and all that came before today. Yet I wake and despite a good bed, a fabulous dog, and wonderful dreams I wake ‘irritable’.  My mind goes from the blessings to the resentments. From the positives to the negatives.

And I must drag that monkey mind away from sniffing the poop and dirty water to the good food and clean streams.

Thank you Jesus.  Your teaching took me from the focus on dominance and control to acceptance and love.  

A god of my understanding.  When I sat down to make ‘a god of my understanding’ I was surprised that I found the “Lord’, an off the rack God with many hidden pockets I’d never known before. I’d merely brushed the surface of the centuries of making that created this omniscience, omnipotent omnipotential loving God.  I had to change my child’s view of ‘love’ from the vaguest sentimentalism or the rationalism or the emotionalism of journalists of old, to knowing.  Jesus said, “love God and love your neighbour as yourself’, That’s the key. 

He was killed by church and state.  One step ahead of the crowd you’re a leader, two steps ahead of the crowd you’re a martyr.

I’m challenged by several issues right now

1. No children 

2. No marriage

3.  A life of service to a career that is no longer what it was

4.  A life of service to a country that is no longer what it was

5.  An uncertain future.

Quo Valis?

I don’t need to ‘change’ anything now,  

What I have considered changing?

1. My work

2. My gender identity

3. My country

4.  My friends

5.  My weight and fitness

6.  My activities

7.  My schedules

I consider my dog as companion more of a fixed reality than my gender.

I feel ‘unsafe’ as a man given the constant attacks by government and church.  

Liberals frighten me. Like communists and other stupid self righteous people,

Self righteous people today are being collected like once Hitler and Lenin collected self righteous people

I’m not particularly self righteous and afraid of those who are,

I admit mistakes and have made incredible changes and adapted repeatedly to the loud people about me.

In work I’m disturbed by all the hopelessness and despair and the bullying from above 

I’m stigmatized for helping the marginal and mentally ill like the leper doctors once were.  

I don’t like being threatened and shouted at and was again this week by a person who is clever enough to deny it.

All these bullies today are ‘victims’.  We’re living in a world of ‘borderline personality disorders’ in power,  

I don’t want to fight anymore. I’ve spent my life fighting for my patients and I’m a bit tired but more prone to ‘self pitying’, 

There is no time left for the promises that were made by the authorities to be addressed. 

I can look at a life as a soldier who wakes up finding that he served the devil unknowingly,  

All that we did has been usurped,  

I am blessed though.  My mind is the problem.  I meditated this morning focussing on the light wishing my mind would just go there,

Like holding a heavy rifle and struggling to still the wavering of the tip to enact the bullseye shot.

Zen and the Art of Archery

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maitenance,

My back hurts and my right hand shakes with coffee,  My hair is grey so I die it.

I’m fighting aging.  

I’m hoping to swim today.  I tried to 2 days ago but someone forgot to open the pool.  

It is dark and raining in the morning.  I had always wanted to live 9 months in Canada and live 3 months in Arizona in the winter. I’d thought Mexico as a base.  I even thought to move to Ireland,  I don’t sustain these visions, I’d begun to sail across the Atlantic but instead was waylaid by covid.  Lockdowns and pandemic and I put my life on hold and muddled on 

I’m good at muddling along,.  One day at the time.  Doing the next right thing,  

I’m okay. My life is okay. There’s cleaning and stowing and culling to do of my things. I’ve a storage locker I need to reduce. I’ve files that need to be digitalized or at very least winnowed.  I’ve more dog training to do,  I do all that needs to be done, I ‘m ahead of the game. Not much. Everyday I have to be on. I watch too much Netflix and lie too much on my couch. I need a new couch now the dog isn’t chewing it. A new couch would be better for my back.  

It’s amazing how a minor detail is taken care of and I feel so much better. I’ve the strativarious of lives but only need fine tuning. I feel it’s too late to marry again for family. The women I chose did not consider children so important. The women who wanted children most I didn’t chose. Now the women who want sex and adventure aren’t the women I chose and the women I choose want safety and security.  Nothing stops me from choosing a club or a gym or going to a different church where there’s less focus on social issues.  I feel removed and detached but it’s not them it’s the experience of Covid and I project this onto others who suffer this abuse as I.  I’d certainly like more adventure.  I’ve chosen to serve in my life and now I’m hunkered down playing it safe.  I’m really waiting on God’s hockey bench.  When will it be my turn.  I’m still doing little things and thankful for the brief plays. I’m not up to playing a whole game anymore.  I’m coming to terms with limits and my perceived limits,  

I’m not inspired, I’m in limbo of sorts , I’m getting through.  Work scares me and sucks my joy. Constant negativity, ‘yes but’. Addiction such a difficult thing but always behind me is the superior bully with the gun threatening to shoot me if I’m not perfect in his ignorant eyes, The grandiosity of administration.  I find myself crying remembering how sad my parents were when the authorities beat me and lied and they feared I’d give up.

Drama of the Gifted Child.

I’m older now.  A colleague is under attack and I can only pray for him. I know the evil is about.  The demons saunter.  Vichy French and Comrades.  

I’ve an internal narrative that wishes the world of the fanatics of the right and left who are two cowardly to stand in the middle.  I’m here tolerating the tension of opposites,  I’m on the horns of a dilemna,  Waiting.  This too will pass.  I’m in a safe harbour and the weather will break and I will sail forth. Even death will be a new adventure. I must not catastrophising.  This is a new day. It’s God’s day. All is well. Thank you Jesus!