Dear God

Here we are again God.  I know you’re here. It’s your dream. I’m a co dreamer at best. If I’m the great great kahoona or the systems guy I’d have more conscious control over the way things work and go.  I could say , okay I’ll have a billion dollars today and poof it would be there. That’s not worked so well for me.

So we seem in this together.  

Your locus according to the ancients is inside.  The heart or centre of the centre. The Yogi says “I am the bubble make me the see”.

I want to know you.  I want to feel you. I want to be lead by you. I want to be guided by you. I want that ‘fucking” ‘wee small voice to be a bit louder’. I’m deaf. I’ve hearing aids. Where’s the God aid.

Okay there’s Gilbert. He’s definitely a reminder. Pulls the wee small heart strings for sure.

But what am I to do today.  I’ve patients and work and there’s a whole routine in place for leaving the home showered and shaved.I’ll go through this. I’ll get into the car. That routine is losing it’s appeal. Maybe the fear of mad men and mad women in other cars and the cost of repairs and the whole insurance claim business , well, it makes walking more appealing.

Please Lord relieve the pain and the wear and tear phenomena on the joints.  Restore the youth and lubrication to those parts that need them most. 

Help me be less of an asshole.

I’m not enjoying my company at times. Mostly I don’t know what I’m doing here.

Words like ‘meaning’, ‘purpose’ and ‘reason’ all seem to plague my very existence. Always have.

I’ve also fought a lot.  I don’t seem to be that offensive but it’s been a life of defensive actions against bullies and those with ‘position authority’.

The reformer is the enemy of those who benefit from the status quo.  I’ve been a reformer. Breathing seems to offend those others.

So there’s you and me and ‘thoseothers’.  My feelings towards others are mixed.  I’m more wary. I was raised to be loving and trusting but the so called ‘authorities’ , well they killed God, didn’t they. Yet they remain pompous and superior. Government institutions collectively ‘Nazi’ or worse “Communist’ but conveniently forgetting they were the ones who ‘killed Jesus’.  The local Herod and the branch supervisor Pontius Pilate.  Haven’t admitted mistakes. 

The local clown apologizing for Canadians hasn’t yet apologized for ‘his part’ in the killing of Jesus.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

The idea of ‘linear time’ isn’t particularly quantum physics era. Even circular time doesn’t cut it. I live in a ‘stellate’ time world. Everything Emirates from now. Now is the moment of the ‘greatest story’.  The Jesus story is happening here and now.  

I like to play Jesus in the cast or Peter. But the fact is I’m Herod and I’m Pontius Pilate too.  I’m my own ‘original sin’.  The Golden Bough talks about the ultimate sacrifice. Instead of the female virgin, Jesus the male virgin, was offered up as a sacrifice to ensure the crops returned or the sun returned.  

“He did it!”  “It wasn’t me!”  “He did it”. We all can exclaim together. Sacrificial kings.  The king’s fault.  

Hedonism or Shedonims. The search for pleasure.  

I’d have joy. I’d have that transcendent experience of ‘God with us!” The knowledge of ‘its going to be okay’.   I know life isn’t ‘boring’ so there’s trials and challenges and testicles are ripped off by alien robots in one’s sleep or great viruses invade through the toe nails and turn the liver into sludge, just a little spice to make life less boring. I do appreciate your sense of humor.  

I’m screaming like the ‘Scream’ on most days going on to the next thing.  What’s the next surprise.  No money in the bank account.  Another tax notice. No carburetor. Someone stole the truck.  These are all things I’ve muddled through. I’m ‘traumatized’ in the new ‘lingo’ for all the life of ‘experience’ with folk dying in my hands and beside me and things simply not ‘going my way.’

It’s you and me and we seem to do a lot of you. But that’s my baby perspective. Whose in charge. Certainly not me.  Unless my unconscious is fucking Steven king.  I’m faced with another female surprise. She’s upset and I don’t know what her issue is. She’s drunk on emotion and superstition and I don’t know what I did wrong. I wasn’t paying attention and the truck hit the wall. I’m never paying attention ‘enough’.

Taht’s the exercise of meditation. Stop the dying on one’s watch. Keept the ship afloat . Do the next right thing.

So are you going to be there today, all today God. No breaks. I need you with me all the time. Not just union hours. Not just bureaucratic schedules. I need you like I needed my mom as an infant. I need you constantly always 24/7.  I want a formal notice of your place beside me, above me, below me, surrounding me. I want protection. I want assurety. I want some cause to believe that when I get out of this spiritual fetal position I can trust you or is it going to be another emotional roller coaster with those arrogant bullies throwing their weight around and demanding I suck their dicks and worship them and them threatening me and lying and cheating and generally being fuckwads.  I don’t want to do that game again. I ‘ve been your ‘victim’ in the Kafkaesque nightmare of your institutional jails and bullying.  I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to remember that anymore. I keep being pulled back into that maelstrom and I don’t want to be there.

Can’t we do the beach again. Can’t we do the camping more. Can’t we do the road trip. Can’t I be a thousand miles from head office and sailing on my sailboat or riding my motorcycle. Can’t Gilbert and I just get away.

I’d call your mean side Satan.

Can’t we get away from Satan. 

Can we get back to the Garden. You know naming things.  Without the girl and the snake and the Apple. I made that up didn’t I. I was the disobedient one. I was the curious one.  I wanted knowledge.  I’m the shadow and you are the light. I’m the one who turns his back on you.

I love you God. I fear and worship and love you.  I’m embracing the pain. I’m going forward. I’m wanting you.

Could you give me that million dollars now?

Also the plastic surgery.

I’d like a few months remake. 

Some youth. I’d like some youth and joy.

And meaning. I’m paying the rent and feeing myself and am a cog in the factory. I”m doing my best every day to give people what I was taught to do. At the end of the day people want me to ‘write a prescription’.  After all is said and done people really want and beg me to give them pills.  ‘I’m a human pill dispenser’.  They lie the ‘wisdom’ and ‘experiecne’ and ‘knowledge’ but it’s like the chat the guy gives me at the gun store. If I don’t get the ‘gun ‘ fuck the story and education about hunting. I want the gun. I’m the ‘pill dispensary store’.  If I was a surgeon I’d be the ‘knife’ so what’s with all the education and encouragement and saying that it’s going to be okay.

I see my self at work as the ‘complaints department of life’.  People are depressed with you God and I’m there explaining and encouraging and convincing people not to kill themselves when frankly I’ve thought about it a lot myself.  But who would take care of Gilbert? George the cat needs me. I’ve a plant that requires watering. It’s a thin edge. It’s what gets me through. But so many people won’t even take the entanglement of caring for a plant. They live lives of quiet desperation and want my ‘drugs’ to be ‘like cocaine’ or ‘like fentanyl’.  They want a safe version and I’m there trying to convince them to exercise, make relationships, join, participate, get out of their beds.  Yet I’m not keen to go to work. And everyone wants me to write a ‘chit’ saying they don’t need to work.

They actually threaten and extort letters from me saying that they don’t have to work or that they are ‘entitled’ to ‘special attention’ which they get because my ‘boss’ threatens me daily. I work for a toxic administration that threatens me to do what is wrong and to act like they do and they’re the most demonic creatures of disgusting realities.  

I’m supposed to be working on love and acceptance. That’s yesterday. I want to be alone again in the middle of the ocean for days at end with the dog heading to an unknown shore. But all I have to do is get dressed and go to work again.  

The unknown strangers.  These ‘sick’ people. I see them I meet with them.  Yet over my shoulder I have a cowardly tyrant who is the stupidest bully I’ve ever known.  The government today is 1930’s stupid.  They’re terrifying in their arrogance and grandiosity and utter ignorance.

I’m supposed to get dressed, shave and shower and go out there instead of killing myself. I am supposed to help others who themselves are facing such nonsense.  I’m supposed to rally them and say it’s okay and carry on.  There’s a fucking war against stupidity and the stupidity is top heavy.  I’m supposed to do this and I’ll get paid and I really would like everyone just ask could we bypass the work bit and give me ten million dollars so I can go shopping. I’d like to have 2 nannies for Gilbert and go shopping.  

I’m going to get dressed and shower.

God I’m going to do the ‘drill’.  I’m going to go about things but while I’m doing that could you focus on making it better. Hey Jude.  Make it better. 

I feel I’m doing my bit.  But where’s the reward. And don’t give me that crucifixion bit. I don’t want another crucifixion. I don’t want more pain. I don’t want more suffering. Even if it turns me to you I want the ‘easier softer way’.  I want to fall into your arms and be held . Let’s drop the father god bit and get the unconditional loving mother god bit.  I’m losing it. I want you God.  Really light show. White light. Firecrackers. Bring it on.  Levitation and telepathy and miracles.  Let’s have a few miracles today. Skip the humdrum and get right to the casting out of demons.  

Angels. Bring on the angels.

Good talk God. Let’s keep doing this. Thanks . Yes. Thanks for everything. you , this , them, especially Gilbert and George.  

My challenge today.

If I ride the motorcycle to work, very exciting, very dangerous, very unnerving, with Gilbert on the back, I can’t stop for a coffee.  When I drive the car I stop for a coffee. But the wind in the hair, Gilbert loving it and the fast lane.  

I could do that.

I may die.

Whenever I ride my motorcycle I think I may die.

I may be maimed.

The road is a war zone.

I’m putting my faith and trust in you.

In the best of all possible worlds with millions of dollars and time I’d pull this trailer east, visit family, get my sail boat and sail the Atlantic, pick up a crew along the way.  I don’t need a crew but it’s all physically more demanding. Pulling down sails in a storm.   I could just head south with the trailer pick up some guns.  Get into the gang zones, find a compound.  Learn more Spanish.  Get a horse. Ride into the sunset with Gilbert sitting on the saddle.  

I’d probably send for Laura. She and George make life better. I really ought to visit the new baby in the family. I’ve got to get to Aberdeen. I’ve been promising folk there for ever I’ll come visit. I’ve not visitted the Métis side of the family in years. I’d like to ride Appaloosa with my cousin. It’s been too long since I rode the range.  I’m just never doing the things I ought to do. Instead I wallow in the mundane,  never get anything done.

I’m full of self pity God. I’m just too easily distracted.

I’d rather get a sex change in Thailand , wear dresses, have a new name, new face, leave this ‘manliness’ behind. The women don’t want anything but mirrors. Manliness is out.  I’ve stopped a half dozen rapes, fought so many men, delivered babies, convinced thousands it’s okay and it’s ‘never enough’. Instead some ‘bureaurcrat’ in an office with a suit and a really bad attitude and power and money, he calls the shots and says we should be like him a kind of castrated chicken of a man, some kind of people kind.

I’d like to smoke a joint and sit back and play guitar and drink wine and whack off.  I’d like to be back on my homestead raising chickens and considering where to raise the pigs.

I’d like to be anything but me. 

At times.

Then sanity kicks back in and I’m rather thankful for the clean laundry. I’m happy with the coffee. I love the vehicles.  It’s a rush screaming down the highway.  

But I miss the sensuality and glamor of the dance floor or meeting the young girl in the woods and fucking all afternoon.  She became a missionary. I was her last ‘worldly event’. She thanked me for the send off. Multiple orgasms.  Two friends missionaries somewhere. I’d love to hook up and hear their story. Theres’ so many stories I’ve not followed up on. The friend jumping out of planes. The CSIS friend spying somewhere.

“I’d like to know that God but instead today I’ll remember to pay the bills. Hope to get a breather between the onslaught to demands and anxiety and desperation.

I have to shower and shave.  

I’d like a monks robe. Saddles.

Men’s clothing unappealing. I miss living in cut off shorts or a sarong and the deck of my boat, months of simplicity.  

Thank you God . It’s been a good life. Really a good adventure. A romp. A tryst.  I’m just not sure what’s next. Could you guide me. Lead me. Show me the way.  Please Lord be with me today.  

Thank you.

Shank’s Mare - I wake in this body with this back story

You woke me God. I dreamed of meeting my friend with a beautiful woman in a red dress at the restaurant on the hill with the many rooms. I’d guessed he was there because he’d left the rifle outside. I picked it up and was carrying it with me when I saw him.  We nodded. I wasn’t hungry and began to walk from room to room. There were many beautiful young girls.  The air was sweet.  I don’t remember the weight of the rifle.  I was only carrying it in my hand.  Normally I use a strap. But the place was such that a rifle had not weight.  It wasn’t unwelcome either.  People were adults. They minded their own business whatever that was. And no one was afraid.  I liked the absence of fear and the sense of you there.  After so many years there really was a sense of good government.

Then I awoke in this body, comfortable in this bed. The cat was near. He’d come to watch me in my sleep, daring to come close on the bed. I didn’t see the dog till I climbed down.  There was a sword and knife beside me.  I could see that the place was purposed for expedition yet I was waking to a day of work.  When I stepped down and stood tall the soreness in my back returned. I could sit and meditate, make coffee, write or walk the dog. The dog was waking enthusiastic so slipping on clothes, I loved the big sweater for the fall morning, and finding his leash and doggie bags, seemed great.  

It was lovely outside, sun rising, fresh morning air, just a touch crisp. I’d turned the heater on inside so it would be warm when I returned there. The cat would thank me. He likes the warm.  The dog was sniffing the world all over again. What had changed? I guess he was asking. 

I was talking to God. I imagine there is a God. Someone who made this all. Someone who gave me this body. I wasn’t thankful for the back pain, the curse of walking upright, but I loved the rest, except for the ponch, I must mention the ponch. Whoever sculpted the body or even the one who misused it before me feeding the poor thing excessively and then not exercising it, should be held accountable. I’ve inherited such work today. It was also he no doubt that did a number on the back.  

These bodies are like rentals.  Each day I wake up and I put one on.  Shank’s Mare.  I really must take better care of it for the next guy.  Back inside I’m looking around at all the clutter and admit I know that there’s lots of cool stuff I like here. It’s like a space ship that’s been rapidly loaded. I remember. Yesterday I transferred all these things, the clothes and tools, to this ship.  She helped me.  She’s not here but there’s a plan we’re going to a play this Friday. Tonight I have to make a stop in Langley to pick up something because of the chaos my friends created as if there’s not enough unnecessary drama in the world.  I regret seeing it that I in my time created my share and now try very hard to go more gently and watch more carefully for the threats and pitfalls.  

There’s a whole program that’s downloaded in the morning. When I reach into the recesses of my mind I find a huge backstory .I’ve only this day. I really do best to focus on this day. This is my part.  

The local boss is a tyrant, smug and arrogant and he doesn’t like psychiatry or sobriety. We see that in the crazy and indulgent.  That’s the simplest explanation.  His anger is palpable.  An egomaniac with  inferiority complex. 

I’m a doctor in this life time. A psychiatrist. A modern witch doctor of sorts but a scientist who works in the multidimensional realm.  If I were a neurologist I’d be more down to earth, judgemental, simple, but I’m a psychiatrist.  Not as flakey as a psychologist or sociologist but further away from a neurosurgeon than a neurologist.  He deals with the brain and I deal with the mind.  The bureaucrats are afraid of both for their constructs are man made and clinical science is about nature and nurture.  It’s more mysterious to be a psychiatrist. The bureaucrats live lives of quiet desperation in denial. 

I wonder at the lifetime I’ve devoted to being a psychiatrist. I put on that cloak today too.  I know they want me to sell drugs.  Medicine has been usurped by government and corporations. What the patient wants is secondary unless they see the physician as a ‘seller’, w’re now all employees and professionalism is eroded to a marketing slogan.  The government are in the industry of abortion and euthanasia. They’ve an actual Agenda 21 which says they want to kill the poor while all the while they live lives of lies and deceit and pander to the rich for the tips. Their wages are paid for by all of us but they want the extras so sell themselves out of greed. The corporations are simply marketing and they want us doctors to do their bidding, selling MRI »s and pills and hospitals and health care promises. In an earlier day the challenge was curing morbidity and mortality. Yes, a great doctor would make one live for ever. Jesus the son of God was the greatest healer. So many forget him and they forget Dr. Carl Jung, Freud, Kernberg, Kohut.  They don’t even know Prochaska.  The great men of my field are like the Einsteins of Physics.  Neurochemistry and neuroplasticity mean a whole lot more than some understand.  

And I’ve awoken into this body with that back story and an unfolding narrative. I’ve this age and this maturity.  But the question I put to God is what I’m supposed to do today. I have an advanced adventure mobile, space ship that could go to Newfoundland or head down to Florida for the winter. I ‘ve a sailboat on the lake of Ontario geared up and ready to take the canals to New York.  I have money, at least enough for a sex change in Thailand.  I could have another adventure, change this body which I was given male to one which is outwardly female or rather is transsexual.  Then again I could meditate more and go within to know God, the creator, but I do prayer and sing praise. I ride that motorcycle outside and each day I live is a challenge.  Yesterday a raving road raging child encouraged me to pay attention to him in his big truck wanting my parking space I was leaving when I was ready, and had I, paid attention to his hostility,  I would have been smacked by another road rageaholic who passed him.I was blessed to be focussed.  

There are people who I meet with.  It’s the routine. It’s the program. G.O.D. Good Orderly Direction.  Even when I sailed solo in winter storms I gave months notice.  What I’m doing is good.  Buddha described my work as ‘good livelihood’. It’s too harried and factory settinged.  The push for product is high.  I feel increasingly that the CEO’s are just the new Sultan or Satanic fat cats.  They’ve usurped the industry, reduced it to mediocrity.  But that was the ideas of ysterday’s guy.  Today’s guy might see think differently. The ‘trick’ as it were is to stay in the sacred. Moving meditation.  I practice walking and mindfulness meditation, feeling the surreality of this world and this person. I identify as a child of God. The one who woke in this world. I am not of this world. I’m a spiritual being having a material existence.  

I hardly paid attention to the coffee I just drank. It was good and I know from the back story that I love the shower experience. Those are things to do before I exit this tiny home and enter the rush hour to the city offices.  I think of my friend Brian, the forester, who instead of running in the city headed out for years of work into the wilderness.  Smart man.  I think his life choice wild whereas mine is rather ant like.  There’s the buzz though, that hive sense in the centre.  It comforts those who lack identity.  I remember I liked being a part of this bigger thing called Vancouver. I truly liked being a part of the thing called Canada until the Quebec mobsters reduced the vision to a third world French colony.  Perhaps Vancouver will survive as we move to city states. But the Democrat and Liberal ones all descend into crime and cronyism like the socialist communist countries overseas Venezuela, USSR, China.Tribalism still prevails and I’m not encouraged to feel proud of my Celtic roots Theere’s this monster propaganda’s machine waging war on history and facts called CBC in this realm. I must remember to speak carefully because so many have been affected by the invasion of the mind snatchers in this realm. They even think their lemming thoughts are their own.  I remember this is the major pitfalls in the game. So many women waiting to be offended and outraged by any who deviate from the prescribed script of what King Lear described to Cornelius as ‘whose in and whose out ».

I’m barely in.  So few are today. Most are out in this Modor realm.

I must keep my wits about me.  There are dragons in the city.  

I feel the familiar desire to run away but I have patients to see who themselves have got out from under their blankets, peeping one eye first and wanting to roll over but also wanting to see me, the doctor, much like an urge to go to the toilet. It’s motivated them to see me and I’m today going to give them hope and advise them and guide them in their journey.  If I was a brain doctor I’d just fix the broken brain but I’m a mindful doctor and must focus on the biological, psychological, sociological and even spiritual. It’s the Glass Bead Game I’m playing.  I’m a very rare.  I’m tremendously experienced and trained with so many degrees, educated beyond my intelligence. And I know there are so many more who benefit from the insaneity I want to ease and eliminate. I am in constant competition with the drug dealers and the overlords.  Mostly my patients are beaten down.  Mostly I see people who really did try to fly but their wings melted near the sun.  I try to protect them from the boots of the social Darwinists.  I try to lift them up. I point out the eagles. I am as much a Florence Nightingale of the mind, çajoling and humouring. Mental health is the ability to love, work and play. I encourage them to do this but so many are in a major pout, wounded, holding their injured souls and I’m trying to get them to let me see the booboo so I can kiss it better but I have a whole lot of yahoo shouting dirty minded little boys and immature girls riding their high chair desks and watching my every move. I blow kisses at the enemy with in . I teach immunology of the soul. I say inane things like you must love the pain. U must used the pain. I’m a psychiatrist. I live in the realm of the unseen and unknown.  It’s all hocus pocus to the ignorant and superior.  They love to cut the gordien knot with their heavy handed swords and say see. The military rule health care these days. It was once so much more maternal and loving but now the judges strut everywhere with religious authority and it’s all about money and what is seen. But it really doesn’t mean anything if it can be paid for.  I felt sad that my millionaire patient died because of his love affair with rum.  All the money in the world could not put Humpty together again. But I’m fighting what is the cancer of the soul.  

This weekend there is a Recovery Conference. I’m going to that in New Westminister after the play at Pacific Theatre on Friday Night.  I know I’ll come out of this like I’ve been in a war with the enemy at the front and the political leaders micromanaging from afar and shooting us who are in no man’s land in the back if we don’t fight forward so they can get their high status and fat pensions.  They’re disgusting but I bring myself down thinking of them.

Why God did you create mosquitoes, cockroaches and other parasites.  This is the game.  Somewhere I am dreaming this reality and I’ve probably even paid to play in this body and life because it was sold to me in another time and space on a planet far away or in a dimension where there is peace and everyone is kind because it’s heaven and the godly reign.  Here I fight the good fight.  If I survive the motorcycle ride in and don’t make myself a patient and have a mangled body to teach me patience I will go on.  I remember the shower is the next step, how I like the warm water. Would it not have been better if I’d programmed a scene in a Polynesian island with the refreshing water cascading over a verdant edge. I am a shampoo commercial actor without this middle age ponch and sore back.  

I want to meet the script writer, the producer and the director. Thank you God.  My sweet lord.  Job and Yahweh.  

Dreams

I believe dreams are a special reality. Dr. Carl Jung called them the "collective unconscious".  I believe they are this and more, as sometimes my dreams show me what I believe is heaven.  The best of dreams include my former dogs returning to visit and visits from deceased family members.  Those are most comforting. I've always loved Robin Williams movie, "What dreams may come." Our sense of linear time is illusion like so many of our other subjective perceptions.  Working as I have so long with mental processes and the so called mentally ill I've gaine a fine appreciation for the diversity of possibilities or potential of experience.
This morning I woke from the deepest of dreams.  I didn't know what the sound of the alarm clock was.  It took me time to find it and turn it off. I was only slowly coming to my awareness in this present state. it's like that sometimes, like I've cross over into another life or a different dimension.
I was so engaged in my dream.  I remember flying with explorer Anthony in his white experimental plan. He aimed it first for what looked like a round rifle sight. We were literally skimming flat over the surface of this peninsula with me fearing we'd crash only to lifted upwards when we passed this little peak the height of a house and then we were aerobatic.  We shot straight up at incredible speed and the ride was a sensational rush.  I remember trusting Anthony and thinking I'm glad that I do.  There were a couple of others in this incredible machine with me but I don't remember who.
Then in another fragment I was at a conference in Turkey with an old gay friend, all of us researchers and doctors.  I was interested in a pamphlet which disappeared.  I was thankful to be with this old school friend but feeling he'd changed little and glad to meet two friends I suspected were gay though frankly I never knew, only I felt safe in their company and appreciative of their wisdom and life experience. One was Dave. I had that sense of being in a socially awkward moment in a foreign country feeling lll at ease and there was Dave smiling and so trustworthy. I remember relaxing but then going into the scientific conference and seeing that the pamphlets were now no longer in the lobby but under view in the main room.  A rather suspicious little man suddenly thrust a red and black poster in my hand saying this was the one you wanted.
The poster was like those I'd seen from the old Soviet era in Ulyanovsk in the Lenin museum.  Black and red and loud. I'd just been telling someone how Lenin's house was the ultimate in beurgeosie and his family socialized with the czar.  I remember rolling this poster up and fearing that if I were caught with it I'd potentially go to jail. It was some 'radical' , an intellectual I didn't know. But there was so much intrigue and espionage in the air and people about were so thrilled. I was somehow caught up in this fervour.
I remember a girl too, pretty and warm.  We were walking and talking near the water.  I felt safe in her company too.
Then I was in a drawing room and the men were discussing Donald Trump in lowered voices not quite whispers. The gay men were welcoming him as the only force which would still the jihadist forces that would kill them.  We had to remember this was in Turkey where the leadership longed for return of the Ottoman Empire. All over Europe there were these individuals from the upper classes who wanted the 'old days', the French their Napoleonic era, the German's the days of Bismarck, the English , their days of Victorian Empire.  It was a heady place with all the competing elements and these extremely worldly narcissistic fiercely nationalistic voices all threatened and overwhelmed by Trump. America was number one in the world and no one wanted diversity or democracy or any such public consumption idea, they all just wanted to be number one.  They wanted to have their old glory and to take back the position of leadership from Trump. Quite in contrast to the views of opposition forces at home he was considered in this discussion a genius and greatest of leaders, a regular Washington, de Gaulle , or Churchill or Bismarck.  The views were those of leaders who merely admired greatest, like a collection of Martial artists standing about after the world champion has been declared, discussing his attributes.  There was an element of the Hessian Glass Bead Game in that room, something of a library, where men through the ages had discussed kings and queens like one might football or hockey or soccer coaches.  There wasn't any of the partisan stupidity but simply admiration and a lack of speculation about where he was going. The future was unknown just as it had been when Stalin and Monty and Patton had been walking on the face of the earth.
Because this was Turkey and so many old communists were among the jihadists I felt they kept their voices low and I was a listener but just by being there caught up in the intrigue and knowing that outside of America and indeed in fewer places even in the west this conversation that was so original and pragmatic could not go on without risk to the lives of the individuals. I loved these men talking openly among themselves knowing that they so wanted freedom and yet here we were all potentially facing jail for just participating in discussion.
Politics and religion are topics that are taboo in most of the world.
I thought fondly of my friends and found myself walking down corridors in this grand old hotel where the conference was occurring.  I was carrying this poster and didn't even know the man and had been involved in a political discussion and I had openly gay friends and had myself such history and now was in a country where I could be arrested and tortured for my sexuality, my political belief and my Christian faith.
I awoke from this exciting heady dream and felt youthful again, like I had when I'd left home and gone to Europe and encountered so many ideas and later studied at the university.  I laught when I think of the abuse of the word 'diversity' by those who fear anything but their own echo chambers.  White is black and black is white in the midst of change. The adage 'confusion is the harbinger of change' goes right along with 'cloud of unknowing' and 'fog of war'.  The present media favourites speak with a certainty that shows the limits of their exploration. Always there is uncertainty and fear with such uncertainty. The ancients spoke of 'awe' with talk of God and change.  The silly think they want change but mostly they just want dominance and escape.  The Chinese blessing and curse is , "may you live in interesting times'.
I'm in an unsettling move.  Kim Jong sun is shooting nuclear missiles over Japan.  China and Russia seem still allies despite one being Christian and the other aetheist.  The Middle East is ever uncertain with Israel the only sanity in the region and increasingly Canada joining with blood thirsty monarchs over the friendship of Jews increasingly persecuted as Christians are in this new 'progressive' and 'tolerant' society of increasing hate and violence within.
I was comforted by my dream.  I thought of my friend Anthony flying that plane and Dave being at the conference and the sweet girl by the sea. It was all reassuring but fascinating and full of intrigue. I felt was an observer in a James Bond movie though more likely I'd be in a Flashman novel somehow.
Now I'm coming into this world and have to face those in the downtown epidemic, helping and cajoling and begging and selling sobriety and abstinence. I'm invested and present. I want my patients to live. I know it's the de rigor to be detached and cold , just giving out the medication. But I've been through watching my brother sick and dying with his doctors and those I most admired and those he most was enliverned by were terribly human as I am.  I am dominated and ruled by cold Confuscian beurocrats who make rules and stay as far from reality as their desks can place them but they are ego driven and demand we all mirror them.  Some colleagues dress like government beurocrats and lawyers.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I fear I should cut my hair and forego my sandals but take comfort in my colleague who comes to work in shorts and my other colleague who has such a sense of humor having escaped from a country which was like ours is sadly becoming. Her charm and wisdom comfort me.
This world is as exciting as my dream. Yesterday the ride to work on the Harley was exhilarating. Today I've got to drop off the laundry so much take the sports car. Gilbert my dog will enjoy coming along.  Soon he'll have George as company and I'm looking forward to the weekend with Laura.  Both our homes are in dishevelled disarray as we're both moving.  I'm making major headway on the clutter and now just must discard more and more to make my place simpler.

Chinook

I saw you standing there in the  thaw
The ice turning slush
Slash as I might I could not stick the puck across
Then I tried to push the frozen canoe to you
But it would not budge
We smiled across  distances
Waiting  the chinook to decide
Would we play hockey or canoe
I so much wanted to play with you again.