GOD IS LOVE

I loved the mystical medieval text “The Cloud of Unknowning”.  It speaks to the humility of wisdom.
Jesus taught, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Children are curious.
I am curious about God.
Martin Buber the great Jewish philosopher in his book, I and Thou, discussed the centrality of the question, what is the ‘Other”.  If I accept that I am not alone and that reality is not a ‘figment of my imagination’ then I ask, what or who is the Other.
We know that children developmentally first consider themselves one with their mother.  The umbilical chord is cut and psychologically and sociologically they separate in time to being individuals separate from their mother. They move along to separating from their families, their communities, and ultimately humanity. This is the process called ‘individuation’.  While they are in ‘relation’ with all others, they are also separate and apart,  increasingly ‘alien’.  Individuation and alienation go hand in hand.  The natives describe themselves ‘in relation’.  This is fundamentally the universal social development of  ‘tribal’ consciousness.
 The  Modern Age beginning circa 1850 in the West introduced the Industrial era and what today is fast becoming the era of technology.  The age of Rationality and intellectualism later with the individuation of gender because the age of Emotion and Emotionalism  which continues today. Ironically cognitive behavioural therapy teaches we ‘feel what we think’ and the post modernists believe this age of ‘emotionalism’ and ‘subjectivity’ somehow different continue in the past ‘age of rationalism’ albeit by a different name. More advanced  theorists posit “postmodernism”  simply ‘ultra rationalism.”  The age of rationalism was what gave rise to the ‘war to end all war’ and the failure of the ‘intellectualism” as it created the aetheist killing machine of communism and the world wars of Europe. The age of emotionalism has simply extended this era with the growth  of the United Nations.  Big Daddy is replaced by Big Mommy or Big Brother by Big Sister. Alienation and entropy grew.
Intellectually Kaffka wrote the Metamorphosis ,the classic novel of ‘alienation’, a culmination in intellectualization and individuation of abject navel gazing.  Man as insect.
Psychopaths were seen by McLean as having ‘lizard brains’ and not developing further to the more advanced animal and human brains of the “Triune Brain”.
The corporation,  as this has also been called the age of corporation, the new political entity that replaced the medieval baronies and duke ships, family and tribal based entities of the past  , is considered by modern law as a ‘legal individual’.  Star Trek compared  the Corporation as the “Borg”, the image of Corporate or Communist or Socialist conquer.  Assimilation in the Era of Technology.
Dr. Robert Hare , foremost authority on psychopathy, discussed the lizard developmental level of sociopath and compared this to the present nature of the Corporate legal model, in the documentary “Corporations.” The world today is a ‘legal’ judicial construct based on 15th century  model of social reality without the individual ‘relationships’ of that earlier age, wholly a construct of the failed ‘age of rationalism’ ultra modernist emotional and political, masquerading under the fancy name ‘post modern’. It is merely a construct of alienation.
By contrast the original hypothesis of relation begins with:
God and I.
I and Thou.
I and the Other
Am I alone?
Does the butterfly think the philosopher? Or does the philosopher think the butterfly?
I am born in blood and piss and shit and die in blood and piss and shit. Ashes to ashes. But is my soul solely this body.
Neuroscientist   Mario de Beuregaard elegantly ,with PET Scan and Carmelite Nuns meditating showed that we are more than ‘brain’ of materialism.  His book “The Spiritual Brain, A Neuroscientists Case for the Existence of the Soul” suggest much more than the reductionist aetheist materialist position of “Brain in Petrie dish” as  self.  The brain is but a tool of Self or Soul.
Genesis 1:26 states “God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.”
Modern quantum physics and string theory posit a matrix of energy that we are apart of, no one disconnected in reality, but rather interconnected, not the fear and superstition based ‘tribal’ relations of old described so well by Jared Diamond in The World Until Yesterday, What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies .but rather in the love based matrix of the intuitive, beyond reason and emotion.
Grace is the idea of God as actively divine.  The Hound of Heaven poem by Francis Thompson described well the Modern Age of Intellectualism and Rationality and Emotionalism of the Post Modern Ultra Modern era.
“I fled Him, down the nights and the day. I fled Him down the arches of the years. I fled him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind......I hid from Him, and under running laughter up vistaed hopes I sped.....from those strong feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace , deliberate speed, majestic instance, They beat - and a Voice beat more instant than the feet - “all things betray thee, who betrayed me”.
The greatest image of Man and God is the Old Testament of the Bible book, Solomon’s Song of Songs, “I am my beloved and my beloved is mine”.  It is the story of young love.
1 John: 4.8 in the New Testament of the Holy Bible says ,”Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is Love.”
The sociopath, or psychopath are shallow. Whatever power or influence they have, what ever they appear like, what ever their selfies show, remains to be seen ,simply because only the ‘loving” know God.  To Love is to know God. Like a child playing hide and seek.  Curious about that which is unknown and unknowable. Humble. The arrogant and the all knowing, the judgemental and the superior cannot know God for God is Love.
GOD LOVES AS WE LOVE.
The energy of the universe that binds us is LOVE.
In science, “Entropy is a thermodynamic concept that represents chaos and degradation. It occurs naturally in any physical system and will naturally grow (i.e. become more chaotic) if we don’t do something to arrest it’s growth. Doing something requires the expenditure of energy, so energy is what counters entropy.”
Love is as love does. Love is a verb not an object.
The first law of thermodynamics is the “law of conservation of energy”. The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system is constant, energy can be transformed from one form to another, but can neither be created nor destroyed.”
God is Love and Love never really dies. Love is eternal and infinite whereas fear is by nature, finite.  Love conquers all.
The dance of love is the simply the dance of “I and Love”. Or “I and God”.  “I and One”.
The one becomes many.  That’s the great hide and seek of God and central to the idea of Love Your Enemy. This doesn’t mean let your enemy kill you because Jesus did say, Love God and Love your neighbour as yourself.  Loving oneself doesn't involve letting oneself be killed and thereby turning one’s neighbour into a killer. The disciples of Jesus wore swords. The monks of the east learned martial arts to protect themselves from the unenlightened. We teach children manners and how to play without hurting. Sentimentalism is a caricature of caring.
Only the humble can know God.  God is the first spark in the flame, for even a thought comes a nano second later, as neuroscience teaches so well.
I know and feel and intuit God’s love and endeavour today to love as God loves.

Dr. Christiensen, Dr. Houston, and Helen Miller

For years now I’ve had the honour of dinner with Dr. John Christiensen and Dr. James Houston.  Helen Miller, a former Regent College student and a Christian missionary with the Padang Lutheran Relief Society has been present as well. Until last year we had the pleasure of Dr James Houston’s  beautiful wife, Rita ’s company too.  Others have sometimes been there but those are the core participants. The conversation between Dr. Houston and Dr. Christiensen shines.
Dr. Houston still teaches at Regent College where he once served as the Chancellor.  Dr. Christensen was the UBC Professor of Psychiatry who focused on  Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.  Helen attended Regent College and being an Australian expat knew John who himself had spent a youth among sheep and roos. The two of them  occasionally lapse into quaint reminiscence of growing up among poisonous insects and reptiles and bigger than life Australian characters.
But mostly it’s a joy just to listen to Dr. Houston and Dr. Christensen share and explore the depth of the human spirit and the depth of the human psyche.  They both see man and woman as truly interrelated with God and the relations of the trinitarian god in man.  As James speaks of the historical dialogues between man and God and the development of covenant and faith  so John speaks of the inner development of trust and the child becoming adult and the struggles at various stages. “It all begins with the child being held and the mother’s first gaze into the eyes of her child.”   Dr. Houston says, “it all really began when God first entered his kingdom in Jesus with love”.  The journey is so much and timing and patience so central in the spiritual journey as in therapy.
Outside in Vancouver it was dark and raining. Helen’s car had broken down at the Burrard Street Bridge and unable to get a taxi she’d bussed part of the way only to catch a taxi for the last part of the journey.   John’s Christmas tree was up with Christmas lights shining.  The room warmed with friendship and laughter.
Dr. Houston had just returned from Brazil where he was meeting with government  business and church leaders. He lectured often on relationships, his son and he developing ideas of the Christian character as they contributed to business.  He  told of his long history with South America and described the early days when Nazis had vied with socialist extremists for dominance  in different countries.   Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela are changing today as the people seek a new identity that will serve them in the future.
Dr. Houston had also just been in the Faroe Islands.  Dr. Christensen laughing admitted he’d had to look it up in the atlas before dinner. The Faroe Islands had been of such strategic importance in WWII because the Nazi submarines could have wrecked greater havoc from there on Allied shipping had not  an early detachment of Allied troops  been sent to secure the fjords.  Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, both who Dr. Houston knew from his days teaching at Oxford, were involved in communications in those early days.   Now it’s an amazingly modern community with great underground tunnels connecting islands and people.  Half the year in sunshine and half the year in darkness.  Yet artists because of the unique setting and talent are known the world over.
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Last year Helen had been in Sudan working with local preachers and chiefs on reconciliation attempts when fighting had broken out again nearby and she’d had to leave.  People had naturally been concerned for her safety but she’d not had to flee, perse but it had been a timely retreat.   Such atrocities  kept occurring in Sudan. Yet the people keep returning to rebuild communities devastated by war.  The uncertainty and fear were everywhere, said Helen.   She is going back again this spring struggling to raise money to help the children. She has a web site, Childlike,  describing both the faith she has as a Christian and the displaced and orphaned children.
Of course the meal was delicious.  Chicken and potatoes all followed by Helen’s Pavlova cake. It was the conversation as always that was a joy to hear.  Dr. James Houston has the most extraordinary memory.  He’s written countless books.   John had brought out Dr. Houston’s  early book on Transformative Prayer.  It had moved us all so much.  We’d all studied Christian spirituality under his tutelage at Regent .He is still teaching today.   Spirituality is in  relationship.  He asked in the most psychological way when it was that we’d experienced the first breech in trust in  relationship, how this affected the work we did in life and where we felt closest to God today.
The company was so erudite as well. References to books and writers spiced the conversation.  I invariably have weeks of reading that follow these dinners.  Dr. Houston had brought Gail Dickenson’s moving poetry book. John was reading Richard Rohr and Thomas Merton again. I gave Dr. Houston a copy of Sister Iglesias, the story of the first Angel of AA , the nun nurse who had worked with Dr. Bob.  We laughed together at the struggles writers faced but had over come. Dr. Houston was  again bringing an august group of the greatest scholars together for a project close to his heart, the Christian Identity.   John had written about his accident and the spiritual experience that followed,  Helen had nearly finished her stories of her time in Africa but couldn’t complete the ending.  (Probably because it’s so very much ongoing). .
With the Paris Talks on the Environment going on , Dr. Houston shared that he’d written a paper on Environmental Ethics in early days telling us of his first meeting with Dr. Suzuki.  Environmentalism was always a Christian concern.  though in Christian terms it is simply called ‘stewardship’.
They all are so supportive of my difficult work with those suffering addiction, the slavery, the false promise and deceit of the false self versus the joys of recovery and return to the true self.
We discussed the Moslem refugees, the Moslem religions, and the spirituality of the Suffi’s. Dr. Houston spoke so highly of the discussions between the leaders of the monotheistic religions and how they were working to find common ground.He lamented the difficulty others had understanding the divinity of Jesus.  The idea of God truly entering his creation so humbly is such a stumbling block for those who see God as mostly above and less from within.
As always I am moved by these evenings leaving with more questions of myself and the direction of my life. Talking with Helen I was lifted up by her call to missionary work.  “We’re working on peace there in the Sudan. It is so important that people who once fought can sit and eat together. So much begins from the sharing of a meal."
As I drove home in the night after dropping off Helen, I felt truly blessed to know such loving friends whose lives have been so devoted to the care of others and the celebration of Christ.

Saturday Morning

I’m up drinking coffee. I’ve just eaten the two croissants I bought last night on the way home from work at the East Vancouver Bakery. I spread Canadian butter on them, then this truly marvellous blueberry marmalade I bought at the church bazaar last month.
I’ve thawed some frozen curry chicken soup from the lovely church lady who makes these too.  Later I plan to warm it up.  It’s so comforting to have home made preserves and soups, being a single man, as I am, who cooks for himself and buys fast food, but is absolutely touchéd to eat the fare of these older beautiful women who share the pews with me at St. James Anglican.
When I first awoke there was rain on the roof.  The light came through the windows though, telling me morning was well advanced. It’s Saturday. I liked that I’d slept in. I normally these days wake in the dark for work and am only seeing light on my way there.
I’d dreamed too of my sailboat in a special harbour.  Jung calls such dreams nuministic.  My special harbour is a 'safe harbour' and dreams of it are comforting and spiritual, packed with meaning, much of which I only unravel, in some future, when this dreams 'comes true'.  It's spiritual and with this particular harbour I often wonder if it's not a bit of the heaven I'll find after death.  It has that Mark Twain heaven quality about it.  
I was swimming in the dream,and towing my ship easily  to turn it in a tight space.  There was a lovely older woman lying on a mattress on the deck. The relationship was no more than a friend.  So often in these dreams there are people who I feel intimately connected to but there is no carnality. The nuministic dream worlds are without dichotomy. They are like the places the Franciscan Richard Rohr speaks of, and/or.  Places of possibility without judgement and criticism. Places of acceptance.  Having repositioned the sailboat I too went back to sleep on the deck, waking to this world I’m now in.  I dream often of that place where my sailboat is in a bay and a tiered city is nearby. There's a river and rapids and ocean or big lake, other boats, and houses ashore.   It’s a heavenly place, a place of rest.  I'm never troubled there. I'm doing things, moving boats, going ashore, doing things, but the feeling is  reminiscent of those perfect fair sailing trade winds days when I crossed an ocean.  I'm light hearted.
There is a man and a woman inside me. Jung called them the anima and animus.  I’ve given each their ‘duties.’  When I’m doing ‘pink’ things I feel the female ascendent and when I’m doing “blue’ things the male is ascendent.  Many things lack such differentiation. The differentiation itself is decided purely by childhood roles, I believe.  When I’m cooking I’m more feminine, the great chefs of my life being the women I’ve known growing up, my grandmother, mother, aunts, and mothers and grandmothers of lovers and even lovers.  I suspect if I was a woman whose father was the chef and the men in her life cooked the best then she’d feel manly when she cooked as I feel manly when I fix the car. I’ve never been with women who did automotive mechanics though I know a couple. It’s just that when I personally have worked on cars it was with my father, my brother and always other guys.
The Political Feminists are so painful, 30% of the medical school class was women in the 30's.  No one is stopping women from entering in the trades. I've always known some extraordinary woman who became a surgeon or a plumber or a carpenter or welder but the fact remains fewer women want to do these jobs whereas there's no limit to the women who want to complain about men.  Instead I admire men and women who can 'do' things as well as 'speak', these 'activists' and 'politicals' are the thinnest of soups in my mind, too full of themselves when they claim to be there for society, representing the planet, or saving some one of somebody that never gave them the mandate and usually finds them as troublesome as I do.
In my medical class there were 50 women and 50 men.  The outspoken loud complaining trouble causing feminist was one of 50 and the loud complaining trouble causing political was one of the 50 men.  Neither were very good doctors and having worked with both I'd not want them treating my family.  They've become rich and famous by playing to the media but among their peers their very own behaviour did little for their causes.
Internationally feminism has it's place today but locally the change of society was dictated more by the technologies of birth control, the move to the city, smaller families, and widespread education. Education, about math, and science, and practical matters, like medicine, has done more for women and any group really than all the political manifestos put together. I met Communist doctors whose education was taken up with half their time spent studying marxism and half studying surgery. They might be good comrades but they were dangerous surgeons by Canadian standards.  This was not true for Russian doctors I met who only paid lip service to the ideologues and were as fascinated as I was with biology.
Weekdays and work is often masculine to me while weekends and relaxation are feminine.  When I’m active and task oriented I find I’m more masculine too, the fighter, the journeyman, the goal directed.
A female pornographer talked about male and female attraction in an interview once, saying that when she'd made movies with men lying about which hadn't sold.  Certainly a man finds a woman attractive who is lying down ready and waiting and not demanding a chase but she found women were more turned on by men carrying tools and wearing work related hats or bits of uniform. That reminded me of a math professor I knew who was annoyed that his career hadn't given him a 'sexy' uniform that would attract women. He bemoaned the fact that  girls seemed to be turned on by uniforms. He thought even the bus driver uniform had more appear than his college math professor ruffled tweed jacket look.
From a Christianity perspective,I think my Martha is a man whereas my Mary is a woman.
We are all said to be feminine before God.  God is the prime mover and we receive Grace.  This is a masculine God ‘idea’ but it’s the same ‘process’ mystically in another religion I know intimately where the God is not so masculine as feminine.  Indeed God is beyond Gender and duality but I wonder how those who say speak of the Goddess experience the mystical acceptance of God through the opening and letting go of oneself.
Relationship with God is through all aspects, so that God is mother, father, daughter, son, lover, friend and on and on.  God is all and no thing.
This morning as I sat to meditate, a little dog came and put his paw on my crossed leg and leaned his head against mine.  I was praying and petted him a while then returned to focus on my quiet but was distracted by his snuggling sleeping body lying across mine.  I can’t say I spent the ‘requisite’ time this morning in prayer and meditation. Instead I began throwing ball and delighted in the happiness of this little roommate who is so easy to please. He also forgets slights so quickly.  And when there’s nothing happening of interest he naps.  He’s napping right now. I think he’s probably a saint whose sleeping form is really deep meditation.

Now I’ve a day ahead. I’ve a truck to pick up and a car to drop off so I’ll take a taxi between two places.  I’ve thought of more storage locker sorting and purging but it’s a rainy day and I could seriously choose something more feminine and indoors and less associated with hefting and heaving and rummaging and lifting and hauling.
I’ve found my tv is a marvellous distraction these last couple of cold weeks.  Watching tv is neither masculine or feminine but wonderfully stupid.  Reading a book is either or depending on the content. I’ve just started a ships captain thriller.  I finished the Outlaw Biker book I picked up for the plane ride. It was so so.  I am less interested in those who struggle outside the law than those who rise above it’s limitations.  I like the British Navy Ships Captains hampered by all manner of tradition and restriction who win over elements and foes by adding to the soup a new spice rather than throwing out the broth and claiming to make their own.

I don’t like arrogance in women or men.  Arrogant women abound these days as they did in the times of Isaiah who called them “long necked women’.  They claim their ‘causes’ justify their rudeness and bullying.  Arrogant men are nothing new, I've dealt with them since grade school, when they'd pick on those smaller or gang up. I've fought them one on three and one on six as long as I can remember. They're cowards at the core. I think of them more and more like insects. They come in 'nests'.  Their devolution is lower than the lizard.  
I’ve been more fascinated  by the power of their women, these Eva Brawns who work the back rooms.
When it comes to the woman behind the man, at a higher level of relationship, I loved the powerful pout of Obamas wife in the news recently suggesting finally who truly wears the pants in that relationship.  I’ve always admired Old Lady Bush because you just knew her boys all towed the line so she must be one truly powerful lady regardless of how much one fear the old George. The Hillaries are a brother sister duo and I'd love to be a fly on the wall in their disputes.  I look forward to heaven if only to find out what really happened to Kenney, to meet Elvis, and to learn the secrets of what Hillary said to her girlfriends when Clinton said he'd not had sexual relations with Monica.  Not that any of this is important. The French President this week was caught having an affair and his ratings went up. To us the leaders of America are the entertainment that the Queen and Royals offer the Commonwealth. They may as well be Zeus and Athena.  I wouldn't  be surprised to see a cow or a swan raped on the lawns of Washington.  At least the media would let us know. The leadership of China are obviously all chicken and pig fuckers but no one will ever know what they're up to because their dirty secrets are so utterly dirty that no one is allowed to know. The SS were pedophiles and Stalin and his gang liked dead girls so it's likely the tyrants and gangsters of China are into sex with dead children.  We're as 'sick as our secrets' and those who are the most anxious about their privacy as commonly as not have the most to hide.  Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  The tyrants of moslem countries are widely abusive of teen age girls and boys.  If you can 'think it' , it's likely going on 'behind the closed doors' of those in power in totalitarian societies.   The Pharoals of Egypt were into all manner of incestuous behaviour as were the orgy loving emperors of Rome.
Prime Minister Harper is a saint compared to the leaders of other countries he meets and the American and European leaders of democracies with freedom of press are fairly conservative by comparison with the tyrant leaders who commonly hold positions of influence in the United Nations.  It's hard to respect a man or woman in the United Nations when you find out as one leader to another , that your fellow member, likes sex with lizards or fish, whether they are male or female.  I know we're all supposed to be 'accepting' and 'multi cultural' and 'inclusive' but one doesn't get respect when they've had their way with a guppy, or a child, or a slave.  The women leaders and male leaders of medieval days were as twisted as each other though men tend to be more inventive.
We're only now addressing the gambling addictions, and the alcohol and drug addictions, among the leadership of the United Nations, what will we learn when we look at the sexual addiction.  The sex addicts anonymous groups which have women and men though men tend to be more common would see a membership rise if 'transparency' were required in the upper courts and back rooms of the leadership of the United Nations.
I like that Prime Minister Harper, and locally Christy Clark, and even Gregor Robertson though I can't be sure, don't seem to be the types to be having orgies with animals or children on the weekends.  I know this is unlikely because the CBC was all over Duffy when he spent $90,000 which the conservatives paid back. The spending was for housing. Last I heard even sexually attractive sheep weren't likely to stay hidden expense on the Prime Minister's modest salary. By comparison warlords of the world, especially the communist ones, like the Pol Pot who murdered millions a year, they can buy the whole of the Texas Cheerleaders for a night and kill them in the morning without any ripple politically.  No one has a clue as to how many people the Chinese are screwing and killing even as I write. We can guess based on what we've learned of Stalin and his crew, his sex dachas and such.  Puttin isn't just romantic and a 12 year old virgin isn't going to have her story told on Utube after a Saudi prince finds her desirable.
I think of these things when I'm critical of CBC and the western media.  Even the perverts of Hollywood aren't anything compared to the tyrants of Asia.  It's perspective and relative.
I'm thankful to be a Canadian even if our leadership is mostly so boring that when Justin's mom smoked dope and hung out with a sixty's rock band it was 'news'.  Even Justin Beibers stupidity and childishness isn't all that bad. It's not like he killed a prostitute and got his goons to cover it up as would happen in Russia or China today or countless other countries in the United Nations.
The South Sudan Christians (Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world today) weren't just mutilated.  The somen and boys were raped vaginally and anally.  Just because we don't do that thing routinely here in  Canada it's not that it's not being done all over in the United Nations nations.  it's so easy to forget.  I talk to refugees and immigrants.  I don't want the politics, and religions that they're leaving.  I like what I've had in Canada and am afraid at times to see us losing it.  I am especially troubled by atheists who criticism religions for their errors but forget that the only religion of atheism to date is communism and communists have killed more people faster than any religion in the history of the world and have done more killing than any nationalism.  Capitalism can't compete with the killing machine of communism.  I don't know that multi culturalism will be a lasting fashion given it's failure in England and Germany.
Diversity is good but if it's your culture to have sex with children it's not my culture so I'm going to have kill you if you rape my baby.  Silly people don't know that this is how 'culture' has come about with it's hierarchies of values and laws.  There's a lot of wiggle room but it's important to read the fine print on the contracts that atheists and polytheists and the United Nations tyrants and warlords are offering.  For now I like Canada.  I like the 'culture' of the Canada I was raised in. I'm concerned about the direction some would have us follow but then I'm not smoking dope. If I was smoking dope I would think everything is relative and who cares anyway. Let them eat cake.  It's just a party.  What's wrong with sex with fish. All we have to do is get the fish a lawyer to protect their 'rights'  and if the lawyer says the fish agrees the guppy sex is cool.  Right, man?  Just don't flush the fish in the toilet after, okay.  Too many dead fish clog up the sewers and that's  bad for the planet.  And don't get those fish farm fish, you got to get a wild fish from the organic farms or it's not right. If you know what I mean.  And man you should try this Sativa bud.  The poor folk smoke that other shit. This is what the yuppies call the champagne of dope.  Given our jobs and positions in authority you don't want to be smoking any old shit. We've got to have the best shit. Otherwise whose going to respect us.  



My mom and dad were a tag team when we were growing up.  As a kid I didn't like a lot of their rules. They were 'square' but in retrospect, especially as I've grown older I've come to appreciate so much of who they were and what they taught. Even when they appeared to disagree they were in agreement.
I feel sorry for the single parents and their children who miss out on the richness of these complex interactions that helped me understand that so often the face on power was not the one who wielded the fist. I think that those who come from even larger families and intergenerational families are often better accommodated to the politics of office and community.
My friend George gave me the book David and Goliath and I’m reading with interest the relationships of present day power and relationships of people compared  to the world they grew up in. Its by the same author who wrote about Outliers and he’s now discussing the third of those who have won despite apparently overwhelming odds.
I learned about these first when I studied sociology.  The idea that ‘poverty’ created poverty and that negative environment destroyed futures was indeed a factor but the worst place in America was ‘Hell’s Kitchen.”  A paper I read 30 years ago demonstrated the fallacy of this contention by following up all the millionaires, judges, researchers, doctors, politicians who had begun in this place in America with the greatest density of pedophies, rapists, ex convicts and poor.
Only a half of my medical school class came from the upper middle class and rich.  The man who wrote Logotherapy survived Auschwitch and said that Freud was wrong, that the character of people defined their behaviour more truly than the environment they inhabited. The two were important, not just one. The age old question of free will and fate, or breeding and environment, is simply that it’s ‘both’.
BBC just notified us that Former Israeli Prime Minister Sharon died today.  I'm saddened by the names of icons of my life time dying. I'm of an age where each week some household name goes out like a light bulb in the house.  I don't know who replaces them.

The rain has become heavier.  Maybe I’ll watch some tv before I even go out to return my car and pick up my truck.  Or maybe I could have a shower, dress for the rain and run about and do the errands then waste the rest of the day lying about being a slouch.
I thought the other day if I just watched sports all day as opposed to drama I’d be mainstreaming a section of America.  I’m an in between sort. I know there’s an acceptable slouch, truly pilloried in the comics, who has a beer gut and with his guy friends, lives on the couch and watch sports. Their’s his female equivalent who eats nachos and is fat and watches soaps with a tissue kleenex.  I’m the odd duck watching Turner Classic black and white Sci Fi movies, like the Forbidden Planet.  The yuppie couch potato claimed he wasn’t like the mashed potatoes, being instead a herb touched scallop potato who watched ‘old movies’ and defined himself, not as a tv addict, but rather as an aficionado.  I see the drunks with their expensive bottles of wine considering themselves superior to their plunk drinking relations.
Well, I’m no better than those who watch Jerry Springer just because I prefer Jerry Seinfeld.  I’m hearing how heavy the rain is and rather than set up a laboratory on the kitchen table and find a cure for cancer I’m really temped to join Gilbert on the couch, curl up and watch some tv until the rain lessens and I can go about my tasks. I do have some boxes to go through in the garage. I sorted through a couple last night.  Maybe I should just try to make it to the shower.
Showering and shaving should be the goal. I think I’m up to that. But I’ll need another cup of coffee and maybe I’ll just see what’s happening in hockey.  Yea, right.  Don’t kid yourself.  Touch that tv channel changer and the bed is not going to be made.  Better to head to the shower. Dressed there’s a slight possibility you’ll feel good about what you’ve done today.
Self esteem is about doing esteem able acts.