Positive Psychiatry

For years psychology has focused on loss as an explanation for negative behaviour.  The Rahe Holmes Scale looks as the amount of ‘change’ that precedes catastrophic health problems like heart attacks and strokes.
Positive Psychology, the work of greats like Seligman of the Authentic Happiness site, looks at what it is that underlies happiness, joy and well being. Resilience and forgiveness are traits that have been noted in this research to be far more important than ever before considered.
I’m proposing that grief research looked at what was absent whereas positively what change has resulted in improved attitude and health is equally important. .  Working with drug and alcohol patients,  I can actually predict the intolerableness of individuals based on their ‘withdrawal symptoms’ from their marijauna, nicotine, cocaine, crystal meth, heroin or alcohol.  There’s a window of ‘well being’ with each of these agents and even  in the tiniest amounts they all have some positive medical usage. The addiction though is readily apparent and the ‘hang over’ effects on mood and mental function are increasingly being as well documented as the studies of decreased car driving capability associated with alcohol blood level effects.  People actually seizure in the withdrawal phase of alcohol intoxication.
So to this end I am suggesting   that we need to monitor the last ‘chocolate’ binge, ‘sexual intercourse’, ‘last dancing all night’ , ‘last gym work out’, ‘last lottery win’.  We can’t expect counselling and medication  alone to make up for or counteract the results of a unloved lifes,  days of quiet desperation, or existential angst..
People somehow assume that they should feel well without ever doing anything more than viewing computer screens.  The research says differently. People who go bowling are far healthier than those who argue on Facebook and only exercise their fingers and their venom.
Indeed, there is likely going to be a time when our smart watches will calculate the last time we had sex or ate chocolate and say ‘you are due for love” or ‘you must eat some chocolate….it’s been x hours and you’re getting cranky.'
I can honestly say that since several women and male friends can’t remember when they last lay naked with another human being that this explains utterly their lack of humour. Only the unclothed who gather together in absurdity can truly appreciate humour.  The clothed are always too armoured to laugh with utter abandon.    People who are well fed, especially with chocolate,  and have lots of human intimacy simply laugh more.  People who are alone more tend to paranoia and negative projections about government agencies. People who are at the computer too long become irrational and constipated.
Exercise, love, good food, picnics, walks, church, sing alongs, and dancing are all critical to well being.
I work in the DTES with drug addicts and the developers and high cost industries of construction with all the corruption want housing as number one but frankly I’d say daily public dancing and public singing might be a whole lot cheaper and more successful solution.  The majority of the addicts I treat have housing but they haven’t a life.  I am never surprised when I learn that depressed patients haven’t had sex in years or just as commonly haven’t been bowling or ice skating in as long.
In earlier years I must have written a hundred prescriptions, “Make love to your wife weekly ” or “Make love to your husband weekly”  or “Take a vacation from your kids at least once a month”.  I don’t do this now.
However I still personally love to make love, eat chocolate, walk the dog, go for rides and sometimes even sing and dance.  I’m sorry that whereas I’ve not forgotten this there seem to be many who have.  And certainly we need far more research which will support what we all already know.

Laura's Internet Cafe

I’ve spent a $100 extra some months on cell connections and communications. I have hi speed internet in my office, have paid for wifi hubs, tengointernet for trailer park camping, airport internet and cellphone sticks and cell connections just to be in the ‘net’ and on the ‘grid’ . I ‘need’ to have instant convenient communication. I am on 24/7 call 6 days a week and actually occasionally this year for the first time get paid for this connectivity, not all of it by any means.  It’s thousands a year and the office ‘write off’ portion is only a little.
Everywhere I go these days my phone picks up Shaw. Laura has Shaw cable. The plan was to get Shaw Internet here so we can both use Shaw on the Go around the city.  The big screen TV was a gift from me to her for our mutual entertainment. She got the Shaw. I think I paid for the hook up as I’ve now done for the Wifi.  We’re both using it. It’s operating now. When I called out I was ‘in’ , Laura called back. “I’m a wifi cafe now!”  $50 a month compared to the Tengointernet $40 a week coupled with the other service which worked just great for $10 a month with a $100 hub till computer upgrades made the hub obsolete and the company stopped providing that ‘connectivity’.  With shaw I expect to get rid of everything but the Telus office.  No more cell phone charges for going over the ‘plan’.
“I like when you write here.” Laura said.  She’s so sexy.  I imagine smart sensitive women the world over saying things like that to their gullible egoistic men, “I like when you game on the internet at my place”.  “I like when you read Facebook at my place’.  They reel the men in.  The fact is Laura, like a lot of men loving women, just like to see the guys happy. She’s making me another coffee right now in Laura’s Internet Cafe.  She’s been giving Gilbert treats all morning.  She likes me because I bring my dog over. The guys come to visit.
George is the big blond male cat I got Laura one day at the Pet store. He was on display from the SPCA, like a slave in the window.  Mean bastard. Looked so cute in the window.  Got him home and he shat on the bed and scratched everyone and tried to bite me. He was almost feral a week later, isolating and hiding from us till I forced ‘socialization’ on him pulling him out from his hiding place and barring the under the bed from further escape. The hermit took to the cupboard above the fridge.  Hi rise view.  Basement dwelling causes surliness. His paranoia slowly lifted as he watched from on high and saw that we weren’t eating cats and beating them and doing awful things to him.  Laura’s love its irrisistible. Everyday she cooed and talked and brought him treats. When I came he looked at me like I was some sort of evil monster.  He didn’t know what to make of Gilbert.
Days and weeks and months went by. I gave him tweets every visit.  Gilbert dropped his ball in front of him when George ventured down to the ground.  It wasn’t long before Laura noticed that George was roaming about the place when she wasn’t there. Then there was the time he slept on her bed.
He’s a suck now.  He waits outside the washroom when she has a bath.  He pokes at the ball when Gilbert rolls it to him.  He runs under my feet to get to the perch by the window.  We’ll never know what happened to him before he came to Laura’s but other than a little social distancing you’d never know. He just loves Laura and accepts us.
Laura’s Internet Cafe has it’s regulars.  Laura’s family visits and she’s glad they’ll have the internet to keep in touch with other family.
We’ve become dependent on this connectivity.
I’ve got the family and friends I know in real life. I’ve got some casual acquaintances that I’ve come to know a whole lot better thanks to the internet. Facebook has even introduced me to some strangers who I’ve come to truly enjoy because our values and interests and political and spiritual leanings jive.  I want to meet them in real life some day.  I remember my parents once calling up old neighbours and going for coffee with them. It ’s that kind of thing.
Then there’s the whole ‘internet cafe’ . Another third space beyond the library. It’s a place I ‘ve just loved. I’ve sat at my computer in my home. I ‘ve carried this lap top everywhere a distant cry from my old writing notebook but nonetheless related.
And now here I am, Laura’s Internet Cafe.  The little dog has climbed up on the bed beside me and is leaning against me. I love the feel of his body when he does that, affection.  I don’t like the internet cafe’s much since I’ve got a dog. I don’t like anywhere my dog isn’t welcome.  We don’t go to restaurant’s much as a result.  I always liked to eat at home in front of the tv though there was a time when I had so many dinner parties for dozens and dozens of friends.  Another time of connectivity.  That’s infrequent now. Neither Laura or I have ‘dining rooms’ anymore .
We have had parties in restaurants. That’s what people do a lot in bigger cities like Vancouver.  The little apartments are glorified bed rooms and everything else is outside in the city.  It’s a bit limitted in the winter but the summer with the beaches and parks makes this work well.  There’s winter  third space in the malls.  Old people and young seem content to take up space on the benches meant for resting shoppers. Shoppers don’t rest. They are frenzied consumers so third space seekers are moving into those bench spaces. They’re like the rats and coyotes moving into the rest of the city.  There’s always been the restaurants and cafe’s, but so often they encourage consumption. More and more there are coffeeshops like Europe which simply enjoy ‘regulars’ and get by with that.
Now there’s here.  Laura just brought me some quiche. I ‘m going to stop and eat.  I can upload this immediately.  Next I’ll surf the web and read Facebook seeing if anyone else is looking for a political argument or has a picture of a really cute dog.  Facebook is bipolar that way these days.
It’s snowing outside. I walked Gilbert.  He sniffed the other early risers signs.  A man was out shovelling. A young couple were climbing into their car.  I’d say they were going out for breakfast.  Adventurous in this Winnipeg winter in Vancouver. Schools closed .  Buses unable to get up hills.  Fender benders.  A few inches of snow.  Now it’s a mix of drizzle and snow.  Mild.  Slushy.
It’s nice to be in the warm with Laura. She’s very beautiful.  Gilbert and I are blessed to have such a friend and now I really must get to that Quiche.  I want to follow up on my nephew Graemes adventure in Costa Rica. I can do that in real time thanks to all this connectivity.  I do remember the rotary phone and black and white tv.  The things other people take for granted.  The young don’t know shit.

Gratitude Jan. 25, 2017

Thank you Creator for the energy and mass and the relationship between these primal memes.  Thank you for E=MC2.  Thank you for the glue, love. Thank you for the Trinity, God the father, god the son and god the holy spirit. Thank you that Christianity celebrates the Holy Mother to the status of Holy Spirit in a way as we thought as kids mom was every where. She certainly seemed to know  everything and see everything and be everywhere like a ghost especially when we were doing something wrong. Thank you God for my mother and father and brother and nephews and in laws and all the loved ones connected by blood.Thank you for the friends connected in so many ways , the god kids and their loving parents. Thank you for my dog, Gilbert and the fish and the plants and the pets of my friends. Thank you for the sun and the moon and gravity and air and feeling and touch. Thank you for all that smiles. Thank you for the full range of emotions even the horror and the ecstacy. Thank you for death and life and beauty and the smell of rain. Thank you for the fresh smells in the morning walking the dog pre dawn. Thank you for his well being. Thank you for my fingers. Thank you for my eyes. Thank you for sexuality and intellect and emotions and gratitude and praise. Thank you for churchThank you for laughter. Thank you for recovery and health. Thank you for life Lord Jesus.

Prayer and Jesus

Luke 18
1.“Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them they should always pray and not give up.
2.He said, “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought.
3. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, “Grant me justice against my adversary.”
4. “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, “Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think
5. yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice,
so that she won’t eventually come back and attack me!"
6. And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judges says.
7. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?
8. I tell you, he will see that they get justice , and quickly. However when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

I am again being falsely accused. I am troubled that the courts in Canada have become like the Communist inviting  false witnesses to give power to the State and cause every truthful man or women to live in fear. Totalitarian and police states encourage all to report on their neighbours and celebrate those most those who lie and attack Christians and good and true officials.
I cry night and day “Grant me justice against my adversary”.  But I struggle to understand if my adversary is the individual psychopath or psychotic or the system that does not protect good men who do their work.
There are untold odious complaints and false testimonies against doctors who work with two types of patients
1) those with drug and alcohol problems.  If any one knows drug addicts or alcoholic they know well what vengeful and petty individuals they can be when they are in their cups or hung over.  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous based on the honest assessment of their individuals in recovery noted that Resentment and Fear were central features of their universally immature character.  Resentment was the central fuel of their addiction.  Bitterness.  They commonly live in the past and hold grudges and their fear of retaliation is such that they are often paranoid for periods of time.  These are the people who are quick to complaint, easily offended, don’t like to cut anyone slack but demand it for themselves.  They fill the courts and their letters to the editor are endless. They are the cause of many wars ever waiting to restart some old conflict in the hope of getting even.
2) those who are involved are dissatisfied with their employer and are getting paid to stay home from work by an insurance company.. Their anger with their employer is more often concerning deep seated issues against authority tied to their earliest childhood, neglectful or outright abusive parents.  The doctor is called upon to write a letter to say that they cannot work because of some condition.  With physical medicine this isn’t as threatening for the doctor because when the injury heals there is obvious evidence that the patient is well so return to work should follow.  There are objective measures.  In psychiatry the issue is far far worse because the complaints are invariably about something ‘subjective’ such as “pain”, “dizziness”, “fatigue”, “depression”,  “anxiety”.  With Borderlines Personality Disorders, like Paranoid Personality Disorders, people are seen in black and white categories. Lawyers who defend people against sometimes callous insensitive greedy insurance companies are often as as difficult as insurance company companies who are occasionally callous insensitive and greedy.  There is a conflict inherent in this situation made worse by the inexperience or agendas of the lawyers and the insurance agents. The psychiatrist who is required by law to be as ‘objective’ and ‘impartial’ as possible is called upon to express an ‘opinion’.  The psychiatrist is however by ethical oath an ‘advocate’ for the patient.  He can not lie but he will be as supportive and understanding of her concern as possible.  To this end I report the patients concerns clearly and measure their subjective complains and write formulations that attempt to see the best in people, some of whom are malingering sociopaths.  I “diagnosed’ sociopaths and malingerers by the dozens in the past but I was told that this was unacceptable and really it was now a matter for the courts and judge to assess this. Further if I stated the obvious that a person was a sociopath,psycopath or malingerer in my opinion the patient would definitely complain to the College of Physicians who might well agree but punish me to the tune of $10,000 tying me up in a legal beaurocratic malaise that gave them raison d’être and made them and lawyers rich but definitively punished me to no end.  I have been punished repeated to the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars for telling the truth as a doctor.
So I don’t diagnose people as sociopaths, psychopaths or malingerers anymore.  Naturally it’s like any doctor who is told that he cannot diagnose ‘appendicitis’ or some such not uncommon diagnosis in their field.  Our textbooks and diagnositic formulations all include these diagnosis but ‘smart’ doctors especially those most interested in ‘business’ just know not to diagnose anything that would be ‘unpopular’ with patients. Rich doctors must be liked and popular. It was for this reason and it continues to a lesser extent that most doctors won’t diagnose alcoholism, addiction or even sometimes mental illness.  They don’t want to lose the patient.
Regardless today I support patients and generally don’t think of them as psychopaths , sociopaths or malingerers because as their doctor I really want to ‘give them the benefit of the doubt’. Even when I learn they are unable to work because it’s too tough for them to sit at a desk for 2 hours because of their pain but they fly 12 hours to vacation spots and back, well it does seem suspicious but I am there to be helpful not to be a judge. The judge will sort this out because so often in these cases too the insurance company will hire a psychiatrist who will quickly see how ‘incongruent’ the patients statements are and even note that while the patient can’t do ‘their’ job they are nonetheless working under the table or doing things for family and friends which would constitute work.  One person who ‘couldn’t work’ had a family business running out of the basement. Anyone who has worked with insurance companies knows just how sadly common this is especially in those who do not share an ethical or moral basis  of the greater community.
When patients are angry with doctors because the doctor is perceived as a threat they don’t complain about the doctor specifically being a threat to their desire to get their‘ money for nothing’  because of deep seated issues of entitlement but rather will make their complaint ‘powerful’ as possible.  Single male doctors are therefore with women always ‘sexually harassing’ simply because there is no basis to ‘sexual harassment’ except a he said, she said complaint much like the subjective complain of ‘fatigue’.  One female theif who called her accuser ‘sexually harassing’ actually called the policeman who investigated ‘sexually harassing’ and the Vancouver police department would not follow up on the case because of the fear and cost of this complaint to date to their members.  In all cases there is no ‘objectivity’ to the complaint but it remains as a ‘character assassination’ and it’s done for profit as the patient in these work place issues is trying to get ‘money for nothing’ and ‘time off work’.
Many companies have successfully reduced these kinds of situations by allowing workers to be off work in a company club house or cafeteria but not allowing them to go home to be paid.  One of the sure signs of malingering or alternatively factitious disorder is the refusal of patients to attend group therapy or any group situation because when there is a group malingerers sociopaths and psychopaths know that their ‘sickness behaviour’ might be filmed or witnessed by others when they are not aware. In one to one interviews it’s easy to maintain the ‘sham’ but in the group process there are just too many variables and even a person with a decided limp might forget to do it in the complexity of groups. Naturally Insurance companies when they believe a person is a sociopath , psychopath or malingerer will want the person with the psycihaitric illness to attend a group. Further group therapy is to psychiatrists the very best of therapy and a central cornerstone of psychiatric hospitalization.  There is really little reason for a person not to attend group therapy.
Yet this is when the ‘I’m agoraphobic and I’m social phobic ‘ or “I’m too fatigued to get out of bed” . In the past they were hospitlized at this point and the ‘truth would out’ . One of my patients couldn’t ‘walk’ , but the nurse noted that he sneaked out of his bed at night to use the washroom so I diagnosed him as a ‘malingerer’ and naturally he complained to the authorities , right up to the Minister of Health, that I was a Fascist.  I miss the hospital as it was the very best psychiatric intervention for sorting this matter out.
Without hospital resources psychiatrists are now at increased threat and risk from dangerous patients.
Further in Canada there is a horrendous unconscionable lack of consequence for PERJURY.  The 10 Commandments says “Thou shalt not Bear False Witness’ but in this anti Christian, anti Bible, Anti Truth, Anti doctor country I have been utterly utterly frustrated and countless times in tears for doing my job and trying to help patients to the best of my ability with all my training and experience but only to be faced with complaints because I continue to work with people who have drug and alcohol problems and who are out of work and in conflict with their insurance companies..
The sad thing is that I have been able to help hundreds or thousands of people and the proverbial ‘bad’ apple is one in a hundred.  Most of my patients who have anxiety or pain or depression offered ‘group therapy’ jump at the opportunity. Patients who want to get better will do everything to so and yet there are those for whom treatments don’t work but they don’t pick and chose and refuse to be in any situation where they are under observation.  They welcome a chance to prove their truthfulness.
Patients with drug and alcohol problems are harmed by those who lie and enable their disease. I make the diagnosis as frankly as I do cancer. Being diagnosed with alcoholism or addiction is like being told you have cancer but if doctors don’t tell their patients the truth they patients are at greater risk.
I never think of patients as the adversary.  I thinks the system or the authorities are at fault because they know these aren’t ‘isolated’ cases yet they punish the doctors who work with these difficult groups. Most of my much smarter and more clever and more business oriented colleagues simply say no to seeing patients with drug and alcohol problems or work problems or with superego lacunae.  I see people who are murderers and prostitutes and often very dangerous and often very unclean and smelling very badly and I know my colleagues and the government in general denies them care by neglect or a countless series of barriers to treatment but I work with these people but I get upset, forgive me jesus, for being stabbed in the back over and over again by the very people who are supposed to be serving the same people I am.
I am not the enemy.
I am a Christian who when I was going to work in Africa was told by Dr. Jack Hildes Canada has as many people who are need missionary doctors because our health care services don’t treat the marginalized.  I have followed his advise and worked in the areas of ‘greatest need’ but I’m old and tired and reduced to crying by my bedside where my mother taught me to pray on my knees.
GOD GRANT ME JUSTICE AGAINST MY ADVERSARIES.

Vancouver Boat Show and the God Kids

The Vancouver Boat Show at BC Place is an annual must go event. Unfortunately this year it overlapped with the Vancouver Motorcycle Show which is another annual must go event.  And further the SFU Robbie Burns Dinner, yet another must go Vancouver event occurred on the same weekend.  What a confluence of must go! We really did need that cloning technology we have been waiting for! I would gladly have been in three places but most of all I wanted to go to the Vancouver Boat Show. I’ve been going for over 30 years, loving it always.
Besides we invited Kevin and Anna and the God Kids to join us knowing how popular the event is for families.  The God Kids are really into the fishing and water sports and too young for motorcycles.  It remains to be seen what a year without Robbie Burns , the SFU Pipe Band and Haggis will do for me. I fear without haggis I will suffer some loss of mystical potency.
Tom who I sailed back from Hawaii with on my SV GIRI is more into boats and was keen to attend the Vancouver Boat Show.  His sailing vessel Naoimi is a beautiful sailing ship moored here. My SV GIRI is presently resting up on land in the east.  I still have the AB hard bottomed inflatable with Honda 30 hp engine I got at this boat show a few years ago.  We’ve been meaning to get it out on the ocean for fishing. It’s was last used last year ferrying us out to the islands in the interior for deer hunting.  I love boats and the Vancouver Boat Show is the best place to see all that’s available with the very best deals of the year.  A lot of  places maintain the boat show prices for a week or so after.
At Steveston’s I got Anna and Kevin a couple of radio’s if they ever get separated when they are out boating and canoeing.  The kids were happy with little hand made life rings that Kevin figured they’d really like. We all had our favourite boats. The girls liked the luxury power boats whereas Kevin loved the heavy duty aluminum boats that looked liked they would survive anything.  This year my favourite back loading ATV carrying aluminum boat wasn’t there but the luxury tug boats were. Tom loved the Honda 350 engine and the Mercury 400 engine best.
I want the Yamaha Wave Runner.  It’s a toss up with the 70 hp Seadoo.  But really, I’ve my Harley for the land and ‘need’ a motorcycle equivalent for the water. I’ve been thinking this for several years now and feel like Gilbert my dog does when he sees a yellow ball.
We stopped in the food court for fish and chips from Steveston and enjoyed the break. The kids need to be fueled and once fueled went to the Kid Zone where they were a going concern.
“You’re making me have big dreams,” Kevin said.
“I guess so. I see things at the Vancouver Boat Show I like and over the years Jesus has given me the work and will to pursue them.”  I was showing him the Kevlar Prospector  canoe that I bought nearly two decades ago when I thought it was something I’d never be able to afford. I bought it at the Western Canoeing and Kayaking store having seen them at the boat show.   Anna and Kevin were looking at a kayak and a hobie they could see taking the kids together in.  It wasn’t in their budget this year.
 “But who knows next year?” I said.  “It’s inspirational consumerism of the best sort.”
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this kind of consumerism. I work for service first and enjoy being paid so I can enjoy the fruits of my labour. There’s a minimalist part of me that wants to return to the canoe and bicycle phase of my life but I like that I’ve supported the highest levels of engineering and those working to produce better and better watersport equipment. I can certainly say my sailboat and all my boats throughout my life  have given me the greatest joy.
I loved seeing Anthony Dalton, my incredibly accomplished writer friend from the Royal Geographical Society, Past President of the Canadian Author’s Association.  His non fiction books are the greatest but I was able to get from him at the show his latest historical fiction book, The Mathematician’s Journey.
We all really did enjoy the Vancouver Boat Show. It was Kevin and Anna and the God Kids first one and they said they were truly amazed.
After the boat show we headed out in different vehicles to meet up at the Cactus Club on Broadway near Granville beside Chapters Bookstore. While the kids ate, the adults discussed  the inauguration of Donald Trump as the new US President.  The Cactus Club service was wonderful.  The kids were perfectly well behaved eating up little hamburgers with the relish and enjoyment I’m used to seeing with Gilbert, my dog. It’s fun to watch kids eat.  Actually it’s all round fun to be around such good kids.  I’m thankful for the God Kids and were it not for church I’d really not have much contact with children at all.  These guys and gals are the best.  The adults all had peppercorn steaks, my Cactus Club favourite, followed by their scrumptious cheese cake. The kids had raspberries after their meal then became mesmerized with the big fish tank the restaurant has.  After seeing all the fishing gear at the Boat Show I don’t think the fish would like to think what those little minds were thinking at that time.
The Vancouver Boat Show certainly gives one a reason to work and endless possibilities for play.
 
I

Goat-Fuckers, Drug Abuse and Canadian Values

The  Trudeau family  changed forever  Canada’s values regarding  public profanity.  First Fuddle Duck Trudeau senior blurted out the word “fuck!” in the once hallowed  House of Commons.   Like the dirty little boy he was he later lied about it, but the die was cast.  His very impressionable  shirtless selfie son, known for getting away with  his elitist abuses of  marijuana , followed his dead Daddy, shouting  “Get the fuck out of my way” and  titting an attractive opposition member just to get his point across what it means to be  feminist man.
Meanwhile the Clintons and their supporters have been involved in so many sexual shenanigans that one really asks how can one talk about American politics of the left without using evocative words.
I, therefore ,might have in the past, to protect sensitive ,ever ready to be offended, little lady feminists,  alluded only to  goat-fornication. However, it is the 21st Century.
The CIA , Canadian and American military have  extensively reported on "goat fuckers". Cluster fuck, once a military speciality is now hardly heard of since the rise of  goat fuckers.  The capture of  masses of pornographic literature and pictures  in the Middle East and Africa exposed that the main attraction of radical muslim terrorists is for goats.  The virgins in heaven is indeed a ‘beard’ . A beard refers to the the women who used to marry homosexuals to allow them to fit in mainstream society.    Radical muslim terrorists are quite simply goat fuckers who would have the world believe that they want virgin women, but only in heaven.  
Personally I’ve never, to my knowledge, met a goat fucker.  Indeed they are a deceitful lot so if I had met one they probably would not have declared themselves.   In my work I’ve met  horse fornicators and cow fornicators. Bestiality,  though not common here, does exist.  Fornication with goats and the desire to fornicate with goats apparently goes hand and hoof with radical muslim terrorism.  There have been other terrorists such as the IRA but they were never associated with goat fucking.     The IRA weren’t even associated with goat fucking in  comedy  as the poor down under Australians were with sheep.  Now though, if  I met a radical muslim terrorist, based on the latest findings,  I would consider him  as likely to  be a goat fucker.
Goat fuckers might be  welcome in some countries and  selected mosques  but nowhere in Canada and especially not in Canadian Christian churches. A goat fucker simply could not feel reasonably   at home in Canada. The fact is, Canadians don’t tolerate goat fuckers. It’s a central and fundamental Canadian value.
I have used the term “goat fucker'  in my work.   I have told patients who have stopped using drugs, like  heroin,  fentanyl,  cocaine,and crystal meth,  that those,  who remain successfully abstinent for five years , have a fundamental  change in attitude towards drugs.   It is so significant that if they were offered a drug five years abstinent they’d still say something like,  “No thank you,  I’m not into goat fucking anymore.”  Drug addicts commonly normalize their drug addiction behaviour and forget how shocking and  radically wrong it is to healthy Canadians.  
There have been nearly a thousand  drug overdose deaths here this last year.  Other  nations, cultures and  religions  might not consider this the cluster fuck it is.  That's because they don’t share Canadian values.  Canadians  collectively are angered and ashamed that our most vulnerable are being killed by criminal greed driven heartless drug dealers.
The Canadian band, Steppenwolf, wrote and sang the song “Goddam the Pusherman” to millions of Canadians. Canadians value individual lives. They do not respect criminals.  And they value those with the greatest clarity, men like Canadian astronaut, Colonel Hatfield.
Perhaps terrorists who indiscriminately blow up children with their bombs see goat fucking as normal. Canadian  men and women on earth and in heaven , virgins or not,  do not accept goat fuckers.     In Canada we value the individual, love all children, denounce terrorism and  respect women.
There are those who do not know Canadian values.  The sad legacy of the uncultured Trudeaus leaves this false impression.  Thanks to the leadership of Dr. Kellie Leitch,  Canadians are being reminded of what Canadians truly do value and what they do not.
It seems sad that we have to clarify this. Say no to goat fucking.  Value Canada.
And welcome President Donald Trump, whose inauguration as the 45th President occurs today.

A better way to pray

A colleague gave me Andrew Wommack’s book, A Better Way to Pray.  I’m reading it.  I try to set aside a little time for spiritual reading each eay. I was reading the Bible cover to cover again but the app I was using began messing up so I stopped that.  I was reading a daily reflections book but it just wore out.  A bathroom spiritual book I’d rescued once too often from the sink or toilet or floor.  So I picked up Andrew Wommack.  He’s  with Charis Bible College in Colorado Springs.  Right off his way of writing, American colloquial, the buddy talk of a guy you meet in a diner, kind of pissed me off. I’m a bit more intellectual and prefer less ‘glad hand’ salesman writing. Yet the friend who gave me this book is not at all like that.  So I continued on till I struck gold.
"Prayer is communing with God,”  Now that I can wrap my mind around. There’s formal times when I pray, in church, out walking in the woods, on the beach.  I actually stop and talk to God by name. I say Jesus, because my God is called Jesus, when I’m praying like that. Mostly I speak to God as “my father’, or ‘my lord’ or even sometimes, God of Gods.  And alright, the guy who was knocking the glad hand salesman talk also calls God, look dude.  Our relationship is fluid.  It’s like a father and son or like brothers.  I know about those relationships. I don’t really know how one is supposed to communicate with the Creator, the Lord of All ,the Great Kahoonah, the Emperor God, the Mastermind behind it all, the Holy Spirit, the Higher Power. There’s no real, ‘right way’.
But Andrew Wommack, who by his writing has obviously done a lot of praying and read and listened a lot on praying, to my mind has some really good ideas about prayer. He quotes the Holy Scripture a lot. And who but Jesus knew the most about prayer.  Thy Will Be Done.
Right now I’m asking God for a new truck and the wealth to purchase this without loss to myself.  I want to manifest a truck. I want to have a truck show up outside my door with angels and horns and hallelujahs.
It’s okay that I want anew  truck. It’s okay that I ask God for a new truck.  I certainly don’t want to ask the devil.  I might ride like the devil but I don’t want to ride a truck from the devil.  Besides I might argue I have my motorcycle for all those shenanigans. What I want the truck for is to drive people about. This weekend I’d pick up a family and their kids if I had a truck.  I mostly need a truck to pull my RV and to haul my ATV out into the woods.
But I don’t spend all day, begging Jesus for a truck.  It would even be better if I was praying for a truck for someone else. That’s more unselfish prayer.  The motive in the prayer counts. Andrew Wommack talks about that. If I was praying for a truck to bomb the Trump inauguration God simply wouldn’t give me a truck for that purpose. The devil might but not God.  Jesus is all about creation not destruction.  He might want to destroy my addiction but his way of lifting my desire for negative things is through attracting me to positive things. I think of exercise. I have to eat less and exercise more so God isn’t beating me up about my expanding girth as much as he’s inviting me to enjoy less weight and more mobility. Today I loved walking the dog in the rain, mostly.  I did hurt picking up his shit and that reminded me that I’m too much at my desk and need to do more stretching and moving about. I actually did some stretching last night.  God wants me to be healthy.  He wants me to live long and well if that is my desire.
Mostly God wants my companionship.  James Houston of Regent College wrote a book on prayer and it really emphasized that idea of being a companion to God. Sometimes I just talk over my day and what’s going on with God.  I do the same with my dog and in many ways my relationship with my dog mirrors my relationship with God.  My dog is with me most of the day. He’s often lying under my desk while I’m working. I’m always communing with my dog in that way. We’re together. I reach out and touch him to reassure myself he’s there. I sometimes just look over at him and feel good that he’s there.
I’m a God seeker.  Be Still and Know That I am God is one of my favourite prayers.  Sometimes we say meditation is listening to God and prayer is talking to God. I like meditating too. I like to let my mind focus on some positive word or thought or phrase from the Bible and repeat ‘come holy spirit come’.  Something like that. Anything to take my mind off all the chatter and anxiety and worry and regret that it can sometimes get into. Often I just repeat Jesus Christ over and over to myself. I like the Hail Mary Prayer and Lord’s Prayer and All Shall Be Well. But I use those prayers to distract my mind when I’m afraid or sad.  I think at those times my mind is going in reverse or in  the wrong gear and I just need to get it in neutral for a bit before I can shift into the right gear forward.
Other times I’m just registering the beauty of God in creation, like the smells this morning in the fresh rain.
Andrew Womack said Prayer is Communing with God. I like that. Probably because I like communing with God. It’s like being in community with God. It’s like having God in my heart.  God’s not out there distant but near like my dog under the desk. I like that.
So even though I didn’t like the ‘authority’ talk of Andrew Wommack, he talks like he knows God, which he really seems to, but I thought ‘he talks like he knows God more than me’ and that wasn’t a particularly Godly thought. Not that I know God more than the next guy but I am pretty prickly these days.  I know from the scripture I’m supposed to be slow to anger. I know I have a whole lot of character defects and I do ask God to remove these from me.  I ask God to make me a better a person. I ask God always to make me a better doctor. I’m studying and learning and reflecting and practicing but I’m also just asking God, please God mould me. I think of a potter’s wheel and ask god to make me more what I might be best to serve his goals.  I swear too much I think I have tourette’s syndrome. I beat myself up something fiercer and I’m lazy and don’t do nearly enough good stuff.  I’m often just going along on automatic rather than celebrating the time and the day.  God is in the present.  God is known in the now. God is here and now. God is always and ever.  God is with me and in me above and below and beside me. God is all.
I like Andrew Wommack and I like the friend who gave me his book.
Yesterday a patient gave me a picture of a Mother with a heart of love from Romania. His sister has given her life to the service of God and sent this back with him as a gift for me.  I was touched by this. It’s on my wall now so I can look up and be reminded that God’s love for me is like a mother’s love.  I miss my mother who is now in heaven but I can know God’s love as her love was for me.  I am forgiven. I am loved.
Prayer is communing with God.  Thank you Andrew Wommack