Good Morning Everyone,
(Warning: rant follows)
So, we get a call from Jerry at the Mountain Music store. He has a drum set I can buy for $250.00, “Come look at it.” We do. It is delightful. A bass drum, chain foot pedal, snare drum, floor tom, and a mounted tom. It includes a floor cymbal with stand, a hi-hat stand with cymbals, and a drummer’s seat. They are made by “Peace” percussions so “Peace” is writ large across the front of the bass. We say they are beautiful. He says, “Take them.” Adding, “Pay me when you can.”
There is something about Vietnam veterans, combat vets in particular. He says we are “brothers.” I feel this. The man was a door gunner. One of the more brutal jobs in Vietnam. I was a grunt. Brutal enough. I cannot put my finger on the what of it, but what I felt was a deep connection with someone I didn’t know, but knew a whole lot about.
Combat vets are a little loosey goosey we might say. We do not abide by manuals well, nor do we appreciate crap. It is said that combat vets have finely developed crap detectors and this is one thing that makes us a challenge to live in society with.
What I have noticed is that taking vows to become a priest has forced me to look at these things. I try to look at the reason for the crap people throw out there. I try to find a way to be compassionate. Sometimes I am successful, sometimes I am not. I think more importantly, not challenging crap for being crap is not compassionate at all. It simply enables people to continue in their crap.
Crap in combat gets you killed. Crap in civilian life gets you promotions by those pinheads who either cannot see it for the crap that it is or are for their own crap reasons unwilling to call a spade a spade..
Setting aside the priestly priesthood mantel for a moment to be a tad more authentic, as a people, I think we have suckered ourselves into a pit of self-serving despair here in the United States. Corporations haven’t “stolen” anything we haven’t joyfully given to them in the hope that our egos, our own bank accounts, and our status in the neighborhood would be satisfied. We are a sick, debilitated, anemic society who seems to have lost our will to say “No!” to our need for more and more things, more comfort, more fast food, more convenience, cars that consume more gas than necessary, more and more, more and more, and those awful corporations have been ever so willing to lend us the money to buy them. Meanwhile we ourselves actually produce less and less.
We don’t work hard in school. We are a nation with one of the highest rates of functional illiteracy. We are a nation that cannot write. We have trouble putting three words together cogently. We do not think critically. We lead with our “feelings.” And we make excuses for everything under the sun…or blame the Democrats or the Republicans or other nations (when other nations are simply rising to fill the vacuum our unwillingness to work has left behind).
Frankly, I do not have any answers. I think, however, like combat tends to clear a person’s mind, so too, hard times. Maybe this era of reduced credit, fear, and collapsing greed will get the slugs moving. Maybe we will wake-up to the fact that if we want less greed we must say no to greed. We must work hard. We must not accept excuses from ourselves or others. And most importantly, we must start to actually think. This requires a few easy but challenging actions. First, turn off the T.V. Second, begin to teach yourself to really read, not just skim, a book. Third, know that you are the only person in your life that can actually change your life. Fourth, make a training plan for change and stick to it. Fifth, look at your local community college, take a class. For goodness’ sake, educate yourselves. And sixth, forget your comfort. It is the soma of the 21st century. (If you do not know what “soma” is, it means you have not read a classic of our literature and you really need to get yourself to a library.)
Our nation is failing because we are failing as individuals and communities. We are too often taking the easy way out of “blame” and “finger pointing.”
Be well.
(Warning: rant follows)
So, we get a call from Jerry at the Mountain Music store. He has a drum set I can buy for $250.00, “Come look at it.” We do. It is delightful. A bass drum, chain foot pedal, snare drum, floor tom, and a mounted tom. It includes a floor cymbal with stand, a hi-hat stand with cymbals, and a drummer’s seat. They are made by “Peace” percussions so “Peace” is writ large across the front of the bass. We say they are beautiful. He says, “Take them.” Adding, “Pay me when you can.”
There is something about Vietnam veterans, combat vets in particular. He says we are “brothers.” I feel this. The man was a door gunner. One of the more brutal jobs in Vietnam. I was a grunt. Brutal enough. I cannot put my finger on the what of it, but what I felt was a deep connection with someone I didn’t know, but knew a whole lot about.
Combat vets are a little loosey goosey we might say. We do not abide by manuals well, nor do we appreciate crap. It is said that combat vets have finely developed crap detectors and this is one thing that makes us a challenge to live in society with.
What I have noticed is that taking vows to become a priest has forced me to look at these things. I try to look at the reason for the crap people throw out there. I try to find a way to be compassionate. Sometimes I am successful, sometimes I am not. I think more importantly, not challenging crap for being crap is not compassionate at all. It simply enables people to continue in their crap.
Crap in combat gets you killed. Crap in civilian life gets you promotions by those pinheads who either cannot see it for the crap that it is or are for their own crap reasons unwilling to call a spade a spade..
Setting aside the priestly priesthood mantel for a moment to be a tad more authentic, as a people, I think we have suckered ourselves into a pit of self-serving despair here in the United States. Corporations haven’t “stolen” anything we haven’t joyfully given to them in the hope that our egos, our own bank accounts, and our status in the neighborhood would be satisfied. We are a sick, debilitated, anemic society who seems to have lost our will to say “No!” to our need for more and more things, more comfort, more fast food, more convenience, cars that consume more gas than necessary, more and more, more and more, and those awful corporations have been ever so willing to lend us the money to buy them. Meanwhile we ourselves actually produce less and less.
We don’t work hard in school. We are a nation with one of the highest rates of functional illiteracy. We are a nation that cannot write. We have trouble putting three words together cogently. We do not think critically. We lead with our “feelings.” And we make excuses for everything under the sun…or blame the Democrats or the Republicans or other nations (when other nations are simply rising to fill the vacuum our unwillingness to work has left behind).
Frankly, I do not have any answers. I think, however, like combat tends to clear a person’s mind, so too, hard times. Maybe this era of reduced credit, fear, and collapsing greed will get the slugs moving. Maybe we will wake-up to the fact that if we want less greed we must say no to greed. We must work hard. We must not accept excuses from ourselves or others. And most importantly, we must start to actually think. This requires a few easy but challenging actions. First, turn off the T.V. Second, begin to teach yourself to really read, not just skim, a book. Third, know that you are the only person in your life that can actually change your life. Fourth, make a training plan for change and stick to it. Fifth, look at your local community college, take a class. For goodness’ sake, educate yourselves. And sixth, forget your comfort. It is the soma of the 21st century. (If you do not know what “soma” is, it means you have not read a classic of our literature and you really need to get yourself to a library.)
Our nation is failing because we are failing as individuals and communities. We are too often taking the easy way out of “blame” and “finger pointing.”
Be well.
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