Life Is Precious

Abolish the Death Penalty. Visit Arkansas.

I debated long and hard before creating and posting the above and following images. The reason being, I feel strongly about injustices being perpetrated by States' Legislators and governments as a whole but do not want to create more negativity. At the same time, like so many of us, I'm frustrated and want to create awareness using art and humor; humor based on the hypocrisy, stupidity and fear that many legislators and governments worldwide are basing their decisions and subsequent actions upon. 

End Discrimination. Visit Texas.

Fear is driving many decisions; fear of losing something we have or, something we want and won't get. In order to protect ourselves from the perceived fear we then need to place blame, blame on "others". ""They" are taking our jobs. ""They" are causing wars and committing crimes." ""They are what scares me most because "they" are so different from me."

End Discrimination. Visit North Carolina.

There's absolutely to wisdom involved when making important decisions based on fear. Of course, first you'd have to be aware that you're making fearful decisions and that takes a willingness to look deep inside. It's called self-actualization. How many lawmakers do you know that make decisions based on wisdom and not on fear, arrogance and stupidity. (I use the word "stupidity" not to suggest that lawmakers are stupid, but rather that they are not operating from a place of wisdom when making decisions that in general, do not support and help the needs of the citizen they represent.)

Instead of operating out of fear creating division, what would happen if we started from a point of understanding ourselves first, what we're truly afraid of and then question our thoughts, actions and behaviors? What would happen if lawmakers and governments around the world sincerely valued each and every life? What would happen if their decisions were based on courage, empathy and abundance? I know what would happen; we'd stopping harming and killing each other at such an alarming rate. We'd produce more life affirming goods and services based on understanding each other's needs, We'd use wisdom to make decisions that affect living beings instead of fear, self-centeredness and selfishness, and lastly, we could have real happiness.

There are very good, upright, caring, considerate, kind, and helpful people throughout this Country and around the world who just want to live in peace and be happy. We need to let our elected officials know that they need not be afraid, there's 'enough' for everyone; and that more money, power, and policies and laws based on discrimination will not create lasting happiness. 

Oh, what a world it would be. For now, make a difference. Start by taking a look at yourself, questions your motives and what they're based on. Fear begets fear which drives hatred and violence which, is good for no one. Tell your policy makers to take a breath and choose wisdom instead of fear. Considering supporting the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the United Nations Human Rights Fund, and the Southern Poverty Law Center because life is precious.

Why Men Hate Valentine’s Day

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I plead guilty as charged: I too hate Valentine’s Day.

However, I have done my time and have been rehabilitated. So much so, that I am now considered by my wife and her friends as well, to be the most romantic, caring, sweetest and giving man on the planet. Gooey but true.

Like many men, I have spent most of my married life dreading Valentine’s Day with all its pressures and demands – real or imagined. It’s not that we completely lack sensitivity or that our feelings are strictly limited to our Neanderthal origins. But whether are behaviour on this holiest of holy love days is directly linked to our Homo habilis brothers or not, we men feel the need to be capable providers and know that what we provide will satisfy our partners. However, the general consensus amongst the male population is that there is a maldistribution when it comes to the planning and implementation of romance on Sweetheart’s Day. The National Retail Federation, (NRF) reported that in 2007 the average male spent $156.22 on Valentine's Day, nearly double the $85.08 that the average female spent. What happened to equality? Apparently, parity is forsaken when it comes to Cupid.

When my wife of twenty-one years and I have a domestic squabble she’s the one that says, “We’re in this together. It’s about us. Please say “we” not “you.”” This phrase of hers is rarely uttered on Valentine’s Day. Of course, it is expected that we will, as a couple celebrate our love but how we celebrate and demonstrate that love is another story. We men feel seriously tested every February 14th and many believe it to be a no win situation.

In an independent and unscientific survey I conducted of male friends and colleagues, everyone of them said that they begrudge having to take the lead on Valentine’s Day and that they feel they will be graded their efforts. That being said, I know of no living male who ever told his wife or girlfriend, ‘sorry baby but these red, silk boxers that you bought me that I will wear for approximately 3.2 seconds before we make love, just doesn’t make me feel appreciated enough on this, our special day.’ That’s quite a sacrifice don’t you think?

Since my rehabilitation over ten years ago when I went out on a Valentine’s Day strike, pronouncing to my wife that Valentine’s Day was “stupid” and that she and every other woman in the western world had been brainwashed and duped by the retail industry and that I was starting a revolution of unprecedented proportion that would no longer “feed the insatiable restaurant, greeting card, and flower industries” I have become more sensitive and understanding to why this day is so important. It wasn’t easy and it looks like history played a role.

The history of Valentine’s Day as told by some is that a priest, later to become Saint Valentine had a disagreement with Claudius II. It seems that Claudius wasn’t all that warm and fuzzy and was laden with extra testosterone that he put into being commander and conquer. He decided that unmarried men made stronger and more efficient soldiers than those with wives so he outlawed marriage. The soppy Saint Valentine rebelled against Claudius by performing secret marriages for young lovers desperate to be joined in holy wedlock. When Claudius got wind of Valentine’s clandestine actions he had his head chopped off. Wow! Just think about it, the origins of this sweet and romantic holiday lay in a priest’s beheading.

That was around 270 A.D. and I don’t entirely hold Claudius and the headless Saint Valentine accountable for creating what we men sometimes refer to as the ‘greed of Valentine’s Day.’ Legend has it, that sometime around 1418 King Henry V paid a writer named John Lydgate to compose a Valentine note to Catherine of Valois. It was the olden time’s version of CVS and Hallmark. Today’s romancers consider him a loser. All he had to do was write a few lines of his honest feelings on some musty parchment and Catherine would have rendered him her mind, body and soul indefinitely. Everyone followed suit and trudged narrow, cobbled stoned streets in order to purchase poems and sonnets setting the stage for what desperate and procrastinating men now do every year.

So, after so much disdain and rebellion why did I capitulate to what is deemed by some as a lovey-dovey dope? For one, I grew up and two, I realized that not all holidays are about me. (Darn that little boy in hiding in my subconscious.) Yes, I show and tell my wife everyday how much I love and appreciate her but there is no such thing as ‘banking’ one’s efforts. What counts is each day and if my wife is my number one customer, so to speak, then why wouldn’t I want to treat her as such? Do retailers really care if we have a lovely snugly holiday? Do they inflate prices ten fold on roses, Italian dinners and greeting cards every February 14th? Of course they do but so what? So what if I go out of my way just a little bit to make my wife happy? Isn’t that what giving is all about? Gentleman readers don’t hate me but last year I made hundreds of tiny, multi-coloured umbrellas that I stuck in between the floorboards of our apartment that led a path to the living room where I projected one of my wife’s favourite movies, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Her tears of appreciation and gratitude made the effort so worth doing and I have to admit, I had a really good time creating the evening.

According to my wife’s friends, I am in the minority and they want to know how they can get their husbands and or boyfriends to be more romantic. Every year they excitedly ask my wife, “What did he do for you this time?” (A couple of years ago my wife’s best friend Lona received a tape dispenser. Her poor husband is still paying for that.) Recently I asked my wife what she considered romantic when it came to my efforts on Valentine’s Day. She replied, “When you surprise me.” And I sincerely asked, “You mean when I actually listen to you?” We both had a hearty laugh over that!

My wife suggested that I start offering Valentine’s Day coaching for men. The old Draco me would have laughed at this but I thought it a good idea. So ladies and gentlemen, since I have been branded a good romantic, my experience and rehabilitated self are at your disposal, all in the hopes of the only thing you are guilty of this February 14th is of being in a state of perpetual bliss and happiness.

What If?

I was so struck by today's poem on the Writer's Almanac that I had to share it with you:

The God Who Loves You by Carl Dennis, from Practical Gods. © Penguin Poets, 2001.

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.