Category: Essays

Livin’ the Good Life

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

I was half-watching Antiques Roadshow earlier tonight on NPT while puttering around in the kitchen, and some woman had a vintage guitar handed down from her uncle or some such.  This instrument had been stored under her bed for years on end, or at least that’s the story I half-heard, but it makes for good drama so I’m sticking with it.  Anyway, this under-appreciated piece of hand-me-down family treasure was appraised at a value of $35,000.

I have a guitar.  I actually got on the Internet to see what it might be worth.  It IS almost 20 years old, after all.  From what I can gather, I might be able to get a cool $200 for my little gem.

A couple of days ago, Oprah began her now-live Friday show by focusing on the fires around L.A.  Her major motivation at that point was the fact that the night before it had roared up (or down) the mountain whereon is located her home and the homes of her very wealthy neighbors, among whom are film director Ivan Reitman and actor Rob Lowe.  Oprah wasn’t crass enough to show a picture of her own house, but I saw an aerial view of it on a news program later this weekend, and I can’t even begin to describe the mansion monstrosity that is Oprah’s (second? twelfth?) home.

Susie’s mom told her on the phone today that she has just purchased season tickets for the Nashville Opera next year, which sounds heavenly to me, and though it doesn’t seem to touch the stories above, they’re all pretty much the same to me right now.   All equally out of reach.

Earlier this afternoon, I finished the chicken coop so next spring we can have chickens, and eggs will be one less item on our shopping list in the future.  The thermostat is set at 69 instead of our previously spoiled winter level of 72 because . . . it really does make a difference in the bill.   And even with the Prius, we are consciously combining trips and avoiding drives that are not necessary.

This long ramble about money and how comparatively little of it I have must only end this way.  I have a job (two, in fact) that almost guaranteed will not go away.  I have a home I love and a yard I love even more.  I’m not hungry.  I have four dogs who show me immense love.  I have a partner I adore and who makes any place she is home for me.   I have family and friends who are second to none.  I have two sisters who are just freakin’ wonderful.   I have more to be grateful for than most people in the world.

Oh, and I have a guitar. . . which is worth a hell of a lot more than $200 to me.

And I have a house that is not burnt to the ground, no matter how modest it is.

And I really prefer the symphony to opera.

Damn, life is good.

Red State Blues

~ Deb ~ 3 Comments

CNN’s Rick Sanchez showed an interesting map earlier this week.  It was a map of the United States broken into counties.  Each county was shaded either a variation of red or blue based upon whether the county voted more Democratic or more Republican than four years ago.  It was not a breakdown of who actually won the county, mind you, but more of an illustration of political tendency.  So a county could go for McCain but be shaded light blue if McCain only won by, say, 52% and Bush had won it four years ago by 56%, thus the light blue indicating a downward movement for Republicans and slight increase for the Democrats.

With the recent major shift towards the Democrats, not just in the Oval Office, but also in the House and the Senate, it should not be surprising that the country was almost entirely painted in varying shades of blue, light to dark depending on the size of the shift.  Ohio?  Blue.  North Carolina?  Blue.  Southern Mississippi?  Yep, blue.  Almost the entire country, except . . . Arkansas, Tennessee, Northern Louisana, Eastern Oklahoma were almost solid red.

The question was asked on Sanchez’ show about whether this reflected racism still running through a wide swath of the south.  A Republican strategist essentially replied that this kind of question was only asked by trouble-making Democrats who wanted to belittle the Republican party.  Well, then, you can consider me a trouble-making Democrat.

I’ve heard story after story about racist responses to this election.  There were rumors going around local high schools here in Middle Tennessee the day of the election that if Barack Obama won then white kids were going to bring guns to school and kill all the black kids.  In rural Georgia, people were flying flags at half-mast.   An African-American student at Middle Tennessee State University walked out of his dorm room and saw the N word written on the railing of his dorm balcony.

I DO NOT believe that voting Republican automatically makes someone a racist (of course not).  But there was a strong national trend this year that one specific section of the country resisted strongly.  There are likely many reasons for that, and I believe one of them is racism.

What do you think?

Deb-o-nomics

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

I believe that everything is energy.  I’m energy.  You’re energy.  The attitude we have is energy.  Those fancy-ass quantum physicists would even say that we are energy living within a field of energy.  There is nothing that is not energy.

This means also that our money is energy.  I’ve heard it, read it, and, yes, believe it.  You can best determine a person’s priorities by how she spends her money.  I’ve seen first hand how my relationship to money shifts when I can think of it in terms of energy.  And it helps to explain my position on economics (yes, I have one).

As a nation, where we put our financial energy has a huge impact on our society’s financial wellness.  The pencil pushers and Reaganomics fans would say we should deregulate and reduce the size of government and, for god’s sake, reduce those entitlement programs because all of that adds up on paper to fiscal responsibility.  The focus of our financial energy has been on helping the rich and hoping somehow that will help the poor, and the latter group is beginning to include a growing number of former middle class folks.  More importantly, our focus has been on war.  Our financial energy has been focused on combat and rich folks.  No wonder we all feel like financial casualties right about now.

What if our national money energy, our collective soul of manifestation, was focused on helping out those in need, providing jobs, protecting our environment, educating our children?  What if we exhibited our true priorities to the world through the way we spent our money?  What if big government wasn’t the enemy, and what if a government that really mirrored our priorities was in fact the answer?

There is probably not a single economist in the world that would think that is the best fiscal policy.  Perhaps a few generous ones might think it is the right thing to do, but they still would be concerned for the balance sheet.  And yet, I believe it is the most fiscally prudent thing to do.   I believe the bottom line of that policy would be incredible bounty for the entire nation.

But, I can’t prove it.  I can only hope that one day we get it.

The Bully Pulpit

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

My dad knew Jim Jones.  Well, not really knew him; just sort of in a passing acquaintance kind of way.  After the Jonestown tragedy in Guyana 30 years ago where 900 of “Rev.” Jones followers committed mass suicide by drinking poison-laced Kool-Aid on his command, my dad told me the story.  They had both been young preachers in Indianapolis in the late 60s before Jones moved his congregation to California and then ultimately to South America.   Apparently there had been some sort of monthly interdenominational prayer breakfast thingy for ministers and it was there my dad met Jim Jones.  According to my memory of what my dad told me all those years ago, Rev. Jones was a dynamic, charismatic, revered and well-loved member of the ministerial community.

My dad was a dynamic, charismatic, revered and well-loved minister as well.  He left the ministry in 1978 under a bit of a scandal which is not the subject of today’s blog.   I once had the opportunity to talk with a woman who had been a member of my dad’s church a few years before.  She said, “When I found out about your dad, I almost left the church completely.”

Now, it makes me no nevermind whether people leave a church or stay in it.  I’m not especially fond of organized religion in general.  But, the bigger point to me was that someone’s faith, their very spiritual compass, would be so completely contained in one other person.  My dad didn’t become a paranoid, megalomaniacal, murdering lunatic like Jim Jones, but there were several people who pretty much considered him the assistant Messiah.   There is an inherent danger in living from a pulpit.  People start to believe anything you say as the direct word of God, . . . and then sometimes you start to believe it yourself.

With the recent passage of Proposition 8 in California which banned gay marriage, I’ve heard something a lot recently which I’ve heard at least a jillion times before.  “I’m against gay marriage because the bible says marriage is between a man and a woman.”  Like a hit song on the radio that you’ve hummed with a thousand times and then that thousand and first time you hear a lyric you’d never really heard before, it suddenly dawned on me just this week . . . no, it doesn’t.  The bible doesn’t say that.  The bible says a few things about marriage (including Paul’s admonition that it’s better not to marry at all and Jesus’ prophesy that one day there would be no marriage), but it never says that marriages are to be restricted to only those between a man and a woman.   It just simply doesn’t say that.

Jerry Falwell has said it.  Pat Robertson has said it.  James Dobson has said it.  Rick Warren has said it.  But I have yet to see any of their books included in the scriptural canon.   So, I’m skipping right past my old argument of “Who cares what the bible says; this is a civil issue” and pressing right on to my new one, “If you care what the bible says, then take the time to know what the bible says . . . and doesn’t say.”  And be sure to draw a clear line between what your Holy Scriptures say and what your preacher says they say.

Ministers have an immense amount of power.  The fact that 900 people would drink Kool-Aid they knew had poison in it is an extreme example.  But, people drink the Kool-Aid every day.  And they are poisoned by half-truths, misinformation, and downright lies.  Jesus didn’t have to stretch the “facts” to draw 5,000 listeners at the Sermon on the Mount.  He just spoke Truth and blessed everybody: the poor in spirit, the meek, and the merciful.

He also said these words that day: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”

Or because they somehow think he wants them to.