I knew I was gonna say something. I told myself, “No…don’t…you won’t win…you can’t win.”

It was outside of a Starbucks of all things. I stopped on this beautiful day to sit outside, catch up on my book and wind down after a tough day. The three guys sitting at the table next to me, leathery old men with jeans and oil-stained shirts and caps. Hard-working, good men. They were lamenting a news story about a discussion that was taking place uptown tonight on the subject of the second amendment. As they carried on about the world going to Hell with all the liberals who want to take away their rights, their voices got louder.

One of them turned to me and apologized for getting so loud while I read. “Sorry, friend. It’s just fuckin’ crazy. Don’t you think so?”

Okay…the moment of truth was at hand. I smiled and said, “No worries. You’ve gotta have a voice on this stuff. Mine isn’t one you really want to hear on that one though.”

Jim (the name on his shirt) gripped the arms of his chair and turned it a few degrees my way. “Awe, tell me your not one of those freaks who thinks our guns should be taken away.” I laughed and said I don’t know about the “freak” part, and I support the second amendment; but that I think it has been misinterpreted, abused, and used for evil and not good.

“Oh shit, we got us one here, boys” he said. I replied, “You asked.” “So, what is your excuse for taking my gun away?” he asked. I asked if he really wanted to talk about it. “Sure, why not?” I’ll give him credit for not writing me off at that moment. Hope for Democracy and the First Amendment as well. I explained that my worry was over the abuse of the amendment in this era; assault weapons, background checks, all the usual suspects for those of us “freaks” on the more left of the double-barrel of the draft from 1791.

I asked, “How many guns do you have?” My table mate replied, “Oh, I would say fifteen or twenty.” I asked if he had any automatic weapons or any that might be considered assault. “Hell yeah. I want to line up the liberals like you and mow ya down.” We all laughed. “Just kiddin’” he said. (I’m not so sure) I asked what he thought the purpose of the amendment really is. Glazed, he said, “To allow me to protect myself.” I let him know that that was only one of a host of reasons the amendment was created, and hardly ever a factor in today’s society.” “Hell yeah, it is,” he argued. My recollection of the entire set of variables was weak, but I spit out what I knew of the general intent. “No, it had a lot to do with the possibility of the need for a militia in the event of an invasion; protecting against a government gone undemocratic; and helping in law enforcement. I acknowledged that there were others, but that my constitutional recollection was hazy at the moment.

I then asked the most rhetorical question in the world: “How many times have you used your guns for any of those purposes? More importantly, how many deaths in our country have been attributed to the use of arms for THOSE purposes?” He looked at me like I was Sasquatch. “It don’t matter; it’s my right.” I said, “You’re right, it’s your right. And it’s mine to think we should make it a little harder for those who abuse that right to get a gun.” I thought we would have an amicable and appreciative parting.

“Well, I hope ya never come to Lancaster County. You might just get shot.” He didn’t smile. I ended with this parting, and ill-advised shot of my own: “What were you doing in 1964?”

He replied, I was just a young pup, you know that, boy. But I would have fought just as hard then.” I asked, “Would you have fought just as hard for the rights of humans and their civil rights as you do for your gun today?”

Sasquatch, again. “Oh shit. You’re one of those too,” he replied. “I rest my case,” is all I could say.

I closed my book, looked up at the sky in tribute to my father who fought for the rights of humans around the planet, including the small-minded and ignorant who sat outside of this little coffee house.

An earthquake shakes countries and we respond en masse. Tsunamis come ashore and are followed by waves of dollars and volunteers and government aide. Our planet’s capacity to reach out is sometimes overwhelming. At other times it is strikingly absent.

I have spent the last few days on the water with sea life and river life and people whose lives move with the tides. We slowed the boat on our way to Daufuskie Island to let a pod of Bottlenose dolphin play. They jumped and danced and wrestled and glided all at the same time. They put on quite a show before smiling and moving down river. The pelicans moved stealthily in for the evening catch under a rising full moon. They perched on the buoys and the abandoned pilings and watched the boats and birds and waited the next course. The rhythm of the coastal breezes moved the marsh grass in wave after graceful wave.

I tried to imagine a dark death, like a plague, moving slowly in to suffocate all of this precious life. I visualized our  Pelican and Seagull friends diving and unable to return to flight from the thick coating on their wings. I saw the deep greens and browns of the marshland turning black and dying and taking with it the lives of the birds and the fish who live and thrive there.  I saw the banks of the river at low tide coated in this mess. The crab no longer able to run and burrow along the mud and the rocks.

Months ago the headlines were full of the response of humanity to other disasters. Where is that same humanity when the disaster is one of corporate doing? Does this make it any less a candidate for attention and response from those beyond the boardroom? Did other oil companies rush in with their best minds and resources? Where has been the humanitarian response from corporate and government organizations alike? Is it because many of the victims are not…human? Reality is that the livelihood of so many is threatened by this catastrophe. What is getting much less attention is that LIFE is at stake here too. An entire ecosystem is threatened and dying.

So, I grudgingly turn on the news. Instead of finding headlines filled with national and international response, I see a BP executive spending most of his air time answering to prosecutors from every possible group, agency, district, and agenda. The podium has no lineup of those who have come to a rescue. He stands alone. This isn’t about feeling sorry for a corporate exec. It is absolute sadness over the lack of collective good to save lives. To save livelihoods. To fix a terrible and accidental wrong that not only claimed eleven brave men, but is claiming more life with each creeping inch.

I’ve never boarded a Greenpeace boat. I don’t have a Save The Spotted Owl bumper sticker on my Jeep. I’ve never stood defiantly between a bulldozer and a Redwood. At one point I think I was even critical of these types as if they were all lunatics. But in these middle years I find myself drawn away from concrete and into the woods; from the airports and to the river; from the office and to the forest. So, here I was at dawn this morning, rowing my kayak down Richardson Creek along the marsh and feeling an even stronger conviction to preserve and protect this glorious life around me.

I am a lover of life. All kinds. Tonight I become what I once judged. I don’t want my legacy for the planet to be left to my reusable Harris Teeter shopping bag or a weekly recycling run. That is pissing in the proverbial wind. I am going for “cause” level. Too much at stake.

Sean

P.S. Save The Spotted Owl

“Move legs. Move, damned legs!”

I was crossing a bridge along the greenway. The morning was gray and cool, like today. Void of humans…full of life though. Small creatures making crunchy sounds as they moved through the leaves that carpet the floor of the woods in late Fall.

My hand rested on the wooden rail of the footbridge that crosses over a small creek. There was a trickle from the hills to the pond just feet away from the path. I couldn’t move. I leaned forward and turned with a swing hoping that gravity and a little momentum might create a step. Nothing. I felt like a salvage diver on sea’s bottom tethered to lead boots. Tybee was on the path ahead of me. He lounged under the shade of a River Oak.

I woke. It was a dream.

For just a moment I couldn’t feel my legs. The Wonder Dog was lying down next to my bed, his tired old body stretched across his orthopedic bed and the shag rug underneath. He smiled up at me as he does every morning. But his eyes looked worried as he seemed to sense that I was out of sorts.

He worked slowly to rise from his slumber and greet me with a nose nudge that is part “good morning” and “Let’s go for our sunrise stroll.”

His front legs extended and his chest worked the lift. His back legs followed like tent poles…straightened and immobile. They collapsed under his eighty-three pounds. He panted a moment and went for a second take. Collapsing again as I got up and tucked my hands under his hips and said, “C’mon pal…need a little lift?” He steadied and his tail wagged in appreciation. I threw on my jeans and grabbed a sweatshirt and said, “Let’s go, little man.”

I walked down to the landing at the bottom of the staircase and looked back up at him. He stood ready and calculated his descent. I waited in a catcher’s position on the landing. He began, slowly at first. Momentum turned a careful walk into a slide by the time he made it to me. I caught him, as I do, and we enjoyed a laugh. It’s a bit of a kooky tradition now. Tybee navigated the two bottom stairs from the landing to the wood floors of the den. He stopped at his water bowl and lapped away as I grabbed my boots and his leash. He stood at the top of the three stairs that lead to the front door. He waits for me to open the door before going down the wooden stairs. That way he can sail right through the entry way and on to the patio.

We are now ready for our morning walk.

He loves to walk. He compensates. His front legs working, at times, in a full canter. His back legs, stiff, but steady now serve more as a rudder.

I am convinced that my dream came to me as a medium of empathy. For just a time, in my unconscious state, I was aware of the nature of a chronic disability. I felt–or didn’t “feel” in this case–what it must be like to live within a body that doesn’t work like we want it to. This wonderful companion of mine shows me that spirit and determination can trump limits of the anatomical kind.

I will be there one day. My body’s Early Warning System offers pings of what will surely be more acute in the days ahead. A pain here, a kink there, a “where did that come from?” moment. I look at my best friend of 17 years and realize that he wants to leave me with his wisdom and inspiration for living through all manner of trials. He climbs the stairs of my three story village town home several times a day. If I go up, he comes with me…despite my encouraging him to stay downstairs. It takes him a while, but he gets there on his time. He comes back down. Gravity does most of the work while he uses his front legs for brakes. Then he finds his place on his deck bed and lounges in the sun near a River Oak.

Thank you, my perfect pal.

I choose to live. I choose to live well. Despite these damned legs.

We are going to do some cleaning and purging and rescuing in my mom’s garage this week. I have green dots and red dots for things to go or stay…for good. If not for this week (years in the making) this space would be prototype for an episode of Hoarders.

As I thought of project and the stories sure to come, I was reminded of this original post. I offer it back as head and heart prep for the time ahead.

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March 26, 2012

GOODWILL HAUNTING

I took a bunch of stuff to Goodwill tonight. Bags of clothes and boxes of things. Things from a life before. Things that needed a new home.

There is an emotional stew that accompanies the journey from pile to trunk through the drive and into the outstretched arms of a volunteer on the loading dock. Jeans worn through later years with kids in the woods and on the beaches and playtime with the Wonder Dog. Lamps that threw light on a thousand books that opened or closed or then reopened my mind and my soul. Art that seemed to strike a chord of relevance at the time or whose colors worked nicely with the pillows on the old worn leather couch (also going) or the dining set or just because they said something. Shoes and t-shirts that like tree bark represent eras and philosophical shifts and attempts at identity.

And yes, the books themselves. Those paper works that absorbed the oil of my hands. Pages torn and bent and highlighted and underlined and noted. My teachers. My silent debate partners. My friends. My enemies and allies. My muses.

Knick Knacks of all type. Some that had meaning and others whose motivation for collecting completely escapes me. Fewer of them made the journey to Goodwill than were packed originally. With each touch and turn a memory would trace its way back. I smiled. I cried a bit. I stood and put one here and there on my bookshelf or on a table or back in the box pulled from its attic home. A pause in the proverbial handoff of an heirloom. These inanimate things have so much life. Ghosts in their own right. Speaking to me as they were toted and offered to another. Reminding me that like photographs and cards and rings and other things all had a place in my history. Haunting me now that I know I have left them. Tonight sitting on metal shelves in rows with like kind, awaiting their next caretaker. My hope is that the things worn will warm a body. My hope is that other things warm hearts as they surely did for me once before. New day. New era. I’m not afraid of ghosts. Visit me as you will. Finish the journey with me…with others whose life I hope you touch.

Mom has been visiting me for a week or so now. In keeping with our tradition,the time during dinner or later is spent considering the mysteries and jewels of life. At four-score and something, she is more interested in learning than offering the wisdom of generations of experience. She does that too, but her curiosity always trumps her need to jive memoirs or wax nostalgic of “back in the day” (which I also dig).

“Always have something to look forward to.” Patti Keyser

Mom and Dad didn’t have a lot of those lines that became a staple of their conversation from my youth to adulthood (whatever that is). But this line has been a part of mom’s counsel since I can remember. In the midst of a conversation about relationships and politics and my continuing education and who remembers what else (we were well into a bottle of Pinot), she smiled and said, “Always have something to look forward to.”

I paused and appreciated the gift of optimism. I’ve been called an eternal optimist, an idealist, a prototype for ‘rose colored glasses,’ and even once, a Pollyanna. In her role as the Maternal Optimist, she has been reminding me all week –unbeknownst to her — that life has great possibilities. Hell, she is working on her next decade.

As we discussed her new interest in yoga and her desire to return to painting, she said to me, “I need a plan. Will you help me with one?”

I can only only hope that thirty-six years from now that I have a plan for the next ten.

Joy in the little things is what was to be my lesson from her this week. I had to drive to one of our hospitals about a hundred miles away this week. I offered to have her join me and to drop her off at a mall for a hair style and some shopping while I attended meetings. She enthusiastically accepted. But you see, the mall and the shopping didn’t matter much; she told me she was just looking forward to the drive. On the way home, I was talking about the features on my iPhone (which she was uber interested in for a moment). She listened for a moment and then drew my attention to a really cool cloud formation and went on and on about the color and the shape. “I’ve never seen a pattern like that,” she said. Later that night, I spoke of the beautiful Napa Valley varietal we enjoyed after dinner. Mom was fascinated in the recycled glass wine glasses we drank from. We skipped primetime drama shows in order to watch and virtually empathize with those whose lives were entirely changed by an angry storm. We talked of our country’s resilience, despite storms and whomever occupies the White House. I stayed on the porch and reflected on simple joy…a life less complicated.

My thoughts were drawn to the generation two down from mom. My hope (already very high) was Red Bulled.

My nephew, David, pastors youth and travels any chance he gets to war torn regions of the world to build things…to grow things…buildings, hearts, spirits. My niece teaches. She teaches those with challenges. Like most teachers, she is part educator, part therapist, part advocate, and all in! Their mom (my sister) is another one of those what’s-right-with-the-world people. ALWAYS looking at possibilities and not barriers. It carries.

My daughter pulls from her formal education and her experience in poverty immersed villages in Nepal to offer counsel and compassion to those who struggle with demons of the mind and spirit. Her smile crushes the most aggressive cynicism. And my son studies night and day and then attends his clinicals in preparation of a life dedicated to healing. His scientific mind mixed with his Montana-sized heart for people will make healthcare better.

You see, my point in this epic post is this: I look around me…at this group of DNA, and think of just how much there is to look forward to. I think we are in good and capable hands. I have so much to look forward to. This new and full life. Full of unknowns and joys and mysteries to be solved or at least observed.

Thanks, Mom. Love always.

It was 1095 A.D. Christians and Muslims had issues. Hmmm. A veritable holy Hatfields and McCoys furiously played out in Europe and what is now the Middle East. Good old Pope Urban II leveraged his papal celeb to drive a campaign to retake the Holy Land. He made a convincing argument and even offered speech that inspired folks to action. Here is an excerpt:

“The West must march to the defense of the East. All should go, rich and poor alike. The Franks must stop their internal wars and squabbles. Let them go instead against the infidel and fight a righteous war.” Familiar sounding words? Yep, these were words from a Christian icon of God’s will.

I saw a couple of posts the other night on facebook…one with a photo, apparently of a group of Muslim radicals hoisting a banner downing democracy and cheering Islam. The facebook author wrote: “For any Obama supporters, this is what we are facing here in America. This is NOT the middle east, it is right here on our soil. Please vote for Mitt.” The caption to the photo read: “It won’t happen here, you say? Welcome to Dearbornistan, Michigan.”

The second was a post with two questions. The poster (or poser) was asking if readers were (1) going to church on Sunday, and (2) planning to vote for Mitt Romney. It went on to read: “The fact is if you answered YES to my 1st question & NO to my 2nd then you need to either CHANGE your Church or just stay home & do some hard praying before you vote.”

Now, I love our democracy and our freedoms. That doesn’t change the fact that I wanted to puke after reading this disgusting plea for racism and nationalism through the lens of misguided piety. I’m not sure if this amateur pundit is just a pissed off extremist in his own right or a 21st century Pharisee.

What I do know is that what threatens this great country the most is not a band of radicals in a great city that embraces diversity. The threat to our democracy and our values is by the facebook Crusaders and them like ‘em who use whatever medium they can to generate hate and cloak it in their own made up value set and Constitutional bending. Return to our “core values” you say?. Reality is, our core values are now, more than ever, in play. That is Constitutional Irony if there ever was.

I finally had enough and wrote an Op-Ed to the newspaper in northwest Florida asking that they consider what appears to be a seeming high share of racism and religious intolerance in the local community. I asked how local Muslims might feel about citizens in their midst who are calling for their demise…or, their “conversion.” I have to call these bigots out and ask for a public declaration of their plan. What is it? An all out ethnic cleansing? I am so surprised…I haven’t heard from them (sarcasm thick as sorghum).

You speak of a sinking value system and couch the current President as a champion of everything you perceive to run counter to your quasi-Arian ideals. I love my country. I will stack my love of capitalism AND my social conscience up against any conservative talking head or proverbial tree-hugger. Asking questions, having a conscience, considering greater good or a planet in peril does not make one a good or bad person. But, when you spit hate, mostly out of ignorance (as this facebook crusader often does in the form of “facts”), then you are, in fact, a tragic human being. And please, don’t confuse this rant as a hypocritical perspective and counter-hate. I don’t hate this brother and his cronies. I am frustrated, yes, angry at the kind of crap and cultural intolerance that flow from this fiction writer.

My hope is that our democracy be protected from the likes of them; those that feel being an American is somehow defined by their own twisted Constitutional Apartheid. Your suggestion that God is somehow on the side of a candidate and that my faith is somehow in question based on my Presidential choice (either way) is so revealing of just how uninformed you are as a citizen and as a person of faith in your own right.

This country is great because of its diversity. My blog post, today, is less of a call for dialogue and more an admonition. Uncharacteristically, I care nothing about a conversation about this. I am saddened and disgusted by the facebook crusaders…those few who post hate and and bullshit and add a graphic in the hopes that “like” buttons will be followed by a sheep herd path to the polls.

This applies to both Red and Blue! Careful what you “Like,” unless you share in the hate and the probable B.S. behind it. The barbarism of the crusades is just as likely today by the select few who chose to exercise their extremism through harm to others. Weapons of mass destruction are not limited to those of nuclear or biological variety; they also come in the form of rhetoric. I doubt God was on the side of the crusaders of 1095 and He surely detests the contemporary crusaders who use these pages to wage their own selfish wars.

Just sayin’

In the timeless words of Ricky Bobby, “That just happened!”

I went to my neighborhood grocery store this afternoon for some fish, vegetables, fruit, wine, and beer (not in that order). I opened my trunk to fetch grocery bags. This guy and his wife walked nearby. He looked my way and said, “You’ve got a lotta stuff in that trunk, huh?” I laughed and said, “Yep, I’ve been moving over a few weeks and just used this for small storage.”

As I gathered my Harris Teeter grocery bags  he turned and said, “You must be a Democrat.”

A reply raced from my brain, out of my mouth and through the space between us, “Actually I just give a shit.”

He looked a little offended and said, “I just don’t see how you save a planet with a bag.”

I walked alongside and continued, “I actually use plastic all of the time; I use it to clean up after my dog during our morning walks. See, they are good for something.”

It is a mystery to me that as a conservationist and bit of an environmentalist I am stereotyped as liberal. If that is the tag given me for those values, then I gladly wear it. Why should my desire to “conserve” resources of a planet be less a virtue than conservation of wealth (the primary conservative value of this era). Oh, I forgot, Global Warming is a myth. I’m beginning to understand the paradox.