Knife's Edge

This is a tough post for me and I've debated writing about this topic in a public fashion, but for those who know me, and if you're learning about me here or on social media, I'm a fairly open book.  There are no secrets here.


I think as a child, a catholic child specifically, is when my fascination with life really took a hold. I should clarify, my fascination with what happens to life after death.  I have to remember all these years (like almost 40 years) have passed between when I was a little boy and today.  In that time my curiosity about life and death have evolved, thinking back now as an adult trying to remember my thoughts,  my experience of life and death as child, well they are very different.  All the same though, my curiosity on the topic remains.


All this aside, I have always wondered that question, which I suspect many of us do, does life truly end at death, or does this strange phenomenon of awareness of self continue beyond the experience of death?  I don't know the answer, but in growing up in the Catholic Church I was given many answers to this question, most of which said resoundingly, yes life goes on.  Not only does life go beyond death, but it's better than life here!  It is perfect living, especially if you are not a "sinner" (whoa such a qualifier) and even more especially if Jesus Christ is your lord and savior.  Now as it was I was indoctrinated into that faith, I never was given the option to choose it so while as a child, and even as a young man I would have said if asked, "Yes, Jesus is my lord and savior."  This answer though was meaningless because I had no idea what the alternative was, and in fact did not know that there was an alternative.


Funny stuff this immortality given as  a gift only after one dies.  Heaven is described as perfection.  It was there that we were taught that in heave there existed: no suffering; no fear; no loneliness; total union with the divine; perfect knowledge.  And as a young boy I wanted this.  I wanted all those things, they sounded so amazing.  Yet a caveat existed, you couldn't go to heaven if you committed a mortal sin, and self harm to the point of death (suicide) disqualified you.  The act was anathema.  And so we had to wait for the gift of heaven until we got old and died, got cancer and died, hit by a car or shot by a bullet and died.  No way that was coming to us in the state of knowing that we were (or are) currently in.

I like the darkness.  My entire life I have always wanted to be the hero, the noble knight, the heroic cop, Superman.  Yet for all that longing, I always found myself feeling more empathy with the fallen knights like Lancelot (stealing Arthur's wife); the bad guy who fell into crime because of social and economic situations; I'm more Batman than I will ever be Superman.   I remember reading the stories, fables really, of Lucifer, Satan, and thinking, "Well I can understand his jealousy of mankind.  I always suspected that the stories of the bible, regarding the "bad" guys, or evil, had been biasedly written from the perspective of the good guy, and I always thought that likely this perspective was subjective rather than objective.   Bad guys probably weren't as bad as good guys said.  Evil probably wasn't the force of destruction as much as the good guys said. I mean after all, my entire life I was told that the best football team in the world was the Denver Broncos, but I'll bet that if I grew up in Dallas, I would think that the Dallas Cowboys were the best.  Oh dear reader, see how much I like darkness.....I used a sports analogy!

I had a nice life as a child. I played quite a lot, though I was truly a loner.  I had no more than two or three close friends my entire childhood; Chester my cousin; Daman my junior high friend; Marc, Chris and John in high school.  That was it.  As a little boy I most often played alone.  Creating in my mind entire universes; whole worlds that better or more closely looked like this heaven I had been promised in church.  In my imagination, heaven was  my play time.


But there were those times, evenings often, when I wasn't playing anymore.   I would sit alone in my room, surrounded always by my hundreds and hundreds of stuffed animals and wonder then what was heaven really like.  My wonder actually was more along the lines of, what is death?  So often I would think of this, and wonder that I began to imagine that it might be okay if I died.  I began to tell myself that death, in all it's scary "unknowingness" was so tempting, so much a desire, that I was less afraid of it than I was of living.    Play into death was as tempting for me as play in life.

So there, alone, in darkness I wondered and debated.  If my imagination created such a wonderful life, full of adventure and mystery, fulfillment and fun, then too wouldn't the experience of heaven past life provide this even more, and more completely, fully immersed?   And thus my first thoughts about ending my life crept into my very young mind.  I was probably eight or nine years old.  And my conflict was that I was afraid of the affect not of death, but that if I died at my own hand, I could potentially be neglected the experience of heaven.  Now I didn't experience much in the way of teachings about hell.  It was brought here and there, mostly in context of sorrow things like, "oh those poor souls in hell," or occasionally in referencing truly awful people like Hitler, "he must be in hell."  Now, I didn't want to be associated in this fashion, and I thought, no surely, someone like me, even if I brought myself to death I would be spared hell.


But  I didn't want to risk it.  Not at first anyway.


Now please know, I was in no way neglected or unloved by my family.  My mother was a very caring person (still is).  She fretted over us, kept us fed, loved us, sang to us.  I did have joy in my life, and I wasn't exactly depressed.  I did brood (I still do), I did like reading about dark things like dragons, evil wizards, devils and demons, but I also loved bright happy things too.   I played for hours with my legos, hot wheels, swords and things.  But many times, I would imagine myself dead.  Gone, wandering into the next life whatever that life may be.


One memory, so clear for me, is of an evening when I was alone in my room, maybe around 1979. I had a small Swiss army knife, the old kind that had only a few tools and blades.  It had one larger blade, and this one was pretty dull.  I pulled myself under the blankets in my bed and took out that little knife.  I remember holding it in my hand.  The sensation of the red plastic case at first cold, then warming to the touch of my skin.  I remember flipping open the largest blade, gleaming under the flash light and snapping it shut, time and time again.  Then  I remember taking this blade and pressing it against my stomach, point into my flesh. I remember pressing it, hard enough to push the skin in deep without cutting, and thinking to myself "press harder, you're so close."

Fear.  I was afraid of the knife, not of what it would do, but what if it couldn't do what I wanted.  At so young an age I didn't know what that meant, hurting myself, desiring to know what lay beyond the veil of living into the veil that we all are finally in, death.  I think I knew that the little Swiss Army knife couldn't have possible killed me, or I was just very, very afraid of the possibility that everything I had been told about death was not true, that there was no living beyond dying.  Or part of the fear was in me that if I hurt myself to the point of death, the promise of heaven would be lost to me because self harm, suicide was a mortal sin, it killed you not only on this plane but in the next.


I didn't come so close to death again for a long time after that.  Whatever held me back in that moment kept the thoughts of dying at bay for many years.  The thought occasionally came into my mind, flittering from time to time, sweeping in like a little humming bird, buzzing around my brain tempting me with, "death just like sleeping, don't you like to dream?"

It's funny, I'm not a depressed person.  I rarely am low, I don't have many bad habits, I don't usually mull too much over things.  I think my friends would describe me as happy, carefree even, most certainly silly.  But as we have seen in life, those high moments, which is where I usually reside, can lead to dark lows.  Dips in my mood are severe, but they are fleeting.  I'm not a manic depressive, at least not clinically.  If you meet tomorrow and then run into me in three months randomly, you'll find me in the same mood. I'm consistently consistent.  So this fascination with death isn't one that boils up because I'm hopeless or lost, but rather it comes from this place of pure dream.  It's a fantasy, a dark, dangerous fantasy.  I suppose I would say that if I am depressed I'm an odd bird, because for most days I value the experience of living and I'm quite happy.


But there somewhere in my mind are whispers of a darker desire, hints back to my childhood begging me to explore life and it's natural end.  Now that I've studied death myths, legends, theories of heaven and afterlife I do not believe there is any type of continuance of existence beyond what we know.  I believe that at death I simply cease to exist.  Our lives, our consciousness are like light switches, once flicked off, we simply cease to shine.  So the fascination with death for me has lost the appeal of escaping into a better existence.  But funny, this thought of dying, death has become such a close friend of mine, it's hard to let it go.


There was a time in 1993, January, when I stood on the edge of a rooftop on a building in Rome, some ten stories tall and looked down at the paving stones below and nearly leapt.  Now this was a time when I was depressed. I had been living in Rome then, studying to be a priest, struggling with my sexuality, struggling with being an atheist, struggling with a realization that the Catholic Church, which had become my home, my lover, hated me.  So standing there on the roof of the Pontifical North American College, looking down in the darkness at the road below, I stood; toes dipped over the edge of the building, the wind buffeting my back, encouraging me, daring me to fly - for a moment - to kiss our earth - to stop being me.

I remember the guilt of such dark terrible thoughts. I remember wondering what would my mother think?  My father?  Would they have to come to Rome to get my body or would they ship it back to the USA?  I stood there that dark evening, chilled in the Mediterranean winter air, and once again, for a moment heard my inner voice whispering to me "step over the edge, you're so close."  My own sense of self preservation kept me anchored to life that evening, but I was closer to the edge than I ever had been.


There have been other dark moments in my life and those random thoughts have popped up for me thinking how much easier it could be for me if I just allowed myself to slip into the great sleep.  In all these years, with therapy, the right friends, and maintaining a more firm grasp on reality, I've not stepped off the edge, but what my ever present struggle with thoughts of death and suicide have brought me, are an absolute lack of fear.  I've known pain, physically with surgeries, a bout with cancer, broken bones.  I've known pain in loss of loved ones, death of friends, end of relationships, heart break.  I've known pain in feeling insignificant, unimportant, unable to affect change in the world.  So yes, those dark thoughts have crept up in my mind, and the faint whispers of my old friend death hisses in my ear, ".....you're so close."  And because my old friend death is an ever present part of my personal darkness, I've come to not fear him at all.

So where am I today dear readers?  Well I'm happy, living and working hard at bettering myself.  I'm trying to learn more, discover more, love more. I'm trying to complain less, seek the bright parts of life and living while acknowledging that life isn't a matter of heaven and hell.  I am trying to remember that death too is not a matter of heaven and hell.  Rather, this life, my existence, my awareness, is an incredible gift of great fortune brought on by the power of stars.  The alignment of "knowing", that is consciousness awareness, seems, at least to humanity now, to be rare.  We are special, at least in this corner of the infinite universe.  And knowing this, acknowledging this is enabling me to better appreciate and respect the uniqueness of my experiences of life.  Every moment is special, powerful, unique for what it is.  My existence is so quick in the grand scheme of things that I realize the desire to end life, my life, is pre-mature.  It would be like going to a movie, picking the perfect seat, ordering my popcorn and soda and then walking out when the previews start.  I'd be missing the point.  So I've buckled down, accepted that the temptation for relief of the great sleep is real, at least for me, but that I shall not give in.  Rather I am focused on building up within myself the temptation to stay, to thrive, to live.


I'm happy to discuss this topic and post with you or anyone - leave a comment or send me a message.  I've lost friends to suicide.  I've lost friends and loved ones to early death, and to death after a long life.  And that loss is real.  That loss is painful.  That loss is hard to bear.  I know my life will one day end, hopefully not for a long time, I'm learning there's lots more living to do and I'm only getting started.  So in  the meantime I'm going to keep growing, keep learning, allowing myself to fail, but always allowing myself to get back up after a failure and try again.  I know that death is always close, lurking around the corner but my movie has only just started and I don't want to miss the ending.


I wrote in my "Thoughts Along the Way" journal about this a few months ago.  Here are those musings, "I am, for this rather insignificant moment in space and time, aware.  Based on the incredible rarity of life, especially life aware of itself, this is the importance of being.  Our existence itself seems to point to the meaning of life itself."

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide ask for help.  In the USA the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is an amazing resource.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

1 (800) 273-8255

www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Let That be Your Last Battlefield – and sometimes I’m an arse

 

Lt. Uhura asks if their hate is all they ever had. Kirk ruefully says, “No — but that’s all they have left.”

I took a stand recently and closed my Facebook account.  Motivated mostly out a sense that Facebook was becoming, or is, a black hole of mindlessness.  I get my news from my twitter feed,  I get pictures of friends and family on Instagram, so Facebook to me seemed redundant and divisive (it’s a great forum for us to post and repost loosely held, and often un-researched opinions which seem frequently rated to race, creed, faith, nationalism, sexism and on and on).  It caused me angst, so in removing Facebook from a daily connection, I’ve removed some of the angst.  But not all.
 

You see I just left Facebook.  No grand announcements like “Dear friends and family, I am leaving Facebook……”  No I didn’t want to be so trite, or predicable.  But I guess some folks did feel a connection to me.  Because a few have followed up with me, but for having had nearly 500 “friends” on Facebook, only a handful have actually noticed my absence, which further supports my theory that Facebook (and other social media sites) is a narcissist’s mirror.  We look and engage there because it fits our world view, not because it permits us a glimpse into someone else’s.
 

I’ve kept some of my social media presence because I suffer the same fate as most of humanity, a desire to connect, to be part of the tribe, to exist in a community.  Whether or not that community is virtual or physically accessible seems less relevant in our age.  But most of what I engage in on social media is related to personal interests, this blog and my short story, The Faith of Mars (link brought to you by shameless self promotion).  I do believe though that my departure from Facebook, the leading favorite of social media, caused some folks to read more carefully my blog, A Hopeful Hero’s View.  And then to respond.  So far it’s been my family responding, though the posts here are re-posted from a blog I wrote about two years prior.
 

My mother responded to me a few weeks ago in a nice email where she believed I was angry at the Church, at god.  I am not.  I was not.   My post in response is here, “Angry Much.”  Though I do know that I can sound bitter as the tone of some of my writings are reflective of my upbringing as a Catholic, a bit self defeatist and sounding thoroughly guilt ridden.  Then recently my father wrote to me, and if you continue to read below, you’ll find my response.
 

He shared a very powerful story of his own conversion to the Catholic Church, to his discovery of faith.  I’ll share some of the text here, edited for privacy and clarity, but the gist is the same.
 

Dear Thomas,
 

I understand most of what you are writing (I think) and there is rarely a case where my views are so different. We all learn as we get older , and, hopefully we grow into the person we want to be. I do have a different perception on the beliefs of the catholic church. In order to illustrate, I would like to share my own experience:
 

When a young man, I often visited various churches (mostly protestant). I always was curious as to what the belief encompassed as to people who where not christian, or had never heard of Jesus or God. In almost a uniform chorus, I was told they were destined to go to Hell. My thought was always, “what kind of god is this” who would be so cruel. I never joined any church until I met your mother and was introduced to a catholic priest (Msgr Baccidono). He and I had many conversations over a glass of wine or dinner, so of course I asked him the same question. His answer (which I paraphrase here} was ” why, we are all children of God, and all have the same right to heaven”. I embraced this church because of its openness, so I was baptized ……… I still believe this is one of the biggest, most important aspects of any religious outlook. I recognize that there are many positives about other beliefs and I certainly don’t know as much as you about the various religions, but this is where I am. It saddens me that the catholic church is so slow to acknowledge how to include its people who are not in “perfect” communion with what the hierarchy teaches, but I am reconciled by the belief that the last say on this is not in their hands.
 

Anyway, these are some of my thoughts. I also believe that no matter if you believe in God or not, he loves you like I do, as a son, and he like me, embraces you for what you are and where you are. My hope is that all people will one day learn to accept our differences as an asset as opposed to a liability.
 

Of course I responded.  In a fashion very different than how I did to my mother as reference prior; my mother’s faith was always part of her life, it wasn’t something she found, it was something she was born into.  My father on the other hand, is a very intelligent man, who discovered faith as a young man.  Hi is so powerful (he reminds me of Captain Kirk in so many ways).  I wanted him to better understand my basis of atheism that comes from my own learning, observing, much as he has and does.  I would love for him to discover that my journey to non-belief in some fashion mirrors his own into belief.  However, I am afraid that my response was too harsh, and certainly that it was too much about me; it was selfish.  Talk about a narcissist.  All the same, I thought I’d share it with you.
 

Dear Dad,
 

I’m glad that your experience of faith has brought you better understanding of the meaning of life, of joy and of compassion.  That said, of course it remains your subjective experience of faith.  (Note – I really regret these words, more for tone than for content, but talk about sounding like Richard Dawkins…). There is no evidence of an objective deity, creator, etc. who interacts with humanity on a personalized level, and every testament of faith is personal.  Even the scriptures, both Judeo-Christian and Islamic, are subjectively interpreted, re-written (for many, many centuries), edited based on current leaders of the particular faiths, and are in and of themselves no longer “original”.  I read recently “If man could know god,  then there is no need for belief or faith because the knowing would be universally experienced.”
 

I have no desire that you should leave your faith.  In this world, where control, the ability to manage and experience love and life, are so fleeting, if your experience of faith gives you hope, respite and joy, then I would have you experience and practice that faith as often as you can.
 

My experience of faith did not give me those things, not even as a young man.  Remember Dad, I am not a young man, I’m nearing the later half of my own life, with another 30-40 years to live if I should be so lucky.  So my entry into atheism was not a path I happened upon, and did not happen because my faith experience was poor or bad, it happened because as I discovered thinking independently of my upbringing, independently of my white, American culture.  Atheism is for me not the answer to question, but the question itself.
 

Ask 10 to describe their knowledge and experience of god and you’ll have 10 answers.  Ask 1,000 scientists to explain the theory of relativity and you’ll have one.
 

Burkett Family 1940’s – my father in the front standing, his father’s hands on his shoulders

Never stop pursuing the truth of your faith as you know it.  I do not ask nor expect this of you or anyone.  What I ask, and why I blog about my atheism, my de-evangelicalism, is that one asks the question why.  Then asks the question why again.  Then asks the question why again.  Then asks the question…………forever.
 

For me I have no beef with the Catholic Church except in that she teaches her faithful that some people are “less than”.  It is an endemic illness and fundamental flaw of this hierarchal and antiquated way of thinking that does not allow me to accept her basic tenants of how to think or believe.  Any organization that claims to have a handle on “objective truth” simply is not one I will support or trust.
 

As an atheist I do not believe in god, that’s it. That is the definition of being an atheist.  I also don’t believe in ghosts, elves, fairies, Santa Claus or that the moon is made of cheese.  As an atheist this does not mean I have any sort of “religion”. I do not.  My other opinions, those of science, maths, evolutionary studies, astrophysics, astronomy, quantum mechanics, theories of relativity, of space-time, well those are things I am learning, that I support as they are reviewed by educators, scientists of those fields.  But all of these things are subject to change, of being proven through scientific theory or de-bunked based on new learning’s and evidence.  They are none of them, not a single 1, absolute.  They are as true as they are based on observation, measurement, testing, repetition and peer review and evaluation.  Why it wasn’t until 1905 that Einstein’s famous theory of relativity helped to explain the relationship of energy, mass and light.  This new formula allowed us for the first time to create ways to observe space-time, measure the effects of gravity, predict the movement of light in the universe, and create and formulate the theories of the origins of the universe in a way that was more than speculation, but could be measured through understanding of the distance of stars relative to each other, relative to us.  Just think, that was only 110 years ago.  In this time for the first time we are able to explore in an actual and real way our own solar system, better know our planet and her history, and predict how and where we originated.  The exciting thing, Einstein’s theory of relativity doesn’t hold up in the universe of extremely small things, and hence we’ve entered into the new age of discovery called quantum physics.
 

Sorry for the diatribe there, I get excited when I think about just how incredibly amazing and complex the universe is, how awesome, inspiring, and all those things.  And now, nearly 25 years as an atheist, I have no fear, no doubt that my lack of belief in deities or supernatural things has caused me harm, but instead has brought me only learning, wonder, joy and fulfilment.
 

Sadly though here’s the rub – people of great faith, strongly indoctrinated believers, have a very hard time interacting with people such as myself, atheists who have no, that is absolute zero belief in the supernatural.  The frame of reference breaks down, the ability to relate, to grow, to love seems handicapped.  On some level those who have faith have fear and regret that those of us who do not will not experience the “rapture” of immortality based on the particular belief system (though for any faiths there is no after life, for instance the Jews, Buddhists on some level (one would argue that true Buddhism is more a philosophy than religion), even on some levels Hindus and many others).  The faithful have a sense of loss when encountering an atheist. There is a sense of distrust – “If you don’t follow the rules and regulations of a divine life, where then do your morals come from?”  Rather than expound upon this I would refer you to Franz De Waal, a primatologist (and an atheist) who is an expert on societal behaviors amongst primates – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJxRqTs5nk.  He is a renowned and respected expert in this field, particularly in his observations of Bonobos – a species of great apes closely related to Chimpanzees, and by default, humans.
 

For me if the context of a person’s life and ability to dialogue is driven solely in faith, god, theology, then we shall have indeed little to speak on past that point.  I have studied the theology of the catholic church, but have chosen to expand my research and learning’s far beyond that expertise. I still read the teachings of the Church not from a place of wanting to know, but from curiosity born of my own education as a seminarian.  But I read these theologies much as a person would read the stores of Aesop, Homer, Dante’s tale of the inferno, of all myths and legends. You must remember me as a boy, immersed as I was in fantasy – science fiction, super heroes, etc.  This fascination has not declined with my age, but rather has expanded.  But now included in my love of all things fantastical I lump in theology.  There these things are the same to me as superman, King Arthur and Excalibur, Beowulf.

 

 

I appreciate that you would pray for me, because it gives me great joy to know that you think of me.  I would not ask that you not pray for me because I would not want to think you’d stop thinking of me.  What I would ask that you try to understand, reconcile even, that I have no loss in being an atheist.  None.  My life is full, rich, joyful, exciting.  Do I fear the future, that is the end of my life? No I do not. No more so than I have fear or regret of life before I was born.  For me my death is the same as the world was before I was born – and so there, for me, is no loss, only acceptance that this universe, in all her marvelous wonder shall continue to be as she is, and my time, my awareness for this better part of a century is simply, and utterly mine for the moments I am here.  The context is, I get to share those moments, this nearly a century with others who also, for a moment, are aware and wandering.  To quote Mark Twain, “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions  of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”  My friends and lovers here with me add to the rich and wonderful fabric of life.
 

……….it occurred to me that there was simply too much sorrow, regret, anger maybe, from folks (family mostly) about my life as an atheist and my ever increasing vocalization of atheism and why it is the truth, for me.  I do know, that for a fact, atheism is a growing reality in the world.  Many nations are nearly atheist (the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, to name a few – and coincidently are the most educated and considered the happiest nations on earth).  If my explanation of atheism and my experience of de-evangelicalism can help another find peace and resolve, I then I must share my story.  Not so as to convert a person to atheism, but to expound upon my atheism as one who was at one time a fully indoctrinated theological scholar.  Based on our families reaction to my vocalization of atheism I have distanced myself.  If the context of my relationship with my family is faith, then that context for me does not exist.  My relationship is not a mutually beneficial one. I do not wish to de-convert family but nor do I wish to be subject to theological barbs or postulations………..
 

You and mom are the greatest sources of inspiration for me.  Your own struggles in life to be a good father, to be a great man, to understand your faith, your life, your role in this world are remarkable and worthy of admiration.  Do not for a moment believe that I hold you in less regard because you are a Christian, in fact the opposite is true…………
 

Love

Thomas

The Desire to ever become a creature of wonder

Dear “Friends”:

Here is a post I have wanted to write for a while mostly because it is cathartic to put these thoughts out into the universe.  No doubt I shall offend some of you and loose some of you as followers (friends?), but I want to make clear my view on the world and my place in it.  As some of you may know, I genuinely do not have the desire that you should think or believe as I do, but I absolutely must insist that each of us think for ourselves, that we read, research, be open.  I maintain that if our source of information is only the news, media, social posts or headlines – we have heard no news, learned nothing, have simply been manipulated so as to become a consumer of a product – that product is false information whether it be from FOX, CNN, Huffington Post, or elsewhere.

So I want to present the heart of my thoughts arising from the current political and social context– full disclaimer, I am as many define, Liberal, socialist.  That said I did not grow up in a liberal household.  I did not go to liberal colleges or universities – just the opposite in fact.  But then these words liberal and conservative are generally used to refrain, define or confine a way of thinking.  I’m really more of an enigma I guess.

So here I am today:

·        I have deep anathema to racism.  Yes, I am a white (privileged) male.  Even still I have experienced racism, for example during the 1^st gulf war I was attacked in Missouri by a group of boys (in a pickup truck of all things) who threw bottles and rocks at me, called me derogatory names and screamed that I should return to Iraq.  And all my life I have been asked, “are you Mexican?” “are you Arabic?”  “are you……?”  why should that even matter?  I just don’t understand how a human being becomes a racist – to paraphrase Dr. Bill Nye, race is barely even skin deep.  This topic is so beyond my comprehension that I honestly cannot fathom how or why this is an issue in our world.  Yet it is. I know that I must do more to oppose racism for my silence in the face of racism is my consent.  Right now, today, people who are not white are hated because this country, the USA, was founded on the principle that not all lives matter, that some lives matter more, especially white lives.  So in today’s climate, the outrage, the riots, the marches, protests MUST happen because without revolt the status quo shall continue to be okay. 

·        I am opposed to the universal access we as Americans have to obtain guns.  I believe very strongly that there must be stronger gun laws; I’m not calling to ban guns, but rather to restrict such easy access.  Seriously, it’s easier to obtain a gun than to adopt a PUPPY!!!  It is easier to obtain a gun than to get a driver’s license. It is easier to obtain a gun than to obtain a marriage license.  Really?  This is okay? 

·        I am opposed to hunting for sport – ever.  It is no longer necessary.  It is not a sustainable activity.  It serves no purpose other than to kill, destroy.  It seems to me that “sport” hunting serves no purpose other than to satisfy some strange primordial need to control another living beings presence, to the point of death (yes, yes I know about herd and population management, which is now a necessary evil because we destroyed the environment and healthy populations of natural predator to prey levels).  As we study space and search for life outside our known solar system, galaxy it seems that life may in fact be quite rare, unique and special and so too the wonders of life on this little ball of rock should be valued, preserved by we simians who know that life is precious and valuable.

·        I believe that the militarization of our police forces is unnecessary and creates unnecessary conflict between the people of society and the militarized authorities (such as a militarized police force).  In my mind, police violence becomes so horrific and unbearable especially because the men and woman who are police are thought to be the very heroes and protectors of peace and harmony, yet they fail so much because they are created, trained and taught in an environment where it is believed, as I stated earlier, that not all life is matters.  It is the role of the peace keepers to de-inflate, not inflate.  It is the role of peace keepers to bring peace, not to bring chaos.  I can tell you, if you hand a person a powerful tool, they will want to use this tool.  It simply is in our nature. When I was a little boy I dreamt of being a cop.  Now they’re in my nightmares.

Those are a few “negatives”, the things that have me thinking, but what about the positives?  These are the things that get me out of bed in the morning and offer a glimmer of hope.  I post mostly about these things below because they make sense to me and help me appreciate the “me” of myself. 

·        Biology - Developments in animal study and research in biology amaze me.  These last 20 years have been an amazing age of discovery of animal science, evolutionary science and the amazing connections that all living beings share on this little ball of rock.  The wonders and mysteries of life, how it is evolved, surviving, and yes in some ways still thriving amaze me.

·        Evolution - Research on our simian cousins (and many other species) is literally changing the way we understand not only evolution overall, but our own evolution as a species.  Linguistic studies, the pattern of thought and the socialization of these amazing creatures, apes especially but many other animals, have indicated just how very much the same we simians, and all living things truly are. 

·        Astronomy – now this is the age of discovery.  What we have learned in the last 10 years, 5 years and 1 year is unprecedented in discovery.  We are literally discovering not only the local solar neighborhood, but are exploring and discovering the very nature of space-time itself.  The universe is bigger than infinite and so mysteriously complex that knowing the universe will take all of time and then some to scratch the surface.

·        Physics – I wish I had discovered physics more deeply as a young man.  Seeing how perfectly math helps us understand matter, energy and how they interact with each other. The pure simple brilliance of the Theory of General Relativity makes so clear how and why the universe is what it is.  It leaves us guessing the very first part of how it came to be but that’s okay because so far, as we have started to open our eyes and minds to discovering things that only 100 years ago most believed were impossible I know we shall discover the nature of the universe and her beginnings.

·        Atheism – well you surely know I’m a former catholic priest, a former Christian.  I became an atheist while in college (before I was a priest) but didn’t understand my atheism until much later.  Then upon realizing I was and had been an atheist, I left this pursuit of atheism at the side and didn’t embark on truly understanding my own atheism until the last few years.  What I have discovered recently is not just that atheism for me is a valid and rewarding way to live, it has helped me to understand better the human need, the psychology of the human mind that NEEDs religion.  I do not question the why of or for existence.  I question the human spirits need to have a “raison d'etre”.  Our fear of mortality seems to drive us, coming I suspect from our evolved sense of flight or fight (or as new behavior studies say we have a third response to stress which is “freeze”).  Anyway, atheism didn’t take anything away from me, but has given me the drive, the desire, the want to not find meaning in my own life, but to better comprehend the discovery of the mysteries of our universe through better comprehension of biology, physics, astronomy, maths and other sciences.

So here’s the rub.  I’m disengaging from people who have an agenda for me.  Recently unfriended several “family” members who haven’t really spoken to me in 20 years or so, but suddenly feel the need to talk to me about “Jesus” or God.  My life is so much richer and full without “faith” in deity or divinity.  If your only context or experience with me comes from my days as a priest or Christian you have to move on.  Engage me as the man I am today, not the child I was then.  Yes I was a Christian/priest.  Yes, it was a mistake for me to have chosen that life (I was young and foolish and really didn’t know any better).  But I’ll tell you, in the last 20 years that I’ve not been a priest or Christian a lot has happened.  I have lived all over the USA, fallen in and out love a few times.  I have faced sorrow, loss, illness and health.  I’ve read some great books, seen some good movies, drank too much and sometimes not enough. 

Listen, if your life is full of fear of losing something because of words or mind-sets like “that’s my heritage” – “you’re stepping on my rights” – “that not how things were when I was a child” – “I don’t like all this political correctness” – or if you’ve ever hated someone because they’re different in creed, sexual orientation, skin color or race, social beliefs, then I don’t know if we should be friends or if we have enough common ground to walk together.  Those things are also a source of anathema to me. 

I can admittedly be a bigot.  I’m trying not to be. 

I can admittedly be intolerant.  I’m trying not to be (when it comes to supporting others rights to live and let live – I am and shall remain intolerant of hatred, bigotry, cruelty, sexism, greed, or a theology or creed that allows a person to hate).

I am also a lover.  I am becoming ever more a creature of wonder.  I am an explorer, if only in my own mind, I am exploring.  I am trying to let go of the fear of not being significant, because my significance is not relevant, but rather reveling in the joy of being alive is.  I am for this unimportant blip in the experience of space and time, aware of myself.  That is the wonderful mystery of my own cognitive musings; awareness, this awareness in life as it seems so incredibly rare in the universe, at least from the .0000000000000000000000000000001^10,000% we have observed, is what makes life have its meaning.  I value this life and all those living, wonderful beings around me. I value the fabric of the universe in all her mysteries that seem so incredibly marvelously endless.