Stop Believing Start Thinking

Depression

2009-01-01T20:18:00.000-08:00

I was diagnosed with clinical depression about four years ago. After several months of not eating (my weight dropped to 154) or sleeping (I went about four months on less than 2 hours of sleep a night) I finally found the strength to get some help. That in itself is quite a story. Help came in the form of a little pill. The pill is known as a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. It happens that serotonin is needed to keep emotions stable. When the body lacks the capacity to produce or distribute seratonin efficiently it causes an imbalance and emotions go berserk. Emotions, after all, are chemically and neurologically induced. They don't float out there somewhere outside of our bodies. Emotions are not spiritual, they are physical.

I've been on an anti-depressant ever since. To be honest, I'm afraid to go off of it. The one I use now is Celexa. It manages my depression nicely without sexual side effects (when I was on Lexipro, for example, I could maintain an erection but I couldn't achieve an orgasm). Even so, one thing I've noticed over the past four years, as I've learned more about my depression and how to manage it, is that my depression, even with medication, gets much worse this time of year - mid-December/late January. I know it has much to do with sunlight and warmth. As the days grow shorter and colder I can feel it coming on but there's nothing I seem to be able to do to stop it. SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder is something I've heard about but haven't really studied so I don't now how this relates to me.

The funny thing about depression is that no one wants to hear you have it. It's like mental leprosy. No one wants to touch you. So depression is something I bear mostly alone. No one wants to hear that when I get into these states all I want to do is die. Really? Well, no, it's not that I really, really, want to die for real. I actually enjoy most of what life has to offer. It's just that I want the pain to go away. And when my depression grows to a head there are some days when it feels that the only way to end the pain of depression is to end the life that feels the pain. It's that bad, and that painful. I'd rather have a tooth pulled without Novocain.

When I get really depressed this is what I say to myself over and over: "I am nothing. I have done nothing. I have nothing. I have nothing to give. I have nothing to offer. I am a loser. I am a failure. I have failed at everything I have ever tried. I just want to die." Sometimes I speak this audibly. Sometimes I think it in my head. Either way, the prevailing feelings are those of worthlessness, hopelessness, helplessness and unworthyness. It's a dark hole. Black, dark, and bottomless.

I know my depression will subside again into a more managable form. As days get longer and temperatures rise and I can get outside more and ride my bike more the really dark days will become less frequent. One thing I know for sure. For depression there is no cure. I will alway have depression. It doesn't go away and when I look back over my life with an understanding of its symptoms, I realize that I've been depressed since childhood. It's only in the past four years that I've begun to understand how to manage it.

Single

2008-12-27T15:41:00.000-08:00

This has been quite a Fall. First I lost my love. Then, about a week later, I lost my job. I think the love thing is harder. I'd rather have someone to sleep with every night than a job. Sex and affection and true companionship are all way better than health benefits. I've tried "dating" on-line but my heart isn't in it. And most women on dating sites are just so pathetic. Everyone is happy and well adjusted and smiles a lot and lives life to the fullest and thinks everyday is a glorious sunrise with limitless possibilities and is independent and successful and loves puppies, hiking, and lattes.

I met one woman. For lattes. She wasn't as thin in real life as she looked in her photos. She wore a bulky sweater in a lame attempt to cover-up this important fact but I'm a good judge of body types. You can't hide bulk. It heaves with every breath. I don't feel the urge to call her again. She's just not that great. Not anything like what I had. Not even close. I haven't been into settling since my marriage so why start now?

Some days I feel like going back (to the girl I met on a flight from Phoenix to Denver and then spent the next year-and-a-half with) and saying, "Look, I'll do anything. What will it take? What do you want me to do? Be? Say?" Maybe that sounds desperate. I'm not desperate. I just want her back. At nearly any price. Maybe that is desperate. Maybe I would rather be alone the rest of my life than be without her. Maybe I spend too much time idealizing our relationship. Why do I do that? Why can't I just be jaded and move on? Problem is, when I fall in love (which has happened exactly twice in my life - and no, the first time wasn't the person I married) I fall hard and it takes me forever to get over it. This one could take a very long time.

Unemployed

2008-12-22T18:11:00.000-08:00

This has been a tough one. I've never been "downsized" before and it's been more than three months since I lost my job. I really don't now how to look for work. I've had a few positions over the years but they always had a way of finding me. I didn't go looking for them. I think the last time I really did a job search was when I came out of graduate school. That was nineteen years ago.

Looking for work has changed so much. I was completely unaware that you can't talk to anyone, you do everything through the web. You send your resume which then gets scanned along with the hundreds of other resumes. Then the search system on the other side looks for key words which of course you don't know what they are. If your resume has enough of the key words you get a second look, if not, you don't hear from a soul. I've probably made five to six hundred job inquiries since September. I've had exactly two interviews. One of them over the phone.

Beyond the technical frustration of this job search the psychological toll is getting worse. I've forgotten who I am. I'm not sleeping well. I have to try really, really hard to feel optimistic. I have this little glimmer of hope that things will get better. That I'll find another position that takes care of me and my kids and that maybe someday I can finally get out from under the debt and financial turmoil from my divorce and maybe even be able to buy a place of my own again. Maybe be able to buy a car that has less than 100,000 miles and that doesn't break down all the time. Maybe, just maybe.

It's gotten so bad that I pulled my profile off of Facebook. I decided that Facebook is for people who have lives. When I get one again maybe I'll reactivate.

The bottom line is... this is bad. I feel bad most of the time. I feel like a failure and I feel like a fool for believing that good things would happen to me if I worked hard. Maybe they will sometime in the future. Maybe things will get better. I just don't know. I know I'm not the only one who has lost a job recently. It just feels that way.

George Bush with Lipstick

2008-09-08T13:02:00.001-07:00

'nuff said.

The Ghost Within

2008-09-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

"We fall in love with ghosts."
- Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient and Divisadero.

Suddenly single. Or, in a relationship with me. Undefined. Alone. Happy. Sad. Hopeful.

Things fade quickly in the world of love. A mist that burns off in the heat of the day. We meet, we dine, we laugh, we make love, we... well, we don't always share in even the most intimate of relationships everything that makes us who we are. Our pain, our wounds, our fears, our struggles.

We are ghosts who fall in love with ghosts. We are, to the world around us, only a partial picture. The unseen picture is a mystery to others and often even ourselves.

Love, for all the songs and books and movies and preachers who try to define it, is still a vast sea of air that is unreachable, unfathomable, uncontainable. We ride its currents. We love its stillness. We are devastated by its power. We view it as both savior and demon. Like air, we are innately drawn to it, feel like we're drowning when we lack it, take it for granted when we inhale and exhale without thinking.

Love, for all the songs and books and movies... is the ghost that no one has ever seen and at the end of the day, leaves everyone wondering if it exists at all.

She's hot, but can she lead?

2008-09-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

Palin.

Here's what we know:

She's a fundamentalist Christian.

She's a Creationist.

She hunts.

She loves Moose burgers.

She's a member of the NRA.

She has close ties (if not full membership) with the Alaska Independence Party which advocates Alaska's secession from the Union.

She has a Downs Syndrome baby.

She likes hockey.

Her daughter is pregnant and unmarried.

She was a mayor of a small town.

She's been governor of Alaska for less than two years.

She looks great holding an AK-47.

She wore a t-shirt in college that said, "I may be broke but I'm not flat-busted" referring to her ample boobs.

She lives in a state that is close to Russia.

She is pro-life, to the extent that abortion is not an option even in the case of rape or incest.

She is a kook and a nut-job.

If this is what America wants then America should go for it. Balls to the wall. Full out. Don't stop. Champion her. Support her. Vote for her. Suddenly McCain is irrelevant. Hell, he's going to die before his first term is up anyway. And we'll be left with an anti-science, Armegeddon seeking, NRA loving President to take us to the promised land. Wow. I never thought Americans would be stupid enough to embrace the likes of a Theocratic female war-monger like this. Guess I completely misread the situation.

"God, please, save us from your followers."

Relax Everyone, It's Just Politics

2008-08-24T12:20:00.000-07:00

So I'll admit that I was on the "Friends of Obama" email list that announced his selection of Biden before ANYONE ELSE IN THE MEDIA (do you really think for a minute that I believe that?) knew about it.

And now McCain is jumping all over this with his sophomoric (I'm John McCain and I'm running for Student Council) web ad that shows Biden (recorded during a primary debate) telling the George Stephanopoulus that Obama is not qualified to be President. Doesn't McCain know that candidates say things like this when they, themselves, are running for President against the other guy? After he picks Romney won't it be fun to watch reruns of all the digs they took at each other during the Republican primaries? Does McCain, as feeble-minded as he is, really think that Americans will say, "See? Even Joe Biden, Obama's VP choice, doesn't think he is qualified to be President?" Either McCain is the dumbest guy in the room or he just sits back in his recliner and says yes to whatever his handlers say will make the stupidest of American voters rise up and back him - which accounts, by the way, for a fairly significant portion of American voters. Say what you want, but after two terms of Bush can we all finally admit that American voters are not the sharpest knives in the drawer?

But my point, if there is one, is this: This is politics as usual. And I am SO sick of it I could puke on my keyboard. Look, if Obama had picked Hillary, the McCain campaign would have run an ad saying that Obama is weak and wimpy and knew he couldn't win without her. They would have made some Freudian assertion that he was searching for the love and affection of his mother or something. It's all spin, it's all about power, it's just politics.

The Power of Political Prayer

2008-08-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

OMG!

So... and this is just so beautiful... now we have the "political arm" (as opposed to what? their right-wing-Evangelical-Nuthouse-arm?) of Focus on the Family producing a YouTube video asking their many, many, many intellectually challenged lemmings (I mean Godly followers) to pray for a rainstorm... a downpour of "biblical proportions", to fall upon Barack Obama during his acceptance speech at Invesco Field.

Not a "flood the basements of homeowners" rainstorm, just a "the cameras can't see the stage" sort of rainstorm. The "political arm" of FOTF is doing this because they're pro-life and believe in the sanctity of marriage (oops, guess they forgot that Obama is faithfully married to his only wife and McCain divorced his first wife after multiple affairs) and they want to win. So, why not a little rain and, presumably, some well-placed Yahweh directed lightning to take out the rival?

Seems the good folks at FOTF were criticized for politicizing their God-given mission to help parents whip their kids into submission and were so mortified and confused that they pulled the ad lest they "misrepresent the importance of prayer."

What?

These people are, to quote Jim (don't photograph me from my right side because it shows my comb-over) Dobson, "fruitcakes."

Why I Hate Divorce

2008-08-05T07:35:00.000-07:00

The letter below was written in response to Paul Campos' column in the Rocky Mountain News entitled "Legal Marriage Obsolete." In his column, Mr. Campos suggests that the concept of legal marriage is outdated and needs to be revised, including the concepts of marital property and spousal support.

I have been mulling over the sheer stupidity and inequity of divorce laws and the results of my own divorce for some time and this column gave me an opportunity to put some of those thoughts on paper.

__________________________________________________________

Mr. Campos,

I've been wanting to respond to your column for some time now. Before I share some of my thoughts with you let me give you a little background. I grew up in rural North Dakota in a very religious fundamentalist Baptist environment. I went on to receive a Masters of Divinity degree from Denver Seminary and pastored an evangelical church for several years. I left the ministry and the church fourteen years ago and eventually parted ways with Christianity and religion altogether.

I grew up and lived most of my adult life thinking that marriage was "sacred." In spite of that background, I couldn't agree more with your analysis of and recommendations for legal marriage. I was married for eighteen years and divorced seven years ago. No doubt you already know this but divorce laws are written to favor the "victimized" wife and moreover, are written as if all fathers are deadbeats and want to abandon their children.

So, my ex-wife, college educated and able to work full time, legally received the following:

-My house and all of my equity
-$14,000 per year in child support
-$28,000 per year in "spousal maintenance" for eight years

I am also legally obligated for the following:
-Payment of back taxes from 2002, the year we divorced (I still owe $18,000)
-100% of college expense for my daughter (she attends Loyola University Chicago)
-100% of education and ongoing needs for my special needs son

The terms of the divorce forced me into bankruptcy almost immediately (which, by the way, was the stated goal of her divorce attorney). It now is impossible for me to get financing for housing (I live in an apartment) or to co-sign on college loans.

I partly blame my own naivete and my inept divorce attorney for my situation. But I also blame the legal system for making this lunacy possible. It allows (even encourages) women to play the victim role and gives them an alarmingly powerful sense of entitlement. In the end, at least in my situation, I am left financially crippled and far less capable of helping my children - both of whom, by the way, I love and adore and am very close to.

So thanks for your opinions -- and when the Elimination of Marriage Amendment comes up for a vote, I'll be the first in line to support it.

You can pick your friends....

2008-08-04T04:55:00.001-07:00

Apparently, John McCain thinks I'm his friend. He said so right in a fundraising letter I got from him over the weekend. "Dear Friend," he says. I always squirm a little when someone I don't know calls me "friend." I get the same feeling when I walk onto a used car lot.

You have to question the intelligence of a campaign that includes a registered Democrat and vocal Obama supporter in their mailing list. But if John really does think I'm his friend then I'll go ahead and ask him a few questions because that's what friends do.

So, John, why do you tout yourself as a "family values candidate" when you dumped your first wife the minute you got back from Vietnam?

Hey, John, ol' buddy ol' pal, why do you think it's ok to sing (when you think the camera isn't rolling) "bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran" to the Beach Boys tune in front of your war-crazed NRA supporters? Is it because you really are just a typical right-wing-war-monger like your new friend George?

John, my friend, why do you call Obama an elitist when the only reason you have gobs of money is because you married into it? Don't you realize that without the elitist money you've been living on since you dumped your first sick and injured wife and married your rich and beautiful second wife you wouldn't be on the national stage at this moment in time? Did you make this money on your own, John, did you old friend?

My dear friend, why is it that the only reason you got a recent bump in the polls is because you've gone negative, appealing to the least intelligent voter block by doing so, after you promised us during the primaries that if you were nominated you would run an honorable campaign based on the issues? Is your memory that short?

And why exactly, dear John, are you so insanely jealous of an African-American candidate who can go to Germany, of all places, and draw a crowd of 250,000? Shouldn't you be beaming like a proud old great-grandfather at the success of a fellow American? One who succeeded using the very American principles and values that you say you fought so valiantly and bravely to preserve?

Last question, John, my good friend, why are you acting like a desperate old man?

Things I'm Fairly Convinced Of

2008-07-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

1. If you vote for McCain you better like his Veep selection because more than likely he'll be President before McCain's term is up. In case you haven't noticed, McCain is OLD. He reminds me of the old Cold War Kremlin leaders the USSR would trot out and prop up with a stick. This is the best we can do?

2. God (however defined) exists only as a religious idea - a human invention. Man creates gods. Then they give those gods power to rule the universe and their lives.

3. Religiously speaking, there is no such thing as absolute truth. There are things people believe and things that people know to be true. And the two never meet.

4 . Dave Matthews is God. See? I can create a religion just like so many others before me. Let's use his lyrics as our guide for life and come up with a doctrinal statement. Think I can't do it? Check back later and I'll show you how easy it is to be a Matthewian.

5. McCain is a bitter, angry old man who is running a negative and dishonorable campaign. I liked him once because of his military service. His recent behavior only shows that the freedom he fought for has become his personal cesspool of pettiness and lies. What's next? Is he going to assert that Obama is a radical Islamic terrorist sympathetic to Bin Ladin?

6. Life is meaningless. There is no overriding universal purpose, no Supreme Being to appeal to for help and guidance. This is what it means to live responsibly. I take in my experiences and then I grant to those experiences whatever meaning I see fit. It's a much more liberating way to live.

We Don't Need Another Bubba

2008-05-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

The cover of the May 5, 2008 Newsweek (Obama's Bubba Gap) suggests that Barack Obama, as a Presidential candidate, needs to dumb himself down a bit. That he's just too smart and too much of an "elitist" to invoke the support of the beer drinking, tobacco chewing, NASCAR devotee crowd. Let me weigh in on this.

We have had sixteen years of Bubbas. We had eight years of Clinton (a rather smart Bubba) and eight years of Bush the Minor (a decidedly very stupid Bubba).

My apologies to all of you average mundane Americans, but we don't need another Bubba. We need a smart, sophisticated, Columbia and Harvard educated, snooty, Chardonnay drinking and brie eating member of the Mensa Society to lead this country. We need intelligence. Real intelligence. Intelligence not of the Bush-Cheney variety. We need someone more than a little above average. We need a President who can spell, speak proper English, doesn't make up words, and who has a leadership complex instead of a Messiah complex.

I don't want Obama to feel like he has to dumb himself down to lead this great nation. I don't care if Obama feels comfortable drinking a beer with plumbers or steelworkers or members of the local bowling league. I don't care if he drinks beer. It just doesn't matter. What does matter is that he's able to comport himself in the foreign arena in such a way that commands respect, rallies the allies, and places America once again as a model for rational and moral decision making. What does matter is that he is able to find some modicum of sanity in a domestic America that is on the verge of selling its soul to the right-wing fundamentalists (sort of like what McCain has already done).

Bubba gap? Please.

Decision 2012

2008-04-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

Nothing like thinking ahead. On this the day before there's F-I-N-A-L-L-Y going to be a Democratic primary vote in Pennsylvania. After what seems like what, seven years of campaigning? I have a suggestion that will give all Americans a break from this complete insanity.

Set a starting date for 1) declaring to run and 2) the start of campaigning. Anyone who violates either date is automatically out of the race. No exceptions. Not even for Chelsea, who is sure to run in 2040.

Make the official starting date a year before the election. Maybe fourteen months. Max. We've been going through this election cycle since Minor Bush won the last election. Four years of "the run for the White House" is just frickin' ridiculous. At this point I'm almost ready to say, who cares? Just get it over with.

Yes, I'm supporting Obama. But I would have voted for him two years ago. No, I don't support Hillary or McCain. And no amount of campaigning will change my mind.

Of course, the big question for me is... in a choice between Clinton and McCain, who will I vote for? Stay tuned.

The Ride of My Life

2008-04-19T18:14:00.000-07:00

Riding makes me think about how fast life is flying by. I live in a perpetual state of angst about this. So much to do, so little time. It's an old tired cliche but it's truer now, at least for me. I have no idea how much time I have left. I'll be forty-nine in September and while there are days when I still think I'm bullet-proof and have all the time in the world to do whatever I want, there's this old hag called mortality jabbering in my ear telling me that just the opposite is closer to reality.

The thing I stress most about is that I have had two careers in my life - one pursued out of religious and family expectations, the other out of sheer financial need - and I've enjoyed neither of them. Twenty-three years is a very long time to go through the motions but that's my reality. Maybe tomorrow is the day I discover what it is I really want to do. But what if it never happens? What if I die wishing for something different? What if I never get to experience the feeling that my talents and passions are put to good use? It's disturbing and sad to think about it in that way.

That's why I keep hoping. I told someone just recently that I would love to spend the rest of my days cooking and cycling. Cooking and cycling. Food and road bikes. Culinary arts and... road bikes. What would this look like? A restaurant in front with a bike shop in the back? Or the other way around? Or a destination restaurant where the dress code includes bike shorts and a helmet?

Not sure. What I do know is that when I ride I think about it. Then I go home and cook and think about it more.

McCain and the Fatman

2008-03-01T06:46:00.000-08:00

Most days I am tolerant of the right wing of this country. I am dating a Republican after all. (A really cute Republican!)

But the sight of John McCain with the fat-assed fundamentalist prick John Hagee in the background is just about enough to make me puke. Is McCain really that desperate for votes?

That's not the worst of it. McCain is actually "proud" of Hagee and his "ministry"! What?!?!?!? Hagee is a hate-spewing, Catholic loathing, dispensational Zionist who actually BELIEVES that the closer the US is to Israel, the sooner Jesus will return. For Hagee, a bloody world war (preferably nuclear since that would come closer to fulfilling biblical prophecy) that kills and/or incinerates most of the world's population is not only desirable, it's necessary. A beautiful thing really. Something to dream about and praise Jay-zus for.

God help us. Or at the very lease, McCain should withdraw and check into assisted living.

New Year's Resolutions. 2008.

2008-01-06T20:21:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm not really into resolutions. Resolutions rarely work anyway. I'm more into incremental changes. Subtle shifts in thinking and behavior. I can do subtle. RESOLUTIONS seem too big and impossible. Resolutions usually require a belief in the power of a personal god and you already know I'm not going there.

So here are some of the subtle shifts I'm thinking about making this year:

1 - My weight. I started spinning and lifting about two years ago and, along with my cycling habit, managed to gain five pounds. Now, it's probably all muscle since my legs, especially my calf muscles, have never been bigger or more chiseled. However, when I started this routine I had at least five extra pounds of body fat which I am determined, at the age of forty-eight, to lose. This will take me from a rather squishy 172 lbs to what will hopefully be a svelte and lean 167. Maybe I'll go for an even seven and get back to my pre-married weight. 165. That would be very cool. How many men my age can still wear size thirty-three jeans? Hmmm????

2 - My drinking. I have consumed enough martinis and margaritas and bottles of wine and fifths of bourbon in the past five years to sink a yacht. Call it "life-after-divorce-transitional-stress". Call in quasi-pseudo-semi-alcoholism. Call it whatever you want. I call it enough. Not enough to quit completely, though. That would be a resolution. Remember, I'm into subtle. So I'm just cutting back a bit. A few less nights out at The Exchange and Nine 75 and The Purple Martini. A few more meals out with club sodas instead of margaritas. A reduction in the liters of vodka I regularly store in the freezing compartment.

3 - My Career. I have given my life mainly to two endeavors. Religion and Insurance. Both involve selling. Both involve selling concepts. Now, I have to admit to you, as I've admitted to myself, that I have enjoyed neither. I left religion for reasons I have yet to fully explain. And I don't really care about insurance. Insurance is just for the money. I have bills to pay and a life style to maintain. But as far as satisfaction, I'm like "a French whore on nickel night" as an insurance friend of mine is fond of saying. So this year, I am going to, 1 - find a non-monetary motivation to sell insurance (like, I'm helping people or something) and 2 - explore a part-time career as an adjunct professor at a local college, teaching comparative religion and politics or something like that. Whatever it is, I want to start, however tippy-toeingly, doing things for money that I actually enjoy doing. Life is short. Time to start living.

So, there they are. I may add more a little later.

C

Thoughts on December 25th

2007-12-24T06:33:00.000-08:00

I'm not celebrating a birthday today.

I haven't really been too caught up in all the mythology surrounding today for some time now. I try to have a nice time with family and friends this time of year. I don't get too carried away with gift giving these days since I don't like being told to buy gifts for people on a certain day of the year. Plus I think it's sort of ridiculous to go around shopping in the same old tired stores you can go to any day of the year and buy the same items you can get any other day of the year.

Oh, I did give a bottle of wine to each of the three administrative staff in my office, and my kids and girlfriend will each get a couple of nice gifts too. I've come to view December 25th much like I view Thanksgiving Day. It's mostly about a day from work, enjoying family and those I love and taking a day to relax and cook... and then everyone opens a couple of gifts.

Oh, I know that Christmas is supposed to be about giving because, as legend has it, it's the day God gave his greatest gift to the world. It's a nice sentimental thought and, I suppose, has served some useful purpose down through the ages, not the least of which is to prop up the economy and put retail stores in the black for the year.

"Jesus saves, but Christians spend." That was a headline in the paper a couple of days ago. I remember back in my Christian days how every year I would bury myself in credit card debt (again) just to be the "giver" I was expected to be. I mean, every year it seemed that love and caring was measured in the dollar value of the gifts I gave. Especially to my ex-wife, who, upon opening her gifts would usually ask, "how much did it cost?" If the number wasn't sufficiently high, or if I failed to match her spending on my gifts, disappointment ensued. It was a crappy way to spend a day.

This December 24th and 25th were really OK. Charissa and Cameron were with me. So was Marcela. They all had a way of making the experience joyful without it being tied to anything -- except being together. We ate, we went to the mountains, we ate out, we watched TV, we talked, Charissa baked cookies, we ate more, we opened meaningful gifts. It wasn't at all about quantity. Or religion. It was about what we mean to each other and about our humanity and our compassion for each other and those we care most about.

I don't know when the "holiday season" grew ten heads and became a monster no one can control. I don't know how it became the norm to stand in line for 24-hours just to get the latest technology (that will be obsolete a year later). I don't know why our consumer society becomes even more manic and consumptive and wasteful at the same time it's supposedly at it's most spiritual and reflective. If there is a god, I doubt this was the divine plan. How could it be.

What I do know is that I have made this holiday work for me somehow. Maybe for the very first time. It's snowing. I have classical music on the radio. I'm alone at the moment (a brief but welcome transition from my house to Marcela's) and drinking a lovely glass of wine.

Enjoy the day.

C

Thoughts from Albuquerque on a beautiful day

2007-12-13T14:46:00.000-08:00

I like this town. I like the food. I like the people. I like that the biggest mountains are on the east side of town and today they're covered with snow. I like that Santa Fe has some of the best restaurants on the planet and it's less than an hour drive away. I like Route 66 and The Library and The La Posada hotel. I like green chili and this town has some of the best I've ever tasted.

I like it especially today because driving around and doing business in a town other than Denver gives me a chance to clear my head and think about a question that seems to dog me most of my waking moments. (I'm a chronic multi-tasker. I am a sales professional who constantly thinks about religion on the side. I hope my employer doesn't find out.)

The question is: Why do I think about religion so much? Why, after spending most of my life in it, and spending another major portion of my life getting over it and then out of it, does it STILL bother me so much? Why do I get so agitated about it? Why does it drive me completely nuts? Why am I writing about it now, when there's so many other things to write about? My therapist has wondered the same thing. So have some of you, I'm sure.

I think maybe it's because I'm still trying to figure out how to be non-religious in a very, Very, VERY religious world. Religion is EVERYWHERE. It's pervasive. It's, shall we say, omnipresent. Of course in the US, it's mostly Christian. In other places it's mostly Islam or Jewish or Hindu or fill-in-the-blank. In Utah it's mostly Mormon. You name the place, I can find you a religion that dominates the scene, and the culture, and the politics.

I've made a rather surprising realization lately that what irritates me most about religion is not religion per-se. I like cathedrals. I like classical music, most of which religiously inspired. I like looking at Russian Orthodox icons. I like reading liberal Christian theology. I like the history of religious ideas, and customs, and rituals. I like reading about the latest discoveries in Nag Hammadi - the scores of gnostic gospels that have been recently discovered. I like the idea of religion - that all of them were invented to answer mankind's deepest questions about ultimate reality (because these are really important questions). I think as philosophies and even art forms, religions are wonderfully creative things.

I think the problem for me comes in trying to understand why so many people bypass (almost automatically) "religion as idea" and go directly to "religion as truth." Or more accurately, "TRUTH." Why isn't there more critical thinking going on about religion? By the masses, not just philosophers and skeptics? Why aren't there more agnostics and atheists in the world? Why isn't there more doubt? Why is it that few people want to experience the richness and adventure of ambiguity? What's going on with the wiring of most people that leads them to practice the religion of their upbringing or choice as if it were really and actually true? Or TRUE?

I know there are all kinds of sociological and psychological and scientific reasons for this. I personally think it's an evolutionary development and that there's an actual gene that lends itself to belief in the supernatural. But still, it makes me wonder. And it makes me frustrated and sometimes mean and cranky thinking about it.

Because I understand completely that my secular humanism has marginalized me to an extremely outer circle of humanity. I'm so far out of the mainstream on this issue that I'm a planet you can't see. Most people, throughout history, have been religious. I have chosen, instead to be non-religious. And if I'm right about this - and I think I am - I have an awful lot of work to do to live authentically this way. And an even greater task to convince an impossibly large number of people that they're wrong. That's a lot to think about.

Still, it's a beautiful day in Albuquerque.

I don't know how to quit you

2007-12-10T18:56:00.000-08:00

Starbucks, I mean. I absolutely LOVE Starbucks. My favorite is the grande, sugar free hazelnut, non-fat latte. I used to drink it with soy but it stops me up like the Hoover Dam. At my age, a latte and a slice of pumpkin loaf is WAY better than grape nuts.

If only I didn't have to watch the righteousness of the righteous on display at every Starbucks I walk into except for the one near where I work that has the best female (I'm referring to the patrons) viewing of any drinking establishment I've been to, bars included.

You've seen it too. A group of suburban, waspy looking WASPs, swarming around their mochas and Bibles, dissecting a passage from one of the Gospels, deep in purposefully audible discussion, looking for all the world like the scribes and Pharisees they roundly criticize. If you stomach hanging around long enough you'll get to hear them pray. Loudly once again. Like Pat Robertson on the 700 Club. Complete with furrowed brows.

So far I have resisted the temptation to walk up to their table and point out the obvious. That the Jesus they pretend to follow roundly condemned public displays of spirituality. I've wanted to SO many times, but that would be too obvious. One of them would surely and solemnly, but in the spirit of love, suggest that I was infringing on their Constitutional and God-given right to practice their religion as they pleased. Would it be wrong to beat this person over the head with his NIV? Probably.

I suppose I could just lead the sleepy crowd around them in a round of applause. But that would be rude. And obvious.

Maybe I should start looking for a Seattle's Best. It's Seattle, for god's sake. Liberals must gather there.

Stop Worrying. The 2008 Presidential Race is Over.

2007-12-10T16:46:00.000-08:00

God has spoken. It's Mike Huckabee. So now all of you Evangelical Republicans (sorry for the redundancy) who think Arkansas is the source of all evil can relax and make your summer travel plans to the Ozarks. I know you've been dying to go.

Mike (a creationist big government compassionate conservative and former Southern Baptist preacher), has declared that his rise in the polls is due to nothing less than "the same power that helped a small boy with five loaves and two small fishes feed a crowd of five thousand." In fact, thousands of good Christian Americans (sorry, I did it again) are at home on their knees praying that once again, something small would be made big. Huckabee said it. At Liberty University no less! So it must be true. Iowans believe him, too. So there. They're "salt of the earth kind of people."

And dumb as posts. Lemmings. The rest of the field doesn't stand a chance.

Hillary (too Clintonian), Obama (too educated), Thompson (too slow), Giuliani (too married), and Romney (too Mormon) can all go home, along with the rest of us, and await the coming theocracy.

I'll be around...

C

Christians and Tragedy

2007-12-10T16:25:00.000-08:00

I'm always impressed with the gleeful response of Christians who survive a near-miss. Especially when guns (or, for that matter, inclement weather) are involved.

Witness the recent shooting at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. The survivors "prayed and asked God for protection." Guess what? They lived! The security guard who took down the shooter "prayed to the Holy Spirit for strength and guidance" and low and behold, her first bullet did the trick. She also took the time in her news conference a day later to inform the press corp that "I am single and looking for God to bring me the right husband." Maybe the free advertising will bring her a few interested parties. Nothing like exploiting the pain of someone else to do a little fishing for a mate on the side. (Sickening.)

What about those poor Christians who were less fortunate? The family of two teen-age girls who tragically died? Did they lack the wisdom, faith, or foresight to ask for divine assistance? Was it somehow all in God's perfect plan that they were slaughtered on their way out of church?

Of course not. That's just stupid. Not to mention silly and wrong. But that's what you would think if you listened to the glowing reports of the living.

We prayed. We had faith. We survived. We're alive. God is great. Those who died are in a better place. Blah, blah, blah.

When are these zealots going to realize that their verbal drivel does nothing more than reveal how small-minded and petty and immature and self-centered they really are? It certainly does nothing to impress the world with the supposed glory and power of their mythical god.

C

An Introduction...

2007-12-10T16:01:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my blog! After a careful mapping of my personal genome about seven years ago I discovered what I had long suspected... I do not possess the religion gene.

Believe me, I acted in every way as if I did. I grew up a fundamentalist Baptist (sorry for the redundancy), was president of my youth group, went to bible college, graduated from seminary, and became a senior pastor of an evangelical church. I listened to (dreadful) christian radio, read Swindoll and Dobson, and voted Red without even looking at the names. I felt guilty when I lusted and inadequate when I prayed. I mean, if there was ever a person who really "wanted" to be religious, it was me.

And then at thirty-five I woke up, got rational, and decided after a seven year intellectual voyage that atheism and evolution are for smart people who think about themselves and the world around them.

And now I have REALLY joined the twenty-first Century and started my very own blog.

There is, obviously, much more to know so if you are interested please ask.

Mostly, I want to know what you are thinking... about politics, religion, (and the inextricable joining of the two), Bush's war, the campaign, the threat of Theocracy in the US, and whatever else you care to share.

I'll be around....

C