Life Unraveled

All politics aside, I really hate politics .  There.  I said it.  The most political thing I have to say is finally out of the bag, front and center and with little apology.  You see, I don't really know much about politics.  I admit it.  Pardon my ignorance, but I just can't get worked up about most of it.  Maybe that's a good thing.  Who knows.  I guess I could study it more, educate myself and learn the in's and out's of the political world, then proclaim myself fully able to take on any pundit who even whispers a word that does not coincide with all of my newfound, newfangled knowledge.  I could finally, "officially", be allowed to participate in battles along party lines, spouting off jargon that would make any political science professor wet his pants with glee.  Taxation.  Public vs. private funding.  Electoral colleges.  Fillibusters.  Somebody stop me!  Don't look now, but I think I see a puddle forming under Professor Politics. I could do

A few months back, I heard a song that I hated as a kid.  I mean, I couldn't stand it .  To the ears of a twelve year old, it was like nails on a chalkboard, a song to be instantly switched before the second piano note of its intro.  But when I heard this track again as a 38-year old man, it was like hearing it for the very first time.  Sure, the background music still bordered on schmaltzy, a typically over-the-top arrangement indicative of its roots in mid-80's musical excesses.  But those lyrics.  So much truth.  And that voice .  I couldn't resist giving it another listen. Hearing it again after many years, at this particular time in my life, I felt as if I had made a brand new discovery.  I was ready to listen to the words, and more than ready to be inspired by them.  That song was Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All".   As news of her death swept like wildfire today, I immediately went back to this song.  Never mind the others, though many of h

It is so hard to just let go .  If you never thought so, then try sitting in meditation for any number of days, or even just a few minutes.   The mind will always fight back like the untamed beast it is, running wild and free with reckless abandon.  Each time I've sat a long retreat, I have come away with a greater knowledge of what is actually happening inside my own mind (hint:  it's not pretty !) and get to probe into the reasons why I do what I do.   I find it fascinating, if not exactly easy, to dive deeper and deeper into my own personal abyss, to sift through everything that I think about who I am and what I stand for in this world.  In other words, I get to come face to face with my own persona,  my own story , the one I have been fighting to keep alive for 38 years on this planet.  And the longer I look at it, the more clarity I get. Truly, the story of who I think I am is paper thin.  It is a tissue paper facade at best.  During this retreat, I surrendered.  I