I’m tired of commuting.  Fortunately, I won’t be commuting as far, as soon as the addition to our “new” old house is done and we get to move into what is, incidentally, a more progressive community than where we currently live and that is also closer to everything we might want to do, including my job.  And yes, our new house is an old house, built in the 1930’s.  I have a German cousin who bought a 200 year old house in Germany, but we Americans have limits.  Not that I wouldn’t have bought a 200 year old house, if there was one.  Not too many of those in Atlanta, what with the war and all (the Civil War).  Not that Germans didn’t just rebuild things after their war.  This same cousin’s father once showed my mother a wall in Germany that he described as “Roman.”  She asked him, “so it wasn’t destroyed in the war?”  He replied, “yes, of course, but we completely rebuilt it.”

So, anyway, that is one thing that is going on in my life.  Just thought I’d post it, cause, y’know, I need people to know, I don’t know why.  I’ll leave that to you mini Dr. Phil’s out there to tell me that.

I want to write.

It’s always too late

So you cry and you go on

Until the next time

Blah.

...interesting times.

The fall of civilization.

I didn't go to lunch today.

Ate in.

IHOP for dinner.

stopped at Home Depot

Looked at water heaters.

The kids.

Carried them

read

listened.

This is what’s been on my mind lately.  It’s nationalism.  Nationalism is religion, and when you add it to Christianity (e.g. a Christian country), it becomes The American Way. 

I saw a bumper sticker (I love bumper stickers, only they aren’t big enough to hold the things I want to say) that said, “God bless the people of all nations.”  Now that was a nice sentiment.  I’m not religious, although I can respect a religious view that is generous in spirit, and good, like that one.

I have been listening to lectures on CD from “The Learning Co.” about the history of China.  At some point during a time in which Buddhism was growing in China, an emperor wanted to pay homage to a relic, a piece of bone that came from the finger of The Buddha himself.  He was criticized for worshiping the decaying corpse of a foreigner.  That got me thinking about how Buddhism is strong in Asia, but not so much in India where it began.  Christianity also spread beyond where it began, and that means that for a country as new as the United States to claim some sort of special status is quite ridiculous.  Which gets me thinking about one Texas governor who in the midst of a debate over whether to make English the “official language” of Texas said, “if English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”  You might expect most nationalistic Americans to echo the sentiment of the emperor’s critic, “why are we worshiping that foreigner, Jesus.”  But I’m not sure they realize he was a foreigner.  I, on the other hand, have no problem with foreigners, or with Jesus, just with Christianity and with Nationalism, and with the incongruity of the combination.

Because nationalism is anti-Christian, that’s what I think.  Because Jesus wasn’t an American.  I’m not rejecting who I am, or my love of what I know and what I grew up with, but that doesn’t mean I’m better than anyone else (at least not because I’m an American).  I would love to know as much as I can about other cultures and what it would be like to have grown up somewhere else, and I would love to speak another language.  And I would like Americans to stop being so damned proud, and so damned conceited.  And I’d like Christians to remember that not only was Jesus Jewish, but he was also foreign.  But more importantly, he was a dissident, and a rebel, and a peacenik, and a liberal.

The Dead are Beyond Help (or maybe not).

If you’re still alive, then you can still be saved.  Maybe you haven’t accepted Jesus yet, but if you think it’s impossible, you can ask Him for help, and He can make you believe.  You too can go to Heaven.  God is fair, because He’s easy (“God is easy” – I think that will be my new mantra). 

But what about those that are already dead, like my grandfather, who was Jewish?  Why does he deserve The Burning Hell.  Cause we all do?  Cause we’re all sinners?  That’s vague.  The difference between those in Heaven and those in Hell, according to doctrine, is not that some are sinners, it is that those in Heaven accepted Jesus and those in Hell didn’t.  That’s the only difference.

So I want to know why does my grandfather, who I love by the way (I’ll say “love” not “loved” because presumably he’s still alive and suffering), have to burn in Hell for all eternity just because he didn’t accept Jesus?

It bothers me that many of you think my grandfather, my great grandmother, who I knew and love, and my aunt’s daughter who died at 9 of a congenital heart and lung defect, are all burning in Hell.  That’s not a nice thing to say, let alone believe.

It bothers me that you think that six million Jews that died at Hitler’s hand (wasn’t he Catholic) deserve a fate worse than they suffered on earth.  They were burned alive, gassed, shot, experimented on, and then they went to Hell.  And if they deserved Hell, then you must believe they deserved what they suffered on earth.  They can’t deserve the worse fate without deserving the lesser of the two evils.

Are you evil?

Maybe you think because you’re not gassing anyone that your beliefs aren’t hurting anyone.  They are.  Evil thoughts enable evil deeds.   

Who cares if  “our Christian President” tortures prisoners, as long as they are not Christians.  It’s a picnic compared to what they’ll get from God when their gone, for example.

But you can change.  And then you can change others.  But that’s something that won’t happen if you don’t believe it can be done.

Ancient Gnostic texts suggest that the resurrection of Jesus symbolized an awakening from sleep, an awakening from unknowing, an unknowing much like death.  Fanatics live in this dream in which they have fixed beliefs and resist change. They are the walking dead, walking in the absence of what the real Jesus knew as love and acceptance. 

But I don’t think that they are beyond hope.  I don’t think my grandfather is burning eternally, either.  I think there is hope for the dead.

One Nation Under Democracy

That's the bumper sticker.  And yes, that means I AM against the phrase "under God" in the pledge of allegiance.  Look, I'm not too keen on the pledge of allegiance itself.  You should ally yourself based on merit.  You should pledge your allegiance to principles.  But Flag?  and God?  It is one of our higherst laws, part of the consitution itself to separate Church and State.  The founders of this country and authors of that constitution did that for a very specific reason: To insure religious freedom.  Is anyone against that?  Let me put that another way, is there anyone out there who wants their own religious freedom taken away?

Democracy.  Now that's a different story.  That is being separated from government lately and we need to put the two back together.  So say the pledge with me, "...one Nation, Under Democracy..."

Such A Serious Writer

Hello everyone.  Long time no see.  Thank you for coming to class.  I hope you didn’t get bored looking at the same old blog every day wondering, “when is the porfessor going to get here?”

Prometheus the porfessor is here.  And today I’m going to talk about writing. 

writers write.

I have been writing, believe it or not.  15 minutes a day.  I haven’t missed a day since I started it.  That’s how serious a writer I have become.

Writing every day like that makes one realize things.  Like that 15 minutes a day does not guarantee professional success.  Boxers don’t win fights on 15 minute workouts.  Chess players don’t master the game playing only 15 minutes a day.  You cannot learn Spanish in 15 minutes a day (but if you believe you can, I’ll sell you some tapes). You can not earn enough to live working a job 15 minutes a day, can you? (I wish - I think there are some tapes out there for that too).

On the other hand, the reason I started doing this was that I saw the definite and significant improvement in my daughter’s piano playing over time, practicing 15 minutes or sometimes less, but every day.  Could she be better?  Not if we pushed her so hard she didn’t want to do it she couldn’t.

But I don’t expect to be a professional writer on 15 minutes a day.  Not to be discouraging though, I must say that the difference between 15 minutes and nothing is, the difference between something and nothing.  Worlds. 

So 15 minutes a day is all I am asking of you (for now).

Porfessor out.

I just changed my no insurance policy.  That’s right, I said “no insurance.”  See, they charge for something that’s usually unnecessary, and then every once in a while if someone does need it, they pay it back (but they’ll even fight about that).  It’s like a savings account that if you don’t ever use, they keep.  They are thieves. 

Case in point.  Without divulging too much of my personal finances I will say that I recently got a notice of increase to the medical insurance policy that covers my family.  So, I decided to consider going from a $1000 deductible to a $5000 deductible.  That’s a scary proposition, right?  I mean what if something happens.  And those deductibles are per person, the kids counting as one person.  So worst case scenario I could have a $15,000 deductible.  Doesn’t sound like a good idea.  Until you look at the premiums.  

My savings in premiums will be 403.81 a month.  So I save $4,545.72 a year by increasing my deductible by $4,000.  That means, even if I hit the deductible every year for a person I’m still better off.  And if each person hits the deductible once every three years (and that’s a high deductible so its not easy to do), I’m still better off.  

That means that the insurance company makes money on the plan I used to have even if every one of their customers has a medical expense that exceeds their deductibles once every three years, and if every family on their plan exceeds one of their deductibles every single year.

Insurance is supposed to spread the cost, not charge everyone for it.  Why is this allowed?

Would you want to know the truth?

Life isn’t easy on that rock (said Prometheus). 

You see, the more I know, the more depressed I get.  It makes me want to close my mind, not listen to the radio, not read the news, or books…  

Except that’s why I’m depressed,  exactly because other people are doing just that, not reading, not listening, not thinking.  

So in order to do the thing that I believe is right, that I believe people should do, that I believe will make the world a better place (if enough of us do it), I must suffer frustration, feelings of futility, and the pain that comes from seeing evil, and recognizing the truth.  I suffer because it seems hopeless.  I suffer because the wall of self-imposed mental retardation seems impenetrable. I suffer because it doesn’t seem like there is anything I can do to change anyone, and because it seems like knowing is never enough.

I can only hope that there will come a day when the action I can take becomes clear, when I can make a difference.  And if that day comes, I need to be prepared, right?  Or should I just join the other side in ignorance?

I think I prefer to suffer.  But it isn’t easy.