Category Archives: Love

Make the Nation Better Again

I’m definitely not the most patriotic person in this country. It’s not a matter of disliking it as much as it is disliking the lies the country is built upon and what it has become since Reagan.

The idealized “American Dream” is only truly attainable by folks born on third base. The rest of us have been brainwashed into thinking we can get there, but in reality, we can’t. The odds are stacked against us by the wealthy oligarchs who run things. Sure, some people may be able to save enough to retire after a few decades of work; however, many of them end up trying to find work just to make ends meet after retirement.

We are one of the few countries where healthcare and mental healthcare is not universally available.

We still have rampant poverty and racism and sexism along with xenophobia and homophobia.

Our education system has broken in so many ways that it’s actually scary. I say this as a teacher who sees this firsthand as students receive 50s on their grade reports in many districts, regardless of whether they do the work or even show up for class.

We idolize the wealthy at our own expense as we buy from corporate owned businesses and pass the locally owned businesses and artists complaining that they cost too much. In reality, if we supported these locally owned businesses and artists, then we’d actually have quality items purchased and lasting longer than the cheap stuff bought at the big box stores.

We accept planned obsolescence in our big ticket items rather than demanding quality items that last, unlike our forebears who demanded quality over cost.

We place each other into boxes rather than talking and finding common ground. This goes beyond political beliefs and permeates all levels of society from religion to politics to national borders and boundaries.

We allow the people we elect, regardless of party, to govern without our input into what they are doing and so many of us fall for their rhetorical gymnastics rather than question them. Part of this is how we allow media to manipulate the news. This is thanks, in part, to Reagan allowing the fairness doctrine in news to dissolve which gave rise to opinion based news and not the reporting of facts without commentary.

We have lost civility, respect, and compassion for our fellow human beings. Sure, it occasionally surfaces in times of natural disasters or if the cause is hyped enough by the aforementioned news commentators. But the everyday civility and manners that once were common are now becoming increasingly rare.

I could continue, but won’t.

If you have the ability to peacefully protest today, please do so and do so safely. It’s not against the country, but against what this country has become and is heading towards.

Faith Abandoned

As someone who thinks too often and too much most of the time, I’ve come to yet another conclusion about the human condition. In this case, it’s the human condition when it comes to religion, particularly organized religion. As I have a few friends who are religious, I actually hope they read this, think on it a bit, and comment.

There is this lamentation among churches about how people are abandoning religion on a large scale, particularly here in the States, and becoming more worldly. According to an article by NPR just this year, “16% of Americans surveyed said religion is the most important thing in their lives, according to” a study done by the Public Religion Research Institute, “down from 20% a decade ago”(Morning Edition, 16 May 2023). Also interesting, at least to me, was this same study finding that part of this study showed that “more than one-third say they were formerly Catholic.”

Now, I’ve heard quite a few reasons why people leave from their busy lives to more faith-based reasons such as their being lured away by temptations of society (which sounds rather like a Puritan reason).

I believe people are leaving organized religion, particularly the Church (aka Catholicism) and other organized religions groups/churches because the churches have abandoned what they were meant to be, communities of people who gathered together in fellowship and a common belief in something greater than themselves. What they’ve become instead are select groups of people who share common political beliefs, racial identity, often similar socioeconomic status, and have bound those together under the guise of religious belief.

Now, I’m not saying that all churches are like this; however, there are many churches that are. Many churches have become extended arms of conservative political groups, and frankly, most people are tired of it. They don’t feel accepted for a variety of reasons whether it’s because they are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, a certain race, divorced, or some other reason. Many simply don’t want to be held to rules that were created centuries ago or by a select group of individuals (primarily old, conservative men) who are likely pushing their own agendas. (Yes, I’m pointing primarily to The Church as in the Catholic Church). Many people also don’t want to attend church because many churches have abandoned the whole idea of one element that once was important, Grace.

Grace is one concept that seems to have been abandoned by churches. By grace, I’m talking about the acceptance of our fellow humankind as they are, where they are as fellow human beings.

Rather than requiring an adherence to sets of rules, laws, or creeds, why not accept everyone for who they are and where they are in life?

Why not accept people in love for who we all are as individuals sharing this third rock from the Sun?

If there truly is a Higher Power either controlling things or at least monitoring things, how can it be that this Higher Power is supposedly found only in one, two, or three pieces of literature assembled by a group of men thousands of years ago and amended by decrees, edicts, councils of other groups primarily made up of men whenever they see the need to inject their ideas?

Even worse, how can people believe that only select individuals somehow have the right or power to discern what this Higher Power thinks and dictate everyone else to think the same way?

People are leaving churches because churches have left Grace and Love behind. Most churches have traded them for politics, laws, and rules. Most churches have traded them for human-created ideologies and theologies.

Maybe the truth is found in those views seen by organized religion as pagan. After all, we all come from matter created eons ago, whether by the Big Bang or by the work of a Higher Power. There is a sacredness in nature and the cycle of birth, growth, and death which connects everyone. It’s something we all share. Think of how one feels when one sees the waves crashing upon the shore, or the changing of colours on trees in Autumn, or the barren beauty of Winter,or the first green buds of Spring, or feel the warmth of a Summer’s Sun. The energy of nature and our connection with it as well as our inherent connection to our fellow humankind. That’s the meaning of life. That connection is what we truly were made to worship.

Why Can’t We Just Be?

Why can’t we just be?

When I was a teenager, I wanted to do one thing most teens do, date. Now, with dating, particularly in high school with all the cliques and such, it’s always difficult. In the 80s in a small Midwestern town, it was even more challenging.

First, there was the covert prejudice between Protestants and Catholics, or as was commonly said, “Christians and Catholics.” I went through that issue for three years, but that’s a different issue.

Next, there was the issue of race, particularly with parents as old as mine. Now, my mother used to tell me race didn’t matter. She’d add how everyone deserved to be treated with respect and dignity. She also used an old line how people were different colours because “God left some people in the oven longer than others.” (How horrible that image is on so many levels, but I honestly believe she never meant anything bad about it).

As it would have it, I really came to like a girl at school who I wanted to ask out for a date. That’s where this issue came into play because she happened to be Black. I already had a hard enough time trying to ask a girl out and I just had this feeling my parents would have a problem with it. I asked my mom about it. Unfortunately, my father heard and commented that no N- would ever be welcomed in his house, let alone have his kid date one.

I saw this girl as my friend. She was funny, smart, and pretty. Sure, she was Black, but that didn’t matter to me. I liked her and wanted to get to know her, spend time with her. Yet, I couldn’t because of my parents. I often wondered if Black kids got the same thing from their parents if they wanted to date White kids. Would her parents have reacted the same way? Obviously, I’ll never know. What I did learn was the hypocrisy of my parents and that I’d not be that way when I grew up.

Even in my adult life, I’ve had acquaintances comment negatively if I said I found a non-Caucasian person attractive. I just don’t understand it. If I find someone attractive, why should skin colour even matter? If I want to be friends with someone who is a different skin colour or religion or whatever, why should it matter?

Seriously, why can’t we just be?

Music Connections and Influence

It’s interesting, at least to me, how early in life music can have an influence on someone.

One of the first memories I have is of my mother singing. It’s was never in a choir, but as she went about her day. Doing dishes or other housework. Along with the radio in the car or even if there was a tune on a program on tv or in a movie. She rarely sang loudly, but sometimes it seemed as if she was always carrying a tune with her.

While I was laying in bed this morning, the clock radio played. The program was a repeat of the “American Top 40” that was hosted by Casey Kasem. In this case, it was the Top 40 from 1971. I was just 3 years old that year and each of the songs I heard were ones I could pretty much recall every verse from. Songs from groups like The Carpenters and even the title song from the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Yet also songs from a group called Ocean (“Put Your Hand in the Hand”) and from Jerry Reed (“Amos Moses”). It just struck me how music stays with people, or maybe it’s just me, from a young age.

I can recall riding along with the younger of my two older sisters in her VW Bug. We were driving probably over to Columbus, OH and it was summer. The sunroof was open and her new Paul McCartney and the Wings 8-track tape was playing. (Some reading this may have to look up what an 8-Track even is). I can still recall hearing “Band on the Run” for the first time on that warm day as we made our trip. Every time I hear that song, I recall that trip, at least that part of it.

I often watch movies and sing along like my mother used to do. Funny how it can be a movie from the 1940s or one from my teen years and how easily I can recall the song whether it’s “Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral”, or “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)”, “Symphony for Unstrung Tongue”, or “Don’t You Forget About Me”. Sometimes I’m fairly certain it annoys my wife and children, but I simply can’t help it because the memory is just that strong.

Music is such a powerful influencer on our lives. And, this is where I’ll comment a bit politically and about our society, as music influences us so much, I find it troubling when it’s music programs that are some of the first to be cut in the schools. It makes it difficult to have future musicians and performing artists without music education.

By that I’m not saying that music will end without music education because I feel people who are drawn to sing or play an instrument will find a way to do so. Yet, their exposure to the wide range of music through history is often stymied by the lack of a solid music education foundation. I was fortunate to have a mother who sang and a number of teachers who exposed me to a wide range of music, both historically and in scope from Gregorian chants to classical to blues to jazz to swing to country to pop to rock and even to Broadway and movies. I can see the influences of the older forms upon the newer ones. Some students, even music students, today cannot. Some are left to discover that history on their own and many times after they’ve gotten out of school.

Music, like language, conveys history of humankind. An understanding of that musical history, I believe, can foster unity in our humanity. It can show the influences of the wide range of cultures in our world in a way that fosters a connection between people who might not otherwise see that connection.

And that connection can start at a very early age. Even as a 3-year old sitting on the couch listening to his/her parent singing a tune from long ago.

The Need for Touch

The Need for Touch

“Hand over hand
Doesn’t seem so much
Hand over hand
Is the strength of the common touch”-Rush

Humankind needs touch. Not simply in a sexual manner, but in general as well. It helps us connect with one another and the world. Touch is energy. When we touch, we share energy that permeates all nature. That’s why there is so much more to massage, hugs, and other forms of touch that bring energy and even healing to us. The ancients knew this, but modern society has forgotten. We could heal so much of the pain and suffering in the world if we would simply touch more.

We, in the West, have become more fearful of touch. We’ve even come to the point where we believe all touch either has a sexual component to it or is simply bad It’s not, expect when that touch is forced or coerced. Rather, touch is necessary. Humanity cannot survive without touch. Psychological studies have shown what the lack of touch does to a sentient being. Take, for example, the baby monkeys used in psychologist Harry Harlow’s experiments.

In his experiments, he separated rhesus monkey babies from their mothers shortly after birth. He gave them a choice of a “mother” made of bare wire and one of the same bare wire covered with a soft cloth. His experiment first found “that monkeys who had a choice of mothers spent far more time clinging to the terry cloth surrogates, even when their physical nourishment came from bottles mounted on the bare wire mothers”(Herman). He went so far as to make it so that both types of surrogates provided milk, but still noticed that the “Monkeys who had soft, tactile contact behaved quite differently than monkeys whose mothers were made out of cold, hard wire”(Herman). Taking it further, he introduced “strange, loud objects, such as teddy bears beating drums” and found that the “monkeys raised by terry cloth surrogates made bodily contact with their mothers, rubbed against them, and eventually calmed down”, while those raised by the bare wire ones “threw themselves on the floor, clutched themselves, rocked back and forth, and screamed in terror”(Herman). It was the touch that made the difference. A soft, caring touch created a calming and stable effect on the monkeys. He tied the results of these experiments to children in adoption situations versus those in institutionalized situations (Herman).

This was not lost on the Chinese as in many of their orphanages they have connected them to senior living establishments to facilitate touch between the babies and the elderly knowing that both will benefit from touch. While not ideal, it still has a positive effect on babies when it comes to their later adjustment when adopted from the orphanages.

We date, pair with someone or with multiple partners, and marry to experience touch on an intimate level. Without it, relationships and marriages suffer. While the leading cause of divorce is attributed to financial reasons, I’d hazard to guess that lack of intimacy is either second or an underlying reason. Perhaps one reason for premarital sex is the need for touch with someone aside from family members. In teens, it may be to simply connect with someone who is going through similar changes and explore touch in ways that will help them understand their future mates. It is obvious that self-touch occurs often as a way of exploring what feels good, so it would follow that sharing touch with another person flows from that.

We need touch. A relatively recent therapy, Cuddle Therapy, shows this need is rising. In it, people pay a professional cuddler to simply hold them for a certain time frame. There is no sex and both the cuddler and person being cuddled are fully clothed. It is simply being touched and held that matters. Ada Lippin, CEO and co-founder of Cuddlist, puts it this way:

“We’re touch-deprived, and most of us don’t know it consciously. All we know is that there’s loneliness and stress and a deep sense of missing out. We feel this because there’s a biochemical yearning for something that is missing in our lives. And there is something missing: touch and the connection with others that it fosters”(Cuddlist).

Biblically, the numerous accounts of Jesus healing others came through touching them. There is even an instance where he was unable to go to the person needing healed and simply sent his healing energy to the person and healed them.

There is an energy within touch or even the proximity of someone touching us that can heal us. This is the basis of a form of massage called Reiki wherein the both the person and the practitioner are fully clothed. The practitioner places his or her hands either on the patient or just above the patient and allows the energy of touch to help heal the body naturally. It needs noted that most responsible practitioners of Reiki also know when modern medicine is necessary and consider their form of help to be used in conjunction with modern medicine. Yet, there is a certain power in the simple hand positions used in Reiki that helps both the patient and the healer feel better.

Touch can heal the world. Touch is very powerful. Touch is what the world needs more of to heal us all.

Works Cited

Cuddlist. Https://cuddlist.com

“Hand over Fist Lyrics.” Lyrics.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2018. Web. Feb. 2018. .

Herman, Ellen. Harry F. Harlow, Monkey Love Experiments. The Adoption History Project. University of Oregon. 24 February 2012. http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/studies/HarlowMLE.htm. 7 February 2018.