"You are behaving so loudly I cannot hear what you are saying"

It is time to pause and take stock.  Flailing about wildly, making cosmetic decisions will not change how I feel.  My 30 year involvement with the teachings of AA has made one thing abunduntly clear.  God's will is generally that big stone  wall that you cannot climb over, crawl under or begin to stand to look at.  When that wall appears it is time for change.  Only rarely is the nature of that change clearly explained.  Therein lies my problem.  I have been doing what I do for so many years that finding myself suddenly out of an avocation is startling.  

I know all the door, window crap, and I do understand that this too shall pass.  What I don't know is how to forge ahead on in an unknown direction.  I need something plain and simple something to fill the void that has compelled me for so long.   The thing that dragged me out of bed when bed felt so good.  I have been thru huge loses in my life.  Loses that are far greater than what this change brings.  I know that I did those by putting one foot in front of the other and just  "movin on",.  I learned just "scrubbin the floor"  when the floor was dirty would get me to the next day.  

It is the trust.  It is the lost of trust in things I have held in great esteem for so many years.   I believed. I mean I really really really believed.  Actually it started with JFK.  The whole damn thing is his fault.  He made people of my generation honestly believe that we could change things.  We believed him and we marched in the streets, and fought for people who had less than we did and we saw it happen.  We stood with MLK and watched the child walk thru those doors in Little Rock.  We watched everyone drink from the same water fountain, and eat at the same lunch counter.  People sat wherever they wanted to on a bus.  We watched the train that carried RFK .  We believed.  Even when they were taken away from us we kept going because they would have kept going.  We believed.

There is a lot of talk about change and I fervently hope that it happens.  There is a lot of talk about unity and I would welcome that  most of all.  But one thing I know.  "Dont listen to the words watch the behavior".  The behavior today is not about unity, and it is not about change. The behavior I witness is people crossing to the other side of the street rather than trying to respect the difference or understand.  What I see is people wanting to destroy, even kill  someone they do not agree with.  I see people hurl hatred and insults instead of looking at the person they are defiling. The behavior I see is arrogant entitlement. 

We have spent the last sixteen, eighteen months clamoring for someone fix our world.  During this period we  have done little to fix our own world.  Until we can come together in peace regardless of race, religion, gender or nationality  it will not happen.  People want what they want when they want it.  All sides, all participants no exceptions.  No amount of calm deliberative observation or commenting made a whit of difference.  The media took every opportunity to tear us apart, and we let them.   We turned into a reality show where we expected our opposition to disappear into oblivion overnight because we voted.

I have raged at the wind, and the wind has won.  I need to find a better way to do this.  I need to find the spark that makes it work.  I need to spend time with my friend whose quit line is "God bless everyone, no exceptions"

 I am going to mentally take a nice long walk in a place I love,  Byodo In ion Oahu in Hawaii.   I am going to imagine the birds eating out of my hands, and the koi climbing out of the water for food.  I am going to listen to the birds and imagine sages. I am going to light incense at the shrine and gaze at the strings of peace cranes.  I will mentally ring the peace gong and then I will sit on the marble bench and cry.  Cry tor the child it commemorates and cry for the children of the world who have a right to believe.