Monday, May 26, 2008

Ron Paul Wins Republican Nomination!

This is an imagiinary headline. Most folks would just blow it off and say, It can't happen! Oh, yes it can, and I believe it probably will. Why? Because Dr. Paul can win and bery likely willif he becomes the Republican Party candidate. He has overwhelming support among the people across this war-weary land, and his position on the issues accurately reflects the will of the people. He knows he can win, the people know he can win - and so do the people on the Republican National Committee.


It's a no brainer.

Speasking of No-Brainers John McCain seems to be the leading candidate of the GOP but he is such a nut job that his position on the war in Iraq is sure to lead to his ignominious defeat if he is the Republicans' choice. I believe he won't be. There is an old saying: When you have both dfeet in your mouth you haven't a leg to stand on; McCain's got both feet so deep in his throat that he is practically kissing his own ass (a major shift, since McCain is notorious for kissing anyone's ass who can further his ambitions, or get him out of a jam a la Keating). No, John's star is fading fast and it's all part of the plan. In fact I believe that McCain is being encouraged to appear to be another Bush. Whitechapel had one Jack-the-Ripper, they aren't in the mood for another one. Oh, the plan? Actually it's a game plan; first the game, then the plan. The game is a variation of Good Cop, Bad Cop. The Bad Cop side is that the GOP seems to be backing McCain and that is scaring a lot of people, and pissing many more off. But for the time-being McCain's the man.

Then he says something stupid, something so obnoxious that the Republicans will have no choice but to dump him. Then in a showy change of heart the RNC will come out strongly behind RON PAUL! Hey, he's been there all the time, and thos media rock heads have been trying to shove Obama (JFK with a shoeshine box), Hillary Clinton, and our pal John down our throats. Why those dirty so-and-sos! Well, we're going to make things right! Get out and vote for Ron Paul, the people's choice. And the nation will celebrate the complete change that has come over the Republicans; now we can honor the Constitution, eliminate the Federal Reserve, end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, bring the troops home. All the troops! Yippee! Why the people will be so happy they's probably vote straight Republican tickets right across the board. And that's exactly what the RNC wants! Who says (besides me, that is)?

Sen Tsui.

The legendary ancient Chinese military genius who wrote the Art of War told us how to capture Nanking. It's one of his strategies, the "plan" part of this discourse. What he said was: to capture Nanking, attack Shanghai! In other words, convince the enemy you are after one objective, when all the while it is quite another goal your strategy is aimed at. In the present context it works like this: Make everybody think you're after the White House - and win control of the Congress! Hey, put Ron Paul on the ticket and who wouldn't vote Republican? The Democrats have only a finger hold on the Legislature - a couple of key wins could give it right back to the GOP; then we'd have it made; right? After all, Republican president and a Republican Congress? What a combination!

Not so fast.

Suppose that Republican Congress is hostile to the president of its own controlling party. They vote to extend the war, Dr. Paul vetoes it, they override the veto, and we have the same situation as before only with the shoe in the other foot.

In the end, they will lose.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

What the...?

I buy Reader's Digest almost every month. Some of the stories are inspiring tales of heroism, others exposés of fraud, theft, and corruption; there are entertaining features like Word Power, Laughter, and the puzzles. Do I sound like a fan?

I'm not. For me it's a matter of taking the fleas with the dog. Sometimes there are more fleas, it seems, than dog. I believe that the regular feature Humor in Uniform is a example of apalling bad taste, considering the present losing wars our military is embroiled in in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over four-thousand (that's the official count, the truth is far worse) young men and women have lost their lives in these wars based on lies. Many more have lost body parts and have suffered mental and emotional trauma. Desertions and suicides are up and there are Anti-War actvist groups made up of veterans of these wars. One candidate wants to bring the troops home - now! And over 80% of the American people want the same, so it was with particular revulsion that I noted an aticle in the current issue: the Facebook Election.

Reader's Digest conducted a poll among the current generation of under-thirties. What I found particularly telling was in the part of the article under the caption, Who Do You Love? Ron Paul wasn't on the list; George Bush was, and got 27 favorable opionions and 67 unfavorable. Fine, but what's with those 27? Have they been living in a cave for the last eight years? There is a definite disconnect here somewhere as noted under the section called In Their Own Words.

* Twenty respondents - a lot for an open-ended question - registered their opposition to the war in Iraq, the majority condemning the armed conflict itself, as summed up in the one succinct answer: "We hate war." OK, so where was Ron Paul in the Who Do You Love? segment? Dr. Paul is the only candidate on either side whao has consistently expressed his intention to end the war and bring the troops home. The rest of the field, the usual suspects; two Clintons, Obama, Gore, and McCain, either have taken no like stance on the war but, as with McCain, seem intent on continuing Bush's disastrous policies for ten or a hundred years more! McCain doesn't hate war.

Another twenty of those questioned expressed the fear that Social Security won't be there when they're ready to retire. Can it be that the billions of dollars that we are wasting on a war based on lies might have something to do with that? Lyndon Baines Johnson tried the "guns and butter" thing back in the Sixties - and we got more guns and less butter. There were other concerns aired; Global Warming ("It's real!" despite the fact that dozens of top scientists have identified solar activity as the true cause. Shall we have apresident who can control the sun?); jobs being sent overseas, the ease with which people can get into debt, and four participants felt that the government had become "too secular." Governments are secular: we have presidents and congresspersons, not popes and bishops - it has something to do with the First Amendment. And then there were the four.

Four persons interviewed stressed the importance of personal integrity. "We need someone with good morals and an open mind to run this country and inspire us," said one respondent. Another longed for a President "with a soul" and who is more than "just a politician." Only four young people? Let's reiterate the question; where is Ron Paul mentioned in this piece?"

Ron Paul has consistently voted against the war in Iraq from the first, has voted against funding this disaster, hase never voted a raise for himself, has never accepted a PAC money, stands for the Constitution and the personal liberties that are protected by that august document. If that doesn't reflect soul, if that isn't statesmanship, then what is? What soul is there in torture, renditions, stonewalling, lying to the people, serving the special corporate interests that are destroying this nation?

The only expalanation I can come up with is that the people questioned may be readers of this spectacularly successful monthly publication. Reader's Digest has been a leader in one respect; while people have expressed concern that Big Pharma is marketing directly to the public. RD has been doing that for many years.

Have these kids been taking those drugs?

Follow the money.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Unscrambling the Egg

I've been viewing everything I could find on YouTube concerning 9/11. It's a mixed bag to say the least. The evidence I've seen convinces me that it was definitely not consistent with the official inquiry's conclusions on the matter. It was a conspiracy. The question that remains is; why all the confusion? Why is this tragic incident continually pored over by experts, eyewitnesses, and interested parties? The answer is, I believe, DENIAL.For many years we have lived in a bubble of comfort and relative safety. Our intel services, our military, our government, all seemed to support the prideful mantras: It can't happen here! and They wouldn't dare!It did, they did. But who are "they"?

OUR OWN GOVERNMENT? Was 9/11 a Reichstag fire?

It was. There is no doubt. The evidence linking the present regime to this disaster is overwhelming - if you care to look at it. Not only that, but more information has come to light linking Prescott Bush, Dubya's grandfather, to Hitler and the Nazis in the 1920's and '30's. The same influences that brought Hitler to power are still active and have virtually taken over this country: the Militray-Industrial complex.The same war-profiteers who brought Hitler to power brought Bush to the White House and the Neo-cons into positions of power. If you care to research the matter you will see that Hitler, the seventh member of the fledgling Nazi party in 1923 became chacellor of Germany only a decade later. This too a lot of money; where did it come from? Well, if we follow the money, look where it all went.

Corporations. Then it was Krupp, I.G. Farben, Seimens, Boeing, Curtis, Kaiser; now it's Halliburton, Kellog Root Brand, Bechtel, and others. What's the difference? We are now embroiled in two losing wars; who's making the money? While our own veterans are being deprived of care, many living on the streets; while out infrastructure is crumbling, our education system a shambles, health care in the hands of Big Pharma, we carry on these senseless, purposeless wars that waste lives and treasure on both sides; and who wins?

It's time to stop the insanity and there is one man who stands for the people of this country: Ron Paul. There are still people who ask; Ron who? But these numbers are dwindling quickly. The fact is however, that the same corporate powers that saw to it that the criminal-idiot Bush became president, are now trying to promote a new field of poseurs to succeed him. The corporate controlled media grind out piece after piece about Obama, Clinton, and McCain; but who do the people want?


Ron Paul. But please, please, don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.There is a feature on Google called Trends. Just type that word into the browser and you'll be taken there. In the new browser type the names of any "mainstream" candidtae and Ron Paul. Separate the two with a comma and hit "search". What you will see is the number of visits the websites of the respective candidates received.Ron Paul swamps every one of them. See for yourself. Then look at the graph running aong the bottom of the display. This is the measure of mass media exposure given the candidates, and it shows that all the other candidates on both sides received much more coverage than Dr. Paul.


The message is clear. While Gallup and AP poles sample a few thousand, the Internet seves millions, and of those millions the vast majority support Ron Paul. And I do too. The revolution has begun, and we will win!

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Learning the Ropes

I would bet that at one time or another you received an envelope in the mail labelled "Urgent", "Important Information", or something like that. When these items appear in my mailbox the first question I ask is; Important to whom?Not to me. But this brings up a point worth expanding upon: Importance. The Truth is that nothing in the world is important at all, save food, clothing, and shelter. I kid my friends by adding another "basic need": a good tan, but that's me! Anything else has an assigned value: one that is attached to it for a variety of reasons. I used to have a black luxury sedan that I fawned over, until I wrecked it. It always had a brilliant shine, whitewall tires immaculate: these things were inmportant because that car made up a significant part of my self image. I had a nice car, nice clothes, a fine watch; I was somebody! Don't believe me? Why, just look at all the stuff I have!The Treasury Department reports on economic conditions in this country; the key indicator in their analysis is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It's currently down and one reason given is that people aren't spending as much money as usual. Much of the GDP is comprised of consumer spending - getting stuff. And is there ever a lot of stuff to get; satellite TV, SUVs, cell phones, Ipods, Xboxes, and other such. This mania for buying stuff has led to high credit card debt, mortgages for homes a lot of people can't really afford, and other forms of debt. The savings rate among Americans is abysmal, most people live from pay check to pay check, and in most cases the money is already spent before it comes in. But that's Consumerism for you. A stable economy stands on two legs: Production and Consumption. When one leg is shorter than the other the economy stumbles, short enough and it falls. With all the outsourcing of jobs overseas and to Mexico, Latin America, and Haiti, the production component is at its weakest in years. That means that the Consumer is the target of such unprecedented attention that the mask has come off in some instances: Dow Jones money reports dealing with retail sales have stated the case clearly: getting the consumer to spend money. That's it! Just spend money - on anything, everything: therin lies the Urgency. Spending money is, well...patriotic!No. It's idiotic, the way we Americans do it. And there is a multi-billion dollar business out there geared to getting consumers to spend money: Advertizing. How many times have you heard a product being touted, the pitch closing with the offer to send you "free information"? What is that if not free advertsizing and promotional material? Send for this "free information" and your name goes on a list that's sold to marketing firms; then watch your snail- and e-mail boxes fill up! I don't bite but still get promotional (junk) mail. I must have gone wrong somewhere along the line.And it's nothing new. Highland Park is an island community near the heart of Dallas, Texas; it's where the well-to-do live. The zip code is 75205, possibly the most sought after in the United States when it comes to promtional material. I lived there, in a one-bedroom apartment; the junk mail I got was mostly from stock brokers, mutual funds, portfolio managers, financial advisors, and the like. I was a software developer and teacher at the time, comfortable, but not flush (or dumb) enough to invest in stocks, bonds, CDs, mutual funds, et al.. But I still got all this stuff because...my zip code was 75205.Targeted? What do you think? Everything's being "targeted" these days; notice? In Iraq and Afghanistan we are targeting "suspected" Al Qaida or Taliban enclaves and a lot of innocent people die. One would think we value our paranoid suspicions over the lives of our fellow beings on this insignificant mote of dust in the infinite universe. Is that the kind of world we want; to live in perpetual fear, to lash out at anyone who doesn't want to drink the water from our poisoned well? Richard Nixon had ann "enemies list"; remember? And whose names were on that list? Fellow Americans: political rivals, dissenters, and anyone else who threatened his royal ambitions. But that's history: "Get over it!"

The foregoing is a quote, the source is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in an interview that may still be on YouTube. The subject of the 2000 election came up and that's what Scalia said: "That's history, get over it." The Supreme Court usurped the electoral process, ordered the re-count of the disputed votes to stop, and appointed one of the most morally corrupt creatures on the face of the earth president of the United States. And we're supposed to "get over it"? How about we tell the Iraqis whose nation we have destroyed to just "get over it"? Chile? Hey, we made a boo-boo when we overthrew the democratically elected Allende administration and opened the way for seventeen years of terror and "disappearance" under Pinochet.Guys? Hey, look, get over it. Why don't we go to some grief counselling sesions and tell that to the folks there, people who have lost loved ones. Daughter raped and murdered? Get over it! I guess we just say that to everybody we've dealt with in our toxic foreign policy.

No wait! Israel! Remember the Holocaust? Er, maybe you don't as most of you weren't even born when that happened. But I'll bet you know something about it; at least you've heard about it, I'm sure. No? Well, the just visit a Holocaust Museum - and while you're there just tell the people running the place to get over it.It's history! If Justice Scalia thinks we should get over something that happened eight years ago, shouldn't we tell the Israelis to get over something that happened over SIXTY YEARS AGO to "get over it"? And it didn't happen only to Jews, this terrible experience they cling to so tenaciously; gypsies, slavs, homosexuals, the metally retarded, anyone who spoke against the regime, or were suspected of doing so. Sound familiar?

So, what is truly important? Are you happy? Are you secure? Do you feel worthwhile, loved? If not then turn off your electronic toys and get out into life. Surround yourself with the beauty of nature, find something that needs doing and do it, and above all be open to personal contact with your fellow men and women. Stop buying into the warped reality that the media presents to us with such urgency. You are so much more than your station in life, your credit score, or any of the other ways in which society measures us. You are not a sheep and Jesus wasn't the "good sheperd"; he was a Master of Life, and he tried to teach us how to live in peace, happiness, and contentment. He told us that the Father "who sees in secret will reward yu openly"; isn't that better than wiretapping, airport searches, Internet snooping, and all the rest of the devices that the paranoid, delusional cockroaches driven by fear and suspicion use? Is there any doubt about that?

I don't think so. Turn inward to your Father who awaits you, to do the works, and without which you are notihing. "Be still and know that I am God," says the little voice that speaks to us through our thoughts. "Be in the world, not of it." "Think not what you will eat or wear...the Father knows ye have need of these things." Do these simple things and you will find happiness.

At least, I suspect so.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Facing the Problem

Pastor Jeremiah Wright raised some hell with the Obama campaign when his destructively edited remarks were aired a couple of weeks ago. "Our chickens are coming home to roost," was the essence of his remarks reflecting, as anyone with the intelligence of a turnip understands, the idea that the United States brought on the WTC attack in the form of retalliation for the many excesses of our toxic foreign policy. Well, it seems that FOX (Fascist Obsessive Xenophobia) News didn't air the whole story. The good pastor was actually quoting former Ambassodor Edward Peck, a white man - the full video is available on YouTube. It's what he went on to say that inspires this installment because he is so right!

It's amazing sometimes how two widely disparate movements can intersect so perfectly; in this instance Pastor Wright enunciated the point I intended to make, and will make in this essay. "Self examination," he said. "What is my personal relationship with my God?"

Perfect!

When the pain of living became too great, when there was no one else ot blame for my misery, and when all else failed, I was alone. Talk about keeping bad company! While it is true that many of my problems originated with a dysfuntional family when I was too young to deal with them, it is also true that the means and methods I employed to deal with life were destructive. I couldn't see it, so pervasive was the fear I mentioned in the last post that I was blind to the Truth: that my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, were wrong and the root cause of all my suffering. Was it my fault that my life became a living Hell?

Good question. Alcoholism is a disease, and I have it. The difference is that today I can have it without suffering from it, and the key to understanding is Self Examination. We call it "taking inventory". Self examination. By at long last embarking on this adventure I soon discovered the one thing that drove me.

Fear. Plain and simple, but like a cancer, if left untreated it spreads. Fear is a corrosive thread and my soul was shot through with it, but for many years I tried to deal with life according to worldly standards: be tougher, smarter, and quicker than everyone else; people are out to get me, to own me, to control me; everyone is out only for himself, beat them to the punch or back off and bide my time; don't get mad, get even, and most important - be a survivor! Something had to change.

Me.

When I finally "hit bottom" (what I call my Final Judgement)some loving friends told me that I wasn't a bad person trying to get good, but a sck person trying to get well. I had a lot of help, which I needed badly, and finally started coming to terms with my arch-enemy: myself.

But then there was the God thing; you know. I spent my formative years in a Catholic parochial school, where spinsters in way-out-of-style wardrobes filled my head with a lot of religious nonsense about Heaven, Hell, and Jesus. That angry son of a bitch in the sky wasn't my friend; by sixth grade I was a confirmed atheist - and rightly so, because it wasn't God I turned my back on but, rather, my CONCEPT of the Spirit of the Universe. I told my friends that I was having trouble with the "God thing" and they handed me a key.

"Design you own God," they said. "Make a list of everything you want God to be."

What a revolutionary idea! Galileo once posed a question: If you offered a man the choice between a handful of perfect diamonds in one hand, and a glass of cold water in the other; which would he choose? A No-brainer; right? But then the inventor of the telescope said: Now suppose that the man had spend three days in a desert: THEN which would he choose? This was my spiritual glass of water. Design my own concept of God?

Worth a try? You bet! I did and the list was relatively short. I wanted God to be my friend, my protector, my guide; I wanted peace and happiness, to feel useful, to be a part of life instead of apart from life. Over time that single sheet of paper morphed into a ream, and that isn't enough still: each day brings a new awareness. Today the Spirit of the Unverse (the term "God" has been so corrupted) is my Father Hey! Jesus had some good ideas after all! Once I got all the ideaological crap out of the way things started making un-common sense. It's a simple idea.

But it isn't easy. After forty-two years of sinking into the qicksand of my own polluted soul there was a momentum, a habit pattern that had to be broken. A freight train loaded with pig iron doesn't stop on a dime. For me it was like carving the faces on Mount Rushmore with a nailfile - but that doesn't matter! Getting on with it is all that matters. If my mind is roaring, my thoughts scattered and confused one day, and the next I have five minutes of peace, that's an improvement! It's a lot more than just coming down front for the "laying on of hands" though that's part of the process. Today people touch me, pat my shoulder in passing, hug me, sometimes even kiss me - and I love it. It's a new world.

But it took work to get here, lots of work. I had to understand that I was driven by deeply embedded forces of which I was totally unaware, so ingrained in my personality had they become. It was a "war in heaven" and I fought it all alone: there is no other way. I had to come to understand that whatever I perceived to be wrong with the world was actually wrong with me. Not that the world was alright, it isn't. The problem was that I had imported the misery and suffering of the world into my Secret Place of the Most High; the Father "in me which doeth the works" was there alright, under siege. My fear-driven motivations led me to a number of life-threatening situations that my escape from them were, in some instances, nothing short of miraculous. I attributed these rescues to "luck" but now I see it was much more than that. Then my luck ran out.

I was defeated, utterly and completely. The pain of living became too great and I came to the ultimate crossroads: do away with myself or find a new path to follow. It was my personal Final Judgement; on the one hand, Perdition, on the other, Hope.
The rest is history.

The world is still a deadly, dangerous place, and I wish it could be different, but that doesn't matter: I must be different! I stopped wondering about the Underworld when I realized that this is it! Purgatory: a little bit of Heaven, a little more Hell, and a whole lot of In-between. My job is to follow the Inner Leading of the Father; to allow Him to edit my remarks and guide my steps; to see others as my fellow travellers along the Highway of Life, not enemies and spoilers but ones who struggle with their own inner turmoil.

So, in the end, it isn't the world that's right or wrong, but my place in it. I am reminded of a song sung at the Unity Church; it begins with the words, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me." Turn inward and find your true source of strength.

The world needs you.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

I Am Perfect!

This might sound like the boasting rant of the supreme egotist. After all, nobody's perfect; that's what you hear all the time? Religion has indoctrinated people into feeling less than perfect, although it professes that we're "created" by a Perfect Being. God. In my debates with the Evangelical pastor I asked the question; How can a perfect being create anything that is imperfect?"Because God chooses to make us imperfect," came the reply on one occasion.Why? "Only God knows."

Well, the fact is: Everything is perfect, but just because this is so doesn't mean that it's all good. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki worked perfectly, but I don't think anyone would want to achieve that kind of perfection again. A well aimed rifle shot will hit the bull's eye perfecly but I don't think anyone is his right mind would want to be standing in front of the target. So, things can either be perfectly good or perfectly awful. It's all a matter of interpretation. People are sometimes heard to say, "I'm not perfect" but this is merely the feeble attempt of Ego trying to sound humble. All Creation is perfect, otherwise it wouldn't have remained in existence for so long. The Spirit of the Universe and the Laws of Nature that comprise the Divine Mind are all perfect. That's what Jesus meant when he said, "In no wise shall this generation pass until evey yod and tiddle of the law be fulfilled." He underscored this thought be telling us in John[5:48]: "Be thou perfect as the Father is perfect."

So, just what is perfection?

There are two ways of looking at it: static and dynamic. In the former sense everything is as it should be. But it keeps changing. The changes are brought about by actions that originate from conditions of stress or imbalance: moisture accumulates in the atmosphere and when there's enough, it rains; the eruption of a volcano happens when the internal pressures of the earth build to sufficient levels. People stand in the rain all the time but wouldn't want to be standing anywhere near an erupting volcano.The dynamic origin of perfection refer to volitional acts: someone is trying to do something. Every morning local radio stations issue traffic reports focusing mainly on congestion and accidents. Congestion occurs when too many people try to get somewhere by the same route; accidents (or what we deem accidents) occur when someone tries to ignore the natural laws of velocity and momentum.

Returning to the original proposition: I am a perfect record of all my experiences. Deep withing me, at my Heart of Hearts, is the sum of all the results of the choices I made both as the originator of change, or in response to changes that took place. For many years I made bad choices based on self; fear of losing what I had, of not getting what I felt was my due, of being outdone is some regard, of being disliked, rejected - you get the idea. And these were all perfect resolutions of the state of my soul; I was ruled by fear but didn't realize it. But as fear was my prime motivator, working at the sub- or unconscious level, my actions inevitably led to consequences: jails, mental institutions, a Grand Jury indictment on one occasion, and the mental anguish that accrued to these outcomes. Why do things keep working against me? I would ask, not knowing that my focus on the Realities of the world hid the Truth of my own condition from me. As the Bible says, "As within, so without." My outward demonstration expressed my inner being (ex-pressed: pushed out) perfectly but as long as I focused on the Realities I was lost. One of my commonest realities was that I had bad days.

I have never had a bad day! That's the Truth. I have had a bad attitude, though, and the personality disorders that worked in and though me were seldom limited to a single day: I could carry grudges for years!

Then something happened. In a moment of perfect clarity I saw myself as I truly was - and didn't like it. What happened?

Stay tuned.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Building Spirituality - Summation

It's Spring again, a time when most folks engage in the traditional Spring House Cleaning. Mop, vacuum, wash the walls and windows, and when you're done go around the neighborhood and gather up all the neighbors' trash and garbage and scatter it around the house.Of course you don't do that. Not with respect to your physical house. How about your spiritual house? That's a different story, isn't it. The world dumps its cares on you every evening via TV news; pick up the newspaper and read about the human tragedies in your own city or town. It's pretty depressing, and unless you're a masochist I would propose that you don't care to be depressed.


Depressed. Interesting word and in this context there is a peculiar irony to be found. Roughly, the word means to be "pushed in" and therein lies the irony and the choice: where you want to be pushed into. If you've been following this series of articles then you know that the Real World offers no security or peace of mind. The irony I mentioned is simply that the forces of Evil (Reality) are bringing about that which they fear the most: that you will retreat to your Center of Being, your Heart of Hearts where the Father dwells and awaits your pleasure. The key to happiness lies within you - and nowhere else! Oh, you can look up at the sky all you want; in the daytime you'll see clouds and a sky that used to be bluer, at night you'll see stars. That's all there is up there. Jesus wasn't kidding when he said, "Think not what you will eat of wear...the Father knows ye have need of these things." Did you get that last part? Your father. Maybe this sounds too much like religion, though it doesn't have to. Call it your better judgement, instinct, intuition, whatever; the point is that it's there and you KNOW it! Just think back to some crisis in your life, a time when you thought it was all over. At the last moment you found a way out; someone gave you the right thought, a material resource, or simple friendship, or more than likely you got an inspired thought, a brilliant solution to your problem - and it seemed to come from nowhere. Bulletin: It wasn't from nowhere!

Unfortunately, many people have to hit rock bottom before turning inward. Some never do, and a high percentage of these commit suicide, others are incarcerated for life in mental institutions, none knowing that each and every one had within himself the key to salvation. It's true. This is not a theory but my own personal experience.

For many years I was lost in an alcoholic fog as I tried to make my way through the Real World. Several childhood issues mandated that life would be hard for me: I was soul damaged but didn't realize it. I went to a Catholic parochial school and received a great education along with heavy doses of indoctrination into a toxic belief system that only served to feed my fear and confusion. I got drunk the first time at the age of seven years and that seemed to give me a way out. The euphoria was irrestistable, I felt there was nothing I couldn't do. Alcohol erased any bad feelings I had about myself; it helped me overcome the feelings of uselessness, self pity, and unworthiness that were so deeply ingrained in my psyche. It was my best friend. It led me down the primrose path to self-destruction, but the problem wasn't alcohol: the problem was my warped view of God, the world, and my place in it. Today I enjoy a life that I couldn't have dreamed for myself.

I went all the way down. At 4:00AM on March 1st, 1981, my eyes were open. The past, which had been a source of guilt and remorse all my life, suddenly became the basis of my recovery. I spent a years doing dangerous things, in dangerous places, with dangerous people. In my life I have known five murderers and two of their victims. I have had loaded weapons pointed at me on four different occasions; three of the parties were angry (one was a cop who was as drunk as I was), and one was a friend who was horsing around with a .45 Colt 1911A automatic pistol. That was the only time the weapon in question went off - at point blank range - and missed! Other instances of personal peril occurred to me, and each time I was spared by some power that I couldn't identify and largely ignored: I was just lucky!Lucky? Hmmm. The greatest reminder of this "luck" involved a miracle that took place sometime in September of 1958. I was in the army, training in New Jersey, and four weeks into my enlistment I started bleeding profusely from the nose. I was rushed to the hospital where I spent three days awake: I couldn't fall asleep because the dctors couldn't figure out why I was bleeding so. If I fell asleep I would never wake up again: that was quite clear. On the morning of the fourth day I was exhausted, fifteen pounds lighter, and suffering a monumental depression. There was only one place to turn.

"God, whatever you are, wherever you are," I said in extremis. "I have this problem and don't know what to do. I want to sleep so badly, but I don't know if to give up would be suicide." The reason I had to remain awake all this time was because I had to keep finger pressure apllied to the side of my nose to slow the bleeding. Even so I had to be wheeled to a latrine every three hours to evacuate a stomach full off blood. So, with whole blood flowing into one arm, glucose and water into the other, I turned my to the last refuge I could think of. "In my twenty years I've never done anything worthwhile," I concluded. "This might be my last chance to do the right thing; so I'll do my best to stay awake - the rest is up to you." Shortly thereafter a nurse and an orderly pushing a wheelchair rushed into the ward and whisked me off to another part of the hospital. A doctor, a major was waiting for me an an examining room where he started running some tests. One of these was a simus test so painful that I passed out. I was told later that an officer's wife came into the room and went into hysterics: she thought I was dead. I thought so too when I returned to consciousness; I was being wheeled down a corridor with a cloth over my face. The first thought that came to mind: "I didn't make it." The next thing I knew the same doctor, now in scrubs, fanned the cloth away from my face and told me they knew what was wrong and that he was going to fix it. And he did.

I found out only later what had happened. After the operation I was taken to the recovery room where I slept for a day and a half. WhenI awoke a nurse who'd stayed with me through one night was there. I asked her what happened and she told me that it was the strangest thing she'd ever witnessed. While I was talking to "whatever you are, wherever you are" an air force lieutenant was being admitted to the hospital with the EXACT SAME CONDITION! They figured out what was wrong with him (cartilage growing through the sinus membrane, the result of an earlier accident: broken nose) and somebody remembered me - four days later.

That, friends, is what I call a miracle. I was still a lost soul relying on "luck" which some years later ran out. It was on that early morning in March of 1981, when I was at my lowest, deepest and darkest despair that I was reminded of that time in that army hospital when I faced death. The voice that speaks to me through my thoughts said, "Remember when things were really hopeless, and you turned to me?" For the first time, I actually heard it.

I've been listening ever since.