Where Were You When?

In case you have not heard, this summer a couple of cool moments had a birthday.

1. First guys walked on the moon
2. Woodstock Music and Mud Festival

There may have been more, but if my local media outlet has done their job, they weren't important.
So let's play a game: I'll throw a few ideas out there, but feel free to pick your own Magic Historical Moment. Many of these moments revolve around somebody getting shot, but d0n't narrow it to just that. ANYTHING you feel was important to the history of history, give us your age, and what you were doing when you heard about it.

Here's an early one for me: I was 7 y.o. when John Glenn took America's first ride into space. I remember being disappointed because he did it one day shy of my birthday. Damn them all!

One more quick one: I was in the pool 23 y.o. recovering from a hernia operation when my next door neighbor told me Elvis was dead. My reaction was disbelief. He knew Elvis is my real daddy.

First Love, First Heartbreak

She was the kind of girl every parent could hate...

For their son to date.

I'd better watch it or this could become a bad poem.

On the subject of first loves, first heartbreaks, etc. A fellow blogger wrote about his, and that got me thinking about my own.


16 years old, not understood by my family (like every other 16 y.o.). You get the full attention of a cute girl and that (as they say) is that. We were the personification of young love. Total strangers would walk by as we sat on a park bench, point, and say: "They in Love!" (This is true).


Gave one another our virginity, it was almost like a (Bob Seger) song.


Or better yet, like a bi-polar drug info-mercial.

The highs were great, 'never felt anything like it. The lows just as awful.

I'll explain my opening statement. Why my parents wished she would go away.

1. From the wrong side of the tracks.
2. Italian (worse Sicilian).
3. She manipulated their son like a puppet on a string (and they couldn't)
4. Well, let's leave it at that. You get the idea.


The unspoken fear (I think. 'Don't know- it was unspoken) was that we would make little Cubils before we even finished high school. On THAT they (and I) should have been afraid. Very afraid.


But with vast reserves of that ignorant bliss I have mentioned in previous posts, we went at it like monkeys in heat: in the evenings in the hallway of her apartment building (about 30 times), while her mother was in the next room on the phone (just once), almost every morning before school started. And all without any kind of birth control (other than withdrawal. Did I mention she was Catholic?).

Our relationship ran through senior year of high school, and one year after that. It was a long drawn-out breakup.


File this one under events that should have defined my life, but didn't.


With the wisdom of hindsight, I finally learned a few things:

1. My first girlfriend was basically my mother
2. She didn't get pregnant because she was on drugs that messed with her cycle.
3. Relationships are very complicated.
4. On birth control from the student nurses I befriended in my apartment: "Who do you think you are Jesus Christ?"

Learning along the way, I did not date the same type girl over again. On the eve of partner and my 30th wedding anniversary, I am not any expert on the subject. Just a guy who has been shown a great deal of grace.

I could Have Sung All Night...

Ever go through one of those periods when you are waiting for a shift? Something to happen that changes your pattern. I've been in one of those waiting periods.

As several of my friends have died (or are dieing as we speak) I began to think of my bucket list. Ah, the touchstone of all: When I get to the end, will there be a bunch of ideas I thought of (but didn't follow up on)? It is said that in the end, we seldom regret what we did, but more often what we didn't do in this life. Well, I don't think I'll have that problem. (ha).

One of the things I have wanted to do for several years now is to sing in a large, amazing choir. I recently noticed, I am not doing this.

So, a couple of months ago I started searching for this choir I am fated to sing with. I'm too old for the Vienna Boys Choir, and the wrong belief for The Mormon Tabernacle. So I checked with Google. (hail Google! Someday someone will write a choir anthem for thee!).

I discovered there was a dandy outfit that rehearses just a few miles from my house. Well, whadda know? I contacted someone through their website, and was told I could come for an audition August 12. I put the date on my calendar and didn't think much about it after that.

Thanks to the bliss that is ignorance, I found the church on time, then the music department (it was a large church). I started meeting people and was greeted warmly. I just was given names, so a dozen or so faces and names were before me.

Then we went into a small... kind of a waiting room (I thought). There were 6 people in there that I assumed were also auditioning. I filled out a few lines on an application, then... pow! Up to sing.

I did alright, didn't embarrass myself or my family. They asked me to step out while they conferred. Then I realized they were the jury. Later I realized the jury was made up of the Director, assistant director, and the 4 section leaders. Holy Crap! Thank you ignorance!

I was then given a tour of the facilities where the group's concerts are given; a 1000 seat sanctuary with awesome acoustics. As we were walking back to the rehearsal space, I was being caught up with info on the last tour abroad (Italy, including the Vatican), and plans for the next tour (Ireland, 2011). I was also welcomed aboard by the director.

What had I stumbled on? The next 2 hours we rehearsed our tails off. This is a 90-120 voice professional Choral Society that often works with orchestras, etc.

So, mixed emotions: I feel blessed to have been accepted, and I feel like a Homer for not even understanding what I was up for.

Spirit and Finances

I have read and heard enough in the past year to be convinced that large hordes of people do not understand how to get ahead with money, finances and the like. The Christian media has picked up on this and people like Dave Ramsey and others have shown a large number of Believers how to get financially secure. It turns out there are a number of passages in the Bible that express opinions about borrowing and so forth. These are relevant to point out to people that hope to lead their lives according to "The Book".

I have been a fan to Mr. Ramsey for a few years now, and used his basic method to get out of debt. Yep, for more than a year, owed nobody, nothing. I highly recommend it to everyone, especially my friends I see struggling to crack the monthly nut.

Got a plan; 'working on a liberal religious version of the Dave Ramsey course to present to Unitarian Universalists. Mr. Ramsey and I agree that something as important as a person's finances should be rooted in something equally as important: His/Her highest values/beliefs.

Forks

I just read a wonderful story in the New York Times called Those Aren't Fighting Words Dear. It is the story of a man in a mid-life transition (meltdown) who's state of mind threatens to implode his family and turn everyone's life inside out. All the things we have seen in friends or family members from one partner or the other; he wants a divorce, miserable, lashing out, etc.

The author (the wife) told the tale of how she handled her side of the issue. Largely with the core understanding that satisfaction comes from within, and the phrase "I'm not buying it" followed by huge amounts of patience and self control. I would guess this woman has done a great deal of the personal work we all should do when we reach adult maturity.

Here's why this tale touched me so deeply.

I was this man about 10 years ago.

In my mid 40's I was ready to chuck my nearly 20 year marriage and go off with another woman. I felt we had reached the end of a road and it was not going anywhere no matter what. I don't know if the same chemistry runs through us at this mid-life stage as when we are teenagers, but if it isn't, it is close enough.

Don't get me wrong, I take full responsibility for my actions, even if I was a bit insane all the while.

When I sat my spouse down and dumped it all out, she was very upset. 'Triggered Flight or Fight response (she ran). We were both very upset, but somehow kept from being angry or blaming each other. We focused on the situation(s):

• What led us to that point.


• How we would get through today


• How it might resolve
  

We both made a vow to act from love and hope for the best. This might sound cliche' or like a platitude, but this is what we did in all sincerity.

For a period of several months, I continued to see the other woman, feeling split about being in love with her and confused about everything around that. To complicate things more, she (O.W.) was also married.

Like the woman in the NYT story, my partner was patient, and willing to wait, see, and accept the outcome, whatever it might be. There is a freeing force in having the worst thing you can imagine happen; it releases you from all the things you held back from saying, doing, being because frankly, you no longer have anything to lose.

This liberation helped us begin to see each other for who we are, instead of the projections we had created. It got us both in touch with our inner selves, goals, desires, feelings. We began to fall in love again. This did not change my feelings for the Other Woman, the confusion was carried along until something broke.

In the early summer of that year, a big-time New Thought conference was held in Austin. Both couples attended for 2 1/2 days. All the big names held workshops. The keynote speaker was Deepak Chopra. Friday night he spoke to us about reality and how the universe is standing by to help us create the world we desire to live in. I believe this is true, as it has never failed me in my life.

After the lecture, the lights went out and he took us on a long, guided meditation. During the experience I began to weep. I don't know what was happening to this day. But in the meditation I saw myself from a long, long distance off. My months-long powerful struggle seemed like nothing from there. When the lights came up and we were leaving, I told my partner that "something happened in there, and everything is going to be alright".

I still can't explain it, but I had clarity. Everything settled down, my wife and I stayed together, (O.W. divorced and married someone else) and are celebrating our 30th anniversary this month. We have gone on, day by day to create the life we have desired, are very happy with our choices and each other.

Thoughts from SWUUSI

Ah, here at the South West Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute, for my 24th time. This is the name we give for church camp. This is a very important part of being in this movement, as you spend a week with people who really care about giving and receiving the benefits of being a UU.

Just to share a couple of things that have struck me so far;

• Going through life without a spiritual practice is like speeding down a highway that goes nowhere.



• When you get a group of dedicated people together, you can't help being inspired.
  

The people who attend this conference never cease to amaze me. In the years that we've been here, I have seen children become adults, adults become parents, parents become grandparents, etc. It is an amazing process, one that reminds me that life will go on, everything will work out, to have faith is not a fancy form of denial, but an essential tool for thriving.

Reparations?

Sitting in a lecture series this week. The theme is The Way to Peace. Yesterdays talk was about reparations for slavery and past racial injustice. Good for stimulating the brain cells. My reaction to this concept is first: It is not possible, second; can't we just move on?

But that's easy for me to say.

Our speaker (a black woman professor), told a story where a southern white man discovered his ancestors owned people 4 generations ago. Horrified, he looked up their decendants, found them and apologized for the past. This does bring it on home the reality for everybody.

I remember being a teenager watching an NFL game with my maternal grandfather, a Mississippi man. A large black football player with his last name made a big play. I thought "how did that guy get the same name as my grandfather?" Grandpa said "I'll be darn, he's one of ours!" Again, bringing it on home.