13 Reasons Why: Just Good Television or a Serious Concern?

The first I knew of 13 Reasons Why was posts on Facebook.  Some of my teenage friends were asking each other if they had watched the latest episode.  They exchanged comments about the show. I had no idea what they were talking about.Then I heard a little about it and Netflix suggested that I watch it, so I watched it.

I will say that as television, the show was riveting. After watching one episode, I watched the next and the next to the end.  Before I read any of the blowback from it, I knew that there were serious risks involved with distressed viewers. The biggest criticism and warning from mental health experts was that 13 Reasons Why glamorizes suicide.  They also observed that  the show creates the illusion that Hannah is still somehow alive, that she's actually talking. But with suicide, as they emphasize, the person is very much dead. And permanently dead. These experts were concerned that some troubled teenagers might not  understand that.

This is not the first time that the show's creator, Brian Yorkey, has delved into controversy. around mental health issues.  In 2008 he created a Broadway "rock musical" called Next to Normal.  Next to Normal had a successful debut off Broadway and then a nearly two year Broadway run. The show was successful in every way possible.  It was critically and commercially successful, and even won several awards including a Pulitzer Prize.  The show continues to be staged worldwide. Next to Normal is the story of Diana, a bipolar wife and mother, struggling to cope with her illness. It is also  about her family struggling to cope with her.

The first time I viewed the musical, I was profoundly impressed that a play about manic-depression made it to Broadway and was so successful.  I enjoyed the music. I enjoyed the drama.  I enjoyed all of it.  Part of what I liked is how the musical balanced  the very serious subject of mental illness with some really funny humor. Then I listened to it again and was struck by something else.  The story is dangerous. By the end, Diana decides to throw away her medicine and discontinue her treatment. She also packed her bags and left home, leaving her husband and her teen aged daughter. Earlier when her husband asked her where her medicine was, she said,  "We now have the happiest septic tank in the neighborhood." Like I said, that's clever.  But there's nothing funny about someone who is mentally ill going off the rails.

Will I ever listen to Next to Normal again? I still enjoy some of the music,  but will probably never watch  the entire play.  Will I watch Season 2 of 13 Reasons Why?  Some of the parents of teenagers who killed themselves after watching the series are trying to keep Season 2 from the air.  They blame the show for being the trigger for their teens' suicides. And the mental health experts are supporting them in their efforts. So if Season 2 does make it to the air, am I going to watch it?   I haven't decided. I am not a suicide risk; it's not going to bother me to watch it. Frankly, there were many plot line loose ends that I would like to know how they're going to clean up.  And how can  there be a Season 2 in the first place without Hannah's tapes?  What will drive the drama? But am I somehow supporting a harmful project by watching it? Should I stand in solidarity with those grieving parents who are convinced the show is to blame for their horrible losses?

The way I found out about Next to Normal is when my Spotify Broadway radio station played a song called "I Miss the Mountains." And my experience with the musical continued from there. Diana might miss the mountains, but she must have forgotten about the chasms of darkness and despair. It's one thing to have the courage to throw away your medicine, pack and leave. But that pales in comparison to having the courage to continue treatment and to stay with those who love you and support you.  Diana sings "I'll try this on my own, a life I've never known. I'll face the dread alone. But I'll be free."  You'll be free?  Good luck with that. And when Diana crashes again, and she will, where will she go then?  Will her husband take her back in? Will her daughter still want a relationship with her?  Will she end up addicted to drugs and alcohol and land in  the street as is sometimes the case with the untreated bipolar?  "But I'll be free!" Write a musical about that.

Those who created 13 Reasons Why, the producers and advocates of the show believe  that the series has inspired a whole new level of conversation between teens, their parents, teachers and administrator about bullying and suicide. No doubt this is true. So who's right? Should Season 2 be aired? Should we watch it? Does the good outweigh the bad?

Television can affect us. When I was a kid, after watching Popeye, my brother and I put a box of frozen spinach on a cookie sheet and put it in the oven. We wanted to be "strong to the finish" like Popeye. . Mother came home just in time to deal with the smoke and prevent a fire.  She let us keep watching Popeye, but made us promise to let her cook the spinach.

The Problem With Gifts

"Now Jacob loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. So he made him a coat of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him."   Genesis 37:3

Jacob meant for this gift to be a token of great love and affection for his son. Instead of causing great joy, the coat brought incredible grief to Joseph and his brothers. The coat and the anger and jealousy that resulted became the story of a family and of a nation. The future of Israel shifted because of that coat.

Paul Tournier, in his The Meaning of Gifts, lines out in great detail the power of a gift for good and for evil. By "evil" I don't mean like an intentional offense, I mean like the laws of unintended consequences that cause pain or discomfort. Evil in the Biblical sense of "missing the mark." One of the main points that Tournier makes in his excellent book is that with any gift, the giver puts the receiver at a disadvantage.  The giver has the power. In many cases, the gift makes the receiver feel ill at ease instead of grateful.

Before I delve a little further into what gifts mean, I want to return to the Bible story.  Any Bible story has meaning on several different levels. Joseph Campbell, the world famous mythologist, suggests that the bedrock truth of a Bible story can change the direction of your life. There's the story itself--the characters, the plot, the setting and the historical context. All of that is important for understanding what the writer had in mind. But a Bible story should go much deeper than that. Any Bible story only means what it means to you.  In the case of Joseph's coat, what has ever been given to you that you treasure above everything else? And isn't it more that this person gave it to you than the gift itself? Also with the story can be the metaphor that we all wear coats of many colors.  We are son, daughter, wife, husband, mother, father, lawn mower, chief cook and bottle washer. We have a title at work, we have a nickname from our childhood, a school friend or the neighborhood children. We volunteer at a hospital. We all wear a lot of different hats and assume a lot of different roles. Which one of them defines us? Which one of them tells the world who we are?  Can we agree that it is the combination of all those roles that define us?   No, I can't even agree with that. Our person, our selves are beyond definition. A two year old child doesn't care that you are a wife, he cares that you play with him. But your husband may only care that you're cooking dinner.   We don't perform these roles in sequence; we perform them simultaneously. Each color of Joseph's coat was brilliant and beautiful. But the story is about "the coat of many colors" and not the writer's favorite color in the coat. The "coat" is one thing.

Giving a gift can be a wonderful thing.  You care about someone and you want to show it in some tangible way. Or it's an occasion that more or less demands a gift and you want to participate.  There are certainly many good things about giving gifts.  I think the thing you need to be most aware of is when you give a gift to someone, especially someone who has no ability to repay you in any way, is that it can backfire. The person may just feel bad about it. Granted, I would think that the beggar on the street is not concerned about this, but many people are. The next time someone gives something to you, notice how you feel. Hadn't you rather be giving something to them? Is it hard to just say, "thank you" ?

One possible level of meaning in any Bible story, according to many, is that it is "literally true." Recent polls indicate that more than half of Americans believe that the stories of the Bible are "literally true". So when John the Baptist was baptizing at the Jordan River and he saw Jesus, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God." Then he baptized Jesus; Jesus left the river and went "bah, bah bah all the way home".

Some Good Ways to Waste Your Life

"There are any number of ways to waste your life."   Guy Tal, More Than a Rock, copyright Rocky Nook, 2015, Used by permission.

This will be a challenge to write about. What is "wasting time" to one person is bliss to another. Who's to say what is wasting time or a productive use of time?

But I'm up to the challenge.

Someone who enjoys fishing would say "If this is wasting time, I want to waste as many hours as possible."  Someone who doesn't like to fish might see those hours as time that could have been invested in something more productive--work, family, other recreation, etc.

It is estimated that by the time the "average American" reaches the age of sixty five,  he will have watched nine  years of television. Those nine years are based on average viewing of five hours per day. These same people estimate that this person will increase the television viewing to seven hours a day after retirement. Let's talk about this. Read my question in the previous paragraph. You may say, "I really enjoy watching television. I don't really care if it's nine years or nineteen years, when I'm home there's nothing I'd rather do than watch TV. If that's wasting time then so be it." But let's look at it from another perspective. What else could you do with nine years besides being glued to a TV?  In nine years you could get a four-year college degree, a two year masters degree and three years toward your doctorate. Since you've used all your free TV years, you might have to spend a few more of your own years to become a heart surgeon, but you're well on your way with all that TV time.

What if on day one of your nine years you started walking ten miles a day in a straight line?  At the end of nine years you will have walked 32,850 miles.  That means that you would have walked completely around the world and 8,000 more miles back to your favorite place  All of this to say that there is nothing wrong with enjoying TV if that's your bliss,  but it's worth taking an inventory to make sure that's the way you want to spend those nine years.

By now you're thinking, "What's the point in this strictly a matter of preference and opinion discussion of wasting time?"  I agree.

Now I want to suggest a very popular way of wasting time that I think we can all agree is actually wasting time.  Hundreds of millions of people spend their lives worried about something. Many times I've read "worry and anxiety" in the same breath.  Worry and anxiety are not the same thing. The worrier chooses to worry. There are a multitude of reasons for someone to be anxious that include complicated medical issues. The dictionary definition of "worry" includes "allowing one's mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles."  That says it pretty clearly, n'est ce pas?

"Allowing" is a powerful word in this context.  The worrier is in full control of his thought processes. He could choose to think about any number of good things; he could consider any number of good outcomes. He could allow the mental pumps to flood his nervous system with good feelings. Instead this person chooses to worry and allows those pumps to flood his system with all kinds of toxic poisons. I read the best illustration of the futility of worry years ago and I have never found anything better.  I know it helped me. "When the boys left home to fight for the north and the south in the American Civil War,, many of the mothers were afraid that they would never see their sons alive again.  This was a legitimate concern and became true for tens of thousands of mothers. However, many of these mothers worried themselves sick all day every day for four long years.   And many of those boys came home. What if you could have  combined all the worry power of all  of those mothers over those four years, would that incredible ball of worry have changed the trajectory of a single bullet?"  I'm not suggesting that it's easy to give up a worry habit. I know by experience that it's not.   I am suggesting that it's possible to substitute positive thoughts resulting in positive feelings for the futility of worry. I know this by experience as well. As bad as things seem to be these days, as many dire warnings as I read about the future we're creating for my granddaughter and her future children, I constantly remind myself of that "ball of worry" and those bullets.  My worry contribution isn't going to make Spaceship Earth one iota better.

What if we gave up habits that are taking significant time off the "last years of our life"?
There is no need for specifics and statistics here. You know who you are and you know what this is.  I know you may feel like you need it and even enjoy it, but is it worth robbing yourself, your  family and friends of months and years of your life? Okay, you're right.  Life should be measured in quality than in quantity.  But what if you could give this up and have more of both?

Okay, it's your turn to ask me a question. "What about the countless hours you  spend each week listening to music, reading and writing?  I know you enjoy it, but why isn't that just as much wasted time as watching TV or any other pastime?"

Let me think about that and get back to you.

.

He is Not Here. Dealing with Loss with Words with Music

"Seducer, healer, deity, or thief,

I will see you soon enough

In the shadow of the rainfall.

In the brief violet darkening a sunset

But until then I pray watch over him

As a mountain guards its covert ore

And the harsh falcon its flightless young." 

from Prayer by Dana Giola in The Gods of Winter,  Graywolf Press, 1991 Used by Permission

I have a backlog of books to read. I collect books like women collect shoes. I see a book I want to read and out of fear I'll forget about it, I buy it and put it on my shelf. Sometimes I buy from Barnes and Noble, but usually from abebooks.com.  This incredible resource is a broker of recycled books. After a few clicks and a few days, these books appear in my mailbox usually for less than five dollars including shipping. I eventually read all of them.  I have a somewhat effective system of segregating the new books so that they are not sucked into the black hole of my library. Something else I do. I sometimes read more than one book at a time. I am currently reading four books. I'm reading Empire of the Summer Moon, a history of the Comanches, More Than a  Rock, a collection of essays on photography, writing and life. I'm  reading the owner's manual for my Canon EOS Rebel T7i. Then this morning, as a break from the rigors and horrors of the American West, I pulled from the shelf above me The Gods of Winter, a book of poems by Dana Gioia. Sometimes though, by the time I start reading a particular book, I have forgotten why I bought it. I've forgotten its personal context.

When I opened The Gods of Winter, the very first poem, Prayer, exploded in my emotional system. "I know this poem. This is not new to me."  I remembered immediately that this poem was written after the death of his infant son. And I remembered how the death, and Gioia's words brought fresh grief to the surface of the death of my infant brother in 1963 when I was ten years old.  James Burt Helms was born, lived eight days and died. But I still didn't know quite yet why that poem was affecting me so deeply. Then as the dendrites continued to fire and as oxytocin flooded my system with deep emotion, my psyche reminded me, "This  is not just about those words, it's about the music.You're feeling the music as much as you are the words."   Music?  What music? I had no idea. Then the part of my brain that helps me to put one foot in front of the other said, "Google it."

It's the music of Morten Lauridsen, one of my favorite composers. The search not only brought back to me his incredibly beautiful music that expresses the pathos and pain of the poet, but brought back videos  of the author reciting his poem and the composer discussing his process. With all that material, with all the history and emotion  one might  think I would not have needed Google to prompt me.  But one might also  need to know that I need a GPS  to get me out of the subdivision that I just drove into. Don't judge. I'm no Einstein, but even he had to call the business office to get directions to his house. His brain stayed full of other things. 

All of this to say that my soul  remembered all of this before my conscious brain figured it out. When my conscious brain did catch  up, I experienced it all again. As I listened to Lauridsen's music my soul was filled and I was brought to tears. 

There was a man  who had poured his incredible pain and grief at the death of his baby boy into poetry. Then  another man had taken those words, reached out into the emptiness of musical space and brought those words to life.  And there was a book that I bought for $3.48 that I pulled down from above my head this morning that opened the floodgates of all this emotion.

In all the videos of Prayer, the singers are holding hands. Women and, men, women and women, men and men, they all are holding hands. Those singers felt it too. It all started when a man's firstborn son was born, lived for a very brief time and died. And they all felt that loss.

"As the mountain guards its covert ore

And the harsh falcon its flightless young."

We love our children. We love our brothers and our sisters. And when we lose them, at any age, we grieve. We feel their loss. We feel their absence. It's pervasive and painful. Several years ago after visiting the grave of my little brother on Easter Sunday morning, a  well-meaning aunt sensing my pain said, "He is not here. He is risen." My wife, who heard the exchange, a few minutes later said, "Yes, David. He is risen, but the part you are feeling now is 'he is not here',"

Grief is very real. But healing is real too. " Time doesn't heal everything, but it heals a lot.  And for me, beautiful words mixed with beautiful music is a powerful potion of love, grace and healing. "I will see you soon enough.  You won't remember me, but I'll remember you."

Photography-- Capturing or Creating?

"To accurately record the light reflecting off subjects is a technical matter (a marvelous one, to be sure, but still one made possible by feats of technology, rather than be creative revelation). The finding of  aesthetically pleasing subjects is a matter of skill (often benefiting also from a degree of luck), rather than a product of emotion and creative thinking. Creativity--a requisite for art--means the production of something novel, something of the creator's own mind that was not there before and would never exist were it not for a unique mind touched by a spark of inspiration. If nothing is manifested in the image that originates purely in the subjective mind of the artist, then what makes it creative? And if creativity is indeed an indispensable component of art, then what makes such images art?"  from More Than a Rock by Guy Tal, copyright Rocky Nook, Inc., 2015 (used by permission).

Regarding photography, Guy Tal says, "To accurately record the light reflecting off subjects is a technical matter."  A DSLR camera is an incredible piece of machinery. Digital--the exposure is not recorded to film, it's recorded to a chip. That photo is nothing more than billions of ones and zeros in a sequence. SLR--Single Lens Reflex.  If you'd like to know  what that means, Wikipedia explains it in about 3,000 words or so. In a few words, when you look through the viewfinder of a single lens reflex camera you see exactly what the lens sees.

I derive much pleasure from holding a digital camera in my hand, pointing it toward something I like and pressing the shutter button.  Most of my fans think I'm a pretty good photographer and I would agree with them, but I'm more of an artist than a technician.  I have a good friend, a professional photographer, who is both. My photographs do not hold a candle to his.  I am constantly in awe of the pictures he takes. The light, the shadows, the colors, the way his subjects dance off the page and grab my attention. It is just incredible. Just watching him at work is a thrill for me. So should I stop taking pictures until I know as much about a camera as he does? That has crossed my mind, but no I'll keep taking pictures.

The biggest challenge for me is finding somewhere to take good photographs. I mostly go to these places--my back yard, my front yard, Chickamauga Civil War Battlefield and downtown Chattanooga. From a photographer's point of view, every time I go to one of these four places everything is different. Yesterday afternoon I stood in the same spot for about 20 minutes and took nearly 100 images and all of them were different.  But this morning, thinking about taking pictures I wanted to find somewhere completely new. With the limited time I have to invest in the near future, it needed to be somewhere close by. After a Google search I found just what I was looking for, This scenic drive that starts about fifteen miles from where I sit, promises "waterfalls, canyons and scenic brow vistas."

If I understand what Guy Tal is suggesting about photography and creativity, he is telling me that the specific places that I will photograph  along the Lookout Mountain Parkway do not exist until I take the picture."Something of the creator's own  mind (the photographer, not the Creator) was not there...until touched by a spark of inspiration". Until I read these words, I had only considered that I captured images and not that I created them. Here's a current example.  Yesterday evening  I stood in my driveway with my camera in my hand looking at the incredible sunset over Lookout Mountain.  I didn't make the mountain, the sun or the properties of the refraction of light. That was the work of the Creator.  But I knew what to do with ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and white balance. I chose the best lens for the shoot. I raised my camera to my face and framed the photograph, With my knowledge of my camera and my artistic eye, when I depressed that shutter release, I created something special. If I had not created it, then hundreds of people would not have viewed that sunset. I think it's interesting for this discussion  that the Bible says that I am created in God's image. "Create." "Image". It just keeps going in circles, doesn't it?

When I stand before my Maker on that Great and Glorious Day, He may say, "I'm glad to meet you and you're welcome to stay, but explain that 'creation' thing again? "

I've never built a digital camera. I have never created a sunset. But when I look around me, I see things. I see things in ways that no one else has ever seen them, not even my professional photographer friend. And I use that camera to capture moments that never existed until I created them.

Next up: The Lookout Mountain Parkway. To be continued...

Is there a there there?

There's a  Civil War joke in this area that goes something like, "Do you know why the Confederates eventually won the Battle of Chickamauga?"  "No, please tell me."  "They won because they hid behind all the monuments."  Ha Ha.

Two or three years ago I could not listen to a news broadcast without somebody saying, "at the end of the day."  I understood it to mean "when all is said and done" or "when the dust settles."  But whatever it meant, a multitude of people on several major networks used that expression quite often. I don't hear that much anymore.  But what I do hear quite a bit is either, "There is no there there" or "Is there a there there?" Before I looked it up I assumed the phrase, since it always was in a political discourse, meant something like "there is no fire associated with this smoke", "there is no there there."  Or the question, "Is there a there there" referring to the same thing.

When I looked it up I learned that the phrase originated with  Gertrude Stein, an American poet and playwright. She returned to Oakland, California, her childhood home, many years later to find that her farm was no longer there. She said of the experience, "There was no there there." So why the news media has picked it up, I have no idea.  Maybe it has been around for years and I just hadn't noticed it before now.  I don't know.

This afternoon on my way to Lafayette, Georgia  from Ringgold, Georgia, I was driving south on Burning Bush Road which becomes Longhollow Road. This is a very pleasant drive through wooded hills and valleys. It's a drive I always enjoy.  This afternoon I started thinking about the Civil War history in  our area that certainly includes the road I was driving on.  Although there are no placards or monuments along this route, certainly with it's proximity to the Chickamauga Battlefield, both Confederate and Union troops walked through the area. I even think there was an officer named Longhollow, but maybe I'm getting him mixed up with Longstreet. But where I'm going with all of this is that I thought, "The Battle of Chickamauga didn't happen on a 'battlefield', it happened in the woods". The Chickamauaga Battlefield is the largest and most visited Civil War battlefield in the United States.  I have been driving in or around this battlefield for thirty eight years.  Because of that, this real estate, for me, is "the battlefield."

But what I realized for the first time is that the Union and Confederate soldiers met up in the woods and started shooting at each other. It was just some woods. A lot of trees.  There was no there there. What they did there made that field a  there. All of these years I have never actually thought that the Civil War soldiers were fighting behind concrete and steel monuments.  But I realized today that I've thought that they were fighting on a "battlefield." I thought there was a there there.  Today, this very day, I realized that they were just fighting in the woods.

I've decided to expand this revelation into other areas of my life.  When something is bothering me I'm going to ask myself "Is there a there there?" The truth is usually that there is a there there,but only because I put it there.  As soon as I stop believing that there is a there there, then the there disappears. I find this thought to be very freeing.

One last thing about "there there".  The expression, probably much older than Gertrude Stein's quote, is used by parents to console their children. So in that context, when I'm concerned about something, even if there actually is a "there there," I can imagine  my mama saying "there there" and feel much better.

Exposure --Let There Be Light

My favorite hobby is photography.  For years after using a camera to take photographs I didn't consider myself to be a "photographer."  I thought that Ansel Adams was a photographer and that made me something else. What that was, I wasn't sure, but it wasn't a "photographer." Then  some years ago I read, "A photographer is someone who takes photographs with a camera."  It was then that I realized that I was, in fact, a photographer. That statement gave me permission to enjoy my hobby to its fullest.

Over the years of taking pictures I've had several significant breakthroughs.   The most significant was when two days before my birthday in June of 1982 I read these words in the manual of my brand new Minolta X-GM. I read, "If you open your aperture one stop and speed up your shutter speed one stop, it's the same exposure."  When I read the sentence the photo muses inside my head sang, "This is important. You need to understand this."  I didn't understand it, so I read it again. I read it several times until the light of revelation flashed in my brain. Understanding that sentence changed everything about using a 35mm SLR. My adventure into serious photography took a giant leap forward.  The second biggest breakthrough happened several years later in a camera shop in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  I was frustrated with my lack of progress using my first digital camera. The sales associate knew I was good with my film camera.  He held a 35mm film camera in one hand and a digital SLR in the other. He said, "the only difference between your film camera and the digital camera is this", and with the flick of a finger he popped the memory card of the digital camera out into his hand. Without saying a word, those photo muses sang again.

I am very critical of my own work. I'm critical in a literary sense of seeing the value of what I do, but being keenly aware of the flaws. Until recent years it has been difficult for me to enjoy all the good parts and mostly see the the "needs improvement" parts.  But with age and experience, I'm doing much better.

An enlargement of a photograph exposes everything.  That's one reason that I can count on a few fingers of one hand the number of enlargements of my own photography that I have purchased. I don't use Photoshop so the images that I capture and the pictures that I print come right from the camera. I use software that enhances the color saturation, but other than that the images are in their natural state. I recently took my camera to downtown Chattanooga and took several hundred images and posted a few on Facebook. A friend of mine wanted one of them, a nighttime  photo  of the Walnut Street Bridge, enlarged for her office  at Dalton State College. She wanted a 20x24. As a test I ordered an 8x10. It looked horrible. Not just me, but my wife agreed that it looked really bad. Not to be defeated, I decided to go back downtown and take it again.  I took several hundred more photos and posted four or five on Facebook. The positive reaction to the images was overwhelming. Several asked if they could use one of the photos.  All of my images are public domain so I said, "Sure. Help yourself."  But the image I was looking for was of that bridge.  When I got home and processed them, there was one in particular that I thought was very good.  This time, instead of the trial, I just ordered the 20x24. The packaged arrived just two days ago. As my wife helped me carefully remove the print from the packaging, I was rather nervous and held my breath. The photo is outstanding.   By my own critical and rigid standards, it's beautiful. In advance I can see it framed, hanging on her wall for all the world to see. And for me to see my own work. The capture of the beautiful nighttime bridge was possible because of one thing, "If you open your aperture by one stop and speed up the shutter speed one stop, it's the same exposure".

And finally my analogy, my life application. As we get older, it's more and more difficult to not see the flaws of the years we've left behind us.  It's so easy to feel the discomfort and even  pain of our mistakes instead of  seeing the beauty of the good things we've created. And maybe we are a little afraid that what those evangelists told us is true. There will be a screen of drive-in theater proportions and on that screen will be played "the story of your life." That big screen will expose every flaw, every sin, every mistake and you will be judged by those sins. You will be embarrassed and humiliated in front of all the saints. Just like when I opened that package and saw nothing but my beautiful bridge, if there is a movie of my life on an  IMAX screen,  it's going to be called, "This is Your Life. A Life of  Incredible Love and Beauty."  And God's going to hold up a memory card of all my mistakes in His left  hand and a memory card of all of my beautiful creations in the right. And with a wry smile and a second's hesitation he's going to cast that card in his left hand into  the fiery furnace and say, "Well done good and faithful servant, enter into Paradise.". And with great anticipation, my Canon camera and I will walk through those Pearly Gates. And then I'll remember something else very important that I read in a photography magazine,, "Photography is nothing more than controlling light."  "And there was light. And it  was very good."

It's almost my birthday. How old am I?

Monday is my birthday.  I don't say any of what I'm about to say in a nostalgic the-good-ole-days sort of a way.  I do not think that these times I recall were any better than the way things are now. For that matter, this present  time, even with all its challenges, is the best time of my life.  I wouldn't go back for anything. This is just reminiscing  and is not any sort of pining away for days-gone-by.

How old am I?  I'm old enough that the first phone I remember was our heavy, black telephone. It sat on  a narrow shelf between the dining room and the kitchen. This one didn't even have a dial. It was just the base with a receiver.  When you picked it up there was no dial tone; the operator asked, "Num-buh puleeze " and you gave her the four digit number you were calling. She then manipulated her plugs and wires to make the connection on the other end. I'm old enough to remember that this phone was on a party line with about five other families. It would certainly have been easy enough to eavesdrop, but I don't remember ever wanting to do that. What Cuzzin' Lizzie was up to was not interesting to me in the first place. I doubt they were interested in my conversations either. I do remember when every so often a neighbor would pick up and say, "David, do you mind hanging up and letting me have the phone?" "Of course not, we were about through talking anyway. Goodbye." Then when they became available, we upgraded to a black phone with a dial. We were still on a party line, but now instead of using an operator we had a dial tone and we dialed the four digit number ourselves. After we went to seven digits, there was nothing worse than having that last number slip from your finger, the dial spin to a stop and having to start all over.  I'm old enough to remember when a "long-distance-call" was an emergency situation. The one who answered would go tearing through the house, "Daddy, it's long distance!  It's long distance!"  I mean, how much more could it have cost? And did we have no money at all to pay the toll? That I don't remember. What I do remember is that a long-distance-telephone-call was a last resort.  It was just not something we did very often. And when we did, we kept it short and sweet.

How old am I? I'm old enough to remember taking trips across the country without a phone. The only phone we had was in the kitchen attached to the wall by a six foot cord. Obviously, that wasn't all that many years ago, but in some ways that seems as far away and as archaic as that black phone without a dial. Now if I realize I've left my phone at home when I'm just driving across town, I go back home and get it. The "what ifs" of being on the road without a cell phone just go on and on.

How old am I?  I'm old enough to remember our first television, black and white of course. We only got three channels, the three networks. The antenna was on a tall aluminum pole outside. When we changed channels somebody had to go outside and twist the pole to get the right signal for that channel. I don't remember how we knew how far to twist it.  I mean it's not like my brother was standing at the front door relaying messages to me at the antenna from my father standing at the television. "Just a little more clockwise. No back.  That's good!" I really don't know how we knew. And when it was raining, I guess we watched the same channel. I'm old enough to remember when we got a box to put on top of the TV with a button that turned the antenna so that we didn't have to go outside. Oh the joys of modern technology. Now when it rained, we had three channels.  I'm old enough to remember when my great aunt got the family's first color television. Living Color, you know with the peacock that spread its colorful feathers. We would always go to her house to watch the  Macy's Day Parade in Living Color. Then when her sister, my grandmother, got her color television we would stop by after Sunday night church to watch Bonanza. And no matter if the TV was black and white or color at eleven o'clock pm, it went off. All the networks played only a test signal. And sometimes if I didn't have anything else to do, I just watched that.

How old am I?  I'm old enough to remember using S&H Green Stamps. I spent many blissful hours licking, separating and pasting those stamps in Mother's books. I tried to keep the lines straight so that they didn't overlap at the bottom..  And I remember how exciting it was to ride with her to the Green Stamp store in downtown Enterprise to redeem them. I guess it's the same thrill my granddaughter gets redeeming her coupons at Dave and Buster's. Well, I hope it's just as exciting.

How old am I?  I'm old enough to remember when we left our house to go the beach for a week, we didn't bother to lock the doors.  It never concerned  any of us that someone would go in our house and take any of our stuff. And in all those years, we never returned home to find a single thing missing. So then was it a better time?  It was a different time.

How old am I? I'm old enough to remember my mom rubbing Vicks VapoRub on my chest when I had a cold. And she would lean down and say, "I wish it was me instead of you." And she really did.

How old am I?  I'm old enough to remember the summer times with my siblings and cousins at Granny's house. We played  outside into the night, dancing with the lightning bugs and chanting our hide and seek game "Ain't no boogers out tonight, Grandpa killed them all last night." And  the next day  Granny would take a shovel and dig a pool  in the shallow creek big enough for us to play in. Country grannies did stuff like that.

How old am I? Monday at around 2 am, I'll turn 64 years old. How and when that happened, I'm not sure. I don't feel 64. I still feel 34 or at the most 44. We run with some 30 somethings and their children. I think of myself as a peer to all of them. I forget that I am nearly twice the parents' ages and almost five times older than their children. If any of them think of me as old, they don't let on. They seem to genuinely enjoy my company. As an adolescent, I hope I gave the seniors in my life the same courtesy and respect.

Thankfully, I am in very good health, mentally and physically, and have every reason to expect many good years ahead of me. I say that humbly and respectful of the fact that things happen even to the healthiest of people. More and more people in the obituaries are younger than I am.

So I'm old enough  to be learning to appreciate not just every day, but every moment of every day. This morning while on  my back deck eating a bowl of cereal with blackberries, I was deeply grateful for the decades of peacefulness that deck has provided and for  this house that we have called home for 31 years. That's nearly half my life.  And as I tipped the bowl and drank the last drop of skim milk, I was keenly aware that someday in the not too distant future, someone else will be eating Cracklin' Oat Bran on this deck and I will be somewhere else. The doors will be locked and I won't have the key. Actuarially, I have much still to look forward to. But like the life insurance agents say, "Your birth certificate doesn't have an expiration date."

So anyway, Monday is my birthday. 64 years ago on Monday, against all odds, I was born. When you consider the process of conception, statistically my birth was nearly impossible. Recently I read in an article about the human genome that the probability that any of us were born gets into the thousands of trillions to one not too many generations up the ladder.  It's like winning the Big Game Lottery fifteen times in a row. But I won. I'm here and I'm very grateful for that. Since I'm watching my figure I really don't care that much if ice cream and cake show up or not.  If it does, I'll  enjoy eating it. If it doesn't I'll enjoy eating something else. I hope to hug my wife. I hope to talk to my son, my daughter-in-law and  my granddaughter in California.  Who knows, I might get to talk to those 30 somethings.  That would be nice. I enjoy those Facebook notifications you get on your birthday. Some of the comments are clever. But most of them just say, "Happy Birthday!".Either way I look at the name, consider the relationship and am grateful for the greeting. It's just social media, but it feels personal. And friendly.

When I applied for jobs over the years, the interviewer often asked me, "Where do you see yourself in five years?"  If all goes according to plan, I see myself 69 years old and very happy. How old am  I? I'm older than I was, but younger than I will be. A man showed his friend a photo and said, "Here's a picture of you when you were younger." And he replied, "Every picture of me is when I was younger". Happy Birthday David.  It's shaping up to be the best birthday of your life.

Which you choose? It's the Thought that Counts

"The Kingdom of God is within you."  Jesus

The church didn't appear to be an English as a second language type church. I'll give the church the benefit of the doubt. Their intention was, "Which do you choose?" The sign was small and I'm sure that's all the letters they could fit in. But the entire message as written was "Which you choose. Heaven or Hell?"

Growing up as a deep south Southern Baptist, I was taught that Heaven is a wonderful place. Heaven is a place of eternal beauty and bliss.  Heaven is a place where our reconstituted "heavenly bodies" will  live forever in joy with our friends, family and our loved ones. We will join all those who went before us and welcome all those who will come after us in the eternal Supper of the Lamb.  Heaven is glorious in every way possible. Hell, on the other hand, is a place of everlasting torment. The unfortunate occupant will burn in the ovens of Hell forever and ever. There is no end to this torture and no possible means of escape. Once you enter the gates of Hell, you will burn forever and forever and forever...

"Which you choose?" One would think that everyone would choose Heaven. One would think that this would be a very easy choice to make. Why would anyone choose a place of eternal torment over a place of everlasting bliss?

I want to frame the question in another context. Which do you choose on any given day-- satisfaction, fulfillment, joy and personal peace or agony, misery and defeat? You may think that that choice would be as easy as the choice of Heaven or Hell, but apparently it's not.  Some people actually seem to prefer misery over joy. With joy and misery as equal choices, they choose misery over and over again.

I do not want to suggest that people can't find themselves in horrible circumstances. I know that they do. I also realize that people suffer with all kinds of  mental illnesses that dramatically affect their mood.  I know that too. But with all that understood, we choose the way we feel. In Man's Search for Meaning, Dr. Viktor Frankl writes of his experience and survival of Auschwitz and other concentration camps. He says that even in the worst circumstances imaginable, some people still found purpose, hope and meaning.  He said that those people stood the best chance of survival. Not all survived, but many did. In How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Lisa Feldman Barrett postulates that at any given moment on any given day, regardless of our circumstances, we choose the way we feel. On its own micro scale, the human brain is as powerful as a hydroelectric dam. The currents in our 100 billion nerve cells on its microcosmic scale are just as powerful as the currents that drive those turbines that generate enough electricity to power entire cities.. There is one thing in our heads that opens the floodgates to allow this avalanche of electrochemical impulses to surge through our nervous system. That thing is our thoughts.  Our mood is determined by the neurotransmitters available in the synapses of nerve cells. The specific neurotransmitters that become available are determined primarily by our thoughts. Descartes' proposition "I think, therefore I am" was ages before its time.

Thankfully our daily experience, no matter how bad things may seem to be, does not approach that of a Nazi concentration camp.  In that circumstance, Dr. Frankl  said the secret for those who survived was "to identify a purpose to feel positively about and then immersively imagine that outcome". After his eventual release and return to a medical practice, he continued to postulate that form of therapy for his patients. In other words, the thought processes that helped them to endure the hell they lived in and brought about the prisoners' very survival, can make all the difference in our day.

Have a flat tire.  Which you choose?  Get an audit notice from the IRS.  Which  you choose? Your pen leaks on your favorite shirt.  Which you choose?  The love of your life breaks up with you. Which you choose? (Insert life event here). Which you choose? One rather crude but appropriate example from The Life of Brian is in spite Brian's rather unfortunate predicament, he sang, "Always look on the bright side of life."

Yesterday afternoon the church on Highway 41 asked me, "Which you choose. Heaven or Hell?"  For me, that choice is easy. I choose Heaven. Even if I'm not sure that the Heaven of the sweet by and by actually exists, I choose Heaven.  If I then "immersively imagine that outcome," then I'm already there.  "The Kingdom of God is within you." But let's not pine away this life for the next one. In college I sang a sacred art song about contemplating Heaven that began with "One sweetly solemn thought comes to me o'er and o'er." That solemn thought needn't be about Heaven; it can be about anything good. For Viktor Frankl in Auschwitz, it was about his wife. For me it's about  boarding Delta and seeing my family in three weeks. For you it can be about whatever fills you with hope and with goodness. Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonine and endorphins (d.o.s.e) really don't care about the specifics, they only need your prompting to do what they do so well. On the other hand, cortisol and adrenaline are glad to accommodate your gloom and doom. If you're thinking about that cold beer on the beach next week while you're on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck or if you're on the beach dreading mowing your grass when you get home, in which circumstance are you better off? In which circumstance do you feel better? Endorphins and cortisol are equal opportunity brain chemicals. Which you choose?

The psalmist said, "How fearfully and wonderfully we are made."  The "fearful" or "wonderful" part is mostly up to us. Which you choose?

"Hey, is this Heaven?" "No, it's Iowa."

A Roadblock on Memory Lane

transient--lasting only for a short time
global--affecting the entire brain
amnesia--a partial or total loss of memory

"Transient global amnesia is a sudden, temporary episode of memory loss. During an episode, your recall of recent events simply vanishes, so you can't remember where you are or how you got there. In addition, you may not remember anything about what's happening in the here and now. Consequently, you may keep repeating the same questions because you may not remember the answers you've just been given. You may also draw a blank when asked to remember things that happened  a year, a month, a week, a day, an hour or a minute ago. With transient global amnesia, you do  remember who you are is who you are and you recognize the people who you know well." Mayo Clinic

During my four hours at the hospital, the ER doctor ran  a battery of tests to determine the cause of my sudden and total memory loss. The incidents of TGA is so rare, he didn't know. As my memory began to return and he had eliminated stroke and heart attack, the ER doctor released me to a follow-up visit with a neurologist the next week.

That ordinary afternoon in the fall of 1998, I was at the gym working out. My wife was there too and we had arrived in separate cars from our respective jobs. All I remember is that I was pushing the limits of my bench press ability and next someone was asking me if I was okay. I was sitting in a chair across the gym from where I had been working out. All of a sudden my wife was standing there asking me the same thing.

My wife told me later that on the way to the hospital, I asked her about my car probably two dozen times (or more). I, also, remember that we stopped by the school to tell our son where we going. He was on the back parking lot doing something band related. I recall that he expressed concern for my welfare. I knew I was with my wife. I recognized my son and that was it. After forty years of living and the living of that particular day, that was the sum total of what I knew and who I knew.  During the four hours in the ER, I only recalled that my wife asked me, what seemed like a dozen times, if I remembered what we had planned to do that night. I had no idea. And I recall one of those tests. I didn't even know which hospital we were in, although my wife had worked there nearly twenty years.

For birthday/Father's Day this year I asked for a new camera.  This camera, a Canon EOS Rebel T7i, seems to be perfect for my level of photographic ability. It is an entry-level DSLR, but is plenty sophisticated enough to provide me with a world of photography opportunities. When I unpacked it, and got ready to use it for the first time, it had everything but a memory card. With a quick trip to  Walmart,  I purchased a 32 gigabyte SanDisk Memory Card.  I inserted the small device into its port in the camera. I was now ready to take pictures with my new camera.  Even the most expensive camera is nothing without its memory.

The next week the neurologist started asking me questions about what had happened to me at the gym. After only a few questions he said, with no hesitation, "I know what happened to you. It's called a TGA, transient global amnesia".  He then described the symptoms that were in lock-step with what had happened to me. He said that many times the condition was triggered by vigorous exercise.He explained that a TGA was not the same as a TIA, a mini-stroke; there had been no brain damage. And most importantly he said that it would probably never happen again.

Although the neurologist assured me that there was no brain damage, my TGA gives me a convenient excuse for my memory issues. I have little problem with remembering things twenty, thirty or forty years ago, it's things that occurred in the last twenty four hours or the last ten minutes that give me the most trouble. Yesterday, after a careful search for my car keys, I found them in the ignition of my car. Who knew the effects of a TGA could last twenty years? I even have an explanation for the phenomenon of arriving in the kitchen and having no idea why I am in the kitchen.  What's your excuse?

A DSLR is a digital single-lens reflex  camera. Instead of storing the images on film, the DSLR stores  its images on an image sensor. Since this sensor will lose its images when the camera is turned off, it transfers its digital images to a removable flash card or memory card. In your brain, think of the camera's image sensor as your short-term memory and the memory card as the long-term memory. Your brain, like your digital camera, can't function properly without both of them.

Over the years when recalling our bizarre afternoon and evening with the TGA, my wife and I  have wondered what would have happened had she not been at the gym that day. We had not been members very long and nobody would have known me. My wallet would have been in the car and no one would have known which car was mine. Who would they have called ? How would they have found my identity? Now all they would have to do is put my picture on Facebook and within minutes someone would have come running.  "Do you recognize this man? He has no idea who he is. Please call with any information or come pick him up." But this was 1998,  Facebook was still six years away.   I'm sure that within a few hours my wife would have missed me and remembered I was going to the gym. I'm quite sure that she would have eventually found me and taken me to the hospital.

I had bought a memory card for another  camera that would have fit this one. It's very small and easily misplaced. After searching my camera bag and when I couldn't find it anywhere else is when I went to Walmart to buy another one. They aren't very expensive and I would have replaced it anyway with this one that is faster and has more storage. Yesterday after taking the first photos with my new camera, I popped out the card. When I reached to put it in the slot in my computer, it wouldn't fit. Something was in the slot. It was the other card. Oh well, backup memory is always a good idea. You never know when you're going to need it.

In the Last Place I Looked

There's an adage about finding lost things that says, "You always find it in the last place you looked." That's true in a way. Obviously when you find the thing you lost, you stop looking because you just found it, so you found it in the last place you looked.  But on the other hand, sometimes you don't find what you were looking for, so the last place you looked did not yield the item you were looking for. It was only that--the last place you looked and nothing more.

This morning I was loading my pockets with the stuff I carry out into the world every day, car keys, cell phone, etc.  I reached for my wallet  on the night stand where I always keep it and it wasn't there. That's okay, since I wasn't concerned that I had lost it or even misplaced it I looked at the next logical place I would have left it.  I walked downstairs and looked on the computer table where I work and it wasn't there.  I still wasn't concerned because I knew that I hadn't lost it or even misplaced it and I looked at the next logical place.  I looked on the dresser in the guest bedroom where I put my stuff sometimes when I don't want to bother my wife's sleep when  I get up early.  The wallet was not there.  Now I was starting to get a little concerned.  I had a seven o'clock meeting to get to and it was already about twenty till. At this point when I look for something that I'm quite sure is hiding in plain sight and I have exhausted the likely places,  I start looking in  unlikely places and I looked in several of those. But still no wallet. Since I was quickly running out of time, I was considering asking my wife if she had seen it,. She's always more than glad to help, but I had rather do this sort of thing by myself.

So I asked my wife if she had seen my wallet.  She said no, but asked me "When was the last time you remember having it?"  This question at first glance is the same as "You always find it in the last place you look" but it's really a different question. The question suggests that I try to remember when I had my wallet with me.  I knew I had had it with me all day but had no way of knowing for sure I had come home with it.  After all if I had come home with it why isn't where I usually put it?  Why isn't it somewhere? Now I was considering the uncomfortable probability that I had lost it.

It was time for me to go to my meeting.  I don't like driving without a license, but I decided to go on and hope for the best. On the way there I was thinking of  several things. One is that I need to fly soon and if I've lost my wallet I'll need a drivers' license. Also I need to call and cancel my credit cards.  But I had state licenses, a AAA card and other important cards to replace. I've even lost my Barnes and Noble membership card.  I wasn't anxious, just annoyed and frustrated.  How could I have lost my wallet? But I also kept thinking about my wife's question, "When was the last time you remember having it?"  As I continued to think about that during the meeting, it occurred to me that maybe I never got my wallet out of my pocket.  Highly unlikely, but maybe.  In 64 years I had never hung up my pants with my wallet in it. But I could hope. I texted my wife and asked her to look in the pants pocket hanging in the closet.  I held my breath. A few seconds later she texted the thumbs up.

So now, did I find it in the last place I looked?  No, because I never looked there. But she did find it in the last place I thought about.

"David, where did you put your brain?"  "I'm not sure." "When was the last time you remember having it?"

Blissful Ignorance

"Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness."  Waking Up, by Sam Harris

There is only one good thing about recreational drug use that I can figure and everything else is bad. The good thing  is that, at least for a little while, it must feel damned good.  I don't know this by experience.   I've never used a single recreational drug in any amount for any reason. I can't even say that I've been tempted by them. I'm curious about several of them, but I'm not tempted to use them. I never smoked pot or dropped acid in the 60s, I've never smoked pot or used hallucinogens since then either. I've never taken Ecstasy or snorted coke. I don't know where I'd buy the drugs if I decided to use them. I am blissfully ignorant of the whole process.

Drugs must feel really good. Women give up their newborn babies for drugs. Moms and dads who have taken the necessary steps over long periods of time and are at the cusp of getting their children back from "the system", fail  a drug test. Think of the joy that a baby brings to a mother and a family. Consider the delight and the love that  children bring into our lives. Think of all the goodness of parenthood. And then think of giving all of that up, years of love,  a lifetime of happiness, for the temporary pleasure of a recreational drug.  The high must be something extraordinary. Also consider all the love and joy these children will give the foster families and their friends instead of to their own blood relatives. Think of the lifetime of biological relationships these children will never know. Thank God for the foster homes, but how can  this difference be measured for the parents or for the children?

Consider MDMA. otherwise known as Ecstasy or Molly.  The drug produces a euphoric state of being, enhanced pleasure with touching,  increased levels of sexual arousal, and elevated alertness. And these sensations can last up to five or six hours. All of that sounds pretty appealing, doesn't it? Six hours of pure bliss. Then as the effects begin to wear off, this is what the user has left--nausea, cramping, fever, tremors, hallucinations, blurred vision, higher heart rate and blood pressure, and tension in the mouth, face and jaw.

One popular parenting-ending drug of  choice is methamphetamine -- meth, crystal, ice, crank, or speed.  I've talked to several meth users, but I've never talked with them about their habit. But I've been told that the "rush", the "high", the "flash"  is unlike anything imaginable. The euphoria is incredible. The high happens very quickly and is gone just as quickly.  Some users binge to ride the high and to defer the crash as long as possible. But the crash is inevitable. The resulting crash and long-term effects include, but are not limited to, rotting teeth (meth mouth), skin sores and itching, anxiety, confusion, violent behavior, paranoia,  hallucinations and depression. Another unpleasant side-effect is prison.

Cocaine is also a drug of choice for people willing to give up their kids and everything else. The "good things" from cocaine are: feelings of euphoria, increased energy, grandiosity and elevated mood. So far so good. Followed by tremors, paranoia, vertigo, increased heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature, and decreased sexual desire.

One person I read said of  his experience with heroin,  "The first time was the most incredible feeling I had ever had. Then I've spent everything I own trying to find that experience again".

Besides these popular street drugs, the abuse of prescription drugs make them recreational drugs. One user says, "I take Tramadol every night before bed. It makes me feel relaxed and happy. No worries about anything. A general feeling of euphoria.  I've been taking them for five months, but I'm not addicted. I could stop, but I don't want to. I don't want my doctor to be suspicious so I now buy them from Saudi Arabia." drugs.com

I could go on with specific recreational drugs, their highs and their side effects, but they all have twos things in common--1.They produce a temporary high. And 2. The user stands to lose everything he or she owns and everything that  matters to him or her. They risk addiction,  their jobs, their money, their homes, their families, their health and their freedom. Another risk are unwanted pregnancies and the  HIV virus since unprotected sex is a common experience while high.

There's one other thing these drugs have in  common, and it's an extremely unfortunate irony. The high the user gets from the drug is available without the drug.  The only thing these drugs can do in the first place is speed up the natural processes, the natural neurotransmitters in the brain. Ecstasy, meth, coke and heroine don't make the user high. The chemicals in their brain make the user high. The specific biochemical that is involved with all of them is dopamine. In the normal human brain under normal circumstances, dopamine is available to produce satisfaction and pleasure from thoughts and life events. Other feel-good biochemicals such as oxytocin, serotonin, endorphin's and GABA certainly play a role with the drugs effects, but dopamine is almost always involved. Dopamine is the body's own "pleasure drug." Sitting here typing this and listening to the rain through the screen door, I feel really good.  I didn't take anything to get "high"  but I am experiencing a rush of good feelings. And why is that? Is it because my computer I'm using didn't have a virus, after all?  Is it the good check up at the dentist this morning? Is it the pleasant phone conversation on the way home? Is it thinking about our trip to California in a few weeks? Is it the rain and the fact that we have a new roof? It's all of these things, but it's none of these things. It's dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphines flooding my nervous system as they are triggered by these thoughts and visualizations. How long can I maintain this high?  For as long as I think the way I'm thinking right now. And what happens when these good feelings wear  off?  They don't wear off. There's no physical or emotional downside. There is no crash. There's no risk of addiction. I won't be arrested. This is my point. Sitting here today I'm on mind-altering drugs. These drugs are very powerful and are very real. And they're free. To hack into these chemicals many recommend exercise and others recommend mindfulness meditation. Both of these are useful. But a quicker way to feel good is to simply change your thinking. Unless you have chronic untreated biochemical imbalances, if you don't like the way you feel, think about something good and you'll immediately feel better.

So that's it.  We all want to feel good.  We all enjoy pleasure. We don't like to feel bad and we don't enjoy misery. Well, most of us don't enjoy misery.  Feeling good is not only possible without chemical intervention, it is only possible without chemical intervention. The street drugs people take deplete the dopamine in their brain, their God-given pleasure drug. The user could have enjoyed a lifetime of pleasure and kept their children, their money, their jobs, their homes, their families, their freedom. The final horror  the user experiences is that their drug of choice no longer brings them any pleasure. They are left with literally nothing.  At this point many of them make that reality permanent.

There is no "war on drugs", that can be won. The Vietnam War was a thousand times more winnable. There is a tidal wave of street drugs crossing our borders every day and even more  cooking in our kitchens. Drugs are here to stay. As long as people feel bad and want to feel good, they will be using drugs. As long as a hand can reach a mouth, people will be taking drugs. As long as people fail to understand that they trade everything for nothing and that everything had been within reach the whole time, people will abuse drugs.

I'm listening to some incredibly beautiful music from the Renaissance, the period of awakening. I'm enjoying the company of billions upon billions  of my favorite friends--dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. Then to prolong the release of oxytocin, the cuddle hormone,  I'm gong to go upstairs, hug my wife and tell her that I love her. And she'll wonder if I'm on drugs.

Almost Living

Since I was a young  boy, I have had several close scrapes with death.  But it always feels like I'm overstating my case to say, "I almost died."  Because in each event my body was not in the throes of death. I was physically fine through each ordeal.  On the other hand, each of them was a very close call.

Four years ago I was involved in a high speed automobile accident on an interstate  near here.  I was driving 70 miles per hour in the right lane when a car hit me hard enough from behind to total my car. So how did I almost die? The car hit my car square on the bumper. If it had clipped my bumper six inches either direction, I probably would not have survived the accident. So did I "almost die?" Paramedics didn't have to revive me. I was not in ICU on life support. So no, it was a close call, but I didn't almost die.

In October of 1991, I was walking across a parking lot when I was struck by a car. After landing on the trunk and rolling to the asphalt, the car's tire stopped about six inches from my head. I got up, brushed myself off and walked away.  So did I nearly die?  It was traumatic, but I was nowhere close to death.

As an adolescent, I spent three years in Troop 99  of the Boy Scouts of America. I enjoyed our weekly meetings in the fellowship hall of the First United Methodist Church, but I especially enjoyed our camping trips.  Besides numerous weekend trips, the event I enjoyed the most was our summer camp at Camp AlaFlo just outside of Enterprise. By the third summer I had earned enough merit badges to have achieved the level of Life Scout and I was turning the corner toward Eagle.. One of the merit badges I earned that summer was the Lifesaving Merit Badge.  It was challenging and I nearly met my Waterloo.

I'm very careful criticizing my mother.  My mother loved me fiercely.  She nurtured me and took care of me in every way possible.  And when I tell you this, you're going to say, "You were plenty old enough to pack your own backpack."  I'll say in advance of your comment that you are exactly right. But you have to understand that my mother took care of me to a fault. She did things for me that she should have taught me to do for myself. I'm quite certain though that for her it was much easier to do these things than to wait for me to figure it out. With that said, she's the one who packed my backpack for this summer camp. We both knew in advance that I would need a long-sleeved shirt as part of the requirement for the Lifesaving Merit Badge. And she did exactly that. She packed a long-sleeved shirt.

This part of the challenge was to jump in the water fully clothed and swim back about fifteen feet to the ladder. Obviously, the idea was to be prepared to act in a desperate situation of life and death. Thankfully, the lake at this place was only about six feet deep. You ask, "What difference does the depth make when you're swimming?" The reason the depth was significant is that the shirt my mother had packed for me was a long-sleeved sweat shirt. I was wearing blue jeans, socks,  my athletic shoes, an undershirt and this very thick sweat shirt. I jumped in the water and sank like an anchor. You may not believe that I remember my thought processes, but I do. Standing on the bottom I thought, "David, if you don't do something quickly, you are going to die."  I considered pulling the sweatshirt over my head, but was afraid I'd get tangled in it and drown. So my next thought was, "JUMP!"  When I sprang from my toes  with all my might, I barely cleared the surface with my mouth and nose. I gulped some air and did it again. You're thinking, "Why didn't somebody jump in and help you?" Keep in mind this was a lake, not a pool.  Somebody would have had to notice a nose bobbing out of dark water. So nobody jumped in to help me. I was on my own. I knew the direction of the ladder and I jumped and breathed my way to it. At the ladder I climbed back into the light of day.

So did I nearly drown?  No, I don't think so. Nobody did CPR; there was no drama. Nobody even knew what happened but me. Which brings up your last question, "Why didn't your scout master stop you from jumping in?"  Yeah, and I could ask 'Why didn't my scout master encourage me not to quit scouts when I was so close to Eagle?" You know, I was one of sixty kids under his watch, he had no idea what I was going through. He was doing the best he could do. I was one of three kids under my mother's watch and she was doing the best she could do, too.

I drive that interstate quite often. I walked across that parking lot just the other day. Two years ago when I was home, a scout master took me on a tour of Camp AlaFlo and I saw that lake and that ladder. No, I didn't almost die. But every day of my life, I try to do so much more than almost live. Because the next time I might not be so lucky.

The Cost of Forgiveness

"It's sad, it's sad, it's a sad, sad situation and it's getting more and more absurd.  It's sad, it's sad. Why can't we talk it over. Oh it seems to me that sorry seems to be the hardest word." Johann Fransson

It's been said that the six most powerful words in the English language to speak are, "I was wrong. Please forgive me." They are also the six most difficult words to say.

Why is it so hard for most of us to apologize?  There are a multitude of reasons, but to some extent an apology feels like a little death. To admit that we were wrong feels like a blow to our person and  to our worth. But nothing could be further from the truth.  To admit that we were wrong is to say, "I acknowledge your worth as a human being. I acknowledge your feelings and admit that I have wronged you.  But I also acknowledge that I am a human being too  and as such I sometimes make mistakes."

And notice that you don't say "I'm sorry." You say, "I was wrong."  There is a world of difference in the two statements.  "I'm sorry" suggests a flaw in your personality. "I'm sorry" is a personal indictment. "I was wrong" suggests that there is nothing wrong with "I" but that "I" made an honest mistake. And that "I" is none the less for it.

Then there are the last three words of "please forgive me." Those words are even harder to say than "I was wrong."  To ask forgiveness temporarily gives the offended party all the power. It feels like you're putting your whole self on the line (although you're not) and making yourself totally vulnerable (which you are). And then you wait for a response. The truth is it shouldn't matter much to you how s/he responds. You have now done all you can do. Hopefully, the response is an acceptance of your apology,  receipt of your request for forgiveness and full restoration of the relationship.  In many cases that is not the response. Since you are a caring person to begin with, the temptation is to continue to feel bad about it. I suggest you let yourself feel very bad about it for about ten minutes. I mean feel really bad. Tell yourself what a terrible person you are for offending this person. Then get over it.  Say to yourself, "I made a mistake. I admitted it. I asked for forgiveness. That's all I can do. If s/he wants to withhold love and affection till the end of time, that is on her and not  on me." If you stay upset because the person won't forgive you, then be equally as upset that you refuse to forgive yourself.   Forgive yourself and her reaction will cease to matter.

"And how are you so qualified to offer all this free advice?", you ask.  I'm qualified by years and  years of personal experience.  And the advice I got wasn't free.

"Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word" is a beautiful song, but it offers mostly bad advice. "Why can't we talk it over?" is a good thing. "What have I got to do to make you love me?"  is a terrible thing.  And we don't need to be sorry. We need to be forgiven. Self-flagellation doesn't just make us feel bad, it is physically harmful. An article in Prevention magazine states, "Remembering those bad feelings dumps a hit of corrosive chemicals into your bloodstream. They increase your heart rate, raise your blood pressure and disrupt your digestion. You increase your heart attack risk and the risk of depression."

Bob Marley sings in Redemption Song, "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds." The door to mental bondage locks only from the inside. No one else can lock it or unlock it but you. God Himself can't turn the key. It's not easy to turn, but to experience absolution, it's necessary. Forgiveness is not an act, it's a way of life. We breathe it in and breathe it out. Forgiveness doesn't mean we are sinners, it means we are human.

One last thing, just because someone is upset with you, doesn't necessarily mean you did anything wrong. People get upset for a lot of reasons. People are responsible for their own feelings. My wife heard in a seminar years ago,"What someone says about you says much more about them than it does about you." If this is his problem, don't make it yours. Don't apologize.  Let him deal with it. Express your concern, but not your regret. But if you feel you were wrong, there are only six words between you and the light of day.  "I was wrong. Please forgive me."  But understand that this forgiveness is not for them; it's for you. It's not easy, but it's necessary.

An Interview with David Helms

We finally caught up with David Helms, the famous blogger of In A Different Light, to ask him a few questions about  himself and his writing.  He travels extensively, sometimes as far as twenty or thirty miles away from home, holds down a job three days a week, has a wife and a family(who doesn't live anywhere near him). He volunteers at a hospital and he exercises three or four times a month. He's a very busy man.

Blogger Today: David, where did you get the title In a Different Light?

David:  I would like to tell you that it's a combination of the expression "in a different light", meaning looking at something a different way, and the actual properties of light. Since light moves at 186,000 miles per second, anything you see, even if you're staring at it,  is always in a different light.

Blogger Today: Then if that's not it, where did you get the name?

David: When my son helped me set up this blog,  he said, "Dad, what do you want to call it?"  And I said, "Let's call it 'In a Different Light' ".  He said, "I like it".

Blogger Today: Why do you write?

David: I write because the cursor is blinking.

Blogger Today:  What do you mean by that, "the cursor is blinking"?

David: What I mean is that the Blogspot cursor blinking on a blank screen compels me to write. The blank page looks very empty and lonely. It looks to me that it is asking for letters to keep it company.

Blogger Today:  But if you didn't look at the page in the first place, you wouldn't see the blank screen.

David: You make an excellent point, but I look at it because it needs looking at. It needs someone to write on it.

Blogger Today:  Are you being tongue-in-cheek about this?

David: Mostly, but not entirely.

Blogger Today:  Where do you get your ideas? How do you decide on any given day what you want to say to your readers?

David: The short answer to your first question is that my ideas find me.  As far as the second question is concerned, most of the time I've been batting around an idea for days. But sometimes I don't know what I'm going to write until I sit down to write.  In that case, the idea finds me right then.  Many times I find an idea while I'm looking for something else.

Blogger Today:  Can you give an example of that?

David: I can give an example from as soon  as today.  My current music obsession is a song by Morten Lauridsen called Where Have the Actors Gone.  I have actually corresponded with Lauridsen recently about this song.  He explained why the song means so much to him and maybe why it means so much to me. This afternoon after listening to the song, YouTube cycled to the next song Prayer by Lauridsen.  While listening I read about the text; it was  the poem Prayer by Dana Gioia.  In an interview with Gioia I learned that he wrote the poem after the death of his young son.  I sensed that pathos in the music  before I knew that story.  That then made me think about my little brother who in 1963 was born, lived eight days and died.  I say "made me think about it" when the truth is he is never that far from my thoughts. Although there is a world of thoughts and feelings around his life and death.I normally choose not to write about it.. But I thought of using part of Gioia's poem as a jumping off place to talk about  it.

Blogger Today: So are you going to write this?

David: Not any time soon. What I think about writing and what I actually write are completely different things.

Blogger Today:  But David you talk about deeply emotional things, why would you not talk about something as significant as your own brother's death?

David: This family saga is just too complicated.  I don't write this story out of respect for the people involved, especially my mother, who took her unimaginable pain to her grave, The story also evokes much pain in me. That's something I have to be careful about.

Blogger Today:  Then why do you talk about emotional issues at all?

David: Because I'm an emotional being before I'm anything else.  And I can tell you by much experience that not all emotions feel good. And, certainly, not all emotions feel bad. So  I write from that experience.  People tell me that I think too much, and I do,  but I feel much more deeply than I think. My feelings have taken me to the doors of hell and the gates of heaven, and everywhere in between. I now live in the middle ground, but I respect the fact that those gates are not far away.

Blogger Today:  You say you feel more than you think, but according to you don't all human emotions originate from the brain? Don't we think them up?

David: All emotions originate from the nervous system, but hundreds of billions of those neurotransmitters are in the gut.

Blogger Today: So you're saying "a gut feeling" is real?

David: Yes, it's very real.

Blogger Today: Why are you writing this blog when you could be writing a book?

David: It's that blinking cursor thing. It is just too easy for me  to push the cursor down the page. When I've pushed it as far as I want, I move my pointer to Publish and it's done. But, actually, I've written several books. Over the past twelve years I have published over 2,000 one thousand word essays. That's two million words. These could be published as a whole set of books.

Blogger Today: So when are you going to do this?

David: Not today.

Blogger Today:  Do you have any idea how many people read your blog?

David: The Blogspot analytics suggest that about 100 people read my posts quite regularly, but a recent article I posted about how the closing of a local church affected me garnered nearly 900 views.

Blogger Today: Do 900 readers mean more to you than a 100 readers?

David: About nine times as much.

Blogger Today:  Do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with our readers?

David: The highest compliment anyone has ever given me about the things I write is what my friend Lori said to me several years ago, "When I read your posts", she told me, "I feel something." That matters to me. It matters to me that my words sometimes transfer to the reader what I feel as I write them. I find that to be quite remarkable and quite satisfying.

Blogger Today:  David, I know you need to leave to go to Starbucks to drink coffee and read a book, so I won't keep you any longer. Thanks so much for carving this time out of your very busy day to talk with us at Blogger Today.  You can find David on Facebook or at davidrhelms.blogspot.com.

David: You're very welcome. I enjoyed talking with you.