Posts
Sunday, December 7, 2008
So much more to say
Things have been happening so fast that all I've had time to do is scribble them down and not had time to make any sense out of most of it. I will publish more in the ensuing days. I'm off to a meditation in Chico, CA.
having faith
I don’t know if I’ll cure this or how I’ll make it through or what the process will look like or where I’ll be at in 6 months or a year or 3. I’m told that this path is one of increased faith; a faith walk with God. I’m to trust with all my heart, head, soul and strength. ‘No matter what you see, what you feel, know that the healing has taken place, is within you now.” Tears. “God will heal you so others can see the light of God’s love and see that his strength is without limits.” I’m filled to overflowing, but there’s always room for more and if it overflows and pours out of me, then others will just have to see it and be with it and experience it and it will strengthen their faith. Rise up! And be the man that God created me to be. I’m told I’m going to need a mighty strength. Belief beyond measure, Blessed beyond measure. Allow him to carry me.
I want to create an altar outside in the yard. An altar of thanksgiving. And the sign.
I want to create an altar outside in the yard. An altar of thanksgiving. And the sign.
Stanford, Remove Primary, Treatment Options
Haven't posted in a while. Blogger's been messed up for a few days, but I've been messed up for a much longer time. Went to a week long trade show the first week of November, came back from there and on the anniversary of my original biopsy went to Stanford to the Head and Neck clinic for consultation. They scheduled another biopsy for the 21st, so did that. They took out some bits including right tonsil and found the primary in there, so completely removed that tonsil. I was on liquid hydrocodone with a massive sore throat for about ten days. Throat is still sore 16 or 17 days later.
Went back 10 days later to explore treatment options. Of course it's chemo/rad vs. a suicide in their minds. I wrestled so hard with all of that and finally opted for a combination of faith and my organic methods. They were surprised that I was 'doing as well as I was' two years after dx. It's been a very tough decision, but conv. treatment... well, I'm tired of talking about it. It's horrendous and would probably involve things like bankruptcy and dentures and being really really sick for quite a while.
Massive interpersonal relationship issues on top of that. Ah, life. I've been in a state of shock. Just coming out. See previous post.
Went back 10 days later to explore treatment options. Of course it's chemo/rad vs. a suicide in their minds. I wrestled so hard with all of that and finally opted for a combination of faith and my organic methods. They were surprised that I was 'doing as well as I was' two years after dx. It's been a very tough decision, but conv. treatment... well, I'm tired of talking about it. It's horrendous and would probably involve things like bankruptcy and dentures and being really really sick for quite a while.
Massive interpersonal relationship issues on top of that. Ah, life. I've been in a state of shock. Just coming out. See previous post.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Changes
I don’t know where to begin and I don’t know how to say it. I could start with the light of the fall morning on the slopes across from my window. I could start with the tears that I’ve shed over the changes in my physical capabilities or the ones that start when I survey the damage that I’ve done to myself. Not damage, really, but life energy expended, never to be retrieved except through the learning. And what to do with that learning? Who would I teach? How would I codify it?
It’s so not about who you vote for. It’s not about your retirement account or where you live. How do you love and who waits for you so patiently and quietly that you so seldom realize His presence? There is no time. There is all the time. And now is the only now we have.
The candle does not gutter low, neither is it as tall as it once was. It is the only candle we have. This day begins like others have and will and there are things that must be attended to.
Pass by the people on the street, the ones on bikes, the youth, those who strive to win and change the world. The world will not be changed. It is. Life is not. There are greater things.
Sometimes I wish the Cancer would make up its mind to either kill me or leave me alone. I grow tired of living in between. I am grateful that I am healthy now, though tired at times but one wonders every day if this is the day or tomorrow is the day or next Spring or late February or just exactly fucking when.
It’s so not about who you vote for. It’s not about your retirement account or where you live. How do you love and who waits for you so patiently and quietly that you so seldom realize His presence? There is no time. There is all the time. And now is the only now we have.
The candle does not gutter low, neither is it as tall as it once was. It is the only candle we have. This day begins like others have and will and there are things that must be attended to.
Pass by the people on the street, the ones on bikes, the youth, those who strive to win and change the world. The world will not be changed. It is. Life is not. There are greater things.
Sometimes I wish the Cancer would make up its mind to either kill me or leave me alone. I grow tired of living in between. I am grateful that I am healthy now, though tired at times but one wonders every day if this is the day or tomorrow is the day or next Spring or late February or just exactly fucking when.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Another Wednesday on the Road
There is so much to say to so many. It will all be said.
Damp sea air, long beach predawn
The smell of god, waves crashing unseen, unheard, somewhere relentlessly.
People drive too fast to acknowledge let alone offer love to the pines and eucalyptus trees in the median.
Just another 'thing' at 40 mph, like another car or a stop sign.
I walk through the median among the traffic and touch each one and tell them I love them.
And I will soon be in a cab, then a busy airport, then a plane, then an airport, then a cab again.
I am my lesson, this body, this mind, this open hearted connectedness.
And so I stop to listen and notice, for me and for all of us, just for this moment.
Damp sea air, long beach predawn
The smell of god, waves crashing unseen, unheard, somewhere relentlessly.
People drive too fast to acknowledge let alone offer love to the pines and eucalyptus trees in the median.
Just another 'thing' at 40 mph, like another car or a stop sign.
I walk through the median among the traffic and touch each one and tell them I love them.
And I will soon be in a cab, then a busy airport, then a plane, then an airport, then a cab again.
I am my lesson, this body, this mind, this open hearted connectedness.
And so I stop to listen and notice, for me and for all of us, just for this moment.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Juan Tomas Guerrero
My name is Juan Tomas Guerrero. I am the proprietor of the only hardware store in Perula, Jalisco, Mexico. We sell everything from wheelbarrows to paint. I have five men working for me and if you ever need anything in the way of hardware, we have all of the best brands.
I’m not a story teller, but a story needed to be told about what has been happening in our town for the past year. It sort of starts with the death of a man that none of us knew and works backwards.
First, I should tell you a little about our town, Perula. It is a fishing village on the Pacific coast, about 95 Kilometers south of Puerto Vallarta. We get a few tourists and there are some hotels here. Most of the tourists are people from Guadalajara. The plaza needs paint and I’d gladly donate enough to paint the gazebo and the curb around it, but no one wants to paint it. There are a couple of lunch counters. We even have a disco. Occasionally, we get a gringo tourist or two, but they don’t stay long and hardly any come back. We don’t have what they want, I guess. I’ve told people that we ought to figure out what they want so they come and spend their money here. Everyone gets on the band wagon for awhile, but then life catches up to us and we turn our attention back to other things. We’re all busy trying to make ends meet and survive. There doesn’t seem to be time to do anything extra and we don’t really like the gringos anyway, we just want their money.
Well, we had a gringo tourist here, but he was more than a tourist. He stayed for almost a year. He never actually left, if you want the truth. He’s buried over by the churchyard. He can’t be in the churchyard, because he committed suicide. Took a bunch of pills. It goes against God to kill yourself, everyone knows that, but he was in a lot of pain and was going to die anyway. He had the cancer and no one to take care of him, except Bebe, the widow he rented a room from.
So anyway, the Gringo showed up in January, after Christmas in a pickup. It was a big pickup, pretty nice, but older a diesel. I bought it from him a month ago. I got a great deal on it. He said he didn’t care about the import penalty. Now I know why. He was skinny by then and his face was swollen and he looked tired and drawn. I guess it was the cancer.
When he showed up after a few days, he took a room with Bebe, the widow over by the beach. She has a little run down building in the back yard away from the chickens. It has a little bathroom, I guess and an outdoor kitchen under the trees. I’d see him walking around town, trying the little restaurants that don’t serve any gringo food. Maria over at the economico said he brought his own coffee with him and a little plastic cone and would order just boiling hot water and a glass of milk. He made his own coffee at the table, called it café tipo gringo. Gringo style. He ate good at first, whatever she put in front of him, didn’t complain, was very polite and friendly. He seemed happy when I saw him around. He even came in here once and bought a little plane. He said he wanted to fix a couple of doors over at Bebe’s for her. Imagine paying rent and fixing things for free.
He didn’t know anyone here, didn’t come with anyone and he didn’t try to interfere in anyone’s lives. Patricio, the schoolmaster said that he showed up over at the school with boxes of supplies. He banged on the gate with a rock until one of the teachers came out and asked what he wanted. His Spanish was not very good back then, but it got better. Even at the end he didn’t seem to understand a lot of what he was told.
Every few nights he’d show up over at the hotel and have a pina colada. He sat on the patio and watched the sun go down into the Pacific. It’s a pretty nice little hotel, mostly empty except for Santa Semana, and Christmas. Juan Flores is the waiter. They sort of became friends. I guess that’s how he found out about people and their troubles. That little Guttierez boy with the harelip and Angelica Luna, the seamstress.
Carlos Guttierez’s boy is smart as a whip and pretty good looking, but his lip had that big split in it and he didn’t talk right. Never would have found a woman and the doctor wanted more money to fix it than even I could afford. One day the doctor came to me and said, “You tell Carlos Guttierez that someone paid to have his boy’s lip fixed and I want to do it next Tuesday.” That doctor thinks he’s a big man driving around in his shiny new Nissan. He could’ve just told Carlos himself but he didn’t want to drive down to Barrio Santa Cruz and get his car dirty, I guess. He did a good job, the boys lip looks good and he’s smiling. You can tell he’s happy with it, always looking in the shop windows at himself. He’ll probably be full of himself with the girls in a few years.
Nobody figured out who paid it. Padre said it wasn’t the church. It was funny because the church seemed to have some extra money there for awhile. The sacristy got painted and Padre had the roof patched so the water didn’t drip in when it rained. Sanchez’s fixed his car too. Got it running again. It needed a starter motor. Padre said that a bunch of money had turned up three different times with a note that just said, “A gift for the church”.
The gringo liked to fish. He bought a little aluminum boat with a motor and would take off early in the morning just before dawn. Sometimes he’d take one of the kids hanging around at the marina and they’d go out for hours and come back with some yellow fin tuna. He’d either let the kid take it home or give it to a woman in Barrio Angel where the poor people live in metal shacks. The woman has two little girls and no husband. The no good bastard just left her one day. It was probably a good thing because he was always drunk and I think he beat her, but I know the mother hardly eats anything because she saves whatever there is for her girls.
I’m not a story teller, but a story needed to be told about what has been happening in our town for the past year. It sort of starts with the death of a man that none of us knew and works backwards.
First, I should tell you a little about our town, Perula. It is a fishing village on the Pacific coast, about 95 Kilometers south of Puerto Vallarta. We get a few tourists and there are some hotels here. Most of the tourists are people from Guadalajara. The plaza needs paint and I’d gladly donate enough to paint the gazebo and the curb around it, but no one wants to paint it. There are a couple of lunch counters. We even have a disco. Occasionally, we get a gringo tourist or two, but they don’t stay long and hardly any come back. We don’t have what they want, I guess. I’ve told people that we ought to figure out what they want so they come and spend their money here. Everyone gets on the band wagon for awhile, but then life catches up to us and we turn our attention back to other things. We’re all busy trying to make ends meet and survive. There doesn’t seem to be time to do anything extra and we don’t really like the gringos anyway, we just want their money.
Well, we had a gringo tourist here, but he was more than a tourist. He stayed for almost a year. He never actually left, if you want the truth. He’s buried over by the churchyard. He can’t be in the churchyard, because he committed suicide. Took a bunch of pills. It goes against God to kill yourself, everyone knows that, but he was in a lot of pain and was going to die anyway. He had the cancer and no one to take care of him, except Bebe, the widow he rented a room from.
So anyway, the Gringo showed up in January, after Christmas in a pickup. It was a big pickup, pretty nice, but older a diesel. I bought it from him a month ago. I got a great deal on it. He said he didn’t care about the import penalty. Now I know why. He was skinny by then and his face was swollen and he looked tired and drawn. I guess it was the cancer.
When he showed up after a few days, he took a room with Bebe, the widow over by the beach. She has a little run down building in the back yard away from the chickens. It has a little bathroom, I guess and an outdoor kitchen under the trees. I’d see him walking around town, trying the little restaurants that don’t serve any gringo food. Maria over at the economico said he brought his own coffee with him and a little plastic cone and would order just boiling hot water and a glass of milk. He made his own coffee at the table, called it café tipo gringo. Gringo style. He ate good at first, whatever she put in front of him, didn’t complain, was very polite and friendly. He seemed happy when I saw him around. He even came in here once and bought a little plane. He said he wanted to fix a couple of doors over at Bebe’s for her. Imagine paying rent and fixing things for free.
He didn’t know anyone here, didn’t come with anyone and he didn’t try to interfere in anyone’s lives. Patricio, the schoolmaster said that he showed up over at the school with boxes of supplies. He banged on the gate with a rock until one of the teachers came out and asked what he wanted. His Spanish was not very good back then, but it got better. Even at the end he didn’t seem to understand a lot of what he was told.
Every few nights he’d show up over at the hotel and have a pina colada. He sat on the patio and watched the sun go down into the Pacific. It’s a pretty nice little hotel, mostly empty except for Santa Semana, and Christmas. Juan Flores is the waiter. They sort of became friends. I guess that’s how he found out about people and their troubles. That little Guttierez boy with the harelip and Angelica Luna, the seamstress.
Carlos Guttierez’s boy is smart as a whip and pretty good looking, but his lip had that big split in it and he didn’t talk right. Never would have found a woman and the doctor wanted more money to fix it than even I could afford. One day the doctor came to me and said, “You tell Carlos Guttierez that someone paid to have his boy’s lip fixed and I want to do it next Tuesday.” That doctor thinks he’s a big man driving around in his shiny new Nissan. He could’ve just told Carlos himself but he didn’t want to drive down to Barrio Santa Cruz and get his car dirty, I guess. He did a good job, the boys lip looks good and he’s smiling. You can tell he’s happy with it, always looking in the shop windows at himself. He’ll probably be full of himself with the girls in a few years.
Nobody figured out who paid it. Padre said it wasn’t the church. It was funny because the church seemed to have some extra money there for awhile. The sacristy got painted and Padre had the roof patched so the water didn’t drip in when it rained. Sanchez’s fixed his car too. Got it running again. It needed a starter motor. Padre said that a bunch of money had turned up three different times with a note that just said, “A gift for the church”.
The gringo liked to fish. He bought a little aluminum boat with a motor and would take off early in the morning just before dawn. Sometimes he’d take one of the kids hanging around at the marina and they’d go out for hours and come back with some yellow fin tuna. He’d either let the kid take it home or give it to a woman in Barrio Angel where the poor people live in metal shacks. The woman has two little girls and no husband. The no good bastard just left her one day. It was probably a good thing because he was always drunk and I think he beat her, but I know the mother hardly eats anything because she saves whatever there is for her girls.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Negative thoughts disconnect us
Negative thoughts disconnect us from the fire of Christ that lives inside all of us
Like a flame inside us it withers and flickers with the winds wrought by negativity, but
Burns brighter and stronger with every thought that is sponsored by love.
There is a cumulative effect. There is only love and the call for love, which can look like fear, anger or sadness. Events and interactions that seem negative cannot impact a fire fueled by weeks and months and years of lovingness. Taking in negativity on a regular basis turns a bright burning flame into a smoky smoldering, barely lighted wick. You see it everyday in people whose lives are filled with sadness. Much of this is self-induced. People have forgotten how to love, are afraid to laugh or be happy, anticipating the next awful event in their lives.
People sometimes go crazy and do horrible things to others. We read it in the news or see it on TV because negativity makes news that many apparently think they need. If you know of something dark and ugly, just don’t pass it on. If it happened a few hundred miles away or more, there is no reason to propagate the negativity by mentioning it.
When someone around you is being negative and you find it impacting you, take a walk, go outside and away from the negativity especially consume/inhale/inspire things that are godly, Christ like, fuel for the flame, a cloud, a bird, a tree, the freshness of the wind on your face.
Like a flame inside us it withers and flickers with the winds wrought by negativity, but
Burns brighter and stronger with every thought that is sponsored by love.
There is a cumulative effect. There is only love and the call for love, which can look like fear, anger or sadness. Events and interactions that seem negative cannot impact a fire fueled by weeks and months and years of lovingness. Taking in negativity on a regular basis turns a bright burning flame into a smoky smoldering, barely lighted wick. You see it everyday in people whose lives are filled with sadness. Much of this is self-induced. People have forgotten how to love, are afraid to laugh or be happy, anticipating the next awful event in their lives.
People sometimes go crazy and do horrible things to others. We read it in the news or see it on TV because negativity makes news that many apparently think they need. If you know of something dark and ugly, just don’t pass it on. If it happened a few hundred miles away or more, there is no reason to propagate the negativity by mentioning it.
When someone around you is being negative and you find it impacting you, take a walk, go outside and away from the negativity especially consume/inhale/inspire things that are godly, Christ like, fuel for the flame, a cloud, a bird, a tree, the freshness of the wind on your face.
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