Saturday Video

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand

I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding
You must help me if you can

Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long?

'Cause I have wandered through this world
And as each moment has unfurled
I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams

People go just where they will
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it's later than it seems

Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what you see
I hear their cries
Just say if it's too late for me

Doctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky
Is this the prize
For having learned how not to cry?

The Instructive Nature of Pain

The past election proved to the American people that, as a nation, we are not yet post-racial. But arguably it did show that we may have, confirming years of predictions, finally become a post-Christian, secular society. When cultural conservatives and the Religious Right will take a wild gamble by backing perhaps the least moral presidential candidate ever, the lessons learned go well beyond base hypocrisy and voting out of fear rather than true devotion to a higher law. Human-made notions of race, class, and the always worrisome matter of money were a higher priority to many voters than the primacy of religion.

Now the Democratic Party wanders about in the desert like the Israelites of yore, seeking its true north. The Old Testament is full of tribes and societies who lost their path completely, deviated from belief in God, and pursued false idols instead. Granted our freedom by a loving, not punitive deity, we have as much right to act in ways that are harmful as they are healthy. Beyond superficial notions of winner and loser, one observes no clear direction for this country. Eight years ago, our cups runneth over with expectations. Now we pray for the least destructive course of action to follow.

The Enlightenment provided us an abiding belief in rationalism, that provided enough scrutiny and scientific precision, there was little the human mind could not discover. But by its conclusion it also kindled an extremely influential movement in thought and religious observance known as the Great Awakening. Its first period ran astride several concurrent philosophical and secular revolutions, most famously giving rise to the influential New England sect known as the Puritans, whose legacy we will celebrate in part when the annual Thanksgiving holiday is observed next week. The second Great Awakening of the late 18th and early 19th centuries gave us Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), Shakers, Seventh-Day Adventists, and many other professedly Christian denominations.

The context is now set before us. How then should we view the current day? I’ve learned the hard way in discussion with liberals and progressives that forming my arguments from a defensive posture is often the best tact. Using logic and specific, clear-cut examples isn’t merely an effective strategy for the debate team or academic discourse. It changes the dynamics of an argument. Done well, even skeptics have to concede that the opposition has a valid point to make.

Looking backwards into our past no more than fifty or sixty years ago, Americans regularly used biblical allusions in modern day speech. We had a strong cultural familiarity with Scripture, one that has faded a little with the passage of time, but is still strong enough to be revived, much like Lazarus. Apologetics is defined as a branch of theology concerned with the defense or proof of Christianity. I’ve adopted the technique myself to speak to many who fear the worst about the faith, to show that there is great good in belief and much helpful in times of turbulence.

Though I never identified myself as an atheist, I spent many years as an agnostic and most assuredly as a severe critic of Christianity in any form. I suppose in part I am wrestling here with my old self, the way I used to be. The ongoing debate exists foremost within myself and to some extent it always will. Still, I am far from unusual. This perpetual back and forth exists within the heart of everyone who cast a ballot or stated a strong opinion one way or another, if we are to be truly honest with each other. Every few years we are asked whether we need a course correction or should keep steady. Perception is reality. Objective fact can be difficult to discern.

One of the teachings of Jesus is known as the Parable of the Shrewd Manager. A corrupt and deliberately dishonest manager of money was caught red handed in the act. Charges were brought against him. His employer called him to account for his misdoings, intending to fire him on the spot. Realizing he was in a tight spot, the shrewd manager worked out crooked deals with the customers of his boss, carving out for himself a soft place to land. Deep discounts were worked out immediately, reducing payments and debts.

As the story concludes, a few verses of one translation in particular capture the essence of this pertinent parable.

The rich man [employer] had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light. If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won't be honest with greater responsibilities. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?

Now we have elected a shrewd manager of our own, a man who could not correctly name and identify a book of the New Testament. In fairness, Howard Dean whiffed on this matter, too. Twelve years ago, the former Vermont governor was asked to identify his favorite book of the New Testament. The answer provided was Job, which is, of course, located in the Old Testament. At least he came close.

Both of these examples prove that religious identification and proficiency with theology is no longer a strict litmus test for major candidates. The election of Trump shows that ideological persuasion speaks more loudly than almost anything else. Religious or not religious at all, millions of us voted for self-interest first and foremost. In theory, Christianity is a religion that encourages us to think beyond ourselves and our own narrow concerns.

Judaeo-Christian values would have us believe that adversity and pain are necessary means of humility, guarding against hubris. The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes teaches that loss and injustice are inevitable.

What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again. I also noticed that under the sun there is evil in the courtroom. Yes, even the courts of law are corrupt! I said to myself, "In due season God will judge everyone, both good and bad, for all their deeds. I also thought about the human condition--how God proves to people that they are like animals.”

We will die as a civilization when we stop believing that change is possible. Even those who voted against their own interests yet again wanted to believe that their lives could improve. A desperately frustrated electorate chose a radical candidate, a move that was as audacious as it was reckless. But neither should it surprise us. In centuries prior to the current day, before the advent of democratic elections, many backed bad kings and emperors to the bitter end.

Any study of history shows that a confluence of events, some intentional, many not, shape the success or failure of any regime. This shouldn’t mean that we ought to be passive observers of what events will unfold in front of us, but it does mean that we, collectively as Americans, have far less control over the future than we may even recognize.

Quote of the Week

"The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary is it that the holder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance of conventionalities generally, and that, if possible, he should get the reputation of being well-to-do in the world."- Samuel Butler

Saturday Video

To pretend no one can find
The fallacies of morning rose
Forbidden fruit, hidden eyes
Curtises that I despise in me

Take a ride, take a shot now
'Cause nobody loves me
It's true
Not like you do

Covered by the blind belief
That fantasies of sinful screens
Bear the facts, assume the dye
End the vows no need to lie, enjoy

Take a ride, take a shot now
'Cause nobody loves me
It's true
Not like you do

Who am I, what and why
'Cause all I have left
Is my memories of yesterday

Oh these sour times
'Cause nobody loves me
It's true
Not like you do

After time the bitter taste
Of innocence decent or race
Scattered seeds, buried lives
Mysteries of our disguise revolve

Circumstance will decide
Nobody loves me
It's true
Not like you do

Class Envy and Trump's Role in What Comes Next

Part of the American Dream, at least starting at the beginning of the last century, is predicated upon the hope that each of us might attain a four-year college degree. Three quarters of a century ago, college was standard procedure only for those with elite financial means. Both of my mother’s parents, small-town Southerners raised lower-middle class, were told from a very young age that they too might matriculate someday.  They anticipated college with the eagerness of small children on Christmas morning, alongside the resulting climb up the class ladder and greater income they were sure would follow. It was the most profound collective disappointment of their lives that the Great Depression wiped out every penny of their college fund.

My grandfather had a habit of asking me, as a young boy, whether or not certain Presidents had achieved a college degree. I was interested in history and political science, even then. Often I guessed right. Sometimes I guessed wrongly.

Lying on his deathbed, his body ravaged by cancer, my grandfather asked me one final time. Did Harry Truman go to college? I wagered a tentative guess. Yes, I said, pensively. No, he replied, sadly. He did not.

The 2016 race has been dissected in a million different ways by now. We’ll be talking about compelling and entirely plausible reasons why it ended the way it did for at least the next two years. In my rough estimation, frustrated working class people handed this election to Donald Trump. But he has a tall order on his plate, a now empty lunch-pail of American voters, much like the former factory worker clamoring for happier days where, said entirely without irony, America can be great again.

Can President-Elect Trump really put the genie back in the bottle? For decades pundits and news reports informed us that we were quickly moving from an industrial-based economy to the service/information economy that becomes more and more of a force with every passing day. I am unconvinced in the success of Trump’s approach to this extremely complex problem, but do not enjoy seeing people in pain and anger. I am eager for something different, but I’m genuinely afraid of what “something different” is really going to look like for the next four years.

We’ve never really drawn up a sharp distinction in the United States about precisely how our jobs and career paths should be structured. Should we adopt a strict system of tracking similar to the UK? In their approach, early in life, every British citizen is directed towards either a university education or a career in trade. Systems of examinations are used to make individual determinations.

The approach has its detractors, those who feel that it locks in people unfairly. They argue that some individuals are late bloomers, who might change their minds and wish to reverse course. Furthermore, those who disagree adamantly believe that everyone ought to have full freedom of how they choose to make their living. These are valid points, but they lead to a much greater issue we have skirted over for decades.

Does every American need a college degree? A PBS report from two years ago claims that 40% of every citizen in the United States has received at least a bachelor’s. And yet, one would think that having reached this benchmark to success, it would be far easier to attain stable, lasting employment. Even these so-called elites find themselves routinely disenchanted and demoralized, realizing that the expensive degree they hold in their hands means far less than they ever dreamed. And it goes without saying that they are often stuck with thousands of dollars in student loan debt that they will often carry with them into middle age and even beyond. Society says we all ought to have a degree, as do well-meaning parents and high school guidance counselors, but is it finally time to question that assumption and others like it?

But we must also consider, somewhat more heavily, the non-college, working class, often rural-dwellers who effectively flipped this election. What were their motivations? Racism has proven to be alive in well in this campaign, yes, but I would make a case that a more profound impact drove Trump turnout: class envy. American identity is contradictory, as I suppose is true for every country. One is supposed to receive higher education to raise oneself up in station, a step up the ladder. It’s drilled into us from a very young age. Then we begin to recognize that there are social distinctions in life. With time, we learn that we fit into one of them and don’t fit into others.

As I began, a college education and upward mobility is a basic tenet of the American dream, but it often sets a standard that cannot be lived up to no matter how hard a person works and saves. Or, for that matter, borrows. It’s difficult to overemphasize the amount of jealousy and resentment that led many to reject Hillary Clinton wholesale this cycle. This election wasn’t rigged. It is possible for anyone to be President, but to be President, you have to bill yourself as part soothing salve for grievous wrong while ginning up natural prejudices based on economic inequality and simple tribalism. This has been the strategy of both parties over the years.    

If Donald Trump somehow succeeds in returning manufacturing jobs to this country, we will need to reverse course as a nation. It will be not just acceptable, but necessary to work a blue-collar job where having a college degree might be necessary, or might be utterly superfluous. The automobile plant that returns to the United States, in this hypothetical scenario, probably needs four months to train its employees for work specific only to its organization, not four years spent elsewhere learning how to binge drink.

My father’s parents were career textile mill workers. They had, at best, an eighth grade education between the two of them. Dad wanted more for himself, and due to his own hard work, he raised myself and my two sisters in a pretty typical middle-class suburb. Returning to his working class roots was never an option he ever entertained. One summer in the middle of college he worked at the mill, found it totally distasteful to every ounce of his being, and resolved to never return. He got out, and though he experienced some guilt about the people he left behind, he found life much better away from having next to nothing.

I’m not sure that sort of upward trajectory in American society exists anymore. How do we inform Americans that it’s okay to not be highly educated? Being highly educated is as much mindset as it fact. How do we encourage citizens to live in small towns without access to excellent medical care, unable to pick from a multitude of choices to best spend their money, among many other metrics, and be generally okay with what to many would be a step back, not a step forward? I recall a song popular one hundred years ago during World War I. "How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree?)

Trump’s America is going to either thrive or fail dismally based on a concept that is very foreign to American ears. It is called class solidarity. Class solidarity by its very definition is antithetical to the American Dream. It asks for single-minded devotion and a sense of common purpose, one not constantly distracted by demands of self-interest alone, the possibility of making greater income for oneself. The United States has had pockets of this sort of thinking when unions were much stronger. I am not sure we can kill off this desire for greater individual social mobility and turn millions of Americans into happy warriors.

This election has proven that almost anything is possible. But unless Trump can deliver on the promises he has made, now validated by somewhat less half the electorate, his tenure will be a complete waste of four years. Americans do need unity, but it needs to be communal unity, not an expedient unity for the short term, always hungering for the next rung up the proverbial ladder. When fathers and mothers aspire for their offspring to work alongside them at Trump Steel and Rail Corporation™, not the promise of a rise in class status, then these lofty promises might conceivably work. But I’m not holding my breath.

Quote of the Week

The end will show the whole truth.-William the Silent

Saturday Video

Pack the bag, I'm goin' away
It's over, goin' home
Thank your people, but it's too much to stay
It's done now, I'm goin' home

Now I feel like I'm one
Now I feel like I'm due
Spent my time in some fun
And for that, I thank you

It's over, it's over, it's over, I'm goin' home
It's over, it's over, and for that I thank you

Visual Image

Click to embiggen.

Quote of the Week

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.-Frank Crane

A Moral Imperative: Rescuing the Stuck

It may be instructive at this late stage of the Presidential Election to look at the long view, to spy where we are now from where we started out. All four of my grandparents were proud New Deal FDR Democrats from their early life until when they passed away. Collectively, they formed a great coalition that lasted for a generation. Working class people like they themselves believed that the Democratic Party had been the only one to look out for the needs of poor Americans. Though some would claim that what they thought was merely clever spin and persuasive rhetoric, they were not alone in that sentiment. For decades, most Southerners voted a straight-ticket Democrat ballot. Alabama was a one-party state for thirty to forty years, a place where Republican opposition was nominal, limited to a few outlier counties in the north of the state, and the result of the Republican Primary was inconsequential.

The Solid South has remained generally one color or the other since 1932, though it is has flipped party affiliation over the past few decades. From deepest blue to darkest red, most of what we collectively call the Deep South might be audaciously termed “The Stuck South.” But before I go too far, there are stuck voters everywhere, be they in Appalachia West Virginia coal country or the rust belt of Ohio. President Obama got in trouble a few years ago, labeling voters like these as bitter, clinging to their guns and religion. The remark did not offend me, as I knew precisely what he meant, but the anger is real and this bloc comprises Donald Trump’s base.

Being stuck takes many forms. It’s not only the powerlessness of feeling disenfranchised and abandoned. It can just as easily refer to outrageously corrupt politicians and the lobbyists that nip at their heels. And it can especially refer to the venerated documents by which governments are instituted among men, as Thomas Jefferson famously wrote. Alabama’s state constitution currently contains more amendments than that of the Soviet Union. Due to an obscene oversight that has never been properly corrected, every ballot amendment must be voted on by the entire state on Election Day. Alabama contains sixty-seven separate counties, and many proposed additions pertain only to one specific part of the state.

Proving that cognitive dissonance is alive and well, Alabama’s whole system of government is evidence of needless waste, corruption, and complication. The same state politicians who have criticized Washington, DC, for a career need to remove the beam from their own eye before they remove the speck from their brother’s and sister’s. The era of big government is very much alive in well in the state of Alabama. Though many would challenge me on the facts and particulars, I’m sure it exists much the same way in Mississippi or Arkansas.

This past week I was in Atlanta. If Georgia is truly to be a swing state this election, its largest metropolitan area will color it blue. The city too busy making money to hate has introduced true diversity to a region of the country that resisted it for as long as it could. But if one peers closely enough, one can find easy evidence of those who are indeed stuck. Being stuck is a question of degree and where we focus our attention. A former textile mill or steel mill town might find its local economy decimated, its citizens demoralized. A city like Atlanta draws in enough tourists to provide additional income options like driving Uber or Lyft. Limited as this option is, it nevertheless exists and is simply not found in smaller towns and rural areas.

I am fond of quoting Gertrude Stein on subjects such as these. Regular readers should please pardon the repetition. “Money is always there”, she said, “but the pockets change; it is not in the same pockets after a change, and that is all there is to say about money.” Should we be truly stuck, we know that there are no available funds in our own pockets and bank accounts. To deny that millions of Americans out there are suffering should never be a talking point for either campaign. Rather, it is a sad commentary no economic system yet devised keeps people from slipping between the cracks. Conservatives and liberals disagree vociferously on issues like these, but boom and bust, famine and feast are polar extremes that cannot be avoided.

We vote in a matter of days. Every ballot we cast is based squarely on self-interest, and as much as we like to paint the past in a rosy, nostalgic way, it has always been this way. I am set to push buttons on a screen in a week or so for the candidate who, in my opinion, can get as many Americans unstuck from situations beyond their control. That way, they won’t have cling to anything to compensate for very real fears and insecurities.

Quoting the below passage of the New Testament has become hackneyed and cliched in religious circles, but I enclose it once more to make a point. It is included late in the Jesus story, towards the end of the Gospel of Matthew in a passage often collectively referred to “The Sheep and the Goats.” Explaining its larger theological point is unnecessary here, as the words themselves speak volumes.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.' "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?

A verse or two later, Scripture continues.

"And he will answer, 'I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.'

I am casting my ballot based on what candidate might best bring this imperative to the most who need help. But I’m not naive, either. We never know what any politician will do until he or she takes office. Over time, I have grown as cynical and skeptical as many of you have. If we place party allegiance first, it might be possible to create a brand new coalition. But my ultimate loyalty lies elsewhere. If we are Christians, we might dare to call that coalition the Kingdom of God. Still, those of us who are believers know that any system devised by humankind is imperfect and, even if successfully created, is bound to chip away with time. We have some grand old company in that regard.

One of my personal heroes, the historian C. Vann Woodward, concludes his masterful essay “The Burden of Southern History” like this.

America has had cynical disparagement of her ideals from foreign, unfriendly, or hostile critics. But she desperately needs criticism from historians of her own who can penetrate the legend without destroying the ideal, who can dispel the illusion of pretended virtue without denying the genuine virtues. Such historians must have learned that virtue has never been defined by national or regional boundaries, and that morality and rectitude are not the monopolies of factions or parties.

They must reveal the fallacy of a diplomacy based on moral bigotry, as well as the fallacy of one that relies on economic coercion through the fancied indispensability of favored products. Their studies would show the futility of erecting intellectual barricades against unpopular ideas, of employing censorship and repression against social criticism, and of imposing the ideas of the conqueror upon defeated peoples by force of arms.

Such historians would teach that economic systems, whatever their age, their respectability, or their apparent stability, are transitory and that any nation which elects to stand or fall upon one ephemeral institution has already determined its fate. The history they write would also constitute a warning that an overwhelming conviction in the righteousness of a cause is no guarantee of its ultimate triumph, and that the policy which takes into account the possibility of defeat is more realistic than one that assumes the inevitability of victory.

May it be so.

Saturday Video

A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal

You look so tired, unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us

I'll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide

With no alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
Silent, silent

This is my final fit
My final bellyache

With no alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises, please

Such a pretty house
And such a pretty garden

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises, please

Birthday Post

Hello Readers,

Today I turned 36. I intended to share lots of pithy, sage commentary for today. Instead I discovered that this hotel charges $15 per day for internet service. I'll eat the cost, but the principle of the thing gets to me. As I tap these words out to you, I'm staring out the window into downtown Atlanta, watching rush hour traffic slowly unclog and the sun beginning to set. I once lived here, ten years ago, and left profoundly dissatisfied. Little did I know I was a mere two years from leaving the South forever and moving to Washington, DC.

I really dislike early flights because I inevitably leave behind something (or more than one critical thing). This morning I left behind two crucial medications. One of them I was able to get filled at a CVS across the street, that is after somehow navigating the connecting tunnels that lead to shops and food courts adjacent to the city's downtown high-rent hotel district. The second medication is a controlled substance I likely will not get filled even tomorrow, and perhaps not at all. It has give me the opportunity to sleep restfully at night and I'm upset to likely be without it for the next five days.

My childhood best friend lives here, but we have been estranged for a decade. We tried living together, an arrangement of convenience which has proven to be the undoing of even the strongest bonds of friendship. He is married now, quite happily, and has a two-year-old child. I extended the olive branch towards him this afternoon by way of text message. He's kept the same cell number for over ten years. He responded, favorably, and if our schedules sync, I'll meet him for lunch either Wednesday or Thursday.

It is difficult to overstate the impact he made upon my life. We were both loners, or at least extremely socially awkward and anxious enough that we had few friends other than each other. In our childhood, we ran pell-mell into creek beds, woods, and the occasional half-finished Eagle scout project. When we were not outside playing games of sport, we fired up the Nintendo. After video game designers started making advanced machines with more than four buttons, I was no longer coordinated enough to participate.

I made the first serious trip without adult chaperones of some sort in his company. We went to New York City, a place that still intimidates me and likely always will. He mastered the subway map, I mastered communication with women from across the world. I felt very adult and worldly, but hadn't even really started to live. We went to concerts together, we smoked cigarettes together, we pushed boundaries as every adolescent does. And now we will meet again.

I used to try to hang on to birthdays as long as I could. Now that a birthday is fading away into the next one to follow, I feel that same sort of desperation. There is no way to freeze time. In four years, I will be 40, an astonishing life accomplishment. If you knew me twenty years ago, you'd be surprised I even lived long enough to make it. No need to retell that story. The best ones to come are yet to follow.

Quote of the Week

To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kind of scary. I've wondered where this started and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus, and a clown killed my dad.- Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.

Saturday Video

Thanks to everyone for everything
you've done but now
It's time to go

You know it's hard
We've had some fun

But now the moment's come
It's time to go

Who could ask for more?
Who could ask for more?

Thanks to everyone for everything
you've done but now
It's time to go

You know it's hard
We've had some fun
But now the moment's come

It's time to go

Who could ask for more?

When Transgender Became Real for Me

Nearly twenty years ago, I was a freshman in undergrad. As part of my major requirements, I took several history classes. In time, I drew the attention of a woman seated on the opposite end of the classroom. She flirted with me and I responded in kind. Though she ultimately intended to tell me herself, she must have made it quite plain to others that she had a crush on me. It turns out that our professor got to me first. Quite by coincidence, he happened to drive by me while I was seated outside of a Blockbuster Video store (remember those?) and shared the news. I was flattered that she’d thought so highly of me and contacted her by phone, in the pre-text messaging era.

Plans were made to meet, to see if we were compatible. I had high hopes. At the time, barely twenty years old, I was still living at home. My grandparents had been present with us until they passed away, leaving behind a basement apartment that my father had built specially for them. It was a space that I now repurposed as my own.

The date arrived. After a pleasant day of sharing company, I steered the two of us towards our final destination. She was not opposed to a private display of affection. Yet, in the middle of it, she told me emphatically that we needed to stop. Aware that she was very uncomfortable, I did as requested, but felt rejected and confused. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before and I wasn’t sure how to take it. Was there something wrong with me? I reflected for several days how disquieting and jarring the experience had been, but took it mostly in stride.

One might think that this is the end of the story. Strangely, it wasn’t. The affection and fondness we’d initially felt for each other never subsided. Though I expected us to part ways forever, she wanted us to remain friends. That was easily done, except that the sexual attraction between the two of us never dissipated, either. As best as I could reckon, she might have had issues with trust and intimacy. But at any rate, we’d at least tried it and found that it wouldn’t work for us.

A few weeks later, I saw her outside of a big multi-plex theater on yet another date. We exchanged pleasantries and parted ways. She said that she was continuing to seek available men, but never seemed to find one she wanted. A few months later she dropped the bombshell announcement that wasn’t. She finally came out of the closet as a lesbian. Now she was seeking available women.

The news did not shock me, and confirmed neatly why I had been rejected. It wasn’t the first time that I’d seemed like a good compromise measure to a closeted lesbian and I was not devastated. Shortly thereafter, she found a girlfriend, with whom she is, I’m pleased to say, with this very moment. And yet, the attraction between the two of us never really faded into the black. It went beyond a mere platonic familiarity or a fond memory of a different time. I was still attractive in her eyes and she plainly let me know it. This was perplexing in a different way.

A note: before I go any further, be aware that I’ve made a deliberate choice with my use of pronouns. I’ve used the feminine until now because, when I knew him, he identified as female. Front-loading this crucial distinction would have ruined the effect for those of you reading this, assuming you hadn’t already guessed it. From now on, I will use masculine pronouns.

As I said, strong feelings for each other never really expired. Even before he went through transition, the regard we had for each other didn’t disappear in a puff of smoke. They were real. She had always been he. We had always been interested in each other.

Eventually, I received the full story. He told me that he had felt uncomfortable with his own gender identity, which produced the earlier, visible awkwardness. I appreciated the greater context, which inspired me to begin learning about transgender topics, identity, and the politics that surround it. They continue to this very day. I have learned much already, but in many ways I haven’t even scratched the surface.

In the beginning, I’m sad to say that I associated transgender in my own mind as merely a sexual kink. I shrank back from it a little, but knowing someone in my own life went a long way. What made my basic comprehension easier was his own deliberate choice of maximum visibility. He determined from the beginning that he would put his transition on public display, day by day, week by week.

I followed up with him step-by-step as he saved for the money for top surgery. I observed the slow, but inevitable progress of each day by way of YouTube video. I hoped and wished along with him that testosterone would be as effective as possible. I celebrated with him as he developed more masculine features, resembling the way he’d always wanted to look physically. But along with these developments, I also experienced vicariously the angst and pain of informing two transphobic parents. His decision was often a lonely one.

Now I am pleased to say that he is a well-regarded professor and transgender activist. Some months ago, he recorded his first TED talk. Being such a highly visible face is a courageous decision. His honesty has given me and others the ability to understand in concrete, not abstract or academic ways. I’ve seen him grow up in front of my very eyes. When I knew him, he was not nearly as empowered or self-confident. His example has inspired me to stay honest and dare to be vulnerable with the outside world.

And then there’s something else. Like a lot of queer men, my gender seems to fall somewhere between male and female. Though there are times that I feel more female than male, gender reassignment surgery has never felt fitting. Skeptics might call my notion of split or unresolved gender identity into question, but I can only offer myself as proof. Being some distinctive and absolute flavor of LGBT is a notion that has never sit with me well. Being able to check one box or the other would be convenient, even preferred, but to deny who I am would be unfair to myself.

Above all, I’ve learned from him. He has validated my own inward struggles and at times almost paradoxical sense of myself. Even though he’s changed his body, his regard for me has never gone away. The operation he underwent did not remove his fondness for me, nor did it drive a wedge between us. That might be the most profound realization I have uncovered with time. No physical change could ever replace our history together.

Past behavior remains persistent fact, revealing much about how we feel about who we are and what we have become. But, good or bad, we have to live with it and we have to live with ourselves. We may rebel against the environment in which we were raised, or the gender expectations of where we started out, but we have to make our own way. His way is my way. His struggle is, in large part, my struggle, too.

Sometimes the path in front of us has never been cleared. If we are lucky, we can rely upon the roads and byways that others have made before we arrived. At times, we must bushwhack and hack our way through thick underbrush and challenging circumstances. The journey we take is both a public one and a very private one. It requires careful discernment, patience, dexterity, and humility. To be brutally honest, no one’s experience comes easily or without trial and error. Such is life.

Grief Counseling for In-Laws

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.-Isaiah 41:10

The above verse is enclosed more for my partner and her family than myself. My regular readers have recognized I've taken an extended break from writing. This is due to a death in the family. When informed that my partner's mother was close to death, I dropped everything. In a matter of a few hours, I became my best task-oriented self in a short period of time. Mail needed to be held for a week. Transportation plans were scheduled. My obligations were cleared for several days consecutively. Now I have returned home and taken on my regular routine, but nothing is really routine yet. It may never be quite the same again.

In-laws sometimes aren't sure what to do when tragedy strikes. I write this post today to see if I can make sense, theologically or otherwise, of precisely what has transpired. My role in the proceedings has been loosely defined. Our societal institution of marriage or long-term partnership, whichever you prefer, is a kind of artifice. It's a way that we seek to consolidate families who are not related to us by blood or proximity. Even in the best of circumstances, it's a stretch.

But don't get me wrong. My partner's family, for the most part, is fond of me. Being mutually kind and polite was never much effort for either side. We only took one extended trip with each other, about four months ago, but didn't share close quarters for most of the time we were there. I find that having separate space is the key for survival at any family gathering. It doesn't take much spark to begin a raging fire of the kind produced by the inevitable friction of too many people in one room.

Most of the work was my partner's responsibility. As much as I tried to be helpful, there were particular tasks for which I was ill-suited. The fault was never my own. In its place, I have been mostly a passive observer. I admit that sitting by the bedside of a dying person for fourteen days solid would have likely tried and exceeded my patience. I'm not sure how my partner, her father, and her younger sister managed it.

My presumptive mother-in-law lingered in a comatose state far longer than hospice care nurses and doctors ever believed imaginable. I was beginning to worry that she would win a very dubious distinction in the Guinness Book of World Records, attracting the attention of medical science and incredulous doctors. There were several instances where her breathing become labored, ceased for a minute, and then mysteriously resumed. Back to Square One.

I kept asking myself the same question. Why does God, in most circumstances, set the time, date, hour, minute, and second of our lives? We can surely shorten and diminish the quality of our earthly existence, even up to and including suicide, but this situation was very different. My partner's mother died due to a very aggressive form of stomach cancer, which might have had a genetic component, or not. The cause has not yet been determined. In any case, first symptoms were experienced in January of this year, a diagnosis was made in August, and roughly two months later she passed away.

In the fourteen days she clung to life, the only analogy that seemed fitting was that of Jesus' agony on the cross. And yet, the torment and pain described in my first example was neither a sufficient explanation nor an accurate description of this situation. In those times, she was likely unaware of where she was or what she thought. It was the family who watched and waited and waited some more who suffered most. This is how I imagine it must have been for Christ's remaining followers who stood by the cross, to the bitter end, though they could barely lift their heads to observe their savior's imminent demise. Jesus knew where he was going. His followers did not know what fate faced them.

The process didn't conclude within hours, but didn't take weeks, gratefully. Some people die in the hospital, or hang around long enough to be transferred to hospice care. The human imagination, over the centuries, has surmised and postulated that in this time, souls about to transition are actively consulting with God, resolving long-held grievances, and generally working out the final transfer upwards and beyond. If heaven is anything like human-made bureaucracy, I imagine it might take 5-8 business days to process a person's claim. That might explain the delay.

Quakers are often ambivalent about the notion of heaven. I have never relinquished a very Protestant view of the afterlife, which has always persisted from childhood, even though I have never really missed outward sacraments like confirmation, baptism, and communion. Still, there are times where I walk into Meeting and wonder what happened to the draped and reverent colors of the Christian season. I feel the same way when the notion of heaven is conspicuously skirted past in Quaker theology. I take no offense, but I nonetheless feel a loss.

When it comes my time, should I be lucky enough to make it there, it won't bother me if everything is draped in purple. I always liked Advent. Though I don't miss singing hymns, I never felt that Friends had to throw out the baby out with the bathwater in being so austere. I wouldn't mind my entry to heaven being accompanied by a soundtrack, not strict silence, no matter how pious and pure it might be.

Where does a soul go when it is his or her time? Perhaps along the way she took a stop by her working class roots of North Texas, USA, almost Oklahoma. Tornado ally poverty with omnipresent Air Force Base were never enough for her in life. She pursued an academic's life, instead. Two years here, three years there, and then lucky enough to be hired, even lucky enough to make tenure. A skilled communicator, she taught students how to be heard, acknowledged, and taken seriously. She took time to listen and was beloved for her kindly ear.

Along the way, she married. It was a happy one, and produced two children, both daughters. The eldest daughter is where I enter the picture. Beyond that, I have only first-person accounts at my disposal, and I'm left with the feeling of one who has arrived late to the party, or perhaps transferred into a small school district halfway through high school. I was always given space to breathe, but I have a lot of catching up to do, and likely always will.

What can one really ask from a mother-in-law beyond considerate small talk and peaceful coexistence? We were cordial and friendly for slightly over seven years, and now she will no longer be present on holidays and quick trips to DC. My own grief will be less intense. I have enough cognitive distance to complete small tasks the family is too overwhelmed to contemplate. I hope I can be a beacon of strength and stability.

I entitled this post "Grief Counseling for In-Laws." As Lincoln wrote, "it is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work." No death is an end of and to itself. If we keep the memory of the deceased in mind, as well as their positive example, we preserve what is worth keeping. As it is written in First Corinthians: "so, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless." This is especially so in the healing work left to be done. My work will be yours someday, too.

Saturday Video

There's a lot to learn
For wastin' time.
There's a heart that burns
There's an open mind.

Look out for my love,
look out for my love.
Look out for my love,
look out for my love

You own it.
You own it now
You own it.

There's a weight on you
But you can't feel it
Livin' like I do
It's hard for you to see it.

Was I hurt too bad?
Can I show you daylight?
How could I be sad
When I know that you might.

Look out for my love,
look out for my love
Look out for my love,
look out for my love.

Look out for my love
It's in your neighborhood
I know things are gonna change
But I can't say bad or good.

Silver wings of mornin'
Shinin' in the gray day
While the ice is formin'
On a lonely runway.

Hydraulic wipers pumpin'
'Til the window glistens
Somethin' sayin' somethin'
No one seems to listen.

Men with walkie-talkies
Men with flashlights wavin'
Up upon the tower
Time reads daylight savings.

I'm home again to you, babe
You know it makes me wonder
Sittin' in the quiet slipstream
In the thunder.

Look out for my love,
look out for my love.
Look out for my love,
look out for my love.

Regulating Doctors Like Wall Street

As I've written about in times past, I'm disabled and manage several chronic illnesses simultaneously. I have been a resident of the same city and metro area for nearly a decade, which eventually grants a person greater insight, As a result, I’m beginning to see the overlap between doctors and hospital centers. No longer am I flying blind. I've learned of medical systems to avoid, individual providers to steer clear of, but I don't want to fixate upon nefarious people with sinister motives. I must rely on doctors to improve my health and quality of life, and, most of the time, I obtain exactly what I need. Ninety percent of doctors, specialists, and assistants who I routinely consult are consummate professionals and extremely skilled in what they do.

More about that later. My foremost fly in the ointment has little to do with face to face encounters in the company of those wearing white coats and stethoscopes. Getting medical records transferred in between hospital system is the most current bane of my existence. No matter how many times I sign consent forms, no matter how careful I am to squeeze my handwriting into impossibly tiny blanks, no matter how cautious I am to ensure that said forms are faxed and electronically transferred, most of the time the great link-up never happens.

This week, for example, though I shouldn't have had to do it, I made a deliberate, strong-willed, resolute decision to hand deliver a medical order from one system to another. In an hour and a half, I took off by cab to one hospital, waited, obtained the record I needed, and then sped rapidly across town to another treatment center.

For starters, finding the proper medical records department at the first hospital was not easy. The system in place, as I discovered, was comprised of two fully separate units. For whatever reason, a person or entity decided that utilizing a centralized single unit made less sense than sharing loose responsibilities with another. That said, these departments knew little about the other, aware only that the other existed, but not much beyond that. I could not obtain a phone number or physical address from either with a telephone call, meaning I had to go to both in person, madly seeking correct directions, bouncing from hallway to hallway, until I found the right one.

And then when I did reach the proper office, the overwhelmed man I confronted with a needlessly complicated problem flashed an undisguised look of great terror and confusion when I explained my situation. It was fortunate that the paperwork I needed was at least there. To be sure, it was buried within forty pages of assorted other documentation. I must confess I was still unsure I had precisely what I needed before I departed. Hustling to arrive at my final destination by the end of office hours that afternoon, I was gratified to discover that the doctor's order I needed was gratefully included.

Nothing quite like success. I had been afraid I'd be off on another wild goose chase, still no further to any resolution.

Underneath the frustration and delay, as well as the lack of transparency, there is an answer available of why this happens with such frequency. Naturally, it's not a highly publicized one, for reasons of public relations and sometimes plain ignorance. Though they perform an essential service for millions of Americans, hospital systems do not place a high priority on the competence and efficiency of their medical records departments. Most of these entities are understaffed, under-motivated, under-trained, and shockingly unaware of the particulars of the system.

Employees have no incentive to do a competent job and likely are not given needed training to read legalese and bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. As I noted above, the paperwork required to obtain medical records is complicated and fussy. If completed incorrectly, even by a micrometer, doors will not open. Stalemate will remain in its place. Nothing will happen.

And here's is where I return to where I left off earlier. This is where the issue is transformed from inefficient to infuriating. I was diagnosed five years ago with sleep apnea. Medicare, my primary insurance, will pay for a new CPAP machine every five years. I should have been given a new model from the outset, but my insurance was charged the full price for an obsolete machine that was already a decade out of date. Perhaps the supply company in tandem with my doctor was trying to move inventory out of its warehouse.

If that's the case, the practice is not illegal, but such conduct does not endear itself to its customers. Since then, I've signed up with a new supply company who promises that they'll never treat me like that themselves. I'm holding them to that promise. We may be viewed by healthcare providers as customers only, but in our medical system, we ought to be seen as something more important: patients with fundamental needs. Our health is at stake, not our consumerist aspirations, nor our offerings to a disposable income. The sleep disorders doctor who prescribed my CPAP machine is, as I have learned, something of a mill.

Nearly everyone he treats is diagnosed with sleep apnea, no matter what results a sleep study reveals or does not reveal. I'm having his business practices investigated within Medicare itself, because he may be running a racket, or he is at least not being held accountable for his slight-of-hand tricks. Ninety percent of the doctors I have seen are highly competent, hardworking, and ethical. But along the way I have encountered a handful whose practices are, if not illegal, certainly unethical. I think of the primary care doctor who would only phone in prescriptions outside of office hours (that is, on Saturdays and Sundays) for a $150 flat fee, regardless of the severity of illness or discomfort.

The same provider ran every single test my insurance would cover, and at each visit, whether I had a sore throat or a hangnail. Most, if not all of it, was highly unnecessary work. Instead of receiving a two or three page summary of results, I'd be given fifty or sixty pages’ worth.

I will obtain my new CPAP machine in February of next year. That is when I am due for another. But in the meantime, I have to manage with old parts that need to be replaced, but cannot be obtained. The only way I might be able to receive what I need in the meantime is to contact the manufacturer myself, but that does not guarantee anything. Fifteen years out of date might as well be half a century these days.

Learn from my lesson. Be your own advocate. We don't have to treat every doctor and medical system with suspicion, but we need to scrutinize those who don't pass the sniff test. If it seems wrong somehow, it likely is. No matter what reforms are proposed, passed into law, and then enacted, our healthcare system should never be confused for a benevolent single-payer, socialistic model. And even if it were, those with the financial means would willingly pay for superior, specialized care.

No reform will ever prevent some unscrupulous doctors from padding their own pockets. What makes the American model as it currently exists that much more dangerous is the lack of what we really know about our own care. Designated surrogates that separate providers from patients disguise how money changes hands and how business is really transacted.

One has to dig hard to expose the truth, then stomach the full knowledge of what really happens. We need to avoid the instances where our attention is diverted elsewhere, like a skilled conjurer, and where we are kept almost completely in the dark. If it takes time away from our busy days, we have no choice but to be our own regulators, and sometimes to regulate the regulators. Doctors are not hot-shot real estate investors or hedge-fund operators, but they should never be seen across the board as nice people with hearts of gold. There's too much money in the game and too much profit to be made.

Quote of the Week

I am very underleveraged. I have a great company. I have a tremendous income. And the reason I say that is not in a braggadocios way. It's because it's about time that this country had somebody running it that has an idea about money.- Guess Who?

Saturday Video

Feeling better now that we're through
Feeling better 'cause I'm over you
I learned my lesson, it left a scar
Now I see how you really are

You're no good
You're no good
You're no good
Baby you're no good

I'm gonna say it again
You're no good
You're no good
You're no good
Baby you're no good

I broke a heart that's gentle and true
Well, I broke a heart over someone like you
I'll beg his forgiveness on bended knee
I wouldn't blame him if he said to me

You're no good
You're no good
You're no good

Baby you're no good
I'm gonna say it again
You're no good
You're no good
You're no good

Baby you're no good
I'm telling you now baby and I'm going my way
Forget about you baby 'cause I'm leaving to stay
You're no good
You're no good
You're no good
Baby you're no good

I'm gonna say it again
You're no good
You're no good
You're no good

Baby you're no good
Oh, oh no
You're no good
You're no good
You're no good

Baby you're no good