Thoughts and prayers and kindness, oh my.

“When in doubt, give.” – Bjork, Medulla, Pleasure Is All Mine

A ton of people have been through the wringer this week. In addition to friends dealing with surprise cancer and other health issues and friends dealing with the loss of pets/fur kids who’ve been part of their family for forever, major goings on have been the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday, a fertilizer plant exploding in West, TX on Wednesday, and anniversaries of events at Waco and Oklahoma City yesterday. It’s been amazing to see communities pull together on local to national scales, and I’m glad for the progress made over the years with disaster preparedness everywhere, but I’m a little baffled by some of the things I observe. More on that in a minute. 

Congress also pissed a hella lotta people off with an epic fail on curbing gun violence. It’s bad enough that we have sporadic mass casualty incidents, but when (allegedly) 90% of Americans are for better background checking and measures called for aren’t put in place to enhance public safety, that’s just redamndiculous. It’s also really sad to see journalistic integrity degraded to such an extent that the speed of getting news out has trumped information accuracy. There wouldn’t be a need to backpedal on reported news after 20 minutes or so if things had been reported correctly the first time, even if the report is, “I don’t know; we’ll keep you posted.” (AP and CNN, you’re on notice.) It’s expected out of social media reporting, and thank the stars for social media helping with accuracy and telling people how to best help whatever situation, but non-professionals doing a better job than professionals at reporting makes me cringe.

Werd.

So thanks to events this week, bugging me yet again is the whole “Prayer: Why?” thing. I see people sharing biblical scriptures and prayer things posted in between people yelling at others to do something useful instead of praying, like helping in a tangible manner with money or blood. Both perspectives irk me, to different degrees. One makes me think, “But what about the people who aren’t able to help financially or in person? Guilt tripping others doesn’t help and makes you look like an ass, ass.” The other doesn't upset me but does make me occasionally think, “What, there’s only one approved way to pray and that has to be your way? Expand your understanding of your God already. There are other faiths besides Christianity.”

I'd posted some general supportive sentiments to my Facebook wall, and was thanked by a friend for the "kind, simple, beautiful words." Another friend commented, "It's knowing, everything is going through something, so please be kind... that's really important." (Thanks Lou and Kitty, and Sandy for the image!) I think a lot of people have good intentions with saying things to help people help others, and I don't think the proportions of each view are any different than usual, but how people are trying to express kindness is irking me more lately. It's probably more of a perceptual problem on my part, since I've been having a hard time with properly relaxing and decompressing lately (there is not enough time in the day for everything I need to do!, and I want to cry and kung fu the air just because of computer issues). It's also probably my going back into menopause (oh how I wish perimenopause was as quick as the chemo-pause I had!), but the irkiness has gone on long enough for me to mention it via blog. (And seriously, after a ton of other wonkiness, my computer tried to install a video card driver through Microsoft Word, so I think I have a legit reason to be a bit agitated. At least I have sound again, though there's a cavernous echo on everything now.)

Personally, I’m glad to see people helping however possible. I try to always mention sharing both thoughts and prayers, for people in both camps, because I feel that both are important. The jury is still out for some on whether or not thinking / praying / positive energy sent wherever actually makes a difference, but I’d rather err on the side of generosity, since if nothing good really happens there’s still no harm, no foul. Besides, as long as there is a noble intent with helping others, at least the person thinking / praying feels better and regains some peace, whether or not the person is able to help in any other way, and what’s wrong with regaining inner peace? And besides, if something good actually happens via positive energy going out, there’s no shortage of people / places / things that need positive energy, so I’d think it’d go to wherever zen is most needed, whether by a science of energy transfer that hasn’t been documented yet or whether by direction of the universe (same thing, in my opinion). Your mileage may vary.

By the way, for anyone concerned, this is not a slam against skeptics, atheists, agnostics, etc. I’m skeptical enough to know the uselessness potential, but I’m also open-minded enough to see the potential possibilities. My point is, whatever you believe or don’t believe, don’t be a dick. Be a good human, help however you can, and encourage others to help in various ways without making them feel like shit. That’s all. Seriously, that's all. Don't read anything more complex into this besides "don't be a dick."

For what it's worth, I know it’s really easy to wish someone else well without attaching any kind of religion to it. I do that all the time and don’t consider that to be prayer, but some people do. Someone please remind me to do a sermon someday on the different types of prayer. The self-serving prayers piss me off. The overly formal and structured can annoy me, depending on context and environment. The needy prayers can go either way – praying “I want I want I want” like a spoiled brat is way different than praying “please don’t let my feet forget how to walk because I don’t want to fall down the stairs and bust my head open from motor skills wonkiness.” There’s also prayers via song, dance, etc., and burning candles should always be done safely under supervision. (Also, no burning of cheap-ass candles made in China, okay? You don’t want that crap in your air. If your prayers are valuable to you, buy better candles. Your lungs and your deity will thank you.) Oh, and prayers for smiting and vengeance and harm to others make me squirm…

Oh, and speaking of, thoughts, prayers, Reiki, fwaps, chicken sacrifices, etc., are most welcomed for the death and rebirth of my computer, if any of those are your thing. Thanks.

Disturbing.

The case of Lightning Medicine Cloud has been closed. Forensic evidence points to blackleg as cause of death, not ritual mutilation. This would make sense with how sudden the deaths were, and there is a blackleg vaccine for cattle, though it may or may not work for bison. More on this in a bit.

The spiritual implications are interesting, given that another white bison calf is alive and kicking in the northeastern United States. Peter Fay, the caretaker of Yellow Medicine Dancing Boy, is not a Native American and has only had his bison farm for 4 years. The caretaker of Lightning Medicine Cloud, Arby Little Soldier, is not only a Native but is a descendant of Sitting Buffalo Bull through one of Sitting Bull's stepsons, Henry Little Soldier (so no actual blood relationship; genealogy info near the bottom of that page). To me, these men seem like wonderful decisions by the universe / White Buffalo Calf Woman / Wakan Tanka, the divine, etc., because of the unity inherent in Mitakuye Oyasin. Hold that thought.

Although technically I'm more of a Zen Catholic than anything (hating the church politics but loving me some liturgy whenever I find myself at a Mass), I identify as a pantheist. Pantheism can mean many things to many different people, but my particular flavor involves seeing everything as part of the Divine, as God in a sense, learning more about itself by working in harmony with itself, with all of us as part of its mechanisms. It's kinda like how we learn more about ourselves over time. As we learn more about ourselves and our place in the multiverses, the Divine learns more about itself, which enables it to grow and develop. Mind you, I have this belief set in a scientific context. Along with this expanding universe, I see all other currently not observed dimensions and parallel 'verses that may or may not happen at a different rate of time as parts of the Divine. It's like a macrocosm/microcosm thing, like what we have in our own bodies. This may not be the best description, but it's like the Divine is the mind/soul/spirit of a person in its own personal universe (body), with our various non-solar but still systems (nervous, endocrine, etc.) sustaining various forms of life (what with tons of different types of bacteria, viruses, etc., plus the teenyature universes of what those are made of). Knowing that everything is a necessary part of everything and that we are all in this together is the essence of Mitakuye Oyasin to me.

There needs to be a lot more love and patience and tolerance and understanding on this planet, because we really are all in this together. Many more non-Natives are more conscious of this message thanks to Lightning Medicine Cloud. However, knowing the divisions among some Natives are as politically and spiritually charged as those of non-Natives makes me sad. The issue of including non-Natives in some Native things is seen by some Natives as a Bad Thing, but it's also a Non-Issue for others. There's the worry of how to protect one's heritage while embracing Mitakuye Oyasin, and there's the bewilderment of intentions and perceptions on all sides. (For example, Johnny Depp was adopted into the Comanche Nation due to his role as Tonto but other Natives are upset by details behind his portrayal of Tonto.) There's also the perpetual headache of arguing over who might have the most authentic spirituality within the tribes, when that shouldn't even be a problem. (Read about the sacred white buffalo pipe controversy sometime. Ai yah.)

Lightning Medicine Cloud and his mom, taken on the day
of his naming ceremony. This photo is protected by Digimarc
so feel free to use it as a Facebook cover photo if you like.

As a non-Native, seeing the accusations flying over Little Buff Buff's death is disheartening. Even more disturbing are the conclusions with the facts so far. Lakota Ranch is about an hour and a half from where I currently live so it's a little surreal to me that this is all local news. I was there at the naming ceremony last year. I saw and felt the excitement of everyone there, and the deep respect and pride of many Natives as they celebrated this marvelous rare occurrence together. Now... the whole thing is disturbing, especially with the Facebook page completely gone now. That *really* bothers me, especially with the wording in the latest press release (August 24, 2012). "The Lightning Medicine Cloud website will remain open for upcoming news and updates, however Facebook has never been a spiritual thing for them, and is therefore discontinued." So.... the Facebook page was more for them than for the many others who found community there? Hrrmph. Disturbing.

[UPDATE: I am really disturbed now - looking for cached info on the Facebook page, there's apparently been a lot of name calling and insulting going on. I could see shutting it down from that, but the wording would still mention that, I would think. Even if they didn't maintain the page, whoever was admining could've said something like, "We want to remain true to the message and we obviously still have a long way to go as evidenced by the comments on the page, and so we're shutting this down in honor and respect to LMC." Or something. I just saw a cached version of the page with a comment from someone mentioning that his post was deleted ... can't handle the truth... etc..... Sigh.]

I donated a small amount of money when I heard about the deaths but I didn't designate it specifically for the justice fund or for anything else. It was most certainly not a pledge (I have the PayPal receipt as a pdf), and it was most certainly intended to help with the care and feeding of the bison there. I'm at peace with having donated, though I feel a little agitated since I wouldn't have made the donation otherwise. It's all just sad but I do hope some good happens out of this whole mess, especially if the transportation of Chief Hiawatha is still on as LMC's case is now closed. Whatever the intentions of anyone, I'm going to keep this perspective ahead of all others: ""Maybe Lightning Medicine Cloud was sent to get everyone's attention, So Yellow Medicine Dancing Boy can deliver the rest of the message?"

R.I.P. Little Buff Buff, and thank you for your short life.

I am distraught.

I thought I was distraught yesterday (Friday) when I found out about the passing of M.C.A. (who will always have more rhymes than Carl Sagan's got turtlenecks). That was nothing compared to my shock a few hours later learning about the senseless death of Lightning Medicine Cloud.

Long story short, a non-albino white bison is a rarity, and one with a dark nose, eyes, and tail tip is an extreme rarity. One was born not quite a year ago, and was murdered very recently. His mother was killed not long after, and his father had died a few weeks prior from a lightning strike. I will lose my shit if I say anything else right now, so here are some news links:

Lightning Medicine Cloud, Sacred White Buffalo, Killed and Skinned

White buffalo calf's death investigated in Hunt County

My husband is part Native American (Lakota/Cherokee) and is pretty horrified at this, as are several of my Native friends (especially a dear college friend who is Cherokee and brought this to my attention, which amazes me as she's in Florida and I'm a short drive away to Lightning Medicine Cloud's home in the North Texas area). (I'm not a Native, though according to several people I could pass for one by looks alone.) I am so grateful to have been present at LMC's naming ceremony and dedication, and I have many photos I need to process and share sometime soon. I have many swirling emotions about this whole situation, and I am grieving over all of this way more deeply than most people will ever know, because I've been involved with people in shamanic fields of study, and omg the implications. I plan to attend the memorial pow-wow this coming weekend, and I pray that karma acts swiftly with those involved in these murders.

I came across this while looking for new news on the situation, and wanted to share. Mitakuye Oyasin.

Knocking From Inside: Lament for Lightning Medicine Cloud 

Let the dead rest in peace, dammit. Zombies suck.

I did not know typing my thoughts could make this happen.
(Silverlight has been crashing on me for the last 12,000 years
without fail, so this is definitely not from that. Sigh.)

You know when you think about contacting someone from your past because doing so would be very relevant to your very hopeful immediate future job, even though you haven't spoken in years and the other person likely hates you because of not understanding "friend trying to help you not screw up your life even worse" and you shouldn't have to explain that but then you do, and as soon as you finish typing your thoughts you see your computer screen turn green and pixellate, and it locks up so much that when it's restarted you get a notice that your overclocking failed so you have to go into the BIOS to fix things? Yeah, I hate it when that happens.

As I'm a pantheist (Zen Pantheist Skeptic more than anything else, even though I love me some Catholic liturgy), I think I'll take this as a subtle hint from the universe to keep not talking to him, even though this job I want would entail working closely with someone in a very similar way to how we'd worked together, and I want him to give me proper props like he said he'd do but I kinda want to make sure but now the making sure is not gonna happen because my computer is a bitch to begin with and I don't want to aggravate her further. Balls.

The universe tends to get my attention in a big way when I think about being a nice more-than-decent human being and shouldn't even bother, or when I want to do things I know I shouldn't do. I'm generally way too nice to people to begin with (like Bjork, I err on the side of generosity), but sometimes I get forced to pay attention to what I'm thinking about (or trying to not think about), and that's always interesting. 

The last time anything noticeable like this happened was about a year and a half ago, when I knew hubby and I should've just stayed at home in Dallas one weekend. However, there were exciting things going on, so I pushed myself to attend said exciting things even though I knew better and even with knowing I'd be extremely worn down afterward from having pushed myself in similar ways then-recently, but some of these things interested hubby so of course I wanted him to go too, so yeah, hot messes happened. 

We had a very (literally) crappy weekend out of state while doing a few college homecoming things and museuming as usual when in the area. It was nice to see some of my classmates after 15 years, and it was awesome seeing a kickass production of "Antigone" there, but it was not so nice to be surprised by a wrong way driver heading straight for us on a back road highway. (Yay for being able to get my swerve on while thinking about how incredibly awful I felt.) We should've stayed in our hotel room the first night instead of hitting the big shindig done by the school of music, since hubby's gut was agitated and mine was getting that way, but nooooo, I had to insist on going and had to get Imodium so all would be fairly well. I now know that this was wrong. He felt better the next day, when I missed out on museuming thanks to being in the bathroom for like an hour and a half in literal gut-wrenching agony. 

Naturally it occurred to me then that these things could've been avoided had we just stayed home (especially as the driving scare happened about 20 minutes before getting to said museum). There wasn't anything life-changing going on that we would've missed out on, aside from my really getting what the chorus of a Greek play should ideally be like, and aside from seeing a "Clerks" reference in context in real life, but even those things don't compare to the crap that happened.

The first thought that came to mind when seeing this:
"I'm not even supposed to be here today!!"
Well played, universe. Well played.

Of course, we could've just felt bad from food poisoning, but my gut would've exploded within 4-12 hours as usual instead of waiting 40 hours, so I kinda think not. Still, I continue to not buy chicken from Target, just in case we did have bad chicken the night before we left, even though I know this all was really a gentle prod from the universe to get me to take even better care of myself. Then again, it could be both. It really doesn't matter. None of this matters, except that I really hate when the universe course-corrects me in a big obvious-to-me way.

Okay, I'm really going to the arboretum soon. Today. Because I've been wanting to but changed my mind about it on Monday and yesterday. And because I don't want the universe to kick me anymore for not getting out to enjoy it like I should. (And I apologize if my reposting this a zillion times right now screws up your feed but the text is all fubar and it is driving me nuts, and yes, I know how that all sounds after what I just said. Balls.)

Preaching by example

I self-identify as a pantheist and a skeptic. I am totally awed by nature as evidence of scientific divinity. I'm wary of well-meaning religious people who have little or no sense of what they really believe. I was baptized Catholic, raised Protestant (non-denominational, Assemblies of God, Latter Rain, back to non-denominational), attended and graduated from a university owned by the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, went through RCIA for full Catholic standing, and worked in a Roman Catholic diocesan liturgy office for 5 years. I've received attunements in both Reiki and Integrated Energy Therapy, I can do the math to cast an actual birth chart (sun-sign only horoscopes be damned), and I can read and interpret both natal charts and tarot cards, though I haven't in some time. I've spent time on the forums at the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) website and have very much enjoyed the debunking done re: vaccines, homeopathy, etc.

My family and friends have enriched my life by their varying faiths (primarily Buddhist, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Jehovah's Witness, Methodist, Baptist, Jewish, Baha'i, Pagan, New Age, Unity).  A number of my friends have enriched my life by their non-faith and critical thinking and love of science and the scientific method.  My husband is an atheist / secular humanist skeptic who has extensively studied comparative religion and who lives by Wakan Tanka.

The following part of a conversation on Facebook will probably be incorporated into an article or book, somehow.  Will work on that another time, when life slows down to a shade below crazy pace.

--

KHW: For all my theologian friends: Is the phrase "live like you're dying" theologically sound? Part of me thinks not mainly because of Christ's comment regarding abundant life. I don't have an answer.

Me:  Theologically (from what I've learned via osmosis, anyway), Christ was fully divine yet fully human. I would assume that while Christ was alive on this earth, he had intimate access to the fullness of the rest of himself (God the Father, God the Holy Spirit), especially with the words he speaks in John 14.

Christ also knew on whatever level that he would have to eventually physically die an unnatural death, and at the end of that chapter it seems clear that he knew it would occur relatively soon. The "live like you're dying" would apply to Christ's human nature, like it would apply to all of us.

From my cancer survivor perspective, living as if every day could be the last is something I'd like to see more people doing. As odd as it sounds, this "living like I'm dying" leads to my having "abundant life." There's little to no time for petty arguments, or things that are really not a big deal in the scheme of things. Everything that I have as a priority is so much more important now because of the awareness of "wow, I really do have an expiration date, so definitely need to make the most of life while I'm here."

Sometimes it takes the experience of a serious health condition or a death for a person to "get it" and I view the crucifixion as the supreme example of this for us, for understanding that we're here for a short time to make this world a better place (to me, literally bringing about heaven on earth as much as possible). Christ lived with that knowledge of having a physical expiration date, and I see that as why he urgently wanted/wants people to spread the gospel. To me, the gospel (good news) is that abundant life is available to all of us, if we just crucify the things in our lives that seem important but aren't really, and work together to manifest the Kingdom here while we're alive.