What do you miss?
Is it of the heart?
Is it of the senses?
Is it of the mind?

Did you miss a first step, a laugh, a birth, a death, a first time?
How did you miss it?
Was it due to a distraction? A commitment?, an unavoidable circumstance?

Is our answer an excuse, or is it a fact?
How did we judge our selves? How did others judge us?

In silent reflection, to consider these issues are benchmarks of a Noble journey of the heart.
For those that follow the journey to it's destination I salute you and for those of us who are still on the journey;
Bless you my brothers and sisters.

New Years Day.
Looking West from the Rim of the World High School Parking lot. There, across the street, by the edge of the road. A large group of buckskin boulders impervious to the cold.
The icy gale force wind cutting through clothes with unrelenting ease.
Next to the boulders, looking from the cliff, West, to the beyond, there is an island in the evening distance.
Looking West from this perch of 5000 feet, across a hyperactive San Bernardino, to Bi-polar Los Angles and beyond, to a mother of life, the Pacific ocean.
Twenty-six miles of ocean visible then the Island of Catalina.
Dark in the setting sun.
Looking for over one hundred miles.

In an instant the cold was gone and the enormity of the event prevailed.
Such are the moments in our life.

It is as if we look across a table at someone we have know all our lives and see them for the very first time.

The man's accent was thick and his hands told the story of hard work for more years than I have been alive.
He pointed at a book.
A bright sticker saying it was discounted 20% to 6 bucks was barely covering the original price of 4 bucks.
He pointed to the discrepancy.
"What has happened to this country I love so much?
Lies in stories, lies on TV, lies in the newspaper. Why so many lies?"

He told me the story of his coming to America.
How well he was treated and how he felt he was in heaven. He talked of his first trip to the South, before, when there were two bathrooms for two classes of people and how it shocked him.
His story of immigration was astonishing, heart felt, and dramatic.

He quoted President Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex. He quoted Jefferson and Washington. He quoted the Constitution.
He quoted from information I had been exposed to as a child when I didn't know what it meant to be free.

This is a good year to write, Email, call and otherwise exercise our rights as the employer's of politicians, and TELL them what we want...We sign their checks, pay for their limos, their fancy trips. It's time we act like citizens of America and bring ourselves back from Darkness and to being the World leader in Peace and Human Rights.
It's time to be the good guys!

It was March.
Jack, Birdie and I were heading back from Mazatlan, Mexico.
No money.
In a Corvair with a cracked distributor.
Broke.
Our eyes boring holes in the headlight beams.
And there.
In the night
On the radio.
Creedance Clearwater
"I heard it on the grapevine"
It was as if the car would run as long as the song.
Like we could outlast our hunger.
Like we could make it to the border.
For me.
Like I could out last my PTSD.
Like the I could deny the programing.
As if my slavery was an illusion.
We listened and the song seemed to last forever.

We crossed the border.
The car died
And life went on.
And I am still a slave, however enlightened.
not free
Peace is in the heart.

Waiting in line...an inconvenience
Waiting in line for for food......a pressing issue
Waiting in line for food when your starving...a problem
Waiting in line for food when your starving and know no one will come.....a modern problem.

Pretending a lie is the truth..an issue
Convincing others a lie is the truth...a problem
Believing a lie is the truth..........a modern problem

Helping people without first helping you neighbor....a issue
Helping people against their will....a problem
Helping people by destroying their homes and lives...a modern problem

Thinking what you do does not matter.......an issue
Believing what you do doesn't matter.......a problem
Telling other what they do doesn't matter....a modern problem.

When we are not aware and accountable to ourselves we lose our humanity......a important issue
When we lose our humanity we lose the ability to treat ourselves and others with compassion.....a problem
When we lose our compassion, our humanity, our connectedness then what are we?.......a modern problem?

What do we allow happen?
When we regain our humanity, our compassion, and our life, we become empowered. When we are empowered, and compassionate with ourselves and others we move the pillars of Heaven and bring light where their is darkness.
We humans have this extraordinary capacity.
You know this is true. I know it is true..we, all of us, have seen it..and felt enriched and enlivened.
Our humanity is the soul-ution to Modern Problems