Give and Give

"The measure of life, after all, is not the duration, but it's donation."--Corrie Ten Boom


As of this week, I've given blood 115 times. 115 pints of my blood have been used to help people--accident victims, surgery patients, blood work experiments--without costing me a thing except for time. The first time was when my sister was preparing to have a c-section delivery and asked the family to give blood for her in case she needed it. My blood type didn't end up matching her but it put me on the steady path of donating. That was over 21 years ago and I have tried to give every 56 days since. I have missed a few times, because of work or illness or forgetfulness, but I have tried to continue as consistent as I could.

My blood could be running through veins of people that I walk past on the street. There could be people who have had a second chance to have a family or save a child for their parents by my simple "Gift of Life."

I try to think of this thing that I do as just a normal part of my life, something like a dental check-up or a doctors appointment. I had my son doing it for a while, but tattoos and piercings have kept the Red Cross from allowing him to donate his blood for stretches of time. Perhaps he will think about that before he puts another body decoration on himself, and realize that he can offer more by being eligible to donate than decorate his form.

Look around and see if you can make time to do something similar. It's kinda cheesy, but the old slogan, "The life you save may be your own," really could apply to blood donation.

Give to the your local food bank. Donate the old coats and scarves and hats. If nothing else, at least check that organ donation box on your drivers license. Remember that not everyone is able to do everything but we should each as an individuals find something we can do for someone other than ourselves.

The Man In Black

Car rides are interesting events at times. Forced into a close space, conversations are spontaneous and often enlightening. There are times as the radial tires click out the miles you wish the trips would end and then, times where the dynamics are biblically enlightening and you wish them to keep going. Forget the destination; I’m enjoying this ride, and the conversations.

Enter the following exchange of dialogue as Coldplay’s hidden track from the X&Y album, “Til Kingdom Come” was playing. I will note here that this album is one we 3 seem to agree on and has been in the car CD player for approximately, “FOREVER.”

ME: That song was written by Johnny Cash. (Please note here that I believe I am one of John R. Cash’s biggest fans, and I enjoy the music of Coldplay)
16 YEAR OLD STEP-DAUGHTER: He was a druggie. (Please note here, minor Coldplay fan, not a fan of the “Man In Black”)
ME: He had his problems but he overcame them, he looked into the great void and overcame. (This went on for some time; I get a little passionate about it) I guess I’m going to have to Blog about it.
WIFE: I’m surprised it wasn’t your very first Blog. (Please note here, Major Coldplay fan and also not a fan of Johnny Cash)

Outnumbered and surrounded, as well as pinned behind the wheel of the car, I had nowhere to run so I began my verbal justification of the relevance of Johnny Cash, the musician and the man. I have been doing this for as long as I can remember and I have not come across anyone that seems to understand the style, songs and music of Cash. Or share my appreciation of his music. Most people think I am nuts. Sometimes I think I'm nuts.

But just give his songs “Big River”, “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Orange Blossom Special” a listen, performed live if you can find them. (They are all in my collection and I have also seen him perform them twice live in concert during the late ‘90’s) If you aren’t convinced of Cash’s unique place among the true American artists after listening, there are no words that can do it. Another approach would be to listen to Cash's interpretation of the Soundgarden song "Rusty Cage."

On another note, I stumbled on my knowledge and found out later, that the song “Til' Kingdom Come” was actually written by the guys of Coldplay and was offered to Johnny Cash to be performed at an un-named special event where the two artists, Cash and Coldplay, would share this song on the stage. Cash passed away shortly after accepting the song but before the event was finalized. Thus, it ended up as the hidden track on their album, X&Y. I don't know if Chris Martin and Coldplay share an appreciation of his music or just recognized that a song that they wrote fit his style. I hope it was the first.

And I still have more to learn about the man.

Til Kingdom Come Lyrics
Steal my heart and hold my tongue
I feel my time, my time has come
Let me in, unlock the door
I never felt this way before

And the wheels just keep on turning
Drummers begin to drum
I don't know which way I'm going
I don't know which way I've come

Hold my hand inside your hands
I need someone who understands
I need someone, someone who heals
For you I've waited all these years

For you I'd wait til kingdom come
Until my day, my day is done
Oh say you'll come and set me free
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me

Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me
In your tears and in your blood
In your fire and in your flood
I heard you laugh, I heard you sing

I wouldn't change a single thing
The wheels just keep on turning
The drummers begin to drum
I don't know which way I'm going

I don't know what I've become
For you I'd wait til kingdom come
Until my day, my days are done
Oh say you'll come and set me free
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me
Just say you'll wait, you'll wait for me

Stardust Dance

"You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star"--Fredrich Nietzsche

Winter. Stars. Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

I was surprised at the experienced magnitude of the heavens on a recent trip across the wild northern reach of my state. Remote stretch of unploughed blacktop that sliced through cedar and pine. A covering of white snow blanketing everything. Completely. Contrasting the total blackness of the sky. The space between our planet and the heavens devoid of all the lights of man's marques and house lights and glowing computer monitors. Even my dashboard lights would not work this night, flickering on and off and on and off until I turned them off to halt the flickering. I plunged ahead in a ebony cockpit. Distant suns, our stars, piercing their light at this dark that surrounded them. Long stretches of nothing but the black of the sky, with its violent glow of stars. Their light being thrown at the earth, at my eyes.

It looked like beautiful chaos to me. No pattern, only white, static, turbulence. I know that there must have been cosmic planetary motion, but I could not detect it. Motion so far away from me that it could not be spotted by my vision.

And something was changing in me. I felt as if I had aged. Not years or days or hours, but lifetimes. I felt my soul was suddenly old and wandering. It danced away from my body briefly. I felt tuned to ancestral connections. I felt as if time had suddenly stopped. It was as if I was laying in the snow, cold rising through from below and stars warming from above.

It returned, my consciousness, with a strange hint of recognition that it could understand the surrounding chaos. Briefly. And then that feeling was gone, cold creeping back like hands pulled from a warming blaze. Lost.

But in that moment I recognized my own mortality and immortality. Why two similar words that really hold the same meaning? They were the same. They ended at the same place, in the same state.

Dust. But a beautiful, though distant stardust, in the eyes of those who would remember.

"I cannot stop the thought,

I'm running in the dark..."
--Pearl Jam, from the song "Immortality"

Devotion

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of our death.

--excerpt from the "Hail Mary" Catholic Rosary devotion

A few days past, a friend shared the news of the recent loss of his mother with me. And shared is a profound statement. She passed away after a brief fight with a cancer, and the visible hole that was torn from his heart was obvious. Lost is what I heard in his voice.

Abraham Lincoln said "I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life." These sentiments ring true to me, though not through my mothers prayers, but her actions of love. I am most fortunate to still enjoy my parents alive and well and owe much to them. My mom has never been judgmental to me, but I know she must have worried terribly at times. I am a silent sufferer, was so even as a kid, but she allowed this to be OK for me. She knew how to take my burdens quietly from me, leave me my silences and free me to travel on my personal journey. I imagine that it took incredible strength to do that. Just trying to understand three sons would break down most mothers these days. My sister must have felt like a gift from above.

But perhaps she learned how to love us in her life lessons. And more than just sharing DNA, family stories and relationships, our mothers are a physical as well as spiritual part of us. There are times I hear her voice when I am talking. She speaks to people through me. I see her when I am cooking, remembering that tiny kitchen that she so carefully prepared our meals in, surrounded by cupboards her Dad built for "her." Light pine with black hinges.

I wish that I could tell her to not worry, but I imagine that is fruitless. Being a mother is to worry. I see that beauty of caring in my own wife, also a mother. I like to think that the poem I have at the end of this post can capture what I so clumsily have tried to put in words. The truth is there are no big and mighty words that can adequately capture our "Mom."

My mother is a poem

I'll never be able to write,

though everything I write

is a poem to my mother.

--Sharon Doubiago

Right, Wrong, Morals?

"Nature has no moral imperative."--Luke Dempsey

Nature, in biological context, exists to exist. Or maybe more importantly, to continue to exist. It is survival of the fittest when it comes right down to it.

Animals and plants do not exhibit the "moral compass" that directionally pulls us either right or wrong in our dealings. They wonder not on great issues such as is it right that "I the fox kill you the mouse" or when "We zillion emerald ash borers lay our eggs, you ash tree, will die!" It just happens. There comes with natures actions no sense of right or wrong. Really, it is ALL right. Lacking moral values leaves no act wrong. And no need for remorse, reparations, revenge, regret and other "R" words.

How would humans be if they had no moral imperative as Luke Dempsey stated? I think that we would be circumstantially better in some ways and devastatingly horrible in other ways. Wouldn't our children be stronger if we taught them survival skills and didn't smother them with our fears and doubts? Taught them all how to symbolically "swim" to live, without convincing them about the reasons why they need to learn this? Maybe they could come up with incredible new ideas if we didn't force the old ones down their brains.

Would they kill their neighbor to have their house or wife or treasure? I don't believe that we as humans inherently desire those things. Those are artificially planted by sick minds that are following a strange and twisted "moral compass." Not a compass of good which exists, but the sick-puppy mind, the"Devil" that exists in the cells of our brain.

Because there is no moral compass in nature, what nature shows us is that it does no "wrong." It moves in waves and cycles and continually evolves and changes and adapts to the simple events of existence. It doesn't seek to alter existance, it just "is." We cannot take the leopard out of the leopard or the cardinal out of the cardinal. They just are.

Are we better than that? Or do we destroy more of everything we interact with utilizing the morals and values that we most often time try to force on the ones we encounter? Make the fox eat celery?