I have been a history buff for as long as I can remember. But for me, it’s not been the history of events nearly as much as the history of individuals and the way events of their own lives affected their futures; and none is more intriguing to me than my own. Really? An appreciation for history was something I shared with my best and childhood friend Vince.

He was slow to report back on his assessment of “Dear Mom and Dad”. When I couldn’t stand the silence any longer I e-mailed him asking if the second copy had ever arrived. (the first copy I sent disappeared in USPS never-never-land. I know that because they sent me the empty package.) His eventual response nearly broke my heart. He said he had read it twice looking for some clue that would have alerted him to my situation so he could have helped me, but he couldn’t, and so was saddened that he had let me down.

Let me down? I immediately responded by telling him that in no way did he let me down. How could he? The book was all about my lack of understanding and how it affected what was my own developing history. Each time I examine it at this point in life there is always a different perspective … a different facet that stands out. At this point the known but never examined fact is my lifelong fascination with the female of the species.

The thought pattern is rooted in nostalgia … what could have been … what might have been … what would have happened, had it been. If I track my emotional memory back far enough I will find myself lying across the legs of three teenage girls in the back seat of Mom and Dad’s car. I couldn’t have been more than 4 years old, but the memory of those minutes is sweet nostalgia that always brings a smile. Why in the world would I remember that?

Many memories of that type worm their way into my conscious thought frequently, and when they do I always wonder what might have happened if I had acted on the emotions instead of letting myself be carried away with dreams and visions of what might be. I wonder too, what those girls are like today. What would they think if they knew that the little boy who was quietly and in secret fantasizing about them, had an unseen girl, sharing the fantasy with him.

And I wonder how many of them were having fantasies about him, and if not about him about another girl. All of these thoughts pop up from time to time, but for the most part it is the soft sweet lure of nostalgia which is the most inviting. There were many times during the writing of Dear Mom and Dad that my fingers would simply stop pecking at the keys of my computer keyboard as I found myself, once again recalling those alluring moments of daydreams which always … always brought sweet, gentle memories and smiles.

I have a few, very limited memories of boys in my early life, and many of those are not terribly pleasant. If there is anything unpleasant about any memories of the girls in my life it stems from wondering what I might have missed out on due to fears of what they might think about me if they knew which always led to fears of rejection. But regardless of the fears, the alluring dreams and visions of girls mostly, but occasionally adult women as well, would lead to daydreams of romance and never ending love.

I’ve never taken the time to actually make a list of all the women who’ve had at the least, a momentary sojourn in my heart and daydreams. The list would be extensive for certain. When I was writing Dear Mom and Dad I did make a list of those who came in and out of my life in the four year period prior to meeting Marilyn. There were more than thirty and all of those went beyond daydreaming.

Those days are pretty much a thing of the past now but the nostalgia remains attached to many of the memories that make up my history. Yeah, in the reader’s opinion this is probably a totally meaningless post, but it is what I wanted to say.

The title to this entry may be slightly misleading, but stick with me and possibly by the end you will understand the “choice” of phase. Over the last few weeks I’ve heard the 1976 song, “Torn between two lovers” by Mary MacGregor a number of times, and it has struck a chord with me, but not for the reason you may think.

I was born on October 20th, a fact that has placed me in the astrological category of Libra, albeit right there on the cusp with Scorpio. So for those of you who want to read anything there, read away. Personally I think the scales representing weighing one option against another which are often linked with Libra, are all too frequently a very accurate depiction of my mental state.

A year ago I had little use for those scales, because I had no options to weigh. Today I have options; some I appreciate and actually delight in weighing against each other. Other choices I recoil from. I don’t appreciate being forced to deal with those choices because so far none of the options are appealing in the least. To make matters worse the persons who have created the situation, one in particular, are people I’ve given repeated chances, to dissuade me from my suspicions. And that distresses me.

The second phrase of the first line in the chorus to “Torn between two lovers, goes even further into my dilemma … “feeling like a fool”. Yeah, I feel like a fool, and I feel like a fool for several reasons.

The first is that I have chosen to ignore all the signals; all the warning signs. Like the fools who choose, in spite of all the unavoidable warning signs telling drivers not to drive into flooded washes during the Arizona monsoons, and have to be rescued, I’ve ignored all the signs. There just don’t happen to be any rescue parties to pull me out of my flooded wash.

When I look at the options through a clear lens, I realize that one option is the result of careful and repeated review of the facts. The facts tell me to move on. My emotions, on the other hand, are causing me a lot of internal strife. I don’t want to move on. I want to move ahead … where I am. But the fact is that either decision is going to be painful and I’ve procrastinated way too long.

For once, prayers have yielded no discernible answer so I just have to assume that this decision is entirely up to me. There is a commercial which runs periodically for a Christian dating site which states that sometimes God is waiting for you to act. I will take action this very week; today possibly, because I’m tired of “feeling like a fool.”

Strange, how absolutely none of this situation I’m in has a thing to do with romance, but every message which seems to apply, is about romance. I guess that it has to do with Abba’s ability, or tendency, to reach you on whatever level is needed. A long time ago, I wrote on the white board next to my desk, the following statement, the origin of which I have no idea outside of my own realizations. It says this: “God will use whatever tools He needs to use, in order to move you … If you ask Him for help.”

I can only assume that His silence, leading to my frustration, is the tool He is using on me at this point. I will let you know which “lover” I choose.

Is it just me or has the entire world I live in decided that truth is whatever they want it to be? Since when have honesty and truthfulness become so abhorrent to people that they feel it makes no difference if they distort the reality around them to suit the momentary situations they find themselves in. Don’t get me wrong, if you assume that I’m claiming to be perfect now or have always been perfect. I’m not. But, I have, by virtue of age and experience come to a keen awareness of the value and importance of the relationship between truth and reality.

I’m from an age when the story of our first president, and the admission of his action in chopping down a cherry tree was common fodder for first grade students. As I grew older I developed the notion that I was a truthful person and the notion persisted well into my adult years. The fact that I fell into a habit of “embellishing” my past when discussing it with unknowing people just didn’t register with me as being dishonest. Someone made the statement a long time ago that “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” But what if we know our own individual history but choose to re-write it to suit our personal aims?

Years ago, in the 1967 movie titled A Guide for the Married Man, the Robert Morse character Ed, tutors Walter Matthau’s character Paul, in the do’s and don’ts of getting away with an extramarital affair. The movie is a series of vignettes involving various characters who have avoided being caught by following one of Ed’s rules, or men who have been caught in mid debauch by their wives. The scenes in that movie smack of the dishonesty prevalent in our society today, but one in particular has always had a particularly striking message, and one which seems to have put down deep roots in society today.

In that scenario the wife of the cheating husband walks in on him and a voluptuous beauty in the couple’s bed. Naturally she goes into hysterics and while she is ranting and raving the husband and the beauty calmly get out of bed, dress, make the bed, the beauty leaves and the husband, still totally ignoring his wife, dons a smoking jacket and proceeds to the front room. There he takes a seat in an easy chair and begins reading the newspaper. The wife is still screaming at the top of her lungs. Suddenly the husband looks up from his paper and says, “Oh hi dear. When did you get home?” The result is for the wife is total bewilderment and at this point becomes unsure that she saw what she saw.

The lesson here according to tutor Ed is that if you get caught, deny, deny, deny … never confess or admit to wrong doing … ever! It’s a lesson that appears to have been learned and practiced by society in general.

When I was knee deep in my alcoholism I became so used to lying about nearly everything that it became second nature. Two things happened to bring me face to face with the string of lies. The first of those events involved the fourth, fifth, and ninth steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Having to face the damage my lies had caused and then make amends is something I never want to endure again; so much so that the memory alone is enough to keep me honest in every relationship. Am I one hundred percent successful? No! of course not, but it’s what I strive for.

The second event was the process of reviewing my life as I wrote Dear Mom and Dad . When I realized that what I was recording might actually be published, I was forced to be brutally honest with myself and about myself. Since that time I’ve recommended it as an exercise in honest assessment of one’s life to any number of people, none of whom seem to be the least bit interested; and why should they be? Society appears to condemn truth and reward the lie … and the liar.

The sad truth is that it starts at the top, in the White House, and flows out and down from there. News reporters report lies as truth. Office seekers of all kinds fabricate facts of their lives with virtual impunity. Schools at all levels teach myth and untruth as history and fact. Job seekers stretch the truth of their education and experience in applications and interviews. Persons you’ve respected and relied on when they’ve made a request of you cause you to respond quickly and sincerely, make promises they never keep and statements which are self-serving if not downright dishonest. When all these, and people in many other categories, are caught in the fiction or lie, they either get a deer in the headlights expression or … deny, deny, deny. At all costs deny!

The reality of it all serves to strengthen my resolve to eliminate any and all dishonesty from my life, in spite of the recurring accusation that by living my life in a role contrary to the chromosomes God assigned me at birth, I’m living a lie. In reality I’m doing the exact opposite. I have never denied my origins. I’m living a totally honest reality for the first time in my life. I just wish that the reality of the world around me didn’t tend to make me suspicious of virtually every single thing I see and hear. It makes me cynical and I don’t like it. Although I lived a lot of my life in a lie I never suspected that other people lied. I had this naïve childish belief that everyone was basically honest and they had to prove otherwise beyond a doubt before I ever suspected them of lying.

As I wrote in the last sentence of Dear Mom and Dad … “I … ‘sometimes wish I was three again, knowing what I know now.’”

The last few weeks have been a confusing, at times disturbing, at times exhilarating mix of events and experiences which have left me … well the heading to this entry says it best … Discombobulated. It’s the only word I know in the English language to describe it. Am I on an emotional rollercoaster or a giant mental centrifuge? It seems as though the ride can change moment to moment.

Five years ago today I thought I had found a church family and a pastor that would eventually scatter my ashes. But the events there of the last few months have left me with a questioning sadness that breaks by heart and has given me reason to consider leaving. I don’t want to do that. I have made the most incredibly wonderful friends, but many of them have left and that is the real heartbreak.

Over the last year, I’ve developed a sense of responsibility to the people there that has frequently left me feeling tied down and that isn’t good at all. I want to be there out of a sense of joy at the thought of the fellowship I will experience each Sunday morning and often during the week. And therein lays a part of the discombobulation.

As things began to unravel I realized I was actually sensing a feeling of release. I was thinking that without that responsibility I could, with a clear conscience, leave Phoenix and return to Durango where I came from. That thought alone was scary enough. How would “Georgia” be accepted there? Then when I considered the friends, the “family” whom I was totally attached to aside from our church relationship, I felt that I would be deserting them as well as losing their companionship. Sadly, I began rethinking my future. Then, I spent last week in Atlanta.

I’ve never had such a wonderful time doing something I was getting paid for. I certainly didn’t go there anticipating that experience. I’ve been to more than a few training sessions and seminars in my life, and while they’re generally beneficial, I for one have generally been left with a flat feeling for the effort. However, this experience was totally unlike any previous educational event I’ve ever attended. But, I need to go back to the beginning, a very good place to start, a phrase, as I recall, which is from a song in “The Sound of Music.”

I didn’t want to go to Atlanta, Home Depot Mecca, for two reasons. First, I was frightened by the thought of spending that much time in close company with people I didn’t know; people who certainly didn’t know “me”. Second, I didn’t think I needed to go, because I thought I knew everything I needed to know about the design program we were going to be trained in. I’m so glad that God saw fit to bless me with what I think is a well developed sense of humor. As it turned out, I needed it. I didn’t have much beyond a clue as to what the week held for me. On the first day, when asked to rate ourselves on a scale of 1 to 10 about our program expertise, I felt compelled to be honest and rate myself a 10. Like I said, luckily I have a sense of humor. When the week was over I now felt compelled to ask the lead instructor if I could revise my self-assessment of the first morning, down from a 10 to a 5.

The trip seemed somewhat dull and what I expected until I walked into the restaurant for dinner at the hotel that first night … that’s where “dull and expected” came to an abrupt halt. As I stood there surveying the room for an empty table, a group of ladies at a booth hailed me and invited me to join them … and the adventure began.

Over the course of the week I met and enjoyed the company of a number of women and one young man in the meetings of course, but moreso in the evenings around the pool, in the bar and in our rooms. Three of the women, with backgrounds totally different from one another, wormed their way into my heart, I suspect never to leave; and with good reason.

I have never entertained the thought that anyone getting to know me wouldn’t realize that I wasn’t born “Georgia.” And I never get insulted when someone see’s beyond the visual me; disappointed perhaps, but never insulted. People are people and many have never had the opportunity to experience much beyond their own tightly woven worlds. So when someone like me shows up it can be rather disconcerting. With that thought in mind I’m generally content to let people “wonder if maybe she’s not real”.

When I do share the reality of my existence with people it’s because I have grown close to them and don’t want an element of dishonesty on my part to discolor the relationship. That turned out to be the case with those three very special women in the course of the week.

I never know what it is in the nature of relationships I form, that prompts me to share my background with them, but it’s related to the desire for the developing relationship to be untainted by the possibility of incomplete disclosure of whom I’ve been as well as who I am. In this case I was overwhelmed with the response to my “revelation.” Later, the one I was closest to told me that when I left the room for a few minutes that the three of them just sat there stunned by what I had told them, and by my willingness to let them into my world.

I realized when the week was drawing to a close that I really didn’t want it to end. As we were boarding the buses for the airport I experienced a genuine sense of loss at the parting. I came home with a handful of cards from people I’d met over the week, but those three were more than “associates” to me. They are friends who will remain so to the day my ashes are scattered and beyond.

So, do you have a better idea of why feel a bit “discombobulated?” What a mixture of emotions.

Life! Sometimes it simply sucks itself right out of you. In a flash, a simple combination of words, conveyed in a short message, the kind of message we get in a text message, a Facebook comment, an e-mail; and all the breath that is your hope, your dreams, your purpose, it all evaporates. And I ask, “Why did that happen?” Why didn’t I see that coming? The reason we don’t … the reason I didn’t see that coming, was that it came from sources I would have never suspected. The worst part is that it must be born alone.

The words to Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone again … Naturally!” come to mind. “… reality came around, and without so much as mere touch broke me into little pieces, leaving me to doubt, talk about God and His mercy, who if He really does exist, why did He desert me? In my hour of need, I truly am indeed, Alone again … Naturally!” The words are probably out of order but the feeling remains, and there are so many ways to describe it.

I’ve spent more hours alone than I care to remember; all nighters alone on a tractor going back and forth with nothing to do but think; late nights on lonely highways trying to get home before exhaustion gained the upper hand. The lonely nights haven’t all been on the road. I’ve lost count of the lonely nights at the office preparing proposals for clients. For years, the nights on the road and the office were usually spent with a bottle of liquor to dull the sense of loneliness.

Loneliness at this point in my life is different though. In years past there was always an end to the loneliness in sight. There was someone at the end of the loneliness to share the day’s successes … and especially the disappointments with. Those times didn’t always require conversation. As often as not, the simplicity of the touch of a hand did more than a book of words.

There were many times when being alone was welcomed. As you might suspect, those times were often times when the thoughts were not something other people would understand. They were times when the two halves of this soul were engaged in a tug-of-war over how to make this dual nature work in a way that satisfied both and the thought of another human being understanding what was going on was incomprehensible. All in all, loneliness has had certain advantages, but the disadvantages have begun to accumulate.

The years learning to live alone before I met Marilyn were tough, but there was an end to those. The five years it took to research, write and publish “Dear Mom and Dad” were spent mostly alone but I felt there was a purpose to it. Maybe there is a purpose to the current loneliness but I don’t see it yet.

I feel as though I’m probably just being a whiner, but I sense a huge change coming in my life and frankly it’s unnerving as all get out. One of the greatest parts, if not the greatest part, of my life is withering and it’s breaking my heart. I find myself complaining to just about anyone who’ll listen, but that’s not what I should be doing and I’m not certain what, if anything, I should do. I have for the last five years found in my church family a certain sense of security which has camouflaged the real need. The fact is that I miss the security of un-loneliness.

At times I want to scream at God so I do. “What did I do to deserve this? Are you ever going to forgive me for those years of ignoring you except when I was desperate? Why did you make me this way?” And in that last question is the real crux of the problem.

I realize that for a “tranny” (dual natured-tranny if you will) I’m extremely fortunate that God gave me a body and other characteristics that work quite well to make my life far more pleasant than many others in the same circumstance, but … Like so many others in the same situation I’m caught between the devil and the deep blue sea; be who I am and suffer the slings and arrows or be who the world thinks I should be and be miserable.

Straight people just simply don’t care for us all that much, most gay men are nice to us but don’t want to get too close and the lesbian community while far more accepting is, for the most part, just not interested in anymore than a hug, maybe a little kiss and conversation, but that’s it, because after all … we’re not the real McCoy. Pinocchio had it better. In the end he got to become what he longed to be … real. True, he had to go through the long nose bit, and the donkey’s ears and tail, but in the end those “unpleasant parts” vanished and he was accepted as … real, with a heart and soul.

And that’s the point … It shouldn’t matter what’s under my skirt and no one but my doctor knows for sure, and the one person who’s not going to care what’s there will know for sure, because it’s my heart and soul that count. Until that happens, I will suffer with bouts of temporary long nose, donkey’s ears and tail … loneliness … its part of life.

The first thing remembered, when I reflect on my earliest memories of church, is not the message in any sermons. In fact, I have no memories of any message until I was in high school, and there are only two of those memories. One of them is not even so much about details of the message itself, but of Mom’s indignation toward the message. It was about the need for Christian sex education for the youth of the congregation. Her righteous ire was further exacerbated by the fact that it was her eldest child, me, who was asked to deliver the message in my portion of the Youth Sunday Sermon. The other message I remember, is the sermon by Mark Henry Miller and the title of his sermon, delivered on August 18th, 1963, “Walking on Water”. It was a message about faith. Forty-seven years later, after having abandoned even remote association with any church within two years of hearing that sermon, I discovered the church bulletin from the morning that sermon was delivered; the only bulletin ever saved from all those Sundays of sitting just five rows back from the front row and directly in front of the pulpit.

Mom saw to it that we were in church every single solitary Sunday, come rain or shine. No mailman was ever more dedicated to his appointed rounds than Mom was to the fifth row back on Sunday morning. As a result, you would think that at least some of the specifics in the messages would have would have stuck, but they didn’t; not then and if the truth were told, not now. The closest I can come to the memory of a message, other than those just mentioned, was a song we learned in vacation bible school one summer. It was, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so”. I remember wondering who the bible was. Was he like a preacher of some sort? Whatever it was that I thought, I know I had the distinct impression that The Bible was a person of authority, not an object.

What is remembered most are the persons who delivered those messages and the people those messages were intended for; not all the people of course, but many of the people. It doesn’t matter what point in time I recall, its people I remember, beginning with Dr. Jorn, the minister at the First Methodist Church in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. What my memory serves up of Dr. Jorn is of a tall, white haired, distinguished man in a black robe, peering down from above and in front of the congregation, keeping a close eye on his grandson and me seated on the very front pew.

I realize at this point in my life that the real message of all those sermons and Sunday school lessons was really about relationships; relationships with people and with God, and that maybe, just possibly, I did actually get the message after all. I don’t remember getting it, with the exception of Mark Miller’s sermon of August 18th 1963, but then I don’t remember learning to walk or talk either. I certainly don’t remeber any other discussions of faith, i.e. “trust”.

Sometimes when I stop long enough to consider the real implications of walking on water, that is, the level of faith required to overcome the very laws of nature which make walking on water impossible for mere human beings I think, “what’s the use of trying? I will never be able to manage that feat … ever!” But then again, maybe by exercising my faith muscle enough I will be able to accomplish other “impossible” things along the way. In other words maybe the unintended consequence of the effort might be of some real value.

In reality it’s quite like developing the muscles in my body, which I’m loathe to do at this age. After all, that requires exercise; a regular daily routine of sustained physical exertion of the muscles of the body in order to make them fit for performing great feats power. Unfortunately my periodic efforts at developing my faith muscle are about as consistent as my efforts to develop my body muscle.

Forget New Year’s resolutions … how about New Week resolutions or even New Day resolutions? In the course of creating and completing this bit of masterful insight I realized that it’s been a genuine self lecture, which is not what I intended. I set out to regale my readers on the requirements and characteristics of faith but what I’ve accomplished is to rattle my own cage, so to speak.

I have a friend whose ability to write is a constant inspiration. She told me once, and I paraphrase, that most of the time she was just thinking on paper; that it helped her deal with life and work out the knots, so to speak. Maybe that’s what I’ve done here; work out some of the knots in my faith muscle. I certainly hope so, because like so much of what I write it seems to have taken on a life of its own before I’ve finished.

Let me start by saying this: honesty and accountability are inseparable and when you realize that someone you know, have loved and admired for the hope and promise they brought to your life; when you realize that you can no longer overlook the fact that they cannot be counted on do what they say they will do and will then deny they ever said it, it’s time to re-consider the relationship.

I’ve been so guilty of looking at relationships and the interactions involved through rose colored glasses that I was accused by my former spouse of living in oblivion. My explanation for it was, I thought, rather noble. It went, (well if I’m really “honest” I should say, “goes” present tense) like this: If you didn’t intend to hurt or mislead me with what you said, what then was the point in making a stink about it. Now, if your repeated the behavior a second or third time then I would simply point out to you that I was offended or hurt by the action. If on the other hand, your intention was to be hurtful or offensive, then I’d be damned if I was going to give you the satisfaction of knowing you succeeded by acknowledging or reacting to you.

I’ve taken great pride in my ability to ignore the faults and foibles of the people in my life. I believe it’s made me a better person. Of course I’m not perfect. I do allow myself the occasional foray into what could best be described as gossip. When I do, it’s generally with someone I know well and trust. But, that’s it. I just normally don’t partake in the exercise of peeling someone else’s layers back.

I was raised in that environment. Mom and Dad conducted their lives in honest and accountable ways. If either of them was ever guilty of wavering from that way of conducting their lives I never knew about it.

Having been married to the most honest and accountable person I’ve ever known for the last 22 years of her life, and having had few personal relationships outside of that relationship, I fell into the habit of assuming that everyone lived by the same basic principles. They don’t. And that realization has taken a certain joy out of relating to people in the course of my daily life.

It’s one thing for me to have developed a given amount of skepticism about the real intentions of people I deal with in my job. Try as I may to draw people out and discover their real goals and abilities to actualize their dreams for their homes, there is always that insidious suspicion that they aren’t telling me the truth. Occasionally I’m surprised though not very often. But that’s the reality of business today and I can accept that and cope with it. What I can’t accept and cope with is the same behavior in personal relationships.

Heaven knows I haven’t always tried to be honest and accountable. When I was drinking I was a consummate liar. I spent years covering up one lie with another and another … and another. When Marilyn finally forced me into AA and I stayed with it for fear of losing her, I eventually got to my fourth and fifth steps and was startled to realize that the damage I’d done while drinking was almost exclusively the product of dishonesty and a lack of accountability. That realization alone and the memory of that fifth step helped me realize how valuable honesty and accountability are. I never, ever want to go through that again and the memory of it has contributed mightily to my 22 plus years of sobriety.

Sadly, very sadly, I’ve learned from experience that the value I place on those two qualities is not the norm for many people. When people who have little if any meaning in my life are guilty of lying and unaccountability it’s of little consequence to me. But, when I’ve come up hard on the realization that someone I’ve trusted; done everything they ever asked of me; placed in their hands so many expectations for my life; when that person has repeatedly failed to fulfill promises and at times just plain lied to me it crushes my heart. Maybe I’ve totally misinterpreted, totally misunderstood, totally over expected … but after painful review I don’t think so.

And I hope that’s the last I’ll ever feel a need to say on the subject.

I’m not sure where this effort is going. It might last only a paragraph or two or it might turn into an epistle, but I’m going run with the thought anyway. For some reason I have been suffering from a form of writer’s block, known as … well, writer’s block. It’s been plaguing me for several months now and it bothers the hell out of me.

Usually, I’m full of ideas to write about. They come to me at all hours of the day or night and usually I’m able to flesh out the thoughts with very little effort. Lately, however, the ideas seem to be still born; lifeless as a corpse. To make matters worse, I’ve found myself urging others, some with a demonstrated ability to express themselves well, and others with life experiences that should be shared, to put pen to paper and share what they have with the world. I feel like an alcoholic who’s fallen off the wagon telling another alcoholic who’s never been on the wagon, what a great deal sobriety is … over drinks.

One of, although not my only reason for writing Dear Mom and Dad, was at my age the specter of the looming possibility of standing before God and hearing Him say, “And that one talent I gave you, what did you do with it?” Yes, I know that I’m kind of patting myself on the back to say that I have a talent for expressing my thoughts in writing, but facts are facts and I do possess the talent. It’s a God given gift.

I don’t believe that if we have a talent and don’t use it that it will be taken away and given to another as the parable in the New Testament says. I do believe, however, that it’s sinful, wrong if you prefer, to have a talent, especially a recognized talent, to let it go to waste. Not only is it sinful/wrong, it’s terribly sad. It’s sad because of the loss of joy that comes from making good use of a talent is never experienced. It’s sad because of the lives which will not be enriched by the experience of enjoying what you could have shared with them.

With this in mind, a thought occurred to me during lunch with a friend, who has a wealth of experiences from her job to share. She said she’d tried writing down those experiences but never got very far. She seemed to feel that she wouldn’t be able to express herself well enough. I found myself encouraging her to “just start writing.” I then went on to explain some of the ways to go about it, but the bottom line was … “just start writing.”

Of course you know what happened next. A not so quiet voice in my head, said, “Physician, heal thyself!”

A natural talent for writing is not necessarily a requirement for doing so effectively. In the case of my friend, writing down her experiences would be the tool for sharing the results of her real talent, which she has shared with the world for years. That, then becomes a matter of the level of passion one has for sharing ones talents and/or experiences with the world.

I have another friend who has more than one talent, but for one of those talents she has a true passion and it shows when she’s exercising the talent. When she is expressing that talent I become totally mesmerized by her and simply cannot take my eyes off of her. She has, whether consciously or unconsciously, managed to combine talent and passion in a joyful expression of herself which is truly beautiful to observe.

I have seen glimpses of that second talent frequently and look forward to the same sense of joy in observing that expression as much as I do the first. I believe that if and/or when she has perfected that other talent and mastered the ability to share it with the same passion she has for the first, that she indeed will be able to someday stand before God in full confidence of hearing Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have used what you were given very well” I hope to be in that audience when it happens.

In the meantime, I need to remember the admonition I heard frequently in years passed, that just as a professional athlete needs to go back to basic training once a year to re-hone their talent by simply suiting up and showing up and doing the exercises again and again, I need to suit up and show up at my desk and do finger pushups on the keyboard whether I feel like it or not.

And I will always encourage others to follow the path of their talents and experiences whenever I see an opportunity to do so. So, if you’re one of my friends who needs a push be ye forewarned.

Have I changed so much? I mean, beyond that change from who I was, and still am on a certain level, to who I am? I have changed … I think. It has something to do with moving from a period of acquiring to sharing.

I’m thinking back to a time in my/his far distant past when sharing was the furthest thing from our mind … well, with the exception of sharing his/my dreams of future acquisitions with anyone who would listen. Those dreams were what author Wayne Dyer calls the psychology of “when”. It was a time when I/he had little more than dreams of future acquisitions and the satisfaction they were thought to bring with them, when they were acquired.

I can remember the moment when the realization struck that there would be no satisfaction in the actualization of the central core of those dreams … the never ending quest to buy the the place next door. There would always be a place next door, but there would come a time when the satisfaction of having acquired it would immediately be stifled by the quest to buy the next place next door. In other words, satisfaction would always, always be just beyond the next fence line … something akin to Sisyphus, his rock and the top of the hill.

The most interesting fact of this look back is that I have no memory of visions of dollar wealth, just land wealth. Did that thought result in a change of attitude about acquiring? Not at all! In fact, it only changed where I/he looked for satisfaction in acquiring. Part of the reason the original dream failed was because I/he realized the eventuality of the point of diminishing returns and that was an unacceptable result of acquiring. Each acquisition had to bring with it satisfaction which lasted and could be heaped upon the last satisfaction.

The quest continued for years until suddenly, and without warning, the acquisitions we had made; emotional as with the love from Marilyn, the home, the dollars; all began slipping away bit by bit until it was all gone. Did that end the quest for acquisitions? Again … not at all? It just started all over again from scratch, but this time it all slipped away more quickly. Sometime during that second period of acquisition, however, a subtle change began to assert itself.

It began with the writing down of my thoughts for the members of Tri-Ess and progressed to the writing of Dear Mom and Dad. It took awhile for the realization to sink in, that what I was doing was sharing things that had been fearfully guarded for a long time. The result for me of that sharing was the satisfaction I gained when people I didn’t know, as well as people I did know, began telling me that what I shared had a positive impact on their lives. I was stunned, actually, to think that the elements of my thoughts were of any real value to others; primarily I believe, because I was at the time writing for my own satisfaction; stunned but overwhelmed with gratitude at the same time. It never wears off. Each time someone tells me that I’ve had a positive impact on their life and thanks me for it, I’m still overwhelmed.

As time in this new and somewhat unfamiliar yet parallel universe has passed I have come to realize that the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment I wasted so much of my life on … acquisition of property, things, possessions, had never held the potential for satisfaction I found in sharing my heart and mind. But the real shock to me was when I began to share my time, personal and private time, with people God had been placing in my life, mostly as a result of the continued sharing of my heart and mind.

I used to imagine the satisfied sense of joy that I would feel when I looked out over my dreamed of vast land holdings. The only joy I remember in that respect was sense of pleasure gained when I looked over a newly plowed field at sunset and the peace that came from that. I now know that what I anticipated from acquisitions was to be found in the exact opposite … sharing, giving away of my gifts.

Christ spent his earthly ministry telling people of the joy they would find in giving all their treasures away to others. I always thought it only applied to financial treasure. It doesn’t. It applies to giving away, sharing, the treasures of who we are, what we are, the persons of whom God created us to be.

People who know me well, know quite well that politically speaking I am, to say the least, extremely conservative. For those of you who think that means I agree with the actions of the conservative Arizona legislature today you are dead wrong. I am appalled, to say the least, that people who claim to be conservative are anything but.

The only thing conservative about them is the width of their thought processes … extremely narrow. And that brings me to the real point of what I want to say. Narrowness of mind has nothing to do with conservative thought. It has to do with the inability to view the world from a wider perspective and it has to do with the inability to realize that freedom of expression does not mean the right to imprison others in a literal or figurative sense.

In addition to the mean spirited nature of what the Arizona legislature did today I’m angered by the fact that all the good loving people, and there are many who are conservative in the sense that I consider myself to be, are painted with a broad brush of hatred by too many who consider themselves to be liberal/progressive. To me, the only difference in the latter and the apparent majority of the Arizona legislature is this.

The conservative narrow minds in our legislature want to consider that their freedoms, for instance, extend to the point where they insist that you should be able to keep much more of your hard earned money, but then turn around and tell you how and on what you spend it. That in a sense reduces your freedoms of choice, which is the essence, in my mind, of the vote of the Arizona legislature …

The liberal/progressive minds consider that you should be able to determine how and on what you spend your hard earned money. The problem with their solution is that they don’t think that you are smart enough or generous enough to know how or on what to spend your money so their solution is to take most of it and spend it in ways they think are more beneficial to you and your neighbors. That also reduces your freedoms … disproportionately.

So, the essence of what I feel about the vote today is this. Get the hell out of my bedroom and while you’re at it, I’ll thank you to get your hands out of my pockets. I’m perfectly capable of observing the needs of the lives around me and who to help and who not to help without your input. I have no need whatsoever to exercise control over any other person.

That is Georgia’s brand of conservatism. If you don’t like it Arizona legislature, put it in your pipe and smoke it. You are not my brand of people.