Invictus -- a nation suffering through change

This movie is worth seeing. This story is about forgiveness and finding compromise that enables everyone in a country to gain a share in the common good. We are all a part of the same family in this world -- the human family. And we share a planet with many other beings that need our respect and graciousness to share this planet with us.

I am not perfect
How can I lift my voice
and condemn
someone
condemning me
and yet I do it
bitterly I weep
if that person
is close
to me
the closer they are
the harder it is
to forgive
every time I open
my mouth
the sound gathers
friends
who join me in refrains
I justify
my pain
God forgive
my impatience
forgive
this short sightedness
forgive
my own lack of
forgiveness
help me hold still
and be at peace
amidst
these storms
we all
come through them
they are here
to test us
to prove our metal
I am sorry
I failed today
to maintain
quiet resolve
I can and will
do better

It strikes me that these trials we go through give us strength, and that strength is what will help us endure to the end.

Human Emotion of Forgiveness

It is easy to point fingers and find fault. It takes true grit to bear and forbear -- that is, to forgive. As I think about this wonderful year of 2009 I think about success and failure. They are hand and glove and one comes with the other. Some say that success is only one more failure. Others say it is one more try. Forgiveness is one more try. It is taking your pride and setting it aside in the name of letting go of the harsh and unforgiving.

If I were to be on one side of the coin -- I would choose the kinder road, I would be tender hearted, and I would simply say after all I've done -- forgive me. We all know the disappearing act, the cooling off the scene, and the hot pot boiling over. We recognize it in our own actions at times. But the one who stays around, the one who cares even when it hurts, the one who lifts us up even when they themselves have been hurt -- now that is the side of the coin that I will admire and seek after ... after all charity seeketh not her own but is long suffering.

Economy for Energy and Health Care

I have listened to health care town halls and even participated in a few of them. I have even volunteered as host and as participant along the way. This is my current thinking for our economy, health care, and the development of energy.

1. Shouldn't we figure out how to pay for health care first before implementing it?
   
   All we see is the intention to put it in place. I suggest we create wealth which solves the energy problem and use that excess for services. Check out Solar Roadways at http://www.solarroadways.com. For the cost of paving the roads we can have 3 times the amount of electricity that we use in the United States today through a renewable energy resource -- Solar. And we can drop in a fault tolerant, distributed network which plugs other energy source into it.
   
   
2. Shouldn't we figure out infrastructure before we invest in alternative energy that has no where to plug into?
   
   Then all projects have somewhere to fit and probably will be funded privately because plugging into infrastructure means local money saved if we do what Germany did with their infrastructure.
   
   Don't you find it ironic that private industry (a cottage effort) shows us how to use brown's gas, wind turbines for $200 that cut local electricity 80 percent, and a host of inventions that are leading to renewable solutions? In government we seem to talk in magnitudes of millions, billions, and trillions.
   
   Even T. Boone Pickens figured this out when he postponed his implementation of Wind for the infrastructure to be in place.
   

Doubling nuclear power is not a solution. McCain promised 100 more nuclear facilities. The only thing we lack in this country's leadership is the will to do renewable energy. As Henry Ford said, "if you believe you can or can't, you are right". It is T. Boone Pickens that showed us that 30 million dollars of wind can do the job of more energy across the midwest. In fact, 20 percent of our electricity currently generated can be generated by wind in the midwest if we only had the infrastructure to support it. That is our government's responsibility in my opinion -- it is the large stroke of President Eisenhower who gave us interstate highways for the benefit of the people. Now we need the magic of boldness to create interstate solar highways for the people. It will lift us out of this economic decline. Why?

1. Source of energy is renewable
2. Fault Tolerant Grid is plug and play
3. Smart highways clean off their own snow
4. Half the country powers the other half as night falls
5. Half the country powers the other half as day comes
6. Smart highways detect and warn of accidents, pedestrians, deer ahead
7. The cost is what we spend anyway to pave the roads
8. Removes terrorist threat of taking out a single power station
9. Provides a new communication backbone as well
10. Interstates travel to most remote areas, takes power and communication there
11. Wind now has a role to play for night time power usage
12. Electric cars can plug in the grid

I believe there is a role for government when it is an enabling technology that binds us together as a people. Some examples are printing and managing money, raising taxes to cover services, creating laws for the protection of the people, and creating infrastructure which enables private enterprise to thrive.

Seeing Oregon for the First Time

Maybe this sounds too simple but I felt like I was entering God's country as I entered the wonderful state of Oregon. The trees were happier, the forests stood taller, and the people seemed to drop all pretenses. By the time we had reached Corvallis we had passed endless rows of mountains, meadows, valleys, bridges, and forested byways.

At the ocean the water was especially cold for a summer. The kelp made a great jump rope for the group of us. And entering the water until the knees were numb felt great. It made the picnic and games at the beach even more warming. With our family we sang, played piano, played drums, and frolicked through their lives at bit.

Julie and I danced to a small dance band with piano, drums, stand up string bass, trumpet, and saxophone / clarinet. The next morning we played racquetball and literally forgot the time. I think we will always carry a bit of Oregon with us wherever we go.

Cap and Trade Laws

What we need today is not a cap and trade system -- it is action and leadership. Accepting a bribe for energy costs that are simply passed on to the consumer is not a solution -- it is a stop gap that hurts the consumer and costs jobs. There are good solutions that we can do today because of American ingenuity. Look to our inventors like wind hunter and solar roadways.

What is a solution? Check out http://www.solarroadways.com and you'll see a national grid that can go up that will give us 3 times our current electrical power consumption for the cost of repaving our roads. Then we would have something to plug alternative energy into to smooth out the peaks. Smart roads would encourage smart communities who extend the solution to their own factories, malls, businesses, and (YES) even homes.

A road should be able to melt its own snow without any equipment. A road should be able to detect people or deer on the road and warn in coming vehicles. A road is the perfect place to create a fault tolerant, national grid to manage the energy and communication needs of our communities through the country. It is "where the road goes" that "the people will flourish and benefit."

Have our auto companies build our new interstates and gain a stake in an America that sets a trend of the next century and beyond. Have so many jobs available that we don't worry about who will get them. We all need to help this happen.

In Memory of Emily Pickens

For those of you who knew Emily Pickens, there is a memorial site dedicated to her memory. Here is the link.

Dancing with the Stars

This week at our activities center we learned how to pass the hand behind you while swinging with the swing. What a fun dance. People are always telling my wife and I that we look like dancing on the stars. It is amazing to get out and learn enough to be caught up in it. I know my Dad and Mother were both serious Jitterbug dancers. Someday I'd like to see a replay of all this.

Whatever you want to do -- go out and do it. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Success to me is in the doing -- not in the being successful. Anyone can be successful and then quit. It is the amazing people that are alive their whole life, not letting success or failure get in their way.

I was once told early in my life that my music was nothing and that they could do rings around anything I had ever written. Yea, I said, and what are you playing today? What are you writing today? The point to me is not to be rings around someone else -- I love to write and play music so it is real every day of my life. I enjoy it and it thrills me to be alive and producing music.

Dancing with the stars to me is not an achievement, it is a process through which I like to travel weekly. I watched my Father paint and even with a big brush he made painting after painting -- amazing. He wrote songs, he planted a garden, he got out in his free time to golf, play ball, visit the folks, visit the farm, visit the museums, play backyard badminton, and teach the neighborhood kids how to play guitar or harmonica. He seem to capture the essence of what I call humanity with those whom he came into contact.

I watched my Mother populate our house with projects and populate our basement with goods put away for the future. Her tireless work was amazing and she seemed to involve all of us with a passion for being prepared. She always makes a holiday a special event inside her own home. She is always looking for that next thing to do.

My parents split apart when I was young but they both remained faithful to this unconquerable spirit of doing. They both remarried and found partners who seemed to be on the same wonderful spin of life. To me they are the true spirit behind dancing with the stars.

I Have a Question

Since entering the Oriental Medicine field this "I have a question" has grown a bit larger with greater responsibility. And sometimes what I say does not translate into exact play by play action. And sometimes we make mistakes. Yes, that is the life of a practice. Not all is perfect. Even The Land of Oz had the little man behind the curtain that you were supposed to not pay attention to except that Toto, Dorothy's little dog, kept yapping away at him.

A degree in any field is only a beginning of a long and arduous journey. I remember asking a patient to add Oregano Oil to help combat some problems in a specific way. He bought the oil and added it to his chicken meal. NO, DO NOT DO THAT! Pure Oregano oil on chicken -- it tasted terrible, of course. I had even written down instructions. No matter, it was put on the chicken.

One of my favorite supplements is kelp in dispenser that you sprinkle lightly on sandwiches or salads or other food. One patient put a large tablespoon in her food and it taste terrible. Only a sprinkle I had said -- oh, and that was the last time they tried it. Things don't always translate.

It reminds me of studying martial arts. My martial art teacher used to worry about someone stealing his system and teaching it. After years of watching his senior students he realized, it is nearly impossible to steal it. It is nearly impossible to learn it in the first place, even for the best of his students. To someone who knows the art and does it well -- almost any art, it is almost impossible to steal it.

My teacher used to say, you learn it on different levels. First, you see it and try the best you can. Then you use it and gain some understanding of it. Then you memorize it and repeat it at slow, medium, and fast speeds. You try everything out on bags, pounding away -- letting the bags teach you what did not work. Then you try it in sparring, letting the matches teach you what did not work. Over time, your body takes over and teaches you what your mind could not learn. Then you begin a process of meditation. The awareness kicks in and the levels repeat themselves all over again. The senses and the sensing of energy add a new dimension. By then the teacher has gone over three different levels of using each move ... from simple strikes to point work where a point is hit, to grappling or seizing, to throws, to nerve strikes, or even multiple strikes working in concert with each other.

And if you have done all that -- you deserve to teach it.

George Pickens Memorial

This link will go to a memorial for George Pickens. He lived a great life. He will always be remembered by those who loved him and those who were loved by him. I only knew him a short while and he grew on me. I know that throughout my life I will think of him and his funny sense of humor. In his grossly understated way he often tackled difficult and puzzling problems and came out victorious.

Arm Pit Genius

Mothers make the best doctors. Over a parcel of children Mom is bound to pick up a few tips. In one home a wonderful Mother talked about a treatment prescribed by her children's doctor for a cold. Take Vic vapor rub and rub it on the chest -- okay so we've all done that a bit. But wait, now rub it under the arm pits and on the bottom of the feet where the sweat glands make an easy entry for the body. Then it has a greater effect. It worked like a charm across five children.

At times I wish I could remember all that I forgot. It would certainly fill up more that what I remember. I used to place onions under my feet with socks so that they would pull out toxins for my bronchial problems. I used onion packs on my chest at times. And once I used ginger and potatoes laced together on my chest. These were all old herbal remedies that kept my lungs clear and healthy through a cold winter.

Good medicine requires fundamental principles which drive the art of helping others get better. It is not so much the exact thing we do -- but the whys behind what is done. I used to worry with bronchial problems that the vics vapor rub would heat and then I'd be left with this cooling down. That would make me worse. I had never thought to penetrate it more deeply by using the arm pits and feet. Sometimes there are subtle differences in execution that make a big difference in its effect.

At a convalescent center I watched a patient take her pills in the morning all in one shot. The nurse had the supplements, high blood pressure medication, water pills for the heart, medication for acid reflex, aspirin, and a bit more I didn't quite pick up from the conversation. The patient remarked that each time she took it -- it gave her nausea, made her dizzy, and she felt lousy all day. I asked her if she took them all at once at home. Absolutely not!

It reminded me that supplements, herbs, and medicine should not be taken together. They all have their own absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion profile. Taking them together changes that profile and could possibly apply the drugs quicker, weaken the body's ability to absorb the nutrients in the multi-vitamin, and cause any herb to shift its effect on the body. Even mixing medicines should be carefully thought out and not simply thrown into a mix.

I think we could all use a bit more of arm pit genius in our approaches to medicine since most all of us today self-diagnose and self-dispense from our local pharmacy, local health food stores, and mix it all in with various practitioners.

Religious Intolerance

This morning I found a site that referenced a speech by a Christian that put together a website and presentation to explain why "Mormons are not Christians". It reminds me of going into a Christian book store and finding a book on cults. I excitedly opened the book because I was thinking of the strange cults we've seen that have committed mass suicide following false prophets. The chapters read like main stream Christianity. Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses -- the list goes on but why? If someone believes in Christ and strives to live a Christ-like life from any religion or even non-religion, why would anyone put them down as non-Christian? And why would anyone tear someone's religion down?

Personally I have many Catholic, Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon, and Jehovah's Witnesses friends. I rejoice in their belief in our beloved Lord and Savior -- Jesus Christ. I enjoy their fresh point of view. And I find that even within my own religion no two people have a conjoined opinion of what the truth fully encompasses.

My Father belongs to a different religion. One day while attending one of his services he remarked, I can see that you will only be happy in your own religion. I thought about that all day -- I did not sing the songs, I did not enjoy the sermons, and I was hiding out in my own beliefs as if they were any better than anybody else's beliefs. I corrected that behavior. It was absurd. I attended some sing-a-longs with my Father and began enjoying his church, friends, and choices of worship. I did not give up my own beliefs but I gave back respect for my Father's beliefs.

That simple change changed our relationship. He could be more open and talk about his beliefs without feeling like judgment was about him. It is not about us and what we believe. Do we even have the capacity in this life to understand eternity? I think not. I think God is so great because he gives us all freedom of choice. I fundamentally believe that God touches all people from all cultures irregardless of gender, race, creed, or religion.

One book I've always loved to read is "The Religions of America" where each religion is given a chance to express their beliefs. In a nut shell -- it sheds the best light on their faith, their aspirations, and their hope in a future. Religious intolerance drove many people to an America that was founded on the freedom to worship how, where, and what they may. Intolerance did not disappear with the establishment of an American government. Intolerance continued in many forms. To our credit as a nation and as a society, we have grown to accept our neighbors much like Christ spoke about the Good Samaritan.

It is my hope and prayer that we will continue to set the standard for tolerance for all people irregardless of gender, race, creed, or religion. I'm always reminded of a wise man who once told me that "we should never talk against someone's faith because we might be successful and there might not be something to replace it."

2009 and A New President

It seems like forever but now the time is upon us -- the inaugural plays out in all of our minds as a new President is sworn in. President Barack Obama brings in an era of hope that the war in Iraq will come to an orderly close. He rises with the expectation that every American will be covered by health insurance. He comes at a time of near economic collapse where the choices are difficult and clouded by uncertainty. After many years of staying the course for oil imports, we finally have a glimmer of hope that alternative solutions will be allowed to entirely replace our excessive stripping of the land of non-renewable resources. We might actually stop funding terrorists globally and get back to the business of promoting freedom within our country.

However you see the last eight years, it is certain that they have left us trillions of dollars in debt and a continuing saga to solve the crisis with more trillions of dollars in debt. History has shown that a country can overspend and collapse. History has shown that a country can over extend and be weak from reaching too far. History has shown the struggles of many civilizations that thought they were invincible -- bigger than God so to speak.

America's strength lies in its allegience to the great creator that helped our founding fathers establish a more perfect union of states to ensure the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness to the people -- its citizens. I trust in that same divine strength to pull us through these hard times. I pray daily that our congressmen, judges, and members of the executive branch will be inspired to help lead us away from these difficulties.