Jon Ryan had given me this book years ago and I lost it. To my defense it was a small book in a big library of school books. Still -- I felt compelled to read it. Something was there for me to read and understand. I feel that way with most books. And when your mind is turning around the events of your life it is a great time to reflect on the thoughts of others.
This book is the feelings of a youth as he faced war in all its brutal realities. His first battle was a noble fight which left them high on success. Then the enemy came to fight again and he turned tail and ran away. He found himself retreating with the wounded and came to grips with the questions,
"where yer hit?".
Isn't that human nature as we fight a trial in which we find ourselves in retreat? We slide back to a comfort zone but the demands of life around us that bring us here will continue to haunt and follow us. None of us escape the trial of our moments. But life goes on, battles go on, and even the end for some, I believe, is still another beginning.
This youth came to regard "the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy.
He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage."
What is reality in war? What is reality in peace? My parents have often told me they want me to be happy. They come to my defense readily and often say it is for the best. I'm often uncertain what to say -- I almost want to cry. The truth is we each carry our own truth and justify our actions in our own way.
When things fall apart in my life I have always returned to the one standard that holds up in war or peace -- Proverbs 3:5-6 -- simple trust. It seems so obvious to me that lack of trust in another person is like a canker sore that eats through the skin and infects the body. So I trust the one person I know can fill me with light and even burn every fiber of my being with fire. I trust the Lord with all of my heart for my heart is broken. And throw away my meager understanding for truly I do not understand or see the way in or out. And I acknowledge God in all I do so that He can direct my paths.
"Yeh might have some queer kind 'a hurt yerself. Yeh can't never tell.
Where is your'n located?"
I'm not sure where it is located. I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful to be feeling what I am feeling. I'm grateful to be moving ahead in my life. I'm grateful to be surrounded by good friends.
I can look inward and find weaknesses but I realize we all can -- in any trial or tribulation. Even my Dad who struggles with memory and sometimes babbling not knowing what he is saying is left to wonder at life's cruel turns. He simply gives it up to God -- he lets God take care of what he can not do for himself. My Dad who eats a small portion (for he can not longer eat a whole meal) and wonders if he won't be vomiting it up again -- is left to wonder why me? But he goes out and cares for the shut ins with a smile on his face. He goes and plays gospel music for those in a nursing home. His pain registers with every step in his face from the ends of nerves frayed like loose wires. I think I'm beginning to see a red badge of courage.
"Oh, don't bother me!"
Such an attitude pervades our society. Risk is actually the healthy way of dealing with life. Love, I have discovered, is a principle of power actuated by our willingness to touch another life in an honest confrontation which leads to greater love. Love begets love. "You may puzzle at me when I tell you your not loving me is the most love I've ever had ... but anyone who has given into loving will know and understand." I remember putting those words to Rod McKuen to music and it was spell binding.
"His companions seemed ever to play intolerable parts. They were ever upraising the ghost of shame on the stick of their curiosity." So the youth felt tortured by his own inadequacy, a figment of his own imagination, and he became his own worse enemy. He slid further and further away from the battle and began to retreat even from the wounded.
"Now, don't bother me ..." the youthful plea stung those about him who had no idea of the harm their words had risen within his heart.
"Well, Lord knows, I don't wanta bother anybody."
This was the response from his wounded soldier trying to make it back from the battlefield with battle scars. An honorable man trying to stay alive with mortal wounds. Eventually this youth turned back to the battle. And with new lessons imprinted on his brain fought boldly in the face of overwhelming odds -- only he did not back down and inspired others to fight on where there wasn't a chance.
And
"who was that lad who carried th' flag?"
There is a bit of us in this lad who carried the flag. There are moments we all carry the flag forward. Despite our weaknesses, our failings, our times of being down -- there is a time we carry the flag forward and over come the declining nature of life around us and life within us.
Others looked at the youth as
"a very good man t' have"
and admired his courage to be in the heat of battle. I think I see the good in all of us -- it a choice we make to do and be good. It isn't always an easy choice. It isn't always the choice we make the first time. I think I see in ordinary life the red badge of courage.
"He kep' th' flag 'way t' th' front" in the thick of the battle. We are all placed there eventually. We feel these losses and the gains. We feel the successes and the failures. In fact, I think I see the battle ground all around me with voices on both sides trying to coach us to their own side. It is a confusing battle array with many voices aimed at us. We may turn and run at times. We may rise to the front and pitch our causes with the best of them. Or we may be content to settle down and do what we need to do without committing to those around us. Or we may even run away from it all a bit.
"He's a good un"
because he was able to overcome and face the battle. He was able to lead a charge up the hill again. The past fell away like the sun or moon -- and life changed.
My brother had called me on the phone interrupting my four hour group study so that we could go to the Veterans Village of San Diego where I taught Tai Chi Chuan and worked in an acupuncture clinic on Fridays. I ignored the pain and went off to teach the class. Somewhere in the middle of the class I demonstrated the classic crane dip and on the left I felt tremendous pain as I moved with one leg to the ground. I felt my body weakening but dismissed it as something sharp in my foot.
As the evening grew on I began to feel shortness of breath and changed my shoes and socks. I noticed red puncture wounds on the bottom of the foot but
it didn't look that bad at the time.
The next day it hit me like a truck -- I could not walk the same way, I was unable to work out, and the nerves along the hip felt like they were exposed with sharp pain. My wife and my brother and his wife and I went out to dinner, shopped, and I tried to ignore it. It was several days later when someone where we lived pointed out the brown black widow spiders that lived underneath the chairs where we had our study group. I rushed home to look up the symptoms. I realized that I had been suffering all the same symptoms.
I called up the supervisor of the acupuncture clinic and he saw me immediately to lance it. By now you could see 7 separate suitcases of poison. It was still isolated to the bottom of the foot. With the first two lances it immediately closed up and filled in itself. He said that was typical of this type of poison. The third lance did it -- he sucked all the poison out and the wound was bound up to heal. Somehow the symptoms did not release and in about two weeks
secondary infections broke out
in my calf, ankles, and into the joints of my toes.
I added a few more doctors to the list of who I was seeing and they each added to the treatment for heart palpitations, shortness of breath, strong nerve pain, headaches, fatigue, lack of strength, and emotional strain. I felt put down as the infections spread and turned black in the center. I tried tea tree oil combinations that were known to be good for the skin, aloe vera, the triple anti-biotic formula that is popular on the market, a round of antibiotics, and various soaks in the bath. One medical doctor had me add cleaning the surface with iodine and the surgical cleaner that doctors use before surgery. Another doctor had me using stevia topically as well. I took all kinds of supplements to help my body deal with the invasion.
I was unable to study in between study groups for the California State Acupuncture Boards -- the intense burning pain got to me and I needed the group to be able to stay present. Even while in this intense state I took a mock board exam and passed it fairly high. They said I was in the safe zone and to not let up my study.
The fact is
I did not heal and continued to get worse.
The infections seemed to be raising higher and higher on my leg and got past the knee. I could barely keep up and was losing it. I went to the emergency room at UCSD Medical in Hillcrest. I did not have insurance. They said that my treatment was too aggressive and put me on another round of antibiotics. They did not exactly know about the alternative approaches so they stopped them completely. They put me on aloe vera with vitamin E, a cream, and said what was going up my leg now was not the infection but something called contact dermatitis. They felt the infection was slowly healing. They said that definately the iodine and the surgical scrub killed the skin daily and made the healing worse. They said I had an allergic response to the triple antibiotic which caused the contact dermatitis and had me switch to bacitracin. They said they had a rash of such allergic reactions in this area.
The contact dermatitis cleared up slowly by the California State Acupuncture Boards and the intense infection was slowly healing about like it was before ... I slowly introduced the alternative lotions till I figured out which ones were healing it. The baking soda, salt, and apple cider vinegar baths really helped and so did a number of lotions. I still could not work out, felt this nervy pain, and
a deep fatigue was always there.
Despite feeling like the boards were too much, like the day I went out with my wife and family -- I toughed it out. I did not realize at the time that the memory loss was slowly taking away my own recollection of who I was and what I had done in the past few years. It was all I could do to keep up with my patients -- many of which depended on me for chronic conditions like Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, and various long term orthopedic recovery scenarios.
The day of the boards came and I did my best again. I came close to passing for the third time. It dealt a crushing blow to me but I didn't find out until weeks later. My wife and I had gone to Oregon and enjoyed so much our family. I was pushing every day to even walk or be there. Emotionally
I felt myself losing control
with a baser reaction to everything thrown my way. I could feel myself fighting it day by day.
On a trip to Las Vegas to visit some of my wife's family I had a breakdown. I emotionally could not handle my wife's jealous accusations about a female patient. I had a cussing reaction like the ones I had witnessed as a child in my home where there was jealousy between my Mother and step Father. I gave her my keys and left the car and told her I'd find the motel on my own. I left to cool down because I did not want to escalate to anything worse than it was -- I literally could not hear her.
I didn't even know exactly where I was at the time. I found myself wandering the streets alone for hours and crying. I felt I wanted to commit suicide. As I came out of it I remembered one of my ex-wives calling me that day for me to return a banjo. I called them to see if I could help them remember that I was not the "David" they thought I was. And I headed home by following the strip in Las Vegas. I remember the way since we always went to the strip from the motel.
I came home to the hotel in the middle of the night
dazed and embarrassed
and unable to talk about it. That was my typical reaction in this whole scenario -- I could not even process the whole of what was going on. It would not be till much later that I would realize that I didn't even remember the underlying issues.
My wife needed more room to organize and suggested we move to University City where I had great friends and support all around me. So despite all else going on -- I moved us day by day, and box by box. I cleared out our storage and compressed it into a newer apartment. We both had the expectation of a new cocoon -- a place where we could recover or so I thought. I worked hard to make this new place a heaven on earth for us.
I kept seeing doctors and adjusting my treatment plans. I kept up with my practice but it was all I could give to keep up with patients. I had nothing left. My cussing and leaving on emotional challenges continued. It was about the middle of October when I finally was able to work out again. Every morning I did a bit more until the exercises all returned to my memory. I felt it was strange that after 17 years of doing these Kung Fu work outs that it took so long to remember them. Every day another small piece fit back in. I found the same problem on the piano. I had created 9 10 minute segments of music and had
a hard time remembering
them. I worked everyday until I could play them through.
By now the actual spider bite on the bottom of the foot was healed completely without a scar. The secondary infections were about a 100 strong with a dead looking brown spot in the center of each one that had this intense burning that would drill through my skin and into the underlying structure underneath. I could see some of them healing and the overall size was gradually getting less.
I gathered the love letters of my wife and put them at the head of my bed. I read them nightly and thought about the wonderful love that we shared in this marriage. Somehow that thread carried me through each day. Her commitment to me was a forever commitment and I returned to that commitment in my heart day by day.
My emotions let up at some point and I actually felt jovial. I remember being friendly again and having strength. My wife thought I was being friendly to her for ulterior purposes. I can understand why because it had been a fight of life and death for so long. Everyone who looked at the scars (or even looks at it today) has the look on their face like
"what happened to you."
I counted 23 remaining infections on the calf of my leg this last week. All other infections are clear or with a slight red color a the surface of the skin where they had left their mark.
I was numb when my wife seemed to retreat and disappear in her own life. I asked her what she was doing and she was preparing for a divorce. I realized that I had blown it completely but wanted to know why. She did tell me some things over time and it made me realize
I could not remember the events.
I had to talk to family members and friends to piece it all together. She gave up on any chance of the marriage working so I was forced to move out of the apartment.
I could not see spending money on divorce lawyers so we filed jointly by both signing the document to the San Diego court. My wife filed the papers on the 13th of November. That means no lawyers earn money at our expense and we agree to all of what we need to do to resolve our own situation. At the time I could not even begin to fathom the issues. I began to pray about what I should do and where I should go.
My sister had died on the 19th of September in Wichita which left my parents without someone to help them. When I went back to the funeral I realized that they related strongly to me. They could not conceive of what they would do moving forward. My dad had lost some of his memory, was depending on lists, and was getting worse. My Mother was shaking all over and hesitant in many ways -- in a fragile space. With no family for me in San Diego I realized there was no family in Wichita to help them out. I realized I must go where I can be of help to my parents where my family truly needs me.
Knowing that was the right thing to do
I left on the 15th of November in a truck bound for Wichita with my brother helping drive straight through.
I have lost my memory before with a concussion. I know its effects and how hard it is to gain back the pieces. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong in this divorce. I know that we will recover over time. I know that we will seek to do the Lord's will in life. I wish my wife the best in all she does. I did not abandon her. I did not abuse her in the traditional sense but the reality is that our marriage was full of similar trials. It is a wonder that our marriage survived this long under such pressures. So I understand.
I think of this spider bite now every day of my life. I think of the circumstances that often lead us to
a new place in life.
Things shift and move underneath and two things have become clearer to my mind. First of all, we are all broken. We all suffer from emotional traumas in life and need forgiveness in our life to move forward. Second of all, who is the gardener here?
Today I honor the memory of my wife in all I do -- I taught our entire family west coast swing and we all had a blast. My parents may have many more years of life because someone is there for them. And I have fresh goals and am striving every day to listen to the gardener -- the creator who gave us this great world with all of our trials and tribulations.
The spider bite continues on with a life of its own. It is healing. And amazingly enough my practice continues to grow as healing is something I understand more each day. As I think about it, it is the healing of my own problems that gave me great clues as to the healing of others.
Marriages end at an alarming rate. In the past year over 30, 000, 000 people have been prescribed Prozac in the United States. Domestic violence, that we know about, hits one in every 6th household. Half of our marriages end in divorce. Magazines, radio, television, and even people promote this new found freedom of finding love immediately without regard to people they have left behind. It is easy to love quickly and move on. It is hard to stay the course and find emotional freedom within the relationship. Something must be done to stem this tide.
"Liberate yourself from negative emotions and transform you life"
is a bold statement by Dr. Judith Orloff in her new book "Emotional Freedom". She says that
"emotional freedom means increasing your ability to love by cultivating positive emotions and being able to compassionately witness and transform negative ones."
As she would say,
"we desperately need to know how to handle negative emotions."
We all have and deal with negative emotions both within ourselves and in others. Her work on the "emotional vampire" first caught my attention some years back as she identified warning signs in emotional chaos. From there, she taught a healthy release for us all. She has found a guiding path for anyone to climb out of their emotional quandaries.
Check out her four emotional types and see if you can relate to one or more of them. I know I do and it helps me get perspective with myself and others. Check out her short video on emotional freedom -- you may even end up reading the book. Lastly, remember that we all need perspective for we are here with our own set of weaknesses. My sister would say,
"we do not see things as they are, we see them as who we are."
Check out some of her quizzes ... or articles. Her variance on emotional vampires showed me how the negative side can spill over and unbalance the partner of a relationship. It is good to be aware of the various vampires that we or our spouse can foist on each other. We can all be free of this emotional tyranny by facing up to the challenge of being emotionally free together.
"Life is brimming with opportunities to learn about emotional freedom. Every success. Every heartbreak. Every loss. Every gain. How you transport yourself through these portals determines how free you can be. Begin to see each event in your life, uplifting or hurtful, as a chance to grow smarter, stronger, more light-bearing. More than ever, the time for miracles is now."
More than ever, adding to Dr. Judith Orloff's thoughts, it is time to emotionally release and begin healing with each other. In spanish there were two words for freedom. Freedom with responsibility and freedom from responsibility. It is time to stem the tide and love more deeply with responsibility ... especially in the sacred bond of marriage.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Source of energy is renewable
Fault Tolerant Grid is plug and play
Smart highways clean off their own snow
Half the country powers the other half as night falls
Half the country powers the other half as day comes
Smart highways detect and warn of accidents, pedestrians, deer ahead
The cost is what we spend anyway to pave the roads
Removes terrorist threat of taking out a single power station
Provides a new communication backbone as well
Interstates travel to most remote areas, takes power and communication there
Wind now has a role to play for night time power usage
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.
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.
