WHODAT!?

It is not healthy to sustain the kind of animosity for another person (no matter how horrible that person's words and actions might be) that I expressed in a previous post. Sooner or later, one must get on with life, get on with love and get on with the party!

I was assisted in this over the weekend by the NFC Championship game (and I am by no means your standard - or even your rainy day - football fan) on Sunday when the only team I have ever seriously rooted for came Marching out of the SuperDome, victors in a difficult game and headed to the Super Bowl for the first time in history.

This link came in from my favorite NOLA website Humid Beings this morning... It's a terrific little video look at the way New Orleans takes on a Championship, even before the game.

My favorite parts are the adoption of the Mardi Gras Indian chant, "Let's Go Get Em!" and the Saints Superfan shaking hands with the Vikings fan in the Quarter. The spirit that I have always known New Orleans to have, that spirit that existed before "The Thing," but which seemed to get lost in a morass of chaos and depression, is being revived by this year's incredible Saints season. It's hard for someone who doesn't know and love New Orleans to even comprehend this struggle and this shift but another video that came down the interwebs the other day expresses a small part of why this is.

Right now... and for the next 10 days... all I've really got to say is WHO DAT!?!?

The Mountain and The Mole Hill

I had a rough day yesterday. Several things that I had been counting on simply slipped through my fingers and I was left about mid-afternoon with a feeling of failure and frustration that I have not felt in quite some time.

All the regular questions came to the front of mind, clamoring for attention, begging to be given favor, looking to be nursed and coddled and fed in that way we all feed the sad, frustrating, stupid things that make feeling sad and depressed at least somewhat tolerable and relatively comforting.

Fortunately, I found the wherewithal to lift myself out of this perilous funk (something that I didn't used to be particularly good at) and move into the evening (with a rehearsal for our final performance of A Christmas Memory). I got to bed relatively early and I got the first really good night's sleep I'd had in weeks.

I woke up with a head that was full of new ideas (and old ideas with new clothes on them) and Billy Idol on the iTunes to set me dancing around the room.

For some reason I got this Bible story in my head and couldn't let it go (that's the trouble with Bible stories doncha know?)

It comes from Matthew 17 and takes place right after the disciples had received a vision of Jesus standing on the mountain and chatting with Moses and Elijah. Peter had wanted to build some buildings and stay up[ on that mountain forever, but God had others ideas, basically telling Peter to chill out, shut up and open his ears. "This is my beloved Son... Listen to him!"

So... a bit later, as they were coing back down to earth, they were confronted by a man who had a problem with his son. The disciples tried to help, but couldn't so the man - like any father would do - said, "Okay hold it... let me talk to the boss."

Matthew 17:

14 When they came to the crowd, a man came up to Jesus, falling on his knees before Him and saying,

15"Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a (N)lunatic and is very ill; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.

16"I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him."

17And Jesus answered and said, "You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him here to Me."

18And Jesus rebuked him, and the demon came out of him, and the boy was cured at once.

19Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not drive it out?"

20And He said to them, "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

I think that the reason this story came to mind this morning is because it holds for me a bit of information about how to look on days when things don't go right, and periods when nothing seems to work out.

For the longest time I struggled with what these miracles (things like moving a mountain) might mean for an ordinary person like myself. Then it hit me that it's possible to accept what Jesus says here, absolutely at face value. The simple fact of life is that you really can do anything if you believe. Jesus doesn't say if you believe A LOT... he says if you believe like a mustard seed. Can you envision what it is you want? Can you see who you are at the end of the road? Can you hold your task, whether it's taking care of a sick child or moving a mountain (as they are presently doing right now down the road from me in order to build a subdivision), with such clarity of vision that it can't help but come true?

That's what I believe Jesus was talking about (at least that's what I believe this morning).

Believe what you want is possible... is in fact already here... then get to work bringing it to fruition.

Actually seems pretty simple when you think about it, doesn't it?

What A Night!

This morning at 4:30 am I was awakened by a terrifying visitation by an old familiar friend. A new manifestation of Kali crawled into my head and took me to task. This is not a new experience for me, but it has been a while since it last occurred.

This morning I find myself thrust, as if by rocket ship, into a slightly terrified pursuit of what the visit means. What I know for sure is that when Kali shouts, I'm supposed to pay attention.

40 Days to Christmas

After 6 months of spending my time twittering, facebooking, and generally plugging into the internets on a daily basis for the purpose of work, it's been an interesting experience to stay out of the daily cybernetic spasm. What I find at such times of retreat (for lack of a better description at the moment) is a refreshing release from all the noise (or at least a good portion of it). However, I've received a lot of comments of late about the dearth of blogging on this and my other sites, so I've decided to take up the challenge and once more use this forum as a place to play out my life in public. So, here we go... Once more into the daily breach... Among a few other things that I hope to do between now and Christmas, I am renewing my dedication to daily writing, and something - at least close to - daily posting.

I've also restarted one final crack at my 40 Day regimen... I'll be holding forth on the progress of that one last time over at 40 Days To Life.

All in all... I'm really seriously burned out on all the raging cyber-realities and after almost 15 years of almost daily virtual living, I'm getting pretty damn close to heading after a less virtual and more real encounter with the universe and my co-residents.

Don't know where that's going but I'm damned determined to find out.

Instant Karma's Gonna Getchoo!

The classic set of Washington Mutual commercials that came out in 2008, just as the bank - and the rest of the economy with it - was tanking, were about as perfect a social barometer as there has been in my lifetime. While the bankers, and their Wall Street co-conspirators were trading up and getting out on the real-time roller coaster of fiscal disaster, my bank - Washington Mutual - was running a really fun collection of consumer messages with theme Whoo Hoo!!!

I'm guessing that not too many people are finding it difficult to grasp my point here. One might find it amusing to watch the game show bankers speaking cluelessly except for the fact that it was a little too close to reality to accept with proper social aplomb.

Come the meltdown, CHASE bank bought up Washington Mutual and promptly launched a whole set of new CHASE ads for banking in California, using the lovely chorus line "We all shine on..." like California is the Sunshine State (which is actually Florida, and we WON'T go there at the moment). What the bankers at CHASE and/or the creative types at their ad agency don't seem to have grasped is that this lovely little light hearted chorus comes from John Lennon's absolutely brilliant song Instant Karma which - it seems to me - is exactly what these greedy funny men (and their greedy pocket politicians) are courting with every new move of their greedy little pens.