HEARTS ON SLEEVES

 These are the days of new stuff.  Old stuff creates the foundation for the new stuff and it becomes old stuff and so on and so on.

Emotional ups and downs.. our hearts on our sleeves, have become fodder for the last year. Self denial and exploration and ideas warped by bad juju in the country and in the world.  No one is exempt. 

I've learned stuff from old stuff and am hoping for new stuff for additions to my life's foundations and for those I love. We all have that going on in one way or another if we are paying attention. Paying attention is good. Being distracted may disrail or change an intention.  Focus is, for me, difficult to maintain and it may be true for others.  If we are aware of this happening, and get back on track, the tea water won't boil dry, we'll have a cup and find reasons to keep on. 

I see lonely posts on FB by lonely others who will probably always be lonely.  This is not to dismiss them, but to say that I understand. So.. my heart is on my sleeve in that regard. 

Missed understandings and 'trigger' moments are more and more prevalent with 'e' communication. You may read a 'tone' .. even in this post.. that is contrary to my intention.  My intention is to just release some gratitude for having feelings dealt with and information exchanged today that matters. 

Most of us don't have 'real' discussions.  We report and fall back.. Report and pretend to listen. Not really listening. Men and Women express and 'listen' in very different ways.  To be truly 'heard' is a rarity, but now and then, with trusted others, we may feel heard or in turn truly listen. 

That said, I want for those old republican classmates and dear friends and pals and peripherals.. all  to know that if it was up to me, we'd all just forgive one another and to whatever degree we may be capable of, restack the order of our love and share it as best we can. 

It seems that politics with "P" has become religion with "R"  a big fat R.. and the strong emotional ties to whatever our Beliefs "B".. may be, they seem to override the Essence "E" of what true connections are about. or really ought to be: essential.

I'm at a crossroads.  "E" communication: email, texts and other stuff that I don't Enderstand are dissolving our communication.  What I call 'meme' mentality is dominating social media.  A parallel is being cut off in traffic ..probably by accident and the exchange of silent genstures and unheard shouts erupt. It's where we are.

Flip side?  I drive an old VW Bus.  It's a pal. Every time I head to the market or to do errands and drive the Bus, someone may smile or wave or ask to buy it. It's human communication.  Thanks to a mutual moment of feeling good. 

I'm becoming an advocate of letter writing.  I believe that if I hold a letter written by an old friend in Paris, a cursive note that slants up or down, on recycled notes about his music, that the connection is a warm and welcome one. No discussion of the weather. Maybe a thumbs up about the direction the USA is headed. Art. A paper missal (sort of)  from
5,637 miles away.  

Typing may become a 'thing' again.  It's not cursive, but it is personal.  That's what I miss: personal connections. It's too easy to whip off an email or send a text.  Of course, casual connecting is vital, to keep a ball in the air, but good communication .. to me .. must begin again to be more personal. 

Of course, there are folks who rub us the wrong way.. or vice versa.  It's inevitable. It's tough to be not liked or dismissed.  Dismissed is probably worse or maybe just to have become inconsequential? At least, with animosity, something is happening. Maybe we act out just to get a reaction when someone has ignored us. (That scene with Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? Yikes!)

This is a note in a bottle that I've written mostly to myself.  I hope I never ignore me.  The Old republicans from high school will maybe understand and respond. Edit.. Edit... Edit..

An old right winger pal in my home town has giving me the silent treatment for a bad taste joke I played on him. If friendships matter, marriages, relationships? connections? If they matter, they can be fixed. I learned that lesson  from my most trusted friend. Before that day, I thought that an argument or dust up meant the end of the relationship. She showed me a better way.  

Love one another.

michael sheehan

glendale, california 

april 17, 2021

This is my cousin, Nidra.  She makes me smile.

Does Satan have a chance?

This guy, Bill Svelmoe, has a POV and gets it from education and paying attention. He's more up for it than I am, but I have his permission to share his thoughts. We have Theatre in common and a political stance that is similar, but he is much more thoroughly educated than I. Thus.. sharing ideas that make me glad to be his distant pal. He gets a bit more het up than I might, but still.  Critical thinking and calling out the folks who are wishing 'armegeddon' (sic) on the USA is something to consider.  Thanks, Bill. 

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George Bernard Shaw once said of newspapers: "They are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization."

I am reminded of that quote as I watch the right, particularly the religious right, froth at the mouth over various proposals from the Biden administration.

A few examples.

Jim Garlow, a California pastor who regularly feeds the fringes of the fever swamp, said that the possibility that Senate Democrats might do away with the filibuster is a question of “good versus evil, of the struggle of angelic beings against demonic forces.”

Who knew hell was so boring?! We always imagined Satan to be all about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. Instead we get Satan in council: “How many votes does it take to overturn a filibuster again? … Ok. Gorbag, see what you can do with Manchin fella. We’ve got to do something about that crumbling infrastructure.”

On that same podcast with Garlow, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins claimed that the filibuster is “the one thing standing between the radical left and the end of America as we know it.”

 

More Perkins: Biden’s agenda is “literally from the pit of hell,” and Biden is provoking God into unleashing his judgment on America. “We’re in the 11th hour and I believe America is in serious trouble. We are literally shaking our fists in the face of God and challenging God, ‘If you’re really God, you do something.’ And he is God, and he will do something.”

One hopes that when God “does something,” his targeting system is better than the usual hurricane that wipes out half of a red state. Perkins at prayer: “Dear Jesus, remind your dad that it’s the blue states that are shaking their fists, not Texas.”

James Dobson, radio Pied Piper of the religious right, warns that if the Democrats’ Voting Rights bill and the Equality Act become law, it’ll be the end of the United States: “We cannot afford to be idle while our country is hijacked by the Left-driven agenda of the Democrat Party. If we do not act now, this window of opportunity that we have to save what we hold dear will close quickly, and America’s shining light to the world will go out.”

No more green light at the end of the dock representing our hopes and dreams. Clearly, for Dobson, “America’s shining light” is white.

 

Senator Mike Lee is also a bit put out by the very idea of making it easier for minorities to vote. "Everything about this bill is rotten to the core," Lee said in an interview on FOX. "This is a bill as if written in hell by the devil himself."

The devil went down to Georgia lookin’ for a vote to steal.

One of the first things an actor learns is to leave himself somewhere to go. If a scene requires you to display a lot of anger, for example, you don’t want to start at a ten. Because half a page later, when the f-bombs really start flying, you’re already maxed out.

The right has never learned this lesson. If, in the first few months of the Biden administration, you’re already at Satan pulling levers to end America, you’ve really got no place left to go. And, at the very least, you’ve got more than three years left of Joe in the White House. Even Hitler and Stalin metaphors are a step down.

 

Jim Garlow to his congregation two years from now: “This latest Biden move is Satan at his worst. It’s just unbelievable how close we are to Armageddon and the end of all things.”

Congregation, looking at each other: “But Satan’s been jerking Biden’s chain for three years, and what have we got? The pandemic is long ago in the rearview mirror. Our bank accounts are flush. The bridges in the area are all fixed. And a few girls that you think are boys are running track. How bad could a few more years of Satan be” ...

 

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