What Man has Made of Man

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature’s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

                                              -From Lines Written in Early Spring

                                                                by William Wordsworth

If I were to ask you to define personal accountability, I think I would likely hear something to the effect of, “how a person holds oneself accountable.”  This definition does nothing to actually define the concept.  Perhaps a person would take it a step further and say, “It's when a person takes ownership or responsibility for one's own actions.”  This definition goes a lot further to explain a concept, but still does little to recognize how personal accountability really exists in the more abstract sense of the word, in people's daily lives, myself included.  It is a difficult concept to really grasp if we are being honest, much in the same way words like justice and freedom exist in the abstract.  So, where do we begin to take personal responsibility within our own lives?

When I watch or read the news, I am always amazed at how much blame is placed on others.  It seems no matter what the topic or circumstances, our egocentric nature always finds a way to portray ourselves as the victim.  President Trump did it all the way through his first term and into the current election.  So did Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and a fair portion of other individuals with political aspirations, including Joe Biden.  Why? Because that is how you win elections and keep your name in the news.  You shift blame for problems to other groups of people, and you yell to anyone who will listen, “Look there, that person is to blame for your trouble,” and then you make vague claims about how you can fix the problems others have created.  Historically speaking, every dictator in history gained and kept power through the calculated use of fear; with fear best being accomplished when a name or face is put to it.  Further, the longer a lie is told, the more it begins to sound like truth, and actually identifying real issues becomes harder and harder to see.

Our founding fathers had a clear problem and direction when they made the decision to revolt against the crown and start a new nation based on simple concepts of independence and self-sufficiency.  What's more, in the organization of this new country, those in power still knew what personal accountability was, and showed it through their actions.  Following the victories of the revolution, and in the wake of establishing a new government, George Washington was offered the title of King.  As we know from our early history lessons, he obviously turned the position down, and became our first President, which even that he did reluctantly.  Can you imagine such a man or woman?  Show me a competent leader who is called to services with the selfless intention to truly serve, and they will have my vote and support wholeheartedly.       I don’t know that such a person exists, and it saddens me to think of what our founding fathers might say if they could see us now.

    Christopher Isherwood wrote about being “drowned by the loud angry voices of the government, contradicting through its thousand mouths,” and I have to admit, I feel this way now.  I feel like this county is being drowned by the angry voices of both government and citizens alike, ever contradicting themselves without clear direction of where we as a people need to point.  (Note that the Isherwood line was published in 1945 in a book called Berlin Stories, about Germany under the Third Reich.)

    Perhaps that most frightening part of this whole thing, isn’t that we have leadership consumed with self-advancement through the continued use of fear and the shifting of blame, but rather that we have all allowed this to happen without even noticing the path we are on.  We are directionless, lost in the wilderness of fear without a moral compass to guide us.  Which way is North?  As far as the current state of our government and citizenship is concerned, ask ten different people and watch them point ten different directions.

    I do not pretend to have any great answer to our problems, but I will place blame on the group of people we should all fear: Ourselves.  It isn’t the fault of President Trump, and it's not the Fault of President Obama.  Law enforcement is not to blame, nor are the groups speaking out against them.  It's not liberals, and it's not conservatives, or independents for that matter.

We are all to blame.  

Can we as a nation please take a collective deep breath, and refocus on what it is that is important for the future of America?  Can we as a people recognize that it is our own fault that we are in the current state we are, take some personal responsibility, and get back to the business of finding true north?  I don’t know that we can, or if it is realistically even possible.  And so, with so much doubt about the direction of this nation, have we not reason to lament, what man has made of man?

The Goodbye Letter.

          We met one another my freshman year of college.  In the naiveté of youth, I thought that you were everything I had been looking for.  You made me feel like no one had before; more mature, a little dangerous, independent, yet still warm and comforted.  I was vulnerable and innocent, and you knew that, you saw that in me somehow and purposefully led me astray, making me believe all the lies you told me night after night.

          Every time I caught a glimpse of your true self, I would pull away, crushed by my own insecurities.  When I would finally move beyond your pull, you would return like a lover in the night, as though somehow, this one time, things would be different.  You would make me fall all over again, head over heels, for that sweet thing I first met under a July moon, with the small of summer heavy on the night air. 

          It makes me sad even now, how much love I have wasted on you and the memories we once shared, or more accurately I guess, the lack of memories.  I could say I wished I’d never met you, but it would taste like a lie.  The truth is, I’m glad we had our time together.  I think sometimes we need to go through hell, in order to appreciate heaven.  You taught me about pain, hurt, loneliness, and betrayal.  Because of those hard lessons, I now truly understand what it means to hope, to have faith, and to love.

          Please make no mistake, my gratitude ends abruptly there.  You are a temptress and a Jessabelle, and I have no time, energy, or patience left to pursue you further.

          This goodbye is not an exercise in simply delaying the inevitable.  It is a declaration of a new found will to live.  You are not welcome in this life I am building for myself and for my family.  You are not welcome in my thoughts, or in what I hold to be my fondest of memories.  You are not welcome as a guest in my dreams.

          If my experience has taught me anything over our years together, it’s that you will not take this well.  You never did like to be told no.  Inevitably, at some point sooner or later, you will extend an olive branch,, in hopes of once again being friendly, if only casually or for old times’ sake.  I accept this as it is your nature, and you have always held some power over me, that even now I do not fully understand.  You must realize my dear that this is a battle you will not win.  I am no longer that insecure boy who ran too you time and again, in hopes of finding comfort in your deceptive warm embrace.  I have been without you long enough that I no longer taste your harsh kiss or your sweet perfume.  If for whatever reason I should begin to remember, know that I am no longer alone.  I have friends, family and fellowship, more than ready to put you and your whispers back in the ground where they belong, dead to us. 

          And so, I leave you with words from that first dance years ago, “while the last goodbye is the hardest one to say, this IS where the cowboy rides away.”

      

Goodbye,

                   -J

Enjoy the Ride...

I don’t really expect anyone to read this post, but I feel like it is one that I needed to write, if only for myself.  Sometimes I need a reminder to live like I ain’t afraid to die.  To not be scared.  And most of all, to just enjoy this ride...

 

Maybe the greatest summer of my life, I was 17 years old.  Back then I had three good friends, Greg, Daniel, and Phil.  The four of us were inseparable, and had more fun those three months than anybody rightly should be able too.  It’s been nearly 20 years, and although the four of us all now live in different states across the country, they are still my only three friends, and I can’t tell you how much I miss them.  

There is a soundtrack to that summer that often plays through my mind; Garth is in there, and George Strait of course, but more than anything, Chris Ledoux plays on a loop through my memories.  For those who are not familiar, Chris was a Cowboy.  I don’t mean the one of the cowboys we have now that wear designer jeans and singing club songs with too much bass.  I mean he was a real cowboy.  In 1976 Chris was a World Champion Bareback Rider.  He got his music start selling tapes out the back of a car, songs he had written about his life on the rodeo circuit.  Although Chris has been gone now for a number of years, his music often feels new as I rediscover a lifetime worth of memories in those old songs.

Looking back, I attribute the fond memories of that summer to many thing; not least among these was the genuineness of it all.  We four were simply who we were and never tried to be anything else.  We worked our summer jobs hard.  We played our music through the night.  We had each other's backs.  And we chased our dreams without hesitation or confusion.  There was a simplicity to that summer that I miss now.

I am by no means complaining, but my life now is far more complicated than I could have imagined it being back then.  Aside from the continuing life lessons learned from being a husband and a father, by professional life is filled with decisions and responsibilities I cannot begin to describe.  Most people do not understand what it is I do for a living, and frankly, for that I am grateful.  Without going into detail, I will just say that my work carries a weight that can be difficult to bare.  

I was driving home from work last week, after a particularly hard day, when low and behold, old Chris came on the radio and sang me a song that in that moment I needed to hear.  The song starts with a young boy going to a county fair and riding a pony for the first time.  The old man with the ponies, gives the boy a rhyme when he sees that he is scared.  This rhyme is carried through life until the boy becomes an old man.  The song ends like this:

Well, I know someday, farther down the road, I'll come to the edge of the great unknown

There'll stand a black horse riderless, And I wonder if I'm ready for this?

So I'll saddle him up and he'll switch his tail, And I'll tip my hat and bid farewell

And lift my song into the air, That I learned at that dusty fair...

“Sit tall in the saddle, hold your head up high

Keep your eyes fixed where the trail meets the sky

And live like you ain't afraid to die

And don't be scared, just enjoy your ride.”

 

    It is difficult at times, most times if I’m being honest, to remember to enjoy this ride that I am on.  I look back on my 17 year old self, and find that I am jealous of the good times that seemed to come so effortlessly for him.  I find that I am jealous that he gets to spend his days and nights with his best friends, his only friends, when it is has been a couple of years since I have seen mine.

Greg lives out in L.A. and I see him occasionally, but it's usually on television, on some random show that he had been cast in.  Phil lives in Nashville, and if you haven’t been fortunate enough to hear his music, I guarantee you will.   Do yourself a favor and give this a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NPBVnHB_LE.  And then there is Daniel.  He works a ranch back home in Prescott, and is the only other in our group who has had the good sense to find a woman who can keep him in line, and has settled down.

I am going to go home tonight, kiss my wife, hug my son, give my friends a call, and maybe go for a ride.  Thank you Chris for the reminder.  

A Man of Conviction

Over the last few months/years, there has been an ever growing controversy surrounding law enforcement.  There are populations across the United States that believe they are continually persecuted by law enforcement, which has been responded to by protests, and have led to further division and violence.  All anyone has to do to witness evidence of this division and resulting violence first hand, is to turn on the TV.  What must the rest of the world think when they look to the United States?  I don’t want to write about this violence and contribute to the ongoing division of beliefs that are plaguing our people.  Instead, I would like to tell you about a law enforcement officer, that I respect, who hopefully a lesson or two can be learned from.  For the sake of anonymity, for the time being, I will leave out names and locations.

This man is one of conviction, with a steadfast belief in the law, that I believe in his mind exists without question.  I won’t say that he is a good officer, as that is a whole other conversation, but he is without doubt good at his job.  He is given a task, and he does it efficiently, and without question, as would a dedicated soldier.  What's more, he likes his work.

Within his jurisdiction, there is a great deal of unrest.  Tensions are always running well above what most would consider to be safe for law officers and the citizens served alike.  Conflict occurs nearly every day.  As a result, this man has become hardened over time.  He exists in a world of black and white, right and wrong, and those that break the code of conduct set forth are persecuted to the full extent of the law.  

Admittedly, there is a level of violence associated with his work, and given his experience and training, violence now comes easy.  Anyone who has studied or been around combat, knows that on some level you end up almost liking violence as you become more experienced in using it.  There is a sense of power that is addictive.  This officer likes violence and he is good at it.  Anybody who stands up to him quickly regrets it, as he is able to put them down quickly and without much fuss.  The law is his religion, and he is an avid devote.  He is so good at his work and inflicting violence against law breakers, he has been chosen for a special unit that hunts down specific populations; individuals and groups alike.

There are those that would call what he does unethical at times.  The persons he is charged with pursuing, do after all belong to specific groups.  He doesn’t seem to mind though, or frankly even care, as he knows what he is doing is for the benefit of his home and State, as these individuals refuse to assimilate and do in fact break the law on a regular basis.  Regardless of their ethnicity, they are criminals and the law is very specific on the natural consequences of breaking it.  He believes in the law, and so he believes in the threat these individuals pose to it, to his very way of life, and he has no qualms about targeting the responsible parties to make sure the threat is taken care of.

This officer's story presents a contradiction of values, or at a minimum a moral quagmire which I would like to discuss.  Many who are not police officers will read about this individual and will begin to, or have begun to, form opinions about this person's intentions. For some, this man represents a very serious problem facing this County, in which law enforcement is perceived as being aggressive to specific groups of people simply because of the color of their skin.  Others will recognize that in some very specific areas, a majority of crime is caused by specific groups, and so statistically it is nearly impossible for their not to be racial differences in arrests.  

There are very likely individuals who are reading this, that have either stopped by this point, or have continued simply because this man’s story has made them so angry, that they want to finish so they know exactly how to respond when they later comment.  Either way, I would like to take a moment to thank those still reading.

Social Disorganization Theory of Criminology, suggests that the “where” is more important than the “who”.  For example, youths from disadvantaged neighborhoods might participate in a subculture which approves of delinquency, and so these young individuals will acquire traits consistent with becoming criminal, and will exist successfully within those social and cultural settings.

Because neighborhoods are traditionally made up of ethnic groups, these areas have a disproportionate number of criminals who fall into that category.  This does not make a cop racist.  It only means that the officer is doing his or her job.  This is evident in the fact that this phenomenon is by no means specific to a single ethnic population;  Western Baltimore, South-Central Los Angeles, South Boston, Western Phoenix, South Manhattan, and countless other neighborhoods all have various concentrations of ethnicities, and all have above average violent crime rates.  A cop in any of these neighborhoods could be looked upon as being racist, simply because of where he or she is assigned to patrol, regardless if they are actually racist or not.

All that being said, there are absolutely cops out there who are dangerous, racist, drunk with power, and should without hesitation be relieved of duty.  The same can be said for teachers, counselors, doctors, accountants, or any other profession.  This is because people are inherently flawed, and as Social Disorganization Theory shows, where and how a person grows up and is taught, easily leads to socially accepted behavior, within specific contexts, that for many of us is completely unethical, and frankly scary.  The man from the beginning of this piece of writing, is one of those scary individuals.

By the end of his career in law enforcement, this officer was more enforcer than he was law.  As described, he was good at his job and did it with a cold efficiency that was scarily fierce.  He crossed the line from being a man driven by the ideals of justice and service, to a man driven by a lust for violence and persecution.  

So who was he?

You might be surprised to learn that you very likely know who this person is, if not by name, then certainly by his Acts.  His given name is Sha'ul ha-Tarsi‎.  He was Turkish born and as a law enforcement officer, he persecuted and jailed a population of people because of their beliefs and his intense hatred of them.  A near terrorist  to some of his time, and certainly by modern standards.  

Most today simply remember him by the name he took on after he quite miraculously had a change of heart, and began advocating for those he had once been sent to harm, defending their faith as fiercely as he had before tried to destroy it.  The name you might recognize, is Paul, and he wrote at least seven, perhaps as many as fourteen, of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.  

Paul’s letter to the Roman’s, is among my favorites.

Three Chords and You

For years I tried to write my song, to have the notes come out just right,

All the nights that I spent playing, the countless days I just couldn’t write,

 

After drinking away every last goodbye, or raising a glass to the first hello.

Spent so much time seeking answers, to questions I just didn’t know.

 

And then one day in winter's warmth, beneath the Texas sun I knew,

Why my song it never worked, I can’t write me without you.

 

G to D for just two bars, an E Minor to help see it through

That all I’d need to write our song, these three chords, and you.

 

Our  joyous song that's sometimes sad, and never quite the same,

Never changing yet always new, seldom repeated in each refrain

 

That song, it’s with me all the time, been stuck in my head all day,

Can’t help humming another chorus, and I can’t wait to play,

 

G to D for just two bars, then an E Minor to see it through

This simple tune is all I’ll need, just these three chords and you.

 

 

To Make a Violin...

          I was swapping stories this morning with a doctor friend, whom I have worked with off and on for the last year or so.  Quite randomly, he casually mentioned that he has been making violins.  As a former fiddle player and lover of all things music, I was suddenly fascinated to be speaking with someone who possessed the time, talent, and patience, to make something so very beautiful.  I enjoy woodworking myself, but I typically go forth without any real plan in place.  I just like to build stuff.  What he does however is truly art, and I was captivated by it.

         The good doctor explained to me that a good and proficient violin maker can produce a violin in roughly 250 hours.  Through every step of the process, the smallest of mistakes can ruin the project and all you are left with is a pretty piece of firewood.  I found myself wondering what it would be like to go through the extraordinary and procise tedium of making a violin, only to make a single small mistake near the end, and have it all be for not.  With a violin, actions are absolute.  There is no fixing them or hiding what you have done.  It’s either right or it’s not.  Period.

         I know a lot of people that think this way, and it always amazes me how they never see the ridiculousness of it all.  These people, I find, tend to exist on either the far left, or the far right of the spectrum, and refuse to entertain the idea that there might be a mutually beneficial middle ground.  I had a teacher once tell me that being an Independent, really just means that you can not hack it in either party, be it republican or democrat.  I remember being told as a child, for a spelling test as I recall, that the last three letters of Republican spell “can”, while the last three letters of democrat spell “rat”.  I think I was about ten years old at the time.  The indoctrination of personal beliefs is best achieved in one's youth after all.

        The fact of the matter is, when we fall victim to this “All or Nothing” brand of thinking, we all become casualties of a broken system.  The repeal of Obamacare is a wonderfully failed example of this.  On one side of the isle - let's call this side the left - representation praises the Affordable Healthcare Act as a necessary step in providing for the wellbeing of this nation's citizens.  On the other side of the isle - the right - representation equates the Affordable Healthcare Act to a socialist idea meant to bring about the fall of the free economy.  It’s a terrible realization that they are both right.

          With this example, we have representatives of both parties squaring off against the opposition, and the result is a majority of the American people being left in a state of purgatory, just waiting for a decision to be made, a decision that will never come.

Obamacare does not work as advertised.  The efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare will not work as advertised either.  The reason for this, is that both sides hold so tightly to the idea that they are absolutely correct, they can’t begin to recognize how wrong they are.  And unlike the process of building a violin, rather than recognizing that a mistake was made and starting over to make sure it is done correctly, the legislature just keeps on carving away at the problem.  

If an artist such as my friend the good doctor did this with a violin, the result would be a poorly constructed piece of garbage, with no hope of ever making beautiful music.  I guess that is where we are at with the Affordable Care Act.  At least a failed violin has the potential to keep a few people warm for a moment or two.

On Foreign Shores

I was in the army, away on some foreign shore.

Fighting in some great battle, in a hell that we call war.

 

I hoped you were back home, patiently awaiting my return,

Praying that I don’t join the others, that in death have found their turn.

 

I then got a letter, that you had sealed with a kiss,

Saying you wish you could be here, so you wouldn’t have to end it like this.

 

A strange feeling came over me, as I realized what this letter was about,

You were no longer going to give your love, instead you simply wanted out.

 

You said you had found someone else, who would never make you cry,

Because you’d never stay up late at night, and wonder when he’d die.

 

I felt that I could right then, die as you had professed.

And God must have read that letter too, for a stray bullet landed in my chest.

 

And as I fell to the ground, my heaven lost by what you had said,

I woke up from my nightmare, and I was laying in my bed.

 

I then got an even stranger feeling, as discovered irony’s devilish charms,

For not even in my dreams, could I hold you in my arms.