I hate it when I got a lot to write about and no time or opportunity to do the mind-data dump. It makes me jumpy, keeping all these things in the air. So I think I’m going to do bullets, here, maybe. Maybe not.

• M comes home ONE YEAR FROM TODAY (wrote that on the 22nd). Until this day, I have not let anybody round off anything, like, “Shoot – it’s almost six months.” Because if it isn’t 6 months, but you say it is, by the time you get to the real 6 months, you’re disappointed – like, it should be MORE. But from now one, every day is a last one – today is the last June 22 I will wake up with my kid half way around the planet from me. Maybe. I hope.



• We don’t have Swine flu yet. I think. I’m almost sure. Yes, Geneva, I’m knocking on wood to ward off the jinx. Or West Nile. Pretty certain. Our mosquitoes evidently have it, but we don’t let them in. Except when they come in on the dogs, which is several times a day.



Hangin’ out in the hood.  In the evening, just before the West Nile Vectors come out in force, everybody’s out and hangin’.



Bikes, kids, lawn chairs in the street, grown-ups talking - here, we feature the fabulous striped pajama pants of Chaz.





Friends.  Like being tucked in to the world.

• It’s NOT RAINING. This is both good and bad. I love the temps we’ve been getting, and not having to worry about the pasture drying out. But the first cutting of hay is dead, which is a very bad thing. And it’s going to get hot, which I hate. Why do I live in a high desert valley, then? Good question.



More pink snow.  I think I did better giving you the idea with these.



• We think the horse trailer is fixed. This time. We found a couple of really tattooed, but really gentlemanly mechanics just around the block from us. Like, you could drop the trailer off and walk home. That’s almost like living in a city, huh, Gin? Now, if only we had a bakery that close. No. I take that back. Bad idea. And anyway, we’ve got Kathy for that.



The three of us - wait, I was there too - four of us, hitting Gardner Historical Village, which is just an excuse for buying really cool stuff . Disclaimer: Chaz’ blue streak (the one she’s wearing) is clip in, as opposed to the one she talks, which is permanent.

• The river is still between its banks. (Ditto on the wood and jinx thing.)
• 27th: G and Chaz and Geneva and I rode the canyon yesterday. It was GREAT. My littleZion had about half the energy and interest he usually does, so I’m worried he’s sick. But it was so beautiful.
• Someone explain to me why the first reaction to a couple of public deaths last week was a rash of really dark and ugly jokes? I don’t get it.
• We dog-sat this week, and not for the grand-dog. It was the first time ever a dog has slept on the foot of a bed in this house. But Julie is gloriously happily back at home now, and Chaz is feeling bereft. The Two Old Men have not noticed that Julie’s gone yet. Old dogs, old horses. We are the only species that will actually pay for the privilege of owning inevitable heartbreak.



He’s deaf now.  But still so beautiful.  And so sweet.

• We irrigate again at three tomorrow morning. Why does the rain time itself so that we have to skip the day turns, but have to do the night ones? (Is there actually somebody in charge of fate? And if there is, why do they choose somebody who is so dang in love with irony?) I HATE irrigation. I’m going to worry about it all day.
• Okay – stay away from Etsy. Or if you go there, don’t pounce. When you pounce, they just keep showing you all this really cool handmade stuff. And then you spend money. Bad. Bad. Or if you do go, look for Chaz- well, I’ll tell you about that later.



The Tale of the Recalcitrant Colt: a teenage archtype—

Me:  Hey, dude.  You shouldn’t be lying down in the grass.  You sick?  You okay?  Get up.  You gotta get up so I know you’re okay.  (push, push - trying to rock a tank)  Look, all we’re going to do is take some pictures.  DUDE!!  GET UP!!



Me: (pushing harder)

The ears: Yeah, I know you’re back there somewhere.  By the way, maybe you’ve noticed: I’m heavier now.  



Me: (pant, pant).  Okay, how’m I gonna get you up, huh?  Look, you nearly wore me down. I wonder if I can hire a crane?

The ears: My face doesn’t know you’re there.  But I hear your pain.  LOL.



Me: You’re not paying any attention to me, are you?

Hickory: Did I hear a fly buzz?

Me: Yeah.  And if you read more poetry, you’d know what that means.



Me: (I start a series of lectures on obedience and personal responsibility.)

Him: (He’s GRAZING LYING DOWN.)

Me: Okay.  I’m giving you one more chance to show me how obedient you are.



Him: Let me know how that turns out.



Me:  Yeah.  Well, I’m still the mom.  Mother Nature.  That’s me.  Now, aren’t you glad you acted like a GOOD little pony?

Him: Sigh.

• So that’s all I got. If I had anything else, I’ve forgotten it. See what a political melt-down will do for you?

I started this day’s diatribe early in the afternoon, after I heard that phone call.  And I dumped it on one of my publishers in the middle of a contract conversation.

She said: It breaks your heart, doesn’t it?  I can barely stand to listen to NPR in the car on the way to work anymore. They have running live interviews with people protesting in Iran and also with the survivors of a deadly collision between two DC metro trains earlier this week. It feels almost indecent, listening in on these poor souls’ pain.

I said: Yes.  It does feel that way.  And yet, I have this odd feeling that we need, in some very important way, to take on some of their feeling and carry it for them.  It’s stupid - of course feeling sympathy or even empathy doesn’t actually relieve someone else’s memory or brain chem - but it feels, still, something like a duty.

When she wrote back, she quoted Author Miller, from Death of a Salesman:

Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.

And I say to Mr. Miller, who I’d never bothered before to read:

Yes.

Still in my stark frame of mind:

I believe in the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Joseph—the one true God and Jesus Christ, who he sent, who is our savior.  I say this in a voice that rings, that refuses to be mild and take the world as it is presently coming at me.

Ask me if I believe my God is THE God, the creator, the Father, the Only God – and I will tell you  yes.

Ask me if I wish I could force everyone on earth to believe that same thing, to make them all admit His reality and cause them to obey what I understand to be his law?  And I will tell you, most fervently, no.  No, no, no.

You cannot enforce religion.  Not the way I define the word.  Enforced religion = oxymoron.

Here’s a little thought: if there is a God, and he is an all-powerful being, and he wanted people forced to believe in him – couldn’t he do the enforcing himself?  And if that were the case, why would he have created people so that they are capable of making choices?  Is life just a wild game of nine pins – He sets them up, just for the joy of knocking them down?  Does this even begin to make sense?

So who is this God that is so well-served by bullies, butchers and megalomaniacs?

I want to save the Iranians.  Does that mean I want them to admit that the Christian God is the only God?  NO.  It means I want to build shields around all the nice people in Iran, all the innocent hearts, and keep them from harm.  I want to offer them all the choices I enjoy.  I want them to be free to choose.  That is my idea of saving.

A man who “believes” something because, should it become evident he does not actually believe, he will be put to death or tortured or exiled, does NOT BELIEVE.  He is not converted.  His heart is not, to that thing, true.  He is not changed.  He is not dependable.  He is a chemical bomb, waiting to be shaken in just the right way.

Make a man afraid of going to hell, and he may change his behavior.  The changed behavior may make the world a nicer place for everybody else.  But it is no witness that, should conditions change, the old, nasty behavior might not just come bounding back.

So can you “save” a man from “hell” by terrifying him?  Threatening him? 

And just what does “save” mean, anyway?  Saving the world?  Keeping it from blowing up?  Maybe teaching it how to integrate its peoples so that they don’t harm each other, so that they can take responsibility and feed themselves, and care for each other.

What do I want to be “saved” from?  Myself, sometimes.  From pain and fear and unexpected danger, always.  From sadness, when I don’t deserve to be sad.  From the stupidity of thinking I deserve anything.  I want my regrets to be limited, so that when I have made my best reparation, and I have changed my heart and my behavior to make it so that I will never do the regrettable thing again, I can go on and live a productive life.  I want to be saved from hunger and illness.  I want to be saved from all kinds of physical danger.  And from hurting other people.  I want to be shielded from the violence and shock that comes of people behaving badly, stupidly, cruelly.

So if you have something that will save me from a great deal of the anguish, sorrow, despair, failure, discomfort, regret that I might otherwise run into, you are welcome to offer it to me, and if I accept, to teach me.  But you may not threaten me or push me around or in any way try to force me to accept what you have.  What I end up living through is largely (but not all, factoring in the odd fatal disease and things like drunken drivers) my own responsibility.  If the consequences of my stupidity are going to offer harm to others (like if I was the drunk driver) then make laws that will protect other people from that thing.  But do not tell me what to believe.  And do not seek to take away my free will otherwise.

Yes, I think the world, if each person was willing to take responsibility, to serve, to love, to sacrifice, to work, would be a better place, but NO ONE CAN BE FORCED TO DO THESE THINGS.  Not and make it work.  Hearts have to be changed, or the world doesn’t change.  And the peace thus achieved is stretched like a rubber band.

And all of this has to do with my basic understanding of why we are here: to prove ourselves – to ourselves.  To find out what we are made of.  Not to be heroes or stars or kings or presidents or any kind of remarkable person.  But to live lives of rich color, deep love, earnest and joyful usefulness.  In the end, after we have been presented with a panoply of choices, a hoard, a buffet, a banquet, a tsunami of choices, we will be left with just ourselves – ourselves either surrounded by the things we have chosen – physical things, earth things – that will not pass easily into any other reality.  Or ourselves, deepened, made beautiful and useful and burdened by love and light – all part of the us that will, inevitably pass into other realities.

I am still trying to make sense of evil governments of whatever size – even ones fashioned out of one person in one home.

Not succeeding.

I do not write much about politics.  Framing my views about things over which I have no more than maybe the tiniest shred of a voice – if that – is too hard, too distressing.  I’d have made saltpeter in the old days, or knitted leg warmers or made a victory garden.  Over this world, and over some things there is nothing more than waiting and praying that can be done.  And about the efficacy of prayer in this case, I have my doubts – about which I will say more later.

In the last week several things have made me want to howl and rage.  The first of them was that stupid joke told by David Letterman, professional adolescent.  I imagine him easily as one of those really quick mouthed kids who just hated being “normal,” and made up for it by deconstructing anything and everything that anybody else thought was cool.  And when he’d finished with that, turning on the other “normal” kids.  Because he doesn’t seem to have grown out of it – yeah, you make a living interviewing people of singular and resounding fame and insignificance and poking fun at just about everybody who isn’t you.  Wow.  I hope my kids grow up just like that.

I’d only heard about the joke, so I googled it, and found myself watching a YouTube clip of an interview between some woman named Contessa (really?) and a way conservative commentator.  It wasn’t a pleasant interchange.  She was an idiot, and he – who I will say made some salient points – was smug and rude.  YAY for – wait, which one is our side? 

And how could anybody with a brain ask if the joke had really been that big a deal?

Let me just say this: let’s not make jokes about children, okay?  Not about democrat children or black children or white children or republican children.  Let’s not make “knocked up” jokes about other people’s daughters.  No matter who those people are.  Let’s not kick a girl who has already been publicly and nationally humiliated by a mother who had to drag her around in front of news cameras in all of her stupid and misguided glory.  Let’s just remember: it isn’t nice to make fun of people, generally.

Yeah, maybe the puffed up who put themselves in the limelight—maybe they ask for it.  If you take a public persona on, then you make yourself a target; comes with the job.  Make fun of Gov. Palin if you must – she’s a big girl.  But the word “slutty” is about as puerile and dull and braindead and adolescent a “joke” as I’ve ever slept through.  If the demos are so big on regulation, maybe they ought to start with late night television; watching it has GOT to kill brain cells.

At the time, this really made me want to hit my head against the wall.  Then North Korea happened.  Range of their nifty little Missile of Mass Destruction: 4500 miles.  Proximity to Hawaii: 4000 miles.

I do not throw around the word “evil” very much.  To me, the word suggests understanding and choice – a person who knows what is good and what is not, and who chooses to harm, to destroy, to laugh at suffering.  In other words, there has to be a twisted sort of maturity, an intelligence, for there to be evil.  There is another word, must be another word, for stupid people who are seduced by the promise (what promise?) of power.  But I can’t come up with it.  I am too amazed.  Too astonished. 

What do people propose to get out of power?  Sadam’s 200 unlived in palaces?  Wow, want those.  Are they sadists who thrive on inspiring fear?  They want somebody to cook for them?  Clean for them?  A whole country of people who will do this?  What is the point?  To get rich?  It doesn’t take much to get rich enough that you can’t even tell if you get richer.  They want, maybe, to make sure that they are never inconvenienced?  Never awakened by somebody’s music?  Their lawn never pooped on by somebody else’s dog – so they have to own EVERYBODY?

When I think of the North Korean government, the words “intelligent,” “complex,” “amazing,” “cultured,” “admirable,” “gracious,” “educated,” “aware,” “wise,” “grounded,” “mature,” “civilized”?  They never come up.  This is also true when I think of other governments, including Iran’s.  I think: selfish, bestial, short-sighted, testosterone poisoned, stupid, adolescent, repulsive.  Their missile won’t change that at all.  No display of “strength” is going to win from me any respect whatsoever.  I will still think of them as nasty, uncivilized, ugly and again, repulsive.  Even if they finally cause me to fear, I will hate and pity them.  And in death, I will lobby for their damnation. (See – I’m not a very good person, either, actually.)  The funny thing is, as far as I understand Eastern religions, Korea is not even justified by one.

This morning, I heard this phone call, from a young woman in Iran who had just witnessed an act of atrocity that equals anything achieved by Nazi Germany, anything within the chronicles of human horror.  And I sat for two hours afterwards, not even aware of the tears that just kept leaking out of my face.  Do not listen to it if your heart’s survival strategy in these days is to stay as far from the immediate realities as you can get. 

My heart swells with grief, with frustration – bordering on hatred of these men, these stupid, ignorant, selfish men who allow no limits to their own wills.  How could anyone desire to serve a God whose policy of dealing with the multitudes of levels of understanding in his children requires that everyone who is not on the “right” path should be beaten and slaughtered?

I’ll tell you what I want: I want God to come and kill them all.  I could stand in the back yard and scream this at the heavens, calling down the vengeance of the universe on those who impose their gross, bloated, disgusting pride and hunger on the innocent.  But I won’t.  The neighbors wouldn’t like it, and I’m not sure it would do anything but make my feeling worse.

Because I don’t think God is going to do this.  Not now.  Not yet.  Because of free will.  Because of that precious, dangerous gift that is at the root of this whole planet’s existence.  Because there are too many people who have not chosen sides yet, who wait in the shadows, unmoved by an over-arching code of ethics and morality, simply waiting to find the most comfortable place.  The field isn’t ripe until every grain takes shape.  The good need to stand for good.  And those too stupid to see light and joy and love?  They need to choose which circle they will stand in.  And I’m afraid the deep satisfaction and rejoicing I would feel at this moment if YouTube showed me a clip of a vast column of lightening decimating every unholy and cruel government – I’m afraid that would put me in the wrong circle.

This young woman finishes her phone call with the most passionate plea I have ever heard.  I have not heard many pleas—oh, from children, yes—“Can I use the car?” (answered with a modality correction: “May I use the car,”—“Please, can I go? Pleeeeeeeaaaase?” (answered in the same way).  I have never had to hear anybody plead for his life.  I have never heard an adult plead for anything – not outside of the movies. 

Now, I have heard it.

“Stop this,” she said.  “You must come and stop them.”

She meant us.

And, shoot – we’re doing the best we can:  that “president” of ours (I don’t hate him, but I will say that he seems to be living up to expectations) has been so moved that he actually de-listed Iran’s ambassadors from the 4^th of July party guest register.

Wow.

People on the other side of the globe are fighting for human rights, for freedom, for dignity and safety.  As we did once, and have since forgotten.  Thank God for France.  Without them, we would have perished in the attempt.  And what we were fighting against was over-taxation, not the chattelizing and abuse of women, not dismemberment, not religious oppression, not on this level.  This is like the Jews rising in Auschwitz.  This is magnificent and horrible.  And I sit in my safe little living room, writing about it, my heart frozen.  And all of this done in the name of religion?  What religion?  What truth allows one creature to savage another?

I’m back to prayer.  I have to aim the prayers at the people, at individual people – for their comfort, their courage, their safety.  I know no names.  I send the prayers without names.  I have no bullets.  I have no power.  The country has some.  God has enough of everything to do the job.  How long will we have to wait?  How long?