Pill Hill

I live here, in this place, with unimaginable treasures surrounding me - namely, you. You teach me why material items have no value to me - you are infinitely more valuable than a shiny bauble, more fun than a handcrafted, personalized one-of-a-kind sports car, more luxurious than a fur coat made from the last Tasmanian devil, and more fiery delicious than the purest mixture of capsaican and cacao stirred into a cup of Kopi Luwak coffee.

I have proven many things to myself. I can take on the challenges of an occupation and achieve success. I can earn money, I can invest money, I can throw money away, I can carelessly give money to nonthrifty charities. I can think. I can write. I can collect stories. I can recite stories. I can make up stories of my own.

Neither poet nor prolific prose writer am I, although I have gladly profaned the labels.

A Carolina wren, Thryothorus ludovicianus, is upset with me for standing next to its nesting site.

A friend of mine faces the dilemma of her in-law son's self-destructive (i.e., partying) behaviour that interferes with my friend's daughter's ability to keep a regular job and take care of her two kids. My friend wants her in-law son to put aside his drug/alcohol use/abuse and hopes he can make it through a 28-day course at a local addiction treatment center. I want him to do well, to find a place where he is useful to himself and his family but only if... are some of us incapable of having kids and taking care of our family no matter how much support and patience our family gives us while always hoping their efforts are useful? I believe not. I know that it all boils down to individual enlightenment and time is irrelevant while we walk our paths alone but wow(!), the effect we have on others while we walk through fire!

J-, you are a man and it's all right to break down and cry while you figure out what you're good at - we don't mind you showing your mixed up emotions as long as you aren't mixing your tears into beers and drugs. We know you aren't perfect so celebrate your imperfection with the rest of us tattered human beings! You can't step into the future if you keep yourself tied down to the past. I have been there, brother. It ain't easy to burn away the scars of old but you will heal and find the path's brighter when you put your past behind you. The past does not define you - your previous moments only define where you've been, not where you're going or where you can go. Your wife wants you to be her husband and father of her kids. We all do. So drop your so-called friends who just want to party and set your sights on your kids and family.

I promise you'll find a new drug-free life that has highs and lows much more exhilarating than drug-induced ones. It'll take a while to clear your mind of the artificial highs and you will feel some awful lows but on the other side you'll see an open horizon that offers the world on a plate to you. I assure you you will excel in ways you never thought possible. But it starts with this next second and the one after that and the next indetermine, numbingly impossible to count seconds that eventually turn into minutes, and then five-minute stretches and then 10-minute ones and maybe an hour will be your next moment of comfort and after some time you'll start seeing days that you can live through. Finally, you'll go weeks, months and years without remembering the fears and insecurity that drove you to hide in the instantaneous roller coaster rides that drugs offered.

And another thing, the most important persons in the world to me are your children. They are your wife's kids and my friend's grandchildren. They are more important than me. Thus, you are more important than me. But I can't be you. Only you can be you. I want your kids to have two parents raising them, preferably their natural parents. So you see, I know you're going to get your act together.

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Are emotions simply the remnants of our fight-or-flight syndrome, mating rituals, and baby rearing, unnecessary in today's complex society ("today" being a word that covers a couple of thousand years)? In other words, how do we advance our bodies' hormonal outputs to match the rapid-fire input of memes, the visual/auditory cues which trigger the intricate brain patterns of our current civilization? Can we genetically modify humans to have faster pathways in our bodies for fluid/neurochemical transport?

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Took my wife and mother in-law to attend the 11:00 "traditional" service at the church to which my wife and I belong, Covenant Presbyterian, where hymnals and Bibles no longer exist in the pews, where song lyrics and Bible verses are projected on the back wall of the sanctuary. This is Stephen Ministry Sunday, when we learned of the Stephen Ministry and its mission - to train church members to confidentially help grieving people or people with emotionally distressing issues. I agree with the ministry's mission but I sure miss singing from hymnals - not into solely melodic singing - I like four-part harmony. At least the two solo pieces that were accompanied by piano had good harmony and the two male singers exchanged melodies with the piano.

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Visited lakehouse home of my wife's coworker and husband, Anna and Henry, near the confluence of the Elk River and Tennessee River. Reminds me of my lazy summer days spent at Helen's and other friends' parents' places on the lake in upper east Tennessee in the late 1970s.

The 13-year old daughter of a church friend of Anna (they attend Faith Presbyterian Church together with other people at this party) owns a mottled corn snake who just dropped 13 eggs after a visit from a friend's snake. The mother had lost the snake for a week after trying to put the snake in its enclosure in the dark and accidentally securing the top upside-down, leaving a tiny opening for the snake to slither through - all because the girl brought the snake downstairs into the living room to show her favorite animal while they were watching the second Narnia movie.

The girl's mother has family from North Carolina and Tennessee. Believe she said her grandfather was the minister of First Presbyterian in Vonore, or was it Madisonville? She also mentioned Tellico Plains and Tocoa, among others, as well as having spent time in Banner Elk, North Carolina, with visits to Montreat. Has a brother or uncle who lives in New Zealand. Got her master's degree as a nurse practitioner but became pregnant after years of infertility and stayed home to raise her three daughters, now ages 20, 13 and 9. Too much information that I didn't memorize because I was having fun casually eating, observing and talking with John's wife (her twin would be Margery McDuffie Whatley, if I didn't know better). I gave her Rosemary McMahan's yellow handout of the Halverson Benediction, knowing she will pass it on to someone else, most especially new school graduates for whom she owes cards of congratulations.

Lots of redheads at this party and lots of young people - teens to twenties. Here to celebrate birthday of a young man, his 21st. One young woman just finished her freshman year at the University of Arkansas, thinking about majoring in engineering (industrial?) but just working on calculus, physics and other basic classes for right now.

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I am at peace, seeing my meditative beliefs manifested in local religious practices, knowing they reflect universal truths that surpass human understanding.

Henry had a Nikon camera and accessories that gave me lens envy, including 500mm and 1000mm lens attachments. But then again he's a professional photographer.

Downed a few sips of a margarita to celebrate the young man's 21st birthday, almost as good as a man's first Guinness or shot of Redbreast whiskey. I'm not a man to shy away from a drink, or even two, but my days of delirium are over...or at least that's what I keep telling myself until the next time I've had one too many. lol

Before you ask yourself why I'm telling a young man to give up the drink while I talk about myself enjoying the bottle, do you see the ironic humor in what I've been saying in this blog entry? Project alternating images to prove that the solution to success is not consistency, it's believing you have no limits and following through with your belief. When you give yourself limits, you'll live by them. Our only limit is being human. Everything else is illusion, even our being human.

[Jogging/walking the Cotton Row Run 10K road race tomorrow at 7:00; at 22:06, it's time to go to bed]