Election Day 2012

Another election day.  The bitterness in this election has been profound and, I believe, in part is fueled by the media created expectations of anyone who serves as President.
Elections were very different when I first started voting.  My first election was 1976- Jimmy Carter running as an outsider, a new face from Georgia versus the incumbent President Ford.  I had been traumatized, as had many, by the relentless Watergate hearings and the dramatic resignation of President Nixon.  But, even then, I don't believe that there was a similar polarization as I find in today's political discourse.
I hear often about "taking our country back" or that "the America we used to live in no longer exists" or that one party has "Christian values" while the other one doesn't.  It troubles me deeply that the lines between church and state are increasingly threatened by the polarization and the politics of our nation.
Our nation has avoided the problem of religious tyranny, sectarian violence and theocratic involvement due to the wisdom of the separation of church and state as part of our founding credo.  I pray that our nation continues to leave God and my relationship  to God as a matter belonging only to me without the influence, direct or indirect, well meaning or otherwise, of political leaders.
I pray that we can continue to engage each other in our daily lives as Americans to solve our nation's problems.  That too has been sorely lacking in our national politics, but, fortunately, I can see the many ways that unite us rather than the few differences that separate us.
Whether Governor Romney or President Obama wins today's election, I am confident that either of these good men will do their best for our nation and that we will certainly continue to strive to improve the lives of those among us who are most in need.  I will pray for whomever is selected to try to fulfill this nearly impossible task of leading our great nation and urge you to do the same.

Love and peace,

Tony

Speech and Language Issues

There are phrases that drive me crazy, so to speak. That is one of them... "so to speak"!

Just what exactly does that mean? It is part of a group of phrases that I refer to as pseudointelligent gibberish, if you will.

There is another one...."if you will". Suppose I won't? Count how many times you will hear some talking head on television use the phrase "if you will". It takes up time but communicates nothing.

These phrases are dropped when people are trying to sound more learned than they are, I believe.

Having said that, it drives me a little crazy. Oh no, there is another one...."Having said that"....I mean, you were talking, so who exactly would have said that, if not you?

If you will, so to speak, and having said that, I think I will just try to come up with something useful to say.

Take good care out there...

Peace and love,

Tony

Ridiculous Brownies

My favorite brownies...ENJOY with someone you love!

Ridiculous Brownies

Ingredients

1 pkg Duncan Hines Brownie mix

2 pkgs (3oz) cream cheese

5 tbsp margarine or butter

1/3 cup sugar

5 eggs

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

¾ tsp vanilla

1/3 cup oil

¼ cup water

1. Beat softened cream cheese and margarine together. Add sugar, 2 eggs, flour and vanilla. Finish beating till smooth and set aside.

2. Mix brownie mix together with 3 eggs, 1/3 cup oil and ¼ cup water. Mix by hand for 50 strokes. Pour most of the brownie mix (reserve 5 tbsp) in greased 9x13 pan.

3. Pour cream cheese mix over brownie layer. Then spoon the reserved brownie mix randomly over the cream cheese mixture. Pull knife through to make swirled appearance.

4. Bake at 340 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Cool and frost.

Frosting Ingredients

4 ½ tbsp margarine

3 tbsp cocoa

2 ¼ cup powdered sugar

3 tbsp milk

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1. Melt the margarine in saucepan. Stir in 3 tbsp cocoa till dissolved. Remove from heat

2. Add powdered sugar, milk and vanilla stirring constantly.

3. Stir till smooth- may add more milk if necessary.

4. Frost Brownies- let cool till firm.

Dancing With the Other Side- The Strategy of Healthcare Reform.

President Obama has made the same strategic blunder that President Clinton made in 1993. Any health care reform proposed by a Democratic President is immediately attacked as "socialized medicine" or a "single payer system" by Republicans.

The current proposal, which is NOTHING like a single payer proposal, has nonetheless been effectively portrayed by Republicans as "socialized medicine" "government run health care" "single payer" or "the end of the world as we know it" complete with "death panels."

President Obama should have started this dance by initially proposing the single payer plan as currently seen in the House proposal sponsored by Anthony Weiner (D-NY). As a side note...this proposal will actually have an up or down vote on the House floor for the first time in history as soon as Congress returns to session.

If President Clinton or President Obama had started with true single payer as their initial proposal, then the effects of the political attacks would have been blunted. They could then have negotiated to a moderate compromise, i.e. a version of a public option proposal.

But President Clinton proposed moderate reform in a misguided hope for bipartisanship. His proposal was attacked successfully as "single payer", "socialized medicine" and thus failed.

President Obama has proposed moderate reform in a misguided hope for bipartisanship. It is being attacked successfully as "single payer", "socialized medicine" and thus is likely to fail.

Much better that no reform passes than some version of a watered down, ineffective reform. It will be years before any politician touches this third rail again due to the political costs . Hillary had her head handed to her politically in 1993 and, as a result, no politician has touched health care reform again until President Obama.

As soon as any type of reform bill is passed, the blame for the millions of problems which occur daily in our system will instantly be attached by the Republicans to the new reforms and to the Democrats. All the more reason to pass ONLY truly meaningful reform. When Medicare was passed by Democrats over the opposition of Republicans (led by Ronald Reagan lobbying at the time for the AMA), it became a massively successful program which benefitted millions of elderly Americans and thus became politically beneficial to a generation of Democrats. Truly meaningful reform passed now will have the same future benefit for non elderly Americans.

Without true reform, I believe that a catastrophic meltdown of the U.S. healthcare system is inevitable . Unless our system changes course, this meltdown will be brought about by the Wild West, unregulated investment practices of the unregulated healthcare industrial corporations in this country. A meltdown of this magnitude would make the recent financial crisis pale in comparison.

Must a crisis occur before any meaningful reforms can be passed?...Must politicians first have the political "cover" of a crisis to fix a system with serious flaws ? If we do not pass comprehensive reform NOW, millions of people will suffer needlessly and go bankrupt due to our failure to act.

A message to President Obama: Stop Dancing with the Other side!...Faux Democrats in the Senate such as Max Baucus (D-Mont) and "blue dog" Democrats in the House are not much different from Sarah Palin on this issue....Dancing with a partner like that will only lead to you both falling flat on your faces!

Please, Mr. President, return to the strength of your convictions! Lead the passage of true and meaningful healthcare reform NOW!

Peace and good thoughts,

tony

Health care and the Good Samaritan

The current debate regarding health care reform is highly partisan with strong emotion on both sides.

Our health care delivery system is flawed and inefficient. Physicians make choices based primarily on individual training rather than evidence based criteria.

Although much attention is paid to consensus guidelines, the vast majority of decisions made by individual physicians are due to idiosyncratic factors.

Physicians function within a health care delivery system that is driven by the demands of payers. These demands lead to flawed business decisions by the corporate managers running insurance companies, hospitals, medical device and pharmaceutical companies.

American ideas about health care are individualistic, impatient, with little incentive to utilize resources appropriately. We deny and procrastinate and we engage in dangerous behaviors and unhealthy lifestyles. If our health outcomes are not as we expect, we often use the legal system to seek compensation.

A key to healing is the strength of the therapeutic relationship. Belief is a powerful healing force. Our health care system does not encourage or facilitate healing relationships between physician and patient.

Health care systems, in the final analysis, are made up of people....people with strengths and talents as well as human flaws of arrogance, greed, and a desire for power, attention and control. True health reform should empower and nurture our healing qualities of love and forgiveness.

The parable of the Good Samaritan has much to say about spiritual obligations in health care. Jesus used the example of the despised Samaritan to drive home the message....namely, that we find spiritual life in the extent of our caring for those people who are not like us.

The Samaritan takes the injured man to a healer. He then pays for the cost of the care and returns later to check on his progress.

Good Samaritan=Good Insurance plan.

The ethical principle of beneficence combined with a spiritual journey of sacrifice has been the basis of transformative healing from Albert Schweitzer to Mother Teresa to Doctors Without Borders to free clinics in Appalachia.

In providing agape care for another human being, one finds an inner place of healing and spirit...the heart, the soul, the Source.
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It is no surprise that there are many hospitals named after the Good Samaritan. This ancient parable is the best kind of "strategic plan" for healing our wounded collective selves while also improving the healthcare system.

As we engage in this often bitter national discussion about health care reform, let's try to remember that our own soul is dependent on the privilege of caring for another person. Maybe we can truly find an answer if we treat our neighbor as lovingly as the Good Samaritan treated his neighbor so many years ago. Keeping this example of spiritual service in our minds and in the midst of our decisions will positively influence the outcome of this great national debate.

Peace and love
tony

Children, Children...the raising and rearing of my children has been the focus of my life and Tina's life over the last twenty-some years. The process has been filled with much joy and some pain, much happiness and some sadness, much hope and some anxiety. Much of what I thought I knew about life before my children came along has certainly been completely rewritten.
I see young adult friends of mine who now have very young children or are expecting a child and my heart goes out to them. I was in a fast food restaurant the other day having lunch and a young mom with two children in tow was sitting across from me. I watched in amazement at her attentiveness to her children, both her anticipation of events- like catching a cup before it spills and a director's sense of keen timing and exquisite choreography.
As she was steering her children out the door (and they were not particularly happy at the moment), she had a look on her face that reminded me of somebody who has been through all this before- calm, bland even, but self-assured. As I watched her completing the ritual of inserting the children in the mini-van...she was smiling to herself as she demonstrated her mastery of yet another meal accomplished for herself and her two children.
As parents, we are called upon simply to love....to love always, to love without condition, to speak truth to our children always and to provide them with support for their own growth.
It is hard as a parent to not get caught up in the vicarious feelings of trying to live through your children or somehow viewing their choices as a reflection of your own.
I truly enjoy this spiritual poem of Kahlil Gibran and on reading it, I am always reminded of my place and my true role in relationship to my children.
Enjoy,
Peace and love,
tony

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Transcendant versus Ascendant or... How Up is Down and All Around.

You have probably seen many paintings of the Ascension...the final post-resurrection leaving of earth by Jesus recorded by Luke in the first chapter of Acts ...from a spot somewhere near Bethany. What do you recall about those paintings?

In almost every depiction by classical Western artists, we see a transfigured Jesus ethereally rising into the sky, into a cloud, rising above his earth bound disciples.

In the famous painting by Salvador Dali, The Ascension of Christ, the artist in 1958 composed his work after having a transformative dream experience. He changes the perspective of the Ascension from vertical to horizontal and the Christ image is being drawn not only into another reality but also into the background image of the nucleus of an atom. The message of this depiction is that the beginning and the end are part of the same continuum....Christ's revelation to John is also in this same vein..."I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end".

The word used in the original Greek for both heaven and sky is Oeuranus (also where the name of the planet comes from)...the problem is that this word can both be talking about geography, namely the sky or it can talking about a place, heaven.
The depictions and even the name for this event, Ascension, come from a time where geography and the known universe was thought to be a three tiered phenonmenon- namely, the underworld or Hades or Hell, the Earth or firmament, and Sky, or Heaven, or Ciel (where we get our word "celestial" from).

The theological problem, though, is that the "Ascension" was not really about an up and down, elevator like, rising from earth to heaven. The Ascension was actually a Transcension, namely the importance of how we go from one state as typical earthly-minded creatures to another state of mind and being in following the way of Christ.

Thinking about it this way helps me to resolve those problems that I had with the "Ascension" when I was a kid asking impertinent questions in Sunday School. Like "Well, if Jesus rose up into space, which way did he go then to get to heaven?" "Is heaven near another solar system?"

The more troubling question as I began to try to better understand the account in Acts and its meaning was "why did Jesus leave us at all?" Wouldn't the world have been a much better place and certainly our churches would not have strayed off so many paths, if He had just stayed on the earth?

However, coming to understand the meaning of the Gospel account as one of Jesus transcending his earthly state and removing himself to another state of being, leads me to the realization that the problem with my concrete, childlike views are the problems of a linear, Euclidean geometry, fundamentalist view of the world.

"Heaven is just a place on earth" sings Belinda Carlisle in her hit song from some years ago.

In the movie, Field of Dreams, the question is asked of Kevin Costner about the baseball field...
"Is this heaven?"...Throughout the film, he always answers, "No, this is Iowa." But at the end of the last interaction, with his father on the field playing catch, when he is once again asked that question, he takes in the wonderful view of his wife and daughter playing on the porch of their peaceful home and, in a transcendant moment, he realizes..."Maybe this is heaven."
In another earlier scene, Kevin Costner is upset that he does not get to go into the cornfield, beyond the field and views this as a denial of his entry into heaven. It is the later events, including his reunion with his father, that lead to his Ah-hah, transcendant realization that heaven exists all around us.

Heaven is not a place beyond the sky...our world exists not apart from the universe but enveloped by and in the universe. Our world is part of the universe continuum and the universe is not separate from our world at any measurable physical point. Similarly, the transcendant state, the mystical state of holiness, enables us to know this reality of heaven now and forever.

The true message of the Ascension is thus not one of miraculous levitation. The true message is that Christ never truly left us at all and never will. Our challenge is to believe. To strive to see this reality lying just outside of what we think we know while living in this very concrete and Euclidean world.
And, when that momentary realization comes that Heaven is surrounding you, your soul can guide you to a different place and a different life each day on this world, on this earth, as truly part of the Kingdom of Heaven.

How do you do live like that?....It is best summarized in the Jar of Clay song...."We are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord, we are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord....They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love, they will know we are Christians by our love."

Bruce Springsteen said it just as well in his song. "The Rising"...."Come on up for the rising, Come on up, put your hands in mine, Come on up for the Rising" When we transcend our own ego, when we transcend our selfish desires, our own materialism and we love our neighbor as our self, then we are truly "resurrected" to a new life different than the one we were living and we can "rise" up out of the darkness, like Lazarus did long ago. When we "rise" above the strife and turmoil, we are not levitating into the physical air, we are, in fact, experiencing our own Ascension.


Peace and love,

Tony