HDIF when we slip into our old ways? DYFID

Dear LORD:

Thank you for today. I don't want to do anything particularly difficult today. Maybe go buy a food processor, which we need. Certainly do yoga this afternoon, hopefully with my sweetheart. That's about it. Thank you for a soft, lazy, gentle day together with the person that I love.

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was making an anti-rutty breakfast. It was delicious! Thanks so much for your creativity.

The question you ask is difficult because I am changing so fast. Maybe you can't see the internal process going on inside of me. But it is very much there. I am struggling, evolving and changing more than I have since we were first married. This is mostly a spiritual process. I can't explain it any other way. I had another deeply spiritual dream last night. I did not get to tell you about the last one, because we were interrupted at CPK by our son. This one was similar. If you like, I can tell you about it.

I suppose if there was an area where we fall into our old ways it would be the ruttiness. sometimes we get into ruts and habits. I am trying to break out of these and create new ones. At times if we get rutty, I feel the emotional distance forming between us. And that would be my strongest feeling: One of distance. If I look into your eyes and see nothing there in particular (as I did this morning at times), then I know that you are distant and I feel far from you.

At that point, I need to reach out to you. I need for you to know how important and vital you are to me, and to reaffirm our connection. We are very much in love, very much a couple and we are working towards a common dream, a common vision: A life of uniqueness, distinction and significance.

I love that you bought the book Half Time. This tells me that you are struggling with the same issues I am struggling with: What now? Yes, I have achieved a certain measure of success. Yes, I make a lot of money, which seems to please our financial planner, and which he wants me to preserve in a conservative, buy and hold strategy. I am not so sure I want to be that conservative at this point in my life. Having someone wipe my butt when I am too old and decrepit to do so for myself is something I am not particularly interested in hanging around for. I don't know about you, but if I have to work for 14 years at EMC in order to have the money to pay me $177 per day to come to my house and wipe my butt, I might as well kick it all right now.

There has got to be more to life than this.

The thing that lends the most significance to my life at this point, the point at which I feel the most fulfilled and the most at peace, is when you are in my arms and I am rubbing my hands on your body, feeling you melt beneath my fingers, hearing your sigh of pleasure and relaxation. You are the canvas upon which the painting of my love is formed. I find that moment to be the best, most fulfilling, most gentle and sensitive, moment of my day.

If I could find a way to gentle and sooth your soul and heart in the same way that my hands have found to sooth and gentle your back and your feet, that would be heaven! I long to touch your soul deeply, to reach into the crevices and secret inner folds of your mind, to cuddle and sooth you there, to entice you out of your hiding place and to set you free.

You remind me in so many ways of the dog Jojo that was on the show Dog Town last night. A dog who had been abused by humans and had lost the ability to trust. Eventually, Jojo found a way out of her shell. I pray that you find your way out too. I would love to be there with you when that happens.

And that, I would say, is the pattern you slip back into. For me it is ruttiness. For you it is the shell, the hiding place, the reclusive tendency to cacoon and hide from the world. When you begin to slip into that the feeling that I have is one of loss. I feel like I am losing you. That you are, again, slipping away into a place I cannot follow.

I am afraid that dropping out of school was a step in that direction. I fear the person you become when you are in that place of hiding, very distant and protective, very much closed and not open to me. I want for us to continue our dialog with each other, and with the world. I want for you to be free.

My strongest feeling, again, is one of distance. A feeling that you are in a place I cannot go, and that you are unavailable to me. A shared experience would be when I told you to pretend that I was dead when I was in Munich. This feeling can be very strong at times.

It is a pale grey, of the sky before dawn on a cold, cold night. It is a feeling which chills you to the bone.

I want for us to be vital, connected and loving to each other and to the community around us. I do not know how to make that happen, but I want it very much. And I want for you to come with me.

Love,
Me

HDIF when I put aside my feelings and reach out to you? DYFID.

Dear LORD:

Be with us today as we simply spend time together. I love Ruth so much! Help us to regroup, recharge and get ready for the next challenges of next week. Amen!

MDDL:

You MEQ today was giving me a smiling kiss when I brought you coffee. I love to kiss your smiling face!

The way I feel when I put aside my feelings and reach out to you is transformed.

I find that our relationship is a pathway for my spiritual transformation. As I deny myself and my feelings and reach out to you, I overcome the selfishness and self-centeredness of my ego, and my true nature shines through.

An example would be this week when I was calling you very frequently. I would be going along with my day, doing whatever, going to some meeting or another. I could have simply stayed in my spot, in my own feelings, desires and such. But instead I made a conscious decision to call you. I kept my mind, heart and feelings turned towards you. Because you were constantly on my mind, if I had a few minutes, I just hit "3" on my cellphone. If you were there, great! We always had a great talk, and you were thrilled to hear my voice, as I was to hear yours. If not, I left you a nice voicemail as well. Or I sent you a text.

I loved our texts this week, didn't you!

In this way, I stayed emotionally and spiritually connected to you all week. It was great! Not only did our emotional lives become fuller, but I overcame my funk. I stayed in a much better mood. I did not allow myself to wallow in self pity about being away from you and isolated. Instead, I did something constructive and productive about it. That's true transformation! Doing something about an issue in your life instead of wallowing. Yeah!

An example from nature of the feeling of transformation would be like a flower blooming, a small bud becoming a beautiful blossom. Or like a caterpillar spinning a cocoon and then emerging as a beautiful butterfly. Or perhaps like my refrigerator magnet of the baby turtle emerging from the egg.

It is a beautiful feeling, very strong, definitely a "10". The color is golden, like the sun.

I love you!

Love,
Me

HDIF about being responsible for my own needs? DYFF

MDDL:

You MEQ today was the cute way you thanked me for being with you today at lunch and when we went shopping. That was precious!

The way I feel about being responsible for my own needs, especially during this period of heavy travel load, is lonely.

I miss you, honestly.

I am very, very glad that we are going to be together in California during the middle of October. I have missed having you with me. I love to be with you.

The loneliness that I feel when I travel alone, and am responsible for my own needs, is like the first day you come to a new school as a child. Your best friend has been left behind at your old school. You don't know anyone here. And all of your peers have established their own little cliches which don't include you. You are effectively alone in a roomful of people, strangers who don't know you and don't care about you. You cannot seem to find a connection. You are afraid you might never become integrated into this new group.

That is the way it feels to me. I come to yet another city, yet another hotel, yet another set of meetings, all of which should be very glamorous and exciting. Except for one thing. You are not there. The one person on this ball of rock that I most care about and most long to be with is left behind.

It is like the color brown. Yucky and dark and heavy. It feels like I am covered with a coating of lead, like my arms and legs are heavy and leaden. I am listless. I have no energy. I just want to be with you. I just want to break free of the weight of this tiresome duty. I want to come home.

My feeling when I am away from you is very, very strong, definitely a 110. I hate it.

I would love to find a job which does not require me to pay this price. I will work on that some more.

I must close now. It is time to go to yoga. I look forward to dialoging with you tonight.

Love,
Me

Our scedules are very demanding. How do you feel we should we coordinate and prioritize our schedules? HDIFAMA?

Dear LORD:

Be with us as we are together tonight. I am so in love with my sweetheart. Be with us as we dialog together. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ today has been your diligence in looking for an apartment for our son, Samuel. It touched my heart when you referred to him today as "our baby".

The way we have been coordinating and prioritizing our schedules up till now has been very ad hoc and very tactical. We tend to focus more on what is urgent, and less on what is important. I think we should make a longer term plan. We miss a lot by short term thinking.

The things that pay off in the long terms are things like your education, getting the taxes filed, getting out of debt, practicing yoga, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and the like. Plus continuing our spiritual pursuits and making time for our relationship. These are the top priority items that we should be focusing on.

We tend to get sucked into shorter term thinking about things like Samuel's and Jon's relationship issues, Jeanae's current crisis or drama, my job, your job, and the like.

I got in touch with this propensity for short term thinking a few days ago. There was a show on NPR which was discussing the issue of the GI bill. My life was completely transformed by the GI bill when my father was able to get an education and escape the cycle of poverty as a result of the benefits he received in WWII. It turns out that every dollar that was invested in educational benefits for veterans after WWII was repaid tenfold in tax revenues from the increased earnings these folks earned during their lives.

Which begs the obvious question: Why doesn't the government simply pay for college for everyone? Many countries do this. Ireland for example. Also Switzerland. All education is free because the government recognizes that people who earn more pay more taxes and thus the investment in peoples lives is a huge payoff.

So why don't we do this in our country? Because it takes too long for the payoff to occur. The period required is in decades not in the short term time horizon of most politicians. Thus, they do not fund education (or even the GI bill) nearly as much as would be appropriate considering the payoff.

This short term way of thinking is baked into our entire society. EMC is like this. I suspect that the Refectory Cafe probably is too. It is part of the insanity and dysfunction of our society that we ignore long term opportunities by looking at the short term. I see us doing that in our own lives. I do it in my life all the time. I am more focused on getting my expense report filed than I am on getting the taxes filed, although the dollar value of the taxes is at least 20x the amount of the expense report. Again, what is most urgent is not necessarily the most important.

I would like for us to really take some time to create long term goals and write them down. Then come up with measurable time periods for us to achieve those goals. Finally, I would like for us to figure out concreate, measurable things we can do to move towards those goals. I would also like for us to do this repeatedly and iteratively, on a scheduled basis. By doing this, we can actually move our lives in the directions we choose, rather than simply allowing life to happen to us.

The way I feel about this is very optimistic. I feel a level of maturity and optimism within myself that I have not felt in pretty much any other time in my life. The color is like a deep rich green, of abundant life, springing up from rich soil. It feels like health returning after a long period of illness, when you can finally breath again after a cold for example. (You know that first sneeze you have after being stopped up for a long time? Delicious!)

The feeling is definitely a 10. It is quite strong. I want for us to do this together. We can do this and we will.

I love you.

Love,
Me

How do I feel about money and our differences of opinion in this area?

Dear LORD:

I appreciate the invention of emotions, but why money? Makes no sense to me. It just causes trouble. Surely you could have done without that one. I will certainly want to discuss this with you when I see you. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ just now was cuddling with me when we were in the meeting. I found that very cute and endearing.

We recently had a disagreement which illustrates our difference of opinion in the area of money. I wanted to pay down the Chase credit card (basically cutting the balance in half) and you wanted me to go into the hardship program. This disagreement became quite sharp although we were able to reach a compromise (by paying two cards instead of one in the same amount).

This illustrates the difference of opinion we have in this area: I want to pay off credit cards as soon as possible and you want to spread out the payments by going into the hardship program. This makes no sense to me. Are you aware that over the period that you pay off the card, they will charge you far, far more interest than if you had simply paid the thing down? Like if you have $1,000 balance that you are paying at a rate of 7% over 5 years, you will pay $70 per year for five years = $350. That’s 35%! If you had simply paid the thing off within a short period of time, you could avoid almost all of the interest entirely. Plus have the damn thing off of your shoulders.

We learned a technique to get out of debt recently from Hans Johnson. Pay off the card with the lowest balance first. Then use the amount that you were paying on that card to attack the second card. And so forth. By doing this, you can reduce your debt very rapidly. There was nothing in that plan about going into hardship programs.

By being in a hardship program, we are tying ourselves to a five year payout and we are thus indebted to “The Man” for a long, long time. To me, this just makes no sense, especially if we have extra money to pay down credit card debt. While I am some making extra money, I would like to pay balances down as rapidly as possible, get as much of this burden off of our shoulders as possible, and then go from there.

The way this makes me feel is choked. When I think about having a large credit card debt, even at a low interest rate, on my shoulders for a long, long time, I feel choked and smothering. It feels like the wind has been knocked out of me. It feels like you am in an elevator and the thing has stopped moving. Further, you hit the alarm and nothing happens. You are trapped. You don’t know if anyone knows about your situation or not. You are just stuck. This is a very intense feeling, at least an 8.

Another example would be when we were whitewater rafting and I went down. I was under for a long, long time. I probably swallowed a gallon of river water. I was completely sure I was going to die. That was a feeling of being choked, not being able to breath, not sure if you were going to make it or not.

Another example would be when we were indebted to the IRS for a million bucks. That felt the same way. Choking the life out of us. Making us feel trapped.

Another example is how it feels when someone is sitting on your chest. CSI calls this positional asphyxia. You can’t breathe because your chest is being compressed. I am not sure if you have had that experience or not, but I have. It feels terrible, and that is how our burden of credit card debt feels to me.

The 401K loan feels that way too, but there is nothing I can do about that until we file our taxes. I can pay down some of these credit cards though. I want to get the balances of as many cards as possible down to zero and then stop using them entirely. I have over $2,000 of balance available on the Chase card, and have not charged a penny on it BTW. Like I told you in that conversation, this is a brand new day, and you need to stop worrying about me charging up balances on credit cards. Nothing could tempt me to do that anymore than anyone could talk me into eating a 24 ounce porterhouse steak. I recognize poison when I see it now. And credit cards are poison, just as much as red meat is.

I want out of this box. I must get free. I must get out of this trap. I do not want to owe any more money to anyone at all, especially credit card companies. I want to just be out from underneath this burden. Free at last. Free at last.

You are probably coming pretty soon so I will close. You are my best friend and the love of my life. I will love you forever. You can trust in that. I am so into you, baby!

Love
Me

90/90

Dear LORD:

Be with us during the 90/90 writing and sharing period. This is a crucial period in the Retrouvaille process. Give us both your grace. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was getting up, getting ready and wanting to go to breakfast. Your commitment to the Retrouvaille process is very strong. Thank you for your diligence!

Question 1: Why do I want to go on living?

The Howard J. Browning philosophy (life is grim, grim shit and the like) would argue that there is not any real reason to go on living. He did not himself end his own life (although he tried to talk me into doing it for him). However, he certainly motivated others around him, me included, to have the attitude that life was not worth living.

I have chosen a different path. Much of my life has been focused on the negative. Now, having read Eckhart Tolle, Stephen Cope and the like, I understand the reason why. The ego with its associated pain body feeds on the negative emotions. Positive emotions don’t really do much for the pain body. It far prefers the negative.

Howard Browning was certainly one of the most unconscious, insane, dysfunctional people I have ever known. It is doubtful he would have ever come to any measure of spiritual growth without the motivation of his impending death. His pain body must have been powerful! I have had lots of pain as well, much proximately caused by him and his nonsense. But while I have struggled with the pain and negative emotions from my past, I have also been open to the reality of another way that might lead to a better place. This is why I have been a spiritual seeker much of my life. Even before I found Christ, I was a reader of spiritual literature like Frank Herbert’s Dune, Carlos Castenada’s Conversations with Don Juan and the like. This eventually led me to the place where I am today.

So when I consider why I might want to go on living, there are many reasons that I can think of.

I enjoy my relationship with you first and foremost. It is a lot of work, sure, but it is also great fun and a joy to behold. I find you fascinating and fun to be with. Your feisty, spunky personality is engaging and cool. You are great in bed. You have a deep, personal relationship with God and you are interested in growing in that area. There are many aspects of your character that I find appealing and wonderful.

I also am developing a relationship with myself which is more agreeable than it has been in a long time. Through the work of personal transformation, I am becoming aware of aspects of my character that I had never known. I am also aware of the fact that I can change, grow and become something more than what I have been.

I like to use movies as an example of spiritual growth. One of the most spiritual movies in recent years is Pleasantville. In that film, you see the use of black and white versus color as a metaphor for spiritual reality. At the beginning of the movie all of the people in the film are in black and white. As they engage with life and become aware of their potential, they take on color. The black and white state is a symbol of the fact that their reality is flat and two-dimensional. When they assume colors then they have come to know the richness and multiplicity of life.

That is how it feels to me now. It is like the old Jeff, the tortured soul, living in a state of constant death, was black and white. When I read Eckhart Tolle on the plane on the way to Memphis Tennessee (having bought the book in Charlotte Airport), the world turned from black and white to color. I can’t describe it any other way. My Christian walk, the period of searching before that, all of it came into focus in an entirely new way.

It’s like I said to you once: The best spiritual literature gives you two strong, seemingly contradictory, impressions simultaneously:

1. This is something you have always known, somehow. It resonates with your view of reality at a deep level. You have a sense of recognition.
2. This is completely mind-blowing, a totally new paradigm, a new way of relating to reality. It completely blows away your notions about spiritual life. You are required to reexamine everything.

Eckhart Tolle did that for me in spades. Through him, I understood at last why yoga works. The “self” we relate to (which Stephen Cope says are multiple constructs he calls “patterns”) is an illusion. It is not really us. The “real us” is the Watcher, the source of pure awareness, lying in a deep pool of stillness below the realm of thought. What we relate to as the mind (what Eckhart Tolle calls the ego) is simply the surface of this pool, with its associated storms and weather. The ocean lies below this surface, far deeper and more massive than the surface. We only see the surface most of the time. The noise and commotion of the wind and waves distracts us. By calming the surface, stilling those winds and those waves, we are able to descend below the surface and come into contact with that deep pool.

I must confess something to you now. In our recent meeting with Don Meredith, you said that we were taking yoga only for exercise and not for the spiritual aspects. That was true for me at one time, but it is not true any longer. The spiritual side of yoga practice has become central for me.

When you said this, I understood why. The level of bigotry, ignorance and superstition of many Christians (particularly conservative fundamentalist evangelicals) towards yoga is well known. Ray and Debbie were deeply persecuted by their Christian friends during the period they practiced yoga. Eventually they stopped practicing as a result of this persecution. They are open to our practice because of their experience, but I can tell that they are ambivalent. On the one hand, they want us to reap the benefits they obtained from yoga (which surely included some of the benefits we have received as well). On the other hand, they know we will probably be rejected and persecuted by conservative Christians like Cari. Thus, they are conflicted.

I was in the same state at first, which is the reason why I avoided yoga for so long. After you suggested Bikram yoga before, I actually visited Naeda’s studio once, and checked it out (although I did not take a class). I was wearing orthodic inserts in my shoes at that time, so that was a problem. Anyway, I did not go down that path at the time, and most of this was due to the teachings I received from the Church regarding yoga.

But I can tell you that yoga, and especially Eckhart Tolle, have given me more insight into the Christian walk than I have received in years. It is like I understand the scriptures in an entirely new way, one which is experiential instead of intellectual. The “still small voice”? Yeah, I can hear that now. I totally understand that one. How about “take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy and my burden is light”? Of course. The word “yoga” simply means “yoke”. They are one and the same word. The scripture concerning sowing and reaping from Galatians 3? I have told you how I understand that experientially in a completely different way now. There are dozens and dozens of other examples I could cite. In fact, I am considering rereading the bible (probably really reading it for the first time) simply because of this new insight that I have at this point into the mystical parts of the scriptures.

In one of my yoga classes I arrived early. Previously I had spent that time stretching and warming up. This time, I simply went into savasana and entered a deep state of relaxation (what I now understand to be meditation). Then when the class began, I simply remained in that state. That class was the most easy, relaxed, natural class I had had up to that point. I remained in that meditative state the entire time. When we got to final savasana, I entered a deep, profound level of relaxation and awareness. Every sound I heard was amazingly pronounced. It was like each sound was made out of crystal. My mind ceased its constant rambling, and I entered a state of profound stillness, focusing simply on the breath and my body. I could feel the life within my body like a vibration. I entered a state of total bliss, completely at peace, without care, worry or trouble. My focus was not on my past with its tortured state. Nor was it on my future with all the doubts, unmet potential, burdens and demands of this life. It was simply on the present moment. The state of Now, in which I felt each breath as an influx of life.

If this is meditation (yes, I will use that word), then I think that is an absolutely terrific thing and I want more of it. If this is a Zen state (even more edgy) then, fine. I can be a Christian and do that too. In fact, I believe now that what is profoundly broken and dysfunctional about the Christian church (surely one of the most insane, destructive institutions on our insane planet), is that more Christians are not doing more of this thing that they so profoundly reject.

I remember early in my Christian walk when we lived in Dallas and were going to Church on the Rock and Shady Grove Church and I was being influenced by people like Bob Larson. He was surely in a category of Christians who rejected meditative practice (including yoga) by labeling it as “demonic”. He believed that by emptying the mind and entering a meditative state that we were inviting demons to possess us. He actually told Christians to never empty or still their mind. They needed to stay firmly rooted in their foreground consciousness, as a protection against the influence of demons who would surely try to invade if the mind was stilled.

Based upon Eckhart Tolle, I now believe the exact opposite. If you read the chapter in A New Earth on the pain body, what Eckhart Tolle describes is exactly the same as demonic possession. This thing which is composed of our painful memories and hurts, is actually alive and wants to preserve its own existence. By being focused on the foreground consciousness (the ego), we remain in the state of dysfunction and insanity, and we actually strengthen the pain body and its hold on our lives.

Having listened to Bob Larson for years, I certainly would put him in the category of a very egoic, dysfunctional and insane person. Thus, in his terms, he was demonically oppressed. Possibly even possessed by his pain body. His depressing, guilt laden manner of relating to the world was certainly one of the most egoic I have ever known.

He would of course be violently offended by that comment. Whatever. This has been my experience. I was once much more oppressed, depressed, confused, and harassed than I am now. I actually have peace in my life much of the time. Yoga, with its meditative states, has given me that, and that is certainly a reason to live. If that gives my Christian friends a reason to doubt my faith, then so be it.

Question 2: I need your help specifically in my physical condition.

You have been amazingly, wonderfully supportive in the area of my physical condition. The fact that I am where I am today with my diet, yoga and so forth is due in no small part to your influence. You have always been completely supportive of me. I rely on that. Please keep doing that. I am sure you have no intention of stopping, but I just wanted you to know how much it means to me and how much I rely on it.

Right now I am completely miserable physically. Having said that, I am not letting it bother me too much. I know this weekend is important, and I am taking the time and effort to do the work. If this means we miss yoga for a day or two, that is a price I am willing to pay. But my body is definitely crying out for exercise. Sitting for the entire day in complete inactivity is something that I have not done in a long, long time. I need exercise. I need to sweat. My skin is killing me. I want to claw it off. My joints are also inflamed and sore. I am not sleeping well. You get the idea.

Maybe we can do yoga this evening after we get back to Todd and Patti’s house? I know you don’t want to stay for the mass. It should be plenty hot enough at that time of day. We could go out on Todd and Patti’s back porch and just go for it. That would surely help me greatly.

In terms of tomorrow, we are on the ground at about 4:30 p.m. local time, and there is a 6:30 p.m. class at Open Door. If you are up for it, we could head straight over there from the airport. After we get our luggage, and get to the car, it should be about right. Let me know if that works for you.

Long term, it is obvious that my body is going to require some maintenance. I need to stay on a strictly vegan diet. I go through waves of strictness and laxness, but the core stays the same: No meat, dairy, chicken, fish or such. As many whole foods (fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, whole grains and beans) as possible. I should probably eliminate wheat and refined carbs again after we get back to the home base. That is hard to do while travelling.

In terms of exercise, nothing works better (or even remotely as well) as yoga. Yes, it is expensive and time consuming. But well worth it, as I have heard you say more than once. I want you to know how much I appreciate how supportive and positive you have been so far in this area. I love you so much for that. You are amazing. I also thrill at the changes to your body as a result of your yoga practice and diet changes. You are blossoming like a beautiful flower.

Question 3: Where do you think God should be in our relationship?

I am on a spiritual quest. That quest has as much to do with our relationship as it has to do with my own life. The two are related. I regard our relationship as a canvas upon which God paints the growth in life he wants for both of us to achieve.

As I told you last night, we are spiritually connected with a bond which He created. That bond is very, very strong and resilient. We might as well cooperate with it, because we will surely fail if we try to break it. Not that I would ever want to. I am completely devoted to you as my beloved wife. Even when we were separated, I ached for you every day. I remember sitting in the living room in our house in Chapel Hill with Jeanae crying and telling her how much I missed you. As angry as we both were it was inevitable that we would eventually be reunited. We are one together in a way which is completely impossible to break.

The fact that you were instrumental in guiding and steering me in the direction of yoga is an excellent example. Once I had found a form of exercise that you enjoyed doing as well, I was definitely going for that. I enjoy being with you so much in the practice room. When you look over at me during final savasana and I see the peace and joy on your face (as you did on Friday morning), that is priceless to me.

The bottom line is that God is very central to my understanding of what our relationship should be. Having said that, my relationship with God, and my understanding of what it means to even have a relationship with him is changing very fast. I think this is true for you as well. Once again, we are on a parallel path, a spiritual journey together. While these paths never converge (because we are still two distinct individuals) they also never diverge (because we are also one united being together). This is contradictory, but that is the nature of many mysteries. Free will versus predestination. The trinity. And so forth.

Question 4: What are the qualities that most attracted me to you?

As I looked over in the choir loft and saw you two rows down and a bit to my right at COTR that Wednesday night, the things that attracted me were:

1. I perceived that you were your own person and you did not take any shit from anyone. I like that about you. My mother was a complete carpet and I hated that about her. I wanted a woman who would stand up to me.
2. I found you (and still find you) very physically attractive. I liked your coloring, your pale skin and blue eyes.
3. I was attracted to your spirituality which I saw as very genuine. You were not going to COTR as a singles bar. You were more interested in God than you were in dating and men. That was very different from the other women in that church.

We are done now so I will close.

Love,
Me

HDIF about continuing to dialog this week?

Dear LORD:

Thank you for this weekend. It has been really great. I have loved being here with my sweetheart. She is such a treasure. Thank you for the opportunity for us to be here together. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ was making love to me at the 90/90. That was awesome. When I walked in the door from getting ice and found you, I was blown away!

The way I feel about continuing to dialog this week is terrific! I am enjoying this process of dialog very much. We are fine tuning things like picking the questions. I like the idea of picking the questions at the end of each dialog session. We have been spending too much time writing as well. I like the discipline of keeping the writing to 10 minutes. I know I tend to write way too much. I think we can get much better at this and in the process improve our communication immensely.

The terrific feeling I have about dialoging this week is like the feeling you get eating a Popsicle on a very, very hot day. You know, when the sun is beating down and it is very hot and sticky. You get the Popsicle and you have to eat it really fast before it melts. You bend over while you are eating it so the melting part does not drip on you. It drips all over your face and fingers. Despite all of that, when you take a bite of the Popsicle, you have a terrific feeling of coolness. It is like your entire body goes “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”

The color is bright orange, like the color of a ripe tangerine. It is very strong, definitely a 10.

In terms of a shared memory, it would be like the day that I bought you the brand new Toyota Land Cruiser and you were very excited by having this new car. It was absolutely terrific! Beautiful leather, beautiful paint, gorgeous color, excellent stereo. Rode just perfect. Really, really terrific car. (I am so glad we don’t have that monstrous gas guzzler now, though!)

I am really looking forward to further dialoging with you this week. I hope you are as well.

Love,
Me

What can I do to bring about forgiveness and healing in our relationship? HDIFAMA?

Dear LORD:

Help me to become fully transformed into your image from glory to glory, reflecting fully the face of your son. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ tonight was what you read to the group just now. That was very touching. I loved the part about our new beginning.

What I can do to bring about forgiveness and healing in our relationship is to forgive myself, to become fully Present in the moment, and to allow the transformation of my soul to complete itself.

I know that I have made little bitty baby steps so far in this process. But I feel the momentum building. The process of practicing yoga, being observant of my thoughts, watching my reactions and learning from them, and allowing the Watcher to temper those reactions, will eventually result in a complete healing in our relationship which I believe is yet to be fully realized.

As you said yesterday: “I’ll take care of me for you if you’ll take care of you for me.” By doing the things I describe above, I become fully human, perhaps for the first time in my whole life. This enables me to forgive myself, heal, and in the process to fully love you. You deserve no less.

The way I feel about this is very hopeful and optimistic. Like you said, a new beginning has begun. As I wrote to you in the poem I wrote today:

It Begins

I Am begins with a breath
continues with a glance
finishes with a sound
and returns again

Cycles upon cycles
weather of the soul
pouring forth into stillness
a torrent of thoughts
drenched with suchness

What began in obscurity
ends in clarity
the deep and powerful presence of life

I feel the clarity coming. I feel that deep and powerful presence of my own life within me. I feel that within you as well. The flow between us is very strong. We are returning to the source of that which Is, for there and there alone do we find ourselves. It is in that place as well that we see the face of God.

My optimistic and hopeful feeling is very, very strong, definitely a 10. It is like the feeling of a new morning on a clear spring day after the winter has just left and life is returning. It is also like seeing the life of a child blossom and grow, watching him or her learn to walk, gaining new strength and new abilities each day. The color is brilliant blue of a distant clear spring sky, capped over with the light of a new sun.

In terms of a shared memory it would be like when we got the Alaska job after my period of unemployment when we were living in the Dallas area, and we finally had an income sufficient to sustain our family. We had hope again. I had once again earned my self respect, as well as yours.

I will close now. I am completely fried, toasted, boiled, poached, broiled, and steamed. Pretty much cooked in other words. I hope they ring the bell soon. I want to come up to the room and be with you.

See you soon.

Love,
Me

What feeling do I have that I find most difficult to share with you? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Help me to be completely open and honest with my sweetheart. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ just now was laughing at my joke. I love to make you laugh!

The feeling that I have that I find most difficult to share with you (indeed the most difficult feeling that I have to deal with in my own heart) is my fear of death, dying and disease.

I dread my death. I dread the process of dying. I am afraid of being in pain. I am afraid of being sick and a burden on my family. I am afraid of losing my mind and faculties.

In recent years, as my health has declined and I have become more and more uncomfortable physically, I have dealt with this feeling day-to-day. It is not a good feeling. It is very strong at times. I have described to you before when I will wake up in the middle of the night , overcome by a feeling of dread and apprehension. That is my death, stalking me, hunting me, waiting to make the kill. He is not my friend. But he is a very close companion.

You must remember, for you have been with me through much of it, that death has been a close companion much of my life.

OK, let’s go through the litany.

First there was my father who was obsessed with death and made a point of creating as many near death experiences for himself and those around him as possible. Who according to his own estimation was personally responsible for the deaths of at least 10,000 human beings as a result of all of the bombing he did during his years at war. Who constantly was haunted by death, as I am.

Then there was my mother who he drove insane, who herself courted death, attempting suicide multiple times during my life. (I have honestly lost count.)

Then there was my sister at the age of 29 shooting herself with a 32 caliber pistol, fulfilling my father’s instructions.

Then there was my father, dying at the age of 64, 10 years older than I am today. I had to literally abandon him in favor of my mother as he lost his mind when the cancer ate away at his brain. Whose sole companion became a Baptist minister. The only word I have on the last few days of his life was from this man, a stranger to me, whose name I cannot even remember, but who took my place in comforting my father, a man I hated my entire life, during the last few hours of his life.

Then finally, again, was my mother, who I literally had to pull the plug on, figuratively speaking, by telling my brother not to take her to the hospital again, to simply “let her die”, thus becoming the proximate cause of her death as much as the cancer which ate her body up.

Is it any wonder after that litany of experiences that I view death and the process of dying in our current society with horror? That I would prefer suicide (I actually prefer the term euthanasia), while still whole, fully sane, capable of making my own decisions, and not a burden on my family, once the reality of the end is clear.

This was the way of all societies but ours until very recently. The horrifying way in which we allow the sick to linger is an invention of our modern medical industry nothing more. It is like the death of Sean I described earlier in which my parents for some insane reason (probably the cost) refused to put him down when his death was very obvious, and allowed him to whimper in pain until his final death. I swore at that point in my life (which actually I now realize was my first really close brush with death) that I would not do that to myself or to anyone I loved if I had a choice.

I have spoken many times about my desire to live 1,000 years. It is actually not a joke. I fear death so much I hold out in my mind the possibility of extending my life indefinitely through age reduction therapy, which may become available in about 20 to 30 years. That would allow you with your mind intact to rewind your age to young adulthood multiple times. Whether that will ever be a reality is debatable, but it is an insight into my own mind that I must construct such fantasies in order to function.

I seldom discuss this. I prefer not to. Death is never a pleasant subject. Suffice it to say, I am not at peace with my own death because I have seen too many deaths of those I love which were violent, tortuous, and long. My fear of death, and my unwillingness to accept it, is born out of experience.

You are here so I will close.

Love
Me

Name 3 specific instances when I felt closest to you. Describe the feeling in each instance in detail.

Dear LORD:

Thank you for our lives together as a couple. We have been through so much together. It is amazing the journey we have been on, and how far we have come. Be with us until the end, wherever that may lead. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ just now was laying your hand across my shoulder. I love it when you touch me!

These are not just three separate instances, but three sets of instances. I think you will see what I mean.

The first set of instances was the birth of our three children. Being with you and watching you give birth to our babies was an amazing, life changing experience for me. I wish I could be privileged to be in the presence of birth again in my life, but I seriously doubt that will ever happen again. My gender works against me on that one. Being with you for our three children’s births was a privilege that I will always treasure.

The feeling that I had about you in each of these instances was one of admiration and respect. I was totally blown away at how much heart it took for you to give birth to three healthy babies. You did an incredible job every time. I gained such a huge measure of respect for you as a person at that point in our lives. I could never doubt your commitment to our family because of the way you were so responsible and involved in the beginning.

The second set of instances was the death of our parents, your father and my father and mother. It seems appropriately symmetrical to me that the first set of instances has to do with birth and the second set has to do with death. These are the two bookends that bracket our lives after all. However, when I stood next to you at your father’s funeral and watched the pallbearers put him into the crypt, looking on as you wept openly, I felt a spiritual connection to you like none other. In the same way, although the events of my parents’ deaths was terribly painful and difficult, and filled with stressful events like your conflict with my brother, Jim, still being there with you through those events brought about a deep and profoundly spiritual closeness. That would be my feeling, one of closeness and connection. I felt totally connected to you at that time, like there was no force in this life that could ever tear us apart.

The third event, and it is a single event this time, was our reunion, especially our time on the bench in Duke Garden. I felt wonderfully close to you at that time. The sexual tension, combined by the intense need for emotional intimacy, made that experience incredibly intense and powerful. My feeling at that time was one of unity. We were being reunited. What was for a while two was again one. I never spent another day from that day forward without wanting to be with you, and being in a state of aching for your presence.

I remember when we were separated the first time (when you broke up with me during our dating period), I had a vision in a dream. In that dream I saw our spiritual bond, what I interpreted as our “one fleshness”. In this dream, the bond changed in consistency during our relationship. When we first became involved with each other, it was thick and strong, like a rubber tire. Still flexible, but very, very strong and secure. It was also very tight around us, binding us very close. Later, when you left me, it became very thin and wispy, almost like a vapor. If you didn’t look very carefully, you could miss it. It was almost completely transparent and invisible.

But it was still there. And the LORD showed me in that dream, that even though the bond was very thin, it was very resilient. You could push on it, and it would simply stretch. There was no limit to it. It would not break. So even as thin and intangible as it was, it was still as strong as ever. It was simply a strength of a different type.

The day after that dream was November 17, 1984. That day, I made a verbal affirmation of my vision as I woke up and got into the shower. I said aloud that morning that we would be married one year from that day, a covenant which came to pass.

I see our relationship in the same manner today. We are spiritually connected. We are necessary to each other in order to accomplish the spiritual work that we must accomplish in this life in order to become the people we are meant by God to be. There is no escape from it. Never was, never will be. We might as well cooperate. I feel that still today. You are my mate, and I am yours. That is the way it is.

I suspect they are about to call time, so I will close now.

Love
Me

HDIF when you share your feelings with me? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Thank you that you made us emotional creatures. So amazing! What are emotions anyway? It’s such a mystery. They seem more spiritual at times than soulish. Anyway, it was a really great idea, and I thank you for it.

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was the way you petted my face just now when you headed to the room. Very tender and loving!

The way I feel when you share your feelings to me is horny. It makes we want to come all over you. Yeah, I know that’s kind of strange. But there you have it.

This feeling is definitely a 10. I suppose it must be somehow related to the emotional flow that is going on between us. In terms of an example from nature, it would be like a horse mating. Have you ever seen that? It’s astounding. There is so much going on there, you can’t believe it. The best horse breeders still prefer to do it the old fashioned way.

In terms of an example from music it’s like the Lionel Richie song “Let’s Get it On.” You know that one? Great music to have sex by. Doesn’t last long enough though. The best music for sex to me is Pat Metheny in his more meditative moments. It’s like lighting the candles, making the room romantic, putting on some Pat, and then slipping naked between the sheets with your sweetheart.

In terms of a shared memory, remember when we made love recently, when you came and then I came inside you? Like I said at the time, full court press. All of the options. Fully loaded. That was a really great one. Lots of flow, of all sorts. Emotional, spiritual, and physical. All mixed up together in one big potent combination of love.

That is how I feel when you share your feelings with me. It makes me very hot for you. Can’t help it. Actually don’t want to change that about myself. I like that aspect a lot. I like the way we are together and I hope we keep being that way until we drop. Whether the kids like it or not. (None of their business anyway.)

I hope we can slip out of our room tonight sometime after everyone has gone to bed, sneak down to the pool, slip off the clothes and then make love in the water. Ooooooooohhhhhh! That sounds like sooooooo much fun!

You make me hot!

Love,
Me

How do I feel about writing letters to you this weekend?

Dear LORD:

Guide me in the process of dialog this weekend, and help me to be extra-special patient with my sweetheart.

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was that you showed compassion to me in my “child at the keyhole” experience, and the pain that caused me as a small child. It made me cry to hear you say that you thought that was a terrible thing to go though. I was truly touched.

I feel excited about writing letters to you this weekend. If my feeling was a physical sensation, it would be like the thrill of riding a really good rollercoaster: very exciting! On the scale of 1 to 10 my feeling of excitement is an 8. If my feeling of excitement was a color, it would be a bright, fire engine red, like the color of a snazzy sports car. An image of my feeling of excitement would be the night you can’t sleep before we are going on vacation to a really nice place, say Hawaii or Australia. You can’t go to sleep because you are too excited by the fun we are going to be having together in this wonderful place, and the fact that we are going to be together and away from the hassles and demands of our daily life. Using a shared memory to describe my excited feeling, it is like when we had chosen our new home in Chapel Hill, closed on the purchase and were moving into the house. We were really, really excited!

Love
Me

What are the strongest feelings I have experienced during our times of trouble? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Thank you that we have come to the weekend. I am having a wonderful time. I blessed my heart to see my sweetheart weeping openly in the meeting as Todd and Patti described their story. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was the wonderful way you made me laugh in our last dialog.

The strongest feelings I had during our times of trouble were being completely abandoned, hopeless and out-of-control.

My peak experience in my life is the “child at the keyhole” during the period while my mother was isolated by my father when I was seven. I realize in the wisdom of retrospection that I cleverly chose a woman and then I cleverly manipulated that woman, i.e., you, into helping me to recreate that situation. I suppose something inside of me needed to feel that again, so that I could go back to that stage in my life and regain a measure of hope and control.

I only know that I have felt that wound deeply my entire life, and the loss of control and support from the only person who loved me at that time was a devastating blow. The feeling I felt the night that I came home from the Hartsells, found you gone, and checked the accounts and found that they were drained, was identical to the feeling that I felt standing in front of that keyhole at the age of seven.

Of course, you could have done nothing else. I had subconsciously manipulated you into that position. My ego needed for you to do that. How else could I have experienced you coming back?

Just as my mother did. One day, she was simply there. We never discussed it, at least not until years later, and not without some measure of awkwardness. She was funny about it. She realized how much she failed me, and I am sure she felt terrible about it. My mother was a moral person after all. I cannot imagine the Hell she lived in being married to my father.

I am so sorry that I put you through that kind of Hell. I am not the person my father was. He was a terribly abusive and hostile person. I related to him as an angry god when I was small. He was simply arbitrary and always enraged. You never knew when he would snap. Then chaos would ensue. I did not adopt that side of his personality thank god.

I certainly did get the passive aggressive, hostile, slovenly side of him though. And I served that side of him up to you for years, forcing you to eat it, until it stuck in your throat. Once you had had a belly full, of course you left. Like I said, what else could you do?

My feeling about that time is, again, a feeling of hopelessness, abandonment, and loss of control. I suppose hopelessness is the strongest feeling. Like there is nothing I can do to fix this, it’s simply too big. Overwhelming. Beyond me. Completely hopeless.

In terms of an image it would be like being asked to pick up and move Mount Denali. You are told you have three days. Go for it. And if you don’t pull it off in that time, something terrible will happen. Say that you will lose your job, or possibly your child will be taken away. You look at that mountain and realize how impossible it is.

In terms of a shared memory, I suppose the best example I can think of is the trauma we went through with Apcom, Jerry Clawson and the lawsuit against us. A total lose-lose situation. Where there is no correct choice. Completely out of control. Hijacked by this crazy situation.

The color is grey. Dark, dark grey, the color of a thunderstorm on a dark stormy night, pregnant with potential for destruction and violence.

Love,
Me

Rereading the mask I wrote earlier, in what ways do I manipulate you in order to control you?

My mask is the mask of the smart ass, always right, college professor, know it all. I use this mask to control others. My primary motivation is to keep others at arm’s length. This is because of the pain that I have felt my entire life which is overwhelm, and yet familiar. If I were to let someone into my heart, then it might do two things: 1. It might reinjure the wound. This is unbearable. I have had this happen many times. It is very painful. 2. It might heal the wound. Since I am the wound, that would be unthinkable. Who would I be without this pain?

So I play the role of the SAARCPKIA in order to keep everyone, you included, at arm’s length, at a safe distance, outside of my emotional space. That keeps things in the mind, away from the heart, things of feelings, things of the spirit. It also keeps folks, yourself included, off center, off balance, and out of control of the conversation. If I can always be the clever, smart one in the conversation, then that way it will be easy for me to keep things from getting too close to the wound.

The way I feel about this is sad. I have spent much of my life as an emotional cripple. I actually tried to avoid emotional intimacy because I thought that was what I needed to survive. How terribly, terribly sad!

The feeling is like when my first dog, Sean, died when I was 12. How I loved that dog! He was a tri-color collie, black, white and gold. Gorgeous! He had an absolutely fantastic personality. Loyal, faithful, calm, loving, a wonderful animal. We lived in Arizona, a terrible place for a dog like that. We should have trimmed off his fur, but my parents didn’t do that for some reason. (They were terribly stupid about things like that.) He could not stay cool, and his kidneys failed and he died. They did not even put him down. I watched him suffer for hours before he finally died. I remember being there with Sean seeing him in pain, realizing how much he was hurting, wanting to help him. Wanting to be there for him. Knowing he had been there for me so many times in my life. But I was simply powerless to do anything about it. To this day, the memory of that wonderful dog can bring me to tears. That is how I feel about my wounded, tortured soul. As well as the people in my life who needed my emotional and spiritual support, yourself included.

The feeling of sadness is definitely a 10. It is very strong. The color is black, light the darkest ink. Like a room so dark you can’t see anything at all. You grope around in total darkness without any idea of where you are.

In terms of a shared memory I suppose the closest I could come to it would be the loss of Jasper. I felt terrible about that too. Jasper was such a wonderful bird in many ways. We did not do right by her. I feel badly about that. I wanted her to be well cared for, but she had so many issues. You and I were not doing well, and the stress of her screeching was definitely not a help. We isolated her down in the basement, and she became dysfunctional and started plucking. I really did love her though. When we buried her I cried like a baby and was terribly depressed for weeks. That is very similar to the way I feel about my wounded, tortured soul, and the way my mask has hurt the people in my life. I am terribly sorry and sad for all of this and wish I could do it all over. Of course, I cannot and must simply go on from here, making the choice to be emotionally and spiritually intimate with you now, and hope that I can make up the time which we lost in the early part of our marriage.

The ego with the pain body is such a bitch! It screws up so many relationships and lives. I hate it! Of course, that is the ego as well. At least now we know how to become truly intimate with each other. I love the way we are now. I know that I still fall back into the old patterns at times. I suppose I always will, a little.

The bell went off so I will join you now.

Love,
Me

What is your most deeply held conviction with respect to our relationship? HDIFAMA?

Dear LORD:

Thank you for my beautiful wife and all the love she has for our family. Thank you so much that her relationship with Jeanae has been restored. That is a wonderful thing! Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was letting me rub your feet when you came home, and ooohing and ahhhing while I did so. I really love to rub your feet! They are cute!

My most deeply held conviction with respect to our relationship is that we are one.

Our oneness has many aspects. We are one in the spirit. We are one flesh. We are one united in our position with respect to the children. We are one in our desires and aspirations for our lives in the areas of finance, spiritual pursuits, health and so forth.

We are one together in many, many areas of our lives. I am constantly amazed at how the things you say mirrors my thoughts as well.

A very significant recent conversation that we had is a very good example of this. When we were at the Shiki Sushi restaurant having lunch yesterday we had a conversation concerning the verse in Galatians 3 that says:

Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. What a man sows he shall also reap. If he sows to the flesh from the flesh he will reap corruption. If he sows to the spirit from the spirit he will reap eternal life.

I spent a great deal of time during the meeting contemplating this verse, as I told you during our lunch. The questions in my mind were:

What does it mean to sow to the flesh?
What does it mean to sow to the spirit?
What is the flesh?
What is the spirit?

In the process of discussing this with you, you perfectly clarified the nature of sowing to the spirit with your example from our drive to yoga recently in which I did not react to you when you were upset.

Basically, you confirmed and affirmed what I was already thinking in my mind (and receiving in my spirit) concerning these things. This is an example of us being on a parallel path. The fact that we are one does not mean that we are the same person. It does mean that we are on parallel paths. That our paths are side-by-side, never converging, but also never diverging.

I take great comfort in this oneness. That is my strongest feeling with respect to our oneness, a feeling of comfort and peace in knowing that you and I are one. It is like the feeling of getting into bed at the end of a hard stressful day, and getting all of your favorite, familiar pillows around you, relaxing into the softness of the bed, and allowing your stress and tension to melt away. As you fall into the deep, relaxed state, you feel a feeling of great peace and comfort that you are safe, warm and secure in this wonderful place. This is how the oneness of our relationship feels.

You have posted so I will stop being a yackety-yack and post too.

I love you with an undying love.

Love,
Me

How do I feel about the battle raging between Sam and Jon and Jon moving out? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Be with our sons. Help them to resolve their conflict. Help them realize how immature they are both being. And how selfish. Help us to be patient. It is difficult to talk to them without condemning them. Which would of course not be helpful. Give us your grace. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was the loving way we worked together side by side to fix up the fish tank, and the way you kissed me while I was doing the filters. I love to be with you!

The way I feel about the two issues you raise is different, so this is really two questions. I will not belabor the issue, but will simply answer them both separately.

The way I feel about the battle raging between Sam and Jon is torn, grieved, conflicted, and sad. I suppose my strongest feeling is sad. It is truly sad to find out how stupid and sinful our boys are being. I suspected but did not know. Now I know. It is much more difficult to know, as you said recently. You said you really do not want to know that much about what our boys are up to. It is enough to know that they are up to no good. Dealing with the fallout and drama from their stupidity is horrifically sad and difficult for both of us. It simply fills me with grief.

The way I described my feelings, and I wept as I did so, on Friday night with Sam is that my attitude is the attitude of the father of the prodigal son, looking off to the hills for his son to return. I told Sam that I have been waiting for a long time for my sons to return. I do not expect them to be like me. That is not what I mean. I do expect them to live meaningful, thoughtful, mature and responsible lives. It is difficult to find any honor, nobility or virtue in their current lifestyles. I feel ashamed for them. It saddens me terribly.

The color is black. It is a feeling of grief. In terms of a shared experience it would be similar to the feelings that we shared at your father's funeral in Morgan City. Definitely a 10+. I have shed many tears over this since last week, and expect that there are many more to come.

But that after all was the plight of the father of the prodigal sons. I suppose my feelings should be no different. The sadness is there because I care and love my sons, and want them to live in a manner that is worthy of who they are.

Now, as far as Jon moving out, my feeling about that would be somewhat gleeful. I really want Jon to go on with his life, figure out what he wants to do with the rest of his life here on this earth, stop wasting time playing WoW, and get his own space. If he wants to straighten up and get his life under control, then I would not be as strong on this issue. But with him acting the way he is, thinking with his penis, lying to me and you, screwing everything that wears skirts, etc., I just don't want him to live here anymore. I am hoping for a way to make that his decision and initiative. That would be my prayer. Let him figure out that he needs to be on his own himself, rather than us having to kick him out. Barring that, I suppose we are going to have to put him on a deadline, and push the issue.

Again, the way I feel about this is gleeful. This is our time. We need to be a couple, and be freed up from child responsibilities. Jeanae is almost out of the nest too. I would love for us to be able to travel, moving around on this earth, enjoying what it has to offer, without the worry and fret of naughty kids. Let them figure it out for themselves. I am through.

You already posted, so I will too.

Love,
Me

If you knew you could not fail, what would you attempt to accomplish? HDIFAT?

Dear LORD:

Be with us in our marriage, intimate relationship and other areas of our life. We love you. Be with us as we go to Vintage tomorrow. Help Jeanae to connect with a church. She needs that badly. Be with our sons. Help them to see that the way they are living is no good. It leads nowhere but down the tubes. They think they are so smart but they are being so stupid. It really pisses me off, but you already know that. I don't want to mess with them anymore. At least until they wake up and get out of their insanity. Help me with my attitude. I am very frustrated with them right now. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was telling me you love me in the car and then kissing me when we got home. It rocked my world!

If I truly knew that I could not fail I would become a spiritual teacher, similar to the work of Eckhart Tolle. I would help people in the area of their emotional and spiritual lives.

I have been so transformed by the practice of yoga and the reading that I have done in the area of my day to day life. I cannot possibly describe how amazing it is that I am able to function now in the area of my emotions and relationships. I have never felt so deeply and profoundly connected to you, to our family and to the earth.

Something similar to this happened yesterday in my conversation with Sam. I began to flow. It was amazing. I found myself simply allowing the Nooma in me to express itself.

I am not sure if this had any impact on Sam or not. But ultimately that doesn't matter. I want to speak to people who want to listen eventually. Right now, I am simply talking to anyone who will listen.

My feelings about spiritual matters are changing radically. I am on a revolutionary path. I cannot describe it any other way.

The reality of my spirit is the core conviction and understanding that I have obtained. I spent years in Christianity and later in the Local Church with people who would tell me to "turn to my spirit", but no one ever told me how, or even what my spirit was.

Now I finally understand. My spirit is my Nooma, the infinitely deep pool of stillness lying beyond the realm of thought, where I truly live. I am not my mind. I am that pool of stillness which is in the eternal Now.

This has been a process. The revelation of the eternal nature of God was a big step in that process. But I never went beyond that until recently. I knew that the church had it fundamentally wrong with respect to the nature of God and the eternal. But I never had a framework to build it upon which had an experiential basis. Something beyond that brief moment of insight that happened in my shower so long ago.

Now I have deep spiritual awakenings almost every day. If nothing else in final savasana as I lie their on the practice floor, listening to my breath, calming my mind, reaching into that deep pool of stillness, feeling my body, the aliveness awakening within it, going deep into the body.

These experiences are similar to those I have had in a few brief and rare moments in time in my Christian walk. Some of the Christian writers I have read have mentioned these moments. Rob Bell is among them. But they are regarded as rare and wondrous mountaintop experiences. What if you can actually live in a state of transformed Joy? What if you can actually live in the spirit, walking day by day in communion with the Eternal?

This is becoming my experience. It is something I am finding wonderful, and I truly want to share it with the world. If I knew I could not fail, I would find a way to become the messenger of this message to insane, dysfunctional world we find ourselves in.

The way I feel about this is transformed, brand new, reborn. Like the day I was born again on March 15, 1983, so long ago. When the color of the grass was more green, the color of the sky was more blue, the smell of a rose was more sweet, the taste of simple food was more profound and amazing. Like the nature of space and time itself had changed radically. Like I could fly, sing and dance all at the same time. It feels like a new beginning to a new life in a new world with you and me together!

The color is a bright, bright yellow, the color of sunlight on a golden, perfect day. A shared experience would be the newness of our relationship after we got back together and how everything felt new, alive and fresh again. Wow!

You have posted already so I will too.

Love,
Me

How involved should we get with our children's relastionships. HDIFAT?

Dear LORD:

Thank you that we were able to help our children yesterday with their issues. Thank you that no one got hurt or ended up in jail. Thank you that we are still on good terms with our kids. Amen!

MDDL:

You MEQ today was putting up with my restlessness last night without kicking me out of the bed. Thank you so much for that! I had a very rough night as you can tell. It was sweet of you to ask me what was wrong without complaining or asking me to move. As you can tell, the skin issue is very much stress related, and last night was pretty stressful.

I suppose my answer to this question would be that this is somewhat our children's call. We got way more involved last night than we have ever been, that's for sure. In the process, we found out things about our children (especially about Sam and Jon) that I frankly think we did not want to know. I know I have been trying to avoid knowing that much. It is simply uncomfortable to know that your kids are misbehaving this badly with their lives.

My tendency is to want to distance myself from them because their lifestyle is so chaotic and stressful. They are creating so much drama for themselves it is ridiculous. With all of the sex, drugs and rock and roll going on, it is amazing that they have done as well as they have. I know that I could not live in an environment that chaotic, stressful and out of control.

So my tendency is to want to pull way back out of self preservation. I am not sure that is the right response, though. If something very serious had happened last night, and our kids had ended up hurt, in jail, or worse, I am sure we would regret if we did nothing to help them. It was undoubtedly a divine intervention that got us involved. Now we are involved whether we like it or not. That is certainly pushing the limits on my coping mechanism. I wrestled all night in my dreams about Sam, Kate, Jon, and all the rest. So this is certainly taking an emotional toll on me. I am sure it is doing the same for you.

But, what choice do we have? They are our kids. We have a strong connection to them regardless of whether we agree with their lifestyles or not. My parents and I became very estranged for many years because of things I did in my life. (Most of that was related to my becoming a Christian, but still.) I would like for us to have a close, loving relationship with our kids for the rest of our lives. In the same nature as Y'Shua, I would want to do that without any expectations on my part as to their performance. Accept them where they are in other words. Yes, I do have some expectations and aspirations for them. So far, they are not living up to those very much, if at all. But I cannot stop loving them.

I keep getting back to the prodigal son from the Gospel of Luke. The attitude of the father was to look for his son to return to him. He kept going out day after day to a hill looking off to see if his son was returning. Eventually, his son returned, and then he said "this son of mine who was dead is alive again." How could he not rejoice? Perhaps our son Sam is beginning to come to life again. That would be wonderful. I would love to be there when that happens.

In terms of their relationships, I suppose that is simply another aspect of being involved in their lives. Their relationships are part of who they are. I had a check in my spirit about Kate from the moment I first met her. I knew that she was going to cause a lot of trouble. Sam now agrees that this is the case. Whether he is being stupid as well (with all of the sneaking around, snooping in Jon's email and such) is certainly debatable. I am not going to go there with him. He needs to work that out with Jon. They have certainly done a lot of damage to each other in the process, that's for sure. Whether their relationship can ever be healed is something we need to pray about. That is a relationship we should certainly be involved in, if for no other purpose than to make them go out in the garage and get their stuff worked out.

My feeling right now about this is unsettled. I have a pit in my stomach. I did not sleep very well. I need to do yoga. I need to dump this stress and let it go. I am trying to be Present, in the moment, but it is difficult. The worrier in me is very strong right now. I am concerned for my sons. I do not know how to stop doing that.

The feeling is like the unsettled feeling when you realize your bank account is overdrawn. A sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. The color is a battleship grey. It feels heavy, like you are walking through sand. Leaden. It is not a pleasant feeling. I am somewhat grieving for my son, just like the father in Luke. I want my son to return to me. I am concerned for him feeding on the pods the pigs are eating. I want to know he is OK. I am finding out that he is not OK. How can I not be concerned for him?

I will post now. Maybe we can connect further on this one.

Love,
Me

What is my vision for our future together? HDIFAMA?

Dear LORD:

Thank you that we are taking time to dialog today. It is so important. Please help my sweetheart to like this question and enjoy dialogging on it.

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was your wrestling with the issue of Samuel moving back home and putting your thoughts down on paper. That was great in that it helped me to get in touch with my feelings on the issue as well. Thank you for being so proactive in this way.

My vision for our future together is for me to get out of the IT business and for us to go into some other form of business together, possibly in the food service business or in exercise and health. I would love to become a yoga instructor for example. I know that I am still at a very low level, but yoga has done more for my health than anything else I have tried so far. I have always believed that the thing that you should do for a living is the thing which has transformed your own life. So, for example, getting into Mannatech would have been a natural if it had actually worked. I understand now very well why it did not work, having gone through the process I have gone through. (It is, after all, a dead processed food.) Now I see clearly that there is no shortcut to eating real food (in the Michael Pollen sense of the word), and doing the real work of stress reduction, relaxation, and spiritual transformation.

I guess my current vision would be for us to start a yoga studio which is combined with a vegan health oriented restaurant. Feeding the body, soul and spirit in other words. Your getting involved with ACC and the culinary arts degree program is a real natural for this. That is one reason why I am so excited about that move on your part, and want to support it in any way that I can. For example, you are not going to hear any push back from me on your need to attend classes or spend time doing your online training. I think it is totally wonderful that you are pursuing your dream, and if it fits into my vision as well, so be it. Either way, I am terribly proud of you and what you are doing with your life.

As you said today, when you start a program like ACC, you figure out what your dream is. Maybe your dream will change, and undoubtedly mine will too. I think it helps to know that it is that we are trying to do, though, even if that changes over time.

So, my vision, again, would be IOYK combined with a vegan fast food restaurant (with possibly meat and dairy options as well) in the same sort of relationship as Equinox and Soulstice Cafe. Synergistically working off each other. As I saw yesterday, folks who do yoga are also health oriented in other areas of their lives. Monica does not feed her child soda, for example. Never has, never will. They were horrified by my story of the three year old child at Retrouvialle CORE who was being fed Kool Whip directly from the tub by her obese parents.

What I want to do is to enable other folks to see what we have seen. This is my vision. To have the same results and such as we have had. To live healthy productive, stress-free lives. To find out that they can be Present in their Being without living in their ego. (Rob Bell actually talks about that as well.) In other words, to help people in every area of their lives. Holistically, not compartmentally.

This is a vision which is very big. But someone said recently that if you can achieve what your vision is in your lifetime, your vision is not big enough. This one is certainly very, very big.

The way I feel about this is energized and enthusiastic. Now that my health is finally (!!!!) turning around, I am becoming more and more jazzed by the idea of doing something in this area. While my health was declining, I was pretty hopeless and felt that I needed to focus on that. As I am beginning to become healthy again, I am aware that my creative juices are flowing. Yes! I am becoming a functional human being again. This feels really great! I want to share that with the world, and that is making me very excited.

It is a feeling of being energized and pumped. Kind of like the feeling you have when you crest a hill on your bike, when your legs are fully warmed up and pumping. When you hit the top you are like: Yes!!! Or like a feeling you have when you hit a home run and you start pumping your fist. Yes!!! Like a team that has just won a big game and they are all jumping up and down and clapping each other on the back.

It is a bright red, like a really nice sports car. Snick snick with the shifter as you climb the switch backs on a winding road with your tires squealing and the sound of the racy exhaust in you ears.

I am really really looking forward to exploring this vision with you. If we cannot do it together, I do not want to do it at all. You and me babe, all the way.

Love,
Me

How does it make you feel when you are treated unjustly by family members, coworkers or anyone else for that matter? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

You word says that you justify the saints and that we should not avenge ourselves. Be my justification. Let me release and forgive all of the injustice of the world.

MDDL:

Your MEQ this morning was wanting to just hang out with me and be together instead of going to the meeting. I really like that idea, now that I have gotten used to it. Another lazy, relaxed day of just being together. Wow!

My past reactions to injustice have driven much of the misery of my life. Let's see: Start with my father and his insanity towards my mother, my sister, my brother and me. Practically from when I could remember, his life and its dysfunction stretch a long shadow over my heart. It has taken years for me to come to grips with with that. Even in the hypnotherapy sessions that I have had, I have been able to forgive my mother, but never my father. The difference is that I can understand my mother and her motivation in what she did. My father seems morally reprehensible to me. That should not matter. I should be able to forgive him anyway, but there is a place in my heart where I still harbor anger, bitterness, and rage against him.

As you know, the single most painful moment of my life was when my father looked up to me from his hospital bed and said the words "I believe." At that moment, I knew that God had forgiven him, when I could not. If I had been the judge of the universe, I would have cast my father into Hell. Instead the real Judge chose to welcome him into paradise.

We spent the remaining weeks of his life going out onto the parking lot during the day where the camper was parked, and singing songs like Amazing Grace while my father wept bitterly, undoubtedly greiving over his wasted life and the choices he made. The most bitter and painful memory was undoubtedly the death of my sister, of which he was the cause. He of any of the family members could have done something about her situation and could have been there for her when she needed him. He chose not to do that, giving her the gun instead with which she shot herself.

I have begun, through Eckart Tolle's work, to understand that the part of my father that was at work was his insanity, his ego. He was a very egoic person, certainly one of the most dysfunctional and insane people I have ever known.

A typical example of his insanity would be the scene from one of the Star Trek movies where all of the crew members have joined with an emotional Vulcan named Sybok who is Spock's brother. Sybok brings them to a place of enlightenment where they surrender their pain to him, and come to a state of total peace. When Kirk is offered this choice, he refuses. He says: "No, I like my pain. It defines me. It makes me who I am. I need my pain."

That has been my father. That has also been me, in the image of my father. I also related to Kirk in this way, knowing that my father clung to his pain, feeling that it defined him. His motto was: "You've never lived until you've almost died." He tried to create near-death crises whenever possible. He lived for the thrill, a true adrenaline junky. He always wanted to escape from the snares of death by the skin of his teeth. Only by doing this did he feel truly alive.

This was much of the cause of the havoc he created in our lives, a great injustice and one of the tragedies of my life. All of the injustices that I have experienced as an adult pale in comparison to the great injustice of my childhood and the knowledge that I was defenseless against the manipulation of a truly insane man.

Be that as it may, I must come to a place of peace with this. My ego still rails against it. But my spirit knows that I am a sinner too, no more deserving of peace or love than Howard J. Browning. It is only in the ego, by comparing and contrasting my life to that of my father, that I am allowed to justify myself. When I look at things truly, knowing that my father and I are ultimately exactly the same, then I can forgive. We both end up in exactly the same place: Rotting corpses, followed by dust, followed by nothing at all. Only our spirit, the spark of the divine given to us by God, endures. The egoic structures with all of its rationalization and justification and manipulations, rots away with the rest of it.

That means that I will see my father once again. He will undoubtedly weep with profound grief at all of the pain and suffering he inflicted upon my mother, my sister, my brother, and me. He will see, as he probably did at the end of his life, that his actions were terribly evil. He will know that he was truly an instrument of Satan in this world. And I will be able to look him deep into those flinty blue eyes and love him once again, as I did when I was a small child, innocent of anything, simply basking in the light of my father's love.

The feeling that I have as I write this is one of profound sadness. I feel terribly, terribly sad knowing that my father's life was wasted and what an amazing life he could have had, had he simply awoken earlier than he did. I also feel terribly sorry for him. The sadness I feel is very strong. It is like the sadness of a child who has just lost a treasured pet, one that was a dear, dear friend to him. I have felt that feeling, such as when Sean, my first dog, died when I was 12. For years after that I never wanted to have another dog because the sadness I felt was so strong. Even after that, if I ever wanted to lose an erection, I simply had to think of Sean and I would become sad. The feeling is like that. I deep, deep wound of sadness over the injustice of my life and the wasted life of my father, who I probably loved as much as anyone I have ever known in my life, but who hurt me more profoundly than anyone as well.

The color is black, jet inky black. A darkness you cannot see through. Absolute total black.

In terms of a shared experience, it is difficult to think of anything that we have ever gone through that measures up. I suppose the best example would be the year of Hell we went through when my father, your father, and then my mother all died. That year is like a deep, black hole of sadness in my memory. I remember nothing of joy during that time. It was simply too painful.

Know always that I love you.

Love,
Me

Describe the impact Eckart Tolle on your life and our marriage. HDIFAMA?

Dear LORD:

Thank you that we are making an effort to be faithful in the area of diablogging. It is so important. Thank you that we have had a good day together. Thank you for our wonderful lunch and the little projects that we accomplished today. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ was the way you gave me a smiling kiss after I did the Redi-blind on the back door. That was so sweet! You also did the same thing when I cleaned out my car. When I do things for you and you really appreciate it, that makes it so worthwhile.

Eckart Tolle has had a profound impact on my life and indirectly on our marriage. I had originally included yoga in this question because in my mind they are somewhat related. I become Present (in the Eckart Tolle sense of the word) while doing yoga. This continues for a significant period of time (several hours at least) after yoga. I call this my "post-yoga state". I used to have a "post workout state", but it was nowhere near as intense as the post yoga experience.

Eckart Tolle has explained to me why yoga works. Effectively, what this means to me is that by being Present, I can stop reacting. I am not perfect at this, as we observed recently when we had our little tiff on the front porch over Jeanae's education. Even then, when I was reacting, I was observing myself reacting.

The other effect is that I am very aware of my body and my emotions now. When I do yoga, and also when I make an effort to practice what Eckart Tolle has taught me, I go into my body and thereby into my emotions. I become as intensely aware of my feelings on many levels as I used to be numb and indifferent to them. No, indifferent is not the right word. What I was really doing was violently negating them. Denying their existence.

I have had many experiences like the following recently: I woke up with a sense of dread and anxiety. Instead of trying to deny the feeling as I have in the past, I embraced it. I savored it, accepted it, and looked it straight in the eye. I began to focus on my breath as I turned the feeling over and over in my mind. I did not analyze why I was having the feeling, or try to rationalize it away. It simply doesn't matter. Who cares why I had the feeling? Maybe it was a bad dream, or something I ate before going to bed. Certainly, massaging the issues of my life in the middle of the night while I am in the midst of what could be perceived to be a panic attack is not going to help things. So I simply let the feeling Be. I reached a state of total acceptance of this feeling.

Before I knew it, the feeling was gone, I had fallen back to sleep and it was morning.

I cannot tell you how many times I have struggled, tossing and turning in the bed, with some feeling of generalized indeterminate fear, anxiety or dread. This has robbed me of peace for years. By denying the feeling, by trying to make it go away, I simply strengthen it, and it becomes my identity.

It is by acceptance of that which Is that you go on. All change comes from this. Railing against that which Is is simply stupid. The feeling exists. It is not going to kill me. It is what it is.

The impact on our marriage has been profound. I cannot count the number of times I have found myself in a situation with you in which I would have reacted in which I have not, or if I did, I observed myself doing so and in the process of that observation, allowed myself to relax into the feeling. An example would be when you became very aggressive one day on the way to yoga, talking about how much you hate to be late, and how stressed you were. You began to cuss and swear. Normally, this would have stressed me out significantly. It didn't. I just sat there, accepting you where you were at that moment, realizing you were stressed. Would me being stressed too help at all? Definitely not. I simply became quiet, both within and without. Before too long, your stress passed. After yoga you apologized sweetly. Actually, I had completely forgotten about it. It had simply not affected me.

Thus, the impact on our marriage is simply this: To the extent that I am Present, I do not react. If I do react (and I will never be perfect at that), at least I observe myself reacting. In the process of observing that, I become Present and then I become more calm. This means we have less conflict, at least from my side.

I suspect something very similar is happening to you. Once you have read Eckart Tolle and you start to apply what he has written, the transformation process is pretty much inevitable. You simply become Present. Everything stems from that.

The way I feel about this is very peaceful. There is a core of peace within me that I have not known for many years. Even though our lives are somewhat stressful right now, what with our financial issues, Nella, my job, your job, Jeanae's education and the like, I find myself more calm and stress free than I have been in a long, long time, maybe even in my entire life. That is exciting, in a calm peaceful sort of way. :-)

The feeling is like the feeling you feel on a beautiful summer day, sitting beside a river. You remember the place you described in West Virginia where we went in the RV that we discussed recently? Like that. A place you never want to leave. You sit and watch the river flow by. You just stay there, being still and quiet. You are content.

The feeling is very strong, very powerful. Yet it is not like a powerful feeling of passion, pleasure or pain. It is much deeper, and yet less intense than those feelings. It is like a deep pool of stillness lying below the realm of thought, which I can access when I think about it. No, that's not quite right, really when I stop thinking. When I listen to the silence which lies beneath my thoughts, it is there. It is always there though. The thoughts and events of the day simply are louder. But the feeling of peace remains underneath whatever else is happening.

The color is one like the deep, intense blue of the sky just as the sun has set and the stars are appearing. When you look up and see the sky, knowing that it is infinite, and you feel touched by the presence of God.

I access this feeling frequently when listening to music. I am transported into a place of deep stillness and peace in those moments. Also when I look in the faces of dear ones. I had that feeling profoundly at the last Friday night meeting I attended at the Hookers' house when I was explaining the impact of Job 41 and 42 on my life. As I gazed intensely into the hearts of those saints and shared my heart, I had that feeling of peace profoundly come over me. I think they felt it too.

You are my heart and soul. Know always that my love is with you.

Love,
Me

What does our commitment to the Retrouvaille process mean to you? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Thank you that we are dialogging. It has been too long. Help us to continue to communicate in this way. It is so helpful to our marriage and to our persons. Amen!

MDDL:

Your MEQ today was the wonderful way that you came home and folded yourself into my lap after work. I was so sad during the day when you were gone. It blessed my heart so much for you to love me in that way. I needed you to be there and you were. I love you so much!

To me, our commitment to the Retrouvaille process is very important. I have been somewhat frustrated that our efforts to be connected to a CORE group have been thwarted so far. I believe that attending the Arizona meeting will give us another perspective on what Retrouvaille can be. So far, our view of the Retrouvaille organization has been limited to the Raleigh and Greensboro groups, plus your contact with Patti. That's not a lot of experience, in other words.

It is similar to the way I viewed Bikram yoga when all I had done was go to Naeda's studio. One voice, and one view. When I traveled extensively, going to yoga studios all over the country, then I got a richer view of what Bikram yoga is like. It is a tapestry of teachers and yogis all over the country, much more interesting and complex than one little studio on Chapel Hill.

Our view so far of Retrouvaille has been similar. We need to branch out and see more of this movement. We need to understand what it has meant to people's lives in various communities. We need to see for ourselves.

I would actually like to do more than just this weekend. I think a trip a quarter would be nice, or at least one every six months. Wouldn't that be great? I would like for us to continue to be in the atmosphere of other couples who have been through the process we have been through, learning and growing from their strength.

My strongest feeling about our commitment to Retrouvaille is one of joy. I am energized and joyful that we are going to get to be in another weekend together! Yay! It is like the unmitigated joy of a baby who has just fed from her mother's breast and looks up at her mother's eyes and breaks out into a big baby milky grin. Then the flow of joy between the mother and baby is a beautiful thing to behold! That is the feeling that I feel about us being together in another weekend.

I could go on, but you and I are both tired. I will post now. You are my dearest heart.

Love,
Me

HDIF about where your career right now and what you would like to do with the rest of your life? DYFF.

Dear LORD:

Thank you that I have a good paying job that requires very little effort on my part and imposes a modest level of stress on my life. Please help me maintain an attitude of gratitude, submission and contentment with respect to this job. Show me what it is you want for me to do with the rest of my life. Amen!

Dearest Ruth:

Your MEQ today was noticing that I am doing a good job on picking up the kitchen. Encouraging words like that go a long way in helping me to feel loved by you. I am discovering that my love language is very much involved with words of affirmation. I appreciate and love your encouraging and supporting words.

The way I feel about my job right now is bored. The way I feel about what I want to do with the rest of my life is complicated, a stew of emotions.

Looking first at EMC. One the one hand, this job requires very little effort on my part. I have a team which basically does it for me. I am not sure how long this will last, but right now that is a very sweet thing. Today was typical. I was able to go to the 9 a.m. yoga class, come home and do some work. Later, I took a nap for about an hour. Then I did some more work. They were thrilled. After you got home, I knocked off and you and I have been "being together" ever since.

Pretty sweet for a Monday.

Compare that to NetApp where I was expected to be in the office everyday. I even got lectured by Rich Clifton about my "attendance record". He wanted me to "set an example". And all that happy horseshit. Chad on the other hand told me from the get-go that I could work from home every day as far as he was concerned. I have never been bothered about that stuff since Mike Wytenus exited the scene.

Certainly with Pat Healy away in Cork, I have no adult supervision. Once in a while I get some grumbling from folks who are obviously jealous, but that's it.

On the other hand this job is booooooorrrrrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnngggggg!!!! I have gotten so burned out on technology. I have been doing it for too long. This is my twentieth year in this business. I need to do something else.

Certainly that's the long term plan. I would love dearly to be in some form of business with you. But we need to get through our immediate financial issues before that can become a reality. So I need to cool my jets. I am trying to be as patient as I can with remaining at EMC for now and putting in my time, doing the work quarter by quarter, taking my fat salary and coming home to you and the kids.

If the travel was to ramp up (fortunately Pat is protecting me on that), then this job could go south really fast. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. As long as I am working for Pat I suspect that I will have about 1 trip per month, with you being able to come with on at least one trip in three. That means we are only apart two weeks per quarter, which is manageable. Painful for both of us, but still manageable.

It will rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyy be sweet for us to be in California week after next. Oh! Oh! Oh! How I am looking forward to that. Yay!

In terms of EMC and my present job then, bored would be the word. It feels exactly like you are in an airport in another city somewhere and you have a really long connection. Nothing is wrong really, no delays or such. You simply got a bad deal when you booked the flight and now you have to sit on your butt and do nothing for several many hours watching the hands on the clock turn. You are stuck and you are simply going to be bored. Get used to it.

It is like the color battleship grey. A dull, lifeless color. Completely devoid of anything interesting. I should be engaging in certification study for example, but so far I have not been able to gin that up. (Maybe yoga will help with this. I know it is helping me with disciplined behavior generally.)

So bottom line on the rest of my life part of the question is I suppose the strongest feeling would be thwarted. Kind of like you have a really, really good word in Scrabble and you know that if you could just get it on the board you would nail this guy to the wall. But you have no place to play it and the board is really tight and tied up. You are like "shoot!" "dang!" "crap!" and can't seem to figure out a way to get that word out there. It is like that. Another picture is that it feels like I am groping around, arms outstretched, trying to find the door to the bathroom in the middle of the night. All the while I really, really have to pee.

What I am doing in the meantime is addressing my health concerns, learning as much as I can about things like yoga, vegan dieting, different types of alternative health techniques, and the like. I am in search of a new opportunity. In a similar way to the way that technology transformed my life in the 80s, I am looking for a way for the new technologies that are emerging now (relating to things like alternative health and green, sustainable, healthy diet) to transform my life and make a way for us to earn an income.

I do not know how this will turn out. That is frustrating and exciting at the same time. It promises to be a bit of a ride. Let's hang on and see where this takes us!

Love,
Me