T-M-I from T-I-M

My dear friend Jerry Jacob

This morning I learned that my friend Jerry died.  Jerry is one of my many friends who we affectionately refer to as an "old-timer" in the group I'm involved in.  I first attended a gathering of about 15-20 men who were mostly old-timers and he welcomed me in a way that made me feel like I fit right in.

I spent the next 4 or 5 months trying to prove (and tell everyone) that I didn't.  One thing that confused me is that since the group was mostly older men it had lost several of its regular attendees over time and they talked about them on a somewhat regular basis. 

I fought that.  I'm new and I've never met this person, why don't we just focus on where and who we are now?  My friend Jerry smiled and let me be the rascal that I was being.  Always welcoming me back with a warmth that was, at times, downright confusing.

I broke bread with him on several occasions.  He was there on the other side of the phone talking me through rough spots.  He was one of those people in our lives who told me everything would be ok and I really believed it when he said it to me.

Then he got sick and he was in the hospital for quite a while.  And I kept saying to myself, I'll go next week.  Now it's too late.  You see, both Jerry and I share this disease that is founded on selfishness.  He showed me how to treat this disease daily.  This morning I've been reflecting on the choices I made instead of visiting him and it sickens me.

If he were still with us, I would tell him "I was wrong to be so self centered and insensitive".  And the thing that is crushing me this morning is I know he would tell me it's ok and give me a huge hug. 

That's who Jerry was.  And it's not totally that "I've" lost Jerry it's that "we've" lost him.  Because he won't be there to extend his loving embrace to another man or woman like me.

I'm so fucking pissed that it takes death for me to "get perspective".  I hear it all the time when there are tragic events.  It just feels so wrong that I'm taking the loss of this amazing man to teach me things he was trying to teach me for the blessed time I knew him.

I understand my group members better now, because I now know how it feels.  But it's a Catch fucking 22, Jerry had to die for me to get all of this.  It's too painful of a price to pay.

This hurts so bad.  I loved Jerry Jacobs.  I know everything's going to be ok, just like you always said to me Jerry, I really believe you. 

And I'm going to talk about you, long after you left us last night.  And a new man may not get why I'm talking about you and I'll will smile compassionately.  But in a very meaningful way you will never leave me because you filled my heart in an everlasting way. 

I love you Jerry Jacobs.

Is it God or god?

My relationship/friendship with God has taken an interesting turn.  For the majority of my life I ascribed the capital letter G to God out of fear and necessity I guess.  It was a sort of forced exultation.  And apparently he was the only one around.  He was kind of like this ultimate bouncer.  Because he decided who got in to the club and who didn't.

And as far as I could tell, he didn't only let in slutty looking hot chicks immediately and leave an average looking, likeable fellow like me in purgatory until I bribed him or until he looked at me and just said...dude, you are so going to hell.  He was that friend I could never really "connect" with but basically I had to say I knew him because everyone else I knew said they did.  And I always had to go hang out at his house to see him once a week.

Then we had kind of a break-up.  I decided that instead of trying to be God's groupie, that I was going to ignore him entirely.  Fine dude, if I ONLY can see you at your place, then I'm just going to do my "own thing".  So I started seeing other people. 

I hung out with this one spirit that was a like a colorful liquid rainbow slowly advancing life.  I spent some time with this man/woman combo type thing for a while.  I even spent some time without a God because I figured I knew best.

It was cool because they came over to my place and I never felt rejected by any of them because they weren't really "friends" per se, they were just people that told me whatever I was doing was fine, even though it wasn't so fine.

So I came back to someone I decided to call god.  And this god was super cool.  god handled a ton of stuff for me that I couldn't handel myself.  And god knew its place because by not capitalizing its name, it no longer was better than me or getting what I deemed to be a forced term of admission that goes beyond someone's regular name.

Just recently it changed again.  I've decided to call God God.  But see God's name could be Bill or Juan or Herbert.  It's just the name of my friend.  And like Bill or Mohammed (the most popular name on earth, THANK YOU Superbad) a lot of other people I know can be friends with someone named God too.

This friend however has a few twists.  God doesn't get all worked up if I don't call.  Actually, the only who seems to get worked up when I don't call God is me. 

God comes over whenever I want, but ironically, even when I don't want God is still there, but not in that like annoying dude who always wants to be around me because he saw me do stand up comedy "that one time". 

My friend God seems to always know how things are going to turn out and he knows they will always turn out ok.  It's cool though because I can watch a movie with God and he won't be like "OMG, it's so cool when they find out that the letter was actually written by HER, not his ex-wife"  (THANK YOU Silver Linings Playbook).  When I start freaking out, he's the cool one who says, dude, it's all good trust me and while sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, it is all good.

My friend God has a ton of other great qualities, but the best one of all is my friend God will never leave me.  I can get like super pissed or like talk bad about him to other peeps (come on dude, ANOTHER war, WTF???) and he's still like it's ok Tim that you talked me down.  My friend God doesn't talk to me about other peeps who have other friends like my friend God and say that they are like totally fucked come time death rolls around, I'm down with that.

God's the friend that is everything I've ever dreamed of and some things I've never even thought of.  God digs me and I dig him, he ain't heavy, he's my brother (THANK YOU the Hollies).

And brother, what a friend God is.

Avoiding the Death of Life

I'm at a point in my life where I don't really fear death that much.  I realize that when my time comes it will come.

But I'm also, more importantly, at a point in my life where I feel fear around the death of life.  How many days am I willing to give up, play ridiculously small and waste away?  I think I've given away more than I've taken over the past 20 years or so. 

Yes, I'm of the type that could take that input and beat the living daylights out of myself.  I think I've done quite a bit of that as well over the past 20 years or so.  But wouldn't beating myself virtually lifeless be another version of giving days away?

The death of life is familiar, I've felt it.  And to paraphrase Einstein, the mind that created the problem is not the mind qualified to solve it.  Put differently, I can't use the stuff I've used to this point to transcend it.

I know it's going to be painful to ultimately transistion to it, but not as painful as "deadful living".

I also know that if I wait until I'm "ready" or feel "peaceful" or "whole" or "healed" to connect to god or any other power to get me through it, I'm screwed.

Why wait?  The power or god has always been ready, when will I be?

Does Faith = Intimacy?

A few weeks ago my mom came to visit me and it was transformative.  I experienced my mother in a brand new way.  We talked about things with an honesty that had little reference for me.

Additionally, she has opinions that I don't completely agree with.  Historically, I've judged them or at minimum got annoyed at them.  This time I just let her be and accepted her for who she is.

I experienced a level of intimacy that's unfamiliar.  It felt like a piece of my heart was lit that either has been long forgotten or never had been used.

It got me thinking about my relationship with my own version of god. I ascribe certain attributes to my god (and by the way, I'm not suggesting you do the same or believe in the god I do or even that you should believe in god). 

My version of god is a perfect power.  So, the question becomes:  How do I become intimate with a power like that?

I learned that a great path to deep connection is embracing the fact that we're all human and connecting through that.  We share pain, problems, happiness, uncertainty, etc. and we're there for each other.

But how do I become intimate with something that's perfect?  A few friends suggested the answer may be faith.

Candidly, I don't really understand what they mean, but I did nod my head in agreement (hiyo!).  But I suppose some level of faith that my god is working in my life does create a relationship.

I certainly can't lie to my god because it knows everything about me.

It's a bit confusing.  But this is clear, if I can bring the experience I had with my Mom into my relationship with god, therein lies an infinite reward.

On being human

Admitting to myself that I'm human is a rather interesting experience.  What seems so natural, is, well, confusing.  How often I try to deny that I am....

For example, I've historically been horrible on myself with making mistakes.  But isn't making mistakes part of the gig?  Granted I've put myself in positions before where I was set up to make mistakes.

Take my career to date.  For reasons too complicated to explain I became an accountant.  My resume makes me perfectly qualified to do something that I absolutely hate.  (yes, I said hate...)  So, I would take the jobs, do really well at first and then the mistakes would come and the self imposed beatings would begin.

Actually, regardless of the mistake I'm hard on myself.  You know why?  Because I've been super worried about how other people think about it.

Curiously, I'm pretty easy on my daughter knowing that she makes mistakes either because she doesn't know better or she's just human.  It's ok I tell her we all make mistakes.  Wow, if I could only tell myself the same.

Embracing my humanness certainly connects me at some level to everyone else.  We're all human.  But what if they, like me, are super hard on themselves?  And so far the only person to tell me they aren't was my psychiatrist....makes me wonder.

I can see myself using the excuse that "I'm human" to address a lot of lazy or self-centered behavior.  That doesn't feel authentic.

I'm hoping that the more I embrace the fact that I'm human the more closely I can come to my divinity.  Now that's a proposition worth working towards.

Channel of Peace meets my Remote Control

The week of intending on being a channel of peace was, actually like a lot of other weeks. 

I clicked from my channel of peace to discontent.  It's so clear to me, when I'm not at peace it's frequently related to my interpretation of events in  my life that happen.

I clicked from that channet to fear.  I spent quite a bit of time worrying about what's to come.

I clicked from there to shame.  I spent quite a bit of time regretting things I'd done in the past.

I tried writing "Channel of Peace" on pages when I was in a long meeting...oy!  That didn't work so well.  I tried saying it over and over and....that didn't work so well.

The main thing I learned this week is the reception on my Peace Channel is directly impacted by the strength of my faith in God.   (Wow, that doesn't come out very often, at least not publicly.)  Admittedly, there's more to all of this, but just getting back to the blogging world recently, the words will flow a bit haltingly for now.

And I'm at peace with that.  :)

Lord make me a channel of thy peace (Week 1)

For the next twelve weeks or so I'm going to focus on one line in the beautiful St. Francis poem each week and try to manifest it in my life.  My intention is that hopefully I can be even closer or more helpful to people in my life.

Finding peace in my life is nothing short of a challenge.  My mind and body are often like the Simpsons pinball game. It's all kinds of bumpers, flippers, tunnels, noises and lights.  Honestly I think my best odds of being a channel of peace will be practicing it with other people.

I don't think with life as it is that I can meditate into this. 

I'll practice listening.  I'll be careful to remember that we all hurt in some way. (Wow if I can actually do just those two for this week a few times, it will be more than worth it.)

Sometimes peace comes through me without trying (commonly with Zoe).  Sometimes peace is elusive when I DO try.

I'll do my best this week and that's all I can ask.

When do limitless possibilities become limited?

I was wondering today about the power of believing in "infinite possibilities" in life.  I see my daughter and see, somewhat, the power of living that way.  Her imagination is so powerful and I think she doesn't even know it. 

So, is it likely that as she grows up that her imagination and ability to harness, or even access, it in the context of possibilities will simply diminish?  I'm the first to admit that in my own life accessing imagination to power infinite possibilities is very challenging.  I'm often in a situation where I almost KNOW how it's going to turn out.  Or perhaps I have an idea of 3 possible outcomes.

Then I take that back into my life, even spiritually, and I've lost that powerful imagination and feel like it's narrowing my vision of life.  I feel that when that narrowing occurs, I'm more likely to be unhappy.  Even if I take the path of "intending" a positive outcome.

Will it keep happening as I get older?  Is it possible for me to open up much further in the future or even right now?  I don't know anyone who is in their 60's or 70's who sees life as infinite possibilities (sure the Wayne Dyers and Deepak Chopras of the world claim they have it, but I don't know them).

I want to step into that world, but it's so unfamiliar to me.

Book Review: How to Know God

How to Know God by Deepak Chopra is mostly an analysis of the stages of a relationship with what he calls God (which is not tied to a religious context). If you're a newbie to spirituality, ignore it.  If you are well versed in it read it if you feel this resonates with you but it's not a must read.

However, there are some useful models of thinking in the book He begins by stating there are three levels of existence:

1. Material World (insert Police joke here...hiyo!!):  Living in the world as we know it bound by time, known by the senses.
2. Quantum Domain:  The world of the mind where creation manifests.
3. Virtual Domain:  Spirit where existence is unbounded in total silence (insert Steve Buscemi from Fargo joke here...hiyo!!)

He then goes on to describe how we can progress and touch the worlds beyond the material world.  He gives a very clear seven stage description of God helping us in the progress from 1-3.  In the stages we progress from thinking of God as a vengeful protector to becoming one with God.

The book is at times overwhelming (I think it could have been cut by a 1/3 and still been effective) but I can see how it will become a book worth referring back to as it describes behavior that signals where I am with my relationship with God.

And in the darkness, that relationship (as far afield as I may be) is the light that I rely on.

End Hopeless Relationships

I read this simple and powerful statement today and it feels worth sharing.  When I first heard it sounded like "giving up".  It also brought up some painful memories where people I've known in life may have done that with me. 

Yes, it's not hard to see that I'm hard on myself.

But looking at it more closely, it has some real merit.  At the Junto a few months ago, we talked about the idea of firing a friend.  I think the step before that is figuring out that the relationship is hopeless.

The clarity of this statement rang right through my soul as I considered a few relationships in my life right now that are hopeless.  (One of which has already ended.)

My definition of hopeless is that it continually brings negativity and conflict in my life in one way or another regardless of how skilled I am inside of the relationship.  It's about getting MY needs met in a relationship on a far more regular basis than.....rarely or never.

I understand that loving kindness is important but inner peace trumps that.  But it's always the question of when I should end it.

It gets trickier when it involves family (a brother or sister for example). 

I can also see where this approach would be almost impossible, with my daughter.  It's nowhere near hopeless but what would I do if at some point in the future it felt like it was?