Too Much To Lose

Too Much To Lose

Woman!

Too much to lose.  This was a concept I had a hard time understanding when years ago I spoke about subjects like, racism, sexism, and hatred with one of the most enlightened souls live ever known.  I would ask, how can you justify that kind of hate?  Why do people even feel that way?  I could almost understand if personal experience turned a person a certain way.  But in the end a wrong was done to you by a particular person, not an entire group of people.  How?

Racist Dog!

Too much to lose was all he said.  I walked away that day not sure what he meant. It took years before it truly sunk in. What he meant was that the person in the position of privilege had too much to lose in admitting the truth. If you stop and really place yourself in that situation it becomes so clear.  And I reflected on key life experiences that shaped my intolerance to hate and I applied that thought to why I was being treated so very poorly by so many people who I was told were ‘good, decent people.’

My best friend when I was 5 condemned me to hell because I wasn’t Catholic.

The Sunday school teacher who reprimanded me as a blasphemer for saying I wanted to be like Jesus, yet the white male next to me was commended for the thought.

The 1^st grade teacher who accused me of cheating on an aptitude test.

The school in Mansfield Texas that sent me immediately to remedial classes on sight even though they originally were going to add me to advanced classes because of my grades.

My first crush that was told he wasn’t allowed to play with me anymore.

The girl I defended from school bullies who was told she wasn’t allowed to play with me.

The boys who pretended to not like me in front of other people.

Just in Case

The coworkers who would question and downplay my work ethic while admitting that I produced over 30% of all work done by a 5 person team.

The grown men claiming that we are incompatible when all else says otherwise.

Every single instance that made me feel ugly, dirty, marginal, and in no way American was based on this idea of having too much to lose.  They claim that there is enough pie for everyone, but they never act like it do they?  Too much to lose.

Somehow my makeup, in essence, the things I am good at was not something that someone like me was supposed to be good at.  And it was not really a judgment against me personally as much as it was condemnation of everything this person has come to use as valuable life information.  My existence was this antithesis of what they held dear and in that moment they needed to find out the ‘truth’.  However this is one of those growth equations.  If you actually seek the truth you do it by discovering, not by proving.  In proving a truth you have already prescribed to a method to allowing hate free reign in your heart and your life.

When you have too much to lose, like an idea of right and wrong.  A theory on why some people have and some don’t have, the most terrifying idea in the world is that it isn’t true.  This wrecks realities and brings you face to face with your own biases and prejudices.  It tears you down to your core functions and makes you ask, why me, and not them.  And the answer isn’t good enough because you come to realize how unstable the entire belief system is.

In a country that built itself on the back of a lie that somehow people have been ‘marked’ better than other people to the point that its forbearers enslaved and breed one people while systematically hunting and killing another, is there anything more frightening than the idea that it was only a chance of Fate that you ended up on the ‘winning’ side.  

Real Americans

Is there any wonder with such an auspicious beginning we find ourselves in such a destructive cycle?  What we have built is a house on a foundation so flimsy that the lightest touch can barrel it over.  So we shore it with more lies, bind it with half-truths, and then seal it with a prayer of vaulted authority promising the foundation is firm.  After a while you forget that it was all an illusion and you start to believe the lie is the truth and that’s when we find ourselves in this mess of compounded lie upon lie cause no one remembers that it was all a lie to begin with so you stop shoring it, expecting it to stand on its own.  You let the binds break because it’s firm, but you still seal it with your prayer of authority. 

God?!?! You've Changed!

They say, by dictate of God, this is as it should be, as He wills it, because freewill is a lie of the devil.  After all God couldn’t be sitting back letting the dirty and pure muck it out together so that each person can know the content and character of their own soul, sorting themselves as they live in each other’s midst.  Surely he would keep the good, the clean, and the righteous together so that they aren’t tainted by the other element.  Because of course, it’s so easy to corrupt the pure. 

Too much too lose, I’m better than you, and God has made it so. So I get to tell you what to do, God has made it so.  You blasphemer, my God will strike you down, your deeds should lay unforgiven; my God will smite thee to honor my grace.  My God has empowered me to speak for Him.  Yes my God is a him; He bids me to tell you that He’s your God as well, so I have dominion over you.

Carlin

Funny I never wanted God to strike down anyone for me.  Instead I wanted them to learn from their mistakes and live a better life.  And in so many things. .. there in lies the difference.  Never for me, or for them, these people or those people. . .always for us. .

And like a house of cards it comes tumbling down.

Racist Dog Courtesy of http://dailybail.com/storage/racist_dog.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1281464059133

Just in Case Courtesy of http://abagond.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/racism-just-in-case.jpg

Woman! Courtesy of http://ivysays.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/tumblr_kxm4p6ot0u1qa49tx1.jpg

Carlin Courtesy of http://newhumanist.org.uk/images/Carlincropped.jpg

God!?!? You've Changed! Courtesy of http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/2012/06/morgan-freeman-god.jpg

Real Americans Courtesy of https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn029bmeiYDVJh6axhosWoKoizpMWN0npkE-E-bphyphenhyphenHPTXy4j58D-2k62dNfzBVZvpq12gYCga5VTzutUVzBlszENWQS3E7_74DuRag-kirzfevM_P1n7ocSlQTMRigi-_3FhzpLmtARI/s1600/political-pictures-real-americans-scary.jpg

More Minorities, Is That Really The Case?

In the past week or so there has been tons of articles about the racial make-up in America changing.  I don't know what other stories have had such a wide array of coverage by such a wide array of media outlets.  When I see things like this I think of how ridiculous it all is.  This is for a number of reasons.  The ones most pertinent are race is strictly a social concept, people will eventually evolve to being the color their environment dictates, personality notwithstanding, and why on earth is the one drop rule still applying.

Breakdown

Race is strictly a social concept, and it’s a bad one.  One that was developed for the purpose of creating a subservient class in what was perceived as the most efficient fashion.  It is a pattern that has historically always shown up because of our seeming inability to associate people that have even the minuet amount of difference from us as people like us.  Ask any blonde, brunette, or redhead.  Stereotypes exist for everything from eye color, height to shoe size. It is no shock that skin color is no different. 

Thought Lynch was a coincidence?

The biggest issue with this however is the end characterization of people with different skin colors.  No one believes that blondes are lazy and more prone to crime.  No one has lovingly instilled that brunette's are dirty and should not be trusted with meaningful careers or power. These damning assumptions are cast on skin color and persist because we as adults won't take responsibility for being part of the problem and teaching our children, peers, and family otherwise by our own actions.  Instead we laugh at racist jokes that aren't funny.  We agree with family by not bringing that person of another race home to meet.  We let the inaction in our lives carry racism into new generations so that the lessons of Willie Lynch are never forgotten. (Willie Lynch Speech) While it has been proven that the accounts of said Lynch are fictitious, the parable for American life is relatively valid when trying to understand the mentality that still persists in America. If you don't know the story, I don't have the time to tell you.  You should start your change into an active participant of the future of this society by looking him up and understanding the basis of this characterization, acknowledging the aspects of it that still exist.

The truth is in a few hundred years all generations in this continent would began to assume another shade anyway.  Its called evolution and for the religious zealots that can't understand that it exists and life isn't unchanging religious magic I ask that you recite the Serenity prayer to yourself and excuse yourself from this blog. Pay special attention to the part that asks God to let you accept the things you cannot change.  Evolution is a thing that cannot change because it IS change. 

Babies Don't See It

I find it amazing that because of the Bible it seems that some people cannot get around certain ideas.  I find it ironic because that strikes me as love of a false idol.  Bear with me for a moment.  No one has ever promised us anything in life accept growth, change, and death.  That is all.  Yet people need to believe so very much in a text that claims to recite the word of God, sometimes in spite of what life is showing them.

I feel like I have a very evolved relationship with God.  I do believe which is why I believe that the complexity of life cannot be summed up in a book.  I think this book gives us tales of other human beings and how they fell due to lust, vanity, envy, pride and many other human vices.  I consider these stories warnings and parables for what life could put us through penned by people who wanted to make sure that we as the next phase of humanity could learn from their mistakes.  And through this the wisest of us may develop a hint of an understanding of what God's plan is for us.  If you ask a theologian, and I have, they will relate something similar. 

So Many Religions

As a woman of mixed religious thoughts and ideas I have searched this earth for even a hint of what the Father needs and wants of me.  I have researched ancient religions and modern ones.  I have studied the tenets of Buddhism, the Tao, Shinto, the Koran, the Torah. I have read every book of the Bible as best I could, searched for lost versions, original translations from the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves, Calvinism, Puritans, even the Shakers.  I have tried to decipher ancient Egyptian, Sumerian.  I have delved into Shamanism, witchcraft and just about everything else short of Satanism.  And I see the same pattern in them all.  One book, one set of rules that all claim the same thing.  We have all the answers.  This tells me plain as day, no one does.  But as humans we must have faith in something and everyone has the right to believe what they believe.  What they don't have the right to do is try to make everyone else believe it too.

In light of this I propose another alternative.  I propose a deity that is capable of such advanced thought that evolution was always a part of the design. I propose that our sight is so limited that we cannot phantom what magnetism, gravity, the primordial forces of this Universe are actually capable of or what they even are. That we cannot see the big picture no matter how hard we look.  We have functions in our bodies that only the highest of evolved earthbound entities have found a way to master.  The rest of us accept our involuntary responses and our weakness as simple, limited, finite beasts.  And that is the only true honor any of us can give the glory of God, living the life He gave us as He leads us.  Dropping arrogance, judgment, and cruelty.  What Christians claim as being of that faith to embody.

Stepping off my religious soapbox I confront the silliest of the whole thing.  Its' this idea that the race of being white is somehow defaulted to impurity if a single other 'race' is mixed with it.  It’s this idea that as soon as a 'nonwhite' gene pool is introduced to a white one all of a sudden the person resulting cannot in any form or fashion be considered white.  I find this the stupidest because I can't tell you how many times a 'white' person has looked at me and claimed to be (insert fraction here) of Cherokee, or Navajo, or some other none European culture YET still claims to be white. Because by aforementioned rules, they should not be. However, if the mixture is with an exceedingly undesirable (read not ostracized from the American Dream in a reservation fashion) race such as Latino, Chicano, Hispanic, Black, Caribbean (tropical black), Aboriginal (Australian black), or (insert various Polynesian, Asian mixes here including Maori and Inuit), then they are then 'spoiled' and apart of that undesirable race grouping.  If white were so damned superior you would think it would trump the other, yet not so much. 

So. . .

The truth is children from these unions are actually both because they carry the genes of BOTH parents.  One is not superior in DNA matching.  DNA just sees dominant and recessive strands and it matches them together to create new and more amazing patterns.  The more you give it to work with the more amazing pattern it creates.  Another marvel of creation we are not evolved enough to understand.  The simple fact is this; God has already done the math.  There is a reason why you don't see certain crossbreeds out in the world.  Think about it.  You really believe God would be so forgetful as to not put one in place for us if certain creatures shouldn't exist.  The last I checked, creatures that shouldn't exist. . .DON'T!  It is the sincerest form of heresy and blasphemy to damn what God has deemed to live.

So that's my say.  Please pick up one of my lovely multicultural, multiracial, usually interracial romance novels and celebrate love.  If we all do it together maybe we can get the world ready to accept some of these amazing new patterns God is creating in America.

Babies Don't See it Courtesy of http://dailyhurricane.com/assets_c/2009/08/racial-tolerance-thumb-560x411-146.jpg

Breakdown Courtesy of http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/17/article-2145687-13220938000005DC-904_634x746.jpg

So. . . . Courtesy of http://www.trbimg.com/img-4fbbd225/turbine/bs-ed-horsey-birthrate-20120522/600

So Many Religions Courtesy of http://www.reikiwebstore.com/ProductImages/ProductImages/GridSymbols500.jpg

Thought Lynch was a Coincidence? Courtesy of http://www.finalcall.com/artman/uploads/1/willie-lynch_gr1_1.jpg

Prologue of Shuttered Vision from the Series Life Goes On

Prologue

 She was surrounded by flowers.  They ranged in fragrance and hue.  Some were lilac, some daisies, lavender, roses, orchids, hyacinths.  It was the colors that captured one's attention.  Unlike any she'd ever seen.  They were vivid, vibrant shades of sun orange, amethyst purple, sapphire blue, ruby red with amazing emerald greens.  Some shown in multiple colors like red and green for bloodstones. Dark carnelian red, smoky iridescent quartz. She stared into her sky; it always looked like sunset with vivid blues and purples mixing with reds and oranges. Cloudy enough to make a lovely image, but never so cloudy that it seemed gloomy.

She inhaled deeply as she lay in the field of flowers understanding the message she was being given as the scent of white sage floated laced with the fragrance of the flowers. Eyes closed she pushed deeper into herself.  From her field she could determine all she needed to know.  She needed to find who was calling her, had been calling her for months now. But always lingered the thought, this one is a stranger and doesn't want to be found. She felt the pressure of a hand. It was larger than hers, firm and rough.  The breath on the back of her neck was steady and calm.  He lay right behind her, right under her, right beside her.  In this place he was practically a part of her.

She tried to turn around to face him, but was stopped. The sensation was odd for her, these things were always under her control.  No one got to make choices for her here yet here he was stopping her. She pressed harder and was met with more force. Abruptly she turned and the world pitched to black.  She was falling through her field.  The flower base being ripped away as her nose was assaulted by burning flesh.  Her eyes flew open and she saw the petals smoldering beside her as they all fell.  She looked down to see herself falling towards pits of lava, banked flaming mounds of earth and oceans of burning water sizzling away, salting the air with it's demise. Creatures colored with flame and smelt snapped their jaws at her ready to devour her.  Flame winged imps and demons swarmed above them taunting them with the kill they couldn't have whipping them into a frenzy.  Sea leviathans with several heads and tails swam freely in the burning oceans eating all that crossed their path. Stubby, stumpy moss covered beasts resembling jackals roamed the flaming mounds unheaded.  There was peril at every stop.

She threw her hands in front of her face to shield what was coming her way.  Then suddenly she stopped falling.  An arm secured her at the waist as strong arms pulled her around and she pressed her now tearstained cheeks to his neck.

"Who are you and why have you brought me here?" she asked.

"I'm sorry. You were never meant to be here. I like your field," a deep masculine voice replied.

"What hell are you from?"

"The worst kind, the one of my own making."

She vaguely noticed that they were moving upward.  And within moments she was as she was before on her back in her field his presence there but not intrusive.

"How did you get here?" she asked him knowing that if she tried to face him again she would be dumped into his hell.

"I don't know. I've been trying to figure it out.  But I'm selfish enough to not mind if it doesn't bother you."

"You need my help."

"I have all the help from you I need.  Right here in your field."

"It's more than that.  You don't understand what I am, what I do.  No one shows up here that I don't already know."

"I should go --"

"No wait --"

"See ya next time Flower girl."

 Fiona awoke from a dead sleep with the stranger's voice still clear in her head. She clutched her head and doubled over in her bed for a moment.  She straightened and with a deep sigh reached for her journal and started cataloging the points of her dream so that she could analyze it when morning came.  She lay back on her headrest when she was done shaken.  Who was that man haunting her dreams?  He had been there for months now.  And over the course of time his presence had gotten stronger as he felt more comfortable with her. 

At first it had been just a brief but untimely intrusion.  She hadn’t even really noticed anyone was there.  Almost like an itch that was easily scratched.  She had determined it was nothing and it became so.  A brief irritation she had swiftly evicted.  But somehow he had found other ways in and had made her sanctuary his safe haven. 

Fiona lay back down and sighed willing herself to go back to sleep.  Maybe by the light of a new day she would be able to make sense of this chaos.