Lean Not On Your Own Understanding - Proverbs 3

"War is hell." William Tecumseh Sherman

"Writing is hell." William Styron

"Writing is war." Stephen J. Dunn

For fifty-four years I thought violence was the answer.

In fact, when I was younger and more of a hothead, I ranted ad nauseam (especially to my long suffering wife and young sons) that terrorism was an acceptable response to corporate sponsored government oppression. I maintained that the killing of innocent civilians, including women and children, especially children, was a justified political tactic. I, too, believed that the Great Satan must be brought to its knees.

I know I will be ostracized, and possibly even renditioned to a CIA black site in Eastern Europe for saying so, but as I watched events unfold on 9/11, I cheered on the hijackers, even though I knew American lives were being lost, and felt deep disappointment when the attacks failed to continue.

That elation quickly turned to anger as it became abundantly clear that it was an inside job, directed by Halliburton shill, Vice President Dick (I never shot a friend in the face I didn't like) Cheney.

When I started my blog a year ago (although it seems like ten), I was convinced that the declaration of martial law and the imposition of absolute tyranny were imminent. I wrote about the NSA, the militarization of local police departments, the erosion of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, civil forfeiture, Big Pharma, corporate greed and the poisoning of our planet, and the Grand Conspiracy Theory behind it all.

Then I had an epiphany.

Despite my inner rage, I have always been a very spiritual person, and despite my being Jewish, I have always believed in the teachings of Christ - not necessarily his divinity, but his message.

This past year, as the Christmas season approached, and I prepared holiday material for my blog, the thought struck me that fighting the forces of evil with evil could not and would not work. The only way to oppose insurmountable hatred was with overwhelming love.

I do not own an M4A1 assault rifle or a Benelli M4 combat shotgun, although several of my friends suggest I should. I do not have stockpiles of chemical, biological, and radiological weapons in my basement. I do not have Predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles. There are no M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks parked in my garage. I do not command squadrons of Apache attack helicopters, and last I looked, I did not notice any Nimitz-class aircraft carriers or Ohio-class nuclear submarines in my neighbor's above ground swimming pool.

The odds against us are just too great, the consequences too severe and one-sided. While our brothers and sons, our wives and daughters and grandchildren were being slaughtered, the families and privileged lifestyles of the elite would be protected behind a bulwark of Marine Force Recon, Army Rangers, Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, and Air Force Combat Control Teams.

The government has at its beck and call a legion of Security Contractors, formerly known as mercenaries, headed by ex-CIA officers.

We would face the Medusa of federal police agencies and its head of venomous snakes, including, but not limited to: the Department of Homeland Security, the NSA, FBI, TSA, DEA, ATF, FDA, IRS, Customs and Border Protection, NCIS (Emily Wickersham is hot), the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Police, the Smithsonian National Zoo Police, and my personal favorite, the Library of Congress Police, responsible for SWAT raids on people with overdue books. I'm sure armed librarians are authorized to shoot patrons who speak too loudly.

The National Guard would be mobilized. As Benjamin Martin says in the movie 'The Patriot', "Mark my words. This war will be fought not on the frontier or on some distant battlefield, but amongst us - among our homes. Our children will learn of it with their own eyes. And the innocent will die with the rest of us."

The actual dirty work would be handled by the paramilitary state and local authorities.

And FEMA would be there to clean up the mess.

I belong to a writer's group at my local library, and one of the other participants read a poem she had written that in an instant brought a new understanding to my mind. I realized there is no answer.

These are the last two verses of the poem:

The government's on His shoulders,
Not ours we realize.
Build Faith, spring Hope, and Charity,
Then life we'll not despise. 

We are all but humans,
And problems cannot solve.
The world's not on our shoulders,
And sins we can't absolve.

I was despising life.

In addition to carrying the world's troubles and sorrows on my shoulders, I was also carrying my personal world's troubles and sorrows. Failing health, chronic pain, physical disability, loss of sexual function, depression, bipolar disorder, financial worries, my inability to obtain pot surreptitiously, while the State of Illinois dragged its feet on implementing the medical marijuana program, and my failure to reach a wider audience with my writing, were just some of the burdens weighing down my soul.

Unlike my wife, I have never been able to "let go and let God," and likewise, I have never found serenity in the Serenity Prayer.

A phrase in the lesser known second stanza says, "trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will." It is not in me to surrender.

How then do I deal with the conflicting and irreconcilable realities of this mortal coil?

I try to live a moral life, I give to charities even though it means skipping an all too few movie or dinner out. I express love at every opportunity. I work at correcting my shortcomings (few as they are). And I write as courageously as I know how.