Self Discovery Sucks, Especially In The Middle Of A Blog Entry

The Hebrew term "Mitzvah" is one that means, or refers to, all of the 600 or so commandments in Jewish law. However, it has also, more commonly, come to be used as a word to describe acts of human kindness. Particularly to describe those acts that are performed for no other reason, or gain, than that they are the right thing, or the kind thing, to do. Usually unheralded, often even unknown who the 'doer' is.
I'm not sure when, where, or from whom, I first heard of 'making a mitzvah'. I know it goes a long, long way back in my personal history. The idea of doing good, of doing the right thing, and not waving a flag to tell anyone about it. Just doing it. Even guilt attached to it if you do call attention to the act, or actions...they lose their meaning, or their inherent 'goodness', if you tell folks you did it, or them....
Perhaps this is one of the places Jewish law, or tradition, crosses over to Christian, or 'Christ-like' behavioral expectations. The whole idea that one's reward for 'doing good' comes in heaven. That the idea of self-sacrifice and giving to others quietly, without fanfare, is the ultimate form of prayer. I like that idea.
Folks who need to tell you that they have given or done something nice always bring up some bizarre need in me to choke them. I guess there lurks in me some serious violent tendencies. I get especially annoyed when others buy into this 'oh what a good person so-'n-so is'. And they only know 'so-'n-so' is a good person because 'so-'n-so' told them he/she is a good person. Gggrrrrrrrrrrr...........
Then there is the selfish side of me. I see this nonsense, and I think to myself, 'well for crying out loud! I did the same nice thing, or I did something even nicer...' and no one is giving me credit!...But that would require me telling about what I did that was good, thereby negating it as an act of goodness. So I lose the long-term credit.....Maybe even looking at it as having 'long term credit' diminishes it, in some way....and I lose either way....
I'm sure there are people for whom 'doing good' is a natural, no thought needed, process. I think I've actually met a couple of these folks....I mean I think...because who really knows what lurks in the heart of man...or woman....but for all intents and purposes, they appear to be really nice and really good people....
It's sort of like Oprah's "random acts of kindness" thing...I really like that...or liked that...until I started encountering folks who had the need to tell me about the 'random' acts they had done....Again, it annoyed the hell out of me because I wanted to counter with one-up-manship stuff..."I did a bigger random act" but then the guilt and fear would kick in....and I would simply tell them what they wanted to hear..."Oh my, what a good person you are!"
Fact is, I'm really starting to dislike 'good people'. Or at least the ones who have to tell everyone, in a furtive, secretive way, what good people they are. Hell, why bother with the 'furtive', they tell anyone who will listen....
As I am writing this, I am realizing how jaded I really have become. I started out wanting to write something about 'grace', or physical manifestations of prayer...and I find myself writing about the dark inner demons of my, and probably others, souls....
And ego....part of me feels some weird sort of pride that I haven't indulged in bragging about having done nice things...I'm guessing that diminishes the long term benefits, too!
Okay, so much for goodness and kindness and making mitzvahs...
I'm thinking I probably should just go out for a walk and find a lost, miserable dog to kick....but I really love dogs...especially lost miserable dogs...they pull on my heart strings...so maybe I should go out and find some very average person and insult the bejesus out of them...I mean really rip them a new one....because I really can't stand dealing with 'average'...I mean the 'Joe the plumbers' drive me nuts...
But then I would feel really bad at having hurt some poor unsuspecting schmuck....because, way down deep, in the most hidden recesses, I do have a conscience.
Methinks I am slowly discovering that I am actually a member, of the human race...I am a mix of all sorts of things....ego, and guilt, and kindness, and jealousies, and grandiosity, and humility....
It's quite a let down to realize how average I am...maybe that's why so many don't make this discovery until we're well into our middle years....to confront this without first having developed a true and real appreciation of chocolate and scotch could be devastating.....

Wonderful Pictures of St. George Courthouse and El Cap

Every now and then, friends send me photos. I want to share some recent ones with everyone. They help create a visual for folks who have not had the priveledge of visiting the Short Creek area.

Here are a few from outside the courthouse in St. George on Friday....

I found the one of the police on the roof particularly disconcerting!

These are some spectacular pictures taken from the climb up and, atop "El Cap", the huge bluff behind the twin cities......

I hope folks enjoy these. I know I really did!

And, although I didn't tell the photographers I was posting these, I really hope they don't mind, because they are such great pictures!!!!! And art should be shared.......

This Is MY Blog. I Can Rant and Rave If I Want To!

I am exhausted.
I am depressed.
I am so completely tired of having to deal with cry babies who cannot let go of their childhood demons.
People who explain every crappy thing they do, or comment they make that is hurtful, or misjudgement they make, by saying it must be the influence of the rotten childhood they had.
I want to just shake them and tell them to get over it!
For crying out loud, I had a really crappy childhood, too. Probably crappier than most. So did my sister. And we have both moved on to have full lives, with people we love and who love us. Tomorrow holds all the promise of wonder and joy that it always does. Yesterday can never return.
My gosh! We were beaten, mentally tortured, deprived of love, locked up for long periods, subjected to terrible indignities, molested by an older family member, institutionalized, disowned, raped....you name it, it probably happened to one or both of us. We've both had periods of alcohol and drug abuse, promiscuity, suicidal ideations, abusive relationships, running away.... Our father failed to protect us. He was even an abuser, at times. The nuns failed to protect us. Counselors failed to protect us.
You know what? Life goes on. With or without us, life goes on. And you know what else? Life can be full of really good things! You have to decide that you want your life filled with good things in order for there to be room for them. It has to be a conscious decision.
You can dwell on the past, constantly reliving the horrors and pains, or you can put them aside and make room for good things and great joy to take up the space.

And I am really, really tired of the FLDS being put under a microscope. I'm tired of them being held to a higher standard than we hold ourselves and our own communities to. And I am tired of people asking intrusive, personal questions of Pliggy and others, as though they are entitled to that information.
And I am tired of the nastiness. The abject meanspiritedness of the questioners and those who feel they have the right to sit in judgment. I want them to all just go away and stop being so damn ugly!
I am a tough old bird, yet I find myself in tears at the end of a day on the blogs.
I can be ruthless when I need to get something accomplished. But even in my ruthlessness, I respect certain boundaries. These people don't even have a sense of boundaries!
Laurie and her ilk don't bother me anywhere nearly as much as the pseudo-inquisitive, 'I'm curious and want to learn', bunch. Laurie, et al, are at least up front with their hatred and agenda.
It's the 'rebeckah' types who make me want to slap the bejesus out of them. She's just the most recent of that type....and to think I went out of my way for her. I connected her with a mother from Shortcreek who was very, very kind to her! She says things that are so judgemental and condescending, as though the folks reading her posts are less than human, ergo not deserving of courteous language. And when confronted she uses her very tired crap about 'just wanting to be objective'. Crap! And she seems to believe she is rather intelligent. Makes me laugh when people do that...I'm guessing she's 120, maybe 125....not a lick over! And she is the worst of the using her childhood as an excuse types! Oh my gosh is that getting lame!

And the whole damn bunch get to me with their abject refusal to even acknowledge cultural differences. Never mind understanding the huge impact those differences have on perceptions.
There is a language difference. Both in the use of words and terms and understandings, and in the seeming literalness of the FLDS speech. For the most part their speech is devoid of inuendo or sarcasm. And they don't seem to look for it, or recognize it in others. Some, like "pliggy", "cheese", "rose", and a few others, who are regulars on the blogs seem to be picking it up, and even using it, from time to time...but overall, it is clearly a cultural difference that needs to be acknowledged by anyone who intends to enter into any serious dialogue with the group.

This standard setting is really getting to me...
Yesterday there were comments about what the twin towns look like...nasty comments....It makes me wonder if some of these folks who are posting live in some sort of Ozzie and Harriet, white picket fence bubble, that they never leave. Obviously they have never driven through rural Pennsylvania's small towns....
And I guess they've never seen the devastation to "Main St." in small towns all across the country...the shuttered store fronts and run down buildings, with no people and no businesses...
And they've never seen the sun dried lawns of even the affluent neighborhoods of Southern California...

But mostly I get hurt, not angry, just hurt when folks like Laurie tell me that the women I have become friends with are not real. That they are men posing as women to rope me in....that is the biggest pile of crap I've heard in a long time....but others read that and wonder...they already are ready to believe the worst about this community...then they read that kind of garbage...
And, I know it isn't true...I know that I have become friends with these wonderful women...and that they aren't stupid, or brainwashed, or trapped...no more so than anyone else is...
Hell, everyone feels trapped by their own lives from time to time...
Everyone feels subservient to others, from time to time....Everyone feels stupid, from time to time...
And we're all brainwashed, to some degree...it's called differential association....It's part of living the human condition....

I wish I could fix things. I wish I had pixie dust. I'd use some of it in my own life, for sure. But mostly I would share it....
I think, in some ways, all that has happened has caused some good things to happen. It has certainly opened up the communication between the community and the rest of the world. And I do think there are some folks who have learned that it is a good community. And I have made new friends...and to me, that is laways good....
But my growing knowledge has made me sad, too....and sometimes I just want to scream that I already have enough sad stories and people I am responsible for understanding and caring for in my life....
When I'm being all sorts of rational and intelligent, I tell myself, and others, I am an agnostic...but when I am feeling so overburdened, I become God-believing very quickly!!!! I start remembering the lessons of my childhood, that God never gives anyone more to bear than they are capable of carrying...that everything has a purpose....
I just can't figure out what my purpose in this saga is...it keeps escaping my understanding...but I seem to get in deeper and deeper...
And right now, I just want to throttle all these people who are so hurtful.....