Beware the Pure Spirit, Let the Flesh Instruct the Mind

Found this on my laptop. During my last depressive episode years ago, I wrote this as part of my recovery. I put this out here as an example of what can happen, what did happen to me, and how I came back to the land of the living. I don't claim that this works for anyone. However, it is what worked for me. Prescription Where I Was Shortly after the death of Rumor and the loss of a meaningful job in HIV Services, my life changed rather dramatically and quickly. Understandably I was grieving the loss of my animal companion. Honestly, I was unprepared for what his death signaled for me in the form of consequences. Uncontrollable emotional outbursts, guilt, and sorrow at the loss of him. Downward spiral mentally, to mental confusion and an inability to concentrate or focus on anything school wise for any length of time. My own personal issues of control and my own views on what kind of student and researcher I SHOULD be only added to this black hole that I was circli...

An observation from this weekend.  I attended a funeral for a relative of mine who recently had passed away. She was a member of the Eastern Star (an order associated with Free Masonry). My aunt was a wonderful lady, generous and kind and full of good works to her family and community. My thoughts here are not in relation to her, or to the Order itself, it has more to do with the scriptural references that were used.  In association to the five pointed star that symbolizes their Order, they referenced several Biblical figures as exemplars to consider. Three of the five caught my attention as ladies from the Order spoke ·          Adah (daughter of Jephthah) ·          Ruth ·          Esther These heroines of the Bible, persevered seemingly because of their faith in G-D and their submission to men. Men wrote the words that eventually became cod...

We are absolutely right to condemn the suicide bomber’s targeting of innocent civilians and mourn his victims. But as we have seen, in war the state also targets such victims; during the 20 th century, the rate of civilian deaths rose sharply and now stands at 90 percent. In the West we solemnize the deaths of our regular troops carefully and recurrently honor the memory of the soldier who dies for his country. Yet the civilian deaths that we cause are rarely mentioned, and there has been no sustained outcry in the West against them. Suicide bombing shocks us to the core; but should it be more shocking than the deaths of thousands of children in their homelands every year because of land mines?  Or collateral damage in a drone strike?  “Dropping cluster bombs from the air is not only less repugnant: it is somehow deemed, by Western people at least, to be morally superior, says British psychologist Jacqueline Rose… The colonial West had created a two-tiered hierarchy that pri...