All of the sudden I'm calling him my brother, even though it hardly ever occurred to me. Prior to seeking him out he was naught more than a myth. My first memory of him was a corny silhouette portrait from the 70s. All I could tell was that he had a mullet. All I knew was a sketch of his history. I don't know how many years they had been out of contact. Once when I had been defiant she accused me of being just like him. I guess I've always had a link with him whenever I feel out of place in my home. I'm just like him when I'm stranded without a place to call home.
Craig has never been a part of my life. I never met him until I sought him out. He is part of my family history that I need to know much more than a pedigree chart. I need to see where the breakdown in my family is. My dad's history has been out of reach since he died.
Craig's death is particularly disturbing. It's making me feel mortality in a way noting else could. Craig was the most constant person I had in my life for the very reason that he was never there. His role and my understanding of him were the same my entire life. Even when I found him in Houston, he just put an updated face of an old man to replace the mullet crowned silhouette that I had known. If he can disappear from existence this way, I have pictured everyone else I know dying nondescriptly far away from me.
What's worst is that while I can actually see everyone dying, I can't picture an afterlife. I'm well aware of everything I've been taught all my life, and I have no reason to lose faith. However, I don't have any imagine the people I've lost. They're just gone.
The following are remarks that I made to a beliefnet blog and accompanying comments pertaining to Romney's speech.
I am more disturbed by this RABID bigotry than I have been for some time. I'm losing my faith in a party where 46 percent say they won't vote for someone based solely on his religion, let alone specific denomination. There is such blatant laziness among these who grasp at straws to discredit Romney on imaginary doctrines. John Smith? Someone is confusing things with Pocahontas. Planets and virgins? Talking Salamanders? This "veil of secrecy" people are experiencing is simply their own willful ignorance. (Rich, you don't know what "Jack Mormon" means, you look like a fool when you misuse vocabulary)
If you knew the attacks and persecution he's gone through for his faith you'd understand his hesitance to bring theological questions into a presidential debate. People demand to know if he is Christian; he proclaims devotion to Christ and he is called a liar for it. People ask his opinion on the Bible, he says it's the Word of God, so they ask again like he mustn't have understood the question. He hesitates because the next question will be everything from the rapture to how often he speaks in tongues.
He won't win Iowa for the simple fact that 46 percent of the likely caucus goers are BIGOTS pure and simple.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/feilerfaster/2007/12/five-questions-mitt-romney-sti.html.comments.html
I dreamed of a man lying on his back. I don't know why, but I had my hands around his neck, choking him. The odd thing was that he wasn't fighting me. He was just whining. He spoke softly, pleading me not to hurt him. I realized that I could let go, but as soon as the idea passed my mind, I choked him harder. I felt my thumbs pressing back the windpipe and arteries in his neck. He finally stopped moving and I knew that he was dead. Immediately I experienced a gushing wave of sorrow. My sadness was so intense that I awoke from my light slumber. I convinced myself that this fictional person had simply passed out and he was fully recoverable, but I knew deep inside that I had killed him. Odd thoughts started passing through my mind. I recalled random gnostic ideas of pre-spiritual intelligences as our precursory form as a part of the essence of God before the creation. By extension, of course, intelligences or offspring dwell within us. The potential reality of this person in my dream made my worry all the more troubling.
I walked by a long table in the outside. I saw President Bush and Laura. I watched as some person, a political handler perhaps, arranged how George was sitting and how his sleeves folded. I made some complimentary small talk with them. Laura asked why I didn't come to dinner. She gave me the address as 1532 Pennsylvania Blvd. At that moment I realized that there was a sprawling farmhouse there in the middle of a large park. I also realized that we were in downtown DC and this is where the President actually lived.
In a van I went skeet shooting with an older fellow. There may have been more people originally, but we went later to set up a single shooting post between two little flags. It was by a dirt road, at the side of a cut, stubble filled field, and the van was right behind us. I shot a few quite expertly. A troop of fools came intruding on our flagged firing position. Some fellow threw up a pigeon and I shoot after it. I hit it, or by it, just as it hit the ground. Just as i was shooting I saw that there were people right by where I was shooting. It didn't hit anyone, and they didn't notice, but it was close. My shooting companion didn't say a word. We simply loaded up the gun and the flags in the van.
