I am fortunate to be able to have contributed to Planned Parenthood today, an organization that helps women, especially poor women but not only them, have access to health care. It is a last resort for so many women in so many circumstances. I was a reporter for some years, and I am also a father, husband and friend and I have known so many women, some very close to me, who were greatly helped – some to the point of saving their lives – by this organization. There are not many organizations in this country that are always there for people whether they have money or not, and Planned Parenthood is. I support it in any way a person can. As a reporter, and I was a pretty good one, one of the first things you learn is to smell a lie. If politicians are going to gut this group, they at least ought to stand up in the light and take responsibility for it.
I believe many women are equal to men, and many are equal in name only. I hope I can support them.
I am lucky to be able to have contributed to this group, and while I would not presume to ask anyone to do the same, I wanted to share the great gift of helping them.
A month ago, a neighbor came by and said her two dogs – a mixed-breed and a Mastiff – had run off into the woods. For the past few days, Lenore has been turning on the path and barking. At night, Frieda has been barking and looking out the window at night. I sensed something was out in the woods, but often, many things are out in the woods. This felt different to me, but I couldn’t see anything.
This morning, while I was away, Maria took the dogs on the path for a walk. At one point, Lenore stiffened and moved to the edge. Curiously the other dogs, Frieda and Izzy, paid no attention. Almost invisible, Maria saw a small-ish mastiff lying in the dirt and mud. He was emaciated, had porcupine quills embedded in his snout, was weak and could barely get up. She took our dogs back home, returned with a leash. The Mastiff growled at her, but let her put the leash on and slowly and painfully, he made it back to the house. Maria put him in a shed behind the farmhouse, brought him some food and water. She went to our neighbor’s house and they came and got him. He was very happy to see them, and they had been worried sick about him. The second dog had returned two weeks ago.
The dog looked awful and had been living in the deep woods for weeks. This is one of a dog lover’s great fears out here, that the dogs will get out into the woods and get lost. Frieda might handle it, but the other dogs would not. Hard to think about all these cold and wet nights, and it seemed that he was near the end. But it worked out. We talked about it all day. It felt wonderful to save this creature, and spoke to the rewarding act of helping animals. Aquinas was right, it is a good thing to do, not only for them, but because it helps us become more human. Another hit for the love dog and for Maria.
I believe it is a small miracle – maybe a big miracle – whenever men make friends with other men. Men do not have a movement, a political or cultural identity, the gift of mentoring one another, of loving one another. Men have been pushed to the margins of our culture in so many ways, overpowered and shown up by the creativity, affection, community and energy of women. It is not one thing or the other, but it is a striking thing.
If you look at politics or the world, you see that war, crime, brutality, genocide, economic havoc, domination are overwhelmingly male activities. More than 90 per dent of the people in jail are male, as are almost all of those arrested for murder, rape and robbery. Congress is a wrenching and almost daily display of the problems men have resolving differences, finding accommodation, seeking compromise. I don’t mean to romanticize women. Women are capable of great brutality, especially when they emulate male models of business or conflict or politics, rather than creating their own.
But men are having a major identity crisis and I feel for them, as they are too busy butting into one another to pay much attention to it, or to really change their often unfulfilled and harried lives. I have spent many years looking for male friends, and have made one or two. Men do not value friendship or often make room for it. I am learning to do that. I made a friend today, at a lunch. A smart and creative man, a writer and painter, a man like me who has set out on his own to make a living at a creative live and lives out in the country. We talked for two hours. I think it is a small miracle anytime contacts between men are about friendship and connection.
“Marx teaches us to blame the society for our frailties; Freud teaches us to blame our parents for our frailties; astrology teaches us to blame the universe. The only place to look for blame is within: you didn’t have the guts to bring up your full moon and live the life what was your potential.”
– Joseph Campbell, “Pathways To Bliss.”
Some years ago, on a dark night in a howling winter storm I took an oath to stop blaming other things for my frailties, and to live my life. Campbell was right, in that it was the most frightening choice I ever made, and it involved turning away from almost everything familiar to me and find the courage to make my own decisions, and to make them outside of anger or fear. I understood that this is not the way most of the world works, so it was a lonely decision. So I cast aside the struggle stories and stopped looking elsewhere for things to blame in my life. From now on, it was on my head, my shoulders. And I began to bring up my full moon and find my love and live the life that is my potential. I am responsible for my life.
Happy First Birthday, Mary Muncil’s blog. I met the Rev. Mary Muncil a couple of years ago, just a few months before Maria and I were to get married. I had heard a lot about Mary. That she was strange, Lots of people knew of her, but few really knew her. They said she was a bit out there, brilliant and interesting. That she was a mystic. That she made wonderful skin balm and had studied at Harvard and kept to herself. At the time, Maria and I were flailing about trying to figure out how to get married. First, I wanted my friend Steve McLean to marry us, but he was a Jesus guy and I love Jesus but am not a Jesus guy. I was born Jewish but have never really related to Jewish ritual and practice. I became a Quaker when I was a teenager, and wanted a Quaker marriage, but Maria and I made the Friends Meeting here a bit nervous, and so at Maria’s suggestion – she said Mary sounded just right – we went to her, and our lives changed quite dramatically, powerfully and permanently.
Mary took over things. She was clear, perceptive, loving. She understood better than I did what kind of ceremony we needed. We both loved her from the first. All of the things I had heard about her were true, it turned out. I learned later that she is also a good witch. Coming off of a world-class crack-up I watched her put the ceremony together for us and I knew this was a person who could help me not only with fear but also with my deep yearning for a spiritual life. So she became my friend, spiritual counselor. We began an extraordinary dialogue that changed my life. I saw right away that Mary’s genius was to help people like me find our way in a fearful and angry world, spiritually and in other ways. I suggested a blog for her. She was horrified.
I got all the blah-blah friggin-blah you often hear from smart people when it comes to technology. Oh, I can’t do that. Oh, I don’t need that. I’d rather read paper books, be civilized. Who needs friends on Facebook? I don’t have time for that. I love my privacy, etc. Who would read it?
For much of my life, I have worked to connect creative people with technology, and after battling with me for awhile – Mary and I often battle and butt heads about things, as she is always telling me stuff I don’t want to hear – Mary just went and did it, put up this home-made blog that drew thousands of people instantly and provided her with the ministry she had always wanted but couldn’t quite figure out how to find. From the first, people found it and loved it, and it has grown and deepened by the day. This really works, she said to me one day. Duh, I said.
I love Mary and I love her blog. Clearly, we were meant to find one another, in this small town in this remote place. More than anything in my life, Mary has helped me overcome the chronic terror that rotted the underside of my life, more than therapy, medication, doctors of all kinds. I am approaching the spiritual life I always wanted. Her blog, one year old today is a light unto the world and a powerful example of the ways in which technology can be used to empower and uplift us and to connect us with community. Mary works hard at it, as you have to do to make it work. It reminds us to find the light and beauty in the world.
Happy Birthday, Mary’s blog. We love you and the good witch who created you.
