Mistaking Symptoms for Causes

I've really enjoyed watching BBC's Irish Drama/Comedy Ballykissangel.  They developed such a wonderful mix of characters and over several seasons, I came to love each one.  In a recent episode Padraig O'Kelly a regular at Fitzgerald's, local pub, went on a drunken binge after being rejected first by a young woman he was interested in, and then by his only son.  Dr. Michael Ryan pays him a visit and makes a simple but profound statement.  "Drink is only a symptom of a deeper problem."

Can you spot the alcoholic?  It's Ireland, they may all be.  Pardraig (pronounced Porrick) is third from the left.  A life of sorrow, self pity and disappointment shows pretty plainly on his face.  I identify with Padraig.  I don't belly up to Fitzgerald's Bar but I've been on plenty of sorrowful, disappointed pity party binges of self indulgence.  Most of the time I had no idea that my behavior was just a symptom of a deeper problem.  Like Padraig just thought he was a hopeless lush.  I thought I was hopelessly lost in my addictive behavior as well.

It's like my problem is an injured leg.  I can't deal with the injury right now so I wrap it in a bandage and forget about it. It hurts but, in denial, I refuse to acknowledge it and the fact that beneath the bandage it is festering.  I need to continue to function in society so I take up a crutch.  Something that helps me get along and helps me to ease the pain.  Pretty quick I'm back on my feet and have myself convinced that I'm functioning on a par with my previously undamaged condition.  I even manage to convince myself that the crutch is invisible and that no one notices how heavily I lean upon it.  Occasionally, I hear a talk or have some other reality check that reminds me of how disgusting and evil my crutch is, so I resolve to throw it away.  I do, but now I'm crippled by my unattended wound and cease to function at all.  I remain in denial and do nothing to treat the wound, except to heap more bandages on the old ones.  I have even forgotten how it got injured in the first place.  Needing to function I take up the crutch again.  A cycle of repeated tossing and retrieving of the crutch ensues.  Years pass this way.  Discouragement and then despair follow.  Determined, I carry on hobbling on a crutch that becomes ever more burdensome, ever more ugly and apparent.

Finally, someone like Dr. Michael Ryan points out to me the possibility of healing the wounded leg and invites me to go to the Great Healer and have the infected gash healed.  I do and before long, I am walking pain free.  I suddenly realize that I no longer need the crutch.  Serving no purpose I set the crutch aside and go on without it.  The Doctor of my Soul reminds me that I have a particular vulnerability to re-opening the wound and that I must remain constantly vigilant against doing further damage.  At first I don't heed that counsel.  I feel so great!  So emancipated!  Before long, recklessly, I reopen the wound and instantly my need for my old faithful crutch returns.  Or I receive another injury and automatically go to the same old ridiculous remedies. Again by invitation, The Good Doctor returns and heals my leg once more.  This time I'm more careful, more watchful, more vigilant.  Gradually, with care and determination, I rehabilitate the atrophied muscles and grow in strength.  Eventually, months and then years pass and the crutch becomes long forgotten and entirely left behind.

I loved he scene where Padraig puts down his crutch.  There is a light in his eye and a lightness of being in his countenance.  The pity party is over.  He has dealt with his pain.  The sore is healed over and the alcohol is put aside.  I loved it because I've experienced it!

When it comes to addiction I still find most people operating under the misconception that the booze, or Twinkies, or joints, or needles or roulette wheel or the porn sites are the problem.  They are not.  Not in any case I've worked with.  Those are only the symptoms of a deeper problem.  A deeper problem most of us are loath to explore.

My Nephew taught school in a little village on the North Slope of Alaska.  Despair and Alcoholism were rampant there.  One day he drew a line down the middle of the chalk board.  On the left he asked the students to list what was right with their village.  The list grew quite large.  On the right they needed to make a list of what was wrong.  The students rebelled, they threw chairs, they shouted and stormed out of the room.  The travail of dealing with our problems is no small thing.  Eventually, the negative list was completed.  Finally, they could address what they were going to do about the problems.  You would be amazed today to see the results of that project!  We need to be willing to do the same thing.  To take the bandages off the infected wounds in our lives, clean them out, treat them appropriately and actually get better.  We need to learn to face our pain and to quit anesthetizing it with treatments that only mask the problem and inevitably make it worse.

I think this applies to everyone, addict or not.  We are a society full of folks running around trying to avoid or ignore our problems and the resulting pain.  We want easy fixes instead of genuine healing.  Let's stop that and get on with living.  Really living.

Increasingly, we live in a Plutarchy

As a young adult I read a 1300+/- page book called Tragedy and Hope by Caroll Quigley.  It was about the ultimate conquest of global society by the wealthy.  Later I read W. Cleon Skousen's book about the same thing.  It was called The Naked Capitalist (same story only much shorter).  I was pretty skeptical at the time, but since I've watched Quigley's predictions unfold before my very eyes.  So, here we are enveloped in the Plutarchy Quigley envisioned.

Here we are in a society controlled by the wealthy.  We can hardly call it otherwise.  Our very lives are under the deliberate thumb of Wall Street.  Our government leaders are literally owned by them.  A year ago I abandonned the Republican Party.  Or rather, I discovered that the Republican Party had abandonned me.  Don't panic, I didn't become a Democrat. 

I've spent the year wondering what I am, wondering where I fit, wondering if anyone is like minded out there.

The other night I heard Bill Moyers interview Populist Jim Hightower and thought I was hearing the most refreshing views I'd heard in a long time.  Still, I hesitate, Populists tend to favor unions, I don't.  Well, that's not true either.  I favor unions in the original or pure sense.  But the big unions have become as Plutocratic as the Government has.

Goldman Sachs has been on the carpet this week for their power mongering antics.  Clearly theirs is not a matter of guilt, but rather a question of legality.  They are guilty, but was it legal?  Congress will ultimately create bigger government to resolve the issue, which will fail.  The result will be more taxation and less control, both of which benefit the plutarchs and harm the rest of us.  The Securities and Exchange Commission will continue to sit in their Ivory Tower and view pornography while we assume they're spending our money looking after our best interests.

Moyers, in his program Bill Moyers Journal drew my attention to a policy statement from Citigroup that made big business' position and strategy plain:

Citigroup Mar 5 2006 Plutonomy Report Part 2

Is it any wonder that the economy is struggling.  Not the economy of the rich, but that of the average American.  I've long struggled with my feelings about Sean Hanity and his version of Conservativism.  In light of what I'm presently learning, Hannity appears to be the Plutarch's Poster Boy.  I don't struggle any more, Hannity is out, my mind's made up.  Don't suppose by this that I am opposed to Capitalism.  On the contrary I am in full favor of Capitalism.  Greed has turned Captialism in to Plutarchy in the hearts and minds of far too many.  It is to be expected; with money comes power and power corrupts - at least sometimes.  Contrast that with Capitalism as described in the book The Mormon Way of Doing Business and you'll understand what I mean.  The distinction between Captitalism and Plutonomy (a term coined by Citigroup) is an important one and as long as we fail to make that distinction we will fail to treat Plutarchy as the demon it is.
Hannity is often heard defending big corporations by saying that no one was ever employed by a poor man.  This may be true, but Plutarchs are not about employing people but rather about exploiting them and then laying them off while cleaning out the coffers the workers filled. Plutarchs are not hard to recognize.

It is going to be thus.  At least as long as we depend on the Republicans and Democrats to managage our economic lives. 

I wrote this morning on The Book of Mormon Today that I think the solution is not governmental but personal.  I do think we need to be politically active and to stand up and be counted.  But on a personal level there will always be Plutarchs trying to control our lives.  The answers, at a personal, individual level, lie inside us, not outside in the polical and public arena.  We may never see an end to Plutarchy in our life time, but if we focus too much on the problems Plutarchy creates we will miss the blessings that are ever present in our lives.  Blessings that difficulty and hardship, even Plutarcy assure us.

When Atlas Shrugged

My last post described my most exciting job yet.  Yet, I've quit....

They wanted me 24 hours a day for eight days straight at a rate of $4.79/hour.  I accepted that initially because I wanted to do something meaningful and because I was certain that the company's resources were stretched sufficiently to warrant lousy/beginner pay.

Now, in all fairness, I really enjoyed the job.  I enjoyed the students and I really enjoyed the staff.  There was never a boring moment.  Last week I spent 24 hours on the run with three students who'd decided to leave the program.  That excursion included a helicopter ride.  An eight day shift simply few by!

During the course of the week I had a surprisingly candid conversation with the owner, who bragged about the huge percentage of the revenue he puts in his own pocket.  I was a bit disillusioned because, naively, I thought he was in it for the youth, as I was.  Instead he made it plain that he was in it for the money.  This is not to say he isn't good at what he does, he's great!  Still as the week wore on it became more and more clear that he makes all of the decisions and thinks he deserves all of the rewards.  Toward the end of the week I discovered that a field staff, who is an amazing asset to the company, who is skilled, responsible and talented, and who has served for 18 months was being paid the exact same amount as a rookie like me.  Additionally, I learned that a head staff, in charge of a camp, is paid, $0.33 more per hour than I was.  This is a clear statement of company priority and finished me off.

I went in at the end of my shift and resigned.  Here is a tremendous program that is making a difference in the lives of some great young people.  A program whose primary focus is developing integrity in the lives of it's students, but which manifests little integrity with it's employees at all.  When I pointed out my grievance I was told that they were not pleased to have their staff comparing compensation packages.  I wonder why?

I've decided to get clear out to the youth correction/rehabilitation business.  There's no money in it.  I can get a full time job at the Detention Center for which they'll pay me $11.00 an hour.  Or I can deliver packages for UPS for $27.00 an hour.  What would you do?  What is wrong with this picture?

Now all of this begs another question.  One I don't have the answer for?  "Where should the line be drawn between self and service?  I went in to that last job hoping for personal growth as well as monetary income.  While there I did very well with regard to my personal issues.  I even thought that my recovery was being strengthened and facilitated by my experiences.

I have always been taught and even proved that when I get caught up in my selfish, self defeating behaviors that the best thing I can do is to focus on being of service to others.  On the mountain I was doing just that.  Every waking moment and much of the night was spent in selflessly serving others.  I didn't have time to think of myself.  Even my choice to quit was primarily motivated by my regard for my younger colleagues who are being so grossly taken advantage of.  I expected to come home from that experience better and more fulfilled.  Instead, I found I had just put myself on the shelf for a couple of months and have returned to find myself unchanged having done little more than collect a bit of dust.

What was the problem factor?  Is it the money?  Does money destroy service?  If I had taught Seminary would the money have tainted the service?  I'm confused by what I'm feeling.

Last week I spent in Las Vegas painting my daughter's house.  It was a good thing.  I little tough because my own house is a wreck and could have used that effort.  I returned to a plan by the family to spend the next two weekends painting my mother-in-law's house.  I have always been gung ho about such projects knowing in my heart that what goes around comes around and that bread I cast upon the water would return in abundance.  But today I feel like John Galt.  I've carried too much for too long and can no longer bear it up.  The world wants all it can get from me while giving as little as possible in return.  I know God is not like that.  There may be my answer.  My recent employer has taken God out of the equation and put money in.  I remember a time when my daughter befriended a little old neighbor lady.  They spent a lot of joyous times together.  Then the lady decided to hire my daughter to attend to her needs.  What had been joyful service quickly turned into resentful drudgery.  The pleasant rewards of friendship and service were replaced by unsatisfying stinginess, expectations, demands, inequality, reluctance and eventually separation.  Must money always spoil things?


Like so many in Ayn Rand's amazing book, Atlas Shrugged, I'm no longer willing to bring my talent to the business world without being adequately compensated for it.  More and more the world wants all it can get from me.  That would be okay if it were not for the fact that more often than not, someone, behind the scenes, is benefiting financially, while claiming to be serving the critical needs of the less fortunate.  People are getting rich in the human services "industry".  Under the guise of meeting serious needs, and on the backs of sincere and willing laborers, they pad their pockets and meet far fewer needs than they might.  I got my start in the "industry" as a volunteer.  I got sucked in to doing it professionally because I thought it would be satisfying to make a difference full time.  It should be.  It isn't.  In fact, I see a measure of perpetuation built into both government and private human services programs.  A subtle effort to keep themselves in business rather than working themselves out of a job.  It is about the money.

So, for now, you can call me John Galt.  You'll find me about doing good.  You'll find me this weekend, happily helping paint Mom's house, for free.  You'll find me at the Detention Center on Sunday teaching the kids about Jesus Christ and about how He can help them change.  If one day, there are no kids to serve there, I'll be the happiest man around.  Besides, I always said my volunteer job at the Center pays better than my employed one - which is true.... and it'll keep on paying long after those prison walls have served their purpose.

As for money?  I'll have to earn that somewhere.  I just hope I can find a place to earn it where it won't pollute the things that matter more than money.

Mountain Magic

I haven't written for a good long time.  I've been pretty busy remodeling my lifestyle.  It's time I explained and got back to writing. 

My theme for this blog refers to the business of mortality.  The business of living and learning.  This latest episode has been pretty intense in that regard.

A little over a month ago, I hired on as Wilderness Staff for an outfit called Mountain Homes Youth Ranch / Ashley Valley Wilderness.  When I went to my doctor for a physical he said he thought I'd come to the wrong doctor, suggesting I needed to have me head examined.  Indeed, I probably should.  What business does an old geezer like me have camping eight days at a time in the snow, mud, rain, wind of the Book Cliffs, with a bunch of troubled kids.

I guess I didn't feel like reporting on the new adventure until I had some experience with it.  I needed to see if I would enjoy the experience and actually invest myself in the process.  I do and I have.  I have stumbled onto a rare and unexpected opportunity.  This company is amazing in it's preparation to make a difference in the lives of children with behavior problems.  Couple that with the miracle of the mountain and you have a formula for success.  This is a good time in my life to be envolved in making a difference. 

It turns out that I actually have something to offer.  Students and Staff alike express appreciation for the calming effect an older participant can bring to the program.  Clearly, I lack the vigor and energy of the younger staff, but I don't lack experience and a settled, comfortable relationship with the principles and processes of joyful living.  I think my greatest asset is patience.  It takes time to make the changes we hope to help these youth experience and I am content to let the process do it's magic.  Seeing those changes transpire is it's own reward.

I never dreamed my life would lead me to such an occupation.  I never imagined that I would be suited for such a thing.  The other night though, laying in my bag after a challenging day, I couldn't help but rejoice at the long, protracted set of experiences, trials, talents, blessings, set backs, afflictions and serendipitous circumstances that had brought me to that glorious moment of joy.  There I was in a tent in the middle of nowhere with a bedraggled bunch of strangers for whom my heart was absolutely bursting with love, and hopes, and dreams.  I had just serenaded them to sleep with my native american flute and was in no rush to sleep myself.  I just wanted to bask in the glow of a culminating moment that seemed to have been forseen by a loving God who had somehow brought me here.  I unexpectedly felt a sense of mission and purpose and realized that the mountain holds magic for me as well.

I work eight days on and six days off.  I expect you'll hear from me every other week.  Perhaps with more stories and observations.  The wilderness camp is a microcosm of life.  There on the mountain we are all on an excellerated course of living and learning.  Life is challenging there, but it is also simpler, with far fewer distractions. I like that.....

Book Review - The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder's interesting book, The Bridge of San Luis Rey won a Pulitzer Prize.  I have no quarrel with that; it is wonderfully well written.  It is so very interesting to learn of Colonial Peru and the daily life of Limeans.  I was a bit disappointed though that Wilder was, in the end, unable to answer the question the book so intriguingly poses.

A 100 year old foot bridge suddenly collapses and five people perish in a horrifying plunge into a deep gorge.  Brother Juniper wonders why?  Was it part of God's Plan or merely an accident?  He decides to examine the lives of the victims and see if he can discern the answer.  He discovers that though every life is both ordinary and extraordinary, nothing unique pegged these folks to perish at this particular place and time.

I have dealt with the same question much of the past year.  I've watched good people die at the most inopportune times.  No amount of faith or pleading with God could turn the tide of death that overtook and destroyed.  For me, accident, disease, ultimately death are all an integral part of God's Plan.  They are not necessarily caused by God, but the Fall of man and the earth as Adam and Eve were driven from Eden, set things in motion that God intended and fully sanctions.  I also believe, that on occasion, God deliberately countermands the course of nature, intervening in man's behalf.  Why He does on one occasion and does not on another, is not my affair.  I trust Him to know fully, fairly and perfectly, what He is up to.  We have no right to boast that He has favored us with a blessing we desire and we have no business condemning Him when He does not.  Either way, He is favoring us with that we He, in His infinite wisdom, sees fit for our best - in the long run - interest.

I don't think Brother Juniper ever figured this out.  But it seems He did come to understand that love bridges the gaps between us and lends meaning, when all else seems to fail.  Considering, Brother Juniper was a man of the cloth, he might have gone on to discover that despite life's troubles and trials, the love of God undergirds and overarches all and in the end can heal all wounds. 

Philosophically, I thought Wilder came up just short of his target on this one.  Too bad.