10 years later……………. Fucking tumbleweeds
10 years later……………. Fucking tumbleweeds
The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly coloured, and it's very loud, and its fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real."
It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings or money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

"A Mayonnaise Jar &Two Beers...
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers. Story goes like this:
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.
When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students if the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly.
The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.
He then asked the students again if the jar was full.
They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.
Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full.
The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.' The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.
The students laughed..
'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.
The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favourite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.
The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.
The sand is everything else---the small stuff.
'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.
The same goes for life.
If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.
Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Spend time with your children.
Spend time with your parents.
Visit with grandparents.
Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your spouse out to dinner.
There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.
Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter.
Set your priorities.
The rest is just sand.
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented.
The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked.'
The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.
Today a good friend died.
He had been ill for every year I had known him but his final submission was a shock and the end a relief. Eventually every miracle has to end. His stubborn determination kept him on this plane long after many would have folded.
He was a wonderful warm cantankerous old bastard and I saw a lot of myself in him... and vice versa. I don’t have that strength but I have great role models.
I’m no stranger to death and funerals. Practice still doesn’t blunt the loss. It reminds me of the real big picture. So many in the West have no experience of this and hence the abject horror of it all. So many that run away and cannot face death and all its baggage face on.
I think that has a link to the ability to blank out the murder and suffering of so many that we in the West cause. As technology progresses the greater the distance between the killer and the killed becomes. You can’t see the whites of their eyes from 20,000 feet. You can’t see their fear and their pain. There is no contact with the human you are killing.
I sat on a train journey recently near some young women discussing how well their spouses were progressing in their air force careers. Whoopee... every bangle, bauble and perk was paid for by the wages of death and the corpses of anonymous strangers.
Violent death is no different - it just adds the other emotions of anger and revenge. That completes a circle that we should always avoid.
The next time we read of a murdered human anywhere in the world we should think –how would I feel if that was someone belonging to me? The millions in Iraq, the 10’s of thousand in Afghanistan, the daily trickle of children in Gaza. You get the picture.
The prison chaplain at the time of the hunger strike came to visit Bobby Sands in his cell not long after he had begun his fast. The priest sought to question Bobby on the morals of his hunger strike, Bobby's only response was to quote the bible:
"Greater Love Than This Hath No Man, Than that he Lay Down His Life for his Friend".
"They have nothing in their whole imperial arsenal that can break the spirit of anyone who doesn't want to be broken".