Captial Punishment is Wrong

Hola Everybody,
The following is in reference to the case of Troy Davis, an unfairly convicted human being who is scheduled to be executed in two weeks… If you’re not familiar with the story, Troy Davis was convicted of murdering a Georgia police officer in 1991. Nearly twenty years later, Davis remains on death row -- even though the case against him has fallen apart.

The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state’s non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony.

Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.

In addition, nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles, the leading alternative suspect.

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-=[ Capital Punishment: Immoral and Ineffective ]=-

The other night, during the GOP debate, the biggest applause line came when Texas Governor Rick Perry, a man who has sanctioned the deaths of 234 people (more than any other governor in US history), admitted he has never lost a wink of sleep over the matter. There was a couple of telling moments. Earlier in the debate a question about 9/11, and President Obama's decision to attack and execute Osama bin Laden drew not a single clap. The other occurred the following night during President Obama's speech on a proposed jobs bill, when not one single conservative applauded for teachers, firemen, policemen, and collective bargaining.

I can’t say I am surprised by such reactions, since it is well-known that the conservative mindset tends toward authoritarianism. Still, these reactions, I thought to myself, make it entirely possible that today’s conservatives was what Shirley Jackson envisioned when she wrote The Lottery.

Today I am not going into details about the Troy Davis case, though, whatever your feelings about state-sanctioned murder, his case should worry you because it’s likely we’re murdering an innocent man for a crime he didn’t commit. I think we might disagree on the pros and cons of capital punishment, but we should all be in agreement that justice should be, well, just. His case is almost lost but if you care, please sign a petition for the Georgia Board of pardons to consider (click here)

Not long ago, I witnessed a frustrated mother physically punishing one child for hitting his sibling. “You. Don’t. Hit. Your. Bro-ther,” she railed loudly, punctuating each syllable with a hard slap to the head, hand, and butt. It amazes me how many parents, claiming to teach respect and dignity, make no connection to the fact that by hitting a child, you’re also teaching them that the way to get your way is through physical aggression and dominance. I’m not surprised these two children fought incessantly for their mother was reinforcing their behavior.

Since as far back as the nineteenth century, evidence has shown that there is no relationship between severity of punishment and crime rate. Would Americans do the same today if it were demonstrated to them that killing criminals doesn’t make the streets any safer? It’s hard to say, but I seriously doubt it. We’re a vengeful group that worships a vengeful god.

To be sure, many support capital punishment for other reasons. For example, many individuals support electrocuting, poisoning, or shooting people who fail to respect the sacredness of human life. Because you killed someone, we will kill you seems to be the rationale. This is somewhat analogous to the mother teaching her children non-violence by demonstrating violent behavior.

The United States is nearly alone developed nations: Most industrialized nations have come to regard death penalty in the same most regard slavery: it’s morally wrong.

Opponents against the death penalty have more than morality on their side as arguments, however. For example, there is the very real possibility of executing someone innocent and the fact that race (of both convicted and victim) and class is a deciding factor in who actually gets executed. One Texas defendant was executed though his legal counsel fell asleep numerous times during the proceedings. Overwhelmingly, the color of one’s skin is the leading factor in who gets executed (click here). Two of the country’s foremost researchers on race and capital punishment, law professor David Baldus and statistician George Woodworth, along with colleagues in Philadelphia, conducted a careful analysis of race and the death penalty in Philadelphia, for example, which revealed that the odds of receiving a death sentence are nearly four times (3.9) higher if the defendant is black. These results were obtained after analyzing and controlling for case differences such as the severity of the crime and the background of the defendant. The data were subjected to various forms of analysis, but the conclusion was clear: blacks were being sentenced to death far in excess of other defendants for similar crimes (click here).

But that’s a topic I won’t get into at this moment. Right now, let’s just look at capital punishment’s effects on crime. The question I’m putting forth here is whether capital punishment is a better deterrent than life imprisonment. The answer, according to the evidence, is that the two penalties are both equally ineffective.

At first glance, it seems like common sense that the looming threat of losing one’s life would keep would-be criminals in line. However, a closer, more intelligent, look reveals the majority of murders are committed 1) during a moment of rage, 2) under the influence of drugs and alcohol, or 3) unexpectedly, in the course of committing another crime, such as a robbery. In any of these cases, the killer doesn’t sit down and rationally weigh the pros and cons of what will happen when he is apprehended, so a consideration of the death penalty isn’t going to stop him.

In fact, critical, careful thought about why people break the law not only leads us to question the effectiveness of capital punishment in particular, but also presents a challenge to the idea that incarcerating more people for longer periods of time is a rational response to crime in general. Want proof? Well, put this in your pipe and smoke it for a bit: Despite the fact that the US already incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation in the world, crimes rates are far higher than in most other countries. The conservative/ neoconservative assumption that crime rates were rising because the “costs” of crime in America were too low, is simply put, wrong. In fact, there is credible evidence that shows that too much incarceration serves to destabilize communities, therefore making those communities less safe (click here)

But I digress, the question at hand is whether capital punishment is a better deterrent than life imprisonment. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that capital punishment isn’t a deterrent since criminologists have never found any crime-reducing advantage correlated to capital punishment. Actually, there was one (much-celebrated) study by an economist, Isaac Ehrlich, that claimed to find support for the “fact” that each additional execution resulted in eight prevented homicides. The problem was Ehrlich's study was seriously flawed. It hinged on the on the fact that more murders were committed in the 1960s, when fewer executions were taking place. Of course, he ignored regional differences in the murder rate and other possible reasons for the increase in homicides (the easier availability of guns, for one). In addition, it turns out that other crimes of violence -- the kind that had never been punishable by death -- increased even more rapidly than homicides. Hmmmm...

In any case, other researchers have since tried to look for and failed to find the effects that Ehrlich arrived at. This makes sense considering the fact that economists have a long-standing poor record in research, and this particular study contradicted everything done before then. In 1978, the National Academy of Sciences studied and rejected Ehrlich's methodology (he used a technique known as regression analysis) and concluded that there was no useful evidence on the deterrent effect of capital punishment. In other words, we don’t know. And surely a practice as drastic as killing someone should be considered only if we do know that it makes our lives better and our communities safer.

But researchers being the dense people they are, two leading criminologists decided that just in case regression analyses did make sense in this context, it was worth giving it another shot. They studied homicides and executions in New York State from every month from 1907 to 1963 and found that the death penalty not only failed to reduce the murder rate but actually seemed to increase it. On average, two additional murders occurred during the month following the execution. These researchers extrapolated that the death penalty had what they termed a “brutalizing effect” that was most likely due to criminals taking their cue from the state and imitating its violence. Sounds like parents who beat their children to me!

The researchers summarized, “The lesson of the execution, then, may be to devalue life [and to teach] that it is correct and appropriate to kill those who have gravely offended us.” Another writer put it more succinctly in the Journal of Law and Criminology, “Use of the death penalty by the state, despite an intention to convey the message that killing is unacceptable, may convey the opposite message to the public.” In other words (and as all parents should already know): action speaks louder than words.

Of course, the methodology used by these researchers is as equally debatable as it was when Ehrlich used it. However, it still follows that, using the same methodology, the conclusion remains the same: the death penalty does not act as a deterrent against homicides. In fact, there has never been a case where homicides went up after a state abolished capital punishment. In addition, the states with the highest murder rates tend to be those where the death penalty is used. Other research has found that the same is true globally. One study combed through old crime records to what happened in twelve countries that had abolished capital punishment between 1890 and 1968 and found that “abolition was followed more often than not by absolute decreases in homicide rates.” [emphasis added]

Anyone seriously concerned in making our cities safer would do better to look into the real root causes of crime. The consensus among those who have looked at this issue is that capital punishment is not a deterrent to murder. Anyone claiming to be pro death under the guise of being pro “law and order,” should probably reconsider their beliefs. And any human being who states they can sleep peacefully after ordering the murder of another human being is quite possibly a sociopath. But we seem to like to elect those into office.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… Love,

Resources

If you would like to experience a compelling look at the issue moral of capital punishment, check out the film, The Exonerated (click here)

If you're interested in studying crime and punishment without the academic jargon, check out Elliott Currie's Crime and Punishment in America (click here). Prepare to have your opinions, biases, and assumptions challenged.

Not too long ago, the NY Times published an article on how exonerations through the use of DNA are forcing state lawmakers across to the country to change laws (click here).

Jasmine's Story

Because it needs to be told and they need to be remembered...

* * *

(above: Yemaya)

-=[ Jasmine’s Story ]=-

The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around… Throughout history, ‘tender loving care’ has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing.

-- Larry Dossey

When I first started school and beginning the process that eventually led to a career as a “healer,” I went through an experience that would forever change the way I understand healing.

Some years ago, as I was beginning to sort through the wreckage of my life, I received a phone call in the middle of the night. An old and dear friend called to tell me that a former lover was on her deathbed at a nearby hospital. I’ll never forget her words. She said, “Eddie, I know you and Jasmine did a lot of fucked up shit to each other, but she’s not expected to last the weekend. If you have anything you want to tell her, now is the time. They’re giving her last rites as we speak.”

I thanked my friend and as I put down the phone, I didn’t know what to do. Here was someone who had caused me great pain, who had been the object of numerous homicidal fantasies, who now was dying. As I thought of her, it was hard for me to feel the old resentment and anger without a pang of conscience. After all, I thought, I was equally cruel to her. I decided then that I would visit her that very moment.

As I began to get dressed (it was about 2 am), I realized I had several reservations. Her family wasn’t too fond of me. In fact, the joke was that they wouldn’t even mention my name, and when they did, they whispered my last name as if actually calling my given name aloud would evoke me. So, in essence, in that family anyway, I was something of a persona non grata, to put it lightly.

I decided that I would go anyway and that if there were any objections, that I would just leave and in that way I would know in my heart that I attempted to make amends.

That Serenity Prayer actually does come in handy, folks. LOL!

As I rode the bus to the hospital, my mind kept coming up with various scenarios: the mother would curse me, I would make a personal family tragedy worse, or my presence would only magnify the pain.

I finally arrived at the hospital and, after locating the room, I entered the dark room quietly. The room was full of family members all huddled around the bed where a wasted and frail young woman lay seemingly unconscious. No one noticed me, as I listened to the priest murmur some prayers. I waited for someone to recognize me and, as the priest finished his ministrations, the mother turned and looked at me and with tears in her eyes sobbed, “Eddie! Oh Eddie, mi hijo, lo que a llegamo!” As we embraced, she cried. I could feel a stirring, as my presence was made known.

The mother quietly explained to me the situation: her daughter had fallen into a coma after a long bout with HIV and it was expected that she would die soon. I tried to apologize and explain that if my being there was inappropriate, I would leave, but the mother stopped me and led me to Jasmine’s bed. It was hard to look her, lying there now ravaged by disease. Her mother spoke to her as if she could hear her and said, “Mira nena, look who’s here to see you -- Eddie!”

Honestly, I didn’t know what the fuck to do, but something told me to take her hand. Then I bent over and whispered to her, telling her how sorry I was for the things I did to her and how we hurt each other; that I was now living a good life free of my destructive patterns and active addiction. Her hands felt cold so I rubbed my hands together to generate heat and warmed her hands. I kept this up -- talking to the unconscious Jasmine and warming her hands, and then her face, her arms, etc.

When I felt I had said what I had to say, I began to walk away and then I heard her whisper, “Eddie?” Everyone in the room stopped talking and when I turned around, there was Jasmine looking at me, whispering my name. At that point, everyone in the room started doing the sign of the cross and Jasmine’s mother was praying and saying that it was miracle, and people were just running around calling the doctors and there I was in the middle of that whole scene wondering what the fuck was going on.

Jasmine would live for about four more months. I don’t know if I had anything to do with that, but later, Jasmine said that it wasn’t until she felt the heat from my hands that she began to regain consciousness. Before, she said, she felt she had settled into a form of resignation of meeting her fate. It’s hard to describe what Jasmine said, but I now think she had surrendered to death. She had lost all hope for life, she told me, and had deteriorated rapidly. She said feeling the heat from my hands awakened her to the fact that there were certain things left undone, certain personal loose ends that needed tending before she moved on.

During those last few months of her life, I became one of Jasmine’s primary care-givers in that AIDS ward. The nurses called me Jasmine’s “boyfriend” and would arrange her hair in pigtails and her face would beam when I entered the room. Me? I resolved to do what I could -- to give what I could to a person in need. Not only because Jasmine needed it, but because it was what I wanted to do -- what I had to do. I felt there was a larger story being writ and that I had to play my role in it.

And she would often request, especially during times of extreme stress, that I use my hands in the same way I did that first night. I never got it at the time. And when I would ask her, she would only say that my hands ran hot (which they do) and that the heat would lessen the overwhelming feeling of numbness that would attack her body.

The doctors could not explain. Indeed, what I witnessed during those days was that the doctors were often at a loss for answers or “prescriptions.” What I learned at that time was that a healer, whether a doctor, therapist or whatever, must act as a channel, or conduit of a healing entity or force. I don’t care whether you call it, God, Goddess, Christ, The Great Spirit, Qi, or whatever. Furthermore, in order to become such a channel, there are four essential qualities a healer must possess: trust, faith, love, and humility.

Though different healers may channel this healing energy through different techniques, none of them can heal -- regardless of technique -- unless they use it with love and humility. Out of all of these qualities, love is probably the most troublesome because all healers have days when they are not open to love. There are no recipes or formulas for staying open that way. To love also doesn’t just mean loving others, it means loving one’s self too.

I learned in those days that healing does not necessarily mean to become physically well or to be able to get up and walk around again. I came to realize that healing means achieving some kind of balance between the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions. For example, Jasmine would never walk again, and her T cells were, like, nil. Doctors were at a loss to explain why she was alive and resolved themselves to minister to her while she was still alive. However, Jasmine became spiritually awake and though she was young (33), sometimes she gave the impression of a very wise, very old soul with far more knowledge than her years. I believe that suffering kicks up the spiritual dimension by quite a few notches.

Don’t misunderstand, Jasmine, like many AIDS patients -- even more so than patients suffering from other life-threatening illnesses -- was lacking in qualities of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-trust. At one time, she told me, she felt these qualities were blocked by a lot of guilt, shame, and ambivalence. There were issues Jasmine never had a chance to address, some she took with her to her grave -- such as her addiction and her deep-seated feelings of guilt. But we did what we could, -- she and I. In some ways, we were like ships passing in the night. I was reinventing my life, starting anew, doing the things I never get a chance to do. Sometimes I would forget this. For Jasmine, this was as good as it was going to get. She was on borrowed time and that sometimes worked to minimize her motivation. Over the years, I have lost , too many friends to this disease. Some emphasized that they were living with a disease, not merely dying. I don’t know if Jasmine ever got there. But we learned to trust one another, one day at a time -- together -- and laughed many times at how easy it was to revert to old patterns. However, Jasmine also had a seven-year-old son she had to say goodbye to.

Jasmine’s “healing” didn’t occur at an individual level, because we are all connected through a vast neurological network of relationships to an infinite number of people and creatures on the planet. The process of healing even one person has consequences for all of us. It did for me: though I didn’t fully realize it at the time, acting as a channel for this healing energy Jasmine’s situation had a healing purpose for me.

As Jasmine began going about resolving the issues in her life, especially with her son, she seemed to become more at peace with her illness. There were days that her smile would remind me of the Jasmine I had known -- beautiful, alert, intelligent and spunky -- someone who took pleasure in challenging me and my interminable teasing. But those days became increasingly rare. Eventually taking care of Jasmine became a job that took priority over everything else in my life, in the process burning me out. A part of all this had a noble purpose, of course, but a lot of that was also my codependency issues. There were times I would forget that I was but a channel through which some of this was happening and I would forget that Jasmine would not get better.

And she took me hostage, Jasmine did. Her greatest fear was of dying alone in that cold, sterile hospital room. One day, after a particularly rough night (Jamsine’s other caregiver, her sister, and I had obtained special permission from the hospital administration), I was irritable and tired. My life had been consumed by Jasmine’s disease and I was feeling spent, confused, and angry -- all dangerous triggers. By then, Jasmine had lost her ability to speak and if we weren’t there doing it, she would not be cleaned in a prompt manner, so there I was cracking jokes about cleaning Jasmine’s ass and laughing about it. Sometimes I swore I saw a grin on Jasmine’s face during those times.

Anyway, I was tired and I wanted to go home, shower, and to re-energize myself. I tried calling her sister, but she could not be reached, so I turned to Jasmine and told her I was leaving and would be back as soon as I could. I hated doing this because she would become agitated if I left the room, let alone tell her I was leaving. Jasmine’s was horrified of the idea of dying alone.

As I left, I turned to look and there was this look of stark fear on Jasmine’s face. I felt so bad about my own anger. I blew her a kiss, my anger dissipated, and promised I would be right back. She was still upset… but I reminded myself she always got upset when I left the room. I took the elevator to the lobby and just when I was about to leave, something almost physical stopped me dead in my tracks. It was as if I had run into an invisible wall. And it hit me...

I knew what was happening.

Jasmine passed away as I was entering her room. When she saw me, the most beautiful smile of gratitude and contentment came over her face. She couldn’t mouth the words, but the look in her eyes -- I’m sure if she could she would’ve said, “Thank you, Eddie.” I stood by her, heard the death rattle, and she was gone…

Jasmine’s Story doesn’t end here, there are other ways that her life impacted mine, but that’s a larger, more complicated story.

The only difference between Jasmine and the rest of us, I came to understand, was Jasmine’s degree of illness. It seems to me that the whole planet is going through what Jasmine experienced with her terminal illness. My conclusion is that there must be a way to for all of us to go through a cleansing process to eliminate the hatred, greed, pain, grief, and rage that we harbor for so long.

I think Jasmine’s greatest gift was to teach me that we must all tap into this healing energy so that we might become whole...

Love,

Eddie

What Really Matters [The Dash Poem]

The Dash Poem



* * *

I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end

He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following years with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between the years.

For that dash represents all the time
that spent alive on earth
and now only those who loved her
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own
the cars… the house… the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard:
are there things you like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
to consider what is true and real
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile…
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.

So when your eulogy is being read
with your life’s actions to rehash,
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent your dash.

-- Linda Ellis

The Most Dangerous Place in the World

¡Hola! Everybody...
Our politicians and journalists, who serve the corporations that own them, love the term “just war.” It’s one of those terms so easily bandied about. Almost no one questioned Obama’s historical revision of war during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, for example.

Please justify the war, or any other war, described below. Even WWII (a supposedly just war) wasn’t necessary (nor just). But we like to talk about it as the “good” war, and an “unavoidable” war. And that’s a bunch of bullshit...

* * *

-=[ The Forgotten War ]=-

The first casualty of war is the truth...

Euphemistically described as a conflict, the war in the Congo is the deadliest war since World War II. After reading about it and watching the videos, I was reminded of the book by Danny Schechter, The More You Watch, The Less You Know. The title precisely describes how I feel writing this blog today.

In one of the most isolated and dangerous places on earth, in the conflict dubbed “Africa’s Forgotten War,” 45,000 people are killed every month (or 1500 per day), half of them children. However, this isn’t unusual, considering most scientists declare civilians, mostly women and children, make up the bulk of war casualties. Defend that. Tell me that killing, maiming, and raping children is somehow justifiable. Go ahead and use the utilitarian principle that justifies some deaths for the good of the many. That philosophy was implemented as a justification when nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan, though historical facts show that dropping the bombs wasn’t necessary. The Japanese were ready to surrender before the decision to use nuclear force was made.

Unlike Matt Taibbi, who recently wrote of the fracturing of the Left, I never fooled myself into thinking Obama a progressive. In fact, I think Taibbi's premise is flawed: Obama never was and never will be a progressive by any stretch. Still, I have to grant that many progressives voted for Obama in the hopes that he would veer leftward, even if just a little bit. And believe me, actually framing health care as a right rather than privilege is deemed left only in America. The rest of the free world has already ceded that point.

When President Obama introduced his “just war” doctrine to rationalize his accepting a Nobel Peace Prize while escalating the war on Afghanistan, he cited mass rape in the Congo as one reason wars are needed. What he didn’t explain is causes of this war and the abuse -- and how the US contributed to it over the years. He also didn’t mention that to the parties fighting here, this is their own version of a “just war” with each side rationalizing its conduct, denying abuses, and fighting on in the name of higher principles.

Don’t take my word for it. Human Rights Watch has a full chronology online so you can see for yourself how one crisis led to another...

It’s time for Obama to start walking the walk and not merely talking the talk. So far, his leadership on health care reform was abominable. His responses to the economic mess has amounted to “more of the same” -- help the economic elites and pray they rain piss on the rest of us (aka Reaganomics). As it stands, he’s now merely a darker (though admittedly more articulate) version of the Worst President in History.

Get it together brother. You may have inherited a large portion of this mess, but your actions today will assure you will own it a year or two down the road.

Yours,

Eddie

Of Truth and Poetry [RIP Uncle Walter]

¡Hola! Everybody...
As many of you already know Walter Cronkite, an icon from a time when the media actually served as a watchdog against entrenched power, passed away. My feelings are best expressed thus:

Corporate MSM journalists covering the death of Walter Cronkite is like Jeff “Beauregard” Sessions sermonizing Judge Sotomayor on racism. It’s a travesty.

My favorite memory of Cronkite was when he stood up and called the Vietnam War for the crime that it was. Today, a press more concerned about “presenting both sides” than keeping power in check, serves its corporate masters. Jefferson is doing cartwheels in his grave. RIP Mr. Cronkite, sorry you had to see the total prostitution of the media before you passed.

* * *

Nows [no. 1]

How could they have possibly known --
all those dear, dead ladies.

The masochists, the psychos,
the stalkers, nymphomaniacs,
suicides and whores...

That they were blindly serving
one solitary purpose:
to be my basic training,
and endless apprenticeship,
preparing me for
final assault
on my frontline?

And how could I have possibly known
that all my martial arts
would fail me
against the flowers and laughter
that were your forward troops,
the outstretched heart
of your army?

All rights reserved ©

Sunday Sermon (The Resurrection)

¡Hola! Everybody...
I would like to thank all the people who were kind enough to inquire about my sister. I’m happy to say she’s doing well and recuperating from her operation, which turned out well and it seems her growth was benign. Thanks again for everybody who expressed concern and offered support. You really don’t know how much that meant to me.

Today's blog art is by the great Salvador Dali. I can't find an image of it, but Dalí made a gift to the men’s prison in lieu of a personal appearance there. He was supposed to give an art class to the inmates in 1965 but canceled due to illness. He donated the then new gouache-ink-and-pencil sketch, specifically “For the dining room of the Prisoners Rikers Island”, as he inscribed it. And he sent some encouraging words for the boys: “You are artists. Don’t think of your life as finished for you. With art, you have always to feel free.”

It was stolen by correction guards in 2004 and is believed to have been destroyed.

* * *

“Woman, why are you weeping?”

-- Jesus to Mary Magdalene (John 20:15)

Earlier in my life, I refused to go to funerals. I simply wouldn’t go. On one level, I didn’t want to see my loved ones garishly made up lying in some casket. I have seen many, many people leave this existence. Most of the people I was raised with are dead or dying. I grew up in a violent world and some were taken in the prime of their lives. On another level, I didn’t want to come face-to-face with death. Especially death warmed over as I used to call funerals in mainstream US culture.

I didn’t like funerals. Didn’t like death…

So I never went.

Then one day, I was shopping with a lover and she picked out a dress she loved so much she said, “This is the dress I want to be buried in!” We laughed about it. She was young and beautiful, full of life. She was the Bonnie to my Clyde, committing crimes of life in that devil-may-care way only the foolish and young can justify. We didn’t last long together, less than two months, but we created so much drama in one another lives that we would become forever attached. Years later, after all had been done between us, she died in my arms.

People have a habit of dying around me.

When it came time to make preparations, her sister confided in me that she knew what dress to bury her in and when I saw it, it cut me deep because it was that very same dress we picked out that day so many years before. When I told her sister, she smiled because my former lover was serious about being buried in that dress and had told her sister. I wasn’t planning on attending her funeral, but her sister insisted.

I am not a practicing Christian. I don’t accept Jesus, or anyone else, as my savior, nor do I believe in a literal translation of the Bible, Old or New. However, I do think that some of the teachings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth are beautiful and sublime. My personal belief, borne of experiences and investigation, is that the core teachings of Jesus were corrupted for personal and political gain. Thomas Jefferson held similar views and he wrote a version of the Gospels, now known as the “Jeffersonian Bible.” In it, he extracted the parts he felt were contradictory to the core message of hope and love of the Nazarene. And believe me, there’s lots of contradiction in the Gospels.

When Jesus finds Mary Magdalene crying at the door of the tomb, he says to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” As I see it, Jesus wasn’t asking a rhetorical question. He wanted to know why we worry and sob and fret when hope is underneath everything, if we could just tap into it.

For me, Easter is about liberation, and it’s especially meaningful for a person like me who sometimes feels chained to moodiness and negativity too much of the time. The celebration of the resurrection is a chance for us to acknowledge Jesus’ message of hope and in so doing, grab the hope that is already there.

Anyone else notice that of all the people he showed himself to, it was the women first? In fact, of all the women, it wasn’t his mother, but Mary Magdalene to whom Jesus appeared first. I don’t take Jesus’ resurrection literally, but there is a message there that resonates with my own life. Jesus’ life, like mine, was a redemption song. And like Jesus, it was the women in my life who tended to me – tended to me through my own passage to a new life. Maybe this is saying something about the Feminine Principle and how far we have moved away from that healing force. For me, this was no accident of the Gospels. Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene because she, more than nay other disciple, believed in him. All those other bums, betrayed and denied him, didn’t they? ::grin::

When I cried at my ex-lover’s funeral, it seems as if I cried for all the loved ones I had never said good-bye to – the one’s whose funerals I didn’t attend. It was as if all that loss I was holding on to came out like a river. It was one the most liberating experiences in my life. I read somewhere the other day that the opposite of loss is finding. It’s a deceptively profound statement.

Grief is what we add on to loss. It is a learned behavior, specific only to some cultures. It is neither unavoidable nor universal. In some Buddhist cultures, for example, you will never see someone cry at a cremation. Their cultural perspective on death is one of acceptance in a way foreign to Western theories of grief and loss.

Similarly, when Jesus appeared to the disciples he asked, “Why are you troubled?” Jesus says to the disciples in Luke’s gospel when he appears to them after his “resurrection.”

My Buddhist practice has slowly transformed my view of grief – has actually opened the door for me to see that there’s an alternative to grief. It’s not that grief is wrong, only that there’s another possibility. Loss of a loved one can be viewed in a second way, a way that avoids the long days of aching, sometimes crippling grief.

Over the years since my ex-lover’s death, I have attended many funerals and have had two others die in my arms. I rarely cry at funerals now, because I understand death differently today. A monk once explained it to me in simple terms. “Have you ever been to a concert and experience the shouts of ‘more!’ coming from the audience when it came time to end?” he asked. “Usually, the musicians will play one or two encores, but eventually they have to pack up their gear and leave. I’ve experienced this many times and when I’m going home, I usually reflect on how great the music was and how lucky I was to have been there. I never felt grief at the end of a concert.”

And that is exactly how I experience death today. I see it as if a magnificent concert had come to an end. I revel in the wonderful performance. I was there shouting loudly, “More!” when it came to end the performance. My loved ones struggled to stay alive a little longer, but eventually they had to let go – they had to pack up their instruments and “go home.” Today, I choose to see instead what magnificent lives my friends and loved ones led. What powerful inspirations they were in my life. What shining powers of example. I reflect mostly how fortunate I was to have been in their lives to witness their glorious and beautiful power. Today, I walk away from funerals feeling a lot like I do after watching a great performance – exhilaration -- I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Grief is seeing only what has been taken away from you. The celebration of a life is recognizing all that we were blessed with, an expressing that gratitude. When I die, and we all will die sooner or later, I hope this is what people will feel for my own performance and that people will celebrate life and not just mourn death.

Whatever your belief, this has to be part of the message of the resurrection, whether you understand it as literal or not. That the concerts of our lives continuing reverberating and in that way create more life. That our lives are never ended, but live in our deeds and actions.

Love,

Eddie

But for Grace...

Hola Everybody,

I usually stay away from the mindless, mass media-fueled morbid curiosity of our celebrities, but as everyone knows by now, actor Heath Ledger died yesterday. While a conclusive autopsy has yet to be performed, it appears his death was brought on by an overdose of drugs.

I personally think there’s way too much attention being paid to this incident. The sad fact remains that literally thousands of people, old and young, rich and poor, famous and anonymous, died similar deaths yesterday. Many of my readers know of my own struggles with drugs and if you knew half my story, you would swear I’m a walking miracle. Even an atheist would shake her head in disbelief. Trust me...

I believe Mr. Ledger’s death isn’t in vain. His story, tragic as it is, leaves us all message. I realize many people will wonder aloud how such a beautiful young man -- talented, rich, and famous -- could seemingly throw away his life just like that. I think this is a mistake. People assume that happiness can be bought. That if only you hit the lottery or Oprah shills your book, or if you had more money, more talent, lived somewhere else, maybe had more looks, you would then be happy. If only is like state of mind that guarantees dissatisfaction.

And that is the lie.

Nothing outside of yourself can make you truly happy.

If you’re not happy right now, this very moment, then what the fuck makes you think you’ll be happy under other circumstances. In fact, I’m willing to bet my left nut that most of us would become even more unhappy if we were to receive a fraction of the things we prayed for.

No, Mr. Ledger’s death, as tragic as it was, wasn’t in vain. It teaches us all that happiness is not the domain of achievements, glory, adulation, and riches. Those are castles in the air -- fool’s gold. Some of us may look down on Mr. Ledger’s death and judge him. We might observe that he was a fool, an ingrate who didn’t appreciate his gifts. I say that but for Grace there go I. I know what it feels to be empty, or to lack meaning in life. I know what it feels to feel hopeless to the point that death seems like a welcome alternative. I know deeply what it’s like to live a life of quiet desperation, a smile on my face and my heart broken to pieces.

I know what it’s like to howl in pain alone at night and feel no one’s heed.

That kind of pain, dear readers, isn’t assuaged by money, fame, or success. And you all know this. You all have known pain at some time in your life. Perhaps – perhaps you might say you didn’t feel it to the extreme I did, but pain is pain, man. Who’s to say whose pain is more valid? We all lead lives of quiet desperation at some point, at some level we yearn to be understood, to be loved, to be embraced, and accepted. We feel that overwhelming and often unheeded need.

I can’t say with certainty what Mr. Ledger was feeling or what was going through his mind. Perhaps he just wanted to get high and escape the absurdity of a celebrity life gone awry. Maybe he had his own demons. None of us can say for sure. I will say, however, that his was a casualty of a war – the longest war. The war we wage within ourselves as we seek refuge in all the wrong places for all the wrong reasons.

I’m not going to join the bash the Heath Ledger bandwagon, or peek at his dead body and conjecture ruthlessly. I’ll tread softly because I know that I was one of the lucky ones. I did shit that would make Mr. Ledger’s actions pale in comparison, but I remain here – alive – and he passes on. Because of that, I consider him part of my fellowship, part of my humanity, so I will suspend my judgment. Instead, I take a moment to bow my head for Mr. Ledger and all the sick and suffering souls who died and those that still live not knowing that hope, freedom, and happiness exists right here, right now. Let their cries for help be a reminder of the preciousness of life no matter where you are or where you find yourself.

Love,

Eddie