It was a couple of years ago that I was wondering just what Michael Stipe was singing about in the R.E.M. classic “Losing my Religion”. For the prudes or the ultra-religious, the title might suggest the song is about a conflict in faith of the Divine. It’s a crisis of faith, indeed, but it’s faith in ones own self and self confidence.

In simplicity, it’s about someone not able to work up the courage to talk to the object of their affection:

How can people continue to defend Barry Bonds?

I was stupid enough to go onto Scout.com (formerly FanHome) and read some fo the discussion that is going on with regards to the current Steroid Scandal in Major League Baseball and the fact Bary Bonds acknowledged using a creme that was loaded with Steroids…

“He did nothing illegal”

Let me get this straight, Barry Bonds and those like him — from Jose Canseco to Ken Camanitti to Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield — have sullied the reputation and integrity of Major League Baseball to an extent far great than the Pete Rose betting scandal fo the 1980′s. They may have drawn the aw of fans by their feats but they have cheated for more than a decade at various stages in their careers.

Canseco had been a juicer for a while, Camanitti won the MVP whiel juicing. Giambi did the same… And the entire 1998 Home-Run Chase has been thrown into doubt. Say it ain’t so, Mark, say it ain’t so Sammy….

And someoen wants to say that Barry Bonds has doen nothing illegal?

Look at the children that look up to him — sickenly — and those who have been awed by him. Look at the money that thousands, if not millions, have invested in the Giants and in other Major League Baseball rpoperties while they have been led to believe these athletes have accomplished these feats on their own…. Some with their faith in God alone and some with raw skill. All of this is cast into doubt… “God was on my side, as was BALCO!”

It’s funny how I grew up lovign baseball in an age where 40 home runs was a grandoise feet. I hated Barry Bonds then and I continue to do so now… Ryne Sandberg was a respected but loathed adversary and Howard Johnson was the man, at least for me.

Sandberg hit 40 home runs and looked like a stick figure…. Howard Johnson was a 30-30 player and though he had a scruffy beard, he was virtually invisible compared to how Barry Bonds and other muscle-head players have looked the last 7 years.

Oh, and 1991 Barry? He looked like a lanky kid with the most pompous home-run poise to boot.

DOn’t defend Barry Bonds for his transgressions — and that’s what they are, transgressions. It’s time for him, Jason Giambi and others to sleep in the bed they made… And personally, I think a ban from baseball is the only thing that will do in this instance.

Last time I talked about anything that had to do with faith, the chips were down for me and people / things continued to screw the pooch for me…

Well, thank you America, you have done a mighty job filling me with doubt and ridding me of my faith and hope for the future.

My older borther Michael sent me a quote from Terry Goodkind’s Faith of the Fallen which seesm rather fitting at this point.

“The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is, is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced.

“Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality – it’s our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see.

“If I fail to use reason in this struggle, if I close my eyes to the reality of what is, in favor of what I would wish, then we will both die in this, and for nothing. We will be but two more among uncounted millions of nameless corpses beneath the gray, gloomy decay of mankind. In the darkness that will follow, our bones will be meaningless dust.

“Eventually, perhaps a thousand years from now, perhaps more, the light of liberty will again be raised up to shine over a free people, but between now and then, millions upon millions of people will be born into hopeless misery and have no choice but to bear the weight of the Order’s yoke. We, by ignoring reason, will have purchased those mountains of broken bodies, the wreckage of lives endured but never lived.”

I love Judith Steinberg Dean. I respect the hell out of her as a mother, a wife, a doctor and of course a shy woman who doesn’t want the limelight. That being said, I also fear for her and Howard’s safety in the very near future.

Judy Dean, as her maiden name might clue you in about, is jewish… There is nothing wrong with Jewish people or those of Hebrew decent but of course there is always some ignorant moron somewhere in America that feels threatened by someone of this ethnicity.

I don’t want Judy to be a target of anyone’s hate. I don’t want Judy or Howard to be made examples of with regards to anti-Israeli sentiment. Howard Dean, Governor, Medical Doctor and candidate for the presidency of the United States, isn’t Jewish but the fact that he married someone of the Jewish faith might continue to make him a target of anti-Israeli sentiments.

Now, by my “anti-Israel” statements, I am not standing up for Israel. In fact, I find them just as guilty of terrorism as they keep finger-pointing towards the Palestinians. That being said, Israel has nothing to do with a medical doctor from Vermont.

I just hope, if any of these racist idiots are still lurking out there, that they realize this and don’t try to set one example or another by trying to commit some type of assault or attack against Judy Dean.

Well, I’ve been feeling :puke since late last night. Honestly, I was up until 6 AM because my stomach was doing knots and I couldn’t have slumber sweep me away. It didn’t help that I had stayed in bed until noon the day before….:sleepy I gotta get back to normal hours.

At any rate, Mike gave me The Matrix Reloaded as requested as a late birthday present (speaking of late birthday’s – my silence towards other’s birthday’s is only because of other’s silence twoards mine). I had seen the movie back in June so it wasn’t like I was unaware what happened…

But come on, folks… you should know me. Well, maybe you don’t. I happen to be deaf and use a device to help me hear — but most conversations are tough on me. So I depend on captions with TV and the like.

What does this have to do with Re-Woah-ded? It’s time for my delayed review on the film now that i understand just WTF was going on (not to say I didn’t through watching the movie with just the images on screen).

I look at this movie and I watch it and after dropping all the rehetoric — “It’s about choice”, “Cause and effect”, “It’s understanding that choice and why you made it” and all the other stuff — I find the film’s aim to be about Faith. Undying faith.

How did I jump to this conclusion? Neo being ridiculed by the Architect for having hope. The fact that Morpheus is at a cross roads (“I have lived a dream and now that dream is gone from me.”), and how much the people of Zion and even the machines must believe in Neo — or believe in themselves for that matter — in order to survive the coming onslaught from the Machines.

There’s the love story that you see in this film which is faith in a bond between two people (sidenote – the scene with the cave and Neo making it with Trinity could have been edited out and re-shot with just the two of them in bed in the warm afterglow. That might have moved the movie along faster).

I don’t know, maybe I am missing something here — maybe I just enjoy the movie enough to not care to see the contradictions that the critics are talking about… I see this as a film of faith. As will Revolutions end up being.

Keanu Reeves has said the movies are about “Birth, Life and Death” which scares me a bit because I don’t want to see Neo get killed off to save everyone else. I want to see everyone else saved somehow with Neo leading the way…..

Oh well, so much as for that.

I got my writing assignment back from Herr Fisher and need to work on that sometime soon. I don’t know when I will however. Sorta discouraged and sort of just blah right now with writing — though this entry came off my mind/fingers pretty well. We’ll see what happens.

To talk about today before last night, I just had another physical therapy session where I surprised myself with leg strength. Oh, I am no where near where I would hope to be, but I’m happy with the results.

For those not in the know, and I haven’t talked about it too much on here, I have been working with a physical therapist twice a week (named Bob, built guy, pretty cool) doing simple exercises to get some strength and possibly some balance back. What would be routine for others is a challenge for me right now. :mad

So going back a few hours, I had an idle conversation with a shrink online. Yes, a shrink (or someone who claimed they used to be one) who was online. She had been in an auto accident and instead of acting like a shrink, I felt like she was trying to new-age me with things. “Close your eyes, open your mind… put on three doors down. You are a freebird” — say what?

It depressed me, a bit, with things she told me. Angered me as well. Though she could understand my pain-and the difficulties I am facing right now, she didn’t understand my life, nor did she make sense in some of that crap she was telling me — “have faith in your mind first” (I have faith in my mind, but this isn’t the sense she meant it).

It got frustrating. Especially after I started talking to her again this morning (well, she started talking to me) and she asked me if I am ever humorous after she said something that i guess I was supposed to take as a joke… :rolleyes

Anyway, I finished up a story last night. I’m cooling off with it right now and I will go back and edit it a few times over the next few days/weeks. I’m also more than willing to send this thing to would-be guinea pigs… :tongue

So I forgot to bring up Thursday Night and what I was up to to keep myself busy but not keep my mind off problems entirely…

Michelle and Josh came around. They had both stopped by during my hospital stint and were a refreshing change of pace from the day to day. We just watched some flicks together and had a good time…

…And up until this movie-watching stint, I didn’t know how GAY the opening of Reservoir Dogs is… :tongue

There we are, sitting and watching the flick (Michelle had never seen it) and Tim Roth is going nuts because he’s been shot in the gut and in a lot of pain… Well, Tim and Harvey Keitel share a few intimate moments as Keitel tries to comfort Roth and Tim (Mr. Orange) ends up telling Harvey (Mr. White / “Larry”) to hold him… And Mr. White starts trying to build up Mr. Orange’s confidence and calm him down by combing Mr. Orange’s hair and asking him “Who’s a tough guy.,..” in a rather serene voice…

The entire fucking movie I am cracking jokes about that when Roth is on screen. “Hold me, Larry! Hold me! I’m a tough guy! I’m a tough guy!” There’s that cop who gets his ear cut off (:puke), Roth wakes up after passing out from blood loss and takes out Mr Blonde…

“Hey… Hey you… What’s your name?”
“Marvin… Marvin Nash…”
“Hold me, Marvin! Hold me! Don’t leave me, Marvin!”

I mean, I apologize to Quentin Tarantino and the guys in this movie because I absolutely love Reservoir Dogs and the work of some of these actors (Tim Roth especially)…. But that is the funniest, most closet homosexual shit I have seen. I started cracking jokes about having a Reservoir Dogs drinking game too. “When ever K-BILLY comes on, you take a drink…. Whenever Mr. Orange says ‘Hold me!’ you take a drink… Whenever Joe acts like an asshole, you take a drink… Whenever someone says ‘Dick’ you take a drink…” (that last word alone would have you drunk before the opening credits)…

We ended up watching Southpark later on and of course my entry on Southpark is up — you can read my take on that.…

At any rate, I got a first hand taste of the sick sorta need of having someone special in your life — well, sorta. I started missing what I have had in the past by watching Josh and Michelle together. It made me long tenderness. I haven’t had it in the past, per se, just someone to imagine it with… even that non-physical experience that I have had, I started longing. Living on the concept of emotion between two people is a very tough thing and I guess that’s one place I had faith… Faith in the emotion and pursuing it any way possible until things finally align so that the physical could be pursued. One way street though…

Getting back to the subject of Thursday… Michelle is determined to have another movie night sometime soon and get me to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now, I’ve never been a horror buff but then again – when you’re watching movies with friends, you can watch about anything and enjoy it… :smile

I will find no rest here. I heard her voice inside my head…. She said to me, even now, there is hope left, but I cannot see it. It is long since we had any hope. My father is a noble man, but his rule is failing, and our people lose faith — Boromir (Sean Bean), Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

I’m not taking encouragement very well right now when people tell me that things will get better … And as much as I am trying to have faith that things will improve and they will fall where they are supposed to, I can’t keep it without evidence of something getting better for me instead of something staying pat or getting worse..

It hit me pretty bad at Andy’s place today. The place is a virtual construction zone and I only have compliments for what he is doing with the house… At the same time, it panged at me and hurt with the realization I couldn’t help him out with the house like I want to. The most I can do is stumble in and out because my body has failed me, even though there is will power left and a humbled soul inside me….

Even now there is hope left, but I cannot see it….

I can’t grip reality, only fantasy. I ought to see a shrink but then again they would only confirm things i already know about myself and give me solutions that I have already heard and thought of and probably try to put me on drugs to cure me with more chemicals… Which I wouldn’t want. I don’t want to fake my way to feeling better. I want to achieve it with things improving…. And yet when I think of how to achieve it, the dream is what I set as a benchmark… Which isn’t realistic and yet it’s what I want…

I don’t know if I am screwed up in the head or someone that should be applauded for holding on to their wants and not compromising…. Yet my wants are compromised by the fact that maybe God didn’t plan it the way I was hoping he did — or that it will only fall that way with time…

I could close this with the “it is long since we had any hope” but that wouldn’t be the truth…

Back a few years ago, I went ahead and bought The White Album (this was before I lost my hearing) and tried to make heads and tails of it. It was a lot of songs I had never heard before and some of them to this day I have not heard. My main reason for buying the album wasn’t because I heard it was the prime CD at the time for some rockers (which it was, oddly) but becasue of the Paul Is Dead clues that came with the album and certain songs on it (Back in the USSR, Obladi-Oblada).

There was one song I listened to – it was a ballad by John Lennon, which seemed sort of odd because this was John we are talking about, that he wrote to Yoko (everything he was writing at the time went to Yoko) that I found appealing in it’s simplicity and it’s melody. Yet I had the song play in my head sometimes with people I liked or about people I liked and things either didn’t work out or they fell apart. I started to blame the song – does that sound crazy or what? It’s not like any given song can curse a relationship or something like that…

Yet I still blamed the song and if I ever started thinking of it I would shun it from my mind because I took it as a kiss of death for things and oddly enough it seemed to be.

Yet I think of the lyrics now and look at the words themselves and think to my life and wonder if the reason things didn’t work out was because the past girls didn’t fit what the lyrics said? Or maybe I’m thinking too much if I have a song on my mind with people anyway?

What happens with someone who comes into my life does fit the lyrics and my thoughts mirror those of lyrics? I’ve been wondering that when the song popped into my head earlier this week… I haven’t fought it off like in the past. Maybe that explains the current? Then again, maybe I just need a bit of Faith to understand that song lyrics don’t influence the course of life and that I should just let things play out?

I Will (Lennon/McCartney)

Who knows how long I’ve loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely lifetime
If you want me to–I will.

For if I ever saw you
I didn’t catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same.

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we’re together
Love you when we’re apart.

And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
For the things you do endear you to me
You know I will
I will.

I don’t know if I should be writing about this topic or not because I am not the best guy to go to when it comes to Faith in things. But at the same time I need to at least express my thought son the subject and my own search for it.

Now, what is faith? Faith is a sort of blind trusting of things, letting the chips fall where they may and trusting that they will fall in a way that is OK by you. At the same time Faith is believing that things are going to work out of the best and everything happens for a reason.

I know I have lived life faithless and in a lot of ways I continue to live life that way — think I am the only one in charge of my own destiny and can influence things that are out of my control. I wanted to do what i could in my power to show how much I cared. At other times, I’ve been left so alone that I felt as though no one in the world would put a heavy amount of trust in me, even though friends were laying emotions and thoughts on me. I was looking for someone — I didn’t know who or where or when — who would put some faith in me over things. Someone specific and yet someone I didn’t know.

Faith — I can thank my parents and then myself for abandoning the divine faith… I got out of the habit of going to church at a young age and that was the first seeds of doubt that were laid. When I went to church, I never understood why I was going… Or how I was supposed to pray (was it just wishing?), and I guess I didn’t have the faith then for God to go ahead and show me the way. Going to a religion class on weeknights was sort of the same thing – I was learning what they wanted me to learn but I wasn’t taking it all in and understanding what it was. Maybe I was too young? I like to think that with a lot of things that I started a year before most kids did. I didn’t skip a grade, it was that I started school a year early (pre school and then regular school) and that effected how I did things.

So where am I now with this Faith? In a lot of ways I am lost and yet I am trying to put my faith in some things again. It’s difficult because I want to be the one in control or do what I can to influence an outcome and yet I should show enough faith in people to realize that it’s their choice and their decision how things go and I know they have made the right decisions more times than not and I should trust their judgment. I don’t, however, want to express that faith in the government, who does things beyond my control and makes decisions that I do not endorse. I have control over my government and yet as a member of the US — I am dependent on others having a like mind on things. Instead of doing that, they show that blind faith more times than not and it’s not good for the world. Faith in religion and faith in government are two separate things.

Faith in people is entirely different and yet so much the same I can’t even comprehend.

Right now I need to show more faith than I ever have in this life and at the same time — my faith is really balancing on the edge of a blade. Part of me wants to believe that things happen for a reason and that they fall where they may because something leads to something else… (see Signs ) And yet at the same time, if things don’t work out a certain way, all faith might be lost. All beliefs that I should put faith in people’s hearts and their decisions will be thrown to the curb. I feel like a dick because of this – who am I to stand up and try to make my own personal wants what come to pass? At the same time, knowing how I would be (and this is a pun it would seem) faithful makes me really want to push because I don’t want anyone to lose out on something.

Faith — the faithless heathen that I am wants it, and the manipulative bastard that I am will only keep it if things work out a certain way. I’m sorry, God, that I’m like this. I’m sorry to the world that someone with a big heart can’t show trust in the way things will work out…