Cyberpunk

Transparency: My Interpretation of a Selection of Billy Idol's Music
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Here I stand, atop the crest of what once was a thriving city, brown skin darkened and sunburnt, blue eyes scanning walking paths and roadways for signs of life no longer existent. The future imploded into the present, sixteen months ago, as the crow flies. Sixteen months, to the day.

Nearly five hundred days ago, the First Edict came down. None but those who agreed to implantation would be allowed to walk freely. Women, men, and children - natal and reborn - mowed down. To the left and right, forward, to the side, and kicked backward, carcasses of the dying and the dead littered the barren landscape. Handfuls escaped - mere handfuls out of billions - and of them, thousands were unable to overcome the combinations of noxious, black billows of strychnine and burning rubber, seeping through blood-bathed doorways and pucture-resistant window sealings that offered no barrier against the diamond-sharpened steel projectiles piercing through the moonlight. Preppers were caught unprepared. The unprepared died almost instantly. Lucky bastards.

I escaped through the underground tunnels buried deep below what used to be the primary seat of the Most Favored Nation. A diplomatic missionary, working in futility to avoid the inevitable chemical-laced cyber assaults. Tomorrow, they said. We'll work on that. Tomorrow. And tomorrow, they came.

Once the Nanos entered your cyberspace, that was it. Despite the safeguards, no living being was safe, no water or food unsealed fit for consumption, no air - even filtered - fit to breathe. All that was left were the military rations and freeze-dried victuals meant for astronauts and aquaformers, deep below oceans and disintegrating coral reefs.

Disinformation had convinced the populace the tunnels were fictional. Even at the highest levels of government, officials and ministers scoffed at the thought that such could exist. They died with laughter in their throats, unable to utter, "God," in the midst of their wretched gurgling and paralyzing gasps. Lucky bastards.

I had not agreed to be implanted. A line in a long-ago movie had said that death was more desirable than slavery. By blood and by choice, I became a member of that thriving culture, whose members could now be called a race - since most other ethnicities had perished, as the Nanos continued to spread their poison.

Religion had been abandoned and banned, just before the Nanostorm. That had been the first to go. Except among the fearless and dying, there was to be no religion at all. I had long thought that the root of all evil was religion, not money or the worship of it or other idols. The worship of religion had been the cause of every evil wrought by every descendant of Protogene and Mitochondria. Humankind had turned religion into an idol unto its own.

Blue eyes crying in the rain, how long had it been? Losing love and hope, and heaven, too. This vast dustbowl of sniper wind and rattling stones, water unseen in reefs and riverbeds for four hundred ninety three days. Remembering when the moon danced its final bow, just before the birth of the day exploded in my eyes. Once a ripening force for hues and blues, the explosion threatened to tear the very corneas away from my irises. I can still see, though. There is still some life within the science and technology that replaced my dilated and blackened eyes. At least I kept the blue. At least, they left me the blue.

Confession is good for the soul. I stole my lover's heart. I ripped it out with such force that the very vessels that kept it beating wilted in my dusty grasp. I could see the shape of things to come. I stopped my love's heart before my lover's eyes could see it, too. Am I making up a lie, you ask. Why would I? Would lie not, eventually, become truth - tearing apart the world it knew? No. I would not. No more murder, not of things past, nor of things to come. But I cannot stop the eclipse of emotion that turns light to night, faster than it ever did before.

When I came to this place, I knew the evil that lurked within. As if evil were a shadow, tangible only to the naked soul. But in order to believe in evil, in order to wage war against evil, one must break the Second Edict. And one mustn't do that.

The Second Edict, No Religion, was - not unexpectedly - not well-received, for all temples, churches, mosques, icons, stars, signs, statues - all of them, gone. It came, in fact, before the First. Like words on pages of ancient texts, reordered, so as to appear in false ascendancy. It is not the order of things.

Destroyed by fire, acid, demolition, implosion - certainly, explosion - gone. All outside structures and relics used in corporate religious ceremony and service, gone. Homes, raided. Books, burned. All gone. Like the Templar Knights, anyone found with any item related to organized religious expression were given two options: die with it or die without it. Where any two were gathered, they died crying out to their god or goddess or whatever-gender deity. No animal sacred. No ritual, left unbroken. Natural beauty had been destroyed, as had sacred stone structures and intentionally-carved mazes. Religion, as it was known before the Second Edict - which had come before the First - is dead. Does it matter, now which came first? Six hundred and fifty eight days without faith may as well be five hundred days with dead water. It is still gone. No evil, no good. No religion. Shangri-la is dead.

Nine Years

How can it have been nine years since my last post? Nine years. A divorce Another marriage A terrible, terrible loss I feel it and him, to this very day A near-divorce A reconciliation A grandson 50 A lifetime Love, hate, anger, despair . . . certainly, joy. Some, yes. Uncertainty. Fear. Life. Death. Accidents. Education. Tax evasion, theoretically. Life. Can't wait to get started again. A new one. But, this one, Sis This one Will always be here For you

Bob on a T, and not the crossin kind

So yesterday, I saw Bob on a Christmas tee-shirt in the  mall. Now, what was I doin' in a mall, you say? Well, nothin' spritely, just me and my lover-dee-do walkin' around and enjoyin the silence of nobody knowin our names. Sweet times . . .

Oh, didjall know that me and my first Honey was back in the saddle again? Prolly not, cuz see seein RBD on a tee and havin just said about my blog to my lover-dee-dee a coupla days ago made me member that I ain't been here in a bit. So we are, and it's awesome, to say the least . . . almost a year y'see, and she gave up everythin just to come home to me. Sweet times . . . yea . . . sweet times

Soz anyhoot, we were walkin thru the mall and I see Bob on a Christmas tee, and I near busted my britches I's laughin s'hard. "BOB ON A CHRISTMAS TSHIRT!" sez I. And as I come round the kiosk, the boy inside is near bustin his britches, too, cuz he knowed he got CAUGHT! BUSTID by a BOB-KNOWER! We wuz both laffin and laffin and nobody knowed what we was laffin about, ya see, so when we looked round at all the peoples lookin round at us, we just laffed even harder still. 

And as I walked away, nearly outta sight, I told him I'd wish him a Merry Christmas, but then he'd just put Bob on it anyway. But that's alright, sez I, Merry Christmas anyway, and have a good night!

Love and Babies

1. They always come at inconvenient times.

2. If they waited until we were ready or prepared for them, they would never get here.

3. When you least expect it, something magickal and beautiful arrives, even before the anguish and pain from just a few moments ago has had a chance to subside.

4. They grow and change too fast for us to keep up, and too slow for us to not be impatient.

5. Most importantly, they are both gifts from God, and if we do not treasure them, they will be gone before we know it.

Wonder, Grace, and the Great Gilly Hopkins

Ah, Gilly! The child who spent most of her inner energy wishing for stability, while her actions indicated that she wanted otherwise . . . How often have we each encountered those very same conflicting emotions – and reacted with similar results? We wish for someone or something upon which we can depend, yet our behavior often suggests that the opposite is true. The answer would seem simple: That upon which we concentrate most is often what unfolds in our lives. If we concentrate most on what we do not want, then that is what Universe will send our way. In some circles, it is believed that Universe does not know the difference between I-want and I-do-not-want; Universe only knows where each person’s energy is being directed, and so sends those things or situations that have attracted the most attention. Gilly put most of her energy into pushing away what she did not want, rather on embracing than what she did want. Of course, for most of her life, she did not know what she truly wanted; like most of us, since she knew more about what she did not want, she put more emphasis on that, rather than on finding ways to attract what she did want. It is no wonder, then, that when her heart’s true desire came in the form of Mrs. Trotter and the people in her world, Gilly did not recognize the gift she had been given. Has this not been true of each of us at various points in our journeys?


Like many of us, Gilly truly wanted dependability in the midst of contingency. All of life is contingent, even in the best of circumstances. A stray bullet, an errant driver, a well-timed bolt of lightning . . . any of these can disrupt and end life as we know it. Within the tiniest fraction of a moment, the life that we thought we knew and loved could vanish, leaving each person to face the choice of whether to pick up the pieces left behind or to start anew from nothing at all. Was this the choice, we sometimes wonder, that God faced? Was there some cosmic Big Bang where the inhabitants of a world similar to this blew themselves up, leaving God with a choice of whether to pick up the pieces and begin again, or to start anew with a voice in the midst of a void? The essential nature of life, from which we often run, would seem to be the very simple fact that none of this has to be as it is, right in this moment. All that we think we know could dissolve, and the dissolving disillusionment that follows is part of a process that most of us seem to fear and try to avoid at all costs. That is where Gilly – and we – make our most telling mistake: We begin concentrating so much of our energies on (avoiding) contingency that we fail to recognize and embrace the dependability we so earnestly desire from within. Desire, like love, is static until we focus energy on it. In other words, until desire becomes a verb with which we imbue with energetic action – showing, seeking, discovering – it can only remain a word on a page, sometimes less than a fleeting thought through the mind. Until we put our hearts and souls into living the dependability we so desire, into – in Gandhi’s words – becoming the change we wish to see, we will continue to attract that which gets the most attention: the chaos of contingency.

The key would seem to lie in embracing contingency as part of life’s process, thereby freeing us to focus our energies on becoming the dependability that we seek in the midst of the chaos. How can one depend on one’s faith, if one does not concentrate one’s energies on being faithful? How can one depend on God’s love and grace in times of trouble, if one does not concentrate one’s energies on being loving and grace-filled in the midst of the chaos that others experience? Rarely does God’s grace and love come gift-wrapped in a package that falls on us from outer space. Most often, God sends love and grace through other people in ways that can only be recognized from within, first. In order for grace and love to be felt from within, it would seem that it must come from within, first. This is the lesson that Gilly – who represents each of us children of God – learns late and, of course, the hard way. She, battered by her frequently broken heart, does not recognize that she has arrived at the home for which she has most longed. Life’s contingencies have ripped the rug from under her so many times that in an act of final desperation, she rips her own rug from under her own feet, and must live with the consequences that she has created. Fortunately for Gilly – and for us – the story does not end there, for in doing so, Gilly ends up in the home of the one living entity who helped create her, just as we will eventually return to the Home of the One Living Entity who created each of us. The wonder of it all is that for the many times we get lost and lose ourselves, we make it Home at all. It is enough to make one wonder whether God has installed the Spirit as some sort of homing device, so that no matter how lost we cause our souls to be, they return to the One who is never lost, but only hidden deep within.

Gilly Hopkins is great, indeed, as is each of us. Through her story, we can interpret our own journeys. For, is it not so that each of us goes through many foster homes – places that were dependable only for a season – before we finally reach Home? Is it not so that when we feel tossed aside by contingency, we become confused into thinking that contingency created us, and so we must also become contingent in our own interactions with ourselves and with others – and with God? Is it not so that after a lifetime of creating contingency, we forget what true dependability really looks like, and so, looking through our human eyes leads us to fail to see it when it does arrive? And, is it not so that it is only after we have propelled ourselves from the embrace of true dependability that hindsight can finally show us what we have missed, and that it is only then that we begin to realize that we must put energy into becoming what we want to have, instead of putting that energy into not having what we do not want?

When you are hungry for eggs, it is pointless to reach into the refrigerator with only the intent of not grabbing the bacon. For when your only intent is to not grab the bacon, sure enough, it will be the bacon that leaps into your hands first; the eggs will never even have a chance. Likewise, when dependability is what we seek, it is pointless to reach within Universe, with only the intent of avoiding contingency. For if we reach within Universe, with only the intent of avoiding contingency, sure enough, it will be contingency that will leap toward us first; dependability will never even have a chance.

My Story: Depression

In August 1985, at the age of 17, I discovered that I was pregnant. Young and inexperienced, but with a pretty good sense of self, I decided that I was neither ready nor willing to be a mother. I wanted to have an abortion, but parental permission was denied. I considered adoption, but the closer I got to having my son, the more I realized that I would not be emotionally strong enough to give him up. Over the years, I have had friends and beloved ones who have had abortions, and because I know that it is such a heart wrenching and soul searing decision, I admire them for the people they are and I think that their strength in the face of what had to be the most difficult decisions they have ever had to make is to be both commended and respected. I did not choose to not have an abortion; that choice was made for me. Like any medical procedure, I believe that such decisions are best left to the people directly involved and their primary medical care providers. But this is not a story about teen pregnancy or abortion; it is a story about depression.

Sixteen years after my son was born, I suffered a devastating emotional breakdown. A strong woman, I suddenly found myself unable to cope with living in the world I had created, and so I called my mother and begged her to allow me to come live with her. It was 2001, and it would be the first time since my son was very small that I would be living under my mother's roof. The intergenerational factor notwithstanding, I had also come out as a lesbian – something that my mother had come to believe would surely send my soul to hell. It made life difficult, to say the least. But this is not a story about being a lesbian; it is a story about depression.

A few months after moving into my mother's house, I secured a job working as an administrative assistant at a non-profit organization. This organization provided educational opportunities for healthcare providers in the fields of obstetrics and gynecology, so that they could keep their training and licensure current by earning needed continuing education credits through coursework and practical experience. The nonprofit also advocated for legislation that reinforced a woman's right to make her own pregnancy termination choices, should such become necessary – a position that I highly respect and value. As I progressed within the organization, my job became more specialized, and I began work in the area of membership acquisition. Part of my responsibilities entailed reading the journal articles published by members of our association in various medical journals.

Several factors came into play, between November 2001 and February 2003: a new living situation, a new job, a child who was angry at having to move in his junior year of high school, falling in love, getting kicked out of my mother's home for being a "practicing" lesbian, moving in with my new lover, a chance encounter that led to PTSD flashbacks from childhood and adult sexual traumas, and intense therapy to learn coping mechanisms for all of those situations. When I read an article by one of my association's doctors, detailing an abortive procedure that required the insertion of a needle into an unborn's brain and literally sucking the life out of that fetus before inducing its forced expulsion, I began having panic attacks every single day as I walked into the office. While I am strongly supportive of a woman's right to choose, discovering the details of this specific procedure caused me no end of heartache and regret. In the end, my then-partner encouraged me to resign my position, as it had become clear that along with everything else, a complete mental and spiritual meltdown was imminently approaching.

The whirlwind hit with a force that I had never encountered before. Nightmares, daymares, flashbacks . . . emotional imprisonment. My mind was no longer a safe place to be. Over the next two years, I would watch myself slowly slide into a chasmic abyss from which there seemed no escape; I turned from a confident and self-assured woman into this near-agoraphobic child that I hardly recognized. I dared not look in the mirror, for fear of coming face-to-face with what I had become.

I had a few saving graces during that time.
• My then-partner did not abandon me, even though promise after promise remained unfulfilled. For instance, I had promised that if I were allowed to quit my job, I would keep the house spotless and have dinner on the table every night. It was understandably disappointing and anger-inducing when many days, I felt triumphant if I could just get out of bed and wash the dishes. There were many arguments during that time, but hindsight has revealed that we were both doing the best we could while struggling with and against each other – and our selves – in very unfamiliar territory.

• Another saving grace came in the form of our choir director, and by extension, our church itself. Our choir director became my rock, my anchor. She saw into me in ways that I kept hidden, even from my therapist. She held me when I wept, and she taught me how to be strong again, through the most gentle and firm ways imaginable. She was actually the first person I encountered when the flashbacks began, and from that moment, she made me a priority in her life. At 2:00 AM, when the nightmares kept me awake, I called her and she helped me go back to sleep. In the middle of the afternoon, when I grew silent and withdrew, she called right at the moment when the walls started to close in on me. And she recognized my penchant for isolating. So she got me to use my administrative wizadry to help her keep our music ministry – and her office – organized. I was SO GRATEFUL for a reason to get out of the house, out of my own mind's prison, and to keep functioning. If I needed to not be there, she understood and supported me. But when she could see that I had too much time on my hands, she filled my hands so that my mind could heal. She became my first mentor in the ministry, and she will always embody those qualities in a mom that my own mother was unable to provide.

• By extension, my church is also a saving grace for me. After much encouragement from my then-partner, I underwent training to become a deacon, and just the opportunity to be surrounded by people who take care of people – and to be of help in taking care of every one of them – provided me the opportunity to be cared for, myself. I think that this can occur in any situation – a hospital, nursing home, church – anyplace that provides sanctuary and care of others is such a healing place to give and receive the gifts of love and grace. When I started ministering to the needs of others, I found my own needs being ministered to, as well. And as I say "ministering", I am not just speaking of the classic meaning of ministry – in a church – but of the overarching meaning: the caregiving, the support, the doing-for-others-ness that occurs when I give freely of myself, not expecting or wanting any sort of payment in return. I find a little bit of me in the people I help, and I have come to accept that that is not selfish or co-dependent. It is interdependent. My health does not depend on whether they need me. My health depends, in part, on my own willingness to use my gifts to help myself to help others to help themselves.

• My therapist was and is a saving grace for me. In those first few months, we saw each other three times a week, every week. She was another anti-agoraphobic agent. I had to get out of the house to see her, which meant riding the bus and train for up to two hours each way. My MP3 player and I got very close in those first few months, and I still keep it in reserve for when I have to be in the city, riding public transportation. Probably the most important thing my therapist did for me is twofold: First, she gave me homework for every day between our sessions; and second, she put the responsibility for my recovery into my own hands. It was my responsibility to put into practice the tools and techniques she taught me; it was up to me to journal or draw or talk through those events that, when locked away, only ate at my soul and at my life. It was all up to me, and I have no doubt that if I were still seeing her three times a week after six months, she would have recommended me to another therapist. Her goal was that I get better, and her level of professionalism dictated that if I weren't showing signs of progress, then she would have suggested I continue my treatment elsewhere. That inspired a level of trust within me that I had not felt in a very long time.

I would like to say that I am completely depression free now, and that all of life is rosy and happy, every moment of every day. That would be a lie. A very wise friend recently told me that "health is a choice." It is a choice that I have to make every single day – and, to be honest, sometimes I have to make that choice moment-by-moment. I still battle my depression because like my sciatica and pinched nerves, depression is a chronic disease that – left untreated – will eat away at my core, and will eventually erode my sense of self, my relationships, and my life. That same wise friend says that, "depression kills, but with a very long and slow timeline." If I am not careful, I will not see that it is destroying me until I look around and see the destruction it leaves in the wake of my life.

I am definitely on "happy pills"; Zoloft has been a Godsend. But Zoloft alone is not enough. Without the care of my therapist, the love of several dear people, and my own willingness to push myself beyond what I thought were my limitations, I would still be locked in my own home, a prisoner of my own mind. But the most important thing I think I did was that I let go, and I did what I was told to do. I stopped struggling, stopped giving my therapist and my friends and my beloved ones reasons for why I could not, and I made the decision to just get up and do what I was told. I discovered that because I stopped trusting my parents' abilities to act in my own best interests, as a very young child, that I had a lot of trouble picking the right people to trust in, as I grew into an adult. Of the many people I have chosen to be in my life over the last 40 years, only a very small handful have proven to be ones that I want to grow old and die with. But then, that handful is not the handful that I have chosen; they are the ones whom I have encountered at the very most unlikely of times and have stuck with me, even when I did not want to stick with myself. (There is a lesson in there, I am sure of it.) But once I decided to just do what I was told – to trust the love of my therapist and my family-of-choice – a whole world opened up to me, and I have not regretted a single moment of this new ride that I am on. The beginning was hard and shaky and there were times when I got off, threw up, and then got right back on again. And there are still those upside down moments, backward turns, and major upheavals (spiritual, emotional, and spiritual) but I still do what I am told, especially in those moments when I have to admit that I do not know what I am supposed to do.

I had to decide that I wanted to be healthy. I still have to decide that I want to be healthy. Part of that decision is realizing that I do not always know what is best for me – that most times, it is the people who love me who know what is best for me. Someone looked in and found a place where I could come, just as I was, to work on my outside while I and my therapist worked on my inside. Someone encouraged me to push myself when I thought I was too weak to even want to get out of bed most days. Someone cared about me and did not let me keep playing those self-destructive tapes that drove me to kick myself while I was already down. Someone showed me grace and love, and showed me that I had grace and love to give, when I thought that that I had none and deserved neither. The people in my life were not just there for me. They were there with me – pulling, pushing, encouraging, cajoling, and forcing me to see things and do stuff that my mind would not allow my heart to admit I wanted to do. Of all of those, I thank God most for the parts where they pushed and forced me, because if they had not, then the pulling and cajoling and encouraging would have only netted moments of laughter – rather than the life of joy that I am privileged to be an active participant in.

I still have to choose to be healthy. At least now, though, it is not nearly as hard a choice as it once was. My mind is a safer place to be, and thank God for the amount of work that it takes to make sure it stays that way.

Top Ten . . .

Reasons Why I Like Hangin Out With God

1. God talks back. Sometimes.

2. God's got the single parenting thing down to a science.

3. Hangin out with God means that I don't have to be the center of the universe.

4. It doesn't hurt my feelings when God laughs at me.

5. I don't have to vie for God's attention.

6. God never breaks a Commandment.

7. God doesn't hate or kill. God lets US decide - and live with the consequences of - what we hate and what we use to kill ourselves. And each other.

8. God doesn't care what I wear to class or what my hair looks like or whether I have brown, pink, golden, or brick-colored skin.

9. God loves what God makes. No exceptions.

10. God never needs God-Time.

WAITWAITWAIT . . . There's more . . .

11. God gets slack.

12. God is not Bob. God is not dead. God is God.

13. God is the only Thing that justs . . . everything.

14. God makes me smile, probably about as often as I make God laugh.

15. If I put on an alb and I'm talking out loud while walking alone down the street, nobody will even suspect the insanity that lurks within. That's cool as shit!

16. Playing in the Presence of God is a helluva lot more fun than crying in the absence of man.