Thursday, December 24, 2009
Miracles
A good friend of mine just had a close brush with death.
He had a heart attack. And his heart stopped beating on the way to the hospital.
The nurse riding in the ambulance defibrillated the heart and normal heartbeat was restored. My friend says that now he believes in miracles!
The whole process got me to look at what I call miracles. And certainly a heart that stops beating...and then starts again is what I would call a miracle!
I was delighted that he was still on the planet. And that miracle gave me a bounce in my step, and I could feel an appreciation in myself for my just being here too, and for a moment, I felt that all was the way it was supposed to be.
So, what is wonderful about a miracle is not only the miracle itself, but the fact that it made me appreciate what I would normally call "the ordinary"...and then I could see the miracle in the ordinary too! In fact everything became a miracle!!
And then I remembered a quote from Albert Einstein. He said:
There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Amen….
©2009 subhan schenker
A good friend of mine just had a close brush with death.
He had a heart attack. And his heart stopped beating on the way to the hospital.
The nurse riding in the ambulance defibrillated the heart and normal heartbeat was restored. My friend says that now he believes in miracles!
The whole process got me to look at what I call miracles. And certainly a heart that stops beating...and then starts again is what I would call a miracle!
I was delighted that he was still on the planet. And that miracle gave me a bounce in my step, and I could feel an appreciation in myself for my just being here too, and for a moment, I felt that all was the way it was supposed to be.
So, what is wonderful about a miracle is not only the miracle itself, but the fact that it made me appreciate what I would normally call "the ordinary"...and then I could see the miracle in the ordinary too! In fact everything became a miracle!!
And then I remembered a quote from Albert Einstein. He said:
There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Amen….
©2009 subhan schenker
Wall Street, Deception and Exploitation
I just noticed that justice was served today. The judge said that the case was about deception and exploitation; that it was an “exploitation of people’s emotions and money.” The scoundrels were sent to jail and were barred from profiteering on their criminal activities for the next four years!
So, at last, justice caught up with some of the Wall Street robber barons?
Well not exactly. This court decision was rendered against the Balloon Boy’s parents – 90 days for the father and 20 days for the mother – for their escapades in trying to get publicity. But the significance is there in its comparison to what has happened to the crafters of the worst financial crisis this country has seen in eighty years. Over a year has passes since the proverbial waste hit the fan. And what have they received? Time in jail? Not a minute to date. Fines or orders barring them from profiteering? Not a dollar and not a peep. But these bankers and financiers have received billions of bailout dollars from American taxpayers, plus lucrative salaries, plus extravagant bonuses.
Is there something wrong here when comparing these two situations, or am I just having a bad day? If it is “just” to put this couple in jail and to forbid them from profiting from their deception, then why is it not “just” to at least do the same with those whose deceit and exploitation were responsible for the financial disaster and destruction we now have in this country?
Is there no indignation left in our prosecutorial halls of justice to do with Wall Street what is appropriate and required under our legal system? Perhaps this is just an obvious symptom of a country - a civilization – that is now in a steep decline….
©2009 subhan schenker
I just noticed that justice was served today. The judge said that the case was about deception and exploitation; that it was an “exploitation of people’s emotions and money.” The scoundrels were sent to jail and were barred from profiteering on their criminal activities for the next four years!
So, at last, justice caught up with some of the Wall Street robber barons?
Well not exactly. This court decision was rendered against the Balloon Boy’s parents – 90 days for the father and 20 days for the mother – for their escapades in trying to get publicity. But the significance is there in its comparison to what has happened to the crafters of the worst financial crisis this country has seen in eighty years. Over a year has passes since the proverbial waste hit the fan. And what have they received? Time in jail? Not a minute to date. Fines or orders barring them from profiteering? Not a dollar and not a peep. But these bankers and financiers have received billions of bailout dollars from American taxpayers, plus lucrative salaries, plus extravagant bonuses.
Is there something wrong here when comparing these two situations, or am I just having a bad day? If it is “just” to put this couple in jail and to forbid them from profiting from their deception, then why is it not “just” to at least do the same with those whose deceit and exploitation were responsible for the financial disaster and destruction we now have in this country?
Is there no indignation left in our prosecutorial halls of justice to do with Wall Street what is appropriate and required under our legal system? Perhaps this is just an obvious symptom of a country - a civilization – that is now in a steep decline….
©2009 subhan schenker
Monday, December 07, 2009
Putting Tiger in a Zoo...
Here's my take on Tiger Woods and the current zoo that has been created around his female relationships:
He spent an inordinate amount of time on the golf course or range as a young boy and young man, driven by his Dad's desire for him to be the best golfer in the world.
He was painfully shy with girls. He even needed a friend in 2002 to ask his wife for his first date, which she promptly refused!
My hit is that she may have been one of the first women that he dated and made love to. As his confidence in his prowess improved, so did his need to satisfy the raging hormones that were dripping out of his ears, which were a result of his not having had sexual exposure before. And no doubt, women were throwing themselves at him all the while. So how can we blame him from saying yes to these attractive women?
It is his public status - and the myths that we have created around him - that have fueled the stories coming out about him. And really...why should we care about his private life, except that we are acting like voyeurs?!
In a better world, we will stop locking up people in marriages that require/force monogamy on people, regardless of the circumstances. Let monogamy be a choice that comes out of awareness, not a decision forced upon us by societal norms and religions. In that better world, we will simply drop the whole ownership idea, which is just stupid, and abandon the institution of marriage. After all, who wants to live in an institution? Then we can stop making sex into something serious instead of the joy and fun that it really is!
©2009 subhan schenker
He spent an inordinate amount of time on the golf course or range as a young boy and young man, driven by his Dad's desire for him to be the best golfer in the world.
He was painfully shy with girls. He even needed a friend in 2002 to ask his wife for his first date, which she promptly refused!
My hit is that she may have been one of the first women that he dated and made love to. As his confidence in his prowess improved, so did his need to satisfy the raging hormones that were dripping out of his ears, which were a result of his not having had sexual exposure before. And no doubt, women were throwing themselves at him all the while. So how can we blame him from saying yes to these attractive women?
It is his public status - and the myths that we have created around him - that have fueled the stories coming out about him. And really...why should we care about his private life, except that we are acting like voyeurs?!
In a better world, we will stop locking up people in marriages that require/force monogamy on people, regardless of the circumstances. Let monogamy be a choice that comes out of awareness, not a decision forced upon us by societal norms and religions. In that better world, we will simply drop the whole ownership idea, which is just stupid, and abandon the institution of marriage. After all, who wants to live in an institution? Then we can stop making sex into something serious instead of the joy and fun that it really is!
©2009 subhan schenker
