Sunday, February 17, 2013

Would you?

Would you want the person you love beside your hospital bed in times of crisis?
If something happened to you, would you want your spouse to pay taxes in order to keep your shared property?
If you are married, consider all the financial details of your life - tax status, paying bills, bank accounts, health insurance, pensions - a simple marriage certificate affords you certain privileges that aren't questioned.
Would you want me - or anyone else - to decide whether or not you can share those privileges with the person you choose?
I was very slow to advocate gay marriage.  Through the years I developed a rather jaded view of the whole idea of marriage.  But as I've gotten older, I see many very practical reasons to fight for full equality for GLBT people - especially marriage.  It's time.
Most rational people are over the religious argument.  If you view it in the full context of the Bible, it doesn't hold water.  Not one person who argues for a literal interpretation actually follows all parts of the Bible literally.  The religious anti-gay position is purely based on long held bias and belief in exactly the same way that slavery and segregation were religiously based for many years.
It's time for religious communities to move to a position of love, compassion and understanding.  I'm happy that I am seeing that transition in my lifetime.
It takes a while to shed deeply ingrained beliefs.  It always has and it always will. We have to admit that we were wrong.  It's especially hard if you were certain that God was telling you one thing and now you have to admit that you didn't get the right message.  People of the church have always had a hard time with this.  It was heresy to say the world was not the center of the universe or that the world was not flat.
In the name of religious freedom, protected by our constitution, if you want to believe that homosexuality is a sin - that the world is the center of the universe - that the world is flat - you have a right to believe that.
I'm willing to bet you would not like the government making your religious choices for you.  Don't make other people's lives miserable by imposing your religious views on their financial and personal life decisions.
The world is not flat and your religious view is not the center of the universe.  It doesn't belong at the center of mine.



Monday, February 11, 2013

What's your emotional number?

What's your emotional number?  How low are your valleys?  How high are your peaks?
I've been called a flat liner.  I tend not to get too excited one way or the other.  Of course we all have peaks and valleys.  That's life.  There are meant to be cycles.
I'm thinking I'd like to chart my emotional life - find my emotional number - the general curve - the number that reflects my emotional number.  So, first I've had to come up with a numbering system - 1 to 10 - and what each means.  Next, I have to determine how often I note the number and how the day gets rated.  Every day has its own unique peaks and valley's.  Perhaps it's best to check the chart and see how many things or times may be noteworthy, then take the average.
So - first - here is the chart I think I'll use.



What should be our goal?  What is emotional wellness?  I don't know the answer.  I'm going to try tracking a bit and see where I believe I am on this chart.  Hopefully the average is high and the peaks and valleys are not so wide.
An even bigger question is - how can we help each other move up the chart?  It can't always be a 10 but let's hope we can keep above a 5 as an average.