Happy New Year 2008

Happy New Year! 2008. Well. It's another year. 2008 is an interesting number. I always associate the number 8 with both infinity and the 8 fold path of Buddhism. So, 2008 might be seen as 2-double and 8 infinity. So double infinity! So likely even though the financial markets aren't too happy worldwide because of the ongoing subprime meltdown in the States as an individual person the sky is likely the limit on your individual spiritual path.

In times of adversity one is always thrown into the hands of God. So, in this sense adversity is everyone's friend. When things are going great no one seems to need God. People get used to everything being okay. A good example of this would be 1990 to 2001. Since I was born in 1948 this has been the most hassle free time on earth.

1965 to 1973 might have been the most affluent time that the United States ever was or will be for the average person living in the U.S. Even without a college education one person then could easily support 4 or 5 with one job and still own a house and one or two cars. Not So, now. Minimum wage then was about one dollar and sixteen cents and hour but you could buy a new VW for 800 dollars during that time. Now the minimum wage is about 5 dollars an hour and a comparable car is 20 to 25 thousand. No longer affordable! The same kind of disparity is in rents and homes. In 1965 one could still buy a tract house in California for about 14,000 dollars. Now the minimum for a new tract house is somewhere between 200,000 to 400,000 depending where you buy in California. However, even though 1965 to 1973 was the most affluent time for the average man and woman that the United States will likely ever see it was also a crazy time where 50,000 men and women died in Viet Nam and 250,000 were wounded. More men died exactly my age born in 1948 than any other. As a child I had childhood epilepsy between the ages of 10 and 15. I didn't have to go. But my best friend from high school did. He now has senile dementia and doesn't know who I am. My best friend from church died a year and a half ago. He got a master's degree and had conscientious objector status during the Viet Nam war and then dedicated his whole life to teaching underpriviledged chidren in East Los Angeles. Since I grew up in Los Angeles, I couldn't comprehend spending my whole life in the SMOG and endless traffic. My third friend who is still alive and who I still ski with once or twice a year had a student deferment and got a master's degree and got out of college 2 years after the Viet Nam War ended. So he and I came out unscathed unlike many of our friends who were permanently wounded in one way or the other by Viet Nam and its aftermath.

In some ways the two of us are the last two men standing among our peers of the Viet Nam Era mostly because God graced us with not sending us over into that insane mess.

Just like then every soldier on the front lines of Iraq or Afghanistan will come back with some of the signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sometimes, when I look at McCain, one of the Republican candidates, I can see him successfully fighting some of the PTSD symptoms. Still, in a wartime situation, I might trust him more than most if he were president. However, at his age I wonder just how much Presidential stress he could handle.

I said to my wife the other day, "I feel in my life I have been a successful failure." She looked at me and said, "I see you as the consummate survivor. I don't think it is useful to label yourself any other way." I thought about what she said and realized I agreed with her. For after all these years(I'll be 60 in April) it is hard to make sense of my life any other way than to say, "I survived when all the others couldn't, wouldn't or didn't." I think once again my relationship with God has always been strong and that I am alive because many nights when I should have just given up and died I turned to God and said, "I live or die by your Grace, God". And then I just gave my soul up to God for death or for life. I credit the fact that I'm still alive more to just letting go at night just before I sleep to God than any other factor. Then I wake up to a new day by the Grace of God.

I have always equated sleep to death and so "I die daily" is something I actually do. I think because of it I can still be childlike in some ways without being childish. I always like the song, "And you can survive to 105, if you're young at heart!" I try to live this as a motto. Happy New Year!