Healing vs. Recovery

Distinctions are sometimes made in the field of mental health between "recovery" and "healing". I have tended to think of the former as simply representing the cessation of the more unpleasant symptoms of mental illness, and as a mere "way station" to true healing.

I am persuaded now, though, that healing is better described as completed recovery. Recovery calls for good coping methods to deal with the effects of the trauma that induced the "illness" in the first place. Once such methods are in place (therapy, exercise, proper nutrition, prayer/contemplation, etc), and have become habitual, then we can begin to heal-or rather, continue to heal. Note that medication should be used only as a last resort, and patients should be weaned off all psychotropic drugs as soon as possible. Medication can do no more than mask symptoms-it can never promote growth.


What is healing, then? It is the casting off of all false selves. It is becoming truly what we are, with no accommodations to the trauma that caused the false selves to arise, or to social norms. Does that mean we become moral free agents? No, it means that our truest selves are driven by love for others, and ourselves. Evil is "unreal"-it exists, to be sure, but only as a manifestation of unpursued goodness.

The truth is, we tend to either follow social cues, and pursue a path of mindless conformity, or go our own way for its own sake, casting ourselves as contrarians, as relentless pursuers of Truth, when in fact we may just be snobs. (I tend to be guilty of the latter). Neither is healthy.

It may sound solipsistic, and excessively in tune with the mindless slogans of our warped culture, but in fact we only need to be ourselves. The best, truest version of ourselves. This is wholeness. This is the healed human.

In a strange land

I called this blog "I'm Just a Visitor Here" because I've always felt I was looking at people from a distance, like someone dropped on the wrong planet early in life who's then been compelled to spend his time trying to figure out his strange new neighbors. As a child I was told by "helpful" siblings I'd been purchased at the supermarket (and so I imagined babies of various hues lined up along the back wall at the A & P, available that week only for just $2.99 a pound), but I was never told where I'd been shipped from.

Not that I really believed the supermarket story, but I might as well have-I've always felt like I didn't really belong "here".  


That lack of a sense of "connectedness", of community-I guess I'm not so dissimilar to the masses now. People who ponder why depression is in epidemic mode in the US point to that loss of associations as a big reason why. It's just as true for other sorts of mental illness, most likely. Every ad for cell phones talks about "staying connected", and we seem desperate to avoid losing those few associations modern society affords us.

We have slice and dice marketing for products, and for votes. Seemingly nothing is offered to all. Everybody's assumed to have differing opinions and values. Elections no longer count because "the wrong person" won.


But of course, it really is true that we no longer have the same values. There is Christian America, in decline here as elsewhere in the West, and there is post-Christian America, eager to eliminate all vestiges of the old order. Not to be melodramatic, but our very own Cultural Revolution puts all at risk, for the sake of a "more just" society.

Lincoln spoke of both North and South reading the same Bible. Now, our two warring nations have radically different understandings of, well, everything. We cannot hold together like this. I am frightened.

Anti-social media

I haven't posted on twitter in months. Most of what I post on facebook is just youtube music clips, though I do occasionally annoy people there with my right wing views. I also vex people with comments on the Phillies, in various places, such as here. 

I have at times had semi-popular blogs that people with discriminating taste read ignored. I have no real desire to chase that dragon once again, but I would like to keep this blog updated once in a while. There might be someone out there who would like to read it and say, "Damn, this dude's more f-ed up than I am." That's the kind of service to mankind I'd like to provide.


Really, I can never can decide what to with my writing. I've written poetry, stories, lyrics to songs (including the only really funny song ever written about Prozac), blogs, and once had a fairly substantial number of jokes written for a comedy act I was working on. The character was to be a total loser-i.e., strictly autobiographical. You see, I'm the kind of guy who can calculate the most arcane baseball statistics in his head, but can't figure out a restaurant tip, because I can't get a girl to go to a restaurant with me. The main idea was, Here is a comedian you can't heckle, because I'm up here HECKLING MYSELF. "Is this thing off? Good."

The total loser part turned out to be all too accurate, when I lost the ability to access the tablet the jokes were in due to a dead battery that proved impossible to recharge. WTF? Who does that happen to? I guess I could've gotten a new battery, but only about half of the jokes were good.


So I guess I'll write some more self-deprecating material. Which raises an interesting question....is that an indication of really lousy self-esteem, or really good self-esteem? If Bob Uecker says, for example, "You know, people had divided opinions on my career in baseball-half thought I was awful, the other half thought I was a disgrace to the uniform"-is he saner than the rest of us? Or closer to the edge?

We slouch, exhausted but unified

Yes, Americans are in agreement about something, amazingly enough in these ultra-polarized times. Everybody but everybody agrees that 2016 was a cosmically awful year, the sort of year that must be punishment for something. Scandals, terrorism, ugly elections, foreign intrigues....God really piled it on in 2016, didn't He? We get it, Lord, we get it.

Or do we? I won't even speculate what the ill-treatment might be a result of. We all have our favorite pop culture or political targets, and most of them deserve all the scorn that can be thrown at them. But a loving God doesn't allow the unworthy success of a talent-free rapper or blowhard politician to be cause for an unrelieved twelve months of misery.


No, it must've been big this time. God really doesn't want to get into the backseat where the kids are, like a Cosmic Father pushed too far, but He will do it when it's called for. But we weren't just spilling soda back there or playing that damned awful music too loud.

I don't really have any answers, other than that our slide into post-Christian anything goes continued at its usual hurried pace this past year. But, nostalgia aside, that's nothing new. People have been bitching about the secularization of Christmas, say, since the first one, when I understand the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce hit on the idea of having guided tours of the stable where Christ was born for a mere five shekels a pop.

Nope, it's nothing new. But maybe we've reached a tipping point. I don't know how you'd know such a point has been reached, and I'm more than aware that talk like this always spawns the "everything's cyclical, everything can't go downhill at once" response. Maybe.


The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves. 

We must not question

To foster social harmony, the results of elections must be accepted unquestioningly by all parties, each and every time the Democrats win.

Swingin' Yuletime

Have a swingin' Christmas!

Maynard Ferguson and band, Christmas for Moderns, 1960.

Some new reality shows on The Faith Network

I've been looking at the TV listings, and I see The Faith Network has some new reality shows running. Samples:

"Jim-Bob at Large"- Rev Jim-Bob Tucker of the Flountsville Baptist Church plans to perform a miracle with a couple chickens and some goats. (Animals not available at press time).

"Hello, Dalai!"-The Dalai Lama will cast demons out of some high-ranking Chinese leaders and reclaim his beleaguered nation. (Demons unfortunately will be available).

"The Shirley Show"- We see Episcopal Bishop the Reverend Shirley Williamson as she presides over a gay wedding and is then hit by lightning on the way to her car.

"You Can Call Me Al"- Rev. Al Sharpton gets a manicure and a pedicure, and maybe a perm too, as he pretties up before meeting with some corporate chieftains to raise a few million for his "foundation".

"Don't Call Me Darryl"- Richard Dawkins regretfully informs God that He probably doesn't exist.

"Jewish Jokers"- Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner re-create some of the best bits from their 2000 Year Old Man routine, including the time Ben-Hur got pulled over for speeding in his chariot.

"I Love My Mama!"- Here we see a tearful Al Gore hug a great big globe long enough to make viewers really uncomfortable.

"Objectively Speaking"- Pilgrims clutching copies of Ayn Rand's works such as The Fountainhead visit Rand's tomb and await her resurrection.

"The Lutheran Channel" -Students from The Evangelical Lutheran Church and The Lutheran Church (MIssouri Synod) face off on College Jeopardy.

"All Roads Lead to Mecca"- Abdul and Habib teach their kids about all the fun things you can do with plastic explosives.

"Father Brown's Adventures"- We watch as Father Brown, of St. Mark's Catholic Church in Steubenville, spills coffee on himself at breakfast, says morning Mass, visits old folks in the hospital, teaches RCIA class, and goes to bed by himself. Truly useful people usually are boring. First and last episode due to likely low ratings.

What sound does a blogger make when he's not saying anything?

In the words of longtime Phillies' announcer & Hall of Fame outfielder Richie Ashburn, "If you don't have anything to say, don't say it".

Thanks a hell of a lot, Trump voters!

Those of us who are pro-life, those of us who are conservatives on most issues-we're not crazy about the Trump takeover of our party, which for all its flaws, did provide a real ideological contrast to the contemporary version of liberalism, which is merely authoritarianism in a Brooks Brothers suit.

So, what to do? Well, I only have one vote, so it doesn't matter much in the larger scheme of things-but I won't be a party to setting back the pro-life cause. No Bleeping Way. So Hillary's out. Next: Is  Trump's pro-life "conversion" sincere? Is anything about Trump sincere? Could we assume, as so many do, that Trump would at least appoint better judges, ones more likely to not be avowedly pro-abortion, than Mrs. Clinton? Who knows? There are many Trumps, all of them unsavory.


And so it seems to me, at least at the moment, that Clintonism-rather than Hillary-is the real threat. As I implied above, I'm not at all sure Hillary would be a worse President on a whole host of issues, since A), Trump's history & instincts aren't right wing on much of anything; and B), a Trump win would eviscerate the conservatives in Congress and elsewhere-he'll owe them absolutely nothing.

By Clintonism I mean the rampant lawlessness and endless ethical quagmires Bill and Hillary drag themselves, and their supporters and friends, and all of us, into. Much more is yet to come on the server, the Foundation, etc. I have decided I will vote for neither, but will focus my vast influence (heh-I do have 6400 followers on twitter) on defeating Hillary. I want Hillary to lose but don't want Trump to win.

Hey, I voted for Cruz. I don't like being put in this position.

A Small but Welcome Dose of Sanity

I notice that Miles Davis' 1959 classic, Kind of Blue (vinyl) leads Amazon's jazz CD/vinyl sales rankings. 

In a world where Kenny G is considered a jazz musician, and Donald Trump is thought of by some as Presidential timber, any note that indicates the culture is not in utter collapse is wonderful.

1959, besides being the year of my birth, was a cultural milepost. The 60's were the Kid Decade, as William F. Buckley, Jr, aptly termed it, and in '59 popular culture was still, well, good. Miles, Sinatra, Brubeck; Hitchcock and Billy Wilder-music and movies were more than assaults on the senses.

Oy vey, I'm Jewish!

Well, just a little-2%. Let's see-that's 1/50; one great-great-great grandparent would be 1/32; one great-great-great-great grandparent, 1/64. So, a tiny smidgen.


My sister did a DNA test and the results came back 50% Irish; 31% undifferentiated Western European; 17% Southern Italian/Greek; 2% Jewish. I believe the 31% is the non-Celtic part of my Irish ancestry. It gets confusing because I had two great-grandparents who came here from England, but likely were Welsh or Irish, judging by the surnames. Also, my maternal Grandfather was born in Italy. That should, of course, correspond to 25% not 17.


I won't make any speeches about how I've always found anti-Semitism to be abhorrent, or how I've never understood the pro-Palestinian crowd, although both are true. I'll just say it's nice to be related, however distantly, to various Biblical figures. People do say I look a lot like Jesus.

Wrong order, wrong dates

For some reason the posts are now out of order. Being a real PICNIC ("problem in chair, not in computer") I have no idea how to fix it. (I tried). Anyway the Obama post below (President of the Playground) is actually the most recent post.

Foot in mouth department

So...I saw a woman on the bus, whom I know slightly, and said out loud the thought that had often popped into my head when seeing her: "You look just like my Grandmother".

This was not well-received, despite the fact that the woman does in fact resemble my Mother's mother. Definitely one of those faces with the map of a particular corner of Ireland on it. Out West, I'd say. But in any case she said to me, "Well, I didn't want to hear that". This was perhaps the first time in my life I'd said something that offended someone, so I didn't know what to say (right).

I later pondered how I might have phrased my ill-advised comment. "My Grandmother looks just like you". Uhh, no.

"For a woman who quite obviously is far too young to be my Grandmother, you resemble her". Better, but sounds smarmy.

"You have the look of the West Country of Ireland, which my Grandmother also had". Huh?

"As Grandmothers go, you look just like my Irish one." Even more, huh? Also, face slap.

I really should have just gone with, "Nice day, isn't it?".

Chesterton on voting with your whole self

Apt thoughts from GK Chesterton in a year when the choices seem especially distasteful:

THE average man votes below himself; he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man ought to vote with the whole of himself, as he worships or gets married. A man ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for faces and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his hands and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of it should creep into his vote. If he has ever heard splendid songs, they should be in his ears when he makes the mystical cross. But as it is, the difficulty with English democracy at all elections is that it is something less than itself. The question is not so much whether only a minority of the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of the voter votes.


'Tremendous Trifles.'

President of the Playground

The fact that this is my "top tweet" may mean little. (In fact, it means nothing to me, since I don't know what twitter "impressions" are. Eyeballs?)

But it does make fun of our strikingly immature President, so I approve of it heartily.

Meet President Ash Carter. While Obama raps with the cast of that ill-begotten Alexander Hamilton hip-hop "musical", Secretary of Defense Carter runs the show. He's the only adult left in the Administration, apparently.