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The Big Island Reporter Present's "The Writer's Corner"
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MAKING A DIFFERENCE
THE flyer in the mail was heartbreaking stuff. It was the story of a sweet little girl, Helen, who'd been diagnosed with leukemia. "One afternoon she started limping and we didn't know why," wrote her father. "It gradually got worse until one day I was in the backyard and heard this terrible screaming."
By the time I'd finished reading about this family's ordeal, I was in tears. But given that I'd already made my annual contribution to the Shirners, I was about to throw their letter into the bin when I noticed something disturbing. Inside the flyer was an envelope addressed to the charity with a 44 cent stamp on it. Let's say the institute mailed out 5000 for argument's sake ... that's almost $2500! I suddenly went into shock. Is that where my contributions are going?
I thought I was giving money to save little Helen, not for a stamp to be put on an expensive envelope (embossed, yellow, high-quality paper) that gets tossed in the rubbish bin. When I rang to complain, I was told that the mail-out with the stamped envelope was sent to only a few thousand "exclusive" donors, which you'd hardly call us motley journalists. That still doesn't excuse thousands of dollars of wasted money; nor the sheer number of unnecessary mail-outs this charity sends me each year, given that I'm already a committed contributor. I've asked them to stop three times, to no avail.
Nor am I happy with Greenpeace, to which I donate regularly. Until I rang and complained, glossy flyers and newsletters were coming in the mail. "I give money to you guys to save the Amazon trees, not kill them! Why aren't you sending me electronic mail?" "We will, now that you've requested no further printed matter," said the rep. "But why is the onus on me to ring and make you ecologically aware? And what of the millions of other members who simply toss the material in the bin?"
There's something inherently wrong with the way many charities are run, which is why honest people who want to give money often don't. It's an issue in urgent need of addressing. Guys, we know you try hard, but please make it easy for us to give. Stop behaving like unthinking dumbos – for little Helen's sake.
Duane A Vachon PhD works at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. He is the author of "Gems From The Antipodes: 12 Collections of Faith-Focusing Insights" now available from AuthorHouse.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. He can be reached at mailto:vachon.duane@gmail.com/
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Pronoia
I SPENT time with a happy friend recently. This person is truly deliriously happy all the time. If it's sunny, he beams; if it's rainy, he chatters merrily about how exquisite it is that his garden is getting so much nourishment. His optimism is infectious, but it does border on insane. Which is apparently the case. There is a psychological condition being discussed in textbooks nowadays called pronoia, which is the positive counterpart of paranoia. It is the belief that the universe is plotting to make you happy and there’s nothing you can do about it.
According to Professor Marc Cohen, founding professor of complementary medicine at RMIT University and president of the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association, this state has been discussed in recent psychiatric literature as a pathological condition.
Symptoms of pronoia include “delusions of support and exaggerated attractiveness as well as the delusion that others think well of one and … the products of one’s efforts”. Pronoics, like their negative counterparts, see subterfuge but they believe everything and everyone is plotting for their highest good.
Cohen says that rather than viewing pronoia as a pathological state, it is possible to view the condition of unbridled happiness as highly desirable and to cultivate it for good health. “By adopting the attitude that whatever happens is for your benefit, you open yourself up to the possibility of positive outcomes, and thus stop being afraid of change. You simply assume that any change occurring will eventually be a great lesson or source of joy, and that even if circumstances appear negative, there’s a hidden treasure waiting to be uncovered.”
Cohen adds: “Many people in today’s society endure the present, waiting for the promise of future happiness, thinking: ‘I’ll be happy when I’m rich’, or ‘I’ll be happy when I get a good job’, or ‘I’ll be happy when I get a nose job’, or ‘when I get married/divorced’. This line of thought is not supported by available evidence, as research on Lotto winners has shown. “If you are happy now, you are likely to be happy later, and if you are unhappy now, instead of changing your circumstances, you need to change your attitude to your circumstances.” With scientific studies proving that happy people have more resistance to heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and a host of immune disorders, pronoia is the healthiest mental disorder around.
Duane A Vachon PhD works at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. He is the author of "Gems From The Antipodes: 12 Collections of Faith-Focusing Insights" now available from AuthorHouse.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. He can be reached atmailto:vachon.duane@gmail.com/ |
HOW TO DEAL WITH A MIDLIFE CRISIS
When you’re on the verge of a midlife crisis, your first instinct might not be the best strategy. The following six major points will help you deal with a mid life crisis.
1. Know who is in charge. Are you making this change because you lost your job or just found out your husband prefers a twenty something in his office? If you’re being forced into this change, go very slowly. If you’re feeling your way on your own, take your time. Don’t jump into strange territory. Put common sense ahead of pride. 2. Revitalize and rejuvenate. Too much stress and too few hormones sapping your spirit? Face it, outside appearances do make a difference for women – particularly after 50. Reward yourself with a makeover. Self-esteem is critical to midlife crisis. 3. Do your research. Sure, you’ve always wanted to raise ostriches, but is there a market for ostrich meat where you live? Take a deep breath, and do a reality check. Planning to move from a high-powered corporate job to a simpler lifestyle and career? Think your marriage is dull as dishwater? Take time to talk to a therapist, a career coach or a life coach. 4. Follow the money. Before you make any change – from job to marriage – talk to an accountant. Check out your retirement benefits and your pension plan. It sounds dreary, but the older you get the more money counts. 5. Take a poll. Talk to your family and friends. Listen to them and then listen to your heart. Be ready for surprises. 6. Be selfish. After years of nurturing and caring for others, you’ve earned the right to put yourself first. It’s O.K. to have a facial, travel by yourself or have a relationship without wearing a wedding ring. Chances are, you’ll find out that almost everything gets better after 50.
Duane A Vachon PhD works at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. He is the author of "Gems From The Antipodes: 12 Collections of Faith-Focusing Insights" now available from AuthorHouse.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. He can be reached at mailto:vachon.duane@gmail.com/
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WELCOME TO THE VATICAN
In the early 1990’s I was fortunate enough to find myself in Rome doing research for a book I was writing. Being a card carrying Catholic I thought I would visit the Vatican while I was there.
And so it was I found myself ambling towards the Vatican. What happened next you are not going to believe. Cross my heart, I bumped into the Virgin Mary, riding on a donkey. Behind her stretched a long procession of ancient Romans, centurions beating leather breastplates with their swords, any number of medieval priests, friars and nuns, and at least one long departed pope. Accompanied by banner twirlers, drumbeaters, lute strummers and trumpet blowers, and jokers and jesters capering between scores of steeds ridden by men in the flamboyant costumes of bygone centuries, we’re all heading towards the epic embrace of St Peter’s Colonnade.
Though the sun shines brightly on this winter’s day, the procession outnumbers the crowd. Rome’s traffic is as frenzied as ever and we are ordered to halt by a traffic cop so that a thousand Fiats, Alfas, Lancias and Japanese motor scooters can whiz by. It is an improbable image.
The Virgin Mary, stopped in her tracks by a traffic cop as imposing as any centurion, is sitting patiently on her donkey, while the rest of the procession backs up behind. Towards the tail it gets more secular, augmented by a variety of vintage cars and, symbolising the traditions of Italian agriculture, an uprooted olive tree teetering on the back of a pick-up truck draped in hessian.
Finally the cop stops the traffic and waves the Virgin, and the rest of us, on. I stroll beside her, right to St Peter’s front door. (This is quite a hoot for a boy from Indiana). Then patting the donkey, I approach the lackadaisical Italian security system designed to protect Pope and Basilica. The guards are so bored that they barely glance at the screen as handbags are X-rayed for guns or Semtec, while the mental detector is so feebly calibrated it wouldn’t beep were I lugging a steel girder. Or a sledgehammer.
Once inside St Pete’s I make a beeline for Michelangelo’s Pieta, which, in 1972, was extensively remodelled, by an Australian. Having spent considerable time in the antipodes I thought it would be interesting to see the work of the Australian. Lazlo Toth was his name and in 1972 he smashed the bejesus out of the marble Mary with crucified Christ sprawled in her lap. I wonder whatever happened to Lazlo, it might be time to resurrect him, turn him into a book or a TV doco.
Not that Lazlo was the first vandal to attack the Vatican’s great sculptures. Literally scores of statues were hammered – and it was an inside job. One of the popes had his lads smash the penises appended to classical Greek and Roman statues, covering the wounds with plaster fig leaves. Years ago after I had returned from Vietnam I wrote to the Vatican offering to buy those distinguished penises. I thought if one of my fellow Americans could make millions marketing pet rocks, why not make a fortune selling 2000-year old penises as executive paperweights?
While the Vatican failed to reply, I heard from a professor in Naples that, yes, the penises were still on the premises. And we speculated on when there’d be a change of policy – so that priests and nuns, in a papal counterpart to “pinning the tail on the donkey”’ would be required to glue them back in place.
Back to security for a moment, not only were there X-ray machines, there was a squad of nuns measuring miniskirts. I was fascinated to see them checking the hemlines of kids as young as five. Oddly enough, it was only skirts that caused concern. Strumpets with provocative décolletage were free to enter, as were Australians with sledgehammers.
St Peter’s is not for prayer or meditation. Those thus inclined prefer the more humble churches in the neighbourhood. The Basilica is the Grand Central of Catholicism, the Pentagon of papal power, the physical manifestation of two millennia of dogmatism and unequivocal authority. It’s a place for marbled Mary’s, not for virgins riding on donkeys or wearing miniskirts. One suspects that Jesus would reel back at the portico, outraged by the building’s arrogance.
Climbing the almost 400 steps to Michelangelo’s dome, I gaze down on the city. Far below, the procession is breaking up. And there to the left are the papal apartments. The world is on deathwatch for its occupant, the brave man who once confronted the brutalities of communism. Only to become, little by little, as dogmatic and reactionary as many who’ve ruled the Kremlin.
Downstairs I visit the tomb of Pope John XXIII, the incumbent’s antithesis and, by any measure, one of the great figures of the 20th century. If there’s a non-denominational heaven, he’s up there with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, looking forward to meeting Mandela. As usual, there are more flowers for John XXIII than for the rest of the popes put together.
I visited the Sistine to see the ceiling now that it’s had a good scrub Michelangelo painted the Messiah buck naked, but those who emasculated the marble statues had Jesus’ genitalia coyly covered in a wisp of cloth. The restorers have left it there, another way of symbolising the Church’s pathological problems with sexuality.
Just over a year ago the Sistine will saw the election of a new pope. The incumbent had gone into branch-stacking mode years ago to ensure another conservative would follow him. There’s little hope of a John XXIV reinvigorating the Church, releasing the creative energies that would flow from taking a sledgehammer to marmoreal dogmas.
Duane A Vachon PhD works at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. He is the author of "Gems From The Antipodes: 12 Collections of Faith-Focusing Insights" now available from AuthorHouse.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. He can be reached at mailto:vachon.duane@gmail.com/
Welcome To The Vatican Duane A VachonPage 1
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Worship WHILE Gone with the Wind is probably a wistful reference to the passing of the Old South, it may have doubled as a comment on Clark Gable’s bad breath. When he tells Vivien Leigh that frankly he doesn’t give a damn and exits, she’d have breathed a sigh of relief. Anecdotes of other leading ladies attest that Gable was seriously halitosic, which made love scenes problematic. And this is the theme of the next 600 words. The shortcomings of celebrities. Shakespeare puts these words into the mouth of Hamlet: “What a piece of work is a man … In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel!” Etc, etc. And these days it would seem celebrities are deemed angel’s equals. But doth not a celebrity fart? Doth not a celeb blow his/her nose? Do not celebs require deodorants? Tampons? Anti-dandruff shampoo? What they don’t require is talent. Not these days. Though seen as a 20th century phenomenon, celebs have been around since the first stirrings of mass media. But unless you were a Jack the Ripper, on the cutting edge of crime, it helped if you had a mass-marketable talent – like Byron, Dickens, Twain and Wilde. Most of today’s mob, by contrast, are verging on the brain dead. A prime example would be Paris Hilton, who is, like her surname, a brand. In her case a human brand, a product devoid of quality that is wildly expensive and does nothing. As useless as a homeopathic medicine. Yet millions follow her every antic, applauding do-it-yourself porn videos and even clapping her car accidents. Were Paris to display talent it might put people off. It could undermine the vacuity and vapidity of her career.
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Duane A Vachon PhD has been a licensed clinical psychologist for over thirty years. He belongs to the order of Secular Franciscans and is a life member of the Guild of Pastoral Psychology. After living almost 40 years as an expatriate he now writes from his home in Hawaii. He has written extensively on social justice and spiritual issues.
"Mercury retrograde"
AT first I thought it must be something to do with planetary alignment. "Mercury
retrograde" is how astrologers sum up
days of poor communication.
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Carlson had decided to focus on what he thought was the most critical issue...serving the customer. He wanted to keep it simple: identify every contact between the customer and the employee and treat that contact as "a moment of truth." He set out to let his people know the importance of that moment...the captain, the ticket agent, the baggage handler, the flight attendant. "Every moment, every contact" he said, "must be as pleasant, and as memorable as possible." He figured that he had approximately ten million customers each year, and on average each customer made contact with five of his people for approximately fifteen seconds apiece. Therefore, in his mind, these fifty million contacts, fifteen seconds at a time, would determine the fate of his company. He set out to share his vision with his twenty thousand employees. He knew the key was to empower the front line. Let them make the decisions and take action, because they were Scandinavian Airlines during those fifteen seconds. He now had twenty thousand people who were energized and ready to go because they were focused on one very important thing...making every moment count. Pax et Bonum Duane Duane A Vachon PhD P.O. Box 8578 Honolulu HI 96830-0578 Phone 808 347-9834 Fax 408 521 0745 "Gems From The Antipodes: 12 Collections of Faith-Focusing Insights" by Duane Allen Vachon, Ph.D. now available from AuthorHouse.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble
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WAS fascinated to read recently about a
university survey in the US that put the
kibosh on hope.
Research published in Health Psychology showed that those who were awaiting a particular operation to help them with a medical issue were less happy during the waiting time than those who were told they were unsuitable and had given up hope. "We think they were happier because they got on with their lives," one researcher said, adding that they had no choice but to play with the cards they'd been dealt. After the grief, those without hope found strategies to help deal with the situation as it was, not how it might be in a "they lived happily ever after" fantasy. Those awaiting help were distracted, putting their lives on hold, and undoubtedly plagued by the fear of things not going to plan. They were frozen, unable to make the best of things. I found this one of the most extraordinarily truthful renditions of life I'd ever heard. So many of us live unhappily because we "know" of something that will make our lives perfect. All the while sullying the present with hope. For instance, if you think that soon you're going to meet the perfect partner, you'll forever be finding fault with your present relationship. "When I get to Moscow..." was how Russian playwright Anton Chekhov described it in his book Three Sisters as the girls lamented life as it was, in the hope that when they got to Moscow... Pondering on how much frustration we cause ourselves in striving for things we "must" attain, I came up with a solution. I asked myself the question: what if a magical soothsayer appeared and told you that you were never going to get the thing you craved? What if any one of us was told with foresight that we would meet our death - whenever that be - never having found that soul mate; or never having made enough money to buy that room with a view? I suspect there'd be a time of sadness and weeping, followed by relief. "Wow, now I can get on with eating what I have on my plate!" Things would miraculously be "good enough". In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was cursed by the gods to keep pushing a boulder up a hill, which kept rolling down, forcing him to start again, for eternity. Our hopes are that boulder. How liberated and creative could we be if we just stopped and let the rock roll? Duane A Vachon P.O.
Box 8578 Honolulu
HI 96830 0578
E-mail vachon.duane@gmail.com
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| Duane
A Vachon P.O.
Box 8578 Honolulu
HI 96830 0578
E-mail vachon.duane@gmail.com Polanski's Past Catches Up WHEN a US senator or congressman, a Catholic priest or TV evangelist is caught with his pants down, hostile headlines reach to the heavens - which promptly open and it's open slather on "the perp". As many heads have rolled in recent years as bounced into the guillotine's basket. I've
lost count of the Republican roosters who've
become headless chooks, while the Vatican
continues to reel from revelations about
child abuse around the world. Only
televangelists are given second chances -
provided they kneel before their
parishioners and tearfully, prayerfully
express contrition.
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| Duane
A Vachon P.O.
Box 8578 Honolulu
HI 96830-0578 E-mail vachon.duane@gmail.com In
Fear We Should Not Trust Before
we look at terror, consider mere fear.
When manipulated by a skilful politician,
it’s a forceful weapon. Nothing
makes people more malleable than some
carefully harnessed nightmare, a conjured
bogeyman. It
wasn’t only Ku Klux Klansman, but
otherwise sane members of white communities
who lynched tens of thousands of
“niggers” from trees and lampposts well
into the 20thcentury, principally
because of the alleged menace posed to white
womenfolk by black sexuality. The
greatest single horror of the 20th century,
the Holocaust, came as a consequence of
Hitler’s ability to choreograph ancient
resentments of the Jews. He famously
observed: “If the Jews didn’t exist, we
would have had to invent them.” Joseph
McCarthy found reds under every Washington
bed. In the Balkins, Slobodan
Milosevic is one of many monsters who turned
harmonious neighbourhoods into killing
fields of “ethnic cleansing”.
Northern Ireland’s two brands of
Christianity have been butchering each other
for centuries. Now, having almost
runout of communists, the West is involved
is a self-fulfilling prophecy about Muslim
terrorism. Yes,
we’re right to fear terrorism. A
small-scale version of the Cold War’s MAD
(Mutual Assured Destruction) currently
operates between the Israelis and the
Palestinians. And if you’re working
for the UN in Iraq, or the British in
Turkey, you’ve every right to feel
anxious. Indeed, if you’re on the
receiving end of Putin’s violence in
Chechnya, or Chechnyan violence in the
Moscow suburbs, you know the terrors of
terrorism. But for the majority of the
human race, even those living in the prime
target of Muslim fanaticism, the United
States, your chances of being killed or
injured by a terrorist are almost nil. The
British, of course, lived with Irish
terrorism for a long time. Margaret
Thatcher escaped an IRA attack on a party
conference that killed some of her
colleagues. Bombs went off in many a
pub, and Number 10 narrowly escaped an IRA
rocket attack. But having survived
Hitler’s bombings, the Brits were stoic.
They permitted their handbags to be
searched, but not their lives to be ruined
or their freedom destroyed. What
we’ve been witnessing, in the US, is the
inculcation of fear; not only by terrorists
but just as eagerly, by our political
leaders. We’ve allowed ourselves to
be swept up in Bush’s War On Terror – by
a government that sees political advantage
in maintaining a slow motion panic.
Yes, the 3000 deaths in New York were
tragic. But the fact remains that,
prior to 9/11, the overwhelming majority of
terrorist attacks on the US came from
domestic conspiracy theorists. And
even after it 99.99 per cent of the US
population remains unscathed. Fear
leads to hatred and hatred leads to horrors.
Demagogues of all persuasions use fear to
divide and conquer their societies, to turn
next-door neighbours into people we want to
ethnically cleanse. Fear can do this
in so-called civilised Western societies
such as our own, where citizens are affluent
and well educated, where they profess their
Christian virtues. Look at Hitler’s
willing helpers among the German people, or
at the behaviour of Serbs and Croats in the
former Yugoslavia. By beating the
drums of fear loudly enough you can deafen
your neighbours to the voices of reason –
and the murmurings of their own consciences.
Genocidal onslaughts are not limited to
Rwanda. And given our country’s long
history of racial paranoia – expressed for
much of the 20th century
in our version of apartheid, we should be
particularly concerned. The drums of fear
may be muffled, but for many the rhythm is
irresistible. I’m
not saying that we have nothing to fear but
fear itself. But I am suggesting that
it is immensely unhelpful to let our lives
be filled with fear - and to allow
manipulative politicians, to use fear as a
method of social control. Nor should
we allow our hard earned liberties to be
destroyed by elected representatives who use
terror as their all-purpose excuse for just
about everything. Bush
and the boys were planning a war in Iraq
long before al-Qa’ida entered our
vocabulary. The neo-Conservatives
proposed it during the Clinton
Administration. September 11, 2001 was
simply the excuse. So let’s scale down the rhetorical nonsense about “war against drugs” or “war on terror”. We need to calm down and discuss things quietly, remembering that fear is the politician’s best friend.
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Deaths Sting Brings A Salve “THERE is a great richness in death,” says Rachael Falk, staring boldly into my eyes. She has only just begun telling her story and I am already visibly unnerved. “Well, we can't all live Tom and Nicole lives,” she says of my response. “The problem is we pretend death doesn't exist. Which is why we don't value what we have. “Death forces us to appreciate life,” she says of a saga that began in SanFrancisco 21 years ago, the day her mother came home and announced she was leaving for Honolulu
and taking her children with her. Rachael, now 31 and a solicitor, was a child of 10 at the time. Her brother Anthony was 14. Theirs had been a very unhappy home. In Rachael's own words her dad was a typical absent father. He avoided intimacy and “hated children”. “We annoyed him. He was constantly angered by the small things we did. He was always belligerent and painfully strict. In retrospect he was a man who never should have had kids,” she says, ruminating on what prompted her mother to pack
up and leave. But children always love their dad. And Rachael and Anthony pined for their father
despite his shortcomings. It seems he did not pine for them. Their letters were rarely responded to. Phone calls were brief and cold. Finally, after 15 years of frosty relations, Rachael's father turned his back on her completely over a trivial financial matter and their relationship ceased. “I
was horrified that he could cut me off like
that. As if I didn't exist. I wrote him a
long letter, talking to him about how I
felt, but he never responded. And so for
five years we didn't speak or see each other
at all.” Then one day last year Rachael received a call from her aunt informing her that her
father had been diagnosed with terminal
cancer. “News like that changes everything. I became determined to speak to him, to heal the wounds between us,” she says. She jumped on a plane and flew to SanFrancisco . Again, she was met by indifference -- as was her brother, who had travelled with her from Honolulu. But the siblings remained persistent over the months, trying to break
down the barriers. Then news came that was to shatter the whole family. With no warning, Rachael's beloved
brother Anthony committed suicide. He was
33. “My first thought was: `He wouldn't do that, he wouldn't leave me!' You don't believe
they've done it until you see the body. “I can't begin to explain the grief -- you don't even occupy the world. I wouldn't catch public transport because I couldn't stand to be around anyone normal. I just
don't think Anthony had ever anchored
himself in the world.” There was one tragic irony. “Tony used to say he wished there'd be a day when we could all be in a room together, he and Mum, Dad and me. I said it'd never happen. But there we all were in the morgue standing around him as if he was just
sleeping. “He brought us together for the first time in 20 years but it was heartbreaking we couldn't
take him home with us.” After
the trauma of Anthony's death, Rachael had a
breakthrough with her father. “Our relationship changed that week. It was as if he suddenly realized how much time he'd wasted. All those wasted years,” she says, with the first hint of tears. “Dad stayed at my house. He got to meet my friends, and became `Rachael's father'. We wandered around Waikiki , got poke from Don Quixote. I think he'd
never had a role like that before.” Then Rachael managed a transfer from work and returned to SanFrancisco to live with her father through his cancer treatment. “We talked a lot about Anthony, and me, and stuff like growing up. I asked him why he hadn't wanted a relationship with us. He admitted loving was hard for him. Keeping his distance was easier. “But then amazingly he brought out a pile of everything Anthony and I had ever sent him. “Every card, every letter. It had meant so much to him after all.” Within
a couple of months Rachael's father was
dead. He was 58. “I grew to love and forgive him because I got to understand who he was and I accepted him. He grew to love me. We were very close those last weeks. “I walked him to the gates of death, like a midwife assisting a birth. I told him to breathe deeply, I told him it was okay to let go and that Anthony was waiting for him. “The lesson for me has been about capturing present time. To live for today and not
wish it away because tomorrow will be
better. “I have also learned there is richness in death. It doesn't just have to mean blackness
and doom. Death can offer so much to the
living. “It has made me optimistic, not pessimistic. I look forward to the future, I know how precious life is. When I have children, I will tell them that they shouldn't take their brothers and sisters or the people they love for granted.”
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| 'The Moonsters' By Patricia Rust October 25, 2009 ONE Halloween night, Charles kissed his parents good night and went to bed. He had really scored at trick-or-treating and he was tired. Outside the moon was full and bright white! He took his best friend, a toy dinosaur named Max, climbed under the thick covers and held Max real tight. Only Max knew about Charles being afraid of the dark. Charles could not go to sleep. After all, it was Halloween, and it was frightening to think about the blood and monsters he had seen that night. He had heard scary sounds of icy wind pushing through tree trunks and mean, grinding tree leaves that seemed to say: "Tonight we will not go away." With a whoosh and a chill and a clank and a screech, they moaned and groaned without a hitch. Charles asked Max to take a look outside. Max stared at the moon, and told Charles, "When fear and darkness surround you and shadows seem scary at night, the moon says it will rise to protect you and the moonsters will be your light." "What does that mean?" asked Charles. Max only shrugged. As Charles pulled down the covers for a small peek at the full moon, something dark caught his eye. On his bedroom wall, Charles could see a shadowy monster with sharp claws and huge teeth. Quickly, he yanked at his covers, but the covers were yanked right off him! The grizzly monster was coming to get him! The monster made gobbling noises like it was eating Charles' blanket for food! Charles couldn't even cry out for help he was so scared. Max jumped back onto the bed and Charles held him very tight. He timidly peeked over his blanket. The full moon was lighting up the sky. Then something even stranger happened. Moonlight fell off the moon and headed right for Charles' room. "When fear and darkness surround you, and shadows seem scary at night, the moon will rise to protect you, and the moonsters will be your light." Could the moon have said that? With a swish and a whoosh and a wish and a zoom, the moonlight flew right into Charles' room. Then it talked! "My name is Baramba -- I'm a piece of the moon called a moonster and it looks like you need some help in your room." "Do I!" answered Charles. Another slice of moonster light whooshed into the room, "My name is Oogles. There's nothing to fear. We scare shadows off the wall and make them cower in fear." Charles smiled as he saw the monster on the wall stop moving. A third moonster flew in from the sky and said, "Hi. My name is Oozie. We'll kiss that monster goodbye." The moonsters flew around the room faster and faster and faster still -- until their light was everywhere. The shadow monster disappeared right into a tiny dark hole. The moonsters shrunk in size, and flew a few times around the room. In a final salute, they uttered these words of advice: "If a slice of the moon is all you see, or a shooting star darts through the night, know we are hard at work, chasing shadowy monsters away with our light." The moonsters flew away up toward the moon. When they landed there, Charles gazed at the moon and saw the faces of his new friends: Oozie, Oogles, and Baramba. They were bright, smiling and waving at Charles! Charles fell into a deep sleep. And so did a lot of Charles' friends in the neighborhood, and even some people Charles didn't know. And all because of the moonsters. Patricia Rust is the author of "The King of Skittledeedoo." To learn more about her, visit http://patriciarust.com |
| Duane
A Vachon P.O. Box 8578 Honolulu
HI 96830 0578 United
States of America E-mail vachon.duane@gmail.com THE
PLEDGE OF RESISTA1CE We believe that as people living in America, it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our
government in our names Not in our name will you wage endless war. There can be no more deaths, no more transfusions
of blood for oil. Not in our
names will you invade countries, bomb
civilians, kill more children, letting
history take its course over the graves of
the nameless. Not in our
name will you erode the very freedoms you
have claimed to fight for. Not by our hands will we supply weapons and funding for the annihilation of families on foreign soil. Not by our mouths will we let fear silence us. Not by our hearts will we allow whole peoples or countries to be deemed evil. Not by our
will and not in our name. We pledge
resistance. We pledge alliance with those who have come under attack for voicing opposition to the war, or for
their religion or ethnicity. We pledge to make common cause with the people of the world to bring about justice, freedom, and peace.
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Pax Duane Is America mad?
DECADES of death threats and frothing-at-the-mouth hate mail persuades me not all my fellow citizens are entirely sane. Leaving
aside the ravings of the rabid Right, some
on the Left show lunatic tendencies – and
then come the racists and the religious
nutters. At one stage I had four
correspondents claiming to be the second
coming of Christ. The
FBI and Secret Service admit to an
unprecedented increase in assassination
threats which, understandably, the president
talks down. - Pax et Bonum Duane Duane A Vachon PhD P.O. Box 8578 Honolulu HI 96830-0578 Phone 808 347-9834 Fax 408 521 0745 |
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Honolulu HI 96814
Duane A Vachon PhD has been a licensed clinical psychologist for over thirty years He belongs to the order of Secular Franciscans and is a life member of the Guild of Pastoral Psychology. After living almost 40 years as an expatriate he now writes from his home in Hawaii. He has written extensively on social justice and spiritual issues. United States of America
E-mail vachon.duane@gmail.com
WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK WE ARE George Bernard Shaw said, "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, they make them." Well, it's pretty apparent, isn't it? And every person who discovered this believed (for a while) that he was the first one to work it out. We become what we think about. Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn't know where he's going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety and worry - his life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing... he becomes nothing. How does it work? Why do we become what we think about? Well, I'll tell you how it works, as far as we know. To do this, I want to tell you about a situation that parallels the human mind. Suppose a farmer has some land, and it's good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn't care. It's up to the farmer to make the decision. We're comparing the human mind with the land because the mind, like the land, doesn't care what you plant in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn't care what you plant. Now,
let's say that the farmer has two seeds in
his hand- one is a seed of corn, the other
is nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two
little holes in the earth and he plants both
seeds-one corn, the other nightshade. He
covers up the holes, waters and takes care
of the land...and what will happen?
Invariably, the land will return what was
planted. As it's written in the Bible, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." Remember the land doesn't care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn. So up come the two plants - one corn, one poison. The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn't care what we plant...success...or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal...or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety and so on. But what we plant it must return to us. You see, the human mind is the last great unexplored continent on earth. It contains riches beyond our wildest dreams. It will return anything we want to plant.
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A Vachon P.O.
Box 8578 Honolulu
HI 96830 0578
United
States of America E-mail vachon.duane@gmail.com LISTEN TO YOUR BEEPS Reverse parking in a friend's sports car the other day, I was surprised to note that the beeping the car was making didn't get more intense when it got closer to the car behind. "Why
bother?" I asked, "if it hasn't
got a way of letting you know how far you
are from the object to avoid?" "I
don't know," he shrugged. "I guess
it's just helpful to be told when you're
going backwards."
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Mumbai, My Mother, and Me
By Patricia Rust
In the course of doing ordinary “stuff” today, I pulled out my pen when gold letters jumped off the pen to shout at me: TAJ PALACE MUMBAI. I don’t remember having their pen, taking their pen, nor writing with their pen. Yet there it was staring right at me – reminding me of my recent trip there which in light of recent events seems surreal. I guess we are all somewhat shell shocked when these things happen. Allow me to go back to the starting gate. As a child, my exotic mother would tell me very exotic stories. They would continue from night to night. There was never a story that did not involve jewels the size of a full moon and just as luminous and dazzling maharajas and maharanis. There were clever women and men with giant curled moustaches and turbans with secrets inside them. My mother wove in reincarnated people, Hindu gods, and sacred animals. At age four, she took me to an Indian movie that was four hours in length and later told me that I was so transfixed that she called my father and asked him to start dinner without us. We would shop for bronze and brass statues from India and noisy jewelry and dance in it! Sitar music was no stranger to our house and Ghandi was our silent hero. Here in Hawaii, my parents adopted a foster child, Sashi, from Southern India who had once had a pet elephant. He told us of his pretend elephant which, true to form, had never forgotten anything. Later, my glamorous mother, now an oil painter, painted a glamorous woman in a bright saffron sari with big black eyes and my father put it on a gallery wall in the family room. I thought this woman defined beauty so and my mother would tell me more and of all the millions of people in India. There are now 20 but then it was less than half of this! She seemed to know more about India than anyone. When I asked her how she knew so much, she smiled knowingly and always told me the same thing, “I have lived in India many times.” If you could see her steely blue eyes and Scandinavian blonde hair when she said this, you couldn’t help but laugh. But she would laugh along with you because her heart was light. When I got to UCLA, I took history courses in the British Empire with a Hindu professor in order to learn more about the continent of India. Meanwhile, my mother had taught me about all the precious gem stones that had come from India partly because her art career had spanned to encompass jewelry. By now, my mother and I wanted to go to India together but my father had a World War II injury which made it impossible because she liked to see to his care. He insisted we go but she wouldn’t leave him for a day! What a history India has had and I wanted my mother to be back in it! We are barely over 200 years old here! The students of India have thousands of years of history to absorb with all kinds of heroes with very difficult names. I couldn’t wait to one day see all that I had read and learned and to experience the vast sights and sounds of the audacious lyrical cacophony that is India. But I wanted my mother with me. I waited for my father’s passing but by then my mother’s health wasn’t up to it. So, we devised a plan. My best friend has been to India a number of times and knows it well. My mother and I studied each city and fort and planned an itinerary that she would follow on the internet while my friend and I would travel and check in daily via cell phone. Jackie (which is how I addressed my mother) and I would make the trip together. So, three months ago, I took books and chocolate to children in India. In 1999, I started a children's literacy foundation called Power for Kids and the cornerstone was a book I wrote called The King of Skittledeedoo (which was named best gift for grandparents to give grandchildren this Holiday Season). The Honolulu Advertiser once did a story on my literacy work and the article started like this, "Patricia Rust is a dreamer." It was an article I treasure because I am a dreamer and only as big as my dreams for a literate world! After many years of reading to children across the United States, reading to all kinds of audiences for television, PTAs, Governor’s Wives, Police Officers, Teachers of the Year luncheon attendees, there was no audience I didn’t love to read to, and the children of India were no exception. In fact, they were so well-behaved, that I wanted them to interrupt and ask questions and be rambunctious because they were so well-behaved that it was scary! As we traveled, my mother enjoyed hearing every morsel and now I was the teacher and she was the pupil listening to the details of this magnificent country brought to life. The children’s eyes she once painted were now real to her as I described the giant black saucers seen in saris and small trousers on the backs on bicycles, camels, and all means of transport. Photos were invited, encouraged, and the women’s work force included those who were carrying car engines on their heads! Such is Mumbai – a kaleidoscope of life! It is teeming with the madness of possibility -- the prosperous banks giving outrageous interest rates, turning down and out our dollar! Can you imagine declining the dollar for Indian Rupees! It's madness! It’s educated! It is the U.S. in its struggle for progress in a democracy 50 years ago – but in a country of over a billion people struggling to keep terrorism at bay! It seemed that as many women hold public office as men! But it still has a caste system. I was calling in my reports to my mother every chance. I was back in my journalism career. Just as we silence our horns in Hawaii to show good manners, the constant car horns of Mumbai were manic in their maniacal toot toots to acknowledge every passing person in what they consider to be good manners! Its nimble people can pile onto or into anything that moves like a school of tiny fish yet outside the city there are vast areas where monkeys replace people. The colors of Mumbai make you hungry--- the vivid life-affirming saffrons, reds, yellows, which wake you up, make you happy, and the lovely ladies wearing their saris all smile and are such happy people never too busy to stop and talk story! My literacy work there was shot for prime time television (Can you imagine that happening here?) and I shall never forget the female camera operator flinging back her top rung of the sari out of the way in such a feminine and beautiful manner that it struck me as so remarkable and pure India! The belief in karma presents as does our aloha spirit; and the passion for food feels akin to Ala Moana’s food court meets Italy! When I called my mother to tell her that I had received coconut rice wherever I went and wondered how they knew of my passion for this dish, she reminded me that everyone in India has a cell phone. We belly laughed about it as I described the cows, elephants, mopeds, bicycles, trucks, dogs, cats, all sharing the road while cell phones never stopped ringing. I suggested that she would never believe the gems I bought her and she said with the same enthusiasm I must have showed her at age four, “Yes, I will, yes, I will.” She never got to see those stones but we got to take our trip to India together…even if it was via cell phone and computer. I made it through the whole trip with her. And the night I returned home, she was admitted to the hospital. I was carrying puppets some of the schoolchildren had gifted to me. She called the Indian doctors to her side, “Look! My daughter and I just came back from India! She can tell you all about it! Do you recognize these dolls?” I think they were as excited as she was. Sadly, she picked up a superbug and did not get to come home but the time we spent together there was made all the more sweet with our memories of our trip to Mumbai. Patricia Rust 400 Hobron Lane #1201 Honolulu, HI 96815 808 947 2290, 310 663 1447 Cell
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