Dorienne's Log

Something like this happens nearly every day of my life, but rarely do I step back and really thank God for the small wonders He bestows upon me. Since I’m a bit too thick to remember the proverbial small things, He takes some of them and just expands them in front of my eyes so that I remember that even though I am just an insignificant speck amongst all His creations, he is still watching and listening.

I try very hard to find the something good out of everyone I meet, but of course, there are some people I just don’t like. While I make every attempt to first examine myself to make sure what irks me about them is not something they do and that I also do or worse, is something that I am just projecting onto them unduly. Once all these conditions are met, I chalk said person up to “I just don’t like them,” but again, work diligently to remember that Christ’s teachings are to love all my “brothers” and “sisters” and pray for them even when my “humanity” just doesn’t want to pray for them. That said, I have encountered a number of people through my job that “I just don’t like,” but it is amazingly through these people that God allows me to remember my own faults and issues and also reminds me to thank Him for the small things.

A few months ago, I applied for a new position within my job and was sore to find out that I did not get the position I wanted, only to realize that that same position would have put me in direct contact with one of these few people “I just don’t like.” That little scenario in itself was happy-dance and blog-worthy because it was one of those times when I had said, “Well God. I don’t understand why you didn’t given me what I wanted, but I’m sure this is all a part of your plan.” but the real joy comes from today. When faced with another one of these people that “I just don’t like,” I cried out an arrow prayer of sorts that I didn’t even realize I was making and was provided with not only the peace I was seeking, but also the ability to save face so that I could remain on good terms with someone who I really just want to punch in the face, but don’t because…well, there are lots of reasons, but I know I just shouldn’t.

The point of today’s ramble is simply that God is always listening and knows precisely what I need, and for that, I am thoroughly thankful.

I added this video as one of my YouTube favorites recently because it really makes one consider “insignificance” in a whole new light:

I am incredibly small when compared with everything else in God’s universe…and yet He still saves me from myself and answers my prayers.

…kind of brings this little diddy to mind:

Not a day of my life goes by where I don’t run at least one Google Search; today is no different. On the 21st, Google ran a dedication of sorts to the artist Rene Magritte and, by doing so, Google have incited a fire for art that I never knew dwelled within me.

This is the image that started it:

Google-Magritte

From there, a vast part of the day was spent research Rene Magritte and learning what I didn’t know I already knew…the work of Magritte was the pinnacle of brilliance. I found myself staring at this image for minutes at a time (only minutes as I was at work when this epiphany hit) and it was only upon appreciating it that this one made more sense to me and inspired me to create some art of my own.

In the past, I always imagined myself as some kind of artist, but only regarding literary art; my pen as my paintbrush, my blank “New Document” as my canvass, blah, blah, blah. Somewhere in staring at La Condition Humaine 1935, it occurred to me that I could create a visual artwork of my own. As I have no talent with a paintbrush and my childhood “sculptures” are the things from nightmares (or simply paperweights only a mother could love), I knew that I taking up a canvass or buying some clay to create art was out of the question…but manipulating an image in Photoshop is totally up my alley.

The plan is to create La Condition Humaine 1935 with my Abbey Road poster and my hand instead of a canvass stand. I’ll post the creation once it’s complete.

In taking the images I thought necessary to initiate the creation of La Condition de Beatles’ Fan, I noticed my beloved Darth Tater and began experimenting with light, my camera’s flash and shadows on the wall to take some interesting pictures. I’m not sure if this is really just a passing fancy or ordinary OCD within ADHD, but for now…I think I really like this art “thing.”

I must put in my two cents on this matter. I must. Proposition 8 in California.

Proposition 8 in California does not forwardly affect me in any way. My state put this down somewhere around 60/30 back in 2004; Ohio may fall blue every once in a while, but we are not that “progressive.” Regardless of the fact that Prop. 8 does not concern me, I watched the results of it with bated breath, even more so than with the presidential election.

What is key in this issue is that I really don’t know where I stand on it. I know what the Bible says about gays in general, I know what Jesus also says about loving everyone (Matthew 22:36-40) and I remember my past rants about changing the definition of a “union” to help alleviate some of these problems without ever having to touch the (nowadays often symbolic) institution of marriage. I know and remember all of this, but none of it matters at all when it comes to Prop 8. NOT. AT. ALL. The only thing of consequence in Prop 8 is the fact that the will of the people was actively overruled by five individuals who felt they knew better than the majority of the state.

This is not the first time the voters of California have encountered this particular issue on their ballot. Twice before this year, the voters saw this issue on the ballot and twice the voters voted in one direction, specifically against gay marriage. In 2008, five people took the law into their own hands, defying the will of the people and essentially distorting any image that ours is a country of the people, by the people and for the people. This, and this alone, is what destroys me every time I think about Prop 8.

I may not get so heated when I take time to ponder this if the results of the current vote and previous votes had not been so one-sided, but they are and so I am. The people made a decision twice before this, these far-reaching judges overturned the people’s decision and, once more, the people have come to the same conclusion. It was not as if the people were incensed over a narrowly-winning proposition and the judges had to step into the fray to cast that “so-called” deciding ballot to quell the masses on either side. These judges simply made a decision that echoed in the ears of all US citizens only to have the people, by a majority, return their former decision.

The US voting system, in most cases, is very simple; the one who gets the most votes wins. This means that if 50.000019% of the people vote in one way or another, that percentage will win. Is this always the best of measures? It depends on how you look at it, but it is a fact and a necessary cog of democracy. In California, the people came together, cast their ballots and voted against gay marriage, yet several years later, five judges felt they knew better than the majority of the people and took it upon themselves to overturn the will of the people!

Let’s break this down into terms that anyone should be able to understand.

Barack won over McCain in the US presidential election by a 52-48% margin. If we were to apply the same circumstances in California to the general election, five out of nine Supreme Court judges could decide that they know better than the majority and…that’s right, overturn the will of the people and name John McCain as President of the United States, even though the people had spoken. Imagine the Supreme Court doing so, not just after the election, but say, a year or two into Obama’s presidency.

Unbelievable, no? Thankfully, our electoral process does not allow something like that to happen, but no such protection is afforded to people of California. The people voted against same sex marriages and five people, not a caucus of judges, not several sets of judges from various circuits and districts, not a series of congressmen and women directly elected into office and subject to voter scrutiny every few years, FIVE people decided that they know better than the majority and reversed the will of the people. As an American citizen, I am outraged!

This goes well beyond issue itself. I don’t really care how the people voted at this point. What matters here is that the people voted and those judges out-stepped their jurisdiction to overturn the will of the people! I will say it again: five judges overturned the will of the people!!! Where is the ACLU on this one? These judges are trampling the very essence of democracy and there is no one screaming about the real issue! I would be just as outraged over this if the people had voted for gay marriage and five judges decided that the people did not know best and overturned that decision. It makes no difference what the issue is. What matters here is that the will of the people had been disregarded by a select few and if it can happen there over one issue…it can happen in any state over any issue.

Just imagine it: The people have decided on fewer taxes. Bam! Five judges can say the people don’t know what is best for them and reverse the will of the people to allow unwanted taxes fall upon the people. The people have decided that they want harsher sentences for sexual offenders. Bam! Five judges can say the people don’t know what is best for them and reverse the will of the people to let sex offenders off with lighter sentences since the “prisons are already too full.” The people have decided that they want capital punishment, looser gun laws, less government interference in their daily lives, and so on and so forth. Bam! Five judges can say the people don’t know what is best for them and reverse the will of the people to turn our once great nation into a socialist empire headed by a series of “judges” who all know what is best for the people.

Does this sound irrational? Does this sound utterly far fetched? If anyone had told me a year earlier that five judges could overturn a decision decided upon, not by over-zealous politicians, but directly by the people, I too would have called these scenarios far fetched. And, yet…here we are.

(11/25/08)
Edit:
Further investigation into the results of California’s Proposition 8 have unveiled the need for a poignant correction. It was not actually five judges who overturned the people’s decision. The California Supreme Court consists of seven, not nine judges. And, so, it is even worse…On May 15, 2008, four people, not five, overturned a decision made by the majority. The whole thing stinks even stronger with one less person over-stepping the bounds of the judiciary.

I’m not going to spend hours writing about how much the government bailout irks me in way I never thought possible; that’s for others to do and, believe me, they have done so well. I just want to take a minute to examine a specific issue that comes in the wake of the bailouts.

Every corporation is now sitting at the government’s doorstep with their hands out waiting for their piece of the pie and meanwhile, things on which my tax dollars should be spent, like federally-funded rape crises centres for example, must go on as if the government was not handing out a penny to anyone.

Columbus, Ohio is currently sitting in the midst of what will soon be an all-out panic over a serial rapist who is stalking women and attacking them in the mid-morning hours. I have been covering the story since I first saw it on the news, (so conveniently, but importantly after SVU aired), and was somewhere near horrified to read this article on my news feed. Everyone from sleazy insurance companies to irresponsible banks to simply the greediest amongst Americans is getting their piece of Crap Sandwich 2.0, but something on which tax dollars could be and should be validly spent has to go without funding. It’s just…I don’t think there is really a word in English that really describes how awful it is. A rape crisis center has to shut its doors from lack of funding because the government can’t find less than a million to toss at something that actively helps the victims of mankind’s most horrible crimes, but…AIG gets billions and billions to send their most senior staff to million-dollar spas to work out the kinks in their shoulders they received after doing absolutely nothing to ensure their company did not fall into the state in which they found themselves.

Most days I expect that the government wastes my money on things like welfare that keeps the already downtrodden as low as they can get, while never helping the people who do actually “need a little help.” Most days I expect that I will wake up to find that the world really must be close to Armageddon because there doesn’t seem to be any other reason for horrors I had read about the previous day. Most days I expect that when even I feel like I need to research getting my concealed carry license to protect myself from the crazies that lurk, (unchecked by the government that should have caught these problems when these monsters were children) just around the corner, that we are heading in a bad direction as a country. Most days I expect a lot, but some days…

Some days…I just don’t get it.

I realized something fascinating this week…

Throughout most of October, I had made a strong effort to ensure that I read at least one chapter of the Bible every day. I started with Luke, then the Gospel of John, then read Mark. I am currently reading Matthew, but there have been large gaps in my reading in November. I took a temporary position at work that is a nice opportunity, but has thrown my schedule completely out of whack, making me feel the busiest I have ever been. The problem, however, is that somewhere in all of that busyness, I started to forget about my daily chapter. Interestingly enough, once I stopped reading my chapter-a-day, I started feeling stressed again; a stress that was reminiscent of the days before I came back to Christ. The house became messy, I did not seem to have time for anything and I started gaining weight…all because I had neglected to take time to ensure I had time for Jesus.

Over the past few days, I have been working diligently to make sure I took some “me” time somewhere in the day just so that I could make time for Christ. I am still not back into my normal rhythm, but at least I am aware of the root cause of my stress and know how to do something about it…and also ready myself to vow to never let it happen again.

On another note, my favorite author of all time passed away this week. My reaction to the news was with complete shock, though as evidence that I am living in a Post-Edrith and Post-MawMaw psyche where I am almost always “all cried out,” I did not cry. I may yet find myself needing to mourn him with tears, but at this point I don’t really know what to do.

When I was growing up, there was no “Young Adult” genre and so, I went from reading Berenstein Bears to Crichton and King. Crichton’s works have fascinated me more than any other author I have ever read and the thought that there will never be a new Crichton novel leaves me feeling rather…hollow.

There was a point in my life (actually a rather long span of my life) where I wanted to be a black female version of Michael Crichton. I wanted to go to medical school and then begin writing just so that I could take a path similar to his. The only reason I watched the bits of ER that I did was because he had created it and I had fantasized about what kind of show I could create after I was out of medical school and had published a few novels. I have greatly adapted this dream, but the fact remains that it was Crichton and his works that first put the thought of “I could be a writer” in my head. I still see myself years from now saying, “He’s the reason I became a writer.” I already feel the loss.

I have prayed for his family and also that he was at peace with his God before he passed, but I think that some time during these next few weeks, while carving out some “me” time, I will definitely need a moment. I know the older I get, the more often this will occur, so I suppose I should simply ready myself for the inevitable, but I think I may find a new fervor for re-reading each of his works that I have in my possession.

*Please note: Barack Hussein Obama is half Kenyan and half white and as such does not fit my definition of Black American, but I will use the term “black President” without this bias…for the time being.

I’ll say this first just to get it out of the way and make this clear: I did not vote for Barack Obama.

…however.

Throughout my high school years, I would read my science and history textbooks and say to myself, “I hope something new happens when I am alive.” or “I wonder what will make the history books in my lifetime.” Looking back, I cannot really remember on what I used to ponder when I answered these non-questions, but I know I can say, I never, in a million, billion years, would have thought I would live to see a black…er, um…mostly black president of the United States. I think I can remember saying in the not too distant past that the only way America would have a *black President is if he, emphasis on he, was a conservative to really help those who would only vote on race find themselves in a quandary, and yet…here we are.

Although am I still incredibly skeptical of his abilities and what he will actually accomplish in his time in the White House, I saw this image on my computer and almost burst into tears:

Wow...

To think that I…me…I would see a black president in the United States Oval Office at the age of 24 and not at 86 telling my grandchildren about the number of times “we came close,” but never saw it. It is quite easy to get caught up in the absolute glee that…I won’t say bombards because that word just doesn’t feel right at this time, but you get the idea… me right and left and I feel oddly conflicted by it. I’m “happy” it happened, but disgusted (once again) that my choice for a leadership position in my country has not been chosen. I voted for McCain/Palin, but there is something that is simply exciting at having a dark-skinned president and a First Lady who looks like me (except for those crazy, weird eyes of hers…).

At some point in the afternoon, I just said to myself, “You know, I don’t even care because we’re screwed either way.” but while I tossed and turned in my bed last night, I prayed for one thing and one thing only: “Jesus, please let America make the right choice.” Not put a Republican in the White House. Not put a black person in the White House. Simply that we, as Americans, make the right choice.

I still think the fact that we had our first female VP on the ballot will go utterly unnoticed, but I still think Sarah Palin is great and I’m glad she was cleared on those bogus charges. I still think that Hillary would have made a better candidate and, the more I think about it, I think the fact that she was not the Dem’s choice made me a little bitter, driving me from “moderately conservative” to “full-blown conservative.” I still think I did the right thing by voting for the person I thought would make the best president and not voting because of race. But, I will save all of that for another night.

I’ll save the rantings about the Dems cheating in key states, about how he could possibly represent the worst instance of affirmative action the nation has ever witnessed or about the fact that I’ll be singing the “Blue State Blues” for the next four years for another post. Tonight is just for…wow.