Talking out loud

So, I am trying to sort out what is going on upstairs...No, not in heaven, in my head. There is the realization that something is different. Not necessarily in a good way, but not in the worst ways either. Combat messes with you and the way you perceive...everyday life. I am so detached right now. Yeah, detached is a good word, because it isn't the same as disconnected. Sure, it is similar, but it is different enough that the difference feels Important. I can't seem to do more than recognize that I feel that way. The fact that I am writing this down feels good. It has been so long since I felt I could listen to the thoughts rattle around like marbles in my brain pan.

Have you noticed that there is a lot of noise in the world? Just on the radio the other day, they had a story/interview about a guy who records sounds. He was talking about how there is a shortage of quiet places where man-made sounds do not intrude. I totally agree. It is even hard to find a quiet place in my mind. There aren't minutes in the day it seems, where I can find a place to breathe, and think, and listen.

Peace. Peace to me is a quiet mountain stream with cool shade on the banks, listening to the songs of birds. Literally, I am a long way from the mountain stream. Figuratively, it feels only just out of my reach. I think I would just need a quiet spot, truly quiet, where cars, planes, generators, phones, fans, computers, and sometimes even voices can't reach. Not forever, just for a few minutes, maybe a half hour or more, but let me sort through the mess on my virtual desktop and file some notes that have been waiting for me to have a minute to pay them attention. 

The Latest and Greatest Thing

Another paid programming for the latest and greatest thing that we don't have that will change our life has just finished. Did we buy into it? Is it really going to do what it promises? Anymore, I don't care about a product's potential to work. I want the product to absolutely work if I am going to invest in it. When you have been disappointed by so many things that promised to change your life, you just want one thing to work. Those programs trying to sell us something on the television always have their little catches. Like the fitness program works, IF we follow their diet plan and maybe buy into the related supplements they offer. The magic fat pill only works if we have too much weight to lose, not the 20-30 pounds that most people care about losing. Oh, and the claims have not been verified by the FDA, which pretty much means that they can say whatever they want. And we let them get away with it.

What if God did it that way? What if we had to accept the free gift, and then do X, Y, and Z to be successful. The XYZ doesn't have to be anything particular, they can be little things. The problem is that the minute we are required to do XYZ, the gift is no longer a gift. The gift becomes payment for the services you rendered. "God, I did what you told me, now I want that reward." This point was brought home to me during my two-hour employment stint as a telemarketer. I had called one lady up and read my script. She astutely pointed out, "You mean you will give me a free trip to Zanzabar if I buy this coupon book? Don't you mean that I just paid X dollars for the book AND the trip?" Quite. Thank you for your time, ma'am. Click.

Why don't we all see things as clearly? The demand that I have to see, do, or say anything to receive salvation offered as a free gift really kind of takes the whole "free" thing away from it. The opposite side of that coin is that we must demonstrate proof of receipt by XYZ. It is the same song, only a different verse. The Emperor's New Clothes, anyone? We act out who we are inside. If the product is real, and brings about a real transformation, there won't be a need to prove it by demanding an artificial demonstration.

The Basis of Standards

What is the basis of standards? Could it be that fear is the greatest barrier we could ever encounter? Is fear the primary basis of most standards that people try to enforce throughout the day?

A Whole Lot of Noise

I am flying again! At times I still feel like I have cobwebs in my head, but it feels like finally waking up. Tonight was gunnery; flying at night and shooting on the range. I can't help but think of people trying to sleep while I am making little explosions happen. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Oops, sorry! :-D

Anchors Aweigh!

I was listening to an NPR segment on a South African musician who commented that our past is what keeps us anchored to who we are. In many ways, our past keeps us anchored to things that are detrimental to us, especially when we become anchored to our failures and flaws, our past mistakes. There can be problems in defining ourselves by our past. The trite saying of, "Let go and let God," comes to mind. Mostly, it comes to mind with the understanding that very few of us find the ability within ourselves to let go, to give up our past to anyone, much less God. After all, it is ours.

The thought then struck me, that as long as we are anchored to that past, we can never escape it. If we were anchored somewhere else, our identity would no longer originate from that past. We could move on, and it would no longer drag behind us like, well...an anchor.

These Sufferings

A few events in the course of the last several years have led me to seek counseling. What I do and experience is not normal for the human experience. As I believe I have said before, if not here then elsewhere, is that you can't go through these things and not be changed. A lot like you can't have a knowledge of grace and not be changed.

So, what is the diagnosis? Well, initially, I am diagnosed with Adjustment Disorder, which basically means that I don't know how to come back from the war yet. It has less to do with what actually happened in the way of events and is more about being used to experiencing life in a certain way that living at home is a shock, of sorts, to my system.

The elephant in the room for me, right now, is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is basically saying that normal people have a problem with being shot at, shooting at other people, seeing people die, or even living with a "daily" occurrence of death. Believe me, it is more widespread in the military than many would believe. The thing is, many people can maintain a high level of function with PTSD, but you can't hide its effects 100%.

Now, I say "normal" because I think we have a common understanding of what we expect a "normal" life to be in the United States. Very rarely are we exposed to the amount of violence, destruction, and death that exists in a combat zone. Most likely it is this cycle of going from combat zone to normal has put me in this position of even dreading having to get used to "normal" because I know I will eventually go back to a combat zone.

Yesterday, a good friend, who I have known since I began as a military pilot, mentioned that he used me as an example of someone who has "chronic fatigue." Not to be mistaken for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, chronic fatigue, in aeromedical parlance, is more of a chronic exposure to situations that create acute fatigue; the kind of fatigue you feel after a poor night's sleep. This friend was deployed to Iraq in the early stages, and he has seen many pilots who have been through multiple deployments. This last deployment to Afghanistan was his second deployment. He has identified that two deployments is somewhere around the limit. I say that would depend greatly on the experience during the deployments.

Adjustment Disorder, PTSD, chronic fatigue, put it all together, and the common thing is that I am tired. I feel tired. I am not unhappy, but I am worn. I have not written often or long, and that may be just as much a symptom of what is going on with me as anything else. My case facilitator, going through her own grief right now with a death in the family, encouraged me to share. So, I share here, as I share with the rest of my family, at work and at home, what is going on with me.

Just. Out. Of. Reach.

Mary posted something on facebook the other day that had me picturing when you've lost something in an inaccessible place; like your car keys behind the sofa, or your change down the sidewalk grate, or your ring down the sink drain. You reach and stretch and try to wiggle yourself into position, doing everything in your power and will to retrieve that thing that you have lost.

It is these pictures we have of ourselves that we often use to correlate to other, similar-sounding situations. Only, they don't always have direct correlation. For instance, there is a popular physics discussion about jet aircraft and a treadmill runway. Everyone knows that a treadmill works when you propel yourself forward and that cars propel themselves forward on wheels, but the jet propels itself differently. The wheels aren't propelling anything. The problem is that we hinder our ability to view the problem through filters we create from our own experience.

In the case of our lost item, the obstacle is sometimes insurmountable without outside assistance or intervention. This experience then becomes a filter to how we view something having been lost. This concept of the lost item is often projected onto God. How does an omniscient God lose something? Didn't he know it would get lost? Why wouldn't he know where it was lost? Did he forget?

The outside assistance or intervention is oddly projected onto the lost item, us. Our action is required to bridge the gap of the obstacles sin and death. We are required to cry out to gain his attention. How did it come about that the omnipotent God needed our assistance? Somehow, when you take the limitation of the human searching for their lost possession out of the picture, God doesn't seem so helpless anymore. If God's condition in the situation is not what we deemed it to be through the filter of our experience, one must wonder how our perception of our own condition has been altered from reality.