I AM what I AM.
I AM a man of peace and justice.
I AM a man of equality and community.
Trying to live a life of integrity and simplicity.
I AM what I AM.
This is my identity.
.
How does a man of peace
Live while being swallowed up
By the violence of the machine?
A machine of our own making.
A machine that by its own nature
Must carry on and on and on
With us being good little cogs
In the machine.
The machine must work
as it casts out the outcasts
Sprewing the broken
and the misfits.
.
Into the margins go
The poor and downtrodden
The battered and the bruised
The tattered and the torn
The shattered and shocked;
Occupying the fringes of society.
A sort of landfill of people
Invisible and voiceless
Because they are
Useless to the machine.
.
The military industrial complex
Devours goods and services
Making the rich richer
While the powerful send
The young and the strong
To their deaths;
Torn from their mothers’ arms,
Erased from the face of the earth.
.
The educational industrial complex
Herds the masses through
Factories of rote learning.
Drugging the misfits and
Prodding youth like cattle through
Gates NOT of their own choosing;
Teaching kids to be good little cogs in the machine
As they drop out before they even get started.
.
The medical industrial complex
Delivers health care through drugs
Treating symptoms rather than causes.
Making big bucks for the
Pharmaceutical industrial complex
And the healthcare industrial complexk
Leaving Americans
With the cost of losing both
our money and our health.
.
The consumer industrial complex
Playing on the weaknesses
And addictions of the people
The cogs in the machine.
Seducing them into believing
They have no intrinsic value.
Seducing them into believing
That our “things” define us
That our “things” give us value;
Although every “thing”
will be left behind
When we die
.
The automotive industrial complex
An integral part of the
Consumer industrial complex
Has taught us all our lives
That we need to invest
In the worst investment
Of our lives. A car.
But “the car I drive defines me
And my self image,” we are told,
While robbing our children of their planet
.
Mindlessly, cities and countrysides
Are designed around our dependence
On our automobiles.
Could I survive without it?
Could I survive without the rat race it creates?
Or do I need it so I can participate
in that rat race
Of our own making?
.
Three months ago
I found myself waking up
While being swallowed up
By the violence of the machine.
Working full time and part time
STRESS was raising havoc
With my health.
.
My mental health tanked by depression
Due to STRESS
My physical health tanked
By high blood pressure
By high blood sugar
By weight gain
Due to STRESS.
.
But I had to keep working
Maintaining my rat race
So I could afford my car
So I could afford health insurance
So I could participate in the machine.
.
Wait a minute!
Destroy my health for the sake of
having health insurance?
So I could fix what I was breaking?
But it was STRESS that was taking me out!
It was not having time to destress
And to breathe and to walk.
.
So I quit my full time job
It paid terrible anyway.
And through the healthcare exchange
I found a health plan that cost less than what
My employer was taking out of my check
For health insurance!
.
Then my car blew its head gasket
Kind of like what I had been doing to myself.
It truly was a great favor
Because it yanked me out of the rat race
It slowed me down so I could destress
Busing, biking, and walking
And low and behold
I’m getting more healthy day by day.
Maybe my car breaking down
saved my life…
Maybe quitting my job
saved my life…
Maybe my American Dream
was killing me…
.
I discovered that one of the best places
To experience the violence of the machine
Without participating in it
Is sitting at a bus stop
So close to the road
I could feel the wind
In the wake of each car
I could hear the violent pounding
Of wheels on brick.
.
Participating in the rat race
Does not allow us to observe it.
It is like asking the fish,
“How’s the water?”
And the fish answering,
“What water?”
.
Sitting there observing the rats
In the rat race.
Mindlessly, frantically,
rushing… rushing…. rushing
Rushing around…
For what?
Good question…
For what?
.
According to a Sufi guide:
“When we rush around,
We lose things.
When we slow down,
Things come to us.”
.
We bury ourselves
in the bubble
of our sweet machine.
Impervious to others,
to anything outside our bubble
Impervious to the breeze and the sun.
.
Freeing myself of my machine
Or rather my machine freeing me
From itself gave me life in a whole new way.
.
I sit, waiting, observing, listening
To the violence of the rat race
Racing down the road to nowhere.
Learning to wait is one of the
first lessons of leaving the rat race,
Letting go of convenience, speed,
And the stress of being a racing rat;
Turning toward health and wellness.
.
It goes on and on…
The entertainment industrial complex
The technological industrial complex
The justice industrial complex
The incarceration industrial complex
The government industrial complex
The manufacturing industrial complex.
.
These machines of our own making
Destroy and dehumanize
Stripping us of the essence
Of being human.
.
Who am I? (my identity)
Why am I here? (my purpose)
What am I going to do about it? (my mission)
Living with Open Hands 
Diana A Robbins, Author
July 12, 2017
As I read on and on, I knew we had “seen” the same, experienced the same (only the specifics vary!) and had come to the same conclusions and place with the same questions. And as I read, my little heart’s little arms reached out to your heart, and it said the answer to all those questions IS Love… We ARE Love….we are HERE to love….and Love is our mission. What remains is the “HOW?” And I believe that the answer to even this is that LOVE, honoring our vision and intent, will continue to guide us and to show us the how. Must share this widely. Our vision and mission are one. Love lives with open hands, open hearts, and open will.
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Ron Irvine
July 12, 2017
I see my blog and upcoming book as a sort of technology of love. When I worked with kids that had been kicked out of every school they had attended and even out of their communities, sent to live in youth homes that were called behavior treatment homes, I found the the use of big words like “love” were meaningless to them based on their real world understanding in real situations. What does love look like and do? For them it meant things like:
That’s why I beat you.
Get into bed woman, I’m horny.
And then disappearing and coming back on a selfish whim over and over.
I live you only if…
Those that understand love need to put a handle on the words for those that have had no context to understand. It is lived, not just spoken.
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Diana A Robbins, Author
July 12, 2017
Yes, of course, I understand that. And as a nurse who worked in several disciplines, including drug rehab (dual diagnoses), I have experienced/seen much of what you have experienced and seen. So you are very much preaching to the choir when you say that it is lived, not just spoken. 🙂
And I’ve read enough of your writing to understand that you are talking about boots-on-the-ground love in action in very tangible ways. I’m the same. There IS a sort of technology to loving (or to BEING Love) authentically. Of course it is lived and not just spoken. I hope I never gave the impression, using the word as I do, so often, that words alone will do. I share on what Love DOES far more than anything else–boots-on-the-ground. Full bore. Hard core, selfless giving and sharing and listening and understanding and then going back and doing the same, often again and again, till it takes.
The following? ~~
“That’s why I beat you.
Get into bed woman, I’m horny.
And then disappearing and coming back on a selfish whim over and over.
I live you only if…”
I’ve lived through that and more, from childhood on. And now, having learned compassion FROM that, I refuse to GIVE anything akin to that, not in word or deed, except to protect the weak and innocent to the best of my ability.
Thank you for your words, Ron…. I will try in future to be more clear that by LOVE I do not mean just anything that pretends to be love–or romantic emotions–or dysfunctional definitions of Love. But be clear on this, my friend, when I love, it is full bore, boots-on-the-ground and not just words. Very Franciscan (if you know what I mean). And I mean for that to be shared with everyone, especially those who have been marginalized by experiencing “NOT LOVE!” No one left out and no one left behind.
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Diana A Robbins, Author
July 12, 2017
Reblogged this on Diana A Robbins, Author and commented:
To the author, Ron Irvine: As I read on and on, I knew we had “seen” the same, experienced the same (only the specifics vary!) and had come to the same conclusions and place with the same questions. And as I read, my little heart’s little arms reached out to your heart, and it said the answer to all those questions IS Love… We ARE Love….we are HERE to love….and Love is our mission. What remains is the “HOW?” And I believe that the answer to even this is that LOVE, honoring our vision and intent, will continue to guide us and to show us the how. Must share this widely. Our vision and mission are one. Love lives with open hands, open hearts, and open will.
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Diana A Robbins, Author
July 12, 2017
PS: I have learned a lot about life, about people, about myself, even about the nature of the universe while sitting at a bus stop or train station or airport. 🙂
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