Author: Jason Zerbey

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Mindfulness and Abandonment

This memory popped up from a year ago. I had just started a mindfulness practice in hopes of being a better parent. I had no idea that practice would help ground me in an imminent and perplexing loneliness.

The first anniversary of my wife’s passing was approaching and I was flying high in my first romantic relationship since becoming a widower. Shortly after that anniversary, the relationship abruptly ended.

I’m sure the timing could have been worse, but I was ditched at the same moment I was remembering how my wife left me, however involuntary that may have been.

My practice expanded in those days to include stretching that led to yoga and my affirmations replaced, “May I,” with “I am.”

There’s been more than a year of regular yoga and three months of Wim Hof breathing and cold therapy. During these practices I still run through many of the same affirmations and gratitudes. I flow between meditation and conversation with God.

The feeling of abandonment came back this week. A sudden morning rush. The wave was hard and short. Just a day earlier, I had woken up in that same bed with my angel of a girlfriend beside me.

That’s the damned irrational nature of grief. When you feel happy and connected, it can carry you to loneliness and anger. But I’ve got my breath, prayers, and affirmations. They remind me of who I am and how far I have come. They remind me that I am the only one who can abandon me. God won’t and no one else can, not if I’m in a place of loving myself and Him.

God bless, thank you for reading, I appreciate you,

Jason

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What’s Up With Your Racist Friends?

“I never knew how many of my Facebook friends were racist.”

“I am shocked at how much stupidity is in my timeline.”

The evil in your friend’s heart is not your problem. The evil in your own heart is.

What disfunction, willful ignorance, trauma, or self hate has led you to attract these rotten humans into your life? If your friends are so stupid, how did they hide this hate and ignorance from you? Whose fault is that?

Take responsibility for the friends you have garnered in your life. The fault probably lies in you. It could be a deadly naiveté or a darker piece of you that’s easier to project on your chosen associates than to face with humility.

These quotes are the perfect markers of the threshold each of us must approach toward enlightenment. There the denial and projection of fear before awakening can occur.

Will you walk through the gate into uncomfortable self knowledge or stand rigidly where you are, pointing a righteous finger?

God bless and thank you for reading, I appreciate you,

Jason

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A Popular Bloom

The magnolia has gone full hydra. Every time I snip a bloom or two (three as party favors last week), more seem to replace them. Its fragrance is more pleasant than in the five years we’ve been here.


After I snipped this one, I noticed a beetle drunk on pollen. I thought he was dead and a small bee rounded the center of the flower, ignoring the beetle.


While trying to capture a picture of this special scene, the beetle crawled back to life and no fewer than three bees and a one small fly visited.


The beetle seemed to pull pistols (?) down, do some more pollen bathing, and hide away out of the sun.


I couldn’t bring myself to have this popular flower inside, so it’ll participate in the circle of life a bit longer today.

God bless and thank you for reading, I appreciate you,

Jason

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On Christianity

If you look at Christianity from its beginning, it didn’t have that name. Not even Jesus’s students named it that while he was alive. The “Way” was one of the names.

Let me pause. I want to go simple here. I’m usually digging and learning. But when I’m lost and looking for direction, I go to the New Testament. I look to the Way of Jesus. He talked to and healed all types of people regardless of deep cultural divides. He loved and preached love. He lifted up women over and over. In one of his last commands he put his mother’s care in his best friend’s hands. There’s no simpler, clearer way for me to see life.

We’re not a Nation. We’re an Empire made up of many Nations. There is no National conversation to be had, it’s the lie of the last 100 years.

That truth is not enough. We have to break up the Nations, talk to each other as individuals, not political abstractions. That’s what Jesus has taught me.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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The Usefulness of Triggers

Widowhood won’t leave you alone for long. It creeps up in the weirdest ways.

My boys and I say down this week to watch the Tron movies. I thought I had seen the sequel, but as the opening scenes began, I realized that it was an unfinished plan I shared with Mary.

We had watched the original film together in 2017. Were going to watch the new one. We didn’t get that chance.

It didn’t hurt. I didn’t see any great opportunity for healing or a need to share this rather small observation with my sons.

But I see this as a place to share those little things. One day my sons may need this story. Maybe they’ll need to know how much of their mother’s legacy they are a seamless part of. They complete, and at once continue, the life that seems to have been cut short.

God bless, thank you, I appreciate you,

Jason

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Each individual has to find that time to speak or listen in his or her heart. The latest bully tactic on social media is to push people to post on a certain topic, claiming they are bad if they do not. That’s intimidating if you want to do more than cut and paste the approved message. If you use the “wrong” word or aren’t “strong” enough against whatever or for whatever, you could have a shit pile come down on you.

A lot of people are under the stress of the lockdowns, just trying to keep themselves and their families together, to keep their businesses open, to navigate the labyrinth of restrictions on our daily lives.

Compelling speech or action does not empower the individual.

God bless, thank you, I appreciate you,

Jason

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F The Police?

I’ve been to left-wing protests and right-wing protests. I’ve been in a riot. I’ve looted. I’ve been to fever-pitched religious services and concerts that might as well have been welcoming the Messiah. I’ve been in the mob and of the mob.

I’ve been treated fairly, unfairly, and downright lied to by the police. I’ve run and I’ve been arrested. After smashing my car in a drunk driving incident and almost killing someone, I was treated so well by the officer that I got second chances I didn’t deserve.

I’m friends with police officers, I know they’re human beings like me. I know the same line between good and evil that runs through my heart runs through theirs.

There’s a legal monopoly of violence held by the State and its enforcement arm. That’s what makes the police a problem. When violence is a viable and effective tool, it will be used. Just as screaming at a child will cease unwanted behaviour, for a time, so will beating individuals who will not comply with governmental orders.

For the present legal system to work, there must be cooperation between police, judges, and lawmakers. A law is passed with an understanding that the lawmaker doesn’t need to justify its existence, so long as the police officer enforces the threat of violence. The judge understands that it is difficult to compel people to do what they don’t want to do, so is sympathetic to the police. These branches of government protect each other as they know that the system and their livelihoods depend on it.

It is a natural human instinct to recognize allies and favor them.

Solutions to a system sustained by violence are difficult. They must be radical to change our perspective on how law is enforced. They must be specific so we can have honest discussions and real steps we can take.

I’m educating myself with a variety of sources, but Tom Woods has offered a tidy list of episodes that he’s done on this subject. They run around 30 minutes and deal with theoretical and practical concerns. I hope to be able to write more clearly on what to do about the police in the coming days and weeks.

Ep. 1664 On Looting and Police Brutality, With Eric July

Ep. 1429 Scott Horton on the Police, the Military, and Other State Institutions People Make Excuses For

Ep. 1255 The Problem With Government Police

Ep. 1172 The Problem With Government Police

Ep. 901 Police Officer Discovers Libertarianism, Quits

Ep. 426 The Shocking Kill Rate of American Police

Ep. 388 Is America a Police State? Here’s the Evidence

Ep. 88 The Economics of the Police State

Ep. 51 The Paramilitary Police

God bless, thank you, I appreciate you,

Jason

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Peony is a Funny Word

We got a tip that differently colored peonies smelled differently, so we found out for ourselves!
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My beautiful girlfriend and I took the boys to Winterthur to explore. We spent a lot of time with our faces in flowers. Sweet, sour, musky, stanky, subtle, strong…they were all unique. Westen joked that we were pollinators and I’m still sneezing.
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The later time slot and iffy forecast gave us near-exclusive access to the gardens. We spotted a fox, bluebirds, swifts, a toad, koi, the reddest cardinal, crane fly or dragonfly molts, a blue heron, dining vultures, and the wonder we always experience at Winterthur.

God bless, thank you, I appreciate you,

Jason