Circumstances

I have a hearing with the Social Security Administration later today, on Thursday November 19th, 2009. And the judge will make a decision on my dissability case. I am not expecting a favorable decision. This is a serious problem for me because I have debts, and no way to pay without the benefits past due. One of those debts is with the Social Security Administration for overpayment of past benefits, the full amount is near $5000 dollars. My father has already said that he will pay that debt, but I think its unjust if he has to do that. I have not been employed these past 5 years, my only source of income is grass cutting money and I just do that for my parents. Have lived with my parent's in this house for about 7 years now, and they pay all my bills. I do have a car titled in my name but Dad pays for it entirely, and it is convienient for them so they don't have to drive me everywhere and to doctor's appointments.

I have worked in the past, my longest term of employment was with the National Archives here in Saint Louis, Missouri. I worked in thier mailroom for 3 years as an intermittent employee. Intermittent's work a certain number of hours per year and are then laid off until thier anniversay date and they can return to work. Eventually my hours were cut and I ended up being fired from that job. The office manager wanted to cut hours on her staff, and I was always the first man to be sent home early. Right after I lost that job I started getting dissability benefits from the SSA, and I did receive those benefits for many years. I did make an effort to work again, I pretty much had to because I got married and had a family to support. But I've never had much success in holding a job, and I went from one job to another, never staying at one for very long. Its hard to say why all those jobs were lost, it was never one single reason and it wasn't always my fault. My problematic medical condition had nothing to do with it in several cases and sometimes it did. I have always had a problem with Insomnia and falling to sleep, and even with the medications I take now I still have the problem. Keeping to a fixed schedule has always been a problem for me.

The judge may decide that I'm able to work, and for the most part I am able, I am not physically impaired in any way; but its not that simple. In my own humble opinion I am unemployable, irreguardless of what the SSA judge decides my own opinion will not change. They have all my medical histories and some other personal records, and clearly it is a history of suffering. I have not suffered alone, my entire family has suffered as well. If they will not grant me the benefits I can only imagine it will cause more suffering. But I will not be forced into work, I am retired, I have done enough. I certainly do not deserve more suffering, my life has become fairly comfortable as it is, I'm mostly happy. But still there is this problem of debt, I owe a growing debt of child support to my ex-wife. For a long time I did pay the support, either from my SSA benefits or from a paycheck, I am willing to pay. However I simply have not had the means to pay for at least the past 5 years. The Missouri govt agency in charge of these things did make an effort to suspend my driver's liscense, and my parents paid up the debt at that time, in the amount around $2000. As the debt re-accumulated they asked for my liscense again. I wrote them a letter explaining my situation incl. some of my bank records, they had assumed the $2k was my money of course. The result is they did not suspend my liscense.

Now my father is a fairly wealthy man, he was well employed his whole adult life as an aviation engineer. He did retire but he still does some contract work for Boeing, soon he will retire from that. My mother also worked as a real estate agent for many years, they both paid taxes and they both paid the FICA tax of course. My parents are good and patriotic American citizens, more than I'll ever be. Of course my two sons were born here in the States and I believe they will also be employed here and pay the taxes as we all do. The FICA tax i think of more as an insurance premium than a tax, it is insurance administered by the Federal Government but it is still insurance. And I think we have paid for it, and I believe that my children will pay for it, I think that we deserve to benefit from it. In fact I do need the help just in order to get my medications, because if my dissability case fails they will also stop the medicare; they have already stopped the prescription drug coverage. Lately I have been getting my medications from the clinic where i see my doctor, they give me free samples. They have been trying to get me into a program where the pharmacutical company pays for the meds, but as far as I know that has not been approved. The medications that I take would cost around $800 per month otherwise, but once again my father has gaurenteed that he will pay if neccessary. To be certain I'm completely dependent on that stuff and feel grateful for the advances that have been made in the field of psychiatry these past 20 years. The medications have not always been so good as they are today, and for many years i suffered numerous hospitalizations while the doctors tried and failed to help. It has only been recently that a psychiatrist at the Hopewell clinic prescibed something that proved effective. I took Zyprexa and Wellbutrin for a while, after i moved with my family and left the Hopewell clinic, they recommended the Crider Center near Wentzville, Missouri. My doctor, Dr. Raza is a very kind man, I like him very much. He took me off the Zyprexa and gave Geodon, because the Zyprexa does cause weight gain and I am overweight. In fact I've had problems with weight gain on other medications in the past. Well I've never managed to get my weight back down to normal, I don't exercise. I'm 6'1" and around 250lbs.

Medical Science has give me a wonderful advantage in life, the advantage of an artifically regulated mood. My Intelligence is well above average, I'm a farily well educated man and capable of rational thought. The imagination is our greatest asset, no thing gets made in the world unless someone first imagines it. A lot of our greatest discoverys and the science behind them depends on imagination. In the past I have been accused of being, "Out of touch with Reality". And my memory of my own past is fairly decent, I must admit I've given in to fantasy in the past. A really good fantasy can be a very desireable thing, especially if it helps us to feel more important. So you could say I have a whole lot of personal experience reguarding fantasy and imagination, enough that I think I've managed to learn something from it. And I have grown wiser in matureity, I'm not the same man that I was at the age of 19, I have changed. I see reality in an uncommon way, blessed with a romantic heart. From my point of view we live in the Universe, and not simply here on Earth. I've learned to take the broadest perspectives, in terms of space and time, and give them thier due consideration. I find it true that nobody likes to think they are powerless or unimportant, we all like to believe that we are important. Its a hard thing to view the immensity of the Universe and our place in it, and not think that we are less important or even insignificant. Most people would say that it is Humanity that brings purpose to the Universe, if we were not here to wonder about it and experience it, if Life itself never existed here, it would all be meaningless. But I do believe in something larger than myself and larger than Humanity, the Universe does not depend on us, we depend on it. We depend on the Earth and Sun, we depend on the life of Dirt and many other kinds of life here. And we depend on Heaven's Creator even if it is only one of many higher powers and less than the One-True-And-Most-High-God. There can be only one true God, but clearly there are also a multitude of personalities here in Creation. And individually we are one, a single personality within the Kingdom of Heaven, and we are important. We are significant but its something of a CRIME to think that we are MORE IMPORTANT. We share the Universe with our companions and peers, some we would not choose but we are not given the opportunity to choose. We have to take what we have been given and make it better, of course we always want more but so long as we are surviving the possibility of more exists. Being convinced of Eternity as I am, you might think that I could easily afford patience; but I much like anyone else don't like to be kept waiting for something good to happen. We are so blessed because of our Interdependence, and cursed because of our dependence. Sometimes we have to wait for work to be accomplished by someone else if we do not have the ability to do it ourselves. And we have to make certain that the other person is willing to provide us with labor, which naturally requires some kind of exchange. Sometimes it is good enough to make a promise of future consideration, we forge a commitment. If we keep our commitments we are honorable people, worthy, and just. If we are creditable the other party will believe that we have something of value to offer. The fruits of our labor perhaps, although not all of our labors produce material goods. If we have something substantial to offer, its easy to see the value of well formed material.
But what value is the Knowledge of Truth, that is something insubstantial? Perhaps it is more important to understand methods than to know one fact. How can it be done? How do we make a thing? What are the Rules that govern manifestation? We would like very much to understand these things because that knowledge empowers us to build the world around us. The world becomes more and more comfortable to life when it is well ordered; and we impose our own sense of order upon it. And so we struggle for control of reality. But it is not matter that we need to control; the man who can control the shape of space and time will control the world. The vast and empty expanse of space stands between us and the rest of Creation, it stands between us and unlimited material wealth. And its not simply out there above the sky, the vacume extends everywhere, it is here, it is part of us. We are intimately in touch with it, its closer than most people think. But no power of the human mind can control it, we influence it naturally because of our physical mass and in subtle ways. But this does not seem to depend on consciousness in any way. The only thing that we know can affect the shape of time and space is the motion of particles through it and the force of gravity. However its common thinking among physicists that every force depends on some particle, even though no-one has ever seen a particle of gravity. But what does consciousness depend on? Is it a force of Nature? Is there a particle for it? It would be easy and obvious just to say that it depends on the One-True-And-Most-High-God, and leave it at that. But somehow consciousness is connected to the stuff of creation, evidently it is only connected to living things. Without a muscle to move the World, consciouness has no power over reality. Reality is not altered in any way when we simply observe it; or is it true that we shape the possibilities of creation by looking? By all indications the shape of Reality does not depend on our awareness of it, but exactly how many observers are there in the Universe, and how much can they be aware of? This we can not account for. We can only imagine One Supreme Observer, a personality of substance that does not depend on biology. If it exists it preceeds the formation of the stars themselves and planets. And we can imagine that this person has some definate begining, it is not eternal it was born, it is less than The-One-True-And-Most-High-God, but far greater than a human-being. If there is consciouness it depends on God, in the same way that we depend on God for our consciouness.

In one old and very popular prophecy we are introduced to a personality within the Kingdom of Heaven. That person was called the Ancient Dragon, and it was characterized as a person of great strength and power. We can not distinguish the vision of one old man from reality, we do not know whether to call it wishful thinking or divinely inspired. But the story has become very popular because it holds out the possibility of a ressurection to everlasting life. The possibility of more life is a very desireable thing, its something that many of us want. Unfortunatley wanting does not give shape to reality, it doesn't really matter how many people believe in a thing or how passionately they feel about it. For such a thing to be possible in this Universe seems to go against nature, so we have good reason to doubt. None-the-less many people do choose to believe in it, for them it represents HOPE. If its truely inspired and the possibility is real, its something worth fighting for isn't it? A dream for Humanity worthy of great sacrifice.
Heaven is holding out some reward that none of us has ever won. The good reward is the Authority to Govern and Judge the Nations among other things, and the bad reward is unending torment. Of course no-one wants to claim the bad reward, who would choose suffering? But evidently the promise of our ressurection has conditions, and while its not always clear what those conditions amount to, a few things are clear.
And one clear thing is the Millenium of Peace on Earth. Considering the conditions of our world today, no-one can imagine how it will happen. Perhaps it will never happen, the Nations will not give up thier Arms easily, they will not give up thier strength for weakness. Its possible that Humanity will fail to secure the promise, and its possible that its all just a wonderful dream. Unless someone can force the world into Peace, because the people must be forced.

All those people who account this prohpecy as divinely inspired, have long expected an anti-Christ to rise to power. The greatest Villian of all time, that man will claim the bad reward, that man will go to unending torment in the company of the Ancient Dragon. Is it remotely possible that man will be a reightous man? Is it possible that he will be motivated by compassion for the plight of Humanity? Think of it as a JOB or a Career and it will be easier to understand how a mortal man can do it. By all appearances and according to the story its neccessary. Therefore the promise of your ressurection depends on one of us to be willing and able to do that job and claim the reward. Who will be the first to offer themselves as a sacrifice, who will make a commitment that goes well beyond mortal life? Who will commit to the Ancient Dragon and serve him and possibly deliver the Children of Humanity into it's jaws? Should we call it tough-love or tyranny, for a King to force the world into Peace? All that it really takes to win the Great-Game-Of-Life is for one of us to solve the mystery of faith and move mountains. As soon as that happens, everyone wins, and there will be your King. And how can one man succeed where all others have failed? Is it even true that faith has the power to make one man stand against armies? Evidently Jesus did have some power over the world, if we believe his storytellers. But clearly he never used that power to threaten people, not even to save his own life. It's a curiosity that he cursed one tree to death, for having no fruits. He forgave sin and the people were healed! And when he did judge the people he did not propose punishment. Instead he prayed to a higher authority for our pardon, to the one who could judge and punish. Eventually someone came up with the idea of a Holy Trinity and said that the Father and Son are Gods. But no I think not, they were both and will be mortal men however Holy. The Muslims have the truth, there is and can ever be, only one God. Men can become great and powerful persons, but there is absolutely nothing that can make them Gods, even if they are made to live forever. Consider our loving Heavenly Father as not just a person but a JOB and a Career, and it will be easier to understand how a mortal man can do it. Its a true challenge to love some people, but facing the greatest challenges life has to offer us presents the very best opportunities for personal growth. If I ask, what does the Enemy deserve, who will say Good Will? How many will say the the enemy deserves to die? If we are good soldiers unto God we should say that every man is worth fighting for, leave no-one behind. We should fight against tyranny even if it serves us, we should fight the Good Fight. We should fight for fairplay and justice, but we can not take it by force, we can not make demands. If we make demands we are not meek and do not deserve to inhierit the Earth. So how do we fight then if we may not impose our own will upon reality and make the world conform to our rules? We may only do so by offering our friendship to every person, to be willing to give of our time and attention. A simple conversation best serves the cause of justice, if we are unwilling to have that conversation we do harm. We may excuse ourselves for being pre-occupied, but we may not be forgiven if we deny a person the right to exist and to enjoy companionship. Consider forgiveness as a possibility, judgement a certainty. Forgiveness is a process that will take time, and for that work to be complete we must be able to forgive ourselves. We are all given this talent for judgement, there are 14 billion judges more or less counting the living and the dead.
Those 14 billion may not be well pleased with our deeds in life, they may think us guilty of crimes, perhaps they will also be able to see us as victims. But no matter what we deserve, our place in the Eternal Kingdom can not be taken away. And the fact that we were merely Human binds us together forever and ever. Heaven is a wonderful place full of possibilities, and it is a real place not some mystical realm of unmanifest spirits. Clearly it is not the place of perfect tranquility where nothing ever happens, it is a place of change, birth and destruction. It seems to be a true thing that nothing lasts forever, but nothing truely ends in this Universe unless it is replaced by something new. But perhaps the Earth can be made to live forever because we need it, and the Sun can be made to shine forever because we need it too. For as long as we would like to abide here until we are ready to move on.