God and unrelated stuff



I have struggled with being in and out of belief in a God being all my life. Even more of a struggle has been believing that God believes in me. Perhaps that is why virtually none of my writing is about spiritual matters. In fact most of what I write is a bit pessimistic - "life's a bitch and then you die" sort of thing. This is pretty depressing really when I look at how much time and energy I give to spiritual matters.  

http://www.subud.org.au/



I usually go to Mass and I'm often involved in some Catholic prayer or study group. As well I'm heavily involved with Subud, and attend latihan twice a week, unless Quiz night at the Port Football Club entices me instead. I won't try to say what Subud is (there is plenty of information on Subud websites), but obviously it's pretty big in my life. I'm even supposed to assist new members be opened and generally be a Helper.  

I mention all of this because I've been feeling a bit despondent the last few days. I've also for the last few months been pretty angry over God playing with my head about curing me of cancer at Lourdes in France. This was part of my motivation for starting up another blog on the topic. Now that I don't believe he did me a miracle I've had to rethink the whole blog. Anyway I was lying in bed this morning feeling sorry for myself and I had the strongest feeling (and image) of God lifting me out of bed by the scruff of my neck with one enormous hand and giving me a tremendous shake. I guess the point is that with all the misery of the poor bastards in Libya and Japan I shouldn't complain. Anyway I've felt much better since.  

Another article in Articlesbase (http://www.articlesbase.com/authors/william-logan/57251): "Revise what you've written". Too many writers leap into publishing before adequately revising what they've written. This article reviews the pitfalls of submitting work for publication without adequate revision and makes constructive suggestions on how to go about the revision process.

I was recently asked to write a comment for a friend in a copy of my 1999 thesis: A social work perspective on changing service approaches to people with disability. In addition to my own research, I had drawn on the writings of the French philosopher Michael Foucault to argue that categorisations of people as mentally ill or disabled was really to serve more the interests of powerful interest groups. For example, this could be big business, politicians, drug companies or treating professionals. I compared the way in which working with people categorised as mentally ill and intellectually disabled was regarded by social workers. One of my conclusions was that social workers had much more authority (and consequently enjoyed) working with people with intellectual disability than they did with people with mental illness. This was because they had less competition from other more powerful interest groups who preferred to work in mental health because of the financial rewards in giving the appearance of providing a cure, and the more profitable patient/client group.

I won't continue on about my thesis or otherwise I'll be at risk of trying to rewrite it here, but what struck me was that in my novel Bloodied Brains and Bureaucrats I was making the same argument, although this had not been my intention. My original idea had simply been to write a bit of a mystery / satire within an area I knew something about, that is the disability service industry. What I ended up doing was describing the parasitical behaviour of people who benefit from the disability industry. Unfortunately in both my thesis and my novel, I'm unable to offer an easy solution to this situation. Maybe it is the human condition, or maybe it can only be addressed at an individual level, a bit of a struggle that will go on as long as we draw breath, like my struggles about God.





Exciting stuff

I just discovered my book is finally listed on Amazon. I must admit much of the delay has been because of my many revisions, but I'm nevertheless very chuffed.
Talking of good reads, I have lately been reading recently published novels on the Vietnam war. I think this is a difficult subject to write about. I don't think many books or movies have really captured what it was like, apart from some obvious exceptions like Apocalypse Now and Deer Hunter. I'm currently reading The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli. Not a bad read though some of her style leaves a little to be desired, and I think it suffers form her not actually having lived through the period of the War. I'm also not sure about the title. I had a woman bail me up when I was returning from the library with the book. She accused me of decadence in reading about drug taking and women being pregnant in their sixties. Maybe she was thinking of The Lotos-Eaters by Tennyson, but whatever it was she got very excited. I walked quickly to get away from her but I could still hear her harangues even after I was a good block ahead.
I think an even better book is the Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes, which I read previously. Marlantes was actually in the War and it shows. Some of his depictions are pretty gruelling, but he keeps the tension going throughout the book, and it helps in understanding what the experieince would have been like.
I was a young man during the Vietnam War and very involved in the politics of the time. Graheme Greene's book helped change me from a supporter to an opponent. I read how the puppet governments imposed by America helped oppress the Vietnamese people. I was not conscripted (this was done by lottery in Australia), but I had prepared myself for being an objector no matter what the cost. Nowadays I'm sometimes in a dilemma in talking about this period of my life when I meet so many ex-soldiers still bearing very hurt feelings over how they were treated.

Distractions

So many distractions! My visit to the Urologist on 10 February did not go well. My PSA count had multiplied ten times, but at least he said I can have another three months before having to go back on to the hormones, get bone scans and so on.
And who can ignore the troubles in the Middle East and northern Africa? Courageous people are making peaceful stands for human rights that should be available to everyone, and they are being killed! How interesting it is that these people defy Western sterotypes of crazed Jihadists.
I also find it disturbing that America is trying to define itself on the side of democracy and freedom, and yet it has sponsored so much evil. For how many years have they propped up these dictators? One reason given for a compliant military in Egypt is that they are addicted to the billions of dollars in aid from the US that they siphon off to their own pockets. How can the Americans condemn oppressive religious states, like Iran, and be friendly with equally repressive religious states, like Israel and Saudi Arabia? Everything the Americans claim to do in the name of freedom and democracy seems to have the opposite effect. Look at Pakistan. How many American dollars have been poured into that country to reduce its people to miserable poverty and life lived in terror from religious gangsters.
Would it be too cynical of me to suggest that Israel has been a convenient distraction for these dictators? If a sensible compromise could have been reached then attention might have been focussed on the greedy parasites collecting all the wealth in the Arab world that should have been shared among their people. Anyway enough of my political rant. What would I know?
My little Subud group is contributing in a small way to a better world. I've just forwarded our yearly contribution of $1,000 to the Subud school in Kalimantan to sponsor a local student who would otherwise not be able to get a good education and $500 to Subud New Zealand to help our brothers and sisters affected by the Christchurch earthquake.
I have managed to have four articles placed in Articlesbase (http://www.articlesbase.com/authors/william-logan/57251): "Looking for spiritual satisfaction?"; "Queen for the day" about a woman living through disappointment in the nineteenth century, "Mateship and Military Madness" about fighting in Papua New Guinea during World War Two; and "Saying the right thing". I've also been doing other writing that I'll report on when it is published.