The Gifts of Forgiveness

The art of forgiving appears to be an impossible charge for the human being. I just turned 58 yesterday and my first pre-60 epiphany hit me like a ton of hearts. Dear reader, you may be someone who needs forgiving, you may be someone who needs to forgive and you don't want to. This article is just for you, and me. I think I've found some answers. First let me disclose a few personal matters.

I was married for 28 years to a woman I worshipped. Worshipped. For the sake of privacy I will call her Maybelline. I raised her onto the highest ideological pedestal my seasoned intelligence and fertile imagination could construct.

We married in September of 1969 as loving enthusiastic teenagers and divorced in March of 1998 as bickering, hating strangers. Years passed between us after I was kicked to the curb and I discovered other things that I'd suspected which poured gasoline and nitro-glycerin on an already raging fire of anger and resentment.

It didn't help that I was in the arts. I was playing guitar when we met. I've since gone on to study classical guitar and that's how I struggle from month to month and how it'll be until I nab a new book deal. I published when we were married, but the money was nothing compared to Maybelline's executive income with bonuses.

She shared the money, financing two sets of recording studios, one costing $8,000 in 1983 and the other about $12,000 when we came into funds resulting from the sale of stocks. She funded trips overseas where I attempted to get breaks in the more liberal European market-- there were no takers; I was already too old. I still worked day in day out, night in night out and constantly got ripped of by my partners. That's how you learn the music business, at least in my day.

There were ruses and subterfuge I wasn't acquainted with and the field had few choices when it came to hiring independent radio promotion people, who took your money and ran. I had one such partner change the labels on my records. His band went and played my concerts. I shoulda whacked 'em and the whole band, but I'm no killer.

She played music with me in the early years before she went corporate and we made lots of records together culminating in a major record deal with Polydor which went south when the producers ripped off the budget and invested in cocaine to "turn this money over." Apparently it was too early in my life for me to be successful in music. The music was killer though. I listen to those old tracks and I'm amazed at the personal industry I put into it.

It was not time. Nothing I did would manifest a break that was permanent and solid, not matter how hard I tried. I was the Invisible Man of Ralph Ellison's masterwork, tossed about by a fickle fate that always said "No Cigar."

I even quit the business and went to truck driving school. I lasted only nine months on the road in that rig, because I was living against my nature, punishing myself for being a musician and an apparent failure. I also did it to get away from the arguments Maybelline and I were having weekly, usually beginning Saturday mornings. We fought mostly over principles taught to her by her new counselor that she was trying to integrate into our marriage. I hated that. . .and she hated my responses.

So I never quite came through for us although I managed to bring two or three hundred dollars home per week when I was indeed playing gigs. I was and still am devoted to my craft. The woman I'm with now, some ten years later said:

"I fell in love with you because you play guitar as good as my daddy."

That's simple, but sweet, and I accept that reason. If I even think of "getting a job" outside of music, she gives me a patent Puerto Rican fit.
Her daddy is a master guitarist living in Puerto Rico who once had a major deal with United Artists.

My new lady is a gifted artist, photographer and vocalist.
She's known for her photos, the world over as D. Pineiro.

The contrasts between the demands of Maybelline and the acceptance of the new love in my life is plain; so I have no real regrets for the parting though somewhere in my heart, I wish we had never broken up. Such contradictory feelings living together in one heart.

Maybelline had good reasons to be angry and resentful as we both committed acts of psychological revenge along the way when I was not in compliance with her quest for "personal growth" as she called it and when she looked at me as being miles below her executive gentlemen peers, actually telling me once that I looked like a bum. I probably did, but I was not.

Fifteen years from the end, she involved herself with a charismatic guru, a female, who we'll call Martha Prophet. Martha persuaded her to drop everything and move to the mountain commune where they all now live, happily ever after to be safe from the shore lines changing with the accompanying, floods, droughts, and hurricanes. . .as Maybelline was told by Martha Prophet. who also, I'm told, cured Maybelline of some tumors.

She may have actually done that. I believe Martha Prophet is a real witch because while I was moving out of the house, Maybelline left some symbolic relics laying about for me to find and be shocked by. I'd bought her a pot of flowers. When I came back two weeks later to get my final package of things, she'd placed the dead flowers in the den with the stems pointing at the fax machine, which was the only way we were communicating at the time. Chilling.

I was amazed and shocked. when Martha predicted the doom stuff in 1996 and I'm still waiting for that apocalypse, but I haven't bought a raft. What a crock! That was it for me. The night she told me, Maybelline said:

"Don't have me choose you, over them,"

That statement rocked me so much, I considered buying an M-!4.. I shot sharpshooter when I was in the army.
I could have picked Martha Prophet off at 500 meters, in the dark. But, shucks, I'm no killer. I'm too soft for prison and I'm not amenable to dying from lethal injection I should have said:

"Choose!".

There comes a time in some folks lives where they actually feel like they could whack somebody. This was one such time for me, but it wouldn't have solved a thing. Yes, it is possible to get that angry.

It makes your brain feel like it is swelling up in its case and unless you do something it will explode. That's how I felt. Now I feel sorry for Maybelline. She institutionalized herself, but that joint didn't appeal to me at all. They just stay there taking classes based on a book written by Martha Prophet. I know; I went to their website and saw the schedule.

Maybelline was looking for personal growth, I was looking for another wife and confessed doing so when confronted after I returned from a European trip.

She elected not to forgive me and away I went. A former president thinks it's better to lie, lie, and lie. Someone in the east said "The truth will, set you free," and indeed it did. I had counted on being forgiven. . .really. I was soooo wrong. I'm glad I fessed up. She should have too.

We both tried desperately to love each other, but we were both looking for love in all the wrong places.and I knew it.

I thought she deserved the truth and I paid a painful price for it which eventually led to homelessness some seven years later, that I've since recovered from. I know. . .poor baby, but I am not ashamed of myself. It was inevitable.

That, or I would have assassinated the guru. That's how &%$# mad I was. My remorse doesn't immobilize me like it use to, but I do have regrets.

I found one other person whose girlfriend was taken by Martha Prophet.

"She told her to quit me or she couldn't join up."

This was a feisty southern white guy who wanted to team up with me to go and burn down the whole mountain. He would have done it. I was two years out of my divorce and had calmed down considerably. I've often wondered if these people were hypnotized.

A year towards the end of this love affair, I attended a relationship meeting held in Avondale, Georgia close to Stone Mountain where I lived at the time. At the meeting Martha asked all of us to make a list (they were always making lists) of things that were important to them starting with the most important and working down.

I wrote: 1. My Passion for Music, 2. Maybelline, 3. My career 4. What my family thinks about my career
She wrote: 1. Martha Prophet 2, Career 3. Family 4. Zafar (me)

I flipped out. I walked a grueling six miles back to our house from the church they had used for the meeting. We had a big fight and both agreed to a divorce, but we were too chicken to carry it out.

I know Maybelline will read this someday because with all the stuff I have posted on the web, I am easy to track down. I'm sure one of her friends will show this to her and she'll know my story is balanced. I'm a writer and my life is an open book as a consequence. I'm writing this because I've kept it pent up inside all this time and I need to talk about it, even with the whole world.

My ability to forgive her is an act, a grant, if you will, of Providence. I can't do it on my own. When I say "I forgive you, I say it, but I keep an eye on the eight ball, and eyes in the back of my head and ears that travel vast distances without ever leaving my head.

That is not real forgiveness. To tell her "I forgive you" would make no difference to her at all. I'm too lowly for that. The forgiveness has to be witnessed by Providence and felt by my heart of hearts, in this case. She may feel she has nothing to be forgiven for, by me anyway. That matters not to me now.

My ability to forgive comes to me as a gift, an epiphany. You mature and you "hear" the instructions. One set of instructions told me to isolate our first year together living in Germany, struggling on my PFC's salary. I closed my eyes and traveled back in time when we were different people, young and not corrupted by the passage of time and introduction of new twists. That was the start of my healing. Those were two beautiful young people. I miss them.

Maturity helps. I'm learning that people between the ages of 25 and 36 or so, have disdain and disrespect for people my age. I work with a few "playa haters." They hate, ridicule, and attempt to rule me. . .the old man. if they had their way, they would execute everyone over 40.

Why did I say this. It's true, but they have no idea that their young minds are still empty and they are as inexperienced as the first shoots of a little plant as it bursts from a seed; so I hang in there until one day they look up and see me as a surrogate of some kind.

Just last night, a bar manager where I play music, finally lets on that maybe I'm okay, after making a series of ugly remarks over several weeks. I know I'm likable, so I just waited, without kissing his Londonderry Air. I forgave him in the beginning because I knew he was ignorant and still in the womb, also, I needed to make my rent money, regardless of his slings and arrows.

I was never like that. I came up respecting elders and looking to them for advice. So enough of that. I could have left that observation out altogether, but I'm free associating here and you can stop reading whenever you wish. Or course.

"To be or not to be." In order to "be," I must duck and play my guitar. Oh how I loathe the politics of the workplace and oh, how I strive for a new book deal so I can hit the concert stage once more and forever. But, alas, there will be "Toro feculence" there too coming from both youngsters and geezers like myself and geezers older than me. Way of the world.

I'm saying this only to illustrate that my maturity is the reason for me receiving the gift I'm about to share with you. Okay, here we go.

I had an awesome dream awhile back. I dreamt I was with Maybelline and I was crying with her. Both of us realized we'd BOTH made mistakes. . .serious mistakes that we didn't see as such, when we were making them.

LOVE was not and cannot be destroyed, nor can it be ignored, no matter how hard you try to deny it because love is of a higher essence and order.

In the dream, the mistakes are "ribbons of darkness" floating above us, acts that were separate from the love. The mistakes were like criminals, though we weren't the criminals themselves.

In my dream, I could not deny my lament. In waking life, I can ignore the whole thing and continue to "resent" her version of Jim Jones, but now I can't resent as much because love conquers all whether you want it to or not. The dream did it. I refuse to make the call for any attempt at perfunctory reconciliation. I don't even think it's possible except as another gift that happens all by itself.

We are out of touch, we don't speak, so we both can move on. We'll surely see each other at someone's funeral, but I don't go running to the phone because she may not be in sync with how I feel. Best to continue to use Tao and "Do nothing, so nothing will be left undone." Time and the cosmos will cure it all. It always does.

If we'd been talking, I would not have arrived at forgiving. . .we would have continued to wage war. At least I managed to get some peace in my own heart and I "intend" that she will, in her own way find the absolute truth, beyond either opinion.

We have no desire to remarry. I've found an angel to guide and love me through the rest of this life of suffering, joy, and confusion. We spent years working out the kinks before becoming physically intimate. We started at the other end. . .the mind and heart, instead of the crotch and body. This is a new technique, reflecting the wisdom of lessons learnt.

So forgiveness is a gift to you when you learn that you are not a machine, your morals are not reliable, and you are far from perfect although in maturity, you have the facts that enable you to hone yourself into something stable, someone you can look at in the mirror as I did this morning and say to yourself: 'I love you, take care of me okay?' I have some tears welling up as I type this.

My article is not for extreme generation psychos and sociopaths. This article is for the thinking, caring, brooding person who wants the burden of anger, resentment, and hatred lifted from their pathos. Excuse me, I need to pause, go make some hot chocolate and simmer down before I continue.

Okay, I'm back. While the Swiss Miss is cooling I'll continue. Hot chocolate, as opposed to coffee is my new addiction. It tends to soothe and keeps me from eating too many brownies although I'll get on my bike and go for big one, when I finish this. As I was about to say:

I'm not a preacher, but I'm not and atheist either. I'm a "wonderer." I accept the concept of Brahmin from the Vedas for now, but I am not leaning on religion here, necessarily. When it comes down to it, these forgiveness issues have to happen in one's own mind whether stimulated by religion or not.

I've read many treatises that I respect, without embracing, such as "Russell on Religion" by Bertrand Russell and The End of Faith by Sam Harris. They have intelligent points. Let me step away from my topic just a minute. . .I'll be right back yet again; I need to tell you this to make what I think is a profound point.

Sam Harris, in a follow up book that I won't mention, says in essence, God is stupid because He placed the prostate gland around the urinary tract and makes it swell as we age so we have trouble urinating. Egads. This man is angry, but he has a rational point, indeed.

He says he doesn't believe in God, but shakes his fist at Him. It's okay. We are humans. We don't know squat except how to copulate and put capsules into orbit. To Mr. Harris, if you are reading this:

I still think you have good arguments, sound empirical thinking. I like your work though I'm not atheist nor am I anti-atheist. I heard an interview you did on Hawaiian Public Radio and you blasted religion, but you had no solution. You squirmed, said we needed dialogue. Whose dialogue? It's deeper than just a chat here and there.

I forgive you and continue to read your work because we are all limited to having just three brains (per Gurdjieff) that only reach so far. At least my brains stop at a point and I know my limitations. Your follow-up book disappointed me. You let 'em get to you, but so it is with any crusade I suppose. I have a cause too: FREE HAWAII, but this is a different topic and I need to stay on course.

Now, back to you, dear reader. You don't have to even believe in God to have this miracle of the ability to forgive, to hit you. Your own heart will lead you to it, but you must mature first, I feel.

The numbers of your years are relative. I've met young people who are way smarter than I was at their age and I attribute that to the higher, advanced quality of humans that are incarnating these days though they have little use for those of us who are thirty years their senior.

History shows us that subsequent generations are always more advanced. You can see that with even with the advent of the computer age where young adults are becoming software engineers, inventing product and running multibillion dollar corporations, laughing at guitar playing geezers like me. I'm referring the "Google" generation and I'm not mad at 'em at all.

I'm a teacher so my weakness is that I love to praise excellence, progress, and competence. No sour grapes here at all. My life is satisfactory enough for me (to a point because artists are never satisfied) and I don't wish I were someone else. I like me, artistic penury and all although I could always use more cash and then more.

It takes maturity to forgive, not an intellectual understanding where you merely let someone off the hook because you need them in your life; or you need a "forgiveness point" to cash in when you find yourself in need of understanding and mercy from your partner.

That kind of thing (false give and take) is going to wear out and the relationship will fail because the premise is false, but what else can you do.

That's the fastest way to get over an argument; that's all we can do, but take it from the geezer, that's not true forgiveness. You don't have to believe me. I am fallible and may not know what I'm talking about here, but for some reason I'm compelled to write this article.

I'm also working on a book entitled: The Eight Obstacles to Happiness. The absence of the ability to forgive is obstacle number one.

You will go through life, an angry resentful person, and will die with a thousand lines etched in your face, that thousands of people witnessed, as you passed through their lives; wherein they deny you safe haven because they can see what is in your face and shadow--your "Shadow and Act" as my favorite author Ralph Ellison would say.

The arts of mercy and forgiveness are life skills some of us must wait for. Mothers already know how to do it because their love is like none other in the milky way. We men are in deep trouble, but we were not designed to get pregnant and suffer the pain of childbirth so we frown our way through life, not letting anyone off the hook, feeling ourselves to be so perfect and above reproach.

For that behavior, we shall be thrown from that high horse, with our feet left in the stirrups as our stubborn stead gallops us to the truth, the absolute truth.

To close on a softer note: Forgiveness is sweet. You feel it coming from somewhere in the universe or the mindverse, but it comes to you and tells you about you own ability to miss the mark now and then and again. You can see the mistakes others are making towards you and vice versa. Here's another case history for you:

There is a certain venue owner here in Hilton Head. I use to work at his venue playing classical guitar. The owner "suspended" me for standing up to his manager, a feisty thirty-something lad trying to assert his power, an attempt to embarrass me in front of clapping fans, who clapped as he admonished me over the applause, for:

"Your high notes, when you sing them, they are too loud."

"Wha? Don't do it like this," I said.

He asked, "Did you know I am the restaurant manager?"

"So now you're pulling rank on me huh?"

I lost that battle and the gig.

The owner makes a lot of money. He seldom smiles and in his highest dynamic, he treats people like machines. Like machines. He's in touch with his big money and oblivious to so much more. It's a condition not to be envied. He's rich, but pouts way too much. It's none of my business unless it stops my business. He needs mood elevator medication.

I don't know if I can play for his establishment again with him looming around like a buzzard and his lap dog looking to play "blemish games."

The owner intercepts me in the parking lot the next day as I come in to work, telling me that my response to his lap dog was "unprofessional" without pointing out the manager's faux pas of dressing me down in front of customers.

"I gotta stand by him, because he stands by me," he said.

"Then let me work only on the nights when you are there, so you can see for yourself," I pleaded.

Nope. He's just determined to get me out of there. Either he's headed for suicide because he hates himself as much as he hates other humans or he'll receive mercy and be knocked from that stallion, upon which he is perched. Which one would you wish upon him?

Wishing the latter is an act of forgiveness. . .in a way. You'd probably say "neither." That is acceptable because it is my "ox who is being gored." I doubt if he'll whack himself because he has a new kid. He's just so dark all the time.

We've rather made up since then, so who knows. I just went back in for a glass of Samuel Adams and the manager said:

:"This is good. I'm really glad to see you and wondered when I'd see you again."

I use forgiveness as my final weapon. I don't want the gig back, but I wanted to show who has the biggest Johnson, who the real man is in this deal. I kept eye contact and just continued the chat as chats go. I've been back a few times to also let my fans know I'm still among the living.

Not forgiving will eat your guts out. I'm still mad though, and that's okay.
I don't like to be talked down to.

Anyway if you wonder if my music is any good just keyword:maestroza in Yahoo and you'll come upon a bunch of my pages to navigate. I have lots of music videos posted, a comedy series, and free guitar lessons. I would post them up here but the files are too big.

Do you know people like the aforementioned? Sure you do. If you don't, you need to get out more often, penetrate life. Anyway, here comes more personal disclosure.

I had a father once, he died in 2000 and I didn't find out until eight years later when I checked out ancestry.com a couple of weeks ago and saw the public records. "Shame on you," you might say as Bill Clinton said to the press.

My paternal father was a dangerous man. He was dichotomized into distinct fragments and wreaked pure havoc in my life. I forgave him out of my love at several junctures even after he sent the FBI looking for me. That's right. One reason I changed my name in 1992 to was to rid myself of being a "Jr." so he couldn't say:

"Oh, I'm________Sr. It's my son you're looking for."

The Feds came looking for me at Maybelline's office, putting an even greater strain on our relationship, jeopardizing her job and of course filling me with a new found paranoia. I was miles away, they never found me. I changed my name for that and spiritual reasons, but it gave me the push I needed to make the change and I'm okay with it. I wanted to change my name when I was 17. Musicians do that, you know. I have about six or seven names I use on the internet. It's fun.

Anyway, I still don't know why the Feds were after him. He'd told me a colorful lie about it. I'll never know and it really doesn't matter. I'm too old to care.

I told this story to a mature person once and he didn't believe me. He himself is a father and somehow fathers feel they have the divine right to play God over their sons (especially sons).

If you read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, as I'm doing now, it will elucidate this principle better than any treatise I've seen. Don't take this one to the beach. It's a hard read, but it is high philosophy in allegory.

A parent can feel like they own you because they "created" you. Some of you, dear readers, understand what I mean. So nevertheless . . .

I forgave my daddy at several junctures, going back to his house in tears, begging his forgiveness because I stayed away so long after he had done these horrible things, not only to hurt me, but my dear departed mother too, as punishment for divorcing him.

Yes, he had fragments I admired. He was a child prodigy on the violin and played splendid recitals at churches. I wish I could have heard him.

Later he joined the US Army and excelled in the bands playing tenor and baritones saxes and bass fiddle in jazz bands, retiring as a Master Sergeant. There is even a picture of him in an old Downbeat magazine. I looked up to him. At least he was smart enough to stay in a steady job and leave with a pension. Me? I'd better strike it rich.

He was a handsome lady-killer of a man, Italian with roots in Milan, Italy. I don't hold any of that against him.

He behaved like he was created to behave. That is called existentialism for the uninitiated, meaning the dice are loaded, or you must play the hand you're dealt, and you have little control over what happens to you unless you happen to be Donald Trump and that crowd. Well, the hand he was dealt came from his daddy too.

Some of us think we have a choice, but until you can tell me where thoughts actually come from, you cannot tell me where my choices originate. At my age, I've determined that there's no such thing as choice. What you choose is inevitable based on who and how you are and how you think. . .which is usually ruled by habit. That is simply my conjecture. I am not attempting to be rhetorical here.

I didn't plan to write this article this morning. I'd rather be on my bike before it gets dark. I feel like I had no choice. I was compelled to do this article which I will most likely work on all day, for free, as it were.

You don't have to buy that concept; I'm not selling it. I'm just writing with a stream of consciousness that won't allow me to edit as I go. I'm just talking to myself, in a way and letting you eavesdrop. This is blatant honesty.

So back to my dad. When I read he had passed away, I knew he was relieved of a tortured, unhappy, anger-laded, unfulfilled life. As I stare at the public record, trying to feel guilty, my mind supplies me with the sight of seeing my picture on the walls in his house with the glass broken and cracked on each one of them. What did he throw at me and why? Does he know I saw that?

I'll never know what it is to be raised and nurtured by my own flesh and blood father although my stepfather, a former Tuskegee Airman, stepped in and I would say I turned out just fine, considering the limitations involved and salient in us all.

I had truly forgiven my paternal father many, many times even after he had my hit record ironically entitled: "Rescue" taken off the air after having a drink or two.

He'd call radio stations telling them offensive things, during a time where I'd made the front page of The Atlanta Journal and Constitution for working with a major artist (Michael Jackson) who was touring through town.

He called the paper and told them that they should be interviewing him instead of me.

My mother called him and said:

"Let's let our son have his time in the limelight, he earned it, don't steal his thunder."

She did this gently. I had fits upon fits. I would ultimately be sued for the money I lost in the record situation. No airplay means no sales which means I can't repay the financial backer.

To top it off, the backer gave the promotion money to a known thief who worked in his office who probably kicked some of it back to him. I shoulda whacked 'em both.

That released more ballast from my marriage because Maybelline had to borrow the money to settle out of court. Whew. Okay, there were other matters, but that's enough. I'll save that for my novels. No wonder she dumped me.

It wasn't all about the money, per se. It was about my livelihood and marriage being directly endangered by my own father and yes, two years after that, I still came back to my daddy in tears.

I wanted my daddy and I still want my daddy. I love my daddy; that's what made it easy to forgive him although he was not around to raise me like my stepfather was.

He didn't want the responsibility and said so to my dearly departed grandfather. I only remember seeing my father for a week or so, when I was three, then every now and then over the years.

My dad was placed on a New Jersey highway by his mother, to be picked up by a passer-by when he was a baby. Could all of these actions against me be revenge? I took my degree in psychology, counseled patients in outpatient care, I've lived 58 years and I can't answer that. It's way too liquid. It is real life and some things you just can't know for sure.

He'd brag about being abandoned, as a badge of pride at times. He still went to see his mother before she died. I wish I could have met her. Do I have her eyes? Who was his father? Do I have his temper? Well, no, I have my mother's temper and I know it.

He didn't seem to be angry about this at all, at least in front of me. Most of the time he was well- mannered, sophisticated, and smooth. When he drank. . .watch out.

But there were times we'd cook chicken and drink beer together and it was fun when I'd go to his house to clean his gutters for him. I can see that now.

No one can fully articulate the "Ribbon of Darkness" (title of a Gordon Lightfoot song) that looms over a given individual or relationship.

My Pops has gone to another dimension and he takes with him, my eternal forgiveness and undying love. I understand, because all of our feces wreak. Or should I come out and say everyone's potty melt stinks.

His wife didn't call me to tell me he'd died. Did he tell her not to do so as a final act of revenge or is she hoarding insurance money or things that may have been in a will? I really need to put this in a novel.

This is the father that nature, in its final wisdom assigned to me. This was the hand I was dealt. . .my karma if you will. My dharma is to figure out ways to deal with it and I'm satisfied with my actions.

The gift of forgiveness is keeping me from jumping into the well of regret. I truly hope this gift will land on your windowsill, and when it does you will invite it into your room.

It is extremely difficult, but it's liberating. It will contribute to an unconditional vault of happiness within your heart that'll make life look just a little brighter.

Abuse should not be allowed to continue, even in forgiveness, but it will if you don't seek to preserve yourself first.

People behave in patterns, sometimes just like the machines I mentioned. Give it time and they are after you with a pitchfork, yet again. With me, it was one time too many and I had to close down the deal on the offenders and move on into my life without wondering when and how they'd strike next.

I'm sure, looking over here from the other side, my daddy is sorry for all of it and I ask the Powers not to hold his trespasses against him because I truly believe he was made to do what he did in life.

I look back into the astral and say: "It's okay, Pop, see you later and we'll play "On Green Dolphin Street" together. I miss you. At times, when I was a kid, you were my hero. Was that you in my dream, during the year you died? You looked like you did in 1953. I was happy to see you, but I wondered why you never stayed with us. Thanks for the "jamming genes" and the good looks. Sorry we had such a rough time, but alas, it was our destiny."

I thought I was going to close, but I kept going. I think I've said enough. I hope this has been enjoyable reading and I sincerely hope it helps you.

As an entertaining addendum I've decided to make a list of things I am still having trouble forgiving:

1. The slave traders of the world

2. Queen Ka'ahumanu for abolishing the Hawaiian religion paving the way for the missionaries whose offspring in 1848 grabbed up the land in what was known as the Great Mahele.

3. King Kamehameha III for turning the Hawaiian government over to the conquerers from within

4. King Kalakua for signing the Bayonet treaty ceding the exclusive use of Pearl Harbor to the American Government in 1876

5. President Grover Cleveland's excuse for not reversing the act of Minister Stevens, Sanford Dole and their gang who arrested Queen Liliuokalani for treason, taking her from her palace and taking over Hawaii on the 16th of January 1893

6. Sanford Dole (founder of Dole pineapple) declaring himself president of Hawaii on July 4th 1894 (I almost spat on his grave)

7. President McKinley for nailing the coffin shut and colonizing the Hawaiians and for the McKinley act itself, which dug the initial grave

5. The USA for taking almost a hundred years after winning the Revolutionary war, in which blacks fought, to free the slaves and then another hundred to secure the civil rights act. How reluctant are these people to share this country with others, as racial discrimination persists on all levels and in all quarters with nooses on high school campuses?

6. The USA for taking this land from my mother's ancestors (Muskegon Indians), The Trail of Tears, broken treaties, and the massacre at Wounded Knee.

7. Myself, for every stupid thing I've ever done, including maybe, writing this article if that's how it appears to you.

References: "Ribbon of Darkness" by Gordon
Lightfoot

Russell on Religion by Bertrand Russell
2004, Routledge

The End of Faith by Sam Harris
2004, W.W. Norton Company

A Call For Hawaiian Sovereignty
Michael Kioni Dudley, Ph.D
Keoni Kealoha Agard
1990 Na Kane O Ka Mal Press