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I have made some decisions about what has been happening in my new group. I will set aside these recent slights. No, I am not being too touchy, either. However, in the future, I will set some limits on how I may be dealt with. If I am given a task I will take it. The limits are that the parameters will be hammered out first. Don't hand me a job then allow all givens to be undone by anyone with a special request. That makes the job simply impossible. To that end I will be doing a group email to see what the majority of the men are interested in actually participating with, and when, after I do the work up on a number of proposals and after running those through the leadership and our priest.
Beyond that, on a personal level, when I find serious problems working with individuals, after speaking with the leadership, I will approach those individuals personally and privately. I will not allow men to slight me without dealing with it. They will have only a small number of choices in how to deal with it. If they have a personal problem that doesn't fit the group dynamics then they will have to either eat it or, if it is legitimate, we will have to work on it. I will not allow weak men to back-stab me and denigrate me through slights or attitude. This is how I warred, it is how I do peace too. Directly.
At least I am feeling like I am going somewhere again. Beat up and tired, ill and feint as I am, I still have teeth. My tongue and mind are much more effective than my fists, if my fists are still lethal. I will no longer allow childish bull shit. No punks, no passive-aggressive attitudes or behaviors, no back-biting. I won't put up with it. I am no weakling of this or that way. And, yeah, it feels good to be back in the saddle. I'll ride that bull, have zero doubts. Then I'll cook it, put a fork in it, and eat it. It has been decades since I have had to deal with men, it took a while to sort this out. Actually, not even that long come to think of it. I have only been in the group for around a month and only met those men two or three times. Yeah, well, I used to work a bit faster, if my... methods were slightly different. I didn't have the choices I would have preferred. I suppose God had a reason for that?
This. And, yes, finally these. You know they never did find the head of Leonidas. They wanted to add it to their collection. You don't have to live to win. You don't have to win to succeed. But you do, sometimes, have to fight knowing you will lose.
Someday I might even tell you how I really feel. Yeah, okay, the dreams are back. Fighting all night it seems and remembering all day. Perhaps now that I have plotted a course of action it may help. Perhaps nothing will change until I take action, or even until things are resolved. And they will be if it means walking away from an untenable situation with no support for righteousness.
Good night.
I was frankly shocked, stunned when you said you were joining the K of C, coming as it did mere days after we discussed Masons, Mormons, and the common roots of their cores.
ReplyDeleteBut...you are part of that side of the fence now, so there is nothing more for me to say.
Speaking of fighting in dreams, I've never dreamed this way before--maybe you're wearing off on me.
ReplyDeleteI was coming up to a stoplight to make a left turn, and there were people (pedestrians) partially blocking the left turn lane. I scowled, maybe said something, then saw a Che Guevarra lookalike to my right (standing in the intersection) say something threatening to me. I tried to ignore him while I waited for the light to change, but pulled out my pistol and had it in my hand, ready for trouble.
I became aware of a fairly large crowd of hostiles gathering to my right, and as the count exceeded the number of rounds in my pistol I became greatly concerned. When the light changed I sped out of there (I was on a bicycle as it turned out), and kept going at a high pace a bit more panicked than was warranted, given the fact that they did not appear to give chase.
Sheesh...
Well, if it were a secret organization, that would be one thing. The Free Masons are a very secretive club. What they do, their rites, all of it. The KoC is only a club for charity work, period. The rites are private but having gone through them I know there is nothing... evil there. I would not have continued into it if that was so. Further, we will see how they handle personal problems. If they are unjust I won't stay.
ReplyDeleteAh, your dream. You can probably extrapolate a bit, further into my dreams, from that. Imagine that you have no bike and no gun. Now imagine that there is no way out but to fight. I fight for seeming hours. Sometimes my dreams are dynamic, I have to make choices as to who I fight, when, where (if I get the choice, sometimes my plans fall through, sometimes I have zero choice).
There are parts which I cannot choose though, like being caught out in the open while trying to quietly, stealthily, circle 'grunts' to get to the leader. Imagine having those dreams for days, or even weeks, on end. I think that is what is making me so dratted tired. I don't get beat, I don't lose my ability to take the blows in the dreams, but I take blow after blow after blow, and give them. Half the night is terrible bloody fighting and killing. These aren't the terrible ones but it is adding up due to the frequency of dreams.
It may or may not interest you to know that the third level initiation into the K of C is an abbreviated, but otherwise nearly identical copy of the first level Masonic initiation. There is common symbology, the nature and meaning of which is not obvious on the surface.
ReplyDeleteBut you will make your own decisions about them in due time.