Talking to Raymond in Austin

I wanted to get hold of Raymond before Christmas and finally caught him this morning at home. He caught cold or an allergy attack and has been under the weather a few days but he sounded up. He is driving out to College Station, about an hour and a half away, tomorrow to check on a theater out there, but he has four more shows to do in the festival in January. He said response was good and inspiring to him until the theater closed down for the Christmas holidays even if the audiences continued to be small as expected. Alan Lea, an actor he had worked with in his play "Pig Hunter from Blue River," came to the show on Sunday. He lives in the Austin area now, so that was an interesting reunion he said. I will never forget that show and Allen Lea's performance as the 'boy' obssessed with javelinas. This was one of Raymond's wildest shows. You never knew what he was going to come up with in the twists and turns of plot in that play. I also recall a reviewer writing about it saying even the the country boys were shaking their heads as they walked to their pickup trucks after seeing "Pig Hunter". Everytime I think of some of those characters I laugh. This was his definitive Arizona desert opus-- what living close to the wilds of Arizona had done to him.
Raymond said he still has a lot to say but has not been able to get to his writing while shaking this cold. I am sure he will be back blogging away soon.

I have been reading the paper carefully this morning trying to understand just what Congress had done so far with the healthcare plan and what still remains left to be done. I told my family as near as I could figure out nobody got what they wanted and everybody is dissatisfied, but there has been a terrible struggle and that's what's important. Looks like we are going to get a health plan. The Republic came out today with a column from the Washington Post expressing grave disappointment with Senator Nelson who is accused of 'selling out' his pro life beliefs to get a better deal in medicaid for his constituents in Florida. He provided the crucial 60th vote to get the plan passed in the Senate, but it seems the bill will have to be submitted 2 more times before it is actually voted into law. Senator Johanns from Nebreska who spoke on the aud iocast trying to stop abortion funding thought that Majority Leader Harry Reid from Nevada would get his 60 votes but the house can still stand firm against abortion funding if the pro life democrats don't change their minds as Senator Nelson did who is accused of 'making a deal.' One of those deals we question when politicians do it.
Arizona Senator John McCain reports he is prepared to stay the distance and vote his pro life beliefs before going home for the Christmas holidays. I do not think the pro life congress members have backed down for the most part and that is a hopeful sign to me that Americans are beginning to realize they must fight for the lives of the unborn if anything is to change.
Our beliefs about a hereafter are really being tested by this issue. I have had several near death experiences and each time saw an afterlife manifested in some way before I 'came back from the dead.' How many mothers could go to the other side and see the children they have aborted in spirit form and still continue to believe in abortion? When my sister died, a voice from the other side spoke to me in a dream and said that the child she had aborted years before had forgiven her mother and was waiting to be reunited with her. My sister continued to believe in pro choice up until she died. It was legalized about a year after her illegal abortion, so she felt vindicated. She never backed down, but I knew very well that when she got to the other side and saw her child in the spirit, she would back down. Seeing would be believing. She had not believed enough in the spirit before her death twenty years ago to change her mind in my opinion.
She has come a number of times since in the spirit and talked about the abortion issue, saying just recently that mothers who aborted their children starting in 1973 are just starting to come there now and see that their children survived death. She says the bond between her and that child will never be the same as it was between her and her two other children who are still living, but she is only one among many who has acknowledged the existence of her child in the after life and attempted to make restitution.