Jeff Basham’s Blog

This was sent by a friend to a mailing list that I belong to:

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.

Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.

Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.

Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.

I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right – for me.

To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.

From: Keirsey and Bates
Please Understand Me

Hello Family and Friends,
Time for a theatre update from Jeff…

I auditioned and was cast in the Ensemble of Seussical, being produced by the Raven Players at the Raven Performing Arts Theatre in Healdsburg. As you all know, theatre is a great love of mine, and I am excited to have been cast in the show. Many of you saw me last summer in Miss Saigon and/or A Few Good Men, and I am very happy to once again be returning to the stage at the Raven. I hope that you can find a date during the run to come and see the show.

This is your save the date reminder, but keep in mind that tickets to shows suitable for children go particularly fast, especially matinee performances. Tickets, in fact, are on sale now, even though we don’t open until June 19th. As always, please let me know when you are coming to the show – so I can be sure to come out after the show and greet you in the lobby.

This is a new musical that brings to the stage all of the beloved characters from Dr. Seuss. It centers on Horton the Elephant and his adventures with the people on “the tiniest planet in the sky”, the inhabitants of Who. It is truly a delight for all ages.

Preview Performance:
June 18th at 8pm – No advance ticket sales, all tickets $15 at the door.

Performance Dates are:
June: 19th, 20th, 26th, and 27th at 8pm, and June 28th at 2pm
July: 2nd, 3rd, 10th, 11th, 17th, and 18th, at 8pm and July 5th, 12th (Jeff’s 26th Birthday), and 19th at 2pm.

A Raven Players Production, Raven Performing Arts Theater – 115 North Street, Healdsburg, CA � Tickets range from $20 to $30. Purchase Tickets: Online at www.ravenplayers.org or call 707-433-6335 ext.11. Also available at Copperfields Books (Santa Rosa or Healdsburg locations).

The Healdsburg Bar and Grill on Healdsburg Avenue, just a short 2 block walk from the theatre is a wonderful place for drinks, snacks, lunch or dinner before and/or after the show. (It was the “regular” hangout for many of the cast members and were we did many an afterglow last summer!)

Feel free to forward this email to your friends, families, co-workers, and well, anyone!

My Best,

Jeff Basham

Get the Kleenex. You were warned.

Hi Everyone,

Have you heard that Ken Starr — and the Prop 8 Legal Defense Fund — filed legal briefs defending the constitutionality of Prop 8 and attempting to forcibly divorce 18,000 same-sex couples that were married in California last year? The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this case on March 5, 2009, with a decision expected within the next 90 days.

The Courage Campaign has created a video called “Fidelity,” with the permission of musician Regina Spektor, that puts a face to those 18,000 couples and all loving, committed couples seeking full equality under the law.

Please watch this heartbreaking video (pay special attention to 1:12 to 1:17 – My dear friends Sheridan and Dianna are featured):

http://www.couragecampaign.org/Divorce

“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

After you watch the video, please consider joining me in signing the letter to the state Supreme Court and passing this video on to your friends. The more people who see this video, the more people will understand the pain caused by Prop 8 and Ken Starr’s shameful legal proceeding.

Thanks.

I’ve been quite busy since my last post on December 22nd. Christmas came and went, my job at JCPenney has ended (thank god!) and I went on another Billy Club Retreat from 12/27 through today.

Happy New Year to you all, and here are a couple of videos I found in my email upon getting back from the retreat.

Stand By Me

Uncle Jay Explains the News – Year End 2008

Sent to me from a friend … I’d like to share it with all of you …

Happy Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, Quanza or any other celebration of your choice and season.
~Jeff

Imagining …

What if God isn?t a noun to be empowered and worshiped but a verb of creation powered by love?

What if every single tree drawn in primary school is a sacred work of art worthy of joyful notice?

What if our lives are built on a web of kindness, a net, which holds everything living.

What if the rocks are alive singing strength and courage; vibrating from our feet right up to our heart?

What if we loved ourselves as deeply as the mountain who, caressed by water, surrenders herself into sand?

What if our most loved, intra-national pastime is a game of entertainment where we all win?

What if no one aspired to be a millionaire and money no longer had power but was simply a means of tenderness?

What if transforming our world by imagining it can actually make it happen?

- Deborah Rodney

I’ve removed the post I made yesterday about Obama’s choice of who is going to give the invocation at his inagural. A dear friend wrote me the following:

Barack Obama is a practicing Christian (who has said more than once that he does not believe in gay marriage) and Rick Warren is his friend. This does not mean they see eye to eye on every matter. He asked his FRIEND to give the invocation at HIS inauguration! As a person, doesn�t he have this right?

By urging people to petition Obama to rescind the invitation, Equality CA is declaring war on someone who may well be our ally in the future. And, they are using the inauguration of a president as a media event to push their own agenda � an agenda that I will remind you is not shared by the vast majority of Americans. Turning this into an issue at a presidential inauguration is not the way to make friends and influence people, and it�s only going to give straight people one more reason to dislike gays.

Just because I�m gay doesn�t mean that I can�t think for myself, nor is the world only about me and my demands as EQCA would seem to prefer. If you get a chance, read Obama�s book �The Audacity of Hope� for among many things, a demonstration of the critical thinking skills needed to get along with people with differing views.

He (Obama) should be able to invite anyone to do anything at the celebration of the most important day of his life. Period.