Something Right – July 19

There is a line in a song, it may even be the title, I simply don’t know but it says or at least implies “Somewhere, somehow, I must have done something right”. Or maybe it’s just our “Western” (and Eastern influenced) way of thinking which tries to account for the reality of our experiences through a “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” or the “cause and effect” Newtonian-Cartesian mind set. A mind set which takes very well to the concept of “Karma”. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but on the other hand there are the acausual synchronicities which cannot be explained through the “cause and effect” model. They simply happen, at most explained as some deeper inner psychic or (to use a controversial idea) spiritually related occurrence. Or to be even more difficult to comprehend (though established through physics and science) the Quantum nature of reality witnessed on the micro and macro levels of reality beyond normal human senses and sensation.

Regardless of what it is, or is not (as a means of explanation or accounting for). “At someplace, somehow, I must have done something right.” I don’t know, it simply is … Some would say “It is ‘God’”. I don’t have a problem with that  except “That is the easy ‘cop-out’” assuming we, the human being cannot comprehend, cannot think and understand and ultimately are not made in the image of the ‘God’ some would account any unknowable too. Yet it is continually evidenced, knowledge increases, and that once attributed to no other than one or another deity, is known and understood as simply the way the universe and reality is.

I do not find this to be refutation of “God”. Neither do I propose the absolute reality of some “other” figure or supreme-being as “God”. But it is my acknowledgement of our, the human beings, growing and increasing knowledge and understanding of that which is the divine. And if there is a “mind of God”, it is accessible to us and ultimately “in us”, as is proclaimed by the Apostle Paul himself that “we have the mind of Christ”. The error of the “Orthodox Church” is their literal absolute universal claim to exclusivity regarding this mind.

Yet, something’s work out right and no explanation seems sufficient. It is kind of the opposite of “Shit Happens”.

Hats – July 12, 2013

In this Texas sun and being outside a lot, I need to wear some kind of hat. Now I do not feel comfortable in one of those wide brimmed “cowboy” hats that many down here wear. An I will not, even as a joke, put on a sombrero, which is not uncommon. But a simple baseball cap, with a bill in the front to shade my eyes is ideal for me.

When Mary first got here and we had a little cash and not having a hat, I cleared it with her to get one for just about five dollars. A large blue star was front center and immediately I was assumed in the ranks of fans of the Dallas Cowboys. Not such a bad place to be, but I don’t follow football ( or any other sport team). But being quiet and a disposition to be agreeable (on matters of little importance) and bow to the expertise of self-proclaimed authorities, maintaining a satisfactory relationship within the community was relatively easy.

Now the Dallas Cowboys did not have a very good year and on New Year’s Day at a dinner for the homeless I was able to acquire a new hat, this one with the phrase “House the Homeless” on the front. But receiving the hat I was told I’d have to turn in my Dallas Cowboys hat. I think he was joking, but I responded with “Well, they aren’t doing anything this year” and laid my Cowboy’s hat on the desk. My new “homeless” hat was not the quality of the first, but it did have a bill and did the job of keeping the sun out of my eyes.  

Now not having clippers to regularly trim my beard, it was starting to grow out and it was not uncommon to be complimented on it. It was full and well-formed and gave the appearance of an Old Testament prophet or Santa Clause. It was not uncommon to hear “Hey, Santa Clause” from over-weight women in Wal-Mart, or ‘frat’ boys half-drunk wanting to impress some UT coed.

Now my hat was becoming well-worn and stained from the sweat of my head, my beard untrimmed, eventually grown out about eight inches, I was often addressed by younger, more polite street people as “Hey, Old timer”. Older, more mature businessmen, believe it or not, addressed me as “Sir”.  I often would forget what was written on the front of the hat, as I also am unconscious of my tattoos, which are also prominent and unmistakable. But occasionally, as I remembered, I realized I was unapologetically getting in the face of many who would rather I, and my like, were not there. I was a reminder that the system does not work for all. My demeanor fit the stereotype. I was not a drunkard or hopped up on drugs. I was able to survive on the streets, never being ticketed or arrested, but I was there and something didn’t fit … I didn’t fit. I didn’t fit the profile. Eventually, I lost that hat. It was no great loss, I should have thrown it away a long time before.

At a Thursday breakfast at the Presbyterian Church, shortly after Mary returned to Indiana, I was looking through a bunch of hats on a table and one kept my attention. It was corduroy, burgundy, with a large T in the center and slightly smaller A & M on each side of it. I knew immediately it was a Texas A and M cap, and it looked good, so I claimed it. Texas Agriculture and Mechanics, this is a college about 60 miles east and at one time a rival school to the University of Texas at Austin. I realized that if I wanted to get in someone’s face, this was the hat to do it.

Now beard was trimmed to a civil length, and except for the fact that I usually have a backpack on I do not appear “homeless”. I am approached regularly by “pan handlers”, but I set them straight as to the realities. Most simply ignore my brandishing the A&M. I really believe they are afraid of biting off more than they can chew, but there are several former A&M alumni that have expressed their appreciation, and amidst a community, not so distant, a respect for being bold, though I admit initially, ignorantly.

Collateral Damage – July 12, 2013

What is the difference between the collateral damage caused by a landmine and that of an unmanned armed drone aircraft? Is there a moral difference between the use of one and the other? One is place there and virtually forgotten. The other is controlled by a technician, isolated and out of harm’s way, thousands of miles away. If this not the end product of all those video games we have placated our kids with throughout their formative years? Kill and be killed, only to resurrect and do it all again … and again. Antiseptic, conscienceless … clean assuming that there was a conscience there to begin with. Or is the conscience grown, developed … matured? And has our collective conscience not been sacrificed, the collateral damage of our lusts for higher technology and convenience?

Closet Heretics – July 12, 2013

A few years back a friend of mine, Don under the pseudonym Delbor Greebies, commented on a blog I had written about the spiritual relationship between a man and a woman culminating in the act of making love, that this was in fact the only “true” religion. I believe he was, or is, absolutely correct. All other religious functions which we engage in are merely artificial edifices that we construct as means of relating to one another under the auspices of an illusory deity presumed “Lord” over all.

Some reading this understand and know exactly what I am talking about. Some, the more culturally captive, possibly Fundamentalist, are quite offended by the idea. Some agree whole heartedly, although would never do so publically. To you, I would say, “You are in actuality a closet heretic. It’s Okay to come out of the closet. You don’t have to play somebody else’s game.”

What is your relationship to your spouse? Significant other? Domestic  partner? Whatever? ‘There’ is your relationship to your ‘god’… there is your experience with the ‘divine’.

Sunday June 23 - Sitting at a bus stop - For those who want more

 

Life is in limbo now, a kind of living purgatory. I’ve done all that I can do. All I can do now is wait … for someone who loves me, and has the same desire for me.

Buddhists’ teach that suffering is the result of our desires. There is much truth to this. Although I am not sure it is as absolute as purported.  The Bible speaks of “Hope deferred” resulting in the same condition, but once realized as being a fountain of life. I use my own words here.

So I wait and hope, believing to sometime “know” that which is hoped for.

And where two or more agree “It shall be done”.

I am sitting on a bench, waiting for a bus. Not knowing whether it is on time, running late, or detoured.

Some can relate. Many maybe most just don’t get it and haven’t got a clue. When you “get it” you have begun to “think” and your mind and cognitive resources have begun to enter dimensions of reality transcending material limits. But this is only the beginning. Spiritual exercise is requisite to grow and there are few willing to accept the work and responsibility of associated character which is Christ. Not egoist altruism, but the manifestation of life transcendent to “monkey brains”, the material reflection, imperfect and pervasive, the only reality most can consider.

I have found that the Church, though believing and attempting to be faithful to the teachings of Christ have misconstrued the concept of the “new birth”, to be born again. It is filled with animalistic contrivances, minds materially bound. Thinking patterns and reliance on thought forms learned over years, centuries and millennia. Transferred one generation to the next, and compounded error upon error.

Bob Dylan expressed a concept of thought which needs to be realized. He said “I’m gonna change my way of thinking”. I’m not sure he realized the depth of his statement. But that is exactly what the Church has failed to do.

Si, or rather “sins” are most often reduced to our behaviors … alcohol, drugs, illicit sex, theft, attitudes of anger which manifest as murder and every other anti-social behavior. We are told it is of these and the like we must repent. But we have lost the meaning of “repentance”, metanoia. We repent, we commit to change our “evil ways”, but we have missed it. We are still thinking, relying on thought forms we have been taught which too often are unable to relate and transcend the material. We are stuck, for all practical purposes led by blind leaders who have never actually experienced the reality of life beyond the here and now. We have not “changed our way of thinking”, we have “monkey brains”. And do not think that this is a criticism of the Church only. It is applies to any and all stuck in the rut of material reality, atheist, pagan believer alike.

“God”, the word, like so many others which infest the religious Christian vocabulary, has lost its meaning, not being realized and experienced as reported in the life of the man known as “Jesus” the Christ. Not that we do not have the resources to “know”, but the corporate entity calling itself the Church as a matter of self-preservation remolded and redefined what it could not comprehend, could not comprehend because minds or ways of thinking had not changed. Altruistic notions, born out of materialistic religious forms, are substituted for the real, a “real” that cannot be manufactured and is not a product of natural human intelligence, but rather a transcendent enlightenment, possibly realized as that of the unconscious … the Self. That which is in us, and of us, and all that is … The divine life that connects us all and everything, but we, for the most part, have been taught otherwise, such is an illusion and not real, it does not have material objectivity. We have lost the reality of the “spiritual”. If it is not literally materially based, it is not real. We have confused the illusion of the material as the only reality which exists. It does exist, but it is not all that exists, not even close. It is a reflection, and each one’s perception is unique, and subjective and unverifiable, not in any absolute sense. And some see and perceive more than others, but most remain satisfied experiencing and knowing only what may be understood as the lowest common denominator. And we call ourselves the “Church”. This is a reality I question.

May 22, 2013 – Over bearing, Domineering and Controlling

I’m pissed … so I am going to rant for a while.


Some people cannot understand or figure out that their ability and willingness to aide does not give them the right to dominate and control another, who is the recipient of the desired aide in question. To offer support, material and other, does not implicitly, and most definitely not explicitly, grant one the right or perceived obligation to control the lives situations and circumstances of the one receiving the desired support. The knowledge and ability of the one rendering aide is not a “carte blanche” permission to manage the one in need. Any knowledge is limited in its scope, and incomplete to understand the full nature of another’s personal situation. There are innumerable gaps which though presumed understood are in actuality misconceived and potentially destructive as they may be misinterpreted and/or ignored by the managing provider, in actuality a state of ignorance.

The responsibility and the right to determine the course and content of one’s life is that of the individual whose life’s situations are in question and not that of any “so-called” benefactor.

This is an area where I have found, through a rather broad range of experience, that there are significant differences in the attitude amongst religious groups. Not so much denominationally defined as they are regionally. Religious adherents in the northern areas of the United States tend to be more domineering and offer assistance “with strings attached”. In the south, there seems to be a general understanding and willingness to give what is needed as is necessary and observable … without strings and in consideration of the individual’s inherent personhood.

As a general rule, this is an area the “Christian” Church falls well short of. Aide may be offered, but seldom without a minimal expectation to assume a controlling influence over the recipient of the charity. The “Church” or possibly better stated “the mindset of the charity providers” fails to understand the ultimate “spiritual” work they would wish to see accomplished in the life of the one in need. There is a failure to learn from history and human psychology that “Spiritual” changes of a positive nature cannot be dictated from the outside, no matter how well intentioned they may be. Spiritual work and change is an individual process and is unique to every person in question. There are no hard fast rules of how it is done, or what may be expected. By force of will, or resource, alienation of persons so affected is the inevitable result. Spiritual effects, like the wind, cannot be controlled by one’s desires, but happen where they will, as may be thought a product of the divine influence. Religious creed, doctrine and dogma and the parties motivated therewith, regardless of emotional attachment to either “faith” or persons in need, have no understanding, except as is experienced in actual confrontation with the divine in their own life.

Obama is in town

Obama is in town and whether you can imagine it or not, he’s got things really screwed up. I know there are a few of you who are thinking “So, what’s new?” Well nothing actually, but you should see the streets of Austin. I mean in Washington, D.C. where he actually resides and travels about, they don’t take the precautions they are here. (I’m from the D.C. area and have spent considerable time in town).


I mean in a one block area along Trinity street between 7th and 8th Streets, I counted nine patrol cars lined up, just sitting … waiting. And as we stood on 8th street (between Neches and Trinity) we saw a minimum of half a dozen police SUV’s and an uncounted number of cruisers, all patrolling the area to see what they could do to clear the streets of the homeless. And in the past several days they have descended on the area around the ARCH and Salvation Army like starving wolves. And they have cleared the streets, for the greater part. But I know for a fact that most that are caught in their web are simply dumb about how not to be arrested. They are not criminals, any more than I am; they are only trying to survive. Yes, there are those I wish had been incarcerated a long time ago, those I would consider drug heads, but indiscriminately convicting the poorer innocent’s is not a fundamental value of our American system … Or is it?

The amusing thing is that just two blocks away Obama is being entertained by the officials of the city of Austin. But if you happen to be sitting in line, waiting to be fed a free meal at a local soup kitchen, you are subject to being arrested, which many have been. You see, sitting on a public sidewalk is against the law. Sitting anywhere, with any piece of your personal property next to you is against the law, it is defined as “camping” which allows the police to arrest you for breaking a city ordinance against camping, and the ones standing in line, sometimes sitting at their own risk, wearing Pro-Obama Tee-shirts celebrating the fact that one of theirs, an advocate for the poor and homeless has come to town. Never mind that they may be arrested in the fury that ensues.