Jack Spratt

Job 31:32 "but no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveler--" the image is not mine, stolen since it is fine. No. Best Blest.

120501 05:04
    Bully i was in youth for my name. During infancy I knew Hitler as a clarinet player, Joe I think, maybe Carl.
    Preceded through elementary school by Jack Frost I was frequently referred to, at first, as he not me. It is impossible among the literate, this shrinking minority oppressed by dreck and thought police, having the sir name Spratt not to be called Jack. Which is not a Christian name but a ‘nickname’ for Jacob or John. Pardon me while I weep for the what seems implicit in “John” the one Jesus said would remain.
    Oh well.
    Regrets I have for my behavior, not guilt or shame since like anger and fear, either, any or all: burdens too great to carry far in life. Worse to be so is to become possessed by them. Defining myself as other than a bully has been to acquire largess my father did not possess, at least as he would describe those who quoted, from “An Alphabet of Old Friends” what became both a Nursery Rhyme and political slander during the Tammany Hall days . . . he thought them idiots.
    Specifically. Indelibly. In a closed loop, replayed once-in-while, perchance too often, is the red headed boy whose two arms I broke in a hammer lock for his jabberer of me. Then my eternal memory the discovery he was adopted and weak regarding his own identity. In another moment of uncontrolled ferocity exploding, not for the same name calling and ridicule, I picked up a peer above my head and threw him to the ground. And wonder still as I wander towards death his consequent life afterwards. Broken? On the alter of my rage.
    Born in Cincinnati, swiftly moved to St. Louis during the beginnings of World War II the name Wolfgang Amadeus was pondered as to Germanic to use, the latter, from Latin love + god. After Mozart of course, thankfully it wasn't Jelly Roll, Satchmo or any of the other musicians and/or composers my life was suffused with then, and only now in private since I weep and dance crying for joy uncontrollable.
    The cat became Mozart and my crib partner.
    Of the many names for God I no favorites and while greeting the day, living it, internally prostrate in awe reverent.
    Faith is experience, belief is idea. . . . or thought/conceit?
    It is oddly wonderful, this writing business, since for me, though I don’t know how to do it, am presented with as many directions I could go--as in from ‘here’--as there are stars. Abiding internally is the knowing that “Christ” was applied afterwards and Jesus was is a friend brother perhaps we all are children of God? And in some sense must be the messiah to our selves, souls, what ever moves us through things that go bump in the night of our terror.
    What name does God give this tiny speck circling infinity, our nest befouled by greed upon which we reside tenant?
    Or we whose given names are a prayer of intention?

An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me...It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride and superiority. The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside of you and every other person too." --Cherokee

. . . savage? no. barbarians; we
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