Christmas’ Past were like playing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir doing the Messiah; falling through successive floors endlessly. Her mother, mine then dad and his new brood.

You know the feeling too well; falling down an elevator shaft; yet for me there were momentary lapses falling stopped. Why would or should such a divine commemoration be an endless nightmare. . . .the only two best remembered: Randy telling is grandmother, my mother; fists planted on each hip in his Doctor Denton’s: “ Don't you ever speak to my father in That Tone of voice. Ever!”

The other was at a time very young, uncertain where, but, paternal grandparents, present, had given me a toy farm populated with two dimensional figures plus fences and trees. I suppose in some sense it was humble--dare you to say ‘cheap’!

Between friends, mates, lovers or drive-by fornications: nudity is not the issue but naked souls blest. I was to be privileged to see my paternal grandmother nude; a memorable occasion since she defined the difference between nude and naked, having so shame of her body. Outstanding even then a fox until she died. Better and more frequently recalled her teaching me to tie my shoes. A double slipped reef knot; one lesson did the trick and more often when putting them on, seldom, shoes that tie instead of scuff. She stood there without shame or flinch; nude not smiling but her eyes saying; ‘yes’ to be so touched by grace is memorable beyond any amount of money in heaven, earth or hell forever.

For me to be now celibate is to love better all life. In denying myself the gratification of lust slaked I find myself better able to penetrate hearts, souls and minds. . . .Remembering Whitney Houston the difference between using a long lens and being up close and personal with a point-and-shoot. Fully clothed lounging in the doorway of her trailer talking to fans--I posing as one--now recall brokering a deal for Star Magazine to purchase images of her and Bobby, she in a bikini. On God! What a voice and body. The most sensitive sex organ is between our ears.

Other nominally near Christmas’ past better than most memorable. Remember Beethoven said something like; music is the best message of universal love. And she called me the night of her death to say goodbye from lung cancer, like me, a cigarette smoker. We met at the local public library. As previously stated, female librarians are oracles to me, always have will always be. When returned to Randy from Paradox I was refused access--typical of Susan--from beginning to end. She stood across the internment holding Nancy’s hand while I writhed upon the muddy December ground hysterical; a wooden Indian she selling no cigars.

Reggie (Regina) and Ralph took me in, accustomed to strays, as their son would have it of me and all who preceded me in their hospitality. Christmas' there was a Bacchanalian Celebration; I steered the eggnog which towards the end was more rum than egg. In the living room a star flashing varicolored lights obscenely joyous into the coming dawn; a new life for one and all to be well in eternity. Remember kiddies savior yourselves this Christmas for we celebrate He who died for us as well.

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas has formed a union; all Bankers of the World need not apply; they were made that way by greed. Us Tar Babies, we of color, even i a wannabe must stick together and walk outta the brier patch Bush/Cheney put us in. We Will Prevail inheriting the earth as the body of God. Or blown asunder merge meeting in the heart of God elsewhere.

Jesus did say, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Meaning, at least for me for now; we are, or can be there, if only we are willing to vanquish our fear.

Oh yes! The reason I wept last lunch with M was hearing an aria remembering Reggie. Having read everything before she collected Harlequin Romances eating them like salty peanuts while listening to Opera. And now I celebrate all the women of my life; especially the Mother of God who upon the loom of first light, in robes black turning blue covered with stars gives virgin birth to the new and next day . . . and on very special times winks as she sets the moon goodnight.

There is artistry in all life if only you become awake to see it. Death having no dominion forever.

Happy All Saints Day on the morrow.

121031 05:29 touched by . . .
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Behind me lay a multitude of thoughts recorded; recognized as folly, not vain so much as beating a dead dog to resurrect it.

As a photojournalist, for print media, I remain unbowed by the tsunami of television. Now the Internet blowing commercial broadcast off the globe.

Mr. Bill Gates, a pimple on the ass of the Internet, is ethically and morally a dog turd. Albeit a very rich one who giving a token from his amassed wealth could in truth as with all rich to tithe ten percent should. Yet could easily give ninety percent; remaining rich beyond all measure or reason.

Why would I molest Mr. Gates? Retroactively aborting his life and ‘accomplishments’ is available to me conceptually in that, were he to be my object of interest, myself no longer constrained by journalistic ethics and morals; and having been raped by people like he. Without disrespect I’d fart in his face before taking a portrait of him for any reason. He is no more or less noble than I or Annie, my companion cat. And Mr. Gates, in and of himself, is of zero interest.

The same applies to Ted Kennedy. I was given an assignment for The Providence Journal, Providence, Rhode Island. He stormed into the room filled with self-importance towing his wife; a marginally inflated sex toy on a four wheeled platform behind him. I do not know for certain, having no interest but intuition, he would screw anything with an appropriate entrance; a knothole for example. As happenstance, coincidence or felicitous synchronicity would have it I met the wife of the photographer who happen upon the ass end of Kennedy’s automobile as it sank into oblivion at Chappaquiddick. Thus my intuition affirmed.

We all have genius in us. Yet we refuse to acknowledge it; being impossible in an age of, not literacy but the blind leading the blind into perdition.

If I am bold, a terrorist, savage in my seeing; believe me it is inconvenient to prostitute my vision/version of all that I see for anyone. Gates is emblematic of the force and power of wealth to rape not only my inheritance but the products of my mind.

Actually there is nothing new in this penchant and proclivity to sodomize artist. For those who live in terror of never having enough, more is always demanded; by them, not God: The best audience in all creation.

If I find myself insignificant. It is true of my vision of eternity. The world, you, the audience, all measure of esteem or acclaim, “immortality;” will fall useless without us since the world will end; sooner or later.

The more I give away my consciousness of the divine, the more room within me to receive. To create a self is the most important effort worthy of person’s attention; not to be known but to know ourselves and the Creator approves: communes, advises, laughs and cries with you.

121029 04:48 taught

“Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner.” - Baruch Spinoza

Being a legend in my own mind, discovering myself a sardine in a very small fish bowl, i tend to forget no one else knows how to breath water.

An unexamined life is unworthy of being called life at all.

Yet, at that, I wonder how to sell you your own? Happiness for me is solitude, an occasional game of double deck Solitaire and a cat. I have enough: period. Such peace as I know having known it for five or more years, I recognize that I cannot collect M as either memento, souvenir or insurance that I will not back slide into the life of insanity I lived until meeting her.

Insanity, as classically defined by Albert Einstein: Repeating the same action/behavior expecting different results . . . possibly inaccurate but I refuse to look it up as in verbatim. Leading me to share that to have “collected” M as a 24/7/365 partner would have been to rehearse the same insanity of all my life: asking a woman to define me as worthy of living. Asking even that of my mother who remained silent until I buried her using the Episcopal Prayer Book Service for the Dead. Perhaps, but not now, sometime maybe, I’ll make a poem about it.

This is not about me, or God; it is about you and us; as in all of life.

As I write, fully conscious of my sister and her man’s (actually: my brother-in-law/bro) imperiled with the storm attacking The Eastern Seaboard, I do pray not so much for God’s Will for them or the millions involved but for them to have the peace and kneeling acceptance of death, destruction or whatever, why-ever it comes.

Everything has consequence. Pass me the donation plate and I might but a penny in removing all the dollars. Been there. Done That. Criminal? Of course, but I would hasten to add the days food or coffee and cigarette made from others extinguished butts was worth the humiliation. The only true democracy is storms and death. The sun shines, eventually in the case of now, upon the poor and rich equally. If Obama/Ryan/Romney sink us into perdition who am I to care or change what I have virtually no influence over or in save for my single vote?

I am astonished by my ignorance; having come thus far; believing in my prowess. As indicated: a person can glean a fabulous education via The World Wide Web -- and I find, for this reason, a swelling motive to censor it.

Mother grew to maturity, marriage, then motherhood from a hard scrabble origin. Made terrible and insane by the death of her father, at age four, by accident or suicide. Taught from an early age she was worthless in a agrarian culture; yet brilliant, in and of herself.

I think, and this is merely conjecture--a possibility: she hated me because I was male, lacking the potential of becoming the woman she longed to be. Or become. Growing from the obvious poverty of her origins into the Great Depression.

This is not about me or my mother. It is about and for all life in 2012 at the turning point between what was and will be. We are in a threshing machine being separated: the wheat from the chaff. And individually must define ourselves as worthy or unworthy of this life we live. Otherwise life itself will do so for us. In dying or after death we will look back and weep for not what we had but what we did not do for ourselves, family, community, society, culture and civilization.

As for myself, I no longer gaze at pornography masturbating. Attempting to define my anima (inner woman, ideal, The Goddess) anything to slake my lust for touch, acknowledgment, a fleeting experience of being loved. These things I have experience nominally yet ending with conditions that defined me in ways impossible to fulfill or for which I had no inclination or desire.

What I ran away from was not they who I was in relationship with. But towards where I am now. Geographical fixes don’t work. My travel itinerary was inward; not another trip around the world. Add. For me, it was best found in silence, solitude. The opportunity to wander into the desert and scream my head off in frustration over all my many failures. In my weeping finding my real strengths and desires: that no one lack the opportunity to live as I do now free of the horror of my childhood.

121030 03:33 "Don't find fault, find a remedy." - Henry Ford

The real people I know do encounter adversity with courage. Do I define myself as courageous? Uncertain. I remain gifted by the attention of both genders represented by those who listened instead of told. I must witness this is my experience with God; a dialog.

When the student is ready the Teacher will appear . . . and be willing to be, the Teacher, taught.

Regardless the means, measures or manors of your demise; depart forgiving those who raped you in all it’s many disguises. Their fate will be far worse.

Read your dreams and listen to what you see becoming well in all eternity.

121031 04:37 Adapt, improvise, prevail
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

teleology v. theology

M, once said, about five years ago, when or around first we met: “heal.” Later on when I queried her meaning she said; “you will.” Even later, more nearly now that I pray for her not to leave me behind, due to breast cancer and heart issues; I asked again if she said that to everyone, like; “I’ve got to leave you now ‘sweet man’.”
“Yes. . . . I tell everyone that . . . . ”
Being so madly in love, loyal with gratitude, i’d follow her about like a puppy dog; to heaven or hell or in-between . . . or merely kiss the dust we will become in death spread as ashes upon the desert.

I do, you know, love her, marginally less than The Virgin Mary.

I cannot now remember my inane reply; such a fool for her i’d be should she allow it. But surely, the idiot I am replied something like; “i see”

Since then I’ve come to acknowledge a central truth. We must heal ourselves, all miracles of Jesus aside--or--for that matter the Prophets/Saints past, present and future. . . .Could it be; that in the presence of wholeness/holiness we wick the healing of God making more potent the cure?

The difference between truth and lies; knowing that advertising is The Great Lie. Well. Whatever. So is political No Speak. What the savage in me would decry as speaking with a forked tongue. Or typical of truly evil men wearing robes of divinity, the greatest badly behaved people. Unconscionably rude. The religious who pretend to speak for God.

No jest! Did I mean pretend to be God; or God Like?

Taught to be the village idiot, moronic, stupid to the extent of not having a right to live much less give birth to my self, or cause the birth of another child. Or for that matter any child; the care of which I’ve known. Possibly better bereft, of my own, by adoption the all life and the children of god?

I admit to being imperfect, as we all are, despite the billions of dollars paid as brainwash to purchase the Supreme Court, The White House, Senate, Congress, etc. to place a White-boy in office who by utter absence of moral or ethical conduct is equivalent to the KKK. Oh dear sweet Colgate smiling Mr. Romney go frack yourself early and often; repeatedly. Least Ryan gets in office and becomes like the former Vice-President Cheney who tortured small animals to death for his glee and pleasure; then graduated to torture children and adults absent Habeas Corpus.

Oh well. Women of age, put razor blades in your vagina's. Better! Wear Claymore Mines as chastity belts; just in case another Republican or Catholic gets into office.

You know . . . if I didn’t write; I’d explode in rage over the hypocrisy of those who idolize the Bible. Instead find the Holy Spirit inspiring its being written. Or those who tampered with it to prove that women are less equal in life than men.

Ladies you are alone and must prove your value in the Cage Fight of your life. Before insertion use the razors to cut their hahas off. More better afterwards shove the evidence into his mouth make him swallow this time; no potential reattachment. The with the palm of either hand drive his nose into his KKK brain.

Be well, Be More Better! Maybe, possibly, maybe not, just be friends and forget the baby making as practice at all; ever?! Or get a pet.

Or adopt one of the forty thousand children dying daily of neglect.

. . . at least I think now, thought then, what M implied when she said, or did I misunderstand? “Save yourself!”

121027 05:07 teleology v. theology
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Truth triptych

Tho an ignorant old man, I would be educated, and am well, by the quotes of others whose lives I have come to praise and admire.

"Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well." - Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)

In the case of Malala Yousufzai Vs. The Pakistani Taliban: the latter now headless and heedless of consequence, the martyrdom of a fourteen-year-old-child, defined as a female thus unworthy of education. I would argue, without apology, that America martyred Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden; murdering his body but not his spirit.

Odd. But now with significance; I once was resident not far from where the famous portrait of George Washington was painted by Gilbert Charles Stuart (born Stewart). And from that place did I roam the world photographing the Rich, Famous, Powerful, Forceful and poor of the world. In whose eyes I came to know more about them than they--had they known--would have agreed to be witnessed by me; for a mere snapshot. I make no claims, sincere or facetious, to special powers as a recording witness of our times and the consequence of behaviors by those I have recorded; in the best camera ever created; my mind. Or should I say, mindfulness; a Buddhist phrase to best describe the divine in all life.

As all children of Abraham, Buddha, or Muhammad; and so on. You can kill our bodies but not our spirit. Said in a different, yet more significant way, you can eat us alive but never capture or contain the presence of God within us. He who pounds his/her chest loudest is a coward. Or. Merely a terrorist of a different species; a soul abandoned; with only the coin of betrayal in hand.

I would suffer any death, imagined or real, that the truth of God be revealed in life as it is potential in all creation. That which you harm or kill marks you as despicable; save in the sense it, the murder, be done for sustenance; eating the victims flesh, like manna from God, given that you live another moment. In this sense we are our own saviors. Yet, she, the girl fighting for her live has given us the opportunity to know the folly of war: the expense of more lives thrown into the maw of greed.

It is not I, as prophet or savior, who like all those before in time immemorial have said; “god is real.” Save this child who in, potentially giving her life, living or dead, has risen the ideal of truth; all life is equal. And we, as one family, need not despise/murder one diseased part to have health, safety or wealth. If you be well you must of need examine your perception.

"Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind you have failed." - Jan de Hartog

"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." - Roberta Flack

121027 03:02 education

Some may well wonder why I should so like to die right now.
Save for these moments tapping the characters beneath my fingers. Dad so wanted me to be a musician naming me initially Amadeus Wolfgang but changing his mind mindless that in the end, if there will ever be death of this consciousness, Jack Spratt would be more difficult than the then rabid hostility towards Germans/Germany those wonderful folks so sublime at manufacture of death one-at-time. It is a kind of racial prejudice against those who do not emulate their anal retentiveness.

Time being irrelevant to myself and God. However in recent memory I began to sense that listing to my erstwhile namesakes music, something as yet unheard, like all wonderful women, wine and song experienced more often; nine times nine trillion: always something new. 

Me thinks me protests women wanting them to be God in drag. And yet in reality all they want is equality and not to flap amongst the stars while i lachrymose lay prostrate awaiting their return.  

Speaking of the feminine principle, the anima of me, Annie, attempting to sequester my really good flip flops; not I don't wear Romney on one or Ryan on the other; but those I purchased last in Hawaii with dad. She has a rubber fetish and has eaten one heel nearly to unwearable condition. Of course being poor thanks to my shithead father giving all my due and sundry to his shithead son who so like me being a shithead as well is completely indifferent his theft of my inheritance. Moving right along, I awoke after an unusually long rest period--four hours!?--looking for Annie high-low-and-more-and-again disturbed her beauty rest sequestered in the closet where I’d attempted to hide my Romney/Ryan/Flip-Flops. . . . 

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have them plus the Nazi Pope, The Knights of Columbus, The NRA plus Romney/Ryan in a daisy-chain naked with Annie playing Yankee Doodle Dandy with their testicles? I don’t trim her claws and when impassioned she scratches me while kissing with her teeth. In no small measure but less in duration the suffering a woman will experience at the hands of the sodomites. 

Who in the name of all holiness, reason, sanity or good consciousness--merely common sense? Would bring a child into this life so soon to end -- the entire earth heaving water aflame? All to fuel the collective slavery to greed?

I love the image of my soaking in the bathtub idly smoking a cigarette self-immolating involuntarily. Mr. Exxon go frack yourself frequently. 

Actually and factually I've discovered the grace of dad sodomizing my life with his desire not that I be a musician but a merchant like himself selling the flesh of dead trees desecrated with black toxic ink. And now more often than before laugh wetting my pants remember his face holding another dollar gained from selling ‘Wee-Wee-Whistles’ (trombone like tone alteration) outside the store front in Stamford Connecticut. While the little shits stood outside practicing  for thirty minutes. 

It never ceases to astonish me what all those desirous of power and control will whore themselves out to gain the momentary gratification of scoring more. I know this factually having prostituted my eyes for the vanity of Ted Kennedy and Joan; never forgetting the ruin of such a beautiful woman he caused . . . i hope his soul remembers Chappaquiddick and he enjoys the endless napalm enema. 

How did I learn to be such an Antichrist? I would rebut each kick, blow, being thrown down stairs and/or out of the house naked in November with the door locked behind me: no tears just silence. And yet, and now, I love her more. Mom thank you for teaching me how to survive the next attack of the assholes who submerged American in The Depression.  

The people who caused this “recession” are murders and should be put to sleep. I, of course must confess complicity, so I too will wait patiently for the needle. They claim to have made America great. Yet they don’t know how to fix a screen door against the coming flood.

Think: learn how to breath volatile water instead of air. Grow gills!

121026 06:08 random

Sincerely I think Jesus resurrected in the body and life of Malala Yousufzai. I ask that you make prayers of your lives for her survival. And it is i alone, the father of daughters who left me for whatever reason and whom I know well in life or death, both blest and in the being of God. In some, personally, curious sense, I would speak for my son. Who in dying did so that his adopted biracial sister could live more freely in our love for her. Now abandoned the marriage dissolved. And she fled in disdain; her right being an adult and now a mother herself.

I have no other gifts to bestow upon the women of our time and world. Who must, in and of themselves, heal their despicable treatment as slaves to men. As male I have become aware through the kindness of woman that I adore their being as they are and want to be, not as I would have them defined by my lust: a convenience.

Without apology I will publish, concurrent with this, what I wrote before. I refuse to censure my reference to Republicans or the Holy See as Nazi’s. Who were and remain in current context dictatorial of their intellectual right taken to the extreme of abstraction from integration of all four functional perceptions of, and in life: Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, Intuition; to which I add a fifth sense: instinct.

Personally I am convicted by my apprehension of instinct as God given; the first seed of consciousness. What eats me does so in order to survive. My death and body is its subsistence. On the Richter scale of tectonic emotional shifts.

Or.

Consequent rape, or desecration, of a child’s body, or emotional consciousness of value. Meaning and purpose, are synonymous/equivalent, to rendering a child’s life as nothing but litter. Merely an inconvenience to life.

As defined by the presiding authority duly or self-elected: Parent, Religion or State. None can be allowed to dismiss any one individual for the prestige or preeminence of the authority. I trust in God. In whom I am advised that God is sacrificial of him/her/it self that we have conscious or unconscious life at all.

I ask of those who protest choice, or right to life, to consider my conviction. From personal experience, as a father, I can argue the case either way. Yet loving my wife would defer to her life and/or choice to deliver a dead child or die herself in doing so.

“Conscience is a sacred sanctuary where God alone may enter as judge.” - Felicite Robert de Lamennais . . . you do not have to be Catholic to have a catholic sensibility. Add. I would ask is there life after birth? Eaten by The Great Lioness, my mother, many times over; I know there is life after death. Do you? And what of all the other ideals of the Catholic/Protestant Social concerns?

“Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.” - Pearl S. Buck

121027 00:11 resurrection
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

dead right to be so is still to die

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR39KGB#a=3

Terror and chaos attends all my days from birth until now; longing to die. Knowing the value of Jesus death to me personally I remain await the moment of my death to humiliate authority in didactic ways. We are all our own saviors; as of needs we must be in healing ourselves the savage predation of those who see divinity in power and force over others; to make the world safe for themselves by enslaving and/or destroying all other life.

Chaos, or what I experience as creativity, now, is customary to me. And those who pass before the scan of my attention would be well to avoid it. That is, of course, if they care to live in peace. My savior lives in me. And as He suggests; when unwelcome; "shake the dust from your sandals and move along" . . . while I like a child have clung to his foot teaching me to dance.

Tho I loved, love, my father in life and death, he remains oblivious to the chimera mother was to me -- i have yet to fully understand what it means to others or me: “ 5. Honour thy father and thy mother ” There are insufficient seconds or heart beats in eternity for me to slake my curiosity about the how and why I, much less all others, do as they do.  M is not my sole resource recovering my soul from the hell I’ve lived in, save in all other things than wed union, she is the best woman I’ve ever know to go the distance with: going as far as it goes--unto death--and in death we will forever be friends--more so than the prayer of intention said at weddings the world round. Dare I? Should I? Could I? Of course I can say what damn well pleases me to say: we merge and mix within each other at times suffering one another’s pain and joy.

For the love of an old man who taught me what follows, a house painter in Jamestown, Rhode Island; who when asked about his wife would reply; “Compared to what?” He would ‘box’ paint. Mixing it from one container to another in order to render the entire room in perfect harmony. That is what I feel in the presence of M, of Mary, of Jesus and of course: God.

I am aware that should others know my energy devoted to observing them, I would be held in captivity; the darkened tombs beneath the Vatican Empire. I is only by the greatest restraint that I do not take them apart just to watch their hearts beat before eating it.

Depending upon my mood: I might put the heart back in place thus resurrecting them to do it all over again. Or. In a nicer frame of mood: I’d simply leave them to ponder my silence. Obviously I am equally divided between being kind and unimaginably cruel. Oddly, aware, at my age, every moment is precious to me more valuable than all the money, force and power in the world--yet longing to die, longing to know what it is to simply decay . . . “ . . lead me not into evil . . “ Let me not lead others there either neither.

C G Jung: anima female, animus male--look it up! A world without equality for women is civilization lurching one-legged; like the Nazi Pope lead catholic church.

"Don't find fault, find a remedy." - Henry Ford

Passion is the basis of compassion and empathy.

121026 03:32 Dead Right
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

twofer for the women of the world

A life fearlessly lived is in a state of grace from it's ending in the innocence of it's beginning. None to be feared beginnings and endings as all life does. The Church knowing this moved Jesus actual birth date near the terror of our primitive mind towards the longest night and shortest day; generally acknowledged by those of us who remember in our origins as Winter Solstice.

The fear that the light, or sun, would never return, thus the next longest day to be greeted with bonfires of vanity that we can control anything in life. Our tears announcing both terror and joy. Moreover it is specifically human to cry for either reason or none at all the turning of the seasons of life; none to be despised.

As for myself I've held a terror of Christmas. Christ Mass. As in terror akin to Maundy Thursday blackening the chapel bereft of all trappings celebrating the life and sacrifice; the martyrdom of He who I have always adored more than any life I know of including mine. A life I no longer owned in terror that it will never end.

Yet in truth I like so many others would give it that a brother/sister would know more of life; even if only for a moment longer. This is common in life for to give love is better than to receive. A truth more readily known inherently to women than men. Yet love is an energy not a thing or child and known to those who fight and die to retain some sense of the truth that life is a gift defined as such.

Ascendant I seek these truths of all life regardless of mineral, vegetable, or as we define most noble, the life of our culture ideally defining the life of all humans. Yet to know life best, or whole/complete or Holy, is to know the tap root buried; our deepest root touching the terror and wrath: vengeance. What he sacrificed to memorialize love, forgiveness, mercy and the death of death itself. What must die the seed of new life renewed or newly defined.

We who know any day is a good day to die, know better that life is a gift and bond daily renewed. And for most the death we give gladly is not for an ideal but for those closest to us; brothers/sisters at arms in harms way. That our family may live free instead of die in slavery.

In my love for He who is my root. I have come to know and reverence those other prophets of God whose children define their truth as fixed and immutable more ancient than God or Earth, the parent of all as Father . . . as in His great prayer, The Lord's Prayer . . . .

07:00 . . . here I stopped recognizing my dyslexic, becoming more so, child like curiosity the differences between what is said and what is done. A truth regarding myself I cling to since many would say I am insane. Yet my insanity is loving at all any who ask to be so: Loved. And in my infant innocence regained recognize better those who take and those who give and between them I would leave the first and the latter embrace in the hug of peace; with or without expectation of return; gratuity or gratitude. And forever more, at least in this life acknowledged, not so much adored but endured; I will remain in love with God more than life.

My reason for writing began as a search for sanity. Now discovered I recognize that the insanity I attempted to escape was good versus bad since in reality I seek to do no harm. I rejoice in all the tragedies of my life knowing them not as punishment but hammer blows struck; me between the anvil and hammer become something new made from plain stuff.

I have a caring for those who strike others to prove their truth expressing nothing but death theirs and others; worse maimed and left bereft of how they formerly defined their life as well versus poor or bad.

More typical of me now than ever before I seek the loom of light announcing the new or next day. No longer weeping for the potential that the one, a woman, I love may not or no longer share it with me though we remain now ten miles apart.

Love like life is it's own reward.

Be well . . . and God willing we will meet again.

121025 05:35 celebrate

We remain childish, imaging God creating life in a specific image: immutable/immortal. In my experience of helplessness God looking neither like mom or dad  but a parent sacrificial did respond: “Ask and you will receive.”

To my death; now or latter on, I will remain silent for what I saw in a vision, conscious, not sleeping, of God. No drugs involved . . . well maybe I was smoking a cigarette; a mild soporific.

After all is said and done I am by personal confession capable of heinous violence and was once misdiagnosed as being bipolar. For which, to no one, not God or another, will I ever beg excuse.

Of myself, growing weaker in old age and less driven by lust to merge with a woman, at anytime or for any reason; I lack the ability to do harm significantly or devote the requisite amount of time a love affair or marriage implies.  

Yet of my thoughts and prayers I would advise you to kill me now for if I judge you an enemy of The People; all races, creeds, genders or gender attachments your death will lend you no release. My promise. I or the host will pursue you until time ends.

The Government of China, the people Mitt Romney is in bed with, are now policing the invaded People of Tibet in an attempt to stop self-immolation in protest of their being raped by a superior force. Did any Jew do the same form of protest? And what of their continued participation in usury? Or was The Merchant of Venice a figment of William Shakespeare’s mind?

I am aligned with the poor, amongst whom God is apparent; ignoring the rich, since they enslave all they can and legislate to hide their guilty shame of selfishness. As the former Republican Administration did In a “New York minute;” a heart beat. The “powers” that want to be in force are similar to those who started The School of Terrorism with graduate degrees in Iraq. Worse: Their intention under the cloak of “divinity” would enslave all women within reach, exactly as did The Pakistani shot in the head . . . .

19:50 Seeking the name and correct spelling of the fourteen year old who defied the criminals hiding under the cloak of Islam I fell into and endless research punctuated by classical music. Essentially giving up all hope to express that there are choices, which during the time lapse indicated I found pointless given the cornucopia of human waste expressed as election slogans. Or “news” about the carnival.

My fearless, absent envy, peace can only be attributable to divine intervention and providence. True I did have the help of M, who demurs constantly my gratitude. And then there are those who pray for me to know God’s will for this life so near ending. How many more times must I die? The marriage, the three children, the childhood friends and on and on.

Is detachment a crime? I know indifference is; though I for long have wandered wondering my former wife’s proclamation of detachment given her indifference to me as a person. Saying when I announced my intention to leave her; “I want my husband!”

I am what I am now and willing to learn and grow more knowing my ignorance yet remaining merely a person before all other definitions; merely a soul. Genderless. I have tried being many things for others birthing no fruit.

Women’s equality is not theoretical; but a covenant for all; and all time ahead.

In my estimation Romney/Ryan are a pimple upon the ass of the Military/Industrial complex President Dwight David Eisenhower warned us of; before many of you who might read me were born.

And like the people of Tibet I will burn myself alive to prove my point. I have friends at The New York Times I can pitch the event to. In death I know where I am going and it will be my joy to leave the mess they will make of the world and all women behind humiliating The Grand Old Party.

121024 10:20 sacrificial
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

girly boy we all are

In my recently awoken from dream the central dysfunction between mom and me was explained by using my rage against losing my son and daughters -- a rage against God and myself for losing what was then my future and best self.

I continue to find highly erotic stories written about female domination of men or boys forced to dress in women's clothing. The result is more than an orgasm but approval of the dominant woman. Or said in another way the acceptance of the boy as a daughter.

This dream is extraordinary given the nearness of All Hallows Eve preceding All Saints Day. However historical accuracy is not my concern for the issues defined, expanded and explained were specifically why M refuses me as a man who loves her more than any woman I've ever known.

I am curious about everything and have no qualms expressing what most men would never say publically: what does a woman feel when a man penetrates her? For seven minutes in heaven most men have raped and destroyed women from time immemorial. Rather than confront their sexual longings as experienced. Think of the legendary Don Juan phenomenon; so addicted to conquest that he knew no limits to seduction or number of conquests. In contrast I love with such ferocity that the women I have known and loved sexually and emotionally have never proved the cure. Until now. Given my dream resolving why mom for many Halloweens suggested that I dress as a little girl. Dad would inevitably object repeating his, to him shameful, to me delightful, contrary to his erstwhile demeanor general indifference to everything.

In childhood he had for a friend and companion a Welsh Corgi. At some point the dog starved to death. A neighbor had fed the dog a grease soaked sponge. Dad was never specific regarding his practice on Halloween of placing fresh dog droppings in a craft paper bag. Setting it at the front of the neighbor's door on fire and ringing their doorbell. Watching in glee as the neighbor stomped out the fire. Dad's story never varied and the gender or age of the victim seemed irrelevant: Mom, Dad, Sis or Brother.

M&M, or M and I have an uncommon legacy we share; hers is more accurate than mine, claiming more evidence from experience than I who had to rely upon the confessions of my mother: the fifty eight hours of dry labor in a Catholic hospital and the nun's indifference to her pain.

Thus my thesis is not merely confirmed but explained. God heals all who ask to be healed in life or death. Both M and I have had remarkable lives. About which I, in her case, will give you no clues. Her identity will die with me unless she predeceases me--when all bets and restraints are off. I make no threats but promises for which, by implication, I will roam all the universe or cosmos beyond time to fulfill.

By dreams and self knowing I am healed and informed that God was is and remains The Other always. Yet present in fragment in all life. Ignatius; god within and God without; God everywhere.

In sincerity I care nothing for fame or fortune, praise or disdain. Having had a fabulous life all that I loved lost except this person who writes. The sound of one hand: for me is the silence of God "The Great Creator" whose creation is accepted with indifference. No woman other than M has ever fully pressed me into being fully myself; as I am now . . . at least in this life for now. For the past and future I have glimpses as I've had of God, infrequent, yet significant!

God looks nothing like you or me. Is neither male nor female; possibly both or at times playing the role of one or the other somewhat like Jacob's angel at the top of the ladder. God is God. What more can I say? See for yourself you "own" as much of God as I do; or as the mountains going to Muhammad.

God, in essence, and experience, remains anonymous yet oddly, if only partially, incarnate in individuals of either or no gender. In real-current-soon-to-end-life: mine. I see within others The Presence active or inactive. And for those who stole my fortune, wealth being a relative too need value; I feel a profound sense of sorrow not for my lose but theirs. To come when naked in the great leveling of all vanity: death. They will stand before the judge. No choice is inconsequential to God and no act lost.

Think Hitler or Joseph Stalin and their millions destroyed. Not unalike to Woodstock the movie. No vague sense of what is the matter? Have I been here before. But consciously being the victims, individual destroying you and resurrecting you with no oblivion ever possible. God, being infinitely compassionate, merciful than I may have other plans but sincerely I know the wrath of God.

. . . I have always wondered why Jesus should recoil from me? I am not He for He alone saved me. Not Buddha, Muhammad, Lao Tzu or Confucius; similar by expression and intent but always as recorded falling short of He who died for our sins and to vanquish the fear/terror of death. Essentially and best or more better yet incarnate in those who now hold all the money valueless since it being not in circulation is merely a medium of exchange.

We are at the apogee of an doppleganger; it could go either way. Fall forward or backwards? To me the end will soon come yet for these moments, days, weeks and months there is time yet to redeem yourself. My sense, thought, intuition, feeling--and worse than those: instinct is that we this world, our lives, are past the point of no return.

As for me, for now, this reality; I will at 05:44 do the final chore of correcting, proof reading, and playing with the syntax finish this post and publish.

121024 04:44 girly boy
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

happy when we are growing

Blind cat in a straw boater hat with shades like George Shearing I'm not. However much I longed to be blind and play only the piano forever. My keyboard of choice is marked not with flats and sharps but letters and an assortment of characters for when I want to swear and not make M delete me just yet.

Awoke with the most astonishing dream ever. Never will I say no to them (as if I had a choice?) Because they come in various forms. This one was a dialog and I cannot say with God but maybe, could be, possibly I'm just a fruitcake; it was!

"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing." - William Butler Yeats

. . . just discovered the above and thought before I rest, for a time, I'd attempt to recapture this morning's eventful dream.

Ever since my many Yearbook Assignments at Saint Viator, Chicago northside. Incorporating attendance to various worship services. I was taken with their prayer to become an imago of Christ. . . . don't you just love Wikipedia! I looked it up for spelling purposes and there was a cicada becoming winged! Transformed, transfiguration, virgin birth? . . . as in the self we give birth to later in life.

In my dream I was informed that all life has a fragment, or seed, of God indwelling. Awaiting attention and available for transformation that supersedes all other modes of consciousness.

Blown apart, away, disappeared: that which I was just an hour or so ago. It happens all the time and the me who writes is now more at peace than I've known potential; or possible.

Of which, of course, could I reach through these pages as seen on your screen; I'd give you a taste like the communion cookie . . . how many have I consumed? Holding it pressed against the roof of my mouth until it dissolved into my skin internally?!

In love with love, and/or simply with God; time is irrelevant and death is but a passage into another state of mindfulness. Happily I enter the closing moments, this End Game, of what I used to call my life.

Trashed, abandoned, and despised, apparently by my parents, I trust very few people. My comedic facade/persona disarms most; and those it does not; flirt with the sophist in me. I can be and am at times diabolical, possibly fiendish, in my motives to retaliate. It seems now at this late age growing younger moment by second that my steady gaze in my mothers eyes and she stomped or threw me naked out the house . . . well . . . it could be she was merely insane to begin with? I have seen the cobra's lunge so many times I don't even think to flinch.

And she cried nor laughed never in my presence; never asked for forgiveness, yet daily given in love for her well being with God for her training me to be who and what I am. Add the love of two women who met briefly at hospice. I introduced them and one asks for the welfare of the other and she tells me I'm a rooster?!

Though I have engaged many men in conversation, there were more innocuous, than celebrities I remember well. But of women, the Lionesses of my vision/version of humanity, I bait all the time. Yet now celibate disinterested in penetrating their bodies but more over their souls.

A brief aside: I is obscene, the joy I experience with a keyboard beneath my fingers. And were Ava Gardner nude beside me stroking my ha ha; she'd wind up on her posterior pouting for the shove and GET THE F AWAY FROM ME!

My sense of reincarnation/resurrection is that the indwelling God inspires us not to be the Second Coming but something unique to you or me. The problem with religion is that it is based upon ideal people who incarnated God while inhabiting real time. Sorta kinda like let Mikey do it! All are called yet few accept the invitation to be the best potential and most if not all seem stuck in first gear going round and round biting their tails wearing a rut in the carpet.

At one point or another I fell to thinking about the tree Judas hung himself upon. The pieces of silver strewn beneath his lifeless feet gently swaying in the breeze; day dying into nights of oblivion? The Tree of Knowledge. Then the Tree of Life and the shadow-less light of being in the presence. . . .Small wonder I weep at Christmas time knowing that babe is going to die and for the murdered tree covered with tinsel.

In some sense I now think that God is bored with all this stuff about Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Abraham or Muhammad. Of course it will all be impossible until women have equal rights and pay. Acting no longer as receptacles of lust or taking over for mommy the chore of raising little boys into men.

How long did it take me to "grow up?" Seventy Two years?!

Annie, my companion and rescue cat, is all the woman/female I can handle 24/7/365. If it weren't for her, I'd just stop breathing and die blissed out.

As it is should I awaken from my nest rest; I'll keep on keepin on taking photographs, write a poem or two and laugh as I delete everything again including myself.

Unrelated but interesting: I am conservative of the origins of things evolving into what will be will be. Yet as a fabulously experienced journalist I became aware, via the predatory process of elections, on going, that what was generally informative is now masturbatory narrow affirmation of piss ant minds The News Biz is infotainment for consciousness the height, width, breadth and length of a sand flea.

“A saint is a person who practices the keystone human virtue of humility. Humility in the face of wealth and plenty, humility in the face of hatred and violence, humility in the face of strength, humility in the face of your own genius or lack of it, humility in the face of another’s humility, humility in the face of love and beauty, humility in the face of pain and death. Saints are driven to humbling themselves before all splendor and horror of the world because they perceive there to be something divine in it, something pulsing and alive beneath the hard dead surface of material things, something inconceivably greater and purer than they.”
- Tony Hendra - Father Joe, The Man Who Saved My Soul: Taken from the Prologue.

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” -Talmud (attributed)

“Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure you were created for Joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.” - Thomas Merton

121023 21:28 one in all
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

I am more fully alive than at any other time in my fabulous life. I fear nothing, envy no one, and given my confession of being both peaches and cream but lethal know myself finally balanced.

A few thoughts before retiring for my next rest period--about which I have no concerns; sleeping four out of twenty-four; generally.

The reason for our disintegration is that all politicians, save for very few, want to grandstand pointing to new things instead of dealing with the maintenance of that which my generation and all preceding it built. Vanity thy name is political.

The eight hundred pound couch potato, man, woman, cat or dog, has the same stuff as I do but through avoidance does nothing to make it sharable, real, or operative in their life.

“What's the point?"

The communion of love is a communal experience. Neither Free Market Capitalism, Socialism or Communism. It is collaboration with reality.

Or better, best, superlatively said: Be Here Now!

The circus I listened to this evening is two highly intelligent people discuss what is about but doing nothing. Obviously: I refer to the final Presidential Debate.

The Internet has made ideals and accomplishments visable to millions of people who otherwise would have only the representations used to sell them something we don't need. The maelstrom works both ways down and up. The young people who use the World Wide Web for entertainment can also find an education without dedication to vocations that are no longer relevant. As a teacher I can see those who are at an ignition point and ignite their curiosity to learn all there is and going as far as IT goes.

A metaphor learned aboard the "Paradox" . . . I could give you a brand new, whatever is your pleasure or poison: go fast car. And you'd be out in the dark stealing the hood ornament. We can be neither cynical, knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing; or skeptical and clever never knowing the truth of The Resurrection.

The creator in creating us and enabling our evolution never meant "The survival of the fittest" for the thieves holding all the currency. It means some die, some are born to thrive and/or survive. The long or short of it doesn't matter: Quality versus Quantity.

Learn animal husbandry, how to make a fire and stone soup. You'll be better off after the next lunatic blows the world apart.

Fear nothing.

Easy for me to say because I know fear too well and it bores me.

I can kill as well as love.

The next time, expect it to become common place, someone goes "Postal" or berserk running amok killing. Remember the time you tailgated me. Add all the hours you sucked up the swill spewed from TV. The ads, the illusions, delusions and perversions.

We are legends and will change this world for the better of all; not just a few Bastard - Masters of the Universe.

121023 00:34 when and where
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved