Epiphanies come and go, in the sense that each is a rebirth; the death of one epoch and virgin birth of another.
My spool of yarn plays out growing both smaller and larger in consequence. Fond of bread crumbs myself, I am aware, that for most, the crumbs are eaten by predators who contort and control our time, culture and history.
Healing is sold in terms of magic bullets -- one time solutions. And pain is an overwhelming issue, or master, that impels us to move from now to somewhere else; a new perception?
Self knowledge is for me something that I fear losing; becoming apostate to my self. Impossible now and I wonder why? Faith and fearless confidence is my conscious choice.
Wander, wonder, curiosity are apt descriptions of my consciousness. The season of Advent is darkness for me, once confessed and shared with other adults, randomly, I am surprised that many share my feelings of impending doom. December, it seems, is the month of death and suicide. Survival of which implies another year of life. Such knowledge lends little tolerance given my experiences. Of course it helps to write this out yet in doing so I am aware that for others, significant to me, no, more beloved; I am a terror to their mood of conviviality. So I burrow into the season in an attempt to understand and prevail. The effort is not to own but wrestle my life into some form of meaning, organic and whole.
It was once an ideal to suffer with a mate. Yet never able was I to trust that they would not betray me, or my sense of self, as something other and unwanted. Astonished that I still live and live well a life alone since I can turn off the noise of commerce selling me alternative feelings. Small wonder some go berserk running amok killing anything within view, attempting, or so I sense, to establish a normative truth for themselves. (Laughter!)
Writing is obviously less lethal and rewarding in the sense that it gives me something to do instead of playing with myself seeking intimacy. I profoundly miss having the hospice staff ask how was my Christmas; then telling them, “Well it’s over, isn't it?”
Intimate with death I discover reasons to go on living and prize the experience.
121208 12:44
Naked, alone, in darkness, face down upon the glacier of indifference this world become; life sold as commodities, in the pit of covetous selfishness; burned alive, not frozen, before the Judge. I ask that I be given the courage to forgive what has become of our lives and the ability to forgive my anger.
Black Friday, aptly named, thirty six years ago, I stood handing my son Randy an early Christmas gift; knowing he would not live until the day. He asked why? I was speechless; in reply he said; “Oh.” We left the milling throng of consumers behind to finish the six year long journey into the night: 7pm December 10th when he drown in his own blood a victim; of Leukemia begun when he was four.
Ten years old. He was and remains, the best of what I wanted of life. Destroyed by doctors and nurses who, before his birth, knew nothing of the cumulative effect of radiation via x ray in his mothers womb.
During the intervening time, until recently, realizing the cause, I presumed it was I, not the doctors who killed him. The only reason I did not run amok was that it is not my nature but the thought remains lending empathy to those who do.
- Noam Chomsky
"It is easy to be carried away by the sheer horror of what the daily press reveals and to lose sight of the fact that this is merely the brutal exterior of a deeper crime, of commitment to a social order that guarantees endless suffering and humiliation and denial of elementary human rights.”
"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it."
Having many questions is my only value to myself. The answers I have discovered are my only wealth; mine exclusively.
Life, short or long, is a death sentence; sell it dearly. I wish for you to be precious to yourself. Not as defined by those who purport to lead but by your own definitions moderated by doing no harm.
Be well.
121209 10:44
Parts of me remain mired in grief regarding the deaths of my children. Manifest at times and defined as sadness, anger and, at worst, emphatic rage. Indiscriminate--against everything indifferent to experience, truth and individual freedom to feel, think and be as we, separately, need to be or become for the love of life itself. By sincere honesty I confess that God is included yet moderated in time by the realization that God asks, or seems to ask, that we do for others what God refuses to do in ordinary time. The apogee being imbalance between indifference and love demonstrated by selfishness or generosity. Simply stated: those who take and those who give. Henry Ford’s; “Don’t find fault, find a solution.”
It is easy to throw stones; finding fault. A cheap intellectual exercise without consciousness of why. Avoiding or our responsible effort to understand our perception and it’s source and nature. Fraught with addiction to status quo. Such wisdom, as I might aspire to, has been gleaned from monumental failures. As demonstrated by my foolish attacks; irking the ire of those who would slay me as easily as they do and have done with most, if not all, who provide an inconvenience to them.
In person I am neutral, balanced, at time humorous, possibly glib; yet sincere in my concern for the difficulties of all I meet. If appropriate, or possible, I attempt to lend a hand, or a saving/salvific word. A touch upon what I perceive to be the brokenness to retard the headlong rush to self destruction or the indiscriminate mayhem towards anyone or thing handy in the moment of rage.
If you know yourself it is possible to ride the dragon more often than be eaten by it.
- Horace
"He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses."
"Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant."
"Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise."
121208 04:03 self-determination
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved
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