120724 22:05 more on quotes

Of the several parameters I have neglected to post regarding quotes. Most significant to me at least is the issue of derivation/attribution: by female or male, race, creed, time, geography, and what is universal to the human experience in terms of flesh and blood, the mechanics of life none of these categories are relevant since all touch upon the eternal verities.

e.g. The Ten Commandments were never Hebrew but from the time of Gigamesh long before their annotated time; by five thousand years. And at that they were drawn from a collective wisdom passed orally forward.

Personally I’ve broken all save for the bit about, “Do no murder” at least not yet. I for one am fascinated by why we do what we do and have come to the conclusion that one Pope in particular saw fit to give dispensation regarding murder for what why and whom? My cursory knowledge is that the murder of millions upon millions was loosed at his choice. Essentially around the time of The Crusades. Not exclusively Buddhist but it works for me: All land is holy. But in this instance someone took a great notion to liberate the “Holy Land” and proceeded to pillage, rape, mutilate and burn to the ground that they then thought foreign. Jews of every and all descriptions, Semites who may or may not have been:

The Crusades were a series of religious expeditionary wars blessed by Pope Urban II and the Catholic Church, with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. Jerusalem was and is a sacred city and symbol of all three Abrahamic faiths, Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Bad choice.

Bad religious people are a terror and politicians giving lip service to God are merely demigods or simplistically legendary in their own minds (a minor oxymoronic remark!?) and are a scourge of the entire population of the earth then and now and in between. Being control freaks and anal retentive as well they tend to favor and eye-for-an-eye. Which Jesus died to prove otherwise but even that happened between five to seven thousand years before He ended the waste and terror of death.

Recently rediscovered & applicable to myself:

"Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more."


"Is all my scribbling collected together- my correspondence, these thousands of pages, my lectures, my articles, my verses, my various memoranda- anything but a collection of dry leaves? To whom and for what have I been of use? And will my name live for even a day after me, and will it have any meaning to anyone? An insignificant, empty life! Vie Nulle!" --Henri Frederic Amiel

You see if it weren’t for quotes I'd be more of an idiot than I already am. Public School was completely wasted upon me; can’t diagram a simple sentence no how.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved
 

120724 1130 when He speaks


--Charles Haddon Spurgeon
"Learn to say 'No'; it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin."
"Saints of the early church reaped great harvests in the field of prayer and found the mercy seat to be a mine of untold treasures."


When He speaks, I love Him so, because He is He and i am nothing at all
Yet in times of distress no longer depressed but bewildered i seek solace in quotes 
frequently receiving them as "love notes from God" 


Random, chance, no, but synchronicity, yes; outward events: response to inward thoughts & questions replied to. And not alone convicted available to all who ask and reply given and by this love we are redeemed salvation given freely merely ask and then dance with the Master of eternity He loves us so.


Sometimes phrases, single words, epithets of the Bible or whole books within, poems or the well worn by tears and sands of time ground river stones, adored by others; not pearls or gems but mere pebbles smooth. Held in mouths by native Americans to slake their thirst when dry of mouth weeping now drowning in grace upon this sandy place we call home for now but soon to go further beyond the now. Our pleas answered like tears dropped upon the sand absorbed gone and forgotten but never by Grace He who answers prayer; mediation, contemplation; alone in darkness illumed by the shadowless light of creation fused.


Topple me now an old man by any measure ready for my judgement day otherwise an old dog chasing his tail playfully so long have I longed to die from birth till now a faux poet false prophet a wannabe could 'a been contender


“He has not lived badly whose birth and death has been unnoticed by the world.” --Horace


To end: for the slain and slayer + plus we the PTSD


--Horatio Seymour
"After listening to thousands of pleas for pardon to offenders, I can hardly recall a case where I did not feel that I might have fallen as my fellow man had done, if I had been subjected to the same demoralizing influences and pressed by the same temptations."


© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved

120724 0327 ptsd is

PTSD is being afraid of life as it has become -- moreover into the future more so; the bleeding child rigged as a bomb blowing you and your friend apart; life becoming that temporal; like the lies that sent you there to exotic vacations in foreign lands. By The Draft Dodger & Darth Vader aka Howdy Doody & his ventriloquist Uncle Bob . . . of G W Bush; of course he was Commander in Chief during on time of war he started and will never end and of Cheney his war profiteering is legendary and unending.

Honey Bunny always watch the money; who wins and loses -- especially the ones who make the most noise.

Lest you think me unpatriotic I left a man, a Marine, too far gone in Alzheimer's to speak his panting last breaths lingering for another week or so Carol told me she too wanted to be an Episcopal Priest instead like me we serve the dying lending such love and comfort as we can.

“Beware the fury of a patient man.” --John Dryden

At first I thought of myself the loses and the glory of this life still living. Yet now I realize that the "He" intended could as well be The Parent of us All.

Is 'fury' better than anger and rage? Either one or all combined indicative of we victims and slaves of __________ name it! --- Receive not bread but stones

At the moment a reprise of yesterday: The Marine, The Biology professor who heard either Steven “Steve” Pearce [R] or a minion proclaim "I am not here for your but the oil & gas industry!" And in leaving the current Chief of the local remnant Native American tribe said over his shoulder; "I represent a people here for one thousand and five hundred years."

Good or Bad will always out see Bradley Manning still buried in solitary. About you & me we were trained in chaos, random sneak attacks and whatever crap we're given to eat; common Buddhist training be proud of that since in survival we can be the Ark of the new Covenant.

While writing this I'm thinking, I am merely human like the guy who shot in Aurora all those people.

While working for the Providence Journal I was attacked by the Picture Editor for award winning work with a reporter I respected and trusted -- they were my stories, it seemed logical that she would ask for me repeatedly to illustrate them.

He slowed to a breath mark and fell momentarily silent. I asked if he had essentially said all he wanted to say?

"Yes"

Remembering then and now a man in the same business as my dad who had lent him money to begin in the same business. Giving him his due at which point dad said, "Go fuck yourself!"

Instead I simply said, "Mr Photo Editor (I've forgotten his name -- oh -- yes Bill Riley) in the future when you wish to address me; It will be as Mr. Spratt and only in the presence of The Guild Shop Steward."

I never looked at or addressed him again. Break trust with me, especially when I needed the medical insurance for my dying son and be glad I did not then eat your heart.

Measure for measure justice given is the justice received at the time our your death that is the nature and democracy of death.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved

This aloneness is worth more than a thousand lives.

This freedom is worth more than all the lands on earth.

To be one with the truth for just a moment,

Is worth more than the world and life itself. --Rumi

120724 02:20 why

At times you are the only one to answer the call for help

and you refuse to not answer though you're aren't enfranchised to do what needs doing yet you step forward not caring the negative consequences

And I've been blest to be in the company of giants who seeming are merely ordinary folk with the viscera of life and the universe beneath their fingernails and who are divine in themselves

And were he Dick Cheney or my half-brother dying I would give them my love though they never befriended themselves I would be their best and last friend cradling their head in my arms though in life they tortured despised scourged and mutilated the last King of Israel not me but like Him

I am not He but like him since we belong to one another we're family but then we all are family and ignore indifferently our common Parentage and still I weep having the voice to shake the stars in sotto voice fall mute when required to recite he, Saul who became Paul's Corinthians 1 Chapter 13 running the good race until the end a lover of Jesus though I remain a dust mote by compare of either . . .

120724 06:11

At the ellipsis above my mind went dark a hood placed over my head and I slept sleeping like death from which I arise my perspectives altered not slightly but completely . . . before my death like rest . . . I was concerned for what has become of my beloved Temple of Truth: Journalism Which my beloved friend Bob Izzo though we seldom speak even when a mile or so apart so long ago in Wickford, Rhode Island; He called what we do become “Infotainment.” He like I and so many of we who lived by witnessing our time became by varying degrees & kinds & ways advocates for the Self who in witnessing fell clubbed senseless the meaningless passing of so many lives slain or mutilated or simply disappeared.

We are a priesthood of sorts anointed not in sacred oils retroactively but by blood sweat and tears the stench of life in decay upon within imbibed coated with we the recording witnesses employed by legions and by legions now disappeared.

Daniel Pearl comes to mind and I weep humiliated that I was not allowed to take his place instead of him my family gone none to notice or mourn my absence

As for myself alone I touch and taste the various portents omens ashes runes and ruins by me seen explicit the prostitution of the sacred temple of you minds by those whose truth is merely the bottom line; profit not prophecy.

And of those legions I know several who more pustule like are pimples I'd prick since as Gandhi said “The is no God higher than truth.” At the time of his assassination blest his murderer with “God bless you” then died.

As sophist become journalist I could refract it either way the light in your head sacred to me yet knowing this; I am unworthy the choice knowing you and I and we must choose our behavior and posture in life and death. And by that choice upon entering death go either left or right Joseph Mengele's favorite sport: showers then crematoria or slavery then crematoria. Where is he now I sense but do not want what he received to wander for eternity not in flames or ice but the stench of skeletons starved and burned ashes suffocating him just near death reborn and doing it over again.

Forgive my trespass beloved/The Beloved. I still wonder why “The Kingdom of God is within you” never made the cut those who edited the Bible we read the great event highlighted the disclosure by Gutenberg.

As for me when I cross the line between life and death knowing I've been in Heaven and yet will await the Judge of me no Solomon but merely a white boy once black my MoJo JuJu from back home where it all began this species The Family called Mankind. When I see your eyes no lies are possible and yet knowing who keeps the book of names and their deeds. . . .”Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone. . . “ John 8:7

Let The Judge decide.

What you see is what you get.

As for me being human & God nearly so, nothing human surprises either

An eye for an eye merely blinds all

while forgiveness makes love possible the least among us

& forgiveness is the highest form of love

& to be known by God now or then last meeting is grace terrifying for the measure of justice given is the justice received; lest we devolve into chaos and carnage.

. . . there is more to discover for & of yourself

Amen

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved