120802 19:16 music

Music has always been more about God than sound, rhythm, fugue or anything specifically other. Maybe women who are a physical mass moveable sculpture heroic and mutable penetrable.

I noticed something extraordinary when writing my last two posts. A keening sound, maybe like a silent screaming of Maynard Ferguson or lyrical like Miles Davis with Gil Evans -- all of it -- similar yet not the same as those times I died to the pain of mother's violence erupting from and for nowhere and nothing particular like the time I saw my daughter born and knew her death instantly.

No. More like Rod Steiger's self stigmata on a desk spike while witnessing his proteges criminal behavior in The Pawnbroker. Yeah like that; again and again it sounds the presence of God and me up to my eye brows in an ocean of pain or joy breathing under water.

I never had a father instead I had friend then and during our times together even now when I think of his love of music mutilated by a need to make a living for me, my sister and mother and he. Talking about Charlie "Bird" Parker getting high on cinnamon behind Bird Land in the alley way none to be found for blocks all around. Yet when thinking saxophone I remember seeing Paul Desmond floating without his axe in a music store on 48th Street, Manhattan.

Yeah. When I hear music I see and sense and intuit and think: god. . . .and when I write now its not words but thanksgiving for passing through monolithic stones seeing the light on rushing towards me now.

Who else indeed could slake my curiosity as it is now all the causes of death of those I loved gone now.

Music so precious to me I can only play it while alone since I cry and sing and lurch dance and Annie understands watching me in joy celebrate what is for me a better experience of the Good of God. She sleeping and I sneaking peeking around corners silently she looks and I roll my eyes twitch my ears and make funny obscene motions with my tongue laughing as she rushes to me.

Oh well it's full moon time late summer passing the sun & moon dial of the Organ Mountains stars swimming and swirling and singing above at night alone with Annie in love with God who gave me what I sought not music or light but the joy of creating anything I wanted not waiting for the light or an assignment or anyone or anything now free to be me writing for the joy of it.

Thanks mom for giving me the mind of a Ninja and dad for learning me to value silence. Took me nearly forever to figure out and forgive the tutelage for which I am now so grateful; a god named Grace Amazing

©2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved

120802 0838 slogans

Father Denis, my power of attorney, has said "it is impossible to disprove a negative." When I hear something that I can neither agree nor disagree with I fall into silent contemplation for days, years or an eternity seeking the knowing of what is implied but never hasten to expose my inferences. Since to do so is to fall into a collective monolog . . . merely He said, She said, a pissing contest, whose is the biggest, the longest, the greatest stream of urine.

In sadness I have avoided the media I most trust: National Public Radio since, as they must report the nattering's of politicians who seek power to bend us to their will & i for one am bored by slogans.

I would if I could debate God for us our freedoms to be fully informed of God's Will for us. Yet knowing God as poorly as I do am richer than any man or institution I might otherwise blindly parrot or follow unto the death of me or mankind collectively. That said i sense, think, intuit and feel God is our friend and no enemy.

I listen to the affairs of men (generic for persons as Angels without gender definition) and have concerns I attempt here to address. As I see our species slowly dying of excess. From which I will gladly leave this moment for I've had enough of life so defined . . . so defiled as the crucifixion by humiliation and torture the future of love impossible.

--Simón Bolívar
“The three biggest fools in the world have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote, and... me.”
"Those who have served the cause of the revolution have plowed the sea."

--sachineha
"As a child, I used to collect all the good quotes (kindness, friendship, right behavior quotes, etc) that I encountered in my routine life in my 'quotes diary'. The purpose was merely to find nice quotes at one place to write on cards that we used to give our friends on special events. But I now realize that my diary served a greater purpose. Writing and repetitive reading of those quotes instilled in me a sense of righteousness, kindness and justice which is the foundation step of my motivation to be kind all along my life."

--Stewart Udall
Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife, are in fact plans to protect man.
We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.

--Steward B. Johnson
Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get ahead of ourselves-to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our today, to do our work with more force than ever before.

--Stevie Wonder 
We all have ability. The difference is how we use it.
You can't base your life on other people's expectations.

--Stephen Sondheim
Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.
Over a period of time it's been driven home to me that I'm not going to be the most popular writer in the world, so I'm always happy when anything in any way is accepted.

--Stephen King (author-writer)
"Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.”
“I'm a salami writer. I try to write good salami, but salami is salami.”
"Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home."
--The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition (1990), 3rd paragraph of Chapter 42, Glen Bateman speaking
“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.”
"The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool."
Ah. Oh yes. At last what I sought:

--Elie Wiesel
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference.
and the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.

"What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil."
“Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. we must protect it by changing the world.”

--Primo Levi
In countries and epochs in which communication is impeded, soon all other liberties wither; discussion dies by inanition, ignorance of the opinion of others becomes rampant, imposed opinions triumph. … Intolerance is inclined to censor, and censorship promotes ignorance of the arguments of others and thus intolerance itself: a rigid, vicious circle that is hard to break.

We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses. We are those who, through prevarication, skill or luck, never touched bottom. Those who have, and who have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or returned wordless.

--Heraclitus
“There is nothing permanent except change.”
"Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing, for the known way is an impasse."

Please dear reader forgive my trespass and infliction of these closing thoughts:
When I hear the slogans of those who would farther destroy our nation I also hear the slogans of Al-Qaeda who parrot their patriotism to hypocrisy & bigotry . . . I am neither for God yet remain a conservator of love versus Hate & Fear, Inc.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved

120802 05:21 no soul

I awoke from an ongoing dream interrupted by a need to void several times over. It seemed that God was asking me to write a prayer somewhat akin to The Lord's Prayer set in the context of these end times.

I had many opening lines and quietly began this new next day bewildered . . .

I've never met a soul I could not love and amongst men consider myself most blessed for this seeing of their qualities oblivious to them. I no longer judge anyone as anything but themselves a precious prism of potential and of those who have achieved love and peace I bless and those still in process I engage with humor never leaving any one or another as unworthy of my affections.

Our lives individually begin and end, while in life we are the problem or the solution defined by what we embroil ourselves in. Either a maelstrom or a gyre; one sucking in the other giving out and up drawing the love of all life into the light.

Have no fear of anything especially not death for God is both within us and for us in any and all sorts and conditions. There is no hell greater than the one we're in and heaven is within our grasp in life or death.

My thoughts are no longer conjecture since I embrace my enemy/myself then all others who would embroil me in their struggle with meaning; what life is for, the why, the where, the how, etc? And in their mortal combat with Self attempt to prove their point by annihilating me.

There is no need for revolution since to advocate violence is merely to replicate that which we wish to replace. Do no harm to either yourself or your adversary but love them into loving themselves. Impossible!¿ Of course. But the process begins I/Thou and spreads outward and upward while the alternative sucks the world into a vortex of -- dare I say the word? -- greed. How do I measure the obscenity of greed except by own greed or God. I could argue that my greed is benign while theirs is terminal yet hypocrisy and bigotry are the same regardless of intent.

There is a place for all of us. I have no clue what it looks like since it is a state in my imaginings. It amuses me to acknowledge that the conflicts embroiling our lives will be transplanted and the resolution is not God's job but ours.

Be light and love for all that you are here and now accepting and integrating everything the good, bad and grotesque and we'll have a head start for the place we all go having destroyed this pretty blue marble we once inhabited left forlorn.

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved