by John Delaney @ Photo Shoot

Pain, death, grief or merely suffering a stubbed toe. All have an end and purpose. Each in their turn caused me to search for the meaning of life, it's value and price. The end came when I accepted my lessons integrating the force into my now balanced life; my new truth. Not rigid but fluid. 

Life is difficult and then what? Life knocks us down and many never get up, or recover the loss of a loved one; or favorite Cross Pen. A life or object lost is processed through essentially the same circuitry causing grief unending; silly isn't it. 

My motive is driven by experience not ego; I want you to live fully accepting your loss at the same time balancing it with the joy you otherwise would not have known. 

It is known only to yourself; the scale and kind of love you had for the lost item. Yet I think if you examine your value system, your's alone, not some prepackaged slogan or parable but the viscera of yourself and your feelings; you will find the grit to go on. I know my son and/or daughter would have wanted that for me and for their mother. 

The problem with shredding yourself in guilt and shame is that you are still you when you become bored with mutilating yourself. 

I do not believe in divorce and remain essentially married to the Bride-of-my/our-youth discovering that I want no one to live with except myself and G_d. I am too clever by half to say; "Never say Never" since G_d may have other plans for what remains of my life; the long or short of it. And so I play solitaire for now, maybe poker later on? The minutes, hours, day or night are accepted as gifts chock full of meaning now. Boredom only becomes an issue when I brook fools. Having been a fool for most of my life I am able to tell another one quickly and easily. Yet occasionally I discover myself supercilious, pompous, pontifical, fatuous and ridiculously preachy; five feet above my audience . . . and then I laugh at myself. 

To love my enemy has been, forever, a burr between the rider and myself. Yet as much as I love that, being ridden, I know and trust the rider implicitly. More better every hand I'm dealt. 

You do know that we are in chaos? Our adversary is not Islam but a fragment of fundamentalist who know how to jerk our chain and make us bark. If only St. Francis were here to lead us we'd know exactly what to do; he did it before . . . well maybe they don't teach that in public school? What we have here is a failure to communicate in open transparent dialog. I don't know the Koran well but have dabbled in it as I have The Bible, etc. There are more books that we can consult regarding the wisdom of blowing our 'enemies' off the face of the planet. The problem I anticipate is once started it will end as Einstein advocated beating each other to death with sticks and stones. 

In the end we'll have no one left, well maybe a banker and a lawyer tearing each other's lives apart. The playing, or killing, field become pock marked like the moon. . . .A satellite to the moon, mooning the moon? Or mimicking it.

Surprise, surprise M&M are facing cancer her diagnosis is positive and mine yet to be found. Interestingly we both decided -- independent of our now celestial friendship and confidence in one another -- not to take the crash course of chemotherapy or radiation. We've both lost loved ones traveling that route and wouldn't do that to Adolph Hitler. Who seemingly sought to prove himself the source of cancer.

Our end is to advocate tolerance.

120918 09:04 suffering

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Why would a person enter a place of entertainment armed and blow away anyone, much less several people; leaving others maimed? To say nothing of bereaved. 

And why would society at large proclaim "mentally ill -- evil/devil," then proceed to incarcerate or destroy the perpetrator? If in fact the perpetrator was restrained and approached with empathy, mercy, love; understanding. The problem could, or would, be solved by due process and deliberation. What we kill kills us -- the keeper is kept. And I am willing to bet my immortal soul on my truth; no law, no judgement or executioner's song need apply. I ask of you and myself given the same or similar circumstance: what part of #  6. Thou shalt not kill do we not understand?

Our perceptions tell a great deal about who and what we are; socially and culturally. 

Who & What we blame equally so. 

"THE ANTI-CHRIST!" is a projection of personal, if unconscious, attitudes, beliefs and denied feelings upon the Other. Avoiding our personal capacity, if given the opportunity without consequence, to do the same thing. . . .If you reside in the eye-for-an-eye camp, I've a bridge in Brooklyn I'll sell you very reasonably. My point is that God kills no one. Saves all spiritually. Has no hands thus it is only we who decide the nature of truth & justice here and now. 

To clarify: blaspheme is not against The Prophet or God; but against an Idol. If we were able to converse with either or both individually I think-feel-sense-intuit that you and/or I would be astonished at their sadness; since Idols have not thoughts no life. They are hollow.

Yet while we all have a sense of God, indefinable when it comes to personal accountability, we would rather say; "The Devil Made" me do it. 

Worse: "God-Made-Me-DO IT!" 

Instead of participating and taking responsibility for our life, our free will and our consciousness we elect people to 'take care of us.' 

Those who take authority over the herd, we the mob, reward themselves richly while we slumber; their hands in our pocketbook/wallet . . . Which never being enough to pay for their reelection is accepted from greater authority called Corporations to guarantee the laws manipulating us to provide more for those who cynically know the price of everything yet the value of nothing. Such choice or indifference is insane: repeating the same action expecting different results.

I have graduated from being a foolish old man scolding politicians; who should know better. To being a foolish old man who does. And of this world I soon leave would leave something better than what I found. 

Be good, no longer ignorant and stupid, then be well.


"In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it." --Samuel Johnson

120918 05:14 evil

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Current events regarding my relationship to hospice unfold. Or blossom so to say. Like a strange new growth in the still pond of my peace. Something like Moses in a bulrush boat as an infant set adrift and then becoming the hero. Or the concept of Jesus as the result of Virgin Birth waiting in the wings of today's BIG SHOW to return and save us & the world.

Read literally it's a nice bedtime story but mine keeps blossoming and I know my self evolving either way; useless slob, old at that, soon to die anyway or the hero of my own myth. I have control since it is my life and my choice to lie down dead, wait, step back seeking another direction or step forward and be a pain-in-the-sit-down. 

In Ancient Greece the play was the thing; the way to teach a form of religion: Strophe, antistrophe, and the epode. . . . I snigger at the thought of participating in that, laughing and yelling like a really great  black preacher, leaping up twirling in mid air doing splits then rolling roaring in laughter. Men you ain' ever been kissed until you kiss a big beautiful black woman . . . who then says; "oooh honey you got the mojo! Then shaking her booty giving you her juju. OH YEAH! I'm a white boy alright wishing I'd been born black as the night. Dats why I likes my coffee sweet and black. A horny old dog; I'm an equal opportunity spender. 

To begin with M knew I was suicidal and she took me under her eagle's wing. The first agenda I now remember seems to have been breaking me of saying; "I'm sorry!" 

Sorry: I was born, lived, cared, smoked cigarettes, passed gas, too fat, too small in many regards: fill in the blank _________. You name it had it; problems in River City. It was flooding I'd had no boat. Add to that I had a bottom line; my subtext so to speak: "I should be put to sleep like a mad dog!" 

Obviously the guy with the butterfly net hasn't caught up with me yet. We play tag with each other sometimes I'm it and sometimes she's running away from me bare foot at eleven in a pear grove blossoming. Laughing! 

Oh yes. That's my biggest pay off; an alternate bottom line. Did I mention: subtext! Of course I did. And I do have one, or many, now admitting loving to write; though I don't know how. The same applies to being a Photographer! Put on, down, inside out, imploded with sneers and slanders; "You couldn't shoot your way out of a wet paper bag!"

In a sincere sense, at hospice I gave my heart. And she wanted bricks. The interesting role I played in that 'exchange' or collective monolog is one of passivity. Not She nor M or God defines me to myself. 

. . . and to think I once longed to lay face down before a cleric, bishop, cardinal or pope muttering into the grout 'here i am, sent me.' . . . but I have every time I refilled someone's water pitcher with ice or fresh water never thinking for one moment in eternity that I was in the presence of Jesus as an old person dying. Drown in snark I arise sharp a whole different cookie cutter.

Any institution is born for noble reasons initially, has life for a time. Like The Holy Roman Catholic Church for nearly 2,000 years, then decays and dies of being and institution about God but not God. Leaders are not born but made by the School of Life. And, after all, the institution need custodians who in turn need to eat, pay utility bills and make sure there's enough toilet paper. My thesis: which are you the custodian or the dude/dudette who it's all about Alfie?

Let's just take this another step: if you or i or someone else was in deed partially or in whole the resurrected divine about whom the BIG SHOW was built; ball park, bat, ball, uniforms, rules and for pay the performance would you die in your sleep or on The Cross? I really love role play in THE PASSION PLAY.

I think she found it distasteful that I laugh at, and about, my own death . . . did she know that sometimes I call God: Mikey? As in, you eat it and if you like it I'll try it? Administrators administrate and get the bigger bucks: medical insurance, golden parachutes, retirement funds to live on, etc. In order to justify the BIG BUCKS they of need make THE BIG DECISIONS . . . remember the dude who said, "I'm the DECIDER?"

Is the workman worthy of his/her hirer? And/or am I my brother's keeper? It, your Life, is your choice and i could still go eat a train just to see what happens afterward.

When it was time to go home I would tell the charge nurse or her/his second or third in command saluting and asking; "Permission to go ashore?" My point being that at my age i could pass/die for a multiplicity of reasons having nothing to do with God. 

With fair regularity I'd disappear for a smoke, to walk the rounds seeing if I was needed -- useful or useless, spending various lengths of time with those who did and did not find me helpful. 

The ship I asked permission to leave had to account for my life or lifeless body either way if there were a fire or they needed an extra hand in case of emergency. The ship sails on 24/7/365 without me for now. I wish them well and will do no harm. Yet I will remain available should they need me before they figure out they have no write to my intellectual property. If they do and can legally prove it, then I will be obligated to inform they have all they need and "Have a nice life." 

Finally I have a moral and ethical obligation to inform my professional and amateur community that anything they volunteer, photography or writing, will be stolen from them by: for profit or not for profit institutions.

I am a journalist first, last and always; a priest in the church of truth.

Do I dare?!

My teleology is that God can, and is anything, God want's to be. The thirteen year old virgin who gave birth to the baby Jesus, the mule she rode to Egypt . . . do you get the picture? Moving across the desert a short distance eastward He could have been Mohammad. Astonishing isn't God. Depending on your Savior of The Day; the dates and places change but the truth doesn't. 

120918 02:47 subtext

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved