change yourself change the world

Hyper Vigilance is to remain awake through exhaustion in anticipation of not missing a threat. Now, after years of remembering Mom's remark; "There will be a time when you will beg for sleep . . . "

Of course it never happened. What did happen however was that I became aware of loving my solitude; the silence, not having, or being obliged, to be 'on guard' all the time.

With bitter/sweet fondness I kissed myself, as I was for the past so many years I no longer count them; goodbye forever. Co-Dependent to the very end. I used women to define me in ways unacceptable inevitably leaving them overtly/covertly but running away without excuse. Eventually recognizing myself dedicated not to being a wild child but to God. Nauseated by the cloying saccharine images of Jesus seen in Baptist Sunday School Classrooms: reference where this me began, somewhere around the changing of time; irrevocably altered by a men's study group centered in Keith Miller. In time, such as is left to me, being too well acquainted with instant death from birth until now that I find the prospect as welcome and living trillions of years in the mind of Creation. I will detail my experience of all the help available to those who quest for truth: personal; freely given.

Instant recognition: I thought I needed an audience to see my suffering and tell me what it meant. Not to vacate it but find meaning in pain, humiliation and my shameful addiction to it; being molested endlessly for the distraction of people just like me. So it seems now that in redeeming my parents and our endless, or so it was until now, cycles of abuse: cause and effect. That which I either walk away from or reply with savage violence ala Christ amongst the money lenders tables. Whether factual or fanciful, metaphorical or just a typo, the scenario is more instructive for me now being nothing like the Jesus I know as a brother in God.

Metaphysically we are all Children of God. Regardless of race, creed, gender, geography or any of numerous definitions to assign what is benevolent or malignant. I find no threat in God of whom and for I would extinguish my consciousness gladly sure that it and all will be well here and now. My trust and faith explicit. . . . as Jesus calling from the cross; "why have you forsaken me?"

"I ain't nothing special, nothing to see, pardon me while I disappear . . " From "Take the 'A' Train" by Duke Ellington. I got soul too but you have to give me a break; being a pink elephant rolling about the stage of eternity, for now, upon a large red, white and blue beach ball.

After the Keith Miller experience I began attending the Episcopal Church, leaving behind The American Convention Baptist Church, a co-pastorate no longer affordable, meaning both pastors had to leave.

Well remembered those times, Randy still lived, there was hope abounding. Yet for me it was merely waiting for the inevitable. Recalling now my sense that I was gifted by those widows who attended for a lifetime (Saint Paul's, Wickford, Rhode Island) keeping the heat and lights on, the place clean . . . my roots are elastic, loyal and never broken, at least not in my conscious heart. The corpse I kissed in my sleep was rigid in wanting someone, a woman best, to tell him it was okay to be beaten raped and robbed endlessly. I don't need a mommy anymore, haven't the time and sure as God made the Stars, will never again contemplate 24/7/365 with or without gratuitous sex and all the trappings of a marriage the once ideal.

I still keep the Mass knowing that God is in no way religious, we are. And betimes I kneel five times a day praying to Allah as well. Sitting under the The Bodhi-Tree (or wisdom-tree) covered with blossoms. That said: when I read Rumi i disappear altogether in love for it and you all.

Significantly M&i learned in early childhood to think on our feet. In this regard consider it meditative versus contemplative. Or finding God under fire. Neither of us consider wealth as jewels but smooth river stones. . . . there is joy in menial work and being anonymous. . . . one's ideal mate is God.

All is well, you know, it will be whatever happens.

121104 18:40 soul processing
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

self love, sorta

A musician by nature, nurture, genes and DNA I remember being told by dad; if I wanted to be like Miles Davis or Chet Baker, a pro, he'd punch out all my teeth. I never thought to ask Maynard Ferguson if he wore dentures. The one time I was with Miles, backstage at The Newport Jazz Festival; he ignored me. That image is buried in Naperville's landfill. (A WASP suburb of Chicago, Illinois, USA)

Oh Sweet, sweet Jesus on a unicycle do I hate being white! And once-upon-a-time middle class from Greenwich, Connecticut, USA

Do I need proof? The mementos, women, souvenirs, quarts of tears, scars

I've been there, done this, and that, can attest the greatest thing we create is ourselves.

Add.

The only competition worthy of your attention, like applause, is within. Easy for me to say but a hard earned truth . . . wandering through Rodin's studio, astonished now to remember Rilke was his secretary . . . if only the rich like the bitch who owns Walmart were to donate their theft of others lives and art, to be freely see in population centers and not Little Rock Arkansas. I might be a little less chimeric towards the vanity others; of mine, I subdue with frequent clubbing's. Sometimes to ride others to be devoured.

Decade upon decades I've wept at the sounds universal prayer, music sung in my soul; just one  bar and I could name it. And now, even now I weep for the slave I was made to fulfill my fathers failures . . . friends do not enslave . . . yet he seemed so calling me moments before his death to say goodbye.

Who am I to judge he whom I am required to 'honor'? At the cusp of my seventy-third year on earth I forgive myself for loving him so blindly and adoringly. Music now speaks genius to me yet all I know to write are words. He would pay me a nickel for every orchestra voice I could differentiate; now I enter the whole and find more the will to create, not follow train tracks without terminus. Near the end he offered me the music publishing aspect of his fame and fortune saying; "It's only worth five or so thousand per year now . . . "

“No dad I've no time for it.”

Ashamed of the devotion I gave and his disregard of all that was sacred to me. Myself now rich beyond dollars and cents happily mendicant.

Turned out to pasture, to die in peace. Little chance of that given the Nazi Death Camp made by J. L. Gray Management, where I live -- another story perhaps.

Those who can do, them who cannot teach, and they who can do nothing administrate.

The world, this small abode of mine, suffocates beneath the lard posterior of incompetence parading as divinely endowed authority.

How can it be that I have met the few kind and gentle people, women and men, gigantic in compassion; while I am daily subject to fools? Can I be for them: J. L. Gray, et al,  the balm those compassionate, passionately so, were for me?

Once I entertained suicide daily; knowing all the methods and practices intimately. In an idle moment I asked, to no one, for I was alone; "What can I do to be fully engaged without begging the permission of Mass Print Media to justify my further education?"

At the very least I now am self-loving enough to laugh at myself zooming amongst the stars: a flatulent party balloon farting comets; eternities lived in moments.

121104 04:40 self sorting
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Dancin'

To say I've flim-flammed the FBI & Secret Service is no lie, nor boast, just the facts Mam.  But then I'd been working for their boss at the time. My dream suggests that I have a too easy familiarity with authority, resented by those who watch me tap dance my way through life. Blessing and curse I've just discovered it my major problem interfacing with bean counters and failed lawyers; all more-or-less ambulance chasers living off the suffering of others.

Odd to think of myself as Wile E. Coyote http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEFmFMeXV3E.

The divine education continues by various means, measures and rods of measurement. My point being: to unlearn all that I was taught by parents, teachers and schools; especially The Greenwich (Connecticut, USA) Board of Education.

I am talking about The Big I AM upstairs. All the rest, from The White House down to the local administrators are superfluous; pikers and wannabes.

"The sins of the Father rest upon the son . ." or something to that dyslexic perception of mine. Means: The sins of the parent (mom or dad or both) rest upon the child (see http://bible.cc/isaiah/14-21.htm) . . . there is so much more discovered in what I sought, enough for many posts.

I am thinking of a vision I received long ago; that of two funnels conjoined; a variant of a speaking and/or hearing trumpet: glass, floating in space. With? A confessional screen between the two??? It suits my following metaphor: of myself a moth drawn to the fiery light hitting the screen like filter and separating essentials from chaff.

I sense now, at times, I write to redeem myself and my parents; who's behavior was less than instructive but more destructive to all that I might otherwise have been or become had I the confidence than that holding me now; feeding my vain pursuits into The Fargo Shredder. Emergent not a pink mist but reconfigured; a kinda mystery meat--me.

If as I do now understand apprehend and celebrate the purpose of pain, obviously not self-inflicted, but borne as I have, I have loved my parents regardless of their intents or absence thereof. In forgiving them I am better able to begin having compassion for myself. In some small measure learning to love me, as I am, or was, regardless what I become . . . a dust mote racing around infinity becoming less daily. A zero: nothing.

These dialogs are not for me alone, but us, all of us, potential to be all that we are yet deny capacity for. Fear makes us small, growing smaller and meaner as we progress towards death. I can prove nothing save to tell, or witness, what happens daily now.

However should you ask it will be given.

Think in the final moments before slumber what troubles or celebrations you have. The reply may take a lifetime to understand but the simple awe of being attended is beyond speech.

In closing; I doubt I have done due homage to the gift awakening me. Possibly lost in my normal mechanics of greeting the next time of being vertical and still alive. I lie not since I do die in bliss and at times wish never to awaken again.

Yet I do, and for what I know better daily. Governance and religion are what they are, human institutions about, but not, God. Truth? And being such go only so far and no farther. It is up to we who care for the life of love, and love of life, to do what is asked and what we are capable of doing no harm. Healing this world, crushed beneath the false god of Mammon.

As for myself, I have enough, yet in giving it away make room for more. In the process all my dysfunctions have been, or are being, healed; integrated reconciled and redeemed. This is priceless beyond any value I can name otherwise.

"You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal part of your body love what it loves." - Mary Oliver

http://www.featureshoot.com/2012/11/you-dont-own-me-mitt-romney/

121104 01:11 MDT dancing
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved