100208 06:20
I am not what I do, and have never been that, but something more like what I am now; stripped of my professional identity and join a growing population in poverty regardless of age. Some days I awake from dreams that inform me of what I might write about. In writing up my dreams, and other issues of interest/concern, I find myself self-defined and discover a new joy for life, photography and writing .
I experience, with sadness, the idleness of those who were once-upon-a-time defined by a vocation, now retired. In a profound sense many are now retired prematurely since the economy, as it was formerly defined, is now undergoing adjustment to new realities.
To pretend otherwise is impossible except for those who caused the alteration of our daily reality. Towards them I could, but refuse, to be angry even though our bankruptcy may mean that we may need the herding goats and living in found material shelters similar to those in Haiti.
The absence of anger and fear is a better measure of my wealth than my bank account. Anger and fear can own us if we allow it to, and by those reactions are we manipulated and controlled personally and collectively.
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
"Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there." --Josh Billings
100129 04:57
{Today is a demarcation between yesterday and today’s dedication towards a new direction/definition.}
“Jack Spratt’s 69 cent Guide to Salvation”
©2010 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved
. . . well guys I never asked to be born and obviously had nothing to with the name on my birth certificate so here goes . . .
I was “sawing wood.” What we, in my soon to disappear generation, called sleeping. And I had a vision in my dreams. It was a miniature scenario, sort of like a geode, something you could hold in one hand. Fascinating but too small and intricate to really see. So small it was sorta, kind of, like the City of Chicago in miniature. So I looked closer, then closer yet, and suddenly in the very center I saw two people on a handcar crossing a bridge on an elevated railroad track; what we Windy City dudes call the ‘El’.
Well folks I started laughing in my sleep and my smile lit up the darkness like the end brought to you by nuclear fusion and all my questions were answered.
My dad always seemed to need to be remembered as special. He was. Between us we had this madly rude, salacious and ribald humor about everything. God included. So at first I thought the other person, opposite me, pumping wildly away was dad, Jesus, or, maybe God Him/Herself. And then, low and behold I imagined Osama bin Laden and Mohammad . . . you get the picture. Don’t you!?
Railroad tracks always go someplace and they are always parallel; we are born, we live and then we die.
Right?!
What we do in life is, sorta, kinda, the energy we apply to moving towards the inevitable. And knowing myself--well--I know I’ve just been along for the ride for most of it.
. . . which reminds me of bridges I’ve crossed at 100mph + on my way to high school in daddies green Ford Station Wagon with the Thunderbird engine. It wasn’t that I was anxious to get there. I didn’t want to go there. No Sir! Didn’t want to live either. Oddly his best friend, and a guy I liked a lot, was killed there in a rear-end traffic accident: Route 95, bridge over the Mianus River Bridge, Cos Cob, Connecticut. The bridge later fell apart and killed three people in the river below. And now, come to think of it, I remember several other kids speeding away from the police, State or Local, who went in the drink as well before the defective bridge was installed.
I don’t know who is the greatest comedian, God or Life.
Long time ago I fell in love with a young woman who treated me with kindness. Nice looking girl, but not a ravisher like those you see in Playboy or the movies. We met in Haiti on a religious retreat. I was growing a beard at the time and it came in white; like I had stuck my face into a bag of powdered sugar donuts, I shaved it off. After all I was old enough to be her father but did not want to look like her grandfather.. Women, to me, are like a Greyhound Bus moving through the night and I’m a moth attracted to light winding up a greasy smear on their headlights. Whatever you want to call what you love, the other is more-or-less like that; Bang! Smash! Everything changes.. . . Disintegration.
I began a journal after my encounter. The primary motive was given to me by a cleric whose attention I sought to figure out why my life didn’t work. He said that there was a person who’d made himself sane by keeping one and so I began to write. . . .Some days as many as eighteen pages single space. I was taught, at any early age, that I was “too stupid to get in out of the rain” and other wonderful epitaphs like “you have diarrhea of the mouth” so most of what I wrote--along with everything else I ever created--is resting in a sanitary landfill in Naperville Illinois. Maybe dad was correct; I’m still writing.
--Josh Billings
"Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there."
{Today is a demarcation between yesterday and today’s dedication towards a new direction/definition.}
“Jack Spratt’s 69 cent Guide to Salvation”
©2010 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved
. . . well guys I never asked to be born and obviously had nothing to with the name on my birth certificate so here goes . . .
I was “sawing wood.” What we, in my soon to disappear generation, called sleeping. And I had a vision in my dreams. It was a miniature scenario, sort of like a geode, something you could hold in one hand. Fascinating but too small and intricate to really see. So small it was sorta, kind of, like the City of Chicago in miniature. So I looked closer, then closer yet, and suddenly in the very center I saw two people on a handcar crossing a bridge on an elevated railroad track; what we Windy City dudes call the ‘El’.
Well folks I started laughing in my sleep and my smile lit up the darkness like the end brought to you by nuclear fusion and all my questions were answered.
My dad always seemed to need to be remembered as special. He was. Between us we had this madly rude, salacious and ribald humor about everything. God included. So at first I thought the other person, opposite me, pumping wildly away was dad, Jesus, or, maybe God Him/Herself. And then, low and behold I imagined Osama bin Laden and Mohammad . . . you get the picture. Don’t you!?
Railroad tracks always go someplace and they are always parallel; we are born, we live and then we die.
Right?!
What we do in life is, sorta, kinda, the energy we apply to moving towards the inevitable. And knowing myself--well--I know I’ve just been along for the ride for most of it.
. . . which reminds me of bridges I’ve crossed at 100mph + on my way to high school in daddies green Ford Station Wagon with the Thunderbird engine. It wasn’t that I was anxious to get there. I didn’t want to go there. No Sir! Didn’t want to live either. Oddly his best friend, and a guy I liked a lot, was killed there in a rear-end traffic accident: Route 95, bridge over the Mianus River Bridge, Cos Cob, Connecticut. The bridge later fell apart and killed three people in the river below. And now, come to think of it, I remember several other kids speeding away from the police, State or Local, who went in the drink as well before the defective bridge was installed.
I don’t know who is the greatest comedian, God or Life.
Long time ago I fell in love with a young woman who treated me with kindness. Nice looking girl, but not a ravisher like those you see in Playboy or the movies. We met in Haiti on a religious retreat. I was growing a beard at the time and it came in white; like I had stuck my face into a bag of powdered sugar donuts, I shaved it off. After all I was old enough to be her father but did not want to look like her grandfather.. Women, to me, are like a Greyhound Bus moving through the night and I’m a moth attracted to light winding up a greasy smear on their headlights. Whatever you want to call what you love, the other is more-or-less like that; Bang! Smash! Everything changes.. . . Disintegration.
I began a journal after my encounter. The primary motive was given to me by a cleric whose attention I sought to figure out why my life didn’t work. He said that there was a person who’d made himself sane by keeping one and so I began to write. . . .Some days as many as eighteen pages single space. I was taught, at any early age, that I was “too stupid to get in out of the rain” and other wonderful epitaphs like “you have diarrhea of the mouth” so most of what I wrote--along with everything else I ever created--is resting in a sanitary landfill in Naperville Illinois. Maybe dad was correct; I’m still writing.
--Josh Billings
"Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there."
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Be that now . . . having something of love’s energy now
100105 22:51
We are made of such stuff as the stars are made and have significance in the Universe.
This is my truth and for that I celebrate all my life knowing now that the suffering seasoned my tranquility the end of us all, now or in the latter future.
I have gratitude for publishing records of my surprise and delight in words and images. Yet I am now lead to fully immerse my life in the flowing torrent around me through community. To walk the walk instead of talking about it is a greater wealth, and I am now hungry for that. Where I once thought myself terrible, bizarre, gimp, unacceptable for a host of things. I am reminded of the daughter whose death I sailed through, overtly, with ease.
In my imagining, then and now, I see myself naked carrying her into the elements for her peace and death without indignity. To die with her would have been better than the choice not to. Perhaps better yet would have been to attend her life, such as it was, given Spina Bifida and a brain tissue paper thin. To allow her the grace of my attention and touch. For that choice I linger in grief unassailable. It is nearly impossible for me to give or receive forgiveness. Yet I remain alive and do not know why?
I am especially conscious of my adopted daughter and her daughter, my granddaughter. Their silence is at times crushing. Squashed I arise time and again knowing my love is unconquerable.
Turn and turn about, chasing my tail in confusion, at times enraged, enslaved and deaf, dumb, silent, a victim . . . churning myself into butter melted and disappeared. Yet I remain advocate that there is safety, sanity and tranquility available for all.
We can do that together.
I will soon be the dust I have, for a lifetime, longed to be.
The language will change, possibly disappear, along with our species to witness anything in bodily form. Yet the truth of God will remain and all is well in that.
For me?
Yes!
For you I am uncertain, and at times, in anguish, cry out against injustice masquerading Truth.
There is no fear or waste in the effort to seek yourself as created. Once revealed, or discovered, there is no reason to hoard that since to give is to receive more.
The math is simple. We use and live by 10% the other 90% is idle . . . of course I refer to our individual internal wealth. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you” I believe, have faith in, and love through that truth and experience. I have heard, but make no reference to, other than to report, you can be blessed either way.
Why wait? Be that now in life, having something of love’s energy now.
We are made of such stuff as the stars are made and have significance in the Universe.
This is my truth and for that I celebrate all my life knowing now that the suffering seasoned my tranquility the end of us all, now or in the latter future.
I have gratitude for publishing records of my surprise and delight in words and images. Yet I am now lead to fully immerse my life in the flowing torrent around me through community. To walk the walk instead of talking about it is a greater wealth, and I am now hungry for that. Where I once thought myself terrible, bizarre, gimp, unacceptable for a host of things. I am reminded of the daughter whose death I sailed through, overtly, with ease.
In my imagining, then and now, I see myself naked carrying her into the elements for her peace and death without indignity. To die with her would have been better than the choice not to. Perhaps better yet would have been to attend her life, such as it was, given Spina Bifida and a brain tissue paper thin. To allow her the grace of my attention and touch. For that choice I linger in grief unassailable. It is nearly impossible for me to give or receive forgiveness. Yet I remain alive and do not know why?
I am especially conscious of my adopted daughter and her daughter, my granddaughter. Their silence is at times crushing. Squashed I arise time and again knowing my love is unconquerable.
Turn and turn about, chasing my tail in confusion, at times enraged, enslaved and deaf, dumb, silent, a victim . . . churning myself into butter melted and disappeared. Yet I remain advocate that there is safety, sanity and tranquility available for all.
We can do that together.
I will soon be the dust I have, for a lifetime, longed to be.
The language will change, possibly disappear, along with our species to witness anything in bodily form. Yet the truth of God will remain and all is well in that.
For me?
Yes!
For you I am uncertain, and at times, in anguish, cry out against injustice masquerading Truth.
There is no fear or waste in the effort to seek yourself as created. Once revealed, or discovered, there is no reason to hoard that since to give is to receive more.
The math is simple. We use and live by 10% the other 90% is idle . . . of course I refer to our individual internal wealth. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you” I believe, have faith in, and love through that truth and experience. I have heard, but make no reference to, other than to report, you can be blessed either way.
Why wait? Be that now in life, having something of love’s energy now.
Monday, January 4, 2010
. . . that which is inherant . . . physics and spirit . . .
100104 00:15
There is nothing unique in me beyond that which is inherent in all life. Specific to life is a combination of physics and spirit; conscious to our species, what we call the family of mankind; in creation. All mountains eventually die becoming desert. I don’t know why I know this, I just do. And though, at my age, I am unable to climb them, mountains remain seen from above, my soul soars over them. Yet at other times lays dormant within the stone becoming sand.
I see, feel, intuit and think this experience in all life.
As I knew at the time of my daughters birth, witnessed, and at another time the life of my son, that they were to precede me in death.
I am momentarily conscious that I died both times yet remain alive. Why?
I fell asleep two hours ago and had a dream wherein I was debating the meaning of: antecedence, precedence and now.
Reincarnation makes me wild, the thought of it coupled with Karma drives me nearly insane. I love God to the extent, kind, degree and will that I accede my soul, as I know myself to have and be, without limit or condition. I revere this quality in others and respect the absence of it in others in equal measure. I can not parse nor triage myself further reductively.
Herein lays the end of what propelled me from my rest.
I may have appeared silent as a serpent asleep to my mother while she abused me. My conclusion is that instinctively I knew to cry, or otherwise protest, was pointless and may have caused her to murder me. Though she tore my heart out and castrated me, metaphorically, I remain alive. Why?
I have written in recent time, and previously, that the world will end. And I remain in prayer that my ‘prophecy’ is not self-fulfilling. I have experienced the death of others and myself witnessed internally and externally and want only to know the end of pain, suffering and death.
In my life I know myself alive, or saved, by Jesus who, in my estimate and esteem, was sacrificed to end all fear of death. My ‘fear’ of God describes better my consistent surprise and joy at God’s being real.
I have been randomly collecting quotes for the past several months. I know them better than the Bible which I can only now read with astonishment. I refuse to debate, or contest with anyone, on any basis, the truth of what I discovered upon awaking. I left yesterdays entries and collected quotes open in my word processor:
--Native American
"We have walked together in the shadow of a rainbow."
---Naomi Shihab Nye
"Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment... Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say 'it is I you have been looking for' and then goes with you everywhere, like a shadow or a friend."
--Nelson Mandela
"Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will."
I write to teach, to heal--myself and those who might read what I write. There is no fiction in my intent nor any motive to amuse.
There is nothing unique in me beyond that which is inherent in all life. Specific to life is a combination of physics and spirit; conscious to our species, what we call the family of mankind; in creation. All mountains eventually die becoming desert. I don’t know why I know this, I just do. And though, at my age, I am unable to climb them, mountains remain seen from above, my soul soars over them. Yet at other times lays dormant within the stone becoming sand.
I see, feel, intuit and think this experience in all life.
As I knew at the time of my daughters birth, witnessed, and at another time the life of my son, that they were to precede me in death.
I am momentarily conscious that I died both times yet remain alive. Why?
I fell asleep two hours ago and had a dream wherein I was debating the meaning of: antecedence, precedence and now.
Reincarnation makes me wild, the thought of it coupled with Karma drives me nearly insane. I love God to the extent, kind, degree and will that I accede my soul, as I know myself to have and be, without limit or condition. I revere this quality in others and respect the absence of it in others in equal measure. I can not parse nor triage myself further reductively.
Herein lays the end of what propelled me from my rest.
I may have appeared silent as a serpent asleep to my mother while she abused me. My conclusion is that instinctively I knew to cry, or otherwise protest, was pointless and may have caused her to murder me. Though she tore my heart out and castrated me, metaphorically, I remain alive. Why?
I have written in recent time, and previously, that the world will end. And I remain in prayer that my ‘prophecy’ is not self-fulfilling. I have experienced the death of others and myself witnessed internally and externally and want only to know the end of pain, suffering and death.
In my life I know myself alive, or saved, by Jesus who, in my estimate and esteem, was sacrificed to end all fear of death. My ‘fear’ of God describes better my consistent surprise and joy at God’s being real.
I have been randomly collecting quotes for the past several months. I know them better than the Bible which I can only now read with astonishment. I refuse to debate, or contest with anyone, on any basis, the truth of what I discovered upon awaking. I left yesterdays entries and collected quotes open in my word processor:
--Native American
"We have walked together in the shadow of a rainbow."
---Naomi Shihab Nye
"Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment... Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say 'it is I you have been looking for' and then goes with you everywhere, like a shadow or a friend."
--Nelson Mandela
"Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will."
I write to teach, to heal--myself and those who might read what I write. There is no fiction in my intent nor any motive to amuse.
Friday, December 25, 2009
insufficient room for all the names and incarnations of Truth
091224 07:51
No one is more noble, than any other, by birth, or activity, in life. Some walks between birth and death may be celebrated, anointed, annotated by our special attention for their lives lived for us. Servants are self giving and generous while others, the majority, live in fear of never having enough. Therein is the origin/nature of addiction.
How can I know this?
I know it best in my own addictions, hypocrisies, bigotries and failing the Ideal--Jesus who was merely God in disguise and crucified as a criminal for us.
. . . and i am convicted that He died to end all fear.
At the end of life no secret is unknown to God. From the beginning, before speech or symbol was published. It is this child’s sense that, The Garden of Eden a metaphor is now, and we, pass from generation, fetishes and piles of stone dedicated, for punishment, instead of forgiveness and reverence the individual child who comes not for us, but through us, biologically. In the Garden was the advent of consciousness regardless the consequence.
We, the broken, despised and ignored, are legion. Yet we linger in denial, our divinity, so common to us oblivious. We murder or steal holding captive the ideals of others as better than ours made common weal for life, love, liberty and discernment when enough, is enough. Too many children to feed, clothe, love and enable their unique gifts; none more noble than another.
I will write more about this in the later future should God and others to/for whom I an inconvenient allow. For example the KKK was born this date long ago and I have been witness photographically in recent decades and have empathy for those, who, had they known me then, or now would kill me for a nigger lover ala Langston Hughes.
For now it is enough, and never too late, to be charitable with self given to others as gift that they grow in knowledge, truth transparent. I could, and have, given of my photography and/or words, my gift to others. Fully conscious the gift received from the inventor, or progenitor: The Gestalt of Color Psychology; Joseph Albers. The meeting through by a beloved childhood friend, niece, and God. Of Joe I was suffused with his generosity and well remember our harmonious words mutually spoken “music” over a color collage I was otherwise too ashamed to confess authorship of.
My point, beloved of God, is that you may give little, or much; little is welcome and needed at Wikipedia to keep them up and running for the future. I gave and thus am no longer guilty and slinking about when, in greed, I seek knowledge; otherwise unavailable. Were it mine to give I would buy the place and give it back for the joy of their facility.
Otherwise there is insufficient room for all the names and incarnations of Truth in the Universe.
. . . remember this, if you must invoke Christ, He was anointed better by water, the blood of God, not oil.
No one is more noble, than any other, by birth, or activity, in life. Some walks between birth and death may be celebrated, anointed, annotated by our special attention for their lives lived for us. Servants are self giving and generous while others, the majority, live in fear of never having enough. Therein is the origin/nature of addiction.
How can I know this?
I know it best in my own addictions, hypocrisies, bigotries and failing the Ideal--Jesus who was merely God in disguise and crucified as a criminal for us.
. . . and i am convicted that He died to end all fear.
At the end of life no secret is unknown to God. From the beginning, before speech or symbol was published. It is this child’s sense that, The Garden of Eden a metaphor is now, and we, pass from generation, fetishes and piles of stone dedicated, for punishment, instead of forgiveness and reverence the individual child who comes not for us, but through us, biologically. In the Garden was the advent of consciousness regardless the consequence.
We, the broken, despised and ignored, are legion. Yet we linger in denial, our divinity, so common to us oblivious. We murder or steal holding captive the ideals of others as better than ours made common weal for life, love, liberty and discernment when enough, is enough. Too many children to feed, clothe, love and enable their unique gifts; none more noble than another.
I will write more about this in the later future should God and others to/for whom I an inconvenient allow. For example the KKK was born this date long ago and I have been witness photographically in recent decades and have empathy for those, who, had they known me then, or now would kill me for a nigger lover ala Langston Hughes.
For now it is enough, and never too late, to be charitable with self given to others as gift that they grow in knowledge, truth transparent. I could, and have, given of my photography and/or words, my gift to others. Fully conscious the gift received from the inventor, or progenitor: The Gestalt of Color Psychology; Joseph Albers. The meeting through by a beloved childhood friend, niece, and God. Of Joe I was suffused with his generosity and well remember our harmonious words mutually spoken “music” over a color collage I was otherwise too ashamed to confess authorship of.
My point, beloved of God, is that you may give little, or much; little is welcome and needed at Wikipedia to keep them up and running for the future. I gave and thus am no longer guilty and slinking about when, in greed, I seek knowledge; otherwise unavailable. Were it mine to give I would buy the place and give it back for the joy of their facility.
Otherwise there is insufficient room for all the names and incarnations of Truth in the Universe.
. . . remember this, if you must invoke Christ, He was anointed better by water, the blood of God, not oil.
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