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

120723 0447 the sum of

“The sum of all sums is eternity” –Lucretius

I think my thesis that Jesus is resurrect in many differing times ways places and forms correct. And as the son of God, not God but part of the whole sum of history manifest in kindness e.g. Do No Harm

I am disinterested in intellectual pursuits, masturbatory by nature, since they are essentially pleas for acknowledgment the impoverished self thought unlovable and extreme in their judgment of others worth or unworthy to live.

From personal experience I sense the truth and presence in all relationships regardless of gender identity: male/male female/female or an elderly person with a pet. Love of any kind is long while sexual activity is at best fleeting and/or a brief glimpse the God Head. Such perception is idolatrous of definitions established long ago when there were fewer of us; 'Be fruitful and multiply'; we've multiplied too much and often becoming a cancer or virus instead of the God given value of life we've trashed it.

This lovely apple green nest, our home planet, is soon to become a ruin pocked by asteroids; otherwise potential there are so many ways, overt and covert, empowered or invoked, to dominate one ideal over another; merely competition a rush to the cemetery.

Those who have stolen life so glibly smirking will pay not by me since being human I can only see so far this eternity we live in – as a writer I could easily eat Bill Gates heart still beating between my teeth and he swooning hoping to die – merely for his destruction of WordStar. Only the beginning since he is emblematic if not iconic the theft of intellectual property what was my profession as a photographer. He is a pissant decadent compared to the congress of baboons who agreed to legalize greed as the rule of our fair nation once deluded into believing faithlessly “In God We Trust” what hog wash. For those few like myself think ice cream. My education derived via the World Wide Web; there are still extant a few, not yet tampered with or constrained to mute or amputate or outright censored for the benefit of – dare I say Bat Man?

The hour is evaporating for me this time beloved joy of writing anything even doggerel. Or of a few who will, if they read this, remember my praise: “Had you written the entire telephone directory the burrows of Manhattan I'd read it!” I have a promised encounter with my beloved M at water aerobics and then lunch. Though she is far kinder than I, she will cut you off at the knees if you waste her time, why do you think I refer to myself as Lurch? She will for now or forever remain nameless by her request but in fondness I often call her “my emerald eyed Sphinx” who though seldom speaking evaporating me with her proclamations teaching me the true nature of love & forgiveness versus hate & Vengeance, Inc. She being far and away well versed in both the Old & New Testaments more so than i.

"We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another." --Lucretius

Be well & do no harm

Faith is experience

Belief is allowing someone else to tell you what to think

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved

120722 2238 apprehension

Apprehension a very tense word pointed at my eyes the recognition or conviction that I will for what remains of my life be celibate

in recognition I sense I've shattered my sword placed the remains in a baptismal font and smashed my face forcefully into the shards

though I cringe at the thought never again to enter a woman's body it makes sense of all that I've discovered of myself since in reality the joy of this solitude is more than any other before or anticipated

I laugh at my for prior superlatives first reading of a book, orgasm, kiss and so on None of which compare to this moment the now being in eternity without dying to do so: Joy endless definitive and integrated what more could Heaven offer? Yet, face to face I long to know the why of the 6 & 60 million deaths? And whether the end of mercy and forgiveness the highest end of love absolute

Yet I will, by grace and the creek don't rise, be with my beloved M tomorrow who incredulously acknowledges me as few other women before; merely hinted at. Shunned as fire showering upon my self loathing and perpetual ideation of suicide

Long held: Love begins with acceptance of self wholly transparent the dark & light the breadth, width, depth and height; requites for the virgin birth of a self mindful of precious time. Immeasurable the pain of being by a grain of sand defended against the soul's suffering worth the birthing; long and arduous. A pearl pulsing pearlescent. A new star & solar system another universe beyond the beyond – extruded born of a black hole event horizon. Hyperbole? No. Simply loving myself unacceptable to others but only to God.

I a warrior trained by Ignatius not ordained Jesuit wearing the frock but by his 18^th Annotation. Flung a boomerang lofted toward the infinite starry starry night a flight never returned self defined self derived self sacrificed self motivated and answered by love notes from God: Quotes, passages, phrases, sighs and grimaces; novels of one or two words: Love, Jesus wept.

To close: Of fours mentioned here and there represent feeling, thinking, intuition, sensing what was perfectly balanced in the ideal man of Jesus add to which he being so balanced was neither woman or man but both; asexual – Read please C. G. Jung on animus/anima.

For me the number four was despicable reminding me that I was held back in the fourth grade separating me from the few friends and socialization I had. Yet upon discovery myself a four on the scale of 9 types, The Enneagram, Sufi oral tradition character definitions brought to American by Jesuits in the 1950s; I discovered it to be accurate regarding significant elemental aspects of my Self. Chief among them was a potential to, implied or inferred, help others by knowing myself.

It is not for myself that I write, though I know not how -- but why. It for healing others equally damaged by trauma, rape, slavery, abuse, abandoned, ignored and especially for those returned from war victims of Post Traumatic Shock Disorder (PTSD)

120723 03:22

Pilot asked, “are you King of the Jews?” Jesus in reply said, “I am what you say I am.”

He was

. . . in a dream I was told the truth and as a journalist willing to die finding truth at the expense of my life . . . I don't work for Mr. Murdock . . . as ever I am grateful and loyal to The Grey Lady THE NEW YORK TIMES . . . and all journalist who died before their time Amen

120722 19:27 time

I measure time by several conceptions mostly solar the seasons of the sun for I am by heart, viscera and soul a pagan and those definitions of god backward before time was a concern or consciousness measurable--nothing discernible of their passing before mine.

Winter solstice nadir of my life churning change my emotional year surviving which I know another annum is mine. I dance before bonfires howling my plea for life the sun's return and time both precious to me yet greater so is truth; like all life I have seasons, a time to be born, a time to live by whatever measure short or long and a time to die.

I sense an urgency now on rushing my seventy-second-year coupled with a feeling, more a conviction, an apprehension that while intercourse is sacred to me I've not known a woman who shared my devotion such worship this celebration of life so plebeian unwashed by sanction of any kind yet why are we here standing upon the bones and souls who engendered us this species monkey amphibian or divine yet a mendicant monastic ribald covertly & sensuously erotic am I bereft a mate so inclined.

Truth be told from soul mate backwards in my time I've made love to mother, sister, playmates of the sandbox kind not centerfold. In that regard unlike still life paintings the artist is not allowed to consume the fruit normally after depiction. By my conception of myself I remain a rutting snuffling growling beast covered with hair my club laying beside me for any other competing beast seeking to eat my dove.

What is by necessity rapid the mating of mice frantic or languorous when time and circumstance allows followed by orgasmic slumber to arise and do it all over again harder.

Ardor in time ebbs finding myself barefoot upon the sands of an hourglass headed for oblivion. I realize that celibacy has it own rewards. The peace of solitude comes to mind. In innocent guile sallying forth to public congress making love to souls oblivious my coupling with their minds gamed hearts sole reward slowly ticking towards the final and fatal tock.

In gratitude for M & Isis the best hours of joy I've ever known brightening the new year longer by day afterward then the third longer again;

Love, Osiris

© 2012 by Jack Spratt All Rights Reserved

--Ambrose Bierce

BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or

condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and

antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.

There have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose

adventure in the bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries

before doubtless derived their idle tale of the child Osiris being

preserved on a floating lotus leaf.

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.