why do we do anything at all?

Vanity or vain attempt to expiate my guilt for rage against that which I cannot change. Why do I write?

Few wonder until around midlife; “is this all there is?” The urge to merge into the ordinary of life preceding it accomplished. Having become well behaved consumers of the economy’s purpose. Having given all due reverence to the norms, kowtow to the self-acknowledged saints, leaders and those irreverent of our right to be different.

I was born fabulously rich. Only to learn by behavior and choices regarding my welfare that I was unwanted, an accident in time. Liter like that which I picked up walking too and from the mail box mid residential complex. During the cold dressed as I like; indifferent to the climate or witness that I exist at all. Laughing! It only occurred today that for the best would be--you will understand shortly--for me to die in peace; is to cease to exist becoming a ghost. A no-see-um. A survivor in a Nazi death camp.

But then all are criminal who seek to rule for their own profit and pleasure, selfish, to an obscene degree. There are millions of ways to die. With death being no shame for a slave of vanity. To need beg forgiveness for being human is repugnant to me. No need to awaken those deeply asleep in vanity. Irk the ire of mad dogs frothing at the mouth to eat me for their pleasure. Wealth is not what you have but what you do not need.

I was once a Boy Scout leaning only that my peers wanted to see my penis. Who needs that? Yet I remained until quite recently a Boy Scout attempting to aid people crossing boundaries and receiving a trashing for my efforts; so vain I was then. Oddly misdiagnosed as bipolar thinking myself free at last of all guilt for misdemeanors sexual, intellectual, behavioral. Mother it seems remained until death convicted that we, my sister and I, she six and I twelve; had sex together. The poor woman had no father, no brother, no man to tell her she was full of shit. And I, at any early age, knew her a lethal as a coral snake. After repeated bites she began to resort to humiliation and silence. That is until like a dove with the cunning of a fox I began to outwit her. Love is not sex and sex is merely reproduction. My father, a gibbous knave, seduced me into slavery as protection from her. Neither clever enough to concoct a conspiracy of that magnitude.

I love playing the fool, a clown, since internally I shred my adversary with forgiveness and love . . . yes! Of them! But equally of the games they play against themselves. Best leave sleeping snakes lie. Loath to abuse the privilege of naming what teaches me as “God” I remain wealthier than any, I could in a vast knowing, name or long to emmulate. The greater they proclaim wealth the more foolish they are creating nothing but death from the rot of their usury and vanity.

Do I--or did I--just judge the entire governance of this once great land in vain for least “God” or whatever Created the Creation, the Big Bang, or whatever; watch over, the watchman listens and watches in vain.

I wished never to know my mother in that way, to procreate or practice the acts of love. Only to make love possible for her self. Exasperated she once wrote; “You don’t need my permission to write.” And of dad, my greatest gift is his theft of my life attempting to glean love from a turnip; but he did call me at death saying goodbye.

When weeping now it is for joy; not sorrow or fear.

"All men alike stand condemned, not by alien codes of ethics, but by their own, and all men therefore are conscious of guilt." - C. S. Lewis

121115 01:12 why?
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Rather i’d be falcon than falconer since she is a giving mistress allowing free flight in creation creating me. Rather than the blame game: naming genders of things insoluble. Become the solution: unconditional love. Just mercy freely given to all even to the persecutors of all life dined upon.

Yet I remain a pragmatist, capable of processing much, insatiable as the Fargo Shredder. Making not a mist of pink vanity so much as leaving it whole restructured as it was. Always in fear of death and loss.

Today was difficult for I had to rend myself thrice over to discern what I desired of my day from an admixture of myth, omen, portent, rune and ruins potential of time always consequent.  Creation stops for no mortal. The winds of eternity making sand then dust of all monuments; an idle mote upon mote in time removable. Birth is sacrificial lasting many years consequential. Of birth men know nothing; becoming lemmings playing a follow the leader infantile. Children at children’s games kill the opposition. Giving birth only to death. Or slavery. Gambling their souls for the pleasure of certainty; once killed nothing arises. All conflict dispatched.

Yet at the time of death the embryo of fear arises and realizes that it too will die vomiting the bile of all blood lust returned eating it self.

Should I have said; “Rather a day as Lion than prey?”

Is The Creator one or the other, Lion or Lioness?

The question is unanswerable. But the ability to form the question is it’s own reward. Since those willing to live and die for another know their infinitesimal origin clean and clear of vanity. Hear in silence the hum of creation blindly see the heart of things and will for those who devour them have mercy. Doing no harm.

As infant, child, man and now what? I forget the crimes against me but never the kindnesses. Thieves abound oblivious their theft of themselves. With a little less than two hours rest I went to water aerobics lead by a man I admire. In the course of chit chat sharing our origins I confessed the wonder of stained glass. It was an odd time and place for merger of love for the same life of all differently defined. Both sharing a kinship odd, unique amongst all states, the smallest. We agreed on the folly of knowing, at least I now surmise, since we both are brothers in age clearly pressed upon the dark glass of death so near. Good friends need not agree. But the friendship is a love beyond measure of value. Oddly we concur concern for those who follow and wonder what they will make of our knowing; accepting we’ve done the best we could with ours. Fabulous these lives lived; fearless in leaving.

In the silence of infinity; when the student is ready, the Teacher will appear. As for we, in that moment, upon the cusp of eternity; saw one another for what we are.

Kindness.

121114 20:31 falcon
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

At long last dawn finally reaches into the pit of my despondent sloth singing yes, and yes, again to accept finally as I am myself. This old man whose face melts more into my chest daily; a Basset Hound loved nonetheless. For despite everything I can, finally, accept myself as enough. To love life unconditionally as it is, it’s own reward so fabulous I have no fear of death.

I wonder if Jesus could, at any time in his life, enter the sanctuary and receive welcome unconditional. Power and force create nothing but death, yet he in dying rent the Temple Curtain in half.

Yes. I am conservative but only of Creation and Creator, the Who, beginning everything watching us destroy all humanity to be correct in our vanity and demonstration of our powerise. True I’ve seen myself before and after my time and have no fear that once destroyed we who live by faith will not be reborn in a better place; well rid of our longish season in Hell. Those who purport to lead while leading nothing but their vanity; while Jesus lingers naked upon the steps outside the Cathedrals of Greed.

He did, after all say, “The poor will always be with us . . “ Yet did He mean the poor of spirit so greedy for everything, never having enough; or we the meek who sharing whatever we have survive in grace? God obvious amongst the poor. The more I seek examples of exceptions the fewer fingers on one hand need to count them. Then add; wars without end.

Scarcely able to administer myself, I speak of incompetence, those who lead us into the World War 1 leading to World War 2 and the next and the next endless war the end of which will only known to the dead.

If for me everyday is Christmas, regardless of season, knowing the birth and death of either the savior or merely the day itself; is to celebrate both. I am so blessed of, and by friends, so better educated than myself who in response/reply annotate the 11th day, the 11th hour the 11th month. So quickly we forget those who died for any reason to keep this ember of freedom alive.

I am catholic in the universal sense, small “c.” A bastard Catholic without Pope. In the sanctuary of my silent soul celebrating the Mass surrounding the world daily 24/7/365. Knowing yet there is no one religion able to contain my soul. So I reside a citizen of the Cosmos happily so. I am named by God, yet unknown until death the time of face-to-face. So I follow no one regardless of time, gender, credo save for kindness to all.

I fail that ideal for my trials continue. Beset by administrators who dick me around because they can. In some curious sense it gives them a reason to get out bed of a morning; a purpose they otherwise can not find in themselves. With prayer and hopefully the last mention of my captivity in disrespect for the elderly.

Schooled in Chicago where the young would kill one another for a pair of sneakers. To, for one moment, find pride in being alive. There was a time when I thought myself bereft of parenting yet in consideration of their lives. I see them with no family at all, dismissed by corporate officers who have their parents running daily two to three jobs just to pay for food. Both the children who became my parents and those who sell drugs in the streets of Chicago. Free Market Socialism has become a cancer and the death of all humanity.

“ . . . when I was in prison you visited me . . . “ and for this, what I’ve written by way of preamble, is girding my loins to face the trail of another presiding authority to judge me fit to address loneliness and being abandoned a ministry without preaching just being exemplar of peace.

Grateful that I am able to express love in kindness to one and all without going to prison or having to beg for the privilege.

121110 14:11 Acceptance is love

Rarely am I ill yet when so I fall plummeting into an ache beyond imagining. The only remedy is sleep from which I just arose with a sense of a new order, collaborative, a boycott of all former governance and religion. A culture within which we in love and trust do for one another what must be done without profit but barter. Imagine a world without war or poverty.

I am an ignorant man questing for an education easily gleaned via the Internet. At that, deeply concerned for evidence of censure ostensibly to protect intellectual property. I am not proud of my ignorance since in seeking to learn I discover the more I know the less it seems to have any relevance to life, mine and yours, as lived in flesh and blood terms. And curious about the Resurrection I sense it will be a woman not Jesus who will lead us into the next epoch. In a sense, or way, I’ve answered my own question for what I describe is the Primitive Christian Church.

Both Theocracy and Democracy have degenerated into “should” and “ought’ leadership. Or; “do what I say or take the highway” to hell.

121111 02:32

To be held, no matter how long or short, in the gaze of compassion is to be lent a buoyancy beyond all storm’s tempest. Not so much; “This too shall pass.” But rather a knowing of peace surpassing all understanding . . . atypical of all former journal keeping, I now wander away playing with Annie, cleaning house, attending to the vulnerabilities I am liable to from administrators whose authority rules exactly as those criminals who play with economies for their own vanities.

Again, I can change nothing but myself. And in that change, enter eternity, and peace. Occasionally bereft of desire to annihilate the thieves who rule all humanity. They who so indifferently kill senselessly would be the first to cry for mercy should we all arise and merely constrain or boycott their games.

The courage to be fully yourself independant off the definition by others; any other, including the Author of life and love itself. Is to be aware that there is a responsibility in all that we do; for nothing is for naught; all is important. While it could be argued that I am inappropriately self-revelatory--given that I am at times way overboard in confession my ideals and failures--it remains the only antidote to what passed before: pretending to be normal.

I am amused by Steve Jobs remark; "I want to put a ding in the universe." I do not proclaim him guilty of sin but hasten to add he was wildly irresponsible in dividing people from themselves, exploiting youth to find reality electronically. Profit before prophecy? Regardless, the inventor of gunpowder, who pays the price: the victims. Typical of children, we play with things before understanding their penchant for enslavement, and the cost of conceding our innate self possession to those who would exploit us to their selfish ends.

If I have hope, and I do. Would I, or should I, call it faith? My enemy has faith in the bottom line while I ask how does it work in the reality of birth, life, death, bloody reality? For the commonweal? Not the family, tribe, state, nation or religion; but the all one family we are.

Recently, where I live, a mother was driving her son to high school. Both were instantly killed by a young woman texting while driving; a head on collision. It is my nature to ponder the fate of all three participants. With the greater emphasis on the young woman selfish enough to murder the others. Then migrating backwards through the cellular providers, Steve Jobs, the legislators, stockholders etc. imagining them all being destroyed in a similar manner. . . .Slowly, one-by-one.

I am imperfect. Merely human. Yet for justice one wonders? Is there justice? In this world or the next; of course I believe so . . . or is it that I have: faith, confidence or conviction so being so? My slow waltz with death is exquisitely seductive; this brief season in hell. The Kingdom of God is within each of us. Thank God for God--the Judge. God being far more merciful than I. After all what allows me to continue living waiting for the opportunity taken by our brethren in Tibet to immolate ourselves to prove our right to be as we wish to be and not slaves to someone elses vanity. Bad Karma, you bet your bippy.

121113 05:15
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

two kudos for Julian

How long the day newborn
the loins of solar days diminished
lengthened rays so longer night
now until the longest dark the loins of
sons born and dimmed forever more stilled

Of dreams words poems I know more for their gasping
sought the light above a breaching whale seeing the light
above the darkness below. It goes on another life lived in an hour of repose.

Baptized by whales embraced by snakes a bird of paradise returned I fling myself upon this day anew. Peace from slumber resurrect. We the new messiah conjoined enjoined

This day shared with Julian Anchorite of Norwich adored i a nave dwelling knave.
Am i not enough this reprise another life sufficient unto itself going with what i’ve got all my days seeking equality for all. To be for you what she/He was to be for me and we all

"…All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well", which Julian claimed to be said to her by God Himself, reflects her theology. It is one of the most famous lines in Catholic theological writing, and one of the best-known phrases of the literature of her era.

Creator
Creation Adored
Bless us all.
Amen . . . add nothing ever for naught.

PS Search for identity; specific not generic

121108 14:52 how long the day


In my experience Once in love Always returned Tho separated  by miles or death Hands covered with yeasty bread dough Impossible of removal Withdrawing my hands from her heart  Smearing everything I do with tears

121108 20:02 bread dough
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Be well One and All

Out the door on my way to water aerobics digital recorder in hand I said; “I am not loyal to myself” and thus indignant when no one else is. Plutocracy has been the rule of my life, born of poverty and then taught to go along to get along because everybody was better than I could ever be.

In a sense I was taught Escape and Evasion from the enemy;  somewhat akin to what I intuited from the U.S. Navy Seals I came to know. This is to me, for now, is exceedingly astonishing. My mother was, in retrospect and only now recognized, the best teacher a boy could have to be real in a time of anxiety and chaos. KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid is something I’ll, of need, keep telling myself from now on; for however short or long, “from now on goes.” . . . and today is a good day to die, the warrior’s credo.

If only for myself, my sense the Great Prophets, around whom all religions were formed, then decayed into meaninglessness, is true. Then they were informed and inspired by the same force seen from differing points of view in: time place, culture and circumstance. And they who would lead in fact served in humility and humiliation as Jesus did dying on the cross. Leaving behind those who followed him in charge of themselves something so precious it is inconceivable to others who in their time and place can be taught; what in essence can only be experienced in an I/Thou relationship.

Not I alone, but we all, born sullen to discipline. Fleeing the teacher who fails to convey the essence for a host of reasons, principally none of us being capable of perfection including the Teacher. The Teacher Taught.

Some have a genius for the genius of The All; the personage of what we seek by a multitude of names, for me it was just “God.” The Buddhist, however, refused as did the Taoist etc., to so name: the source and this explains, at least to myself, why Lao Tzu electrifies me. Merely a different modality of teaching the same thing once so utterly foreign to my fear of being unworthy of life, love or liberty.

I am more than fond of Eric Hoffer, and many others, but he principally. But of, or about, his thinking; even I need to stand upon my own participation and responsibility to discover meaning in a meaningless time. Like the Who creating/teaching those I would blindly follow, having no gender or form but dialog in the crystalline night seeing not a crown of stars but beyond all that to the origins of all we can know in life. Oddly for most it is in the last vision while dying, the Light, The Love seen our soul as spirit arising to our truth. All life dies but in dying knows better the origin and meaning of everything. No matter, all my speculations regarding the after life, I will still die knowing only death forever or for a moment.

The why and what for I write is to annotate the process of Being Here Now. It is, and always has been, a journal: travel notes on The Way and we are the resurrection. Many paths, voices, definitions; all leading to the same conclusion. Yet these truths are not self evident; but must be experienced in context of the real; not ideal.

In summary. In a sense what I advocate. Is that we become both pragmatic and ecstatic. To discover what we are as self defined . . . there are limits if you settle for wealth as currency but none if you find your wealth as indefinable. What you see is all you get versus what you cannot see, yet long for, but can never have as enough.

You can know everything, but in the knowing, know nothing. All else is about The All; but not The All. . . .The Real Deal. . . . and all will be well

"Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries."
—Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke

121108 12:39 loyalty misplaced
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Freedom = Lao Tzu = The Fargo Shredder

Functionally we need do nothing--just exist. To live without quiet suffering desperation we must listen. Then decide for ourselves to engage or abandon the issues of life and death as we wish for not merely ourselves but all, or merely the other, benign or malevolent.

Amending my harvest of Lao Tzu quotes I became aware that tho I might memorize them all I still will own none save the spirit directed towards. Then remembering a dream, a short story actually, amongst those journals I destroyed or abandoned; too memorable to ever forget like the face of my children in joy for what no photograph, memorable, could ever substitute.

Bereft soon this sojourn in hell, blown in winds, deserted high mountains of New Mexico alone. Leaving mered the ruins and runes of self-creation falling feathers and things unsubstantial scraps and building blocks always solo save for the inspiration to seek and be found forgiven my curiosity.

The city was a backwater in time, those once thriving sections of manufacture small family business littered with neglect now frozen. I stood for a time wondering in my wandering to enter or not a gym knowing nothing within. scabrous lockers dented peeling paint worn surfaces; one was mine eventually. When in wrestler tights and leotard I enterer the contest with he who ruled. Point for fall and point again the trial was long and eventually he vanquished to disappear my reign begun for a time frozen in success. Then another like myself long ago wanderer and wondering entered and entertained me in contest vanished prevailed upon to leave behind she who bested me.

Free at last to fly the galaxies still creating themselves alone in solitude best blest.

121106 12:14 Freedom = Lao Tzu = The Fargo Shredder
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Love; a Duet (a twofer)

Feasible, so many women seem to need me, not my body of course. Once handsome,  or so I was told too late to be nothing but a Bassett face melting. Who’s that old fart laughing at? Who Me?

Rode hard put up wet, 79 miles of hard road kill. Worst and Best. Run over by the hound dog bus of God . . . Why? Did I always have this mystical sense about the Once Great Greyhound Bus? In the mirror when I must shave. Difficult while laughing at my age.

Travel you say! Well folks I’ve traveled both physically and metaphysically so far; meeting so  many strangers who in kindness held my heart wildly anguished, that I have no ideal the meaning of time and space. Uncertainty revisiting me in dreams of those who left me on my own even M. But that is and was my problem; to decide the meaning of Jesus walking away from me. An act of faith or dismissal?

Then thinking about it all the years, months, days, hours, moments I did submit to a woman, as goddess or merely God, it, or I was a failure. The truth of love, is love itself, not what you get but what you give. The dream I just awoke from was God feeding me into The Fargo Shredder and I came out the same way I went in. . . .At least externally. . .

Why am I laughing?

Could it be I love too hard; too much greed to be loved in return: contingent upon getting laid. But, or however, it appears now that is precisely what made me give it all up for God finally. But did I? My dreams of her, any Her, who seems welcoming, kind and feasible gets me every time.

Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's home I’d descend; be exiled, banished: whatever. The difference between she and her daughter is that my grandmother would spontaneously touch me -- and now i weep -- she’d put her hand on the back of my neck and the chimerical beast would be blissed out gone to sleep. Instantly.

Orgasms come and go, becoming eventually political, contingent upon whatever; but never were her touches ending even now. I can feel her presence while typing.

Mom and Dad come from humble places seeking the best America then offered, gave, then stolen. We all remain enslaved to ideals; what health, happiness, success and being just perfect looks like. Maya, illusion, no speak, delusional beneficence. The Big Con of America: I’ll take care of you just give me all the power and all will be well.

We survived the last lie about America; kill all the enemies, not learning a thing. It was long before Jesus, this “loving your enemy” motive. Maybe Plato or Socrates, who said “you can learn even from your enemies” and then add “the only people who know the end of war are the dead.” Buddha predates JC by how much? How many years?

Politics and Religion kill more than they heal competing for body counts in pews, slave cells or graves. Dispatched for recycle?

For all the credit cards I carry the most precious is my library card. Popes, Presidents and Kings; all naked in greed imperious. Yet still I long to be supplicant to a woman, and do occasionally dream of one specific and then, and then, I remember Mary in her grotto, silent accepting me, my attention and adoration and again I see that I am not meant to be what I am but what I can become stuffed into The Fargo Shredder again and again.

There ain’t no woman I know of including M, who I can’t be there for, should she let me be something so good. God knows I’ve tried and failed when it all became political conditional upon mood or need, or greed, or dismissal.

Worse.

Breach of trust.

Theoretically marriage is a renewable bond daily. Another way of saying the same thing: relationship must be rebuilt daily.

Nothing I say is definitive. The words I use and abuse have been stated over and over again by far more better than I ever will be. Words are important to me but then so are behaviors. I am just not a “Wham Bang Thank You Mam!” sort.

As a sophist for love and God I return to the crime scene endlessly and anonymously playing the roles; he said, she said, they did did not do whatever.

I don’t need a goddamn Doctoral Degree to be me. No dog collar, Popes Robes or Hail to the Chief all that stuff is for pansies the fearful of failure . . . Grace is participatory--collaborative. Not given to a few. We all have a genius for love.

We are all tenant/emigrants on earth owning nothing accept our choice to be or not to be generously loving with others of ourselves. There is no difference between witnessing the death of a child, as all good you wish for the future; theirs and your’s. Than seeing the Chimera eating yourself piecemeal; a finger here a nose there then a leg or two taking an entire life savagely. That’s just the food chain, physics or ‘fate.’ Could be punishment? Probably not even though the fools who lead generally will sacrifice everything but their children, wealth and sanity to be  something like the real true I AM. . .

. . . always present, silent to most, the best Parent we never had . . . or acknowledged available. I am both pragmatic and ecstatic, a sophist for God. I return to my sense gleaned in Ripley Ohio USA of passing the Carnegie Library in reverence oracular.

As for women and laying with them innocently wicking their love and body heat. Well boys and girls, when creative my body heat raises by significant degrees and to touch me makes me sweat. Enough about me, how about you?

121105 05:08 Questions

I simply must stop messing with people everywhere I go. But then I’d know less than I do. We all are woven into a causal tapestry including the beginning and purpose of all creation; for good or ill. Otherwise I’d snuffle and growl in my cave and becoming finally the bridge troll I actually am inside.

Instead at $1 stores buying groceries or whatever. At times I just need to dive into the river of humanity to know what’s going on. Not the bullshit Fox TV broadcasts but the real deal where people live and who they are. . . . I’ve always been this way, transiting the world from early on until now: still in bliss where I am in this enchanting land. I tease little boys about trading shirts drawing them into conspiracies outside their normal associations imprinting them in my heart.

Laughing. I no longer need to hide my disdain for Fox News; acknowledging it as a carnival freak show for the weak of generosity. Like the rubes who what to see the woman with a beard down to her toes or the midgets wrestling alligators then eating them alive.

Seldom having the price of admission, hating crowds, what I did for a living was to swim through them upstream feeling imperiled. Now this little boy is no longer ashamed to peek into girl’s locker rooms or stick my head beneath the skirt of the elephant’s tent to see what they’re like at rest, the crowds gone.

Among the giants I’ve met, seldom, but many in retrospect, the celebrities don’t compare, were of all ages and genders. Oddly my attention always makes em’ smile glowing with gratitude. I’m like my dad, the biological one, not the Big Guy above, but maybe both; I touch people with my hands and never give it a second thought.

You know I’m not talking about myself, putting on airs I lack, but about you few who read me for yourselves. My suggestion is that you run your fingers through the hair shirt you wear and find the broken dreams lost there amongst the thorns of accusation; I know just as God created little girls in pigtails you’ll begin to love yourself.

He, to me, at the time, appeared a bear of a man in a cowboy hat. Passing in opposite directions alone I mentioned admiring it his hat! Oh Boy! Terry Gross and Charlie Rose move over I’m in the drivers seat now. It is a wonderful time to be a journalist people are so naked in crisis. A thumbnail of our conversation: He told of the rise tide of youth having no ground in truth. And of challenges to his competence and manhood--the faux courage of youth--who found themselves on their backs semi-conscious and he read to keep them there unto death or nearly so. Of such abilities, by stealth, guile and surprise ferocity, I am equally capable of but now in wisdom abandon the joy of exercising it. . . .As is true of my ability to seduce; more astonished in being seduced or charmed by women of all ages; their glory.

Of men I now know better, their realities and protests. And of women I’ve been civilized and that to me is best. Collaboration between the sexes as I wander off stage to bliss eternal. True intimacy is not physical but spiritual; the orgasms last longer.

121106 04:57 Giants

Flowing in on the tide of unconsciousness, exhaustion perhaps, definitively ennui for election time. I saw that I was not yet done growing up . . . i thought the ideal woman would follow me down my rabbit hole unbidden seeking the source of my agony; never, for a moment,  giving a thought for her suffering . . . Joanna and Mother Mary have.

121106 08:56
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved