love yourself

Perfection is inherent within each of us, what Jesus implied when He said, The Kingdom of Heaven is within. . . .my understand is limited by my faltering expression of what I experience

Yet amongst ourselves we make Hell evident. Which I define merely as waste what is of value inherently. Each it seems are the engines of life chasing itself throughout time. Thinking now, humorously, of a puppy chasing its tail.

C. S. Lewis said, “It matters enormously if I alienate anyone from the truth.” . . . but then what is “truth”?

For me it is not conjecture or speculation; but only that which for this moment is before me/you/us to do. What I understand as/is experience; all will be well—with or without me afterward. To and for, love, will I always say yes. For now that is me, howabout yourself? What will we do with these precious immeasurable days? Make love possible or impossible. The measure of us not what we say but do. And for me, now, I endow you as King/Queen of yourself. You all are that important to me.

C. S. Lewis also implied, elsewhere, The King James Bible was the crown jewel of the English language. When I read William Shakespeare i sense they both woven together. Yet as I read the words of other languages, cultures, times, races, genders, etc. I feel we all woven equally together . . . what is war but fear expressed that what I see is “best” and “I” must prevail. The peace I know, now, is difficult to express. It is my truth and what has led me so far from whence I came to whether I go forever more. My way to peace is peace itself.

So if you must war, I think The Interlocutor doesn’t mind, go ahead and destroy our nest. The pretty blue marble, singular so far.

There seems a before and afterward to everything. Truth is something we must agree upon, a place that can neither be added to or changed.

Thesis, exposition, conclusion . . . discovered this date and time:

“To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.” - Bertrand Russell

As sheep, goat or cow, I, grazing the fields of quotes find nourishment beneath the crown of heaven indefinable above. Sensing the Shepard of All within each of us.

The language in which I write is not universal; but love, kindness and affection IS.

fearless

130518 MDT 02:56 Love Yourself

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

if

Stunned to a stillness, a quiet, surprised my stylus consciousness made broader by quotes:

“In Heaven, all the interesting people are missing.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

Initially, at first reading, bewildering, but now given what preceding I wrote about: my sense of heaven within. Makes a new sense. There is a clamor for our attention, I being one of many voices equally guilty. While I choose to ignore the noise of babble.

There remains a minor/minority of fear within that I, at times, give credence to: That I will harm instead of love by my attentions anyone much less those I fell led towards specifically.

Fraudulent should I suggest that I pray: “May the words of my mouth and heart express Your will for us, not my intentions solely.” I am not ‘dial-a-prayer’ or sermonizing. But expressing a process which in itself suggests that all is process not an end in it self.

Tickled pink with another of my biological father’s observations: “Most men speak merely to acknowledge/know they exist.” It follows that I may be equally guilty. For at another time, in other contexts, he stated towards me: “You have diarrhea of the mouth!” Uncertain, at this great remove; was it what I said or the questions I asked?

Knowledge and wisdom, both wonderful within themselves, never fed a hungry mouth; the experience of safety in the presence of a friend does. And so answered is my question, long standing, ‘why is it possible to see God more clearly amongst the poor—the meek.’ We, living not alone by bread or fish, but every flower of love present and real we seek. Made more precious since unlike all other forms of life we know we will die.

Seek what you need, not want wishfully, and it will be given.

In my case it has taken near forever alone in the pressure cooker, alchemical retort, of fear to find love and peace. Only made more so in giving it forward; towards all others their peace discovered within. The end of war is that instead of two only one remains alone. All the wealth in the world, material or spiritual, is worthless without the other as friend or foe. What I might destroy destroys me . . . the keeper kept works only in that I am kept by the beloved and we together are whatever will be will be wonderful

06:09

I am liberal by embrace

and conservative by what impels me to embrace

all affectionately

Conscious at the moment, she may be awake, weaving back and fourth between quotes, writing, and now checking my email. Aware that I am not my furnishings or material concerns. Sensing that love has no script and there is no mythology or legend—in fact—nothing I can discern by close scrutiny, but love itself. My conclusion for now, barring fear of consequence, that I write, or do not write anything similar to what has preceded this moment is irrelevant. Satisfied that what I sought—lifelong—is found; what follows will be what it is, itself.

07:44

I sought return to rest for a time, displacing Annie who remained—me curled around her, restless given farther thoughts. I arose again and making more coffee dropped something nominally precious to me: a glass container and then thought is this an omen? Indicative of what I must leave behind or choose to move at added expense?

And now I conclude; mindful conscious living is no game but nothing more than saying yes or no to whatever proposed.

Whatever valuable, not subject to anything, Truth being more precious than “God”. I am reminded of lunch with M yesterday, equivalent to all other prized hours with her. In which I expressed the suddenness of love unexpected, she concurred. Then to my; ‘otherwise I would remain simply waiting for the zippered black plastic bag’; she replied; “so are we all.”

In the two posts, today, broaching topics worthy of lengthy exposition, I sense myself too little or too much; then remembering, best, that I once thought only of Gideon as in bedside drawers ignored in No-Tell-Motels.

I am of no special mint, being a penny lost, and found, and lost again. Ignore me: for my words are merely annotations on a life becoming more sincerely process not goal.

“Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust – we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” - Albert Einstein

Thank you for reading me, be well.

130518 MDT 05:08 if

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

overwhelm

Overwhelmed easily, not me, but sometimes by the self within, now quelled by a quiet spreading sense I’m no longer here but there in another heart beating as one. Beset with quiet surprise equal confessed on both sides the flow moving us towards something new an we.

The previous we, dad and me, who at his behest passed H. L. Mencken and Kafka a bequest still altering my sense of everything valuable the smoke and mirror game long gone. Instilling the distillation of “they should be put to sleep like mad dogs.” Was I too young to handle it? As with each virgin nubile lubricious day I discover alive newness. Potentiality. Mencken's remark shrouded my self-loathing adaption to the otherwise chaos of family dysfunctions lending it form the hatred I mean.

All it now vaporous. While I move about this space, I once considered the only real home I’d ever had, I acknowledge that preciously acquired things identifying this time are like me irrelevant and trivial easily disposed of as my remains.

To be reborn, resurrected, reincarnated there in her not where for we are together in a wonderful quiet spreading flooding plain. New to name and claim.

I’ve been here before — made those choices — a hairsbreadth away from / joining the evidence — disposed of

Composing a list invisible as yet that which I carry forward or leave behind and M . . . . oh God how will I miss her looking forward to lunch today. In this time a culture of guardians junk yard dogs with truncheons mad people with guns shooting one another in frenzy I’ve been ready to leave at any moment by Escalade or pressure cooker going off in my face. What me worry about the inconsequential things like clothes & cooking pots. Ever ready to abandon all evidence that I’d ever been once-up-a-time in the universe.

Add the swelling slowly tide licking my eye brows of loves reality now.

06:42

True: I am as avid for her words and her body and so distracted in reply — sent — fell back to horizontal /

conscious my distaste for political rhetoric; the cynical slogans and trashing of language. Then arose in recognition that these last days lingering things — here — are impossible to do violently: pruning root from tree instead merely slowly dissolving. Wondering why I always had a sense of the before and after of everything contemporaneous part of infinity. A whole cloth similar to the seamless robe I once imagined Jesus wearing pummeled underwater as I attempted to land a blow in furry.

Weepy — unashamed — for the joy of now. Too huge to contain. Overwhelming any imagined future. It is a death of sorts this leaving and going elsewhere. Oddly vaporous already there.

Should you think me a comedian, a clown, you should see me somersaulting — laughing now; a boffo baboon in motley with bells a tingle jingling . . . there seem two palms lovely as psalms embracing us together we four for love.

130516 MDT 05:25 overwhelm

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

if they could see me now . . .

. . . would they care, are they there, why should I bother? But. Oh I do! For I loved them then and now still, the characters and audience of my strut with fans otherwise naked across the stages of my life. All of it. Celebrated now for every moment.

We talked last evening for hours, we becoming we, two children whose whispers, laughs and sighs seem now a longing for these moments and we’ve not yet kissed. She the incomprehensible poem everything we shared, the looks across that which divided us then. Her hopeless smile at my attempted seductions erupting into a blaze spontaneously blinding.

If I tell you too much, I’ll bore you, and that I do not want, since for me you are my unborn brother/sister, children long gone. For whom I sense myself writing especially and oddly the one abandoned floated piecemeal particles in the sewers of Manhattan. That island bartered for beads and trinkets possibly a steel ax head or two between greed to own and those who knew nothing of proprietorship indigenous.

Matched, point-by-point, as like dancing in front of a perfect mirror but different for she is her and I am what? The peace quiet confident joy I know now. Feeling safe in her regard twenty five hundred miles away. Two time zones darker and sooner to see the light before mine as she exhausted nears sleep . . . like my son, the two daughters, and wife, I never knew that way; to kiss their foreheads and bless their sleep.

Long or short never to be seen again.

As I learned chess—giving one more move before defeat. I would fence with, or joust, mostly Jesuits—those I admired. Only now recognizing seduction of myself. In some sense calling to them like Rapunzel to drop down her hair, a rescue rope, up which I could climb for heaven, haven, a simple sense of being well; when it had never happened before.

Hand in glove is a poor analogy since we are spiritually one flesh. Hands touching opposite sides of a body soon growing cold. Welded and wed veterans of life as lived and departed ergo able to bear the terror of life unrealized and unlived between us . . . but I speak merely for myself: this peace and love I know.

OK! Since words are important to me, it was never really seduction but flirting—with neither malice, forethought  or intent, but what? Acknowledgment beyond “I See You” Or a ritual blessing of that which is holy wholly within you. In dreams I’ve looked into the eyes of the most perfect man. Now finding the numinous within all. Knowing when it is happening: my mouth is lubricious, speech deepens and palms grow more than warm—afire with love for life in whatever form is before me.

Even now as I type—these palms singe my thighs as I write. Can it get any better than this?

Of course it can. We of the West have our own koans, short, pithy, subject to abuse and misunderstanding. My meaning is why do we presume the belief and faith of others wearing it as a costume. But now even I wonder what people mean when they wear the cross or say, “I am Christian.” That being between them and The All.

I ain’t nothing, certainly no judge, but you'd think so since I am so free to make fun of those who upon larded posteriors pretend to mediate the future.

But then, what future?

No. I’m not seductive, nor a flirt, but touch people being a people person, not a used car salesperson selling vehicles sans engines; spit and polish, hair pins and all otherwise. Of the hundreds if not thousands here and there across the pond around the world I’ve touched those few who scalded turned in outrage are remembered fondly. In deference to M: I “^@&!” with people, messing about, in play and love; P returns the real deal. Volley, point, set, match.

And now envisioning hovering over her recumbency I gingerly brush aside a stray hair and love her sleeping . . . as I do and did whispering; be well be blessed be kind to one another, to all my children.

Two chinks, toeholds  in the impossible (for me) vertical greased glass (endless) cliff face of poetry opening all doors now:

"Man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" - Browning, Robert

"If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain." - Dickinson

. . . and then and then there is Rumi, of course, obviously love

for these moments ecstatic carrying over into all time my voiceless love

Sufficient

for what else would one surrender one’s sole soul upon the flesh of dead trees in libraries vital

. . . that you might read and thus find an image of yourself not alone

gazing into the eyes of that which is given you

you yourself singular

be yourself truly

130516 MDT 23:32 if they could see me now

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

racing

My ignorance races beyond grasp unable to grow vast enough to catch it up and know the all or why of it.

Perhaps merely an old persons game, this pin cushion of beans or sand, stuck through with the common pins of quotes; glistening, well worn—smooth as frogs toes.

“Marry your best friend. I do not say that lightly. Really, truly find the strongest, happiest friendship in the person you fall in love with. Someone who speaks highly of you. Someone you can laugh with. The kind of laughs that make your belly ache, and your nose snort. The embarrassing, earnest, healing kind of laughs. Wit is important. Life is too short not to love someone who lets you be a fool with them. Make sure they are somebody who lets you cry, too. Despair will come. Find someone that you want to be there with you through those times. Most importantly, marry the one that makes passion, love, and madness combine and course through you. A love that will never dilute – even when the waters get deep, and dark.”

. . . discovered just now @ http://weseekjoy.blogspot.no/

Stunned to discover the above. Reminded my perception nominally remains influenced by my father’s estimate of competition, fame and acclaim; celebrity as success and wealth . . . at least that was the measure of I remember from infancy onward, now hearing music differently than what he implied or bribed. Conscious he left me only words at death: “goodbye.”

We both left penniless by the true gangsters bankers and Wall Street speculators, politicians stuffing their yaps with lifelong security while stealing ours; leaving veterans to sleep under bridges . . . and on . . . and so on.

Usury as wonderful for serial rapist and pickpockets collectivized at 1%. Think not of Drug Lords in Juarez but of the Belt Way humping you naked—they in business suits.

In Public and plain sight.

But—i digress. My intention not lost but distracted by entering, momentarily, into the carnival menagerie freak show kiddy porn propaganda presented as news when actually infotainment wall-to-ceaseless-wall noise partizan for power and control. A centrifuge spinning out our souls, home, education, health and pennies. To me a tsunami of dreck.

I do not disapprove of profit but 66 2/3rds a bit much, much less taking entire nations hostage. Had I my mother’s bequest it would have given me a diet of something other than beans and rice. My father’s would have provided me with a life of quiet dissipation, or so I once thought prior to being where I am happily impoverished yet rich in friends.

Bereft my father’s attitudes and perceptions of what is good and holy I sense for myself what is appropriate and good for all the rest of us. We 99%.

I have yet to write any where near what I long for: Poetry. That impossible, to me thing, like music was made, the language of God’s Lullaby.

If coin be wealth, as words are to me, then I am armpit deep in them. Girding my loins to move forward. Gaining an education. And for now profoundly grateful for N’tima’s words (above) a balm upon my temerity and bewildering ignorance.

130516 MDT 14:07 racing

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

lust the nomenclature of

Nomenclature changes with use and abuse. The face of love becomes available when we love ourselves unconditionally as we are--passion transmuted to compassion. Want transfigured by need; satisfied by sufficiency.

Eternally young by nature, and choice, I remain growing older day-by-day, wondering, if while they who love me now as I am, will accept the actual eccentricities I incarnate. Or will I, as I’ve done in the past hide behind ‘normalcy’ reflecting that which seems expected of me: going-along-to-get-along?

Love is not a prison unless you are addicted to the idea or idol of it. Discernment or divination offers answers that we can say yes or no to. Neither Gospel or Fate. My sense (looking back with inconvenient memory) is that I was suffocated by a sense I had no right to live. Yet now am at peace, confident of what is to come regardless the odds against tomorrow, for you, for me, for us. We all and the nest, this planet we, for now, call home.

Barring a rogue asteroid, Escalade or rhinoceros . . . maybe losing my short term memory, evaporating, demented, will I know, or care? I am willing to gamble the greatest investment I have, myself, not confident as those who stack the cards in their favor. Who know of Whom and to Whom I speak, but by all portents, omens and clues seems the direction of integration to what formerly was inconceivable to me.

Joy!

More complete.

Whole.

More so than ever before or I’d any prospect of ever entertaining.

Beguiled by Gideon and his choice making process/prospects, I am wandering between another game and tilt; the pinball I play daily, collecting quotes, discovering:

- Fay Weldon

"If you put a woman in a man's position, she will be more efficient, but no more kind."

"There was no such thing as defeat if you didn't accept it."

. . . what in the name of all good, not subject to rust or moth, no decay, am I to do with THAT?

Opening the scar tissue healing of last evenings conversation and confidence with P.

Panic!

Oh yes!

I did say; “we must be real.” Wherein all previous experience, unreality ruled, and I ran-away. Suicide being the only alternative. Never occurred to me to kill the adversary. Though in other regards I’d deadened myself to endure—long—long—time before.

I am confident there are other issues yet to announce themselves but this choice and behavior is/was the nexus of my immobility prior. Mother trained me well, with the impossible tuition, of and how to face God. The School of Hard Knocks magna cum laudemagnacumlaudi. Of Presidents, Popes, Bishops, Cardinals Managing Editors, or my father for that matter; all pussy cats by compare.

But! Oh Dear God! Of wives, lovers, transient desired women have I otherwise despaired!

Not a dark room floor covered in marbles—but one large glass ball covered in grease barefoot do I traverse these next days . . . do I have the courage of which I so easily speak?

Like Bojangles with optional cymbals strapped to my knees hurdy-gurdy invited to dance I stand breathless with anticipation the switch; It’s SHOWTIME— YOU'RE ON!

Coiled pot, or thrown clay, upon the potter’s wheel, I am gyrating upward a new vessel. Cracked again or What?

The dragon within wants/needs another to dance with.

Laughter! I’m an eejit hopelessly in love with life.

"Love is rarer than genius itself. And friendship is rarer than love." - Charles Peguy

PS In lucid transparency, it now seems true, I've known not how to ask for, or express love before; what is already in my heart . . . "Not to ask is not be denied." - John Dryden

. . . Reality TV? What is love, truth, meaning, value . . . more in the latter future bro/brodettes

"This above all: to thine own self be true. " - William Shakespeare

130516 MDT 10:28 nomenclature of lust

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

across all time

Across all time things are said differently indicating a common thread of wisdom. Recently it occurred to me that plagiarism is possible, if not probable, yet a thought well said is mine. Admire not the author but the spirit in which the author speaks; inspired commonly by The Author of All Life. Who spoke and speaks now. Doing no harm.

“If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; if we begin with doubts, and are patient, we shall end in certainties.” - Marcus Aurelius

My near fatal flaw seems to have been being intimidated by my Self. Preconditions and conditional love. The internal yawing rictus of need/want, what is the difference? Where does the tide turn between?

Only we in/on our absolute bottom line: living/dying, can know by experiece indwelling—real. At the moment I am aware of those raped, women and men, who will forever be changed by chance or choice: agression or hapenstance. Then too hasten to add the children born of addiction and AIDS, poverty, naked and alone crying bereft. Those disappeared: torn asunder buried in anonymous fields at sea . . . the prisoners of ideals. It takes more courage to live than die.

To find within the resourse to take the next breathe. The harm carried forward become disease suffocating and preconditioning, staining all opporutnity to remember kindness received and given forward.

Many voices, creeds, colors, times, before said and walked, drown in greed for safety. . . .Did I mention “genders” or gender proclivities? Without equality for women we will never be whole. For myself, add what I suggest for you, no love is ill between any combination of gender—love trumps all. Absent that we have no life and no love at all. What we layup or loose within the court of our opinion is what we fear in ourselves. Cruelty is infectious.

Amazed. I realize in being willing to give anything asked of me by either M or P, am saying yes; as if The Interlocutor had asked. Such, it seems, for now, the nature of love sacrificial. Relationship of any kind is heroic as is celibacy. Absent concord disaster.

Most publish to persuade while I do so to share the questions we must collectively answer; with the crystal and pearl within: unique, explicit. Either way, together or apart, the songs we sing are always a duet—new psalms . . . all life, in its cycles, are the same entities bearing similar spirits but differently costumed. Listen to yourself not me.

A spicule of snark:

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessing; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." (Churchill) . . . could it be that we, in concord, can find collaboration?

An afterthought; There is about this, and within me, a sense of inevitability like death, or birth yet like orgasm must be expressed. Helplessly enthralled by joy.

"It behoved that there should be sin — but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." ~ Julian of Norwich (her famous visions occurred on 13 May 1373)

130516 MDT 07:14 across all time

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved