loves rewards

Love’s reward is itself. Not what we receive but what we give. C. G. Jung suggested that we must “constellate” grief. A statement taking me years to understand in my own way. Remaining until these past few days of love realized as life renewed. Drawn kicking and screaming from the tomb of my solitary cell into whatever comes next.

I think grief, as expressed in love, has and end. Discovering the gift of what was is sufficient. The departed, were they now able to speak, would lovingly ask that we get on with our lives. I write consciously: that we grieve differently and for different things. Speaking for myself, exclusively, I remember the child who grieved not being loved. At least in a way comprehensible. Then remembering dad calling the time he died to say goodbye. In a sincere and profound sense, realized now, he healed my self-enslavement to his business ambitions. For which nothing but his last words could heal.

Do I redeem myself or them? Absolution is rendered by God alone. What remains of and within me is a rock steady confidence that they gave what they had to give, giving no more, nor less, to themselves. Add. To blame another is to disable knowing yourself: the talent/genius, resilience, will to live and love infinitely now.

Futile I suppose but I do ask would I do it all over again? Yes! All the dings, bents, scars, wattles and warts are who I am now. Within them—all combined—I find myself at peace and joy able to love again despite the vicissitudes and darts potential. My wrinkles more now are from smiles rather than age.

Death is no failure since in life there are options otherwise intolerable.

But then one must of needs spend one’s life well, preferably by one’s own measurement of values independent of those whose lives are led by slogans — who practice nothing of what they preach/teach. Think of life as one dollar, then think how much of that one dollar you are willing to spend that love, life, liberty continue farther beyond your one singular self. Think quality not quantity.

The problem with wealth is there is no end, never enough, maniacal in its dictates. Becoming amoral unethical enslaving all else to its desire. Think addiction.

"Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become."

“What we can do for another is the test of powers; what we can suffer is the test of love.”

- Brooke Foss Westcott

I do not write to be memorable. But that you remember yourself, as precious. Regardless of all judgments against that value; until you meet the Judge. Cognizant that I can change nothing but myself; the only paradigm available to me. My perceptions and concerns have in significant extent been answered and my process is what faith can be, at the least to me: vast. The remaining concerns are more sharply drawn, revealed in greater contrast, begun with the scars upon my heart. Deeply incised into the body of it.

What I am, is, as I was, merely biodegradable first to last, yet in this time I’ve come to know and love all of life. And of you beloved be beloved of yourself.

In parting this time, need I remind you, to do no harm?

130605 EDT 04:44 loves rewards

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

gratitude

Certain, sure, apprehended gratitude suffuses these moments, two galaxies merged with arctic clarity. The near frost of a Hudson Bay cold front rendering the night sky so close it seems to swim around me limpid and wet; a river of stars. They say there are times of Northern Lights about, and for, which I eagerly look forward. Returned from my former newer mountains of the Organ to the Green knowing with surety ship my service. All my life’s chores reconciled into a new purpose.

All my auditions passed by guile, stealth, accomplishment or panache. What remains, perhaps, the most difficult, will be to sort and load that which I will carry forward minus all my dear friends left behind. Annie will be first then following: the books without which I might otherwise not wish to live. Various cooking items, Pam either has or mine are better. Finally how to put it upon wheels and move it twenty-five-hundred miles. And about this, I confess, myself in something of a dither. Nothing for it but to do it.

Yet again I am reluctant to leave Pam for even a brief time. And St. Johnsbury is such a wonder to me. Reminiscent of my sense of America, the before not the afterward.

To close: I have a sense born of silence and awe, what I offer is what you already possess: yourself. Yet unexplored yourself becomes merely subsistence. Or existence as lively as a stone. My ignorance outdistances my grasp yet by experience rendering each day the ordinary of my life, extraordinary.

Affirmations abound when seeking what we are consciously within in the context of life; difficult but not impossible. In a sense you and you alone can define yourself. Keep It Simple Stupid, it is not about you but us, all of we: the family of life. Each has a role or part to play, a way to be useful and fulfilling to the process of our collective process.

Be well and pray for me, I need all the help I can get to accomplish this next audition.

130604 EDT 01:04 gratitude

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

past midnight love is

Heaven I know, within, is manifest outwardly by animals who seek my comfort in their distress. Ginger of “Gingersnap” sought me sleeping in a chair—climbing into my lap. Then hearing distant thunder I knew she needed me a bulwark against her fear.

Animals, small and great, know their instinct for love better than we who use them as companions against that which goes bump in the night, friend or foe. I remember each avidly from cradle to my nearness now to the grave for their adornment greater than any jewel can bestow.

I had fallen asleep early last evening aware I wanted to share the sense I have, especially here in St. Johnsbury, VT of being caressed by gentle cooling breezes while wondering in prayer what and where those animals and humans passed are. And I know God more real than myself and all is well; exceedingly so.

130603 EDT 01:02

Tintinnabulate suffused with joyous love we are bonded with infinity.

What will soon have been my opening days to both love and St. Johnsbury, VT I will remember best several things: the riot of spring best ever yet, the slow steady dance towards one another of lovers who have finally surrendered to life, and this night I saw a modest flashing across the dark as I spoke of a man I once loved and worked with.

He was younger than I having a magnificent tenor voice frequently singing forth the solos of Handel's “Messiah” four floors above the ground where we were roofing new construction together. And I miss and weep for his loss, his passing from my life slain by love; well actually suicide since he loved a woman who used and abused him for what he might accomplish as a building contractor.

For me love seems impossible when I attempt to hold it to a standard or value instead of for itself as expressed; given freely without expectation of gratitude. And I knew this too well having fallen in love with his wife’s best friend who also left me for points and reasons unknown/unknowable.

Each woman in their turn was at that impossible apogee of beauty fecund yet mature having several children yet promising more. But it is not they or women in general I might slander but he whom I would extol.

Age is relevant only on death certificates since in reality we generally achieve something like nineteen and stop while our bodies march onward. And some of us look like death while dancing at that certain age within. A Sea bee veteran of Vietnam he taught me the ultimate futility of a monkey attempting carnal knowledge of a greased football kicked before his feet chasing it.

Among other things discussed were issues of: a broken down bus carrying several people to a prayer meeting. Did in fact God make the bus break or did it simply fall apart? Add, I loved playing his straight man, when Jim Harrington would do the Andy Williams skit with a bear—milk and cookies. I would shuffle about nodding and begging for the cookies while he would quiz me. Rare were the milk and cookies bestowed and I fawning fainting in gratitude. Yet he was the first to share with me the experience of having friend’s bodily effluents and parts smeared across his face; or merely the simple terrors of war first hand. And then add the experience of returning from the defense of democracy to be spat upon or, worse ignored. For what did friend and foe die? And what meaning the savage indifference the veterans received?

This time and place is not special in any way, save, perhaps, my heart grows nominally large to acknowledge and receive the love coincident with it. Manifest in flashing lights illumining the night of my sadness for the loss of Jim. If nothing else prayer has changed me who remains astonished awestruck and reverent the response.

16:27

Time to time, I think out of my mind, the silence swallowing all that I saw and what was done to me finding a home and a reason to live another — day or more. Finally. The words alone weren’t enough, I needed an echo and now I’ve got one 5 by 5. Who would think that I’d be here at home and in love as I am finally. The threads of consciousness drawn together into a new cord/chord.

130602 EDT 05:21 past midnight love is

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

gingersnaps

To myself I am an uncomely man; nothing to look at—nothing to see. Yet M said I was handsome. And now Pamela and Ginger her companion, who is a forty something pound dog; seem to love me as I am.

For long I have considered myself unwanted and unlovable; a gargoyle atop Notre Dame, more like Quasimodo in appearance than an angel. Yet as I love God more than myself or anything or another I have learned in time that love is key in the following sense. Men love many superficially while women love singly and deeply and where men grow old and die remaining childish; women, it seems to me, are more wise being born that way. There are, of course, exceptions and then my wishful thinking. But by experience and survey I sense myself correct in my presumptions.

My sense, and experience, now, is that I love the three females above named nearly as I love God and merely like myself as I am. The Presence presents in manifold and delightful ways love, not merely for me, but all off us. Add. That my distress is ameliorated by the following: it is not men who are against me or women in general, but merely that men generally are only for themselves.

It is a term of endearment for me to call Pamela Joyce “Snickerdoodle” in the milk and cookies sense of reward. She greeted my long trip to her side with cookies and coffee to tide me over from the poor diet of inflight dinning. And has continued to nurture and succor me ever since.

In recent converse I mentioned being bewildered that so many confessed things otherwise uncommon about themselves and experiences profound. To which she replied something to the effect that I am, in person, something akin to a self-propelled Teddy Bear. Her remarks are, seems to me, that I have different modalities for interacting as a person or journalist.

As journalist we have little ability to help those who suffer but, instead, merely report it. For the moment I think I am nearing the nexus of all conflict in simple terms. Uncertain how to express it in ways comprehensible; especially those amongst us who do not read but look at things as what they want to see versus what is. Nones. If there were no ‘bad’, ‘good’ would have no meaning . . . and for me heaven is not stasis but farther learning . . . therefore death has no dominion.

I have an unusual reverence for the elderly having been schooled by my grandmother in love. The milk and cookies routine came from an elderly woman neighbor living alone for whom I on several occasions did chores and it was she who began my longing for: milk and cookies. Her kindness to me remains salvific and for which, in gratitude, I pay forward to even those whose behavior would assassinate me. Life being what it is, difficult but not impossible, yet when it becomes so death is preferable to fear and slavery.

This simpleton’s sense is that those most free to call the poor criminal are in fact criminal themselves having stolen all the resources for their own means and ends. Adding nothing to life, love, liberty but empty monuments to greed.

I am conservative of eternal verities; values that serve the populace. Considering, above all things, treatment of poverty the single greatest measurement of civilization and culture. Were I the John Jesus mentioned I would in any part, large or small, be disappointed with today considering His crucifixion then, now, continual, as criminal and a waste of talent.

To me He was not God but of, from, inspired, as any great teacher and prophet. Thus allowing for God to speak now in the voices of children, the poor, the elderly and those amongst us conscious of generosity, kindness, mercy, love, for all life in general, as best what is good absent decay. For me—now—is eternity, there being no yesterday or tomorrow. And grace only possible in what we agree upon. Sans our being manipulated by fear by those who profit from doing so.

My audition for the hand and attention of Pamela Joyce continues and in the process I sense, with humor, so it goes with God. Daily, hourly, moment to moment no distress or anger unresolved. Love never dies but is continually renewed.

I am ready to leave at any moment. Conscious that in saying goodbye is saying hello—love is a verb. And at that, merely another name for God.

130601 EDT 03:01 gingersnaps

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

molting

By all signs, portents, personal myths and proclivities, it seems my choice best to stay with her; whom I have for so long loved. Yet, at that, it remains a molting, shedding the skin of what was to become, something else, at least new. Rarely did I mention the drama trauma to M since it seemed, initially, so futile . . . she then seemed up to her eyebrows in quick sand and a relationship with a man consuming her.

With her now I understand my intuition was correct yet the longing and love remained across the years. It was and remains innocent of all sense of possession; the crime we do in love calling it whatever, it becomes commercial. Subject to the vagaries and darts of legal vicissitudes. The doings of Kings & Queens, false leaders of everything.

But then. What of the children?

I was a child—once long ago—too well remembering the: ‘do not speak unless spoken to directly, go away and I’ll find time for you somewhere or time in the future.’ It never came—that promise. Yet I made it happen here and now. No. Not I alone; but of several influences beginning with “TAKE ME WITH YOU!”

Pervading all that has passed between us beginning (or was it renewed?) not long ago, there has been this slow dance towards one another, ineluctable as inevitable as an earthquake

23:15

Familiarity brings depth, a closer knowing; she too thought of molting; removing the outer skin to grow larger. Perhaps better described: neither of us is what we were before but different and becoming more intimate . . . larger woven into a continuum of a seamless cloth. This world is actually very small both by comparison with other places in our galaxy and the entire universe but also my current sense of service. A nurse from ‘our’ hospice visited today and I knew of, but not, her until I saw her.

Long ago I stood on a neighboring vacant lot awaiting the dawn arrival of a traveling tent circus. When I arrived there was a man, bag in hand, who explained he waited to rejoin them moving along having tarried there in my town and state for a time. I have held a sense now realized that we who serve in whatever manor are travelers not settlers of any given place but always following the need; theirs and ours to be what we are.

Then too, there are those of us, stationary, who travel vast distances, within and without, crossing all time. And for whom time and death have no meaning and nothing can hold captive.

130531 03:44

For The Interlocutor. I sense myself able to say yes or no. Knowing that were it otherwise I would remain addicted to the idea/ideal/idol of what is good, etc., not subject to decay. There is within any belief system those who would teach by rote what must be experienced if to have any value at all above control of the masses.

Reflecting, retroactively, similar circumstance/opportunities—remembering the frenzy and being riddled with doubt, I wonder now where the fear went?

. . . the thrall that held me captive for most all of my life . . . while fabulous also filled with suffering and grief. The latter certain to revisit me and mine since we are spiritual being in biodegradable packages for now but not forever.

"War is the science of destruction." - John S. C. Abbott

. . . discovered in this morning’s search for quotes. Of comparable value to Kurt Vonnegut and his reference to ‘death by mechanical puncture’ . . . rape of another kind?

Standing alone in the dark Mary’s robe of stars made dim by dawn smoking another cigarette, I am fraudulent to suggest that you do no harm, first to yourself, then another, but that’s me. I am a whore for words and images that demand my attention, remembering whores perform a service and politicians, in general seem only to serve themselves. The most obscene are those who so richly reward themselves at our expense and then worse, cataclysmic, are those who suggest that heaven is available only to the children, women and men who destroy themselves with bombs carried in to the midst of public concourse . . . but then there is always the terrorism of commercials suggesting the want of things versus the need of peace and sufficiency.

I will continue to protest the rape of us, we all, the family of mankind . . . it is a good time to be crazy

130530 EDT 05:05 molting

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

loving love

How to say the simplest thing is merely to say it: Love is loves reward.

I used to ask; “why me?” Echoing back a faint sound answers ‘why not.’

Want not.

What more could I ever ask for?

I awoke with Ginger’s head asleep upon my right hand, covers kicked back, windows open at 02:00 or thereabouts. The visions of versions of love mine alone since they were as innocent as Ginger’s love. Ginger is a, approximately forty pound dog of uncertain origin. One of the few elect from a pack of several, perhaps, I sense many extending back across Pam’s life protected and loves as I am and she beside me having at that last gasp between awake and sleep I asked that she never leave me . . . then blessed sleep within which this dream, these visions, and finally, first and last, I knew myself loved and safe.

It is true of me, I am incapable of reading aloud 1 Corinthians 13 without my voice breaking tear streaming and the feeling I’d fall to my knees or face down . . . instead I write and still cry attempting to say what love is actually.

Maybe now, marginally, nominally, better able to describe what it, love, is.

Love is everywhere, Love is everything, Love is ALL.

Love is what we all seek having a genius for it within.

Obvious.

Only now.

Love has no fear of anything.

My customary methodology has malfunctioned. At least insofar as my desired expectations. Instead it leads me farther, deeper into the swiftly moving river of concern and care for all of us expressed by others . . . always careful of what I ingest except, of course, for cigarettes and coffee . . . my physical ecology being a shambles.

As with M, so with P, both are difficult for me to define definitively. Either for or about. Yet there is about ‘us’ collectively: a sense we have shared separately savage grief and suffering. Then, touched by grace, been healed.

Oddly, flashing as explosive, a dawn unexpected, I saw the sense it might have been mom’s intention to make of me the father she’d never had. There is, at the moment, a similar component to my love for Pam or M equally for them as my children, my parents, my lovers; multidimensional—other—in all respects. Yet equal and innocent in that love lives between us. Above all gender difference.

There seems, at least to me, for now, a host of potential beyond all understanding within each and all of us. A vastness knowable as extant but unmeasurable and frustrating for me to attempt the expression of or description. Yet the attempt impossible as it may be worth everything I can give to it . . . a process seamless as a whole fabric being woven and we all within it related. There is no “Law” of love save in my sense, so far, for now, that we must be ourselves: unique as created and/or evolved . . . always pushing the envelope of our aware understanding, experience, expectations. Education never ceases.

130529 23:26

At the end of one thing another is announced. It seems I’ve lost track of the energy contained above. Had I awoken just now at the airport I’d just go back wondering had the whole thing been just a dream? But at that I wonder what happened in those secrets whispered the terror of two children facing the unknown/unknowable together siblings . . . and then thought how could I say goodby to myself?

Looking at now, looking forward, I don’t want to look or go back to what was then waiting to die. New England in Spring is riotously fecund. Especially here in St. Johnsbury, VT: the mists, rivers, rain, cold become lucid then ideal. Today I realized God is much this place as all places, in me and all of us equally, only not recognized. Actual, not ideal or idol.

And I will stay sacrificing all except Annie that which was me back there. For here I am better something else more. Love no longer a stranger to me.

To close. There is that which we can change and that which we cannot. To know the difference is to be more human than inhumane; more for life, as experienced and lived by all, versus all life beaten into unreality. Love creates while the opposite, indifference, breeds death.

130529 EDT 0212 loving love

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved

rightly tightly

In myriad ways, insignificant but telling, we have forged a bond. Not yet ready to say we’re married and such, but in all intents and purposes so. Equally aware marriage, as all life truly lived, is renewed daily: or more often by needs. It follows that I am especially aware between us there are no secrets hid and with each Audition or personal step more has been revealed. Daily expanding is my sense we are joy for one another rippling outward.

There are times when she protests the rarefied air atop her pedestal but then draws me up with a hug and kiss and I’m there too! Stretching up to reach the stars.

11:06

Eating when hungry, sleeping when tired; I die and dream in my rest periods auguring, laughing and crying with the All. Boundaries between times cycle rapidly and prevision or symbolic visions become more vivid and frequent. The dreams seem best described as for all instead of me alone. Déjà vus has happened on several occasions and while looking up the word (spell and definition) I am sad to realize it equally used to describe boredom. Instead I recoil at the realization I may have envisioned her world by conversation long distance.

In play: I doubt that I will return to Las Cruces NM. Leaving behind the life I there, except for M, nothing of sufficient value to move being less in value than the cost to do so. In a sense, in a way, it is dying and being reborn. The essentials sharply drawn and refocused as highest values; what I brought with me and myself of course. Annie, my rescue cat companion is obviously important to me and we’re making arrangements for her here. I have been in similar circumstances before. In writing the sentence I recognized the exile to my Grandmothers for the summer school vacations and many other leavings. Significant now, this move is similar, in that I am leaving behind reference materials. Equipment, computers, printers etc., some in unopened boxes. Conjecture and/or intentions never inhabited. Roads not taken, forgotten and/or neglected for this, my greatest joy, writing.

Typical of me to work things out via journal keeping.

15:51

Awoke from the far side of midnight in time to have those two dogs sleeping upon, around, beside me arise and bark in chorus with neighborhood dogs. Aware there is similarity between M & P both are lovely, kind, loving, generous and attuned to animals like this who writes.

Within dreamless sleep I sensed an new order born; everything in its place shipshape and . . . in this case: St. Johnsbury fashion. As close as I’ve been to death, my own and others, I’ve learned not to sweat the small stuff. Remembering an Estate Sale in New Hampshire for The New York Times, long, too long ago. Wherein a man of accomplishments, his life displayed in awards, degrees, mementos and trivial valuable to someone else: now he was gone. So as for me it is actually as if I had died and been reborn/resurrected/reincarnated mobetta. Actually: Mostbesstus.

130528 EDT 08:08 rightly tightly

© 2013 by Jack Spratt—All Rights Reserved