Confessional; or, Even the Dog Has a Creed
by Orestes Wilkinson
“Bless me father, for I have sinned.”
“How long has it been since your last confession?”
“To a priest?”
“Yes, of course . . .”
“I think it was 1995. Just before my ex-wife divorced me because I became sick and she realized I’d never have any status or money. And then told my priest I was a bad person or something. I’m not sure.”
“Didn’t you ask?”
“I was in the hospital.”
“But later.”
“Well, I was sick. I waited to be visited by someone from the Church – I used to do this for others when I was a Eucharistic Minister.”
“No one came?”
“No one came. No one called. I figured no one cared.”
“Did you ask – ?”
“ – well, no. No, I felt horrible, abandoned. I lost everything – didn’t even feel like getting out of the bed anymore. It was like waking up the day after the Earth ended for a long time, wondering, ‘Now what?’ I’d survived, but why? What was the point? The only purpose I could lay hold of at the beginning was being a father to my son. He was about a year and a half at that time . . .”
“So what did you do?”
“Decided I had to make it up as I went. Figure it out on my own. I waited around for directions from God for awhile, but what I received was a sense of shipwreck. So, being shipwrecked on alien shores, it looked as if I had to stay alive till the rescue came – if it ever came. Which it didn’t . . . or, maybe, that was the rescue, the inspiration to keep moving and create a meaning where I found none. The refusal to just sit down and die.”
“Why didn’t you return to Mother Church?”
“Father, I had a strong sense that I never left Mother Church: Mother Church left me, abandoned me – or Her representatives on Earth did. And then, since my ex-wife divorced me, I was banned from receiving Holy Communion, the thing I valued most in my religion, the place where I met God concretely and from which received some small measure of peace and a sort of orientation. It was a magic beyond magic for me, a mystical union literally beyond words and saying.
“In losing it, I was shut outside with the dogs, as good as dead. Where once I was privileged to serve the altar as a lay minister and had some reason to take my life very seriously, Mother Church forbade me from approaching the altar rail from the other side at all and decided my life was worthless to Her after all. So, like all good, homeless dogs, I set to wandering as I had before my conversion.”
“Where did you go?”
“Where I always wind up – searching for a place where I am welcomed and valued – or just tolerated; searching for truth; searching for a way to live, and looking for who it is, exactly, that God intends for me to be here in this world. In the end, I went to the Episcopal Church because it had room for the wounded and the imperfect, the seeker and questioner, the doubter, the abandoned. I was and am of a different, lower class than my fellow Episcopalians, plagued with poverty at times, illness, given the burden of caring for the sick, teaching the inquisitive, and facing people who genuinely hate me because … well, I don’t always understand it.
“Sometimes it is because I am very different than most people where I am from, a strange person, a person who asks too many questions, thinks too deeply and comes up with answers that don’t square with the majority opinion. And, then, I am stupid enough to share my ideas openly – for this flaw in my character (one of many), my community tells me it is not my community.
“Sometimes it is because my ex-wife hates me deeply, is angered that she ever had anything to do with me, that we have a child together – feels I must be punished and must be made to pay to the last ounce of my ability to do so; that I must be made to feel guilty for each and every transgression, no matter how minute, no matter how distant, no matter how ephemeral, no matter how illusory, that she perceives or recalls or imagines. Largely, I do not grasp why I am supposed to suffer because of my ex-wife’s anger and unhappiness, especially as we are now nearly 13 years out from the divorce and I have done all for my son I have been allowed to do . . . but, truthfully, I understand very little in this world, being but a dog and a fool.
“Anyway – The Episcopal Church decided it would have me, so I went there and made as much of a home as I could, being a perpetual outsider. The people were all good to me, even when it took effort; I think they tended to forgive my being shy and uncomfortable, as I hadn’t spoken to many strangers for years at the time I crossed the threshold the first time, and as my last experience with a church as an adult was what it had been as a child: I was dismissed and devalued. So, there I went, found a good priest and a good community that was as supporting of me as I’d allow it to be, and was confirmed into the Anglican Communion. And, again, was allowed to approach the altar, allowed to approach my Christ Who, in spite of my many faults and hurts and stupidities, welcomed me again into His presence and supped with me.”
“But the Episcopal Church is not the Roman Catholic Church – their rites and beliefs are irregular, the line of succession from the apostles is broken . . .”
“They are a tolerant and good people.”
“But . . .”
“When you threw the dog from your house and would no longer let him eat even the crumbs from beneath the table, you starved him; and when he was sick and you did not care for him, when he was poor and you did not help him, when he was lost and you did not leave the 100 to look for the lost one – he looked for another home. For no good reason he was welcomed at another house, he was cared for, his wounds were bound, he was fed from the Master’s own table freely and gladly, and not the scraps, he was loved and helped as much as his wounded soul could stand it. Any house that does that for someone is the House of God, no matter what name it goes by, no matter the imperfections – especially as it makes no claims to perfection, Father.
“You say the line of succession was broken in that church? I say that what men beak in their bickering and misunderstanding can be made whole with love, and that the Episcopal Church has been made whole by its love for the outcast and the poor, and by its service to truth, its struggle with truth. It is as much part of Mother Church as the one seated at Rome.
“Should every church be wiped off the face of the Earth tomorrow, every Bible burned to a cinder, every Prayer Book made ashes and dust – the next day, when someone helped another person, cared for another for the right reason, when someone struggled with their burdens and their wounds and inclinations to do the easy and wrong thing, when someone struggled to forgive others, not to be better than them, but to help heal them up, whenever someone loved the truth for its own sake and hoped for something better than what we are given – there the Christ would be, where He has been all along. Even if the people doing these things did not call themselves “Christians” or even anything at all.
“Father, I am no longer afraid of names. I am no longer a worshipper of appearances. I am a dog, but I am God’s dog; I am a fool, but I am God’s fool. I think – I hope – God has a place for such as me, that He has mercy for such an outcast and misfit as I am, and I hope He understands there is no way I could repay such a debt. I have nothing to equal it. All I can do is live by the only word I have discovered has any worth at all in this shipwreck life: Try.
“That’s my confession, Father. I apologize for taking up your time.”
And with that, he walked out, back into the world. Back to the hope that makes no sense, the faith that is a form of idiocy, the love that is difficult, because it is real and because it is the hardest path: the path of peace, the path of forgiveness.
The End
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Poore Richard’s Aphorisms for the Week of Our Lord, 10 December Two Thousand and Seven, which He must claim even though we are regaled yet again by another President of the United States saying, "What missing tapes? I don't know nuthin' 'bout no tapes. And, if I did, it wouldn't be any of your business!" (With apologies to Ben Franklin himself.)
Beware of Smiling Americans.
Poore Richard
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for people to decide evil tastes like chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles on top.
Poore Richard
No matter what you think you know, there's always more to know than what you think.
Poore Richard
Nothing succeeds like coercion.
Poore Richard
You ever had the feeling you are the skeleton in the family closet?
Poore Richard
To err is human; to forgive, in a small town, unheard of.
Poore Richard
Virtue is its own reward. A good lie, by contrast, will fetch you a fortune on the open market.
Poore Richard
The only thing worse than punctuality is someone who values it.
Poore Richard
Too much of a good thing is usually female.
Poore Richard
If you speak truthfully, you can damn sure bet there's someone on hand who'll make you wish you'd kept your big mouth shut.
Poore Richard
Who needs principles when there's Visa/Master Card?
Poore Richard
Laziness is responsible for more evil than malevolence.
Poore Richard
To one who tells the truth
We prefer a liar;
To liars go mansions,
a sinecure, we gather them a choir.
Poore Richard
Have you ever wondered how your mother knew enough about people like me to warn you about us?
Poore Richard
Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth will make you Poor.
Poore Richard
If people speak ill of you, be sure to give them a good reason.
Poore Richard
It's easier to point the finger -- once their back is turned.
Poore Richard
The greatest reward you can expect for doing good in this world is mistreatment by those who are dead certain you've done something wrong.
Poore Richard
Wishful thinking is better than not thinking at all.
Poore Richard
When you're angry, take a breath and count to ten. Then pull the trigger.
Poore Richard
Beware of Smiling Americans.
Poore Richard
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for people to decide evil tastes like chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles on top.
Poore Richard
No matter what you think you know, there's always more to know than what you think.
Poore Richard
Nothing succeeds like coercion.
Poore Richard
You ever had the feeling you are the skeleton in the family closet?
Poore Richard
To err is human; to forgive, in a small town, unheard of.
Poore Richard
Virtue is its own reward. A good lie, by contrast, will fetch you a fortune on the open market.
Poore Richard
The only thing worse than punctuality is someone who values it.
Poore Richard
Too much of a good thing is usually female.
Poore Richard
If you speak truthfully, you can damn sure bet there's someone on hand who'll make you wish you'd kept your big mouth shut.
Poore Richard
Who needs principles when there's Visa/Master Card?
Poore Richard
Laziness is responsible for more evil than malevolence.
Poore Richard
To one who tells the truth
We prefer a liar;
To liars go mansions,
a sinecure, we gather them a choir.
Poore Richard
Have you ever wondered how your mother knew enough about people like me to warn you about us?
Poore Richard
Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth will make you Poor.
Poore Richard
If people speak ill of you, be sure to give them a good reason.
Poore Richard
It's easier to point the finger -- once their back is turned.
Poore Richard
The greatest reward you can expect for doing good in this world is mistreatment by those who are dead certain you've done something wrong.
Poore Richard
Wishful thinking is better than not thinking at all.
Poore Richard
When you're angry, take a breath and count to ten. Then pull the trigger.
Poore Richard
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
From the Silence * 31 October 2007 *
Overlap and collision – things in time and out of time; people in their right mind, people out of their minds: Halloween. The old people used to say that this is night the borderlines between the worlds melt like wax tears, the night when the past becomes present and comes back to haunt us, the time when that which we pretend is far away reveals itself as ever-present and due respect, if not placation.
It’s a night we usually smile off and ignore in these days of "more important matters." Oh, what need have we of our ancestral idiocy?
But the ancestor’s idiocy is yet with us in many ways: the costumes, the candy, the parties, the vague memory of a memory when the night was actually dark and life was a delicate matter, long before we thought we’d cheat old Kronos and Thanatos at dice for our lives. Years before we dreamed we’d send Koltho, Lakhesis, and Atropos a false address when they mailed us our winding sheet – before science made life a dream and rendered our fears neuroses and psychoses for which there are pretty pills and solemn professional rites.
And yet . . . the night has not been banished completely: there are spots between the streetlights, alleyways immune to headlights and neon. There are dreams, there are nightmares, and no amount of electricity or science or psychopharmacology erases any of this. Somewhere down in us, no matter how deep we sink the half-thought, we are eaten with the knowledge that, for us all, the borderline between ourselves and The Other will melt and does melt, and it overwhelms us with terror and awe.
We know that, one day, we, too, will be translated to another state, the state of a memory becoming fast forgotten. And it causes us to recall the memory of those who are now memories, forgotten, lost, suppressed.
Worlds within worlds, worlds beside worlds, worlds overlapping – the borders dissolve: Halloween, the evening of the holy dead, of daimons, angels, demons; the evening of our forgotten Fate.
Prepare a glass of wine and light the candles in the windows to guide the souls home. Set a table for Death and welcome him; make terms with him. Because, one night, he is coming to supper whether you like it or not: He will come in the long black car and take you to a feast from which you will not return – save for days like today when we light our candles and wear the images of the denizens of other worlds. Save for the days when old memories are welcome and we honor our fears, if not placate them.
If there is a holiday in honor of depression, our Saturnine mood, it is this one, the one when we welcome all that is dark and melancholy, we rejoice in it, we do not pretend it is an illness to be fled from – it is the one time we hold our darkness close and go through it to the worlds beyond; and, if we live, we live to be richer, more imaginative in our lives. And, if we don’t survive – well, we become the stuff of imagination for another day, another’s life, another’s dreams and nightmare visions.
It’s a night we usually smile off and ignore in these days of "more important matters." Oh, what need have we of our ancestral idiocy?
But the ancestor’s idiocy is yet with us in many ways: the costumes, the candy, the parties, the vague memory of a memory when the night was actually dark and life was a delicate matter, long before we thought we’d cheat old Kronos and Thanatos at dice for our lives. Years before we dreamed we’d send Koltho, Lakhesis, and Atropos a false address when they mailed us our winding sheet – before science made life a dream and rendered our fears neuroses and psychoses for which there are pretty pills and solemn professional rites.
And yet . . . the night has not been banished completely: there are spots between the streetlights, alleyways immune to headlights and neon. There are dreams, there are nightmares, and no amount of electricity or science or psychopharmacology erases any of this. Somewhere down in us, no matter how deep we sink the half-thought, we are eaten with the knowledge that, for us all, the borderline between ourselves and The Other will melt and does melt, and it overwhelms us with terror and awe.
We know that, one day, we, too, will be translated to another state, the state of a memory becoming fast forgotten. And it causes us to recall the memory of those who are now memories, forgotten, lost, suppressed.
Worlds within worlds, worlds beside worlds, worlds overlapping – the borders dissolve: Halloween, the evening of the holy dead, of daimons, angels, demons; the evening of our forgotten Fate.
Prepare a glass of wine and light the candles in the windows to guide the souls home. Set a table for Death and welcome him; make terms with him. Because, one night, he is coming to supper whether you like it or not: He will come in the long black car and take you to a feast from which you will not return – save for days like today when we light our candles and wear the images of the denizens of other worlds. Save for the days when old memories are welcome and we honor our fears, if not placate them.
If there is a holiday in honor of depression, our Saturnine mood, it is this one, the one when we welcome all that is dark and melancholy, we rejoice in it, we do not pretend it is an illness to be fled from – it is the one time we hold our darkness close and go through it to the worlds beyond; and, if we live, we live to be richer, more imaginative in our lives. And, if we don’t survive – well, we become the stuff of imagination for another day, another’s life, another’s dreams and nightmare visions.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Sermon Thousand Ninety-Nine; or There's More Than One Way To Be a Christian, Mr. Falwell
(A sermon from a Fool on the occasion of the death of the Rev. Jerry Falwell.)
But I must remember
I'm a hustler
I'm a full moon
I'm a tiger sleeping in your. . .
Would you call him
And tell him how I feel
I can make the payment
I can make the deal
Would you call him
And tell him how I feel
I can make the payment
I can make the deal
The Boxer
The Chemical Brothers with Tim Burgess
Get ready for a fight.
You were thrown headlong into it the day before you were born, and until you go down the final and everlasting time, you are in. You are in for all you are worth, whether you like it or not .
Was it fair you arrived in this world? Fair has nothing to do with it. For you to be you, this is the world you had to come into, for all its beauty and horror, for all its kisses and lacerations, for all its smiles and pitilessness. For you to be you, you had to come into this world, the world of death; because the world of death is also the world of life.
Is this “the best of all possible worlds?” This is the only world possible for me; whether it will be the best possible world depends a great deal on whether I will choose to be the best me I could have been. Theodicy? I will not lay the responsibility for this world at the feet of Almighty God. He needs no excuses from me or from you. This is the world we were given and along with it, as part of it, came the responsibility to make the world right if it is not to our liking and if it marred, filled with pain, death, lies, hatred, and betrayals with no purpose or point.
Was it fair you arrived in this world? Rather ask, was it fair to the world that you came here and were the person you have been, are, and will choose to be?
Oh, I will be honest with you: There are days I hate this world and most everything in it. I was raised to despise the world and think of it as a hateful thing passing away. I was raised to think that, any minute, Jesus would return to rescue me from this hateful mess into which I had been thrown. I was raised with many such notions, years before the rest of the country came under the influence of the Evangelicals and the Pentecostals.
I was raised to believe I was worthless, that I was born eaten with sin and went downhill from there. I had nothing to offer the world, much less myself or my loved ones or my neighbors. These beliefs left deep scars and I am the scar tissue that remains – these are my things to fight against, wrestle with. They are my angel, my sweet daimon. They are what made me who I am.
A long journey – from worthlessness to the realization that being imperfect only means I am human, not worthless. If I am worthless, if I have nothing to offer, I cannot be responsible for my part of the world, nor will I care what happens to it or those who inhabit it, neither today nor tomorrow after I am gone. Let them fend for themselves, right? And the memory of the dead, my responsibility to hold those who have gone before in some esteem, listen for their voices – why should I care? They are dust and were no more important than I ever have been, and I am worthless, right?
It does not surprise me we molest the graves of the dead and let their words, their books rot and go to nothing since we, as a people, are now as convinced of our collective worthlessness as much as I was of my own personal worthlessness as a child. It doesn’t surprise me we shrug at sending people off to senseless wars and stare straight-faced while we torment and murder people in the name of “security.”
It doesn’t surprise me in the least that so many of us look at our brothers and sisters and do not see brothers and sisters – we see “homosexuals,” we see “foreigners,” we see “freaks,” we see “the crazy,” “the poor,” “drug addicts” -- whatever. We have so little self-worth we refuse to recognize the inherent and glorious dignity in others.
Oh, the world is passing and so are we all; that is the essence of things, to change, to become other than they are. But as long as we are here, we are responsible for what happens in this world, all of us. We are responsible for everything, as Dostoyevsky once said, and we are all responsible for each other, the dead, the living, those yet to come. We cannot do anything we wish. We cannot hate the world, and the world is nothing more than the people who inhabit it, all of us. We cannot abandon it and pretend it is “God’s will” we hate His own creation and refuse to do our part in its ongoing manifestation.
Yes, the world is a thing passing away, but maybe those who taught me that missed the real point – it is passing away because God expects us to make Jesus present within it, to convert it, not to a religion, but from something horrid and marred to something transfigured and of great worth. We are to take its scars, its crosses, its hate, its blood drenched graveyards and the mire of all battlefields and convert them into something human and humane.
We are to forgive and change ourselves and the world, and this, for Christians, is the very work and fruit of the Holy Spirit. Wherever I find that work, whoever I find doing that work, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Shintoist, Taoist, Wiccan, Pagan, Christian, atheist – I do not care what name they go by: there I find God at work, and Goodness, and Christ, and Jesus becoming present in the world. He calls whosoever He wills, however He will, and accomplishes His work in His own way, in His own time – but through us, through us all, as many as will simply take up the burden and become who we are.
Welcome to the fight. We will all fall and fail, but as the Sufi mystic, Rumi said, get up and come, as many times as you have broken your vow. You will not be rejected. Your work is here to be done as long as you desire to do it and beyond.
It is all that simple – and all that difficult. God forgive us for our hatreds and judgmental habits. The next time a disaster comes, please remind us, if we wish to point a finger, to first go look in the mirror for the only guilty party we ever need be concerned with. The Devil has only one face: mine when contorted in anger and flushed with the acid of intolerance.
God forbid we lay our burdens on others, and God forbid we see “the other” as a stranger to be despised. Help us make the table and welcome in the stranger that he may become our brother, that we may serve him and not curse him because he is of a different race or belief, that he loves in a different way than we do, that he has been injured and tormented in ways we haven’t.
This is jihad, the Holy War against . . . ourselves – against our own weaknesses and prejudices, against despair, against devaluation of God’s world and God’s people, and all people are God’s whether they know it or not. Whether we know it or not.
It is a fight and you are in, whether you like it or not, whether you pass through the world without ever figuring it out or not, without ever caring or not.
“Pray for the dead, and work for the living,” said Mother Jones, saint that she is.
Amen, and amen. Amen forever.
Richard Van Ingram
15 May 2007
But I must remember
I'm a hustler
I'm a full moon
I'm a tiger sleeping in your. . .
Would you call him
And tell him how I feel
I can make the payment
I can make the deal
Would you call him
And tell him how I feel
I can make the payment
I can make the deal
The Boxer
The Chemical Brothers with Tim Burgess
Get ready for a fight.
You were thrown headlong into it the day before you were born, and until you go down the final and everlasting time, you are in. You are in for all you are worth, whether you like it or not .
Was it fair you arrived in this world? Fair has nothing to do with it. For you to be you, this is the world you had to come into, for all its beauty and horror, for all its kisses and lacerations, for all its smiles and pitilessness. For you to be you, you had to come into this world, the world of death; because the world of death is also the world of life.
Is this “the best of all possible worlds?” This is the only world possible for me; whether it will be the best possible world depends a great deal on whether I will choose to be the best me I could have been. Theodicy? I will not lay the responsibility for this world at the feet of Almighty God. He needs no excuses from me or from you. This is the world we were given and along with it, as part of it, came the responsibility to make the world right if it is not to our liking and if it marred, filled with pain, death, lies, hatred, and betrayals with no purpose or point.
Was it fair you arrived in this world? Rather ask, was it fair to the world that you came here and were the person you have been, are, and will choose to be?
Oh, I will be honest with you: There are days I hate this world and most everything in it. I was raised to despise the world and think of it as a hateful thing passing away. I was raised to think that, any minute, Jesus would return to rescue me from this hateful mess into which I had been thrown. I was raised with many such notions, years before the rest of the country came under the influence of the Evangelicals and the Pentecostals.
I was raised to believe I was worthless, that I was born eaten with sin and went downhill from there. I had nothing to offer the world, much less myself or my loved ones or my neighbors. These beliefs left deep scars and I am the scar tissue that remains – these are my things to fight against, wrestle with. They are my angel, my sweet daimon. They are what made me who I am.
A long journey – from worthlessness to the realization that being imperfect only means I am human, not worthless. If I am worthless, if I have nothing to offer, I cannot be responsible for my part of the world, nor will I care what happens to it or those who inhabit it, neither today nor tomorrow after I am gone. Let them fend for themselves, right? And the memory of the dead, my responsibility to hold those who have gone before in some esteem, listen for their voices – why should I care? They are dust and were no more important than I ever have been, and I am worthless, right?
It does not surprise me we molest the graves of the dead and let their words, their books rot and go to nothing since we, as a people, are now as convinced of our collective worthlessness as much as I was of my own personal worthlessness as a child. It doesn’t surprise me we shrug at sending people off to senseless wars and stare straight-faced while we torment and murder people in the name of “security.”
It doesn’t surprise me in the least that so many of us look at our brothers and sisters and do not see brothers and sisters – we see “homosexuals,” we see “foreigners,” we see “freaks,” we see “the crazy,” “the poor,” “drug addicts” -- whatever. We have so little self-worth we refuse to recognize the inherent and glorious dignity in others.
Oh, the world is passing and so are we all; that is the essence of things, to change, to become other than they are. But as long as we are here, we are responsible for what happens in this world, all of us. We are responsible for everything, as Dostoyevsky once said, and we are all responsible for each other, the dead, the living, those yet to come. We cannot do anything we wish. We cannot hate the world, and the world is nothing more than the people who inhabit it, all of us. We cannot abandon it and pretend it is “God’s will” we hate His own creation and refuse to do our part in its ongoing manifestation.
Yes, the world is a thing passing away, but maybe those who taught me that missed the real point – it is passing away because God expects us to make Jesus present within it, to convert it, not to a religion, but from something horrid and marred to something transfigured and of great worth. We are to take its scars, its crosses, its hate, its blood drenched graveyards and the mire of all battlefields and convert them into something human and humane.
We are to forgive and change ourselves and the world, and this, for Christians, is the very work and fruit of the Holy Spirit. Wherever I find that work, whoever I find doing that work, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Shintoist, Taoist, Wiccan, Pagan, Christian, atheist – I do not care what name they go by: there I find God at work, and Goodness, and Christ, and Jesus becoming present in the world. He calls whosoever He wills, however He will, and accomplishes His work in His own way, in His own time – but through us, through us all, as many as will simply take up the burden and become who we are.
Welcome to the fight. We will all fall and fail, but as the Sufi mystic, Rumi said, get up and come, as many times as you have broken your vow. You will not be rejected. Your work is here to be done as long as you desire to do it and beyond.
It is all that simple – and all that difficult. God forgive us for our hatreds and judgmental habits. The next time a disaster comes, please remind us, if we wish to point a finger, to first go look in the mirror for the only guilty party we ever need be concerned with. The Devil has only one face: mine when contorted in anger and flushed with the acid of intolerance.
God forbid we lay our burdens on others, and God forbid we see “the other” as a stranger to be despised. Help us make the table and welcome in the stranger that he may become our brother, that we may serve him and not curse him because he is of a different race or belief, that he loves in a different way than we do, that he has been injured and tormented in ways we haven’t.
This is jihad, the Holy War against . . . ourselves – against our own weaknesses and prejudices, against despair, against devaluation of God’s world and God’s people, and all people are God’s whether they know it or not. Whether we know it or not.
It is a fight and you are in, whether you like it or not, whether you pass through the world without ever figuring it out or not, without ever caring or not.
“Pray for the dead, and work for the living,” said Mother Jones, saint that she is.
Amen, and amen. Amen forever.
Richard Van Ingram
15 May 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Sarcastic Venom in a Fruit Jar, Straight From the Mountain
"No man quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man."
H.L. Mencken
"The Skeptic"
. . . And then I sat silent for a couple of weeks, listening.
It’s awfully easy to become demoralized if you are not a brainwashed True Believer and starry-eyed servant of the Bush family.
Where to begin?
Over the past several days I have sat, head in hand, with the realization that, come 2008, once again a Republican nut case will be sitting the White House. Why? Because the Democratic Party is led by selfish idiots.
Here we are, at one of the most dangerous moments in human history: countries are coming apart at the seams; resources such as oil are now dangerously scarce while demand is on the rise – with all of the attendant environmental difficulties this brings; religious fanatics are delivering their sermons on the heads of guided missiles, punctuating them with IUDs; human beings are treating human beings as so much meat to be ground up and disposed of at will, and they are all acting as if the planet is just tinder for one fantastic marshmallow roast to be had at the Gotterdammerung.
Our Supreme Court is now stuffed with Right-Wing zombies who believe in sending the country back to happier times before the Voting Rights Act was passed and the grounding for various individual rights was recognized within the Constitution, and before people began to consider strange ideas such as that women and men might be equal and that straight and non-straight people deserve equal protection before the law.
We’re faced with hordes of Neo-Cons who think the New Deal was a Commie Plot and say so out loud; they are no longer concerned people will call them on it because they have succeeded in mis-educating and propagandizing the public for a solid quarter century now. They have convinced the American people we have no responsibilities except to ourselves and to protecting the "rights" of big business. Anything else is "socialism" and socialism, as we all know, is the greased stripper pole straight into Hell and equality.
Okay. Let’s say that’s the short version of the world’s and America’s woes. Let’s say 2008 is election year after two terms of George W.’s rule, two terms of ridiculous, wicked, pure-out insanity and greed which the Democrats could not end even with the President’s approval ratings in the toilet in 2004 – 2008 rolls around and it is paramount that we get these Neo-Con proto-fascists out of office and work on dismantling their "initiatives," "laws," and "policies," such as the Patriot Act, before they become permanent. So what do the Democrats do? Run a field of candidates that cannot win.
Worse, they run a field of candidates that will make it possible for the Republicans to take the White House even if they decide to run a lobotomized slobbering Baboon plagued with the habit of masturbating vigorously in public.
Of course, he’d have to carry a Bible, but I digress.
What do we have from the Democrats? Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards.
What’s wrong with them? Nothing. Nothing at all. But that isn’t the issue; the issue is that there is something wrong with our country, a slight issue we call "prejudice," both racial and gender oriented.
In short, the front runner, Senator Clinton, is unelectable because she is a woman and Senator Obama is unelectable because he is black. The simple and unfortunate fact is that we cannot hope to reform a country in the middle of a Presidential race – we cannot change people’s minds about such matters in a campaign they are not prepared to change them about ahead of time. The Democrats as a party must get into office first, then work on changing people’s minds, not the other way ‘round.
And the sad reality is that the only way a black person or a woman will see the Oval Office in ’08 will be if the Neo-Cons decide to run Condoleeza Rice against Hillary Clinton; in that case, even Trent Lott and his Mississippi Klansmen will turn out to stuff ballot boxes in favor of an African American simply to retain power. They would resurrect the dead back to the Civil War to get enough names, strange times as these are.
Senator John Edwards? He is pro-union, pro-worker, and no one knows who the Hell he is as he has no money, comparatively.
What are the Democrats thinking? They aren’t, as usual. What they ought to be thinking is: If we can take the White House and hold onto Congress, we can pass legislation; we can override dangerous Supreme Court decisions; we can have coherent foreign and domestic policies.
What the "frontrunners" each ought to be thinking is this: Hillary needs to throw in the towel and say, in return for my money and support and a cabinet position, I’ll support whoever we come up with that can be our figurehead and get elected; Barack should say I’ll do the same and I expect to see the Democratic Party to make a concerted effort to pay attention to me and my issues for the next four years; John needs to follow suit.
The Democrats then, as a united party, need to put it to the American people that the Far Right Conservatives have gotten us into an unbelievably dangerous mess based on principles not geared toward the good of most people, and that we need to come together in the middle to start working on some compromises we can all live with, move away from this far Right-Wing and far Left-Wing extremism, face our future more or less together, and get on with living.
Otherwise, there will be no way Hillary or Barack or John – or their supporters – will be effective at all. That is, unless the majority of Americans suddenly snap to their senses and realize the Republican Party is corrupt from toe to top and is more frightening than that 10-headed Beast of the Apocalypse Jack T. Chick liked to write about in his little Bible Tracts. One more term in office and they’ll have cameras in your houses and microphones in your bedrooms and National I.D. cards in your pockets – geeze, people, they already have your phone and e-mail and financial records and were willing to snag them illegally. They already have dungeons and torturers and murderers on the payroll and have such nebulous definitions for "terrorists" and those who "aid terrorism" that it wouldn’t take much for anyone who asks too many questions to find herself in Camp X-Ray wearing an orange jumpsuit, chained to the floor listening to Megadeath so loud it makes her nose bleed.
It can’t happen here? It would take the American people realizing that such evil can happen anywhere there are humans and governments.
It would take the American people realizing that every other word out of George W’s mouth is a lie and that every word in between is either an excuse for having been caught lying or an attack on those who caught him; and it would take us collectively realizing we’d be better off with Senator Clinton, or Senator Obama, or Senator Edwards in the White House for any of them to get elected.
But I don’t think we’re there yet.
No, we’re still listening to Dick Cheney continue to claim against all facts that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda and that we’re "winning" the War in Iraq which is an
extension of The War on Terror. No, really.
And none of it was about oil or Halliburton. No, really.
We’re still listening to the President throw his support behind corrupt functionaries like Alberto Gonzalez and Paul Wolfowitz. The President is still claiming his new Federal Attorneys, replacements for the fired ones, were not chosen for political reasons, because that would be illegal, not to mention just bad policy. "Good job, Brownie!"
The American people are still buying the Star Spangled showbiz bullshit from the White House and from Limbaugh, Hannity, and Coulter, and as long as they do so they won’t be able to bypass their prejudices towards women and black people (or candidates without a lot of cash) and elect one of the three main Democrats to the presidency. The American people, as little as they like Bush, as much as they tend to grasp by now that he and his bunch are vile and corrupt, aren’t as concerned as they ought to be about the regime that has generally ruled this country starting with Reagan that inevitably led to George W. They know they don’t much care for Bush – but they don’t truly know why they ought not like him and his party yet.
I don’t think most folks will figure it out before November ’08 short of yet another mishandled and botched disaster, God forbid, that the Republicans try to convert into even more opportunities to "make lots of money," as the Pet Shop Boys sang.
The American people won’t figure it out and the leading Democrats won’t admit it’s their responsibility to sacrifice personal ambition in order to avert further destruction and corruption. Just like a bunch of damned politicians all around.
I’m beginning to feel like a Roman. I’m smelling smoke on the wind and I think I hear the Emperor’s fiddle in the distance. It’s far off – but not too far now. Not at all, not at all.
Richard Van Ingram
7 May 2007
H.L. Mencken
"The Skeptic"
. . . And then I sat silent for a couple of weeks, listening.
It’s awfully easy to become demoralized if you are not a brainwashed True Believer and starry-eyed servant of the Bush family.
Where to begin?
Over the past several days I have sat, head in hand, with the realization that, come 2008, once again a Republican nut case will be sitting the White House. Why? Because the Democratic Party is led by selfish idiots.
Here we are, at one of the most dangerous moments in human history: countries are coming apart at the seams; resources such as oil are now dangerously scarce while demand is on the rise – with all of the attendant environmental difficulties this brings; religious fanatics are delivering their sermons on the heads of guided missiles, punctuating them with IUDs; human beings are treating human beings as so much meat to be ground up and disposed of at will, and they are all acting as if the planet is just tinder for one fantastic marshmallow roast to be had at the Gotterdammerung.
Our Supreme Court is now stuffed with Right-Wing zombies who believe in sending the country back to happier times before the Voting Rights Act was passed and the grounding for various individual rights was recognized within the Constitution, and before people began to consider strange ideas such as that women and men might be equal and that straight and non-straight people deserve equal protection before the law.
We’re faced with hordes of Neo-Cons who think the New Deal was a Commie Plot and say so out loud; they are no longer concerned people will call them on it because they have succeeded in mis-educating and propagandizing the public for a solid quarter century now. They have convinced the American people we have no responsibilities except to ourselves and to protecting the "rights" of big business. Anything else is "socialism" and socialism, as we all know, is the greased stripper pole straight into Hell and equality.
Okay. Let’s say that’s the short version of the world’s and America’s woes. Let’s say 2008 is election year after two terms of George W.’s rule, two terms of ridiculous, wicked, pure-out insanity and greed which the Democrats could not end even with the President’s approval ratings in the toilet in 2004 – 2008 rolls around and it is paramount that we get these Neo-Con proto-fascists out of office and work on dismantling their "initiatives," "laws," and "policies," such as the Patriot Act, before they become permanent. So what do the Democrats do? Run a field of candidates that cannot win.
Worse, they run a field of candidates that will make it possible for the Republicans to take the White House even if they decide to run a lobotomized slobbering Baboon plagued with the habit of masturbating vigorously in public.
Of course, he’d have to carry a Bible, but I digress.
What do we have from the Democrats? Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards.
What’s wrong with them? Nothing. Nothing at all. But that isn’t the issue; the issue is that there is something wrong with our country, a slight issue we call "prejudice," both racial and gender oriented.
In short, the front runner, Senator Clinton, is unelectable because she is a woman and Senator Obama is unelectable because he is black. The simple and unfortunate fact is that we cannot hope to reform a country in the middle of a Presidential race – we cannot change people’s minds about such matters in a campaign they are not prepared to change them about ahead of time. The Democrats as a party must get into office first, then work on changing people’s minds, not the other way ‘round.
And the sad reality is that the only way a black person or a woman will see the Oval Office in ’08 will be if the Neo-Cons decide to run Condoleeza Rice against Hillary Clinton; in that case, even Trent Lott and his Mississippi Klansmen will turn out to stuff ballot boxes in favor of an African American simply to retain power. They would resurrect the dead back to the Civil War to get enough names, strange times as these are.
Senator John Edwards? He is pro-union, pro-worker, and no one knows who the Hell he is as he has no money, comparatively.
What are the Democrats thinking? They aren’t, as usual. What they ought to be thinking is: If we can take the White House and hold onto Congress, we can pass legislation; we can override dangerous Supreme Court decisions; we can have coherent foreign and domestic policies.
What the "frontrunners" each ought to be thinking is this: Hillary needs to throw in the towel and say, in return for my money and support and a cabinet position, I’ll support whoever we come up with that can be our figurehead and get elected; Barack should say I’ll do the same and I expect to see the Democratic Party to make a concerted effort to pay attention to me and my issues for the next four years; John needs to follow suit.
The Democrats then, as a united party, need to put it to the American people that the Far Right Conservatives have gotten us into an unbelievably dangerous mess based on principles not geared toward the good of most people, and that we need to come together in the middle to start working on some compromises we can all live with, move away from this far Right-Wing and far Left-Wing extremism, face our future more or less together, and get on with living.
Otherwise, there will be no way Hillary or Barack or John – or their supporters – will be effective at all. That is, unless the majority of Americans suddenly snap to their senses and realize the Republican Party is corrupt from toe to top and is more frightening than that 10-headed Beast of the Apocalypse Jack T. Chick liked to write about in his little Bible Tracts. One more term in office and they’ll have cameras in your houses and microphones in your bedrooms and National I.D. cards in your pockets – geeze, people, they already have your phone and e-mail and financial records and were willing to snag them illegally. They already have dungeons and torturers and murderers on the payroll and have such nebulous definitions for "terrorists" and those who "aid terrorism" that it wouldn’t take much for anyone who asks too many questions to find herself in Camp X-Ray wearing an orange jumpsuit, chained to the floor listening to Megadeath so loud it makes her nose bleed.
It can’t happen here? It would take the American people realizing that such evil can happen anywhere there are humans and governments.
It would take the American people realizing that every other word out of George W’s mouth is a lie and that every word in between is either an excuse for having been caught lying or an attack on those who caught him; and it would take us collectively realizing we’d be better off with Senator Clinton, or Senator Obama, or Senator Edwards in the White House for any of them to get elected.
But I don’t think we’re there yet.
No, we’re still listening to Dick Cheney continue to claim against all facts that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda and that we’re "winning" the War in Iraq which is an
extension of The War on Terror. No, really.
And none of it was about oil or Halliburton. No, really.
We’re still listening to the President throw his support behind corrupt functionaries like Alberto Gonzalez and Paul Wolfowitz. The President is still claiming his new Federal Attorneys, replacements for the fired ones, were not chosen for political reasons, because that would be illegal, not to mention just bad policy. "Good job, Brownie!"
The American people are still buying the Star Spangled showbiz bullshit from the White House and from Limbaugh, Hannity, and Coulter, and as long as they do so they won’t be able to bypass their prejudices towards women and black people (or candidates without a lot of cash) and elect one of the three main Democrats to the presidency. The American people, as little as they like Bush, as much as they tend to grasp by now that he and his bunch are vile and corrupt, aren’t as concerned as they ought to be about the regime that has generally ruled this country starting with Reagan that inevitably led to George W. They know they don’t much care for Bush – but they don’t truly know why they ought not like him and his party yet.
I don’t think most folks will figure it out before November ’08 short of yet another mishandled and botched disaster, God forbid, that the Republicans try to convert into even more opportunities to "make lots of money," as the Pet Shop Boys sang.
The American people won’t figure it out and the leading Democrats won’t admit it’s their responsibility to sacrifice personal ambition in order to avert further destruction and corruption. Just like a bunch of damned politicians all around.
I’m beginning to feel like a Roman. I’m smelling smoke on the wind and I think I hear the Emperor’s fiddle in the distance. It’s far off – but not too far now. Not at all, not at all.
Richard Van Ingram
7 May 2007
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Midnight Between Life & Death
Tonight is the Passover, the night of the visitation of The Angel of Death, an angel with the gentle wings of a crow and soft eyes with the glances of my first and most painful love; she is the angel of full lips, dark and wet with promises; she is shy, but not too shy to step from the shadows clad only in a gown of black lace and silver stars.
There is nothing more beautiful than her hands, their slow grace fashioned by eons of motion. Her fingers move slightly as if to say, “Come: it is over. Come and rest with me in an eternity of shadow.” I am the first-born of my family, first-born and first slain on the altar of pointlessness. Even now I sadly exchange gazes with this most precious breath of a loving God and I feel the desire to take her hand and drink from the cup of her mouth, drain all of its promises, all of the waters of Lethe, to drown all of my stupidity and sin and sorrow in the warm dark spit of forgetfulness.
But tonight is Passover. Tonight I, bastard lonely child of the holy Jews, am supposed to eat the bread of affliction, the bitter herbs, the salt, set the seat and pour the cup of wine for The Sacred Stranger to return – I am supposed to remember that my life is not about taking refuge in the soft arms and gentle wings of The Angel of Death, not about fastening my mouth to hers and breathing my last apologies and thanks into her merciful lungs. I am supposed to show my awe at the One Who sends Her, show my understanding of my own incomprehension of Him and His ways; my thanks that, as lovely as She is, My God has spared me from the fullness of annihilation those wet and full lips promise.
I am a Christian – as I said, a bastard child of the holy Jews – and tonight while I sit here in the midnight hour, I find that I am sitting with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemene where he prayed that the cup of His suffering and trial might pass; and was answered by God the Father with a quiet, “No.”
I am sitting here in the garden, that eternal garden where all things begin and end, that place in my heart of hearts where Gethsemene and Eden are but two words for one and the same thing, and in this mystical place I see my Lord Christ on the ground, weeping, weeping and alone. Yes, I am here, too, but I am asleep and dreaming of The Angel of Death and her charms because I am flesh, and I am weak, though my spirit may hope for better. But there, over there, right at the center of the world, in the quiet midst of all things is God-Who-has-decided-to-become-a-Man, alone with all His doubts and fears and regrets, just as I am here with my own; and yet He does not pray for Death, He prays for Life. “Angel of Death, pass over the first-and-only begotten of All; God have mercy.”
And God the Father says, “No.”
But He does so in an odd way. The Angel of Death is still here – She is always here – and She steps from the shadows, the same shadows that my own life is submerged beneath here in our overgrown, wrecked Paradise. She steps out of night and comes to my Lord, my Savior, my Master, the Holy One, the Holy Lamb of God and she catches His tears and sweat in a golden chalice; She gathers up His Holy Misery and bows before Him as He takes the cup and drains it to the last drop in obedience with the Will of the Almighty. The soft eyes of The Angel of Death are filled with amazement and startled pity at this impossible thing – that the Divine One has given Himself over to Her, and that by the next evening, Her mouth will touch His, and even God will then die.
The wind howls and the dogs with it, a low, soft moan. Men would know sorrow, too, and deeply, but we are all asleep, already dead, already half-touched by The Angel and wholly in love with Her grace. The Savior weeps alone with The Angel of Death in The Garden at midnight.
And yes, there is for me and for all Christians the sacred mystery that follows: God-become-man dies and goes down to the shadow world as all men and women must; but on that morning of the third day His tomb is empty and He-Who-has-died is now He-Who-shattered Death and the Grave. He appears as One Who already lives in a day beyond today, as the One Whose example shows that the kiss of The Angel, though fatal, is now not the final act; that Life is stronger than Death; that the apparent defeat of those who resist the world is the origin of an ultimate victory over all that would destroy the good in us. The Angel of Death is now the gateway to the transfiguration of the world: One day, even She will embrace Herself and change Her name, and Death with become Life.
**********************************************************************************
Another year has passed in the cycle of the seasons, another year and the Garden emerges in wild, untended explosions of spiced perfume in the night. There She is in the night, my sweetest love, She who will one day become Life – but today She is not Life, She is the graceful one who passes over Egypt and in whose wake there is mourning and gnashing of teeth.
Another year has passed, another year in which I have left mourning and disappointment in my own wake, filled with Death and Darkness as I am. When my friends need me was I there for them? In their Gardens of Gethsemene did I keep a vigil and pray with them, or did I fall asleep or wander off – perhaps I did not show up at all, preoccupied as I was with my own pain? Did I bother to explain?
Could I?
People in pain do not want your excuses, they want – whatever they need: each has her own needs. She wants you to ask and to listen.
Another year has passed in which I repeatedly neither asked nor listened when the need was apparent. I was too busy eaten up with my own sorrows, some petty, some not; I was too wounded and exhausted to speak, to warn friends of my weaknesses; I was too proud to admit my own needs, hint at my own disasters, and my own faults.
Who can wonder when people who expect you to be strong and caring find you withdrawn and silent, too exhausted to act? Who can wonder at their dismay, disappointment, and anger?
Each person’s life is a mystery to all others. Who knows what Hell a man may live behind his confident words? Who knows how many times in a year a woman may be crucified and in what ways? Who knows how close to taking the sweet Angel’s hand a person is at any moment and why? Anyone who’s keeping Her for close company is already near to her hand.
Do you see the anguish in the heart of another? What looks callous may, in fact, be mercy, may be sparing another the turmoil of watching as he daily wrestles the demons and his own sins and stupidities and failings.
I am a man of demons and sins, stupidities and failings. I am a disappointment – God help me if I am not. Whether by effort or laziness, by what I do or do not do, what I have done or left undone, I am guilty, and I am sorry as none of these things has been right and good. I am sorry to my God Who suffered while I ignored Him in the Garden; I am sorry to my friends whom I ignored while they suffered in their own darkness.
I have nothing to offer but old tears and a heart black as forgetfulness, empty hands, and no promises worth accepting. I am a man, I am a damnable thing. One day, perhaps, in the fullness of time when Death becomes Life, I will become who I am to become; but for today, I am a sad lover of Death whose words mean little to anyone. I care, but those for whom I care live other lives; at such distances, my words carry no meaning.
I am not God. And isn’t that the point of Easter and the Passover?
***********************************************************************************
I am not God, but I am a man.
What is fitting for a man?
To be other than he is today, to be more, to love where yesterday his heart was cold and mangled. To seek life. To go down in the grave and come back up more than a man.
I shut my eyes in the Garden of Gethsemene and dream of the Death of my sins and beg the forgiveness of my friends – and my enemies. I give you my forgiveness, my small portion of love, if you feel the need of it. I pour the cup for the Sacred Stranger and set a place at the table.
It is Passover. The Angel of Death stands close at hand. The Angel of Life stands close at hand. They are one in the same.
Richard Van Ingram
6 April 2007
There is nothing more beautiful than her hands, their slow grace fashioned by eons of motion. Her fingers move slightly as if to say, “Come: it is over. Come and rest with me in an eternity of shadow.” I am the first-born of my family, first-born and first slain on the altar of pointlessness. Even now I sadly exchange gazes with this most precious breath of a loving God and I feel the desire to take her hand and drink from the cup of her mouth, drain all of its promises, all of the waters of Lethe, to drown all of my stupidity and sin and sorrow in the warm dark spit of forgetfulness.
But tonight is Passover. Tonight I, bastard lonely child of the holy Jews, am supposed to eat the bread of affliction, the bitter herbs, the salt, set the seat and pour the cup of wine for The Sacred Stranger to return – I am supposed to remember that my life is not about taking refuge in the soft arms and gentle wings of The Angel of Death, not about fastening my mouth to hers and breathing my last apologies and thanks into her merciful lungs. I am supposed to show my awe at the One Who sends Her, show my understanding of my own incomprehension of Him and His ways; my thanks that, as lovely as She is, My God has spared me from the fullness of annihilation those wet and full lips promise.
I am a Christian – as I said, a bastard child of the holy Jews – and tonight while I sit here in the midnight hour, I find that I am sitting with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemene where he prayed that the cup of His suffering and trial might pass; and was answered by God the Father with a quiet, “No.”
I am sitting here in the garden, that eternal garden where all things begin and end, that place in my heart of hearts where Gethsemene and Eden are but two words for one and the same thing, and in this mystical place I see my Lord Christ on the ground, weeping, weeping and alone. Yes, I am here, too, but I am asleep and dreaming of The Angel of Death and her charms because I am flesh, and I am weak, though my spirit may hope for better. But there, over there, right at the center of the world, in the quiet midst of all things is God-Who-has-decided-to-become-a-Man, alone with all His doubts and fears and regrets, just as I am here with my own; and yet He does not pray for Death, He prays for Life. “Angel of Death, pass over the first-and-only begotten of All; God have mercy.”
And God the Father says, “No.”
But He does so in an odd way. The Angel of Death is still here – She is always here – and She steps from the shadows, the same shadows that my own life is submerged beneath here in our overgrown, wrecked Paradise. She steps out of night and comes to my Lord, my Savior, my Master, the Holy One, the Holy Lamb of God and she catches His tears and sweat in a golden chalice; She gathers up His Holy Misery and bows before Him as He takes the cup and drains it to the last drop in obedience with the Will of the Almighty. The soft eyes of The Angel of Death are filled with amazement and startled pity at this impossible thing – that the Divine One has given Himself over to Her, and that by the next evening, Her mouth will touch His, and even God will then die.
The wind howls and the dogs with it, a low, soft moan. Men would know sorrow, too, and deeply, but we are all asleep, already dead, already half-touched by The Angel and wholly in love with Her grace. The Savior weeps alone with The Angel of Death in The Garden at midnight.
And yes, there is for me and for all Christians the sacred mystery that follows: God-become-man dies and goes down to the shadow world as all men and women must; but on that morning of the third day His tomb is empty and He-Who-has-died is now He-Who-shattered Death and the Grave. He appears as One Who already lives in a day beyond today, as the One Whose example shows that the kiss of The Angel, though fatal, is now not the final act; that Life is stronger than Death; that the apparent defeat of those who resist the world is the origin of an ultimate victory over all that would destroy the good in us. The Angel of Death is now the gateway to the transfiguration of the world: One day, even She will embrace Herself and change Her name, and Death with become Life.
**********************************************************************************
Another year has passed in the cycle of the seasons, another year and the Garden emerges in wild, untended explosions of spiced perfume in the night. There She is in the night, my sweetest love, She who will one day become Life – but today She is not Life, She is the graceful one who passes over Egypt and in whose wake there is mourning and gnashing of teeth.
Another year has passed, another year in which I have left mourning and disappointment in my own wake, filled with Death and Darkness as I am. When my friends need me was I there for them? In their Gardens of Gethsemene did I keep a vigil and pray with them, or did I fall asleep or wander off – perhaps I did not show up at all, preoccupied as I was with my own pain? Did I bother to explain?
Could I?
People in pain do not want your excuses, they want – whatever they need: each has her own needs. She wants you to ask and to listen.
Another year has passed in which I repeatedly neither asked nor listened when the need was apparent. I was too busy eaten up with my own sorrows, some petty, some not; I was too wounded and exhausted to speak, to warn friends of my weaknesses; I was too proud to admit my own needs, hint at my own disasters, and my own faults.
Who can wonder when people who expect you to be strong and caring find you withdrawn and silent, too exhausted to act? Who can wonder at their dismay, disappointment, and anger?
Each person’s life is a mystery to all others. Who knows what Hell a man may live behind his confident words? Who knows how many times in a year a woman may be crucified and in what ways? Who knows how close to taking the sweet Angel’s hand a person is at any moment and why? Anyone who’s keeping Her for close company is already near to her hand.
Do you see the anguish in the heart of another? What looks callous may, in fact, be mercy, may be sparing another the turmoil of watching as he daily wrestles the demons and his own sins and stupidities and failings.
I am a man of demons and sins, stupidities and failings. I am a disappointment – God help me if I am not. Whether by effort or laziness, by what I do or do not do, what I have done or left undone, I am guilty, and I am sorry as none of these things has been right and good. I am sorry to my God Who suffered while I ignored Him in the Garden; I am sorry to my friends whom I ignored while they suffered in their own darkness.
I have nothing to offer but old tears and a heart black as forgetfulness, empty hands, and no promises worth accepting. I am a man, I am a damnable thing. One day, perhaps, in the fullness of time when Death becomes Life, I will become who I am to become; but for today, I am a sad lover of Death whose words mean little to anyone. I care, but those for whom I care live other lives; at such distances, my words carry no meaning.
I am not God. And isn’t that the point of Easter and the Passover?
***********************************************************************************
I am not God, but I am a man.
What is fitting for a man?
To be other than he is today, to be more, to love where yesterday his heart was cold and mangled. To seek life. To go down in the grave and come back up more than a man.
I shut my eyes in the Garden of Gethsemene and dream of the Death of my sins and beg the forgiveness of my friends – and my enemies. I give you my forgiveness, my small portion of love, if you feel the need of it. I pour the cup for the Sacred Stranger and set a place at the table.
It is Passover. The Angel of Death stands close at hand. The Angel of Life stands close at hand. They are one in the same.
Richard Van Ingram
6 April 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Mr. Bush, Will You Swear To Tell The Truth...?
Thank you to the Lord who created all this
There's a whole lotta hurt before you get to the bliss
Why even Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss
But that was long before that he got in show biz
Well I understand the land and the land ain't no sea
But when I try to walk I'm sinking you see
The Church
"Block"
People who feel gravity – I mean, the gravity of situations – often find it very difficult to speak or write or draw something relating to the realities they face. It becomes a matter of endurance, outlasting and fighting through the pain that forcing oneself to speak often brings on.
And it is often a matter of forcing oneself to speak. Detractors immediately come to the fore: "Then shut up!" The detractors, real or imaginary are always in the back of a writer’s head, an artist’s thoughts: Be quiet; who do you think you are? What of any value at all do you have to add to any discussion on any topic of any weight whatsoever?
Oh yes, indeed.
People in positions of power and those who support them and feed from the scraps dropped from their tables are, quite often, the voices of detraction. Last on their list of desired visitors to their orgy of manipulation and excess are those who have keen eyesight and those who feel things deeply, have a keen sense of intuition – or skepticiam and suspicion. Those with the upper hand will do everything in their power to hide what reality actually consists in from everyone else; they thrive on appearances usually constructed like a set design for a movie – they only want you to see the celluloid perfection, not the sawdust from the construction or the fact that the storefronts are all facades with no interiors.
I am convinced you will find this phenomenon in your personal life, in the life of your community, in the life of your nation if you choose to pay attention to it. Of course, no one wants you to pay attention, and paying attention comes with a personal price. Everything around you militates against taking the time to slow down and ask genuine questions of any sort. Seeing an aspect of the truth others hide or refuse to admit is lonely business. Sharing what you think you’ve seen is even more lonely.
To speak is to court error and it risks falsifying what you’ve experienced – our words never quite capture reality; at best, they point back in the direction of reality and say, "If you follow this trail, you, too will have a similar experience as I did – go and see for yourself."
* * *
Will Karl Rove testify before Congress or not, and will he be under oath or not if he does show up? These are the words in the mouths of every journalist covering Washington this week. Will there be a conflict in the courts centering on the separation of powers? Can Rove and the Bush White House legally ignore a Congressional subpoena?
My question is: What is the White House hiding? I see the façade – it’s an appeal to the good ole Constitution (a document this administration likes and then ignores by turns as it helps or hinders its hold on power). But then I wonder: Where’s the sawdust? Are there any rooms behind the storefronts in this movie, or is it all just for the sake of appearance?
"Executive Privilege!" comes the battle cry from the spokesmen for Bush. Another façade – more powerful sounding words that, in actuality are invoked more to cover something up than reveal any truth, perhaps?
I am inclined to think so. We just got finished honoring President Gerald Ford, one of the few last presidents who will deserve any honors at their funerals. One of the reasons we, as a nation, mourned his passing and showed appreciation is because of the manner in which he handled the Nixon disaster. One of the things the President of the United States did in the midst of that filthy moment in American history he inherited was go before Congress, voluntarily take an oath, and testify that his pardon of Richard M. Nixon involved no quid pro quo. He placed his honor and his reputation on the line, and his right to hold office, to go and speak the truth before Congress.
As he said in an interview a few years ago, "I had nothing to hide."
And that about sums it up, as far as I’m concerned. The matter at hand is not matter of national security; it’s a question of finding out if Mr. Bush and Mr. Gonzalez are stuffing the Federal Prosecutors chairs with political appointees that might be inclined to do things such as, oh, not work very hard to put Scooter Libby behind bars on his appeal, not push to pursue cases against people like Duke Cunningham or Tom DeLay or Jack Abramoff, not investigate the Bush White House if any of its denizens appear to have committed crimes. This is a matter of keeping our Federal system of justice equitable and independent of politics, and unless "National Security" has been completely redefined to mean "keep Republicans in power and excuse their illegal behavior when possible," this does not involve an issue that’s even debatable the advisors to our President are immune to a Congressional subpoena.
The precedent has been set: Gerald Ford set it. When we need to get to the bottom of an issue that could potentially splinter the country even further than it already is, the President and all his men and women need to stand up and voluntarily speak the truth to the representatives of the people of the United States. Under oath, on the record, recorded and transcribed. In public – so there’s no question that the Bush Administration is lying, being evasive, presenting half-truths. Since the representatives of this administration have continuously done just that for six years – lie, been evasive, presented half-truths – about very important matters, we, the people and our representatives, have the right to demand testimony under oath when possible, now, and Mr Bush and his people have the responsibility to comply.
The job of the President of the United States is not to do underhanded things and then pretend that the Day of Reckoning should never arrive. If Bush wishes his administration to behave in an underhanded and unethical manner, then he ought to proudly parade it before us so we can see head on with whom it is we are dealing.
If Mr. Bush is actually going about things ethically, he needs to let us see with as much clarity as possible how proper and unsuspicious his activities are. Why hide?
Does Mr. Bush have a right to privacy? Absolutely – except when his actions directly affect the direction of the country. Possibly packing prosecutorial positions with political hacks would qualify as something capable of affecting the direction of the country. Any advice the president received concerning this matter and the advisors themselves, now that the appearance of impropriety has erupted, are open for scrutiny by the servants of the people – Congress.
The real question now is: Is Mr. Bush in government to serve the people, or to shore up his own power?
Richard Van Ingram
22 March 2007
There's a whole lotta hurt before you get to the bliss
Why even Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss
But that was long before that he got in show biz
Well I understand the land and the land ain't no sea
But when I try to walk I'm sinking you see
The Church
"Block"
People who feel gravity – I mean, the gravity of situations – often find it very difficult to speak or write or draw something relating to the realities they face. It becomes a matter of endurance, outlasting and fighting through the pain that forcing oneself to speak often brings on.
And it is often a matter of forcing oneself to speak. Detractors immediately come to the fore: "Then shut up!" The detractors, real or imaginary are always in the back of a writer’s head, an artist’s thoughts: Be quiet; who do you think you are? What of any value at all do you have to add to any discussion on any topic of any weight whatsoever?
Oh yes, indeed.
People in positions of power and those who support them and feed from the scraps dropped from their tables are, quite often, the voices of detraction. Last on their list of desired visitors to their orgy of manipulation and excess are those who have keen eyesight and those who feel things deeply, have a keen sense of intuition – or skepticiam and suspicion. Those with the upper hand will do everything in their power to hide what reality actually consists in from everyone else; they thrive on appearances usually constructed like a set design for a movie – they only want you to see the celluloid perfection, not the sawdust from the construction or the fact that the storefronts are all facades with no interiors.
I am convinced you will find this phenomenon in your personal life, in the life of your community, in the life of your nation if you choose to pay attention to it. Of course, no one wants you to pay attention, and paying attention comes with a personal price. Everything around you militates against taking the time to slow down and ask genuine questions of any sort. Seeing an aspect of the truth others hide or refuse to admit is lonely business. Sharing what you think you’ve seen is even more lonely.
To speak is to court error and it risks falsifying what you’ve experienced – our words never quite capture reality; at best, they point back in the direction of reality and say, "If you follow this trail, you, too will have a similar experience as I did – go and see for yourself."
* * *
Will Karl Rove testify before Congress or not, and will he be under oath or not if he does show up? These are the words in the mouths of every journalist covering Washington this week. Will there be a conflict in the courts centering on the separation of powers? Can Rove and the Bush White House legally ignore a Congressional subpoena?
My question is: What is the White House hiding? I see the façade – it’s an appeal to the good ole Constitution (a document this administration likes and then ignores by turns as it helps or hinders its hold on power). But then I wonder: Where’s the sawdust? Are there any rooms behind the storefronts in this movie, or is it all just for the sake of appearance?
"Executive Privilege!" comes the battle cry from the spokesmen for Bush. Another façade – more powerful sounding words that, in actuality are invoked more to cover something up than reveal any truth, perhaps?
I am inclined to think so. We just got finished honoring President Gerald Ford, one of the few last presidents who will deserve any honors at their funerals. One of the reasons we, as a nation, mourned his passing and showed appreciation is because of the manner in which he handled the Nixon disaster. One of the things the President of the United States did in the midst of that filthy moment in American history he inherited was go before Congress, voluntarily take an oath, and testify that his pardon of Richard M. Nixon involved no quid pro quo. He placed his honor and his reputation on the line, and his right to hold office, to go and speak the truth before Congress.
As he said in an interview a few years ago, "I had nothing to hide."
And that about sums it up, as far as I’m concerned. The matter at hand is not matter of national security; it’s a question of finding out if Mr. Bush and Mr. Gonzalez are stuffing the Federal Prosecutors chairs with political appointees that might be inclined to do things such as, oh, not work very hard to put Scooter Libby behind bars on his appeal, not push to pursue cases against people like Duke Cunningham or Tom DeLay or Jack Abramoff, not investigate the Bush White House if any of its denizens appear to have committed crimes. This is a matter of keeping our Federal system of justice equitable and independent of politics, and unless "National Security" has been completely redefined to mean "keep Republicans in power and excuse their illegal behavior when possible," this does not involve an issue that’s even debatable the advisors to our President are immune to a Congressional subpoena.
The precedent has been set: Gerald Ford set it. When we need to get to the bottom of an issue that could potentially splinter the country even further than it already is, the President and all his men and women need to stand up and voluntarily speak the truth to the representatives of the people of the United States. Under oath, on the record, recorded and transcribed. In public – so there’s no question that the Bush Administration is lying, being evasive, presenting half-truths. Since the representatives of this administration have continuously done just that for six years – lie, been evasive, presented half-truths – about very important matters, we, the people and our representatives, have the right to demand testimony under oath when possible, now, and Mr Bush and his people have the responsibility to comply.
The job of the President of the United States is not to do underhanded things and then pretend that the Day of Reckoning should never arrive. If Bush wishes his administration to behave in an underhanded and unethical manner, then he ought to proudly parade it before us so we can see head on with whom it is we are dealing.
If Mr. Bush is actually going about things ethically, he needs to let us see with as much clarity as possible how proper and unsuspicious his activities are. Why hide?
Does Mr. Bush have a right to privacy? Absolutely – except when his actions directly affect the direction of the country. Possibly packing prosecutorial positions with political hacks would qualify as something capable of affecting the direction of the country. Any advice the president received concerning this matter and the advisors themselves, now that the appearance of impropriety has erupted, are open for scrutiny by the servants of the people – Congress.
The real question now is: Is Mr. Bush in government to serve the people, or to shore up his own power?
Richard Van Ingram
22 March 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Welcome!
Welcome to Poore Richard's Thoughts, Philosophical and otherwise. I'm still setting up; in the meantime, perhaps you might enjoy poking about my Almanack (hot button listed to the right under "Sites You Might Enjoy"). Drop me an e-mail & let me know what you think. Keep watching for actual posts arriving daily with real content! ~ Really Poore Richard
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