Baptism

 I was thinking today about what it would have been like to go to ancient Israel. I guess many of us who were born and raised "Christian" have thought about it. My way of looking at reality has changed and evolved over the years. But, I  can't help but wonder, what if I really could?

 The road is dusty and it's summer. I'm from Alabama so it's not bad on me. Ala-what? I'm from no-place and everyplace. I"m here. I hear somebody laughing and there appears to be singing. Those people? Who are they? What are they doing at that little lake? I didn't think I'd see that in a dry and rocky land. Well, it's not the Coosa River but it's water. :-)

He doesn't look very sorrowful today. Not a very card board cut out either. No staff and no long beard. No blue piercing eyes either. They look hazel, and full of laughter. Although there's something in the way he looks over their shoulders that gives me pause as I approach him.

I didn't know he actually "put you under the water himself." WOW!

Questions? Oh yeah, I said I would ask the big ones. But, .....well. I think I'm supposed to, that is I think I can listen. Just listen for a little while.

Listen:

the dance begins:

 

 Wake up to light and sound and emotion and expectations and. Big people with smiles or frowns , hugs or hits. Fathers become god's and mothers are oracles. Listen: it's us vs them. authority vs desires. need vs truth. Listen.

Touch: warmth? if you deserve it. Withhold it if you don't. love if you are worthy apathy or worse if your not.

See: who is like "us" you have a scar. He is not clean. She is trash. They are not worthy and here is the truth.

Speak: Be careful what you say. This one will be angry. That one will hurt you. how dare you. You may speak, but speak correctly.

You are not clean. they are not cleaned but you are  "loved" if you comply.

 

life: It's ours. Good of our nation. War:  God's will be done and they must be stopped. Never, ever defile the womb. But they are not our responsibility. The bombs will kill the "leader" the children will go to heaven anyway and the others hate us. They hate our science, prosperity. "They" are enemies of God. 

 

 Listen: We are right, and hope is only our right and inheritance.

Death: will happen to them. we will live. If you die then your are just gone and we will evolve.

Love: There is a river. The way is not blocked. The water is cold and the yet I am elated.

 

 The body "dies" yet my fear turns to "unspeakable" "joy' "life."

You? You have followed me to the pits and to the heights. Are you?  I Am. I didn't realize that they were still precious. They mocked me you know, and caused me great pain. I tried to see you in them but I was afraid.

The sights went so fast. Time is just illusion. I woke up and breathed and then It was done. I still don't understand it. Why am I here? I think I remember, yes. I've missed you and I missed her and him and them.

Laughter: It's time to go back. I'll forget where I've been. I'll struggle and prospser and die and then:

 

Wake up:

light, sound, smiles and frowns, where am I gong ? where have I been?

Short, crazy dream.

  I was reading the news this morning when I remembered a "crazy dream" I had. In the dream I remember people wanted justice and truth to triumph. It didn't matter if a republican or democrat was talking. It didn't matter if a person was black or white or male or female. Rich or poor. Everybody was accountable for their actions. The politicians had tried to separate folks but the rich and mighty and influential decided that everybody was equal and deserved dignity under the law. Black people decided that white people getting killed was just as much of a hate crime as black people getting killed. White people decided that young black people dying in the streets was just as much of a tragedy as white people getting killed in an accident or being murdered.

I know, crazy huhh? Also, people decided that just because somebody didn't have proper grammar or couldn't read or write that didn't mean that they were evil or wrong for speaking up about what they saw or heard. It even meant that just because somebody wore a hood or smoked a joint it didn't mean you had the right to chase them down and kill them. Wow, it meant the person who was actually "on trial" had to stand or fall on the facts and not on the white vs black demographic. Unreal, I know!

Then in this "Krazy Dream" people stopped demonizing other people for who they decided to marry or leave their worldly goods to or put on their insurance at work. People decided that the church and religious people had a perfect right to their belief system without being called idiots and bigots and unfairly depicted as fools. Also, people decided that putting a "price" on the welfare of a human life for insurance purposes was not only immoral and heartless but also "Anti-Christian." People decided that their leaders could no longer talk about "serving." At least not while they were earning pensions and insurance and living in mansions provided by the people.


Anyway, then I woke up and read the news and decided that I must have been crazy to have dreamed such a foolish dream.

Coffee, Ipods, and "I Am"

First let me say this. This is how I release some of the day to day "chatter" that goes on in my world. This is not a claim that the eternal source "God" of all life actually has spoken the literal words I attribute to "him" in the following exchange. I hope some of it is "inspired" of honesty and maybe even actual understanding. But, I make no claim that you will find the "truth" of all life or the "one way" in the following.


  I forgot my Ipod this morning! There I was counting my change that I had scattered around my truck so I could stop bye Panera Bread and get some coffee and play the aging "yuppie" is that still a term these days? By hopping on the internet with my Ipod and watching Laurel and Hardy on Youtube or Madmen on Netflix or reading Page Six on the New York Post. But, I had walked out without the Ipod. Now what?

Well I ended up doing what I often do when I'm without any other course of distraction. I had to "think" and meditate and talk to God a little bit. Here's how that went:

Me: You know I've been doing this for 56 years now. I've talked to you as my savior who actually walked the roads of the Middle East around/over 2000 years ago.

God: Yeah, that's true and I've given you an anchor when things seemed wierded out on you.

Me: Then again I've talked to you as if you were an angry old "Zeuss" type figure ready to strike me down for the sins of my "thoughts and deeds."

God: Well, you know even that had some positive things..not that it was or is true literally. But, it did give you a certain sense of boundaries in the time of youth and experimentation with the world.

Me: Hmmm, yes it did at that. Ya know I also have talked to you as the "Holy Ghost" who was really, really sensitive and easily offended and I worried that one "out of place" word would condemn my immortal soul to eternal hell.

God: Well, ya know it's all part of the journey and at least you didn't forget completely who I really am.

Me: I also have talked to you the way I do now. As "Holy Spirit." It works better for me. It has a better sound to it and sounds more "intellectual" than Holy Ghost.

God: Well, that's not actually the best or even a good reason to use the name now is it?

Me: It has (for me) evolved into the way you have presented yourself in my life. Not as an angry old man in the sky, or a angry "ghost" but as my ultimate and eternal source and reason for being.

God: Now that's better.

Me: Oh look! Isn't she pretty? If I were 25 and single instead of 56 but there's no harm in looking.

God: Focus!

Me: Oh, sorry. I have a hard time in this world focusing on my prayer life and my inner life. I am so taken up by the day to day stress and who likes me and who hates me and what about that bill collector and that debt?

God: Yes,. There is a place for taking care of day to day things. You do it day to day and moment by moment. But, not in one big anxious gasp and grab.

Me: Help me to listen. It's hard to hear sometime and it's hard to trust.

God: Just "BE" and take a breath once in a little while and I"ll be there. Not, as Cosmic Santa but as peace.

Me: You know, the road in front of me is shorter than the road behind me.

God: It is! But, on the other hand remember what Jesus said. The kingdom isn't out there somewhere. The kingdom is always within and is here now.

Me: Thank you Father.

There was more to it and it's still ongoing. But, a wise woman once said to me: Steve, don't tell anybody but God everything. Peace. :-)

The Wild God!

 I'm now going into or am already into my later 50's. Some memories and some of the journey sticks or makes an imprint and this term has certainly stuck with me over the years. "The Wild God," I was reading my hometown newspaper "The Gadsden Times" which I would devour for the comics and the sports section. But they would also have a column or article on religion or "This Strange World" or something like that. :-) Anyway, the title of the article was "The Wild God."  I was a kid raised in the Bible Belt and I was a voracious reader. I still don't really understand how a human being can develop a worldview without reading. Now, don't get me wrong. Just because a word is on a page and bound in a book doesn't mean it's "right." for instance if you are reading Richard Dawkins to discover the worth of spirituality you need to stop or at least understand the "agenda" behind what you are reading. If you are reading Pat Robertson to find out the wisdom of the Buddha then you need to stop! Or at least understand the worldview and motive that the writer is coming from. Now that doesn't mean that if you read  something or believe in something that you should constantly go back and forth between two extremes debunking one and proving the other. that could go on forever. But, you should think and understand where somebody or something is coming from that claims any kind of authority in your life or makes any kind of demand on who you are as a person.

Anyway, I thought I knew who God was and he certainly wasn't "wild." He was securely between the covers of the King James Bible and the hyms of Cherry Street Baptist Church or The Church of God of Prophecy. I went to Cherry Street on the church bus that would come through my neighborhood of Walnut Park. I went to the Church of God of Prophecy with my grandmother who truly lived the teachings and believed absolutely in her faith and the religion of the church. So, God couldn't be wild! He was who the preacher said he was on Sunday. He was my sky daddy and he was also angry at my "sins." I had a lot of sins. :-) I read books with monsters and ghost in them. I loved comic books. Raquel Welch and others made my "body" feel funny. I thought of "bad words" in my head. So, I had no room for a "wild god" since I was already trying to tread water with the love/wrath of the God of church.

 Now, don't get me wrong. I remember my baptism at Cherry Street and the warmth and wonder that I felt when I came up out of the water. I remember praying and feeling a peace and a protection many times in my youth and even now in my life. It wasn't all fire and brimstone and guilt. I thank my grandmother for the gift of prayer that has steadied me all the years of my life. So, this isn't a brick through the window of the "church" or a rant on the faith of my youth.

 I did however, lose my dogma as I got older. It wasn't the hypocritical actions of church members. I didn't lose my faith because a preacher slept with a woman or a church member went to the beer store. I lost my faith because the dogma just stopped making sense to me. I read some of the history of how the cannon of the bible was approved. I also used my own mind and some of the bible just didn't make sense to me. Still, the thought that every thing we are or have done is just an accident and we are nothing but brain chemicals didn't make sense to me or give me any hope.

The term "The Wild God" stayed with me. What if God really was able to draw all things unto him/her/universal self? What if love really was true? What if we were really the only ones who are responsible for what  and who and the way we react to the journey? Also, what about the prayers I had prayed the dreams I had/have and the relationship I have with my source. With the "Holy Spirit."

No, I couldn't believe and don't believe that "love" could ever order the slaughter of all the women and children in a village/camp. No, I could never believe that a "man of God" could ever dash a baby against a stone. No, I can't believe that wearing a wool shirt and a silk scarf could be an abomination to the Lord. :-) But, I could believe and do believe in a "God" who would come and take part in the human condition.

I've said it before and I'll say it now. To go up to a burning building with a fire hose and put out a fire and rescue a human or even a pet is a wonderful thing to do. It's heroic and it's admirable. But, love real "Love" doesn't just pull you out of the fire. Real love sees you in the fire and comes and sits down beside you. Real love isn't just being strong enough to pull you to physical safety. Real love is saying if you are going to go through the fire then I'm going though with you.

That's why I still call myself a Christian. Not because the bible says it and I believe it. Not because of virgin births and talking donkeys and bodies coming out of tombs. I still relate to Christ because he sits down with me and waits with me. I'll never be the fire and brimstone Christian of my youth again. I'll never be able to relate to the old time religion and the absolute "word" again. But, I do know that I have a "Journey Securely Bound." That's enough for now. It's all I know.

Note: The Journey Securely Bound is from a wonderful lady I knew back in the Gadsden Vinyard named Debbie Handy. The thoughts and words I have written are my own and they are not the blame of anybody else. But, that beautiful title "A Journey Securely Bound" belongs to Debbie and a book she put together of poems and writings many years ago and shared with the church. My theology isn't her theology. So, if anybody thinks this is heretical that's fine. It's the way I feel at this point in my journey.

Peace!

 

Dear Ms. Obama.

  Dear Ms. Obama,

As an American and a voter who supported Barrack Obama this past election I feel I have the right to speak on something that happened the other day. First I have to tell you that I am a middle aged white southern male and lean just a little to the left on social issues. I think everybody has the spark of the creator and therefore we as a society have a moral obligation to feed the hungry and clothe the poor and heal the sick. I feel with all my heart that how we treat others is not only the "Golden Rule" but the only real and absolute mark of where we stand before the great I Am. I honestly feel that two people who are adults and pledge their loyalty and intent and love to each other have the absolute right to join in a union, marriage or partnership. If the quickie Las Vegas weddings and the preachers with three ex wives and politicians that leave their mate to die haven't destroyed "godly unions" then I don't see how Bob and Tom have a snowballs chance of destroying it. :-) 

 I also have to tell you that I heard you're former preacher say that Hillary didn't know what it was like to be called the "N" word. Except he didn't say "N" but I've got to tell you. I do know a little of how that feels. Ya see I was born with a cleft lip and pallet and I have been called enough names and been left out of enough "reindeer games" in my youth to have a good idea of how that feels. So, I'm talking  to you as a voter, a man and a fellow traveler in the realm of the "outsider" at least to an extent. For some reason as I got older I felt less and feel less an outsider. I think it's called growing up.

Now I admit that Barrack has done some things I don't feel comfortable with. I'm not sure of just what happened at our embassy and I'm not completely comfortable with the answers from the I.R.S. But, then again I wasn't comfortable with Bush and the Saudis and letting the Bin Laden family fly home after Americans were murdered by their backers. I wasn't comfortable with Reagan and the South American slaughters that went on either. So, I understand how crap happens and sometimes presidents do things out of a misguided sense of honor and sometime just out of greed and politics. Humans!

But, you did something the other day that really troubles me. You silenced a protester. Now, on one hand I felt a certain sense of "You go girl" at the spunk you showed. But then I really started to think about it. One of the greatest freedoms we have as Americans is the right to "Speak to power" without being intimidated or shushed up by the authorities. It's what separates us from regimes like the Soviet Union or China or the monarchy of the past.

One of the things that make me so proud of being an American is the right to speak and assemble and protest without being afraid of the police or the military showing up at my door. Did you see the recent pictures of North Korea? A horrible man finally had to go and meet his maker. Some of those folks must have been thinking "good riddance to bad rubbish." But, they couldn't say that. The military was looking and the camera panned them and they dare not look up with a dry eye at the camera. They had to mock rend their clothing and cry tears and wail. Why? Because if they didn't they would be marked and dealt with.

One of the reasons I respect the flag of the United States and still in all the cynicism of the age feel a little shiver up my spine at the raising of the colors is the freedom it brings. The fact that I have the right to spit on it just makes me love it all the more. That's freedom.

So, that's why I am so taken aback by you and the "in your face" tactic you used with the protester. You are one of the most powerful and influential folks on the earth right now. That should make you proud and yet should also make you tremble at the awesome meaning and responsibility that comes with it.

Anyway, that's it for now. God bless and take care.

Sincerely,

Steve.

Hope!

Hope

When I applied to the School of Social Work to get my degree I had to write some reasons that I wanted to be a Social Worker. Now, in all honesty I certainly used my gift for gab to write words, words, words. :-) I did want to be accepted after all. Not that I didn't believe everything I wrote.

It's just that we emphasise certain things at times to make a point or to sway the "powers that be" to our advantage. I can't remember everything I wrote and don't even need or want to remember everything I wrote. But, one thing that I talked about in passing is something that I absolutely believe in. That's hope.

Hope is what separates sanity from insanity. It's what gets somebody through another day of the same old same old

. One of my favorite scenes as far as a "eureka" moment for me occurs in the movie "Castaway" with Tom Hanks. When his character is asked how he got through his stranded existence on an island he said:  "Never give up because you never know what the tide will bring in the next day.”  I used this quote (not as a manipulative thing but, as an attempt to help) with some of the folks I worked with in my job in Colorado at a behavioral health hospital. Something, to help or at least cause those in depression or stress to grab onto and to hopefully decide to keep going forward.

 Hope is one of the experiences that distinguishes mankind from most of the other creatures on the planet. You can take a dog and put him in the back yard. Put up a fence and give him a bowl of water and feed him everyday. Go outside and pet him/her and run around and throw a ball or a stick. After a little while you will have a happy pup!

But, you take a human and give him/her food and water every day. Shut them in a closed system and give them the same old same old to do everyday and you will have a miserable creature. Now, there are other things that can account for this along with hope. But, that person will "hope" everyday that something will change or that they will plan or find a way to change their circumstances.

 I remember seeing something on youtube a few years ago that was really great. OK, I admit for an older person, I think youtube is one of the greatest things in our modern world. :-) Classic rock concerts, old sports footage, Laurel and Hardy and Amos and Andy and Stephen King interviews. I love youtube. But, I digress.

There was a youtube interview with the great psychotherapist and psychiatrist Carl Jung. Very rare to see one of the historic figures and architects of thought in an actual live flesh and blood appearance. Anyway, Jung (who was very elderly himself at the time) was talking about his elderly patients He stated that he was struck by the "hope" they had as he interviewed them. At the end of life they still had a hope and looked forward to something more once this life is over. Hope!

Now, I'm not as "sure" of my faith as I was in my youth. Life and circumstance and situations have caused me to question many of the old standards that I was taught as absolute in my childhood. Sometime when you research something or read about something, you find that it's not quite as black and white as you were "told" it was. But, this isn't about theology or quantum physics or even the reality or non reality of spiritual existence. I think of those things and I am planning on rambling on about some of those things in my blog posts. But, this is about hope.

It's one of the main reasons I'm not an atheist. It's just not logical to me that all the hope and love and hate and flesh and blood and mental and spiritual and life experience of a human is in the end about nothing. But, that's a different argument for a different time. It touches on this but I'm not really wanting to go there today. I mainly was thinking about hope.

In 2008 or so the media and the world seemed to go a little bit crazy. Every time I turned on a t.v. or listened to a radio or read a paper I was hammered by "RECESSION" SLUMP, IMPENDING DOOM! Or it sure seemed like it. :-) Now, I'm not a pollyanna by any means. But, it seemed to me that we were (not in a grand conspiracy ) but just as a society being led down a certain path by plans made by the money holders and we honestly did seem to be getting programmed to behave in a certain way as a society. Even in my job I would hear "well, we're gone" We will be laid off and the whole system will go up in smoke. Now that could have happened and it may still happen for all I know. But, I never stopped "hoping" that something good would happen.

I was talking to a person in my job one day. That person said "a therapist or social worker had told them that everything was indeed getting harder" My answer was that it cost exactly the same to be optimistic as pessimistic. Neither one is absolute and neither one cost you more money than the other one. So, you can decide to say "well I'm doomed" or you can decide to say "I'm hopeful this will work out" and either one is a choice you make. So, why not at least "hope."

So, if like me you are dealing with bad or just unwise choices in life. Looking at the economy or your own personal issues and wondering when it all will change or if it will. I can't tell you it absolutely will. I can't tell you it will all work out the way you or I would like it to work out. But, I can tell you that "hope" will cost you the exact same amount as gloom and doom will. Or as a wise man/God once said. "The evil of the day is sufficent, don't worry so much about tomorrow." Or something like that. :-)

So, with those old folks of the past that Carl Jung counseled. With the people who waited to see the Berlin Wall finally come down. I hope.  Knowing that mankind is capable of great evil such as slavery and the holocaust. But, also knowing that there were some who sacrificed their own life to rid the world of such great evils. I hope.

Again, I go back to a certain old book or collection of ancient writings that are sometime thrown away as myth and sometime, I'm afraid worshiped as god But, always if you look "full of hope."

A certain young woman was a queen and her king had decided to allow the murder of her kinsmen. Her uncle came to her and asked that  she speak with the king on behalf of her people. She was afraid and said that she might be killed just for speaking up. Her uncle told her that for all she knew "the very reason she was raised up as a queen was for this very purpose." She did speak. Justice was served and wisdom prevailed.
I try to remember that. Maybe some of the things I go through and experience were already planned for me and maybe they all are part of my life's plan. Yeah, "stuff" happens. But, I still "Hope" that once God does balance the books, that I will see my hope end in sight. Both here and forever.
Peace! 

Mars Attacks!

I have always loved the weird and off beat and good popcorn movies. A movie doesn't have to move me with a deep message. It can but I don't require it. As a matter of fact, I ask less of a movie than I do a book. With a book if I haven't wondered what happened to a character at least once during the day then it failed me. I immerse into what I read in a way that I don't with what I watch. The world in my head is somehow more immediate than the world "out there." A movie simply has to make me laugh or cringe or say wow! I love old horror such as Shirley Jackson's The Haunting and the movie from the 60's based on it. I like to watch it every 3 to 5 years just to remind myself of what an actual horror movie can be. Of course watching it for the first time when I was around 6 or 7 years old is more than likely the reason it is so scary and embedded in my head. I also love the old sci fi stuff. The Amazing Colossal Man 1957, The 1958 Steve Mcqueen take on The Blob. The 1955 movie based on the Jack Finney novel The Body Snatchers. I also like some of the more modern stuff. I love to pop up some popcorn and watch Mars Attacks with Jack Nicholoson and a cameo by Tom Jones directed by Tim Burton. I liked Independence Day and I liked the First X Files movie. The second is a damn shame but I digress. I love the old Art Bell Coast to Coast Am and I enjoy downloading a podcast to listen to while I walk around the track. I enjoyed The Fog and also watched it with the John Carpenter commentary. The Exorcist, which to be honest wasn't that scary to me. Well, I did see the uncut version and that was scary. The part where she spider crawled freaked me out. The original Halloween and Friday the 13th are fun. I liked the Lost In Space movie of some years ago. I knew it was gonna get killed by critics when I read the first review I saw. It started out with the reviewer saying "I don't really like sci fi or horror movies." Really? Then shut up! It did what I wanted it to do. It had cool space scenes and was a little campy. I liked the original Scream and enjoyed Ringu or Ring the Japaneese horror movie. The girl coming out of the t.v. is great. I can't watch the original Alien at night because I fall asleep. It's so dark that I just never got through it. By dark I mean the lighting and background not the atmosphere of the story. But, I did watch it early one evening and finished it and liked it as much as I can like a slow building hard sci fi type movie. It is good, it's just not really my thing. I know that's like a classic rock fan saying they don't like Bruce Springsteen that much ( I Don't) but sometime it just happens. I loved the X Files and we even named our first and only child after the main character. I liked Fringe for a while but I kind of stopped watching. Might have to pick it up again. Millinuem is a really good and under-rated series that my wife and I watched. I actually get my love of horror from a strange place. My mother raised me on watching old sci fi and horror movies. We had The Rebel Drive In right in our neighborhood growing up in the sixties and early seventies. When they had a Christopher Lee or Boris Karloff or Vincent Price marathon (Dusk Till Dawn) we were there. I can still see Dracula turning to dust right on that giant full color screen before my 7 or 8 year old eyes. Vincent Price running through the rubble and chaos as The House Of Usher fall. :-) A movie called "She" and we even saw a killer Santa one holiday season. I sometime feel bad for folks this generation. They have some splendid toys that we couldn't even dream of. But, they have no idea what a 20 foot tall Christopher Lee looks like as he bites the scream queen on the neck.

 Man, I wonder if maybe I can talk Cindy into putting our 9 year old in front of the computer and shutting the door and popping in a horror movie this weekend? So sue me I love my child but he will enjoy playing a video game. His mother will get me but if I can talk her into it. Pop some popcorn and kick back and watch one of the classic ones like Soylent Green or a little more recent one like Predator. Or maybe more of a horror theme like The Fog or Creepshow. Anyway, I have a sudden urge to eat popcorn and chill out in front of a giant screen for a couple of hours this coming weekend.