IT'S ALL ILLUSION ANYWAY

john sloan

 

It has been with me all day today that I have lived my life poor by choice. Went to further education with ambition to make more money, have a nice car, a few really nice suits, a nice place with a good sound system. The Fifties American teenage dream. By the time I'd finished schooling, I didn't want any of it, mostly on moral grounds. Those were the years of developing my morality to live by. Continuous church from age six to eighteen, I was in flight from religion through the college years, wanted no more to do with it. I'd learned no  morality to live by, only No, Don't, and You Better Not. I wanted to break the rules, commit taboo, and, at the same time, look for a real morality to live by. The morality of you-better-not was a coffin. For somebody growing up into his unknown life, I did not want to live my life in the grave. Much as I resent, still, the overkill browbeating of a dead religion throughout my early years, I see in retrospect it set me on my spiritual path as a natural consequence of recognizing what I had was fake, inspiring a search for what is real. Then the question, what makes something real and something else fake?

 

john sloan

 

I looked for a lot of years at that one. In illusion, what's the difference? Start over with collectively agreed upon reality, the reality of the scientific method, physical reality. Kick a table leg barefoot, it hurts. Duality: pain and pleasure, right and wrong, high and low, in and out, to and from, the wedding of heaven and hell. In this reality I attempt to distinguish real from fake with no guidelines or rule book or discourses to go by. I have to go by intuition, by feeling. I recall my friend John, whose bookstore I worked in through the college years, who grew up Catholic, and had the same allergic reaction I had to Fundamentalism, threw the baby out with the bathwater. He called himself an atheist and I understood his reasoning. He was, at once, the most moral human being I have known, along with a few others I've known in the mountains. He kept a quotation from Shakespeare on the wall in the store that I saw a hundred times a day, To thine own self be true and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. I found it to be so in John, and over the years found it to be true in myself. In a real sense, this is the foundation of the morality I live by. More has grown on top of this, though more or less subtle versions of same. The morality I've come into on my own is not restrictive. It expands.

 

john sloan

 

 

In the dark is the seed of the light---in the light is the seed of the dark. In my time of agnostic thinking and atheist thinking, this quotation from Shakespeare of being true to self was an everyday point in the life, the core of my moral thinking. I didn't need any more verses to memorize of God sez. I needed something to live with that had practical application, something that was not a s'posed-to, but made sense, something I could see applying it in everyday life would, indeed, improve the quality of one's life. I believed God in the early part of the life, but such a twisted version I could not live with it as a rational, or even semi-rational human being, but in denial of my humanity. In the time I was seeking my humanity. Early part of the life, God was Fear. Later part of the life, God is Love. The seeking part in between had in it the seed, To thine own self be true. It is the mountain ethic, be who you are. John has been true to himself all the way along, is now 103, still has a clear mind. When it comes to truly honest people I've known, I'd say more than you'd think, because sometimes I think of a liar as true, true to who he is. Sometimes the lies are self-defense by vulnerable people, and there are an awful lot of different vulnerabilities going around.

 

john sloan

 

What does this have to do with why I live poor? It has everything to do with it. I live below the poverty level and the taxes due from my labor is no support to American military rule of the world and the American people. I do not support it morally, and I do not support it with the fruits of my labor. It's not about politics. It's about morality. Like a conscientious objector. I live simply in order not to pay into the military machine that kills poor people all around the globe and at home. I don't support it morally, and cannot contribute to it with my labor. Patti Smith sings in my head, Outside of society, that's where I wanna be. I live in a self-titled Christian society that hates the poor, the vulnerable, the down and out. How can I live with a moral conscience  in this society and not be one of the poor? I live simply by choice, and in one way of looking at it, by empathy. It's different from being put out of your work and your home. Thanks to Social Security, it bypasses the desolation. I can look the truly poor people I know and come in contact with straight in the eye with understanding, them not feeling like I think I'm coming from a higher place than they are. A few weeks ago I saw someone I know who is the poorest of the poor in every way, we talked awhile and my heart glowed with love for this guy I've known since he was a child, who was born with everything against him, keeps on going with another woman taking care of him, and all I could think was, There but for the grace of God go I. It was a powerful moment. I made myself leave before falling into weeping. I don't want to pay taxes to my government that will not help people unable to help themselves. It's that simple.  

 

 

john sloan by john sloan

 

 

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PILGRIM WAY

The quotation, Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, from the red letters in the NT that I quoted yesterday, stays with me. Pausing to think about it, I realize it has been in my head every day for a number of years. We have people who call themselves Christians ranting about taxes, demonstrating, attempting sedition from the inside, talking ignorance so blatant it embarrasses them, and they don't get it. It's not necessary to mention names; they're all over the headline-with-picture corporate news. I used to wonder in my youth why Jesus talked about love and compassion, yet the people in the church didn't even like each other, certainly not their neighbors. Love never came up as an issue. It is one of those issues you don't mention when you're a kid, because adults don't take kids seriously and you learn early, don't make adults think. How else can a warrior society adopt a message of love and peace to themselves and only adhere to OT you-better-not mind? Didn't Jesus say that old way of following rules is over? I already hear a particular voice, That's not how it is at my church. I say, Hooray. I'm not talking about any church but the churches of my experience. I would actually like to go to a particular church sometimes, but can't do it by my own inner guidance--I have to follow the rules. Told I'm expected to attend regularly, I never went back. And will not go back. I've had to clarify for a few preachers in the past that my life and my decisions are my own, whether or not he believes I have the right. I don't ask for permission to live my life as I see fit, nor do I accept guilt for not living by somebody else's opinion of something they know nothing about--another human being. They don't even know themselves.

It's a sight, looking back, how many people along the way have believed they knew better how I ought to live my life than I did. I heard so much in youth and younger adult years from people who believed they knew better than I do what's right for me, I confess to reaching a place of confusion such that I couldn't see a way out. Everybody was using their authority voice to show they know what they're talking about and I don't. By the time I was 30, I had not yet learned what was right for me, what direction to go in, what to believe and not believe. I have chosen for myself to call my path my Pilgrim Way. A solitary pilgrim who walks his own path and lets the group-think people go their own way. I used to be told by the group-think people that I'm unable to make an intelligent decision for myself without the guidance of the group. There was a time I believed that. Then I learned to my satisfaction that God indeed Is. No more group-think for me. I am so far removed from the fundamentalist churches of Kansas, it is like another lifetime, except I remember it. My mother is of group-think mind and cannot allow that I will make my own decisions. A few times I've had to jerk the illusion of reins out of her hands. She has serious control issues, the reason I live half a continent away, her control backed up by being a Christian. I'm reminded of a joke told by the VW Boys bluegrass band's guitar player, a stage joke. "My wife, she's an angel. She's always up in the air harping."

 She pushes the same issues without end, and one day I said I am never going to do any of these things she continues to ride my back about tirelessly. I removed my saddle and took it to the landfill. For years, it was: I wish you'd find a church. My answer: I know you do. There came a time, when I passed fifty, the year I found the freedom to say no, I woke up and said, I will not enter another church the rest of my life; all the church going in this lifetime is in the past. All of it. She cut it out. Now when we talk it's like she's holding her head under water unable to say the only thing she has to say. Choked. All I can say is I'm sorry she has control issues to such a degree. I've spent my adult life usurping control of my life by moving as far away as land allows. Since I won't go to church, I'm the same thing as an atheist, an atheist that doesn't take care of his responsibilities. Now that she has added Faux news to her faith, a greater divide is opening between us. She's given up on controlling my life and has no more interest in me. As I knew would be the case when I left for the coast all the many years ago. I knew then that who I am had nothing to do with anything--only the control mattered. Take away the control and nothing is left but sorrow she can't make me obey. It's been a big struggle along the way, much like dealing with a drunk, somebody drunk on an agenda, the one and only way, through Jesus Christ The Lord. Like Jehovah's Witnesses at the door pushing their agenda. I finally learned to open the door enough to say, I don't want it, and close the door. All they have on their minds is pushing their agenda. Take it someplace else. 

 

A friend I sometimes watch the races with said, "When I want to really be judged, I'll go to church." I had to say, Amen, brother. I don't care that my mother believes differently from how I believe. I don't even like to use that word, believe, because it's a long spiral like DNA. We both believe the same at the core, but she's bogged down in dogma until "the word" and the dogma are the same. I had to run for my life from the dogma where she stays mired down like a rock in mud. And wants me to do the same, to settle down, go to church, get married, have kids, buy a house. I tried to follow her demands to keep from disappointing her, making her feel bad. But it was not my path. My parents gave me such an horrendous example of a married relationship, I could not live my life in that kind of way, never saying what I mean, never admitting to anything but obeying. Punishment amounted to worshiping God, another word for Fear. Now that she's plugged into Faux tv, I'm not only the same as an atheist, but a liberal too. She says she prays for me. I say, Please do, I need plenty of it. But it's not going to buy me out of my intractable nature. She's a believer in duty, and, by example, taught me duty is not where it's at. She taught me marriage is not where it's at. She taught me church is not where it's at. She taught me group-think is not where it's at. She taught me controlling others is not where it's at. I cannot shut myself down far enough to live by her will. I cannot live my life a rock in a bog.

I tend to stay in place because my adventures are within. I don't need to climb a cliff with my fingertips to feel the thrill of living on the edge. I'm on the edge every day. Heart can stop, or not stop. I go with whichever happens. I don't like adrenalin rushes. I don't like fear. I see no point in taking chances with dying when I don't need to. My interpretation of the spiritual path is that it is one's own. My spiritual path is not about telling other people what to do. Mother's spiritual path is alienating by browbeating everyone around her about church and the Lord. A few years back, I wrote about the nature of my spiritual path. I thought she might be interested so I sent it to her. Her reaction was that I'm not afraid enough of Satan. I said, I'll leave Satan to you. As I see her recede the other side of a widening divide, I ask myself what I can do to narrow the divide. It's her divide. Now that she is married to a Limbaugh parrot plugged into Faux news, and his son is a preacher, she's gone away like a ship to sea. Bye, bye, Mommy. Her son left the fold, will not do his duty, is out of control, goes his own way in defiance of Satan. He doesn't know what to say to her anymore and she doesn't know what to say to him anymore. He can't even pretend to believe what she believes and brought him up to believe. Funny, slipping off into third person, when it gets down to the nitty-gritty, separating myself from it. That's how I feel about it, third person, answering why I cannot allow myself to honor other people's expectations of my behavior where their belief systems are concerned. That's what I call group-think, and I can't go there, thanks to a lifetime of reasons why.

 

 

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