PEACE AND LOVE GO TO WASHINGTON

 

il papa surrounded by angels of death

 

Pope Francis continues to reward my attention. I find him inspiring. I was wary of him in the beginning. He spoke a good line and he appeared to be a practitioner of his belief. But, he is also the top of the pyramid of the greatest bureaucracy on earth, the original bureaucracy. Like it's hard to believe an honest man can be president of USA, it's equally hard to believe an honest man could become pope. I don't care about the Church and I don't care about organized religion. I am a pilgrim on my own path independent of masculine hierarchies and control by self-centered men who could not go to church unless "called by God" to be the center of attention authority and collect free money. I don't have to deal with money and membership, judgment, expectations, piety, pretense. I understand the value of getting together with others sharing a belief system, even value such moments. They are the people I feel true brotherhood-sisterhood with, immediately.

 

the man on the right has done lost it

 

I like to spend time with such friends, though I also like the company of people who think differently from my way. They keep me reminded that mine is not the only point of view. I feel like it is very important in this world to recognize and accept that everyone's point of view is valid. I'm not one to start a sentence, if everybody would....  The only thing everybody is going to do is ingest, evacuate and die. The rest of it is an infinite assortment of possibilities. Not everybody is going to stop saying the C-word or the B-word or the A-word or the N-word or the F-word. Not everybody is going to use their turn signal. Not everybody is going to be respectful of others. Not everybody is going to think twice. After two thousand years of the Savior telling his people not to be judging, it only hinders your own spiritual growth, it's like those words the same as have black censorship bars over them and no one knows what they were. Like the old feller said, "When I want to be judged I'll go to church."

 

 

 

All the advice from Jesus was such that if everybody did it, the world would be a better place. It's understood not everybody is going to do it. But if the devotee does it him/her self, applies a given principle to everyday life, it makes the devotee's world of people one lives among a better place. Put out peaceable vibrations into the world and peaceable vibrations return. Karma is the core of Christian teaching. Give peace, receive peace. Though it has been forgotten by now. Some years ago I was in Philadelphia visiting a Muslim friend I knew in the Navy, a jazz vibraphone player and devout Muslim. He had a different wife and we were both different from before, though we flowed together well, largely because our faith was similar. He introduced me to a Muslim brother or sister as not of the faith, but my faith was similar to theirs and embraced theirs. They welcomed me. I went to a mosque and was greeted as a brother. I found them beautiful people I felt happy and at home among.

 

 

He and I were wandering through the museum of Art in Philadelphia, and came upon an exhibit from western Africa of replicas of huts people lived in from different regions. I think it was Senegal we were passing when he spoke with an African man in a black suit standing beside the exhibit, who was with the exhibit. They spoke and found both were Muslim.  Friend also spoke Arabic. They embraced as brothers and were the same as brothers from the embrace onward. I thought: Wow, that's living peace. I can't help but find it interesting that the Muslim world is draining into Europe in such numbers they must be accommodated by necessity if not decency. I see it an injection of devout, peaceable people into societies that could use some peace. Of course turmoil will arise from racism and religionism. Europe's racism is on the verge of a test. Pope Francis in DC appears to be a spirit of peace in "that great city" where hate and greed are the order. He looks kind of pitiful surrounded by men in black with ear pieces, weapons out of sight though instantly accessible, well trained in the art of killing, everybody in the crowd a suspect. Alas, it's necessary in every city in the world.

il papa sequestered

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

POPE FRANCIS HAS LANDED

il papa

 

The pope is in America, riding about in a tiny Fiat in a sea of security in ominous Lincolns. He appears out of place in pictures surrounded by important Americans in expensive clothes, the masses herded behind a barricade. In Cuba he was out walking around greeting people, individually, praying with them. In America he's surrounded by military and power in suits, kept away from the people, a security risk. I saw a video of him walking from one place to another with a parade of security, a crowd of people the other side of an impenetrable fence cheering him. He looked at them, I imagined feeling impotent, like a cow in a stockyard led from gate to gate by the threat of an electric cattle-prod. The other side of the barricade huddled the Americans who interested him. He could not reach them, was not allowed to walk among them. Dangerous. I'm thinking he must feel like he's reading 1984. I feel like his only defense in the world of American power, where false is true and true is false, would be his humility. His center will hold. He is beyond desire, beyond seduction. I'm sure he does not have a sense of humor as jaded as mine, leading me to suspect he will be praying for us when I would be laughing. We need all the prayer we can get.

 

love pope by karl urbach-mallin

 

I can hardly wait til Thursday to see what he has to say to the American congress for the international record. The corporate marionettes will have a great time indulging their propensity for hissy-fits. This is the only thing I can see that's predictable. George Will goes on being a serious disappointment. Even back when he was the new voice of conservative punditry he was as screwed up as he is now in his advanced age. I had not paid him any mind in so long I forgot about him. Then he turned up today in a snit about the pope, writing fundamentalist nonsense, as usual, the reason I've never been able to take him seriously, or even read him. He's a good writer. It's the mind behind the writing I have issues with. Not really issues. I don't take him seriously enough to have issues with him. The republican reaction to the pope, presaged in Wills' prosecutorial accusations, need be of no more interest to me. Wills already spelled it out. 

 

 

Next is seeing it in action for the corporate propaganda show called the news, Meet the Press, jabber, jabber, jabber, Rachel Maddow yelling back at them, pointing the finger. Bill Maher is at risk of jumping into the deep end again. I'll be curious to see what humor he makes of America's encounter with Pope Francis from a proud and provoking gay atheist point of view. This particular pope, Pope Francis, in America in this time of corporate police state that holds Mammon highest, seems so out of place he will make great editorial cartoons, the little humble guy with raging morons on Fake news blaming him. To the pope, I imagine he feels like he stepped into the world of another religion as foreign to his own as Zoroastrianism or Hinduism, even more foreign, and far less gentle. The nearest he will see to gentleness could be the black servants. They would be the people he could connect with, eye to eye, the divine in me greets the divine in you.  

 

 

 

I never imagined in my lifetime I'd see a pope that did not support fascists. This is one of his many aspects that makes him a surprise pope. He will get all kinds of criticism, and of course, he must, as no good gets done without opposition, yet this man will prevail. He is unafraid. He is backed by the gospel. Not even a twisted interpretation of it. The American fundamentalist reaction will be so ridiculous, it won't even be comic. As in life, they do not matter. I'm more interested in what he has to say before congress and of his American experience. He will see much of what he sees in Rome, the rich and the poor and all the in between, American style, which, when you get down in among the people, is a very genuine style. We are a good and a genuine people on the whole, albeit aggressive and obnoxious with a passion for killing. We're complex. Some are this, some are that. We have some who like to get their brains bashed playing football for television and some who play string instruments in symphony orchestras all over the land. The Obamas show him respect. He will have delicious meals. His tour of Babylon will be on a soft cushion surrounded by an assault army.

 

 

 

 

*