WATCHING THE STREAK GO BY

    entropy

This morning on the news I heard a radio journalist say in reference to the Syrian government killing so many protesters, "Governments have a responsibility to take care of their people." A seed of NewThink. I've never heard anybody say that before today. He could get a new Commie scare going talking too much of that. He certainly did not get that idea from the USGovernment. No. I'm interpreting "take care of" in different ways. The American take care of means overwhelming the world with military might "to protect American citizens." International corporations are American citizens now. Syria is "taking care of" it's citizens. This interpretation amounts to escorting them out of this world, exit-cution. I have to say I am happy that Obama does not feel the need, or at least suppresses it, to compromise himself with hypocrisy by making an issue of the Syrian problem.



I'm finding interior ruminations these days tend to dwell on the nuisance of being expected of. What's expected is not that I spontaneously be myself, ever, but that I conform to the rules of Political Correctness. I'm not going to do it. Same as I'm not going to conform to Limbaugh mind. I'm not interested in being a parrot to any supposed-to way of thinking. It takes too much memorizing, too much self-editing. It's all about insecurity, about being a stranger in a strange land. It's an exercise in walking the Straight and Narrow, the tightwire. Walking the mental tightwire with a neon sign on my forehead flashing "approval." I have walked that wire and walked it. It's a commandment from God misinterpreted and made up by the human mind. The words in the KJV are "strait and narrow." Strait is not straight. The two words are as different in meaning as circle and square, or pour and poor. I don't believe God wants us walking a straight line without any other experience to go with it. The strait is a narrow space of water between two points of land, rough sea on one side, calm harbor on the other. He's saying that we, like ships, have to go through the strait from this rough and rugged indifferent world of waves, inner turmoil, to reach the calm water of the harbor, inner peace.



Strait and narrow is about finding inner peace as a one person at a time thing. Straight, like a ruler, and narrow, like a pencil line, is about doing what you're told. One says God is watching you, meaning watches you like a mother watches her baby in adoration and protection, through eyes of love. The other says God is watching you like a prison guard watching that you don't cross that line. You do and you'll be punished. God the Punisher is the God I was encultured to, like a hawk sitting on a branch watching, waiting for the first chance, then striking with razor talons. The God I have come to see in my adult experience is the God holding me like a baby, protecting me, forgiving me when I wet my diapers. I've heard it said that we humans treat others after our own interpretation of God. It's also said you can tell a lot about how a man treats others by how he treats his dog. Since I see the aspect of God that is unconditionally loving, I am secure within that I have good backup.



I believe I regard others openly and with loving spontaneity. I don't mean Eros loving. I mean Soul loving. It's not something I would try to do. It's just an attitude, how I feel about others. I think what I mean by openly with loving spontaneity is that I like to receive the other as who that person is. Then we bat the ball back and forth over the net like cousins who ride bicycles together. Innocence maybe. That's a tall order, innocence. Opening to innocence. Can I really do that? Dare I expect it of anyone else? It would be, searching inside myself, enlightenment. Obviously, I don't mean those words to those extremes, but with what I'll have to call basic human respect. That's good for what I mean by "openly with loving spontaneity." Basic human respect. I doubt if everybody that knows me would call it that. Interpretation again. I mean I know I do not live the ideal. In everyday life, all kinds of influences are going on every minute.



I don't feel compelled to condemn anybody for anything, given exceptions that prove the rule, preferring a free spontaneous association without games. I like tennis, hitting the ball back and forth over the net, seeing how long we can keep it going. I don't like slamming the ball with all the Chi I can focus into a single point, aiming for the other to miss the ball. I've never seen that fun. When somebody hits the ball to me that way, I watch the streak go by. I haven't touched a tennis racket since high school. Bowling, I'm more fascinated by seeing the pins never fall in the same configuration, ever, watching up and down the lanes how the pins fall differently every time. When I roll the ball, it's a game of chance; see where the ball goes, then see the fall of the pins unique in space and time. I'm more interested in aesthetic considerations, like the patterns of the pins falling, than score numbers or rolling the ball with practiced skill. I'd rather paint a picture with practiced skill. From earliest memories, I've never taken an interest in being competitive. It's why I'm no good in sports. I don't care who wins. Painting, there is plenty of inner motivation.



People I know who see God the Punisher, da Judge, I've noticed expect that I go with God the Punisher too. I've noticed ones who follow God the Punisher think I'm judging them when I'm not. Because I don't talk all the time, I'm expected to be "thinking," the unpardonable American sin, and what else could I be thinking about than judging whoever it is I'm with. I'd so much rather just listen to what somebody is saying, enjoying the music of the voice, enjoying following the other's meaning, their train of thought. I love good avant-garde theater, have come to see it in everyday life. Try watching your windshield as a tv screen to a video game called Driving In The Real World. I see it that everybody has a lot of stories in them, all the stories good ones. I like hearing other people's stories, if it's complaining about waiting at the bank's drive-thru behind somebody with so much work for the teller they should have gone inside. It's a very short short story, a familiar cultural experience with tremendous emotional tension. 

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STRAIT IS THE GATE

the in/out door

Throughout my adult life I've looked to finding out who I am, following the advice of Socrates and Jesus. Both of them left us some reliably sound counsel. I have a feeling know thyself is the shortest verse in the Bible to make it the easiest to learn, a way of stressing its importance. In the church I grew up in, knowing yourself was never a consideration. Just don't doubt. Only walking the straight (the word in the Bible is strait) and narrow, attempting to appear to follow the endless list of Don'ts put forth by the Preacher. Enforced by the Judge, my mother, sentenced to be hit until I have cried enough to pay for whatever crimes committed that day, by the male authority figure in the house. I knew the hitting was coming, whatever I did, so I went ahead and did what I wanted to do, thinking I'll get hit anyway. No big deal. At least I get to do what I want to do. I don't think walking the straight line is it, like highway patrol makes somebody walk on a straight line or else. 

I can't help but see the "strait and narrow" like the entrance to a harbor where the water is calm, inner peace. An entrance to a harbor is most often narrow, one ship at a time, one soul in human form at a time. From this and scriptures with similar meaning I've found in texts from other religions, it tells me to go my own way, in medieval Christian terms, my pilgrim way. In the same vein I've fantasized my place on the mountain a parallel of Han Shan's Cold Mountain mountain experience, though different place, time, spiritual experience. I'm half a hermit. Still, I have a great deal of need to connect with other people. Selma's coffee shop takes care of that social need now. There, I can have encounters with people I know, even meaningful conversations, by which I do not mean soap opera aint-it-awful kind of talk. Just talking about varieties of possible subjects is enjoyable. It's a place where everyone is comfortable that you're not being judged, no serious judging going on. Selma's spirit doesn't allow judging as a way of talking. One day I said something riotously judgmental and felt like the puppy the peed on the floor the 10th time. Selma thought nothing of it, but I thought plenty of it when I heard myself. 

It seems like on my spiritual path, it's not about emphasis on punishment. I came up in Christendom that has a major emphasis on punishment. I don't believe that came from God. Of course, I know there is God's instruction in the Bible to kill em all, but the God I know doesn't even think about punishment. We punish ourselves so much, we make God's role our comforter for all the suffering we create for ourselves when we get carried away with self-punishment. The wheel of karma. That's this world stuff, the world of duality. God is beyond duality. Something I've found interesting is every time that I can think of I've asked for something I need in prayer, the answer comes through a believer. That blows my mind. It tells me God really is consciousness. In Neolithic times there was no question of whether or not there is God; there was only God.

We've come a long ways from seeing our lives in the hands of God, directly. Now, it's nothing to be talking with someone and they say, "I don't believe in God." I have no issue with that. It's a totally 20th century thing to say. I am content with anyone believing in God and anyone not believing. I figure everyone is on their own spiritual path, wherever each one is along it, some aware of it, some not. I see atheism a valid place along one's path. I was convinced that way, too, until I had my experience that made it clear to me that God, indeed, is. Ok, I'm convinced; now what? Live your life. What? Is that all? Is that all? Isn't that everything? Que sera, sera, whatever will be will be--the future's not ours to see, que sera, sera. Don't worry, be happy. Awareness that I have access to the Divine, makes a wholly different approach to everyday life than before, when I didn't believe it possible. It doesn't mean I have to be a missionary and browbeat everyone around me to see the way I see. Where I'm at is where I'm at on my path. I yam what I yam, I'm Popeye the sailor man. Popeye was the same as a living man when I was little. I knew he was a cartoon, but he was himself, he was alive. 

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