Predestination

When I was 21 years old and a senior in college, I was absolutely sure that Janice and I would be married six months after graduation. I was so sure that when she told me her former boyfriend was home on leave and wanted to see her, I said, “Fine, invite him to the wedding.” (OK, now you know what’s coming!) The next day, she took me for a walk right off the campus green and into shark-infested waters. She told me she was going to marry him, NOT ME! I was depressed for three years, three long, drunken, stoned years!

Fifty years later, Carol Ann and I are living the dream under the big blue Pacific sky and seeing each other about five times a week. We were in love, playing lots of golf, traveling, and having sex three times a day. See article on ‘Sex 3 Times a Day’). I often BBQed, making Ray-man’s famous Pittsburgh steak and heated salad. (See article on ‘Food’). Carol Ann was invited to her 50th High School Reunion. (And again, friend, you know what is coming next, with a slight variation - LOL). There she met her first lover, and suddenly, I am number two! Our five nights became four, then three, then two. And then, my friend, something GLORIOUS happened to me. For instead of becoming depressed and angry, I forgave her, myself, and especially God (See articles on ‘Miracles’ and ‘Forgiveness’).

THE HOOVER DAM

On December 20, 1921, John Gregory Tierney drowned while surveying sites for the dam. He was the first person to die while working on the dam. On December 20, 1935, his son, Patrick William Tierney fell to his death from an intake tower during construction. He was the last person to die while working on the dam. Father and son, first and last to die while working on the dam, died fourteen years apart on the same day.

And I can give you ten more major examples of why I believe in predestination. We all have a time to be born and a time to pass on in God’s plan for the Heavenly Universe! So do not worry about anything, my friend. It is already set, preset, and predestined in God’s good plan for us, better than any of us could have planned it ourselves. Just do the best you can, and get out of the way, and leave the rest to God.

THE JOURNEY

<strong><em>The emperor lives far away (perhaps in Vienna or Kathmandu). If it were not that far I would go there myself today.</em></strong>

Introduction

Do we forgive men their fear or curse them for holding on? Can we lean on weakness and still unfold the mystery? And let us ask ourselves, do they really believe they can be who they were yesterday yet hold firm their love tomorrow?

Oh Freud, oh Jung, oh Jesus, they will not listen to you. Bergastrasse 19 is closed for renovations (a lack of interest abounds). Pretensions lead egos into strange affiliations of cats and fish mating together; a preaching of greed is universal, physics be damned. We might as well throw Galileo and Copernicus to the dogs.

Andy laid it out for us in fifteen minutes but died before his time, and the intelligentsia is still discussing Michelangelo.

Ah, but listen says the muse, listen: hushed whispers, silent winds, vespers begin. The birds and church bells of Venice rekindle the flame that came from the spark that ignited the word, and the word was YES; yes, the word was yes, and time began.

Past, present, and future shaped in three concentric circles, a common center of Holy Spirit. Holy meaning 'whole,' Spirit meaning 'mind,' whole mind, Buddha mind, flowing, a now that whispers in your ear the music of the dance of your eternity.

The whisper of the Holy Spirit that says to you and me, 'do not be afraid, do not fear, you have what you want, what is left but to embrace it.'

Yes was the word at the beginning of time. Yes was the word spoken for the orgasm of being. Yes was the word of the first flowering rose. Yes is the word of my being with your being together...and alone.

Hosanna Hosanna sanna sanna sa.

Part 1

Questions

Would that I met a man or woman who had lived forever. Had somehow cheated time of its dominion (or at least) having passed over the bar by some miraculous deception of natural physics, returned to this land of momentary and conditional madness.

Would that I met one or another of these, somewhere, sometime, someplace, out of time and space, and together we sat listening to the words of eternity.

Woven by one who had squeezed truth from eternity, who had had the time to see it all. For wouldn't we all be very wise if we could live ten thousand years? Wouldn't we?

One who has seen it all: the primal connection, divisions of light and darkness, of white into the spectrum of color, metamorphosis of contracting expansions, hard and soft, when the dry running sands turned to crystal clear water, when that water covered the earth and the first living form sprung from the misty everglades.

When the sky first bowed to the rising sun, when winter and summer mixed the colors of autumn, and the eons of time rolled on.

One who had seen the apocalypse, had drunk from the silver chalice, had fought with the blade during the march of folly.

One who knew the purpose of being, who had earned that knowing from the will, passion, and desire to know. One who had learned to live fully.

What would you ask? What would you want to know? What views would this one show us?

Would we learn how to say goodbye gracefully, like autumn leaves falling from trees, humbly accepting cold winter winds?

And upon knowing, would we laugh or cry or simply walk away alone, never wanting to look back again? What would he or she say to you and me?

The wind whips the trees and licks the mountains of their dew. The sun rises and sets and the eons of time roll on.

If we could listen, if we could be still enough to listen, if we could only sit and listen long enough to hear the sound of the whispering wind, of the voice of one who had lived forever.

Part 2

The Cross

And then the soldiers, military men all, from Calvary to the SS, from Vietnam to Tiananmen Square to Iraq and Ukraine, did their bidding and took up the cross and raised it high on the hill of every part of the earth at twelve noon.

And it was us, dear reader, hanging on that cross asking ourselves, how did we get there?

Imagine yourself on the cross of your own choosing. See yourself on the cross with Christ. Feel the pain of your own losses: the lovers that left you, the children who mocked you, the parents who failed you, the dead hopes of once vibrant dreams, the pain of the nails hammered into your soul and heart.

(BANG) Nails of deception (good girls are always nice). (BANG) Nails of fear (big boys don't cry). (BANG) Nails of lies (for your own good). (BANG) Nails of naivety (your leaders are wise).

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, and the crowning of thorns is the letter 'S,' and the 'S' stands for sucker.

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, and the scourging is the number '2,' a material principle gone crazy (esteemed unfortunate).

Life is not for the misery of a political victim hanging on the cross. Life is not for the frustration of so many beginnings not reaching climax. Life is not for the anger arising from the dialogue of strangers.

Imagine Christ, having hung three hours (being who they say he was). Imagine Christ plucking out the nails, descending from the cross. He turns and says, 'Enough of this illusion, end of script, this show is over, adios amigos.'

Let us let our mourning be done with as we know it, replacing it with mourning for the things we can change right now.

Mourn the life that never was. Mourn the love that died in vain, knowing that our mourning is just a mirrored reflection of the shutdown undiscovered parts of our birthright.

Enter the self. Enter the kingdom of the self. He and She will guide you.

When was the contract breached? When did the garden disintegrate? By whom? Or is it all our individual choice?

Reenter the Kingdom through the self. Forget what you once trusted. Let it all go without fear. Has it honestly served you well? Has it taken you to where you want to be? Then why do you long for so much you do not have?

Let it all go, knowing that it has been your nails and cross.

For there are no excuses, my friends, in this day and age of living on the edge of the envelope, over the rainbow, being in the movie, and knowing that this is no dress rehearsal. There are no excuses left to tell. We choose our fate, creating and recreating the days of our patterned lives, letting fear, disability, insecurity, and hopelessness be our guides.

And unless we pick up the sword and cleave the claws that cling us to the past, no proper space can be delineated.

Until this time the artist's brush will have no bristles, the preacher's words can have no meaning, the thinker's philosophy can house no truth.

Do you hear the wind and the chorus telling us, 'take yourself down from the cross before your time is over'?

You fear you have no guides, no signposts for traveling. Make your own map, God dammit, for God damns only those who do not try.

What would you ask for if the genie appeared? Go ahead and ask, then we can begin our journey.

For if you can do this, if you can put yourself on the path, if you can look in the mirror, they will say many things about you. They will say he did his job well. They will say he functioned like a surgeon, straight to the heart of the matter. He dug in through the scar tissue and the blood. He probed deep to the root, to the place where the dis-ease began.

Dispassionately they will say she did what she had to do, and in that statement they will honor your life.

With no wayward movements, no flinching, no shortness of breath, no destructive emotions that would disable his approach to the challenge ahead, skillfully he plunged both hands into the worn-out heart. And with his fingers he severed the arteries, ripping it from your cavity. And with your very own hands (in spite of momentary lifelessness) you assist him until behold, you find your very own hands replacing your worn-out heart.

And you sing with the chorus singing: Hosanna Hosanna sanna sanna sa.

Part 3

Lies

The lies they told us on both sides could fill an eternity of skies. That we should be rich and famous - how trite - or that being there is being with God - what craziness - the likes of madmen gone further insane.

As if, as if it were either or, this or that. The ends of the rod are the same in the meeting. Let me repeat: the ends of the rod are the same in the meeting.

Each preacher preaches for himself. What childish foolishness, what arrogance and contempt, to believe that we should believe the words of another, that I should believe your words or you mine, or any of the other dozens of preachers.

They are old and tired, worn out. Their gall has turned to gangrene and hardened. Each of us knows what we should do. Each of us hears our own voice. Each of us can find our unique way, I assure you.

Can't they make their living in some other fashion? Design clothing, write a romance novel, build a house?

There is one eternal truth. Let me give you one eternal truth: it is you, just you, and only you. Our choices are what we are. All else is illusion.

They have taught us that the path is lonely because they were lonely. They have said it is a difficult journey because their journey was difficult. They have told us that the path is within because they could not smell the rose.

They have spread their words because it is all that they knew, and in the end those who were honest enough to say it said, 'I am a lonely old man writing for other lonely old men.'

It is all they could say, for all they could say and all they could do was portray the sorrowful life that they could live, nothing more.

But their need to be somebody, their need for power and greed, their need to be separate, drove them to judge, to condemn, to profess and uphold what they and society would accept.