Tag: hypocrisy

What Absolutely Beautiful Ugliness I Am

August 29, 2014 / Tom

How could I feel melancholy?

I lay here, alone in my bed, the sounds of nature coming in through my open bedroom windows, wondering about such things.

My life is so beautiful. I have the love of three children, and the tender smiles and life-altering dramas of my little ones to grace my days. I have physically moved into a great space, with the harmonies of nature singing me to peace, and a cool breeze lightly filling the space where shortly I will fall to sleep.

I have beautiful people in my life. I have friends who mean so much to me even if I never quite find the right ways of expressing that great fortune. It isn’t that I don’t care. It’s just the opposite. I love them with all of my heart, and they are in many thoughts and deeds during my day. No, it’s not a lack of emotional love that keeps me silent.

Sometimes I just feel as if I need the distance. Not physically. Emotionally. I feel that I can love them best by not needing them, by not having them need me. I feel that I can do my thing in a way that allows them to do their thing, and that I best fly when not feeling constrained. See, I tend to crash into walls. And walls hurt.

I know, that the idea that pain is impending is an assumption, and making assumptions violates my own agreement. Yet at some point in life one must wonder where assumption-making ends and experience takes over. No, not every shard of glass is sharp, but experience tells me that if I walk on shards of glass I will end up cut and bleeding. I have the scars to prove it, and frankly I have no great desire to need more stitching.

More analogies and metaphors rush into my head like waves of a stormy sea. So far I’ve crashed into figurative walls and walked on ideological shards of glass while soaking in tsunami after tsunami of frothy, wind-swept ocean water. I’ve

I’ve hurt those I love the most, loved those who have hurt me terribly, and lived in the shadow of death.

heard echoes about my footsteps in the sand, how I was carried by some savior whose name I can’t remember out beyond some horizon I never seem to stand upon. I’ve cursed some saints and loved some sinners while not quite understanding the meaning to even my own questions. I’ve hated and loved, and pushed away some things I certainly should have held on to. I chuckle at the irony of it all.

I’ve choked on the very ocean water I love so much. I’ve become ill listening to my fears, and I’ve honored those fears as the very things that I’ve used as footholds on my trip to the summit of this life. I’ve been burnt by the fires that have warmed me, and I’ve grown blind in the very light I’ve used to light my way. I’ve hurt those I love the most, loved those who have hurt me terribly, and lived in the shadow of death. I’ve grown afraid of not knowing fear, and I’ve discovered that I find my truth when facing the monsters I’ve long held captive in the closets of mind. I’ve argued with others, but no more than I have argued with myself, with the voices implanted in me from birth often arguing with the voices implanted in me before birth. I’ve traveled enough in my own universe to know that there is no such thing as empty space, and I’ve heard the chorus sing through one, unified voice urging me onward even in the most wonderful moments of stillness.

Then there is that one voice I hear. The bastard macho fuck that won’t shut up until he gets his way. I know him well, and I fight him hard.

No, motherfucker, I won’t stop whining and I won’t stop complaining. I won’t “man up”, whatever the fuck that means. I won’t stop, and yes, I’ll let my panties get into a bunch. I’m sick of your rules too, and I plan to break every one of them until I am done here. In our time together you’ve kicked my ass and I’ve kicked yours to equal measure.

I’m not sure either of us has ever truly won anything in the process, although I’m pretty sure we’ve both loss plenty. We’re stupid that way.

Yet, I’ve met some beautiful people along the way. People who accept me even in the distance, people who feel close even when my heart is dancing among those stars neither of us can really see. I walk through the crowded room where I’ve put those memories and I smile broadly when saying “hello” to each of them. I remember the hugs, the kisses, the stories, the conversations. “I love you,” I say to each of them. They respond, “I know you do.”

I’ve seen some beautiful places while playing here. I’ve been fortunate to see so much in this journey, and to find the hidden caves of this place I could always call home if given the chance. I’ve seen flat land, my beloved high peaks, and the sandy ocean waters I now call home. I’ve gotten wet in viscous southern storms, kissed the snows of high altitude, and dove deep in the clearest seas I have ever bathed in. I’ve flown high above the clouds and felt the pressure of the deep, and I’ve floated on the surface of things when the people I love were floating there, too. I’ve had wealth, lost plenty, and felt the most loneliness a man could ever feel. I’ve been blessed with what my mind calls the “good” and the “bad”, and I’ve come through the day to see the night and then lived to see the sun rise again.

Yeah, I’m blessed. I’ve learned how to stand up on my own two feet without the crutches I’ve been told I’d need. I’ve learned that sometimes I have to crawl, even through the mud. I’ve learned that even the tone-deaf can find the right note from time to time. I’ve learned that I can make my kids laugh until their sides hurt. I’ve also learned that sometimes that is all we need; to laugh until our sides hurt. I’ve learned that thinking, acting, and being just like a kid is sometimes the cure for what ails me. I’ve learned that I love being alone because I love the company I keep there, and I’ve also learned that sometimes there is nothing like a great hug, a tender kiss, or that something more that highlights just how wonderful some people can be.

I guess when I look back I realize that the weatherman doesn’t always need to be right, and that sometimes it is just perfect to get soaked to the bone when science says the sun should be shining. Sometimes it is nice to be the only one on the beach because the experts have said it would be raining cats and dogs. Sometimes it is wonderful to just be wrong, to make that one mistake that sets your life on fire. It is especially wonderful when you realize that you already hold the tools necessary to put that fire out, yet you just sit and watch it burn for a while.

One day I will be done here. Then, I’ll be grateful for that one late night I spent writing about the idiosyncrasies of this experience.

I’ll be grateful for those wanderers who find value in these words I’ve thrown together, who seek out their own recipe even in the cookbooks found in other homes, on other shelves, written by other chefs, yet who invariably end up cooking the meal the way they want to with ingredients of their own choosing. I’ll be grateful for the loss that made room for so much gain, for the pain that exposed the pleasure, for the night that showed me the grandeur of each and every day.

After all, what is the good without the bad? It is, frankly, my horns that hold my halo in place. Or, perhaps, it is my halo that makes my horns just so fucking delicious. Hhhhhmmm, I’ll have to ponder that one for a while.

I. Love. Just. Being. Me

June 5, 2013 / Tom

There was once an ideal so great it seemed indestructible to me. It stood tall in the landscape of my life, and dominated my horizons even in those moments when I felt small and cold in its shadow. I measured my worth in its presence, often wondering if I could ever stand as tall as the person who had dominated my life.

Ultimately, I failed her and her me. It is remarkable what one can discover when the velo di amore is lifted from the eyes and replaced with la nebbia di avidità.

That is often where we find ourselves when a great promise becomes a lost ideal. I found myself a rudderless vessel unsure of each footstep and lost in an abyss of yesterdays, tossing and turning in a vast sea of uncertainty often sailing against the winds of my own heart. The very moment when you watch everything you once cherished and idolized become consistent with everything you wanted to remove from your life is the very moment when the ideal is lost, and often the very moment when you realize your life is no longer the dream you once held dear.

I had no idea what I was in for in that holy instant when the rains came and the flood waters descended upon my world. The walls closed in on me, and my heart sank into the black depths of despair. Gone are those who said you were their son. Gone are those who only hours before had said they loved you. Gone are those who called you brother, and gone is the one who promised you an eternity.

Everything goes. Everything vanishes. Everything returns to the dust on which it was built. Your life ends, or so you think.

I felt as if I was helpless, alone, and that I’d been left hanging in a place of which I had never been, in a way in which I had never experienced. I cried tears so salty that they dried my body of its substance, and sobbed so loudly that I had stirred the gods from their deepest slumber. I searched for reasons, and although I was told why from her, I realized that nothing I had ever believed in was real. I soon lost my sense of who I was and what I was doing.

It is, however, a moment of great opportunity. Some of us seek distractions and support from religion, others seek the same in substances. I simply wanted to watch and to learn. I wanted to seek out the illusions I had constructed in my life and end them. I wanted to suffer in order to end my suffering. I wasn’t going to find my joy in a Bible, or in a bottle; no I would have to find my joy in a place few of us journey into deeply in a way I had never tried before.

That is what I had decided to do. Search. Watch. Learn. Most of all I worked hard at not interfering with the process. Soon I began to see patterns that failed to serve me at my highest place. I saw my consistent need to blame myself for the failures. I saw the mistakes I made in not standing up for who I was and what I wanted in my life. I saw the error of not loving myself, and in not simply accepting my fears, my desires, my needs and my loves as wonderful manifestations of who I am. I allowed myself to be suckered into living a lie; her lie, their lie, and my lie. I followed my heart that said “I love you” without testing the waters in her mind to see if they were too shallow, too cold, or simply not aged enough to dive into. I allowed myself to believe her lie, and soon began living it as if I owned it. Worse, I began admitting to it as if it had really happened.

I began seeing the pedestal I had constructed to place her and them on. That pedestal was a dangerous construct, it puts others in a place of being worshipped unjustly while placing me in a place of worshipping others unfairly. I failed to see my worth, my value and my sense of divinity. It was no wonder I couldn’t see them for who they were.

Mere dust. Nothing more.

There came a time, though, when the proverbial flood waters receded and my ark came to rest on a mountaintop. The rainbows appeared and I let my cargo go free to wander those places I had never seen. It is there that the veil itself begins to unravel, and it is there that the pedestals crumble and the dust blows away. I began to see less with my heart and more with my mind all the while beginning to see it all with something I once searched for but had never truly found.

That part I was always seeking was, truly, that part that was always seeking me.

I began to see that there is truly nothing more valuable to a human Being as the relation I have with my Self. I began to see the things I once held so dear as nothing more than illusions. I began to let go of those swirling dust-devils I once held as gods upon a pedestal and they, in turn, began revealing their truth. I was never what I was told I was, and I was never what I wanted to be. Because I wanted to be it so badly I believed it so easily. In the end the lie was revealed, as was the truth. There is only I, and I am beautiful in every way.

They are just people, and not always just people. They are having their own experience as they have every right, and I have no real need to interfere with that which does not interfere with me. I don’t need their love to feel love, and I don’t need their acceptance to feel accepted. That was a losing proposition that I started years ago, and the faux me could never live up to the ideal that the real me had never agreed to.

So, now all I promise is me…in the flesh and in the spirit without pretense and without some false sense of what you want. You will either love me or not, and I don’t pretend to be able to make that choice for you. I love me, sincerely and without hesitation, as a man with perfect faults and incredible potential. I love what I am doing right now; taking a whirlwind of feelings, translating them into words, and sharing them with anyone who has the fortune of reading them. I love exploring parts of me that were once oppressed and hidden living up to ideals not mine and am often ecstatic about what I find in the process. I love jumping out of proverbial airplanes and free-falling, often unsure if the parachute I packed will ever open even while being sure that I was the one who packed it and no one else. I love being alone when I want, in great company when I can, and in exploring the liberation I’ve found in the broken shackles that now lay littering the place where the pedestals once stood. I. Love. Just. Being. Me.

Period.

I love writing about what I want to write about without worrying about being censored by someone who doesn’t accept me and who will never defend what she can’t accept.

I love that I am no longer afraid.

I love that I can experience this life in the way I wish to experience it without caring about the judgment of others.

I love that I no longer see the “old me” as bad because I no longer see the old me at all.

I love that I can now live in the present moment whenever I choose, undaunted by the desires of others to resign me to the box they created years ago.

I love that I can explore my journey while looking in the rearview mirror, unafraid of the judgments some will place on my experience, and without needing their approval.

I love the fact that sometimes I am deeply saddened by missing those I once called “family” even as I am extremely happy in the knowing of the love I have for them.

I love my children and the relationship I am forging with them. I love that they love me, and that I am acutely aware of the awesome miracles that they create in so many moments, in so many ways.

I love the friends I have discovered, both new and old alike. I love seeing the world with them, and in having our experiences together when the present themselves.

I love that I can be alone for days without worry and without despair.

I. Love. Just. Being. Me

Oh yeah, I said that already. Oh well, I hope to say it many more times before my time here is through. After all, there is no better proof that I love myself then in my ability to love you even if I can’t be “with” you. I love the fucking rain. I love the humidity. I love the cool breeze now lightly caressing my back through my open sliding-glass door. I love my cat who is now rubbing her body on my leg. I love the other one who is watching to see if I’ll pet his sister (they are competitive that way).

I love the fact that I am pro-peace and not anti-war. I love the fact that my oldest wants me to teach her meditation. I love the fact that I love.

And, of course, I. Love. Just. Being. Me.

As you can see, the experience of suffering can be a great friend. Losing something you love can also be a wonderful experience. Seeing what others are doing while also seeing who they are can be a wonderful experience. You soon see that they are just like you, having an experience, and even if you don’t like how you feel in what they are doing you can always find love for them because they are just like you. Even if they pretend to be better.

Take care of yourself and let them go. Those who don’t serve your purpose will drop away like rotting fruit from the tree to serve another purpose. Remember, that fruit is only rotting to you, to others that fruit will be a deserved feast, a welcome meal.

In the end what will only be real is the love you have for you. In the end, the only reality you will have is that you are a wonderful part of the Universe designed to manifest Its beauty. Adore yourself, and become your best friend.

Peace.

Jesus Must Have Changed His Mind

May 23, 2013 / Tom

Here I sit, my Bible in hand, trying to find that part where Jesus changed his mind. I look through Matthew. Nothing. I look through Mark. Nada. I search through Luke, still nothing. I get past John and, surprisingly, I still find nothing.

Given what I see from those who say they worship Jesus as “God”, I figure somewhere Jesus must have changed his mind. The book I was taught while suffering through Catholic school must have miraculously changed at some point since those lessons. I wouldn’t be surprised, after all the God of the book did all kinds of wild stuff, so certainly changing the entire text on which His superstition, er, I mean religion was based certainly could be done.

Yet I can’t find a single edit.

I can’t see where Jesus suddenly turned his back on the poor, calling them “lazy freeloaders” along the way. I can’t find that notion where the poor were put on notice that they were “on their own” to either starve or beg for mercy to some church as a part of their poverty. I can’t see where Jesus said that the wealthy were deserved of special treatment or any kind of hero-worship.

Nope, my book still says the wealthy will have a hard time getting into heaven. My book still has Jesus eating with the most hated of his society. My book still has him working to feed the poor without conditions. Hhhhhmmmm.

I can’t find where Jesus is pro-death penalty in my Bible. I can’t find where he condemns people to death for violating the laws of the land. I’m sure it has to be in there somewhere because, after all, the Christian part of our society seems strongly in favor of the death penalty. I must have to reread it all over again because certainly those who follow Jesus as Lord and Master could not be for something he was not.

I also can’t seem to find that part where Jesus seeks wealth. I can’t find the capitalist Jesus every conservative Christian seems to know. I look for the man named Jesus who worships money and puts nearly everything behind amassing wealth and power. I can’t find that Jesus though and I can’t find where he even held a job let alone created a company. I am fairly certain that the Americanized conservative Jesus would have had one of the twelve carrying a cash register while another of the twelve carried a sandwich board stating the prices for being healed. I think it’s also fair to say that Americanized conservative Jesus would have had a 501-3(c) as well as a Political Action Committee all at his disposal.

I’m also fairly certain the Americanized conservative Jesus also only raised the dead of the highest bidder. That’s the capitalist way!

Not to get on a tangent, but if the afterlife Jesus described was so wonderful, why did he raise people from the dead anyway? If I had died, was in heaven, and then was brought back by Jesus, I’d get off my stone slab and beat him with my shoe. I know, heaven didn’t exist until Jesus died…or something like that. Uh huh.

Ok, back to the gist of my thought.

I also can’t find where Jesus felt the need to have a weapon to protect himself. I do realize that anyone who can walk on water probably would have no need for a sword, but even when he could have used one he did not and commanded others NOT to use theirs. Certainly the Bible has undergone a Divine edit there. I’m sure it reads,

Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. ⁵¹With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

⁵²“Give me that thing,” Jesus said to him, “we must defend ourselves against this terror.” And with that Jesus killed everyone save those who agreed with him, and the world was safe for capitalism and democracy.

The fact check is all done and, well, mine still says “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” No caveats, no conditions, just a simple statement of fact.

Yet, it seems conservative Christian America is addicted to our modern version of the sword. This conservative Christian America not only suffers from this addiction, and would not only draw the sword, but would also use it with reckless abandon despite the fact that God (or Jesus) did not sneak into our homes in the middle of the night and change the texts to be more agreeable their version of America. Of course he may have feared being shot.

Then there is our “War on Terror.” Our “War on Drugs”. Our imprisonment of more people by percentage of our population than any other industrialized country. Sexual repression and oppression. Guantanamo Bay. This isn’t even going back into our history of racial persecution, slavery, gender oppression, and slaughter of indigenous people.

It leads me to wonder what version of Christianity conservatives suggest we were founded on; the one Jesus lived in the story or the one they have created in their heads as their own. That’s an easy answer because the Jesus I have read about is nothing like the Christian conservatives of America. That is unless the only Bible not changed to fit their model of Christianity is the one I am reading.

I suggest we end this pretentious fallacy that this nation was founded on any version of real Christianity.

Real Christianity doesn’t exist, much like Jesus didn’t exist. No one has ever raised a person from the dead after days on a slab. No one has ever reattached a limb without surgery.

The greatest proof I have found that Jesus did not exist is Christianity itself. The greatest proof I have found that the God of the Bible doesn’t exist comes from those who say they believe in Him.

If Christians really believed Jesus existed and that everything in the Bible existed and was truth, they would have no need to defend their life and property. Gun sales would plummet because they are all on their way to that wonderful place in the sky Jesus talked about. Why defend a life here when something like heaven awaits you out there? Pass the wine and bread, I need a good buzz.

If Christians really believed they would not be so different than the Jesus in the Bible. They’d all be loving those liberal Arab hippies who are like Jesus. They’d all be washing the feet of others. They’d be eating with Democrats and hugging crack addicts. They’d be rushing into prisons to save the condemned, and they’d be loving the hell out of “terrorists”. There would be no cheers over drone strikes. There’d be no joy over the killing of anyone, regardless of their sins.

There would be, however, an awful lot of bruised cheeks, both left and right side.

After all, do any of us know sin-free Christians? If not, how can one of them throw the stone as Jesus asked? Ah, the devil is in the details, and the proverbial Jesus seems to have given conservative American Christians an impossible example to follow. Either that or Jesus certainly changed his mind about everything he taught since ascending into that board room in the sky. Whichever, it seems that despite some notable exceptions in history Christians have given up being like Jesus and have rather sought to make Jesus more like them.

What clearer failure can a religion endure than when the Master it is founded on becomes as irrelevant as a bumper sticker?

What surer failure can a religion find than when the teachings of its founder are less important than the wood on which it is believed he died?

I don’t mind if someone holds on to a rosary believing it will get them to some place that their actions could not. I don’t care if someone believes unreasonably that the world is only 9,000 years old. What I do mind is open hypocrisy on which we have to endure lecture after lecture and statement after statement from these misguided people who who I am is decided by what they believe. That’s when I mind.

So, stop with the nonsense that America is a Christian nation. Stop telling me how wrong gay marriage is and about how homosexuality is a sin. Stop telling me about the value of life when discussing abortion while you are hoping for the death of a convicted criminal. Stop with the clarifying statements that somehow reconcile your anti-Christ-like thoughts with the teachings of the story you pretend to believe in.

Harsh words, I know, but necessary to me nonetheless. I don’t apologize to those who find these words offensive unless they can prove me wrong. I welcome the debate, but please don’t start it out with how the earth was created in less than a week and how each and every woman I know owes me something for my rib. Instead, show me something tangible that doesn’t take a lifetime of conditioning and a lack of intelligence to believe. Do that, and I will apologize wholeheartedly and beg for forgiveness.