. . . . . Well, not much goin' on huh? Football season cranked up. The weather channel said they were "surprised" Erin waited so long to develop into anything, perhaps more so because it was even downgraded from a tropical storm to a wave I think when the experts predicted rapid development. No idea what's goin' on there.
. . . . . And, since like the great majority I suppose, the present is a little bit much for me to deal with I'm gonna ignore it and hope it goes away. To day. Turns into night.
. . . . . God. I've been working on this a long time, but I wrote those two 'graphs September 10 (2001). Which means it's September 11 now. The attacks on New York City and D.C. are all that will be on tv for a while I guess. I was watching NBC when the second plane flew into the second tower. I heard Katie Couric question whether the towers would need to be demolished. I saw one of the towers collapsing. I couldn't take any more. I turned the tv off.
. . . . . Now I'm thinkin', the life of this web site I've been saying that the violence we as a people do to others in the name of all that is good is not nearly all physical violence, though 24000 people die every day of hunger as a result of this violence, mostly of a spiritual variety which, as just noted, often has the same deadly outcome. And I'm thinkin', I've been thinking all morning, that while I've been publicly saying that physical violence is not the way, I've also noticed (and noted) that our hearts/minds/necks are so hardened that severe shock might be required to see what we see. Which is to say that if somebody did this because of me, I'll take responsibility, and probably be like Timothy McVeigh, sorry about the collateral damage, but hopeful that things will change. (Well, McVeigh wanted to start armed revolution huh? And the scary thing [to me anyway] is that there was a time not very many years ago when I was willing to try and start maybe almost the same revolution. [Well, my aim has been not to overthrow my government, but our system. Not at all the same thing.]) And when you think about it, the 911 aspect of sept 11 is exactly, exactly, exactly what I've been trying to say about humanity. We are in horrible danger.
. . . . . I just read again Ezekiel 9:4-6, which says "And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house." The ancient men, remember, are the ones revered by the society as models of probity and even sanctity, certainly considered successful people of high integrity.
. . . . . And I've no idea how many people are like down with me and what I stand for ya know. And then there are those who have just like heard about it ya know, not agree with it. (When the head of the national intelligence committee talked about how he didn't want people to be alarmed by rumors I naturally thought of my recent note on Jeremiah 51:46[ "And lest your heart faint, and ye fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land; a rumour shall both come one year, and after that in another year shall come a rumour, and violence in the land . . ."] and the rumour I know went around in '97.) But, unlike some, I'm not the kind who is willing to stand for nothing and who will fall for anything.
. . . . . I mean, I don't know how much longer I have in this world, I don't know if my death will diminish anything (from "every man's death diminishes me, because I am involved with all of mankind"), I don't know what the future holds, and perhaps my making my views known will make a difference. And it isn't like masochistic, that I want everybody to hate me for being so evil. But do you see, 2500 people died in the attack on Pearl Harour in '41, thousands of people died today in this attack, but 24,000 people will die of hunger today because we don't care and hey, all I've been saying here for years is that we might all die if we don't change the system. So yeah, here's a challenge: allow me to take responsibility. I'm tired of it all right now. And feel sure it would just validate the opinion of most people regarding me. And not change a thing. And right now that would suit me just fine.
. . . . . I just read these verses (Luke 17:29-30) reporting a prophecy of Jesus and said to myself, "Son, Lott was like the only one God called righteous and he got outta town, and what if you are like (unbelievably) one God calls righteous and the way you're gonna get outta town is die?" It was a rhetorical question you know. But it does remind me of the time my (now ex-)wife and I were going to Ohio to visit relatives and we pulled off the interstate in some big city and looped around and went to a mall and bought sun-glasses (a digression: I had never owned a pair of cheap clip-on sunglasses [or any other kind] and they were great! I highly recommend sunglasses for really bright summer days) and half an hour later looped back to the interstate and pulled off at one of those big rest stops and there was a guy who I guess was a federal agent reporting in that we had disappeared, a worried man, and we went walking up and he saw us and said "He just showed up" or something like that and there was another agent in another city (pretty wild bar scene) who revealed himself to me. Like how disgusted he was with me. But that's another story.
. . . . . (Another digression: I don't know, but I might be trying to establish a little credibility with the feds here; I realize stories like this probably won't do much for my reputation with the general public. [2014 note: no, of course i'm trying to establish my credibility with the public and taking a chance of blowing my (would-be) relationship with the Feds] I mean, I know for example, what a post almost sympathetic to the terrorists will do for my image. In fact, I just hung up on my press agent who was arguing strongly against putting this on the web.)
. . . . . And it seems to me the biggest signal the terrorists sent was that it is not hatred of us and desire to kill us that motivated them to commit this . . . atrocity . . . but rather that they are aware of our common humanity and chose to strike in a somewhat symbolic way at the society they view as the Sodom and Gomorrah of our day. Think about it. We know there were eighteen people who spent years in this country with the sole intention of sacrificing their lives to send us a message. They knew this wasn't going to be the end of our society, or the beginning of a huge upheaval. They just wanted to send us a message.
. . . . . Tell me they didn't spend a few days watching activity at the World Trade Center. Or the Pentagon, or the White House, or Kongress. Of course they know what banker's hours are. Of course they knew that nine in the morning there would be twenty thousand people at the twin towers and an hour later a hundred thousand. And one possibility to me is that killing fewer people could indicate a certain sympathy to me and the causes I espouse. You know, trying to send a signal to ameriKa that it's time to wake up to spiritual realities which include sheltering and feeding everybody.
. . . . . There was a report on television I didn't really watch which touched on the Shah of Iran I think where the one guy was trembling with conviction as he told the viewers not to confuse what ameriKa was doing with the will of the Iranian people. We've been the neighborhood bully in the world for a long time and, another thing that same guy said, we don't care about what the people want in any of the countries in which we involve ourselves, we're only interested in protecting our interests. Anyway, Arabs perhaps trying to help me (which means us to me recall) is a big change in my (still un-published [to say nothing of unwritten]) book. I remember in the '80s thinking the Arabs would be the most likely group inclined to off me.
. . . . . And there I am rather sympathetic. A few years ago I said the military/industrial complex was the heart of the beast. I was speaking, I believe, of the past. The ameriKan system in general is so focused on what we commonly call the Almighty Dollar that I have truly almost been considering it beyond hope for years now. Oh well, if you missed my posts on the economy in the second view of my food watch, maybe check them out now.
. . . . . I did finally post (if you're only subscribed to the journal) the Ann Landers thing (here) and also my experiences with ameriKan publiK eduKation( here), which I guess I haven't said much about. Well, let me tell you, I was a top-notch teacher who requested to teach the low-achieving students. And discovered that the status quo is to not teach those classes (or almost any others actually); yeah, I rocked the boat by doing what I guess everybody would say is the right thing. The last superintendent I worked for was what you might call a die-hard status quo type. Anybody who got a job teaching deserved to keep it in his book, and as far as the students go, well, some of them just can't learn ya know, and most of 'em don't want to and, well, that's their business. Mine is drawin' a paycheck 'till I can grab the pension and swing.
. . . . . That very small dude surprisingly quit right before I was summarily fired, and I gather (I did have friends you know; dedicated, committed people seem to naturally acquire them even if they don't try [not to brag, because that is to not endure huh?], anyway, I gather that ray went to the school board all full of himself and said "either parker goes or i go" and the board told him to hit the road. If he hadn't finished his contract he might not have finished me and we might have a whole 'nother story, because I was pretty consumed by my teaching.
Anyway, to day is pretty difficult to deal with and as long as I don't pay too much attention yesterday isn't any worse anyway, so here's another blast out of the past:
. . . . . This is a scanned-to-html of a letter from February of '87 to the editor of the brookhaven mis'sippi daily newspaper, whose editor and publisher took the opportunity to really despise and reject me back about '95. I imagine if he had known what it said he would not have printed it. It was written mostly by me shortly after my (now ex-)wife and I moved there so I could teach. I think she later regretted putting her name on it. I regret a lot of things. Anyway, I found this with my Ann Landers thing and kind of read it and thought it interesting how it kind of shows a rather mature view you might say of what I continue to contend is our reality. I have no idea what Harrigan's column (which precipitated the response) said, but I'm sure it was some sort of voo-doo protectionist economic tripe still common (witness the start of the other letter on the page [with one minor edit], an emotional rant against the evils of Wal-MarK and free enterprise [which, recall, is nothing but the freedom to stab your neighbor in the back]). At any rate, here's what was written:
Some unable to face fact there are limits to the planet material resources Dear Editor:
. . . First, please let me say how much I have enjoyed both your newspaper and your community since I have been here.
. . . I was disturbed by Anthony Harrigan's scathing attack of the Anglican Bishop David Jenkins on your editorial page Friday, February 20.
. . . Mr. Harrigan seemed to take as much offense at a Bishop involving himself in economic matters as he did at the fact that the involvement was of a socialist nature. He even went so far as to state that "(Jenkins') understanding of economics is as confused as his understanding of theology." Ostensibly Mr. Harrigan is stating that religion is fine and good so long as it does not interfere with the business at hand.
. . . The column also purported that Bishop Jenkins is "one of those modern clergymen who have more interest in the Third World than the next world". I would suggest that it is the Bishop's understanding of spiritual realities which leads him to take such a stand as he has.
. . . Many people (and I include Mr. Harrigan) seem unwilling or unable to come to grips with the fact that there are limits to the material resources of the planet. Those with some economic acumen, however, do accept that the international monetary system must be founded on something other than the capacity of various governments' printing plants for it to be viable.
. . . Bishop Jenkins, I think it is safe to say, is more interested in getting some minimum of the earth's resources to those unfortunates who have difficulty even maintaining life, than in taking anything away from anyone. It is his understanding of the realities of the moment which lead him to speak as he does.
. . . Judging from the past, higher tax rates for those with what arguably could be called "morally and socially outrageous salaries" are indeed counterproductive. This is a lesson we might have learned more easily from the socialists, who have proven that an economic system can't hope to work without the promise of reward for effort.
. . . . . . Some capitalists, on the other hand, have shown that profit-reward is a motive strong enough to over-ride consideration for (and love of) other people.
. . . Both instances might be termed symptoms of the same problem: it is our human nature which is our worst enemy.
. . . I look at the Chinese and Russian experiments in free enterprise with the same sense of hope that I experience when I view democratic ventures into socialist practices. Both, I think, are examples of idealism yielding to necessity.
. . . Perhaps there is a growing sense that we are accountable for what we don't do as well as for what we do. Perhaps Bishop Jenkins merely is ahead of Mr. Harrigan in recognizing, as did Abraham Lincoln, that "the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present."
Sincerely,
Mary Ann Parker
Brookhaven
Local businessmen backbone of the
communityDear Editor:
. . . The City of Brookhaven has a great deal to offer its citizens and is a nice place to call home. There is, however, a very real problem facing this city that must he corrected if we are to successfully recover from the economic condition of the present. We can sinfully stand by and hope things improve or we can pool our efforts in support of a stronger community.
. . . We must support our local merchants and especially the locally owned businesses. Next to the citizenry, these businessmen are the backbone of our community. The atmosphere for the beginning of small locally owned businesses has always been strong, .but now after opening the support simply is not there. Each time a business is forced to close, it affects each of us in some way. To the owners and employees it means loss of income; to the city loss of revenues; to each of us at a very minimum loss of our choice. If the closures continue, we may someday have no choice but to buy from the big chain merchants. When this happens we have only ourselves to blame.
. . . There is a slogan "Buy Amerikan" that
. . . . . Well, I guess it's in View 2 of what I'm calling my Food Watch where I say something about "full disclosure", so in that spirit (trying to continually pray that the light that is in me is not darkness [re: Luke 11:35]) here's the Zen Bible search (the first I think since those two I photographed and posted) that I did while listening to a 1986 live show of Widespread Panic. And please note that there have been lots of people looking narrowly and judgmentally at me since the mid '80s, particularly in late 1997 and 1998. Well, 1999 and 2000 and this year too <sigh>, but '97 was when people really were at one point goin' "This is the guy we've been worried about?". So what I'm sayin' is I've already been brought down to hell. Anyway, here's the pic:
. . . . . Actually I made one of those mental notes Sunday to mention what the preacher referenced. Mark 4 is where the scripture for the sermon came, about Jesus quieting the storm while He and the disciples were on the Sea of Galilee. In Mark 4:36 the King James says "they took him even as he was in the ship"; the NRSV says "just as he was" and the note says "as obscure in Greek as in English" and references the other two accounts which do not say anything like this.
. . . . . Perhaps that came from my searching for the Luke reference in the note for the above pic, mentioning Jesus' proclamation from the pulpit. (2022 note: i think this paragraph is one that was hacked) I was struck by the NRSV verse 22 (following His saying "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing") which goes "All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, 'Is not this Joseph's son?'" The KJV goes "And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?"
. . . . . I don't know if anyone will agree this shows the trend of contemporary (would-be) Christian doctrine. The newer translation says "all spoke well of him" while the older is easily translated "all bare witness he was a sinner"( what we might call my doKtrine huh?). Mine is given a bit of credence when we consider that six verses later the newer translation reports "all in the synagogue were filled with rage". (The KJV says "all . . . were filled with wrath".)
. . . . . But I started to say something about that minor difference in accounts, that one phrase, "even as he was". It gave me pause. Like the "Selah"s encountered in Psalms, which can be translated "pause". You know, reflect. Meditate. The big deal about Jesus walking the earth was that there was this great debate, this storm of gossip if you will, about whether He was of God or of the devil. And I guess I've said often enough that the disciples were like double-minded for the most part, through the miracles and all, pretty much until the crucifiction (and it was only the aftermath that convinced even many of the disciples that He was of God). Even as he was. So tired He couldn't think straight? Hadn't bathed in so long He stunk so bad nobody wanted to go near Him? Anyway, it's all about me again, and here's the start of my Bible reading today:
. . . . . I've been reading for the past week or so "Elvis in the Morning" by William Buckley. It's a novel. Not his first and hopefully not his last. But anyway this one really surprised me. The protagonist of the story is an ameriKan citizen who likes to spell it Amerikan and actually is a socialist. No big deal huh? Thoreau was pretty much a socialist. There've been others. But the amazing thing about Orson (said protagonist) is that Bill doesn't make him out to be an anti-hero even, certainly not a villain. Misled perhaps, but get this: William F. Buckley Jr. manages to come across as neutral to the capitalist/socialist schism. Yes. Neutral to socialism. Read it and believe:
. . . . . 'Thoreau . . . wrote that his ambition was "to live every day with less and less."
. . . . . That would not have made him a very good capitalist (Mr. Simon) conceded. But then capitalism feeds on a single aspect of human nature, which is the desire for more. It is fine to desire more. It is altogether understandable to desire more__unless this is done at the expense of others.'. . . . . And that the ameriKan system is a trough at least partially filled by the sweat of horribly mistreated immigrants is certainly an aspect of the system that has not ended with restrictions on immigration through that golden door lighted by Lady Liberty's large lamp. That our conspicuous consuming is at the expense of the one billion hungry people in the world is, I'm certain, at least arguable to many. Anyway, Orson turns into a thief, at fourteen trying to steal twenty copies of an Elvis album to give to people who can't afford one, at nineteen (after being expelled from college for standing up for what he believed) stealing a book from a library and leaving the last one he stole as he traveled about the country, living, as he said, "on a nickel." Here's another excerpt, taken from the travels I just mentioned:
. . . . . " . . . He sat down . . . and opened the package.
. . . . . His eyes focused immediately on the money order. He felt a pang of relief: the seventy-five dollars would take him a long way. Before reading Lars's covering letter, he thought to give a moment to examining the reason for this jolt of satisfaction. . . .
. . . . . Mother Greed! The material imperative! Always present!
. . . . . There had to be money, just to get by, granted. Was he being tempted to deflect from principle? No. By doing what he was doing he was not violating any of his deeply felt principles. Just as he was willing to wash dishes in exchange for food and shelter__an honorable exchange__he was willing to translate Lars's biography of the mad Bavarian king, Ludwig II, for a fee used to buy food, and occasional shelter. Not as a program of capital accumulation."I don't know the rest of the story because I haven't gotten there yet.
. . . . . But this kind of ties into what I've been wanting to address: the narrow way we are told we must follow to get to heaven. I appear to be on a tightwire way up in the air without a safety net. No, that's the way I feel. Trying to change the universe will ruin it, Lao Tsu said. He also said "Be an example to the world! . . . Ever true and unwavering, return to the infinite." and "If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility. If he would lead them, he must follow behind."
. . . . . It's almost like there's as big a gulf between heaven and earth as between heaven and hell huh?( Luke 16:26: "between us (in heaven) and you (in hell) there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.")
(Luke 12:20-22 KJV) God said unto (the man who had accumulated a lot of stuff), Thou fool . . . So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.
Incredibly enough, my note for verse 21 says 'Actually those who are "rich toward God" do not lay up treasures.'. . . . . Lots of tough calls to be made, probably why I've been like paralyzed here for so long, finding it exceedingly difficult to do anything really. I kind of gave up making my living conditions better (like fixing the holes in the kitchen floor) and try hard to not let things get worse. You know, gave up neatness for the sake of hygenic. I just can't seem to do both.
. . . . . But I didn't want to talk about me and my petty problems, rather how I can be the example to the world that God (is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear [presuming (and who am I to presume?) that the light that is in me is not darkness]) wants me to be. I've been talking about full disclosure of financial matters for a month or so now. I'm still aiming for it. It's kind of embarrassing though because I really have so much and seem to continue accumulating.
. . . . . I mention what I think I call the crux of the matter on that What Next? page, maybe the third page I posted to the web site back in early '97, led only by the home page and the first (would-be) Sunday school lesson, the crux being that anyone, even Bill Gates, the richest man alive, could give his entire fortune to poverty and if, for example, sixty bucks was given to every one of the billion people who go to bed hungry every night, well, I bet most of those people would have spent every last one of those sixty dollars inside a year. This is a world where the average person lives on the equivalent of one (1) u.s. dollar per day is a statistic that I can't footnote but really sticks in my head. (2022 note: last stat i saw on this said two billion people exist on two u.s. dollars a day, for everything) So, thinking . . . what? . . . 270 million ameriKans, 6 billion human beings, a dollar a day for the average human certainly doesn't sound like preposterous or anything huh? Anyway, those one billion oppressed, afflicted, hungry people could probably make a u.s. dollar go a long way, but a year's a long time. And Bill already invented the Windows operating system all by himself and gave Paul Allen half for making it happen. So now he's gonna have to find something else to do and he might displace an immigrant with a legitimate green card. Some people call it the domino effect.
. . . . . Okay, I just had this like gothic rock window form on my monitor and then morph into a stained glass image of Bill holding a lamb, feeding it with a baby bottle, then his halo spiraled down and became a keyboard with 0s and 1s on it and Bill dropped down from the window and started tap-dancing on the keyboard and I think lipsyncing because it sounded like Bruce Springsteen singing something about the lead windows programmer, people call him Mr. Bill, and for some reason it reminded me that Bill has said his fortune will not go to his children which might mean he plans to do good with it, like his hundred-million dollar donation to fight children's diseases in underdeveloped countries if I recall correctly. And I gotta admit, this is huge (not the maybe 1% donation of his monster fortune, but indicating, hinting at least that he's gonna do more good works with almost all of it [as opposed to creating beuracracies to manage it say]).
. . . . . But anyway, full disclosure, that's part of it. I'm like willing to give it all up (for example, after much prayer [and buying pizza for "doing the right thing" (not a rationalization huh?)] I did go to the local city council meeting September 25 and present a document [the woman running the meeting was aghast when she determined I was renting the lot my trailer sits on: "we're only interested in hearing from property owners" so I basically gave everybody at the council table a copy of my doc and quickly summarized it, noting that "my petty problems" are nothing compared to some of the matters raised in my missive] which more or less said the landlord's petition for a zoning change on a property he owns adjacent to my trailer park should be denied because the profit motive is evil; hopefully the message the landlord conveyed when he came by that night and told me I was evicted ["this is your notice" he said, (and that 14-day notice for any reason at all needs to be in writing)], hopefully what he told me was if I go back to the city and ask about getting my drive paved like it was supposed to be, then he really will evict me) and like cast my fate to the wind.
. . . . . Like I recently said, I wonder sometimes if I shouldn't be a street person, but I fear it would have a negative impact on the big picture actually because I wouldn't be able to live anything like the rather healthy lifestyle I try to lead these days. You know, paranoid and paralyzed but I try to eat right and sleep regular and everything. And the number one problem with being homeless is it can be so hard to like find a place to lay your head that you go around sleep deprived all the time. Worse than being hungry all the time. And yeah, I've had a little experience.
. . . . . "Dow loss to portfolio's may hurt spending" was the Headline News ticker headline recently. Isn't that wild, people who suddenly have less on paper start spending like they have less in their pocket. When the fortune shrinks, so does the psyche. And hey, me too. Thinking about eviction was almost more than I can bear. (Reminds me I wanted to tell the person running the city council meeting that my personal property is just as "real" as any land any bear has ever sh*t on. [Puzzled? In ameriKa "real property" is what lawyers and accountants and lots of people I guess call, for example, the maybe 25 x 80 foot piece of land my trailer sits on, not the trailer or anything in it.])
. . . . . But now I'm leaning more toward being an example (like I think I said in What's Next? also) by being willing to live a life of subsistence rather than accumulation and keep trying to get everybody to agree that's what we need to do, and follow behind by sending more money to CARE and Save the Children but still spending a lot on things I don't need to (poor Orson; what a dilemna ) or saving anything for that matter (wrote somewhere i started saving a little after i quit paying off the trailer, but always less than i gave) because, who knows, I might live a long time and God might want me to move somewhere there's a little more peaceful vibe in the air.
. . . . . Yeah, be an example like I hope I have been, and yet follow behind the people in terms of sacrificing lifestyle (mostly because I think God doesn't want people to think I'm a masochist or anything, because here in this kountry there are so many people who are so very far ahead of me in general wealth terms, and because it is those people who might just determine the fate of humanity [mostly, as I've been saying, by how much compassion they have (and us__it's everybody for sure; how much compassion we have) for the sum total of humanity. Which will show how much love we have toward God]). Yeah, I don't think that's a rationalization. As long as I try to get about ten percent of my gross income to hungry people I'm gonna feel like I'm being obedient to God. (2022 note: now i'm saying it's all on the rich people, that anyone below the median income should not have to give anything) (Oh yeah, the main thing about church I think is that it's family, extended family sure, but still family. It just isn't being obedient to God's commandment to love one another to only love family. That's being obedient to the norms and mores of society. Every society. So tithing to the church is robbing God of His tithe because that's like saying "charity begins at home" and being obedient to the spirit of that law. I'm not saying don't give to the church, but I am saying if that's the focus of your giving, you might should open your eyes a little wider and you might see.)
. . . . . It might be that if the few people who have a whole lot would sacrifice (and I think Ted Turner might have set a middlin' fair mark with his billion-dollar giveaway but over ten years was it? and his plan might be to make more than he intends to give away), if the five or six percent of the population that controls fifty percent of the wealth would part with just part (obviously one percent of the biggest fortunes will only generate publicity) of their fortune (and I think to really rich people that fortune is like a child huh?) then maybe the best thing us lower-level rich people like me who don't have a lot (hey, I've got tons of stuff [the Olds' is probably close to a ton] and discretionary income [which I could burn by eating out a lot to be sure]), what we might should do is help keep the system going. I think I've said before if people would just stop growing their fortunes that might be enough to change it all. I remember in the early '80s being absolutely appalled that the "royal family" (not to be derogatory) of England's fortune grew by three hundred fifty million dollars ($350,000,000) one year. And unemployment was rampant, hungry tense peasants all around, and the queen kind of says "There's nothing I can do except reassure everyone I'm a really nice person who believes in God and gives to good causes with both hands." While she gets richer she should be saying.
. . . . . On the other hand, by the way, I'm willing to sign up to give it all away (especially since I'm a nonproducing parasite) and start off in Camp Out Now to Save hUmanity Means Everybody Really Sssuuucks (CONSUMERS suck), but the problem with that is there are some people who would try to corner the sleeping bag market beforehand. Like I said, there's a lot I don't know, and what is seeming more and more to me like the truth is a lot of stuff people don't want to hear, and don't want to believe when they hear it. "Truthful words are not beautiful," Lao Tsu wrote on the last page of his book, "beautiful words are not truthful."
. . . . . And I hope it's clear that it is "not condemnation but conviction", as the preacher said today, which is the proper motivation for leading a "consecrated life". Well, that's what he said. And I do rather think it conviction as opposed to guilt which places me in this little corner of the world. 'Consecrated' reminds me of 'sanctified', which some people say they are when they confess their sin and invite Jesus into their heart. I say when/if we are sanctified we are perfect, angels, definitely not contemporary doctrine. ..."We are in this world but not of this world" the same preacher said, and I say as long as we can think then we are part of this world and must strive to be constantly vigilant and prayerful and compassionate. Which means we need to try to feed and shelter everybody. Any questions?
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