Joyful Noise

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and mankind,

the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5, NIV)

            The other day, I found myself explaining my theology to this Christian chap. It was a polite yet conflicting dialogue which initially occurred between us. Despite the pleasantries, he did what many followers of Jesus tend to do, assuming their path is the correct one and the rest of us are lost to the devil or whatever entity they create that day. We discussed the character of God and the anthropomorphic tendencies mankind has little trouble placing upon It. We both agreed to the possibility of there being a single deity. At one point, it seemed obvious to him that I worshipped the “one true God.” I clarified that this was not the Hebrew God or the Christian God but rather the Unknown God, something more akin to agnosticism than some organized religious movement. He chastised me while maintaining his polite manner. Putting a rose on a pile of turd doesn’t make it smell sweeter. Eventually, the conversation jumped from civil to judgmental. Apparently, his way was the only way, although people who believe their way is the only way still finish at a dead end, just like the rest of us. He tossed scripture after scripture at me, accosting me in a much less civil manner. I knew the requirements of salvation from his point of view and he reminded me that my soul was in jeopardy. When I told him I left Christianity years ago because of views like his, he hammered at me with condemnation after condemnation. It was as if Jesus had tossed me to the curb or under the proverbial bus. I felt a little assaulted and insulted when He claimed any other way than through the Christ was a road to oblivion, not salvation. He did not understand why anyone would turn away from such promise. He didn’t understand why anyone would stop believing. I told him, just before the end, that it wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God, I just don’t believe in his God.

“In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.” (2 Thessalonians 3:6, NIV)

            When I attended the Pentecostal Church of Strathroy throughout the early 1980s, I learned rather quickly to shut the hell up or, ironically so, face the consequence. No matter what any scripture might claim, accordingly, I really couldn’t express an opinion and to say the least, I shouldn’t have one. As a disciple of Christ, I was made to follow. It was not my place to question, hell, even thinking for yourself was frowned upon. Unfortunately, for them not me, I have never just laid down and done what people tell me to do. I am outspoken, which could go either way. My power can serve the good but it might as easily serve something wicked. It’s up to you, really. It’s all in the presentation. Don’t tell me what to believe, show me what to believe. Support your evidence, even if you don’t have any. Don’t just expect me to lay there and let you fuck me over. I am not a Stepford Wife, I am not your good little boy, and I never will be. I tried really hard to be an exemplary Christian while I attended the fundamentalist Church. I wanted so badly to fit in and be accepted, not by them, but by Jesus. I believed the lies they told me about Electivism and God’s Favour. I wanted the Spirit, I wanted it all but I just couldn’t keep my comments to myself. If something made no sense, I tried to objectively observe and then make my stance. Even as a little boy I often played journalist, in the most condescending way. Little has changed for me since back then. I have never just accepted what they say. I need proof of the claims made in the name of God or Jesus or even Zeus. When the minister sat down for Bible class, I should have known we were in for a rocky ride. His claims regarding the exclusive nature of salvation I had heard many times before. The formula could be found in those pages. When asked for an opinion, I pointed out the sheer number of people who would be cast into hell if this way of thinking is true. I did not understand why the wants of a few outweigh the needs of many. Why would God hold one person above another when in fact we are all equal in His eyes? We all bleed the same and you would think an omniscient creator would know that. I guess I forgot to mind my place in light of this pseudo-theology. The words had barely come out of my mouth when I was reminded that I was in Bible study, not Philosophy 101. He may not have told me to shut up but he might as well have. All I remember, at this point, is the confusion and angst brought on by the situation. So I just sat there, alienated and muted.

“Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown.”

(Revelation 2:10, NIV)

            For several years, she followed me around like a panting dog in need of a drink. She was my friend but otherwise I was just not into her. The fact she had a vagina made things a lot more complicated than they needed to be. You could tell she liked me, she even told me that she did. It’s not that I wasn’t interested in her but my penis was not. I didn’t tell her the truth until after my first partner died. For weeks, I would talk to her on the phone for hours, every other day or so. She helped, until our conversations started to focus on our personal theologies. While I maintained my unbalanced view of that time, she made it clear that salvation was only for a few and the reward for a Godly life was a crown covered with jewels and gold. Each failure in this life meant a jewel would be removed from the diadem. The Elect can never lose their salvation, their crown might well be barren but it is a crown just the same. When I asked her for a scriptural reference, she tossed it out like an old friend. I have always found it amusing how religious people most certainly know their words but rarely meet them with action. I was not comfortable with the notion of physical reward in heaven. Heaven had always meant something ethereal to me. Even as a boy, I recognized that paradise was untouchable. My Mom used to say, “You pick your heaven while you are still here on earth.” Eventually, I came to understand that our ideas of heaven are simply anthropomorphic. It’s really the best we can do. The very idea that we are rewarded by God, in trade, struck me as absurd. I actually laughed to myself at the thought of it. Some people don’t like to be motivated into thinking. Safe archetypes and high myth bring safety and security to billions of people every day. We are led by our ideas rather than our ideals. We worry about our just reward of one day and forget to live this day. I suppose I should have expected no less. She told me the second she realized I was a heathen. I refused to allow her to talk to me that way and attacked accordingly. I pointed out that I don’t recall seeing any crown on her when she offered me her pussy just the year before. She was then gone and all that friendship nothing more than wasted time. It was all irrelevant anyway. Her salvation was secured so she could do anything she wanted or say anything that came to her convoluted mind. It has been a quarter century since I last heard her voice and her school of thought. I have read about it, this doctrine of crowns and jewels. People actually live their lives believing such vacuous notions. Apparently, inane should be considered a lifestyle.

“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs”

(Psalm 100: 1-2)

            I grew up singing. I always had a passion for it and I always took my performances in the most serious of ways. I was born to carry a tune. I trained my voice in the same manner I cultivated the instruments I played. I may be considered an amateur but I never once felt that way while I was belting out one song after another. I sang at charity events, talent contests and mostly in the churches I attended. It didn’t matter the character of god they followed, I was there to sing and little else. I made the most appearances at my family’s final sanctuary, the United Church of Canada, Strathroy edition. I sang solo, I sang in chorus and quite often would sing with my Mom. She would sit on the front stairs leading to the choir while I lingered beside her, standing before a congregation and my memories. There is much less music in my life now that my Mom has left us. I’m not sure where she left us to go to but I am sure she has an autoharp with her and the time to crank out a ditty or two. As I got older, the depth and expression of each piece, that I chose to perform, became very important when deciding whether or not to appear. I reached for new heights and in doing so ended up with little to show for it. The first words out of her mouth when she heard the song was, “We gotta sing it!!” So we set out to do just that. Heaven, performed by Michael English, is a blend of traditional and modern gospel, with a touch of Pop to stir it all in. I love, love, love this song. It speaks to the true nature of any divine being and reminds us that there is a place called hope if we just believe it. You really do create your own heaven, the rest is still just a dead end. We practiced that song so many times we would sprout wings by the end of each rehearsal. It was good, we were good. Just three days before our performance and the choir director joined us in the sanctuary. He sat on a pew and watched the entire thing. He left as swiftly as he had come. The next day, they pulled the rug out from underneath us. We both got tossed under that bus and just left there. The choir director refused to allow “that kind of music” in HIS church. His contract gave him exclusive rights over content. Fucker. When I sat down with the minister to discuss the how and why of it all, I was insulted at the lack of response. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone but me and my friend. Twenty years have come and gone since our censoring. I still have the sheet music and I still get pissy when I think about what happened. The death of the villain meant little to the overall story itself. You can try to silence me, to control my message but you cannot take away the one thing some may never have, resolve. I just keep going. Fuck them if they can’t handle the joke.

“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” (Matthew 7:6, NIV)

            It would be the last time I would lecture anyone. I only agreed as a favour to one of my friends. The topic set a gigantic task before me, editing down an entire theology to a twenty minute speech. It did not help that the class was made up of teenage boys and girls, each one staring aimlessly out the windows right behind me. I tried to present the logical and scholastic approach. I was not surprised when they started shifting in their chairs. I went off-script. I ventured into personal opinion rather than staying on the original course. Always follow the prompter. When in doubt, don’t do it. You could tell that it worked, I got back their attention. My reproof only made it all worse. I should just learn to shut my mouth in mixed company. Some Christians can be so touchy and defensive. The class instructor let me have it good. Right in front of all those kids, she tried to put me in my place. I’m sorry but if you align yourself with a problem then you become part of that problem. If you do not condemn a person for their “behaviour” then you condone that behaviour. I think she wanted more learning and less subjectivity. She was right but she could have handled it differently. When the display was well over and the lights all turned out, I walked past her in the hallway and went outside to smoke. Apparently, my craving for nicotine was a common ground for us. She waltzed outside like a cocky chicken, all ruffles and plumage and peck peck peck. Apparently, it was enough to chastise me in front of children but I didn’t even merit standard protocol in public. She just stood there, puffing on a fag not knowing that I was one. She chose to be there. She saw me from the side door and still came out. She could have easily waited, or went to the other side of the building, but she decided to venture into my personal space. She drained the life right out of that cigarette. I think the filter was charred by her powerful nursing. She downed that sucker before mine was half gone. Her absence did not make my heart grow fonder. I guess there are those people who cannot handle the truth, at least not the truth as I know it. Of course, everyone has a difference of opinion and that opinion is always right. This is not the issue. I decided to take the scholastic approach with the lecture. I did not have to be considerate, no prerequisites or restrictions were placed upon me. I could have easily taken a different angle, an angle which may well have expressed the same views that I was being chastised for. Sometimes you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise,

and rejoice, and sing praise” (Psalm 98:4, KJV)

            I am at a point in my life where I don’t give a damn about what people think of me. It’s not that I cared before. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if they are wrong. My writing, my profile, my lifestyle are only your business if I allow them to be. I find religion and related social issues fascinating. I have studied both for well over twenty years now. I suppose one of the greatest challenges for me as a theologian has been dealing with the religion of my youth. Christianity regularly reminds me just how myth and fable can be used to imbed moral ideas in the very fabric of a society. This is the purpose of all those tales people used to tell. They still do all over the world. I, for one, never wanted to just sit there and let someone tell whatever they want to me. I’m not comfortable with anyone going around speaking for God. I was tamed in my youth by restraint and a promise that I made to my mother. I kept it back, never questioning in public, never throwing things back in the face of hypocrisy and xenophobia. Those days, like my mother, are long gone. The times have changed. Do not tell me what to think and most certainly don’t assume that I believe as you do. This is my life and I hold little room for silly ideas or superstitions. It is strange the way things are for me now. Somehow when God is near to me, it is I who is near to God. I even sing with greater conviction than I used to. Somehow amidst all the baggage. among all the relics, and all the dogma, I have found my voice. 

It is a joyful noise.

Photo

Hanover, Ontario

Summer 1985

Mister Vehement

            I am not proud of it but I tend to respond violently to certain factors. I am not much of an instigator but have always had little trouble reacting in kind. I have always liked to fight and have had little difficulty excelling at it. I am rather good, if the truth be told. It has been a few years since my fists last encountered a face. As I age, my reaction, my impulse, has been easier to control and seems to have found a peaceful place. I am not sure if my Bi Polar disorder has something to do with the way I once was. Most certainly, since the proper medication found me, I have had little reason, let alone the drive to react in such a manner. At this point in my life, it seems, I have been tamed through pharmaceutical means. This has little bearing on the way I used to be. My fervid nature apparently started right from the get-go. I was a bully throughout my first 16 years. I had my reasons, at least I told myself that on occasion. Being handed the name “Kelly” gender fucked my social game rather inconveniently. I became rather vehement when someone would state, right to my  face, “That’s a girl’s name.” I hated those seventeen letters more than anything and they have always rubbed me the wrong way. I have to wonder if gender neutral names like Tracy, Sydney, Alex and Taylor all inspire the bearer to react in the same fashion. It is from this quandary that I first learned to punch someone right in the face. I have had much practice doing so over the past 50 years, not that I have been counting. Things always change. I have gotten used to a non-violent moderate reaction. I’m still nasty at times but it is usually directed and in the privacy of my home, office or automobile. I’m not sure if my road rage and verbal onslaughts are not just a venting system for my true violent nature. The main volcano seems to have been dampened. I have control, there is no impulse, not anymore. The extreme intensity of both my emotions and my convictions seem harnessed, well, until someone does something and I want to punch them right in the face.                                                                          

            All I did was keep the class a few minutes into the lunch hour. I still believe my question merited the time and my teacher’s response. It wasn’t really a big deal to anyone else. Out of nowhere he jumped right onto my back. I was only 8 years old (or so) but I handled the situation like any pro would. The first shot was an elbow to the face. He fell off me like a bug that had been swatted. I gave him the time to get up although I later wished I had just kicked him a few times in the head. This was not my style. I paused as he stood and regained his focus. A crowd began to form when he rushed me with ill intent. It only took one hard shot to the nose to stop him in his tracks. He dropped and curled up in pain on the sidewalk. I towered over him, waiting to see if he had anything left in him, not that there was anything there to begin with. I left him and so did the crowds. He wobbled on the ground in a blood-soaked mess. I turned around and I laughed at him. His mother was not amused by my actions. She claimed I had beaten her boy for no reason at all. I attacked him and not the other way around. She called me a bully so my mother called him a weakling. It was a screaming match almost immediately. The same energy that met us boys, apparently lived in our parent also. For the record, like mother like son. My Mom could have easily wiped the floor with her, just as I did with her whiny kid. At least the two women did not take to fisticuffs. I have always been hard on myself for reacting the way I did. I wish I had been a different person back then and simply walked away. I remember why I didn’t. I was left no choice. He first attacked me, then continued his rampage even after being met with an elbow to the head. Yes, he deserved everything he got but I still wish I had been the better man, despite the monkey on my back. I did not welcome this assault nor do I feel my reaction was beyond reason. If I had truly followed my impulses, I would have taken a few shots to his noggin with my foot. Despite my age, I tried to hold myself in reserve. You really do get what you give, tit for tat and all that stuff.

            At 22, I spent most of my weekends hitchhiking back and forth between London, Ontario and my home in Strathroy, about 50 km west. I was exploring my sexuality, I was exploring my youth. One August evening, I found myself rather intoxicated with nowhere to go and no way home. I don’t remember much about that evening, at least not after I drank more than half of a bottle of tequila. I was shit-faced, to say the least. I must have found myself overcome and passed out on a bench in the middle of Victoria Park. Located dead in the middle of the downtown core, I am surprised no one called the police or interrupted my inebriation. I woke up in a haze. I was just sitting there trying not to puke all over myself or the bench I had slept on. I heard them coming from a distance. You could clearly hear some girl who was shooting off her mouth. She looked like she had escaped from Newfoundland and he was a shadow that reigned from behind her. I just sat there and waited for them to pass. She saw me and started right away. I have no idea what provoked her but I imagine it was valid in her mind. She was as drunk then as I had been the night before. When I told her to “shut the fuck up,” she reacted like any attention whore would. She rushed me, screaming holy war. I simply avoided her. She would pass in one move then fall on her face in momentum. It was like trying to escape a moth that keeps floating in your face. She just kept coming and coming some more. At one point, as I stood in front of a very large tree, she tried to cannonball me with the full force of her body. In one swift move, I avoided her completely. She just kept going, face first right into that giant trunk. She bounced off it like an Indian rubber ball. It didn’t knock her out but she just laid there, blood dripping from her face somewhere. It was at this point that her silent partner finally had something to add. He called me this and he called me that but it was when he accused me of beating a woman that knocked me over the line. In one motion, I walked over to him and laid one full force into his face. Blood started flowing from an orifice. Suddenly, he backed away and started shuffling towards  the centre of the park. She scurried behind him like a wet rat would. Their retreat failed to shut them the hell up. All  the way through the  park and into the next lot, they hemmed and hawed. The last time I was verbally assaulted like this was when they kicked me out of the Pentecostal Church I used to attend. I will have to admit that the entire experience left me slightly dazed and confused. Perhaps it was what was left of Jose Cuervo within me that made me think I might have been dreaming. It was like waking up from one of those pseudo-nightmares we all have. I wasn’t sure it was real. All I know is that I never laid a finger on her during the entire melodrama. In grade 8, I had punched Judy Wardell in the face when she pulled down my pants, and all, in the middle of the Colborne Street public school football field. Years later and the same impulse was apparently quelled by tequila and only a few hours sleep. I had a choice in the matter. I could have easily nailed her hard in the head, defending myself from her onslaught. I did no such thing. I simply did what any pacifist would do and got out of the way.

            In all the years of confrontation, for all the battles I took with glee, I have only lost one fight. I’m not bragging, it’s just the truth. I suppose the savage within me has something to do with that. I never stopped, but the once. If that part of me was activated, it doesn’t matter if it’s dirty fighting or just straight violence, I would never give up, I would never stop fighting. I’ll rip the eyes out of your head and skull fuck you to death if you give me a reason. Unfortunately, this is a part of me. I may have mastered it but it remains intact for the most part. I have learned over the years not to give it attention. The internal struggle isn’t even much of a struggle these days. I am calm, I am in control and I certainly don’t believe that people should beat on each other, regardless of the reason. I find it strange how the one time I lost a fight has influenced me more than any one of the other scrimmages from my past. It humbled me. I could blame the alcohol. I could blame my big mouth but it was those two guys who literally kicked the shit out of me. It wasn’t even a real fight. It was more like some experiment in silent terror. I really don’t remember much. I know I was standing in line at the Taco Bell drive-up window when they started shooting their mouths off. The two of them stood just a few people behind me.  I was so drunk but it only helped me block out what happened next. As they started making holocaust and Nazi jokes, I turned around and told them to “shut the fuck up.” It’s an old adage of mine but still works best. The next thing I remember is waking up the next morning in the drunk tank. The officers were oh so friendly and I thank them for leaving me handcuffed all night in a sealed cell. Apparently, someone called the police as a few gentlemen kicked the crap out of a drunk fool. By the time the police got there, they were gone. I was, I am told, curled up in a bloody ball. When they released me, I realized I was damaged goods. My face was swollen with large cuts under my nose and across my bottom lip. Both eyes were beaten into blue. My ribs, my back, my legs were all covered with a large and small mix of bruising. I ached, my head ached and my ass ached. There was not one part of me that didn’t look like it had been to boot camp. I am much more tempered these days. I still have a big mouth but I no longer rely on brute skill to defend myself. There have even been a few times when my temper has served in helping others defend themselves. The gay bashing I interrupted with a kick to the balls is but one example of always being prepared. All in all, I find the entire idea of fighting irrelevant now. If I need to protect myself or some other, I have the technique and the will to. Being vehement does mean you have to surrender to the chaos. You can tame it, but that doesn’t mean it will ever go away.   

            I have never, not ever started a fight. There is no first blood on me to bear the stain. I have only ever reacted to violence. I have never instigated a single physical response. I may become vehement but I manage to keep it in check. If you rush me or strike me or try to, I have the right to stop you from doing it. I believe in a fair fight until someone gets dirty, then all bets are off. I occasionally find myself standing in position, ready to go and then my conscience stops me. It’s not that I can’t act on my impulse, I have been granted the ability to control my impulses. They become just that, impulses, not actions. There are always exemptions to the reality we create. I have on more than one occasion reacted to a situation more than I should have. There is no excuse but I will say considering the severity of my Bipolar Disorder, I think a 90% success rate is a miracle in itself. Sometimes when a feeling rushes over you, it doesn’t matter your resolve, the amount of medications you are taking, or best wishes from Jesus, one can lose it. Anger is a serious weapon in the right hands. Not everyone has control all the time. We all explode but not everyone is violent. The adult me looms over the angry me and seems to win out every time. This is supposed to be a good thing but I often wish things could sometimes be the way they were rather than the way they are. I am constantly running into people who deserve a punch in the fucking face. 

Photo

https://enlightenednonteachings.com/2013/06/01/pic-new-theme-you-cannot-change-the-world-but-you-can-change-your-perception-of-it/

Silver Lining

“Everybody falls sometimes

Gotta find the strength to rise

From the ashes and make a new beginning

Anyone can feel the ache

You think it’s more than you can take

But you are stronger, stronger than you know

Don’t you give up now

The sun will soon be shining

You gotta face the clouds

To find the silver lining”

(What Faith Can Do, Kutless 2009)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JBSQMkQEo&list=RDu1JBSQMkQEo&index=1

            One of the most difficult things a person will have to do in their life is grieving over the loss of a loved one. To degrees, dealing with the death of someone we know can be an emotional challenge. It’s not even the initial shock that does the most damage. Sure, we weep and mourn and cry out through the pain, especially at the onset of things. It is the constant pang of hunger for the person that rules the roost. The ending is simply the beginning, maybe not for the dead but most certainly for the people who loved and cared for them. Grief is a hard road, with very expensive toll booths set up along the way. It can seem as if we keep on paying but we go nowhere. Although each person goes through this wave of sorrowing, it is the process of moving on that is the true obstacle to healthy emotional survival. It can take weeks or even years for a mourner to return to some semblance of a normal life. The gaping hole left behind may never be full, not ever. Depending on your relationship with the deceased, you may never really be whole again. Death can steal any hope, any resolve you may have gained along your pathway. Most of us eventually heal, able to face the world again regardless of the missing pieces stolen away. We don’t really heal, if the truth be told. We simply get used to the pain, we get used to the empty. Grief is like going bald, you just get used to it.  You adjust to the loss. There are those who do not adjust accordingly. They wallow in it, basking in the pain, basking in the misery. For some, the death can mean surrender, a means of letting go of everything, including themselves. People hurt so bad that they literally lay down and die. On the other hand, there are people who rise above the situation and carry on to lead productive and balanced lives. The variables are apparently connected to both our coping skills and our sense of something greater than ourselves. It is hard to find a silver lining when all you have to work with is ashes.

“Every silver lining has a cloud.”

(Mary Kay Ash, American businesswoman)

            The world stopped turning the second he walked into the place. They had only lived there a few short months but it had felt like home regardless. He could smell her in the bathroom, her scent lingered like this on most good days. Her could hear her on the messages left while he was away. He was at work when the call came in and it lead him to the darkest of places. He just stood there. Her body looked cold and seemed hard and unforgiving. Death did not become her. They had to remove him from the room, when he collapsed in agony on the cold morgue floor. Identifying her was a memory he would never escape. As a matter of fact, he could never escape the wretchedness that enveloped him from the start. The car that took her at 100 MPH, took him as well. There was no blood, no shattered glass, just a tunnel that swirled deeper and deeper into the recesses of his being. He jumped right down that rabbit hole. He told himself he would never really get over the loss of his soul mate. They had been so happy together that he just assumed it would last forever. He was wrong in almost every way. The void she left grew more hollow and his world completely fell apart. For days, he tried to face this life without her. He did not do a very good job. The empty was more than he could handle. He had been with his wife for almost 10 years, but each day he existed without her seemed to last forever. It had no end, not for him at any rate. One day his mind shattered. It was much too soon for him to rifle through her things. When he found her wedding dress, tucked into the back of her walk-in closet, he went from mental to insane. He started screaming and he could not stop. Every day he sits looking out the window, rocking himself into some semblance of aware. He is as lost as he could be. There are others in this place, different souls but all yearning for even one second of clarity. He just sits there, day after day, watching for her to appear just outside heavy glass, on the patch of land beneath the window. At night he waits for her to come to bed. She never appears but he keeps on waiting. In the end, the numbness of his madness was nothing but his escape. He never had to say goodbye. He never stopped looking for her to show up. Perhaps, for him, the madness was more like a silver lining.

“Every dark cloud has a silver lining, but lightning kills hundreds of people each year who try to find it.” (E.L. Kersten, American author)

            She was 84 years old when her husband died in his sleep. She awoke to his coldness and then life went on without him. After 58 years together, you would have thought she would shed more than a few simple tears. She was balanced even though the world they shared together had disappeared in the blink of an eye. She carried on without him, or so it seemed. They both knew that the day they parted would come sooner than later. For years they planned for each other’s passing. Preparation made things easier, easier and quicker. She didn’t have to think if she didn’t want to. She handed the undertakers a copy of his wishes and left all the hubbub to them. After the funeral, after they lowered him into the ground, she went on in the strongest of ways. The first thing she did was move from their 2-bedroom apartment to a small single bedroom 3 floors above. She lightened her load, raising concern that giving away most of their belongings meant something more than mere survival. They were wrong. For years she lingered alone, always planning, always making sure that what needed to be done was done. She was finally able to feel some sense of freedom, at least after the initial shock wore off. She missed her husband, on occasion, but she meant to seize the day regardless of any grieving she might encounter. For over half a decade she danced by herself in the proverbial corner. She hunted down the silver lining. Her faith didn’t help her through. Her family, her many friends all did nothing but to try and ease her pain. She really didn’t have much to speak of. There was something in her resolve. She picked herself up when she wasn’t even down. She went on and she never looked back. She should never have tried to take the stairs by herself. At almost 90, she was fearless still. She slipped and did some grave damage. They say she may have had a heart attack, which precipitated the fall. No one can be sure and she never revealed what had happened. From her hospital bed, she made it well known that she would never return to that building and especially those apartments. No one could really say why. They placed her in a lovely retirement home where she could chat up a storm all day and read in the privacy of her room come the night. It didn’t take much for time to claim her. Mere months after the fall, she passed away, quietly, peacefully. She had gone ahead and planned for this. She made sure she was ready and, apparently, she was when she left us. Sometimes things just happen and there is no rhyme or reason to them. People die every day.  

“Live with the assumption that every day it will rain. If it does, you were right. If it doesn’t, you were fortunate.” (Zack W. Van, American author)

            His grandparents had passed away in his youth. He knew what it meant to grieve and he thought he was prepared. He was not. It had been years since he saw his brother, years since they spoke a word. The cancer took him slowly, they said. The funeral was an experiment in horror. So many faces brought together by the most horrible of fates. Each member of the family was a reminder of the way it all had been. Name after name was chiselled in the guest book, people wanted to be recognized for coming. He would have liked it, one may suppose. All those years he spent alone, outside of his family, and now they all magically appeared with little contrition or need for absolution. Most of the day was spent holding it all in. It really didn’t hit until he got home. It broke him in the most savage of ways. The world turned upside down then right side round again. Perhaps it was the grief talking, perhaps it was the guilt. Perhaps the combination is what made it so hard for him to breathe. His wife stood at a distance, unsure of what to do and what to say. His insanity raged on, his anger vented at himself and his situation. He had never felt like this before. Sure, his grandparents and other family members had passed away throughout his history but his response was never so extreme. This was his first death, at least in a sense. His panic, his instability seemed to grow with each passing day. His only wish was that things had been different. Most pipe dreams rarely come to be. It was weeks before his temperament started to settle. Like all good mourners, he picked himself up and he tried to move on. The pain, the horror would return to him in surges. The further away from the death he got, the more critical those surges got. Each episode sent him back to reeling. Time keeps on going, that’s the silver lining in all this misery. No matter how affected you are by the death of a loved one, no matter the loss, eventually enough time will have passed that you can move forward, move past it or at least try to. Some people face death head on, pushing back against the ways of our mortal coil. Some people run in the face of such complete sadness. A fair amount of time has passed since that day and this one. He walks softer in a sense, aware, much more aware. Time has made things better, he can cope with much more resolve. His still misses his brother. If only he could go back and change the way things were. We can never go back. The best we can do is affect change here and now. We must make the silver lining.

“Our happiness is certainly mixed in with the tragedies of life.

You have to find the lemonade.

You have to find the silver lining in the middle of everything that happens in life.” (Chandra Wilson, American actress)

            One moment he was there and the next he went missing. It’s not even that he was missing, rather just gone. They found him cold and dead near the train tracks on this side of town. The bottle of gin was frozen to his hand. His coat discarded only 500 feet away.

His frozen body more a statue than some mound of flesh. The coroner simply confirmed his fate. He was not only drunk, he was smashed. He died of exposure and that was that. The first weeks were trying. She had no choice but to pick up and carry on without him. After 6 months, she started to be social again. After a year, she started dating. She began a new life even though she did not wish to leave the one she had. Each step on her journey seemed a challenge. She had not escaped without consequence. She felt guilty, mostly for mere survival. She felt remorse and contrition. She felt every emotion you could imagine she did, all the while she kept pressing onward, moving forward, eyes straight ahead. The second year without him brought more struggle and more pain. She lost almost everything to a monster in disguise. He could scream louder than she could. As the dust started falling, she met the next great love of her life. He was everything that she needed at the time. He needed her just as much as she needed him. They found each other and stayed that way. Twenty years later and she still goes on. Times are not nearly as chaotic as they used to be. A long marriage, a peaceful life and serenity have come with the territory called living. She often sits in silence, listening for the clouds that would pass her by. On occasion, she can hear a tinkling, a little ringing from somewhere beyond her. She imagines it’s just the silver lining. 

“Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold."

(Maurice Setter, English football player)

            When it comes to grief, I don’t believe that most people even consider a silver lining. We go through life always desperate so we lack the ambition to notice. It can be difficult to get past one’s lot in life and recognize what you have. People just don’t get it. With every good there comes bad. With all the bad will come good. There is always a silver lining. You may not see it. You might fail to even register what it is but it is there nonetheless. The grass really is greener on the other side. When someone dies, we rarely stop and see the purpose found in their lesson. We fail to recognize the significance of our feelings and where they lead us. There is always this schism, between what is and what might just be. When we experience the death of someone close to us, we change. When we change, we affect greater change. In hindsight, we all see it. There was something there all along, we just didn’t stop and pay it attention. Death is nasty, there is no doubt about it. It does not have to be so harsh. We can learn, we can conclude, we can summon things worth knowing but we cannot escape its grasp. Either way, even in the darkest cloud there is always a silver lining.

“Hey mister don’t shadow box with me

Cause I don’t wanna someday be an old man cursing what I might have been

Now I realize what I see that the wind was never chasing me

And I don’t feel so alone

I can close my eyes I’m going home

Behind the clouds the sun is shining

Some rain will fall no use crying

Oh no, not me

Got a picture in my head that won’t let go of

Young man running in search of

Count your blessings

Cause it’s in your soul”

(In Your Soul, Corey Hart 1988)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMdm72iE2Fw

Photo

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/507796217  

The Omnist

            I’m not really that political. I do not enjoy the exercise. It’s not that I have no sense of fairness or interest in justice. I simply think that using politics as a measure of a society is like basing the character of God on the Bible. We are more than mere representation. I tend to not become involved. It’s not that I couldn’t care less, but it’s entirely possible. I consider myself a democratic socialist although the label is not my favourite part of being Canadian. I am far left of center when it comes to governmental policymaking and any related social matter. I support free speech and as a journalist stand firm on that position. I encourage social movements, especially those that are inclusive rather than selective. I believe that while Black Lives do matter, the movement would be better served if it unified with other voices, other matters of societal concern. In fact, I believe that All Lives matter, and therein lies the rub. All these movements, standing alone, screaming to be heard. We need to come together, to stand together, to rise up together. One voice should be all that is heard. Each splinter faction, each individual expression would not find itself lost in the whole, rather each would make up the whole. If all these lives count then we should merge and stand hand in hand, arm in arm. I do not mean to suggest that we should institute communal ideologies. Perhaps it may be that a unified articulation would better serve the masses. Regardless, lumping all causes, all movements together under one banner may not seem like the solution but it strikes me as better than the way things are. We pick and choose what we buy into. We select our crusade and not the other way around. We decide our position in the same way that we pick and choose the God that we worship.

            At the end of the Bible, the book of Revelation (Chapter 17) warns humanity of an anti-Christ setting up a one-world government and a one-world religion. In these  scriptures, mankind is forced to choose between their own personal God (from a long list of modern options) and the “one true” God (who just happens to be the demagogue in question). I hope that things don’t end up that way. My Christian conditioning always leads me to an unbalanced place. I often question my position, especially on the matter of social justice. I would not want to do anything or say anything that would make the cavern between the Lord and I grow larger. What if all the warnings are true? What if the New World order to come is a platform for evil to manifest as man? What if it isn’t all commentary and what if I am wrong? What if one religion, one political system would  only seal all of our doom? I would argue we must come together now as a collective so that we can preserve our own sense of faith and salvation. As with any political position one takes, deciding what God to serve is a very subjective matter. We give our loyalty based entirely on how we see the world and particularly how we see the focus of our divination. On a good day, people tend to validate their belief structure based on those things they find most appealing in a saviour. On a bad day, they either chastise themselves for error or blame themselves for the void left regarding any unanswered prayer they may have released. Each person believes differently, even if raised in an identical manner. Our faith is unique, exclusive to the individual. I was once asked how many Gods are worshipped on this planet on any given day. I could have easily researched the answer, claiming a number that really doesn’t mean much. Instead, I went with my gut response and stated “7 billion.” When asked to explain myself, I simply elaborated on how each person has their own concept of the universe and that unity comes down to whether you agree on a name for your God or not. It is within our own hubris that we assume our salvation. Since our own way works for us then everyone else’s position is flawed or repugnant. Our overbearing pride lies to us, often.

            There is common ground. Each religion holds something of value. Every religion, every esoteric idea, even the most outrageous cult, holds some form of the divine within it. If you take the time to look, it can be found. It all depends on what you’re looking for. Like a mustard seed, it starts out small then it fills with more. With enough time and attention, it becomes something much greater than it was. No matter who you are, there is room for a harvest. You have to cultivate if you intend to reap what you sow. If God is within, then He is within us all. We already have one voice but we do not use it. I’m not even sure that most of us know how to. Despite any warning from the Christians, I believe that coming together and worshipping together is much more productive for ourselves and our society than striving within the duplicity of varying theological positions. Rather than worshipping the many, we should worship the one. Whether we follow this deity or that deity doesn’t matter in the long run. All our prayers go to the same place. All mercy, all grace, all our salvation is filtered through the same process, regardless of what we call the object of our attention. This kind of thinking is far more successful than one could imagine. For example, the Bahá'í “ is a religion teaching the essential worth of all religions, and the unity and equality of all people.” With over 10 million followers worldwide, Bahá'ís regard “the major religions as fundamentally unified in purpose, though varied in social practices and interpretations.” Their base teaching strives for the wholeness of all people. Their mandate is to bring “a unified world order that ensures the prosperity of all nations, races, creeds, and classes.” If they can do it, perhaps we all can do it. It works for them. The idea of a New World Order has been demonized throughout the history of the Church. It may be viewed as evil, and the cause of our destruction, assuming the results are predestined. I would rather come together than continue to be apart. Look at the world around you and ask yourself whether the gods we worship actually work in the greater scheme of things. In fact, all the different religions and cults seem to exemplify the problem. I just don’t find all the subjective interpretations are something I want as part of my thinking. All lives really do matter, regardless of their faith. I suppose I have become an Omnist.

            I am an Omnist and I believe in the validity of all religions. This does not mean I do not have one specific faith structure that I exist under or a name for the God that I myself worship. Omnism is “the recognition and respect of all religions; those who hold this belief are called Omnists.” The earliest known use of the term was by English poet Philip J. Bailey who, in 1839, claimed that “I am an Omnist, and believe in all religions.” It’s all about the legitimacy of all those religions. For the person who doesn’t make claim to any one faith, who does not practice or believe in one set deity or energy, the truth lies in all of them. Omnism is “a way to accept the existence of various religions without believing in all that they profess to teach.” In fact, to an Omnist, “all religions contain truths, but that no one religion offers all that is truth.” It might be thought of as a “syncretism taken to its logical extreme.” The very idea that there is a “single transcendent purpose or cause uniting all things or people” makes great sense to me. If all religions hold “different elements of a common truth,” then the Omnist is open to any such potential truth. The entire ideology is more expression than formula, more esoteric than dogmatic. Actually, there is a strong influence from existentialism, where "consciousness is a power or force that helps determine the reality, yet is not a divine influence.” Omnism affirms “the necessity of one arriving at an understanding of reality based on personal experience, engagement, and inquiry, and an acceptance of the validity and legitimacy of the differing understandings of others.” While it is more speculation than theology, there is an “implied system of values or ethics.”

            I was a hardcore Christian, even for a fag. The suicide of my first partner only pushed me further down that rabbit hole. I, once again, became somewhat of a fundamentalist, holding to the literal readings of any scriptural text. I was lost and tossed myself on Jesus. The Bible became my touchstone. Even though I knew deep inside it was probably a fruitless endeavour, I had to see for myself what this lifestyle really had to offer. If Jesus was the answer, I was willing to field the questions. After all, you cannot determine whether you are going the right way if you fail to follow the path in the first place. I hoped against all hope and wished for the things that my faith had always taught me one should pursue. I got washed away in the blood of Jesus. I started to believe all the hype. I closed my mind to other ideas and other belief structures. Like with any truly “good” Christian, I turned my back on everything in hopes of gaining everything. I had to try, even if a part of me cringed at the idea. Initially, it was confusion to have such a schism fracturing inside my head. At first, it was easy to ignore reality when I was safe in the Father’s arms.  I was so broken, so defeated that any offer, any tinge of rescue was pounced upon in desperation. I had been to this place before. My late teens found me born again almost every weekend. Despite the outer appearance, back then I did not discover any true reward in my surrender. Everything I was told to hate about myself stayed with me after every altar call. I never felt anything but I had to try. I just played the part then went off to suck some cock. Jesus took nothing and gave the same in return. When I met my current  partner, 20 years ago now, Jesus took a back seat. Eventually, I just kicked him out of the car. I did not need anyone else’s interpretation to clear the way. I studied. I have studied theology for so long now that I pee scripture, and that’s on a good day. From my early days of university through hundreds of exegesis after exegesis, this inquiring mind is never satisfied. It has always been my intention to simply understand rather than condemn. As a matter of fact, Christianity saw to it that I view the world this way. They are an example, for sure, but a bad one I suggest. Still, this way holds the same consideration any other faith would be granted. There is truth in all religions, after all. I no longer believe that Christianity holds all the answers. I do not believe it is the only way to have a relationship with God. Like any other theology, there are truths that lie within it. I guess I never had to turn my back of Jesus.

            My relationship with Christianity did not end well. Eventually, I realized the restrictions any religion might use to hold their position. Christianity was no exemption. It is because I was raised so that I had the hardest time separating The Christ from the dogma of the Christians. It’s the same with any other religious ideology. There is a grain of truth in everything but nothing is exclusive in that truth. It was a hard day for me when I walked away from my faith structure. I was trapped, suffocating on scriptures that I shoved down my very own throat. I reached out for guidance and compassion and any semblance of peace. All I found was a judgmental God with little concern for anyone but his own congregation. I expressed my concerns regarding other faiths, other ideas on salvation and was instructed just how wrong that interpretation was. I learned quickly, as my virtual assistant ranted off a list of the things that make following anyone but Jesus a fatalistic choice. Any other way (John 14:6) meant sheer doom. There is no other way, at least that’s what they keep telling me. At the time, I left Christianity because it seemed to offer me nothing but exclusivity. I never ever wanted God all to myself. I discarded my faith and surrendered to the unknown. A silent God is so much more friendly than a deity riddled by the tendency to associate with only a select group. All these years later and I realize my folly. I wish I had been freed long ago. I wish I had paid more attention to the ethereal nature of God rather than the anthropomorphic side. My faith changed and so did how I view God. My faith evolved and I became an Omnist, even though I had no idea what that meant at that time. It was by definition, not recognition. Distinguishing that truth is relative only convinced me further that the way I am going, how I travel, is what works for me. I no longer practice any organized religion or faith structure. I do not need one. I rest safe in the Father’s arms, even if you think He only cares about you.

Photo

http://www.1freewallpapers.com/coexist-cool

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_Faith

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnism

https://www.compellingtruth.org/one-world-religion.html

Green Peace

Green Peace   

“The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere - in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves. No one would desire not to be beautiful. When we experience the beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming.”  (John O'Donohue, Irish author)

 

            Now that spring is well on its way into summer, I once again have the pleasure of tending to the garden beds carefully organized about our property. It has been almost three years since we located to Paris, Ontario. It can seem strange when stopping to take it all in. In slow motion, time passes and we often don’t know it. Sometimes one can see the changes, in glimpses, even if they are merely superficial. I stand here and I entertain it all, and like a Kinetoscope, picture after picture falls into line. One moment follows another, always leading, always moving, up until its end. Change comes in flashes. One must stop to notice rather than merely flipping through all those pages. Gardening and caring for our property has become a simple delight for me. I never would have imagined that at this point in my life communing with nature would become an instinct rather than merely based on impulse. I am a horticulturist whether I care to be or not. It has gone beyond family tradition, although I finally understand the thrill of it all. I have become my mother, in a sense, toiling and reshaping the grounds to my own taste and sense of Feng Shui. Each plant, each creation is a mixed evolution. The product from years of growth without me only added to the ease with which I took over the care. It is overflowing, a bounty of green and red and yellow and white. A stream of birds and squirrels and chipmunks too. The space is alive, and not just in some general sense. The land has tales to tell. It whispers to me and lingers for me. This notion has not always been. It has not always been this way. I held that gardening was an art my parents gave in to, not me. Now I understand what my folks were trying to tell me. Now I attempt to listen, I try to hear what Mother Nature is trying to say to me. Insignificant moments become a touchstone, and I find I have found home. Whether engaged at the bird feeders or sitting under the back tree, this is my space, to which I work and to which I manage. The shape of these things holds much revelation, a joy in the matter. It’s like an otherland made up of grass cuttings and bird crap pooped all over everything. It is a safe refuge even if I helped create it myself.

“I am the mown grass, dying at your feet,

The pale grass, gasping faintly in the sun.

I shall be dead, long, long ere day is done,

That you may say: ‘The air, to-day, was sweet.’

I am the mown grass, dying at your feet.”

(Margaret Gilman Davidson, American poet)

            If there is one thing I still hate about having property, it is cutting the grass. There is almost nothing else that I despise as much. There are reasons for my disdain. As a boy, my main source of income was mowing other people’s lawns. It was not a lifestyle choice. The chore was often divided. Some grass I cut for free and the rest I charged for the service. I hated raking it up almost as much. I used to dread Saturday mornings as the Church grass loomed. I never saw a penny. Saturday afternoon brought more of the same. This time I saw a profit. This type of income was my main source in the procurement of comic books. Every blade of grass, every weed, meant another page, another title to my collection. It was worth it to earn every penny. I gathered quite the stash and this set me on a lifelong love affair. Whether it was the little old ladies who lived down a lane, or my late Aunt Edna, it was little work for that much money but it seemed tailored to my angst about it. I remember cutting so much grass that I thought my name was John Deere until I turned twenty-three years old. As I left my youth, I actually thought I could escape it. It’s always easier said than it is to be done. Responsibility sucks especially if you hate something about it. I have rarely lived where the grass did grow but the places where it did were like thorns in my side. These days, I don’t think about this task. For many years, my partner Ben has done the dirty deed. I don’t have to think about it, focus on it, I don’t have to worry about it at all. Always mowing the grass is one of my favourite things about him. He can even change the bag on his own. At times, the life of a homeowner can seem more punishment than reward. I don’t have to concern myself, at least not with cutting the lawn. It might be a small joy, my exemption, with little of any thing but anything at all. Finally, it has become someone else’s chore.

“I could happily lean on a gate all the livelong day, chatting to passers-by about the wind and the rain. I do a lot of gate-leaning while I am supposed to be gardening; instead of hoeing, I lean on the gate, stare at the vegetable beds and ponder.”

(Tom Hodgkinson, British writer)

             Approximately one month after we relocated to Paris, my neighbour Barbara

set up house on the lot next to ours. I liked her right away. She is a dichotomy, at least how I see her. A little cranky, a little kooky, a little soft and a little hard. I appreciate women who can take care of themselves, whether with a man or without one. Barb seems to have done just fine, in spite of whatever circumstance found her alone once again. Although it took some time for us to warm up to each other, it was not a difficult matter. We worked right away and only needed time to discover more. Things got way better when her daughter Sam moved in. She is like almost every woman I have ever been friends with. Her carefree demeanour hides a softness I’m not sure many people have seen. She is warm and friendly and well travelled. I can get a little jealous of the freedom she still has. It’s not that I wish my life was different, it’s just that I would rather live it in the real Paris, or somewhere else beyond my hand. The pair of them have only added to a lovely out of doors. I look forward to seeing them. I like chatting with them both.  They make the front yard a charming space. I think we have actually become friends. One day, not so long ago, the girls adopted Oscar, a black purebred dachshund. I took to the puppy like he was my own. The time I spend with him is enchanting to say the least. On a regular afternoon, you can find him barking at my front door, craving the chicken liver treats I keep around just for him. He has become, in a true sense, part of the landscape around our home. His bark is enthralling rather than annoying. He is a pretty little thing and he most certainly knows it. His long black coat is soft like silk would be. His appearance is regal if you ask me. He is everything that anyone could want in a dog, at least from a short-legged little rascal like Mister Oscar. I look forward to the brief but lovely moments that we share. I would take him as my own if I could. His presence in my daily life has made me want to get a dog of my own. It has been well over a decade since we had to put Skippy down, a decision we often question out of guilt and remorse. It may seem like it is time again but with two cats, the chance of it happening anytime soon is fleeting at best. I would take Oscar in a heartbeat. Perhaps when one of the cats passes we might entertain the idea but until then, I will live vicariously through my buddy from next door.

“Negative feelings are like stray cats.

The more you feed them, the more they hang around.”

(Sister Joyce Rupp, American author)

            Long before the bird feeders went up and Oscar moved in next door, stray cat strutting was a daily theme in the theatre that has become my backyard. Since the first day we moved here, cat after cat has been stalking critter after critter. This unending parade of feline invaders was a constant distraction. I spent so much time chasing them away, I might as well have been a cat. As the landscape changed and evolved, touches were added to shape the backyard. These shifts in the green space only added greater places for the cats to hide. There were numerous strays and a few domesticated. It seemed that every day some new monster appeared, trying to disrupt my sanctuary. The worst offenders were actually the pets of my then next door neighbour. The two were a nasty pair. I cannot tell you how many burials I have had to endure because of their natural inclinations. The most disgusting issue with the cats from next door was how they disposed of the body. Whether a dozen Junkos out back or the chipmunks in the side yard, one body after another was found headless with the guts sucked out of it. For over a year, “Jack the Catnipper” roamed free about the neighbourhood. I don’t know how many creatures were devoured by the beast but the carcass total was more than two dozen. It was carnage. When we learned that our neighbours were moving to England, my first thought was whether they were taking their cats. I waited with bated breath for the news. As much as I would miss my friends, the idea of not having to kill the furry fuckers was quite appealing. Not that I would have done it but sometimes it helped to think that I could have. The world has changed since the departure. The grounds are overrun with birds and squirrels and chipmunks. Somehow the strays have learned to stay away or at least something has made them. Since the warmer weather, the doves have returned, the chipmunks are back and the world in the garden is safe once again. It is a peaceful place by all accounts. Life is better without all that pussy and I am unanimous in that.  

“In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.“

(Alice Walker, American author)

            When my first partner died, the plot he was buried in sat alone with few neighbours. Twenty-five years later and there is little room left in the area for anyone else. The cemetery has filled in like a conga line. Almost immediately after the burial, a marker was ordered and when it arrived, I began to tend to the garden space around his headstone. Unfamiliar with the art of design, I covered the area with almost any plant I could find. It was overflowing and unorganized. Initially, I even used a trellis, just to the right side of the stone. It was covered from head to toe with Morning Glories. It was all just a little too much. I think, in a sense, my attempts at mandating beauty turned tacky and inferior. I was clearly overcompensating so I let it all go to seed. Eventually, the Lilly of the Valley that I planted in year one strangled out anything that would have grown on its own. I had to find a way to keep it all in. I took flagstone from my “in-laws’” property and created a rock border around the marker. It has rounded the edge ever since. When we moved to Paris, I decided the garden beds needed a border, badly. The myrtle that is so abundant throughout the yards was already growing over and into the grass on the front lawn. I had to confine it somehow. I decided, I was inspired, to create the same look that I had at the cemetery in Stratford. If the edging could keep Lilly of the Valley at bay then some measly groundcover would not be a challenge whatsoever. Although the flagstone was no longer available from Ben’s parents, I drove around for a few weeks comparing prices on the amount I needed. Soon enough, it piled up on the front deck like dominos. I started slowly, rounded the path and kept on going up to the back entrance. I only took a few weeks and the stage was set. I believe that the combination of the flagstone border, a pond of myrtle, grasses, and more grasses, plus black-eyed Susans, wild daisies and several fully developed types of lilies, make what now stands in the front garden look more like a swamp than anything else. It is organized chaos, overgrown exactly as I planned it to be. The large heron I place as the centrepiece creates the illusion of water, and riverbank and fowl. I guess there is a magic to working with stone and rock. You can’t really mould them to anything but the shape they came as. You have to work with their limitations. If you discern, like putting together a puzzle, the unshapeable becomes the very thing that ends up holding it all together. Every time I look out over the little piece of land that we own, I see old beauty and new beauty and beauty that is to come. It has become an otherland at times, but more refuge than escape. Even the stones that surround our parameter are silent whispers of another place and another time and of the man I used to be.

“When I go into the garden, I forget everything. It’s uncomplicated in my world of gardening. It’s trial and error, really. If something doesn’t work, it comes out, and you start all over again.” (Emilia Fox, English actress)

            I used to dream of faraway places where the space was quiet and still and gave me much needed rest. I would imagine warm beaches or mountain trails, always thinking they would settle me and lead me to a peaceful place. Most people seem to want the same thing, somewhere to go that you can call your own. They want sanctuary from the stress of the world. It’s too bad we always dream of someplace else. If only where we are would mean as much. I am a fortunate man. I don’t need to head to Maui or Rome to find it. I can go out the front door or walk out the back, that’s about all I have to do these days. Even in the roughest stretch, it is there for me to run away to. It has literally become an otherland. I have come to need it, to find what my parents found during all the years of their toiling. After all, we are all entitled to a little green peace.

“Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odourless but all together perfume the air.”

(Georges Bernanos, French author)

Photo

Summer 2016

Paris, Ontario

Damaged Goods

“We all bleed the same

We’re more beautiful when we come together

We all bleed the same

So tell me why, tell me why

We’re divided”

(Bleed, Mandisa 2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVKuA1s5I3o

            I had no idea when I was young just how difficult life would turn out to be for me. When I was a kid, I thought, I believed that everything would always be okay and that God, with all His mercy, would look after me. While these ideas may not be actual lies that I told myself, they pretty much hold the same validation. God does not assist us. He may guide us but the course is mostly in our head. I have had the opportunity to challenge my beliefs, something most other people don’t have the luxury of doing. Despite the challenges that have met me on the way, I have had a much easier life than most people. Yes, I know tragedy and have experienced physical pain beyond comprehension. I have struggled and I have lost. I am still standing but I’m pretty sure that life is easier for a white boy. It’s just too bad I’m also a homosexual or I really would have been set. I am told that life is better as a breeder. Granted, I have never once in my entire life been called a faggot by anyone. When people see me they wonder for their safety, not whether I am a top or a bottom. I’m only stereotypical in private and even then it is mostly for my very own amusement. The most important thing I have learned along the way is not necessarily that we should be kind. Although this rule is significant and should be followed, there is something more important to remember. I try to put myself in the shoes of the people I am exposed to. I tend to take the time. It’s easy to be kind to someone when you understand that the same way you are feeling is usually the same way everyone else is feeling. All the pain and all the chaos are the same for everyone but the circumstances are different. Instead, we do not tolerate each other. We seem to function on apathy these days. We don’t see that there but for the grace of God go all of us. It’s no surprise that this can be easier said than done. I too am limited as a human being so I can only do my best. Sometimes my best isn’t good enough and I fail horribly. I do what I always do. I pick myself up, I dust me all off and I start over once again.

“I believe that stories are incredibly important, possibly in ways we don’t understand, in allowing us to make sense of our lives, in allowing us to escape our lives, in giving us empathy and in creating the world that we live in.” (Neil Gaiman, English author)

            When Robert was a child, he slowly watched his mother dying in a hospital bed. For four long months, his innocent life suffered at the hands of a cruel world. This was the beginning of a slippery slope. After the death of his mother, Robert’s father showed his true colours and abandoned him to foster care. Robert never saw him again. What once seemed like a happy life now only seemed darker, as if it had somehow been corrupted.  There was not much sun in the little boy’s sky. He was always such a troubled lad. As the years of bouncing from guardian to guardian went on for much too long, Robert got lost in the rejection and eventually turned to injection. He grew cold and callous. It was all about the escape and protecting himself from becoming a casualty. In his teen years, he went from being angry all the time to crime. He would steal anything just to get a fix. His flavour was heroin. He was fifteen the first time he met a needle. The evasion was so much more than he expected. This otherland was the very best place. By the time he reached twenty-one, Robert looked like he was forty. His entire existence was at the end of a prick. His teen years had fallen away and he couldn’t even remember most of them. Life was a blur. Life was the buzz. If not for his friends, he would have been on the streets. He woke up one day face down in his own vomit. The paramedics came and they took Robert away. For 28 days, they forced him to get better. No matter what they said, he would not let go of the hatred and all the bitter. It ate him alive, or at least it seemed to. When his sentence had been served, and they finally let him go, he went right back to the life he had come to know. It was too hard for him without the drugs. He couldn’t function, at least not to some standard of human decency. I do not know what ever happened to him. He is as lost to me as he was to himself. I hope that he is somewhere safe rather than the stronger possibility. I am not sure anyone could have survived that kind of lifestyle. The very last time I saw him, we sat talking on my couch. I asked him what he wanted from life. I felt for him as he walked away without saying a word. I remember thinking to myself that he looked more like a concentration camp survivor than the friend I once knew. Speaking from experience, I understand addiction and what it feels like to stick yourself full of junk on an hourly basis. I can only suppose what the world looks like through his eyes, if he is still somehow with us. I hope that he is and that he has found the peace that once was so elusive. I have tried to picture him better. I try to imagine it but I am not convinced.

“Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It’s the capacity to

understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else’s pain is

as meaningful as your own.” (Barbara Kingsolver, American essayist)

            She was not what people expected. She seemed quiet at first, the silence and the space offered were the best things she could grant to other people. Calling her a bitch could seem quite redundant. She knew what she was and she didn’t care. She had trouble with relationships. Not only did she not understand people, she never tried to. She liked being alienated from everyone, including herself. She never got close to anyone. Try as she may, she just could not push others as far away as she wished she could. She was alone by her own making and unhappy at her own hands. She didn’t feel, at least she tried not to. In private, she was sorrow and sadness and invisible tears. She came to this place, she was not planted here. It was hard to feel for her. I didn’t know that she lost both her parents to the whims of a drunk driver. I didn’t know she was raped when she was twelve. It never occurred to me that she might have valid reasons for being the way she was. It didn’t really matter, she was just miserable and everyone around her knew it. I tried to be understanding, to empathize with whatever experiences had set her on her course. It was hard, month after month, to not exclude her from any kind of social gathering. We worked together for over two years and I cannot recall ever seeing her smile or laugh, not even a giggle. A few months before I left to work in Radio, we sat beside each other at a convention for media specialists. I didn’t know it at the time but we both grew up in North York, part of greater Toronto. We got along the entire day, at least I thought we did. After dinner together, we started to consume scotch like it was apple juice. We ended up in the hotel lobby talking for almost all of the night. I let her into my world and she seemed to let me into hers. It could have been a friendship in the earliest of stages. Understanding some of her history made it so much easier for me to put myself in her shoes. What she claimed somehow filtered past my own reservations and allowed me some insight, some clarity and a moment to comprehend. It was strictly on a limited basis. Come Monday morning and things went right back to normal. For all the sharing, for all that artificial closeness, it turns out she was exactly what everyone thought she was. It was like I wasn’t even in the room. I get it. It’s hard for some people to feel almost anything at all. We are broken and quite often unable to recover. We become damaged goods. I haven’t seen that woman since I left to live in Toronto with my first partner. I have no idea where she is or if she is doing alright. I’m not sure if she is even alive. If somehow she does still exist, I can only assume she is probably consistent. I have little doubt that she is still a bitch.

“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.” (Daniel Goleman, American author)

            I was twenty years old when I sinned against God and His Church. I didn’t know that I was doing so, at the time, but that has always meant little to the God of my salvation. I didn’t know he was a minister when I had sex with him. I did not ask and he did not say. He neglected to mention anything but his need. I did not know he had a wife and several children. I discovered the truth when I walked into his Church a few weeks later. I was visiting friends in London, Ontario when they suggested I attend a service. I was much into theology and enjoyed church-hopping despite being an abomination. I don’t think he saw me swimming in the congregation. He lingered up at the front like some holy man, even though his proclivities would beg to differ. It was not really an issue for me that he stood there claiming to be a man of God. Even a guru will get an erection. It was his spouse and his offspring that put a bad taste in my mouth (so to speak). My friend pointed them out, sitting in the front pew, while he dangled the Lord Jesus over their heads. This was the ultimate hypocrisy for me. His sermon that Sunday morning was apropos. He preached about the absence of forgiveness and the struggle people have with accepting God’s, a love which seemed irrelevant as we had sex a few weeks before. It was hard not to be angry. It was all I could do not to stand up and yell, “He swallows!” I kept looking at the back of his wife’s head wondering if she knew anything about it. All his ranting and raving, all his empowering us with the love of Jesus seemed artificial in light of his true inclinations. He might as well have cheated on his wife with another woman, not that it mattered. It wasn’t about homosexuality, it was about conviction. I ended up feeling sorry for him. I thought about all the trouble I had with being gay and what he must be going through in spite of his man-made divinity. It was difficult for me to understand his position at the time. Hindsight does grant one a clearer vision. Every time I walk or drive past the place, I notice his name is still on the marquee out front. It is still a Baptist Church and he still manages the reigns. I cannot imagine what it must be like for him. I cannot fathom the conflict he must maintain within himself. Most gay people know what it means to hide. We mostly do it out of survival rather than shame. I thought the days of having to hide who you truly are, every day of your life, were over.

“Look at Christ, my dear friend: His life was divine through and through,

full of self-denial, and He did everything for mankind, finding His satisfaction

and His delight in the dissolution of His material being.”

(Mikhail Bakunin, Russian founder of collectivist anarchism)

            Earl is an ignorant pig. His whole life he has been reckless and had an inappropriate disregard for people in general. He is misogynistic, racist and homophobic. At least that is how he seemed when I met him. My friends warned me that someone nasty lurked about on the other side of their property. He looked the part, at least the part of Georgia that he crawled out of.  He played the part. His nasty disposition only worsens as one gets closer. He puts Duck Dynasty to shame, and not just because of his appearance. Granted, it’s not like his mother lives under his bed, not that I know of. At least he doesn’t walk around with a loaded gun like many of his brethren do. Still, the longer I observed him and his lifestyle, the more I did not like him. It’s hard not to judge someone so judgmental. Our interactions with each other were brief but succinct. On the first occasion, I simply walked on his part of the grassy knoll between the two driveways. Most of that path was tree-lined, so I only fell out of step for a moment. Out of nowhere, someone screamed, “Hey faggot, get the fuck off my lawn!” The rest of my friends filled me in on it later. Although I only stayed a week, there was plenty of time to find some amusement while having my morning coffee on the front porch. One morning, he hung a Nazi Swastika out to dry on his front lawn. I don’t know if he meant to provoke but it worked. I wanted to get up and go kick the shit out of him. The least I could do was tell him off, you know, for my friends. As soon as I started to walk over to his place, he walked out, grabbed the flag and then disappeared for the rest of the day. The day before I left for home, I was sitting out back near the pool. I heard the brakes squeal and the wheels spin out and I heard it drive away. I walked around front to see what had happened. My friends joined me near the porch. Lying near the side of the road was a dog, writhing in pain and agony. Our gut reaction was to help it but before we could, Earl walked down the lane, across the street and he snapped the dog’s neck in one motion. He picked the beast up, petted its head and took it out to the back of his property and he buried it. I didn’t see him cry. He barely noticed us, not that it mattered either. I am rarely surprised by people but I was by Earl. We don’t really ever know a person, not all of them. We only ever know what they show us. I have to believe that there is good in all of us, if only in degrees. I have Earl to thank for my position. He would hate the fact that he influenced me for good but I can live with that.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to

what lies within us.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist)

            It is the life I have led that has made me empathetic. I try to write through that empathy rather than through experience. It is not always easy for me to put myself in someone else’s shoes. By the time that idea even comes up, I am usually quite angry. No matter how I try to be kind and no matter how often I stop myself from attacking, circumstance always gets on my last nerve. It’s hard not to understand why most human beings just can’t get along. We focus on our differences instead of our commonalities. It is difficult to have empathy towards every person that you know or encounter. Too much information can short out your give a shit button. You have to distinguish where this method is applicable. The easiest part of being empathetic is the ability to relate. I understand pain because I have known pain. I have been abandoned and I have lost my way, more than once. Having gone through your own life should make it easier to identify these symptoms in others. One must be careful, however. You cannot dish out empathy like it’s water. You can’t dissect every bug in the yard. You try to do your best well knowing that we all are damaged goods.

“We may not know one another but what if we treated each other

Like we were sister and brother

And say it with a kiss, no matter what it is

Put love back at the top of our list

Find a better way, to make a better day

Don’t you know, don’t you know, don’t you know that

There’ll be more happiness when we do that

Oh what a wonderful way to live”

(Say it with a Kiss, Amy Grant 2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe6b6GRYjPk

Photo

https://en.paperblog.com/excuse-me-no-damaged-goods-here-222216/