Jack Goggin
Today an old family friend passed away. He was 87 yrs old. Probably way too old to remember. Way to old to have others care about any more. Way too old to make an impression. Way too old to matter, huh? You'd be wrong on all counts when it came to this man. Next to my father, he was the single most important influence on me as a young man. He and my father were good friends. He was one of the few people that my father loved or truly admired in life; my father spoke of him with profound affection many times to me. You could hear the deep effect and impression he made on him. Jack Goggin. Jack possessed a beautiful quiet strength, not only of mind and body, but of spiritual character; God he was strong man. He was one of those people whose presence brought order and comfort out of chaos. Trustworthy. The very epitome of what men can, and should, be. Solid and loyal would define him in all ways. Held fast, emotionally stable, spiritually centered, committed, a vessel of dignity and honor, a big hearted lover, infused with a powerful goodness, steady as she goes; compassionate, smart, worldly, honest, true; a real gentleman. The father of the clan. It's odd to realize he's gone. He seemed almost immortal to me; perennial, like the sun; predictable, reliable, constant, like a consistent force of nature. Something that always was, and would always be there. Maybe that's why he seemed immortal because what he represented was an eternal masculine value; the complete man; powerful but gentle. He was as good as we can produce. If he was your friend, you could have no better, for he stood as a rock of protection and refuge for those he loved. He understood humanity and accepted imperfection in others easily. I don't think I would have wanted to be on the receiving end of his fury if ever it was released. But if it was, that fury would be correct and righteous. For this man was fairness personified. There wasn't an abusive bone in his body. He never took out his frustrations or pressures on others. I would one day like to be a man like him. To be that centered in my belief and faith.
My own father died before he could see my life turn around. When I joined AA, and sobered up, Jack became the surrogate for my father; the man I wanted to impress, to show that his faith in me was not lost; that I was growing into a man he could count on and admire as well. I remember making my amends to him for being an out of control drunken child when I worked for him. He should have knocked the shit out of me for some of the crap I pulled, that's what I deserved. But that's not how he operated; and to Jack, any favor done for him or his kin, was never forgotten. He knew that friendship was a thick or thin proposition, and sometimes it hurts to be a friend; but you hold fast to your friends. Jack intuitively understood the great insanities and appetites of young men. He lived without judgment of such things. I remember running into him and Helen at Dominic's one day, I was sober about a year, and I realized I owed him an amends. To tell you the truth, an apology was the least I could do for him. He was so good to me, and I was so angry and defiant in my drinking days. I pulled him aside, and you could see in his eyes, "oh shit, now what?" I said, Jack, I quit drinking a while ago, and I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am for the way I acted when I worked for you. I put out my hand and he took it, and looked at me with such a loving gaze that it touched me at the very heart of myself. I felt the fatherly embrace and pride that one would only bestow upon their own children. The elemental place where the boy is recognized as a man by the father. The ancestral paternal acceptance and love; it set me aglow inside. I felt a primal bound with him from then on. That moment touched the man in me, and moved me away from the child. It was one of the more profound and sublime experiences in my life, and I have always held that moment in a special place in my soul. You see in life, we never know when and where we are going to touch each other with Gods grace. Even apparently trivial encounters can be filled with love and redemption. You see, God gave us each other, for each other. God is so loving that He provided that beauty and healing for me probably from the only person alive who could give it to me, other than my own father, who was already dead. Thank you God for that day, that man, and that moment.
So today, Jack Goggin died. The loss is not only of this one remarkable man, but another of the WWII generation. These men and women, the most irrepressible, powerful, rational, ballsy, selfless, loving, caring, smart, savvy, irreverent, faithful, honorable, strong, steadfast, tough, no time for bullshit, never sweat the small stuff, no body owes me nothin, let's get it done, people the world has ever produced. We didn't just lose Jack, we are losing the spiritual center of our lives, personified by men such as he. For they truly don't build them like that any more. These men stood against the most hideous and pernicious enemies, and endured situations and conditions that are unimaginable to the average person; and they won against all odds. They freed the world and looked what we have done with that freedom. I am embarrassed and disgusted when I see the whining and moaning from a bunch of American coddled brats who haven't produced anything of value, believing they are entitled to everything, but are completely unwilling to work for it. That was America, and I am always reminded when one of these men dies how adrift, goalless, selfish, godless, and directionless we have become. A nation of teat sucking children, demanding, excuse making, unaccountable, irresponsible, corrupt, and morally vacant. The contrast between generations is shockingly stark and profoundly sad to witness. I see my country now and want to weep for what we have become. Without their rational hands to guide us, we are going to be in some real trouble; we are in some real trouble. The older they have gotten, the less their influence has been felt, the more lost we have become as a nation. These men gave everything and asked for nothing; can you even fathom that kind of commitment and sense of duty? So we need to rejoin our souls with these true American heroes, and set our commitment to each other, for our survival depends upon rekindling that spirit. We need to become what Jack represented, the supreme definition of "manhood" and "family." Thank you God for giving us such men as Jack Goggin. This world is less bright, less secure, and less beautiful now that he has gone. But I know Heaven is brighter now that he is there.
Yours in loving kinship,
Mike C.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
The Irish (Art)
Chicago Irish, brawny, brawling, political, tough, savvy, street smart; searched my history here and there, it's the same. A strange account of an unusual and gifted people.
I am a cliche, an Irish alcoholic and writer; I guess stereotype is based in fact.
Romantic identity with the old country, images of Kings and Sons of Kings.
Rolling green expanse, rock walls and streams, impossible and impassable roads.
Ready to defend her honor, knee jerk reactivity to criticism, or just like to fight; a little bit of both.
American Irish, more Irish than the Irish. Inherent identity with suffering and rejection; feeling forever the responsibility and guilt of the victim.
Irish ethnic wound, blanketed and saturated with repressive shame.
Inbred rebellious, natural suspicion, hatred for authority. Defiant to the core. Fused in our souls is a love of land, no matter how bleak and barren it may be, it belongs to us; so get the fuck out, go kill someone else.
Vanquished to the 4 corners; cast out and outcasted.
Continually conquered but never subjugated. True to themselves.
Suckered by their Church, souls owned lock stock. The only complete control ever allowed over their character. Sold a line of shit, bought whole cloth for mellenia. Guilt swallowed and digested becoming part of our marrow. Forever never good enough. Redemption is only a death away; let us know how that works out for you.
Natural violence, cold blooded, stark, committed, target driven hatred. Rebels, always with a cause; obsessively patriotic; instilled with an inherent brutality. IRA as common and accepted as life itself, for they will not be ruled. English bit off much more than they could chew when it came to the Irish. They had no idea how much hatred they could sustain or the duration and depth of that hatred.
Be careful, if you are Irish and start to read about our history, especially since 1850. I guarantee you will be shocked, infuriated, saddened, hardened, and chilled by what you read. You'll understand the why of the IRA.
The "Troubles" always the troubles.
Slick, conniving, bitter and conning; look you right in the eye and stab you when you turned.
Powerful ethnic identity, one that adheres like a skin, no matter where you were born. So similar to one another in outlook, personality, pathology, intellect and mannerisms.
Shocking history of pain, oppression, starvation, rejection and attempted genocide. The Potato Famine, contrived and created by the English to obliterate and exterminate the Irish. Why were the Irish such a favored target to release hate upon; they have no resources except a ready population that could be used to murder just for the hell of it. Odd human trait that unconscious self hate needs to be directed at an external target, the Irish, always favored.
How did they survive? A country of 3 million people, and yet they did survive. The Irish character was formed by that history and the fallout of losing their people not only to murder but to attrition to other lands, esp America.
The American Funeral was created. Coffin ships filled with the dead, or soon to be, headed for the US. If all were consumed on board, so be it. Barbarous tyrannical savagery. Even the negro slave ships had cargo that was valuable. The Irish received no such consideration. The hardness, cold, calculating, emotionally isolated, and strong personalities were welded by such overpowering experiences. The exodus of its citizens to other lands, just to survive the English purge. American Irish "need not apply." The land of dreams started as a nightmare for the arriving Irish. From rural squalor to big city ghetto.
Protectors of civilization. Lovers of the written word; great deference and respect for great writing, and they know the difference. People living in stuperous poverty, degenerated to eating grass; deprivation and starvation but literate to a man. The famed Irish poets, playwrights and story tellers. Ability to feel intimately through the word, yet unable to express it otherwise. How does a bunch of unsophisticated potato farmers live in such awareness, recognition and awe of high culture? Odd, isn't it? To this day, artist can live in Ireland and pay no taxes.
No great Irish painters, canvas and oils were too expensive; too much a luxury.
Uniquely suited for America. The "machine" political structure was a creation from Ireland, where the people built a power system within the English imposed system. A natural to simply insert that system here. The machine and the gangster, arm in arm, into the new world of America they strode and prospered.
Ireland, the "terrible beauty" has left a lasting scar on the Irish soul. That wound has been passed throughout the generations whether here or there. The cynicism, the wariness, suspicion, clannishness, unpredictability, gallows humor, and violence are all inbred as if a part of our very genetics. We all feel it, identify with it, and respond to it.
Politically astute and manipulative.
Love to inflict harm on the unjust. Vengeance be theirs, saith the Lord. Idealists. They must be if they really thought they could move the English out of Ireland forever.
Passionate when driven by cause. Brooding, mercurial, and dark by nature.
Education and the written word used as weapons against oppression and tyranny; a way out and up.
Cunning, cold, cruel; an extremely dangerous brand of killer we can produce. Watch your back if you betray us.
Educated, sophisticated bunch of hillbillies we are. Strange brew, we Irish. Quick witted, quick fist ed.
Irish sense of humor; we chose to create it out of sadness and pain; a wonderful choice. We can laugh at anything and find humor in the strangest of places. The most fun I had recently was at my cousins funeral, it was hilarious. My brother was on his game and I couldn't stop laughing; it was the eulogy that did it.
The Irish "glow." Their personalities can be so damn likable; a beautiful blend of smart, funny, witty, sharp, honest, and cynical. A powerful energy they can carry and manipulate. They can con the pants off you, and leave you stunned and laughing while they walk away with them. It's amazing to watch an Irishman hold court and enthrall an audience. Natural actors and showmen.
Great story tellers and spinners of fabled yarns; fanciful, improbable, irrational, but who cares?
"Luck of the Irish." Nice to think we are lucky in some way. People make their own luck and the Irish were never afraid to work for what they wanted.
Catholic redemption and forgiveness? The church watched without assistance the carnage and decimation of the Irish and offered platitudes, sermons, and guilt. I'm not sure what a victim of injustice may need any redemption for anyway; you tell me. They needed guns and money, not confessionals. The idea of heaven sounds great, but we are living in a hell without end right now. Shame on the Catholic Church for standing by idle while genocide was committed against her own people. You pompous, arrogant, distant, and insulated fucks. Another bit of slick trickery was how they populated and fed the ranks of the priesthood. Each family was to give one up. It was the unspoken and unwritten law. As the kids grew, there was an unconscious weeding process and
manipulation of one or more of the boys. "That one there, he's headed for the alter." As if you
had no choice in the matter. The family could purchase wholesale redemption for everyone through
this selection process. Give one up, to get all of us in; a small price to pay, unless you are the one
being given up. Clever huh? And we didn't have to do a thing except throw an innocent on the pyre.
Leaders and doers. The most successful ethnic group in America, riving even the Jews. MD's, JD's, PHD's, Masters, and college education and per capita income are the highest in the US per 1000 inhabitants. We flock to Law and Medicine; the power occupations. The Irish like being in control and law always offered that avenue. Money is good, but power is better; power is protection.
The Irish women. Maybe the man was either working or drinking and not around often, but Irish women are a powerful force to be reckoned with, in the home and away from it. They can be the most stunningly beautiful and captivating creatures on earth, especially the "Black Irish." The soft sensuous Irish features with brilliant light eyes; skin of cream without blemish; flowing black hair and eyebrows, and a strong willed energetic presence. Lovely and enticing but dangerous all in the same moment. Perfect contrast of the sacred and profane. It may be hard wired in, but I love Irish beauty.
I have been lost in my affection and love for a couple of them throughout my life; enchanting, sexy, smart, fearless, and strong. The other side; cold, distant, disdaining, mercurial, and sexually manipulative. Well, you can't have one without the other. If you can handle them, complete, complex, and exceedingly good women. Solid and tough.
Naturally suspicious. You can only get so close to the Irish; hard to grasp and hold down; ethereal and smokey. They know how to nurse a grudge and chew on a resentment, sometimes forever. Not a very forgiving lot.
Clannish to the extreme. South, West, and North side Irish, area clans; all slightly different and overly protective of their turf, usually their parish.
Natural fighters. The toughest kids I knew growing up were all Irish; my brother being the cream of that crop. They love to mix it up and feel strangely satisfied when their bodies feel the wounds of battle. It feels so good to hit someone and get hit back by them. We love a good, healthy bit of blood letting; It's good for the soul.
Lovers of death; ideation and preoccupation with death. The celebration when someone slipped the mortal coil. Release from the pain and anguish of life; escape forever the curse for living, sentence served. The body on display in the home while the keeners wailed. The wake, a 3 day affair. Maybe it was the only time we could show any soft emotion; so guarded and suspicious otherwise. Mortician was a chosen occupation of many Irish; makes sense, the dead don't need anything and don't want anything, and they don't talk back. Odd hobby reading the obituaries daily, the Irish Scratch Sheet. Obituary Box. My mother had one on her desk which contained the obits of everyone she knew who had passed; unusual proclivity or just the fanciful musings of a young Irish girl; take your pick.
The desire for escape and release may account for why the Irish drink so much. They do love to imbibe. Chicago AA, filled with Irish alcoholics; a dubious distinction; but better here than the alternative. Pub life was the social center for the Irish, and may account for the mythology of their heavy drinking. Many old country Irish did not drink at home or on Sunday. Irish do like to drink, and when they have a problem with it, it is an exceedingly ugly one. It is the demon, and it can run wild in their natures; it breeds violence, bitterness, and self hate. It horribly disfigures their offspring and destroys all loving. My father was such a drunk. It killed his beauty and heart and poisoned his soul. It altered and deformed his tenderness and humanity until it was completely extinguished. I have felt the lash of Irish alcoholism; I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. The strange preoccupation with death may also breed the self destruction that many Irish display. The alleviation of sorrow and spiritual deliverance may be what is sought, rather than destruction. Whatever it is, the Irish are better off not drinking. Interestingly, the name they have given alcohol is the "creature." Is that not an ominous and foreboding label? Think about what is conjured up by that name. Powerful and frightening images attack the senses, darkly consume, shadow the heart, terrify and bewilder. Because that's what it is, and what it does.
So we are an odd and beautiful lot, we Irish. Funny, engaging, cunning, brooding, violent, tender, artistic, vengeful, enchanting, witty, hateful, smart, quick, patriotic, sinful, brutal, bitter, stoic, warm, friendly, cruel, ruthless, compassionate, detached, distant, cold, strangely loving, educated, rebellious, handsome, lovely, successful, poetic, political, manipulative, grudging, captivating, complex, resentful, unreachable, and human. I am flushed with a deep pride when I think about what happened. Who we were, where we came from, and what we have been able to accomplish in the world. For the Irish are everywhere. A group of potato farmers saved European literature and became the most successful people on the planet. They truly have become Kings and sons of Kings. Be well all you kin and kindred out there. You belong to a unique and complete lineage, be proud of it.
Yours in kinship
Mike C.
I am a cliche, an Irish alcoholic and writer; I guess stereotype is based in fact.
Romantic identity with the old country, images of Kings and Sons of Kings.
Rolling green expanse, rock walls and streams, impossible and impassable roads.
Ready to defend her honor, knee jerk reactivity to criticism, or just like to fight; a little bit of both.
American Irish, more Irish than the Irish. Inherent identity with suffering and rejection; feeling forever the responsibility and guilt of the victim.
Irish ethnic wound, blanketed and saturated with repressive shame.
Inbred rebellious, natural suspicion, hatred for authority. Defiant to the core. Fused in our souls is a love of land, no matter how bleak and barren it may be, it belongs to us; so get the fuck out, go kill someone else.
Vanquished to the 4 corners; cast out and outcasted.
Continually conquered but never subjugated. True to themselves.
Suckered by their Church, souls owned lock stock. The only complete control ever allowed over their character. Sold a line of shit, bought whole cloth for mellenia. Guilt swallowed and digested becoming part of our marrow. Forever never good enough. Redemption is only a death away; let us know how that works out for you.
Natural violence, cold blooded, stark, committed, target driven hatred. Rebels, always with a cause; obsessively patriotic; instilled with an inherent brutality. IRA as common and accepted as life itself, for they will not be ruled. English bit off much more than they could chew when it came to the Irish. They had no idea how much hatred they could sustain or the duration and depth of that hatred.
Be careful, if you are Irish and start to read about our history, especially since 1850. I guarantee you will be shocked, infuriated, saddened, hardened, and chilled by what you read. You'll understand the why of the IRA.
The "Troubles" always the troubles.
Slick, conniving, bitter and conning; look you right in the eye and stab you when you turned.
Powerful ethnic identity, one that adheres like a skin, no matter where you were born. So similar to one another in outlook, personality, pathology, intellect and mannerisms.
Shocking history of pain, oppression, starvation, rejection and attempted genocide. The Potato Famine, contrived and created by the English to obliterate and exterminate the Irish. Why were the Irish such a favored target to release hate upon; they have no resources except a ready population that could be used to murder just for the hell of it. Odd human trait that unconscious self hate needs to be directed at an external target, the Irish, always favored.
How did they survive? A country of 3 million people, and yet they did survive. The Irish character was formed by that history and the fallout of losing their people not only to murder but to attrition to other lands, esp America.
The American Funeral was created. Coffin ships filled with the dead, or soon to be, headed for the US. If all were consumed on board, so be it. Barbarous tyrannical savagery. Even the negro slave ships had cargo that was valuable. The Irish received no such consideration. The hardness, cold, calculating, emotionally isolated, and strong personalities were welded by such overpowering experiences. The exodus of its citizens to other lands, just to survive the English purge. American Irish "need not apply." The land of dreams started as a nightmare for the arriving Irish. From rural squalor to big city ghetto.
Protectors of civilization. Lovers of the written word; great deference and respect for great writing, and they know the difference. People living in stuperous poverty, degenerated to eating grass; deprivation and starvation but literate to a man. The famed Irish poets, playwrights and story tellers. Ability to feel intimately through the word, yet unable to express it otherwise. How does a bunch of unsophisticated potato farmers live in such awareness, recognition and awe of high culture? Odd, isn't it? To this day, artist can live in Ireland and pay no taxes.
No great Irish painters, canvas and oils were too expensive; too much a luxury.
Uniquely suited for America. The "machine" political structure was a creation from Ireland, where the people built a power system within the English imposed system. A natural to simply insert that system here. The machine and the gangster, arm in arm, into the new world of America they strode and prospered.
Ireland, the "terrible beauty" has left a lasting scar on the Irish soul. That wound has been passed throughout the generations whether here or there. The cynicism, the wariness, suspicion, clannishness, unpredictability, gallows humor, and violence are all inbred as if a part of our very genetics. We all feel it, identify with it, and respond to it.
Politically astute and manipulative.
Love to inflict harm on the unjust. Vengeance be theirs, saith the Lord. Idealists. They must be if they really thought they could move the English out of Ireland forever.
Passionate when driven by cause. Brooding, mercurial, and dark by nature.
Education and the written word used as weapons against oppression and tyranny; a way out and up.
Cunning, cold, cruel; an extremely dangerous brand of killer we can produce. Watch your back if you betray us.
Educated, sophisticated bunch of hillbillies we are. Strange brew, we Irish. Quick witted, quick fist ed.
Irish sense of humor; we chose to create it out of sadness and pain; a wonderful choice. We can laugh at anything and find humor in the strangest of places. The most fun I had recently was at my cousins funeral, it was hilarious. My brother was on his game and I couldn't stop laughing; it was the eulogy that did it.
The Irish "glow." Their personalities can be so damn likable; a beautiful blend of smart, funny, witty, sharp, honest, and cynical. A powerful energy they can carry and manipulate. They can con the pants off you, and leave you stunned and laughing while they walk away with them. It's amazing to watch an Irishman hold court and enthrall an audience. Natural actors and showmen.
Great story tellers and spinners of fabled yarns; fanciful, improbable, irrational, but who cares?
"Luck of the Irish." Nice to think we are lucky in some way. People make their own luck and the Irish were never afraid to work for what they wanted.
Catholic redemption and forgiveness? The church watched without assistance the carnage and decimation of the Irish and offered platitudes, sermons, and guilt. I'm not sure what a victim of injustice may need any redemption for anyway; you tell me. They needed guns and money, not confessionals. The idea of heaven sounds great, but we are living in a hell without end right now. Shame on the Catholic Church for standing by idle while genocide was committed against her own people. You pompous, arrogant, distant, and insulated fucks. Another bit of slick trickery was how they populated and fed the ranks of the priesthood. Each family was to give one up. It was the unspoken and unwritten law. As the kids grew, there was an unconscious weeding process and
manipulation of one or more of the boys. "That one there, he's headed for the alter." As if you
had no choice in the matter. The family could purchase wholesale redemption for everyone through
this selection process. Give one up, to get all of us in; a small price to pay, unless you are the one
being given up. Clever huh? And we didn't have to do a thing except throw an innocent on the pyre.
Leaders and doers. The most successful ethnic group in America, riving even the Jews. MD's, JD's, PHD's, Masters, and college education and per capita income are the highest in the US per 1000 inhabitants. We flock to Law and Medicine; the power occupations. The Irish like being in control and law always offered that avenue. Money is good, but power is better; power is protection.
The Irish women. Maybe the man was either working or drinking and not around often, but Irish women are a powerful force to be reckoned with, in the home and away from it. They can be the most stunningly beautiful and captivating creatures on earth, especially the "Black Irish." The soft sensuous Irish features with brilliant light eyes; skin of cream without blemish; flowing black hair and eyebrows, and a strong willed energetic presence. Lovely and enticing but dangerous all in the same moment. Perfect contrast of the sacred and profane. It may be hard wired in, but I love Irish beauty.
I have been lost in my affection and love for a couple of them throughout my life; enchanting, sexy, smart, fearless, and strong. The other side; cold, distant, disdaining, mercurial, and sexually manipulative. Well, you can't have one without the other. If you can handle them, complete, complex, and exceedingly good women. Solid and tough.
Naturally suspicious. You can only get so close to the Irish; hard to grasp and hold down; ethereal and smokey. They know how to nurse a grudge and chew on a resentment, sometimes forever. Not a very forgiving lot.
Clannish to the extreme. South, West, and North side Irish, area clans; all slightly different and overly protective of their turf, usually their parish.
Natural fighters. The toughest kids I knew growing up were all Irish; my brother being the cream of that crop. They love to mix it up and feel strangely satisfied when their bodies feel the wounds of battle. It feels so good to hit someone and get hit back by them. We love a good, healthy bit of blood letting; It's good for the soul.
Lovers of death; ideation and preoccupation with death. The celebration when someone slipped the mortal coil. Release from the pain and anguish of life; escape forever the curse for living, sentence served. The body on display in the home while the keeners wailed. The wake, a 3 day affair. Maybe it was the only time we could show any soft emotion; so guarded and suspicious otherwise. Mortician was a chosen occupation of many Irish; makes sense, the dead don't need anything and don't want anything, and they don't talk back. Odd hobby reading the obituaries daily, the Irish Scratch Sheet. Obituary Box. My mother had one on her desk which contained the obits of everyone she knew who had passed; unusual proclivity or just the fanciful musings of a young Irish girl; take your pick.
The desire for escape and release may account for why the Irish drink so much. They do love to imbibe. Chicago AA, filled with Irish alcoholics; a dubious distinction; but better here than the alternative. Pub life was the social center for the Irish, and may account for the mythology of their heavy drinking. Many old country Irish did not drink at home or on Sunday. Irish do like to drink, and when they have a problem with it, it is an exceedingly ugly one. It is the demon, and it can run wild in their natures; it breeds violence, bitterness, and self hate. It horribly disfigures their offspring and destroys all loving. My father was such a drunk. It killed his beauty and heart and poisoned his soul. It altered and deformed his tenderness and humanity until it was completely extinguished. I have felt the lash of Irish alcoholism; I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. The strange preoccupation with death may also breed the self destruction that many Irish display. The alleviation of sorrow and spiritual deliverance may be what is sought, rather than destruction. Whatever it is, the Irish are better off not drinking. Interestingly, the name they have given alcohol is the "creature." Is that not an ominous and foreboding label? Think about what is conjured up by that name. Powerful and frightening images attack the senses, darkly consume, shadow the heart, terrify and bewilder. Because that's what it is, and what it does.
So we are an odd and beautiful lot, we Irish. Funny, engaging, cunning, brooding, violent, tender, artistic, vengeful, enchanting, witty, hateful, smart, quick, patriotic, sinful, brutal, bitter, stoic, warm, friendly, cruel, ruthless, compassionate, detached, distant, cold, strangely loving, educated, rebellious, handsome, lovely, successful, poetic, political, manipulative, grudging, captivating, complex, resentful, unreachable, and human. I am flushed with a deep pride when I think about what happened. Who we were, where we came from, and what we have been able to accomplish in the world. For the Irish are everywhere. A group of potato farmers saved European literature and became the most successful people on the planet. They truly have become Kings and sons of Kings. Be well all you kin and kindred out there. You belong to a unique and complete lineage, be proud of it.
Yours in kinship
Mike C.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
School Daze (Art)
Most children love grammar school, just can't wait to get there, as if that's some kids idea of real fun. A forum for success and educational excellence. A place to shine, to be seen, to be attended to, to be stroked, to be uplifted and inspired; an institution of inquiry, wonder, development, and thought. A breeding ground for great success in life. Not really, and certainly not for me. I hated grammar school with a passion exceeding all others; I hated high school even more, if that were somehow possible, but that for another day. I went to a Catholic grammar school, St Vincent Ferrer, in the upscale and wealthy area of River Forest, Illinois. It encompassed Elmwood Park and the north side of River Forest. The student composition was mostly immigrant stock who had made it, those who aspired to, and realized the American Dream. Post WWII baby boomers. Second and third generation, predominately Italian, some Irish, some Poles, and a few mutts. An area saturated with the strict and staunch Catholic upbringing of that era (1960's). Spare the rod and spoil the child. I had no idea that there were any other religions in the world. But I do remember going to a Lutheran Church, on some outreach program, I'm sure to see if we could convert them back to the "real religion". As I sat in their church, I felt an overwhelming sadness for the heathens because they weren't going to go to heaven. The poor bastards didn't even know it, sad isn't it? Bred and inbred, genetically altered to accept the irrational ideas and attitudes of the Catholic Church, we marched lock step to its primary institution of training and indoctrination. All dressed the same in the military fashion of white shirt, dark blue tie and dark slacks. Soldiers of Christ we were called and we were armed with the necessary guilt required to perform our tasks with the utmost expediency. Like good soldiers we were never to question the decisions and behaviors of our superiors. Into the valley rode the 600. Unconscious soldiers of Christ, that's better for all concerned, don't you think? Because if you really thought about it, Catholic philosophy is rejectable on its face. Not only ludicrously irrational, but manipulative and controlling through the purposeful use of guilt and shame. If heaven does exist, you can be damn sure, that the Catholics will be excluded from it, for all the shit they have pulled off.
Selling heaven, purchasing plenary indulgences and annulments, the cemetery and crematory business, what a scam, and tax exempt to boot. Selling the pie in the sky fantasy of eternal bliss and redemption, for cash. The hard currency of the wicked and profane. There really is a sucker born every minute. Those fuckers had it all figured out. But who thinks that clearly when you're young, especially when your damnation hangs in the balance; the threat of perdition looms constantly. Guilt, force fed and digested, becoming part of the marrow. I was compelled to always try to do better, just to get back to even.
I mean you come into this wondrous and beautiful world, completely innocent and open to all of its bounty, awed by life itself, and the Catholics zealously contrive and instill the belief of "Original Sin" in you. What a crock of shit that is. You are marred, imperfect, impure, failed and inherently a sinner, disfigured and cursed beyond any mortal repair, just by being born; or at least until your baptism; whew! I was hoping that wasn't the end of the story. Thank God I made it that far or I would have ended up in the nether lands, lost forever, vanquished to a place called Limbo, where no souls ever return from. Doesn't sound like a place you would even want to visit much less live forever. I thought God was loving, that place sounds pretty cruel and vacant to me. Maybe God has a different idea of what love is and my failed and limited self could not comprehend such a generous and magnanimous place such as Limbo. I'm sure that's it. Limbo is different than Purgatory. Purgatory is where you writhe in a semi hot fire until all that sin is burnt away, the greater the asshole you were, the longer you will spend there; but you have to be careful about being completely corrupt, that's what Hell is for. So you need to ride a fine line, you can be evil, but not too evil. It's a balancing act that only God knows what side of the line you are on at any given time; but life is risky. Step right up sucker and take a chance on the wheel of endless rapture; only a dollar. Anyway, what's an eternity or two matter in the grand scheme of things? Kind of like spending a long time in triple A ball in the Sahara Desert before making the majors. Wow, I thought I was ok until I heard all that. I guess I am fucked up beyond human intervention. I'll try to remember that the next time I'm going to commit a mortal sin. You know that masturbation is a mortal sin. I'm in some real trouble now.
There are a number of strategies that any one can employ when approaching an institution of control such as Catholic school. You can become a wall flower. Don't make any waves; don't be noticed; recede into the background. Don't distinguish yourself in any way; become part of the furniture; and, for God's sake, don't fuck up. Endure countless indignities and abuse in silent scorn, and grow into an adult filled with resentments and bitterness, and a burning desire to make someone pay. These are the future small minded bureaucrats and high school teachers. The opposite tack is to become a star. Rules followed to the letter of the law. Homework completed perfectly and never late; straight A's with maddening frequency; surrogate when the teacher has to leave momentarily. Always so fucking helpful and personally obnoxious. A controlling and neurotic pain in the ass. The OCD crowd; the MD's and JD's of the future. Another path was to become an ass kisser and brown noser of sublime quality, the real phony manipulators and con men of life. The lazy ones with personality but no real desire to do anything but completely bullshit their way through life; petty, gossipy, and useless. "yes sister," "no sister," "can I wipe your ass sister?" "I would never do that sister, but I know who did it." The real pussy's in the class; backstabbing tattletale fuck heads. Always deflecting heat off themselves on to others while simultaneously taking credit for anything good, even when they had nothing to do with it; destined to be the car salesman and politicians of the bunch. Lastly you can rebel against all the bullshit they feed you and make being your teacher feel as though she would rather have oral surgery than to deal with you. You're so afraid of hell, let's see if I can give you a little taste of it while you're still alive; never go along, never get along; continually conspiring with the like minded to obstruct and inhibit the peaceful; resistance and defiance are its credo. Whole heartedly committed to becoming a true thorn in the soft side of Catholicism; the alcoholics and artists. That which I proudly aspired to, and succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Fuck em. Most never deserved any real respect anyway.
I'm sure there were other types, but those predominated the overall makeup of my 8th grade class; future petty bureaucrats, self inflated doctors, boring lawyers, corrupt politicians, phony salesman and alcoholics, and probably a few hookers thrown in for good measure, just to round out the curve. Pretty normal composition of the average white middle class neighborhood of the 1960's.
I was taught almost exclusively by nuns, except for one non-nun, Miss Leen. I still run into her every now and then in the neighborhood, a very good lady. Now, to the classroom. We had a homeroom where we spent most of our time and where we started and ended each day. The bell would ring, those fucking bells, like rats to a stimulus, we would file to one of the other 3 classrooms teaching a different subject. My home room was headed by a former member of the SS named Sister Genora, who escaped Nazi Germany by masquerading as a Catholic Nun. Her job as a nun was so similar to her job as a SS Commandant, why bother to head for Venezuela. What a fucking bitch she was; mean spirited, raging, disdaining, rule bound, perfectionistic, extremely heavy handed, and tyrannical. Small minded dictator. You knew you were in for some real shit when you heard those rosary beads banging against her leg while she sprinted towards you with a singular intent, armed with one of those long wooden pointers. Not a tough disciplinarian, but a bitter, abusive and resentful women. A cunt of the highest order. I put it off to sexual frustration or latent unresolved lesbianism, take your pick. Whatever it was, this women was evil, and she disliked boys with a particularly poisonous venom. I'm sure it was because we had a penis and she didn't. Because of her unusually brutal personality, and inherent desire and pleasure in abusing children, she had all the bad actors and troubled boys, and a few of the "good girls" in her home room. She took great enjoyment in breaking such boys and turning them into the neutered mush we see all the time. But as committed as she was to breaking us, we were as committed to fighting her every step of the way. We were destined to win, given there were more of us, and we had youth on our side; and remember, she would only have us for one year. Sometimes the victories were short lived and symbolic, but they were victories all the same, and the taste was oh, so sweet. I still feel warmth when I think of all the problems and anxiety I caused her, I can only hope I shortened her ugly and misguided life. I hated her, but her actions made that a forgone conclusion; she hated me, a great compliment; we were a match made in hell. Let the games begin.
Fast forward to close of the school year, mid May. The weather was warming, my loins were priming, the sirens call of summer was wafting through the air, and I was overcome by its voice, it was all I could hear. This spring was different, I was 13, exploding, curious, and excited, and girls had suddenly become very important to me. Why, I had no idea, but I pursued that notion with a single minded focus. The natural romantic in me, swelled and burst forward that year, accompanied by the constant inflammation of overpowering sexual stirrings that consumed and confused me beyond reason. I was enchanted and dazed by girls, totally hypnotized. They were so different; smaller, petite, delicate; softer, so much softer, and so pretty. They did so many unusual, odd, and funny things. Enigmatic, incomprehensible, ethereal, emotional, enticing, bewitching, and terrifying. They were creatures born of a different world, I was consumed in poetic fascination, and obsessed by the feelings rising within me. I had discovered the mythic goddess that spring, and acquiesced completely to her captivating power; I was lost and found all in the same moment; and it all felt so strangely right to me. So curious about touching them, and what that would feel like. When I did, it was electric, emotionally shocking, a disturbance at the visceral soul, complete psychic upheaval, an earthquake; rearranged and reordered, everything within me awakened instantaneously. I saw beauty in all things. I remember the first time I kissed a girl, my nerve endings seemed to ignite and vibrate with a spiritual and creative energy. The sexual self emerged, burst open uncontrollably; strong, vigorous, excited, virile, immortal. I was literally on fire, body and soul set ablaze. My whole being was involved. I joined the cosmos and felt all its wonder, potency and supremacy; suspended in awe, fully conscious and aware, feeling the extraordinary power of being alive and completely consumed in that one moment, riding atop the crest of penultimate human experience. As I walked in Heaven, I heard the music of eternity, sung by the angels, just for me. I felt the unmistakable and undeniable presence of God. I was sanctified. It all was so innocently tender and sweetly profound, and incomprehensibly beautiful. I had been scorched by the celestial flame of sacred sexual communion, and was forever changed. I was in love; I was love. Just to be close to girls was sexually arousing to me. I loved what I saw and what I felt. Their bodies were so inherently and intrinsically beautiful; shapely, curvy, longer haired, pampered, flawless, round and perfect, with an unmistakable and irresistible scent. Once I smelled that unique combination of soap, sweat, perfume, and estrogen mixed in the perfect recipe, each spice intensifying and adding flavor to the other, I was overwhelmed from then on, and still am. In those days I fell in love, quickly, deeply and always hopelessly, and I was crushed when that attraction went unrequited. I could go from excitement and expectation to broken demoralization, covering the full range of emotion almost simultaneously. I had embarked on a journey through a maze of enigma, mystery, and discovery, the only road map being the instinctual longings of my innocent nature, of which I followed with blind intuitive surrender. For I knew, it knew, what it was doing. Feeling for the very first time the ancestral, universal, and primary bond of divine humanness between boy and girl. That's the real stuff of life right there; unconstrained nature, hormonal lunacy, pain, curiosity, spiritual ignition, insecurity, hope, loving without guile, risking without thought, brushing the angels, broken, hopeful, uncontrollable excitement, creative awakening, raging desire, awe, dejection, laughing with the gods, fantasy, anguish, expectation, and illusion; a perfect totality. WOW, that was quite a time; it doesn't get any better than that. I am so grateful to have experienced that warm and beautiful sweetness, the tender madness of being 13 and coming of age. It feels like it was yesterday. Thank you God.
My mind ran amok with day dreams and fantasies, like a prison short timer, all I could think about was freedom. All I wanted to do was get the fuck out of there and on to my summer where I could sneak a cigarette or two and look at beautiful air brushed women in America's true periodical of decadence, Playboy. Those were the days. It all seemed so simple and real to me. Kids now have no idea of how exciting and enthralling life can be just sneaking a peak at a tame, idealized, and fanciful magazine while puffing on a Camel. Today, unless they have I Pods, I Pads, game consoles, etc, they can't be happy. I feel sorry for the average 13 year old now. They miss so much simple pleasure by seeking a constant deluge of excitation and volume which inevitably deadens their real senses, requiring more and more to stimulate them. Electronic cyber junkies. Tuned in, hooked up, wired to the Internet; instant gratification and entertainment is constant, driving, and never ending. Without that persistent consumption, they are instantly bored, as if in a vacuum, or filled with a disjointed anxiety searching for any new web drug to get off on. They are addicted to stimulation and their obsessive need to be fed by the outside world. They have acquiesced their internal voice and all self direction to the dictates of the media. The messages require no thought whatsoever to decipher, they don't want them thinking, people who think are dangerous. Sound, image, sound, image attacking their innocent psyches with a relentless onslaught. They display the classic symptoms of PTSD. Wired into Facebook and Twitter, falsifying an intimacy and closeness they don't have with one another. Obsessively putting inane and simple minded posts on their walls. Creating a hallow sense of celebrity and fame by being online and seeing their name on a web page where others can see it as well. Elevating their fragile egos, while temporarily soothing their deep seated insecurities. Odd, this society now. The idea of creating fun, or simply doing nothing doesn't occur to them. Too bad for them, a lot of creativity and living comes from doing nothing.
So, on this beautiful spring day, Sister Genora assembled all the trouble makers together in order to berate and shame us one last time. She knew the end game was near, we were about 3 weeks from graduation, she had to act quickly if she was to get that last final lick of abuse in before we would be lost to high school forever. There was 6 of us boys, they were all my friends; not one girl was brought up. I think the group she called forward were a special mix of unbearable angst for her. We were professionals at making her life miserable and she felt incompetent as a disciplinarian because she couldn't break this crew. We were just too good at fucking things up and not caring one wit about it. We were untouchable and uncontrollable; she couldn't reach us; she couldn't hurts us or work us to her desire; all her methods of coercion and repression were ineffectual against us. We conquered her that year, and she knew it. She was a broken women, acting from unconscious rage over her defeat. She called all of us to the front of the class and exclaimed, "there they are, the ones who have ruined your school year, look at them, look at them." Upon that cue, we all looked at one another and immediately burst into a laughter. It was hilarious and we couldn't stop. We were belly laughing, it came from the depths, right out of our feet, my whole body was involved. It was so fucking funny. I still laugh when I think about it. She became flustered, confused and enraged, on fire at such insolence and disrespect. Her intention of shaming us had not worked out to her expectation, it all backfired. She started to beat on us one at a time, all that did was create more insane laughter; it just got funnier and funnier the more she hit us, and it wouldn't subside. She had had enough. She dragged me and Teddy Anderson down to the Principles office, an obvious sign that we had beaten her, she needed reinforcements. That must have been extremely embarrassing to her embittered ego; she couldn't handle us, and now others knew that fact publicly; the word was out, she had lost control of her class; oh, the shame of it. That says it all, right there. Why just Teddy and I, and not the others, I'm not sure. I think she perceived us as the ring leaders of this insurrection and the most troublesome of the 6 boys throughout the entire year. I'm sure that was it, we were a special breed. I think she picked the right 2 guys. We were devilish when it came to fucking with her. We both hated her with a consummate passion, and we let it be known in a thousand different sneaky ways. We were good, Teddy and I. In the parlance of Catholicism, the Principle's office is the pinnacle of fucking up. We had made it, flush with pride. We truly were at the top of our games. Ah sweet troubled youth.
Now we were in some real shit because Sister Leone, the Principle, was no one to fool with. She was a nun in the classic sense. A proud, strong, and beautiful women with great love and compassion, and a true commitment as an educator and clergy member. She was smart ,quick, and tough but fair minded. She had a pointed and powerful gaze, that could make your hair stand up, but could soften to a gentle sweetness when she wanted. A real lady with a real heart. She carried herself with a particular bearing and class, portending a highly distinct lineage. She was certainly the best that Catholicism offered, and what all others should have aspired to become. We were lucky to have her. She was a wonderful person and a women of solid values and virtues. She was good friends with my mom and dad. They would take her and my other favorite gal, my 2nd grade teacher, Sister Seraphina out to dinner and and sneak them drinks, under the table, throughout the meal. Real people; good souls. I loved them both very much, and they loved me, and I knew it. For I was that boy, destructively curious, explosive and expansive, with the beautiful devil within him; not a bad boy, but an insanely mischievous one who found trouble wherever he went. They could relate to that, I was their kind of boy. Oh, I forgot to mention, both of these fantastic women were Irish, kindred of the clan. They intuitively understood and accepted who I was.
To be continued:
Yours in kinship,
Mike C.
Selling heaven, purchasing plenary indulgences and annulments, the cemetery and crematory business, what a scam, and tax exempt to boot. Selling the pie in the sky fantasy of eternal bliss and redemption, for cash. The hard currency of the wicked and profane. There really is a sucker born every minute. Those fuckers had it all figured out. But who thinks that clearly when you're young, especially when your damnation hangs in the balance; the threat of perdition looms constantly. Guilt, force fed and digested, becoming part of the marrow. I was compelled to always try to do better, just to get back to even.
I mean you come into this wondrous and beautiful world, completely innocent and open to all of its bounty, awed by life itself, and the Catholics zealously contrive and instill the belief of "Original Sin" in you. What a crock of shit that is. You are marred, imperfect, impure, failed and inherently a sinner, disfigured and cursed beyond any mortal repair, just by being born; or at least until your baptism; whew! I was hoping that wasn't the end of the story. Thank God I made it that far or I would have ended up in the nether lands, lost forever, vanquished to a place called Limbo, where no souls ever return from. Doesn't sound like a place you would even want to visit much less live forever. I thought God was loving, that place sounds pretty cruel and vacant to me. Maybe God has a different idea of what love is and my failed and limited self could not comprehend such a generous and magnanimous place such as Limbo. I'm sure that's it. Limbo is different than Purgatory. Purgatory is where you writhe in a semi hot fire until all that sin is burnt away, the greater the asshole you were, the longer you will spend there; but you have to be careful about being completely corrupt, that's what Hell is for. So you need to ride a fine line, you can be evil, but not too evil. It's a balancing act that only God knows what side of the line you are on at any given time; but life is risky. Step right up sucker and take a chance on the wheel of endless rapture; only a dollar. Anyway, what's an eternity or two matter in the grand scheme of things? Kind of like spending a long time in triple A ball in the Sahara Desert before making the majors. Wow, I thought I was ok until I heard all that. I guess I am fucked up beyond human intervention. I'll try to remember that the next time I'm going to commit a mortal sin. You know that masturbation is a mortal sin. I'm in some real trouble now.
There are a number of strategies that any one can employ when approaching an institution of control such as Catholic school. You can become a wall flower. Don't make any waves; don't be noticed; recede into the background. Don't distinguish yourself in any way; become part of the furniture; and, for God's sake, don't fuck up. Endure countless indignities and abuse in silent scorn, and grow into an adult filled with resentments and bitterness, and a burning desire to make someone pay. These are the future small minded bureaucrats and high school teachers. The opposite tack is to become a star. Rules followed to the letter of the law. Homework completed perfectly and never late; straight A's with maddening frequency; surrogate when the teacher has to leave momentarily. Always so fucking helpful and personally obnoxious. A controlling and neurotic pain in the ass. The OCD crowd; the MD's and JD's of the future. Another path was to become an ass kisser and brown noser of sublime quality, the real phony manipulators and con men of life. The lazy ones with personality but no real desire to do anything but completely bullshit their way through life; petty, gossipy, and useless. "yes sister," "no sister," "can I wipe your ass sister?" "I would never do that sister, but I know who did it." The real pussy's in the class; backstabbing tattletale fuck heads. Always deflecting heat off themselves on to others while simultaneously taking credit for anything good, even when they had nothing to do with it; destined to be the car salesman and politicians of the bunch. Lastly you can rebel against all the bullshit they feed you and make being your teacher feel as though she would rather have oral surgery than to deal with you. You're so afraid of hell, let's see if I can give you a little taste of it while you're still alive; never go along, never get along; continually conspiring with the like minded to obstruct and inhibit the peaceful; resistance and defiance are its credo. Whole heartedly committed to becoming a true thorn in the soft side of Catholicism; the alcoholics and artists. That which I proudly aspired to, and succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Fuck em. Most never deserved any real respect anyway.
I'm sure there were other types, but those predominated the overall makeup of my 8th grade class; future petty bureaucrats, self inflated doctors, boring lawyers, corrupt politicians, phony salesman and alcoholics, and probably a few hookers thrown in for good measure, just to round out the curve. Pretty normal composition of the average white middle class neighborhood of the 1960's.
I was taught almost exclusively by nuns, except for one non-nun, Miss Leen. I still run into her every now and then in the neighborhood, a very good lady. Now, to the classroom. We had a homeroom where we spent most of our time and where we started and ended each day. The bell would ring, those fucking bells, like rats to a stimulus, we would file to one of the other 3 classrooms teaching a different subject. My home room was headed by a former member of the SS named Sister Genora, who escaped Nazi Germany by masquerading as a Catholic Nun. Her job as a nun was so similar to her job as a SS Commandant, why bother to head for Venezuela. What a fucking bitch she was; mean spirited, raging, disdaining, rule bound, perfectionistic, extremely heavy handed, and tyrannical. Small minded dictator. You knew you were in for some real shit when you heard those rosary beads banging against her leg while she sprinted towards you with a singular intent, armed with one of those long wooden pointers. Not a tough disciplinarian, but a bitter, abusive and resentful women. A cunt of the highest order. I put it off to sexual frustration or latent unresolved lesbianism, take your pick. Whatever it was, this women was evil, and she disliked boys with a particularly poisonous venom. I'm sure it was because we had a penis and she didn't. Because of her unusually brutal personality, and inherent desire and pleasure in abusing children, she had all the bad actors and troubled boys, and a few of the "good girls" in her home room. She took great enjoyment in breaking such boys and turning them into the neutered mush we see all the time. But as committed as she was to breaking us, we were as committed to fighting her every step of the way. We were destined to win, given there were more of us, and we had youth on our side; and remember, she would only have us for one year. Sometimes the victories were short lived and symbolic, but they were victories all the same, and the taste was oh, so sweet. I still feel warmth when I think of all the problems and anxiety I caused her, I can only hope I shortened her ugly and misguided life. I hated her, but her actions made that a forgone conclusion; she hated me, a great compliment; we were a match made in hell. Let the games begin.
Fast forward to close of the school year, mid May. The weather was warming, my loins were priming, the sirens call of summer was wafting through the air, and I was overcome by its voice, it was all I could hear. This spring was different, I was 13, exploding, curious, and excited, and girls had suddenly become very important to me. Why, I had no idea, but I pursued that notion with a single minded focus. The natural romantic in me, swelled and burst forward that year, accompanied by the constant inflammation of overpowering sexual stirrings that consumed and confused me beyond reason. I was enchanted and dazed by girls, totally hypnotized. They were so different; smaller, petite, delicate; softer, so much softer, and so pretty. They did so many unusual, odd, and funny things. Enigmatic, incomprehensible, ethereal, emotional, enticing, bewitching, and terrifying. They were creatures born of a different world, I was consumed in poetic fascination, and obsessed by the feelings rising within me. I had discovered the mythic goddess that spring, and acquiesced completely to her captivating power; I was lost and found all in the same moment; and it all felt so strangely right to me. So curious about touching them, and what that would feel like. When I did, it was electric, emotionally shocking, a disturbance at the visceral soul, complete psychic upheaval, an earthquake; rearranged and reordered, everything within me awakened instantaneously. I saw beauty in all things. I remember the first time I kissed a girl, my nerve endings seemed to ignite and vibrate with a spiritual and creative energy. The sexual self emerged, burst open uncontrollably; strong, vigorous, excited, virile, immortal. I was literally on fire, body and soul set ablaze. My whole being was involved. I joined the cosmos and felt all its wonder, potency and supremacy; suspended in awe, fully conscious and aware, feeling the extraordinary power of being alive and completely consumed in that one moment, riding atop the crest of penultimate human experience. As I walked in Heaven, I heard the music of eternity, sung by the angels, just for me. I felt the unmistakable and undeniable presence of God. I was sanctified. It all was so innocently tender and sweetly profound, and incomprehensibly beautiful. I had been scorched by the celestial flame of sacred sexual communion, and was forever changed. I was in love; I was love. Just to be close to girls was sexually arousing to me. I loved what I saw and what I felt. Their bodies were so inherently and intrinsically beautiful; shapely, curvy, longer haired, pampered, flawless, round and perfect, with an unmistakable and irresistible scent. Once I smelled that unique combination of soap, sweat, perfume, and estrogen mixed in the perfect recipe, each spice intensifying and adding flavor to the other, I was overwhelmed from then on, and still am. In those days I fell in love, quickly, deeply and always hopelessly, and I was crushed when that attraction went unrequited. I could go from excitement and expectation to broken demoralization, covering the full range of emotion almost simultaneously. I had embarked on a journey through a maze of enigma, mystery, and discovery, the only road map being the instinctual longings of my innocent nature, of which I followed with blind intuitive surrender. For I knew, it knew, what it was doing. Feeling for the very first time the ancestral, universal, and primary bond of divine humanness between boy and girl. That's the real stuff of life right there; unconstrained nature, hormonal lunacy, pain, curiosity, spiritual ignition, insecurity, hope, loving without guile, risking without thought, brushing the angels, broken, hopeful, uncontrollable excitement, creative awakening, raging desire, awe, dejection, laughing with the gods, fantasy, anguish, expectation, and illusion; a perfect totality. WOW, that was quite a time; it doesn't get any better than that. I am so grateful to have experienced that warm and beautiful sweetness, the tender madness of being 13 and coming of age. It feels like it was yesterday. Thank you God.
My mind ran amok with day dreams and fantasies, like a prison short timer, all I could think about was freedom. All I wanted to do was get the fuck out of there and on to my summer where I could sneak a cigarette or two and look at beautiful air brushed women in America's true periodical of decadence, Playboy. Those were the days. It all seemed so simple and real to me. Kids now have no idea of how exciting and enthralling life can be just sneaking a peak at a tame, idealized, and fanciful magazine while puffing on a Camel. Today, unless they have I Pods, I Pads, game consoles, etc, they can't be happy. I feel sorry for the average 13 year old now. They miss so much simple pleasure by seeking a constant deluge of excitation and volume which inevitably deadens their real senses, requiring more and more to stimulate them. Electronic cyber junkies. Tuned in, hooked up, wired to the Internet; instant gratification and entertainment is constant, driving, and never ending. Without that persistent consumption, they are instantly bored, as if in a vacuum, or filled with a disjointed anxiety searching for any new web drug to get off on. They are addicted to stimulation and their obsessive need to be fed by the outside world. They have acquiesced their internal voice and all self direction to the dictates of the media. The messages require no thought whatsoever to decipher, they don't want them thinking, people who think are dangerous. Sound, image, sound, image attacking their innocent psyches with a relentless onslaught. They display the classic symptoms of PTSD. Wired into Facebook and Twitter, falsifying an intimacy and closeness they don't have with one another. Obsessively putting inane and simple minded posts on their walls. Creating a hallow sense of celebrity and fame by being online and seeing their name on a web page where others can see it as well. Elevating their fragile egos, while temporarily soothing their deep seated insecurities. Odd, this society now. The idea of creating fun, or simply doing nothing doesn't occur to them. Too bad for them, a lot of creativity and living comes from doing nothing.
So, on this beautiful spring day, Sister Genora assembled all the trouble makers together in order to berate and shame us one last time. She knew the end game was near, we were about 3 weeks from graduation, she had to act quickly if she was to get that last final lick of abuse in before we would be lost to high school forever. There was 6 of us boys, they were all my friends; not one girl was brought up. I think the group she called forward were a special mix of unbearable angst for her. We were professionals at making her life miserable and she felt incompetent as a disciplinarian because she couldn't break this crew. We were just too good at fucking things up and not caring one wit about it. We were untouchable and uncontrollable; she couldn't reach us; she couldn't hurts us or work us to her desire; all her methods of coercion and repression were ineffectual against us. We conquered her that year, and she knew it. She was a broken women, acting from unconscious rage over her defeat. She called all of us to the front of the class and exclaimed, "there they are, the ones who have ruined your school year, look at them, look at them." Upon that cue, we all looked at one another and immediately burst into a laughter. It was hilarious and we couldn't stop. We were belly laughing, it came from the depths, right out of our feet, my whole body was involved. It was so fucking funny. I still laugh when I think about it. She became flustered, confused and enraged, on fire at such insolence and disrespect. Her intention of shaming us had not worked out to her expectation, it all backfired. She started to beat on us one at a time, all that did was create more insane laughter; it just got funnier and funnier the more she hit us, and it wouldn't subside. She had had enough. She dragged me and Teddy Anderson down to the Principles office, an obvious sign that we had beaten her, she needed reinforcements. That must have been extremely embarrassing to her embittered ego; she couldn't handle us, and now others knew that fact publicly; the word was out, she had lost control of her class; oh, the shame of it. That says it all, right there. Why just Teddy and I, and not the others, I'm not sure. I think she perceived us as the ring leaders of this insurrection and the most troublesome of the 6 boys throughout the entire year. I'm sure that was it, we were a special breed. I think she picked the right 2 guys. We were devilish when it came to fucking with her. We both hated her with a consummate passion, and we let it be known in a thousand different sneaky ways. We were good, Teddy and I. In the parlance of Catholicism, the Principle's office is the pinnacle of fucking up. We had made it, flush with pride. We truly were at the top of our games. Ah sweet troubled youth.
Now we were in some real shit because Sister Leone, the Principle, was no one to fool with. She was a nun in the classic sense. A proud, strong, and beautiful women with great love and compassion, and a true commitment as an educator and clergy member. She was smart ,quick, and tough but fair minded. She had a pointed and powerful gaze, that could make your hair stand up, but could soften to a gentle sweetness when she wanted. A real lady with a real heart. She carried herself with a particular bearing and class, portending a highly distinct lineage. She was certainly the best that Catholicism offered, and what all others should have aspired to become. We were lucky to have her. She was a wonderful person and a women of solid values and virtues. She was good friends with my mom and dad. They would take her and my other favorite gal, my 2nd grade teacher, Sister Seraphina out to dinner and and sneak them drinks, under the table, throughout the meal. Real people; good souls. I loved them both very much, and they loved me, and I knew it. For I was that boy, destructively curious, explosive and expansive, with the beautiful devil within him; not a bad boy, but an insanely mischievous one who found trouble wherever he went. They could relate to that, I was their kind of boy. Oh, I forgot to mention, both of these fantastic women were Irish, kindred of the clan. They intuitively understood and accepted who I was.
To be continued:
Yours in kinship,
Mike C.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Spirituality of Loss (AA)
I have always believed in God, even through the most horrendous experiences I had. I, like most others, have said the despairing fox hole prayers in the middle of some incomprehensible insanity that I caused and sought Gods relief to escape from. So when I walked into my first AA meeting and saw the word "God" in the 3rd step, I thought, ok, that shouldn't be a problem for me. WOW, was I wrong about that statement. I had no real idea of what the steps were asking me to do when it came to a belief in God. I'll just say a prayer, ask for help to stay sober, and go about my business, doing whatever I want. Because I said a prayer, I've got God on board, everything is as it should be. The notion that God may want something from me never crossed my mind. Ah, the arrogance and myopothy of youth. I didn't realize that sound sobriety required much more in the spiritual than I comprehended. I had to find a loving God, or design my own conception. I had to develop a relationship with this God, which required a humility that was nonexistent in my personality. I had to let this God direct and inform my actions, thoughts, and behaviors; to instill in my heart what He wanted me to do, not what I wanted; and I had to trust this God, not only with my will, but with my very life. That's a big task to accomplish; and it is through a process of positive loss and spiritual insight that comes from such loss, that it is acquired.
It is important to understand the concept of insight through loss. Humility comes from the same root word as humiliation, and human as well. They are all closely related. My humiliation can bring humility and an acceptance of my humanity. The losses I incurred were of every different kind. Some financial, some romantic, all based on a want, desire and will that didn't work out for me. Plain and simple, I didn't get what I wanted, and I had to look at why. All that loss had one thing in common, it was designed to show me a fundamental spiritual truth. They all contained powerful lessons about what I needed to change in my life in order to live more closely to the serenity they talk about. I really didn't pay much attention to whether I had serenity or not, I really didn't care. I was consumed with material and professional success, and trying to make the outside look as good as I possible. That's why I'm sober, right? To go and get. Interestingly, even when I attained that success, I either rejected it or sabotaged it. When I lost money, position, romantic relationships, and friendships I was being harshly and profoundly informed about one thing primarily, that I was living without a workable relationship with God; without acceptance or surrender. That I was driven by an over inflated ego, willfulness, unrealistic desire, self important sense of entitlement, and lack of spiritual connection or true trust in God. So because God played a secondary function in my life, all things always went badly for me. There's a statement in AA, that whatever you place in front of your sobriety, you will lose. I believe whatever you place in front of God, you will also lose. Again, even if I got what I wanted, it held no real worth or value for me. The spiritual satisfaction of living life with God as the primary was lost on me as I pushed to continue to create and adhere to my desires.
Historically, my reaction to loss was anger, rage and feeling victimized. I had no idea of life on life's terms; that shit was for you, not me; I'm special. Life was not to touch me in the way it touched you. Yet if something happened to you, I would tell you, well that's life; but that didn't apply to me. Self pity was a rampant emotion for me in those days. After each loss, I would go into an initial rage and then depression. I would come out it, shake it off, and arm myself with a new set of desires and intentions, reload my will, put my head down and charge onward, again without spiritual assistance or consciousness. I really was'nt getting it. Not necessarily hard headed or inherently willful, but deeply afraid. Though I would pray my way out of emotional extremes, I had not yet made the connection that it was my spiritual attitude where the problems lie. That God had to reside with me constantly, that I had to bring Him into the very center of my life. Like being caught on a roller coaster that you can't get off of. Rarely did I have an emotional even keel.
See I believe that God is the most easily assessable entity in my life, like oxygen; it's everywhere. All I have to do is stop and ask. Nothing more, it is really not that difficult to understand. It is difficult to do though. But to get to that place, all those things had to be removed and seen for the reality that they were. Materials hold no real value, they are just things. Nice to have, but essentially unnecessary. They have no ability to make me happy, worse yet, when they are attained and the happiness sought through them is unrealized, then a great emptiness follows, as it should. Like security, it doesn't exist either. There is none, and the striving for it makes one more insecure. Living in the moment, how hard is that? I found it extraordinarily difficult to live in the moment. Did you ever think why it is so hard? Because in the moment, there is only you, God and truth; the truth that through the now is attempting to impart an important belief to me, and I need to listen to it. Truth when seen, always requires action on that awareness. Sometimes very difficult and confrontational action is needed. One main reason why truth is avoided, because the action required is going to cause a lot of change, adjustment, discomfort, and loss of something I want. Usually a loss of some cherished mythology that I am living. Truth strips away the trivial and exposes our denial in stark terms. Reality is not easy to accept, but denial is impossible to continue to live in.
How do you find this God? Where is He? What does he want? Why me? I have had a spiritual bent to my personality throughout my life. But before I sobered up, I thought that life was meaningless, directionless, and an unbelievable painful experience to endure. A short and agonizing fluke of nature. If there was a God, well He didn't seem to be around too much. But when the gift of sobriety was freely given to me, well all those bets were off. God did exist and He had graced me with this unbelievable gift. He did care and possibly even loved me. I had to realign my thinking. The funny thing about God, He isn't lost, I am. There is no place to go to find Him, He is here residing in my heart; all I need to do is allow His presence into my consciousness. It is that simple. So simple only a child can understand it, and children do.
God, trust, workability, and allowance all sort happen together. As I began to get one of them, the others sort of tagged along, a package deal. The more conscious contact, the deeper the realizations, the better and more acceptable life became, and the better and more secure I felt. Character defects, are very hard to embrace and handle one at a time. It is much easier to center myself in God and the influence and power of those defects greatly diminish, naturally. I took beating after beating psychologically and emotionally over the years because surrender was so difficult for me to do. Eventually though, I got sick and tired of hurting myself and not getting those wonderful attributes that they talk about in AA. Surrender got easier to do when I started to realize that God wasn't going to hurt me or deceive me. The 12 Steps are not some sentence that has been thrust upon me. The Steps are designed to help me life a fuller, happier, and more productive life. That's when trust began to happen. Allowing God was one thing, trusting Him was a completely different thing. That took some real time. Pony tail Bob says it took the first 10 years to believe in God, the next 10 years to allow that belief to begin to inform his life, and the next 10 years to trust God. That's about the schedule I was on. Just the way it was.
What is it about God that is so frightening? I don't know if it is so much fear as it is the ego belief that I am god; who needs a God when I already am god. That's a persistent problem that I had for years. I have hard time with authority and I had an extremely toxic relationship with my father. Both of those got in the way finding a loving authority that I could believe in and surrender to. The real enemy of my spiritual happiness is my ego. The henchmen it dispatches into my intellect are will, desire, and want. There seems to be an endless supply of all those. But if I pay attention to my needs, they are much simpler and fewer in number. At this moment, what do I really need that I don't have? I have my daily bread, a place to live, a vehicle to transport, albeit an old vehicle; enough money to get through the month; ok that's covered. What do I have in the way of spirituality, which is the priority need. I have a workable, functional and trusting relationship with God; and I know in my heart that I am loved by whatever this entity is. I have AA, and I still go to a shitload of meetings. I have loving and caring friends, of which I am also loving and caring towards. I have a good mind and now an artistic ability to express my deepest emotions. I have the respect and friendship of my 2 brothers; and I am learning about loving and forgiving myself and others; and learning about living closer to the moment. Did I miss anything? And I would ask you, what else is there? What else matters? There is a God, and it's not me. I'm glad I finally figured that one out.
Yours in kinship,
Mike C.
It is important to understand the concept of insight through loss. Humility comes from the same root word as humiliation, and human as well. They are all closely related. My humiliation can bring humility and an acceptance of my humanity. The losses I incurred were of every different kind. Some financial, some romantic, all based on a want, desire and will that didn't work out for me. Plain and simple, I didn't get what I wanted, and I had to look at why. All that loss had one thing in common, it was designed to show me a fundamental spiritual truth. They all contained powerful lessons about what I needed to change in my life in order to live more closely to the serenity they talk about. I really didn't pay much attention to whether I had serenity or not, I really didn't care. I was consumed with material and professional success, and trying to make the outside look as good as I possible. That's why I'm sober, right? To go and get. Interestingly, even when I attained that success, I either rejected it or sabotaged it. When I lost money, position, romantic relationships, and friendships I was being harshly and profoundly informed about one thing primarily, that I was living without a workable relationship with God; without acceptance or surrender. That I was driven by an over inflated ego, willfulness, unrealistic desire, self important sense of entitlement, and lack of spiritual connection or true trust in God. So because God played a secondary function in my life, all things always went badly for me. There's a statement in AA, that whatever you place in front of your sobriety, you will lose. I believe whatever you place in front of God, you will also lose. Again, even if I got what I wanted, it held no real worth or value for me. The spiritual satisfaction of living life with God as the primary was lost on me as I pushed to continue to create and adhere to my desires.
Historically, my reaction to loss was anger, rage and feeling victimized. I had no idea of life on life's terms; that shit was for you, not me; I'm special. Life was not to touch me in the way it touched you. Yet if something happened to you, I would tell you, well that's life; but that didn't apply to me. Self pity was a rampant emotion for me in those days. After each loss, I would go into an initial rage and then depression. I would come out it, shake it off, and arm myself with a new set of desires and intentions, reload my will, put my head down and charge onward, again without spiritual assistance or consciousness. I really was'nt getting it. Not necessarily hard headed or inherently willful, but deeply afraid. Though I would pray my way out of emotional extremes, I had not yet made the connection that it was my spiritual attitude where the problems lie. That God had to reside with me constantly, that I had to bring Him into the very center of my life. Like being caught on a roller coaster that you can't get off of. Rarely did I have an emotional even keel.
See I believe that God is the most easily assessable entity in my life, like oxygen; it's everywhere. All I have to do is stop and ask. Nothing more, it is really not that difficult to understand. It is difficult to do though. But to get to that place, all those things had to be removed and seen for the reality that they were. Materials hold no real value, they are just things. Nice to have, but essentially unnecessary. They have no ability to make me happy, worse yet, when they are attained and the happiness sought through them is unrealized, then a great emptiness follows, as it should. Like security, it doesn't exist either. There is none, and the striving for it makes one more insecure. Living in the moment, how hard is that? I found it extraordinarily difficult to live in the moment. Did you ever think why it is so hard? Because in the moment, there is only you, God and truth; the truth that through the now is attempting to impart an important belief to me, and I need to listen to it. Truth when seen, always requires action on that awareness. Sometimes very difficult and confrontational action is needed. One main reason why truth is avoided, because the action required is going to cause a lot of change, adjustment, discomfort, and loss of something I want. Usually a loss of some cherished mythology that I am living. Truth strips away the trivial and exposes our denial in stark terms. Reality is not easy to accept, but denial is impossible to continue to live in.
How do you find this God? Where is He? What does he want? Why me? I have had a spiritual bent to my personality throughout my life. But before I sobered up, I thought that life was meaningless, directionless, and an unbelievable painful experience to endure. A short and agonizing fluke of nature. If there was a God, well He didn't seem to be around too much. But when the gift of sobriety was freely given to me, well all those bets were off. God did exist and He had graced me with this unbelievable gift. He did care and possibly even loved me. I had to realign my thinking. The funny thing about God, He isn't lost, I am. There is no place to go to find Him, He is here residing in my heart; all I need to do is allow His presence into my consciousness. It is that simple. So simple only a child can understand it, and children do.
God, trust, workability, and allowance all sort happen together. As I began to get one of them, the others sort of tagged along, a package deal. The more conscious contact, the deeper the realizations, the better and more acceptable life became, and the better and more secure I felt. Character defects, are very hard to embrace and handle one at a time. It is much easier to center myself in God and the influence and power of those defects greatly diminish, naturally. I took beating after beating psychologically and emotionally over the years because surrender was so difficult for me to do. Eventually though, I got sick and tired of hurting myself and not getting those wonderful attributes that they talk about in AA. Surrender got easier to do when I started to realize that God wasn't going to hurt me or deceive me. The 12 Steps are not some sentence that has been thrust upon me. The Steps are designed to help me life a fuller, happier, and more productive life. That's when trust began to happen. Allowing God was one thing, trusting Him was a completely different thing. That took some real time. Pony tail Bob says it took the first 10 years to believe in God, the next 10 years to allow that belief to begin to inform his life, and the next 10 years to trust God. That's about the schedule I was on. Just the way it was.
What is it about God that is so frightening? I don't know if it is so much fear as it is the ego belief that I am god; who needs a God when I already am god. That's a persistent problem that I had for years. I have hard time with authority and I had an extremely toxic relationship with my father. Both of those got in the way finding a loving authority that I could believe in and surrender to. The real enemy of my spiritual happiness is my ego. The henchmen it dispatches into my intellect are will, desire, and want. There seems to be an endless supply of all those. But if I pay attention to my needs, they are much simpler and fewer in number. At this moment, what do I really need that I don't have? I have my daily bread, a place to live, a vehicle to transport, albeit an old vehicle; enough money to get through the month; ok that's covered. What do I have in the way of spirituality, which is the priority need. I have a workable, functional and trusting relationship with God; and I know in my heart that I am loved by whatever this entity is. I have AA, and I still go to a shitload of meetings. I have loving and caring friends, of which I am also loving and caring towards. I have a good mind and now an artistic ability to express my deepest emotions. I have the respect and friendship of my 2 brothers; and I am learning about loving and forgiving myself and others; and learning about living closer to the moment. Did I miss anything? And I would ask you, what else is there? What else matters? There is a God, and it's not me. I'm glad I finally figured that one out.
Yours in kinship,
Mike C.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
More Thoughts (AA)
- There are two doors, one marked heaven, the other lecture on heaven; we're all lined up at the lecture
on heaven. Cause we're not gonna get there until we figure it out.
- "Be Here Now" great book from the 60's by Baba Ram Dass.
- Constant repetition of the obvious.
- Coming home to a place he'd never been before.
- What's your worst fear?
- What's you most protected secret?
- It's not money, it's the love of money.
- Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
- Just show up.
- Everyone has the right to be wrong.
- Being in pain is one thing, being in the victim is quite another.
- Truth resonates with a specific vibration heard only in the space where the still small voice resides.
- Sympathy for the Devil
- My life is in perfect order and harmony, even though it doesn't make sense to me.
- Sought through prayer and meditation, not medication.
- Autobiography in Five Chapters:
1) I walk down the street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk,
I fall in. I'm lost. . . I am hopeless. It isn't my fault. It takes me forever to find my way out.
2) I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk,
I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I'm in the same place. But it isn't my fault.
3) I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk,
I see it is there. I still fall in. . . it's a habit. My eyes are open; I know where I am. It is my fault
I get out immediately.
4) I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
5) I walk down a different street.
- You cannot think your way into good living, you can only live your way into good thinking.
- Steve Winwood was 15 years old when he played for Spenser Davis Group; how does a 15 year old
English kid sound like a 40 year old black man?
- All present and accounted for.
- The only easy day was yesterday. (Navy Seal Motto)
- I'm Ok, you're Ok; I'm Ok, you're not Ok; I'm not Ok, you're Ok; I'm not Ok, you're not Ok.
which is it? Transactional analysis.
- Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles.
- Elvis Presley frequently would be watching something on TV that pissed him off so much he would
shoot his TV set. For the shit that passes for knowledge and entertainment, it makes all the sense
in the world to me. Don't you wish you could do that some time?
- No one here gets out alive.
- I'm not sure whether the devil exists, but I'm quite sure that evil does.
- If you had my life, you'd drink too.
- Get up, Suit up, Show up, and Shut the fuck up.
- You're here until you're not, then you're somewhere else.
- Tough times don't last, tough people do.
- A Course in Miracles claims that a miracle is a "change of perception," sounded kind of like a
cheap miracle to me. But think about that. If I have seen and reacted to something the same
way, over and over, for years, and now I see and react differently, that is miraculous.
- Acceptance is the key to all my problems.
- Life is about learning how to love and forgive; that's all it is.
- Get up; just keep getting up.
- I believe that my desire to please God, does in fact please God.
- Truth requires action. Once seen, the right action is obvious. Do you have the courage to see.
- Grant me the serenity, and the courage to change the things I can.
- God isn't lost, I am. God doesn't go anywhere, I do.
- There's no cure for life (Tony Soprano)
- Life is hard, get a helmet or a flack jacket.
- Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Don't here that one much
these days. Now, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will require a lawyer, public
relations consultant and possibly jail time.
- Grown up.
- There's no escape from me.
- Karate do, Karate don't do, no Karate maybe do.
- You don't know what you've, till it's gone.
- Youth is truly wasted on the young.
- Beauty is wasted on ugly people.
- What do you really need that you don't already have right now?
- Enlightenment is in the wink of an eye.
- You can't ride two horses with one ass.
- Taps may be the saddest song ever written.
- Stop listening to the news.
- Says the patient to his doctor, "Doc, every time I do this it hurts," Doc, "don't do that."
- Bagpipes: strange, eerie, dark, haunting, baleful, weeping, sorrowful, consuming, earthy,
primal, complex, heart breaking; like the Scottish, and the Irish who invented them.
- A leaf falls in the forest; the bear smells it, the deer hears it, the eagle sees it.
- If you have never seen the Redwoods or Crater Lake, you need to before you die.
- Everyone is either a good example or a good bad example.
- Bleed just to know you're alive.
- And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. (Lennon-McCartney)
- Fake it till you make it.
- We will love you until you love yourself.
- You're either busy about livin, or busy about dyin; get busy livin.
- A man who cheats on his wife has the economy of screwing 2 women at the same time.
- We always seem to be concerned with what we don't have; let's be grateful for what we didn't get.
- There's a sucker born every minute.
- An eagle can see a fish swimming 10 ft. underneath the water from 10,000 ft. high; almost 2 miles.
- Goodwill Hunting, Inherit the Wind, Shaw shank Redemption, Man on Fire, Book of Eli.
- Enter The Dragon.
- When a codependent gets into a car accident, someone else's life passes in front of his eyes.
- God helps those who help themselves. Don't forget that.
- You know, if you worry about something, it won't happen. Odd superstition
- Stay able.
- And the great good God looked down on each His loving child; the Christian, Hindu, Muslim and
Jew, and loved them through the Gods they knew.
- Your mind is a vehicle for your soul; once it takes you there, it needs to be abandoned on the roadside.
- AA: on the job training.
- Chaos is an addictive chemical.
- Easy to decide, not easy to follow through.
- Chinese proverb: Talk doesn't cook rice.
- Thank you God for what you gave me, what you took from me, and what you left me.
- Please do me a big favor, don't get in the way of my pain; it's mine and I need it to grow.
- Only the shadow knows.
- You are becoming what you use to use to despise.
- Our primary purpose is to stay sober; our secondary purpose is to help others achieve sobriety.
- It is to embark on your journey, and arrive at the place you started, and see it for the first time.
- God changes things without changing things.
- If I got what I deserved, I certainly wouldn't be here.
- These three I need: the one who loves me, the one who hates me , and the one who is indifferent to me.
The one who loves me, teaches me compassion; the one who hates me, teaches me caution; the one
who's indifferent to me, teaches me independence.
- At some point, after all the work, pain, and prayer, I have to be OK!
- Just listen.
- Picasso painted like a child when he was a child, then he learned how to paint like an adult; it took him
50 years of reeducation to learn how to paint like a child again.
- Become like the child.
- The ABCD's of how not to listen: A) advise/analyze B) belittle C) compare D) deny, diminish, delve.
- Step Off: You will be guided by a great sense of awe; for the river of life in which you venture holds
the answer to all your longings, and a deep appreciation and reverence for all things.
- For you, the unlikely few who have chosen the path towards truth, welcome home.
- "Alas for those who cannot sing, but die with all their music in them." Let us treasure the time we have,
and resolve to use it well, counting each moment precious; a chance to apprehend some truth,
to experience some beauty, to conquer some evil, to relieve some suffering, to love and be loved,
and to achieve something of lasting worth.
- I asked God for strength that I might achieve; I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked God for help that I might do greater things; I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked God for riches that I might be happy; I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked God for power that I might have the praise of men; I was given weakness that I might feel
the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life; I was given life that I might enjoy all things
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything that I hoped for. Almost despite myself my unspoken
prayers were answered. I among all men am most richly blessed. (Author unknown, circa 1860's)
- Step into the fear.
- Where in your body do you feel emotion?
- I am not the center of the universe, regardless of what I think.
- I am standing on a whale, fishing for minnows.
- You cannot make others happy, it is impossible; make yourself happy, at least one person will be.
- Your mind will always respond to your dominant belief. That's why our greatest fears become true
because that's what we think about most of the time. What you are afraid of is a belief whether you
realize it or not.
- Forgiveness is not letting anyone off the hook; it is not forgetting what happened; it is not something
you are giving someone else; you never have to see that person again; you are not forced to
associate with them; they don't have to become your friend; you are not losing anything; you are
not weak if you forgive; forgiveness has nothing to do with the person you are forgiving, it is a gift
you are giving yourself.
- To not forgive, and not forget is bitter; To not forgive and forget is unconscious; To forgive, and
forget is naive; To forgive and never forget is spiritual maturity.
- God brought me to AA and AA brought me to God.
- Hope is in the future.
- God is not some pinch hitter.
- Trust in God, clean house, help others. Pretty simple huh?
- The problem with therapy is that people view it as a consumer; I go, I pay, You give me sanity.
- The closest star, outside of the sun, which is a small star by comparison, is Alpha Centuri. It is
two and a half light years away. Two and half light years traveling at 186,000 miles per second.
That would be 11 million miles in one minute and 669 million miles in one hour. WOW, can
you comes close to understanding such a distance? Or fathom how vast the universe really is?
- Where is your joy?
- Forgiveness has nothing to do with the person we are forgiving.
- Without energy being consistently applied, all things disintegrate into chaos.
- God is felt experience, not a thought.
- Powerless is nor Helpless. Compliance is not Surrender. Acquiescence is not Acceptance. Honesty
is not Truth. Anger is not Resentment. Intuition is not Instinct. Faith is not Trust. Self worth is not
Self image.
- Serenity is not that all things are going well, serenity is the knowledge that all things are well, regardless
of how they are going.
- I have tried throughout my sobriety to get back to the faith I had the first day I walked in the door.
- I'd much rather live in the day; the past holds regret and remorse, the future holds apprehension and fear.
If I stay in the day, I can avoid them altogether.
- AA: turns a bad "no give a shit," into a good, "no give a shit."
- Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money.
- All light resides in the dark.
- Never make money for money's sake.
- You make your own luck.
- Never set aside who you are to be successful.
- Find the work you love, and you'll never work a day in your life.
- Zelig
- Life is so complex, or is it?
- The only thing life offer you is an education; the lessons come everyday; pay attention.
- How can someone do only one 4th step?
- There are only 4 conditions of faith I can live under:
1. God exist, and I do believe.
2. God exists, and I don't believe.
3. God doesn't exist, and I do believe.
4. God doesn't exist, and I don't believe. Which one are you? Pick one.
- Yesterday's sobriety won't keep me sober today.
- Pink Floyds "Dark Side of the Moon" was #1 on the Billoards top 100 albums for just shy of 10 years.
The album that displaced Floyd was Michael Jackson's Thriller.
- Does God need me? Is there something He wants from me? He must need me, I'm still here.
- Should I help others at my expense?
- Character defects are survival mechanisms that aren't necessary any longer.
- There is a category of criminology called victimology. Sound familiar?
- "Spirituality of Imperfection" by Ernie Kurtz
- Are you addicted to struggle?
- It's all good. It's simply a value judgement.
- God watches us as we ride the bicycle of life.
- The path you choose must have heart, else it is useless.
- 2 interesting psychological pathologies are 1) fallacy of fairness, and 2) fallacy of control
- If the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, then you will see all things as a nail.
- Lessons taught, till lessons learned.
- Watch your sense of superiority that comes with helping others and watch your need to have them
weak.
- Nothing is certain. Security does not exist.
- God is not out there; God is in here.
- When Aldous Huxley knew he was dying, he suggested that they cut off his head and keep it alive
and he would tell them what it felt like. How's that for a philosophical pioneer.
- Say yes; yes to all of it.
- The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. (Wilde)
- The Cloud of Unknowing
- The only way out is through.
- Control is an illusion.
- Death is a beginning.
- Detach with love.
- Made a decision, over and over and over and over again.
- The older I get, the greater I was.
- It's never too late to be what you could have been.
- You do what you do, you get what you get.
- In the 1950's, which artist sold more records than Elvis? Believe it or not, Pat Boone!!!
- Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I
to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child
of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about
shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let
our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we
are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Nelson Mandela)
- If you hold a real weapon in your hand, you will feel its character strongly. It begs to be used. It
is fearsome. Its only purpose is death, and its power is not just in the material from which it is
made, but also from the intention of its makers. It is regrettable that weapons must sometime
be used, but occasionally, survival demands it. The wise go forth with weapons only as a last
resort. They never rejoice in the skill of weapons, nor do they glorify war. When death, pain,
and destruction are visited upon what you hold to be most sacred, the spiritual price is
devastating. What hurts more than one's own suffering is bearing witness to the suffering of
others. The regret of seeing human beings at their worst and the sheer pain of not being able
to help the victims, can never be redeemed. If you go personally to war, you cross the line
yourself. You sacrifice ideals for survival and the fury of killing. That alters you forever. That is
why no one rushes to be a soldier. Think before you want to change so unalterably. The stakes
are not merely one's life, but one's very humanity. (Thoughts of War: Deng Ming-Dao)
5000 years before Christ.
on heaven. Cause we're not gonna get there until we figure it out.
- "Be Here Now" great book from the 60's by Baba Ram Dass.
- Constant repetition of the obvious.
- Coming home to a place he'd never been before.
- What's your worst fear?
- What's you most protected secret?
- It's not money, it's the love of money.
- Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
- Just show up.
- Everyone has the right to be wrong.
- Being in pain is one thing, being in the victim is quite another.
- Truth resonates with a specific vibration heard only in the space where the still small voice resides.
- Sympathy for the Devil
- My life is in perfect order and harmony, even though it doesn't make sense to me.
- Sought through prayer and meditation, not medication.
- Autobiography in Five Chapters:
1) I walk down the street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk,
I fall in. I'm lost. . . I am hopeless. It isn't my fault. It takes me forever to find my way out.
2) I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk,
I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I'm in the same place. But it isn't my fault.
3) I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk,
I see it is there. I still fall in. . . it's a habit. My eyes are open; I know where I am. It is my fault
I get out immediately.
4) I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
5) I walk down a different street.
- You cannot think your way into good living, you can only live your way into good thinking.
- Steve Winwood was 15 years old when he played for Spenser Davis Group; how does a 15 year old
English kid sound like a 40 year old black man?
- All present and accounted for.
- The only easy day was yesterday. (Navy Seal Motto)
- I'm Ok, you're Ok; I'm Ok, you're not Ok; I'm not Ok, you're Ok; I'm not Ok, you're not Ok.
which is it? Transactional analysis.
- Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles.
- Elvis Presley frequently would be watching something on TV that pissed him off so much he would
shoot his TV set. For the shit that passes for knowledge and entertainment, it makes all the sense
in the world to me. Don't you wish you could do that some time?
- No one here gets out alive.
- I'm not sure whether the devil exists, but I'm quite sure that evil does.
- If you had my life, you'd drink too.
- Get up, Suit up, Show up, and Shut the fuck up.
- You're here until you're not, then you're somewhere else.
- Tough times don't last, tough people do.
- A Course in Miracles claims that a miracle is a "change of perception," sounded kind of like a
cheap miracle to me. But think about that. If I have seen and reacted to something the same
way, over and over, for years, and now I see and react differently, that is miraculous.
- Acceptance is the key to all my problems.
- Life is about learning how to love and forgive; that's all it is.
- Get up; just keep getting up.
- I believe that my desire to please God, does in fact please God.
- Truth requires action. Once seen, the right action is obvious. Do you have the courage to see.
- Grant me the serenity, and the courage to change the things I can.
- God isn't lost, I am. God doesn't go anywhere, I do.
- There's no cure for life (Tony Soprano)
- Life is hard, get a helmet or a flack jacket.
- Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Don't here that one much
these days. Now, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will require a lawyer, public
relations consultant and possibly jail time.
- Grown up.
- There's no escape from me.
- Karate do, Karate don't do, no Karate maybe do.
- You don't know what you've, till it's gone.
- Youth is truly wasted on the young.
- Beauty is wasted on ugly people.
- What do you really need that you don't already have right now?
- Enlightenment is in the wink of an eye.
- You can't ride two horses with one ass.
- Taps may be the saddest song ever written.
- Stop listening to the news.
- Says the patient to his doctor, "Doc, every time I do this it hurts," Doc, "don't do that."
- Bagpipes: strange, eerie, dark, haunting, baleful, weeping, sorrowful, consuming, earthy,
primal, complex, heart breaking; like the Scottish, and the Irish who invented them.
- A leaf falls in the forest; the bear smells it, the deer hears it, the eagle sees it.
- If you have never seen the Redwoods or Crater Lake, you need to before you die.
- Everyone is either a good example or a good bad example.
- Bleed just to know you're alive.
- And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. (Lennon-McCartney)
- Fake it till you make it.
- We will love you until you love yourself.
- You're either busy about livin, or busy about dyin; get busy livin.
- A man who cheats on his wife has the economy of screwing 2 women at the same time.
- We always seem to be concerned with what we don't have; let's be grateful for what we didn't get.
- There's a sucker born every minute.
- An eagle can see a fish swimming 10 ft. underneath the water from 10,000 ft. high; almost 2 miles.
- Goodwill Hunting, Inherit the Wind, Shaw shank Redemption, Man on Fire, Book of Eli.
- Enter The Dragon.
- When a codependent gets into a car accident, someone else's life passes in front of his eyes.
- God helps those who help themselves. Don't forget that.
- You know, if you worry about something, it won't happen. Odd superstition
- Stay able.
- And the great good God looked down on each His loving child; the Christian, Hindu, Muslim and
Jew, and loved them through the Gods they knew.
- Your mind is a vehicle for your soul; once it takes you there, it needs to be abandoned on the roadside.
- AA: on the job training.
- Chaos is an addictive chemical.
- Easy to decide, not easy to follow through.
- Chinese proverb: Talk doesn't cook rice.
- Thank you God for what you gave me, what you took from me, and what you left me.
- Please do me a big favor, don't get in the way of my pain; it's mine and I need it to grow.
- Only the shadow knows.
- You are becoming what you use to use to despise.
- Our primary purpose is to stay sober; our secondary purpose is to help others achieve sobriety.
- It is to embark on your journey, and arrive at the place you started, and see it for the first time.
- God changes things without changing things.
- If I got what I deserved, I certainly wouldn't be here.
- These three I need: the one who loves me, the one who hates me , and the one who is indifferent to me.
The one who loves me, teaches me compassion; the one who hates me, teaches me caution; the one
who's indifferent to me, teaches me independence.
- At some point, after all the work, pain, and prayer, I have to be OK!
- Just listen.
- Picasso painted like a child when he was a child, then he learned how to paint like an adult; it took him
50 years of reeducation to learn how to paint like a child again.
- Become like the child.
- The ABCD's of how not to listen: A) advise/analyze B) belittle C) compare D) deny, diminish, delve.
- Step Off: You will be guided by a great sense of awe; for the river of life in which you venture holds
the answer to all your longings, and a deep appreciation and reverence for all things.
- For you, the unlikely few who have chosen the path towards truth, welcome home.
- "Alas for those who cannot sing, but die with all their music in them." Let us treasure the time we have,
and resolve to use it well, counting each moment precious; a chance to apprehend some truth,
to experience some beauty, to conquer some evil, to relieve some suffering, to love and be loved,
and to achieve something of lasting worth.
- I asked God for strength that I might achieve; I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked God for help that I might do greater things; I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked God for riches that I might be happy; I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked God for power that I might have the praise of men; I was given weakness that I might feel
the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life; I was given life that I might enjoy all things
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything that I hoped for. Almost despite myself my unspoken
prayers were answered. I among all men am most richly blessed. (Author unknown, circa 1860's)
- Step into the fear.
- Where in your body do you feel emotion?
- I am not the center of the universe, regardless of what I think.
- I am standing on a whale, fishing for minnows.
- You cannot make others happy, it is impossible; make yourself happy, at least one person will be.
- Your mind will always respond to your dominant belief. That's why our greatest fears become true
because that's what we think about most of the time. What you are afraid of is a belief whether you
realize it or not.
- Forgiveness is not letting anyone off the hook; it is not forgetting what happened; it is not something
you are giving someone else; you never have to see that person again; you are not forced to
associate with them; they don't have to become your friend; you are not losing anything; you are
not weak if you forgive; forgiveness has nothing to do with the person you are forgiving, it is a gift
you are giving yourself.
- To not forgive, and not forget is bitter; To not forgive and forget is unconscious; To forgive, and
forget is naive; To forgive and never forget is spiritual maturity.
- God brought me to AA and AA brought me to God.
- Hope is in the future.
- God is not some pinch hitter.
- Trust in God, clean house, help others. Pretty simple huh?
- The problem with therapy is that people view it as a consumer; I go, I pay, You give me sanity.
- The closest star, outside of the sun, which is a small star by comparison, is Alpha Centuri. It is
two and a half light years away. Two and half light years traveling at 186,000 miles per second.
That would be 11 million miles in one minute and 669 million miles in one hour. WOW, can
you comes close to understanding such a distance? Or fathom how vast the universe really is?
- Where is your joy?
- Forgiveness has nothing to do with the person we are forgiving.
- Without energy being consistently applied, all things disintegrate into chaos.
- God is felt experience, not a thought.
- Powerless is nor Helpless. Compliance is not Surrender. Acquiescence is not Acceptance. Honesty
is not Truth. Anger is not Resentment. Intuition is not Instinct. Faith is not Trust. Self worth is not
Self image.
- Serenity is not that all things are going well, serenity is the knowledge that all things are well, regardless
of how they are going.
- I have tried throughout my sobriety to get back to the faith I had the first day I walked in the door.
- I'd much rather live in the day; the past holds regret and remorse, the future holds apprehension and fear.
If I stay in the day, I can avoid them altogether.
- AA: turns a bad "no give a shit," into a good, "no give a shit."
- Socialism is great until you run out of other peoples money.
- All light resides in the dark.
- Never make money for money's sake.
- You make your own luck.
- Never set aside who you are to be successful.
- Find the work you love, and you'll never work a day in your life.
- Zelig
- Life is so complex, or is it?
- The only thing life offer you is an education; the lessons come everyday; pay attention.
- How can someone do only one 4th step?
- There are only 4 conditions of faith I can live under:
1. God exist, and I do believe.
2. God exists, and I don't believe.
3. God doesn't exist, and I do believe.
4. God doesn't exist, and I don't believe. Which one are you? Pick one.
- Yesterday's sobriety won't keep me sober today.
- Pink Floyds "Dark Side of the Moon" was #1 on the Billoards top 100 albums for just shy of 10 years.
The album that displaced Floyd was Michael Jackson's Thriller.
- Does God need me? Is there something He wants from me? He must need me, I'm still here.
- Should I help others at my expense?
- Character defects are survival mechanisms that aren't necessary any longer.
- There is a category of criminology called victimology. Sound familiar?
- "Spirituality of Imperfection" by Ernie Kurtz
- Are you addicted to struggle?
- It's all good. It's simply a value judgement.
- God watches us as we ride the bicycle of life.
- The path you choose must have heart, else it is useless.
- 2 interesting psychological pathologies are 1) fallacy of fairness, and 2) fallacy of control
- If the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, then you will see all things as a nail.
- Lessons taught, till lessons learned.
- Watch your sense of superiority that comes with helping others and watch your need to have them
weak.
- Nothing is certain. Security does not exist.
- God is not out there; God is in here.
- When Aldous Huxley knew he was dying, he suggested that they cut off his head and keep it alive
and he would tell them what it felt like. How's that for a philosophical pioneer.
- Say yes; yes to all of it.
- The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. (Wilde)
- The Cloud of Unknowing
- The only way out is through.
- Control is an illusion.
- Death is a beginning.
- Detach with love.
- Made a decision, over and over and over and over again.
- The older I get, the greater I was.
- It's never too late to be what you could have been.
- You do what you do, you get what you get.
- In the 1950's, which artist sold more records than Elvis? Believe it or not, Pat Boone!!!
- Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I
to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child
of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about
shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let
our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we
are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Nelson Mandela)
- If you hold a real weapon in your hand, you will feel its character strongly. It begs to be used. It
is fearsome. Its only purpose is death, and its power is not just in the material from which it is
made, but also from the intention of its makers. It is regrettable that weapons must sometime
be used, but occasionally, survival demands it. The wise go forth with weapons only as a last
resort. They never rejoice in the skill of weapons, nor do they glorify war. When death, pain,
and destruction are visited upon what you hold to be most sacred, the spiritual price is
devastating. What hurts more than one's own suffering is bearing witness to the suffering of
others. The regret of seeing human beings at their worst and the sheer pain of not being able
to help the victims, can never be redeemed. If you go personally to war, you cross the line
yourself. You sacrifice ideals for survival and the fury of killing. That alters you forever. That is
why no one rushes to be a soldier. Think before you want to change so unalterably. The stakes
are not merely one's life, but one's very humanity. (Thoughts of War: Deng Ming-Dao)
5000 years before Christ.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Middle Class (Art)
I have chewed on this idea for a long time. I had some discussions today with someone who grew up in the same type of home I did, in the same neighborhood. I grew up in a very affluent area outside of Chicago. Everything you could want was available, but nothing you really needed. It is eye opening how much leeway and excuse we will make for people with money and power. How wealth insulates, coddles, shields and protects the people who have it. The most vile and despicable actions can, and do occur, in those homes and goes completely undetected and unpunished. How living in those environments shadows and effects all perception of self and blocks any real truth from illumination. How it mangles and destroys all who live in its domain. I like the image that the family pain is like an elephant in the living room, that everyone simply steps around, adjusts to, and takes no notice of. In fact, after awhile, they really don't notice it, the denial so conditioned and deadening to their senses. The elephant is comprised of various obscene violations . Alcoholism, incest, verbal abuse, perfectionism, high expectation, drug addiction, corruption, physical violence, and sexual deviancy. There is usually a lethal combination of these injuries present. Sexual abuse and incest are by far the most lasting, egregious and pernicious, and become the most closely held and jealously guarded of them all. What ever it is, it all becomes the family secret that everyone knows but never, ever mentions openly, especially if the perpetrator of those crimes is still alive, and in the home. The secret is protected at all cost, the shame, just too painful to reveal. You can never see what you see. It becomes the sacred cow that meanders over and through, trampling and shitting on everything and everyone without regard. The family dutifully cleans up the mess and forgets anything ever happened, no matter how horrendous the damage. It all must remain underground, pushed deep, suppressed and locked away. These are the dwellings where reactive violence and abuse is commonplace by all inhabitants. Always ready for any targets of opportunity; quick release, mercurial and arbitrary. Makes sense doesn't it? Everyone is sitting on a time bomb of pain, hurt and denial, where else can it go but outward? Interestingly, the violence is usually never directed at the perpetrator, but only at the innocent. Protect the cause of the pain, another strange characteristic of the secret. Here, you will also find a fetid witches brew of vulgar judgement and vicious character assassination. You see, shame always has to be ejected and the bitter criticism of others does just that. It lasts only temporarily, spends quickly and must be reloaded constantly. Like a line of cocaine, short lived, but addictive in its euphoric oblivion and release. It's a feeding frenzy of hate, nutritional only to the twisted heart. These are the homes where all poisonous gossip is conjured, nurtured, and expectorated into the local pipeline. Those who bring in any destructive tidbits to the family can earn more attention and elevation depending upon how incriminating the gossip is. It becomes a familial currency for purchasing favor. You see, this is all designed to accomplish one thing, to defocus shame and truth away from self towards others. Like clothing caught fire, it must be removed immediately. It's constant, smoke and mirrors; deflection and obfuscation; don't look behind the curtain; avoid, deny, repress; like a race track shell game. It's here, no over here, no here. You'll never be able to find the stone. If you go into such a home, they will teach you right away how to avoid and deny as they do. You will be issued your own set of rose colored glasses, specially fitted for this family. If you happen to have the temerity to openly notice the pain, then believe me, that's the last time they'll invite you over. They only accept co conspirators in their purposeful deception. That would be people who have the same elephant in their living rooms.
The secret has to be maintained from conscious awareness. It holds all the family shame and guilt associated with those injustices. It also acts to intimidate anyone from recognition. The fear being that if I see my true pain, I will not be able to survive. That's what the wound tells us, and we believe it. What happens in a secret family is that the shame gets distributed amongst all the children; all react to it in their own unique ways. No one escapes. Shame runs downhill, hitting the younger children with more ferocity, as the older children release theirs upon the powerless and weaker. Most will continue to deny their truth for the rest of their lives. What is sad about that, is they create their own families burdened with the heavy unconscious pain they carry. Instilling that hidden wound within their unsuspecting offspring; and on and on and on. Living in this unresolved situation, they will most assuredly act out their avoidance in some pathological way; it is inevitable. To many, the result is to find solace in some form of addiction, or act out in a manner similar to the perpetrator. This is the fertile ground for chemical attraction. All family members will carry the load of shame, no matter how long they have been out of the home, or how far away they are from their origins. If moving far away would release the pain of childhood, we would all be living in Australia.
The family knows its aberration and must conceal it, first, from themselves, and second, from the world of others. This becomes the overriding commandment, and it forces all members into an intricate, convoluted, and extremely dishonest way of life. But there is a problem. Not everyone wants to conceal the truth. There always seems to be one or two who choose not to live the family lie. They are unwilling to deny, or worse yet, intentionally take that truth and share it with someone, outside the home. They know it has to be exposed. This child senses that the suppression of truth is dangerous, and feels compelled to release it. Usually the more sensitive, philosophical and spiritual, it's about survival for them; they cannot adhere to lies and hypocrisy; it is counter to their natures. These children perceive and feel at a much deeper level than the rest of the family. The artists. I believe they intuitively know their souls are in jeopardy, and act instinctively to protect their sanity. Thank God. There always seems to be one in every family that refuses to be oppressed.
Once the secret is revealed publicly, the line has been breached. Now the family unit heeds the call to action. The gates are being stormed. Protection of the family secret must be maintained. Protection of our own avoidance is paramount. All precautions must be taken. The family will coordinate and organize a battle plan, imbued with vengeance and instituted with evangelical zeal. Terror propelled behavior. For we all have much to lose. Reaction is swift, unrelenting, and committed in its application. The rebel becomes the object of unbridled scorn, criticism, and disdain. Kill the messenger. The secret is out, where, they have no idea. A public relations campaign is planned and instituted against the rebellion. Complete rejection of the fact that the truth needs exposure, the family chooses instead to reject the child who brings such awareness. He or she becomes the object of ridicule by the other children to anyone they believe may be infected with knowledge of their cherished shame. The idea is to poison the minds of those who may have heard the truth by dirtying the character of the insurrectionist. The sensitive child is most times different than other children. They see and feel life uniquely; sometimes oddly. They may be more anti-social or introverted than the others. That makes it easier to convince outsiders that there is something fundamentally wrong with them. They become an outcast to the family and anywhere it has influence. One clever strategy is to impart to others the question of the child's sanity. Be careful, we think he's crazy. Oddly enough, most children who receive this kind of pressure, usually become extremely troubled, and it puts there sanity in jeopardy. They begin to question the voracity of the secret to themselves. Suicide becomes an attractive alternative to some as the isolation becomes unbearable. Those who attempt it are almost always successful in these types of situations. Makes sense, it is not a cry for help but an act of resignation and final demoralization. Everyone they love has abandoned them, or hates them. They would all be better off without me. You could surmise that the pressure was intended to do just that. Certainly if you're dead, you can't speak any longer. That solves a lot a problems in one consummate decision. We can all safely go back to sleep now. Think about the vile nature of the attacks against them and who's doing it. Could you endure that kind of treatment? It takes an unusually strong mind to withstand the onslaught. They amass a group of the like minded to keep the charade alive and prospering. It spreads like wild fire. It seems an odd human trait to want to join in the character destruction of someone else, but understandable, given the fact that most people carry deep unconscious shame themselves and need a ready target to release it upon. It's natural for them. Their inability to see and open their own shame causes them to isolate and attempt to destroy the one who won't be quiet. The only one with true integrity and courage. Imagine how lonely it feels to be that child!
Do you understand that these family members are doing this to one of their own brothers or sisters? Do you understand the narcissistic terror that must drive someone to attack their blood, in order to stay unaware and hide their own shame from themselves? Do you understand how powerful and pernicious the wounds we all carry can be to ourselves and the people we love? Do you understand that unless they are exposed, you can never find any contentment or wholeness? Do you understand the depth of sickness that such people must carry in order to act this way against their kin? How gutless, weak, flaccid, and disgusting; such cowardice, a complete turpitude. It's stunningly caustic and morally acidic. A poison of the highest order. It makes me want to vomit when I think about it.
Truth cannot be stopped; it can be avoided, denied, soft sold, repressed, reflected or obscured in any number of ways; but be aware, it cannot be stopped. Truth carries an overarching need to be exposed, expressed, and openly seen for what it is. That's what truth does. That's what truth is. That's why people hate it, and avoid it at all cost. That's the imperative it carries, it must be recognized. Truth has enormous power and emanates its intensive energy, inexorably. It festers, nips, bothers, gnaws, bites, troubles, preoccupies, charges, ignites, infiltrates, nightmares, scratches, radiates and confronts the avoider in a hundred different ways, at a hundred different times. It becomes completely untenable to ignore. That's how it works; it will never let you go, it will never let you up, it will never let you off the hook, it will never give you any relief until it is faced and its voice is heard. So go ahead, keep running. It is stronger than you can imagine. It will hunt you, and run you down, like the tireless hound that it is. For this is Gods messenger, and he will be heeded.
These people are not monsters, but are people controlled and acting from a deep terror, unconsciously listening to the instructions ordered from their shame. We all know how dangerous a cornered and panicked animal can be. That's a good image to keep in mind. To the world outside, they all appear to be normal, without serious blemish. See them gather and engage one another, it all looks fine. They tell the same stories and laugh the same laugh, but the stories are scripted to give a specific impression to the world, and never touch any real truth. They all wink at their duplicity while they spin a mythological yarn of normalcy. They appear to be loving and intimate, bonded with one another in a closeness. But the bond is held by the secret and cemented by their adherence to denial. In this situation there is no true intimacy, there can't be; for intimacy is honesty. Like a band of thieves, huddled and isolated; hold up in anxious expectation. The stories always told over numerous and sundry cocktails. For the communal pain requires the communal remedy, alcohol. Many, most are functional alcoholics. The magic elixir for all avoidance, the ultimate potion of suppression. They are the average American family; happy and successful. They live in beautiful, coiffed, and immaculate homes. They all drive luxury automobiles and take exotic and expensive vacations. Their kids, living in the same untruth, attend the best colleges; 4.0 expected. The shame is taken into the world veiled under the pretense of perfection and success. All compulsive perfectionism is always driven by shame and its need to remain hidden. How could there be anything wrong with us? Look at what I have. Many act as pillars within their respective churches, a dead give away. It all looks so good. Aren't we better than everyone else? Who wouldn't want to be us?
They all take their shame out into the world and pour it on others. Can't stand any criticism. Can dish it out, but can't take it. Typical Bullies. Ive seen this type of home my whole life. It is a place of shame and unreality hidden behind power, wealth and entitlement. Nicely insulated from accountability. For money is god and worshipped with complete acquiescence and abdication. Everything conspires to support the same perpetration and hide the same depravity. The schools, clubs, social networks, churches, police and local government all consort and approve the deification of the wealthy, and the purposeful ignorance of its wicked actions. The general acceptance of this counterfeit impression adds the veneer of legitimacy and protection to all who reside there. It is a sham, scam and a sickening hypocrisy. I've witnessed and experienced the most destructive actions by such people and they were never called to account. You know, I respect a professional criminal more, because he knows who, and what he is. He lives a strange kind of honesty, in that he presents no false image of himself to the world. There is an unusually odd integrity in such a person. These are ugly, ugly places. No matter how beautiful their homes, how much meaningless acclaim they have garnered or how much bounty they have plundered, they all live in spiritual emptiness and deprived squalor. Starved for the real wealth and beauty that life offers those who adhere to the truth, and those who have the courage to uncover their own. For those who have taken this unlikely and painful observance to the truth, I salute you, and honor your hearts. For you are a brave and heroic lot. Always keep in mind that God smiles on the courageous. Be well.
Yours in kinship,
Mike C.
The secret has to be maintained from conscious awareness. It holds all the family shame and guilt associated with those injustices. It also acts to intimidate anyone from recognition. The fear being that if I see my true pain, I will not be able to survive. That's what the wound tells us, and we believe it. What happens in a secret family is that the shame gets distributed amongst all the children; all react to it in their own unique ways. No one escapes. Shame runs downhill, hitting the younger children with more ferocity, as the older children release theirs upon the powerless and weaker. Most will continue to deny their truth for the rest of their lives. What is sad about that, is they create their own families burdened with the heavy unconscious pain they carry. Instilling that hidden wound within their unsuspecting offspring; and on and on and on. Living in this unresolved situation, they will most assuredly act out their avoidance in some pathological way; it is inevitable. To many, the result is to find solace in some form of addiction, or act out in a manner similar to the perpetrator. This is the fertile ground for chemical attraction. All family members will carry the load of shame, no matter how long they have been out of the home, or how far away they are from their origins. If moving far away would release the pain of childhood, we would all be living in Australia.
The family knows its aberration and must conceal it, first, from themselves, and second, from the world of others. This becomes the overriding commandment, and it forces all members into an intricate, convoluted, and extremely dishonest way of life. But there is a problem. Not everyone wants to conceal the truth. There always seems to be one or two who choose not to live the family lie. They are unwilling to deny, or worse yet, intentionally take that truth and share it with someone, outside the home. They know it has to be exposed. This child senses that the suppression of truth is dangerous, and feels compelled to release it. Usually the more sensitive, philosophical and spiritual, it's about survival for them; they cannot adhere to lies and hypocrisy; it is counter to their natures. These children perceive and feel at a much deeper level than the rest of the family. The artists. I believe they intuitively know their souls are in jeopardy, and act instinctively to protect their sanity. Thank God. There always seems to be one in every family that refuses to be oppressed.
Once the secret is revealed publicly, the line has been breached. Now the family unit heeds the call to action. The gates are being stormed. Protection of the family secret must be maintained. Protection of our own avoidance is paramount. All precautions must be taken. The family will coordinate and organize a battle plan, imbued with vengeance and instituted with evangelical zeal. Terror propelled behavior. For we all have much to lose. Reaction is swift, unrelenting, and committed in its application. The rebel becomes the object of unbridled scorn, criticism, and disdain. Kill the messenger. The secret is out, where, they have no idea. A public relations campaign is planned and instituted against the rebellion. Complete rejection of the fact that the truth needs exposure, the family chooses instead to reject the child who brings such awareness. He or she becomes the object of ridicule by the other children to anyone they believe may be infected with knowledge of their cherished shame. The idea is to poison the minds of those who may have heard the truth by dirtying the character of the insurrectionist. The sensitive child is most times different than other children. They see and feel life uniquely; sometimes oddly. They may be more anti-social or introverted than the others. That makes it easier to convince outsiders that there is something fundamentally wrong with them. They become an outcast to the family and anywhere it has influence. One clever strategy is to impart to others the question of the child's sanity. Be careful, we think he's crazy. Oddly enough, most children who receive this kind of pressure, usually become extremely troubled, and it puts there sanity in jeopardy. They begin to question the voracity of the secret to themselves. Suicide becomes an attractive alternative to some as the isolation becomes unbearable. Those who attempt it are almost always successful in these types of situations. Makes sense, it is not a cry for help but an act of resignation and final demoralization. Everyone they love has abandoned them, or hates them. They would all be better off without me. You could surmise that the pressure was intended to do just that. Certainly if you're dead, you can't speak any longer. That solves a lot a problems in one consummate decision. We can all safely go back to sleep now. Think about the vile nature of the attacks against them and who's doing it. Could you endure that kind of treatment? It takes an unusually strong mind to withstand the onslaught. They amass a group of the like minded to keep the charade alive and prospering. It spreads like wild fire. It seems an odd human trait to want to join in the character destruction of someone else, but understandable, given the fact that most people carry deep unconscious shame themselves and need a ready target to release it upon. It's natural for them. Their inability to see and open their own shame causes them to isolate and attempt to destroy the one who won't be quiet. The only one with true integrity and courage. Imagine how lonely it feels to be that child!
Do you understand that these family members are doing this to one of their own brothers or sisters? Do you understand the narcissistic terror that must drive someone to attack their blood, in order to stay unaware and hide their own shame from themselves? Do you understand how powerful and pernicious the wounds we all carry can be to ourselves and the people we love? Do you understand that unless they are exposed, you can never find any contentment or wholeness? Do you understand the depth of sickness that such people must carry in order to act this way against their kin? How gutless, weak, flaccid, and disgusting; such cowardice, a complete turpitude. It's stunningly caustic and morally acidic. A poison of the highest order. It makes me want to vomit when I think about it.
Truth cannot be stopped; it can be avoided, denied, soft sold, repressed, reflected or obscured in any number of ways; but be aware, it cannot be stopped. Truth carries an overarching need to be exposed, expressed, and openly seen for what it is. That's what truth does. That's what truth is. That's why people hate it, and avoid it at all cost. That's the imperative it carries, it must be recognized. Truth has enormous power and emanates its intensive energy, inexorably. It festers, nips, bothers, gnaws, bites, troubles, preoccupies, charges, ignites, infiltrates, nightmares, scratches, radiates and confronts the avoider in a hundred different ways, at a hundred different times. It becomes completely untenable to ignore. That's how it works; it will never let you go, it will never let you up, it will never let you off the hook, it will never give you any relief until it is faced and its voice is heard. So go ahead, keep running. It is stronger than you can imagine. It will hunt you, and run you down, like the tireless hound that it is. For this is Gods messenger, and he will be heeded.
These people are not monsters, but are people controlled and acting from a deep terror, unconsciously listening to the instructions ordered from their shame. We all know how dangerous a cornered and panicked animal can be. That's a good image to keep in mind. To the world outside, they all appear to be normal, without serious blemish. See them gather and engage one another, it all looks fine. They tell the same stories and laugh the same laugh, but the stories are scripted to give a specific impression to the world, and never touch any real truth. They all wink at their duplicity while they spin a mythological yarn of normalcy. They appear to be loving and intimate, bonded with one another in a closeness. But the bond is held by the secret and cemented by their adherence to denial. In this situation there is no true intimacy, there can't be; for intimacy is honesty. Like a band of thieves, huddled and isolated; hold up in anxious expectation. The stories always told over numerous and sundry cocktails. For the communal pain requires the communal remedy, alcohol. Many, most are functional alcoholics. The magic elixir for all avoidance, the ultimate potion of suppression. They are the average American family; happy and successful. They live in beautiful, coiffed, and immaculate homes. They all drive luxury automobiles and take exotic and expensive vacations. Their kids, living in the same untruth, attend the best colleges; 4.0 expected. The shame is taken into the world veiled under the pretense of perfection and success. All compulsive perfectionism is always driven by shame and its need to remain hidden. How could there be anything wrong with us? Look at what I have. Many act as pillars within their respective churches, a dead give away. It all looks so good. Aren't we better than everyone else? Who wouldn't want to be us?
They all take their shame out into the world and pour it on others. Can't stand any criticism. Can dish it out, but can't take it. Typical Bullies. Ive seen this type of home my whole life. It is a place of shame and unreality hidden behind power, wealth and entitlement. Nicely insulated from accountability. For money is god and worshipped with complete acquiescence and abdication. Everything conspires to support the same perpetration and hide the same depravity. The schools, clubs, social networks, churches, police and local government all consort and approve the deification of the wealthy, and the purposeful ignorance of its wicked actions. The general acceptance of this counterfeit impression adds the veneer of legitimacy and protection to all who reside there. It is a sham, scam and a sickening hypocrisy. I've witnessed and experienced the most destructive actions by such people and they were never called to account. You know, I respect a professional criminal more, because he knows who, and what he is. He lives a strange kind of honesty, in that he presents no false image of himself to the world. There is an unusually odd integrity in such a person. These are ugly, ugly places. No matter how beautiful their homes, how much meaningless acclaim they have garnered or how much bounty they have plundered, they all live in spiritual emptiness and deprived squalor. Starved for the real wealth and beauty that life offers those who adhere to the truth, and those who have the courage to uncover their own. For those who have taken this unlikely and painful observance to the truth, I salute you, and honor your hearts. For you are a brave and heroic lot. Always keep in mind that God smiles on the courageous. Be well.
Yours in kinship,
Mike C.
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