There Shall Be Enemies

THE GOLDEN CHILD - #3

Since the time I was conscious of myself in the world I've known I was The Golden Child -- destiny gave me this standing through divine will (probably) and a mystic obstetrician (definitely) -- but that doesn't mean I've always been open about it. I never marched forth to fulfill the role for various reasons. One, the urge was never a great as it is right now; with aging, unfulfilled destiny is often seen in a "now or never" light. And, two, there's no "pass" given to The Golden Child; there are naturally the challenges everyone faces, but much worse.

Being or doing anything out of the ordinary in life can be fraught with peril. Your friends at school get word that you think you're something, your life ain't worth a plug nickel. I remember grade school; a few kids were literally assassinated on the playground, for no greater crime than acknowledging they'd done well on the quiz! Survival meant you failed out of ignorance or on purpose, or keeping your yap shut about passing. Adulthood is hardly better. You won five bucks on a scratch ticket? A jealous mob can arise in a flash. You won? No, you lost!  There's always enemies.

Without trying to put myself in esteemed company, and in light of the truth that "No good deed goes unpunished," there are famous examples in spiritual literature. Moses in the basket and Daniel in the Lion's Den. One was a basket case who couldn't stay away from Egypt and the other styled himself the mane man. As a result, both had fierce enemies. My dad taught me about the speckled bird (Jer. 12:9); "The birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour." Needless to say, they didn't celebrate Speckled Pride Week in ancient Israel! 

Right now, believe it or not, I'm typing this in public, in the library. But I don't want anyone to know. So I'm hunched over the keyboard, hoping there's no keyboard-whisperer type agents around, guys who can read from a distance what you're typing, or I may never get through this post! It's a paranoia I'm hoping to shake, but being out as The Golden Child is a new thing for me. I see huge danger coming thanks to this distinction. There will be enemies!

Of course it still might sound craZy with a capital Z to you. But ask yourself, Who's more likely to rock the boat of the entrenched, the corrupt, the powers that be, some flaky guy crossing his eyes and twiddling his thumbs, or a Golden Child from Who Knows Where? I'll guarantee you, if you're considering these things in the light of day, the Golden Child's a marked man forever.  So here I am, hunched over the keyboard, and probably even now betrayed by an aura or inner music or some other infernal thing that ought to be pure blessing to me.

Don't worry. I haven't talked myself out of being The Golden Child. This has been cathartic. Steeling my resolve. I shall make my stand as The Golden Child! Tomorrow! At the coffee group downtown!

Newsletter -- The Lady

I wrote tributes to the male members of my newsletter staff, Dashing Danny Whfrf, Spud Tuber, Tipsy White, and Cannibal. But just like a fancy meal, it's time now for the main course, my favorite, The Lady. Just like an exquisite lily against a backdrop of weeds, The Lady has pride of place on our team. So much so that I've warned the riff-raff, not once but multiple times, "Keep your hands off The Lady! If I ever catch you near The Lady..."

I suppose I may as well say it, I have a really hard time keeping my eyes off her. When I see the guys of course I'm revolted, my heart sinks, I feel queasy, and I'm barely restrained from lashing out, "You sons of bitches!" But when it's The Lady, it's a different story; my heart just melts. Her smile, her smooth skin, that personality, she's the whole package and more.

The history of men and women since the beginning of the world is an interesting one, to the extent that I know anything about it. I learned as a child that the Lord created Adam and Eve, long before Steve showed up. Adam was created from the dust and Eve from one of his ribs. If memory serves, I believe they also told me, to this day men have one less rib than they would have if they had one more.

Immediately the question comes up, Is it worth it to be missing a rib so we can have women? My answer has to be, Absolutely! What would you rather have, an extra rib or a mother? As a question it's nonsense, because how would we have had mothers if we'd insisted on the extra rib? Clearly in that case we wouldn't have any ribs, to speak of. I'm not begrudging her, Mom was worth it. The Lady, similarly, is worth her weight in ribs.

The other points I feel like making are these: 1) Women are the Glory of Men; 2) They cause us to say "Oo-la-la;" 3) They are very addictive; and, 4) When they were created the Lord threw away the mold. But just stating the points will be enough, because you're smart, you can figure out what I would've said.

I know, certainly, The Lady is the glory of this man. Cute, sweet, smart as a whip, sharp as a tack, gentle but not too gentle, rough but not too rough, not afraid to talk back, but too kind to overwhelm me in a game of tit for tat. Like a good bowl of porridge, she's just right. I can truly say the best move I ever made was when I took her on for my newsletter... If she learns to write articles, so much the better.

You know, it's been only a month and I don't actually remember where I got her. True! That's interesting, because I'm usually very sharp on these things. I know I got the guys at the prison release farm. But The Lady, I guess she just showed up and I took her on, which doesn't sound likely. But I've been known to do stuff like that. I pride myself on making snap decisions, and they always seem to work out great. Wherever she came from, The Lady's the best decision I ever made.

Like I said, though, the worst thing about it is the terrible dread I feel that she might be molested by one of the other fruitcakes. I can't stay awake 24 hours a day, anything could happen. This is the same thing Adam thought about Steve, always coming after Eve, or, worse, himself. But I'm doing what I can, letting The Lady sleep in the house while the guys are bunking in the garage. Putting some separation between them and her, which gives me a little comfort.

OK, that's enough of a tribute for her. I want to be alone now, just me and my thoughts, wherever they may lead me.

Newsletter -- The Complete Beautiful Miasma of Drunkenness

I am personally not one to get good and royally drunk. As must be clear at least to long-time readers, I'm a guy of strict discipline and resolve. So going overboard on anything -- except maybe doing good -- simply doesn't happen. And I would never encourage anyone else to get inebriated, wasted, or faced. If they came to me and asked, "Should I?" I'd say "No."

Then we have a guy like Stanley "Tipsy" White, staff reporter for my newsletter (soon to be published). He didn't ask, he just showed up with drunk as his default. Drinking's simply his thing, his basic modus operandi in life, the way he copes, gets along, and lives. Yes, of course, when he's at the work release farm (he's a prisoner) he probably doesn't have perfect access to the hard stuff. But he's obviously getting it somehow; when he showed up at my place he was already drunk, and he's been working on something ever since.

I like watching Tipsy, maybe because we're such polar opposites. A few sips now and then of something, going along with spirituality, that's my thing. I've been giving a pretty good effort lately at yoga (not the stretchy kind), working on self-control, transmuting the various energies of the body. The yogis say alcohol isn't good for that, although I have a slightly different feeling on the subject, and so the sips are allowed. But there's no way I'm going to get drunk. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy and even appreciate the fun habits and accompanying states of mind that Tipsy shows. I consider him a close personal friend at this point, and I can't think of anything that would drive us apart.

You know how most lushes have a pattern in life? They're struggling to get their lives on track, they swear off the booze, then two hours later they show up drunk? That's not Tipsy. Left to his own choices, anything apart from solitary confinement and lack of access, he's going to be boozed up, lubed real good. And spaced out, talking with a slurred voice, the whole bit. It's a lot of fun to imitate him, stumbling over your words, like the old comedian -- one of the funniest guys of his time -- Foster Brooks. I watched Foster on YouTube lately, and had the same feeling for him as in the '70s: I like the drunk voice a lot but still don't like how he bottoms it out so often. Just me.

Tipsy's not extremely verbose. He's mostly in a more enviable condition, the complete, total, beautiful miasma of drunkenness. He's just there, more or less worthless for any and all practical pursuits, but happy and apparently even centered in himself. That's the good drunk, unlike the bad drunk, which involves staggering and personal endangerment. Tipsy usually looks very contented, sitting in a chair, the bottle dangling from one hand near the floor, with his head pushed back, face toward the ceiling, in his own world, his own personal haze.

It'd be interesting to read his mind and know what's going on in his thoughts. Is he tapping into realms up there that would yield new and more wonderful answers? Is he working through visions and dreams that might make a difference to humanity in, perhaps, coming up with an answer to man's troubles? Or is it just what it looks like, a guy so bombed that if even the slightest thinking's taking place, there's still not two coherent thoughts joined together, nothing of cognitive syntax of any form that would make sense in terms of our current prevalent consciousness?

Looking at some of his ideas for articles for the newsletter, most of them aren't what you'd call deep stuff. He's very anti-cop and he doesn't like to be hassled. I can only imagine what it's been like for him, off on these beautiful multiple-week drunks and having to be hassled by the fuzz. Wouldn't you just like to take the fuzz by the lapels sometime and say, "Lay off, copper, my friend's not hurting anyone. Take your officious, self-righteous, crock of crap lawman pretentiousness, and get the hell out of here! He sleeping it off, as you can perfectly well see, because there's a party tonight he doesn't want to miss."

I said I had some spirituality going on, remember? Even the Good Book says drinking is fine. I'm looking it up. 1 Timothy 5:23: "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities." So water's out and wine's in. Something for your stomach, which is where liquids go. And something to help with infirmities. Let me do some interpretation of the verse. It says "Use a little wine." I like that. Going by that, it's all relative, use what you need. If wine's OK, anything else you need would be OK too. The same principle holds for the phrase "thy stomach's sake." All other body parts might benefit. So, in Tipsy's case, he's got all the bases covered.

Yes, Tipsy's an all right kind of guy. If I wasn't for the whole yoga discipline thing -- and I'm extremely faithful to it -- I wouldn't mind joining him. Tip up and down a bottle of rye, I'd be lubed too! I met this guy one time and we got on the subject of drinking. I asked him, "Do you drink?" He goes, "Nope ... I guzzle."

Billionaires Going Back to Adam

The stories of families are the stories of up and down. You get one generation that's really disciplined and diligent, and invariably they're billionaires. Then you get the next generation, and they're a bunch of slouches, who can't be bothered. They while away the time, never caring to develop even the slightest discipline. And with them, the billions are soon gone. That's a billionaire's sorriest experience, to leave his money to a bunch of ne'er-do-wells, doomed to immediately lose it.

We just need to quit dying, people like the billionaire and me. Because if it wasn't for people like us, I dare say, the financial gods would've wiped out mankind long ago, and there'd be no one to carry on the ways of wealth. I see the bad side of things all the time, though. I can't give society a good report. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and they haven't got a "give a damn" spirit. The spirit that motivated the pilgrims, the pioneers, and our other can-do ancestors. Back then, someone would say, "Do you give a damn?" And they'd answer, to a man, "Hell yes!" But not these days.

I look back, way back, and I'm happy with what I see in my own family line. Yes, we had a few rotten apples under the tree. But the rest of us were so completely brilliant that nothing they did could spoil the bunch. There's the generations I knew personally, billionaires of hardy stock, who earned their fortune the old fashioned way, through the sweat of their brow. And I heard the old timers telling about the billionaires before them, who remembered earlier generations, and on and on. According to one of my uncles, he traced our line back to Adam himself, using the Bible and Ancestry.com. The vast majority of those generations were billionaires.

Adam himself was of course a billionaire. Even if he didn't have a cent of money. How so? There was no money yet. But he owned the entire planet, every inch of real estate. He'd go out to check his world occasionally, when it was one solid land mass, which he named "Gaia." Then as folks were created and/or born around him, he'd sell them land, pocketing the proceeds and living frugally. He sold Asia to the hordes and never looked back.

As an aside, wouldn't it be fun to be a kid then, and be able to jump between South America and Africa? Always careful to not get trapped on the opposite continent if the drift was especially dramatic. I heard of some of the politics of those days. They had two basic parties, the Angels and the Devils. The Angels kept saying, "It looks like we've got a severe case of continental drift on our hands." But the Devils refused to recognize the basic science, saying, "That ever-widening wet divide isn't really there." True story, even if the translation from Ur-Language -- grunts with tonal variations -- is admittedly free.

The upshot of all this is, my people have always been billionaires, or on the verge of their first billion. You ask, Why did your family seem so poor in the Depression? I explain it like this: They didn't want to show up their friends and neighbors, so they put the big bucks away. Any display of wealth back then would have been seen as overly-ostentatious. So out of mercy, they pretended to have lost everything in the crash. But those "hard times" also helped my family, teaching them greater discipline. And added to their wisdom when the times were right to show their wealth once again, as well as making more, with everyone else in such dire need.

All in all, being extremely wealthy is very sweet.

So we go from the beginning of the world and Adam and all his billions up to me, banking $2.1 billion this past week alone! Certainly I'm very happy and have limited worries. If I need something, I buy it. That's how it is. If I don't need it, I buy it in case I actually do. It's all good.

Our Savior with a Gun Devotions

I've reread my "Savior with a Gun" post a number of times, and I have to say, I think it's the holiest thing this side of the Dalai Lama's priest. The idea of eternal divine wisdom combined with gunfire carries a rare spiritual heft. Because I'm someone who grew up hearing the report of a gun in more or less a pastoral setting. It was a small town and the country was right there, where someone was often hunting or target practicing. But violence with guns just didn't happen. Any violence we had was always someone drunk wrapping their car around the bridge abutment about a half mile from my bedroom window. Not in my direct line of sight, thankfully.

One of the major things I like about the Savior with a Gun is he's a person of very few words, and for that matter, very few actual teachings. So far ... because I'm sure he'll have to do more than shoot his gun and send people to look for the slug, although that's a fantastic start. As was presented in the post, in that he teaches all kinds of personal and transpersonal values. Then think of him in a rural place, the birds singing, the stream running, the sound of the wind in the trees, and all of that pierced for just a moment by the loud shot of a gun. The echo and quick dying away of the sound, imagining that, touches me deeply. It's like Zen, the abrupt moment of realization.

I want to be honest with you; I think I owe you that. There isn't an actual Savior with a Gun Bible at this point. So we're putting up only a few mock verses, all for a good cause, just to show how beautifully adaptable this particular world Savior's teachings would be in the context of other well-known scriptures.

To set the scene, my photo shows a well-thumbed New Testament, which, because it was in my pocket one day, went through the laundry. I didn't have the heart to throw it away, since even mangled up as it is, and maybe especially since it was mangled up, it still made for a beautiful sight.

So now, here's a few verses as I've adapted them (quickly) to go with the "Savior with a Gun" teachings as we have them so far:

They asked him when should the kingdom of God come? The Savior spoke not a word but raised his gun and shot it in the distance, and directed the disciples and others forth to find the slug. When they found it, they knew he could have shot it anywhere.

How about Mary and Martha? -- Savior, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Bid that she help me. The Savior lifted his gun and shot into the distance, directing Martha to go find the slug. When she found it, she realized Mary had chosen the better part, which would not be taken away from her. But by the time she returned, the Savior had holstered his gun and traveled on.

How about the 10 afflicted with leprosy? -- Before this shot lands, you shall be healed, in an instant. The Savior raised his gun and shot, and at once, indeed, they were cleansed. He sent all ten to find the slug, but only one returned.

Whom do men say that I the Savior am? Some say the Lone Ranger, others agree, definitely the Lone Ranger. But who do you say that I am? Peter handed him his gun, and upon the Savior firing, ran forth to seek the slug. When Peter returned, he said, You are the Savior with a Gun. The Savior raised his gun and shot again in the distance. Peter knew he was guided by heaven, the second shot confirming his declaration.

He let his gun fall back into its holster, and breathed his last, It is finished.

And with that beautiful verse -- one of the most touching -- I've breathed my last for this post and must now wander off with Martha, closing my beautiful mangled New Testament, honestly touched in head and spirit. As for the Savior with a Gun, he too travels on, shooting and directing seekers of the slug, as he wills.

The Guy Made That Piano Sing!

It was a wild time in church today. All kinds of wildness. Thanks to the substitute piano player. Where we got him, I don't know, maybe Borneo. He had me rockin' out. It was a great time!

The thing about this Borneo guy was this: He was bouncing on the seat and playing the piano so hard, so feverishly hard, that it was literally moving around the room, even with such force as to push chairs and the people on them out of the way. He blazed a path right through the midsection, turned and bowled over the first couple rows, and toppled the pulpit. The pastor in a robe of black was white as a sheet.

It's hard to believe, I know, but every word of this is true. If you can picture in your mind's eye a guy, the combination of Jo Ann Castle, Big Tiny Little, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Fats Waller, with the hair of Doc Brown, and completely full of the Holy Ghost, you'll have a great idea of what this guy was like. He took off on his instrument, and I gotta tell you, I was wide awake! He made it sing!

And this was from the very first song, an instrumental for gathering, "Jesus, Love of My Soul / Like a River Glorious." We needed a mosh pit! I caught it out of the corner of my eye, the piano in quick motion; that's when I looked up and paid attention. He was making definite, ever greater, movement from the piano's usual spot! The first thing that popped in my mind -- the very first thing -- was Putin gobbling up territory. You don't expect it, then wham, you've lost Alaska.

He ran over a couple older ladies' feet, who simply out of an old sense of propriety stifled a cry of bloody murder. The fierce look of great pain on their faces was a genuine expression of something primal, great pain. I had to wince, then quickly turned my attention back to Borneo's thrilling performance. The pounding of his hands was crazy, his fingers a blur, with even some blood. As the instrument came closer, I was shocked to see keys from the edges coming loose and flying through the air.

Much later, at the close of the service, I heard that one guy's hearing aid had blown up, apparently doing him a lot of harm when it comes to ears. He was staggering around, clutching the air. More evident in real time were the organ pipes on the wall toppling over from the pounding vibrations. I recalled Jericho, whose walls were breached by a series of trumpets, when all they needed was a rampaging pianist.

One totally strange moment came when the floor opened up and swallowed three or four of the church's worst heretics, proponents of the so-called New Thought. Since there's no basement, it's anyone's guess where they ended up. Wherever, no doubt it's giving them something new to think about. I was happy to escape, having been to only one of their New Thought meetings. Looked like I shunned them in the nick of time.

The minister threw up his hands and made a throat-cutting gesture to the sound guy, who threw up his hands in despair. He cut the mics but the piano itself, with Borneo's jackhammer fingers, was its own source of power. I noticed terrific phenomena in the light fixtures above as they swayed back and forth. They alternated bright and dark, like angelic visitations, then demonic irruptions. Which once you've had troubles with, I can personally attest, everything in life's harder to deal with.

Anyway, so much of the stuff of the sanctuary was totally demolished, there's no telling what'll happen next week. Certainly the usual pianist will be there, but whether there's anything left for her to play, that's another matter. The church wasn't doing that great on money as it was; now what we'll do is hard to predict. I see a sausage and pancake supper in our future.

I'll tell you what I'd love to see, and we could make some money on the beer. I'd love to get Borneo back, and make him wear gloves, and everyone hook arms together while singing "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord," with everyone sloshing beer steins in time. We did that at youth camp once and it was a lot of fun.

Me Suffering Like Job

I'm going to tell you my true experiences in church today. The preacher talked about Job, the character in the Bible whose life went completely to hell. In a hand-basket, as Grandpa always said. Thanks to ha-Satan, the Hebrew word for adversary.

First, let me brag about it right up front, I used to be a go-getter. Hitchhiking across the country, roughing it, eating very skinny meadowlarks, sleeping under bridges, in culverts, and even in the men's room of a very busy truck stop, the whole bit. I rode trains, I was down and dirty, with enough dirt on me that anyone seeing me had to think I was a desperado. I wasn't, but they would've thought so.

Now, though, in recent years, as an aging man -- over 60 -- I'm not so rough. Part of me looks back on all of it like it was some other guy's life. I don't know, I could probably make it if I had to. I've always been resourceful. But with my aches and pains, and apparent need for sleep and regularity, give me the predictable life. A good deadbolt. Meals I can count on. And a lack of suffering.

I know someday they'll find me, dead, of old age and/or iron poor blood and lethargy. But at least I'll be under a decent number of blankets, in long johns, with socks, and securely locked in in comfort. It could happen a different way, but I'll try to not let it.

The preacher's message on Job, though, gave me momentarily the sensation that anything was possible. Job suffered all the stuff he suffered and didn't curse God. An alternate way of looking at that phrase, in my opinion, would be: He didn't doubt his own place in life, in the scheme of things. Complete despair wasn't an option.

OK, I started thinking of myself. Say my little bit of savings was taken away, the place I live crashed in, everything in my freezer thawed out, the city took my half acre, and I was suddenly drifting about, maybe despised and shunned, would I keep a good attitude? I was thinking, Yes, I would. But that was this morning, when I was still wide awake. I even saw it as something like a liberating idea. When you have a ton of fear, if everything's snatched away, there'd be less to fear. You'd be free!

But now, as it becomes evening, the day has dragged by. And I'm tired. Hanging out in my easy chair, trying to read, but getting very sleepy. Now I'm not so sure I'd like to be scraping my boils with a potsherd, whatever good that'd do. Do boils itch? Or is scraping just a good way to drain them? I'd have to figure that out. Now I'm not so sure there'd be a lot of positives to being on the road, at the edges, the extremes.

I want to keep the meaning of life, of course, come what may. Only, please, let the meaning of life have something to do with my own comfortable bed, a working furnace, and a well-stocked refrigerator.

The Tertius Conundrum

I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord. (Romans 16:22)

While mowing the yard, I was thinking on the plenary theory of divine inspiration -- God inspiring the Bible so every word is precisely His own -- as it relates to what we might call the very incidental, even trivial, verses of Scripture. Doing yard work, there's no better time to work on these issues, along with trying not to run over too many sticks. My blade needs sharpened as it is.

Anyway, one of the weirdest verses I can think of is Romans 16:22, where, getting to the conclusion of Paul's great epistle, a guy named Tertius, who was the guy manning the quill, tosses in his own hello. I'm not what you would call a big plenary kind of guy, by a long shot. But I've known a few. At first glance, you might think this would call it into question. But maybe not.

It seems obvious it wouldn't have occurred to Tertius that what he was taking down was anything but another letter. How would he know that the thing was divinely inspired, word for word? Most of us don't think that. Yes, maybe I do, occasionally, regarding my blog, but not always.

It's pretty easy to see Tertius was just saying "Hi," saluting the recipients in the Lord. Nothing more. Is that divinely inspired? Maybe so. He wasn't long-winded, and for some people that takes a miracle.

There would be some plenary folks, maybe most, like one of my old friends, who insist that plenary inspiration is only for "the original autographs," which are either lost or no longer exist. But it would seem that this verse would have to be original. He's the guy who wrote it.

So would it take divine inspiration to say "Hi."? Gomer and Goober said "Hey" all the time. Apparently they did it without divine guidance, and they weren't even that smart. What then would Tertius' problem be? Did he need the guidance to put it toward the end and not at the beginning? Did he feel like writing more but was somehow mysterious held back? Short of me taking another mystical journey to the Akashic Records, we're not likely to know.

It seems clear to me that the Bible writers were not consciously writing Scripture, but used occasional letters to make relevant points to their congregations. It was not till the writings were used in the congregations for teaching, then with their collection, and later their canonization, that we have the rise in theories of divine inspiration. Clearly, all Tertius was doing was saying "Hi." It took a century or two for it to become a big deal. And it would only become a big deal because of the surrounding writings. If we had only this one verse in isolation, and were completely unaware of the surrounding writings' existence, we wouldn't come to the immediate conclusion that he was divinely inspired.

I think there's a larger issue, and that's our ability to discern what is divinely inspired and what is not period. Have we somehow an innate ability to make that determination, and against what are we comparing? When I was mowing the yard earlier, I nodded and waved at a lady going by, the equivalent of saying "Hi." I want my own page in the Bible!

But I can really see some ecclesiastical use for Tertius saying "Hi", say for a lesson on being bold and greeting one another. You see the pope or the super vicar of the Protestant faith saying "Hi" to folks, and it's a big deal. Then we say, "I'm just as much a worthy person as those yahoos; I say "Hi" all the time." Tertius was just a schlub like me, and when we say "Hi" sometimes it's a big deal to people.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I vote Tertius stays in the canon. He was smart enough to stick it in there, out of his own will, or something higher.

The Imaginary Stud -- Johnny Peopleseed

There is this guy -- The Imaginary Stud -- I'm focusing on for a while. Because he's so extraordinary. He feels, at least he says, that he's responsible every time a pregnant woman walks by or a woman with a baby. "Hide me!" is his constant plea.

Maybe he is responsible for a few of them. Like I said, maybe he's gotten lucky a few times after a wild drunk. But could he be the father of every baby out there? Somehow, I seriously doubt it!

But whether he is indeed the True Stud he thinks he is, and not just the Imaginary Stud I think he is, that question will have to wait for the DNA results, if we're ever able to get him to take a test. Because he appears to be forever on the run, pausing just long enough, according to the story, to impregnate some poor gal who hasn't heard of him. Assuming he's ever impregnated any actual women...

He fancies himself a regular Johnny Peopleseed. Like Appleseed of lore, Peopleseed also has his mission in life, armed only with a single front appendage and a sack of seed. To hear him tell it, the sack continually replenishes itself like the oil and fishes, the cruse of oil and the 5,000 fish of the Bible. He cruises into town, the tank topped off, an eye out to disperse what is needed, knowing it will be replaced later. Like perpetual motion!

I'm only imagining what must happen on one of these encounters: "Hello." A possible likelihood is at hand, a doll face who doesn't know she's meeting the sire of thousands. He's quite open with her now, until he gets his way, then we'll hear him hiss, "Hide me!"

She's standing there with blue jeans cut midriff-high, with enough buns to start a bakery. His eye scans her like the Six Million Dollar Man. Her beauty is one thing. But the Imaginary Stud makes complex evolutionary calculations. "Her nose plus mine. Her pleasant eyes plus mine. Her fantastic build plus mine. She's got the hips for quintuplets!"

He's done it many times, the story goes. And if that's true, the calculations he makes must become less and less conscious and more instinctual. Like the hidden knowledge of a spore or seed, doing its thing, knowing not how. Spore trailing spore, seed/egg, peach/pit, vital essence, the rupture of the egg, he senses all of it at the primal level, raising his head in a sign of joy at the recognition, hearing distant thunder as the lightning delivers another soon-to-be-born soul. Who can blame him? He didn't ask for this duty of nature, we're assuming.

I was reading a few pages of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, and came across a passage that reminded me of the Imaginary Stud:

"And, to make a long stoney badder and a whorly show a parfect sight, his Thing went the wholyway retup Suffrogate Strate." (p. 242.)

I couldn't have said it better myself. But I can try:

Needles to say, he epistemologized her, in the bibbling sinse, with an episiotomy probelly in her suture, big heads tending to run in his lying.

I'm Smelling Something Bad -- That's Good!

I'd said before that I think I have olfactory hallucinations.

The tricky thing about it is I've never been officially diagnosed, so it's all anecdotal, what I tell myself and suspect. The thing about senses is that you have nowhere objective to stand from which to judge them. I suppose if you had instrumentation and science you could come to better conclusions. But if I was going to do that, I'd go to the doctor. So far, I prefer going it alone, because, for the most part, I don't mind them.

When I first noticed this -- and there's links above with links within some of those posts if you want to see what I've written before -- I thought it was all objective. To the point that I was scrubbing floors and walls to get rid of bacteria. But because others in the environment weren't smelling anything, and because it all went away after a while, which bacteria wouldn't be likely to do, and because I discovered online that olfactory hallucinations is an actual thing, I quit scrubbing, etc.

Usually everything is perfectly OK. Like right now, everything is more or less perfectly OK. I'm not smelling anything extremely vile or disagreeable. And when I do, frankly, it doesn't bother me that much. Nothing really lingers, not like a few years ago.

It's a big jump from really worrying about it a few years ago to embracing it now. Maybe there's some link, I hope so, between olfactory hallucinations and the creative process, and happiness, or even the more spiritual dimensions of life. My guess is that whatever you embrace you can use for personal profit. If you think it, you can live it. Which is what I'm trying to do. I read a good verse today:

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. (Song of Solomon 2:13)

Of course I read that in the most mystical sense presently possible for me.

Think about this, if you're evaluating all the nuances of your experience, and the nuances are varied with hidden dimensions, it really gives you something to think about. This touches that and everything gets affected along the way. It does happen to be my belief that there are stranger dimensions of reality than we typically see, so anything to open that up seems pretty much a plus. The trouble is, you might just be smelling rotten garbage...

If you are just smelling rotten garbage, it only takes a few seconds to get up and objectively make that determination. And anyway, in my case at least, there's nothing quite that profound about what I smell. I don't think I'm so far from objective reality in the nose/brain that I can't trust it.

Still, it's definitely good to test, which is true for all of life. If you're testing, experimenting with this or that dimension of reality, what better way to appreciate and enjoy it? I'm thinking maybe too much conscious reflection means you spoil the experience, since at some point pure experience is more desirable. But I'll cross that glassy sea if I ever get to it.

Right now, I keep wondering, What's that I smell? There's a hint of patchouli (I have some by my computer at home), a hint of some exotic vapor in another part of the building, a touch of something industrial when I wander around, something pleasant on my fingers, and who knows what all they've touched. I'd rather smell them than lick them, so at least this isn't gustatory hallucinations!

The way it stands now, if I'm smelling something, that's good! If you're spiritually stifled, breathe! Smell more stuff!

It's A Bird!

Must has been written about birds, everything from what they have in the encyclopedia to whole books exclusively about them. One of our most famous bird experts was Audubon, who wouldn't have had anything to do if it weren't for birds. We have birdwatchers, bird cameras, and birdbaths. I personally own a birdbath, and it might actually have water in it.

Even with so much being written about birds, I sincerely believe the world can stand one more article. And so this is it.

My interest in birds today has to do with the famous opening to the "Adventures of Superman" show from the '50s, starring George Reeves. A crowd is gathered below, all looking up, and a kid yells, "It's a bird!" It strikes me as funny that he would be so excited about seeing a bird that he would yell out in a crowd and point at it with so much urgency. Hadn't he ever personally seen a bird before?

It could be that Superman was flying by so fast, so the kid thought he saw a very fast flying bird. Or that Superman, being the size of a man, would have made a spectacularly large bird. And instead of describing the possible bird as large or fast, which would have required some time, he just yelled out the shorter version, "It's a bird!"

But is it reasonable that there would be a bird the size of a man flying above, or a bird flying that fast? It could be that they hadn't seen Superman that much, except the last voice gets it right, "It's Superman!" So Superman isn't a stranger to these people over the skies of Metropolis. Making the original bird comment sound kind of dumb.

What other times was he mistaken? At Christmas when he had a package holding a wristwatch and he thought it might be a bicycle? "It's a bike!" "No, Billy, it's a watch, it's a little small to be a bike."

Birds. I see them everyday and it's not that exciting. Yet, think of it, these are flying creatures, without a flying machine! They just know how to fly. It's amazing. And it's really amazing when you consider where birds came from, according to what scientists say. DINOSAURS! That's some pretty tough genes birds have.

The dinosaurs, some of them anyway, started flapping whatever appendages they had. Maybe they were near a cliff and some of them actually glided to safety. These ones kept reproducing, showing their young by example how to jump off a cliff, with the very adaptable ones landing, meaning these would be the ones to reproduce. And guess what? It was the smaller dinosaurs that generally landed, meaning birds would progressively be smaller than their dinosaur ancestors. Once they took to the sky, there were no rules to hold them back. So that is exciting.

Naturally, the whole business with dinosaurs and this progression from dinosaur to bird took ages to be accomplished. By the time we got to Bible times, then, relatively not that long ago, birds were already old enough to be considered a particularly created species. So they fooled everybody, even Moses, perhaps. Maybe Moses knew; I don't want to dis Moses. If he wasn't ignorant of the whole matter, maybe he simply felt the time wasn't right to spring it on the world that birds came from dinosaurs.

Superman turned out definitely to not be a bird. Let's look back way before the TV show and earlier serial films. If you go way back, Superman didn't even fly, he just made big leaps. He was subject to gravity. This fact of leaping carried over to the phrase, "Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound."

You Can't Pray Here

Note: This didn't really happen. It is a fictional account of an event that did not occur. It was just a thought that came to me.

I thought the library was supposed to be a place of enlightenment, of personal freedom, of the ability to learn and grow and express yourself in your own individual way. But I guess not, I must have been mistaken. Another dream shot down, another ideal disappointed...

Where they got this particular officious librarian -- or helper at the library -- I don't know. The usual library types are meek and mild, not so driven to oppress people. At least I've never heard of it. I've been watching librarians all my life, keeping track of the kinds of personalities the profession attracts. I saw someone filling out a job application at the library one day, and I was thinking, If I was the guy in charge of hiring, I wouldn't need an application, I could spot my potential employees a mile away. Line them up, I can pick out the helpful mice. And I say that with a great deal of affection, because these are my own people.

That is, most of them are! But they got this one guy, like I said, very officious, domineering, apparently thinking the library is his own to do with as he sees fit. He said something about it being a matter of church and state, the wall of separation and all that. He wouldn't allow anyone to cross that divide, the line or wall of separation that is so all important to him.

Whether he was on the lookout for me, or just happened upon me and couldn't help himself, I'd like to think it was the former. My doctor said I have a persecution complex and every once in a while it needs sustenance. I don't know if all that's true. The way I see it, I'm just always thinking, This person could be out to get me, what if he is, how will I respond? I could simply take it, and hope the payoffs of a good martyr complex would come true. But the downside is sometimes you have to suffer in silence for a good several years. And I've led a more or less anonymous life, no one's written any folk songs about me yet. Why they would start now? They probably wouldn't.

Anyway, I was sitting in the public library. The public library. And, yes, I admit it, I had my Bible open, and for a brief period my eyes were closed. I was doing some serious meditation on the nature of the psychic centers and the more overtly spiritual teachings in the Bible of Christ, I admit all that. To me, that's a good thing, and I'm quite willing to testify to it anywhere, that there's a definite good spiritual track and I believe I have the inside track on it. I thought I was well within my rights as a member of a "free" society to do what I wanted in relation to these things, but apparently not.

This was a serious infringement of my rights, that's what I'm contending. The little pud came up to me and asked me to close "that book" and put it away, and said if I couldn't keep my eyes open that he'd have to ask me to leave. He also said he'd be watching me closely to judge compliance, then wished me a good rest of the day. I was literally in shock, and, it's hard to believe but I did immediately comply, putting my Bible in my book bag, then I sat there thinking it over.

"Have a nice day?" Is that what the little pud said to me, after having basically cleaned and gutted me? I sat silently for a little while, looking around to see if anyone else noticed. But no, the guy was quiet enough in scolding me, no one else was aware of what was going on. I was starting to steam a little, starting to smoke and seethe around the edges; I felt my skin moistening, my temperature rising, my sense of rage accelerating, definitely ramping up. I was like a 5 o'clock whistle. Definitely I was in the mood to rebel, because I believe I know my rights.

Well, sure enough, no sooner had I gotten my Bible back out of my book bag and closed my eyes again, here came the little pud around the corner. He must've been watching me from the stacks, knowing I would eventually try to have my own way. Which is true, showing he's not a complete idiot, just an idiot in regards to religious freedom. So there he was again, in my face, spouting off about the separation issues, etc., and saying he was asking me to leave the library and not come back if I had it in mind that I would cross this line again, blah blah blah.

By now I was so hot under the collar that I could've decked him, and he's lucky I didn't. For the most part, I let my words do the talking, arguing, "But you have a public Bible here, so it's a contradiction to say I can't look at my own." And it's true, they do have a Bible, although the rules seem to be unnecessarily strict for accessing it. They have it chained to a stand and devotees have to stand in line even to look at it from a distance. Right to the little pud's face, I averred, "Such things ought not be!" And once I get going there's no stopping me. I said all should be allowed to worship freely, having access to God without being impeded in any way. And of course that is my true opinion. I see no sense at all in religious persecution.

But the little pud couldn't be placated. He was all over me. Because in addition to the Bible and having my eyes closed, I was also listening to an iPod, and, yes, I was rocking a little bit in the chair. To me, you know, you have music right there in your ears, you respond to it, almost like dancing, although in this case it was a more spiritual rocking back and forth. "What's that you're playing on your iPod, some kind of mantra or hymn?" And so on. The little pud wasn't going to let it go. He was strictly in his own little world. So that was it. I packed up my stuff and started for the front door.

Needless to say, I went to the front desk and registered a complaint. But the head librarian was either on vacation, off at a basketball game, at a convention, or on sick leave. She wasn't anywhere to be found. So I'll have to wait for whatever proceedings they have, either to punish the little pud or formally cancel my privileges there.

There was one library helper near the door who asked me what was going on and seemed sympathetic. I tried to explain about the guy being the thought police, etc., and she told me that it's his job to make sure people keep their eyes open or they'll think you're a homeless guy trying to sleep. Which didn't explain the clearly religious prohibitions he had in mind. But I'll leave it there.

Note: I said it at the top, but it bears repeating. None of this really happened. It's just a bitter fantasy I had while reading the Bible, praying, meditating, and listening to a mantra or hymn on my iPod at the library. I said it was a bitter fantasy, since I wouldn't really like it to happen, but there was a certain amount of genuine pleasure to it as well. A library helper walked behind me -- that's all -- so he's the subject of this reverie. Goodbye for now, and remember, don't let anyone trample on your religious rights.

Proceeding From The Pink Professor's Open Zipper

THE PILLAR, ZIPPER, AND WASHBOARD TRILOGY - PART 2

It's very hard for me to believe I'm already up to part 2 in this trilogy, it seems like I just started. And now I'm already halfway through. I'll need to somehow come up with longer trilogies.

Yesterday it had to do with a pillar, representing the sublime palace at which I found the Pink Professor in this particular fantasy. I had to undergo a series of labors in my quest to get there, including a challenging go at "The Magnificent Marble Machine" from the '70s show of the same name. Since then, I took the opportunity to watch part of one of the remaining tapes of this show that exist. It was worse than I remember, but the machine was just as slow as I remember. In yesterday's challenging go at it, believe me, it was a lot faster.

I've already had two digressions today. But let me assure you, these aren't counting against your time on my blog. I will indeed give you the full story of the fantasy I had (and am having) about the Pink Professor's open zipper.

Where we left off yesterday, there was this beautiful abstract garden statue representing a person, even though it's more or less a lump, that became the Pink Professor on his throne. I was dazzled by his radiance. I wondered if I could approach.

But approaching wasn't something he wanted me to do at that moment, for I had the awareness that he wanted me to stand back and see the wonders in store. A throng of devotees was gathered in a semicircle behind me. I was in what I would call the center, looking directly at the Pink Professor. The throng was almost doing the wave, back and forth, but it was more like a wave that a flock of birds might do, in that it was essential movement, not consciously directed like you see at sporting events.

The Pink Professor would lift a hand and the throng would lift, swell, and relax. He would put up both arms and they were ecstatic. He stood and two devotees were so overcome with ecstasy that they gave birth. I took this as a sign of the Pink Professor's continued potency, which, I believe, he's able to maintain, miraculously, without resorting to Cialis or any of the other medications associated with male troubles. I prayed that he wouldn't thrust his hips, lest a second Big Bang get the present universe confused. Everything was that close to the edge.

Next, he retook his throne and pulled a pink coverlet over his lap. Two bevies of beauties -- a male bevy and a female bevy -- entered from the sides, doing a kind of 'Dance of the Seven Veils.' It built to a rather provocative climax, with both bevies lying on the floor, twisting and writhing, then thrusting themselves toward him. I felt a little jealous, knowing he could choose any of these youthful stallions and fillies. But that fear quickly left as he winked at me. Jealousy was the exact wrong response, since this was meant to show how much he preferred me as his consort, with the whole world to choose from. I fingered him back a personal Kornfield Kounty salute.

The bevies exited stage left, and from the opposite direction in came serving men and women with bowls of precious candy and sweets. They proceeded to the throne in beautiful harmony with the bowls as their offering. I was impressed when the Pink Professor took an antibacterial wipe and wiped his hands before reaching into the bowl. Germophobes to the end!

What happened after this was something straight out of the biblical book of Revelation. An emissary from normal earth came in and was in mourning clothes, sackcloth, accompanied by an angel. He asked the angel, "Who is worthy to unzip the Pink Professor's pants?" But none was found worthy among the gathered throngs, and we sat in hushed silence for a half hour. I pulled out my Kindle and read.

Then, finally, the angel pointed a bony finger at me, and proclaimed, "He is worthy!" The silence was broken in a dramatic way as the thunder of a thousand mountains sounded. I stepped forth over what now was a glassy sea, full of eyes, representing the hushed hopes of all creation. With boldness, I pulled away the coverlet, took his zipper thingy between my fingers, looked up and winked at him, and immediately pulled it down, with firmness, until his fly was completely open.

There was such a rush of wind and radiant light that I was pushed back from the throne, but everything was very gentle to me. A second throne rose up from the floor and I was seated directly in view of the Pink Professor.

What followed was a hypnotic sequence that still -- and these memories are only minutes old -- makes me dizzy. It's a good dizzy.

I looked at the gathered throngs as these scenes unfolded. I could see their beautiful bodies through their garments. They were youthful and vibrant, but they became old, then turned to skeletons, then were restored to their original firmness and youth. They smiled, they frowned, they laughed, they cried, some of them were on their backs spewing upward like fountains. Fountains of life covering and nearly drowning them.

They and I watched with amazement as all manner of delectable things flew forth from the Pink Professor's fly. At first it was like a candy store, with sweet sticks of candy poking through and flying forth, all the best flavors, horehound, cherry, root beer, etc.; following were black and red licorice, then an enormous wad of taffy, 40 feet long, enough to feed an army; a candy cane the size of a telephone pole poked out and flew through the room; the biggest Christmas stocking in the world, like you see in convenience stores, pushed out and flew forth to the four corners, teaching everyone the true meaning of Christmas; but I was thoroughly amazed at what popped out next, Glenn Miller's actual trombone, which I'm going to sell on eBay; and finally he shoved out an rainstick the size of a Sequoia. I love rainsticks.

I looked up at the Pink Professor's face. There was a bright star shining out of his forehead, his eyes were like stars, his head was tilted back, he was in a perfect realization of ecstasy. This is the guy I love! I thought to myself, "I've heard of massive orgasms before, but Glenn Miller's trombone?"

Hail The Conquering Industrialist!

Today's post is a highly personal one, as I buck up my self-image after a day of terrible doubt. Remember yesterday, I envisioned my own passing and that of my blog, as seemed all but certain at some point in the next five billion years.

Of course it seems absurd even to me that something this piddling would set me back. But in fact it did. I think there's something about extremely large numbers, billions of years, that messes up my thinking. You know?

Our thinking -- and I think this is true of other people too -- can be spooked. Because we're so used to thinking in terms of today and tomorrow and Christmas and our next birthday. To suddenly see yourself dead, the entire world destroyed, and your blog ended is different.

So yesterday, through the day, I had a hard time putting it out of my mind, but I did my best. As much as I could, I focused on my current reputation, the boldness I live by, the success I've had, and my life's overall mojo. This became a matter of exaltation, lifting myself in self esteem. As a life coach for others, naturally the saying, "Physician, heal thyself," applies to me.

For this purpose, then, in the exaltation process, I envisioned myself in the greatest terms. I became the embodiment of the conquering industrialist, like the dreaded monarchs of old.

You also can imagine it: There's the parade of the conqueror, leading in his foreign captives, along with the beasts of the foreign countries, and their women. Picture it with me, but remember I said it was highly personal. I have to work on my own personal issues, even if some think it's tasteless to do so in public.

Here comes the conquering industrialist, conquering what exactly? The Major Industrial Powers (MIP), doing his best to take them captive. In cage number one, a big gold cage on wheels, we have MIP executives who have been captured. They're nude, displaying their very small parts, and slumped against the bars. In cage number two, a big silver cage, we have MIP officials, nude, displaying slightly larger parts, angry at the executives for advising them to cut corners, making them susceptible to Residential Industrial Movement (RIM) forces. In cage number three, a big bronze cage, we have MIP underlings, foremen and leadmen, also nude, displaying larger parts yet, angry at the officials and executives for giving them such shoddy leadership that their products turned out inferior and overpriced. And in the last cage, the fourth, a big corrugated cardboard (paper) cage, we have MIP peons, workers, truck drivers, and lunch ladies, all nude, displaying the largest parts, except for the lunch ladies, angry at the underlings, foremen and leadmen, and the officials and executives for implicating them in this massive fraud called the MIP.

In this scenario, I am the conquering industrialist, along with other RIM leaders, distributing whips and cattle prods with which to threaten the MIP captives. But at the last second, in my mercy, I command them to set their weapons down, and release the MIP failures, who take multiple paths out of town. Of course the peon class we would welcome more gladly into the RIM ranks; that goes without saying. And up the line it would go like that, with the MIP executives receiving the most scorn, being passed over for any pencil pushing jobs there might've been. As said, they take various paths out of town.

OK, now put this industrial parade out of your mind. And picture me, consolidating in my own person everything, the best the RIM has to offer. I become larger than life, a colossus, striding over the world, going from victory to victory. I take my place, the red giant sun behind me, even it being dimmed in the effulgence of my glory. I occupy such a position of prominence and pride, like the biblical Herod who became filled with worms and died, the people can't even look upon me for the brightness. "This is not a man," they shout, "but a god." I advise my tribunes, much shorter than I, to plead with the people, that such a conquering industrialist considers the word "god" beneath him. They must do better!

Three graybeards step forward, who have studied theology and depth psychology, and they go into a big clawing death match, scratching and biting. One graybeard falls. The other two bring out cudgels, mallets, and spears, and fight. The larger man has the smaller man down. But the smaller man thrusts a scimitar into the larger man's gut, all quite a surprise to him, I must say. The winner's graybeard red with the others' blood, he proclaims me the master of life itself, knowing how many factories depend on my beneficence.

As to the conquered women I mentioned, they minister to me in private.

Right here, after their ministering, I become fully aware of the phenomenon of 'The Psychic Price,' and I become so small the people can't see me. The women don't know what happened to me. I am suddenly dressed in rags and, unlike Herod, am able even to elude the much larger worms that are on the way to consume me. Notice how great I am! Because this is the stumbling block that gets everyone else! But I am a very small man, dressed in rags, little more than a worm myself!

I pick up a used toothpick, its size in relation to me the size of a huge sword. This now is the conquering industrialist's sacred sword. I turn a corner, unseen by anyone, and run right into a dust bunny. I use the sword, this toothpick, to cut my way through the dust bunny thicket. I'm becoming smaller all the time. I'm so humbled. I'm being blown about in the wind and happen to land on top of a fleeing beggar's sandal. He's running because the whole crowd is running, not knowing what happened to the colossus who had been before them. Even the women wish I'd come back.

But the beggar is looking out for number one. He runs to a place beneath a bridge, where he stays. I'm there, now hiding behind a grain of sand. I hear him thanking his lucky stars that he wasn't trampled. He falls asleep, and I hear him blubbering in his sleep, that God should bless their mighty victor, meaning me. "Keep him safe, snuffle, snore," he says. "Bring him prosperity, snuffle, snore," the beggar prays.

As I hear him pray, I'm increasing in size. Finally, I'm normal sized. And because I have powers, I start a campfire and make the man a decent meal of two eggs, four pieces of bacon, hashbrowns, and pancakes with strawberries, sauce, and whipped cream, which you might recognize as IHOP's current special, the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity, Bacon and Eggs Combo, embarrassing to say but delicious to eat. (I don't actually say it. I just get the waitresses' attention, point at the menu and grunt.)

After a while, the beggar sniffs the air like a horny camel, being very much like a thankful Ali Baba at this point, knowing Allah has sent him the food of the gods, something apparently from IHOP. He looks over and sees me keeping the eggs warm in the fire. I have on a very coarse fiber sack dress, or maybe I should call it a prophet's robe. And a hood. My head is pulled in so he can't see my face. The hood's hole keeps everything very dark within. But when I turn my gaze on him, he's able to see two gleaming lights, my eyes.

I suddenly remember he saved me, turn off my eyes and the darkness within, revealing myself very much a normal man, a humble man. He sputters, "You, you, are you?--" "Yes," I smile, a smile playing across my lips, "I am me. Good to know you, kind beggar."

(Let this be a lesson to you. Sometime in the future you too might see me. Oftentimes, I'm right out in public. But I will be that anonymous person you may not recognize. I could be in the next booth from you in a restaurant. I might be that guy in the library earnestly scanning every magazine they have. When you look over, maybe I'll have my eyes turned on, or maybe they'll be turned off. You never know. In fact, I've done many things in life quite anonymously. The other day I put money in a parking meter; no one around appeared to recognize me; I did it like any other person. But maybe you'll be one of the first, after this beggar, of course, to know it's me. Wouldn't it be great for you to recognize me?)

I tell the beggar to come to my factory. I give him a whitewall tire for his trouble. I take off the prophet's robe and put on my normal clothes. People come by to see me, telling me of incredible dreams they've been having about me and the end of the world. I soothe their frazzled nerves, telling them, "No, as long as I'm in the world, the Earth will be spared."

That is what the conquering industrialist speaks. That is what the conquering industrialist declares is done.

Silence In Heaven For Half An Hour

Everyone needs a break. I'm thinking of this verse from Revelation 8:1 today, "And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour." Kind of reminds me of my hiatus -- when I took off a few months earlier this year. That was a great break.

I was reading Revelation earlier. You've got all the commotion of heaven, enough horses to make a respectable parade, angels, Gwen Stefani and the Lamb, and the old seer looking on. It's impressive, the orderliness, the holiness, then the systematic destruction of everything, all for a good purpose, to make all things new. (Small consolation to all the ones destroyed.)

Then, not too far into it, after the seven seals and just before the trumpets you get "silence in heaven about the space of half an hour." Like in the Herman's Hermits song, "There's a Kind of Hush." Time to be quiet. Quiet time. Nap time like in kindergarten. A breather. Sit a spell, take your shoes off.

It's an interesting thought. You might wonder why would heaven have silence for about half an hour? Why it's about a half an hour, I don't know. It could have something to do with the urgency of what's presented, with half an hour being a tiny bit of space, i.e., there's no delay. We're giving you a little respite, but not enough to get your hopes up, unless you're a martyr, then your hopes are for 15 minutes tops.

Why there's silence? Maybe because they're busy passing out seven trumpets and they're getting ready to blow them. What's more impressive than a trumpet suddenly blasting out of silence? If you had a lot of noise going on -- and a trumpet just piled on -- it wouldn't be distinct or have the same power. This gets your attention.

I'd like to have just silence and not a sudden trumpet. I prefer noises that come on rather than ones that are just there. On my phone, I have it set with the gentlest alarm it came with. And similarly, the noise that reminds me of an appointment. It eases into it, it doesn't just scare my pants off. Same thing with my dog, Underbrush. If something's going on, I prefer she starts out with some growling before the full bark, not just the full bark all at once. That is scary, more startling than scary.

It's tough to get silence -- I mean silence that's not quite as frightening as heaven's in Revelation. That's the kind of silence we don't want. The kind of stillness like right before a tornado, or if you were in the eye of a hurricane. But other silence is desirable sometimes, if only... We were out today doing the dog thing and some guy who has a noisy truck went by again. I think he and I have synchronized mornings. I said silence is desirable sometimes. That's true. But I'm also a white noise fan. I'd rather hear something going on.

That's all from Revelation today!

As John Lennon could've sung, "You say you want a revelation, well, you know, we all want to end the world."

It Is Better...

"It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house." (Proverbs 21:9).

That verse was from my moment of devotion today. I'm trying my best to get my life on track. And one way I'm trying is the spiritual path. Thinking of my dad the other day, a yoga monk and teacher in the past, reminded me of some of the benefits of the deeper wisdom.

So I thought it over a while, then opened my Bible at random, and that's the verse right there in the vicinity that my eye saw and settled on. When I saw it it seemed entirely fitting in a way, and yet not one to one, because Grandma isn't exactly a brawling woman. I really don't think I'd say she was ever a brawler in the strictest sense of the word. Like anyone, she likes to get her way -- whether it's eating cake even though she has diabetes, buying lottery tickets even though money's right, or hogging the TV. There have been difficult times. But she's never pulled a knife on me or had me rassling in the dirt.

Anyway, the verse pictures two people living in a wide house, meaning they have plenty of room. We don't live in a wide house, just an ordinary, fairly narrow house. But we're pretty happy with it and don't have the energy to add on. We have the old philosophy, "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." That's always been one of Grandma's favorite stock-in-trade sayings.

So here we are at home. Home sweet home. The verse is saying, though, it would be bad to be even in a wide house if you had a brawling woman. Things wouldn't be so sweet.

The alternative given is to move up to the roof, to live on a corner of the housetop. That's not a natural place to live, and would be a ludicrous choice. So I'm taking it as the upshot of this whole verse that brawling women are to be avoided, whatever you have to do. A little advice to the menfolk, try to keep your grandmothers happy and you'll always have a decent place to live.