PURE PRESENCE

When you come to the place where there's nothin' left to believe 

in,

well, maybe, just maybe, 

that's the time to stop all your believe in

and to check closely to find what you know to be so.

Then follow the knowledge you discover

while you forget belief.

I found mine to be a smoke mirage taught me by someone else.

One fine day I realized I was sick and tired of my own opinions

(none of which were really my own) and found myself to be free.

That was all that had been necessary...freedom is pure presence.

So, I am reading Hemingway.  Never thought I'd want to. After Old Man and The Sea. I am reading For Whom The Bell Tolls. Immediately after I bought it for a buck I watched a preview of a new film with Donald Sutherland wherein he plays a professor of Literature and he states "Hemingway is a much misunderstood genius in America.  James Joyce in Ireland was amazed by him and declared he was the first to write prose that is poetry."  So, I began reading the book with that in mind and am coming to believe it is so.

Yesterday I read this-(he is in a war and speaking of a man who stayed at his post throughout a severe snow storm until relieved even though he was not required to do so and everybody would have understood  had he come back to warm up)

"To stay in a storm, in a way, corresponds to a lot of things. It is not for nothing the Germans call an attack a storm. I could certainly use a couple more who would stay." page 209

In those few words, carefully selected I imagine, he says a whole lot to me.  I want to stay with it and feel it a long time. Just the use of the term "corresponds" covers so much ground of understanding. I plan to use it. Just wanted to pass this on to you.  Recommend the book.  

For Ran

Hey, Let's Just Play Like We Care

Just for the purpose of a discussion let me suggest a game...basketball.

It was invented by a Canadian up North to give students some practical

outlet for physical exercise during winter months. Simple.

It caught on across the country. Kids enjoy the game. It is healthy play.

It even has the added benefit of teaching teamwork and cooperation and

the beauty of our bodies. Good things. Still, it is a game. That may be an

important thing to remember. Let us see.

Because what happened next was that people have forgotten it is a game to

provide play and promote the health of youngsters. They have come to

believe it to be worthy of the dynamics of adults in the pursuit of its...what?

Imagine such a thing in the bee world. Bees decide to play basketball. What

if spinach did that? Water? Air?

Politics is a lot like basketball. It's a gamble too. Religions? They are too.

Oh, and for sure, corporations and money and the stock markets and the

real estate game and banking and all the other gambling schemes for becoming

rich...these begin in the minds of men also... and lead to a world where people

cannot feed one another. Don't even want to feed one another. Bobby Kennedy

found this to be unbelievable and he asked, “why don't we...feed one another?

We're rich!

Oh, well, we can always play games. But, is it not important at least to consider

seriously what is worthy of grown-up human endeavor? Should we not feed one

another? Of course, food for the belly. What of adequate shelter and clothing?

Opportunities to learn? What of food for the heart? Nourishment for the instincts

to be kind and generous and fair? Beauty? Enough beauty for everybody? What

would that be like? Love enough for everybody. What would a world like that be

like? What if all people spent time diligently working at the creation of something

with but the single purpose of expressing beauty? Are we really so unworthy of such

a world as that one?

The Pharaoh-God who was created to hate the human underbelly 

orders a minion to fashion a noose whose fibers are guaranteed to 

choke the breath of life from any kids who run free. It was a scary time 

for children of difference.

All the words of all the many languages of the different tribes of 

people who have lived on Earth came forth from wordless 

experiences. The experiences do not argue, people do. The 

languages and the books created using them do not argue, people do. 

With all the experiences we have in common, why do people argue I 

want to know?

Until a certain age I am told children placed in a room together will 

play in parallel. Not in opposition. Then a change happens. An 

argument ensues. From where did it arise? I was taught as a child the 

competition I was experiencing among my friends was natural to man. 

I doubt it. It is the work of Pharaoh's minion.

That minion is very clever, shrewd, studious, and scheming; quick to 

devise and apply new ideas is he. With time he learned a million tricks 

or more. Of the once plentiful, profuse, and abounding number of kids 

of difference there are practically none left now, and, they have been 

made to be very still and silent and invisible. But, no matter how hard 

the world pushes against them, within them, there is something 

stronger, something better pushing right back.

It is coming. If others are as lonely as we are wouldn't it be ignorant to 

remain apart from them?