THE STORY OF JOHNNY WHOOPER SWAN We go to school trusting our parents. We meet a teacher there who stands up front with a big desk, and a pointer. She or he trains us in an authoritative manner. We attach mentally to a life long need for authority in order to live lives successfully. Right so far? In my case, at the age of 25 I was ready to enter the practice of law where I hoped for success and a happy life finally. Very shortly, very shortly, I became anxious. There was a foreboding. I was made more uncomfortable with each experience. Law work is nothing like what I was told it would be. The system is corrupt. But I still cling to my expectation that career success is necessary to my happiness as a man. Each day my grasp of what the fuck success amounts to after all becomes more clouded, murkier. I hear songs on the airwaves and at concerts which describe my life as the life of a fool. What am I becoming? I want to rip off my business suit to run naked in the street with my hair on fire! But I am too afraid. In strange, weird (weird comes from a word meaning wise), fragmented steps I go about a journey of my own believing myself to be the first man to have failed in such a total way which journey works so as to break up my career, end a marriage, and start an entirely new way of relating with my two children whom I love deeply. Almost magically I meet a woman who is a career counselor who asserts a beautiful message that I am made to be joyful in my work everyday and at all levels. This understanding sets me on a completely new course. It is no longer a world of systems to me but an undivided one of unlimited beauty. It reminds me of a painting. A true masterpiece. I am drawn from within to learn the truth about my identity and nobody else can teach me that. From this point onward I will use thinking capacity for mastering mechanical processes and follow my heart, which includes my whole nature, which includes your whole nature and that of every human being for all the rest. I’ll go by the name Johnny Whooper Swan who does not explain itself to anyone. By my fruits shall I be known. Watch me soar!

Sunday, December 5, 2021

 CONFESSION 


We worship thinking. We are afraid is why. We want to feel safe. So, by thinking we invent a god. The God we invent we think to be invincible we think made us and we think therefore loves us and will take care of us. We get sick or our child is sick or our lover is sick. Why did God we invented and named God with a capital G not save us? Our enemies tell they have God, too. Can we keep them from having a god? Kill em all? Does my god hate my enemies? He must be no larger than me. Oh, my God! Thinking is rational for building a proper tepee but not for inventing a God. That is a rank insult to what God there be.


Maybe it is not so important to name God and pray to it, arrange and re-arrange characteristics, as it is to know whether we have any way, as we are made, to actually be safe? Someone said “Know Thyself”. Suppose with me for a moment  that from the perspective of an actual God to pray using a name we invent for selfish protection for me and mine is such a pathetic demonstration  of no faith, zero faith, love must go deaf. Love, in whose shadow is real safety, is interested in our stepping forth on a journey for a limited lifetime in search of shelter to discover what love is all about by helping each other on our way.


Here is a confession. It is pathetic. I am a Texas Tech Red Raider fanatic. I want badly for my team, in all its endeavors, to defeat other schools in games of competition.  I spend time and money in pursuit of such nonsense. So far, my team only wins about half the games. I also know that should they win them all some year and be crowned national champions, the teams will be expected to repeat that every year for many years to come. A  goal  is always, always always going to disappoint. The reward for doing a good job is to be loaded with heavier and heavier loads until you break. For what? To prove what? What kind of a god is behind that silliness? 


There is reason by my confession to label myself a big fool who is wasting his life, valuable time he could spend in loving ways. It is vain to believe people love each other. Love, when found, shelters and inspires people. Make something beautiful.  Beauty comes not from a person. Ask any artist. It comes from unknown regions all of us are here to discover. All are artists. Ask yourself. I say to you, now, I want to busy myself in that direction for as long as I have left to live.

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