“What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Body
I was sitting in the tattoo chair again.... Getting my Foo Dog... (For Ethan..) and talking to Mel D about why people tend to get tattoos...
My tattoos.... of course.... are for my kids. I'm having a symbol of my children (in traditional Japanese) carved into my body as a reminder of the mysterious ways that God works...
The tattoo itself is part of the process for me. It's spiritual at this point. A sacrament of sorts. Ink.... going into skin.... Marking my body as a memorial... A reminder.
As we were talking....... Mel..... grinding away at my skin... he told me about a niece of his.... whose new born baby's in the hospital (not gonna make it...)
He told me that the family was already preparing for the memorial tattoo that they wanted.... sending him pictures.... with questions about what pics might work best....
For Mel's niece... The tattoo has become part of the process. The pregnancy... The delivery... The bad news... The shock.... the struggle to come to grips with it... the anger. the hurt. the questions... All working towards the incredibly difficult moment of letting it go. Letting her go.
Not My Will... But yours...
Now the family is collecting pictures of this baby and sending them out to Mel for the memorial.... The tattoo has become part of the process.
Its a post-modern Sacrament (if you think about it). The reminder of a time "IT".... happened. The hope that there's something more.... something bigger.... The leap in the dark... the decision to do the only thing you can do..... honor the child by engraving her onto your skin.
I've found that most non religious people aren't opposed to Sacraments in life. Most don't mind ceremony or ritual. What non-religious people hate is deadness... Rigidity. Legalism. The choking of the living for the sake of maintianing that which is dead.
I was discussing that with a friend... (my friend with the Buddha tattoo...) and I was surprised to find myself talking to her about wanting to participate in a Catholic Mass. The Eucharist.
The thing that intrigued her was "The Body"...
The ceremony.... taking the marked up body of the divine..... it's representation...... the bread and wine... And joining into it... with Him.... with everyone.
All of them.... All of us who have been marked with the similar type of markings that he has been marked with.
All of us... All at the same time.....
Marking ourselves onto the body.
My tattoos.... of course.... are for my kids. I'm having a symbol of my children (in traditional Japanese) carved into my body as a reminder of the mysterious ways that God works...
The tattoo itself is part of the process for me. It's spiritual at this point. A sacrament of sorts. Ink.... going into skin.... Marking my body as a memorial... A reminder.
As we were talking....... Mel..... grinding away at my skin... he told me about a niece of his.... whose new born baby's in the hospital (not gonna make it...)
He told me that the family was already preparing for the memorial tattoo that they wanted.... sending him pictures.... with questions about what pics might work best....
For Mel's niece... The tattoo has become part of the process. The pregnancy... The delivery... The bad news... The shock.... the struggle to come to grips with it... the anger. the hurt. the questions... All working towards the incredibly difficult moment of letting it go. Letting her go.
Not My Will... But yours...
Now the family is collecting pictures of this baby and sending them out to Mel for the memorial.... The tattoo has become part of the process.
Its a post-modern Sacrament (if you think about it). The reminder of a time "IT".... happened. The hope that there's something more.... something bigger.... The leap in the dark... the decision to do the only thing you can do..... honor the child by engraving her onto your skin.
I've found that most non religious people aren't opposed to Sacraments in life. Most don't mind ceremony or ritual. What non-religious people hate is deadness... Rigidity. Legalism. The choking of the living for the sake of maintianing that which is dead.
I was discussing that with a friend... (my friend with the Buddha tattoo...) and I was surprised to find myself talking to her about wanting to participate in a Catholic Mass. The Eucharist.
The thing that intrigued her was "The Body"...
The ceremony.... taking the marked up body of the divine..... it's representation...... the bread and wine... And joining into it... with Him.... with everyone.
All of them.... All of us who have been marked with the similar type of markings that he has been marked with.
All of us... All at the same time.....
Marking ourselves onto the body.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Paradox
I have found the paradox... That if you love until it hurts.... There can be no more hurt.... But only more love...
Mother Theresa
Mother Theresa
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The Highest Things
The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.
Soren Kierkegaard
Soren Kierkegaard
Monday, February 28, 2011
The Cure
I found the cure for the blues. (Not whiskey sours and tequila shots like I first thought).....
It's a good cure.
Works every time I've used it..
The problem with it... however.... is that in every way it's a paradox.
To get the cure... first you have to stop trying to get it...... and then do something else entirely.....
•
When I realized it was the cure.... it surprised me that it didn't come from some of the places that I first thought it might.
It's not religious like a lot of people think. And it's not spiritual in the sense that you have to light candles and meditate on it....
If you're reading about it (and it's not the first time you've read about it... even from a Holy book).... then you're still along way off of it.
Its not a philosophy... or a theology. And it's not made for seminars or sermons....
It IS existential in the sense that... just knowing about it means nothing...
All the concepts of life...... joy......... freedom..... happiness....
They all have no meaning unless you experience the cure.
You have to jump off into it.... Immerse yourself in it.
In the end you have to do it.
And it doesn't work.... if you do it with strings attached..... like if afterward.... you think people owe you....
•
I heard a guy say once that if you give....
then you'll receive...
But it turns out that for it to work you have to live in the front end of that phrase... (give)...
and completely abandon the back (receive)......
•
Within the last few years I learned something from an old church friend who adopted a little girl from Ethiopia. He did it because he says God told him to... (crazy?). But he also did it because he wanted to.
He wanted to provide food and shelter ... and fatherhood... and a family (mother... brothers...) to a child who wouldn't normally have those things.
No strings attached.
(despite my crap with the churchy's...... it turns out..... not all churchy's are always Churchy)
•
A few days ago I took advantage of a moment and listened to a lady (single mom) talk about how at one very desperate time in her life... the money she received from the government... saved her (and her children's) lives.
She took the money... used it to live and go to school...
She's working now... paying taxes.... living a normal life..... doing Tae-Bo.
And instead of bitching about it.... About how we all get screwed by the government....(I want my tax money... just like everyone else does)..... I just took in the moment... and realized that through my taxes.... in some indirect way..... I helped this woman... maybe even saved her life....
She seemed very grateful.
•
The biggest paradox in the cure is that it's both very natural and very unnatural at the same time...
I'm very protective of me and mine.... And sometimes people can get hurt from trying to get at my stuff. (Check out Libya while they move closer and closer to civil war... At stake??? Someones Oil.... Power..... land.... world influence..... the usual).
Sometimes as I get closer to taking the cure.... it feels like I'm dying. It's just not natural for me to give my stuff away like that.
But then.... after I do..... it seems very natural to me.... like maybe it was something I was supposed to do all along... like maybe this is the way the world was supposed operate.
Like... if I did this often.... in some freaky way... (by Gods grace).... it might save me.
Save us.
I don't mean.... whisk us off to heaven to escape life.......... I mean really save us. Right here... Right now.
Like take away our bitterness... and anger.... and hurt.... and hate...
Like.... heal up our wounds... make us live together.... teach us to respect each other...
take away our blues.
It's a good cure.
Works every time I've used it..
The problem with it... however.... is that in every way it's a paradox.
To get the cure... first you have to stop trying to get it...... and then do something else entirely.....
•
When I realized it was the cure.... it surprised me that it didn't come from some of the places that I first thought it might.
It's not religious like a lot of people think. And it's not spiritual in the sense that you have to light candles and meditate on it....
If you're reading about it (and it's not the first time you've read about it... even from a Holy book).... then you're still along way off of it.
Its not a philosophy... or a theology. And it's not made for seminars or sermons....
It IS existential in the sense that... just knowing about it means nothing...
All the concepts of life...... joy......... freedom..... happiness....
They all have no meaning unless you experience the cure.
You have to jump off into it.... Immerse yourself in it.
In the end you have to do it.
And it doesn't work.... if you do it with strings attached..... like if afterward.... you think people owe you....
•
I heard a guy say once that if you give....
then you'll receive...
But it turns out that for it to work you have to live in the front end of that phrase... (give)...
and completely abandon the back (receive)......
•
Within the last few years I learned something from an old church friend who adopted a little girl from Ethiopia. He did it because he says God told him to... (crazy?). But he also did it because he wanted to.
He wanted to provide food and shelter ... and fatherhood... and a family (mother... brothers...) to a child who wouldn't normally have those things.
No strings attached.
(despite my crap with the churchy's...... it turns out..... not all churchy's are always Churchy)
•
A few days ago I took advantage of a moment and listened to a lady (single mom) talk about how at one very desperate time in her life... the money she received from the government... saved her (and her children's) lives.
She took the money... used it to live and go to school...
She's working now... paying taxes.... living a normal life..... doing Tae-Bo.
And instead of bitching about it.... About how we all get screwed by the government....(I want my tax money... just like everyone else does)..... I just took in the moment... and realized that through my taxes.... in some indirect way..... I helped this woman... maybe even saved her life....
She seemed very grateful.
•
The biggest paradox in the cure is that it's both very natural and very unnatural at the same time...
I'm very protective of me and mine.... And sometimes people can get hurt from trying to get at my stuff. (Check out Libya while they move closer and closer to civil war... At stake??? Someones Oil.... Power..... land.... world influence..... the usual).
Sometimes as I get closer to taking the cure.... it feels like I'm dying. It's just not natural for me to give my stuff away like that.
But then.... after I do..... it seems very natural to me.... like maybe it was something I was supposed to do all along... like maybe this is the way the world was supposed operate.
Like... if I did this often.... in some freaky way... (by Gods grace).... it might save me.
Save us.
I don't mean.... whisk us off to heaven to escape life.......... I mean really save us. Right here... Right now.
Like take away our bitterness... and anger.... and hurt.... and hate...
Like.... heal up our wounds... make us live together.... teach us to respect each other...
take away our blues.
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