What do You want?

(This was my first essay for my college Comp 1 course.)

What do you want?

“Why are you taking a college course?” This question is so fraught with ego. Mainly because human beings are professional bullshitters, both of themselves and people they want to impress. If you can come up with a polished and sophisticated answer anyone will believe you, even if you don’t believe it yourself. It’s called sales and if you sell others long enough you’ll probably end up selling yourself or jumping off a cliff figuratively or otherwise.

Dr. Garcia told me that I would be a wonderful counselor due to my strong intuitive abilities; that I was a natural psychologist because I translated my human experience through sign and symbol. My wife says that I am a great writer, but apparently by the end of this essay you will find out if she’s biased or not. Based on the crazy antics I employ to make it through the doldrums of the retail coffee industry (with my sanity intact), my coworkers say that I should be an actor, comedian or God forbid a writer. Sam, my catholic co-belligerent in coffee slanging, says that I’ll probably end up as a priest. He thinks I have some kind of self control over my “passions”. But that’s probably just a deception to make myself look good in front of others. With all these people telling me what I should or could be, how do I sort it all out on the inside? How do I know what I really want?

“What do You want?” the little boy asked me, his brick wall stare penetrating my insecurities. I noticed he put an emphasis on the “You” so that I wouldn’t take his question flippantly. He had dusty dark blond hair, corn blue eyes and a serious stare that could only come from looking at your own subconscious face to face. The kind of deep ageless stare that you see on a child’s face that makes you realize that children are people too, like grown-ups without presumption. He looked exactly as I had around the age of eight or nine except for the hair and eyes. The colors were muted, like in an old color photograph from the 60’s. Then the boy closed his eyes, he turned and I awoke suddenly with a snort, in the driver’s seat, my eyes adjusting to the dim light of the mid-day sun. During lunchtime I must have fallen asleep from the heat of the beating sun on my smashed up Toyota Tercel. I was drenched in sweat, grit and coal dust from work. My prayer beads were still in my left hand and I could feel the vibrating buzz of Allah washing over me.

For a few months now I had been learning meditation, prayer and spiritual healing from a Sufi healer named David. It had become a rollercoaster of mystical experience where God seemed to be opening himself to me at every turn, prior to that I felt disconnected, malcontent, orphaned from myself. But now I had found my True Love. I couldn’t take in enough. All I wanted was to sit, meditate, pray and bask in the glory of the divine.

Earlier that morning I got up to make the 45 minute drive to the east Austin blacksmith shop I worked at. As I made the drive down Airport Boulevard I was in love with everything and everyone. The whole world was my beloved and even if others didn’t consciously recognize it, we were caught up in a sea of unity where everything and everyone was holy and loved.

In those moments I definitely know what I want. I want to swim in the sea of God’s love and I want everyone else swimming with me. I want peace, harmony, a sense of purpose, satisfaction and fulfillment. I want to not be angry and to stop hurting others through my rage and for others to do the same. I want to affect peace and harmony in the world and come home at the end of the day satisfied with my labor. I want my labor not to serve the gross inequalities of this upside-down kingdom, but to help humankind back to their true nature. In essence I want to help us remember some of the most vital things we’ve chosen to forget.

Louis, my blacksmithing mentor, challenged my dreams with an apophatic approach of never believing that I really knew what I wanted and calling “bullshit” anytime he smelled it. He also helped me to remember what it was to labor and be satisfied with your days work even if you’re not satisfied with the result. David helped me to remember what my true essence was and much as the experience of learning Sufi prayer and meditation set me on a path to find what I wanted from my faith, I am hoping that college will help me find what I want from the right vocation and be satisfied with the days work. I don’t expect a mystical experience, but I do hope to find some guidance.

Thank you very much.

Of Crime and Punishment

To be a manager at Starbucks always teaches me of the tension between justice and mercy, judgment and grace.  It helps me to learn the subtlety of loving people, while still holding them accountable.  That we be accountable to the corporation I could care less, fuck “The Corporation”.  Rather that we would be accountable to God in our own hearts or (at least) to each other out of the intrinsic god-person in the core of each human heart (whether you acknowledge God or not).  This tension constantly pulls at the sinews of this god-muscle.

So with that I present this chapter of Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”

“

Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, “Speak to us of Crime and Punishment.”

And he answered saying:

It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,

That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.

And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.

Like the ocean is your god-self;

It remains for ever undefiled.

And like the ether it lifts but the winged.

Even like the sun is your god-self;

It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.

But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being.

Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,

But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.

And of the man in you would I now speak.

For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.

Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.

But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,

So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.

And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,

So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.

Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.

You are the way and the wayfarers.

And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.

Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.

And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:

The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,

And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.

The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,

And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.

Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,

And still more often the condemned is the burden-bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.

You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;

For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.

And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.

If any of you would bring judgment the unfaithful wife,

Let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.

And let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.

And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;

And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.

And you judges who would be just,

What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?

What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?

And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,

Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?

And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?

Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?

Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.

Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.

And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?

Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,

And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.

Vain Remembrance?

So this is what I got on this question. Very open to input on the answer.

I was asked by someone recently:

“Why should we pray the same prayer over and over if scripture says, ‘Do not pray in vain repetitions like the pagans do.’?”

To say that the Remembrance of God’s Name is part of the History, Tradition and Ritual of Christ’s Body the Church, seemed to have less of a convincing impact than the following arguments … in other words, ‘show me in Scripture and Reason’ and I will believe.  So here are my thoughts on the subject of the constant remembrance of the Name of God.

There are a few ways of looking at this question, first there’s reason, next there’s syntax, after that the context of scripture and lastly (my favorite) there is the wisdom of the heart.  In other words, from what or where do you draw your motivation for prayer and meditation?

So what about praying in vain repetitions?

If you had a statement that read, “Do not pluck and eat unripe or rotten fruit!”, would one gather from this statement that one should not gather or eat fruit period? Of course not! You would say, “Good fruit is good to eat and good for the body and is a gift from the Creator for our nourishment and well being. Unripe fruit should be left on the tree to mature. Rotten fruit should be allowed to fall to the ground and return to the dust of the earth!”

What about praying with repetition?

The scripture does command prayer without ceasing.  It speaks of an unceasing knocking on the door of the heart waiting for God to answer.  If knocking is not repetitive then I don’t know what is?

What about praying in vanity?

Prayer does not require repetitiveness to be vain.  There are practically endless ways in which prayer can be vain or self serving.  To the contemplative, any personal desire that draws one’s attention away from unification with God is a vane desire.  Taken to the extreme this would seem to be a long list of distractions. (It is a long list so you probably shouldn’t dwell on it while meditating lest you become distracted. hah, just kidding… maybe… i don’t know… whatever…)
But when it comes to the practice of the remembrance of God’s name, the extremity of The Love is at the root of the Heart.  Mercy, grace, understanding, forbearance and service are at the reach of your arms, legs, ears, eyes, tong, thoughts and relationships.

Approaching God

To approach God with desire or motivation for personal gain or change in ones state or station, is to approach God in vanity.  One must sacrifice their desires on the alter of their Heart!  I want to only desire complete annihilation into the person-hood of God.  So that not my will but God’s will is done.  So that the battle of my will vs. Divine Will is finished and ceases.  It is to submit to the humanly abasing will of the Divine.  To even submit one’s own sense of ‘fairness’, justice or righteousness to the larger reality of God’s Divine Justice, Righteousness, Mercy, Grace and Love.  It is to have an ‘I don’t know’ mind.  It is to submit the depths of the heart to the all consuming fire of God’s love.  The Love that can be a heaven of unending ecstatic Annihilation or a hell of unending all engulfing, yet never consuming fire of eternal agony.  (This reminds me of “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis.  Heaven being more real than this ‘real’ corporeal world, which is in turn itself more real than hell.)

some vein pursuits I am guilty of in life (contemplative or otherwise):

• not being the Beloved to my beloved
• seeking the experience of mystical graces
• seeking Divine favor for personal ease in daily life
• seeking Divine favor in personal or egotistical desires for success or advancement in the world
• seeking the ease of my spouses distress for the sake of my own comfort
• seeking the mystical power of God as desired by and for my own will
• seeking assurances in this mysterious path God has laid before me, instead of throwing my full faith into his predestined will, and accepting that there’s no plan B
• desiring some other job than the one that I find myself in
• thinking that an ‘ideal’ job would be the culmination of my fulfillment
• not practicing radical acceptance of the present moment
• not being content in states and stations of this life
• the list goes on, but these are the ways I follow my vanity, that are most visible to myself.

Lord have mercy.

Christ of mercy.

Lord have mercy.

Water, Purity, Righteousness, Longing and Freedom

After watching an Indian film (called, ‘Water’) about Hindu widows, my heart got to thinking and asking…

“

“What if your conscience conflicts with your faith?”
–quote from ‘Water’

“I used to think that God was Truth, but now I know that Truth is God.”
–Ghandi (paraphrased)

“

If one seeks truth above all else, does one find God? Not necessarily…? Then how does one find Truth? Purely by God’s grace. Purely by God’s predestined grace!

Abraham  was a righteous man. God loved and blessed him for his righteousness. How did Abraham find righteousness outside of ‘religion’? (The same goes for Buddha.) Why does everyone after him need religion to find righteousness? (what about relationship?) Is it about a guarantee or a ‘get out of jail free card’ or a ‘life insurance policy’? What does Jesus say about righteousness in the context of his cultural Judaism and outside that same context? Can we trust the ‘Christian Gospels’?

Legalism is bullshit, a mockery of the Truth and the Law. A mockery of the Heart. But what of purity? Is righteousness found in one Man? In returning to the purity of God’s creation that He called ‘Good’? In the many idols of mankind? Or in the act of TRYING?? Is it found in the depths of the longing of the Heart of Hearts? Is Righteousness found in the Heart? Can God put it there to be found if He so pleases? Does He do so in everyone? Where is righteousness to be found? How is righteousness to be found?

Questions are not a sign of doubt.
Doubt is not a lack of Faith.
Faith is not a sign of Truth.
Truth is not a lack of Questions.

…and the Dharma wheel turns…

Why do people seem to need a system to find God? Do people who search for God in a system really find Him?

Many people in the system will find God, Truth, Al-Haqq, but many may not.  Many people outside the system will find God, Truth, Al-Haqq, but many may not. Are there no guarantees of God’s predestination to His Will? (this definitely isn’t a path for discipleship)

I feel like a spiritual or religious outcast. An untouchable. Caught between systems. I cling ever so tightly to the Lord of Outcasts and Untouchables, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God and Man.

A Weldspot On A Wedding Ring

I am looking at my wedding ring. It tells a story. it tells the the story of the tension between singularity and plurality. This is why i consider myself a “traditionalist”.
I remember when I received the weld spot on my wedding ring. It was while I was Ironworking for Lewis Herrera. I was tack welding a jig for some job… near the end of the day… very mundane work… no fuss, no grand piece of art. it was “just” a jig. a “tool” which was created for one specific job and would be discarded after the job was done. I was rushing along tacking my jig together (without gloves, because whats the chance that I would injure myself from a few tack welds) and suddenly… INTENSE PAIN on my left hand… on my ring finger.
OH MY GOD IT WON’T STOP! FUCK IT HURTS FUCK FUCK FUCK!
A piece of weld spatter had stuck to my 18K white gold wedding band and had supper heated it and burned a semi-circular scar into my finger. I couldn’t flick it off, I couldn’t make the pain stop until the red hot ring of fire had cooled on its own. Then I thought of plunging my hand into the quench tank, but by then it was already cooled.

The pain is gone and even the scare is mostly gone, but the spot of hard steel remains on the soft tissue of my wedding ring.
It reminds me of the sacrifice that my beloved has made for me to follow my dreams and how she has never once held it against me or used them as cannon fodder for her rage.

Thank you my sweet. I love you with all my Heart!

-john

Oh Captain, My Captain…

Once a friend of mine whom I love, said to me (i’m paraphrasing), “I pray that you don’t go down with the ship, I’m not suggesting anything, but I hope that if she decides to go down she doesn’t take you with her. All I’m saying is that you never know how thing’s will work out and you should be prepared for the possibility that your marriage may not work out.” Let me say I love this person and accept their advise from the standpoint of the their life experience. But I have to disagree… not with their stance as a realist, but with the reluctance to throw ones entire lot in with the body of Christ, though it is painful and gut-wrenching to say. I don’t mean to judge, but if the Body of Jesus cannot contain or exist in the downward spiral, death, despair, anxiety and depression, delusion, illusion of humanity…             …then Jesus failed.

I believe he did not.

If I am to be christ to my wife as Christ is to His Body, then that means indeed going down with the ship if the ship is going down; Just as Christ went down with this earthship! And when all hope is lost, the new hope of the kingdom of God rises from the depths of the ocean that is the spirit and grace of God.

There are times I think I should have become a monk. That I could have learned more of God or become closer to Him or that my life would be more closely aligned with Him or that the sign of my trials… her trials… means I made a mistake and God is… or I am just reaping the the harvest of my choices. Really it’s a dream of a cop out. An addiction. Because I somehow think that then I wouldn’t have to face the hardship or suffering that I and my beloved face today. In addition there’s so much that I feel I would be the poorer for if I had not married Her. Frankly even though I have no experience in this and am a total fool saying this… But that is… that if followed with much love, dedication and sobriety of spirit, marriage to a wife is just as deeply and mystically refining, perfecting and rewarding as marriage to Christ through monasticism. It is marriage to Christ either way. One can be a David or Judas in both. One can be a saint or a satan in either.

The Truth is, when my beloved is suffering and I have to choose either shirking my love and covenant to her or swallowing my self-ness, fatigue, frustration, anger, resentment, bitterness… I cannot swallow anything really. The only way I am able to love my beloved in these moments (I am poor in myself, forgive me) is through Christ, through Christ living in me, through sacrificing my self with Christ in the moments of despair and rage and bitterness.

… and I fail miserably at this… the battle between forgiveness and bitterness, between rage and acceptance, erupts in my chest.

أيها الرب يسوع المسيح ابن الله, إرحمني أنا الخاطئ – Ayyuha-r-Rabbu Yasū` al-Masīħ, Ibnu-l-Lāh, irħamnī ana-l-khāti’ – Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner

I Love You,
Your Beloved

Chapter Five from, Christ The Eternal Tao

The triangle is the first full form.
The Three is the principle of Order,
The Order that must exist before the multiplicity of things.
Therefore the Ancient Sage said:
“The Three produces all things.”
The Three acting as One,
One not acting  without the Others.

The Triad contains itself in perfection,
For it is the first that surpasses the dyad.
It lies beyond the duality of matter,
Of subject and object,
Of self and other.

The Triad is beyond the distinction of the one and the many;
Its perfection goes beyond the multiplicity of which duality is the root.
Two is the number  that separates,
Three is the number that transcends all separation.
The one and the many find themselves gathered together in the Three,
For the Triad, being many, is also a Unity:
Not a unity of self-absorption, but of love.

voice of the people

do “the people” have a voice or is it just a din of murmuring or a deafening roar?