how is it that America came to be a place where the scariest people are the straight white christians who walk their dogs
yesterday was definitely a day of balance a day begun with an innocent exposing the underlying violence that lays hidden in the pocket of a senile man who carries a gun on the bus, in the hard and unrelenting heart of a woman who would not yield her own path to one that would care for more than her own agenda, ending with an unexpected gift of peace and grace that rolled up in the form of a bus from Ohio filled with children, young adults, and an elder who were traveling across America on their way to a gathering of hippies (it was kind of nice to discover they still exist) in Montana. those hippies were ragged and mismatched in clothes and crazy in their hair and yet they were the most beautiful human beings I had seen all day so different and yet so safe and loving and full of joy they reminded me that we I they are not the wretched in this world
at the suggestion of a new acquaintance I watched the movie Le Mis its a nice thing that dvds can be checked out at the library as well as books Libraries really are a good way to share resources and to support the edification? of the people in the community they serve here in Pipestone there is also a little grant (local) that supports giving a free ride to and from the library on the transit bus once a week. that is a big savings of four dollars a week which is tremendous
anyhow I watched this remake of a classic novel as a film
the title of the film means the wretched, the miserable, the dispossessed
I copied for you a note written by Upton Sinclair from another library, wikipedia
Upton Sinclair described the novel as "one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the world," and remarked that Hugo set forth the purpose of Les Misérables in the Preface:[3]
it is possible that the violence persists in this world in our world due to the need for the wretched to change their state? do they use violence because it for so long has been what was used against them? Is violence the first choice for those who are become/becoming the dispossessed to try and hold on to their own status or identity of power?So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.
why is it that our schools our churches our public places where people seek education guidance and the direction of their souls have not produced do not produce people who are more capable of peace than fear and violence? how is it that after centuries of work amongst the common person and their offspring these resources have not produced a community that can and is willing to converse without threat to be compassionate rather than hard to conjoin effort to an end that is balanced and thoughtful and cares for all parties rather than one that only rigidly serves the selfish need of the dispossessed?
what is social asphyxia? how dangerous is social condemnation? where is it that the thought that drives a mob or a regiment or an individual one against another is born? where are those thoughts sustained?
if men have a poverty of the strength and might and force and physical and mental agility and presence that develops as they age if this poverty insidious as the subtle loss of flexibility in the lens of the eye is not corrected with the lenses of compassion the clarity of experience the accumulation of knowledge the balance of grace and the understanding that even as he climbed the mountain of his youth he will certainly descend into the valley of death then does not that poverty creep into their souls at night become a terror and in the day a shade that haunts them as sure as their own shadow as around them they see the world once on which they were the top now overwhelming in its difference, in speed, in the movement in which they can no longer maintain. are they not wretched in the poverty of their minds and convictions and rigid fears fears that came when they found out that they were perhaps not the center of the universe or as in charge of everything as they thought that their value was shaky and becoming more so as their hands and voices lost touch with the neurons that no longer respond to force. do they use force as an equalizer are they dirty harry? or are they just human beings who forgot to continue to learn how to dance? did they only listen to the song of their own fears? are they afraid of the dance floor of life now that mobility has changed? is violence an equalizer or is it just one more prison that bars them from living.
women who have starved themselves for affection for comfort for protection for the fleeting illusory nymph of love and beauty as they age do they become gluttonous for power for revenge for what ever remaining morsel of opportunity arises before them to have a voice, to show that they do not have to and will not yield any longer to the service of another are they not bottomless pits that can never be filled because they poured for so long nothing but loss of self into their own foundations? will they age with strength or with brittleness? have they thrown away the balance of power for so long that the only way they can exit with any sense of equanimity to their heritage is by in the end grasping what force and violent language body or vocal that is within reach and using it mercilessly against the innocent who trail behind them begging, crying for a cup of compassion from a well that dried up long long ago.
and the children dwarfed ? stunted in growth by the shadow of the past by the accumulation of the death that is present because we live so long and we have never learned to keep our own disappointments our own selfish agendas out of the burden of the common space that used to filer the light of hope, of freedom, of imagination not driven by greed, or revenge, or fear, or power? have we not born them into a miserable garden long overgrown with the lifelessness that fear of diversity, that righteous right whether stringently held or boldly discarded tramples over and over the simple space that could have been afforded each seed with the gentle and persistent and self determined willingness to mind our own growth to weed our own lives of the things that choke and overgrow humanity?
how will you see yourself today in the mirror? what will be your goal? what is it that you want from today?
if one develops at walmart or at church or in the grocery store or while washing dishes or while folding clothes and sweeping or while coming into contact with something not quite up to your preference if in those places one develops and strengthens the thought of anger, of hardness, of judgement, or rigidity, of slander, of jealousy or hatred then are we not making and selling the bullets of violence with which we take each others lives in these places of peace?
if one lives those things and strengthens them in oneself and holds tight to the heart the force of violence rather than the creativity of what made everything all together here in this place in this planet engage in the simple joy of life born lived changed by lightning by fire by drought by bug or worm or the occasional fecal deposit of the waste of another organism if one thinks the thought of me me me and mine and mine again and mine before yours and mine above yours and my way or the highway are we not killing each other softly within our own day?
if one cannot see the simple grace in opening a door for me or standing still while I get ahold of my unexpectedly escaped dog without making it into a fight of wills, or a reward for an action, or a testament to anger or christianity if one cannot simply have the heart to stand still and help because it is needed then in those places in the home, in the church, in the grocery, in the park go ahead and carry guns, give away the bullets that destroy any opportunity of life, go ahead shoot me in the back because in your heart, in your habit, in your garden I am already in my grave. in your world you have already murdered me
the miserable the dispossessed, the wretched
I weed my garden so that even in poverty of money I have richness of life I hold back from avenging death or violent choice even though in our world it is so shoved down our throats I go to the library and read so that I learn other ideas ideas that give choice that create flexibility and healing
why why is that
because I know that it rains, I know that the lightning strikes, I know that worms poop out what they consume sometimes on my food, I know that there is more than me and I am not fragile, I am not weak, i am not vulnerable because I am life, I will grow and break and change and acquire and throw off disease, I will make mistakes and will right them not by payment but by being committed to learning truly to do differently,
my life is not today or any day going to be invested in violence or hardness or retribution or the coldness that you cling to in your heart, i know that some times I fall down the stairs and yet in my heart I understand that I cannot fix me by harming you, nor will I respond to your judgment by degrading you, it will not make me feel valuable if you are less. it will not comfort my own pain if I strike out at you. I know this and it is that knowledge that I hold and stand within while the storm of your violence rages against and ultimately breaks upon that rock of ages
I drink from the overall life that pours out around us and would not keep that water from you, even when the only cup that your dry dry well offers is one of violence even if I died by your hand I would not be one of the miserable ones nor can you dispossess me of my love and care
I do not sing for you to change
I sing for me to live
and if in my singing you find that you want to talk to converse to discover at any age or stage how to replace your guns of violence with care or thoughtfulness you have my full attention and the library and the bus and the water and the clouds and the air and the worms at your side always in peace always renewing
because any other voice is one of violence and there is no way on this earth that I would pick up a gun and threaten you with it and niether no matter how tempting will I pour my inability or fear into the mold that casts the bullets that are dispensed like candy to children from the hands, the minds, the voices, the hearts the ignorance of Le Miserables
peace
mb
No comments:
Post a Comment