Felt subtle-less again. Prayed for a Christian themed sign. Came in the form of a dream. I was a chaplain at a prison. I had gained the trust of both prisoners and guards. I got wind of a pending revolt and all-out war between the two. I neither fled nor took sides. I simply gave blessings to the souls involved--not to their actions. To one I said, when you die, remember that everything you see on the other side is only a mirage--all the evil darkness that is. Be not afraid. He cried. I knew that he most likely would never listen nor had the experiential knowledge to grasp what I was saying. If he had, I doubt, he would have been involved in such an action.
----

Chloe is gone now. Gone for a year. The hole in my heart returns, like he was just biding his time. The feeling of disconnection is the worst. Of knowing what you want to give and having no real mechanism whereby to give it. I've let go of feeling guilty for not having that connection sense with my family. I spent years trying to convince myself I did when I didn't, alternatively feeling righteous and proud for not having it, and/or beating myself up for not feeling more connected. It just isn't there. There is love, there is deep gratitude for my upbringing, there is deep care for their health and well-being. Just not that sense of being with my own. Just simply not there. In small small pieces yes, but not as it is for others. Not as it is with my friends or especially with her.

With her I feel home.

Trying to pump myself up see the opportunities for this next year. It just isn't there yet. I have work to do surely. Mostly 3rd chakra--money, clarity of speech and writing, leadership skills, and so forth.

Let that be enough. Tomorrow's evil will suffice.

Requiem for a Scream

Or 37. Or 300. Or half a million, what does it matter? Innocent blood spilled is innocent blood spilled. A person individually can still be innocent and yet always already be a part of (partially) dis-eased and oppressive social-political-cultural-economic systems. Such were the poor ones who died today in London.

When is the West going to face that the real enemy is al-Qaeda and their ideology? All of the West--U.S., The Brits, and the Continent. Bali, Casablanca, Yemen, Tanzania, Madrid, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, New York, and now London. What are the connections between these? Only that they can strike anywhere and plan to do so. Only that they are quite serious and we still refuse to connect the dots.

I have no idea what I can do. I want to help. To free this contracted energy-attention so that we may do what needs to be done. Neither conservatives or liberals. Neither exclusively unilateralist nor bilaterialist, no addiction to either soft or hard power.

It is the idea of jahillayah (the time of ignorance) and its use as justification for the killing of Muslims that is most disturbing in al-Qaeda. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt all denoucned the attacks for God's sake!!! All of those are more "nationalist" types. Home grown. Wanting to protect their own and stop say the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, the corruption of the Mubarak Regime, the slaughter of Shia Lebanese and so on.

My heart is bleeding, like the opened flesh on a subway. I fear for America's mettle, and worse for the Europeans. We could lose. This all could be undone.

Rest in peace lost ones. I know you hear me on the other side. Let your souls be at peace--at peace with all the unfinished-ness of your life, of not getting to say a proper goodbye, of having your life snuffed out unjustly, unmercifully before it's time. Be at peace, we are the ones called to labor on, your work is complete. Feel the peace now in my Heart and pass to the Love-Light. Drift into Heaven. All is well.

Why Ask My Name? It is a Wonder

So spoke the Angel of the Lord to Manoah, Samson's father.

Another day. Another day where the forces of life have multiplied, leaving more room for the forces of death. Godhead is ALL. It is entirely just and merciful--not on this plane. People don't get cancer because it was automatically in their karma. Thousands don't die in tsunami accidents because they deserved it--or worse punishment for fags, liberals, and abortionists or whatever else some nutzos think.

On the other side it is entirely just and merciful. Or it entirely is. No modifiers. This plane is filled with the chaotic and random as Spirit struggles along. There is much Collateral Damage in the Quest of The One. We are however, on the subtle plane, responsible for our actions, all of them.

My last job (as a janitor) was interesting. It provided me space for reflection. Walking through the aiport, at times being The Spectator. Often going over and over politics, culture, religion...what's wrong with the world, what we can do about it all. I would go on my break, quickly eat my dinner, and then hide back in an out of the way spot. There I would pray. Then all of that dissolves for the moment.

There would be a vague awareness of time and the outer world, but mostly it would pass. Into the darkness, whatever that is. My heart reaching out to God only knows what (literally in this case--God apparently seems to the only one who knows God). No answers really, other than the spaciousness opened in this waking world upon exiting the darkness. Just an inherent sense of the rightness and necessity of such non-action.

Chloe visits tomorrow. What a ride this has been with her. It's only going to get funkier. I do love her to the core of my being. I relax in the thought that I am responsible for my actions and not for having achieved some "perfection" or "radical transformation" or "fixing everything." All egoic. All pipe dreams. Like Candide, tend the garden. It grows on its own.

I've also struggled proving my Christianity since leaving the Jesuits. Particulary trying to "prove" that I am a worthy candidate for priesthood in the Episcopal Church. I sometimes am having trouble speaking of God or spiritual things in mental-waking life categories anymore. It doesn't resonate with my experience to talk about God like "He" is my buddy, that I actually talk to God. St. Gregory of Nyssa once wrote that there were only two things you could ever say positively about God--1. God is 2. God Is for Us. Then, he added, and you have no idea what those two statements actually mean.

I have no idea what it means to say God Love Us or God is Love. I don't know what Love is. I don't know what BEING IS is. It's a prejudice of mine that I need to get over--I think that people who talk that way--about God did this, and God said this, and God wants this from me....are just massively projecting. [Incidentally, I'm speaking here about the "Personal" aspect of the Trinity not the Impersonal Godhead].

One event, also on the subtle plane gives me profound courage to soldier on with good cheer nevertheless. I had a dream one night. I had made and announced my decision to leave the Jesuits. I made the announcement around Easter but didn't leave until the end of the semester in June. The dream took place in that interim period. It was a very difficult time for me obviously.

In the dream I'm walking through a courtyard with a little girl. She is nagging me about leaving the Jesuits. Some pretty pointed accusations--e.g. I'm leaving just to get laid, I'm weak, I'm selling out and betraying everything I stand for, etc. As is my custom, I didn't get at first appropriately angry. I simply tried to play it all off. She continued remorselessly with her charges.

It takes awhile for me to fight. Something holds me back from waking up and roaring in this world. Finally I had had enough and for this moment I stood my ground. I slammed my fist down on a table and yelled at her (but without wanting to hurt her) and said "You're wrong." When I slammed my fist down, I realized the "table" was actually an altar and the room we were in was actually a chapel. The little girl was standing in front of a stained glass window. The girl became an Angel. Her figure morphed into a figure beyond description. Through the window and through her shone a light from above that pierced my heart and transfixed me motionless in wondrous gaze.

The alarm clock rang. I could actually feel my soul and my waking self at the same moment. Eventually I realized I would have to fall down and wake up and get ready for the day, which I did. I could have stayed there forever. Just as everytime I meditate that same part of me never wants to leave the dark emptiness.

It's a drawback of the soul. A "subtle laziness" if you will. I understand it though. The light is its true home, not this super-slowly moving nearly God-forsaken plane. This realm, though its Isness is Divine, is still a crapper in a lot of ways. These are "Dark Times" even though there is the possibility for real opening and technological advance.

I had what one might call "mystical" experiences as a child. Then I lost them through my rational adolescent years. No drugs, no sex--never really had any liminal type experiences, except a few fairly paltry states of being in the zone on a court. When the experiences returned, starting about age 22, they were initially, in terms of their features, not Christian. They were fairly universalist, and at times actually had more seeming connection to Buddhist and/or Pagan symbolism than anything resembling Christian cues.

That dream was the first and still only easily identifiable and overtly "Christian" mystical experience I have ever had. The experience that shifted parts of me permanently to a soul level was a kundalini experience, again not exactly typical Christian fare. That dream however was the most vivid experience of the Light I have ever had. Was the deepest soul level experience. That fact brings me great consolation. The Soul is the seat of my passion to be a priest, a teacher, a prophet, a warrior. Those are my deepest identities, one day even those will have to be detached (as an exclusive identity).

I will gladly put down my sword when my life ends. No more questions about bioterrorism, lack of medical care, un and underemployment, political repression, inter-religious violence, materialist reductionism, prejudice, myopia, pandemics, the ethics of biotechnology. All of that will dissipate.

All of which are perspectives, important ones. There is Another however. The Right Heart. Where I always already interiorly smirking, interiorly giddy, as I/we plunge into this sea of Relativity, knowing it is a game, but a game of consequence.

The snail pace's of development. Incredible ideas out there, but no seeming way to get
in-volved. Done working at the airport. Thank God. As great as it could be (re: the pragmatic visionary-ism of Radical Middle, 2% Solution, The Opportunity) it is still in many ways a back-breaking fallen world. The monotony, the anomie of it all. The specter of Empire, of Techne, the relentless flatenning drive of instrumental reason, corporate conglomeration. All have had their (limited) place. All can be worked with in a very good, balanced, sane way. Still, it's a broken, rough world.

This is a very crucial moment and our leadership (of both so-called political parties) is failling us. Both more concerned about strategic short term victories, stoking their so-called bases and ponying up to their lobbyists/fund raisers to do any real work. Very few shinning lights stand out (McCains, Bidens and so on).

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown alone seem to understand what is needed for Europe. Chirac and Schroeder continue their long decline into oblivion. The Far Right continues to gain strength in Europe--raising the old fearsome ghosts...anti-Semitism (of both Jews and Arabs, or did we forget Jews and Arabs are both Semites).

Iran is probably the scariest. The administration has to ratchet up the pressure on them. It's pretty much clear in my mind that they are building a bomb. What the hell do we do about that though? Invade Iran? Regime Change? Exactly how is that going to happen? Are we going to round up every ayatollah, mullah, and Shia Cleric? Invade a country far more prosperous, populous, and enormous with the Rumsfieldian Doctrine of "Do it on the Cheap and Crappy."

How many insurgents are there in Iraq? 50,000? 75? 100? You don't think Hezbollah and a few groups could raise that kind of an insurgency in Iran? Ethnically and religiously homogenous Iran?

To my mind the "Supreme Council of the Wise" or whatever they call themselves saw the writing on the wall. They are part of the (unfortunately named) Axis of Evil. One member of that triad has nukes and is left basically untouched (North Korea). One did not--though we claimed they were making them--and was uprooted. Solution--get some nukes. What else? Now, it appears that Iran was already underway with their operation pre the Axis of Evil speech, but that did nothing but accelerate the progress.

45 million people should not be uninsured in this country. 270 million plus should not be so uneducated about the world and about how our country affects it. We should not have 50% of the most powerful nation in the history of the planet not voting. We should not have people working 40 hours a week and not being able to take care of their families. We should not be left with either a unilaterialist hard power solution to everything (Bush) nor a inherent fear of going it alone (Liberals). We are an empire and we should start acting like a responsible one--both at home and abroad.

Bush refuses to see that the three biggest looming domestic issues directly connect to the larger international ones--i.e. the coming retirement and extended lifespan of the Boomers, the abymsal state of education in this country, and our dependence on foreign oil.