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I Am Sorry, but it takes smarts. . . .

When I hear the words hitting my soft spot with a why should I worry?  You do such a good job of it! I want to be mean and snarky and say we would still be crawling on our bellies if we did not have those who gave thought that this mode of travel  would be hazardous to the health of upright humans.

But I am certain that upright humans probably were not in a future of non thinkers.  Not everyone has the ability to trudge a perilous territory seeking out reasons for problems.  It takes immense knowledge to see connections when events appear to have no connection.

Immense for the time when common thought sees no problem at all.  And that is the kicker.  Common thought.  For those who are new to my work, I update this previous essay.

My mother, the Jenny, was an orphan adopted at 8, by owners of a barroom. To not go back to the orphanage, she learned to work hard to survive, emptying spittoons and scrubbing wood floors. She became a worrier also because she was late every day running to parochial school and being punished by the nuns.   She escaped by marrying too young and giving birth to 8 children.

All she knew to survive was to anticipate problems.  All 8 of us became professional worriers.  Four of us still survive, the eldest within 2 years of a hundred and the younger babe at 87.  We 4 are still expert at worrying.

 When the doctor stood at the door of the ward and mourned the death of the newborns and their mothers,  he observed the young doctors moving from one bed to another.  He noted also they only wiped detritus from their hands with a dirty rag.  Could they be carrying something from one to the other?  So he instituted the washing of hands between patients.  And the babies stopped dying and so did their mothers.

He connected the dots.  He worried long and hard enough and came to conclusions.  Worry is an advanced form of thinking.  It is impossible for some people because they simply do not know enough to see cause and effect.

Most do not know how to encircle the problem.  To have a human being who understands the fuller picture,  we have to introduce more levels of experience.

When this planet, our Earth, is called a classroom, it is because of advanced classes of education.  One crisis after another is chosen to further our advancement of chosen work.  When we complete a class, we move on.  It is with ultimate concern we who see the devastation of this natural classroom worry that future generations will not have it.

It is with a sacred blush that we who have loved it to distraction ask that its inhabitants become worriers.  Study the behaviors that have led to these elements of crises before our beloved best school be destroyed.  Not everyone knows enough to worry.  Let us be the smart ones.

Perhaps we who worry can do something because we know only an advanced form of thinking now will save us.

art by Claudia Hallissey

(When asked often lately, how to survive as a mystic in today’s secular world, sometimes the questions just need a repetition of previous work.  I edit for space.)

Previous entry the Teacher speaks. . .

When your mentor, the Nazarene,  thought man should be accountable, he did not wish for man to keep coming back and lamenting his ancestor’s anguish and never lift himself out of his mire.  He wished for every lifetime to be accountable. 

This is what making a difference is all about.  Not to become responsible for our ancestor’s inability to fulfill dreams.  Nothing can be done except by those who tied the knots.  The ones who did not meet obligations are needing forgiveness by their progeny.  There are enough worlds for this to happen in. 

Let their gods work it out and take them as responsibility.  It is not for the child to undo the parent’s tribulations.  Let the children be free to make a difference and the whole planet will survive as well as the people in it.  It will be a classroom of supreme order and not the hellish place it is today.

Continuing that entry I wrote. . . Like Machiavelli’s letter to Vettori, I put on my evening clothes (which in my case were flannel pajamas, ) and went to my table of books where I sat with my teachers of yore.  I, too, was lovingly received by them, where I pestered with arguments the injustices done to my world.  And answered by reason what their arguments were for the day.

I was revived in mind and attitude and went into sleep preparing again for the day’s events.  Like Machiavelli, the starving mind of me was fed and feasted on thoughts designed for the credentialed.  I was taught what no university could or was able to teach.  And given information only the gods in their compassion were able to garner and assimilate.

With understanding of the behaviors of peoples never to be voiced and nor even easy to live with.   It brings to mind the understanding of the word ‘expert’ the fledgling grandson in his growing knowledge of new words announced at dinner, ‘expert is a person who knows too much.’  And I followed with ‘and has nowhere to go.’

July 14, 2019. . .added notes today. . .for those who question how possible to live today like this.  There were those who say my life was not normal and neither were my interests.  All lives are different in ways peculiar to others. I came with an open head and one foot dragging in the world I came from before I was born.

Married young, we were of moderate means with no money for household help so I raised our children,   and in the vernacular, I painted and papered and mowed lawns and did yard work and appeared in public; an average life with no appetite for frolicking.

One does not need to take to the woods, (I sorely wanted to) nor to the mountain top.  Those are within.   But heaven does heed the crash at the gates.

Often with a ‘well, look who’s here!’  So the journey begins.

                                                                             Words Wound. . . Evolution Halts. . .

Children are wounded when they first tell a truth that is uncomfortable or embarrassing to their audience.  And no doubt it is a much loved parent the child is excitedly telling something.

But realizing they are saying something hurtful or worse laughable when the child speaks his truth, the next time the child is careful to doctor his words.  And each time it becomes easier and finally stories  change with each telling.

So is born a compulsive liar.  Knowing the present version of what they are saying is met with no hostility and is okay, the practice continues.

That they are never believed is a small price to pay compared to the remembered pain of truth telling, which they eventually put to sleep.

I have long thought that to call lying sinful was harsh because lies are told to avoid pain.  Lies are a learned behavior to give what information is wanted or more acceptable.

Misdemeanors are different than sins.  Sins are different than psychological impairments.  And impairments of judgments are not dismissed because lessons must be learned.

It is the deeply wounded child stunted in the adult who continues with the outright lies and dismisses these with a no big deal attitude.

It becomes a way of life and credibility has no meaning since they have never known it.  And what you don’t know you cannot relate to and what you don’t know you do not miss.

Children tell truth with no premeditation.  It is when they are punished for truth telling which generally is first a verbatim account of where they came from and what they remember.  That they learn to whitewash the truth and stories seem more fanciful is no surprise.

What was thought would be ways to alleviate the pain but too often learned was to stay away from the place where the pain was inflicted.  Sometimes that is home for the child and therefore becomes a place to run from.

Sometimes people, often parents, are causes and then they too are avoided.  Often it is school and the child becomes a dropout.  Often also, one does not learn new ways of speaking, but one learns how not to open oneself to more pain.

Evolution grinds to a halt and the adult in his dotage clutches the inner child to his grave.  Wars continue and peace becomes a nebulous promise.  But it is a work and it begins here, with us.