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Tag: finding God

Something Special is Happening

December 25, 2013

[An old draft recently discovered, transcribed and edited.]

Had to share this post from someone i saw on Facebook early this morning. Woke up at 3:45 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. So i surfed for a while. I usually avoid religious posts. I don’t Like them or UnLike them. I just don’t pay attention to them. Any kind of public religious zealotry tends to turn me off, whether it’s pro-religious or anti-religious. Atheists are some of the most religiously zealot people you’d ever not want to meet, though they don’t realize it. But many of them are prone to the same kind of proselytizing that radical evangelicals or Muslims are. Personally I find it peculiar, the apparently dire need some people seem to have to profess preach or proselytize their faith to others. Especially in a mixed setting like Facebook or other social media websites where we’re sure to encounter people from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures, faiths and religious traditions. Chances are, we’re most likely in the minority; if not due to our religion per se — Christianity is after all a surprisingly popular religion globally — but in our desire or willingness to talk about it publicly. When religious views are so personal; when we are fully aware that our own personal religious views are not being solicited by others… and are most likely not even welcomed.

It’s akin to running around town buck-naked, this trend to go social with your religious views. We all get naked when we have to. That’s a given. It’s a fact of life we all quietly and humbly accept. But we don’t find many people asking anyone else to show it to them publicly. At least not if they’re sane or rational folk. Public displays of religion have always struck me in a similar fashion. Not only is your own nudity generally unwelcome in public places, it can also more often than not just be downright insulting to some; this assumption that everyone wants to see your wanker flopping around in the wind. So if you live in a world where everyone does their best to be respectful, you simply keep your clothes on in public. The same rule should apply to waving our religious flag all over the place every time you open your mouth or type something publicly. I’m not against religion. Certainly not against being religious. Obviously. I just believe that it’s a very personal thing. It’s hard to pull off publicly pronouncing one’s faith when it wasn’t requested in the first place.

When it comes to religion, especially as it relates to Christianity in the United States, there is an unspoken — unfortunately sometimes spoken — idea that some people have that “their way” is the “one true” or “best way” there is, insinuating that all other religions are somehow inferior to theirs — simply because they aren’t christian. When someone posts something super religious unsolicited in a social media arena for all the world to see, knowing damn well that the majority of the people who will see it don’t share their views, it comes across snobbish, holier than thou, cocky, sometimes downright insulting. But if you go deeper, and attempt to view them in a respectful way, it may not be as cocky or snobbish as it is just ignorant; just not being as aware as most people. I try to view it that way sometimes. To give them the benefit of the doubt.

So yes, I do tend to respectfully ignore those ultra-religious posts by others, regardless of which faith tradition they happen to entertain themselves with. For all the reasons listed above. Every now and then though something will catch me. This morning was one such occurrence. Perhaps it’s because it’s the middle of the night and I’m still half asleep. Or perhaps it’s because it just really resonated with me. We won’t know for years really… till this post becomes a forgotten re-read. But what grabbed me was a prayer. A simple prayer. A public prayer. Hung out to dry in the wind for all the neighbors to see. Just so happened that what this person posted resonated strongly with me; probably because I’ve been praying the same damn prayer nearly word for word for weeks now myself.

I’ve felt a strong compulsion to pray a lot more and connect with the Divine a lot more lately. Not sure why. Something special is happening. Has happened. Something bigger than usual, larger than just me or “us”. And I cannot help but feel that it doesn’t have to be inherently religious for those that choose not to go “there”. But science has now discovered a cosmology that is big enough, expansive enough, (magical enough if you will) to allow for this kind of thought and still permit “rational thinking” for those who normally would never venture into those waters.

It isn’t like the old days — ten yeas ago? Five years ago? Even one year ago? Where one had to choose between being religious or being intelligent, sane, rational or logically minded. We can clearly see that in times past this was a choice that one had to make. All of the great faith traditions or religions that humankind has come up with (excepting Buddhism, which is NOT a religion in the strict sense) have been rather kooky, to put it kindly. They’re filled with contradictions and hypocrisy, legends and myths so glaringly unrealistic and manmade that you’d feel a fool to take them seriously. Once you study them that is. [And let us remember that a lot of religious people never make it to that point — which is why I recommend being as respectful as possible when interacting with someone overtly religious. They’re raised in a religious household and they never reach a point where they study it from a historical or academic perspective. They just take it at face value. Based on what they were taught as children. It’s important to remind ourselves of this; for perspective and respect.]

But for those who have taken the time to study the world’s religions, or even their own, it becomes apparent rather quickly just how insanely irrational and made up they all are. Usually this leads to a slingshot kind of reaction. One minute you’re religious and the next minute you’re super anti-religious. A logical pragmatist. A realist. Some even go so far as calling themselves atheists, though that’s a religion too. The anti-religion religion. The smartest minds will tend toward an open minded agnosticism. Which is where most of the civilized world seems to comfortably rest now in consciousness and in our cultural tendencies. But this Divine Force still pulses out there. In here. It’s still alive. Living. Existing. Creating. Sustaining. How involved It is in OUR day to day lives, one cannot be sure. How available It is to us even, we can’t be sure. But there’s nothing wrong with trying. No harm in it. In fact I’ve always found it to be a beneficial endeavor.

Which is where we started here roughly an hour ago. The sun is rising now. I will drift back to sleep soon. But not without first praying. I almost always fall asleep praying. Whether it’s night time or day. A full sleep or a half hour nap. Just what or who we are praying to… that’s a difficult thing to qualify. For everyone the image is probably different. I once heard a friend casually explain to a small group of us that he almost always prays to Jesus “because he was human” and he finds it easier to pray to “something he can understand”. I found this idea remarkably peculiar. Only because I personally feel the exact opposite of this. I tend to shy away from “praying” to Jesus on a regular basis — precisely because he is/was a human. I see him more as a conduit to the Divine, rather than a divine force himself…  Not that I “don’t believe” that “Jesus was God”. I would never claim to know either way. Frankly I don’t know how anyone can make a decision about that one way or the other. I wouldn’t dare. So I remain optimistically open-minded about it. But when I pray I tend to pray to “something very large, expansive, all-knowing, all-loving, compassionate and omnipresent”, something that is big enough to hold the entire universe in its mind and/or beingness and yet small enough to fit inside the smallest sub-atomic particle. But see, that’s MY version of the Divine. Surely very different than the next person’s.

The question is, can God (the Goddess? Not gender based at all? Completely removed, evolved beyond gender-based organisms…?) be flexible, pliable, malleable enough to encompass all that we attribute to it and yet still BE what IT IS in reality? If anything? I’d venture to guess yes, He/She/It can. And does. And it is precisely at this time in OUR evolution that we are beginning to see and understand this. Surely God / the Divine already gets all this. Waiting for us to get it. Slowly but surely it seems as though more and more of us are coming around. As I’ve already recounted numerous times here in the past, I didn’t find God or religion as much as IT found me. The gift of that is not lost on me. I still remain exceedingly grateful for those experiences. For I know very well what it’s like to use one’s head to try to “figure God out”. It’s a maddening process. Your heart may long for one thing but your head always gets in the way. Logic and reason. Without some kind of a super-natural or paranormal experience one is usually left with just human logic and reason. God doesn’t tend to fit too easily into a rational logical view of the world. Especially when approached through the small minded lens of one or any of the world’s major religions. But once God finds you, once you come face to face with It, heart to heart, mind to mind, soul to soul, once you FEEL this divine presence, or hear it… it’s hard to deny it, no matter what logic or reason or rational thinking tell you.

And now we’ve caught up, scientifically speaking, to just how grand this God-construct can be or possibly is. Our science is expanding way beyond what it used to be, how small it used to be. Physicists are finally starting to create cosmological constructs that are expansive enough to make room for this Divine force. And thus prayer can be not only possible, but encouraged. At the very least for experimental purposes. (And that’s out of respect for the still-purely logical pragmatists who find the existence of an external Divine force in the universe unlikely). But for many, ones who have extended beyond that kind of thinking, or who, like me, have experienced something other-worldly that has permanently shifted their views, prayer just may be the fastest way for us to get to the bottom of what this special thing is that we’ve been calling God for so many thousands of years. I am most fascinated imagining what our beliefs will be like in another ten years, or another fifty, or one-hundred, pertaining to this Divine force. Who will strike theistic gold first? The scientists? Or the spiritual? Or will it be a more subtle vectoring of both worlds simultaneously? A sudden realization of the merging of both worlds without a deliberate attempt to do so…? Seems very likely. But we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime it’s certainly an intriguing proposition.

– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone



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Uncategorized agnostics, atheists, cosmology, facebook, finding God, holier than thou, personal religious views, praying, praying to find God, science discoering God, The Divine

article 2019-04-29 124625_3.html

June 27, 2005
Still in awe over that church experience.

There is this antibiotic that the doctor has me on called leviquin. This is the fourth night in the row I have experienced this. it is now 3:21 am and I am wide awake. If you take it before bed you will at some point become aware during your sleep that you are sleeping and dreaming. It is a restless sleep to say the least, but filled with very vivid dreams, more like hallucinations. Filled with wild imagery and color. I have gotten two beautiful songs out of this drug so far, both while sleeping/dreaming. In the last dream I was just having I was dancing through a field with this young boy and Trophy wife, the singer. and we were in this imaginary world like hr puff and stuff or pee wee herman or neverland. All these rivers and tress and butterflies and we were just singing this gorgeous song together that we were making up as we went along. Finally I just thought this is enough, I’m going to wake up and record this song into a tape recorder. This is to good not to get down. So I snapped myself out of the dream and recorded some and now I’m just sitting here writing because my brain is moving so fast. it feels like speed. I cannot believe they release this stuff onto the market and just dish it out to regular unsuspecting people who trust whatever their doctor says. [and here’s the thing, I only take one half at a time because I’m just that way. more people die in America every year from legally prescribed prescription drugs than any other preventable cause. It’s the number one cause of death in America. I forget the number but its ridiculous. Like you hear it and you can’t believe it. so I always take really small doses of everything. I couldn’t imagine if I were taking whole tablets. I’d be jumping off the walls. But it has cured my ear ache pretty fast.]

Another side effect is this itching. My whole body itches. And this sucks. But it is worth this hallucinatory effect to be sure. My mind feels on fire almost. I would almost call it anxiety but I kind of like it, so I don’t mind waking up like this in the middle of the night to type or think or sing for an hour or two. If I did, I’d be hating life. but just what it does to the mind is so freaky and refreshing and exciting, I’m kind of welcoming the million miles an hour rapid thoughts. One caveat: this drug cost $368 for the bottle so this isn’t a cheap high, but worth it if you can get just a few. Also, its an anti-biotic, so its not the healthiest thing to be taking recreationally. If you’re up for it though and into mind exploration, this would be one to try. and I’m talking about purely scientific purposes here of course. if you’re into psychotropic drug research. I would almost classify this as a nootropic because the ideas fly out so fast.

Something I had come to understand tonight. about the whole girls saga that I write about endlessly. Quick before I lose my nerve to set it to paper. the thing is this. if you meet someone and they aren’t the someone, meaning you may have this great chemistry with them and be moderately attracted to them, but you aren’t head over heels with them, then of course yes the natural tendency is to want to hang with them. of course. so in me, that desire, its natural. Its not wrong. and all this time I had been making myself wrong for wanting to date all these girls who weren’t ‘the one.’ so for a long time now I haven’t been allowing myself to do it at all. but here’s the catch. If you already know they’re not the one. if you already feel that. that you’re not going to or not capable of or not going to be desirous of having a mid to long term affair with them, but just kind of in it because its moderately amusing or they are intellectually stimulating or you have fun with them, then you have to tell them from the beginning. You can’t just be dating them and playing along for your own selfish reasons because they’re fun in the moment. because to them you might be someone they really like. And its easy to use that to your advantage. But you can’t. you see its like if you meet the woman of your dreams and she introduces you to all these guys she went out with who you kind of say to yourself ‘well how the hell did you go out with him?’ its like that. we as men have to have the same kind of discrepancy that we expect girls to have. which normally we don’t. we just go out with whatever girl we can so we can shag them. because after all that’s our natural instinct, to do as many girls as possible. But we all know what happens after we bag a babe. Normally we lose interest pretty quickly. And that sucks for that girl and then it sucks for us because we feel guilty. And then we lose them as a friend. so the thing is about being real. Its about being real with ourselves and with the girl. Wow. that’s some heavy shit. I just never saw it through to its conclusion like that. I think this may have something to do with being a man. with being a gentleman. I think it may even be something like you can in the end actually date the girls because you may really enjoy certain things about them, but you just need to be totally upfront with them and let them know from the start that you’re friends. Kind of like girls do with us. you know how they do that? I know, it sucks. But they have that capacity. And we usually don’t. we’ll just lead any girl on just so we can sleep with them. but again, I think we have to start taking that attribute of women and applying it ourselves.  There will be a lot less conflict and battle of the sexes going on if we’re upfront like that.

Last screening: frank Lloyd Wright biography by ken burns. Wow, what a crazy one. inspiring though disconcerting. Let us hope that it is possible to achieve the same level of genius without the same degree of dishonesty and creepiness.

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Uncategorized chemistry, finding God, Labels: attraction, leviquin, medications, transcendence diaries

Still in awe over the church experience

June 27, 2005

Still in awe over that church experience.

There is this antibiotic that the doctor has me on called leviquin. This is the fourth night in the row I have experienced this. it is now 3:21 am and I am wide awake. If you take it before bed you will at some point become aware during your sleep that you are sleeping and dreaming. It is a restless sleep to say the least, but filled with very vivid dreams, more like hallucinations. Filled with wild imagery and color. I have gotten two beautiful songs out of this drug so far, both while sleeping/dreaming. In the last dream I was just having I was dancing through a field with this young boy and Trophy wife, the singer. and we were in this imaginary world like hr puff and stuff or pee wee herman or neverland. All these rivers and tress and butterflies and we were just singing this gorgeous song together that we were making up as we went along. Finally I just thought this is enough, I’m going to wake up and record this song into a tape recorder. This is to good not to get down. So I snapped myself out of the dream and recorded some and now I’m just sitting here writing because my brain is moving so fast. it feels like speed. I cannot believe they release this stuff onto the market and just dish it out to regular unsuspecting people who trust whatever their doctor says. [and here’s the thing, I only take one half at a time because I’m just that way. more people die in America every year from legally prescribed prescription drugs than any other preventable cause. It’s the number one cause of death in America. I forget the number but its ridiculous. Like you hear it and you can’t believe it. so I always take really small doses of everything. I couldn’t imagine if I were taking whole tablets. I’d be jumping off the walls. But it has cured my ear ache pretty fast.]

Another side effect is this itching. My whole body itches. And this sucks. But it is worth this hallucinatory effect to be sure. My mind feels on fire almost. I would almost call it anxiety but I kind of like it, so I don’t mind waking up like this in the middle of the night to type or think or sing for an hour or two. If I did, I’d be hating life. but just what it does to the mind is so freaky and refreshing and exciting, I’m kind of welcoming the million miles an hour rapid thoughts. One caveat: this drug cost $368 for the bottle so this isn’t a cheap high, but worth it if you can get just a few. Also, its an anti-biotic, so its not the healthiest thing to be taking recreationally. If you’re up for it though and into mind exploration, this would be one to try. and I’m talking about purely scientific purposes here of course. if you’re into psychotropic drug research. I would almost classify this as a nootropic because the ideas fly out so fast.

Something I had come to understand tonight. about the whole girls saga that I write about endlessly. Quick before I lose my nerve to set it to paper. the thing is this. if you meet someone and they aren’t the someone, meaning you may have this great chemistry with them and be moderately attracted to them, but you aren’t head over heels with them, then of course yes the natural tendency is to want to hang with them. of course. so in me, that desire, its natural. Its not wrong. and all this time I had been making myself wrong for wanting to date all these girls who weren’t ‘the one.’ so for a long time now I haven’t been allowing myself to do it at all. but here’s the catch. If you already know they’re not the one. if you already feel that. that you’re not going to or not capable of or not going to be desirous of having a mid to long term affair with them, but just kind of in it because its moderately amusing or they are intellectually stimulating or you have fun with them, then you have to tell them from the beginning. You can’t just be dating them and playing along for your own selfish reasons because they’re fun in the moment. because to them you might be someone they really like. And its easy to use that to your advantage. But you can’t. you see its like if you meet the woman of your dreams and she introduces you to all these guys she went out with who you kind of say to yourself ‘well how the hell did you go out with him?’ its like that. we as men have to have the same kind of discrepancy that we expect girls to have. which normally we don’t. we just go out with whatever girl we can so we can shag them. because after all that’s our natural instinct, to do as many girls as possible. But we all know what happens after we bag a babe. Normally we lose interest pretty quickly. And that sucks for that girl and then it sucks for us because we feel guilty. And then we lose them as a friend. so the thing is about being real. Its about being real with ourselves and with the girl. Wow. that’s some heavy shit. I just never saw it through to its conclusion like that. I think this may have something to do with being a man. with being a gentleman. I think it may even be something like you can in the end actually date the girls because you may really enjoy certain things about them, but you just need to be totally upfront with them and let them know from the start that you’re friends. Kind of like girls do with us. you know how they do that? I know, it sucks. But they have that capacity. And we usually don’t. we’ll just lead any girl on just so we can sleep with them. but again, I think we have to start taking that attribute of women and applying it ourselves.  There will be a lot less conflict and battle of the sexes going on if we’re upfront like that.

Last screening: frank Lloyd Wright biography by ken burns. Wow, what a crazy one. inspiring though disconcerting. Let us hope that it is possible to achieve the same level of genius without the same degree of dishonesty and creepiness.



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Uncategorized attraction, being a gentleman, chemistry, dating girls who aren't the one, finding God, leviquin, prescription drugs, side effects, sleeping and dreaming

article 2019-04-29 124625_4.html

June 26, 2005
Today I had an opportunity to feel what it felt like to get a “worry” and then in that moment to say to myself, “well wouldn’t it be cool if instead of fretting over this, I could just enjoy the ride, maybe learn something from it, maybe not, but either way, just enjoy the experience. What if I didn’t look at it like a situation that I need to be fretful over or worry over? What if I just took as part of the ride?

[what is it with new Yorkers calling Florida ‘flarida?’ don’t they see that there’s an ‘o’ in the word Florida? what is that? and what is it with that word anyway? Florida? if you look at it for a while and say it a few times, it takes on this whole other quality… Florida. what kind of a word is that anyway? Florida? have to look it up. be right back…

the other thing I was thinking about while listening to some bible reading in church today was this: what the hell are we doing reading or paying any attention to for that matter the history of the Jews? I mean, the old testament is after all nothing more than a series of thousands of years of Jewish history. And respectfully one can understand the importance these historical documents might hold for Jewish people. that’s their history. Their tradition. So if they want to sit around every Sunday and read it, that’s cool. we would expect it. good for them. But as I looked around the church this morning I’m noticing that there aren’t any Jewish people in the hall. We’re not from Israel. None of us. And I’m thinking, so what the hell are we all doing studying this story about this cat named Abraham who was about to kill his son Issaac as a sacrifice to his God? I mean, say what you will, but I think that’s pretty fucking psychotic, and this whole old testament is psychotic. Its just one crazy story after another. But that’s beside the point. But truly, what the hell does that have to do with us. I mean, as Americans I understand that we don’t have any tradition or real history that dates back too far because we’re too new of a country, so if we want to look for some kind of meaning or spiritual significance in old traditions and history texts like people do with the old testament then we’re going to have to go back to the ancient writings of whatever country we’re from. for me that would be England and Italy. For other people that might be Greece or Ireland or some African country or Scotland or Russia or where ever. But sitting around reading the old testament as a bunch of Americans/Europeans just makes no sense when you look at it in the bigger picture. Its quite silly and makes no sense.

Regardless of all of this, because of course I could go on forever, and millions have — go to Amazon.com or any library in the world and check out the religious & inspirational, philosophy, theology, or comparative religion sections; hundreds of millions of words have been penned by humankind espousing countless ideas over thousands of years about God and religion and the like and none of it is any more significant now than it ever has been; at least it won’t be until an actual God shows up or an afterlife magically appears (and trust me, I’m not one to doubt the ability of humankind to create anything we want to eventually just by sheer thought-energy and our pure desire for either to exist, but for now its all up in the air). So even these words… as important as they may seem to me, as they have to millions who have come before me, are absolutely meaningless when it comes to the greater questions that befuddle our limited understanding of life in this grand universe.  

But again, with all that said, I must make note here today as I have many Sundays prior, that this whole church thing I have been experiencing has been quite the miracle in my life as of late. call it what you will. I’m certainly not a religious man. I think I’m the only American alive who hasn’t seen Mel Gibson’s Jesus box office smash and if I’m lucky I never will. I don’t condone that kind of revisionist history. I don’t care what your religious beliefs are. you want to make a movie about an important religious figure then study your history first. and then make your movie. Tell the truth. or try to. with Jesus it would be hard because there are so many contradictory versions of his life. but at least try. show that you care. Show that there are at least two, three, four, different stories there that are all plausible. And until we address those we are never going to get beyond the myths that we continue to propagate century after century. No different than what the Romans or Greeks were doing with their God-myths. Nuf said.

So I’m certainly not religious, but something is happening to me and to my heart with this force that I call God. its speaking to me, its guiding me. and it feels great. I mean, I walk out of there every week kicking my heels and feeling truly blessed. God has really entered my life and he/she/it seems o.k. that I have these questions and concerns. And that my friends is what God is or should be all about. its all about the love. Its just love. And all these war mongering crazies out there killing people in the name of God are just the pretenders on the throne. One day the light will come to bear these truths to be self evident. Until then, we keep quiet and do our best to love each other as much as we can.
————————————————-
Great brunch today with tomcat and his new babe from Nigeria. Got started on the whole 9/11 saga. He is to forward me a bunch of research reports and studies of sept 11 that are being conducted now by research teams in Canada that are pointing to more cover-ups and more evidence that the American government was indeed behind the whole thing and that’s why Bush didn’t flinch when he heard the news. and why the entire bin laden family was secretly escorted out of the country on private jets as soon as the towers were hit. And more and more connections between bush family and bin laden family which everyone’s at this point and evidence that points to that guy who got beheaded in Pakistan Daniel pearl actually being a reporter who was about to blow the lid on the whole thing and show the American gov was behind it, so they got him and used that whole ‘we’re a bunch of scary crazy Muslims wearing masks’ thing as a scare tactic to win favor and support for the continued killing going on in Iraq and they killed him. hey who knows. I mean, really, at this point who knows. all we can do as tomcat says is keep building our own little nest egg and keep quiet. because if it is true all that means is that they’re going to come after us if we open our mouths too wide. And boy don’t we know that’s the truth. just ask David koresh. Oh yeah, we can’t, because they burned him alive with a hundred and seventy nine other people on live TV. At one point tomcat looks up at me and says, ‘but you know bro, for all of that it still bothers me. I still have to go work everyday and know that my money is going to pay for killing all these Iraqis. I’m paying 36% of my hard earned money in taxes and its going to pay for people dying over there.’ he sips his coffee. ‘We’re killing people. we have blood on our hands. All of us. every single one of us who is paying taxes. And we can’t do anything about it.’ I couldn’t have said it better myself. so I just looked at the tomcat as if I were looking in the mirror.

I didn’t say anything back to tomcat. I just let him sit there and stare at me looking for an answer. the problem is is that he is right. we can’t do anything about it. America has always invaded other countries. All big countries have. America started out by invading America. Remember we aren’t Americans. We are the invaders still. the occupiers. We only call it our land and our country because we have the biggest guns still. and then America invaded Mexico and now they call it Texas. America invaded Korea and grenada and Vietnam. The people of big countries don’t mind when they’re government invades other countries as long as they still have their Coke and their sex and the city and their p diddy and their fritos and queer eye TV. Big governments know this. so they keep on invading and they’ll use every trick in the book to keep on doing it. and our taxes will keep on paying for it because we can’t do a damn thing about it. we can bitch and moan and complain and protest but its not going to do any good. Vietnam taught us that.

Take a look at the countries that didn’t choose to invade Iraq: France and Germany. Well study their history. Shit they know what invading other countries gets you. eventual revolutions and if you’re not careful eventually retaliatory attacks on your own land. So they butt out. 9/11 taught us that. should have at least. but our government hasn’t learned that one yet. and maybe they never will until it really hits home. and for us, the people of this great twisted wreck of bitter irony that we are, that will be a sad fucking day. because the truth is that we the people aren’t invading any countries. We’re not even in Iraq. Our government is. in our names. And with out tax dollars. So if the blow of justice and revenge ever lands upon these tired soils it will not come as surprise to a few of us. that’s just the hand of nature dealing the cards out.

Last screening: batman begins. well they finally did it. Hollywood finally made a good batman movie. In fact batman begins is the first good superhero movie that’s ever been released. I know what you’re thinking if you’re a regular reader, because that would imply that you’re smart as hell and you don’t believe the hype. So you’re probably like me and saw that first batman piece of doo doo and felt so insulted and bored and over-hyped and over-sold that you wanted to run screaming out of the theatre and if you were lucky you never saw any of the sequels or any of the spiderman movies either. But I’m telling you, they finally got it right this time. Christian bale, the man everyone should remember from his excellent performance in the twisted masterpiece American psycho, made a great batman. Just fucking great. Remember when michale keaton was trying to play Bruce Wayne and batman and you felt uncool just being in the theatre watching it because it was so uncool. Well not with Christian bale. I’m not saying this was the godfather or anything. But trust me, it’s a good flick and good time. inspiring. This is what g lucas should have done with his sadly disappointing star wars follow-ups. Paper disguised as bread those were at best. But this little baby was pretty cool. and not so Hollywood. even though there are plenty of cool actors in it. of course liam neeson dies in it because I think he must have that written in his contracts – that he dies in every movie he’s in. Gary Oldman was good enough. Michale caine was surprisingly good, because for the past twenty years he’s just been so ‘fine just write me the check and give me the script and I’ll show up, I promise.’ But in this he’s pretty good. leaves a nice opening for a sequel. Lets hope they get it as good the second time as they did here.

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Uncategorized ethnicity, finding God, Labels: bible reading, Religion, transcendence diaries, women

More hours spent viewing and time-logging footage for the show

June 8, 2005

More hours spent viewing and time-logging footage for the show. Endless and overwhelming task but getting through it. a few hours spent talking to Lil Sis and boo boo. About how hard it is to feel centered and grounded in New York. so hard to feel comfort and secure and nurtured here. because the energy is so high all time. hard to get together with friends. Everyone so caught up in their quest to make their dream a reality. Everyone always working so hard and striving so hard you can live five blocks from someone and not see them for a month. Surrounded by people and still be very much alone most of the time. I had always heard this about New York but never knew it really till I moved here. but yes it is true. a week flies by so fast it feels like a day or two because you are working so hard and such long hours.

Fishy says:

holy cow! laurence and i are speaking about you right now!!! how weird

Rosie  says:

!!!

Rosie  says:

hey

Fishy says:

i jsut asked him where the heck is ro?

Fishy says:

standby i will copy and paste some good news for you so i dont have to retype

Fishy says:

your brother is in the middle of preaching jesus to me right now. as always.  standby…

Fishy says:

Fishy says:

i finally found a home-church here in manhattan after a nine month search.

Laurence-  says:

wow, and what does that exactly mean?

Rosie says:

great!!!!! im so pleased for u! so hows the serach going….like spiritually?

Fishy says:

its ok. i feel a strong god presence all the time now. he led me to go into this church one day when i was walking by and i was filled with the most spiritually fulfilling feeling of euphoria i had ever felt before

Rosie  says:

so you are feeling closer to the truth!!   that’s great!

Fishy says:

Well perhaps. or just blind hypnosis… religion is hypnosis… haha… but perhaps its ok

Fishy says:

of euphoria i had ever felt before. a sens of peace and joy and love and comfort and feeling that he is there for us and with us all the time. so i got the message and went back to the church that sunday

Rosie  says:

what ahhpend next

Rosie  says:

happend

Fishy says:

good stuff.

Rosie  says:

elaborate

Fishy says:

i went back to the church and felt immediately at home after going to different churches ever sunday for about nine months i knew i was home. couldnt explain it. felt like home. felt like old times. god spoke to me sort of like that and all of a sudden i felt this surge of him being very close to me and very close to this church.

Fishy says:

as if its a special place….

Rosie  says:

cool

Rosie  says:

what kind of church was it?

Fishy says:

christ church, united methodist

Rosie  says:

ok…so do you think that the God they worship is true?

Rosie  says:

based on the experience you had?

Fishy says:

the god? yes i guess. i know that i feel god, gods love, presence in our lives…

Fishy says:

i feel that we are all feeling someting akin to godness who are at that church…

Rosie  says:

that is wonderful

Rosie  says:

so…do you believe in the concept of salvation?

Fishy says:

i grew up in the church and went to christian schools so the community aspect is very importnat to me

Fishy says:

the spiritual community aspect of being with like minded people who walk the walk is importnat to me

Fishy says:

im jsut not sure about the details of the dogma…

Fishy says:

i do not beleive that humanity needs salvation from outside of itself…

Fishy says:

i beleive we can supply our own salvation.

Fishy says:

i know this to be true becasue it was me who supplied my own salvation in ’95 and onward… through discvoering the avatar tools and other tools that we can use to free ourselves of guilt and pain and regret and resentment and all that… it didnt come from outside of me. it came from me forgiving myself…. and then voila! i was happy and refreshed and filled with joy again

Fishy says:

i am sure god has something to do with it. i am sure of it. i pray to him eveyday and always have.

Rosie  says:

you know what Jesus taught about salvation right?

Fishy says:

tell me in your words

Rosie  says:

we cannot save our selves.  god requires complete purity/holiness from us and we cannot achieve that our selves.  jesus died for us so that we cam be completely forgiven and saved from our own sin

Rosie  says:

we just need to trust in him, surrender our sins to him (aknowledging we cannot save our selves and need him and his sacrifice).

Fishy says:

i did this many times when i was a teenager and became so to speak born again. but im jsut not there anymore in my heart or mind. but i am sure god understands… to be perfectly honest, i beleive that god if we dare utter the word cares alot more about who we are and how we are and how we act than he does about what we say we beleive or not.

Fishy says:

walk the walk. talking the talk is pretty insignificant. this is my beleif.

Rosie  says:

i get what you mean

Rosie  says:

but it says in the bible that

Rosie  says:

it is through Faith we are saved

Rosie  says:

not by works

Rosie  says:

lest any man should boast

Rosie  says:

(Romans)

Fishy says:

when god speaks to me i listen. when he asks me to do something i do it. i listen.

Fishy says:

remember, that im not such a holy book beleiver.

Fishy says:

its nothing against the christian bible or the koran or any of them. i really dont beleive in any of them… not the bagavad gita or the upanishads or the koran or or the torah or any of them… i do not beleive that man can know god well enough to write his words or ideas down.

Fishy says:

this is my own personal beleif. god is in our hearts perhaps and can come through in our actions and how we appear to the world but not through written words that try to represent what god is thinking or saying.

Rosie  says:

but if god is Jesus, then much of the new testement is just a history account about an encounter with god on earth

Fishy says:

fascinating ideas in the above sentence rosie…

Fishy says:

and one can go on forever pondering these ideas… unfortunaly we will never know. humankind will prob never know…

Fishy says:

for 2000 years we have pondered those ideas and millions of people have been killed because of them. everyone fighting over things like this.

Fishy says:

its best for us to move beyond all that and to jsut live by a human code of love and peace and morality and ethics and respect…

Rosie  says:

that’s well and good in principle

Rosie  says:

but try it

Rosie  says:

it’s impossible

Rosie  says:

if we really could live by a human code of love and peace and morality and ethics and respect…

Fishy says:

i find it easy. especially if i pray everyday.

Rosie  says:

we would not need god to save us

Fishy says:

i pray to god to help me be true to my heart of hearts. i think holy books — no matter which religion they are from — only confuse humans.

Fishy says:

osama bin laden and george w bush are two great examples of religious people confused by holy books….

Rosie  says:

yeah…but if the Bible is true…it changes everything

Rosie  says:

if it is just a false religious book then of course you are right

Rosie  says:

but if it is tru

Rosie  says:

e

Fishy says:

well every religion could say that. and they do. so who are we humans supposed to beleive?

Rosie  says:

then it changes our definition of truth

Rosie  says:

exactly

Rosie  says:

only God can show us

Fishy says:

that isnt even fair to think about…. really. its exclusionary to humanity.

Rosie  says:

and he will

Fishy says:

well i hope he does eventually show us because im sick of reading the history of humankind killing each other over these very silly arguments…

Fishy says:

its nice that we created a god concept. its an awesome idea. now lets live up to it. lets make god proud.

Rosie  says:

of course

Rosie  says:

interesting

Fishy says:

yes….

Rosie  says:

but what if the only way we can make him proud is to surrender to him and let him cleanse and save us

Fishy says:

thought youd like that chickie

Fishy says:

i know….

Fishy says:

jsut gonna have to wait till god comes down and tells us what the hell is going on!

Fishy says:

cause none of us know…

Fishy says:

until then we still have music and movies and dancing and lovemaking and romance and all that….

Rosie  says:

well he came once and the next time it comes it will be too late

Fishy says:

I don’t agree

Rosie  says:

then it says Every Knee Shall Bow, Every Tounge Confess that Jesus Chrict is Lord

Fishy says:

do you think maybe that i am the second coming?

Fishy says:

i look like jesus….

Fishy says:

do you remember when i was sporting that beard?

Fishy says:

hahahaha!!!

Rosie  says:

well…i think you can answer that for your self my dear Fishy!!

Rosie  says:

but you are cool!!!

Fishy says:

hahahah

Fishy says:

that would be funny if i were the messiah and didnt know it…

Fishy says:

at least you could get into clubs for free…

Rosie  says:

well the messiah will and does no it

Rosie  says:

well u can do that anyway already because you are such a rock star

Fishy says:

lol

Rosie  says:

gotta go

Rosie  says:

have an exam tommorow

Rosie  says:

have not revised

Fishy says:

kick butt!

Rosie  says:

thanks

Rosie  says:

xxxxxxxx

I am glad to speak to my friends and family about these things. I am glad that I have friends and family who are still so religious. It’s a good discourse where we all can learn a little. Not into the ritual of religion so much myself. Believing now that God is actually more of an extension of us… or we an extension of him. that one day we will realize the secret that has been there all along for us to discover. That that which we seek is actually just a larger extension of ourselves. So even the rituals to me seem insignificant and meaningless in the bigger picture. It is our actions that are what’s important. the rituals change and shift according to what time in our history it is and what country we are living in. But our actions are timeless. They are beyond national boundaries.

In the “white house sucks ass department” from our friends at CNN:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A White House official, who previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute, has repeatedly edited government climate reports in a way that downplays links between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, made changes to descriptions of climate research that had already been approved by government scientists and their supervisors, the newspaper said, citing internal documents.

The White House declined comment on the report.

Well of course they did.

Current spin: husseine alizadeh, the art of improvisation. Persian classical music played on the dumbek and the taar. Beautiful. really effing beautiful.



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June 5, 2005
Well you know perhaps there is such a thing as miracles after all. not that we ever had our doubts mind you. [chuckle] the neighborhood is bustling. Spring has finally arrived. At least for today it seems. Sunny cool and breezy. Everyone walking around with the air that they are on their way to somewhere. Me I sit on the steps of the little brownstone I call home here temporarily, having an afternoon smoke and typing on the old laptop. As always. An almost constant fixture here in this neighborhood, so much so that residents on this block are so used to seeing me sitting here when they’re walking in our out of their respective apartments or walking their dogs that they feel at ease enough to stop and chat, ask me what I’m writing or what cigar I happen to be smoking. New York is like that. think sesame street. Remember sesame street? Well that’s what living in New York is like.

So about miracles. This morning I actually woke up before 11am on Sunday. Had enough time to sit in the bath for a while. As always I felt great; as we often do in the morning before our mind takes over with its incessant chatter of worries and concerns and fears and judgments and criticisms. I noticed these thoughts popping in and being that it was Sunday I decided that instead of running with any one particular thought that I was just going to give each one to God. turn them into prayer requests and then primaries. ‘God help me to become free of judgment of others.’ ‘God help me live the life of my dreams and fulfill my own personal legacy.’ ‘God help me to be a positive influence on others and a good role model.’ ‘ God help me to fully integrate this whole friends thing I have been struggling with and to open my heart again so I can recognize how blessed I am.’ ‘God help me to finally completely integrate my struggle with the God concept and that whole Jesus thing… help me to know you and to have a deep and meaningful connection with you…’ so on and on it went like that throughout my droopy-eyed bath.

Up and out and fast-walked to that giant church on the corner of park and 60th St. where I had first had that spiritual epiphany of an experience a few weeks back. plenty of time to get there this week. only seven minutes late. that’s certainly a miracle. for me at least. I’m bored now so I’ll quick note instead of prose it: overwhelming feeling of comfort and joy at this church. Been church-hopping/shopping for nine months now here. every week I force myself up at the ungodly hour of ‘sometime before 11am’ on Sundays and head to a new church hoping to find an hour of spiritual community for the week and not much more, being that I’m extremely unreligious to say the least, but still caught between worlds so that I cannot seem to shake the need to search out comfort and respite from the harsh and cruel world of the entertainment business in a church of some kind at leas tonce a week.

Cannot really explain the joy I felt there today. I even went down to the coffee hour afterwards. I swear to whatever the hell is out there that I really did this. walked around. talked with people. now of course I didn’t go so far as to wear the visitor badge but I sure came close. But I walked out of there with such a feeling of joy and peace and comfort that I’ve spent the last hour or so sitting here feeling as though I was breathing new life into my lungs with each breath. As if there may or may not be a God still, we’ll leave that to him/her/it to settle, but at the least there is a damn good community of fine people gathering not two blocks from my apartment in this place called Christ church and I feel slightly reborn at the discovery of it. had that feeling of ‘I am home; I have found my church.’ That’s the feeling that everyone gets when they are church-shopping and they finally find a place they feel that they can attend more than once or twice in a lifetime.

Last screening: Cinderella man. Great movie. Not amazing. but just good on the edge of your seat entertainment.

Current spin: al green. Green is blues. Starts off great. Can’t beat Al’s voice. Slides into extreme mediocrity towards the end.

Also, 50 cent, the massacre. A guilty pleasure.

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April 2, 2005

The pope is dead. (I don’t like to use the term ‘the pope’ these days – as if everyone is supposed to know what ‘the pope’ means… if we said ‘the doctor’ when speaking about some witch doctor in Zimbabwe would everyone in the world know who that was? no. of course not. so instead let us offer the same respect to the catholic church as we would any other religion of humankind. Not more not less. Perhaps we should call him ‘the leader of the catholic church,’ which is, after all, in the end, all he is.) Tens of thousands mourn in St. peters square. It seems like just yesterday when Giovanna and I were skipping through St. Peters high on hash and Italian beer in the wee hours of the night, splashing in the fountains and jumping from square to square. “are you a catholic,” I ask her. “isn’t everyone a catholic here?” “of course I’m not a catholic,” she shouts back at me in her sexy thick Italian accent, as if I had offended her. she tells me how the idea that Italy is all catholic is a myth perpetrated by the church, that at this point in history the people of Italy are nothing now, they are no religion. They believe in God and Jesus but they sure as hell don’t believe in the catholic church. they are waiting to be liberated by some new religion or by a regenerated catholic church willing to represent the people rather than rule them with outdated patriarchic ideologies no longer relevant or acceptable to most. [looking back now I find it fascinating how many people stood in line at St. peters to mourn the death of this pope; certainly some of them must be catholic…]

She went on to tell me how many Italians are scared shitless of the catholic church [hey its not just Italians…] and would never dare speak up against them as we do in America—in that we are lucky in America she tells me, but at the same time they don’t go to church or pay much attention to anything that has to do with the church. Indeed this idea is so well known that I even had read the same thing in my American tour guide when first visiting the country. at this point the church is relegated to births and weddings and deaths and that’s about it. the people are waiting for something to inspire them and revitalize them once more. having been raised a catholic myself I noticed the same thing here in America. People didn’t seem to care much about the church here in the states. it seemed very matter of fact growing up… Catholics weren’t inspired; obligated maybe, but never inspired. The last dark veil around the beautiful face of humanity is religion; Catholicism and Islam and Christianity. We need to honor and respect our brethren’s beliefs but keep the truth in the back of our minds. Hold a candle for the light of truth to one day shine on humanity.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/06/pope.main/index.html

For me I stand in awe and amazement at how newsworthy this event appears to the world. the man stood against same sex marriage, abortion, birth control, women becoming preists – he still promoted this very sexist patriarchal heirechy where men were above women, the obligation of celibacy for the presithood.. which leads to… denial and then, well, you know what… and so many other modern and progressive ideas, and so to me, he stood against humankind itself in a lot of ways. Still, with that said, he united a lot of people and gave them hope… he was against the imperialist invasion of Iraq, good for him. he is against capital punishment, good for him. that actually makes sense given his stand against abortion, as opposed to most conservative Americans, who reveal the glitch in their thinking machinery by admitting being against abortion but pro-capital punishment… The person called the pope leads one of the richest, most powerful, sinister, and dangerous organizations in the world – the catholic church –  what’s left of the gasping roman empire still today; a thinly veiled euphemism at best to those in the know. most people don’t even know that not only is the catholic church one of the richest companies in the world, they are also secretly their own COUNTRY. Just over the top crazy evil shit this company/country-disguised-as-a-religion has pulled off over the last two thousand years… but they won’t mention this on CNN or any other news network. The truth is only uttered under the breath of those brave enough to even have the thought in their heads.

Check out this photo:

grim right? but why? All of the former American presidents have flown in to sit and stare at the passed on priest’s body… but none of them are catholic… what is going on here? any guesses? Would they do the same if the leader of the Hindu religion died? Would they do it if the ayatollah died? Prob not. o.k., obviously not. not now. but I bet they would do it if the dali lama died.. yes? but still they won’t help the dali lama in his quest to free his country from the clutches of tyrannical empirical china… well that’s because china has more money than Tibet. And the catholic church has more money than both…  the photo and the reality it portrays is quite startling… why are these men putting on such a show to mourn the loss of the leader of the catholic church when they weren’t even catholic?

Well, after studying his life the last few days maybe its just because he was such a great guy. and maybe its because he was so dedicated to promoting peace. He even issued a number of apologies on behalf of the catholic church over the last ten years for the horrors perpetrated by Catholics over the last two thousand years to the rest of humanity. That’s just fucking amazing. that alone makes him a good guy. better than many that preceded him. for sure.

I keep my eyes on the prize at the end of the right and wrong game when humans will no longer be satisfied being ruled by archaic dogma, but instead will choose self rule and self governance on all levels in their lives. But those days may still be quite a number of years away from us at this point in our slow evolution. People are religious I remind myself. This is real. It is I who lives in another world. the world is still in the world. and though I don’t see it, even I am in that world. I just pretend not to know it. people, I remind myself, are religious here on earth still. and dogma is king. Beaurocracy is king. Hierarchies are king.

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Slavery in America

February 4, 2005
Check it:
From CNN.com.
“A Florida couple accused of torturing and starving five children in their care were captured Friday night in Utah, a spokeswoman for the Citrus County, Florida, Sheriff’s Department said. They are accused of using a cattle prod or some sort of stun gun to shock the children, securing them to spots in the house with chains, striking their feet with hammers and pulling the children’s toenails out with pliers…”

As if it needed to get worse in the world, here appear these assholes into our lives. I was so disgusted by this I had to stop reading. I hate CNN. I hate the fucking news. As if the world needs more pain. couldn’t imagine. Just couldn’t imagine. We need to send out some real positive energy, prayer if you will, to these children, and to these poor sick people. thoughts of forgiveness and goodness and kindness and ‘its alrightness.’ I can only imagine the hell these kids were living… life is fucked up sometimes.

I’m not much into revenge. In all honesty I come into situations like this with a real open heart towards the victims and the victimizers both. Understanding that there are plenty of people in the world who don’t look at things like that, so these two monsters are going to end up with more hate and violence aimed at them than they will be able to bear; because most people still come at life with an eye for eye mentality. Many people are still like this amongst us. not understanding some of the most basic of universal laws. Not understanding our evolutionary path yet. not understanding the profundity of rehabilitation and forgiveness and unconditional love and compassion. Not understanding that like creates like creates like. So they perpetuate what they disdain and punish through their own actions without ever being aware of it. And life goes on. And the few of us who sit silently watching it all like flower prints on wallpaper laughing and crying in convulsive bursts of emotion and horror at the pure absurd beauty that it is to be human in today’s world, where the wicked and the cruel and the unjust and unholy are both wrong and right, the determination depending only upon who has the most money and who calls the shots.

Broker than I’ve been in years. just broke. In the last two years I have spent more money on old and new businesses of mine alike than I have made. About ten times more. Infinito asks me today, ‘what happened to all the money from selling your house. you must have banked on that in that neighborhood.’ ‘Gone man. I’ve loaned five companies over three-hundred thousand dollars in the last two years — probably more, just cause I’m not thinking about it right now – and now I am pretty much totally effing broke. bro if one of them doesn’t pick up and take off then I’m back to square one. back to where I was in college’ ‘how do you sleeeeeeep?’ he asks me. ‘well, dude, honestly, I haven’t slept well in about two years now. I wake up at the crack of dawn with stress running through my mind and body like lightening sometimes. My thoughts going a million miles an hour…. its crazy.’ ‘well hey, that’s the ambassador, that entrepreneur spirit… yepper.’ ‘yeah dude. I know. I’m into being what I am. Doing what I do. I had a choice. its not like I didn’t have a choice. I just really believe in what I’m doing. All the different projects. So I wake up early. psyche myself up. I kick ass. I stay pumped up.’ ‘Yeeeeaaaahhh. The ambassador makes it happen. that’s the spirit that got you to the place where you had three hundred thousand dollars to invest in your own companies in the first place…’ ‘yep. You said it bro.’

Last screening: The history of American slavery, PBS special. volume 1 on DVD. O.k. check it. I am exhausted. It is 2am. I woke up from a dead sleep during this thing playing in the background to make some quick notes. I will be brief to allow myself the release so I can get back to sleep:

–  Thomas Jefferson penned the famous words, ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… etc…’ but by the time he wrote these words — the document itself is brilliant – and he was a mere 33 years at the time — slavery was in full effect in America. By 1790 1 in 5 Americans were slaves. it’s true. 1 in 5 Americans were enslaved, were owned by other men. Jefferson himself was one of the richest slave owners in the colonies, owning over two hundred human beings at the time as his own personal property to do with as he pleased. He later secretly wrote a friend ‘if almighty God is just, we will pay dearly for this.’ So he knew all along that what they were doing was wrong… Slavery was not the law of the land in America for the first hundred and fifty years. People don’t realize that. we are taught, I assume to make the bitter pill go down easier, that slavery was always around, that we as Americans just played a game that was already being played. This is not true though. It was one of our many American myths. In fact it was against the law in England already for one man to own another; but it slowly and craftily turned into what is known as ‘the terrible transformation’ over a period of many years through the hands of the colonists in America.
– Black men did not start out as slaves in America. They were equal. Many owned land and lived next door to white men as planters and farmers and regular folk just like you and me. It wasn’t until the mid sixteen hundreds that it started. By the mid seventeen hundreds the American white man had created, or recreated rather, something that was by this time entirely outlawed in Europe and England, the enslavement of one man by another. You could have servants but not slaves. But slowly, a sickness grew in humankind and slavery became something that was not only conceivable again but turned into law in America. They actually started writing laws to create slavery, to assure that if you were born black you had no rights and you were not human. These were called the Negro laws. This was right here in our hometowns all across America. Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, all thirteen colonies. By the mere color of ones skin you were considered born a slave for life and so were their children and their children’s children. 
– Now in fairness to the Americans (can we call them Americans? Can we call ourselves Americans? I’d say we call them “the insurgents” since that has become such a popular term these days… and by definition of course… Different story…) once they decided to go for it one hundred percent, the Dutch, the English, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and even the Africans started following suit and participating in the slave trade with the colonies just like the insurgents calling themselves Americans were doing. Everyone started seeing how much money could be made from forcing other people to work for you for free. But the thing is that countries England couldn’t handle it. say they were more evolved than the barbarians in America were, or perhaps just kinder gentler people, but by the seventeen-seventies they outlawed slavery once again. America on the other hand kept it going for another hundred years and even considered the defense of their to slavery one of principle reasons they were fighting for their own liberty from England. (Twisted, I know. fighting to defend their liberty to deny the liberty of others. But this is the foundation of American independence. And it wasn’t as if this observation went un-noticed. Everyone understood the inherent contradiction in the America’s fight for liberty in light of their slave system. it was often spoken and written about.) Again, we are never told this. its never spoken about.    
– America during the slave years which lasted some two hundred and fifty years was no different if not worse for the sheer length that it was encouraged than Hitler’s Germany; but many many years longer and equally tortuous. I find it fascinating that the subject is treated so light-footed in our schools when we are young Americans. And yet how horrendous the Hitler Germany years are portrayed when the very foundation for the treatment of Jews right down to the laws were incredibly analogous to America during the slave years. blacks were not citizens. Blacks had no rights. Blacks could not own property. Blacks could not have money nor earn money. Blacks could not be paid. blacks could not be seen in public without being attended by their owners. Blacks would work for free till they died. It was cheaper to work a black person to death and import another than to keep one alive. Blacks were put in ships to import and export, in the lower decks all chained together, sitting upright in each others legs. They were naked and were forced to sit in each other’s feces and urine for two to four months straight. Occasionally they hosed off. If they died, which they did by the thousands on those ships, it did not matter except how it effected the bottom line. They were not allowed to take their own life by trying to jump overboard. It was considered an injustice and they were to be shot before they landed in the water so they would die by the white mans hands rather than by their own. blacks had no rights to have families of their own. they could be separated from their spouses and children at the will of their owners. it was legal to kill a black person if you wanted to. blacks were hung in public. Blacks were whipped in public. Blacks were mutilated if they disobeyed. Men would have their testicles cut off or a leg removed if they attempted to escape. Women would have an ear cut off. Blacks were burned at the stake in public for all to see. They called them negro bonfires… sounds familiar.
– As horrific as burning Jews in ovens sounds to us, in the broader picture one sees that its just a more advanced form of burning black people at the stake; America had perfected this barbarous atrocity years before; the Germans took it to the next level. Either way, you’re talking about the worst that humanity has to offer.
– as a quick aside, there are some people who refuse to acknowledge the similar nature between the black-American-holocaust and the European-Jew-holocaust, as if one was any worse than the other, citing that the Germans were intentionally attempting mass genocide on millions of Jews, while the Americans were just torturing and murdering millions of blacks while they worked them to death…  I’m just too fucking tired to argue with these idiots. Let’s move on. 
– So on and on it went in America for two hundred years but we are taught things so different than this here in our young idealistic America. As a boy I never heard of such things in school. Never do I ever remember learning about these atrocities. I only heard about how great the “founding fathers” were. They never taught us that these same men were evil murderers and torturers similar to the likes of Hitler or Stalin… they never spoke of how wicked America was for so many years… only how great it was… I must question this. we all must question this. what is the reason for this? why are we taught the famous ‘I cannot tell a lie father, I did cut down that cherry tree’ story (which turns out is a fucking lie) but we are not taught the whole story, the real story, of who George Washington was and the fact that all of these men owned tortured mutilated enslaved and murdered other men so they could make money from them? Because I have a photographic memory, I remember the day that our teacher told us the ‘I cannot tell a lie story.’ I remember what I was wearing, what the teacher was wearing, and I still remember many of the names of the other kids in that particular class. I would be lying myself if I pretended that I wasn’t angered by the understanding now that that fucking bitch was lying to me and all those other kids; that we were just being manipulated and brainwashed like all the other countries around the world. I’ll tell you what occurs to me, day in and day out… what isn’t a fucking lie in this country? is there anything that we were told that is true? or is it all just a big fucking scam, no different than what they tell us the Iraqis or Iranians or Palestinians experience growing up in their countries. Is there any fucking truth in America or in American history?
– in honor of George Washington he himself in his will mandated that all his over-100 slaves get set free upon the death of his wife. She set them free before her death because she was afraid for her life. by the time of his death, before even, he understood that what they were doing was wrong and against the very foundation of the republic that they were creating. Good for him.  
– the idea of the black or African holocaust is not something that is discussed in American schools or in American history… the idea of the black-or-African-holocaust is not even an idea yet. if it is, then it is an idea kept silent. And yet it should be. it should be.
– I wonder why there are not more slavery memorials in America… it seems that there is a new Jewish-holocaust memorial going up every year… this occurred to me many times while watching the show. Where are the slavery or freedom memorials for the black people who were beaten and whipped and tortured and raped and murdered during these years here? what is really going on here… I do not know, nor do I dare to conjecture.
– it was said that it is an enigma that through slavery mankind could sacrifice his very heart and soul for the sake of money… deliberately turning against what he knew to be right in order to profit… this is the puzzle of man. Myself, I will never get it.
– that by enslaving we became enslaved ourselves. Knowingly bringing bitter enemies into our very homes in order to profit. The slave owners became slaves themselves in their own homes unwittingly. Living constantly in fear and trepidation. But for the money…
– we have done away with slavery in America. Just as England and Europe had done away with slavery before America brought it back. I am proud of this. we all should be. I just wonder what took so long. I wonder if mankind will ever succumb to this sickness again in our future history? I wonder if the black man is born angry and we the white man just do not see it. I would be angry if I were born black. I would secretly hate the whites.
– I wonder why there is not an institution of obligated reparation in America for all people born black to attempt to pay them back… for so many years of enslavement. Is simply saying your sorry enough? Why do we need a united negro college fund? Why not just give them all free college or something for a few hundred years? I know all about the theory that that idea would be in itself racist to a degree… but I wonder if it wouldn’t also be appropriate. To settle the score.
– surely no one is so blind that they do not see that the remnants of our slavery past are still all around us. in every city in America. On every street corner and in boxes sleeping in the freezing cold on the steps of every church. And in our prisons. Surely they are enslaved no longer by law or by shackle but in mind and spirit they are still imprisoned by a system that seems still almost ingrained in all of us. what can be done about this? will it take another two hundred and fifty years for this illness to heal… by nature alone? Is there anything that we can do as a community, as a country, to quicken the course?  
– I do not agree with the phrase African American. I am not called English Italian American. Black is black and white is white I guess. If one is from Jamaica or Bahamas or Barbados then they are surely not African American, but simply black or white. This term makes no sense anymore here. I wish we didn’t have to call ourselves anything.

I will quote a very old and famous slave song. A beautiful song. A haunting song:

“Your country, how can it be yours? Before the pilgrims landed. We were here.”

It is a simple song. The same verse repeated over and over and over again…

“Your country? how can it be yours? Before the pilgrims landed. We were here.”

On Sunday I will go to the Abyssinian Baptist church in Harlem again; not because I am a believer in Jesus as God, but because I am a believer in the spirit of man and I believe that the great spirit of man is expressed no more exuberantly, no purer, and no more divinely than in black American churches. But this Sunday, after learning what I have learned tonight I will look at the members of the church differently. I will wonder if they look at me differently seeing that I am white. I will feel appropriately most honored that they allow me to worship with them. I will pay them no disrespect by dissembling my own personal belief that we are there to worship humanity, ourselves, and not a God, just as I do not hide this fact from white people.

Perhaps one day the God bug will get under my skin, and I will welcome it if it comes honestly. But for now I am content to believe in and worship mankind in all of our glory, rather than a God who has never shown his face or the slightest concern for our troubles and woes since we have known of our own existence. A God such as this we surely do not need if he were to exist. We would do ourselves and future generations quite well if we were to do away with the God concept entirely and begin instead to truly worship and divinely respect ourselves and all that we are; and to sing praises and shout many hallelujahs for how far we have come all on our own in spite of our unanswered longing for help from the outside. There is no better place on earth to do this than in a black American church.

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A private little world for me… a private little world for you. The online journals and musings of singer-songwriter author and activist Ed Hale. The Transcendence Diaries have been posting regularly online since 2001. Comments are always welcomed. And so are YOU.

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