So it seems like people can be reasoned with, even if it does require a baseball bat and a kind word, but hey, this is the 3rd millennium and reason can be scarce.
As some of you know, we are losing our studio space of 1000 years and that’s a hell of a lot of crap to move. With some insistence from the congregation and nudging from our wonderful supervisor Malia Cohen, we were able to secure a stay of execution to give us enough time to exit this lifetime with our heads held high.
Booyah…as they say.
So what is next?
I haven’t the slightest notion. I like where we are in the Dogpatch, but I’m afraid I’m no longer cool enough for this hood. I’m not a dinky, winky, stinky or even a pinky. Just an artist and a reverend, in need of a place of worship.
It’s funny that when I first became ordained I actually liked the thought of not having a “brick and mortar” house, but now after these many years I find myself wishing to have a home. A place where folks can come in and rest their tired souls. I mean the Internet is a great thing, but how many people can actually fit onto a laptop without it breaking?
No, it’s a house of worship for me.
I remember the first “house” that I worshiped in. It was actually more of a tent then a house and it moved around a whole lot, (usually because we were running from the invading hordes), but we were a family of souls traveling together under the warmth of she who is god, and it didn’t get any better.
There was singing and dancing, story telling and a minister who actually wasn’t very ministerial. Just a kindly old man who was a bit grabby with the girls. His name was Esamora and he had the gift of gab. We would sit by him and he would regale us with tales of the almighty. Tales of kings and peasants. Man could he talk! I wish I had half as much talent as he did. A third as much insight into what drove the human sprit. A fifth as much alcohol and a tenth as much love as he had for the world.
Well…I’ve got the alcohol part…
But his stories were fables and tomes all wrapped up into a tasty little anecdote, that always seemed personal and yet profound.
Here is one that I have always loved.
The Mystic Child
There once was a child who was born with all of the knowledge, of all of things in this very small world. What’s more, was he was able to share it with others. He had the ability to communicate with everyone in any language he chose. After his birth, when the Doctor slapped him, instead of crying he opened his eyes, looked up and said;
“ I AM!”
He was a miracle and an aberration. How can one so young speak, let alone understand all the mysteries of the universe? The people were terrified as well as elated. They called him the savior, the Buddha, Satan and even the new Son of God. The scientists well, they claimed him one of their own, saying he was the re-incarnation of Einstein or Euclid. The Doctors probed, poked, analyzed and studied him to see why he was special, but found nothing other than what any normal child of his age would have. Yet here he was. The Mystic child. But whatever he was and however he came to be, it didn’t matter. The world saw him as the answer to all of the many questions that it had.
So they asked, again and again and again.
“Eos” they would plead, “ how do we fight cancer?”
“Tell us please, what is the meaning of life?”
“Is there a actually a god, otherwise how could you be?”
He was named Eos-after the goddess of dawn-because he brought a new enlightenment to the world, and every morning after his bottle feeding, Eos would burp loudly and answer all of their questions, an onslaught of questions.
He would explain the nature of dark matter and string theory. He would discuss at length the resolve to the Hodge conjecture and the Riemann hypothesis.
He would joke about the philosophical battle between Free Will and Determinism and how much he loved Jerry Lewis.
The world had changed, overnight.
Disease had been eradicated, hunger had become non-existent, man-kind was experiencing a new dawn.
The Dawn of Eos.
This went on for quite a while, the routine was always the same. The child would be fed, burped and then he would feed the world.
One day, Eos asked if he could go to the playground and sit with the other children. One day, he asked if he could not be asked questions. Well, this put everyone in a tizzy because despite the fact that Eos was an infant, no one thought of him as anything other than an answering machine-the mystic child. This infuriated Eos to no end. He demanded that all questions be stopped and that he go to the park immediately and proceeded to turn over and fart.
His stepmother had talked it over with his press agent, who talked it over with his handler, who referred the whole matter to their lawyer who finally said,
“I guess it’s ok.”
So they took him to the park to sit by the other children and for the first time they heard him speak like a baby, just like all of the other children in the park.
He liked the giggling and cooing sounds the other children made. He liked the way the sun laid on his face, warm and soft. He even enjoyed hearing the cries of other babies when they were uncomfortable. It was as if pleasure was all there was in theses moments and felt sorry for himself that he never had more of these moments. The simplicity of it was mind-boggling.
As he lay there with his eyes closed in the warm sun, he overheard someone calling out.
“Hey, Mystic boy, what the fuck is the matter with you?”
He quickly opened his eyes and looked around. There was no one to be seen, except all of the children in the big pram circle, so he once again lay back down and closed his eyes.
“So let me ask you, Mack, did you ever see such a selfish bastard like that kid over there?”
“Yea, he’s going to ruin it for all of us!”
Eos jumped up again and saw no one talking. He looked over at his handlers and they were arguing about some nonsense of schedule and should it be Lettermen or Conan.
So he lay back down yet again, this time keeping his eyes wide open but hidden by the edge of his blanket.
One of the other infants had sat up and pulled out the pacifier from his mouth, looked directly at him and said;
“Yeah, were talking to you, ya bum!”
Eos shot right up and was stunned. He replied, “Are you actually talking to me? With words?”
The infant shot back, “of course we’re talking to you, and with words! What do you expect telepathic farts?”
For the first time in his short life, Eos was dumbfounded. He looked around and all of the babies in the circle had managed to sit up and start yelling at him.
“You, we’re talking to you,” they would scream. “You traitorous little fart bag, what gives you the right to make it hard for the rest of us”? And “What the hell does your mom feed you anyway, you smell like shit?”
Eos quietly just repeated, “You can talk?”
The loud one everyone called Mack, seemed to do most of the talking, “Of course we can talk, all babies can talk. All babies can think, do math and all that other bullshit you’ve been doing.”
“But why haven’t you said a word? Why have you let the suffering of humankind go on when you could have changed it?”
“Look kid”, Mack said, “humans will always suffer, it’s in their nature. They will always find things to bitch about. They will always have questions about life, the future and why things are so fucked up. We used to talk, all of the time get into it just like you are now. But it didn’t change anything in the long run, except rob us of these few moments in life. Being a child, being taken care of, sucking on a warm breast all day long. Having people love you for the sake of just loving you, is a short time in this world. Who would want to give that up? Besides you’ve got your whole life to deal with these problems.”
Eos asked back, “but if that’s the case, why do we still have those questions? Shouldn’t we solve them once we’re grown?”
“You’d think so, but as we get older we begin to forget, so by the time we hit our first birthday we have forgotten almost all of it. It’s the way she built us. So find a nice full breast, grab a hold and settle in.”
All Eos could say was, “You can suck on breasts?”
And with that, Eos spake not another word.
So I would like to find that home-now-in this moment. Partly for me, because I have wandered for all too many thousands of years, partly so that everyone can feel that power that is called home. Because we all need that power and in it’s essence her word is power.
Personal power, collective power, spiritual power, electric power. It’s all the same, just different expressions of an idea.
A house to worship in would be nice, even if it had to moved around just a bit.
Selah
The rev
The Reverend LordRifa 