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Knock Knock

Last post 07-11-2008, 11:54 AM by schalk. 1 replies.
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  •  07-11-2008, 10:03 AM 62208

    Knock Knock

    Hmm. I just received this from a person I knew several years ago.

    JC

    It came as an animated file with JC knocking on the door. And there is a second one where JC is walking toward me and it says "I am coming to your home. Please let me in."

    My immediate reaction. First, JC is such a handsome dude. It is amazing that God chose as his Son a guy who looks just like a cross between Yanni and Pat Swazey.

    My second reaction, what is with this Son bullshit? How long do we go on before the exclusion of Daughters becomes a concern for us? I am deeply suspicious of a Cosmology that talks of the Father and the Son.

    Why did my friend send me this? He's kind of a joker, so I am wondering, but then I know his wife and I cannot tell if she sent this to us in all sincerity. She is Filipino and I have had a number of experiences with Pilipino magical practices - that culture deeply supports amulets and gross magical and superstitious things like forwarding chain letters and building good luck etc. I guess I am tending to think that the wife sent this to us.

    Let's say she did - what was she trying to do? I think she was trying to build good luck or good fortune for herself. This is not a problem for her, I think. No harm in that. It's win-win, right?

    How can I take this for what it's worth? Just isolate the useful part of it and not be concerned with anything else? I feel an obligation to not do that. My neighbor has a bumper sticker that says, "Pray the Rosary." Should I stop my car when I pass, and pray the rosary? What kind of arrogant bullshit is going through these people's minds that allows them to be so ... what is the word? I don't know. Cheesy? Is that good? Yes, the cheese factor is just so huge. The milk is gone. It's curdled beyond belief. Now we have a big old stinky hunk of cheese left over. Where is the spirit of the milk? Melted and evaporated into the big cheese factor.

    I remember attending Quaker church as a young kid. Sitting on hard maple benches, listening to the wind blow the shades as Pastor Smith put us to sleep. And there was that big oil painting of JC on the wall, he looked just like this! Who is the curator that keeps this image of JC as the official one? Is JC a collective production? Why does he always look like he just had his beard trimmed? And his hair shampooed?

    I am wondering what people in Integral Forum think of this. What is it about Pastor Smith and the thousands of churches like his that does not resonate with us? I think that everyone of us turned Healthy Green long ago and has emerged from that. And there is no place for this Father and Son and magical Thomas Kinkaide little Hobbit Hamlet with JC at the door with a lantern.

    I am thinking - when I lay me down to sleep, on my last bed, how will I respond when I see JC, looking just like this!, appear to me? Cute question. I have a deep realization that this is just not going to happen. What will appear is something eminently larger and more alive and more full of love and more real and compelling and just plain satisfying because I am simply alive.

    So, I'm moving on from this little magic show with handsome JC.

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  •  07-11-2008, 11:54 AM 62252 in reply to 62208

    Re: Knock Knock

    Hmmm. I think I know what happened.

    This happens to me a lot. I toss a bunch of energy at something, then I go do something else, and a new insight pops up while I am pouring juice or something.

    I sent a copy of my little Integral novel to my friend about 3 weeks ago. So I am thinking - he or she or they perceived my sharing of this Integral novel as a form of "proselytizing" and he or more likely she decided to respond with some real classical truth, which is that Integral is a religion and let us remind you of what is true and that is JC and the Good Book.

    I am kicking myself. I knew that this guy and his wife would not be able to 1. look at the novel as a piece of creative work that I labored on and 2. look at the ideas of Integral that are embedded in the novel and take them at face value and examine them. It always comes back to "do I con you or do you con me?" And so we all agree to not talk about 1. politics and 2. religion, for the simple fact that we are incapable of doing this without trying to con each other.

    So I get JC back in an email. Take that mojo you heathen!

    Ah, but there is something else going on. Remember, many Christians feel it is their duty to "punch back" with the Bible when presented with anything that seems to "preach" another vision. Why do they do this? Doesn't Christian tradition demand that believers defend it? That can't simply look at something, let alone try it, but instead they have to always treat it as an attempt to con them, so their instinct is to flash the old amulet back at you.

    These old stupid games, they go on and on. I wish people were a little more "open-minded" and able to tolerate and even try new dishes. There is this little, small, dumb, hicky, nasty, selfish, fraidy cat, aggressive, con artist, meme that just pervades us. Always on the make, we see other con artists as doing what we are doing, which is bullshitting our way through life.

    What makes someone Integral? What is a precondition? For one, there is a level of education you have to get to. Your world cannot be the sum total of everything you have heard from your sister Sue and her husband and the morons on TV. We have to read things. And listen to fairly focused discussions on serious topics, like art, and spirit, and history, etc.

    So, right now I am feeling like humanity is being victimized by a group of people who like to present themselves as innocent - all those dumb dumb lazy ass ignorant localized morons who think they know all they need to know and when the moment comes and the universe demand intelligent action they are only capable of being stupid and afraid and ethnic and full of b.s. We need people who try harder. People who even slightly are curious enough to try and find something out. These arrogant self-satisfied local yokels are killing us.

    Quite often the ones who are apparently innocent and quiet and humble are the ones doing the most insidious work. Is it the case that we each have an affirmative duty to learn and at least try to grow?

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