Kerouac on Prayer

"Did you know the prayer I use?"
"What?"
"I sit down and say, and I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say like 'Japhy Ryder, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha,' then I run on, say, to 'David O. Selznick, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha' though I don't use names like David O. Selznick, just people I know because when I say the words 'equally a coming Buddha' I want to be thinking of their eyes, like you take Morley, his blue eyes behind those glasses, when you think 'equally a coming Buddha you think of those eyes and you really do suddenly see the true secret serenity and the thuth of his coming Buddhahood. Then you think of your enemy's eyes."
The Dharma Bums, pp. 68-69, Viking-Penguin, 1958, New York; © 1958 Jack Kerouac; renewed Stella Kerouac and Jan Kerouac, 1986

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I stumbled on this as I indulge my current Kerouac obsession. Coincidentally, I am also preparing to lead a program on prayer for my church. Imagine praying for your enemies, that they are equally a divine manifestation of the coming Christ. Well, I'm pretty sure Jesus would be cool with that.

I'm a little over half-way through Dharma Bums and I keep thinking: Kerouac, during his time as a look-out on Desolation peak (recorded in Desolation Angels) really did succeed in following in Thoreau's footsteps . That cabin, marooned up on that peak, was even more separated from society than Thoreau's cabin — which was essentially in Emerson's back yard.

I also think how often Kerouac's prose lifts up and sings in Whitman's tradition. Whitman was also into Buddha, as many of the Transcendentalists were, so he would have been happy to walk with Jack. Yeah, Ti Jean walked the same open road Whitman walked.

I think of how I've sort of bought into the middle class dream that Ti Jean (Kerouac) rejected. I mean, good grief, I have a mortage and an eight to five job. Yet, I still strive to walk my own path. And confront the beast wherever possible and however necessary.

And, finally, I think how sad that Jack couldn't live the dream and follow Buddha to the end of the road. Drinking yourself to death is not the path of Buddha. But, look, that doesn't deny the truth of what he was saying or the truth of his hunger. The hunger for spirit, as they say, will either go for the true spirit, the Great Cosmic Spirit Kerouac and Ginsberg found in Buddha, and others find in Christ or in nature or in the stars; or that hunger will go for the false spirit which generally comes from a bottle. Some of the greatest spiritualists live on skid row.

We'll never hear their prayers, tho' they may be truer than the Sunday morning Amen corner. Thank heavens that traveler Jack Kerouac, Ti Jean, is still in print, so we can read his prayers.

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You may have noticed my saying I would be leading a program on prayer at my church. I hope to post some notes from that presentation on this web-log. Yet another direction to go, and I can only guess how it will affect the banner ads.

Ideé d’jour

Let the mystery be.
— Iris DeMent, singer/songwriter

Divine Lover

Divine Lover
Why do you follow me wherever I go
Why do I see you everywhere I look
In church last Sunday
the woman four pews ahead
had hair like yours
The blonde-haired woman
had a head shaped just like yours
And the trees
driving home from church beloved
as the trees clapped their hands
as the trees changed for autumn
the hands they were waving
were your hands beloved
Divine Lover
you were smiling at me
from within the leaves
of the maple autumn glory

Buy Nothing Today

I tell you what, I am thankful for the children in Malaysia who make the clothes they sell at Wal Mart
I am thankful for their sub-standard wages that make it possible for me buy those clothes cheap
I am thankful they have the chance to live the Dickensian dream
I tell you what, I am thankful cars are being made in Mexico, Japan, and Germany,
rather than here in America; export the dream, I say.
I tell you what, I am thankful Halliburton has bought Iraq
cause that'll teach those Emirs in Arabia to keep raising oil prices
I tell you what, I am thankful for Wal Mart — they stay open all Thanksgiving Day
I tell you what, I don't care what it takes
just don't take away my standard of living
keep them terrorists and commies from my door.
Say what? You say my job is next to be shipped over-seas?
Well, you're still going to pay me, aren't you?

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Fight the power! Confront the consumerism demon & be triumphant! Buy Nothing Today!

I'm Piglet?

You choose your friends wisely and even though they may be few in number, they are high in importance. You feel most comfortable when you can follow the crowd and let others make decisions. But that's not to say you can't make up your own mind if you need to. Faithful and true, Piglets make the best friends.
Which Pooh character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

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I wonder which pane of the Jo-Hari window these Quizilla quizes reveal and/or reflect.

Ideé d’jour

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.
— Louis Armstrong

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One of the greatest Zen statements made by an American.

Draft

web-foot dawn
stalks up the horizon

the moon ticks slowly
past saturn & mars

black cat stretches
across the lawn
flees down the morning

my words are empty
hollow commanders
chasing after each "a" and "z"

Haiku: 21.Nov.03

Piebald cat watches
me drive past.  She looks both ways
then crosses the street.

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The stained-glass cat comes courtesy of my new e-mail friend, Connie Beckers. More of her work may be viewed at Goddess of Glass.

Connie's work graces several of my postcards. In this instance, I sent her the poem, and asked her to select a pre-existing stained-glass piece which best illustrated it. Here, you may see the final result.

southeast morning sun
varigates the sky in pink shades
behind the new capital dome

birds perch on the rim
of the famous milk bottle,
form the ridges of the cap

i drive this labyrinth
every morning & each turn
reflects a new scene

Ideé d’jour

Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca, writer and philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)

Ideé d’jour

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
— Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564)

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Yep. That Michelangelo. Wonder if we can adopt the same attitude to words on the page?

Slogan adapted from an evangelical bumper-sticker.

Bolivia Postcard Poems

The editing & layout are done! All that remains is the actual photocopying and stapling. I still have hopes of having a few copies in time for this Sunday's art show (see below). A pdf version is available, but you'll have to write me and beg to receive the pdf version. Be forewarned that copying and collating will be required in order to view the chapbook in its intended format.

Our production costs are likely to be low, and proceeds will go to the Ninnekah Methodist Church, if you chose to order a paper version.

By the way, as you'll see if you click on the MapQuest link below, Ninnekah is a bedroom community of Chickasha, OK, which is a university town. Chickasha is about an hour's drive southwest of Oklahoma City. The Methodist church is very charming, very much in the "country church" style.

Reminder

Prairie Fruit
Art Show and Reception
featuring works by
Linda Pope


2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 23
Ninnekah Methodist Church
912 Grand
Ninnekah, Oklahoma

Map to Ninnekah

A sampling of art
available online

News d’jour

Haven't said much about Prez Shrub's visit to Great Britain or the fall of the gloved one. Actually, the news I've been following concerns the bombings in Iraq, Turkey, and elsewhere in the region. Not much I can say, except it's tragic.

The Iraqi people may be free from Saddam, but the violence of their existence has increased. Now, rather than a few getting tortured in Saddam's prisons, masses of regular citizens are affected by bombs from both Americans and the terrorists.

My question is only: how long before another strike happens here? All the Patriot Acts in the world are not going to slow down one dedicated terrorist. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but I strongly suspect the terrorists will "bring it on" to American soil before the next election.

Dream, Friday Morning

Who was that woman?
I don't know, it was just a dream.
Well, I think it might have been Toni,
but then it could have been an amalgram
of all the women I was attracted to
who were not drawn to me.
I don't know. It was a dream.
So, anyway, I was living in an all-male dorm
that was like one long open lodge
(come to think of it, I believe I've dreamed this lodge before).
The beds were lined up length-wise along the wall
on each side of this long open space.
I remember the bed next to mine, at the head,
had a radio placed in the window-sill
and the man liked to play music softly, all night long.
And Toni - and we'll call her Toni
because it just seems rude to keep calling her
'this woman' —
Toni wanted to sleep with the man
across from me and up one
(if you know what I mean).
She swore me in as an accomplice —
though how we were going to keep a woman a secret
in an all-male dorm is a mystery
which could only survive dream logic.
So, I was getting ready for bed,
I mean, I was just taking off my pants
(discretely, because ladies were present)
when she came right up to me
and asked if I had pajamas I would loan her.
Not sure what happened next —
guess I loaned her something,
maybe an old shirt and some pajama bottoms,
because then she curled up next to the other man,
you know, the guy sleep one up and across from me.
I don't suppose they screwed or anything —
seems like the alarm went off about at this point —
but I do remember the radio
playing music all night long.

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Just a bit of dream journaling, in a semi-poetic format.

Word of the Day

extramundane (ek-struh-mun-DAYN) adjective

Beyond the physical world.

[From Late Latin extramundanus (beyond the world), from Latin extra- + mundanus, from mundus (world).]

Today's word comes courtesy of Word a Day.

Across the Chiasm

God created the heavens in the day
the earth was without form
and when no plant of the field was yet in the earth
the darkness was upon the face of the deep
for the Lord God was moving over the face of the rain
And God said "Let there be ground"
but a mist went up from the earth
and God separated the light from the dust from the ground
and the darkness he called the east
a garden in the east
in the midst of the waters and let it separate
every tree that is pleasant
And God made them good for food
the waters flowed out of Eden
to water the garden
under the firmament, and
they became four rivers.
The name of the first is Pishon.
And it was so.

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First experiment of selecting phrases across the "gutter" (or chiasm) of a two-columned Bible. This selection conflates the first few lines from the book of Genesis with lines from the second chapter. Who knows? Maybe this was the origin of William S. Burroughs' concept of "cut-up".

Anniversaries, Pt. II

The second anniversary of this week has slightly more personal resonance than the mass suicides at Jonestown.

Friday, November 22, 1963 was my eighth birthday. I have now out-lived the man who was shot this day, who died at the age of 46. I don't know if it was a lone gunman or a conspiracy involving everyone from J. Edgar Hoover to Fidel Castro. All I knew then was the President had been shot. John F. Kennedy had been assasinated on my eighth birthday.

Many of my friends who are the same age have a memory of hearing the announcement in school. My memory is of watching Uncle Walter deliver the news once I got home. There's a good possibility my memory betrays me, for Kennedy died around 1:30 p.m. Central Standard Time. Seems like we watched the funeral at school, but my memory may be playing me false there as well.

I don't recall that I was very much aware of Kennedy or national politics prior to his death. I would have been a rare eight year-old if I had been. But I did get caught up in the hagiography following his death — to the point that I felt very conflicted about the coincidence of my birthday falling on the date of his assasination. This became so extreme that I announced that I did not want to celebrate my birthday.

Well, you know a kid is a bit overly sensitive when he doesn't want to celebrate his birthday! No clue why my dad didn't hie me to a therapist then & there.

But I've had mixed feelings about the date even as recently as a decade ago. But here we are, fourty years later, and it's a day. I'm no more troubled by the coincidence than I am by the fact of growing older.

I did watch the better part of "The Kennedys" on PBS this year. To be honest, as I watched again, I felt sadder about Robert's death in '68 than I did about Jack's. But I have not watched any of the other specials, and do not anticipate watching the ABC special supporting the theory of a Lone Gunman (Lee Harvey), which is scheduled to air tonight.

I suppose that's the trick of it — to be aware of the coincidence, but not immerse myself in it. The man is dead. He had his faults and his glories like any other man. As we have learned, he was far from a saint. He certainly made a tragic mistake by increasing America's involvement in Viet Nam. The Bay of Pigs was a mis-step almost worthy of our current President. But on the other hand, his response to the Cuban Missle Crisis proved that he could achieve a diplomatic ideal. The Civil Rights Act began on his watch — although, admittedly, events pressed him to finally take action on what was a political hot potato (he needed southern votes to achieve a second term).

In other words, like most of us, John F. Kennedy was a complicated man. We may see him as a tragic hero, in the mold of King Arthur, or we may see him as a deeply flawed human being, like Bill Clinton. Either extreme misses the real person, whom we can only hint at. It does not serve the man's memory to beatify him, for that neglects the whole person.

Anniversaries, Pt. I

This is a week of anniversaries. And I have fairly clear memories of both of them.

Twenty-five years ago this week, approximately 911 people willing swallowed poison at the direction of Jim Jones, in Jonestown, Guyana. I was nominally a attending college at the time, and chose to stay in town in order to attend a Bob Dylan concert (the "Street Legal" tour). I was living in a dorm, but the dorms were closed over the Thanksgiving break. A former college roommate let me stay at his place, while he and his family went out of town for the holiday.

Most of that week-end, I read Perry Mason mysteries. Well, tv was pretty boring, but I needed a break from the sort of heavy reading I was doing for classwork. But one night I turned on the news. And there it was — the whole chilling story. The story progressed; it seemed a few of Jones' bodyguards had left the compound prior to the mass suicides. We began to learn more about what life was like in Jonestown prior to the deaths. I dealt with the story the best way I knew how — I wrote a song. I imaginatively placed myself in the place of one of those bodyguards, asking myself how it would feel to be betrayed by one's leader in this
way.

For Jones' ministry had begun in the streets, helping the poorest of the poor. His was a socially-activist ministry which also preached non-violence. But, what started as a non-violent movement which fed street people in Ohio (then California) ended with guns and suicide in Guyana.

I've been lost for a long time, so I came out to the Guyana jungle; and the Lord handed me a gun.
The Lord handed me a gun.

Well, Jesus liked his wine, and Moses told us lies.
That's what the Lord said to me
And the Lord set me free.

Well, my parents wrote me a letter, saying "Jason, please come home."
We planted crops, and it would rain
The Lord, he did everything.

So my brother came to see me;
Said, "We miss you, can't you see?"
He stayed for nearly a week
I hope we had plenty of time to speak.

I didn't know the congressman
He wasn't even from my state
But someone put a knife in his side
And the Lord handed out the cyanide.

To the jungle I have run, for the Lord handed me a gun.
For the Lord handed me a gun.
© 1975