I recently shared midday meals and time with strangers during a training course near the Gulf coast in Texas that I attended for work. As the training involved a supposedly "universal" incident management program, there were individuals present from both government agencies and private industry.
On the second day, I shared lunch with one man, a trainer in operations with the army. He was stationed in the area. And soon I realized that neither of us were sitting at that table for any particular reason.
He had been in California, Louisiana, Kansas, New York. I had been in Louisiana, North Carolina -- these for birth and family, education and joy. To Texas came I for sustenance, which in this State (i.e. the U.S.A.), must come from money.
After lunch we sat in my car, waiting through the 2-hour period so irregular for us, perhaps not so for the others, who were public servants. Like me, one of his enjoyments is music in the Irish tradition. We both know of Julie Fowlis.
Yet as we sat and spoke of music -- and listened -- I could not dispel the feeling that neither of us were at all capable of interesting the other. Neither of us were at all capable of engagement, cordiality, connection.
"Yes, I know this artist you speak of. Do you know this one?" And a dry exchange ensues.
He had a humility and honesty about his eyes and speech, but perhaps the iciness of Statism or the gray sky or the cold unshakeable tool of capitalism that makes its will ever known to our fears came like a silent wave and shook our plastic & leather capsule til we were subdued and wanted escape -- not from the truth but from the reminder of the truth in a man's eyes, heart, tongue.
Here in Houston, we are all killers. On the roads, we are seldom hot and angry, just full metal coolness and murder. To every man a compensatory pick-up truck. But the object dissipates as we climb into our vehicles and the desire to inflict upon mad drivers the panic only comprehended as hatred overthrows the possibility of temporal despair. And we are all lost in the welling hell.
Once back to the plastic and leather capsule of our holes, we dive into the filtering shell that seems to be an outlet but really is a thief in saving us from saving harm.
And paradoxically, you should watch The Matrix and try with good will to see how we are hastening the loss of the human. And paradoxically I will write on, aware of the death clinging to my words unless you let them live.
I do not want the grace of doctrine. If my mind is free, but every act refutes its call to free my body, my mind is in chains.
I want not to be a slave. I do not want my fruit taken with assumed justice unless I see it's worth the price. And I cannot see it. And unlike God the United States of America merits no Mystery.
What is to become of us? What is to be done, my dear fellow slaves? Dare we raise our heads and cry to God the shame upon the heads of those who bend our noses to mirrors on the ground? Dare we cry shame upon our own heads as we bend them to the ground?
God save us and have mercy.
If I were not drawn with fear and harsh words saying I neglect responsibility, I would drop this sordid towel that mops the drops gushing from the staunched fountain. Death and love and freedom rather than ongoing.
God did not make these walls.
Will someone shoot you for saying "I am a man, and will forage for food. I am a woman, and will feed my child. I am a man, and will farm this land you leave wanton and fallow. I am a woman, and will tend this house you leave neglected"? Perhaps it is best to be shot.
Shots can not harm us as we walk through the fields, feeding a living act of God's love with grain on the Sabbath.
I would invite any and all to contemplate these shots and those rocks that come in through the window in Trois Couleurs: Rouge. See earlier post for viewing information.
