Do you go around feeding people she asked? Yes, I thought to myself. She said, I ain't never seen nothing like that. I tried to feed Souls. Indeed>>>

Do you go around feeding people she asked? Yes, I thought to myself. She said, I ain't never seen nothing like that. I tried to feed Souls. Indeed.... that's what I'm called to do. That is where the hope is, the only place. Glimpsing for the first time I am that that is why I'm here. Can I do it? Can I do it well? Will I be able to help anyone? Time will tell.

P1. the extreme essential life and death Joy of wrestling with evil for good

https://vimeo.com/246712400

Decades too late now to avert Armageddon never too late to lessen the evil and increase the good, and joy, for our fellow creatures.

Decades too late now to avert Armageddon never too late to lessen the evil and increase the good, and joy, for our fellow creatures.

Moving forward in the face of utter hopelessness. Video log

https://vimeo.com/246153430

The valid function of Prayer: to seek and execute marching orders in service of creation.

The valid function of Prayer: to seek and execute marching orders in service of creation.

Without a mission I am Paralyzed by the horror in this world. With a mission I cannot sit on the sidelines.

Without a mission I am Paralyzed by the horror in this world. With a mission I cannot sit on the sidelines.

She throws up on you for the 8th time today, your beloved 2 year old daughter desperately ill with the flu. Do you yell at her yet? Do you cut off her food......

She throws up on you for the 8th time today, your beloved 2 year old daughter desperately ill with the flu. Do you yell at her yet? Do you cut off her food...... or threaten to end her housing because of her horrible Behavior? Of course not! You ache for her pain, care not how many times she throws up, only that you help her pain subside. And yet my sisters and brothers often draw my Fury and ire. The rich in their disgusting criminally selfish mansions. My sisters and brothers in their pickup trucks with their cursing at this vehicle and their hatred. The homeless, the poor, with their trash all over the place and their wretched appearance. All are terribly sick, victims of this diseased society, and yet too often they draw not my compassion and solidarity but my hatred. But what I've just written is a new Glimpse for me of the problem within me. And I'm glad of that. I'm learning a new way to see these horrible behaviors for what they are, sickness of this Society made manifest, needing my attempts, my best attempts, to be a cure.

If a water skier lets go the tow rope they almost immediately sink. The most dire needs of creation is my tow rope. Nothing less can keep me from drowning.

If a water skier lets go the tow rope they almost immediately sink. The most dire needs of creation is my tow rope. Nothing less can keep me from drowning.

No, everything is not fine. My depression has been periodic in my life, an inspirational and creative friend. Yes I have understandably.....

No, everything is not fine. My depression has been periodic in my life, an inspirational and creative friend. Yes I have understandably worked to surmount the depression. I no longer find that this is called for for me. My job, the job of all of us is and must be, to stir people's hearts. Fun, Pleasant, nice to be around, is not what the world needs from me, or you. Disturbed, mildly depressed. Not as an act, but as the only sane response to what is being done by us to all creation. One of the few great psychologists, Abraham Maslow, was asked at an august convention where he was speaking, dr. Maslow you cite Abraham Lincoln as iconic of human health , yet Lincoln was known to be depressive. Maslow replied, you think someone being depressed in the midst of a civil war Slaughter is a sign of unhealthy?

Epiphany, for me? The best scholarship I know on the historical Jesus, Dominic crossan of the Jesus seminar, says that the central feature, the central mission, of the man Jesus was.....

Epiphany, for me? The best scholarship I know on the historical Jesus, Dominic Crossan of the Jesus seminar, says that the central feature, the central mission, of the man Jesus was to preserve the one thing that those masses being destroyed by the Roman Empire could hold onto if they chose, their community, being family to one another, regardless of how incredibly difficult the Roman Empire made that through their savagery.

The communal meal was not symbolic, it was the central Ministry. His Central message was, you must not allow this savagery to destroy that which is most sacred, your unconditional loving, your being unconditional family one to another, especially the outcast, the enemy...

I have known and been impressed by this scholarly insight for many years. But just this morning several things are colliding in my mind, the fact that more than half of this country now lives in objective material poverty, the fact that the most joyous larger community that I have ever personally witnessed lived in considerable material misery at Standing Rock for months , that the most joyful body of people of any huge size that ever was on this continent were the Native Americans before Columbus arrived, and this recollection of Jesus teaching.

When 15 years ago I left a $300,000 a year career in Industry and became an elementary school guidance counselor in one of the country's largest and neediest elementary schools, Chester Pennsylvania , I was aware of a problem that I never adequately solved at the time, what did I want for these children, these materially poor children, did I want them to become part of the sick society that created them? I now have a much better understanding of the answer.

The answer is hinted at in a vision that I shared some days ago, ( please see Link in comments below).

When, as I hope occurs, I soon resume my travels across the country I expect to add to my itinerary places like Detroit where I think there may be some fertile ground for sewing/cultivating this seed, for helping the materially poor in cities and places like that to possibly see that their opportunity is not to seek the faux-Heaven, the actual hell, that Mammon tells us looks like the capitalist society, but the heaven that Jesus spoke of, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. The world Gandhi hinted at, a world that has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for anyone's greed.

Standing Rock update: it's 5 minutes after 5 in the afternoon. More than three hours after......

Standing Rock update: it's 5 minutes after 5 in the afternoon. More than three hours after I expected to be arrested. I've got hypothermia. It's quite interesting. To my knowledge I could walk out of the camp right now and Escape six months in prison, a felony charge, and possible severe physical abuse now and then prison. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't cooperate with the evil that is being done to our Native American brothers and sisters, even if they can. I can't do it. I can't cooperate with this evil anymore. This state, our country, our economy, totally Antichrist. I can't cooperate with it. Isn't that wild?

Standing Rock update: Everyone wants to be a revolutionary, but no one wants to be the revolution.

Standing Rock update: Everyone wants to be a revolutionary, but no one wants to be the revolution.

Standing Rock update: The battlefield, 100% of the battlefield, on which the future of humanity, of creation, will be finally lost or won, is 0% physical, 100% spiritual. This has always been true. We have always pretended......

Standing Rock update: The battlefield, 100% of the battlefield, on which the future of humanity,  of creation,  will be finally lost or won, is 0% physical, 100% spiritual. This has always been true. We have always pretended this was not true. The most powerful creatures known in the universe are the two legged humans. Where our individual and Collective spirit is, there we go. Only through a massive and sustained Global shift in the spirit of humanity is there any prayer for a decent future. I hope to remember this on today, February 22nd here at Standing Rock. If my body, my life limb and treasure, can be used so that the terminal savagery of our fascist greedy Antichrist satanic Collective spirit in this sick country and world, if my body can be used by Savage perpetrators, possessed by their evil spirit, if my body life limb and treasure can be used to sicken the spectators to the final destruction of their children's future, if I can use my body to help them become sick and at the evil of their passivity, and possibly to sicken even one or two of the perpetrators, immediate or distant, crushing us today, then I hope to be glad of that. I think I will be glad of that.

I have heard what I understand to be native story. A grandfather and a grandson are speaking, the grandfather says to the grandson, there are two wolves fighting each other within you,  a good wolf, and a bad wolf. The grandson thinks for moment and says to his grandfather, grandfather, which of the Wolves will win? Grandfather answers, the one that you feed. The story is broader than that in its implications. With each breath, with each action or omission of ours, we feed one of those two wolves in those who are impacted by our lives. Everything depends on which ones we choose to feed.

Even Napoleon saw this: 
"Do you know, Fontanes, what astonishes me most in this world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the spirit."

Written as I am here here on self-assigned duty at the composting toilet complex taking out bags of s***, sweeping, feeling the sawdust bins, making certain there's enough toilet paper.... I like to serve. This is a nice way to to lovingly serve my sisters and brothers here, and there by the world, as best I can see to do at the moment.

***** The central questions of life are, right now, where does Creation need me to be, what right now does Creation need me to attempt? Only those who every breath live those questions, make of their life an answer to those questions, have the ultimate human experience of feeling Alive.

The central questions of life are,  right now,  where does Creation need me to be,  what right now does Creation need me to attempt? Only those who every breath live those questions,  make of their life an answer to those questions,  have the ultimate human experience of feeling Alive.

***** I have never been so wealthy, because these last four weeks , from trying to do good, I was poor and helpless. My first five decades I.........

I have never been so wealthy, because these last four weeks , from trying to do good, I was poor and helpless. My first five decades I had material wealth that makes me cringe with regret. These last four weeks I have had the wealth of community such as I never imagined I would live to see. Part of it is lds. I could never share their origin beliefs in my soul. Not possible for me. Nor would I want to. But as my teacher Jesus said, they will know you by how you love, and these folks love. They are denomination was seems to be producing loving people such as I have never hoped to see. Part of it is living among those who have not embraced our cultural ways , our worship of material wealth. Here in this part of the country the true economy is profoundly different,  deep opposite. In my Northern sophisticated life the first, second, third, fourth lines of defense are money. Here in the country South Part I have been in those lines of Defence are neighbors,  friends,  strangers who you know and don't know. These folks are so much more Rich than we poor over privileged Northerners. So much more wealthy. And, hear this, we Northerners endure our economy for the pitiful Pleasures it gives us. The economy down here that I have witnessed is intrinsically joyful. Infinitely more than we Northerners, there is intrinsic worth and what these folks do. Growing stuff. Feeding folks. Helping folks. Serving folks. Building Community with folks. Flow is a concept that every video game programmer knows. Mahalo csikszentmihalyi University of Chicago found that the human being is the most gratified when it is totally absorbed in the challenge, Pursuits, for which she or he has adequate skill, like a video game, but those whose whole life is like that AR living a life that makes a difference to their neighbors, a positive difference. The most joyful population he and his researchers found in the world was a farming community off-grid, out of all communication, in the northern Italian Alps. That's what I've been in these last 4 weeks. Tens or hundreds of years ahead of us. Perfect? Oh my goodness no. The only thing that shouts louder than their protests that they are not racist or bigoted as their racism and bigotry. That must change. For their very Souls that must change. But they are way ahead of us sophisticated Northerners. Their economy is infinitely more Rich, more sustainable , more Godly. Part of the ugliness that they do evidence, may be a large part, is out of the fear of the ever more powerful Northern Elite crushing all that is Good, Godly,  Christlike ,  that they have. It is understandable that they would act out hateful,  in horror and Terror.  had I not been poor, vulnerable, helpless because I was trying to help others, I would never have encountered this. What a Divine gift. What a divine blessing. I will be infinitely wealthier because of this, forever.

Maybe I've never shared this, among the most important gifts I've ever received. About 15 years ago I......

Maybe I've never shared this, among the most important gifts I've ever received. About 15 years ago I embarqed toward the journey that has captured me ever since. Leaving the ways of our culture, 180 degrees in the opposite direction, from working to make rich people richer, like me, to lived solidarity from the soul serving our neediest sisters and brothers. It was Joyful from the start. There was never, has never been, the tiniest portion of a instant when I've been other than overjoyed with this total change of direction. It is pretty much muscle memory for me now, but not so at the beginning. It could not have been. It was natural for me, I think it is the natural path we were all born to. But our sick culture strips us away from that path, thinking it virtue to do so to its children, and puts us on exactly the opposite, exactly the wrong path. And we gain muscle memory for that and our nervous system literally and actually atrophies for the correct path. So it takes tremendous work and experience for that to be recreated. Really in my departure on this path I found it useful to imagine that there is a creator of us all, a parent figure that unconditionally loves us all. For me then and now God is love, life, and Truth. Period.  People like Teresa and Gandhi said the same, and most if not all of those who throughout history I Revere lived the same. That was an understanding in my head but it was also something more and more clearly felt in my spirit. It became tangible for me in that way. I had a wonderful warm feeling, tremendous peace, each moment that I experienced myself as in creators will. And then I received the gift. From my earliest memories I was obsessed with the female form and all things sexual toward that form. For most of my decades, carefully taught by my culture in a trillion ways, I thought that virtue. I was carefully addicted to all of the lists that our society worships but I'll speak of this one for the moment. The gift I received was in the form of a question that came to my mind, as I was following my inclination to admire a shapely female form, the question came to me, is that that you are now starting to direct your attention toward, is that toward or away from God? The answer was instantaneous for me, instantly and comfortably clear, away from. Yes, I can hear the chorus arguing otherwise. I'm speaking what I experienced then, and with every breath since. The answer for me was instantaneous, that's away from being a vessel for love, life, and Truth. It is turning away from love, toward lust, toward my selfish inclinations, away from serving the neediest from the soul in solidarity. It was then instantly clear to me that turning away from the pure Spirit of love, life, and Truth, was not the choice I wanted to make then. And it has never been the choice since then that I have wanted to make, in any instant. Experientially for me it is not about right and wrong. It is not about guilt or not being guilty. It certainly has nothing to do with an afterlife in which I have zero belief. For me it is simply a matter of now having a mechanism that enables me to pursue Joy rather than pleasure, Joy being infinitely more gratifying in any and every moment then pleasure. I don't know that this could make sense to anyone beside me. Or maybe everyone beside me learned it much earlier and knows that much better. I don't know that it can be helpful to anyone beside me. But it has saved me from wasting even moments on Pleasure when there was an infinite Divine banquet of Joy there before me,   and before all of us I believe, with every breath we take. But it is all but completely obscured behind the Avalanche, the ocean, the universe, love sick country messages inundating us from our pathological, suicidal, malignant culture telling us exactly the opposite. So without mechanisms such as I just mentioned it is almost impossible to choose the joyful path from moment to moment.. James

Jesus' Miracle, the miracle of Jesus, was his unconditional love, Universal family , solidarity with all of creation, specially the neediest. I don't know......

Jesus' Miracle, the miracle of Jesus, was his unconditional love, Universal family , solidarity with all of creation, specially the neediest. I don't know if Christianity, Christians, are blind to this or if they hate it, or both. But from the very beginning what they have done is absolutely bury the miracle of Jesus underneath worldly Miracles they made up and sell in his name. The rare exceptions prove the rule. For the vast majority it is not lies that they tell intentionally. Someone I have never heard of blindsided me with an email the other day, you belittle Jesus, I was told. No. The church for 2000 years belittles Jesus, obscures, perverts, burries, distorts, Jesus. Not I.

"Life is what happens when you are out trying to change the world." Monica Lovell

"Life is what happens when you are out trying to change the world."  Monica Lovell

###. My faithfullest friend: this girl from high school, that due to my near comatose alienation and self-absorption as a teen, I don't remember, reached out to me ye........

###.  My faithfullest friend: this girl from high school, that due to my near comatose alienation and self-absorption as a teen, I don't remember, reached out to me years ago and has been so dear, so kind, so faithful, so loving,  so constant, so unwavering. There, I jynxed it, I'll lose her tomorrow. What will be will be. I learned this about her yesterday: "My greatest giving experience (and growing) was when i worked in a home for the chronically brain damaged people. all ages. I was on the second to the worst floor (bars on the widows and doors-one flew over the cuckoos nest style--) - taking physical care of 12 patients. They were from 30 yrs old to 80 yrs old. I woke, washed, dressed, medicated, fed, amongst many other things in a long day. IT WAS THE MOST JOYFUL OF "JOBS" BECAUSE--NO ONE WAS ABLE TO SAY THANK YOU. They just needed me and I was blessed to be there. It was me learning about true giving and loving it. a HUGE gift from God to me! ( I was 18 yrs old.) xoxox" 

I replied: Totally totally totally totally totally totally totally totally totally. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for sharing. In 2000 at the peak of my career, with several of masters degrees, the most joyful year of my life was as a guidance counselor in Chester Elementary, one of the ten largest, 10 neediest, 10 most failing elementary schools in the country, 1200 K thru 6th graders. I needed to figure out how to lift the entire School. It was a massive campus,  8 Acres 20 acres? Due to the wind and neglect of these children every morning the campus was literally covered with candy wrappers condoms glass shards.... . I saw my opportunity. I would arrive between 4 and 5 in the morning, every morning, and pick up everything on the campus so the staff and the students would arrive at a beautiful clean School and possibly feel the love behind my actions. There were days that I literally could not drive home 45 minutes after work  due to the exhaustion.  I would go  comatose sitting in my car for an hour asleep before I could move on. Without question the most joyful year of my life....  What you did was infinitely harder emotionally. I'm so glad for you but I don't know how you did it.

***** James, you are on your true path. People who meet you can feel it." My reply: With all due respect I will respectfully disagree because......

" James, you are on your true path. People who meet you can feel it."  My reply: With all due respect I will respectfully disagree because I think this is a profoundly important point. I think they are responding because I have taken A path, a path with my whole life. There are many if not infinite ways I could have done.  I think what they are responding to is seeing someone choose a path and March it with everything they are and everything they have. I know, and I'm explicit with people, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't expect this to make any difference at all. All I know is it's the best shot I can see and I will not sit on the sidelines. This is the best way I can see to put my body in the way of the harm to the Future and to keep it there, so I will do this with every breath until I can see a better way. This is what I think they are responding to. This is what I think every one of us should be doing. This is where the joy is. If there is any hope this is where it is. Selma was not the right bridge, on the right day, in the right way. Selma was people saying I ain't going to sit on the sidelines anymore, I'm going to get in the way of the harm, I ain't going to sit down till it gets better. This is what people saw. This is what woke them up. I may be wrong. I'm certain this is correct.