Thou shalt not kill

nobody takes "thou shalt not kill" seriously.  people kill germs, flies, spiders, cats and dogs, deer, cows, sheep, chimpanzees, elephants, whales, and other people all the time.

what people understand the adjuration to mean is Thou shalt not murder.

nobody takes "thou shalt not murder" seriously.  people murder other people all the time, for all kinds of reasons.  they even murder themselves.

what they really think it means is "Thou shalt not murder those I have marked for protection."

According to the Book of Mysteries, the only one who was ever marked by the Ineffable Creator for protection was the First Murderer.  Not even the Man born of His Infinite Grace into a life of suffering did He so mark.

I think that is a fairly strong case against the death penalty, whether executed in a prison or on the battlefield.

a ceiling of debt

i find this to be a frightening image - almost as frightening as that of the "glass ceiling" - it inspires vivid apparitions of suffocation, of being buried alive.

at least when one dies, one merely dissipates; but to be trapped forever like a specimen...

but how does an idea become a limit? by choice alone.  therefore when we choose to reject an idea, we reject that limit.

there are many among the powerful who wish us to believe that it is generosity and kindness that makes us weak, limited, restricted, unfree; as they would have it, our only recourse to avoid a general loss of faith is to close our hands, and our hearts.

others among the powerful would have us believe the best option is to raise the ceiling - to extend the limit which only we have imposed in the first place.

i submit that the true answer is to reject the existence of a ceiling, floor, walls - to open our hearts to the proposition that living in gratitude is to live in a state of limitless space.  in gratitude, debt isn't even forgiven, it's nonexistent.  gratitude by nature shares.

that's the world i want to live in.

technology

do we know why we are alive? do we want to know? do we need to? and whether or not we have such knowledge -- do we even know how?

tools are meant to be extensions of our bodies. we could make a shelter using only our hands and our teeth and woven grasses; we first scraped hide with a blade and stretched it over a wooden frame because we wanted a larger shelter we could share with another.

technology which shuts some in and others out isn't a tool, it's a prison.

isolation

this is what our lives have become.

we are children playing hide and seek. we cover our eyes, perhaps lean against a tree or a wall, and count backwards from one hundred. we run and try to find the perfect place in which to not be discovered.

if we are successful in not being found, we have won. but winning is not always what we desire. in fact, what we often want the most is to lose, and as quickly as possible.

there is that moment of excited surrender, when our hiding place has been exposed, when we have technically lost the game, but have enjoyed that deeper pleasure of being seen. being seen is not a matter of gain, or status, or keeping score. it is not a matter of being the winner, being the best, taking the prize. being seen is what we would gladly give our eyes for. and as the game draws on, and more of us are found, the music of excited voices discussing the expired stratagems of the game is painful to be separate from. in the end, some of us will even break cover so as not to be separate any longer.

i have hid myself in a very, very good place for a trillion lifetimes, so long that i've forgotten it was a game. so long that i've forgotten i was even hiding. so long that i've forgotten that there's anyone out there but me.

if there's a hell anywhere worse than this, i can't imagine it.

doing it for the money

someone recently said to me, "you should start an online journal [commonly referred to as a web log, or 'blog], and sell advertising space, and make money from it. this article i just read in the Financial Times says you could make $25,000 a year."

i smiled and nodded politely, and looked back over this gathering of writings, as well as others i have gathered under other names [i gather names like fish wives gather sea shells].

it is interesting that people think they are complimenting you when they see you doing something, and suggest that you do it for money.

it is rather like walking up to a woman on the street and saying, "you are so beautiful. have you ever thought of selling your body to strangers for money?"

and the answer is yes, i have.

to be loved

possibly every fear, every worry, every sorrow can be traced back to the desire to be loved, or perhaps more succinctly, the desire to feel as if we are loved. feelings are only a partial source of information, and using feelings to map reality is like trying to sew a wedding dress with one's teeth.

love is not a feeling, but an action - this is a cliche that you may already have heard many times. we do not truly understand the implications of what being truly loved is - if we did, not only would we lose completely and permanently all illusion that it is possible to not be loved, we would be consumed by the fire of love that is more ubiquitous than air.

the desire to be loved causes sorrow. it is an unquenchable desire.

the only liberation from that pain is to realize that it arises from an illusion - that we are not loved. still, it's easy enough to talk about abandoning illusion, but every human being who has ever lived has struggled a mighty struggle against their own illusion, as a hunter with a broken spear might struggle hand-t0-tusk with a wild beast.

the only proven way to liberate oneself from the illusory, addictive desire to fee loved is to love completely and totally without seeking to be loved in return.

some confuse not seeking to be loved, with rejecting love. but the rejection of love is also an illusion, like a fish rejecting water. does the fish welcome water? the fish does no such thing. the fish abides in the water. so do we abide in love, whether we see it or not. to love selflessly opens the heart to receive love more completely than any other pursuit.

to fully see reality as it is, may possibly be a great burden. but those who dare great things may dare to see beyond their fears to an underlying reality.

the reality is not simply that we are loved, although we are. the reality is not simply that to love the other is the only way to open the heart to receive love, although that also is true. the reality is not simply that we are surrounded by love everywhere and in everything, although that also is true.

the reality that holds all of these things is that everything is love, and that there is nothing that is not love. the only reality is love. everything else is illusion.

fear

fear is the sensation of anticipation of what might happen if you allow your fingertips to slip from the edge of a precipice.

courage is pulling yourself back up over the edge.

faith is letting go.