
Date: Fri May 9, 1997 2:00:32 PM
Whew! Well, George, I'm so nearly at the end of this spring toil that I simply must flop down into this chair and get on with something other than the futile work of my stone-cascaded backyard. When this quite modest rowhouse was built in 1925 apparently turning under leftover materials like broken bricks and unscored pebbles was simply the thing to do. Over the ten years much labor and arbor has been lost trying to restake a claim to beauty, but each layer of rubble only leads to another it seems, and since I've only been able to dedicate short sums of time and money to each spring and fall project failure seems my greatest success, but onward. A few days of toil, a few days of beauty until the death rot sets its teeth into the flesh of my flowers, my bushes, even the trees I always hope will survive for more than a season, but I've taken the attitude that the grace won albeit only temporarily is greater than the apathy which would result if intelligence sought reward only in self-flattering terms. But, who am I kidding? It depresses me to realize how much our toil is mere withering on the vine, a fleeting season, a reflection of nothingness infinitely squared as time proves everything is possible but very little of it lasting longer in scale than a blink, a wink, last night's orgasm just another fair folly.
Even in my garden work, which usually is a fine seasonal reprieve for me despite the setbacks I just described, I have been woefully depressed since last Saturday, depressed for no obvious reason at all, zapped of fervor, fire, and energy. Lethargic and grave I breathe feverishly, fitfully. Even your sweet prayers for me, as welcomed as they were, failed to revive my flagging spirit.
And yet another hailstorm predicted for tomorrow. But every time I think of the millions of flood victims, hurricane and tornado alleys, earthquakes and riot squads, my own drug-infested paper-littered streets feel somewhat qualitatively protected from quarrels of a gargling earth. Yet beyond the rocky soil, last year it was rain from November until August, this year it is excessive winds and haildroppings. Aggravations yes, but certainly mild disruptions compared to so many other tales of woe spiraling off the nightly news. A century ago before global communication technologies, the human mind scarely was forced to contend with so much disaster-oriented details on a regular basis, up close and personal. And dirt huts of antiquity once the norm hardly sustained the artifact people of their time, and yet with all our modern fetish-driven aims for cleanliness we still feel the dirt swirling deep inside us not sparing our neighbor's backyard. But terror and tragedy is no newcomer to the stage of human affairs, as you well know. Your bible is full of such disasters, but you wrote:
The First step is to believe it: even if I don't understand it all, I am determined to make it first and final authority in my life, and pray for the "strengthening" of the Holy Spirit (the author) in my being to make it clear to me.
Second step is to forget what I know, percieve, or seem to percieve. It is a dream...within a dream. Reality is infinite! I am finite. The I AM is the whole. The George is, is the part...the part cannot truly apprehend the whole, without becomming it. That is the forte of Eastern thought...they call it desirelessness...nirvana! It is simply tapping into the Eternal. (OK... enough ground work)
George, all this is old news of course in the annals of christian thought, and I appreciate your recent counsel that it's one on one, God and GT. Very Kierkegaardian. Of course, what typical moralists point out is the chaos that follows when everybody is running off doing whatever whenever. True enough, but where is the christian strength of the lion's den? Great chunks of rightwing christians in this country seem to think that ruling under the American flag is their God-given inheritance, just as the Jews did, do, Jerusalem. I don't fancy this patriotic phenomenon as the holistic Jesus path, but rather the same old tribalistic warrior god. I certainly prefer the spider in the crowd approach to reclaiming the peace of God in this confused world heading deeper into the ditch according to one inspecting it from every vantage point he can muster.
One morning as I was rattling off a series of adjectives and adverbs trying to finger just what it was that was keeping me out of the world of intellectual commerce and recognition, that infernal sandbagging that I construct to remain nearly anonymous, unsuccessful, disinterested, culturally paralyzed, my wife stopped me in mid-stream when I uttered the word "irrelevant". She concurred that I found the whole of the world's self-flogging and flogging of others for bucks and mirror-time just so damned irrelevant. And irrelevancy was George's thing as wellthis was what drove him to discourage my own youthful zest in any "irrelevant" area of gnosis. It is true all greater artists come to this same conclusion at the end of their lives and parabolic careers. And like every cheater who skips to the back of the book, I grew very old in my early 20s, tossed off the old man in my late 20s and sputtered on trying to save youth by impersonating youth up to my forties. Now I am tired and wretchedly old again, but with a calibrated child inside who keeps me sane if only to the degree that I haven't stopped writing what I am feeling at every spin of my molecular mind. Have I crucified Christ afresh, as Paul puts it, lost faith, sinned beyond redemption, parlayed faith into a miserly fetish? I certainly don't expect to ride in on new Rounthwaite coattails looking for answers over wire or lunch. I'm just thankful you have turned out to be someone whose response mode is up to the task of his faith. Experience prevails. Few are they, as you might say. You wrote:
I believe the era of the fishers of men is dormant, the world having already skidded into the era of the hunter (Jeremiah 16:16). This is a one on one, two on two scenario. Both the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses, whatever their claims on righteousness, truth, and morality, and to a lesser degree, the Seventh day Adventists, have helped usher in this understanding that in a world of bloated competing spiritual forces, blanket legalisms, revolutionary chatter, international communication and worse, no communication at all, the fisherman types have become "appearances" charlatans, moneygrubbers, designated seating moguls, so that only the secret exchanges fostered by lonely hunters and the hunted shall endure the pressures of Babylon the Great. Yes George, walled with my back against knowledge, the handwriting of most of my metaphorical and metaphysical baggage is caught up in the biblical languages. And despite the fact that I do not consider myself a christian on the grounds that I could not begin to decipher what that phrase means anymore in light of what I know of both good and evil, I do however, consider Jesus and his God, a big brother, a guiding force, a literal reality, the only source of my plodding continuation on this wreckage planet. If this is merely a cultural coincidence, so be it.
Ah, you have quoted William Blake. Mmmm...something I can not imagine my other George to have done. Are you familiar with Blake's penchant for nudism and his theories of Jesus and the Apostles as great artists, as great as the world has ever seen, and in Blake's terms, definitely not moralists, for the world was not lacking for moralists said the English romantic poet. There after all was Zoroaster, Moses, Confucious, Socates and...
George, you must realize that smug between these lines is not some call to unbridled profligacy. Quite the contrary. I am merely seeking to draw out your own perceptions as to what is wrong with the church and its relationship to the world, because it seems I do not care for either, having made somewhat of a mess of myself trying to find some common ground with one or the other, failing I fear on both counts.
So as you see, I am not always bright and cheery. I had not been depressed in several months until last Saturday morning when I awoke very tired, but here I am, and now I burden you with my own cryptic despondency. I pray that this reality of mine is not too disheartening for you. We have certainly shared more in a short time than either of us probably expected. You say have courage, and I thank you for the sentiment because courage is indeed my most spiritual need right now as always. I have long been a coward, and therein lies my greatest mischief. I must overcome this flaw, thanks.
George
Best to you and yours,
Gabriel