Sacramental Ceiling Cnidaria – Chapter 2, Paradise Lost

3 minute read
[Sequel to prior Chapter 1, Classroom Control Kicks]

Halloween is past, and the holiday season is ahead. Christmas. The Incarnation. Not just the birth of Jesus, but the infusion of all which exists – past, present, future – by the Alpha and the Omega, the Logos, Word made flesh, visible, Jesus sanctifying human flesh because it is foundationally good, not bad. Christ in everything, by loving all things into himself. Christ IN all things.

With utter completeness Yeshua loved people and jellyfish and rocks and crêpe paper and whales and palm trees and olives.

Today if you sense judgmental eyes on you, or the weight of expectations and demands, turn away and raise your eyes to imagine crêpe paper Cnidaria hovering above. Imagine they have the eyes of Christ – as all things do – looking at you. Watching you. Lovingly. With actually absolutely nothing EXCEPT the fullness of Love itself.

Imagine that. Christ’s loving eyes adoring YOU. Look away from that ceiling, and still feel those eyes of nothing-but-love, looking your Way. And the incarnate face of God smiling at you.

Almost grinning, even.

Look into the eyes of those disturbing you. They are the face of Christ. Grin back at them.

Smiling at one another, you know that sacramental secret.

They and you are enormous. We must be, to be so loved by God that the air all around us is over-loaded and crackling with that Spirit…

Why else would those tissue tentacles shimmy?!

Beyond the shadow of a mind’s doubt – in the blinding light of the heart – we each know this Spirit envelops us.

Periodically, we each forget, for a moment…

Now you remember,
Right now, in November…
Jellyfish are cool

She chose them. They chose her. Inspiring.

Who says guardian angels can only have wings? I bet plenty have tentacles. How else can they reach down and surround and envelop and warm us with so loving an embrace…

Tickling touches
as tender as
tissue tentacles
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How are we to “control” a dozen wondrously restless souls out of control in a classroom? Putting down the insurrection instigated by a few mischievous instigators…

“Now there isn’t enough time to watch the video as part of the lesson on tropical island ecosystems!” You worked so hard and scrambled so intensely to prepare it! Your lesson, lost.

November ain’t so tropical. But Paradise? Indeed. It is not lost.

Next: Chapter 3, “Dear Teacher: F for you”

Neil D. 2021-11-06

Sacramental Ceiling Cnidaria – Chapter 1, Classroom Control Kicks

{3 min read}

It’s not imperceptible if you’re looking for it… Merely a child passing beneath can subtly disturb enough air surrounding them, and those tissue-paper tentacles will dance, dangling lightly from the rainbow bodies of party-decoration jellyfish, suspended from her classroom ceiling.

Each August for a couple decades, as the schoolyear’s start looms, the excitement of her vocation to the hearts and minds of God’s children with single-digit ages and eternal souls bubbling over with distraction and wonder… Well, it all makes her a little anxious. Aye, on a precipice of overwhelm. How couldn’t it, really?

She has the right hardware to hang a dozen of them from the rails of the drop-ceiling, but she’s barely 5 feet tall, and in her late fourth decade, so how the hell will she hang them? Same way as always. Marshaling the gifts God sprinkles onto her journey’s path. That’s how her divine hair cooperates with its Source.

She will conform the retired math room – mostly cleaned out now – to her chosen theme:

Tropical Paradise.

Two additional souls tenderized by her invitation and very being, plus a borrowed hammer to tap the pushpins through the beach tapestry and fresh paint, high on a naked wall… An unwieldy hot glue gun to adorn with a grass skirt the back table on whose ocean-blue surface will rest the inflated palm tree, destined to wilt slowly, a slow air leak stealing its turgor. But her delight is firm.

Her November opens by receipt of a commendation letter from an organization to which she was recommended by a former student because she inspired him. She inspires children. Not easy.

Two days later, exasperated, her head throbs because of “regular” work stress, and the antics of a few troubling students – the sort of episode she has *regularly* defused for decades.

Mortal, as she is, the exceptional hugeness of her soul has slipped her mind.

Her head throbs more loudly than her heart.

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Next: Chapter 2, Paradise Lost
{~3 minutes}
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Neil D. 2021-11-04

Big D. Dad. Bob. Dad’s Boys. The sport of kings

At dinner, Bob asked eventually if I follow politics. “Not if I can avoid it.”. Then I found out he’s from Virginia, and I told him it fascinates me politically, next to the beltway, yet the rural areas in its west. Told him I have a decent sense of Virginia, because I lived in Frederick, Maryland where our firstborn, Joseph, was born, and one of my goddaughters now lives in Beltway Virginia. But we often drove through the western back-country on our way to family vacations in North Carolina from Pittsburgh. Restaurants, gas stations, and driveways there are a little different than nearer Mount Vernon and the Potomac 🙂

He said he’s originally a New Yorker, so I asked upstate or not. Since I grew up 5 miles south of the upstate border. He has driven on I-81 through Scranton and within 10 miles of Susquehanna on his way through Binghamton for wrestling tournaments. And he said upstate should be a different state also.

And here we were in California, which is the fifth largest economy in the world, and should be several states.

Bob is out here to see the Breeders Cup at Del Mar, which is blocks from the last hotel I stayed at in San Diego, and rode a rented motorcycle closer to the track, and wondered if it was a significant track. Well, the breeders cup, yeah. Biggest purse (monetary prize) in the “sport of kings,” of which my dad was an irrepressible fan.

He recommends Saratoga for a trip from Pittsburgh, but Laurel is a stone’s-throw away from Joseph in Columbia. Pimlico where they run one of the three legs of the Triple Crown (The Preakness stakes), is a bit rundown, but so is Laurel. After the rise of casinos and online gambling, the racing industry has suffered, he says.

I asked why he was in California; for business? He doesn’t do business anymore. Retired. So, no. I asked if he was just a horse fan, or in the business. He was small in the business a while ago, but now he’s just a fan in retirement.

So my chat with him sealed the deal. My boys have to see thoroughbreds run live, from the fence (1100 pounds of life moving at 35 mph, as Bob puts it), and then, since you can’t see the backstretch from the fence, a couple of races high in the stands. If they wanna place bets for fun, Bob suggests I make a college graduate spend his money on that.

Bob knew the Scranton area, as well as the Pittsburgh North Hills area, because his son was a wrestler when he lived in Virginia. He knew about the choice you have to make in middle school, because you can’t wrestle and play basketball, and he suspected I took the basketball track 🙂 I did, but missed wrestling dearly.
We discussed what a lonely sport wrestling is, and he reminded me of the remarkable character that loneliness builds when there’s no one else to blame like there is other team sports (except cross country and track in a lot of cases).

I was reading John Pavlovitz’s book at dinner when finally, after he finished his lamb chops and I finished my imported Italian spaghetti dish, we broke the silence from two seats away.

I was turned onto John Pavlovitz by recent Facebook posts by one of my high school English teachers (from 3 1/2 decades ago). I’m pretty sure that my notion of wrestling’s loneliness came from her older son, through her, or perhaps through her husband with whom my dad commuted to school, and to me from my dad she has called “The Big D.”

Thanks Mrs. K. Big or little

Thank you Bob.

My goodness, Louis Armstrong was right. What a wonderful world.
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Neil “little” d. 2021-11-02

Words. Nice. Depression. Fraud.

He asked, “Am I too nice?”

Words between people are tricky. Each person has a sense of what “nice” means. Many things in common with how other people think of that word. Many things different.

The word “depression” means different and similar things to each person. Great artists are the people among us who describe common meanings succinctly, and without so much precision that the ideas don’t become so specific as to not be generalizable.

She told us she was depressed. Each of us understands that in our own way, not any of us in her particular way. Perhaps these artistic words can be appreciated by her, as well as by each of us who have had the experience: “I am a flower quickly fading, Here today and gone tomorrow, A wave tossed in the ocean, A vapor in the wind.”

If she were to ask me, “Who am I?” I would choose that artist’s way of answering. She is someone whose name, hurt, doings, fallings, and internal storms are all captured in the singularity of one answer: https://youtu.be/3rT8Re1EIQc

…

“I am hardened & callous. It’s something I don’t see in myself until it’s pointed out after an exchange with someone, and sometimes not even then. It took years to build up, I guess, & now it’s just who I am…”

The story told in Matthew 16 is known to many as “Peter’s confession” that Jesus is the Christ. Dick and Jane are characters in books aimed at teaching children to read. To retell Peter’s confession in a way to be received with the heart of a child learning to read ultimate truth:

Jane asked Dick, “Who do people say that I am?”

Dick answered, “Some say you’re this person, or that person. People who like you say you are a good person. People who do not like you say you are a bad person.”

Then Jane asked Dick, “But who do YOU say that I am?”

“A good person,” answered Dick.

Jane moaned skeptically, “You only say I am good because you like me.”

After some thoughtful moments, Dick retorted, “Well… Yeah… I like you because you are a good person.”

When Jane went to sleep that night, she believed in her own goodness.

…

When we doubt our own goodness, it is helpful when others affirm it. But we do not fully believe in ourselves because of what anyone else says. If we believe in ourselves, it is a belief that originates inside of us, not because of outside opinions.

Often, our doubt is caused by the outside opinions of other people. Ironically, that same way of thinking doesn’t work when it comes to outside opinions that we are good. A sense of our own goodness must come from within.

No other person can see your inner heart from the outside. They cannot see the shame you hold in secret, yet that is what they tap into when they tell you you are bad. Consequently, it’s not hard to believe in our badness.

Even when you do some things which have the appearance – as seen from the outside – of good motives, you know your inner ulterior motives. Some people can live most of their lives imitating goodness. You yourself have a clever mind that can trick you into believing that ACTING in kind and loving ways makes you kind and loving authentically.

In each instance that we are conscious of our fraud, we doubt our own authentic goodness. That doubt can cast over you a dark shadow even when you authentically do pour out goodness from inside of you. Consequently,…

When someone tells you that you are bad, you do not reject that proposal in its entirety. There is a kernel of truth in their proposal. This is the curse of the human condition. But it is also a gift…

When you see the world too rigidly in black-and-white, you bemoan your own imperfection. But when you allow for even more than 50 shades of gray, you can see clearly your soul’s connection to every soul. If you do not believe that you are a mixture of your mind’s artificial constructs of good and bad, then you believe it has to be all or nothing. And you will also judge every other person with that same rigidity.

The good camp will be empty, and the bad camp will be overcrowded, unless you create some artificial scale with a threshold that tips some people into the good camp, despite their also having some badness. If absolutely everyone is in the bad camp, why not relabel it the good camp? I think the better question is, Why label the camp at all? All are connected. In their goodness and their badness.

Yes, I understand it is some tricky or deep matter of philosophy or brainwashing, but these ways of thinking should challenge us about whether badness authentically exists at all. If you do think that badness exists, it is not possible to escape this way of thinking. And the only way to escape its consequences is to create some fantasy that some sacrifice of Jesus tricks God into judging all of us positively. Then you can believe in Jesus even if you can’t believe in yourself. So, now, in this light, if you think you “know Jesus Christ,” do you think these fantasies and tricks are His Way?

“No, no, Neil. We have a choice.” Poppycock. That is a very human way of thinking that we project onto God. God’s love for you does not depend on your choices. That is the judgmental love of humans. That is ego thinking, not soul thinking. Your soul cannot be lost by you, no matter how many bad choices you make. It is always there. And your soul is divine. God is always there. Always loving. Not loving to reciprocate for our good acts. Loving first. Not responsively or reactively or judgmentally.

I think Yeshua had followers because of how he treated the followers, not how – or because – they “chose” him.

If the love of Jesus did not precede (pre-seed) all else, who would turn to him at all?

If love is something we earn and bestow in return, where does this circle originate?

With YOU. It rises up from the kingdom of heaven inside you, at hand. It is your nature. Your nature is divine. And divine nature is to love first, not in response, and not by imitation. And that is why, as he walked his way to Golgotha, he did not ask for our tears, but suggested we “weep for ourselves and for our children.” Weep for the child within you. As he does. Because, first, you are good. First, you are loved. THAT kind of love is the authentic kind. https://cac.org/a-hopeful-foundation-2021-10-24/. And THAT we know inside our hearts.

Who am I? I am yours. You chose me, not based on my choices. You choose me for the very *sake* of my choices. So that I *have* authentic freedom to choose. And if I choose to believe in your way, it seems, I must choose to love my own self. Like you. And to authentically love others from my inside, like you.

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Neil D. 2021-10-23

Want justice?

We tend not to consciously question our cultural institutions – built upon power, in the form of respect or money.

When/if we sometimes wake up and are conscious, we often speak out “against,” as “anti-” and consequently view ourselves as members in protest groups of one stripe or another. The charters of these institutional tribes are, ostensibly, “for” something, but even then, cannot escape their roots “against” something.

This seems to be the way of our species and our institutions. Power. Which involves competition and survival of the fittest, winning and losing. And we are so largely asleep to the way those patterns of thought and action influence us as individual, unique, single human beings.

Power, respect, competition, and bargaining to win… These subconscious programs of our institutions are assimilated by individual human beings, leading to divisiveness within families, friendships, and romantic partnerships.

Whether injustices we suffer are institutional or personal, individual persons eventually see themselves as suffering victims, and the natural response is to formulate explanations. “I was brought up in a dysfunctional family. I suffered childhood trauma. She is a manipulative people-pleaser. He is a narcissist. They are lazy and think they are entitled. They are toxic people…”

Even our indignantly righteous religious institutions do the same. “They are ungodly. He is an infidel. She is a sinner. Only our one true faith has the sacraments that can keep you out of hell…”

Seems we are more “against” going to hell than we are “for” going to heaven.

Dole out blame, pass around blame, even take some blame up on your own self… That game stinks (“Shitty blame boardgame“)

We are all, of course, broken in our own way. When our identity feels lost, therapists have us investigate our “core values.” Why? Because, in a culture where identities are mostly shaped “against” things, we unconsciously lose what we are “for.” Seem dubious? Try it. Try composing a personal charter about what you stand for, without implying – by hopeless necessity – what you stand against.

If you think that your “faith” gets you through hard times, or has gotten you through stretches of deep suffering, I encourage you to challenge yourself more deeply. If you have nominally Christian faith based on your religious institution and/or institutionalized scripture, have you considered the possibility that those sources are not faithful to their namesake in any recognizable form?

“The way to do justice is to live simply, to not cooperate with consumerism, with militarism, with all the games that have us trapped. Jesus just does it differently, ignoring unjust systems and building up a better system… The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. He’s showing us ‘We’re just going to do it better. Let’s not be anti-anything. Let’s be *for* something: for life, and for universal love.'” – Richard Rohr

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Neil D. 2021-10-22