While the Republicans in the U.S. Congress and Hamas and Israel and Christendom prove Eve is dead and Adam has gone mad, and God has nothing to do with any of it

    Has America ever had a president who was a poet?

    While the Republicans in the U.S. Congress and Hamas and Israel prove Eve is dead and Adam has gone mad, and God has nothing to do with any of it, this showed up in my email feed this morning and I tossed in something from circa 2018?

Poetic Outlaws

Poem In October 

“And I rose

In rainy autumn

And walked abroad

in a shower of all

my days...”

― Dylan Thomas

It was my thirtieth year to heaven

Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood

   And the mussel pooled and the heron

           Priested shore

       The morning beckon

With water praying and call of seagull and rook

And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall

       Myself to set foot

           That second

      In the still sleeping town and set forth.

      My birthday began with the water-

Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name

   Above the farms and the white horses

           And I rose

       In rainy autumn

And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.

High tide and the heron dived when I took the road

       Over the border

           And the gates

      Of the town closed as the town awoke.

      A springful of larks in a rolling

Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling

   Blackbirds and the sun of October

           Summery

       On the hill's shoulder,

Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly

Come in the morning where I wandered and listened

       To the rain wringing

           Wind blow cold

      In the wood faraway under me.

      Pale rain over the dwindling harbour

And over the sea wet church the size of a snail

   With its horns through mist and the castle

           Brown as owls

       But all the gardens

Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales

Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.

       There could I marvel

           My birthday

      Away but the weather turned around.

      It turned away from the blithe country

And down the other air and the blue altered sky

   Streamed again a wonder of summer

           With apples

       Pears and red currants

And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's

Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother

       Through the parables

           Of sun light

      And the legends of the green chapels

      And the twice told fields of infancy

That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.

   These were the woods the river and sea

           Where a boy

       In the listening

Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy

To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.

       And the mystery

           Sang alive

      Still in the water and singingbirds.

      And there could I marvel my birthday

Away but the weather turned around. And the true

   Joy of the long dead child sang burning

           In the sun.

       It was my thirtieth

Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon

Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.

       O may my heart's truth

           Still be sung

      On this high hill in a year's turning.

Sloan Bashinsky

writes Sloan's newsletter

"Eve's Answer"

April Fool

Vexing Truth

Life is Poetry,

Poetry is Life,

There's no more to say,

but that would 

make God

a really dull boy,

now wouldn't it,

Eve?

So, Eve,

What say you?

After all,

You have been,

still are, blamed,

for everything that went wrong with

hu - MAN - i - ty.

Well, do you really want to hear

what I gotta say?

Is this one of those

be careful what you ask for

pregnancies?

Well, is it?

Probably, but say

what you wish -

I s'pect you need

to be heard.

Heard?

Funny you mention ears.

Yes, ears.

Such important receptacles.

Yet filled with concrete, 

shit, propaganda, beliefs,

certainties, well,

let's not leave out

SUPERSTITION

and

RELIGION,

should we?

By the way,

where do ya

suppose

God came from?

Or, out of?

And, 

why do ya s'pose

I made Eve

in my own 

IMAGE?

'Cause Adam was

so bored and dull -

so ... predictable

He was BORING!!!

the shit outta me!!!

That's why.

Now

Shusssssh -

Don't go round quoting me on

any of that -

I've had quite enough of

the religious right

ta last me 

the rest of forever

Poetic Outlaws

Author

You really love to entwine "politics" in almost every response, don't you? The Adam and Eve story, if deciphered through the lens of metaphor, is a beautiful and quite telling myth that gets to the root of the human condition. As Frithjof Schuon reminded us: 

“The story of Adam and Eve may clash with a certain need for logic, but we bear it deeply within ourselves…the sacred truth is part of our soul; hence the archetypal symbol is to be found in the deepest layer of our consciousness or of our being…it is because in “fallen”—hence exteriorized—man there is a veil separating him from the inner light while nonetheless allowing a glimmer to filter through.”

Sloan Bashinsky

Writes Sloan’s Newsletter

Early 1987, in my 45th year, a couple of angels known in the Bible came one night and woke me up and told me what I had asked God for, to be used for human service, would push me to my limits, but they were going to give it to me, and then I was jolted by three bolts of spiritual lightning, which left me shaking and sweating, and they dissolved back into where they had come from. The changes came slowly, in phases. Lots of beauty, lots more ugly. Some of it so difficult, I prayed to die and sometimes plotted my suicide, or often plotted it, and something stayed my hand. After I emerged from the worst of it, 1998, which was horrible beyond imagining, I was slowly sent back into the world, mostly in my root religion, Christianity, and I spent a good while there disturbing that culture's status quo. and the Capitalism religion's status quo. I was then sent into politics, which I despised. I ended up running ten times for local office, and that was yet another baptism in human miasm, kinda rhymes with raw sewage. Along the way, lots of poems leaped out of me, which I realized, as they came, charged my life path. I seemed to be taking dictation when the verses came, and that was how much of the other writings went, also - non-fiction, fiction, stranger than fiction. 

 

Humanity's problem, other than being infiltrated by the Devil, Evil, or whatever anyone cares to call The Dark Side of the Force, is the species' feminine is fractured, and because of that, the species is devolving in the soul sense. Some people are evolving, but not the species. In the soul sense, it's every man and woman, boy and girl, for themselves. It's a wonderful playing field, but not many people play it well, because most people are so programmed, brainwashed, etc., they simply cannot play it well. I was like that for 45 years, and still would be, I imagine, or I would be dead, but for the two angels and what all they took me through. I don't attend church, and don't belong to any religion, but I know Christendom well, because that's where I grew up, and that's where I was sent back in to work for a good while. What is so important about your Poetic Outlaws is the constant theme and struggle to be who you really are, no matter what the rest of the world thinks. As people age, in the soul sense, the maturity sense, some do it quickly, others, like me, take a lot longer, they have things to offer that might help some people, but the species, in the main, is not open to such help. 

 

David

The religious left may well rise again. 

Sloan BashinskyWrites Sloan’s Newsletter
I don't care for the religious left, either. They remind me of the Fukawi tribe of some lore, said to be forever getting lost and gathering in a circle and sitting down and holding hands and closing their eyes and chanting, "Where the fuck are we? Where the fuck are we?" But they don't remind me of Adolph Hitler, which the American right and its draftdodger leader they say God sent to them, Donald The Great, do.  

 

David 

Heard. But I was thinking of some of the people I knew in my youth, who were maybe thirty years older than me, who had been involved in supporting civil rights and protesting Vietnam. My wife is in seminary to become a chaplain and lo, there are the beginnings of a resurgence there.

Also, not knowing where you are is a part of losing your way in order to find a better way, no?

 

Sloan’s Newsletter
Agreed, I think we have to get totally lost and desperate to have a chance of moving forward, but I also thknk we have to know we are lost and desperate, and we need a bit of help from what I was raised to call God to do it. I'm 81. A literal miracle saved me from the Vietnam war draft. It was another 20 years before two angels showed up and started trying to work with me. I don't know you or your wife, but I commend anyone who sees things aren't working so good (or not much at all), and they see the left and the right are complicit in it, and they sincerely wish to go down their own soul's path, instead of being part of a herd, which historically is not very tuned in. Jesus in the Gospels, and his close followers, modeled what it's like to leave the herd. It was not easy. it was dangerous. I don't think that's changed in 2000 years.

David
It’s very strange to me that so many who talk about JC all the time would be astonished to actually meet him/her in the flesh. We believe what we want to believe, regardless of truth.

Sloan Bashinsky
Writes Sloan’s Newsletter
That's how herds are.
I hitchhiked from Birmingham, Alabama to Seattle in 1999, allegedly doing reasearch for a book I might some day write, Diary of a Redneck Mystic. My last ride, from Missoula, Montana to Seattle, was a fellow moving there. He was long in AA, and we talked about that a good bit. He was rendezvousing with Episcopalian friends in Seattle, and that's where I ended up, waiting for someone I knew in Settle to pick lie up and take me to his home. I was raised Episcopalian, and I heard this man and woman talk a good bit about their faith and St. Paul, but not much mention of Jesus, whose teachings I thought then and think now were a bit more difficult than Paul's. My ride arrived just as I was explaining to them that St. Paul was gay, that was the thorn in the flesh he never spelained in his letters. A Jewish Pharisee, who had a solemn oath to marry and propagate God's chosen people, Paul wrote nothing about having a wife or children by her, but he did frown upon sex and promoted celibacy, and he placed women below their husbands in relationship to Christ. Every woman around Paul knew he was gay. The Episcopalians really didn't like hearing that. I was glad my ride had arrived, so I could leave. 

 

David 

Whiskeypalians!!

I always felt like Paul ruined Christianity…Diary of a Redneck Mystic is a great title! (I live about 30 miles west of Seattle…) 

 

Sloan BashinskyWrites Sloan’s Newsletter

In 1998, when I was in what would turn out to be a 16-month black night of the soul in Birmingham, which was far worse than a 4-year black night of the soul in Boulder, I was attending my mother's Episcopal church, hoping that would help me. I visited with the rector in his office once a week. He was a well respected Episcopal theologian. I told him about a dream, in which one of the two angels told me in my sleep, "The reason you are having this experience is because you once were Judas." The rector branched, said the dream could not have come from God! I asked how he could know that for sure? He said, well, he could not know it for sure. Instead of telling him that Judas was Jesus's best friend, except for Mary Magdalene, who was Jesus's wife, and the only male disciple Jesus could trust to betray him and push along the skit the three of them were discussing privately, as the other disciples could not deal with it, and Judas killed himself because he could not bear what he had done at Jesus's behest, I asked the rector to tell me what he thought about Judas? He said everyone betrayed Jesus, and Judas' mistake was killing himself, for God would have used him mightily I thought that was a great answer, and I said, then we may never have heard of Paul? The rector looked gobsmacked. Imagine how far I get saying stuff like that to Christians in and away from their churches. 

 

Neal

Don’t mean to be rude by butting in your guys’ conversation, but a few thoughts: it may be hard to say what Judas’ mistake was as his we don’t have an exhaustive description of Judas. Where the Episcopalian theologian might’ve stumbled on is the difficult with predestination vs free will, or determinism vs free will: scholars like Sam Shamoun say that Christians will be debating over this topic for 1000 more years biblically. 

Sloan BashinskyWrites Sloan’s Newsletter
Aw shucks, fee free to butt in with something intelligent. I simply shared with David what a well-respected Episcopal theologian said about Judas, after I had told him about being told in my sleep that I was in a black night of the soul because I once was Judas. Of course, that might not be literal. Perhaps, in some way in this life, or in some ways, I had betrayed Jesus. 

 

Although, I'd had quite a few not entirely of this world nudges that I had been Judas, who very much did not like the skit that would end in Jesus being crucified, as Judas already was worrying about how people were far more swooned by the miracles, than they were by what Jesus was teaching about how to live differently from the way people had lived before. Also, Judas wasn't convinced Jesus would survive the crucifixion. Yet, sweating blood in Gethsemane, Jesus laid it out - Not his will, but God's will, be done. 

Did Jesus have free will to try to dodge the crucifixion? How many angels dance on the head of a needle? I don't think that's a good answer. Jesus made a decision. He did what he thought he needed or even had to do. He knew his secret disciples Joseph of Arithmae and Nicodemus would try to rescue him, and they did by getting Pilate to let them take Jesus off the cross the evening of the day he was crucified. They salved him in 100 weight of aloes and myrrh and wrapped his body in sterile linen. Myrrh incites white blood cells fight infection, and aloe is a powerful wound healer. Jesus then had a near-death experience in the tomb. Christendom made it too magical and fantastical. And, Christendom definitely put the miracles ahead of Jesus' teaching about how to live. 

Free will is a tough nut to crack. Most people are so programmed in childhood, that the programming makes them almost like robots, which makes them easily susceptible to more programming, witness the MAGAs, the Muslim jihadists, or any extremists. The mind is much larger than the conscious mind., so how does the conscious mind really have free will? Jesus's teachings about how to live were meant to help people move beyond their programming. Yet, he said the road to life is difficult and few enter the gate; many are called but few are chosen; and the work is great and the laborers are few. 

Christianity says anyone who believes Jesus was the only begotten son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, who was tempted by the Devil, and then was crucified, dead and buried, to save them from their sins, even 2000 years later, and that he was resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven to sit on the right and of God, from which to judge the living and the dead, will have eternal life, and everyone else dies and goes to hell - even if they lived exactly as Jesus taught people to live, but they were Jewish, or Muslims, or New Agers, or Atheists, or never heard of Jesus. The Devils' greatest trick is convincing it doesn't live in churches? 

 

David

I reject determinism, whether through theology or physics. But it makes for interesting discussions!  

Sloan BashinskyWrites Sloan’s Newsletter
I attended a private Presbyterian high school, where the school founders believed they were of the Elect. One of the co--founder Calvnists taught a New Testament class. A student asked what's wrong with sex, when there was so much talk of fornication in the Bible? The co-founder said the Bible was going to be rewritten to change things like that. Then he said, he and his wife had had sex three times in their 60 years of marriage, twice was to have children and the third time wae for pleasure, and he had regraded the third time ever since. His poor wife. 

 

He was convinced Nikia Kruschev was the Anti-Christ, and since we were a military school and were being trained to use our M-1 Garands, which I could field strip and reassemble in about a minute, we would have to defend America from the Soviet Union invasion, even though we had no bullets for the M-1s even to practice shooting. 

They had so many prayer meetings and revivals, where so many students were saved, and saved again, that I stopped participating at all. Something in me was not going another step with them. I had nothing against Jesusand God, other than I figured they didn't think I behaved as well as I should. I had a big problem with the Calvinists, which expanded to all of Christendom, as I grew older. 

God is in every religion, and beyond religions. Nobody knows what God is really up to, not even the angels know God that well. So, what person can speak intelligently about predestination? 

 

David
True…some of these stories of yours ought to be the basis of short stories or novels, in my humble opinion. (That “non-fornicating” teacher, Lord!)
Ach, I must go to job now, to keep the non-fornicating wheels of capitalism lubricated….

Sloan Bashinsky
Writes Sloan’s Newsletter
And here I was thinking for a very long time that capitalism was not even a slightly covert branch of the oldest profession :-). 

The stories I shared here, and many more, are in various books of mine, which are free reads at archive.org. 

I will put this discussion you initiated into a post at redneckmysticforpresident.blogspot.com.

 sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com