It's All Crazy

Part One

Part One

Last year a friend related to me a story about how she had been outside in her yard chatting over the fence with her neighbor, when a dove proceeded to coo incessantly interrupting their conversation. Her neighbor jokingly suggested she walk over and get closer to the dove to find out what all the commotion was about. So she did, then returned to her neighbor and reported that the dove said, “It’s all crazy.” Of course, they had a bit of a laugh over that, but the fact that there was some serious truth to the dove’s message, that things were “upside down,” kind of gave them both pause. And she swears that the dove said those actual words to her. Just sayin’.

Recently, this same friend told me that the dove had returned this year, cooing away. I laughed and asked her “what did she have to say this time?” My friend replied that it was the same thing, “It’s all crazy!” So I thought to myself ‘that sounds about right,’ because nothing has really changed. If anything, the craziness has only intensified.

A house divided against itself … is Upside down.

I used to derive such feelings of joy and a real sense of belonging in the company of people with whom I shared a common perspective on life. But in terms of my

relationships with friends and the members of spiritual groups I’ve belonged to over the last 10 years or so, I can only describe them as frustrating, especially when I didn’t feel free to speak my mind, and disheartening when I realized that we were not all on the same page. I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the sixties:

“We need to have people who mean something to us, people to whom we can turn knowing that                                    being with them is coming home.”

                                                    ~Bernard Cooke~  

Unfortunately, my relationships were starting to feel less like home and more like moving into a new neighborhood and trying to figure out where, or if, I fit in. The political issues of our times were creating artificial barriers between my friends and I, flipping everything upside down. Matters of faith and spirituality that had been foundational, were now being supplanted by a jargon and dogma without moral absolutes, where “anything goes.” Everything was relative and personal, depending on one’s own experience. There were no universal truths, and there was no use for tradition, reason, or past accomplishments.

Many changes that were being imposed were supposedly under the banner of Social Justice. But there wasn’t and still isn’t a universally-accepted official definition of social justice.

Originally it came out of the Catholic Church as a conservative movement concerned with workers rights and their impoverished living conditions during the industrial revolution. However that focus changed as time went on and now social justice is rooted in identity politics centered around racial reconciliation and gender equality or equity.

Then it seemed to morph into a new ideology about “oppression,” in terms of people experiencing abuse or unjust treatment, and not having equal opportunity. Racism would first come to the fore, but then the field started to expand to include other areas of one’s life like gender and sexuality where individuals might be feeling excluded.

For a while, I tried to ignore all this, hoping that it would just go away, but I could only pretend to not see what was happening right before my eyes for just so long. Eventually I started to ask questions, but their answers only seemed to reveal the absurdity of their stated position. I felt like the little boy character portrayed in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes.

The Emperor character is a very vain and pompous person, dressed in the finest clothes befitting a man of his stature. His arrogance causes him to fall prey to a couple of swindlers who con him into believing they dressed him in royal fashion. When the emperor appears before his subjects, he believes himself to be wearing velvet robes, when in actuality, he is “butt naked.”

In the crowd of cheering onlookers there is a young boy who sees immediately that the emperor isn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. The boy attempts to call everyone’s attention to this fact, but most of them appear to be just as caught up in the con as the emperor, clapping for him, and complementing his beautiful new suit.

I relate to this little boy. He’s really got guts to speak the truth instead of going along with the con. I can’t help wondering why he is the only one to see the reality of the situation. I guess young children have the advantage of not yet being fully domesticated by societal pressures, so they just call it as they see it, oblivious to the thoughts of others.

I remember when I was about four years old I had a playmate named Judy and one day she said to me, “I like you, Veronica,” and I replied, “I like you too, Judy, but your head’s too big.” My mother overheard me say this and was horrified. She took me aside and quietly said, “Don’t say things like that, Veronica.” I said, “Why not? It’s true.” Trying to stifle the urge to laugh, she told me, “It’s just not nice, and you can hurt someone’s feelings.”

So, in the spirit of that young boy in the story, I think I’ll name him, “Ronboy,” I’m going to call out a few things as I see ‘em from my own experiences that have caused me considerable distress in my relationships over the last years, and if I hurt someone’s feelings, it won’t be intentional.

I think I inherited a gift of a kind of sixth sense from my mother because periodically I would get this feeling inside me that would alert me to the fact that something isn’t quite right here.

I smell a rat, was one of my mother’s favorite expressions, and she was usually right. Somebody is trying to pull a fast one on us, is another expression she used when situations didn’t add up. So from her I learned to ask questions, and connect some dots, and look for patterns to understand why I was feeling so uneasy about what I was observing.

One of the first times I started to get that uneasy feeling in earnest was back in the early 2000s with 9/11, the wars in the Middle East, and the elections of 2000 and 2004, especially when Obama came out on stage at the convention. He was African American, and a brand new face we had never seen before, young and very well-spoken, even charismatic. He became a U.S. Senator the very next year. Then four years later in 2008, he was running for president, and he won.

I mention this because I thought it seemed like a rather meteoric rise to prominence and I couldn’t help thinking how unusual it was. Not to mention that he served two terms as president, all the while maintaining the status quo, wars and all. So much for his hope-and-change platform.

The above photo is of me and my friend, Marie, a close friend of 45 years. She was a nurse and I was a teacher. We were also protest buddies, picketing against “weapons of mass destruction.” This photo was taken in 2003 the day Amy Goodman came to town. We showed up at nearly every “Stop the War Machine” protest, not to mention the hundreds of letters and phone calls I sent to Congress expressing my opposition to war and anything else that pissed me off.

Remembering Obama though, reminded me of the time back in 2017-18 when Marie expressed concern about Trump wreaking havoc on the immigrants. I told her that Obama deported more illegals than anyone. She didn’t want to believe me. I told her to look it up. Later that day, she called me to tell me she discovered what I told her about Obama was true. I thought that was really decent of her to do that.

It’s been years since I’ve listened to Amy Goodman or any of the news networks. I gave up on Amy because she was so obviously biased toward the leftist agenda that even I couldn’t stand it, and during the Middle East wars she did sensationalize a lot. In general, I gave up on the news media and chose to read my news and sort things out for myself.

I also declined to join my friend at the “pink pussy hat protest” against Trump in 2017. I didn’t like the name of it, and it just didn’t feel right to me. I figured there were other ways to express one’s objection to political candidates, but I’m not even sure voting is one of them because it’s so corrupted. I was just done with all that protesting because it never brought about any change. It only made me feel like I was “doing something.” Now, Trump is president, so I rest my case, and the intense hatred of him on the left continues unabated.

Yesterday I happened to be at a copy center using one of the machines. A woman in her 60s came in and started to use the machine next to me. She asked me a question about how much it was costing me to make copies. I answered her and remarked that it seemed rather expensive. She said smugly, “You must not have made copies in a while because the prices have been out of sight,” then followed that with the words “thanks to Trump.” I was a bit taken aback, and couldn’t think of any clever response to make, so I said, “Ohhh, is that so? ya think??” She was quiet for a few minutes and then said to me, “That was rude of me. You just didn’t look like someone who would have voted for Trump.” I said, “I didn’t!” but I didn’t vote for any of them because I don’t trust a one of ‘em, or the process.” Then I packed up my stuff and left. But I was bummed out by this little exchange.

I mean, who ‘in their right mind’ would ever approach a total stranger and make such inappropriate and presumptive remarks like that? Well, the only conclusion one can reach is that she wasn’t in her right mind. As if there were actually distinguishing physical characteristics of what a Trump voter looks like. Now I bet she’s probably more confused than ever. I immediately thought this might be what Trump Derangement Syndrome looks like, an irrational reaction to the election results which caused extreme emotional distress for many on the left.

If you want to know more, then read this essay by Katie Grace where she discusses the dynamics of hatred and how it can turn into a classic example of psychological projection.

hate-is-the-tragic-inversion-of-love

So, have you ever wondered why it seems that nothing ever changes politically in this country? Well, I have, and my instincts tell me... because what else do I have to go on? Right? that some entity (the Deep State?) unknown to us is really running the show and maintaining the status quo no matter which party is in office. I suspect that this is how those entities maintain their power, because, first of all it is all about power, and none of our elected officials are making any of the big decisions. It’s the same game, but different faces. That’s why nothing ever really changes.

Different strategies, like mass shootings, environmental calamities, or other crisis events, like maybe a life-threatening virus running rampant around the world, are used to divert our attention from the bigger picture. Remember Rahm Emanuel’s famous quote, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Why? because it can become the reason to go to war or to implement some policy that wouldn’t, under different circumstances ever be supported by the American people. And it doesn’t have to be a big event because the media will take it and blow it up way out of proportion anyway.

One political party or the other is blamed, it doesn’t really matter. The masses just have to be provided a scapegoat.

Next thing, you’ll hear individuals start to claim that they are being oppressed for one reason or another. Then “shock-troops” are marshaled, and a new movement comes into being, but the power remains in the same hands.

*Note to my Readers: You may be wondering what this story has to do with Notions of the Sacred. I asked myself that same question. I had mentioned in my very first essay that theologians like Chardin and philosophers like Alan Watts had concluded that nothing is really profane or mundane, because “everything is sacred.” Coincidentally, this morning an email from a website to which I subscribe came into my inbox and it happened to be about the sacred nature of storytelling. I thought, Wow! That couldn’t be more timely. The writer discussed the life-affirming power inherent in sharing our personal stories with each other. The experience gives us a glimpse into who each of us is, and what’s important to us. It helps us recognize our shared humanity, as well as cultivating deeper understanding for our differences.

There may be some or many things that I’ve written in this essay that you may not agree with, but what can I say? It’s my story, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and to be honest, I really needed to tell it. It was keeping me from moving on. So, if you choose to read some, or all of it, I can’t thank you enough for being part of this "letting go” process with me.

See you on the flip side.

Ronnie Rocket

Dedication

🎵This is dedicated… 🎵This is dedicated to…🎵

Katie Grace

My dear friend, counselor, mentor, and inspiration,

Without whose instruction, encouragement, and support

I would never have even attempted to write anything like this

And especially for her spiritual guidance during the last 3 and a half years

of personal Inner work to uncover and recover my true self and voice

Which made all the rest possible

With gratitude,

From my heart…

Ronboy