Western Christianity has no old testament/original instructions of its various peoples. It has universalized and appropriated the Hebrew teachings/history and bastardized them with interpretive violence. They are the empty souls Ray Aldred has spoken of, cut loose from the earth and wandering about homeless. They have become wendigo and now exist by consuming souls. This is why they appropriate Indigenous identity and culture - because they see/feel themselves bereft of their own. When white people say they have no culture, it is true!

White/Euro Christians must own their own histories as peoples and their connections to their homelands. They must embrace the embarrassment of their incestuous kings, outrageous wars, and indignities enacted upon others. They must embrace their mother the earth that is both stained with the blood of their sins, ravaged by their wendigo existence, and who now lovingly embraces their ancestors and in gracious generosity continues to feed them.

The shedding of blood forges ties that will draw the protagonists together for reckoning again some day. Violence and war turns the faces of opponents toward one another and all the efforts to deny the existence of the other only serve to impel them together in a great resolution, drawing irresistibly to intimacy demanded by consequence.

I walked the streets of London, of Edinburgh too, wishing I ran into you like I did before. Drinking coffee and single malt, remembering your intrusion into my dreams, I wept while writing in my journal of delusions.

I drove the roads of Minnesota and wandered the back ways of Ontario searching for something I lost. Pursuing ghosts along the paths through the North Saskatchewan valley; two hundred steps down, two hundred steps up – no dice.

Wending down the paths of peace, veering off on the rutted trails of war, I just swore. Pledges and proclamations filled the air with all their vacuous substance. I kept my holy just for you but one day it was trampled underground.

We kept all the rules that claimed to keep us safe. They were lies uttered by innocence. Tears washed away our reticence and we were closer to the truth of it all.

Watching the fireworks of the very last year before the great calamity befalls, my tears remember your tenderness and I hear you whisper my name. You are looking to the sky holding another man’s arm. I am looking from above a million miles away.

My song unsung, my bell un-rung, feeling the distance of your warmth and the nearness of all I feel. All the instruments are crying the blues and feeding these tears, imprisoned in this futile time and space. This is the demonstration that it all really did matter and it still does, that is what eternity is!

Fully grieving is the finest place, just ask Hyohnwatha when he lost it all! His beautiful wife and then all of his precious daughters suddenly disappeared in the curse of an eye. No one would comfort him, they were too afraid of opening their own heart – they were afraid of their tears. He cried until he could cry no more, all the heaving gone. Then he said he’d condole the griever with wampum strings.

I will not be afraid of my tears. I will not be afraid of my heart. Throw me in jail. Tear me apart. You’ll never be the source of denial. You can’t belittle my trial. The depth of my river of tears leads me to the highlands of Caledonia and the sweet warmth of a hearth.

An Apocalyptic Vision

A warm rain is falling and a breeze is blowing. The gray skies and misty trees masquerade as chill in this air-conditioned room. It shudders my soul and an ancient place of longing haunts me from the dusty regions of memory. Such stirring from antiquity contrasts with the brevity of my time in this creaking town of ghosts. Nether ghouls slink among us wearing guises of civility.

Soon the mask will drop and the ball of celebration will dissemble into ugly reality. Jets will strafe the virgin sky last ripped by cannon fire. The caverns of this cityscape absorb the wounded and their relatives and friends. The dead are vermin and vulture feed. Even civil pets slink to and fro from their ravenous feasts. Till then great unseen forces remain chained till their cue. I agonize about gentle matters of the heart and the soft lips of vulnerability. Life was once so sure but now crumbles with gamble in every step.

I see the glint in your eye and and hear tremble in your voice. A cold city steel braces your resolve. I was so privileged to see the hurting girl hovering on the brink of eternity. I didn't know how fleeting the glimpse would be.

I left so many times without saying goodbye. Hope always took me from here to the next time of possibility. We dreamers are such threats to fear mongers and warlords. Haunting speculation would take me one more time into the confusion of Mystery Babylon. I sense a death awaits me bigger than my physical existence here. Minions of indignity even now plot my humiliation. Echoes of mocking laughter resound from the pages of history. There is life beyond this coming death I long to know.

Scarred beyond pride's embrace I shuffle down a rocky road. Unseen legions accompany me on this lonely trek. Ancestors and absent loved ones entertain me with anecdotes. Even my grandchildren hear my sagacity via wormholes in the fabric of the universe. The quiet solitude is full of voices transcending space and time, the communion of Einstein.

I leave so many others when I leave you. My children will struggle to make sense of my leaving, an understanding eluding my whole journey. Fare thee well my loves.

Skulking from the sidelines regret slinks along dragging remorse in the triumph of shame. I keep my distance, avoiding the magnetic pull of hopelessness. The field of shattered dreams elicit tears longing for the transitory joy before the apocalypse. The depth of joy suspends the passage of time, but only briefly, until I awake with a start from the nightmare of history's pain. Yet meditation's relief settles my heaving soul ever so completely, ever so briefly.

The crooked streets of Greenwich Village wend through my soul entertaining me with the warm embrace of your ear. The quiet part of you revealed the wealth of wisdom residing in your discretion. Nine million souls clamoured but your whispers captured my attention. No one inquired like me. No one answered like you. Bittersweet was the dissembling of joy in the attrition of neglect. My hope washed up on shore, a glorious wreck.

My sililoquy's lonely echo shudders in an isolated moan. Dragged along in the train of aborted possibility. Your creaking gate rusts and my dry well gathers dust. The future slain by reason and other's counsel for your best. What did they know? Bastards of jealousy!

The cold streets of isolation are full with throng. Your steely-eyed certainty guards your precious core of vulnerability. The shiny glow of your soul beams in your face. My lover saw the beauty in you. She faded into interstellar chill but your furtive eyes war in me still.

I remember your Brooklyn smirk when I asked you if you were a jogger. Your sophisticated presentation cracked ever so slightly to reveal ordinary when your friend chided your fast food history. What a snotty bugger she was casting her snobby gaze from Jersey shores!

Mining the joy from the past history pleasures me. Your absent savour strokes my soul. I feel your breath on my ear. Languid longing steals to thrill when I recall you still.

An old contract from you washed up on the shores of neglect. In the dusty pain of silence it passed unnoticed by me. I left you hanging while I struggled against the inevitability of my own noose. By the time I resurrected to possibility the tender door had morphed into a steely vault. Though it is too late I say I'm sorry for letting you down and for treating your confidence with neglect. I wish I followed through. But then again I wish many things. If only it made a difference with you.

You floored me with your first glance my way, a velvet jewel I had to know. 2,000 miles I flew to you. 2,000 miles you flew to me. 2,000 miles, 500 miles, I drove to you. Nothing would keep me from you. Except your choice.

Then a flash of light...brighter than the sun...

Thoughts on a Theory of the Fifth Dimension

Memories for me elicit deep feelings and for a moment I transcend time and find myself in the past experiencing you. The deeper the feeling the more time dilates and smears out so thinly it seems to disappear. Even moments when they happen are this way for me when I am with you. The intensity of my soul moves me about in time.

In the movie Interstellar an explanation is given concerning the 5th dimension in the black hole. Someone (humanity in the future perhaps) has built an all-of-time repository of memory and Matthew McConaughey's character has entered it in entering the black hole near Saturn. Suddenly he is able to move about in time.

He explains that in the current 4 dimensions or space-time of our current understanding of the universe that time is rigid but we are able to move about in the lower 3 dimensions of space. The 5th dimension of gravity that is experienced in the black hole allows him to move about in the lower 4 dimensions of space (3 dimensions) and time.

My theory is this - that the fifth dimension of gravity indicated in the movie includes the aspect of intensity. Gravity waves as a measure of intensity would be similar to the intensity waves of feeling encoded in memory. The deeper I experience the depth or intensity of feeling the more I am able to move about in time and to access the context or space of memory.

The most heart wrenching scene in Interstellar is when Matthew cries out for his daughter Murph to not let him go on the journey to the black hole. He weeps deeply with regret and tries so desperately to communicate to Murph and is only able to give a few physical signs, like knocking books off the shelf or using Morse Code and gravity to spell out a message.

In the 5th dimension inside the black hole is a multidimensional library of memory that Matthew is able to move about in and he goes here and there in his past trying to communicate to Murph. While Matthew is away in the 5th dimension Murph grows up and feels resentment for her absent father. One day she deciphers her father's message and there is some resolution, but it is couched in the pain of lost encounter.

When my friend Richard Twiss passed from this life on February 8, 2013 I felt such deep loss as I had just beautifully reconnected with him after a few years of little contact. At the same time as this loss I was experiencing the loss of an intimate relationship that upon reflection was and remains the best 6 months of my life. These deep feelings are encoded in the memories of my encounters. They are the intensity of the 5th dimension, the gravity of my emotions.

When I go to that 5th dimension of deep feeling and memory I time travel...I am there with you again, I see your smile, I feel your love, I hear your voice, I see your gaze, I hear your laugh, I see you sitting there as you always do, I smell the coffee, I savour all, I am smiling, and surprised all over again. I am moving about in time and space and I can even see hints of the future but that is still too mysterious and wonderful for me. I hear words I cannot say. I see things I do not understand but I weep and am comforted and laughing all at once.

Destiny

Church means so little to me and here I am training students to work in the church!  I am here for so much more than this: 
I am here to train students to shake up the world, to stand up for the vulnerable and advocate for justice for the marginalized.
I am here to help students heal their own historical trauma and become a facilitator of healing in others.
I am here to raise and further equip Aboriginal leaders and to educate non-Aboriginals on a deeply emotional level all about the Aboriginal reality.
I am here to travel to the far reaches of the earth where the hidden powerful live and to enlist their help and challenge their complacency to be a positive force for dignity, human dignity on a personal and community level.
I am not here to kiss ass or to comfort the powerful or self-satisfied.
I am here to provoke, to disturb and to motivate into action.
I am here to take the blinders off, to sing a great compelling song in a melodious voice that brings the powerful to their knees in humble weeping and that gives life to the wounded broken soul covered with dust, barely breathing.

I see them stir, I see them rise, I see them tremble the confidence of ancient powers, powers that seek to maintain the status quo of indignity.  I see the powerful tremble at the humble who are confident in their God and Creator, who move with the grace of Jesus and who evidence the power of the Holy Spirit.

Their words resonate and tremble fundamental things and trigger movement in the heavens.  Valley's fill up, mountains bow down, storms go stock still, animals speak, powerful whispers are heard...Jesus is Lord and the day of indignity is over...no more oppression, no more violence upon the innocent, no more mocking laughter over the victimized, no more bondage and blindness, no more gossip and whispering, no more injustice but mercy, grace and truth.  No more haughty looks, no more jealous pride, no more weeping that tears you from within, no more frustration and fear, but dancing and celebration and joy and love...from a very deep place!!!!!

Collapse of Quantum Possibilities of the Past and Future in the Eternality of Now

I was born out of time with you. All the possibilities of the past have collapsed to this tender moment with you. Whatever possibilities of the future none can deny this moment of sublime encounter. I have always loved you. This love has transcended generations, both from the past and on into the future. It has even transcended me. Actually this is the easiest to accept for I am well aware of my own dependence upon all of my context that comes to bear upon this present limited apprehension of "me."

I feel a sense of longing because I have always been going in and out of desire and loss. I have always said good-bye in the midst of sublime entreaty and consummation. My ancestors are me and my future generations are present in this moment. Oh the fool, who says, "Get over it and chart the course of your own destiny by your own act of will." Oh, I do not chide the power of choice but even that power was born into us by evolutionary survival.

I am here because my ancestors refused to die when they were led off to slaughter. Even when they were pushed off the buffalo jump they found some flora to break their fall and then gathered the strength to crawl through blood to see another day. This is my heritage. This is my DNA. This is my contribution to future generations, the faces that are coming from the ground.

This is the force of love - that which pulls us beyond the sacrifice of the present struggle and acts on behalf of these future generations. It is a love that transcends time. I loved you before you knew it. I will love you after you are gone.

It is the love of the immortal Arwen who knows she will hurt for ages with only the memories of her great love who has long since passed away. The cold stone monument is the only physical legacy of this transcendent love even as the bones of legacy have been reabsorbed into the ground of consequence.

It is the kiss of love that wakes you from your dream. The dreamscape so real, so transitory, so evocative of the great swelling of our hearts. The moment of clarity is so real, so sensual, which makes its fade in deja vu so so compelling to life. Memories of collapsed possibilities in moments of intersect are coloured with such vibrant passion and even vigorous hues.

The stuff of life is the interpreted meaning of this chaotic flow of sensory information. Love has organized it to apprehend and grasp dignity. This is the crown of human achievement, not the buildings of Babylon, not the schemes of clever men, not the competing souls of mites! It is dignity apprehended, dignity affirmed, dignity promoted, dignity written in the script of life that creates the world.

I can barely fathom the love you have for me. You love me and affirm my dignity and I only feel my failure. Oh, to be able to rest, to rejuvenate in this basking in your grace. I love you. Your love is so much greater than me. Your DNA overwhelms me with courage and peace. I am swallowed up in you. This is the heaven I spoke of. This is the place I want to live in forever. This is the passion and depth of love and survival and dignity.

A Lover's Defence - Post #3

An Accuser’s voice,

"But don't you care about what others think of you and what you have done?"


A Lover’s response,

“Oh I do care very much. I care about what the One who made me thinks. I care about what my love feels and thinks. I value highly the opinion and feelings of my children. I care about those who are most affected by my love.

“I do not care to hear about the opinions and feelings of insecurity, fear and jealousy. If, in my loving transcendent beauty, others are provoked to jealousy I am happy to provoke more love, more care, more respect, more pursuit, for my love deserves nothing less.

“See if you can best me in love, in consideration, in loving regard concerning my love. I am motivated by this, by this pursuit of excellence, by this need to grow in skill, in art and in devotion and care. My love has always desired and required this kind of devotion and attention and any callous disregard of this is not my fault. I am not responsible for the neglect of others, for the hardness of their hearts, for their manipulations of wealth, power and privilege...these thing that assault human dignity. If my esteeming of my love and her desires to a high and holy place provokes the jealousy of self-seekers, what is that to me?

“I care about the jealous only in the matter of my love's concern for them as she has had history with them and time and experience have forged tender bonds. Bonds that when strummed bring tears and joy to the eyes of my love. Oh I do care about this for they move my love. I will listen. I will be present with my whole heart and I will weep with her.

“I am my own being and have my own unique responses to history too and this has schooled me in the art of empathy and compassion. If this provokes the jealous response of others I only feel sorry for their smallness of perception. Perhaps the day will come when they know this love I experience with my love. Then they would laugh and celebrate with us, even against their own inclinations.