The Meaning of Life

The purpose of Life is to Love Well. Thus, in ourselves and our surrounding, will we witness Meaning bloom like a fruit come to sustain we who husband the Land of Love, sacrificing its pulp to perpetuate our good cause.

To Love Well means that we acknowledge the gift that is our capacity to love and explore its magnitude, with both a scientific and religious spirit. Scientific insofar as we test it, we dare to hypothesize (e.g. that it is infinite) and then endeavor to prove that it, in fact, is as we hypothesized or is not. Religious insofar as we resurrect love -- even when it seems dead and gone, even when it seems like it never was -- with the breath of our belief and the tenderness of our humanity.

When I say that the purpose of Life is to Love well, it is to accept this gift of Love, first; to know it, second; and through knowing it, allow ourselves to be changed by it so as to not kill the enemy, not trespass on other students of Love, but to destroy our very own mal-constructed knowledges of what Love is.

This day we may not see as easily with the imagination of the mind, but indeed, with the heart we are obliged to hold fast to this vision.

The purpose of Life is to Love well. In order to to this we must study Love and in order to do this we must endeavor to first and foremost love ourselves, for in ourselves, we will find every law of Nature and of Man, every theorem of mathematics, every philosophy of every philosopher, and so forth. In ourselves we will find the light and The Light, the flesh and the bone and the Spirit and the Soul and in there, somewhere, we will find what all men, since the dawn of consciousness, have intuited to be greater than which any single man can imagine: that wondrous capacity to Love, that capacity that knoweth no limits save for our own failure to act, our own unwillingness to believe (which is to say, act with the love of a mature heart, even when the mature mind counsels otherwise).

Be not shepherded by Temptation, but by Love, and only Love.  And if thy art shepherded by Temptation, it is to learn the difference between Temptation and Love.  Once the difference is distinguished, that phase of your growth is over and you should endeavor to release temptation and this is also done with Love, for Temptation has taught you.

Loving well is not easy and in our efforts we are sure to fail. In this cycle of believing, trying, failing, we are left with the final gesture of loving ourselves again, despite failure; which is to say, believing in Love and its eternity, despite any quantity of empirical results suggesting otherwise.

To Love holistically is to recruit all orders of thinking, including that Highest Order Thinking which we tend to believe is preserved for difficult problems of a mathematical, philosophical, economical, theoretical, academic, even moral sort sometimes … when, in simple fact, this high order thinking is nothing more than that faculty to Love and the intensity and rigor often required to do so, well.

"Endeavor to Love well", is the proposition here, friends.  And if you do so already, endeavor to do so to a degree you cannot presently imagine; the whole World of Man, and the whole Universe of Energy will conspire in your favor.  For in this Life, Love is the Alpha and the Omega.

Jimmy and the Angry Birds

Jimmy went walking at the nearby University a little while ago. He soon found himself being attacked by birds. He thought to himself, “what's up with this? Why are you attacking me, bird?” Of course, he said this only in his head and, of course, the bird did not respond.

Or, at least, the bird did not respond in the same language that Jimmy used to ask the question.

Unable to deduce why the bird was attacking him, Jimmy continued walking in the direction he wanted to go, for he thought, “I need to go this way to get to where I want to go.” But the bird's attack only grew more fierce and soon, Jimmy was running as fast as he could away from the bird.

It occurred to Jimmy as he was running fast away that there was a nest there on the ground and the path he took to get to where he wanted to go took him pretty close to the nest, which belonged to the bird. The path did not belong to Jimmy, but he supposed it was well within his rights to walk where he walked, the way he walked. Plus, the bird did not have any signs up, nor did the bird speak the language of Jimmy's preference, which was the lingua franca of Human Beings; very particular to Human Beings, indeed.

Jimmy later realized that he was too close to the bird's nest and that the bird was right to defend the area around the nest. Jimmy apologized within himself, as if the message would, somehow, eventually make it to Bird. He said, “Sorry Bird. I didn't know you were protecting your babies. My bad.”

Having heard Jimmy recount the tale of the Angry Bird, I was compelled to analyze it. Firstly, the bird was able to communicate to Jimmy in a way that got Jimmy to do what the bird wanted; namely, to keep Jimmy away from the nest. Jimmy,without knowing it, succeeded in communicating to the bird that he understood neither the bird's language nor message, and it was in response to this ignorance that the bird got more fierce on Jimmy.

The second observation is this: the Bird is not always so aggressive. Indeed, the Bird can be seen flying around peacefully, eating things, caring for her fledglings, standing on branches or electrical wires singing for no apparent-to-humans reason. The Bird does, however, possess a violent side, and this side is installed in the Nature Software Bird as the application Angry Bird. Any part of Nature using the Software Bird will possess the app Angry Bird otherwise the part of Nature operating as Bird will have a low survival rate (it seems that Nature is interested in Survival – this may have something to do with the song of the bird on the branch or electrical wire).

In the same way, any organism born of Nature will possess an Angry X software designed for the very same purpose: to survive. Not that it is the only Nature App contributing to the survival of the Natural Being, but it is one that has proven successful for the period of time Living Beings have been around.

Now, I daresay that an organism is not just a Single Form organism, like an amoeba (single cell) or a bird (single body) but a society of human beings, too, is in the category of Natural Living Organisms (NLO). As such, it too has all the codes and special apps found in Nature. So, while not all of its parts may express the same range of emotions, behaviors, interests, etc., indeed, the collection as a whole, once it is full and alive, will have, among all other codes and apps, a member or group of members who are the Angry Birds, so to speak. They will have the Angry code, they will be the defense mechanism of the NLO and, like the bird, when they are engaged, they will not yield unless their terms are met, one way or another. Their presence is natural, their function is natural and fueled by a most primitive Purpose, and there are only a few ways to stop them:

1. take another path to where you want to go, do not consider that path your own, forfeit your “right” to take whatever path you want, or;
2. simply run because, in the end, your goal was not to awaken the angry bird, nor to injure the angry bird or her children, but simply to achieve another end, or;
3. engage in the bird's aggressive physical dialogue decisively and silence the bird once and for all; and don't feel badly about it when it is over, for you are a part of Nature.

An Interpretation of Biblical Miracles

You won't understand anything in the Bible until you know what the book seeks to tell you about. It is a Creation story, but not of the physical world, of Life. And the Creation story presented in the Bible is not and does not seek to be scientific. Indeed, its purpose is precisely to call your attention to an aspect of Life that cannot be explained sufficiently with the language of science.

You will not understand anything that Jesus says until you accept certain premises about who He is and where He comes from. The idea is that Jesus is God incarnate. Before you go and affirm that this is impossible, know that this affirmation is born of your mind, and that your mind has been molded, trained in a way. This molding and this training is not necessarily complete and you might want to practice some mental flexibility by considering hypotheses which, at first, seem quite unlikely and seeing what these hypotheses produce within you if you follow them to their conclusions. You will find that text like the Bible work in this way: they render you the proof of the Nature of the Truth they profess. You either accept or do not. You either put in the effort to understand or do not. You either believe or do not.

To accept a premise and to believe that it is true are two very different things. To accept a premise and see where it goes is simply responsible intellectualism. It is also respectful to he/she/they who created the story and/or argument. To some humans of this modern era, accepting the requisite premises of Sacred Texts is an exercise in intellectual humility for many are exorbitantly proud of human achievements until now. And, almost all of these achievements lay outside the domain of Faith. They seem to provide a view of Life such that Faith and her stories seem lies better suited for gullible children.

Recalling that Jesus Christ is God incarnate will help you to contextualize any and everything that comes out of his mouth. Remember that He speaks of the Kingdom of God and that his purpose is, in effect, to remind men of spiritual values in a serious way. He does not address men and woman as the common man does (an imperfect creature of mortal flesh to another imperfect creature of mortal flesh), but as a perfect, eternal living spirit addressing other perfect, eternal living spirits ( the Aramaic "aba" was used in the sense; see Dr. Errico Rocco). Jesus does not think of Life as the common man thinks of Life. He does not think of Death in the common way, either. He is here to talk about the Eternal. He is here to talk about God and the truth of God and everything that he does revolves around this singular purpose. He is not just talking about this stuff, either. He is living it.

Finally, the Bible is a powerful argument not only for the existence of God, the Kingdom of God, and the relationship between common man and the divine, but for the simple Value of Belief and the need for the awesome Power of Belief to be aligned with something that is Eternally, Fundamentally and perfectly divine, in the human flesh, ergo Jesus Christ.

The Body and Blood of Christ

The Eucharist/The Lord's Supper/Holy Communion

Bread is a chemical substance. Those chemicals, when examined under a microscope, are molecules and the molecules have atoms. When we look at the bread this closely, we see that is is mostly what appears to be “empty space”. The nuclei of the atoms are so small and far apart, like the space between the sun and a planet. If we were to see it with our naked eyes that way, we would not think that it was bread, nor would we see the color of it (it would not reflect light) nor would we perceive, with any other physical sensation, that it was the bread we know bread to be.

Scientists today say that bread is energy. I mean, the say that everything is energy. They say that even the nucleus of the atom, which was the smallest physical thing for a long time, is also actually just another form of energy. No actually solid stuff. Yet it is so easy to grab a piece of bread, eat it, taste it, and then say, after we ate it, “I just ate bread”. Despite Science's fanciful description of physical and chemical stuff, there is no argument about the reality of the experience of eating bread. The experience had effects like touch, taste, and so forth. Certain effects can be measured the the human organism itself. But can we feel how many miles 4 slices of bread will permit us to walk? No, this would take a more holistic analysis of what bread, according to chemistry and physics is. We would have to interpret bread as a type of energy and not simply as the bread the human organism so unhesitatingly accepts as Real.

Understanding that Bread is Energy To Do Stuff is the the same Variety of Reasoning employed in talking about God and Jesus. Bread is energy, and bread, from some perspectives, from certain microscopes and eyes, is a miracle. When you stop shoving it in your face along with other stuff (the substances of which are also unknown to you) and you actually sit and contemplate that bread – that plain old boring bread – you find that you are wrong: the bread is neither plain nor old nor boring. You find that it is molecules you can't see, energy that you can taste and burn and use to move your physical body. The bread gives your physical body Life. Seeing the truth about bread might help you see the truth about what Christ.

The same logic is used to understand the blood. The body and blood constitute our physical presence here. What we do, what we consume, and how we use that energy we consume and seed our environments with that energy after it has passed through our human organism.

Water into Wine

Who wants water when you can have wine? I met a guy in the Italian Alps, in a small town called Chamois in the state of Val d'Aosta. He was 73 and the only guy who was born and raised up there in that village which, when I was there, had all of about 13 people. He said he never drank water. Only milk and wine. Because he was a man.

Now, Jesus turned water into wine. How did he do it? Jesus said, “look at the water.” Then he said, “what is it?” You thought about where it came from. A fountain somewhere. And then continued thinking about the origin of the water in the fountain, maybe even the fountain, itself. The water came from a mountain on which it rains occasionally. The rain came from a cloud and the cloud from the ocean and the water from the ocean got lifted up to the sky and turned into a cloud because of the heat of the sun and some wind and air pressure and a few other of Nature's phenomena. The water as two constituent molecules. It is soft and seems to have pretty much no flavor. Who made the water? Why do I know to drink it? Why is it so good for me? I think when you understand the water, and then you drink it and feel how real it is, you also feel how real Realness is (in a Platonic or even Heidegerian sense) and it isn't what you thought it was. You original idea of Real was a fraction of what is known today and what is known today is yet a fraction of the Whole. The Whole Real Truth is way, way, realer than what we are used to, that it is so hard to describe ... understandably, then, it is hard to believe.

This truth is ten thousand times more intoxicating than wine. This is the truth of Jesus Christ.

The Fish and the Bread

Soldiers are sitting around, starving. Dude named Jesus comes around and tells his friends, “get two fish and five pieces of bread 'cause we're gonna feed these guys.” They're like, “no way, bro.” Jesus is like, “Yeah way.”

Imagine yourself there. Hungry as hell. Living in a time in which there is a guy who some people actually believe is the Son of God. Like, God in the Flesh. You might not believe it, sure. But there are dudes around, rational, sane human beings, who believe it. You try to fight it off, but you can't help but be at least a little bit influenced by your environment. You have to keep on telling yourself, “this is Jesus guy can't be for real. I don't believe it.”

But then you see the first guy handling the fish. He is delicate with it. He takes such a small piece. Thissoldier is emaciated, shivering with hunger, looking like if he doesn't get half that fish, old dude is gonna die. But he takes just like a lick of the fish. And then when the bread comes, he pretty much just touches the bread and then licks his fingers. Licks his fingers like the taste on them was gonna save his life. All the guys do this and eventually, but the time the bread and the fish get to you, there is still like the entire fish and the entire pieces of bread and all the dudes in front of you are smiling and talking now. They aren't as grumpy as before. Not even as weak and famished as before. They are lit up. Maybe the moon is out, shining on them. You don't know. You have your eyes on the barely fed faces of five thousand soldiers. Your disbelief is dissolving in the truth of the light of their mood, their smiles, their camaraderie.

You, too, lick the fish and graze your fingers on the bread, then lick your fingers like there were endless noodles coming out the tips of them. Jesus noddles. "Fake". "Fictitious", according to your old way of seeing things, according to empiricism (or what you thought it was) but empirically, you are passing the fish, passing the bread, smiling, talking. The fish and the bread are the occasion that invite loving, even when there is almost nothing.  This is the light and when two or more emit, give or basque in it, there you will find the love of Christ, the presence of God.

Summer In Itajubá Survival Tips

In summer Itajubá, you should take off your clothes when you get home. It is hot and you will sweat watching TV or surfing the net or whatever you do. You will then have to change clothes before you leave again because your first outfit is sweaty and Brazilians are an impressively clean, nice-smelling people. If you come to my house and I attend you at the door in my boxers and flip-flops, just look into my eyes and it won't be so awkward.

You should not be surprised by the sight of bare-chested construction workers, homeless, teenage boys or any other variety of male half-naked in public. Also, you should not get too excited by the ubiquitous short short shorts, the flowing colorful dresses, the shine of vitamin D on everyones skin. That will distract you from getting anything done. You may even acquire neck injuries, like whiplash, or fall back into the habit of drooling, which is considered rude in Brazil.

If you get irritated with anything at all, look at the sky, look at the mountains, buy a homemade ice cream or açai or an all-natural juice. Sit down and sweat in peace, knowing that you are in Itajubá and probably if you arrive "late" to where ever you think you need to be, you will most likely arrive right on time.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Take time to reflect today, Dr. MLK Jr. Day. 

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will."

From "Letter from Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963

Here are two quotes I like, the latter of which reminds me of John 1:5 for those of you interested in religion, quality literature, or hermeneutics. I put these two, also, because it has taken me around a decade of reading the Bible as an adult to finally feel like I understand the text. Many times I put it down and said, "this is ridiculous. This doesn't make any sense...it isn't realistic." I hypothesized that the failure to understand was my own. The effort to understand is a part of the experience of reading the text. The authors' were not obscure, I was dim and arrogantly considered my little candlelight of intellect sufficient to behold the cosmos of the soul.

There mere act of trying to understand the texts as completely as possible has strengthened, stretched, and rendered more nimble my mind in such a way that these "upgraded" faculties have enhanced my perspective on Life, People, Art, Work, etc. So, religious or agnostic or atheist, I argue that anyone who accepts the challenge of humbling his own "knowledge", his own conception of what is "True" to the narratives of (probably) any Sacred Text will find his mind more capable, his physical senses more sensitive to the depth of Truth, and his heart more at peace, pumping not just blood through his own body, but Love through a metaphysical organ of which all Beings are, arguable, constituents.

Excellent Men

Once, I found myself in the company of excellent men; or rather, men of habits lending toward what some might call excellent results. Well, I knew well enough to lay my third-eye gaze inward. Indeed my contents were in every way equal to theirs and yet my output, my expression, my transmission, my transubstantiation, my alchemy, of said substance (rather a "super-stance" or an "omni-stance" than a "sub-stance", I propose) was simply not par. It was a difference of method, approach, motivation. Indeed, either a lot of work was needed on my part, or a miracle, to come to match. I'd scribbled on a piece of paper, as I was in the habit of doing -- and still am -- whilst I sort of fretted in my agitated, inferior-feeling Will-force and irritated Ego: "I, too, must therefore seek excellence; if not, new company." 

And then, just at that moment, the lads of whom I speak, who were at the table discussing other things not-at-all related, all cried out, "amen to that brother!" smashing their glasses together above the middle of the table, and it was a Divine Timing behind that coinciding of my interior moment and that shared experience where by body, at least, was present. It was metapoetics, it was what the Single Soul in which we reside looks like when it dares to leap from the alphabet soup of the Collective Mind and fizzle in the caustic breath of Life, gazing upon itself through my confounded ears. Gone it went.

And of the capital “T” Truth, the meaning, there is no measurement, no empirical nothing in regard to it. Just me – I – and my response. I was to be the result, the proof, you so desperately need in order to confidently “know”.

But even now – and perhaps no matter what I might do or claim – you prefer your fine and reasonable doubt as if it were the shadow of a lone tree in a desert of confusion when, as I see it, it is much more like a mirage holding you from progressing onward, from returning.

Examining our two situations, I wonder: If you are right insofar as I am fueled by a fiction and I am right insofar as you are rendered stagnant by your Truth, which of us, in this Life, has got it right? 

Where Words Come From

Whatever language we may speak

it is from whence our words come

that maketh all the difference.

Whatever language we may speak

we must make sure we can protect ourselves --

the world is riddled with unkind blemishes

and confusion so hotly disturbed the mirage

of Evil ascends before our veiled Consciousness.

Your Ego may be your most articulate

psycho-spiritual organ, then.

The question posed herein is

have we trained our heart to speak as clearly?

Religious texts try to give us the language we need

to speak from this sacred land called Heart

but the language is, regrettably, outdated;

the message so necessary for us lost,

seemingly.  Indeed, the first scroll was escavated

from the Heart, itself --

even if the angels did descend

to deliver the message

they were faithful and accepting eyes

that saw those angels and awakened, hopeful hearts

that did not run from such uncommon phenomena.

I digress now, as I often do: 

Possessing the same letters as Earth

only with the "H" at the front rather than the end,

we might wonder where, in fact, we live

and what, in fact, sustains us

and if Earth and Heart are not the very same

in some literal or at least figurative vision of Life.

Perhaps the Earth speaketh through the Heart?

Argue against it.

Have the subjects and nuances of the Heart

proven too challenging to express?

Love is the Highest Order Thinking

and to see where it is needed and give it

through the defense mechanism behind which

we prefer to store it is painful learning

like giving birth to a whole new you.

But nothing as painful as destroying the Earth.

The fact is, our prejudices, our stereotypes,

those quips we slap so quickly onto the table

of conversation, those reactions that aren't our own

(that's different, yuck; where we come from we don't

do it that way; that's ridiculous, that's wrong).

We don't think that.  We don't think that because

before we said that, we did not think.

We applied neither Mind nor Heart in the matter

we did not reach for the Dream of Togetherness

we reached for the Soma of our Destruction,

that intoxicant spirit that stumbles our logic
down avenues of Falseness, singing,
  "this is silly", "I don't have the time",

"it is impossible", "you aren't worth it" -- all the lines

that draw us lazier than the shadows of our Higher Selves

such that we Will Not imitate what we know

in our Hearts, to be Right.

What we did and tend to do is purchase a cheap 

and automatic response that society has 

for some reason

deemed acceptable.

The Dream of Togetherness and Peace

simply isn't Profitable in certain circumstances.

And it wasn't You, it was "Them"

who want to promote the idea of

"You and Them"; who want to divide.

Adding irony to confusion,

"They" don't even exist.

Fear does.  Fear crops up

in the fertile unknown

between you and I like a weed

and pushes us apart with its roots

whilst sucking up the nutrients

of our common ground.

Whatever language you speak,

know from whence cometh thine words:

From thy Heart, from thy Ego

from thy ... ?

Not that one orgin is wrong or right

but there is a time and place for each --

indeed, often times a concert or choir

of internal voices is necessary to speak

a complete and true sincerity --

the point is, all of your intra-nations

should be equally educated

literate, and articulate.

If that is impossible.  We are just

too busy.  Okay.  The Heart, then,

should take priority for from there

all tributaries are eventually reached

and muscles awoken, 

all foreign and unknown brain cells

and connections illuminated

by the charity of our aligned rhythm

and we will find ourselves in all eyes

moods, states and faces.

And we will be fearless, again.

This is the beginning of Awakened Peace.

Until then, we will feel incomplete

and continue to purchase the cheap

and automatic responses of Ignorance

and Fear because, as it could be advertised,

it is so easy

we could do it in our sleep.