04
Our life is uniquely equipped to lead us to the heart of what matters most. The problem is that we have our own ideas about what that is. And our life has to get us to abandon our idea of what matters most and to embrace our life's idea of what matters most, and live in the service of that with all our heart. This is the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the story of Jesus of Nazareth in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is the story of humankind. We live to know what is important and live in light of it, serving it with our life. And we interfere with that process, with the process of life, by forcing our idea of what is important on our life. Ideally, we live to comprehend-- and pledge our liege loyalty to-- the meaning of: "Thy will, not mine, be done!" with "Thy" understood as "The flow of life and being," or "The Mystery of Life and Being," or "What needs us to do what needs to be done here and now." It would help to have this explained to us at the start, and to be reminded of it often. Our life is not ours to do with as we will! We belong to our life to do what it needs us to do! This is the call of Destiny to acquiesce to it's demands. Everything rides on our response.
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03
Consequences are the only teacher. Experience is the experience of consequences. Reflection on experience leads to new realizations. Realization takes the past and constructs the future. Yesterday's wrong is tomorrow's right. It takes getting it wrong to get it right. Doing it wrong to do it right. We learn to make really good chicken noodle soup by making a lot of very bad chicken noodle soup with our eyes open, seeing what we look at, reflecting on our errors to the point of new realizations and informed hypotheses and additional experimentation all the way to perfection. We live boldly, courageously, toward doing it better, toward getting it right. Right Soup, according to our taste, exists "out there." We only have to find our way to it, and trust ourselves to know it when we get there. It is the same with every aspect of our life. We are making soup constantly. The idea is to make really good soup, to live a really good life, one mistake at a time. We get it right by getting it wrong with our eyes open, seeing what we look at, reflecting on what our experience is telling us, to the point of new realizations leading to different ways of doing things, all the way to perfection. Throw away all of the rule books, all of the doctrines, creeds, theology, and live with your eyes open to what is happening and what the consequences have to tell you about what you need to do differently in light of what needs to be done to make things as good as they can be as assessed by the majority of people evaluating your life over time.
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02
Fraser Snowden said, "The only true philosophical question is 'Where do you draw the line?'" Where do you draw it? Only you can draw the line where you draw it. Where do you think it goes? Only you know that. What keeps you from drawing the line where you think it goes? Get to the bottom of that question. Who draws your lines for you? When we stop drawing our own lines, it is all over for us. Joseph Campbell said it all comes down to drawing our own lines. To having the courage to draw our own lines. His exact words are: "The aim of individuation requires that one should find and then learn to live out of one's own center, in control of one's own for and against." In control of where one draws the line. That is what makes us human. Drawing the line where we determine it needs to be drawn! Oh, and we have to be right about it! That's the catch with being human. We have to say so, and not so, and be right about it. Being right about it is where philosophy comes in. Who is to say what is right and what is not? We are, of course. But. We have to be right about it. This being right is completely of the moment. It is ephemeral, mercurial, fleeting, and gone like that (snaps fingers). Jesus said "The Spirit is like the wind that blows where it will." Which means not even the Spirit knows what it will do next. Which means nothing can be written down, set in stone, declared to be so for all ages to come. There are no laws. No laws of nature. This is what science has discovered. There are only hypotheses. Only best guesses. Of the moment. To be verified or refuted in the next moment, or one of the ones after that. There is right. And there is wrong. Which can be determined only later. In the meantime, we are left with drawing our lines for the time being, and redrawing them again, and again, in light of future revelations, when we are better able to know what we are doing, knowing that we will never know all we need to know to know what we are doing. "Sin boldly!" Said Martin Luther. "And believe more boldly in the marvelous grace of God!" We have to live boldly, from our own center, from our own for and against, from our own yes and no-- and be right about it. Which means knowing when we are wrong, or have been wrong, and making adjustments, and re-drawing our lines in light of the best information currently available. Believing in-- counting on-- grace all the way to the end of the line, knowing there is no end of the line, as far as we can tell, given the information currently available to us.
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01
They want impunity and immunity. They want a law that puts them forever beyond the law. A law that says they aren't liable, which means they aren't responsible, which means they can do whatever they like. The top 1% I'm talking about. Maybe the top 0.5%. And also those aspiring to be among the top 0.5%. They want the Prince MBS Rule, which says, "Anything Goes," applied to them. Exclusively. And they will do anything for the privilege of being able to do anything. They all aspire to being who Donald Trump is. Who aspires to be who MBS is. Donald Trump will do anything to remain in power. Power is everything to Donald Trump and to all of the people who want to be just like him. And power means making everyone afraid to oppose you. That is Donald Trump, and MBS, and all their doting legions. Don't forget Mitch McConnell. The Enabler in Chief. When he says, "No Democrat bill will ever pass!" he is exercising the power he envies and envisions for himself. Total power. Absolute power. The power of God. Republicans and their keeper/donors want the power of God. They want to be God. They want God to be their toady. And they will do anything to have what they want. If we are going to stop them it is going to be now. Every eligible voter in Georgia has to vote for the Democrats. If they don't win, it's over. Why is this so hard to see?
