Today is a great time to pause and reflect on nonviolent protest and to look at the history of the idea of nonviolence. Years ago someone told me that Martin Luther King Jr. was influenced by Gandhi, and Gandhi was in turn influenced by Leo Tolstoy. Most likely that person was Jack McGuire, since he and I have discussed spiritual and religious ideas for decades. I’m not a scholar of Tolstoy and I haven’t read the big novels – War and Peace and whatnot – but I read enough to learn that Tolstoy was turned on to the idea of nonviolence by a particular Amish or Mennonite group in the U.S.

Tolstoy’s personal story of salvation is also very interesting, and you can read about it in his essay “My Confession,” in which he describes a year spent constantly contemplating suicide because, after all his accomplishments, life was meaningless for him. He did find a way out of his dilemma, and that was to take the teachings of Jesus Christ seriously and literally. His ideas are also laid out in “Father Sergius,” the story of a holy man who loses his Orthodox faith to find a higher and better faith.

Just think of Putin getting a blessing from the Russian Orthodox archbishop to run his war on Ukraine. That’s the kind of B.S. Tolstoy was talking about.

In summary, Tolstoy reinterpreted Christianity and came to the conclusion that Jesus was not bullshitting people when he said, “Turn the other cheek.” Jesus also said, “Be as gentle as a lamb and as cautious as the serpent.” Those two teachings are a solid basis to stand on. So in conclusion, as another friend, Scott Richardson, says, if you dig Rabbi Jesus, follow his teachings and don’t go mistaking Paradise for that home across the road; that is, don’t compare yourself to others, for that breeds resentment.

And, finally, reach out to help those who need help, cause there ain’t enough love in the world today.

https://youtu.be/ViKev27bh2Y

Some friends have been discussing how much they hated dance lessons in grade school or high school, but I liked some of the lessons – well, square dancing – and I used the same moves years later in contra dancing (New England Squares).

Ballroom dancing was different – I couldn’t figure it out till years later – but after I learned several basic steps, I could apply it to free-form dancing and it was a blast: you learn to respect your partner and treat her right. It’s a thing you do together.

I knew I had made the grade when I danced with a *moderately* large woman at the Zoo Bar in Lincoln, Nebr. We did the bump with grace, style, and savoir faire.

I heard this piece of music last night, and it immediately flashed me to a really hip cat who had a radio talk show in New York City. The tune was his theme song. He was an older fellow with no apparent health issues. I discovered the gentleman’s name just now – Armand DiMele. His show was called The Positive Mind.

https://youtu.be/rY89yo-JH0k

People with all kinds of problems – with relationships, depression, anxieties – would call in, and this guy was so perceptive he could tell within a few seconds what the caller’s concern was, and he gave fantastic advice.

Sadly, he passed very suddenly, and the music stopped. Another great empath gone from this world.

R.I.P. Armand DiMele

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_DiMele

The work of Armand DiMele continues at the Positive Mind Center, “a three-minute walk from Carnegie Hall.”

Tough question. Loneliness makes me feel incomplete – certainly drives me. Hey, that was a good question. What wards off evil? For one, cultivating deep friendships. Another is engaging in something in the void, or something right at hand.

https://youtu.be/FdKeO3af364?list=OLAK5uy_kqARbIUPEfUycXlgtb0gQstYP7LWwHqOc

January 1, 2023 10:30 AM

This following is based on the findings of Frank Martela, University Lecturer at Aalto University, Finland. This is just my little riff on his core ideas.

1. Look not to yourself for comfort, but rather help others in some way. An example is taking care of your kids, which takes you out of yourself. By losing yourself, you gain a return – you get something back:

Love of love, and love of life, and giving without measure.

Gives in return a wondrous yearn of a promise yet unseen. (Justin Hayward)

2. Develop a creative outlet to express yourself. Like writing, or painting, or maybe, again, by helping others and becoming part of a group, or dancing or walking in the woods.

It’s a great year coming, or maybe not. Still, there’s hope. And all we need is an edge.

I wrote this after listening to Marty Robbins sing “The Big Iron” from an album of cowboy tunes: Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. Here’s the link:

https://youtu.be/zzICMIu5zFY

The Big Iron is, of course, a reference to the gun on Marty’s hip but also to the guy’s manhood, so to speak. And they were all rough tough men. When I was a kid, I worshipped these cowboys – Chuck Conners, Paladin, Johnny Yuma, Steve McQueen, the cook on Wagon Train, etc.

One time I went with my older brother Pat on an American Legion–sponsored trip: a big load of kids and several American Legionnaires sitting up front and jabbering with the driver. We were going to a rodeo up by Rockford or some such. Of course they told us to pee before we left because it was a long drive and we didn’t have a bathroom or even a pissoir. Well, us kids were O.K. with that, but one Legionnaire had to pee real bad at some point, and we were on a tight schedule – the driver didn’t want to stop. So, this is what they did: The bus driver opened the door with the bus going down the road at about 60 miles an hour. Then two guys held onto the urinator’s belt while he leaned out the door and took a whiz. Now that was impressive!

Then we got to the rodeo and saw the show, and afterwards we got to meet the featured TV cowboy, whose name I can’t remember. I think he did some roping tricks between events (bulldogging, steer-pitching, and so forth). All the kids gathered around him and looked at him with awe. I was close enough to touch his gun, but I didn’t. It looked pretty powerful. After that, some kids were saying, “I touched him! I touched him!” So I went and got back in the bus and sat next to my brother, who was waiting to leave. I said, “Hey, I touched him!” He turned and said, “So what?” He was a cool cat.

I was out at Ponca State Park in Nebraska some years ago, camping on a really cold night. It was early spring and early for camping too, but I was living life on the edge and whatnot, wanted to get out of town, so there I was. I positioned my small tent in a slight draw to keep under the wind and got settled in and actually got some sleep. In the morning I had the usual – eggs and bread and coffee – and then I straightened things out and set off to look around the park.

From one corner of the park the doors of perception creaked open, and I could see into a couple of other states, including one wherein dwelt the Gateway computer factory, silently churning out devices to ensnare the unaware and lay the foundations of today’s present awful state of affairs. In another state I saw the peaks and spires of the castles of Mordor. I wasn’t quite awake.

I turned away and walked another path that led me to an old abandoned house, and, as per usual I decided to check it out. In one room was a double bed with a single mattress on top, speaking of a dreaded and desperate loneliness, and in another, bigger room was a piano. Time slowed and an inivisble clock tick-tocked.

It was a big old piano, an upright that must have weighed a ton. I guess over the years I started to view pianos by their tonnage after moving a lot of uprights from here to there, and as I got older it got rougher. I had a small console piano back home – a Starck made in Chicago that had a great sound – but these old pianos, corrupted by time . . . they all play great in my dreams, but here I am right now in the waking state . . .

I walked over and hit a key, and it sounded just like this:

Bloomington IL 61701
February 23, 2020

Ambient ambiance: In the 50s and real sunny right in the virtual middle of the winter

I was walking up the nearest moraine right through the nearby alley when I spotted a feller in a long coat doing something or other – smokin’, I reckon – and also talkin’ to someone hidden from my view behind a utility pole of some sort.

The feller spotted me about the same time I spotted him, and we both narrowed our eyes in the manner of Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef in “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” or so I imagined. But only for a moment – a quick moment, or a mini-moment.

Well, it was real quick, as we both realized there was no reason to get excited. Behind the utility pole sat a woman all bundled up in a long coat and scarf and whatnot and smoking a cigarette hard, but I heard her coughing before I actually saw her. She was coughin’ to beat the band, like she had bronchitis, so when I saw her, I said, “Huh, are you feeling a little peeked today?”

She said, “I don’t know that word – pee-ked? What does that mean?” “Well, ” says I, “it means yer feelin’ a little poorly. Maybe you have a cold?”

“No,” she says, taking another heavy draw off her cigarette. “Nothing like that” (Hack Hack). “I don’t know what it could be.”

“Say,” I says, turning to the fellow in the long coat, which was a really nice trench coat, “That’s a nice coat. Sharp.”

As I am admiring the coat, I see he has on *another* coat that’s wrapped around his waist and tied in front. It was a brown bomber jacket that looked like it needed a fresh coat of shoe polish. He had the front of the trench coat open and I could see a long scarf and under that a sweater and then what looked to be a shirt and under that a heavy T-shirt. He smiled a big smile and said, “All layered up.”

I turned away and prepared to continue my hike up the alley-moraine. The gal coughed Hack Hack! “Don’t know what it could be,” she said, and I said, “Take ‘er easy” and walked off.

Says I to myself a few steps later, “I know what it could be – that damn CIGARETTE YER SMOKIN’.”

smoke smoke smoke that cigarette

Friday, April 22, 2022

I went out to Sugar Grove this afternoon and while I didn’t spend too much time out there, I got into the simple qualitative experience of it: I take great delight in appreciating the holy temple out there (Stubblefield Woods), and I could smell the smell of spring – I really could. I don’t think I’ve smelled it before, but that’s what it was. Then after I identified several plants, I saw a bee land on the Spring Beauties and start doing his bee thing.

Then I just sat on a stump for a bit.

The question: Why is it awkward when another man walks into a public bathroom while you’re pooping? (Posed by someone on Quora online)

That isn’t so awkward: everybody shits – you’re just another guy shitting. What’s awkward is having women come in while you’re shitting. Just such a scene happened to me when I was attending a large faith-healing show at the International Amphitheater in Chicago about some years ago. The star of the show was the famous Canadian faith healer Kathryn Kuhlman. I witnessed some very unChristian-like behavior – for example, ushers diving for spilled money baskets and ladies invading the men’s rooms because their shorter urethras couldn’t stand waiting in lines at the women’s rooms.

I was sitting on a terlet in a stall in one of the men’s rooms when a mess of angry women came in and told all the men to get out. Since I was only about halfway through with my business, I wasn’t going to make a hasty move – it would have been too dangerous. So I put my feet up on the door to prevent anyone from opening it on me. Yes, I put my feet up and braced myself against the female tide.

The gals went from stall to stall throwing the men out, but when they got to my place, no one could budge the door. Somebody even looked under the door to see if anyone was in there. Of course, my feet were against the door, so they didn’t see any feet. The woman called out, “This one’s stuck!” And I simply relaxed and took my time with the job at hand.

When I finished I got up, opened the door, and walked out through the crowd of women. Then I walked out of the men’s room into another crowd of astonished men. I never got saved that day, but I saved my own ass from those women.