He read a review of a book

debunking Christianity by

showing that St. Paul started

a new religion never envisioned

by St. James, Jesus’ brother,

the heir apparent to the Jesus

Movement of Judaism. Maybe

so.

He had read previously that St.

Paul was the first to mythologize

Jesus from an itinerate teacher/

preacher into the Cosmic Christ,

beyond anything that had come

before but including notions

that had been around for

quite a while.  Maybe so.

And that some have spent a

considerable amount of time

demythologizing that Cosmic

Christ back to the itinerate

teacher/preacher. Maybe so.

He likes Jesus, the person of the

Gospels, when you whittle it

down to what he probably said

and did and even what would

have been in agreement with

those things, the person who

urged sacrificial love, justice,

mercy and peace, who blessed

children and stood up for the

oppressed and thumbed his

nose (metaphorically speaking)

at the ruling religious and

political classes.

Someone said that Jesus is

the mirror through which

we see the God of Life.

Maybe so.

Also, he likes the mythology

of dying and rising, resurrection

in the here and now rather

than later on “pie in the sky,

oh, what a good boy am I

individual salvation in Jesus

Christ, I’ve got mine and you

better get it just as I say”

stuff that crept in over

the ages. 

He even likes St. Paul,

the old curmudgeon,

who had the big picture

and wouldn’t let go even

when scared little minds

wanted to reduce the big

screen to a Dick Tracy

watch which is on the way

from Samsung and gave

Paul a lot of time in solitary

confinement to think and

write about it with the

muses of myth sitting on

his shoulder.

He likes the metaphors and

similes of faith like the 

parables of life in the Realm

where all those things Jesus

said and did ever and always

rise from the ashes of human

folly and speculation and then

hard, recalcitrant certainty

with the ever-present us

vs. them.

And lastly, or should he say

for now, he’s content with

“maybe so,” or even “maybe

not,” for he knows he sees

through that mirror dimly with

the hope of seeing face to

face, metaphorically speaking,

and he’ll trust that.

Of all the times he’s been

in the hospital dating back

in his memory to the bowl

of ice cream to sooth his

super sore throat after he

counted bricks as the ether

was poured onto the cloth

and over his nose and mouth

when he was six to the time

as a teenager having surgery

to bring a testicle down to

the scrotum where it belonged

and of which he could not

speak at his high school and

then as an AARP member

to the ICU unit for three

days’ observation after

crushing thirteen bones in

a really stupid mountain

biking accident, what he

remembered most were

not visits from high-priced,

really busy, as they wanted

him to appreciate, physicians

or the obligatory questions

from officious nurses who

spent most of their time at

the desk writing reports and

telling black hospital humor

to pass the time, but, rather

the nurses’ aides who served

the ice cream, gave a horny teen

with a sore scrotum a back rub

and helped him forget, for the

moment, that embarrassing

surgery for a sixteen year

old and a senior citizen a

little, welcome conversation

to help pass the boredom

of the day in the regular

hospital room he was

moved to for four more

days after his three

day stay in the ICU.

Mean is the real thing

they tell me everyday

as they drive on the

highways, but everyone

seems so sweet and nice

and very, very polite and

full of full-moon light

which is today, actually,

and strange things happen,

I’m told, in full-moon light

like up is down and down

is up and sideways is side-

ways, which, it is regardless

of the phases of the moon,

and that is the way it is, and

seeing that I always see life

sideways as so many have

told me so many times, for

years not to mention months

not to mention just during

full-moons, so why should

I think this full-moon would

be any different in any way?

I thought I was looking at

life sideways, the way that

is the same way from the

left side or right side when

all the while, I was look-

ing upside down and not

right side up this full-

moon day.  Yep, now

that this day is fading

away, I see that people

are significantly meaner

than that time now al-

most yesterday, and

those same people

don’t drive nearly as

nicely as I thought

they did  that day,

now nearly yesterday,

when I had my head

in the clouds that way

that I thought was just

sideways, the under-

stood correct way

whether viewed from

the left or right way.

A missal I received in ’13 from 1988,
a note from Stanfield, the late great
professor from TJC
a friend of you and me
who went on to Purdue fame
but one who was always the same
hard-assed and hard-nosed prof.
who would never let us off
without giving our best
and may his soul rest
in the knowledge that he
did his best
and we
his students from TJC
are the beneficiaries.
And among many others
that means Vicki, friend                                                                                                                               who found and               forwarded                                                                                                                           said note,
and me.

i celebrate tu mon bondieu

the life flesh from you

the goings body strummings

with nods to e.e. cummings

or as he preferred perhaps

E.E. Cummings all in caps.

The  detective was examined by

a smug, sophomoric investigator

with a smirk on his face, about

a horrendous crime scene where

the detective had to fight for her

very life. The investigator leaned

back against the desk, picked up

his cup of coffee and took a long,

slow drink while the detective

shook uncontrollably. The invest-

igator missed the human quality

of the case as she sat right in

front of him not even including

the inhumane nature of the

crime that caused the un-

controlled shaking. A seasoned

cop showed the investigator the

proverbial ropes, the investigator

woke up, smelled the roses and

then the cop helped the then

educable investigator solve the

diabolical case, which isn’t

the way it goes often in real life,

because, in part, the case needs

to be solved in one hour counting

fifteen minutes of commercials,

insulting to human intelligence

and repeated over and over and

over or forty-five minutes if it is a

BBC production shown on PBS.

When was anything significant,

such as the gaining of wisdom,

accomplished in forty-five minutes?

There may be an “ah ha” moment

in real life but usually it takes a

life-time of bouncing off those

proverbial ropes to get it and

even then, there is no guarantee.

Just think about the commercials

or go to a fiftieth high school

reunion and watch.

they found a downtown Phoenix deli

with online reviews proclaiming it the best,

for specialty goodies like Swedish fish so smelly.

Till Christmas they put off the Lutefisk and headcheese

but saw windmill blades blowing a zephyr breeze.

Yes, they found a box of cookies baked by the Dutch.

They paid and said, “Thank you so much,”

and tack sa mycket in Swedish and eet smakelijk (bon

appetite) in Dutch.

In the car, the passenger so eager, tore the box with

her bare hands,

and they both partook of the contents made in

Ooltgensplaat, the Netherlands.

The driver was of Swedish and Dutch tribes

and his wife of German and Irish descent

but both agreed it was a few U.S. dollars

very well spent.

Some NSA guy sat in an office somewhere in

obscurity, not unlike a drone pilot on the third

floor of an office building in downtown Wichita

or wherever.  The NSA guy, fortunately not the

drone pilot, sat staring at us through our T.V. 

Our Chocolate Lab wasn’t feeling well and laid

at my wife’s feet under a blanket. We hoped he

didn’t have Valley Fever, a fungal disease which

gets in the lungs and not excitement over ASU’s

sports teams. We wondered if the NSA guy felt

sorry for Buddy Baloo and offered a prayer for

him from his office in obscurity. The show we

were watching was a bit boring so to entertain

ourselves we waved at the NSA guy.  To spice

things up for the guy during this festive holiday

season, I asked my wife to remove her shirt and

bra. Chagrined, she just stared at me and turned

and stuck her tongue out at the NSA guy I guess

for invading our privacy without asking permiss-

ion.  I hope she won’t be carted off to Guantanamo

but perhaps she will have already been released

during Obama’s first term because that is what he

promised, so she would be back home with her

feet up on the ottoman like now. But it is well

into his second term, so I guess, if she does go,

she won’t be getting out any time soon unless

Congress decides to get a life and stops trying to

sabotage the president and actually votes to shut

the thing down. I’m sure it would make Fidel and

his brother Raul happy not to mention my wife

and the dog who misses her already and that’s

probably why he isn’t feeling very well, so it’s

a relief to know that he doesn’t have Valley

Fever after all.  Meanwhile, my wife’s feet

are still on the ottoman and the NSA guy is

counting each toe, but the drone pilot appar-

ently doesn’t know, thank the Lord.

He hung the string of jalapeño shaped festive lights

from the Arizona condo balcony heights,

and saw at the swimming pool beneath

a shapely young lady in a swim suit so brief.

He leaned over to see down the low cut top

and did his best holiday salsa flip-flop.

The young lady heard the big plop and knelt

over the poor rube,

who, now unconscious, couldn’t appreciate her,

ah, cleavage.

He had to stop jogging

because of sciatica gained

over a two thousand two

hundred mile journey by

car all the while sitting on

his wallet. The solution,

according to a web med

article might simply be

to remove the wallet much

to the chagrin of the attorneys

seen on late night T.V. who

wished to reach through the

tube directly into the back

pocket to pick the wallet

which no longer was there.

And so the next day with

the assistance of four

ibuprofen tablets he

started jogging again and,

with that behind him, no

pun intended, and with

ankles, knees and hips

still good and the fleeting

memory of the previous

night’s T.V. ads, he started

worrying about LOW test-

osterone. Just then following

another of those seemingly

ubiquitous commercials and

without saying a word but

with a pitifully plaintive look

on his face, he glanced at his

wife who sat on the couch

watching re-runs of Route 66

and feeling sorry for the old

boy and with a knowing look

in her eye said, “You’re just

fine, darling. Now it’s time

to remove your jogging shoes.”

Smiling a Man from Dementia

smile, he removed his wet

jogging shoes from de Nile,

and his wife hung them out

to dry.