If something is false, is it there?
If one lies constantly, if one’s life
is a lie in its essence and totality,
is there the essence of life in its
totality? We look at a person who
lies all the time — lie upon lie upon
lie. Is he there with his pants on
fire? Is there substance? Is he a
figment of our imagination? Is he
like a mirage in the desert — the
promise of an oasis of lush green-
ery and flowing, refreshing water
only to be just that — a mirage, un-
real, not existing and the truth of
what is there is dry, hot, burning
grains of sand? When he lies are we
looking at just more and more dry,
hot, burning grains of sand? Is such
a person really just a mirage, not
really there? Is evil non-existent
as one religious group sees it? Or
is wanting the liar to be a simple
mirage vanishing before our very
eyes just wishful thinking?

Wouldn’t you think, given the brevity of
     Human life and what could be thought
Of as its relative insignificance, all things
     Considered, that we, short of span and
Of little import, would do something
     Of significant time and much import like
Giving, listening, offering compassion,
     Justice and sacrificial love — wouldn’t
You think or feel or both instead of not
     At all, wouldn’t you? Wasn’t Jesus’ life
Short of span and didn’t he come from
     A place of little significance and thought
To be of little significance, yet, who do
     We remember? Yes, the one who gave,
Listened, offered compassion, justice
     And sacrificial love. Is it Ozymandias
Or the Cosmic Christ who lives in the
     Hearts of humanity? So let us learn
How short life is, “count the number
     Of our days and so gain wisdom of
Heart.”

He sat watching his grandchildren
stare at their phones. When he
was a kid he went on Sunday
evening with his parents to his

grandparents’ house where all
the relatives would gather for
supper. He would play games
with his cousins while the

grownups talked; The Ed
Sullivan Show was watched,
the TV turned off, his grand-
father would tell stories to

the kids which they didn’t
quite understand, his mother’s
brothers who thought they
were really funny would tell

terrible jokes and his father
would sit and shake his head
and mutter under his breath,
“Oh, my god.” The man was

grateful for the memories and
then he went back to watch-
ing his grandchildren watching
their phones. He tried to get

their attention and tell a story
to the kids like his grandfather
used to do, but they just ignored
him while staring at their phones.

He watched a movie about a poet
who couldn’t stop his fans from
praising him. Apparently, he was

addicted to the attention. It didn’t
work out real well for the poet.
After a long period of “writer’s

block,” he produced a poem that
sent his fans into a frenzy. Mobs
upon mobs descended on the poet’s

house resulting in mayhem, murder
and conflagration. He, the watcher
and a poet, concluded that the

medium was the message: the writer
had the idea and wrote the book,
the script-writer wrote the script,

the producers paid for the production,
the director directed, the actors
acted, the film was produced, the

DVD made, the horror entered his
house through the TV connected to
the DVD player for all of the

cinematic horror (the equivalent
of hell) to enter his brain and
send his wife out of the room,

for relief in the bathroom, all
of which told him two things:
1. the media probably is to

blame for the rise of demagoguery
around the world and 2. that he
should be grateful for only a

very few fans (and not hoards)
who read his poems at his blog
through the internet (that Al

Gore took some credit for invent-
ing {actually he didn’t.} and
believed it because it was seen

on the news which was watched on
TV) (back to the fans) on their
computers on their desks or on

their I-Pads or their I-Phones
anywhere which were the logical
extension of the creative work

of Apple’s founder Steve Jobs
who has been turned into a god
through media exposure with

millions of devoted followers
awaiting his return to earth to
save them from the mayhem, murder

and conflagration about to envelop
all because minorities are starting
to take over and white people will

be sent to barren, Sub-Saharan
Africa in a reversal of slavery and
poeple believe it because they see it

over and over and over when they
aren’t watching sports on the
TVs, which take up most of the wall.

The man has been thinking about experiences —
Maybe, in hindsight, missed opportunities —
Third and fourth grades in the city and his
Best friend with whom he played all recess and
In the neighborhood after school — a black
Boy. He loved that young man, his best friend —
A kid, after the family moved, he never saw again.
And then in fifth grade in the suburbs, a Hispanic
Boy, so big he didn’t fit sitting at the desk. He had
Mild peppers he shared. The two couldn’t speak
Each other’s language but they communicated care.
Then one day the Hispanic boy who had to be lost
In the class where no one, including the teacher,
Could speak Spanish, disappeared and the man
Had no idea where his friend went. What could he
Do? He was just a little white boy who loved his
Black and Hispanic friends. Now an old man, he
wonders what he could have done, maybe what
He should have done for little white boys and little
Black boys and a not so little Hispanic boy who
Couldn’t speak the language. He still wonders.

They call it interracial marriage
like crossing different species
therefore, some think of it as wrong,
but that’s a misnomer;
and that is all wrong;
there is no such thing
to see.
Inter-ethnic marriage is strong
and the real thing,
to see.
There is only one race,
one species,
and that’s the human race
to which we all belong
and ethnicity makes unity in diversity
interesting and shatters our
shallow definition of this race and that
and right and wrong.
So, let’s mix it up, folks
ethnic bigots to coax
into an appreciation
of God’s One Great Racial
Rainbow Coalition.

You know the old cliché:
Today is the first day
of the rest of your life.
A theologian/writer wrote
that today is the only day.
And so I awoke today, the
day after Thanksgiving Day,
my only day.
I started reading my daily
meditations and poems in
my inbox today.
My wife just told me that
someone was killed in
Black Friday mall mayhem
in Alabama sometime in
the early morning hours
of today.
Today is that person’s
first, only and now last day
I’m sorry to say.
I wonder, if that person had
survived, what that person
would have to say
about the preciousness
of this — the only day,
or maybe that person
would simply say
that he or she regretted
not getting that “whatever”
and resented the one who
grabbed it out of his or her hands
on the great Black Friday mall
mayhem and melee sale today.

He’s so proud.
He has worn the same
waist size for thirty-five years.
He would love to hoist one
with great cheer for all those years
but a beer gut would make
that waist size disappear.
But he does acknowledge in silent gratitude
to the pants makers
for their sly, marketing attitude.
They know the male ego
so they invented the “relaxed fit,”
so he could keep his expanding
tummy tucked into the thirty-five year fit,
and brag that he has kept
the same waist size all those years,
but even then, to be honest,
he has to suck it in a bit
just to close the top button
in the size 36 pants with the “relaxed fit.”

we live in a panopticon —
where we are always under
surveillance (seen everywhere),
being watched — cameras every-
where (they just saw that
hyphen), eyes in the computer
(be careful of those sites;
you know the ones), eyes in
the ever-so-smart tv (what
are you doing with your hands?),
and then there are the neigh-
bors (oh, they were always
there)…once in a while it
turns out for the good like
when cops are videoed
blasting away at unarmed
blacks…so, the panopticon
may not be the worst place
to live as long as you watch
your p’s and q’s…you can
always just pull the covers
over your head…don’t turn
on the flashlight…it is
really smart.

“…as you read these words on a page or a screen, they register as black lines
on a white background in your primary visual cortex. If the process stopped
at that point, you wouldn’t be reading at all. To read, your brain, through
miraculously complex processes that scientists are still figuring out, needs
to forward those black letters on to association-cortex regions such as the
angular gyrus, so that meaning is attached to them; and then on to language-
association regions in the temporal lobes, so that the words are connected
not only to one another but also to their associated memories and given
richer meanings. These associated memories and meanings constitute a
‘verbal lexicon,’ which can be accessed for reading, speaking, listening,
and writing.” *

A man and his wife watched a movie where the
antagonist shot off the tops of his victims’
heads and placed a snowman’s head in their

place. It was horrifyingly gruesome, but not
until the man read the words above did the
enormity of the horror of the acts sink in.

The man thought, the brain performs “miracu-
lously complex processes,” — miraculously
complex processes — the irony being that

the killer used seemingly simple processes
(capture, aim, shoot) which, in fact, were
miraculously complex processes to destroy

the miraculously complex processes of others.
The man thought, it is bad enough to kill
even the simplest forms of life, but to blow

away ever so blithely that which is miracu-
lously complex seems to up the ante on
monstrosity. The man continued to think

about the whole process: We then use miracu-
lously complex processes to hunt, find and
stop the destructive use of miraculously

complex processes often violently. The man
wondered, is such the nature of war — using
MCP to terminate MCP? And then in a moment

of spiritual reflection the man prayed, “May
You, the Author of all Miraculously Complex Pro-
cesses, have mercy on our Miraculously Complex

but ever so often demonically destructive souls
for destroying that which You, the Author of
all Miraculously Complex Processes, created.”

*”Secrets of the Creative Brain,” Nancy E. Andreasen,
Atlantic, June 26, 2014