Part Twelve: Humility
One has to pity those who have no humility.
What? Oh, there you are! I had a feeling that you might visit now that the mornings are darker. You seem to flow in the
damp morning darkness. And there you go, just starting up as if we had been conversing for an hour, when it has been
weeks and weeks. What's this?
Humility. You were just thinking about it. You were angry over someone's snobbery, yet you actually missed the
fact that it is not a plus of something, in this case snobbery, but rather a lack of something,a lack of humility.
Yes, I suppose. Is it not funny how we think in negatives and positives? You and I are like a photograph, and we alternate
between the negative and positive position. Anyway, I would find it difficult to excuse such boorish behavior with pity.
This is where you are lacking understanding. Having an absence of humility robs a man of things essential to
wisdom. He is therefore poor in the truest sense. He lacks understanding,compassion, deep intelligence and the
experience to be fulfilled. It is the same as a life without joy wherein one cannot get beyond himself.
Oh, Joseph ! It is easier to be angry. But let me ask: Is one who has not been humbled capable of achievement?
Probably to a point. Then, however, through his own unchallenged high opinion of himself, he reaches a spiritual
barrier. One can not go beyond what one knows, and if one is not a whole being for being stunted, frozen from
further development, a victim of his own self aggrandizement, then he is poor, poor indeed and deserving of pity.
Pity is a hard nut to crack, Joseph.
You are right there ! Yes, I am saying that! You are right. Pity is one of the most difficult of human emotions, pure
spontaneous pity..I am not speaking of the glamorized pity artificially induced from the masses using maudlin
sentimentality. There again, without humility one cannot experience true compassion for others. Poor again, very
poor indeed. There are rich men considered tremendous achievers, but they may not know humility, and if they do
not, then they are never truly rich. Our life is a competition within ourself. Just as we cannot give what we do not
have to give, we cannot take what we do not recognize as necessary for our growth. Poverty did you no harm in
this regard !
Ha! It certainly did great harm. Yes, I see where one needs a certain amount of struggle. I do not see how
years and years of abysmal poverty is a good thing for any living creature.
But you cannot judge this until your life is over. Poverty did you no harm. The lack of it did harm to others...
those who had no understanding of it. They are poor. Very poor indeed.
Why have some great men battled poverty? Imagine what they could have achieved in a better circumstance!
A better circumstance?! It was "circumstance" that gave some their final breath! Imagine had they been coddled,
spoiled, powdered and puffed up forever..no! They would have possibly been self-indulgent, more arrogant,
bloated by ego..they may have spent their days in worthless trivial pursuit, drink and foolish games! A bit of
poverty has created more greatness than it destroyed. Yes, a man without humility is a sad little man indeed. Poor,
very poor. But now I must depart.
What? Oh, nothing. Go on, then. As usual, you test and tease and then fly off...oh, never mind. It was good,
dear Joseph. Do not be a stranger!
Joseph? You have left me, you have gone and left behind truth, conviction and perception. You left behind power,
corruption, humility, civility, salvation, vengeance, suffering, faith and mercy. You have left it all behind, but not yourself.
Or are you there after all? Must I wait until winter's wind howls and the branches sag with snow or the moon hangs in my
window? Joseph? LS
Part Seven: Vengeance
Oh ! It's you. I felt your breath upon my neck.
I was cold. Look...look at the moon before it fades.
Yes, I see. It's like in the fairy tales, the Man in the Moon, exactly that shape.
No man in it for you, though.
Only you. Just you.
But I am part of you.
And that's all I need or want for now.
Do you remember love?
Do you? Of course! But it's a difficult thing to speak of. I don't want to discuss it.
Yet without it we are nothing.
We love our mothers first, then our families, our pets, our children, their children. Then, maybe if there's time we love
ourselves.
And our God. You forgot to mention that. And that is all I needed or wanted always.
Oh, you are a riddle, Joseph !
I am trying to make you see.
Maybe my eyesight is gone. Or maybe you mistook God for freedom.
God is freedom. When all that is physical fails and fades it is the one thing that remains.
These conversations about God are beginning to bore me.
Now, there's a novel concept, a boring God.
If there was a God I'd be angry at it. But I do understand that life would be easier with belief in God. And certainly death.
Yes. And death.
However, I think it would be easier to go into death loveless.
But not Godless?
Of course you're right in that respect. Easier to go into death with belief in God, but to go filled with love of
those we leave behind, or knowing they would mourn our passing..no,that would be unbearable. But I don't
want to talk about this anymore. I'm not enjoying this visit Joseph.
We'll talk of something else then. I saw the coyotes when I arrived. Four or five of them, right there at the door.
Yes, I hear them yodelling and yipping at night on the ridge. There are a lot of rabbits here. Rabbits, owls, mice, insects.
So the coyotes eat the rabbits, the owls the mice, the mice the insects....
True. A chain of events.
And the rabbit becomes part of the coyote. He nourishes the coyote, and when the coyote goes he becomes part of
the earth. He nourishes the earth. He does not leave this earth. None of us do. The earth is the sum total of all its
parts. Look how the trees glisten when cast in ice. You are those twigs, surrounded by ice. For the Godless, the
sun never hits the ice and sets them free. When the wind begins to blow those icy branches they become fragile,
brittle. They snap. Yet the same twig in the warming sun is flexible.
The sun meaning love?
Yes. God is light. And without light we have no sun.
But we can have light with no sun.
Ah, but light alone cannot set us free ! Only together can light and sun set us free. One needs to love God to be
truly free.
Joseph, these are mere words and riddles. Where was God when the innocents were slaughtered? All of those innocent
girls I just read of, your peoples' descendants, having their breasts chopped off? Where was God while they screamed in
agony praying for help, salvation?
You must remember those who inflict misery and pain suffer more that their victims. Their souls are bound to
eternal darkness.
Poppycock ! They rot just like their victims. It is only in life that their acts make a difference, where we demand
retribution so that they must pay for their crimes and transgressions. In life, Joseph. Some pay for their misdeeds,
but far more escape justice.
You are tarnished, child.
No ! I simply refuse to accept "God" because it is the easy way out ! Because it explains away horror and pain...No ! If
there is a God then there too is Satan, to be sure. And he is easier to believe in during our time, maybe through all time.
Look around !
Yes ! Yes ! His is a deadly power, and all that can destroy it is belief in God, faith in something more powerful
than his darkness and evil.
Those poor young girls believed in God. Their gruesome agony went unavenged, by history, by time, by mankind.
Their murderers were set free laughing ! There were no war crimes trials for them, nothing to atone for their barbarity.
Those poor girls died in God's arms.
They were innocent, all but children, cut down with brutal savagery, and they died on some blood stained
cement floor !
They died in God's arms.
Part Eight: Corruption
You are drinking again.
Well, that's no surprise. I enjoy my nightly brew.
Ah, didn't we all? What is that light moving through the night skies? The one over there. See it?
It is a satellite. Man made.
Humans put that in the heavens? No !
Yes ! They have even left their mark on the heavens. A lot has happened since your time.
I would have thought of that thing, whatever you called it, as some heavenly body. I don't understand this. No, it
is beyond me. I don't want to understand it.
You don't need to, Joseph. It would not benefit you to know. It is good you are pure.
Oh, but I am not pure, my dear. Not pure at all. None of us are pure.
Ah, Joseph, your heart was pure as a human heart can be. I, however, am corrupt. In this dimension, this time, it seems as
though all things are corrupt. I don't much like this time, no, not at all.
I can see it would be a difficult time to live in. I would not have fit in, that is certain.
No, you would have been eaten alive.
No! Really?
Not literally! Good grief. I mean spiritually consumed. If one is fortunate enough to claw one's way through the garbage
today and remain even a small bit innocent, one is soon destroyed by others.
Why?
Because the world is so corrupt. And corruption detests innocence. It is impossible to flourish in self purity,
of thought and action, in a corrupt world, a world where what you called sin is so rampant, so triumphant!
People have always needed something greater than themselves to rise above it. So God is absent from people's
lives today. God is no longer the source of inner strength, the course to guide peoples' destiny, the crutch to lean
on, the wisdom to fall back on. In God's void creep in darkness, corruption and evil.
God is the deepest concept of man. I do understand that God helped guide a people to goodness, mercy,
forgiveness, inner strength. I do ! God also led people into war, bondage and oppression throughout history.
Only when God was mistaken! Only when God was not truly understood or listened to.
But Joseph, there were many Gods to many people.
God is all. The name does not matter, the people do not matter. It is the concept that is God, and it is the concept
of goodness, salvation, eternal life. It is the concept of a power which can strike us down for our sins, for the
harm we cause to ourselves and others. It is the fear of God and the love of God needed to guide us in our daily
lives, and the wisdom of God to pave our path to eternity !
Pass me my beer. Thank you. Actually, I agree with you. That might surprise you, but I do. I think people in
general need more strength than they can elicit from themselves without some divine power to trust in. But Joseph, what if
we simply find it impossible to believe?
You do believe. You just don't know it. In fact, I sense a purity in your non belief! At least you aren't a hypocrite.
Or a Catholic.
Very funny. It was not their faith I hated. It was the corruption, the hypocrisy, the abuse! It was the worst form of
blasphemy to my eyes, the hierarchy of pretension and greed twisting the Word of God, manipulating people,
tricking people, impoverishing people, often for selfish aims.
This is much like Luther thought?
Luther was a simple man. He lacked pretension. He spoke to the common man. Yet he was brilliant! He also
understood a very pure God. You too understand a very pure God.
I am corrupt, probably, but I am telling you, I do not understand God.
That depends on your definition of corruption. If one has goodness of heart how can one be corrupt? The test is
not in the human voice but in the human heart. If you hurt when others hurt, if you have the capacity to forgive,
if you pray for even one soul's salvation or shed one tear for the suffering of another, you are not corrupt. You
may not understand God the way you feel you must, but God understands you.
Maybe you do, too.
Maybe I do. Get some sleep.
Part Nine: Perception
Oh, Joseph ! Where have you been?
I thought you required some quiet time.
Joseph, dear heart ! You are my quiet time ! You are the beautiful dream which I wake from that impulsive nap so
reluctantly...you are the warmth and comfort of my blanket, the pillow upon which I rest my weary brain. I missed you.
I won't ever be gone too long or too far. Child ! What ails you? Why the tears?
I thought I had lost you. The very idea fills me with sorrow.
There is no need of that. Are we not friends? Do you believe I would desert you? I owe you my reinvigoration!
And I you my remaining life.
There! Then it is done. We are pledged. But, maybe it is your father you really miss.
Joseph, it is all of my fathers I miss. Our long line grows ever shorter. It is ending, Joseph. Soon, we will be no more.
Ah, but we will remain in those who have touched us, just as surely as genetically. We will become part of them.
All the same, to know we are fading like the ancient birds who fly no more, or the white tiger....
It is thus intended by God.
Oh, not tonight ! Please ! Your "God" never ends.
No, God never ends...only man. And man becomes a fold in God's raiment. See how the ice crusted snow in the
field receives the glow of the yellow moon? It becomes one in its reflection...an image of that which rises and sets
above. The image moves, we mortals move, yet the moon moves too slowly for us to perceive and we think of it
as fixed, unmoving.
It is the field, the earth which moves, Joseph.
Yet, while both move, the image we see is momentarily set. We do not regard it as motion as we look upon it
minute by minute. We do not think like that. Our minds do not perceive reality in that way. We are but thieves
stealing glances. One would think that the yellow moon, yellow as the sun tonight, would warm the ice it shines
upon, yet the moon gives no warmth. We look upon it and could believe that possible if we knew no better. We
perceive something cold as warm, just as we perceive something in motion which is still. We perceive we are...we
perceive ourselves. It is what lies beyond that perception which is not the obvious variable. It is the sun which
gives the yellow to the moon. It is the motion of moon and earth together in a path around the sun which give us
the notion of stillness. There is more to what we do not see than to what we perceive. So, you sit alone?
I always sit alone, Joseph.
Drinking in deep thoughts.
And the occasional beer. I have enjoyed that. I have to do it. Now, having found you, I have found my challenge. Now it
is more than myself seeking answers....
What is it about tonight ?
I am not leaving behind what I had hoped to.
No, I can see that. You are, however, leaving behind yourself.
"Oh! Yellow moon and you cold rolling field of ice! You silence, you unheard wind !"
That is your howl tonight then.
Don't leave quite yet, Joseph. Not tonight, please.....
I leave when I know it is time to go, no sooner, no later. Good evening, my dear.
Are you reality or perception, Joseph? Just tell me that.
I tell you only what you tell yourself, child. I am what you want me to be to you. Now, I am off.
Part Ten: Salvation
Now it is my turn to ask where you have been.
I had to go to the city. I was trying to save a life.
But you have no ability to do that.
So I found out. All the same, I gave it my best effort..there was no one but me who could have effected a change in the
situation.
Oh, you still don't grasp the fact that nobody could. There are events, there are times that one may think what
they say or do can matter. There are even times when this might be true! This time it was not in your hands. You
tried. When all others backed away, you tried. This is what you must bear in mind.
Oh, Joseph, it aged me ten years!
No, dear. It did not, and the fatigue will not last. This was a trial, a severe test. Once again, had you faith you
would have had comfort. But you must face all things alone, head on. There will come a day when you will not
have the strength or stamina for that. There will come a day when the beauty and comfort of the Lord will soothe
you.
I hated the city. It was like a monument to decay...filthy, black, bleak, the buildings and the people cloaked in dirt, street
after street of glum faced people clothed in black and grey, walking, shopping, the night lights hiding the litter all around
them...the buzzing of traffic. Grey people, grey buildings, grey water, almost like another race of humans, some subspecies
of man in a giant sick room. I couldn't even sleep at night, being that close to it. I longed only to escape quickly and I
couldn't. I was forced to stay and ache in solitude while a pillar of my life crumbled. I had to sit, and yes, I even prayed, I
admit, but I prayed without sincerity or true belief. I was so frightened. If there is a God he could not be there. Not in that
place. It is a Godless, forsaken world there.
Oh, but he was there, with you.
I prayed for someone to be delivered from Evil. I did feel those words, there, in a certain context, for that place is a
monument to evil in my eyes.
And your place is farther from evil ?
OH, Joseph ! I am not ready to argue!!! Please! I mean to me, to my soul, my place is farther removed, closer to the
stars, closer to.....
God?
Maybe so! It is purer, cleaner at least..clearer. It doesn't teem with human refuse, with those near alien mutants in some
homely half human form. It doesn't sound bad, smell bad, look bad, feel putrid. Its ramparts are not hung with hanging
bastions of rotted flesh. I had to escape.
And abandon your task?
That was the problem. I could not, for it was only mine to deal with, saving the unsalvageable, using logic on the
illogical, rationality on the irrational, and like falling tears on a hot iron it was all for nothing, nothing, oh God, nothing!
Child, feel not such agony! It was beyond your control. You played no part in these events other that your effort to
do good.
It was not enough, Joseph, not even close to being enough. I failed and my heart aches so. I failed, and I was
terrified to be in that hellish place alone, trapped, far from my home.
But safety was yours soon. You needed not fear, for you were protected. And while it was a sad journey, it was one
you had to take. Now you need quiet.
Now I need rest.
Yes, rest, and your moon and stars...you will love them all the more.
We are all only capable of working with what we are given at birth. We all have those limitations. I had never felt such a
keen sense of individual destiny. It was like screaming in a dark forest without being heard, seeing some spirit nobody else
can see, that feeling of helplessness, knowing something was out of our hands yet frantically trying to mend it. At the end,
knowing only a miracle could do what I wanted to.
This is what prayer is. It is reaching inside to your core and pulling out the answer.
Nonsense !
You will see.
Part Eleven: Civility
You have been absent, Joseph. I almost thought I wouldn't see you again.
I had other business to tend to. I have been by a couple of times, though. You were busy. This morning you rise
early. Is it because morning is growing darker?
Yes, I think so. I was awake earlier for a couple hours, and had fallen back asleep when I went into one of those half
dream states. Although I could hear the morning sounds around me, this morning being many crows making a disturbance
as if perhaps they are gathering their forces for an early winter, I was not here but in a small town in East Prussia. Now, I
have never been there, in fact it is no longer there itself, at least as it was. I do have a friend who has mentioned it and
perhaps it stuck on my brain, but in any case, I was there and a very nice scene was laid out before me, almost too
pleasant to behold, and I was telling some force, "No! No! I do not want to look. It is too good, too heartbreaking to see
what was once there. I will not look!" but this force grasped my shoulder and turned my heard, making me watch.
It was a large room on the second story of a large wood building, almost some type of public hall...this was a long time
ago, you see. I wasn't even born yet. Anyway, there were a few young men in very tailored uniforms, very straight and
well groomed, holding glasses of wine or beer conversing with one another, and there were a couple of small groups of
young women in their best dresses clustered together chatting and giggling. On the floor were a couple of children playing
happily, one a little boy in a sailor type suit playing with pieces of flat, smooth wood which he was scooting across the
wood floor. There was some type of live music floating around, from a small ensemble, maybe from outside the windows.
Nothing spectacular was happening, but the air was so clean, and it was all so fresh, so wholesome, so vivid, so full of
civility. Why would I have been forced to see that? I even knew the music, although the memory of it vanished within
minutes of waking.
One has to confront things even if it hurts. You were watching what was good and noble and right.
It was a wretched feeling, but yes, it was goodness, and it radiated a sort of love. All the same, it was like watching a ship
sink and being helpless, being absolutely helpless to do anything about it.
Yes, you are utterly helpless to undo the march of time and circumstance.
Then why was I forced to view it? I don't see that beauty in life as it is now. I want to bring it back, Joseph, and that is
impossible!
There is only one force that can put things backwards. Why do you think you felt love in this vignette you
witnessed? It was a love unlike mortal love, was it not?
Yes, it was an unearthly experience. Actually, I don't know if love is the right word.
But part of your journey, one that had no beginning and has no end. This is what you needed to see. A thing
which cannot be measured in hours, days or years, or spoken of in mere words. Without hope we are lost, without
faith in what we cannot measure, cannot put into words, cannot ascribe hours to...that which is bigger than us,
beyond mortality, beyond our minds to grasp, we are like sunken ships.
Where are you going?
I have other matters to tend to. And you have more journeys to take.
Conversations With Joseph; Page Two
|