tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9078157424531850345.post8850740473503761887..comments2024-03-24T02:03:40.254-07:00Comments on Chasin' Jesus: more on 9-11Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9078157424531850345.post-83094926965947631232013-12-09T12:14:43.210-08:002013-12-09T12:14:43.210-08:00Haven't heard from you, Stan, in quite a while...Haven't heard from you, Stan, in quite a while...hope you are OK.Michael Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10393989496568662639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9078157424531850345.post-39330207533009652112013-09-13T17:03:01.398-07:002013-09-13T17:03:01.398-07:00I remember you saying that people often asked you,...I remember you saying that people often asked you, "What happened?" as if you were struck blind on the road to Damascus, referring to your shift away from the type of thinking that allowed you to wear a uniform for so many years. In response you said that it was nothing like that, not a moment of blinding clarity, that it was a long, gradual proccess.<br /><br />That is more understandable to me, and more a reflection of complex realities. <br /><br />And I still wonder, when it comes to your shift into being a Christian, "What happened?"<br /><br />I have had, and know others who've had experiences of God. Each were different, and affected us in our own ways. For me, one moment was just feeling like I was wrapped in an energetic blanket of love suddenly, and it was the only time in my life that I feel like I glimpsed some notion of my true self, and a large defining characteristic of that self was not feeling anxiety about death, while simultaneously feeling loved and able to so freely give love. That moment has never come back for me, but I remain a loving person, albeit one who lives with the fear of chaos and death.<br /><br />My moment of experiencing God didn't last long but I've always remembered it. But I have no specific notion of a particular religion or faith. My experience was not that specific. There was just love, without fear. <br /><br />What is your experience of God, Stan, and how did your faith become so specific? I can remember sitting up in bed one night, not long after 9/11 I believe, reading the last chapter of Hideous Dream, and man, there is some pretty staight up atheist talk in there. I know I've got no right to ask these personal questions, but curiosity is getting the better of me. <br /><br />"The struggle between good and evil is not divided up among the "sides," but in the hearts of each person in a broken world, and in the material outcomes of social relations that make war inevitable. We are not faced with a few evil men and their conspiracies. We are faced with structures and their inertia that articulate evil like some bacteria articulate toxins."<br /><br />Damn right. Participated in another big raid on public lands around my home,the other day, lots of camoflage, guns and helicopters, and that youthful enthusiasm for the possibility of combat. And the shit of it was that I was right there with them in the all the complexity and contradiction, an active participant, reluctant and solemn and alone. In my heart, its not my scene, but there are men in the hills with guns, and I'd ask them politely if they would mind putting them down and being better neighbors. But my experience tells me they wouldn't listen. <br /><br />Much love Stan. Keep up the great writting. <br /><br />JackAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02388405393711408015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9078157424531850345.post-86625614829818908032013-09-12T09:43:56.245-07:002013-09-12T09:43:56.245-07:00Your last paragraph sums up well what you said to ...Your last paragraph sums up well what you said to me in the first communication I had with you, back around '04, when I made a rather immature observation on Cheney and Bush and the financial class being a few guys with bad ideas. You were a lefty then, but the seeds of what you are now were there.<br /><br />I have had the feeling for many years now that no one/nothing is in control of what is going on, and I thank you for presenting that in an eloquent way. <br /><br /> But, for those who have power to believe in a system that has shown itself to be patently false, as long as the "game" of it keeps them comfortable and powerful and on the other side of the boundary of shoveling their own shit (and is in itself another form of whistling past the graveyard) is something I can accept. As Hugh Trevor-Roper said in "The Last Days of Hitler": "God is capricious in designing the human mind". <br /><br /> I don't have to like it, and I don't, but to be exhausted by the continual outrage that the system generates through its actions (THAT might be conspiratorial, in the sense of giving the chattering liberal intelligentsia something to chatter about and the working class something to fear), is worse. It IS better to give food, wash feet, and I will add as a musician (one who has played to the baser instincts of an audience often enough to make grocery money), to comfort and raise consciousness.<br /><br />Can't truly consider myself a Christian (yet?), but Jesus was a here-and-now kind of person, it seems. Now. Here. This.Michael Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10393989496568662639noreply@blogger.com