Gambling Problem

Gambling Problem

“Now Josh,” the words dripped

from her lips like priests hands

and paschal lambs. “If you gamble,

you will never

win.”

But there was a one way

freeway, right to left,

through my cerebellum

and my ears’ bongos

barely caught the rhythm

over the honking horns of

rush-hour traffic.

This was the ultimate Gameboy.

One glowing quarter can collect

a jackpot in one lever’s lazy yank.

One wily Washington could make a kid

a millionaire.

“I’ll show you.”

and out she pulled

the finest portrait

of a president I’d ever

curled my 9 year old hopes around.

Her sermon filled the casino

as she dusted the quarter on

her blouse and slid it into

the nearest machine, pulling

back the golden lever,

and won a hundred dollars.

The unintended quarter she slipped into

my mind that night, took a while

to sink to my heart. My lever

is still miles from being fully pulled,

but the pulley of paradigm

snagged my backbone and is slowly

dragging me to the slick ski-slopes  

of risk.

I threw a quarter in speech,

hit the jackpot on poetry,

a coach showing me the Whitman

ground into my bootsoles.

I put a quarter in climbing,

a quarter in cliff diving

and blew my paycheck on a love,

odds 1000, to 1.

I dove between the jagged rocks of risk

from 55 foot, teetering cliffs

and flailed a little in the waters of experience.

I held my breath, avoiding the second hand smoke

of others’ exhausted wisdom, and made a beeline

for the roulette wheel.

I put twenty on hope, fifty on fight,

and 150 on untapped passion, trapped behind

a dam of can’t.

I opened the floodgates,

went all in on can.

Too many dreamers throw

too many quarters down

wishing, window, and oh wells,

hiding between excuses of

odds and probability,

but pull the lever on life.

Win the jackpot on work,

and its sweet smelling

sermon of sweat,

and risky serendipity. 

On Standing

I like to avoid being angry whenever possible.

I’m a firm believer in the freedom of speech.

I believe that all people, regardless of social, political, religious or moral background should not only be allowed to, but should be encouraged to speak their minds and stand up for what they believe in.

I don’t believe in boycotting people or organizations just because I don’t completely agree with their point of view or their social activism.

I believe that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God,

but I can’t stand with someone who uses vulgarity to defend the word of God or reduces straight or gay relationships to a market of consumption of sexual pleasure

and I sincerely hope that when people think of Christian values, the first image that comes to their mind is the bearded Son of Man who saved mankind, not a bearded reality tv star with a duck call.  

Two Good Things Used for Evil

Today I'd like to talk about two quite good things that have been misused for evil.

One: Hand Sanitizer 

Hand sanitizer is great. It provides a great hand washing alternative when hand washing is unavailable. I am very happy to see hand sanitation stations in such places as schools, libraries and hospitals. However, they have also been finding their way into many a public restroom, something I worry about. Sadly, putting and sanitizer next to a hand washing sink, makes some people believe it is a satisfactory substitute for hand washing. This is an evil lie. It's not enough to kill 99.9 percent of germs. You need to wash them away.It's just not sanitary to carry thousands of dead germ-bodies on your hands.

Good hand washing involves running water - preferably hot, soap - to build a contaminant catching lather and lots and lots of friction.

Two: Biodegradable Stuff

I'm all for decreasing humanities environmental footprint. The less synthetic trash we can pile up, the better. Therefore, I'm glad that so many companies nowadays are reducing the amount of synthetic material in their products and using more and more biodegradable stuff. A biodegradable chip bag is great because after some time in a landfill, the circle of life eliminates its effect on the environment. The problem with biodegradable stuff is that many people think this thought, "It's biodegradable, so if I throw it on the ground, it's not littering." You stupid, evil people. Just because something is biodegradable, doesn't mean it's good for the local ecosystem. Zebra muscles are biodegradable, but they're really really bad for the lake. Chewing gum is biodegradable, but it's not fit for squirrel consumption. The last thing you want is a squirrel to choke to death on your chewing gum. Besides, Bio-degradation takes time. If you throw it out your window today, it won't be gone tomorrow. It will be making things ugly for weeks, months and potentially  years before it becomes one with the earth. I think at the pinnacle of evil cigarette butts. Yes, they are technically biodegradable, but they still contain trace carcinogens, look ugly and turn your slow suicide into way more poison than it's worth.

So please use trash receptacles, compost piles and recycling centers.

That is all.

Learning To Pray, Getting to Know God

“If you want to be really good at something, you’ve got to spend time doing it.” Sister Kunz specified. In order to be really good at prayer, we need to spend time doing it, and man was I determined. Driving back to Storm Lake after zone conference, my mind whirled with what I could do to pray stronger. I would buy a journal. I would brainstorm. I would search the scriptures. I would wake up. I would speak up. I would kneel up. I would visualize the Father, my faith firm in the express image of the Father in the Son and my heart strung with the beautiful art of He who walked in Galilee. I was determined to pray longer, to seek Him more diligently than I ever had. Not long after beginning this journey, I remembered the admonition to pray in closets and realized mine would be the perfect pondering palace. A new light bulb gave dazzling light. I set up a little table and a picture of the risen Lord. I cushioned my knees.

The experience was life changing. I treated my time with my Father as the most professional, yet intimate of interviews and He reciprocated. I was taught in my mind and in my heart. I was lead through the pages of the scriptures, the words illuminating my understanding. I let down much of my “know it all” barriers and learned things I thought I knew, for real this time. I would come to Him with questions I had spent time pondering. I wrote them down, asked, received, wrote, asked, received, wrote. I felt divine inspiration for what to ask next. As I honed in on gratitude, it was easier to notice the things to be grateful for. I remember one particular Sunday, writing something down to express gratitude every other minute in sacrament meeting, so excited share my list that evening on my knees. I focused on others, seeking their needs and praying earnestly for them by full names. As I did this, I grew the most.

One particular night of learning how to pray, particularly impacted me. It was one of those moments where things that I always knew by the word, became flesh, became real. I was praying in my closet and about to close, when a thought crossed my mind to say something that wasn’t very new. In prayers in groups, I am frequently heard saying, “We love thee, Lord.” As the thought crossed my mind to express such sentiment, I realized, among all my prayers, I had never expressed love to the Father personally. Feeling kind of silly, I paused, opened my eyes and looked at the picture of the savior I had pinned to my wall. Awkwardly, I spoke aloud the words, “I love thee, Lord.” and paused. It made me feel weird at first. The words were clumsy on my tongue, but undeniable peace filled my closet. I thought for a moment I could feel a warm, calm hand on my shoulder. I listened carefully to the silence around me and could hear the voice of God speak aloud the words, “Joshua, I love you too.”

It was then that I realized that God is a perfect, glorified, Man of Holiness. Were we in a literal interview with him, He would hug us and we would feel it. Were we looking across a desk into His eyes, clumsily fumbling over our words, He would look back at us, through the window of our souls and upon our hearts and tell us He loves us. I’ve spent countless hours on my knees in humble prayer before Him. I have cried unto Him in the night. The Holy Spirit has made “intercession for (me) with groanings which cannot be uttered.” I have plead with Him for forgiveness in my darkest hours and beheld His glorious light.

Too often, I think we think of church and prayer and scriptures as just “good things.” I think we keep commandments as long as it’s convenient. Too much we think of the gospel as good headlines in the newspaper. We’re glad of it, but it’s too far away to really seem real, but God is real. Faith is following Him. Faith is serving Him till death and beyond. Faith precedes the miracle, the greatest of which is when our faith becomes dormant, when we look up and realize that not only do we know God lives, but we know God.

Come to Him. Be meek and lowly in heart. Find rest to your souls. 

Perhaps this means something.

The following is random selections from books on my shelf strung together like a macaroni necklace.

The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took into his head to say, “This is mine,” and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. Inside, you’ll read about one company that’s taking a huge stake in China’s new pebble bed reactor development. You can trade this one right on the New York Stock Exchange. A bride-to-be would do well to ask herself, “Can my sweetheart manage money?” “Does he know how to live within his means?” These are more important questions than, “Can he earn a lot of money?”

The essential condition for the existence of sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on competition between laborers. 3. Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws and penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community  in the execution of such laws, and in the defense of the commonwealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.

Grammatically, Burmese does not have noun declensions, or verbal inflections, so it has a more straightforward grammar than many European languages. It does however use many postpositions and auxiliary verbs that have important grammatical functions and associated shades of meaning. It signifies, let us have the courage to face it, a will to nothingness, a revulsion from life, a rebellion against the principle conditions of living. And yet, despite everything, it is and remains a will. Let me repeat, now that I have reached the end, what I said at the beginning: man would sooner have the void for his purpose than be void of purpose…

Voltaire obtained the basis for his wealth more from a lucky lottery speculation in Paris, than from any of his writings. Serve Man was the club’s motto – and it slowly dawned on me what this meant. Yes, cannibalism was alive and well in London’s Pall Mall, it looked as if, while I should soon me dead, I should not be much buried – just stewed, with, I trusted, at least a fine garnish. Later that day they were successful in their cooperative hunting. Frightful caught a rat.

Yesterday Peter and I finally got down to our talk, which had already been put off for at least ten days. I explained everything about girls to him and didn’t hesitate to discuss the most intimate things. The evening ended by each giving the other a kiss, just about beside my mouth, it’s a really lovely feeling. He favored me with a contemptuous stare, “If I raised never a hand for that poor fool,” – pointing astern to the tiny sail – “d’ye think I’m hungerin’ for a broken head for a woman I never laid me eyes upon before this day?” I must do some algebra – Kitty. Goodnight.

“What’s rape?” I asked him that night. Atticus looked around from behind his paper. He was in his chair by the window. As we grew older, Jem and I thought it generous to allow Atticus thirty minutes to himself after supper. He sighed, and said rape was carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent. According to the Afrikaners, white Christians are destined by God to remain apart and above all other races. Said one Afrikaner of the ideal of racial apartheid, “The more consistently the policy of apartness could be applied, the greater would be the security for the purity of our blood and the surer our unadulterated European racial survival.”

Loneliness

Loneliness

Beyond the bar, one line short of music,

Beyond the crosses, one line long of tic-tac-toe,

Beyond the boxy squiggle snaking,

the Rubik’s cubist making,

the jaw wand gaping, and Picasso Pac men

thrash-squabbling a second unsolved not-quite Rubik,

Beyond the then beyond, multi-personal sunshine,

Beyond the Yellow-Red-Blue

Behind the whole Wassily Kandinsky, pacing in its frame-cage,

Behind the frame-cage,

Behind the beige, royal stamps on the

off-white wallpaper,

Behind the headaching orange paint it covered,

stood plain gray drywall, friendless, alone.

 

John Cage's 4'33

John Cage’s “4’33””

Movement I

Tacet.

The beat begins.

The steady rhythm pulses

pulses. pulses. Someone coughs.

Solo Rubato.

A chair creeks.

Ritardando.

A child fusses.

Diminuendo. 

The tension rises.

appassionato.

The beat increases.

Breathing stilled.

Maestro pauses, so strong willed.

Movement II

Tacet.

A Tempo,

Smoother, spianato

Lights on the stage hum something legato.

Sisters, row seven, simultaneously shift their position.

The air conditioning clicks on and each ear takes a listen.

Quick mezzo-forte the crowd grows restless.

Four guests cough, one sneezes, one blesses.

The air clicks off. Recapitulation.

Breath blends with buzzing, tight intonation.

The final two measures are measured and still

The maestro ceases and puts down his quill.

Movement III

Tacet

Allegro,

Snare clock ticking,

subdivided by wristwatch cadences clicking.

Restless leg tapping fast slapping the floor,

accents, staccato, scatter the score.

A beep, babe asleep, hiccup peep, wake and weep.    

Subito piano a rushed hush meant to keep

the silent tension alive, well, and deep.

But the buzzing of lights and the AC swell rises.

Maestro’s eyes widen at climactic surprises.

A quiet sforzando of audience stretching

and improvisational serenity sketching.

He holds the fermata to 4’34.

The concert hall bursts in applaudious roar.