Neanderpundit

On the way home, Dickey Daley shoots off his mouth on the same day all those kids were killed.

No, I won’t quote him, because I won’t filthy my blog with his words. I was so disgusted I nearly vomited.

Had ONE STUDENT on that campus been armed, this might never have reached the levels it did. But no, they made it illegal, so it protected the students there.

Here’s some news for you, Larry Hincker: the blood of those students is on your hands and the hands of everyone who voted agaisnt the right of those students to protect themself. Chew on that. I hope you receive so much hate mail that your head explodes.

As for Dick da Turd, well, everything he says is suspect. He’s about to dig deeper into the pockets of all illonoisians for the Olympics. I hope y’all enjoy that. When the businesses leave Chicago because of the tax burden, and all that is left is your expensive park and some derelict olympic village, I hope the stench of the victims of your stupidity never leaves your nostrils, you purulent useless criminal asswipe. No punishment in hell can ever be bad enough for you.

Oh, and a tip of the hat to Kim, of course, for the link.

I had a conversation yesterday with a new friend- new, but no less dear for the newness.
She expressed that faith in a creator was something she struggled to develop.

Balderd…. um, That’s a bunch of crapola.

No, I’m not saying she was full of crapola, for she is most definitely not.
“trying to develop faith in the creator” is like trying to win the lottery by wishing for it to happen.

You have to buy a ticket first.

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been raised in a house where faith was taken for granted. Not taken for granted in the way you take your wife for granted and she ends up fucking the poolboy, taken for granted in the knowledge that it’s always there and always at our disposal.

A lot of people waste their time trying to figure things out. What is the reason for creation? what is God’s plan? What am I here for?

Silly fools.

I have a fair-to-middling understanding of how a TV works. I have built more than one radio. I understand my computer well enough to use it. None of these things help me to listen to the radio or watch TV nor post on my blog. I could still do those things equally well if I didn’t understand how they worked. In fact, most of the people who spend millions of hours a day parked in front of their TV’s or computers or in their cars listening to the radio, have no idea how those things work.
You have faith that when you turn on the TV on tuesday night, you will be able to tune it to the local affiliate and watch House. You have faith that when you push the button on your radio, the sweet and sultry sounds of WNUA will flow through the speakers into your ears. You have faith that when you click “submit” on the bottom of the screen your comment will be posted. You don’t have to understand the mechanism behind those things for them to work, you have faith that they will, and in the main, they do. If they do not, it is not because of a failure of your faith, but because of a failure of the mechanism.

Creation is a mechanism like that. It’s simply an infinitely complex mechainism. That mechanism, unlike a TV or a computer, never fails. We can have faith in it without understanding it’s reason or purpose. We already do- we have faith that the rain falling outside is not an acid to flay our skin and bleach our bones. We have faith that if we plant a seed it will become a flower, or a tomato, or a blade of grass, and not a bear, or a 1967 Chrysler Newport. That faith is inseparably the same as faith in the creator- faith, after all, is just faith.

No, faith is not some kind of divine inspiration that comes upon us like the holy spirit and changes our world. Faith is knowing that the whole of Creation is there and is at our disposal. Our privelege as humans is the freedom to discover it’s operation, and to use it to our advantage.

Don’t wait for faith to show itself to you like a burning bush, it will not. Don’t get the idea that faith is some incredible, mystical revelation that will descend upon you and change your world, for it will not.

Faith is a tool. it will help you to do anything. It will, if you use it properly, allow you to move mountains. Our savior specifically said so, mathew 21:21.

Don’t worry about faith, or understanding. You might think you need these things, but you don’t.Faith is everywhere, like air, you just have to reach out and use it. Understanding will show up as you need it. What you need is to disencumber your head.

A lot of religions suggested that you surrender your belongings to the poor before reaching enlightenment- Some priests still take a vow of poverty, and the reason is to keep the needs of the world from becoming more important than your calling.
No, I wouldn’t suggest you sell all your shit and give the money to the poor, that’s just ignorant.
You need to make sure your posessions don’t own you. You need to be whole within yourself.

When you are, you’ll begin to notice the faith laying around you, waiting for you to pick it up and use it.
When you do, you’ll begin to develop an understanding. maybe not of the whole of creation, but certainly to the basics. Getting your head straight is like the entrance exam to understanding creation.

Even a child understands that static on the radio means the station is too far away, or the signal is too weak, or something is preventing the signal from coming through. Creation is like that. Sometimes we hear the static that indicates the signal is being interfered with- but we can’t do so until we’re listening.

Kim has a great post about the lack of visible heroism in our society.

He’s dead nuts on, too. We have no Lindbergs, we have no DiMaggios, no Sultan of Swat.

Publicly, anyway.

I believe those people are there- because I know a lot of them. I carried my uncle Calvin to a hole in the ground a mere few years ago. Calvin did the same thing a hundred thousand other soldiers did, so he wasn’t unusual, but he was damned sure a hero.

Heroism isn’t always about grand gestures and huge accomplisments. Heroism isn’t always writ large.
Sometimes heroism is just about doing the million little things that need to be done. Public attention is focused on the flashy and grand, the obvious acts of heroism.

More heroic, in my mind, are the steadfast. The people who do what they do, no matter how much drudgery is involved, every day. The people who keep on fighting the good fight in simple ways that nobody notices.

It’s not unusual to be brave and courageous when your adrenaline is pumping. If you volunteer at a hospital, and your gig involves cleaning bedpans all day, every day, tell me it isn’t more heroic to get up in the morning, every day for thirty years, knowing what you have to do, and doing it anyway.

That strength, the strength to keep on when keeping on is almost impossible, getting up and doing the same thing every day, is the strength I find to be most heroic, impresses me the most.

THere is another hero, that is equally overlooked, and most often maligned. The hero of ideas. The man who stands for morality and decency and freedom, and does everything he can to let other people hear his message, even if the tallest platform he can find is an upturned bucket.

You, Kim, are a hero. We need more like you.