a stream of conscience-ness

crawling through the desert on my hands and knees, torn jeans clinging desperately to my legs, shirt mostly in tatters, hanging loosely off my shoulders… eyes darting to and fro, hoping to catch sight of, a quick glimpse, the hint of, a water source, river, stream, oasis of sorts… some type of cactus with juicy flesh waiting for me to discover in its hidden caverns the satiation for my current devastation, even temporary relief for my present disbelief of the localised unbelief that seems to surround me on all sides, pressing in, trying to suffocate, attempting to deprecate, to abbreviate, or proliferate its… their, own sense of being marginalised, disenfranchised, tied up, held up, brought up, bought into sense of hopelessness, of clung to plausible deniability, of watered down potentiality… minimalistic expression of a far deeper, richer, more vibrant, on offer life experience that suddenly, once more, slaps me into wakefulness, renewing the drive onwards, pushing me further away from those who will contain me in their quicksand filled, undisclosed and scattered leftover buried mine encased mime constructed boxes of delapidated individuality brought about by the refined redefined personal definition of a wholly holy majestical greater power defined way of existing…

me, my, mine is the call of those who will fashion the path that has already been marked out for me by the One who Lovingly, and Loving me, took it upon Himself to walk it before me, leaving tell-tale signs along the way of His greater intention, His life-interrupting intervention that comes to me [did i mention?] as a whisper, as a quiet voice i can sometimes barely make out hidden in the backgrounds of a gentle breeze, a rapid flash of cover, a hint, a suggestion, a spirit-filled gut feel that points out, draws me out, calls me out, points me to, takes me to, makes me to… change my course, alter the discourse, discover the resource that already lies deep within me…

for history is not my story, it’s His story, but one in which He has invited me to participate, and regenerate, [dare i alliterate?] revelling in the revealing revolutionary revelation of His rambunctious glory, grace and gracious generosity. are you starting to see? will you align with me? but not dispassionately. i desperately and hungrily require some brutal introspective honesty. i am not looking for empathy. i need you walking alongside me. i’m not asking for another one of me. like some kind of test tube created science experimental experience of trying to mess with destiny. i am feeling a little alone here. so why would i be wanting a clone here? bump my head against another loner? i am asking for, appealing for, calling for, crying out for you. are you with me? i am wanting someone who has a hunger for more than games, who nurses a need for more than speed, who has a panoramic vision and life focus that is both from here and to eternity…

are you in? can i count on you? lean on you? walk this road with you? crawl through the desert on my hands and knees, torn jeans clinging desperately to my legs, shirt mostly in tatters, hanging loosely off my shoulders, with you? eyes darting to and fro, hoping to catch sight of, a quick glimpse, the hint of, a water source, river, stream, oasis of sorts… what’s that you see?

what’s the meta for?

one of my favourite random life statements that i made up years ago and that i unleash unwittingly [well, maybe a little wittingly] on the world every now and then is the one that goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it throw stones in glass houses.”

while it’s true that i made it up, i didn’t really give it a lot of thought until today, but if you give me a moment [and i know you will, see you did just there, don’t give up now or the curiosity will kill you as like a cat would] [is it a double simile if you stick both a “like” and an “as” in? wondered the boy] i will expound to you some of the deep truths of said statement:

# if you have lead a horse to water then the chances of it being inside of a glass house at the same time are pretty small, as what glass house manufacturer would have the time, energy or creativity left to create some kind of inside water feature to add to her [or his] already quite elaborate glass house construction?

# if we are talking regular sized horse here, then horses are quite big and doorways are generally doorway-sized and with the house being made of glass and all, you don’t want to mess too much with trying to squeeze an animal of that rotundity through and so we are going to have to add some kind of bigger door/smaller horse clause or understanding for this to work.

# assuming we get said smaller horse [but it can’t be a pony as that would change the saying and so we are probably looking at a Falabella or at most some form of the very aptly named Miniature Horse] into the house and near to the water source, we hit the main problem which is the picking up of and throwing of the stone – again one would have to question the general sanity of the house designer in terms of the scattered rocks montage she has going, but the biggest problem in this whole scenarion is the idea of a hoofed being being able to grasp a rock in any manner that would suggest throwing it would be the following plausible action.

in conclusion, for any rock-grabbing to have been possible at all, the horse would have to have grasped the rock with both front hooves [and be practically standing on its back two or else in a severely uncomfortably semi-crouched back feet spread position] and the likelihood is that the slipperiness of the rocks [due to being in or near water] and the awkwardness of the grab would make the possibility of getting any kind of forward thrust into throwing it virtually impossible.

and so while in extremely engineered circumstances it may be possible to lead a smallish horse to rock-surrounded pools of water within a carefully designed extra-large doored house, it is highly unlikely that there will be any throwing of a single stone, let alone ‘stones’ in said house.

which, all in all, probably gives the designer and creator of that particular house of glassness a huge sigh of much-deserved relief.

Self-OCCUPY’d [a belated processing of the Occupy Movement that i encountered face to face]

i don’t know a crazy lot about politics, nor do i claim to.

although i do try to keep on top of the daily/weekly goings on back home in South Africa as well as the major news events with daily visits to internet news sites like iafrica.com and bbc.com so that i have a general idea of what is going on in the world.

so when the OCCUPY movement came along, i had some idea of what it was all about, while being surrounded by a bunch of people who knew a whole lot more, including one of my housemates who got involved with doing the books for the group who were active in our nearby city of Philadelphia.

and so i didn’t know everything about OCCUPY, but then one day something happened to give me a serious opinion about them.

we had heard of this huge local craziness and cause for concern as Mayor Nutter [his actual name, go figure] put this ban into place on outdoor feeding specifically aimed at the homeless in Philadelphia and, we felt, directly aimed at removing the homeless people from two specific tourist spots, namely Love Park and the soon-to-be-opened [at the time] Barnes Museum of Art.

the Simple Way [which is the non-profit my wife Valerie and i work for] sprung into action in terms of starting conversation with a number of groups who we knew were feeding people in Philly as well as formulating an official statement and a plan of action. a number of us ended up at a meeting of the health board who were discussing some changes to health regulations that were indirectly related to the ban Mayor Nutter was trying to push through.

we decided to invite a bunch of our friends to come and unofficially picnic with us outside the building the meeting was to be taking place at [as holding picnics was a potential loophole to the ban] and Occupy Philly had had a similar idea with an impromptu soup kitchen and so we all arrived and set up and started having picnics with family and friends [where any homeless people who wandered past were immediately identified as family and friends].

so my first impression of Occupy Philly up close was that we were pretty like minded, but that disappeared pretty quickly when i saw some of the placards they had brought with them with statements like “Mayor Nutter is the antichrist” on them. [i’m fairly certain Mayor Nutter is NOT the antichrist or at the very least don’t have any information in my possession to suggest or even hint otherwise]

then we got to go inside and observe the meeting of the health board and they read through the regulations and explained the proposed changes and, for the most part they were making a lot of sense and it seemed like the majority of what they were looking at was about improving the safety of food being prepared and distributed and that’s when “THEY” started…

it’s called a ‘mic check’ and it’s about on par with a little kid mimic’ing every line you say until you are both screaming “STOP COPYING ME!” at each other and someone calls mom, or a teenager sticking their fingers in their ears making “LALALALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOU LALALALALALALA” noise… Someone yells “mic check” and the group responds by repeating it. Then someone starts a one sided shouted ‘conversation’ or challenge and line by line or even phrase by phrase it is repeated by everyone else in the group. So it completely shuts down what anyone else is trying to do in the room, makes you the focus of attention and puts your agenda on the meeting.

let’s face it, it’s a gimmick. and it works. and it could have even probably worked in the meeting. with better control and foresight and maturity. some of the Occupy people had something good to say. but some of them didn’t. many of them just got verbally abusive and insulting and about as relevant and effective as the “Mayor Nutter is the antichrist” [he’s still not!] placard lying outside in the street against the soup kitchen table. they disrupted the meeting [which eventually after way more patience than it deserved ended up with the board walking out to finish their meeting elsewhere] and they robbed others of us who felt we had something significant and helpful to say of a voice.

and to a large extent they robbed me of having a positive opinion towards the whole Occupy movement. i know you can’t judge a whole movement by one person or group. but i also know that whenever Occupy is mentioned, that this particular story and mess of immaturity, mob mentality, disrespect is the one that comes to my mind first. and that is unfortunate.

i think for a lot of people around the country, and even the world, the Occupy movement was a legitimate response to an economic, political and social crisis and it is the hugest tragedy that their voice was drowned out by all those who jumped on the bandwagon simply because it was ‘just another cause’ or ‘an opportunity to get loud and disruptive and scream and shout and break things down’. lack of leadership and more specific direction and discipline seem to have cost it a whole lot of authenticity and respect and all this brought about by those who were sadly Self-OCCUPY’d!

Weekly Writing Challenge: Mail it In

dear nigerian widow

firstly, thank you. your mail came as a huge surprise to me. i really appreciated you writing the entire correspondence in caps as my eyesight is not what it used to be. having it all condensed together in one run-one-line paragraph saved me a lot of time while conveying the urgency of your news and the need for me to act quickly on it.

your husband [what was his name again?] and i had not been in communication for i do not know how many years and so hearing of his sudden death of course caused me to have to take a moment and reflect on the brevity of life and the fact that before you can even really hardly get to know someone at all really, at all, they can be gone and you will never get that opportunity back to maybe get to know someone you have maybe not yet gotten to know, yet.

congratulations seem a little late, and possibly insensitive, but to have married someone who has so quickly risen to the rank of general in his country is not something to be sniffed at, especially at this time of his sudden passing, but i trust you had some valuable time together and had opportunity to enjoy it with him for a season.

i also really appreciate the fact that in the midst of the turmoil that your country seems to currently be in, that is restricting your ability to get yourself or your money safely out of the country, that you had the time and sensitivity to contact me and be thinking so strongly about someone other than yourself.

when i saw the sum of money you were wanting to transfer into my account i really had to double take as i was not aware that such large numbers even existed and had to google the amount of zeros simply to find out how to accurately share with my friends and family how much i was going to receive.

mrs widow, this is where i must just pause and express my genuine affection and how your mail deeply moved me. you see, i have been struggling with low self-esteem of late, due to some challenges in my personal and work environments. so when you mailed to say that you viewed me as a trustworthy and reliable person [or company] who will “kindly help us to accommodate and safeguard this fund into his account to save us from the calamities of the present clamp on her husbands bank accounts/assets all over the world,” well i just burst straight into tears.

thank YOU, mrs general [what was his name again?]’s widow. or maybe i can express my feelings with more meaning by saying THANK YOU. AFTER ALL THESE YEARS OF STRUGGLE WITH WORK THREE JOBS JUST TO GET THE BILLS PAID AND TRIED AND MOVE OUT OF MY MOTHERS IS HOUSE IT IS SO SATISFYING AND JUBILATE TO KNOW THAT THE END IS NEAR. THEIR IS NO THING THAT CAN STAND BETWEEN ME AND MINE DREAMS NOW AND I HAVE YOU TO THANK AND LOOK FORWARD TO HELP YOU IN THIS MANNER THAT WILL SAFELY GET THIS MONEY INTO MY COUNTRY FOR YOU, FOR A SMALL PERCENTAGE IN RETURN.

if you could please email the specifics of the transaction to my primary email address [it should be in your husband’s inbox] we can speedily proceed with this matter further

yours sincerely
to whom it did concern

[title Weekly Writing Challenge: Mail it In]