RUDIMENTS, pt. 207
Making Cars
This may sound strange to you
but I've always believed in absolute
truth. Not the slideable-scale kind of
truth that gets used in making deals
and rationalizing behavior, allowing
things because of environments or
situation. The barrier-guardrail of
'Truth' remains the same, philosophically,
in whichever situation it is placed. Not
to say that this couldn't be argued all
day - and I'd eagerly be one to argue
it - but nonetheless it remains. The
Absolute. I once had a friend named
Andretta who asked me, in one of
our conversations, if I 'believed in
Evil.' I didn't then and don't now
know her position on that, but I can
fairly well imagine it to be trending
liberal, loose and easy; bending the
rules for the apportionments due
towards the 'disenfranchised.' How
it goes. I said (this was 2004) I most
definitely did. And not only that, I
attested to the fact that I believed
Evil was here among us, in the
form of the Devil, whose multifarious
ways influence and act upon most
of the things in our daily lives. I
then said I felt that Mankind was
fallen, flawed and useless and that
this was the Devil's own Kingdom
and all we had to do for the barest
of survivals was to find our own
grace and enlightenment through
the creative paths given each to
us separately : Over which this
'Devil' has no control, that being,
alone, what is left of God's Kingdom
within us. (Pretty cool talk for
co-worker equals at a bookstore,
no?).
-
Now, you may say, 'What's this got
to do with anything?' And you're
right. In the ordinary, everyday run
of things it doesn't, EXCEPT that
we have by now so compromised
and rendered as good as useless
any shred of Goodness around
us. When I went to the seminary
for those years, I guess in a way
I was unknowingly (since it
never really crossed my mind)
searching for Goodness. When
I got out of there and had to
robotically finish my year at
Woodbridge High School
(ghastly, atrocious, horrible
place), I was searching for
Goodness, in the dark, but
searching. When I got to
New York City and situated
myself to my liking at the
Studio School and my
other points along the
lower east side, I was
searching for Goodness,
and by then I kind of knew
it. There was plenty of
devil and plenty of evil
there, but there were places
too where Goodness stuck
out its quaint, little head.
I had to learn to deal with
that difference, quickly and
easily. I could not allow it
to throw interference at me;
had to surpass, or bypass, it.
There's a certain kind of
purity that I always admired.
On 19th Street, east, in NYC,
there's this place called
Menno House - a per-night
rooming house kind of place,
bathroom in the hall, casual,
quiet, single rooms, etc. Menno
is short for Mennonite, the
people who run it. It originated
as a refuge for conscientious
objectors, as they were called,
evaders of the draft, those
excused from it, etc. Meditative
and religious in ways that
would make many people
blanche. But it always
embodied a purity for me
- an Absolute. A way of
seeing that I really believed
in. It was a pretty raucous scene
to see that - occasional Mennonite
ladies with those white bib-hat
things they wear (this was still
back when Catholic nuns still
word those harsh, starched, black
habits). They'd sometimes be
traipsing through Tompkins
Square Park with food trays
and stuff to hand out. Little
cakes and cut sandwiches. All
polite and dignified in their
service to the inept, crazed,
loud and filthy. Opposite to
them in demeanor and habits
were the girls from the Digger
Free Store nearby - half of those
girls, who lived naked on east
6th, or 3rd, I forget, would attend
to the Free Store in various states
of free-dress. Loose-limbed, and
with the occasional essential body
part here or there hanging out,
they represented the other
extreme of the Menno ladies.
Both were absolutes in their ways
and means, just different means of
getting to the same ends. The
Free Store usually had some sort
of God-unknown hippie soup going,
to be ladled out, and any other food
available - peanuts, apples, thrown
away Tastycakes and things 'given
by stores instead of throwing them
away. I don't think there was today's
sell-by-date packaging yet, or I can't
recall it, but the store-people knew.
Free was free.
-
The reason I knew about the girls was
because for a while I'd be put to use
ferrying things from the store to the
group-living quarters, back and forth,
and the silly girls always came to the
door, yes, unclothed, and apparently
lived that way. ( Free snack, I guess,
and, by the way, one that I [stupidly?]
never sampled). On the other hand,
the Mennonite girls always had their
doilies on.
-
So, back to absolutes and the
evil and the Devil. The way
the question itself was phrased
was misleading and off point,
because it sounds, by saying yes,
that I 'believe' in evil, as an ally
or compatriot. I don't believe in
it except that I believe it exists,
as I said. And the Devil who
manipulates and personifies
it. A difficult paradigm here
is presented, for sure. Oftentimes
it has been phrased as 'Anti-Christ',
or 'doing the Devil's bidding,' or
any of those phrases. I believe
it's an operative, parallel world
that gets into people's brains at
night and sets them up for the
next days, and, gradually, day
by day, they can't resist and fall
and advance the Devil's bidding
with 'Man' as its Slave Race. It
sweeps in waves. It owns
Governments and organizations.
As just one example, people
wake up in the morning with
the idea that they must cut trees.
Yeah, sounds simple and dumb
for me to say, right? But how
do you think it brings us to
the point of despoiling and
being at war with Nature,
wrecking the planet, making
our streets and by-ways hideous
and ugly? And having us just
gradually accept all that as OK?
Devil plant - that's the only
plant they want to grow.
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