2015 is closing up shop. Those reading likely remember Young Simon and Garfunkel's rendition of Silent Night played to a wartime background. We likely remember, as well, the song from HAIR ... "Three Hundred and Fifty Six Viet Nam captured." And South Pacific's "You have to be taught to hate."
The cacophonies in our heads are different, these days. One of the Prez Candidates -- the Cruz Missile -- talks of "Carpet Bombing the Shit Out of Them." He should try some Dulcolax and see if he can get relief some other way. Another makes fun of people and excuses it as an antidote to Verbal Kindness or Christian solicitude or what the Jews call גמילת חסד (g'milas chessed) and the Muslims have a name for it, as well, ra'ufun rahirn. I have no doubt that Buddhists and Bahai's and Hindus and Sufis have similar mandates for the faithful. This latter Clown (above) calls it Political Correctness.
But, as I leave the year, I know that there are parts, too, of my aged Self that cannot meet ideals. If nothing else, my dreaming mind (my unbewusste, in Freud's lingo) tells me otherwise.
It was just last week that I dreamed that I had Forrest Trump the Simpleton in a choke hold and broke his neck. I was then left holding him and realizing he had flesh like the Pillsbury Doughboy ... white and untoned flesh without substance. I woke up amused. Maybe more? I woke up pleased.
I don't kill even if I recognize a shadowy part of my mind that realizes that, as an animal, I have the capacity to hate and maybe even to kill ... and, need I add, a capacity to not kill.
God. The day before the one on which nearly 2 Billion people celebrate the birth of a baby and buy, if they have the means, for their own babies gifts to tell them just how much their birth meant and means to them ... On such a day, I confess a selection from my Sins of Hate.
Dear God ...
I have hatred in my heart for those who gratuitously murder.
I have venom for those, like Jeroboam ben Nvat,
who would not only Sin
but bring others to Sin.
I have contempt for anyone who would seek to disturb a suckling at its Mother's breast.
I revile those who would dare disturb that Mother in her ministrations.
I resent those who abuse children and innocent animals,
or who abuse me, for that matter.
I have loathing for all who would put "a stumbling block before the blind
or who would curse the deaf."
I find abominable those who seek to humiliate others
with their obsequious bullshit.
I have contempt for all who would seek profit from others' pain.
I have no stomach for those
who while and by denying their malevolence towards others,
do them great harm.
Dear Sleeping God who has forgotten Me and My Fellow Creatures ... Let me rouse you with my confession.
The non-thought is, truly, Father to the Deed. I am no Prince of Peace ...
I am full of anger and rancor and resentment for those who hurt others
and, yet, my hatred, itself -- even here and now in the Last Quarter of my Life --
must sully your Creation ... just as the actions I hate do. Forgive me!
I have a sign on a kitchen cabinet in the original biblical script that I teach to my grandchildren:
..... בנפול אויביך אל תשמח
In the falling/failing of your enemies, rejoice not.
And in his stumblings, let your heart not revel. (somewhere in Proverbs).
Aspirational goals, only? I suppose so ... at least, considering my Dream of doing-in the arguably Foulmouthed Philandering Fool who would be Leader of the Free World.
Good that Dreams are just that ... Dreams.
Merry, Merry!
