An Irrelevant Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man

(A Tribute To My Mother)... When my father was sick and hospitalized, I moved back into the family home so that my mother  would not be alone.  On selected days of the week I drove her to the hospital and on the other days I went alone to visit.  There were those who said my reasoning was trying to get close to my mother so I could get control of her money.  I, like my father and mother and several of my brothers have never flaunted status,  wealth,  not even  the size of stock holdings as a means of demeaning people.  

Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder

Why it should be thus all, the day long;

While there are others living about us,

Never molested, though in the wrong.

When he was first hospitalized many religious zealots appeared in the hospital corridor and prayed the prayer of Faith.   I often went to the hospital expecting to see him walking around and talking.  When his condition worsens and was transferred to a nursing home the visits soon ceased.   It was decided that God was not going to perform a miracle.  There was no ministerial staff to comfort my mother, who had dedicated her life to the church, nor was there a list of volunteers waiting to sit with her.   She bore her grief and many nights during his long sickness, I would hear her cry out.   Many times I interrupted the serving of breakfast to wipe tears from her eyes.  

Often when death has taken our loved ones,
Leaving our home so lone and so drear,
Then do we wonder why others prosper,
Living so wicked year after year.

During the long days of his sickness, I become known as the young man who sit by his father beside in the nursing home and sang,  "Farther  along we will know all about it" As a child growing up in the church I often sang with my father.  I knew and accepted that the time of his departure was at hand, and as a gesture of respect, I promised my father that I would sing at his home going. 

Farther along we’ll know more about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why;

Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine,

We’ll understand it all by and by.

On the day of his memorial services, men of high honor and dubious distinctions took to the podium to lavish praise and honor, but none of these distractions brought comfort to my mother's bleeding heart.  My mom waited for that moment at the close of the service when I would sing my farewell song to my father, her plans were to assist me as much as she could as we had practiced at home.   At the last minute from the  podium the program was changed.  "I never sung for my father. "

I will always remember the last time I saw my mother cry. It was when she buried one of her younger sons.  We cried together, then we both grew stronger together, and promised to never cry again.  This promise became so deeply ingrained in my physic, that for an entire year after her death I have not shed a tear.  Sometime in the lonely hours of the night I long to shed a tear, but her voice is there, “you are strong”, she says, “don’t cry for me.”

We miss him dearly but we must all answer the call of God.  In closing, from the words of his mother during their last conversation at her house on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008, before his passing on November 21, 2008, “The Lord’s will be done, son.  The Lord’s will be done.”  Therefore, Father, nevertheless, not our will but thy will be done.” St. Matthew 26:39

1. Often when death has taken our loved ones,
   Leaving our home so lone and so drear,
   Then do we wonder why others prosper,
   Living so wicked year after year.
2. The fragility of relationships terrifies me, and often make me think of the ordeal of life.  How we endure the labor of  years of sacrifice, so that those left behind will have the best that life has to offer, only to discover in the end that it had all been for so little.  Life itself, can be a very perplexing endeavor.  In order to enjoy life, it is necessary that we seek the memories of the past to aid us in appreciating the future.  But what happens when the past becomes muddled, and our future becomes insecure.  We become trapped in an abyss, and our only hope is that we will not  forget to struggle as the darkness overtakes us.  And yet, as the road home turns dark, somehow we know through hope in our immortal deity, it will become clear again after Final Frame.
3. IYears have passed but it seems as if it was yesterday, the day I returned to the old homeplace.  I turned left at the mailboxes, and entering the rocked driveway leading to my mother’s house, I saw her standing alone in the yard.  She looks much older than she did last month or even last week.   I know she was aging rapidly.  She seems to have lost some of her reason or will to live.  After being married for over sixty years, and raising a family, suddenly being alone seems like a tragedy.  
4. I parked my car under the big Elm trees that shaded the front of the house. These trees are older than I am.  The big oaks out by the road are older than I am also; I think they are older than my dad was too.  There are many grand oak trees on the home place.  These are trees that have withstood the test of time.  These trees have touched and offered comfort to our ancestors. 
5. 
6. My mother never expected to live in this house alone. She picked out the spot and Augusta had built the house to suit her.  After years of happiness life played it hand, soon after burying her oldest son, she then buried her husband. In her older years she expected her middle son to take care of her.  He died at a very young age. 
7. I stumbled from my bed, and in a stupor I pulled back the curtains, and looked out of the window.  The raindrops clinging to the leafless tree branches, invoked a state of depression and deja vu, that made me rush to the kitchen to get my first cup of coffee.   With cup of coffee in hand, I sat down at my computer and stared at the screen.  The warmth of coffee and the memories of life flooded my being.  That day in ancient history was to be the representation of something special.  The next day I would be called upon to say goodbye to a friend. 

There have been many times in my life I have been called upon, to say something profound, to speak poetically, but that day was different, my mind went blank, I could not think.  Six hours later my coffee was cold, and I was still staring at the computer screen.  The question still remained.  How do I say goodbye to a friend?  The messaage was clear, "God has spoken, let the church say amen."

1. Soon we will see our dear, loving Savior,
   Hear the last trumpet sound through the sky;
   Then we will meet those gone on before us,
   Then we shall know and understand why.

The silence was overwhelming, I could not tolerate it, and I could not concentrate.  I could not write. My mind refused to engage.   I tried to project my inner self into the future, because the past and the present seem more than I could endure.  For it is not God’s will that we should suffer, but to exist in a mortal state, we must conform to the laws that govern our existence.  We are victims of our acts and we must suffer the consequences.  To our earthly minds the final frame is a distortion of reality.  It is hard to accept, and we are not satisfied with what we see.  We always expect and desire more. 

When we all sit in silent repose, the veil is drawn and the memories flow.  There are questions that still remain, but the answers can only exist for a fleeting moment within the final frame.   Years have passed since I wrote those words and as a final tribute to the past, I began again to write the closing as the credits roll.  The untimely demise of Larry, the passing of Lucious and others is an indicator that I am mortal and my name shall also find it place within the final frame.

When the book, "Earl Gillespie, Generation, The Root, The Tree and The Branches", was first published the final frame was revived, but the credit had not begun to roll.  On December 11, 2013 Mary Alice Rice Gillespie, the last one standing of the illustrious Gillespie clan passed from this land.  She lived to be 95 years old and in her own words she said, “I am just tired”. 

Farther along we’ll know more about it,

Farther along we’ll understand why;

Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine,

We’ll understand it all by and by.

As a final tribute to her life and her legacy, her granddaughter Shemeka Gillespie,and myself led the church in a glorious rendition of:

let the church (pause) say amen God has spoken

God has spoken God has spoken let the church let the church say amen

make this your response amen

to whatever he says amen...

An Irrelevant Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man

(An Irrelevant Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)  Enough is enough, then again who is to decide?  Maybe I should keep my thoughts to myself, but then there are so many others who maybe should have kept their thoughts to themselves also.    For the past few weeks I have been following two news stories, one of a young man who on the surface seems as if he is being tortured for a testimony he gave in church, and the other of the events taking place in Furgerson, MO.   Both of these event sort of leave a bad smell in the air, the kind you get when you are trapped in a crowded elevator.  Let's look at the church group first.

At the close of the COGIC International Convention in Saint Louis, MO, after receiving prayer, the young man testified that he was no longer gay.  A firestorm erupted fueled by those in and out of the church.  There are many who are silently asking why?   A video clip was posted on the internet that went viral and it became fodder for a late night talk show host.  Not only was this young man attacked viciously in the media, but the Bishop that offered the prayer of deliverance was scrutinized indiscreetly and 'thrown under the bus' by his peers.

There is a consensus in and out of the realms of Christianity that he was faking it, because being gay is something that cannot be fixed by prayer.  Imagine church folks saying that, the same church folks that prayed for my cancer. Casting aside our knowledge of man's ability to manipulate DNA,  whatever, the result of the polluted (chemically and mentality altered) strain is, God created it.  The deformed babies, the two headed animals and fish are all a part of God's experiment gone wrong. This line of thinking allows us to justify our sins, it gets us off the hook because we can always place the blame on God.

The church leaders were caught off guard by the Bishop's earlier message where he preached against "sissies in the church" and scramble to distance itself from the Bishop and the event that took place later.  COGIC churches along with many other churches are known to conduct a prayer of deliverance at the close of their service.  The call is made for the sick and the afflicted to stand before the Alter.  After the prayer, testimonies are given.   If a person suffering from a terminal cancer stood up for prayer and testified of being healed, even though they went in for chemotherapy the next day nothing would have been said.  But for a gay man to say he had been delivered from being gay, now that can't be because the many churches and science have agreed that God created male, female and others.

The government unknowingly created a program that mutated the DNA of the American family.  Federally funded and governed US welfare began in the 1930's during the Great Depression. The US government responded to the overwhelming number of families and individuals in need of aid by creating a welfare program that would give assistance to those who had little or no income.  Single parents were given the greatest consideration.  Many Americans were unhappy with the welfare system, claiming that certain individuals were abusing the welfare program by not applying for jobs, having more children just to get more aid, and staying unmarried so as to qualify for greater benefits. Thus began the advent of the government sanction of single parent families.

A single mother struggling to raise a family without a father figure to assist her faces one of the greatest challenges of her life.  Young boys and girls growing up in a single parent home also face greater challenges.  Of time their sexual identity is misshaped or impaired and their predatory instincts are heightened.  Young men on the prowl in search of another baby’s momma or young girls are filled with so much hate for men they are unable to relate, because they were taught by their mother that all men are dogs become a way of life.   

A mutation occurs when a DNA gene is damaged or changed in such a way as to alter the genetic message carried by that gene.   This damage is often caused by a chemical process, it can even involve the environment.  Current evidence suggests evolution is guided by the environment as much as genes, but most people still think genes are in the driver's seat.  With the help of the government we have created a generation of young people that do not respect the laws of society, nor do they have any respect for the laws of God.

A simple magician trick is to provide a distraction to prevent you from seeing the trick.  Are we being distracted by the events in Furgerson and other parts of the country?  Where the rallying cry for justice is based upon the action of a person who chose not to respect law, order or justice.  Is this what being black is all about?  Shaped lies and twisted truth, fancy labels? Sticking it to the man because our ancestors worked in the sun.  Where playing the race card is just as easy as playing the dozen.  If something is said we don’t like stick a label on them, call them names, find someone that agrees with our thinking and shout them down. 

We think nothing is happening when we look up and view the Chemtrails crisscrossing the sky.  We are not concerned when the cancer rate is exploding all around us.  New diseases are emerging from third world countries with no cures.  The world is groaning, there are wars and rumors of wars and our country is divided, the sounds we are hearing just might be this country being flushed down the tube, or maybe it is the angels preparing to sound their trumpets.  It all depend on what you believe, but a country so divided against itself cannot stand.  

(An Irrelevant Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)

(An Irrelevant Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)  The late 50’s was known as the age of awareness for many of us lowly Mississippi Coloreds.  It was the year  I found out that some of us had bad hair, and some of us had good hair.  It was also the year we found out why we went barefooted during the summer. It wasn’t because we couldn’t afford shoes, it because we loved the feel of mud and warm cow manure  squishing up between our  toes.  During that same time we found out about places such as Chicago and New York.

      Please note, the use of the word Coloreds is used in this story without any disparity or disrespect intended. If I have offended anyone I am sorry.  Now, since I am in an apologizing mood, let me apologize for the use of words such as Mr. Charlie, Mr. Jim Crow, Uncle Tom, Red-bones, high yellows ninny coloreds and the darkies, I may as well apologize for the cripple who rolled around downtown Starkville and spit on the sidewalks.  I must not forget to apologize for graduating from high school ahead of my older brother.  One day I am going to make a list of all of the things I must apologize for. Ooh to heck with this, these are nothing but labels and others conception of me.  Labels have no power of their own.  We give labels, powered by what we perceive them to mean, If I said your mother wore cowboy boots, and you drew your gun and shot me.  The legal establishment would want to know why.  You will say I insulted your mother.  I will say I don’t know your mother; I never met your mother.  You are left to explain how can my word mean anything, how can they be insulting when they are based upon my lies and conjectures.  If I call you stupid, does that make you stupid?  You are stupid if you think you are stupid because I called you stupid.

     Back in the old days when our ancestors worked outside, the sun toughens their skin and they weren’t offended by the use of mere words and they weren’t offended by bad hair. Now that we have been elevated to Afro-Americans by the NAACP and we have become civilized, our skin has grown thinner, and we get offended by mere words. We spend millions of dollars trying to teach our hair lessons and buying other folks hair, and still end up with bad hair.  Another group spends millions of dollars trying to darken their skin and still end up being white.  We want laws enacted to make people love us so that we could marry anybody we want to and the right to sit at anybody’s table.  Well, there are still people I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry and definitely would not want a bugger popper sitting at my table. 

      When it comes to names, we are a strange breed.  We just can’t make up our mind to what we want to be called.  When I was in grade school, I was a Nigger by the time I got to high school I was colored. When I joined the Air Force I was Black. By the time my tour of duty had ended, I was described as an Afro-American.  Then I began to fade in and out, one minute I was Black and the next I was Afro-American. One day it was OK to be Mr. Gillespie, the next I was suppose sign my name as “Mr. X”.  How can a person be an African and an American at the same time?  Here is a dichotomy that is being overlooked and need to be evaluated. I have chosen not to be a hyphenated one.  I am not an African, never been there and I wouldn’t want to live there. I am an American, I was born here, I fought for this country and I am a part of this country. You can call me bugger or you can call me dog, just don’t mess with my family and I don’t try to hang your stinking monkey on my back.

     There are three major groups that make up my bloodline.    My Great Grandmother was an African, and I am proud of her.  My Great Grandmother was a Choctaw Indian, and I am proud of her. My Great-Great Grandfather was Irish; he was a land owner, a slaveholder and a medical doctor.  I am proud of him and his accomplishment.  I challenge the great minds to define me.  I will not allow myself to be defined by the outcome of any one of these struggles.  I am the product of many different struggles. Visualize this if you can, a 16 ounce jar is placed on a table and filled with 8 ounces of water.  You are asked to describe the jar and its content.  A small and limited mind would say, “There is a jar that is half full of water sitting on a table.”   One who struggles to be profound and follows a different path would say, “There is a half empty jar of water being supported by a table.”  To the elevated mine, one who needs no labels to define its contents would simply say, “There is a jar with water in it.”   Why must I be defined by a color content or quantity?  Why must I be Black?  Why do you define your sister of father to me as a step when I don’t know them?  Have you ever seen a half-sister?

    After the Civil War, Mr. Charlie was in for a rude awaking. He was about to meet the product of his own creation and he didn’t have the foggiest idea as to how to deal with it.  The colored and the Indians were a group of people that consisted of many shades of skin pigmentation.  There were the high yellows which had good hair and were trying to pass. On the bottom rung of the ladder, there were the darkies that had bad hair.  Nobody wanted to be a darkie with bad hair, but Jessie Jackson made people ashamed to admit it. Jessie Jackson made us stand in the rain while our hair went from straight to kinky; to up the clench fist and shout, “I am somebody.”  Did we need Jessie Jackson to tell us that?  Then there was the Mullato’s who own the ladders of upward mobility.  They were the uppity colored, (for the sake of calcification and readability I wish I could drop the “N-Bomb” here but my proofers would delete it.  So every time I use the word “colored’ think of the N-Bomb.) The Mullato’s were considered high bred colored, who had good hair and they looked down on the poor darkies that had bad hair.  By now you are probably wondering what hair got to do with anything.  The answer is nothing, it’s a label. Most of the Mullato’s passed for white. Some of the Mullato’s are still trying to prove they don't have white folk’s blood in them. Now if you wanted to bring a Mulato down a notch just tell them they were Mr. Charlie's Chillums.  The coloreds wanted Mr. Charlie’s hair, they wanted his color, they wanted his money, but nobody wanted to be poor Mr. Charlie's Chillums. The middle position was held by those whom Grandmother described to her color struck grandchildren as being just plain ninny color.  Usually the ninny color children were a Red-bone with bad hair.

   

 Humanity, not just the coloreds is screwed up.  Think of the money made on tanning products and bleaching cream.  Do you want to say, huh.

     Remember those times when nobody wanted to call a dog, then Randy Jackson went on national television and told everybody that it was alright. People then started calling the peoples' dogs.  A famous tennis shoe company paid a colored man a huge sum of money to convince every working colored, poor welfare mothers included, that love for your child was spending two hundred dollars for a four dollar pair of tennis shoes. These two unrelated acts taught Mr. Charlie one of his greatest lessons about the colored.

      Being colored allowed us to make all sorts of wild claims, such as a young boy in grade school not wanting to be called colored, told the Teacher that he had an Indian in him.  Then there is the story of two little boys running down the road, one black and one white, shouting run, run the (for this to sound right you have to drop the N-bomb here) colored are coming. Now it becomes easy to see how the thin skinned Afro-American’s and the NAACP has messed up my life. I cannot write this parody without trying to explain myself.  There were the high yellows and the just plain ninny colors that learned to mispronounce certain word when they talked.  ‘Hey Mon’ became a transitional phrase, if you said it right, you could be a visitor from some exotic island.  I tried it when I was in the Air Force and immediately I was somebody. I was a Jamaican with a stinking monkey on my back.

  

       I guess I was one of the fortunate son’s of the South, because I never met Mr. Charlie or Jim Crow.  When I was growing up I heard that Mr. Charlie was a bad man.  And that after the Civil War was over Mr. Charlie had brought in Jim Crow to take care of his uppity coloreds. The first thing Mr. Jim Crow did was to explain that you could not be white if you had colored blood in you.  There were a lot of uppity coloreds who was trying to pass and he had to put a stop to that. He came up with lots of rules and regulation.  First, he concluded that there were only two classes of people, you were either White or you was Colored. Mr. Jim Crow came up with beautiful phrases such as, “Separate but equal,” “segregation” and “poll taxes.” Coon hunting became a southern pastime.  All over the South, signs went up.  Two water fountains, one said, ’White’ and the other said, ’Colored.’  Two restrooms, one said ‘White’ and the other said ‘Colored’.  Two graveyards, one ‘White’ and one ‘Colored’. Mr. Jim Crow did lots of explaining.  He even explained why the coloreds had big butts.  It made sense when he explained how the coloreds rolled their tails up and stuffed them in their undergarments. With Mr. Jim Crow in charge and running things everybody knew their place. The Mullato's knew their place. If they wanted to maintain their status they had to hang with Mr. Charlie.

     The funny thing about Mr. Charlie was, he talked about separating the coloreds from the whites, but he loved to hang out with the coloreds.   You could find Mr. Charlie hanging out in the colored section of town most any night.  Sometime Mr. Charlie and Mr. Jim Crow would show up at the colored folk’s church.

     Mr. Jim Crow never spent a day in school, he was what most people defined as poor white trash, but he could write laws and knew how to hide them on the books.  Even today after more than one hundred years have passed, Mr. Jim Crow keeps popping up.  Before the old Jim Crow could get everything explained, simplified and legalized old Jim Crow just fell over and died.  Mr. Charlie could not accept that Jim Crow was dead, so he hid the body and pretended he was still alive. The Choctaw Indians knew Mr. Jim Crow was dead, because they saw where Mr. Charlie buried the body.  They dug it up and buried the body in their sacred burial ground in a place called, Tunica, Ms.  The problem with all of this was the uppity Coloreds folks kept trying to kill old Jim Crow, but old Jim was already dead.  But how can you be dead when people are still trying to kill you?  They say the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he didn’t exist.  The Choctaw began to wonder if Mr. Jim Crow was dead even though they had the body, because so much was happening in the name of Mr. Jim Crow.

  Mr. Jim Crow had become entrenched in the institutions of the south.  He was more powerful, more dead than he was alive. He had become immortal because he could not be killed.  You cannot kill something that’s already dead.  It worked out fine for Mr. Charlie, because the Colored was misdirected and spent a lot of time and money was spent trying to kill a dead horse.  They enlisted the help of the NAACP and their rich Uncle Sam from Washington.  Soon Uncle Sam was tearing up the countryside looking for Mr. Jim Crow. The Choctaw Indians were sitting back on the reservation getting high watching Mr. Charlie, Uncle Sam, the NAACP and the Coloreds fight it out; all the while they were trying to figure out a way to beat Mr. Charlie and Uncle Sam at their own game.  The Choctaw knew if they could beat Mr. Charlie and Uncle Sam the Coloreds would be beaten also.  In a self-induced stupor the great Choctaw Indian Chiefs were dancing around the grave of Mr. Jim Crow. They heard the immortal words. “Man is left to gamble.”  The message was carried from coast to coast, “Indian brother unite, if man is left to gamble, he needs a place to gamble.  Let us build casinos' and take Mr. Charles’s money.”

    

       Anyway, let’s get back on topic.  Mr. Charlie was pretty much upset over Uncle Sam and the NAACP comes to town trying to stamp out Mr. Jim Crow.   Uncle Sam was holding secret meetings with the coloreds, and Mr. Charlie was not invited.  So Mr. Charlie came up with a plan, he sent for his old ninny colored friend Uncle Tom, who had bad hair. He was well educated and knew his way around the colored.  Uncle Tom could attend the meeting and report back to Mr. Charlie what was going on.  With Uncle Tom attending the meeting it was like Mr. Charlie had a front row seat.  This worked fine until Rosie; the Red-bone was pulling a double shift With Mr. Charlie’s son at Mr. Charlie’s house, and saw Uncle Tom sneaking in the back door.  She followed Uncle Tom and caught him and Mr. Charlie in bed together. The word spread around town about Uncle Tom.  Uncle Tom was labelled a snitch and ran out of town on a rail. Uncle Sam gave up its search for Mr. Jim Crow after assuring everyone that Mr. Jim Crow was dead and as long as they supported him with their vote he would take good care of them.

     Uncle Sam formed an exclusive club for all of those who had walked behind the mule.  Uncle Sam even used a picture of a mule as the symbol to represent the group.  Once each year they would get together and have a Democratic party.  The Colored were to make sure that Uncle Sam had enough votes to throw the party, and Uncle Sam wrote big checks to take care of his colored folks.  Uncle Sam made laws to open gates for the coloreds.  Before the gates could be closed the gays, lesbians, Red bones, Jews, Indians, Gentiles, people with bad hair, dogs and cats, all came marching in screaming, we want our rights. Soon all animals began clamoring for their rights. They demanded lawyers be appointed to represent them in court. Uncle Sam became known as the “Civil Right Giver.” and he published books on how to get rich while sitting on your butt.

   Since Uncle Sam was giving the coloreds welfare checks, that destroyed the DNA of the colored family, Mr. Charlie figured he could make money off the coloreds by selling their big cars.  He created the Big Motor Company and started selling Cadillac cars and trucks.  Uncle Tom bought a cabin at the edge of the swamp in the Bijou country. He spent the rest of his life writing children's stories. Rosie, the Red-bone married Mr. Charlie’s son and they open up a shoe company that specialized in selling over priced sneaker to the colored folks.  The Choctaw chiefs continued to solidify their plans to control Uncle Sam’s money. They opened up a string of Casinos and today they are busy raking in money and getting the coloreds evicted from their homes.  The Coloreds soon found out that Uncle Sam had lied to them, now instead of having to deal with Mr. Jim Crow; they now had to deal with a stinking monkey on their back. Every time a colored was born, the pimps, player, preachers and pragmatics all entered into a conspiracy to take charge of the poor child’s mind and shape it and process it. To enforce their will a stinking monkey was assigned to each Child.

I think it was the stinking monkey that really sent the NAACP, Jessie, Al and the ‘poor’ colored folks over the edge.  Some say it had something to do with bad hair and some say it had something to do with good hair. The reality of the situation was one morning the coloreds, Jessie, Al and the NAACP got together to kill the stinking monkey. First, they buried the ‘N-Word’, then the rap stars dug it up.  They changed the spelling and the poor coloreds spent millions of dollars to glorify it.  Then, they demanded that Mr. Charlie Kill his stinking monkey so that little colored boys and girls could live without a monkey on their back.  Mr. Charlie explained to them that he never had any stinking monkeys. I think It was at that moment they realized that the monkey on the poor colored’s back wasn’t white.  The stinking monkey was black.  The NAACP became an irreverent organization, and most colored folks decided to become just plain folks.

     In the famous words of Rosie, the Red-bone, “Colored folks just got to learn to live with each other.  They have got to learn to trust.  Forget about words. Stick and stones might break your bones, but talk will never kill you.  Get that stupid monkey off your back, and pull your pants up.  

     You know I have seen a lot of pretty girls with bad hair, and I have seen lots of ugly girls with good hair, but I have never seen a pretty girl looking ugly because she had bad hair, and I have never seen an ugly girl looking pretty because she had good hair.

     If you are wondering what all of this is about, or better yet what hair got to do with anything.  It's all about nothing and nothing never mean anything. 

      

(An Irrelevant Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)

(An Irrelevant Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man) The spiritual cliché mill is running full blast.  Somehow, in todays society cute spiritual clichés and motivational sound bites is supposed to solve all problems.  There are many of us who have gone through traumatic experiences in life and still suffer in silence.   Much of the suffering is caused by those who carry the mandate of a servant of God.   Spurious billionaire speakers, that we have created and give credence to because they represent what we want,  spout vague, but cute phrases like,  “God told me to tell you he is getting ready to answer your prayer”, and the church say ‘amen”.   It seems as if our awesome God loves to speak in the non definitive, “Somebody is going to be…”

There is hardly a day pass that I don’t think of the sudden passing of my younger brother.  He had brought me home from the hospital after completing my first phase of radiation treatment for cancer, and the next day he was dead.  Scrolling thru my social media feed  I see this “God will not allow sudden death to take you away.  You will fulfil your divine mandate.”  I could feel a certain lack of sensitivity in that statement, The next one said, “Our God is an awesome God”, true but what are you saying?  My car is blue, Ok.  After reading the last one that said, “God can do anything but fail”, I was transported to a very dark place and I like many of us, after reading that phrase will find our comfort zone shattered as our faith is made to dwindle  and  we pray to God with tears in eyes to open up our understanding and give us peace.

(An Irrelelevant Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)

(An Irrelevant Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man) I just can't hold my peace any longer.  I have often heard young people say, that if a policeman try to stop me and I know I have done nothing wrong, I am not going to stop, I will look at him like he is crazy and keep on stepping. Now this is a recipe for disaster and it is being played out on our streets today.   It is even worst when a crime has been committed and the perpetrator  chooses to stand against the police.  We need to teach our children to respect and not engage officers of the law.  If a policeman says stop, then you stop. Don’t move means don’t move. If you disobey, force will be employed to bring you into compliance. This means you will be beaten down or you will be shot down.  We need to teach our children. Get real, reaching for a cell phone or your wallet can get you killed in a confrontation with a gun. Then in the aftermath of a disaster, here come the race batters, and the media playing that old soiled race card, inciting the masses to hit the street destroying their own neighborhood and engaging in wholesale looting.  The camera rolls as the rag tag groups rush from stores with ill gotten loot.  On these occasions I  feel so ashamed, sad, so sad.

In the aftermath of all of these shooting, especially the ones where our black children have turned guns on other black, there ought to be a lesson learned. We can shape the truth to reflect whatever ideology that makes us feel good, but the truth will emerge and the monkey on our back is not white, that sucker is black.  We are providing the ammunition to kill our own children.  The black race is the most manipulated race of people on God's earth.  We will spend $200. + for a cheap pair of tennis shoes that cost approx 3.95 to make, and will even kill for them while living in a third rate government apartment.   We need to teach our children.  Too many of us have allowed the slave mentality to engulf us, under the guise that it doesn't  matter how we act, everybody is supposed to love us because the law says so.  We have allowed fear and distrust to become a part of our heritage and we pass it on to our children. In a gun crazed society, everyone is suspected of being armed and you can be killed simply by being in the right place at the wrong time. What is the difference between a black being killed by another black or a black being killed by a white or even a cop?  It really doesn’t matter what color the shooter is or whether a uniform is worn or not or how many bullets were fired,  dead is dead.  

Maybe it would be better to have the streets patrolled by a group of policemen that backed down at the first sign of confrontation.  That's the way it's done in some other countries.  What's wrong with mob rule or gang rule as long as you are a part of the mob?  

The other night I went to an all night service station and grocery, there was a group of black kids with pants sagging, hanging around out front. I made sure my car doors were locked as I sped up and rushed out of the parking lot without doing my shopping. Did that make me a racist? Then if I am, so what?  We can never get over slavery, but we refuse to acknowledge that it was our own ancestors that sold us into slavery. 

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)

Some Things Just Don't Make Sense

If you believe in anything you gotta believe in God.  That just makes common sense.  I believe in God and I even confess to having an out-of -body experience, but to reconcile what I believe with my day to day experiences is just getting harder and harder.  My faith is constantly being tested.  This test is not being conducted by some inglorious bogeyman hidden by a cloud of darkness, but rather it is tested by those of the faith and it is they that have caused me to question my faith.   Now the pretentious nature of the indoctrinated believer will step up to the plate and demand, "what are you talking about?".  A host of scriptures can be read, but the truth remains, I am having a hard time reconciling what I believe with my day to day experiences.  
The two entities, family and church should be a place of solace for the wandering and struggling member, but this is not true.   We are spoon a steady diet of God's love and what he is doing in the world, while the rich get richer and the poor are left to testify how God blessed them to get food stamps.  Everything is changing. Let's take Heaven for instance, is it a place that the righteous strive for, or is it a place where our love ones sprout  angel wings and fly around in the clouds watching over us?

Under the cloak of righteousness we have submerged ourself into a pit of self-importance, political correctness is our gatekeeper and right is nothing but a product of a polluted imagination.  The choices are simple, I am important, what I say is right and you are nobody.
It is a sad day when religious people will entertain a lie on their brother or sister, but when the offended one try set the record straight, God show up and show out. 

An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man) Fannie Lue Hamer was quoted as saying, "All of my life I have been sick and tired and now I am sick and tired of being sick and tired."  

 Have you ever been judged by church folks on the basis of  how you act or what you think?   Have you ever sat through an indictment  on, "He just wants to be in control."  How many times have you faced accusation with no knowledge of why you are being accused?  Have you ever cried yourself to sleep?   In your lifetime have you coped a plea because it was the easy way out?  Has someone come to you with something you were supposed to have done, and you had no knowledge of what they were talking about?  

Because of my desire to get an education in an era when education was not at the top of the list of things to do.  Because of my ability to excel in certain fields of study, because I served in the military during an unpopular war, because in my first marriage, I self-destructed, because of my rants and some of my books and social media posting they say I am just a bitter old man.  Because of my outspoken views on the world, the church and society at large,  they say I have an agenda, they say I am bitter.  The truth is,  yes, I am bitter and  I have an agenda. I am tired of the sleepless nights, I am tired of the dark dreams.  I am tired of those who possess the ability to judge me without a conversation with me.  I am tired of the doctors, I am tried of the hospitals and this cancer scared body. I am tired of those who promote a warped sense of righteousness while hiding their hand behind a cloak of darkness.  I am representative of those downtrodden souls that has been lied on and cast aside as irreverent.  All of my life I have been lied on, and now I am sick and tired of being lied on.  I may be your brother, but you don't know me. 

The chicken coop mentality, the pecking order prevailed, the slave mentality and the religiously indoctrinated all are one.  Why is it that if you stand up for yourself, you are demon possessed? 

I am just a ship passing in the night, I am trying to get home.  
... And if tomorrow should began without me, I will be gone.

An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man) I asked my pastor how should I proceed in the case of a church member whose handshakes I was uncomfortable with.  She would grip my hand and massage my palm with her index finger.  It proved to be rather un-nerving especially if someone was watching.  A private conversation did not produce the desired effect.  The matter escalated  with the lady showing up at my house in a half naked state of dress.  My pastor's advice was not to have anything to do with the lady, don't even shake her hand.  A visiting minister observed my reactions and interactions with this lady and immediately he was inspired, (he said God gave him the message) to preach about church people who thought they were too good to shake a certain person's hand.  He made his points as he staired into my eyes.  The handshaking experience left me feeling as if I had been raped.  The preacher's message left me feeling hurt, not bitter.   I was judged unfairly based upon false perception and the judgement still stand.   Tonight, at 3:PM I am wondering why would God give him that message.

       

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man) ...

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man) ...On that day we came together as a family to bury our mother.  When I speak of a family I am speaking of the greatgrands, the grands,  the brothers and sisters as well as the nieces and nephews and friends across this nation that call her mother.  We assemble each of us  in our own fashion, cloaked in garments designed to protect us from the coldness of the weather on that bleak December morning  that somehow sought to penetrate our useless facade and chill our bones, yet there was another coldness that moved among us.  This coldness was cloaked in a garment of hyprocery and dignified through an attitude of self-righteousness.  It penetrated and stained our immortal souls.  This coldness, this hatred that my mother taught against in her many Sunday School lessons many years ago, openly manifested itself to her in her final days  as a testimony against her, it caused her eyes to shed a tear and made her sad heart bleed.  

This hatred existed as a seed lying dormant for many years reared its repulsive head when her husband died, and it continued to grow  and contaminate the landscape.  The church played an important role in the development and growth of this hatred, as a matter of facts according to her many conversations this hatred began in the church.  It first began in a church that because of a difference in opinion among church leaders and those who wanted to be leaders, resulting in the growth of the tares among the wheat, which led to the expulsion of her family.   With the formation of a new church this hatred was suppressed until the death of her husband, then this hatred, this coldness reared it's ugly head and was instrumental in the death of her son.

I consider myself to be a religious writer and because of my outspokenness many accuse me of being hard on churches and Christian orders.  I do not intend to be hard on Christian orders, churches or preachers but it is the damage and confusion that is being perpetrated upon the gullible masses that appalls me.  The church, once a place of solitude and spiritual refreshment, has now dumb-down and evolved into a house of entainment and merchandising where the favor and blessings of our Heavenly Father is supposed to be sold.   Slick mailing campaigns (email and postal) are conducted based upon the Reverand  Ike principle that God has spoken and if you sow a 'seed' you can get the rest of the message.  She once was a supporter of Rev. Ike until she realized that his method was nothing more than that of a drunk standing in the pulpit proclaiming that "somebody in the congregation has a backache."  

I challenge you as a testimony to the value of her life let us as a family of relatives and friends make a commitment to ourself, we will assist in stamping out hyprocery, and replacing it with simple love.   This love would be based upon the type of love my mother had for all mankind.  It is not enough to call her mother and revel in the fact that we once knew her. Let us lay aside the cloak of self-righteousness and replace it with humility, then make a contribution to yourself in my mother's name or do it in the name of yourself.  Step off that shaky soap box of vain glory and remember,  one hundred years from now, when they go out to plow the ground, no one will care.   

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man) ...

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man) ... In the itinerary of human events,  the one who speaks first is often looked upon as the one who is telling the truth.  This fallacy of human mentality allows the gifted to shape and manipulate the truth.   Shaped truth blinds the eyes to the real truth, it is an evil that first manifested itself in the Garden of Eden and gave birth to an insidious evil known as sibling rivalry thereby causing one brother to kill the other.

One of the most damnable aspects of sibling rivalry is that it allows one party to create a false characterization of its victims that others are drawn into and it becomes impossible to defend against.   Sibling rivalry uses a  distortion of reality and draws others into its distorted reality and soon this distorted reality began to masquerade as the truth.  The manipulation is subtle and relies upon provable facts or variables.   Any attempt to disprove these manipulated facts by the accused is often met with the accusation of the accused being a great liar. 

A young man graduated from high school in the early sixties,  unable to find a college or the funding needed, attended a low class business college for two semesters before dropping out and joining the Air Force.   This young man was told by his nephew nearly forty years later, "my father dislikes you because your mother and daddy did more for you that they did for him.  They sent you to college, and you got a college degree.  He told about how hard his father had to work, while he wasted the day playing. The story continued with more and more creative details added.  The only truth or reality of this encounter was, he was standing in the street talking to his nephew, the rest he had no knowledge of what he was talking about.  

Sibling rivalry is based upon the concept that the person whom the anger is directed at is a liar and is stupid.  Once these two elements are firmly entrenched in the mind of others, the "he doesn't know what he is talking about syndrome", or "you can't tell him anything", become the standard bearer  to a painful distorted and disrupted life.  There is no known defense against this type of Character assassination. 

Often we cater to the idiocricity of others, in an asinine attempt to predicate our inner demons, thereby rendering our assessment of a given situation totally irrelevant. If the followers of Jesus had deemed John the Baptist to be nothing but a wild man running in the woods half naked, they would have missed out on a beautiful and life changing experience. 

Follow me for a closer look at this sickness...

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)...

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man) ...Our existence is in a society where much of our knowledge is based upon assumptions.  Any person desiring to shade a fact by manipulation can easily do so.  I know because I saw you, is enough to cause many to spend a life of to torment.  Many people are convicted of crimes simply because one or even two people said they saw and a  defense is almost impossible.  This deadly type of slander is often found in churches and families where the guilty are rarely allowed to present a defense.  If a person said he saw you wallowing in the dirt, you are guilty because the dirt on your shoes proves it. 

I have sat in sorrow in many occasions because I and many others have been judged guilty of some malfeasance, an act that we or they had no knowledge of.   When my brother said he could not come into my house because I have a habit throwing people out of my house, was he reacting to the truth or was he allowing himself to be manipulated by an ancient and contagious hatred that was born because an aunt misspoke and label one brother as smart and the other as…(she used a bad choice of words). 

There are many words spoken under the guise of spiritual guidance and sanction by labeling it as a message from God.  Even today there is a prophet speaking to me about prosperity and good health, if I sow a seed.  When I read his message it seem as if God is not aware of this old tired and surgically impaired body.  According to his message God is going to buy me give me plenty money and cause the cancer damaged, surgically altered parts to grow back. 

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)...

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)...When my father was sick and hospitalized , I moved back in the family home so that my mother  would not be alone.  On selected days of the week I drove her to the hospital and on the other days I went alone.  There were those who said my reasoning was trying to get close to my mother so I could get control of her money.  I like my father and mother and several of my brothers have never flaunted the availability of wealth,  not even  the size of my stock holdings.  

When he was first hospitalized many religious zealots appeared in the hospital corridor and prayed the prayer of Faith.   I often went to the hospital expecting to see him walking around and talking.  When his condition worsens and was transferred to a nursing home the visits soon ceased.   There was no ministerial staff to comfort my mother , nor was there a list of volunteers waiting to sit with her.   She bore her grief and many nights during his long sickness, I would hear her cry out.   Many times I interrupted the serving of breakfast to wipe tears from her eyes.  I remember the last time I saw my mother cry.

During the long days I become known as the young man who sit by his father beside in the nursing home and sang,  "Father along we will know all about it" I knew and accepted that the time of his departure was at hand, and I promised my father that I would sing at his home going.

On the day of his memorial services, men of high honor and dubious distinctions took to the podium to lavish praise and honor  as if it would bring comfort to my mother's bleeding heart. 

My mom waited for that moment at the close of the service when I would sing my farewell song to my father, her plans were to assist me as much as she could.  At the last minute from the  Podium the program was changed. 

"I never sung for my father. "

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)...

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)...Today at the insistence of the Doctor's involved I must step away from my comfort Zone, and for a moment I must entertain that cliff that is spoken so eloquently by my friend.  I will make the drive in the rain, the cold, the sleet as if there is some golden elixir awaits me.  Shall I subject myself to the pain and suffering  of humanity driven in search of tomorrow, or shall I enjoy myself as I prepare myself to take my place in that enormous caravan that silently moves across the land?  The peddlers of false hope have done so much damage, they distress me and for that reason  we are often unable to accept the reality of life's situations.   In the face of adversity we are conditioned to cry  and beg for a little more time to live our fragile life, to feel the coolness of the wind upon our brow, to correct the wrongs we have done, yet in a 'whiff' we are gone.   For no man knows what tomorrow will bring, for we are left to gamble.

The grassy fields behind the old house was the place where many memories were born.  The fruit trees that once lined the now overgrown hedgerows seems to have left their own indelible mark.   The chicken shed is still standing but the old car shed is gone.  The old house still stands, slightly modified but more than seventy years old.  This morning I am walking the land that stretch from the great red dirt hill where my grandmother once lived, the hill that has been sold to outsiders, to the hill in the valley where the church now stand.  It is sad, it is pathetic what has transpired over the last few years to this once proud land, to this once proud church.  Then again, everything must die in order to be reborn.

And when that tomorrow began without me will you cry for me or will you cry because you miss me? Cry not for me my friend, rather cry for those moments that we cast aside so lightly.  Cry loudly for the man in the mirror, maybe he will hear you and change his ways.

An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man

(An Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man)... There is so much talk about the good life here on earth, the government is fixing problems , and God is doing so much today and he is behind the scenes working to make things come out right.  If the words of the peddlers of hope in this world were true then we would be living in a utopia.  The truth is Governments of the world are expanding and clasping and God's angry are building and soon he will strike a blow, not in the name of justice, but judgement.   

      What has the government done to promote the welfare of man?  Social programs were created to advance the survival of humanity, yet these programs destroyed family values.  Now the very government that we hail as being supreme is destroying the sanctity of marriage all in the name of promoting a stronger union.  We applaud a government that creates laws that govern the emotions of humanity, and these very laws become a platform of hate.  Laws that are created to integrate society, in reality they divide and cause hate to flourish.

     Where is God?  He is easy to find, you can find him in the grocery check out line helping people buy food with their government benefit card or you can find him at the used car lot helping a struggling soul purchase a car with their tax return check.  You can even find him at the service station helping people fill their cars up with gas, but it is getting harder to find him in the hospitals or even the church where people are seriously seeking him. 

     The government and the church as an "organization" (not the true church that Jesus spoke of) have become obsessed with money, and status.  Too many of our leaders are blinded by the glitter, the sex and honors and they have become pawns of the devil.   Remove the blinders, take a look around, the generations that precedes us are cast adrift into a world of confusion, without the benefit of a father and a God.   

     Like Nero at the burning of Rome, the politicians are debating and the church is singing songs and praying while the fires of damnation rages throughout the land... 

The Irrevelent Rant of An Ambiguous Old Man

(The Irrevelent Rant of an Ambiguous Old Man)  After reading about the  pastor of an 800 +  member church committing suicide for a moment I allowed myself to wonder  why the same as others.  We all in that complicated or uncomplicated moment must face our demons, even the demons of our past that still haunt us.  Most of humanity can lay claim to some great infraction in their life even if they openly deny it.  The purpose of the church should be to provide a refuge from these demons,  but this is not true, as illustrated by Jesus in his letters to the seven churches.  I grew up in the church, I love going to church, but my demons thrive and grow in the church, and they keep driving me away from the church.  They reverse their collars and preach damnation upon my soul and a simple scripture such as Matthew 5:9  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God, become nothing but fodder in the wind as they line their pockets with Gold...

It is not the cancer that keeps Me awake at night nor does it cause me to suffer during the day.  I do not cry because my life is restricted.  I cry because of them. I am prepared to meet the God of my salvation.  When I close my eyes at night, they poke at me, they drive my blood pressure up,  they are trying to kill me.  It is the cold callous ways of those  who claim to be the gatekeeper of God that will finally take its toll.  

An Irrelevant Rant of an Ambigious Old Man

(An Irrelevant Rant of an Ambigious Old Man) ...Preachers will come into your house and rant and rave like a madman, because of a petty disagreement over something they think you said or something they think you should have done. You are suppose to stand there like you are stupid in your own house. If you open your mouth you are wrong, then they have the audacity to go out and lie and claim they have the word of God in their mouth. Preacher wake Up, enough is enough. God doesn't like your antic and I don't either.