Reflections: Some Hard Saying

What follows here are two pretty much unedited comments I made on a Facebook status update that asked the burning question: "Can a person be a Republican or a Democrat and Follow Jesus?"

I commented as follows (with some minor modification):

 Nobody follows Jesus. St. Francis, and a few others, made a good run at it. Somebody will say "Mother Teresa." Uh-huh. Well, mean-spirited as it was, much of what Hitchens said about her was true, unfortunately. Nobody can function in modern civilized society and follow Jesus. Jesus was an anti-establishment, subversive, drop-out, who lived only for the next world. And that is what He asked of his disciples. 

But, on second thought, I shouldn't say "nobody," because I can't know that. But if that person is out there, he is a filthy, smelly beggar, living on the street, with a heart full of sorrowful love for each and every distracted, deluded,  ego-burdened soul who hurries on by him without giving him a look.

That, my friends, is the cold, hard truth. 

 

Rodak's Writings: IN THIS PLACE ~ a Poem

There is so much to fear --

such as boils on the doorknobs

and the negative opinion

of the redheaded house finch

beaking green seed on the drive

in the golden dawn --

Or the insistent current of the murky river

which has swept so many tired

and truth-drunk swimmers toward

the effervescing salts of temporal oblivion

Inside off the pavements

having given limping nature its due

hot girls rock their roles in scanty pants

their baby doll voices clashing with their flashing asses

Interior rhyme has indentured itself

to another term of service in the cellars

of the parlors de tattoo

where stacks of chapbooks gather dust

on counters beaded with the dew of diligence --

Your inseam doesn’t cut it in such a world

I suggest that you find a flint

and strike a spark to fan a flame

to run along the cutting edge

of your rhetorical blueprint

to proof it with extreme prejudice

to add the weight of its ash

to the mass of what matters

anchoring you safely here below

the realm of the flesh-eating angels

The atheist knows in his heart

that he’s no more than a bug

in mother nature’s shaggy muff

but I’m not there yet --

Don’t talk to me of trees like men walking

when the precise re-verse is Gospel legend

Cultivate your signature flaw

as you would your favorite fetish --

Never doubt that you are hated

and be left without a reason to lie

scorned by even the lip-reading deaf

It is always time for lunch

and you still can’t afford it

if you need to ask why.

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