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Sister Monica and "The Answer" (older journal entries) 
  

    The answer to everything, according to Sister Monica, was “That is just the way it is”.  Whether it was invisible ghosts, walking on water, or turning water into wine, these things were facts to be learned, not ideas to be questioned.  Even as a very young boy, it seemed quite odd to me to simply accept such bizarre things just because they were in some book, especially a book of which I was not allowed to question the origins or authorship of in specific detail.

    When I was old enough to find out how old these teachings were and how many generations and steps it took to become what was being taught, my questions became more clearly formed and I could begin to guess at possible answers and explanations.  The invisible ghosts were defined differently depending upon who was making up the definition, therefore seeming to me to be make believe.  Walking on water, it seemed to me, could have come from a mistranslation made by someone who had never seen a mirage and wrote down something such as “like water”, hence becoming “walking on like-water” and then translated to walking on water.  When I was a little older, I imagined that the water into wine thing could have been another translation error coming from an unrecognized concept of an experiential phenomenon related to the quality of a person’s presence, such as “the richness of the conversation made even mere water take on the sweetness of fine wine”.  As with the walking on water idea, this quality of experience could end up becoming “water like wine” into “water into wine”.

    These ideas came from a time when I considered that there must be some real and solid basis for the teachings of Sister Monica, and that there were probably just some corrections that needed to be made.  I did not discover until much later that the entire collection of Hellenistic texts was most likely completely mythical and based upon much older myths, legends, stories and symbolism.  The savior hero never really came at all in reality, walking on water or not, but was a mythical supernatural legend believed in by particular sects of certain ancient peoples.  The whole argument over translation and interpretation was just a distraction from this fact after all.

    Did Sister Monica mean well?  Was she acting in good faith and after due consideration of all the possibilities allowing for creativity and individuality?  My opinion is no.  She seemed to be attempting to force her beliefs upon innocent children who, she assumed, did not know any better.  Though she certainly may have thought it for my own good, when she yelled loud enough to shake the stained glass windows, it was, in my case, absolutely not.  I knew she was wrong and somehow that was good enough for me.

    It took years to gradually become more and more comfortable questioning the religious dogma I was being taught all through my childhood.  By the time I was about 13 years old, though it was still shocking, I was prepared in some ways when it was revealed that this quality of untruth and illusion extended into science as well.

    Sitting in 8^th Grade science class, as the teacher introduced The Big Bang Theory, I just knew that this idea could not be true. Almost as quickly as he could utter the words, I was very clear that there was something very wrong with this whole concept.  It was not until well into my adulthood that I discovered how right I was back then.

   Just when I was leaving the Church behind, I had a motorcycle mishap that injured my face and arm.  It was a transformative event partly because half my face was badly scraped and cut up (over 300 stitches all totally over 3 surgeries to correct it) and partly because I seemed to have had some kind of transcendental experience that I still cannot explain.

    When I was 17, I made my first oil on canvas painting, entitled “Shaman” though I really did not know what that meant.  It is a rectangle with black ball in the middle with stars and planets in it.  Around the ball is a sunset, or sunrise, radiating around and away from it.  In the largest planet, there is a golden man in lotus position.  All I knew at the time was that this represented the future possibility that there was more to learn about the universe than I knew at the time and that I could rest assured of that.  It also seemed to represent me, and my life path in some way.

    I did not paint much again for years, distracted by other life concerns such as sex, love, work, money, cars, parties and college.

    Some years later, after my curiosity about the nature of the cosmos had grown to become a daily constant preoccupation in my life, a vivid out of body type dream experience began a chain of events leading to ten years of study, artwork, and further dreaming.  It culminated in a body of work consisting of a theory of the large-scale structure and function of the cosmos, a series of oil on canvas symbolic paintings forming a triangle 24 feet tall.  It is called “Krallosvierd” from one of the dreams, K-Sphere for short.

    This book is in part a story of this journey.  It is also a forum for ideas, ranting and raving, and wishful thinking.  Most of all, it is a work of art.  As with any work of art, it is for the viewer/reader to bring what quality of attention to this work, as one will. 

    This book is not what you think it is, or even what I think it is.  It strikes at the very heart of humanity, hoping that action is effective and reaches it’s mark and makes a difference just in time.  What it really is and if it will be of any good, who knows?

    I volunteer with this book to put myself on the hot seat with many people for whom their beliefs and ideas are beyond question.  This is a very dangerous thing to do and one of the major reasons I sat on much of this work for a decade and more. Who really wants to ride the blazing saddle of transformative action?  In this case, it was literally the last thing I really wanted to do.  At the age of 50, beginning the formal writing of this book, it feels as though this is my last chance to get this out and done.  The choice is to do it or not…to live or not…to express myself and live my real life or remain quiet and withhold work that just possibly could be vital to others.  Whatever the odds, I must try. Even if only a few people find this book important, this is worth the years of effort.

    These chapters flowed from my fingers as the paint from my brushes.  Some of it is clear and well formed, while some is fuzzy and strange.  Enjoy what you like, skip what does not interest you, and dance in what challenges your intellect and strikes your fancy.

    Tally Ho!

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