Sarah Young (1) (1946–2023)

Part of me feels bad for deleting one of my Franciscan Richard books and one of my Brother Keating books, (and getting Sarah in to fill the void), but this reflects a change in my practice, which I was not happy in. Sometimes you need a “Ramanuja” Christianity—about divine Love—more than a “Shankara” Christianity—about ultimate Reality, because even though both are ultimately One, they present differently, not unlike the classic woman and man.

Of course, Sarah in at least one of her books references the classic series, “Pious Prayers of the Persecutors of Pagans”; I think the book was called “Abraham’s God, England’s God: 365 Reasons why Your Indian Tax Dollars should be spent Primarily in the Uk”…. I guess it is kinda that third thinker whose name escapes me: the dualist/materialist/athletic one, although it’s a little perverse, because they don’t often affect to be sporty and materialist; unless of course they’re the guy drinking beer in front of the football television, complaining to the ref, C’mon: am I the only one here who’s an American? Am I the only American left? (beer) Right, woman? —That’s right, baby. Not the ref, not even me: Only You, Are An American. 🇺🇸

We’ll see how it goes. 🥱

…. George Orwell wrote about Big Brother, but I guess if it were a religious tyranny you’d need Little Sister, you know.

Persephone: Oh, I feel so sad you’re not being true to your faith!
Hermes: Just let me be me, Persephone, I swear to God!
Persephone: Oh, I feel so sad. (crying) You’re making me so sad. (wipes tears)
Computer Voice: Threat level Alpha. Threat level Alpha….

I’ll tell you what, I’ll read this third book, and then I’ll give away the fourth without reading it, so Sarah Young and Richard Rohr will both end with three, and we can call it a tie, and move on to less paranoid pastures….

…. Actually, I think I will give away the whole series that I have, once I’m done with this book, even the original book I was thinking of referring to randomly (I numbered the pages). I just don’t see how I can trust God without having some provisional trust for what he’s given me to work with; the two things aren’t identical, but they’re also not opposite or alienated or non-overlapping, you know. I know that it is possible for me to operate separate from the good that is within me, but shorn of all the words of our ‘betters’ which we’ve been taught to parrot, if I have no trust for myself, then I must trust in some human authority or some custom, you know. Trust in God is always trust in Something, God through something or in something, not God in nothing, God seen without your spectacles, you know. And let’s be real: religious people aren’t always that trusting, anyway; they’ll trust if they damn well want to, and not if it’s the Bad Other, right; but there are little prayers and curses of our betters that we can parrot to ease our soul, you know….

In terms of ‘law’, it’s either a sort of French or American constitutionalism on the one side—even if we are to be religious, it must not be mere credulousness, mere first-naivety—and British or baroque constitutionalism on the other—trust in human authority and/or custom. And sometimes it’s like, the worst aspects of British constitutionalism lives on in the most American of men, you know—and the people who parrot their lines. I may not always know who God sees me to be, but I think I and many others could not do such bad things as we do when it is custom and authority acting in us, because unlike Mary we cannot trust ourselves to be vessels for God, you know…. We cannot trust all aspects of ourselves equally, but zero trust in yourself means you cannot trust God. I suppose we are left believing that that is what this god of ours prefers—that he breaks his children’s legs, so he has to carry them.

…. She’s certainly not Exhibit A in the Whack Religion Display, you know; she is honest and even (although that comedian made fun of this word) likable, but…. I don’t know. Sometimes there is that level of pride with the pious sick, you know. “Life is wonderful; after all, it is so filled with pain.” And she’s a Two on the Enneagram, so being proud would be her normal, “home” kinda space, you know. Almost as if she were bloody ordinary, basically.

…. It’s of course misleading to imply that Christians are always fulfilling their worst tendencies, and I don’t want to do that. The book has its good points. It’s just that, overall, this is not the sort of book I generally need more of.

…. Christian: If it dies. Don’t care about it.
Child Hermes: (gasp) Jesus? You mean I can’t care about, Jesus?
Christian: No, I mean, yes, I mean—leave me alone, dammit! You’re a heathen man!

…. I’m not saying that Jesus couldn’t say these things to Sarah; however, if Jesus were talking to me…. 😸🥳

…. —Jesus has an eternal aspect; therefore: Jesus talks to everyone in the same way, without individuating or adapting: right, right? Am I right?
—(philosopher) (frowns, without saying anything at first)

…. It is quite flowery, but occasionally it is wilted by legalism, (and often sapped of vitality by it); hints of the ‘you have not gone in, nor have you allowed others to go in’ and ‘you cross heaven and earth to make one convert, so that you can make her twice as much a daughter of hell as you are’, you know. Which boils down to: incarnation can only happen one way, or else: it’s the highway for ya, ya wee devilish lads and lassies, you know. Everybody’s gotta be like me…. And I think her Indian name would be like, Wilted Flower, you know.

…. That’s the odd thing about wilted religious flowers: if folding is “respect”, they certainly respect the machos a lot more than they are respected in return, you know. I guess they’re proud of that, basically.

…. Sometimes Jesus is said to be the best god because of the number of his followers, and aside from the fact that this is just power-worship, which is just political connivance, you know—scare people into performing, then brag about it, and then lie about what motivates you—there’s a lot more to Christianity being monopolized by Jesus and Hinduism being divided between Shiva and Vishnu than might initially meet the eye (ie Jesus is just twice as satisfying as the foreigners with funny names. Just as you yourselves were never stupid enough to be foreigners in Egypt like those pesky Jews). I mean, Jesus is a good god, properly speaking, and can contain all the other gods, with their Shiva-energy and their Vishnu-energy, within himself. (Shiva is the energy of purity, wisdom, and strength, basically, and Vishnu is love.) But the fact is Christians all call their god by the same name but mean very different things by that name. Sometimes they mean a Jesus who is like Shiva—most preachers are probably like this, if only they were honest, and most fathers—and others have more of a Vishnu in mind. The problem of the Oneness of experience isn’t solved by choosing one of these two deities—in all but the most false and nominalist/legalist sense—and crushing the other, you know. ~ Jesus is the Destroyer; there is no other god but Destruction. ~ It is true that there are Vishnu (or love) Christians, and Sarah is one of these, but the relationship between the two gods is very asymmetrical and unfair, basically—un-reciprocal. The Big Destruction god believes in destruction—the end, and laughs that you might take credence to his hollow lie that he is the One, unifying the opposites, which he has no mind to do. He does not unify; he destroys. The little love god, on the other hand, does believe in love, but he is so intimidated by the Big Destruction god who calls him a heretic and wants him to repent and so on, that he is impressed with the need to destroy in a way that the Destruction god is not impressed with the need to love. This //almost// makes him more healthy, and closer to the unification of opposites, the realization of the One, except that he is so impressed with reputation, which to him Is love, that he is sapped of his vitality, and becomes a little liar god, you know. So, I don’t know. Certainly it’s possible for the divine to be, not the Divine properly speaking, but the incarnation of human weakness, viciousness, and folly.

…. I do think it’s kinda weird that Jesus always talks about himself, and never about weird aunt Sally, your mom, or your crazy friend from the baseball club, right. “Conservatives” (although Sarah is a sort of conservative, but whatever—men, hard boiled conservative men) think that they’re very good about this, since they’re not “Gnostic” or whatever—they’re not zombie-possessed woolly mammoths out for blood, right—since they’re essentially suspicious of spirituality, and don’t approve of it outside their own group, (or themselves), and don’t trust the super-spiritual since they think (with some justification, much of the time) that very spiritual people are harder to control (= devil spawn, lol). But the super spiritual are kinda, possibly conservative and almost certainly elitist in their own way, you know: other people should provide me with money, free me from chores and work, take care of my health, (since I won’t), and they certainly should Not expect a relationship (although I love you!) because I, well, EYE…. I’m…. I’m pretty cool. I talks to Jesus, mommy.

But, you know, it’s hard to have something to say when both sides are so crazy. Who do you respond to first. It’s like with, say, Michelle Obama. Either people think she’s a comfy lady who’s had no challenges being Black and female in these times, or else a terrorist conspirator who’ll probs strap some C4 to her chest and blow herself up, you know; she’s saccharine and dismissible, or else she’s a hard-nosed bitch who hates America; she’s a moderate in bed with the system; she’s…. She’s a colored. Drinking from the wrong water fountain. You know, it’s like—you can’t say a damn thing about her, without increasing somebody’s delusion. Some delusions are more common and others less but…. I mean, really.

…. “I may be a disabled quasi-Victorian chick, but Jesus is my attack dog. And that’s the only way to live. Awww!” (hugs Jesus) 🥰

…. I feel weird now, having invested so much in the church, including less-heard voices like those of the chicks, while thinking that maybe the church works, you know—but the chicks often just silence themselves even when they speak, because they’re so sold on the message that they’re less than, you know—but don’t worry, being less than is the right way! Nobody else is clever enough to be worthless! 🤪

…. A bureaucrat/scold was emoting negatively, and I was reminded of Jesus. She must be doing a great job. Hell, maybe she’s even ahead of Jesus. She never pretended that Irrelevant Safety Tips for Unlikely Scenarios was “love” you know, or “blah blah blah law (boo) blah blah blah grace (wee!)”, you know. It was just, what the plantation masters demand of the little people, and I get that, I guess.

…. Brusque, you know. You just have to choose between: you little fuckers are gonna be safe on my watch; and ~ you live in an increasingly Yiddish world ~ and away we go!

…. I know I’m kinda dunking her head in the acid bath and holding her under, you know; I know I am. 😸 But I’ll allow that I don’t know that Jesus didn’t say these things to her—context is king, both in a low-level specific as well as in broader senses: otherwise there’d not only be no history but no non-relative world, ie no separate existence outside of the One, something I find rather pleasant most of the time, to say nothing of its usefulness, and indeed it often does not involve other people bullying me, you know—although Jesus would not say these things to me.

…. But it certainly doesn’t need to be more complicated…. It’s just like anything else. A simple person—a child, a less intelligent person, or just a non-intellectual—might well have immoral aspects, but that doesn’t mean they have to become a philosopher, you know. We have enough robot overlords, already. 👌

…. She does write some good things sometimes about non-legalism, in a literal sense, but Christian writings about non-legalism tend to just be like a mafia front for Christian legalism, you know—it doesn’t matter about the law and controlling right and wrong, right…. As long as you do always right and never wrong. But don’t think about the law. Just never make mistakes, and there won’t be any law about mistakes you have to worry about. You know: it’s like, kinda hard to philosophize the problem with it, because it’s Verbally! true, but the way people live it, it’s like—Can I become a soccer fan, since legalism is unhelpful? Can I read “Eat Pray Love”, since legalism is unhelpful? (hurt mom look) Aww, honey, did you think that ‘Don’t work too hard meant “you can go home when your shift is over?”’ (hurt mom, then: aggressively) You stay here and you work extra for no money. And when it comes to sports vs girly books, you pick one and not the other, and you pick the one demanded by your gender, and dammit! You don’t pick either! You pick religion! You pick JESUS! You think you can go home after church and not stress about rules because of non-legalism? Non-legalism means you have to be perfect so that I don’t hurt my hand beating you, child!

~ But, you know, Verbally! there are plenty of good wisdoms about legalism. You just kinda have to shed the church talk books to actually take it seriously. Because you know, no matter how people act in the real world, No! church talk book acknowledges a secular activity as a worthy partner in life to church talk, no matter What! they say about non-legalism, so there are occasionally people tempted to fill their houses only with church books (sometimes they don’t read them as much as they think they do, and sometimes they really, really do) and live their life so as to be Jesus Christ’s attack dog…. Who bites into other people’s faiths over the issue of legalism, most like. It’s bad. (movie grandpa) It’s bad, children. (covering their eyes).

…. (literally the next page) blah blah blah: the wrath of the Lamb!

~ (considers verbally and emotionally violent Christian codependents) (nods) Pretty much.

…. Many people are tempted to become remote and elitist, when they see simple people live the wrong way, you know.

…. And that really is the danger, in my eyes: remote and elitist. Maybe a few very young people reject Jesus and become involved with mentally ill pornographers, as per the stereotyped “big danger”, but there’s still A LOT of gossip and stigma out there about the body in general and sex in particular and most people are forced to realize sooner rather than later that mentally ill pornographers aren’t the sort of people to obsess over, you know. It’s very self-defeating. (And the pornographers will tell you that, straight up—“You’re bad; you’re….”—they’re very defeated people, generally speaking, and not exactly living the most comfortable, stigma-free life, you know.)

But to be cold and distant and elitist isn’t obviously self-defeating, and isn’t obviously dangerous or anti-social: in fact, it’s promoted behavior favored by the majority even of non-intellectuals. Most people who watch “bad”, critically-slain TV will complain about it themselves, and then about themselves, you know, and possibly try to fantasize about being (marrying?) a doctor, right. It’s a much more credible danger, elitism, and there are plenty of ill, Good Simple Religious Barf-faces out there, trying to get it some good light, you know.

…. I plan on finishing this book tomorrow and Not going to church, you know, as I haven’t been, actually. I feel like church is this (zonk-y, stigmatizing) girl I’ve been going out for for longer than I can figure out and who has wounded me, and now I need time to heal, basically.

…. “Life would be tolerable, if not for its pleasures.” ~ the guy from Michelangelo Antonioni’s (a real name, I know, quite a name!) film “La Notte”. Christian, Buddhist, generalized mid-century snob…. The brotherhood of those above being pleased.

…. Aww, maybe we can conscript all the children to sculpt little Jesuses out of garlic on Halloween to protect us all from witches and Satanic drivel, I mean, danger: and we can carve little witches out of rotting cabbage and shoot them with an unregistered gun (gub’mint!) and remind ourselves, that, as we have caused pain to the smallest of these little ones, we have protected HIM, and honored His Father, you know.

God, that was precious. I mean, you listen to your average country music song that mentions Jesus, and your average Wiccan spell poetry about, I don’t know, some stupid drivel, the language of the flowers or something—and you tell me, which one you’d rather see somebody strip to, you know. (If you’re a country boy, right, and you like it dirty.)

It’s just…. Prejudice, you know. It doesn’t have to make sense—it just has to reinforce your preexisting sinful ideas and tendencies.

…. But, as much as I “regret” or whatever, if that’s the right word, Miss Perfect Christian’s contribution to the world, I also can’t help regret what that type gets from say, Bill Maher, for example. But I observe that people who don’t compromise attract other people who don’t compromise into their world—in this case, the Miss Perfect feeds off the sin of the ‘let me tell you a big dick story’ joke-guy, and vice versa. And it is a bit off a joke how Miss Perfect can cry herself to sleep at night because of dick jokes, when people like that fuel the demand for the whole Christian-gossip culture, you know. It’s the shovel they need to dig in, and close their eyes.

But it is a very unfortunate situation, all around.

…. (Hestia the Governess) Oh, children, dick-jokes are the unspeakable wound at the heart of everything!
(Hermes the Child) What’s ‘dick’, Hestie.
(Hestia) Oh, Hermes, dicks are evil! They’re like bananas—only evil! Evil! So terribly evil, and because of world population growth, there are constantly more and more! Oh, I am lost; oh, I am defeated.
(Hermes) I like banana. Tastes nice. Pleasure.
(Hestia) Ooo, I’m telling your mom—I bet you grow up to be a bad boy.
(Hermes) (shrugs)

…. And there Is such a thing as relative truth, otherwise there’d be no history, science, or separate existence in a body; there is non-relative truth as well, but it’s not just prejudice, you know. Non-relative truth is harder to know, and often all that can really be known is a bit of what it is not. It is closer to being God’s secret, than a facile excuse for injustice, you know.

…. Everything is absolute, nothing is relative. Like, Thanksgiving. In November, all the tribes and nations of the world, united by @godstruth, unite to celebrate the universally acknowledged virtue of thanksgiving…. despite our increasingly Canadian world.

…. —You can do nothing good, no matter what. You are fully culpable, because of this.
—God, the master violinist, plays a tune on all of our hearts. But if you don’t keep your violin in tune, well, what is he to do?

It’s not the perfect metaphor, I know. And although the first is how I think the nasty Calvinists understand their religion—and I don’t feel inclined to make excuses for the wise men who are nasty, anymore—it is true that some guys think of themselves as more like that, who are a little bit more personable, you know. “How can the gods love us, till we have faces?” Jack probably meant that as a sort of Greek Calvinism, although I see it as closer to my view. We spend a lifetime—or more—crafting our violin, and then we hand it to the Craftsman to play….

…. Wow, and thanks for the car-title, God; what a marathon that was. Of course, it didn’t bother me, which is good—I feel like if I had been miserable then, I’d still be negative now about it—but I was kinda neutral about it, so…. I dunno. I mean, if I had anticipated more pleasure about it, I’d feel happier now, you know. Well, it’s a journey. At least now I can get out of my shell a little more, you know.

…. “I leave ruling to my husband, and revolution to my son.” ~ a woman in “Gandhi” (1982)

…. (Hermes) (/recording/) This Christmas season, remember that the Christ Child is not a revolutionary; he is asleep underneath Odin’s tree. (/recording/) Say, Uncle Odin, when do I EYE get to see the little Christ Child who has been promised to us?
(Odin) Shut up…. I’m learning chess….
(Hermes) But—
(Odin) Shut up. Run along—
(Hermes) Aww, but I wanted to see the Christ Child who was been foretold….

~ It’s so abstract, you know. She succeeds in making it simple, but it stays so abstract, that I feel like not a whole lot has been imparted. It’s like, conveying no useful information—but in such folksy rhymes! 😃… (mere)

You forget that Jesus wants you to be happy, and that you can be sure of it. Life doesn’t always suggest this idea on its own, and not every genre of Christian writing agrees with it consistently. Large swaths of Christian theological and historical writings proclaim a mysterious tyranny that hates you for hidden reasons, and Christian memoirs often deal with the writer’s doubt that faith will work out for them—(ah, the active and passives voices…. Let’s kill people! —Down, theologian: down!), and often anger at the church, too. But Christian devotions say that Jesus want you to be happy, and you can be sure of it. They don’t all do it equally well, of course. And to some it’s saccharine, (Brooklyn: That’ll just make me happy), and the morality censors often get indignant at the woman (or man) who boldly loves God enough to be his friend and know his heart, right (—That’ll just make them happy! {drama}), but, I don’t know. I like it. Jesus wants me to be happy, and I can be sure of it. It’s empowering. It’s righteous.

…. Of course, the quotable Christian quotes from Christians of the ages that she uses to supplement the Jesus-words and Bible quotes (this book is shorter than the first book, since she wrote it in a time of personal trial), tend towards the macho-Christian-quotes-from-know-it-all-Christians-we-freaks-are-the-best-of-the-best variety; so when I’m done, I’ll just keep the first book (for randomness work) and give this one away; I’m sure that someone else will benefit. Of course, I already got two other JC calling books; hopefully Sarah’s only a macho Christian know-it-all when she’s down and out! 😹

…. On the one hand, “practical” can often have the flavor of “unreconstructed”; but then, the people who think that they’re changing the world often aren’t good at trusting life and living it, you know.

Or, (Quotable Christian), “Even if you were good to them a little bit, it wouldn’t stop them from asking questions; so tell ‘em to go pound salt: that’s Gawd’s principle”, vs, you know, seeing that if you take it in the right way it’s a relief to know that you don’t have to do the impossible and learn everything, you know…. The mind, or at the very least the uncompromising mind, is an angry thing, and it makes little real difference whether or not it uses religious terms, you know.

….
—Think of the One who makes you happy.

…. Righteous delight gives you the desires of your heart ~ goosecap (She just quoted the verse the way it was originally, lol.)

…. I guess I’ll have to practice gratitude to God even when people call me a baddie and try to nom on me, religious people, for example. 😸🦖😾

…. “2013 Christian Book of the Year”

She was having a rough ride through life around 2013? How synchronous! Me too! Man, my 2013 was…. 👽🦖🤧

…. He is gentler even than Nature…. It is a good path, this bumpy road, that I have trod, so that I came to know; and still I walk, becoming his workmanship.… (mere)

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