SUFFER THE LITTLE EPIPHANIES

Dr. Omed suffers from numerous petit epiphanies. Some say I suffer from mental illness, but I say I don't, I enjoy every minute of it.

Once upon a time, Dr. Omed spent a day in March, driving alone through the great desolation of the basin and range terrain of Nevada. It felt like driving over the bones of God. The rental car was on autopilot back to Las Vegas, where I was staying with my wife, Elspeth. I was sleepily telling the beads of the car lights strung on the highway in the deep dark of desert night when I topped the last ridge. Suddenly the lights of the Strip appeared like a shake snow scene, a bauble plucked by a magician from the vast blackness laid over God's bare bones.

I felt a strange fond pride at the little lamp the gangsters, moguls, grifters, and marks had set in the darkness. Dr. Omed did not expect to become fond of Las Vegas; he is not much interested in gambling or glitz. But, Pilgrims, Dr. Omed had an epiphany in that moment. I realized that Las Vegas is a Holy City like Jerusalem or Mecca; a sacred place where true believers go to worship everything the America the commercial sells them. The Axis Mundi where people whose dreams are bigger than their imaginations come on pilgrimage, to tithe to Mother Luck, shake hands with the holy one armed bandits, and bow down to Mammon and mammaries. Las Vegas is one great, wholehearted, mass delusional neon fuck you to an uncaring Cosmos. It embodies the religious impulse in a pure and uncorrupted form.

That is, dear pilgrims, why Dr. Omed has a sneaking fondness for that seven-come-eleven wet dream to this very day. Be sure to visit the Shrine of St. Liberace when you make the Haj to the American Mecca. The relics of this Saint are very efficacious in provoking healing mirth.

(Originally published in Dr. Omed's Tent Show Revival 6.26.03)

WORKING FOR YA?

I have a question for all those who still support George W. Bush:

HOW'S THAT WORKING FOR YA?
(The comment box is open. The Doctor is IN.)

MOM AND APPLE PIE

BEST OF (TENT) SHOW: SCISSOR DANCE

MOM AND APPLE PIE, OR, PANDORA'S ARK

RANDOM THOUGHT

I wonder how you say "We are Devo" in Arabic?

GRENDEL'S LAUNDRY LIST: QUOTE REQUOTE

"No one quotes scripture better than the Devil." Dr. Omed

From a sermon by Meister Eckhart, a Dominican monk and prior of the 13th and 14th century anno domino:

"I have occasionally spoken of a light in the soul which is uncreated and uncreatable. . . . This light is not satisfied with the simple, still and divine being which neither gives nor takes, but rather it desires to know from where this being comes. It wants to penetrate to the simple ground, to the still desert, into which distinction never peeped, neither Father, Son nor Holy Spirit. There, in that most inward place, where everyone is a stranger, the light is satisfied, and there it is more inward than it is in itself, for this ground is a simple stillness which is immovable in itself. But all things are moved by this immovability and all the forms of life are conceived by it which, possessing the light of reason, live of themselves."

Meister Eckhart also said: "God is not a being; God is absolute being." This absolute unqualified being Eckhart calls "unnatured nature." God is not"good" or "bad; all finite things are present in, and part of, God, exalted and reconciled in a manner beyond the comprehension of a finite being. Finite being is the negation of God; God is the negation of the finite, the negation of negation. The Kabalists call this "Ein Sof," the unknowable existence of God. It also reminds us of Keat's phrase: "negative capability."

"All positive religion rests on an enormous simplification of the manifold and wildly engulfing forces that invade us: it is the subduing of the fullness of existence. All myth, in contrast, is the expression of the fullness of existence, its image, its sign; it drinks incessantly from the gushing fountains of life. Hence religion fights myth where it cannot absorb and incorporate it. It is strange and wonderful to observe how in this battle religion ever again wins the apparent victory, myth ever again wins the real one."

Martin Buber, Legends of the Baal Shem

"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.

The voice of the Devil.

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors.

1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.

2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the Soul.

3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True:

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

3. Energy is Eternal Delight

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling. And being restrain'd it by degrees becomes passive till it is only the shadow of desire. The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, & the Governor or Reason is call'd Messiah. And the original Archangel or possessor of the command of the heavenly host, is call'd the Devil or Satan and his children are call'd Sin & Death. But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd Satan. For this history has been adopted by both parties. It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out, but the Devil's account is, that the Messiah fell, & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss."

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

(Originally published in Dr. Omed's Tent Show Revival 4.13.03)

COMMENTS UPDATE

I am still learning this blogware. However, I can now delete comments, and I have turned on the letter identification feature, a slight inconvenience which will thin out the spambots but not deter too many of my nonautomated visitors. I hope.

DON'T BOTHER TO SPAM MY COMMENTS

I will delete offenders as many times as necessary.

WHAT’S IT WORTH TO YA?

BEST OF (TENT) SHOW SERMONETTE:
DR. OMED ASKS: WHAT’S IT WORTH TO YA?

Everyone, whether they realize it or not, has a set of core beliefs—Core beliefs about Life, the Universe, and Everything: How we came to be (since this is all about us); by way of a creator, a God or gods, made by the Maker of all things, or by a series of random events occurring over a vast span of time (just happened). We have core beliefs about our place in the universe (all about us): Central, at the Right Hand of God; or insignificant, less than, infinitely less than, a flyspeck. What’s it all about? Does Life have meaning? Does existence exist? Even if you sincerely state you don’t believe in anything, you believe that. Personally, I’m coming to believe that we’re all a figment of our Collective Imagination. I know morals don’t exist, but I’m filibustering the Collective about that one.

Core beliefs: Right, wrong. What is a good work? What is a crime? Do you believe in true love; love at first sight; the love of God? Or do you subscribe to the idea that you should love the one you’re with? But I didn’t climb onto my bully blog-o-pulpit to ask you what you believe, essay due on Monday. What I want to know right now is what it’s worth to ya.

To a suicide bomber, his belief is worth his life; your life, the lives of a whole lot of other people, and the maiming, wounding, post traumatic disorder, and grief of even more people.

To President Bush, his belief is worth waging an illegal war, killing tens of thousands of people, converting the constitutional democracy of which he is the chief steward into a proto-fascist state, accelerating the ecocide of the whole planet, and, well, that’ll do to go on.

So. What’s it worth to ya, your cherished or unconsidered belief?

Is it worth your life, or somebody else’s?

Is it worth everything you own, or spare change in the collection plate on Sunday?

Is it worth striking, perhaps without warning, someone who fundamentally opposes you and your belief, or is it worth turning the other cheek?

Is it worth a leg? An eye? Big toe? Yours or someone else’s?

Is it worth taking the risk of arrest engaging in an act of civil disobedience?

Is it worth going to jail?Losing your job?

Putting your family at risk because of the consequences of the above?

Is it worth going in harm’s way in a foreign land and killing people you never met and who never did you any harm?

Is it worth being killed in a foreign land by someone who never met you?

Is it worth getting up in the morning?

Is it worth expressing your honest opinion to any one other than your close friends?

Is it worth one thin dime?

This is not a rhetorical exercise. I really want to know. It’s important. Because I am having to make this decision on what I shall do on a daily basis, in this present crisis, this slow motion catastrophe of the first half of the 21st century, and whether I and those I love can afford the consequences when I take action in accordance with my beliefs. I now believe it is possible that I may live long enough to see, and I say this with absolutely no irony whatsoever, the end of civilization as we know it. Living as I do in Red America, behind the Fox Curtain, every time I see an SUV with a “W” sticker go by, every time a co-worker regurgitates a tidbit of Rush, I want to strike back at the Evil Empire, tho’ the only weapons I have at my disposal are my big mouth, my art, and an aging mortal body. I want to act. I can’t always do that. I have to ask myself, “What’s it worth to ya?”

I await with bated breath (You don’t have to breath in the blog-o-sphere.) your comments and emails.

(Originally published in Dr. Omed's Tent Show Revival 7.14.05)

OH, BY THE WAY

I already have a blog. A Salon Blog called Dr. Omed’s Tent Show Revival. Why would I need another? That is a long and wearisome story. My wife Elspeth talked me into starting a blog, and further recommended that I get my blog at Salon, because of the community, which I did. The Tent Show will be coming up on its third Blogday next April. Some few faithful pilgrims have joined the congregation, and some of my fellow bloggers have become close friends even tho’ I’ve never met them in person. Elspeth was right, I do enjoy blogging and I feel very much at home with the blogger community at Salon. I’ve done a lot of writing that I would not otherwise have done, and gained an audience I would not otherwise have.

There is, however, a monstrous big fly in this otherwise soothing ointment: The Radio Userland software that is part of the Salon package. I am not a terribly savvy software person, and some problems I’ve had with the blog I caused through my own stupidity or ignorance, but Radio blogware is not forgiving to a person like me. As a co-worker is wont to say, “There is much suckage here.” I’m not the only Salon blogger who has had problems. The ether has been seared with the flaming of our discontent, particularly since we are paying for the privilege of using a defective, poorly supported product. I don’t want to be mean. Userland’s designated go-to blogmeister Lawrence Lee can be helpful, once you get his attention and he actually reads your email, but I get the impression that he has a day job, and supports Radio in his spare time. I do not regret my choice. I plan to stay at Salon and continue using Radio. However.

I have started this new blog, Dr. Omed’s Mirror, as a back-up to the Tent Show. I will use it to repost the “Best of” Tent Show, and as a home away from home when the snafu is fubared, and I can’t post to the Tent Show. Sam will no longer have to provide me a haven. Blogger is free, and it will give me an opportunity to learn how to use blogware that does not define the phrase “user-unfriendly.”

Would you buy a used eschatology from this man?