OCCUPY THIS

The voting booth.

IMMINENT DANGER

A Prognostication: The Global Economy is in imminent danger. The Euro will collapse and be recalled as a nightmare in voodoo economics. Histerical selling on the open stock market will follow. Get out now. Buy bullion. Gold and silver now. There is only one word to resolve all: De-industrialize. Find your garden.

GATHERING THOUGHTS

VANCOUVER'S HIDDEN CULTURES
It was witnessed by the world time and time again as the media washed us in the shame of the Stanley Cup Vancouver riots. So much for being one of the most desirable cities to live in... but still one of the most expensive. And therein may lie an explanation for this hidden culture of gangsterism. It is indeed hard to compete with the throngs of Asians appearing on our coast and buying everything in sight; then leaving the condos vacant while the homeless and war veterans tread about on our poop-ridden streets below populated by aggressive hit-and-run drivers leering at us with their smug faces hidden behind their cellphones. But no excuse for the thuggery we all had to suck in that night the Canucks blew their last chance to win the over-hyped Holy Grail of their sport. Perchance the thuggery is somewhat more induced by what we see on the screens of one of our innumberable sports bars during one of these 'professional' games. Delivering a concussion appears to be a strategy these days to win a point. Just ask Sydney Crosby.
But I'm having some difficulty with our new neighbours trying to configure how they configure the relationship they have rationalized between being a Chinese Communist and a Capitalist. Why not Communist Radio next? Free speech and all that. And how 'bout an invigorated Communist party to match while Chinatown business owners and elders, as usual, scowl at most of us home-grown Canadians for whatever guilt we're supposed to be carrying for having them by their choice carry our laundry lo those many decades ago?
I'm no racist but even a professor at UBC recently asked the question as entitled in his essay published in the UBYSSEY: "Too Asian?" The question gains legitimacy the longer too many of our new neighbours hold out their sneers to the cap-in-hand of the homeless and prefer to tribalize among their own; and ignore wholly our history, sociology and why we are still proud - though outnumbered here in Vancouver - to call ourselves Canadian.

* * *

ROYALS CROWD OUT RIOTERS
Whether you're a Monarchist, an Anarchist or just an indifferent Populist kinda guy, it was perhaps even for all of us a breath of some relief to see crowds of thousands act with civility while two young people (of some privilege no question) came to visit. And that helicopter show on the lake? Try that on an open ocean during a storm. Glug glug. Bye Bye Crown. But fascinatoring, eh?

* * *

SLANDER-SLUSHING BARS
Having been a patron of Vancouver pubs, bars, restaurants and other unmentionable late-night establishments, I believe I have always conducted myself with civility, albeit booze-inspired exuberance occasionally for some 40+ years now. And so far I have been barred by two – one in the west end and the other a popular cave on Cambie Street. Both barrings were the result of slander-slushing patrons or barkeeps or waiters who took umbrage to my presence for one baseless reason or another.
The west end bar tossed me for “slandering” someone there. Interesting: inasmuch as I didn't know anyone there it would be quite the trick to slander them. The actual reason was because I didn't tip the sluggish waitress-with-attitude and she fed the manager enough bilge to get me turfed going on now for two years. Yawn. Used to be a good spot for a game of pool there on Comox.
The other was even more lame: I got tossed because the manageress didn't want to lose a big gambler's patronage. Yawner again. Ironic that the next day was “Customer Appreciation Day.” She never did read the signed, complimentary copy of my book I gave her two years before. Am I yawning too much?

* * *

WORSHIPPING(?)THE FATHER
The word “Worship” has always been a bugaboo for me even when I was trying to keep from becoming a buggered altar boy.
Since when would any father want to be worshipped? It occurs to me that any good father would be more interested in being acknowledged and if lucky – known.
So why can't we see the same sense in knowing the 'heavenly father'?
And as weather so often comprises our sense of common divinity (How's the weather out your way?), imagine the continuity of joy if one were to know the personality of the sun?
(This piece was conceived and written on July 4th before viewing in Vancouver a corona in the firmament - a wide rainbow encircling the sun.)
I'm not yawning now.

* * *

Man As Singularity

Mathematicians and physicists are looking at singularities, those sole points of origin of black holes sucking entire galaxies into an apparent maelstrom. This pulse of unlimited gravity confounds the scientists, quantum gravity physicists particularly, as the explanatory formula keeps returning to infinity.

If there were only one singularity one may tend to describe it as the presence of God... the ultimate sustaining source of endless gravitas. However, there has been discovered many singularities throughout many galaxies.

“Nothing in the human body was designed to cease functioning.” The perpetual motion machine. To live forever one’s spiritual ‘muscles’ must be active, sustaining the physical, and any quantitude of gravity.

Consider then: the singularity is man, the first manifestation of God, the pulse of perpetuity and having a personality, reflecting God.

It is just prior to the intake of breath a perfect vaccuum exists, wherin the Divine has its repeating genesis.

The exhalation then creates many singularities. Each soul imbued with that spark of eternal life and with its own power to multiply. The spiritual form of Man the Eternal?

One Pilgrim’s Tablet

My humanity begins as I am delivered into the Light.

My relationship to the personality of the infinite is private.

My temple is designed to facilitate joy.

In a multitude of ways charity is a healthy act.

All is given for the sole edification of humankind.

The spiritual field of all can be enhanced by moral conduct today.

My identity, and spiritual muscles, may be formed to defy death.

Necessity begets perfection and perfection is beauty.

I am the words I speak and the words I hear.

The memories of a good man increase the body of God.


With the permission of each of us and our willingness to participate with creation, God in His furnace is creating fierce gods.

The Grave Acknowledgement

In its inexorable flux, the personality of the infinite creates and knows more. And this knowing bears its own price: the acknowledgement that its intimates are becoming grist to afford the boast: "Behold! I make all things new again!"

Man's increase in knowledge reflects this quandary - the sadness of loss tempering the trumph of knowledge gained.

Perhaps sadness is too sentimental, eschewed in the fierceness of divine action. It is more a grave acknowledgment of the vagary of being that one hears in the lawgiver's words, "I am that I am."

But to whence are the former intimates dispatched? All to places in a sky of their own custom, in glorious raiment about their new bodies, formed over millenia by the utterance of each compassionate syllable driven to God. Such is the bounty of Light.

Mysteries and Words

Dreams from Purgatory (prequel to The Dead Sea Revelation) to arrive at the Vancouver Library this week. Thanks to co-author Steve Didcote.

The King of Blessings to arrive next year (sequel to The Dead Sea Revelation).

After that: my only non-fiction: The Enlightenables. Process of elimination.

This, The English Bay Banner, after 5.5 years will continue, especially jumped when readers respond. Otherwise, I will attempt to appreciate the lack of interest in intellectual life in this country as led by a mortician, despite the excitement and courage we see today in Egypt. 18 days of peace and revolution. Well done. Ghandi would be proud.

"How many dim bulbs does it to take to unscrew interest in one brilliant book? 340.