Our Guv-ments have had a history of declaring Wars “on” this or that.  They seem to go on for decades and they also seem to create more of what the war is indeed on.  In the common speech I think we have taken it for granted that the use of the word “on” was to indicate that the war was focused against an assumed evil to bring about its destruction.  But the use of “on” in that particular sense is only one of the many other uses and does not seem congruent with the patterns and outcomes of these mind games.  Upon consideration of the processes and outcomes of these “wars” I now understand that the intent and goals of them were indeed “on.”  And they have been most effectively waged.  Poverty, Drugs, Terror all have been the means, the support, the fuel, not the focus of these wars.  If one would discern who they were against attend to the outcomes, those who profited, and those negatively impacted.  I will paste below a fairly exhaustive list of how the word “on” is used.  Consider these so called wars in light of what is to follow.  Just on the face of it is “on” being used as a preposition or adverb?  That makes a difference.  The primary definitions tend toward “on” indicating a supportive role.  It is not until the fifth definition that there is some indication of it being used in the sense of aim or focus.  To say we are focusing on poverty or terror to eradicate it is very different from saying that we are going to have a war and it will ride on and be supported by drugs or poverty or terror.  Just a thought.

In my professional practice I am privileged to go with people as they grapple with the unknown parts of them.  When the noise and motion of life wears thin.  When the same old same old finally gets old.  When the same patterns of mistake and pain become tired and begin to loose their grip.  Souls turn in toward the unknown, toward the Silence.  Similarly our culture gets lost in the noise and motion of living and neglects that which is hidden.  As with the individual so to is the culture.  Careening toward destruction with stupid smiles on our fat bloated faces.  Fighting over the cure for symptoms while neglecting the root causes.  Soul’s authority surrendered to some pseudo-savior, whether it wears the masks of State or Religion, it is a false hope.  We each bear responsibility for the darkness in our world as well as the light.  The Silence unaddressed grows like a cancer.  But Our job is not the World but rather it is ourselves.  And we can manage that.

I am thinking/feeling about the concept of the Fringe, or perhaps the Edge. But the word Fringe seems to taste better in the context of my musings. It is used in several ways but the main idea is one of the place and the space where creativity and redemption and the new occurs. By the time one figures out what is happening, or hip, or where it’s at, the It has already passed. For once It is a “Thing” the Center, the mainstream, integrates it into itself. The Fringe forever remains what it is and separate from the center. It is there that new life happens. It is the place/space of growth, creativity, and sometimes danger. Tiny hairlike fingers seek out moisture and nutrients and feed the structure of the plant. That tiny boundary is where the miraculous exchange occurs. Without the fringe no life is possible. Whether in a culture or a Soul. The fringe places sometimes seem strange or weird or even frightening because we are unused to them. But it is there that new life is at work even now. One will encounter God in the places where there is poverty, blindness, captivity, or oppression. That is the domain of the Creator’s activity. Our individual path will always lead into our personal poverty or blindness or captivity or oppression, not in the avoidance of those places. That is our Fringe. That is the place of new life and creativity. That is the holy sacred space of conversion from one thing to another. To change the world, to battle these things in culture, one must face them on the dark edges of their own soul. This is the only Change one needs to believe in.

Specters in the Dark

A cry, a soundless wail in the distance

Calls, seeking relief, redress

Images, memories emerge, awaken

Wanting to enter

Wraith at the horizon, the boundary of vision

Treads, leaving no prints except those familiar pathways in my soul

I grieve the dead

I mourn the now cold life that was

Ought is now not and haunts me still

But what have I do to with specters in the dark

Except, breathless, trembling I turn

Knowing the wraith is me

Weeping alone there in the shadows

Sideways

Sideways

Lean on in

Sideways

Are the Pathways

Buzz . . . Buzz . . . Buzz

Sideways

Lean on in

Sideways

Avoid the World’s Ways

Mmm . . . Mmm . . . Mmm . . .

Sideways

Lean on in

Sideways

Lead out the Maze

Yeah . . . Yeah . . . Yeah . . .

Sideways

Lean on in

Sideways

Into your next Phase

Lean . . . Lean . . . Lean . . .

Lean on In

Lean on In

Lean on In