Riffin’ On the Scorebook

"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." — 2 Peter 3:9 (NIV) 

Fundamentalism…it’s the bane of sophistication, “sophistication” the spontaneous messianic vehicle offered to adults trying to do their best. And yet the world, at times, as grace is palpable in certain contexts, manifest and phenomenal, is black and white. We’d have no mental point of reference if it persistently wasn’t, or at least had the potential to be. We are here in the midst of That Which is All, surrounded by impersonal expressions of Infinity as the seemingly finite, to fashion a resonant image, to be as Universe even though, by some sort of natural constraint, before robust devotional activity as adults, we are self-contained by the natural ways of being. Self-contained, yet privy to turn outwards…still evolving, figuratively/personally.

Dynamically charged to obliterate all meaningful hurdles between us, personally, and an effective communion with Source that substantiates our eternal journey of self-actualization. Dynamically charged to obliterate the duality inherent in a system of fundamentalism, one still figuratively on its way. Everything we do in life is an attempt at this, even if it truly isn’t. Love, as something you consciously do…beyond being simply about Itself, is about shutting down the potential for suffering the world over, by living magically. It’s the social mission…the religious mission…that pop-up franchise in the mall selling skater gear has a mission statement on the books somewhere that very much resembles it…it was the template for the mission statement of all companies, it turns out… so it’s the template of the American business at some level… we are all acting devotionally, living devotionally, systemically, at least. But home-brewed is just so much better.

When God is referred to as the “Lord” you know that you are in the vicinity not so much of salvation while embodied, which flows with graces meant to unconsciously encourage those experiencing it to run out and run their mouths about it/indoctrinate others into it, all fattened calfs, but conditions/ignorance/“sin”. When we are told in today’s passage that He’s “not slow” “in keeping his promise” they mean that karma is like gravity…things happen immediately even if the total process takes long periods of time to play out. The phrase is an odd one though…it’s hard to interpret correctly. They seem to be implying that a group of people has accused God of being slow…probably because of some familiar scenario…some larger than life vagabond who by your scorebook should be incurring serious cosmic and social infractions instead seems to be campaigning a victorious social campaign in the name of spite, or perhaps some old drunk lives to be like 88 and looks like an adonis as he lives alone at home while entire groups of his peers are finished with their time decade(s) earlier…financial ceos who commit conscious crimes that shape the lives of those in the country get probation and 19 year olds who run crypto scams get decades…who gave a 19 year old over a billion dollars, that’s on you…have you people no heart?! You lie about money and God 24/7, that’s your entire culture regarding God and money at the moment (they’re working well together, by the way…) there’s a reason it’s only the young people who are behaving the way they do, and it’s mostly because of the insane way we treat them…

It should be said, if you have a dawning awareness that you might be skirting consequence, that lesson and the perspective sometimes is what consequence would’ve ever been after… grace is abundant all over. People flip out. They make rules… no chewing gum because I’m scared you might choke, you’re now over at my house blabbing away and I notice you’re not only talking robustly, but that you’re chewing gum?! Admittedly, my gut reaction lets me know that clearly I am insane, and that the world has gone mad with all of these rules. Whatever this feral force is flowing through us, it must be put down.

Imagine if that person had literally thought of the potential dangers and inflected their ultimate decision to chew gum in that context off of what they consider to be the approval of their very God…now, perhaps, we understand why they have sabotaged religion, socially. It may be an insane thing to do to people. But I have actually seen a parallel scenario, not involving gum, in real life. It’s a rarely seen synchronicity/sign… it reminds me of that conventional bit from cartoons of the hallway of doors and the characters are chasing each other as they run through one and randomly pop out of another on the screen. Both people are supposed to see each other in that exact moment and drop the charade/start cracking up, but instead they usually have a nasty fight because they aren’t transcendentalists. To be a man of black and white, of fundamentals, and to give a stern teaching for the times, it’s the man who turns to the Transcendent as a point of reference for behavior rather than the man who turns to fear (avoiding choking) who is behaving in a more substantive/exemplary way.  I have been fighting many a role model in children’s lives over this one. But man, you want to see a little kid get a lot of efficacy out of nowhere? Somewhere teach him to regard the Transcendent before he does stuff…

The point of life is to realize God thoroughly (enlightenment), and then after as much help others to realize him in an effective fashion. It’s arguably the most precious thing ever accomplished short of the creation of new life. The point of life is not to incur consequence because you got it wrong and then die because that is noble and preserves that system that will allow future others to potentially not be as disastrously dumb as you. Hence, God is “patient” more than He is even consequential, left-handed even, “aloof” as Krishna often times describes Himself.  The trajectory is for all things to flow towards “redemption”. Fiscally, if we redeem something, it’s a rather sweet experience. It reconciles the entire journey.

Life is about you