The Real Second Coming

✞

Sometimes it not what I write about that counts, but what I don't write about that matters. I was invited to attend a musical gathering last night, and at the last moment I decided to ride over there with Ben to see what was going on. The event took place in a museum in a room they apparently used for meetings of the various types that museums might gather together for.

A museum appeared to be an apt place for these musicians to get together for what actually amounted to a hoe down, but it wasn't necessarily a joyous occasion, and before it was over I embarrassed myself by trying to play guitar with this group, and stomped out to save face. It was almost as cold outside as it was inside the air-conditioned museum.

Twice in the last couple of days I've been treated like a senile old fool. One of those times was in the checkout line of the grocery store when this young woman thought I was confused about how to punch in my debit card numbers, so she practically yanked my card out of my hand, spun the input device around, only to watch it perform the action I had already entered.

Some of this behavior probably has to do with letting my beard and hair grow out. It's a real mess, but it's even messier if I try to keep it neat and trimmed as it grows out. My plan of action is to just let it grow helter skelter until it's long enough to comb.

My beard usually looks fairly decent at the length it is now, but only when it's warm. In cool weather, such as it is now, the clothes I wear to keep warm pushes my beard out and away from my neck, and it always looks as if I wasn't performing my toilette and brush it out to look at least the best it can at this point.

What I'm saying is that if I get treated like a senile old fool, at least part of the reason I get this response is that I look that way, and there is no reason why anybody could be expected to read between the lines. I.E., no blame.

The winter solstice is only a few days away. Less than a week. It happens on the east coast just after noon at 12:06 p.m. next Monday. Over the last decade or so, but not every year, a few friends have gathered to burn a bon fire and maybe perform the ritual toast to the dead past and to the coming new year.

If I remember to do it on time it shouldn't be that difficult to throw together some dead limbs from the woods around my house and build a fire. This year it should be cool enough to appreciate the warmth, and the time of day is accommodating.

It makes me happy that I studied astrology for a long time every solstice and equinox that passes. Otherwise, I might not pay attention to these old rituals so intimately associated with my ancestors. That's what it is to me. A form of ancestor worship. Yet, I don't know much about them. I'm interested in genealogy, but in a casual sort of way. I have an older sister who got all fired up about it, but she doesn't share much of what she's learned without me having to ask.

Besides, I look at ancestry in a different way that what some people I've encountered treats it. Ancestry for me has taken a different turn, because all my ancestors are actually me. Maybe I think that because of a popular song from my youth entitled, "I'm My Own Grandpa". I was endowed by vision how that can be so around forty years ago, but only realized the implications of that visionary experience within the past decade or so.

Every so often in the recent past I have pondered upon the possibilities of what might have happened if I hadn't lived long enough to realize what my remembering vision signified in a philosophical sense. It began to come together for me when I randomly decided to purchase a book called The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels:

http://www.amazon.com/Gnostic-Gospels-Elaine-Pagels/dp/0679724532

It was by reading this book that I became aware that what I had experienced in my remembering vision was the same thing the ancient early Christians called "gnosis". By reading Pagels descriptions of what gnosis, and thus "Gnostics" were about I knew that I had experienced this same sort of event.

I read this book before there was an internet in my life, but when I finally did get online I ran across some articles on Pagels and Gnostics, and soon found out there was a couple of e-mail discussion groups available to pique my already established interest.

One of the e-mail discussion groups was a formal, academic inquiry, but there was/is another group devoted to a more informal study of the Gnostic Gospels, and concentrated on a specific gospel called The Gospel of Thomas. Not only am I not interested in an academic approach to something I personally experienced, but I'm sorta contemptuous of the whole idea of attempting to dissect a subjective experience by academic methods. It's like trying to take an objective stance toward a non-experience.

I rejected my early religious training at puberty. I railed against it. I ridiculed it. I stood up in front of dozens of witnesses and cursed their God to hell and back. If it's actually possible to determine, I'd say I went way over the top with my quest to cut myself loose from being condemned to a childish outlook.

Eventually, upon a specific occasion, I realized I had to find a way to look at my early training in a more positive light, because it would become my only anchor if I do live long enough to experience my second childhood. The "specific occasion" I mention above was the result of watching both my father and my mother enter and attempt to endure their own second childhood.

By specific I mean to indicate that they experienced the same events growing down as the did growing up. I watched my father's face when he remembered the birthday gifts he received at his fifth birthday party. A little rubber ball and some jacks to play with. This eighty-five year old man evaporated within the explosive joy of a five year Jesus boy old right before my eyes. That's the real second coming.

✟