A Pearl Of Great Price

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It's a fact that I haven't been sleeping well lately. I think a lot of it has to do with exercising by walking a few miles with my youngest brother at night and getting myself so physically energized just before I go to bed. But, my brother has a family to attend to, and a business to run, presently he's the president of the local Rotary Club, and late at night is the only time he seems to have to do it. Walking with my brother is much more challenging than doing it alone as I have been. It's fueled by sibling rivalry for both of us, so I gratefully live with it.

Last night I stayed up to watch SNL. It was another rerun, and designed to appeal to a much younger crowd. I wasn't all that young when the show got started, and my watching it anymore is merely a habit, and my like of satellite or cable TV to provide other options.

The saying below is from the Gospel of Thomas. Surprisingly, the slack moderator of the group I subscribe to sent out the saying with several translations provided by a different group than before she took over by force, so I don't know the source. I just picked one and started writing about four in the morning. When I finished, I edited it a little bit, and hit the Send button. I got up around ten this morning and read what I'd written, for all practical purposes while I was half asleep and very tired. Jesus was speaking to his followers.

[GoT]
(76) Jesus said, "The kingdom of the father is like a merchant who had a consignment of merchandise and who discovered a pearl. That merchant was shrewd. He sold the merchandise and bought the pearl alone for himself. You too, seek his unfailing and enduring treasure where no moth comes near to devour and no worm destroys."

[My comments]
I discovered what I've been calling a pearl since 1970. Long before personal computers and anything like the internet came along. I thought that eventually I would meet some people who had found the same thing. I knew all along it wasn't something specific to me. There were other events that happened to me in the same manner I discovered the pearl, previous to the vision in which I realized that the pearl was me.

Nobody much believed me. I didn't realize how people would react to me telling what happened. Socially, it would have been better socially if I had been more discreet. What I didn't realize so much was that other people, in general, hadn't read about stuff like this happening to regular people. I did not grasp for a long time that I did much more reading than your average bear, and was therefore more familiar with what other people did from the many, many stories I read and kenned.

People shied away from me because they didn't comprehend how deeply life can be understood if they were brave enough to give up everything most people do understand, for topics that appeared, for the most part, well beyond their reach or interest. Some were flattered that I thought they could open themselves to something different than what their caretakers felt was socially correct.

The truth was that I didn't think they were exceptional as much as I thought everybody could and should break away to seek their own path with heart. This made them feel special around me, but not when they talked with others. When they acted the way they decided for themselves in front of their friends and acquaintances, their acquaintances questioned their judgment and asked them where they learned to act and think that way. When they found out it was from me, they were frequently warned to stay away from people like me because I was "not right". They figured they would be crazy to challenge the beliefs of their friends and family, and so I was crazy for doing that too. No blame.

People still protect people from me and my kind. They tell them something is wrong with me, and that they should stay away from people like me. Nothing has changed over the years. I used to get lonely because I couldn't return to some conventional way of regarding the world. A world I'd never really been a conventional part of since puberty.

I had to believe in myself and my own vision. If I didn't believe in my visions, I couldn't go on discovering my true being. For many, that really wasn't possible. That seems to be my only choice. I could kill myself for not fitting in or just keep on keeping on. I had a problem killing myself. I don't see anything wrong with it. It just didn't work out. Something would happen to stop me from doing it even though I tried several times in different ways. Each time murdering myself didn't work, I blamed myself by thinking I hadn't really tried.

I try not to encourage people to seek for their own pearl anymore. I don't know what it takes for others to reach beyond what they've had to be to survive. I don't know what I did to get the visions I received, but whatever it was, it ain't always been pretty. It terrifies them to imagine giving up the identity that was provided for them as children.

There really is no blame for being afraid. When they tried to beat the odds (and most have at some point in their lives), they often became much afraid. They shut down and desperately reached with all their might to be the kind of person they were taught to be. Then, to compensate for showing interest, loudly denounced me, and claimed I'd hurt them and acted irresponsibly by letting them imitate me. Nobody's perfect. '-)

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