May/June 2001
Damn Everything But The Circus
e.e. cummings
Who's In Charge Here?
"Since we are gods, we might as well get good at it." said the slogan on Stewart Brand's original Whole Earth Catalog. Some people, including God's own son, have been crucified for daring to equate themselves with God. It remains, nevertheless, one of the most theologically logical explanations of who we are, as well as who God is.
Christian fundamentalists claim that God will not let us destroy the world, ("only God can do that"), believing that everything is completely in God's hands, so why worry! How does such an idea square with the clear historical fact that God has allowed us to acquire and apply the most horrifying methods of mutual self-destruction, resulting in the increasingly precarious condition of our entire earthly environmental system?
Will God - or maybe the aliens - jump in at the last minute and say, "Wait just a minute!" You can't do that to yourselves! I won't let it happen!" Don't count on it. did God intervene during the holocaust to save his own chosen people? No, and that's just the point. We have been gifted with remarkable intelligence and responsibility. "To whom much is given, much will be required." We must learn to intervene on our own and each other's behalf, that's why we have this tremendous freedom and opportunity to save the world. We're it! The Eternal Powers That Be have trusted us that much! We are literally able to create the future, and inescapably we are doing just that, for better or worse, at every moment! So, yes, "since we are gods, we might as well get good at it." And the sooner the better!
-- Bill Joyner
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a place where questions are scattered like
seeds--- an atmosphere where answers for a season grow and blossom--- then another year of seasons--- it is the school the garden our life is Today is the day of your life --Corita The real circus with acrobats, jugglers and bareback riders- Also an empty field transformed, and in the tent artists and freaks, children and pilgrims and animals are gathered in communion -- us. -- Corita Kent Each incarnation has a total lesson. You can't get the lesson when you say, "I'm safe, I'm only watching." You have to participate you have to wring the sponge of each moment completely dry. --Ram Dass ...damn everything that is grim, dull, motionless, unrisking, inward turning, damn everything that won't get into the circle, that won't enjoy, that won't throw its heart into the tension, surprise, fear and delight of the circus, the round world, the full existence... --S. Helen Kelley |
Who's In Charge Here? (Part II)
"Deus abscondis," the hidden God, who is unavailable to us in a tactile, immediate way, this is the one who says to us, "It is expedient for you that I go away." God becomes more absent so that we might become more present. This transition of responsible participation is vital to our maturation.
Sometimes I go with my 3-year-old friend, Nicholas, to his gymnastics class, where he walks on a somewhat tall balancing beam. If I hold his hand, as he prefers, it only prevents him from being able to do this on his own.
Confidence develops from within as we are supported, encouraged and set free to try our own wings. Who would not prefer, in some fear-filled corner of his or her mind, to be forever protected from the risk of creative personal & social development? But common sense, natural imperatives and divine revelation direct us toward the far more rewarding goal of actually creating the future for ourselves & for the world. So, then, let the fun continue and re-begin, world without end. Amen!
-- Bill Joyner
Phone (323) 466-2157 / Fax
(323) 466-2150 / email [email protected]
5515 Franklin Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90028
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Love is a rose, but you
better not pick it; --Neil Young Some wonders will remain when comets & planets & suns & worlds move on through regions unknown. Love leads on and never is in doubt. Secure within and without. when two souls meet their lights come together, and a single light emerges from them to feel the universal generations as a sea, and oneself as a wave in it. This is the mystery... --Buber
--BJ
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"What does this little symbol
mean?" some have wondered. I'd like to claim, in true Taoist form, that
it means nothing at all. But, in fact, I did first draw it as symbolic of
a bird in flight encircled somewhat by a circle of necessity. Over the
years, it has opened up in a way that expresses how I'd like the world to
be, safe & experimental, open & free.
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America The Beautiful
Fund |
Kiki Joyner -
Air Borne
Creations |
Funny Times Subscriptions * P.O. Box 18530 Dept. 4AL * Cleveland Heights, OH, 44118
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The Cinema Circus
Movie-Go-Round Bill Joyner |
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968 141 min) - After all these years, it's so gorgeous, so lyrical, a truly magical, everlasting fantasy of flight! It is paced with great elegance & leisure, almost deliberately boring at times, but ever-ascending through familiarity into utter strangeness! Thus are we transported beyond the sleek banality of our futuristic machinery into a realm of mystery and dreams, encountering, at last, our own incomprehensible selves.
