Pursuing The Right: Inside this Week’s Urantian Sojourn Magazine

Oooh you’re so jaded! Not the neocon “right,” you silly jelly beans, but the real “Right,” as in the Right Stuff.~ This week’s headliners tell the story of real love between the Obamas, the kind of love that we all search for; real love, given freely, without conditions. The Love that “conquereth all.”

Forever in contrast, the purveyors of hate in all its forms will one day disappear like dew before the sun, but until then, they should be exposed to the growing light of a new day dawning; the dawning of The Right Stuff. As the World Court War Crimes tribunal began deliberations, George W. Bush began groveling for leniency by spilling his guts about Darth Cheney’s evil plans for subjugation of the world. Cheney’s already famous quip, “I don’t recall doing evil” is just a portent of the unprecedented trial which continues to produce new indictments nearly every week. And don’t miss Angelina Jolie’s remarkably persuasive entreaty for summary execution of all public officials who betray the public trust, and her powerful call to recognize social and political disloyalty as being the most heinous of all crimes.

Rush Limbaugh, the man Ronald Reagan once called “the Number One voice for conservatism in our Country,” began serving a federal prison term for incitement to riot at the Democratic Convention of 2008. A grateful nation has welcomed his self-imposed “vow of silence” pending his “vindication of all wrong-doing” through the appeals process. You go, girlfriend.

Meanwhile, John McCain, already stumbling around the rapidly shrinking neocon talking head circuit fresh from divorce court, was blathering on in Dingus, Missouri this past week, where a trio of POWs handing him both sides of his own lying ass. A must read.

Even before the dust had settled from Obama’s landslide victory, the implosion of the GOP was a fait accompli, as Bill Krystal knowingly mused, “The pie will not go back in the pan.” The end of the two-party stranglehold on American politics just may be the biggest change wrought yet by the Obama revolution; get the big picture with our special report.

Until next week. . .

Surrendering To Love

YOU HAVE UNDERTAKEN THE GREAT ADVENTURE of becoming sons of God, and you have to go through a sort of untangling to reach this place of communion and awareness. Be assured that your sole duty is to go within and dissolve by releasing the outer entanglements, to surrender appetites and forebodings.

The question of appetites is different for each one, both physical and mental; nor must there be resentment and the old sense of duty in the surrender; it is rather permitting a joyful conviction to grow that there is something infinitely more satisfying.

Of course thee will be conflicts. Who isn’t familiar with the reasonable— very reasonable— arguments that come rushing to justify the very human desires of the mind and body? The must be met with as much gentleness toward yourself as you would meet them when trying to help another, otherwise your instant rebellion will obstruct and delay you.

But in the true spirit of surrender, the giving up of everything that has become a burden is little effort and the reward is instant; all things in this state work for your good. And not the old idea of good which was a scourge; but the “goodness which is a rapture.”

Let your heart be at peace in this serene and healing place, for here the Christ will refresh you, here he will lift the heavy burden from your minds and in your hearts he will breathe renewed joy and quietude. Have faith in practice.

In spite of the teachings of Jesus we have been taught to hate evil, but that only justifies the more our complete satisfaction in criticism. In such emotional criticism of our friends and enemies we appear better people to ourselves. It is not the way.

Instead of freedom, we bind the consequences of poisonous hates and resentments to ourselves. We can turn from abstract evil without harm and with a sense of human righteousness. But the human does not hate evil disincarnate, he hates it in a person. Then we ask, “How can I love my enemies?” It would be plain hypocrisy to say we can, or must, do this in the ordinary sense of the word. But the true meaning will appear to you when we say that the outer you cannot love the outer you of another who lives and has his being in the ancient darkness of the race.

Instead, come within and while abiding in the conscious oneness with your inner self see and bless with understanding the inner you of that enemy whose outer you is struggling with the dark jungles of his journey, and by thus releasing him, forgiving him, giving him over, you help him on his way. This is loving your enemy, this is the brotherhood of man. And there is no sentimentality about it; for only by abiding in the Indwelling Spirit can you have this so-called human wisdom as well as the divine wisdom to deal with him according to his needs as well as your own.

You may have to put him in prison, but watch your heart in the matter, for out of it are the issues of life! In times of fierce antagonism realize that the enemy is angry thought; fill yourself, without thought of any person, with a sense of infinite love and peace, for thus are the negative things confounded and a table will be set before you in the presence of your enemies.

Give freely of the Spirit and judge not; be longsuffering and patient, for when you are kind with the kindness of the Spirit to those who are unregenerate, the act frees your own unregeneracy as well. Blessed is he that sees and understands and forgives. Forgive and be forgiven the trespasses, the darknesses, the things negative which terrify. They are forgotten in this high clear stillness. Love conquereth all things.

Restated from Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood • 1948

• • •

The hope of a better nation— a better world—
is bound up in the progress and enlightenment of the individual.

• • •

Yep, Chimpy stopped by our office today. The hardcore software geeks have their own communal cell near the center of the campus circles. I was almost finished painting a mural on the last wall of their cube farm, one of four twenty foot tall stucco constraints with no windows; at least the poor bastards would now have something beautiful to stare at while they longed to be anywhere else but work.

What was really strange about his visit, besides being totally unannounced, was the fact it was sans Secret Service goons; maybe they were in the cafeteria fucking off with the coffee cake. And he was wearing some goddamned silly-assed NASA flight suit getup, so he looked even more like an imbecile than he usually does.

Bush insisted on a group photo— “fur when history vindicates me.” Naturally, we obliged him.

I had a little forced one-to-one time with him. Since no one in the office even looked up when he walked in, he wandered over to the coffee station where I was gettin’ my joe on. It was awkward— one, because he had a fuggin’ toothpick in his mouth, which he kept tonguing from one side of his mouth to the other, and two, everyone in the office stopped and turned to watch what would happen when he got in my personal space.

Then, it was like someone flipped a forgotten switch in a long dark hallway, and his little weasel windows bore into me like I imagined the Great Satan’s might be able to.

“How’s teh java?” he said, avoiding eye contact. I took a long sip and said, “You’re not gonna like it.” He gave one of those classic Jon Stewart “Heh heh hehs,” and reached for a cup. Since he’d caught me with my flask out, I tilted it his way; both his eyebrows did a little simultaneous hop and he thrust his cup forward with an emphatic, “Helll yes.”

I poured a good jigger in, but he gestured for another. “Be my guest,” I muttered, and handed it over; he held it inverted over his cup until a drop formed that refused to fall. “How ’bout a little coffee with that,” I suggested, barely concealing my annoyance with his boorish flash of lushitude.

Another “Heh heh heh” followed another “Helll yes.”

He looked me up and down as he returned the empty flask, and said, “So whutur you, teh resident hippie?” Another chuckle got past his toothpick. Collecting myself with another draught of morning mud, I ventured, “You know, I’ve always wanted to ask you— “What do you think you’ll say with your last breath?”

He swallowed a good third more of his beverage, and turned to acknowledge the software geeks by raising his cup in a mock toast to them. They just stared, motionless. He turned back to me and remarked, “They don’t say too much, do they. I like that.”

Then, it was like someone flipped a forgotten switch in a long dark hallway, and his little weasel windows bore into me like I imagined the Great Satan’s might be able to.

“You probably b’lieve in good and evil, don’tcha hippie guy. Well I do too. But then, then ya got yur evil in yur good, and ya got yur good in yur evil; know wudda mean? There was no pause for me to answer. “But then ya got yur no bad good, and ya got yur no good bad; and there ain’t no good good, and no bad bad— see? He took another long suck on his boozalotte, and, his head cocked to one side, he continued.

“Now— teh good man thinks of teh Devil, and teh evil man thinks a lot about teh God. But if ya think yur thoughts right between teh two ya know— then ya know there’s a day teh be evil, and a day teh be good; so, when ya wake up in the mornin’, ya ask yurself, ‘Who’s day’s it gonna be tehday? Is it teh God’s day, or is it teh Devil’s day?”

His brow suddenly unfurled and he looked really pleased with himself, as if he had just successfully arm-wrestled some enormous cosmic truth down from a lofty heavenly rampart, and was revealing it on the white house lawn for the whole world to revel in. It was then I realized that was all he had to say.

I looked at him as it settled over me like a giant cloud of methane flatulence, that he was totally rat-shit fucking insane. And probably a little drunk, too.

Lots of things raced through my mind, like he never answered my question, like he never even heard it. Like, this man has the blood of many hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children on his hands, and he talks about “teh God” and “teh Devil” as if he were talking about two ordinary shits like Hannity and Colmes. Like, he’s already soul destroyed and spiritually dead, only his body doesn’t know it yet. Like, I’on’t even know.

“Teh God and teh Devil”

I took another drink of coffee as a wave of compassion washed over me in the exact same way a wave of nausea would; Bush had whirled around and was headed over to the locked utility closet, no doubt thinking it was the exit.

I went back to work.

TRAITOR Dick

Belated apologies to Dick Bain, and all other Dicks everywhere. Everyone named Dick should not have to be identified with war criminal Dick Cheney. Henceforth this portrait will be known as “TRAITOR Dick.” My apologies for any unintentional smearing of your good name; same goes for all the other swinging Dicks out there.