And things change......and they DON"T.....

Its all some sort of mystical mind play...
I'm 150% positive about this!
We CONTEMPLATE.....
and we CONSIDER......
and we hold VERY tightly to the concept of EVOLUTION.....
 and Anthropomorphic Gobbledygook.....
We do YOGA and MEDITATION...
 and  we freaking visit GURUS in the Himalayas...
(Well...I DON'T !!)
But people DO !!
I'm tellin' ya...
And we read and WRITE !! 'self help' books.....
and we eschew ALL things MATERIAL.....
We even MOVE TO NEW JERSEY !!!
for God's sake !!
But.........NOTHING EVER REALLY CHANGES !!!
We are STILL...
All of us....
just some abstract form of MINUTIA and MATTER.....
Sorry, Bros......
It IS what it IS....

Here's the thing though....
Our ACTIONS can STILL play a SIGNIFICANT role in
 EVEN the EXTREME "pseudo-EVOLUTION" of "others"...
Meaning...
 We KNOW what we KNOW.....
 with absolute NON NEGOTIABILITY.......
But even STILL,
we must find a way to navigate through the 'existential' waters of our earthly sojourn...
KNOWING, FULL WELL,
 THAT NOTHING WILL CHANGE !!
(cuz we're SO EXISTENTIAL !!)
Are you following my stream of consciousness on this ??
DOES IT MATTER ??
haha !!
I'll get back to you on this IMPORTANT subject.......

This appears to be consistently true....

Not exactly the "When it rains, it pours" thing....
But along those kind of lines, I guess....
Plenty seems to beget Plenty...
uhhhh....
Abundance tends to group itself with MORE abundance...
What am I saying ??
That you CAN, in point of fact, my friends,.....
HAVE IT ALL....
Every little freakin' bit of it...
With just ONE caveat....
ONE rule to follow,
 in order to KEEP it....
RECOGNIZE "ABUNDANCE" when it shows its face to you...
APPRECIATE it....
and for GOD's sake......
be THANKFUL for it...
This brings to mind that old story about the guy drowning at sea....
He PRAYS and PRAYS for rescue....
and along comes a WHALE with a SADDLE on its back.....
But the guy is SO BUSY praying and lamenting,
that he IGNORES the whale !!!
Then overhead come 2 helicopters....
But the man, true to form, is too "OVERWHELMED" by how dangerous his situation is...
to EVEN NOTICE !!
And FINALLY....
 along comes a sailboat with a captain....
And the captain tries to get the drowning man's attention....
But to NO AVAIL.....
The guy is too busy screaming for help...
And so.....
He drowns....
He goes to heaven, and he runs SMACK into GOD...
and he says,
"GOD !!!   WHY DID YOU LET ME DROWN ???"...
And GOD says, "Listen, DUFUSS...I sent you a WHALE !!!
with a SADDLE ON IT !!!!....."
"I sent you TWO FREAKING HELICOPTERS !!"
"I  EVEN sent you a BOAT WITH A CAPTAIN !!"
You were so busy crying for my help,,,FOOL,
 that you actually missed all of my HELP !!"

Guys...
YOU GET MY DRIFT, right ??

And she had been sucked in....

albeit insidiously........
by the potential for MANIPULATED WHIMSY....
hmmm...
And something behind her eyes...
in that intuitive space.....
in that "knowing" space...
had never been "quite right" with it.....
But, alas....
as "sucking in" usually does......
it held her captive...
a prisoner...
in a jail cell of her own design.....
RED....SMOKY....
not the red of LOVE or PASSION....(well, maybe a 'passion' of sorts!)
But mostly...
a DEBILITATING RED.....
an UNCTUOUS OVERHANG of FLESH and war torn carnage......
All the while, KNOWING.....
And then......MIRACULOUSLY !!!
she was freed......
Just like that !!
The bondage had been severed....castrated....
In its place......
MERCY......
pure, unadulterated MERCY....

I can't, of course, PROVE that God is here...

But I can tell you,
without hesitation....
without caveat.....
that He ALWAYS responds to our prayers....

The key to receiving this response is 'many-fold'....

First and foremost....
(at least in MY experience)...
the request must be grounded in
////REASON////.....
In other words,
'Winning the Lottery' would not be a REASONABLE request....
BUT......
Having enough money to feed your children WOULD.....
This is not to Say that one cannot aspire to "BIG THINGS" happening....
But the "NEED" itself actually seems to become the PRIME issue, I suppose...

I'm not gonna waste your time by telling you that the request has to
""SERVE THE GREATER GOOD""...
Although, having said that,
SERVING THE GREATER GOOD is not the WORST way to go !!
But, lets face it, friends...
WE ARE NOT ALL GHANDI-like.....

Am I rambling ??

The second requisite for having your "prayers answered"...
(I find!)...
is to be SPECIFIC when asking GOD for something...
He doesn't necessarily want to hear all of your lamenting and whining, etc...
(I'm guessing!)
He will listen to the specifics though....
I sound like some evangelical yo yo....
But I SWEAR this is accurate and sound advice....
EMPIRICAL advice even....
BE SPECIFIC....
Prepare your CASE beforehand...

Lastly.....
Go into the prayer and beseechment mode ONLY when you TRULY BELIEVE that you are deserving
of the HONOUR of God's Ear....
This is NOT, in any way, to be construed as advice for "shirking your daily prayers"....
NO !
This is the ICING , so to speak...
This is the EXTRA PRAYER SESSION......

OK ??
Try this.....
Lemme know what happens....
What have you got to lose, right ?

Surrounded by MONSTERS...

There comes a point, my friends.....
when it just isn't freakin' worth it anymore...
And...GUESS WHAT ??
The BACKBONE that you always perceived yourself as possessing inordinate amounts of.....
YOU DIDN'T !!
You just let them walk all over your ass for YEARS....
Make NO mistake !!!
It is what it is, Girlfriend....
But, Here's what......
It changes......TODAY !!
You step OFF the threadbare carpet of your own making......
and onto a TARMAC of NEW, GREEN ASTROTURF.....
and that's THAT....
And guess what ELSE ??
WHO CARES what they THINK?
or SAY ??
or FEEL ?
It is time to move onnnnnnnn.......
Freedom at last.....
Perhaps a few more grey hairs to show for your TIME SERVED.....
But hey....
A little bitta CLAIROL and youre ALL GOOD again....
So long, SUCKAAAs.......

There's a crazy storm outside...

and all I want to do is HIDE....under the covers....
Way far down....
 beneath even the daylight....
in that cozy place where time is irrelevant to the surroundings....
And it most certainly does NOT feel like GOD is CRYING this time....
Not at all....
It feels, rather,  like RAGE....
Do you think that GOD is furious about something ?
And what of the question marks perpetually floating around in our head ?
The worries ?
The angsty meandering ?
Will these ever REALLY be resolved ?
...be put to rest ?
Is there a point at which one just KNOWS ?
when WONDERING ceases to be a REGULAR EXERCISE  on the daily itinerary ?
Is AGENDA a word with DUAL MEANING ?
Will Starbucks eventually open a BURGER KIOSK ??
"HEART BUCKS" !!
NO......
HEART DISEASE bucks !!
lol
These are just a smattering of the kinds of minutia and basic chazerai (Yiddish) that fill space in
 the mind of the woman seated beneath the OBSOLETE PALM TREE......
in the SUEZ.....
SHE, to her extreme humiliation and indubitable regret.,
 voted for OBAMA....
Well...."You live and learn", she continued thinking, in an attempt to assuage the pain.....
And she slurped HARD on her runny, sunny-side-up  EGGS.....

And in the atmosphere...

there was the unmistakable essence of camaraderie...
just a mere suggestion of  simpatico....
of empathy..
And for those few moments, her world stood still...
silent....
and the  ever-twirling and whirling and overwhelming debris...
actually seemed to disappear....
"In its place?", you ask ?
Green tundra....
organic....solid....consistent....
a veritable football field of green....
a HEALING GREEN....
life force....
And she thought.....for just a second.....
that she heard the sound of a woman 'chanting'....
accompanied by a HARP.....
Chanting beautifully....eerily even...
But all she could really see....
 was the green of the field....
Suddenly !!!!
there appeared a Basket of some sort....
on a table covered with a WHITE cloth....
In the basket....
a POMEGRANATE....
the mystical symbol of FERTILITY....
The harp became louder....GORGEOUS MUSIC.....beckoning...
and then she awakened.....
just in time to prepare for Shabbat......