Sorting It Out, by Pat Gourley

On seeing this topic for today’s Story Telling Group the first thing that popped into my head was how often I hear the word “sorted” spoken on the several English and occasionally Australian shows, often murder mysteries, I watch on Netflix.  I was left to wonder if the phrase “sorting it out” is just not the American version.

Checking the Urban Dictionary, the number one definition for “sorted” was using it in reference to be completing a task or an idea. For example, I have got it “sorted” mate or will you “sort” that for me mate. I must say I much prefer hearing “sort or sorted” in an English accent than I do the mundane mid-western American version: “I’ll sort that out for you”.

There are also many other, some much more colorful, definitions of “sorted” that are apparently part of British slang. For example, it can mean to be under the influence of Ecstasy or that one’s class A recreational drugs have arrived or perhaps my favorite usage getting fucked up but not to the point of blacking out. I am sorted!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Sorted

I will now make a sharp left turn and return to the specific phrase “sorting it out” and how this may have relevance in my current life. Though I am relatively comfortable with my lack of belief in a god or gods, which I guess, makes me an atheist, I do at times get a bit squishy with this world-view and fall back on maybe being an agnostic. The word agnostic conjures up a phrase used by the Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn “Only Don’t Know”. His use was, I am sure, more sophisticated than my superficial view around whether or not there is a god, but I can honestly say when pondering the Universe and how the hell we all got here I really “only don’t know”.

To be very honest though I am still sorting this “god-thing” out. Oh, I have absolutely no problem throwing out the overwhelming mythical teachings of all the world’s great monotheistic religions, Hinduism and even much from certain Buddhist schools. In hindsight it was harder to give up a belief in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny than it was to jettison many of the tenets of the Catholic Religion I was indoctrinated in.

Those original questions Harry Hay used in helping to challenge and flesh-out our queer identity, that of our being a real cultural minority he believed, seem pertinent for me today in “sorting it out”: Who are we, where did we come from, and what are we for.

Questions it seems that can easily be expanded beyond just coming to grips with and adding meaning and substance to being gay.

Which brings me to why I am reading two books currently. Both are by men who have been intellectual, and dare I say Spiritual, influences on me over the years.  These are authors I have read seeking answers on this whole supreme-being thing or a more sophisticated question perhaps being: Is evolution, not only of life on earth but of the ever-expanding Universe as a whole, really spirit in action and what the hell are the implications of that, for me of course.

The first book is by Stephen Batchelor and is titled Secular Buddhism – Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World (Stephen is also the author of Buddhism Without Beliefs and Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist among others) and the second is The Religion of Tomorrow by Ken Wilber. Wilber’s book clocks in at 806 pages with relatively small print and no pictures. So, if this tome provides guidance for me in “sorting it out” don’t expect an update for probably at least six months and most likely much longer.

Actually, I am most likely reading both of these books because I am just a lazy fuck looking for a short cut - an answer to the question of what is our true nature and that of the whole amazing Universe. Both Wilber and Batchelor have decades of very disciplined meditative practice informing and guiding their views. I on the other hand have spent more cushion time than the average bear but in comparison to these two guys my effort is like a single grain of sand on the beach. All of this reading of course may well be folly if I am not willing to do the work. I wonder sometimes what is ‘faith’ really but a con foisted on folks i.e. no need to do the work just accept our word for it and it will all be fine.

“Stay tuned to this space.” -- Rachel Maddow

© 8 May 2017 

About the Author 

I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

Angels, Santa Claus, and Fairies by Lewis

In 1897, Francis P. Church, newspaper editor, wrote the following to an 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon in response to her letter wanting to know if there really was a Santa Claus.  It seems one or more of her friends had told her no such "person" existed.  His words have become classic:

Virginia, your little friends are wrong.  They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age.  They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.  All minds, Virginia, whether they be [adults] or children's are little.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus!  It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.  There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.  We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and light.  The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus!  You might as well not believe in fairies!...The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor [adults] can see.  Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn?  Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest [adult]...that ever lived could tear apart.  Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view...the beauty and glory beyond.  Is it all real?  Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else so real and abiding.

No Santa Claus!  Thank God, he lives and he lives forever.  A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

I suspect that much of Frank Church's prose went right over young Virginia's head.  It likely was written with an eye to newspaper sales more than a child's enlightenment.  But it apparently touched the hearts of many parents of the late 19th Century--at least, those belonging to what we now call "upper middle-class white America". 

But there were a number of Americas then, just as there are now.  There were the wealthy Industrialists such as the Rockefellers and the Mellons and the Carnegies.  It was the time of robber barons, Reconstruction, and child labor.  For thousands, if not millions of children, there were no newspapers in the household and they likely could not read them if there were.  There also were almost certainly no presents under the Christmas tree (if there were such a thing) in their living rooms.  For them, Frank Church's promise was as illusory as the fairy on the front lawn or a front lawn itself.

Essentially, I believe that Santa Claus, angels, and fairies (the ethereal kind) are conjured up out of a very human need for deliverance and salvation.  Santa Claus "delivers" in a simplistic, materialistic way on Christmas Eve.  He reminds us that we are worthy of love because we receive the material things we hope for, things that will "gladden our heart".

According to Wikipedia, angels in the Abrahamic tradition "are often depicted as benevolent celestial beings who act as intermediaries between heaven and earth or as guardian spirits or a guiding influence".  I will take the liberty of casting them in the role of bringing "heavenly gifts" to God's children--a Santa Claus for the post-adolescent set. 

But what do they have in their bag of treats?  Not material things, of that I'm certain.  Perhaps a soupcon of salvation, a lotion of love, a fountain of forgiveness?  Fyodor Dostoyevsky has said, "For a [person], all resurrection, all salvation, from whatever perdition, lies in love; in fact, it is [our] only way to it".

Every gift under every tree this Christmas is there as a representation of the love of one human being for another.  They are the product of the human hands which make them and others that wrap them and place them there, given from one human being to another out of love.   Neither Santa Claus nor angels has a role to play.  Each of us has the capacity both to give and receive the fruits of love.  This is a very liberating concept--one which does not depend upon fantasy or hope alone. 

The only salvation that matters is the one in this life and for that I have all the gifts that I need.  I have only to listen to Pavarotti sing Puccini's Nessun Dorma or Judy Collins Someday Soon or Paul McCartney It's a Long and Winding Road to hear the voice of Gabriel.  I have only to feel a friends' arm around me to brush against the Divine.  Standing at the foot of the Giant Redwoods and glancing up at the sky, I know all of Nature is a Cathedral.  Gazing up at Michelangelo's David, I see in my own humanity evolution's greatest gift.  What temptation could Angel or Santa Claus possibly offer me now?

© 15 December 2014 

About the Author 

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn't getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.

Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband's home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

Mushrooms by Ricky

          Why are mushrooms and children so different yet still in the same Kingdom?  Why are children and mushrooms so alike but not in the same Phylum?  Does it really matter?  Yes, it does.

Similarity #1:  Mushrooms are Fungi which thrive in dark and damp places often sticking their heads up into the sunlight to examine the world above the soil and to scatter their spore.  Kids stay in the shadow of their parents, then ever so slowly peer or venture out into the world beyond their home seeking greater light and knowledge.  Adolescent male children prematurely scatter their “spore”.

          Similarity #2:  Mushrooms feed upon smelly decomposing organic compounds predominantly in the dark.  Children are kept “in the dark” about many things and accuse their parents of feeding them smelly decomposing organic compounds.  Yet some parents do “feed” their children’s minds a steady diet of “BS”, by continually espousing concepts of bigotry, hate, and homophobia.

Parents unwisely keep their children “in the dark” to protect them from information which theoretically might hurt or damage the child or which is too embarrassing for the parent to talk about.  Not talking about sexual matters early enough, but waiting until the child has already obtained a rudimentary knowledge which is often wrong and incomplete is not good for the child.  Thus, a child who feels “different” for some reason has no one with which to discuss their feelings, because the parent has closed or not opened the door to such information or discussion.  This has a disastrous impact on the child’s mental health, life, and is hazardous to their adult future.

Parents often struggle with and wonder why their children don’t remain active in the parent’s church in which the children have been raised since birth.  I suspect that years of lying and supporting the myths of Santa Claus and Elves, the egg-laying Easter Bunny, the Sand Man, Frosty the Snowman, and the Boogeyman finally carried over to the stories of Jesus.

Parents keep forgetting that children are NOT STUPID.  They are smart, cunning, and bear considerable watching.  Continually lying to them, even if it is a white lie like Santa Claus is not setting a good example.  There must be a discussion early on in a child’s life of the difference between a fictional Santa and a real Jesus – a wise parent will ponder and prepare for that discussion very carefully or be forced to admit that they don’t know if Jesus is or was real.

Difference #1:  Mushrooms are Fungi.  Children are not Fungi.

Difference #2:  People eat mushrooms for flavor or recreational purposes.  Mushrooms only eat people after the coffin is sealed, and often for the same reasons.

One day at our dinner table, we were eating spaghetti with the sauce provided by a jar of Prego.  This particular version of Prego contained small pieces of mushrooms.  Partway through the meal, my oldest daughter (7) proudly announced to everyone that in school she had learned that mushrooms are poisonous and she would not eat them anymore.  Instantly, her sister (5) and brother (3) stated that they would not eat them either.  No matter how their mother and I explained only some mushrooms were poisonous and they had been eating mushrooms in the spaghetti sauce their whole lives and not died; no argument or fact could or ever did change their minds or behavior.  Sometimes, children really can be less smart than a parent wants to believe.

What is the point?  The two questions that opened the mushroom memory story are totally irrelevant to my point except as a literary device to get you to read this post.  The question of “does it really matter” is important.  It matters because too many youths are still killing themselves over sexual orientation bullying and parental homophobia.  THIS MUST STOP!!!  Open and honest dialog between parent and child must begin before age 5 and continue throughout their lives.

So called Christian ministers who preach hatred and homophobic sermons ARE NOT CHRISTIANS and should be discharged and shunned until they repent and teach correct Christian doctrine.  In my opinion, these ministers could be prosecuted for some form of “breach of the peace” or “inciting violence”.  They definitely are causing discord and not preaching Jesus’ Gospel of love and harmony.

I am someone who believes that every life matters.  Every youth suicide represents a lost national treasure.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

– Poet John Donnes, 1624.

© 8 December 2013 

About the Author  

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.