Images from a fractured mind Part 2 5/8

I went to church today, Sunday mass in Vietnamese.  It has been a very long time since I walked into a church, even longer since I actually attended a mass.  It’s not that I don’t believe, it’s just that I seem lost, having faith in nothing anymore.  I was born and raised Catholic; grade school, high school, even college. Several years ago I left the hypocrisy to search for the truth and found that the truth, many times was much harder to accept.  It is at that moment that I found that in my searching for answers to questions that I didn’t even know, is where I found (for the first time) my faith. I left the mass, not with the feeling that the ‘holy spirit’ has refilled my soul, rather, I felt sad and abandoned.  I saw two beggars at either side of the church gate as I left the grand Notre’ Dam Cathedral in Saigon.  I looked at them both and handed the one to the left 20,000 Dong and nothing to the man on the right.  I said nothing, didn’t look down and did not even turn around as the man’s weak frail hand, on the right, tugged at my pants leg saying something in Vietnamese. As I walked away, I thought to myself, and to whatever Deity was listening at that moment to my thoughts, What about him?  I could still feel him tugging at my pants leg a block later.  Will his brother share with him or will he keep it for himself. Did I just choose who would be saved and who would not or am I just testing man's station in life? I give to one to see if he gives or keeps my generosity. I wonder if the one who is left with nothing will accept his fate or will he fight to take from the other.  These thoughts run through my mind as I shake off the feeling of the beggars’ hand from my pants leg, now three blocks away,  as I am now filled with some sort of strange sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in creating conflict and chaos.  As I get back to my hotel, I take a seat in the Eames chare kick up my feet and look out the 16^th floor window on the church that I had just left, as I ponder the results of the seeds I just planted.

Who am I? Why doesn’t this bother me? 20 minutes ago I was sitting on a wooden bench at the corner of the Alter looking at the iconic statue of Mary ‘The Mother of God’ with a tear building up in my eye saying to myself “I miss my mother” and now I sit here in the 1500 dollar leather Eames chair in my executive suite safe from the dirt and noise and the unwashed without a care.  As I sink into the security of the leather chair watching the daylight fade to red, then purple and eventually black, I think to myself, well god, you created me, don’t ask me to apologize.  I am everything you made me to be, in your likeness and all that catechism crap.  Don’t blame me or judge me because I can manipulate the system. It takes balance to exist in this life, which means all good must be balanced with evil. One cannot appreciate ‘light’ if there is never ‘dark’.  It seems that within my own existence, my own internal psyche, I have created balance. So my dear friend, God, Allah, Yahweh, Brahma, Buddha, Ilbis, whatever you choose, you created me, you made the dark to balance the light, now accept it, I certainly have.  I think what bothers you, is that I know.  So where do we go from here? I use you and you use me, it’s a sick symbiotic relationship that cannot exist any other way.

images from a fractured mind Part 2 1/3

Is this Life? Is this what it’s all about; Sitting under a soot covered umbrella alone, yet surrounded by people, in the rain, on a concrete bench, waiting for the rain to come, only to be disappointed once again?  So I pick up my bag and start walking to my next meeting, I get about half way down the street and a huge crash of thunder opens up the sky and nothing short of the biblical Noah’s flood unleashes upon the city, as if God was mocking me as I try to gain shelter under a small vine covered trellis along the sidewalk. I am consumed by the surreal nature of what is unfolding in front of my eyes.  Noone is slowing down, bicycles, motorcycles riders alike reach for their ponchos and slip them over their heads without the slightest care or concern in the world.  The honking continues and the noise from the street is challenging the thunder claps from the belly laughing of God at his latest practical joke. Here I am in this foreign land isolated not so much by language, but by the cage that I have contained myself within, protecting me from the visitors that patron the zoo that is my life, or is it them that I am protecting from me?

This couldn’t happen while he was under the dry sanctuary of the multi- colored umbrella, that wouldn’t have been anywhere near as funny”, He says to Siddhartha, as they roll on the floor of  Ashoka blossoms holding their belly’s laughing. 

I look up into the black clouds as I here God and his pals getting a good laugh, “enough” I  say quite audibly, “you think this is funny? Get a load of this!” and headed out down the street as if it was a sunny summer day.  I walked straight across Nguyen Dinh Chieu with thousands of motorcycles honking their horns at me swerving to avoid running into me on the busy wet street.  I get the other side and make a b-line for Truong Dinh, and smile at the locals, who stared at me as if I was completely out of my mind; I said to them, “you see He needs me, so I’m not worried” and went along my merry way. 

“Well, I have to admit, I didn’t see that one coming, that just took all the fun out of it”, He said to Vishnu, “I think he is finally ready”, said Iblis.  “I’m not sure just yet”, He said, “let’s just wait and see a little more.”