I am Jewish by proxy. I am a Christian because I know Jesus. He knows me. I am most definitely Muslim. The only religious instruction I received as a boy was meeting up with my best pal Darius whose mother was a slight Irish-American woman who married a tall, beautiful man from Persia or Iran as that land is now called. He was never in the picture. I think I am certain I met him only once and then I never met him again.

I suppose I will never know the entire story of what was obviously an ironic & paradoxical match, much like the match between a poor deep south Delta Mississippi orphaned man and a woman born and bred in Hell’s kitchen, NYC. Such were my parents. That man too, I hardly knew at all. I am thankful that my mother had the balls to leave him when she did. I was only five and my baby sister was two. But my older brothers, three of them, now all gone from this earth and my eldest sister, who was also in that first wave of children, suffered immense pain because a soldier who wields a rifle for his country from WW II to Vietnam with great honor does not necessarily make a good father. Be armed and forewarned.

Darius went to Muslim school. That is what he called it. I would follow him from time to time and he would relate to me some of what he had learned. It was very much like pulling teeth but I was a trooper who never gave up much as I am today. I learned about the poetry of the KORAN. I learned that Muhammad was a friend of Jesus and they in turn shared their friends with each other and all the world just because that’s the kind of sons they are.

In my early years as an emancipated minor I studied & graduated from Laguna Beach High School. There was a professor there who taught us who was a Rabbi. From him I learned that every land has it’s own wisdom.

Buddha is a great friend of mine. He is always smiling whether it rains tears of blood or the sky goes on in a cobalt blue hue forever and ever. I dress him up sometimes in drag. I snap photos of my mad creations then I make digital art out of them. He doesn’t mind at all. He is happy to be of service regardless my whimsy.

I know another god who lives secretly out in the open. This one is everywhere and in everything. I can’t say enough about how beautiful this god is … who can be still and not marvel in wonder?

I wish for you to understand that there is nothing that separates us from each other but illusion. I wish for you to know that all life is sacred. There is much that cannot be explained in our language but that is not a prerequisite to entering the door of our birthright. The sages say that birthright is to know joy forever.

We may face trials that will truly push us to our limits and sometimes over the rainbow and into a void of nothingness, but in a strange yet wonderful land called truth & faith & love there is a place at the table for you & me. There is no division. There are no arguments at all. There is only a sense of pure joy. That you know this to be true is my wish for you.

04/13/2016

Posted on 04/13/2016
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