taking refuge in all the wrong places

 

There’s little fun anywhere these days. The whole world is up tight.

 

It’s the perfect atmosphere to produce teen-age alcoholics and druggies. It’s amazing the ingenuity of kids to find new ways of getting high. The world is in such a mess, a retreat from it makes sense to many kids.

 

But everyone knows a retreat into booze and drugs is no answer at all. It’s the prelude to suicide to an ever-increasing number of lost kids.

 

America – the leader in world violence

 

The final strokes of this gloomy scene is the violence that abounds in America. We have a violent mentality. What appears on the screens we watch – big and small – is there because violence is what’s in our hearts.

 

The sad fact of the matter is: America is the leader in world violence! Yet our leaders routinely are among the first to call Arabs bloodthirsty monsters!

America routinely kills more people every year than all the Arab nations put together! Just in abortions alone! Hello!

 

elephants? giraffes?

 

“Oh, a fetus is not a living person!” Even our highest court, with all of its brilliant minds, agrees with that fancy footwork. What inhabits the wombs of America? Elephants? Giraffes?

 

It’s safer to be enclosed within the womb of a whale these days! I find it hard to believe that we can cry out “Save the whales!” and in the same breath exclaim, “Moms have the right to kill their babies.”

 

Sure enough, moms do have the right to kill their babies. All of us were created free to do anything we want – whether it’s reasonable or unreasonable – whether it’s good or bad. But that’s not to say we can get away with doing anything – and not having it backfire on us.

 

If we choose not to observe the operational laws of the universe, we will be the losers every time. We can’t blame our sicknesses and unfortunate happenings on anybody except ourselves. We were warned – by our built-in dashboard warning lights.

 

 

 

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abortion – the fiasco that finally arrived

 

Abortion was a fiasco a long time in coming, but it finally arrived. Our violent mentality allowed it to happen. We can decry Hitler’s Holocaust with all of its ovens, while we allow our wombs, designed to be the safest places in the whole wide world, to become ovens of death for little ones looking forward to life!

 

congratulating the youth of America

 

Any young person who simply makes it through high school halfway intact

is to be congratulated! It’s an achievement of monumental proportions! What do we have as a graduation present?

 

a really neat graduation present- -YUK!

 

Wowie! We can offer a grad a free college education. All s/he has to do is sign up for another stretch of imprisonment!

 

Think of it: the chance to pick an area of military service most appealing to you. At the same time you can earn college credits – so you won’t be a zero!

 

You can be a world traveler! Paris! Hawaii! The Alps!

 

Has there ever been a recruiter who added “…. unless, of course, you get your head blown off in Iraq! But if that happens, we’ll give you a decent burial in Arlington Cemetery with full honors, and we’ll even give your loved ones a neatly folded flag as a memento of the occasion!”

 

a most solemn, heartfelt personal sharing

 

At this point I feel compelled to share some very personal things with you,

lest there be any misunderstanding. First, I have just mentioned military funerals with full honors. There is hardly anything that grips my heart more than one of these. I honor every American young man and woman who has received full honors posthumously.

 

America honoring its fallen heroes as best as she knows how

 

I also honor my country for the way in which she honors her fallen heroes. It doesn’t start at the graveside. It goes all the way back to when a slain soldier was gathered up by buddies with tear-streaked faces and carried to a

 

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place where the body would no more be subjected to trauma and indignities. I write this section with eyes full of tears!

 

It continues as the body is washed and cleaned as tenderly as when the mother who bore it so happily cared for it. Then loving hands prepare it for burial. The body is respected every bit as much as when its departed spirit still occupied it.

 

It is redressed in full-dress uniform with every detailed attended to as if the fallen one were alive and would soon be standing at attention to be inspected by the CO. Then it is gently placed in a casket, but not before it is saluted by all present.

 

the long flight home

 

Then the funeral procession begins, often covering thousands of miles – through the air. The body is not left alone like baggage in a cargo hold. It is never out of the presence of those who love and respect it.

 

a sad welcome

 

At the airport, it is carried off the plane, its casket carefully draped in Old Glory. If possible loved ones are on hand to greet the fallen loved one.

 

a neatly folded flag

 

At the gravesite, the honor and respect accorded the soldier is not one degree less than if the casket contained the body of the President. The number of shots fired by the honor guard is not to be construed as indicating the one buried after more volleys was more important.

 

The most moving moments of all are when the Honor Guard, the pall-bearers, carefully folds the flag in a most solemn, unrushed way. Then the captain of the guard marches it to where a mother, father, wife, or husband is sitting. Reverently the captain bows before the person, and gently places it in waiting, trembling hands.

 

I respect all this. It is far more than pomp and circumstance. It is the entire nation being at the graveside to grieve with the loved ones – to mingle tears – to embrace, hold closely, and comfort as best she can.

 

Ellie’s son on honor guard

 

This all is very close to me. My youngest son, my baby, is career army, and

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served two tours of duty on the West Point Honor Guard, whose main function was to conduct military funerals up and down the eastern part of our country – mostly of young women and men killed in Iraq.

 

Such duty is hardly easy. It is most demanding. I am proud of my son Jim. I am proud of his slain comrades. I am proud of America for its way of honoring its fallen heroes.

 

Nonetheless, I am committed to see an end to this. There will be and end to it – in conformity with how our Heavenly Mother/Father designed life on Planet Earth to be – at full peace – with war extinguished for good.

 

my dad’s involvement in military funerals

 

My dad served in both World War I and II, a fairly rare occurrence. In WWII he was an army chaplain. In the last training exercise before shipping out to the South Pacific – one held with live ammunition and explosives – a land mine exploded beside him. The concussion damaged one of his eyes; he lost most of his sight in it.

 

After six months in the hospital with his eye not responding to treatment, the army retired him. Back in civilian life, he rejoined the Disabled American Veterans, which he had been a member of due to being disabled in WWI while serving in the navy.

 

He become the State Chaplain of the DAV in Massachusetts and served in that capacity for many years. In that role he conducted a multitude of military funerals for members of the DAV who died.

 

close ties to service personnel

 

Woody, my sister’s husband, whom I idolized, was the coxswain of a landing craft in the South Pacific and lived through many engagements. We’re still close.

 

A grand-nephew, Matt, served a tour of duty in Iraq in the Military Police. A grandson, Peter, has recently joined the army to be an MP.

 

Eliot’s aborted career as a Marine Corps officer

 

During the Korean War my inbred patriotism led me to apply for OCS in the Marine Corps. I was sworn in with a number of others. Two weeks later I received the disappointing news that I was rejected.

 

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In junior high school I had come down with asthma. By getting shots three times a week all through my high school years, I considered myself completely cured. But checking off “asthma” on my medical history brought my career to a screeching halt! Was I ever pissed at my honesty!

 

saying all that to say this

 

Like most Americans, patriotism runs in my blood – along with violence! As a boy growing up in the days of WWII, I played army regularly with my buddies. As young boys we played cowboys and Indians. Naturally we all wanted to be cowboys or American fighting men. Our “enemies” were the Indians (excluding Tonto, of course), Germans, and Japanese.

 

It wasn’t hard for me to have hatred for the Japs. My dad’s father, a citizen of the Philippines, was beheaded by a Japanese soldier in the frightful Bataan Death March.

 

Hatred and love for war were not taught in my home, church, or schools I attended. Nonetheless, these things insidiously found their way into my psyche. I loved war movies and I cheered loudly whenever enemy soldiers were shot or blown to pieces by a bomb or shell.

 

my part in screwing up the universe

 

Little did I know I was having a part in screwing up the universe! Little did I know that I was having a hand in making life tough for myself and others. It was because of people like me that the stupid war is still raging in Iraq with frequently hundreds being killed each day. Having the best of intentions does not keep ignorance from doing its dirty work.

 

Americans a needy bunch

 

We Americans think so many things are cut and dried issues: we need this and that and ten thousand other things. We need: public schools; some kind of religious faith; government; rules and regulations; laws and people to enforce them.

 

We need to fight for freedom and justice; uphold democracy; get old. In our old age we need to start falling apart at the seems; to accept sickness as a human reality; to buy all kinds of insurance

 

We need to write a will; get our affairs in orders if we sense our demise is immanent; we need to plan our funeral; and finally, we need to die.

 

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required courses

 

Most of these things we learn incidentally as we attend school and colleges. We learn these things outside of school too – so were doubly indoctrinated – a better word is “brainwashed.”

 

There are certain courses that are required, depending on what a student plans to do with her/his life. Of course if you want to make anything of yourself, you will have to be a college graduate.

 

I had to take Latin and French along with several other miserable courses because it was assumed I was heading for college. My head was painfully crammed with a lot of knowledge. Gee, I’m sure glad I took Latin! What would I ever have done without it! And algebra, geometry, physics, and chemistry!

 

needed to sing and to write about freedom and happiness?

 

If I had missed the whole bunch, I think I could still sing on the streets of P’Town, and write all the stuff I have written, and am writing.

 

Maybe it would have changed my entire attitude toward schooling if a realistic course on sex had been offered, especially if taught by the likes of my fourth grade teacher – Miss White, a hot, yummy-looking chick.

 

But the best I got from her were penmanship exercises. I have lousy handwriting, probably because I was studying her more than being concerned about O’s and / ‘s. And then there was that girl that was built like a brick shithouse – even in the 4^{th grade!}

 

I’m sure thankful my new life as Ellie (with Eliot!) is more than making up for all the silly stuff at school.

 

real necessary stuff for kids to learn in school

 

A simple course informing kids of the nine operational laws of the universe would be real neat. Since these laws are discovered through the use of our common sense, this would be right up kids’ alleys. I’m sure they’d grasp the laws quicker than most adults.

 

eradicating sexual ignorance

 

Ignorance in the area of sex causes huge problems. Serial-killers of females could have been intercepted before their ignorance caused horrific crimes.

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Young people who are left to figure out their sexuality all by themselves can go down a track that leads to mayhem.

 

A question was settled for me once and for all by using my common sense – i.e. making an observation of a common everyday thing and drawing a conclusion from it. When I transformed myself into Ellie, I thought I was saying goodbye to Eliot forever.

 

Not merely “goodbye”, but “good riddance, you asshole.” I was “gonna wash that man right out of my hair!”

 

More than that, I was going to bury him alive. Well, it didn’t take too long to realize how nutty that was – especially when I looked in my mirror and saw his cock dangling between my gorgeous legs day after day.

 

locker room blues

 

As Eliot, I despised my cock. It was tiny compared to the majority of guys I knew. I hated getting undressed in the boys locker room where guys roamed around thinking nothing of letting their dicks hang out in pain view.

 

different all around

 

Not me. I kept my back to them and rigidly faced my locker. The very thought of one of them catching a glimpse of my poor little prick threw me into a panic. To make matters worse, mine didn’t look like theirs – not merely in size, but in substance as well.

 

Mine had extra skin on the end of it that gave it a far different look. Why the hell my mom didn’t have me circumcised like any normal boy, I’ll never know. Probably because the doc who delivered me was a lady osteopath – and lucky me was the first baby she delivered. She probably didn’t know how to trim up a little dick.

 

mixed feelings

 

Now that I think of it, I’m glad she didn’t experiment on me. I might have lost it altogether! Nevertheless, I have to admit that poor little prick gave Eliot many a good time – from the first time he masturbated onward.

 

Maybe it didn’t behave the way he thought it should. It never stayed hard very long, even when fucking a girl, but at least when it came, it CAME!

 

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considering “the operation”

 

Once upon a time, along my sexual journey, I dabbled with the idea of having “the operation.” But I also heard that it didn’t always turn out the way some thought it would. Some lost the ability to come altogether. That drove some to suicide.

 

The more I thought about never coming again, the more determined I became to protect my poor little whinny at all costs! Cut off my right arm –

cut off my head – but don’t mess with Mr. In-Between!

 

coming backwards

 

It was bad enough when during the summer of 2003, shortly after I began my career as a street-performer, I had to submit to having the roto-router- type prostate surgery. Things got so bad I couldn’t pee. Now if you want to know pain, just get to where you can’t pee!

 

I saw that operation coming, but I did my best to live in denial. Back in the middle 90’s a surgeon/urologist described the operation I should have had then. I’d still be able to come; the only thing was, I’d shoot my cum backwards, so it would end up somewhere inside of me!

 

That was all I needed to hear! As I walked out of the office with my wife, I proclaimed, “Never in a million years!”

 

Eliot and I laugh about it now: reminds us of the young man from Kent whose cock was decidedly bent. He said with a grin, as he licked off his chin: “Instead of coming, I went.”

 

back-cum better than no-cum

 

Well, the million years passed quickly – condensed into just a few. I had to have the operation – or die! I had it – and sure enough, when I came, my cum shot backwards to God-only-knows-where! But at least I could come – like all the millions of times before!

 

Eliot still around. Dah!

 

So, as Ellie, viewing Eliot’s prick every day – many times a day – what else could I conclude but that Eliot was still around! Regardless, the presence of his prick made me feel no less of a woman. Ellie is pure woman, even with that cock hangin’ there.

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close by

 

As a matter of fact, she and Eliot joke about it. They both love the idea of its always being so close to Ellie’s pussy. A good screwing is never very far away!

 

many fabulous conclusions

 

The observations and the conclusions that have come to Ellie/Eliot through

their mutual transformation are numerous, and fabulous. As Eliot transformed himself into Ellie, his dream girl, so Ellie returned the favor by transforming herself into Eliot, her dream boy! Are you confused?

 

the search for a soul-mate

 

It can be a bit confusing at first, but don’t worry, you’ll get a handle on it! What all this amounts to is wonderful – pure genius! Ellie and Eliot have discovered in each other the perfect soul mate.

 

For years and years, ever since his first-grade girl friend, Eliot had searched in vain for a perfect soul mate – in many girlfriends, wives (four of them!) and assorted lovers.

 

With every new female companion he felt that he had finally found one, But sooner or later – usually sooner – he sadly realized it was hardly a match made in heaven. Things always started off fabulously, but quickly things went south.

 

a common fizzle

 

That’s a pretty common story, wouldn’t you say? We all have stars in our eyes at first. It’s unthinkable that we would ever lose that first flush of romance. So routinely we part company or start living parallel lives! We come and go like ships in the night.

 

Gone is the laughter, the fun, the animated conversation, the sweet pillow talk. Hello criticism, barbs, put-downs, sarcasm – yes, hatred, mild at first, but usually, quickly intensifying.

 

co-pains-in-the-ass

 

How many couples, if they were completely honest, would say “I wish like hell I could get out of this mess. My partner is one royal pain in the ass!” Of

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course, the feeling is mutual. Two pains in the ass under one roof is a bitter pill to swallow.

 

mutual pms – egads!

 

Especially if they’re two gals with PMS at the same time! That’s one feminine no-thing you can keep! God never created PMS, cancer, AIDS, or any kind of sickness. They are simply no-things: the absence of some-things – HEALTH and FEELING GOOD

 

truth that brightens the gloomiest picture

 

Now this all might seem doomy and gloomy to you, but remember, we’re trapped in nothing but the love of God. We’ve spoken of a multitude of traps: sickness, bowed-legs, unhappy relationships. Undoubtedly you can relate big time to what I’m saying. Right this very moment you might feel you’ve got a million traps hanging off every square inch of your body.

 

But traps are no-things: every one of them! None of them is a piece of reality. They are all merely the absence of some-thing – some good thing.

 

Thus, is it hard to walk out of a trap? How hard can it be to walk out of nothing?

 

drawing on the Bank of Heaven

 

Simply take that blank check that Jesus is offering you – the one with His signature on it. You can’t possible write in an amount that will break the bank of Heaven. It’s not like Fort Knox, where when the last gold bar is gone, it’s all gone.

 

If all seven billion of us, or however many we are, went crazy and filled in some astronomical amount, the balance in the Bank of Heaven wouldn’t be diminished one red cent. Could every soul on earth ride around in a million dollar custom sports car? You got it!

 

human creators

 

If you create a some-thing, it’s always a good thing – something that partakes of your own goodness.

 

We’re all part of one another – whether we’re a grain of sand, a human

 

 

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being, a cockroach, God, or the planet Jupiter. What affects one affects all.

 

This doesn’t mean there are no differences in us components of the Universe. God is different from us; we are different from apes.

 

everything corporately and separately God

 

God is higher and greater than us, yet we are still God. We are higher and greater than apes, yet apes are still God.

 

Outside of God Her/Himself, we humans are the highest creation, being the

most like God. We’re a higher form of life than apes. What makes us greater is our imagination. We can imagine a whole truckload of bananas. An ape can’t even imagine one, even the smartest ape going. He can recognize a banana when s/he sees it, but s/he can’t imagine it beforehand. By the way, that banana is God too!

 

an assignment for every created thing

 

God has assigned a specific task to every created thing. All the creatures within a group have their own special assignments.

 

caretakers of the universe

 

The general assignment we humans have, being the highest form of life

 

among creatures, whether living or inanimate, is to be the caretakers of the universe! We care for the Milky Way. We care for a grain of sand on Herring Cove Beach here in P’Town. We care for ocean waves and winds overhead. We care for the ozone layer. We care for the polar ice caps, glaziers, ice bergs, oceans, seas, rivers, ponds.

 

our care-taking equipment: the nine operational laws of the universe

 

We have great assistance in this in that God has built a few operational laws into the Grand Scheme of Things. Ellie counts nine, by her common sense.

 

Now God has set things up so that when we humans observe all nine of the operational laws, the whole universe experiences smooth sailing. We humans will be a pleasure to have around. Mother Nature will be a pleasure to have around. Mosquitoes will be a pleasure to have around. The ozone layer will be a pleasure to have around.

 

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Everything will be ducky. Happiness will rule.

 

care-taking not a forced assignment

 

Nevertheless, God hasn’t forced our caretaker assignment on us. S/He never forces anyone to do anything. God has made us completely independent of Her/Him. We’ve been created with a free-will. We can do anything we please!

 

why death is illogical

 

Now because we’ve been created with this amazing thing called imagination, what we can choose to do is limitless. This alone should tell us that the matter of living four score and ten, and then croaking, is plainly nuts. With the ability to do anything and everything, we need a life that never ends!

 

Think of it, just because your home is little ol’ P’Town, don’t you think you might want to go up to Boston some time? What about Bali Hi? What about Venus?

 

Since we have complete freedom (we’re not puppets on a string, managed by God) we can choose to observe the operational laws or not. We can choose to observe them, and in doing so, carry out our assignment as caretakers of the universe. If we don’t want to be caretakers, we don’t have to be. We can choose to be screwer-uppers of the universe. Does that sound like you’d benefit by that?

 

global warming

 

For some time now we’ve been hearing a lot about global warming. To be honest with you, I’m sure most kids in grade school know more about it than I do.

 

I’m glad some are taking a real interest in it – like Al Gore (more power to him!) – for it sounds like a very important matter. It seems to me that Mr. Gore has taken it upon himself to be a care-taker of some very important parts of our planet – and is enlisting others to be fellow-caretakers with him.

 

In our universe there are no unimportant parts. There are no unimportant parts connected with Planet Earth. There are no unimportant human beings. There are no unimportant care-takers.

 

In light of all this importance, we could wrongly conclude that we all are

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shackled to one helluva onerous task. But that wrong conclusion could come only from a faulty bit of observing on our part of some things around us.

 

looking for hard work

 

Take a look around you – at things of nature – and yes, even at our own selves. Does it look like your body is ferociously working as you’re sitting there looking at yourself? Are you fighting to catch your next breath? Do you hear moans and groans coming from your veins and arteries as they

circulate that all-important blood through you?

 

Does it look like that tree out your yard is in pain as it’s growing? Is there a squirrel that looks dead on his feet from all its running around? Is your neighbor’s dog exerting much effort as it shits all over your lawn?

 

So what’s the only sensible conclusion to draw from these observations? Life is meant to be fun – easy-going – care-free – stress-free – a picnic – a bowl of cherries – a blast. Even for us care-takers of the universe!

 

care-taking a piece of cake

 

Taking care of the universe is a piece of cake. We don’t even have to think about our assignment. Our wise Heavenly Mother/Father has built right into the universe eight operational laws just so things would go smoothly 24/7.

 

the operational laws of the universe (dictated by common sense)

 

Ellie discovered for herself at least eight operational laws of the universe. She lists them on page 19 of her first book – ELLIE’S BOOK.BOOK. They are:

 

* the law of unconditional love *

* the law of imagination – or visualization *

* the law of the creative word *

* the law of free-will *

* the law of a person’s (or thing’s) nature *

* the law of gravity *

* the law of the indestructibility of matter *

 

Ellie’s co-discovery

 

Ellie sees her discovery of these laws as a co-discovery. In other words she doesn’t claim to be the first to discover them. We say Columbus

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discovered America, but a lot of other people discovered it before him.

 

It’s conceivable that others had a better grip on the operational laws than Ellie, but she’s doing the best she can with them. In fact, with each passing day, she gets a better handle on them, as you will too. Perhaps you discovered them before her.

 

like the operational laws of a car (dictated by common sense)

 

The operational laws of the universe are similar in purpose to those of a car: to keep the car running smoothly and to get the most out of it. An auto-maker at least implies the operational laws of a car in the owner’s manual supplied with the vehicle. Most car owners can figure them out without a manual. (See page 18 of her book). They include:

 

* the car is for riding on roads – not on top of a body of water *

* the car shouldn’t be driven with one wheel missing *

* smashing into something is not the way to stop the car *

 

These laws are not like the laws we humans invent in our ignorance – who think that our laws are needed to keep things going smoothly. Any law we’ve ever come up with has done more to screw things up than unscrew things.

 

What we’ve managed to do by enacting our laws is to turn each and every

one of us into slaves. We’re in bondage to our own laws. We can hardly move without the worrisome thought we might be breaking some crazy law!

 

a history lesson of early P’Town – a bit fictitious

 

When the Pilgrims landed here in P’Town in 1620, was their first order of business the calling of a special town meeting so they could enact some laws? I don’t think so.

 

But you just have to know that someone would call for one sooner or later! Once you become a slave, it’s hard to shake a slave’s mentality. It gets to be a part of you, as if you were born with it.

 

sailing off to freedom

 

Back in merry old England, the Pilgrims were slaves of the Crown and slaves of the Church of England, even though for all intents and purposes, they had broken away from the Church. That’s why they endured that harrowing

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trip here – so they could be free.

 

Trouble was, they didn’t leave their slave mentality there. They brought it with them.

 

a house-raising party

 

The first major thing they probably did was to build some houses to protect themselves from the elements – like the famous P’Town wind. So on the first good day, it was expected that all able-bodied men would show up for a work party.

 

poor timing

 

At 6 AM sharp of the first good day Reverend Clark clanged a bell calling the work party to order. It came just at the wrong time for Jimmie Smith and his girlfriend Jennie Jones. Sneaking off the Mayflower under cover of darkness the night before, they found a neat sheltered spot between two sand dunes.

 

Under the stars, upon a couple of burlap sacks, they made passionate love all night long, using every position imaginable, and some you could never imagine. Towards dawn they finally fell asleep in each other’s arms, totally exhausted but fully satisfied.

 

The last time they had enjoyed each other like this was back in England ages ago. There was no screwin’ around on the Mayflower! As the sun was coming up from behind the dunes of Truro they were awakened by a strange sound. Days later they would find out it was an Indian beating on a tom-tom over on the mainland.

 

Jimmie and Jennie weren’t pissed off at the rude awakening though. One look at each other and they got horny all over again. It was just as Jimmie was about to slide his throbbing cock into Jennie’s anxious wet pussy, that the good Reverend got going on the bell!

 

pussy postponed

 

“Shit!” exclaimed Jimmie as he climbed off Jennie. “Jennie, baby, we’ll have to put this off for another time – God only knows when. It’s an unwritten law that when Rev. Clark clangs his goddam bell, we guys have to drop what we’re doing and come a-runnin’!”

 

Yup, it was just a matter of time before what few slaves were left would call

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each other to P’Town’s First Special Town Meeting. There they would write down all their unwritten laws and add new ones for good measure.

 

accustomed to oppression and lack of freedom

 

It’s hard to believe that no one noticed that the more laws they wrote into the Town’s Book of Laws, the more restricted their lives became. But there’s a reason no one complained: it was what they had grown accustomed to back in England.

 

They had never known freedom. They only knew a restricted life under laws. What you’ve never known, you never miss. But you do have the troubled feeling that things just aren’t the way you’d like them to be.

 

what land of the free?

 

We so easily call America “the Land of the Free.” The sad truth is: few of us Americans have ever known a minute of freedom – so we don’t miss it.

 

We keep piling one law after another on top of us. We sense the oppressive weight. Something’s wrong. A vague unhappiness hovers over us! Our dashboard warning lights are lit but we just stare dumbly at them.

 

The rule of law is a no-thing: the absence of a some-thing called freedom. Any no-thing will cause a lousy feeling that will spoil your day – and all your

days – right up to the day of your funeral.

 

the possibility of being free

 

Is it possible for us Americans to be free? Is the pope Catholic? Any and every good thing is a possibility. Only unrealities like slavery to the rule of law are impossibilities.

 

God’s guarantee of freedom

 

God’s operational laws of the universe, on the other hand, don’t put us into bondage. One of them in particular guarantees us freedom. It’s the law of our free-will. We can do anything we jolly well please! Even fuck while others work!

 

We’re free even to tell God to shove it! I did that as Eliot. After years of serving Jesus, trying to be the best Christian I could be, utilizing every known spiritual secret known to Christians to pull this off, I came to the conclusion that Jesus had failed me.

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first sign of gender-identity issue

 

You see, while I was trying to serve Jesus, trying to be a good husband and father, trying to be a good church pastor, I was wrestling with the problem of gender identity. When the first sign of that problem appeared – at the age of 5 when I tried on a pair of my mom’s extra large pink bloomers – it was no problem. It was fun, and it felt nice.

 

But as I grew older – like from high school on – I made it a problem! I decided that dressing up in girlie stuff was a sin, especially for one intent on being “Super Saint”!

 

the law of the creative word

 

Folks, if you say you have a problem, you have a problem. If you say you don’t have a problem, then you don’t have a problem. It’s as simple as all that!

 

Which by the way is an application of one of those eight operational laws: the law of the creative word. Popularly stated – many people have discovered this law – it reads; “What you say is what you get.” If you say “Shit happens,” then get ready for the day when shit comes flying your way!

 

God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.

 

Jesus said to many people, suffering from a variety of ailments, “Be healed.” And they were healed.

 

working smart

 

We don’t see a lot of hard work in this. It sorta looks like a piece of cake. We have a choice of working smart, or working dumb. Working smart is no work at all. It’s play. Working dumb makes everything seem like you’re swimming upstream on the Niagara River – about ten feet from the Falls!

 

two problems

 

I said dressing up was a problem, so it was. I also called my penchant to masturbate a problem, so it was. Mind you, my jerking off didn’t start off as a problem.

 

When a buddy of mine taught me the fine points of it – and I came for the

 

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first time – I knew I had just experienced the greatest feeling in all the universe. That was hardly a problem! But I made it a problem about the same time I identified my love for frilly things a problem.

 

Now word was, in the Christian community, “Prayer changes things.” Also, “God hears and answers every prayer.” Things get a little muddy when someone chimes in, “Sometimes the answer is ‘No’; sometimes it’s ‘Yes’; sometimes it’s ‘Wait a while.’ “

 

the words of religious people

 

Words come to us frequently and copiously from religious people around the world. These people may or may not be identified with a particular religion. Yet, being human beings, they all belong to God’s ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY.

 

The sayings in the preceding paragraph came from people, who like me, lived from a Christian perspective. However, I discovered quite early in my Christian life that among Christians, there are a number of perspectives.

 

When you take the saying of these various perspectives and run them all together, you end up with a confusing body of words.

 

two churches diagonally across the street from each other

 

My home church was the Maplewood Baptist Church situated on the corner of Salem and Laurel. Diagonally across the street was St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church. Two stones throw away from both churches was the Maplewood Intermediate School, where kids from the hood in grades 4-6 were imprisoned on a regular basis.

 

Once in a while, too infrequently to suit me, we inmates were given overnight and weekend passes. Saint Joe’s had its own parochial prison. Catholic kids had their choice of doing hard time there or in the other lockup. Some choice!

 

dire warnings

 

Kids from Maplewood Baptist were warned not to hang out with kids from St. Joe’s; kids from St. Joe’s were warned not to hang out with kids from Maplewood Baptist. The consequence of paying no mind to the warnings was indeed frightening: eternal torment in the fiery furnace of hell.

 

 

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