Tuesday, December 17, 2013

bless the rapscallion!

Unannounced, the light-hearted words skipped across my mind: "God bless the rapscallion!"

The words arrived on the heels of a skein devoted to the place of institutional spiritual endeavor and the role of the adherent within such institutions. Although the words were light and smiling, still they had a serious hue as well.

Tricky as they may be and misused as they certainly might be, still, "God bless the rapscallion!"

How many days and weeks and years of devoted study and effort must pass before anyone is stormed by the suspicion that the very institution or very beloved teacher is the very barrier to entering the light that such institution or teachers might extol? Or, as the Buddhists put it, "If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him!"

I like the word "rapscallion." A rascal. Light and nimble as a sylph. Smiling and zippy. Happy to be here and not averse to being there. Immune to blandishments of "the one true way." Neither contriving nor contrite. Neither supportive nor obstructive. Attentive but not attending to. Whistling, though no longer whistling past the graveyard.

Yes, surely there will be fakers ... as many fakers as there are institutions or teachers who frown that anyone should so blithely dance when there were serious matters to attend to... the matters that gave gravitas to one institutional hearth or another.

A rapscallion ... who is this one who dances away on moonbeams? Isn't s/he the one who ever was? Nothing hot-shit about it, but it's kinda hot-shit anyway.

Look Ma! I've got five fingers!

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