PIETY
In the sky with a wheel and a pipe wrench
Discipline, mindfulness and me. I tend to forget my prayers. So I don’t say them out loud. I need to connect with the earth and the sky. I need to keep my mind on the plot. Still making things up as I go along. In the words of my friend MJ, I guess this is who I was all along.
They try to keep me from running up
I never tell you to get down, it's all about coming up
(Yo, you ain’t doin' nothin' positive!
Yo, you ain’t doin' nothin' positive for the brothers, what you gotta say for yourself?)
(You don't like how I'm living? Well, fuck you)
And don't give me that shit about role model
It ain't wise to chastise and preach
Just open the eyes of each
'Cause laws are made to be broken up
Written by O’Shea Jackson, AKA, Ice Cube
UP IN THE WOODS
I spent a lot of my teenage years accompanying my father to logging sites where he was doing various jobs, sometimes cat1 work. My father could run any machine you had to harvest timber, build roads, clear brush, anything. My brother Jim says that Dad rarely got the credit he deserved for the amount of things he could do. Build roads, fix the equipment, work all weekend so the loader was ready to work on Monday. I have no idea if he got paid for any of that work. Probably, but I don’t know. It was never discussed with me. But it left an impression. To this day, doing a job has been disconnected in my mind with being paid. Partly, that is because of self worth issues, partly because I fear rejection. Partly, your opinion interferes with the mission. Unfortunately, I chose to do things out loud, put myself out there, said the quiet part out loud. It was ok, until it wasn’t. But that’s my story.
My father and I would have lunch in the truck, listening to the radio, and conversing about things, where Dad would hold forth on various subjects, like the frustrated teacher he was at heart. He and I used to listen to a program called Haven Of Rest, which was a religious radio show with organ playing, sermonizing, and a dramatic story in the middle, full of tales of morality. I was familiar with what was called Old Time Radio at the time, in part because of my interest in history, and partially because of the writers strike that forced networks to fill airtime with anything they could find. Dad and I would listen to the story, and due to my early onset agnosticism, I would question the faith based morals of various stories. This troubled my father somewhat, and he would tell me that he regretted not introducing me to religious training.
He was a man who came from an Adventist background, I mean, hardcore Adventist, like, our ancestors were Millerite converts from whatever church (probably Anglican) they belonged to in the old country. However, he was baptized in the Catholic church in 1944, so that he could marry my mother, who came from a pretty hardcore Irish/Scotch Catholic family. Once they started raising a family in the states, that was the church that they attended. My siblings all went to parochial school, and dealt with the nuns, and the uniforms. That defined the Roseburg years, which came to an ignominious halt in mid 1962. The reasons are shrouded in mystery, but I am the sole member of my family who was spared regular church attendance. Although, I was baptized.
SPIRIT WALK
Back to me. I am one of them. My makeup is informed by all of my family members and ancestors experience. We are all a bunch of questioners, oppositional defiant scoffers, who go our own way, and don’t join easily. Unless we do. I am personally on a journey of discovery, and you will never know what it is. I am not going to discuss it with you. I’m not going to proselytize, or try and sell you on my personal vision. It, of course, is not open to debate. I don’t know, but I know, ya dig? Trim your own sail, sweep your own porch. I may judge you, but you will never know it. I reserve the harshest judgement for myself. I want to live honestly, but I fall short, of course. Sometimes the truth is elusive, sometimes it slaps you on the ass and makes you stand up and reckon with it. Anything I might say on the matter is immaterial. Such is faith. I can tell you that no matter who tells you they know, they don’t.
Piety? I will leave it to the pious.2
I am the staff of his power in his youth,
and he is the rod of my old age.
And whatever he wills happens to me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.
The Thunder, Perfect Mind
Translated by George W. MacRae
Short for Caterpillar, a company that made tracked bulldozers which were a ubiquitous presence in the woods.
1: the quality or state of being pious: such as
a: fidelity to natural obligations (as to parents)
b: dutifulness in religion : devoutness
2: an act inspired by piety
3: a conventional belief or standard : orthodoxy