Ian (John) McCleary (Son of the Cleric)

I look at the work of college art students everyday hanging by my janitors closet. If no one were there I would say it was lifeless and dead like everything learned academically, copied out of
books.
I am beginning to sound like my art professors from college, washed up and without ideas, so I must attack the easiest prey.
This is the problem with art in college and maybe even outside of it.
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In my mid to late twenties I lived the life of the poet Rimbaud, I lived a life of meaningless passion and aimlessness. Some of this later rebellion in my life was a self - conscious imitation of the young French poet. Around twenty years old, I had watched the movie Total Eclipse on the life of the poets Rimbaud and Verlaine with Leonardo De Caprio as Arthur Rimbaud and David Thewlis as the older poet Paul Verlaine, a mentor to the young Rimbaud. I learned a lot from watching that movie, it would eventually help me to sever ties with a college friend who I was hanging out with at the time I found that movie.
Those years after were some of the hardest in my life before I met my wife of today. I was looking for the next thrill. My job working at the supermarket, was boring to me, I wanted stimulation, something that would bring my life more meaning than it had for me at work. I got caught up in self destroying behaviors. Even when I met my wife and even into our marriage I have fought to keep this rebellion from ever coming out again in me.
Even years ago that message of sobriety came to me after a long night of bar hopping.
The year I took a trip to London, I will always remember this thing I said, which about sums up my twenties and the false promises that fleeting pleasures offer 'What is a butterfly if you take apart it's wings? '.
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I should never forget the times when I was a single man and pining for love; and being aware that no woman online, no matter how beautiful they were, could satisfy completely the longing I had for a real relationship with a woman my age and off line.
Though I am not a part of the Catholic faith anymore, the Catechesis, or an explanation of the churches teachings, still has a lot of good practical advice for relationships. Especially the things men need in order to form meaningful relationships with others. The churches stance on pornography and marital infidelity 'cheating', makes sense to me. Those two things are what destroy a marriage and the trust between two people.
As for premarital sex, if it is a sin, then I made a mistake and was acting on the impulse while knowing it was wrong.
What is in the past cannot be redone. The problem should not be the issue of when a person has sex but about what each person's intentions are.
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Pope John Paul Il who was Pope when my parents got married in the church, and who was Pope when I and my siblings were born, wrote something called The Theology of the Body, I have read it many times and while I think it is still a good piece of writing and many of the ideas in it are beautifully put, I have come to believe that not everything in it makes sense because of the way the human body was designed. In it, the only way the Pope says that love can be given as a gift of self is through the meeting of sperm and egg, so for having children. Sex for enjoyment, or with the use of contraceptives even by married couples is not considered that giving of self in the marriage union.
So the Catholic church would quickly approve then the rubbing of the Earth's techtonic plates against each other over one of their married members of the faith enjoying the gift of intimacy.
No wonder they said the Church lost 14 million of it's congregants, maybe more. It is not entirely on the people to blame nor is it the devil. It is it's own alien view of human nature.
Now I am not really for the cheapening of love that can be found everywhere today. Love that puts feeling at the center of everything, but this other side to the puzzle is just as deadly to love.
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What a poor representation of water, of canal water. It doesn't move with the stroke of my paddle. It stands still and frozen, what is it to do there? What is it to communicate?
The artist who painted this, do they know that this is not a painting?
Oh there's no use telling them, my face is one beige dab of oil paint, without eyes, a mouth to express my disgust for his rendering of me.
He is not yet aware of his creative powers.
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It's very unusual weather for the beginning of January, tell the oracle of Puxatawney, that it seems to be spring already in the east.
I am out in sandals and a light sweater, I was sweating in my winter coat the other day I went hiking.
Who can deny the strangeness of this winter, it's topsy turviness. Even the once most embittered critic is scratching their head on this lions tameness
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Genie, grant my every wish! Says the voice of Lucre.
And the piece of technology, as like rubbing the lamp, makes all wishes come seemingly true... well...at least for the time allowed him, without a trip to some place of wicked debauchery.
But the aftershock is cruel,
though he was relieved of all his demons in the moment, there is still one left he has forgotten,
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My father is the best example of a stoic. His very life reflects it. He is a good father and husband to his wife, he sees that as being a good enough goal in life worthy of everyones respect.
And yet he does not deny the reality of pain. He does not hide behind a gun or harbor feelings of aggression, nor does he have a deep hatred for people.. that I know of. That is a false
portrait of manhood anyway.
He does not hide his feelings like me in ideas and philosophy. He does not have any aspirations to become known for his mind and for his words of insight.
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The chicken egg causality dilemma cannot be used for whether God created man or man created God. It would be a useless endeavor to ask whether one is the cause of the other, since they cannot be proven with any form of material evidence.
Mystical experiences on the other hand, the reports of visions people have do exist in my view. But they are subjective experiences in my understanding of them, and are really only useful for that person.
For someone to suggest that their revelation of some higher reality, is a one size fit all plan discredits all the other personal divine encounters that have happened in this world, and for those who have not experienced that peculiar revelation for themselves.
Atheists trying to disprove the existence of God is foolishness, they would do better by embracing the ideas of secular humanism, which emphasize the individuals free will to choose good without being a part of any religious system.
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There is a pattern, a pattern which no intelligent person can ignore
populist right wing authoritarian violence is happening globally. This violence as a means to an end, no intelligent person can
defend the madness of this idea.
No moral person can give validation
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Repression of a certain aspect of myself has probably been the reason for some of my destructive behaviors. This being realized in a dream where I experienced that emotion or side of myself so intensely. I keep this emotion down because of the confusion I have with this feeling in general. There is nothing the matter with romantic love after all, I can have these feelings still, it's okay to feel this way during the day. It's okay to have these feelings for my wife.
Today, there is still the problem of couples marrying for security before love. Marriages all have the tendency of becoming like this.
Marriage without a couples vulnerability to share themselves, is not a union of two people. It is two people seeking
comfort in the institution than in each other. Two egoists don't make for a happy marriage.
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Some have suggested that Jesus Christ suffered from mental illness. I will not speculate into that. But I can say, that there are people who believe in Jesus and who do show signs of having a mental illness. Their self- grandiosity makes them think they are doing the work of God, even when their actions are in the contrary.
There are people as well, who still have a hard time judging holy men.
They think they see the prophet Elijah, because he claims he will rid all evil from their nation. That he will tear idols down from the palaces. That he will send fire out of the sky and destroy their enemies.
So this madness speculated of Jesus is the madness of man, man's imagination playing games with him.
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One of religions problems, is that it makes virtue something abstract, far away, only attainable by some spiritual conversion or self enlightenment. If virtue is made human, attainable by humans, then it is already in us and we don't have to look any further than ourselves. We don't have to practice any spiritual exercises, waste time in prayer or reading. We are automatically disposable for good works by our own choice.
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What is needed more than any law is the demystification of people who hold authority and who have the power to influence society from their privileged position.
There is this overall tendency to look at those in government, the church, entertainment, business, beyond reproach, especially if they are somebody we find contains our identities and our own visions of how we think life should be.
Once we unlock and find what is special about ourselves and trust in our own ability to think and determine information based on our knowledge of virtue, or those values taught to us when we were children, then those whom we view as more important in their accomplishments than our own will become less important to us with time, and even their ugliness will not escape our notice once we see past their words and our own deceptive thinking which give them the advantage to use us for their own wicked ends.
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My parents had less expectations of me during my time in high school, I was allowed not to work, that was only so I could focus on my schoolwork. And throughout my time in college, they again said as long as I focused on my schoolwork that I didn't have to get a job. I eventually would graduate thinking my degree would get me a job alone in the field I wanted to be in. But that was so mistaken of me to take the job process so lightly.
Forgetting all about the hard work it takes to be whatever is I majored in.
I had my own ideas, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do as far as getting a career. I just had some vague ideas of what I wanted to do with my life, and that was it.
But things eventually changed the longer I was out of school Without some form of employment to earn money by, my parents saw that i was putting off my future, and made sure I was employed doing something. I was really late to learning responsibility
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There have been times where I have expressed a jealous spirit toward the Browns, a TV family on the show The Alaskan Bush People, that my wife likes to watch religiously. I think it was their personalities, which came off to be larger than life, that annoyed me the most about them. Their stubborn insistence on living independent of society. Their conquer all attitude. But I especially found the character of Noah to be very irritating. His god like confidence in his own abilities, that I seem to lack in myself, was hard for me to like or to appreciate.
But I am going to think differently about it the next time it airs. I anticipate there will be another season. First because I am not Noah Brown. Second because my wife and I already practice the best we can the ideas of simple living. And third because they are free to live how they want as long as they aren't hurting other people, it is none of my business what they do with their lives.
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The person with autism has a different reaction to life events than other people. Without the support they need as children from their parents and teachers, their life's journey may not be as easy to navigate or understand for them. Learning social skills are just as necessary as education is in helping the autistic child to grow up healthy emotionally.
The problem today is how autism is treated by the general public, as a genetic condition. There are parents still who deny that their child could ever be born with a genetic disorder like autism. And it may be that they may not want to put in the work to help their son or daughter anymore than they do.
They might agree that their child is incredibly shy and introverted, but not that there is something underlying those symptoms and behaviors. If we can see beyond the symptoms of autism, then there can also be more love and understanding on the part of the parents, and the more they can be part of their childs life.
This is not as common I would say today as those parents who know their child has a disability like autism spectrum disorder and feels they must do everything to make their life as easy as possible. They will make their choices for them in some cases, even though their child might have the ability to make most of their choices for themselves. This only makes their child grow up to feel dependent on whoever raised them, never learning how to use their disability as a way of becoming independent.
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The trees were sugarcoated with snow. When the snowflakes fall, a taste of candy coats my mouth, something sweet you can take a bite out of, something like dried up maple syrup collecting around the plastic cap of the syrup bottle.
But whenever the man with the salt truck touches it
The taste of that sugary snow becomes like vomit.
Gray slush covered in dirty tire marks send away the Sugarplum fairies to their winterberry huts.
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Accepting people for who they are is love. I was in our bed last night thinking about love and all the ideas people have about that word, like the many ideas people have about everything down to the very food they eat and clothes they wear. But it doesn't have to be so complicated.
Love doesn't have to be given strict distinctions, unless it's selfish or possessive.
The church will never change it's stance on homosexuality, premarital sex, or unmarried people living together. The church will always consider them a sin to act on.
The word sin is one of the greatest trigger words of the Christian religion
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I discovered two copies of a comic strip yesterday in the women's bathroom. They were sitting above the box that stores used sanitary napkins. I learned that a Chick Tract is a tool of evangelization using the comic strip medium to gain religious converts. It was the idea of some evangelical protestant christian after his return from the World War.
The idea was taken from the same approach used by the Chinese Communist Party to gain support for it's ideology.
Christianity is quick to accuse other religions of their pagan influences and their heathenism. But it forgets where many of it's own ideas come from. Calling the bread, Jesus' flesh and calling the wine his blood, surely has it roots in the pagan world. And human sacrifice? the worship of a man? these are all examples of it though they all deny this accusation.
They cannot put the fear of God in me, these hidden proselytes.
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