Ian (John) McCleary (Son of the Cleric) Poems

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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Jeffersons Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, was a task to rewrite The Bible through the lens of human reason and understanding. He took out any mention to the Resurrection, and to the Miracles he performed. But he still did not solve the problem of Christ's teachings. Everyone who is a teacher has certain academic prejudices. For Jesus, there was a type of life he taught that was superior to the one of the pagan world. When it came to the issue of sin, he was not willing to rationalize his beliefs with the pagan world he lived in. But a certain level of adaptation is necessary as a part of human progress. There are certain beliefs which have no use in practical or aesthetic terms which Jesus saw as necessary for the Christian to be able to live their faith to it's perfection.
The Bible can be revised, rewritten, a thousand times if that. But I wonder what good that does, if we are considering the question of whether all of Jesus' teachings should be followed and adhered to.
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When people talk about the need for peace in this world, it's persuasiveness fails to get beyond the art of rhetoric.
The human race has seen that the lion refuses to lay beside the lamb, and that the lambs fears are justified by the lions own refusal to make peace with him.
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A persons dignity comes from their freedom to make choices for themselves that do not involve the powers of the state, or should I add, hierarchal institutions, one of those being the institution of the family.
The family, though this is easily forgotten, is one of the oldest forms of government in the history of our society. And this being said, that means that the family just like political government have been also guilty of abusing it's powers.
Because younger adults today are closer with their parents for financial reasons, this means that their parents feel they have the right to closely monitor their young adults decisions and
still make those decisions even in some cases for them. There is nothing which hurts a persons dignity than this.
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When the spirit of inquiry is no longer widely practiced, people become easily shaped into whatever others want them to believe. When people accept information at light speed, they suspend one of their basic rights, freedom from ignorance and manipulation.
When someone wants to sell us something for a profit, they don't want us to think too long about the product they are selling, their goal is to make a quick sale to the consumer. Through clever marketing they can sell us anything. The same can be said about political campaigns. It depends a lot on how a candidate markets themselves which determines whether a person votes for them. Policy is sold just like a consumer item. No one has to know so much about what's on the inside of the box only that we have an emotional attachment to whatever is on the outside. That is what mainly guides our decision when choosing candidates.
Family members have tried to prevent me from speaking about the things that they accept and believe with blind faith.
The use of slogans and political rhetoric make it unnecessary to know the truth behind them and what they are all about.
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Our ancestors in reaction to the prejudice they faced by immigrating to America, oftentimes covered up anything that would make them stand out or make them seem other than
what was accepted as white and american.
They would feel forced to bury their own rich cultural heritage, so they could become more like the Anglo Americans, who could trace their ancestries to the days when this country was first founded.
Which of course to the failure of their memory wasn't where their families started either.
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Be careful of going to other parts in time when you are in the present, or your mind will waste it's life in a place where not even the ostriches neck has reached to.
Eyes buried in the screen someone snaps their fingers in front of your face to bring you back to consciousness, to your life that is now.
You are in a world of twenty four hour speculations and nostalgia for rusted beat up cars. Your head is in the laps of celebrity moms when it should be in the business in front of you.
The future army wants those who choose to stare into a lightbulb and fuse with it.
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There is deception everywhere and at every time, it is the words of the harlot dripping with honey. Evil may look obvious and worth our scorn if it is in another person and not ourselves.
It is very tempting to want to turn my gaze to the latest news development on some high profile person biding their time while they await the courts decision on their
innocence. If I give them any time my anxiety may come back and I will lose all the work that I made to get well. I will forget my blind spots, my self deceptions the more mine are on theirs. Who's life is this, theirs or mine?
If he has never learned nor had the desire to be a better person he is seeing the consequences of it now. I have learned where self conceit would get me and I am not going to wait till my seventies to learn and suffer the consequences 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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