je m’appelle Térèse

What little

flower

in rain

does not

open itself

for all

to see

nourishing

hands together

What if God is

I Am

or, Reality is

You are --

is Job or Christ

arriving at

doing the right thing

being what is right here

I ask you

with two hands together

is there nothing other

to do

to be

but this wholeness

at this place

Frontline’s The Choice 2016 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-choice-2016/.

It is on the two candidates, Clinton and Trump, is well done and informative about who they are and where they’ve come from, and is compelling.

Amazing they both arrive at this place.

prayer is ...what

There’s little to do but live

That’s what prayer is

life

being

lived

free of it

Perhaps it doesn't matter who gets elected.

We're only here for a short time.

Oh very young, what will you leave us this time
You're only dancin' on this earth for a short while
And though your dreams may toss and turn you now
They will vanish away like your dads best jeans
Denim blue, faded up to the sky
And though you want them to last forever
You know they never will
(you know they never will)
And the patches make the goodbye hard  

(--from, Cat Stevens - Oh Very Young Lyrics | MetroLyrics)

As far as we know -- and that's not far.

At Goodwill I buy books about Lee Harvey Oswald and the CIA, Richard Lattimore's translations from Greek of Acts and Epistles, the novel Ishmael, and one other book I can't remember.

It's an old habit, books. They are like passing conversation in grocery store parking lot. Touch and go.

About elections -- they are the illusion of change.

Any real change is only in our minds -- it's there we come to see what is going on, and how it doesn't matter.

What does matter is what the mind is revealing. To see it. Feel it. And be free of it.

re-bate

De-

bate

A-

bates

I come before you to stand behind you to tell you something I know not of

Man after Sunday Evening Practice, when asked, said he's been feeling fine. "I can't see, and have plenty of aches and pains, but" -- pointing to his head -- "am fine. I see clearly," he said, "but this body that allows me to see is falling apart."

An interesting point of view -- that which is seen by that which is seeing is just fine, but that through which the seeing is accomplished is breaking down and tumbling into blurry impairment.

Tonight is the first debate between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. 

The parallel between the comments of the man who leaves for Thailand for winter hiatus and the two combatants for high office is that while democracy is still seen and held as a lovely possibility for our purposes of living fairly and equitable with each other, the people that purport to embody that prospect are often failing and unfathomable examples of who will oversee and facilitate democracy's aging and frail body.

So too, this body, typing these words, seems to be poised at precipice of high and treacherous cliff, looking both ways, as if to step forward to continue along the trail reaching its edge -- only to have its mind realize that any advancing step would be a compromising step threatening to hurl the observer into an observed space with no prospect of continuing as that which does the observing -- not with knowing and relatable sight.

We, as a people and as individuals, seem often to be at that place without knowing it. Living in the world is a precarious hike. There are myriad round acorns on descending trails for a hiker to navigate, step around without rolling and falling and banging bottom on dry waterless root-grabbing ground.

We arrive at surprise landings so quickly we hardly remember being anywhere else than where we wind up after falling down. That happened to the person ahead of me yesterday. Pain and slow healing is the route now going forward.

The world is a precarious hike, indeed. 

Still, we lace up scuffed boots, grab walking sticks, and set out, over and over -- the mountain continually issuing invitatory onto its wonder-filled zig-zag hollows and crossings and ascents. The white dog, on constant search for tracking smells and throwing sticks, a true and ready companion.

As for that other, more Kabuki event, the debate tonite, with enormous audience watching and waiting for knockout punch or salient slam amid thin expectation of substantive vision sighting the journey that stretches ahead of us -- we will do our best not to trip and fall into despondency or cynicism at the confusing map we've been handed at this time at this season at this most interesting and perilous forked trail leading to unseeable outcome.

It is a wee cold this morning.

Autumn is trying out sweatshirt and windbreaker. Windows are closed. The sun porch plants shiver. Finger tips are warned not to touch unexpecting skin with their suddenly icy centigrade.

Late September slides.

Here we go!

entre tout

Mais oui 

Ou pas

Je  ne  sais  pas

C'est ma vie

Entire nous, 

entre cici et cela, ici et la