eat/PRAY/love by elizabeth gilbert: a book review?

aight ... the short review is: I LOVE THIS BOOK! GO BUY IT!

what else? where do i start??? many of you probly heard about this book ... it's pretty mainstream now ... lots of young white girls are reading it on NYC trains ... mid-aged white women too ... you can pick it up at any major book chain and read the back ........... i'm not going to give you a literary synopsis. i'ma tell you what i saw and felt in those pages.

first and foremost: GOD. that white lady was scared to write about God (she said it in the book) cuz she knew how her majority white audience, family, and friends would be put off by such direct talk. but she couldn't avoid it and neither can i. i think this white lady is going to make GOD cool again for white people. she is going to help white people find their lost spirit. is it lost collectively? kinda ... i'm not no expert (does the double negative imply that i really AM?) and i don't really wanna go too deep into it. BUT many (not all) white people are out of touch with their god-spirit. sure, they HAVE one but ......................... and honestly, the book affirmed for me that average white people do have a god-spirit (see future blog on more about the adverse effects of being a racist).

back to the book! so, this book has a lot of social relevance for our current times and a lot of spirituality. on a larger social level i believe this book signals a shift away from scientific method modernity towards non-fundamentalist spirituality. the GOD in this book loves all denominations and all religious affiliations. the God in this book has no doctrine or rules or book. i know i know the book has no book ... but i kinda like that play on words. and that is the future of religion.

the future (God willing) is the end of all this east/west bickering. the future foretells the end of this religious fighting. the future is in the common threads that link all religions together (those that are not demonic) ... which are simply that God is love and we should treat one another with love. once we recognize this we can all love each other no matter what the other believes. then we will be one people. one humanity. in my mind, one afrika (we all came from there anyway).

well, this book pushes us in that direction and i'm all for it.

i love this book on a personal level too. this woman has a real zest for life that i wish more people would embrace. i love how this woman understands that eating food (here i go again) is a sensual and spiritual experience. and this chick is funny. sarcastic and witty; she had me laughing out loud.

she also provides a practical plan for healing and self-discovery. yoga, meditation, and prayer cleansed her and patched her up. she goes IN DEPTH into how all of these actually apply to her life. she talks about how she had to fall on the bathroom floor and call for the lord. she talks about what God's voice sounds like in her ear. she talks about the actual physical and spiritual sensations one might feel in meditation. all in plain motherfuckin english.

lastly ... i am inspired by her story. it's a love story. she learned to love herself. she found inner peace. she is testifying to us all. i am listening and trying to learn because i'm headed in that direction.

see you in the future in love.

love in the time of bureaucracy

bureaucracy is the pillar of modernity. the motherfucking foundation upon which most of it is built. i won't go into the history (yet) but i will tell you about what happened this morning.

every morning i wake up ready to tackle the world. with love. to be nice to all people even in the face of evil ... to forgive small petty mean-ness ... to stay peaceful and project LOVE. that shit is hard.

i tried to log on to blogspot this morning to write you people and i couldn't remember my password ... long to short is i am STILL on hold with time warner cable's online department ... i have spoken with TWO customer service reps and gave them both the SAME information ... i am at work ... i am living my life ... so, no, i don't have time to spend HALF MY DAY simply retrieving a PASSWORD to an e-mail account i hardly use ..........

and yet, the soft tinkling of classical elevator music wafts around me as i write this. and when (after waiting 40 minutes) a HUMAN gets on the phone i have an attitude. i got a attitude cuz now i been on hold forever and this human works for a company that thinks it is ok to keep people on hold that long. (even though us customers pay over $100 month to wait on hold for 40 minutes) and i can't keep the irritation, frustration, and impatience out my motherfucking mouth. i think this treatment of customers is UNACCEPTABLE.

ah but where is the love?

it is not the customer reps fault that his company is a big bureacratic machine in which the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. a bureaucratic machine that just keeps spinning and cycling people through without a care for their humanity.

did i mention i am still on hold? even now that i have written four paragraphs ...

i was a little rude to the service rep ... and i got a paper cut. i am working on breathing, taking a step back, and not taking out my anger on another human being who just wants to finish his or her workday.

but bureaucracy makes it hard. oh! they just picked up ... you want my name and address ... AGAIN?! see ... you keep making it hard to be nice and loving to you.

but love will prevail .............. because it's right and true. so, if you know what i'm talking about and you've had to deal with service reps and being on hold and the run around shuffle around department to department repeating your address like you were seven years old again and can't remember where you live ...... i commend you for keeping your cool and showing some love to humans who know not (or can't help) ... what a big bureaucratic mess they are part of.

campaign to the dead

i read that george clooney and don cheadle are campaigning for darfur.

i can only wonder ... who are they campaigning to??

i mean, are they trying to convince the UN - again - to do something ... or to do more than what they are currently doing. are they trying to win over the american public or the global public? and what will winning look like? are they trying to persuade us, the public, to move to the sudan or just donate a dollar or two? and to whom would they recommend we donate the dollars (euros would be better but that's another blog) ? to UNICEF or to the Red Cross because currently the dollars those two organizations have are doing so much all over the world? look how much they did after and during hurricane Katrina.

or are george and cheadle campaigning to G-7 governments ... the United Way ... really ... who?

the Gap maybe ...

or is the Gap now on board since they have pictures of diverse people supporting their RED campaign .. oh that is for a different african cause (cuz AIDS is now an african disease) ... i get confused by all the ummm campaigning ...

the phrase struck me cuz the word campaigning is a political term ... and is darfur a political issue? and is there really a political body to campaign to or for .......... or is it just a human issue?

i absolutely support some kind of action in darfur. i think what is going on there - genocide - is just as evil as the way powerful nations turn their cheek to it. it only further supports my belief that the WORLD is racist and self-serving. i think if we campaigned for the world to view all of its inhabitants as humans we might make more progress and darfur might even fix itself. cuz right now, as follows with the fundamental basis of racism, people do not feel that these african deaths are worth breaking ties with political allies (as they did in WWII) and this sudanese genocide is not worth jeopardizing international relations between the U.S. and "the Sudan." this small chaotic situation is not worth resolving at the so called cost of creating a larger global-terror chaos. maybe if we stopped prioritizing victims and chaos we could stop suffering.

why is sudan in quotes ... well, you find me one person in the refugee camps who voted for the current "leader" ... and i'll take the quotes off.

i aint mad at cheadle and clooney ... not at all. i am in fact quite proud that they care about more than their next movie. i am glad they are using their public personas to draw attention to an issue that no one is doing ENOUGH about.

but campaigning? maybe it's the bbc's choice of words ............................... that makes a fight against genocide sound like an elementary school blood drive.

the kingdom

seen this movie?

kind of resembles america sucking its own dick. AT FIRST.

i mean ... i think its a movie that might could make people (more) pro-american, anti-moslem, anti-arab ... and MORE scared about islam and the middle east. that might not have been the intent but that is my analysis of what might be the outcome.

i must say that i do not believe in the american dream. i do not think it exists. i am not a patriot. i don't even call myself american. why must i say this? briefly, i wanted to share my worldview because it informs my opinion about this movie.

so, it's important (for the purposes of this blog) that i don't believe in the american dream. i feel no allegiance to americans JUST cuz they are american. i feel allegiance only to HUMANS because they are HUMANS. i think nations are mental constructs (see 'imagined communities' for more clarification) etc. etc. i did not have any gut reaction, empathy, or character identification issues with this movie.

BUT for a person who does believe in the dream of america they will be very sad at the beginning of the movie when an 'innocent' american gets killed. they will identify with the protagonist's urge to hunt down the muslim murderers and blow them up in turn.

so that is how the movie goes ... very unrealistic, super-smart and well trained FBI team enters saudi arabia in like two days without clearance ... befriends some muslims, hates others and finds the bad guys ... yay!

at the end of the movie it is revealed that the muslims and americans have something in common ... hatred (and lollipops). jamie foxx reveals that what helped jennifer garnet get over the death of her american friend is when he uttered the words "we'll kill them all." and then a little muslim boy reveals that what helped him get past his grandfather's death is when his grandfather uttered the words, "we'll kill them all."

i don't know what the moviemakers intentions were ... do they want to end the hatred or stir it up? my very HUMBLE opinion is that they were well intended. albeit the filmmakers could not escape their own favoritism towards america (which unintentionally clouds their message) and they could not escape their tendency to create movies along the vein of 'die hard' or 'rambo' but seeing past all that ..............

i interpret the film to say: if we do not stop the killing the killing will never stop. the deep message is: it is a cycle of revenge and violent retribution. no, i don't think that's that deep! but it's the truth.

and something you will hear me repeat a lot is: the truth is the truth. believe it or not. (and i got this from don miguel ruiz who i will discuss at length in the future). which only means you can disagree with the truth but truth stands the test of time.

ok so we know the truth -- revenge murders and bombings don't pay and only create more violence. what the film does not say is that what we are lacking is ......... FORGIVENESS. they are IMPLYING that someone will have to forgive someone first. that we will have to forgive each other for murdering our grandfathers, our cousins, our colleagues, our softball teammates, our people.

is this the only thing in the way of peace?????

yes. as i mature and try to become happy in my life i see this as the truth, yes. forgiveness is in the way of healing all people and communities who are in pain and in conflict with others and with themselves. forgiveness stands between israeli and palestinian. israeli and lebanese. kurd and turk. sunni and shiite. chinese and japanese. man and woman.

so the answer is simple.

but the WAY is hard. all you have to do is look in your own life. can you forgive your enemy? can you forgive your boss? can you forgive unpatriotic americans? can you forgive your rapist? can you forgive the pedophiliac catholic priest? can you forgive your mother? can you forgive your daddy? can you forgive your first love? can you forgive your sister?

you will have to answer that for yourself. and i will answer it for myself right here. no, not yet. there are still individuals in my life who have hurt the shit out of me who i need to forgive; but let's take a larger entity -- for the sake of this globally oriented blog -- like the american government. i find it exceedingly hard to forgive them. and yes, Love Johnson, cannot learn to LOVE them yet. i'm working on it! if i can't forgive my own government how can i expect iraqi people, iranian people, afghani people, saudi people, etc. to forgive the atrocities of the american government??

so the answer is simple: FORGIVE. the way is hard .... what do we do? how do we do it?

start small, start with one person, start the conversation with yourself. here's how a convo with myself goes: what is the worse that will happen if i forgive the american government? will i lose love for myself? uhhh no. will my family forsake me? nah probly the opposite. will i become a target of ridicule by black people, iraqi people, 'green' people ... ? maybe but do i care? (another convo!!) will republicans start calling me on the phone? they better not. will i not be able to critique the american government anymore? noooooooooooooo can't see that.

well i have started the convo. even though i still don't forgive america. but yes, i am working on it and ultimately that is my goal. to forgive america. to forgive white people (this is even harder). to forgive all oppressors (hardest). and still use my life and my gifts to fight (non-violently) for justice and peace and a true kingdom of heaven on earth.

the kingdom of heaven is a place where we forgive each other each trespass. and we leave it up to God (any high power you bank on) to prevent trespasses against us. cuz if i kill yo auntie and yo cuzzin for killing my cuzzin ... then they cuzzin is coming ... to trespass against me. and my little human form prevented nothing, changed nothing, and only perpetrated more hurt and pain.

will you start the conversation with yourself? who will you forgive today?