Reflection
for the Week

    You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
     But on what?  Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
     And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything
that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is
singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and
wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:  "It is time to be
drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be
continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

- Charles Baudelaire


Have you ever read John Bunyan? (He died on this day in 1688.) Don't bother! Nasty, pinched, hectoring wretch. You can live without his lifeless so-called Christianity, believe me. A nice bit of irony that Baudelaire also died  on this day in 1867. Give me Baudelaire any day!!

My intuition tells me that a lot of Jesus' enjoyment and joy of Life has been edited out by the Rule-makers. All faiths and religions have such folk, who have an uncanny will and ability to suck every bit of tenderness and beauty out of being human and out of the understanding of God. A pox on them, I say. "Don'ts" may keep people in line for a bit, but I've never believed that Rules make people good. Few rules manifest the principles that birthed them for very long; they soon become tools of control. And they kill the spirit. That's why I think Jesus took them all and said simply, "Love one another as I have loved you".

Be drunk today!

Brian+