Joseph Sadony
Valley of the Pines
Montague, Michigan
The material embodied in these Fragments has appeared elsewhere, in different form: i.e. in Timber, The Whisper, The “Voice of Tomorrow” Calendar, Thoughts, The Poetry Society Year Book, Michigan Poets,The Muskegon Chronicle, The Kalamazoo Gazette, The Bay City Times, The Pasadena Star News, The San Jose Mercury Herald, The Chicago Daily Tribune; and in newspapers or periodicals of Argentina, Brasil, China, England and India.
Copyright, 1937
BY
Joseph Sadony
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
“PLASTIC PROSE”
It is the fruit of plastic living and plastic thinking. . .
Freed from the habits of memory, the grooves of graphophone records, the rails of routine and the ruts of traveled roads:
no longer hemmed in by the expectations of others,
no longer dancing to the rhymes of men and measured rhythms contrary to all pulses of Nature,
which we and our thoughts must follow,
a living lie if we be unwilling prisoners …
DEAR FRIENDS,
There is a definite reason for selecting “Plastic Prose” as the substance for this first of a series of brochures in preparation at The Valley Press. The presentation of Joseph Sadony, his “Valley of the Pines” and matters of greater philosophic and scientific import, is being reserved for the book which is soon to follow. Meanwhile, however, Mr. Sadony, while not professing nor intending to be a poet, is now widely accredited, on the poetic side of the fence, with having originated “Plastic Prose”. It is understood that several volumes by Mr. Sadony will in due time appear in this form.
Therefore, to meet the immediate need of an introduction to “Plastic Prose”, with exemplification from the writings of Joseph Sadony which will answer queries concerning his use of it, we pause long enough in the midst of other efforts to present a small selection for this purpose.
Broken lines were used generations before poets called the result “Free Verse”, and worked out techniques of their own for using it. The use of short paragraphs containing phrases or single sentences may be found in many variations before Joseph Sadony, but no one previously has termed it “Plastic Prose” in contradistinction to “Free Verse”, working out a justifiable, simple and definite “technique” which entitles it to Identity as a literary form. Plastic Prose is not a writer’s affectation and it does not pretend to be “poetry”. There is a single purpose back of its typographical arrangement: i.e. to break up the printed form into phrases identical with the tempo of the original thought’s creation, thus attuning the reader to the same tempo which, in addition to the resulting visual relief and easier mental assimilation, is of definite aid in reading “between the lines” by this attunement with the author. The purpose is practical rather than poetic, hence “Plastic Prose” rather than “Free Verse”, hence also the elimination of unnecessary capital letters in connection with the phrasing. The following is self-explanatory, from
“THERE IS A SECRET LANGUAGE in the tempo of things which gives birth to personalities.”
There is a spirit of things that is at home in neither prose or poetry.
In this trend has been the bulk of much of the philosophic and meditative work of Joseph Sadony.
Its expression has given birth to a definite and simple technique of emancipated prose rather than liberated poetry.
It is the reduction of “paragraphs” to the tempo of speaking or thinking.
It has been arranged, as here exemplified, for thus, in speaking or dictating,
the words fell from the lips of the author in phrases doubly effective
because of the pauses, omissions and suspensions that seemed instruments of telepathic processes
involving subtleties and significances that could be captured or conveyed in no other way than by the same alignment of verbal fibres.
THROUGHOUT THE AGES man has searched experimentally for that elusive, most transparent, least artificial and most flexible technique of literary expression
which allows both thinker and reader greater mastery of thought over its medium,
and which, being capable of being molded to suit any purpose or tempo,
lends itself to the plainness of diction which, even as simplicity of dress, is so essential
to the freedom, efficiency and dignity of the human body
as well as the ancient and recently evolving modern American ideals of literary excellence: rapidity and directness as well as nobility of thought.
EVEN AS PETALS unfold from buds,
and limbs of trees branch forth distinct to monument their source in unseen roots
so does thought condense in the mind, flash from the tongue or distil from the pen of a man inspired:
thoughts that are often poetic yet not poetry,
thoughts that are often dramatic, yet not drama.
wisdom befitting philosophy,
Visions akin to revelations,
truths and knowledge germain to science and psychology,
So with flowers and with thoughts,
so with whispers of wisdom or phrases of beauty,
parries of wit, or lightning-flashes of truth that give birth to centuries of echoing thunder;
so with the spirit that moves the quick or quiet tongue of a Thinker who is also a Doer, not merely a speaker or dreamer of Thoughts.
THE LATE EDWARD DAVIS, author of “Lovers of Life” once presented Joseph Sadony with a book of “Free Verse” upon the fly-leaf of which he wrote,
“Joseph,
The body of your writing is too great
and chastely beautiful to be deprived of the vestments, gauze, plumage and jewels of aesthetic illusion.”
Joseph replied, “I am but a silent wanderer seeking for truth.
“I have found a skeleton-key to the Archives of the Ages, therefore have neither time to read, nor inclination to polish and adorn.
“As you must know, I am not an orator; neither a writer;
“not a rich man, neither a poor man.
“Symbolically I am but a diamond miner,
“and there I must remain to gather the jewels in the rough
“for the writer to shape and grind into beauty,
“to present to the orator who through the voice of man places it in its setting of gold
“to present it to people either as a luxury to those who can afford it,
“or a necessity to those that hunger.
“The gift of perfect language has never been mine
“and I do not profess to be able always to express my meaning aesthetically,
“any more than the rough bark and thorns which protect the perfume in its veins,
“that is carried up to the beautiful blossom of the rose (such as you represent) and which alone
“has an exquisite language of tenderness, beauty and fragrance, opposite to its bark and thorns.
“BUT I DID challenge God to reveal Himself in a direct way,
“by going halfway to meet Him,
“by breaking ground and cultivating it.
“God then sent me mental seeds, which my faith, interest and will weeded until the flowers blossomed.
“And still there was no God until the perfume oozed out in wreaths of evaporating intelligence
“which satisfied me more than faith,
“more than absolute evidence…
“I found that I was a part of the Flower, because without me the Flower could not have lived.
So God and I made…”
THE FAST APPROACHING “Age of Intuition” demands a new literature and a new art in each department of human effort,
new standards, systems, techniques to meet the change of tempo,
the quickening of the spirit and methods demanded by increasing mental flexibility and new standards of simplicity.
We offer Joseph Sadony as “An American Thinker” in which the thoughts, the conditions and the fulfillments of this new epoch have for a quarter century cast their shadows before.
We offer “Plastic Prose” as nature’s own choice and synthesis of all literary departures from traditional and artificial molds.
We offer this small brochure as a fragile introduction to both, though it be but an interlude in the continued preparation of more significant works the publication of which is still pending, as previously announced.
— THE VALLEY PRESS
VALLEY OF THE PINES
MCMXXXVII
…And these thoughts fill the air; not my own, but like a thief I take them…
AND WHAT AM I
I AM BUT A LANDMARK to happy spiritual destinies.
I am but a milestone pointing the way to the individual cities of those who look up to me to show them that way:
only a mere post stuck in the ground, with a white board.
But the greatest thing is the Hand that has written the direction on the signboard of my brain.
Is this any credit to the board, when there are so many?
Any credit to the post stuck in the ground?
Or to Him who has placed there, and who has surveyed the destinies of mankind…
I believe the credit is due to the tired wayfaring man who seeks his own path.
My personality counts for little.
It is but the cloak of the soul within.
If it is good and pleasing, it is but the natural result of the good already acquired and implanted.
I cannot paint the petals of my heart-flowers any other colors than those God or nature has given them.
If one walks in my garden, he must expect to find the flowers which are supposed to grow there. . . Joseph Sadony
NIGHT: the swish of the Water that we call Dreams.
DAY: the grinding of wheels to crush Wheat for Daily Bread.
NOT ALONE TO PLANT THE WHEAT, but to grind it and bake the Bread of Tomorrow;
not alone to dream Dreams, but to clothe them with flesh and blood…
THE WIND CARRIES THE SEEDS where they will grow,
because there it has been before, millions of times, and carried the drops of water to make it fertile…
NATURE IS A VAST HARP, but it requires the fingers of wisdom
to pass over its strings tenderly and aggressively, to liberate the melodies of life…
TRUE POEMS ARE WORDS without time or flesh:
the whisperings from those who fly above the sordid things of life, and who left their heavy shoes of mortality behind them…
A GOOD POEM is but the melody of a thinker’s song: the words , the seed of his dream.
WHAT IS THAT THRILL in a waving of the hand of a child and an old man?
THERE IS NOTHING more beautiful or graceful in life than a new full-blown rose,
a boy and a girl at the dawn of manhood and womanhood.
THE LIGHT OF GOD is seen in the darkest hours,
only when our pent-up soul struggles for freedom or imprisonment.
DRINK AND DRAIN THE CUP to the dregs.
Not only will it make you immune, but a master as well.
WHAT IS IT, and where does it come from when a mother derives joy in sacrificing for her child?
Where, the hunters joy in killing but not eating?
Where, the miser’s joy in possessing and not spending?
IF A DOG DIES, he is a nuisance and a stench.
But if he has saved the life of your little child, he is not dead.
He still lives in your Thought.
FROM THE QUARRY I brought a large cube of granite.
I give it to a sculptor.
He returned it as a perfect likeness of my father.
I enjoyed it more, because my father had passed on long ago
The granite seemed to have lost its identity, by form and features.
It involved something akin to affection.
I thought: is this not similar to our animal body,
the Soul shaping it by a Personality, and a Character of Identity that we love?
WHERE ARE ALL THE LEAVES NOW that shall shelter us from the heat of the sun next summer?
They are waiting to be born as tomorrow’s children.
Shall we prune these trees now? in order to give the coming leaves a good foundation?
Or shall we welcome them on limbs and foundation that shall not allow them to mature.
Whose fault is it but those with saw in hand that rusts for the want of use?
HOW OFTEN DO I PITY THE SOUL forced to use a body bent by dissipation,
where pride, dignity and self-esteem have been stifled and shackled by ignorance and environments.
Does it not make one think of the embarrassment of a great musician.
playing on a piano out of tune, with keys and strings missing:
trying to express his inspiration to a hungry audience, with great disappointment?
Then blaming the God of Music, instead of the neglected instrument and man’s blindness?
I KNOW YOU ARE HURT.
All the better, for it awakens pity, hope and love.
There can be no mountain without a valley, no trough in the sea without the crest, no good without evil.
But the glory is to control the rushing waters to grind our grain,
while we lie in the grass to learn its origin.
GODS STOREHOUSE is all ours,
if we can imprison it, harness it, and then take care of it.
Build the barn and harness first; then it will come.
Plant the seed.
Put a skin around things.
Materialize them.
I AM IN THE “BIG CITY” with the shrieking of whistles,
the tearing of steel on steel that was taken from the ground by blood of human hands.
Here I find wood chopped down against Nature,
stone hewn from the faces of mountains…
It is “Civilization” — competitive cleverness in the eyes of the masses — great ant-hills of prisons.
It takes a great man to survive the City,
because the current of the rapids runs so swiftly there is no turning back once launched on its surface.
The further one goes, the higher the walls.
Fortunate is he who survives with a clear conscience.
MUST WE NOT BOW OUR HEADS to the storm, in recognition of a great power?
Do we not tremble just a little at a flash of lightning?
Does it not affect us to see the tree bending low when forced by the tempest to bow?
We are insulated from these things in the city.
Nature ceases to be a part of us.
Yet in the country we may lie under a tree at night and feel safe because God and Nature are supreme.
He who hears not the voice of Nature, hears not the voice of God.
BEHOLD THESE THINGS and tell me what the world has come to.
when we use the fine-bred race-horses for the plow,
roast birds of paradise,
feed geese and ostriches in bird cages,
force young geniuses to labor in factories
while the unfit are placed on the pedestal of fame by doting mothers, forced fathers and scheming money-changers…
Who or what is the cause, that we have so few real singers?
Surely not the public alone.
Is it too many pianos, and no tuners?
Too many tuners, and few pianos?
Or not enough interest in either one?
WHY MUST REAL ESTATE and salesmanship claim the keenest minds
instead of the education of the human race?
What really is our goal?
And what is best done?
Why does it cost so much for some to be beautiful;
and others make no effort, and outclass them all?
Why some so ugly in disposition, no matter how they try to be agreeable;
while others make no effort, and are loved for their efforts, supposedly made…
It’s not alone that we have wagon wheels that turn, big or small:
They must be built for the load, the road and the wagon,
if we are to save time, money and muscle, as intended.
And so it should be, should it not? — with the human race.
Each axle, or man, should be well oiled with understanding,
to avoid any friction while at work or play.
Then we shall have music and songs instead of wealth and war…
SOME MUST SPIN, some must weave, and still others must wear.
We each have been chosen for a particular purpose, and it is our duty to seek guidance of our innermost desires.
If we have made no decision as yet, it proves that
the right path is still unmanifested,
and that it may be all the more important for being delayed.
The century plant has its purpose as well as the twenty-four hour morning glory.
The century plant must receive much attention in order that others as well as ourselves may see its beauty,
and behold its blossom an hundred years hence.
We have the farmer to sow and plant the hemp and cotton;
the laborer to execute the designs of the manufacturers;
we have the dreamer to draw pictures of Eden;
the explorer and inventor to find and transport;
the thinker, to design;
the practical man to put into shape,
the speaker to inspire activity,
the financier to economize,
that all the human family may be happy…
FROM WHENCE WAS BORN our great operas,
symphonies of music and melodies that thrill a nation,
if not by the help of man’s imagination,
using human emotions as a great harp to interpret and awaken every emotion,
from the primitive rhythm of a dried tree-trunk as a dream, to the violin and harp;
touching every phase of love, hate, heaven and hell:
urging us onward toward perfection or the expression of the soul with tears and smiles,
opening our eyes to the rising sun,
running to a cave at the approach of the storm,
humming a melody of “Home, Sweet Home” at sundown,
then tuning up once again each string in sweet slumbers of the night by the vibrant whispers of God’s activity
motivated for the benefit of His children’s understanding of Him from whence came everything in existence.
EACH BUBBLING SPRING is like a human being born Of mother earth.
It meets another, and they melt into one of love;
then still others fuse into families, communities, states and nations,
and die, at last, at the brink of the sea, only to LIVE as many into one GOD…
Not a spring that does not die in youth as a brook;
not a brook, save to die to live as man, the mighty river
which “dies” into the Ocean only to become the God of Waters,
even as Man…
ON A STARLIGHT NIGHT
HAVE YOU EVER stood alone,
with outstretched arms
on a starlight night,
to recognize your weak helplessness?
How small — and yet
that divinity within must exist in order for you to be conscious of all these marvels.
For if you do recognize these thing to exist, you can only do so
either by having created them as your own, or by being a part of the Inventor.
For to recognize anything you must have been the possessor.
And even if but a memory, then you must have come from a former existence that created these things,
just as a bird building its first nest remembers the process of its parents,
how and what to choose. We call it instinct,
or reincarnation-of-thought.
Why not occasionally dip down deep into the trunk and roots of our tree of life,
and see what may be there to awaken the virtues
of past ages.
Does this seem so great a task,
or is it easier to dance to the rhythm of modern jazz,
to make you forget the wholesome things of life that solitude can teach?
For ambition is the sunlight of thought That tries to grow in the garden of God, your brain.
EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE has its primary foundation,
the valued pearl in the irritating grain of sand,
happiness in sorrow’s realization.
When man forgets slavery days, he forgets also his freedom.
Water held back creates a reservoir of power,
human emotions as well.
Revenge, if tamed, will cause enemies to become friends.
Such is activity that gives birth to the tides of life,
to the purity of a running brook,
the song of happiness;
the cleansing storm, the leveler of the human race.
He who stops too long to question or doubt
pronounces his own sentence of sleep,
and may become the grain of sand,
but is still the soul of a pearl.
WHY SHOULD WE NOT, with expectancy, joy and fragrant anticipation,
watch the bud of the coming rose,
rather than with tears and regret, the dried petals of our forefathers
whose good seeds still live in the coming flowers of our next generation?
WHEN I BEHOLD a silent flowing river, I become lonesome and pensive.
Perhaps it is because I see it flow on, never to return the same,
taking with it just a little earth toward the leveling of the world…
WHERE IT NOT for the Unknowable would man seek and become clean, transparent and pure as the runing brook,
Washed with sunlight and pebbles upon a long journey to its father of waters,
emptying its little load of the earth’s salts?
WHAT IS THE RELATION of the spark the charge powder?
It gives it birth to discharge, a soul to release itself.
What is the relation of that sprk of God’s Intelligence to man?
There must be an inlet and an outlet…
But where is that Gate of Power,
And who shall open the door of Paradise and close The door of Prison?
A COUNTRY may become old and crafty, having lost its sentimental, romantic principles;
but from among its men and women shall spring Youth and Love, to find a new country . . .
And like the seeds of that old, worn-out orchard, shall produce a new orchard,
displaying a pure white blanket of blossoms in that new Springtime that God will not deny
as a prophecy of the coming new fruit that will never die: the soul of His children —
the swing of the pendulum of progress.
I SAW A LARGE, strong oak tree with leaves fully grown.
There came a storm,
a silent flash of lightning;
and with the rumbling of the thunder there fell a limb.
As the sun lengthened its shadows, the leaves of the tree floated softly to the ground, their mission fulfilled,
the juice of their vitality returned from whence they came.
But the leaves of the limb felled in its full vigor clung fast to the branches,
their juices frozen in a form of suspended activity,
even as a man struck down in his prime,
earthbound for a time, because of purposes unfulfilled;
without outlet for his energy not yet spent.
SURELY IT IS ONLY by walking in the shadow of Death’s Valley
that we learn the blessing of God’s sunshine,
ever upon the heights of His mercy and love.
THERE WERE THOSE who believed in Jesus, and Him crucified.
The children of those followers of Christ went at first to pray and worship at the Cross.
But they soon forgot.
The cross rotted at the foot,
until at last from neglect, it fell down.
FROM THE NEXT GENERATION there came a philosopher
in whose breast there stirred a half-forgotten memory as he saw it lying there.
“IT SEEMS TO ME that this should be standing” he mused.
So he dug a hole, but planted the cross upside down,
head buried in the earth, jagged end up.
a symbol of the dagger —
a rotted finger pointing toward the sky.
THE BLOOD OF JESUS, caught in the cup turned upside down and sank into the earth.
There, white lilies sprang up, spotted with red:
even nature lifting the blood toward the sky, saying “Father, see!”
TODAY THE MINER is digging the ore for the metal,
the forester is pruning the trees for the carpenter,
the silk-worm is busy with the spinning of silk,
a young servant of God is studying his ritual that he may deliver a good sermon;
children are being reared who will grace the ceremony…
What ceremony? Our own ceremony, our last one here, when our coffin,
fashioned from the many contributions being prepared today,
and holding the dust of our body’s dissolution,
will be carried to the grave…
the moment we begin to live in this world, that moment we begin to die.
Therefore let us live each day as if it were our last, and realize
that our present life’s importance is not so great as our own spiritual evolution.
ONCE THERE WAS a blacksmith who shod a horse, and drove in one nail badly,
so that the horse became lame when carrying a servant
to deliver a message which reached the King too late to save his Kingdom.
PRIMITIVE MAN sought caves for warmth
until he became more wise through suffering, through deprivation, and by the experience of accidents.
At last he began to compare,
to think instead of acting by habit alone.
He saw vast trees fall, rub against others, and catch fire.
He imitated this, and became more warm,
liberating sunlight of which, as yet he knew nothing.
Thousand of years later we find him building furnaces
to carry the same sunlight, in steam and heat, to a distance.
Still he beheld trees falling, cut down by electricity.
Again he began to think, still more deeply, toward the source of all this power.
And now, like his hidden soul, today he takes “heat” and creates steam
which in turn is exchanged for electricity
which is sent through a cold wire to become heat again, though it be miles away
transporting the flames until they reach the will-power of man.
And still he looks for more trees to fall — to scrape together — to learn Why they fall:
ever seeking what he did not, does not, yet know.
He must see it, as we do the flames,
and study where those flames are
while passing through the wire unseen, unfelt —
and still, he cannot deny that it is there,
just as with the intellect of the soul
within our bodies — unseen, unknown,
until we exchange OUR flame into Electricity
which is the Source of Power that we call God…
From “Give it a Thought”
When one realizes that ambition is the fire which fuses the gold of faith,
which in turn is shaped by intuition to that form which gave us our first desire —
then he will realize what it means to “seek, knock and ask” — and Why.
The man without ambition has no love — without love, no ambition:
even though it be ambition of self-love, there is the foundation of new discoveries of the soul,
the two points of art and science, instinct and intuit tive imagination.
We must keep both alive, for one is food for the
other, Night and Day,
the duality of mental evolution fro beast to God.
In my youth, when I reached for a book, I heard the words, “Why must you dig in the graves of the past,
when you may grasp the future that is still unborn:
Let the night be the past, the future the morning.
Blessed is he who will dip with the cup of his heart into the pure fresh water of life, to drink and be refreshed
instead of dipping with the cup of his skull into the dark pool of the past, which has been recorded”.
And then my reading was over.
I tried to record the thoughts, but failed.
I was too slow – and perhaps too happy drinking them.
There is no witness more honest than the conscience, the servant of God’s justice:
And when this servant leaves, the soul has been smothered, and has no need of Justice:
for but a stone remains which has neither pleasure, anticipation, nor Life.
Do you know that death visits you every day, trying to befriend you, whether you will or not? —
and at last becomes your bosom friend who rows you over
that dreamy river to the next journey of mental life…
Appreciate the living, so you need not mourn the loss.
Feed them bread of kindness, instead of sacrificing the roses
that are meant for living eyes rather than those which see them not:
and often but a record of neglect,
a love message too late…
No matter how great a man may have become, he must pass through the some door as the fool,
as a symbol of the soul’s existence of equality;
and that no matter how small that spark of soul, it is still the principle of God, and will not deny equality.
There is a dignity to the simple flavor of truth, that is lacking in the empty flow of mere eloquence,
for words are but an expression of experience, and experience is but one percent of Truth.
Your faith in God is a most fertile seed of progress.
The ground in which it grows is reason and logic.
Neither can flourish without the other: see the value of the seed within the flower,
or within an egg…
True friendship has no lock nor key;
walls are transparent, vices soften into virtues;
criticism into praise, stains into gaudy colors;
money has no purse nor safe, rivers no banks;
just a life of confidence and contentment…
Such is true friendship.
How can we think what God is, when the eye cannot see itself, neither a mountain be measured without its base?
If we have been sown into this world by some great design, is it not just
that we depend upon that purpose for what is to be,
by trying to help being perfect, with due respect for that great Power
which has given us Understanding to mature, and which men of thinking mind call “God”?
The word “God” is written and pronounced in many different ways, yet the Ineffable Name itself can only be thought:
and that, the very first thought of a child for its Creator.
God manifest Himself in our thoughts
He but whispers, and it becomes an echo in our prayers.
Happiness is a prayer of virtue from a clear conscience of having been Just
and prepared to give as we have received;
to know that on leaving this world into the Unknown, we leave no debt for having been born,
but a greater sunshine for having lived on earth, to have dried the tears of sorrow,
and relaxed the bitter smiles of those persecuted unjustly.
You who have ever been in fear of Death, and who question Immortality,
see before you each day the manifestation of death, and still you know it not.
You, Fathers and Mothers, who are atheists, gaze with pride and love upon your baby boys and girls,
and are not aware of their loss by Death from Babyhood into Manhood and Womanhood:
for they are now within your elements, and the child has passed away.
They are called as you are: Man and Woman; and thus is Death.
It is your unreceptive mind which selects and grinds the color that you mix with the Dew of Death upon the brows
of those whom you would force into the shadow of Death, the unreal:
Manhood, the death of your child;
Godhood, the passing of man.
Justice is an axe in the hands of trusted pioneers.
It must have a keep edge gained from experience.
It must be tempered with prudence, and used with discretion and consideration,
with sympathy and kindness; for then, and only then,
will Law and Order uphold the Ideals of God’s noble-men.
The seeds of Nature are not the only life born in the depth of the damp ground.
The seed of our knowledge too was born in the cold, selfish, damp, misty ground of blind ignorance.
But the sun’s reflection has warmed the heart to beat faithfully
for the eyes and ears to behold the grandeur of Nature,
so that man might awaken into that illumination of wisdom,
the blossom from that seed once buried as dead, but transferred into fruit as food for the soul.
Every man and woman on earth has received a message to deliver at the height of his or her understanding;
and when that message becomes one word, then shall there be peace always.
Our body mutilates it; our mind deforms it; our heart longs for it.
We come into the world with it, and leave the world bathing it in tears;
but we return whence it was born, leaving behind that which distorted and adulterated it,
and once again it shines out in all glory:
it is called “LOVE”…
We still have with us the mob rule — Crucify him!
Let no one loosen chains of freedom. Let not one man forge ahead
to know our sins, to expose our hidden greed, the secret of the Night;
lest we who blind justice may be sent to the gallows.
We want nothing new.
Let the sins of our fathers suffice.
They lived through it; so shall we.
As for our children, they can take care of themselves.
And blindly they crucify their own children into slavery.
The Mob Rules.
I may often talk of God, but if you have lifted too high, and dragged down the clouds from where they belong,
and float over the earth half-dazed in a spiritual mist, while the good feet of your body dangle helpless,
do not think me cruel if I demand red blood where red blood is needed;
and if I tell you that well-prepared food and care of the body,
are as important for the soul as are thoughts of God.
A violin, a brush and oil paint, a supple body,
are not the only means for the expression of visions, mastership, inspiration.
The means is but an outlet of what is free to all.
The tender hand of a good Samaritan,
the unselfish hand of a Sister of Mercy,
the feeder of the poor,
the protector of widows and children,
— these play the sweetest music;
painting with their blood pictures of love upon the memory of man.
A dance of beauty evokes the sublime art of motion,
the rhythm of that beautiful body of flesh, the house of the soul.
Just seek an outlet for your message that will long outlive your body;
for houses were built only as temporary dwellings for the soul.
Learn how to play. Be boys and girls.
Never lay aside past toys permanently, for children Of God never grow old.
Suffer little children to come unto me — not bald-headed flint-hearts.
For who told them that they were bald-headed, if not the master Time?
— which really does not exist. They but thought through their material organs,
that part of the material life that is tuned and timed by earth’s chemicals alone.
There is no heart that does not long for affection.
Romance is written in every fiber of the human heart.
It is unfortunate that in modern society, our girls will to entertain the desire to live and flourish in a business world.
They thus often sacrifice the romance of life.
They still the language of the heart, slow down the powers of attraction, dam the life-giving waters of sentiment.
This is a mechanistic age and many girls become machines: efficient and faithful — but machines.
Under the law of compensation the neglected river of sentiment that flows through the beautiful, fertile Country of Romance, will dry up.
The waters will then swell the streams and turn the wheels of the mills, and of commerce.
But after the river of sentiment is dried up, the
fertile Country of Romance will become arid, and a desert.
The mills, too, will then fall into disuse and decay, for there will be no more grain.
How little do we appreciate the precious sleep that sweeps away the shavings and sawdust of our mistakes.
Each morning gives us another chance to rectify them, recharged, better and stronger to face the world with a new weapon,
until we reach a mountain-top from which we glide into a valley of life — or death… Which shall it be?
Let your imaginary hurts be destroyed by the flame of sleep.
The cup of hunger shall be filled for him who will resign himself to the will of the Creator.
for there is a way, as long as we have eyes, ears and a tongue , to see, to hear and to give.
Man strives to perfect by Nature.
He strengthens himself by sensuality, creating a family.
He is proud, covets, steals, destroys, creates —
all to an end of Strength.
He possesses, perpetually acquires, accumulates.
And in creating he does not realize that the seed of the same law is also born to continue still the path toward the God of creation
which manifests itself through Nature, silent, relentless, but absolutely through love, and both faith and charity.
Don’t ever think you can be free from all suffering.
That can never be, as long as your soul has the cloth of flesh;
as the soul is incorruptible, spiritual or ethereal, and the body corruptible, material, the two shall always conflict, depending upon understanding.
In the family of the greatest physician there is physical pain; and doubt of Christian faith in the family of loyal Bishops.
There is ever counterfeit money among us in circulation; and we must test it when receiving wages.
For it is that which causes doubt and sorrow.
Its redeeming feature is that it forces us to think, to analyze and to be cautious —
Which in turn creates progress, knowledge, and the understanding of an Ideal life with but little sorrow or pain in its prevention.
No man is safe from temptation as long as he has even one desire left,
as long as one of his human appetites has not been appeased.
For it but seeks its own counterpart, as a climax of completeness,
Be it a work of art, a martyr, or its own destruction.
Why always let tragedy remind you how well off you were?
Why not appreciate the absence of sorrow and pain, hunger and poverty?
Many a person has been shackled for life by some tribute;
forced to accept it, where pride was the jailor.
You ask, “What is Truth?”
Truth is an established principle,
a law unerring, fixed by the Creator of reality.
It can be acquired by man, sustained by reason and logic.
It is the criterion of God.
It is the existence within existence, or the Soul of Life…
The capacity of man for Understanding is limited.
Beyond this limit he fails to grasp Truth.
It is like going into a forest. One can go no further than the center
without beginning to come out again.
It is well that there is ever the mystery of that which is still unknown;
for an unsolved puzzle we always carry in our pockets,
but when solved, we throw it away.
It is considered a sad thing to live useless lives and be counted a drone.
But are there useless lives?
Because it appears that there are, do not others live
doubly useful lives in reaction to the idle example shown?
One “drone” might awaken the genius in a dozen.
Do not many drones insure the hive of industry, in order to perpetuate the individual sect or nation?
We may think so, with out limited knowledge, but there is really nothing useless in God’s world.
Years of search have failed to reveal one useless thing.
Vengeance shall be mine, sayeth the Lord, for my law
has been not to degrade my servants who but delivered my message,
or perhaps altered it: but if so,
to me they shall answer for their deeds, not unto another servant.
As long as you have some vitality, leave some mark — some good sign in its passing.
It is the greatest investment in life, right or wrong.
If wrong you will have taught the coming generation what not to do.
If right, they will follow in your footsteps, instead of wandering into doubt and useless sacrifice.
Our weakness is our strength, if we will it rightly; our disease, our health.
We are shown by our sins the penalties without a loss; our infirmities without annihilation.
There is but a scar, as evidence only.
If you have not gathered wisdom that can give you joy to brighten some dark day, then you have journeyed thus far in vain.
And that sack God gave you to carry your grain, has been worn threadbare,
and your grain has leaked out.
Turn your feet and follow the green sprouts back to your childhood days,
and begin over…
The strong arm of the sculptor brings into existence the artist’s greatest inspiration in the hardest marble.
His masterpiece may then be lasting;
remembered and loved by future generations…
Do you not think it a law that he who is most valued must be visited tragedies, tests of endurance, humiliation and sorrow?
Let us go slowly, carefully, but surely, before we say “Yes”, or “No”,
so that we will leave no blot that cannot ever be erased.
Never say No or Yes until placed where it belongs,
and then make it absolute.
This will destroy the false superstition, deceit and illusion that has held down humanity for ages.
What we do, let us do fearlessly, conscientiously, but absolutely.
Let us do…
are one of the strings on the harp of God.
Keep yourself at the right pitch so you may not be pointed out as a discord in the sweet melody of Nature’s song.
Every man climbs to the top of his own mountain of efficiency,
There to record at his greatest height the road beneath him.
For never again will his material faculties be as strong as at that moment,
to be used as he slowly glides down into a new peaceful valley of maturity.
But let him ever keep in mind the shape and direction of the country he saw while at his greatest height, and physical prime.
If you know when you are most efficient mentally;
when you have tested yourself thoroughly, physically, mentally and spiritually;
When you have reached the zenith of your life, so far as you know, in all-around experience and perfection —
then draw a picture of your Ideal.
From then on follow it regardless of ought else;
for you then begin to descend the other side of the mountain.
But if you have thus raised the flag of your Standard,
it identifies your entire life.