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I got back from Arizona a few days ago, but I couldn’t make my blog work. I left my public lingering and I’m sorry for that. I went to the spare bedroom to see what the sock monkey’s were doing. They appeared to behaving themselves, but the bed looked as if it had been slept in. I’m just not sure.

The mail was piled high after Marcella brought it all from the post office. It didn’t take long for me to cull out the junk… (Most of the mail) I did, however get a good pile of great Mail art letters from people all over. There was this certain batch that seemed to come from one source at the heartland farm. The girls had a little Mail Art afternoon and decided to snow good ole Bob with a bunch of fantastic letters. I’ve been writing since I got back, trying to get caught up. It’s all my own fault.

The old dish washing job was still waiting. I hadn’t been downsized while I was gone. The sinks were full of dirty pots and pans and the bus carts were overflowing with used plates and silverware. Still in the short time I was missing, the new waitress was dispatched to the where ever by Diane. I guess she came to work “High” on something and that was that for her. Easy come… easy go!

We all went to the San Exaiver del Bac Mission in Tucson. It’s this really cool three hundred year old spanish mission. Marcella didn’t think I would like it, but she was wrong. It was one of the highlights to our trip Well…. other than the tea place, the art faire, and my frequent trips bushwacking into the desert. We all went over and had some Fry bread from under the Remada’s by the Native American’s selling it to the pilgrims to the mission. They were from the Tohono O’odham tribe that have a reservation nearby.

We met allot of wonderful people from all over town and especially at the Desert House of Prayer. I love the silent meals even though I struggle to keep my mouth shut. I love the desert and the mountains I climbed. I didn’t even complain (much) after I fell down and skinned my knee. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

3/13/2009

Thanks for keeping in touch Mary Jane. I miss you and I’m sad you are so far away. Keep in touch, because in September I am going to have an art show in Baton Rouge LA. My friend Jay has set one up for me at the city art museum. I am thinking of naming it C.R.A.P. Collected Rigamarow of Artistic Poo. Watch for it.

Anyway… I was writing to tell everyone that I’m heading for the desert tomorrow morning at 9:00 sharp. Marcella and I are heading out to Tucson to visit her sister for a week amoung the cactus. It’s a wonderful spot for getting out of the crap. I’m going to do a bunch of A-Mazing. Last year we went and it changed my life and I hope it happens all over again. The place has a real effect on me. Marcella’s sister, Rita is working of a retreat owned by a Catholic Brotherhood, called Desert house of Prayer. They have little hermitages and silent breakfast and great sunrises. We won’t be able to stay at the hermitage, because it is all booked up. A nearby motel will have to do.

I’m sure most of the folks that live in Tucson just get up and go to work and huddle inside around the airconditioner. They could actually live any place on earth and they’d do the same thing. Myself, I don’t see the place in that manner. I see getting lost is a spiritual thing and that is why I’m going. I’ll see you all when I get back. Keep checking on me and keeping me on my toes. I love you all! Robert!

3/8/2009
Robert Joy

Fanning the flames of faith

Sunday morning and I’m off to work and Sunday is not the day of the week I love to work. I don’t love to go to work on Sunday, not because it’s supposed to be “The day of rest,” but, because I have to work and everyone else rests. The after-church, folks just keep on coming through those doors and I have to keep going and going trying to keep up with them.

The best part of the Sunday is the drive to work. I like to turn on the radio and listen to classical music as I leave town for the eight miles to Great Bend. My favorite day was the day I turned on the radio and I was welcomed with a beautiful rendition of the “Tales from the Vienna Woods!” Today, however I didn’t have Classical Music and then I remembered it was Sunday and they don’t have Classical on Sunday Morning. I switched the radio over to the local AM station and I got this preacher. I don’t know who he was, because I got on the radio in the middle of his sermon.

He was talking about a time when Jesus was out among the people and healing them. There was this one situation where this man; a rich, important guy, a high member of the local clergy and certainly a man of power, came to Jesus with a special request. He wanted Jesus to come to his home and bring his daughter back to life. I guess Jesus went to this guys house and performed the task. Of course, Jesus told everyone that the girl was just sleeping, because he was a modest man and not one to go around showing off, so he chased everyone out and did his healing in private.

We’ll the preacher, comes back and makes his point. He tells us all that this rich, powerful man had a great deal of nerve to show such faith at that time. Here this upstart Jesus comes along and challenges the current state of belief and of course, is not popular with the establishment. This powerful man was at risk of losing all he has. The preacher tells me that it really took allot of nerve to go against the system. I guess the preacher was chewing all of us listeners out, because of our lack of faith. Our lack of faith prevents us from not only recognizing God in disguise as a mortal man (Jesus), but also our lack of faith prevents us from having the courage to follow that guy in disguise.

Well, I was almost to the Diner and this program wasn’t over yet, so I didn’t hear the end of it. Still I had to have some sort of conclusion, so here’s what I think. If God should come back to earth in another one of his disguises and he did it once, so I can’t rule out the possibility that he might come back and give it ago once again. How am I supposed to know if he’s just another nut case like “Jim Jones,” and all he has is a plastic barrel full of poison? Jesus came the first time and pissed of the population with his weird talk. He managed in his thirty years or so in life, a following of less that twenty souls. The preacher says I’m to have “Faith!” Talk is cheap! He can talk all he wants. I’m sure he isn’t going to be challenged by a stranger. He’s going to be just like all those other guys afraid of losing their jobs and positions.

Sure this preacher is going to hop off his perch and run off with some crossdresser on the front row of the church who get’s up during the sermon, walks over and heals a blind woman of her blindness and shouts for every one to “Repent, time is near! Follow me, for I am the fisher of men and my name is Joe Boil.” The sermon be put on hold at that point , 911 will be dialed and things will be in sort of stalled chaos until the cops can come and restore the status quo. Joe Boil will be sent over to the nut house for a thorough examination at which time he will calmly tell the doctors that he is the “Risen Christ” and they will all just make it down on their charts. Our little Sunday morning preacher will make a small joke and go back to his sermon.

It simply comes down to the fact that everyone of us are a manifestation of God. God is in us all and we should be able to recognize that fact without witnessing a resurrection of the dead. The little crossdresser or the goofy guy that comes to church with his mother for sixty eight years is possessed with the same “Manifestation of God.” I know the preacher wasn’t saying that, but that’s what I got whether he liked it or not. Maybe the preacher should start looking at everyone with that sort of eye and then he wouldn’t have to get up and preach about it. Maybe, “He” could be the next “Fisher of Mankind” and everyone could stop looking for a Special Miracle to fan the flames of their faith.

Here’s how it went and you’ll have figure out the order for yourselves.

I’m not so sure what was going on in our spare bedroom after my sister-in-law went back to Tucson. AZ. My bed monkey’s and Bears were all sitting there and it was all decent, before she came for a short visit. Then yestereday, my dear wife looked in the room and called for me. I came running and… Well… I guess things have been happening and… Well I guess you can see for yourself. I took this photo and those stuffies just went on doing as they please. I’m sure this must have been going on for some time before Rita came for a visit. I hope they were behaving while she was with us. I’m so embarrassed.

Of course this is mine and it is finished as of today. Below are the rest. I think some are finished but some are not.

2/30/2009
Robert Joy

Here’s my theory and I don’t care if anyone believes it or not. It gives me comfort to think of something that makes sense out of what is happening in this world. I believe that for the past eight years this country was subjected to a continious barrage of “The sky is falling!” For eight long years, the Bush Administration developed, nurtured and maintained a culture of fear in this country. Ole George got what he wanted by instilling the fear that around every corner lurked a terrorist ready to poison or blow us to smitherings.

I don’t suggest that George Bush was even close to Joseph Stalin of the late Soviet Union. But, Stalin also ruled his land by fear. He also created a culture of fear. He had people turned on one another. He broke down trust in one’s fellow man. He had a whole nation on the brink of war, the brink of starvation and the brink of anything he wanted.

On the day of his funeral, several people died as a result of the crush to see his body. The number varies from five hundred to fifteen hundred, but I don’t think it was more than a dozen. It doesn’t matter the number anyway. The point is… Hundreds of people came out to grieve over their fallen leader. They came out of fear for the future. What was going to happen to them now in such a wild world without the great protector to protect them? They were suffering from a mass “Stockholm Syndome” Everyone fell into love with the very person they had to fear the most. The very man who was responsible for killing millions of their families and loved ones. The very man who spent years crying that the sky was falling.

That’s what is happening in America. We are victims of a mass eight year hysteria of fear. We are grieving the loss of our fearless leader. We are all in a state of fear of the future. People want it the way it was before George left the White House. They are familiar with the fear he generated. They’re not sure of what Mr. Obama will do and they fear that more than what George Bush might have done with eight more years.

Of course, the talk show, talking heads are screaming about the fall of the American Capitalist System and the beginning of socialism. They are continuing the fear we’ve all come to love and cherish for eight years, because that’s their business. That’s how they make their living. To bad they have such short memories. Even if America should plunge head long into the throes of Socialism and become a mirror image of as Communist system such as the Soviet union, It’s doomed to fail.

Look at the socialist system in Russia. It went for eighty-years under the threat of guns and concentration camps. The system in China failed and now they’re full blown capitalist system. Russia is a capitalist system. Come on you big mouths. Let’s see some good old American Courage. Capitalism isn’t dead in this country and if we could survive eight years of the Bush Administration… We have nothing to fear!