Melbourne Story

[Boss]

It's hopeless, Leonard. Nothing will move. Nothing wants to. Call in the Pied Piper, call in Gigantaur. I'm not going to touch this upside down bucket of shit money world again. I never thought love could scamper from the scene - well it has. It's such an artificial empty world even the Christmas tinsel is in shock. One last question to the hypocrisy I find myself in, tell me do you think Jesus Christ would dare eat pork (pig)? No, it was forbidden. So why does every second house in Melbourne roast one on Christmas Day? And no one raises an eyelid.The game is up for me. I'm gonna retire and become a Hare Krishna. At least they believe in something. Goodbye.

[mat james]

Now you're talkin'


Think outside the Pork....good move Boss.

Mat.

[Boss]

G'day Mat, the pork is symbolic. I happen to respect and quite admire that gutsy Jewish poet Yeshu'a (Jesus). I would say the bloke 'means a lot to me'. His courage and wisdom. His compassion, his love. I have met adult people who celebrate Christmas but don't know why it is. I'm not joking. Our culture tends to believe it a big piss up, a day to be showered in unnecessary gifts and frivolity. In my Mum's younger years she observed Christmas. She still enjoys carols on TV, she likes to put on a bit of a spread. Together we will do these things. I don't mind celebrating such a man. It does not clash with my Jewish faith - indeed, it enhances it. This year we will read from the Sermon on the Mount. I particularly enjoy this philosophy. I'm not better than anyone else. But I know one thing, I will never be sucked into the evil money spin our entire culture is infected by. I say, learn from Yeshu'a, not every business's golden trimmings and fractured empty promises.

[Boss]

Cate, Messiah loves you

I was speaking to this bloke yesterday. Said he followed the Cohen Forum. I said I did too. He said who do you follow in particular. I said I enjoy mat james, kinda dig Dar, Lizzy is unique. Said I laugh with Sue and Geoffrey. I asked this bloke who he liked. He said I like the above but I love Cate. I said who are you. He smiled and hesitantly said Messiah. I said you are kidding. He said nothing. I shook his hand and left. Fancy forgetting Cate, I thought. The sun went down. A cicada arked up.

[mat james]

Yes, the Mesiah was on the money with Cate.

You know Adam, I love the beauty of my Judae-Christian heritage, but I have absorbed it and moved on.
I take seriously that zen saying about the fingers and the moon, now, and I am happier for it.

I am really enjoying Basho's " The Narrow Road to the Deep North", which is a poetic pilgrimage around Japan to many sacred sites and at the same time a journeying inward to the soul.....and the Moon, the divine.
The symbols are always derived from nature and therefore very refreshing. And it is so Leonard. It is all about moving among beauty to find the divine. It is simple, sweet and life affirming.

Basho just got up one day and walked, hundreds of miles, visiting friends and shrines and the Moon. He abandoned the money world too, like you write about doing, and he left us some rich work, poetry and narratives. In the end he died rather forlorn and lonely, despite his fame for although he seems to have found the Moon, he lost his way to love.
...and still I love Basho and thank him for his insightful work.
...and still I appreciate your struggle on these pages too.
I wish you "Bush clovers and the Moon"
...love and the divine.

Mat.

[Boss]

You are right, Mat. Who am I kidding? There are just some things like Shoah and the Spanish Inquisition that have to be addressed. The plight of Aboriginal Australia - it can't just be left to the moon, to zen. I don't think Humanity as a whole can forge ahead as One until the barbarity has in some way been avenged. This includes Yeshu'a and the countless thousands who were crucified. Indeed, every soul who was murdered. It is written, in Scripture and in a Cohen song, that vengeance belongs to the lord. And it does. So as to clear the path, so successive generations can live in and know peace, our lord must in some way come to terms with the injustice, the horror that befell so many innocent souls. And the world must be witness to it. It is only then shall Basho be accessible to all Humankind. For one cannot truly understand beauty if half your soul is immersed in violence. It all has to be healed. Only Messiah can bring reconciliation, can tie up the many loose, frayed ends. And he will do it. So men will know moon, and waterfall, and antelope. And so womyn will never live in fear for their children and for themselves.

ps. Messiah wouldn't be 'on the money' about anything.

[mat james]

The chestnut by the eaves
In magnificent bloom
Passes unnoticed
By men of this world.

Basho.

[Boss]

I know.

Good Shabbos, mate

[Cate]

Cate, Messiah loves you

Thank you Adam

[Boss]

Welcome.

---

Sitting at the supermarket a few hours before Shabbat. Wondering if Freud or Einstein kept the Sabbath. Thinking how Jackie and I never did. Not grace over a Sunday roast, not a prayer together to G-d, ever. How we lived in many respects like the average Aussie. Sure I delved into it after Miracle, but I was alone, so alone in my endeavours. I wonder of G-d and Jackie, now. How she sees Him, if she gives Him any thought at all. If she'd agree to marry me in a synagogue. Good Shabbos to you all, especially you, Geoffrey.

Boss

[Geoffrey]

Boss wrote:
>Good Shabbos to you all, especially you, Geoffrey.
happy saturday to you too, adam, but why do i get the special treatment?

[Sideways]

>Merry Christmas to you all, especially you, Geoffrey.

Happy Birthday to you too, adam, but why do i get the special treatment?

The group senses your neediness and your vulnerability. We also know of your confusion, the rest of your family being atheist and you agnostic. Adam has broken ranks and spoken directly to you in a way which no-one else would dare. 3 cheers for Cate.

Have a fantastic Birthday Jeffrey.

[Boss]

Geoffrey, I was trying to say sorry.

Sue, you're too intelligent for me. I have no credentials. Not a degree, no child, dog, partner or property. I am just another wannabee with no fucking hope of even paying for my funeral. I don't understand fancy talk, especially that espoused by ironing champions. No, I am more content with decoding how one removes Vegemite lids. I was listening to radio 3LO yesterday. The DJ insisted that Messiah loved Gentiles like you Sue, equally. That should warm your Christmas.

Shalom,
Boss

[Sideways]

I have no degree and no property but you don't catch me boasting about it. Just remember, each day when you despair, that Judaism is for life not just for Xmas. It's a well known religion not a bloody dog. What's the matter with you, Jeez.

[Boss]

Sue, I know you may not be, but I reckon some of the judges of your ironing competitions are Jewish. I would, at a guess, think they were immersed in the wonder that is Judaism. Would have read Talmud and Torah, had bat mitzvahs, Pesach, Yom Kippur, Chanukah and so on. To be judges, they would have come from stability somewhere along the line, they would have known sane. Michael, I did not. I was hurled into a bloody train wreck. My world ended in 1975. This was the last year in my life, a full Jewish life, with an 8 member family all alive - not ill, not divorced, not dead in car accident, suicide or cancer. By '75 I even had a brother bar mitzvahed. I was Jew, Liberal. I went to Sunday school. Over the ensuing years, I battled on in this train wreck. I couldn't cope. In 1987 I broke down. Then I met Jackie. Then, I broke down. Then miracle, then 4 years with my womyn, then Israel on a kibbutz where some rather dizzying things occurred. Then Europe, then back to Jackie who said, "No," then to a raft of asylums till '98. And since then, 2 hospitalisations in '00 and '09. In all that madness, I tried Architecture at Melbourne Uni and Primary Teaching at Burwood College. Needless to say, I failed both. The point I am trying to make, mate, is that my Jewish life was ravaged. After my parents broke, they both befriended Gentiles, both held Christmas. My family ceased to know of Moses and Abraham. All this, the pains of death and illness, the heroin and alcohol and cigarettes of my brothers and I, the confused religiosity all over my inner world, and of course miracle, all this led me to search. And I looked in bloody everything. Bible, Tarot, Qur'an, Gita, Joseph Campbell, Meher Baba, Nostradamus, rabbis, faith healers, 19 years of analysis, infidelity. I developed bipolar and a nasty agoraphobia which kept me housebound. I studied Yeshu'a ben Yosef. Knew him as Jew, too. Enjoyed his words. And I somewhere on the path discovered that one would come, one of the line of David who would bring an everlasting peace to this world. And this Michael does go against common Reform belief. So how, or what was I to do? Well, Leonard Cohen startled me on New Year's Day, 1993. On my kibbutz, in the Galilee, a kibbutznik lady gave me a cassette of 'The Future'. I was intoxicated by it. Taken by its poetry and force. The title track mesmerised me. And one line, just 3 words hit me for six. He sang, "YOU NEVER WILL". I knew it. I knew it then, all my training from '88 to '92, all the suffering, I knew that the entire 6 billion (back then) were family. We were One. Religious divisions, national borders, different races - they all fell away. We were always One, Michael. And until eternity, we will be One. Love is stronger than tribal barriers, love is stronger than hate. And it is stronger than death. I believe you are a good man. I respect you. Know this: I have Zion etched in my heart, I believe in Jerusalem. But more than philosophy and stones, so much more, I believe in the love in every single one of the 7.5 billion living souls on our common planet. Each one has as much right as the other. I believe in one ship of so many different colours and shades. You and I, we know G-d. And it is Humanity, all of Humankind, all of its quirks and idiosyncrasies, that He is about to set free. I love you, Michael - and in that I'm deadly serious.