Sorry, greenmountaintoppermost, it pains me to say it…but, after a while, they wouldn’t have you [IMHO]. Oh they would be opened handed, for a while, like they gladly were with history’s Pilgrims pilgrimaging from religious persecution to a better place (better ‘cause they weren’t there for centuries fucking it all up to stave the metaphorical chalice & enhance the metaphorical blade) where they could begin religiously persecuting a lesser batch of bipeds of their own lucky find. Yippy, we found us some to save. Let’s go tell’em how lucky they are that we happened along. But after you gently chastise them [not in YOUR words, of course, but in your decided singular WORD] for expressing spirituality, their sad ungodly [but worthy to be of creation and so who are you to deny them access via printed medium] selves for a while, they’d begin to be the small sacred circle stronghold that they are and always have been, but with eyes to the ground and spirits with the hawkwind, in their own spirituality nearly lost to the schemings of the past centuries; that which they hold on to still, even if tenuously, many of them American military vets who fought honorably as tunnel rats with bucknives in mouth and 9mm in hand as warriors of the heart, only to return to the poor shackles of the REZ nearest their sacred ground. & they would weep a tear of sadness as they show you the door because they can’t have you fucking up their deeply spiritual sweat lodge ceremonies, their pipe ceremonies, their handcraft and drum and smudge ceremonies (wherein they hold only the best good energies in their hearts whilst they participate with every sinew of their beings), while you earnestly counsel them that they’re all gona burn if they don’t follow YOUR understanding of YOUR favorite version of highest creation on this beautiful blue ball spinning out of reach of hope. You’d come in peace. You’d be welcome. You’d be shown wariness and great love. You’d be shown neighborliness and eventually uncanny sacred spirituality, & then you’d (now this is just my humble opinion) begin to try to whittle away at their spirits, slowly, surely, for their own good, …and, sir, no, it’s never been……..for their good. & history would begin to repeat itself, and the cowboys would start destroying shit for THEY’re OWN good. & a million more bibles would be printed and misrepresented, etc., lather, rinse, repeat, & if the space program EVER finds another tenable planet, …printed, misrepresented, lather, rinse, & repeated again…hallelujah….
But, as an American, I stand to protect your right to your OWN religious beliefs, so have at it bro. & when I’m at your table, I will bow my head in prayer, and when I am at my table, I will close my eyes and hold my spirit high and celebrate what blessings are left to be known. I believe we’re good folk, you and I, but I have been called a fool. & I’d gladly break bread with you, or cut soil together, or flip a jig into glassy water from your whatever or my canoe, …even though I don’t believe that YOU [for existing] nor mine and I [the damned…in YOUR INTERPRETED God’s eye] are going to burn in any Hell other than the one created herein and by those here and there who’d do it just to prove a [moot] point. But, oh, that doesn’t mean I am not earnest and benevolent and decent, ….& just as misguided by years of every sort of liminal and subliminal wicked this and that that man's inhumanity to man has conjured-up.
Oh, & trust me, I believe I know just how earnest you are being (never doubted it for one moment) & how pretty much impossible it is to hold your system-of-beliefs and then turn a questioning ear to the gospel you follow, as to do so would damn your eternal soul, in your understanding. So you and I, we’re stuck with this for this lifetime. This line drawn in the sand. If we ever meet at the same place, you will be neighborly, and we will be genial, but you will put mine & I in our “place” and call it God’s will and our own terrible mistake. &, sir, that is (cotton in the fields) caste and bigotry. Call it what you will. But please don’t call it peaceable. Or if you do, please note that, in my ears, you might as well be saying fuck you.
Peace, man. :O(O:
