First Baptist Church, which sits on Kenan Plaza adjacent to Kenan Fountain across the street from the William R. Kenan, Jr.-built Carolina Apartments which were the "DEEP RIVER APARTMENTS" temporarily, whilest the movie BLUE VELVET was being filmed -- and I was making love to Robby Anderson who then lived there and had PREVIOUSLY been the lover of Thomas S. Kenan III, now of Chapel Hill, NC.
It's a SOUTHERN thing!!!
>>> IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION that some words have either been used IN ERROR by me in this post (and others as well), or they have been changed by hackers. I think my meaning is ALWAYS clear within each context, so I'm NOT correcting these errors and trust that my readers can figure these "anomalies" out on their own.
Scott
>>> BUT FIRST, A FEW "OTHER ITEMS" :
1. Electricity has been out in the entire town of Chacala, Mexico since sometime after midnight. This is FRUSTRATING to me because i am currently unable to fulfill a commitment as quickly as I had hoped, and I only have access to power where I now am for a short period of time.
2. I have been invited to the party of someone I knew well while working for Tennessee Williams, an artist. I fully expect to attend (God willing -- LOL!!!)
3. A NEW REVIEW just appeared on the Amazon page for my memoir of working for Tennessee Williams!!!:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By sassykat2u
Format:Kindle
Edition|Amazon Verified
Purchase
Being a life-long admirer of the work of Tennessee Williams, I
thought this book may bring a particularly different insight into a man whose
life was mainly shrouded in secrecy. To my delight, the author was able to take
me back in time and put me in the "room" with Tennessee Williams.
This book is
extraordinarily well written and allows the reader to "see" or be a "fly on the
wall" during the final years of Mr. Williams life. It is remarkably candid and
appears to be an unbias telling of the real story of the great and often
eccentric and manic author/playwright. And even though I now know some of the
secrets Mr. Williams tried so hard to keep, the writer does not damage the
character of the author but leaves you with a broader understanding of just who
penned some of the most remarkable stories of the generation and gives you the
hunger to read everything ever written by Tennessee Williams.
>>> Buy YOUR copy here (before Amazon runs out of electrons!!!):
* * *
>>> NEWS FROM CHACALA -- ADDED AT 9:24 PM MST:
Late today, I chanced on the WHITE LADY whose picture I posted on this blog yesterday. She was alighting from a rather deluxe taxi, and toting bags STUFFED with goodies. My landlady next appeared, hopping down from inside the big white van.
Clearly, they had been to HEFTY HIDEAWAY to buy my landlady a new FROCK or two, although since QUEEN BEE herself (de Mexico), is NOT as big as a certain BALTIMORE AMUSEMENT PARK OPERATOR, I can't absoLUTEly call her "Divine".
Her Gringess (not to be confused with Ging-RICH) accomplice was noticably flush with new life (but likely NOT pregnancy), and I gradually warmed toward the expectation of a future friendship, me even APOLOGIZING for Montzuma-Revenge POTTY-MOUTH.
The BEST description of thin old gals wearing a ponytail might be to call them "Olive Oil". NOW, all I need is for POPEYE to show up -- oh wait!!! I think that was who PUNCHED me in my kitchen the other day.
Well, as I said to the now-ruddy Olive, "I see no reason why we ALL can't get along". She just smiled and walked up Dog Street -- the name Gringos call our street due to so many hounds runnin' round. Three live here, and JUST AS THE PUPPIES OF ONE BITCH (cute one!!!) are gone now except two, ANOTHER one has shown she's only DAYS from delivering and Ma & Pa Kettle have already set up the delivery room, which OF COURSE includes the use of a Coca-Cola table.
Here's a picture of the earlier litter I took right before my trip to Georgia:
* * *
>>> EMAIL EXCHANGE WITH A BAPTIST MINISTER:
Dear Rev. Everette,
Thank you for your email, which has inspired a six hour meditation which began with an enormous appreciation for not only your words and the Christ Consciousness they were born of, but so many memories of my fine involvements and discussions with your congregants as well as those of the many other Christian and non-Christian churches of Wilmington.
As you probably know, few people have had the privilege, like I have, of not only witnessing -- but PERSONALLY EXPERIENCING – the words and actions of people claiming to be Christian in Wilmington, a city more concerned with where you go to church and how-can-I-get-you-to-go-to-MY-
I salute you and the other ministers at First Baptist for your important leadership of such a “royal flock.”
I was HALF-glad to hear that the Criners are not actually members of your congregation. I got that idea from a couple of their political websites or websites promoting them and their so-called Christian values. The sad part of this news was the thought that HAD they been members of First Baptist, Wilmington might not, today, be so thoroughly corrupted spiritually by the drug-trafficking (primarily), that has been hidden and protected behind the veneers of “Righteous Christian Soldiers”, Preachers, and Politicians – and yes, even the WILMINGTON STAR NEWS. And sadly, it is the TRUE Christians who have allowed this devilish masquerade to go on so long UNCHALLENGED, who are EQUALLY to blame. Sin comes from BOTH commission and omission.
I should probably mention that after my long meditative period last night and a full night’s sleep, I woke up at 5:30 AM to discover my entire town’s electricity had gone out in the night, and now, three hours later, I’m writing from memory of your email and will send this to you as soon as I finish and – and power returns. I thank God for my six-hour computer battery and for the natural gas that allows me to make coffee the old-fashioned way, today.
And I’d also like to say that I completely sympathize with your objection to some of my language, but I do NOT apologize for it; rather, I would like to explain a few things, but even before doing THAT, tell you that I see little or no use for such language in my blog going forward, and THAT is the best news of all!!!
You see – and I think we will agree on this – if at Its core, God is the mysteriously self-existent seat of Absolute Intelligence powered by Infinite Love, it follows logically that It (or He, if you prefer), created all things out of the ONLY thing that first existed: GOD STUFF (originally all non-physical). Physics has proven that what we call matter is nothing, really, but a condensation of energy, and energy is what CONSCIOUSNESS is made of, so THIS paragraph explains the nature of REALITY.
My favorite minister often declared emphatically: “I do NOT believe in any such thing as ‘The Supernatural’!!! Nature is SUPER enough, already. What we CALL supernatural is only what our science has not yet developed the methodology to explore properly. Half of what even fundamentalists NOW explain with science was considered supernatural ‘back in the day’” (meaning before modern science really developed). And I believe he was right.
But more to my point, there is a problem here with traditional religious thinking. If everything REALLY comes from THE ONE AND ONLY SOURCE, how the heck do you explain evil and the VERY REAL suffering it causes?
In simplest terms: It is God’s comeuppance of those who were banished from the joys of naivety and Creation’s generous free-giving of all necessary substance, when they “ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” – and then found themselves kicked out of paradise (and blaming God for this rather than accepting that it actually was ONLY the logical consequence of judging each other – an activity God has clearly reserved only for Himself, no doubt because the Human mind is incapable of TOTALLY appreciating the experience of another human being. We WERE, however, equipped with sufficient DISCERNMENT to figure out how to avoid situations, ideas, and people whose ideas and actions lead to suffering rather than Praise of God, Love, and Greater Blessings for ourselves and those around us.
Better yet, the further development of discernment over the eons has brought us to the threshold of a “Cosmic Change” – and the timing of it could NOT be more perfect!!! Just as while the human body developed so very gradually to what we know to be ours today (this process is unnoticeable to us except in the fossil record), the consciousness of “man” has evolved over time as well. It is no secret that society today is MUCH more “civilized” than in the days of the Old Testament prophets – or even Jesus’s day. Life in centuries past was HARD and CRUEL and DOG-EAT-DOG, and even the WORST of us now are somewhat better than THAT!!!
You see, there WAS a time – not unlike the time we are in now – when consciousness we would call “animal” made the leap to “human”. This is all nothing more than natural and logical as God can only operate within His own Laws that He seems to have established immutably.
One of the most recent developments (it only caught on the last 150 – 200 years to the point of being what is EXPECTED – at least is Western Society), is romantic marriage. Throughout nearly ALL of recorded history, marriage has been about alliances of power between families – and even the poorest had SOME wealth to try to hold on to. Of course poets (including some GORGEOUS words of the apostle Paul), have exonerated this IMPROVEMENT from the earliest times, and they deserve the credit for advancing us to what we so valiantly attempt now AS A RULE.
In the older days, it was expected that love and romance where properly found in relationships OUTSIDE of marriage, which usually had to be discrete so as not to undermine the Social Order. Don’t you just want to PRAISE GOD infinitely that we are privileged to live in a society that has HEALED this flaw in human relationships ALREADY??? (Don’t think about the marriages made in error –consider your own.)
But this subject brings us to a point of conflict, now RAGING: Jesus is known to have clearly declared that it is a MAJOR sin against his “Father” for a married couple to (after divorce, a useful CIVIL action that lawfully divides up property and responsibilities – I never heard of a church that granted a divorce, have you???), EITHER ONE OF THEM, remarry before the other spouse has died. To my knowledge, ONLY the Catholic Church has paid any attention to this – and NOW, it is only lip-service, really, considering that Catholics remarry too (although NOT in the Catholic Church).
I happen to agree with Protestants-in-General that Jesus was in fact only human and this was one of his errors-of-thought. I mean (especially today, with our longer lives due to our improvements by science and diminishment of societal violence though the creeping in of LOVE), it is unreasonable to expect that ALL married couples will develop together closely enough so as to preserve a marriage over an entire lifetime – and I SUPER-SALUTE ALL THOSE WHO DO, but also note that much misery would have been avoided if SOME couples hadn’t admitted their mistake and split.
I imagine that my use of the word “human” above stuck in your craw even as you probably agreed with me in Principle. That is the dilemma facing those who believe Jesus is LITERALLY the Son of God and his WORSHIP, Our Means of Salvation.
Being of the mind that Jesus was perhaps the best prophet for Western Civilization (and maybe more), and that nearly all of what he is reported to have said (no tape recorders back then – but they DID remember more carefully because they HAD TO), is TRUE (but also believing what he claimed about his NOT being that special and that ANYONE could learn to do what he did AND MORE – and PROMISING THE DAY WOULD COME THAT THIS WAS COMMON!!! – as well as his eventual frustration at being constantly asked for healings and such that he knew anyone SHOULD be advanced in spiritual thinking enough to manifest on their own – in fact, his whole MINISTRY was to convince people of this and TEACH THEM THE WAY TO DEVELOP THEMSELVES THAT FAR (“I am the Way and the Life!!!” means embody this teaching and finally LIVE FREE as “THE FATHER” has promised all is His intention for EVERYONE).
Truth is, though, that whether a person “worships” Jesus or not, what is important is that we align ourselves with his teaching, which ALSO is manifest in OTHER religions (such as Buddhism and even Paganism, on which MUCH of actual Christian teaching and tradition is based).
Today we find ourselves at a critical junction where the choices (at least to me), seem crystal clear: Rebuild our society in a way that offers fairness and equal opportunity to ALL (and some support and instruction to those who have lost sight of God’s gifts and need ENCOURAGEMENT and some patience from the rest of us), or just imprison everyone who disagrees with us and take their wealth from them as well. You can find PLENTY of support for BOTH approaches in the Bible, depending on how you choose to read it – and it IS a choice!!!
Now all that said, you and I might have some disagreements on Theology, but I believe we – your congregation in general – and I are of ONE MIND regarding Action, as PROVEN by your congregants’ good work, hither and yon.
This is why I am such a big fan of First Baptist Church, Wilmington – and I not only hope, but EXPECT, I will not find need of using so much offensive language going forward. WE are NOW entering that promised time of Peace and Prosperity, but this change HAS caused a lot of confusion, now beginning to diminish.
Please pass my salutations on to all your ministers and congregants, but ESPECIALLY to Gary (and co.), who managed the delivery of meals (often including bagged lunches BEYOND the call of the meal-at-hand), at Mercy House Shelter, and to the sprite-liest octogenarian lady, who one day at Good Shepherd Center was refilling my water glass as she invited me to worship with your congregation, and PUNK-POSTERIOR that I am, I smarted: “Sister-woman, I’m GAY AS A GOOSE!” to which she replied, “Honey, we don’t care about THAT, we just want ya to come WORSHIP WITH US!!!”
In closing, I’d only like to add that there are some OTHER reasons I’ve taken a “new look” at the “mainstream” Baptists. First of all,“Hanoi” Jane Fonda (whom I TOTALLY FELL IN LOVE WITH in the early 1970s after seeing her movie THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY???), had to leave her marriage to noted atheist Ted Turner after he couldn’t handle her conversion to the Baptist Faith (Ted is ALSO one of my top heroes). Denison University (my alma mater), is a Baptist-affiliated school (although we NEVER saw any connection whilest attending it, and all my friends then ALSO being “Yankee Intellectuals”looked down on NOTHING more than holy-rolling Baptists – much like in SOME quarters in America today, Caucazoids and black folk, alike, look down on Mexicans (MOST-erroneously). I’ve never met Ms. Fonda, actually, but DID once enjoy the special fried chicken at Watershed restaurant in Decatur, GA – her favorite Atlanta-area restaurant – while she dined two tables away with a noted playwrightess named Cleage or something similar.
Given my LONG HISTORY, now, of EATING with Baptists (variously), perhaps this means that you don’t have to celebrate Communion STANDARDLY to “do this in memory of Me”.
I must also mention a certain demon-cousin of mine named Judy Russ Whitney, a member of Northside Baptist Church who had better put her on PROBATION (if she’s not on it now). That little stinker NOT ONLY managed to attend a long Holy Shout-Out, revival, or whatever y’all call them, SCOT-FREE (she filled in for a paid sick friend after determining she could not afford the price), and ADMITTED TO ME she taught her dorm-mates the secrets of playing penny-ante poker after everyone else had gone to bed. This woman needs to be STOPPED before she gets the whole choir singing English Pub Songs!!!
Of course, she probably can’t help it – her mother, my Aunt Doris Kenan Russ, was RABID for her Baptist KAZOO-BAND-FOR-JESUS that terrorized many a North Carolina town from the back of a flat-bed truck driven by who-knows-who (always code for “a reprobate”). And not only THAT, but Judy managed to get me FOUR $15.00 VISA debit cards that her church, which only means to give ONE per homelessness person/occurrence. Come to think of it, maybe Judy should be INCARCERATED for her wickedness (it runs in our family).
Well, that’s it for now.
Scott
On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 12:47 PM, Jim Everette wrote:
Hi Scott,
I don’t know if I am one of the ministers that you have deemed “DEVIL-POSSESSED” but would like to correct you one something in your latest note. Neither Sherman Criner or Sandra Ray (formerly Criner) are members of our congregation.Thank you for your kind remarks of affirmation for some of the ministries we are about to people in our city that hungry and homeless. Jesus has called us to follow him by providing shelter for those who have not; food for those who are hungry; water for those who are thirsty; clothing for those who are without such; medical treatment for those who are sick; and the list goes on. We attempt to do that as best we can such that those in need will know that Jesus loves them. I pray that God has made a positive difference in your life through the ministry of First Baptist Church.I would ask that you please respect my wish of not including profane language in correspondence that you share with me. If this is not possible, please remove me from your distribution list.Hopeful!Jim EveretteAssociate PastorFirst Baptist Church411 Market StreetWilmington, NC 28401
Scott
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