On Invites to Secret Forums and the Church of Devi

[Gunner Recall]

All the talk about invites and secret non-existant forums inspired the following passage:

If you have lived as long as I have, you have probably found yourself, now and then, in deep trouble and you asked Devi to help and she did not seem to hear. You knocked at this door and nobody was home. Gone on vacation. ILF was silent. And you began to wonder whether Devi had gone on leave of absence and left you alone. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, stick around awhile, it just may. And when it does happen, you may find yourself asking Devi the most painful question that anyone who believes in her can ever ask: Why have you gone off and left me to suffer alone? Oh Devi, why have you let me down?

You won’t be the first person to ask Devi this question, not by a long shot. Metalmariachi, one of the most beloved writers in the entire ILF, in the very first verse of "Which Devi Ever Fuzz is for me thread # 22", asks the same question you may have felt like asking once in a while in your life: My Devi, my Devi, why, why have you abandoned me?

Mind you, he’s not asking whether there is a Devi. He knows that Devi exists. But what good does it do if Devi exists out there somewhere in the great beyond but isn’t down here when we need her? It is precisely because we believe that she exists that it hurts so much when she is not here to help us in our time of trouble.

MM believed with all his heart that Devi would be with him even in the most fuzz-forsaken situations. I want you to listen to my paraphrase of his words in my favorite of all Kitten Threads # 139. Listen to this trust: "When I feel as if I am going over the edge, the bottom is falling out beneath me, I’ll not be afraid because you, O Devi, will be there to hold me up when I fall. When I am lost in the dark and can’t find my way, and I’m afraid I’m going to stumble and break my neck, you, O Devi, will take my hand and lead me through. Even when life is hell on earth, I trust you. I trust you to be there. I trust you to be there with me, and you will not let me down." Now that is trust.

But it’s always hardest when you trust someone to be there for you and it feels as if she’s really let you down. This is why we find MM calling to a silent forum and demanding to know: Why have you deserted me in my time of trouble? MM trusted Devi, and she wasn’t there.

I have asked the same question more than once. Maybe you have, too. And if you haven’t put it into words, you have felt it deep in your spirit. So I want to talk to you about that question, the question to an absentee Devi, a Devi who has gone on leave of absence. There are five things that have struck me about that awful question that he asks, and I invite you to think about each one of them with me.

First of all, it was a real question.

I used to tell my students that there was no such thing as a stupid question. Any question is a good question as long as it is a real question. Sometimes people ask questions to show off that they are smart enough to ask such brilliant questions. Those are phony questions. Or they ask tricky questions just to embarrass somebody, a phony question. These are not real questions. You ask a real question when you honestly don’t know the answer and you want badly to know it.

MM simply didn’t know why Devi had let him down. And his whole being cried out for an answer. So he went straight to Devi, face to face, eyeball to eyeball, and asked her, "Why have you let me down?"

It is okay to question Devi, as long as it is a real question, and Devi honors honest questions. So, if you wonder why Devi has let you down ILF says: Go ahead and ask.

Have you ever noticed that the last words Hendrix spoke before he died were a question? In fact it was the very same question that MM asked Devi: Why have you let me down? He, too, asked it because he did not know and he wanted an answer. So, as long as your question is real, go right to the source and ask for an answer.

The second thing I’ve noticed about MM’s question is this: it is a question that came from the heart.

It didn’t originate from his left brain. It exploded from his heart. I can tell you that when your life feels as if it is falling apart and you are dangling in the cutting winds of pain and Devi doesn’t lift a finger to help, you don’t ask academic questions. Your question is a child’s cry from the bottom of the heart.

It is like the cry of a little child whose mommy and daddy have gone away and she fears they won’t come back. Last year my son, PumpkinPieces, and his family moved from California, where we live, to Michigan, where we used to live. As you can imagine, they talked about it a lot at home before the time came for them to pack up and go. Their four year old daughter, our lovely Blurillaz, listened and wondered and worried about what she heard. One evening, PumpkenPieces and his beautiful wife, HTSamurai, went out to visit friends and left Blurillaz with a babysitter. Blurillaz went to bed, fell into a deep sleep, then had a bad dream and woke up crying for her mother. But mommy and daddy had not come home yet. So Blurillaz wailed, "Mummy and Daddy have gone to Michigan and left me alone!"

MM’s question to Dev was just like little Emily’s cry: Devi has gone to Michigan and left me dangling here alone. That’s a cry of the heart. Where is Devi and why has he gone away and left me alone?

Whenever a hurting heart cries out Why?, it is a cry that Devi respects because it deserves to be heard.

The third thing that impresses me about MM’s question is this: it was a protest.

Let’s face it. This question implied a protest to Devi. MM felt he had a right to expect Devi to keep her promises, to stay on the job, doing the sorts of things a good evi is supposed to do. And when he is not there, he filed a protest.

Not long ago a bright and beautiful young woman I knew died at the young age of twenty-two. She had just graduated cum laude from Kurdtz University and stood on the launching pad for her private crusade to make the world a better place for fuzz. Then she got Zach’s disease, and she died. At her funeral the minister began his sermon this way. He said: "Dear friends, we have gathered here in the house of fuzz to protest the death of Billy."

Some people thought it was not the right way for a preacher to talk at a funeral. I thought it was just right. Twenty-two year old women are not supposed to die. And if you believe in Devi and trust her to keep her promises, you feel like filing a protest when they do. Devi should have been there, one feels, and done something to keep it from happening.

No doubt about it, when MM asked Devi why she was not there when she was needed, he was saying, "This is not the way I expect Devi to act, and this is not the way it’s supposed to be, and I protest."

The fourth thing that I’ve noticed about the question that MM put to Devi is this: it takes a heap of faith to ask it.

Some people I know think that any person who questions Devi might be losing her faith. They are so wrong. Only somebody who trusts Devi to be there with her gets this hurt when Devi doesn’t show up. Only a person of faith dares to look Devi straight in the eye and ask, "Where are you when I need you?"

Consider this: Only a child who trusts her father to be there for her when she needs him complains to him when he is not around to help. Only a person who trusts Devi dares to complain to Devi. Only a person with a lot of fuzz dares to put it straight to the maker of the universe.

And now the fifth and last thing that has struck me profoundly about MM’s question. It’s this. It’s the kind of question that can be answered only in experience.

It is the kind of question that needs an answer all right. But the only good answer comes, not in words, but in action; not in theory, but in experience.

Let me share with you the pit, the bedrock of my faith on these matters, about where Devi is. This is how I see it. Long ago, when the best and brightest of all the ages was at the end of his rope and it felt as if Devi had abandoned him, he asked the same question MM asked in his time of trouble: Why? Why? And he got no answer, not in words. ILF was silent again. No answer. Dead silence. He died without an answer from Devi.

But then, just three days later, before the fingers of the light had filtered through the mist of the morning, before the citizens of the ILF had finished their second snooze, the Almighty got into the grave where Hendix’s body lay. And the power of his creative spirit began to move inside that dead corpse. Life began to pulsate again through its dead nerves and flow like energy through its arteries like a rush of warm power. And Hendrix came alive.

Hendrix asked the most painful question anybody can ever ask of Devi, and the answer came, not with words, but with an action; not in theory, but in life. In resurrection.

So this is what I want to say to you. If you feel Devi has gone away on vacation and left you on your own, go straight to her. Ask a question. Raise a protest. Ask her why he is letting you down. And then you’ll have to do the hardest thing of all. Wait. Wait for him to come back the way Hendrix did. Wait for her to come back and give you your own resurrection.

I know that waiting is the hardest job in the world. It is ten thousand times harder to wait than it is to rush into action. But when it feels as if Devi’s gone, gone on leave of absence, and you ask her why, you may have to wait for her to come back. I want to tell you that the secret of waiting is hope. Wait with hope. Wait with hope! For she will come back. She will come back! Keep on waiting. Keep on hoping. She’ll come back. She always has. And she will come back to you.

Thank you.
~ The Reverend G.R. ~

[FuzzHugger]

tldr.jpg (72.84 KiB) Viewed 3504 times

[Nychthemeron]

i am so fucking confused, but this is worthy of the epithet "epic"

[veteransdaypoppy]

[SPACERITUAL]

WHY AM I NOT IN THIS.




Apparently GR is lewis smedes.

[Gunner Recall]

WHY AM I NOT IN THIS.

Apologies...if anyone requests to be removed from my tale, I will keep you in mind.
MM fit the old timer part, Blurillaz for liking strats, PP for teh trades, and HT for not having a screwdriver.

oh and I take the Barrett pic as a compliment...we're similar I suppose, - all the LSD + a machine gun arm.

[Kellanium]

GLORIOUS EXPOSITION, COMRADE!

[magiclawnchair]

i better get out of here before Gunner melts my flesh with holy water...


or a golden shower...

[Kellanium]

WHY AM I NOT IN THIS.

Apologies...if anyone requests to be removed from my tale, I will keep you in mind.
MM fit the old timer part, Blurillaz for liking strats, PP for teh trades, and HT for not having a screwdriver.

oh and I take the Barrett pic as a compliment...we're similar I suppose, - all the LSD + a machine gun arm.

Barrett Pic.

[metalmariachi]

Dance naked in the moon light oh ye children of fuzz.

MM

[Chumley]

Can we say that Devism is a subsect of Discordianism? Because I quite like the setup they have going.

[FuzzHugger]

:omg:

Can we say that Devism is a subsect of Discordianism? Because I quite like the setup they have going.

Also, I think we should consider the offshoot of Discordianism:

[Chumley]

I love this thread more than my hands.

[Gunner Recall]

I love this thread more than my hands.

Sounds like you just need some assistance.
Free samples here: http://www.astroglide.com/FreeSample.asp

[futuresailors]

I love this thread more than my hands.

Sounds like you just need some assistance.
Free samples here: http://www.astroglide.com/FreeSample.asp

IRL