It’s been awhile since I last posted a full-on, space-cowboy, metaphysical musings blog, so on this fall Sunday morning in 2018, let’s have at it.

As a cradle Catholic & life-long Truth Seeker, I have many questions for the angels, but for the sake of brevity let’s focus on but a couple.

From ” the Gospel of Paul” – Paul Simon that is – he opines…

“If every human on the planet, and all the buildings on it should disappear… Would a zebra grazing in the African savanna care enough to shed one zebra tear?”

If you’ve never experienced this song before, do yourself a revealing, enlightening treat here….

** Paul Simon’s “Questions for the Angels”

And, Paul, as you walk away this year from your fantastic odyssey, many thanks for your inestimable contributions to the American/World Song Book. Much love and respect, my brother.

Now, a few questions from yours truly, Airlift Mike.

Why is that when man talks to God, we call it prayer… but why, should God ever decide to talk back to man, do we have to call it schizophrenia or bipolar disorder?

The psychiatric community, as it is practiced today – from the local “shrink’s office” to Big Pharma’s billion dollar yearly take – is but a scant hundred years old!

These very same issues of the ID versus Spirit were argued about back and forth last century by Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung. (These two actually rode a steam ship from Europe to the US in the early 1900s and analyzed each other’s dreams along the way.)

EGO vs. Spirit.

OK, then, if you’ve run with me so far, let’s take it a bit further.

What if the young maid from Domremy had been sitting, somewhat agitated, in a psychiatrist’s office five hundred years ago? I picture the conversation going something like this:

“Well, gee, doc, I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but lately, I haven’t been sleeping well. And last night, Archangel Mike was talking to me. He was! And he told me that Charles the Dauphin should be the King of France! Really. And he also told me that one day I would lead my country in revolt!”

Whoa! Wait a minute. When women here in America couldn’t even vote in an election a hundred years ago… this is a 13 year old peasant girl from the farms of Europe over five hundred years ago.

Well, there’s little doubt that the psych community would have intervened – and that’s putting it mildly.

Straight jackets. Haldol. Lithium. Leather restraints. Padded cells. Perhaps even some electro-shock therapy…

And the revelations & accomplishments of young Joan of Arc – now romanticized, mythologized, and marbleized (as in statues) –  as the church took the Maid of Orleans down to the stake, would simply have never happened.

Also for your consideration…

While Jesus of Nazareth’s exploits, shrouded in the mists and myths of time, continue to be speculated over by scholars, the story of young Franceso is historically well documented.

Francis, as a late Italian teen, returned from war, committed to never again make that mistake. And as the son of a wealthy clothier, was expected to follow in pop’s footsteps. But, did it happen?

Uh-no.

What Francis did do – after angelic intervention – was to deny his mother and father’s wishes, walk away from the family business – and in front of the town’s people, the church elders, as well as mom and dad… strip himself stark naked and walk into the woods to seek enlightenment!

Now, what would the psychiatric community today have done to young Francis… seven hundred years ago?

Same deal. Same results.

Only this time, the results would have been considerably more dramatic.

We would not, here in 2018, have a worldwide order of monks known as the Franciscans. The AA meetings would not have their famous 12-step recovery prayer.

Oh, and that quaint city on our west coast would never have been known as… San Francisco!

Too much? 

Perhaps, but certainly grist for thought.

So, the next time you encounter someone on the streets of America, perhaps homeless… lost, talking seemingly to themselves (and they’re not on a cell phone) ….

give them your understanding, and a wide berth, because you never know – do you – who…

or to Whom they may be speaking.

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~ writing with humility, love and respect from the new Jer-USA-lem,  New Orleans, LA, USA,

Micheal Ziants