this has nothing to do with pornography

pornography clouds the mind like a cataract.
vulgarity creeps into consciousness at the most innocuous of moments, turning inner peace into turmoil. the instant gratification of observing another’s orgasm is not overtly spiritual, but is it non-spiritual? is it aspiritual, anti-spiritual? does it offend god? or it is ok?

all things are spiritual. even the question i pose myself every moment of every day: does god think this is ok? is a spiritual venture. prayer is directly spiritual. meditation. quiet. writing, for me. music, for others. there are verbs we associate most closely with closeness to the divine (is god divine? what if god is homely? plain?), and there are verbs we associate with being kicked out of the Garden: murder, brutalize, harm, take. but what of the ones in the middle? the humble and human verbs? squint, defecate, yawn, make a pot of coffee, rub lotion on a dry elbow? myspace? download pirated music, chat on the phone, honk at a slow driver? are these, by merit of not being “spiritual,” then “non-spiritual?”

what is more spiritual, to remain steadfast or to uproot, define the ephemeral? who is closer to god: the hedonist or the ascetic? and what of the guy who just wants to play harmonica and have a grilled cheese sandwich; is the divine muddled in the mundane? beauty in the boring?

i have a nasty habit of judging people who are not, in my esteem, “extraordinary.” this has pigeon-holed me into overlooking the very beauty in a woman whom i may judge for her lack of fashionable clothing, for instance. or the simple treasures families hold in their homes that they feel no need to pack into their cars and drive off toward a horizon, forever 2.5 nautical miles away. more precisely, i do not look at what i don’t relate to. my push for the extraordinary, read spiritual, in my life, has blinded me to much of the spiritual in the common-place.

i suppose the answer to all of this is a repetition of the previous statement: all things are spiritual. if god is a part of, if god is deliberately left out, if god is cursed and crucified and napalmed and george bushed and chopped into tiny bits and used for chum, it is spiritual. i don’t know why, and i don’t know how, but i feel that mine is an intensely close commune with god, all of our conversations, all of my pleadings and wailings and all of god’s rainbows and tsunamis and just plain boring moments.

these are all good times.