No religion at my age... faith... I hope....

I have no religion any more

My dear dear Larry, who spoke to me out of the silence of this lonely blog...
religion is for the young. I have a spiritual path called Quakerism. I once had a religion ... Quakerism, and Marxism, not Communism or Socialism, and both at the same time, as I was also an anarchist... and I knew the difference, because of my religion, Marxism, and I could quote thee the difference. Religion is learned and memorized and catechismized, and quoted back at the tired and sad old grey headed fools such as I now am, by children who are sure of the faith of their religion. I hope the young learn to stop reading and quoting and look inside, but damn, didn't I once, I could quote Connolly and Marx and Molly Stiemer and Fox and Hicks, as they do their lights... quote those who describe light, it is so much more comfortable than looking inside at the darknesses that cause us our greatest fear... the fear of the Me we all can't face.

Religion is for the young zealot. The sadness of faith, the joy of faith, the tears of faith and the uncertainty and loss of faith of faith comes with the sadder wisdom of age. It comes of seeing so many that thee loves die, and seeing thy death, sometimes, lonely death approaching, and knowing that the young don't know, can't know the difference between love and lust, and passion and patience, and fear and caution, and dependence and dependency, and all the subtlety of age which brings tears to the old and disgust to the young... all this... all this I wish we never have to learn.

But learn we do, and we keep on. And today, an old friend and I speak of how we can keep on, wounded as we are, in this cold city full of cold and zealous hearts, who know so much of what we once thought we knew... and this friend and I pledge to try and keep on that road we have been on, two buskers, making our parent's music, in a world where that music is a commodity... a thing to be traded and sold, and performance, when to us... it is what it was, the language of our people's souls...

And we may be beaten down, and I may be reduced to tears, and I may not survive the struggle against my whole world being thrown on the young people's scrap heap of change... to hear dear young hearts tell me, "this is not working for me..." as they deny the effect of the "me generation" that we had a part in creating by challenging old values... and so... well, a dear old heart and I are setting out... on a new voyage.
pray for us.