 May 2, 2006 Sorry everybody. I know I've been slacking off on my web page. How do things go with the Bri Guy? I am tempted to say "so-so", to perhaps recount a few recent follies, or moan a little bit about life as an adult on this confusing planet. But let me instead interject "Contented, Lord. I am Contented." That was the favorite personal prayer of a Chilean Jesuit who was recently made a saint by the Vatican. I'm no saint, as perhaps the above imagery of the kittens in flight persuasively suggests; but I guess in my own small way I am content. I have less than 200 dollars to my name. I'm a high school and college drop out, an out of work security guard,dependent on the financial care of others, a chronic sufferer from depression, and a somewhat angst-wridden and self-questioning homosexual. But I am contented. I know that one day I will die, and I may never write the book I want to write, or have the boyfriend I want to have, or be the loving, generous person I'd like to become; I will never have all the things I want in the immediate world. But I also know what Jesus says, the Real Jesus, Jesus the Christ: "he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." That is in the Gospel of John. My Protestant friends (and I call you friends with sincerity), I will not give the chapter and verse, because the chapter and verse do not matter. What matters is that Eternal Life is right here for the taking. It starts right now, and once you grab hold of it, or rather, once you let it grab hold of you, IT SHALL NEVER END. Life is one long sentence that rambles along unto Everlasting Paradise. Death is a punctuation mark, a comma, a semicolon or a dash. But it is not a period. With Jesus, death is no longer so serious or momentous an abbreviation mark as that. When I was a teenager I read a little about Kierkegaard and what he called "the leap of faith". Now I'm older and gratefully much too decrepit to contemplate such a leap. I just need to start walking, right from where I am, and though the path may be a narrow one at times, my hope is that I shall pass through the gate like the camel passes astonishingly through the eye of a needle. He passes because with God, all things are possible. St. Therese said that we need to learn to become little. And so I ask God to make this stubborn camel very small. Small and pleasant and delightful like all the miniature animals and castles and soldiers I used to play with as a kid. I look forward to an interesting journey here on this earth. I may even smoke a joint or two down the line (or three or four, pretty please). I want joy and adventure and play. The journey starts now, when we begin to abide in the unending life of Jesus. But when I finally do pass through the great toll gate (which before Christ had been a dungeon entrance), and after I do my well-deserved time in Purgatory, amid the fires of love, I aspire to plunge into humanity's long-severed garden. I conjure a dream of a paradise where things aren't quite so solemn, where we can love each other and laugh and breathe in the atmosphere of angels; yes, the beings whose very lack of weighty self-regard is the true secret to their ability to take flight (or so said G.K. Chesterton). You can call this evening's babbling of mine a sermon or a homily of an unqualified teacher. I'll just call it my hope. May 3, 2006 Soon I shall take my meds, say a little prayer, and hop into bed. I have something to look forward to in the morning: a mild buzz from the combination of antidepressants and caffeine I will take, which will improve my concentration, thus enhancing my experience of Rene Girard's great book "Violence and the Sacred". It is a magisterial investigation into the mechanisms of social violence, drawing on material such as modern anthropological research, world folklore and mythology, and the great Greek tragedies. The book contains critical encounters with Freud, Levi Strauss, and most of the major anthropologists of modern times. Its funny-- for something that gets into scapegoating, mob violence, blood vengeance, incest, menstruation taboos, and even cannibalism, I would say it is one of the most elegantly written and beautifully penetrating books I have ever read. Anyway, can you tell I like this book? I'm almost done with it so I guess I'll have to soon start on the Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter-- NOT. Sorry folks, I read good books. If I wanna goof off I listen to doo wop music. Music is my escape. But I like my books classic. I get it from my crazy father, who never had anything but Plato, Aristotle, Joyce, Einstein, Freud, etc on the bookshelves in our home growing up. So perhaps that was one good effect obtained from growing up around someone as eccentric as my paranoid schizophrenic father: I thought it was normal to read only classic books and never cheezy ones. Umm.. to go back down to the sheerly profane level, I have to use the restroom now. Good night! May 5, 2006 Hey, its el Cinco de Mayo! Time for all us white folks to get drunk on margaritas, this as a sign of solidarity with the Mexicans whom we wanna deport. I've had my fair share of Tequila, and ironically enough I read today Euripedes' play "The Bacchants", which features, guess who? Dionysus, the wrathful, rather mischievous, nay, insidious god of intoxication. Luckily I didn't rend a human sacrifice limb from limb in my Bacchic frenzy. I just smashed a Tequila bottle filled with gasoline, which had been placed on a fire pit. Oh well. I had better dive into the slumber of unonsciousness, so as to be presentable for my nephew's much more genuinely sacred rite of initiation and incorporation into the Body of Christ tomorrow. Forgive me, Lord, my petty sins. May 6, 2006 I've been having way too much fun looking up gossipy articles on Whitney Houston lately. I guess its my break from studying French theorist Rene Girard. Don't wanna get too smart on everybody, now! I'm a little shit in the grand scheme of things, I know. Neither my partial knowledge of Girard nor my relative lack of intoxicated madness when compared to Whitney can save me from the torturous fate of being the sinful, lonely little human that only I know how to be. Today was my nephew/ godson's first communion. I tried to explain to him a little before hand that Jesus is our salvation and that the sacraments such as the eucharist are miraculous ways for us to be with Jesus and be a part of his life. May I preach thus so that in preaching I may be converted by my own words. God have mercy on my soul. Well, I've got a headache and its off to bed. Amen. May 7, 2006 At the moment my lovely orange and white cat, Carmel, is attempting to scratch the hell out of me. That's always fun, so I'm not complaining right now. In truth, though, my day as a whole has been rather bland. But its a Sunday, and why should Sundays be bland? "Every day is like Sunday. Every day is silent and gray." sang Morrissey. And yet this is the day on which we go to Church and commemorate the Resurrection of the Lord? I guess the whole "day of rest" thing is challenging to modern people, with our addiction to a fast-paced life and over-stimulation. As slow paced as I usually am, I kick it into an even slower mode in order to try and observe the Sabbath. So what gives? Why the ennui? Above all-- why the sense of gloom and dread? Could it be we associate Sunday with the coming Judgment? What a can of worms this subject is! So difficult to understand. Some passages in the New Testament seem to make it out that Christ preached to his followers that the world would end with his grand Second Coming at some point during the lifetime of that very generation of disciples. His re-entrance onto the world stage is referred to in Greek as the Parousia, and the so called "delay of the Parousia" is one of the most controversial topics in Biblical studies. Anyways, I've never liked Sundays. I hope Jesus comes back on a Saturday about 10 in the morning, or even on a Friday afternoon, right when all the school kids get out- THE SUPREME MOMENT OF JOY. "Hey. That was when I was crucified", the Lord might respond. But he's a nice guy and I'm sure he knows how fond most of us were of getting out of school as kids. Well, this is getting silly. Good night. May 13, 2006 Well, I whacked off about fifteen minutes ago. Thought I'd throw that in because I know certain of my friends get a kick out of the crude self-revelations of this Catholic youth. Other activities of the day included going on a bike ride down by the drainage ditch (the concrete river), attempting to start reading a hefty volume of the theologian Von Balthasar, harassing and threatening my niece and nephew with tooth picks, and creating a new little resting spot for my cat to use in my room. Unfortunately, the cat is not yet interested and is hogging my bed at the moment. Since we're on the topic of felines, I also started to revise a little piece I'm writing on Pope Benedict, which mentions, among other things, his love of cats. Looming over me is the fact that I told three of my friends to completely fuck off a couple nights ago. No communication since. We watched Brokeback Mountain together. Their respect shown toward the film, and toward myself, was apparently deficient enough to send me into one of those awkward spells of poorly controlled anger which erupt from some well concealed corner of my personality every now and then. I've known two of these friends for five years, so you could say that I indeed truly flipped. My hope is that time will heal all wounds. Obviously, Brokeback Mountain is a touchy subject for me-- so don't disrespect it unless you want to awaken the wrath of the holy little queer. Anyhow. Life goes on and I'm not feeling as depressed as I had been earlier in the week. The day I got angry was not a pleasant one for me in general. I was hung over, had a headache, was tired, had mild thoughts of suicide flitter through my head. But its OK. All things must pass. May 15, 2006 Here is a poem I wrote a few years back. I guess you could say it is a personal intimation of heaven. Sure hope it turns out true. Everlasting Day Covered by a pale blue sky Life becomes a vision And spirits seep into your eyes Everlasting day In a world so deep and broad A million colors waft in space And each conceals a thought of God. Well, today was not a everlasting day. In fact, it is now at its close. But it was not bad, and I am thankful for that. Good night. May 17, 2006 Somewhere between the pinnacle of prayer and the sewar of masturbation is the daily silent struggle of my heart to get by in this world. Insulted by absurdity and ugliness, wounded by guilt and despair, I strive on, however imperfectly, aided by the invisible grace of God. So much beauty in the world, and so much that is not beauty. So much that either jarrs us with its crude hideousness, or puts our souls into a deadly sleep with its gaping emptiness. Ah, but I'm still here: I never did take that overdose of pills. That's the funny thing. That's the miracle. I've taken a stoic turn lately. Less whining for me, overall. Sober acknowledgment of the sorrows of life, Yes. Panic over the wretchedness of the world's condition, No. The guys I love may reject me. The goals I set may elude or disappoint me. My body may convulse one day soon or one day far with illness. But I have a secret card to play, even though games bore me, and I am incompetent at them. My card is a Bible verse (I also quote it in my first entry for this month). "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he dies yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." Death, be not proud. Somewhere between prayer and masturbation is this scrawny piece of human life known as Brian Gonsalves. And Death, if I believe in Jesus, I shall never be destroyed by the likes of you. And by the way, if it puzzles anyone that someone as secular, and scummy, and weirdly intelligent as myself should go on and on about Jesus, I guess it just goes to show that there are mysteries in life far more intriguing than the Da Vinci Code. May 26, 2006 Got back a little while ago from a concert in which Chris Page performed. Chris is the drummer; I know him from California Video where he works a few days a week. As far as I can tell, Chris is a really nice guy (He invited me- that's nice). There always the chance that he's crazy and has secretly murdered people and put them through wood chippers, but I just haven't gotten that vibe yet. And that's a good thing, boys and girls! By the way, all you SOB's out there who consider me a lazy bum, I AM A LAZY BUM (as well as a scholar, mystic, and militant dandy), but I finally threw in the towel and got an actual job. I should be starting security work in the next few weeks after my new guard card goes through. I guess that's about all I've got to say. It's off to my comfortable bed. I am fortunate in many ways. Thank you, Jesus. May 28, 2006 Whoa baby! Shawn and I did a 9 mile round trip hike today to "The Bridge to Nowhere", out at the San Gabriel River in the Angeles National Forest. The bridge is a very impressive structure from the thirties, spanning a yawning gorge; the roads leading up to it were apparently wiped out in a flood just a couple years after the bridge was completed. The bridge is still tip top. It looks great and today there was a large group of people bungee jumping off of it. Shawn and I will get the pictures up on the net soon. It was nice to go back to "Nowhere". My Uncle took me there when I was in the 6th grade. I never forgot that hike. Night everybody.
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