Chapter Xii  

Crime And Punishment  

Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, "Speak to us of Crime and Punishment."

And he answered saying:
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.

Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged.
Even like the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being.
Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,
But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.

Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.

And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,
And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,
And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.
Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,
And still more often the condemned is the burden-bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.
You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.
And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.

If any of you would bring judgment the unfaithful wife,
Let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.
And let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.
And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;
And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?
And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,
Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?

And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?
Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?
Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.
Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.
And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?
Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,
And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.

Text from PoemHunter.com

Yesterday, one of our resident wild turkeys got stuck on the other side of the fence and and beat down the new grass with his pacing and clucking when he was left behind by the others who flew to roost. I tried to “inspire” (read that as “scare”) him to fly over and join his mom and sister, but he kept catching his beak in the fence wire. Finally he ran into the brush and hid from me.

My writing has been like the stupid turkey lately: stuck and hiding. I have too much going on, not to mention jetlag and falling back to daylight standard time. The words just aren’t coming. I want to make a pot of tea and settle in front of the fire to clip and paste my Paris photos and mementos into that handmade album I bought on Rue de Pont Saint Louis—collage my memories into a current of images that flows through the Paris I came to love in my too few days there. They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, but I’m a writer, and how does any of this solve my problems with chapter 17?

To inspire myself, I’ve pulled-out my tricks from the cupboards and closets: my “What if…” flipchart, a copy of 642 Things to Write About by the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto, a copy of the just launched Sisters Born, Sisters Found anthology edited by Laura McHale Holland (I’ve got two pieces in it), my ideas journal— and toted them to class. I yammered on about where writers find inspiration; I encouraged the group to take notes—constantly and everywhere. I read from the ideas journal.

My lecture may not have gotten my own beak out of the fence, but my class was inspired. Here is what one participant had to say:

About Inspiration:  Since early childhood I've been a noticer of what's going on, a ponderer of things, realizing how small things can be big things.  Did not try to write stuff down though, until my later years when, after early retirement at age fifty-five, I started to keep a journal.  Thoughts that were interesting needed to be written down,  whenever I felt like it. . . usually in the mornings.  I read them often, and sometimes I felt a story could be developed from one here and there.

Ideas can come anywhere, even in line at the grocery store, but I need a peaceful place to expand on them.  It helps that my home is isolated and surrounded by nature.  I can THINK here. 

I like "What ifs?"  What if a tree could talk? What if that man looking through the garbage bin has a story to tell?  What if the sun knows what I am thinking?

 I hope we [writers] can get together to just talk about what makes us write, and how we  write.

I tossed with worry all night that the fox would find the turkey and eat it. Now, I've just watched all three fly to roost in my eucalyptus trees and had that flash of  idea in my mind: a new story  about Jesse who has done very, very bad things, and that the dog trainer will kidnap JadeAnne and Pepper in chapter 17.

I can’t say what the inspiration was, but I’m happy to receive it. If you have any ideas on inspiration, tell us in the comments below. Keep the conversation going!

 

Week by Week, A Year’s Worth of Journaling Prompts & Meditations by Amber Lea Starfire is filled with just the kind of information needed to help beginning journal writers get started and will fuel the imaginations of more experienced writers. The quotes that open each section are worth the purchase. But Amber Lea Starfire offers much more in this inspiring, well-structured book. She provides prompts and exercises that even fiction writers will find helpful in creating the interior lives of characters. This book is a gift to anyone who wishes to step into the world of self-expression through journaling or memoir writing.

Reviewed by Patsy Ann Taylor