Those Who Do Not Suck

Do What thou Wilt Shall be the Whole of the Law,

“A feast for fire and a feast for water, a feast for life and a greater feast for death!” -Liber Al, ch 2, 41

“Aye! feast! rejoice! there is no dread hereafter.  There is the dissolution and eternal ecstasy in the kisses of Nu.”  -Liber Al. ch 2. 44

Today, we celebrate my maternal grandfather’s greater feast. 

I have many very vivid memories of my grandfather, who taught me a number of things including that you should use the right tool for the job or the job becomes harder and you still need the tool.

Or that with patience you can make some really beautiful things.

That isn’t to say he never got mad or never raised his voice, I think we shared a relatively short fuse that burns quickly, makes a lot of noise and then gets down to brass tacks and fixing the problem. 

He was the closest grandparent I had, and closer in a number of ways than my biological father, and he helped me and the rest of the family out probably a little more than he should have.  He cared a lot about his children and grandchildren.

He had a number of close calls over the last several weeks notably one when he went in the first time and I was at the Luau for William Blake Lodge.  I had to begin preparing myself for what would inevitably happen, though I would have  preferred it be years off instead of mere weeks.  He did get to say good bye to most of the family, and I think he knows he was loved very much.

When I think about his place in our lives on a family level, I immediately am drawn to the collect for the Sun from Liber XV, the Gnostic Mass:

“Lord visible and sensible of whom this earth is but a frozen spark turning about thee with annual and diurnal motion, source of light, source of life, let thy perpetual radiance hearten us to continual labour and enjoyment; so that as we are constant partakers of thy bounty we may in our particular orbit give out light and life, sustenance and joy to them that revolve about us without diminution of substance or effulgence for ever.”

I think that he WAS a good example of sharing the energy and bounty that he received, and that in turn he passed it on to his family and friends whenever he could. I think that his children and grandchildren strive to continue caring for one another and their chosen families as well which makes him far more potent than I think even could have been impressed upon him.  He reached a lot of people though his own life and the lives of his loved ones.
 
Much like the Sun, he had an air of permanence.  I never expected to have to write the words that I am expressing now.  Not because I felt that he was never going to die, just he wasn’t going  to do it until he was good and ready because there was work to do.  He was, in many ways that presence that you could look to when the night was just about over and you were shivering your way through the darkness and doubting you were going to make it.  You thought about him and suddenly the  dawn was creeping over the horizon, telling you to get a move on.

He was a product of his times.  He was at times trapped in the thinking of the past and I like to think that in some manner, he would have liked to been able to break that cycle of thinking, if he could just find the root.  But in his way, he helped break down the barriers of race and religion in his offspring and their offspring and many of his grandchildren are astonishingly colorblind and accepting.  He helped me realized that even though he wasn’t ready for it, that color is something on your clothes, not in your heart.  I think it made me accept the third line of the Book of the Law  without hesitation as one of those universal statements that cannot be denied.

“Every man and every woman is a star“  -Liber Al, ch 1, 3

I don’t recall him being very religious.  I think part of it had to do with his service in Korea, and being wounded there.  Aside from just being my hero, he also was a Hero to our nation, with a Silver Star with palms awarded to him.  (I do not know the circumstances, but it is an Item I hope to learn some day. He didn’t like discussing it.)  The feeling I get was that he was spiritual, and he kept his beliefs within him and they seemed to serve him well.  He wasn’t a Thelemite, nor do I think he would have found the path fulfilling in his life.  I think that he was happy to let others follow their paths and that he was happy on his, and that is really what is important.

I think it is time I close, with excerpts from the collects for Death and the End of this incarnation from the Gnostic Mass.

Term of all that liveth, whose name is inscrutable, be favourable unto us in thine hour.

Love is the law, love under will.