My Spiritual Mentor, The Chink

I sneezed 13 times in rapid succession this morning. Not just your little golf sneezes into closed hands mind you, but body wracking man-sneezes that sprayed spittle and sputum hither, thither and even yon. Tears not only ran down my face, tears broad-jumped from my chin onto my chest and swam south eventually pooling in my navel. It was the triathlon of tears.

I contemplated this and concluded that this sneezing was indeed very mysterious, and since we are taught God works in mysterious ways, it must be divine.

Blinded by the tsunami of tears that now formed a salt-water sea in my bellybutton where millions of my DNA molecules frolicked ecstatically like Spring Breakers high on PNA (Peptide Nucleic Acid), I reached for my handy-dandy Bible.

With closed eyes, I opened the book to a random page and with my finger, blindly selected a passage for spiritual guidance. As I waited for my eyes to clear, I wondered if this is how God selects where a lightning bolt will strike during a thunderstorm, or if he intends that an occasional church steeple gets zapped along with a few unfortunate parishioners.

As my eyes cleared, I struggled to read these words...

I believe in everything; nothing is sacred, I believe in nothing; everything is sacred, ...Ha Ha Ho Ho Hee Hee

I'll be damned; I had grabbed the wrong book. I flipped the book over and ignoring the little hibbity-jibbity, translucent, spinning, exploding bubbles that were dancing on my eyeballs, saw that I was mistakenly reading from The Gospel According to Tom Robbins, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Part IV)."

The words were from The Chink, spoken from  a cave on the top of a mountain. Occasionally noises emit from the bowels of the mountain.

              The Chink leads Sissy into the cave where we see his
              clockworks. It is made of garbage can lids and old saucepans
              and lard tins and car fenders all wired together with baling
              wire. A bat flies into it making a bong noise and the
              contraption moves a little.

Bonk! sounds the cave, and then it chimes poing!

              The Chink smiles at the noise coming from his clockworks.
                                    SISSY
                        What was that?

                                    CHINK
                        Clockworks.

                                    SISSY
                        Clockworks?

              The Chink pauses to decide whether he should talk any further,
              then proceeds.

                                    CHINK
                        The Clockworks is one reason that I
                        am here on Siwash Ridge. I accepted
                        the invitation to be initiated as a
                        shaman by an aged Siwash chief who
                        was the principle outside confederate
                        of the Clock People.

                                    CHINK
                        The pivotal function of the Clock
                        People is the keeping and observing
                        of the clockworks. It is a real thing,
                        and is kept at the center, at the
                        soul, of the Great Burrow. Insofar
                        as it is possible, all Clock People
                        deaths and births occur in the
                        presence of the clockworks. Aside
                        from birthing or dying, the reason
                        for the daily visits to the clockworks
                        is to check the time.

                                    CHINK
                        These people have no other ritual
                        than this one. Likewise, they have
                        but one legend or cultural myth:
                        that of a continuum they call the
                        Eternity of Joy. It is into the
                        Eternity of Joy that they believe
                        all men will pass once the clockworks
                        is destroyed. The destruction must
                        come from the outside, must come by
                        natural means, must come at the will
                        of this gesticulating planet whose
                        more acute stirrings thoughtless
                        people call "earthquakes."

                                   CHINK
                        The Earth is alive. She burns inside
                        with the heat of cosmic longing. She
                        longs to be with her husband again.
                        She moans. She turns softly in her
                        sleep. In the Eternity of Joy,
                        pluralized, deurbanized man, at ease
                        with his gentle technologies, will
                        smile and sigh when the Earth begins
                        to shake.

                        I loved those loony
                        redskins, but I couldn't be a party
                        to their utopian dreaming. After a
                        while it occurred to me that the
                        Clock People waiting for the Eternity
                        of Joy was virtually identical to
                        the Christians waiting for the Second
                        Coming...
                        All the same.

                       

Just more suckers betting their share of the
present on the future, banking every
misery on a happy ending to history.
Well, history is ending every second -
happily for some of us, unhappily
for others, happily one second,
unhappily the next. History is always
ending and always not ending... ha
ha ho ho and hee hee.

                                   SISSY
                  What do you believe in then?

And here is where my finger landed.

I believe in everything; nothing is sacred, I believe in nothing; everything is sacred, ...Ha Ha Ho Ho Hee Hee

Science explains that sneezing is a reflex action that I have no control over. So maybe this volley of machine gun like sneezes was just my internal "Clockworks" signaling a poing/bonk from deep in my soul.
However, come to think of it, a sneeze is not unlike an orgasm. Both are difficult to stop once they have started. Both involve an involuntary closing of the eyes. Both are physically intense followed by a feeling of deep satisfaction. Both involve the uttering of the word "God", as in "Oh, God" and "God bless you".
Maybe my nose was jealous of that other fleshy protuberance that lives on the other side of the tracks anatomically speaking.

Of course, it could be that I just had something inside my nose

ha ha ho ho and hee hee.

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