Sex, drugs and Leonard Cohen

Hello pals, please excuse my lapse in posting. It won't happen again --at least not without warning--

I'm sitting at my desk, watched over by Checks and Balances (my two folk-art vultures) and listening to Leonard Cohen. I feel badly about Leonard Cohen. He could have been a mystic, but he couldn't get past the sex. Jung wrote that a drug user is a failed mystic. I say anyone called to greatness who trades the divine intoxicant for an earthly one is failed, too.

I once knew a failed man. He could have been great, a great mystic and priest but there was something in the blur of skin and smoke that took him away from the divine. To ask him, he saw the divine in those lungfuls of smoke and handfuls of flesh. That may be true, but I suspect it's cowardice. It's peeking through slightly spread fingers because the movie has gotten too scary or the sun has gotten too bright.

I've been abstinent for five years. It's a constant struggle but God has given me considerable gifts, gifts which terrify and humble me. I don't want to be another failed mystic. I don't want to turn around and realize I'm 50 years old with nothing to show for my faith but dog-eared copies of Kierkegaard, a husband with a leash and a great enthusiasm for an après dinner bong hit.