March 1, 1999

Hello friends, Jane, Joel, et al:

        First of all I must acknowledge receipt of your extended letter, Joel, just after the new year on the CBAA letterhead with the enclosed pictures (I will keep the old one with Jennifer, Kali, and Keith) and the generous gift for my own personal pleasure. Thank you for all of the above. Fortunately, I happended to be dining on the divine - a rare pleasure - when I read your entertaining missive. Quite delightful musings to be enjoyed only in the Zionic spheres of enlightenment. Be assured that I have undiminished faith and hope in the covenant of promise as it was delivered to us. I experience all of the trivial misgivings of my own worthlessness but I am so accustomed to all of my personal thorns that I am generally uneffected by the nincompoopishness of these inanities. I'm glad you mentioned Howie because he really was a pioneer in certain realms regardless of what anyone may think or say. A lover of the human soul, not a respecter of persons nor perdaughters. By the way, in his most private confidings he loved you both dearly for your independent courage and your unabashed individuality. Really, these are the qualities we await to revive in all of our old friends and cohorts of spirit but the etiquette of illusion inaugurated by Keith, particularly, and Wally and Dougie, and subscribed to by all of us continues to foment its rancor. I know your dedication and vision for the younger, less defiled, enthusiastically pure souls of our children, their peers, and the upcoming generations. A laudable, realistic and fulfilling endeavor that requires every attention musterable by you. I can't help it that I am hopelessly attached from spiritual fetushood to these old billygoats and nannygoats.
        I think Dougie's mentality was somewhat typical of the patently imbecile duplicity that mesmerizes a goodly portion of our siblings from that era. Here's a piece of land that was purchased with the actual blood, sweat, and tears of many of the sisters and brothers ... but not Dougie's. Besides which the actual proceeds came from a disdainfully commercial operation of exploitation that proved, in the long run, to have accomplished nothing of lasting significance, but plenty of suffering. Correct me if I am wrong, please. Dougie, inflated with some meaningless incorporation document (the red wax seal of the Queen of England must lend it some credibility in their image-worshipping thought process) of the EZCC which proclaims him as one of the four founding elders, decides to engage Jeff in a prolonged struggle for this land. What could old Samson possibly hope to achieve even if he had the property? I've heard the high-minded justifications about the future gatherings and whatnot. No problem. But to me Jehu, Sheriff, Woodie, Jeff and whichever brothers and sisters occupied the premises are all a part of our spiritual body. No difference here. Yet through the Coptic process of eliminating whomever it becomes convenient to cast out - "ah fuckery dem" - I can see how a chief elder could easily put on the robes of judge. Plead your cause to a fraudulent political court. Arm yourself with an eviction notice issued by who knows whom. Personally serve it to whatever remnant remains hanging on to who knows what. Then change your phone number when Carl puts it on the Internet as that of a church elder. "What I've received from the spiritual elders can't be conveyed over the Internet, by mail, or by phone - it takes a face to face meeting," says he. Is this an eviction notice from heaven, or what? Listen, Dougie, or anyone for that matter. We have all received something quite precious and unique. But as long as we remain estranged from any other members of the body, and each member is essential to make up the whole, then we shamefully refuse and deny the greatest gift of all ... this fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above. The actual realization of godliness in us, through us, among us. There is no other. When we opt for the carnal mind that denies one of these, we, in effect, deny that this holy sacrifice, which we know and have witnessed, was good enough to pay the price of sin. In condemning another, we condemn ourselves to blindness. We foster unbelief. And although our dear beloved brother Dougie had many gifts and could entertain God's children with aplomb and grandeur, he was ultimately found wanting when dealing with his sisters and brothers because he failed to consider their divine nature. I know he could charm anyone when he chose to do so, but "whatsoever you have done to the least of these sisters and brothers you have also done unto me." Or something like that. This does not mean that I love Dougie or his memory any less. Just like Keith or Wally. An example of what not to do. How not to behave toward these whose hope was born of Bone's spirit. For far too many years we greeted one another in the name of love when it was merely lip service. Hypocritical shenanigans performed in the name of love does not qualify as love. I know when someone loves me. It's not that difficult to discern. Although it took me years to wake up to it, I also can figure out when someone is using me for their own self-serving purposes. Good experience. Although you, Joel, have a remembrance of Dougie saying that he could see, through herbal enlightenment, that everything he had done was wrong. I never heard him specifically identify a wrongful deed. Clinton says he is profoundly sorry for what he said and did which triggered the events which imposed the burden on the people. But he does not identify the words or the deeds. The farcical parody played out for the public consumption does not even come close to the diabolical covenants of evil he has carried out as Commander-in-Chief of the Great Beast. You must wonder how I can speak of these two seemingly diametrical situations in the same context. But deceit is just deceit and it all looks the same to me even though the repercussion and consequences may seem to drastically differ.
        My last personal conversation with Dougie was via the telephone while we were in Arkansas. This was after he had said that he would only come to our little enclave outside Leslie, AR if we paid him a considerable monetary stipend for his services. I refused. We then embarked on a conversation dealing with the concept of truth. What is truth, who is capable of knowing truth, the source of truth and like seemingly deep concepts of perception. He maintained the black man lineage of truth, that it had to come from the genealogical source we bore witness to and that he, Dougie, was an essential cog in the progression of such. I fiercely blazed his black ass. Ivy unquestionably opened the revelation of great mysteries to us and to others through us. No more need for any mediators or interpreters for truth. I told Dougie in no uncertain terms that even a child knows the truth of his own thoughts and deeds and that it is this truth which is required of each of us. And then to love and forgive and nurture one another. This he did not wish to hear for this concept did not exalt him above anyone and this type of advent was not acceptable to him. I know they did not know Ivy in the mystical body that he manifested before us. I honestly do not ever remember Dougie being present in Papine during the two 3 week interludes I personally spent as Ivy's guest, pupil, and brother. He may have been there, I cannot say. The only references Keith, Dougie, and Kootman made to Ivy when we were in Trelawny more than a year after he died was to exclaim, "We have the bone!" But they did not revere the revelation that came to light in Ivy. They, particularly Keith, steered a wantonly commercial course. By the time Wally came to Trelawny with the 4-3-8 regime and an ominous confessional/confusional vise, the whole spirit of beauty, benevolence, and peace that Ivy had bestowed upon us was subjugated by the Coptic juggernaut of jaundiced jackalism. Though in some ways it appeared to be the thing, it was not the thing. I know that very few, if any, of the sisters and brothers who partook in this whole experience beginning with Ivy's revelation and progressing into the Coptic era of darkness to this present time see these episodes and these pivotal characters in the same context that I am portraying. But my experience is that people hate the truth or would actually prefer not to be made aware of certain things especially when it concerns the factual critique of an icon they have established in their own minds. Is ignorance really bliss? Perhaps. But until our story is told in its entirety we will not realize the covenant of peace that has been given to us and is in us nor will we manifest the holy civilization that lies dormant in our midst.
        I know Jane experienced some of Dougie's duplicity which he more readily exhibited to those he considered beneath his majesty or inconsequential in the overall scheme of events. We have all erred and fallen short of the perfection of love as we know it but we can humble ourselves before our own inadequacies and shortcomings and repent by striving to do better, resisting the pitfalls of our vanity. This I understand. But to persist in an illusion we have created presenting ourselves to be somehow better or more deserving of recognition than our contemporary sojourners on our pathway to perfect peace is distasteful and intolerable.
        I am always delighted in the confidence Jane has exhibited in herself and in her divinity. She is crashing some of the gender-biased limitations that a lot of folks, both male and female, would attempt to place on God or on godliness. I do not presume to know the mind of God nor the implications fostered in the adage, "Suffer not a woman to teach." I can only say from my own personal experience in life that many women, particularly my gracious mother and my incomparable wife, have taught me so many lessons and given me some of the most basic understandings of the principles of civilized behavior that, whether in church or out of church, I humble myself before the divine throne of womanhood, the incomparable virtues of femininity which I know were integral in giving me life and are a part of me. No difference here ... in the spiritual sense. I love you both, whether male or female, bond or free. Thank you for your kindnesses to me and to my family. I could never forget your Christianity in the truest sense.
        Love, Jim

    James Tranmer
    17547-050
    P.O. Box 26030
    USP Beaumont
    Beaumont, TX 77720-6030