Thread by @CapeScott66

Self-Portrait:
All Things In The Universe Exist In Relationship

Rainy Day Conversation In 1976, NYC

2/Here’s a seldom-asked question:

Are Jews White?

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1302296488853172225?s=20

3/My Dad is/was Jewish which makes me half-Jewish. But as any half-Jewish and 100% Jewish people know, if you Dad’s Jewish but your Mom isn’t, guess what? You ain’t Jewish!! That isn’t a problem for me tho since I don’t have “Jewish identity”. My Mom is 100% Chinese from

4/Guangzhou and my Dad’s family really liked her. My Dad was a mathematician and my Mom was an artist and they met in college. They divorced the year the Beatles broke up in 1969 and together my Mom,

It's Horrifying (a high school film from 1973-74)

5/sister & I moved to Hawaii where my Mom grew up.

My freshman year at NYU (1975-76) was the best year of college for me. I was 18 and resided in Brittany Dorm at Broadway and E. 10th Street w/ students attending Parsons School of Design. I took Freshman Calculus I & II,

6/Madness & Death in 19th-Century Russian Literature, Language in Sight & Sound (film class), 2 computer programming classes (batch processing used IBM cards then), English & Practical Reasoning. Semester GPAs: 4.0 and 3.5.

During my Born-Again Christian phase (that coincided

7/w/ Bob Dylan’s) in 1979 I learned two major things from Jesus Christ:

1) Love your parents despite their imperfections b/c you’re here b/c of them
2) The marriage relationship is the

Bob Dylan - Slow Train (San Francisco, CA - Nov. 16, 1979) (Audio)

8/reason you leave your first family on a journey to create your own family:
biblehub.com/niv/matthew/19…
Chapter 19:4-6: (NIV)
4“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and

9/mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

I was in Hollywood, summer of 1979,

Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing (Lyrics)

10/having bailed on college (couldn't decide on a major) on a mission to enter into relationship with a girlfriend, marry her and start a family. My "stars aligned" b/c thru a mutual Rastafarian musician friend of ours my path crossed a 100% Japanese girl 4 years older than me

11/pursuing Modern Dance, and it became clear that our lives were on a collision course with destiny. We tied the knot in Room 222, City Hall, in New York City in December of 1979 and became parents in 1980.

The Holy Name 1978 - Hansadutta Swami

12/We were staying at my Chinese cousin's loft in Alphabet City b/t Ave's C and D when one day she told me she had been a devotee living in Japan's Hare Krishna temple before she left. That resonated b/c I myself overnighted it

GEORGE HARRISON - GOVINDA

13/at Honolulu's Hare Krishna temple to find out more at age 20 about the Hare Krishna movement that my favorite Beatle, George Harrison, became involved with:

George Harrison - My Sweet Lord - Lyrics

14/George Harrison - 'Awaiting On You All' - Original Audio

15/During my stay Hansadutta Swami and his devotees arrived carrying an LP of The Holy Name. In the morning, as all devotees and guests arose to greet the Deities before sunrise to the Govinda Prayers, I was captivated by its transcendental music and devotional lyrics. When I

16/left the seeds of Krishna prema were planted in my heart.

So as 1979 transitioned into 1980 my pregnant wife and I found ourselves moving into the Hare Krishna temple in midtown Manhattan where I “shaved up” and became a bhakta as we served the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krishna.

17/We are eternal spirit-souls, or jiva-atmas, w/ these material bodies trapped in the material world. By establishing relationship w/ the Supreme Deities Radha-Krsna, we can return to the spiritual world, our original habitation.

I’d found that I was rejected by Jews for not

18/not being fully Jewish, and never fit in w/ 100% Chinese b/c I was only half and didn’t even speak Chinese. I didn’t “belong” to any people, race or culture and this made me relate to Leon Russel’s “Stranger In A Strange Land”:

19/The lyrics reveal the song centers on baby Jesus in the manger:

“And the baby looks around him
And shares his bed of hay
W/ the burrow in the palace of the king

He's a stranger in a strange land
Tell me why
He's a stranger in a strange land
Just a stranger in a strange land”

20/Prior to married life at age 21, I’d realized thru spiritual life a fact that transcends race - the fact we all have two parents. Everyone has two parents, regardless of race. That I’m like an “outsider” to the different races being a “half-n-half” doesn’t diminish my humanity

21/one but. Rather, it enhances it. Conscious of my not “belonging” to any particular race or culture freed me to walk some miles in spiritual culture that transcends race. Race is checked at the door in Christianity, Buddhism & Krsna Consciousness. I realized too that being

22/half-n-half attracted me to 100% Asian people (like Japanese) who are more a socially, culturally & nationally integrated than the US. As America seems poised on a new Civil War, w/ different races, groups & parties at one another’s throats, in Japan and the DPRK most people

23/(not counting NK defectors) are living with social cohesion, cultural unity and proud national identity. What America ISN’T is one people w/ one history, one culture, one language and one identity. So I discovered that where I lacked, another person could fill the void by

24/her being 100% of one race/culture. As two people, one 100% & one 50-50, one from Japan & one from America, the sanctity of our marriage - by which a ‘man leaves his parents to cleave unto his wife’ - transcended the mundane material designations of race and politics.

25/All dogs are under the umbrella of a single species, Canis familiaris. Mankind is a single species, Homo sapiens. When I see Wangjaesan Dance Troupe women dancing better than my ex in the DPRK, I realize that racial politics and wars are for the birds.

26/Men and women are in the business of establishing relationships that culminate in marriage & starting new families. It doesn’t matter the race, nationality or culture. If there’s chemistry, romance or love these gross material designations fall by the wayside. Love trumps all.

@threadreaderapp unroll