I Be Good Useless

No, it is not Black dialect of the '70's. It is truth: I be good useless.

Being useless utilizes the virtues if one strives to be good useless. Patience is key. Acceptance and fortitude help. Perseverance strengthens determination in uselessness. Knowledge of uselessness is right up there, too.

Today a man at Panera suggested I could download (or did he say "upload"?) a picture for my blog. I'm not sure I could manage doing that, and I commented that it might be rather useful. Doing is useful. Being is useless. Being good useless is even more useless. Bad useless is as Flanner O'Connor would reflect, a sin; it interferes with good.

Yesterday when I had nothing other to do or place to go than to find a solution to a laptop difficulty (or else toss the little machine out because not working it would be useless), I came to the utter nothingness of my uselessness, and this is very good.

Why would I consider tossing out a useless laptop? Ah, that is just what the world (and who is the world?) would consider doing to a useless person. A useless person is someone who "be's." The other day when it was mentioned I'd need to be "useful" in order to be desirable in proximity, I replied that I can write, read, pray, and suffer. The problem with being is that being is not esteemed beyond a theological, theoretical perspective of being. Functional being is little studied, practiced, or promoted. In actuality, doing is esteemed.

Consider the piano man at Von Maur Department Store. He does. He does well. He does good useful. He plays without music, wears a suit and tie, and nods with a smile as patrons brouse to and fro amidst the merchandise. Consider my friend who knit a rosey-red-toned scarf with frings which I now wear in the wind and chill. My friend did good useful. These examples embrace being, too, in a degree. The piano man and my friend be good in thought while placing fingers on keys and knitting needles, transmitting thought from brain to fingers for a patterned output, and also some heart flutters into the process in love of the creative endeavor.

Consider the wife and mother who do good useful in grocery shopping and food preparation, or the wife and mother who do good useful in working outside the home and paying a cleaning woman who needs work and income. Or teachers, volunteers, realtors, Panera workers, car mechanics, computer techs--all do good useful.

Some, though, must be good useless. Are those lying in nursing home beds being good useless? The good from bad useless are difficult to determine because intention is mostly interior. The Supreme Court now says useless types can be justifiably euthanized. Maybe this is because they are not being good useless. Or is there good noticed in uselessness? Who ever asks anyone, "What are you being today?" "How are you being?"

If anyone would think to ask me, I must respond, "I be good useless."

Yesterday when the eclipse of my personal and total uselessness occurred in the overcast expanse of nothingness amidst traffic and a shopping mall and lost turns, I be good. I be good useless in offering my uselessness to Jesus.

Later, at Panera, a young man told me uselessness sounded negative and unproductive. He reminded me that a few months ago I was "charged up" about offering my pain as a prayer to help the world. I said that uselessness is a kind of suffering, and that I am now offering my uselessness as prayer. He said maybe in the spring I could work a couple of days in his landscaping company's busy time. I said that might not be useless, but I could consider it. Not many are chosen to be useless. Most must do useful and do even when they might a little bit better be.

Offering money or food is doing. Offering uselessness is being. It is good being not only because it is prayer but because offering means in its origins to present to God, to sacrifice. Being bad useless defines itself in the intention and affect. What is intended to take away from good is bad. Uselessness with the intention of being bad is not good uselessness.

To be good, uselessness must be unproductive as the world sees productivity. Being in essence exists without material product. Being is esoteric. It is really understood by the few. Most people are exoteric and understand what is seen with the eyes, as outcomes and products, or thought with the mind in concrete terms and images.

To be good useless is to see and think with the heart in offering what remains when the sacrifice no longer exists or never did in material form. Being good useless is a sacrifice of praise. Suffering is being good useless. I be good useless.