March 1, 2002
spiritual guide
John Stokes pushed our beliefs. He is known for pushing people’s buttons and being the über-antagonist. We always maintained a mutual level of respect. By three o’clock in the afternoon when we would stroll in to play music for the kids, the fires of the morning had been put out. Today’s highly controversial topic was a laughable matter. “Give me a break, I’m more concerned about shit falling out of airplanes than I am about chemtrails.” or the morning after he interviewed a guy who explained the finer details of tax evasion, “You’ve gotta be pretty f---in’ stupid if you think you can beat the IRS.” So, he clearly doesn’t believe everything he talks about on the air. It doesn’t make it right, but it does make him a little less ’evil’ than he’s made out to be.
He walked out the door, the place was ours for the evening… free to talk on the phone and play some good music for the Flathead valley. Or not. When he stepped into the room the mic was his no matter who was there or what time of day it was, “So, I was about to leave when I noticed this bumper sticker on your car. ’Free Tibet’. What’s that all about? Do you know any Tibetans? Why do they need to be free? What about Montanans, don’t they need to be free?” We became quite embarrassed and tried to defend the bumper sticker, but truth be told - we were unprepared. We didn’t know any Tibetans (not that you need to in order to have just cause for believing in their struggle, but…). We couldn’t remember the exact years that China invaded Tibet. We weren’t sure why it was more important for Tibet to be free than Montana.
We would have never know about the Drepung Loseling monks being in town to make a sand mandala if it weren’t for John. “Hey, Tommy - it’s Stokes.” Much to our dissatisfaction or probably because of our dissatisfaction, he called us Tommy off the air. “You probably already knew about this, but there is going to be some Tibetan monks here at the Hockaday this week.” We went to the mandala every single day it was here, we took time off of work to watch the song and dance. We now know several Tibetans. We learned why it was equally important that Tibetans gain their freedom and Montanans keep theirs. We will never forget 1949 as being the year the Chinese first invaded and 1959 as the year the Dalai Lama left Tibet. We now call ourselves Buddhist because we were forced to learn more about our beliefs, defend our ideals.
The man being credited for stirring up hate and dissension in our town is one of our true spiritual guides.
posted @ 9:22 AM