MEMORIAL

"HIS PENSEES, NEVER FINISHED AND PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY IN 1670, PRESENT PASCAL'S APOLOGIA FOR THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. ADDRESSED TO THE INTELLIGENT SKEPTIC."

"THE MOST INTIMATE RELIGIOUS WORK IS THE MEMORIAL. THIS SCRAP OF PAPER, WHICH RECORDS PASCAL'S EXPERIENCE ON ONE UNFORGETTABLE NIGHT IN 1654, WAS FOUND IN THE LINING OF HIS COAT AFTER HIS DEATH FOR HE CARRIED THIS REMINDER ABOUT WITH HIM ALWAYS."


"THE YEAR OF GRACE 1654,
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, FEAST OF ST. CLEMENT, POPE AND MARTYR, AND THE OTHER MARTYRS.
EVE OF ST. GRISOGONO, MARTYR, AND OTHERS
FROM ABOUT 10:30 IN THE EVENING TILL ABOUT HALF PAST MIDNIGHT,


FIRE.

"GOD OF ABRAHAM, GOD OF ISAAC, GOD OF JACOB"
NOT OF THE PHILOSOPHERS AND OF THE LEARNED.
CERTAINTY. CERTAINTY. FEELING. JOY. PEACE.
GOD OF JESUS CHRIST.
MY GOD AND YOUR GOD.
YOUR GOD WILL BE MY GOD.
FORGETFULNESS OF THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING, EXCEPT GOD
HE IS ONLY FOUND BY THE WAY THAT IS TAUGHT IN THE GOSPEL.
GRANDEUR OF THE HUMAN SOUL.
RIGHTEOUS FATHER, THE WORLD HAS NOT KNOWN YOU, BUT I HAVE KNOWN YOU.
JOY, JOY, JOY, TEARS OF JOY
I HAVE DEPARTED FROM HIM:
THEY HAVE FORSAKEN ME, THE FOUNT OF LIVING WATER.
MY GOD, WILL YOU LEAVE ME?
LET ME NOT BE SEPARATED FROM HIM FOREVER.
THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL, THAT THEY KNOW YOU, THE ONE TRUE GOD,
AND THE ONE THAT YOU SENT, JESUS CHRIST.
JESUS CHRIST.
JESUS CHRIST.
I LEFT HIM, I FLED HIM, RENOUNCED, CRUCIFIED.
LET ME NEVER BE SEPARATED FROM HIM.
HE IS ONLY KEPT SECURELY BY THE WAY IS TAUGHT IN THE GOSPEL:
RENUNCIATION, TOTAL AND SWEET.
COMPLETE SUBMISSION TO JESUS CHRIST AND TO MY DIRECTOR.
ETERNALLY IN JOY FOR TODAY'S EXERCISE ON THE EARTH.
MAY I NOT FORGET YOUR WORDS. AMEN."

WHOP THAT STEEL ON DOWN, ON DOWN

Now for the 'rest' of the day---Shabbat month comin' soon--

Thanks for the reminder, Joyce, in regards to metaphysical and metaphorical Hammers. I was going to use John Henry too but I ran out of time! The metaphor I had in mind is Hammer and Nails and Boreds as to the limitations of materialism. But if space, time, and matter(=energy) is in fact all there is, from whence arises information? That includes everything from life itself to language, meaning, and of course music.

No one has proved what Pasteur disproved, i.e. spontaneous generation; which turns out to be a bit of a myth, doesn't it? Pasteur himself was assailed in a railroad coach by a young man who reproached him for praying the Rosary. "Surely you don't believe such things in this day and age! Come and see me in Paris and I will teach you much about science!"

It's also true that since the Urey-Miller experiments produced just what you get from smoking--tar--no one is even attempting to find out how life arose from a theoretical primordial soup. The kind of naked triumphalism of lesser scientists and those who purport to speak for science recurs over and over, proclaiming "The End of Faith"--an odd claim indeed considering that faith in something is common to all men, with the possible exception of the suicidally inclined--and yet even they have some faith--that they can do the job, for instance.

Anybody remember the pre-9/11 book, "The End of History"? These pronouncements may sell books--but are in the same category as "88 reasons why Jesus will come in '88." If that were not enough, by the next year this pastor had found an extra reason which made 89 reasons why He will come in....you guessed it...'89! Thankfully that was the end of it; instead we have nearly 300 Chicken Soup books.......Andy Warhol, come 'n get it!

Well nothing stops us second-rate writers.

Bach to music, if I may: After I mentioned Mavis Staples I went back and listened to "Freedom Highway" (in my car, of course) and if I may say so, everything I've been trying to say, and a whole lot more, is compressed into that little strand of tape..but it made me wonder again about a certain double standard; that if I talk about Jesus in public, I'm offensive; but no one goes out of their way to attack a black man's faith or proclamation..maybe it's because I haven't suffered enough but been a child ruler of enmassed privileges. And there's no way to argue that that is not the case. Any exceptions among us, "as it is to this day" ???

However, sympathy for the Jews about the Ha-Shoah seems to have run out quite some time ago. But they are a special, unsubsumable case and in many ways guaranteed to offend in the same way Joseph offended his brother hoods. And if the Jews automatically have offended, how much the more offensive to our egos is the most famous Jew of all? This is why it remains such a powerful curse word--nobody says, "O Moses!" when they hit their thumb with the proverbial ( and non-metaphysical) hammer.

(A good place for a break--hammering out blues for the common man, breaking dishes, and so on)

HOME WHERE MY "THOTS" ARE GOING/SECRETING

Scattered Thots from Scatterbain--after the manner of Pensees--with thematic elements and hanging chads

First, the twitter/tweet

What I did yesterday: nursing home rounds, hospital rounds, getting angry enough to recycle about three fourths of my piles of unuseds. This impulse comes at irregular times and the trials that constituted last week caused me to despair; feeling very disorganized and wanting so very much for vacation tostart, as they say, "yesterday!" I just get mad enough to throw things away without looking through them. It works.


For the rest of my day I definitely took a vacation from my problems-- since I was making rounds in the Amboy nursing home I decided to go on to Dixon and try cross country skiing on the old homestead. Instead of a lake,woebegotten, I visited the old Rock River and what we used to call "the drainage ditch."(a far too prosaic name, in fact) It was delightful and refreshing. I went to the peninsula where I proposed to Flo except that there are actually two peninsulas and can't remember which one! Scared a few rabbits. Also skied on the first slope upon which I ever set skis which some of you remember as the little "barn hill." I was of course reminded of all the delightful days we set out on the Rock River during the good old summertime, water skiing with my dad. Thanks, dad!

Now full of stickems I returned to my real home. It was a very humbling experience to not be able to recognize where our lane was. It's like the New Yorker cartoon from last week, with a couple walking the city streets and the man saying, "Someday we will look back at all of this and not be able to remember any of it." Actually long-term memory is the last to go. One of the patients I visited in Amboy can't say anything that makes any sense but still, like my grandmother at age 100, does remember the old songs and sings along. And yodels. Did I mention she yodels?

Speaking of music, last night years of preparation came to fruition, and we had Bach night with Winifred Hoffman; music that I have been preparing for for years I was finally playing and rather than being frustrated at not being a better sight reader etc., it just rocked and rolled right out. The songs included, "My Heart Ever Faithful," "Sheep May Safely Graze" and "Jesu' Joy of Man's Desiring." I do believe that Y'shua was there too, taking my mind off performance issues.Yaddah, yaddah, yaddah!!! My heart wasn't so faithful but He brought it to pass anyway.

More later, perhaps.............

News from Lake Winipisaukee

Everywhere I am running into reminders of Lent, even in the newspaper columns on Ed's page. Since I have never officially celebrated- if that's the word- Lent; nor Mardis Gras for that matter, this particular season started out with no consideration of participation.

I gather it used to be commonplace to ask people what they are giving up for Lent..I have done some fasting in my days, and when I was in TEC, "wheat" was something you gave up for a particular participant to remind them- and you- that it was a serious responsibility to pray before, during , and after the TEC or Cursillo. And were we praying for Aunt Noodlenose's elbow or for the parking lot project? No, there was unity in the one thing we asked, which was that they and we would meet Christ by the agency of the Holy Spirit.

At the same time I have been getting a strong sense that I am to put this blog to sleep, to lie fallow; to, in the immortal words of Dr. Leo Marvin, "Take a vacation....from my problems!!!" I will be on the road anyway, and so March seems to be an excellent match for, "Give it a rest, why doncha?" I may resume after Easter, Lord willing. Again I say, Lord willing.

I may tie up a few loose ends in the AM.....stay "posted"

WHO IS THIS "SORRY" FELLOW?

"Sorry....sorry....I just get carried away........" John Cleese as Sir Lance-a-Lot

Who's sorry now?

I am; because in retrospect I have written so many non-sequitors lately that are highly or maybe absolutely prone to misinterpretation. Also because "confidence in the flesh" is so easily attained in life, let alone in blogging. It has been my goal to get beyond legalism; and not only that, but to try to communicate (if necessary using words) something beyond religion, and politics, and even personal opinion.

Obviously, only partial, and stumbling at that, success is possible for me, or anyone else. "The ground is level at the foot of the cross"--the very point that so infuriated Nietschke. So, as at the beginning, I ask your indulgence and patience, recalling that the Amazing thing about Grace is its ability to turn sour grapes into sweet wine.

The example pastor used last night was of OT Joseph, the technicolor dreamcoat guy. In the discussion he pointed out that Joe started out as a bit of a cad--and certainly a boaster. He managed to alienate each and every one of his brothers by telling them his dreams which turned out to be prophetic but sounded obviously rude and crude, as they would also to clueless us. "Don't tell everyone your dreams." The brothers, in part rightly, deemed this the height of arrogance, the capstone of a fatal career. Murder was planned and almost carried out except for the guilty conscience of one bro, who convinced the others to make a fast buck by selling Joe down into Egypt.

Yet, had he not infuriated them, Joey would not have ended up in Egypt at all--would have learned nothing--and would not have even ended up loving/saving his brothers in the end. The question is, how much of the initial offence was due to confidence in the flesh, and being the favorite of his father Jake, when such honor was supposed to be given to the eldest? And how much was planned by God?

I do not compare myself to Joe, though, who in some people's opinion was a "type" or foreshadowing of the Messiah.I have had no dreams of which to boast, nor has any great power or privilege been granted to me, "for such a time as this." So I must tread even more cautiously than Joe did. It is likely that even with 60 years of confidence in the flesh, I have still not learned my lessons. Although human "wise-dumb" is often blatantly obvious, it is very subtle when the practitioner practices it, because we cannot understand ourselves, of physical necessity and owing to our inherently selfish subjective views. We need other people to reign in our madness and our zeal.

As Sir Lancelot exits in "my own particular idiom" from the canage he has caused, he swings over the bloodied crowd on a rope. Which leaves him dangling nowhere; saying"..uh...does somebody want to give me a push?" Over a cliff perhaps?

Our dependencies are soon revealed: "I dare not trust the sweetest frame." Somebody wanna give me a push?

Another Tuesday, with Sorry

Now for that question that has been praying on everyone's mind; "yadda yadda yadda" According to The Straight Dope site, Jerry was not the source but Lenny Bruce. It goes on to explore the various spellings and their possible derivations.

Except for one.

Enter Yaddah and see what you get.

I know Lenny was Jewish, and the site makes reference to Jewish comedians. You'd think the connection to Hebrew would be obvious. "Facilitating shallow investigations since 1973?"- that year alone should point out the obvious limitations of "dope."

This brings up at least two points; the first being Abe Maslow's famous dictum, "When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Like Calvin we are simply little kids with their first hammer, looking for anything nail-able, such as Mom's coffee table. And as Hobbes mentioned elsewhere, "In the past you've been a remarkably poor judge of what your mother cares about."

The second is the power of the human will. We see what we wanna see.Our filters are as close to omnipotence as any fleshly thing we are likely to know. We pay attention to things that remind us of things we like, or with which we are familiar. Which explains, apart from DNA, why the older we get, the more we act like our parents, the very people whom we swore never to imitate or follow when we first smelled independence....Default mode. Feelings come and go, ideas come and go, people and spirits of people come and go----

But I have yet to meet a person without a strong will. I think this decision-making organ is very close to the pith of a person, and it certainly tends to define a personality. Psychiatry using a multitude of approaches is modestly successful at dealing with feelings and thoughts. Programmers and deprogrammers come and go; but as Mr. Carroll said, "The question is, who is to be master, that's all." I guess that requires a decision of some sort- or the decision to decide not.

"People can snow me, which is why we grant so few interviews," said an interviwer at U of Ill during an exception granted to me in the Vietnam era, and said interview may have been was one reason why I ended up at their medical school. Plus it was cheap. And it is quite possible I did snow him, because I had not-so-good reasons for going into medicine and had only the vaguest idea that since it involved science, I could probably do it. (It reminds me of a lesser-known Donovan song in which he chides one of his friends who got involved with medicine- "The doctor bit was so exciting,wasn't it? --or something to that effect. Not really.

People can have the worst possible reasons for doing something, and yet, defying reason and their own feelings, they often completely make it happen by an act of a persistent will. In my case I found better and better reasons for doing medicine rather than "art," for example; to the point now where I can't imagine doing anything else.

On the negative side, psychiatrists are terrible at managing personality disorders. Psychology has very little of practical value to add to the treatment of even the most-studied personality disorder of all, alcoholism. When I was in training for detox etc. it did not take me long to realize that the only thing that could change a personality (will) was an act of God--but only if and when the sufferer gives permission to be changed on a very core level. Fellow recovering alcoholics are much better at detecting bull and sham change than the sharpest counsellor. In fact, I found that the more advanced the intellect, the fewer practical results. And, I might add, I have never once seen drug treatment to be the slightest help towards recovery. Because the will cannot be treated by drugs. One of the standard excuses alcoholics offer is, "I guess I just don't have enough will power, Doc," when the near-absolute power of an intractable human will is simultaneously looking me in the face.

Of course we are now told that "science proves," that there is no such thing as the soul, and in particular that evolutionary biology and neurobiology have ruled out free will. However, now we are back at the tool problem. "The Pope? How many divisions does he have?" asked Joe Stalin. Joe had a big Hammer which turned out to be ludicrously small. But it's all he really had- besides a few major personality disorders .

In order to come to conclusions such as these, one has to assume that the universe consists only of Hammers (with energy) and Nails(that matter) and things that are permeable to Nails given enough space and time. But such a hypothesis is not provable or even falsifiable on our level or any conceivable level, leaving us with Isaac Asimov's final comments about the God hypothesis: --I might possibly be wrong, but it's not worth my time to pursue it--. Not worth his time!

Perhaps another scientist or three can help us here-- but science as it now exists is a culturally driven phenomenon and can only offer us a few brands of hammer and nails and not much time to decide whether or not we have a free will or not. Joyce knows the folk song, "Hammer and Nails," I am sure. Feel free here to sing or hum--I like Mavis Staple's version.....

Let your lil' light Shimer

Recently TNY featured a cartoon of a Wash DC building with a stone heading: "Bureau of Connecting The Dots." I hope my readers will "connect" with this Bureau soon as it may help you to make sense of this blog--but I doubt it.

On a musical note (ta-da!!!) some friends and I got together to make up a recorder trio. Many of you know Winifred Hoffman and the other person is a band director from Earlville HS whose name I have not yet fully filed upstairs. When I first started playing music in public I was with a group called The Old Town Renaissance Consort and it was exactly as advertised; we played instruments of the period. Playing a Renaissance recorder is a little bit difficult because they had not developed the smaller holes at the bottom of the recorder and the range was more limited; it was frankly a more primitive instrument. However there are a number of brass instruments whose ancestry go back to such instruments as sakbuts and krumhorns. As I say, they are not the most convenient instruments to play well. The Baroque instruments are pretty much all that I use now but we rarely played Baroque music in this consort.

However, although I have played in many groups since then, more off than on, I have found some attraction to Renaissance music largely because of its complex rhythms. Renaissance writers of music seemed to delight in dashing conventional expectations about rhythm and in some instances tonality. In many ways it is extremely modern and reminds me of some forms of modern jazz. So I have quite a large collection.

However here is the problem: no one wants to play it. To most people even professional musicians it just doesn't sound right and coordinating even two people with these back- and- forth polyrhythms just does not appeal to very many people which includes listeners. It is frankly not very listenable: there are of course exceptions.

Therefore the music I had been saving up was a flop. Also some arrangements by Benjamin Britten based on traditional tunes did better but still became tiresome for the group. Eventually I brought out some Water Music by Handel and Winifred said, "Oh you've been hiding the good stuff from us!"

Now here is where you get to connect the dots:

I realized recently, upon getting some promotional material from Shimer College, that the Great Books upon which the program is based is, perhaps increasingly, a very selective bunch of tomes which tend to be from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. There is for example, a Montaigne essay contest that seems to be somewhat of a flagship enterprise in terms of outreach. In retrospect, there was certainly a dearth of authors from the Reformation, or the Counterreformation; and there was in particular very little from the Roman Catholic tradition either. Late Greek and Roman philosophy was very well represented in particular of course Aristotle and Plato. What I learned about the Reformation I basically learned from the Karnowski family and numerous other sources well outside the influence of Shimer College.

This would explain, in retrospect, why I was a persona non grata by the time I graduated. Ironically I have found this to be true time and time again. Whenever I would present myself as a sort of a "Renaissance Man," I would find acceptance in, for instance, my residency programs or other para-academic groups-- but I would find rejection by the majority as soon as I started to transition from, for instance the mindset of Montaigne to the mindset of, say, Pascal.

Now compare the music of the Renaissance to the music of the Reformation. Notice any difference?

Interesting sidelight: Shimer College is now recruiting homeschoolers. Very prominently. Better late than never I suppose. They had better recruit from somewhere! More later.

teaser-- how many of you are familiar with the 3 1/2 hour French film, "The Mother and the Whore"? If so -- I'm talking to you Dennis -- what do you remember about it? It would be interesting to compare notes. I saw this in Chicago when it was new and it sure didn't seem like 3 1/2 hours. But then again, I loved, "My Dinner with Andre".

Kwality Kwhizz fur Kuri-us Katzen

Did Jerry Seinfeld invent the term, "yadda,yadda,yadda" ?

What does it actually mean?

Bonus from the Useless Information Society--Brit equivalent of Uncle John's yadda yadda yadda (this one's for you, Mom)

"The Practioner", a British medical journal, has determined that bird-watching may be hazardous to your health. The magazine, in fact, has officially designated bird-watching as a hazardous hobby, after documenting the death of a weekend birder who became so immersed in his subject that he grew oblivious to his surroundings and, consequently, was eaten by a crocodile."



(some crocs never catch anything but live on canned ravioli--at least in the comix)

ANTHRO-SITE, BURN SO BRITE LITE

Pig: Guard Duck, this is Maura. She's a girl duck. I'm hoping that having a girl around will help calm you down.

Guard/Army Duck: How do you do, Ma'am?

Maura: QUACK

Guard Duck: Sir.... this is a non-anthropomorphic duck, sir

Pig: A what?

GD: Sir, I'm anthromorphic..that means I've taken on the characteristics of a human being...see how I talk and wear a helmet..this girl's just a duck.

Pig:And does that matter?

SP: I'm afraid it does, pig.

Pig: Stephan Pastis?! Creator of "Pearls before Swine?

S&P: Hi Pig. Yeah, listen...you can't introduce a non-anthro animal into the strip...they have to be able to talk and stuff...it's part of the premise.

Pig: I'm sorry Mr. Pastis, please don't fire me!

S.P.: Pig,Pig,Pig..RELAX buddy...you're the least of my problems. Believe me, I've got characters who..

Rat: Well well well..if it's not Mr. "I guess good art is no longer a requirement for the comics page."

S,P,: I gotta go.

Pig: It's ok, Stephan, you've got a nice personality.

"OH YES"

The Abend Post is the German language newspaper of Chicago. Guten Abend! (Excuse me, Dudley Moore!)

"How can you live with that woman?" was a question I was asked, not tongue-in-cheek as I recall, by a Lutheran pastoral counsellor with whom I was working from about 1979-1982. And, no, I was not going to him for counseling. He knew nothing about her except how she presented herself, by herself.

This leads into a consideration of Absurdism, one of many possible choices as to the meaning of existence. Absurdism was apparently pioneered by Soren Kierkegaard as a precondition to what he famously called, "the leap of faith." Once again we can return to the writings of Walker Percy who studied Kierkegaard intensively while he was confined in a tuberculosis sanatorium. This goes back to his word, "unsubsumable," which basically means that which defies human categories. To Kierkegaard the human person was also unsubsumable as an individual, but had to face the apparent meaninglessness of the universe without a specifically rational, ethical, or aesthetic "categorical imperative."

(I use this term not as it was originally intended but I may have invented sort of a new and personal meaning for it; If the word "avatar" can change its spots, why not this phrase? I must confess I use this in the sense of a sort of male-dominated juggernaut and somewhat as a term of derision.)

Let me insert here that I am not technically speaking a philosopher or a theologian. I am simply interested in philosophy and theology because I am going back to my roots, so to speak, and re-investigating the stepping stones that have led me to the present day of blessing. As I told myself before I started this blog but after I started reading the New Yorker, I want to go back and see if I missed anything. Plus, I wanted to look at my beginnings from a new perspective, that is, from the perspective of someone who is no longer full of fear.

When I turned 60, it occurred to me, or I was inspired to consider, "What can man do to me?" That is the beauty of working in bench science. In a small town. No one is going to fire me because of my beliefs. And, whatever friends I have, I have. If anything I might say might be so offensive as to alienate the few friends that I have at this time, among whom I would consider the readers of this blog, such that they might leave me completely: at this point, whether from an Absurdist perspective or a Christ centered one, what would it matter?

Two people at least have de-friended me in the not-recent past because of my beliefs. While I believe that at that time that I was much more of a Pharisee than I want to be now, indeed a kind of obnoxious teenager in the faith, it really came down to the fact that they felt quite strongly that I wasn't playing fair by appealing to God, whether in science, politics, or you -name- it. They liked me better as a Sadducee I guess.

Hence I am grateful that my family has not disowned me in the relational sense although I certainly do try their patience probably more than is good for either one of us. But I thank them for their acceptance of me, "Just As I Am."

But to get back to Flo: I have found her to be the easiest person to relate to in all the world, to speak in the manner of The Little Prince. Getting married to her was at least the second best thing to occur in my life and has rarely been an effort. I never understood what Pastor Tews was talking about, hence this question has stuck in my memory for 30 years as being one of those unsubsumable mysteries.

("Is this a trick question?")

I can only explain it in the same way that Walker Percy explains his Kierkegaardian faith, as absurdly wonderful as the whole world is itself, not explainable in human and certainly not in scientific terms. Because of that, I find that particularly among men, there is an unwillingness to believe that anything could be this good. c.f. Twain's Joan-andTwain's wife as well)

Percy could not explain why God would give him such a gift with him being completely undeserving and, worse than our lawyer friend in "The Fall", a man who had never had any inclination to do any good works, perhaps after he -- Walker Percy -- gave up on the idea of medicine. And probably, with Camus' help too, he most certainly detected the many absurdities in medicine and science starting with its extremely limited scope and potential. (The Thanatos Syndrome etc.)

My own inclination after 32 years is to say this: do not believe what I say and do not believe because of my frankly rather questionable example. In fact, do not look at me at all for answers, I am just talking through my Kentucky derby hat. Rather, consider this: before I met Flo, by the testimony of others and herself, she was a very foulmouthed girl. When she gave her heart to Christ, she did not realize that she had done so--or that anything had changed in or about her at all.

Her friend, Corinne, noticed a difference immediately: "There's something wrong with you -- you're not swearing anymore!" This was not something she asked for or desired but it was a sign of what Garrison Keillor once called, "special grace." I guess this is a theological term to try to explain the unexplainable, such as why God would choose people like Moses, Gideon, David et. al., entrusting liars and thieves and murderers and adulterers and so forth to more or less present Him.

But, if this were not real and unsubsumable change, why is it then that in 32 years she has not slipped into cursing again, not even once, in my presence? Nor in the presence of our children or anyone else I know. (Would that I could say the same for myself!) Considering that this was her Chicago native language, culture, etc.?

Is this what T.S. Eliot meant when he referred to, "the permanent things?" Not merely gilding the lily or spray-painting the leopard? As most of you know, I can claim no such special grace as this for myself and continue to often wallow in- and offend through- my many weaknesses. As Paul said, therefore I will not post of myself, but someone else entirely: "yet not her but Christ who lives within her."

This is a little bit of my Valentine tribute to Flo; men may say that love is blind -- but then again, how would they know?

What if the supernatural is in fact more real and more permanent than the things we apprehend with our 3 pound brain and our very limited sensory antennae?

I have read that there were at least three possible St. Valentines -- but allegedly all of them gave their lives for Christ in one fashion or another. So there is some bloody irenic irony to the second-most famous St. Valentine's Day, the St.Valentine's Day Massacre which I do believe did occur in Chicago. Thus I often -in my anti-urban moods or rants, ask: "Can anything good come from Chicago?" And the immediate answer always has to be the answer for which my granddaughter Keziah is currently semi-famous:

"OH YES."

HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH THAT WOMAN?

How can I live without that woman, more like!

From "The Fall"


"I once knew a manufacturer who had a perfect wife, admired by all, and yet he deceived her. That man was literally furious to be in the wrong, to be blocked from receiving, or granting himself, a certificate of virtue. The more virtues his wife manifested, the more vexed he became. Eventually, living in the wrong became unbearable to him. What do you think he did then? He gave up deceiving her? Not at all. He killed her. This is how I entered into relations with him."

I admit this is a somewhat odd way to start a Valentine tribute to my wife; and even more strange that the motives of this "noble criminal, "as his lawyer designated him, have never once occurred to me in the past 32 years. But apparently it occurs to many. I suppose that in existentialist-speak, he was ennobled by doing the deed and not just conceptualizing it. And that whether or not to act on one's worst feelings is not the point but simply to be honest in your actions as an individual.

However this manufacturer's experience has not been my experience even in the life of my mind much less my actions. However much I might try to explain this in words, in the last analysis I cannot begin to accomplish this; I will have to be judged by my actions also as influenced by not only by nature and nurture but by my free will and choice and, largely unbeknownst to me, the Holy Spirit. Yes, there is that. There is also the matter of maturity and getting over the poor judgment and poor choices of the past.

At least in the beginning, I never considered Flo to be a saint. I simply considered her to be an honest person who responded to honesty not with condemnation but with a welcoming compassion and not a little interest. Flo used to be a little jealous because I had written some "love poems," to a former girlfriend. But by the time I met her, the poetry thing was pretty well burned out. In fact, looking back, these were not love poems at all but admiration poems, because at the time I knew little or nothing about love, particularly not the unconditional type even though I was mistaken about never having seen any, I had just given up on it as possible for me to do or deserve, that's all. Basically it was exercising my own abilities to admire myself and my creations , thinking myself pretty clever, but still not thinking about the girlfriend as a real person but more or less as an aesthetic experience. (Herman Hesse, anyone?) Once I found the real thing, or, realistically speaking, the Real Thing found me, then the need to be poetic or even the need to be admired, became extinguished as a sort of adolescent defensive manuver that had been put in the place of recognizing people around us as both real and important.

As some of you remember, I went as far as India to try to find answers to my own selfishness and my simultaneous self-denigration. All I came away with was the psychobabble kind of thing, such as "You can't love others until you start to love yourself." Not exactly the wisdom of the ages but it was all I had to work with at the time. Or so I believed. "Do not despise the day of small things." Or small beginnings/steppingstones. However, after I came home from India I went from bad to worse until I was forced to give up not only on women but also on myself and relationships in general which I generally managed by clueless strategizing, and de-humanizing other people to suit my own needs. Or should I say, wants. I did not see this experience as very helpful or hopeful, but as Walker Percy and Dostoevsky might aver, giving up on the whole self motivated mess is not so much mental suicide as a chance to start completely over.

Guten Morgen then; more in Der Abend-Post...

THE FALL --FIRST STAB

My initial response to the book by Albert Camus, "The Fall", reminds me of the joke that continually makes the rounds of the doctor's lounges:

Q. What do you call 1000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea?

A. A good start.

As my father and I discussed lately, we both discovered a long time ago that good intentions do not come from pure motives -- in fact pure motives probably do not exist on the level of our playing ground. I actually recall the very spot where this memorably occurred to me, which Was on Fullerton Avenue in Chicago, very close to its terminus at Lake Michigan, just north of the Lincoln Park Zoo. This was an area where it was a little dangerous to cross the street and there were many stoplights and I thought to myself, what about the business of helping little old ladies across the street? And I realized I would only do that to basically glorify myself; I had a vested interest in making myself look good, especially to myself. However, that charade seemed to end at that moment and I realized I was not really a nice guy, so to speak; only a rather calculating one. It was also in Chicago that I thought of the phrase, "black dragon" to describe all of the darkness with which I was increasingly having to deal. I was not having fun, yet!

I also realized that I was in the habit of using people and that I really had very little idea what unselfish love would look like. A few years later I came to a couple of conclusions. First, that I could not claim that I had never seen unselfish love. Second, that even if I had, I had no idea how to replicate it since my unconscious seemed to have no end of "garbage-to-go." In terms of the first thought, I had already experienced unconditional love from a woman, namely, from my grandmother. Other people may have other views of her but she was always there for me and accepted me and my scruffy band friends unannounced, day or night. This was one of those people whom I took for granted and took advantage of routinely. In terms of the second thought, I pretty much gave up on significant human relationships in general and specifically in regards to the opposite sex.

In retrospect, it would appear that I was suffering from what Kierkegaard called, "The Sickness Unto Death"; and to be frank, I find this darkness depressing to recall, even now. Camus was also one to try to be an honest man, which generally leads to a less than optimistic view of man. In this regard, reading the story makes one think of John Calvin and his attributing the apparent bottomless pit of the depravity of man to exactly that: The Fall. The only thing that causes their views to differ is that Camus was proceeding from a materialist basis and John Calvin could not make that assumption. Both Calvin and Kierkegaard proceeded from the assumption that materialism was too much of assumption to make. Of course materialism is not new; it continues to pop up in endless guises; it caused Flannery O'Connor to designate the South as "Christ-haunted" and to designate many Christians as practicing "practical atheism." Which is much more common than the actual religion of atheism.

However looking at the entire course of Camus' life, one could not come to the firm conclusion that he was an atheist or remained a materialist. One can certainly say that he was a rebel and a singularity. I'm not sure exactly what caused him to part ways with Jean Paul Sartre but there was for Camus certainly a different progression after that split and he became more of a critic of existentialism than a friend or prophet of it. One can only say that he seemed to come to a conclusion much more like that of Kierkegaard than that of Jean Paul Sartre; in spite of his activism or possibly because of it, i.e. the French resistance movement. Jean Paul Sartre went on to embrace communism probably as a reaction to fascism or possibly just as a gesture of the absurd. Camus however could not make the basic assumption required by communism, i.e. doctrinaire atheism. I do not know how long Jean Paul Sartre remained a communist but in an interview at the end of his life, he was asked what the point of it all was, and he replied, simply, "Hope!" This hope whoever apparently lacks any content or teleology, is a kind of a hope sort of suspended in midair; not with complete detachment (Nirvana theory) but no firm attachments either. I can only echo Walker Percy's comment about conservatism versus liberalism, "I no longer know what those words mean.." "hope" and "despair" being even more difficult to discern. Incidentally, much of "The Sickness Unto Death" was occupied with the definitions of the various kinds of despair and where they lead. All of them very necessary;and not just for the sake of argument.

There is evidence that Camus was looking for something a little bit more concrete as he progressed,
and had problems with generalizations, abstractions, and theorizing; yet he was also not satisfied by the usual categories of thinking presented by the philosophers up until his time. In one sense, he reminds me little bit of Bob Dylan, who managed to evade, as a good poet, "the usual shipping lanes" of intellectual thought. Again I come up with the word, "unsubsumable, "which Walker Percy would use to refer to the Jews as being outside of human categorization. The individual human being may be honest but is more likely to be dishonest; yet neither category can even come close to summing up an individual who is no longer a "sign," but who evades summaries and definitions almost entirely. Labels and box-ifying (toxifying?) come quite naturally to the masculine mind in particular. A bit later I would like to explore the rather severe limitations of writing out of a male brain structure; there are more designing men, in one sense,than designing women,who have a capacity to live more "wholisticaly" than most male writers can comprehend. I think it was exactly this that caused Mark Twain to spend so much time and effort and care on his book about Joan of Arc; it represented a profound mystery that he could not explain in materialistic/reductionistic terms.And


Thaaaats not all, folks

"BLOGGER'S NIGHTMARE" BY: A RAT! BEHIND THE ARRAS!

Oh. It's only you Polonius. Sorry 'bout that.

Rat:"Hey Goat, you writing your blog?"

Goat: "Go away, Rat."

Rat: "You know, I like blogs... I really do... you know why?"

Goat: "Go away Rat."

Rat:" Because they provide their frustrated creator with the delusional outlet of being a published author. Sort of like how the prison warden lets the psychotic inmate scribble 'poetry' on the cell wall so he doesn't beat his bunkmate with a toilet seat."

Last Panel: Rat with broken coffee cup over head: "perhaps you didn't like the analogy."

Comment from Stephan Pastis: "Whenever Rat does a strip about goat's blog, the strip gets posted on tons of people's real-life blogs. Blog writers on the whole seemed to be a good bunch of sports."

Item of interest: I read recently that blogs are considered to be a sport for old people, somewhat like smart phones are avoided by many young people because they cannot text as fast. It also made the comment that young people do not like to read posts because they are generally long -- as I observed in a previous post. More than a paragraph is considered excessive. Neil Postman would probably interpret that as just another product of the age of television which in general cannot provide sustained argument or even commentary. Fortunately for some, NPR can provide some sustained thinking whether people, young or old, are not doing anything else i.e. driving. Un/fortunately there is no way to post a rejoinder on NPR! One would hope that would at least keep some people from texting while while they are driving. I have other horrible habits while driving ;at least this is not one of them -- on the other hand I text so slowly I don't usually even bother, hence no one sends me any. Not a bad deal.

LIGHTNING? WHAT LIGHTENING? (white thing?)

First of all to reply to Dennis, my father wonders if you are sort of an other -- employed author and if you are familiar with the works of the longshoreman etc., Eric Hoffer? He is enjoying your posts and thinks you might have something in common with Mr. Hoffer.

You are absolutely right about the movie, better known as the "Jesus Film." But it is interesting that you mentioned the film "Jesus of Nazareth," by Zeffirelli -- that was the, "save one" movie I was talking about in my last posting. And indeed it was instrumental in "saving one", namely, me. I was in the same position as CS Lewis up until that time, being sort of intellectually okay with God although reluctantly but never having had an personal encounter of the saving kind until Flo and I and some Catholic friends viewed Zeffirelli's film on Palm Sunday 1979 so last year was the 30th anniversary of this event as well as my 60th anniversary of Being (not Nothingness I trust). These are events which I celebrated somewhat privately all year long. My specific words as best I recall were addressed to Flo: "I don't know what it is but I need this Jesus that you have." Interestingly, only a few weeks before, the Spirit told my wife not to talk to me anymore about Jesus because it was His Job and not hers so there was, as they say, "no pressure," at least not any social or relational pressure. I do believe that there were numerous people who did influence me up until this happened but I am a strong believer in the fact that a film can change your life. Or even an opera. I remember a woman at Shimer College who basically flunked out because she was too busy listening to Tristan und Isolde and worshiping Richard Wagner. Another acquaintance of mine was quite sure that Jean Paul Sartre was God incarnate. But for me, I didn't really know what a disciple of Christ would look like until I met my wife who was at that time the most compelling example of what a real Christian might look like. But I am the sort of person who doesn't like to be pressured and likes to figure things out for himself. This event however became an exception. Pascal described this sort of event in one word: "Fire" I speculate that this event which occurred about 8 years before his death, is what makes his writings more than a mere imitation of Montaigne and beyond what they held in common, which critics would later call, "fideistic skepticism". More on Pascal later.

I'm not sure however what Dennis meant by advertising in terms of "Jesus Film." It is really more of a ministry and the only advertising I would say would be announcements in local villages..the money that is given really goes to equip teams, do new translations, and to produce new films, such as the recent film about Mary Magdalene which is specifically aimed at the many women who suffer marginalization in most cultures worldwide. It is not connected with any denomination. I would say that it is doing for hundreds of thousands of people what "Jesus of Nazareth" did for me. Also, no one else is coming to these villages to show any films at all so naturally everybody wants to go regardless of what is showing so that advertising to the "consumer" would not usually be even marginally necessary. I suppose I could find out what their advertising budget is, if anyone is interested. addendum: I s'pose that "adverts" may mean the shiny brochures we all get in the mail to solicit contributions--yes these are problematic and do require some oversight and some discernment. People are people no matter what "dose" of the Spirit they imbibe and I would hasten to add that I certainly am far from claiming I have never been bamboozled by a ministry that sounded good. There is an independent-hopefully- agency to which ministries such as these are accountable but as we read in Camus, "All fall down." It's kind of like medicine, you hope you do well on the balance--but one is often not sure of that on many days...

I wanted to also give you-all a quote from a correspondence between CS Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers on the topic of imagination. Dorothy said:

"I think the trouble is that the unscrupulous old ruffian inside one who does the actual writing doesn't care tuppence (Dragonspeak doesn't know what that is obviously) where he gets his raw material from. Fantasy, memory, observation, odds and ends of reading, and sheer invention are all grist to his mill, and he mixes everything together regardless. But critics can't sort it out............. so they just explain it all by "fantasy", and make up an imaginary biography to explain the bits that they can't account for."

CS Lewis, in his letter to Dorothy -- wish I could reprint it all right here--: "Don't let's believe anything people like us tell one another about the new towns and dormitory suburbs. When one really meets these traduced people one finds them far less confused about art and reality than most of the 'clerks'. I don't think they ever dream of applying to real life, mistaking for history or science, what they find in the films or the comics. Talk to an intelligent milkman about the very improbable ending of the film, and he will reply, ' oh well, they got to put that in to finish it off like.' He never dreamed of demanding the sort of realism the critics demand: there's his safeguard. No child, and no adult -- except a 'clerk' would ask what the ring in J.R.R. Tolkien's book was. That's the idol of the cave, not the marketplace. I admit that people write me letters asking if I really know someone who has been to Mars and Venus, but I think that's because they are mentally disordered, not because they live in new towns. Yours, Jack"

I think what Dorothy Sayers was saying particularly applies to the "structure," of what I am doing in this blog. It probably looks pretty chaotic probably like someone's kitchen does in the middle of meal preparation but there is a "unity in diversity," operative here. In Judaism couples are often married under a covering called a "huppah" -- any of you who attended our rather strange wedding got a chance to see one -- we were married at St. Giles in Oak Park Il in 1977 and a lot of people couldn't figure out whether this was a Jewish wedding, a Unitarian wedding, a Catholic wedding, or just a hippie wedding but all of these things represented the elements from which Flo and I emerged as individuals. There was a lot more that went unsaid of course we could only put in so much. I do remember especially the part from the book, "The Little Prince" in which the Fox talks to the Little Prince about friendship. Very applicable to any marriage would say.

But my point from which I diverted myself is this: that the huppah can also represent the Holy Spirit which is why I was so fascinated by Joyce's comment about a Holy Spirit community. Joyce, you may be familiar with John Michael Talbot and his community which was very much of a Holy Spirit driven and very amazing story. I was very much influenced by his music and his ideas once I got over my fear of "ghosts"!!!

And other white things. Franz Kafka once was asked what he thought of Christ. His only comment was that Jesus Christ was "an abyss of Light-- one must be careful that one does not fall in." I guess I was not careful enough, to the chagrin of many. But I have never been sorry and I must say that Light is a wonderful thing in which to swim.

What's it all about, Ava?

Wherein the author speculates about the most expensive and highest grossing movie to date:

Wherein the author/creator of said film, Mr. James Cameron, claims his film is a "perfect ecoterorism recruiting tool."

Is anyone else getting a whiff of irony here? Which Mr. Cameron perhaps did not intend? I would love to compare my carbon footprint with his!

There is also the fact that many young people who have seen the film come out quite depressed, some even expressing the desire to commit suicide if only you could end up in a place like Pandora. (Sorry that could be "Unobtainium.")

I will confess to all that I did not see the film Titanic and from what I am hearing I probably I will not bother to go and see this film either. For one thing, the storyline is not very robust, even for a science fiction production. I prefer my science fiction rather more complex and perhaps less dependent on expensive visual illusions. Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke come to mind. By Mr. Cameron's own admission, this may be sort of a high-tech version of, "The Triumph of the Will," or, "The Birth of a Nation," both of which were "quite staggeringly popular "at the time of their release.

One author's book that I would like to read is Kurt Vonnegut's masterpiece, "Slaughterhouse Five." I not sure if I will come out depressed or elated but I would like to comment that I was not particularly depressed after reading, "The Fall, "for reasons I will outline later. I do like my fantasy/science fiction but I am partial to stories that reflect the complexity, not to say the depravity, of human life as it really is. And the reality of having a Down Syndrome child and not even being able to experience the life of the child was reality as I have known it. And it continues to affect me to this day. Here is the point: the "unobtainium" of my life has presented itself--and been obtained-- through sadness, trials, and so forth. If I had to make a choice between watching all the movies I have ever watched, (save one), I would prefer at this point in my life to go through Samuel's birth and forgo the rest.

Relevant Question: what movie is being and has been watched by more people in the world than any other? Hint: low-budget,no-tech, no name actors, and no other movie comes close in terms of the numbers of those people who have watched it.

For all of the reasons noted above and many more, I would like to present the various Webster's meanings of, "avatar": "the incarnation of a Hindu deity such as Vishnu or Krishna; an incarnation in human form; an embodiment, as a concept of philosophy, often in a person; a variant phase or version of the continuing basic entity; and an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user, as in a computer game or an online shopping site."

I think the reality reflects the last description as the most appropriate definition of Mr. Cameron's Magnum Opus. And in view of his "statement of purpose," I would like to, in honor of Kurt Vonnegut, propose that the alternative title could be,
"Abattoir".

Apollyon: Suddenly I feel very, very good!

Igor: oh, master!

Apollyon: "Don't worry, it'll pass it'll pass.......... now, where were we? Obviously in the hands of a complete incompetent!
Day one: computers! "

From: Robert Duvall's version of the great Satan in the Monty Pythonesque Pilgrim's Progressite film, "The Time Bandits ." (four moons)

PNEUMATO-LOGICAL IMAGINING

"For example, Baylor University Press in 2007 published the theologian Amos Yong's book, "Theology and Down Syndrome : Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity". It is an important work that takes both the culture and the Church to task for having a too-limited view--one might say, "handicapped" --view of people with intellectual disabilities."

"Underpinning Yong's work is the fact that he grew up a child of Assembly of God pastors and has a younger brother with Down syndrome. In his earlier books,Yong made a case for a "pneumatological imagination" enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Here, he suggests that such an imagination is needed to help Christians think more deeply" (and, may I add, fairly) "about people with disabilities and their role in creation and in the Church."

"He argues that Christian perspectives on disability have colluded with modern medicine -- perhaps unintentionally -- to produce a "medicalized" view of disabilities, both physical and intellectual. If he is right, it is this medicalized view that is driving the nine-out-of-ten statistics concerning the number of Down syndrome pregnancies that are aborted. It is interesting here to note that in 1998 study of Finnish doctors' opinions of Down Syndrome screening revealed that 15 to 21% of doctors thought the current prenatal screening in general is partly based eugenic thinking."

"It is this idea of speaking to the culture that there is a parallel with art, literature, music. George Steiner's thoughtful book, " Real Presences", suggests that responding to a meaningful form in a text, an artwork, or a piece of music is essentially a metaphysical and theological act. In the same way, to receive and respond to a person, any person, including one with an intellectual disability, is to respond to a living text whose Author is God."

"Steiner says concerning the arts: 'What I affirm is the intuition that where God's presence is no longer a tenable supposition, and where its absence is no longer a felt, indeed, overwhelming weight, certain dimensions of thought and creativity are no longer attainable.' ":

"The magazine New Scientist touched on the topic of human worth when it devoted a large section in its July 26, 2008 issue of the topic of reason. The bioethicist Tom Shakespeare suggested that a focus on rationality doesn't get at the complexity of how we live our lives, since our brains feel as well as think -- with vast repercussions for issues such as disability. If people are valued only for their output or performance, then disabled and older people could be viewed as too costly to keep alive -- it simply might not be "rational" to keep them around."

"Or as Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, put it in the same issue of the magazine:
'Absolute convictions about human worth... are not simply generated by instrumental reason. They have more in common with the pre-modern "rationality" of recognizing oneself and one's fellow humans as standing together in a common relation with a certain kind of "order," the way things "just are, " in the universe.'

"..... and by reasoning through what Paul said about male and female, slave and free, Scythian and Jew and Greek.... it should then be a little easier to decide what is habitable earth."

Once again quoting from , "A Habitable World" by Lance Nixon in Jan/Feb 2010 "Touchstone" magazine, with thanks.

THANKS

My thanks truly to Joyce and Dennis for their Kogent Komments which deserve a thoughtful reply which I will post when I have a bit more time and energy.. but to go along with Joyce's word, "incarnational," I offer another quote from Lance Nixon's article on Down's : It is from Dietrich Bonhoffer's work:

"The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from a Christian community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; in the poor brother Christ is knocking at the door."

Also mentioned in the article are such persons as Henri Nouwen, a favorite author of mine, who gave up theology/academics to serve "Adam," a very brain damaged and immobile person residing at one of the "L'Arche" shelters inspired by communitarian Jean Vanier. I will be referring to Amos Yong's book, "Theology and Down syndrome; Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity,"as soon as I am able.

UNSUBSUMABLE--------------???

"Surely you're not comparing yourself to Christ!" -Didi aka Vladmir

"All my life I've compared myself to Him!" -Gogo aka Estragon from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

"Ideas have consequences."

From Oswald Chambers: "the Lord Himself is the one standard of conduct and character in the New Testament. People do not object to a man or woman becoming outwardly holy; but they do object to his or her becoming a devotee of Jesus Christ."

"The standard for creed, conduct, and character is Jesus Christ Only. My limitations and liberties must spring from my personal devotion to Jesus Christ and nothing else. All who observe me should perceive that I have been with Jesus, not that I have formed some personal convictions about conduct and character, whereby to measure the Almighty and everybody else with whom I come into contact.."

Thinking about the magazine," First Things," I would have to say that what is being discussed predominantly is still all about things, which is to say ideas, criteria, and what Russell Kirk called, "The Permanent Things."

I refer back to my previous question about what is more important, ideas or people. Or a person as suggested above. The natural answer for the intellectual is that ideas, mass movements, political convictions, and ideals are more important than the petty concerns about individuals. Hence the individual can be sacrificed to the party or the creed. This is why there is nothing more dangerous than an idealist and many of the world' s great slaughters, at least in the last 100 years and probably before that as well, go back to a person or a party that treasures a concept which they conceive to be new or brilliant when, "there is nothing new under the sun."

Keep in mind I am not talking about People magazine! Gossip is not concerned with the integrity of the individual but rather schemes to dis - integrate the individual, to bring celebrities down to the common denominator so that we can feel good about ourselves. No, the concern with the individual person certainly cannot be reduced to this, except at our greatest peril because there is really no respect,awe, or honor to be given.

Walker Percy in his book, The Thanatos Syndrome, refers to the Jews as "unsubsumable," in other words, not reducible to some humanly devised formula. Jesus Christ, by implication, also falls into this "category," although it would hesitate to use the word category, as in the formula "categorical imperative," for actual people, who in the final analysis, defy our usual tendency to put people into a catalog, as is exemplified by most of our thinking, considerably amplified by Freud and Marx to give a few recent examples. Having just finished the book, The Fall, I see that the ending of the story about this "exemplary" lawyer is the pre-requisite to what Kierkegaard described as, The Sickness unto Death. More about this later.

Here once again I have been drifting into the realm of ideas to describe something that is basically indescribable in words of any language so I will ask the readers indulgence about these feeble attempts to point to something that is beyond policies politics religion or any of the usual categorical imperatives to which we willingly, all too willingly, yield. It is also something that is deeply resented, as Oswald Chambers points out. Certainly that was the case with me, especially in the first couple of years of our marriage. I was okay with the concept of God as long as it was just a concept. But I would bristle at the name of Jesus or Christ. What exactly was my objection I still cannot say. In fact, what led me to change my mind is also still a mystery; the fact that life was becoming more mysterious and not less so probably was a factor. This impression has only deepened with time. The same was the case with CS Lewis, a hardened atheist and, "the most reluctant convert in all England." His book, Surprised by Joy, attempts to describe the experience in better words than I can say. I daresay his case is not a mere anomaly.

On a different note, all the psychiatric hospitals within 100 miles of here are full so I am having to play psychiatrist and treat some rather major mental breakdowns in our ICU. Is it just the economy, stupid? (The BBC would like to apologize for the previous comment, the author was just quoting Mr. Clinton) Or is it what the lawyer of Mr. Camus said, "when we are all guilty, that will be democracy,"? Thoughts or feelings, subsumable or not, are invited in the comments section.

TUESDAYS,WITH GLORY

I thought of something else scary and white. Me! Did you ever hear about white coat hypertension?

Has anyone ever tried to compose with a kitty cat on their lap? This is where VAP (voice activated wordprocessing) comes in quite handy especially if said cat has had a good night's sleep.

Here is more from Lance Nixon, A Habitable World:

"Sj'on's name means something like "sight", but he has overlooked the obvious here: in our day it is people of faith, not people of science, who are interested in living in what is, in some sense, the limit of the habitable world -- that is, side by side with people who have Down syndrome."

"This is not to say that there are not scientists who have Down syndrome children or who are demonstrating various ways to care for people with intellectual disabilities."( I mentioned Dr. Lejuene previously in there are many others who are even more unsung)

"One could argue that, as far as modern science and medicine are concerned, the limits of the habitable world lie not in Iceland, or any other geographical place, but in the condition of being "normal," of having fairly ordinary features and intelligence. The condition of having Down syndrome is alien territory, apparently beyond the limits where people can reasonably be expected to live valuable, productive lives."

"To be fair to Sj'on, there is another Christian minister in his story who was not as cruel as the Rev. Baldur. Nor are we told in so many words what Friedjonsson thinks about the Christian faith, or that he sees himself in opposition to it. In fact, one could argue that his compassion for people with intellectual disabilities is simply reflecting ancient Christian ideas on the worth of the individual -- ideas expressed in the writings of such figures as Tertullian, Origen, and Paul. Perhaps more to the point, Christian thinkers in the present day are generating new texts reaffirming one of the themes in SJ'on's novel -- that life in community with disabled people is not only possible, but beautiful and enriching." More later to the exciting conclusion of our story.

Certainly that has been my experience as I related earlier. I would like to thank the people who gave me positive feedback as relating to my experiences with Samuel. As far as being the best thing I have ever written, certainly that may be possible; but it is a standard that may be difficult to reach again. Personal revelation can be a gift from God but I have learned since that I have very little control over that. All I can really say is that Samuel was a gift to all of us even as he is and was a profound mystery that has a lot to do with some of the purposes of suffering that are not instantly obvious nor visible to McWorld. Our unwillingness to suffer tribulation in our personal lives seems to be a current basso continuo of our "culture of complaint" that cannot recognize a gift when it sees one. "Pain -- The Gift Nobody Wants, "is an excellent book inspired by Dr. Paul Brand and orthopedic surgeon who worked with leprosy patients first in India then later in Carville, Louisiana, the only leprosarium of which I am aware in the United States. Had we no proper sensation of pain, none of us would live beyond childhood -- there are in fact some who are born without the sensation of pain relatively speaking and they are extremely difficult to manage and to preserve in anything resembling a healthy state and do not live a normal life span.

What makes this so poignant and important to me is that I am a practicing scientist, but I have many doubts about current state of science, which as I have indicated, seems to be more culturally driven than anything; and it seems to me that science has basically jettisoned any pretense of objectivity, much less compassion -- and above and beyond that, the bulk of scientific research seems to have no ehical landmarks whatsoever. An exception might be the Human Genome Project which did have some built-in opportunity to ask ethical questions -- how effective or lasting these questions are or how they will impact subsequent events or research is difficult to say. But thanks to the ethical forum afforded by the HGP leader and CMDA member Francis S. Collins, there was some consideration of the purpose and the limits of research. But many of the incentives to do honest research have long since been removed and the results are fairly obvious, with the emphasis increasingly on mere pragmatism and personal self-promotion and political action committees. Herein both those on the left and the right are equal opportunity abusers. Postmodernism and Machiavelli (who is experiencing a new renaissance in the present day), certainly have had no qualms about any of this. Or if they do they keep it to themselves. The current glorification and adoration of something rather unscientific called Science seems to be a quasi-religious turn of events in which no one is allowed to question the current obviously rather opportunistic status quo; which, one way or another, makes reactionaries out of all of us. The current emphasis seems to be on damage control masquerading as preventive medicine. Here again the observations of Dr. Camus are very relevant to the discussion. More on that after I finish The Fall which should be shortly. There does not seem to be any real oversight, balance of powers, or any consideration of the horrors that men have committed in the name of Science; and recent attempts at peer review appear to be a closed shop deal.

Glory! Glory glory!! Glory, glory, hallelujah-- I'm a bum too.........!!!