And now for something completely shorter.............
Who said this?
"I wunda if it's sinfil to be a mizzil twarta?'
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
POST:WASHINGTON POST-PREVIOUS POST,TOASTED
Hey Joe! Wattaya know? I just got back from the rodeo show. I took my show on the road, you see. And now I'm back. See. Any questions?
I was visiting my sister, who teaches at the University of Maryland, and she and Flo helped get me out Washington DC prior to the giant northeaster that hit the area yesterday. While flying back, I met some wonderful folks from the Chicago area, who were going to see a Chicago show, presumably musical, which purportedly represents an historic session featuring a jam with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins; this was not unlike my comments from last week about the Traveling Wilburys, who played together for more than a year. So, John, there is some more pop culture here; happy for your comments.
Seriously, 2009 and this Christmas/new year season has been a watershed for me, as I hinted earlier in this blog. Subsequent events indicate that, as the year draws to a close, that which I have been seeking, and seeking to share, has only intensified. This blog does not represent just me but all the people that have brought us to this moment of communication. There is not a language on earth that I can use to even describe this, much less analyze it or control it. In addition, it has taken me 60 years to get out of my little boxes, as Pete Seeger used to sing, and to understand that something much larger than my understanding, reason, emotions, or will is involved here. The 3 pound brain that we all each have is in itself physically irreducibly complex. The added factors of billions of these brains any one of which represents the most complex organized unit in the known universe, attempting to communicate from vastly different experiences, genetics, and other influences even harder to define, makes it a genuine miracle that we can talk together and know one another at all. People that I thought I knew, it turns out I didn't know very well at all. Considering the complexity of just existing as a human being, I am not sure why I would've assumed that I even know myself, much less anyone else.
Existentialism is one modern way to evade reductionism and still retain materialism, but even with pure existence being philosophicaly affirmed, there are still many questions; many are looking for a third way between right and left, ideologies, and parties. We are constantly and often unconsciously searching for a happy medium or some third way which probably does not exist except at some locus outside of ourselves, it does not seem to be within ourselves, unless we count mere diversions as alcoholism, drug abuse, and apathy as, "alternatives."
Paradigm shift? New perspective? It may be something more than that and even more difficult to understand, much less accomplish.
But I do know that having spent time with my sister Catherine and watching her at home and at work, has given me another level of understanding of how little I understand another person, who is an unrepeatable singularity and not just a shadow of my own thinking or fantasy or dream life as sometimes artists and even physicians tend to think. Again, I can take only a fragmentary response to a Reality that is far bigger than any of us. C.S. Lewis once commented that if we really knew and could see the immense reality of the person next to us, we would be tempted to worship her or him as a god. But like the proverbial iceberg that sank the Titanic --( "even God could not sink this ship!" )-- most of our soul is under water and not seen; but even before we see the person we may run aground and sink on the unseen and unknown bulk we cannot begin to appreciate / perceive. This may be an aspect of why our relationships are so complicated and why they so often are ruined/shipwrecked. As Murphy's law suggests, the more complicated something is, the more there is to go wrong, the more often it goes wrong, and usually at the worst possible time. Corollary: if you fiddle with something long enough, you'll break it. The more interventions, as with mutations, the more of a monster you will have and not a hopeful monster whatsoever regardless of what Stephen Jay Gould may have thought.
Perhaps the best approach to these matters is the approach that the poet and the parable spinner are forced to take. The Canterbury Tales are certainly one of the first of many approaches- in the English language- to the problem in which we are forced to abandon artificial concepts and boxes in favor of individuals who will outlast the homes they live in and the monuments around them, but not the souls in the midst of whom they dwell. Bon mots, as Einstein said about Christ, are amusing but not pertinent to the enormity of the subject.
Not to trivialize matters, but to use some pop culture to make a point, Dr. Seuss said about Christmas, "it came without ribbons it came without tags, it came without packages, boxes, or bags. Christmas can't be bought from a store......... maybe Christmas means a little bit more." The younger we are, the less we tend to appreciate this; but as we get older, stuff on the material plane begins to shred and fray to show another dimension, a much larger dimension which we can more easily appreciate; or allow it to sink our ship by piercing our hull. Certainly the former scenario has happened to many "larger than life" people such as Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Duke Ellington, T.S. Eliot and WH Auden and, as I just learned, Dave Brubeck the jazz artist who is the only artist I know who had a hit song in 5/4 time! The end of the year and the December season can be very difficult to endure but the opportunities to add a dimension of understanding may be unprecedented. Human beings naturally have ever marked time by seasons, occasions, anniversaries, festivals, birthdays, important dates in history, and so forth. That is in our nature. Indeed, we often use these cyclical days, dates, and seasons to plan for change, when on any given "ordinary," day we will tend to put things off as being too important to do without foreseeable contingencies. There are many theories of time and how we perceive it -- linear, cyclical, and infinite/without dimensions just to name a few. The Bible shows us linear time but also shows us that God is not limited to linear time. Science, prior to quantum physics, used and uses biblical/linear time to mark history, all very legitimately. But more recent discoveries suggest that just as God is not limited to linear time, neither is His physical universe. Reductionism however depends ironically, as does materialism, on the Biblical concept of linear time, coupled with cyclical time as marked by feast days and even returning miracles such as at the pool of Bethesda, where God/Jesus broke into his own linear/cyclical arrangement and reversed everything and broke every rule in order to heal one helpless individual who answered affirmatively to Him, "Yes, I do wish to be healed."
These are, again, fragmentary thoughts that are hopefully going to cohere eventually in my own mind and hopefully the individual who reads this will be able to connect their own dots given the points of light that I can see from here. We may be able to collectively see certain constellations if we cannot see the whole of the night sky any more than we can see patterns by looking directly into the sun. To me, if I appreciate what any given person is or has to say, even a single sentence or phrase could change my life. This is what happened to St. Augustine and probably to John Wesley and millions of others. If this has not happened to me yet, it would certainly be my desire and goal to undergo such changes in my 61st year and onwards. I hope what I'm posting will help some but I cannot begin to even appreciate much less summarize 2009 from this the limited location of this temple "of The Holy Ghost". Ask Him if true truth is your passion.
I was visiting my sister, who teaches at the University of Maryland, and she and Flo helped get me out Washington DC prior to the giant northeaster that hit the area yesterday. While flying back, I met some wonderful folks from the Chicago area, who were going to see a Chicago show, presumably musical, which purportedly represents an historic session featuring a jam with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins; this was not unlike my comments from last week about the Traveling Wilburys, who played together for more than a year. So, John, there is some more pop culture here; happy for your comments.
Seriously, 2009 and this Christmas/new year season has been a watershed for me, as I hinted earlier in this blog. Subsequent events indicate that, as the year draws to a close, that which I have been seeking, and seeking to share, has only intensified. This blog does not represent just me but all the people that have brought us to this moment of communication. There is not a language on earth that I can use to even describe this, much less analyze it or control it. In addition, it has taken me 60 years to get out of my little boxes, as Pete Seeger used to sing, and to understand that something much larger than my understanding, reason, emotions, or will is involved here. The 3 pound brain that we all each have is in itself physically irreducibly complex. The added factors of billions of these brains any one of which represents the most complex organized unit in the known universe, attempting to communicate from vastly different experiences, genetics, and other influences even harder to define, makes it a genuine miracle that we can talk together and know one another at all. People that I thought I knew, it turns out I didn't know very well at all. Considering the complexity of just existing as a human being, I am not sure why I would've assumed that I even know myself, much less anyone else.
Existentialism is one modern way to evade reductionism and still retain materialism, but even with pure existence being philosophicaly affirmed, there are still many questions; many are looking for a third way between right and left, ideologies, and parties. We are constantly and often unconsciously searching for a happy medium or some third way which probably does not exist except at some locus outside of ourselves, it does not seem to be within ourselves, unless we count mere diversions as alcoholism, drug abuse, and apathy as, "alternatives."
Paradigm shift? New perspective? It may be something more than that and even more difficult to understand, much less accomplish.
But I do know that having spent time with my sister Catherine and watching her at home and at work, has given me another level of understanding of how little I understand another person, who is an unrepeatable singularity and not just a shadow of my own thinking or fantasy or dream life as sometimes artists and even physicians tend to think. Again, I can take only a fragmentary response to a Reality that is far bigger than any of us. C.S. Lewis once commented that if we really knew and could see the immense reality of the person next to us, we would be tempted to worship her or him as a god. But like the proverbial iceberg that sank the Titanic --( "even God could not sink this ship!" )-- most of our soul is under water and not seen; but even before we see the person we may run aground and sink on the unseen and unknown bulk we cannot begin to appreciate / perceive. This may be an aspect of why our relationships are so complicated and why they so often are ruined/shipwrecked. As Murphy's law suggests, the more complicated something is, the more there is to go wrong, the more often it goes wrong, and usually at the worst possible time. Corollary: if you fiddle with something long enough, you'll break it. The more interventions, as with mutations, the more of a monster you will have and not a hopeful monster whatsoever regardless of what Stephen Jay Gould may have thought.
Perhaps the best approach to these matters is the approach that the poet and the parable spinner are forced to take. The Canterbury Tales are certainly one of the first of many approaches- in the English language- to the problem in which we are forced to abandon artificial concepts and boxes in favor of individuals who will outlast the homes they live in and the monuments around them, but not the souls in the midst of whom they dwell. Bon mots, as Einstein said about Christ, are amusing but not pertinent to the enormity of the subject.
Not to trivialize matters, but to use some pop culture to make a point, Dr. Seuss said about Christmas, "it came without ribbons it came without tags, it came without packages, boxes, or bags. Christmas can't be bought from a store......... maybe Christmas means a little bit more." The younger we are, the less we tend to appreciate this; but as we get older, stuff on the material plane begins to shred and fray to show another dimension, a much larger dimension which we can more easily appreciate; or allow it to sink our ship by piercing our hull. Certainly the former scenario has happened to many "larger than life" people such as Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Duke Ellington, T.S. Eliot and WH Auden and, as I just learned, Dave Brubeck the jazz artist who is the only artist I know who had a hit song in 5/4 time! The end of the year and the December season can be very difficult to endure but the opportunities to add a dimension of understanding may be unprecedented. Human beings naturally have ever marked time by seasons, occasions, anniversaries, festivals, birthdays, important dates in history, and so forth. That is in our nature. Indeed, we often use these cyclical days, dates, and seasons to plan for change, when on any given "ordinary," day we will tend to put things off as being too important to do without foreseeable contingencies. There are many theories of time and how we perceive it -- linear, cyclical, and infinite/without dimensions just to name a few. The Bible shows us linear time but also shows us that God is not limited to linear time. Science, prior to quantum physics, used and uses biblical/linear time to mark history, all very legitimately. But more recent discoveries suggest that just as God is not limited to linear time, neither is His physical universe. Reductionism however depends ironically, as does materialism, on the Biblical concept of linear time, coupled with cyclical time as marked by feast days and even returning miracles such as at the pool of Bethesda, where God/Jesus broke into his own linear/cyclical arrangement and reversed everything and broke every rule in order to heal one helpless individual who answered affirmatively to Him, "Yes, I do wish to be healed."
These are, again, fragmentary thoughts that are hopefully going to cohere eventually in my own mind and hopefully the individual who reads this will be able to connect their own dots given the points of light that I can see from here. We may be able to collectively see certain constellations if we cannot see the whole of the night sky any more than we can see patterns by looking directly into the sun. To me, if I appreciate what any given person is or has to say, even a single sentence or phrase could change my life. This is what happened to St. Augustine and probably to John Wesley and millions of others. If this has not happened to me yet, it would certainly be my desire and goal to undergo such changes in my 61st year and onwards. I hope what I'm posting will help some but I cannot begin to even appreciate much less summarize 2009 from this the limited location of this temple "of The Holy Ghost". Ask Him if true truth is your passion.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Mercy, mercy. (mercy!)
Now for something totally different Greetings from Merry Land University, home of my sister,Professor Catherine Schuler, who got me into the performing arts library where I viewed an exhibit on Roy Orbison, who played with the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty. Most of them looked to Roy as the real pioneer. They were delighted to have him join them in a joint effort called The Traveling Wilburys. ( willbury comes from Harrison's name for a studio technique of "burying" mistakes in the recording by making them sound intentional and contextual.) Rolling Stone did a tribute in which each artist gave an impression of who they thought Roy was.. I thought that the most interesting statement came from a manager or studio head who remarked that when most musicians would make a mistake they would say mostly unprintable (herein) remarks but Roy would just say, "Mercy, mercy......."
"Grace, grace, unto this mountain......."
Mercy is not much discussed or much understood; but I understand that its core meaning would be not receiving what we deserve; grace would be receiving what we do not deserve, i.e. an unearned and unexpected gift.
Coming to a place so unfamiliar to me--urban, sophisticated, and fast-moving--has been an intensely humbling experience for me (thanks Dennis for your comments on true wisdom!) But wherever I go, I am overwhelmed by the Grace and Mercy (and long-suffering of those who put up with me and put me up as well) I receive from virtually every corner, and intense reminders of my utter dependency and weaknesses, so that I am amazed and thrilled at every moment. Thanksgiving can't be over........
I think that Orbison's influence on at least Dylan and Petty, was more profound than musical technique and styling.. I wish that I might have heard him when he was alive but, like missing out on Johnny Cash, I totally opted ignorantly out on the older influences appreciated by genius level musicians but not their fan base. This is all the more poignant now that I also am older. In my present context I/we may be observed to be a mistake--evolutionarily speaking perhaps, although I don't personally know anyone who would say so.....but it would seem to me that each one of us is either a kind of mistake or a kind of "grace observed," as well as "A Grief Observed". As Walker Percy observed, this life is entirely too much trouble and too beautiful and too complex to be a long string of expensive mistakes--see Percy's Interviews with Myself--Questions No One Asked Me So I Asked Them Myself"
Mercy.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
"I think I'm allergic to criticism." --Linus Van Pelt
12-10-09
Oswald Chamber's devotion for today:
"The discerning power of The Holy Spirit is not for purposes of criticism...........Criticism is not a healthy habit for a wholesome spiritual life. When criticism becomes a habit, it destroys moral energy, kills faith, and paralyzes spiritual force. Criticism becomes deadly as it decomposes. If you are much criticized, it has the effect of decomposing you."
"That is never the work of The Holy Spirit,nor the work of the saint; it is the work of [Baal-zebub]."
"Abstain from criticizing others."
"Beware of the attitude that puts you in the place of superiority."
Criticism is one of the essences of a dualistic worldview, which as Augustine and Auden-and Stephen Schuler- pointed out, can only be one of conflicts that do not reflect a larger Reality, which are, "bound to the ground," that not being The Ground of Existence but the Gabbatha stone pavement of judgement of the party spirits, i.e., that of the Pharisee, the Sadducee, Rome and Edom (Herod's place), the religio-political axis which has always, always,always dominated world "discourse" Truly, "Dialectic," which never achieves real synthesis only compromise, has been the rule since Day One.........."the more things change...."
After 60 years of compromise and futile conflict, it is my personal goal to not so much achieve a superiority of view, but more of an inferiority complex, like John the Baptist was forced to accept--"He must increase, I must decrease." But even John could not resign his post without The Spirit and a little help from his friends.
Speaking of Jesus, He said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." ---which is more often than not--and so000 ironically-- used by people of any persuasion to hurl a subtle invective at the other side. I would like officially here to invoke two helps; that of the Holy Ghost primarily and prayerfully; and that of my readers--please be my watchdogs and accountability partners in this project of letting go of carnal habits of thought and action. Not if, but when I lapse into a critical spirit, I would like not to be criticized so much as to be brought up short, in the manner in which Nathan revealed to King David his murderous ways. See II Samuel 12. Parables are a great thing--be creative!!!
Oswald Chamber's devotion for today:
"The discerning power of The Holy Spirit is not for purposes of criticism...........Criticism is not a healthy habit for a wholesome spiritual life. When criticism becomes a habit, it destroys moral energy, kills faith, and paralyzes spiritual force. Criticism becomes deadly as it decomposes. If you are much criticized, it has the effect of decomposing you."
"That is never the work of The Holy Spirit,nor the work of the saint; it is the work of [Baal-zebub]."
"Abstain from criticizing others."
"Beware of the attitude that puts you in the place of superiority."
Criticism is one of the essences of a dualistic worldview, which as Augustine and Auden-and Stephen Schuler- pointed out, can only be one of conflicts that do not reflect a larger Reality, which are, "bound to the ground," that not being The Ground of Existence but the Gabbatha stone pavement of judgement of the party spirits, i.e., that of the Pharisee, the Sadducee, Rome and Edom (Herod's place), the religio-political axis which has always, always,always dominated world "discourse" Truly, "Dialectic," which never achieves real synthesis only compromise, has been the rule since Day One.........."the more things change...."
After 60 years of compromise and futile conflict, it is my personal goal to not so much achieve a superiority of view, but more of an inferiority complex, like John the Baptist was forced to accept--"He must increase, I must decrease." But even John could not resign his post without The Spirit and a little help from his friends.
Speaking of Jesus, He said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." ---which is more often than not--and so000 ironically-- used by people of any persuasion to hurl a subtle invective at the other side. I would like officially here to invoke two helps; that of the Holy Ghost primarily and prayerfully; and that of my readers--please be my watchdogs and accountability partners in this project of letting go of carnal habits of thought and action. Not if, but when I lapse into a critical spirit, I would like not to be criticized so much as to be brought up short, in the manner in which Nathan revealed to King David his murderous ways. See II Samuel 12. Parables are a great thing--be creative!!!
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Advent
From W.H. Auden's "Advent"
Semi-Chorus
"Can great Hercules keep his
Extraordinary promise
To reinvigorate the Empire?
Utterly lost, he cannot
Even locate his task but
Stands in some decaying orchard
Or the irregular shadow
Of a ruined temple, aware of
Being watched from the horrid mountains
By fanatical eyes yet
Seeing no one at all, only hearing
The silence softly broken
By the poisonous rustle
Of famishing Arachne."
Semi-Chorus
"Can great Hercules keep his
Extraordinary promise
To reinvigorate the Empire?
Utterly lost, he cannot
Even locate his task but
Stands in some decaying orchard
Or the irregular shadow
Of a ruined temple, aware of
Being watched from the horrid mountains
By fanatical eyes yet
Seeing no one at all, only hearing
The silence softly broken
By the poisonous rustle
Of famishing Arachne."
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
147 years ago today:
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation..........
We-even we here-hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.
-A. Lincoln 12/1/1862
We-even we here-hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.
-A. Lincoln 12/1/1862
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