A purpose more obscure

Christ for President

2008-02-06T21:31:00.000-05:00

Let's have Christ our President
Let us have him for our king
Cast your vote for the Carpenter
That they call the Nazarene

The only way
We could ever beat
These crooked politician men

Is to cast the moneychangers
Out of the temple
Put the Carpenter in

Oh it's Jesus Christ our President
God above our king
With a job and pension for young and old
We will make hallelujah ring

Every year we waste enough
To feed the ones who starve
We build our civilization up
And we shoot it down with wars

But with the Carpenter
On the seat
Way up in the capitol town

The USA
Be on the way
Prosperity bound

-Woody Guthrie

Because I like this picture...

2007-12-28T11:22:00.000-05:00

The Chrysler Building - NYC

Stay tuned...

2007-12-28T10:40:00.000-05:00

For anyone out there who has actually ever read this blog and/or anyone who may have missed my ramblings over the past few months, stay tuned for what I hope is a new beginning to the blog. I'm in a new line of work, education, and I'm hoping this will add something to the discourse I'd like to begin here. I'll try and stay focused on topics like education, philosophy, theology and politics/culture.

For now, read this quote from Salon.com about Billy Bragg and watch this clip.

"What he represents is important, too. Not very many decades ago, the left in Britain rested upon the foundation of an English proletarian of the sort that could recite Dylan Thomas and quote Marx, that read workers' newspapers and sang from union songbooks, and that voted Labour come hell or recession. Billy Bragg is that, more than anything else, and there aren't many like him being produced anymore."

For the driver.

2007-06-11T08:33:00.001-04:00

GRANT HER, O Sacred Heart, a steady hand and watchful eye, that none shall be hurt as she pass by. You gave life I pray no act of hers, take away or mar that gift Divine. Protect those, dear Lord, who travel with her, from highway dangers and all anxiety. Teach her to use her car for others’ needs, and never to miss through excessive speed the beauty of the world. Let her pledge to drive with loving concern to her every destination, offering each travel hour to You in a spirit of Reparation.

MOST Sacred Heart, her auto companion, have mercy on us.

Wheelchair user taken on wild 50-mph ride

2007-06-07T15:12:00.001-04:00

Updated: 9:06 a.m. ET June 7, 2007

PAW PAW, Mich. - A man was taken on a wild ride when his wheelchair became lodged in the grille of a semitrailer and was accidentally pushed down a highway for four miles at about 50 mph, authorities said.

The 21-year-old man, whose name was not released, was unharmed but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. He had been secured to his wheelchair by a seat belt.

“The man spilled his soda pop, but he wasn’t upset,” said Sgt. Kathy Morton of the Michigan State Police.

About 4 p.m. Wednesday, a caller told police dispatchers, “You are not going to believe this: There is a semi truck pushing a guy in a wheelchair on Red Arrow Highway,” state police said in a release.

Prank call?
Authorities initially wondered whether the report was a prank call until others called with similar reports.

Officers stopped the truck — wheelchair still attached — at a trucking company. The driver didn’t believe officers until he stepped from his cab and saw for himself.

“When he saw us, he was like, ’What’s going on?”’ Morton said.

An investigation revealed the man in the wheelchair had pulled in front of the truck at a gas station and it somehow became lodged by its handles to the front grille.

Baked pasta

2007-06-05T08:44:00.000-04:00

Last night I made a wonderful baked pasta dish, and I thought I'd share the recipe.

Ingredients: 1 medium white onion / 2-3 cloves of garlic / olive oil / 2-3 big cans of Italian plum tomatoes / pasta Orecchiette, Ziti, or something of the like / salt, pepper, other spices / lots of fresh grated Parmesan cheese / 9 ounces of fresh Mozzarella.

Preheat oven to 450. Chop a white onion and two cloves of garlic. Add these to an already heated skillet with olive oil and sauté for 5-10 minutes. When the onions are soft and a little bit clear, add 24 oz of skinned Italian plum tomatoes and stir. Simmer for 20 minutes. Start a pot of salted water boiling and cook pasta one minute less than the package says.(I used Ziti, but the recipe called for Orecchiette). You'll need to time this so that the pasta has about 2-3 minutes to go when the sauce is done. After the sauce has simmered for 20 minutes, remove- add sea salt, pepper, dried chili, other spices to taste-- and puree in a blender. When pasta is done, remove and drain. Place pasta in a large dish and add a handful of grated Parmesan cheese and half of the sauce. Mix together well. Splash some olive oil in a baking pan and add a third of the pasta, a layer of Parmesan cheese (handful) and fresh mozzarella. Repeat this until all ingredients are used and top with a layer of the fresh mozzarella and Parmesan. Bake for 15 minutes or until bubbly and a little crispy brown on top. Eat. This should serve about 5-7 people.

HAHAHAHAHA!

2007-05-30T08:29:00.000-04:00

German Mistakes Subway For Underground Car Park
By REUTERS

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German mistook a subway entrance for an underground car park and her vehicle got stuck on the stairs, police said on Wednesday.

The 52-year-old drove her Volkswagen Beetle across the pavement in central Duesseldorf and into the entrance where it ground to a halt about five steps down, police said.

Police estimated the damage at around 1,500 euros ($2,000).

The Peace of Wild Things - Wendell Berry

2007-05-22T15:56:00.001-04:00

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

HOORAY FOR TINA!!!

2007-05-17T15:44:00.001-04:00

David Grossman in the NYTimes

2007-05-14T08:06:00.000-04:00

from Writing in the Dark (in Sunday's NY Times Magazine)

It is hard to talk about yourself, and so before I describe my current writing experience, at this time in my life, I wish to make a few observations about the impact that a disaster, a traumatic situation, has on an entire society, an entire people. I immediately recall the words of the mouse in Kafka’s short story “A Little Fable.” The mouse who, as the trap closes on him, and the cat looms behind, says, “Alas . . . the world is growing narrower every day.”

Kafka’s mouse is right: when the predator is closing in on you, the world does indeed become increasingly narrow. So does the language that describes it. From my experience I can say that the language with which the citizens of a sustained conflict describe their predicament becomes progressively shallower the longer the conflict endures. Language gradually becomes a sequence of clichés and slogans. This begins with the language created by the institutions that manage the conflict directly — the army, the police, the different government ministries; it quickly filters down to the mass media that are reporting about the conflict, germinating an even more cunning language that aims to tell its target audience the story easiest for digestion; and this process ultimately seeps into the private, intimate language of the conflict’s citizens, even if they deny it.

This describes quite well where this nation is headed. Grossman, as an Israeli, has seen a great deal more conflict on his home soil than we have seen, but the telling signs in language are easily visible in our culture as well. He goes on to say:

Actually, this process is all too understandable: after all, the natural riches of human language, and their ability to touch on the finest and most delicate nuances and strings of existence, can hurt deeply in such circumstances, because they remind us of the bountiful reality of which we are being robbed, of its true complexity, of its subtleties. And the more this state of affairs goes on, and as the language used to describe this state of affairs grows shallower, public discourse dwindles further. What remain are the fixed and banal mutual accusations among enemies, or among political adversaries within the same country. What remain are the clichés we use for describing our enemy and ourselves; the clichés that are, ultimately, a collection of superstitions and crude generalizations, in which we capture ourselves and entrap our enemies. The world is, indeed, growing increasingly narrow.

This concept is more than saying "the world is flat" or "our world is increasingly a local one". No, this is an entirely different phenomenon. This is a self imposed prison. A natural reaction to the environment we live in, but a self imposed situation at that. Books and articles of the sort that propose the flat world idea are an example of the toll sustained conflict takes on language. Grossman is describing a world without creativity and without real feeling -- one in which writers only scratch the surface, where journalist only go along with the politicos and one in which the public listens unquestioningly and fervently to the war machine. This is where we are going.

But I do believe there is hope.

Some of the greatest poetry was written in the dark years of WW1 and WW2- Vietnam led to a great social revolution in the US. Why not again?

And yet, and this is the great mystery and the alchemy of our actions: In a sense, as soon as we lay our hand on the pen, or the computer keyboard, we already cease to be the helpless victims of whatever it was that enslaved and diminished us before we began to write. Not the slaves of our predicament nor of our private anxieties; not of the “official narrative” of our country, nor of fate itself.

We write. The world is not closing in on us. How fortunate we are. The world is not growing increasingly narrow.

Four books on the existence of God.

2007-05-11T11:19:00.000-04:00

Imagine it's Paris in the spring of 1789 and you have just announced that you are an inveterate foe of tyrants and kings. Obviously, your message is not going to fall on deaf ears. But now that you've made it clear what you're against, what are you for? Do you favor an aristocratic constitution in which power devolves to the provincial nobility? Would you prefer a British-style constitutional monarchy? Or do you believe in all power to the sans-culottes? How you answer will shape both your analysis of the situation and the political tactics you employ in changing it. It may also determine whether you wind up on the chopping block in the next half-decade or so.

This is the problem, more or less, confronting today's reinvigorated atheist movement.

Among the Disbelievers -- From The Nation

I haven't read any of these four books reviewed here, but I understand the point made here by David Lazare: What is to be done next? So we've decided that religion is a cancer and god has been dead for quite some time--what next?

There is truth in the arguments of Dawkins, Hitchens, Onfrey and Eagleton; but there is also a bit of historical forgetfulness and philosophical stubbornness. Lest Dawkins forget, without the great Abbeys of Cluny and Fontainebleau that simply kept culture alive, we might not have gotten out of those Dark Ages.

It isn't enough to write an antagonistic, stubborn piece in favor of a new sort of atheism--there needs to be a real suggestion as to what the next step should be. Obviously (or is it?) religion will always be a part of life on this earth, but if Dawkins and the rest of the new atheists really hope to end faith--they need to present some steps that this should be accomplished, and show what will take the place of faith.

Tillich says something about the possibility with all religion to lean either to the 'demonic' or the 'angelic'. The demonic part of religion, or the fundamentalist side that dwells only in the myth of faith must end. This is where people of faith must find a common ground with those who do not share that faith--because they are correct in this sense that faith (demonic faith) must die.

White men can't what?

2007-05-10T09:19:00.001-04:00

William Stafford - A Ritual to Read to Each Other.

2007-05-10T08:31:00.000-04:00

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

Paul Tillich on Love

2007-05-03T09:43:00.000-04:00

Different types of love have been distinguished, and the Greek eros type of love has been contrasted with the Christian agape type of love. Eros is described as the desire for self-fulfillment by the other, agape as the will to self-surrender for the sake of the other being. But this alternative does not exist. The so-called "types of love" are actually "qualities of love," lying within each other and driven into conflict only in their distorted forms. No love is real without a unity of eros and agape. Agape without eros is obedience to a moral law, without warmth, without longing, without reunion. Eros without agape is chaotic desire, denying the validity of the claim of the other one to be acknowledged as an independent self, able to love and to be loved. Love as the unity of eros and agape is the implication of faith. -- Paul Tillich, The Dynamics of Faith p132-133.

My first year of college I went to a small Christian college in Kentucky, where I was part of the "Agape" class of '04. (Each year, the incoming freshmen class chose a name for themselves; there was the 'redeemed', 'anointed', 'empowered', among others.) My class was supposed to be oozing with Agape--thoughtful love, the love of Jesus--all of us, best friends. Of course this isn't at all how things worked out; there was an overall sense that something was lacking. An emotional part of that love wasn't there--it seemed too penitential, too moralistic.

Tillich speaks of a love incomplete without both Eros and Agape, a cold moralistic love when dominated by Agape--and a free-for-all frenzy when Eros takes over. This balancing act, the ying and the yang, keeps the two parts of love in check. Without Eros there is no passion--and Christians must be passionate. Without Agape there is only passion. The relationship between the two is part of faith- "Love as the unity of Agape and Eros is an implication of faith." Tillich's definition of faith here is not belief without proof, but that which is the ultimate concern of an individual.

And above all you must be...

2007-05-02T12:47:00.000-04:00

I was looking for a poem with the last line of "And above all you must be...". Because I've forgotten the last word, I decided to Google the phrase and see if it brought up the desired poem. It didn't. But it did turn out to be of some use I think.

This is mindless. To express the most important personal characteristic, one might use this phrase and fill in the blank with the word or words they feel most qualifies a person to do whatever they're speaking of in the prior statement. Here are the results first 32 results. Some of these are pretty funny.

And above all you must be ________

- reliable
-firm with frequent visitors
-honest with yourself
-asking which door is the true one
-willing to do whatever it takes to attain maximum results
-professional
-curious
-able to translate your long-term goals into short-term, day-to-day tasks.
-willing to test your limits and understand the relationship between blood, earth, and sky
-committed to Comprehensive education
- ready to take advantage of what opportunities come your way.
-patient
-a team player.
-discreet
-a blues fan
-keen to learn and be extremely IT focused and well orgainised
-prepared for all this to take time.
-positive, confident and motivated individual.
-sensitive to the media, because they often write policy as effectively as the school board.
-objective and fair in your dealings with staff
-loving, for love is the link of the perfect life.
-consistent
-knowledgeable of Iraq's language and art.
-prepared for a lot of hard work if you are ever going to make it work for you.
-able to forget your fear to possibly disgrace yourself
-able to meet deadlines and work
-quiet
-good at handling children - playing, helping them to learn, it's never a passive job.
-effectively bilingual in Japanese and English.
- in passion with the miracle of life, your life and with our divine, miraculous Earth.
- careful to set them a good example yourselves
-yourself (under a different name of course!)-

Guardian article - "Fascist America, in 10 easy steps"

2007-04-24T11:36:00.000-04:00

Please read

September 1, 1939 - W.H. Auden

2007-04-23T09:15:00.000-04:00

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Keeping Quiet - Pablo Neruda (trans. Alastair Reid)

2007-04-19T08:23:00.000-04:00

And now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about,
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve,
and you keep quiet and I will go.

If interested-- the original Spanish language version is here.

Pity and The Lord of The Rings -

2007-04-18T08:25:00.000-04:00

"What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature [Frodo declares] when he had a chance!"

"Pity? [Gandalf replies] It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that [Bilbo] took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity."

"I am sorry" said Frodo. "But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum."

"You have not seen him," Gandalf broke in.

"No, and I don’t want to," said Frodo. ". . . Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death."

"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, or good or Ill, before the end; and when that comes, the
pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many -- yours not least."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many" is the only declaration to be repeated in all three volumes of The Lard of the Rings. (Says Notre Dame professor Ralph C. Wood)

It is the leitmotiv of Tolkien’s epic, its animating theme, its Christian epicenter as well as its circumference. Gandalf’s prophecy is true in the literal sense, for the same vile Gollum whom Bilbo had spared long ago finally enables the Ring’s destruction.

Great literature teaches us something. And here, Tolkien gives us a great nugget of knowledge that might just make us a little uneasy. By nature, humans want to strike back when hit- we want to dole out our version of justice and call it right. But is it right? In this section from The Lore of The Rings, Tolkien gives us one answer to this question- no, it is not right.

There is a place for anger, and while many voices may call for quick vindication -- there must also be a voice like Gandolf's in society pleading for us to be to be slow to anger and quick to forgive.

London Times article

2007-04-17T09:32:00.000-04:00

The scale of the Virginia incident is, sadly, all that distinguishes it

Gerard Baker

By the desensitising standards of routine American gun violence, yesterday’s shootings at Virginia Tech university were shocking only in their scale. Over more than 20 years, Americans have got grimly used to a ritual that plays out on the cable news every few months. The initial news is sketchy, reports of shots fired at a campus or in a schoolyard. Then, the first confused images of students running terrified from classrooms, black-clothed Swat teams gingerly pressing into doorways; the press conference in which some dazed school principal or university president mutters the first incomplete details, with casualty estimates and emergency phone numbers for worried relatives to call.

Finally, as the horror gradually dawns in its fullness, someone finds some photograph of the gunman, pulled from a high-school yearbook or holiday. Sometimes he is a fresh-faced, American-as-apple-pie-looking young man who friends say would never harm an insect. Other times, in that first image, the brooding face is already a sad window into a soul that is well on the way to its ultimate destination of murderous and suicidal mayhem.

It’s so familiar you could write the script yourself. Only the names change — Jonesboro, Columbine, Lancaster County and now Virginia Tech. And the numbers.

Yesterday’s death toll of more than 30 handed Virginia Tech, a proud college with a strong academic record and a famous sporting pedigree, the unwanted title of worst shooting in US history. There is something slightly unsettling about the way news reporters seize on these landmarks with the kind of statistical excitement with which you would announce a new sporting record. You can’t blame them. It is the only thing that really distinguishes one of these events from another in the public’s mind.

And the truth is that only an optimist would imagine Virginia Tech will hold the new record for very long. Surely in a year or two the news networks will be replaying the same footage from another college, with only the numbers different.

Perhaps of all the elements of American exceptionalism – those factors, positive or negative, that make the US such a different country, politically, socially, culturally, from the rest of the civilised world – it is the gun culture that foreigners find so hard to understand.

The country’s religiosity, so at odds with the rest of the developed world these days; its economic system which seems to tolerate vast disparities of income; even all those strange sports Americans enjoy – all of these can at least be understood by the rest of us, even if not shared.

But why, we ask, do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when presumably, tougher restrictions, such as those in force in European countries, could at least reduce the number?

The truth is, not all Americans do oppose such measures. The US of course, is a vast, federal nation, with different laws and cultures in different states. In Virginia, scene of yesterday’s shootings, they passed a law a few years ago that did indeed restrict gun purchases – to a maximum of one per week. In the neighbouring District of Columbia, on the other hand, the law bans the possession of all guns.

DC’s draconian measure highlights one reason tighter gun control is difficult in the US. The federal courts recently ruled that the ban violates Americans’ right to bear arms, as protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

But the constitutional question is not, in fact, settled. The final legal status of gun control rests at least in part on the composition of the Supreme Court and can, and has, changed, over the years.

Those on the Left like to think that the reason guns remain so available lies with the famed power of the National Rifle Association, the body that promotes the interest of gun owners. The NRA is deemed to be so influential that it can force members of congress or state representatives to support permissive gun laws, for fear of losing the association’s useful financial support at election time.

But this is overblown. The NRA is certainly a powerful body but cannot on its own outweigh the views of millions of ordinary Americans.

The simple truth is that Americans themselves remain unwilling to take drastic measures to restrict gun availability. This is rooted deep in the American belief in individual freedom and a powerful suspicion of government. Americans are deeply leery of efforts by government to restrict the freedom to defend themselves. A sizeable minority, perhaps a majority, believe the risk that criminals will perpetrate events such as yesterday’s is a painful but necessary price to pay to protect that freedom.

The sheer scale of the carnage yesterday may after all make the Blacksburg killings truly unique in American history. That will doubtless lead to more self-examination and perhaps calls for new restrictions on firearms. But it won’t change America’s deep-rooted and sometimes lethal commitment to its own freedoms.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

2007-04-17T08:18:00.000-04:00

32 lives.

When things like this happen, does it make us question humanity in general? Should it?
Maybe.

But those questions should come later. First - if we hope to learn anything from this, we need to react in a logical progression. We need to find out if the reaction of the university to the shootings was adequate. Some are saying it was not. If it did not respond quickly enough or if it did not notify the campus - leadership must change and new rules must be instituted.

We need to understand why the shooter did what he did. Could it have been prevented?

One issue that stands out for me is the presence of guns in our society. The NRA is a powerful lobbying group and that needs to change. It's silly to think that having a gun is a god given right, and until we change our antiquated and farcical laws on gun ownership we will have more lives lost because of needless gun sales.

Kurt Vonnegut, Christ worshipping agnostic

2007-04-16T13:21:00.000-04:00

Here's a great article from The Sojourners.

Downhill fast -

2007-04-12T08:37:00.000-04:00

When a situation is going as badly as the Iraq war, it's hard to be surprised by much of anything. But this article on the payoffs by the U.S. military to families of killed civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan really saddens me. This quote struck me as a particularly telling sign that things are going wrongly and quickly headed even more downhill: "In all, the military has paid more than $32 million to Iraqi and Afghan civilians for noncombat-related killings, injuries and property damage, an Army spokeswoman said. That figure does not include condolence payments made at a unit commander’s discretion."

It's not so much that I'm surprised that we are paying these families -- that is the only sensible thing to do -- but I'm caught off guard at the numbers and the stories. I do think this is the way we should look at this war (or any other disaster)-- the big picture (the numbers) and the individual stories (what those numbers really represent). The humanity in the big picture is better represented in the stories of the small picture.

Coming back for a while--

2007-04-11T08:13:00.000-04:00

We know that God and the devil are locked together in combat over the world and that the devil has a word to say even at death. In the face of death we cannot say in a fatalistic way, "It is God's will"; we must add the opposite: "It is not God's will." Death shows that the world is not what it should be, but that it needs redemption. Christ alone overcomes death. Here, "It is God's will" and "It is not God's will" come to the most acute paradox and balance each other out. God agrees to be involved in something that is not the divine will, and from now on death must serve God despite itself. From now on, "It is God's will" also embraces "It is not God's will." God's will is the overcoming of death through the death of Jesus Christ. Only in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ has death come under God's power, must it serve the purpose of God. Not a fatalistic surrender, but living faith in Jesus Christ, who died and has risen again for us, can seriously make an end of death for us. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When I read Bonhoeffer and other great religious thinkers who, as Jim Wallis has said were "brilliant intellectuals, yet they felt called by the crisis of their historical moment to act, not just to think," I realize that there is a certain duality of thinking that one must have if they choose the life of the mind. If we remain in the realm of the abstract -- the purely philosophical and theological, we may have no effect. We may be inconsequential. But Bonhoeffer was not a victim to this -- he "felt called to act."

I feel the importance of this desire to act more than ever before.

Having decided to make my life for the next 2-5 years one that might exist in the realm of the abstract (I will be in graduate school studying English in a few months) more so than the realm of reality -- I will be challenged and tempted to seek the safety of academia more than the unsafe alternative of living in the "real world."

So, with Bonhoeffer (and countless others) as my example I look to begin my journey with a hopeful optimism.

"He was both a contemplative and an activist, who showed that you really can’t be one without becoming the other as well. His insistence on the life of personal discipleship to give belief its credibility was matched by his conviction that the life of community was the essential way to demonstrate faith in the world. All those paradoxes were necessary complementarities for Bonhoeffer and formed an integrated faith and life rare in his time, or in any time." -- Jim Wallis on Bonhoeffer.

Because I love Roy Keane!

2007-01-25T08:57:00.000-05:00

Roald Dahl- "Mike Teavee.."

2007-01-21T19:33:00.000-05:00

The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set —
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink —
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK — HE ONLY SEES!
‘All right!’ you’ll cry. ‘All right!’ you’ll say,
‘But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!’
We’ll answer this by asking you,
‘What used the darling ones to do?
‘How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?’
Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?
We’ll say it very loud and slow:
THEY … USED … TO … READ! They’d READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching ’round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There’s Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start — oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

Iran is next

2007-01-15T14:10:00.001-05:00

Guardian Article

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

2007-01-15T09:36:00.000-05:00

Martin Luther King, Jr - "I Have a Dream" - delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Paul Tillich - The Dynamics of Faith - Symbols of Faith: Symbols and Myths

2007-01-14T21:31:00.000-05:00

"The resistance against demythologization expresses itself in literalism. The symbols and myths are understood in their immediate meaning. The material, taken from nature and history, is used in its proper sense. The character of the symbol to point beyond itself to something else is disregarded. Creation is taken as a magic act which happened once upon a time. The fall of Adam is localized on a special geographical point and attributed to a human individual. The virgin birth of the Messiah is understood in biological terms, resurrection and ascension as physical events, the second coming of Christ as a telluric, or cosmic, catastrophe. The presupposition of such literalism is that God is a being, acting in time and space, dwelling in a special place, affecting the course of events and being affected by them like any other being in the universe. Literalism deprives God of his ultimacy and, religiously speaking, of his majesty. It draws him down to the level of that which is not ultimate, the finite and conditional."

It's quite a conundrum, what Tillich says here about literalism depriving God of majesty and ultimacy. On one hand we have Tillich's idea that the character of the symbol must point beyond itself to something else, but on the other hand symbols ground us in the present--they relate the divine to the human. Each of these myths; creation, the fall of Adam, the virgin birth and so on, relate an event of cosmic consequence to the natural and the local. To see the creativity of a creator in a literal seven-day creation, or a big bang - to understand the virgin birth as a virgin birth, the resurrection and ascension as physical fact or to see these as symbols and descriptive devices of divine love of and concern with man-- are all ways of looking at a symbol.

Tillich is writing (here, at least) against the myth that all religions contain -- the myth that is a part of all lives religious or not. I tend to disagree though. Myth is powerful -- Myth is so important to the human mind and I don't think of it as depriving God of majesty or ultimacy. I think what Tillich is doing here is using his personal myth -- which is a much less literal myth than that of say, Karl Barth -- and making it his starting point. His myth may allow to deny the virgin birth, see the scientific relevance of modernity and deny creation, resurrection and ascension -- but that it just his myth? Isn't his wholly symbolic way of looking at religion just the opposite pole of the literalism he speaks against? I would hope for some sort of hybrid way of being symbolically literal.

Best Contemporary Theology Meme

2007-01-10T08:32:00.000-05:00

While I'm pretty new to theology, but I still wanted to add to Patrik's Meme . These books are my personal favorites in the realm of theology-(so far at least, I'm starting to really enjoy Tillich and I'll be reading Barth's God Here and Now shortly). The first two are probably more popular and might even be mentioned by some other people. Sittler's small book, The Care of the Earth, is probably a little less popular but it may be my favorite of all.

"Name three (or more) theological works from the last 25 years (1981-2006) that you consider important and worthy to be included on a list of the most important works of theology of that last 25 years (in no particular order)."

1. Jürgen Moltmann: The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ As the Foundation and
Criticism of Christian Theology.
2. Miroslav Wolf : Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation.
3. Joseph Sittler: The Care of the Earth.

An overwhelming question

2007-01-09T09:04:00.000-05:00

Artist Bryce Marden, whose work is featured at the MOMA and has recently been at the Guggenheim, was interviewed yesterday on PBS' The News Hour. Marden is a abstract painter and his work is intricate. The interview was great, but one of the questions the interviewer asked really struck me. He asked Marden, "Why, in the 21st century is art important?"

And it made me wonder, why are the things we do important? In the world we live in, are literature, philosophy, theology, etc important? And why are they? What do they do?

Gibbons Ruark - Postscript to an Elegy

2007-01-03T21:47:00.000-05:00

What I forgot to mention was the desultory
Unremarkable tremor of the phone ringing
Late in the day, to say you were stopping by,
The door slung open on your breezy arrival,
Muffled car horns jamming in the neighborhood,

Our talk of nothing particular, nothing of note,
The flare of laughter in a tilted wineglass.
Or we would be watching a tavern softball game
And you would come short-cutting by, your last hard mile

Dissolving in chatter and beer on the sidelines.
How did that Yankee third baseman put it, tossing
His empty glove in the air, his old friend
Sheared off halfway home in an air crash? "I thought
I'd be talking to him for the rest of my life."

Talk as I may of quickness and charm, easy laughter,
The forms of love, the sudden glint off silverware
At midnight will get in my eyes again,
And when it goes the air will be redolent still

With garlic, a high note from Armstrong, little shards
That will not gather into anything,
Those nearly invisible flecks of marble
Stinging the bare soles of the curious
Long after the statue is polished and crated away.

Spinoza, Leibniz and the Fate of God in the Modern World

2006-12-27T09:43:00.000-05:00

Just finished the above titled book and I greatly enjoyed reading it. While I came into it with really no knowledge of either of the two philosophers, the way the storyline is woven with some basic tenets of their philosophy and how the authors connect that to their lives and certain events in those lives really helped me see the whole picture. I really do feel that no two people have the exact same philosophy/theology-- mainly because our lives, backgrounds, and other factors create the palette on which we paint our world view. This idea plays a major role in the philosophy of these two men.

Spinoza was a Jew who at an early age was thought by some to be one of the next great Rabbis, but after espousing his seemingly atheistic views, he was excommunicated and cursed by the synagogue. He basically spent the rest of his life living in a monastic seclusion in an upstairs apartment in a small Amsterdam house where he made his living by grinding lenses. (This work probably was the cause of his death--the grinding produced a powder that he inhaled and caused silicosis) His major work was Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, in which he espoused his major views. Spinoza was never rich like Leibniz, and never had the friends in high places like Leibniz--and this might be a key ingredient to their differences in philosophy.

Leibniz was born into a strict (and fairly well-off) conservative German Christian family. His father was a professor at the University of Leipzig until he died when Leibniz was six years old. After finishing his law degree at Leipzig, Leipniz applied to teach there but was declined. He was devastated. Leibniz then submitted the thesis he had intended for Leipzig to the University of Altdorf, and obtained his doctorate in law in five months. He then declined an offer of academic appointment at Altdorf, and spent the rest of his life in the service of two major German noble families.

The book I just finished weaves the idea throughout the story that Leibniz really agreed with Spinoza at certain times in his life but tried to cover it up. And he most definitely did admire Spinoza, but he disagreed with his philosophical conclusions mainly because they were not in step with orthodox Christianity. Both men believed in God---but their definitions of God were completely different. Leibniz was a Cartesian, but Spinoza was not. Spinoza's God, which he called "God or nature" was the unity of all that exists, a living, natural god, who represented the identity of spirit and nature. For Spinoza, everything was god and god was everything. Spinoza's god is not the Christian God of Leibniz, but their are similarities. The similarities are not so much in the actual description of God, but they are in the effects of their description of god.
Spinoza's philosophical and political works lay the foundation for the Constitution of the United States, and the idea of liberal democracy (what ever happened to that anyway?)

Albert Einstein was asked by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein if he believed in God, to which Einstein responded: "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."

Inferno in Nigeria

2006-12-27T09:20:00.000-05:00

What an unbelievable photograph.

A poem

2006-12-27T09:07:00.000-05:00

For The Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio - WH Auden

Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes --
Some have got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week --
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted -- quite unsuccessfully --
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry
And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,
We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,
We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;"
Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake."
They will come, all right, don't worry; probably in a form
That we do not expect, and certainly with a force
More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God's Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

Journey of the Magi – T.S. Eliot

2006-12-22T09:40:00.000-05:00

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Joseph, adjectives and popularity--with a new picture of me!!

2006-12-20T08:26:00.000-05:00

Last night during tutoring, Joseph, the fifth grader who I've been working with on reading comprehension, said this: "I don't really care if I'm popular. Does that make me weird?" This caught me a little offguard--mainly because we weren't on the topic of popularity, we were learning about adjectives. No matter how highbrow the conversation of "adults" can be, there are times that the simple words of a child are much more bold and much more true.

No, Joseph, it doesn't make you weird--in fact it shows that you are already much more intelligent than most adults. Each time I work with any of the kids at tutoring, and especially Joseph, I feel a great hope for them and their future. I relize that, given the right tools and some help along the way, that these underpriveleged, minority city-kids, are very much capable of great things. I hope Joseph realizes this.

Free will or fate?

2006-12-17T20:04:00.000-05:00

Great post from Joe at In Retrospect. I think this is a fascinating topic and one that would make a great discussion.

fall from grace, but why?

For you--

2006-12-08T08:30:00.000-05:00

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,
i and my life will shut very beautifully,
suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what is is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

-- ee cummings

Santa

2006-12-04T22:20:00.000-05:00

Elizaphanian tagged me.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wraps them.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? My apartment is too small for a tree--but I'm thinking of putting up lights!

4. Do you hang mistletoe on house? I can't find any mistletoe in NYC.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually around the first week of December.

6. What is your favorite holiday meal (excluding dessert)? Turkey with stuffing.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? When I was 19 and we had first gotten our collie, Sam and he played in the discarded wrapping paper and bows.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Huh?

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Ornaments from childhood, strings of gold and silver beads, lights, and an angel.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it!

12. Can you ice skate? Sort of.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Yes.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Coming back home and being with family and loved ones.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? CANDIED YAMS!!!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? The Christmas story and "For the Time Being."

17. What tops your tree? An angel.

18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? Giving

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? The Little Town of Bethlehem.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or yummy? Yummy.

21. Favorite Christmas Movie? Home Alone 2.

22. What would you most like to find under your tree this year? A 2-bedroom apartment in the Upper West Side for $1300/month.

23. Favorite Holiday memory as an adult? Christmas Eve with Tina and her family at the Feast of the Seven Fishes.

Joe, Patrik, Tina

Paul Tillich - The Dynamics of Faith - Faith and Doubt

2006-12-01T08:29:00.000-05:00

"We now return to a fuller description of faith as an act of the human personality. An act of faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by and turned to the infinite. It is a finite act with all the limitations of a finite act, and it is an act in which the infinite participates beyond the limitations of a finite act. Faith is certain in so far as it is an experience of the holy. But faith is uncertain in so far as the infinite to which it is related is received by a finite being. This element of uncertainty in faith cannot be removed, it must be accepted. And the element in faith which accepts this is courage. Faith includes an element of immediate awareness which gives certainty and an element of uncertainty. To accept this is courage. In the courageous standing of uncertainty, faith shows most visibly its dynamic character."

And so Tillich begins his discussion on Faith and Doubt. We tend to see things in terms of opposites: Life/Death, black/white, and so on. But here, Tillich speaks of faith and doubt as two important and really necessary parts of the dynamic of faith. (It might be of some use here to mention the etymology of the word "dynamics"--from the ancient Greek meaning "strength, power"-- this is important to note, because it's the purpose for Tillich pointing out these dynamics within Faith -the parts of Faith that give it strength and/or power) Doubt is essential, he says, and it must be accepted as an element in faith. Instead of creating a fissure or a symbolic line of demarcation between faith and doubt, Tillich shows that the two are connected most curiously and most fantastically in courage.

Part of the human need for boundaries and separation might cause us to look at faith in a way that doesn't include doubt. But doubt can't be gotten rid of completely--although there are times when we may feel we've discarded all doubt, it's still there. For me, I feel a real closeness with this idea of faith--the key figures throughout movements for peace, justice, mercy and so on, have mostly had a faith (I'm speaking of people like Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Jr, Gandhi, and even Christ, etc--so I'm really addressing the Christian faith, but other faiths would probably apply to)--and just about all have had doubt. I think maybe we forget that, but I think maybe we shouldn't.

But here Tillich begins a short discussion on the risk of faith:"Where there is daring and courage, their is the possibility of failure. And in every act of faith this possibility is present. The risk must be taken." Maybe I'm misreading, but is this sort of Pascal's Wager? I'd be inclined by reading on, to say Tillich isn't making a wager: "And this is the risk faith must take: this is the risk which is unavoidable if a finite being affirms itself. Ultimate concern is ultimate risk and ultimate courage."

Tillich makes his way through three types of doubt: methodological, skeptical, and existential-but only one can be related to faith as ultimate concern. The kind of doubt in matters of empirical inquiry or logical deduction is what Tillich calls methodological: but : The doubt which is implicit in faith is not a doubt about facts or conclusions. Next, skeptical doubt, he calms more of an attitude than an assertion. Skepticism leads to despair and/or despair, which leads to complete unconcern -- and then it all breaks down, because as Tillich says "man is that being who is essentially concerned about his being....The skeptic, so long as he is a serious skeptic, is not without faith, even though it has no concrete content." Then Tillich names existential doubt "the doubt which is implicit in every act of faith."

Tillich is kind of like a Derrida before his time--he's not a fan of binary opposites and shows here how existential doubt is really a combination of skepticism and methodological doubt:

"It does not question whether a special proposition is true of false. It does not reject every concrete truth, but it is aware of the element of insecurity in every existential truth. At the same time, the doubt which is implied in faith accepts this insecurity and takes it into itself in an act of courage. Faith becomes courage. Therefore, it can include the doubt itself. Certainly faith and courage are not identical. Faith has other elements besides courage and courage has other functions beyond affirming faith. Nevertheless, an act in which courage accepts risk belongs to the dynamics of faith."

There is a middle ground it seems in faith. I wonder if there has been anything said for Tillich similarities to Buddhist thought?

And then, the lighting of the tree.

2006-11-30T10:43:00.000-05:00

Last evening the tree in Rockefeller Center was lit, and a big ceremony started at 7--the crowds were there by 3. Tina and I made our way over around 8, and really had no chance of seeing anything accept what we could make out from the giant TV screen about 100 feet in front of the massive crowd we had attached ourselves to. We were able to watch both Enya and Sarah McLaughlin sing--but not really hear them. It's a very touristy event, but since this is our first year in New York, we wanted to try and catch a glimpse of the ceremony and the tree--of course we saw neither. After making our way through the crowd maybe 25 feet--we both stood and watched the screen, both feeling rather annoyed.

This time of year New York moves to an even faster beat than usual. Tourists crowd the steets, vendors hawk anything and everything to unprepared passers-by.

One vendor last night was selling light up reindeer ears - not antlers, ears. "Get your reindeer ears here!," he would shout at the crowd.

One young hispanic family was standing next to us with their little girl. She kept eyeing the man selling the light-up ears and then looking back at her mom. She was too cute for her parents to resist, so as the man walked by they motioned for him to come over. The little girl's face lit up with a beaming smile. The dad dug through wallet trying to find the right amount of money, while his wife watched with hopes he had enough. He did. The family laughed while the little girl shook her head like she was a reindeer and danced around in the joy of the moment.

Something about watching this little girl, so happy because her dad had gotten her a pair of light-up reindeer ears, made the evening seem wonderful to me.

I realize this might be a trifle overdone, but it gave me a glimmer of hope, joy, and peace--really what this time of year is about. Although all the commercialism surrounding Christmas is annoying and frankly wrong, this little girl's face made me happy and thankful. I wish her a wonderful Christmas and I hope for her happiness.

It's very easy to become dismayed with the emptiness surrounding the way we've come to celebrate Christmas, but Christmas is about hope. And sometimes, just when we feel like we have to stretch for that hope -we find it in the face of a small child.

Caedmon's Hymn - (7th century AD) translated by Paul Muldoon

2006-11-28T13:14:00.000-05:00

Now we must praise to the skies the keeper of the
heavenly kingdom,
The might of the measurer, all he has in mind,
The work of the Father of Glory, of all manner
of marvel,

Our eternal Master, the main mover.
It was he who first summoned up, on our behalf,
Heaven as a roof, the holy Maker.

Then this middle-earth, the Watcher over humankind,
Our eternal master, would later assign
The precinct of men, the Lord Almighty.

Isn't it obvious that Iraq is on the brink?

2006-11-28T11:31:00.000-05:00

This NYTimes article is interesting. So, the president acknowledges that there are high levels of sectarian violence in Iraq, but he puts the blame for the disorder on Al Qaeda. Alright. But is anyone else buying this? Doesn't look like it. Even the generals aren't mentioning Al Qaeda as much or at all.

We hear Bush using more and more strong language when referring to Iran and Syrian. This worries me. Many in the Democratic party (Joe Biden's plan is wonderful - http://uniteourstates.com/documents/iraq_a_way_forward.pdf) see a viable and probably very effective way of maintaining some sort of peace in the Middle East by involving those two very vocal and very important countries.

But when it becomes a question of liguistics, maybe we should worry--
"The question of whether the fighting constitutes a civil war has becoming an increasingly sensitive one for the Bush administration, as Democrats cite agreement among a wide range of academic and military experts that the conflict meets most standard definitions of the term."

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Snow (Hey oh)

2006-11-27T20:36:00.000-05:00

Awesome song.

Paul Tillich - The Dynamics of Faith

2006-11-27T08:50:00.000-05:00

Faith and the Dynamics of the Holy -

"He who enters the sphere of faith enters the sanctuary of life. Where there is faith there is an awareness of holiness."

This section of the chapter called What Faith Is deals with the holy--and Tillich distinguishes between the popular usage of the word and what he says it the original and only justified meaning of holiness.

"What concerns one ultimately becomes holy. The awareness of the holy is awareness of the presence of the divine, namely of the content of our ultimate concern. This awareness is expressed in a grand way in the Old Testament from the visions of the patriarchs and Moses to the shaking experiences of the great prophets and psalmists. It is a presence which remains mysterious in spite of its appearance, and exercises both an attractive and a repulsive function on those who encounter it."

"This original and only justified meaning of holiness must replace the currently distorted use of the word. 'Holy' has become identified with moral perfection, especially in some Protestant groups."

I find myself agreeing with Tillich completely--I've never understood why Holiness has to do with morality--it always seemed to me more of an experience than a state of being. But why? And what does it matter?

It's as if the popular use of holy stems from the idolatrous or untrue aspect of religion (or as Tillich calls it, the demonic). True holiness should cause us to be in awe; untrue holiness keeps us pent up in fear. I see a great deal of this within the pious denominations --Wesleyan, Nazerene--a longing to reach holiness and not 'give in' to temptations. This misses the point or Faith and of experiencing the holy. There is a mysterious character of the holy which produces an ambiguity in man's ways of experiencing it--as with faith, there is a creative and destructive aspect to the holy. Tillich calls this ambuguity "divine demonic"--in the sense that divine is victory by the creative over the destructive and the demonic is vica v. This is where the shift in the use and understanding of the holy changed.

"In this situation, which is most profoundly understood in the prophetic religion of the Old Testament, a fight has been waged against the demonic-destructive element in the holy. And this fight was so successfull that the concept of the holy was changed. Holiness becomes justice and truth. It is creative and not destructive . The true sacrifice is obedience to the law. This is the line of thought which finally led to the identification of holiness with moral perfection. But when this point is reached, holiness loses its meaning as the 'separated', the 'transcending', the 'fascinating and terrifying', the 'entirely other'. All this is gone and the holy has become the morally good and the logically true. It has ceased to be the holy in the genuine sense of the word. Summing up this development, one could say that the holy originally lies below the alternative of the good and the evil; that it is both divine and demonic; that with the reduction of the demonic possibility the holy itself becomes transformed in its meaning; that it becomes rational and identical with the true and the good; and that its genuine meaning must be rediscovered. "

I find what Tillich calls the genuine and true meaning of the holy to be the more creative and more spiritual. For those of us who feel a certain disdain for organized religion at times, this is extremely encouraging. There is also, it seems, more room for play with this use of holy--more ability for a literary interpretation of the holy.

Blackberry-picking -- Seamus Heaney

2006-11-27T08:45:00.000-05:00

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

NICE BLOG

2006-11-22T11:19:00.001-05:00

The Pink Politic

My reading.

2006-11-21T08:22:00.000-05:00

For the past few months I was trudging through The Brothers Karamazov, and now that I've finished it at a snail's pace (This is one of my favorite books, but I wasn't giving enough time to my reading of it) I've decided to increase my amount of reading and spend more time in that activity. Right now I'm reading five books: Paul Tillich's Dynamics of Faith, Paul Muldoon's Moy Sand and Gravel, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings, Kafka's Short Story Collection by Norton, and The Courtier and the Heretic:Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World, by Matthew Stewart.

I'm making good progress and am really enjoying each of these books. Only one have I read before--The Lord Of the Rings (LOTR)--and, really, I threw it in for the pleasure of reading something just for fun.

Tillich's Dynamics is a wonderful read so far. I've always been drawn to Tillich's work, but never actually read anything of his the whole way through. So this is my challenge now. Patrik at God in a Shrinking Universe has been doing an awesome series of posts on Tillich and these have really peaked my desire to read more of him. I find Tillich a bit esoteric though and generally I have to read each chapter a few times before I 'get' it. This is more than likely because I lack a background in systematic theology--so I feel as if, at times, I'm sort of starting from scratch. Tillich begins with a discussion on what faith is. For Tillich, Faith is a "centered act"--"Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned."

Paul Muldoon is a master of the English language and Moy Sand and Gravel includes some his greatest poetry. I find him to be a fascinating person--even though I really don't think there is much comparison between Muldoon and Heaney (not b/c of talent--but there styles are very different). Because of his use of Irish names, his play with language, history and many other obscurities, it can be a little difficult to keep up with him in some of his longer poems.

HARD DRIVE
With my back to the wall
and a foot in the door
and my shoulder to the wheel
I would drive through Seskinore.

With an ear to the ground
and my neck on the block I
would tend to my wound in
Belleek and Bellanaleck.

With a toe in the water
and a nose for trouble
and an eye to the future
I would drive through Derryfubble

and Dunnamanagh and Ballynascreen,
keeping that wound green.

The only Kafka I've read before this new collection of short stories is the Metamorphasis and that was in high school. I'm really enjoying these short stories and find Kafka a master of storytelling. Lot's of Freudian oddities going on throughout these stories--and all-in-all, I love reading them. I'm looking at these stories with a critical eye - trying to remember my Lacan and Freud.

The Courtier and the Heretic is a well written and rather easy to read book about two of the most important philosophers for the modern age. I didn't have much knowledge of the basic philosophy of either Spinoza or Leibniz, but the book does a great job of introducing the reader to the tenents of their philosophy while keeping a storyline going as well.

I'll be sharing more from my readings after the Thanksgiving holiday.

LA Times - Michael Moore's Pledge

2006-11-20T10:28:00.000-05:00

Michael Moore's pledge
Well worth the read.

Veritas

2006-11-20T08:22:00.000-05:00

Thursday after work I took the #2 train uptown from Penn Station to 96th street. I noticed out of the corner of my eye someone's small wrist tattoo "VERITAS". I started thinking about how much this little word, and the idea behind, drives us--makes us angry--and brings us closer to one another.

When Pontius Pilate questioned Jesus of Nazareth before his crucifixion he asked him "What is truth?" Pilate asked this existential question in reply to the assertion of Jesus that "Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." Well, who is on the side of truth, and for that matter, what is truth?

Grand ideas and schools of philosophy are driven by the search for truth--Existentialism has its pursuit of the meaning of existence and the value of the existing individual; different religions portray their own versions of truth; the media claims to put forth truth for the public; all types of literature involve this pursuit of truth, but really how does the quest for truth play out in our day-today lives?

We seek truth and generally find it comforting when we find it. Those people that we feel most open and comfortable with, those who we call our closest friends, are the people we actively live in truth with. And when there is some breach of this, these relationships are strained.

Within our own self, we seek truth as well. Our quest to be 'real' and 'useful' stems from this desire for truth. Most of us young post-postmodern people hope to make some sort of a difference in the world around us. We seek to see change--and I think this comes from our desire to see truth in our lives. We cannot square the lies of the corporate world, the government, churches with our own desire for truth.

HAHAHA

2006-11-19T21:35:00.001-05:00

The Wild Swans at Coole - W.B. Yeats

2006-11-16T13:21:00.000-05:00

THE TREES are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

I had to do this.

2006-11-14T18:16:00.000-05:00

Evangelicals and Israel.

2006-11-14T08:38:00.000-05:00

The NY Times is doing a wonderful series on Israel--today's piece on the relationship between American evangelicals and the Israeli State. I've always understood this relationship as utterly ridiculous, and it seems that the more violent things get the more people like Hagee, Dobson, and Robertson become maniacal and stark raving mad.
I do not believe that we must maintain our close relationship with Israel--I think we should maintain our relationship with any marginalized people: including the Palestinians, the Israelis and the Iranians--and everyone else that fits that category. There is a problem with reading the Bible as a blueprint to the world: it leads to a sense of urgency about all the wrong things. People are starving in Africa, Americans and Europeans are apathetic in general, the environment has been forgotten, Russia is enchroaching (yet again) on civil rights, but here are the great leaders of the evangelical movement in America setting their sights on the end of the world. It all seems too easy: forget the present, live as a "chosen one" and strive to bring about Armageddon. There is something missing here.

Cultural Dark Ages.

2006-11-13T13:00:00.000-05:00

The other day I was watching Faith & Reason with Bill Moyers. He was on the topic of myth and how it shapes who we are--with Jeanette Winterson as his guest. This quote was especially interesting to me and I think it should be important to anyone in the humanities. We all need this sense of urgency.

JEANETTE WINTERSON: It is a dark time. It may be that, in some ways, I think. I do think of it that we might be going into a cultural dark ages. And we might have to be like the great Abbeys of Cluny and Fontainebleau and simply keep the culture alive for the future. Because people will come along and they'll want it, and they'll need it.
BILL MOYERS: And will you keep writing because maybe one day somebody will read it.
JEANETTE WINTERSON: Exactly.
BILL MOYERS: You never know for sure.
JEANETTE WINTERSON: You never know for sure. You never know. I may never know how long things will last. That's why you have to have the burning belief in the now and in the moment. And the thing is valid. And that it's worth doing. And it's worth doing with everything you've got, and for your whole life. You know, it can't be a hobby. It can't be a thought experiment. Much depends upon it.

U2 "40"

2006-11-12T13:07:00.000-05:00

Seamus Heaney

2006-11-10T15:03:00.000-05:00

Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication

1. Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard,
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.

2. The Seed Cutters

They seem hundreds of years away. Brueghel,
You'll know them if I can get them true.
They kneel under the hedge in a half-circle
Behind a windbreak wind is breaking through.
They are the seed cutters. The tuck and frill
Of leaf-sprout is on the seed potates
Buried under that straw. With time to kill,
They are taking their time. Each sharp knife goes
Lazily halving each root that falls apart
In the palm of the hand: a milky gleam,
And, at the centre, a dark watermark.
Oh, calendar customs! Under the broom
Yellowing over them, compose the frieze
With all of us there, our anonymities

More Great News!

2006-11-08T13:40:00.000-05:00

Rumsfeld resigns.

and now Montana.

Thoughts in the Presence of Fear - Wendell Berry

2006-11-08T09:30:00.000-05:00

I. The time will soon come when we will not be able to remember the horrors of September 11 without remembering also the unquestioning technological and economic optimism that ended on that day.

II. This optimism rested on the proposition that we were living in a "new world order" and a "new economy" that would "grow" on and on, bringing a prosperity of which every new increment would be "unprecedented".

III. The dominant politicians, corporate officers, and investors who believed this proposition did not acknowledge that the prosperity was limited to a tiny percent of the world's people, and to an ever smaller number of people even in the United States; that it was founded upon the oppressive labor of poor people all over the world; and that its ecological costs increasingly threatened all life, including the lives of the supposedly prosperous.

IV. The "developed" nations had given to the "free market" the status of a god, and were sacrificing to it their farmers, farmlands, and communities, their forests, wetlands, and prairies, their ecosystems and watersheds. They had accepted universal pollution and global warming as normal costs of doing business.

V. There was, as a consequence, a growing worldwide effort on behalf of economic decentralization, economic justice, and ecological responsibility. We must recognize that the events of September 11 make this effort more necessary than ever. We citizens of the industrial countries must continue the labor of self-criticism and self-correction. We must recognize our mistakes.

VI. The paramount doctrine of the economic and technological euphoria of recent decades has been that everything depends on innovation. It was understood as desirable, and even necessary, that we should go on and on from one technological innovation to the next, which would cause the economy to "grow" and make everything better and better. This of course implied at every point a hatred of the past, of all things inherited and free. All things superseded in our progress of innovations, whatever their value might have been, were discounted as of no value at all.

VII. We did not anticipate anything like what has now happened. We did not foresee that all our sequence of innovations might be at once overridden by a greater one: the invention of a new kind of war that would turn our previous innovations against us, discovering and exploiting the debits and the dangers that we had ignored. We never considered the possibility that we might be trapped in the webwork of communication and transport that was supposed to make us free.

VIII. Nor did we foresee that the weaponry and the war science that we marketed and taught to the world would become available, not just to recognized national governments, which possess so uncannily the power to legitimate large-scale violence, but also to "rogue nations", dissident or fanatical groups and individuals - whose violence, though never worse than that of nations, is judged by the nations to be illegitimate.

IX. We had accepted uncritically the belief that technology is only good; that it cannot serve evil as well as good; that it cannot serve our enemies as well as ourselves; that it cannot be used to destroy what is good, including our homelands and our lives.

X. We had accepted too the corollary belief that an economy (either as a money economy or as a life-support system) that is global in extent, technologically complex, and centralized is invulnerable to terrorism, sabotage, or war, and that it is protectable by "national defense"

XI. We now have a clear, inescapable choice that we must make. We can continue to promote a global economic system of unlimited "free trade" among corporations, held together by long and highly vulnerable lines of communication and supply, but now recognizing that such a system will have to be protected by a hugely expensive police force that will be worldwide, whether maintained by one nation or several or all, and that such a police force will be effective precisely to the extent that it oversways the freedom and privacy of the citizens of every nation.

XII. Or we can promote a decentralized world economy which would have the aim of assuring to every nation and region a local self-sufficiency in life-supporting goods. This would not eliminate international trade, but it would tend toward a trade in surpluses after local needs had been met.

XIII. One of the gravest dangers to us now, second only to further terrorist attacks against our people, is that we will attempt to go on as before with the corporate program of global "free trade", whatever the cost in freedom and civil rights, without self-questioning or self-criticism or public debate.

XIV. This is why the substitution of rhetoric for thought, always a temptation in a national crisis, must be resisted by officials and citizens alike. It is hard for ordinary citizens to know what is actually happening in Washington in a time of such great trouble; for all we know, serious and difficult thought may be taking place there. But the talk that we are hearing from politicians, bureaucrats, and commentators has so far tended to reduce the complex problems now facing us to issues of unity, security, normality, and retaliation.

XV. National self-righteousness, like personal self-righteousness, is a mistake. It is misleading. It is a sign of weakness. Any war that we may make now against terrorism will come as a new installment in a history of war in which we have fully participated. We are not innocent of making war against civilian populations. The modern doctrine of such warfare was set forth and enacted by General William Tecumseh Sherman, who held that a civilian population could be declared guilty and rightly subjected to military punishment. We have never repudiated that doctrine.

XVI. It is a mistake also - as events since September 11 have shown - to suppose that a government can promote and participate in a global economy and at the same time act exclusively in its own interest by abrogating its international treaties and standing apart from international cooperation on moral issues.

XVII. And surely, in our country, under our Constitution, it is a fundamental error to suppose that any crisis or emergency can justify any form of political oppression. Since September 11, far too many public voices have presumed to "speak for us" in saying that Americans will gladly accept a reduction of freedom in exchange for greater "security". Some would, maybe. But some others would accept a reduction in security (and in global trade) far more willingly than they would accept any abridgement of our Constitutional rights.

XVIII. In a time such as this, when we have been seriously and most cruelly hurt by those who hate us, and when we must consider ourselves to be gravely threatened by those same people, it is hard to speak of the ways of peace and to remember that Christ enjoined us to love our enemies, but this is no less necessary for being difficult.

XIX. Even now we dare not forget that since the attack of Pearl Harbor - to which the present attack has been often and not usefully compared - we humans have suffered an almost uninterrupted sequence of wars, none of which has brought peace or made us more peaceable.

XX. The aim and result of war necessarily is not peace but victory, and any victory won by violence necessarily justifies the violence that won it and leads to further violence. If we are serious about innovation, must we not conclude that we need something new to replace our perpetual "war to end war?"

XXI. What leads to peace is not violence but peaceableness, which is not passivity, but an alert, informed, practiced, and active state of being. We should recognize that while we have extravagantly subsidized the means of war, we have almost totally neglected the ways of peaceableness. We have, for example, several national military academies, but not one peace academy. We have ignored the teachings and the examples of Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and other peaceable leaders. And here we have an inescapable duty to notice also that war is profitable, whereas the means of peaceableness, being cheap or free, make no money.

XXII. The key to peaceableness is continuous practice. It is wrong to suppose that we can exploit and impoverish the poorer countries, while arming them and instructing them in the newest means of war, and then reasonably expect them to be peaceable.

XXIII. We must not again allow public emotion or the public media to caricature our enemies. If our enemies are now to be some nations of Islam, then we should undertake to know those enemies. Our schools should begin to teach the histories, cultures, arts, and language of the Islamic nations. And our leaders should have the humility and the wisdom to ask the reasons some of those people have for hating us.

XXIV. Starting with the economies of food and farming, we should promote at home, and encourage abroad, the ideal of local self-sufficiency. We should recognize that this is the surest, the safest, and the cheapest way for the world to live. We should not countenance the loss or destruction of any local capacity to produce necessary goods

XXV. We should reconsider and renew and extend our efforts to protect the natural foundations of the human economy: soil, water, and air. We should protect every intact ecosystem and watershed that we have left, and begin restoration of those that have been damaged.

XXVI. The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.

XXVII. The first thing we must begin to teach our children (and learn ourselves) is that we cannot spend and consume endlessly. We have got to learn to save and conserve. We do need a "new economy", but one that is founded on thrift and care, on saving and conserving, not on excess and waste. An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent, and war is its inevitable by-product. We need a peaceable economy.

The election.

2006-11-08T08:39:00.000-05:00

Well last night went well here in the United States. The Democrats won the House and if Montana and Virginia go there way they'll have the Senate too. This is good news, but not all that surprising. More important though is what the Democrats will do when they take over. Will there be a major policy shift? Will we begin withdrawing from Iraq and step back from other confrontations around the globe? Will Darfur and the many other humanitarian issue become more important? Are environmental issues going to be made of the utmost importance? And there are many other questions that will be answered when the Dems take there new positions. I hope things do change here, and I feel that they might. There is a real potential for good things to start to happen. The NYTimes has a nice guide here for anyone interested in the outcomes of last evening on a state to state basis.

For the 3,060 of them. "Losses" -- Randall Jarrell

2006-11-02T20:44:00.000-05:00

It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a friend,
We blazed up on the lines we never saw.
We died like aunts or pets or foreigners.
(When we left high school nothing else had died
For us to figure we had died like.)

In our new planes, with our new crews, we bombed
The ranges by the desert or the shore,
Fired at towed targets, waited for our scores--
And turned into replacements and worke up
One morning, over England, operational.

It wasn't different: but if we died
It was not an accident but a mistake
(But an easy one for anyone to make.)
We read our mail and counted up our missions--
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school--
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, "Our casualties were low."

The said, "Here are the maps"; we burned the cities.

It was not dying --no, not ever dying;
But the night I died I dreamed that I was dead,
And the cities said to me: "Why are you dying?
We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die?"

New York. Yeah.

2006-11-02T14:40:00.000-05:00

On living in a too competitive nation.

2006-10-31T21:17:00.000-05:00

I am not and will not be one of the competitive, hard driven workaholics who neglect life in its beautifully creative form in order to profit from, build capital with, and network among the boring (and most inefficient) elite. Creativity, in all its raw and wonderful movements, is being and has been neglected. A capitalist nation need not be an autocratic oligarchy ruled by a militaristic fearfull bunch of zealots. Nay--a capitalist nation MUST not work this way! Competition isn't what made America great--it isn't what makes the world economy go round.

Living and working in New York City has shown me alot about myself and alot about the way the economics of extreme late-capitalism effect the average person. The goal of profit and the threat of loss have become all-too-important in the workings of our society. This is not to say that there is no benefit in consumer capitalism or that there is no goodness within the economic system we have set up here. But globalism and a hyper-active market have made corporations trump individuals. The average CEO makes 430 times the salary of the average factory worker. Up from 301-1 in 2003. Up from 109-1 in 1990.

And get this:
In Manhattan, about 75 percent of the people with high-level education aged between 25 and 32 years old work more than 40 hours a week. In 1977, only 55 percent of the people worked the same amount of time

I choose not to fall into this trap. I choose to work hard and love life, but I will not compete. I will not live for profit, but I will seek creative ways to live. I should mention that I'm not advicating anything really radical here--like extreme socialism or some sort of kibutz-type living (although I've always thought that might be kind of fun)-but I am suggesting a different approach and mindset. Life is not a business and we shouldn't try to make it one.

Wendell Berry (who always has something worthwhile to say on this subject) says in his essay on local economy "Sentimental capitalism is not so different from sentimental communism as the corporate and political powers claim. Sentimental capitalism holds in effect that everything small, local, private, personal, natural, good, and beautiful must be sacrificed in the interest of the "free market" and the great corporations, which will bring unprecedented security and happiness to "the many" - in, of course, the future.

"These forms of political economy may be described as sentimental because they depend absolutely upon a political faith for which there is no justification, and because they issue a cold check on the virtue of political and/or economic rulers. They seek, that is, to preserve the gullibility of the people by appealing to a fund of political virtue that does not exist. Communism and "free-market" capitalism both are modern versions of oligarchy. In their propaganda, both justify violent means by good ends, which always are put beyond reach by the violence of the means. The trick is to define the end vaguely - "the greatest good of the greatest number" or "the benefit of the many" - and keep it at a distance."

Poem. I'll be posting tomorrow--

2006-10-31T21:07:00.000-05:00

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front -- Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Paul Tillich on Faith

2006-10-13T13:54:00.000-04:00

"Faith is a concept--and a reality--which is difficult to grasp and to describe. Almost every word by which faith has been described ... is open to new misinterpretations. This cannot be otherwise, since faith is not a phenomenon besides others, but the central phenomenon in man's personal life, manifest and hidden at the same time. Faith is an essential possibility in man, and therefore its existence is necessary and universal.... If faith is understood for what it centrally is, ultimate concern, it cannot be undercut by modern science or any kind of philosophy.... Faith stands upon itself and justifies itself against those who attack it, because they can attack it only in the name of another faith. It is the triumph of the dynamics of faith that any denial of faith is itself an expression of faith, of an ultimate concern."- Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith

Wye Valley, Wales -- near Tintern Abbey

2006-10-12T14:16:00.000-04:00

Sometimes -- Sheenagh Pugh

Sometimes things don't go, after all,

From bad to worse. Some years, muscadel

Faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,

Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;

Elect an honest man; decide they care

Enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.

Some men become what they are born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go

Amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.

The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow

That seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Change, Fear and Hope.

2006-10-11T08:40:00.000-04:00

"The world is changed... I feel it in the water... I feel it in the earth... I smell it in the air... Much that once was, is lost... For none now live, who remember it... It began with the forging of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of men, who, above all else, desire power. But they were, all of them, deceived, for another Ring was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret a master Ring, to control all others. And into this Ring he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One Ring to rule them all.” -- The Lord of the Rings

The world seems to be changing each day with an ever so tenious approach toward some sort of "doomsday". The headlines on the newspaper today speak of tough talk from North Korea, the increasing death toll in Iraq, and more problems with the perception of Islam. Just as depressing is the political situation in the United States--the constant blame game going on here is enough to drive anyone mad. Peak oil, evangelical fundamentalists, homelessness and every other problem or evil we're dealing with these days all seem insurmountable.

It's easy to live in a constant state of fear and anxiety of what the next hour will bring. The post-September 11, 2001 world is more like the days of the cold war and might even be compared to the years before World War 2.--not to sound like an alarmist. Like T.S. Eliot in The Wasteland we ask "Is this what western civilization has led to?" The situation is tense and sometimes a little bleak--but one must not forget our chance at greatness. We must not forget to hope.

We can hope in this changed world, we can hope in the possibility that all that's gone wrong may shed greater light on a new way to do things--we can hope for change. It may be hard to find this hope--but hope is what spurs change. So maybe there is no doomsday ahead of us--maybe we will see great change and a great generation will once again rise up and take action.

"Perhaps once again something is afoot in this darkness that no one, not even the prince of darkness knows about. Who knows? We only go like Frodo the Hobbit into Mordar, not certain of the outcome of the mission, certain only of the mission itself. On the journey we commend ourselves to God, and we rest." -PB

Peace and Power

God's Grandeur -- Gerard Manley Hopkins

2006-10-11T08:36:00.000-04:00

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Choose Something Like a Star -- Robert Frost

2006-10-10T00:45:00.000-04:00

O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud --
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.

Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says "I burn."
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.

It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

On forgiveness.

2006-10-04T11:39:00.000-04:00

"He longed to forgive everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything." The Brothers Karamazov-Dostoevsky

Recently I've been thinking of the idea of forgiveness. With last week's shooting at the Amish school in Pennsylvania--and the act of forgiveness that community was able to bestow upon someone seemingly undeservant of this, I've sought to come to some sort of conclusion as to what forgiveness is and if it really is possible. The overwhelming question is---why do we forgive?

In On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, Jacques Derrida says that "forgiveness forgives only the unforgivable... It can only be possible in doing the impossible." Dan at On Journeying with those in Exile says for Derrida (in this book) true forgiveness must be unconditional:

...and for Derrida this means that forgiveness is a form of "madness" (He embraces this model of forgiveness) that cannot be reduced to any of these other forms or to "the therapy of reconciliation" (i.e. any way of expressing the approach that treats forgiveness as a means to an end). However, in the day to day reality of life one must deal seriously with issues of penance, repentance, and reconciliation and thus Derrida finds himself with two indissociable, irreconcilable poles: unconditional forgiveness, and conditional "forgiveness."

Derrida's dilemma here shows the quandry in everyday life when dealing with forgiveness. These binary opposites pulled from the act of forgiveness represent a great deal of anxiety and tension in the lives of all of us. Do we forgive with the goal in mind of relieving ourself of inner turmoil--or only because simply we must forgive in order to be forgiven? I'd be more inclined to say that these are outcomes of true forgiveness, but not the cause and motivation for forgiveness. But what does motivate us to forgive?

Miroslav Volf in Exclusion and Embrace says openness to the "other" calls for the kind of self-giving that Jesus manifested on the cross--forgiving others even before they have recognized their guilt. This is complicated, though. We are humans and unforgiving by nature. But forgiveness is part of creation--singing through the birds and floating through the air we breathe--it is redemption at work in our everyday lives. Forgiveness is possible and we are called to it. The act of forgiving someone is truly difficult. I don't think I would be one who could forgive the murderer of my child. Of course, there are some obvious parallels here to the Christian story of Christ as God's only son and his death on the Cross--but I won't make this too much of a religious conversation. There are times in life when we forgive begrudgingly--when we're not inclined to do so by nature, but we feel we must. I argue that this isn't true forgiveness. Forgiveness is full acceptance--not a drop less. Back to Derrida's point that forgiveness has two polar opposites within. The madness of true forgiveness is not possible on our own. We must be motivated, called to it by the divine. But there is always a bit of the divine in our nature.

The painting above is Rembrandt van Rijn's "The return of the prodigal son". An image of true forgiveness, the father receives his son and celebrates his arrival. There is no condition in his forgiveness--just forgiveness and acceptance.

So why do we forgive?

In order that we might have hope.

William Carlos Williams "Spring and All"

2006-10-03T13:39:00.000-04:00

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines-

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches-

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind-

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken

Howard Dean

2006-10-01T22:29:00.000-04:00

There is hope for the Democratic Party here in the United States--Howard Dean. Maybe he's not the ideal candidate, but the changes he's installed as the DNC chairman are morphing the Democratic Party into a closer knit and a much more involved party than ever before. There is much potential here. If you haven't already, I strongly recommend reading the NYTimes Magazine article on his recent changes within the party. Some might hint that his changes are doing more to destroy the party from within than they are to rebuild it---but it may be that this is the only way to re-make and re-energize a dying Democratic Party.

Mending Wall -- Robert Frost

2006-10-01T20:30:00.000-04:00

SOMETHING there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:	5
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,	10
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.	15
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.	20
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.	25
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.	30
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!" I could say "Elves" to him,	35
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,	40
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Advice To A Prophet -- and the economics of use.

2006-09-29T08:23:00.000-04:00

I've been finishing up Joseph Sittler's "The Care of the Earth." The book is really a collection of essays on literature and some reflections on church and society. One essay (which shares the title of the book) has this statement by Sittler who is discussing a poem by Richard Wilbur.

"The substance [of the poem] is this: annihilating power is in nervous and passionate hands. The stuff is really there to incinerate the earth-and the certainty that it will not be used is not there.
"Nor have we anodyne to hush it up or power to run away from it. We can go skiing with it, trot off to Bermuda with it, push it down under accelerated occupation with the daily round, pour bourbon over it, or say our prayers-each according to his tactic and disposition. But it goes along, survives, talks back."

And then he quotes the poem: (Advice to a Prophet, Wilbur 1959)

"When you come, as you soon must,
to the streets of our city,
Mad-eyed from stating the obvious,
Not proclaiming our fall but begging us
In God's name to have self-pity,

Spare us all word of the weapons, their
force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left
behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange.

Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death
of the race.
How should we dream of this place without
us-
The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled
about us,
A stone look one the stone's face?

Speak of the world's own change. Though
we cannot conceive
Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost
How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines
are blackened by frost,
How the view alters. We could believe,

If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer
will slip
Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy,
The lark avoid the reaches of our eye,
The jack-pine loose its knuckled grip

On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn
As Xanthus once, its gliding trout
Stunned in a twinkling. What should we be
without
The dolphin's arc, the dove's return,

These things in which we have seen
ourselves and spoken?
Ask us, prophet, how we shall call
Our natures forth when that live tongue is
all
Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken,

In which we have said the rose of our
love and the clean
Horse of our courage, in which beheld
The singing locust of the soul unshelled,
And all we mean or wish to mean.

Ask us, ask us whether with the wordless
rose
Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding
Whether there shall be lofty or long
standing
When the bronze annals of the oak-tree
close. "

After this lengthy poem Sittler replies with his usual ability to relate literature to the real world:

"By sheer force of these lines my mind was pushed back against the wall and forced to ask: is there anything in our western religious tradition as diagnostically penetrating as that problem, as salvatory as that predicament?"

Sittler was an environmentalist -- and so was Richard Wilbur. Throughout his work, and especially in this poetic essay, Sittler is relating the environmental/ecological cause and the cause of usefulness to that of the cause of the Christian. We seek Redemption.

"God is useful. But not if he is sought for use. Ivan, in The Brothers Karamazov, saw that, and Dostoevski meant it as a witness to the holy and joy-begetting God whom he saw turned into an ecclesiastical club to frighten impoverished peasants with, when he had his character say, "I deny God for God's sake!

"All of this has, I think, something to say to us as teachers and students to whom this university is ever freshly available for enjoyment and use. For consider this: the basis of discovery is curiosity, and what is curiosity but the peculiar joy of the mind in its own given nature? Sheer curiosity, without immediate anticipation of ends and uses, has done most to envision new ends and fresh uses. But curiosity does this in virtue of a strange counterpoint of use and enjoyment. Bacon declared that "studies are for delight," the secular counterpart of "glorify God and enjoy him forever." The Creator who is the fountain of joy, and the creation which is the material of university study, are here brought together in an ultimate way. It is significant that the university, the institutional solidification of the fact that studies are for delight, is an idea and a creation of a culture that once affirmed that men should glorify God and enjoy him forever. Use is blessed when enjoyment is honored.

"Piety is deepest practicality, for it properly relates use and enjoyment. And a world sacramentally received in joy is a world sanely used. There is an economics of use only; it moves toward the destruction of both use and joy. And there is a economics of joy; it moves toward the intelligence of use and the enhancement of joy. That this vision involves a radical new understanding of the clean and fruitful earth is certainly so. But this vision, deeply religious in its genesis, is not so very absurd now that natural damnation is in orbit, and man's befouling of his ancient home has spread his death and dirt among the stars. "

John Berryman - Address To The Lord.

2006-09-27T10:01:00.000-04:00

Master of beauty, craftsman of the snowflake,
inimitable contriver,
endower of Earth so gorgeous & different from the boring Moon,
thank you for such as it is my gift.

I have made up a morning prayer to you
containing with precision everything that most matters.
'According to Thy will' the thing begins.
It took me off & on two days. It does not aim at eloquence.

You have come to my rescue again & again
in my impassable, sometimes despairing years.
You have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves
and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning.

Unknowable, as I am unknown to my guinea pigs:
How can I 'love' you?
I only as far as gratitude & awe
confidently & absolutely go.

I have no idea whether we live again.
It doesn't seem likely
from either the scientific or the philosophical point of view
but certainly all things are possible to you,

and I believe as fixedly in the Resurrection-appearances to Peter and
to Paul

as I believe I sit in this blue chair.
Only that may have been a special case
to establish their initiatory faith.

Whatever your end may be, accept my amazement.
May I stand until death forever at attention
for any your least instruction or enlightenment.
I even feel sure you will assist me again, Master of insight & beauty.

The Kingdom of Heaven.

2006-09-27T08:18:00.000-04:00

"Heaven," he went on, "lies hidden within all of us- here it lies hidden in me now, and if I will it, it will be revealed to me tomorrow and for all time."--The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Each morning as I leave my apartment for work, I pass a man reading from the Koran while he sits on the third floor steps. He is praying the Fajr prayer, or the morning prayer. Even though I am of a different desert religion, I feel a special sense of reverence as I pass by him. Always, I tiptoe by, and try to go through without disturbing him from his prayer.

I have always had a great respect for those people who wake up early to pray or meditate and I admire their ability to do this before the day begins.

I don't seem to have this ability to be meditative for very long--prayer is not my strong point. Because of this seeming lack though, I take comfort in what Mother Teresa said, "If you give your life as a prayer you intensify the prayer beyond all measure." Maybe it's just because I'm young and impatient, but I feel that given the choice to be on my knees in prayer or on my feet in life---I'll choose the latter 9 times of 10.

My grandfather was sort of a hybrid of the two. He was one of the hardest working people I have ever met--a construction foreman and master carpenter until age 80. But I remember him outside at 4 am meditating or praying--starting his hard day off with a softness that made him seem invinceable to me.

So I strive for this life of prayer, whether it be a set aside time to myself, or a walk from the subway down 34th street all the while praising and thanking for this most blessed life.

NY Times article on Chomsky

2006-09-23T22:15:00.000-04:00

The Times had an article about the rise in Chomsky's booksales and included this sample of the text from Hegemony or Survival". Thought it might be useful.

"Those who want to face their responsibilities with a genuine commitment to democracy and freedom — even to decent survival — should recognize the barriers that stand in the way. In violent states these are not concealed. In more democratic societies barriers are more subtle. While methods differ sharply from more brutal to more free societies, the goals are in many ways similar: to ensure that the “great beast,” as Alexander Hamilton called the people, does not stray from its proper confines.

One can discern two trajectories in current history: one aiming toward hegemony, acting rationally within a lunatic doctrinal framework as it threatens survival; the other dedicated to the belief that “another world is possible,” in the words that animate the World Social Forum, challenging the reigning ideological system and seeking to create constructive alternatives of thought, action and institutions. Which trajectory will dominate, no one can foretell."

Seamus Heaney -- In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984

2006-09-22T21:24:00.000-04:00

   When all the others were away at Mass
   I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
   They broke the silence, let fall one by one
   Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
   Cold comforts set between us, things to share
   Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
   And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
   From each other's work would bring us to our senses.

   So while the parish priest at her bedside
   Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
   And some were responding and some crying
   I remembered her head bent towards my head,
   Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives--
   Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

FOR THE GOD-HAUNTED: LET EVENING COME

2006-09-22T13:43:00.000-04:00

This is Sermon delivered a few years ago by Pr. Bruce Allen Heggen for Good Friday. I was reading it this morning and thought I'd like to share.

Sister and Brothers: Grace and Peace, from God who gives us life and longing, and from Jesus Christ, our Centre and our Saviour. Amen.

Andrew Greeley, a Roman Catholic Priest, Sociologist and novelist, speaks of the . . . . "God-haunted." He speaks, for instance, of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. "Amadeus": his name means "lover of God," or "beloved of God." Mozart’s music is music of utter bumptious rollicking creative unpretentious joy; it is the music of a playful heart that knows perhaps as much of perfection as is possible this side of paradise. It is music of confidence in the grace and glory of God. Yet as Mozart drew near the end of his short life, the mood of his music changed. Perhaps it began to reflect more honestly the reality he lived: his father’s loveless exploitation of his talent; the non-support of royal and religious patrons; his poverty; his marriage that was growing steadily more unhappy; his loss of health. At any rate, his cheer gave way to something both more melancholy and more profound. Greeley suggests that Mozart had begun to feel more painfully the discrepancy between the perfection he had almost touched in the music that poured forth from his spirit, and the daily heartbreak of his life in Salzburg; his music began to reflect the strange truth of one who senses himself to be a failure in anything that he thought mattered. His music is not despairing; only deeply, deeply sad: it became the music, Andrew Greeley writes, of "the God-haunted [who] think they are failures all the time.”

Johann Sebastian Bach is another composer with a sense of "God-hauntedness." We count his musical settings of the passion story according to Saints Matthew, Mark, and John among the greatest music ever composed. But Bach was not the only composer to write music for the text of the gospel for Passion Sunday and Good Friday. He lived in a time when it was customary, not to read these long chapters of the New Testament in worship; instead the parish music director composed new settings every year, and the choir sang them. Every parish music director: Bach was simply better than most. Still, there were musical conventions for composers to follow, and people in the congregation expected these conventions and looked for them. One convention was for the words of Jesus always to be accompanied by a string quartet. The string quartet was recognized as a sort of "musical halo" that indicated God’s divine presence around the human voice of Jesus. Bach followed the convention, of course: but he allowed his creative genius to change one thing. The words of Jesus from the cross are sung without accompaniment. The sacred string quartet is silent. When the soloist sings, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," he has no support: he sings it alone. It is as though Bach wants us to recognize that at this moment Jesus, the one who came in blessing – Jesus, the presence of God in the world to heal and to save – Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, takes his place with all the God-forsaken: with the failures, the misbegotten, the disappointed, the ones who have had a taste of perfection once and then live in desolate reality – the God-haunted. It is as though the one who came to negotiate our release from the trap of human existence has himself gotten caught in the trap: and so he prays, alone on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" A cry of failure. But he is not alone: he is there in the company of all failures: the poor, the victims, everyone who lives without power: he is with the sick, with the dying, with everyone who grieves, with each prisoner on death row, with each who struggles for justice against enormous oppression and unthinkable odds, with the starving, with the loveless, with those terrified by unemployment, with the homeless, the estranged, the desolate. On the cross Jesus is no longer God in the world for these: now Jesus is here with us in hells of our own making and in the hells not of our making. He takes his place in a God-haunted world, haunted the more for those who once have had a touch of the presence of God and had a sense of what might have been. And he takes his place with us in this singularly God-haunted time: haunted the more because we have had a sense only a few years, or months, or even days ago, that things might take a different course, that a cup might be allowed to pass from us. What lies ahead? Who knows ...

But theologian Walter Brueggeman tells us that if there is any truth at all to the biblical account of the crucifixion and death and resurrection of Jesus, it must mean this: that in the darkest of times, there is something afoot in the darkness that the prince of darkness himself knows nothing about.

Jane Kenyon was a god-haunted poet. Racked most of her life by profound depression, she struggled some days simply to move from the bed where she hid under blankets to the living room sofa where she hid under other blankets. Her husband, Donald Hall, said, "She was unreachable." He could only wait with her and watch. One medication offered new promise; the promise failed. Another medication would give way to the same cycle. And yet she knew moments of respite from hell: in one of those moments a poem came, each word almost immediately in place. The poem was a gift from the Holy Spirit, she said, and she called it, "Let Evening Come:"

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up her chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

I was aghast at noon today when I first heard of the Israeli tanks at Ramallah: is this the final showdown, the beginning of a darkness with no morning to hope for? We don’t know. But the last word of Jesus from the cross, St. John the evangelist tells us, was, "Into your hands I commend my spirit." The God-haunted, God-forsaken son of God abandoned himself to his only source of confidence: we can not do otherwise. Perhaps once again something is afoot in this darkness that no one, not even the prince of darkness knows about. Who knows? We only go like Frodo the Hobbit into Mordar, not certain of the outcome of the mission, certain only of the mission itself. On the journey we commend ourselves to God, and we rest.

Let evening come.. . . . Let evening come: to the Israeli and the Palestinian in Ramallah, to the Hindu and the Muslim in India, to the American and the Taliban in Afghanistan, let evening come. To the sick and to the dying, to the grieving and the desolate, let evening come. To the parched earth and to the orchard-keeper who waits for rain, to the starving and to those who have keys to the granaries, let evening come. Let evening come to the homeless and the jobless. And let evening come to those who celebrate new birth, and to the newly baptized. And to the composer with manuscript and pen, to the maker of music, to the singer, to the dancer, to the harpist at her strings, let evening come. And let evening come to the God-haunted ringer of bells who waits to herald the dawn:

Let it come as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

Amen.

Philip Larkin's "The Whitsun Weddings"

2006-09-22T11:22:00.000-04:00

That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. We ran
Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence
The river's level drifting breadth began,
Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.

All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept
For miles inland,
A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept.
Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and
Canals with floatings of industrial froth;
A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped
And rose: and now and then a smell of grass
Displaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth
Until the next town, new and nondescript,
Approached with acres of dismantled cars.

At first, I didn't notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys
The interest of what's happening in the shade,
And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls
I took for porters larking with the mails,
And went on reading. Once we started, though,
We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All posed irresolutely, watching us go,

As if out on the end of an event
Waving goodbye
To something that survived it. Struck, I leant
More promptly out next time, more curiously,
And saw it all again in different terms:
The fathers with broad belts under their suits
And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;
An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,
The nylon gloves and jewellery-substitutes,
The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochres that

Marked off the girls unreally from the rest.
Yes, from cafés
And banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed
Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days
Were coming to an end. All down the line
Fresh couples climbed aboard: the rest stood round;
The last confetti and advice were thrown,
And, as we moved, each face seemed to define
Just what it saw departing: children frowned
At something dull; fathers had never known

Success so huge and wholly farcical;
The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding. Free at last,
And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now fields were building-plots, and poplars cast
Long shadows over major roads, and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem

Just long enough to settle hats and say
I nearly died,
A dozen marriages got under way.
They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
- An Odeon went past, a cooling tower, And
someone running up to bowl - and none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:

There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Travelling coincidence; and what it held
stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.

Joseph Sittler "The Care of the Earth"

2006-09-22T08:28:00.000-04:00

"God wants people to know the joy and fullness of life in himself--and this joy and fullness is not unrelated to food and health and work to do. And justice, above all." -- from How to read a parable.

Sittler writes this chapter while discussing Luke's story of a great dinner banquet. The invitations have been sent out to the elite, the really successful people--and now the meal is ready--But no one is coming. They all have changed their minds and have something more important to do. One has bought a new field, one has a new wife, one has new cattle and must inspect them. When the rich man who sent out the invitations finds out about their decisions not to come, he commands his servants to go into the streets and fields and "bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame." But there is still room in the banquet for more. So the master of the house says to his servants, "Go out into the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled."

"If there be a Lord, and if he has requirements of people, and his table of freedom-in-love for the salvation of them involves the earthly needs of their common humanity, then there is a theology of history. And if there is such a structured power and meaning and purpose, then the preoccupations of human history (fields and cattle and wives in marriage) can indeed advance or retard God's purpose for his human family. But they cannot obliterate or change it.

"And more! This parable suggests to us that the first and most natural children of this knowledge of the purpose of God are often the first to deny or evade it. " How to read a parable

Sittler comes to the conclusion that the "punchline" in this parable is at the very end. "God wills many things," he says, "but not just many things in a general heap. There is an order in his will, a priority in his purpose."

"But this story makes very clear that there s a steady growl of anger at the heart of the holy, that the love of God for his human family has a hard and resolute intention. What that is, and certainty about God's will to see it through, comes out in the phrase , '...that my house may be filled.' Not our house, but his house; not according to our specifications, but according to his will; not according to our preferences, but in ways appropriate to the awesome carelousness of his love."

From T.S. Eliot 's The Wasteland (ll 19-30)

2006-09-21T14:22:00.000-04:00

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

Perspective

2006-09-21T13:20:00.000-04:00

Joshua at Theologoumenon posted these two quotes from Moltmann and Barth:

“The cross of the Son divides God from God to the utmost degree of enmity and distinction”

Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, pg. 152 (originally published in 1972ish)

“But at this point what is meant to be supreme praise of God can in fact become supreme blasphemy. God gives Himself, but he does not give up being God in becoming creature, in becoming man. He does not cease to be God. He does not come into conflict with Himself…A God who found himself in contradiction can obviously only be the image of our own unreconciled humanity projected into deity.”

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1, 185-186 (published in 1953)

I look at Moltmann's quote as not so much a comment on Trinitarian thought (or his variation of Trinitarian thought), but about the perspective of Christ. In a sense, Christ was not God. He was man. This is what the cross represents--for death does not come to God.
But at the same time, it is difficult to get away from what Barth says in the end of the quote-"A God who found himself in contradiction can obviously only be the image of our own unreconciled humanity projected into deity.” Maybe by taking Christ as man, we are fashioning a man out of a God, but by seeing the cross as a fissure, as Moltmann does here, we are fashioning God out of a man. Isn't this what Christ is?

I think this discussion goes very well with yesterday's quote by Moltmann. The cross of Christ, the Crucified God--sets a barrier, changes the viewpoint and brings God down to earth (but in the end raises him up) to his people, of whom he is one.

Alliances with the powerless...

2006-09-20T13:07:00.000-04:00

"In a civilization that glorifies success and happiness and is blind for the suffering of others, people’s eyes may be opened to the truth, if they remember that at the center of the Christian Faith stands the assailed, tormented Christ, dying in forsakenness. The recollection that God raised the Crucified one and made him the “Hope of the world” must lead churches to break their alliances with the powerful and enter into solidarity with the humiliated."
—Jürgen Moltmann

Like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, we have scales over our eyes. We are all in need of having those removed--in need of our eyes being opened to the truth. In Moltmann's imagery, we must remember a horrific scene--Christ on the Cross--what Moltmann calls the "center of the Christian Faith." That image, Christ dying in forsakeness--should help us remember that Christ was no earthly king, he was not a powerful person. He was one of the humiliated, those (of which all of us come from, but some of us forget) whom Christ lived among and lived for. Christ's ressurection is our Hope--the Church must not forget the powerless and the humiliated.

This Christ-centered viewpoint has always appealed to me. When the Church loses Christ as its center and replaces him with anything (scripture, a minister, a trend...so on), we fail. Like Christ we must live in solidarity with the other.

Martin Luther to the Diet of Worms

2006-09-20T11:48:00.000-04:00

"Unless I am convinced by Scripture and by plain reason and not by Popes and councils who have so often contradicted themselves, my conscience is captive to the word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe. I cannot and I will not recant. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me."

Robert Frost -- The Oven Bird

2006-09-19T22:27:00.000-04:00

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

S'il n' existait pas Dieu, il faudrait l'inventer.

2006-09-19T11:40:00.000-04:00

I've been reading the Brothers Karamazov again and this section of text keeps coming back to me. It brings to mind Jurgen Moltmann's Christology and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life when I read this. The essence of Christianity is hope. But hope and doubt go hand in hand. One cannot be human without doubt. I feel alot like Ivan lately. Doubtful, but full of Hope.

One cannot help but notice this trend in the church today of leaning a little too much on the everlasting arms--we see evangelicals ignoring the world around them and focusing on the end. But, one thing that doubt enables us to do is to make this statement: "I don't understand God." And with this the ability to exist in the present--live a life of Hope and change.

Ivan to Alyosha-- "And I advise you never to think about it either, my dearAlyosha, especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea ofonly three dimensions. And so I accept God and am glad to, andwhat's more, I accept His wisdom, His purpose which are utterly beyond our ken; I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life;I believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be blended. I believe in the Word to Which the universe is striving, and Which Itself was 'with God,' and Which Itself is God and so on, and so on, to infinity. There are all sorts of phrases for it. I seem to be on the right path, don't I'? Yet would you believe it, in the final result I don't accept this world of God's, and, although I know it exists, I don't accept it at all. It's not that I don't accept God, you must understand, it's the world created by Him I don't and cannot accept. Let me make it plain. I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidian mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with men- but thought all that may come to pass, I don't accept it. I won't accept it. Even if parallel lines do meet and I see it myself, I shall see it and say that they've met, but still I won't accept it. That's what's at the root of me, Alyosha; that's my creed. I am in earnest in what I say."

Americans...

2006-09-19T08:52:00.000-04:00

I wish to make the point that the majority of Americans are a lazy and easily fooled lot. And I wish to make this point by refering to last nights riot protest in Budapest, Hungary. Why the people of a small European country can take to the streets and demand their president resign after he admitted to lying and we Americans can't even get out bed on a Saturday to protest an unjust war or a president who is becoming more and more full of himself and power hungry, is beyond me.

We are a country made from Patriots and great rebel rousers. What happened?
French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy, in his newest book, American Vertigo, says he "set out to uncover America’s crisis of identity. The most powerful country in the world does not know what it is, it feels itself in a deep trauma, a deep neurosis." Says an interview in New York Magazine, his conclusion is that America is a curious sort of empire—not like Rome at its zenith or decline—with a particular character of individualism that he hopes will cause the country to do the good it could do in the world. He’s disappointed that we aren’t living up to our noblesse oblige responsibilities. “The reason I am so angry against neoconservatives is that they spoiled the very idea of intervention,” says the self-described Wilsonian. And he’s flabbergasted that the American left can be so accommodating to the puritanism of the right.

I wish we would wake up.

Iran and Venezuala.

2006-09-18T21:58:00.000-04:00

I'll leave off tonight with this picture from the NYTimes today. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela before the Iranian President headed to New York for meeting at the UN. (Which, by the way, traffic was in gridlock--thank goodness I use the subway) Solidarity!.....?

2006-09-18T21:54:00.000-04:00

Also, the title of my blog, "A purpose more obscure", is from a Philip Larkin peom--Church Going

Church Going

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
"Here endeth" much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

Islam, the Pope and anger.

2006-09-18T20:10:00.000-04:00

www.nytimes.com

I know we've all heard about this by now, but I can't help but wonder why two of the world's major religions (both have aspoused violence at one time or another) can't coexist. But that brings me to a point I'd like to hear from you about. My thoughts seem to always be different when thinking about Islam. Is it possible for it to be patient, loving, and slow to anger---and for that matter, can Christianity be either?

New Blog

2006-09-18T19:49:00.000-04:00

Hi there. I started this blog today, Monday September the 19th. I'll be working things out for a week or so before I start updating daily. Most of my posts will deal with existential thoughts--ramblings on theology, poetry, religion, politics and literature. I'm excited to throw my hat into the ring and hope to make a few new friends along the way. Talk to you soon.--Andrew

2006-05-04T11:04:00.000-04:00