.
With its title, "Abuse Tracker" states its objectives and premise clearly on the Internet. There, in brief segments linked to fuller stories, a compendium of negative possibilities is offered ... mostly on the topic of church malfeasance.
It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on .....
Take it with a grain of salt, take it as the flamin' gospel, still it offers another perspective. It does not claim to be unbiased in its mission and that, to my mind, is a blessing: I am sick of oh-so-reasonable arguments that seek to duck their leaning responsibilities.
It's not the whole story.
It's just an important aspect of the story.
.
Friday, July 20, 2012
spiritual addiction and gratitude
.
Not for the first time, I feel the glow of good fortune this morning: How just plain lucky I have been to hook up with a spiritual effort that, like a good mom, threw my ass out the door. Not that Zen Buddhism is the only such format and that therefore everyone ought to follow its directions, but just the good fortune to have found a spiritual persuasion that, of its nature, is built to throw its adherents out.
How fortunate such spiritual pilgrims are.
And how unfortunate are those whose persuasions, like some stereotyped Jewish mom, insist on keeping their offspring at home. That is apostasy in my book -- hypocritical and cruel and plain wrong -- but I don't imagine anyone would be stupid enough to read my book.
Today, a friend sent along an essay entitled, "Is the Church and Addictive Organization?" The essay makes some compelling arguments to answer the question in the affirmative. Human beings have addictive tendencies, both chemical and psychological. Basically, any pretty good thing can be turned against itself in excess. I apologize that I did not read every word of the essay, but I read enough to imagine I had caught its drift. Yup ... spiritual effort can be as imprisoning as it can be liberating and screwing the pooch is a much-exercised and much-loved human skill.
Is there anything beloved in life that does not invite anyone in, ensorcel them, inspire a period of vast zealotry, enfold as softly and firmly as a spider's silk ...? I don't think so. Stamp-collecting, sex, motorcycle maintenance, spiritual life ... same stuff, different day. Hot damn! If you love it, you bury yourself in it and, for starters, it's better than swimming in chocolate mousse.
Addictions R Us.
But not every addiction has a built-in escape clause. Usually, life plays that instructive role, but not everyone is willing to listen to life ... to come to peaceful terms with what once burned so blazing hot. And a lot of spiritual persuasions encourage a less than peaceful outcome -- an outcome in which God and heaven and hell and enlightenment and other salvations play a relentless stereotyped Jewish-mom role: If you know what's good for you, you're never leaving this home! There are plenty of Zen Buddhists who can run this number as well.
But as I read it, the older, more-adult spiritual persuasions (Hinduism and Buddhism for example) do include on their menus a firm reminder: The door that is marked "entrance" on one side is marked "exit" on the other. And this is not just some smarmy belief or some cutey-pie paradox. It points to experiential fact that any adherent would be wise to heed. Not immediately and not overnight, perhaps, but just as an integral part of the latest addiction. Coming home is just being at home and it is nothing exceptional ... it's just how things are ... how they always have been. No biggie.
How lucky I feel that my addiction included a get-the-fuck-out-of-here clause. And how saddened I am to see adult pilgrims living endlessly at home with a 'compassionate' mom. I don't mean to sound uppity or judgmental. It's just how I see things.
The womb that once nourished and cherished and held the fetus close now threatens to smother and strangle the very life out of it ... and the baby makes its way yowling into the world.
I am just another yowler.
And I am grateful.
.
Not for the first time, I feel the glow of good fortune this morning: How just plain lucky I have been to hook up with a spiritual effort that, like a good mom, threw my ass out the door. Not that Zen Buddhism is the only such format and that therefore everyone ought to follow its directions, but just the good fortune to have found a spiritual persuasion that, of its nature, is built to throw its adherents out.
How fortunate such spiritual pilgrims are.
And how unfortunate are those whose persuasions, like some stereotyped Jewish mom, insist on keeping their offspring at home. That is apostasy in my book -- hypocritical and cruel and plain wrong -- but I don't imagine anyone would be stupid enough to read my book.
Today, a friend sent along an essay entitled, "Is the Church and Addictive Organization?" The essay makes some compelling arguments to answer the question in the affirmative. Human beings have addictive tendencies, both chemical and psychological. Basically, any pretty good thing can be turned against itself in excess. I apologize that I did not read every word of the essay, but I read enough to imagine I had caught its drift. Yup ... spiritual effort can be as imprisoning as it can be liberating and screwing the pooch is a much-exercised and much-loved human skill.
Is there anything beloved in life that does not invite anyone in, ensorcel them, inspire a period of vast zealotry, enfold as softly and firmly as a spider's silk ...? I don't think so. Stamp-collecting, sex, motorcycle maintenance, spiritual life ... same stuff, different day. Hot damn! If you love it, you bury yourself in it and, for starters, it's better than swimming in chocolate mousse.
Addictions R Us.
But not every addiction has a built-in escape clause. Usually, life plays that instructive role, but not everyone is willing to listen to life ... to come to peaceful terms with what once burned so blazing hot. And a lot of spiritual persuasions encourage a less than peaceful outcome -- an outcome in which God and heaven and hell and enlightenment and other salvations play a relentless stereotyped Jewish-mom role: If you know what's good for you, you're never leaving this home! There are plenty of Zen Buddhists who can run this number as well.
But as I read it, the older, more-adult spiritual persuasions (Hinduism and Buddhism for example) do include on their menus a firm reminder: The door that is marked "entrance" on one side is marked "exit" on the other. And this is not just some smarmy belief or some cutey-pie paradox. It points to experiential fact that any adherent would be wise to heed. Not immediately and not overnight, perhaps, but just as an integral part of the latest addiction. Coming home is just being at home and it is nothing exceptional ... it's just how things are ... how they always have been. No biggie.
How lucky I feel that my addiction included a get-the-fuck-out-of-here clause. And how saddened I am to see adult pilgrims living endlessly at home with a 'compassionate' mom. I don't mean to sound uppity or judgmental. It's just how I see things.
The womb that once nourished and cherished and held the fetus close now threatens to smother and strangle the very life out of it ... and the baby makes its way yowling into the world.
I am just another yowler.
And I am grateful.
.
"God's plan"
.
In another venue, my thoughts ran to ... "God's plan."
"God's plan" is very much like "everything happens for a reason:" Both are copout ways of addressing life.
If anyone knew "God's plan," they would have to be God and, aside from the certifiably insane or the insufferably arrogant, I know of few people who have that sort of courage.
And if "everything happens for a reason" and yet, in the face of unexpected or unpleasant circumstances, you don't know that reason, how the hell could you claim to know that "everything happens for a reason?"
Still, it is comforting and it is human to fall back on "God's plan" or "everything happens for a reason" or "it is written" or "destiny" or some fucked-up definition of "karma."
Institutions and gurus of one sort or another love to take credit for consoling those in need of consolation with such unexamined nostrums ... nostrums then absorbed and reiterated by those once in need of similar consolation. Like some creeping crud, the word is spread and it informs and consoles, even as it eats away the honest decency and pure light that individuals possess.
Human. Consoling. Kindly. So smoothing and soothing and close enough to the mark so that, perhaps ... I hope ... it is the mark.
But "close" only counts in horseshoes.
And life ain't horseshoes.
.
In another venue, my thoughts ran to ... "God's plan."
"God's plan" is very much like "everything happens for a reason:" Both are copout ways of addressing life.
If anyone knew "God's plan," they would have to be God and, aside from the certifiably insane or the insufferably arrogant, I know of few people who have that sort of courage.
And if "everything happens for a reason" and yet, in the face of unexpected or unpleasant circumstances, you don't know that reason, how the hell could you claim to know that "everything happens for a reason?"
Still, it is comforting and it is human to fall back on "God's plan" or "everything happens for a reason" or "it is written" or "destiny" or some fucked-up definition of "karma."
Institutions and gurus of one sort or another love to take credit for consoling those in need of consolation with such unexamined nostrums ... nostrums then absorbed and reiterated by those once in need of similar consolation. Like some creeping crud, the word is spread and it informs and consoles, even as it eats away the honest decency and pure light that individuals possess.Human. Consoling. Kindly. So smoothing and soothing and close enough to the mark so that, perhaps ... I hope ... it is the mark.
But "close" only counts in horseshoes.
And life ain't horseshoes.
.
neighborhood news (con't)
.
In the end, it was two impossibly-immaculate cops who put a period on the sentence ... the period that, like all periods in life, dissolves into ellipsis marks as life goes on. As they stood on the sidewalk in front of my front stoop, they reminded me of fire trucks in the fire house -- so perfectly clean as to be simultaneously awe-inspiring and utterly ludicrous.
The upshot was this ....
Two or three days ago, Toby, my 50'ish neighbor from across the street, had checked himself into the hospital to get dried out. When he finished at the hospital, he tried to check in to a long-term facility for addicts, but there were no beds available so Toby headed back to the blue house across the street where he had lived for years. But when he got there, his apartment key didn't work. Gloria, the woman had been overseeing the house since she got the owner, Herschel, moved into an old-age home, had changed the locks on Toby's door.
When Toby couldn't get in, he went next door to consult with Joe, my evangelical Christian neighbor who, like me, had his suspicions about Gloria's 'kindly' reasons for moving Herschel out. When Joe heard that Toby had been "locked out," he got furious. When he told me the story, I got furious too. Toby might be an addict and he might have had his scrapes with the law, but he had done no certifiable harm in the neighborhood and deserved better treatment. To top that off, it was illegal to throw someone out of their digs without a court hearing. Joe and I were pissed at Gloria.
In the morning yesterday, two cops (thanks to a call from Joe) arrived on our otherwise newsless street and confirmed that Toby had a right to enter the apartment, but Gloria -- a pint-sized woman in her 60's whose smiling and 'compassionate' exterior veils an interior of powerful self-interest -- was not around to be consulted. It was near sundown when the immaculately dressed second wave of cops arrived. They consulted with Gloria and then consulted with Toby. In the midst of it, they told Joe to remain on his property and basically keep his mouth shut.
The upshot, was this: Toby admitted to the second wave of cops that he had in fact told Gloria that after he got out of the hospital he planned to move to the eastern part of the state. According to the cops, Toby admitted that he had asked Gloria to save and throw away various pieces of his furniture and other possessions. From the cops' point of view, Gloria had done no more than comply with Toby's stated wishes. And since that was the case, any attempt on Toby's part to return to the apartment (to break in perhaps) would be viewed as a felony.
Joe and I listened to the immaculate cops. Joe tried to suggest that Toby had made his statements while in a deranged state of mind. I told him to put a sock in it: The cops weren't interested in speculative efforts at kindness, they were interested in ascertainable fact and the ascertainable fact was that Toby had shot himself in the foot. One of the cops was willing to tell Joe that if Toby sought refuge in Joe's house, Joe would be well-advised to steer clear. Joe conceded that he had no intention of doing that. The other cop went out on a limb and said that getting Toby out of the neighborhood would not be suchs a bad thing -- that getting the house cleaned up and getting in a less-unstable tenant would probably do the neighborhood some good. I bit off my inclination to tell him to grow up.
There is a period on the sentence now and with a new day, the ellipsis marks lay their claims. Joe's indignation and mine were chastened. I am strangely pleased to be chastened -- high dudgeons deserve to have their reins pulled, even when they are mine. And there are some tragedies about which you simply cannot do anything. I do not know where Toby is this morning and if I did, what good would it do either me or Toby?
Which brings to mind my own words, a reminder I sometimes forget: "Just because you are indispensable to the universe does not mean the universe needs your help."
.
In the end, it was two impossibly-immaculate cops who put a period on the sentence ... the period that, like all periods in life, dissolves into ellipsis marks as life goes on. As they stood on the sidewalk in front of my front stoop, they reminded me of fire trucks in the fire house -- so perfectly clean as to be simultaneously awe-inspiring and utterly ludicrous.
The upshot was this ....
Two or three days ago, Toby, my 50'ish neighbor from across the street, had checked himself into the hospital to get dried out. When he finished at the hospital, he tried to check in to a long-term facility for addicts, but there were no beds available so Toby headed back to the blue house across the street where he had lived for years. But when he got there, his apartment key didn't work. Gloria, the woman had been overseeing the house since she got the owner, Herschel, moved into an old-age home, had changed the locks on Toby's door.
When Toby couldn't get in, he went next door to consult with Joe, my evangelical Christian neighbor who, like me, had his suspicions about Gloria's 'kindly' reasons for moving Herschel out. When Joe heard that Toby had been "locked out," he got furious. When he told me the story, I got furious too. Toby might be an addict and he might have had his scrapes with the law, but he had done no certifiable harm in the neighborhood and deserved better treatment. To top that off, it was illegal to throw someone out of their digs without a court hearing. Joe and I were pissed at Gloria.
In the morning yesterday, two cops (thanks to a call from Joe) arrived on our otherwise newsless street and confirmed that Toby had a right to enter the apartment, but Gloria -- a pint-sized woman in her 60's whose smiling and 'compassionate' exterior veils an interior of powerful self-interest -- was not around to be consulted. It was near sundown when the immaculately dressed second wave of cops arrived. They consulted with Gloria and then consulted with Toby. In the midst of it, they told Joe to remain on his property and basically keep his mouth shut.
The upshot, was this: Toby admitted to the second wave of cops that he had in fact told Gloria that after he got out of the hospital he planned to move to the eastern part of the state. According to the cops, Toby admitted that he had asked Gloria to save and throw away various pieces of his furniture and other possessions. From the cops' point of view, Gloria had done no more than comply with Toby's stated wishes. And since that was the case, any attempt on Toby's part to return to the apartment (to break in perhaps) would be viewed as a felony.
Joe and I listened to the immaculate cops. Joe tried to suggest that Toby had made his statements while in a deranged state of mind. I told him to put a sock in it: The cops weren't interested in speculative efforts at kindness, they were interested in ascertainable fact and the ascertainable fact was that Toby had shot himself in the foot. One of the cops was willing to tell Joe that if Toby sought refuge in Joe's house, Joe would be well-advised to steer clear. Joe conceded that he had no intention of doing that. The other cop went out on a limb and said that getting Toby out of the neighborhood would not be suchs a bad thing -- that getting the house cleaned up and getting in a less-unstable tenant would probably do the neighborhood some good. I bit off my inclination to tell him to grow up.
There is a period on the sentence now and with a new day, the ellipsis marks lay their claims. Joe's indignation and mine were chastened. I am strangely pleased to be chastened -- high dudgeons deserve to have their reins pulled, even when they are mine. And there are some tragedies about which you simply cannot do anything. I do not know where Toby is this morning and if I did, what good would it do either me or Toby?
Which brings to mind my own words, a reminder I sometimes forget: "Just because you are indispensable to the universe does not mean the universe needs your help."
.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
the tears of the world
.
Once, it was said, the Buddha looked into the future and wept at the sorrows and strife he saw there. It doesn't matter if the tale is true or not. It's just a truth anyone might acknowledge.
This morning has been a morning of various tears for me. A friend wrote and painted a picture of the Vatican-sexual-abuse he and others had suffered in the past. Another friend wrote to say that his dog -- a big, burly, wonderfully loving dog -- was very sick. And then there was the depiction (noted below) of fellow Americans (and they are hardly alone) squeezed and water-boarded by a lack of employment.
Tears. Some people make a mewling profession out of their vast sensitivities to the world and I don't intend to do that. Others make a profession out of sidestepping the tears of the world and I don't intend to do that either.
But I do think there is a need to enter the sorrows of the world. Without that ability, how could anyone shed the requisite tears for themselves ... and then dry those tears and apply the same yardstick to the laughter and love?
A vastly forgiving and healing god doesn't impress me much.
Living an honest life does.
.
Once, it was said, the Buddha looked into the future and wept at the sorrows and strife he saw there. It doesn't matter if the tale is true or not. It's just a truth anyone might acknowledge.
This morning has been a morning of various tears for me. A friend wrote and painted a picture of the Vatican-sexual-abuse he and others had suffered in the past. Another friend wrote to say that his dog -- a big, burly, wonderfully loving dog -- was very sick. And then there was the depiction (noted below) of fellow Americans (and they are hardly alone) squeezed and water-boarded by a lack of employment.
Tears. Some people make a mewling profession out of their vast sensitivities to the world and I don't intend to do that. Others make a profession out of sidestepping the tears of the world and I don't intend to do that either.
But I do think there is a need to enter the sorrows of the world. Without that ability, how could anyone shed the requisite tears for themselves ... and then dry those tears and apply the same yardstick to the laughter and love?
A vastly forgiving and healing god doesn't impress me much.
Living an honest life does.
.
the booming temp labor market
.
Anyone wanting a sense of the forlorn and fraying devolution of America -- the America that presidential candidates cannot or will not address honestly -- could take a lesson from this Mother Jones article about the temp labor market.
.
Anyone wanting a sense of the forlorn and fraying devolution of America -- the America that presidential candidates cannot or will not address honestly -- could take a lesson from this Mother Jones article about the temp labor market.
.
overlooking the obvious
.
Interesting how willing anyone might be to overlook the obvious ... I mean the clearly obvious... and in so doing to set themselves up for a fall. This is hardly an observation I make from some august and unaffected height. I too have screwed that pooch.
Is there a spiritual persuasion in the world that does not intone, in one form or another, the threadbare, "where the least of us is most affected, so too are the most touched?" Biblically, the shepherd leaves his 99 sheep behind in order to seek out the one who is lost. And there are hundreds of tales in hundreds of languages that tell that story and thus encourage the wider flock to abjure arrogance and smugness in pursuit of peace.
But organizations do overlook the least among them and spiritual organizations are not exempt. They do it in pursuit of whatever the organizational goal is ... or whatever the organizational goal morphs into. Suddenly, what was a much-mouthed cautionary encouragement is replaced by some version of, "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" and if a few eggs get cracked, well, that's the price of progress.
The Vatican's cover-up of priest sexual abuse is one example. Zen Studies Society's machinations as it strives to salvage something from the wreckage left behind by Eido Shimano's lies and depredations is another.
But the failures of organizations simply reflect the failures of individuals and Gautama's admonition comes to mind: "It is not what others do and do not do that is my concern. It is what I do and do not do -- that is my concern."
Anyone can exalt the precepts or commandments of his or her personal persuasion -- don't lie, cheat, steal, etc. -- but with that exaltation, there is often a smugness of certainty that arises with it: This is the best, the most virtuous, the most healthy way and those who deviate are lost. In this, the smugness and arrogance that was once an object of despair is reiterated in new -- good-er -- trappings.
Stop and think: The precepts and commandments describe what not to do, how not to be tricked, and how to get on the straight and narrow path to satisfaction. But by asserting what not to do, the capacity to do precisely those things is itself underscored. Waving the banners of virtue is an indicator that a lack of virtue is a reality that cannot be escaped. Don't kill ... but I do kill. Don't lie ... but I do lie. Don't steal ... but I do steal.
What a delicate, delicate balance. No matter how perfect the perfections attained, still the imperfections accompany them like shadows of a bright light. It's obvious, no matter how hard anyone might seek to sweep it under the carpet.
And the upshot? The best I can figure is this: Pay attention and take responsibility. Attention and responsibility when it comes to "the least." Attention and responsibility when it comes to the "most." Attention and responsibility when making an omelet. Attention and responsibility when exercising or failing to exercise the precepts or commandments.
Just attention and responsibility ... and I have a feeling the obvious will take care of itself.
.
Interesting how willing anyone might be to overlook the obvious ... I mean the clearly obvious... and in so doing to set themselves up for a fall. This is hardly an observation I make from some august and unaffected height. I too have screwed that pooch.
Is there a spiritual persuasion in the world that does not intone, in one form or another, the threadbare, "where the least of us is most affected, so too are the most touched?" Biblically, the shepherd leaves his 99 sheep behind in order to seek out the one who is lost. And there are hundreds of tales in hundreds of languages that tell that story and thus encourage the wider flock to abjure arrogance and smugness in pursuit of peace.
But organizations do overlook the least among them and spiritual organizations are not exempt. They do it in pursuit of whatever the organizational goal is ... or whatever the organizational goal morphs into. Suddenly, what was a much-mouthed cautionary encouragement is replaced by some version of, "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" and if a few eggs get cracked, well, that's the price of progress.
The Vatican's cover-up of priest sexual abuse is one example. Zen Studies Society's machinations as it strives to salvage something from the wreckage left behind by Eido Shimano's lies and depredations is another.
But the failures of organizations simply reflect the failures of individuals and Gautama's admonition comes to mind: "It is not what others do and do not do that is my concern. It is what I do and do not do -- that is my concern."
Anyone can exalt the precepts or commandments of his or her personal persuasion -- don't lie, cheat, steal, etc. -- but with that exaltation, there is often a smugness of certainty that arises with it: This is the best, the most virtuous, the most healthy way and those who deviate are lost. In this, the smugness and arrogance that was once an object of despair is reiterated in new -- good-er -- trappings.
Stop and think: The precepts and commandments describe what not to do, how not to be tricked, and how to get on the straight and narrow path to satisfaction. But by asserting what not to do, the capacity to do precisely those things is itself underscored. Waving the banners of virtue is an indicator that a lack of virtue is a reality that cannot be escaped. Don't kill ... but I do kill. Don't lie ... but I do lie. Don't steal ... but I do steal.
What a delicate, delicate balance. No matter how perfect the perfections attained, still the imperfections accompany them like shadows of a bright light. It's obvious, no matter how hard anyone might seek to sweep it under the carpet.
And the upshot? The best I can figure is this: Pay attention and take responsibility. Attention and responsibility when it comes to "the least." Attention and responsibility when it comes to the "most." Attention and responsibility when making an omelet. Attention and responsibility when exercising or failing to exercise the precepts or commandments.
Just attention and responsibility ... and I have a feeling the obvious will take care of itself.
.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Vatican wins retrial in Merryfield case
.
A Wisconsin court agreed Wednesday with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay that the priest-sex-abuse suit brought by Todd and Troy Merryfield deserved to be retried based on the bias of one juror. Judge Nancy Krueger apologized to both parties for the delay and the expense each side must now incur, but said that "the overriding emphasis of this court must be on the integrity of the justice and jury system."
Todd and Troy Merryfield were 12 and 14 in 1978 when they were molested by the Rev. John Feeney, who, the brothers claimed, had a history of sexual misconduct and yet was installed at St. Nicholas Church in Freedom and was falsely portrayed as safe even though the church knew he was a danger to children. The jury found for the plaintiffs and awarded them $700,000. The brothers did not seek punitive damages, which might have significantly increased the award. They said the truth was more important than the money.
The news story is more a regurgitation of earlier facts than anything else. Among the questions left hanging in my mind were:
1. When is the new trial likely to be held?
2. In light of the expenses incurred by the Merryfield brothers, are they considering amending their suit to include both court costs AND punitive damages?
3. If the Vatican (or Roman Catholic diocese if you insist) decides to contest such cases as a means of deterring future similar actions, is it not wiser to play the kind of hardball the Vatican prefers and make it clear through punitive damages that victims will not be deterred? I don't know the legal constraints or ramifications of this question.
One positive aspect of this probably-painful and definitely-costly delay is the fact that if the Merryfield brothers are concerned with bringing the truth to light, they are being given a second chance to do precisely that ... and the Vatican is putting itself in the position of being seen as manipulative, uncaring and wrong all over again.
The newspaper in which the article appears, the Post Crescent, requires a Facebook log-in instead of offering a wider array of options for comments. I refuse to associate with the phoney-baloney antics of Facebook.
.
A Wisconsin court agreed Wednesday with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay that the priest-sex-abuse suit brought by Todd and Troy Merryfield deserved to be retried based on the bias of one juror. Judge Nancy Krueger apologized to both parties for the delay and the expense each side must now incur, but said that "the overriding emphasis of this court must be on the integrity of the justice and jury system."
| Todd Merryfield, center, Wednesday |
The news story is more a regurgitation of earlier facts than anything else. Among the questions left hanging in my mind were:
1. When is the new trial likely to be held?
2. In light of the expenses incurred by the Merryfield brothers, are they considering amending their suit to include both court costs AND punitive damages?
3. If the Vatican (or Roman Catholic diocese if you insist) decides to contest such cases as a means of deterring future similar actions, is it not wiser to play the kind of hardball the Vatican prefers and make it clear through punitive damages that victims will not be deterred? I don't know the legal constraints or ramifications of this question.
One positive aspect of this probably-painful and definitely-costly delay is the fact that if the Merryfield brothers are concerned with bringing the truth to light, they are being given a second chance to do precisely that ... and the Vatican is putting itself in the position of being seen as manipulative, uncaring and wrong all over again.
The newspaper in which the article appears, the Post Crescent, requires a Facebook log-in instead of offering a wider array of options for comments. I refuse to associate with the phoney-baloney antics of Facebook.
.
divided by a common language
.
It was playwright George Bernard Shaw who (together alternatively with Oscar Wilde and Winston Churchill) was alleged to have said, "England and America are two countries divided by a common language."
It's one of those wish-I'd-said-that witticisms that popped into my mind last night when watching British MP's grilling the security firm chairman who had gotten an enormously lucrative contract to provide security for the upcoming Olympic Games and failed miserably to meet the personnel requirements.
The link provided above hardly begins to capture the BBC's television report, which was rife with decorous and chivalrous questions and articulations that made it perfectly plain that the politicians thought this fellow was nothing short of what an American might sum up, simply, as a greedy asshole.
On the one hand, I am insanely jealous of the Oxbridge-educated abilities to slice and dice the object of opprobrium before he even realizes he has been skewered. It's just so damned delicious and so damned elegant. On the other hand, as with the indirections of the Japanese, I am wary-wary-wary of an elegance that stoppers the honesty that would say shit with its mouthful.
No saying you can't do both or either, of course, but for me it feels in some way paradoxical or at war: The perfectly-aimed rapier and the 16-pound sledge hammer.
Divided by a common language ....
Oh well.
.
 |
| Shaw |
 |
| Wilde |
The link provided above hardly begins to capture the BBC's television report, which was rife with decorous and chivalrous questions and articulations that made it perfectly plain that the politicians thought this fellow was nothing short of what an American might sum up, simply, as a greedy asshole.
 |
| Churchill |
No saying you can't do both or either, of course, but for me it feels in some way paradoxical or at war: The perfectly-aimed rapier and the 16-pound sledge hammer.
Divided by a common language ....
Oh well.
.
tending the flock ... sort of
.
On the Serengeti, when the horny season rolls around, burly male lions will battle each other to see who will rule the pride ... and pass along the most powerful of alpha genes.
On the one hand, these are not battles for sissies. They are serious, pedal-to-the-metal fights. But, if I am not mistaken, there is this to note: However serious the fight is, generally it is not a fight to the death. The fight goes on (and maybe this is true for elk, moose, mountain goats and whatever other species) until both parties reach an unspoken agreement that one animal is dominant and the other animal acknowledges it. It's as if a contract were signed and the contract read: "We both belong to the lion family and we do not heedlessly kill our own, but in this instance, I am bigger and badder than you are."
If you ask a political system or a religious organization to enunciate the foundations of its work, one of the forthcoming answers might be that each is nourishing, protecting and advancing the interests of its flock. But, since each is in a bidding war for the belief and trust and money of often-overlapping flocks, there is a likelihood that they will come to blows. Governments recognize the potential undermining effect that belief in some power other than its own can have. Communists have tried to squelch religion entirely on this basis. Organized religions, for their part, recognize that the belief in and crediting of an authority beyond the earthly realm is essential to maintaining their income and importance. The religion of the intellect might like to remain outside this fray, but I doubt that it can do so.
Yes, both would probably maintain that they are tending their flocks. But simultaneously they both can recognize a fellow player in the game of power. They are lions. The tussle and roar ... but they never strike a fatal blow. Perhaps this is because a fatal blow is impossible, given human nature, but perhaps as well it is the recognition that they are fellow power players, fellow lions ... and the power aspect is an aspect that needs to be preserved if the ruling lions are to dine on humming bird tongues and wear brocaded mitres.
The question that crosses my mind in the midst of this broad-brush, amorphous theorizing is this: When two entities, each alleging its beneficence on behalf of a flock, come to blows ... what happens to that flock? In the heat of battle or in the throes of delicious powers, what becomes of the flock that makes that power powerful in the first place? Power needs to be audacious -- that's part of the reason it's powerful. And yet too much audacity tends to come around and bite the audacious one on the ass. Best to fight hard ... but not to the death. We're all lions here, after all.
I guess this train of thought arose out of the Vatican's vain attempts to assert its dwindling power in the face of a priest sexual abuse that its true and credulous power base finds viscerally heinous. I guess it also arises out of the distemper of the American electorate when ingesting the flailing promises of its political leaders. When the flock finds itself undernourished and underprotected, the reasons for raising the powerful up diminishes.
Over the years, various civil and criminal justice systems have handed the Vatican a get-out-of-jail-free card in accordance with its asserted and credible power. There were enough believers to make it advisable for civil and criminal justice to blur the lines of authority, and to fudge its own assertions that it was tending its civil flock. But now the horny days have arrived and the lions will fight.
Not to the death, of course.
We're all lions here, right?
"Flocks" may sound good, but let's get real.
.
On the Serengeti, when the horny season rolls around, burly male lions will battle each other to see who will rule the pride ... and pass along the most powerful of alpha genes.
If you ask a political system or a religious organization to enunciate the foundations of its work, one of the forthcoming answers might be that each is nourishing, protecting and advancing the interests of its flock. But, since each is in a bidding war for the belief and trust and money of often-overlapping flocks, there is a likelihood that they will come to blows. Governments recognize the potential undermining effect that belief in some power other than its own can have. Communists have tried to squelch religion entirely on this basis. Organized religions, for their part, recognize that the belief in and crediting of an authority beyond the earthly realm is essential to maintaining their income and importance. The religion of the intellect might like to remain outside this fray, but I doubt that it can do so.
Yes, both would probably maintain that they are tending their flocks. But simultaneously they both can recognize a fellow player in the game of power. They are lions. The tussle and roar ... but they never strike a fatal blow. Perhaps this is because a fatal blow is impossible, given human nature, but perhaps as well it is the recognition that they are fellow power players, fellow lions ... and the power aspect is an aspect that needs to be preserved if the ruling lions are to dine on humming bird tongues and wear brocaded mitres.
The question that crosses my mind in the midst of this broad-brush, amorphous theorizing is this: When two entities, each alleging its beneficence on behalf of a flock, come to blows ... what happens to that flock? In the heat of battle or in the throes of delicious powers, what becomes of the flock that makes that power powerful in the first place? Power needs to be audacious -- that's part of the reason it's powerful. And yet too much audacity tends to come around and bite the audacious one on the ass. Best to fight hard ... but not to the death. We're all lions here, after all.
I guess this train of thought arose out of the Vatican's vain attempts to assert its dwindling power in the face of a priest sexual abuse that its true and credulous power base finds viscerally heinous. I guess it also arises out of the distemper of the American electorate when ingesting the flailing promises of its political leaders. When the flock finds itself undernourished and underprotected, the reasons for raising the powerful up diminishes.
Over the years, various civil and criminal justice systems have handed the Vatican a get-out-of-jail-free card in accordance with its asserted and credible power. There were enough believers to make it advisable for civil and criminal justice to blur the lines of authority, and to fudge its own assertions that it was tending its civil flock. But now the horny days have arrived and the lions will fight.
Not to the death, of course.
We're all lions here, right?
"Flocks" may sound good, but let's get real.
.
reincarnation
.
I read the word again this morning:
"Reincarnation."
A word that makes my teeth itch.
Someone is so incapable of straightening out this life that he deludes himself with another one.
Shit oh dear!
.
I read the word again this morning:
"Reincarnation."
A word that makes my teeth itch.
Someone is so incapable of straightening out this life that he deludes himself with another one.
Shit oh dear!
.
neighborhood history
.
In the early morning light, before the sun has risen, four or five squirrels skitter and leap in the silhouette of the Japanese maple in front of Mike and Doreen's house. Each pauses at the outermost limit of one branch or another to nibble on the most tender shoots. Their effect within the tree is to create small, site- specific movements that suggest puffs of wind. But there is no wind in this thick, moist morning. They are the wind and I hope they are getting enough to eat as each hot day piles onto the one preceding it.
Yesterday, after the sun had gone down, Joe was out walking Samson, his bulldog, and I ambled across the street to chat. The macadam was still hot beneath my bare feet. Joe is trying to get his bearings after having recently retired, but, although I like to offer him a sounding board in that regard, the reason I walked over was to ask him, since he is a Christian of some quiet ardor, what he thought about the Vatican's priest-sexual-abuse problems. I wasn't looking for a whine festival, but rather wanted to check out my own sometimes fiery reactions with someone who knew something about the Christian world... a reality check of sorts. My enthusiasms sometimes get the better of me and I like to double-check.
With his pure white, neatly-kept hair and his smile that seems to grab his face like a nervous tic, Joe told me that he had been brought up Catholic but now was an evangelical Christian. He really couldn't understand or approve of the shape of the Catholic hierarchy and was now content to have a direct connection to the God that both Catholics and evangelical Christians claim to revere. There were no longer any middle men and the God of love was on his front burner. This was the God that Jesus had referred to over and over again and Joe seemed to have found a milieu in which to be with others who agreed with the premise. Somehow, Joe said of the priests who had despoiled little boys and girls, we have to learn to forgive them ... to forgive them AND do what needed to be done, i.e., bring them to court or otherwise put up barriers against further depredations.
Mildly, without wishing to rebut or debate Joe's point of view, I suggested that I was more inclined to forgive those who admitted their culpability and responsibility. To do otherwise was to provide a bolt-hole for those in power ... relying on the forgetfulness and decency of others as a means of evading responsibility. Joe conceded the point, but reiterated his sense that forgiveness was not for 'them' but rather for 'us' -- for our own need to heal and be whole. And he reiterated his view that forgiveness was necessary TOGETHER WITH a willingness to do what was imperative as a means of halting further corruption.
Samson was whimpering in the dusk. It was hot still, although the sun had gone down, and Samson is an indoor dog. I mentioned this to Joe and he took a moment out of our conversation to let Samson into the house where it was cooler. Then he came back, but that small hiatus had broken our conversational thread and we moved on to other things.
While we were talking, Mike pulled up in front of his house next to Joe's. "I heard you retired," Mike said amiably after he got out of the car and walked over to where Joe and I were chatting. "Congratulations! I'm next." "Not for a long time," Joe responded as if it were something to hope. Mike, who travels 90 miles each way to his defense-contractor job outside Boston, stayed a bit and then went home.
Across the street Sigrid (I think that's her name) strolled along behind her son Ferdinand who is now big enough to be riding a small bicycle with training wheels. The child, with a head full of pure blond and long hair, zoomed ahead of his mom, who let him roam, but had a close eye on him. "We've missed you," Sigrid called out to me. I have skipped a couple of Saturdays on the peace picket line, partly due to the heat and partly because I have gotten involved in some writing project. "We," that earthy-crunchy word that allows the speaker to remain carefully uninvolved while asserting involvement. I told her the truth, which was that the heat really got to me. "Well, maybe we'll see you when the weather cools down," she said with a veiled reproof cum assertiveness.
Joe told me that Toby, who lives in the other house that abuts Joe's property, had checked himself into a hospital in an effort to dry out. Toby is an alcoholic and once lived with a woman around the corner, Bernadette, who threw him out after he passed out while smoking and burned much of her house down. Toby was making an effort, Joe said, trying to sober up. But when he had finished hospital treatment and sought shelter in some long-term shelter for addicts, the beds were all filled and there was no room for him. When he returned to the house next to Joe's -- a place where he has lived for years under a verbal agreement with owner and Korean war vet Herschel -- he had been locked out. Gloria, a neighbor from down the block who had 'taken care' of Herschel before getting him into an old-age home and installing a relative in his space, had decided that Toby deserved to go. With Herschel, who could easily have afforded to have a nurse visit him at home, carefully disposed of, Gloria seemed to be asserting her rights to Herschel's house. It was an unkind situation: Toby homeless, Herschel trusting the person who had 'taken care' of him, no written contract apparently ... and Gloria moving up on the ownership list.
Without speaking of it, Joe and I had to admit that we did not have what it took to get involved, to step forward on Toby's behalf. Some die that others may live ... and yet it rankled. I think we both wished we had the energy and understanding to come to Toby's defense, although sobriety is an iffy matter at best, but we didn't or couldn't or wouldn't. We felt complicit, somehow, and the responsibility weighed on both of us, a couple of aging dudes whose aches and pains and own lives were about the best we could manage.
Standing on the still-warm macadam, I felt for a fleeting moment the history of my neighborhood. Not really a complete history, but a history, nonetheless ... flowing, as it seemed, from a variety of yesterdays towards a variety of tomorrows. It was like a puff of wind on a windless day ... coming and going and coming again and going again... flowing through us, sort of, and yet not through us ... Joe and Mike and Sigrid and Ferdinand and Toby and Bernadette and Herschel and Adam were it ...
A puff of unremarkable wind.
.
In the early morning light, before the sun has risen, four or five squirrels skitter and leap in the silhouette of the Japanese maple in front of Mike and Doreen's house. Each pauses at the outermost limit of one branch or another to nibble on the most tender shoots. Their effect within the tree is to create small, site- specific movements that suggest puffs of wind. But there is no wind in this thick, moist morning. They are the wind and I hope they are getting enough to eat as each hot day piles onto the one preceding it.
Yesterday, after the sun had gone down, Joe was out walking Samson, his bulldog, and I ambled across the street to chat. The macadam was still hot beneath my bare feet. Joe is trying to get his bearings after having recently retired, but, although I like to offer him a sounding board in that regard, the reason I walked over was to ask him, since he is a Christian of some quiet ardor, what he thought about the Vatican's priest-sexual-abuse problems. I wasn't looking for a whine festival, but rather wanted to check out my own sometimes fiery reactions with someone who knew something about the Christian world... a reality check of sorts. My enthusiasms sometimes get the better of me and I like to double-check.
With his pure white, neatly-kept hair and his smile that seems to grab his face like a nervous tic, Joe told me that he had been brought up Catholic but now was an evangelical Christian. He really couldn't understand or approve of the shape of the Catholic hierarchy and was now content to have a direct connection to the God that both Catholics and evangelical Christians claim to revere. There were no longer any middle men and the God of love was on his front burner. This was the God that Jesus had referred to over and over again and Joe seemed to have found a milieu in which to be with others who agreed with the premise. Somehow, Joe said of the priests who had despoiled little boys and girls, we have to learn to forgive them ... to forgive them AND do what needed to be done, i.e., bring them to court or otherwise put up barriers against further depredations.
Mildly, without wishing to rebut or debate Joe's point of view, I suggested that I was more inclined to forgive those who admitted their culpability and responsibility. To do otherwise was to provide a bolt-hole for those in power ... relying on the forgetfulness and decency of others as a means of evading responsibility. Joe conceded the point, but reiterated his sense that forgiveness was not for 'them' but rather for 'us' -- for our own need to heal and be whole. And he reiterated his view that forgiveness was necessary TOGETHER WITH a willingness to do what was imperative as a means of halting further corruption.
Samson was whimpering in the dusk. It was hot still, although the sun had gone down, and Samson is an indoor dog. I mentioned this to Joe and he took a moment out of our conversation to let Samson into the house where it was cooler. Then he came back, but that small hiatus had broken our conversational thread and we moved on to other things.
While we were talking, Mike pulled up in front of his house next to Joe's. "I heard you retired," Mike said amiably after he got out of the car and walked over to where Joe and I were chatting. "Congratulations! I'm next." "Not for a long time," Joe responded as if it were something to hope. Mike, who travels 90 miles each way to his defense-contractor job outside Boston, stayed a bit and then went home.
Across the street Sigrid (I think that's her name) strolled along behind her son Ferdinand who is now big enough to be riding a small bicycle with training wheels. The child, with a head full of pure blond and long hair, zoomed ahead of his mom, who let him roam, but had a close eye on him. "We've missed you," Sigrid called out to me. I have skipped a couple of Saturdays on the peace picket line, partly due to the heat and partly because I have gotten involved in some writing project. "We," that earthy-crunchy word that allows the speaker to remain carefully uninvolved while asserting involvement. I told her the truth, which was that the heat really got to me. "Well, maybe we'll see you when the weather cools down," she said with a veiled reproof cum assertiveness.
Joe told me that Toby, who lives in the other house that abuts Joe's property, had checked himself into a hospital in an effort to dry out. Toby is an alcoholic and once lived with a woman around the corner, Bernadette, who threw him out after he passed out while smoking and burned much of her house down. Toby was making an effort, Joe said, trying to sober up. But when he had finished hospital treatment and sought shelter in some long-term shelter for addicts, the beds were all filled and there was no room for him. When he returned to the house next to Joe's -- a place where he has lived for years under a verbal agreement with owner and Korean war vet Herschel -- he had been locked out. Gloria, a neighbor from down the block who had 'taken care' of Herschel before getting him into an old-age home and installing a relative in his space, had decided that Toby deserved to go. With Herschel, who could easily have afforded to have a nurse visit him at home, carefully disposed of, Gloria seemed to be asserting her rights to Herschel's house. It was an unkind situation: Toby homeless, Herschel trusting the person who had 'taken care' of him, no written contract apparently ... and Gloria moving up on the ownership list.
Without speaking of it, Joe and I had to admit that we did not have what it took to get involved, to step forward on Toby's behalf. Some die that others may live ... and yet it rankled. I think we both wished we had the energy and understanding to come to Toby's defense, although sobriety is an iffy matter at best, but we didn't or couldn't or wouldn't. We felt complicit, somehow, and the responsibility weighed on both of us, a couple of aging dudes whose aches and pains and own lives were about the best we could manage.
Standing on the still-warm macadam, I felt for a fleeting moment the history of my neighborhood. Not really a complete history, but a history, nonetheless ... flowing, as it seemed, from a variety of yesterdays towards a variety of tomorrows. It was like a puff of wind on a windless day ... coming and going and coming again and going again... flowing through us, sort of, and yet not through us ... Joe and Mike and Sigrid and Ferdinand and Toby and Bernadette and Herschel and Adam were it ...
A puff of unremarkable wind.
.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
the Merryfield case
.
Nothing happens overnight. Usually it's step by step and inch by inch and block by painstaking block.
The case of Todd and Troy Merryfield is instructive. The brothers sued the Catholic church after being raped (at 12 and 14) by a priest in 1978. The jury awarded them $700,000. The brothers did not seek punitive damages, saying that the truth was more important than the money.
The church is now appealing the judgment, seeking a retrial, among other things. Today's hearing in Wisconsin was just a part of that appeal, but a post-hearing news conference video tells more, somehow, than the news story that accompanies it.
These are human beings, not legalistic puzzle pieces, not cardboard zealots either pro or con.
They're just people who breathe the same air I do.
"Law and Order" TV segments are over in 60 minutes ... no muss, no fuss, no bother.
Real life takes more balls.
The church is squirming ... which they damned well should be, though not for the reasons they think. With any luck, in the long run -- with patience and courage, and over a vast panorama of priest-abuse cases -- the Vatican will get a personal taste of the iconography it adores ... the crucifixion.
.
Nothing happens overnight. Usually it's step by step and inch by inch and block by painstaking block.
The case of Todd and Troy Merryfield is instructive. The brothers sued the Catholic church after being raped (at 12 and 14) by a priest in 1978. The jury awarded them $700,000. The brothers did not seek punitive damages, saying that the truth was more important than the money.
The church is now appealing the judgment, seeking a retrial, among other things. Today's hearing in Wisconsin was just a part of that appeal, but a post-hearing news conference video tells more, somehow, than the news story that accompanies it.
These are human beings, not legalistic puzzle pieces, not cardboard zealots either pro or con.
They're just people who breathe the same air I do.
"Law and Order" TV segments are over in 60 minutes ... no muss, no fuss, no bother.
Real life takes more balls.
The church is squirming ... which they damned well should be, though not for the reasons they think. With any luck, in the long run -- with patience and courage, and over a vast panorama of priest-abuse cases -- the Vatican will get a personal taste of the iconography it adores ... the crucifixion.
.
like
.
Nothing in this world is like anything else.
Everything in this world is like everything else.
Sometimes I like it.
Sometimes I don't.
But that doesn't change the facts.
.
Nothing in this world is like anything else.
Everything in this world is like everything else.
Sometimes I like it.
Sometimes I don't.
But that doesn't change the facts.
.
short and sweet
.
The time seems more insistent now, but I suppose it never really was -- the time when people wanted things short and sweet in their daily lives: Just give me the answer and I can be on my way.
Once upon a time, I used to read books by the pound. I never felt luckier than to have a 1,000-page novel in my hands. Of course not all long novels or history books were equally enchanting. "Anna Karenina" was to die for. Jane Austen and Marcel Proust and John Galsworthy were often numbing.
Stand up, speak up and shut up seems to be the trend these days. Facebook and Twitter abound with mindless, but blessedly brief, observations and self-promotions.
Short and sweet. We may ask for it and hope for it, but once having been given it, what use do we make of it? Asking for the short-and-sweet carries with it a petition for completeness, a bid for the 'whole story' ... and when that is given, well, now we know and the topic has worn out its welcome.
Just because it's long, doesn't mean it's any more true (consider the semi-colon as employed by academics). Just because it's short doesn't mean anyone knows squat.
I guess the bliss of ignorance is just another personal responsibility.
.
The time seems more insistent now, but I suppose it never really was -- the time when people wanted things short and sweet in their daily lives: Just give me the answer and I can be on my way.
Once upon a time, I used to read books by the pound. I never felt luckier than to have a 1,000-page novel in my hands. Of course not all long novels or history books were equally enchanting. "Anna Karenina" was to die for. Jane Austen and Marcel Proust and John Galsworthy were often numbing.
Stand up, speak up and shut up seems to be the trend these days. Facebook and Twitter abound with mindless, but blessedly brief, observations and self-promotions.
Short and sweet. We may ask for it and hope for it, but once having been given it, what use do we make of it? Asking for the short-and-sweet carries with it a petition for completeness, a bid for the 'whole story' ... and when that is given, well, now we know and the topic has worn out its welcome.
Just because it's long, doesn't mean it's any more true (consider the semi-colon as employed by academics). Just because it's short doesn't mean anyone knows squat.
I guess the bliss of ignorance is just another personal responsibility.
.
things could be worse...
.
Things could be worse.
Here in the U.S., the sun rises on a day the weather forecaster says will be hot and humid -- in the 90's (F). Breathing is hard for me and my joints ache. Locally, a man who was apparently frustrated that his air conditioning didn't work trashed the the office in the apartment complex where he lives and police were called. Heat presses down, strips away more superficial concerns and ... well, it's easy to see where that man was coming from.
But things could be worse.
A news report states that half of the United States is now living in drought conditions not seen since the 1950's. Crops are wilting. Food and energy prices are likely to be affected. The price of corn has doubled to $7.72 per bushel in the last two months.
But things could be worse.
In Syria, a country wracked by a civil war that western countries refuse to call a civil war, under-equipped Sunnis engaged in a fierce battle in the capital, Damascus, yesterday. They had no back-up as they squared off against the regime's helicopter gun ships and tanks, and wounded men lay in the streets calling out for help where there was no help, according to a TV report.
When I was a kid, insistent adults sometimes encouraged their reluctant children to eat their broccoli: "Think of the starving children in China."
Be thankful for what you've got. Things could be worse.
But as with the broccoli-hating kids, the mind rebels at faraway comparisons -- faraway comparisons that can be measured in thousands of miles or a just a few feet: I don't care if things could be worse; I care that they could be better ... for me.
The sun rises on a day the weather forecaster says will be hot and humid. Its insistence strips away my other concerns. I don't want to be achy and breathless and there is nothing I can do about the 'starving children in China.'
But the sun has not yet gained enough force to strip away the old habit of "better" and "worse." This is not to say it can't or won't. Just to say that it hasn't yet ... and in the interim, I can still make a hundred comparisons and see a thousand contrasts.
Who would I be without my complaints and worries, my sympathy for a guy who trashes the office in his apartment complex? It might be nice to glide around proclaiming, "no worries," but if there were actually no worries, why would anyone proclaim it?
Things could be better.
Things could be worse.
The sun, I imagine, is as patient as I am impatient.
Why anyone insists on stabbing spiritual endeavor in the heart beats me. What good is a corpse? I suppose I could come up with some explanations, but explanations never explained anything.
Hell, I can raise the dagger of "better" and "worse" with the best of them, but that doesn't mean I can't catch glimpses of this mealy-mouthed murderer.
Not everyone has to be as stupid as I am.
.
Things could be worse.
Here in the U.S., the sun rises on a day the weather forecaster says will be hot and humid -- in the 90's (F). Breathing is hard for me and my joints ache. Locally, a man who was apparently frustrated that his air conditioning didn't work trashed the the office in the apartment complex where he lives and police were called. Heat presses down, strips away more superficial concerns and ... well, it's easy to see where that man was coming from.
But things could be worse.
A news report states that half of the United States is now living in drought conditions not seen since the 1950's. Crops are wilting. Food and energy prices are likely to be affected. The price of corn has doubled to $7.72 per bushel in the last two months.
But things could be worse.
In Syria, a country wracked by a civil war that western countries refuse to call a civil war, under-equipped Sunnis engaged in a fierce battle in the capital, Damascus, yesterday. They had no back-up as they squared off against the regime's helicopter gun ships and tanks, and wounded men lay in the streets calling out for help where there was no help, according to a TV report.
When I was a kid, insistent adults sometimes encouraged their reluctant children to eat their broccoli: "Think of the starving children in China."
Be thankful for what you've got. Things could be worse.
But as with the broccoli-hating kids, the mind rebels at faraway comparisons -- faraway comparisons that can be measured in thousands of miles or a just a few feet: I don't care if things could be worse; I care that they could be better ... for me.
The sun rises on a day the weather forecaster says will be hot and humid. Its insistence strips away my other concerns. I don't want to be achy and breathless and there is nothing I can do about the 'starving children in China.'
But the sun has not yet gained enough force to strip away the old habit of "better" and "worse." This is not to say it can't or won't. Just to say that it hasn't yet ... and in the interim, I can still make a hundred comparisons and see a thousand contrasts.
Who would I be without my complaints and worries, my sympathy for a guy who trashes the office in his apartment complex? It might be nice to glide around proclaiming, "no worries," but if there were actually no worries, why would anyone proclaim it?
Things could be better.
Things could be worse.
The sun, I imagine, is as patient as I am impatient.
Why anyone insists on stabbing spiritual endeavor in the heart beats me. What good is a corpse? I suppose I could come up with some explanations, but explanations never explained anything.
Hell, I can raise the dagger of "better" and "worse" with the best of them, but that doesn't mean I can't catch glimpses of this mealy-mouthed murderer.
Not everyone has to be as stupid as I am.
.
Monday, July 16, 2012
self-immolation in Israel
.
From Al Jazeera:
.
From Al Jazeera:
 |
| Fifty-seven-year-old Moshe Silman set himself on fire July 14 in Tel Aviv to protest his dire social straits. |
give me the simple life
.
Monday around here is the day when two large and noisy and battered diesel trucks come by to pick up the garbage. One truck takes the generalized trash, the other, on alternating weeks, consumes either the bottles and cans or the accumulated paper items.
For those who consent to look into it, it can be a rough cob, recognizing how much stuff has accumulated in this lifetime. No matter how brief or how long that lifetime, still there is stuff. Treasure or trash makes no difference: If you dropped dead tomorrow, all your stuff would be somebody else's trash ... coffee tables, socket wrenches, lawn mowers, jewelry, collected works, butter knives, blue jeans, designer T-shirts, vacuum cleaners, socks, Fast Lane passes and souvenirs. And worse than someone else's having cope with your stuff is having to cope with it yourself ... if you consent to look into it.
One good thing about the drop-dead scenario is that no one can burden anyone else with their wisdom or ignorance. Drop dead and that aspect is gone ... except when you get someone expatiating on the transmission of wise teachers or the bad habits of parents. Yes, someone will have to cope with the socket wrenches, but picking up your mental trash is not a requirement.
Anyway, when anyone starts looking at their lives and their accumulations, it can be pretty overwhelming. On and on and on it goes ... all this stuff. How nice it might be to simplify, to strip away the collections so lovingly collected. Henry David Thoreau, here I come!! Day-dreaming by a Walden Pond you've never seen, or, if you have seen it, you notice, crestfallen, that it's just a pond after all... no mystical magical vibes rising from its morning mists, no inspiration or devotion other than that which might equally arise from an average mud puddle.
How wonderful it might be to simplify ... to get rid of all that stuff ... to live honestly and without the constraining accumulations. Give me the simple life!
But of course simplicity is not rigidity and to the extent anyone dreams of simplicity, well, things are not yet simple enough.
I once heard the story of a fellow in New York who had climbed on some Buddhist bandwagon and conceived a notion to become a monk. He quit is job, sold his stuff, emptied most of his bank account, took a train to New Jersey and knocked on the door of a Buddhist center, retailed his recent efforts, and announced that he wanted to become a monk. The monk listening to him looked him square in the eye and said, approximately, "OK ... go get a job."
Detritus, trash, garbage, accumulations of a lifetime, whether short or long....
Mondays are trash days and on this on-coming hot and fetid day, some of the accumulation has been set out by the driveway. What a luxury ... somebody gets rid of my stuff for me. But the other stuff, the rest of the stuff, the collections of a lifetime linger and taunt for anyone who consents to take a look, anyone who is not longer quite so sure that more stuff spells more peace. More stuff doesn't work, perhaps, but does less stuff work? I doubt it. Even monks lovingly described as having "one robe and one bowl" have got their problems, I'd say.
In the old days, the Zen teacher Ummon was quoted as saying, approximately, "When you can't say it, it's there. When you don't say it, it's missing." The "it" may be taken as the ineffable -- the magical mystery tour that others call "god" "tao" or something equally wispy and yet somehow inescapable. Anyone can kid around about "it," and yet, for the (wo)man who consents to take a look, it's a no-kidding-around matter, and taking out the detritus of a lifetime may seem to be a reassuring effort in pursuit of actualizing the peacefulness and clarity of "it."
The only problem is that the more trash you take out, the more there is. Get a job!
Well, Ummon is dead and gone. I may hate it, but my trash is my trash ... or anyway that's the way it seems. Ummon doesn't run some ethereal trash collection firm. That's my responsibility. God's got better things to do than rearrange my sock drawer... or does He?
Tao prattle and toe jam, simplicity and shoe laces, what a mishigas!
There is a difference between taking out the garbage and just taking out the garbage, but I'm damned if I know what it is.
.
Monday around here is the day when two large and noisy and battered diesel trucks come by to pick up the garbage. One truck takes the generalized trash, the other, on alternating weeks, consumes either the bottles and cans or the accumulated paper items.
For those who consent to look into it, it can be a rough cob, recognizing how much stuff has accumulated in this lifetime. No matter how brief or how long that lifetime, still there is stuff. Treasure or trash makes no difference: If you dropped dead tomorrow, all your stuff would be somebody else's trash ... coffee tables, socket wrenches, lawn mowers, jewelry, collected works, butter knives, blue jeans, designer T-shirts, vacuum cleaners, socks, Fast Lane passes and souvenirs. And worse than someone else's having cope with your stuff is having to cope with it yourself ... if you consent to look into it.
One good thing about the drop-dead scenario is that no one can burden anyone else with their wisdom or ignorance. Drop dead and that aspect is gone ... except when you get someone expatiating on the transmission of wise teachers or the bad habits of parents. Yes, someone will have to cope with the socket wrenches, but picking up your mental trash is not a requirement.
Anyway, when anyone starts looking at their lives and their accumulations, it can be pretty overwhelming. On and on and on it goes ... all this stuff. How nice it might be to simplify, to strip away the collections so lovingly collected. Henry David Thoreau, here I come!! Day-dreaming by a Walden Pond you've never seen, or, if you have seen it, you notice, crestfallen, that it's just a pond after all... no mystical magical vibes rising from its morning mists, no inspiration or devotion other than that which might equally arise from an average mud puddle.
How wonderful it might be to simplify ... to get rid of all that stuff ... to live honestly and without the constraining accumulations. Give me the simple life!
But of course simplicity is not rigidity and to the extent anyone dreams of simplicity, well, things are not yet simple enough.
I once heard the story of a fellow in New York who had climbed on some Buddhist bandwagon and conceived a notion to become a monk. He quit is job, sold his stuff, emptied most of his bank account, took a train to New Jersey and knocked on the door of a Buddhist center, retailed his recent efforts, and announced that he wanted to become a monk. The monk listening to him looked him square in the eye and said, approximately, "OK ... go get a job."
Detritus, trash, garbage, accumulations of a lifetime, whether short or long....
Mondays are trash days and on this on-coming hot and fetid day, some of the accumulation has been set out by the driveway. What a luxury ... somebody gets rid of my stuff for me. But the other stuff, the rest of the stuff, the collections of a lifetime linger and taunt for anyone who consents to take a look, anyone who is not longer quite so sure that more stuff spells more peace. More stuff doesn't work, perhaps, but does less stuff work? I doubt it. Even monks lovingly described as having "one robe and one bowl" have got their problems, I'd say.
In the old days, the Zen teacher Ummon was quoted as saying, approximately, "When you can't say it, it's there. When you don't say it, it's missing." The "it" may be taken as the ineffable -- the magical mystery tour that others call "god" "tao" or something equally wispy and yet somehow inescapable. Anyone can kid around about "it," and yet, for the (wo)man who consents to take a look, it's a no-kidding-around matter, and taking out the detritus of a lifetime may seem to be a reassuring effort in pursuit of actualizing the peacefulness and clarity of "it."
The only problem is that the more trash you take out, the more there is. Get a job!
Well, Ummon is dead and gone. I may hate it, but my trash is my trash ... or anyway that's the way it seems. Ummon doesn't run some ethereal trash collection firm. That's my responsibility. God's got better things to do than rearrange my sock drawer... or does He?
Tao prattle and toe jam, simplicity and shoe laces, what a mishigas!
There is a difference between taking out the garbage and just taking out the garbage, but I'm damned if I know what it is.
.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
altar freebies
.
After drip-drip-dripping during zazen this morning, I glanced casually at the altar and the paraphernalia on it. Not fancy by Buddhist-altar standards, but I like it, and realized with a flash that almost nothing on the altar was purchased: Almost everything was gift from one source or another. A gift ... how neat is that?
The black Buddha statue made of African wonder stone was a gift from a Zen friend's mother. The tea bowl used for water came from a potter whom I helped to move. The black incense burner came from another potter whom I did pay ... but I suspect he lowered the price considerably as a kindness. The red-tailed hawk feather was a gift. The Kuan Yin, lower left, comes from my Zen teacher, though technically it belongs to my younger son. The Jizo, lower right, statue came for free after someone offered on the Internet to provide a statue to anyone who chanted the Jizo dharani. The carved, chipped, ebony candle stick came from a flea market at a very modest price. The vase was a gift. And the board above the Buddha statue was lying around in the scrap heap as I built the zendo. I slapped the enso on it. I bought the small candle cup centered in front at Walmart ... in the cheap aisle.
For free ... or damn near for free: Other altars in my memory mind are far from that lucky ... much more ornate, much more expensive, much more imposing. "National treasures" galore.
What a waste of money ... mine and theirs.
And yet pleasant.
.
After drip-drip-dripping during zazen this morning, I glanced casually at the altar and the paraphernalia on it. Not fancy by Buddhist-altar standards, but I like it, and realized with a flash that almost nothing on the altar was purchased: Almost everything was gift from one source or another. A gift ... how neat is that?
The black Buddha statue made of African wonder stone was a gift from a Zen friend's mother. The tea bowl used for water came from a potter whom I helped to move. The black incense burner came from another potter whom I did pay ... but I suspect he lowered the price considerably as a kindness. The red-tailed hawk feather was a gift. The Kuan Yin, lower left, comes from my Zen teacher, though technically it belongs to my younger son. The Jizo, lower right, statue came for free after someone offered on the Internet to provide a statue to anyone who chanted the Jizo dharani. The carved, chipped, ebony candle stick came from a flea market at a very modest price. The vase was a gift. And the board above the Buddha statue was lying around in the scrap heap as I built the zendo. I slapped the enso on it. I bought the small candle cup centered in front at Walmart ... in the cheap aisle.For free ... or damn near for free: Other altars in my memory mind are far from that lucky ... much more ornate, much more expensive, much more imposing. "National treasures" galore.
What a waste of money ... mine and theirs.
And yet pleasant.
.
faraway places
.
No doubt kids see nothing unusual in texting or otherwise communicating on their telephones with someone in a faraway land. If it's what you can do and you do do it, then, well, it's just ordinary, just par for the course. Ho-hum.
But to me, it's magical and the next thing to incomprehensible. Marvelous stuff: I look occasionally at the audience that reads this blog and am astounded at the traffic sources listed. Malta, Tanzania, Norway, Uruguay, India, Indonesia, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, New Zealand ... and a dozen other places I have never been and know little or nothing about. Even if it's just one person and even if that one person is conniving a way to use my site as a way to promote his or her scam ... still, a picture rises up in my mind of some beautifully different color of skin or shape of eye or way of dressing or native language. I may have entirely the wrong idea about it all, but that wrong idea leaves me gasping ... the magician really is sawing the lady in half!
It's just age, I suppose. But at my age, finding something that wows me is pretty wow.
.
No doubt kids see nothing unusual in texting or otherwise communicating on their telephones with someone in a faraway land. If it's what you can do and you do do it, then, well, it's just ordinary, just par for the course. Ho-hum.
But to me, it's magical and the next thing to incomprehensible. Marvelous stuff: I look occasionally at the audience that reads this blog and am astounded at the traffic sources listed. Malta, Tanzania, Norway, Uruguay, India, Indonesia, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, New Zealand ... and a dozen other places I have never been and know little or nothing about. Even if it's just one person and even if that one person is conniving a way to use my site as a way to promote his or her scam ... still, a picture rises up in my mind of some beautifully different color of skin or shape of eye or way of dressing or native language. I may have entirely the wrong idea about it all, but that wrong idea leaves me gasping ... the magician really is sawing the lady in half!
It's just age, I suppose. But at my age, finding something that wows me is pretty wow.
.
what I find admirable
.
For all the years that have passed, I cannot deny that my admiration remains undimmed for anyone at any age who takes the first tentative steps to move from intellectual and emotional understanding to experiential fact.
Yesterday, I got a call out of the blue from someone who identified himself as "David." David said he was married with a five-year-old daughter as he moves forward to obtain an advanced college degree in, I think it was, art history. He's taking a crash course over the summer -- a bruising, essay-demanding course that brought him into contact with Buddhism. His teacher suggested David get off his duff and go out and meet some actual-factual Buddhists, sniff the actual-factual winds that might blow through one center or another.
David seemed to be up for the challenge and as a result came across my name on the Internet and picked up the telephone. We chatted amiably for 20 or so minutes. Whether David will ever show up here I haven't got a clue, but I do know that, in the words of the 1970 movie "Little Big Man," "my heart soars like a hawk" when individuals show some willingness to challenge themselves.
What a delicate and uncertain realm -- to risk comforting bias and understanding and step across some undrawn line into I-haven't-got-a-clue-what-I'm-doing. What if it's all bullshit? What if I go nuts? What if I fall down and hurt myself beyond all repair? And yet ....
And yet the challenge stands tall and implacable in the mind -- put up or shut up... sayin' ain't doin'.
Somehow, I want to hug such daring people, tell them they'll be safe even when I know they won't ... I just admire the courage of it all.
Which is not to say I want to get lost and whine on forever about the courage of it all. There are those who think that admiring pats on the back equate with an adequate personal effort. But my admiration and a couple of bucks will get someone a bus ride.
My admiration rises unbidden. It's purely useless, but I enjoy the woo-hoo of feeling it. It's just pleasant to find something admirable ... very pleasant.
.
For all the years that have passed, I cannot deny that my admiration remains undimmed for anyone at any age who takes the first tentative steps to move from intellectual and emotional understanding to experiential fact.
Yesterday, I got a call out of the blue from someone who identified himself as "David." David said he was married with a five-year-old daughter as he moves forward to obtain an advanced college degree in, I think it was, art history. He's taking a crash course over the summer -- a bruising, essay-demanding course that brought him into contact with Buddhism. His teacher suggested David get off his duff and go out and meet some actual-factual Buddhists, sniff the actual-factual winds that might blow through one center or another.
David seemed to be up for the challenge and as a result came across my name on the Internet and picked up the telephone. We chatted amiably for 20 or so minutes. Whether David will ever show up here I haven't got a clue, but I do know that, in the words of the 1970 movie "Little Big Man," "my heart soars like a hawk" when individuals show some willingness to challenge themselves.
What a delicate and uncertain realm -- to risk comforting bias and understanding and step across some undrawn line into I-haven't-got-a-clue-what-I'm-doing. What if it's all bullshit? What if I go nuts? What if I fall down and hurt myself beyond all repair? And yet ....
And yet the challenge stands tall and implacable in the mind -- put up or shut up... sayin' ain't doin'.
Somehow, I want to hug such daring people, tell them they'll be safe even when I know they won't ... I just admire the courage of it all.
Which is not to say I want to get lost and whine on forever about the courage of it all. There are those who think that admiring pats on the back equate with an adequate personal effort. But my admiration and a couple of bucks will get someone a bus ride.
My admiration rises unbidden. It's purely useless, but I enjoy the woo-hoo of feeling it. It's just pleasant to find something admirable ... very pleasant.
.
hounded by nonsense
.
Today, on the Totally Useless Information bulletin board in my mind, someone had tacked the following query:
If you believe in something, you set up a relationship with it. You distinguish it as something to believe in. You assert its separation.
And the same is true for disbelief -- same stuff, different wrapping paper.
What I wonder is this: If you believe in something, does what you believe in believe in you? When I look around, within or without, I can't find a single thing that I believe in that -- for a certainty -- reciprocates my belief.
And if this bubble-gum chewing is accurate, then is it reasonable to assert that there is nothing wrong with what is believed in, but believing in it is a fool's errand?
The things I believe in don't seem to be hounded by nonsense. Is there some reason why I should continue to be?
.
Today, on the Totally Useless Information bulletin board in my mind, someone had tacked the following query:
If you believe in something, you set up a relationship with it. You distinguish it as something to believe in. You assert its separation.
And the same is true for disbelief -- same stuff, different wrapping paper.
What I wonder is this: If you believe in something, does what you believe in believe in you? When I look around, within or without, I can't find a single thing that I believe in that -- for a certainty -- reciprocates my belief.
And if this bubble-gum chewing is accurate, then is it reasonable to assert that there is nothing wrong with what is believed in, but believing in it is a fool's errand?
The things I believe in don't seem to be hounded by nonsense. Is there some reason why I should continue to be?
.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
the rule of law
.
When, on Christmas Day, 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was dissolved, American businessmen began licking their chops: 15 brand new, autonomous regions ripe for McDonald's and The Gap and profits galore. And they tried to gain a capitalist toe hold and in many instances failed. Why? A significant part of the reason was because there was no established rule of law and because the corruptions most businesses understand are the price of doing business were too diffuse and too irrational and too insistent. The price of doing business was too high.
The rule of law ... how easily we take it for granted, however corrupt it may be. The rule of law: What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; a civil society rests on its rule of law or risks falling apart ... into anarchy ... or perhaps dictatorship.
In May of this year, Wisconsin brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield were awarded $700,000 after having been molested by the Rev. John Feeney in 1978. The boys were 12 and 14 at the time. Feeney was sentenced in 2004. The brothers decided after the verdict not to seek punitive damages. They said the case was about the truth, not money, according to a story from the (Appleton, Wisc.) Post-Crescent.
On Friday, the Catholic Diocese was back in court asking that the verdict be overturned and a new trial granted. The amount was excessive and Feeney's transfer from one parish to another was not sufficient evidence that the diocese knew of Feeney's pedophile proclivities. If the diocese didn't know, how could they reasonably be asked to pay the fine? There was, in addition, an allegation of a biased juror.
Interesting phrase, "broad latitude." An institution that lives under the protection of civil law and civil authority is granted "broad latitude" in its affairs even when those affairs cross lines that civil authority might not grant to its individual citizens. Or, more bluntly, if I screw little boys or support the circumstances in which little boys might get screwed, I can be sent to prison, where inmates look on kiddie rapers as the scum of the earth. But if the same act takes place within the confines of a religious organization, the organization is allowed to police its own ... if policing is what they actually do.
The specific cases of priest sexual abuse are often clouded by the fact that actual instances of molestation take place in private and thus -- should the church choose to lie or clam up -- the cases fall into the category of he-said-she-said. But when the evidence -- circumstantial or otherwise -- mounts and mounts and mounts ... well, at what point do the scales tip and it become axiomatic that allegations of child-molestation are more likely true than false? At what point does the civil authority muster its courage and say that such depredations within a much-protected institution are beyond the pale and then withdraw that protection? At what point does a society and its legal system recognize they have become complicit in a heinousness they claim, by law, to abhor? It's all a bit like saying that the Mafia does not rely on cold-blooded murder for its power ... that, oh well, they don't always kill people ... sometimes they just break a few kneecaps and therefore are not that bad. Just look at all the good the Vatican does.
The case of the Merryfield brothers is as instructive as it is poignant. An institution whose canon law forms the foundation of its being -- its claims to a righteous and virtuous and God-fearing goodness -- uses that law to shield the institution from responsibility or complicity in priest sexual abuse. And that institution expects the civil authority to accede to its Bible-totin' judgment. The argument, sub rosa, seems to be: We are good because we say we are good and you damned well better believe it.
How unconscionably arrogant. But more important, how contrary to the rule of law.
It certainly has nothing to do with an honest spiritual life.
PS. Once again, I am beholden to Bill Lindsey's Bilgrimage blog for pointing out the Merryfield story.
.
When, on Christmas Day, 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was dissolved, American businessmen began licking their chops: 15 brand new, autonomous regions ripe for McDonald's and The Gap and profits galore. And they tried to gain a capitalist toe hold and in many instances failed. Why? A significant part of the reason was because there was no established rule of law and because the corruptions most businesses understand are the price of doing business were too diffuse and too irrational and too insistent. The price of doing business was too high.
The rule of law ... how easily we take it for granted, however corrupt it may be. The rule of law: What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; a civil society rests on its rule of law or risks falling apart ... into anarchy ... or perhaps dictatorship.
In May of this year, Wisconsin brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield were awarded $700,000 after having been molested by the Rev. John Feeney in 1978. The boys were 12 and 14 at the time. Feeney was sentenced in 2004. The brothers decided after the verdict not to seek punitive damages. They said the case was about the truth, not money, according to a story from the (Appleton, Wisc.) Post-Crescent.
The brothers claimed the diocese knew of the Rev. John Feeney’s illicit sexual history when it installed him as a priest at Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church and misrepresented him as safe while knowing he was a danger to children.
Todd Merryfield hugs his father, Dan, on May 21 |
“Nor could they [the diocese], as the assignment of a priest is a canonical act which the civil courts may not evaluate or explain,” [diocese lawyer Sarah Fry Bruch] wrote. The First Amendment gives broad latitude to religious organizations in the conduct of their internal affairs. (emphasis added)Judge Nancy Krueger will hold a hearing on the diocesan assertions next Tuesday.
Interesting phrase, "broad latitude." An institution that lives under the protection of civil law and civil authority is granted "broad latitude" in its affairs even when those affairs cross lines that civil authority might not grant to its individual citizens. Or, more bluntly, if I screw little boys or support the circumstances in which little boys might get screwed, I can be sent to prison, where inmates look on kiddie rapers as the scum of the earth. But if the same act takes place within the confines of a religious organization, the organization is allowed to police its own ... if policing is what they actually do.
The specific cases of priest sexual abuse are often clouded by the fact that actual instances of molestation take place in private and thus -- should the church choose to lie or clam up -- the cases fall into the category of he-said-she-said. But when the evidence -- circumstantial or otherwise -- mounts and mounts and mounts ... well, at what point do the scales tip and it become axiomatic that allegations of child-molestation are more likely true than false? At what point does the civil authority muster its courage and say that such depredations within a much-protected institution are beyond the pale and then withdraw that protection? At what point does a society and its legal system recognize they have become complicit in a heinousness they claim, by law, to abhor? It's all a bit like saying that the Mafia does not rely on cold-blooded murder for its power ... that, oh well, they don't always kill people ... sometimes they just break a few kneecaps and therefore are not that bad. Just look at all the good the Vatican does.
The case of the Merryfield brothers is as instructive as it is poignant. An institution whose canon law forms the foundation of its being -- its claims to a righteous and virtuous and God-fearing goodness -- uses that law to shield the institution from responsibility or complicity in priest sexual abuse. And that institution expects the civil authority to accede to its Bible-totin' judgment. The argument, sub rosa, seems to be: We are good because we say we are good and you damned well better believe it.
How unconscionably arrogant. But more important, how contrary to the rule of law.
It certainly has nothing to do with an honest spiritual life.
PS. Once again, I am beholden to Bill Lindsey's Bilgrimage blog for pointing out the Merryfield story.
.
freedom
.
"Freedom" is a slippery word. Anyone might claim to know its meaning and yet its meaning slips between the mental fingers like water. Sometimes the "freedom" suggested or even promised by spiritual endeavor is forgetful of the quite mundane and sometimes painful roots of a daily life. This sanguine forgetfulness is fraught with enslaved consequences.
The following video was lifted from Bill Lindsey's Bilgrimage blog. The particular focus of Bill's entry is religious freedom, and, more specifically, religious intolerance. But he included the video and I boosted it.
.
"Freedom" is a slippery word. Anyone might claim to know its meaning and yet its meaning slips between the mental fingers like water. Sometimes the "freedom" suggested or even promised by spiritual endeavor is forgetful of the quite mundane and sometimes painful roots of a daily life. This sanguine forgetfulness is fraught with enslaved consequences.
The following video was lifted from Bill Lindsey's Bilgrimage blog. The particular focus of Bill's entry is religious freedom, and, more specifically, religious intolerance. But he included the video and I boosted it.
.
the 'important' factor
.
If it's true at all, then of how many things, if any, is it ...?
The less important you make anything, the more important it becomes.
The thought popped up while I was thinking about Zen Buddhism, but maybe I should have been thinking about other things as well.
.
If it's true at all, then of how many things, if any, is it ...?
The less important you make anything, the more important it becomes.
The thought popped up while I was thinking about Zen Buddhism, but maybe I should have been thinking about other things as well.
.
statistics
.
Morning.
With its belly low to the ground -- like a lion creeping up on some unwary gazelle -- the heat and humidity seep into the day once more.
Without air conditioning, I would be consigned to the status of a wet wash cloth ... limp, almost lifeless, and overwhelmed.
Out in the bread basket of the United States, farmers are looking at as much as a 50% loss of their corn crops ... that's how long the rain has held off at a time when fruition begs for water.
In Washington and on Wall Street, men are comfortable in their suits, untroubled by the infernos that afflict others. Gazelles are gazelles, after all, and you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.
Stalin didn't say it, but still, "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
.
With its belly low to the ground -- like a lion creeping up on some unwary gazelle -- the heat and humidity seep into the day once more.
Without air conditioning, I would be consigned to the status of a wet wash cloth ... limp, almost lifeless, and overwhelmed.
Out in the bread basket of the United States, farmers are looking at as much as a 50% loss of their corn crops ... that's how long the rain has held off at a time when fruition begs for water.
In Washington and on Wall Street, men are comfortable in their suits, untroubled by the infernos that afflict others. Gazelles are gazelles, after all, and you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.
Stalin didn't say it, but still, "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
.
"King of Devil's Island"
.
A friend passed along a movie suggestion, and I was skeptical. The title, "King of Devil's Island," sounded like some high-school version of zombies or biker gangs or teenaged hi-jinks. What a C-minus title in my mind.
But the 2010 movie was beautifully photographed and there was human mystery and sentiment in it ... there was meat on the bone. "King of Devil's Island," tells the tale (in Norwegian with subtitles) of a group of boys, 11-18, incarcerated at the Bastøy reformatory on an island at the beginning of the 20th century. One boy has been on the island for six years for stealing money from a church-donation box, but the movie is not some hand-wringing tale of knee-jerk injustice. It is a tale of low-key and compelling humanity among human beings. The movie (which builds to a rebellion that was real) is based on an institution that was real but has since been shut down.
How nice to see a movie that declines to skip over the intricacies of the human heart and simultaneously declines to whine or whimper or send a 'message' about those intricacies. The movie is not perfect, but I was delighted to see it, delighted not to recognize a single face, and delighted not to be insulted by a style passing for substance.
.
A friend passed along a movie suggestion, and I was skeptical. The title, "King of Devil's Island," sounded like some high-school version of zombies or biker gangs or teenaged hi-jinks. What a C-minus title in my mind.
But the 2010 movie was beautifully photographed and there was human mystery and sentiment in it ... there was meat on the bone. "King of Devil's Island," tells the tale (in Norwegian with subtitles) of a group of boys, 11-18, incarcerated at the Bastøy reformatory on an island at the beginning of the 20th century. One boy has been on the island for six years for stealing money from a church-donation box, but the movie is not some hand-wringing tale of knee-jerk injustice. It is a tale of low-key and compelling humanity among human beings. The movie (which builds to a rebellion that was real) is based on an institution that was real but has since been shut down.
How nice to see a movie that declines to skip over the intricacies of the human heart and simultaneously declines to whine or whimper or send a 'message' about those intricacies. The movie is not perfect, but I was delighted to see it, delighted not to recognize a single face, and delighted not to be insulted by a style passing for substance.
.
the answer to everything
.
I have heard that scientists sometimes call water the closest thing available to "the universal solvent."
Emmanuel Kant, the German philosopher, once suggested approximately, "Act so that the maxim of your action may be taken as a universal law."
And along the shelves of spiritual and self-help books, "love" and "God" and "freedom" and "peace" and "compassion" and "enlightenment" extend enfolding arms ... this is the 'it' anyone might be seeking, the single answer to numberless questions, the solution to all of the equations of doubt and uncertainty and strife.
Everything ... where is the answer to everything, the unfailing joker in life's limitless deck, the assertion and response that brings surcease and understanding and a raking in of all the poker chips?
The longing, little and large, to wrap up situations or life in general ... what a strange and insistent proclivity. It is as if, because there are so many questions, there absolutely 'must' be an answer. Limitless questions ... the grains of sand in the Gobi, the drops of water in the oceans, the number of stars in the sky, the 'God particle' of matter, the number of forks in the kitchen drawer ... everything....
Limitless 'everything' seems to incite a determination to hold in the palm of the hand an answer that provokes no further questions ... a joker, a universal solvent, a touchstone of untroubled certainty, a perfect mom. Some may joke that the answer to everything is "42," but the smile has no staying power.
Strange to think that in the search for some unlimited something-or-other, the first and only response mechanism is to limit things. No one ever said that human beings had to be sensible in their heart-felt quests ... but still ... after a while ... really ... aren't "limited" and "unlimited" a bit tiring?
It's all utterly personal, of course (no religious fortune cookies or or philosophers or wise men need apply), but still, isn't being tired a bit tiring?
Limiting the unlimited, unlimiting the limited ... c'mere and I'll give you a big wet smacker!
.
I have heard that scientists sometimes call water the closest thing available to "the universal solvent."
Emmanuel Kant, the German philosopher, once suggested approximately, "Act so that the maxim of your action may be taken as a universal law."
And along the shelves of spiritual and self-help books, "love" and "God" and "freedom" and "peace" and "compassion" and "enlightenment" extend enfolding arms ... this is the 'it' anyone might be seeking, the single answer to numberless questions, the solution to all of the equations of doubt and uncertainty and strife.
Everything ... where is the answer to everything, the unfailing joker in life's limitless deck, the assertion and response that brings surcease and understanding and a raking in of all the poker chips?
The longing, little and large, to wrap up situations or life in general ... what a strange and insistent proclivity. It is as if, because there are so many questions, there absolutely 'must' be an answer. Limitless questions ... the grains of sand in the Gobi, the drops of water in the oceans, the number of stars in the sky, the 'God particle' of matter, the number of forks in the kitchen drawer ... everything....
Limitless 'everything' seems to incite a determination to hold in the palm of the hand an answer that provokes no further questions ... a joker, a universal solvent, a touchstone of untroubled certainty, a perfect mom. Some may joke that the answer to everything is "42," but the smile has no staying power.
Strange to think that in the search for some unlimited something-or-other, the first and only response mechanism is to limit things. No one ever said that human beings had to be sensible in their heart-felt quests ... but still ... after a while ... really ... aren't "limited" and "unlimited" a bit tiring?
It's all utterly personal, of course (no religious fortune cookies or or philosophers or wise men need apply), but still, isn't being tired a bit tiring?
Limiting the unlimited, unlimiting the limited ... c'mere and I'll give you a big wet smacker!
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)