a liberal faith perspective
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious ... the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science." - Albert Einstein
Pagan Island, Northern Mariana Islands
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| April 6th, 2007 8:37AM 17 55%
22% 11windchill
bar, steady 3mph partly cloudy, sunny, cold
windrose shows NWN Waning Gibbous* Moon Lent When I was a boy, Good Friday meant at least the afternoon off, three hours in church and a sense that time had shifted somehow, gone backwards or come forwards. Devout boy that I was I loved those long services contemplating the crucifixion and the whole story around it. It's difficult to reach back into that pre-teen and early teen me. I can't recall the architecture of my faith, though I can recall the ease with which I slipped into the dark varnished pew. The delight of prayer, head down, focused on the inner voice. Feeling my way into the tragedy and horror of Good Friday so Easter could shine at the sunrise service. Those days formed the man I am now, but they shaped me for a different pilgrimage, one I walk now not to Golgotha on Good Friday, but out to the beds of my just emerging plants, battered by cold, but I hope strong enough. That is not to say there is no crucifixion in my faith: consider the Great Banks fisheries, Love Canal, the constraints on the Colorado River, water tables down by over 200 feet in northern China, the bleaching of the coral reefs, the melting of the glaciers. It is also not to say that there is no resurrection either: the gray wolf in Minnesota, the new national monument on the western edge of the Hawaiian archipelago, more sensitive warning systems for tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and the removal of dams in the western US. In memory of Jesus, now called by many, the Christ.
Frida Kahlo's painting, "The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Diego, Me and Senor Xolotl”
In Aztec and Toltec mythology, Xolotl is the god of lightning who guides
the dead to the Mictlan.
The Aztec regard him as the twin brother of Quetzalcoatl.
As lord of the evening star and personification of Venus, he pushes the
sun at sunset towards the ocean and guards her during the night on her
dangerous journey through the underworld. Xolotl is represented as a
skeleton, or as a man with the head of a dog.
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| April 5th, 2007 10:08pM 22 46%
21% 19windchill
bar, steady 4mph cloudy, cold
windrose shows NWN Waning Gibbous* Moon Lent Tomorrow is Good Friday. The crucifixion and entombment of Jesus, who, according to Tillich, became the Christ because others believed he did. His act of negating himself, instead of accepting the temptations in the desert, makes the ideal religious symbol, since it means the Christ can never be triumphalistic. In effect the Christ stands as a permanent Protestant Principle, the ongoing memory of critique and humility at the core of God's love for humankind. On the 22nd I have a sermon on death. It's initial focus will be on Yama, the Tibetan Buddhist god of death, meditation upon whom frees us from the fear of our own death. Later, it will become an essay in a liberal faith position about death and the afterlife. As sermons do, it has concentrated my mind on death. Susan Sternfels is in hospice. Kate's work has had a pancreatic cancer death and over the weekend, the sudden crisis of a 36 year old lab tech which ended just today in her death. Kate said everyone hugged one another. The mood at work was mournful. As Sartaj says in Sacred Games: We are all walking on this journey and we drop one by one. Tillich as an existentialist makes a lot of sense to me. He says our awareness of death creates an "ontological shock" the result of which is anxiety, despair, and, sometimes, dread. It is this inescapable experience of our finitude that makes us realize our existential estrangement from God, from each other, and even from ourselves. It also forces us to look within ourselves for the ground of being, the source of our ultimate concern. Tillich believes we can reach the source by penetrating beneath our subjective experience and into our immediate experience of that which gives us existence, the source or ground of our being. This is the hopeful part of the existential dilemma. |
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March 25th, 2007 10:58AM 67 74%H 34I 58dewpoint bar, steep fall 3mph
windrose shows SSE Reading Tillich has stirred up my ongoing faith journey, as I suspected and hoped. It has done two things for me personally: 1. It has challenged my rejection of Christianity for its notion of exclusive salvation. Tillich shows that what I rejected was not God, but a distortion of the religious symbol, corrupted by a legalistic doctrine. 2. This does not lead back into the fold. Instead I found Tillich's description of exclusivist monotheism: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and transcendent or mystical monotheism: Hinduism, Taoism. I have moved from the exclusivist monotheism of Christianity to the mystical monotheism of Taoism. I have come down in a new place without angst. I am now a Taoist living in North America, a Taoist without religious affiliation, rather a Taoist with philosophical affiliation to the ancient faith. What Tillich has shown me is that my ultimate concern, the relation of humans to the earth, is a Taoist expression of ultimate concern with the Tao, that is, said another way, the ground of all being. Thus, I have found a faith home for myself and no longer need fear damnation, that is, a fragmented personality. This is where the Druid in me comes alive. Quite a lot out of reading one book, but that's the way my life goes. |
| February 25th, 2007 11:29AM 28 89%H 24I
23windchill
bar, steady 3mph
windrose shows NNE winds light snow
falls
First Quarter of the Moon of Winds The Christian liturgical season of Lent A bit more snow. Not much. The transformation of the landscape into curves and white undulations has finished for now, though winds will continue to sculpt one of nature's most pliable products. Reading Tillich still. The stuff in the God section I'm on right now I find less enthralling, more filled with argument that seems unfinished or uncertain.. Part of this is his necessary movement back and forth over the many, many positions already staked out by, say, Augustine, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Karl Barth, Luther, or Calvin. Part of it is my lack of investment in the outcome. I have to read these sections for the logic and the clever ideas since my existential engagement has waned over the years. post:faith |
| February 18th, 2007 12:13PM 17 59%H
21I 16windchill
bar, falls 2mph
windrose shows NE/E winds light snow
New Moon The Christian liturgical season
of Epiphany (ends 2/21/07 on Ash Wednesday) Quinquagesima Sunday
- Shrove Sunday Finished the Tillich reading for Tuesday. He is very clear though I do not always understand. He has given me something to turn over relative to my personal faith position. He sees Jesus Christ as the final revelation. And, yes, at first this seems to mean all the things that give me trouble. An exclusive, superior claim. Period. But, he says that the medium of revelation must never be confused with the revelation and the final revelation through the medium of Jesus Christ is of the ground of being, (the love at the center of a living universe--these are my words here.) If I read Tillich as he meant to be read, there is a possible link between my revelation (both miraculous and ecstatic using Tillich's definitions) of the living universe. I had this revelation in 1968 as I walked out of the Philosophy building after a class on Whitehead's process metaphysics. As I reflected on that experience after today's reading, I wondered two things. First, the sudden infusion I felt, the certainty of a living universe, also must have carried the character of love because the experience did not frighten me, though it did point to the abysmal nature of the ground of being. Again, Tillich's term. Second, the complete way in which it grasped me has only come to my awareness in the last couple of years. The sort of neo-pagan undertaking which my Great Wheel work and my work on Ge-ology, my work as a ge-ologian represent has not come from detached reasoning, but from an engaged expression of this early mystical experience. Strange to consider, but it may be true. post:faith and ge-ology |
| February 17th, 2007 4:43PM 24 44%H
15I 21windchill
bar, steady 2mph
windrose shows W/NW winds
New Moon The Christian liturgical season of Epiphany (ends 2/21/07 on Ash Wednesday) Lent is a period similar to Ramadan for Muslims and the period around Yom Kippur for Jews. It is a time of self-abnegation, self-examination. As such, it is the time of the Christian liturgical year that still grabs me. Lent ends in the celebration of Easter, theologically the primary Christian holiday, far more important than the relatively minor feast of the Incarnation, or Christmas. Some years I give up something for Lent and read the lectionary passages by the day. Haven't decided about this year. In the spirit of openness to the world's faith traditions and to honor my primary historical identity as a Christian it is important to me to remain receptive to its lessons for my life. One way I do this is the observation of Lent. Other times I focus on the incarnation, even other times I might focus on traditional forms of meditation. Also, sometime near Easter is the passover. This holiday means more to me than the Christian easter since Exodus is a more powerful symbol for me these days. Liberation, yes. Resurrection? Well... This is a time of theologically significant holidays for Western faith traditions. A lot of juice. post:faith |
| February 17th, 2007 4:43PM 24 44%H
15I 21windchill
bar, steady 2mph
windrose shows W/NW winds New Moon The Christian liturgical season of Epiphany (ends 2/21/07 on Ash Wednesday) Here's a bit of a Lenten primer: The last three days before the beginning of Lent is known as Shrovetide. The old names for these days were:
Shrovetide was celebrated with games, sports, dancing and other revelries. There were feasts to use up the food that could not be eaten during the Lenten fast. Football was played in the streets and Nickanan Night (as Shrove Monday evening was called in Cornwall) was a time for boys to run riot in the villages: hiding gates, taking off door knockers, and making off with anything that householders had forgotten to lock away.
Shrove Tuesday is the last day before the period which Christians call Lent. This day is one of the moveable feasts in the church calendar and is directly related to the date on which Easter falls. Shrove Tuesday always falls 47 days before to Easter Sunday, so the date varies from year to year and falls between February 3 and March 9. In 2007 Pancake Day will be on 20
February
The name Shrove comes from the old word "shrive" which means to confess. On Shrove Tuesday, in the Middle Ages, people used to confess their sins so that they were forgiven before the season of Lent began.
Shrove Tuesday is a day of celebration as well as penitence, because it's the last day before Lent. Lent is a time of abstinence, of giving things up. So Shrove Tuesday is the last chance to indulge yourself, and to use up the foods that aren't allowed in Lent. Pancakes are eaten on this day because they contain fat, butter and eggs which were forbidden during Lent. What is Ash Wednesday? Ash Wednesday is a day of penitence to clean the soul before the Lent fast. Christians use ash as a symbol of being sorry for things they have done wrong and want to get rid of forever.
Ashes are something that are left when something is burned.
The forty days (not counting Sundays) before Easter is known as Lent. This is the time of year in England when the days begin to lengthen with the coming of Spring. The weeks of Lent were once the time when new Christians, who were to be baptized on Easter Eve, were taught about the Christian faith and life. Those who had already been baptized thought again about the promises they had once made and promise to be true to them. Lent was a time for spring-cleaning lives, as well as homes.
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, the day after Pancake Day and , six and a half weeks before Easter Day. The last week of Lent begins with Palm Sunday, which celebrates the day Jesus entered Jerusalem and the people lay down palms at his feet. Lent begins on Wednesday 21 February 2007
Lent lasts for 40 days and ends the day before Easter Sunday, which is known as Holy Saturday post:faith |
Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day)
Ashes
were used in the past as a symbol of being sorry.| Gotta admit there are some things I just didn't see coming:
British curators asked
to relinquish relics
British museums have become used to requests that foreign treasures be
repatriated. Greece has persistently requested the return of the
Parthenon marbles, while some administrators have agreed to return the
remains of Australian Aborigines. Now the pressure is coming from closer
to home.
British pagan groups are increasingly asking for human remains and grave goods from pre-Christian burials to be returned to them as well. The presence of what they see as their ancestors in dusty drawers or under harsh display lights is an affront to their religion. To them, the bones are living beings, whose existence is bound up with their religious descendants and the sacred land. "This is quite a big issue for museums around the country, but one that was not being discussed," said Piotr Bienkowski, the deputy director of Manchester Museum. "Discussion had been deliberately clamped down in some circles." Many scientists counter that, because of numerous influxes of people into the British Isles, it is impossible to identify the cultural or genetic descendants of Anglo-Saxon pagans and older peoples. They say handing back the bones for reburial would be a betrayal of a museum's duty to society and a loss to science. But requests from pagans for reburials are becoming more common. The Natural History Museum, British Museum, Leicester Museum, Manchester Museum, Devizes Museum and Duckworth Laboratory at Cambridge University have all been in dialogue with pagan groups. Last week, the Council of British Druid Orders demonstrated outside the Alexander Keiller Museum in Wiltshire for the reburial of a child skeleton excavated from Windmill Hill in 1929. The council is in dialogue with English Heritage and the National Trust about the issue. "We would like people to reconsider their relationship with the bones," said Paul Davies, reburial officer for the council. "We view them as living people and therefore they have rights as people. Because the ancestors can't give their consent in this way, the council speaks for the ancestors." Many scientists are furious at the idea that future generations will not have access to material that might deliver great insights into the lives of ancient Britons. "What would be lost is quite simply the only direct source material we have to find out about people in the past. There is nothing more direct than the human remains," said Holger Schutkowski at Bradford University, who is head of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology. "There is no evidence that today's pagan groups have any direct and uninterrupted linkage with belief systems in the past ... So I think it is an unjustified claim." Researchers are still smarting from the decision by the Natural History Museum and Manchester Museum to return human remains to Australian Aboriginal groups. While that debate was charged with overtones of post-colonial guilt at the often appalling circumstances in which bones were taken from indigenous people, some in the pagan community take a more conciliatory tone. "It is not about claims for reburial or repatriation," said Emma Restall Orr, of Honouring the Ancient Dead, which recognises the value of some research. "We are talking to them to see what is possible rather than standing up with banners." Her group recognises that information from scientific work can be valuable, but she wants to see bones with the least potential for study returned. Other pagans are less impressed with what science has to offer. "Any story that is reconstructed from that data will be an imagined past, which usually turns out to be a blueprint of the present imposed upon the past," said Mr Davies. The druid council is not against studying human remains per se, he said, but does object to their retention in museums. "They are not samples, they are bits of body, they are bits of people, bits of spirit." Some scientists say modern pagan groups have no right to represent the bones. "They would like to see themselves in a position where they can represent prehistorical remains in Britain, but this is just not the case. They are actually not speaking for anybody," said Prof Schutkowski. His view is far from universal. Some in the museum community say it is unfair for scientists to impose their world view on pagans. "We think that there is actually an intellectual argument for pagan claims to be taken seriously," said Prof Bienkowski, "It is a different world view which, actually, like the scientific world view can be neither proved nor disproved. It is actually our responsibility to take those views into account." What right, he asks, do scientists have to speak for the bones either? |
| WASHINGTON (AP) -- A village of small
houses that may have sheltered the builders of the mysterious Stonehenge
_ or people attending festivals there _ has been found by archaeologists
studying the stone circle in England. Eight of the houses, with central
hearths, have been excavated, and there may be as many as 25 of them, Mike
Parker Pearson said Tuesday at a briefing organized by the National
Geographic Society.
The ancient houses are at a site known as Durrington Walls, about two miles from Stonehenge. It is also the location of a wooden version of the stone circle.
The village was carbon dated to about 2600 B.C., about the same time Stonehenge was built. The Great Pyramid in Egypt was built at about the same time, said Parker Pearson of Sheffield University. Julian Thomas of Manchester University noted that both Stonehenge and Durrington Walls have avenues connecting them to the Avon River, indicating a pattern of movement between the sites. "Clearly, this is a place that was of enormous importance," he said of the new find. The researchers speculated that Durrington Walls was a place for the living and Stonehenge _ where cremated remains have been found _ was a cemetery and memorial. The wooden houses at the new site were square and about 14 feet along each side. They were almost identical to stone houses built at about the same time in the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland, Parker Pearson said. He said there were indications of bed frames along the side walls and of a dresser or storage unit of some sort on the wall opposite the door. Stone tools, animal bones, arrowheads and other artifacts were uncovered in the village. Remains of pigs indicated they were about nine months old when killed, which would mark a midwinter festival. Stonehenge was oriented to face the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset, while the wooden circle at Durrington Walls faced the midwinter sunrise and midsummer sunset. Two of the houses, found by Thomas, were separate from the others and may have been the dwellings of community leaders or perhaps were cult houses used for religious rituals. Those sites lacked the debris and household trash that was common in the other homes, he noted. Durrington appears "very much a place of the living," Parker Pearson said. In contrast, no one ever lived at the stone circle at Stonehenge, which was the largest cemetery in Britain of its time. Stonehenge is thought to contain 250 cremations. The research was supported by the National Geographic Society, Arts & Humanities Research Council, English Heritage and Wessex Archaeology. ___
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| January 30th, 2007 Caught this
story yesterday
January 22, 2007—Zeus, king of the ancient Greek gods, was not known for being a patient deity. But on a cosmic scale maybe 1,600 years isn't a very long time to wait between temple ceremonies. Yesterday believers gathered near the ruins of the Temple of Olympian Zeus in the heart of Athens, Greece, to honor Zeus's marriage to the goddess Hera—the first such ceremony known to be performed at the site since the Romans outlawed the religion in A.D. 394. Surrounded by a curious audience, costumed worshipers prayed, chanted, and danced just outside the remains of the 1,800-year-old temple, once the largest of its kind in Greece. The event held double meaning for the group, since it also celebrated their official recognition as a religion by the Greek government. But the country's Culture Ministry has banned organized events inside the temple, citing concerns over the historic monument's protection. Now the modern pagans are fighting for permission to practice their faith on what they deem to be sacred ground. "We are Greeks and we demand from the government the right to use our temples," high priestess Doreta Peppa told the Associated Press. —Victoria Gilman |
| December 21st, 2006 10:14AM
33 53%H 26%I 4mph 31windchill
bar, steady New Moon 7th night of Hanukah
Last night I took an unintentional trip into the land of cultural minorities. We needed a few things at the grocery story and---Hanukah candles. For those of you who don't know, Hanukah candles are placed in a Hanukah menorah:
All this time, to add to the irony, I'm listening to a Teaching Company course on the history of ancient Rome. Quite by accident as I navigate my way through the parking lots full of Christmas shoppers, Professor McKiernan lectures about the unusual events that lead to the Christian ascendancy in the 3rd century AD. Uncharitably, I thought, well, gee, if Diocletian had done a better job I wouldn't have this crowd out here while I'm trying to find Hanukah candles. Aha. Joan Fabrics. They have seasonal stuff. And, they had Hanukah candles! Two full boxes. Only. But enough for us. So much for the great Jewish retail conspiracy to control our lives. Glad I wasn't looking for a tallit or a kippot. I'd still be out there. |
. The first night one,
next night two, and so from the left. The candle in the middle is a
Shamash, a helper candle which lights the others but is not otherwise part
of the celebration. If you do the math, this means that by the end
of 8 days you need 45 candles. We didn't have that many. So,
at Festival Foods I asked for Hanukah candles after hunting for them.
"What? Are they candles?" OK. On to Hallmark.
Hallmark had a sad little seasonal shelf with a few Hanukah napkins, a
plastic dreidel or two, and a plastic tray for serving something, latkes
and brisket, I imagine. I'm now forty-five minutes into this
quest. "Oh, I wish we had some," the woman at Hallmark,
"I've had several people ask about them." What now?| December 18th, 2006 8:14AM 15
89%H 27%I 0mph 15windchill bar, steep
rise Waning Crescent of the Oak Moon 4th
night of Hanukah
Last night I read the Torah Parsha (portion) for this week, Genesis 37:1-40:23. Even though my faith in a monotheistic god has atrophied for several reasons in the last 15 years, the coincidence of the content of this parsha and my let's give it a try and see attitude got my attention. This is the beginning of what some people consider the world's first novel, the story of Joseph. It begins with Joseph's dreams of himself as a sheaf of wheat and his brothers as sheaves in a circle around him, bowing. Their annoyance with him already high since he was Israel/Jacobs favorite as a son of his old age, the dreams push them over the top to conspiracy against him. This results in the bloodying of the coat of many colors and Joseph's sale to the Midianites who take him Egypt. This parsha ends with Joseph in jail in Egypt and beginning his interpretation of dreams. What is remarkable to me here is this: I chose this narrative, the narrative of a foreign born boy who travels to another country and does well, as the source for naming Joseph, my now 25 year old son. That my first tentative toe in the water of Torah study begins with a story so personally compelling gave me a chill. A friend of mine has been in the hospital over the weekend discovering whether his bladder cancer has returned and if so what can be done. He is Jewish. He encouraged me to watch the remarkable movie Shoah. It tells, in an unflinching and surprisingly beautiful way, the story of the Holocaust. It's long, over 9 hours, so I have chosen to watch it in chunks. It is difficult to watch. I want to finish before I have lunch with him this week or next, so I've had images of Treblinka and Auschwitz, survivors and former Nazis dancing in my head instead of sugar plums. It is Hanukah and Kate and I light the candles each night and pray the prayers, as we have done for many years,. It is a moment of confluence right now and my spirituality absorbs it. Again, we'll see. |
| December 15th, 2006 3:33PM 30
70%H 28%I 30windchll 0mph bar,
falls Waning Crescent Oak Moon
1st night of Hanukah
Spent a pleasant hour at Brochin's in St. Louis Park. The shop was full of Hanukah shoppers. "I need more Hanukah napkins!" "What do you recommend for 3 hours worth of programmed Hanukah music?" "Do we have more of this tree of life menorah?" "I'd like one of the Kiddush cups in the cabinet. please." As I walked around the store, looking at challah boards and tzedekah boxes a familiar, yet strange feeling crept up in me. Let me see if I can put in context. In college during the 60's, when everything was chaos, I often went into Catholic churches to meditate. While I was there, I felt empathy, even as a fellow-traveler, with the long history of Roman Catholicism and its peculiar gradated rows of votive candles, its often clumsy plaster cast saints, and the kneeler attached to the pew in front of me. Sometimes, just to see what it was like, I pulled out the kneeler and used it. In the period after college, a time more personally chaotic even than college itself, I reminded myself of a vow to go back and review my Christian faith, left aside for the works of Albert Camus and the grim, but liberating existentialist world he inhabited. A period of reading, then daily prayer ensued. Soren Kierkegaard, the great Danish Christian existentialist, wrote a book called Fear and Trembling. He encourages in this telling and retelling of story of the Abraham and Isaac a leap of faith. Pick up your own knife and prepare to slay your first born because the creator of the universe wills it so. I leapt. Twenty years later a crisis came when I adopted Joseph. Had I not adopted him, I realized, he would have been beyond the pale of salvation, either a Hindu or a Muslim in his native Bengal. What kind of God would impose geographic restrictions on love? Pondering this question eroded the faith I had gained until I could no longer honor my ordination vows. I had to leave. Not long after I became part of a Unitarian-Universalist start-up congregation and found a new spiritual home in liberal religion. My ordination transferred to the U-U's formally in 1996 and remains in place today. Since the beginning of college, in other words, I've spent 5 years as an existentialist, 20 years as a Christian and 15 of those in the ministry, and now 16 years as a Unitarian-Universalist, ten of those as clergy. Of late, though, I've found the UU experience thin gruel. The very breadth of its reach militates against depth for me. This is, I imagine, what Emerson talked about when he left the Unitarian ministry, condemning the movement as "corpse-cold." Since the late '80's I've had many Jewish friends and, after my marriage with Raeone broke up in 1987, I dated three Jewish women, eventually marrying one of them, Kate Olson. The patriarchal nature of much of the Jewish literature puts me off, since I believe God has no gender, a definite category mistake, since gender pertains to the animal world and God, by definition, is either beyond or greater than the animal world. Still, the Jewish commitment to justice, to family, to home based ritual, even to a certain form of existentialist, this world is what you get, theological belief has always captured my heart. The long tradition, its deep roots, and its deep implication in the development of Western civilization also appeals to me. That feeling in Brochin's was this: I am a Jew. Not sure yet what this means for me, if anything beyond solidarity, but there it was. I admit, though, that when I was in Singapore at the fire-walking in the Sri Mariamman temple I felt like a Hindu, a follower of Shiva. And, for these last many years I have also found my feet firmly planted in the earth as a pagan--not a Wiccan--but a person with reverence for the spirits of the earth, the trees, the air, the water, the plant life and animal life around me. I feel all of these things and it could be that it means I am, in fact, a man without a spiritual center, but I don't feel it that way. Instead, I feel like a harp whose single strings vibrate in response to certain essential truths: the love and justice of Luke 4, the fellowship of a Seder, the dance of creation and destruction swirling in my own heart, and the profound love of mother earth. I've not mentioned, either, my resonance with Taoism. I am not a pan-religionist. Buddhism doesn't strike a chord. Neither does Mormonism, Voudoun, Islam, Jainism, or Santeria. Not sure I know enough about Zoroastrian or Nahuatl or Mayan beliefs to say. Maybe it's just my journey to be like this. Don't know. But it's where I am today. Perhaps this sums it up best: Ancora imparo. I am still learning. |
| December 15th, 2006 9:29AM 29
77%H 29%I
29windchill 1mph bar, rises Waning
Crescent Oak Moon
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the
age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the
season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of
despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were
all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in
short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its
noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil,
in the superlative degree of comparison only." - Charles
Dickens
Today I head out to St. Louis Park in search of Judaica. Holiday gifts always present a challenge. What makes for a good gift, anyhow? The person to whom the gift will go makes all the difference. And, the time in their life. Their feelings at the time. Their hopes for the future, or their dreams. In the case of Kate this holiday season I've focused on her love of Ruth and their primal connections: woman to girl, grandmother to granddaughter, and, Jewish grandmother to Jewish child. More, the search for an heirloom expanded into a search for a gift to Kate's core faith, a way of supporting her in her spiritual journey, and, thereby supporting little Ruth's journey, too. We'll see what I can find at Brochin's or elsewhere. |
| December 8th, 2006 Found
this in a magazine of the same name.
Azure, or techelet in Hebrew, represents the most exalted aspirations of the Jewish nation. In antiquity, an azure dye was applied to one of the white threads in the Jewish fringed garment described in the books of Moses. According to tradition, the hue of this thread “is like the sea, and the sea is like the sky, and the sky resembles the Divine Throne” – serving to remind the Jews of all that is majestic and eternal, and of the obligation to represent these in the world. It was in this tradition that the Jewish national movement adopted the azure-and-white coloration of the Jewish flag, which later became the flag of the State of Israel. And it is in this tradition, too, that we labor herein to present ideas for the Jewish nation, and for the world. |
| December 3rd, 2006 Sunday 9:38AM
11 73%H 27I 10windchill 2mph
bar, rises Waxing Gibbous Oak Moon
Local meteorologist Paul Douglas says this is the beginning of meteorological winter. We have little snow to show for it, but the temperature has dropped since we got back home from Colorado. Out on the same route I took two weeks ago in such comfort, the storms of snow and ice have created dangerous conditions. Glad to be home. Cold feels lifted today. At last. A real, full human being again. Kate says my lab tests show a healthy 60 year old. I'm grateful, and I know it could be different since I have friends in various stages of prostate cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, heart disease, and multi-organ endocrine disorders. This AM I will take ye know not the day nor the hour as an existentialist reminder that now is all we can count on, tomorrow is not a given, so all of life is this moment. And I'm glad. I'm so glad, I'm glad, I'm glad. I'm glad. to quote a Cream song of the same name. Used that as the recessional for my 1969 marriage to Judy Merritt, a service conducted on native burial mounds in Mounds State Park in Anderson, Indiana. After the service butterflies came to rest on my blue fringed shirt. Goes to show omens are tough to read. Soon the whole life must return: work-outs, a more regular diet (though, I'm glad to report, I lost 5 pounds on my trip), Mondays at the MIA, Woolly meetings, Wednesday Docent classes. The Holimonth which runs from Thanksgiving through January 1st has a calm, yet deep sense to it. We being with a communal holiday where the important event is a ritual meal and time with family, friends. Then, we wait with the Christian community for the wonder, the miracle of the divine manifest in human form. We also trek, with Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus on the Posada, the journey into Egypt, away from home, into a foreign land. This journey toward safety and security from miserable, child-killing conditions at home remind us of the travels of so many Latinos here in Norte Americano. We are Egypt. And it's not a bad thing. The theme of the Holimonth that runs deepest for me, though, lies in the shorter days and longer nights, the coming of cold and snow and brilliant dark skies. As the light of our existence grows less and less, it also grows weaker as the angle of the earth increases and tilts further away from our star. In response the night grows in length, the time of quiet. This dance of light and dark reaches its crescendo on December 21st at 6:22 PM here in Minnesota. This dark time offers a literal retreat, a dark retreat. This time of increased darkness comes thanks to our latitude, midway between the equator and the north pole. The darkness falls on me like a cape, these nights. I gather this cape around me and sink into reverie, glad the world has brought these calm, quiet times to me. These days I ponder such matters as the inner depth of the soul and the analogy between this descent into darkness and the inexorable movement of my life, all our lives, toward death. This latter I find comforting since I welcome this Holimonth and its spiritual tonalities. Though the woods are dark and deep and we do have promises to keep the universe seems to offer us a calm, quiet surcease of the responsibility we have collected to ourselves. No, it is not resignation I touch on here, rather it is acceptance, an embrace of the changes rather than a frightened stiff-arm. In this wise increasing age comes with a holy promise, one common with the shepherds who stood watch over their flocks by night. They sang Holy, Holy, Holy when it became clear God was in human form. And so do I, for each of us, divine realities that we are. |
| December 2nd, 2006 Saturday 10:31PM
9 70%H 29I 7 windchill 1mph bar,
rises Waxing Gibbous Oak Moon
Played sheepshead with four ex-Jesuits on Thursday night. Unless you grew up or lived for a while in eastern Wisconsin, you've never heard of sheepshead. It's a fun card game with its own idiosyncratic language and rules, e.g. if you have a decent hand and pass anyway, you maurer. Maurer is a German word for coward. Three of these ex-Jesuits are of German extraction, as am I, the other is a bubbly Irishman who, until I joined the game, came out behind most nights. This came to mind because I've rolled over in my head my reaction to the Advent readings I recorded below. Was I too strong? Cynical? Unfair to the tradition? Then, I recalled Bill Schmidt's parting comments as we broke up Thursday night, "Charlie's into Celtic religion." "Yes," I said, "a sort of neo-paganism." The metaphysical and ge-ological distance I've traveled since my days as a Presbyterian clergy is sometimes daunting. Yet, the journey has happened and I've made it with my wits about me. Truth is an odd commodity in the discourse of our species, given to alchemical transmutation and perspectival shifts. It continues to evade me, moving further and further away the more I know and the more life I live. A few things have the appearance of clarity: the necessity of an American Shinto, the individual nature of our paths through this life, and, yet, the communitarian context through which those paths wind. The material below seems neither cynical nor disrespectful to me, so I hope you don't find it that way. |
| December 2nd, 2006 Saturday 2:38PM
16 61%H 28I 12windchill 4mph bar,
rises Waxing Gibbous Oak Moon
Grocery shopping today. Took a bit of time since we'd been gone for a couple of weeks. Back home, then a nap. Got my blood and urine work back. I have elevated levels of both glucose and creatinine. Haven't talked to Charlie yet, and Kate's not home, so I don't know what to think about them. Whatever it is will become clear over time. Wednesday night I got up around 4 AM, briefly, and saw Orion above the southern horizon. Each time I've seen him since my security guard nights in 1968 and 1969, it is with the affection of a returning friend. His presence in the night sky seems to adjust a tuning fork in my soul. His return may ready me for the most important night of the year in my ritual life these days, the Winter Solstice. This month, this Holimonth, has such a rich and layered holy day tradition: Advent, Posada, Christmas Eve, Christmas, The Winter Solstice, Yule, the Twelve Days of Christmas, the five blank days at the end of the Mayan year, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. This Sunday, December 3rd, is the first Sunday of Advent and the biblical readings from the common lectionary can be find at this link. I read through them, just to get a picture of the tone. Both Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Scriptures have much that is condemnatory, fear inducing. When I was in the Christian ministry and took this material as revealed religion, it seemed bracing to me, a wake up call from life's often long slumber. Now, as I look it back on it, it just seems mean. Not necessarily false: this last verse from the Matthew selection, 13Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. has always seemed a wise reminder. The length of our days is not known and may be long or short. To keep this sensibility always alive helps us live in the moment and be ready for what comes. Yet, to read this, 13Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour, and hear it as a, "Come on now. Let's get righteous, stop sinning, and come in line." seems cruel, even petty. No human's life can stand scrutiny from the perspective of perfection, or the ultimate moral highground. Well, I'll speak for myself, mine can't. To acknowledge this as a truth of our human limitedness, which I do, makes it uncharitable, from where I now sit, to use it as a tool for condemnation, or a whip for religious piety. Better to embrace this messy human life that we have, admit our humanity, then get up and go on about our business. No deity worth worshipping can condemn us for being what we are, rather, a deity worth worshipping would look at us and smile, "There they go again. Let me give them a leg up. Here's a bit of help." A generous and loving God is not a cosmic Santa Claus as so many seem to believe, making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out whose damned or contrite. An absurd and petty God. If such a God is the One, then we're all doomed anyhow. |
| December 17th 2006 5:57PM 27
66%H 27%I 0mph 27windchill bar, rises
Waning Crescent of the Oak Moon 3rd night of Hanukah
I may begin reading the Torah portions for the week. If I do, I will go through the year with this project, actually studying the Torah used texts and commentaries I have from years as a Presbyterian. I don't feel a conversion coming on, or anything like that, but this thought has occurred to me, Judaism more than most other traditions honors study. I love to study and have already begun my study of Torah in a serious way in Seminary long, long ago. Also, as I said below, I've always found Jews and Jewish culture simpatico with my journey. Further, it is a system of story and practice with which I have some familiarity. I've needed a spiritual practice for awhile and Zoloft seems to have impaired my meditation, so Torah and Talmud study make sense. Haven't decided yet, but if I do, I will be in it for a while and I'll report back here. Below is some work I did for the Woolly Mammoth website. Mine is the black. This website is a conversation among the Woolly Mammoths and friends.
Our time together is always enlightening, encouraging, and supportive. We are men on pilgrimage, in search of experiencing life together. We are on a spiritual journey of discovery. We meet to share our colorful, original and unique life stories. We celebrate our achievements with inspiration, gratitude and appreciation. A men's group, the Woolly Mammoths have met together for over 20 years. This men's group grew from a vision, a Woolly Mammoth glimpsed through heavy woods at a men's conference sponsored by Robert Bly, James Hillman, and Michael Meade. Though many men's groups formed in response to the feminist movement, the Woolly Mammoth's belong to a type the Men's Net calls mythopoetic, rather than men's rights, pro-feminists, or recovery. We focus on the pilgrimage of each man, and support each other on the way. We meet twice a month, once in member's homes and once at the Black Forest in Minneapolis, Minnesota on the first Monday of the month. Once a year we have a four day retreat in which we focus on special topics and plan the next year. Topics have included: Re-imagining your story, Fathers, Mothers, Death, Your Myth, and Pilgrimage.
|
| November 4th, 2006 7:37PM
40 66%H 37I 40windchill 0mph bar
steady Full Snow Moon
The Snow Moon stands high in the east. A few clouds cover its face and spread its light in a gentle diffusion. A full moon obscured by clouds creates a moment in time, an emotional reality as strong a scent, perhaps jasmine or gardenia. When the moon tracks along the southern sky in its waxing and waning phases, it is not too visible from our house. It gets a little better in the winter when the leaves are off the poplars, tall between us and the light pollution of the city. Our easterly view, though, means the full moon comes on each moon as a dramatic actor, shuffled behind a rice paper screen, its development at least partly hidden until it springs into sight, full lit glorious. In the sweep of art history we have come into the period of time I consider my own--the eras defined by the Enlightenment and rebellions against it, like Romanticism and the Pre-Raphaelites, the sublime and the picturesque. This, too, is the time of liberal religion and the development of the higher critical approach to interpretation of scripture. This is the time of Goethe, Hesse, Mann, Rolland, Blake, Yeats, Rilke, Stevens. A time of scientific fireworks cascading over all intellectual territory. A time of reason gone mad, and madness become scientific. This is a time of existentialists and Nietzscheans, of Jungians and Freudians, of Schoenberg and Schrödinger. A time of jazz and rock and roll. It is a time when the heart is both the all and the nothing; a time when the mind examines itself. It is in this time I feel most connected, most alive. Somehow I have managed to become a Romantic scientist, an Existentialist metaphysician. I am an alchemist whose retorts have ancient poetry and myth, the arts, classical music, literature of many times and peoples filled to overflowing. The alcohol fire beneath them burns with a cool flame and they mix more like stew than a sauce. Toss in some philosophy, a bit of art history, a dash of theology and radical politics. Whoosh! We have...I don't know what. Yet. But if it is not clear, it had begun to have outlines. |
| November 1st, 2006 6:47PM 29 48%H
33I windchill 27 3mph rising bar Waxing Gibbous
Snow Moon
With the coming of Samain we entered what I call Holiseason, a long period stretching from Samain through January 1st. In this time we celebrate Samain, All Saints, Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Posada, Advent, Winter Solstice, the Twelve Days of Christmas, and the Georgian New Year. It is a time of lights, family gatherings, gift giving, reflection, and beauty. Many see it as too commercial, too marketed, the power of this holiseason has no problem sweeping aside such concerns or even using them for its sacred purposes. The lights on the houses, the turkey and stuffing and foods, foods, the presents, the corny TV specials like It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 33rd Street, even When the Grinch Stole Christmas bring us together. They help us to see each other, and to see the we hope to be. Yes, we can get lost in too many Christmas cards (I stopped sending them.), too many parties, too much food and drink, too much money, too much, but it is the essence of the holiseason, to overdo, to extend, to glory in our relatedness. And all this with the winds howling, the days growing short and the nights long, temperatures falling and snow drifting, drifting down to cover it all in a purifying and boundary defying white. This is a time for considering the dead, saying Thanks for all we have and whom we have in our lives. It is a time for going into Egypt with Jesus, and Mary, and Joseph. It is a time for following the gradual escalation of the Christmas story, the magical story of incarnation, until, wonder of wonders, God comes to earth in the form of a babe. It is time, and this I love best, for settling in to a comfortable chair and reading, meditating, seeing how the year's gone, and how the next one might go. I start this process on Samain and continue with a 5 day retreat at the end of the year; days the Mayans consider dangerous, days out of time with no point to them. |
| October 31st, 2006 9:31PM 24
64%H 35%I windchill 24 0mph steady bar
Waxing Gibbous Snow Moon
It is All Hallow's Eve, a Christian and a Pagan day of remembrance. It is a day on which I speak the names: Gertrude Eliza Ellis, Curtis Spitler Ellis, Roberta Steffey, Riley Keaton, Charles Keaton, Mable Keaton, Ruth Stephens, Rheford Stevens, Barbara Keaton, Marjorie Jones, Ike Jones, Virginia Keaton, Berta Ellis, Charles Ellis, Jimmy McGregor, Dennis Sizelove, Richard Lawson, Richard Porter. There are more, so many more, a link of genes winding its way back somehow to Africa, and then, before that down the lineage of some proto-ape, back further even, to some one-celled creature who came alive, like Frankenstein, from the primordial soup, perhaps charged with a bolt of lightning from a methane sky. We are, each of us, the living tip of an extended family, as our descendants will find their link in the chain through us. Of course, those of us with adopted children will find our genetic heritage lost in the vacuum carved out by love beyond genes, but our inheritance nonetheless honored through the children of our children, for whom we will be an important, then less important, then invisible link. Welcome to any of the dead who want to wander here for a night, or a year. This is a night focused on the dead, a night that shows us the privilege we have in our current residence here, alive. |
| Saturday October 21st, 9:35AM 36
A brief note about the Diwali at the Hindu Mandir of Minnesota. A Mandir is a temple usually devoted to a major deity and their associated deities, but in the US a Mandir has multiple deities. The Mn. Mandir has minor shrines for many deities and a central shrine devoted to Vishnu. This is because, I assume, Hindu's in Minnesota come from all over India and have many different primary deities. In Bengal, for example, the primary deity is Kali. Other places Shiva. Others Vishnu. Others Durga Devi. Last night I went to the temple for the Diwali celebration. It is a winter solstice celebration though I haven't leaned yet how it got calendar shifted to October. The parking lot was full and then some. Parking along the streets and drives. The temple sits at the end of Troy Lane North, where the road tails off into what appeared at night to be a marshy bottom land. It is in the suburban community of Maple Grove, not far from Highway 94, but a good ways from any residential areas though they come up to 101st Ave North's eastern edge while the Mandir's stretch of Troy Lane goes west about 3/4's of a mile. This puts the temple far from the heart of either major city and on the metro areas northwestern edge. There is plenty of land there and it is in a place not likely to produce many neighbors soon. This was the first Diwali celebration in the Mandir so it was a special evening. A member of the temple, Vandana Mangalick, mc'ed the program part, and authored three of the skits. The skits were mostly song and dance numbers and, for the most part, involved teenagers or younger. Both girls and boys performed including a couple of younger girls, one not more than 6 or 7 who had a commanding stage presence, as Careen noted, and another whose dancing appeared flawless to this inexpert eye. After the cultural program we had a wonderful vegetarian meal served on styrofoam plates with several dividers, each of which got some food, though I'm not enough of a connoisseur of Indian cuisine to identify the items. Out of maybe a thousand Indians there were perhaps 20/30 Caucasians, most of whom seemed there as a part of a couple. This is still an unusual experience in Minnesota, but as Careen pointed out Minnesota has changed a good deal even in the 13 years she's lived here. Becoming more diverse. This morning I will visit the temple section (last night was in the auditorium) with classmates from the MIA. |
| Friday October 20th, 2:14PM 43
Here is a notion that has tumbled around over the last month or so, fed by many years of speculation and experience. I believe we will never care for the earth until we learn to love and care for the small part of it we call home. Another way of saying this is: Think local, act local. Within the broad human experience there are faith expressions for such a love. They tend to come from indigenous peoples who express their relationship with the land through some form of animism. We Americans, bathed in the great monotheisms of the Middle East, tend to dismiss animism as primitive, childish, or quaint. In fact, these indigenous faiths range from philosophically sophisticated, take Taoism as a for instance, to the ritually profound, the Great Wheel and its pagan (means rural, as does heathen--those who live on the heath) equivalents in Europe. The Sun Dance, the Medewin practices of the Annishinabe, the metaphysical faiths of the Hopi and the Zuni or the aesthetic faith of the Dine people are home grown American versions. The shamanistic faiths that seem to have begun in Siberia offer a highly personal faith, one that moves between this world and the others, and allows for intervention on the behalf of others. So, I begin my constructive task with a base in these faiths rooted in the local and attuned to changes in climate and growing season. The Great Wheel and its eight holidays and seasons has become, for me, this base. At least for now. You can see a part of that faith expressed in the Seasons meditations and in the work in North. I believe we will never care for one another, locally or globally, until we acknowledge the sacredness of our self and the other, the Thou as Buber said. Again, over the broad sweep of human affairs there have been several approaches to this essential truth. The Hindu's steeple their fingers and greet each other, "Namaste." Christians speak of being made in the image of God and are told to love one another as they love themselves. Buddhists encourage us to seek and nourish our Buddha nature. Carl Jung spoke of the Self, the larger entity to which we are apart, an entity which encourages us toward our most authentic and rich expression. Henry Nelson Wieman offered a theological perspective that so God as real, but as extant in the relationships between and among persons rather in some otherworld of spirit. The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber taught us to move toward an I-Thou relationship with others. Albert Camus, the existentialist, suggested that the simple fact of our mutual journey toward death invites us to make the road as peaceful and rich as we can for each other. The sacredness of ourselves and others, the second block in this constructive experiment, has its easiest expression in the Wiemanian expression of God as real, living in the relations within and among us. I believe we will never have a rich and authentic common life across the boundaries of nation, class, and culture until we integrate the ethical implications of the first two blocks: a faithful immersion in the local and a joyous embrace of our sacredness and the sacredness of others. To love the local we must cry when it suffers abuse, act when it needs our care, pay attention to its changes. Likewise, the sacredness of our humanity, the deeply sacred creature we are in our givenness offers us the chance and the obligation to cry when others suffer abuse, to act when they need our care, and pay attention as their lives change. This same thought stream washes over you, too. You, the sacred being you know intimately. Well, I'm not much further along that this, but this is the direction my thought has begun to take. I hope overtime to express a fully developed provisional faith, one not so concerned with ultimate truth as with truths we can live by, truths that can nourish us, our families, our communities, our land, and our globe. |
| "Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened." - Sir Winston Churchill |
| Friday August 18th, 2006 9:08AM
"Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me. It is an uncomfortable doctrine which the true ethics whisper into my ear. You are happy, they say; therefore you are called upon to give much." - Albert Schweitzer Schweitzer was a hero to my parents and many in their generation. He was also a Unitarian. Hmmm. just noticed I said this stuff below. Well, at least I have a modest consistency. |
| Thursday August 3rd, 2006 8:43AM
"Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. That is what
gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists
in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying,
injuring, and limiting life are evil." - Albert
Schweitzer
Schweitzer, a Unitarian, represents a position that always lingers in the background of my thinking. My mother admired him, and though I have not done much poking around in his career or thought, I find this notion compelling. With some reservations. |
Midsummer
| Saturday July 29th, 2006 10:58PM
My sister keeps me abreast of the multiple expressions of faith found in the Island Republic of Singapore: These e-mails are about the Hungry Ghosts... Sign
of the times- at an altar near Tanglin Mall ( near Orchard Rd) – the
traditional fare – oranges, cakes, & incense were laid out &
also neatly arrayed was MacDonalds fare, Big Macs, Onion rings, fries ,
etc ( a Happy Meal would’ve been good) . I spoke to a retailer in
Takashimaya ( fancy Dept store where we ate an Indonesian restaurant) who
said his business was affected but the hardest sector was nightlife, pubs
, etc. because “ everyone knows that that is where the ghosts go….”
I said they also wanted a good time.
More
reassuring words,
“
Organisers of the Hungry Ghost Festival said prayers, auctions &
entertainment to appease the wandering spirits will be held only in the
first month. Said veteran organizer Peter Loh , “In
Hokkien we say si lang boh lun, which means dead people
don’t observe leap months. Holding 2 prayer sessions for them is like
saying they died twice- & that is not right.”
From:
Charles Ellis [mailto:rugosa@comcast.net]
Hungry
Ghost, eh? I do remember the Serene Center, did they finish the
subway stop near there? At least I think that’s what it was.
I’d love to have pictures, newspaper articles, local books, especially
on the Taoist connection. I continue my journey with Taoism and have
learned that what I’m interested in is philosophical Taoism, in essence,
the ancient Chinese shamanist/animist tradition, while another, very
different branch is religious Taoism. It is religious Taoism that
has the hell notes, burns paper Mercedes and Nokia’s, and dominates in
contemporary Chinese culture. At least that’s how I understand it
now.
I
did find Master Lee’s comment helpful. I won’t worry.
Thanks.
I do love this stuff.
From:
Yes-
it ‘s that time when the gates of hell are open & souls of the dead
roam around & this year it’s Double Ghost month because of the leap
lunar year. Master Lee Zhiwang, president of the Taoist Mission, said ,
“People should not be too worried about the 2nd 7th
month, because the gates of hell only open in the actual ghost
month….” ( ST
Close
to home- do you remember Serene Center ( McDonalds, Black Canyon Coffee,
etc.) & the tire shop next door? Last night employees were burning
Hell money & had the food laid out in the parking lot as well as the
tire jacks all pointed towards each other making a circle ( in case ghosts
needed to change a flat?......)
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| Sunday July 9th,
2006 12:03PM
"The will to believe is perhaps the most powerful, but certainly the most dangerous human attribute." - John P. Grier |
| Saturday July 8th, 2006 9:07AM
Here is a website after my own heart: CAMPUS CRUSADE FOR CTHULHU |
| Saturday July 8th, 2006 8:40PM
midsommer only a crescent left until the full thunder moon
This response from Beverly Cottman caught my eye as part of a theology
of delight:
Greetings Charles,
Thanks so much for the open invitation to participate in your check out
tour. I will be attending Bill's Artist Talk at the Minnesota
Center for Photography on Thursday night, so I won't be able to attend
your tour. Keep me posted on others. I'm sure you will do
just fine.
I think a treasure is any object, person, relationship or idea which
always brings a feeling of joy or happiness whenever experienced or
thought about.
|
| Wednesday July 5th, 2006
11:14PM the season of midsummer, a waxing gibbous moon
In a dream the other night I had the idea to write a theology of delight. Feels worth pursuing. |
| Sunday June 25th, 2006 10:29AM the
season of Midsummer, time of the new moon
As Merton struggles with the darkness we all face, it is a moment, a praxis point for those of us still on this side with him. We wonder, yet without his urgency, what might lie behind this rough curtain. Is it only an evolutionary Oz, who, after having manipulated strings of genes and the biosphere in which we carry them, disappears and leaves us stranded, alone in the dark? Or, is the Celtic Otherworld, a faery world, where other beings move and live and have their being, and we move over to their reality? A place where, when the veil grows thin, we can leave, for a time, and return to this mortal realm? Perhaps the Aztecs have it right and life is the aberrant condition and when we die we return to the primary reality, a place to which this world of the flesh is a dream, a faery of its own? The antique heaven? With wings and angels and trumpets and the very throne of HIM. The Buddhist's yearn for nirvana, which, you might not know, means extinction. This idea needed for a way off the karmic ferris wheel. My own views on this matter muddle along, a sort of sloppy optimism
about a grace-filled next world, an Elysian field with more variety.
It is, now a mystery. And, as the tag line on my e-mails have read
for some time: "It
began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and
beautiful country lies in between." - Diane Ackerman (1948~) American
Poet
|
| "Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy." - Moslih Eddin Saadi (1184-1291) [Sadi] Persian Poet |
| June 21st, 2006 9:13AM Summer Solstice
"But there are some people, nevertheless - and I am one of them - who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy." - G. K. Chesterton Chesterton has a point. It is even more true because most people don't know their own philosophical assumptions and worldview. The axiological apparatus each of brings to daily life, the underlying things we assume to be true, usually in an unexamined way, control our perceptions, and, control them at a point out prior to conscious process. An example is our assumption that the mind cannot control matter. We inherited this assumption from the Cartesian mind-body duality, yet there is no biological rationale for it; in fact, if you stop to think about it (ha), the notion that is silly prima facie. If the mind doesn't control your body's movements, what does? The biological means for, say, speech, require considerable co-ordination: lips, breath control, tongue placement. Yes, those appear to happen without conscious control, but they came with only partial hard-wiring. Watch a baby learn sounds, then words, then sentences. Another example of this axiological problem lies behind the hoo-ha over politically correct speech. Those who would call grown women girls, adult black men boys, or Latino's beaners give audible expression to a deeper and more harmful set of preconceptions. These are not beliefs, beliefs are a conscious matter, rather these are attitudes which predetermine an individuals character based on secondary characteristics such as gender or race. Poor white trash is the same. Whether or not you agree with social sanctions on persons who exhibit racist or chauvinistic speech, it still points to a predisposition that is unexamined. It is the exposure of these predispositions rather than being called out in public that fuels the anger of those who use politically correct as an epithet. There is more. What guides your sense of right and wrong, good and bad? It has to be something, since all of us swerve away from behavior we sense is wrong, or bad. Yet, how many of us have examined the ethical principles that guide us. Too few. Unexamined ethical assumptions can get us into big trouble. One such assumption at a national level is that the US knows best. It may guide foreign policy, but that doesn't mean other nations agree with our assumptions. |