All posts by Charles

Acting, Family, Health, Politics, Travel, Writing

The Ancientrails of Politics, Theater, and Health

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Thursday gratefuls: A week from today I’ll be in Osan. If all goes well. Ruth. Gabe. Acting. Tom. Diane. The Ancient Brothers on being 24. Asian Art. Shin Long-Lin. The tea ceremony. Ichi-go, ichi-e. Tsundoku. Forest bathing. In my back yard. The Asian pivot of my family. Magic the Gathering. Formula One. Baseball. Chinese bronzes. Ukiyo-e prints. The Kano period in Japanese screen painting. Song dynasty ceramics. Korean celadon. Song dynasty painting. Asia. So much history. So little known here.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Asia

One brief shining: Put on a new ring this morning Gold with a setting of Emeralds Kate purchased in Cartagena because the jewelers had air conditioning; I had the Emeralds set in the ring when Kate had a breast cancer scare over 25 years ago, now it soothes me with her memory and as a talisman against cancer.

 

Yesterday I loaded my pill containers with blood pressure meds, cholesterol meds, psych meds, but no cancer meds. Everybody I mention it to is happy for me. It felt liberating, for sure. Yet than niggling hangover. I’m not treating it now, as I have been for nine years. What will it do? Guess I got used to having a dike against it. Surgery. Radiation. Drugs. Trust your doctors, she said. And, zip up. Yes, dear.

 

Tonight is dress rehearsal. My parchment copies of the Cold Mountain poems, done in calligraphy by Ann, get delivered today at 12:30. Perhaps a white banner with the Chinese ideograms for Han Shan. I’ll put on my linen pullover shirt, my linen medieval pants, and if it’s cool enough for the rehearsal, the hooded poncho. I have my water gourd, too. The sort used by Chinese recluses and martial artists to carry wine. It’s my visual signal that Herme and Han Shan may be the same person. I’m going to run through the whole thing again. I know it, but I fell out of character at a certain point Tuesday. Don’t want that to happen on Saturday night.

Just realized I don’t feel the same sort of vulnerability with The Trail to Cold Mountain that I’ve felt with my novels. Odd since Joan’s in the class. A successful novelist. Tal helped me understand the collaborative nature of playwriting. Maybe that’s it. The first written work I’ve done that was collaborative. Maybe a clue there?

 

Been feeling Kate this week. Her 79th birthday tomorrow. A full post for her then.

 

How bout those Georgia indictments? No Federal pardons allowed and no pardons at all allowed until 5 years of a sentence has been served. Sounds fair to me. The Orange One is the most indicted Presidential candidate ever! What an honor.

I hope for a few things for the next election. That the indictments convince independents to vote Democrat. That the abortion issue catalyzes women, including moderate Republican women to not only vote, but to get out the vote. That the fall off [to death] of four million older white males and the large number of newly voting aged Gen Z’ers give Democrats a boost.

Also, I’ve been amazed at Biden’s successes with the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan Infrastructure bill, the Covid Relief bill, and the CHIPS act (building semi-conductors at home). This is not to mention his deft handling of the war in the Ukraine, supporting that nation without getting us directly involved. Also not to mention (bar Hunter’s problems) the scandal free term. No dogwhistling. gaslighting, or outright incitement to riot. Which shouldn’t have to be noted as a success except over against 45’s awful, treasonous behavior.

We have to sell Biden’s work.

 

 

Acting, Health, Writing

A significant day

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Off all cancer meds. Got rid of last medical bill I didn’t owe. Performed The Trail to Cold Mountain in class. To applause. 2 hour workout. Yesterday. A good day. Ticking off pre-trip have to’s. Vince coming today. Seeing Ruth at noon. Joan’s poncho with hood. Abby performing without the words. Chocolate chip cookies. The Church of Hera. That Squirrel at my window.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Trail to Cold Mountain

One brief shining: A ritual of abandonment I take the compacted trash to the yellow trash bin and the recycling to the green bin throughout the week then on every other Wednesday the bins tilted and rolling like thunder across my asphalt driveway, I deposit them lids forward to Black Mountain Drive as other’s drive by on their way down the hill to jobs in Denver or Littleton or Lakewood.

 

Some days. Have more in them than others. Tuesday was such a day for me. Wrote a post about conversion, ate some breakfast. While waiting for breakfast to settle before my work out, I called New West Physicians.  After a year of back and forth convinced them that no, I did not owe them $429 for that echocardiogram from April of 2021. Raised both arms after the call. Victory! Worked out. A good one. Took a long nap.

 

Telehealth call with Kristie. Stop the Erleada and the Orgovyx right now. Today. Should start feeling better in a month. While in Korea. Could be off the meds for weeks, months, years. I choose years. But of course my cancer has all the agency in the matter. Still blood draws every 3 months. I imagine if the PSA continues undetectable for a certain length of time they might stretch that out a bit. If the PSA starts rising? A PET scan. Probably radiation again, though maybe new meds. Part of the plan is to live long enough for new and better treatments to be on the table. I’m ok with that plan. Now well into my ninth year with cancer. Still alive! Would not have been so in my instance as recently as 20 maybe even 10 years ago. Grateful.

My oncologist, Dr. Eigner, is retiring. His wife died a while back and he wants something different. I get it. I’ll see him for a last visit when I get back from Israel. He wants that. And so do I. He’s guided both me and Kristie over the ups and downs since my diagnosis in May of 2015. That’s a long time. I’m grateful to both of them for the kind and compassionate care they’ve given me. Healers in truth.

 

Over to the synagogue for the last class of the character study. Wore a short sleeve shirt and shorts. Beep! Wrong again. We performed outside at the synagogue’s amphitheater and after the sun went down it was chilly. Joan thank god had brought me a poncho with a hood for my costume. Wool. Saved me from shivering through The Trail to Cold Mountain.

Three folks said, “Brilliant!” Not sure what that means though it’s positive. Felt good. Screwed up a bit. Will practice more, but I know it. Just jitters, I think.

 

 

Judaism, Memories, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

The Last Journey

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Ruth struggling again. Still. Gabe and the last Rockies game of the season. Marilyn and Irv. A pale blue Sky. A cool night, but warmer weather coming. Kristie today. Robbie Robertson of The Band. Levon Holmes. Bob Dylan. Coltrane. Parker. Bach. Mozart. Hayden. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. Sarah and BJ. Kate, always Kate. Jon, a memory. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Studying

One brief shining: Rolled my chair to the built-in desk, turned on the study lamp, took out the sheet of questions for my first class with Rabbi Jamie, this one on Jewish Identity, began to read from Art Green’s Radical Judaism, Joseph Telushkin’s Jewish Literacy, and George Robinson’s Essential Judaism and noticed how much I still enjoy studying, writing answers, thinking deeply.

 

Now it’s getting personal. Judaism, that is. No longer following the thought pathways the ancientrails of the Talmud and the Torah as an outsider, a camp follower. Reading about Jewish identity as one who will wear the kippah. Makes a big difference. Who is a Jew? What is common among all forms of Judaism? How does Israel define a Jew for the aliyah, the right of return?

This is my third, and last, venture into the inner life of a distinctive religious community. Seminary at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton, Minnesota gave me four solid years of church history, biblical studies, ethics, homiletics, pastoral care, and a bit of Hebrew and Greek. Much later, in the early 90’s I did a self-study course in Unitarian-Universalism that took two years. This doesn’t count the four years I spent earning my Doctor of Ministry degree from McCormick Seminary in Chicago.

In both of these earlier excursions I was not wholly engaged. All during my work as a Presbyterian minister, I felt apart from the main congregational life of the denomination. Because I was. My ministry was political and only became involved with congregations near its end when I worked as an organizational consultant for congregations in the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area. The UU time was a regression, an attempt to retain my ministerial role by switching to a less theologically restrictive community. In the end I found the UU movement too diffuse in its religiosity. And learned, again, that the role of minister did not fit me.

Conversion to Judaism is different. This is something I want. As Joan Greenberg said, it just feels natural. No real dogma to cleave to. So many Jews identify as atheists or agnostics. Yet, a rich and old tradition of considering life’s most difficult questions. How do we live a human and a humane life? How do we connect with the call of the natural world, as Art Green puts it in his wonderful book, Radical Judaism?

Kate found this path when she was 30. She led me to it. And my friendships at CBE have made it real. Here’s a secret wish I’ll put right out here in print. If it turns out I’m wrong and there is a heaven, I certainly want to be in the Jewish section where Kate is.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, Judaism, Plants, Poetry, Reimaging revelation, Torah, Wild Neighbors, Writing

Love

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Lughnasa and the Waning Crescent of the Herme Moon

Sunday and Monday gratefuls: The Trail to Cold Mountain. Off book. Kristie. Off meds? Sunday’s Ancientrails, forgotten. Unusual. The Ancient Brothers on love. A morning with Rich and Ron. Also about love. Burn away everything but love. Study today. Jewish identity. Cool and Foggy morning. Good sleeping. Ready for packing. Cable organizer. Reinforcing off book for the Trail to Cold Mountain. So many wonderful people in my life. Korea and Israel. Same continent. 5027 miles apart. [Osan to Jerusalem]

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Good friends

One brief shining: A bowl filled with strawberries, blueberries, black berries, and slices of mango sat by a wooden cutting board with lox heaped upon it next to a lazy susan with cream cheese, capers, cut onions, almonds warm cut bagels on my plate as Ron and Rich and I sat together talking mussar, parenting sons, writing, such a good morning.

 

I have now a surfeit of riches. Wealthier than I could have dreamed possible. And, yes, in terms of money, too. More important than money though friends and family who love me. Whom I also love. Who will open themselves to me and I to them. A wonderful morning yesterday as an example.

The Ancient Brothers gathered on zoom to talk about love. Ode talked about Robert Bly’s connected universe, all atoms linked to each other in a grand chain of becoming. As are the atoms in each of us. Bill added Buckminster-Fuller’s Cosmic Plurality:

“Cosmic Plurality”

Environment to each must be

All there is, that isn’t me

Universe in turn must be

All that isn’t me AND ME

 

Since I only see inside of me

What brain imagines outside me

It seems to be you may be me

If that is so, there’s only we

Me & we, too

Which love makes three

Universe

Perme — embracing

It-them-you-and we

 

Paul offered Rilke:

Widening Circles

Written by Rainer Maria Rilke

Translated and read by Joanna Macy

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

 

Tom reminded us of the love we learn from the dogs in our lives, the angels of our youth and of our old age. Of kindness. Of the sweetness of vulnerability.

 

I spoke again of the gift given to me between Mile High Hearing and Dave’s Chuckwagon Diner: The purpose of life is to burn away everything but love. If we perfected a just society, we could live only in love with each other. So to burn away everything but love, seek justice. If we could see the ohr [the shard of sacredness, divine light] in each other, in all Trees and Rocks and Roads and Flowers that love Great Sol and Mule Deer and Elk and Mountain Lions and Bears and all Mountain Streams and all Rivers and Oceans and in the Air we breathe, we would cry out in revelation like Mohammed, like the writers of the Torah and like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there, the sacred, it’s right there! And we could/would love it all.

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Hawai'i, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate

Lucky and Privileged

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Cybermage Bill Schmidt. The Ancient Brothers. Alan. Joan. The Bread Lounge. Jamie and Benji. Rich and Ron. My son. Jon’s estate. Leo. Luke. Tal. CBE. The Parking Spot. Checking off my before Korea list. Close to done. Gray Skies before Great Sol has come above the horizon. Mountain Streams now running lower. That fourteen point Mule Deer Buck on Black Mountain Drive. Gracie and Ann. Janet. Metaphors, shaping our world. Shaping our metaphors, shaping our world. The brain. Consciousness. The sacred.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rain in the Mountains

One brief shining: Pre-trip excitement beginning to rise, packing Artemis honey in bubble wrap (the last large jar), that Breckenridge tumbler, too, rolling up the t-shirts with Mountains and Buffaloes on them, the dish towels with Beavers and Mountain Goats, the children’s books about the Rocky Mountains, Colorado and Mountain stickers, carefully placing them all in that Chinese box that brought something here a while back, then packing tape, packing tape, packing tape along with an APO address and it’s off to Korea ahead of me.

 

Feeling lucky and privileged this morning. Healthy enough to travel at 76. Money enough to travel. Family I want to see living in a place I’m excited to explore further. Korea. Feeling the collision of four big events coming in this next week: the showcase on my first ever play script on Saturday plus Tuesday class and Thursday dress rehearsal, my first lesson with Rabbi Jamie for my conversion on Thursday, finishing up my travel plans by counting my drugs and ordering what I need if any, talking to Vince, Luke, nailing down how much money I’ll need in my bank account, and my appointment with Kristie where my drug holiday will probably be officially begun.

It’s been a while since I’ve traveled. Last time was to Hawai’i. My son and Seoah. I’ve not done any international travel since Kate and I went to Korea in 2016 for my son and Seoah’s wedding. This time I’m going radically light. Only a backpack with meds, electronics, one t-shirt, one pair of socks. I’ll buy socks, t-shirts, underwear when I get there. I already have some pants and shirts there as well as a split keyboard and a mouse. There’s been a lot of lost luggage this summer travel season and I want to travel light. Also, no direct flights. I don’t mind checking a bag onto a direct flight, but if there’s even one stop? Nope. Not sure yet what I’m going to do for Israel. Probably the same.

My whole family travels much more than I do, so this would be no big deal for them, but for me it feels like quite the adventure.

 

Looking at the devastation in Lahaina. Found my heart sinking, wondering most about the fate of the Banyan Tree around the court house. Relieved to see it was damaged, but not killed. A picture of a woman who spent five hours! in the ocean. So, so sad. 60 deaths. Knowing someday it could be Shadow Mountain captured by the news.

Family, Feelings, Hawai'i, Memories, Travel

Fire and Memories

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Friday gratefuls: Mussar. Rebecca. Parkside. Morning chill. Pre-travel excitement/apprehension. Prostate Cancer. Kathy. Diane. Sally. All with cancer, too. Not statistics but people I know. And see often. Judy and Leslie. Kate, always Kate. Their memories are a blessing. Jon, a memory. Ruth and Gabe. Maui. Then and now. Hawai’i. Korea. Israel. Travel.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Travel

One brief shining: An outdoor table metal, an orange umbrella, Sun cooled by a Mountain breeze, coffee and a glass of Water with ice cubes, a table filled with folks in their twenties loud in the way of good friends enjoying each other, and my sandwich, a Reuben, while I talked with my friend Rebecca, a good morning.

 

Maui. So many memories. Kate had to talk me into going with her to Maui the first time. I had visions of a cheesy place with bobble-headed hula dancers, fake culture, and too many tourists. No thanks. Still, we were just married and I thought, well. At least it’s with Kate. She didn’t have to convince me the second time. While other folks played on the beach, I hiked in the interior where there was no one. Kate had her classes during the day and I drove our convertible rental car to the Iao Needle, up Haleakala, on the one lane road around west Maui. Or, I would hike into Lahaina from the hotel, have mahi-mahi and eggs for breakfast, go sit under the banyan tree.

In the evenings Kate and I would go to Mama’s Fish House or to a spot in Lahaina for an evening meal. We both loved a good meal overlooking the ocean, being with each other. Never dull. Never nothing to say. I miss her and now I miss Lahaina, that long time tourist town which was also a link to Royal Hawai’i as well as a provisioning location for whalers and traders plying the Pacific. A lot of pleasant hours wandering in and out of its art galleries, its yes cheesy tourist shops, having a shave ice, or sitting on a bench near the ocean.

On our first trip I got a permission slip from the sugar company that owned the land and hiked up to the Lahaina L, a large letter standing for Lahainaluna High School. Lahainaluna means overlooking Lahaina. I wandered up 2000 foot Mt. Ball, found the letter, and got lost coming back down. Hot and sweaty and covered in red dust I finally got back to the Westin. Oh, so good that shower.

Mama’s Fish House, the second most reserved restaurant in the U.S. I celebrated my 60th and my 65th birthdays there since Kate’s continuing medical education events were always mid-February. On the menu is the name of the fisherman who caught that day the fish you were eating that night. While you eat you can watch the wind surfers on the bay. Hawai’i and Kate. Maui and Kate. We went so many times, so many. And loved each one. And each other.

Acting, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health

Good Enough

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: The Trail to Cold Mountain. Joan. Rebecca. Deb. Abby. Tal. Acting. Being Jewish. Israel. Korea. Rabbi Jamie. Night drives up Brook Forest and Black Mountain Drive. Black Mountain. Shadow Mountain. Berrigan Mountain. Conifer Mountain. Aspen Perks. Friends there. Travis. Brought me coffee without asking. Grieving. A journey toward wholeness. The work of acting. Memorizing. Love. PSA and testosterone. Prostate cancer. Love.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Love

One brief shining: Undetectable again my PSA and a T score lower than 10 which you would think would make me feel wonderful but no, it raises the reality now of the drug holiday when I go off Erleada and Orgovyx for as long as my cancer will allow it which feels like jumping out of a plane with no parachute relying on good luck or another sky diver to pluck me up before I crash into the earth.

 

That probably overstates how I feel. But not by much. Since 2015 I’ve segued from one treatment protocol to another, always getting surgery, radiation, or androgen deprivation therapy. To go naked. To just let the cancer have a safe space with no barriers to its growth? Yikes! The theory is two fold. The first. The radiation and ADT (androgen deprivation therapy. keeping my psa and testosterone suppressed chemically.) may have done such a good job that my cancer [my cancer. huh. I guess it is just that.] will not wake up, at least not for a very long time. The second. The ADT drugs lose their efficacy after a while and have to be stopped before that point, usually two years after starting their use.

I will still have blood draws every three months. Always waiting for the one where the PSA starts to rise indicating the cancer has begun to grow again. That is the most likely scenario. How long that takes is unknown and peculiar to the individual. There is a slight possibility that all these treatments have cured me. Unlikely, but possible. However, even with a long run of suppressed PSA tests I will never know for sure. That will only happen when or if I die of something else.

This is that window of time every three months where my blood gets drawn, the test results come back, and I meet with Kristie, my oncology PA. At this point it doesn’t raise my anxiety level much, but it does raise my awareness level. Oh. Yeah. Cancer! No escaping that. Literally. No escaping it at this point. Big fun.

 

The good news is that I keep living instead of waiting to die. Writing The Trail to Cold Mountain. Learning to act. Putting on a showcase. Converting to Judaism. Taking care of the house. Eating out with friends. Talking to friends and family over Zoom. Living in the Mountains. Seeing sacred moments like the Rainy Night Watcher. Dreaming. Dog sitting. Traveling.

In that sense, that most important sense, my cancer treatment has been wildly successful. With only occasional periods of awful fatigue and hot flashes, side effects, I’ve been strong enough to care for Kate through her long illness, continue working out, engaging life, not sitting in death’s waiting room. Good enough for me.

Acting, Asia, Writing

Fusion energy

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: A great workout yesterday. Murdoch, the hooman. 15 days till Korea. Whoa. 11 days till the showcase. Whoa! Memorizing. Acting. Writing. My new idea for a novel. Desiderata day. Great Sol, our energy, our life. The Wild Neighbors. Han Shan. Chinese poetry. Chan Buddhism. Asian history. K-dramas. Korean literature. China. Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Monkey’s Journey to the West. The Dream of the Red Chamber. Outlaws of the Marsh.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Asia

One brief shining: Murdoch sat hind legs crouched, front legs straight on the leather bench next to my son, gazing across the table at another man in a blue US Airforce t-shirt as if ready to join the conversation and I got three pictures in quick succession from Seoah across the 9,000 miles that separate us something families do.

 

Closing in on being off book for The Trail to Cold Mountain. Maybe today, certainly this week. Good thing since the showcase is a week from Saturday. Remembered I have logs in the back already cut. Will try to lift one this evening. Still no cloak or boots. I’ve gone from being frustrated and tired of the whole thing back to energized.

When I work on things like this, I have them in my head as a priority task. All the time. You know, that nagging thing you need to finish. But can’t quite seem to get to. At least not enough to close it out. At some point with each of my novels I’ve reached that point. The energy drains out of them. The story is stale. It’ll never be any good. I want to chuck it, start over, or start something new.

Got there with the Trail to Cold Mountain last week. I had to perform last during the class. It was well past 8 and I was tired, my body beginning to wind down for sleep. I gave an unspirited, clunky version of my piece. Fell right into the writer/actor abyss. Why have I bothered with this? I’ll never act anyway. Maybe I’ll say I can’t make the showcase. Won’t matter. I’ve done what I wanted.

Except. I didn’t. I kept memorizing even though it felt like a waste. Then, a breakthrough. As I got close to having it all down, my excitement about Han Shan and even the work I’d written returned. I can do this. I’ll introduce Chinese Rivers and Mountains poetry to a new audience, blending my words and his. Donning the costume, using the gourd water bottle and the logs, the parchment paper filled with Cold Mountain’s poetry. Herme will have his night to shine.

And, it just occurred to me, that threshold will be crossed. In the months after Kate died I felt and lived like a hermit with benefits. Friends, that is. The notion of the Hooded Man from the Tarot Deck, so strong an archetype for me. I had him created in neon. Herme.

Now I’m bringing that archetype to life, blending it with the Asian pivot my whole family, save for me, has made. A fusion of life with family Mary, Mark, Seoah, my son, Murdoch, the Jangs, life with friends Tal, Alan, Joan, Deb, Rebecca, and life with CBE-classes held there, performance at the synagogue’s amphitheater, Tal my teacher, the Rabbi’s son.

To be clear. This does not constitute all I wanted to do with the threshold ceremony. I still want to do the mezuzah hanging ritual and a celebration of male aging. Pushing it off to next year, maybe my birthday. 77.

Judaism, Korea, Politics, Travel, US History, World History

Nations. Divided.

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Monday gratefuls: Murdoch. That funny guy. Leo, gone home. Luke. Tal. 48 degrees. Clear Sky. Great Sol brightening the Lodgepoles and Black Mountain. Great Sol’s angle already beginning to visibly decline. The harvest season underway. The Midwest. Its farms and farmers. Its humidity. The arid West. Its Mountains. Dogs. All Dogs. Of all time. Angels. Love incarnate. The Sacred. Revelation.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Dogs

One brief shining: A Dog lays her head in your lap, gazes up at you with adoration, follows you on a walk, waits for you at the door when you come home tired from work, tail wagging, eyes filled with you only you and you reach down, pat her, scratch behind her ears, then the world comes into focus.

 

Realized only yesterday that my travels this year will take me to two divided nations, Israel and Korea. Very different in the origin of the divisions, yes, one xenophobic and the other bemoaned on both sides yet hardened and both societies with strong military presences, the threat of imminent conflict always in the air. I wonder what to look for, how to gauge the impact of the Arab/Israeli conflict on day-to-day life in both Israel and the West Bank. In Korea the division separates a nation into two parts, a  Southern and Northern, yet considered one country by all Koreans. How though does the continuing division affect the average Korean? Not my main reason for visiting either place yet a dominant reality in both.

After my conversion in Jerusalem, I will have a strong personal stake in both countries. A Jew considering the life of Israel. And, a father-in-law with a Korean daughter-in-law, my son stationed in Korea for four years. Also, the Jang family, Seoah’s brother, two sisters, nieces and nephews, her mother and father. The deep wounds in both countries have increased significance for me.

Makes me wonder about the soft division (compared to Israel and Korea) that has come to dominate American politics. About its impact on our body politic here. How does a nation fare when large numbers of its citizens disagree on the fundamentals of what it means to be a nation? What is, after all, a nation? Certainly it requires some minimal cohesion among its resident population.

This Wikipedia entry, nation, has a nice precis of what the word has meant and might mean in the future. It’s important to remember that the nation state is a relatively recent invention, most scholars agreeing that the modern nation state arose in the 17th century. I found this quote from the Wiki helpful: “The consensus among scholars is that nations are socially constructed, historically contingent, and organizationally flexible.” My mental ears perked up at the first two terms: socially constructed and historically contingent.

Yes. Israel came into being in 1947, a recent expression of an old homeland, one imposed on an existing territory already occupied by Jews and Arab. Socially constructed as a necessary antidote to the horrors of Hitler’s Germany, yet oh so historically contingent as an increasingly large swath of the diaspora, Palestinians, and progressive Israelis argue it must change its nature as a nation. It is refusing to be organizationally flexible.

Korea though is an ethnic nation divided by modern politics. Both South Korea and North Korea socially constructed by the historical contingencies of big power politics, the Cold War, of the 1950’s. Because of those ties of ethnicity, most Koreans on both sides of the border yearn for unification.

Yet here. Here. The standout phrase. Historically contingent. As in, will not necessarily always exist. The nature of our socially constructed reality? Contested. Is there an organizational structure that can contain both far right and liberal Americans? That is our big question.

 

 

 

Acting, Politics, US History

A Mushroom Cloud of lies and conspiracy theories

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Lughnasa and the Herme Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Memorizing The Trail to Cold Mountain. Seoah, my son, Murdoch. Korea. Brother Mark. Sister Mary. Gabe and Ruth. Kate, always Kate. Jon, a memory. A Foggy morning. 48 degrees. Magic the Gathering. Korean competition. Sky Castle. K-dramas. Writing. A new novel idea. Getting ready for the long journeys. Israel trip meeting today. Packing gifts for Korea.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Fog

One brief shining: Fingers curve over the keyboard as I learned in high school typing almost 60 years ago a manual skill one of the few I learned well, how to fell a tree, limb it, and buck it another, suppose you have to add driving, and there you have it.

 

I’m close on memorizing The Trail to Cold Mountain. A couple of more hours today and I’ll be even closer. On the 19th I’ll have all the poems as a prop, but not what I’ve written. My costume still lacks a cloak and hood, boots. Gotta get on those this week. Satisfying.

 

Toobin’s book, Homegrown, details the lives of several feckless men and women folks whose lives never managed to crystallize. Failed marriages, bouts of unemployment dotted with rants, seeking a culprit and finding one in the Federal government.

McVeigh spent much of his adult life going from one gun show to another, often driving thousands of miles in a week. Toobin illustrates how gun shows are a carrier of the far right pathogen. At the larger ones there were sessions on the Constitution, what really happened at Waco and Ruby Ridge, how to become a sovereign citizen, survivalist skills. Then there is the gunshow loophole which allows individuals to sell guns and ammunition with no checks of any kind. This still exists.

While on the road McVeigh listened to Rush Limbaugh, often for hours at a time. At night he had a shortwave radio and listened to a similar podcast from Arizona. His friend Timothy Nichols added the plight of farmers in the 1980’s to Tim’s thinking. Nichols hated banks, floated around the Michigan militia movement. With his lone wolf, road warrior lifestyle McVeigh rarely came out from under the mushroom cloud of conspiracy theories, second amendment fanatics, and gun show radicals.

Toobin shows, in a neat twist, how the early response to the Murrah Building bombing focused on Muslims, on foreigners who wanted to do harm to the Great Satan. But no. Instead this bomb made of fertilizer and racing fuel in 55 gallon drums all packed tight in a rental truck came from the same source as those who blamed the attack on outsiders.

As my brother said in an e-mail, reconciling the Trumpists with the rest of our nation will be difficult. Make no mistake. Trump is only a highly visible manifestation of the same mushroom cloud of lies and hate that engulfed Timothy McVeigh over thirty years ago. And the bomb that made that cloud became real in a fantasy world already well inhabited by the heirs of the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society, and the NRA.