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  • This Is Not the Way

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Greenhouse Moon

    Sunday gratefuls: A day of no-things. Shadow and I outside, drop, walk, stop, drop, turn, walk, drop. Her eagerness. Her five o’clock licking. Sciatica. Morning darkness. The morning service. The Shema. Tara. Ruth, home two days ago, leaving for Alaska today. Gabe, now a senior. Whoa. Mary in Seoul. Seoah, Murdoch. My son. Mark walks to downtown Al Kharj. Shadow Mountain.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: MRI

    Week Kavannah: Wholeness and Peacefulness. Shleimut. Integrating pain into my daily life.

    One brief shining: Sorry, Marines, pain is not weakness leaving the body, no; but, it is a constant reminder of being alive, of still having a body that can identify itself through the jolt that starts in the hip, gathers intensity around the knee, and on occasion flashes to the foot.

     

    Back and cancer: Get MRI results tomorrow. Buphati at 3 pm. On Friday I see Kylie my Army officer retired P.A. for preparation. I have a SPRINT device in my future. The bogo MRI. Checking for cancer and readying me for a pain reduction, elimination procedure. Rare confluence of medical care.

    Ouch, ouch, ouch. ouch. Sciatica is a son of a bitch. Above 10. A crescendo, then a falling away. I. Do. Not. Like. It.

    If the SPRINT device works, I will send up hallelujahs in the name of its inventor, Kylie, and the doctor who installs it. If it doesn’t? I’m no worse off than before. Probably nerve ablation.

    If there’s cancer in my hip? Don’t know. But Buphati will have things to recommend, I know.

     

    Reading: I’m on a run of science fiction and magic. John Scalzi’s Starter Villain and Kaiju Preservation Society. Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. The Gray Man and Daniel Silva set aside for the moment.

    My serious reading of late has been for my two Kabbalah Experience classes. A New Story for Human Consciousness and the Radical Roots of Religion. The first, learning to retell, reimagine the story of Adam and Eve. And, in so doing, realizing we can reframe, reconstruct any story, including the one we tell ourselves about who we are in this world.

    The second investigating moments when Judaism received a radical refit. Focused on Mordecai Kaplan, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Reb Zalman, and Art Green, but looking backward to Maimonides, the Bal Shem Tov, the destruction of the second Temple and the rise of Rabbinic Judaism.

    I’m excited about these classes. I want to retell the story of Adam and Eve. Maybe my own story, too. Most of all I’m excited about considering what the next revolution might be in Judaism, imagining it, perhaps helping to build it.

     

    Just a moment: Whoo, boy. We’ve crossed over and I didn’t really get it until I read this paragraph in an article titled: “Why Trump’s push for ‘gold-standard science’ has researchers alarmed.”*

    Crossed over to what? An age of ideology, a time when political thought, doled out by political commissars, trumps (see what I did there?) decision making for any other reason.

    This is a direct route to a Stalinesque, Mao Tse Tungesque form of governance. It is, as George Will observed in his strange opinion piece about Trump as a progressive, a form of Statism.

    I admit I’m an Enlightenment, scientific method guy. But. I know that science does not occur in a political vacuum. Its funding, its direction, even its focus often has political influence. Look, for example, to the Agricultural and Mechanical universities dotted around the U.S. and delivering junk methods to farmers that kill the soil and enrich Big Ag.

    Even so. I support science and the scientific endeavor to understand, to grasp the world around us as it is, not as we either imagine or wish it to be. No political commissar will know scientific facts better than scientists themselves.

    I do agree with one facet of this critique of science, however. Many Americans have lost faith in science and we need, as a country, to help restore it. This is not the way.

     

     

     

    ” “And in a “Gold Standard Science” executive order last week, President Donald Trump outlined a new level of oversight over what counts as quality evidence and what does not, (emphasis mine) putting “a senior appointee designated by the agency head” in charge of overseeing “alleged violations.” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a briefing that the goal of the executive order is to “rebuild the American people’s confidence in the national science enterprise … the status quo of our research enterprise has brought diminishing returns, wasted resources and public distrust.”” Washington Post, June 1, 2025.


    Commentary on Religion Dogs Health Humanities Judaism Kabbalah Literature Myth and Story Politics Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Science Torah

  • A New Pope

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Friday gratefuls: Marilyn and Irv. Alan. The Cheesecake factory. Shadow, the night Hawk. Pope Leo XIV. A Chicago boy. Exhaustion. Ritalin. 12″ of heavy Snow. Melted. The Solar Snow shovel. That long nap yesterday. Cookunity.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: An American Pope

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut.

    One brief shining: After a late night from MVP, Shadow kept me up even later, past midnight, then licked my head and whined at her usual 5 am time leaving me more than exhausted yesterday and napping through the morning missing Diane and my class at Kabbalah experience.

     

    Also failed to pick up my ritalin, I realized. No wonder I crashed on Thursday. Gotta switch those meds to Safeway. Can’t get ritalin or tramadol through the mail. Controlled substances. Walgreen’s made sense when my doc was in Evergreen, but the clinic is moving here to Conifer.

    Anyhow Thursday was a washout, rest and relax day. Unintentional since Thursday tends to be my busiest day of the week with Diane, Kabbalah class, and Thursday mussar.

     

    How bout that Leo XIV? Chi town. A south sider. A naturalized Peruvian. Another Pope from Latin America. One with a bias toward the poor, the left out. The marginalized.

    An adroit move if the consideration went: Trump is a big problem for the world. For the poor. Look at USAID. Francis sensitized us to the needs of the marginalized as a world church. How about an American pope with strong ties to the Third World? Multi-lingual. And familiar with the Vatican and its ways. Prevost was that guy.

    He headed the Vatican department that vetted bishop candidates. A gatekeeper role for future church leadership. He also spent decades among the poor in Peru. While there he twice became leader of his order, the Augustinians.

    I’m heartened by his selection. We need more voices for the poor, for justice. No, I won’t agree with all of his views, nor he with mine; but, we share core values, too.

     

    Meanwhile on Shadow Mountain. Shadow of Shadow Mountain has regressed in her coming in and going out. Unpredictable. I may have to open the door for her several times before she feels comfortable coming in the house. Why? I have no idea. If I did, I might be able to figure out a solution.

    Too, the twelve inches of heavy, wet Snow that fell on Tuesday and Wednesday has melted off roads and driveways. Still some patches in my north facing backyard. Enough to move Smoky’s hand from high fire risk to low.

     

    Just a moment: I’ve been pondering a view of the human from the stand point of mussar and Jewish thought.

    Here’s some preliminary work. The neshama, the pristine soul, our link to the whole, still must engage the world. That’s what the nefesh does. Spurred by the pristine connected neshama, the nefesh moves me out into the world through desire. Desire for food, for safety, for love, for education. Desire without valence.

    Our yetzer hatov, our good inclination, and our yetzer hara, our selfish inclination, try to influence how we live our desires. Our will recognizes both the desires and the yetzer’s attempt to direct our action. That is the bechira point, the moment when we actively choose to satisfy a desire following a healthy, just path, or a selfish, self involved path.

     

     

     


    Commentary on Religion Dogs Health Mussar

  • The Cardinals

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

    Wednesday gratefuls: Snow. Heavy, wet, cold. Snow. Still coming down. 10″ so far. Shadow, frozen tennis ball in mouth, racing through the trees at top speed. Radical Roots of Religion. Ginny and Janice. Annie and Luna. Luke and Leo. Beltane. The Lord and the Lady. Greenhouse. Nathan. Colorado Coop and Garden.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: My Furry Alarm

    Week Kavannah: Enthusiasm. Zerizut

    One brief shining: In a white rental Camry I drove down Black Mountain/Brook Forest Drive, feeling the sedan shift and dance a bit on icy roads, no Snow tires, no all wheel drive, controls in unfamiliar locations, made it down to Evergreen talking to Kate, watching the icy rain spill onto the windshield, gather clumps of ice on the windshield washers, and later on I-70 having fast moving trucks throw enough road wash up to blind me. Loads of fun.

     

    Of course, it’s Wednesday. Trash day. And I have 10″ and counting of new late spring Snow on the driveway. This morning my back decided to be very ouchy so I’m not making it outside. Two weeks from now.

    That said. Oh, how fortunate are we to get this wet heavy whiteness. Our high risk fire weather conditions need a tamp down and this will be a good resource.

    The Mountains in Snow. Beautiful. Treacherous.

     

    In other places: Today the Sistine Chapel, hot off its Hollywood run in Conclave, will fill up with Cardinals, not the I.U. mascot, but plumage adjacent humans complete with a red ruff at the top.

    Their task. Elect a pope. A fisher of men. Peter’s successor. Carrier of his keys. The 6th since 1947. My lifetime. I have had a fascination with conclaves and the Supreme Court. Both berobed, both filled with folks appointed for life, both apex institutions in their cultures. Both secretive. Powerful. Both capable of impacting the world.

    Over the next few days we will see smoke. Speculation. How long will it take? Impossible to say. I’m interested, as are most, in the type of pope the electors choose.

    Will he be a Francis admirer, a Third-World pope of color, or a dour conservative vowing to save Latin and the Tridentine Mass? We’ll know soon enough.

    In mussar, the Jewish discipline focused on character building, we talk about changing our behavior so we can change our hearts. The outer affects the inner.

    Francis, as I see him, has done the same with the whole Roman church. Instead getting up in his head, as any good Jesuit might be expected to do, Francis visited Africa, Latin America. Often. He blessed LGBT+ folks, embraced the poor, offered himself as an ambassador of peace, spoke out against rapacious economies and politicians alike.

    He acted out his character, his personhood shaped by love, not only dogma. My hunch is that he changed the inner heart of the church much more with that approach than had he issued more bulls and encyclicals.

    Watch the smoke. I know I will.

     

     


    Commentary on Religion

  • Gabe at 17. The Pope is dead.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Gabe at 17. The Water Grill. Creative Writing. Poetry. Looking at colleges. University of Iowa. U.C. Denver. Metro State. Go, Gabe. Wasting Time. Don’t waste time on being productive. Just live. Shadow, the toy render. A drive down the hill. Halibut. Swordfish. Clam Chowder. Oysters.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: A gap year for Gabe. Here?

    Week Kavannah: Sensibility. Daat.

    One Brief Shining: Driving back up the hill in late afternoon, Great Sol above Black Mountain, those ski runs that mar its side still limned in Snow, my new Raybans cutting the glare as I round Windy Point, closing in on Conifer where Kate found our Shadow Mountain home, back in the Mountains. Yes.

     

    Gabe turns seventeen tomorrow. We celebrated at the Water Grill where he, Ruth, Jen, and I ate Thanksgiving last November. Much, much less crowded.

    He had the clam chowder. My favorite soup. At Dad’s we always bought canned clam chowder. His entree? Swordfish. Which he ate with the completeness of Shadow finishing her meal.

    We had a conversation about colleges. His creative writing teacher has encouraged his poetry. Right now he wants to major in creative writing. No surprise University of Iowa made his list.

    He may want to take a gap year. To find out who he is. What he wants. Guess where he wants to live? Grandpa’s house. He loves the Mountains. And his Grandpa. That’s a year away. So we’ll see.

    By that time Ruth will be a junior at CU-Boulder. In her second year of pre-med. Not sure how that timing works out for graduation.

    I recall holding infant Gabe while the mohel circumcised him. He looks older now.

     

    chatgpt in the style of Raphael

    The Pope is dead. Long live the Pope. The Conclave comes to life at the death of Pope Francis, a man who had an inclusive heart.

    The intrigue of papal politics will be on display. The ritual seclusion of the Cardinals, princes of the Church. The Sistine Chapel in all its Michelangelic glory. What a setting! Smoke signals. A Monarchy with a ritual method of choosing a ruler to follow in the footsteps of St. Peter.

    I admire the Catholic Church as an institution. It’s nearly two thousand years old, an astonishing run for any human creation. Not to say there haven’t been many bumpy years, even centuries. Yet it remains largely the same. Which is why I don’t admire it as a religious institution, yet I’d acknowledge that may be a clue to its longevity.

    A story only beginning. But I have a question first.

     

    Just a moment: Did JD Vance kill the Pope? This correspondent wants to know. Sure, the Pope had been ill. Sure. What better time for an assassination attempt.

    Besides, that odd beard. What’s he hiding? Is this why Vance converted? To get close enough to take out a Trump critic?

    Q-a-conspiracy thinks it might be true enough. I don’t know what to believe. And so close to Easter? Come on, something smells fishy in the Vatican State.

    You heard it ginned up here first.


    Commentary on Religion Family

  • That Great Wakin’ Up Mornin’

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Shabbat gratefuls: Counting the Omer. Shadow time. 5:15 am today. Nap later. Shabbat shalom. Nathan and the Greenhouse. Snow. 6 inches. 15 degrees. Easter. Resurrection. Mussar. The Days of our Lives. Fawns. Calves. Kits. Cubs. Birthdays in the Mountains. Puppy energy. Breakfast. Early Morning on Shadow Mountain.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: National Park Week

    Week Kavannah: Sensibility. Daat.

    One brief shining: Rubbing my sleepy eyes I rose before Mother Earth revealed Great Sol, a darkness into which my Shadow slipped, needing to be out in the Snow, the cold for reasons of elimination, I imagine.

     

    Easter. Resurrection. A difficult thing to believe. Yes. The story until the rolling away of the Stone? A Jesus story, a Jewish story. An against the Roman occupiers and the perceived rigidity of Jewish leadership story. A believable story of a young Jewish man who captured the hearts of many with his gentle message of love and compassion, his radical insistence on caring for the poor, the widowed, the left out.

    His popularity his downfall. A threat to Roman overlords. Who even after arresting him, tried to let him go free. Even believable up to the crucifixion, a cruel punishment. Even up to his death and burial.

    Sure, the miracles. But who hasn’t imagined one they love able to walk on water, heal with a kiss, drive out the demons of yesterday. Or, just give him the miracles. He was not the only miracle worker ever.

    Where it gets hard. Impossible? That great wakin’ up morning. An empty tomb. Empirical Thomas putting his fingers in Jesus’ wounds. An ascension.

    Why do some people believe it? A lot of people. 2.38 billion Christians according to PEW research. More than any other religion with Muslims next at 1.9 billion.

    Let me say. Resurrection has that whole death is not the end thing going for it. A powerful idea. Responds to the hidden fears of so many. What’s next? Is there life after life?

    There’s the butterfly after all. That creepy leaf-munching wiggle worm weaves a chrysalis and thanks to the magic of imaginal cells becomes a beautiful Swallowtail? Why not us? Are we not as worthy of transformation?

    A story of death’s defeat. Remember Max Von Sydow playing chess with death? Checkmate, Jesus.

    Always seemed a bit too far for me. A punchline delivered long after the hero had already died. He was great, wasn’t he? Well then. If anybody could come back? Eh?

    Still. It’s a great metaphor. Take that beaten down mother. Show her kindness. See a resurrection. Or, take a cruel despot like Trump and overthrow him. Resurrection. Look at the Gardens, the Mountain Meadows and Hillsides in Spring. Resurrection.

    If believing in life after death helps you get through the day? Why not. Not for me. Though if it could be. If I could see Kate again. Tor. Celt. Kona. I’m ok with it if it’s there. Not counting on it.

    Whatever you believe, I hope you have splendid Easter.


    Commentary on Religion

  • Wildness in the Garden

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Select P.T. Rick. Ginny. Luke. Jamie. Marilyn. Ratzon. Mussar. Shadow, the eater of bones. Kate, always Kate. Breakfast for Shadow. Cookunity. Vegetables home grown. Nathan. Marilyn and Irv. Steroid injections. Anavah. Diane’s healing. Mark and his ESL students in Al Kharj. Snow, a lot. Easter and resurrection.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow

    Week Kavannah: Joy. Simcha.

    One brief shining: A Mountain Spring includes 70 degree weather yesterday and 19 this morning; Sunshine and greening grass yesterday and Snow coming straight down, already covering my backyard this morning; at some point a sudden shift will occur and a Mountain Summer will have begun.

     

    My Wild Neighbors like to eat Garden produce. My new Greenhouse will have net covering to foil them. Besides I let my Dandelions go to seed and multiply offering dainty treats for the Mule Deer and Elk who love this briefly available food. I also offer plenty of Grass and other Plants desired by my Ungulate friends over the course of the growing season.

    Shadow’s amusement will include this year Voles, Mice, Rabbits, Chipmunks, and the occasional Squirrel, either Red or Aberts. My guess is that she’s not the predator Rigel and Vega were, but she’ll still have fun chasing these Mountain Mammals for whom speed is safety.

    I’m not fully in the Wild, but I am fully in the Wildlands Urban Interface and the Arapaho National Forest. No Grassy yard expected or desired. Only what grows on its own. My happy place.

     

    chatgpt

    Third new human story class. Holding the Genesis accounts of creating humans to closer account. For example. You can’t eat of the Tree of Good and Bad. How would either Eve or Adam know what that meant? They have no experience, no prior knowledge of those words. Good and Bad are empty vessels.

    The voice, as Twain calls God, may as well have said don’t eat of the Tree of Rocks and Scissors.

    And that Snake that gets all the blame? Well, guess who made him. Why make a sneaky Snake in the first place. Then to blame and punish him for acting as the Snake God created him to be? Doesn’t really seem fair, does it?

    I wonder, too, about God’s observation about the human (adam). It’s not good for the human to be alone. Hmmm. From a Kabbalistic perspective that sounds like God’s contraction in the ayn sof, the emptiness that preceded everything. God pulled back to leave room for the universe. Was God lonely, too?

    There are more, many more questions about this old, old story. All of them echoing down the millennia since it’s inclusion in the Torah. Original sin, for example.

    Here’s a new take on original sin (in which I have never believed) that came to me yesterday. When Adam and Eve eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad they become self-conscious. They need clothes. Might the original human sin have been self-consciousness?

    That is, could the awareness of themselves as beings separate from each other and the rest of the Garden’s plants and animals, be the fall. The illusion that our separateness is real and total. That we are somehow wholly independent from the natural world and other humans, too?

    I could easily draw a line through all of human history that would link this fallacy with all the major sins our flesh is heir to.


    Commentary on Religion Kabbalah Mountains Myth and Story Plants Torah Wild Neighbors

  • The Shadow Knows

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Shadow, the Night Dog. Cool night. Being a doggie Dad. Tarrific Trump, the unpredictable. China. My son, near to China. Seoah and Murdoch. Leo. Annie and Luna. The Jangs come to America. Ruth. Gabe. My &#$! back.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Religion

    Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

    One brief shining: She ran from the door into the night, once again inside shy after dark, staying mysterious, a Shadow on my late evening, coming in suddenly, behind my back, there under the bed in the morning though I thought she was outside.

     

    Dog journal: My Shadow. A conundrum. Loving, playful. Dr. Shadow. Timid, threshold shy traumatized Shadow. Exuberant. Fearful. Difficult to train. Happy to train. A deeper wound than I thought. As Kate would say, tincture of time.

    We spent time, Amy and me, with Shadow on the leash outside. Shadow led; then, I led a bit. Amy noticed, I did not, that Shadow panted part of the time. A sign of stress she said. Means we need to go slow with training, with the leash.

    I trust Amy. She’s Dog-centric, concerned about Shadow’s mental health as well as training. The two have an intimate relation in Shadow’s case.

    In the daylight and with me Shadow is a puppy. Throwing her toys in the air, chewing on bones, running outside with her tail held high.

    At night she becomes fearful of the threshold to the inside. When I try to train her, she becomes cautious, tentative, suspicious. Amy’s better with her, but she gets some of the same behaviors, too.

    A difficult journey for both of us. Worth it. Why? Because it’s a matter of love, of learning each other, of coming to know each other in our mutual woundedness.

     

    Started my class on Religion’s Radical Roots yesterday. Rabbi Jamie through Kabbalah Experience. He’s such a good teacher. The best I’ve ever had. A very smart guy, empathetic, too.

    We gave religion as a whole a letter grade, then offered what religion meant-the word and the social institution. I gave a B to a B- admitting I might be guilty of grade inflation.

    Here’s my three minute definition of religion’s purpose:

    I see religion as an antidote to hyper-rationalism, as a poetry of the inner world, as an attempt to order the chaos of public life, (which is when it usually gets in trouble), as a source for ideas about justice that can challenge existing political paradigms.

    Fun to be in class with Rabbi Jamie. Thursday mussar, Bagel Table, and now this class. My happy place. Makes me wonder, again, why I haven’t taught.

    My current conclusion. My understanding has a built in trap door. The minute something begins to feel solid for me the acid of questions opens holes in it. If I taught, I would say: Here is this idea. But, don’t trust it. It has this flaw and that one. We’d never get anywhere.

    I’ve become ok with this over my lifetime, even see it as a feature, not a bug. Yet it has definite complications.


    Commentary on Religion Dogs Fourth Phase Judaism

  • Mormons

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Wu Wei Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Waste. Amy. Ritalin. Gabe and the Water Grill. Aspen Perks. Conoco. Sinclair. Ruby. 4.20. Shadow, fair warning. Sleeping hard. The tiger. Still squeaking. Not for long. Dr. Shadow at work. Mark and his students. Mary and the Monkeys. My son and his wife, anniversary #9 tomorrow. Ruth in her last month of her freshmen year. Taking out the trash. Wish someone would do it on Pennsylvania Ave. Looking like NYC in the 80’s.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mark Twain, The Diaries of Adam and Eve

    Week Kavannah: Wu Wei

    One brief shining: Those Mormon missionaries came by and we talked at my breakfast table, their earnest smiling faces, their convinced sincerity, their modest honesty, and my heart ached for their young minds already captured and tied like a Calf in a Utah rodeo.

     

    chatgpt in the style of Giotto

    They came inside. I was curious about them. Wanted to know a bit more. So I asked. They pay $400 a month into a pot for all those out on mission. Then they get funds from the mothership for lodging and food, transportation. Elijah’s parents paid. The other, younger looking guy, said he paid his own way.

    They go out for two years. Seems like a long time to me. Elijah was from Irvine, California. The other from Utah. They’re living in a cabin in Aspen Park.

    Elijah had the extroverts ease. He loved my house, my art. The other guy, quiet, had an air of slight menace about him, the menace of the true believer, ready to throw down if disrespected. Fair enough. He did though answer this to my question about why they believed, “I suppose because I was raised in it.”

    an interesting chatgpt take on the Mormon Tabernacle

    The book of Mormon settles disputed territory (as understood by Mormons) in the restored church of the LDS, latter day saints. Baptism is a for instance.

    At age 8 you become accountable. That’s when you can sin and it’s the earliest you can be baptized. Roman Catholics believe you can baptize by sprinkling an infant; Baptists believe in full immersion. The Book of Mormon endorses full immersion thereby resolving the issue.

    There was a moment of weird crossover with the New Apostolic Reformation. Remember them? Mormons have had 12 apostles and one prophet since the time of Joseph Smith. When an apostle or prophet dies, the remaining men (yes, men) choose their successor.

    This is significant since only the apostles and the prophet can receive revelations for the whole church. Individuals can, and do, receive revelation for their own lives, but only the top dogs can speak to the whole.

    An interesting half hour. I admired their commitment and their persistence. Told them that. But, I also said, not for me.

     

    Just a moment: Tariffic Trump. A beautiful plan he says. From a not so beautiful mind, a downright immoral narcissist. Reminds me a bit of the quieter one of the Mormon missionaries. The menace of the true believer.

    I know. If you agree, I like you. If you don’t, I not only don’t like you, but I’ll punish you.


    Commentary on Religion Politics US History World History

  • Jesus comes to the Americas

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring and the Snow Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Shadow’s morning greeting. All bounce and joy. Alan at the Baglery. Evergreen. Conifer. Bailey. Constipation. My Taos ring. Kate, always Kate. Shadow’s bed. No more stuffing. Elon and China. Treats. Shadow and her toys. Bagels. Losing weight.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Vermont Flannel

    Week Kavannah:  Social Responsibility

    One brief shining: Up in the air, the black sock, pounced on, the pink sock, ripped and shredded bed, a rubber ball carried as if conquered by a Roman legion, tail up, ears out, running, then looking over the arm of the chair with wide brown eyes and a smile. Shadow.

     

    Ritalin. Has helped my fatigue. May have suppressed my appetite a bit. Losing weight. Could also be another turn of the cancer screw. Hard to tell. Wake up tired. Once I get moving, I’m fine. The steady drip, drip, drip of this and that.

     

    Ruth’s coming up Tuesday. We’re celebrating-early-her nineteenth birthday-with a meal at Sushi Den. The Sushi spot in Denver. She’ll drive. Give grandpop a break.

    She’s also bringing me lox from Costco. Cheaper yet more, according to her.

    It makes me feel so good to see her proactive, loving school, reaching out, planning for her future. Next year she starts her new major, integrative physiology. Headed toward some medical career, I think.

    The amount of hard work and tears she’s invested in this new way of becoming. Inspiring. A testament to her fighting spirit and the human spirit.

     

    Two Mormon missionaries come to my door. Blue suits, official looking nametags with Elder in front of their names. I doubt they were twenty, maybe still in their teens.

    As a man of religion myself, I honor and respect the commitment these young spreaders of the Mormon word display. I accepted a Book of Mormon: another Testament of Jesus Christ bound in faux blue leather matching their neatly pressed suits.

    Elder Brommard, something like that, said I should read, he flipped through pages, this chapter first about Jesus coming to the Americas. Could of said, stop right there, dude. Didn’t.

    Tempted to invite them in if they come back this weekend. If I do, I would say this: I know you want me to believe this. What I’d rather know right now is why do you believe this?

    A question that fascinates me. What causes a person to cross the threshold of belief? Move from a natural skepticism to whole hearted acceptance.

    I shook Elder Brommard’s three offered fingers, cold and clammy, nodded to his buddy, and declined to talk to them. Said they may come back this weekend. We’ll see.

     

    Just a moment: Who would you give war plans for China? A billionaire whose company has begun to lose market share there? Who’s a buddy of Xi Jinping’s? Whose loyalty is to, what? Money. Power. White people. He’s an Afrikaner, don’t forget.

    There are things I don’t understand about the Trump/Musk axis. A lot. Motive seems clear. Power. Money. Retribution. Revenge. Chaos. Mission accomplished. But the means, the stab, crash, break means?

     

     


    Commentary on Religion Dogs Family Health Politics

  • Shadow. N.A.R. Storm.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc and the Snow Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Jorge Borge. Herman Hesse. Thomas Mann. Sinclair Lewis. Theodore Dreiser. Goethe. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau. William Cullen Bryant. Dante. Homer. Euripides. Moses. Ovid. Mary Oliver. Coleridge. Wordsworth. Poe. Hawthorne. Cooper Powys. Joanne Greenberg. And so, so many others.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Creativity

    Week Kavannah: Patience.  Savlanut. When I rush, slow down. When I want to speak, wait. When my inner agonizer arises, calm him, move on

    One brief shining: Said the shema, said my I am comfortable with who I am and what I have, turned on the oxygen concentrator when I heard a crash and then another crash from the space where Shadow was; went back out of the bedroom to find my laptop, my Kindle, various papers, and a bag of treats splayed out on the floor, a shocked Shadow looking sheepish, a little scared. So I picked things up, comforted her, and returned to bed.

     

    Dog Journal: As her comfort level increases, Shadow has become more and more a regular puppy. Chewing up her brand new bed. Trying to get into the treats I left on my computer table. Being bouncy and happy and wiggly. She has learned sit, down, and touch.

    She still does things that confound me. When I want her to come in, she stands by the door, won’t come in until I sit down. Often, too, she will run back outside if I get up too fast. When it’s cold outside? Annoying. Like right now for instance.

    Having her here when I wake up. When I come home. Glad to see me, tail wagging. Yes. Many times yes.

     

    N.A.R. notes. Wagner did a phenomenological analysis of Christian church growth. He found the most growth in Pentecostal congregations in the third world and mega-churches in the U.S. His conclusion? The holy spirit was at work reshaping the church for a new era.

    From within his worldview this was a logical conclusion. Where there are signs of vitality, there is the current activity of God in the world. He also noted that in these new congregations, these gatherings local leaders were the authority. The megachurches, too. Apostles and prophets were the missing elements from denominational governance. Instead of bureaucracy there were charismatic leaders who spoke directly with God and acted in (his) stead.

    We will see later how this lead to the powerful, politically motivated Christian Nationalism that we wrestle with today. Wagner’s work I’m discussing now is from the late 1990’s.

     

    Just a moment: I have George Friedman’s The Storm Before the Calm out again. Going to reread his last chapters. The Trump/Musk assault on American norms of the last 80 years may be the storm Friedman predicted. Sure feels like it anyhow. A tearing down of the old paradigm followed by a reshaping. The reshaping will not be the work of the MAGA folks but of a coalition, I would imagine, of the center-right and the center-left, perhaps forming a new political party.

     


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