Category Archives: Writing

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Humanities, Literature, Writing

Theodicy

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Winter                                      Waning Moon of Long Nights

Explanations of theodicy run aground on Haiti, just as they do on the Holocaust, Rawandi, Sudan.  When a nation as poor and crippled as Haiti gets hit with a major earthquake, how does one reconcile that with a loving and just God?  No intellectual fancy footwork can answer that question.

I’m reading a book sent to Kate by Jon, Children of Dust.  It’s a memoir of a young Punjabi who makes several circuits through various perspectives on Islam from conservative to fundamentalist to ethnic and, I understand, eventually out.  This is the second memoir I’ve read recently, the other being Escape, about the FLDS.

With this one I have doubts about the accuracy of it.  Memoirs are tricky at best, memory changes as we remember, in fact it changes before it becomes solid memory.  Eye witness accounts are, according to some criminologists, the most unreliable testimony.

There is, of course, the need all of us to be the heroes in our own story,  the need to smooth out the most raggedy parts of our performance as a human being.  There is a desire to be accepted that goes beyond this tendency to encourage putting the very best light on what we do.  In addition, the most memorable moments are emotionally  highly charged and therefore subject to distortion in the moment, much less over time.

And each of these can loop back on themselves to create another level of distortion.  That is, I admit my tendency to smooth out the raggedy parts so I show you raggedy parts.  In fact, I may make them grimmer than they were in order to convince you I’m honest, which I’m not.  Anyhow, the labyrinth here is difficult at best.

Children of Dust is worth a read, perhaps less as a memoir than as an impression of the complex lives Muslims live in contemporary world culture.  It succeeds brilliantly in doing that.

Writing

Offensive Play

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Winter                                               Waning Moon of Long Nights

As my new novel has grown into its second chapter, my writing here has become more and more about the weather.  Not a light hearted topic in Minnesota, nor one lacking interest, at least for me, still it’s not the only thing going on here.

There is, for example, football.  Cybermage and good friend Bill Schmidt sees a play-off scenario where the Green Packers return to the Dome–They’re Baaaaaccck–for a third go at former teammate Brett Favre, for the NFC championships and for the right to play in the big game.  Bill seems to think third times a charm, but in the parlance of the NFL, it’s just another game.

On a much more sobering note, I commend the following article to anyone with even the slightest interest in football.  Offensive Play, written by Malcolm Gladwell, asks if dogfighting (Michael Vick) is, in the end, very different from football. In specific, it chronicles a recent uptick in interest among brain scientists and neurologists in the impact of repeated impacts to the head, many of them not enough in themselves to produce a concussion, but enough to set stage for one.  This article would make me pull my kid out of football and makes me wonder, not about the dogfighting comparison so much, but about the oft made comparison between football and the gladiatorial arena of ancient Rome.  At least there you died right away, not gibbering and slow.

Lou Creekmur, former offensive lineman for the Detroit Lions and eight-time Pro Bowl player, was diagnosed with CTE by neuropathologist and CSTE co-director Ann McKee, MD. Creekmur played 10 seasons for the Detroit Lions, and was famous for breaking his nose 13 times while playing without a facemask. He died July 5, 2009 from complications of dementia following a 30-year decline that included cognitive and behavioral issues such as memory loss, lack of attention and organization skills, increasingly intensive angry and aggressive outbursts.

Three brain sections from Mr. Creekmur showing dense tau deposits (brown) in the insula (1), temporal (2) and frontal (3) cortices, amygdala (4) and hippocampus (5) in the absence of beta amyloid plaques. A normal control brain would not show any brown discoloration.

Cooking, Writing

Time Enough

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Winter                                     Waning Moon of Long Nights

I’ve had a long stretch of no tours at the museum, little direct work for the Sierra Club and, of course, no gardening.  That means I’ve had plenty of time to focus on writing and I’m well into a new novel and have the research underway for Liberal II:  The Present.  It’s nice to have extensive time at home, especially when the weather has been as brutal as it has been.

The act of writing has a therapeutic edge, no matter what form the writing takes, but when the writing is fiction, something else comes into the act.  I don’t know what it is, other generations have called it the muse, inspiration, an angel, a devil but it does feel like there’s a second party in on the action.

We got our mutual present to each other today, a Kitchen Aid Artisan stand-mixer.  Bread and pasta are on  my mind.  As Kate has been home since mid-October, I’ve noticed a tendency to put more time and love in to the act of cooking and to put more of a focus on the kitchen.  I enjoy it.

Family, Great Work, Weather +Climate, Writing

Let There Be (which) Light?

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Samhain                         Waning Wolf Moon

The snow continues and the wind now gusts around 12 mph.  Accumulation so far is minimal, but NOAA says the storm will pick up energy tonight and continue on through tomorrow afternoon.  Afterward, the temperature will drop below zero at night and remain in the single digits for highs through Tuesday.  This means winter has come on apace.  Average over these same dates is 27-28 with lows in the teens.  Since October our months have been on a sine curve, wonder if that means January will be balmy?  Unlikely, since it’s typically our coldest month, but with the new weather regimen, who knows?

We began a while ago to swap out incandescents for CFLs, though there are still places like stairwells and coat closets where the instant on power of the Edison heritage bulbs still make sense.  We’ll switch to LEDSs when they become affordable and equivalent.  It’s still difficult to find CFLs that really match the brightness of incandescents though halogens work well.  These transition periods are difficult, finding the new tech that performs as well as the old one takes time, sometimes several generations of the new one.  We’re not there yet with efficient lighting.  The LED light shown here retails for $129.00.  Yikes!

Oddly, the post on which I’ve received the most comments was one on the Sunday throat.  Apparently other folks in the US have friends who find the term odd.  Several folks wrote in to say that their family used it.

Thursday is Jon’s 41st birthday.  Wow.  I met when he was 21.  His life has changed a lot since then.  Most notably sobriety, marriage, two kids, home ownership and a good job.  It’s been fun to see him grow.

Art and Culture, Family, Holidays, Politics, Writing

Ordinary Time

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Samhain                                      Waxing Wolf Moon

Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin to attend February Tea Party Convention.  That should be fun.  Seeing these two damsels of the right dancing to the tune of the real wierdos would be entertaining for anyone interested in politics.  I’d watch a 2-minute video just to see them on stage together.  They could discuss hair and glasses and kissing GW.

Mary left this morning on the 7:38 Northstar headed for the airport.  The strange action of the international date line has her leaving on Monday and arriving home on Wednesday, coming here she left on Tuesday around 6 a.m. and got here Tuesday at 11:00 a.m., something like that.  Both ways the flight involves 21-24 hours.  And I find daylight savings time confusing.  Under any circumstances the air temperature will double when she gets home, perhaps a bit more.

Ordinary time has slipped back into the house for the moment with family gone and the leftovers much reduced.  I worked on MIA business a bit this morning and will spend some time today getting the Sierra Club legislative committee focused for a December meeting.

After that I can continue my declutter campaign.  It goes pretty well.  My study has remained clear and I’ve removed several things from it, some in anticipation of the arrival of my Anthro computer desk.  On it will go the Gateway I bought in the summer.  I plan to use it only for art history research and creative writing.

Art and Culture, Writing

Electile Dysfunction.

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Fall                            Waxing Dark Moon

Electile dysfunction (hanging Chads?).    Dam Yangtzes (Will they make the World Series?).  Random thoughts generated by recent news pieces.

A tour with business students from the Metropolitan Community and Technical College.  This was a group of engaged and well-spoken young adults, roughly 24-28.  Their questions and observations brought out the grace of the Shiva, the durability of Vishnu and the cosmic elegance of Yamantaka.   They were a pleasure.

Allison gave Kate a book.  Thanks, Allison, for thinking of her.  Very sweet.

The day continues our string of cold, wet weather.  A good day to nap.  Which.  I intend to do.  Right Now.

Dogs, Garden, permaculture, Writing

Gnashing of Teeth

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Fall                                    Waning Blood Moon

Back to the gnashing of teeth.  When I went out to plant the garlic this morning, I discovered Vega and Rigel had decided to become gardeners, too.  They dug up beds, they dug up around beds.  They moved a lot of soil, none of it in a constructive manner.

This almost made me cry.  After some unpleasant words and gestures, a bit of stomping around, I called Dan the fence guy and said, “Dan, I need another fence.”  When he finishes, this yard will have more fence than many cattle ranches.  It will take days just to walk the fence line.  And this all inside an acre and a half.

Anyhow, I planted the garlic, covered them with six inches of straw and protected them with left over chain link fence.  Later in the day I mulched the parsnips, which will over winter along with the garlic, and the carrots.  I’m going to try storing them in the ground with a heavy mulch to protect them.  In theory, then, I can go out in the middle of winter and harvest fresh carrots.

The potato harvest is now in, too.  I dug up the Viking Purples (no kidding) and the rest of the white potatoes, washed them off and left them in a large plastic boxes to cure.  They stay at room temperature for two weeks, then downstairs to the coolest storage we have.  That’s outside the house at the bottom of the basement stairs, but still inside the garage.

Got some nice feedback today on my organization skills for the Sierra Club and on my writing from a fellow Docent.  Also, a good nap.  That all helped.

Big dogs bring big problems and big rewards.  Can’t get one without the other.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Writing

After Action Report

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Lughnasa Waning Harvest Moon

Reality meets prejudice and anxiety. I was the only person in the church with a tie on. In fact, the worship leader for the meeting greeted me as I came up the walk, “There’s our speaker. He’s the only one with a tie on on Labor Day Weekend.

At the end of the presentation I got applause and several people wanted to hear part II.

Note to me for part II: expand on Adam Smith and his works impact in our time, also spell out positive/negative liberty and freedom, plus pay more attention to critiques of the enlightenment like Marx, Romanticism and totalitarianism. Also, the congruence among liberalism and its allies: science, liberal education, liberal democracy, human rights work et al.

Writing

Satisfaction

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Lughnasa Waning Harvest Moon

The next morning. Anxiety has subsided as the time approaches, probably no different from or in fact the same as stage fright.

There is some hoary bit about the anxiety being necessary for a good performance. Sounds like rationalization to me. The anxiety hits because we want others to think well of us, to like what we do and appreciate it. Sometimes they do not.

Since I long ago put on the mantle of one cuts across the grain of received wisdom and will voice unpleasant truths and questions, I know this too well. This does not mean I get no satisfaction from my work, not at all, just that sometimes the most satisfaction comes from the preparation, the crafting and presenting rather than the reception.

As for Roots and this morning, well, that now moves in the realm of action. Much better than imagining it.

Faith and Spirituality, Writing

I Wonder

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Lughnasa Full Harvest Moon

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” – Greek Proverb

I’m nervous. Not sweat on the palms, head for the door or the tunnel kind of nervous, but nervous anyhow. It has two sources I can identify. One, will I dress well enough to preach in Wayzata? After a life time of playing down the importance of dressing up, I still know when it can hurt. I know this seems hopeless given that I’m 62, not 16, but there it is. These folks (folks I imagine attending a Unitarian-Universalist church in a wealthy burb like Wayzata.) dress better than I do. I imagine. And, they probably do. I only want to come up to minimum standards and I’ll probably make it. What if I don’t?

I’ve shaved and cut my hair, trimmed my nails. I’m not about to buy new clothes because I believe Thoreau was right, “Beware of ventures that require new clothes.” but here’s the problem. I don’t wear sport coats or suits at all any more. This is so true that when I went in the closet to fetch a jacket I might wear I found most of the shoulders covered in dust. I’m not kidding. It’s been that long. Also, I’m no longer the svelte guy I was when I bought all the dress pants I own. Fortunately, I can still fit into a few pair.

The second source of anxiety is also about vanity. I’ve preached around the state in several congregations, but I only get asked back in a couple of places. There’s no need for me to preach at all, financially, but I do have an intellectual stake in being heard and appreciated for the work and original thought. That intellectual stake comes freighted with an emotional stake, too. It’s not like I’ll roll over and quit writing if I don’t get good feed back. I generally do good feedback.

Part of me says it’s the changeable nature of program committees and the changing tastes of even those who remain constant from year to year and I’m sure that explains some of it. Part of it, too, I’m sure, is the non-pastoral nature of my preaching. That is, I don’t write to inspire or to give practical advice; I write to make people think, to get them to act, to consider new ways of seeing old problems or to see possibilities and problems where they never saw them before. I can make people nervous. On purpose. Because I’ve understood that to be my particular calling from day 1 in seminary.

In spite of all those it might just be that people don’t like what I say, the way I say it, or me in particular. Oh, well, if it is this, then what can I do? I’m gonna be who I am anyhow. Still, I’d like to know. I think.