Category Archives: Great Work

Commentary on the news, Great Work, Politics, US History

Teaching Pigs to Sing

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Samhain                                           Waning Thanksgiving Moon

“Trying to get people to reason in a way that is not natural for them is like trying to teach a pig to sing. You don’t accomplish anything and you annoy the pig.” – E. Jeffrey Conklin and William Weil

This seemed like a useful thought as we approach the opening of the 2011 legislative session.  We need to change our message so that those in charge of the legislator can hear it and realize that safeguarding our environmental heritage is a non-partisan responsibility to our kids, our grandkids and their grandkids.

More interviews today, more with talented people who want to work with the Sierra Club.

Little new snow today so I don’t anticipate the crush this morning that I experienced yesterday.  And more Big History on the drive.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Our Land and Home, Weather +Climate, World History

Emergence

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Samhain                                       Waning Thanksgiving Moon

One of those days.  Snow brought our first drive way clearing by John Sutton, but not until both Kate and I had left.  I did the sidewalk.

The drive into the Sierra Club took about 15 minutes longer than usual, but I made it to the first interview on time.  I spent the next 3 hours with Michelle and Margaret as I will tomorrow, interviewing candidates for the Sierra Club policy position.  One candidate referred to us as the big boys at the State Capitol.  Hitch up those britches and let’s get to work.

On the way in and back I’m listening, as I mentioned yesterday, to lectures on Big History.  A topic important to Big History and important to me is the quality of emergence, a key mark of complexity, the theme that holds all the various epochs since the big bang together.  Emergence refers to qualities that become evident only after two or more other elements combine in some patterned way.  The easy example is hydrogen and oxygen.  Examine the two of them separately and you would not come up with the emergent proper that comes when you combine two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom in a certain way.  Water.  Another, more complex example, is a human.  The individual constituents of the body, chemically, do not suggest the possibility of life if combined.

Emergence fascinates me because it is used by a few thinkers to reimagine the sacred.  I’m not sure the exact line of thought but it has my attention right now.

Then, when I got home, to a plowed driveway, I slipped and slid my car into a snowbank, a snowbank we had paid John Sutton to create.  This entailed a trip to the hardware store for granite grit, a session with Warren, my neighbor, who came to my aid with a tow rope, then scattering grit on the slope of our driveway.  Then, finally, I could get the car in the garage.  Minnesota is a place where sometimes getting the car in the garage at night is an accomplishment.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Humanities, World History

Big History

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Samhain                                                         Waning Thanksgiving Moon

The temperature has stayed above freezing so we’re having a significant rain event, but little snow.  I found a snow removal guy yesterday.  Prices varied wildly from $25 a time to $50.  All the same snow.  Not sure what the deal is.  We went with $25.

The Medtronic event went by rapidly with only one hour available for folks to mill around and look.  As often happens, though, we docents had the same hour when the guests arrived, had cocktails and mingled.  As with any group, they checked in with each other, took the temperature of the room and few wandered.  With the exception of CEO Bill Hawkins who remembered the singularity of the T’ang Dynasty blue horse ming ch’i (spirit object).   We discussed it and the meaning of tomb objects in general.  Other than a brief conversation about Ming dynasty blue and white ceramics, that was my evening.

On the way in I started a fascinating new lecture series from the Teaching Company called Big History.  This takes history’s starting point as the big bang and moves in increments from there:  birth of suns, creation of elements, creation of earth and the solar system, the origin of life, humans, agriculture, the modern revolution.  The guy who’s teaching this course happens to be the guy who conceived of Big History as a discipline, basing it, as I suspected on Braudel’s notion of the longue duree, seeing history from longer and longer durations of time.

Tomorrow and Wednesday will consist largely of interviews at the Sierra Club.  We’re hiring a policy staff person.

Commentary on the news, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Great Work, Holidays, Humanities

Black Friday

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Samhain                                                   Waning Thanksgiving Moon

Kate had to tell me, again, what black Friday means.  Apparently (and you probably already know this) it’s the date retailers calculate they slip over from being in the red to being in the black.  When I have trouble remembering something, it’s often because I have another association clogging up the rememberer.  In this case black Friday has a theological tinge in my brain; it takes me to a day of lost hope, ultimate despair.  As a result, I have trouble associating it with anything positive.

If I consider the number of people camped outside (one woman since Wednesday night at a particular BestBuy), and, if I consider the reason many of them are in those lines, my association seems closer to the mark.  Our emphasis on extravagant gifts to celebrate the birthday of a man who wanted us to declare freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind has always revealed the dark side hedonism which we let loose at Christmas, but the pitiful sight of people braving cold and inclement weather as blind captives of our economic system.  Well…

A very positive note is the number of scientists now willing to engage in reasoned debate on the topic of global warming.  Understanding the science behind global warming takes careful attention to several different lines of reasoning and a dispassionate explication of those various strands works best from within a scientific rather than a political frame.  Perhaps, as an article in the paper said, we will be able to move beyond this debate and onto the question of what can we do.

We are not saving the earth; the earth will be fine no matter what we do.  We want to preserve an earth fit for human habitation; that’s what’s at risk here.  Can we learn to live on this planet lightly enough that it can carry us, feeding us, watering us, disposing of our wastes, providing materiale necessary for our habitations and our economies?  Those are the stakes.

Aging, Art and Culture, Asia, Bees, Dreams, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Great Work, Memories, Retirement

Not Stepping In The Same River Twice

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Samhain                                                      Waning Thanksgiving Moon

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  You, too, tiny Tim.

Stayed up late last night reading a novel about a Chinese detective in Chinatown, NYC.  Not sure how it happened but China has become my favorite country, much like Germany used to be and Russia before that.  Instead of Buddenbrooks I read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, instead of Steppenwolf I read Chinese mysteries.  No more War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, though I could read them again, I choose, as I always have, to plow new ground, read things I have not read before.

I tend not to read things twice, except poetry.  A big part of reading for me is the journey to somewhere new, following a trail with no known ending, a similar joy to the one I find in traveling, especially to countries where the culture disorients me, leaves me little room for my old ways.

New disciplines give me a similar boost:  art history, Latin, writing, vegetable gardening, bee keeping, hydroponics.  I’m sure I miss something in my search for the novel, which may explain why I find living in the same house for 16 years, driving the same car for 16 years, being married to Kate for 20+ years soothing.  As Taoism teaches,  life is a dynamic movement between opposites, the new and the old, the familiar and the strange, the taxing and the comfortable.  The juice flows as the pulls of masculine and feminine, life and death, youth and age keep us fresh, vital.

My buddy Mario uproots himself and moves along the earth’s surface, finding new homes and new encounters.  He changes his work with apparent ease, finding new friends and new experiences as he does.  Brother Jim, Dusty, constantly challenges his present and his past, leaving himself always slightly off balance.  Both of these men take the juice and mold it into art.

There are many ancientrails through this life, including intentional disorientation, familiar surroundings, ambition, compassion, politics, nurturance, keen observation, delight, dance.  The key lies in finding yours and staying with it, getting to know it and to be it.

When you can, you will find every day (well, most days) are Thanksgiving.

Aging, Great Work, Health, Politics, Weather +Climate

Bad to the Bone

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Samhain                                            Full Thanksgiving Moon

Losing my wisdom impacted my jaw bone.  Bad.  It still hurts.  Very distracting and annoying.

Sierra Club tonight working on a hiring committee and then the Legcom, still trying to suss out what the elections meant.

In a strange way I think the challenge of a Republican legislature and a Democratic governor will make us think again about the whole political process and how we can make things happen.

Very nasty weather headed our way for the day tomorrow, a day when many people travel by car.  Glad I don’t have to go out and Kate only has to go to work and back.

Great Work, Politics

The Man

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Samhain                                         Full Thanksgiving Moon

Y-chromosome work this am.  First, the Celica in for oil change, look over.  Then, Tundra in for bulb replacements on the left headlight and the fog light.  Tried to do Latin but my concentrater failed me:  TV’s, noise, residue of Vicodin and lack of sleep.

Why is it that the TV has invaded all sorts of spaces?  Is it that no one reads anymore?  No one can sit quietly with their own thoughts?  Don’t know about you, but it irritates me.

Later on today working on a hiring committee for a policy person for the Sierra Club.  58 applicants and many very talented folks. After that the Legcom meets to take stock of the elections and our priorities in light of them.

Right now, I’m sleepy.

Aging, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Humanities, Letters, Literature, Myth and Story

An Ancientrail, Still Traveled

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Samhain                                                  Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

Tracking down a quote from a Mary Oliver book led me to Plato and to his Symposium, in particular a portion dedicated to the mysteries of love.  It reminded me of my initial excitement in studying philosophy, created in large part by J. Harry Cotton, a professioral stereotype at Wabash College.  He wrapped tobacco in a light paper plug, inserted it into his pipe, applied a match and away we went into the history of Western philosophy, J. Harry’s head wreathed in tobacco smoke.  He often quoted whole pages of Plato or Aristotle in Greek, showing us the key words on the blackboard, explaining the intricacy of their translation and how an interpretation could turn on a single word.  I’d never met any one like J. Harry and my memory of him is still fond.

The excitement he stirred slowly winked out when I had to transfer to Ball State University, out of money for Wabash.  There the logical positivists still reigned, even though their star had already fallen in graduate schools across Europe and the US.  At Ball State I had the opposite of J. Harry, Robert something.  He was the head of the department and an avowed enemy of all metaphysics and a champion of philosophy as clarifier of scientific language.  What exactly do we mean by cold?  Hot?  Solid?  Gas?  Not unimportant question in a techn0-scientific age, but hardly inspiring.  At least to me.

I finished out my philosophy major, but added one in anthropology because my passion for it, once lit, did not go out.  This was all a long, long time ago.  I graduated from Ball State in 1969, so that’s, what?  41 years and another millennium in the past.

What is truth?  Justice?  Beauty?  How do we know what we know?  What is a sound argument?  What is a weak one?  Why?  How have ideas about these big questions changed over time?  And why?  What do they matter now, in our world?  This was what interested me and the logical positivists had nothing to teach me in regard to them.  Perhaps it’s not surprising that I ended up in Seminary, where those questions still matter and where there are answers and the history of the answers.

Ironically, of course, I have come to inhabit the flattened, anti-metaphysical world of the logical positivists, but not from the perspective of clarification and rejection of metaphysics, but from the standpoint of existentialism.  In this new world, which I’ve inhabited since 1991 or so, gnothi seauton, know thyself,  inscribed over the door within the Temple of Apollo at Delphi that lead to the Oracle, has been my holy writ.  Rather than books full of poetry, creation myths, messiahs and anti-Christs, I have two words.  They’re enough for me, though.  More than enough.

Aging, Dreams, Faith and Spirituality, GeekWorld, Great Work, Humanities, Myth and Story, Politics

In The Right Spot After All

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Samhain                                      Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

“To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Goethe captures the crux of a dis-ease I felt at the dam conference, a dis-ease that probably explains more of why I didn’t end up in academia than other explanations I often give myself.  In short there was more talking than acting and even the references to acting were talking and more it was talking about talking to partners and allies in their language.

Thinking of the caliber in this dam conference is, however, not easy; in fact, it is hard and many of the people who spoke were clever, insightful, giving a new spin to old ideas, my favorite example the delta subsidence problem. People who can take a long held belief and shake it inside out until it reveals it’s underpinnings have my utmost respect.  I hope sometimes I can reach that level in my own thinking; it’s the way change can get started, the reframing of the old in terms of something new.

Who would think, for instance, that sea level rise inundation of coastal delta areas might be alleviated by removing dams upstream?  So, first you have to have the new idea, the problem and its source carefully linked before action can target a plausible solution.

Still, I find myself impatient with just this kind of thinking, that is, root and branch thinking that stops without corollary action.  In the end I’m more of an action guy, much as I love the abstract, the analytical, the historical, the exegetical and the hermeneutical.  I want to change the way dams impact rivers and streams, whether it be by better design or by removal or by prevention.  I want to leverage the way dams have become visible issues into victories for the planet, victories that turn us toward a benign human presence on the face of the earth.

In the end I would have been unhappy as an academic, I see that now.  I would have strained against the confines of the classroom and publish or perish.  As it happens, I’ve been able to continue my learning on my own while engaging pretty consistently as a change agent.  Probably led the life I was meant to lead after all.  Good to know.

Aging, Friends, Garden, Great Work, Our Land and Home, Politics, Weather +Climate

Losing a Friend, More on Dams

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Samhain                                   Waxing Thanksgiving Moon

“In the view of conservationists, there is something special about dams, something…metaphysically sinister….the absolute epicenter of Hell on earth, where stands a dam.”

John McPhee Encounters with the Archdruid (1971)

We lost half a cedar tree in our backyard to heavy snow and wind.  We nurtured this tree from a small cedar bush into a two trunk tree that shaded our small patch of grass just beyond the deck.  These early heavy snows can be hard on evergreens since they retain needles throughout the winter, making them vulnerable to the wet and often large snow falls of late fall.  We’ll have a chance to do something new out there come spring.  Kate wants a lilac tree.

Here’s another thing about dams.  They generate, in addition to hydroelectric power, strong feelings.  People love’em or hate’m.  After they are built, they often become so much a part of the local ecology that people defend them from destruction with much the same fervor that folks oppose their construction in the first place.

There are a multitude of problems created by dams:  river flow is often altered and in turn alters the ecology both upstream and downstream, sediment pools at the base of dams robbing downstream deltas of needed material, archaeological sites can be destroyed or rendered extremely difficult to discover, populations are often displaced and, often, are denied access to the power produced by the dams which relocated them.

Equity questions abound as in the case of waters diverted to Los Angeles and Las Vegas from the arid Western states of Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Arizona and as in the case of a dam on the Zambezi river, built by Mozambique but because it needs military protection from rebel forces, forced to sell its electricity to South Africa at 1/7th of the world price.  Dams concentrate capital and political power in often unhealthy ways, especially in third world countries and especially when used as elements of a geopolitical strategy by such bureaucracies as the US Bureau of Reclamation.

More as the week goes on.