"I scarce ken take it en"

...sands which, non...

Sometimes I feel desperate obligations to says thanks-- and in that case I usually become immobilized and never send that card.  Of course I'd rather do it in person,  but I usually forget by that time who got me what. And 'tis compounded by the fact that I increasingly leave the gift-giving to Flo, as my judgement in that past as to who would like what has been terribly skewed by my own tastes--as well as a lot of last minute hedging and rationalizations.

If Julie and Ralph are reading this, I do want to say thank you for your exceptional hospitality; and to your children for asking so many questions as well as showing me things. One could only hope that their acceptance of older adults persists until "I R 1":)

But had Flo been along, she would have brought something.  It didn't occur to me that it is good manners to bring something to your host before you eat all their food. 

But--"isn't that just like my Jesus!?"  Grace grown and shown all along the way.  If it were merely by merit I would be a much more lonely person than I am now. 2011 has been darker than most for many people, so I see in the office and hear about from many elsewheres.  But light shines best in the darkness--on a "bright sunshiny day," who would notice a candle; much less "this little light of mine?"

Yes, I know that for many if not most people all such tiny illuminarios are irrelevant; but really more offensive than a matter of indifference, judging by the amount of hostility He still, and now more than ever, engenders in the average person who clings to his self-righteousness with an eternal vengeance, which he would surely take if he could!

(Sorry about the length of that last sentence--maybe Paul would have been ok with it!)

So--if I fail to make a list of events evincing my internal gratitude, forgive me--but I think maybe such inventories  mean increasingly little to those outside of a family who have no idea what we are talking about any more. We still get a few news letters like this; and if you know who and what is being talked about, it's good. Otherwise it's rather difficult to get through 2 pages of single-spaced eventologies:)

But even for that it is well possible to give thanks: for the efforts and the increasingly expensive and inefficient stamp--but who doesn't love to get any mail personally hand-adressed to us?--but also for the fact, as per the title of a Frances Shaeffer book, that there are "no little people"--and "not by chance" are we graced even more by the fading grass of other people remembering us and not crossing us off their list!!!  May it continue until grace runs out--that is, never.

Thanks to one and all for making this one otherwise solitary life possible--to be lived to the full. Keep giving out as you do, esp. in the small things, and you will never lack any good, essential thing--even your cup of cold watere proferred to the angels of whom you are unaware (not me, by the way. I am still just a Bill!)--shall be returned one thousand fold; but sans flooding your bathroom...

Amusing Ourselves to Death

For those many who have not read Neil Postman's groundbreaking work on the limitations of media, among other topics, may I recommend it highly; Along with the book, You Just Don't Understand by Deborah Tannen, these are among the most enlightening books I have had the pleasure to read re: our communication proclivities and inevitable misunderstandings. We may all speak English; but beyond that, we all speak different languages and one must struggle to understand others, realising that only imperfection is in reach; no matter how we try, we can never quite understand what it means to be another person. Call it our gestalt or whatever, the universe has built in limitations not just physically but esp. metaphysically and interpersonally.

But given such a resistive universe and our short lives, it is no wonder that most of us most of the time revert to entertainment.  It's easy, it's fun, it's shallow,it's quick; and even though our tastes in it vary considerably, we find that it relieves the pressure of considering our mortality and our teleology.  It is of faintest comfort on one's deathbed, to be sure; although a few can't resist  still wisecracking as they shuffle off their mortal coil.

(As a silly demonstration, one of my band names while I was in high school was, "The Mortal Coils" teehee; --but death was the last thing on our minds!  It was, ahem, mildly amusing at the time.)

But I re-pine and repent!

I have demonstrated time and again that amusements are one of my chief distractions and addictions, from Calvin and Hobbes to As You Like It (also an ironic title). 

But there does come a time to re-examine the serious side of life--beyond Tragedy, since that too consists of amusement, just the other side of it, as the two masks of theatre represent--but they are still onlly masks. We do like to hear about others' misfortunes so long as it doesn't hit too close to home, and we can still enjoy pointing the finger...

Time today only allows me to raise the subject--I would solicit other views on the matter before I go on with this end 'o year meditation/medication...."Nu?"  (Look that up in your Yiddish dictionary)

And now for something completely silly

to get out of my system before the "very serious" 2012 sets in...

Does confessing 'alas and alack" at one's lack 'o light 'o love
attack the lack?

Soon will set in a lack 'o eleven
but will it be a lack 'o leaven?

(And will the Pack lack any good thing
to tack it all down?)

" without Me u can-do nothing."

(ok well not totally silly...)

Stop me if you heard this one...

Two Romans went into a bar...no, the Forum Bank and one says: Darn! I keep writing "B.C." on all my checks!!!"

Be thou warned; not sure where this is going....

I suppose I have to get it our of my system...our "pilgrimage" to G.B. and Lambeau Field was a complete success and it was hard not to get caught in the spirit of the place--unless you were a Bear fan--and there were not a few in the crowd.  We saw a number of "mixed couples" and blended families with Bear/Packer getups.  It was not unlike a mix of Mardi Gras and our first few minutes at the edge of the Grand Canyon. After hearing about the Pack for all my life (thanks, Papa Packer) to actually attend was awesome, and on Christmas, and with the Bears. (For the record Da Bears are a little ahead in total wins, going back to 1921!)

And with my most favoritest convert Flo!! And Dan, born a Packer fan if I am not mistooken!!!

And where else can you see "Farm and Fleet" as a permanent part of the scoreboard/Jumbotron!?

This is, I think, the last of the small town teams, and by far the most successful, and I suppose that gives me a powerful reason to be a Packer Backer.  As anyone knows who has read either of my blogs, I am highly partial towards rural life, and the contrasts are many beteen urbanism the religion and agrarianism likewise; and time does not allow me to go further today.

But this inevitably brings up the matter of idolatry. Especially the "Fat Tuesday" part. It is said that Wisconsin worships A. Rodgers more than Jesus Christ.  While I can well believe that, I also believe on Best Authority that real Christians are always in the minority and idolatry of some kind is way ahead of the Godhead as far as numbers. Certainly true in Europe, continuously--"by their fruits ye shall know them."

It is only recently that the thinly veiled hatred of Christ the Person has become open hostility. Or feigned indifference.  I say this because on a gut level it is impossible to be impassive, and on a spiritual level, even more so.  Gut check today?

Well, I am certainly challenged.  The old song goes, "Take the Name of Jesus With You," and we were not completely taken in by McWorld, not yet.  For in my new parlance, "In Threedom is Freedom" and "He who the Son sets free is free indeed."  Indeed, outside of Christ there is only misuse of freedom, wasted works, and poor imitations of what life really is designed to be, "In Person" if I may repeat my theme.

The vast majority of us will never awaken to this fact of the three-fold history of the earth--with the final division yet to come, if I may dabble in amo-tour eschatology for one paragraph. BC, AD; then what will we call the remainder, after the Main Event?

I don't know what the "Spirit of Christmas" actually means to all the individuals that utter it--but I must say that I have heard "Season's Greetings" and "Happy Holidays" less than ever, this season. However this may only be a religio-political backlash against the Sadducees of the land.

My personal liabilites lie in the arena of the Populistic Pharisees, who are alive and well--but are by definition not counted among the Temple Elite. (Another repeat of an old theme of mine--and always useful for personal reproof.

Well at least I have this in common with the orthodox Darwinians--I am persistent, consistent, and dedicated to The Temple--but the Temple of the Holy Spirit is what needs full attendance and a "Pack'd House."

Joy Full Holy Days to all!!!

Mystery Pome--not by Walt Kelly:

I jotted this down, mostly unedited. Poem, or not, is not mine to define! I may not even judge myself.

My Place

for surgery
my bed
your body
but already Mine.

"How many beds/battalions do you have?"

your illness
My Body
but already yours
at Bethlehem and Beyond

My salud
your fritz
salvacion a traves de nadie mas

My instruments
your bed
"Whoops" I mean mesa

Your blood
My Blood
conmingled
and running down
over and over and over

Salud!!!

Penses d' Joyeux Noel

(not sure about that French)

Anyway, I have reason to "JOY" since my call time is over for 2011: and we pay a visit to the Packers today, an especial gift to Dan, Flo, and myself just for this once. And to McBears, as swell.

But, oddly, I got to thinking in the bathroom this AM, before my coffee--a dangerous stunt, as Dan once said--about hospitals. I was looking through Christian History magazine about the origin of hospitals and hospices and noticed the medieval paintings of hospital activities, which always involve strangely colored people in beds.

And I realized that the sine qua non of hospitals everywhere and in every age is (drum roll) beds! Usually several. In The House of the Dead, Dostoevsky spends three chapters on the large prison hospital to which prisoners would often hope to land.  I remember the days of multibed wards at the Westside VA circa 1970's. No privacy. But lotsa beds.

It occurred to me that:

One does not go into the hospital to sit in a chair!

You can sit in a chair on the way home!

Your friends and relatives take up all the chairs, anyway-and then some. (We now have couches in our new hospital--but fewer chairs than ever:()

And also note that the bed itself has evolved--by random permutations of curse!--and now looks like something that you might see at the sick bay on Battlestar Galactica!

Even the doctors don't know how they work! Where's the educaytion, man?
.
Well Moo-rie Moor-ie Christmas to all you Good Beefherders who are ruining the planet for the rest of us.

(Christ did come so we could forgive and do good unto our enemies, yes. Vegan alert...

And know for some pin completed different--but a work in progress nonetheless.

The Caffeine Monster Speaketh Forth

First, thanks to Ralph and Julie Lassa and to Claire, Wyatt, and Jenna their children, for having me over for dinner last night.  I forgot to give my compliments to the chefs, but I hereby repent and procaim the meal's beefy goodness for all to see.  (All 2 of you)  Remind me how to get on your blog. I still have trouble making remarks on my own blog--I did it once but can't remember how--My Google doesn't remember my newer phone or password or something.

Second, Pensees (bring your vessels not a few)

I am reminded frequently of this pensee-not-my-own:  "You can have as much of  God as you want! In fact, you already have as much God as you want!!

Finished "The House of the Dead" last night; and once the fetters have been knocked off:: "Well, with God's blessing, with God's blessing," said the convicts in coarse abrubt voices, in which, however, there was a note of pleasure."

"Yes, with God's blessing! Freedom, new life, resurrection from the dead...what a glorious moment!"

While Dosteovsky, like James Joyce, could give full voice to the doubters ( Joyce's version of the Grand Inquisitor is the local priest), it is disingenuous at best, and deceptive at least, to use Ivan Karamazov as an atheist bludgeon, or the Grand Inquisitor as defining his Dost's own views.  What makes this great literature is the ability to voice the thoughts of the opposition with the same literary quality and imagination as he applies to any sympathizer!  We, on the other hand, barely give a superficial listen to the opposition.  One can't even take a poll anymmore in a public place without being suspect before the first sentence comes out!  See Joel Belz story  in a recent issue of World  magazine.

There's a line I like in one of the "Herbie" movies where the leading lady is locked into a sentient volkswagen: and the hippies next to her, say. "We all prisoners, lady!"  What a great excuse!  But we have even and ever better reasons why we should not rescue our neighbor.  An appeal to metaphysics is just one of the many weapons of The Spanish Inquisition--and I wear the nice red uniforms every Friday!!!

Well thanks again to my "de veras" good sams of last night; and to you too, Dennis--a good listener if ever there was one!  God Morning and Happy Christ-Mass!!!

Yes and while we're at it...

I would like to know more about Dost's end if you come across some sources.

The point, as I seem to return to so often that it may be the theme of what I write; perhaps because it poses so many difficulties for me as a relatively "hermetic" person is this:  That Personhood is irreducibly complex; and it seems to be the "crown of creation" as Gracie Slick once placed--sarcastically as always--on one of her early album covers; but there is no reason logically to suppose that said Universe does not originate in Personhood.  Or what one might call hyper-personhood; the First Cause exceeding in all things as above and beyond its effects.  And things are so set up that with entropy that we can never challenge, much less exceed, the speed limit imposed on us by "supra-nature."

Aside, re: Grace Slick: "Would you buy a used car from this woman?"

"Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"   We critics are so sensitive. Snide asides to our audience, which always likes to see someone skewered.  The gladitorial games are now editorial games.



Moreover am I full of new wine?  But in an old wineskin?  Welll, old is beyond dispute. Do I contaminate the sweetness of the new wine with layers of yeast?  These are mighty questions which no amount of research or self-examination or other peoples' opinions will answer.

Lord?  (a person in the Bible)

Daniel asked me today to read and evaluate a poem he had written, based somewhat on Ecclesiastes, but from the point of one committed to serving God no matter what, as opposed to the point of view of a dissoulute fantastically wealthy king.  While I have minor suggestions, the bulk of the poem is quite consistent with who Daniel is--a young man who has had a servant's heart from the beginning.  Most people could not write such a poem, because their attempts would be filled with ifs, ands, and buts. Which is to say, I'll serve God if He serves me first. Or "proves" Himself with bread, fishes, wine; and power.

Then there are those of us, including myself, who by nature want to be sure there's something in it for me. And me alone.

 I/we wear our skepticism as an armor against the very nature of God. I recall--with dismay--some of the idiot demands I made as one brought up in an aggresively secular mode.  Thus still when I write it is impure and reflects my learned and earned defense mechanisms, rationalization and intellectualization.

 Even Freud, who popularized and prized his catalog of "defense mechanisms, was aware of some of the pitfalls of these two because he-- as a physician to the elite-- saw people consstantly who tried to rationalize destructive behavior as somehow justified "because I can" do such a good verbal coverup of my primitive "adult" behaviors.I shudder when similar people come into my office and usually hope they go somewhere else--soon! But in terms of Freud's own philosophy, he was a terrible observer and, like his clientle, he thought of himself as the exception to his own rules and seemed to actually believe that he could act as judge and jury of the universe; just because he had approbation from various universities.

Reading Tolstoy and Dostoevsky at the same time is quite the jolt, if one has read them separately in the past. "Count" Tolstoy waxes eloquently about the life of the peasant--but no one reads him for that, but for his stories of the upper crust. The peasants on Levin's farm never rise to the status of individuals--but Anna and Vronsky sure do!  Tolstoy's agrarian idealism is of course well known, often expressed by those in retreat from life in Moscow.  But so is his personal vindictiveness, rather on a par with Gandhi's maltreatment of his wife and family, all the while proclaiming without embarrassment his own righteousness.

Thus although I thought long ago that Tolstoy was a Christian writer, I now believe he was a deist, at best.    His great talent for telling stories became merely a striving for success and to be universally beloved--on his own terms. 

Dostoevsky on the other hand is rarely thought of as a Christian writer; perhaps that is because he is the better writer, and wrote according to his sufferings--which were quite real--as opposed to his successes, ambitions, and self-promotions. He let people come to their own conclusions, as O'Connor did.  In Dostoevsky ordinary people do become real, not just a representative of a class.  He could write quite compellingly of the elite of course--but usually more tellingly as Russian writers'  traditions dictated--he had a wealth of material to draw on. However that sort of life is alien to most of us, and in Shimer I identified with Raskalnikov best, as one equipped by the best ideas but the execution of which reminds us of Leopold and Loeb, and Hitchcock's first color film, "Rope."

As "War and Peace" amply shows, Tolstoy could not resist inserting his tedious views of history to the narrative.  He really was a theoritician  (and patrician) at heart.  His skills at rhetoric no longer buoy him up as well as he intended--hence he died utterly alone!  Wanting to universalize according to one's own dim bulb does diminish not only other people but leaves oneself bankrupt as well. 

FYI I am reading Dostoevsky's fictionalized report of his term in Siberia--quite a contrast to the "golden days" of  swirling wheatfields and giddy golden girls whose problems are the same as celebrities have today--can't even shop in peace, eh?  So increasingly isolated and turned  ever more inward--but finding very little there.  Nothing another divorce or affair can't remedy!

Y's Men from a fire....

"Abraham. Take your son, your only son...."

talk about counterintuitive!  But there's more of course--the death of our visions and dreams gives way to something far greater--by the Weh. Yah, Yah Yah, Yaddah, Yaddah, Yaddah, uh, huh, huh!

I have had the last 30 years of my life defined by the death of the petty but still very much in the muddle of it...yesterday I saw an example of this again...but I can't say more about it--in a year or 2 may B. Meanwhilst:

Tolstoy, "Anna Karenina" (yes I am still reading it):

"The children did not know Levin very well and did not remember when they had seen him,but they did not show toward him any of that strange shyness and hostility children so often feel toward grownups who pretend to like them and for which thely are so often painfully punished.  Any kind of pretense may deceive the cleverest and most perspicacious of men; but the most backward child will recognise it, however skillfully it may be disguised, and  be repelled by it.  Whatever shortconmings Levin may have had, there was not a traace of pretense in him and that was why the children showed him the same friendliness that they saw in their mother's face."

(Aside from the Down's child that is....Acceptance Inc.)

NO, NO, NEVER, NEVER,

NOT, NAUGHT, KNOT!



(silly nihilists!)

e-stir; 1979

Before Al Gore invented the internet, BG...

From 1977 to 1979, this was my felt and now acknowledged condition:

"Whoever refuses to be led by God, but instead is led by" (cant, can't, and Kant) "will be IRRITATED by the message of Jesus and will continually complain about it."  --ML

From CS Lewis to Zeffereli's "Jesus of Nazareth" wasn't a long haul in the larger scheme of things. I can't say I put a lot of effort into this insight or others of infinite value--see John 6:43-44.  It certainly wasn't at all like taking organic chemistry-- that was hard work but also a lot of fun (in parallel, at Northwestern, I was reading Dostoevsy--a good balance, at the time !)

Jesus brings Joy, as in the book title, "Surprised by Joy" (double entendre by Lewis, that!); but He's not a "fun guy" and is the very antithesis of entertainment.  Even serious entertainment; this is an industry which was once described by Newsweek re: TV, which they alleged, "has America by the throat." Prophetic but far more than any staffer on the magazine has ever realised.

It takes an act of God, and the Gift of God, i.e. the drawing of The Father, to dislodge us from our inborn self-centeredness and rugged (read "ignorant") independence which is going down the tubes anyway, the more we self-induldge in the greatest delusion of all time.

Meantime, we are irritated when Jesus is mentioned seriously--as I was for years before I met him on my own little Damascus Road-Less-Travelled. Most people deflect the conversation immediately or simply say, "moving right along..."  (see Percy's essay on an "interview with myself- i.e. questions that the media won't ask so I asked them myself--please take time to read this if you haven't yet.)

But the most common irritation-expression is to just include His Name on the "favorites bar" of our profanity--on one level out of spite, and on another level to "dig" at Christians and deliberately seek to belittle Christ and offend His followers; and of course on a personal level to defy and despise the "Man of Sorrows."

"They know not what they do."  I certainly didn't.

This time of year of course is no exception--if anything the level of cursing rises as our materialistic illusions and expectations go into high gear. I read that Christmas was not even much of a holiday until "reinvented" by Prince Albert of England and his contemporary, Chas. Dickens.  While I do not doubt their intent and their sincerity and abilities, it's an artificial celebration from the get-go. I will of course do  right by my culture, insofar as it doesn't offtend my Creator; one cannot flout all traditions after all!  If a few hearts open up --see the Sadducee in Jesus of Nazareth--then I am there.  But I will never go back to my old perpetually dark life, not of "Mere Christianity," but of "Mere Education" lofted by raw ambition.

"HE LIVES"  i.e., HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!

REFLECTIONS ON MATTHEW 8

Christians are given to some very odd permutations on the subject of healing. It's true that Jesus healed everything from Peter's mother's fever, to the sky and the sea. The most common interpretation of this (outside of "higher criticism"--so it calls itself without a hint of irony!) is that Jesus did strings of miracles to show his authority ("even the winds and the sea obey Him--what kind of man IS this!!!"..."That you may know...) as well as God's will ("that none may perish")  and core compassion, ultimately by THE Passion.

"He could not do many miracles...becdause of their unbelief" and I would have to add, becdause of their reversion or addictions to materialistic assumptions centered on, "What's in it for me?" or "How can I impress others with my god-imitation schtick?"

I have been witness to several incontrovertible miracles of healing, some of them very close to home. Being married to a spouse whose faith in God's power and mercy is indefatigable, definitely helps when my faith is at low ebb.  But bringing these events to mind--I have a notebook that contains a few of them--is a help when I am on my own--such as this week when Flo visits our grandaughters and my parents. If you pray, pray for her safety and my parent's sanity!!

But I must say, the greatest miracle of healing is here and now...and continuous.  Think of it--God has healed every disease  or infection I have had in the past 62 years!  I realize that I am overwhelmingly fortunate--and I do the work on it that I am able to do--and like my patients I have areas of vulnerability and inborn weaknesses that I have to deal with.  But the vast majority of my continual healing is done without any conscious effort on my part, apart from the general will to live, the awareness of which does surface from time to time. 

The other thing to consider is that approx. 60% of the illnesses I see are lifestyle related and entirely preventable.  Obesity is the main thing right now (and I have never yet seen a case of Prader-Willi syndrome --see your Funk and Wagnall's for details--or ask "Ste. Google) and countless cases of "Syndrome X".

And we get angry and blame God or some abstract and imaginary force--such as "society--for those who are not aware of their Guardian Wormwood, we can easily blame some other invisible and intangible force that hinders us; or extracts from us our pound of flesh. (If only liposuction really worked, eh?)

When it comes down to it, The Bible has answers available for sickness in general, and for responsibility; and evil. Individual cases require us to ask for insight--not an unreasonable request!  But mostly when people ask for answers, their questions are 99% rhetorical; because they simply will not accept what God has actually said. They want answers, all right; but only if we are willing to assume materialism from the get-go.  The aim of these questions are simply to confirm their prejudices--all of which are unquestioningly borrowed from McWorld. I have yet to see an unbeliever come to God by asking inherently incoherent questions such as these psuedo-proofs--which once again commit ad nauseam the logicicians mistake of "category error."

Speaking of prejudices, I can reccomend again "Stuff White People Like", whose bow is irony and whose arrows are those of logical consistency--another reason why white Europeans are so unbearably dim and unable to discern the absurdity of most of their positions...hence the aformentions lack of faith--or should I say the investment of our basic given faith-gifts into things that don't even begin to deserve them or bring anything back to us--not even interest, as the master said to the unfaithful servant--who by the way only discerned a God of wrath.

Lot's lot

I recall on our last recreational nostalgia trip to Chicago--in which we actually stayed overnight in a hotel near the lake--as we were walking on the streets of Uptown, I was constantly going in and out of whiffs of raw sewage. I don't recall this on any other visits--but then again when I was in Cicago 32 years ago, there was so much industrial waste in the air that I doubt I would have noticed, if this smell was there. 

I recall getting up in the morning--down near Children's Memorial, Lincoln and Fullerton, and finding large and very adherent black flakes on my car.  This would have been around 1970; before I knew Flo existed.

She of course is a Chicago native and wouldn't have been surprised by anyone of this.

I also reflect that our new hospital is now a close neighbor of Del Monte Corp. and in the spring at the time of spring pea packing, there will arise such an odor as to take your breath away.  On the other hand, when you have been in the midst of it for about 10-15 min. you don't notice it anymore. The olfactory warning and gustatory apparatus is quickly desensitized, faster than our other senses and more completely.

It has always amazed me that man is so hyper-adaptable that he can live in the foulest places and call it home. It may be dangerous, dirty, and self-destructive but we can learn to love--or ignore--that too.

It reminds me of the old joke about the young lord whose butler was guiding him home, as the young man was quite intoxicated, when he queried his caretaker, "What is that strange odor, Jeeves?"

"That, sir, is fresh air."

I have actually met people in Chicago who were afraid to go outside its city limits, as if they would be destroyed (like Lot's wife?) if they set foot even in the closest suburb. Well so be it but as one well-known but despised prophet said,

"Remember Lot's wife"

STATUS POST MARION MONTGOMERY AND "THE PERMANENT THINGS" and yet...and yet....

12-11-11

From: “Notes from a Dead House”  --from Dost’s prison days

“But here I have been trying to classify all the prisoners, and that is hardly possible.  Real life is infinite in its variety in comparison with even the cleverest abstract generalization, and it does not admit of sharp and sweeping distinctions.  The tendency of real life is always towards greater and greater differentiation.  We, too, had a life of our own of a sort, and it was not a mere official existence but a real inner life of our own.”

“…there is something true and humane at the back of this idea—all are men; all are human beings.  But the idea is too abstract.  It overlooks too many practical aspects of the question, which cannot be grasped except by experience.”

There is no standard by which to measure the soul and its development.  Even education itself is no test.  I am ready to be the first to testify that, in the midst of these utterly uneducated and downtrodden sufferers, I came across instances of the greatest spiritual refinement. The contrary happens too; education is sometimes found side by side with such barbarity, such cynicism, that it revolts you, and in spite of the utmost good nature and all previous theories on the subject, you can find no justification or apology.”

Greater and greater individuation, eh?  And why this tendency?  The cause has to be greater than the effect…

Hobbit meets "Habit"

“I think the reason we can’t agree on this is because there is a difference between our two devils. My Devil has a name, a history, and a definite plan. His name is Lucifer, he’s a fallen angel, his sin is pride, and his aim is the destruction of (or, if not, distraction from-comment mine) the Divine Plan.  Now I judge that your devil is co-equal with God, not His creature: that pride is his virtue because there isn’t any Divine plan to destroy. My devil is objective and yours is subjective. You say one becomes “evil” when one leaves the herd. I say that depends entirely on what the herd is doing.

The herd has been known to be right, in which case the one who leaves it is doing evil. When the herd is wrong, then the one who leaves is not doing evil but the right thing. If I remember rightly, you put that word, evil, in quotation marks which means the standards you judge it by there are relative: in fact you would be looking at it there with the eyes of the herd.”

--F. O’C

“The Habit of Being” ( after which this blog is, hopefully playfully named) p 456

To John Hawkes, 28 November, 1961

Cultural or sociological half-or-less definitions of evil tend to enhance it, as the 20^th Century more or less proved.

The disembodiment of Lucifer is not his disembowelment—quite the opposite in fact—and the results are not just “real” but “hyper-real.”

reply to Dennis' comment

Just before my residency we explored--as we were supposed to do as UW grad--nothern Wisc. for a practice site--one of which was an office and home combined--the only one I have ever seen. I thought it was "interesting"--but Flo immediately nixed that--so--I know u!!!

MOB'd

I can hardly let this day pass without comment. Is this merely, "The Day that will live in infamy." or is it something else?  Many "Pearl Harbor days" have passed since that 9/11 political equivalent without a similar event.  Yet we choose to commemorate evil--"then the terrorists win."

With no disrespect to our vets, I will remember this day with joy for something entirely different.  This is opening day for a brand new hospital and for me a very different practice, provided by the architectural and conceptual changes in my--read "our"-- office alone.  Suddenly I find myself in the wide open spaces, not just on the outside--though we are now surrounded by fields and not houses--but a different sort of space inside the office which is somewhat the reverse of the outside changes. That is--bear with me please and use some imagination-- the houses have now moved inside. My office space, once secluded at the far reaches of the old MOB ( yes, that's right=Medical Office Building), so far out that cell phone reception was even difficult; is now right on the beaten path. 

"My door is always open."  That seems to be literally true now. And Dr. Scholl's office is only 1 door away. And thereby hangs a tale of God's Grace. I will attempt to be brief and fill out details as needed in the future, even though my gratitude seems to be and hopefully will remain or grow, boundless. "Doctor without Borders" indeed. (It helps that I no longer have the desire to browse bookstores!)

For years I have desired to have a Christian medical partner, in addition to my life's partner, Flo. I even hired a recruiter, briefly, when I was in private practice.  And what did I have move in? A Chinese atheist! Very funny, Lord.

I am finding once again that the more I try to choose my circumstances, and manipulate people, the worse things get. Micromanagement seems to be from hell, and the devil's choice; as it was Cain's.

But the more choices I leave to God, the more amazing things He does, right under my supposedly sensitive nose. Yesterday Dr. Scholl invited me into his office, to pray for our "new" (extralegal?) partnership; and to invite the Holy Spirit to do what He will with us--again, without plans or force or plans of force, which is the deeper trust--over the years we will be together. At least until one of us retires!

So my prayer has been answered after 30 years--after I had given up on it--and by my own personal physician too! The story is the same story as happened with the free clinic. I always dreamed of working in a clinic called Trinity--and now I do!

More later--I need to get back to The MOB!

DEPERSON ALL IZATION

From almost every sector we hear that depersonalization is a peculiarly modern problem and increasing due to technology and growing numbers of human beings.  Yet many of these same sectors contribute to the problem by depersonalizing what is inherently a very personal thing--evil.  One could certainly see this through numerous 19th and 20th Century philosophers and other writers.  By thinking of evil in the abstract, it quickly vanishes--as a theoretical problem. But in such an environment we are also instantly thrown off our guard and substitute "anger management" for any outliers.  Personal evil actually becomes unthinkable.

This contrubutes to the polarization of the body politic--evil is defined by being opposed to me and mine. Or to use Christian Lander's paradigm, evil is being with "the wrong sort of white people."

(I highly recommend his book, "Stuff White People Like" which is even funnier if you hear him read it.)

The Bible never gives in to the temptation to de-individualize evil--or good for that matter. Therefore it is highly objectionalble to philosophers and scientists (so-called) alike.  Yet it can never be a matter of mathematics nor can it be predicted with any certainty.  To try to do so is simply to use the wrong tools for the job.  And electrician's toolbox is totally different from that of a woodworker. Philosophically, if you will, this is called a category mistake; to which hubris is highly and almost always prone.

It's the equivalent to the old saw, "sending a boy to do a man's job."  But it may be the worse-reverse: sending a man to do a child's job!!!

"Living with Ingratitude"

When office staff or others point out to me the fact that many of my patients are not grateful for what we have done, I remind them of what I've been saying to myself for at least 30 years, to wit: If I got into this profession to get people to be thankful to me, I'm in the wrong profession.

People, as Flannery O observed, take all grace for granted and thereby resist it with all their might; most tellingly when they refuse to grant it to others, and take it for granted that they have earned it for themselves.
Rather like the parable of the guy who owed millions, was forgiven all of it, and immediately went out and beat up anothert guy who owed him a few bucks!

People who "go there" by their own wits, like unto Lot, often have to be rescued from their folies--I do that (the rescue thing, that is) all day long.  But it is also true that most people want the benefits of change without have to change even their habits, much less their manners of thought or sentience.

As I said earlier, Truth has few friends in high places.  Those who lord it over others are especially resistant to change. This was Hagar's problem: even tho Sarai chose her to bed down with Abraham, as soon as Hagar's son was born, she began to despise Sarai herself. This demonstrates another aspect of the Murphian Corollary: "When all things seem to be going well for you, obviously you have overlooked something."

"After all, human nature is corrupt--when life seems to be going well for us, it's difficult to resist the temptation to be rude and disrespectful to others."

I would say that medicine is a very humbling profession; at least to me when I am in a frame of mind liable to receive it--I get constant and quick feedback almost daily in regards to my presumptiveness.  Today we are moving to our new hospital--so things feel like they are going well for us. But this is a dangerous illusion, and mistakes are much more likely to be made in transition, and while we are enjoying the newness; and for some indefinite time afterwards.

Many among us look to the new, to save ourselves. Yet we take the same old "us" into the "new" settings and our "tech" will come to reflect our defects more and more as their reach is extended electronically.
This is a process of amplification that we, like rock 'n rollers, insist upon--but our voices and our vices still remain small-time and we will come to regret some of our "loud insistences." 

And though actual-factual truth is despised, it has a tendency to surface, as Murph said, "at the worst possible time."

--further news as "facts" warrant...

PS, extra thought of Bill E, the Diminutive/Dhimmi: I thought of a new adjective to describe the internet: "Cloying."   U like?

Just thinking--Justly?

Engendered perhaps by T-Day...

A. "I'm not as thankful as I should be."

B. "I'm not as thankful as I could be."

There's an infinite divide between these two. "A." is a big tall infinite everlasting order. One must of course presume that: "God Is; and Is a Rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."  If not, then the statement becomes meaningless and all ethics and morals are showpieces to get what we want for ourselves.

"B."is more in the realm of the doable; as it is terminated by the death of the individual.  But is it ever done? The existentialist (non-Kierkegaardian one must hasten to add) would say at death that "IS" was enough.
How satisfying an answer this is--with its hyperautonomous not-accountable assumptions-- I must leave to others to judge. I myself consider it to be a vastly inflated overstatement of an extreme position that fails the reality test even before it proves to be cold comfort to souls committed to the dead of wintery spirituality, if one can call it that. (Another extreme position but quite popular at the moment--to be "spiritual" with no content whatsoever.)

So there will always be, on this plane, "coulda-shoulda-woulda," yet  still and always remaining in the realm of the theoretical. Hence its pernicious and gloomy nature, better suited for extended guilt trip than for Grace!

The "attitude of gratitude" is currently at low ebb in a culture that is quite worn around the edges, and takes its blessings quite for granted; hence loses them.  People often loudly wonder why such things happen.  The Bible has a thoroughgoing but always unpopular accounting for this, said, "many times, many ways..." Why even gravity alone woud be suffcient to explain a lot of it. Then there's entropy. But what we really tacitly and repeatedly reject is the accountability.  "Life is whatcha get away with."  Which of course requires a life of constant deception. 

We are not only not what we should be or could be, we are not even able to come up to our own standards--no matter how low!!!  It "woulda" take a miracle to get there. And it is not possible to live without standards. As Camus said, "suicide is the only serious philosopical question." If one confines one's self to abstractions that is most certainly true--but really not true for most of us. If we are absurdly inconsistent (to others who judge us, chiefly), that's one thing--but to deny order and law--or the reverse--is not physically possible; any more than "shoulda."

"It is what it is"?  And how would we know?

Fur Dennis

I have observed that my writings are, to u, either rated "G" or "R"...the G standing for "Groovy," (as in, "Bill has got his groove back lol")

or the "R" standing for "Rant"!!!=)))

I myself have a harder time distinguishing b/w the two--naturally, unable to be objective about what pops out of my child's mind.

I would suggest however that all my blatherings should be rated "PG" , that is, "Paternal Guidance" advised!

Above entitled "Dies Iris";  my first post of a picture. Yay!!!

LOSS LEADERS

“God has arranged matters so that we won’t die by seeing all the evil in their innermost selves.  He wants us, rather, to see it through the eyes of faith.” (His Eyes)

Watched another Holocaust (for which Luther was partially responsible) film and was again reminded of Hannah Arendt’s term of the “banality of evil.”  Meaning that anyone anytime anywhere can be induced to become a “good Nazi,”usually under some other name.

Long before I became aware of this designation, I was aware that any man could be a Hitler, if all that were within the individual was suddenly unleashed upon the world. And that’s only in regards to the surface matters that we think we know, not in regards to the deeper realms.  Who, after all, wants their thoughts and visions put up on a screen for even one other person to view, much less a larger audience?

I once thought dreams were a good indication of the state of the depth of evil in our hearts; but I now realize that these dream states are themselves heavily censored—for the same reason Luther mentions—so we can “sleep in!”

And of course “A” Huxley made good sense about “The Doors” (of Perception); that even sensory input has to be mostly filtered out—even if he was a nut about LSD.

(We can all contribute a bit of a partial insight—but the whole always escapes us—but good!!!)

 As to more and more proof that we are simply larger children with more elaborate and destructive tools in our hands, and power gone to our heads, I need not adduce any further evidence. “Folly is bound up in the heart of the child (read “adultery”) but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” But if said discipline is not made a part of oneself, we are perpetual slaves to the smallest nut or kernel of one’s self.

The sins of Solomon’s sons and of Solomon himself are adequate proof that Sol was only dealing with the  surface of reality, not about internalizing God; it took Christ himself to demonstrate the possibility of more Light from within, which nonetheless is still borrowed, at best, by the rest of us.  “Aye there’s the rub…perchance to dream…(all “nobility” aside!!)

Reality is largely defined by loss—and love much more so. They are, shall we say, “loss leaders”?

ARBEIT MACHT FRIDAY

-'nuff  said, eh?

The Him n All

"Last year at the New Orleans Jazz Fest Steve Martin sang a song that he called, 'the entire atheist hymnal' on one piece of paper. He called it, "Atheists Don't Have no Songs."

"Christians have their hymns and pages,
Hava Nagila's for the Jews,
 Baptists have the Rock of Ages,
Atheists just sing the blues.

Romantics play Claire de Lune,
Born Agains sing, 'He is Risen,'
But no one ever wrote a tune
for godless existentialism.

For atheists there'd no good news. They'll never sing a song of faith.
In their songs they have one rule: the "he" is always lowercase.

Some folks sing a Bach cantata,
Lutherans get Christmas trees,
Atheist songs add up to nada,
But they do have Sundays free.

Glen Kehrein 8/16/48--11/12/11

It's not easy to pen a tribute to someone you've never met, but whose life bordered mine 25 years ago, and influenced me more than I suspected.  Glen founded Circle Urban Ministries, in Austin/Chicago; right next to Oak Park and West Suburban Hospital where I interned.  I'v never been there either but Flo just visited for Glen's funeral.  Glen and his wife Lonnie were planning to retire in our area and had been coming to our church when colon cancer struck him down.  (When that happens to someone our age, it's by definition premature!)

Glen was very big on racial reconciliation and was an elder at Rock Church, a black/white congregation in Austin from which has emerged more community action than I can recount here. The pastor, Glen's close (pun) friend was Raleigh Washington, with whom Glen co-wrote the book, "Breaking Down Walls: A Model for Reconciliation in an Age of Racial Strife."

When I talked briefly with our pastor about Glen, Glen never made reference to any of these works in conversation even though he was given a "Doctorate of Peacekeeping" from Westminster College; one wouldn't suspect these things from just talking to him. I knew his name sounded familiar when it was on our prayer lists week after week, but I couldn't place it until Flo came back from the funeral and showed me the program.

I never read Glen's book; but the title always haunted me and challenged me.  And I did make efforts eventually when the opportunity arose--but tho my efforts ended tragically--Glen's live on.  He always emphasized "intentionality" in regards to racial reconciliation--but that involved full bore participation and availabiity of which I was never capable.(not just "good intentions, as Steve Lopez eventually learned--see below.)

I think for the intellectuallized soul, well, it's just hard to have "soul"; or to understand other people outside of all our categoricalized imperatives. What brings this to mind is the movie we saw last night, "The Soloist," which I strongly recommend esp. for idealistic people or people who put their trust in abstractions and hence use the stories of others to gain awards and fame or self a-steam as unto themselves. But as the movie implies, though grace is inherently resisted by most of us most of the time--there's nothing that can stop it in the end; regardless of the most daunting circumstances. (See Mtt 5:11)  So appearances  are almost always deceiving, because of our strong physical limitations plus our unwillingness to look deeper, spend more time with an individual,and put up with the inconveniences entailed in actuallly grappling with others' sometiemes incomprehensibe and foreign points of view--not to exhaust the list of all our disabilities and childish defense mechanisms. (It may even be that Freud could quickly put "rationalization" and "intellectualisation" on the list of precariously positioned defence mechanisms because of his observations of himself as much as of others. He was still by nature an up-tight quintessential white European, after all!)

"Glen served the Lord, his family, and the ministry faithfully. His quick wit, sense of humor, mentoring heart and compassion will be greatly missed."  He mentored others--now he will be mentored by the Worthy One. One can't say enough about the value of such  a life--or of any other life--yet ironically it is all too easy to say too much, by adding in our endless assumptions and their corollaries.  Better to leave it to others who actually and easily live such a life as his, in the same way a real rose exudes its fragrance. Take my wife...

sheeples

An independent confirmation of the independent origins of words, esp. neologisms.

Yesterday I was driving back home from an independent jog at Snyder's Grove, a local wooded nature preserve where I also ski during the winter. Perfect when the winds are high on the prayeree.

Less than a mile westward on the Troy Grove blacktop there's an old fashhioned homestead with "clean animals"  including a hillside of black- and white-faced sheep.  I was again impressed and comforted with this now uncommon sight, so I said to myself, "Hi, sheeples!"  I wrote this down immediately in my usual risky fashion, and intended to write more. As often happens though, when I consulted Ste. Google, it appears that this has been a word used rather regularly by some columnists.

The origin of it seems obscure, but not the intent--it's a derogatory term to refer to people like sheep rather than the reverse--although it could technically go the other way. But Orwell and many others have a long tradition of despising at least their definition of "sheeples"--more indicative of a satirical attitude than of all the term implies.

The fact of the matter is this doesn't really apply to all thoughtless followers. Are Islamicists sheeplike?  No one I have ever read terms them, "like lambs to the slaughter"  So while columunists are careful to use the sheeple term mostly in other contexts, it is really in essence a swipe at Jesus'  frequent use of sheep to describe His children. Very few people will take Christ or His words directly on.  But since Christ always referred to sheep and their offspring in an entirely positive way, one can progressively get in sideways digs at Christ by in essence mocking His children, i.e. His "little flock."

I doubt I can do justice to this subject off my cuff links; but I think it does run a parallel course to the almost exclusive use of Jesus Christ as a slur, never a blessing; as alluded to in my comments about "Cold Souls."

"MYSTERION..."

(this Greek word) can mean “revealed” as much as “concealed.”

--“something shown or given albeit in a surprising, obscure way.” –Jill Caratinni

“I have never met an ordinary human being.” CSL

“If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heartbeat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.”—George Eliot

But…is it Stupidity? Or more’n likely, Cupidity?

“Blessed are the poor in spirit…”

“Poor” must by the nature of the concept be defined in negatives, as a lack or even a vacuum.  (Poverty Sucks?)  It’s like Paul Giacometti  in a soul-free state—light, empty, and bored, in his own script. It’s a series of have-nots, not even have-knots of the soulful or the “soulish”!

Everyone has an idea of what false humility is—but we define it by finger pointing; finger painting makes more sense than this and is lots more fun—yet we are stuck by defining ourselves as righteous, if only because it’s all we know, it’s the only grid we have—and this “default setting” of Cupidity kicks in automatically. And even the mightiest of our efforts only serve to solidify our position as being the only possible correct one.  “O who will deliver me from this body….” As I discussed recently.

In reality, we don’t need to declare ourselves poor; because our poverty is far deeper and wider than we can “think or imagine.”  (Some would even define our worst poverty as primarily a want of imagination—for which we substitute “imaging studies” and other exercises in “the banality of evil.”

This Beatitude is truly a be-attitude—possibly more in an existential than a dynamic sense, at times—something that is fixed but of which we are not really aware—even though others can pick up on it instantly—esp. children.  Personality Order.  Disordered by nature?  (pretty sad compared to the order of the simplest feather of the the drabbest of birds)

Even a declaration of dependence, by its nature of being “my” declaration and hence remaining self-oriented, defeats itself; plus it is meant to be heard and recognized by others—and for what purpose—we can well imagine!!

We try so hard, esp. as Christians who consider ourselves “mature” “adults” but by our efforts have confined ourselves to a zero-sum option when we try so hard to embellish our humble estate and regale God Himself with words,  words, and more words.  I speak here as a word-addict, not as a free man!!!  But surely we don’t think we will be justified by our many words.

“To have lived is not enough—he (man) has to talk about it.” And so Mr. Beckett did so, as well—with the added warning that he too had to pander to the “bright set” or forfeit his living on the proceeds of writing.  I believe that the professional writer is handicapped from the outset—and has to be sure that his stuff has enough entertainment value to be purchased in sufficient quantities to support him or her. The “blog” avoids the trap of commercial bias—but cannot emerge from the self-serving bias nonetheless.

“Enough!” said Vladmir—for now. Pensees away! “Christ-shaped vacuums, unite! Nothing to lose but…”

It stands to reason

that there is more to life than reason...or is it still just all Kant?

"Kant never did anything"--countless Moms and Dads

If Descartes mistook the pineal gland for the soul--what else was he wrong about?

Man's real Dictum should be: "I think; therefore I'm wrong."  --even in a forest with no women in earshot--

Speaking of trees, I hope every body saw the video of the naturally falling double redwood on the weather channel! A tsunami of wood!!!

To: Dilbert cc Scott Adams Paper Co.: An ent in the office!!! "I am the Ambassador of Trees. You are accused of crimes against wood for your excessive copying and printing!"

"And then he started biting me."

dogbert: "His bark is worse."

Ta da!!!

(My blog is built on the shoulders of giants in da land--no trees or even bushes were harmed in the making of this blog, either. So dere!  Copying strictly prohibited.)

Flo, where did we put those ent traps..."

Gems from latest Touch Stone

Rebecca Sicree:”If Chesterton had been blessed with children, he would have learned that the ‘democracy of the dead’ is often overthrown by the dictatorship of one’s descendents.”

Phillip E. Johnson: “…despite the title, Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ explained the survival of species, but not the arrival of species.”

Anthony Esolen (on Christina Rossetti’s “In the Bleak Midwinter”:  “The good of the child is beyond quantity. A hedonistic world is, at base, cruel, pitiless.  That is because sensual pleasure can be calibrated. (“Cold Souls” make this a point of satire”

“What cheer for the heart!  All the gears of the world grind on, the smokestacks belch and politicians speak, scientists distill medicines and poisons, producers product, but the true world is (still, and still, I say…) is here, at the side of the Christ child, in stillness and joy.”

“ ‘What can I give him/poor as I am…?’”

“Again  it is no sentimental question…’Let the little children come unto me’”

(Paul the Giacometti sure uses His name a lot—it’s strangely almost the only swear word he uses…intentional, or just force of  habit? Due to the Force of “That Name”; and of course its rather intimate relationship to our souls--???

Joseph Honeycutt, reviewing “At the Roots of Christian Bioethics”, a collection of essays on the thought of Tristram Englehardt, Jr.:

“Englehardt’s longtime friend Thomas Bole says of him,’He came to realize that fallen man could not reason to a common morality.’

“Ethics is a process of healing and restoring the capacity to experience the Transcendent God raTther than conforming to a natural order characterized in terms of law.”

(How dys-appointing for all those “Natural Law” conservatives—and Pharisees as well!”

inter aliens

pensee-in'

Did u know :that insurance companies have hired bounty hunters?  Each worker gains on the average of  $8 for every drug they deny?  And how does one oppose such incentives?

"Cold Souls"--an interesting variant of a Faust legend.  It's still about commerce i.e. the "Blackest Market."

 Ta Dennis: Thanks for the film about Burmese Video Journalism--also on the black market as far as the "Martial Arts" government is concerned.  My Dad has a friend who has been banned from Burma for his support of these folks. But Mark is still there.  The agenda for the missionary is not antipolitical but, practically speaking, apolitical--Christ-ocentric as it were and is.  ML points out that the moral/philosophical roads may or may not include God--but I feel pretty strongly that politics defined all of the forces arrayed against Jesus--military, "King, eh." religious, secular, Law-Full et alia. By the Way, Dennis--are you related to the "Dennis" of the Holy Grail the movie? Dennis' words have found themselves into the Arthurian section of the Norton's Anthology of Literature.

"No man ever spoke like this man." is still true. I find no convincing reason to disbelieve Christ--least of all in favor of Beckett and his crew--in any particular.  When the secular world comes up with something even equal to the Words of Christ, I will pay attention. "Waiting for Godot" was memorized like the Koran while I was growing up, and my Dad  considered this "good news' with a few tons of secondary gain. Otherwise it's all fuel to the fire--sans annihilation. Even something burned or blown up retains all of its substance, merely dispersed to other forms.  The same is true of the soul--in spite of the "playing around" common to "Doc" Faust to Pall Giacometti and the New Yorker from which he gets his ideas and temptations. More about that perhaps after I actually finish the two movies referenced above.
//
By the way, one could do worse than go over the words of the 70's song, "The Garden of Earthly Delights" which of course comes from H. Bosch's trip-itch. Glad I didn't marry into that/her family!!!

What's Answers? Answers is a magazine...how much?

"Christians can anwer these objections clearly, correctly, and accurately because they have insight from the New Testament." --Martin Luther

"It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it is that it has been found too difficult and left untried." --G K Chesterton, my paraphrase..

Similarly, the answers to the semi-eternal rhetorical questions of doubters about suffering are already clearly spelled out, even to the point of Christ's and God's own suffering; albeit they are incomprehensible to those who cannot think their way out of the paper bag of carnality/materialism.  This is simply because suffering cannot be satisfactorily addressed by human reasong and its various -isms at all--unless one is "committed" -if that's the word in such a context- to total meaninglessness or utter absurdity.

I find it interesting, as an aside, that humans have returned from their industrial age hubris  to the pervasive idea of original sin and of man being innately sinful, minus a Savior of course. That is to say, "nature" is inherently good--and that if there is any evil on the earth, man is entirely to blame. Exactly! I would call this "Secular Calvinism"--which is ironically and humorously revealed in the mixture of Calvin and Hobbes! Again, exactly so!  The dividing point is, God IS or God isn't, which are axioms, not provable in this life--one has to go with one or the other--on faith--all men have to have a ready supply of faith; or as Camus implied, there's really only the Hamlet question--which ironically Shakespeare combines with Pascal's Wager.

Summa Theological: Yes Captain, we have answers. The Bible has answers even though we can't explain each individual case--but, neither can science--"(statistics) (one size) fits all--but not real well..."  And the fact that we CAN'T reason our way out of paper bag or cardboard box does not need proof, it is empirically a non-sequitir.

( I might also add the legal logic of "hard cases make bad law".)

mea culpa

I still can't seem to put comments in my own blog. Somehow it doesn't recognize my gmail account and won't give me any choices, even Google account. Strange.

But I am glad for your acute reading, my friend. At the time the letter was written, the most recent letter before that referred to the new publication of her second, and, alas, final novel. So I assumed that A was not commenting on something older. "MY BAD" an all thet there.

Flannery O'Connor to "A" 6-25-60

(Re: "The Violent Bear it Away" a just-)

"The mummy was an idol to Enoch if you want to anayze it but the fact is you can't analyze that kind of attraction. For the book as a whole, it was the figure for the new jesus--a shrivelled man."

"HIDE THE BEER THE PASTOR'S HERE!!!"

Re: Drink up and cheers:

Re: John 6:53  “unless you drink His Blood…you have no life in you.”

“Let’s look at this from another angle. If I were to say.’Wittenberg beer quenches thirst. Annaberg beer also quenches thirst,’ then I don’t exclude other beers. But it would be very different if I were to say,’If you don’t drink Wittenberg beer, no other beer will quench your thirst.’ In the same way, Christ doesn’t speak in the affirmative here. He excludes everything else…if we despise His flesh, nothing else will prove helpful.”

“No matter what anyone else says, this passage is clear.”    --Martin Luther

Way too clear for most of us---and most of His marginal disciples then, as well. Many “left off following Him” after this declaration. Talk about auto-weeding tares in the wheat!!!

According to the go-spell of Mr. Clemens noted yesterday, we do indeed have the basic facts about Jesus, not only from Matthew et al but from Genesis to Isaiah to Josephus. The distortions and contortions mankind goes through to attempt to defeat, declaw, or at least neutralize the simplicity of not only the Gospels but of Jesus’ actual words, are appalling indeed to observe—and there is no neutral ground; and, no, we are not here speaking of armies or politics or economics or any other form of reality-on-the-surface; mistaking tastes or personal preferences for the Reality that is utterly “other” but at the same time touching the very core of our hearts and souls—if we value them at all, of course.

The story and the spine of the world is, “Immanuel”, “God with us.”  Have we become so spineless that even the name of Christ can only be mentioned in “society”,--- high, low,  or median---except in the most profane and disrespectful sense—observing so strictly and totally the “don’t ask don’t tell” unwritten policy that the world despises about everything else except Jesus?

Mark Twain, G'nite

"First make sure you get the facts. Then you can twist them anyway you please."  (my paraphrase)

Verbicidal--Let's murder someone after we murder our English!!!

“Verbicide must precede homicide.  Vocabulary remains the turning point.” –Paul Greenberg, Pulitzer winning commentator. Think, “Tutsi cockroach” or “Jewish swine”…or “fetus”…

“Novelist and medical doctor Walker Percy wrote, in 1981, ‘To proabortionists; according to the oopinion polls, it looks as though you may get your way—‘

(much to their personal and group self-destruction, I might add—there’s no madness quite so complete as destroying your own offspring like Mr. Saturn—because their might be less [sic] for the individual in the short-short run)

…Percy might not be surprised by the continuing turn of events.”Picture the scene, a Galileo trial in reverse.  The Supreme Court is cross examining a high school biology teacher and admonishing him that of course it is only his personal opinion that the fertilized ovum is an individual human life. He is enjoined not to teach his private beliefs at a public school. Like Galileo, he caves in, but in turning away is heard to murmur, ‘But it’s still alive!’”

-Kathryn Jean Lopez

and speaking of children--Quiz time!

Who said this, when, where, why, and about whom:  (think Moby)

"He is a king over all the children of pride."

The Secret of the Child; or, if you are one, be one.

This may take a while to unfold as children are like the most convoluted rose or origami figure one can imagine. Keep in mind also that I write pretty much off the cuff; but usuallly about stuff that's been percolating quite a while.

I love to visit The Onion from time to time--amidst all the usual perversities there are some useful ideas and even verities. What struck me most memorably was a skit some time ago in which an Onion reporter purportedly found two of the last living adults in America.  I don't recall any of the details; but it suddenly struck me that there are really NO adults living on the planet even now. And no writer who can even define what one might look like.

Personhood, as I said in my previous blog,(bassocontinuo), is a given; it's a gift; a personality is whatever traits inher in a particular individual.  Some aspects can be seen right away; like my ornery nature. Others take years to develop--and some aspects we hide so well that no one sees them. Even sometimes ourselves.

Recently I read in Sports Illustrated about Walter Payton and the kind of hell he put his wife through; not as badly as a certain golf personality, but it only takes one to hit it, as they say in baseball. I'd like to believe he accepted the forgiveness that was always there when Mike Singletary visited him in the last month. But I can never assume.

By some odd coincidence (ha!) I also pulled down "Anna Karenina"  off the top shelf where it has been lingering or languishing for decades beside "War and Peace". It appears that the theme is exactly the same--a faithful wife used and abused in this case by a "well-liked" hypocrite named Oblonsky.

Does this kind of disloyal, backstabbing, vicious behavior strike anyone as it does me--nauseating.?  I'm no longer sure I'll get through this book--for one thing Tolstoy may not have been an adulterer, but like his admirer Ghandi, he treated his wife with less dignity than most dogs receive.
.
What's the point? And how does that relate to children? (As if that were not obvious enough)

It's quite easy to define adultery.  Not so with adulthood. Adultery is cruel thoughtless child's play for sexually advanced adolescents, which is far more indulgent than I really mean to be.

A Calvin and Hobbes masterpiece has Calvin reading the movie ads out loud: "Adult situations. What's that supposed to mean?"  Hobbes replies, "I suppose it has to do  with paying bills, doing laundry, and stuff like that."  Calvin: "It's a wonder anybody goes to these!"

My point exactly. No one would go. And that's because there are no adults--it's like "The Lord of the Flies" writ large, complete with the oxymoronic "rescue destroyers".

The Bible purposely and realistically captions all of us as children of one sort or another. At no point that I can recall does Jesus ever say to anyone, as we often do is exasperation, "Oh, grow up!"  "And a wise child will say under his breath, "Never!)

To be continued.

FYI

I am sorry - but maybe not real sorry - that I cannot do "comments" because neither of my computers will let me--something about the wrong Google account. I am tempted to get an account with someone else so I can bypass this. Any suggestions? In the meantime any replies with have to be included in my regular "formal" posts.

As to your question, Dennis, I mean the novel and not the play. As Camus would probably have to admit, the play is more of a homage to the very long novel: And the play captures well the attitudes and thoughts of Camus with none of the breadth of Dostoevsky.  The incidents of Chapter 7, Part III, are not found in the play nor in any commentaries I have ever read so far.  "Impending Doom LTD" is all that most people want from Dostoevsky--the suspense of observing and revelling in a constant parade of evil, with not a thought of what pilgrimages are going on in and around them.

The "Final Wanderings of Stephan Trofimovich" just precedes the conclusion in which Stavrogin ends his pilgrimage as well, in entirely the opposite direction i.e. he hangs himself. It seems improbable in the extreme that the author did not wants us to "compare and constrast" the two--something that all critics I have read simply refuse to do. The reason is both simple and embarrassing and almost openly stated by Dost.--people are either ashamed of Christ--or not. 

This would all be literary theory if it didn't hit so close to my home. Perhaps that's why secular critics are so tone-deaf to the Savior and any personal contact with God. (See today's facebook entries) They just don't get it, as they say--except that they in almost total ignorance simply dismiss scathingly any reference to the above concerns--their latest default position (W. Percy et.al.) is: "Moving right along....."

For myself, the difference between this blog and bassocontiuo is that I have realized that life is "moving right along", all right--At the Speed of Light. I have no idea how much time I may have left; but whatever it is, it's a pittance, not even a mite, in comparison to the width and length and height and timelessness of Christ. No time left to be ashamed or reticent or hint around or point to other men: except as "ensamples" of Grace Accepted, Grace Rejected, or most commonly among the living, "Grace-on-hold."  See Flannery quote on recent facebook entry.

"Philosophy is dead." to Mr. Hawking!

Etienne Gilson: "Philosophy always buries its undertakers."

So often men, satisfied and smug within their tight little world of specializations and special friends, call for, or declare, an end to the world outside of their fields.

All  truth is inconvenient to someone most of the time; and ready to be sacrificed at any moment. Anymore we use the term only as a political or personal "wedge."

But it doesn't go away at our whims and fashions of culture or our narrow worldviews. We are inherently and biologically blind, of material necessity. Which is why it makes sense to follow the divine mandate of being poor in spirit. I see no other logical possibility; hubris is always unjustifiable--note that it is only mentioned in literature as a pejorative term--but always in reference to someone outside one's self or circle.

I would like to develop this further when I locate my copy of "The Possessed"--to compare the two maiu pilgrimages of the book which I believe Dost. meant to be compared and contrasted in process and in outcome.

SCIENCE CANNOT PROVIDE AN ULTIMATE EXPLANATION OF ORDER

"As (Stephen) Hawking and Mlodinkow occasionally seem to realize, far from philosophy being dead, having been killed by science, the deepest arguments in this area are not scientific but philosophical. And if the philosophical reasoning runs in the direction I have suggested, it is not only philosophy but also natural theology that is alive and ready to bury its latest would-be undertakers."  

--from Philosophy Lives by John Haldane in First Things Jan 2011

This is his concluding summary; to see how he got there, read the entire article.

As a practicing scientist, I get a frequent look in the kitchen and find lots of statistics, speculations, and assumptions that reflect our culture more than anything justifiable in any objective sense. And what we get is not a twice baked potato but one half baked--which is being way too generous. (My Flo used to eat raw potatos when she was little, from her uncle's store on Taylor Street--so it can be done--but it's the difference between hot, cold, and lukewarm--which I have on the very best Author-ity.) (Also think iced coffee, steaming coffee...and coffe at room temperature--that is, one that has adapted to its surroundings; read "culture."

Dennis: do you read First Things? My son Dr. Stephen can't get enough of it and finds it quite useful in his lines of work and thought. I prefer Touchstone because it is more Lewis-like; but both magazines are a meld of Catholic, Evangelical, and even Jewish authors.

"Doctor Elihu will see you now."

On the followup visit:
"suffer me a little..."

Patient: Haven't I suffered enough, already?

"I have yet to speak on God's behalf..."

pt: So;you admit you were wrong, then? That everything you've said until now was just your opinion?

"I will fetch my knowledge from afar."

pt: What? the UN?

"If they serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity and their years in pleasures."

I think I may  have heard something of the sort recently.

Here's the prosperity gospel and the Protestant ethic nicely summarized.

"We cannot order our speech by reason of darkness."

God: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?"

Big Hint: God is never a patient. But for His inexplicable patience I give thanks--but,no, not nearly enough.

thanks Dennis--good sermon--more later

Words are a source of misunderstanding--The fox

The book of Job is known for its many windy words and speeches--which are not far removed from the spirit of the "information age"--which is far removed from any semblance of wisdom, as even Oscar Wilde noted long ago.

The problem with words and reasonings is that they lead us down a unique path, every time, of an artificial understanding, usually based on "information" of a very transient nature, deeply salted with the overwhelming desire to seem righteous to ourselves and to as many others as possible.

Science purports to be "objective" but science itself is only an artifice to service our perceived needs for, again, self-legitimization. "We all offend in many ways" by the simple fact that no one can get out of him/her self. 

Paul got it right: "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" i.e. our own self seeking which is at the same time ironically self-destructive?

Answer that (and answer Job aright) and you get The Grand Prize!!!

New Hobbit in the 'Hood

This is named after The Habit of Being, a wonderful collection of the letters of Flannery O'Connor, the Southern fiction writer who dealt a great deal in mystery and grace in the grotesque.  Tolkein is a different sort of a writer dealing more in epic fantasias.  But since these are exciting times to get in the Hobbit Habit--you know, cowls and owls et all--well then..."Hurry up please its time."  et set era