Friday, April 18, 2014

Good Friday I, II, III

Good Friday I

The hate I feel all around is like the red
warning light on my 61 Buick Le Sabre—
indicating a generator malfunction,
indicating my intolerance, my agenda, my
center of the universe border violations.,
tweaks and abrasions—wretch like me.
Defense Defense: homeland security.

Good Friday II

Taking my head out of my smart ass
makes passing camels thru the I of my
needles like unto a piece of cake. No
one said it was easy, damnit. Hurts like
hello--if not hell. A brainer. Suffers in
translation. To die for.

Good Friday III

Strategy:  I don’t mind if folks find my
smart-assery offensive ( stick in my
thumb: pull out a plumb) as long as it
makes anyone feel a weee bit dumb. 
Stunned  stupid would be ideal
(prerequisite for study and studentry)
but that’s asking a lot. Smart-assery
merely  generates defense, defense.
Rice off a rhino.

The kind of thinking  that got me into
my pickle can’t be the kind that gets
me  out, says Einstein,  but the kind of
thinking I have to think about the kind
of thinking that got me into the pickle
is the kind of thinking that got me into

the pickle 

42 comments:

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3drzfhRr0is

    Ravi Zacharias on secularism, philosophy, logic, and Christianity, etc. New talk at Upsala University. I got half through as I got my Easter presents and baskets done.

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  2. We are somewhat back to the uses of logic. I am not quite sure I would apply them quite the way he does when talking about God. He is right about the Final Solution and corrupted academe, though. We are all capable of horrible evil. R. Z. Is a great story teller and I like listening to him. He strikes me as a great man. The conversion stories I find fascinating. Oscar Wilde comes up again. I think we get him from Chesterton.

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  3. I confess I couldn't listen long. Late onset adult ADD. It doesn't satisfy a need for me to hear long talks on most things. I've been quoting a lot of Flannery O'Connor this morning on Facebook and getting more "action" from her words than I do from my own, damnit. Hunders of Brainy Quotes I recall from my days of reading her in the 80's

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  4. Lewis said, to his chagrin, that on his beginnings on his way to Christianity, he found that the chtristian writers were by far more interesting than the others.

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  5. I believe you find your Christian opponents more interesting than the others.

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  6. I find both engaging.-- an interesting

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  7. We used to sing a guitar strumming thing growing up that had : Jesus creates personalities that are the salt of the earth.

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  8. Jesus wants me for his sun beam....

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  9. Jesus out-tricked the trickster while resting in the tomb on Easter Saturday.

    See, you say the same damn thing over and over. Most people don't see that as a discussion. It's not even a catechism, which at least is worth knowing by heart and can be hauled out when appropriate. The householder brings out of his storeroom things both new and old.

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  10. What was the same damn thing? Do I say over and over Jesus Wants Me for His Sunbeam: Jesus is a manifestation of Trickster--or vice versa--as is Hermes, Mercury, the paraklete, demi-urge... Are you saying any thing different--or (like me) same things differently? We've been "in discussion" for years--bouncing off our same-things against each other like rice off rhinos (I like to say THAT and I say it a lot.)

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  11. Bbll. I have to clean. Company to overflowing on its way.
    Snow and sunshine out, even bird song. Wonder where we will hide the eggs. I put puzzle pieces in them to avoid the sugar overload. I wish you a blessed Easter and I love you still for being so stubborn. Does that make me a sunbeam.

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  12. The lawn needs a second mowing. Birds galore. "You know there's more to Easter than eggs" --or something like that you advised me years ago when I described my mom's concerns--me a youngster in in Hershey Pa. "He is Risen! "He is Risen" she liked to say on Sunday am--with "The Messiah turned up full." xxxooo

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  13. About the eggs: I believe you have me confused some Calvinist kill-joy. Otherwise: Der Held aus Judah siegt mit Macht.

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  14. No confusion. A bit of dour Lutheran Lack-Luster

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  15. Call it any brilliant adjective your mind can conjure, that what is precious will remain or rise again. Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran have produced almost all of the world's great art and things that make life truly joyful and enriching. It is your head that is going to roll like that of Ozymandias. Without faith we are nothing. Nihil. Chose your words as carefully as you like. http://www.plough.com/en/articles/2014/april/the-hymn-for-orthodox-easter

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  17. Lutheran Lack-Luster: merely tit for your tactful Calvinist Kill-Joy. Don't take long for you to get on defensive, Brigitte, and scold like some old church lady. You don't strike me as joyful and enriching no matter how much Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran great art you have absorbed. Head roll? Is someone going to cut it off? Beezel Bub? Mephistophales?I Better not pout. I Better not shout. I don't chose words carefully. They choose me.

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  18. I was going to add that I love the African American stuff. Otherwise it seems like the East Coast cults seem to have their heads pretty much in their own soup. But there is a "Beecher" tune in the brass band book. Could be for your relative. In any case, I work with a Jehova's witness now: no Christmas, no Easter, no birthdays, no blood transfusions, of course; the list of sense-less no-no's is endless. When you give up creedal religion you become fodder for whatever--man made laws that man keep and decorate himself with keeping, but that indeed make a dour face and life. As in terms of me, I believe you have many pre-conceived notions coming down from your aunts and Flannery O'connors South. You, yourself like to sit in Quaker meetings, which I believe are held rigorously in the most unadorned style.

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  19. Not sure of your point. Conceived and preconceived notions, raised in (I've learned: liberal, progreessive) Presbyterian houshold, studying philosophy and literature, over 50 years :teaching, Noting creedal or cathechismic and so: fodder and aiming to make a virtue of it. The more ways of talking about it, the better if not the merrier.

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  20. Sorry: if the point is your usual anti-whatever is anti-Lutheran: I get it. Othewise: no clue. You give me to much credit for reading youir mind.

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  21. What I thought: anti-whatever-is-anti-Lutheran.

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  22. "I write this having just spoken at Uppsala University in Sweden. Engraved in stone above the entrance to one of the university’s main buildings is the university motto: 'To think free is great, but to think right is greater.' Before we arrived for these open forums, our hosts conducted a survey among the students asking if they agreed with their university’s motto. Fifty-one percent disagreed with it and thirty-one percent said they hadn’t given it a thought. These are future politicians, professors, lawyers, doctors, and parents. I assume that those who preferred free thinking to right thinking believed that was the right conclusion. Or perhaps it simply did not matter, so long as it was their thought. It should be no surprise that apathy becomes the legacy of relativism and reason is crucified at the altar of our egos."
    http://www.rzim.org/blog/worship-and-spirituality/ravis-easter-meditation/

    At Quaker meetings do you have any dialectic or philosophy? We know there is no art, but simplicity (which to me is also a kind of art; I like simple things), orthodoxy is also not favored, nor special days, I think. But is there dialectic? Or is it Amen-corner?

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  23. It may be that Right Thinking is achieved thru Free Thinking and not by indoctrination or instruction. Quakers meet in silence, and witness and testimony is said to be called forth by the holy spirit kindling the divine spark in each.
    . I am not a Quaker. I taught in Quaker School in the early 60's and it influenced my entire career.

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  24. You told me before that you attend Quaker meetings.

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  25. . Did when I was teaching--the whole school would go over to eh 200 yr old Meeting House on Monday mornings

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  26. Can't imagine claiming that.

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  27. Well, it is my recollection against your statement of fact, in which case, you should be the one who knows better.

    In terms of the Quakers, nonetheless, I watched this video below. And while it is nice to have silence, and people go to houses of worship all over the world in all religions to find some of that silence, the statement at the end is just so vague as to be meaningless. I don't make my way to church to hear things like that. Does not seem that much thinking, freely or rightly, or both, inovolved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ODMsn75-SI

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  28. Yeah--a lot of well-meaning spiritual amen and praise the lord all over on a Sunday morning. Ann and I drive past the churches and are astounded at all the cars, people gathering on the steps in conversation, children running around Baptists, and Lutherans, and Presbyterians, and Methodists, Church of God, and Church of Christ, and Pentecostals, Congregationalists, Unitarians, some still handling snakes--loving God the best they know how.

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  29. Some of them have Bible studies discussing the merits of one text vs. another. Some of them discuss current issues, and some of them listen carefully to well-crafted sermons. Some of them love to sing and enjoy the art of that and the drug-free lifting of the spirit therein. Some of them need to hear as often as they can that God is on their side and forgives them and strengthens them, also drug-free, aside from a little alcohol.

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  30. Free speech articles in National Post, today.

    http://thoughts-brigitte.blogspot.ca/2014/04/two-commentaries-on-free-speech.html

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  31. Fear. Hate. Threat. Belief & Bias. Prejudice & Conviction.

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  32. I don't know what to say to that. That's about as broad and meaningless as what the lady says in Quaker meeting.

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  33. My response to "free speech articles in National Post today"

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  34. Thankfully I am off to go teach very young children. They eat up everything I say looking with bright shining faces. Not all, though. One is not taking well to structured activities and has begun throwing books. Sometimes I imagine you were like that at that age.

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  35. Symbolic literally means "to throw together." Diabolic - "to throw across" Parabolic (parable) "to throw beyond" All three and the greatest of these is .....

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