That damned moral sense, exclaimed
Mark Twain.
Beyond Good & Evil, suggested
Nietzsche. Think out
of the Box says everybody these days at one time or another.
Damning our moral sense
and moving beyond good & evil
sounds diabolically
threatening to traditions, family values,
civic responsibility,
decent community relationships.
Call it The Liberal Art
then: out of the cave, culture,
convention, closet—“liberation,” to grow beyond.
Yonder.
Thinking out of the Box
sounds benign unless I consider
the box: my morals—local,
& regional boxing me in, my
good & evil cultural
relativities regulating my belief
systems:
good guys and weasels? My intuition and counter-intuition?
Build thee more stately mansions O my soul, says Oliver
W. Holmes: shut thee from
heaven with a box more vast.
He said dome, not box. Same
deal. Enclosure.
C
Every word is a prison, says Emerson. Every idea. Man
is clapped into jail by
his consciousness, his moral sense,
his good & evil
addiction. .
Think out of the C.
It would take something
like an immaculate conception,
some stork flapping into my chimney with a bundle of
unpostponed joy for me to think out of the C.
Where would the
thought come from? Me boxed in by
bias & belief systems,
by my prejudices and convictions—by
my DNA (directional
navigational algorithms) protected
like family jewels or risk
re-configuration, reformatting,
reformation. .
Give me my Moral Sense, or
give me death, my Good & Evil,
my Coherence , my Consistency
my Predict-Ability some what
Certain Sustain Ability. Determination & the Principle of the
Thing all told my Big Box I would rather not think out of
terminal pre positions not
with standing.
Suffer in translation.
To die for.
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins
A nicely written review of the Stephen Hawkins movie:
ReplyDeletehttp://arts.nationalpost.com/2014/11/06/the-theory-of-everything-reviewed-stephen-hawking-biopic-is-a-beautiful-meditation-on-the-universal-power-of-love/
He's a hero.
ReplyDeleteNice. Hero. We should be able to say something more. The movie won't go into physics.
ReplyDeleteHawking, sp. I don't even know what his contribution is, outside of the extraordinary effort, which is truly inspiring in itself.
ReplyDeleteI climbed a mountain with a lady from North Carolina, yesterday. She had quite a drawl and I asked her it was North Carolina talk. She said no, she grew up in Kentucky and lived in New York. There were also a bunch of Germans on the mountain. They came in all colors speaking regular German and accented German, distinguishing themselves mostly by carrying their water bottles in their butt-cracks and bras--as our husbands observed. My brother-in-law twisted his ankle so that we are possibly finished with hiking in this heat.
His wheelchair incapacity, physical limits-- and yet doing significant work is what makes him heroic to me.
ReplyDeleteWhat if he had done "insignificant" work? And maybe his theoretical physics is wrong. It can't even be explained to the mere mortal. (Looking it over now, I do realize that I am familiar with the proposed singularities and multiplicities and horizons, etc.).
ReplyDeleteWhat I am wondering: if there were the unified theory of everything and this complete triumph of reason, would it make a difference? To what? Would it cement or shake our belief in God? Would it have relevance? The Bible tell us that everything came from nothing by the word (Word). Would my life not still be richer with prayer than without? Would I not still be seeking? Would there really be no other frontier? Would I not really want to worship rather than not worship? And where does reason come from? Thomas Nagel wrote his profound little book "Mind and Cosmos".
I don't see how any of this competes, Worship or don't. Right and wrong.No one's going to say it all. Word, Big Bang--origins are beyond me. You seem always on the defensive re these matters Hawkins inspires because he can do significant work while crippled, handicapped,totally constrained and also quite unattractive--all the physical attirubes we cherish are annihilated.l
ReplyDeleteFor one thing I meant would his life have been "heroic" even if the work "was" or "had been" insignificant? Would it have been heroic, just to live, laugh, be married, etc.?
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the unifying theory, something in me wants it, too, quite badly, actually. I find physics very attractive.
Just the crippling condition which didn't prevent him from his work--significant or not. Heroic. Little kids with cancer and smiles--heroic, you with the loss of your son: heroic. For some or for many--their religion is a unifying theory--grand narrative
ReplyDeleteHis wife said, it fell to her to keep reminding him that HE was not God, possessing a monumental ego, according to her. (Many a wife might say a thing like that.)
ReplyDeleteI have thought a lot about my son, here, that I can go on a holiday, and he was cut short.
Monumental Ego--my original and ongoing spin. It's the denial and cover up that's toxic.
ReplyDeleteYou are a systematizer of subjective experience.
ReplyDeleteI am that I am. All I got is my subjectdive experience. It's the denial and cover up that's toxic.
ReplyDeleteYou want to be a doctor of the soul.
ReplyDeleteNo, but I enjoy tweaking, taunting, testing, tempting them that do. (Satanic: diabolical--dirty work --doing my father's business.)
ReplyDeleteDoctor of souls to doctor them all.
ReplyDeleteThat would make me a healer, healing--the wounded, the vulnerable, damaged ("damned) and damaging.. But no, as Thoreau said, I wouildn't walk across the street to save the world. How presumptuous THAT would be.
ReplyDeleteAlways a double-edged sword. Always.
ReplyDeleteAnd "presumption" is you, you have confessed, or perhaps it is "us".
ReplyDeleteHeaded out for some reservoir.
ReplyDeleteDouble ("doubt"--a diminutive of "double), but usually one side is privileged and the other denied and covered up. Presumptuous, assumptuous “The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and
ReplyDeleteif I repent of anything, it is very likely to be
my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?” (Walden)
Out of the box thinking: the joy of the unaccomplished life.
ReplyDeletehttp://birdchadlouis.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/dream-small-the-joy-of-an-unaccomplished-life/
obey
ReplyDeleteRight now I have some commandments to obey: my husband ordered the hotel shuttle to take us to early service.
ReplyDeletegood girl
ReplyDeleteThe others are at NASCAR and took the rental.
ReplyDeleteobedient to another if not higher call?
ReplyDeleteYou could not pay me to go to NASCAR. It is always a highlight to visit the local community in church.
ReplyDeletegood girl
ReplyDeleteRespectable matron right out of Mark Twain, you must mean.--Looks like the congregation overbuilt some multimillion monstrosity, had a split, and is struggling to amortize the mortgage. Not a pretty picture. Something like the national debt. There was a great big plan laid out for multi-ethnic ministry. (They will be in my prayers. Looks like they are trying to think out of the box.)
ReplyDeleteMy husband was recruited into some Bible study and I lost him. He ended up in. Romans study of 30 people. I went to some other little group of about 8. With the intimacy of it, and my husband not there, I ventured to share a few things. The leader ignored it pretty much, but a Filipino lady came up to me after, and put her hand on the chest and said she could just tell the spirit and wisdom in me, and said many nice things. We told each other some of our troubles, and we cried quite a bit, and I offered her my arms and hand. I always try to be nice to the Filipinos. They are such spiritual and hardworking people often suffering deprivations. They look you straight in the face and utter blessings. This has happened to me several times, now.
When we waited for pick- up by the road, I picked up some lemons from the ground, freshly fallen off. I can squeeze them into my hotel-room tea. There were small oleander bushes in bloom, there, too, but They did not have a fragrance, not the way I remember from Sicily. The blooms were perhaps a little far spent. I stuck my nose right up to them--but nothing.
It's a scorcher, today. The rest of the day should be spent poolside. Edmonton is covered in snow now. Everyone in church wondered if we would be staying for a few months. Oh, oh, no, it is just a short holiday. At this point we can't even picture any idea of being snowbirds.
Lutheran? The mega church?. My daughter asked me if I have heard of Nadia Boltz-Weber--whom she had heard interviewed on NPR. A Lutheran Pastor former drug addict, covered with tattoos and establishing a ministry for the marginals and non-mainstream. Charisma. Makes a difference.,
ReplyDeleteLutheran. Yes. Mega is not working. Everything is mega here. Mega Walmart. Mega drug store. Mega Sears. You can't go anywhere without a car to something mega. They don't even have any solar panels although they have so much sun. They should be all off the grid.
ReplyDeleteNadia we have talked lots about before. She has said some memorable things. Maybe she could turn the mega-church around.
NASCAR is from North Carolina! My brother-in-law said I would not have lasted for 15 min. They love it, though.
Son Jonathan is an ongoing mega-nascar fan.. When I took him to his first race--dirt track in Minn He couldn't stand the noise and we had to leave and he sensed my irritation during the hour drive home. Older & Later in Ashevillle we went to several and since he's become devoted. Maybe compensating for the early failure.
ReplyDeleteOr honouring the time with Dad, Abba.
ReplyDeleteI don't share the passion--although his mother follows it and takes notes so they can talk about it --football and basketballl
ReplyDeleteMy Dad took us to the Frankfurt airport. We saw it when it was just a small airport. He also took us on trips. He sailed boat on lakes and navigated rivers. We swam right across gravel pits. He sang and prayed us down. He taught Sunday School once, about Daniel's God and Nebucadnezzar.
ReplyDeleteIt's not about the score. It's not about the game or the noise, or the vehicle, ... It's always about the relationship.
A man's son or daughter is the apple of his eye, and so the mother's. She will even take notes so she can intelligently discuss the sport. A father's heart bleeds for his children. "Splanchnon" we have in the Greek, a mercy straight from the gut.
Abba, we say in return.
ReplyDeleteSplanchnon, mercy, visceral--beyond goodies and weasels, beyond winners and losers, beyond achieving and failing, beyond finding or not finding your passion.
ReplyDeleteBut, hm, "passion" it is closely related to.
I can't sleep, here. I should have brought my sleep apnea machine.
ReplyDeleteMy father, not an outspokenly pious, gushing or preaching man, would actually say that he had this overpowering feeling for us. In German, it is "Barmherzigkeit", incorporating "gut" and "heart", meaning mercy, but a gut-wrenching one.
Always: about the relationship. I agree. Whatever the token content or experience. It's never just what it's about.--though it seems to be.
ReplyDeleteDo any of the poems and stories you read ever aim to get at this father's love? I can't think of any. There are smarmy Halmark cards. On the hand, there is all this activity that we need to read behind. Otherwise, in the media dads are mostly deadbeat or absent, uncommitted. We always highlight it when it is missing.
ReplyDeleteMy dad would have been 80 in September. His second oldest brother from Vancouver came around and visited us all, reminding us.
ReplyDeleteLittle House on the Prairie. Bonanza.
ReplyDeleteNo more honor in this day and age, says the newspaper. Only on Remembrance Day.
ReplyDeletemy father moved through dooms of love
E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962
34
my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height
this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm
newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots
and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.
Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin
joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice
keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father’s dream
his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.
Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain
septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is
proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark
his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he’d laugh and build a world with snow.
My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)
then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold
giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am
though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath
and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why men breathe—
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all
Thank you. Anthropomorphic in a vague sense? Can you have poetic anthropomorphism? Looks like it.
ReplyDeleteHis father died in a collision with a locomotive. His mother would not leave the scene until she had dealt with the body, though she was injured.
Here goes the alarm clock. Big driving day.
Everything is anthropomorphic.
ReplyDeleteIt is really remarkable that while all the other attributes ascribed to God are adjectives, “Love” alone is a substantive, and it would scarcely occur to one to make the mistake of saying: “God is lovely.” Thus, language itself has given expression to the substantial element that is found in this attribute.
ReplyDelete― The Journals of Kierkegaard
Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/15-soren-kierkegaards-most-challenging-quotes#YAKtwWbub34pAduF.99
The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.
ReplyDelete― The Journals of Kierkegaard
Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/15-soren-kierkegaards-most-challenging-quotes#YAKtwWbub34pAduF.99
What precisely is profound in Christianity is that Christ is both our atoner and our judge, not that one is our atoner and another our judge, for then we would nevertheless come to be judged, but that the atoner and the judge are the same.
ReplyDelete― The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard
Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/15-soren-kierkegaards-most-challenging-quotes#YAKtwWbub34pAduF.99
anthropomorhpic
ReplyDeleteCummings was into "I-Thou". Some people on-line used this poem to eulogized their father at his funeral. I think that hardly works. But it works as an extended analogy of fatherhood in the image of God's fatherhood. As children we can also deify or fathers, for better or worse.
ReplyDeleteHonouring your parents is the first of the commandments that does not deal with honoring God, but serving neighbor. How can you even say you honor God when you don't look after your parents... Jesus upbraids the Pharasees.
If you are a wretch like me you can claim to honor god and ob ey but till ignore parents and neighbors and colleague--what it means to be a sinner and not deny it or cover. I'm upbraidable, accuse-able.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how Jesus always said the right thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd how so many quote and gloat and nail it down for their own purposes.
ReplyDeleteJudge and atoner, lion and lamb, omniscient and all-forgetting, father and son, giving freedom, never gloating.
ReplyDeleteI reckon. So they say and say.
ReplyDelete9After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; 10and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."…
ReplyDeletehosanna
ReplyDeleteCome, Sam, you want to be in that number.
ReplyDeleteOf course--wretch like me. (Did you know hosanna means "save now."?
ReplyDeleteWhat does it mean not capitalized without exclamation mark?
ReplyDeleteWhich it? caps and exclamations simply indicate hype--pay attention. Like raising your voice. But you knew that and I guess you have some other agenda with your question.
ReplyDeleteMy agenda right now is to get up and drive across the Hopi and Navaho reservation. Martin has a terrible cold. My brother-in-law broke his big toe on Camelback mountain. But they are back home.
ReplyDeleteSix weeks in a cast and no driving.
ReplyDeletehosanna
ReplyDeletehttp://news.nationalpost.com/2014/11/11/mormon-leaders-admit-founder-joseph-smith-had-up-to-40-wives-including-friends-spouses-and-teenage-girls/
ReplyDeleteMormons can no longer hide the truth about Joseph Smith from their own off-spring and followers and finally admit that he even married his own friends' wives, posting their revealing essays for their community's consumption. -- But how will they explain the deception that has been carried on? Will they still accept whatever they are told Joseph Smith read on the gold plates only he saw?
I bought some handmade jewelry from some local tribes women, the other day. They seemed to be Mormons by hearing them mention some things. They were lovely people, as have been all the Mormons I have met. They are truly often surpassing most in their good qualities.
Ann roomed with one of the Romney offspring at Duke & she and her husband became good friends our early years. Good people.
ReplyDeleteThey are a,ways told to be sweet. Every wife is supposed to be ever sweet. Peace-mongers.
ReplyDeleteGoing on a day-trip with Laura and Bror to Dorango, Colorado, today.
ReplyDelete"How can we live without idols? Auden wondered. What would we do without our generalizations? Thank, God for "they" or I wouldn't have any commentary ever. .
ReplyDeleteSee if he can explain the abomination of presbyterianism for you--and maybe the delight of the circumcision feast foreshadowing crucifixion (it is excruciating to have your foreskin clipped--we have kids at school that rage against female clitorectomy in foreign countries and haven't the grand narrative to frame it as typology for suffering salvation. Presbyterians are retarded in this respect--but I wouldn't call the abominable .
ReplyDeleteI have got a feeling those won't be the topics of the day.
ReplyDeleteI understand. Every wife is supposed to be sweet. Peace mongers. (Crying Peace Peace where there is no peace.)
ReplyDeleteWe have covered the subject at inordinate length. Christians don't even circumcise.
ReplyDeleteOf course they do--as precursor to the crucifixion and in appreciatio of our Jewish heritage. Otherwise: why the feast?But--you are right not to bring it up. Religion and Politics are not peaceful subject to put in play Academics--sure. But not Church or State modes. Enjoy your trip. I'm off to lunch and a nap. (Talk about Luther's farts and beer--the sacredness of the mundane.)
ReplyDeleteSounds like you need a nap.
ReplyDeleteI'm good at it. (Get over to "word" by 5:30 24/7/365)--makes me nap worthy on the weekends. Poning Joy.
ReplyDelete"word"? My husband needs/deserves naps regularly, too. Is it when you get particularly acerbic when you need a nap?
ReplyDeleteWe saw Dorango and the ruins at Aztec, then went to see Bror's church, a beautiful, new building, very plain in a Pueblo look with a Mexican style little architectural element for the bell. Now we have to get ready to get back to the deep freeze.
Sounds nice--Bror's situation. What moved him to leave the Salt Lake area?
ReplyDeleteIf I knew it and understood it all, I would not discuss his business here. He is still in the same organizational district with all the people he knew before.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, I think it is a huge change to not be ministering in the heart of Mormon country.
ReplyDeleteConfidential? Thought maybe he felt called by God to move on. Ministering in the heart of Mormon country. My son, Jonathan is administering in the same heart. My old man moved 7 times--4 times after "retiring" and leaving the east for the rural mid west. Ministering in the heart of the heart of the country--which he eventually claimed to love as much as New England.
ReplyDeleteHow does God call you to move on?
ReplyDeleteAdministering and ministering in Mormon country is a very different thing. Mormonism knows that it is the true religion just for the fact that it does not have paid ministry. It is the litmus test.
ReplyDeleteI think Flannery has a story, a very strange one about two young girls and a kind of circus, I think, where someone says: in this and that religion it is better to have preachers who know less or have no schooling...
Temple of the Holy Ghost, My old man prayed for guidance for a wife. Told the name of someone he hardly knew from church. When he called, her mother said Betty was down town but if Gurdon called, tell him to meet me at Horn & Hardarts. Called to move on 7 times over his career. I was called move on by a series of manic depressive episodes that forced the issue. Quakers in the East have no paid ministry.--but I believe you see them as un-creative.
DeleteI would guess every religion thinks itself the true religion, and every denominatiom--the true manifestation. Can you imagine a religion or denomination that thought it was false?
ReplyDeleteKeep the adherents sweet and dumb and the insufferable and proud for being sweet and dumb. Could be religious, else spiritual, or possibly atheist. No, no, I forget, atheist are the smartest, most educated, and don't care to be sweet. Let's none of us talk content.
ReplyDeleteTemple of the Holy Ghost. Thank you. Did it not end up with some strange person lifting a skirt to show private parts. What did she mean?
Reread it and we'll talk. Sweet & Dumb abound. Praise the Lord. Atheists: self designated smart and savvy -- Liberal Art: ridiculous to the savvy, offensive to the conscientious.
ReplyDeleteFlying day. One stop-over. No Flannery.
ReplyDeleteI brought Aesop's fables in big Penguin pocket edition. The introduction was good and thorough, but I only read a dozen fables, a section on self destructive behaviour, how things backfire and the seed of troubles lies in your own greed, stupidity, laziness, shortsightedness...
Greedy, stupid. lazy and shortsighted myself, I can agree how such at attitude brings about backfire and the seeds of troubles. No doubt.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, just as frequently it is our virtues that get us into trouble. A trouble-free life is not possible, and at this point, perhaps not desirable. As one of my pastors liked to say: you have to be in hot water to stay clean. Aesop's fable's contradict themselves, too. What is a virtue in one story is the fault in another.
ReplyDeleteFantastic flight home in a cloudless sky--Phoenix, Sedona, Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon, Salt Lake, the Rockies in pink light, sliding onto over the Prairie at dusk, landing in the city with the lights just turned on.
Nobody else was watching. They were all plugged in. It must have been their umpteenth time down for golfing.
Alright. Back to real life.
Good description. The Rockies and Grand Canyon contradictions. Window seat .
ReplyDelete