Sidewalk thoughts Aug. 27.25

I will have a revolution within myself.  
I will overturn values that have been planted and grown inside me by other people and institutions.
I will learn to see the world as if for the first time.
My eyes will be those of a newborn infant, slow to categorize, label, judge.
I will listen to those around me better.
I will seek more moments of silent meditation.
I will grow something beautiful inside my heart.

Actually

When we say something is impossible, we have given ourselves over to and been taken prisoner by possibility, that is, an assessment of what is possible. But the Actual cares little for our assessments, and our theories or ideas about what's possible are not grounded in the Real, but are abstractions.

It's time to (re) open possibility, to return it to its proper place as the infinitely open field of the Actual.

a vision flickering

a vision flickering
o'er the ebony wave
glow with memory'd
light so rich and pure
i stare afraid to blink
along the passage of
time and desire
you are a fire
floating there above the
watery way
rimmed by glowing spheres
fireflies around a
brighter center
bid your ancient love to
enter and recall a
time before the fall
before the weakening of
our magic days
unafraid to embrace the
bold light of uncommon
space around the nearness of
our faces pressed so
close together
before the darkened time
descended from
another place
alien and cold upon the
threshold of our
epicenter
i have not looked away

Thoughts on love and Jesus

Those who say love should be "properly oriented" know little about love or its potential.  Augustine thought love should be oriented to the one unchangeable being, ie God, for all other things are subject to change and therefore lacking in perfection.  But he failed to realize that love demonstrates its true power in being directed at the changeable. 

"He demonstrated his love in this: that while we were still sinners..."

But love was betrayed by those later writers who made a mockery of this demonstration by having Jesus "ascend into the clouds" while his disciples stood gaping at love raised to the level of an abstraction.  His followers were left to love Love. 

Current mood

A lake in the woods

The land is now so wooded around this lake one can hardly walk through it.  I used to swim here as a child.  Around the only island visible in this old photo a person can catch bass and old logs.  The stands of birch in the distance, looking like frost upon the land, have for the most part been replaced with spruce and pine.  Otters and beaver live here.  In fact the first beaver dam I ever encountered was found to the right side of this picture at what is the south end of the lake.  During my teen years I would bike the 5.5 km (3.4 miles) to cool off in the water after a warm summer day.  The last time I visited the lake I was hunting for chaga, amply supplied by the remaining birch trees on the southern hills, the once grassy fields you see in the foreground.

"I brought her back and compelled her to be my lover. It satisfied me to have her before me as proof of my unbroken solitude..."   -Hermann Mann

Just chillin..

Time has slipped away

Have we not
counted our days
beneath the golden
rays of youth's sun?
do we not see that
time has slipped
away?
why such distance to
our place along the
rippling shore?
no more will I
call home the comfort
I had laid in store
no more a solitary
figure will I cut
it's not enough to
think you mine
one-sided dream

there is a fruiting tree
in a vision
I once had by a
grassy pond
fond have I been of
this memory:

there stood a
spirit of the wood
her eyes a'twinkle
in the light
she plucked a fruit to
share with me until the
day's twilight
"stay with me"
she said as
I turned away to go
had I known she'd
disappear
I'd have not said no 

(some prefer the
natural course
"come what may"
they say but
I am nature's
creature beneath
organic sway
ever mindful of
the fact that
time has slipped away)

Can You See Yourself

can you see yourself as a child
in some image of the past?
chequered picnic blankets by the
blue water
sand castles suspended under
younger faces
(in their excellency
these are perfect graces)
beyond reclamation but for
their fuzzy traces
did i miss something there?
what did i forget to do?
who am i
to raise this child's ghost?
am i still that little boy
beneath the elm and
mother's spreading smile?

Thoughts at noon on free speech

After recently reading a number of classical dialogues it seems to me we need to develop a more sensitive approach to hate speech, or even controversial opinions. Practically speaking this means not banning hate speech altogether but rather moderating the venue through which it is heard. Some moderation is needed because hate speech can incite violence, but it seems to me this effect depends not so much on the content of the speech, but on the context in which it is heard. For example (an extreme one), I have no doubt that a dark-skinned person who happens to wander into a neo-Nazi rally being held in the backwoods of some place should fear for his or her well-being if not life. Yet the same racist ideology presented in the form of a dialogue, with the opportunity for opposing views to be heard, rather than inciting violence, would no doubt come off looking quite absurd. By handling hate speech in a way that shuts down dialogue and makes such speech illegal even, I'm afraid we force the ideas that inform it underground.

In some ways this may seem naïve. Do I really have so much faith in the power of reasoned dialogue, or in the public use of reason? Does a broader exposure of the public to hate speech not disseminate the very ideas we'd like to disempower? Does the kind of dialogue I'm speaking of not exclude those who have not inherited or practice a kind of academic skepticism, that is a particular kind of European intellectual dialogue?

First of all, yes I do have faith in the power of reasoned dialogue and people's ability to decide which views resonate with goodness, happiness, and justice. We won't always agree on the particulars, but that's why it's important to have these conversations, if only to make one another aware that we are operating under different definitions of goodness, etc. I once heard this kind of discussion referred to as "agonistic" (as opposed to antagonistic), the idea being that sometimes entering into dialogue with others is a painful experience, but one that despite the pain can potentially lead to shared perspectives, a greater appreciation for the other, and further development of our ideas.

Secondly, allowing hate speech (or even controversial ideas) on the public stage certainly exposes more people to the reasoning and thought processes of those who espouse it. I'm not sure we should assume this exposure automatically leads to more disciples however. It seems to me it is precisely these underground expressions of hate speech that create the most followers, while public expressions in the form of a dialogue might help expose potential candidates for discipleship to opposing views and/or destabilize those who already hold such views. A dialogue isn't a monologue. Important thing to keep in mind.

Thirdly, there may be some merit in critiquing this model of dialogue. One can imagine a situation in which a highly polished hate speech orator, skilled in rhetoric and debate, shares the stage with a poor farmer from the outskirts of Conakry. The very form the dialogue takes in a way sets the farmer up, if not for failure, than perhaps embarrassment (which may be the same under Western terms of debate). And yet, dialogue has been used to settle disputes, share ideas, and come to general agreement over matters, for thousands of years. A more inclusive model of dialogue is required. This calls for experimentation and patience. In Canada (and no doubt other places) Indigenous People's models are already being actualized in the service of communal healing and cross-cultural sharing. The success of these models on a larger stage will be proved by their use, i.e. -actually engaging- in alternative forms of dialogue.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall once summed up Voltaire regarding free speech: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." What if we qualify this by adding that the "right to say it" extends especially into the public realm of dialogue where what is said might have the greatest impact on the well-being of those it is said about, and where the opportunity to hear other voices is made that much more vital to the enterprise of living in a community where ideas can, and do, shape the world.

Aphorisms 2

5

 

Our basic starting point is the world. Previously we have been told our basic starting point is something other than this. The world is all we know. We are born, grow, and decline within it. By “world” one might think I mean the planet Earth. While it is true I shall never leave it, the planet itself would not be possible without those forces and spaces that exist outside it, act upon it, and situate it. For this reason our spiritual orientation should not be narrowly focussed on the Earth, but the COSMOS. By “focussed on” I do not mean in any way to seize upon something, but rather to open oneself up to possibility. 

 

6

 

Everything we need comes from the world. All sustenance, joys, meaning, truths, all revelations and visions, have always come from the world. If this were not so we would not know it. Even the gods must use the voice of Nature to speak: in visions perceived by brains, words, rumblings, lights, plants, fire, or even swirling tea leaves. All belong to Nature. Without the world we hear nothing.

 

7

To perceive we must direct ourselves to the world. The world speaks to us in a multitude of ways. Some ways of perceiving are direct while others are indirect. To see an oak tree is a more direct perception than to hear a description of it from a friend. But to hear of an oak tree from a friend is more direct than to learn of a general category such as “tree” from a textbook or lecture. The particular vision of a thing is always preferred to an abstraction.

 

8

 

Ninety-nine percent of religious doctrine is abstraction.

 

 

Aphorisms

1

When we start with the question, “Is there a God?” we already presume too much. It’s as if an answer has been given before the question was even asked. On what basis do we ask the question? Where did this idea come from: God? It was offered to us. It didn’t come from ourselves. It was ready-made. Have we not grown weary of believing, without reflection, in the ready-made? 

2

Kant opened his famous essay on the Enlightenment with these words: “Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit” (Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity). He continues: “Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen” (Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another). The religious, on the other hand, think that accepting the ready-made on faith is one of the greatest virtues: “Lean not on your own understanding, but trust in God with all your heart” (Proverbs 3:5). Religion is the antithesis of the Enlightenment i.e. the antithesis of human emergence.

3

The basic starting point of any spiritual investigation is human experience. To be even more clear: the basic starting point is individual experience. Neither my friend’s experience, nor the experience of a man living in the wilderness two thousand years ago teaches me anything about the shape my own experience should take. They are never prescriptive. At best they offer demonstrations of various possibilities. Even here these possibilities are often marked by some previous imposition of religious structure (which is by nature a delimitation).

4

The vast majority of religious adherents never have profound spiritual experiences. They go to mosque, synagogue, church, or temple and rehearse the same ritualistic motions day after day, week after week. This monotonous rehearsal often makes up the greatest part of religious life. The multitude is content to allow the true spiritual experience be the special privilege of the religious founder, the religious genius. They think he or she is exceptional by nature when in fact the religious genius has an exceptional will.

 

 

Sitting alone in the lamplight

"The general people gathered as the ants did, and they hurried from the east to the west and from the south to the north. Some people belonged to the upper class, some did not. Some were old and some were young, some were greedy for wealth; eventually they all grew old and died. They did not know about 'the universal principle of Change.'"  Yoshida Kenko, Tsurezuregusa, 1336

Light to light

Passing through.. each of us.. and through one another.  What took so long?  Was it ready-made morality passed off as the word of God?  Was it timidity?  If only I had seen sooner, felt sooner, lived sooner.  What is normative?  What we're raised to hold dear by those who are raised to hold it dearly.  What do we see?  What we're taught to see by those who were taught to see shadows.  What is ideal?  What is taught to us in a book or by someone who has read a book, while Nature's truth lies trampled beneath our clumsy feet or lost above our stiff unbending necks.  What is real?  What we see, and what we hold to be ideal, i.e. what is normative-> our socio-cultural construct. 

How does one shed light on this?  By drawing back the shutters of a window.  How does one transcend this?  By opening the window and crawling out.

Safety Comparison of Psychoactive Drugs

Gable, Robert S. Comparison of acute lethal toxicity of commonly abused psychoactive substances. Addiction. 99. 686–696 (2004).

Given

"The eye - it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will."

Wordsworth

Merry Christmas, or What's in a Greeting?

It seems Christmas has become thoroughly.. multicultural. The debate over whether one should say "happy holidays" or not should finally come to an end. One should have no more difficulty saying "Merry Christmas" than Happy Thursday or Merry Wednesday, though hopefully with a greater twinkle in the eye.

A friendly detractor may say, yes but hasn't Christmas always been multicultural?  To this I must agree, but add that it was multicultural in a different kind of way.  Christmas has always been multicultural precisely because Christians have always been multicultural.  The multiculturalism I speak of today is different.  Now not only Christians celebrate Christmas, but non-Christians too, and these in far greater numbers than ever before.  It has led to the now common sighting of the little white and red signs in front of people's houses or on their cars which say "Keep Christ in Christmas".  There would be no need to make such declarations unless already Christmas was seen as existing outside the circle of Christianity.  How odd this is considering "Christ" is already in Christmas, literally forming part of the word.  

This marks a transition I have perhaps not so subtly referred to above when I use the greetings "Happy Thursday" and "Merry Wednesday".  For some time now these words have lost their religious connotations for us, except for a very few pagans perhaps.   Wednesday of course was named for the Norse god Odin or the Saxon Wodan, the All-Father.  Thursday was named for one of his sons, the god of thunder Thor:  Wodan's-day and Thor's-day respectively.  We may greet one another quite cheerfully with a "happy Thursday" and think nothing of it.  There are many cultural/religious artifacts that we use in this way.  So the term "Christmas" has slipped toward this usage, demonstrated by the insistence of Christians that we keep the "Christ" in Christmas, as a kind of resistance to the transition that is already taking place. 

The insistence in so many schools that we refrain from saying "Merry Christmas" or have Christmas concerts is a sign therefore of a number of things.  First, interestingly it is a sign that schools are colluding with Christians to keep Christmas a religious holiday (and thus not a celebration appropriate for all their students), this despite the availability of a number of Christmas symbols that are capable of carrying both religious and secular meaning almost entirely in either direction.  Think of Santa Claus, the Christmas tree, gift-giving... all of these can be thought of in terms completely unrelated to the Advent of Christ, and in fact are thought of this way by many many people.  Following this point, schools themselves therefore restrict our freedom to define Christmas in whatever way we choose, already naming for us the meaning of Christmas (i.e. it has religious meaning).  This is similar to arguing that Santa Claus can only be white or Canadian etc., failing to take into account the symbolic givenness of the season and the signs of its presence.  Christmas, unchained from a specific cultural interpretation, becomes not devoid of meaning, but free in its openness to us.  Instead of shying away from its celebration in schools, now may be the time to ask each beautiful little child what it means to them and their families.  It is precisely in that chorus of small voices that we might hear the melody and meaning of Christmas emerge. 

Blog post from the past

The following is taken from a blog draft written December 16, 2006, separated from my wife, on the verge of divorce, after returning home to spend Christmas with strangers.

How is it that a man can sit in a room surrounded by people and still feel alone?  Some men prefer it this way.  They are at ease until someone should happen to say something to them, at which point, the man feels suddenly shaken, even violated in some way.  The offence is worse if the person should speak directly to him.  It is not so bad if the other should sit down beside him and, gazing out into the crowd without looking at the man, say something requiring no more than a grunt or a “hmm”.  At this point the two can remain silent and feel no awkwardness.  It is only when one becomes aware of the other’s presence that discomfort should follow.  When one has the expectation that two people sitting next to one another should speak to each other then any silence is hardly tolerated.  One can often observe one of these people in action, trying to stimulate conversation, saying the most ridiculous things to prompt the other to speak.  “This is certainly a nice evening isn’t it?”  Or even more ridiculous: “I hear it’s supposed to get colder.”  The silent man, at this point, may do one of three things.  1) He will answer with a nod of the head or raise his eyebrows but for the rest of the evening bear a grudge against the one who violated his peace with such foolish statements; 2) He will simply move to another location where he can dip some shrimp in seafood sauce, or quietly stack a piece of cheese, some assorted meat, on top of a cheese or perhaps herb flavoured cracker; or 3) He will lash out at the offender with a verbal assault.  He may do all three.  Slowly he will nod his head, his neck and face beginning to flush with fury, his eyebrows will rise and his eyes bulge until suddenly he bursts out with “For God’s sake is that the most intelligent thing you can say?!”  Or perhaps, “Who really cares about the weather, it will be what it will be, and the evening is like any other!”  Afterwards he’ll make his way to the table with assorted cold cuts, cheese and crackers, and if he’s lucky the shrimp, where he’ll prepare a tasty tidbit which will distract him from the embarrassment of his outburst.  It is embarrassing in the end, though also gratifying.  It is embarrassing because he was forced to break his own silence, to violate his own spherical vacuum of silence surrounding his body.  He’ll realize he had a choice, that he could have remained silent, adhered to point 1) or simply moved straight to point 2) without calling any attention to himself.  But it was also gratifying, he’ll decide, as he eats his cracker and cheese.  He may even smile to himself.  The look on the other person’s face was priceless.