I note last week, we discussed the impossibility of purity, like the vegan who drives a VW Bug on tires made with the fats of animal by-products. I was reminded of her this weekend, as an Alternate Delegate, examining Resolutions proposed for vote, at the Annual Council of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia.
There are times when you feel at home even if you've never been there before: cresting a ridge in Laguna Hills to encounter a sparkling Pacific ocean in the bright morning sunshine; drinking a pint of Guinness in the Dublin pub where Joyce held court; drinking another pint in another pub in Oxford where Lewis and Tolkien spoke of their work in progress; bargaining for a suit on Orchard Street in the Lower East Side neighborhood where my father was born; standing in solidarity with other pot-bellied gray-beards singing "By the Time We Got to Woodstock," at a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young concert, even though I wasn't blessed to attend the festival.
The symbolism of the naieve vegan resonates even though I haven't the fortitude to join her. Council Resolutions, as a whole, on recognizing and fighting global warming, inclusiveness, recognition/support for Latino/Native Americans, against Payday Lending, for Sudan Divestment, and for a just and humane immigration policy, all speak the familiar native language of a household with good intentions.
In 1935, Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, a neer' do-well who found his only business success eight years later as the murderous Vichy Commissioner for Jewish Affairs, ran for office in Paris, on the platform: "stronger authoritarian government, a more agressive foreign policy, the reduction of taxes, the revision of naturalisation laws, repatriation of unemployed foreigners living on public relief, the suppression of trade unions and parasitic organizations, and the defense of the birth rate and the family."
Languages of resolutions and campaigns doesn't change much over the years and plays itself out in decisions, large and small, over and over. On the Freakonomics audio tape, the author describes a KKK marketing slogan of the 1920's that proclaimed Yesterday, Today, Forever, which brought to mind another moment seventy-five years later in our parish hall where a woman speaking against inclusivity said God is the same Yesterday, Today and Forever. We've just concluded a family debate in our home on whether its right to join a health club whose distant owners reputedly fund political causes to which I'm opposed.
It's always instructive to study not only what oppressors have written and said, but how ordinary people responded, and made graduated decisions, to either abet, ignore, or oppose, injustices perpetuated by the respective powers of their time.
Of the intellectuals who so opposed Vichy, Clive Davis wrote, "As true scholars, they refused to be drawn into the tacit, tautacular, bargain by which Vichy's cooperation with the invader was seen as a pragmatic strategem to preserve the eternal France. They could see how that bargain attacked the eternal France in its essence. As true heroes, they were not content to keep their heads down until it all blew over: they guessed correctly, that too much could be blown away."
I heard an activist at Council say his goal was to move the clergy inclusivity resolution, in its original purity, to a vote unconnected to any other resolution, especially, the more controversial proposal of same-gender blessings, for he knew if that happened, it would constitute its demise. Alas, it transpired just as he predicted. While the clergy inclusivity resolution wasn't killed outright, the structure of the committee that originally examined it was re-named, and a new commission, recommissioned, to study it some more.
A blurb in the January/February Atlantic Magazine dispels the stereotype of the average terrorist as primarily recruited from amongst the ranks of the poor; a new Oxford study reveals, that of 404 militants, from 131 countries, an astonishing 178 (over 40%), were university-trained engineers. The authors speculate the "emphasis on structure and rules, and on finding singular solutions to complicated problems may fit neatly with Islamist notions of the ideal society - and in support of this hypothesis, the authors cite surveys from America, the Middle East, and Canada indicating that engineers are more likely than other professionals to be religious and right-wing."
As examination of all Resolutions brought forward unmistakenly captures that Council had good intentions; indeed, the outcome of most votes seemed inevitable. I couldn't have conceived, for example, although debate on the floor grew somewhat heated, that the resolution on just and humane immigration policy wouldn't have passed.
The ideal of justice is pure, as are all ideals. Patience is required; something I lack; I avow especially that personal and corporate purity in this world is impossible; I'm therefore in no position to demand purity of anyone or anything else. Even so, I'm compelled to wonder, while we cautiously deliberate resolutions on inclusivity, are there mothers who fitfully weep over imprisoned sons in Nigeria tonight?
As a member of a Continuing Church that's received steadfast Diocesan support, I'm forever grateful to the Diocese; the existence of our parish, in itself, we were told repeatedly at Council, serves as inspiration for others. Although, not cradle, I'm home, within the Episcopal Body, as nowhere else, even though, we, at times, choose to override our good intentions by donning the hardhats of engineers rather than wearing the dreadlocks of vegans who drive VW Bugs on tires manufactured with animal fats.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
Neighborhood(s) Watch
I note this week, in dead of winter, snow and ice on the ground, it's time to dream of better things; it's time to buy Orioles tickets. Half the attraction is Baltimore itself. Before there was Camden Yards, there was Memorial Stadium - a plot of sacred greenery where Earl Weaver planted a tomato garden in the outfield. A stadium on 33rd Street, the beating heart of a lively neighborhood: loping down that boulevard of rowhouses, on Opening Day, the first gentle days of Spring, consuming a Tugboat Annie's sub, buying peanuts on the block, re-set time, embracing prospects of another promising season.
Our local rag printed an article last week on the re-location of a day shelter from the basement of our old church to a storefront downtown. To seal the deal, it was necessary to offer negative conditions: "It will not be a cold-night shelter, restaurant, classroom or gathering place." If it doesn't provide aspects of the latter three out of four, it'll be defeating its purpose by not recreating the qualities of the neighborhood, in facsmile, for which its guests are longing.
Scholars propose/debate economic models as to why the German homefront supported, or at least never rebelled, against Hitler. One theory describes a nation moving out from under Depression, revitalized by the implementation of a war-time economy, where an immediate solidarity-building communal sacrifice, yielded to the promise of greater riches to come. Another theory dismisses early sacrifice, emphasizing the back-end; after countries were conquered, those at home were satiated by a generous distribution of appropriated loot.
No matter what, people defend their homes, old or newly acquired, with ferocity. We know one of the worries the leaders of the exiles returning from Bablyon had upon their minds, as reflected bewtween the lines of several Psalms, is what might happen when they encountered non-exiled neighbors living in their former homes. Indeed, that turned out to be a precursor to a post World War II massacre by Gentiles, of Jews, returning to their former homes in Poland.
A tradition the Spotsyltuckian married into is Sunday dinner at the mother-in-law's featuring all-day Westerns on the tv. A Gunsmoke episode, a few weekends ago, featured Harry Morgan playing an erstwhile well-intentioned posse member who was alleged to have shot a more charming rogue in the back. Harry was ultimately harrassed to the tipping point of finding his daughter's cat hanging from a tree in the front yard, after which, the town contracted a sudden epiphany of good will, and he was welcomed back into the community with open arms.
No similar hometown ephiphany appears due for the neighbors of a Missouri family whose mother and daughter posed as a 16-year old boy on the internet only to harass the 13-year old girl next door, so meanly, she committed suicide. No hanging pets, yet, but death threats are just the tip of an iceberg which includes a brick through the window, fake 911 calls, deprivation of income, you name it. An elegant headline captures the classic sense of isolating any outcast: "Neighborhood shuns suspected tormenter in Internet suicide."
An epiphany of my own occurred at a camp where I once worked as counselor. One of the children was grossly overweight. He was also home schooled. The knee-jerk response in all conversations about home schooling is kids won't be socialized. Yet, here is a young person, who, at least in school, won't be tormented or shunned on account of his appearance. Is it possible he may grow up better socialized for not having had to endure the socialization, real or virtual, that was sure to be his lot if he'd attended public school? On the other hand, if the home schooling curriculum incorporates elements of far-right extremism, he may mature with great potential to shun and torment others.
I note this week an article in Politico, by Samuel Loewenberg, which begins, "Genocide in Sudan, a dictatorship in Myanmar and the prospect of nukes in Iran could make this the Year of the Sanctions." Yet, Loewenberg, goes on to detail corporate free trade advocates who consistently lobby against sanctions. As William Reinsch, a former Undersecretary of Commerce was quoted, "You go up and lobby on this, and they play the genocide card. They say you want to do business with mass murderers."
Could an efficient prosperous Germany have been built without resort to the unifying negative community building force of anti-semitism? What would such a Germany look like today? Is it feasible to 'sell' a shelter without offering up the things it's not? Is it possible to educate a child in isolation yet better socialize him than if he'd had to undergo the usual socialization of our times? Does an unrestricted free trade policy lead to a more open world that promises extended human rights, or does it too nonchalantly sweep humanitarianism under the rug?
An article in the Sun, last week, reflects the complexity, if not the impossibility of attaining purity, in this or any other, human endeavor. A fella in an otherwise vacant corner of an East Baltimore factory, roasts coffee beans every morning, the old fashioned way, providing superior tasting java to neighborhood eateries. The beans come from Costa Rica, Sumatra, India, Bolivia and Ethiopia, not all of whose governors are paragons of humanitarianism. He says, "I realized there was a bit of a vacuum in town for people who liked to know where their coffee is coming from."
Yes, and, no. If all I need think is the coffee comes from a Baltimore neighborhood with friendly connotations, I'm warm, cozy, fine. If I think beyond, though, to where the beans come from, I may confront a conumdrum like a vegan who drives a cute VW bug pasted with peace-sign bumper stickers even though her tires contain animal fat by-products. Is it necessary to trace every action to its source to attain the essence of purity? Is it possible in such a small world? If I picture my small part of the world as a neighborhood, it's envisionable, but they'll always remain the nagging doubts I've intellectually conditioned myself to live with, either too nonchalantly, or in the necessary practical interests of preserving a reasonably functional sanity.
Our local rag printed an article last week on the re-location of a day shelter from the basement of our old church to a storefront downtown. To seal the deal, it was necessary to offer negative conditions: "It will not be a cold-night shelter, restaurant, classroom or gathering place." If it doesn't provide aspects of the latter three out of four, it'll be defeating its purpose by not recreating the qualities of the neighborhood, in facsmile, for which its guests are longing.
Scholars propose/debate economic models as to why the German homefront supported, or at least never rebelled, against Hitler. One theory describes a nation moving out from under Depression, revitalized by the implementation of a war-time economy, where an immediate solidarity-building communal sacrifice, yielded to the promise of greater riches to come. Another theory dismisses early sacrifice, emphasizing the back-end; after countries were conquered, those at home were satiated by a generous distribution of appropriated loot.
No matter what, people defend their homes, old or newly acquired, with ferocity. We know one of the worries the leaders of the exiles returning from Bablyon had upon their minds, as reflected bewtween the lines of several Psalms, is what might happen when they encountered non-exiled neighbors living in their former homes. Indeed, that turned out to be a precursor to a post World War II massacre by Gentiles, of Jews, returning to their former homes in Poland.
A tradition the Spotsyltuckian married into is Sunday dinner at the mother-in-law's featuring all-day Westerns on the tv. A Gunsmoke episode, a few weekends ago, featured Harry Morgan playing an erstwhile well-intentioned posse member who was alleged to have shot a more charming rogue in the back. Harry was ultimately harrassed to the tipping point of finding his daughter's cat hanging from a tree in the front yard, after which, the town contracted a sudden epiphany of good will, and he was welcomed back into the community with open arms.
No similar hometown ephiphany appears due for the neighbors of a Missouri family whose mother and daughter posed as a 16-year old boy on the internet only to harass the 13-year old girl next door, so meanly, she committed suicide. No hanging pets, yet, but death threats are just the tip of an iceberg which includes a brick through the window, fake 911 calls, deprivation of income, you name it. An elegant headline captures the classic sense of isolating any outcast: "Neighborhood shuns suspected tormenter in Internet suicide."
An epiphany of my own occurred at a camp where I once worked as counselor. One of the children was grossly overweight. He was also home schooled. The knee-jerk response in all conversations about home schooling is kids won't be socialized. Yet, here is a young person, who, at least in school, won't be tormented or shunned on account of his appearance. Is it possible he may grow up better socialized for not having had to endure the socialization, real or virtual, that was sure to be his lot if he'd attended public school? On the other hand, if the home schooling curriculum incorporates elements of far-right extremism, he may mature with great potential to shun and torment others.
I note this week an article in Politico, by Samuel Loewenberg, which begins, "Genocide in Sudan, a dictatorship in Myanmar and the prospect of nukes in Iran could make this the Year of the Sanctions." Yet, Loewenberg, goes on to detail corporate free trade advocates who consistently lobby against sanctions. As William Reinsch, a former Undersecretary of Commerce was quoted, "You go up and lobby on this, and they play the genocide card. They say you want to do business with mass murderers."
Could an efficient prosperous Germany have been built without resort to the unifying negative community building force of anti-semitism? What would such a Germany look like today? Is it feasible to 'sell' a shelter without offering up the things it's not? Is it possible to educate a child in isolation yet better socialize him than if he'd had to undergo the usual socialization of our times? Does an unrestricted free trade policy lead to a more open world that promises extended human rights, or does it too nonchalantly sweep humanitarianism under the rug?
An article in the Sun, last week, reflects the complexity, if not the impossibility of attaining purity, in this or any other, human endeavor. A fella in an otherwise vacant corner of an East Baltimore factory, roasts coffee beans every morning, the old fashioned way, providing superior tasting java to neighborhood eateries. The beans come from Costa Rica, Sumatra, India, Bolivia and Ethiopia, not all of whose governors are paragons of humanitarianism. He says, "I realized there was a bit of a vacuum in town for people who liked to know where their coffee is coming from."
Yes, and, no. If all I need think is the coffee comes from a Baltimore neighborhood with friendly connotations, I'm warm, cozy, fine. If I think beyond, though, to where the beans come from, I may confront a conumdrum like a vegan who drives a cute VW bug pasted with peace-sign bumper stickers even though her tires contain animal fat by-products. Is it necessary to trace every action to its source to attain the essence of purity? Is it possible in such a small world? If I picture my small part of the world as a neighborhood, it's envisionable, but they'll always remain the nagging doubts I've intellectually conditioned myself to live with, either too nonchalantly, or in the necessary practical interests of preserving a reasonably functional sanity.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Compromising Positions
I note this week there are bound to be times in a career when you're required to loyally implement policies with which you disagree. At such junctures, you may find yourself a prisoner of your own personal sense of honor; or, you alone, may possess the experience, expertise and contacts, to pull it off, thereby gratifying your ego, even if it means the ends aren't something you desired.
What can we think of an Admiral who orders the fleet to run a blocade of one-time Allies to deliver raw materials to an enemy that conquered his country, so that the conquerors release thousands of his fellow countrymen held prisoner? Although he's made a deal with the devil, and it looks as if Satan holds all the cards, it's only through the power of a fleet still personally loyal to him that he continues to possess a leverage that'd be lost if he committed the fleet to battle in support of either side. What would you do?
Such was the dilemna of Jean Louis Xavier Francois Darlan, Vice-Premier of the notorious Vichy regime, Admiral of the French Fleet. I note this week, a quixotic, and likewise conflicted, invitation by modern descendents of other Nazi victims. Organizers of the Global Anglican Future Conference, the anti-Lambeth meeting of those representing the reactionary arm of the Anglican Communion, "told the Jerusalem Post, this was not merely a gathering of an anti-gay coalition of bishops, but a meeting for 'orthodox' Anglicans to be getting on with things, doing the work of the church."
Likely in attendance will be the Bishop of the Bukedi Diocese of Uganda who's quoted recently in 'The New Vision - Uganda's Leading Website, that "advocates of gay rights have no place in the Kingdom of God - these are acts to question the ordinances of God. There's nothing like intellectualizing sin; sin is sin. How do you imagine a woman sharing the same bed with a woman or a man with a fellow man?" In Uganda, "according to the Penal Code Act, homosexuality is illegal and carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment."
Reflecting more than the 'not merely anti-gay' agenda, one stated Conference goal is to "bring fellowship and bear testimony to the Christian communities in Israel and Palestine." Darlan-esquely, there is more at stake here than meets the eye. Lacking friends in the world, Israel is no doubt cheered, as the Post reports, that last year, 15,000 Nigerian Christians made a pilgrimage to their country, and upon their return, affixed the initials, JP, after their names, competitively with Muslims, who add 'al Haj,' to their names after a similar trip. It is often true that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend,' yet, uniting Israeli Christians and Palestinians in hatred for the current nominees designated the premier outcast of the day, crosses a line, in a country founded by a people who once held that distinction, and know the consequences themselves, all too well.
Can compromise be uncompromising? I note this week, in Texas, a Federal court threw out a challenge to a law that allows schoolchildren to observe a daily minute of silence. As a staunch separation of State and Church defender, I can abide, with almost no qualms, a law that permits children to 'reflect, pray, meditate or engage in another other silent activities,' for one minute. If I was a Middle School kid in Texas, it's likely if I wasn't meditating upon the girl who told me she liked my best friend but doesn't know if he likes him or his best friend, I'd be praying for victory in the football game that afternoon, football, of course, being the supreme religion of Texas.
Someone approached me once in the parish hall and asked if I'd be joining the 'Purpose Driven Life,' course that was forming, I suppose, at every church in America, at that time. During those days, in addition to a full time job, and classes at seminary, I was managing a shelter three nights a week and Saturdays. I responded that I prayed to God daily for less purpose.
I'm wary of the purpose-driven phenomenon just as I was skeptical of Jabez and the Christian flavor of the month before that (yet if I could latch onto some theme myself and earn millions, to boot, I'm not totally averse...). I note this week, admiringly, a new, more substantial, book by Rick Warren's wife, Kay, who writes of how her compassion for AIDS victims led her into a "Dangerous Surrender." As reported by Rachel Zoll, in our local rag, "as recently as last year," a poll of born-again Christians revealed that "two out of five said they had more sympathy for people with cancer than for those with AIDS."
The Warrens have nevertheless waded in deep, potentially offending millions of acolytes, by not only focusing on care and prayer, but on practical prevention, including "correctly using condoms, limiting the number of partners, offering needle exchange," and as Kay states, "I don't know how anyone can reasonably say that virginity isn't a protection against HIV." I've never objected to abstinence - only to "Abstinence Only."
What constitutes uncompromising compromise? Is it possible to extinguish personal considerations borne of ego or the pride of accomplishment when it comes to making a decision on whether ends can accomodate involvement in means? Can we approach any issue solely on its merits despite an entrenched loyalty to country, faith, idea or party, that has held sway over our minds and hearts over a lifetime?
Peter Maurin, the French peasant philosopher and Catholic Worker theologian said it was all about trying to create a society where it's easier for people to be good. History demonstrates when that end is intentionally attempted without the enshrinement and institutionality of the principle of compromise, the end inevitably represents an uncompromising failiure of epic proportions.
What can we think of an Admiral who orders the fleet to run a blocade of one-time Allies to deliver raw materials to an enemy that conquered his country, so that the conquerors release thousands of his fellow countrymen held prisoner? Although he's made a deal with the devil, and it looks as if Satan holds all the cards, it's only through the power of a fleet still personally loyal to him that he continues to possess a leverage that'd be lost if he committed the fleet to battle in support of either side. What would you do?
Such was the dilemna of Jean Louis Xavier Francois Darlan, Vice-Premier of the notorious Vichy regime, Admiral of the French Fleet. I note this week, a quixotic, and likewise conflicted, invitation by modern descendents of other Nazi victims. Organizers of the Global Anglican Future Conference, the anti-Lambeth meeting of those representing the reactionary arm of the Anglican Communion, "told the Jerusalem Post, this was not merely a gathering of an anti-gay coalition of bishops, but a meeting for 'orthodox' Anglicans to be getting on with things, doing the work of the church."
Likely in attendance will be the Bishop of the Bukedi Diocese of Uganda who's quoted recently in 'The New Vision - Uganda's Leading Website, that "advocates of gay rights have no place in the Kingdom of God - these are acts to question the ordinances of God. There's nothing like intellectualizing sin; sin is sin. How do you imagine a woman sharing the same bed with a woman or a man with a fellow man?" In Uganda, "according to the Penal Code Act, homosexuality is illegal and carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment."
Reflecting more than the 'not merely anti-gay' agenda, one stated Conference goal is to "bring fellowship and bear testimony to the Christian communities in Israel and Palestine." Darlan-esquely, there is more at stake here than meets the eye. Lacking friends in the world, Israel is no doubt cheered, as the Post reports, that last year, 15,000 Nigerian Christians made a pilgrimage to their country, and upon their return, affixed the initials, JP, after their names, competitively with Muslims, who add 'al Haj,' to their names after a similar trip. It is often true that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend,' yet, uniting Israeli Christians and Palestinians in hatred for the current nominees designated the premier outcast of the day, crosses a line, in a country founded by a people who once held that distinction, and know the consequences themselves, all too well.
Can compromise be uncompromising? I note this week, in Texas, a Federal court threw out a challenge to a law that allows schoolchildren to observe a daily minute of silence. As a staunch separation of State and Church defender, I can abide, with almost no qualms, a law that permits children to 'reflect, pray, meditate or engage in another other silent activities,' for one minute. If I was a Middle School kid in Texas, it's likely if I wasn't meditating upon the girl who told me she liked my best friend but doesn't know if he likes him or his best friend, I'd be praying for victory in the football game that afternoon, football, of course, being the supreme religion of Texas.
Someone approached me once in the parish hall and asked if I'd be joining the 'Purpose Driven Life,' course that was forming, I suppose, at every church in America, at that time. During those days, in addition to a full time job, and classes at seminary, I was managing a shelter three nights a week and Saturdays. I responded that I prayed to God daily for less purpose.
I'm wary of the purpose-driven phenomenon just as I was skeptical of Jabez and the Christian flavor of the month before that (yet if I could latch onto some theme myself and earn millions, to boot, I'm not totally averse...). I note this week, admiringly, a new, more substantial, book by Rick Warren's wife, Kay, who writes of how her compassion for AIDS victims led her into a "Dangerous Surrender." As reported by Rachel Zoll, in our local rag, "as recently as last year," a poll of born-again Christians revealed that "two out of five said they had more sympathy for people with cancer than for those with AIDS."
The Warrens have nevertheless waded in deep, potentially offending millions of acolytes, by not only focusing on care and prayer, but on practical prevention, including "correctly using condoms, limiting the number of partners, offering needle exchange," and as Kay states, "I don't know how anyone can reasonably say that virginity isn't a protection against HIV." I've never objected to abstinence - only to "Abstinence Only."
What constitutes uncompromising compromise? Is it possible to extinguish personal considerations borne of ego or the pride of accomplishment when it comes to making a decision on whether ends can accomodate involvement in means? Can we approach any issue solely on its merits despite an entrenched loyalty to country, faith, idea or party, that has held sway over our minds and hearts over a lifetime?
Peter Maurin, the French peasant philosopher and Catholic Worker theologian said it was all about trying to create a society where it's easier for people to be good. History demonstrates when that end is intentionally attempted without the enshrinement and institutionality of the principle of compromise, the end inevitably represents an uncompromising failiure of epic proportions.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Reading Isn't Fundamentalist
I note this week two studies. The first, as reported by AP writer Anick Jesdanum, shows, "young adults are the heaviest users of public libraries despite the ease with which they can access a wealth of information over the Internet from the comfort of their homes."
The second, as displayed in "unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity...and Why It Matters," by Kinnaman and Lyons, shows, "40 percent of Americans aged between sixteen and twenty-nine are outside Christianity and that, what's more, they have an overwhelming negative perception of it: 87% find it judgmental; 85% hypocritical; 78% old fashioned; 70% insensitive to others."
Any connection between well-read youth and a disinclination towards narrow-minded thinking? It tends to confirm what I've thought true over the past half-decade of American cultural struggle; that the struggle within our Episcopal Church is primarily generational; lines drawn amongst party factions are split between members born in the 1930's-'40's, and those born in the 50's; the former stubbornly insisting upon a facade of a familial normalcy and institutional Christendom despite all evidence to the contrary of the conflicting realities that lie beneath; confronted by the latter's unwillingness to act as if such certainty ever existed.
Was it in Fist Full of Dollars that Clint Eastwood built a store-front town, and called it Hell, to fool outlaws bent on revenge? I note this week a scene, straight out of such Westerns, where a former Episcopal bishop, with a marked resemblance to Sidney Greenstreet, displaying a Jack Elam-attitude, bursts into an Episcopal church, bodyguards at his side, to terrorize the inhabitants, kill the sheriff or fire a priest, whose only crimes were duty and loyalty. Maybe if the parishioners had advance warning the Bishop was coming, they could've constructed a movie set church, to likewise divert Bishop Greenstreet-Elam, when he rode into town, bent on mayhem, that dusty Sunday morning.
Jesdanun entitled his article, "Libraries still relevant." I note this week when Tony Blair converted to Roman Catholicism, it created neither the scandal nor the soul searching such a move certainly would have as late as the 1940's in Britain. This time around, nobody much cared; it wasn't particularly relevant to anyone.
Stretching the Christmas holiday, for all it's worth, into two weeks away from the office, and although lying outside the supposed aged demographic of usual users, I proved Jesdanum otherwise correct, on library relevance, spending hours yesterday at the University and public libraries, arriving home with a stack of books so heavy, it took two trips from the car to carry them all in.
Atop prominent positions in the tall stack were tales of occupied France and its aftermath: The Enigma of Admiral Darlan, They Speak for a Nation - Letters from France, published in 1941, and The Trial of Marshal Petain, reflecting a continued personal interest upon the relevance of how people act, ethically or not, under serious pressure, when confronted by life-and-death realities.
Another pile represents voices from the oppressor nation, in this case, particularly, Hjalmar Schacht. In the quaintly titled "Confessions of the Old Wizard" I'm assuming before I read it, that Schact, from his peripheral position, as an economist and banker, might purport to offer self-justifying insight into how those not in charge, yet necessary to the operation (bureaucrats like myself), might choose either to promote efficiency, or throw a cog into the machine, or do both, at the same time.
Similarly to how the generation born after 1980 inspires hope for the future through their transcendence of the prejudices that came before, the last set of books are borne of a desire to create something new - as reflected in Louis Diat's French Cooking for Americans, not perhaps uncoincidentally published in 1946, the same year France arose with fresh hope, freed from the Occupation. Maybe, as the young grow to supersede the faults of the old, it's time to reinvent and improve myself, and in doing so, contribute to the preservation of the gentle arts of humanity, saluting things of the spirit that are eternally relevant; that stand, intrinsically, indeed, whimsically and charmingly, against the ideologies of oppressors and their inevitably obsolete fundamentalism, no matter the stripe. It was not for nothing, Goering muttered, 'whenever anyone mentions culture, I grab my gun.'
Whereas you must always begin with some technical grounding, all great creative efforts, need rely on instinct. I recall guitarist Carlos Santana saying he thought of brushing his daughter's hair while he played Perhaps that ephemerel touch of grace was and is present for Fred Astaire when he danced, Groucho when he quipped, and Ken Griffey, Jr., when he swings.
Annie Lamott's description of driving in a rainstorm and peering through a tiny spot in the windshield to see a little bit of the road ahead is apt in this way. In his eulogy for the late Oscar Peterson, Nat Hentoff alludes to it by writing, "Only when it was absolutely necessary, would he go on stage before a concert to check out the piano, because doing so might lead to preconditioned ideas, and they can in turn interfere with the creative process so essential to a creative jazz concert."
In all this half-century of life, I've only felt 'it' a tantalizingly few times. That day on the tennis court when, for one half-hour, I practiced serves that were perfect. Or the flowing stream-of-consciousness that fuelled a writing session which may have been as remotely close to the genius of Kerouac and Hunter Thompson I'll ever approach. When there is no pre-conditioned intransigence to defend, and all you have to start forging ahead is the briefest trace of an idea, then cooking, writing, indeed, living, transforms into a series of surprising adventures, full of unexpected possibilities, twists and turns, revelations and realizations. In their wake, lies, somehow, a mystical antidote to irrelevance.
The second, as displayed in "unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity...and Why It Matters," by Kinnaman and Lyons, shows, "40 percent of Americans aged between sixteen and twenty-nine are outside Christianity and that, what's more, they have an overwhelming negative perception of it: 87% find it judgmental; 85% hypocritical; 78% old fashioned; 70% insensitive to others."
Any connection between well-read youth and a disinclination towards narrow-minded thinking? It tends to confirm what I've thought true over the past half-decade of American cultural struggle; that the struggle within our Episcopal Church is primarily generational; lines drawn amongst party factions are split between members born in the 1930's-'40's, and those born in the 50's; the former stubbornly insisting upon a facade of a familial normalcy and institutional Christendom despite all evidence to the contrary of the conflicting realities that lie beneath; confronted by the latter's unwillingness to act as if such certainty ever existed.
Was it in Fist Full of Dollars that Clint Eastwood built a store-front town, and called it Hell, to fool outlaws bent on revenge? I note this week a scene, straight out of such Westerns, where a former Episcopal bishop, with a marked resemblance to Sidney Greenstreet, displaying a Jack Elam-attitude, bursts into an Episcopal church, bodyguards at his side, to terrorize the inhabitants, kill the sheriff or fire a priest, whose only crimes were duty and loyalty. Maybe if the parishioners had advance warning the Bishop was coming, they could've constructed a movie set church, to likewise divert Bishop Greenstreet-Elam, when he rode into town, bent on mayhem, that dusty Sunday morning.
Jesdanun entitled his article, "Libraries still relevant." I note this week when Tony Blair converted to Roman Catholicism, it created neither the scandal nor the soul searching such a move certainly would have as late as the 1940's in Britain. This time around, nobody much cared; it wasn't particularly relevant to anyone.
Stretching the Christmas holiday, for all it's worth, into two weeks away from the office, and although lying outside the supposed aged demographic of usual users, I proved Jesdanum otherwise correct, on library relevance, spending hours yesterday at the University and public libraries, arriving home with a stack of books so heavy, it took two trips from the car to carry them all in.
Atop prominent positions in the tall stack were tales of occupied France and its aftermath: The Enigma of Admiral Darlan, They Speak for a Nation - Letters from France, published in 1941, and The Trial of Marshal Petain, reflecting a continued personal interest upon the relevance of how people act, ethically or not, under serious pressure, when confronted by life-and-death realities.
Another pile represents voices from the oppressor nation, in this case, particularly, Hjalmar Schacht. In the quaintly titled "Confessions of the Old Wizard" I'm assuming before I read it, that Schact, from his peripheral position, as an economist and banker, might purport to offer self-justifying insight into how those not in charge, yet necessary to the operation (bureaucrats like myself), might choose either to promote efficiency, or throw a cog into the machine, or do both, at the same time.
Similarly to how the generation born after 1980 inspires hope for the future through their transcendence of the prejudices that came before, the last set of books are borne of a desire to create something new - as reflected in Louis Diat's French Cooking for Americans, not perhaps uncoincidentally published in 1946, the same year France arose with fresh hope, freed from the Occupation. Maybe, as the young grow to supersede the faults of the old, it's time to reinvent and improve myself, and in doing so, contribute to the preservation of the gentle arts of humanity, saluting things of the spirit that are eternally relevant; that stand, intrinsically, indeed, whimsically and charmingly, against the ideologies of oppressors and their inevitably obsolete fundamentalism, no matter the stripe. It was not for nothing, Goering muttered, 'whenever anyone mentions culture, I grab my gun.'
Whereas you must always begin with some technical grounding, all great creative efforts, need rely on instinct. I recall guitarist Carlos Santana saying he thought of brushing his daughter's hair while he played Perhaps that ephemerel touch of grace was and is present for Fred Astaire when he danced, Groucho when he quipped, and Ken Griffey, Jr., when he swings.
Annie Lamott's description of driving in a rainstorm and peering through a tiny spot in the windshield to see a little bit of the road ahead is apt in this way. In his eulogy for the late Oscar Peterson, Nat Hentoff alludes to it by writing, "Only when it was absolutely necessary, would he go on stage before a concert to check out the piano, because doing so might lead to preconditioned ideas, and they can in turn interfere with the creative process so essential to a creative jazz concert."
In all this half-century of life, I've only felt 'it' a tantalizingly few times. That day on the tennis court when, for one half-hour, I practiced serves that were perfect. Or the flowing stream-of-consciousness that fuelled a writing session which may have been as remotely close to the genius of Kerouac and Hunter Thompson I'll ever approach. When there is no pre-conditioned intransigence to defend, and all you have to start forging ahead is the briefest trace of an idea, then cooking, writing, indeed, living, transforms into a series of surprising adventures, full of unexpected possibilities, twists and turns, revelations and realizations. In their wake, lies, somehow, a mystical antidote to irrelevance.
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