I note this week, at 4 months, 4 days left, I don't want to fly for the company anymore.
After being banned for costs from flying out of Richmond, and therefore taking the lazy two-lane country road to the airport, I can confess, faithful readers, that upon driving to Dulles, last Monday at 4 a.m. (the only way to avoid the legendary DC rush hour traffic), I got lost, ending up, panic'ed, in the cargo area.
Comparing her husband not unfavorably to the confused berry-picking Henry Fonda, the Kate-ish wife put the disaster in perspective, declaring, "you old poop - it's a wonder I didn't see "elderly man found driving on runway," on the 11:00 news" -- but that's only the beginning.
-- the airlines have got to be doing something which saves money on cabin pressure since my ears popped so painfully upon landing in Oakland, I couldn't hear for days lest it sounded like I was underwater. I've also got a sneaking suspicion that contract flyers are automatically assigned cheap middle seats even if old-man bladders require bathroom breaks once every 45 minutes.
Pure misery from start to stop - I've no desire to go anywhere at all if I can't get there in the pick-up truck. I've no great desire, frankly, at all, to leave home.
What I do, anyway, upon arriving at a destination, is recreate home. In Oakland, the hotel includes rooms (beyond per diem of course) with kitchenette. It's a price I'm willing to pay - two blocks away, there's the Trader Joes to buy bagels and eggs for breakfast and gourmet microwave pizzas for dinner. The office is a mere few blocks easy walk the other way. Topping it off, there's a Borders across the street.
This last time, however, I did venture out one night, knowing I'd never return.
Others had rented a car so I accompanied them over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, a city I got to know very well before the office moved from the Embarcadero to the East Bay.
As it is with every city to which I travel, I carve out a neighborhood to which I become accustomed. My usual place to stay in San Francisco is Executive Suites, south of Market, which is an apartment, not a room. I walk to Union Square where there's not only an excellent Borders but also Rasputins, a grand used cd store. Then up through Chinatown to North Beach, up Columbus to the corner of Broadway, and, of course, to City Lights; returning on a circular route, strolling downhill, visiting Stacey's, at Third and Market.
In the neurotic's world, if you're anxious, easily upset and more emotionally unstable than usual, away from home, you gravitate towards not only that which restores a semblance of security but that which affirms what already makes you blue thereby validating the familiar alienation you carry wherever you may be.
Establishing boundaries through minimalism is what sets existence.
It brings me to a point where I can even communicate with you: arise, make coffee, position myself so the laptop reaches the easy chair and the cup, read a comic to loosen brain juice, a stimulating short bio or essay, and then a chapter from the curent open book -- now, write.
This routine isn't immune to change: the economy has driven a stake through the heart of Big Monkey, my beloved comic shop. A place where I could not only discuss the latest cosmic happenings but one that's seen me through the more pedestrian divorces, cancers, and weddings.
Upon devastating loss (Pearl Harbor, Titanic, come to mind), you grasp for a way to re-organize. Big Monkey is dead - long live Little Fish.
Today I'll log on to DC (I gave up Marvel after Civil War fizzled so badly), choose current titles (traditional - Green Lantern, Flash, Supes, Justice League), re-subscribe at Little Fish via email, alter the Saturday driving logistics of comic shop, library and supermarket; restore normalcy.
Brian Wilson knows exactly what we're talking about:
It's good to travel
But not for too long
So, now I'm home where I belong
And that's the key to every song.
R.I.P. Big Monkey
Friday, September 26, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Going Post-historical
I note this week a special gift - a new e-mail exchange with friend Bob who wrote to recommend a book of conversation between theologians Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright.
I ask in return, for starters, whether choosing to believe is the same as believing.
Bob responds, "it is easier to choose to believe Jesus is the son of God than search for alternative explanations to historical truth," contrasting this simple certainty to those like Borg (implying myself likewise) who encounter Scripture as: (a) a mix of history remembered and metamorphized; (b) discerned through the lens of personal experience; and (c) reflected through the judgment of mainline scholars.
Bob's declarative statement is authoritative; the a, b, c's are not.
Copping to (b), not (a and c), I spent the week listening to Brian and Dennis Wilson. In the Pacific Ocean Blue liner notes, producer Gregg Jakobson writes, "Dennis was never a long-range thinker. He was the most present person I've ever known. Dennis was so focused on each song that he hardly thought about it as an album."
Minus sharp beginnings and endings, each song bursts abruptly into beautiful harmony, expends itself, and fades, natural as a passing storm at sea.
It's never easy to experience Scripture in a present non-linear fashion (I even own a Bible which re-arranges Books into what's proclaimed to be the logical timeline).
Biblical stories appreciated in themselves, for themselves, lack the narrative of temporal progression, and don't carry for the reader an appeal upon which to plant seeds of authority.
Nietzshe said he could only believe in a god who can dance.
Genesis dances like other Creation myths of the ancient world. This proves it neither true nor false since the ways people imagine what's lost to time may have some bearing on what can be only one original truth.
God's answer to Job when he sought progressive narrative was that he gaze at the heavens and ponder who marked off their dimensions while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy.
Listen to the magic of yet another dancer: "He closed his eyes, and behold, he made a mountain rise, widened the banks of the river, created a forest, made the stars ascend to heaven, erased the clouds, became smaller and smaller, with a head like an ant's egg and very long arms and legs - at his gesture the wind blew through the town square lifting men and women into the sky; while his messengers, old servants in gray frock coats, climbed tall poles hoisting enormous gray sheets from the earth and spreading them out on high becuase their mistress wanted a misty morning."
Whether Job, or Kafka, and stories which have no basis in experience, either your ideas inform the experience of reading, or the experience of reading informs your ideas.
Whether the Bible is history remembered or metamorphized is unimportant when reveling in its beauty and majesty; and the judgment of mainline scholars, though interesting to read when you're in the mood, isn't determinate when all ideas are open doors.
The Spotysyltuckian can't be authoritative when it's about the appreciation of learning external to its relation to a progressive historial sequence which by its nature eliminates any claim to authority.
That may be what divides us, theologically, Bob, but never, as friends.
I ask in return, for starters, whether choosing to believe is the same as believing.
Bob responds, "it is easier to choose to believe Jesus is the son of God than search for alternative explanations to historical truth," contrasting this simple certainty to those like Borg (implying myself likewise) who encounter Scripture as: (a) a mix of history remembered and metamorphized; (b) discerned through the lens of personal experience; and (c) reflected through the judgment of mainline scholars.
Bob's declarative statement is authoritative; the a, b, c's are not.
Copping to (b), not (a and c), I spent the week listening to Brian and Dennis Wilson. In the Pacific Ocean Blue liner notes, producer Gregg Jakobson writes, "Dennis was never a long-range thinker. He was the most present person I've ever known. Dennis was so focused on each song that he hardly thought about it as an album."
Minus sharp beginnings and endings, each song bursts abruptly into beautiful harmony, expends itself, and fades, natural as a passing storm at sea.
It's never easy to experience Scripture in a present non-linear fashion (I even own a Bible which re-arranges Books into what's proclaimed to be the logical timeline).
Biblical stories appreciated in themselves, for themselves, lack the narrative of temporal progression, and don't carry for the reader an appeal upon which to plant seeds of authority.
Nietzshe said he could only believe in a god who can dance.
Genesis dances like other Creation myths of the ancient world. This proves it neither true nor false since the ways people imagine what's lost to time may have some bearing on what can be only one original truth.
God's answer to Job when he sought progressive narrative was that he gaze at the heavens and ponder who marked off their dimensions while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy.
Listen to the magic of yet another dancer: "He closed his eyes, and behold, he made a mountain rise, widened the banks of the river, created a forest, made the stars ascend to heaven, erased the clouds, became smaller and smaller, with a head like an ant's egg and very long arms and legs - at his gesture the wind blew through the town square lifting men and women into the sky; while his messengers, old servants in gray frock coats, climbed tall poles hoisting enormous gray sheets from the earth and spreading them out on high becuase their mistress wanted a misty morning."
Whether Job, or Kafka, and stories which have no basis in experience, either your ideas inform the experience of reading, or the experience of reading informs your ideas.
Whether the Bible is history remembered or metamorphized is unimportant when reveling in its beauty and majesty; and the judgment of mainline scholars, though interesting to read when you're in the mood, isn't determinate when all ideas are open doors.
The Spotysyltuckian can't be authoritative when it's about the appreciation of learning external to its relation to a progressive historial sequence which by its nature eliminates any claim to authority.
That may be what divides us, theologically, Bob, but never, as friends.
Friday, September 5, 2008
A Priest & Rabbi Socially Invest
I note this week the death of animator Bill Melendez, the genius behind A Charlie Brown Christmas.
In our house, just saying 'light's please' conjures up all we hold gentle and good.
The obituary revealed the show worried CBS since, non-traditionally, it lacked a laugh track, used real children as voices, contained a jazz score, and of course, featured Linus reading the New Testament in response to Charlie Brown's plea for anyone who call tell him what Christmas is all about.
It's a holiday classic unlike any other especially the self-proclaimed 'Holiday Classics' brochure which came in the mail displaying a card decorated with snow flakes and a block left blank to enscribe "Your Company Name Here."
It catches the wife unawares as to why it unleases a torrent of abuse since she wasn't present, these seven Christmas eves ago, when Boss Smarmy ordered attendence at the office party because "it's good for business."
Articles abound this week highlighting similar absences of ethical connectiveness.
How about "Neglected Georgetown graveyard upsets families," whereas "the university has appeared at times to be a reluctant cemetery owner, skimping on maintenance, fighting with owners of burial plots, and, at one point, seeking to remove the graves so that the land could be developed."
The response, "we're in the process of evaluating options,' sounds much like the squawks of adults whenever they make their offstage vocal appearance in Charlie Brown's world.
How about "Rabbis Debate Kosher Ethics at Meat Plant," when it took an immigration raid at a kosher meatpacking plant to unearth heretofore unaddressed low pay, unsafe conditions and violations of child labor laws.
The aftermath exposed a rift between Conservative rabbis who want to nail Good Housekeeping mazzuzahs on factory doors versus Orthodox owners who squwak efforts like those are "likely to backfire by raising the price of kosher food," and whose PR firm allegedly posted derogatory comments attributed to the Conservative leader.
How about "Socially Responsible, With Egg on Its Face," wherein Pax World, a leading socially responsible investment firm was "taking stakes in companies involved with alcohol, gambling and military contracting," so much so, "Pax World itself might flunk other fund companies screeing process."
Their CEO squwaked, "The idea that you should exclude entire industries because of certain concerns is perhaps an old-fashioned, knee-jerk approach that isn't most appropriate for today's world."
Well, yeah, isn't being sort of financially inappropriate rather than only harvesting landfall profits the whole idea of socially responsible investing?
I admit the last example isn't as clear-cut - it may not be very possible on the complex field of mutual fund investmenting to obtain a fair degree of purity - like the vegan who rides on wheels manufactured with animal fat, or like Ben & Jerry, who after they sold out to an international conglomerate retained authority to direct 10%of profits to social justice causes.
Perhaps 10% is all any of us are capable.
In Spotsyltucky, we've repeatedly discussed it's about confronting the constant problem of Wal-mart. You already know when I managed a shelter it's where I could most stretch a dollar buying 97 cent deodorants and $8 sleeping bags. It's also where I hunt $3 shirts for fun.
Up until now there was no smoking gun.
Robyn Blumner, of the St. Pete Times reports, "Wal-mart made it clear in mandatory meetings around the country that a Democratic victory would be a disaster for its anti-union business model."
What model?
Blumner reports "in 2000, the company famously closed down the butcher shop operations in 180 of its super-center stores when one group of butchers in East Texas voted 7-3 to unionize."
Oh, that model.
And so for now it's adieu to Wal-mart.
As far as I know, Target, Kohls and Hechts (now Macys) aren't relatively as bad in light of our recently established 10% standard.
Hey, I have to shop somewhere.
Nothing today is 100% certain with a Hitler perched obviously atop the scale. Even Dorothy Day gave a certain amount of leave to Catholic Workers who fought in WW II.
There are still times the evidence grows so ponderous something must be done while listening quietly for your Linus to tell what it's all about.
If Walt Disney had fired Bill Melendez in 1941 for striking to unionize artists there might never have been a Charlie Brown Christmas to celebrate.
In our house, just saying 'light's please' conjures up all we hold gentle and good.
The obituary revealed the show worried CBS since, non-traditionally, it lacked a laugh track, used real children as voices, contained a jazz score, and of course, featured Linus reading the New Testament in response to Charlie Brown's plea for anyone who call tell him what Christmas is all about.
It's a holiday classic unlike any other especially the self-proclaimed 'Holiday Classics' brochure which came in the mail displaying a card decorated with snow flakes and a block left blank to enscribe "Your Company Name Here."
It catches the wife unawares as to why it unleases a torrent of abuse since she wasn't present, these seven Christmas eves ago, when Boss Smarmy ordered attendence at the office party because "it's good for business."
Articles abound this week highlighting similar absences of ethical connectiveness.
How about "Neglected Georgetown graveyard upsets families," whereas "the university has appeared at times to be a reluctant cemetery owner, skimping on maintenance, fighting with owners of burial plots, and, at one point, seeking to remove the graves so that the land could be developed."
The response, "we're in the process of evaluating options,' sounds much like the squawks of adults whenever they make their offstage vocal appearance in Charlie Brown's world.
How about "Rabbis Debate Kosher Ethics at Meat Plant," when it took an immigration raid at a kosher meatpacking plant to unearth heretofore unaddressed low pay, unsafe conditions and violations of child labor laws.
The aftermath exposed a rift between Conservative rabbis who want to nail Good Housekeeping mazzuzahs on factory doors versus Orthodox owners who squwak efforts like those are "likely to backfire by raising the price of kosher food," and whose PR firm allegedly posted derogatory comments attributed to the Conservative leader.
How about "Socially Responsible, With Egg on Its Face," wherein Pax World, a leading socially responsible investment firm was "taking stakes in companies involved with alcohol, gambling and military contracting," so much so, "Pax World itself might flunk other fund companies screeing process."
Their CEO squwaked, "The idea that you should exclude entire industries because of certain concerns is perhaps an old-fashioned, knee-jerk approach that isn't most appropriate for today's world."
Well, yeah, isn't being sort of financially inappropriate rather than only harvesting landfall profits the whole idea of socially responsible investing?
I admit the last example isn't as clear-cut - it may not be very possible on the complex field of mutual fund investmenting to obtain a fair degree of purity - like the vegan who rides on wheels manufactured with animal fat, or like Ben & Jerry, who after they sold out to an international conglomerate retained authority to direct 10%of profits to social justice causes.
Perhaps 10% is all any of us are capable.
In Spotsyltucky, we've repeatedly discussed it's about confronting the constant problem of Wal-mart. You already know when I managed a shelter it's where I could most stretch a dollar buying 97 cent deodorants and $8 sleeping bags. It's also where I hunt $3 shirts for fun.
Up until now there was no smoking gun.
Robyn Blumner, of the St. Pete Times reports, "Wal-mart made it clear in mandatory meetings around the country that a Democratic victory would be a disaster for its anti-union business model."
What model?
Blumner reports "in 2000, the company famously closed down the butcher shop operations in 180 of its super-center stores when one group of butchers in East Texas voted 7-3 to unionize."
Oh, that model.
And so for now it's adieu to Wal-mart.
As far as I know, Target, Kohls and Hechts (now Macys) aren't relatively as bad in light of our recently established 10% standard.
Hey, I have to shop somewhere.
Nothing today is 100% certain with a Hitler perched obviously atop the scale. Even Dorothy Day gave a certain amount of leave to Catholic Workers who fought in WW II.
There are still times the evidence grows so ponderous something must be done while listening quietly for your Linus to tell what it's all about.
If Walt Disney had fired Bill Melendez in 1941 for striking to unionize artists there might never have been a Charlie Brown Christmas to celebrate.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Positively Job-like, Part 5
I note this Sunday, at St. Margaret's Episcopal, in Lake Ridge, we took on Manning's Chapter 2(B), pages 42-51, The Life of Christ.
Manning begins stating as long as Jesus was still human, He couldn't gain the power, through suffering, crucifixion and redemption, to transfer via the Holy Spirit to us. (It's why God answered His question as to why He must endure the bitter cup.)
Manning posits, then, that according to John, the only real sin is to resist the power transfer, because that, my friends, represents a deliberate rejection of God.
We'd discussed in previous classes, in terms of this book and others, as to whether folks of other faiths can be saved.
My question, in light of this, is what about atheists? According to a recent news story, there is a GI in Iraq who negates the common phrase, 'there are no atheists in foxholes,' by declaring even under deadly fire, to the chagrin of his superiors, and subsequent legal actions, he still does not believe.
Discussion led to another news item, namely, the Mother Teresa confession she'd lost her faith, and I believe, never regained it before she passed.
I offered the story of the social worker from our shelter for the chronic homeless who decided she'd only work every other week, going, otherwise, to a food pantry where those on the edge of being homeless came for groceries.
The difference between the former and latter is that at the pantry, there is still hope for an outcome other than jail or death. Sometimes those who work in desperate conditons first lose hope and then lose faith.
Manning compares a Communist who admires the general idea of Marx, but not specific doctrines, to Christians who talk the talk but not walk the walk.
It led us to consider limosuine liberals, comparing Rich Mullins, who decided with wealth and fame, he'd deliberately adopt a life of intentional poverty and service, opposed to what appears on the surface to be a flaw of a great hero of mine, John Lennon, who wrote 'imagine no possessions,' but didn't follow through personally to the best my knowledge.
Jill took exception to the contrast - she described how she'd recently read of folks who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge - they make a splash but it doesn't last long. Perhaps Lennon, while not obviously walking the walk, through his song Imagine, inspired others to do so, creating a big splash, with many ripples.
Okay, then, what are we supposed to do with the exemplary power that comes to us from the Cross?
Does John's definition of sin compare with an old favorite - that of St. Augustine's falling back into comfortable bad habits, followed as penalty by a Calvinist demotion from the Elect (or the broader 'Chosen' as Suzanne points out), or by the once exclusively Catholic destination of purgatory where the magnitude of sin determines the length of stay.
What about non-celebrities like us?
Or, maybe, just one more: ex-President Carter, his lust in the heart confession? I'd read somewhere that men think of sex every 7 seconds. (Asking the women if it was the same, Ann responded, no, with us, it's every 7 days!)
Okay, then, how many people in this class agree that thinking about sex but not acting on it is a sin?
One yes, 7 no's.
Luke pointed out since Christian men (at least) can't avoid thinking about it, we shouldn't dwell on it.
I pointed out the story of Constantine who wasn't baptised until a minute before his death lest he sin - though, that would still have allowed plenty of time for 8 separate seven-second intervals...
Manning quotes Kierkegaard drawing distinctions among Christians: 'drama' people who are caught up in the Passion personally; and those content to admire Him from a safer distance.
My question for the parish of St. Margaret's is what is a surburban American parish to do with our piece of the power?
Although we don't talk about it much, our existence as a continuing church, when we could very well have not re-consistuted after the split, is something we are in itself which, and which we know from the reaction, like Lennon's 'Imagine,' inspires others.
Beyond that, returning to where we started, answering Manning's question, "How can God who was impossible become possible for atheists and those whose faith is wavering?" - there is class agreement that for a parish of our composition and disposition, we are in general, invidually and corporately, people whose daily practices include smaller acts of kindness of which God only knows.
Kate's sermon focused on the Old Testament reading where Moses is assigned various job duties by God. To which Moses responds with excuses. "Shut up," God explains.
(I love that - Damon Runyon coined it as God's response to Job - others take credit for the line - everyone steals since it fits like a glove in so many places.)
And, maybe, for St. Margaret's as we continue to reconstitute, not knowing our future, it's good enough, as Ann says, merely, 'to be,' (as it was for Kevin Costner at the end of Bull Durham) and for someone else like me, who used to run a shelter, but feels guilty he's given it up.
Manning begins stating as long as Jesus was still human, He couldn't gain the power, through suffering, crucifixion and redemption, to transfer via the Holy Spirit to us. (It's why God answered His question as to why He must endure the bitter cup.)
Manning posits, then, that according to John, the only real sin is to resist the power transfer, because that, my friends, represents a deliberate rejection of God.
We'd discussed in previous classes, in terms of this book and others, as to whether folks of other faiths can be saved.
My question, in light of this, is what about atheists? According to a recent news story, there is a GI in Iraq who negates the common phrase, 'there are no atheists in foxholes,' by declaring even under deadly fire, to the chagrin of his superiors, and subsequent legal actions, he still does not believe.
Discussion led to another news item, namely, the Mother Teresa confession she'd lost her faith, and I believe, never regained it before she passed.
I offered the story of the social worker from our shelter for the chronic homeless who decided she'd only work every other week, going, otherwise, to a food pantry where those on the edge of being homeless came for groceries.
The difference between the former and latter is that at the pantry, there is still hope for an outcome other than jail or death. Sometimes those who work in desperate conditons first lose hope and then lose faith.
Manning compares a Communist who admires the general idea of Marx, but not specific doctrines, to Christians who talk the talk but not walk the walk.
It led us to consider limosuine liberals, comparing Rich Mullins, who decided with wealth and fame, he'd deliberately adopt a life of intentional poverty and service, opposed to what appears on the surface to be a flaw of a great hero of mine, John Lennon, who wrote 'imagine no possessions,' but didn't follow through personally to the best my knowledge.
Jill took exception to the contrast - she described how she'd recently read of folks who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge - they make a splash but it doesn't last long. Perhaps Lennon, while not obviously walking the walk, through his song Imagine, inspired others to do so, creating a big splash, with many ripples.
Okay, then, what are we supposed to do with the exemplary power that comes to us from the Cross?
Does John's definition of sin compare with an old favorite - that of St. Augustine's falling back into comfortable bad habits, followed as penalty by a Calvinist demotion from the Elect (or the broader 'Chosen' as Suzanne points out), or by the once exclusively Catholic destination of purgatory where the magnitude of sin determines the length of stay.
What about non-celebrities like us?
Or, maybe, just one more: ex-President Carter, his lust in the heart confession? I'd read somewhere that men think of sex every 7 seconds. (Asking the women if it was the same, Ann responded, no, with us, it's every 7 days!)
Okay, then, how many people in this class agree that thinking about sex but not acting on it is a sin?
One yes, 7 no's.
Luke pointed out since Christian men (at least) can't avoid thinking about it, we shouldn't dwell on it.
I pointed out the story of Constantine who wasn't baptised until a minute before his death lest he sin - though, that would still have allowed plenty of time for 8 separate seven-second intervals...
Manning quotes Kierkegaard drawing distinctions among Christians: 'drama' people who are caught up in the Passion personally; and those content to admire Him from a safer distance.
My question for the parish of St. Margaret's is what is a surburban American parish to do with our piece of the power?
Although we don't talk about it much, our existence as a continuing church, when we could very well have not re-consistuted after the split, is something we are in itself which, and which we know from the reaction, like Lennon's 'Imagine,' inspires others.
Beyond that, returning to where we started, answering Manning's question, "How can God who was impossible become possible for atheists and those whose faith is wavering?" - there is class agreement that for a parish of our composition and disposition, we are in general, invidually and corporately, people whose daily practices include smaller acts of kindness of which God only knows.
Kate's sermon focused on the Old Testament reading where Moses is assigned various job duties by God. To which Moses responds with excuses. "Shut up," God explains.
(I love that - Damon Runyon coined it as God's response to Job - others take credit for the line - everyone steals since it fits like a glove in so many places.)
And, maybe, for St. Margaret's as we continue to reconstitute, not knowing our future, it's good enough, as Ann says, merely, 'to be,' (as it was for Kevin Costner at the end of Bull Durham) and for someone else like me, who used to run a shelter, but feels guilty he's given it up.
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