Monday, March 18, 2024
Let’s hope …
… they vote to uphold our Constitutional rights: Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument in Pivotal NCLA Case Against Gov’t Social Media Censorship
Something to look forward to …
Something to think on …
RIP …
Sunday, March 17, 2024
A poem …
Nicodemus
There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
I heard what he said about the law
Being made for man, not the other way
Around. And unrest laid hold of me. Sleep came
Only in snatches, leaving my nights swathed
In barren awareness, my mind a chamber
Black and empty, the darkness within echoing
The darkness without. The law, you see, had shaped
My life, or so I dreamed. His words clutched
My heart, brought it to life, making me
See how it was I had shaped the law to shield
Myself from mystery, reducing everything
To mere occasions, opportunities for sin
Or salvation. The law intends to codify
The good. Except the good is boundless as night
And sky, star glow and darkness, immeasurable
As the heart, that necessary instrument for navigating life.
Reason can sketch and guess and calculate,
Uncannily, from time to time, but always
Leaves out what counts, identifying things, as it does,
Only by accidents they have in common. For me,
The law was just a pin to stab a butterfly.
For him, it was a seed opening into stem
And branch, leaf and blossom, bearing fruit
For nourishing. Where I saw rogues and wantons,
He beheld eternal offspring. The law craves
Certainty. Only there is none. We see that
From the start, and run away, thinking to hide
And putter about in some attic of dissection
And surmise, devising artifacts demanding faith
As great as any simple taboo or command.
I went to see him. We met in secret, late at night,
Amid shadow and moonlight. One must be born
Again, he said, of water and the spirit. I did not
Understand. Nor was meant to. His was not a notion
To think upon and figure. His words made gestures,
Conjuring a feeling for being, the breathing in
And out of life, its buoyancy and flow, from trickle
To torrent, stillness and depth, wind and wave conjoined
In fragrance, flavor, and caress, vision and sound and sense.
We parted in silence. I had inquired. He had answered.
Nothing was left to say, nothing being all was left. Of me
At least. Bearing a lantern home near dawn — clouds
Crowding the moon away — I felt myself turn
Into a knowing absence, awareness and sensation
Intact, but no identity attached or needed. All was
Wordless, each flower wearing its own perfume,
The birds a chorus of arias, every color's every shade
Its very own light-burst, each and all breathing and flowing,
And what remained of me present only to serve as witness.
Come daylight, the common world faded back
And beckoned. But I was not quite there. Time,
Embracing space embracing me, had dwindled
To a point expanding outward in every direction.
Bereft of duration and position, I felt I needed
To assent to something, but could not think what, then
Sensed a stirring, like a drop of mist, or puff of wind,
Were wind softest whisper and mist merest sigh,
Breathing an invitation to agree to be, consent
To happen, bear witness to being made. I watched
Myself take place, as, when a child, my father sat me
Across his lap upon his horse, and galloped across
The meadow. I saw at once how I could live like that.
And I wanted to. The wanting proved an act of will.
I became complicit in my making, moving in time
With wind and wave, light and shade, the wayward tide.
And immediately the common world became again
My habitat, although it did not look the same, perhaps
Was not. For now I saw it from the angle of the breath
And flow of all besides. I was riding a current I knew not
Whither. Life had become a wonder and a terror. I cared not
Who it was I would become, or what would happen.
Intruding was the world of men, somehow askew,
Graceless and grotesque, each and all striving
For distinction, entangled in maneuvers of their own
Devising, ruffians at play.n. I was in attendance,
Made free in my obedience. As it happens, everything is
Perfectly in order. Only the performers are mostly
Out of step. The few who aren't stand in peril
From the rest. That is where the law comes in:
It catalogues the missteps. Those are all it knows.
His end was preordained. At his trial I spoke on his behalf,
Citing, naturally, a point of law, only to be countered
With a quote from Scripture. Such a dying, what it does
To flesh and tells of life, bears little thinking on.
I and the Arimithean arranged his burial. Two mornings
Later the tomb was empty and many swore thereafter
They had seen and spoken with him. I was not
Among those, needing no assurance. He imparted
To me myself that night. I felt loved simply
For being. Felt ashamed as well, at so often thwarting
My creation. I assented to obey his prompts.
So have I done, and shall continue to.
Come what may, I will act as he directs.
I beg to differ …
I just came upon the quite by Penelope Livel, a truly great writer (The Photograph is a masterpiece): “It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd.” Well, if you have ripeing cataracts as I do and given that so many books these days are printed in type so small you need a magnifying glass to read them, well, the Kindle app is a Godesend.
Another goofy notion …
… Marriage promotes ‘white supremacy’: George Mason professor.
Marriage has been around for an awfully long time just about everywhere. And it is good when kids are raised by two parents.
Lest we forget …
Having once been a medical editor, I had noted that two of the mRNA vaccines could cause cardiomyopathy. Well, I happen to in the top 1 percent of the population to die of a heart attack. So I chose to take a pass. But i was tested often, because Debbie was in and out of hospitals and rehabs, and I couldn’t visit unless I was tested. Always negative. I seem to blessed with a good immune system,
More craziness …
… British countryside can evoke ‘dark nationalist’ feelings in paintings, warns museum.
These people either need to stop thinking or learn how to do it properly.
Constable is one of favorite painters. His work has never stirred any nationalist feelings in me.
Something to think on …
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Worrisome, but true …
This is appalling …
Something to think on …
Friday, March 15, 2024
It’s come to this …
P.G. Wodehouse
I'm not sure where literary comedy stands in the pecking order of Great Art, but having recently finished P.G. Wodehouse's Joy In The Morning, let me say that Wodehouse deserves a place on the pantheon. Joy is a fabulous book: it's funny, and swift, and light-hearted. But more than that, it's highly evolved: this isn't cheaper humor; it's comedy which is earned. Wodehouse was a superb stylist: his sentences are immaculate, and his dialogue, especially, achieves something great. There's a Shakespearean quality to his sense of character and plot -- which I mean as a compliment. Wodehouse is not derivative, but the symmetry of his work is reminiscent of Shakespeare's comedies: all of these interwoven and intersecting events gradually come together in a crescendo of fun and satisfaction. Of course the connections with Shakespeare imply a theatrical quality, and Joy could certainly be imagined as a play. Which again, is intended as a compliment: this novel straddles a number of genres -- not least theatre and even cinema. Joy In The Morning is, well, it's a joy to read. It's a timeless piece of work that remains funny, playful, and pitch perfect. My hat is off to Wodehouse.
Hmm …
A strange tale, for sure …
… Sacrifice and Obedience: Marilynne Robinson on the Timeless Tale of Abraham and Isaac. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Abraham’s love for his son is precisely the measure of his obedience in acting on what he takes to be God’s will.
Something to think on …
The action of grace …
…
There the Story Stops: Flannery O’Connor’s Why Do the Heathen Rage? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hooten Wilson suggests that for O’Connor, the artist’s “dilemma is how ‘to make corruption believable’ so that the reader understands the significance of grace.”
Appreciation …
In Hecht beauty can rarely be enjoyed for its own sake, because beneath beauty horror often lurks. He was a poet so pursued by the past that even access to the splendours of the world could not soothe, knowledge of good never drive out the terrors of existence.
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Curious …
… The Collapse of Cultural Christianity—And the Rise of Cultural Queerness.
I myself identify as a Vulcan.
Something to think on …
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Something to think on …
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Monday, March 11, 2024
Our town …
Rumors of decease …
… The Patient on the Table: On the Somewhat Exaggerated Death of Poetry. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Walther correctly credits Eliot with creating “an idiom that captured the disappearance” of this romantic worldview, but he does not correctly perceive why Eliot did so. Walther calls the romantic vision “pre-modern,” but as I have argued, it was indeed consummately modern. What did not seem modern was the sentimental and imaginative response of the romantics to the mechanistic reduction.
Something to think on …
Sunday, March 10, 2024
They mean more than some people think …
The fact that spiritual perceptions differ in different times and places gives us good reason to be tolerant and to keep an open mind. But the idea that it negates the essential truths of the spirit is patently absurd.
Appreciation …
“Comes a sense of winding down,” he begins his Author’s Note. One hopes, though, that he will continue to be riled up by ignorance, pretension, and silos of narrow self-interest, “In the age of the Internet,” he says, the so-called “sincere” narrative ‘I’ welcomes us without a qualm into the boudoir or bathroom, sharing thoughts that might have given Goebbels pause.”