Sunday, November 30, 2008
Heating Oil
Thinking I am smart to make the painful decision to put money up front and order my heating oil for Vermont months in advance, always getting a much discounted price over the cost of simply having the truck pull up and fill the tank, I pushed the company with whom I have done business for 20 years this summer, to offer me a contract.
They were reluctant. Reluctant at that moment, with the price at an all-time high ($4.67 a gallon), and reluctant to do a contract at all, for fear of the huge unknown of what would happen to oil prices in the future.
But many of us made such a big noise, they finally relented.
So I bought 1300 gallons of home heating oil for $4.67 a gallon. You do the math. I will tell you that it was more than my monthly income from pension and social security combined.
But, swallowing hard, I did the deal and felt grateful to know I had oil for the winter and knew what the price would be.
What I didn't know was that oil would drop almost 50% lower over the coming weeks, so people taking delivery were paying well over a dollar less per gallon than I was. I also hadn't known that the law required the oil company to order 70% of the amount in my contract before the contract was signed.
So, when I called them and whined about my bad luck, asking if they might do something for their old faithful customers who found themselves in this mess, they explained they were stuck in it themselves.
I am told that the reason Southwest Airlines can offer lower fares than all other airlines is because they bought oil futures many years ago at a price far below what the other airlines have been paying the past couple of years. And it seems that those contracts have expired just in time to take advantage of the precipitous drop in price we have experienced since the worldwide financial implosion.
Luck, really. And another warning about the seeming certainty of old fashioned prudent living.
They were reluctant. Reluctant at that moment, with the price at an all-time high ($4.67 a gallon), and reluctant to do a contract at all, for fear of the huge unknown of what would happen to oil prices in the future.
But many of us made such a big noise, they finally relented.
So I bought 1300 gallons of home heating oil for $4.67 a gallon. You do the math. I will tell you that it was more than my monthly income from pension and social security combined.
But, swallowing hard, I did the deal and felt grateful to know I had oil for the winter and knew what the price would be.
What I didn't know was that oil would drop almost 50% lower over the coming weeks, so people taking delivery were paying well over a dollar less per gallon than I was. I also hadn't known that the law required the oil company to order 70% of the amount in my contract before the contract was signed.
So, when I called them and whined about my bad luck, asking if they might do something for their old faithful customers who found themselves in this mess, they explained they were stuck in it themselves.
I am told that the reason Southwest Airlines can offer lower fares than all other airlines is because they bought oil futures many years ago at a price far below what the other airlines have been paying the past couple of years. And it seems that those contracts have expired just in time to take advantage of the precipitous drop in price we have experienced since the worldwide financial implosion.
Luck, really. And another warning about the seeming certainty of old fashioned prudent living.
Weather, whether...
Some of you know Lacey and I split the year between Vermont and California.
When I retired in 1996, the only place we owned was our 1830 farmhouse in Vermont, so there wasn't much debate about where we would go.
But we did a dumb thing. We moved after a decade on the southern California coast, to a tiny rural community in the Green Mountains of souther Vermont...in November.
Ever been to Vermont in November? The leaves have fallen, the sun has disappeared, the temperature has dropped low enough (40º) to make it unpleasant being outdoors for any length of time, and the rain has begun.
I had lived in New England most of my life, and Lacey all of her life, before moving to San Diego. We figured we were going home.
The depression that dropped on my like a black cloud felt like the end of my life.
In April Lacey came back for a week of work. She had continued with some of the clients with whom she worked the past 10 years. I came with her. We stayed in a friend's apartment by the beach. I took a long ocean swim and sat in the warm afternoon sun reading, until Lacey returned for work.
"What were we thinking?" I asked her.
The next day we checked with a friend who has a small apartment house in La Jolla Shores who told us she had a place that would become available the following November.
I jumped at it. November is a lovely month in souther California.
That was 12 years ago, and every November we have fled Vermont -usually after the first snowfall - and come to California where we have the apartment we keep year round.
In May we return to our farmhouse that we have come to love and where Lacey now has 8 gardens - 2 vegetable and 6 flower. We love Vermont. When the economy began to seriously unravel we wondered whether this lovely arrangement would continue to be affordable. We agree that, since we own in Vermont and rent in California, Vermont is where we would hunker down.
I'm hoping we won't have to make the decision before health or death makes it for us.
Today I got weather alerts from both places.
A winter storm warning in Vermont, where snow turning to freezing rain is likely to make driving hazardous.
And a high surf advisory in San Diego, where winter waves are likely to make surfing hazardous.
I think I'll stay out of the ocean today.
When I retired in 1996, the only place we owned was our 1830 farmhouse in Vermont, so there wasn't much debate about where we would go.
But we did a dumb thing. We moved after a decade on the southern California coast, to a tiny rural community in the Green Mountains of souther Vermont...in November.
Ever been to Vermont in November? The leaves have fallen, the sun has disappeared, the temperature has dropped low enough (40º) to make it unpleasant being outdoors for any length of time, and the rain has begun.
I had lived in New England most of my life, and Lacey all of her life, before moving to San Diego. We figured we were going home.
The depression that dropped on my like a black cloud felt like the end of my life.
In April Lacey came back for a week of work. She had continued with some of the clients with whom she worked the past 10 years. I came with her. We stayed in a friend's apartment by the beach. I took a long ocean swim and sat in the warm afternoon sun reading, until Lacey returned for work.
"What were we thinking?" I asked her.
The next day we checked with a friend who has a small apartment house in La Jolla Shores who told us she had a place that would become available the following November.
I jumped at it. November is a lovely month in souther California.
That was 12 years ago, and every November we have fled Vermont -usually after the first snowfall - and come to California where we have the apartment we keep year round.
In May we return to our farmhouse that we have come to love and where Lacey now has 8 gardens - 2 vegetable and 6 flower. We love Vermont. When the economy began to seriously unravel we wondered whether this lovely arrangement would continue to be affordable. We agree that, since we own in Vermont and rent in California, Vermont is where we would hunker down.
I'm hoping we won't have to make the decision before health or death makes it for us.
Today I got weather alerts from both places.
A winter storm warning in Vermont, where snow turning to freezing rain is likely to make driving hazardous.
And a high surf advisory in San Diego, where winter waves are likely to make surfing hazardous.
I think I'll stay out of the ocean today.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Shopping
I remember the first time I saw the statistic that something over 70% of GDP in this country is consumer spending.
I assumed it was a misprint.
Nearly 3/4 of the entire economy was people buying TVs and cars?
Couldn't be.
What about car manufacturers buying materials to make their cars? Or Airlines buying airplanes?
You and I outspend them 4 - 3?
Turns out - at least according to some - that figure, while accurate, is unsustainable. It has been built on credit, on our spending money we didn't have until we actually were spending more than we were saving.
And how could we do that? Borrowing. We heard all those stories about people using their houses as ATM machines. As the (paper) value of their houses escalated, they borrowed money against the so-called worth of the house, and spent it on cars, making their houses bigger, or maybe that lavish vacation they saw on TV.
All it took was for the housing market to show some weakness.
Down came the house of cards. You may wonder - we all do - why it wasn't obvious, at least to the smart economists who track all those numbers? Nothing is forever. What goes up must come down. We all know the cliches.
But if you read interviews with Alan Greenspan or Ben Bernanke you will see that they aren't all that different from you and me. Yes, they likely do understand complexities we don't, and they have metrics they track that give them esoteric looks at information meant to help them see what's ahead.
But what all the brains and information you can jam into brains and computers can't change the human psyche.
And the human psyche loves to be loved, wants to be a part of the gang, and loathes being the one to spoil the party.
So when they were asked whether there was a housing bubble with the potential to cause havoc when it burst, they looked down at their printouts and said it looked sustainable to them. Which it likely did, since their numbers showed housing values rising. Of course that was before the first tiny glitch appeared. When it did, no one wanted to suggest what might happen.
Because they hoped it wouldn't. And they had seen the contempt spread all over the internet for the few black cloud guys who kept talking about the coming collapse.
The good news?
It's happened. We don't have to hold out breath waiting. We're wearing it.
No one knows for how long or how deep the pain may be.
Because we are human beings who have been through various versions of this before, we feel confident there will be an end to the slide and a beginning to the new rise. We can be pretty sure all sorts of new technologies and strategies are already in the works, that will provide a new paradigm, a new way of understanding the dynamics and how to make money investing in them.
How much of that new paradigm those of us on the western slope will see is another unknown.
We are a pretty resilient bunch. And nearly as smart as we like to think.
But don't have the whole picture, because we are in the picture and can't take out our eyeballs and stare at ourselves, nor stand in some distant corner of some universe and gain the perspective that might make us able to predict what lies ahead rather than make guesses. Guesses based on what we have seen, not on what lies ahead.
Makes for great sport.
I assumed it was a misprint.
Nearly 3/4 of the entire economy was people buying TVs and cars?
Couldn't be.
What about car manufacturers buying materials to make their cars? Or Airlines buying airplanes?
You and I outspend them 4 - 3?
Turns out - at least according to some - that figure, while accurate, is unsustainable. It has been built on credit, on our spending money we didn't have until we actually were spending more than we were saving.
And how could we do that? Borrowing. We heard all those stories about people using their houses as ATM machines. As the (paper) value of their houses escalated, they borrowed money against the so-called worth of the house, and spent it on cars, making their houses bigger, or maybe that lavish vacation they saw on TV.
All it took was for the housing market to show some weakness.
Down came the house of cards. You may wonder - we all do - why it wasn't obvious, at least to the smart economists who track all those numbers? Nothing is forever. What goes up must come down. We all know the cliches.
But if you read interviews with Alan Greenspan or Ben Bernanke you will see that they aren't all that different from you and me. Yes, they likely do understand complexities we don't, and they have metrics they track that give them esoteric looks at information meant to help them see what's ahead.
But what all the brains and information you can jam into brains and computers can't change the human psyche.
And the human psyche loves to be loved, wants to be a part of the gang, and loathes being the one to spoil the party.
So when they were asked whether there was a housing bubble with the potential to cause havoc when it burst, they looked down at their printouts and said it looked sustainable to them. Which it likely did, since their numbers showed housing values rising. Of course that was before the first tiny glitch appeared. When it did, no one wanted to suggest what might happen.
Because they hoped it wouldn't. And they had seen the contempt spread all over the internet for the few black cloud guys who kept talking about the coming collapse.
The good news?
It's happened. We don't have to hold out breath waiting. We're wearing it.
No one knows for how long or how deep the pain may be.
Because we are human beings who have been through various versions of this before, we feel confident there will be an end to the slide and a beginning to the new rise. We can be pretty sure all sorts of new technologies and strategies are already in the works, that will provide a new paradigm, a new way of understanding the dynamics and how to make money investing in them.
How much of that new paradigm those of us on the western slope will see is another unknown.
We are a pretty resilient bunch. And nearly as smart as we like to think.
But don't have the whole picture, because we are in the picture and can't take out our eyeballs and stare at ourselves, nor stand in some distant corner of some universe and gain the perspective that might make us able to predict what lies ahead rather than make guesses. Guesses based on what we have seen, not on what lies ahead.
Makes for great sport.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving
I just hung up from a Skype session in which I spoke with my two daughters and my nearly 5 year old granddaughter.
I consider it a miracle.
My granddaughter was bored with it in five minutes and wanted to move on.
Cyber space will forever be astonishing to me. I love it, can be obsessive about it, will never take it for granted.
The first course I took in my major - American Civilization - in college, was called "American Forms and Values." Tony Garvan, the brilliant, eccentric, Main-line Philadelphian who founded the department and must still be considered the pioneer of the academic discipline, led us a merry chase through a half semester of reading the diary of Samuel Sewell of the 17th century Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Sewell, of course, was a farmer, and his diary seemed a tedious recitation of his daily routine keeping his family and himself going through the hardships of that life, particularly during the winter. Dr. Garvan would point to tiny, seemingly insignificant asides in diary entries to illuminate assumptions Sewell held. We would inevitably miss them altogether until Garvan held them up.
Came time for the first hour exam and Prof. Garvan's secretary appeared with a stack of the dreaded blue books which she put onto the desk at the front of the room.
"Dr. Garvan told me to leave these and pick them up at the end of the hour."
"But what is the exam? What are we supposed to do?"
"All I know is that he said to leave them and pick them up."
And she left.
We all rushed to the front, each picked up a book, inside of which was inserted an entry from a single day in Samuel Sewell's diary.
The temperature in the room rose palpably and the groans and expressions of anxiety may even have given way to some tears.
I suppsoe just about everyone did what I did; scour the entry for the sorts of hints Dr. Garvan always found, and I tried to find some significance, always a big reach, and wrote frantically, more or less a stream of consciousness, and left my scribbled guesses on the table after and hour, and exited the room with a heavy heart.
When Dr. Garvan returned our graded papers, he said, with a big malicious grin:
"Well, one of you (out of 150) actually noticed the date of the entry. December 25. Christmas!"
But of course. Sewell was a Puritan, a dissenter from the popish Church of England, who had come to this country, enduring unimaginable hardships, all for the sake of being freed from what he considered the satanic sacramental life of the Church of England.
So Christmas, one of the major feast days in the Anglican calendar, was an opportunity for him to demonstrate his piety, precisely by not altering his daily routine, nor so much as acknowledging the day as Christmas."
The point of the course was to help us begin to see that everyone is culture bound. We live our lives by myriad assumptions and cultural artifacts that never register in our consciousness.
Those who make change, become pioneers, are the rare ones who see the forms and values by which their culture lives, and are able to observe them and even make choices that are not bound by them.
Those people are either assassinated by the rest of us who are not eager to change, or become leaders into some new paradigm.
Perhaps Obama may turn out to be such a one.
As for my granddaughter, she will likely never see talking to someone thousands of miles away and being able to see them at the same time, as anything except routine.
Fun to try to imagine what her grandchildren will take for granted that will seem revolutionary to her.
I consider it a miracle.
My granddaughter was bored with it in five minutes and wanted to move on.
Cyber space will forever be astonishing to me. I love it, can be obsessive about it, will never take it for granted.
The first course I took in my major - American Civilization - in college, was called "American Forms and Values." Tony Garvan, the brilliant, eccentric, Main-line Philadelphian who founded the department and must still be considered the pioneer of the academic discipline, led us a merry chase through a half semester of reading the diary of Samuel Sewell of the 17th century Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Sewell, of course, was a farmer, and his diary seemed a tedious recitation of his daily routine keeping his family and himself going through the hardships of that life, particularly during the winter. Dr. Garvan would point to tiny, seemingly insignificant asides in diary entries to illuminate assumptions Sewell held. We would inevitably miss them altogether until Garvan held them up.
Came time for the first hour exam and Prof. Garvan's secretary appeared with a stack of the dreaded blue books which she put onto the desk at the front of the room.
"Dr. Garvan told me to leave these and pick them up at the end of the hour."
"But what is the exam? What are we supposed to do?"
"All I know is that he said to leave them and pick them up."
And she left.
We all rushed to the front, each picked up a book, inside of which was inserted an entry from a single day in Samuel Sewell's diary.
The temperature in the room rose palpably and the groans and expressions of anxiety may even have given way to some tears.
I suppsoe just about everyone did what I did; scour the entry for the sorts of hints Dr. Garvan always found, and I tried to find some significance, always a big reach, and wrote frantically, more or less a stream of consciousness, and left my scribbled guesses on the table after and hour, and exited the room with a heavy heart.
When Dr. Garvan returned our graded papers, he said, with a big malicious grin:
"Well, one of you (out of 150) actually noticed the date of the entry. December 25. Christmas!"
But of course. Sewell was a Puritan, a dissenter from the popish Church of England, who had come to this country, enduring unimaginable hardships, all for the sake of being freed from what he considered the satanic sacramental life of the Church of England.
So Christmas, one of the major feast days in the Anglican calendar, was an opportunity for him to demonstrate his piety, precisely by not altering his daily routine, nor so much as acknowledging the day as Christmas."
The point of the course was to help us begin to see that everyone is culture bound. We live our lives by myriad assumptions and cultural artifacts that never register in our consciousness.
Those who make change, become pioneers, are the rare ones who see the forms and values by which their culture lives, and are able to observe them and even make choices that are not bound by them.
Those people are either assassinated by the rest of us who are not eager to change, or become leaders into some new paradigm.
Perhaps Obama may turn out to be such a one.
As for my granddaughter, she will likely never see talking to someone thousands of miles away and being able to see them at the same time, as anything except routine.
Fun to try to imagine what her grandchildren will take for granted that will seem revolutionary to her.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
President (Elect)
Lots of buzz about how Obama seems to be president, at least for his daily appearance to make announcements about his team.
Some are aghast.
Some relieved.
I wasn't born yet in 1932, and without TV there is no way FDR could have been as ubiquitous as Obama is these days. But I would bet, with Wall St. cleaning up after brokers leaps fro tall buildings, and unemployment heading for 25%, the nation had turned their eyes from Herbert Hoover to the president-elect.
Much as I fault George W. Bush for much of what we are suffering, I've already lost interest in fixing blame (except when it may help us repeat some of the bad decisions that got us here).
I prize the smooth transition about which we like to brag, showing the world that we still value the Constitution and the traditions that say the newly elected president doesn't take office until noon on January 20th. (I knew a man, Livingston Merchant, who, because he was Under Secretary of State on January 20, 1961, and the oath of office was late in being administered because of snow and freezing cold, and because the Secretary of State was out of the country, was, for 20 minutes acting president of the United States.)
But, although it would be a terrible and unnecessary precedent to try to change any of that, the reality of the situation we are in right now - like that in 1932 - requires that the man and administration with responsibility for the days and years ahead, be very visible and active.
Apparently, after a brief false start (the Bush people complained the Obama people leaked parts of the two mens' private conversation on the day the Bushes hosted the Obamas at the White House), President Bush and his advisors have been forthcoming in helping the Obama team get started.
In today's news the Bush White House team is even quoted as saying they are impressed with how the Obama people are taking hold.
Some are aghast.
Some relieved.
I wasn't born yet in 1932, and without TV there is no way FDR could have been as ubiquitous as Obama is these days. But I would bet, with Wall St. cleaning up after brokers leaps fro tall buildings, and unemployment heading for 25%, the nation had turned their eyes from Herbert Hoover to the president-elect.
Much as I fault George W. Bush for much of what we are suffering, I've already lost interest in fixing blame (except when it may help us repeat some of the bad decisions that got us here).
I prize the smooth transition about which we like to brag, showing the world that we still value the Constitution and the traditions that say the newly elected president doesn't take office until noon on January 20th. (I knew a man, Livingston Merchant, who, because he was Under Secretary of State on January 20, 1961, and the oath of office was late in being administered because of snow and freezing cold, and because the Secretary of State was out of the country, was, for 20 minutes acting president of the United States.)
But, although it would be a terrible and unnecessary precedent to try to change any of that, the reality of the situation we are in right now - like that in 1932 - requires that the man and administration with responsibility for the days and years ahead, be very visible and active.
Apparently, after a brief false start (the Bush people complained the Obama people leaked parts of the two mens' private conversation on the day the Bushes hosted the Obamas at the White House), President Bush and his advisors have been forthcoming in helping the Obama team get started.
In today's news the Bush White House team is even quoted as saying they are impressed with how the Obama people are taking hold.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Love's Sad Song
Where these things come from is anybody’s guess. But there it was, rumbling around inside my head like dates I memorized for a history exam and couldn’t erase:
A song of love is a sad song,
Hi lili, hi lili, hi lo.
A song of love is a song of woe.
Don't ask me how I know.
A song of love is a sad song,
For I have loved and it's so.
I sit at the window and watch the rain,
Hi lili, hi lili, hi lo.
Tomorrow I'll probably love again.
Hi lili, hi lili, hi lo.
It was so right
It was so wrong
Almost at the same time
The pain and ache
A heart can take
No one really knows
When the memories cling and keep you there
Till you no longer care
You can let go now
It's wrong for me
To cling to you
Somehow I just needed time
From what was to be
It's not like me
To hold somebody down
But I was tossed high by love
I almost never came down
Only to land here
Where love's no longer found
And I'm no longer bound
I can let go now
Hi lili, hi lili, hi lo.
When my mother died 25 years ago she left my sisters and me some money. Who Knew? We called it Found Money.
A clergy colleague, untutored in the mores of money, asked me how much.
Not enough to live on, I told him, But maybe enough to give the kids a boost through college. Which I considered a pious and diverting response.
Good thing, he said, undaunted by my attempt at shutting down rude open talk of money. Every parish priest I ever knew who inherited enough to live on, chucked his embrace of poverty, post haste.
Over the years it has been fun to see kids through college and even have some left over to watch run up in the stock market as we all became richer than we ever imagined.
Somewhere along the way – likely when I became one of those seniors living on a fixed income – I began to think I owned it.
Like my life.
When the Episcopal Church revised its Prayer Book, despite the dislocation of having to give up the Book on which I was raised, much of which remains imbedded in my memory – like Hi Lili, Hi Lo – I considered it a masterful job of updating language without wrecking the liturgy.
But the Burial Office (no surprise that it has long been my favorite) was missing two sentences from the Opening Anthems, intoned by the priest as s/he processes the coffin into the church and down the aisle to the altar.
The Lord gave and The Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.
We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
Not hard to see why those were dropped. I warn people who ask me to officiate at the burial of their family member (few do), that though they will not find those words in the Book, they will hear them as I precede their beloved’s remains to the altar.
I have grieved along with the rest of the world watching wealth I had come to count on, disappear into a vapor more mysterious to me than where you and I go when we merge from the quick to the dead.
Last Friday, when our young national pick to save us finally appeared and – in that calm reassuring baritone – began looking in-charge, the markets gave him his first measurable Standing O since the election itself.
And sent me into a weekend of worry.
Having grieved the loss of my security, made the unwelcome attitude adjustments, now some hope of reprieve crept back in. Come Monday, when the markets reopened, would I have to redo all that heavy lifting, reminding myself that the illusions money illuminates impoverish me more than losing the money?
Our wonderful and unclassifiable new leader anticipated my anxiety and, with perfect timing, made Monday’s markets more of Friday.
But then there’s today, Tuesday, with all those profits hanging out there for starving entrepreneurs.
The Song of love is a sad song…don’t ask me how I know.
Tomorrow I’ll probably love again.
Hi Lili, hi lili, hi lo.
A song of love is a sad song,
Hi lili, hi lili, hi lo.
A song of love is a song of woe.
Don't ask me how I know.
A song of love is a sad song,
For I have loved and it's so.
I sit at the window and watch the rain,
Hi lili, hi lili, hi lo.
Tomorrow I'll probably love again.
Hi lili, hi lili, hi lo.
It was so right
It was so wrong
Almost at the same time
The pain and ache
A heart can take
No one really knows
When the memories cling and keep you there
Till you no longer care
You can let go now
It's wrong for me
To cling to you
Somehow I just needed time
From what was to be
It's not like me
To hold somebody down
But I was tossed high by love
I almost never came down
Only to land here
Where love's no longer found
And I'm no longer bound
I can let go now
Hi lili, hi lili, hi lo.
When my mother died 25 years ago she left my sisters and me some money. Who Knew? We called it Found Money.
A clergy colleague, untutored in the mores of money, asked me how much.
Not enough to live on, I told him, But maybe enough to give the kids a boost through college. Which I considered a pious and diverting response.
Good thing, he said, undaunted by my attempt at shutting down rude open talk of money. Every parish priest I ever knew who inherited enough to live on, chucked his embrace of poverty, post haste.
Over the years it has been fun to see kids through college and even have some left over to watch run up in the stock market as we all became richer than we ever imagined.
Somewhere along the way – likely when I became one of those seniors living on a fixed income – I began to think I owned it.
Like my life.
When the Episcopal Church revised its Prayer Book, despite the dislocation of having to give up the Book on which I was raised, much of which remains imbedded in my memory – like Hi Lili, Hi Lo – I considered it a masterful job of updating language without wrecking the liturgy.
But the Burial Office (no surprise that it has long been my favorite) was missing two sentences from the Opening Anthems, intoned by the priest as s/he processes the coffin into the church and down the aisle to the altar.
The Lord gave and The Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.
We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
Not hard to see why those were dropped. I warn people who ask me to officiate at the burial of their family member (few do), that though they will not find those words in the Book, they will hear them as I precede their beloved’s remains to the altar.
I have grieved along with the rest of the world watching wealth I had come to count on, disappear into a vapor more mysterious to me than where you and I go when we merge from the quick to the dead.
Last Friday, when our young national pick to save us finally appeared and – in that calm reassuring baritone – began looking in-charge, the markets gave him his first measurable Standing O since the election itself.
And sent me into a weekend of worry.
Having grieved the loss of my security, made the unwelcome attitude adjustments, now some hope of reprieve crept back in. Come Monday, when the markets reopened, would I have to redo all that heavy lifting, reminding myself that the illusions money illuminates impoverish me more than losing the money?
Our wonderful and unclassifiable new leader anticipated my anxiety and, with perfect timing, made Monday’s markets more of Friday.
But then there’s today, Tuesday, with all those profits hanging out there for starving entrepreneurs.
The Song of love is a sad song…don’t ask me how I know.
Tomorrow I’ll probably love again.
Hi Lili, hi lili, hi lo.
God, Not Theism
What follows below is an excerpt from a talk given by Harvey Guthrie, my seminary teacher from many decades ago, and my mentor.He has, I believe, made a significant first step toward the problem of how to walk the fine line between the God sponsored by the Christian Church in the west (and by Judaism, and certainly Islam) and the reality all thoughtful people now subscribe to. Until now the only live option was atheism. But, in its own way, atheism is as out of touch with an important dimension of reality as is fundamentalist belief. I think you may find Harvey's way provocative.
I believe that, in the long run, the Reformation and the
Enlightenment will pale in significance in light of what is now going on.
The heretofore classic theoretical understanding of the God of ancient Israel and Jesus has been in
terms of theos, the Hellenistic concept of ultimate, absolute being. And the heretofore classic
understanding of the relation of the God of ancient Israel and Jesus to creation and the human
community has been in terms appropriated from the cult and court of the Roman emperor. Both of
those understandings originate in the cultural history of the west, and the result of the absolutist
assumptions of both is the understanding of our God in absolutist terms. Only our God is really God
and our God’s dominion ultimately extends to every corner of the universe and over everything in the
universe. But the assumptions are at bottom cultural and political, not necessarily theological.
Those assumptions run deep. They have informed liberal and inclusive theologies – even secular non-
theological understandings of reality – just as much as they have informed reactionary and exclusivist
theologies. The cultural DNA of liberal Christians and enlightened secularists is marked by those
assumptions, with the result that the best-intentioned attempts to be inclusive can be insensitive and
oppressive. Krister Stendahl used to say that the price of the pursuit of unity can be the surrender of
some to what others – naïve about their absolutist assumptions and their participation in power – take
to be absolute. It is the exposure of such assumptions and their enforcement by western political and
economic power – and the acceptance of that exposure as fact as well as indictment – that underlies the
sea change in theology of which I speak.
That exposure of theological absolutist assumptions as culturally conditioned and imperially enforced
is leading to our seeing that understanding the God of the Bible and of Jesus has not necessarily been
well served by those cultural assumptions. Later philosophical logic may have required imposing the
doctrine of creation ex nihilo on the Bible. But the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1 actually says something
like, “When God went to work at bringing order to the heavens and the earth, chaos prevailed … “.
Western absolutist theology may have cited royal David in support of its understanding of God in
terms of imperial power. But the fact is that the Bible’s God is not at all enthusiastic about monarchy,
and, beginning with Samuel and Nathan, sends a succession of prophets to deconstruct theologies of
domination and power, is most definitively present to this world on a cross. Two recent substantial
theological books are Catherine Keller’s The Face of the Deep which explores theologically what I
was saying about Genesis, and John Caputo’s The Weakness of God which deals with the pervasive
biblical theme of powerless prophet versus powerful king. My own summary of what’s going on is,
“Theism is dead, not our God.”
I believe that, in the long run, the Reformation and the
Enlightenment will pale in significance in light of what is now going on.
The heretofore classic theoretical understanding of the God of ancient Israel and Jesus has been in
terms of theos, the Hellenistic concept of ultimate, absolute being. And the heretofore classic
understanding of the relation of the God of ancient Israel and Jesus to creation and the human
community has been in terms appropriated from the cult and court of the Roman emperor. Both of
those understandings originate in the cultural history of the west, and the result of the absolutist
assumptions of both is the understanding of our God in absolutist terms. Only our God is really God
and our God’s dominion ultimately extends to every corner of the universe and over everything in the
universe. But the assumptions are at bottom cultural and political, not necessarily theological.
Those assumptions run deep. They have informed liberal and inclusive theologies – even secular non-
theological understandings of reality – just as much as they have informed reactionary and exclusivist
theologies. The cultural DNA of liberal Christians and enlightened secularists is marked by those
assumptions, with the result that the best-intentioned attempts to be inclusive can be insensitive and
oppressive. Krister Stendahl used to say that the price of the pursuit of unity can be the surrender of
some to what others – naïve about their absolutist assumptions and their participation in power – take
to be absolute. It is the exposure of such assumptions and their enforcement by western political and
economic power – and the acceptance of that exposure as fact as well as indictment – that underlies the
sea change in theology of which I speak.
That exposure of theological absolutist assumptions as culturally conditioned and imperially enforced
is leading to our seeing that understanding the God of the Bible and of Jesus has not necessarily been
well served by those cultural assumptions. Later philosophical logic may have required imposing the
doctrine of creation ex nihilo on the Bible. But the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1 actually says something
like, “When God went to work at bringing order to the heavens and the earth, chaos prevailed … “.
Western absolutist theology may have cited royal David in support of its understanding of God in
terms of imperial power. But the fact is that the Bible’s God is not at all enthusiastic about monarchy,
and, beginning with Samuel and Nathan, sends a succession of prophets to deconstruct theologies of
domination and power, is most definitively present to this world on a cross. Two recent substantial
theological books are Catherine Keller’s The Face of the Deep which explores theologically what I
was saying about Genesis, and John Caputo’s The Weakness of God which deals with the pervasive
biblical theme of powerless prophet versus powerful king. My own summary of what’s going on is,
“Theism is dead, not our God.”
Monday, November 24, 2008
Locked Out
Once again I have been locked out of my Blog, and after multiple attempts, been readmitted.
I know I will go through this again. I even know what is causing the problem. (I once inadvertently entered my password before going to the password field, and the username was corrupted and, for some reason, has defaulted to the incorrect user name each time I have been asked to enter them. Most of the time I am sent right to this screen so I don't have to enter them.)
It's rather like my having felt uneasy all weekend waiting for the financial markets to open this morning.
Why uneasy, when I have finally incorporated the discipline of watching my fortune cut in half daily without identifying it with my beingness? (Well, at least have been able to draw deep breaths without hyperventilating.)
I am like the markets themselves. Investment advisors will tell you what the markets hate most is uncertainty. They even prefer bad news to uncertain news. Which is why there seem to be so many counterintuitive days in which some terrible earnings report seems to trigger a rally in a company's stock. The markets (I love this impersonal "markets" as if they were on their own, without humans doing the trading, which, in these cyber times, they often largely are) had either already anticipated the bad earnings, or had been uneasy waiting for the report, and now that they know, they can deal with it.
Well, last Friday, after the president-elect leaked the names of his team of economic advisors, and hinted at the jaw-dropping size of the bailout he is considering, the markets had a huge rally.
It cheered me up. But almost immediately - having shifted from my glumness to which I had become accustomed, and figured out how to live with - I let some hope creep in. Now I stood to have that hope dashed on the rocks of a cruel profit-taking when the markets opened Monday.
Perverse?
Sure. As perverse as our species.
Looks like Obama understands this erratic human attitude. He let it be known he would appear on Monday and formally announce his team of advisors and make a statement about his proposals for creating jobs and putting the economy back on track. He timed his appearance - 12 noon in the east, 9AM on the west coast - to give the markets time to digest his coming appearance and anticipate his news, giving the markets a boost. And appearing midway through the trading day meant they would finish strongly.
And they did.
Now, of course, after two days of one of the biggest rallies in years, who isn't guessing that people will be taking profits before the markets take Thanksgiving off?
Not to mention that the heart of this financial crisis - according to almost everyone - is a huge buildup over the past 20 years of credit debt, much of the most recent, largely unsecured and based on inflated housing values. So, while there seems hardly any dissension from the plan to inject unparalleled sums of money into the debt markets that have suddenly frozen solid, one has to wonder how all that new money is going to resolve the basic problem of people carrying huge debt, some more than the value of their house which is supposed to be backing the debt?
And tomorrow when I go to sign in to this blog to provide another encouraging moment in your day, I may well find myself persona non grata.
A mini-preparation for the day when I want to sign on for another day above ground taking in oxygen, only to find my username has been retired.
I know I will go through this again. I even know what is causing the problem. (I once inadvertently entered my password before going to the password field, and the username was corrupted and, for some reason, has defaulted to the incorrect user name each time I have been asked to enter them. Most of the time I am sent right to this screen so I don't have to enter them.)
It's rather like my having felt uneasy all weekend waiting for the financial markets to open this morning.
Why uneasy, when I have finally incorporated the discipline of watching my fortune cut in half daily without identifying it with my beingness? (Well, at least have been able to draw deep breaths without hyperventilating.)
I am like the markets themselves. Investment advisors will tell you what the markets hate most is uncertainty. They even prefer bad news to uncertain news. Which is why there seem to be so many counterintuitive days in which some terrible earnings report seems to trigger a rally in a company's stock. The markets (I love this impersonal "markets" as if they were on their own, without humans doing the trading, which, in these cyber times, they often largely are) had either already anticipated the bad earnings, or had been uneasy waiting for the report, and now that they know, they can deal with it.
Well, last Friday, after the president-elect leaked the names of his team of economic advisors, and hinted at the jaw-dropping size of the bailout he is considering, the markets had a huge rally.
It cheered me up. But almost immediately - having shifted from my glumness to which I had become accustomed, and figured out how to live with - I let some hope creep in. Now I stood to have that hope dashed on the rocks of a cruel profit-taking when the markets opened Monday.
Perverse?
Sure. As perverse as our species.
Looks like Obama understands this erratic human attitude. He let it be known he would appear on Monday and formally announce his team of advisors and make a statement about his proposals for creating jobs and putting the economy back on track. He timed his appearance - 12 noon in the east, 9AM on the west coast - to give the markets time to digest his coming appearance and anticipate his news, giving the markets a boost. And appearing midway through the trading day meant they would finish strongly.
And they did.
Now, of course, after two days of one of the biggest rallies in years, who isn't guessing that people will be taking profits before the markets take Thanksgiving off?
Not to mention that the heart of this financial crisis - according to almost everyone - is a huge buildup over the past 20 years of credit debt, much of the most recent, largely unsecured and based on inflated housing values. So, while there seems hardly any dissension from the plan to inject unparalleled sums of money into the debt markets that have suddenly frozen solid, one has to wonder how all that new money is going to resolve the basic problem of people carrying huge debt, some more than the value of their house which is supposed to be backing the debt?
And tomorrow when I go to sign in to this blog to provide another encouraging moment in your day, I may well find myself persona non grata.
A mini-preparation for the day when I want to sign on for another day above ground taking in oxygen, only to find my username has been retired.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Tides of Time
Given a different personal history I might have been a Jehova's Witness. Or maybe something even more apocalyptic.
Nothing, from money to marriage to life has ever seemed very sustainable to me.
Which likely is the reason I decided to believe in God. Not because God has so often been seen as immutable - which made God seem more like a statue than a dynamic force - but because the idea behind God is that nothing we see is forever, and we are not in charge of it.
I like to suggest that we humans have a feature that is much like the computer. The computer is an unending succession of choices between 1 and 0. The elaborate and gigantic, speedy calculations are simply that. 1 or 0, over and over, a trillion times a second. (Or something like that.)
And so a human being - or perhaps the human nervous system (though I am loathe to express some part of us as if it could be understood separately from all the rest) is an unending series of computations between God and not-God.
How this works in practice is: I wake in the morning and it's raining. I had planned to work in the garden today. I am pissed. If God is God, then I am not, and the issue of today's weather is out of my hands.
If God is not God then I am going to have to take control - or give it a shot - and will likely spend the day in anguish and frustration. angry at my impotence and inability to bend the weather to my wishes and plans.
Sounds simple, maybe even silly. But, however beneath our awareness, it is a calculation we make probably millions of times each day.
I hit that backhand into the net. Damn!
I think I'm coming down with a cold.. Damn!
The stock market gave me a nosebleed today. Damn!
Man, I just checked out my forehead in the mirror. When did I lose all that hair? Damn!
I'm having trouble coming up with clear examples of what I mean. The point is that if God is God, then I am free to decide to use my energy in ways other than trying to control most of the environment that sustains and surrounds me.
If not-God, then I dare not relax for a moment.
You've likely heard the great story about the Pope (not sure which Pope) who, as he said his prayers before retiring one night, said, "God, I hate to tell you this, but I'm exhausted. Everything I've tried today has turned to dust. So I'm giving up for the night and going to sleep. So I'm afraid you're going to have to run things for a while."
Don't misunderstand. These lovely stories and illustrations are meant as parables. They point to a reality but are not meant to be pushed so hard that their component parts are taken literally.
I have never thought God is an entity, let along a being.
But rather the acceptance of the reality that we humans are neither in charge nor here for eternity.
So it is that the meltdown of the financial markets, while as painful and unwelcome to me as it is to all of us, is hardly some unimaginable aberration, nor necessarily subject to human rescue. While I devoutly wish for some extension of economic life as I have known it, simple observation of how things work tells me it must come apart and die its own death sometime.
I can't say that I am enthusiastic all the time about the obvious decline and decay of my own physical being. But it has been clear to me for some time that this is an inevitable process.
When we arrived here we accepted the conditions: birth, life, death.
Or we spend our time struggling to defeat them.
I choose accept. Most of the time.
Nothing, from money to marriage to life has ever seemed very sustainable to me.
Which likely is the reason I decided to believe in God. Not because God has so often been seen as immutable - which made God seem more like a statue than a dynamic force - but because the idea behind God is that nothing we see is forever, and we are not in charge of it.
I like to suggest that we humans have a feature that is much like the computer. The computer is an unending succession of choices between 1 and 0. The elaborate and gigantic, speedy calculations are simply that. 1 or 0, over and over, a trillion times a second. (Or something like that.)
And so a human being - or perhaps the human nervous system (though I am loathe to express some part of us as if it could be understood separately from all the rest) is an unending series of computations between God and not-God.
How this works in practice is: I wake in the morning and it's raining. I had planned to work in the garden today. I am pissed. If God is God, then I am not, and the issue of today's weather is out of my hands.
If God is not God then I am going to have to take control - or give it a shot - and will likely spend the day in anguish and frustration. angry at my impotence and inability to bend the weather to my wishes and plans.
Sounds simple, maybe even silly. But, however beneath our awareness, it is a calculation we make probably millions of times each day.
I hit that backhand into the net. Damn!
I think I'm coming down with a cold.. Damn!
The stock market gave me a nosebleed today. Damn!
Man, I just checked out my forehead in the mirror. When did I lose all that hair? Damn!
I'm having trouble coming up with clear examples of what I mean. The point is that if God is God, then I am free to decide to use my energy in ways other than trying to control most of the environment that sustains and surrounds me.
If not-God, then I dare not relax for a moment.
You've likely heard the great story about the Pope (not sure which Pope) who, as he said his prayers before retiring one night, said, "God, I hate to tell you this, but I'm exhausted. Everything I've tried today has turned to dust. So I'm giving up for the night and going to sleep. So I'm afraid you're going to have to run things for a while."
Don't misunderstand. These lovely stories and illustrations are meant as parables. They point to a reality but are not meant to be pushed so hard that their component parts are taken literally.
I have never thought God is an entity, let along a being.
But rather the acceptance of the reality that we humans are neither in charge nor here for eternity.
So it is that the meltdown of the financial markets, while as painful and unwelcome to me as it is to all of us, is hardly some unimaginable aberration, nor necessarily subject to human rescue. While I devoutly wish for some extension of economic life as I have known it, simple observation of how things work tells me it must come apart and die its own death sometime.
I can't say that I am enthusiastic all the time about the obvious decline and decay of my own physical being. But it has been clear to me for some time that this is an inevitable process.
When we arrived here we accepted the conditions: birth, life, death.
Or we spend our time struggling to defeat them.
I choose accept. Most of the time.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Theism & God
Does this sound a little contradictory: theism is dead, long live God?
I hadn't put it together quite this radically until i read a talk given by a learned scholar who was perhaps the best teacher i ever had.
And, in a single phrase it has focused a lifelong quandary.
How to affirm the sacred nature of reality without succumbing to the fairy tale that mainline western Christianity has made of the belief in and following of God?
How to affirm God beyond God?
The reason this is so hard, I believe, is because, being people of post-enlightenment, post-Freudian western culture, we are wedded to the twin demons of ego and hierarchy.
We believe the self - consciousness - is the crown of creation, the goal toward which evolution has been moving. And perhaps - as some have described it - the end of history.
And the common quest in our culture is for ascendancy, to reach the pinnacle of whatever hierarchy we see as our natural tribe.
In my case - ironically - a parish priest, to become pastor (or in the Episcopal tradition, Rector, from the Latin, Rex, king) of larger and richer parishes. Odd goal for a vocation dedicated to caring for the oppressed. But the church is an institution, alongside other institutions, a creature of the culture, and is more strongly influenced by the culture than by whatever origins it may once have had that clash with the prevailing culture.
And, as those more and more attracted to Buddhist practice are learning, the separate existence of the ego is an illusion that is at the heart of our most intense suffering. It is our tortured attempts to establish our separateness that lead us to most of our misery.
Whether by wanting a bigger house than other competing selves, or prevailing in a political contest.
My teacher pointed out that the assumptions we believe built into reality - that God rules and favors the faithful - are constructs of western, male dominated hierarchical history in which God becomes the absolute ruler and each of us seeks to become God's smaller clones, ruling over whatever fiefdom we may find ourselves in.
Yet there is another, quite different understanding of our legacy that says the God concern down through history is for those who are oppressed.
And death - which has gained the title "the last enemy", is in fact part of the utterly gracious, trustworthy process into which we have been unexpectedly invited. And how is it that global history changes and evolves? By cells organizing into increasingly complex arrangements that, as they live and die, provide the laboratory in which new, ever more complex arrangements are born.
So our vocation - the optimum use of our energies - is to spend the energy infused in our cells for this season on behalf of those who have been shunted aside by the powerful.
Is this counter to "human nature?"
Who knows? We've never tried it.
I hadn't put it together quite this radically until i read a talk given by a learned scholar who was perhaps the best teacher i ever had.
And, in a single phrase it has focused a lifelong quandary.
How to affirm the sacred nature of reality without succumbing to the fairy tale that mainline western Christianity has made of the belief in and following of God?
How to affirm God beyond God?
The reason this is so hard, I believe, is because, being people of post-enlightenment, post-Freudian western culture, we are wedded to the twin demons of ego and hierarchy.
We believe the self - consciousness - is the crown of creation, the goal toward which evolution has been moving. And perhaps - as some have described it - the end of history.
And the common quest in our culture is for ascendancy, to reach the pinnacle of whatever hierarchy we see as our natural tribe.
In my case - ironically - a parish priest, to become pastor (or in the Episcopal tradition, Rector, from the Latin, Rex, king) of larger and richer parishes. Odd goal for a vocation dedicated to caring for the oppressed. But the church is an institution, alongside other institutions, a creature of the culture, and is more strongly influenced by the culture than by whatever origins it may once have had that clash with the prevailing culture.
And, as those more and more attracted to Buddhist practice are learning, the separate existence of the ego is an illusion that is at the heart of our most intense suffering. It is our tortured attempts to establish our separateness that lead us to most of our misery.
Whether by wanting a bigger house than other competing selves, or prevailing in a political contest.
My teacher pointed out that the assumptions we believe built into reality - that God rules and favors the faithful - are constructs of western, male dominated hierarchical history in which God becomes the absolute ruler and each of us seeks to become God's smaller clones, ruling over whatever fiefdom we may find ourselves in.
Yet there is another, quite different understanding of our legacy that says the God concern down through history is for those who are oppressed.
And death - which has gained the title "the last enemy", is in fact part of the utterly gracious, trustworthy process into which we have been unexpectedly invited. And how is it that global history changes and evolves? By cells organizing into increasingly complex arrangements that, as they live and die, provide the laboratory in which new, ever more complex arrangements are born.
So our vocation - the optimum use of our energies - is to spend the energy infused in our cells for this season on behalf of those who have been shunted aside by the powerful.
Is this counter to "human nature?"
Who knows? We've never tried it.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Staying The Course
Today, in a "come to Jesus" conversation with the guy who has provided me with financial counsel for over 20 years, I listened to his admission that, for the first time, he really doesn't know nor understand what is driving the financial markets.
He also said that, while this moment has things in it none of us have ever seen before, in terms of its size it is hardly unprecedented.
Which confirms what we all already know: how it looks and feels is more likely to be decided by one's perspective than by the facts of the meltdown.
He pointed out that the in the crash of 1987, the Dow Industrials fell 25% IN ONE DAY!
But I was a working stiff, pulling down a pay check every other week in 1987. I knew I had investments, and that one day they would become essential to my living, but not today.
Well today is now today. I have become that senior citizen on a fixed income.
So what do I do?
Suffer terror.
But not only suffer, because I am one of the lucky few who have a pension to add to my social security.
As he also said, every day this debacle goes on does further damage to the economy, of the nation and the world. So when the recovery does finally find its feet, there will still be some serious dislocation for quite a long time.
I have a friend who begins strenuous treatment for cancer today. When I walked by his house his flag was flying.
The fear that feels today as if it may smother us, is not the last word n how things are.
He also said that, while this moment has things in it none of us have ever seen before, in terms of its size it is hardly unprecedented.
Which confirms what we all already know: how it looks and feels is more likely to be decided by one's perspective than by the facts of the meltdown.
He pointed out that the in the crash of 1987, the Dow Industrials fell 25% IN ONE DAY!
But I was a working stiff, pulling down a pay check every other week in 1987. I knew I had investments, and that one day they would become essential to my living, but not today.
Well today is now today. I have become that senior citizen on a fixed income.
So what do I do?
Suffer terror.
But not only suffer, because I am one of the lucky few who have a pension to add to my social security.
As he also said, every day this debacle goes on does further damage to the economy, of the nation and the world. So when the recovery does finally find its feet, there will still be some serious dislocation for quite a long time.
I have a friend who begins strenuous treatment for cancer today. When I walked by his house his flag was flying.
The fear that feels today as if it may smother us, is not the last word n how things are.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Something Dull
On the outskirts of creation, unknown, unseen "structures" are tugging on our universe like cosmic magnets, a controversial new study says.
Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour—a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow… The theory could rewrite the laws of physics…
Study leader Kashlinsky agrees many questions remain unanswered. For starters: What exactly are these things that are apparently tugging our universe?
"They could be anything. As bizarre as you could imagine—some warped space-time," Kashlinsky said.
"Or maybe something dull." - (National Geographic article)
Lifelong longings for something
dull.
Recently came to my attention again that my default mode is
panic
you’d never detect I hope thanks to
disciplines I have adopted over decades as
cover
and in hopes of retarding the fatal fraying of fibers vital for
sending signals useful for even more than promoting
panic.
On my walk up just now I passed a man on a cell phone
jeans tee running shoes voice well modulated seemingly calm
No, we’ll just vote to sell the company and close the IP. Meeting
should last only a few minutes
(hope he doesn’t own Earthlink)
A handsome new Mercedes sedan yielded to me in the crosswalk driver called out Blayney
I paused mid crossing spotted Son driver master clockmaker
custodian of my French repeater for 5 years of intense effort until last week
How’s clock working?
Perfect, I reassure, though it chimes a two or a three at random hours once in every 24.
And I never charge you extra for that! laughing as he makes his turn.
First time the clock did that – 5AM chimed 2 - Lacey: Did you hear that?
Me: ignore both clock and Lacey. (what makes her think I’m awake?)
Impulses coursing up and down those fibers
neurons nattering
parsing cosmic magnets fearing financial futures unwinding
inscrutability in a 19th century clock acting on my nervous
system
the way a saber-toothed tiger acted on our ancestors’.
Last week my daughter took a break from her Zen monastery western
slope of the Sierras silence hermitage she and Sadie (her dog, recovering from knee surgery)
and walked me through the nearby stand of
redwoods
some of the oldest inhabitants of our planet here long before us
here long after the final financial crash and my frantic fibers
surrender to something
dull.
©2008Blayney Colmore
blogs: mine @blogblayney.blogspot.com. Zen Jen’s, living compassion.org
Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour—a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow… The theory could rewrite the laws of physics…
Study leader Kashlinsky agrees many questions remain unanswered. For starters: What exactly are these things that are apparently tugging our universe?
"They could be anything. As bizarre as you could imagine—some warped space-time," Kashlinsky said.
"Or maybe something dull." - (National Geographic article)
Lifelong longings for something
dull.
Recently came to my attention again that my default mode is
panic
you’d never detect I hope thanks to
disciplines I have adopted over decades as
cover
and in hopes of retarding the fatal fraying of fibers vital for
sending signals useful for even more than promoting
panic.
On my walk up just now I passed a man on a cell phone
jeans tee running shoes voice well modulated seemingly calm
No, we’ll just vote to sell the company and close the IP. Meeting
should last only a few minutes
(hope he doesn’t own Earthlink)
A handsome new Mercedes sedan yielded to me in the crosswalk driver called out Blayney
I paused mid crossing spotted Son driver master clockmaker
custodian of my French repeater for 5 years of intense effort until last week
How’s clock working?
Perfect, I reassure, though it chimes a two or a three at random hours once in every 24.
And I never charge you extra for that! laughing as he makes his turn.
First time the clock did that – 5AM chimed 2 - Lacey: Did you hear that?
Me: ignore both clock and Lacey. (what makes her think I’m awake?)
Impulses coursing up and down those fibers
neurons nattering
parsing cosmic magnets fearing financial futures unwinding
inscrutability in a 19th century clock acting on my nervous
system
the way a saber-toothed tiger acted on our ancestors’.
Last week my daughter took a break from her Zen monastery western
slope of the Sierras silence hermitage she and Sadie (her dog, recovering from knee surgery)
and walked me through the nearby stand of
redwoods
some of the oldest inhabitants of our planet here long before us
here long after the final financial crash and my frantic fibers
surrender to something
dull.
©2008Blayney Colmore
blogs: mine @blogblayney.blogspot.com. Zen Jen’s, living compassion.org
Monday, November 17, 2008
Hilary at State?
Maybe today's meeting between Obama and McCain will nudge the Hilary as Secretary of State story off the front pages.
It sure has filled the void created by the end of the campaign with its plethora of rumor and speculation.
Last night on 60 Minutes I thought Obama did a masterful - even beguiling - job of diverting questions about this. Whether his people really intended or hoped to have been able to have Senator Clinton come to Chicago secretly or without setting off the rumor mill suffering from post-election withdrawal, I have no idea. I have to believe they had reasons for wanting people to notice.
I am rather taken with the idea.
Once I had been excited about Bill Clinton for the job. Or, if Bush had more self-confidence and sense, he could have appointed the former president to the job of our ambassador to the UN.
Bill Clinton remains a very popular figure around the world. (Though I suspect his rock star status may have been eclipsed by Obama's election.)
But he is a problematic figure here at home. Not only for an oval office blow job, but because in his post-presidency years he has followed a path in the opposite direction from the country as a whole, from massive debtor to fabulously rich. And perhaps by hanging out with people who might not cover a Secretary of State with glory.
Did you love Obama, acknowledging that Senator Clinton had made a trip to Chicago last week to talk with him? Saying she is a wise and experienced person with whom he wanted to talk? And when the interviewer asked if he was going to name her to the job, Obama showed those big perfect teeth in an arresting smile, and said, "You're not going to get anything out of me on that."
A number of things make me hope he might name her.
First of all she is known as a hard working, smart person who inspires confidence in people around her. She is tough and fair.
And then there is what such an appointment would say about the new young president who appoints her. He has enough self-confidence to reach out to the person who challenged him hardest (harder than his Republican opponent in the general election), without fear that she will try to steal his show. Some have said she will try to steal his show. Or eclipse Vice President Biden who, having chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, could be expected to carry that portfolio in the new administration. We have seen enough now of Obama's sense of himself, not to worry about his being overpowered by those around him with longer resumes. And while Biden will no doubt be a valued advisor on foreign policy, we have seen in Henry Kissinger carrying the dual role of Secretary of State and National Security Advisor that is a bad arrangement. The Vice President must be a generalist, free to take on whatever the president may need from him, even while he has areas of specific focus.
And it may be that former President Clinton's complex consequent role and enrichment and questionable associations, will mean that he will not try to make himself some sort of shadow secretary as some fear. At the same time, she does carry his still beloved name when she ventures into places around the globe.
Word is that Obama may ask Gates to stay on at Defense for at least a year.
And when the interviewer asked him last night if there would be Republicans in his cabinet, he answered with the single word, yes. Big smile. "You're not getting anything more from me about that."
It's mostly theater at this point. But Obama is proving good at theater. And if he is able to manage his administration with as much apparent calm and confidence as he has his campaign and transition, things are looking up.
It sure has filled the void created by the end of the campaign with its plethora of rumor and speculation.
Last night on 60 Minutes I thought Obama did a masterful - even beguiling - job of diverting questions about this. Whether his people really intended or hoped to have been able to have Senator Clinton come to Chicago secretly or without setting off the rumor mill suffering from post-election withdrawal, I have no idea. I have to believe they had reasons for wanting people to notice.
I am rather taken with the idea.
Once I had been excited about Bill Clinton for the job. Or, if Bush had more self-confidence and sense, he could have appointed the former president to the job of our ambassador to the UN.
Bill Clinton remains a very popular figure around the world. (Though I suspect his rock star status may have been eclipsed by Obama's election.)
But he is a problematic figure here at home. Not only for an oval office blow job, but because in his post-presidency years he has followed a path in the opposite direction from the country as a whole, from massive debtor to fabulously rich. And perhaps by hanging out with people who might not cover a Secretary of State with glory.
Did you love Obama, acknowledging that Senator Clinton had made a trip to Chicago last week to talk with him? Saying she is a wise and experienced person with whom he wanted to talk? And when the interviewer asked if he was going to name her to the job, Obama showed those big perfect teeth in an arresting smile, and said, "You're not going to get anything out of me on that."
A number of things make me hope he might name her.
First of all she is known as a hard working, smart person who inspires confidence in people around her. She is tough and fair.
And then there is what such an appointment would say about the new young president who appoints her. He has enough self-confidence to reach out to the person who challenged him hardest (harder than his Republican opponent in the general election), without fear that she will try to steal his show. Some have said she will try to steal his show. Or eclipse Vice President Biden who, having chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, could be expected to carry that portfolio in the new administration. We have seen enough now of Obama's sense of himself, not to worry about his being overpowered by those around him with longer resumes. And while Biden will no doubt be a valued advisor on foreign policy, we have seen in Henry Kissinger carrying the dual role of Secretary of State and National Security Advisor that is a bad arrangement. The Vice President must be a generalist, free to take on whatever the president may need from him, even while he has areas of specific focus.
And it may be that former President Clinton's complex consequent role and enrichment and questionable associations, will mean that he will not try to make himself some sort of shadow secretary as some fear. At the same time, she does carry his still beloved name when she ventures into places around the globe.
Word is that Obama may ask Gates to stay on at Defense for at least a year.
And when the interviewer asked him last night if there would be Republicans in his cabinet, he answered with the single word, yes. Big smile. "You're not getting anything more from me about that."
It's mostly theater at this point. But Obama is proving good at theater. And if he is able to manage his administration with as much apparent calm and confidence as he has his campaign and transition, things are looking up.
NY Review
I wrote a letter to the editor of the NY Review of Books in response to a piece by a writer who said he no longer held to amy religious understanding of reality, but that left him with only a sense of dread about death.
My letter asked why not believing in life after death meant one had to dread dying. The obvious answer is the fear of annihilation of the self. But the self - a construct of post-enlightenment, post-Freudian understanding of Ego - is understood by many as an illusion we can learn to let go while we are still alive. And that results if a much happier existence.
The original writer kindly praised my response as seeming to suggest an acceptance he could only envy.
Another person wrote me a snail-mail letter in which he asked about my having described my response to ancient texts and rituals as one of wonder. He said he finds them over-anxious attempts to lay claim to reality, to excise wonder.
This is my response to him:
Thanks you for your thoughtful letter in response to my letter to the editor of the NY Review. I think I follow its drift, but forgive me if I have not taken in completely what you have raised about my response to ancient texts and rituals.
The problem with unpacking all this in 2008 is that the texts and rituals predate the Enlightenment. Hard as I try it is impossible for me to imagine what some Habiru (means wanderer, referring to those we now call Hebrews who’s chief identity was that they had no identity, were the ancient equivalent of street people) might have made of the Exodus story.
Nor, for that matter, what a peasant or prince in the 8th century on the continent we now call Europe would have thought (assuming he thought anything) he was doing when he received the Eucharist.
What I have come to think – after decades of trying to make sense of the doctrines, texts and ceremonies I inherited as an American Episcopalian – is that I either regard the church’s claims for them as accurate reflections of reality, or understand them as attempts to respond to a reality we see as increasingly complex, to which rational responses somehow leave us feeling impoverished.
If I took the first course I would simply give up the whole enterprise because it is clear that the ancient texts, the rituals, the doctrines - even cleaned up for modern language - are arcane, without foundation.
But if I take the second – which I do, but not always – I then ask myself the question of whether being here seems on balance a good thing for which I am grateful, or a cruel cosmic irony.
With some notable exceptions, I feel glad and grateful for having been born, and for most of the life I have lived. Reality seems to me to be suffused with crackling energy that sometimes confounds, sometimes delights, but which my limited intellect never exhausts.
So I turn to the ancient texts – stories, etiologies, politics – as rich witness to our species’ fascination for what we have gotten ourselves into. Worship – notably Eucharist – is my response to my gratitude, and acknowledgement that – while I continue to struggle – I am swimming in a current I did not initiate and do not control.
Truth is I hardly ever go to church. But I continue to immerse myself in contemplation, silence, observance.
Likely it is impossible for any post-Freudian western person to be free of the ego storm that makes serenity mostly a 12 step slogan. But I had several moments this summer in Vermont, walking my dog into the burial ground across from our old farmhouse late on a clear night, when I came close to sensing the cellular arrangement I have called me for nearly 70 years, as a wonderful phenomenon that will soon disassemble and the cells find other – equally wonderful – arrangements.
In my best moments that sense is sublime; in my worst, dread. Sublime or dread, reality is reality. And I find in those ancient texts and rituals time-tested responses to that reality.
My letter asked why not believing in life after death meant one had to dread dying. The obvious answer is the fear of annihilation of the self. But the self - a construct of post-enlightenment, post-Freudian understanding of Ego - is understood by many as an illusion we can learn to let go while we are still alive. And that results if a much happier existence.
The original writer kindly praised my response as seeming to suggest an acceptance he could only envy.
Another person wrote me a snail-mail letter in which he asked about my having described my response to ancient texts and rituals as one of wonder. He said he finds them over-anxious attempts to lay claim to reality, to excise wonder.
This is my response to him:
Thanks you for your thoughtful letter in response to my letter to the editor of the NY Review. I think I follow its drift, but forgive me if I have not taken in completely what you have raised about my response to ancient texts and rituals.
The problem with unpacking all this in 2008 is that the texts and rituals predate the Enlightenment. Hard as I try it is impossible for me to imagine what some Habiru (means wanderer, referring to those we now call Hebrews who’s chief identity was that they had no identity, were the ancient equivalent of street people) might have made of the Exodus story.
Nor, for that matter, what a peasant or prince in the 8th century on the continent we now call Europe would have thought (assuming he thought anything) he was doing when he received the Eucharist.
What I have come to think – after decades of trying to make sense of the doctrines, texts and ceremonies I inherited as an American Episcopalian – is that I either regard the church’s claims for them as accurate reflections of reality, or understand them as attempts to respond to a reality we see as increasingly complex, to which rational responses somehow leave us feeling impoverished.
If I took the first course I would simply give up the whole enterprise because it is clear that the ancient texts, the rituals, the doctrines - even cleaned up for modern language - are arcane, without foundation.
But if I take the second – which I do, but not always – I then ask myself the question of whether being here seems on balance a good thing for which I am grateful, or a cruel cosmic irony.
With some notable exceptions, I feel glad and grateful for having been born, and for most of the life I have lived. Reality seems to me to be suffused with crackling energy that sometimes confounds, sometimes delights, but which my limited intellect never exhausts.
So I turn to the ancient texts – stories, etiologies, politics – as rich witness to our species’ fascination for what we have gotten ourselves into. Worship – notably Eucharist – is my response to my gratitude, and acknowledgement that – while I continue to struggle – I am swimming in a current I did not initiate and do not control.
Truth is I hardly ever go to church. But I continue to immerse myself in contemplation, silence, observance.
Likely it is impossible for any post-Freudian western person to be free of the ego storm that makes serenity mostly a 12 step slogan. But I had several moments this summer in Vermont, walking my dog into the burial ground across from our old farmhouse late on a clear night, when I came close to sensing the cellular arrangement I have called me for nearly 70 years, as a wonderful phenomenon that will soon disassemble and the cells find other – equally wonderful – arrangements.
In my best moments that sense is sublime; in my worst, dread. Sublime or dread, reality is reality. And I find in those ancient texts and rituals time-tested responses to that reality.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Next Time
You have likely read about the fires in Montecito, California.
I have been to Montecito. It strikes me as a community no fire would dare destroy.
But it has. Even an Episcopal monastic community was burned to the ground.
Does nature and the elements have no respect?
No.
If you haven't read Julian Barnes' new book, Nothing To Be Afraid Of, and you always wished someone would talk straight about the reality of how we leave this world, and skip the euphemisms and avoidances that mostly mark any conversation that strays into that minefield, this is your book.
Barnes may have begun this book in hopes it would be a catharsis that might help him recover from his lifelong fear of dying. Well, not exactly of dying, but of annihilation of his self that he believes dying will mean. But along the way, he writes that it has done no such thing. And somehow he manages to write exquisite prose, and provide countless belly laughs while he grieves in advance for what he knows lies in the not too distant future.
We humans love magic. We want to be rescued.
The problem is magic is illusion and we need not be rescued.
Because there is nothing wrong.
But Montecito is burning.
I have been to Montecito. It strikes me as a community no fire would dare destroy.
But it has. Even an Episcopal monastic community was burned to the ground.
Does nature and the elements have no respect?
No.
If you haven't read Julian Barnes' new book, Nothing To Be Afraid Of, and you always wished someone would talk straight about the reality of how we leave this world, and skip the euphemisms and avoidances that mostly mark any conversation that strays into that minefield, this is your book.
Barnes may have begun this book in hopes it would be a catharsis that might help him recover from his lifelong fear of dying. Well, not exactly of dying, but of annihilation of his self that he believes dying will mean. But along the way, he writes that it has done no such thing. And somehow he manages to write exquisite prose, and provide countless belly laughs while he grieves in advance for what he knows lies in the not too distant future.
We humans love magic. We want to be rescued.
The problem is magic is illusion and we need not be rescued.
Because there is nothing wrong.
But Montecito is burning.
Is the World Upside down?
Just back from a visit with my daughter who is a Zen monk living in a community in a remote setting in rural northern California.
We talked about many things. Perhaps as much about the financial collapse as about anything.
I have been holding steady in my conviction that this is an overdue paid bill we are being asked to pay. She didn't disagree.
Her attitude is that if this is the beginning of a Great Depression, there isn't much any of us can do, and we'd best have a run at what she has been doing the past eight years, entering into a discipline that results in your living the life that makes sense for you, rather than the life you think someone expects you to live.
It is a strategy quite upside down from the one we have been conditioned for in this commercial culture. And, as many are now warning, since consumer spending represents over 70% of the national economy, such discipline would likely shrink the lavish life we have enjoyed for the past generation significantly.
Not much chance, I don't suppose, of our doing it.
Unless events require it of us.
We talked about many things. Perhaps as much about the financial collapse as about anything.
I have been holding steady in my conviction that this is an overdue paid bill we are being asked to pay. She didn't disagree.
Her attitude is that if this is the beginning of a Great Depression, there isn't much any of us can do, and we'd best have a run at what she has been doing the past eight years, entering into a discipline that results in your living the life that makes sense for you, rather than the life you think someone expects you to live.
It is a strategy quite upside down from the one we have been conditioned for in this commercial culture. And, as many are now warning, since consumer spending represents over 70% of the national economy, such discipline would likely shrink the lavish life we have enjoyed for the past generation significantly.
Not much chance, I don't suppose, of our doing it.
Unless events require it of us.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Blind Leader
Martin Armistice Day November 11, 2008
Conscience is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from barking. - Nicolas de Chamfort, writer (1741-1794)
*******
Leslie lived across from the church the whole time I worked there
she has been blind since birth
and I loved to watch her navigate seamlessly before I could
speak a greeting
she’d pick up my footfall and call me
by name.
I’ve been gone from the church for
12 years
I walk by on my way to my writing station at the museum but haven’t seen
Leslie in all those years
until yesterday when I was feeling a little disoriented as I frequently
do, wandering along trying not to think about
the elephant
size void where my fortune once seemed snugly
tucked away
and there she was Leslie (not my estranged fortune) on the sidewalk
dead ahead
Blayney, isn’t it? she asked to be polite not startle me
Are you crossing the street down there? gesturing with her red
tipped cane
Because I’ve gotten all turned around and need to get back to
Faye Avenue
as she took my arm my heart
sank
I have walked these streets for over 20 years and still don’t know
the names
Leslie, I confessed, it was your bad luck to run
into me
I think Faye is just two blocks
ahead
but I couldn’t swear to it because you know that
old saying
- the blind leading the blind - ?
This is it
Leslie laughed
We’re heading in the right direction, she assured me, grasping
my arm
with a little firmer grip
I’ll get you there.
Perhaps you heard the good news the Mars rover before
it died
detected light snow falling at the Mars north pole.
Sunday night I ran into an old friend, who
stepped down
from his day job even longer ago than I he said someone jumpy
about retiring
asked him what he most looked forward to every day That’s easy,
Waking up.
In Monday’s mail, a
beguiling photo
of a couple we know parasols unfurled handsomely dressed
kissing
inviting us to celebrate with them their excitement at
getting married
as they close in on their 10th decade.
Rahm Emanuel spoke for me when he counseled never to waste
a crisis
I have discovered the day I open my monthly money statement I can
skip
my Metamucil.
Mr. Son, clock genius without peer returned my
19th century French repeater carriage clock
he has been agonizing over for 5 years
Works perfect now, he boasted Kept perfect time in my shop all summer
I hate that damn thing but it love me more
than you You take it home if it doesn’t work you need exorcism
and indeed the poltergeist seem to have been cleared all except the
strike
chiming the previous hour rather than
simply once which, Son and I agree is
rather charming.
This morning at 6:30 a big ruckus on the beach 20 swarthy young men
in a circle, one blindfolded within the circle 10 young women in
head scarves
standing aside men shouting and clapping as blindfolded one
staggers around seeming to obey directions avoiding knocking over
Styrofoam cups
What’s this? UCSD Islamist Student Society one explains Some sinister
initiation? not exactly. Students have bad habit of sleeping late maybe
until 11am so we get everyone up to come play games on the beach What about the woman? Lacey asks, They don’t get to play? Oh yes, they got here even earlier and have finished.
This is Faye Avenue
Leslie announced when we reached the corner
The museum is just - she pointed her cane - one block
that way.
Conscience is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from barking. - Nicolas de Chamfort, writer (1741-1794)
*******
Leslie lived across from the church the whole time I worked there
she has been blind since birth
and I loved to watch her navigate seamlessly before I could
speak a greeting
she’d pick up my footfall and call me
by name.
I’ve been gone from the church for
12 years
I walk by on my way to my writing station at the museum but haven’t seen
Leslie in all those years
until yesterday when I was feeling a little disoriented as I frequently
do, wandering along trying not to think about
the elephant
size void where my fortune once seemed snugly
tucked away
and there she was Leslie (not my estranged fortune) on the sidewalk
dead ahead
Blayney, isn’t it? she asked to be polite not startle me
Are you crossing the street down there? gesturing with her red
tipped cane
Because I’ve gotten all turned around and need to get back to
Faye Avenue
as she took my arm my heart
sank
I have walked these streets for over 20 years and still don’t know
the names
Leslie, I confessed, it was your bad luck to run
into me
I think Faye is just two blocks
ahead
but I couldn’t swear to it because you know that
old saying
- the blind leading the blind - ?
This is it
Leslie laughed
We’re heading in the right direction, she assured me, grasping
my arm
with a little firmer grip
I’ll get you there.
Perhaps you heard the good news the Mars rover before
it died
detected light snow falling at the Mars north pole.
Sunday night I ran into an old friend, who
stepped down
from his day job even longer ago than I he said someone jumpy
about retiring
asked him what he most looked forward to every day That’s easy,
Waking up.
In Monday’s mail, a
beguiling photo
of a couple we know parasols unfurled handsomely dressed
kissing
inviting us to celebrate with them their excitement at
getting married
as they close in on their 10th decade.
Rahm Emanuel spoke for me when he counseled never to waste
a crisis
I have discovered the day I open my monthly money statement I can
skip
my Metamucil.
Mr. Son, clock genius without peer returned my
19th century French repeater carriage clock
he has been agonizing over for 5 years
Works perfect now, he boasted Kept perfect time in my shop all summer
I hate that damn thing but it love me more
than you You take it home if it doesn’t work you need exorcism
and indeed the poltergeist seem to have been cleared all except the
strike
chiming the previous hour rather than
simply once which, Son and I agree is
rather charming.
This morning at 6:30 a big ruckus on the beach 20 swarthy young men
in a circle, one blindfolded within the circle 10 young women in
head scarves
standing aside men shouting and clapping as blindfolded one
staggers around seeming to obey directions avoiding knocking over
Styrofoam cups
What’s this? UCSD Islamist Student Society one explains Some sinister
initiation? not exactly. Students have bad habit of sleeping late maybe
until 11am so we get everyone up to come play games on the beach What about the woman? Lacey asks, They don’t get to play? Oh yes, they got here even earlier and have finished.
This is Faye Avenue
Leslie announced when we reached the corner
The museum is just - she pointed her cane - one block
that way.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Not Throwing in the Towel
And it's not only because the towel I would have thrown in just a few weeks ago is now hardly bigger than a washcloth.
I'm not going to tell you I am liking this.
I read my friend Logan Jenkins' column in this morning's San Diego Union and once again felt our solidarity when he said he and his wife checked their life savings (Big mistake, he wrote) and found it had shrunk by a full 40%.
I hope that he has been at this modest drip by drip investing for almost as long as I have, so even though he has been shriven dramatically in the past many weeks, he still is far ahead of where he was 25 years ago.
He reminds us of how we have trashed Bush for telling us to go shopping after 9/11. And goes on to point out that the austerity program most of us are now embarked on (Lacey and I have been back in California for almost a week and have yet to darken the door of a restaurant), is going to slow down the recovery even more.
Our economy is 70% consumer spending. We stop shopping and we have a real crash.
What to do?
My parents and grandparents, who lived through the Great Depression, would applaud our virtue in hunkering down.
Strikes me that this painful retrenchment is part of the price we pay for living a long life. In fact for those of us who are in our final quarter, it's likely not to be a retrenchment, since it's hard to imagine we have enough time left for the markets to claw their way back to the heights that gave us our euphoric and false sense of well-being.
Expecting our investments to keep climbing is akin to expecting to be able to go deep into the backhand corner and hit a winner the way I may have ben able when I was 24. Entropy unwinds us and - unless we pretend to be immune - reminds us of the way everything finally ends.
Not a terrible thing, even a welcome outcome. Unless we refuse to understand ourselves as a piece of this marvelous process.
I'm not going to tell you I am liking this.
I read my friend Logan Jenkins' column in this morning's San Diego Union and once again felt our solidarity when he said he and his wife checked their life savings (Big mistake, he wrote) and found it had shrunk by a full 40%.
I hope that he has been at this modest drip by drip investing for almost as long as I have, so even though he has been shriven dramatically in the past many weeks, he still is far ahead of where he was 25 years ago.
He reminds us of how we have trashed Bush for telling us to go shopping after 9/11. And goes on to point out that the austerity program most of us are now embarked on (Lacey and I have been back in California for almost a week and have yet to darken the door of a restaurant), is going to slow down the recovery even more.
Our economy is 70% consumer spending. We stop shopping and we have a real crash.
What to do?
My parents and grandparents, who lived through the Great Depression, would applaud our virtue in hunkering down.
Strikes me that this painful retrenchment is part of the price we pay for living a long life. In fact for those of us who are in our final quarter, it's likely not to be a retrenchment, since it's hard to imagine we have enough time left for the markets to claw their way back to the heights that gave us our euphoric and false sense of well-being.
Expecting our investments to keep climbing is akin to expecting to be able to go deep into the backhand corner and hit a winner the way I may have ben able when I was 24. Entropy unwinds us and - unless we pretend to be immune - reminds us of the way everything finally ends.
Not a terrible thing, even a welcome outcome. Unless we refuse to understand ourselves as a piece of this marvelous process.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Alice Walker
Alice Walker has written this open letter to our newly elected president:
Open Letter to Barack Obama from Alice Walker
Nov. 5, 2008
Dear Brother Obama,
You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being
the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because
you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver
the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after
decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the
flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And
yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a
different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you,
North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We
knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of
the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would
actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your
rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a
balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.
I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the
world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the
world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however,
is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits
sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely
daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to
seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as
the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and
stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of
scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate.
One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no
excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real
success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may
buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and
space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet
clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the
reach of almost everyone.
I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most
damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those
feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain
religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies,
but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is
understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and
are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely.
However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often
fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing
of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of
ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor
people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.
A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the
Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the
Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that
must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be
lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to
animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And
your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust
characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy
self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find
an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the
world.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker
Open Letter to Barack Obama from Alice Walker
Nov. 5, 2008
Dear Brother Obama,
You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being
the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because
you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver
the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after
decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the
flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And
yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a
different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you,
North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We
knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of
the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would
actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your
rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a
balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.
I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the
world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the
world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however,
is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits
sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely
daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to
seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as
the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and
stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of
scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate.
One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no
excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real
success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may
buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and
space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet
clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the
reach of almost everyone.
I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most
damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those
feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain
religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies,
but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is
understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and
are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely.
However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often
fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing
of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of
ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor
people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.
A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the
Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the
Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that
must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be
lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to
animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And
your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust
characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy
self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find
an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the
world.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker
What Ho!
Locked out again!
Last night my computer couldn't pick up the wireless signal it has been relying on (truth be told, a willing neighbor's) and once again my Blog wouldn't let me in.
Why do I care?
I spent a frantic hour massaging every possibility I could come up with, becoming more and more sweaty, angry, out of sorts. Until Lacey - who has some sort of weird disconnect between her central nervous system and any communication system that involves a screen - lost what little cool she had been hanging onto, and attacked me for going back on my word that I would not even boot up the computer at night at home.
"You spend all day on the miserable thing," she shouted, "why do you have to pollute our evening with that flickering screen and noise?"
To which I replied that this was not an ordinary issue, like picking up email.
We were talking crisis. No signal to let me through to the internet. And when I did manage to get one long enough to get through for a moment, locked out of my own blog. For the umpteenth time. This can't wait until morning.
She ignored my explanation of the extraordinary nature of the crisis, and repeated her charge of my having reneged on my pledge of no computer at home in the evening.
I learned long ago not to invoke the millions of people who spend all evening every evening on the computer, or that our own children - paragons of good sense and hard work - often do. Nor to try to appeal to her sense of attacking any dysfunction immediately, which she does in her life.
So I simply shut the computer down. Well, not simply, because I did so while swearing and slamming everything around.
And then wondered why it matters so much.
A few minutes ago I read the transcript of Barak Obama's first press conference since the election. He has a few things on his plate that are arguably of deeper urgency than my computer problems. When asked about them, he refused to be stampeded, and said the two major decisions they had made so far, naming his chief of staff and his press secretary, were good decisions precisely because they had been carefully thought through.
When asked what he was going to do about the collapse of the economy, and whether he had heard anything surprising in his first national security briefing, he demurred.
"When we have something to tell you, we will tell you."
When I figure out a reliable way to access the internet and my blog, I will tell you. And Lacey. And myself.
Last night my computer couldn't pick up the wireless signal it has been relying on (truth be told, a willing neighbor's) and once again my Blog wouldn't let me in.
Why do I care?
I spent a frantic hour massaging every possibility I could come up with, becoming more and more sweaty, angry, out of sorts. Until Lacey - who has some sort of weird disconnect between her central nervous system and any communication system that involves a screen - lost what little cool she had been hanging onto, and attacked me for going back on my word that I would not even boot up the computer at night at home.
"You spend all day on the miserable thing," she shouted, "why do you have to pollute our evening with that flickering screen and noise?"
To which I replied that this was not an ordinary issue, like picking up email.
We were talking crisis. No signal to let me through to the internet. And when I did manage to get one long enough to get through for a moment, locked out of my own blog. For the umpteenth time. This can't wait until morning.
She ignored my explanation of the extraordinary nature of the crisis, and repeated her charge of my having reneged on my pledge of no computer at home in the evening.
I learned long ago not to invoke the millions of people who spend all evening every evening on the computer, or that our own children - paragons of good sense and hard work - often do. Nor to try to appeal to her sense of attacking any dysfunction immediately, which she does in her life.
So I simply shut the computer down. Well, not simply, because I did so while swearing and slamming everything around.
And then wondered why it matters so much.
A few minutes ago I read the transcript of Barak Obama's first press conference since the election. He has a few things on his plate that are arguably of deeper urgency than my computer problems. When asked about them, he refused to be stampeded, and said the two major decisions they had made so far, naming his chief of staff and his press secretary, were good decisions precisely because they had been carefully thought through.
When asked what he was going to do about the collapse of the economy, and whether he had heard anything surprising in his first national security briefing, he demurred.
"When we have something to tell you, we will tell you."
When I figure out a reliable way to access the internet and my blog, I will tell you. And Lacey. And myself.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Over and Over
In the past four days I have moved three time zones and many more climate zones than that (Zone 4 to Zone 10), watched the nation elect a man we wouldn't have allowed near the ballot just a few years ago, lost more sleep watching that happen than a man my age (68) can lose and still make sense, received a wonderful piece from a former theology professor enlarging and confirming my sense that theism is a construct of the white, male western world that has lost its cache in the life of most people, and had to change my password maybe five times to get into this blog to make an entry.
This morning on our walk along the beach, I said to "outside wave" Dave, an aging surfer who many of us consider the Mayor of La Jolla Shores, that change sucks. I was referring to his complaining about the growing number of stand-up surfers who are clogging the waves for the old time board surfers.
"Literally," Dave answered, and I realized he was talking about the chief slogan of the Obama campaign. When I said something about the guy who's been there the past eight years not having done us much good, Dave screwed up his face and replied, "I don't think it was all his fault. But I know he'll get blamed for it."
Good point.
If I have to change my password again to log into this blog, I will come to hate change even more than "inside wave" Dave.
And I learned a long time ago that looking for someone to blame in cyberspace is a gigantic waste of energy.
This morning on our walk along the beach, I said to "outside wave" Dave, an aging surfer who many of us consider the Mayor of La Jolla Shores, that change sucks. I was referring to his complaining about the growing number of stand-up surfers who are clogging the waves for the old time board surfers.
"Literally," Dave answered, and I realized he was talking about the chief slogan of the Obama campaign. When I said something about the guy who's been there the past eight years not having done us much good, Dave screwed up his face and replied, "I don't think it was all his fault. But I know he'll get blamed for it."
Good point.
If I have to change my password again to log into this blog, I will come to hate change even more than "inside wave" Dave.
And I learned a long time ago that looking for someone to blame in cyberspace is a gigantic waste of energy.
Monday, November 03, 2008
OK
OK, let's hang it up.
This time tomorrow all but California will be in the can.
Whew!
If by some terrible turn Obama should actually lose to McCain, I will have to revise my serenity solutions and figure out - once again - how to wait for reality to overturn illusion.
If not, as I expect, the task will likely be even harder, as I begin - along with President-elect Obama (my blogger spell check better learn to recognize his name) - to morph from the insanity of the seemingly endless campaign, to the need to seriously address the myriad issues that will immediately demand his best nerves and skill.
Somewhere in the morass of stuff I have read today I ran across a seemingly serious and sobering piece about the new president's need to quickly decide how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions. If the report is credible (seems to have been written by a woman journalist who is filled with remorse for not reporting on the lead up to our Iraq invasion with greater skepticism), a truly bipartisan group has been assessing the news from Iran in preparation for providing the new president with the best intelligence possible.
And their devout wish is to offer more options than merely bomb or talk until Iran has nuclear weapons.
So, come what may, I am ready - along with the rest of the nation and the world (most think our election system is truly round the bend) to hang up the madness that has consumed perhaps $2B and inordinate energy of the nation's emotional storehouse, and give our best support to whomever must bear this burden for the next four years.
This time tomorrow all but California will be in the can.
Whew!
If by some terrible turn Obama should actually lose to McCain, I will have to revise my serenity solutions and figure out - once again - how to wait for reality to overturn illusion.
If not, as I expect, the task will likely be even harder, as I begin - along with President-elect Obama (my blogger spell check better learn to recognize his name) - to morph from the insanity of the seemingly endless campaign, to the need to seriously address the myriad issues that will immediately demand his best nerves and skill.
Somewhere in the morass of stuff I have read today I ran across a seemingly serious and sobering piece about the new president's need to quickly decide how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions. If the report is credible (seems to have been written by a woman journalist who is filled with remorse for not reporting on the lead up to our Iraq invasion with greater skepticism), a truly bipartisan group has been assessing the news from Iran in preparation for providing the new president with the best intelligence possible.
And their devout wish is to offer more options than merely bomb or talk until Iran has nuclear weapons.
So, come what may, I am ready - along with the rest of the nation and the world (most think our election system is truly round the bend) to hang up the madness that has consumed perhaps $2B and inordinate energy of the nation's emotional storehouse, and give our best support to whomever must bear this burden for the next four years.
Tension
I have always known that I have an addictive personality - if that means when I happen on something that cheers me up, I tend to stick with it and am loathe to abandon it.
I flirted with alcoholism as a young man - if alcoholism can be defined as drinking so that it interferes with your life, work, relationships. But unlike the classic definitions, once I figured out I was in trouble and wanted to get out of trouble, I stopped drinking without apparent problem. (I do know many who do this become what are known as "dry alcoholics," who no longer drink alcohol but continue to exhibit the life-defeating behavior they practiced while they drank).
Like most relatively well-functioning middle-class, late age men, I have a fear of addiction.
I never tried hard drugs. Smoked marijuana twice, never felt much affect and - having given up smoking some years earlier - had no interest in smoking anything again.
For most of my life I have experienced weariness most days - especially in the afternoon - which sometimes seriously affected my life. As a parish priest I actually fell asleep a couple of times when a parishioner was pouring his or her heart out to me. Even more serious, twice I fell asleep at the wheel, drove off the road and hit something. Miraculous that I didn't kill myself or anyone else.
Two years ago I feel asleep in my pickup on a dirt road in remote Vermont and hit a 200 year old oak tree. Thanks to an air bag and the sturdiness of oak, both of us survived.
And I finally faced that I needed to do something. That was helped by Vermont saying they wouldn't let me drive until I checked it out.
Turns out I have narcolepsy, likely had it all my life. Not the most serious case, but bad enough to make driving hazardous. And it turns out there is a drug that works for many like me. "If it works for you," the neurologist said, "you won't notice anything, except you won't nod off as you have for your while life."
Here's my dirty little secret: it works. Not only that, it cheers me up. Or at least cuts into my chronic anxiety and depression.
The handful of times I have forgotten to take it in the morning, along about midday I begin to feel anxious and very weary, as if I couldn't hold my head up. I wondered what was up; then remembered I hadn't taken my little white pill.
I guess you could say I am addicted. I need that pill.
Maybe I should double the dose until the election is decided.
I flirted with alcoholism as a young man - if alcoholism can be defined as drinking so that it interferes with your life, work, relationships. But unlike the classic definitions, once I figured out I was in trouble and wanted to get out of trouble, I stopped drinking without apparent problem. (I do know many who do this become what are known as "dry alcoholics," who no longer drink alcohol but continue to exhibit the life-defeating behavior they practiced while they drank).
Like most relatively well-functioning middle-class, late age men, I have a fear of addiction.
I never tried hard drugs. Smoked marijuana twice, never felt much affect and - having given up smoking some years earlier - had no interest in smoking anything again.
For most of my life I have experienced weariness most days - especially in the afternoon - which sometimes seriously affected my life. As a parish priest I actually fell asleep a couple of times when a parishioner was pouring his or her heart out to me. Even more serious, twice I fell asleep at the wheel, drove off the road and hit something. Miraculous that I didn't kill myself or anyone else.
Two years ago I feel asleep in my pickup on a dirt road in remote Vermont and hit a 200 year old oak tree. Thanks to an air bag and the sturdiness of oak, both of us survived.
And I finally faced that I needed to do something. That was helped by Vermont saying they wouldn't let me drive until I checked it out.
Turns out I have narcolepsy, likely had it all my life. Not the most serious case, but bad enough to make driving hazardous. And it turns out there is a drug that works for many like me. "If it works for you," the neurologist said, "you won't notice anything, except you won't nod off as you have for your while life."
Here's my dirty little secret: it works. Not only that, it cheers me up. Or at least cuts into my chronic anxiety and depression.
The handful of times I have forgotten to take it in the morning, along about midday I begin to feel anxious and very weary, as if I couldn't hold my head up. I wondered what was up; then remembered I hadn't taken my little white pill.
I guess you could say I am addicted. I need that pill.
Maybe I should double the dose until the election is decided.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Password
I have been blogging here for several years now (I just read in Wired that blogging is so passe, so old world verbal that we all ought to cancel and move to video) and just now had the experience of being told my password will no longer provide access for me to make entries.
I have had this happen before. It resulted in my abandoning my old blog and making a new one. Since about one person a month takes a look at this, it's not likely to bring the world to a halt.
But it puts me in a foul humor.
So I can understand how lots of people are feeling - even many who are not admirers of the past eight years under Bush - at the prospect of real change.
That has been Obama's cry, so much s that even old John McCain took it on as his when nothing else seemed to be working.
Passwords - the information, mostly subliminal - we carry around inside us, unaware, which provides us access to the endless portals through which we pass in the course of a normal day.
Until the password suddenly no longer works.
I have been an enthusiastic supporter of Obama's candidacy for more than a year, and remain so. But i have no illusions about the changes that are ahead.
Imagine what it must be like for those who first initiated those subtle passwords (I was going to write eight years ago, but really we should go back to Reagan's years) - free markets, entrepreneur, unrivaled power, sole super power - that now must be trashed and replaced by ????
Blogger - once I confessed and reaffirmed my fealty - gave me back my place in their kingdom.
What lies ahead - for all of us - may be trickier.
I have had this happen before. It resulted in my abandoning my old blog and making a new one. Since about one person a month takes a look at this, it's not likely to bring the world to a halt.
But it puts me in a foul humor.
So I can understand how lots of people are feeling - even many who are not admirers of the past eight years under Bush - at the prospect of real change.
That has been Obama's cry, so much s that even old John McCain took it on as his when nothing else seemed to be working.
Passwords - the information, mostly subliminal - we carry around inside us, unaware, which provides us access to the endless portals through which we pass in the course of a normal day.
Until the password suddenly no longer works.
I have been an enthusiastic supporter of Obama's candidacy for more than a year, and remain so. But i have no illusions about the changes that are ahead.
Imagine what it must be like for those who first initiated those subtle passwords (I was going to write eight years ago, but really we should go back to Reagan's years) - free markets, entrepreneur, unrivaled power, sole super power - that now must be trashed and replaced by ????
Blogger - once I confessed and reaffirmed my fealty - gave me back my place in their kingdom.
What lies ahead - for all of us - may be trickier.
