Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Milton's Paradise Lost - how did things go so terribly wrong?
Notes on Milton’s Paradise Lost and Found.
We are now 401 years after Milton’s birth in 1608. For perspective, note that Shakespeare lived approximately 1564-1616. Eleven volume series of all Milton’s works is come out, edited by Thomas Corns and Gordon Campbell
Paradise Lost, is a dilation on a moment in Genesis, written by a blind man who had fallen into “evil days”, with respectable people saying awful things about him, and calling for his arrest.
He names Satan’s palace Pandemonium – “all the demons”.
In his defense of free speech published earlier –“Areopagitica” – the title alludes to an Attic assembly or court – he compares Truth to the broken body of Osiris. We can never know Truth until the Messiah comes; therefore we must all search in every way we can, each for himself. Compare this to the Arthurian epic Search for the Holy Grail. Censorship can play no role in the Search for Truth.
Milton’s unrelenting optimism runs through all of his writing, even as he faced personal conflict and limns the tragedy of The Fall. With an explosive imagination, and cool statecraft, he marches with martial vigor into the war with Evil, hunting for the jewel in the head of the ugliest toad, and prefiguring the Nietzschean reduction “That which fails to kill me, makes me stronger”. Milton says “That which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.” This, during a time of terrifying anarchy, the world that also produced Hobbes’ “Leviathan”.
Milton was Unitarian. Did not see the Son of God as the same as God or part of a Trinity. In Paradise Lost, he places the Son at the Creation, as a Son, a competitor of Satan.
The question he poses in Paradise Lost – how did things go so wrong – starts back to the moment that Adam and Eve (“our first parents”) ate the apple and brought “death into the world, all our woe”. Note the way he bring us all in – “our” parents, “our” woe. Then he steps back before Adam and Eve, in the tale within the tale, to the narrative of Lucifer who grows jealous of the promotion of God’s Son to the position of Messiah. Lucifer organizes a revolt, loses, and is “hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky With hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition”. Cast into Hell with his many followers.
In Milton’s view, God creates earth with its “images” of Himself, to make up for the angelic absence. Then Satan, hearing of the new toy, determines to take it by cunning for himself and his demon horde. The theme of the plotting failed revolutionaries echoes the bitter irony of Milton’s role as apologist for the Puritans, and his support for the regicide. Place and power is what is “lost” in the personal Paradise.
Satan seems charismatic as a leader of minions, although a tortured soul, slinking away in shame after seducing Eve. Milton’s God is dull, fixed, and sends Gabriel to do his fighting. Gabriel of course, does it badly, and fails to protect Eve and the earth from the demon snare. Gabriel does some trash-talking, threatening Satan, who in turn calls him a “limitary Cherub”. Perhaps our next Milton hankering to explore an unforgivable tragedy should write the epic of Gabriel.
Milton shows great compassion for mankind. Adam and Eve are holding hands in the garden basking in love when we first meet them, and we leave them exiled to a fallen world, again holding hands together. Milton says he set out to justify the ways of God to men, but he ends up defending human dignity to God. The freedom to fail – here Milton rejects mainstream Puritanism (moving directly to the center of Unitarianism) with its predestination.
My mother once listened rather openly to a socio-biological narrative of how individual decision-making is reducible to chemistry. Animal instinct and knee-jerk reactions are locked into the molecular structures of ganglia and brain capacity. The uber-train of “choice” actually runs on a double-helix rail. Once she realized the story led to a kind of determinism, however morphological, she reacted viscerally, strongly rejecting any suggestion that human beings do not have unfettered free choice. When I suggested that her response was a possible predisposition rising from her Miltonian Christianity, not to mention its consistency with her chemistry, she did not see the ironic humor. The idea of choice playing a necessary role in salvation, the idea that choice asserts itself, remains fixed in certain minds, even long after other beliefs have shifted.
This concept of individual freedom is also at the heart of the relationship between Adam and Eve. Adam alone was warned about Satan, and sought to husband Eve by having her near. His very act of trying to protect her – and it is fair to observe she never understood From What? – moved her to seek her own solitude. He will not relent and let her go off by herself until she argues that she must have freedom, even at the risk of harm: “What is faith, love, virtue unassayed?”
Adam praises her logic. They both recognize that she is right about the importance of being exposed to the risks of being wrong. Once alone, Eve is immediately tricked by the snake, and is condemned to die. Adam then chooses to take his bite of the forbidden fruit and fall with her. He would rather die with her than live alone: “To lose thee were to lose myself.”
Milton’s depiction of the Son of God at the Creation, is one of the first attempts to create a coherency between the Hebrew Bible with the New Testament. And we see the nature of evil – a despondent Devil having no hope of a happy home, devoting himself to destroying the lives of others.
Milton died still revising Paradise Lost in 1674. Hounded by calumny and accusation to the end, and facing poverty, the plague, intellectual isolation, loneliness, and his own demons. But he left us with the greatest work of epic verse in the English tongue. And it rings with hope and imagination.
Things go terribly wrong. It's not just YOU, your life. The planet. The universe. The "broken-ness" of the Osiris body. The lack of Judgment or Justice. So... celebrate! There is not a moment to lose!
We are now 401 years after Milton’s birth in 1608. For perspective, note that Shakespeare lived approximately 1564-1616. Eleven volume series of all Milton’s works is come out, edited by Thomas Corns and Gordon Campbell
Paradise Lost, is a dilation on a moment in Genesis, written by a blind man who had fallen into “evil days”, with respectable people saying awful things about him, and calling for his arrest.
He names Satan’s palace Pandemonium – “all the demons”.
In his defense of free speech published earlier –“Areopagitica” – the title alludes to an Attic assembly or court – he compares Truth to the broken body of Osiris. We can never know Truth until the Messiah comes; therefore we must all search in every way we can, each for himself. Compare this to the Arthurian epic Search for the Holy Grail. Censorship can play no role in the Search for Truth.
Milton’s unrelenting optimism runs through all of his writing, even as he faced personal conflict and limns the tragedy of The Fall. With an explosive imagination, and cool statecraft, he marches with martial vigor into the war with Evil, hunting for the jewel in the head of the ugliest toad, and prefiguring the Nietzschean reduction “That which fails to kill me, makes me stronger”. Milton says “That which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.” This, during a time of terrifying anarchy, the world that also produced Hobbes’ “Leviathan”.
Milton was Unitarian. Did not see the Son of God as the same as God or part of a Trinity. In Paradise Lost, he places the Son at the Creation, as a Son, a competitor of Satan.
The question he poses in Paradise Lost – how did things go so wrong – starts back to the moment that Adam and Eve (“our first parents”) ate the apple and brought “death into the world, all our woe”. Note the way he bring us all in – “our” parents, “our” woe. Then he steps back before Adam and Eve, in the tale within the tale, to the narrative of Lucifer who grows jealous of the promotion of God’s Son to the position of Messiah. Lucifer organizes a revolt, loses, and is “hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky With hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition”. Cast into Hell with his many followers.
In Milton’s view, God creates earth with its “images” of Himself, to make up for the angelic absence. Then Satan, hearing of the new toy, determines to take it by cunning for himself and his demon horde. The theme of the plotting failed revolutionaries echoes the bitter irony of Milton’s role as apologist for the Puritans, and his support for the regicide. Place and power is what is “lost” in the personal Paradise.
Satan seems charismatic as a leader of minions, although a tortured soul, slinking away in shame after seducing Eve. Milton’s God is dull, fixed, and sends Gabriel to do his fighting. Gabriel of course, does it badly, and fails to protect Eve and the earth from the demon snare. Gabriel does some trash-talking, threatening Satan, who in turn calls him a “limitary Cherub”. Perhaps our next Milton hankering to explore an unforgivable tragedy should write the epic of Gabriel.
Milton shows great compassion for mankind. Adam and Eve are holding hands in the garden basking in love when we first meet them, and we leave them exiled to a fallen world, again holding hands together. Milton says he set out to justify the ways of God to men, but he ends up defending human dignity to God. The freedom to fail – here Milton rejects mainstream Puritanism (moving directly to the center of Unitarianism) with its predestination.
My mother once listened rather openly to a socio-biological narrative of how individual decision-making is reducible to chemistry. Animal instinct and knee-jerk reactions are locked into the molecular structures of ganglia and brain capacity. The uber-train of “choice” actually runs on a double-helix rail. Once she realized the story led to a kind of determinism, however morphological, she reacted viscerally, strongly rejecting any suggestion that human beings do not have unfettered free choice. When I suggested that her response was a possible predisposition rising from her Miltonian Christianity, not to mention its consistency with her chemistry, she did not see the ironic humor. The idea of choice playing a necessary role in salvation, the idea that choice asserts itself, remains fixed in certain minds, even long after other beliefs have shifted.
This concept of individual freedom is also at the heart of the relationship between Adam and Eve. Adam alone was warned about Satan, and sought to husband Eve by having her near. His very act of trying to protect her – and it is fair to observe she never understood From What? – moved her to seek her own solitude. He will not relent and let her go off by herself until she argues that she must have freedom, even at the risk of harm: “What is faith, love, virtue unassayed?”
Adam praises her logic. They both recognize that she is right about the importance of being exposed to the risks of being wrong. Once alone, Eve is immediately tricked by the snake, and is condemned to die. Adam then chooses to take his bite of the forbidden fruit and fall with her. He would rather die with her than live alone: “To lose thee were to lose myself.”
Milton’s depiction of the Son of God at the Creation, is one of the first attempts to create a coherency between the Hebrew Bible with the New Testament. And we see the nature of evil – a despondent Devil having no hope of a happy home, devoting himself to destroying the lives of others.
Milton died still revising Paradise Lost in 1674. Hounded by calumny and accusation to the end, and facing poverty, the plague, intellectual isolation, loneliness, and his own demons. But he left us with the greatest work of epic verse in the English tongue. And it rings with hope and imagination.
Things go terribly wrong. It's not just YOU, your life. The planet. The universe. The "broken-ness" of the Osiris body. The lack of Judgment or Justice. So... celebrate! There is not a moment to lose!
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Actually, there IS proof gods do not exist (or even care)
The Proof that God is not a Jew/Christian/Moslem. For all People of The Book, it is the book which is worshiped. Holy Writ and Scripture is memorized, it is revered. Its decrees are applied in adjudications. And above all, its recitations are taken as Truths, and its “history” as History. Therefore, if the Scripture falls upon the sword of fact, it takes its revenant “religion” with it.
We are now in a position to examine the phenomenology of Scripture. The archeological, linguistic, and physical/chemical evidence is “in”. We are no longer in the realm of speculation or blind faith.
The Pentateuch-Torah/Bible/Quran can be traced back. Each of them is a compilation, and we find earlier traces in earlier languages and in civilizations which were strangers to Jehovah / Jahweh / God or Allah.
Judaic Texts. Entire passages of the Pentateuch are lifted from worshippers of Egyptian and Sumerian gods. The “Bible” as commandments, the Tribes as “chosen”, a jealous God punishing sins with Flood, Famine and Plague, the exact order of Creation, a forefather and mother created with mud and rib in a garden, fratricide, long begattings, a heroic figure found as a babe in a reed basket by a princess – all of these are traceable back to hieroglyphic and cuneiform stories only recently translated, but flourishing in Egypt and Sumer, and written well before there were Jews in Israel. Abraham, by the language of the text, was no monotheist, but worshipped a plurality–as everyone did in the absence of any better explanation for the phenomenon of existence–of gods, goddesses, angels, demons, ancestors, and “evil spirits”.
Jews developed a writing system and a devotional literature which has no equal for longevity. However, it is not continuous, was not in the same language, and it is not Mosaic. Priests began compiling tribal lore, canons, and inspirational speeches and songs. They did not invent the concept of “history” – they used stories to encourage and enfranchise the community and its leaders in a contested and mysterious world. There is no corroborative physical evidence of “twelve tribes”, an Ark of the Covenant, an Egyptian enslavement, a 40 year trek in the Sinai, commandments written by God on stone, or even a single “significant” King with a palace – like David or Solomon. No 800 concubines. No great Temple of gold altars. These were traders and shepherds telling shepherd stories shared with people from India to Africa.
Christian Gospels. We do not have a single “original” Gospel. The explanation for how the words of Jesus were stenographically recorded by a group of fishermen is not provided. Paul of Tarsus is a literature historical figure who never met Jesus and lived some 200 years after the period of time he believed the Christic Messiah was born. He clearly believed Jesus was the Messiah longed for since time immemorial. He clearly believed that Jesus’ return was imminent. That anticipation was the wheel and impetus of his teaching, and its falsity is the worm in the apple of his faith.
The Council of Nicea, not one of whose members is named, consolidated the compilation of “saint” stories circulating throughout the region into what is for Christians a New Testament. The Council omits as “Apocrypha” the plethora of teachings, often under discipled traditions (such as Thomas and Judas, and even Mary Magdalene) which were deemed heretical, and attempts to eradicate them. Not only did they fail to eradicate certain works, we find more “heresies” preserved than “Gospels”. Curiously, they failed to delete Arianism and Unitarianism from the Bible itself – apparently the anonymous scholars were more concerned about Constantine’s pleasure than religious consistency.
The Quoran. The modern “versions” are embarassingly abundant in spite of efforts to destroy “errant” work. The Quoran is remarkably short and is in two parts. The first part is basically a re-telling of the Judaic Pentateuch with the Torah clearly outlined, and updated with Christian stories directly taken from the pre-Nicinean Gospels. All of this material is drawn from Chaldean Christian teaching texts used for children. It is not in “Arabic” – the Arabs did not have a written language during Mohammad’s day. Children like Mohammad’s youngest wife, could not have taken dictation in Arabic.
The second part of the Quoran is the lore associated with the Prophet Mohammed, PBUH, a historical figure. He is jealously messianic, and tries to bring peace to warring people, essentially fulfilling Paul’s hopes from a few centuries earlier. For each battle described, each event in the life of this warrior, there are many versions.
The provenance of the Quoran is remarkably similar to the other Scriptures; it was compiled centuries after the facts purported to be narrated, and first appears in another language. The earliest Quoranic stories were not first written in Arabic because (1) Arabic was not a written language, and (2) Mohammad and all of his followers and wives were illiterate.
The Quoran makes much of its claims for a divine origin: The arc-angel Gabriel apparently “dictated” the book to Mohammad. All of Mohammad’s companions were warriors with no training or tradition of memorization or accurate recitation. None were scholars or educators or students, although their sincerity and devotion is without question. The fact that the battle lore portion of the Quoran does not appear until centuries after the death of all of the members of this peerage, is a sufficient proof of its secular provenance.
The anomaly of an apparently minor god, an arc-angel, dictating stories of Mohammad’s victories to Mohammad, is not compatible with monotheism. Nor is the requirement of an annual Pilgrimage to the Black Stone of Kaaba / Al-hajar Al-aswad. The structure was for centuries a place of worship by pagans with many dieties and pagan mysteries. The name is Jewish -- Qabbalah - the Tree of Life - Creation.
The shape of the famous cornerstone and the black cube of the building is identified throughout the region with female worship, symbolized with the crescent moon of the Female Diety. The Hajj traditions –purification, circling the stone, proclamation, kissing– are female rites which pre-date monotheism.
The Meccan guards of the “cornerstone” will not permit it to be examined scientifically, which is curious since such examination no longer requires removal.
The Cave Paintings and Archeology in Israel / Iraq. Other than the biographical lore about Mohammad, the Quoranic themes are drawn from the Bible, and the Bible themes are drawn from Egyptian and Sumerian/Gilgamesh literary traditions preserved in papyrus, stone and clay. But the rise of Religion precedes the appearance of Jehovah. Theologians have yet to explain why it is important to “worship god”, or proclaim “There is only One”, when in fact, most human history has been lived without this form of Religion widely practiced today.
In the floors, walls, and ceilings of the caves of Lascaux (20,000 - 12,000 bc) and Chauvet (30,000 - 15,000 bc), there is plenty of evidence of worship, of sanctification, of prayer. But there is no indication of an Old Testament, Mosaic, or Islamic God. In fact there is no “god” figure at all – there are few “human” figures, none appear dominating. Most of the figures and figurines are gravid females.
__________________
Personal Note.
Some say that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. Historically, the question had practical importance – in matters of risk, it seems practical to take out “insurance” – consult the entrails or listen to an oracle.
Today, however, the existence of God is pure speculation. “Pure” in the sense of complete. We believe in stone and paint. There are tables of Elements. The “it” is chemistry and the wonders of physiology.
Of course, Religion remains. We are believers. Not for Jehovah/God/ Allah/ Spirit, but as a result of a thought-feeling that wants to listen and proclaim. I am grateful for existence and I pray every minute of the day. My genes perform a daily Hajj. I bow humbly to wonderful mysteries, links, images.
However, the images, graven or otherwise, never answer. Never. Ever. The message of most of our better angels and prophets seems to be that we are ourselves invested with a spark of divinity. THAT can be invoked.
As for a belief in a hereafter, I have none. There is earth, water, fire and air. There is Life struggling to reproduce itself. There is a visible interest in my inevitable and imminent death taken by condors, buzzards, meat flies, coyotes, and worms. There is no God – I do not feel the Love from above. Well, I did mention condors.
Unfortunately, the situation is even worse. Not content with merely NOT HAVING GOD/ALLAH, I have had to deal with Anger issues. Anger with God – as in, I really despise the son-of-a-#@%$$$. The colossal waste of time, the unforgivable disappearing act. To get over the anger, I finally had to just insist that I look forward to an Eternity in Hell. Ah, so much better...!
I join gently with C.S. Lewis, and with millions of Jack-Mormons, Apostate Catholics, and Loving Moslems to profess my aversion to any Heaven filled with hypocrites who lived only for selfish reasons. Let me never be trapped in any Heaven surrounded by those who were lured to paradise by tugs at their greed and after-life lusts! And that tugger? That “thing” which is most jealous, most vengeful, most damned of all! Give me the real Grace which will come from being as far away from such mind-sucking as is possible!
We are now in a position to examine the phenomenology of Scripture. The archeological, linguistic, and physical/chemical evidence is “in”. We are no longer in the realm of speculation or blind faith.
The Pentateuch-Torah/Bible/Quran can be traced back. Each of them is a compilation, and we find earlier traces in earlier languages and in civilizations which were strangers to Jehovah / Jahweh / God or Allah.
Judaic Texts. Entire passages of the Pentateuch are lifted from worshippers of Egyptian and Sumerian gods. The “Bible” as commandments, the Tribes as “chosen”, a jealous God punishing sins with Flood, Famine and Plague, the exact order of Creation, a forefather and mother created with mud and rib in a garden, fratricide, long begattings, a heroic figure found as a babe in a reed basket by a princess – all of these are traceable back to hieroglyphic and cuneiform stories only recently translated, but flourishing in Egypt and Sumer, and written well before there were Jews in Israel. Abraham, by the language of the text, was no monotheist, but worshipped a plurality–as everyone did in the absence of any better explanation for the phenomenon of existence–of gods, goddesses, angels, demons, ancestors, and “evil spirits”.
Jews developed a writing system and a devotional literature which has no equal for longevity. However, it is not continuous, was not in the same language, and it is not Mosaic. Priests began compiling tribal lore, canons, and inspirational speeches and songs. They did not invent the concept of “history” – they used stories to encourage and enfranchise the community and its leaders in a contested and mysterious world. There is no corroborative physical evidence of “twelve tribes”, an Ark of the Covenant, an Egyptian enslavement, a 40 year trek in the Sinai, commandments written by God on stone, or even a single “significant” King with a palace – like David or Solomon. No 800 concubines. No great Temple of gold altars. These were traders and shepherds telling shepherd stories shared with people from India to Africa.
Christian Gospels. We do not have a single “original” Gospel. The explanation for how the words of Jesus were stenographically recorded by a group of fishermen is not provided. Paul of Tarsus is a literature historical figure who never met Jesus and lived some 200 years after the period of time he believed the Christic Messiah was born. He clearly believed Jesus was the Messiah longed for since time immemorial. He clearly believed that Jesus’ return was imminent. That anticipation was the wheel and impetus of his teaching, and its falsity is the worm in the apple of his faith.
The Council of Nicea, not one of whose members is named, consolidated the compilation of “saint” stories circulating throughout the region into what is for Christians a New Testament. The Council omits as “Apocrypha” the plethora of teachings, often under discipled traditions (such as Thomas and Judas, and even Mary Magdalene) which were deemed heretical, and attempts to eradicate them. Not only did they fail to eradicate certain works, we find more “heresies” preserved than “Gospels”. Curiously, they failed to delete Arianism and Unitarianism from the Bible itself – apparently the anonymous scholars were more concerned about Constantine’s pleasure than religious consistency.
The Quoran. The modern “versions” are embarassingly abundant in spite of efforts to destroy “errant” work. The Quoran is remarkably short and is in two parts. The first part is basically a re-telling of the Judaic Pentateuch with the Torah clearly outlined, and updated with Christian stories directly taken from the pre-Nicinean Gospels. All of this material is drawn from Chaldean Christian teaching texts used for children. It is not in “Arabic” – the Arabs did not have a written language during Mohammad’s day. Children like Mohammad’s youngest wife, could not have taken dictation in Arabic.
The second part of the Quoran is the lore associated with the Prophet Mohammed, PBUH, a historical figure. He is jealously messianic, and tries to bring peace to warring people, essentially fulfilling Paul’s hopes from a few centuries earlier. For each battle described, each event in the life of this warrior, there are many versions.
The provenance of the Quoran is remarkably similar to the other Scriptures; it was compiled centuries after the facts purported to be narrated, and first appears in another language. The earliest Quoranic stories were not first written in Arabic because (1) Arabic was not a written language, and (2) Mohammad and all of his followers and wives were illiterate.
The Quoran makes much of its claims for a divine origin: The arc-angel Gabriel apparently “dictated” the book to Mohammad. All of Mohammad’s companions were warriors with no training or tradition of memorization or accurate recitation. None were scholars or educators or students, although their sincerity and devotion is without question. The fact that the battle lore portion of the Quoran does not appear until centuries after the death of all of the members of this peerage, is a sufficient proof of its secular provenance.
The anomaly of an apparently minor god, an arc-angel, dictating stories of Mohammad’s victories to Mohammad, is not compatible with monotheism. Nor is the requirement of an annual Pilgrimage to the Black Stone of Kaaba / Al-hajar Al-aswad. The structure was for centuries a place of worship by pagans with many dieties and pagan mysteries. The name is Jewish -- Qabbalah - the Tree of Life - Creation.
The shape of the famous cornerstone and the black cube of the building is identified throughout the region with female worship, symbolized with the crescent moon of the Female Diety. The Hajj traditions –purification, circling the stone, proclamation, kissing– are female rites which pre-date monotheism.
The Meccan guards of the “cornerstone” will not permit it to be examined scientifically, which is curious since such examination no longer requires removal.
The Cave Paintings and Archeology in Israel / Iraq. Other than the biographical lore about Mohammad, the Quoranic themes are drawn from the Bible, and the Bible themes are drawn from Egyptian and Sumerian/Gilgamesh literary traditions preserved in papyrus, stone and clay. But the rise of Religion precedes the appearance of Jehovah. Theologians have yet to explain why it is important to “worship god”, or proclaim “There is only One”, when in fact, most human history has been lived without this form of Religion widely practiced today.
In the floors, walls, and ceilings of the caves of Lascaux (20,000 - 12,000 bc) and Chauvet (30,000 - 15,000 bc), there is plenty of evidence of worship, of sanctification, of prayer. But there is no indication of an Old Testament, Mosaic, or Islamic God. In fact there is no “god” figure at all – there are few “human” figures, none appear dominating. Most of the figures and figurines are gravid females.
__________________
Personal Note.
Some say that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. Historically, the question had practical importance – in matters of risk, it seems practical to take out “insurance” – consult the entrails or listen to an oracle.
Today, however, the existence of God is pure speculation. “Pure” in the sense of complete. We believe in stone and paint. There are tables of Elements. The “it” is chemistry and the wonders of physiology.
Of course, Religion remains. We are believers. Not for Jehovah/God/ Allah/ Spirit, but as a result of a thought-feeling that wants to listen and proclaim. I am grateful for existence and I pray every minute of the day. My genes perform a daily Hajj. I bow humbly to wonderful mysteries, links, images.
However, the images, graven or otherwise, never answer. Never. Ever. The message of most of our better angels and prophets seems to be that we are ourselves invested with a spark of divinity. THAT can be invoked.
As for a belief in a hereafter, I have none. There is earth, water, fire and air. There is Life struggling to reproduce itself. There is a visible interest in my inevitable and imminent death taken by condors, buzzards, meat flies, coyotes, and worms. There is no God – I do not feel the Love from above. Well, I did mention condors.
Unfortunately, the situation is even worse. Not content with merely NOT HAVING GOD/ALLAH, I have had to deal with Anger issues. Anger with God – as in, I really despise the son-of-a-#@%$$$. The colossal waste of time, the unforgivable disappearing act. To get over the anger, I finally had to just insist that I look forward to an Eternity in Hell. Ah, so much better...!
I join gently with C.S. Lewis, and with millions of Jack-Mormons, Apostate Catholics, and Loving Moslems to profess my aversion to any Heaven filled with hypocrites who lived only for selfish reasons. Let me never be trapped in any Heaven surrounded by those who were lured to paradise by tugs at their greed and after-life lusts! And that tugger? That “thing” which is most jealous, most vengeful, most damned of all! Give me the real Grace which will come from being as far away from such mind-sucking as is possible!
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Western Bluebirds in Orange County
As I was emerging from one of my morning Hesychasms, I heard a bird call that I believe is a Western Bluebird: Churr churr chuck cheer lee! I have had only one sighting....
After an extemely stressful week, and feeling the brush of those "other" wings not worn by a small thrush, the soft foreshadowings signaled by two traffic accidents, elevated cholesterol markers, confirmed high blood pressure, and the reported sudden deaths of several famous 58 year olds (Journalist Russert, Pastor Vandyken), I was overcome with gratitude that the decades of pain would certainly end.
After an extemely stressful week, and feeling the brush of those "other" wings not worn by a small thrush, the soft foreshadowings signaled by two traffic accidents, elevated cholesterol markers, confirmed high blood pressure, and the reported sudden deaths of several famous 58 year olds (Journalist Russert, Pastor Vandyken), I was overcome with gratitude that the decades of pain would certainly end.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Death in the Family, and the living Word undone
In the troubling history of our troubled peoples, many of the dead would return to speak to the living. We were not wanting for mediums and priests to describe the presciptions of the dead for our comforts and fears.
For whatever reason, with the advent of science the heretofore voluble dead fell silent; none speak. The faith-based mediums replaced by befuddling media. As if by strange coincidence, as the means of recording and verifying became available, all messages and voices across the barrier of death became unavailable.
Death now seals the lips of the dead. One suspects that this has always been the case. Yet there is the ancient residue left by tradition. And we long to hear what the dead have to say, perhaps with far more patience than we have for the words of the living.
For whatever reason, with the advent of science the heretofore voluble dead fell silent; none speak. The faith-based mediums replaced by befuddling media. As if by strange coincidence, as the means of recording and verifying became available, all messages and voices across the barrier of death became unavailable.
Death now seals the lips of the dead. One suspects that this has always been the case. Yet there is the ancient residue left by tradition. And we long to hear what the dead have to say, perhaps with far more patience than we have for the words of the living.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Rumination and the "unlived life" a la Philip Roth
Not boasting, but "worrying" does not come naturally to me. And the related activities, such as obsessing (chafing, concern about picking the best of the lot, and all the infatuation or addictive behaviors) are really not my strong suit. First of all I am entirely too lazy to go to such efforts -- addicts are extraordinarily committed to their habit, and I have neither habits nor commitments to concerns which orbit around a cognizable Self. There is not enough "there" there. Nothing inside me is wringing its hands. Even when I weep and pray, it is vague and general. More lamentation than grief. More anger than petition.
But back to worrying: Before I married into the Burton family, the word "Pfaffing" was not in my vocabulary. Not for lack of time, but for lack of ability, I spend little time making decisions. In fact, I suspect that a decision-making process that tries to evaluate each fact may be so hag-ridden by detail that it distorts the priorities which facts have, the hierarchical architecture. Anyway, for me, intense immersion in the myriad of facts impedes observation. I try to remove obstacles and observe the Facts as keenly as possible. And then compare alternatives, make a selection, and move on. And the last step is enhanced by a native ability to forget -- as if the "fog of war" is not merely the excuse for confusion, but is also a redemptive cover, a chance for moments of repose in what would otherwise be an unbroken continuum of consciousness.
Here is where I was led to a new "window" into Consciousness by Philip Roth. I am now embarassed to admit, I had always avoided reading his work, right up until I actually read it. In my quick exposures to the "Nathan Zuckerman" character which lies at the center of his oeuvre, I just could not connect. The character is apparently, or claiming to be, in a struggle to define the Self. This is an agonist protagonist, engaged in internal dialogue, the watermark of meaningless. There is no "care" there. Writers who accomplish nothing but writing, and then they write autobiographies, or novels that are thinly-veiled Self-servers. That type screams "So What", to an ear I do not even have.
However, Philip Roth is now past the Zuckerman trilogy {THE GHOST WRITER (1979) depicted a 23 year old writer; cf. GOODBYE COLUMBUS, PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT}- and writing into his 5th decade -- Roth continues work in or on his imagination. And that connects with me. Roth's 2006 EVERYMAN, and his latest, EXIT GHOST, are still self in a struggle to define itself, but now it is opened to the landscape of death. It is not merely the narrative of Self.
Now the dimension of RUMINATION is opened up. Although it is still related to neurotic "worrying" and ego-display, the ruminating imagination has wings which lift it above the mud-puddle of infatuation. True, the life he describes is still the UNLIVED life. But it is the life of imagination, and in many ways MORE living than life lived without consciousness of itself.
Now I say this, almost with dismay, that Philip Roth is clearly in The Pantheon. No longer merely brilliant and notorious, with spotty appearances, unfurling in clever flashes the red cape in front of our thick bull of life, he has now graced us with Aging and the immensity and intimacy of Death. Zuckerman reenters from a retreat in the Berkshires, getting stability and distance from "everything I'd determined I no longer had use for" as a 73 year old who is no longer certain of his literary powers.
At the end of life, we observe the retraction of our powers by means of the retracting organs -- the forgetting brain behind eyes dimmed. This time, the description of a man becoming sexually fixated with a young woman rises above mere unseemliness. The grizzled introspection of Roth, as he describes an impotent elder becoming fixated by the physical charms of a much younger woman, is a kind of message to us, that is clearly more than "being" about himself. He is "reporting" from the longevity Front. Giving us notice, that "life" urges, continue. We age, we forget, but the last thing to fade is our horny urge. It outlasts our anatomy -- this is an incontinent Zuckerman, a survivor of prostate cancer and surgery. Zuckerman feels that he is UNABLE to pursue a relationship, and yet, he proceeds to do so, IN HIS IMAGINATION.
But back to worrying: Before I married into the Burton family, the word "Pfaffing" was not in my vocabulary. Not for lack of time, but for lack of ability, I spend little time making decisions. In fact, I suspect that a decision-making process that tries to evaluate each fact may be so hag-ridden by detail that it distorts the priorities which facts have, the hierarchical architecture. Anyway, for me, intense immersion in the myriad of facts impedes observation. I try to remove obstacles and observe the Facts as keenly as possible. And then compare alternatives, make a selection, and move on. And the last step is enhanced by a native ability to forget -- as if the "fog of war" is not merely the excuse for confusion, but is also a redemptive cover, a chance for moments of repose in what would otherwise be an unbroken continuum of consciousness.
Here is where I was led to a new "window" into Consciousness by Philip Roth. I am now embarassed to admit, I had always avoided reading his work, right up until I actually read it. In my quick exposures to the "Nathan Zuckerman" character which lies at the center of his oeuvre, I just could not connect. The character is apparently, or claiming to be, in a struggle to define the Self. This is an agonist protagonist, engaged in internal dialogue, the watermark of meaningless. There is no "care" there. Writers who accomplish nothing but writing, and then they write autobiographies, or novels that are thinly-veiled Self-servers. That type screams "So What", to an ear I do not even have.
However, Philip Roth is now past the Zuckerman trilogy {THE GHOST WRITER (1979) depicted a 23 year old writer; cf. GOODBYE COLUMBUS, PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT}- and writing into his 5th decade -- Roth continues work in or on his imagination. And that connects with me. Roth's 2006 EVERYMAN, and his latest, EXIT GHOST, are still self in a struggle to define itself, but now it is opened to the landscape of death. It is not merely the narrative of Self.
Now the dimension of RUMINATION is opened up. Although it is still related to neurotic "worrying" and ego-display, the ruminating imagination has wings which lift it above the mud-puddle of infatuation. True, the life he describes is still the UNLIVED life. But it is the life of imagination, and in many ways MORE living than life lived without consciousness of itself.
Now I say this, almost with dismay, that Philip Roth is clearly in The Pantheon. No longer merely brilliant and notorious, with spotty appearances, unfurling in clever flashes the red cape in front of our thick bull of life, he has now graced us with Aging and the immensity and intimacy of Death. Zuckerman reenters from a retreat in the Berkshires, getting stability and distance from "everything I'd determined I no longer had use for" as a 73 year old who is no longer certain of his literary powers.
At the end of life, we observe the retraction of our powers by means of the retracting organs -- the forgetting brain behind eyes dimmed. This time, the description of a man becoming sexually fixated with a young woman rises above mere unseemliness. The grizzled introspection of Roth, as he describes an impotent elder becoming fixated by the physical charms of a much younger woman, is a kind of message to us, that is clearly more than "being" about himself. He is "reporting" from the longevity Front. Giving us notice, that "life" urges, continue. We age, we forget, but the last thing to fade is our horny urge. It outlasts our anatomy -- this is an incontinent Zuckerman, a survivor of prostate cancer and surgery. Zuckerman feels that he is UNABLE to pursue a relationship, and yet, he proceeds to do so, IN HIS IMAGINATION.
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