“Every American has a responsibility to understand fully the terrible costs of war and the extraordinary sacrifices it requires of those brave men and women who volunteer to defend the rest of us.”
– John Mc Cain
This story pisses me off. I don’t usually watch Nightline because I don’t care for Ted Koppel (and I don’t really like TV) but I will definitiely try to tune it in tonight.
Smartmarriages alerted me to an emerging trend in marriage – straight couples are increasingly opting for the “domestic partner” arrangements that were set up by some states as a marriage substitute for gay couples. The name for these “marraige-lite” ceremonies that are emerging is “commitzvah.” Cute.
As a futurist for family issues, I’m interested because this confirms a longstanding trend toward a solid decline in commitment among couples and represents an emerging trend of growing demand on state and local governments for legally recognized options for lesser domestic commitments.
This also hits my radar as another bad omen for children in general, as studies show that on average childrens’ welfare suffers as their parents’ level of commitment to each other declines. I said on average – I’m sure your/your best friends’/your parents’/your cousin’s divorce/cohabitation/domestic arrangement has had no ill effect on your kids/their kids/you/his kids. But if you’re tracking trends, you’re tracking the aggragate – and for the aggregate demographic of children, this is a bad thing.
I’m not usually one for web multi-media, but this Poverty Tour presentation by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development is compelling. Regardless of your politics, it is informative to put yourself and your lifestyle in perspective. To think about all of the purchasing decisions you don’t have to agonize over, all the thinking you don’t have to do because of the resources you have available to you.
The world is talking about oil, but under the radar the issue of water privitization is becoming more urgent.
This Sojourners story is an early indicator of what will be happening to the poor of the world, safely out of the eye of our TV screens, over the next decade. Water rights bought out from under poor landowners with the price of the water sold back to them at “market rates” they cannot afford. Families flooded out of their homes without compensation by dams built by the water privateers.
I had a friend who worked as a futurist for Enron back in the heady 1990 pre-scandal days. She eventually quit because they wouldn’t listen to her – her horizon was too far sighted for them. But, she told me, Enron was far-sighted enough to see an opportunity to exploit the flaws in California’s electricity deregulation. And they also were far-sighted enough to see the looming opportunity in private water and to start buying water rights like they were going out of style. Just an illustration of the caliber of the water multinational we’ll be dealing with in the future. Who’s to say that Bechtel and Suez are any more ethical than Enron?
We got some bad news today. Olivia has been diagnosed with a mild case of Cerebral Palsy – a birth defect which is relatively common in low birth weight preemies like her. She will require therapy three times a week, but early intervention can yield great benefits for her later in life. Thank God they found it early, but she needs your prayers. Poor kid’s getting a rough start in life.
The bigger consequence of this diagnosis is that it may cost her her future home. Right now a nice African-American couple is in the process of adopting her. They will have a very hard decision once they find out the diagnosis. They have private insurance and don’t have a lot of money (he’s a pastor, she stays home) and their insurance almost certainly will disallow Olivia’s CP as a pre-existing condition. And Olivia is a private adoption, so there is little if any aid from the state available. Four couples have turned her down so far. So they need prayers for strength and wisdom in their discernment. I hope they don’t become the fifth to turn away.
And then Heidi and I need your prayers. We have already expressed to Olivia’s social worker that we will offer to adopt her if this couple doesn’t work out. This diagnosis is a blow to our hopes for Olivia, but not to our resolve that there will not be a sixth couple that says no to her.
The mind desires this,
And grieves for that.
It embraces one thing,
And spurns another.
Now it feels anger,
Now happiness.
In this way you are bound.
But when the mind desires nothing
And grieves for nothing.
When it is without joy or anger
And, grasping nothing,
Turns nothing away…
Then you are free.
-Ashtavakra Gita 8:12
This bit of found poetry gifted to my email inbox reminds me of one of the most useful ideas I got from the conference I attended this last Saturday – that simplicity is the best Christian response to the injustices of the world. Most of us cannot save the world or correct even one systemic injustice, but we can gradually, selectively, and gently opt-out of the World defined by the endorphin rush of desires.
That’s what I am meditating on today. That and “getting stuff done,” that is.
We just returned from the wedding of that fresh-faced young couple we were Married Sponsors for this last winter. They make a very handsome bride and groom and it was a very nice affair. Open Bar. Dancing. Catholics know how to throw a wedding, I’ll say.
And so it begins, Jessica and David. Keep your hands and feet in the car at all times. Hold on to your valuables. Don’t attempt to exit until the ride comes to a complete stop.
I was sent this brilliant W.H. Auden poem about Law
‘Law Like Love’
Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.
Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.
Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.
Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I’ve told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.
Yet law-abiding scholars write:
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good morning and Good night.
Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.
And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.
If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the Law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the Law is
And that all know this
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,
Unlike so many men
I cannot say Law is again,
No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition.
Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyway:
Like love I say.
Like love we don’t know where or why,
Like love we can’t compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.
– W. H. Auden
Almost as a rebuttal, I was reminded of this Wendel Berry poem:
The Law That Marries All Things
1.
The cloud is free only
to go with the wind.
The rain is free
only in falling.
The water is free only
in its gathering together,
in its downward courses,
in its rising into the air.
2.
In law is rest
if you love the law,
if you enter, singing, into it
as water in its descent.
3.
Or song is truest law,
and you must enter singing;
it has no other entrance.
It is the great chorus
of parts. The only outlawry
is in division.
4.
Whatever is singing
is found, awaiting the return
of whatever is lost.
5.
Meet us in the air
over the water,
sing the swallows.
Meet me, meet me,
the redbird sings,
here here here here.
~ Wendell Berry ~
Is Law a repressive regime? A standard up against which we do not measure? A collective illusion?
Or is true Law simply a state of natural being in which we are both free and bound?
They say that rules are made to be broken. I figure that only rules that are made can be broken. Rules that simply are can neither be followed or broken.
Now that’s clear as mud, right? “And always the soft idiot softly Me.” I love that line….
Must be time to start the weekend.
It’s just a little muscle, but it must be damn important. I don’t even know its name, but it connects the upper center of my back to a spot just below my right shoulder blade. And it hurts. I woke up yesterday morning and I felt it for the first time, this little muscle that apparently has a role in almost every motion in my upper body.
Things I cannot do without feeling shooting pains from this little muscle:
Turn my head
Lean forward
Extend my right arm
Reach for my mouse
Breathe deeply
Get up
Sit down
Pick anything up
Think
About the only things I can do without causing this little muscle to hurt is typing and drooling. So that’s what I plan to do today.
I now have a greater respect for my little muscle, being so unnoticed but apparently so instrumental for so long. If only I were so humble and important.
I am patiently waiting for my non-toothache to return. I promise not to take it for granted this time. Pinky swear.
I didn’t know until just now that today is Creativity and Innovation Day. Hey, I don’t need any more excuse than that to spend an evening playing with artiness.
Hey, have a happy Creativity and Innovation Day!
“In summary, if God is the depth of existence, then religion is the
confident search for this depth as well as the celebration of those
events, persons or occasions where the depth has broken through the
surface of our lives in an exceptional way. The test of whether we
are religious or not is simply whether we are concerned with this
dimension of depth.”
- John Haught [20th C.], “What is God?”
Reminds me of another thing I read which stuck with me (although the author did not stick as well) – “God is not a being. God is being.” I am in the continual (hopefully) process of ever greater (even more hopefully) understanding of this in my everyday life.
That is all. Discuss.
No time to post. Just a short bloglet. Busy Busy.
Definitely go check out this site dedicated to Visual Poetry based in Argentina. If you’d like to know the difference between Visual Poetry and, say, ART, they have lots of essays from people trying to explain it. And, though it requires some clicking around, there are some satisfying visual samples of the goods. (try this page to start)
Q- “Can I find a way to tape off a piece of cardboard so you can paint it without the cardboard ripping when you pull the tape off?”
A- “I Gesso.”
Yes, by trial and error I found that if you prime the cardboard before you paint it you can tape off an area and not rip off pieces of the cardboard as you remove the tape. I have the feeling that people who go to art school don’t have to learn these technical things by trial and error. Course people in art school probably don’t paint on cardboard much either. making art out of trash is its own area of study.
That’s what I’d like – a Trash Art 101 course. Basic materials science and art technique aimed toward learning to reuse junk and trash in art. The best way to paint on glass and plastic with cheap paint. Various decoupaging glues and their subtle differences. The rewards and dangers of working with various plastics. How to fasten and glue different materials. And how to paint on cardboard in a way that does not warp it or tear it. That kind of thing.
And I may have found a guy who offers something like it.
He alone sees truly who sees the Lord the same in every creature, who sees the Deathless in the hearts of all that die. Seeing the same Lord everywhere, he does not harm himself or others. Thus he attains the supreme goal.
-Bhagavad Gita 13: 27-28
Seeing the Lord in every creature. Seeing the Gospel in the lives of non-believers. Seeing God in the hearts of atheists. The child in every curmudgeon, hope in the eyes of every cynic I know. All of these are pretty easy.
Provided I can see the Lord in myself. Which is very hard.
A friend said to me this week that he is seeking to know what must fall away, what must die in himself, for him to find the new life. For me that must be the veil that keeps me from seeing clearly the Lord in myself.
And the Legion that are my many distractions, I guess, but that is another post.
I need a quick course on image processing or something. I tried to scan one of my art sessions in and the image was too big, grainy, blah blah. This is my best attempt. Pathetic, huh?
This totally does not capture the essence of the piece. And you cannot tell that the white lines are liquid paper and not paint. Or that the support is cardboard from a box of diapers. And you certainly cannot tell by the grainy image how much I enjoy this art-geeky activity and how much peace, oddly enough, I get from cranking out these collections of lines.
But I guess there are some things that don’t scan at all, even if you have the skills.
Regardless, can anyone point me to an image processing for dummies style intro to scanning, etc.?
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