This past week or two, I've woken up most days without a clue what to blog about. All I feel are ideas bubbling and simmering -- but not a one of them ready to ladle out yet. So, there's been a hiatus in my posting. I hope that's not inconvenienced anyone.
I'm curious what the usefulness or value of praising God is? It seems it can't be that God needs the praise. So, is the act of praising God of benefit to us? And if so, of what benefit?
"Many a clever boy is flogged into a dunce and many an original composition corrected into mediocrity."
- Sir Walter Scott
Yesterday, I met Libby. I was sitting at a downtown coffee shop, listening to a friend sing for tips, when Libby showed up. She knew my friend, exchanged greetings with him, and then introduced herself to me, who was sitting next to him.
When Spring came this year, I decided this would be the summer I got downtown more often, re-connected with old friends who I haven't seen in some cases for years, and meet new people. As it turns out, yesterday was the first day of my big project to get downtown more often, and Libby was the first new person I met.
The nice thing about the downtown area is you can meet anyone from the mayor to the homeless at some of the coffee shops -- you don't get put in that strange socio-economic box that comes from having friends who are all alike. That's one of the reasons I decided I'd get downtown this year to meet people rather than, say, out to the suburbs. The other reason is the downtown here is a genuine community. Folks know each other. Out in the suburbs, there are many people who don't even know their neighbors, let alone anyone out of their work circle.
Libby didn't impress me as any different than anyone else until she moved to introduce herself to me. Something then in her eyes, her look. She's the sort of person, I'd guess at this point, who takes a serious interest in others, tries to look inside you, and perhaps figure out who you are. Is that too much to read into a look? I don't know, but I might find out as the summer goes on.
On Thursday, a friend went for a wilderness hike. Entirely unlike him, he didn't come home that day. Worse, he couldn't be reached by his cell phone.
Missing.
As it turned out, he'd locked his keys and cell phone in his truck, and then had to hike several miles back from the trail head, before reaching a road where he could hitch a ride into town.
Of course, your mind goes to work at times like that, trying to figure out what might have happened and what to do about it. For the most part, you can only wait. The little things you can do -- such as call the authorities to be on the look out for a truck or person -- don't occupy much of the waiting time.
So, you have to compartmentalize your thinking. You can't spend hours on hours thinking about everything that could go wrong -- unless you want to go crazy.
I thought I was doing a fairly good job compartmentalizing the problem of my missing friend this week. I wasn't spending all my time thinking about him, and I was getting on with other things, the routine things of life. So, I wasn't aware of how stressed I was until he called Friday afternoon to say he was alright.
That's when I felt the proverbial ton of bricks lift from my shoulders. At once, I understood just how hunkered down I'd been under the weight of his having gone missing. But until that moment when I heard his voice and knew everything was alright, until the moment of release, I had not realized how heavy those bricks were.
I've noticed a similar pattern at other times. Some years ago, I discovered some facts that made sense for the first time of some events in my life and I immediately felt huge relief -- but until that moment I had not been aware of how much those events had burdened me.
Reflecting on all this, it strikes me how easy it is to be under considerable stress without quite realizing just how stressed we really are. Often, it seems, we become aware of just how stressful some situation has been for us only after it is all over.
Assuming Satan has no ontological existence, of what use is the concept of Satan to us?
Would an enlightened person know they were enlightened?
If so, how would they know they were enlightened? Would they reach the conclusion they were enlightened from observing their behavior over a period of time -- very much like they were observing someone else? Or would something in the nature of enlightenment itself clue them in about the fact they were enlightened?
Would it matter to them that they were enlightened? If so, how would it matter to them?
Today I heard on the news that the United States has "proof" Iran is supplying militants around the Middle East with arms -- including the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Mostly, I believe it. But shouldn't I be a bit careful to believe anything the current Administration puts out as "truth"?
This is one of those rare days along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains when it's overcast and you cannot see the mountains from where I am. Instead, there is a moist chill in the air and the wind rises and falls, carrying a bit of rain with it now and then.
It seems most of us at one time or another confuse the map with the terrain when we believe our thoughts about ourselves are ourselves.
That's to say, the map is our thoughts about ourselves. The terrain is who we are. Yet, so often we think what we think about ourselves is who we are.
I can think of myself any number of ways that are not likely to be borne out by my experience of myself. I can believe all sorts of things about myself that simple observation will disprove.
Once we hear certain animals, they become a part of our spirit. I don't think you can hear a loon's call without the sound in some way become a part of you. Nor perhaps the calling of coyotes. Given that our species invented music, is it all that implausible that certain sounds should become fixed in our memories as almost akin to a spiritual experience?
This morning, I've been wondering about one night stands. I personally don't much care for them since most of the pleasure I take in sex comes after I gain a nuanced understanding of my partner's feelings and responses -- not something I'm very good at accomplishing in one night. But I'm curious what others think about them?
According to an article in the July/August issue of The Atlantic Monthly, it is common knowledge among geneticists that "5 to 15 percent of the men on birth certificates are not the biological fathers of their children."
That might not come as a surprise to folks aware that human males long ago evolved adaptions to human females having more than one sexual partner. It is known, for instance, that the shape of the penis makes it an efficient pump for removing semen -- presumably competitor's semen -- from the vagina.
If humans had evolved only one reproductive strategy, people would never debate whether this or that strategy was morally superior. Instead, we'd all follow that one strategy and probably not even consider the possibility there might be other strategies. Flexible mating arrangements sure makes our species morally interesting.
This morning, a bot discovered this blog and started posting spam on it. So, I've enabled comment moderation until it goes away. Shoo, little bot! Shoo!
News Item: "A[n American] jury convicted Julie Amero in January on four counts of 'risk of injury to a minor' because her PC displayed pop-up ads for porn sites that could be seen by her seventh-grade students. The charges carry a maximum 40-year prison sentence."
There's some pretty raunchy porn on the internet. Porn that I would not willingly show to a child. least they get the wrong idea about sex. Even so, most porn on the net is unlikely to injure a minor. So, how could it happen that a substitute teacher faces a possible 40 year prison sentence because her students saw porn? The explanation cannot be that seeing porn really risked injury to a minor. Rather, the explanation lies in America's moral hysteria concerning all things sexual.
We need to kick the stuffing out of that moral insanity. By blogging in the nude on Mondays, you show your solidarity with such people as Julie Amero, a woman who is being persecuted by the morally insane members of our society. By joining the rapidly growing Nude Blogging Movement, you strike a blow for a saner society. Join today! You have nothing to loose but your clothes!
Much of the world doesn't strongly associate religion with belief. Islam and Christianity make belief central to religiosity, so in both religions, it makes sense to ask someone about their beliefs. Yet, belief has historically played a small role in many of the rest of the world's religions.
It is fully possible to have a Shinto priest who does not believe in the gods. But it is not possible to have a Muslim Iman or a Christian priest or minister who does not believe in god. When such an iman or priest or minister exists, we say they have lost their faith. We might even accuse them of being frauds. We do not accept them as legitimate representatives of their religion. Yet, no one in Japan wonders much if a Shinto priest doesn't believe the gods exist, and no one in India accuses an agnostic yogi of being a fraud.
So, why is belief so important in Islam and Christianity?
You can look at that question very pragmatically. Bot Islam and Christianity are proselytizing religions. It is far easier to convert someone to your religion when you demand little more than belief of them, than it is when you demand a complete change in lifestyle. Hence, one reason belief might be so important to Islam and Christianity is that making belief the key to the religions helped in converting people to those religions.
Yet, that doesn't answer whether belief has any genuine religious function? Does what you believe actually have anything to do with your spirituality?
A Zen monk might say "no", but it's unlikely that a Muslim or Christian would give the same answer. Muslims and Christians typically believe in belief.
If someone wanted to hurt Christianity, could they do a better job than some prominent evangelicals have done over the past few decades?
I'm not suggesting a few misguided evangelicals can deal a death blow to Christianity. Christianity has survived far worse than James Dobson, Pat Robertson, or the late Jerry Falwell. But over the last few decades, those three fools and a handful of other prominent evangelicals have done more than demons to make Christianity the dunce of religions. For masses of people, they have shifted the Christian message from salvation, grace and love to a spiritually irrelevant attack on other people's sexuality. Regardless of what one thinks about those issues -- homosexuality, abortion, birth control, promiscuity, women's liberation, pre-marital sex, and so forth -- one will have a hard time explaining why they should be the focus of Christian spirituality, and not salvation, grace, and love.
From time to time, the Bible talks about false prophets. Looking at it wisely, how much more false can you get than to shift the Christian message from salvation to policing other people's sexuality?
When I was growing up, the word "Christian" had a very different connotation than it does today. Among other things, to call someone "Christian" -- or even better, a "true Christian" -- was a high compliment. It meant they exemplified certain virtues, including humility, honesty, altruism, compassion, forgiveness, and charity. More than that, a "true Christian" was recognized by everyone as the ultimate in moral decency. Not necessarily sexual decency. But certainly moral decency. You could count on a "true Christian" to treat you with dignity and decency, even if you were among society's outcasts.
The legacy of the evangelical buffoons who hijacked the Christian message over the last few decades shall remain with us until the word "Christian" is no longer the suspect label it is today. For, in the end, their grand experiment in false prophecy has, among other things, resulted in the devaluation of Christianity's moral authority.
San Francisco will soon become the first city in America to ban plastic bags in favor of paper ones.
As usual, I am waiting for the reaction of the bimbo talk show hosts to that one. Will they merely link the ban to the decline of America or will they go big and link it to the decline of all civilization? That is the question.
It looks like President Bush has found a country that welcomes him: Albania.
Albania is by all accounts very pro-American. It was an American president, Woodrow Wilson, who arranged for Albania's independence after the first world war. And it was another American president, Bill Clinton, who intervened against Serbia's ethnic cleansing of Albanians in Kosovo. Bush is popular in Albania mainly because of what his predecessors have done for that people and country.
After six years of Bush, it's nice to be reminded that the United States has at times done some good in this world. Ironically, it's Bush's trip to Albania that is the occasion for the reminder.
One night, when there was a comet in the sky over the San Luis, Jackie and I sat beneath a blanket on the porch of the Oak House at Valley View Hot Springs, which is a naturalist resort in Colorado.
It is sometimes easier to talk frankly and intimately with someone who is naked, if you yourself are naked too, than it is to talk frankly and intimately when either one of you is wearing clothing. Jackie and I were naked together under the blanket and I think that might have had something to do with why Jackie chose that night to tell me the story of her relationships.
She took two hours in the telling. Despite how earnest she was, my mind drifted off the meaning of her words, and I spent most of those two hours listening to her emotions and to the night, rather than to her words. Finally though, she summed up: "What do boys want? I don't care what it is, I just want to know what to give boys that they want. Tell me what they want so I can have a relationship that lasts."
She spoke with earnest intensity: Those weren't rhetorical questions to her. Yet, I hadn't been listening to more than a quarter of what she'd said that night. I asked for time to think through my answer. The two of us then watched the comet for a while.
Finally, I spoke to her about being true to herself. "Don't try to change yourself to suit the boys, Jackie. You'll only find yourself changing to suit the ones who don't really like you in the first place. Then when someone comes along who likes you for who you are, you will have changed so much to suit the ones who don't quite like you for who you are, that you won't know what to do. Instead, be yourself. The boys who like you for who you are will like that about you -- that you are yourself. And the rest be damned."
Jackie and I sat for sometime after that in silence. Then we decided to go for a soak and that ended the topic. Yet, I wondered that night what I should have told Jackie to help her. I considered the words I'd given her inadequate and even worried a bit about having let her down.
Then, about a year afterwards, Jackie spoke to me about that evening. Reminded me of it-- be yourself. "It didn't make sense at first", she said, "But I kept thinking about your words, and eventually it came to me what you were trying to tell me. Since then, I've kept what you said in mind, and it's helped a lot."
Sometimes we get lucky with our advice. We feel so inadequate in giving it, but then we get lucky -- someone comes along who works at understanding it.
I happen to think there's a great deal of truth in the African proverb that Hillary Clinton made a title of her book, "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child". The truth in that seems so obvious to me, in fact, that I wonder why the proverb is so often ridiculed by bimbo talk show hosts. Is that because Clinton used it as the title of her book, and they don't like Clinton?
Back when I hung out with people much younger than me, I discovered that kids will seek out adults to hang out with. Not every kid, of course, but many kids befriended me and I very strongly suspect they did so because I was an accessible adult they could interact with -- and thus they could put a toe or two into the adult world.
One night at the coffee shop where I'd met most of those kids, a man nearly my age, Tim, approached me and demanded (out of the blue), "I want to know what your secret is."
"Secret?"
Tim didn't hesitate, but went on, almost angerly: "You're always surrounded by kids. They talk with you. I've been coming to this coffee shop over four months now, and I've only spoken to two kids. What's your secret? How do you get them to talk with you?"
"What are you trying to talk with them about?" I was beginning to suspect the man was a kook.
"Their souls. The Bible. Salvation. What are you telling them." He said "What are you telling them" as if he'd already made up his mind what I was telling them, and wished only to have it confirmed.
"They tell me whatever they want to tell me and I listen." I had by then decided Tim was indeed a kook, and so I made some excuse to leave him, which ended that bizarre conversation.
Some days later, however, I spoke with Tim more fully and got the story from him. It turned out he was a lay preacher at his church and his mission, for the last few months at least, was to "reach out to youth of the city with the gospel of Christ's salvation." Somehow, he had decided the coffee shop was the perfect place to do that. But he'd been completely unsuccessful. Only a couple of kids had listened to his salvation sales pitch, and neither one of them had bought it.
Plenty of kids, of course, are interested in religion, and I don't quite know why Tim was so unsuccessful in finding those who are.
Yet, most of the kids I knew weren't looking for an adult to sell them a religion. They were, if anything, looking for an adult to listen to them, to accept them, to help them discover who they were, and to encourage them to be true to themselves -- things more along those lines.
Good parents do that, of course. Yet, I think at some point in a kid's life, they need some adult other than their parents to do it too. They need to know the adult world accepts them. And perhaps that's one way in which it takes a village to raise a child.
A while back, I watched an episode of the Bill O'Reilly "comedy hour" during which Bill pretended to be scandalized that a teacher from a Northern state had vacationed in Florida, and while on vacation, had gone to a night club where she flashed her breasts for all the O'Reillys of the world to see. Naturally, Bill called on her school board to fire her. Bill is the Grand Old Prude of the Republic.
Somehow I got to thinking of that episode tonight, and along with thinking about it, recalled things I'd done that Bill would certainly disapprove of.
When I was new to Colorado Springs, I frequented a coffee shop a block from my apartment. The shop was near a high school, and consequently, the first 200 or so people I met in the Springs were mostly high school kids who frequented that same shop.
Several of those kids befriended me. They took to inviting me on all sorts of excursions -- from dances to rock climbs to road trips to sleep overs. Perhaps because I'd recently divorced, knew almost no one else in town besides those kids, and wanted a distraction, I almost always accepted any invitation from them. That's how, at 40, I ended up somewhat frequently going to clothing optional hot springs with high school kids.
The youngest of those kids was Harriett. When I met Harriett, she was a shy, quiet 15 year old genius bored to death with her school.
We met in the coffee shop when I walked up to were she was sitting alone and challenged her to a game of chess. After that introduction, she fell into the habit of seeking me out when I was in the shop and sitting with me, sometimes for hours -- but seldom saying much and never demanding my attention. Occasionally, we played chess.
So, I was surprised when one day her mother showed up at the place I worked asking for me. At that time, I knew Harriett only from the coffee shop, and then only as the girl who quietly sat away the hours on the fringes of the group I was a part of. But her mother revealed that Harriett had been coming home nearly every day to talk about what I'd said. In fact, Harriett had spoken so much about me to her mother that her mother now believed I had considerable influence on Harriett and thus wanted to meet me.
I started paying more attention to Harriett. I discovered, among other things, that she was exceptionally bright -- probably genius bright -- played the violin, piano and guitar -- was frequently depressed -- had an absent father -- had done modeling -- and knew nearly every artist in town due to her mother's participation in the local arts scene.
A few weeks after we met, Harriett's mother, Liz, and I got to talking about Valley View Hot Springs, and I think it was she who suggested I take Harriett along the next time I went to the Springs with a group of kids.
Valley View is located on the side of a mountain overlooking the world's largest intermountain valley, the San Luis. The nearest town of any size is 37 miles distant as the crow flies, and much further by road. At night, there are a billion stars over the valley in a sky so dark and deep you feel you sipped infinity looking at them.
The owners of Valley View keep the place as undeveloped as possible. You soak in natural pools, on beds of pebbles, sand, and moss. The wind sounds like a river rushing through the pines. In the evenings, you hear the coyotes calling to each other. Sometimes, wild mule deer come to feed on the grass by the pool you're soaking in.
There are people who believe Valley View is sacred, and they speak in whispers when there, as if in a cathedral. The perfect place to be naked to the world.
At the time, I saw nothing scandalous in a 40 year old man taking a 15 year old girl to a clothing optional hot springs. After all, Harriett was something of a sacred girl, and Valley View was something of a sacred place. It made emotional, poetic sense to give her the experience of that place, one of the most beautiful places in Colorado. Yet, looking back on it now, I realize both Liz and I were naive. Had word of that gotten to the wrong ears, Liz could have been charged with child abuse, Harriett summarily taken away from her, and I could have faced an investigation for statutory rape. People so often put the worse possible interpretations on things.
Did the gods originate as dreams?
Consider that many people have dreams of supernatural beings. Is it plausible that in the past some people who had such dreams came to worship the gods they dreamt of?
I had a brief flirtation with Christianity when I was in middle school and I recall even now that, for the entire month I was a Christian, life seemed magical. Jesus was coming! Anything could happen! The world became as fresh and mysterious as the first Spring morning after the grass has turned green.
Yet, as the month went by, I confronted the notion that some people were going to hell, including people I loved. So, after considering that point as carefully as I could, I decided if anyone -- especially anyone I loved -- was going to hell, I didn't want to go to heaven. Consequently I gave up on Christianity.
That was all back in the day when a religion could still keep me awake at nights. When I took that sort of thing seriously. I have somehow lost my ability to take any religion that seriously now, and yet the world still seems magical at times.
"God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That's not free will. It's like a man telling his girlfriend, do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out. When a man says this we call him a psychopath. When god says the same we call him "loving" and build churches in his honor."
-- William C. Easttom II
Some time ago, I decided not to have a TV. So, the only time I watch television nowadays is when I visit Mike. Mike likes his TV, and seldom has it off.
To give Mike credit, he usually hands me the remote, as the honored guest, and encourages me to watch whatever I want. The exception to this "watch what you want" business is Fox News. Mike has to have his daily dose of Fox, and so he usually doesn't hand the remote over until that's been accomplished.
The world just gets stranger when I watch Fox News.
Last week, when I was visiting Mike, Fox was subtly smearing all Muslims living in the country. They did it this way: They had a segment on a group of about 100 Muslims with religious ties to a Middle Eastern cleric suspected of being a radical. And, of course -- being Fox -- they couldn't talk about that group of 100 without ominously mentioning there are an estimated two to six million Muslims in the U.S.
That made me wonder whether, when they do a story about the extremists at Westboro Baptist Church, they feel obligated to ominously mention there are about 250 million Christians in the U.S.?
Run for the Hills, folks! If the Muslims don't get you, the Christians will!
Last Friday morning, I sat behind a loving couple on the bus whose faces showed the deep tans and premature aging of people who are often homeless, substance abusers, or both. Yet, they must have had a place. For one thing, they weren't carrying all their possessions, and besides that, I gathered from their conversation they had a computer and an internet account.
I was mildly surprised they were on the net, but only mildly. The internet is a remarkably democratic medium -- especially when compared to all the other media.
I don't know how many of us any longer live in true communities where rich and poor, educated and uneducated, doctor and patient, lawyer and client, mayor and constituent, banker and borrower, all rub shoulders both in business and social life. But maybe the net at times creates virtual communities where that sort of social integration is still true.
If so, then that's yet another reason in my book to love the net. In the United States and (I hear) in the United Kingdom, people increasingly live in lop-sided "communities", apart from the full spectrum of humanity, socially isolated from those who are not pretty much like them. My guess is that sort of "community" breeds indifference and even antagonism towards members of our society we have little or no social contact with. It's easy to dislike rich people, for instance, if you seldom see one. It's easy to become indifferent to the problems of the poor if you do not know any. And that bodes ill for democracy.
Democracy is not built on ideals alone. Just as much as ideals, it's built on integrated communities. Perhaps the net is to some extent helping to re-integrate us into genuine communities.
Should the United States take in more Iraqi refugees? The US has a modest goal of taking in 7,000 refugees by September. But there are an estimated two million refugees from the war and civil strife. Is the US acting responsibly in taking in only 7,000 of those? What do you think?
Stumble It!
