tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14622461673956865112024-03-06T00:58:45.027-08:00Songs of a Soul JourneyPoetic explorations of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.comBlogger545125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-81490140686655279532023-04-03T09:59:00.002-07:002023-04-03T16:08:17.819-07:00Of Palms and Palimpsests<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0grg0HdX7L4iCLJ9sz-qc0ldO7V6ImXW4aMK-NiUmmtu2gYzcEkd4rccLpzcJ_xX9T5oWADCyu3VXJdsMuJHHzuIayzNDcA78p83_mhLjHA2qyVzN9-gp6-UICLfPquWOrGDu3gpkVx2I_D2FjL526VQcPIVL5PJbJbkoJgmKpTMJgBuHKx32bdx9/s676/Screen%20Shot%202023-04-03%20at%209.43.10%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="519" data-original-width="676" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0grg0HdX7L4iCLJ9sz-qc0ldO7V6ImXW4aMK-NiUmmtu2gYzcEkd4rccLpzcJ_xX9T5oWADCyu3VXJdsMuJHHzuIayzNDcA78p83_mhLjHA2qyVzN9-gp6-UICLfPquWOrGDu3gpkVx2I_D2FjL526VQcPIVL5PJbJbkoJgmKpTMJgBuHKx32bdx9/w410-h279/Screen%20Shot%202023-04-03%20at%209.43.10%20AM.png" width="410" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">To dream is not an evasion,<br />nor a waste of time or energy,<br />even if dreams fly<br />beyond the arc<br />of human consciousness.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">To dream is to be in continual free-fall<br />to the unexpected, unanticipated next;<br />dreaming requires no notion or plan<br />—all is suspense, all is in suspension,<br />a readiness in unreadiness<br />or the scratching of a quill<br />over the sheet of foolscap—<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span>archaic,<br />but only in the sense<br />that one might lack the ink<br />or the penmanship<br />in the non-present now.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There, we might glance<br />at our lively page<br />to find nothing written there, at all;<br />but the paper has been folded and eared,<br />screwed up and tossed,<br />retrieved and smoothed,<br />folded neatly, then unfolded,<br />creased in differing directions,<br />only to be undone back to flat,<br />worn, now and limp,<br />lacking enough integrity, perhaps,<br />for aerodynamic flight.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And all for a lack of direction,<br />a longing for flight<br />fighting reticence to height,<br />so that the dipped reed might record<br />a thought or trace a silhouette<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span>—or otherwise leave a mark,<br />even if a splotchy blot</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">—Ultimately, the run-on sentence<br />is the avoidance of endings,<br />especially for those who<br />can’t figure out how to make a start,<br />or maybe it is all continuous starting,<br />without end,<br />Amen.<br /><br />While wrapped in these ponderings,<br />in this landscape of dreaming,<br />there approached a form<br />drawing slowly up from a distance,<br />and soon there appeared a man,<br />riding an onager.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">His gaze was steady and warm,<br />laugh-lines were in evidence,<br />and he greeted me like a friend.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Seeing the creased and blank sheet,<br />he said,</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>We embody the world we see,</i></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>an unfathomable array of beauty<br />punctuated by experiential pain.</i></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>Life is good, so we are taught,<br />and we can find ourselves</i></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px;"><i>in this goodness as existential truth</i></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>even when the willow bends to breaking.</i></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>Don’t leave the canvas blank, my friend,<br />make your mark.<br /></i></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>Don’t be afraid to create yourself,<br />be in the being;<br />as you have folded<br />and unfolded,<br />so all your markings<br />continue to amend and change.</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><i></i><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>Simultaneously, we each<br />know and do not know<br />where we are and why;<br />doing is all,<br />we invent as we go.</i></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>The words we utter,<br />and later record,<br />live on, even down to the dust<br />that is carried on the wind;<br />don’t die with your song trapped inside<br /></i>—<i>sing out, in full voice.</i></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>I’m making my mark, see?<br /></i>he said,<br />touching his forehead, his lips, his heart,<br /><i>don’t hesitate to make yours,<br />even if you don’t understand the significance<br /></i>—<i>the run-on sentence is the doing,<br />not the avoidance;<br />you can write and overwrite,<br />paint over and write some more</i>—<span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><i><br /></i></span><i>it’s all continuous starting,<br />continuous writing,<br />without end,<br />Amen.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">He reached out and took my hand,<br />and held it for a moment, smiling,<br />before letting go,<br />but, as an after-thought,<br />reached out and touched my forehead.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Then, handing me a palm frond,<br />while good naturedly<br />slapping the onager’s flank,<br />forward and off on their page they went.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Looking down,<br />I saw that my page was full,<br />and that words were even running,<br />puddling in the creases,<br />accumulating in pools,<br />to run off the page<br />across the wadi,<br />or fly off the page,<br />up into the sky.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Both knowing and not knowing,<br />continuously starting,<br />we run, we fly, and we sing<br />without end,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Amen<br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">© 2023 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen & songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-52484515580267532222023-01-07T10:59:00.005-08:002023-01-08T13:58:51.945-08:00To the Shores of Sure<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG46JE_XX74tdmgNObj7yjhfAKs1eK7ZisK333mB4w_pdE-HyioUNYhpooansPyWUyKtg6LsDFGQZbbT9SXfZFilrs0VvjQ4kvnS4zFZZkwFjJftSKoK7jBUd-9zryYpkvzBe7CHG1Hh5IVCO5Tpd9atcHaBuLV16cBihZFeVODvXJ_vKKMGllQNgH/s550/Screen%20Shot%202023-01-07%20at%2010.44.19%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="538" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG46JE_XX74tdmgNObj7yjhfAKs1eK7ZisK333mB4w_pdE-HyioUNYhpooansPyWUyKtg6LsDFGQZbbT9SXfZFilrs0VvjQ4kvnS4zFZZkwFjJftSKoK7jBUd-9zryYpkvzBe7CHG1Hh5IVCO5Tpd9atcHaBuLV16cBihZFeVODvXJ_vKKMGllQNgH/s320/Screen%20Shot%202023-01-07%20at%2010.44.19%20AM.png" width="313" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Within the isolation of their remote land,<br />from inside the work of their silent meditations,<br />each sage had apprehended a light the night sky,<br />a light indeed so singular and so great that<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the light of ordinary day seemed dim.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This light appeared<br />in the person of a star,<br />speaking and singing,<br />brightening and ringing,<br />inviting the seers on a journey<br />to a distant land<br />to see the birth<br />of a baby of light.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So, out of the land of Un-Sure,<br />the seers went forth,<br />guided, fed and nurtured<br />by this amazing star.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Having finally arrived, they found<br />a humble stable,<br />a humble couple,<br />and humble witnesses<br />to a humble birth<br />of new light.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The seers bestowed<br />what gifts they had to give<br />to mark the occasion,<br />to bless the child,<br />this newborn star,<br />burning brightly<br />at his mother’s breast.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This bright star<br />—the embodied ancient of days:<br />maker-father;<br />wisdom-mother;<br />innovator-child—<br />then proclaimed:</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All that has been,<br />All that is now,<br />All that will be<br />has waited for this new light,<br />which a light that lights<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">beyond the brightness and clarity<br />of even the visible light.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Know that this light is always present:<br />within every person<br />there is a cave of mysteries,<br />the fresh and fragrant wellspring<br />of this inimitable light.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You are the light of the world!<br />How so ever you see the star<br />shows you in a role<br />as light embodied,<br />and in a form appropriate<br />to this and every moment,</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Your inner light is not about<br />worship self-served in apathy,<br />but about discernment to<br />action in service to others.<br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Every person with a love of learning,<br />take heed of this truth:<br />the divided house cannot stand;<br />what can divide light?<br />Only darkness.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Yet glorious light pools everywhere;<br />there is no place untouched by this light,<br />very light of very light,<br />begotten, not made,<br />meant to bring an end to all mysteries<br />with the simple truth that<br />we are, all and each,<br />light for each other,<br />to lighten the world.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Therefore, the time of waiting is past;<br />it is time to rise from your dreams.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Awaken and go forth<br />to fulfill your light in the world,<br />that you may overflow<br />with benevolence and peace,<br />blessing all along your way<br />for all your days.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Thus, having blessed the light<br />and having been blessed by the light,<br />having heard the homily of light,<br />the seers returned home,<br />—ever after known as the Shores of Sure—<br />to live out their calling in service.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 27px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">© 2023 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen & songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>NOTES and COMMENTARY</b>: This bit of writing (perhaps a work in progress) is my odd sort of commentary on a pseudepigraphical writing known as the Revelation of the Magi, extant in the form of an 8<sup>th</sup> century manuscript in Syriac, preserved in the Vatican Library (Biblioteca apostolica, syr. 162) that may have a 5<sup>th</sup> century antecedent in another language. This is an interesting hash of a tale that contains, among other things, the suggestion that the magi are twelve descendants of Seth in a distant land of Shir, who received stories or texts from Adam about “the fall;” a visitation from a polymorphous star being; a journey to see the birth of the baby; anointing of the sages and their return to the land of Shir from which they came; the arrival of Judas Thomas to the land of Shir to preach in summation to the sages.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A few lines stood out to me, when I read the translation of the text in Brent Landau’s dissertation on the work. “And you will see the completion of all the mysteries in Jerusalem, and everything that was spoken with you will become true for you,” is spoken by the <i>star</i> prior to the journey. “Therefore, rise and go in peace to your light-receiving land, because you have been deemed worthy to receive the perfect light of the heavenly majesty, and to come worship it with your gifts in joy. Behold, you have completed everything that you were commanded by your fathers, and you have also been deemed worthy to know and learn the ancient hidden mysteries, which were written for you from the first generations. Now, behold, you have seen the completion of your mysteries…” The star child sums things up, “And it was not in vain that you were created in the world, and heaven and earth and all the worlds came into being for your sake.” <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Meta-message to me: Clarifying light <u>makes an end to all mysteries</u>.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">//</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Religion, like politics and philosophy, is about governance.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Ideally, the best kind of governance is self-governance.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Practically speaking, the only kind of governance is self-governance.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Sages, seers and prophets suggest a self-governance that is inspired by awe in and duty toward a universal, parent-like deity. The christian writings that purport to record the teachings of Jesus have been eclipsed by redactions, sectarian battles over interpretation, apologias that strive to turn the hero into a god from before all time, and provide colliding sacred and secular visions of the best way to control the masses in conservative hierarchical fashion, so that an elite small group wields (hopefully benign) power and metes out a meager sort of justice (when it suits).</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Millennia of competing religions behaving badly, in sectarian Technicolor, has had the effect of tossing out the holy child with the dirty bath-water of political corruption, most often reflected as authoritarianism that goes against all practical realities of self-governance.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In the canonical gospels and within other texts that record what Jesus was apparently saying and teaching, the message is unequivocal that if you believe in the god of Mosaic law then you must self-govern in a way that serves others simultaneously with self. This is what is meant by righteousness and equity. This is what communion is all about. Jesus was talking about oppressed people turning the tables and rethinking their lot by understanding themselves as having a critical, on-the-ground and irreplaceable role in community. Religion stomps this message right out, countering with a top-down authoritarian model that states people can’t possibly be good, god should strike you down because of that, but Jesus took it for Team Sin, so that you don’t have to self-govern or be accountable. But then, because of that, you can’t have a say or a role beyond following a series of hollow leaders, doing what you are told, paying up your money and taking your chances.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If there is truth in all of this god-talk, it lies in the message that we are each a unique occurrence of light in the world; this means we have something to live up to and live for, through ethical self-governance that serves community and eschews the kind of personal power that is destructive and greedy. Self governance does not mean self-serving; it means an economy of duty to others, as well as self. Duty is best accomplished out of necessity, and more so by choice. We have not one, but many roles to fulfill for ourselves and for others; this is the significance of the polymorphic star-child. Living in a state of holiness and grace is living in the faith that your best efforts will be met by those of others, and that this is aided and blessed by the workings of the Divine Unseen. </p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This is the Epiphany I have received from a lifetime of readings in and meditations on religion, philosophy and history, and I share it heartily with you.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">May you receive many blessings on your journey, and share your light with the world.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">//</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><u>Revelations of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men’s Journey to Bethlehem</u>, © 2010 by Brent Christopher Landau, Harper Collins NY</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Image: Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi, 1423, tempera on panel, 283 x 300 cm (Uffizi Gallery, Florence)</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-65737811027972742332022-11-24T08:07:00.001-08:002022-11-24T22:57:22.828-08:00For, a Thanksgiving meditation<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-psDn76vpA8gI4J_69bEXMV6oar3DmNLHEnNj-ZSJZnGrEMV4-ty2KarQRatz2r2qjQsTERC1hDaYLVpyBZdV-xSCh-4Ad0YbinKyL7BvTcV4wbMoaBaoB_gmmY0rQKmq0V4njeJBaCsJfn4d_xzEUHklQB934yTAwqYHSHhgnb0opCmT_ebQV09/s1021/Golden%20light%202022-09-04%20at%208.05.51%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="1021" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-psDn76vpA8gI4J_69bEXMV6oar3DmNLHEnNj-ZSJZnGrEMV4-ty2KarQRatz2r2qjQsTERC1hDaYLVpyBZdV-xSCh-4Ad0YbinKyL7BvTcV4wbMoaBaoB_gmmY0rQKmq0V4njeJBaCsJfn4d_xzEUHklQB934yTAwqYHSHhgnb0opCmT_ebQV09/w420-h238/Golden%20light%202022-09-04%20at%208.05.51%20PM.png" width="420" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: Merriweather; font-size: large;">For</span><span style="font-family: Merriweather; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">the birds that nest in the trees and in the reeds,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">the flowering plants and fish that sustain them,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">the great, diverse system of living beings;</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">the depth of roots in the seeded earth,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">providing shade and shelter, food and fuel;</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">light, shadow and darkness,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">an unending cycle of renewal from everything,<br />from waking to rest;</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">land, with all its contours and environments,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">that supports each footfall, each seed, every root and liquid source;</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">water, from which all life emerges and returns as a blessing;</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">people, of every uniqueness, who discover in themselves roles to fill,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">who grow & nurture, think & create, who care & give & build,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">contributing to the rich song, music and dance of existence;</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">deeply thought ideas, <br />drafted over such seas of experience as joy, love, pain or hardship,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">intended to pave a better way, or at least make the attempt;</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">circles we move in,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">of family, friends and colleagues,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">shaping and sharing community through arts and cultures,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">people who challenge and improve by being healthy exemplars;</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">those no longer with us, who lived, loved, served, nurtured<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">even especially people we don’t know,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">the empty chairs that trigger unforced tears & a heartache of memories;</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">all who stand <i>for</i> something, stand up <i>for</i> someone,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">all <i>for</i> one, few, or many </span><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">— </span><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">and one </span><i style="font-family: Merriweather;">for</i><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"> all;</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">being <i>for</i> is a sort of goodness;<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">it might be the only goodness there is</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">in this world where some people profit<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">by inviting anger, strife and antagonism to the table,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">where the constant tug is either passively or aggressively <i>against</i>;</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">I pray <i>for</i> all in need, <i>for</i> all who love, <i>for</i> all who sorrow,</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">and <i>for</i> all who stake their lives on being <br /><i>for</i> something, anything, someone, goodness;<br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;"><i>for</i> all that is <i><u>for</u></i></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">—<i>for</i> all that and more,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather;">I give thanks.<br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">© Elisabeth T. Eliassen & songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Merriweather; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-57070376998190669772022-07-17T12:28:00.002-07:002022-07-17T15:16:34.891-07:00Magic versus Magical Thinking, a Practical Guide (Part 3): One to Rule Them All<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIf99STzE-ZH4Eya5AuQ6ZphhvsGvzhSB9h-ZOeXtFirZeVGRPxF9SjxojPsWvzSnl765fvColL5WfmfM0oKLVm7ExcLj-bf5JGhCXuyX-_qBuCPAOENmSKIsq0mPlFCnpnAiBwm0ffOZCIuvDjBvRGBkPC-U5tChiTJX564mOfQ-xVXiKKdD4cCm_/s535/Screen%20Shot%202022-07-17%20at%2011.32.26%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="535" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIf99STzE-ZH4Eya5AuQ6ZphhvsGvzhSB9h-ZOeXtFirZeVGRPxF9SjxojPsWvzSnl765fvColL5WfmfM0oKLVm7ExcLj-bf5JGhCXuyX-_qBuCPAOENmSKIsq0mPlFCnpnAiBwm0ffOZCIuvDjBvRGBkPC-U5tChiTJX564mOfQ-xVXiKKdD4cCm_/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-07-17%20at%2011.32.26%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Vast swaths of the general public (here, there and everywhere) take great stock in the notion of <i>inevitability</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This is a very interesting fault in human perspective. The “inevitable” whatever can manifest as concretely positive, negative or neutral, or take a positive, negative or neutral tone. The reason I suggest that this is a human fault is because most people will relate the word inevitable to the word fate, and take both words together as an indication that no action is needed, so why bother to take any?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This is a type of magical thinking. Here are examples of abstract notions people take to be inevitable (aside from the punch lines of an old joke from Daniel Defoe’s 1726 play <i>The Political History of the Devil, As Well Ancient as Modern</i>, famously quoted by Benjamin Franklin: death and taxes): progress, world unity, the end of the world, equality, change makes us better, a simple solution to every question, and God’s will.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I’m sure you can think of a few abstract concepts that are linked to the notion of inevitability. Some of these could be categorized as “pipedreams,” others as apocalyptic fears.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When we think or believe that things or situations are inevitable, do we push back on the notion by trying some alternative or do we give up?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We are asked questions and the manner in which we are taught often implies that there are answers to every question and that we should know what those answers are or how to calculate them. We therefore dutifully attempt to find solutions to every question directed toward us. For example, here is an actual word problem that has been given to children in school:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>There are 125 sheep and 5 dogs in a flock.</i></span> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>How old is the shepherd?</i></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Do you know what the answer is? When children are posed this questions, their first thought is likely: I’ve been given this as a math problem, there must be an answer, therefore, I’d better do something to come up with a solution.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In reality, sometimes, it might be better to question the question. <i>How old is the shepherd?</i> is intended to be an exercise in logic; it is hoped that students will be able to discern that this question is illogically constructed and unanswerable. Hilarious results ensue, to be sure, when students try to compute answers to such a question. But, let’s be honest, this is a dirty trick to play on kids.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>It’s a dirty trick to play on adults as well</u>, who, sadly, also fall prey to the illogical question. The search for a fundamental theory of everything, in my humble opinion, is an adult variety entertaining the illogical question, a high-brow version of magical thinking. There is a lot of grant money being given to further abstract theories of everything, but I find questions along these lines a diversion from the kind of innovation we need—innovation that offers practical solutions to diverse daily problems. For example, it may be more practical to explore non-polluting ways of turning wastewater into biogas that can be safely used as fuel. We, as a species, certainly produce plenty of it! Why not recycle it!</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The search for “one and done” solutions is another example of magical thinking. A gullible pubic is socially engineered down a pay-to-play rabbit hole that is papered with bright and misleading advertisements. However, as explored in a previous essay in this series, the world of intense diversity flies in the face of “one size fits all” thinking. <i>We really do know better; one size cannot possibly fit all.</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Every place presents its own set of circumstances that need to be taken into account, and every individual in a place is liable to present a different set of skills and perspectives that may bear on those challenges. Baking bread is completely different at sea level than it is at high altitude.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Politically, we have in real-time reached that tipping point where utopian literature turns to its darker, fully dystopian side. Every single utopia ever conceived empowers a small elite counsel of elders to dictate what is best for the masses. Plato explored this in <i>The Republic</i> and <i>The Laws</i>, followed by a long line of writers, from Thomas More and Francis Bacon, to Margaret Cavendish and Jonathan Swift, on down to Edward Bellamy and William Morris, thence to appear ever darker in scope with Yevgeny Zamyatin, George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, even unto Margaret Attwood. In the most positive examples of this form of literature, the minority band running the program is intelligent and benevolent; on the flip-side, the leadership is always less than well educated, punitive and totalitarian.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the United States, circumstances beyond the control of the majority plebiscite has put the fate of our foundational liberalism, which for so long seemed to embody “inevitable progress,” into the hands of a conservative majority of the Supreme Court. This same court seems poised to undo all that has been traditionally (in my lifetime) regarded as “inevitable progress” toward equal recognition and rights for unique personhood, poised instead to enshrine “christian values,” retreat from founding Enlightenment principles to medieval standards of law, promote permissible armed violence, and put certain <i>men</i> in charge of institutions and bodies.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is highly ironic that this small, ultra-conservative group (or members thereof) proclaims a literal orthodoxy exists within the text of our constitution, where two centuries of jurisprudence has seemingly seen the text through a lens more flexible and moving with the times. It seems that this portion of the Supreme Court group is throwing modern America back to the time Cotton Mather and the Salem Witch Trials. Note, however: Less well known than his discussion of devils inhabiting the invisible world, Cotton Mather was also a scientist; he was an advocate for inoculation against smallpox, and he wrote a book proclaiming harmony between Newtonian physics and religion. Fact!</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Any claims of original <i>this</i>, orthodox <i>that</i> are illogical excuses to proclaim a modern <i>paterfamilias</i>--which is what? This could only mean a totalitarian autocracy the likes of Stalinism. But who would the <i>pater</i> be? Certainly not Jesus, who used parables to teach illiterate people how to navigate oppression while maintaining cultural ethos and personal integrity. The words of Jesus don’t seem to matter at all to “christians" who call for the death of liberal secularism, control of the womb and the right of armed, <i>white</i> hooligans to menace and kill—what resonates more are texts from Deuteronomy and Leviticus.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Meanwhile, the average person, having been rendered inert by false notions of inevitability that are accompanied by a blizzard of disinformation, is thrown down a socially engineered rabbit hole. When and where will we land? Shall the landing be hard or soft?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>There are 330 million sheeple and 6 dogs in a flock.</i></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Who is the shepherd?</i></span></p></blockquote>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-30158387632768409902022-07-04T09:29:00.001-07:002022-07-04T15:17:34.524-07:00Magic versus Magical Thinking, a Practical Guide (Part 2): Of Origins, Migrations, Memory and Nostalgia<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTjyhHrzQ9S31YBXY2ZkqswBWvm9dfua_8mjiyH1gTu9OZoWI4xSuibcdUFuXKKmNjNKtB5KIV4k8yj9rcTuzn7o9xqQH0xrpoQoHIZpN2IHX1J2TzmNWJuIpYFuCkXRKY6E-AtLxRc8ZLrJD_XddtHRwSX3Pqkgxijmv7UJdAsT1vTW8mVo4QoEz/s977/Screen%20Shot%202022-07-04%20at%209.26.02%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="636" data-original-width="977" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTjyhHrzQ9S31YBXY2ZkqswBWvm9dfua_8mjiyH1gTu9OZoWI4xSuibcdUFuXKKmNjNKtB5KIV4k8yj9rcTuzn7o9xqQH0xrpoQoHIZpN2IHX1J2TzmNWJuIpYFuCkXRKY6E-AtLxRc8ZLrJD_XddtHRwSX3Pqkgxijmv7UJdAsT1vTW8mVo4QoEz/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-07-04%20at%209.26.02%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-size: large;">Of all the various types of magical thinking, this particular variety is among the most frequent—and the most dangerous:</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">If only we could return to the way things were, everything would be all right.</span></i></p></blockquote><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">If only that could possibly be true, in any way shape or form! This expression of longing, however, is most often the result of incomplete, in some cases manufactured, memory.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Here is an example of what I mean. That collection of “books” that comes to many of us prepackaged in a single volume called The Bible, with all its errors of translation and transliteration, gaps, glosses and bridgework, contains in its first book not one but two creation stories. (As an aside, there are actually many other creation stories throughout the entire collection. Look to the Psalms, Hosea, Isaiah, Job, Proverbs,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Jeremiah, John and, of course, Revelation.) Most people who have read Genesis from start to end conflate the two stories, so that they become a single narrative. (The same thing happens with the Jesus birthday stories of the gospels.) What I mean to imply by mentioning this is that all such stories are <i>afterward</i> stories and not true accounts of any reality, particularly, as in similar stories from other cultural heritages, when anthropomorphism is applied to planets, stars or birds from the sky, ants and worms from below ground, or the fish in the sea. If you ever read any Greek mythology, even the most watered down versions, you understand what I mean. Said another way, we may have lived through our beginnings, but we were not there at our beginning.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">As alluded to in the previous essay, people long for settled place and a sense of belonging in the midst of change and upheaval. This is not what the experience of living dishes out.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The photo above was taken by me at the V Bar V Petroglyph Heritage site in Sedona, Arizona. Created over a long period by tribes identified today as Sinagua, this is a storyboard that could be applicable to many groupings of people, anywhere in the world, except that this particular storyboard is a product tied to a particular place and a particular time (roughly 1100 through 1400 CE). The storyboard is an almanac, depicting among other things seasonal changes and migration patterns that area dwellers followed. Not much, naturally, is known of the specific peoples who contributed to the storyboard; “mysteriously disappeared” is always the explanation given, but what we must read into that is a prolonged period of drought and/or invasion by unfriendly or warring tribes, as well as the ravages of colonization; anything might have triggered human migration from the area. What any person might be able to read (given a basic background in world mythology and South Western symbolism) on this magnificent stone cliff is the story of people in constant seasonal migration. During winter, groups would follow the herds of elk and other creatures, which would roughly end at the Spring thaw, at which time the People would shift their operations to rivers for fishing and collection of reeds for fashioning baskets, fishing traps and other useful items. In late Spring, the People would remove to flat or terraced fertile areas near water, in sheltered valleys or in the shadow of buttes, to plant, gather and build up stores for the winter. Throughout the area, there are fine examples of cliff dugout and masonry buildings, all of which were abandoned, for whatever reason.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">At the site, we were given rough information by a white Forest Service docent, and then also an Indigenous Representative came (we were lucky; tribal representatives are not always available). People asked questions about the various symbols. The tribal Representative both knew and did not know. I remembered experiencing this shifting sort of vagueness on a decades previous trip to Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, where a question was asked about symbols in murals on the walls of the Mission Church.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">There are very specific reasons for this shifting between knowing and not knowing. First of all, there is a palpable, even visceral cultural memory of the violent ravages of colonization. Acoma was violently taken over by the Spanish, who then forced Christianity on the indigenous. There was a lot of resistance; one aspect of resistance to oppression is the presence of native symbols, discretely placed, under the radar. Telling strangers about that is like <i>giving away personal identity</i>. Secondly, because migration has always been a way seasonal way of life, and climate shifts play a huge role in that, many of the indigenous who live in a certain area now may have come from somewhere else; the tides of time and assimilation have sometimes washed away specific local cultural memory.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The notion that the way we were is better than way things are now is a lie we tell ourselves when we feel unmoored from rootedness by the vicissitudes of an ever-changing world. The truth is, people want to feel rooted and complacent, but the reality is people cannot live that way for very long. The lands and cultures, the economies and governances are in constant fluctuation. There has never been the stasis our soul longs for. Snapshots of a carefree childhood are an incomplete knowledge of what it took for our parents to bring us to adulthood. Nietzsche called nostalgia a form of <i>nihilism</i>. In <i>Will to Power</i>, he wrote:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning.</span></i></p></blockquote><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">As I know from the practical experience of bringing up twins, nothing stays the same. Just at the very moment you come to understand one stage child development and how to manage within it, the next stage crashes like a wave that you are completely unprepared for and ill equipped to deal with, except that you must.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>When I now see cute little kids walking to the park, it tugs at my heart, but I wouldn’t want to go through those first five years of childrearing again, at the age that I am now.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">As the sage named Jesus told a man called Nicodemus, everyone must be reborn again <i>as from above</i>. Nicodemus responds with a ridiculous question, offered on purpose, as in a Socratic/rabbinic dialogue, “You cannot mean that a person is to reenter his mother’s womb and be born again.” The sage responds metaphorically, “No one can enter the kingdom of the Divine unless they are born of water and the spirit.” By this metaphor, I take it to mean that, of course, <i>there is no going backward</i>, there is only forward movement and momentum toward a change in perspective, a maturation of understanding, enlightenment.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The desire to go backwards, aside from being impossible, is completely unnatural. As the survivors of the Surfside Condominium disaster could attest, as much as one might long to return to a place once known of as home, it might well no longer be there. The desire to go backwards is, to some extent, an expression of rage at being forced to adapt.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">But, we are intended to migrate, both physically and mentally, through the seasons, and through every stage of life. As T. S. Eliot relates in that famous poem of his, which echoes the sentiments of writers who came before him:<br /><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">In my end is my beginning.</span></i></p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-83065090943078814782022-06-26T11:26:00.003-07:002022-07-02T11:18:56.676-07:00Magic versus Magical Thinking, a Practical Guide (Part 1): Of Recipes, Rites and Action<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicoicL38MgzEdPQXx2VV_N7gvzq5eE8qUr693YetcedaSyHxVMlxIgXCgUCipTKMVFlQPb0cMBlZxEkwJUsw8Onm0NschmBPESfRoWPeaVDdXvwXc8xblG3RCps4NthcWg6mz5L3XWpyO_yeP5Iv6ajgvtT1Po6fVI6rYfQHlRCHX4yr2DrelZIKlw/s576/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-26%20at%2011.03.56%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="576" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicoicL38MgzEdPQXx2VV_N7gvzq5eE8qUr693YetcedaSyHxVMlxIgXCgUCipTKMVFlQPb0cMBlZxEkwJUsw8Onm0NschmBPESfRoWPeaVDdXvwXc8xblG3RCps4NthcWg6mz5L3XWpyO_yeP5Iv6ajgvtT1Po6fVI6rYfQHlRCHX4yr2DrelZIKlw/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-26%20at%2011.03.56%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In the beginning, when people were evolving, power was present in the place where one found oneself—by power, I mean the inherent dangers of a place, such as raging waters, sheer cliffs, and roaming gigantic flesh eating creatures. Survival, in such places, came to be seen as a certain sort of blessing, and the people who seemed to have better survival tools (or rather who seemed to make better choices) came to be revered. Some of those revered people, when asked to what they attributed their success at overcoming adversity, might have said something like, “I owe it to the benevolent spirit of the place,” by which they might have meant that they had learned by experience, trial and error, how to make good choices in a hostile environment. Indeed, some people are better suited to survival in certain places than others, and this can only be the result of an education by experience that teaches a type of discernment when it comes to making choices, especially when the unexpected happens. Such people, when they die, become the stuff of legends, and sometimes the legends of such people become so famous, they are turned into demi-gods.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Another scenario related to hero worship is the worship of forces of nature, such as water, air, fire, quaking earth, and the like, seen and unseen. Survival of the fittest when it comes to forces of nature is also an aspect of the power of place, where the unexpected happening can limit or endanger chances of survival.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Yet another scenario related to worship is the reverence of any thing or being that produces food. In such a scenario, corn is reverenced, wheat is reverenced, cows are reverenced, and so forth.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I will say that none of these models of reverence is inherently incorrect; these are all valid examples of reverence and respect. With reverence and respect to the powers of place, to the life-giving powers of food produced in the natural world, to exemplars of right discernment and choice, one is able to learn from past example, build on that with innovation, and survive, even to the point of producing offspring that carry the species forward in time toward newer innovation.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I will now identify an aspect of these primitive forms of reverence that I believe to be incorrect: magic.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">This is not to say that magic and magical moments do not exist or that they are irrelevant. Magic is very real; it may be the most real thing there is. Magic goes back to the power of place and the power of the unexpected. Magic is an experience, an awesome and unexpected result. The error comes when people believe they can recreate a magical experience by performing a litany of rites, instead of living and experiencing, learning. The error occurs when people do not, as the heroic exemplars of the past did (or may have done), use and build on the knowledge acquired through experiences of surviving the powers of place and the unexpected to <i>make choices</i>, then accept <i>responsibility</i> for <i>inauspicious outcomes</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Simply put, one person’s choice might work for someone else, but this is not necessarily the case, and is most often <i>not</i>. In the words of a song Doris Day sang, but hated:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“Que sera, sera</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Whatever will be, will be</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The future's not ours to see</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Que sera, sera</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">What will be, will be</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Que sera, sera.”</span></p></blockquote><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Great British Bake Off television series delivers a concrete example of what I am talking about. At some point, all the participants are given the same recipe to prepare. Amazingly, the results are different for every single participant. Why? They are all using the same ingredients in the same weather conditions, with roughly identical equipment. Why is it that the results can be so different?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Recipes (receipts, in old style) are scientific formulae from the realm of the practical cook. Someone made a tasty dish and invited friends to dinner. The friends really enjoyed the dish and wanted to recreate it in their own homes, so they asked for the receipt, which was a list of ingredients, most often, including a sketchy explanation of how the ingredients were to be combined. The cook had been preparing the dish for so long, it was second nature, and they figured another (<i>experienced</i>) cook would know what was intended.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Here is a recipe from “Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus [Estes]”:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mushroom Sauce, Italian Style—(for macaroni, spaghetti, ravioli and rice)—a small piece of butter about the size of an egg. One or two onions, cut very small. About two pounds of beef. Let all brown. Prepare as you would pot roast. Add Italian dried mushrooms, soaked overnight in hot water, chopped in small pieces. Add about one-half can of tomatoes. Let all cook well. Salt and pepper to taste. Add a little flour to thicken.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p></blockquote><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The beef, is it cubed or a slab of meat? Small, medium or large onions; yellow or red? What quantity of dried mushrooms? What size can of tomatoes are we talking about? Do you know how to make pot roast? Is this done in the oven or on the stovetop? What sized pot to use? Any added liquid, or do the tomatoes suffice? At what temperature? For how long?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The experienced, practical (that is, <i>practicing</i>) cook can take that receipt, procure the ingredients, and turn them into a delicious meal. In the hands of others, “results may vary.” And that is the truth of the matter, results do vary; life is not cast by lots, nor can the turn of a card predict outcomes—that is <i>magical thinking</i>.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">That’s all for now. Not sure when the next installment will be, but I can say that it will have something to do with praxis, religion, reason and governance.</span></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-48532156342756096122022-06-20T21:30:00.000-07:002022-06-20T21:30:11.356-07:00Solstice<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyh_49JMEvio3I2PgcqnWWDzTETsIyTFNKalbW1UT7GK4uP-Gao-sjw4vUKZWL6wpXExOJocl7WQDYI8z7qJTdzLC9FTg3aj2-vZ9WpQH6IkRj-3hA4RiuJAaJSA0ChcLSwIH4ewKX2OAAJX0qy4Gf4XDiYBcYmbqsw9Sa4iP84FIkZLzEXvYmNt3G/s745/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-20%20at%209.18.07%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="745" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyh_49JMEvio3I2PgcqnWWDzTETsIyTFNKalbW1UT7GK4uP-Gao-sjw4vUKZWL6wpXExOJocl7WQDYI8z7qJTdzLC9FTg3aj2-vZ9WpQH6IkRj-3hA4RiuJAaJSA0ChcLSwIH4ewKX2OAAJX0qy4Gf4XDiYBcYmbqsw9Sa4iP84FIkZLzEXvYmNt3G/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-20%20at%209.18.07%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The shortest night</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">eases into the longest day;</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the light can barely contain itself,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and the land heaves a sigh</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">of something quite pent up—</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">the interior landscape</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">exhales heat and humidity.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The birds take to song early,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">take to flight soon after,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">until the beating of wings</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">awakens the whole world</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">with inescapable rhythms.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Every stone, every branch,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">even the driest blade of grass,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">all awaken, as if from a long sleep,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and a longer dreaming.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Waves of warmth rise</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">in circular patterns off the ground,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">as do the pollinators,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">flitting from blossom to blossom,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">as if self-aware of greater liberties</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">to propel themselves upward,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">despite the heavy weight<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">of their cargos.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Everything rises on tiptoe,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">as if weightless,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">expectant,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">waiting</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">for the next coming,</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 29px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Next,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">only round the corner, now,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">is all poised to bloom</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and bear fruit,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">for, verily,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Life is the only choice</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face"; font-size: 24px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">on this event horizon.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">© 2022 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</p><p> </p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-8945680470056908832022-06-12T08:58:00.000-07:002022-06-12T08:58:23.747-07:00Commencement Day 2022<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY1huZCAlvC7MS2hChM94x7aWtRyFfRMvY4la2lwlvzUWl8FfqJqCL9QfMXZrTZPnN6EmMckIYu7FXyXS7HUI3L2EW5FugntYxBCMPFZqwRbD6aHYyd5XQ634eQFXuIbA0_ajoj6wA3HWaqDnM3lC3p_KSRd7QA9hW1AOf-uzrw6Op5powygMOScOy/s584/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-12%20at%208.50.56%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="345" data-original-width="584" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY1huZCAlvC7MS2hChM94x7aWtRyFfRMvY4la2lwlvzUWl8FfqJqCL9QfMXZrTZPnN6EmMckIYu7FXyXS7HUI3L2EW5FugntYxBCMPFZqwRbD6aHYyd5XQ634eQFXuIbA0_ajoj6wA3HWaqDnM3lC3p_KSRd7QA9hW1AOf-uzrw6Op5powygMOScOy/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-12%20at%208.50.56%20AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><i>For Max and Hazel, and all the grads of 2022</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You may not remember the first step you ever took,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>but look, here you are, stepping off the dais,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>as newly minted today, as you were then.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For years—too many, it seems—you’ve been told:</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Line Up,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Move forward,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Look Up,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Look Down,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And STOP!</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The world, now, is your oyster, as they say,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>but they never tell you what this means:</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The world is your classroom perpetual and teacher,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and every day brings a new challenge<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>that writes a new lesson</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>for you to be tested on,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>culminating in the greatest</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> of all questions:</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><i>“How do I make a difference</i></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>while I’ve got the day-to-day grind on my mind?”</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This is the question for the ages;</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All the great sages and philosophers have pondered the issue,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">and here is what they said (abridged):</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Line Up: Conform to goodness in everything.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Move Forward: Challenges are not intended to thwart your trajectory.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Look Up: Nothing in the vast universe is beneath your notice.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Look Down on nothing and no one;<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>atoms—as people—differ in constituency,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">but coexist together in the same metaphenomenon;</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>honor that truth by learning to be together</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>in cooperation with all that is.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Stop at nothing achieve your goals, even as they shift.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Be yourself, accept yourself, even as you change and grow;</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>you hardly know it, but you’re already a techie,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span>inventing and reinventing yourself,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>inside and out, in every moment.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When you accept all others as equals,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>this is where all dialogue begins,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>and today is where the seeds are planted</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>for the gardens of tomorrow;</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">All that is left to do, then, is tend them, wisely,</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>today and tomorrow—always.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 22px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">© 2022 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</span></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-33951064372322446332022-06-05T19:13:00.008-07:002022-06-05T19:25:27.434-07:00For You Made Us So<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4NwmsGn0l4dhNqGbPVUk6STMahW4fhFMYELgKsn4Nka49rj35QEFqYGZfjv-sa8k-4VWq2V2NYGyMrx9s4F4CB48vwJUttqfNpTL5KcYeUNmE8eOKtmNEFLzxGmCYq1dFyWHi1_aVpMri3XmsyA6E_7jq_1s-zpMFZvA66MPcX5ZQHZyh3dXI2uXk/s393/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-05%20at%206.58.12%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="393" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4NwmsGn0l4dhNqGbPVUk6STMahW4fhFMYELgKsn4Nka49rj35QEFqYGZfjv-sa8k-4VWq2V2NYGyMrx9s4F4CB48vwJUttqfNpTL5KcYeUNmE8eOKtmNEFLzxGmCYq1dFyWHi1_aVpMri3XmsyA6E_7jq_1s-zpMFZvA66MPcX5ZQHZyh3dXI2uXk/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-05%20at%206.58.12%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span></span>- <i>a song for Pentecost and Pride</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">“Hear my prayer!“</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“No, hear mine!”<br />“But, you must listen to us!”</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 36px;">all the day long, o—</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">Horns blaring;</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">Cymbals clanging;<br />Bells a-change-ringing;<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>but hearts of stone, all,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>hearts of stone, o—</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">Mercifully and softly fell the night.<br />Mercifully and softly fell the rain.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">With the softly broken morning,<br />sun beaming through soft clouds,<br />the dove came softly down,<br />carrying a rainbow in its bill.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">And the predictable drumbeat started,<br />but, what a difference, o—<br />the new day makes!</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">I sing a song;<br />I sing a song softly, o—</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">And just like that,<br />everyone that can speak,<br />everyone, o—<br />everyone can <i>hear</i>!</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">Oh, Love Divine!</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">There is no need to yell,<br />is there?</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">You formed me:<br />inward and outward, you made me;<br />you know the sound of my voice,<br />you know the sound of my song, o—<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">And on this day that you have made,<br />wherein you have made all things new,<br />I sing my song, softly,<br />and everyone can hear my song,<br />and everyone’s song, o—</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">For we are the music of the spheres<br />—for you made us so, o—</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">© 2022 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</p></div><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /></div><br /><p></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-37548902117696369262022-03-20T18:18:00.006-07:002022-03-21T07:25:34.348-07:00How to Shift the Universe<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbbxKF7iG9Vx_FZLrKQxa_WD93qruoAccJQTgglDWejSaiL0LqIPg4HYj6xiHX_DufhlCri1GUC7q5zCx1m4rSlB00M8FWqNvjKWtrpzIS8qmX44mtQp11-YHJvrWVV9wHLt5LegnV7mXOOLFbhBRXn970VdXIq5h2qQ0biYzLpSiY1EpY43ND-5m3=s803" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="803" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbbxKF7iG9Vx_FZLrKQxa_WD93qruoAccJQTgglDWejSaiL0LqIPg4HYj6xiHX_DufhlCri1GUC7q5zCx1m4rSlB00M8FWqNvjKWtrpzIS8qmX44mtQp11-YHJvrWVV9wHLt5LegnV7mXOOLFbhBRXn970VdXIq5h2qQ0biYzLpSiY1EpY43ND-5m3=w524-h325" width="524" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The omn<span class="s1" style="color: #2b2c30;">ī</span>zon is the great bloom of events,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>rather like an explosion of wildflowers<br />in the springtime of the year.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The trajectory of each subject coincides<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>with the trajectory of every object<br />arising from evolving space-time.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">All that is real and true is here,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>including all the secrets of nature<br />into which God has retreated, not withdrawn.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The intention of each wave and particle<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>is equally met by energy<br />from this sacred well of infinity.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Thoughts blossom, nestled within other thoughts,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>billowing in all directions like bubbles and balloons,<br />some of which pop, while the others float onward.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Superseded thoughts remain threads of the fabric,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>for nothing is gained, neither is it lost,<br />but that it might be found useful, sometime.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Words emerge along the fabric of thought;<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>shall they be seamed into action,<br />or shall they be knit as speculative plan?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What shall signify as intent is linear,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>but the word as she is spoken and sung<br />is the event that makes worlds and music.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?</i><br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>the query rings from the corporate stages<br />of the multidimensional concert hall.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This interruption, in future interrogatory mode,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>signals present pressing need of other,<br />a cry from the unincorporated that cannot be ignored.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On the answer to this question<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>all future laws, prophets, devices and worlds depend;<br />the omn<span class="s1" style="color: #2b2c30;">ī</span>zon and infinite space between await your reply.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For example, when I said, <i>Here I am; send me</i>,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>the universe shifted, and when I ventured to ask, <i>For how long?</i><br />came the reply: <i>Until each now passes into each next, forever.</i></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Century; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">© 2022 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Century; font-size: large;">Note: I created the term <i>omn</i></span><span class="s1" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Century; font-size: large;"><i>ī</i></span><span style="font-family: Century; font-size: large;"><i>zon</i> about 30 years ago, when I was toying with writing a science fiction journey novel loosely modeled on Teresa of Avila's <i>Interior Castle </i>and the chakra system. My manuscript is incomplete and unpublished, but the term I created lives on with me. What does it mean? The event of the cosmos happens in all directions simultaneously, and there are systems within systems within systems, as well as systems that impinge on other systems to draw or create energy. Every moment, however that is measured, is a new creation, the shifted/altered/re-formed universe. In science fiction, there is the important notion of responsibility for changes made to the space time continuum. If only every sentient being would live up to this responsibility!</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />Image credit:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Gordon Onslow-Ford</span></b></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="letter-spacing: -0.2px;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Constellations in Hand</i>, 1961<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Parle's paint and aqua polymer on canvas;<br />permanent collection of SFMOMA</span></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-16025958442580841042022-03-12T08:49:00.001-08:002022-03-12T08:49:43.967-08:00All The Infinite Space Between<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhbH_BhAffNR4mA1EOQeNZhRDkdDbSqD-p6yY78zXOtkyVS_rZNYy_Hk9uqB4d0vv1j-Li6rNYUV_iEI6U_ywFWmY8IFao1UE90V3Rv7JdDoK0hOjzsEIsMBsI4CWw1sLbiVpuEaAvolXcIOisAfX5_n6XIFVaBvbJPyeOCUZr5Egesmxe5JNk8fum-=s635" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="635" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhbH_BhAffNR4mA1EOQeNZhRDkdDbSqD-p6yY78zXOtkyVS_rZNYy_Hk9uqB4d0vv1j-Li6rNYUV_iEI6U_ywFWmY8IFao1UE90V3Rv7JdDoK0hOjzsEIsMBsI4CWw1sLbiVpuEaAvolXcIOisAfX5_n6XIFVaBvbJPyeOCUZr5Egesmxe5JNk8fum-=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">Because there otherwise might be silence,<br />the stones cry out,<br /><i>mind you on your way!</i></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i></i><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">Freedom is economy,<br />rather than autonomy;<br />choice is not license,<br />but responsibility.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">This walk,<br />through the valley of the shadow,<br />is about all our meetings with other<br />so as to see <i>divinity</i>—and also self<br />—reflected, as in a pool of infinite love.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">Would it be a surprise<br />to know each being<br />is responsible even for the air<br />—which <i>seems</i> free for all to abuse—<br />and all the infinite space between?<br />How best to use it?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">The veil over perception parts<br />with the realization that<br />agency is the abeyance of will<br />to meet subjective moment<br />objectively.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">Otherwise, how is the cultivation of Eden possible?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">© Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</span></p></div>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-28166633592724119792022-03-06T12:36:00.002-08:002022-03-06T17:05:59.827-08:00Final Interview for Civil Service Job<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfpmNyBdO--KxoqF9ojK1iX4Rhn59YlxEW_P-WdhAs2fS2xlsRSFSfGnpq12KiBj6k5zm2_Q_CJ3xktd_ngoqjtEJnz3zj5CC2_eJa1TUWc_Rtux7XEeb1yR_QCumTaWphCKtPBl1px_n6Skwq2VWPulFt8E_cqSw0WZ-4D5W8Maz820T9ba6ZYtoQ=s742" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="742" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfpmNyBdO--KxoqF9ojK1iX4Rhn59YlxEW_P-WdhAs2fS2xlsRSFSfGnpq12KiBj6k5zm2_Q_CJ3xktd_ngoqjtEJnz3zj5CC2_eJa1TUWc_Rtux7XEeb1yR_QCumTaWphCKtPBl1px_n6Skwq2VWPulFt8E_cqSw0WZ-4D5W8Maz820T9ba6ZYtoQ=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I had worked in the department as a part-timer in the temporary “send as needed” pool. What this meant is that I worked almost full-time, with no vacation time and only 24 hours of sick leave per year. [Think about that, for a minute.] The one huge benefit, which was something fairly new, was getting on the healthcare plan, after 6 months.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I worked through the entire pandemic in an office. [Think about that, for a minute.]</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The people I worked with were fun, funny, quirky, and we mostly all got along. The supervisors were fun and engaged. I loved it there.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">As a temp, though, I was limited to a maximum of 18 months at that position. They throw you back in the pool and deploy you somewhere else. The oddity of a change in position classification meant that, by a technicality, I worked for a full 2 years in the position. As my 18 months (stretched to 24) was coming to an end, a permanent job offering for this classification was posted. I applied.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">At first, my application was rejected. Why? The prerequisite was 2 full years of experience in the specific job, but HR said <i>the experience from the temporary pool did not count</i>. The job posting did not say that.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I told my supervisor, who told his supervisor, who got in touch with HR and made a fuss. I was later told that another applicant sued over that very issue, which put the entire hiring process on hold until the disputed details were sorted.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Eventually, I was informed that my 2 years of experience as a temp was sufficient for my application to move forward.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Over the next 9 months, I had 3 or maybe 4 interviews. Only the first interview was in person; the rest were via the Teams platform.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The last interview was a few weeks ago. The interview was supposed to take 20 minutes. I could not go home to do the interview (where I knew there would be no technical difficulty), as the office where I was currently working had a “4 person deep” policy for the end of the day. There had to be 4 people available to answer the phone – which seldom rang. [Think about that, for a minute.]</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I had to use my own personal equipment from home, and try to get it to work within a basement office with poor outside internet service.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I prepared my phone and my laptop, and checked in with one of the supervisors. “Can you help me, if something goes wrong?” He said, “I’d be happy to!”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The time to log-on for the 3:50pm scheduled interview came. As luck would have it, neither my phone nor<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>laptop would connect. The supervisor I’d gone to "in case of emergency" had, meanwhile, evaporated into thin air and was not to be found for the rest of the day.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In desperation, I ran to a work colleague. He came to my rescue and we were able to activate teams in the big conference room. The only problem was the camera was not set up; they could hear me but not see me. I ran to the nearest in-house IT guy, and he was able to help me with that part, while I profusely apologized to the interviewers and the HR moderator for the technical difficulties. My colleague whispered to me, “Don’t worry, this kind of thing happens all the time. It won’t be held against you.”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Finally, I could be seen and heard. I could see and hear the interviewers, both of whom I had worked with before. Lovely people, who looked tired and bored. I’m not sure, but this may have been the last interview scheduled for the day.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">So, finally, the interview was under way, with all the usual questions: Why do you think you are ideal for the job?; How do you organize your work?; Give a specific example of a time when you dealt with a tough customer, and what was the outcome? Tell us about a time when you had a problem with a co-worker, and how was it resolved?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Those questions answered, possibly in the usual way, the moderator said, “Thank you, that is all the questions we have for today. Is there anything you would like to add that was not touched on in your responses to the other questions?”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It is my answer to this (non)question, I believe, that got me the job. To the best of my memory, this is what I said:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“Yes, I do have a few remarks to add… </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">"In all my interactions with members of the public, I try to help people have confidence in the agency.”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The interviewers looked up from their notes.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“People have to wait in line; they have to wait on the phone; they get cut off and have to start all over again. It is so easy to feel as though the agency, whatever agency it is, is unresponsive…</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“One time, I answered the phone, and the lady on the other end said, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your work.’ I paused for a moment before I responded, ‘You <i>are</i> my work… I mean, that’s why they hired me: To be here, for you. Sure, I have paperwork to do—this paperwork is for other people, such as you. All of the work done in this office is for you, so that your need(s) can be met, your problem(s) solved.’”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">While I was talking, I was simultaneously thinking about my own encounters with phone trees and service representatives. I was also thinking about the word economy, which is from the Greek. The original meaning of the word encompasses the meeting of need and also hospitality. We think about this term so differently, today. I was also remembering that our county agencies are the true, <i>in situ</i> safety net for people in need. This does not mean that they always work <i>well</i>, but the intent is service for the people.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I went on, “People are tired of the inefficiencies of our systems, not always calibrated to interact well. When they call on the phone, after sending emails that seem to go into a black hole, they are understandably frustrated. The county worker is where the rubber meets the road, the nexus of those programs that are funded by state and sometimes federal tax dollars. We are intended to bridge the gap between our core technical inefficiencies, so that people can receive the aid for which they’ve applied. This work is about access; it’s about equity; it’s about inclusion; it’s about needs being met from within the community. Drill that down, my friends, and that is democracy in action.”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The interviewers, throughout these comments, seemed to perk up. Eyebrows twitched; there were small smiles; there was the added scribbling of notes.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">In a moment, it was over. I thanked everyone for their patience with the technical glitches, for having heard me, and wished them well for the rest of their day.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">There is so much rhetoric about bootstrapping and self-sufficiency, out and about in our world. The truth of the matter is that we are not lone rangers; rather we are members of communities. Citizenship, from the earliest meanings of the term, assumes the offer of communal assistance to those whose needs cannot otherwise be met. Citizenship more than implies responsibility to one’s neighbor, as well as to any person identified as “other.”<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Of course, this doesn’t mean such interactions are easy, and that they don’t come with a price. But they are sorely needed, in a world full of need and expectation. As is true for poets, civil servants don’t get into this work to become millionaires… and they put up with a lot of abuse while they don’t become millionaires… So, there must be another reason why people choose this work…</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">This may merely prove that I am still an idealistic dreamer, after all these years. I’ll own it.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I start work on Monday morning.</span></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-67083732373567788042022-01-05T20:43:00.001-08:002022-01-05T20:46:20.762-08:00Dromedary Dreams<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjoPFSinVEPufR3rT8tRT3yjAi9Z0S2ZOAkm1NfaA2c5PlxU8sQxQFE85d-w-I0kg87fnxoKO48m1sWVw3Rj_eLNLj9jRpXAqek0yWwLEIAsoiMghWmmnJpJibeLHc_NjpwEhigkcNpD8UR2t435e1fUGRHGxojFJ55KK63WhC3pL4AstDPua5Gu0ru=s625" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="625" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjoPFSinVEPufR3rT8tRT3yjAi9Z0S2ZOAkm1NfaA2c5PlxU8sQxQFE85d-w-I0kg87fnxoKO48m1sWVw3Rj_eLNLj9jRpXAqek0yWwLEIAsoiMghWmmnJpJibeLHc_NjpwEhigkcNpD8UR2t435e1fUGRHGxojFJ55KK63WhC3pL4AstDPua5Gu0ru=s320" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><div style="text-align: center;">Journey of the Magi, James Tissot, c. 1894</div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Silent footfalls belie big burdens<br />—traces of feet will be gone by morning,<br />shrouded by wind-sifted curtains.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">God is completely present, even<br />in these evening breezes;<br />every desert is wholly a part of Eden.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">With all the planets aligned<br />to the fullness of ascended moon,<br />light is abundantly consigned,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Accompanied by comet and star<br />—all is made bright and visible;<br />no matter where you stand, there you are,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>seen</i>. Yet, onward we ply and plod,<br />destination unknown,<br />as they say in the Land of Nod.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Being—to be—good, by deed,<br />word and thought, is to lodge in a place<br />so full of goodness, there is no need</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">to be elsewhere; such is the goal.<br />To find, there within goodness, a refuge,<br />where to coalesce and be whole,</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">in spirit, mind and body,<br />this is what the dromedary dreams of,<br />while traversing the ancient wadi.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">12/23/2021</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For Epiphany</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">© Elisabeth T. Eliassen & songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><u>Notes/Commentary</u>:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">* Genesis 3:8-9, some translations suggest the Divine Being enjoys a walk in the cool evening breezes.<br /><span class="s1" style="color: #2c3136;">* Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus to aligned around (Dec. 10), joined by the moon.</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">* Comet C/2021 A1 (Comet Leonard) will be visible throughout December 2021 and into early January 2022</p><p class="p2" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">* The mythobiblical Land of Nod is located east of Eden, from which Cain was banished for murdering Abel. But this is less about a story and more about a language. Nod is the root of the Hebrew verb “to wander.” Related words reflect meanings ranging from vagabond and fugitive to being disturbed, agitated or moved. To “live in the land of Nod” can mean “to live a wandering life.”</p><p class="p3" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My friend Bajun R. Mavalwalla posted Tissot’s work on his Facebook page, along with some thoughts on the magi, from the traditions of his family. I woke up a week later with the words “dromedary dreams” in my mind. Since the words showed up, I thought I’d better work with them!</p><p class="p3" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This poem is meant to be lighthearted and from the point of view of dromedaries, the common pack animal of the middle eastern deserts. Humans (with their baggage) run all over the place, trying to find the person, place or thing that will make existence perfect (“destination unknown”). The dromedaries in this poem rather think you don’t have to run around to find that—well, perhaps they would prefer to find, stay and experience the goodness of a single place, any place that is illumined by Divine light. (This would certainly save wear and tear of the desert sands on dromedary feet!).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Ultimately, this is a story of immanence, the holiness of the seen and unseen. People run all over, looking for holiness, when in truth they are surrounded by it, if only they could see and be illumined/informed by the signs, and act in accordance with them--that is, with responsible stewardship and benevolence. Rather than make this a story about astronomers from Persia with three gifts for a baby messiah, my rendering is intended to honor the traces of Zoroastrian monotheism that come to us through the Hellenist Judaism of Philo and Christianity—the transformative threefold ethical path of good thoughts, good words and good deeds.</p><p class="p2" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="color: #2b2c30; font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">E.T.E.</p></div><br /><br /><p></p><br /><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /><br /></span><p></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-56658702539447089032021-11-25T09:42:00.000-08:002021-11-25T09:42:40.097-08:00Sursum Corda<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBH9p-fQzmNg_-eaDAswdigf40u0UQkmk2Nk6W7mWQxu2PXeerIbXsy_0jBOR1cP6x_HcZeSbdTF-QYChoepPCpJOf8U5AXDlImuPdpfw4y3pAQ4U2CeDeKjOhBnNCK_l43MQgyuQ5lkY/s577/Screen+Shot+2021-11-25+at+9.36.57+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="294" data-original-width="577" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBH9p-fQzmNg_-eaDAswdigf40u0UQkmk2Nk6W7mWQxu2PXeerIbXsy_0jBOR1cP6x_HcZeSbdTF-QYChoepPCpJOf8U5AXDlImuPdpfw4y3pAQ4U2CeDeKjOhBnNCK_l43MQgyuQ5lkY/s320/Screen+Shot+2021-11-25+at+9.36.57+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">From near or far,<br />Here we are,<br />Gathered around<br />the table abundant.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Too long, too long apart;<br />It’s difficult to remember<br />The proper way to start.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">We join our hands,<br />We pray for all lands<br />— for as we have suffered,<br />others, likewise, have—<br />And recall those, bright and bold,<br />Who now the arms of history hold,<br />Since last we met like this.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The warmth of touch,<br />Oh, so warm! to share the lively<br />Pulse of light and life! so much<br />Missing from living, lately!</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Within the candles’ glow,<br />Within the warmth of home,<br />This meeting is where we sow<br />Seeds for Spring in the receptive loam.</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Let’s lift up our hearts, Dear Ones!</i><span class="s1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></span>We lift our cups for the toast,<br /><i>We lift them up</i>!, reply all tongues,<br />Gratitude and joy, uppermost—</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">—Reminded and ever mindful<br />That all the primary things<br />Are not things, at all.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiqhCrn2nufoMz4RefnTESpCmuH8IJuBc0RkQTgkLzSWTOjgCflyJzdVm0KfAZerFJ9RR4FMSAnx4XTrjeCi3JRLTWnCQXwngxwvRXQakr0y325GmYq1qQksmp0bp2_ey-U4zbJ5oRzEU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="14" data-original-width="432" height="10" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiqhCrn2nufoMz4RefnTESpCmuH8IJuBc0RkQTgkLzSWTOjgCflyJzdVm0KfAZerFJ9RR4FMSAnx4XTrjeCi3JRLTWnCQXwngxwvRXQakr0y325GmYq1qQksmp0bp2_ey-U4zbJ5oRzEU/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-91973265251020594272021-10-03T08:01:00.001-07:002021-10-03T08:01:59.357-07:00Colibri Animato<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzI-7hqrh6le9vjbOIUKG3W2HM3o3vhHZmmM5aZVVOD4FtrNkKpJ6owqS1BkSgxKhqzROY2LdVOdBaUgXTzkQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">for the Feast of St. Francis</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: start; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">3 October 2021<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> - my 60<sup>th</sup> birthday</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is a language we share:<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>the air that together we breathe,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>beneath the open sky!</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">Who could have known that would be enough<br />to bridge such an enormous gap?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">But even the diary from one year ago<br />does attest:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Rounding the corner,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>and there you are!</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-- We share this life,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>though one is fractional<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>to the other</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-- We share this home;<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>though our dwellings differ,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>we are only liminally separate<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>-- In truth, we are together."</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">Of another shared aspect,<br />--that of torpor--<br />our intersectional relationship<br />reaches the overarching conclusion:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 36px;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Choose life!</span></i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">For, suspended animation is merely life incremental,</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">slowed to the blessing of the <i>molto adagio</i>,<br />where the dream that animates us bids us all to live</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">to each newly dawning day,<br />slowing each passing moment of awareness<br />so that we may all be the moment <i>together, </i>and <i>in time.</i></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">For how long, my friend,<br />shall we bless one another’s company,<br />in the newly dawning om of day?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">You greet me by landing on the tomato cage,</span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>despite that fruit being no longer in due season.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">Only in the most foreshortened sense of being<br />can my three-score years coincide with your own<br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">-- yet will I delight in your special greeting,<br />in the beauteous now that we have,<br />in the blessing to have been truly seen<br />and to also have truly seen,<br />in the mutuality of seeing and acknowledging,<br />of <i>knowing</i>,<br />and of caring,<br />and seeking to live cooperative within that notice--</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">yea, let this, what we have, be our deepening moment<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>for as long as providence may bless us both <br />with such patience and perspicacity,<br />with such sacred and familial union,<br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">as is that rounding of the corner,<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>to be with you, <br /><span> </span><span> </span>where you are with me<br />and we are joyously<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>together.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">© 2021 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.com</span></p></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-36483874782035456702021-09-11T10:38:00.002-07:002021-09-11T16:56:34.108-07:00September 11, 2021: A Meditation on Being<p> </p><p><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Calibri; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz0t4JJvYH2SphhtjI_5ue5-lpATMF6k2so7TRPMQrPLAQar48f-B0rGnn2YXQRZy2cIfNkW2QtuvaccMziuu6OGfJlBArMjkviQPdKPN2XB2jvp5UGrXPdMqyWbHvEykq8GDozFNq1IQ/s2048/IMG_0806.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz0t4JJvYH2SphhtjI_5ue5-lpATMF6k2so7TRPMQrPLAQar48f-B0rGnn2YXQRZy2cIfNkW2QtuvaccMziuu6OGfJlBArMjkviQPdKPN2XB2jvp5UGrXPdMqyWbHvEykq8GDozFNq1IQ/s320/IMG_0806.JPG" width="240" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Rosh Hashanah is here. A time to turn and return. Here is one fundamental lesson I learned from a small portion of the sermon, given by Rabbi J. Perlman, something I had not known and found to be utterly amazing.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">The name of the Holy One (one, at least) is not a noun! It is an action verb, an <i>imperfect </i>action verb because <i>the action is incomplete</i>. To offer clarity, scriptural Hebrew has only two tenses Perfect Tense (denoting a completed action) or Imperfect Tense (denoting an incomplete action); these tenses are related to function, not to time. When Hebrew is translated into English, where all the tenses are time oriented (past, present, future), obvious difficulties are encountered.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">This is a rather important detail Christian – and readers of scriptures in other language renderings – would likely miss because of the vagaries of translation. Indeed, just how to properly translate certain Hebrew phrases into English and other languages has been argued about for a very long time, and there is no concrete answer or agreement to the discussion. This is an open discussion.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">What in the heck am I talking about, you ask?</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">It is that passage in Exodus (3:14) where the Holy One answers the question Moses asks: “What is your name?” The answer is given in many English renderings as “I AM THAT I AM… tell them I AM sent you.”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">The Hebrew, transliterated, is “ehyeh asher ehyeh”; ehyeh is the verb “to be.” Because time is not a factor in Hebrew, verbs must be understood contextually. The meaning of the short phrase “ehyeh asher ehyeh” is less like “I am what I am” than “I was/I am/I will be what I will be as I continue to evolve [because I never end].” As I am not a linguist of ancient Hebrew, I had to consult an array of information on the internet to provide this particular, wide-ranging, personal understanding for you to consider. </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Moses found the enormity of this reply difficult to comprehend; the entity he had encountered was most definitely above and beyond any being he could imagine, but how do you identify – how do you <i>name</i> – such an apprehension, such a limitless, uncontained being, to others? How do you name something that cannot be understood, seen or embodied?</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Ehyeh realized this was a problem, a stumbling block, for Moses; this is why Ehyeh goes on to say everything contained in the remaining passages of Exodus 3, identifying what has already been done for this set of people l’dor vador (from generation to generation), and what indeed will be done next, if Moses will go back to the people and proclaim the news.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">The reply of Moses, at the start of Exodus 4, is understandable: <i>They won’t believe me – in part because you have not appeared to them, as you have appeared to me</i>. That response is natural, and it speaks to blind faith in the invisible, which struck me as blind <i>faith in the future</i>, given the context of the Rabbi’s sermon, the one I heard just a few days ago. [In my own Christian tradition, this brings context to that passage where Thomas needs to see the wounds of the Jesus that has returned. Jesus does not rebuke Thomas for his reaction, he draws near, remarking: Seeing <i>is</i> believing.] That would be food for an interesting discussion, but that is not what engaged my mind, on this particular Rosh Hashanah.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">The Divine is <i>being</i>, and we are <i>being</i> also, in the image of the Divine. I will date myself by making a reference to the Flip Wilson Show, of the 1970’s, where there was an infrequent silly segment called, “The Church of What’s Happening Now.” </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">The Holy One is always more about “what’s happening now” than anything that happened in the past, ever urging people to keep up and keep clean with current issues and relationships, rather than dwell on old ones. This is why the High Holy Days are so vitally important. Turning and Returning is not about dwelling on the past; Turning and Returning is about now and future. This is why reconciliation and forgiveness are such important features of the Days of Awe. How can we move forward, after all, if we allow ourselves to be hindered by what happened yesterday, last year, or decades ago. Anything that binds us to the past keeps us from participating in and realizing the future good we can be or make.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Dwelling on the past – also fundamentalism and orthodoxy – can be seen, in this light, as hindering our ability to move beyond “the way we’ve always done things;” it limits what we can apprehend and what our responses should be to what we apprehend. When we Turn and Return, it should always be toward forward momentum, following in the wake of Ehyeh, always moving ahead of us. This does not mean forgetting, this means getting on with life.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">In a few days, on Yom Kippur, these words will be chanted (Deuteronomy 30:19), and I have edited the passage to represent the Divine in keeping with this discussion:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">This day, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love being, apprehend what it is to be, and to hold fast to being. For to be is your life’s work, and being will give you many years in the land Being swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Today is the 11<sup>th</sup> of September. We can mourn our losses and remember those we lost. What we should not do is be stuck in a past that leads to further destruction, further strife, further war.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Even later in the day on Yom Kippur, a portion of these words will be chanted (Leviticus 19: 32-37), and I have edited the passage again, to fit the context of this discussion:</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Show honor to the elderly; stand up when they come into the room. And show respect to your leaders. I am Being. Do not do bad things to foreigners living in your country. You must treat them the same as you treat your own citizens. Love them as you love yourselves. Remember, you were foreigners in Egypt. I am Being! [I declare that ]You must be fair when you judge people, and you must be fair when you measure and weigh things. Your baskets should be the right size. Your jars should hold the right amount of liquids. Your weights and balances should weigh things correctly. I am Being. I brought you out of the land of Egypt. You must remember and obey my ethics. I am Being!”</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">On this September 11<sup>th</sup>, let us mark the occasion by remembering, but then by moving forward, choosing life! The best way to honor those we’ve lost is to be! The expectation of the Divine is that each individual engage with Being by being all that we can be, doing as much good in this world as we can. <i>Being</i> is our sacred birthright; being our very best is our sacred duty.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Blessings to you, and let us say:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Amen.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><br /></p></div></div><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-51408337590698648042021-05-24T07:47:00.003-07:002021-05-24T19:26:00.495-07:00Pentecost 2021<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbGCj1gVlbA89msiZVEzTljj0lr2QYk7QREaaQBI-uurY8_FucbB3-xBaNk49L8qTv8TM20FO2XWyGv30U67PeFBsMkdO5wsH435FU4ZJaQtfnSctf1lYHLYIgMjfOYymTXu-3XgmZcGM/s747/Screen+Shot+2020-07-19+at+4.27.05+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="747" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbGCj1gVlbA89msiZVEzTljj0lr2QYk7QREaaQBI-uurY8_FucbB3-xBaNk49L8qTv8TM20FO2XWyGv30U67PeFBsMkdO5wsH435FU4ZJaQtfnSctf1lYHLYIgMjfOYymTXu-3XgmZcGM/w437-h240/Screen+Shot+2020-07-19+at+4.27.05+PM.png" width="437" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">From Passover and Crucifixion<br />to Passover and Crucifixion,<br />the people had been closed off,<br />locked away from one another<br />by decree by fear, and by death<br />wrought by a raging pestilence.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">But today, such decrees were lifted,<br />and all gathered together;<br />no matter their language or culture;<br />they gathered in one space,<br />to be of one mind,<br />in gratitude.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">Into that singular mental space,<br />from all and in all directions,<br />a purifying wind blew,<br />and a refiner’s fire<br />filled the collective soul.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">All at once, the people began to speak,<br />some in languages they’d never studied;<br />everyone heard and was heard,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">everyone understood and was understood,<br />everyone one in being with one.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">Everyone one of heart, exult<br />in all of one for one<br />and dwell now in hope,<br />no longer abandoned to Gehenna;<br />we who have seen death<br />have also seen life,<br />and we have chosen life.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><i>What now shall we do?</i><br />The people asked, as one voice.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">And the answer came to all:<br /><i>Be penitent for all past double-standards,<br />serve the divine by serving your neighbor;<br />believe that all are equal to love divine,<br />and live to that truth.</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><i>If you do this, you will have welcomed<br />Olam Haba, and shall be embraced therein.</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">In gladness and singleness of heart,<br />All breathed as one and, as one, sighed:<br /><i>Amen.</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;">© 2021 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</p></div><br /><br /></div><p><br /><br /></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-40200041859716841642020-12-02T19:31:00.001-08:002020-12-03T07:15:42.322-08:00Advent Austerity<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY7zNR4qwxpm9lliHXLGVO6Rp0xFkJWR8sLm4K7UX0zFsrECFTsqvOIha0P50t13_BxsB9iwCv277y9brsR558-9-psragsJRAburSvt6eTjAJlViI-15yilxSdjmhmbFndf8z8unGfAA/s563/Screen+Shot+2020-12-02+at+7.26.11+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="414" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY7zNR4qwxpm9lliHXLGVO6Rp0xFkJWR8sLm4K7UX0zFsrECFTsqvOIha0P50t13_BxsB9iwCv277y9brsR558-9-psragsJRAburSvt6eTjAJlViI-15yilxSdjmhmbFndf8z8unGfAA/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-12-02+at+7.26.11+PM.png" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">That which we seek may not show forth today<br />—perhaps this is a hidden blessing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">Moon and stars light the night skies,<br />making way for bright sun / cold morning.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">Masked faces pass one another silently,<br />like quiet and distant ghosts.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">Solitary cyclists ply their courses,<br />weaving between pedestrians with care.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">Fisherfolk, in shorebird form,<br />bide their time, lying in wait for canny nourishment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">People prepare humble meals at home,<br />created with simple ingredients to hand.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">Come nightfall, all creatures<br />retire to their respective nesting places.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">Thoughtful quiet descends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">There is a measure of,<br />if not peace,<br />acquiescent composure.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">The tension between oppression and freedom<br />is bridged by self-control,<br />wherein this condition</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">apart</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> <br />is allowed to </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">uphold fragile integral nature,<br />very like the deliverance depicted in any miracle play.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">If we were not so self-conscious<br />within our self-regulated austerity,<br />we might yet hear the song<br />of the hummingbird's dream,<br />might feel the earth’s hum in our bones,<br />might awaken to the nascent answer<br />of the riddle of our existence,<br />then tattoo it, as a reminder,<br />on our opened-ever-outward palms, <br />ready to accept and to give blessing,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">as the journey rolls on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">photo by Rick Lewis for Bay Nature magazine, April - June 2016</span></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-44429745076466892502020-11-14T17:48:00.002-08:002020-11-14T17:48:56.773-08:00"Freedom Isn't Free"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9cXfi1U7yvuI2sRHe4JNQ-Q8NoADZT1DI0WYr-s2-rLj2l9G_d2rfrtX0LO6W_PouCQKtmgFILL9pbHeC_ZrIZNAgfjAm_XkqXjihVTKHowSCL4npGVTcNP7ry2MBLAHW6UQ6OOUbCYc/s610/Screen+Shot+2020-11-14+at+5.41.42+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9cXfi1U7yvuI2sRHe4JNQ-Q8NoADZT1DI0WYr-s2-rLj2l9G_d2rfrtX0LO6W_PouCQKtmgFILL9pbHeC_ZrIZNAgfjAm_XkqXjihVTKHowSCL4npGVTcNP7ry2MBLAHW6UQ6OOUbCYc/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-11-14+at+5.41.42+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16pt;">The title is a well-worn phrase used by a retired military officer and gentleman that I know. He uses this phrase every Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day. He uses this phrase when military remains from foreign wars are returned to U.S. soil. He uses this phrase whenever he is commemorating the passing of a colleague or commanding officer. My friend is fourth or fifth (maybe even sixth) generation U.S. Army, second generation Special Forces (his dad was a member of the very first SF unit), in addition to which he has served in emergency management, is a historian, and a musician with a fine baritone voice and a huge repertoire of songs from what you’d call the Great American Song Book (everything from sea shanties to Oregon Trail, Westward Expansion, military and cowboy songs, etc.). Like all of the fine military folk that I have known, he is unfailingly kind to every person and ever at the ready to help fellow citizens, family and friends, be they near or far.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Freedom isn’t free.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I write this commentary from semi-lockdown in my home during a pandemic that threatens the lives of millions, in this country and abroad. Fortunate I have been to be a temporary worker in a county social services agency when the crisis hit. I have been able to continue to work, as my work was categorized as “essential.” We are managing. My colleagues and extended family in the music world, to a great extend, have suffered financially during the lockdown. So many legions of others, in various walks of life, all over the world, continue to suffer under the necessary privation that this health threat continues to pose. For those in the very lowest income brackets, daily life is a test that seems helpless and hopeless.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In the wake of the 2020 U.S. election, in which the incumbent has been decisively defeated (according to the electoral college vote count), there is grave uncertainty: The incumbent is unwilling to concede, claiming that the election was systemically fraudulent without providing any evidence, and is fanning seditious flames among his fans and followers, while stepping away, largely, from the growing needs of the yawning crises (of which the pandemic is only one) and his duty to the people he was elected to <i>serve</i>. The people he was elected, in 2016, to <i>serve </i>are the people of our nation. All of the People. He was elected to <i>serve </i>us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Well, yes, we have been <i>served</i>. We have been served sarcasm, lies (in the thousands), contempt, nepotism, pocket-lining, money-laundering, influence peddling, a long list of rights continue to be hobbled, and the rollbacks of protections (physical and environmental) continue… In short, within the span of three and a half years, we have been served up a litany of woe. Eric Alterman, writing for <i>The Nation</i>, says: “[W]e must also grapple, sooner rather than later, with the heart of darkness in this country that has inspired tens of millions of fellow citizens to support this evil miscreant.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">If you look closely at the election results, both from 2016 and 2020, it is evident that these races have been close. What is the divide? I will make the most obvious and facile divide; the country is divided between rural matters and city matters. Note: I did not say “red state/blue state;” that is one of the most false equivalencies, ever, next to “North/South.” What we face in this country is a two-economy system, both of which are underserved by so-called “free market” capitalism. We could find more adequate names for these two systems, but for now I will call them, “Town-mouse” and “Country-mouse,” evoking characters from a story by Beatrix Potter. The reason I choose these names is to clarify that what we face a culture conflict, one that is actively primed by political elites, on “both sides of the aisle,” in order to consolidate power and pork, to divide and rule, and – most importantly – to <i>under-serve </i>and <i>under-represent </i>their constituents.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This is the story of the city-folk pitted against the country-folk. Never would I given this much thought, had I not be queried by a young, gen-Z coworker, who saw me engaged in reading on my lunch break. He was curious; what was it that captivated me so? Actually that particular book was philosophy, specifically an historical exploration of subjectivity, beginning with the rise and development of various schools of philosophy extant in the first and second centuries. (This may seem like minutiae unrelated to my commentary, but it is not.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">My young friend’s interest was piqued. “Could I read it when you’re done?” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">What could warm a book maven’s heart more?!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Well, I came back the next day with several books, including two books of essays by Wendell Berry. Perhaps best known to American readers as the author of the poem, <i>The Peace of Wild Things</i>, Mr. Berry, who hails from rural Kentucky, is a farmer, an activist, a poet, a teacher and – although it does not say so on his Wikipedia page, a <i>philosopher</i>– and I would posit that he is one of this country’s pre-eminent philosophers. My co-worker read Berry’s <i>The Way of Ignorance</i>, and then we talked about it a bit. He said, “Well, there was a lot of farming jargon in there, stuff that I didn’t understand. But, I sort of skipped over the terminology, and once I got into what he was saying, I was, like, yeah. It made me think about things differently. I mean, I’m an inner-city kid, and I have absolutely no idea what it is like to be in the country, and what the issues are that people face, there.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">And there it was, in a nutshell. He got it. This is the crux of the matter, the heart of our national existential crisis. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Since the dawn of the industrial age, our nation has increasingly been divided by city issues versus rural issues. As population growth caused cities to spill over into suburbs and industry to infringe on the wild places, increasingly, our politics has certainly become “us vs. them.” In part, I think people have put unfounded faith in their elected representatives. The electorate has been trained to believe that their elected representatives are really working on their behalf – that is, that they are truly <i>representing </i>the desires and needs of the people who elected them to office. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Average citizens forget that industry lobbyists have a lot of money to grease the wheels of what capitalism wants. Whether we live in the city or the countryside, you and I do not have that kind of influence; as a result, our needs are left wanting. Oh, there’ll be a carrot dangled near election time, but once the election is over, the carrot evaporates into thin air. Meanwhile, if policy is made that people don’t want, the excuses fly, the fingers point, and those on the “other side of the aisle” become scapegoats. But, trust me, the scapegoats are a fiction .<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We have a two-house legislative branch that is supposed to <i>serve </i>the people. There are always claims of a shadow government. Yes, I believe there is a shadow government, and that shadow government is called <i>capitalism</i>. Capitalists always have millions of dollars to throw around, in order to get to the head of the line in terms of service, but they never seem to have the money to pay you or taxes. Billions of capitalist lobbying dollars are spent in order to do the wrong things for the economy of the people. I’ve said for decades that if we just paid average people what they were worth and gave them access to healthcare and services that are based on actual cost of living indices for each region, it would be less costly than all the lobby money poured forth to keep people from such. If there were to be an equitable system of government, we should get rid of the lobbyists, shouldn’t we? Instead, we have enshrined them in a law that states a corporation is a person. Well, actually, We the People did not do that, but our shadow government did, with the help of your elected representatives and the Supreme Court! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We are manipulated by our shadow government (capitalism) into thinking “other” is the problem. Some of our representatives are career politicians who know all to well where their bread is buttered; these folks are millionaires. How did they amass such fortunes on government pay? This is an old story, but somehow, we don’t want to take at the face value what is thrust at us every single day in the news cycle by a person who has no values beyond “me, myself and I.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">But we are irresponsible if we abrogate our duty as citizens <i>to be for each other</i>. One of those duties is to respect the rights of others. I’ve seen so much bashing and smashing and slamming in the media that I am bruised by it. Are you feeling the same thing? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">There is an economy that is good for Town-mice, and there is an economy that is good for Country-mice; both need to be honored and served. That we have been taught to believe – and some of us actually do believe – that some are better than others, that some do not deserve to be treated equally, this is a moral outrage and crime that must end. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Freedom isn’t free. I need you and you need me. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Right now, we’re all spitting and clawing at each other, and not just lobbing pejoratives (such as “libtard” or “ever-trumper”), which is bad enough. My brothers and sisters on the left are just as apt to be in an echo chamber as my brothers and sisters on the right. Mutual disrespect is rampant. The right to peaceably assemble is being trampled by extremists of all stripes. Crimes are being committed unabashedly. Law enforcement is trigger-happy; as one victim’s mother put it, “We called the police for help, not for an execution!” People are not being given due process. Racism has gone from undercurrent to in your face. The hydra of rabble-rousers that follows the peaceful protests grows, in turn followed closely by opportunistic looters. I see reckless abandon and mutual disregard, everywhere. The trash dumped by the side of the road is a message that says, “I don’t care!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Where is our national moral compass? Where has it gone?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Never has its lack been more evident than during this pandemic, where people cry “my rights! my rights are being infringed!” when they refuse to adhere to the most basic health and hygiene guidelines. Is it really so constraining to wear a mask or to wash your hands? The news is full of stories and the hospitals are filling with people who have declared the right to flagrantly disregard health directives and put others, as well as themselves, in danger. Some, sadly, have gone to their graves. Humans really haven’t evolved much since the pandemic of 1917; the same grievances were aired then.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Well, guess what, folks? We live in a <i>collectivist society</i>. The old adage (difficult to attribute) reads, “Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” An individual is not a self-sufficient island, completely free to act at will. This is what we as a society fail, time and again, to understand, to equitably legislate, and to live. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">FREEDOM ISN’T FREE! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Freedom is not a ticket to a free-for-all, do-whatever-you-want lifestyle. Freedom is where we hold ourselves and each other accountable to the ideals laid out in the Constitution. Freedom is responsibility to self and to other. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As a nation, we need to gather together around this truism that Freedom Isn’t Free. We need to understand the costs of discipleship to what has been unprincipled, and the heavy cost of deceit. We need to have some difficult conversations about economies – those that are good for Town-mice and those that are good for Country-mice. Repairs are needed. We need to legislate in ways that make sense, not money. We need to mend our nation In the end, it is not “us versus them,” is it? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We ultimately all want the same economy: worthy work, decent pay, sufficient food, adequate shelter in a nice setting, clean water, access to healthcare and protection against criminal activity or invasion. There are costs for all of this. We need to recognize those costs and be willing to share them. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Anything less is un-American.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16pt;"> </span> </p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-38808802811659297842020-10-11T11:07:00.005-07:002021-11-27T14:30:29.128-08:00Of Time Before Time After<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKgk1TQoLnXdkrp5fAq6ZPhkA1-PIuHj-BX9XKVgm3nmWPeC_qtdRQgrPUsrMO_oMa3-MpIJac6Szh3s0ICpnIMaIjNwanZB7SIkMdimRLczipUaMDYYRjC7qviaE28hCYIqbaVIDmc0/s478/Screen+Shot+2020-10-11+at+10.59.28+AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKgk1TQoLnXdkrp5fAq6ZPhkA1-PIuHj-BX9XKVgm3nmWPeC_qtdRQgrPUsrMO_oMa3-MpIJac6Szh3s0ICpnIMaIjNwanZB7SIkMdimRLczipUaMDYYRjC7qviaE28hCYIqbaVIDmc0/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-10-11+at+10.59.28+AM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">A flutter of wings at my ear,<br />a pointed gaze of greeting<br />— all at once, a welling memory,<br />a time of knowing soul before words,<br />a completely other kind of knowing,<br />offering clarity to this experience<br />only from within sleep and dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The amplitude of such interiority,<br />speaking as if from shadowed recesses,<br />is perhaps all that remains of that time,<br />all this time after time,<br />time filled with learned speech,<br />this a wholly different way<br />to perceive and filter experience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The hummingbird,<br />having partaken of the offered nectar,<br />turns to me once more, as if to say,<br />“Yes, friend; we were there together,<br />remember?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Such deep remembrance<br />renders planned trajectories irrelevant<br />to what is possible<br />when you look up,<br />reach out,<br />let loose and—<br />like the beautiful bird<br />—fly.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">***</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Memory is an astonishing attribute of mind and consciousness. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This bit of writing is an attempt – in so many ways unsuccessful – to indicate an aspect of <i>mind </i>that I remember vaguely from my pre-verbal self in infancy. This memory is triggered every so often; last evening, what triggered it was reading this very brief passage from a lecture given in February of 1982 by Michel Foucault (published, with many other lectures delivered at Collège de France, under the title “<i>The Hermeneutics of the Subject</i>”): <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">What is it to be free? asks Seneca. And he answers: To be free is <i>effugere servitutem</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I followed the footnote to see the more complete quote </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">from Seneca’s </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">Natural Questions</i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">: </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">liber autem est qui servitutem sui </i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(to be free is to no longer be slave to self).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">And, somehow, that moment is when a recollection came of this moment I would experience before sleep, in the age of my infancy. What I remember is the sense that it seemed not so long a time before when understanding was easier because I was unencumbered, that is not enclosed, in the awkwardness of an untrained body. I can remember being put to bed, and being sleepy, and questions forming in my mind that were not tied, really, to <i>language, </i>as we who have words understand and experience language. My questions were about my daily experiences, about the things I did not understand. These would roll forward like an ebbing tide. Answers would flow back. The answers came in a form I cannot express; they were lengthy, precise, all at once simple and complex. Such answers would calm me and allow me to relax into sleep, but they were real answers that informed me; I recall that each night, the questions were always different, the answers were always new—like an onboard learning system, if you will.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Once I had attained language skills, this pre-language fell away—and I can viscerally recall feeling it recede, feeling it slip away, as it was no longer needed. Now that I had words, I could speak them to people, and get answers in that way. I can remember still reaching in my mind for that other kind of knowing, always on the way to sleep, and sometimes would still get responses. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I cannot remember anything describable about this pre-verbal knowing, except that it was, and that I remember it because I experienced it, and the memory remains a part of my consciousness. In these moments when I remember it, I sometimes wonder if it remains a latent aspect within, and if perhaps I will encounter it again, in my latter days.<o:p></o:p></span></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-7844493937973537782020-09-27T12:16:00.004-07:002021-11-27T14:39:38.374-08:00Morning Meeting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglxSAp0-ZSdKr9a6yqZtIsa3OhZE7fWKxB5fHFvDvNEru4GGHRjlrT_-hjW12VVWI9U4I9CY260b-EvdWunSSUDjiUauwcrfPK6rmH2eXNsKYSmUhki4tcJci4Zv6AhgpTNOGOA9a_wKs/s484/Screen+Shot+2020-09-27+at+12.14.36+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglxSAp0-ZSdKr9a6yqZtIsa3OhZE7fWKxB5fHFvDvNEru4GGHRjlrT_-hjW12VVWI9U4I9CY260b-EvdWunSSUDjiUauwcrfPK6rmH2eXNsKYSmUhki4tcJci4Zv6AhgpTNOGOA9a_wKs/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-09-27+at+12.14.36+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><span> <span> </span></span><i>for my friend K.N.M.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Standing in the cool morning air,<br />in consideration of self and solitude,<br />a sudden joyous flutter distracts;<br />another self’s beating wings brush by,<br />for there will be sweet nectar<br />to imbibe in the bye and bye,<br />but first, a turn and a level gaze.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">So pointed a greeting,<br />subject to subject <br />—for we are each subjects<br />within a realm, a paradise,<br />sharing a language of wonder<br />whose name we cannot know,<br />but by all reckoning must be Life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">This shared gaze opens a window,<br />through which the bumblebee flies,<br />casting us only a sidelong glance;<br />engagement would only tarry<br />the work of bud embracing<br />on which all creation depends,<br />so to our t</span><span style="font-size: 18pt;">ê</span><span style="font-size: 18pt;">te-</span><span style="font-size: 18pt;">à</span><span style="font-size: 18pt;">-t</span><span style="font-size: 18pt;">ê</span><span style="font-size: 18pt;">te we are left. </span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">This wordless meeting draws me<br />to recall a nearly forgotten music,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">a tune perhaps heard by us both, <br />even if only in such waves and echoes <br />as still radiate from the first such encounter,<br />which might well live on in fluid eddies<br />as the song of eternal return.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">This mutual gaze cannot last,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">for this, our singular moment, it must end;<br />this language we live<br />cannot abide the invariable:<br />all moments must transcend,<br />capitulating to the music and meter of next,<br />to the changing changeable.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">We know one another only by sight,<br />and to that degree, perhaps not at all,<br />but the blessing that we have delighted,<br />to look and to see, with equal curiosity,<br />sharing the light of the same sun,<br />must have changed us, in ways we’ll surely discover<br />within the cocoons of our solitary dreaming.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></p>songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-43495367596749690052020-08-01T18:31:00.000-07:002020-08-01T19:19:23.701-07:00Dividing Division<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">Once to ev'ry man and nation comes the moment to decide,</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">In the strife of truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side;</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">Some great cause, some great decision, off'ring each the bloom or blight,</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">~ James Russell Lowell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Within the past week, I was reminded of this text by my friend Suzanne, who said of it “<span style="color: #1c1e21;">If we get beyond the obvious sexist language, there is a pointed message for every believer, a call to social decision and activism, even if our efforts do not end well. It is a powerful, discomforting hymn, and seems very apt for this moment.” A few days later, this same friend made the following observation: “Some of my Christian friends believe that Christianity is under attack. It is. From itself.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">Humanity, in general, and the United States particularly, has not been in such upheaval since the H1N1 pandemic of 1917-19, which was on the heels of WWI. The uncoordinated response of our civic leaders in the United States could be addressed here, but that is part of a larger discussion I’ll save for another time. What I find profoundly disturbing is the poor example set by mainstream christian church leaders, particularly of the mega-church variety, in how to address the pandemic – to the point, pastors seem to prefer large maskless, in-person crowds, rather than the safer live-stream or even pre-recorded services.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">When some congregants are challenged with regard to going about maskless, they claim this is self-determined choice made “in faith,” adhering to “the will of God.” Pastor Tony Spell, of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge, LA, was quoted in the Washington Post as saying “We feel we are being persecuted for the faith by being told to close our doors.” I’ve seen posts on Facebook – and have actually heard regular church-going people say in public – that being forced to wear a mask is (1) an act of “faithlessness”, (2) “surrendering to fear” and (2) “an assault on my constitutional rights.” In a letter to the editor of a newspaper, one writer declared, “If we fall in love with Jesus, God will heal our land.” </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Interestingly, citizens of the United States wrestled with these same issues during that H1N1 pandemic of one hundred years ago. Unfortunately, average citizens of the nation today don’t seem to have learned much in a hundred years about how to deal with the threat of viruses, despite all of our scientific advances. But, what seems worse is that great masses of citizens have not learned, in all that time, that self-determination and secular freedom cannot overrule public health orders, and </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(28, 30, 33); font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">neither</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> can they overcome a virus. A virus is not an idea. You can’t argue with a virus. A virus is not a terrorist plot. A virus has no religion. If faith was indeed the medicine needed to eradicate the threat, I feel sure that the virus would have been eradicated in an instant, or maybe never have presented, at all. That the virus is still rampant means that people need to engage whatever critical thinking ability they might have, look for real solutions, follow advice from epidemiologists and act responsibly in public settings. A virus is not a political tool, but the presence of this one is certainly being used to polarize the masses, to profit from suffering, and to sow doubt and fear. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">The attitudes recently displayed in my greater community, the disdain for rules imposed on the religious and non-religious alike, have made me think long and hard about my dealings with the general public and my understanding of my faith, and how frequently my understanding seems at odds with what I see acted out in public, particularly by those who identify as faithful christians. In the past few weeks, I've realized that I have thought on these matters much over the years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">I think it started in the 1970s when, as a youth, I remember being disturbed when I noticed Ichthys (fish) signs appearing in the windows of businesses in the town where I lived. Even as a naive youth, I felt there was something off, something fundamentally wrong with this. The signs seemed to telegraph the message, “we cater to Christians.” This seemed to me to go completely against the teaching of Jesus, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” This seemed to me to go completely against the teaching of Paul from Galatians 3, where he says “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”</span><b><span style="color: #5f6368; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">Time has marched on since then. Today, it sometimes seems to me that the greater mainstream modern christian mission is intent on a type of control that is anything but reflective of that fruit of the spirit, listed in Galatians 5, <i>self-control</i></span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">. </span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">The mission is now about mass control of the public and the marketplaces, dictating what people can be and do, as well as what they can't. Those christians that engage in exercising this control at the political level are using secular freedoms and contortions of the law as tools to accomplish these goals. Such goals have nothing to do with being responsible, honoring freedom, human rights, individual personhood or – do I have to say it? – with honoring <i>God</i>. These goals have been lobbied long and hard the halls of our local municipalities and state capitols, and now they seem to have been installed at the very pinnacle of our government, through a figurehead who is anything but godly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">A political minority is now in the process of reversing decades of modern human progress. Biblical scriptures are being used to return America to the way it was a hundred years ago or more, to deepen systemic racism and implicit bias, to allow the “free” market to tell us what we need (and deliver it at the highest cost to any people on the face of the earth), to dictate what people can do with their bodies (without offering public support for the policies imposed), to tell people how they must define their personhood, and at times suspending their rights. Scripture is being used to divide and rule. People are being told on the one hand that their lives are self-determined (via their Constitutional rights) and on the other that they must live by faith (via their religion). That “results may vary” is beside the point; if you don’t succeed, it’s surely because you lack faith or don’t work hard enough. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">But it is patently incorrect that the church universal is a “by faith only” institution. For one thing, the exercise of religion by faith alone is fatalistic, is it not? Declaring all circumstances and situations to be “God’s will” is asserting that results (good or bad) are inevitable. This is not what scripture is intended to teach; if this were the case, we might as well bury our heads in the sand and give up. But if Jesus taught anything, it is that we must never give up, especially not in the face of hardship. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">All that I have said above is merely a prelude for what I will do next, which is to unpack a portion of Mathew, Chapter 10, from my understanding of it. [And I apologize if it seems like I am leaping around; but all that is written in this essay seems related and cohesive to me.] In this section of Matthew, Jesus has empowered the disciples to heal and has commissioned them to go, first, into the Jewish communities to preach and heal. They have been told not take anything with them, to seek the hospitality only of those willing to offer it. Jesus tells them to use their judgment and inner wisdom in their encounters. Then he says, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword,” and then he enumerates a list of “divisions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">Of all the passages in this complex gospel, I have considered this one much over the years. For a long time, I thought this uncharacteristic of Jesus. But over time I have come to a different way of thinking. What has Jesus been preaching, since Chapter 4? “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For Jesus, the kingdom of God <i>is </i>here, but people are not living it—for myriad reasons, but primarily because their hearts and vision are not properly aligned with a few vital truths. Predominant among these truths is that social equity is mandated within the kingdom; no one is better than anyone else, or worse—unless they act in a way that does not respect the rule of law and the individual. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">When Jesus talks about dividing people from family or other groups, I’m fairly certain he is talking about separating people from ways of thinking and understanding that have been promulgated by custom and culture, ways of being that are rote, formulaic, even work-around rather than genuine, practical or direct. What specific results of this cleaving are possible? I believe the cleaving intended to separate people from ideas of caste and class, wealth and poverty, strength and weakness, so that individuals are understood based on who they are and how they act, rather than based on an assigned label, to be treated formulaically according to some custom or rule. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">The first time we hear “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” it is delivered (in Chapter 3) by John the Baptist. John’s message is no less violent than when Jesus talks about bringing a sword, but the resulting message is the same. “Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance.. Even now the axe is laid on the root of the trees; therefore, every tree which does not bring forth good fruit will be cast into the fire.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">After years of thinking about these passages, the meaning that they hold for me now seems so uncomplicated. John and Jesus sought to divide us from the delusion of division.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">To <i>divide </i>us from <i>divisions</i>, what could that mean? Well, I think that is about making us whole, healing us for the work of the kingdom. What is kingdom of God like in such a case? It is a place – even a political system – where everyone has personhood, place, and role, where every challenge and need is appropriately met, at a shared cost. As Martin Buber wrote in <i><u>I and Thou </u></i>, “All real living is meeting.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">And so, I return to the sentiments expressed by James Russell Lowell, from whose longer poem, entitled “Verses Suggested by the Present Crisis” (published in the <i>Boston Courier </i>on December 11, 1845) the hymn text quoted above is derived. A later verse proclaims:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,</span></div>
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"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">And still later in the poem:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Shall we make their creed our jailor? Shall we, in our haste to slay,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of today?</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">And with these thoughts, I conclude by proclaiming that</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> the sword continues to be wielded, “the soul is still oracular,” and “the kingdom is at hand.” I hope that mainstream christianity will find its way out of the wilderness it has created for itself and for all of us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">I personally believe that every moment is alive for new and thoughtful choices, always ready for healthy repentance and renewal, if one will allow oneself to be divided from division.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1c1e21; font-size: 16pt;">But, please, do not be divided from your facemask, at least until the pestilence is gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-57677123231485585042020-06-06T10:45:00.000-07:002020-06-06T10:45:17.597-07:00Foresight 20/20; A Commencement Address for our Graduates<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Parents, Friends and Neighbors, we stand here today to honor our 2020 graduates. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">It cannot go without saying that 2020 has been a strange year. I don’t think any of us was, nor could have been, prepared for the sudden arrival of a pandemic. Our lives have been turned upside-down. The norms and expectations of everything, including and particularly <i>celebration</i>, have been curtailed. The globalized economy has collapsed like a house of cards, and the highest levels of leadership have proven themselves to be insubstantial, even unfit, but certainly unready to meet such a crisis where it needs to be met – often treating this environment as though human needs are not an integral part of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Suddenly everything came to a halt, and we were mainly limited to being at home, really only going out for essential procurements or essential work. It doesn’t take long for people, so used to social commerce, to become bored, isolated, sad. On March 18</span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-size: 16pt;">, I awoke from a dream and these words lingered from it, so I wrote them down and gave them a title: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Together, Alone<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We hike along a way<br />we’d usually share abreast,<br />but right now, we each move<br />together, alone.</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The distance is forced and,<br />as two pendulums in motion would,<br />we try to match our steps,<br />try to meet in mind,<br />mindful of the gap.</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">A contagion we can’t see<br />threatens to separate us;<br />to divide and conquer<br />by means of infection<br />is the metaphor of this age.</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This disease might save us,<br />if we could embrace a truth<br />writ large by the threat:<br />we live webs of intersections;<br />as we go, it is together, all one.<br /></span></i><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">A year of promise begun in the Fall got the wind sucked out it in February and March. To borrow a book title from Judith Viorst, for many students this has been a “Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad” year. It is of little consolation that a year such as this is not unprecedented in the history of our nation and our world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In 1918, the world, already in the grips of World War I for a full year, was hit by an avian H1N1 virus that came to be known as the Spanish Flu. Troop movement is thought to have been the primary means of spreading this virus, and there were three primary waves of infection. Then, as now, public heath officials recommended the wearing of masks, proximal distancing, and quarantine as the primary methods by which to slow the spread of the disease and allow it to play itself out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In his commencement address to the 1918 graduating class of the University of Indiana, Mr. Rough and Ready, Theodore Roosevelt, nine years out of office as our 26</span><sup><span style="font-size: small;">th</span></sup><span style="font-size: 16pt;">President, said:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We need institutions of technical teaching, of technical learning in the country; but in my judgment, we need more the institutions that teach broad, cultural development, which this nation needs more than it needs anything else. We need the kind of learning acquired not because it can be turned into money but because it is worth so much more than money.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Let [each person] remember that no nation ever yet amounted to anything or ever will amount to anything if it consisted simply of money-getters, and if the trophies and proofs of its success consisted merely in the symbols of successful money-getting. The money must be there as a basis, but by no means as broad a basis as most of the very successful… among us have made it in their lives. [Money] is only [a] foundation, and the foundation is worthless unless upon it you build the super-structure of the higher life, the life with ideals of beauty, of nobility, <u>of achievement of good for the sake of doing what is good</u>, the life of service and sacrifice in any one of a hundred lines, all directed toward the welfare of our common country.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I hope it isn’t trite to say that though this year has been tough, we’ve all learned that <u>doing good,</u> in the simple way Roosevelt defined it, is something that can be done by going to work or school, or even by staying at home—doing the best we can, whatever <i>any specific circumstances demand</i>. We’ve seen what works, and what doesn’t work has been <b><u>unmasked</u></b>– as façade or out and out fraud – for all to see, if they are willing. We’ve learned that “Being together, all one” is part of our social contract, an act of cooperation we agree to do as a group even if we are self-isolating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">That you have arrived at this day is not, per se, a miracle. You’ve been nurtured and encouraged by parents, grandparents, neighbors, teachers and coaches, ever since the day you were born. But that you have arrived at this milestone is an accomplishment—your accomplishment, a result of your hard work. Even, sometimes, boredom, contributes to growth, being the parent of invention.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">You’ve spent so much of your life in school but, let me just say, school’s not over, yet – life is what some would call “Continuing Education.” I’m sure you’ve survived any number of “group projects”, during your time in Middle and High School, even College. When asked why students thought they were being given such assignments, at least 85% percent respond, “In order to lower my GPA.” As hated as these exercises are, there is a point to them; they are short experiments in the realities of cooperation. In these “controlled” experiments, the group you end up with must work together to produce a result. You get to choose who you hang out with at lunch and after school, but you mostly never get to choose who is going to be working with you on such assignments nor in any job setting. You and several or a bunch of others are thrown together to solve a problem and deliver a report or a product. Some members of the group have skills; some can organize, some are smart but flaky, while others might be excellent at avoidance all together. You have to find someone willing to take the thankless lead, and then together you have to plan meetings, benchmarks and goals, and each person has to agree to Do Their Part. This is nothing less than a <i>social contract</i>. Sometimes the results aren’t that great, but you can breathe a sigh of relief when your presentation is over, even if you were up until 2am making the PowerPoint presentation because you had to wait for one of your partners to email the data and another partner to email the text. This is a microcosm of real life; we all muddle along just like this, and every such experience offers an opportunity to observe people, and this contributes to your developing critical thought process. One thing you learn is that even people with the best of plans encounter issues that can cause them to change course. If there’s one rule of thumb you can live by, it’s this: Everything takes four times longer to accomplish than you think it should, from simple chores on up. And yet, there is art and grace to be found in all of this, and joy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Perhaps, during our shelter-in-place, in our quiet meditations, we have made some important observations. Perhaps we’ve been able to breathe cleaner air. Perhaps we have been able to actually hear the birds singing without the continuous hum of traffic and construction to dampen their songs. Perhaps we have been able to see the moon and stars more clearly at night. Perhaps we have discovered – and maybe to our surprise – that a lifestyle of rushing around and being artificially busy is not required in order to live fully and productively. Perhaps we have thought about how much energy – personal energy, as well as resource energy – is wasted when everything and </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">everyone</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> is constantly turned on and in motion. Perhaps we have concerned ourselves with how isolation might be impacting others, because we know how deeply it has impacted us. Perhaps we have observed that all are not treated equally or based on truly demonstrated merit. Perhaps we’ve finally heard and identified divisive rhetoric and platitudes, and been upset by them. Perhaps, in thinking about all these things, we have thought of solutions to certain problems. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">What ideas have you had during this time that you think are worthy to pursue? Ideas that can help us do more than just muddle along? Such ideas are the capital on which every former society <i>has been</i>, and any newer society, <i>can be </i>built. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In the words of a Fleetwood Mac song from my generation:</span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 16pt;">Don't stop thinking about tomorrow<br />Don't stop, it'll soon be here<br />It'll be, better than before<br />Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Right now, we are still in a bit of a holding pattern, waiting for the pandemic threat to be “yesterday,” and some of us marching to demand greater social justice. As difficult as it is to be missing out on shared celebrations with your peers, I hope you realize that you are experiencing <i>history </i>first-hand, and that this moment is but a spring-board to the next phase of yours and all our lives. You are on the ground floor, and everything goes up from here. In the parlance of business, disruption is the fertile ground for innovation. <i>Carpe diem</i>, seize the day! This historic moment contains the seeds of opportunity that you and all your classmates can cultivate toward holistic and positive change so desperately needed in our world, changes that don’t treat humanity as if it is detached from the environment or subservient to money, changes that honor individual personhood. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">As we slowly return to a “new normal,” I hope that you will be able to safely rejoin your classmates and extended family in celebration of your collective achievements, and that those celebrations will be all the more fully experienced and <i>cherished </i>because of the crisis we have lived through. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In the meanwhile, we congratulate you and the entire Class of 2020, and hope that the springboard of current events will catapult all of you to success in the fields of your choice, with the best wishes and continued support of all of us. We are confident that you and your generation have and will further develop and employ critical discernment, and with it the capacity to concentrate on those issues pertinent to the “common good,” and we have high hopes that every new construct you have imagined can be realized to make the world “better than before,” where each person has a place and a vital role. You have heard the phrase, “20/20 hindsight” – it is our hope that you and everyone in your generation will look on the year 2020 as a challenge to look <i>ahead</i>, to make leaps forward and to lead, leveraging your knowledge of the past and, now, new perspective and energy toward building a better, safer, more loving world for us all, a world with just a touch of 20/20 foresight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Best to you always, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Elisabeth Eliassen<br />your neighbor and fellow citizen<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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This address is for all students who were unable to partake of a commencement gathering with their fellow students and families. I wrote this specifically for a young man, a neighbor, who grew up with my kids. I want all our graduates know that they are special and that they live in a special time, and that they can shape the world. I pulled out the more personal comments directed toward our young friend, but the message is the same for all.</div>
songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-87259593446738883892020-05-31T17:10:00.000-07:002020-05-31T19:02:16.831-07:00Covid Pentacost<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Grief walks the streets, masked.<br />Isolation is summer’s undesired shield<br />from the hum of bees,<br />of birdsongs,<br />of joy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Help me—oh mama!<br />I cannot breathe!<br />Bye-bye!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Injustice walks the streets, armed.<br />Legal structures and strictures shield<br />ideologies of subjugation;<br />they rule with impunity,<br />sparking outrage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Help me—oh mama!<br />I cannot breathe!<br />Bye-bye!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">A virus propelled by breath runs unabated.<br />Much needed conversation is stifled<br />—not to mention song,<br />medicine the spirit<br />longs to feel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Help me—oh mama!<br />I cannot breathe!<br />Bye-bye!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Gather, all ye in the village squares,<br />mourn that capture by all such restraints<br />as leads to the stifling of breath,<br />sending, untimely, more men of color<br />to meet Jesus in Paradise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Help me—oh mama!<br />I cannot breathe!<br />Bye-bye!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Fire beetles, light the night,<br />signal the elusive dove to morning flight,<br />and when comes here the sun,<br />rain upon us a fire for righteousness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Transform these hearts of stone<br />into the living hearts of compassion;<br />Make us to speak only justice,<br />to understand the language of love and no other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Let not the riotous soul go unheard,<br />that stands by with help for all humanity;<br />strengthen us to bring comfort and blessing<br />to every neighbor, in these times of trial. Selah!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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We live in dangerous times. People who should be leaders are fomenting unrest for political gain. Innocent people are caught in the crossfire. Some sworn members of that profession intended to “protect and serve” abuse their power.</div>
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I am reminded of Ezekiel, Chapter 7, a description known as “The End Has Come.” At the very end is this line:</div>
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“I will deal with them according to their conduct,<br />
and by their own standards will I judge them.”</div>
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As bleak as this seems, there is much to hope for. There are good and compassionate and loving people in every place.</div>
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Martin Luther King, Jr. said:</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”<o:p></o:p></span></h3>
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Love truly is the answer, and the only one.</div>
songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462246167395686511.post-76951047826438641262020-04-15T07:55:00.002-07:002020-04-15T07:55:33.945-07:00This is It: Commentary on Episodes 1 through 4<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The average reader of that corpus of literature Christians call the New Testament don’t realize that John the Baptist was as powerful a figure as Jesus. John and Jesus were the charismatic leaders of parallel movements, each drawing very large followings. It is possible that John’s movement had <i>more </i>followers than that of Jesus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">For the sake of my rendering of gospel narrative, I allow the conceit that the two are “cousins,” according to infancy stories in Luke.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Seen through a modern lens, John’s wild appearance and messianic preaching suggest someone on the spectrum. His ministry, from what we know of it, is centered in repentance and renewal as preparatory to the arrival of the kingdom and a final judgment: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2) John’s <i>sacrament </i>was for the remission of sins, but more than that, it was a personal self-healing, a confession, a turning back to the holy one, a rebirth to new ways.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus accepted the sacrament, and then made it integral to his own movement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">What leaps out to me from the scriptures is that each man points to the other and asks, <i>Are you the one?</i> And by that, each one means Elijah, returned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Another interesting thing that leaps out to me is that there was never a suggestion that the parallel movements merge. John went his way and Jesus went in another direction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I find it possible—and this is pure speculation—that officials might have been concerned that the movements might merge, particularly because the texts suggest that the two groups maintained contact. Already, the great throngs of people who could be swayed by preaching presented a threat of uprising; a broader coalition of the disenfranchised would have raised the level of such a threat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The great difference between John’s ministry and that of Jesus is that <i>only </i>John could administer the sacrament. So, the movement would have died whenever John died. Executing him while he was in prison—and any excuse would have done—was an effective and quick way to destroy his movement and disband his crowds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">By contrast, Jesus gathered a group of willing disciples—a move that I can only think was strategic. He put the sacrament of baptism front and center in his own movement, but he empowered his disciples to offer it, as well as to perform healing. This ensured that the legacy of John would live on, and also made this movement an official target, once John’s movement was ended.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">An additional similarity between the thought of John and Jesus has to do with <i>trees </i>bearing <i>fruit</i>. Trees and fruit are metaphors, I believe, for physical and spiritual self-care; how well we tend to ourselves is reflected in the mental choices we make and physical actions we take in the world. How do we tend the tree of our soul? The tree that is not well tended will bear rotten fruit or, worse, no fruit, at all. The ministries of John and Jesus make it plain that such a tree is only useful as fuel for the fire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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© 2020 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen and songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com</div>
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Read them again:</div>
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<a href="https://songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com/2020/03/this-is-it-episode-1-at-river.html" target="_blank">https://songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com/2020/03/this-is-it-episode-1-at-river.html</a></div>
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<a href="https://songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com/2020/03/this-is-it-episode-2-who-are-you.html" target="_blank">https://songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com/2020/03/this-is-it-episode-2-who-are-you.html</a></div>
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<a href="https://songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com/2020/03/this-is-it-episode-3-finding-purpose.html" target="_blank">https://songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com/2020/03/this-is-it-episode-3-finding-purpose.html</a></div>
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<a href="https://songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com/2020/03/this-is-it-episode-4-blessing.html" target="_blank">https://songsofasouljourney.blogspot.com/2020/03/this-is-it-episode-4-blessing.html</a></div>
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songs of a soul journeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02077761276328610949noreply@blogger.com0