Saturday, March 09, 2002
Why Can't It Be This Simple?
This is the last thing I want to contribute to the ongoing blogversations about religion and spirituality.
It seems to me that religion has two purposes: 1. to provide avenues for individuals to connect with what what they perceive as divine in the universe and 2. to provide a code of conduct so that we weak-willed humans have support in maintaining some sort of semblance of morality, honor, and ethics in lives constantly assaulted by all kinds of temptation to do harmful things to others and to ourselves.
I still don't understand
1. why all religions don't have just one commandment -- do under others as you would have them do unto you (because the old Golden Rule pretty much covers it all) and
2. why all of the diversities of connections to the divine aren't honored and respected as efforts in the right direction.
As it is, the way it is, we continue to have centuries of conflicting destructive Crusades; increasing violence and oppression against the weak and unprotected; hypocrisy and manipulation infusing the minds and hearts of leaders of all kinds etc. etc. What we have isn't working. Maybe it's just too complicated and we need to simplify. Simplicity of heart.
Comments
This is the last thing I want to contribute to the ongoing blogversations about religion and spirituality.
It seems to me that religion has two purposes: 1. to provide avenues for individuals to connect with what what they perceive as divine in the universe and 2. to provide a code of conduct so that we weak-willed humans have support in maintaining some sort of semblance of morality, honor, and ethics in lives constantly assaulted by all kinds of temptation to do harmful things to others and to ourselves.
I still don't understand
1. why all religions don't have just one commandment -- do under others as you would have them do unto you (because the old Golden Rule pretty much covers it all) and
2. why all of the diversities of connections to the divine aren't honored and respected as efforts in the right direction.
As it is, the way it is, we continue to have centuries of conflicting destructive Crusades; increasing violence and oppression against the weak and unprotected; hypocrisy and manipulation infusing the minds and hearts of leaders of all kinds etc. etc. What we have isn't working. Maybe it's just too complicated and we need to simplify. Simplicity of heart.
Comments
March winds doth blow. We shall have snow.
After 60+ degrees today, we’ll have snow and freezing temperatures tomorrow, so the weather report says.
Today they were all out walking – some with their four-footed canes or high tech walkers; some with only their Rockports and slow, careful steps. I didn’t see the woman with the three-legged dog and realized that I hadn’t seen her in a couple of weeks. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but then, again……..
I took my mother outside this afternoon, and we walked around the building. The sun drenched warm, the breeze sighed mellow. Six geese and a pair of ducks descended on the defrosted pond. There are good days, and there are bad days. My mom was asleep by 7.
My daughter tells me that I can go and live with them at some point, after my mom is gone, after I decide that I don’t want to live alone any more, or after I realize that I can’t live alone any more. I wonder what the next phase of my life will become, when I don’t have the responsibilities that I now have.
My “fear of blogging” friend says that after she retires next year she’s going to travel – go wherever she wants when she wants. She’d like to have someone to travel with, and she’d prefer a male life (what’s left of it) partner, even though she’d also be happy traveling with me. We’ve always had a blast when we’ve gone away on vacations together. Only I don’t really like to travel, at least not often. I don’t think travelling is how I want to spend my time after…..
Sometimes I think I’d really like living with my son-in-law and daughter and their little boy (who will be born in July). I’ll help them buy a big house near the ocean where I’ll have a separate space all to myself where I can ruminate and write. I’ll take my grandson on long walks on the beach and teach him to cook all of my specialties. I’ll look like Judy Dench and age with grace and wisdom. And I will have one more great love affair before it’s not worth the trouble.
Then, again, I think – Tina Turner is the same age as I am. Conceivably, I can go on ballroom dancing as long as I can find someone to dance with and my feet hold out. I can keep my hair blonde and make maximum use of all the funky dance clothes and dance shoes that I have cramming my closets. I’ll keep Tina as my role model and age with presence, spunk, and mild irreverence. And I will have one more great love affair before it’s not worth the trouble.
Or maybe fate has something else in store for me. No matter what, though, there’s always the blog.
Comments
After 60+ degrees today, we’ll have snow and freezing temperatures tomorrow, so the weather report says.
Today they were all out walking – some with their four-footed canes or high tech walkers; some with only their Rockports and slow, careful steps. I didn’t see the woman with the three-legged dog and realized that I hadn’t seen her in a couple of weeks. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but then, again……..
I took my mother outside this afternoon, and we walked around the building. The sun drenched warm, the breeze sighed mellow. Six geese and a pair of ducks descended on the defrosted pond. There are good days, and there are bad days. My mom was asleep by 7.
My daughter tells me that I can go and live with them at some point, after my mom is gone, after I decide that I don’t want to live alone any more, or after I realize that I can’t live alone any more. I wonder what the next phase of my life will become, when I don’t have the responsibilities that I now have.
My “fear of blogging” friend says that after she retires next year she’s going to travel – go wherever she wants when she wants. She’d like to have someone to travel with, and she’d prefer a male life (what’s left of it) partner, even though she’d also be happy traveling with me. We’ve always had a blast when we’ve gone away on vacations together. Only I don’t really like to travel, at least not often. I don’t think travelling is how I want to spend my time after…..
Sometimes I think I’d really like living with my son-in-law and daughter and their little boy (who will be born in July). I’ll help them buy a big house near the ocean where I’ll have a separate space all to myself where I can ruminate and write. I’ll take my grandson on long walks on the beach and teach him to cook all of my specialties. I’ll look like Judy Dench and age with grace and wisdom. And I will have one more great love affair before it’s not worth the trouble.
Then, again, I think – Tina Turner is the same age as I am. Conceivably, I can go on ballroom dancing as long as I can find someone to dance with and my feet hold out. I can keep my hair blonde and make maximum use of all the funky dance clothes and dance shoes that I have cramming my closets. I’ll keep Tina as my role model and age with presence, spunk, and mild irreverence. And I will have one more great love affair before it’s not worth the trouble.
Or maybe fate has something else in store for me. No matter what, though, there’s always the blog.
Comments
Help!
Can someone tell me how to delete a post completely? I had somehow gotten into the "Future" editing section of BloggerPro, typed stuff in and then changed my mind and tried to delete it -- only it doesn't delete. Now there's a post date that comes up (like this one -- so I justed edited this text in) even though I want to delete the whole thing? And how do you get the topic line to come up in BloggerPro like it does for Blogsisters' posts? I need a Blogger for Dummies manual. ;-(
Comments
Can someone tell me how to delete a post completely? I had somehow gotten into the "Future" editing section of BloggerPro, typed stuff in and then changed my mind and tried to delete it -- only it doesn't delete. Now there's a post date that comes up (like this one -- so I justed edited this text in) even though I want to delete the whole thing? And how do you get the topic line to come up in BloggerPro like it does for Blogsisters' posts? I need a Blogger for Dummies manual. ;-(
Comments
When Information Really Was Free
In my local newspaper today, my favorite Oldster Curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, tells of his experience as a reporter in WWII:
Our current military leaders in the Pentagon would find the press operatoon in World War II hard to believe. In June of 1944, days after our invasion of France, I joined the first Army press camp. There were about 25 reporters there.....
Every morning, reporters from different organizatons paired up in the jeeps and sent out for the front lines..... The reporters in search of stories told no one where they were going. They didn't tell the fighting units they were coming. They asked permission of no one. They each went where they thought the story was and talked to the soldiers fighting the war. No one stopped us.
We had two censors, lieutenants, assigned to the camp. Their only job was to delete anything that might reveal troop locations. They were not charged with changing our copy to make it more favorable to Army commanders.
The American public learned first hand, in a day, more about the progress of World War II than it will learn in a year about what we're doing in Afghanistan or anywhere else our mililtary is in control of what the public is told.
That's wrong. It's un-American.
For all of the information-sharing technology that exists planet-wide, getting at the truth is harder than ever. Back in the 70s, I remember reading a book called Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered byE.F. Schumacher. I remember being impressed by his idea of "appropriate technology." Sometimes bigger is not better.
I still have the paperback version of that book, yellowed with age and underlined with yellow highlighter. I think it's time for me to re-read it. I wonder how the concepts fit it with the Cluetrain philosophies.
Comments
In my local newspaper today, my favorite Oldster Curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, tells of his experience as a reporter in WWII:
Our current military leaders in the Pentagon would find the press operatoon in World War II hard to believe. In June of 1944, days after our invasion of France, I joined the first Army press camp. There were about 25 reporters there.....
Every morning, reporters from different organizatons paired up in the jeeps and sent out for the front lines..... The reporters in search of stories told no one where they were going. They didn't tell the fighting units they were coming. They asked permission of no one. They each went where they thought the story was and talked to the soldiers fighting the war. No one stopped us.
We had two censors, lieutenants, assigned to the camp. Their only job was to delete anything that might reveal troop locations. They were not charged with changing our copy to make it more favorable to Army commanders.
The American public learned first hand, in a day, more about the progress of World War II than it will learn in a year about what we're doing in Afghanistan or anywhere else our mililtary is in control of what the public is told.
That's wrong. It's un-American.
For all of the information-sharing technology that exists planet-wide, getting at the truth is harder than ever. Back in the 70s, I remember reading a book called Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered byE.F. Schumacher. I remember being impressed by his idea of "appropriate technology." Sometimes bigger is not better.
I still have the paperback version of that book, yellowed with age and underlined with yellow highlighter. I think it's time for me to re-read it. I wonder how the concepts fit it with the Cluetrain philosophies.
Comments
Friday, March 08, 2002
Confessions of an Elitist
I posted much of this as a comment on livingcode, but I want to blog it here as well because it's a big issue that I struggle with constantly -- and I've already settled the big cosmological issues to my satisfaction and have no more to add to the various blogposts that have been out there over the past week or so.
I am always at war with myself about feeling like an elitist when it comes to "art" forms, because for me, in order for a work to be a good poem, or a good painting, or a good novel, or a good performance, it has to combine both powerful creative expression and careful, precise CRAFTING. Creative expression is good, meaningful, cathartic -- but, IMHO, not necessarily crafted well enough to be considered "art." I have had lengthy arguments with my dearest friend who is an expressive arts therapist about what is art and what is not. We have yet to agree. A former lover of mine writes clever verse. I see a very clear distinction between verse and poetry as well. And I'm not trying to say that I'm a great poet, although I have written some good stuff that has been published by others.
Lyn Lifshin, a prolific poet I used to know when she lived in my region, once said that if you feel that you've been punched in the stomach, then you know it's art. Go to her site and read some of her poetry and you'll understand what she means, although her most powerful ones are not necessarily on her site.
So when is a poem a really good poem? I guess it depends on whether by "good poem" you mean good "art" or just "inspiring message" or some other definition that ignores the carefully wraught details of the "craft." For most people, it doesn't matter. Maybe I just can't shake all those years of both studying and teaching the processes of creative writing -- and reading lines like Theodore Roethke's "Near the graves of the great dead,/even the stones speak."
Comments
I posted much of this as a comment on livingcode, but I want to blog it here as well because it's a big issue that I struggle with constantly -- and I've already settled the big cosmological issues to my satisfaction and have no more to add to the various blogposts that have been out there over the past week or so.
I am always at war with myself about feeling like an elitist when it comes to "art" forms, because for me, in order for a work to be a good poem, or a good painting, or a good novel, or a good performance, it has to combine both powerful creative expression and careful, precise CRAFTING. Creative expression is good, meaningful, cathartic -- but, IMHO, not necessarily crafted well enough to be considered "art." I have had lengthy arguments with my dearest friend who is an expressive arts therapist about what is art and what is not. We have yet to agree. A former lover of mine writes clever verse. I see a very clear distinction between verse and poetry as well. And I'm not trying to say that I'm a great poet, although I have written some good stuff that has been published by others.
Lyn Lifshin, a prolific poet I used to know when she lived in my region, once said that if you feel that you've been punched in the stomach, then you know it's art. Go to her site and read some of her poetry and you'll understand what she means, although her most powerful ones are not necessarily on her site.
So when is a poem a really good poem? I guess it depends on whether by "good poem" you mean good "art" or just "inspiring message" or some other definition that ignores the carefully wraught details of the "craft." For most people, it doesn't matter. Maybe I just can't shake all those years of both studying and teaching the processes of creative writing -- and reading lines like Theodore Roethke's "Near the graves of the great dead,/even the stones speak."
Comments
Thursday, March 07, 2002
Right On, Sisters!
This is Women’s History Month. Of course, you all know that. Womens e-news is running a special series of essays by five women whose ideas and activism three decades ago were cornerstones of a widespread national movement for women's rights. These women are pretty much my contemporaries, and they put me to shame with their meaningful accomplishments.
The current essay, Why the King Made Me a Feminist caught my eyes. In it
Carol Tracy, executive director of the Women's Law Project in Philadelphia, reflects on how her first jobs as a secretary informed her work later on as an attorney advocating on behalf of women.
What actually caught me eye was Tracy’s opening line:
My activist life probably began in sixth grade, when I was thrown out of my Roman Catholic school classroom because I refused to accept Sister Marie's criticism of Elvis.
She goes on to say:
Elvis was sexy and broke the rules--a white man singing the music created by blacks and swiveling his hips suggestively to teen-age girls while he did it. I loved him and the spirit he embodied and that got me into trouble at school and fired from secretarial jobs--experiences that got me into my life's work…..
Carol Tracy became a feminist because she was motivated by a deep commitment to equal opportunity for women in the workplace, even though Elvis might have been her original inspiration.
I became a feminist because I really was motivated by Elvis and his ilk. I was motivated by wanting to have the social freedom that men have. I wanted to be sexy AND not have that interpreted as an invitation to be “hit on.” I wanted to be an equal participant in the male-dominated intellectual conversations that went on far into the night. I wanted to be one of the guys, except when I wanted to “enjoy being a girl.” I wanted the choices that men are allowed to have. And I did not want to be told what was proper for a girl to do and what was not proper. I wanted to be dealt with as a strong individual who had the intelligence and self-awareness to make conscious, self-respectful choices. I wanted the right to be equal to, but different from, men.
Did I get what I wanted? Actually, very often I did. And very often there were consequences, which I saw coming and knew that I had to be prepared to take.
And I also was extremely lucky enough to find jobs that let me be who I was as an individual while I applied my abilities as a professional in the field of education. I found that it also helped to present myself as an “artist,” a writer, a poet. People tend to give much more latitude in terms of accepted behavior to those who -- they believe -- are artistic and creative, just oddball enough to be interesting but not irresponsible.
But that was then. This is now, and from what I see around me, intelligent, creative, responsible -- and even oddball -- women abound and seem to have much less trouble than the women of my generation had in asserting who they are.
This is Women’s History Month. What I read on womenblogs are the amazingly intelligent and often very clever assertions of young women who are making today’s web history, pioneers who are pushing the boundaries of another frontier that must demand an equal place for women who continue to insist on being equal to but different from men.
Right on, sisters.
Comments
This is Women’s History Month. Of course, you all know that. Womens e-news is running a special series of essays by five women whose ideas and activism three decades ago were cornerstones of a widespread national movement for women's rights. These women are pretty much my contemporaries, and they put me to shame with their meaningful accomplishments.
The current essay, Why the King Made Me a Feminist caught my eyes. In it
Carol Tracy, executive director of the Women's Law Project in Philadelphia, reflects on how her first jobs as a secretary informed her work later on as an attorney advocating on behalf of women.
What actually caught me eye was Tracy’s opening line:
My activist life probably began in sixth grade, when I was thrown out of my Roman Catholic school classroom because I refused to accept Sister Marie's criticism of Elvis.
She goes on to say:
Elvis was sexy and broke the rules--a white man singing the music created by blacks and swiveling his hips suggestively to teen-age girls while he did it. I loved him and the spirit he embodied and that got me into trouble at school and fired from secretarial jobs--experiences that got me into my life's work…..
Carol Tracy became a feminist because she was motivated by a deep commitment to equal opportunity for women in the workplace, even though Elvis might have been her original inspiration.
I became a feminist because I really was motivated by Elvis and his ilk. I was motivated by wanting to have the social freedom that men have. I wanted to be sexy AND not have that interpreted as an invitation to be “hit on.” I wanted to be an equal participant in the male-dominated intellectual conversations that went on far into the night. I wanted to be one of the guys, except when I wanted to “enjoy being a girl.” I wanted the choices that men are allowed to have. And I did not want to be told what was proper for a girl to do and what was not proper. I wanted to be dealt with as a strong individual who had the intelligence and self-awareness to make conscious, self-respectful choices. I wanted the right to be equal to, but different from, men.
Did I get what I wanted? Actually, very often I did. And very often there were consequences, which I saw coming and knew that I had to be prepared to take.
And I also was extremely lucky enough to find jobs that let me be who I was as an individual while I applied my abilities as a professional in the field of education. I found that it also helped to present myself as an “artist,” a writer, a poet. People tend to give much more latitude in terms of accepted behavior to those who -- they believe -- are artistic and creative, just oddball enough to be interesting but not irresponsible.
But that was then. This is now, and from what I see around me, intelligent, creative, responsible -- and even oddball -- women abound and seem to have much less trouble than the women of my generation had in asserting who they are.
This is Women’s History Month. What I read on womenblogs are the amazingly intelligent and often very clever assertions of young women who are making today’s web history, pioneers who are pushing the boundaries of another frontier that must demand an equal place for women who continue to insist on being equal to but different from men.
Right on, sisters.
Comments
This Is My Quest...
As Blogsisters searches for more female bloggers to bring into the fold, I'm on a different blogquest. I'm looking for bloggers over 60 years old, and so far I haven't found many.
As one gets older, one often feels isolated; time seems to pick up its pace while we slow down. We are sandwiched between generations who need us for all kinds of things. The internet offers connection, and blogging offers meaningful connections selected from a world-wide pool of like-minds.
The problem, of course, is that many over-60 individuals never really got into technology. Just about all of the thoughtful bloggers I've encountered are of the age at which they could be my offspring. I thoroughly enjoy interacting with them, and I love the idea of playing "cybermom." But it would be enjoyable, as well, to blogverse with people who are sitting where I am now. So, if anyone reading this knows of any, please send them my way.
Related to this is the suggestion on kuro5hin's site that politicians should have weblogs, and b!X's addition of artists and astronauts to the list. Schoolblogs.com already has teachers and students blogging very creatively. Any more suggestions?
Comments
As Blogsisters searches for more female bloggers to bring into the fold, I'm on a different blogquest. I'm looking for bloggers over 60 years old, and so far I haven't found many.
As one gets older, one often feels isolated; time seems to pick up its pace while we slow down. We are sandwiched between generations who need us for all kinds of things. The internet offers connection, and blogging offers meaningful connections selected from a world-wide pool of like-minds.
The problem, of course, is that many over-60 individuals never really got into technology. Just about all of the thoughtful bloggers I've encountered are of the age at which they could be my offspring. I thoroughly enjoy interacting with them, and I love the idea of playing "cybermom." But it would be enjoyable, as well, to blogverse with people who are sitting where I am now. So, if anyone reading this knows of any, please send them my way.
Related to this is the suggestion on kuro5hin's site that politicians should have weblogs, and b!X's addition of artists and astronauts to the list. Schoolblogs.com already has teachers and students blogging very creatively. Any more suggestions?
Comments
Wednesday, March 06, 2002
Oh My Good Goddessness!
I am overwhelmed with synchronicities this week, but here’s the clincher:
Background:
1. I recently made a decision to bankroll b!X to get him launched into a new web construction business, based on the Cluetrain precepts. It was a big financial decision on my part, but, I felt, worth it for a number of reasons.
2. Tonight I spent time in the bi-weekly “group” I belong to talking about my decision and why, and, being the Jungian souls that the group members are, the archetype of the “Many-Breasted Artemis” came up as a metaphor for my “generous” decision.
So – this is what blows my mind – I get home after the group meeting, check in on b!X’s web site, and discover that he has posted this, his Free Will Astrology reading for this week:
“Man in his present state has as much desire to urinate as he has to make vows to Artemis," says writer Edward Dahlberg. In other words, most modern humans have no relationship with wild female deities, nor would they ever conceive of a reason why that might be fun or sincere or inspiring. But my reading of the current cosmic omens leads me to suggest that you contradict Dahlberg, Scorpio. Artemis is not dead, I swear to you; she is not just a figment of the archaic Greek mind. She is a living archetype of fiercely nurturing female energy. Goddess of the ever-changing moon, strong protectress of the undomesticated soul, she gives sanctuary to all who prize liberated fertility. I dare you to make a vow to her.
I'm starting to feel like I've got a direct connection to the wiring of the universe. (As I commented in another context, We witches. We maenads. We hold your souls by our silken threads. We spin the net by the grace of our hands. We Blogsisters.)
Comments
I am overwhelmed with synchronicities this week, but here’s the clincher:
Background:
1. I recently made a decision to bankroll b!X to get him launched into a new web construction business, based on the Cluetrain precepts. It was a big financial decision on my part, but, I felt, worth it for a number of reasons.
2. Tonight I spent time in the bi-weekly “group” I belong to talking about my decision and why, and, being the Jungian souls that the group members are, the archetype of the “Many-Breasted Artemis” came up as a metaphor for my “generous” decision.
So – this is what blows my mind – I get home after the group meeting, check in on b!X’s web site, and discover that he has posted this, his Free Will Astrology reading for this week:
“Man in his present state has as much desire to urinate as he has to make vows to Artemis," says writer Edward Dahlberg. In other words, most modern humans have no relationship with wild female deities, nor would they ever conceive of a reason why that might be fun or sincere or inspiring. But my reading of the current cosmic omens leads me to suggest that you contradict Dahlberg, Scorpio. Artemis is not dead, I swear to you; she is not just a figment of the archaic Greek mind. She is a living archetype of fiercely nurturing female energy. Goddess of the ever-changing moon, strong protectress of the undomesticated soul, she gives sanctuary to all who prize liberated fertility. I dare you to make a vow to her.
I'm starting to feel like I've got a direct connection to the wiring of the universe. (As I commented in another context, We witches. We maenads. We hold your souls by our silken threads. We spin the net by the grace of our hands. We Blogsisters.)
Comments
More Magic
It turns out that Jeneanne Sessum used to work for a woman who used to be married to a guy who used to sit in the seat in back of me in the speech class where I got an "A" for proving the existence of God. Ah synchronicities!
Comments
It turns out that Jeneanne Sessum used to work for a woman who used to be married to a guy who used to sit in the seat in back of me in the speech class where I got an "A" for proving the existence of God. Ah synchronicities!
Comments
Tuesday, March 05, 2002
Life is like a beanstalk. Isn't it?
Mike Sanders doesn’t even flinch when he openly asks two of the three biggest questions of human existence. (The other, of course, is “What do women really want?) He asks:
1) What is the meaning of life? Is it one great accident, or was the world created by a creator with purpose?
2) Is there such a thing as a soul, which is not physical, and therefore can exist after life in this world ends?
#1. Heh. Forty-five years ago, as a senior year of Sacred Heart High School, I had to take a course in “Apologetics,” which is “the branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines.” In that course, we learned several “proofs” for the existence of God, which, after 45 years I have totally forgotten. However, when I went to college the next year and had to give a “persuasive speech,” I chose to do it on proving the existence of God. Lucky for me, my professor was an old-time Catholic. She gave me an “A.”
Over these many years of readings, conversations, introspection, and contemplation, I have come to my personal conclusion that (a) life has no purpose other than what we each individually choose to give it, and (b) there is no “Creator” and, more importantly it doesn’t matter whether there is or not because of (a).
#2. I have posted on this before in a blogversation about "death" on Blogsisters. Here’s what I said:
I don't believe in heaven or hell or even that "I" as Elaine will continue somewhere after I'm gone. What I like to imagine is that, since energy supposedly can't be created or destroyed, when "I" die, the energy that animates me will return to the cosmos in millions of tiny particles, and those particles of energy will eventually be shared among all kinds of growing things that will have lives of their own. If that's true, pieces of me go on forever. (And maybe that's what reincarnation really is.)
I also believe, as Steve Himmer blogs, we also live on in the legacies we leave: children, memories (and their evolution in legends and myths about us), our creative products.
So, I’ve got it all figured out (at least in terms of my own tenure on this fragile planet). Well, not exactly all. I haven't yet figured out how to stop blogging and get to bed before 11 p.m.
Comments
Mike Sanders doesn’t even flinch when he openly asks two of the three biggest questions of human existence. (The other, of course, is “What do women really want?) He asks:
1) What is the meaning of life? Is it one great accident, or was the world created by a creator with purpose?
2) Is there such a thing as a soul, which is not physical, and therefore can exist after life in this world ends?
#1. Heh. Forty-five years ago, as a senior year of Sacred Heart High School, I had to take a course in “Apologetics,” which is “the branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines.” In that course, we learned several “proofs” for the existence of God, which, after 45 years I have totally forgotten. However, when I went to college the next year and had to give a “persuasive speech,” I chose to do it on proving the existence of God. Lucky for me, my professor was an old-time Catholic. She gave me an “A.”
Over these many years of readings, conversations, introspection, and contemplation, I have come to my personal conclusion that (a) life has no purpose other than what we each individually choose to give it, and (b) there is no “Creator” and, more importantly it doesn’t matter whether there is or not because of (a).
#2. I have posted on this before in a blogversation about "death" on Blogsisters. Here’s what I said:
I don't believe in heaven or hell or even that "I" as Elaine will continue somewhere after I'm gone. What I like to imagine is that, since energy supposedly can't be created or destroyed, when "I" die, the energy that animates me will return to the cosmos in millions of tiny particles, and those particles of energy will eventually be shared among all kinds of growing things that will have lives of their own. If that's true, pieces of me go on forever. (And maybe that's what reincarnation really is.)
I also believe, as Steve Himmer blogs, we also live on in the legacies we leave: children, memories (and their evolution in legends and myths about us), our creative products.
So, I’ve got it all figured out (at least in terms of my own tenure on this fragile planet). Well, not exactly all. I haven't yet figured out how to stop blogging and get to bed before 11 p.m.
Comments
Life is Magical
..strange/ don't you think I'm looking older?/ but something good has happened to me/ change is a stranger/ you have yet to know.. -- from "Older," George Michael's album title song
I just love synchronicities.
I have no idea why Steve Himmer titles his post "The back of George Michael's jacket," but I just bought George Michael's Older CD after having had it used as the music in my NIA dance/exercise class. I really didn't know much about George Michael before this. So, as I'm playing my new George Michael CD, I'm reading Steve Himmer's post (in which he refers to my last post), the title of which cites George Michael. Totally unconnected events totally connecting meaningfully
I just love life's magical synchronicities.
Comments
..strange/ don't you think I'm looking older?/ but something good has happened to me/ change is a stranger/ you have yet to know.. -- from "Older," George Michael's album title song
I just love synchronicities.
I have no idea why Steve Himmer titles his post "The back of George Michael's jacket," but I just bought George Michael's Older CD after having had it used as the music in my NIA dance/exercise class. I really didn't know much about George Michael before this. So, as I'm playing my new George Michael CD, I'm reading Steve Himmer's post (in which he refers to my last post), the title of which cites George Michael. Totally unconnected events totally connecting meaningfully
I just love life's magical synchronicities.
Comments
Monday, March 04, 2002
Connecting to the Sacred
Sometimes it’s like meditating on a string of beads – from Golby to Himmer to AKMA to Sanders… At other times my blogrolling seems like saying the Stations of the Cross – dramatic, moving, disturbing, yet somehow distant, and only of peripheral interest to me. Until I move away from the computer to do the dishes that are stacked up in the sink and start thinking…..
From RageBoys’s bombastic eloquence to AKMA's more refined delivery, it really is all about belief systems. On this particular thread, it is about religious belief. While Himmer comes closest to putting my feelings into blog, it’s still not quite where I am.
Because when you come right down to it, either you believe or you don’t. I am not a biblical scholar; I am not any kind of scholar; I am a dilettante. But I do remember taking a course in the Bible as Literature and finding out about all of the various authors and even more various discrepancies in time frames, translations etc. It has always seemed to me that, like all myth-based anthologies, the bible offers fascinating stories, some important human lessons, and amazing poetic metaphors. It’s worth reading and studying, as are all human creative endeavors of such epic proportions. Personally, if I were to dedicate my life to scholarly pursuits of the sacred, I would follow in the footsteps of Marija Gimbutas and look for even more evidence to support the veneration of the feminine principle in pre-history.
In the context of my life these days, I prefer the right-brained approach, which initially was the basis of honoring the power of what was/is considered “divine” -- ritual, chanting, dancing, creating sacred objects (art) to wear, use, and sacrifice. I long ago grew more than uncomfortable with the man-made organizations established to keep order and consistency, to preserve mainly the intellectual at the expense of the essentially spiritual/physical nature of the sacred and the divine. I understand their history and their purpose and what they are supposed to contribute to bringing the human and the divine closer together. I just don't think they work
I believe that religion should help us feel more connected to what is sacred and to become more solidly rooted in our own personal integrity; the other issue with me is that I define what is “sacred” much differently from most male-established religions. To me, my connection to what is sacred in this universe is closely connected to personal creative acts.
I meet with my women friends and we concoct a sacred ritual to empower one of them as she begins her battle with breast cancer. Collectively, we create and give her a amulet as a symbol of our love and support. Surgery removes the cancerous tumor. Radiation further dis-empowers it. And today, she is cancer-free.
I gather with these same friends on a widow’s walk on the roof of a house ion Chappaquiddick Island, within walking distance of that infamous bridge. We light candles under a clear sky and ritualize our thanks for our individual and collective strengths as single women who still hold hope for healthy relationships with men. (Two successes out of seven so far…)
Before b!X leaves home for college, I do a ritual tying us together at our waists by a red ribbon, and then, together, we cut that ribbon as a symbol of severing the psychological cord that binds a single mother and her son so closely together. So, now he lives on the opposite side of the country from me.
I’m enamored of someone who’s confused about commitment and the objects of his affections, so on the night of the full moon, I light candles, put Gabrielle Roth on the stereo, burn some incense, close my blinds, dress like a goddess, chant my wish for him to find whoever he is meant to be with for the rest of his life, and dance, dance, dance. (Of course, I would like it to be me, but one must not ask for selfish things.) A month later, he goes back to a former girlfriend, asks her to marry him, and, as far as I know, they’re living happily ever after.
Synchonicity? Prayers answered? Personal empowerment ? Connection to what is sacred in the human universe? Strengthening of personal integrity? Connecting to the divine through creative acts?
Works for me.
Comments
Sometimes it’s like meditating on a string of beads – from Golby to Himmer to AKMA to Sanders… At other times my blogrolling seems like saying the Stations of the Cross – dramatic, moving, disturbing, yet somehow distant, and only of peripheral interest to me. Until I move away from the computer to do the dishes that are stacked up in the sink and start thinking…..
From RageBoys’s bombastic eloquence to AKMA's more refined delivery, it really is all about belief systems. On this particular thread, it is about religious belief. While Himmer comes closest to putting my feelings into blog, it’s still not quite where I am.
Because when you come right down to it, either you believe or you don’t. I am not a biblical scholar; I am not any kind of scholar; I am a dilettante. But I do remember taking a course in the Bible as Literature and finding out about all of the various authors and even more various discrepancies in time frames, translations etc. It has always seemed to me that, like all myth-based anthologies, the bible offers fascinating stories, some important human lessons, and amazing poetic metaphors. It’s worth reading and studying, as are all human creative endeavors of such epic proportions. Personally, if I were to dedicate my life to scholarly pursuits of the sacred, I would follow in the footsteps of Marija Gimbutas and look for even more evidence to support the veneration of the feminine principle in pre-history.
In the context of my life these days, I prefer the right-brained approach, which initially was the basis of honoring the power of what was/is considered “divine” -- ritual, chanting, dancing, creating sacred objects (art) to wear, use, and sacrifice. I long ago grew more than uncomfortable with the man-made organizations established to keep order and consistency, to preserve mainly the intellectual at the expense of the essentially spiritual/physical nature of the sacred and the divine. I understand their history and their purpose and what they are supposed to contribute to bringing the human and the divine closer together. I just don't think they work
I believe that religion should help us feel more connected to what is sacred and to become more solidly rooted in our own personal integrity; the other issue with me is that I define what is “sacred” much differently from most male-established religions. To me, my connection to what is sacred in this universe is closely connected to personal creative acts.
I meet with my women friends and we concoct a sacred ritual to empower one of them as she begins her battle with breast cancer. Collectively, we create and give her a amulet as a symbol of our love and support. Surgery removes the cancerous tumor. Radiation further dis-empowers it. And today, she is cancer-free.
I gather with these same friends on a widow’s walk on the roof of a house ion Chappaquiddick Island, within walking distance of that infamous bridge. We light candles under a clear sky and ritualize our thanks for our individual and collective strengths as single women who still hold hope for healthy relationships with men. (Two successes out of seven so far…)
Before b!X leaves home for college, I do a ritual tying us together at our waists by a red ribbon, and then, together, we cut that ribbon as a symbol of severing the psychological cord that binds a single mother and her son so closely together. So, now he lives on the opposite side of the country from me.
I’m enamored of someone who’s confused about commitment and the objects of his affections, so on the night of the full moon, I light candles, put Gabrielle Roth on the stereo, burn some incense, close my blinds, dress like a goddess, chant my wish for him to find whoever he is meant to be with for the rest of his life, and dance, dance, dance. (Of course, I would like it to be me, but one must not ask for selfish things.) A month later, he goes back to a former girlfriend, asks her to marry him, and, as far as I know, they’re living happily ever after.
Synchonicity? Prayers answered? Personal empowerment ? Connection to what is sacred in the human universe? Strengthening of personal integrity? Connecting to the divine through creative acts?
Works for me.
Comments
Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself.
I think it was Walt Whitman who wrote something like that. (Correct citations are one of those things I can’t seem to remember anymore.)
My momentary divergence in posting a brief string of repeated expletives several days ago is bothering me, even though it does reflect the truth of my more negative potentials. And it does remind me what a contradiction I am.
This conflicting dark and light of my personality is the reason I use the name "kalilily” -- Kali – the terrible and terrifying goddess of destruction, the metaphor for that dark parts of ourselves that have both devastating and cleansing capacities – and Lily for Elaine the chaste, Elaine the pure, Elaine the Lilymaide of Astalot. Occasionally I succumb to the power of the Tooth Mother. This is a very old poem of mine.
A sliver of moon like a sharpened claw
slits the underside of April,
sending clouds as heavy as stones
onto the roiling rim of earth.
It is time for the Tooth Mother’s coming.
She tears through my skin
talons sharp as the moon,
eyes that slice, breasts like scythes
along my hungry tongue.
She breathes into my mouth
the bold remains of winter,
turning my blood to ice,
my thoughts to stones
that roll like clouds
across my ragged edge of mind.
(Like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, when I am good, I am very, very good. And when I am bad, I am horrid!)
Comments
I think it was Walt Whitman who wrote something like that. (Correct citations are one of those things I can’t seem to remember anymore.)
My momentary divergence in posting a brief string of repeated expletives several days ago is bothering me, even though it does reflect the truth of my more negative potentials. And it does remind me what a contradiction I am.
This conflicting dark and light of my personality is the reason I use the name "kalilily” -- Kali – the terrible and terrifying goddess of destruction, the metaphor for that dark parts of ourselves that have both devastating and cleansing capacities – and Lily for Elaine the chaste, Elaine the pure, Elaine the Lilymaide of Astalot. Occasionally I succumb to the power of the Tooth Mother. This is a very old poem of mine.
A sliver of moon like a sharpened claw
slits the underside of April,
sending clouds as heavy as stones
onto the roiling rim of earth.
It is time for the Tooth Mother’s coming.
She tears through my skin
talons sharp as the moon,
eyes that slice, breasts like scythes
along my hungry tongue.
She breathes into my mouth
the bold remains of winter,
turning my blood to ice,
my thoughts to stones
that roll like clouds
across my ragged edge of mind.
(Like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, when I am good, I am very, very good. And when I am bad, I am horrid!)
Comments
