It's Not About Me

Clay vs. Potter

I'm about one-third through ND Wilson's "Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl". After an awkward introduction this book has really soared into a meditation on my favorite topics - "Why are we here?", and "The Problem of Evil". This is a (so far) an easy but profound read somewhat along the lines of Dillard's "Pilgrim At Tinker Creek", but with better answers and greater beauty. Here's a clipping from my Kindle.

"Ansel Adams once took a photograph he titled "Jeffrey Pine, Sentinel Dome." It is beautiful. He stood where he did, he saw what he saw, and he was able to catch it, fitting it into a small frame with only two dimensions and nothing but blends of black and white. The sky is there, the rock, the Jeffrey pine.

The tree grows on the left, but it is gnarled, bending even now, spreading across the picture in its struggle against the wind. Its muscled branches are frozen in their strain, unquivering, its roots claw into stone, matching granite strength. There is a mountain watching from a distance, wondering who will win. The tree has fought for this life, fought in this permanent unretreating retreat.

The wind will win in the end, but this uncomplaining tree is noble. I see no bitterness, no resentment.  We may forget, but this tree knows that the world is spinning, and it has hung on to the globe through decades. I see pride in those roots, gratitude where the light sits.

Could we improve this picture? How can we make it not better but best? Remove the tension and the contrast. Remove the black - all of it. Remove the struggle and the inevitable end.

Leave the white. Only white. And now it is perfect. Perfectly blank."

Two Of My Kids Were

 
photo LSH  

Mistakes Were Made

It's been another peaceful week in the good ol' US of A with mass murders in Texas and Florida. Driving home tonight I was listening to "All Things Considered" on NPR. One individual, who worked with the Army psychiatrist who killed 13, described him as a doctor who took good care of his patients, but that "sometimes people make bad choices". I'm sure that the families of the dead and wounded will take great comfort in knowing that it was just a "bad choice" that led to the carnage.

One of C.S. Lewis' oft quoted quotes is, "We laugh at Honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate, and bid the geldings be fruitful." And so we train our professional,s as well as our young, in considering murder, theft and rape in the psychobabble of "bad choices".  From before they can read our children's lesson is:  We are created from chaos, by accident and our destiny is oblivion. For some reason, unknown to those teachers, we are to behave and have meaningful lives between these two bookends of nothingness. Then follows the shock (shock!) when the massacres ensue.

 

"If Chance be the Father of all flesh,
 Disaster is his rainbow in the sky.
 And when you hear,

`State Of Emergency!'

`Sniper Kills Ten!'

`Youths Go Looting!'

`Bomb Blasts School!'

It is but the sound of man worshipping his maker."

    - Steve Turner

Let Them Eat Cake

The Irish Are Coming, The Irish Are Coming!

The last stadium concert I went to was U2's "Joshua Tree" tour at the Cow Palace in San Francisco circa 1986. Well the lads from Dublin have made a few tours since then, but today I got 4 tickets to see them next June at Mile High Stadium! My kids were a wee bit happy. 

The Cow Palace wasn't my last U2 concert. In 1988 I got an inside tip that the band was doing a free concert the next day in downtown SF and it wouldn't be announced until an hour before the show. I just happened to be off then, so Jo and I got on the BART and watched kids pouring on to the train as we got closer and closer to the Bay. It was chaos when we reached town and I heard a guitar warming up. I grabbed my wife's hand and we started running. Bono was a wee bit foolish that day and sprayed graffiti on a bridge. That sure created a stir! It was filmed and you may have seen it on "Rattle & Hum".

I'll need to put those tickets into the 2010 entertainment budget because we also have tickets to see "Lord Of The Dance" in a couple weeks.

The Irish are coming!

Questions To Ponder #11

Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?

The Heremeneutics Of Stupidity

I'll just call this the week of "stupid"quotations (see 10/22/09 post). This one by RC Sproul, Jr. points the finger back at self. By the way, the word "hermeneutics means: "the theory and methodology of interpretation, esp. of scriptural text" (Dictionary.com)

"The RC Sproul Jr. Principle of Hermeneutics does not just work with the historical passages of Scripture. It should always be in play. The principle reads, in its most basic form, "Whenever you see someone doing something really stupid in the Bible, do not ask, 'How can they be so stupid?' Instead ask, 'How am I more stupid?'" There are illustrations galore in both the Old and New Testaments of people doing really stupid stuff, even as our own lives are living illustrations. That's because we're stupid creatures, hence the principle." 

S'more Sad Songs

My kids, like all kids of their generation, are movie addicted. I started early on trying to interest them in some of my favorites, but it took a few failures with the likes of “Chariots Of Fire”, “High Noon” and “Camelot” before I figured out that film preferences of middle-schoolers vary significantly from 50-somethings.  The one that really surprised me though was “Fiddler On The Roof”. This movie is so rich with human emotion and soul-stirring music that I thought they would eat it up.  

“No, Dad – it’s too sad.”

I guess that sad songs and sad movies are an acquired taste of adulthood. I had forgotten that the palates of children must pass through the sweetness of mother’s milk and mashed potatoes long before they appreciate the sharp bite of bitter hops or that delectable edge of a particularly dark chocolate.  So too with culture. Wee ones must commence with homey "board books" like  “I Am A Bunny” or the cartoon delights of Disney’s “Robin Hood”.  Maybe, decades later, given the right training, they will relish the haunting darkness of “Blade Runner”.

Sad movies are good, sad songs are better. Perhaps it is because you can enjoy them more often in bite-size pieces, but why find pleasure in this genre at all?  I’ll be pondering that before my final installment.

#14) “Can’t Find My Way Home” by Blind Faith: 

The blues are a US invention, but the Brits have done well with their own twist of the genre.This is
a particularly lovely piece by Stevie Winwood. 

“Well, I’m near the end and I just ain’t got the time.
And I’m weary and I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home.”

 

#13) “Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” by Alison Krause:

I was very familiar with this song in its original version by Todd Rundgren. One afternoon I was wandering around Barnes & Noble and heard the voice of an angel singing of some lost love. Then “Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” came on in a lush, twangy, hillbilly version of this infinitely sadder tune. I walked over to the clerk, she told me it was some singer named Alison Krause and that this disc was selling like hotcakes. I was the next buyer.
 

“... And maybe you remember,
The last time, you called me,
To say we were through.
How it took a million tears, just to prove they all were for you.
But it wouldn’t have made any difference,
If you loved me.
How could you love me?
When it wouldn’t make any difference
If you really loved me.”

 

#12) “Love Hurts” by Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris:

Gram was one of those shooting stars that chose to burn out rather than fade away. Emmylou emerged from the smoke that remained. This song is a classic from country’s finest.

“I'm young, I know, but even so;
I know a thing or two, I learned from you. 
I really learned a lot, really learned a lot,
Love is like a stove, burns you when it's hot.
Love hurts, mmm, mmm, love hurts.”

 

#11) “Red Dirt Girl” by Emmylou Harris:

There are so many sad “story songs”.  This genre probably goes back to Viking sagas of love lost to shipwreck. The Irish perfected it and then brought it with them to America where country and folk artists have run with it. This particular song is despair without redemption, where only the smallest sprout of hope is allowed to grow and then crushed under the boot of a bad start, bad choice and bad love.

“She tried hard to love him but it never did take.  
It was just another way for the heart to break,
So she dug right in.
But one thing they don't tell you about the blues when you got em,
You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom.
There ain't no end,
At least not for Lillian.”

 

 

#10) “I Used To Be A King” by Gram Nash:

Nash cries out in agony over the lost Joni Mitchell.

“I used to be a king
and everything around me turned to rust.
It’s `cause I built my life on sand,
And watched it crumble in the dust.
But it’s all right I’m O.K., I want to know how you are.
For what it’s worth, I must say I loved you as you are,
And in my bed, where are you?
   Someone is going to take my heart,
   But no one is going to break my heart again."

They Are Just Not That Smart

"In explaining any puzzling phenomenon, remember to leave room for idiocy over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."   - Unknown

Ichabod

October – The month of hot sun, cool air and shorter days. It’s also the month that middle-school lit teachers bring out “The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow”.  I was a wimpy kid. I never liked horror stories (well maybe Poe), but the supposedly scary “Sleepy Hollow” just never gave me a fright. Maybe it was because Ichabod Crane was such a preposterous character. Maybe it was because he was wimpier than I was and made me feel brave, or maybe the headless horseman was just not creepy enough. 

Over the years the story became a distant memory, but the name Ichabod remained intriguing. It’s a ridiculous name, an icky name, one with sharp edges, like the pointy elbows of Irving’s scrawny school master.  These days it's common to find kids with uncommon names – Aloysius, Esau, even Jedidiah, but I’ve yet to find an Ichabod.

In the Old Testament Ichabod was the son Phineas, the son of Eli. The day he was born the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, his father was slain in battle and his grandpa fell off a stool, breaking his neck. The shock of it all sent his mother into early labor and before she died she named him Ichabod, meaning, “the glory has departed”.  It was a bad day – a bad day for Israel, a bad day for the Eli  family and a rough start for the baby.  His name only pops up once more in the Bible and then it concerns his brother Ahitub and not Ichabod.

What on earth triggered this meditation on Ichabod?  The summer of 2009 in Coloroado was  hands-down the most glorious summer in my memory. Every day seemed to be filled with sparkling, azure skies, billowing thunderheads and then hours of crackling lightning for our evening diversion. It was never too hot and never too dry. Daily rains brought forth a feast of wild flowers and kept the water bill low. Then two weeks ago ice and snow hit the Front Range with the leaves still green on the branches.  The usual blaze of color from carpet-bagging maples and native aspen never arrived. Frosted leaves wilted, went straight to brown and now wait for a gale to finish their embarrassing finale.

The glory has departed.