Mercy or Justice?

December 2, 2021 11:24pm

Do you think you deserve mercy? Does justice elude you? If your sins were repaid in kind, would you accept your fate? Would you wail at the cruelty of the universe? Do you think that God has forsaken you?

We will crown you, drama King, we will bow before you, drama Queen. Your theatrics are wasted – no laurels adorn you, no odes recount your deeds, no songs honor you.

The shifting stars mark your life and times and soon enough are moved to forget you and your small struggles.

Walking in the Dark

December 3, 2021 7:23pm

I often walk at dusk. I don’t know why but I think it appeals to my sense of mystery. Tonight, when I left the house, it was almost dark. Indigo sky above, a little turquoise to the west then a narrow band of yellow, and rose right at the horizon….not a cloud to be seen. I skirted the woods and heard something….a deer maybe but it sounded smaller, running through the underbrush. Then along the white pines, past the raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry plants.

Behind the barn, the 50-ton pile of limestone and creek rock waits for warmer weather so I can build the cottage for which the footer was poured two years ago…three? The rock is eerily luminescent in the fading light and scattered over part of the garden when it was dumped in two loads this past summer. I briefly thought about getting the tractor out and putting the bucket on the front-end loader to move the rock off the garden but then decided the garden will just be a little asymmetrical this summer.

As I rounded a corner of pines, a deer burst out of the trees and across the field before stopping to peer at me in the darkness. I thought it must be a buck because he was alone and held his ground as I approached. Then he ran through another line of trees and disappeared.

There was still light enough for me to see the inverted image on the still pond and I considered that maybe my entire perception of life was a little upside-down? I walked down the dam and into a wooded area that is like an overgrown tunnel in the summer. Now the leaves form a thick carpet on the trail and in raspy voice shatter at my passing.

Then, it’s back to the house where my magical mystery tour ends when the motion light comes on with its harsh white light and I’m back in the real world. But maybe – just maybe, I’ve confused the real world with the false?

Rules

December 5, 2021 10:37pm

I’m so naive…..it’s like i’m a child in a world of adults. What was the real meaning? I assume that everyone is playing on the same field as me and then I realize after the fact that there are many fields and many people playing by a different set of rules.

I don’t spend much time thinking about it because my goal is simplicity and what little I can salvage of honor. Others may pursue shadows – I just wish for oblivion – never to have existed – never to have lived.

They see the images on the wall of the cave and believe their illusions to be their lives. I think I know the truth and I cannot believe in this barbarity.

The Mariner

December 8, 2021 11:33am

Reflecting on a lifetime of motives, decisions, chosen paths, I suspect that arrival at this particular landing can be laid at the feet of a navigator, who, seeing the possibilities of his charts and maps, could not settle on his bearings and so drifted, or let the wind choose his direction, but always in the hope that the maps were incomplete and that he would find a verdant land, unseen.

But drifting or pushed by changing winds, he circled in narrowing gyre – until this aging mariner dropped anchor in those lassitudes where the doldrums reign upon all who venture there. Then is the search over, the wanderings cease. The ancient anchor rusts through, the chain is broken, the links scattered on the sea floor where a crustacean may scuttle. The mariner, weathered by sun and a quest for that which was unknown, settled to wait…. and questioned whether the journey was worth a life?

Inflating the Mutha of all Bubbles

December 10, 2021 11:12pm

The government (US) says inflation is 7%, everyone knows that is low. Actual inflation over the past year is projected at around 30% if you use the same calculations used in the 80’s.

This increase, coupled with Covid restrictions and the general Zeitgeist of the nation, makes one think of Germany in the 20’s. It FEELS like we’re on the cusp of revolutionary changes. I fear for the lives of many. What will become of us? I hope I am mis-reading the signs.

I was just thinking today that it might be a good idea to review the steps to make candles. We may soon need them….or not. Predictions are very difficult but I DID watch (last night) a documentary on the Irish potato famine in the 1800s and although we all think it could NEVER happen again, to US, the chosen, it certainly CAN happen. It has been said that we’re nine meals away from revolution. Watch what happens when people can’t feed their kids for three days…..when ANYONE can’t find food for three days. Millions will die on the 4th day. The rest may wish they were in that number.

Too Far?

December 12, 2021 9:32am

Have I gone too far? How do you know when you reach the limits of your ability to question? Cross that line and you may not come back. Your pendulum swings so far into inquiry and your perspective changes so much that you don’t see the other flavors of the truth you seek. Perhaps parallax or Heisenberg lead to new illusions for an observer who sought to escape them but merely fell into a new trap of his own making.

“Which way I fly is hell….” John Milton

Here in Kentucky, on Friday night December 10, 2021, a tornado ran a 200-mile course, killing more than 70 people and destroying whole communities. The Governor and many others called for prayer for those who lost loved ones, homes, and all their possessions. Many will never recover from these scars – this is a life-changing event. What prayer can we offer for them? Strength to bear their new burden? Understanding of the caprices of nature? Wisdom to know the mind of God? Good luck.

In a drama with the plot of a Greek tragedy, a woman, in the denouement, sits in a church and recounts 68 years of asking God for guidance. “I never heard a f—ing thing,” she concludes. I laugh out loud at this, having some sympathy for her observation.

And we’re not alone. Mother Teresa tells of a period of some weeks in her life when she felt the presence of God very strongly. This passed, she says, and she never experienced this spiritual intensity again. Did God abandon her? Was she just the unwitting pawn of her own desire for meaning and purpose? We project our own interpretations on others so beware that bias.

I suspect that our beliefs about God, and indeed about our SELVES – that is, our self image – who we THINK we are – these are just mental constructs fabricated by a trapped animal seeking a way out of a constant existential crisis that is the low-level background noise of a conscious entity molded by evolutionary survival tactics.

Proverbs 9:10 says, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” So, what may we conclude from this ramble through theological and existential thickets? Perhaps just that none of this is easy….life that is. You must find your own way. There IS a spirit in you but know yourself before you walk on the water of faith. To do this, start by searching the recesses of your own mind and discard all the delusions of self that you hold so dear. If you think you might not have a soul, calm yourself…..you do, it just might not be what you think. You will find it if you look in the right places.

Optimism

December 19, 2021 7:49am

Optimism, it seems, is at war with reality. On this battlefield are those who believe they may win in single combat. They raise sword and shield and go forth each day in the contest we call life. Each day generally ends in stalemate, there is no decisive victor.

Also on this battlefield are others who have watched the ebb and flow of these conflicts. They heard the tales of the combatants of old; they know the final fate of all who do battle on this field. They understand the futility of the fight.

So, the one exerts will and vitality for as long as he can. The other stands at the edges and focusing on the outcome, never rally lives or dies for he had one foot in each world from the start.

Who lived best; who won this battle?

Complexity

December 30, 2021 12:16am

Mystic speech in monastic mounts and Levantine laws lay down life’s boundaries. Primal animal instincts follow ancient behaviors. The conflicts lead down different paths. We try to follow both but fail at each. Poor organisms with consciousness can’t be holy saint or wholly alive.