Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, July 12, 2007
Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another.
- Desiderius Erasmus, thinker, who died on this day, 1536
Like all of us, I’ve gone through, go through, endless moments of self-doubt. And of judging myself by the standards or opinions, or worse, judgmentalisms of others. So, some time ago, I set my self my own standard. God.
Granted, the God I have come to know and, ok, the God I have chosen to accept as “true”. I do, however, believe that I have some objective basis for my understanding of God! Bottom line, God accepts me unconditionally. This, I have found, is the best platform from which to change and grow. This is important. Being “accepted unconditionally” doesn’t mean we have no responsibility to mature. It’s just the best way to be free for this journey. As Erasmus also said, “It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is”.
By “peevish and pedantic”, I think Erasmus means to say that when we make judgments about each other, it is all filtered through the normal human wierdnesses. If we accept these judgments as “true”, we are already at a disadvantage, and it’s hard to get beyond these burdens.
There is a corollary to this. If you find a true friend, or anyone, who accepts you unconditionally, be glad. This is a gift greater than any other.
Brian+
Monday, July 16, 2007
Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
This mortal body of a thousand days
Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room,
Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,
Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!
My pulse is warm with thine old Barley-bree,
My head is light with pledging a great soul,
My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal;
Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor,
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find
The meadow thou hast tramped o'er and o'er,
Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind,
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name,
O smile among the shades, for this is fame!
- Poet John Keats, age 22, on visiting Robbie Burns
cottage on this day, 1818
In the following January, in a nine-month burst, Keats would write his virtually all his best poems. In February a year later, he would first cough blood - consumption. He was dead on Feb 23. I sat for a long time - hard though it was with the crush of tourists and the wildnesses of hoards of youth - on the Spanish Steps facing the apartment where Keats died. Frankly, I was having a wonderful time! I was about 30. I felt great, and young, and ageless. I fairly luxuriated in the romanticism of it all - Rome, Keats, wandering the World, a dreamer - and then to meet a California friend quite by accident at the Trevi Fountain and have a very late dinner in Trastevere - does Life get any better??
It is transient, but it offers many opportunities if we are willing to answer the call. You know, Life for most of us is too circumscribed, too bound by rules that others have made, usually out of their own disappointment. When Jesus, or any other Great Spirit, says, “Follow me”, do. Joy is something most often to be found (as we say today) “out of the box”.
Brian+
This mortal body of a thousand days
Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room,
Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,
Happy and thoughtless of thy day of doom!
My pulse is warm with thine old Barley-bree,
My head is light with pledging a great soul,
My eyes are wandering, and I cannot see,
Fancy is dead and drunken at its goal;
Yet can I stamp my foot upon thy floor,
Yet can I ope thy window-sash to find
The meadow thou hast tramped o'er and o'er,
Yet can I think of thee till thought is blind,
Yet can I gulp a bumper to thy name,
O smile among the shades, for this is fame!
- Poet John Keats, age 22, on visiting Robbie Burns
cottage on this day, 1818
In the following January, in a nine-month burst, Keats would write his virtually all his best poems. In February a year later, he would first cough blood - consumption. He was dead on Feb 23. I sat for a long time - hard though it was with the crush of tourists and the wildnesses of hoards of youth - on the Spanish Steps facing the apartment where Keats died. Frankly, I was having a wonderful time! I was about 30. I felt great, and young, and ageless. I fairly luxuriated in the romanticism of it all - Rome, Keats, wandering the World, a dreamer - and then to meet a California friend quite by accident at the Trevi Fountain and have a very late dinner in Trastevere - does Life get any better??
It is transient, but it offers many opportunities if we are willing to answer the call. You know, Life for most of us is too circumscribed, too bound by rules that others have made, usually out of their own disappointment. When Jesus, or any other Great Spirit, says, “Follow me”, do. Joy is something most often to be found (as we say today) “out of the box”.
Brian+
Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, July 10, 2007
God preordained, for his own glory and the display
of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the
human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal
salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their
sin, to eternal damnation.
- John Calvin, Reformation thinker, born on
this day, 1509, in Noyon, France
Oh, give me a break! “Mercy”? “Justice”? Is God some kind of Eternal Narcissist, or Fascist?? (Actually, now that I think about it, the way God is portrayed throughout history is often one or the other!). What about Divine Grace? Free will? Compassion? Repentance? Kindness? Love? It is amazing, is it not, the utter nonsense that we human beings can come up with?? Talk about psychopathic projection. Perhaps I should have listened to Freud a little more.
However.
However many blessings we expect from God,
His infinite liberality will always exceed all our
wishes and our thoughts.
- Yep; you guessed!
Apparently even John Calvin’s! JC must have been having a better day when he wrote these words. Maybe his conscience had quieted a bit from all the people he was burning at the stake. And it just goes to show, doesn’t it, just how weird we human beings can be - and how even God can become the victim of our wierdnesses. Good to remember this. If we are in a bad mood, God gets a bad rap. If we are in a good mood, God knows She’s had a close call. I sometimes have the tingling thought that God is going to go ballistic one day and change all the rules!
Our understanding of God is only as good (in both ways) as we human beings permit. What will it be? Mean and spiteful, or loving and generous? How we choose to understand each other is how we see God.
It’s up to us.
Brian+
God preordained, for his own glory and the display
of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the
human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal
salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their
sin, to eternal damnation.
- John Calvin, Reformation thinker, born on
this day, 1509, in Noyon, France
Oh, give me a break! “Mercy”? “Justice”? Is God some kind of Eternal Narcissist, or Fascist?? (Actually, now that I think about it, the way God is portrayed throughout history is often one or the other!). What about Divine Grace? Free will? Compassion? Repentance? Kindness? Love? It is amazing, is it not, the utter nonsense that we human beings can come up with?? Talk about psychopathic projection. Perhaps I should have listened to Freud a little more.
However.
However many blessings we expect from God,
His infinite liberality will always exceed all our
wishes and our thoughts.
- Yep; you guessed!
Apparently even John Calvin’s! JC must have been having a better day when he wrote these words. Maybe his conscience had quieted a bit from all the people he was burning at the stake. And it just goes to show, doesn’t it, just how weird we human beings can be - and how even God can become the victim of our wierdnesses. Good to remember this. If we are in a bad mood, God gets a bad rap. If we are in a good mood, God knows She’s had a close call. I sometimes have the tingling thought that God is going to go ballistic one day and change all the rules!
Our understanding of God is only as good (in both ways) as we human beings permit. What will it be? Mean and spiteful, or loving and generous? How we choose to understand each other is how we see God.
It’s up to us.
Brian+
Brian’s Reflection: Monday, July 09, 2007
“If you are looking for an illustration of the divinity of Jesus,
one needs only to look at the fact that in all of the resurrection
appearances, Jesus never appeared to Pilate. What human
being could have resisted that!”
- Estelle Carver (paraphrased), great teacher in the
Episcopal Church
Ha! Monday morning deserves a good chuckle! Estelle was a wonderful and sharp teacher, as attested by a very dear friend who went to every workshop given by Estelle she could.
And we human beings should certainly be able to laugh at our foibles, our “charming” human characteristics. Oh, they can be aggravating at times! But we do all need to relax a little and not “sweat the small stuff”.
On another note, Estelle also taught that Jesus understood the enormous pain and guilt that Peter’s three denials caused him. Understood that this could paralyze Peter and his effectiveness – as guilt often does to many of us. So, Jesus asked Peter three times, “Peter, do you love Me?” And Peter’s opportunity to express his deep love allowed him to be free.
Now: there’s a practice and principle that would grace any humanity!
Brian+
“If you are looking for an illustration of the divinity of Jesus,
one needs only to look at the fact that in all of the resurrection
appearances, Jesus never appeared to Pilate. What human
being could have resisted that!”
- Estelle Carver (paraphrased), great teacher in the
Episcopal Church
Ha! Monday morning deserves a good chuckle! Estelle was a wonderful and sharp teacher, as attested by a very dear friend who went to every workshop given by Estelle she could.
And we human beings should certainly be able to laugh at our foibles, our “charming” human characteristics. Oh, they can be aggravating at times! But we do all need to relax a little and not “sweat the small stuff”.
On another note, Estelle also taught that Jesus understood the enormous pain and guilt that Peter’s three denials caused him. Understood that this could paralyze Peter and his effectiveness – as guilt often does to many of us. So, Jesus asked Peter three times, “Peter, do you love Me?” And Peter’s opportunity to express his deep love allowed him to be free.
Now: there’s a practice and principle that would grace any humanity!
Brian+
Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, July 7, 2007
A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace
gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and
good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the
Lord in vain - then have a heart attack at that moment and be
damned for eternity. Is that the system?
- Robert Heinlein, “science fiction” writer, born on this day, 1907
As the wonderful New Yorker cartoon says, “Wrongity Wrong Wrong!” NO, this is not the system - though I know a lot of people who think it is, or worse, who wish it was ….. themselves excepted, of course.
[ Equally, I know a lot of people who think that they can mutter a word of repentance in the last few seconds of life and “be saved”. Wrongity Wrong Wrong.]
If you believe that God exists, do you think that God is a fool?? Or for that matter, the rest of us? How infantile. As I look around these days though, what I see is a hell of a lot of people promulgating a God who is Ungodly and foolish - whereby illuminating their own stupidity. But stupid or not, they wield power. So, “be wise as serpents but gentle as doves” ….. but resist the idiocy with as much passion as possible.
Since Heinlein was born on the same day I was, below are some of his comments with which I essentially agree. Enjoy! [The parts I particularly agree with are highlighted.]
Brian+
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word.
One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace
gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and
good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the
Lord in vain - then have a heart attack at that moment and be
damned for eternity. Is that the system?
- Robert Heinlein, “science fiction” writer, born on this day, 1907
As the wonderful New Yorker cartoon says, “Wrongity Wrong Wrong!” NO, this is not the system - though I know a lot of people who think it is, or worse, who wish it was ….. themselves excepted, of course.
[ Equally, I know a lot of people who think that they can mutter a word of repentance in the last few seconds of life and “be saved”. Wrongity Wrong Wrong.]
If you believe that God exists, do you think that God is a fool?? Or for that matter, the rest of us? How infantile. As I look around these days though, what I see is a hell of a lot of people promulgating a God who is Ungodly and foolish - whereby illuminating their own stupidity. But stupid or not, they wield power. So, “be wise as serpents but gentle as doves” ….. but resist the idiocy with as much passion as possible.
Since Heinlein was born on the same day I was, below are some of his comments with which I essentially agree. Enjoy! [The parts I particularly agree with are highlighted.]
Brian+
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word.
One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Sharing food with another human being is an
intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.
- M. F. K. Fisher, writer on food, novelist, born on
this day, in Albion MI, 1908
I have had MFK Fisher’s book “The Art of Eating” for many years. I love just to sit and read it. I feel like I have entered deeper into Life, and into a greater understanding of the Mystery. And in such a simple thing – thoughts on Food!
Another thing that attracted me to Fisher was that her family moved to Whittier CA when she was a child. And they used to go camping in the summer on the hillsides of Laguna Beach – a place I am crazy about! (Though it sounds “better” when they went there in the early part of the 20th century.)
She is right. I have eaten some fine meals with convivial companions. And some not so fine meals with companions less so. The food was equal but an unconvivial companion(s) ruins it. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I have never really liked large dinner parties. They are an art that most people have not mastered in terms of making them work.
Many religions gather their devotees together for a “family meal”. I remember it in Brasil with the devotees of Candomble, eating with the orixas. At Chinese meals, eating with the ancestors. And of course, at the Eucharist, eating with fellow journeyers at God’s invitation. Usually I am “standing in” as host. Then and also when I’ve been standing at the rail with others, I’ve certainly been aware of the intimacy. And of the implications about how to live the meaning of my life as a “child of God”. No wonder Paul was clear about the consequences of sharing the holy meal in a cavalier manner.
The meal – any meal – is a symbol for the intimacy of any human relationship, and for the care with which all human relationships should be undertaken. Any encounter with another should not be indigled in lightly.
Brian+
Sharing food with another human being is an
intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.
- M. F. K. Fisher, writer on food, novelist, born on
this day, in Albion MI, 1908
I have had MFK Fisher’s book “The Art of Eating” for many years. I love just to sit and read it. I feel like I have entered deeper into Life, and into a greater understanding of the Mystery. And in such a simple thing – thoughts on Food!
Another thing that attracted me to Fisher was that her family moved to Whittier CA when she was a child. And they used to go camping in the summer on the hillsides of Laguna Beach – a place I am crazy about! (Though it sounds “better” when they went there in the early part of the 20th century.)
She is right. I have eaten some fine meals with convivial companions. And some not so fine meals with companions less so. The food was equal but an unconvivial companion(s) ruins it. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I have never really liked large dinner parties. They are an art that most people have not mastered in terms of making them work.
Many religions gather their devotees together for a “family meal”. I remember it in Brasil with the devotees of Candomble, eating with the orixas. At Chinese meals, eating with the ancestors. And of course, at the Eucharist, eating with fellow journeyers at God’s invitation. Usually I am “standing in” as host. Then and also when I’ve been standing at the rail with others, I’ve certainly been aware of the intimacy. And of the implications about how to live the meaning of my life as a “child of God”. No wonder Paul was clear about the consequences of sharing the holy meal in a cavalier manner.
The meal – any meal – is a symbol for the intimacy of any human relationship, and for the care with which all human relationships should be undertaken. Any encounter with another should not be indigled in lightly.
Brian+
Brian’s Reflection: Monday, July 2, 2007
All good books have one thing in common –
they are truer than if they had really happened.
-Ernest Hemingway, author, Nobel Laureate (1954),
killed himself on this day, 1961
True of the “Good Book” too. I remember reading the Creation Story (aspects of which, or perhaps more accurately interpretations of which, I profoundly disagree with) and thinking “Don’t be ridiculous! And the stories in Luke about the birth of Jesus and thinking, “Nice story, enhances the idea in a charming way” – but happened literally, nope. It wasn’t until I got to the point that I could accept them as “stories” that I understood what Hemingway is saying. Such stories are “truer than if they had really happened”.
But what is “really happened”? The point is, such events indeed “really happened”!. It’s just that reality is such a poverty-stricken concept in our modern culture. It is no wonder to me that certain cultures today censor and/or ban literature – Salman Rushdie, for example. “Good books” reveal reality when the events in them never literally happened, the people in them never literally existed. In my experience and opinion, fiction is most often the truest reality.
Adam and Eve as individual persons never (in my view) existed. But as symbols or humanity, they and their story speak much about what “really happens” in human lives. Angels (in my opinion) never sang in the sky in the first Nativity – but Creation does indeed sing It’s own glorious song about the presence of the Holy One in human life.
How about you, your Life. Write a “good book” about it. Let your imagination rip! Even if you say things about yourself that never literally happened, we will certainly hear your truth!
Brian+
All good books have one thing in common –
they are truer than if they had really happened.
-Ernest Hemingway, author, Nobel Laureate (1954),
killed himself on this day, 1961
True of the “Good Book” too. I remember reading the Creation Story (aspects of which, or perhaps more accurately interpretations of which, I profoundly disagree with) and thinking “Don’t be ridiculous! And the stories in Luke about the birth of Jesus and thinking, “Nice story, enhances the idea in a charming way” – but happened literally, nope. It wasn’t until I got to the point that I could accept them as “stories” that I understood what Hemingway is saying. Such stories are “truer than if they had really happened”.
But what is “really happened”? The point is, such events indeed “really happened”!. It’s just that reality is such a poverty-stricken concept in our modern culture. It is no wonder to me that certain cultures today censor and/or ban literature – Salman Rushdie, for example. “Good books” reveal reality when the events in them never literally happened, the people in them never literally existed. In my experience and opinion, fiction is most often the truest reality.
Adam and Eve as individual persons never (in my view) existed. But as symbols or humanity, they and their story speak much about what “really happens” in human lives. Angels (in my opinion) never sang in the sky in the first Nativity – but Creation does indeed sing It’s own glorious song about the presence of the Holy One in human life.
How about you, your Life. Write a “good book” about it. Let your imagination rip! Even if you say things about yourself that never literally happened, we will certainly hear your truth!
Brian+
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
