The artist's riposte

Bigfoot and other truths

2012-01-21T19:15:00.005-06:00

I believe in big foot. I mean I really believe. However, I am not a big foot enthusiast. I don’t collect souvenirs or chart the latest sightings of big foot on a huge map I have tacked to the wall of my man room. I won’t bug you about some late night PBS shows I saw documenting the history of big foot, and if you ask me about big foot, I probably won’t show much enthusiasm.

Still, I am a big foot believer. I also believe in aliens, the Loch Ness monster, secret societies, and the Holy Grail. All in all I pretty much believe in any far-fetched, imaginary, or straight out kooky half crock thing that comes down the pipe. Why? Because believing in these things costs me nothing, and having a world that is filled with these mythical, even imaginary creatures, is so much more interesting than the alternative that I will gladly give my belief over to these phantasms.

I like to think of this as Patrick’s wager. A little play on the classical wager of Blaise Pascal who thought that it was safer to believe in God than not, because the payoff for believing and being vindicated in that belief were higher than any alternative.

I remember one time I was asked by a friend, Raven, if I would like to accompany him to the midnight premier of the newest incarnation of the Star Wars saga. While we were standing in line waiting for the doors to open I casually said to him that I was “a huge Star Wars fanatic from way back,” and that I could remember going to the first Star Wars movie with my brother and his friend Jim in 1976 who sat next to me reading the opening paragraphs with tremendous excitement, and that the experience had forever hooked me on the franchise.

Raven looked at me dumbstruck. For weeks he had been talking about going to this premier. It was clearly a big deal to him. “Why”, he asked, “had I not said anything about my excitement sooner.” I looked at him quixotically. “Why would I?” I thought.

The truth is I have never really understood people who are impassioned by their beliefs. I mean, I wanted to go to that premier badly, but I wouldn’t have been crushed if I hadn’t, and certainly I would never have entertained the idea of dressing up as a Storm trooper or Han Solo for the occasion, any more than I could imagine myself wandering out into the woods of the pacific northwest hunting for big foot. Nor will I ever want to vacation in Loch Ness on the off chance that I might accidentally spy Nessie while relaxing in a rowboat.

That being said, going to the premier was awesome; largely because I was going with someone who had looked forward to this moment for months. It was awesome the way sitting next to my brothers friend had been awesome. There is something about being around impassioned people that is contagious. I don’t know if I ever thanked either of these men properly for that experience. But their enthusiasm had shaped my way of thinking and helped my world become a larger and more interesting place

you got a demon on you

2012-01-18T11:23:00.004-06:00

About sixteen years ago I was sitting on the back porch of my parent’s house with a friend who, as it happens, was about half my age. We were talking about random stuff when the subject of Nostradamus came up and she admitted to me that she was scared, really scared, about prophecies that foretold the end of days. I looked at her with calm and a reassurance that one can only give another when two people are in completely different places on a topic like this and said something like, “The end may come at any time, all we can do is live the life we have today. The future will take care of itself.”

I know, straight out of a Hallmark card. But it did the job. She later confessed to me that she found the conversation so comforting that she never looked back. For myself, I never really though about it either until this morning when I was catching up on my friend Stuart’s blog and read the following: "Oh yeah. I was horrified of all that end of the world stuff as a kid. The devil. Hell. I thought I was going to hell because I cussed. Because we didn't go to church." It reminded me that there was a time when I was scared of the devil, scared of the end, scared of all the unseen things that go bump in the night, and that what was more, I have no recollection of the time in which that shifted for me. I didn’t have that sudden realization, or comforting talk like I had with my friend all those years ago. I suppose I just grew out of it, which may explain why, sometimes, for no apparent reason, I still slip into crazy little phobias like being afraid of the unseen.

The other day I picked up a book that I read years ago called The Origin of Satan, by Elaine Pagels. I thought it would be a fun topic to offer to my Adult Sunday School class so I began rereading the book. It starts out talking about the Jewish wars of the late first century, and the persecution that early Christians felt both from the Romans as well as from other Jews who saw these followers of Jesus as radicals and a splinter group that threatened the orthodoxy of the Jewish Church. It talks about the us/them dynamic and how people used language about evil and Satan to characterize the actions of others, to demonize them in order to justify your own cause and to place that cause in the context of a greater cosmological battle that give greater credence to your own spiritual views.

Pagels talks about the original context in which the name Satan was used. Satan, an angel of God, it sent to oppose those that go against the will of God, literally Satan is the angle that is supposed to go stand in your way when you are walking away from God. The Greek word diabolos, from which we get the word devil, literally means “one who stands in your way. “ I read this and I felt like I finally understood Satan. Satan was just this misunderstood angel that was trying to help us. Far from being demonized, it was our own short sightedness that prevented us from understanding the motives of the "Lord of Darkness" and more, God’s will for us.

Recently, I shared these thoughts with a Facebook friend, an evangelist pastor in New York State. As you might expect he listened to me patiently, told me he understood my point of view and then went on to say that he had seen real demonic possession, that it was terrifying and real his exact words were “I have seen demonic possession before ... Christianity can be very cooky (sic.) because of the supernatural that flows at its core, and people can get strange when they talk about it, really flaky. Many times they forget biblical fact. Pat[rick] I pray you never have too [see anything like that], its scary and sad.”

I have to admit I dismissed my friend as superstitious and a little…well… backwards. I am ashamed to say that my thinking was something like “you poor ignorant bastard.” And I retreated back into the safety of my scholarly novel about Satan, assured that I would find in its lofty pages arguments that would further cement my intellectual authority.

Pagels’ own words on the subject took me by surprise. “ Many liberal-minded Christians have preferred to ignore the presence of angels and demons in the gospels. Yet Mark intends their presence to address the anguished question that the events of the previous decades had aroused: How could God allow such death and destruction?... The gospel writers want to locate and identify the specific ways in which the forces of evil act through certain people to effect violent destruction… The figure of Satan becomes, among other things, a way of characterizing one’s actual enemies as the embodiment of transcendent forces.”

Catch that? There are a couple of ways that one can read that last sentence by Pagels. But the end all of the matter is that, regardless of Satan’s role specifically, there are demonic forces as described in the Bible, and that as some point Satan becomes the character which personifies them. So, even if Satan is just a scapegoat for all of these other demonic forces, contending with the presence of these other forces is not as easy as saying they are simply misunderstood.

In the conclusion of her book, Pagels states that it is precisely in the demonization of others that evil is wrought, and that Jesus message was one of tolerance and acceptance. She points to such Christians as St Francis of Assisi or Martin Luther King Jr. who “stood on God’s side without demonizing their opponents” and states quite plainly that ”otherness” is the true root of evil and that, in the words of Jesus, that reconciliation is divine.

As a teenager I read a lot of my father’s science fiction hand-me-downs. One series, in particular, comes to mind, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen Donaldson. The story takes place in an alternate world of magic known as “the Land”. In the first Chronicles, Thomas is magically transported to “the Land” and struggles with his acceptance of this new reality even as he must face an ancient evil that threatens to destroy “the Land.” In the second Chronicles, Thomas is again transported to this magical place, only to discover that it is two or three millennia later, that all of the good he had performed had been erased, that evil had infiltrated every aspect of life in “the Land”, and that his task is made all the more difficult be Thomas’ own his bottomless well of self-loathing, confusion, cynicism and rage.

Sitting here writing this, I am reminded of this series, though I have not read it in more than twenty years. I marvel at the parallels. Here I sit, two millennia after the death of Jesus, looking that the words of my friends and calling him a simple ignorant fool. I say these words to myself and to him, not out of some sense of malice, but because, in my own self righteous sense of superiority I think that calling him these names will somehow make him a better person. The truth is that whether or not I believe in demons, I perpetuate demonizing and “otherness.”

I suppose this is why, though I have never had that turn around moment where I realized the superstitious thoughts of my childhood are just the stuff of fancy, I still get those insecure moments where I believe in things that go bump in the night. I have those moments because I, and not some supernatural entity, perpetuate them and give them strength. I create these demons, and I allow them to roam freely in my life, and until I look unflinchingly at that behavior they will remain.

A season in Hell

2011-12-29T09:55:00.003-06:00

Words are the wellspring of all treachery.
Through this language of form is forged a world of
sensuous wonders combining real and unreal
in visionary and hallucinatory projections,
Like a child in all knowing wonder, who is
at once whole and perfect, shattering this reality
with the first utterance of a single syllable.

So all worlds are created, described and destroyed,
A deluge of metamorphoses, theater, magic and fairyland
Fantastic voyages, suffering and flood like clarion bell, forged on
the anvil of the first primordial word that gave existence its birth
And plunged it headlong into its own destruction.
Long before the great towers of men soared into the skies,
Poets made poignant confessions and dramatic narrative
to adapt this reality to another beginning, from darkness into light.

Oh the painful conceit of this! The desperate clinging
of the soul to its mother tongue; Would that the wordsmiths had
fashioned an ark that traveled not forward,
but back, back from the light and into darkness.
Deep in the wells of echoing timelessness
the universes were fashioned here,
Not by their words, but in silence.

America

2011-10-10T15:36:00.003-05:00

I saw this image in a magazine, or part of it. The ad in the magazine had a room full of couches, throw pillows, lamps and end tables, and behind it all was this wall. I saw the flag in it immediately. I reminded me of the encaustic white flags of Jasper Johns. I knew I wanted to paint it. I love the texture of the brick, the warmth of the ocher and sienna leaking out behind the white paint. I love how the paint attempts to "sanitize" the brick, to make it look new or renewed. But really the texture is louder than the paint. I love the wall and the window that looks out into nothing behind the wall, as if all the substance is in the wall and everything else is just window dressing. I want to paint this painting again and again, trying to recapture the different textures of each individual brick, or maybe a new painting of nothing but brick and more brick, or brick and wood panel. I want to do this partly because painting is a lot like building a brick wall, one piece at a time, slowly building up layers, layers that both reveal and conceal. I like the idea of this painting hanging on a wall somewhere, hiding the space behind it like a wall, while revealing the textures, the materials the substance of the wall that it hides, brick, mortar, paint. I call this painting America, mostly because it reminds me of how this country is built, putting up walls and tearing them down, layer after layer, century after century, one brick at a time.

The Dead

2011-10-04T11:19:00.004-05:00

I think most of my “great thoughts” occur to me in the car. I don’t know if this is because I spend more time in the car than anywhere else, or if it is because I am usually alone in the car, or if my car, by virtue of being a piece of shit, rattles and jiggles me into an hypnotic state wherein I am one with the universe. Regardless, when I am in me car, the idea factory is open.

A great example of this happened to me the other day. It was morning, that much I can tell you. Most likely I was on my way home after having dropped the kids off at school. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful morning, when all of a sudden the idea hit me. I was dead.

Now before I go any further, I want to make sure you understand me. I don’t mean the “I am dying, we are all dying” I am dead. It reminds me of the line from the movie Fight Club. "Narrator: In the Tibetan philosophy, Sylvia Plath sense of the word. I know we're all dying. But you're not dying the way Chloe back there is dying." Also, I don’t mean the “what is the point, I am better off not having lived” kind of dead. What I in fact mean is that I am I dead, literally dead, not dead, walking on the earth like a zombie dead, but that I am dead, “walking around in the afterlife and I just became aware of it” kind of dead.

Now, like most ideas that I have in the car, this one is kind of far fetched. Probably due to road hypnosis and the like. But I have to admit that the idea was not an unpleasant one, and that having had my so-called “realization” I felt quite comfortable. In fact, I felt at peace.

If I am dead, and this is the afterlife, then really the afterlife isn’t all that bad. I mean, apart from the occasional ups and downs, the mood swings, the minor tantrums, the drama and such, for the most part, life, er... death, is good.

Aside from feeling liberated, it is a funny thing to think of yourself as dead, that life as we know it is really the afterlife. Clichés abound about how life is what you make it and the kingdom of heaven is now. It reminds me of movies like Jacob’s Ladder, where the main character is haunted throughout the movie, only to realize in the end that he is actually dead. By way of explanation of the plot, the movie quotes the German mystic Meister Eckhart "The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you; they're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and. you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth."

I think that this is a profound way of talking about pain that has echoes in Buddhism, namely that suffering is not caused from without, but by our attachments. The big difference of course being that Eckhart is talking about the soul’s journey after death, and the Buddha is talking about the individual’s journey through life. Though truth be told, I personally see very little difference between the two. What does it matter if we think of ourselves as alive or dead? It reminds me of the exchange between Gandalf and Pippin in the Movie the Return of the King:

Pippin: I didn't think it would end this way.
Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path... One that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass... And then you see it.
Pippin: What? Gandalf?... See what?
Gandalf: White shores... and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
Pippin: [smiling] Well, that isn't so bad.
Gandalf: [softly] No... No it isn't.

I have to admit, as I was typing my blog post on the Book of Jonah, I flinched when I admitted that I sometimes despair to the point of contemplating death as an escape, but it is equally true that I harbor a fear of death and the unknown and that those two feeling are very much at odds with one another.

I was listening to a Radiolab episode on the radio the other day as the described the action of a man who made the decision to jump off a bridge; I think it was the Golden Gate Bridge, to end his own life. Mid jump, he said, he realized he had made a terrible mistake. The announced later commented that of the twenty-four or so people out of one thousand that actually survived the same fall, almost all unanimously confirmed the same experience, namely that the desire to live was rekindled in the act of falling. I wonder, of the nine hundred and seventy-six that died, how many had the same experience but we not as lucky?

Anyway, back on point. I don’t think that I obsess about death, or that my musings on it are unnatural. Quite the contrary, the more I think about it, the less power it has over me. If I imagine myself as already dead, that I am strolling though the afterlife, death no longer seems like an option, as an escape from my suffering, nor as a thing to be afraid of. As Pippin said, “that isn’t so bad.” The torments I face are really the ones of my own making, and not the unknown that looms in the future.

I kind of like this thought, as odd as it is, a kind of Egyptian "the afterlife is a parallel of this life" kind of thing. Though without Pharaohs and Sphinxes and such. I don't believe I could walk around pretending I was dead all the time, but when I think about it, and stare out my window in to the wide world beyond, it puts a little quirky smile on my face and I chuckle to myself, and then I go on about my day.

What is this thing to you?

2011-10-03T10:46:00.000-05:00

Is there anyone that doesn’t know the story if Jonah, particularly that part in which Jonah is swallowed by a great fish? I thought that I did. I have read the story several times in the last thirty years, and yet as we talked about the story in my adult Sunday school class last week, I found myself marveling over passages that seemed entirely new to me.

At the end of the story of Jonah, the Assyrian people repent, and turn to God, who in turn forgives them. Jonah’s response? He throws a fit. “I knew you were going to do that” he says, “ I knew you were going to forgive them. What was the point of my coming here if all you were going to do was forgive them?” He sits down outside the city and fumes.

Some people might me mystified by Jonah’s behavior. I think it is interesting that I never really took great notice of it. Probably because it was too close to home as this is where many of my conversations with God begin. “What was the point of that?” Just like Jonah I become incalcitrant. I can see myself in Jonah’s shoes. Frustrated, he is so overwhelmed with emotion that he is no longer able to talk with God. JoHe goes and sits outside the city wall in the burning desert sun and prays for death.

I am no stranger to this response. It is not uncommon for me, faced with some difficulty, or having felt some offence, to shut down the rational part of my mind. I become fixated on the swelling tide of emotions that churn within my body and I am incapable of offering defense on my own behalf. Furious at my own impotence as much as any perceived offence I may find myself acting out or saying something inappropriate that only worsens my situation. I am not above praying for release, even death, in these moments.

God’s response to Jonah is equally interesting. He causes a plant to sprout and grow overnight until it is large enough to shade Jonah. I imagine this plant like one of the trees you see in a Dr. Seuss book, long and gangly and multicolored. Jonah, the passage says, likes the plant, and enjoys the shade.

In yet another twist, God kills the plant, and here is where the story ends, or almost. Jonah becomes incensed, and God, seeing Jonah’s anger says to him “what was this plant to you? You did not plant it, you did not raise it, it was not yours, and yet when it dies you are angry. How much more are the people of this city, lost and confused, than this plant to which you owe nothing?”

The book ends on the question, and does not offer an answer. It appears as though it is the reader, and not Jonah, who is asked the question and expected to make an answer. Why are you angry? What is this thing to you?

The author is silent.

Take my class

2011-08-18T10:21:00.003-05:00

This year the adjunct faculty had an assignment, write a short email answering the question "What do I want my students to walk away with?" In the absence of anything else to blog about, I thought I would share my thoughts with you...

Over the years I have had the random former student email me telling me they saw this or that painting, and that they were able to identify it because of my class. However I really sincerely doubt that the majority of my students, even the best, would be able to do this within weeks of taking my class. I don't want to sound mean, thought I know it sounds jaded, but simply put, if it isn’t in their interest they are going to forget it, quickly.

This begs the question, why teach if they aren’t going to remember? To answer this question I want to share an anecdote that happened to me some years ago. As I was standing beside the copier, I was engaged in small talk with another professor from a different department. When I told him I taught Art he looked at me rather smugly and said, “So, what is Art?”

“Take my class.” I said.

The answer to this question, a question, incidentally, that opens the first paragraph of our textbook, is no small matter. Is it the work of art, the process the artist uses to create a piece, or the skill and craft of the artist themselves? Over the years I have come to believe that Art is a language, a language of the culture and the time in which it was created. To tell you what art is, I must first teach you to speak that language, understand its nuances and syntax, and then, versed in this language we can begin a cover the meaning of the question, “What is art?”

That being said, here are some of the things that I want my students to gain from my class:

1. That art is a lens though which we view culture.

2. That there is a specific language used to communicate how this lens functions.

3. That this lens will vary with time and place, and is unique to its own particular set of circumstances

4. That to use this lens we must first take of the lens of our own culture, or, as it were, peek around it as much as is possible.

5. That to learn this language, one must not only study images, but also ideas, history, other languages, and in short, other cultures.

In the end what I want to teach my students is how to approach art, I want to teach my students how to think about art, so that with this mindset, they can look at any work of art, and not just "Las Menias" or the "Arnofini Wedding Portrait", and walk away with a new found appreciation and understanding of the work that is in front of them.

Elizabeth Murray on my favorite painting

2011-08-12T13:34:00.007-05:00

This is the American Artist Elizabeth Murray. It turns out she and I love the same painting. Actually a lot of what she says in this very short clip resonates with me. It makes me wish I had known her.

Excavation was done by William de Kooning in 1950. This painting is an example of de Kooning's complex and dense style. Like many Ab Ex artists of this time, de Kooning's painting reflects a synthesis of Cubism and Surrealism. You can claw your way though the images in this work, uncovering layer after layer of meaning (hence the title).

Did I mention I love my therapist?

2011-08-11T16:36:00.002-05:00

“What do you think of when you think of a higher power?”
“Honestly?” I paused giving the question its full weight. “I think of nothing.” I could see she was searching my face for some emotional response. “Not a nihilist or atheist nothing, like 'there is nothing out there' kind of nothing. Rather it is more like a 'once you are a part of the all what is the difference between being part of everything and being part of nothing'…nothing.”
“What does this nothing look like to you, then?”
“You mean am I blissed out, living with angels and harps? No, probably not. But I suspect that given the alternative, being a part of this nothing is a helluva lot better than the alternative.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a world full of opposites, good/bad, right/wrong, even earth/heaven. You know the idea of heaven is a little suspect, isn’t it. It is just another aspect of the same old thing. We are born, we live, we die, and then we go to heaven. Then, because we don’t know any better, or because that is the way it is, it starts all over again. I want off this cosmic merry-go-round. That is my idea of heaven.”
“So why not get off?”
“I would if I could.”
“Have you tried doing it in reverse?”
I paused and thought about this for a moment. “You had me right up until the end. What do you mean, doing it in reverse?”
“So, according to you, there is nothing, and the nothing is split into a universe of opposites.”
“Right. First there is the word, and the word is separate from the silence.”
“And then one is judged good and the other…”
“Bad.” I added with extra emphasis.
“Right, bad. And so it goes, opposites are created and values are given to each pair of opposites. One is good the other is bad.”
“I think I see what you mean.”
“So now you take it in reverse. You identify what opposites you give value judgments, and remove the values, without values there is no…”
“Difference?” I interrupt.
“Without, value judgments the differences fade, without differences, there is no opposite. In the end all you are left with is your nothing.”
“I don’t think it is as easy as that.” I add skeptically.
“Have you tried it?” She asked inquisitively.
“No.” I said matter-of-factly.
“Well then how do you know?”
“Every movement towards the divine takes an act of faith.” I say superiorly.
“Why don’t you try?” she said, patiently.
“I suppose I have nothing to lose.” I say with a bit of defeat.

Pantheon of Higher Powers

2011-07-27T20:03:00.001-05:00

I flipped open an Al-Anon book this morning and the first sentence I read was “When we say higher power, initially people believe that we are speaking of a religious entity. We are not. We are speaking of a loving, caring, nurturing Power that provides us with guidance…” As I began thinking about this, I realized that, while I have always identified “Higher Power” with “God”, in truth a higher power is anything that I set over myself, a power that guides and directs me, and that while ideally this higher power is a nurturing, loving power, more often what I make my higher power is job, relationship, or love. I am easily distracted by these powers, and while I think my intentions are good, the “guidance” that I receive by chasing after them, often leaves me angry, lonely, and unfulfilled. Essentially I make all the petty, material, even mundane problems of my life that power that seizes my every thought, and I bow down to these idols with an all too frequent and familiar regularity.

Later I had the opportunity to talk about this thought with a friend. I pointed out that, the statement “Came to believe” held three solutions for overcoming my obsessions with these insignificant powers that hold so much sway over me. Recognizing them or “Came” was the first part. Recognizing that there is a force over which I am powerless is perhaps the most important part of making change.

The second, “came to” is the understanding that I have a significant role in choosing these powers and the way that they affect me. It is no accident that this or that power is able to possess my thoughts and emotions so powerfully. I am an active and willing participant in choosing what I call my higher power.

Finally, “came to believe” is the realization that while I sometimes think that I have given up hope believing that I will ever be able to do things differently, the truth is that I harbor faith that even if I am not able to do things differently, I believe that these things can and will change. I am not always able to name the source of this faith, or the object in which this faith is placed, but the fact that my desire for change exists, means that hope is not dead, and that I am willing to do whatever it takes to live my life differently.

In rereading this, so much of my thoughts seem nothing more than jargon pulled directly from countless Al-Anon meetings. I don’t know that I have made the fateful step of turning my will and my life over to some higher power that truly loves me and wants to nurture and guide me towards serenity. Instead what I am choosing to focus on is the idea that I don’t have one higher power, I have many, and that the dizzying array of higher powers are a pantheon of petty grievances, fears and insecurities that I am ready to name and turn over, because they no longer serve me, and I no longer wish to serve them.

The flower sermon

2011-07-07T23:17:00.002-05:00

The Buddha saw a lotus blooming in the muddy water. Reaching down he pulled out the flower, stem and root and held it up high for his students to see. For a long time he stood there, saying nothing, just holding up the lotus and looking into the blank faces of his audience.

I reached my hand down between the rafters in my attic. Days before I had placed a trap among telltale dropping and the floorboards. The trap had snapped only the animal had fallen and I did not realize right way that the prey had been snared. Later, as the pungent odor began to waft down thought the cracks, I begin to understand the truth.

My hand was covered in a thick rubber glove surrounded by a trash bag. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it quick. I could feel the weight of it shift in my fingers. I snapped the bag shut around the maggoty corpse and hurried it, unceremoniously, to the trash bin outside.

Lying on the couch later I realized that I had fallen asleep. My eyes would flicker open periodically and catch the snippets of reality that flowed over me. In one moment I was lost in a fragment of dialogue from the television, in another I could hear my wife telling me she was putting the baby to bed, the children would come and go, sometimes poking me, other times trying to crawl in beside me. Finally, like Lazarus, I opened my eyes and stared into the slow circling blades of the ceiling fan, my hair damp with sweat.

Whenever I try to think about what to write next I can hear a faint tune. It comes from the back of my mind, playing as if through a broken speaker. Like the Velvet Underground song “heroin” played on a hurdy-gurdy, the tune is at once both familiar and foreign, comforting and disquieting. It is the music of the stars, an omnibus of sounds: music, prose and poetry. Moments of everyday life: seasons, moods, aspirations, dreams and stages of life.

The Buddha looks into the eyes of his followers. Meeting the gaze of his disciple Mahakasyapa, the disciple looked back and began to laugh. The Buddha handed the lotus to Mahakasyapa and said “What can be said I have said to you, and what cannot be said, I have given to Mahakashyapa.”

The Silent Crucible

2011-06-01T10:18:00.003-05:00

Blaise Pascal said “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.” For myself, I think what he is expressing is that feeling that one gets when you loft a prayer to the almighty and find yourself sitting there, post communion, thinking “is anyone getting this?”

I imagine that, for anyone who prays, in moments of despair that have catapulted the faithful into prayer, there is inevitably a moment when one wonders, “when are my prayers going to be answered?” What follows is the long wait. Queue the Shirelles singing “the longest wait is right before dawn.” Long, because I am waiting for god’s will to align with my own.

These times are the most insidious, as there nothing but the waiting to support me. Consumed by my own impatience, I am plunged alternately into fear and insecurity. It is what St. John of the Cross calls, “the dark night of the soul.” Faulkner joked that it usually began around 3 a.m. It is a period of loneliness and isolation. It is a period of suffering, one that is the crucible of faith. I say this perhaps without really knowing what that means. My wife has a saying that “pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth.” For myself I try to avoid pain and suffering. When I am pain, all I can do is think about how I can get out of pain. If I have caused myself pain, all I can think about is chastising myself until I am sufficiently humbled. If someone else has caused me pain, all I can think about is how I can pay back the pain and suffering that has been visited on me. Pain, for me, when looked at in this light, seems like nothing more than the touchstone of selfish and self-centered thinking.

I think this is what Pascal is trying to express when he says that he is filled with dread. I think he knows that there is this great well of despair that forms from our own human propensity to be self-defeating and that this silence, unexamined, becomes the gulf between man and god, or even just between myself and my serenity. Pascal draws our attention to this that we should know the despair. In Buddhism the equivalent is found in a path called the sixteen stages of insight. Number six is “Knowledge of the fearful nature of mental and physical states” or more simply “knowledge of fearfulness.” The idea being that instead of recoiling from the fear, the pain and the uncertainty, there is a step that one must take in which we learn to just sit with these feelings. In knowing them we learn how to deal with them, so that when these feeling arise again, we know how to act, and not just react to our situation.

I don’t have to wait long to find these moments of pain in my life. Certainly I don’t have to wait for moments of prayer and meditation to feel isolated and alone. I can feel this way anytime, particularly when life isn’t going my way. I think about how often I can get irritated in a single day. How often do things not go my way, how many little infinite silences abut my sense of order? The other day, as I unfolded a bag of coffee beans, I several spilled on the floor. I cannot imagine how these beans leapt from the bottom of the bag and through the opening to find their way to the ground. My immediate reaction was one of frustration. Again I found myself waiting for the universe to align itself with my will. In that moment there is this terrible space that nothing can fill and so I fill it with frustration and even anger.

There are some things that I can control and other things that I cannot. I cannot, for example, control what you think and do. Ultimately the things that I can control fall to myself. I may not be able to control my feelings of sadness or fear, frustration or anger, but I can control how I react to them. I can learn to sit with them, or I can push them away. I might add again, just for arguments sake, that pushing these feeling away has typically lead me to selfish and self-centered thinking. However, having lived this way for a long time I find these reactions more and more distasteful, and while the thought of sitting in total discomfort is unappealing, the thought of alienating my sense of peace and calm is infinitely worse.

Leviticus-shmiticus

2011-05-10T13:24:00.007-05:00

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 (L18/20) prohibit sexual intercourse between men. Opponents of same sex relationships frequently produce this passage as evidence that God forbids male/male relationships. The language of L18/20 occurs inside of the broader context of laws describing sexual unions that are prohibited or that are deemed “unclean.” These include adultery, incest, and bestiality.

To begin, I want to acknowledge that two thousand years worth of commentators have tried to understand and interpret these laws. So I am not sure what I, an untrained novice with out any legal or linguistic background, am going to have to offer this conversation. As far as I am concerned these laws were written to help govern an ancient people, the people and the culture for which these laws were written have passed. We no longer routinely slaughter cows and sheep as sin sacrifices. Nor do we put people to death for adultery. So it is a curious thing that people would look at these passages and use them to condemn homosexuality. Still I am curious about these passages and the power that they seem to hold over others; particularly because they seem to evoke such powerful and passionate responses, and so I want to understand them better.

On first glance I think anyone reading the two passages from Leviticus will see that there is something strange about them. It doesn’t say: “homosexuality is a sin.” It also doesn’t say that “men who engage in sexual acts with other men are sinners.’ What it does say, quite literally is “that a male shall not lay down with a man, as he would with a woman.” Noted scholar Saul Olyan notes that the verb usage here specifically references penetration (as for example the verb “penetrate” evokes a specific image) and that the prohibition seems to say that a person should not penetrate another man like he would a woman.

The language is bizarre, almost comical. “Don’t lay with a man is if he were a woman” seems to beg the question, well then should I lay with him as a man? Also, it make no reference to woman/woman relationships, and it seems to suggest that even in the confines of the male/male relationship, it is the penetrator and not the penetratee that is at fault. We might turn to other Jewish sources on law to compare but, unlike adultery, for example, there is no other parallel to be found in Jewish law that includes a prohibition on male/male couplings.

Historically commentators have suggested that the L18/20 passages have been included here either as a response to Egyptian or Semitic sexual practices deemed as impure or unholy by the Israelites. Another interpretation observes that the variety of sexual proscriptions are all non-procreative, that is they do not yield offspring, essential to the livelihood of an agrarian people and are as such and anathema. Both of these interpretations look at the groupings of laws collectively.

Another way of reading these laws is to look at them individually. The passages could been seen as having arisen independently of one another and were grouped together in Leviticus only later by their similarities of thematic content, in which case the meanings of these passages may not conform to a literary interpretation of the reading and may instead draw from a wide variety of traditions from an earlier history.

Did Israelites abhor male couplings, as has been generally assumed up to the present? There is the prohibition, but beyond this there is nothing to suggest that other homosexual acts, or even homosexual acts between women were taboo. Thus the evidence of the Hebrew Bible is insufficient to support the view that the Israelites discriminated against homosexuality. Such a generalization is more easily defended for adultery, incest, and human-animal couplings, all of which are prohibited in legal materials outside of Leviticus. But intercourse between males is mentioned in no other Israelite legal setting.

In all likelihood, no one contributing factor may explain the presence and meaning of these prohibitions in Leviticus. The more we try to understand one reading or another, for example that it is reaction to the practices of other cultures or that it is tied to notions or reproduction, the more it seems that these explanations, by themselves are not enough. It is helpful for me to imagine all of these factors, namely that first they arose out of separate and distinct traditions, that then they were eventually tied together thematically, and that in the final version someone at some point, probably in reaction to some perceived social stigma, went in and modified the code of law to level the most extreme punishments for certain types of behavior.

So then why is homosexual intercourse mentioned at all? Well if we try to break these saying down and look at them one at a time, we can begin to enfold the plethora of influences that have shaped these sayings and help us to understand their presence and their power within the context of Leviticus. In the first place, Lev. 18, it seems to be connected to a larger picture of purity laws in which the intermingling of semen causes one to become unclean. Leviticus 15:16-18 even goes so far as to suggest that heterosexual intercourse would make a man and a woman unclean for a time. Thus homosexuality is included in a litany of prohibited acts. In the second place, Lev. 20, the extreme nature of the extent to which homosexual penetration is condemned, namely death, is perhaps derived from the social taboos arising out of views of role reproductive acts and their importance for producing progeny.

Instead of asking why this was important to the Israelites, a better question might be why is it important to us? The idea that these laws should somehow govern or be connected with our own contemporary code of ethics, in my mind, is a mistaken association with an idea that arose in the 1950’s that homosexuality was aberrant behavior that arose from some mental defect, a psychosis perhaps, and that this stigma was associated with the reproductive stigma that appears in Leviticus. While the two are not the same and do not come from the same ideology, the passages in Leviticus are continually drawn out to support a lingering social prejudice.

Mr. Insecure

2011-05-09T01:12:00.004-05:00

I have terrible insecurity when I write, I am sure that most writers do. The problem is that I am not a writer, I am a painter. But because I am an artist, I can appreciate what a writer, what a true wordsmith, goes through every time they sit down to work. When I write I have a subject in my head I want to tell you about. I go about my business of trying to supply details and when I am done I simply publish my thoughts. As a painter I do much the same thing, I stretch canvas over frame, I gesso, I begin to layer pigment until I am finished. The difference being that somewhere along the process of painting I can look at what I have done, and I know that it is ether going well or not, and more I can see the little inconsistencies, the areas that I need to work on, that need to flesh out and give more attention. That is not something I can do in writing.

The other night I was lying in bed with my wife. We were having one of those wonderfully intimate nights sharing ideas, talking about the day, kissing, and staring at each other till eventually time and the pressure of having children and the necessity of having to get up in the morning wore on us and we turned out the light.

Laying there in the darkness feeling my eyes adjust to the dim I began to feel the presence of crazy mind creeping in and taking over. I could see the images of unresolved conflicts, the stresses of daily life, work or even events of the past creeping in and at once I knew that I was in danger of going insane. My friend calls it monkey mind. I sat up, and not wanting to wake my wife, almost tripped trying to get out of the room. Minutes later she found me sitting on the couch. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Come to bed.”

In a daze I dumbly followed her and lying down again beside her she asked, “why did you leave?”

“I could feel my mind going crazy,” I said.

“Oh that?” Was her reply, “It usually takes me an hour every night to get past my mind and finally be able to settle into sleep.” I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t imagine trying to fall to sleep like that every night. “My trick” she continued, “if you want to call it that, is to try and name the voices that are speaking to you.” Lowering her speech she continued “Oh there is Mrs. Grumpy.” Then, her voice rising, “and there is Mrs. Insecure.”

“Her comes Mr. Unappreciated,” I said with a light chuckle.

“Oh sure” she said, “I know HIM.”

I lay there for a minute trying to decide which was better, trying to name the plethora of voices that were keeping me awake at night, or pacing up and down my living room trying to match them for strength and endurance.

“Mr. Insecure, Mrs. Self-loathing, Mr. Anxious, Mrs. Confused…” I drifted,

In a painting I can look at the surface, the texture of the paint, the color, the forms and usually know in an instant where I have gone wrong. Everything is simple in a painting, at least simple from the perspective of knowing where the proper place of things ought to be. In writing I have no idea. I stare at the words on the page, and if they seem to flow from the words on the tip of my thoughts I am usually satisfied, I have no great patience for writing. Things are better, I tell myself, if I just let them lie.

Fortunes favors...

2011-05-07T22:35:00.009-05:00

I haven’t been blogging much and my blogging content is way down. Not that it was ever way up but I find it harder and harder to put two coherent thoughts together these days or even to find the time to sit down and try. Worse, I feel this strange, even unsettling feeling that I am out of sync with the universe right now. I was thinking about this the other day while watching a show on Pompeii. One of the things the program talked about was the Roman ideal of virtue. Romans didn’t measure virtue in terms of how good or how bad a person was, that is, with notions of sin. Rather, Roman virtue was tied to success. The virtuous person was the most successful. As Cicero said "Jupiter is called the best (Optimus) not because he makes us just or sober or wise, but because he makes us healthy, rich, and prosperous." Lacking prosperity, people would beseech the favor of the Gods, in hopes of increasing their chances for prosperity. One of the most prominent of these was Fortuna, the goddess of luck. People would beseech the goddess to help them become more successful in business, in politics and in war. In this way, good fortune, or luck was tied to deeds, labor and creativity. Signs of luck went hand in hand with talent, ingenuity and, of course, success. The question of luck was not individual, or personal as in “do you feel lucky” but relied on the preparedness of a whole, as in “fortune favors the prepared” or perhaps even “the lord helps those who help themselves.” As the goddess of fate Fortuna also had the power to foretell the future. This means that she was worshiped as an oracle and someone who could tell you how to proceed. Romans would sacrifice to her at the start of the New Year in hope for a prosperous year. This means that her power extended over the cycle of time and the changing of seasons. Fortune foretold the coming of an early spring or a late harvest, and knew the destinies of newborn children and grown-ups alike. As a goddess of action and deeds fortune is not an ephemeral force beyond our control, one that that steers the course of events towards us. Rather, we looked to fortune for guidance even as we proceeded forward. We tend to think of fortune now-a-days as something that happens to us, something good or bad. The difference between these differing views on fortune is that in one we take action towards fortune, in the other fortune is something that happens to us, like winning the lottery or finding a four-leaf clover. I think that I believe in both types of fortune, in some cases I have no manner of luck at all, in others I feel that fortune has somehow abandon me, rendering all of my efforts useless and futile. I find myself waiting for Fortuna to relent, like Toole writes in the Confederacy of Dunces: “Fortuna had relented. She was not depraved enough to end this vicious cycle by throttling him in a straitjacket, by sealing him up in a cement block tomb lighted by florescent tubes. Fortuna wished to make amends. Somehow she had summoned and flushed Myrna minx from a subway tube, from some picket line, for the pungent bed of some Eurasian existentialist, from the hands of some epileptic Negro Buddhist, from the verbose midst of a group therapy session.” Anyways, I am not really sure what any of this has to do with anything. As I said, I feel out of sync with the universe, so here I am musing on fortune, biding my time trying to figure out what action Fortune wants.

A Senate Page

2011-04-06T16:50:00.001-05:00

When I was sixteen my father asked me a strange question. “Would you like to be a Senate Page?”
“Sure.” I said. I had no idea what he was talking about. But over the next few months it became more and more clear to me. Being a Senate Page meant that I was going to go and live in Washington D.C. I was going to work in the Capital Building, and go to school in a specially constructed classroom environment in the top floor of the Library of Congress.

My first days as a page were all about getting to know your environment, where you were going to live and who you were going to share your space with. I image it is much the same experience as someone going off to boarding school or summer camp. The only difference was that I was in the nations capital and was a federal employee working on the Senate floor.

The days were very long, though they varied a lot depending on whether or not the Senate was in session. Usually I got up around four thirty in the morning and went to school for a few hours. I was a junior in High School. All pages are. After school we went immediately to the Capital and began preparing for a days work. Dress was very formal, a blue suit and tie. Our duties might include running errands for the Senate staffers that manned the Democratic and Republican cloak rooms, set up of the Senate floor, that included laying out all the bills and amendments that were to be discussed, or doing secretarial work including answering calls and making copies.

As you might imagine the Capital is a building full of history, and everywhere you looked there were objects baring the marks of history, Davy Crockett’s desk or the Senate Gavel that was cracked by Richard Nixon. The people there were historic too. Among the Senators that I worked with were Strom Thurmond, Ted Kennedy, Bob Dole, Robert Bird, George Bush (who as V.P. sometimes made appearances as the President of the Senate) and John Glenn.

I was a Senate page for approximately six month during the ninety-ninth and one-hundredth congress in nineteen eighty-six and seven. I was there for the Senate Iran-Contra hearings, Cory Aquino’s address to a joint session of Congress, the appointment of Rehnquist as chief Justice and the appointment of his replacement Scalia to the Supreme Court.

Some of my best memories included taking the subway all around the city. My particular favorite place to go was Georgetown. We lived in dorms that were two floors of the house office buildings adjacent to the capital. The Smithsonian and all the monuments on the capital mall including the Lincoln memorial and the Washington monument were in my back yard. I was paid an annual salary and saved almost a thousand dollars during my time there, though this money was stolen shortly after my return home during a party I had thrown at my parents house.

It is hard for me to talk about the experience as anything more than matter of fact. The most remarkable thing about being a senate page is the way people look at you when you tell them that you were a senate page. For me the experience is more than twenty years old and is just another in a list of stories that I like to tell. But when I see the wide eyes of the people I tell it to, I begin to realize how special that time was, and it makes me appreciate it all the more.

The five pound burrito

2011-04-06T11:02:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting with some friends at a local taqueria having a few beers when one of then pointed out that the restaurant had recently implemented an eating challenge. The challenge was simple enough eat a five pound burrito (FPB) in an hour. Being a fan of eating shows like “Man vs. Food” I was curious about the challenge and even went so far as to boldly announce that I thought I could do it. My friends were skeptical, particularly because the FPB came with a fiery habanera sauce. To quell their doubts I lifted a small cup of the habanera sauce and downed it in one gulp. Impressed with my tolerance for spicy foods the conversation soon shifted, but the next day I was contacted by one of my friends who said that if I was serious about eating the burrito, he would bankroll the operation. I agreed. A date was set. The challenge was on.

If you haven’t figured this out by now, I am an impulsive person. I frequently say and do things that are spontaneous and have, on occasion, gotten myself into situations that are a bit over my head. One such episode even culminated in getting me thrown out of graduate school, but that is another story. Still, the thing about being impulsive is that I truly believe that I can do the things that I say I can and I generally do not brag or boast simply to puff myself up. My impulsive decision to engage in the challenge was not part of any attempt to put my money where my mouth was. Rather, I believed that I actually could eat the FPB.

Over the next couple of days I spent some time thinking about the challenge. I went to various competitive eating websites and looked at the techniques suggested by people who regularly invest themselves in these sorts of challenges. The recommendations included drinking lots of water and eating water laden fruits and vegetables like cabbage or grapes. Most important of all was not to starve yourself prior to the event. Starvation can cause the stomach to contract and shrink and was not advised.

The morning of the event I went to the gym for a light run. A little exercise, I thought, would build my appetite. Also, I began to psych myself up. I tried to visualize myself eating the burrito including the all important last bite. This wasn’t very hard as I knew that I was going to finish the FPB. After the gym I went to work, taught for a few hours than went home picked up my daughter and drove to the taqueria.

My friends had all talked about coming out in support of the event, but I arrived early and no one had arrived. I ordered the burrito and sat down patiently awaiting its arrival. Slowly friends and well wishers began to trickle in until, by the time the burrito actually arrived, I was surrounded by a fairly good crowd of people.

The actual eating of the FPB was not all that ceremonious. It was shaped like a pizza and was at least four inched thick, filled with rice, beans, lettuce, cheese and of course habanera sauce. I picked up a knife and cut it into three parts and began to devour it. I knew that I had to eat it quickly, before my mind and body began talking to each other and before satiety sank in. I managed to eat the first two thirds of the FPB in about twenty five minutes, and began eating the last third.

A couple of things stand out in my mind about this time, first one of my friends kids kept jeering and poking me which was an almost constant distraction. In all honesty I can’t say if this distraction was good or bad. The other thing that I remember was that at some point around the beginning of the last third, something happened to my taste buds and the actual flavor of the FPB became unpleasant. I have tried to describe this experience to several people, and the closest I can come is to say imagine if someone handed you a urinal cake and asked you to take a bite of it. Imagine what the experience of taking the first few bites would be like. Imagine the revulsion that your body and mind might experience as you felt the substance enter your mouth. Now multiply that by about four pounds of food in your already distended stomach.

Needless to say there came a point where the experience of eating became so unpleasant that I could no longer shovel food into my mouth. I simply could not get the food past my tongue. Every bite, even something as simple as a bite of lettuce tasted so horrible, and felt so poisonous that I could not will myself to swallow it. In the end I stared down at what was probably the last ten bites knowing that I could not finish them. At that point the realization that I was full really kicked in, so I made the only choice I could, I decided to throw up what I could and get rid of it.

In the aftermath of what amounted to my failure, I heard that aside from the one guy that ever finished the FPB, I got closer than anyone ever had. That, at least, was some small consolation. But what some might see as defeat turned out to be a nice afternoon. My friends, gathered around me continued to enjoy the afternoon and soon the party moved to a house and went late into the evening. What started as an impulsive statement turned into an event that brought friends together and culminated in a fun afternoon. By all accounts that in itself is a success.

The aftermath of the burrito is something altogether different. My stomach continues to feel stretched and uncomfortable, and worse, even now, several days later, eating is not a pleasant experience. I suspect that what I really need is several days of stretching and exercise. But really haven’t been able to find the time. I comfort myself in the knowledge that the event brought people together and that despite the aftermath, it was fun. I would never try it again, but I don’t have any regrets.

Unknowing and Uncertainty

2011-02-25T12:31:00.001-06:00

Years ago, as a college senior, I wrote a paper entitled “The Erotic Love of Wisdom” in which I discussed three speeches on the nature of love that appear in the first half of Plato’s Phaedrus. The paper was a sort of ad hoc examination of the spirituality that I thought lie behind the famous Socratic statement, “I know that I know nothing.” The paper was poorly received.

For twenty years I have wondered about that paper. I have rolled it back and forth in my mind vacillating between the thought that paper was too far ahead of its time for mere mortals to understand and the thought that I was just a young, dumb kid who really didn’t get philosophy and was lucky that they gave me the “C” and didn’t ride me out of school on a rail.

Recently I began rereading the Vedas. I was struck, in particular by those passages in the Upanishads that talk about a state of awareness known as “dreamless sleep”, to be awake, and aware, but that the mind is so calm, and disciplined that it is as if your mind were as still as someone in a state of dreamless sleep. I like to imagine this state of awareness. The image seems freeing. To be in a state of awareness like one in dreamless sleep means that the mind is not processing everything all the time. The sights, the sounds the sensations of the universe are all taken in the moment. The mind does not distinguish between them: the cry of the bird, the scent of lavender, and the feel of cold stone are all the same. They are experienced without words or thoughts to describe them: bird, lavender, or stone.

I think I still have some of that young, dumb kid inside of me, because I tend to gravitate towards the poetry. But is worth mentioning that I completely ignored the second half of Plato’s dialogue, Phaedrus, in which the author turns from the poetry of love and begins a dialectic examination on the nature of rhetoric, the rules of language, literally the art of persuasion. I read the Vedas and I see a world unfolding before me like Krishna revealing himself to Arjuna "an infinite number of faces, ornamented by heavenly jewels, displaying unending miracles, and countless weapons of his power". But there is another side to the dialogue. There are the rules of speech, and the art of doing it in just such a manner if you are going to be successful. It isn’t enough to be passionate; you also have to be disciplined.

This morning I found myself wondering if there wasn’t a correlation between the notion of dreamless sleep, and Socrates “I know that I don’t know.” Probably. The idea of wisdom in ignorance is far flung and appears in many places. You hear Socrates echoed in many western philosophers from Augustine to Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard described it as “learned ignorance.” It is prevalent in eastern schools of thought as well, and you can hear it in authors like Confucius, who writes, “To know is to know that to know is not to know.”

Socrates statement is an affirmation of inquiry. Socrates puts the question to himself what do I know, and by examination comes to the conclusion that he does not know, and that this is the grounds for the one thing that he can definitively say, namely that he knows nothing. From this process, Socrates derives a process, dialectic, that he can then apply to all other forms of knowledge, particularly of Ethics, and demonstrate that other also know nothing.

The Socratic Methodology has been passed down to us through the generations in the form of mathematics and science. The methodologies are the same. A good scientist proposes a thesis, conducts experimentation and draws conclusions, and the voice of Socrates can still be heard in Scientists like Heisenberg, whose uncertainty principle. Seems the very model of Socratic ignorance.

Heisenberg uncertainty principle states by precise inequalities that certain pairs of physical properties, such as position and momentum, cannot be simultaneously known to arbitrarily high precision. The more precisely one property is measured, the less precisely the other can be measured.

For Socrates much the same exists. The more we come to any kind of certainty, the more we are forced to define that certainty and frame it from our own perspective. As Plato states in the section on rhetoric from the Phaedrus, that the problems of language automatically engender a misunderstanding. Our means to describe phenomena are only as good as the speaker, and since their perspective is subjective and biased, so any attempt at a true description will follow.

Thus we find ourselves always reaching a point were our understanding falters. A good example of this might be proponents of String Theory, a theory of the universe that is so abstract, so settled in the world of Ideas, that there is no physical experiment that can prove its existence. Instead it is described in the world pure mathematics, a language that many people associate with reason and logic. But in this case it is a language that describes a world so unlike anything that we can imagine that logic has become a kind of poetry to the senses and that can convey a meaning or understanding of this world that physical science cannot touch. For Plato, it is the world of Pure Ideas.

Poetry, is seems is the world where knower and known can finally be one, and in which the identity of self and other begins to dissolve away. In many ways it is the same sort of idea that the Upanishads talk about. That it isn’t simply enough to say “I don’t know” but that beneath the idea that I understand that I don’t know is a recognition that any act of knowing does not validate our knowledge of the world, but rather undermines it, and in a way destroys it. The minute you choose speed, or direction, the world becomes a smaller place for knowledge is actually lost and not gained. So that in the end it isn’t the language of knowledge, science or mathematics, that is vital to our understanding of the world, but the language of poetry.

Finally. It is ironic then that Plato dismisses the poet, the artisan and others like them as mere imitators, as he does in his Ion and later in the Republic. For as it would seem, what Plato dismisses as “the divinely inspired” are in fact the guardians of the most profound truths known to human existence.

I chose this

2011-02-14T17:08:00.002-06:00

You ever get an idea in your head that seems so familiar that you know you heard it somewhere before, but you can’t place it? I had that feeling driving to work this morning. I can’t even tell you the train of thoughts that lead to the one I arrived at. It might be that the thought simply popped into my head the way errant thoughts sometimes do. I was driving in my Jeep with the radio on. I was listening to the NPR newscaster discussing the events in Egypt. It was warm this morning, or at least, warmer than it has been in a while and I was trying to decide whether or not to roll down the windows, because I was about to get on the freeway and couldn’t decide if I simply wanted a bit of fresh air or the torrent of fresh air that driving with the windows down at seventy miles an hour brings. Anyway there I was, sitting in my car, I think I was approaching a red light, when this stray thought wandered through the window of my mind. It was so tentative, so fragile, like the smell of apple pie coming from the neighbor’s kitchen, or the scent of spring borne on seasonal breeze, that at first I wasn’t sure what to make of it. “What” I wondered, “If in the moments before birth, our souls choose the life we wanted to live?”

There are many religions that talk about the souls experience before life. The Greeks have the reincarnated soul pass across the river Lethe and so forget everything the soul knew in the life before. The Bardo Thodol teaches that once awareness is freed from the body after death it traverses through a series of spiritual tests before it reenters the world in the form of a new birth. I don’t know about any of that stuff. I don’t know if we are born once and live the life we are given, or if we have an immortal soul that that entered and reentered the world for countless eons, in and out of life after life through the creation of universe after universe. For me none of that really matters. All I have is now. But I wonder. Did I choose now? I mean really choose this now, in a time and a place so different from this that words like time and place have no meaning. Did I, standing on the precipice, look out over the whole course of my life, and, like a contestant at a carnival booth, did I reach down into the water and pick this life knowing all that I knew then, that I would have to go through all that I know now?

Now, I don’t know if I read this somewhere, in the Upanishads, for instance, or in the Gita. I probably did, or something just like it. But for that moment in my car, listening to the radio, and feeling the wind on my face, I had this thought and what is more I was so sure of it, so sure that it was true, that I believed it. Probably because that thought, the thought that my life wasn’t the product of God or the Universe or any other force but was in fact the by-product of a choice that I made. Of all the countless lives I could have chosen, I chose this one, because there was something, many things, that this life had to offer that I needed to learn. There is no force outside of myself “doing this” to me, or inflicting this life upon me. Like a college freshman standing in front of an admissions office with a handbook full of electives, this is the litany of courses I chose for myself. Now all that's left is to figure out what to do with it.

We are all Racist

2011-02-13T12:38:00.001-06:00

The artist Wassili Kandinsky said “art is the child of its age, and the mother of our emotions.” I often use this quote when teaching to express to my students that art is a language, a language of the time in which it was made, and that by looking at the art we can tell a lot about the time in which the artist lived, his or her beliefs and in general the social and cultural influenced that helped shape the work of art. We art the product of our culture. I tell my students this not only that they have a tool for understanding the art, but that they understand that they are also children of their culture and that as such they will approach the work from a particular standpoint, with a particular mindset that frames the way the appreciate art.

Recently, in our adult Sunday school class, we began discussing the writings of Martin Luther King. Race is one of those big three that they say you should never discuss with people if you want to keep your friends your friends. The other two are religion and politics. So we have our bases covered in church. It is an odd thing listening to people talk about racism. Many times you hear things that, in talking about racism, sound racist. For me it is hard not to judge. I grew up with grandparent who frequently made racist remarks and from whom I learned a great deal about my own intolerance of hate speech. As a result I tend to err on the side of caution and typically react negatively to words that hint at racism. And it is an odd place to sit and talk about racism, in a room full of white, middle class Protestants. There isn’t a person of color among them. So, just as I caution my students, the stetting and our own point of view must be taken into consideration in this conversation.

In talking about the speeches of MLK, we tend to talk about racism in the past. But of course racism is alive and well in the modern world, and perhaps more prevalent today than ever, as undercurrents of racist talk and thinking are swept under the table in a tide of political correctness and affirmative action. But for myself I know that I am a product of my culture, so that no matter how hard I reject hate speech and racist sentiment, I undoubtedly share in them both. We are all racist. Not all to the same degree. But we have heard racist sentiment in our schools and on television and really everywhere. It seems inescapable. About the time I think that I have eradicated every last racist thought that I have heard or been brought up with, another rears its ugly head. No I don’t think that the way to escape the tide of racism is to pretend that I am not racist. They way to avoid becoming racist is to remain vigilant of my thoughts and actions, to remain open to the words of others that might point out when I am at fault and be quick to acknowledge when I am wrong and make amends.

I enjoy the conversations we have in our class, and when I am unable to attend I am disappointed. I tend to think of racism as a fear of change or perhaps, more rightly, a fear of the different or the other. When I look at a person’s clothes or their manners I might think that these people are to be feared or worse, but really it is my own inward fear of the strange and different, my own ignorance about other people and other cultures that are different from my own, that gives my fear strength. The more we talk about racism, the more I think, and learn and grow, and the better equipped I am to deal with my own fears and insecurities. It makes me wonder though, because there is always change and there is always difference, so does that mean their will always be racism? I hope not, but I really don't know.

Defining my Higher Power

2011-01-31T11:11:00.002-06:00

I have been having this dialogue about faith. The dialogue takes place in my mind, but is shared by many in my waking life. I have heard snippets in church, and work, in facebook, and from friends. Mostly what they say is the same. To quote al-anon and the twelve steps faith is “improving my conscious contact with God, as I understand him.” I find this answer fairly satisfying because it resonates with my personal spiritual growth. That is, I find that as I grow spiritually my awareness of the presence of God, however defined, grows. I worry thought that my definition of God is somehow tied to the idea of spiritual growth and that perhaps I am being redundant. It is hard for me to think of spiritual growth without God. I find myself asking the question can there be spiritual growth in the absence of God? The closest answer I can come to of an example of spiritual growth without God is in acts of charity or compassion. I say this because I think that a true act of charity or compassion is strongest when it is done without ulterior motive and that it is only a true act of charity when it is done without expectation of reward.

Interestingly the more I think about acts of compassion the more I realize that in practicing compassion I look to God for strength and direction. Perhaps this is why I began asking myself a deeper, more personal question that is dominating this inward dialogue of faith. It is hard to define exactly what this deeper question is exactly, or even how I struggle with it. I think it is safe to say that I am going through a transformation of belief and that I am unsure about exactly what this transformation is or how it will end.

I am, for example, deeply conflicted about various representations of the cycles of the life of the spirit. I grew up being taught that we are born, we live and we die. When we die, if we were good we went to Heaven and if we were bad we went to Hell. As I got older I began to dismiss this idea of an afterlife of duality and decided that heaven was one place, regardless of our actions and that it was our time on Earth, and what we did with it that defined our suffering. Hell was the torment that we put ourselves through on Earth. From there my beliefs took on many twists and turns. Gradually I began to accept the possibility that there was not one life but many. That we didn’t simply live and die, but that this was part of a greater cycle of birth and death. I began reading Eastern philosophies and eastern religions that shared these beliefs, and eventually I began to think that even heaven was part of this cycle of our spiritual lives, that is that we are born, we live and die, we go to heaven for a while, and then it starts all over again. Heaven is just part of the greater cycle of things.

This of course left the question of where God was in all of this and, more personally, what was my roll to be in this ever changing cycle of life. Many religions offer variations on this theme of cycles, and almost all agree that God both permeates and is outside of the circle of death and rebirth. My roll, as you might find in Buddhism or Christian Gnosticism, it to reunite myself with the divine God-head that is outside of this merry-go-round we call life. It is here that I have lived, in my spiritual growth, or perhaps more rightly defined as my spiritual belief. For what I am talking about is not really a way of living rightly with God, as much as it is a search for some definition of God that I can be comfortable with so that I can begin to live rightly with that definition.

Here, finally we come to the crux of the problem. The problem of the question that I asked in paragraph one. “Can there be spiritual growth without God?” The problem with this question being not so much that there is a right or wrong answer, yes there can or no there can’t, as the problem is with the question itself. The problem is not whether or not I can grow spiritually, but whether I can without a definition of God. Can I grow spiritually with my present definition of God? The answer for that question being yes, as long as I don’t define God too rigidly, because if my spiritual growth does not sync with my definition of God, I have, as you can see, conveniently altered my definition to better understand the nature of my growth. This has been useful because belief give me a touchstone upon which I can ground myself. The more I think this way the more I begin to distrust my definitions and begin to wonder if I shouldn’t just throw them all out, or if this isn’t the proverbial throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Still I can’t help but ask myself the question, another question. What if there were no definitions? What if there were just act of compassion and charity in and for themselves? Could I remain grounded in my faith, or would faith dissolve into ego and would I become selfish and self-centered without the presence of some definition of God showing me the way? Sadly I don’t think that I trust myself enough to try and go it alone without my dictionary close at hand. Too often have I been that selfish, self-centered person that I speak of. Still it gives me comfort, in moments of spiritual crisis when my definitions have become rigid and abut my sense of spiritual growth, that it is not God, but myself that I am struggling with, and that my higher power is waiting, patiently for me to come around.

My deep driving desire

2011-01-25T19:27:00.002-06:00

Probably everyone knows the famous passage from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, “You are what your deep, driving desire is.  As your desire is, so is your will.  As your will is, so is your deed.  As you deed is, so is your destiny.” As I lay awake near sleep the other night this thought was in my head. Though really the thought was more like “how do I know what my deepest desire is?” you can do a search on the Upanishad quote and come up with a thousand different musing on its meanings, and I don’t mean to do that here, rather as I lay there looking at myself I couldn’t help but wonder if what I desire and what I want are really the same thing.

I was listening to a radio lab episode about a month ago when they tackled a similar problem. In the episode the hosts talked about an experiment in which people were given a simple set of numbers to memorize. The subject was then asked to walk down the hall into another room and recall that set of numbers to an observer. Unbeknownst to the test subject, there was an obstacle in the way. Someone, a research assistant probably was to intercept the subject in the hallway and disrupt the subject’s train of thinking. The research assistant would ask” Would you like a piece of cake?” and then offer the subject a piece of cake. More often than not, the list of numbers was forgotten. It turns out that desire and reason are in a constant struggle for attention, and desire usually wins.

I am what my deep, driving desire is. It is weird to think, but the last thought I had as I drifted off to sleep was. I am that desire. By that, of course, I mean, if you look around at my life, at the people and the stuff that I have surrounded myself with, whatever other choices I might have made in life, these things, these people are the by-product of the decisions that won. My life is a product of my deep, driving desire.

Now I have to tell you that usually when I read this quote I read it negatively. That is, I think that if I really willed myself I could have that good job. I could have fame and fortune and everything that goes with it. Or, more rightly I think that I could have that close intimate relationship with my higher power if only I got my mind right. Did you get that? The reason, I tell myself, that I am not a good person, or a righteous person, or a holy person, or whatever, it that I don’t want it enough, and that if I were better, I would.

Self loathing thoughts like these are the by-product of years of misunderstanding between the Christian God and myself. I can blame the church or the priests or my parents… but those songs are old and tired. No I have worked long and hard to try and get my mind around the idea that God is Love, an idea shared in both the Gospels and the Upanishads. And as I lay there thinking that I am what my deep, driving desire is, and I thought about all the things in my life that I have that I am thankful for, I suddenly realized that it wasn’t my desires that made me a bad person, my desire to have things that I didn’t have, it was my deep, driving desire that made me who I am today, that gave me a wonderful life, and that was a very comforting thought, one that I could fall asleep to.

Letting Go

2011-01-17T20:49:00.001-06:00

I have this part of me that loves to get away with stuff, and gets really indignant whenever I get caught. I hate getting caught, though not because being caught means I have to admit fault. No, I hate getting caught because it makes me angry, and that kind of angry is totally irrational. I had this kind of episode last night at my daughters swim meet. I was sitting in someone else’s spot and when they asked me to move I got crazy angry. To my credit, I didn’t show it. I moved, and then I sat in my new spot fuming and hating the woman who asked me for her chair back. It is totally crazy. I mean, any given day of the week I would offer my chair and the shirt on my back to some stranger but for some reason on this night I was hell bent on picking a fight.

It was thinking about the idea that I was picking a fight that made me realize that I have been thinking about this situation all wrong for some time. Usually I get angry and do something stupid and hate myself for getting angry. But really, where is the sense in that? That is like offering a child a piece of candy and then smacking them once they take it. No. If I really want to berate myself for anything it should have been for sitting in someone else’s seat in the first place. But of course that thought didn’t enter my head until much, much later.

When I told my wife about it she remarked that the instant had probably triggered something old, some old memory and that I was but an actor on a stage, rehearsing a part I had learned long ago. Thinking about that I tend to agree with her, but couldn’t help but wonder what was the trigger. It wasn’t getting angry, or for that matter probably not even sitting in someone else’s chair, no I suspect that the event that triggered the whole episode probably started further back, possibly when I first entered the building, or in the parking lot, or even on the drive to the event. The subsequent behaviors, the choosing of the seat, and the rage were all just echoes of a much larger drama that was playing itself out somewhere in my subconscious.

I have been thinking about consciousness a lot lately. Mostly because I have been thumbing my way through the Upanishads. If I had to tell you what the Upanishads were to me, I would say they are meditations on the spirituality of consciousness where consciousness it like a spider’s web. You pluck one string and the whole thing is set into motion. Your mind is drawn, like the spider to its prey, and you find yourself in perfect pantomime going through the same old motions.

You know it is thinking like this that really gets me hating my brain. I think about it like some hateful insect but in fact I suspect my mind is actually trying to help me. We go through motions that are painful and distressing, but most likely we are doing this not so much because we are always doing it the same, but because we hold out the hope of someday doing it differently. Someone once told me that insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. I suppose that were true if we never thought about it and just blindly stumbled along the treadmill. But the insanity stops the moment we stop turning a blind eye, and the harder we look at ourselves, the harder it is to do the things that we do without wondering why it is we do them at all, and slowly, little by little we catch ourselves and stop doing them all together. Last night I got horribly angry, but instead of tearing my night apart I gave up my seat, muttered under my breath for a while, and then let it all go.

Meditation

2011-01-05T13:13:00.005-06:00

While jogging at the gym I often times bring my Ipod with me and listen to podcasts. Over the years I have listened to a variety of podcasts ranging in topics from history and science, to talk radio and pop culture. One of my favorite podcasts is of a WNYC radio program called Radio lab. I enjoy the program because it takes fairly complex topics like physics or psychology and attempts to break them down into simple easy to understand terms. Frequently the program will feature interviews from specialists and laymen alike giving the show a kind of “everyman” feel. The other day I was listening to the program titled “Words” in which the show discusses the idea of a world without words. One of the segments featured a neurologist, Jill Bolte Taylor, who suffered a broken blood vessel in her head. The “blood vessel burst inside her left hemisphere, and silenced all the brain chatter in her head. She was left with no language. No memories, just sensory intake.”

As fascinating as her story was, I couldn’t help but compare her experience to descriptions of the meditative state of mind that is often described in the Hindu Vedas and Buddhist texts. “The Sanskrit word véda "knowledge, wisdom" is derived from the root vid- "to know".” They are, at least in my opinion, the record of centuries of reflection by ancient Indian scholars and mystics on the question of the human experience, or, if you will, what is the meaning of life, at least in the way the noted American scholar Joseph Campbell once described it: “People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life... I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

Interestingly, in describing her experience, Jill Bolte Taylor suggested that in losing her ability to ascribe language or words to things, she found herself instead experiencing “an all encompassing feeling of joy.“ Words she suggested, kept her at bay from the world, separate and isolated. When she lost her capacity to ascribe words to things she said she felt closer to them, as if she were apart of all things. I have to admit this idea intrigued me. For in meditation the goal is often to silence the inner chatter, to suspend the “self” and to get one to stop differentiating between self and other. In a sense, meditation is about finding that connection that Mrs. Taylor had thrust upon her. When asked, which did she prefer, the world of silent joy, or the world of words, her response was a quiet “I don’t know.”

For me the idea that the chatter in my head could go silent, that I could rid myself of the little voices that crop up and keep an almost constant running monologue of life seems like a gift too good to be true. While my voices can be sweet and sincere, they can also be insecure and mean. I have often struggled to understand the value or importance of meditation, but this show has given me an insight into the idea that in meditation I could somehow separate myself from that thread of jabbering prattle that follows me wherever I go. I mean, I have often thought about meditating, but really I never understood what it was for. I have to admit I had a kind of “what’s in it for me” attitude. Listening to this show I suddenly found myself with a sense of wonder and direction that has opened meditation to the world of possibility.

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.” - Buddha

One of the most common threads in the Vedas is the idea of conquering the "self." You can read yards of pages that seek to describe what this notion of "self" is. There are as many interpretations of the "self" as there are selves making them. However in many of these text to which I refer,the self is the still calm deep that one strives for in meditation. It is the absence of the running monologue, and the opening of the mind to a purely sensory intake of the world of experience. In short, it is the experience described by Mrs. Taylor.

When I was younger I used to think of the "self" as the "soul." But my understanding of what the "soul" is could only be conceived of in esoteric terms. That is, if I had a soul it was somehow something "other" and not really related to anything in this world. I think a big part of my spiritual growth has been to let go of any preconceived idea of "self" or "soul" and rather strive for connection and compassion as a way of experiencing that nature of soul that I could not otherwise imagine. It is a little frightening to think that this notion of "self" is derived from a pure sensory experience of the world. I mean that pretty much puts the esoteric idea of soul out of the picture. No body, no self. No Self, no soul. No soul... what then? Still, part of setting aside my preconceived notions of "self" and "soul" is setting aside the fears and doubts that go along with those old ideas. For now at least I want to try and focus on that feeling of connectedness, without necessarily worrying about what is in it for me.

A brief meditation on powerlessness and helplessness

2010-12-05T15:08:00.000-06:00

I left for work this morning and drove straight into a parade. The parade route cut right down the middle of my pathway and I soon found myself redirected by the traffic cops on a route that took me back towards home. After a few minutes of careful navigation on the side streets, I was back on track but worried I was now going to be late. What I remember most clearly about this episode was how angry I became. The sensation was powerful and instantaneous. Like a crack in a dam that could not take the pressure of one more teaspoon of water, I suddenly felt the sensation of a thousand little insignificant worries suddenly flood over me. It was as if every stored bit of stress, every troubling scenario I had put out of mind came rushing back to me. I furious. I found myself cursing people, talking to them, shouting at traffic. I was a full-blown tilt.

I blog a lot about “crazy mind” or as one friend calls it “monkey mind” because I genuinely fear that in these moment I am doing damage to my soul. I thought about my reaction, about all the things that bothered me, that welled up from within, and have come to the conclusions that my sudden upsurge of emotion were the by product of my confusion between the idea of helplessness and powerlessness. For me, helplessness is the inability to change myself, while powerlessness is the inability to change others. I use helplessness as an excuse to avoid suffering, feeling that I can't do anything about my situation. It's an excuse to give up and bail out of responsibility.

It is an odd choice to make, particularly because the feeling of helplessness is terrifying. It smothers and suffocates. I find myself, in these moments, gasping for breath between mouthfuls of vitriol and bile. As I found myself cursing at all the little things that bothered me, I struggled to come to terms with the choice I had made, to live in denial. So now, when I am angry, it is because I think that I can finally find control in those moments. As a result I am on edge. The drivers on the road moved too slowly. The clock moved too fast. In an instant I waged a person war against the universe in which I was constantly wanting. When I am in full on crazy mind I can go like this forever. Fortunately I have learned that this is not an acceptable state of mind in which to live. As a friend said once, “I may visit from time to time, but I don’t want to live there.” I remembered the words of another friend, these more recently… “My mantra” he said, “was given to me by my sponsor. It is very straightforward. I simply say ‘what part of this is good for me.’”

Looking at the road in front of me, I take a long deep breath and let it out slowly. My eyes narrow and a let the words slip slowly from my mouth. “What part of this is good for me?” I have to admit this kind of thinking makes me feel better. Thoughts proceed actions, and the more I try to focus on positive thoughts the better I feel. The more I think about my actions, the more I realize the true meaning of powerlessness. Powerlessness is not helplessness. Powerlessness is choice. By choosing to think and act in a responsible way I am choosing to release myself from the thinks over which I truly have no power. Yes I am powerlessness over past choices that have caused me suffering, and I am powerless over the actions of others. But in so accepting these things I am no longer helpless, powerless means that I can choose a better way for myself, one that isn’t tied to the misfortunes of the past or fear of the future.

Know thyself

2010-11-30T21:36:00.001-06:00

There is something that you probably know about me that I struggle to come to terms with all the time. That is, I have a horrible time trying to know myself. I don’t know why the Oracle of Delphi was so blasé when they carved the phrase “know thyself” on the entrance to the temple, because for me, nothing could be harder. I say that you know because I think that our impressions about people are generally correct and while authors like Jane Austin have made a good name for themselves writing about how our impressions are invariably wrong, I have more faith in human intuition.

Know thyself. Know thyself. How the hell do you know yourself? What does it mean? I can stare in a mirror and memorize my features, I can sit in rapt meditation and recall all of the episodic moments of my life and yet, for all of my intimate knowledge of myself, I know myself not.

The most frustrating thing is that I take these personality tests likes Meyers-Briggs and they always end up different. I take one and I am an introvert, another and I am an extrovert. J. and I spent several months going over the results of just such a test with our local pastor. My conclusion? I am very human. Sometimes l like to be around people, and when I am their opinions matter to me, very much. Other times I like to be on my own and in these time when others interject their opinions I feel frustrated even angry at the intrusion. So far, so good.

Sadly I am unaware of these subtle shifts in my own personality. I am frequently frustrated by my own lack of understanding about simple things like what I want. I find mundane tasks like washing the dishes either annoying beyond believe or thoroughly satisfying. The difference being entirely on what time of day I choose to do them.

Talking with my wife this morning she made the then funny comment that she hated checking voicemail. It never occurred to me that voicemail was a thing to be disdained, so I asked her why. She gave me a funny sort of look and said that it had something to do with her past and taking ownership of things. I laughed because for me voicemail is the classic example of how not to take ownership of things. In moment where I want nothing more that to be alone, voicemail is king. I could have entire conversations doing nothing but trading voicemail. It would be like email, but with words. For me it is the ultimate in noncommittal relationships. Leave a voice mail and walk away. For my wife, it is something altogether different. For her, voicemail represents a kind of commitment. Something once listened to has to be given response.

The funny thing is, I think people have their own Ideas about me. They know, long before I do, whether or not I am going to return that voicemail. They have decided, and in deciding I have been defined. For them I am no longer the mystery. I am the fact. For myself the opposite is true. I have no idea, listening to the voicemail if I am an introvert hating to respond, or the extrovert, longing for the chance to be a part of the conversation.

In his monumental painting, Paul Gauguin asks the eternal questions. Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? It is a monumental canvas that seems to beg to be read from right to left. On the right is an image of a young girl and an infant, the representation of birth, a beginning. On the left is an image of an old woman, the representation of death and the end. The story seems to be told, as all stories are, about infancy, life and our eventual end. Except that Gauguin has inverted the order of the story. In the west we read from left to right, and so the story would seem to be told from the end, namely death, to the beginning, which is life.

This morning I was standing, waiting for my daughters when I found myself engaged with the church secretary. I can’t remember the impetus of the conversation, but found myself saying, “I remember clearly my grandmother telling me that, as you got older, the days went by faster. I remember this because at the time I had no idea what she was talking about. But now, now that I am older I see exactly what she means. The days seem to run though my fingers like grains of sand on the beach, and I can no more slow them than I can look at them and wonder.”

There is a Zen story about a sermon of a Buddha in which he simply lifted a flower. Most looked on questioning but one looked with understanding. How do you explain a flower? Imagine you are describing it to a blind person. What would you say. Would you say that it is extroverted? Introverted? What is the meaning of the universe? What is the meaning of you or of I? It is just there. I think that if I were sitting there looking at that flower I would be one of those eyes that question. I would want to know what the Buddha was saying to me. What does he mean by “flower.” Why this flower and not that. What else is there? Why do I not understand?

I look at these questions, like I look at the question of know thyself and I see so much doubt. Who am I? My god. I have been with myself so long and I still don’t know the answer. How stupid is that? I trust the momentary intuition of strangers over the chorus of my own experiences, when really I should just listen to them. I listen to myself talk and I think, “Why don’t I listen to myself?” and then, instead of listening, I forget.

So, that is it. I spend so much time thinking about what it means to be here or there, to be angry or sad, to be busy or lazy, and all the time I am doubting the very things that are telling me why I am here. The truth is I am just here. I am engaged in the activity of being alive. I keep telling myself that I am looking for meaning, that I can know myself, but really what better knowledge is there that the experience of being alive? I find an immense amount of comfort in the idea that being alive is the, THE reason for life, and then, just when I think that I have it, I am distracted by life and it all slips away.

What Then?

2010-11-30T10:26:00.002-06:00

In a recent Facebook status line I wrote “when we are disturbed we need only look to ourselves for the source of our agitation.” It is a quote I lifted from the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous that was shared with me several years ago by a friend in that program. I love that quote for many reasons. Mainly, it is a reminder that I need to take personal responsibility for my feelings. Sure people can be difficult and even that is an understatement at times. But all I can do is choose to react or ignore behavior that I find disquieting. Usually I react, and my reactions tend to leave me feeling even more unhappy and upset, and so I use this reminder, as a way of telling myself “think before you react.”

Anyway, I posted this thing in my status line and my friend from Az. Commented “What then?” Which totally left me stumped. I mean sure I know that I am the one that is making me crazy, depressed or down right irritable, but what then? Some months ago I blogged about watching a friend decompress after having become upset with his child. I marveled at his ability to self-sooth and craved it for myself. I sad to report that I still fair no better in this department. So, what then?

You may notice that my blog has been quiet for some many months and that I only recently started posting again. Honestly my readership was never that extensive and I wonder whom, if anyone I am writing this for? Posterity? The Void? Interestingly when I reactivated the blog I noticed that several sites listed on my blog-list were also dormant or otherwise neglected. It seems starting about a year ago people began to drop off blogging one by one. They all had their reasons and all those reasons are good, but it made me realize the absence the dialogue that I had created for myself. I would read other people’s blogs, comment on them, post responses of my own and of course write my thoughts and experiences and so forth. It was great fun, and I miss it. I don’t suppose I will have anything like that again, but in an effort to rekindle what was once so important to me, I have decided to start writing again.

I only mention this because I asked myself the same question that my friend asked me. What then? You see I, like everyone else, experienced set backs this year. Unforeseen events which, in some cases were caused but my own actions and in some cases caused by others, but which, in the end caused me to recoil and hide away. I have been in a kind of cocoon waiting for something, anything to tell me that the craziness, the pain, and the suffering were over. I tried starting a new blog, hoping a fresh start would some how help me. But it was a half-hearted attempt and really it left me very frustrated. People told me that my blog was too depressing or that my blog was too brainy and I let these comments affect me as well. In the end I stopped blogging not so much because blogging wasn’t working for me as I did because I reacted. I didn’t think. I reacted.

The saying “when we are disturbed…” the saying I started this thought on, comes from a discussion about the meaning of the tenth step of alcoholics anonymous, which says “continued to take personal inventory, and when we are wrong promptly admitted it.” You will note that this saying says nothing about getting it right. In fact it rather shamelessly suspects that I will get it wrong and will have to do something about it. The axiom of the tenth step, that my feelings are my own and do not come about as the result of the actions of others reminds me that not only am I going to get it wrong, but the subsequent step I take will probably be wrong as well. Which is exactly what I described above. I get upset (probably wrong), I react badly (wrong), I make things worse. For me, “what then?” is not a reminder to do things right. What’s done is done. For me, “what then?” is a chance to unspool the actions that I have taken, and then to possibly learn from them.

I miss blogging. Blogging, for me, was always a chance to sit down and reflect a little bit on this or that. I won’t deny that I enjoyed the idea of having “readers” but that it was never really about readers. I was more of a diary, a chance at reflections, and that is really all I need it to be. I don’t have to have the world’s happiest blog, nor do I need to smart it up or dumb it down. For me “what then” is to be content with what I have, and a chance to start over and try again and possibly, just possibly, do things a little better the next time.

So blog. It is me and you. Let’s see if we can’t try again, and maybe have a little fun in the process.

Birth, Death, and Rebirth

2010-11-29T20:21:00.009-06:00

December is, in the mind of a child, synonymous with winter and, of course, Christmas. My own memories of Christmas are sporadic. I remember, for example the first time I heard Santa filling my stocking followed abruptly by the muffled sounds of my father stubbing his toe. I remember the time my great-grandfather was brought to our house from the nursing home and realized that he had no idea who any of us were or why he was there. It was my first experience with senior dementia. It sounds glum, but many of my Christmas memories are dark, though not all. I remember the time my Santa brought me a Big wheel-like John Deer Tractor, or the time I nearly leapt into the fireplace, as I was so excited that I received the star wars figurine I desired. Good memories are, in general, associated with childhood presents. A few though have been formed upon reflection. I can for example summon to mind the last Christmas I spent with my great grandmother, and while I can with equal rapidity recall the Christmas I had a terrible fight with my father, I recall with equal clarity how my grandfather helped me overcome the emotions of that fight by allowing me to sob hysterically into his overcoat while he sat patiently stroking my back.

I think it is fair to say that Christmas, for me, is a mixed bag. It has been good. It has been bad. It has been surreal, blessed and spooky. I guess in that way you could say that Christmas is a day like any other. For every day has something different. But I won't insist too strongly on this point, after all, I think we all know that this is not entirely true, and to insist that it is, is to deny centuries of celebration and veneration that has held our imagination since practically forever. Christmas is something special, a time of great focus and attention, and to say it is nothing more than a day like any other is to deny something intrinsic not just about the holiday, but about ourselves.

It is interesting how we are creatures of celebration. I mean there isn’t a culture known that doesn’t celebrate something, and that, in the least says something about the importance of a day like Christmas. I mean who doesn't celebrate something? A birthday, an anniversary? and I mean really, who hasn’t heard of Christmas?

I started this musing because of a sentence that popped into my head. The sentence was “Christmas is a day where we celebrate the birth of a baby that will die four months later.” I don’t know where that thought came from or why I thought of it. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, and certainly not on the holidays. It just sort of came into my mind and there it was. It wasn’t supposed to be dark. I think I was telling myself that holidays that occur in the darkest of winter can be about birth, and that holidays that occur in the spring can be about death, even though it would seem that just the opposite should be true. I mean, why do we celebrate the death of Jesus (and technically his rebirth) just as spring in bounding into life? In the same vein, why do we celebrate the birth of a baby even as all around us is dead and dying?

For those of you rushing to answer, realize, please that these are rhetorical questions. The real question isn’t about birth, or death, the real question is, why does it matter? Not, why does it matter that a baby is born, or why Jesus or anything like that. Those questions I have. They have been beaten into me in Sunday school and in an infinite string of sermons and Catholic nuns in High school. No, that question I think I got. No, the real question is, when there is so much pessimism and cynicism and doubt, why, when Christmas really does sometimes feel like just another day, albeit a day with presents and turkey, why does Christmas matter?

I recoil just a bit at this question because it feels a little like “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” But in the end, it is exactly that Christmas is a day like any other, a day of birth and a day of death, as day of cycles and change, and a day when all of this is brought to our attention. It is precisely because of this day that I can summon so many good things, so many bad things, and so many different memories of all sorts. It is a day in which the memories my parents, my grandparents and my great-grandparents can be summoned back with such clarity it is as though they are alive for me once more. Old memories are summoned and new ones are formed. It is a time when the past and future collide, a time of death and rebirth, and, I think, why humans tend to celebrate, not just this holiday, but any. These times hold a mysterious power over us, they are unexplainable, mysterious, and, I think, if we were wiser, we would fear them, and not just because of the sacrifices and the stresses, but because the power of these days of celebration, and the myths and stories that surround them which are awesome in their power to hold us.

I think I will close by adding a comment made by Joseph Campbell: “The individual has to find an aspect of myth that relates to his own life… The first is the mythical function, the one I have been talking about, realizing what a wonder the universe is, and what a wonder you are, and experiencing awe before this mystery. Myth opens the world to the dimension of mystery, to the realization of the mystery that underlies all forms, if you lose that, you don’t have a mythology. If mystery is manifest through all things, the universe becomes, as it were, a holy picture. You are always addressing the transcendent mystery though the conditions of your actual world.”

This never ends

2010-04-04T09:34:00.002-05:00

Being faced with an accusation is strange. The other day I had what I thought to be a rather straightforward meeting with my graduate committee. The purpose of the meeting was to show them the final selections of paintings for my thesis exhibition, as well as to provide a draft of the paper I am working on, the final version of which to be turned in at the time of the exhibition, in four weeks.

But like anything in my graduate experience it was neither straightforward nor simple. Here is the thing. The paper was not formatted. There are strict guidelines from the office of the Graduate school about how the paper is to be formatted, but this is not what I am talking about. Sure it didn’t yet conform to those guidelines, but more importantly it lacked brackets, quotation marks, endnote notations, and really any kind of citation reference. Additionally I provided no works cited sheet. In retrospect, the whole thing is a huge oversight, a great blunder on my part that opened the door to scrutiny. I mean, if I have learned anything in graduate school it is “ALWAYS COVER YOUR ASS!” As I said, it was a huge blunder.

The meeting had hardly started when one of the professors asked me what my sources were. I was caught off guard. I didn’t know where he was going with this. I stammered something. His next comment hit me square in the chest. “Because it looks to me like the first four paragraphs were literally lifted from another source.”

Let’s pause right there. I don’t know how you write papers, but my style usually includes, brainstorming a few ideas and then pasting them alongside large swaths of cited material that form a kind of skeleton. As the revisions continue I edit and redact this cited material, adding in my own framework wherever possible, and where it isn’t I use citation. The end result is a paper that is entirely mine and that in no way takes credit for thoughts that are not my own.

Unfortunately the faculty didn’t see it that way. I was asked to leave the room at which point, from the hall I could hear a heated argument ensue. It lasted better than half an hour and when they were finished they called me back in. I knew the final verdict was bad even before anyone spoke because no one would look me in the eye. I was told that the committee was going to refer this problem on to the Dean of Students for possible academic sanction. I was stunned and horrified.

I don’t know how you are under pressure. But I am terrible. In moment like these I am usually so full of shame and frustration that it is impossible for me to form a coherent thought. I did the one thing I could think to do and said “Good! I want this thing brought to light so that I can have a chance to clear my name. I am not a plagiarist!”

On my way out of the building I called one of my best and oldest friends, who is incidentally an attorney. I told him what had happened and that I that I had been accused of plagiarism. “Well” he said, “did you?” I had to think about that for a minute. I mean the short answer here is probably “yes” in the sense that it was a huge mistake not to provide the references to my sources, but the long answer, the answer that I keep bringing myself back to is “It was a draft.”

It was a draft. Everyone in that room will acknowledge this fact. If I were to have taken the same paper to the writing center in the college library the first thing they would have said it “you need to note your citations and resubmit this.” There would have been no academic sanction. Why? Because it was a draft. The whole purpose of the meeting was to talk about the draft. I expected the faculty to cut it apart. That was the point. But not like this. Not like this.

So now I am left with this sense of indignation, humiliation, and fear. I drafted a letter (no pun intended) apologizing for this mistake, taking full responsibility for my actions, and asking the committee to reconsider, but judging from my track record with these people I am bracing myself, hunkering down and getting ready for what I assume will be a long drawn out fight.

“One week” I said, “one week left.” Now it seems I am back to that same old feeling, namely “This never ends.” Well that and wondering why pornographers keep trying to leave comments on the end of all my recent posts...

Which is Libby which is Cindy Sherman?

2010-04-01T10:25:00.002-05:00

Moving on

2010-03-30T19:07:00.007-05:00

In February I told you about the great art caper. Not one of my proudest moments, to be sure. But in the end, it was resolved amicably. The head of the art department got wind of my actions, hell he probably read my blog, and worked out a deal in which I was to provide the student with four newly stretched blank canvases and all parties would agree that the matter was settled.

Well Karma is a bitch. I can tell you that. You may think you have made your amends and then Bam! It gets you. I got a call Monday afternoon from a fellow grad who informed me that all of my paintings had been tagged. I say all because I had just finished hanging my paintings for my upcoming thesis oral that will take place this Friday. Someone snuck in late Sunday night, probably between 1 and 2 in the morning and painted a brilliant red stripe right through the middle of each of ten canvases that I have been working on collectively since last August.

Now I have to tell you that I was pissed. Right? But as I made arrangements with J. to go out there immediately, I had already begun forming the nucleus of my response which was- the suffering ends here. I have had my share in this stint of vandalism, but the last thing I wanted was to perpetuate this nonsense any further. It has to end.

I went to work, lectured for an hour and then drove out to school to survey the damage. Fortunately while at work I ran into a colleague, a print maker, versed in solvents, and he hooked me up with just the formula that I needed to undo the damage. There is no solvent in the world that will remove spray paint without softening the acrylic underneath; the trick it to find the solvent that is mild enough to loosen the enamel enough to sponge it off while doing minimal damage to the under-painting.

I worked diligently last night giving each of my precious babies a sponge bath and then went back again today to retouch the original painting with a fresh coat to hide the damage. The net result was nothing short of miraculous. That and my attitude, which I was able to keep in check despite the constant stream of on lookers who kept asking “why aren’t you more pissed off?” to which I would frequently and annoyingly respond “It’s just another opportunity for spiritual growth.” I have to admit I took a lot of secret pleasure in that response, but I always delivered it stoically and with great reserve. You would have been proud.

Well I am ready for my Oral exam on Friday, but I want to leave you with a parting thought that was given to me by my friend the Un-

“The weird thing is, it fits in with my whole theory about Final Exams. Which, if I have never unloaded this onto you, I will do so now. When you're finishing a job or academic program, my theory is (this comes from the Professoressa, actually) that the universe often if not ALWAYS presents us with some kind of special Final Exam. We're being asked, ‘Are you really ready to move on to the next thing?’ And this is additional/extra to our required earthly exams--this is a special spiritual exam. I had them leaving Santa Fe, or leaving England [snip] Hell, *I* had one the night *I* was ordained, in 2002. It's a weird thing that just happens. It's almost like the gods are saying (I think): ‘Okay, you've done all the required stuff and you've jumped through all the corporeal hoops. But we all know (they say to you) that your REAL work here wasn't about signing papers and filling out forms and getting As and managing to complete thesis shows. Your REAL work here was something deeper--something spiritual. Have you passed that test? Have you learned what we Gods wanted you to learn? And most importantly are you ready to go onto the NEXT thing?’

So I think all this shit that's flying at you, suddenly, inexplicably--with the program, with this horrific vandalism, with [snip] life even--is your Real Final Exam. Inviting you to think about what the last five years has REALLY been about, because we both know it wasn't just about accumulating letters on a transcript. There was a real spiritual work you have been doing, alone at night with those canvases, in those confrontational interactions you've had with your department members, writing those blogposts. Something deep and secret, known only to you.”

I share this with you because I feel the gut wrenching truth of it in every word. Sure life offers you challenges, and when life gives you lemons you make lemonade etc. But that isn’t what is being said here. What I hear my friend saying is that there are tests in life, moments that say are you ready to move on to the next phase, have you done what you needed to do here and are you able to put it all down and move on? I believe this because I know it is true, but also because I really feel that I am ready for this test, that my attitude, my ability to set is all aside fix the problem and move on is the answer to that test. So one Friday I am going to take out my no. 2 pencil and fill in the bubble that says “next” and win lose or draw I am moving on.

One more week

2010-03-27T09:08:00.002-05:00

My sister called me last week wanting to know the date my thesis exhibition. “I’m thinking about coming” she said. I told her that I wasn’t sure but that I thought it was slated for the last week in April. “I’m meeting with my Chair on Thursday” I told her. “I know for sure then.”

The meeting was fairly typical. I had hung a painting I had worked on over spring break and we started with a brief critique. He was pressed for time so he moved to cut the meeting short at which point I told him I had a few questions about the thesis exhibition.

“What are your questions?”

I asked him when the date was and his response was “you figure it out.” Then I asked him about the oral examination that was to go along with the exhibition. He started to answer, then paused and said “of course all of this depends on whether or not your committee approves your exhibition.”

“What do you mean?”

“You committee need to approve the exhibition in advance of the final show.” I looked at him stupidly for a moment as his words sunk in. “You have another hurdle to jump” he said.

“I thought that is was the midterm was about.”

“No.”

I have to admit I felt a little crazy right about that time, but as the reality of the situation sank in I grew into acceptance. I mean, I knew that I was going to have to defend my work in front of my committee, right? It just turns out that I have to do that defense in advance of the show, not right before it. In short, I went from having about four weeks to get ready for my defense to meeting with my committee next week.

“You know what is coming” he said, referring to the midterm “You just have to decide how you react to it.” I thought of the prison rape scene in the movie the Shawshank Redemption. “It’s like getting a speeding ticket” he continued “do you call the cop a prick and give him the finger or do you take the ticket, smile and thank him?”

I felt pretty good about the situation at first. All I have to do is paint my ass off for a week. I know what the faculties objections are, I got that earful at midterm. So, correct the problems and move on. However, when I woke up this morning I felt needlessly crazy. The pronouncement felt random, worse it felt personal, and it left me with a sinking feeling of insecurity and depression.

I was talking about this with my wife when it hit me. The situation might be personal and insecure. But does that mean I have to be? Looking back over my blog posts from the last few years I have noted an inordinate number of posts that have to do with the stresses of grad school. Most of them I can’t even bring myself to read. It is safe to say that graduate school has provided me with a limitless number of opportunities for spiritual growth. But here is the thing, I seem to have evaded the most basic one, namely that I get to choose how I react to this situation. Do I roll over and die in a little grey puddle of depression, or do I realize that this is not about me, in that great, character defining sense of ‘is this about me’ way. Sure it is about me work and it could have a profound effect on my future, but something tells me being afraid isn’t going to help.

So for today my mantra is “it maybe personal and insecure, but that doesn’t mean I have to be.”

I knew this thing was coming. It's just coming faster than I originally thought. In reality, if I do this thing right, I have one more week. Jesus! One more week. Is that all? Suddenly I wonder what have I been doing for the past five years and where all that time went. Where has all that work gone? One more week. Wow. I wonder What will step up and make me crazy once graduate school is gone?

Who was your bully?

2010-03-23T08:52:00.006-05:00

My daughters like American Girl Doll products including the series of movies that give life and back-story to the dolls and their lives. The most recent was a movie titled Chrissa Stands Strong. The story tracks the life of Chrissa as she is uprooted from her home and lands in a new community and more importantly, a new school. There she must face the trials and tribulations of being the new face and eventually encounters bullying from a group of queen bees, the “mean girls.”

My daughters like to identify with the characters in the movies drawing on the title characters and their assorted cohorts, but when our third child announced that she liked the main queen bee of the movie, Tara, we knew it was time to pull the plug.

Who was your bully? I can summon a long list of assorted bullies from my past, the main one being a boy named Robert B. who was a grade higher than me, and who took endless delight in snapping me with towels in the locker room, punching me on the play ground and even one episode where I was kicked in the balls as I was standing beside my hall locker. I am a forgiving soul but I have to tell you I hope that sonofabitch dies a horrible mean death. ☺

Honestly though, I think I was terrorized a lot as a child: ranting father, older brothers, school yard bullies and an assortment of psychopathic children encountered in after school programs left indelible scars on my gentle psyche.

Let’s face it. I was a wimp. I was what you might call athletically challenged. I had no facility for running, throwing, or kicking and had a genuine fear of being pummeled. It wasn’t that I didn’t know that I wouldn’t recover. I had been knocked around enough to know that you take your lumps, you put on an ice pack and within a few days the bruises and bumps would disappear. But this knowledge alone was not enough to overcome my fear of, well, pain.

In all likelihood my situation was acerbated by the fact that we moved every two or three years ensuring that I was the perpetual new kid that got prodded and tease and humiliated. At some point, sick and tired of being the world’s punching bag, I started taking Tae-Kwon-Do lessons.

I was talking about this in therapy the other day when the therapist pointed out that my experiences had lead me to fight fire with fire. As I grew older these skills were needed less and less. However, I never fully let go of those old feelings. Sadly, the solutions that had worked for me as a teenager, i.e. fighting back, no longer worked as an adult. The net result is, well, that at some point, if I am frustrated enough or tired enough, or just plain fed up, I will contemplate hitting (or occasionally spitting.) Worse, as I am tired or frustrated in those situations, I seldom take the time to contemplate anything and have been known to lash out.

Get that? Character defects are one-time assets that now no longer aid us and in fact cause us harm. I know this. I have heard it talked about in twelve step rooms for years. Things like over confidence can get you the job but it can also cost you the job later on. There are really too many examples to name there here, because really any asset is a defect of character waiting in the wings.

I don’t have a lot of good solution here. I had to ask my wife what the twelve step solution to assets/defects run amok was and she said (matter of factly) “The seventh step prayer:”

“My Creator,  I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad.  I pray that you now remove from me  every single defect of character, which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.  Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding.”

I think like anything the first step is recognizing the problem, giving it a name and realizing that I have been working in the dark here. Realizing that my behavior was born of these past experiences was a slap on the forehead moment for me. Feelings of inferiority or the need to explain or justify myself are also linked here and I is going to take time to sort it all out. It is a weird moment when you realize your particular brand of crazy was learned. Weirder still to think that those character defects might be useful to god (as the seventh step implies). Though frankly I will be glad when I am rid of them. Because my character defects are now my bully.

Heavy Drinkers

2010-03-21T16:24:00.009-05:00

J. said something to me the other day that made me stop and think. We were talking about alcoholism (big shock) and she reminded me that the big book of AA makes a distinction between the alcoholic and the heavy drinker. “The worst thing” said J. "is when an alcoholic gets a heavy drinker as a sponsor. Heavy drinkers have a different experience with alcohol and the advice they may give an alcoholic could be misleading.”

There’s a lot to unpack here. First, I don’t know if that is an exact quote or just the way I remember it. I found myself wondering what is the difference between a heavy drinker and an alcoholic. For example, how does a heavy drinker, who has gone into AA for help, differ from an alcoholic? Does the heavy drinker know at that point that they are just a heavy drinker and not an alcoholic? All that is required for membership is a desire to stop drinking. So it doesn’t really matter if you like one beer or twenty. It doesn’t matter if you can stop after two drinks or can’t stop after a dozen, all you have to want to do is stop. The rest is for god to sort out.

There are a lot of anti-AA websites out there that will tell you that alcoholism is not a disease, and that AA is a religion or worse a cult. More there are sites that will talk about the abysmal failure of AA to “cure” most of its members. I remember talking to an alcoholic once who told me that one in a hundred who walked thought the doors would still be there in 6 months and that one in a hundred of those ones would still be there in a year. That is a frighteningly small number when you think about it. But none of this convinces me that AA is wrong or that AA is bad or that we should throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater because the numbers aren’t to alcoholics what penicillin is to bacteria.

Why are people so vehemently against AA? That is a hard question. But if I had to guess, most people who hate AA were people who at least visited those rooms and that most people who come into contact with twelve step programs do so because they are unhealthy in some way and are looking for help. Maybe AA couldn’t help them, or maybe they weren’t able to accept the help that AA offered or maybe the syntax of AA just rubbed them the wrong way. Who can say. One thing is for sure it elicits violent emotions from some. You wouldn’t think someone visiting a church or a therapist would walk away spitting vitriol against other members, but that is what happens in AA. Some hate AA with a passion, even though AA really exists as an organization designed to help people cope with their addictions. Sad.

I sometimes wonder about my own drinking as well as that of my family. I have had friends tell me “you’re a lush” and one co-worker who outright called me an alcoholic to my face. Clearly I think I fall into the category of heavy drinker, as I think most of my family does. But the difference between heavy drinker and alcoholic is a tenuous one and should never be taken for granted. The road to heavy drinking often interescts with the road to alcoholism and it might only take a gentle nudge to push one from one path to another.

I had a grandmother who was probably a heavy drinker until she found out she had cancer. I don’t know the facts of the story, but the way I tell myself the story is that my grandmother got the cancer and then she got drunk. My father tells me a similar story, one that ends with him in al-anon for about a year.

I go to al-anon. But I couldn’t imagine only going for a year or two. Al-anon has become a part of my way of thinking. It isn’t the only way, but the language of al-anon is inclusive enough that it fits nicely into my own spiritual beliefs that are really informed for the most part by picking and choosing what I believe from the best of most world religions. Al-anon lets my spiritual beliefs evolve as I grow and change, and it gives me a forum to voice these changes with a group that not only listens but affirms and offers feedback.

Today In church I asked my pastor about the new church movement. He sighed and said it would take hours to explain. His wife nudged him and said he had to work on his elevator speech about the movement. A few minutes later someone, I think it was my wife, said: “It’s like a cross between church and twelve step, isn’t it?” He agreed, adding more details and analogies. I kept thinking that there was an Episcopalian joke in there somewhere. But we’re Methodists, or at least they are, and so I kept it to myself.

Whenever I think about my spirituality I always seem to ask myself the same question my wife pointed out during that conversation on alcoholism. Am I an alcoholic in a room full of heavy drinkers? That is, does this or that spiritual message really fit me? Or am I just being lead the party line and swallowing it hook, line, and sinker. The question of “who are you” or “what do you believe” is so open ended and so vast that it is easy to get caught up in the moment, caught up in “what do I believe” and forget for a time that what I really believe in is the search for questions, better questions, more probing question than these that force me to examine myself and let go of the answers. The answers are so temporary and so little anyway, it is the questions that really interest me. Forget about the answers, those like so much else are really ends in a life full of possibility. Why be settled with answers? I find my life works best when I let these go and leave the rest up to god.

fighting love

2010-03-20T17:33:00.002-05:00

The other night I was at a friend’s house having dinner when, somewhere in the evening he disappeared. I had no idea where he had gone so I went to look for him and discovered him fuming in the kitchen. He waved me away with a gesture that said both “I want to be alone” and “it isn’t you.” I later came to find out that he had had an incident with his son.

I think about this encounter almost daily because I am so in awe of it. I mean, if I hadn’t gone to see where he was, I might never have known that he was upset, and this is so counter- what? Intuitive? to my own experience. I mean, when I get mad, I get loud, and consequently, everyone knows.

I learned this from my father. When my dad gets mad he gets loud. I’ve had other male role models including two grandfathers that never showed anger, at least not verbally or physically, but my dad shouts, and that’s what stuck. I shout. I holler and I cuss and I carry on and I wave my arms menacingly and, if you are really lucky, I hit.

I don’t want to get into that right now. I will, just not right now. Right now I want to think about something else. Hell, I want to think about anything else, but J. and I have been on a streak of fighting and I can’t stop thinking about it. Mostly I think about how I want it to stop and how powerless I feel over my ability to stop the fighting.

I mean, every married couple fights right? Put two people together long enough and they will fight about something. Here is something I wish I knew fifteen years ago, the trick of the successful marriage is not about love it’s about forgiveness. It is about forgiving your spouse and about forgiving yourself. Well, maybe that is love but it isn’t the kind of love they sell in dime store novels, it isn’t the kind of love you romanticize about in college, and it isn’t the love you think will endure forever. That kind of love ends up on the big screen. Fighting love? Well let’s just say fighting love is the kind of love that ends up quietly biting its upper lip in the kitchen while life goes on around you.

I am trying really hard to be gentle with myself right now, so I am not going to spend a lot of time telling myself how wrong I am to get loud when I get angry, and I am not going to spend time looking at anger and violence. Instead I want to nod to fighting love, because I think really I have a lot to learn from fighting love. I mean, my relationship with my spouse has not been without its ups and downs and so I guess from one point of view you could say our relationship has been the beneficiary of successful fighting love. But I am slow and I continue to fail to learn the most basic rule about fighting love which is… hell I don’t even know.

I guess I keep thinking about my friend standing in the kitchen. Fighting love doesn’t mean carrying on the fight. Fighting love is not about winning the fight. Then again fighting love is not about losing either. Fighting love might be defined as releasing outcomes and surrendering yourself to the process.

They say that unconditional love is unconditional. Fighting love must be part of that because any conditions you set become obstacles to overcome. I don’t know if it means anything but so often when I become angry I lose myself in the fight. I become irrational and belligerent. I suspect that instead of surrendering myself to the process I have lost myself in the process. I need to meditate on this more.

It seems I have been fighting a lot lately. I have this feeling that I am either a wet blanket or a wall of stone. I seem to vacillate between sucking up everything or putting up with nothing. Again, this seems to be shades of my father. I can almost feel myself acquiescing to his tantrums or alternately telling him to FO and die. I don’t know that I ever learned fighting love and so I have ended up with a love that fights.

I made some comment today that J. said was patronizing. I didn’t mean it as patronizing, but there you are. It could have ended badly, with feeling hurt on both sides. Instead we had a terse discussion that ended with apologies and a reconciling hug. Still, fighting love has a way of feeling a lot like fighting, and maybe that is where I have gone so wrong. I know the sensation of succumbing to the irrational feelings, the hurt and the shame that are so much a part of any good fight. I have those feelings and I have nowhere to put them. In a fight you neatly tuck those feelings into a blanket of anger and carry them around on your back for a few days, but when you reconcile there is no anger, there is no blanket. There is only the feeling that you have done your best, hurt feelings and all.

Probably the feelings of hurt and shame are residual and just need time to pass. I don’t need to wrap them in a blanket. I don’t need to tuck them in for bed, because in all reality they are unwelcome visitors, the remnants of past fights long buried that don’t belong here. Most likely I have called upon them, because years of experience have taught me this is what you are supposed to do when you feel backed up against the wall with nowhere to turn.

So I am unlearning bad behavior. I am standing in the kitchen, chewing my lip reminding myself that the person I am really fighting here is me, letting go of the fighting one slow breath at a time.

Naming your problem

2010-03-19T13:14:00.006-05:00

Mississippi John Hurt sings one of my favorite blues songs on his Last Sessions album. The title of the track is Trouble, I’ve had it all my days. Really just about every song on this album is a keeper so if you are looking for a good blues album, or if you know a special someone who really likes the blues, you have my recommendation.

One of the stanzas goes like this:
Well, you talk about trouble, I had it all my days.
Trouble, had it all my days.
Seem like trouble, gonna carry me to my grave.

Mississippi John Hurt’s song is a love song about his girlfriend and her “evil ways.” He pines for her, he goes to jail for her, and despite his willingness to do anything for her, he thinks that she will eventually leave him. It is the epitome of the classic blues tragedy.

I like that image of trouble carrying me to my grave. It conjures the image of problems taking on human forms. I mean, it is one thing to say, I am having problems with my spouse or my children or my coworker, but entirely another to say, my problem exists as an independent entity, capable of walking around and talking to others and even picking me up and carrying me on occasion.

In the song, MJH suggests that while his girlfriend is causing him pain, the real trouble of his life has existed for many years. And that his mother even warned him at one point that trouble was a monkey on his back.

My momma told me, before I left her door.
Lord, momma told me...
Gonna have trouble, Son every where you go.

This image strengthens the notion that MJH’s troubles lie somehow outside of his experience with his girlfriend or his life in general, and that trouble is like his shadow, always present and always connected to his every movement even in the most illusive way.

If your problems could walk around, if they could talk to people, and hold your hand, if they could lead you to the store and lie down with you when you sleep, what would that problem look like. Is your problem masculine or feminine? Is your problem old or young? Is your problem short and lean or tall and fat? Blond or Brunette?

I have a friend who was dating a girl with an inoperable brain tumor. It was the first time I had ever known someone remotely close to me who had cancer, and it gave me a window into the life of people whose problems are infinitely more pressing than mine. I mean this woman is going to die from her problem. her troubles are literally carrying her to her grave, and so she did what most people in her situation do. She named her tumor. Like that great line from the movie Fight Club “If I did have a tumor I would name it Marla. Marla. The little scratch on the roof of your mouth that would heal if only you could stop tonguing it, but you can't.”

What would you name your problem? Evelyn? Spencer? We know that everything is in a name. If you want your network to run smoothly, you need to use a good strategy in choosing a name for your computer. Some names are destine to have certain problems that are predictable. Something tells me this isn't as easy as naming a doll or a fish. (Though these are problematic too) Maybe more like naming a penis or a musical instrument.

So what is it going to be? Somewhere, out there, there is a free range problem, roaming around like spirits waiting for some chance encounter when one day they will adopt you. It might be a bit like a horse picking up a flea. The horse might be at first contently oblivious to the fact that he has a passenger, while the flea might be thinking “Wow! I have a horse on me.” Whatever the realization, gradually the awareness of the problem’s presence becomes noticeable. Like a pair of schoolgirls simultaneously jumping rope, your actions and those of your problems become quickly syncopated. If it hangs around long enough your problem and you might come to even look alike, like pets and their owners, or worse, like the old married couple that both wear flannel and have the same haircut. Soon you and your problem become indistinguishable.

It is at this point that you might want to think about divorce proceedings. Because, like any couple that has been together for a long time, you and your problems won’t separate easily, in fact chances are that the process will be a long, drawn out, and painful affair that lasts months or even years.

What would I name my problem(s). Like the demons in the movie Exorcist I might name them “Legion” for they seem like both many and one. But this would be unfair to my problem, and highlights the final problem in naming a problem. My constant companion has been with me for so long, I want to treat it with kid’s gloves. I want to be kind to it. I want to be gentle. I don’t want to name it “mucus” or “scumbag.” I want to give it some gentle, sensible name like Lillian or Bob and pretend that my problem(s) are sensible manageable people. This seems to ensure that the problem, whatever it is, is going to be with me a good long while.

Well, you talk about trouble, I had it all my days.
Trouble, had it all my days.
Seem like trouble, gonna carry me to my grave.

Sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn't.

2010-03-11T12:09:00.002-06:00

O.K. so here’s the thing. I write a post about my crazy mind, and how, even in moments of pure triumph, my crazy mind turns them into moments of abject terror and panic, and when I scan through the responses I have gotten that congratulate me and ask “what was the problem?” Then I start to wonder…am I the only person with crazy mind? Because for a while crazy mind had me thinking that everyone had crazy mind, and maybe they do, except that for most people crazy mind is manageable. Or maybe it isn’t, except that my variety of crazy mind would be manageable to them, while their variety of crazy mind would seem like nothing to me.

I could try to define crazy mind. I could tell you what it is and where it comes from and hope that it would make sense. But it wouldn’t help. It doesn’t make the crazy go away. Nothing makes the crazy go away, well, nothing and time. But I am no good at waiting around for time to make the difference and so I rush about like a gerbil straightening his cage, pushing a pile of woodchips from one corner to the other all the while telling myself that this is somehow making a difference.

I go to al-anon and study the twelve steps and go to church and talk about God and in my spare time I read about Zen and Buddhism and philosophy and none of it helps. But mostly I think this is the case because I think that they will help. I think that having the answer to some question will somehow make the difference. But it doesn’t because all answers do is to explain a theory about how a thing should work. They explain the theory, not the thing itself.

The other night I went over to a friend’s house to help him install a ceiling fan. Well actually he asked me to de-install one fan, move another fan from a different room into its place and install a third in the vacancy left by the second. Piece of cake.

He actually invited a couple of friends over to help with the project(s) and really installing a ceiling fan is mostly about shutting off the power, hooking up the mounts, matching the various same colored wires to one another and turning the power back on. That is, in theory what is supposed to happen, except that nothing worked the way it should.

The old fan came off without so much as a whimper. The replacement fan also slid nicely into place. The new fan had a lot of components and took a while to assemble but it too finally hung proudly from the ceiling. Everything worked the way it should until the power was turned on, at which point it was revealed that nothing worked.

The easiest thing to do was start with the second fan. A little toggling of the wires and a bit of carefully screwing the plate back into position did the trick. But the new fan, the one with all the new fangled gadgets, that one took more work. I will spare you the story of trial and failure, but I will tell you briefly how, for one spectacular moment it did work, except that I hadn’t secured the toggle bolt and so, as the fan sat their proudly spinning, it suddenly lurched from its mount as it had been slowly unscrewing itself from the ceiling and fell, dangling from the many multicolored pretty wires that are probably even now the culprit for why it will not work at this moment. It worked, but now it doesn’t. We got it to light up, but the fan won’t turn. Having light is at least a good start but knowing we were licked for the night we put our tools up and ate dinner and laughed off the whole enterprise with good cheer.

There are many maxims that cover the gist of this story. The one I use the most is “the best lain plans of mice and men often go awry.” Another is my favorite and comes from the book “Little Big Man” and it goes something like this:

With Custer and his regiment annihilated, Jack the narrator accompanies his Indian grandfather Old Lodge Skins to a nearby hill where the weary leader decides to end his life. He gives his speech to the Great Spirit, saying he is ready to die. After the speech he lies down motionless for several minutes. It begins to rain the Grandfather wakes up and says “Am I still in this world?”

“Yes, Grandfather.” Says Jack.

Old Lodge Skins groans and gets up saying “I was afraid of that.” Then he adds poignantly “Well, sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn't.”

I don’t know what this has to do with my having crazy mind. Or even how I got here. I know that when I walked into my friends house I had no idea that things would turn out so half assed, just as I had no idea that I would freak out and convince myself that the faculties remarks were going to spell my doom somehow.

I feel so crazy most of the time and all I want is for it to stop. But that usually doesn’t happen all at once. So, in the mean time all I can do is to do the things that I know to help. Like going to meetings and talking to people and keeping a careful inventory.

I know that I am terrible at setting boundaries and that I am a huge people pleaser that just wants to be like and is mortified and terrified at the thought that someone out there isn’t happy. Also I am learning that this lack of boundaries means I am easily frustrated and that I just as easily allow this pent up frustration to build until it explodes in torrents of anger that terrify my wife and children. Also I am learning that part of embracing my imperfection and allowing myself to be human means learning to stop trying to explain everything all the time, kind of like starting a post with the words “O.K. so here’s the thing” as if to say “yet again I how found the “answers”.” Finally I think I need to be gentle with myself. As I often time tell a once adopted sponsee from al-anon: "eat, sleep, and try not to think so much."

Sometimes that Magic works, and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't I know it is time to take my own advice, to go easy on myself and wait for the magic to do its stuff.

a zebra and his stripes

2010-03-07T11:23:00.001-06:00

So my sister calls me and leaves a voice mail message that goes something like “um, I just read your blog and I think congratulations are in order. I mean, I can’t tell for sure but it seems like you just went through an examination, and it doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong, and you passed. So, congratulations!”

I had to think about his for a moment when I heard it. Especially the part where she said “you didn’t do anything wrong.” It just hit me like a ton of brick. “Yeah” I thought. “Hell yeah! I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything wrong!” I let it sink in for a minute and then I repeated it again to myself. “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I passed.”

In a pass/fail situation there is only pass and only fail. Still I can’t help but wish I had passed more smoothly or that the oral examination had been more congenial. But as they say, in the end, no one is going to ask how you passed. They are just going to ask if you have the degree. So why am I walking around like some big open sore? Why do I feel like every nerve in my body is exposed and raw?

In private I told my graduate committee chair “I think this place is having an adverse effect on my mental stability.”

His response? “We just have to get you out of here.”

His response hurt. I felt like he was saying “We are just so sick of you.” But another friend pointed out that it really didn’t matter what he was saying, because what “we need to get you out of here” really means is “this is poison” and I have to go.

I think the thing is I feel like a failure because it doesn’t go more smoothly. That somehow, my inability to have more meaningful communication with the faculty is some sort of character defect, and I have been beating myself up for this reason for quite a while.

The sad thing is I think I am predisposed to this kind of behavior. I tend to make the failings of my relationships my responsibility. It is horribly self pitying and so completely unproductive, and yet so much easier for me than realizing that I am powerless over the outcomes.

Duke: The lights are growing dim. I know a life of crime led me to this sorry fate... And yet, I blame society. Society made me what I am.
Otto Maddox: Bullshit! You're a white suburban punk, just like me!
Duke: But it still hurts!
Otto Maddox: You're gonna be all right. [Duke groans pitifully] Maybe not.

The Gita says I have a right to my actions but not the outcome of my actions. The way of right action is to release fear and uncertainty of outcomes and embrace the moment rather than the result. Intuitively I understand this. What I lack is the resolve to implement this way of the middle path in my life. Instead I internalize and allow fear and what I call crazy thinking to over run me ability to cope with reality as it is happening.

I am terrified. I would say I am terrified of failure, but recent activities suggest I am just as equally terrified of success. Check that, what I should really say is, I seem to be terrified of life. As the Gita would say I am so hung up on results, good or bad, that I am unable to see them for what they are. Worse, realizing that I am engaged in this behavior, I beat myself up for it.

I don’t mind being crazy. I have lived with my crazy mind for most of my life now and I am starting to get used to it. But I really hate this tendency to beat myself up for being who I am. It is as if a llama would throw itself off the cliff for being a llama, or a lion would surrender itself to the zebras for being a lion. I am brash and cocky and pretentious, and when the faculty says “you are too brash” I immediately fall into despair and self doubt. “Is that right?” and “Is that good? Bad?” and finally “what should I do?”

Well I tell you what I am going to do. It only took me two days but I am going to stop beating myself up for succeeding. I am going to stop worrying if the faculty “likes” me and focus on “getting out of there” as they say.

My wife likes to quote the big book and say “self knowledge avails us naught” or something like that. It probably means that either A) I say I am going to stop but I won’t because I can’t or B) I will stop worrying about this but only because I will find something else that the faculty does to start worrying about or C) Both.

My vote is on C. Mainly because I am powerless over my character defects. But you know, that is O.K. because the zebra shouldn’t hate himself for his stripes, and at least for this moment, right now… neither will I.

expecting different results

2010-03-06T08:18:00.001-06:00

In yesterday’s post “why I hate grad school” I wrote of my experience undergoing the moments around my graduate review. With a days distance and some perspective I think it is fair to say that I don’t deal with stress well. This isn’t the first time I have said this. I think my inability to cope with stress pops up in many forms: especially with my kids.

Parenting is hard. When you are engaged as a parent it is almost impossible to get much else done. Children need care. They need attending. They need assistance. They need to know not to flush an entire roll of paper towels down the toilet. They need to know that pulling hair and hitting and stealing their sister’s toys are not acceptable forms of dispute resolution. But mostly they need to know I love them and that I am there for them, and they only get this when I am fully engaged with them. In fact, most of the problems that I have with kids, both in their behavior and my stress come when I try to do too many other things when I should really just be with my kids. Sadly I have tried many times to negotiate work and school and kids simultaneously, and it almost never turns out well. Quite the contrary. What I actually end up doing is teaching myself how to react stressfully to stressful situations.

Did you get that? I am not sure I did so I am going to keep saying this until I learn it. By setting up stressful situations in my life, I am not teaching myself better management skills. I am not multitasking. I am not “being efficient.” By setting up stressful situations in my life I am teaching myself how to get into stressful situations. Worse I never handle stressful situations well, so I can’t even say that I am teaching myself how to deal with stress. That would take forethought and some advanced planning. No, all I do is perfect the ability to throw myself into situations that invariably end up with me freaking out or losing my temper and wondering why life is so damn hard.

Graduate school is another example of this. At some point early on in my graduate career I felt abused. It is hard to say now, looking back, if I was abused or not, but feeling put upon I reacted badly, that is, I reacted like I do in any stressful situation: I freaked out and got angry. This set up a pattern for how I was to deal with these graduate “encounters” for the next five years; through two degrees and two schools.

In writing this I am having this “no s**t Sherlock” experience. This is the kind of thing people talk about all the time in therapy. Living with an alcoholic, for example, creates in most family members of the alcoholic a kind of rehearsed response to their behavior. But it isn’t fair to pick on people just in therapy. This is how we learn to treat our friends. This is how we learn to be with loved ones, with co-workers, and in short. We rehearse the stories we tell ourselves, like actors on the stage, until we become so good in our roles that Laurence Olivier himself could not do as good a job.

Yesterday’s response to my gradate faculty was unfortunate. But it is really MY unfortunate, because it is the response that I have come to expect from myself. The question it, I only have a few more chances to do this right, and do I want to use that time to unlearn some of these behaviors and change the way I interact with these people. Or do I move on and hope that next time will be different?

Well- one thing they say in therapy a lot it “insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.”

Why I hate graduate school

2010-03-05T15:37:00.002-06:00

It is hard to know where to begin. Today was a hard day. But mostly, I think, because that is the story I have chosen to tell myself. Today was the day of my Graduate Comprehensive Exam. It is where I show my work and tell the faculty “I know how to make the work” and “I know how to talk about the work” so “I am ready to graduate.” Except that I was really nervous, and the day never really went as planned.

You could say that my day really began when I heard my name being called and I came to standing in front of a plate glass window. I was staring into the quad outside, but really I wasn’t staring at anything. I don’t know where I had been. For a moment I thought "perhaps I had blacked out." It was then that I realized that it was over. I had made the presentation and it was finished.

I heard my name being called. I turned and there were people standing around. Some were talking in small groups, others were walking towards the exit. My eyes locked with my committee chair. “Lets meet in the media room.” I nodded and walked forward. I watched as we approached the room. I saw him fumble for his keys. The door fell open and several faculty members and I walked in. Everyone was seated. “Where was I supposed to sit?” I wondered. I pulled a chair into the center of the room. Then thinking better of that choice I left the chair there and retreated to one corner of the room and waited. Everyone was silent. “Why was no one talking?” Someone asked a question.

“If you would like to talk about procedure I can wait in the hallway.” I offered. More silence.

“I think we have your statement. Why don’t you wait outside while the faculty talks?” Thankfully I left the room.

I walked outside. I saw another faculty member talking to a student. I wanted to scream. I walked to a construction site nearby and picked up a clump of dirt. It was heavy to the touch. I broke it into pieces. "Why did it crumble so easily?" I threw the debris to the ground and picked up another. This one felt heavier. Wetter. I threw it into a mound of earth. I turned. The couple had left. The sun was annoying. I walked to the shadow of the building but the shade was uncomfortably dark.

“I hate it here.”

I went inside. The hallway was deserted. I walked the length of it and climbed some stairs. I though better of my decision and walked back down again. “I am pacing.” I thought. Better to sit, but there were no chairs. I walked the length of the hallway again and came to a rest in front of the media room door. I could hear muffled voices within. “I am in shock.” I thought, then added “I can’t be found here.” I ran back to the stairs and climbed them halfway and sat in the shadows. At some point I called my wife. The conversation lasted hours and seconds. Later I remember feeling ashamed for not remembering it more clearly.

Voices.

Bodies.

Movement.

Two of the faculty members had left the building. Two more were in the hall. I heard them say something about line quality and technique, “I can hear you” I said, or possibly “I am aware” as if to say “of my shortcomings.” None of it made sense.

“You passed” said the chair.

I am staring out into the quad through a plate glass window, I hear my voice being called. Suddenly I come to. “Is it over?” I wonder?

How Buddha saved Christ

2010-03-01T14:26:00.006-06:00

When I was an undergrad in college, I wrote this paper on Plato, which I titled “The Erotic Love of Wisdom.” It was supposed to be my undergraduate thesis paper but in reality it was probably just me jerking off on paper.

Someone proof read the paper for me, probably a professor, but I don’t remember who, and told me that the ideas I was championing in the paper reminded them of a video that had recently watched on Gnosticism. I had never heard of Gnosticism so I went and rented the video.

There really isn’t anything worth reporting about that movie. It was a shoddy piece of documentary video shot by a new age production company championing their own esoteric brand of Christianity, and using the discover of Gnostic texts in Egypt to support their outlandish claims. Needless to say I was under impressed, but I was interested to learn more about the discovery of never before seen texts written by Christians about Christianity from within a few hundred years of the death of Jesus.

I bought myself a copy of the Nag Hammadi Library; the collection of texts referred to in the movie and set about reading them. Fascinated, looked in the front of the book and learned that the book had been published in connection with the Claremont Graduate School in Claremont C.A. Called them. Got an application, and Voila I was in Graduate school studying the first four hundred years of Christianity.

You could say my interest in ancient Christian texts is a by-product of my brand of Christianity. That is, for me Christianity begins with the revelation. In the beginning was the word, and while it is over simplified, one could understand Christianity as a kind of explanation of the revelation, communicated to us in words and statements that depend on the believer’s acceptance of these statements.

After all, one thing that the Nag Hammadi discovery had shown us is that Christians have always been profoundly concerned with these statements: with the accuracy of their transmission from original sources, with the precise understanding of their exact meaning, and with the elimination and condemnation of false interpretations. At times this concern with the words of Christianity has been exaggerated to the point of obsession, accompanied with the arbitrary and fanatical insistence on hairsplitting distinctions and the purest niceties of theological detail.

My study of Gnosticism in Graduate school was cut short when I decided to drop out and follow the love of my life. But my time in graduate school opened for me an awareness that the obsession with doctrinal formulas and ritual exactitude has made people forget that Christianity is a living experience which transcends all conceptual formulations. I know that I am guilty of this behavior, stopping short at a mere correct and external belief expressed in good and moral behavior, instead of entering into a relationship with God as the word made flesh.

Actually it took learning more about Buddhism for me to even begin to understand what that relationship would look like. Let me first say that the Buddhist metaphysic is not a doctrinal explanation in either the philosophical or theological sense. You don’t have to believe in the enlightenment of the Buddha as a solution to the problem of the human condition, and the experience of Enlightenment is not a revelation of how the universe came into existence, what will eventually happen to it, what the purpose of life is what are the moral norms, what will be the reward of the virtuous, and so on. To try to pigeonhole either Christianity or Buddhism in these terms is to reduce it to a mere world-view. Yet this is how Christian theologians frequently view Buddhism and sadly it is how I once viewed Christianity, not as a living theological experience but as a sense of security in my own correctness, a feeling of confidence that I am saved. A confidence, I may add, that is based on my correct view of creation and a merit system peppered with the anxious hope that the right answers will present themselves and that life is really a struggle to attain this sense of righteousness even as my desperate recourse to sacrament or understanding of the word cause me to continually fail, fall and struggle to rise again.

What Buddhism taught me about Christianity and ultimately about my own spirituality is that Zen does not need to explain the universe as much as Zen wants me to pay attention and to become aware, to be mindful and to develop a certain consciousness which is above emotional deception. Deception of what? Of life as it truly presents itself, and not life as my consciousness wants it to be. Because Zen, less a philosophical system about nothingness, rejects systematic elaborations in order to get back to a moment of pure unarticulated direct experience of Life itself. What is this "I" that exists and lives and what is the difference between an authentic experience of life, and the illusory awareness of the self that exists? Zen is not an idealistic rejection of sense and matter in order to ascend to a supposedly invisible reality, which is alone real. The Zen experience is a direct grasp of the unity of the invisible and the visible, a radical awareness of experience that does not require of explanation, but awareness.

In researching these thought I encountered a website that rejected the comparison of Buddhism and Christianity because, “Buddhism believes neither in the existence of a loving and living God nor in a substantial self, so the compassion of a Bodhisattva cannot be accorded with any ontological reality while Christianity treats love both as a means and as a goal of life. Moreover, love is seen as the very nature of God. As love has its source in God, so we are asked to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and this love found its ultimate expression when offered himself as a victim upon the cross for the remission of sins of mankind.”

To which I would say that this is a terrible misreading of Buddhism and that the Buddhist does not rejoice in the escape of the phenomenological world of suffering or try to negate it. Instead the Bodhisattva elects to remain in the world and find Nirvana, or pure awareness, not by reason but by the same compassionate love that identifies all sufferers in the world of birth and death with the Buddha, whose enlightenment each person potentially shares. Christian charity is exactly like Buddhist compassion as both seek not only to be free from suffering, but to eliminate that suffering wherever and whenever it is found.

The thing is, it took me a long time to get out from under the idea that I had to understand Christianity to get it. Stories of the virgin birth, walking on water, and the crucifixion became puzzles for me to solve, and having thought I solved them or at least having come to reconcile them with my faith or the lack thereof made me feel no closer to god. Instead, it took my discovery of Buddhism to understand that I didn't need all of these stories, or or that matter to understand them, in order to have a profound experience and relationship with the higher power of my choosing. I don't understand the whole pascal lamb, and the eucharistic host, and finally I don't have to. For me, Buddha saved Jesus

I don't know

2010-02-25T23:13:00.008-06:00

You have probably noticed that my last few posts have vacillated between Christian and Buddhist interpretations of events in my life. In part this is because I have come to a point in my life where I can honestly say that I don’t know what I believe. Get that? I don’t know what I believe. Is there a God? I don’t know. Is there an afterlife? I don’t know. Are we born again and again and all life is a cosmic wheel? I don’t know. I don’t know, and not knowing is both terrifying and wonderfully freeing.

One objection to embracing the “I don’t know” philosophy is probably “If you don’t know what you believe, what do you stand for? How do you behave?” For me I think the answer to this is simple, and while some may cry foul, I say I try to act as best I can and that really I make a lot of mistakes and I try to learn from these. The objection may follow “How can one learn from their mistakes if you embrace no system, no dogma, no rule by which to judge your actions?” To this I would simply say that while some of my actions might seem questionable, even objectionable to some, for the most part, I try to be a good person, honest, loyal, friendly and that I look for these traits in others. Actions that separate me from these qualities I distrust and even abhor. Moreover, while I do not necessarily embrace particular religions or philosophies, I certainly look to them for guidance. I hold no one tradition higher than another, but judge them by the same standard that I judge myself. How do they treat people? Are they tolerant, fair, kind, respectful? If the answer is Yes, I push further, read more, contemplate, even adopt, but still I hold “I don’t know” as my mantra.

Is this agnostic? Socratic? The middle way? Sure. And No. Really this is what works for me. It is the realm where I am most comfortable. I was never a great follower. I don’t easily subscribe to great movements. I am a terrible liberal, a worse conservative. I distrust people like I distrust myself. I am full of faults. I make mistakes constantly. I am brash, judgmental, and egotistic. I don’t pretend that “I don’t know” has made me a better person. I am not enlightened. The Oracle of Delphi would never say that my brand of “I don’t know” makes me particularly smart or wise. On the contrary it has given me an inordinate amount of pain. The other day I stole a woman’s painting and ruined it (see The Great Art Caper) A Buddhist would have sought to avoid spreading suffering. A Christian might have been more charitable “there but for the grace of God go I,” but not me. I ruined her painting and spent the better part of the week A) worrying about it and B) trying to figure out how to make amends and do better next time (without getting caught.)

In the end, the great art caper ended like so much in my life. I was caught, and asked to make reparations. I had to face the music. I was reprimanded and I had to do a little community service. Mostly I got to think about my actions and how I would have done it if I could have done it over. From one point of view “I don’t know” wasn’t really working for me that day. That is to say It wasn't working if you think I am saying that "I don't know" is enlightenment. It isn't. I got chewed out. But like Brad Pitt says in the recent movie “Inglorious Bastards” “I’ve been chewed out before”.

I think what Brad Pitt’s character is saying here is “I can live with my actions. I can accept that what I sometimes do is unacceptable, and I can face the consequences of my actions” And I would add, “and in the mean time I will try to do better given the chance again.” And really isn’t that what making amends is about? Not just that we are sorry, but that “I am sorry” means "I would do that differently give the chance." The nice thing about "I don't know" is that it will give me many opportunities to make amends.

The really interesting thing about "I don’t know" is that, I suspect, if there is a maker, if there is a god, I will have had the opportunity in this life to have thought about that Idea a whole lot. And when I die I can look at s/he and say, “I am sorry. I will do better next time” and probably, the Buddhist in me will know that I will get that chance again.

Character defects

2010-02-17T10:14:00.003-06:00

As everyone knows the economy looms large in the media these days. News reports are filled with statistics about jobless claims and talk shows host an endless stream of experts who, like the groundhog, forecast six more weeks of winter. “Things are getting better but we have a long way to go.”

I caught a fragment of one of these shows driving home from my daughters preschool this afternoon. The focus of the conversation was “education and the workplace” jobs in a nutshell and how to get better ones. The discussion began to contrast people of different socio-economic backgrounds and said people from household that have been below the poverty line for more than two generations have a harder time advancing in the workplace. “It’s easy to imagine the poor as lazy.” Said the guest “But the truth is the system is bent against them. They don’t have the same chances for education and training and end up falling far behind members of more affluent families.”

My mind hung on this thought. “It is easy to imagine the poor as lazy.” Mostly because my wife had had a similar conversation with a friend recently in which this very topic came up. My reaction was why would intelligent people think that? When I put this question to my wife, my beautiful bride pointed out that we, she and I, are often guilty of the same kind of thinking, not about the poor, per se, but that I frequently criticize the Republican spokespeople, conservative religious dogma and extremists of both the political left and the right as being “insane” or “crazy” and that this type of labeling is no different than that which assumes that the poor are lazy or stupid.

In my recent post “On Buttons” I shared that this kind of thinking is born of fear and misunderstanding and that ultimately the more powerless I feel towards these groups the greater my animosity towards them will be. But let’s call it what it is, folks. My condemnation of these groups is a character defect.

Who can say where character defects come from? I like to think that character defects are born of an honest desire to protect myself from some perceived fear or threat, but that, unchecked they became all consuming. Anger is a good example of one of my chief character defects. In my youth, certain individuals modeled anger as a way to deal with frustration. I spent many years shying away from angry people. But somehow in the end I became the very angry person that I had tried to avoid. It is easy. I will glare at my child and say “what do you mean by that” the way others had done for me, and as a child I would have backed away. But my children don’t back away. They don’t have the same low self-esteem I had. So they challenge me. So I try the same tactic again, this time more forcefully. You get the idea. This is how things escalate, and I keep doing it because, as much as I don’t want to. This is how I am wired.

At least, that is the way it feels. Because This is the story I tell myself, namely, "This is how to discipline." I see myself in that role and I act it out dutifully. The more I do this, the more I have become convinced that the stories we tell ourselves have a lot to do with who we are. We use these stories to define our selves. But they are not who we are.

In Buddhism The identity of the self, either objective or subjective, is the cause of delusion. The root of personality is to be sought in the “true self” which is manifest in the union of subject and object. We are all the same. You. Me. Everything. The hopes and dreams of the of an individual are centered on the affirmation of the individual, and thus separate us.

The other day my wife turned to me and said “I really like what the Pastor said in the sermon.” She went on explaining that what the pastor had said what that Jesus was an individual of absolute Love, and that really nothing else mattered. The Virgin Birth, the myths and stories that tell us about his life mean little if nothing and that what really matters is that Jesus was a person of, well, in Buddhist terms, a person of pure Spirit , into which all of his experience of love was poured. Just as I pour anger and shame into my “experience” in life, Jesus poured compassion.

I think this is what the Zen philosophers are talking about when they say that Zen is grasped in the simplest of realities and not in the esoteric or fantastic interpretation of human existence.

Another way of saying this is to recount a conversation I had with a friend last night who told me he had started teaching art to third graders at a charter school. “They are creative geniuses!” He exclaimed. “If anyone in this graduate program could create like them, it would be amazing.” Unfortunately, by the time we reach graduate school we have lost that spontaneous wonder that unselfconscious creative bliss, and thinking and rationalizing and doubting have edged their way in.

So that is it. It is the stories I tell myself about the conservative right that make me hate them, just as it is the story I have learned about discipline that I try to reenact that is one of the triggers of my character defect of anger.

And that is not it. Because knowing these things about myself doesn’t make me stop telling myself the same tales over and over again, if anything I just make me say them louder, doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

No, if I want to change my character defects, and I do, then I need to hold them up. I need to shine a light on them. I need to share them with others and become accountable for these stories. Otherwise they just lie there and fester in the dark.

I want to change my relationship with my family, my friends and my community, and the only way I know is to start getting real honest about the way I see the world, and then maybe I can stop filling my experiences with angry tea.

The Cup

2010-02-13T16:03:00.005-06:00

I was maybe fourteen the first time I purchased a book about Zen. I found it in a little used book store in Honolulu. I don’t remember the title of the book but I do remember this koan titled “A cup of Tea”:

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

I was writing a email to a friend the other day trying to explain why I thought programs like al-anon were difficult. “I am too smart for al-anon.” I said. “I have familiarized myself with eastern and western religions, spirituality and philosophies, and when I hear them echoed back to me in meetings I think ‘right, humility’ or ‘right, meditation. I know about those things.’” I went on to explain that knowing about a thing and doing a thing are different, and that knowing about a thing might make the doing harder. Harder because I have my arsenal of explanations and justifications already built up. I can tell you why meditation is important, or exactly what I think humility means to me, and in my mind I might think, “I don’t need to do that.” Or worse, “I’ve covered that territory.” Thus the work doesn’t get done.

The best example I have is acceptance. Acceptance can be read by some as blind faith while others might interpreted it as spineless submission. It’s an old orators trick, anyone who questions the content can easily be sidetrack by retorting with a series of definitions. The audience feels the question is addressed and the orator goes away unchallenged. Getting hung up on definitions is a great example of how I can be “too smart,” accept that in this case I am both orator and audience. The one that I deceive is myself.

The wisdom of the empty cup is obvious. Matthew 5:3 says something similar, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” This poor corresponds to the notion of “emptiness.” The temptation is to imagine the heart or mind emptied of “self and all things” and ready to receive the Spirit. But this is a mistake. Read carefully the “poor in spirit” is not one becoming poor, but one who has lost everything. Not only are we to empty our cup, but we are to lose the cup itself! The individual poor in spirit has completely emptied themselves of both content and cup and is open to the inexhaustible possibilities of god, where god is not only the work (tea) but the works (cup).

I am a little afraid that some of you might raise the proverbial red flag here, as the last paragraph is pretty dense. I have to agree and add that this kind of spiritual mumbo-jumbo is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about when I say I am “too smart.” Still I think the koan of the empty cup is important Mainly because in a time of universal propagandism of the easy life where information and solutions are literally a click of a button away, the message of the empty cup is more important than ever.

As I was talking about the other day in my post “If you meet the Buddha, kill him” Zen cautions against acquisition of Knowledge. For knowledge in Zen terms is the equivalent of Ignorance, for knowledge fills us up and leads us astray. In Christian terms you might say mankind has eaten from the tree of knowledge and become ignorant. How then do I empty my cup if I can’t even think about the contents that I want to empty? Is this some kind of sophists trick? If I am not to think about these things am I not really substituting one kind of ignorance with another? Again the definitions plague me.

I think the thing that comes at the end of the day, when you’ve spent time meditating on how to empty your cup and how then to lose even the cup you hold is to realize that even if you lost all of these things you would still be the ordinary person that you are. In al-anon meetings I have heard this described as “turning my will over to the care of god as I understood him.” In Zen it is to cast away attachments to experience or as the Bhagavad Gita says “you have the right to your action, but not the fruit of your action.

Again, I don't think that the answer lies in denying the self or the world of experiences. I think that emptying my cup is really about making me ready for whatever comes next. It is a kind of universal readiness that comes from being truly empty or absolutely poor. The possibilities are endless. But If grab hold of them, then my cup becomes full and I lose that state of potentiality that I have attained. Instead, I release my concerns and my joys and embrace the world in the moment, always mindful of what the next moment might bring.

If I had to sum up what I think the koan is really trying to say, I think it would have to be this:

“Trust yourself and be happy.”

Of Buttons

2010-02-12T09:09:00.005-06:00

Do you have any words that just push your buttons? I do. I ran into one the other day while casually browsing the internet. Imagine that, finding something on the internet that pushes someone else’s buttons. But the think about this word (I’ll tell it to you in a second) is that it shouldn’t push my buttons. That is to say, I wouldn’t expect it to. Because while yes, it is a hot button word, it is one that I had long ago considered, one that I have talked over with learned scholars, my wife and friends. It is something that I thought I put to be a long time ago. I guess that is the thing about pushing peoples buttons, they wouldn’t be so easy to push if people knew they were there, right. I mean, if you know you have a sore button, you sew it up, right? You steel yourself against it. You prepare by forming phrases like “I don’t want to talk about that right now” or “Can we change the subject?” The task of hiding away a button from the wiles of the internet is even easier, no? I mean, all you do is click the “Home” button, or the “Back” button, and the offensive material is gone, voila. Not that a button has to be offensive, but that it stirs up something within, some old thought or old feeling that you thought you had put to bed long ago. My word, yesterday, was feminism.

I can tell you where I found it. That way if you go and look you will see that it wasn’t from some ultra-radical feminist website that wants to castrate men and do away with pantyhose. It was a blog site called “blue milk.” A fairly sweet, intelligent site that offers insights in life and parenting and relationships. I clicked on the “About” button and my eye read “My feminism is richer for understanding your feminism.” And it was like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on me. I was done. I wasn’t going to read any more. I navigated away and didn’t look back, but the damage was done. The proverbial button was pushed.

Buttons have different powers over us. Some make us afraid, some make us angry, this one left me feeling confused. “Wait” I said to myself “What is feminism again?” I quickly typed the word into the search engine and went to the wikipedia page. I read the usual jargon about it being “a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women.” And then went to the outline in search of greater meat. I eyed the “pro-porn/anti-porn” headings, but then spied a subject line the spoke right to my dis-ease: “male reaction.”

“The relationship between men and feminism has been complex.”

“No s**t.” I thought. I read the paragraphs over and then switched of the browser and walked away. “There is no way I am touching this” I told myself. I felt too inadequate to jump into the middle of a decades, even centuries long debate on the rights and differences between the sexes. Even if I could, my people pleasing center wouldn’t allow it. “Who would I offend, and why?”

I wouldn’t characterize my behavior as defensive, as much as self preservation. I wanted to look away from the topic, because the reality of the situation was, that while I have thought about various topics under the heading “feminism” I have never really thought about feminism in terms of “my feminism.”

Blue Milk said, “My feminism is richer for understanding your feminism.” But that begs the question doesn’t it? “What is my feminism? “ I thought. “Hell, what is my masculinism? Is there a masculinism? Is her Masculinism stronger from understanding my Masculinism?” That last one sounded defensive. I threw it out. It turns out there isn’t a “masculinism” but there is a “masculism.” But masculism sounds so un-masculine that I immediately didn’t want any part of it.

My wife wrote her undergraduate thesis on feminism, specifically women and the porn trade, not the sex workers, but women who ran their own pornography related sites, women who were “empowered” by this line of… work. So I did what any self-respecting man who is doubting his trust in the feminist mystique would do. I didn’t say a word to her. At least I didn’t until I sat down to write my experience of it and she happened to be passing by and I casually said “I had the weirdest experience the other day…” and she knew instinctively what I was talking about.

“It’s threatening.”

She went on to talk about a conversation she had recently had with another friend about the statistic that whites are becoming a minority. “What would that mean to me if I suddenly became the minority and they were the majority?”

It isn’t about racism. It isn’t about sexism or any -ism at all for that matter, though anyone can easily make it into an argument if they want. It is about unfounded fears rising to the surface and threatening our sense of security.

I have a friend who likes to say that fear is False Events Appearing Real. That’s my experience. Listen to what I said earlier: “a ultra-radical feminist website that wants to castrate men and do away with pantyhose.” Stereotypes. They bubble to the surface and push buttons. Not that they are real, or even that I believe them, but that at one point in my youth I might not have known the difference and so being uneducated, or unschooled or sheltered, I had fears. Fears about women. Fears about Homosexuals. Fears about people of other races. Fears that I grew up and got smart and threw out because, well, because the stereotypes were a lie. A lie created by people just like me who probably felt threatened just like me and that were about people who, while not just like me, are more like me than I know, which is why I fight racism and sexism and –isms of every character when I see them, and why when a button is pushed, as they sometimes are, I can use that fear as an opportunity to remind myself that, for me, the –isms aren’t about men and women, black and white, straight and gay. For me the –ism is about difference, and I don’t believe in difference. I reject them. Not that I don’t support the -ism and the desire to treat people equally and with dignity and respect, but that I believe people to be equal and so I don’t adhere to the –ism.

I don’t have a feminism, and having someone say "your feminism makes my feminism stronger" bugs me. Why? Because I am threatened? Maybe, but I think it is because I think I don't want there to be an -ism, and I want the worlds hates and fears to already be resolved. But that is not realistic. Why? Let me ask it another way: Can there be a world without -isms? I don't know. To me -isms are about difference. There may never be a world without -isms, but there can be a me without -isms, and part of my fighting the intolerance I see is to reject them, to reject difference and just be O.K.

I guess the question is, does talking about it perpetuate it? I mean, feminism isn't about difference, it is about making things more equal, or at least ideally. But then is it really about making things equal, or does talking about the -ism mean there will always be that difference. Like does saying "there has never been a black president" make it less likely that there ever will be because it hold out the difference at arms length and says "look at this." But then, there IS a black president... so what do I know?

From the Unreliable Narrator

2010-02-10T21:58:00.003-06:00

Zbigniew Herbert
from the poem "In the Studio":

When God built the world
he wrinkled his forehead
calculated and calculated
hence the world is perfect
and impossible to live in

on the other hand
a painter's world
is good
and full of errors

And then this, from Robert Rauschenberg:

"My paintings are an invitation to look some place else"

The Kingdom of Nirvana

2010-02-10T12:48:00.007-06:00

I think one of the things I really enjoy about my blog is that I never really started blogging to say any one thing and in the process made my blog a catch all for everything. It is good for me, because I am not a writer and I don’t routinely jot down my thoughts in journal, instead I get to talk about what interests me and I don’t have to worry about anyone judging me because my blog isn’t enough about art or parenting or anything else, and at the same time the blog is about these things, because, ultimately they are part of who I am.

I suppose in an odd way if you wanted to know me, or at least what interests me, all you have to do is read the blog. Except that the really personal stuff doesn’t make it in here. Usually because it is too painful or to humiliating or something, and really how much do you want to know about a person?

And then I read this piece by my friend the unreliable narrator, or this blog about the life and writings of my friend Oleoptene, or this blog by my friend Stuart and I see them routinely holding out their flaws and inspecting them, sometimes for insight, and sometimes for humor, and I think “well, I have done that” the thing is, they routinely are able to pick up the little nuances of their life and hold them to the light for the precious jewels that they are, and I don’t think I can.

I am both supremely confident, and horribly insecure simultaneously. I want my blog to be ABOUT something, and I don’t. I want to share a PART of myself, and I don’t. I mean, how much of yourself do you share on a routine basis? and with whom?

I have maybe a handful of close friends that I could call up on a moments notice and say, “I’m scared” or “I’m pissed” or “I’m drunk.” And they would totally understand. But mostly I think this is really so much masturbation and I can’t, or really I don’t share myself. Again me being both confident and simultaneously insecure.

The irony is I am a gregarious, often outspoken individual who sees himself as shy and insecure. So, is the problem that I don’t have enough friends or that I don’t “share” myself with others, or is the problem really just a problem in my head?

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced that it is all in my imagination. But then really this in not a problem of my not being open, it is a problem of me getting caught up in my head, and it is a fairly typical problem for me. The more I think about a thing, the more I think I am convincing myself of the truth and, ironically, the less “real” that thing is.

I can sit here and convince myself that I am this or that but the truth is I do not have a realistic picture of myself in my mind, and the more I think about myself in the abstract, the less real that image of me becomes. Perhaps this is why the Buddha would discourage his disciples from engaging in abstract philosophical talk, as reason tends to focus on and extract singularities from a great multitude and hold it up as a truth, when in fact, nothing exists in a vacuum, not even Nirvana.

Nirvana is probably a really good example of what I am talking about here, because most westerners don’t really understand Nirvana and tend to think of it as a kind of vacuum attained by the extinction of all desire and as the penultimate experience of a world denying religion, when in fact Nirvana is probably more aptly defined as “pure presence.” In Nirvana the meaning of life is discovered in openness to being and “being present” in full awareness.

Thus the old t-shirt adage applies: “To be is to do. To do is to be. DoBeDoBeDo”

Both Buddhism and Christianity agree that man’s present condition is not in right relation to the world around him or the things in it. If I can’t even think about myself and form a “real” picture of who I am, how much less real is the world to me? Mankind bears a propensity to falsify his relation to things and spending inordinate amounts of energy justifying those claims. The Buddhists call it Avidya and the Christians call it Original Sin.

The noble truths of Buddhism begin, life is suffering and suffering is caused by desire. My experience tell me that this is true, especially when I think about myself reasoning myself out of a problem. It is the equivalent of desire desiring itself out of desire. It is unattainable.

In yesterdays post I talked about “change happening all at once over time.” If I am uncomfortable with some part of myself, then I have only to look at myself as the source of discomfort. If I am uncomfortable with some aspect of the world (traffic, school, people) again, I, not them, is the source of discomfort. I choose to be uncomfortable. I am responsible for my own feelings.

In my last post I said, the answer to the problem of change is time. That is all there is. The more I try to grasp and contain the feeling, the less I am able to experience the feeling for itself, as I am busy "thinking" about the feeling and not actually going through the motion of feeling frustrated or insecure. The more I try to form a picture of myself as that person, the less like that person I think I am and thus the more I perpetuate my own problems. The folk adage is "time heals all wounds" and I would add "and reveals all shortcomings and defects of character."

Life is not about the trifling of my problems and my joys, Nirvana, say the Buddhists, exists in the world around me. The New Testament says as much about the Kingdom of Heaven(Lk 17:21). It is here. It is now. I just have to shut up and enjoy it.

If you meet the Buddha, kill him.

2010-02-09T14:55:00.001-06:00

So I am flipping through channels the other night and I landed on a scene in the Matrix where the Oracle is telling neo “we cannot see beyond choices that we do not understand.” And I think about for a few days and I have decided that for me “choices” is really “control” and that I cannot think beyond situations that fall outside of my control, and that really situations that fall outside of my control paralyze me because suddenly all of my energy and all actions are somehow spinning around the solution “how do I get past this?”

You might think that, having had this realization, I would feel better or feel comforted in the gentle glow of self-realization, but I wasn’t. Seldom do self-revelatory thoughts provide manuals instructing me how to change my behavior. Instead they leave me feeling more hopeless than ever that the possibility of change will free me of my “character defects.”

That being said, I have had moments of clarity in which I realized that some character defect, which had previously been plaguing me, was no longer present. But that it was not the moment of clarity that freed me from this action, rather it was time. Someone once said to me, jokingly, “change happens all at once over time.” That pretty much sums up my experience.

Self-revelatory moments can be profound. I remember one time I was walking through a park in Santa Fe when it occurred to me that creation, imbued with the spirit of the creator, was looking at me. You might say I stopped looking at the world and began to perceive myself through the eyes of the universe. It was an ecstatic moment, and one in which I wandered around that park for several hours sitting on benches, starring at the stars, and hugging trees. SO powerful was the experience that for the next several weeks all I had to do to summon the experience was to revisit the park at the same place at roughly the same time each night. Sadly, eventually the experience faded and new ones came and went until all that is left is of that moment resides in the faint glow of a memory.

“If you meet the Buddha, kill him.” Is a Zen saying used to caution the practitioner to become detached from our everyday conception of ourselves as potential subjects for special and unique experiences, or as candidates for realization, attainment and fulfillment. If you have an idea of what it is like to be enlightened, you probably aren’t, you might find yourself, like me, clinging to a moment or worse falling in to complacency as the ego assumes its place in spiritual glory.

In fact many spiritual traditions equate spiritual transcendence with negation of the self, i.e. Self as Void in the Zen Buddhist tradition and its parallel in the Christian tradition as “I live now not I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20) Where the Christian faithful empty themselves of the contents of ego consciousness and become void in the light of god where the infinite reality of his Being and Love are realized.

The realization of a transcendent reality could perhaps be more easily described as what it is not, but for me it is an existential transformation, one that is realized not in trying to attain the Void or the Spirit, but in the recognition and especially the acceptance of humans as imperfect beings.

Chariot

2009-12-18T19:25:00.002-06:00

The earth calls.

Youth stretches out her wings to soar, and like Icarus we are called home.

Might Jatayu's eyes fluttered “It is finished--come home.”

Close your eyes, for mine are closed. We are about to walk on holy ground. Shut them quick least you be tempted by lesser metals.

We are on a voyage of self-discovery. Most open their eyes in amazement, but the lover smiles, for s/he has already beheld the beloved.

Flames lick the embers of the sacrifice. The sweet smell of jasmine fills the air. Nothing beside remains.

An Apology

2009-12-06T11:53:00.005-06:00

“Apology” is an interesting word. Most use it as in “I’m sorry” but it has an older meaning namely a defense of ones words or actions, as in Plato’s Apology in which Socrates defends his actions to the state. Thinking about the entomology of the word "apology," somewhere along the line “self-justification” became “explanation” which became “explanation with regret.” Looking hard at this transformation I see a kind of spiritual journey evolving here: from all devouring pure ego to ego relinquishing itself to the world, to the moral negation of self to other; or something along those lines.

Do you know how I tremble and shake at the thought of the Christian fundamentalism? Not that Christianity has the exclusive on religious conservatives, but that I see in the Christian fundamentalism a kind of fanaticism that I can’t see anywhere else. Check that. Not that it doesn’t exist anywhere else in Christianity, but that I can’t see it because I am myopically set against this one little segment of an otherwise vast religion.

Listen in, if you want, on the bile that my mind spits out on a regular basis: Fundamentalists are judgmental. They think everyone that isn’t like them is evil. They view the world through a narrow vision that is blinded by xenophobic hatred. They hate people of different color, of different nationalities, of different religions. They claim a spiritual awakening through the love of Jesus to the exclusion of all else, and for this they cannot be trusted.

My mind spits out so many stereotypes. Some correct, some incorrect, most only hitting the mark in the most peripheral way. A sad way, yet oddly satisfying. I find that feeling both comfortable and distasteful. It’s a strange thing sitting in the seat of judgment hating someone for being judgmental. It is an ugly moment when you realize that you are a lot like the thing you hate.

One of my favorite lines from the movie trilogy “The Matrix” is a conversation in which Commander Lock says “Damn it Morpheus, Not everyone believes what you believe!” and Morpheus’ response is “My beliefs don’t require them to.” This is not a statement of compatibility, but of toleration. There are competing beliefs, different faiths, different churches, so it is nature to wonder which is right? The answer is clearly that power should go to the true church and not to the heretical church. Another Lock, John Locke attempted to tackle this question in his writings on religious toleration. He writes that every church believes itself to be the true church, and there is no judge but God who can determine which of these claims is correct. Thus, skepticism about the possibility of religious knowledge is central to Locke's argument for religious toleration.
The problem is that most adherents to a faith are not skeptical of their religious knowledge, and so have no reason to be tolerant. Locke notes this saying “that ecclesiastical authority had adapted itself to the “ ‘different whims or fancies of monarchs, changing their decrees, their form of worship, even their articles of faith to fit the current vogue’ ” Thus notions of tolerance will shift with the prevailing whims of culture.

Another problems is that Locke’s definition of tolerance and society’s definition of respect in no way prove to be identical. The English words ‘tolerate’, ‘toleration’, and ‘tolerance’ are derived from the Latin terms ‘tolerare’ and ‘tolerentia’ which imply enduring, suffering, bearing, and forbearance. Locke’s use of the word “tolerance” implied that there were some religions so inferior that they had to be “endured” or “suffered” with. One also cannot disregard the fact that toleration is directed toward something perceived as negative. The lives of the persecuted were made no better in that they were simply shunned secretly rather than persecuted publicly. Simple toleration, then, is not the answer.

I think that Locke’s attempts to rationalize religious tolerance are well meant, even though he did exclude certain groups, particularly those groups that he saw as dangerously bridging the separation of church and state. Tolerance may be a means to an end, but in my mind, it is not the end we seek.

In my own experience I may encounter beliefs that I do not agree with. I may even be righteously offended by these ideas and categorically reject them, along with the people who espouse such ideologies. In these cases, tolerance is not a vehicle that enables me to live peaceably with these people, as I still hold them at bay and distrust the ideologies. At best, tolerance is a way of defining boundaries between my ideas and those I dislike or even find abhorrent. For me the only true was to rid myself of the negative, even repulsive feelings I may sometime have is to stop holding them at bay through tolerance and to release them.

Locke points out that neither persuasion nor force can make someone adopt a moral value to which they do not agree. My feeling is that religion is not about what the other person believes, but about what I believe, or more specifically, about my relationship to God. Negative, sometimes pessimistic feelings do nothing to strengthen this relationship, and so by tolerating others I only separate myself from god.

I owe an apology to those that I have tolerated, I have done it with the best intention, but I has served neither them, nor myself. And so I pledge to be more understanding and to work harder on acceptance.

“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of my life unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I could not be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.” -Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

To whet the stone

2009-11-27T11:28:00.003-06:00

You know the children’s song “There’s a hole in the Bucket?” A man is singing to his wife ‘dear Liza.’ There is a hole in the bucket (hence the name of the song) and he is unsure how to proceed. She tells him to fix it, but, as the song progresses, we discover he is unable to do this as there is no wood to fix the hole, the ax is dull so he can’t chop more wood and the sharpening stone is dry so he can’t sharpen the ax, to cut the wood to fix the hole. The song comes full circle.

It is a great song, repetitious, humorous, with a circuitous logic that leaves the listener stumped. What is the man to do? The bucket will hold no water. There is no wood to patch the leak. The ax is dull. He needs water to whet the stone to sharpen the ax. But again, there can be no water, for there is a hole in the bucket.

I admit that this song delighted me as a child. I felt sorry for the man, whose lines in the song I heard as a kind of desperate plea. I imagined the woman growing evermore impatient with her simple-minded husband; as she had to time and again explain to him, fix it. Fit it. Fix it. Only to discover, like he had, that the solution was beyond their immediate means. The song, you see is a dialogue. Not exactly a Socratic dialogue, but a device used to create greater degrees of tension within the logical structure of the song.

Usually when you listen to the song, the man is played as a whiny sort, clueless and inept while the wife is shrill and painfully judgmental. Liza is sure she can present a solution for her husband. Meanwhile, Henry has exhausted the possibilities and has turned to his partner in the hopes that she will find some fault in his logic that allows him to complete his goal. “There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza” is a plea for help. “Where have I gone wrong?” He asks. “Have you Tried A? B? C?” She responds.

The relationship between Liza and Henry made me think of Adam and Eve. Not because there is any clear parallel. Though I suppose one could construct it: What’s wrong with the Apple? Is it poison? Is it bitter? What is wrong with being smart? Why shouldn’t we eat it? I wonder about the rational of Eve, biting into the apple and then offering it to Adam. Was it her way of saying “the bucket be damned!” or “I am going to eat this and prove that nothing will happen”? No, the reason I thought about the first couple in creation was because they acted in tandem, “I ate this apple, here, you try it.” They are working together.

The thing about Henry and Liza is, they are trying to solve a problem. He turns to her, she parrots the solution back to him, and, ultimately, they arrive at the conclusion that the bucket is unfixable. Interpretations that pit the two against one another may add to the comedic moment when both realize that the bucket is unfixable, but detract from the truth that they work in unison.

The other day I was looking around the house thinking: “there is so much to do, Laundry, dishes, piles of children’s toys and brick-a-brac.” It is in moments like these that I hear the old familiar tune come to mind. “There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.” And all the picking up and the washing and the scrubbing seem like so much work, an impossible mountain of chores that would never go away and I had no idea where to start. Like Sisyphus I would throw my weigh against the stone over and over again wondering if there was ever a solution.

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

As I stood there singing songs of confusion and defeat it occurred to me that I could pick up what was mine, my shoes for example. That might be a place to start. I could wash my coffee cup, I could put my clean clothes away, and so on. In short, I didn’t have to start with the WHOLE house. I could just pick up after myself and see where that lead me. As it turned out, I had a very large part in that particular days mess for it seemed like everywhere I went there was one thing or another that was mine.

My problem then is that what I though was a hole in the bucket was really self- defeatist thinking. “The mess is too big” or “I don’t know where to start” which is different from, “To fix A I need B but B requires A.”

“No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."

Taking another stab at the song, I should point out that Henry is immersed in the dilemma of the bucket. One conclusion that you might draw is that he has already tried to whet the axe and has discovered that there is no clear solution. Frustrated he turns to his wife. The immediacy with which he answers her suggestions seems to support this interpretation. “With what shall I…?” Could be interpreted as “I tried that but…” The fact that Liza shares with Henry solutions that he has already visited speaks to the like- minded nature of their relationship.

They are equals, and both set about “solving the problem” in the same way. For Henry and Liza, each new situation is met with a set of variables that must be solved. “How do I mend the bucket?” is answered with “With Wood.” Unfortunately for each the solution may fall outside of the liner logical structure of the equation. “I may need to borrow an axe from neighbor Fred” or “I may need to buy a new bucket” or even “Do I need any of these things at all?”

The last solution seems to be the one that the song suggests, for if the stone cannot be whet, what purpose does the bucket serve? The answer in the structure of the song namely that we are metaphorically casing our tail here, creates an ambiguity about the nature of Henry and Liza, that they are simpleminded folk who cannot see the proverbial forest for the trees, or that the spiritual solution, as I like to call it, is to step away from the situation and thus remove yourself from the equation. “The bucket is broken” is both the beginning and the end of the song suggesting that the harder we react to the situation, the less “distance” we cover. Through this line of questioning the absolute nature of their situation is now evident and they have gained nothing but the certainty of the knowledge they already possessed.

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl

The conclusion of the song suggests that in fact Henry and Liza are now at a completely new place, one of equal footing and ultimately of a kind of equality. This place is one born of frustration but open to the possibility that they can now choose to act or choose not to act with full conviction. The stage is now set for a “real” beginning, of sorts and the song bizarrely begins at last, even as the myth begin again.

Bad Paintings

2009-11-17T13:21:00.000-06:00

I was chatting with a friend through an exchange of emails the other day and they asked had I ever painted a bad painting, or at least I read it as a question, as in, “Are you willing to paint a bad painting?” When in fact is was actually a statement “You are willing to risk painting badly in order to paint something new” which is really a huge compliment and true enough, I guess, but it isn’t how I think of myself, and so like anything people say about me, I like to try it on and wear it around for a while and see if it fits. I mean, sure, I paint bad paintings, and yes, I like to experiment, which might look like I like to take risks, but while I like trying new things, I hate having to talk about it, because in art people want to know what it is you are doing or what it is you are trying to say, and about the time they think they have it figured out, I go and change it up and say “that is not it at all, that is not what I meant at all.” Colleagues and professors will ask me “Why did you do that?” and “What does that mean?” and I never have an answer, or at least, I don’t have an answer that I am willing to share, because the answer in my head always sounds so naïve. “It looked cool” or “I was just messing around” and then they shake their heads in collective disdain or worse they say nothing at all because there is nothing to say. It’s like saying “I paint pretty butterflies, aren’t they pretty?” and while that will sell t-shirts, it doesn’t build credibility.

I think there is a question in there. Does consistency build credibility? And the corollary to that is what does consistency consist of? Painting is just painting, but you can’t paint paintings of butterflies one day and spirals and squiggles the next and expect people to understand, so the consistency here isn’t in the act of painting, but in what you paint. A good fiction author writes fiction and a good documentary filmmaker makes documentaries and while yes we are all encouraged to explore other venues, to do so with great abandon tends to confuse.

Then there is this whole other song inside my head that I am whistling away while I type and that is who is the audience? Can you write poetry for some and non-fiction for others? Would Whitman still be Whitman if he spent his off hours writing Civil War documentaries? Or is he Whitman because he spent his off hours polishing his craft and refining those things that he wrote while he was working? I suppose you hear tell of Renaissance men and women who can do it all, the proverbial Jack-of-all-trades who knows no boundaries and no fear. Their myths inspire and delight us, but truth be told (a phrase I have been using a lot lately) Leonardo didn’t finish much, and the stuff he did finish is falling apart. Durer might be a better example, or Michelangelo as both of these me wore numerous hats. But can we honestly expect to measure ourselves by these men, when in all reality most normal, humble people don’t aspire to do so much and nonetheless tend to fare pretty well. There is a lesson here somewhere: I am no Michelangelo, and I don’t want to be.

I will tell you what I told my friend “In short, I have made a lot of bad paintings. But it was never really about what is good and what is bad, in the moment of creation I loved each painting dearly and poured myself into them with abandon. It is odd, but what I think I am really doing in art is working on me, and the painting is just the remnant... kind of like sequin wasting- you punch the little holes making sequins and what is left over, the ribbon, you sell as a decorative bow.” Then my audience is really me and not anyone else and it doesn’t really matter what I paint because I don’t aspire to fame or stardom or any of that jazz, what I really aspire to is being happy and making pretty little paintings that people enjoy and sometimes even making one or two that have a little something extra, some meaning or insight attached to them not that I strive for this, but when it happens, when that magic little something goes ka-pow, then I smile a little secret smile to myself that says “I didn’t mean for it to happen, I didn’t plan for it to happen, but it happened and that’s that!”

Chapter 6

2009-11-15T15:04:00.002-06:00

Editors note: My friend the Unreliable narrator’s comment made me realize that pushing God around in a wheelbarrow is really no place to end the story so I thought I would take a stab at a conclusion, though it is really nothing like the conclusion I had originally intended.

The walk home was long. Arduous might have been a better word. Every step left me feeling more like Sisyphus rolling the great boulder up the mountainside. My palms, aching and wet with sweat, I imagined my palms like his: torn and blistered and bloody.

The hard physical labor of the day and emotional burden of my loss taunted me and made my every step more grueling. I thought about the great loves of my life and how they had all been torn from me. My first love, an innocent girl of sixteen who gave me her virginity and promised to love me forever, looked at me though the veil of time and wept maddening tears of sorrow. My second love, a green convertible I bought the summer after my freshman year in college. I saved all year long to buy the car and drove it for three more years before it broke down and I could no longer afford to fix it.

Objects. Material things. Lesser men might have sneered at my list of loves and called me vain, but I knew better. I knew that I have loved these things unselfishly and would have given myself wholly over to them if they had but asked. But none of these, not one, could compare to my compost, my black alchemists gold that had been purified by the sweat of brow and the ache in my back. So glorious was this potent mixture that seeds nearly sprung to life in its presence. That if I were to carelessly let fall even the slightest scoopful onto the ground below the whole of creation would burst forth from that small space of earth and dung and give life where none existed before.

Some have questioned my love of gardening. Commenting on the inordinate amount of time I spent outside on my hands and knees, my face level with the dirt. Was all that work necessary? Why did I keep coming back day in and day out when a twice weekly visit would have been sufficient? Couldn’t I have read or wrote or worked harder at my relationships, my job my faith?

I was so absorbed in these thoughts that I failed to notice the gathering clouds. My mind raced along unperturbed as the gentle breeze picked up around me and blew leaves and discarded wrappers along the pathways and gutters. Till all at once I came to my senses and realized that it had started raining.

I picked up my pace and hurried down the trail, the sky grew ever darker and more foreboding. The same thing had happened only the day before. I stood out in my front lawn pulling weeds and planting snapdragons and azaleas. When I realized that I had been over taken by a storm. That had certainly been a surprise.

A clap of thunder seemed to shake the earth itself. My mind was again racing.. This time with a new train of thought. Had I put my tools away? I couldn’t remember. Where there should have been the crystal clear memory of my activities, scurrying around gathering hoes and rakes I could summon no images. I was as a man struck blind in the road with only my doubts and insecurities to guide me.

I was approaching the neighborhood park when I had spent the morning. My home was close now. I quickened my pace, rounding the corner to my home I pushed Azazias into a clump of bushes at the foot of my drive, then dashing past the garage I ran along the cobblestone path at the side of my house, under a low trellis and along the river stone trail that led into my front yard.

Windblown debris was scattered about lawn. The sky was black and angry casting long shadows about me. I zigzagged along the mounds of flowers and vines passing the mailbox and the front gate to the far corner of the yard. There, beneath a lone cypress tree was my green wheelbarrow. The wind blown it over and the rain had washed the contents clear of the container. My black alchemists gold, my compost had wept along the long streams made by the gutter spouts and flowed down along the very foundations of my home.

Stunned I sank to my knees. The possibility that my compost was stolen was very real to me, and I had of course imagined in dark moments that it might be lost to me forever. But never in my wildest imagination had I thought that I might be the culprit of my own undoing; that my own actions had some how lead to my demise.

In that moment the rain began to fall hard luring the scene in front of me. My mind was a blank slate. As I stared at the scene before me I found myself contemplating my reaction? Was I supposed to cry? To scream in anguish? Where was my despair? Where was my unbridled rage? As I sat there examining the austerity of my feelings, something caught the corner of my eye. I blinked, the way you would if you had just seen something unimaginable. I stared again, this time with eyes bent on seeing.

The rain was like a great velvety curtain that cast a silvery luster to the world. The feeling of being washed clean by the force of nature would have excited me in my youth and in all likelihood I would have eventually masturbated to the memory of it. But what was before me outweighed any of that. I reached down as if to pinch myself but instead only steadied myself against the ground as I erupted in peals of unbroken laughter. Was my house… growing?

Sequin Wasting

2009-11-14T23:39:00.004-06:00

The first thing I remember was my sister
Like Cain I watched as the smoke curled
around her toes to the edges of God’s areola

Beneath the old oak tree I played war with my brother
Under the halo of soup vapors we ate and laughed
“Next time I think we should be the vanquished,” he said with a smile

My fingers tick off the beads on a string of jeweled prayers
Slowly I count out resentments upon resentment
The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread

There is a place where I am sitting by the fire
There is a voice that gives life to the voice within my mind
There is a presence that numbers the hours of each day

The sound of the clock ticking resounds within my head
and small silver sequins lilt gently around my ankles
as long strands of ribbon stretch out into the void

The gentle rocking produces a stillness in my heart
while moments of indecision pour out on reams of textured paper
and all the universe spills out in wonder: wasted

Painting Today

2009-11-11T11:54:00.003-06:00

(Warning: It's a bit of a history lesson)

The term “Realism” often refers to the artistic movement which began in France at the turn of the nineteenth century. The popularity of realism grew with the introduction of photography - a new medium that captured the immediacy of everyday life and created greater public demand for images that evoked life-like precision. Accurate reproduction of objects, and scenes taken directly from experience was the goal of many Realist artists(Courbet, Sargeant). Realism believed in the ideology of an objective reality and revolted against exaggerated emotionalism in contrast to Romantic artists of the same era. To this end, Realist artists tended to discard theatrical drama, lofty subjects and classical forms of art in favor of commonplace themes.

While technically elegant and precise, the disdain of emotional or dramatic content and the rendering of images with stark frankness often negated plot structure within the paintings and made the content inaccessible to many viewers. The next generation of artists, the Impressionists, steered a course back towards a reflection on subjective experience of the immediacy of the moment, and brought with it a new level of abstraction in art making that allowed viewers to make greater determinations about content and plot within the painted images.

The factious group of Post Impressionist painters (Van Gogh, Cezanne) continued to explore these experiments in abstraction and subjective emotional content further challenging conventional uses of color and form. What followed from this was nearly a hundred years of continuous exploration into the marriage of abstract design and emotional response culminating in the complete negation of form where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. Post Impressionism spawned Cubism and Fauvism which in turn inspired countless movements including Futurism, Constructivism, NeoPlasticism, and Surrealsim, fianally culmination in Abstract Expressionism, a movement in art that reflected the perfect marriage between abstract design and emotive content.

But not all artists were convinced and certainly not all exploration ceased. While Abstract Expressionism remained highly influential and spawned a a dozen subsequent movements many artists, especially Minimalist artists distrusted the suggestion that a purely abstract form could have emotive content.

In many ways minimalism was a reaction Abstract Expressionism and, in general, the evolution of abstract design aimed at producing emotion responses from its viewers. Because of a tendency in Minimalism to exclude the pictorial, illusionistic and fictive in favor of the literal, there was a movement away from painterly and toward sculptural concerns. Of primary importance was distilled painting's forms into blunt, tough, philosophically charged geometries. Artistic concerns aimed at creating objects that inhabited a space which could not comfortably be classifiable as either painting or sculpture. Thus, the categorical identity of such objects was itself in question, and avoided easy association with well-worn and over-familiar conventions. In this way Minimalist works of art seemed to create a new category of artistic perception, but it was a perception that necessitated a meditative and deeply person response from its viewers and was therefore still “theatrical” or “emotive” at its core.

If Minimalism was a reaction to Abstract Expressionism, so Pop art could be thought of as a reaction to Minimalism. Pop art represented a return to figurative art as well as a return to the representation of objects culled from the immediacy of everyday life by relying on mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture for its subject matter. However, like Minimalism, Pop removes the material from its context and isolates the object, or combines it with other objects, for contemplation. The “narrative” or subjective content of the work is negated and the emotive content of the work is driven by the viewers own personal evaluations of consumer culture. The upside to this approach in art making is that the content is ever renewing as each new generation looking at the work of art will bring their own ideas of popular culture to the piece. The drawback is in the artist expectation that the viewer’s reaction to consumerist culture will always be negative, but that any positive attitude towards consumerism would result in a banal or clichéd interpretation.

In many ways Postmodernism artists have been struggling to find uniformity between representation and content. Postmodernism is defined as a reaction to modernity or in the case of modern art as a rejection of artistic practices in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. In many cases these experiments have been fruitful as well as self defeating, giving rise to greater degrees of experimentation that culminated in the myriad of artistic movements throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth century.

In pursuing a course that involves a radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history, or language I have chose to use, as a launching point, a reevaluation of the Realist’s rejection of emotive or theatrical content as well as the static depiction of objects that rely solely on optical perception. I have chosen Realism as my “jumping off point” as Realism offers a transcendence of the mundane by offering the possibility of the viewer finding and being made aware of universal themes found in ordinary, everyday objects. In choosing their subject matter Realist artists were identifying archetypes, or the embodiment and the existence of universal forms without content that nonetheless channel experiences and emotions, resulting in recognizable and typical patterns of behavior or responces.It is this notion of the universal in the everyday that continues to facinate and inspire me in my own work.

Mr. Squishy

2009-11-10T19:49:00.002-06:00

So I have been reading the short story Mr. Squishy by David Foster Wallace. I actually have an old friend who seems completely enamored with Wallace and have been meaning to read something by him for some time. My friend has mentioned Infinite Jest by Wallace several times, but alas that book is too mammoth for my hectic calendar. Recently I was at an alumni meeting for students of St. John’s College when it was mentioned that they needed a reading for the next meeting. I offered up Wallace as a possible author and everyone seemed to agree. The only problem was, I didn’t know a short story by Wallace from Adam so I went home and G**gled short stories and David Foster Wallace and came up with a title that look pleasing, if not a bit humorous, Mr. Squishy.

When first reading Mr. Squishy I was a bit underwhelmed by the first ten pages. The story read like a litany of minutia. Small unobtrusive facts of everyday life colliding in stereoscopic wonder to the delight of the author. Wallace seemed to take great joy in his ability to create lists of facts and figures that rivaled the book of Numbers.

If I sound a little sarcastic or disapproving it is only because I was so unprepared for Wallace’s signature writing style. In fact soon found myself wondering if there wasn’t some colossal joke being played at the readers expense that I was unawares and decided to change my attitude and allow the waves of detail to wash over me like numbers on an accountants ledger. The meaning of them was lost to me, but the seer fact of their presence was evidence of the writer’s craft.

Let my reader beware. To explain I need to say something of the story itself and for that there are spoilers.

The story of Mr. Squishy is not new, at least not in its subtext. The setting is a corporate focus group in which a facilitator is leading a group of male volunteers though a session on a product that roughly parallels the Ding Dong. As I said the subtext is not new and the story seems to evolve as a kind of criticism on modernity. Where alienation is acerbated by corporate malaise and the whole world has fallen sway to consumerism and the hypnotic allure of fitting in. In fact Wallace’s bludgeoning of detail upon detail seems to mimic the ennui that the cubicle-ridden employee of the modern corporation must experience on a daily basis as they sort through mountains of statistics and redundant studies of studies that were themselves redundant.

Into this world Wallace injects a single personality, Terry Schmidt. Schmidt is the group facilitator, a “cog” in the machines of industry. A pudgy outsider who has used his brains to get ahead and fit into a world that he seems neither to like or respect; a world whose rules he has meticulously learned mastery over so as to become indispensable. As adept is Terry Schmidt at blending into his environment that at first he is nearly indistinguishable from his surroundings.

But the more I ask myself “what is this short story about?” The more I come to believe that this story is about individuality, or the loss of it., or really the illusion of it. For Schmidt the various members of his focus group are mere statistics, even as Schmidt and his peers are mere statistics for his higher ups. Everyone is a statistic to those outsiders that don’t share in our immediate experience. And for those few that our on the same rung of life that we cling to, there is a certain distance. This in made poignant but the unrequited love that Schmidt has for one of his coworkers, a married woman who has faced sexual harassment in the work place and who is basically oblivious to Schmidt’s existence. In Wallace’s world relationships represent another loss of individual identity, and so Schmidt’s love life is one of masturbatory fantasy and illusions of connection. This furthers the idea that Schmidt is an outsider longing of being “one of the gang.” By that I mean living the proscribed lifestyle of society: successful, married, good-looking, everything that Schmidt seems destine to be denied.

Religion too appears in Wallace’s story, the opiate of the masses that offers freedom in the illusion of spiritual awareness and in reality is nothing more than another road leading to conformity. Nothing is what it seems in Wallace’s world, as it is made apparent that even the purpose of the focus group is to create a rational to dissolve the position of moderator as they provide a catalyst of individuality in the group dynamic.

The only avenue of escape in this otherwise inescapable world of conformity seems to be through violence. Schmidt spend his off hours in a homemade chemistry lab growing biological cultures that his dreams of injecting into the same products he seems to be promoting. An renegade urban daredevil makes an appearance scaling the outside walls of the office building creating a crowd of onlookers who are both captivated by his appearance of individuality and terrified at the possibility that he is a terrorist bent on their destruction.

In the end the fate of the myriad of characters is left uncertain. Wallace provide scant details that would allow us insight into the fate of the mountaineer, Schmidt, or his bosses, though I am left with the feeling that even if Schmidt or the Climber were able to “revolt” against the system, their impact would be mere headline news in a cacophony of headlines and would eventually be drown out by the machine.

Homeslice

2009-11-04T17:31:00.000-06:00

no paint

2009-11-01T14:46:00.001-06:00

Well, folks that about it for my short story writing days. I may add a few chapters later on, but for now I just can’t keep the momentum. It isn’t that I don’t have ideas about where the story is headed. If anything I have too many. No the trouble is, I don’t have the time. You see, I am stuck. I am not getting much of anything done these days, least of all painting. I have completed a sum total of one, yes one painting this semester, not nearly the grand finale I was counting on to graduate soon. At this rate I might take another year to graduate, because, let’s face it, no work means no show, and no show means no diploma. Follow?

I can’t exactly put my finger on why it is I am not painting. There are numerous factors. Moving into the house and selling the old one play top of the list, along with being a good father and husband to my family. Sickness has also been a persistent factor. But if you were to say, “why haven’t you been painting?” I couldn’t point to any one. In fact If I had to single out a culprit I would say it was depression, depressed that I’m not painting that is. How do you like that for irony?

Sorry as it seems I am absolutely true. The more I don’t paint, the more I don’t paint, and the more I don’t paint the worse I feel about it. The worse I feel about it, the more I don’t paint, and so on until I am in the exact spot I am in right now.

J. suggested taking more time to paint, but of course that only meant that the universe sent even more reasons not to paint. Painting puts demands on everyone, not the least of which is J. who gets stuck with the kids and the house etc.

Another huge problem is I really don’t have a place to paint. The easel sits out on the porch right now and whenever I go out there to work I am at the mercy of small children, the weather, everything. I can’t get work done. I need a studio. There is no studio, which means it has to be built, which means more time not painting. Really everywhere I look is painting frustration. Why am I not painting right now? It is too cold and damp outside and there is nowhere to paint inside. I could go to the other house but J. is sleeping and I need to be available for the kids. There is no Internet over there so If I need to research an image or pull up a resource that isn’t available either.

No I am afraid I am in a bit of a spiral sinkhole right now. No creativity means, the juices are not flowing, and by juice I mean, of course, paint.

chapter 5

2009-10-21T15:31:00.002-05:00

I think I may have blacked out.

Seriously, one minute I am walking towards the construction site, the next I suspended in limbo. I don’t know where I am. The world feels upside down as if I am hanging from a tree. I struggle for a moment, but nothing seems to come of it. I struggle again. Am I being pinned down? Where was I last? I remember. I was walking down the bike trail. It was hot. I felt light headed. Then everything seemed to go light. I struggle again.

“Help!” No answer. “Help!” I try to roll into a ball. I can feel my legs contorting, my knees in my chest. I take a deep breath and feel damp fetid air rushing into my lungs. Suppressing the urge to cough I thrust my legs out from under me. Suddenly my head shoots up. I can feel the warm light of the sun on my face. Fresh air. Looking around I am in a pile of leaves.

“Are you alright?”

There is a face in the sunlight. “I think so.”

“Then, do you mind giving me a hand, for you see, I am stuck in here as well.”
I look around. This is no ordinary pile of leaves. It is a mountain of leaves, with peaks and valleys that stretch as far as the eye can see. “Where are we?”

“As near as I can tell, we are here. Beyond that, I cannot say.”

It was not the answer I was expecting. Shifting my weight, my hand alights on the handle of Azarias. “I think you are sitting in my wheelbarrow. If you will hold on for a moment, I think I can push us both out of here.”

“What a fortunate turn of luck.”

I shrug at this.carefully prodding with my legs, my feet find something that feels like firm ground. I press my palms into Arazias’ firm handle. “Ready? Here we go!” With a great surge of energy I heave the wheelbarrow forward. I have no Idea what direction I am even heading. Arazias groans under the weight of the man as I continue to push. “This isn’t easy” I pant.

“It never is.”

Harder and harder I strain, the crackling leaves underfoot give no sense of time or distance. “We are almost there” I say aloud, as much to reassure myself as anyone.

“You are doing very well.”

“I don’t even know your name.” I grunt.

“Most men never do.”

“What?” I wheeze “Is” groaning “ It?”

“I think you know.”

“Please. Tell me.”

“I am that I am ” rang the voice.

Azarias seems to be rolling of its own volition. Am I pushing the Lord of hosts? I have the curious sensation that I am falling. The weight lifts from Azarius and I know my passenger has departed. “Wait!” I cry. “I have so much to ask you.” My hand slips on the handle and it jabs me in the side. “Wait!” I cry again. “Don’t go!” Again, there is silence. “Wait!” I shout at the top of my lungs.

My eyes are open. I am laying on the ground. Someone is tapping my with their toe.
“Buddy. Are you alright?” He kicks me again.

“I will be if you would please stop kicking me.” I say angrily.

“Can you sit up?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’ve fallen on the bike trail and taken quite a blow to the head. Would you like me to call for assistance.”

Rocking forward I have the distinct impression that this man is someone of authority. “Who are you? I ask meekly.

“Officer Perkins. Do you require assistance?”

“I don’t think… No. I think I am alright.”

“Can you stand?”

“I… Yes” I say rising. I can see the officers uniform, his badge gleaming in the sunlight.

“Are you sure you are OK?”

“Yes. Thank you officer.”

“Have you been drinking or taking drugs of any kind?”

“What?”

“Are you on any medication?”

“No.” I say.

“Listen,” says the officer. ”I want you to write your name for me.”
He produces a black pen and taps the tip of it on a notepad. Numbly I reach over and take the pen from him and begin to write my name. Half conscious, I realize that I am signing a document of some kind. “What is this?” I ask.

“It’s nothing” said the officer. “It merely states that you are alright and that I can leave the scene."

“Oh” I said, rather confused. “Well” I pause “then, thank you again officer.”

“And sir?”

“Yes officer.”

“I suggest you take that wheelbarrow of yours and return home immediately.”

“Yes officer. Thank you, officer.”

“Anytime.” He said as he watched me pick up the wheelbarrow and begin to walk away. “Anytime.”

Canto IV

2009-10-17T13:53:00.001-05:00

Shaken but undaunted I made my way back up the street, glancing nervously over my shoulder several times to make sure I wasn’t being followed. I walked until I came back to the park, and then found a comfortable bench to sit down and reflect upon my progress so far.

What were the facts? I awoke this morning to discover that someone had broken into my garden shed and stolen a green wheelbarrow full of my homemade mulching fertilizer. To the average layperson this might have seemed a mere insult, but to someone who had labored with love over his garden, who had tinkered with different ingredients ranging from eggshells to bone meal and beer, and who had produced some of the most lovely plants and vegetables this neighborhood had ever seen, this was an affront.

I had been searching for my stolen property assuming the worst, that the thief or thieves had stolen my precious black compost and had merely dumped it out of spite or neglect at the first opportunity. But this was not turning out to be the case. A cursory search of the neighborhood had produced no evidence to support this theory. I was not unaware that I had yet to make a thorough search of every garbage can and dumpster in the vicinity, but was beginning to suspect that my first instincts were correct and that the culprit had targeted my garden treasure from the onset.

A thin telltale trail of manure had led me to this park once before, and it was here that I had decided to undertake my quest to find my possessions. But where was I to go from here? Surely the vandals had passed this way. But where had they gone?

I stood up and scanned the horizon. The tranquil houses became an impenetrable wall obfuscating my desire to lay sight on anything that might give me some sense of direction. I have but two choices. I begin a house-to-house search, or I continue to canvas the area in hopes of discovering more clues or the potential witness.

As I stood there I suddenly realized that the roads and streets were not the only avenue into this neighborhood. Of course! The bike trail. It was only a few blocks away and the thief would have undoubtedly passed this way to access it. Bending over I grabbed the handlebars of my Azarias brand red wheelbarrow and began to trek towards the bike path.

The bike trail was the brainchild of the municipal government and ran along a strip of land originally set aside for a series of power lines that cut through the city. It was thought that adding the trail would create a green zone. But the stark contrast between the cold industrial towers supporting thick grey cables and the tranquil domestic scene of couples pushing their strollers or walking their dogs along the path below was surreal.

The path from the park to the trail ran along the creek and emerged onto a street that separated the power corridor from the surrounding houses. Looking both ways I dashed across the street and as I angled my wheelbarrow past the yellow concrete barrier designed to keep motorists off the bike trail I imagine I got more than a few awkward stares from passing drivers.

Contrary to whatever image the name may summon, the bike trail was not home to bikes. For that matter there were no pedestrians, no dog walkers, no children chasing Frisbees. There was no one. Just a long grey slab of concrete that stretched out across the grass and vanished into the horizon.

Scratching my head, I looked first up and then down the trail hoping that some figure would suddenly burst into sight offering hope and the possibility of a witness. Realizing the futility of the situation I hiked up my wheelbarrow and began to trot along the downward grade of the trail heading back into the neighborhood.

The sun was getting higher in the sky and the weigh of my bathrobe seemed to be bearing down on me. Also, accustomed as I was to pushing my wheelbarrow, this was typically done in the confines of my yard and there over short distances. Needless to say the potent mixture of these three elements, sun, robe and physical exertion were beginning to wear on me and presently I began to feel the need for a rest.

I set myself down on a particularly bright patch of grass and used the sleeve of my robe to blot the sweat from my forehead. Weary as I was I began to think in earnest that I had made a mistake in choosing Azarias as my companion when my thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

“You alright buddy?”
I looked up into the silhouette of a biker. “I’m fine,” I said, standing.
“What’cha have that wheelbarrow for?”
“Nothing, I…” I looked over my interrogator. He was tall, in his mid fifties perhaps, and thin, to the point that you could see skin wrapped over tight muscles that hugged his skeleton. He was balding, wearing dated exercise shorts, the kind you might find in a thrift store. His bike was new. In good shape. You could tell he hadn’t ridden it much, and on the seat was taped an oversized red cushion. “What’s that?” I pointed at the cushion.
“My cushion? I have a low sperm count.” He said matter-of-factly in a way that made you think that red cushions were the solution to fertility problems the world over.
“Oh” I said, “I didn’t know they helped.”
“Didn’t either” said the man, “But Mama insisted, and I want to keep the ol’girl happy, if you know what I mean.”

He smirked and made a kind of half wink. I bared a smile as if to say, “yes, yes I do” but what I really meant was “No.”
“I was wondering if you’ve seen anyone else come this way with a wheelbarrow?”
“No. No thought it was a might odd you sitting here, but then I thought maybe you were stealing it from the construction site up the path.”
“Construction site?”
“Yeah, the Pavilion they call it, or something like that. It looks like a giant castle. It’s supposed to be some kind of mall, but I don’t think they’ve rented many spaces. Construction there is all but halted. It’s no business of mine if you did steal it mind you. But you should know these trails are patrolled and you might find yourself in a lot of hot water.”
“Thanks for the tip.” I said. “I’m actually looking for something someone stole in another wheelbarrow, thinking I might need mine to recover it.”

He looked at me rather pitifully. The same way I was probably looking at him. He didn’t seem to notice though and climbed back up on his bike. “Well you might try looking there. Lots of wheelbarrows and shovels there.”

“Thanks again” I said as he began to peddle away. The red cushion bulged out behind him. His torso rose and swayed over the mass causing the bike to lean and pitch from side to side making his departure both comical and mesmerizing

Chapter 3

2009-10-13T13:01:00.010-05:00

As I rolled Azarias drown the drive I felt a renewed sensation of anxiety wash over me. My head turned from side to side as I scanned both lawn and ditch for my precious cargo. Not knowing which way to go I made an arbitrary left and followed the curb downhill, as it was the easiest direction to push. Frustration mounted as I passed first one house and then the next in my futile search. At one point I even stopped at a nearby storm drain and bent down to peer into the inky blackness to no avail.

The search continued until I had made my way down the length of the hill. Ahead of me lay a small bridge that spanned the neighborhood creek. Approaching, I saw with horror in my mind’s eye the possibility that the thief had dumped the cargo into the shallow water below. If that were the case, the soft current almost certainly would have washed away the remaining traces by now. I leaned over the rail and gazed into the mirrored reflection of the water below. Is this the end of my search, I wondered?

My thoughts were interrupted by the distinct sound of coughing coming from under the bridge. Curious, I rolled Azarias into a clump of nearby bushes and made my way gingerly down the slope of the embankment. Standing at the water’s edge, I glanced cautiously back up the line I had descended making note of my path, then turned and looked into the darkness beneath the bridge.

“Is there anyone in there?” I asked, cautiously. My echo was greeted with silence. “Hello?” I said again more firmly. Still, if anyone was there they were not going to reveal their secrets easily. “Look, I know someone is down here. I heard you just now coughing.” The stretched out silences were perturbing. “God damn it, I want someone to answer me!” I shouted the frustration of the morning beginning to spill in fury.

“’God damn it’ you say? ‘You want’ you say? That is a fine way to call someone.”

I turned. Not three feet away from me was a man dressed in dirty brown clothes. Startled, I said “What did you say to me?”

“No matter” said the man, pushing past me with my wheelbarrow in hand.

“Wait, where did you get that?”

“Some fool pushed it into the bushes. It’s mine now.”

“No” I said matter-of-factly “it is not. It’s mine, and I will have it back.”

The old man turned and looked at me “You have some kind of fire in your belly to be shouting curses and telling strangers what’s yours and what’s theirs.”

“And you” I looked for some clever retort “have no business taking what isn’t yours.”

He looked at me rather pitifully, then shrugged his shoulders and dropped the wheelbarrow where it lay before walking into the darkness beneath the bridge. Stunned, I watched him take several steps before I realized that this man was a potential witness to my crime, and needed to be questioned further. “Hey, wait!” I shouted. “I want to ask you something!”

“Suit yourself” came the voice from the dark.

Numbly I walked forward, pausing momentarily at the line between light and shadow before passing under the bridge. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim. The old man was sitting on a small ledge of concrete busily piling small branches and twigs.

"I need to ask you a question." No response. "Look if you help me there could be a reward involved." Again, no response. I glanced uncomfortable at my feet only to realize I still had my house shoes on. "You see, I've lost something. Actually, it was stolen."

From somewhere in his pockets the man produced a small lighter. He bent over the pile of wood and attempted to light a small fire. The flint made a shower of sparks but produced no flame. Several quick successions of strikes produced the same result. "Impotent" the tramp said.

"I could help you" I offered producing a matchbook from my pocket. "But I need some information. You see someone has stolen my fertilizer."

Faster than lightning the man hopped up. "What did you say?"

"I said someone has stolen something from me, and I will help you..."

"Not that" he said eyeing me suspiciously "After. Did you say fertilizer?"

"I did."

At this the old man seems to go insane. He began to hop about muttering the most indecent obscenities I have ever heard. "And you, you little slut, think you can march in here and make accusations of me? Of me! How dare you come into my home and try to steal from me!"

"I don't think you understand" I stammered, I am not stealing from you, I was stolen from. I am the victim here."

"You? A victim? Don't make me laugh" he barked. "It is obvious you are here to steal my bucket." he pointed to a small tin pail by the side of the stream.

I knew immediately that I had made a mistake venturing to talk to this man. Clearly he was not playing with a full deck. Any minute now, I imagined, he would be upon me and I would have to defend myself. "Don't be absurd." I said, backing away. What have you got there? Nothing of value I bet. Probably just a bucket of fish heads."

There is absolutely no way to describe to you how stunned I was at his responce.

Who told you!" he raged advancing towards me with eyes blazing. "Who have you been talking to? That is my precious fertilizer. Mine! And no one can have it. Do you understand?"

I mean, how does someone guess someting like that? Your standing under a bridge talking with a crazy person and they say "what have I go in my bucket" what is the right anwer here? Your marbles?

I cursed my luck as I looked at him. "You can't be serious" I said bending down and picking up the closet rock I could find. "If that is fertilizer then I am a monkey's uncle."

Picking up the stone was poorly timed. My gesture of self defense was undoubtedly interpreted as one of attack. With a howl he launched himself at me. Instinctively I flinched and hurled the rock. Missing him the rock skidded across the pavement and into the bucket, knocking it into the water. The splash seemed to freeze time all around us. Then, a small bubble of fish entrails rose momentarily to the surface before being washed away by the current.

Turning on his heel the man seemed to forget about me and desperately chased after the the pale floating upside down in the creek. Without a moment’s hesitation I used this distraction to turn, and with one deft motion slammed into my wheelbarrow and used this motion to propel both I and it up the hill.

"No!" came the howl from below. Then all was silent.

Canto II

2009-10-07T12:41:00.004-05:00

It is no exaggeration to say that there is nothing I think I can’t do. My father would tell me as a child that I could earn a B average in basket weaving and particle physics. I like to think that my ability to apply myself equally well to whatever occupation calls comes from my prodigious intellect, but the truth is perhaps more that I lack a sense of modesty that would prevent others with less formal training from continually embarking into areas of which they have no knowledge.

What would I need in order to find what was stolen from me? One thought rose through the fog of questions and feelings. Clues, I needed clues. Isn’t that what every good detective starts with? I scanned the ground for incriminating evidence that I felt I was sure to find. A piece of cloth, a bit of hair, a crumpled business card would have been nice. But my search revealed nothing other than the damage evident to my property, the loss of my wheelbarrow, and a single tire track etched in the mud outside the garden gate.

With a mounting sense of frustration I followed the little specks of telltale earth down the drive and into the alley where they became more obscure and difficult to read. Eventually I discerned that the culprit had made his way towards a nearby park, but a thorough search of the park revealed neither more tracks or any further evidence that might be useful to my search. Deflated, I sat on the park swing and gently rocked back and forth dragging my heels though the gravel. The grating noise of the loose stone against my feet made a pleasant, albeit distracting sound, that lulled me into a state of restfulness.

Am I so easily defeated? Where had I gone wrong? Are the so-called professionals more suited because they have the most advanced technologies and training? Wouldn’t they do as I had done and comb the area for clues, canvas the neighborhood for witnesses, and make inquiries of the occasional passersby? Was I being too impatient? Giving up too quickly. Perhaps I needed to broaden my search and begin going door to door. Every thought seemed to offer both possibility and an equal probability of failure. Surely my neighbors had been asleep, or else they would have dialed 911, and no one could have been around to see anything, save the thief himself, and they weren’t bound to offer themselves up freely. So where had I gone wrong?

The answer presented itself so suddenly and with such a sense of profundity that it nearly rocketed me off of my seat. There is one thing that a detective has that I don’t, and it isn’t technology or training, it is something far simpler and more obvious. A detective has a partner.

Now let me just say at the onset, that I am not unaware that the casual outsider might at this point be looking upon my situation with a curious suspicion. “So you are going to chase after this guy who stole your…dirt?” They might say. My retort would be both simple and direct. To quote to poetess Sappho whatever one loves, is the best noblest thing in the world. If you were a stamp collector would you not love stamps? If you were a sports fan, would you not know with the greatest minutia the stats of every team, no, every player that walked the field? Then do not judge me too harshly, for while I can do many things I love my garden, and am passionately devoted to it. This theft is no less a desecration on my love than the fires that swept the great library of Alexandria would be to a bibliophile.

So where would my partner come from, who would this guide be; my Hermes, My Gabriel, my Sancho Panza? This would take some deliberation and even as I was pondering this thought another occurred to me: What if I am mistaken and in my assumption that the thief was after my fertilizer? What if he or she was a mere brigand of opportunity and simply stole what appeared to be the most valuable tool in the shed? In that case the thief may have not been interested in my fertilizer at all.

Could it have been hubris to assume the thief was after my precious mixture? My mind buzzed with incredulity. Could they have instead only been interested in the wheelbarrow itself? In that case why would they have not simply dumped the cargo and made off with the tool? Perhaps my early morning rise had somehow tipped the burglar’s hand and forced a hasty departure. That would account for the scrapes and marks left in their wake. But if that were the case, where would my fertilizer, my black alchemist’s gold be now?

These two near simultaneous thoughts collided in my mind in the most strange and unpredictable way. With a flash of insight I knew who my guide and companion would be. I hurried back to the house with a newfound sense of urgency. I climbed the steep slope of the drive and pushed my way though the garden gate.

Some guides are chosen others are thrust upon us. Of those that are chosen there are fewer in life, perhaps because it is difficult to ask for help, or perhaps because I am reticent to allow just anyone into the circle of trust. Of those that are thrust upon us we are seldom grateful. They are our parents, teachers, camp counselors, yoga instructors and the like. They come into our lives of necessity and usually depart without great fanfare, only to be appreciated later, though the lens of memory. But there is a third group of companions, born neither of necessity nor choice but some queer marriage of the two. Those guides come to us in moments of sheer desperation. Neither expected nor entirely welcome, they seem to possess the uncanny ability to cut though veil of our ignorance and reveal life in some new and altogether unexpected way.

Cutting across the path I made my way directly to the shed. I hadn’t yet repaired the door from this mornings vandalism and merely pushed it aside. In the grey interior I could make out the contents within. Buckets of seed and tackle, tools of various shape and size, a rake, a how, a shovel, and of course the red wheelbarrow.

The wheelbarrow itself was not immediately visible, rather its two yellow handles stuck out from beneath a heavy canvas tarp that had originally covered both wheelbarrows. Dutifully I removed the tarp, shook it gently, folded it and set is aside.

Grasping the two grips I pulled the slumbering wagon from its rest through the shed doors and out into the sunlight. Looking down I could see the manufacturers name and logo stamped into the center of the basin: Azarias Industries Inc. I have for years joked that this was my shepherd, the guardian of all the tools I used to prune and sculpt my various plants. This would ever be the partner I would need, faithful, fleet, and sure. I rolled the cart down the path, through the gate, and onto the drive beyond. I had yet to canvas the entire neighborhood, and on the of chance that the perpetrator had unloaded my precious cargo into some neighbors lawn or gully, Azarias and I would most certainly be ready to recover my stolen treasure.

Chapter One

2009-10-05T17:01:00.002-05:00

I awoke in the night, as if from a dream, where everything around me was strange and unfamiliar. It was as if the world had grown stiff and course in my slumber or perhaps refreshed I was only now seeing it for the first time.

Tossing the sheets to one side I rose and walked to the sliding glass door that over looked the garden. Staring into the grey for a brief moment I could recall a part of my dream, a mere sliver of some much larger tale of which I had no recollection. I was lying in a kind of wheelchair. I had no use of limbs or faculties, and my eyes bulged in my sockets like great watery orbs. Without, I was a vegetable, but within I was capable of such great imaginings that light of the world paled in comparison.

I stared into the garden again. The dream had all but faded. I flicked the lock, slid the door open, and walked out onto the brick terrace. The cool stone felt refreshing against my bare feet. Almost at once I stepped on a nettle. Wincing with pain, I bent over and pulled the thorn from my sole. Cursing my luck I threw the barb into a nearby bush and slid my feet comfortably into the gardening shoes I had discarded nearby the night before.

Armed with a newfound sense of confidence, I strode out into the lawn and surveyed the wonder of creation. I took pride in my garden. Each part neatly manicured with confidence and precision. It was important to me that nearly every part of my garden was edible, chives and rosemary, quince and blueberry. The whole layered spaciously to look slightly wild and unkempt but with an order all its own that made the gazing at it so much the richer.

I kept my tools in the shed along with two wheelbarrows. One red for collecting cuttings, weeds and debris, and the other green for fertilizer; an organic mulch made of compost, mulched leaves and cow waste. This was my favorite tool and I would spend my hours endlessly winding along the garden path sprinkling my mulch in the various beds of flowers and shrubbery, turning the soil into an alchemist’s black gold.

As my early morning walk through the yard progressed I found myself nearing the shed when I noticed something was not right. The shed door, which should have been tightly shut and locked was stilling slightly ajar. The right door had come off its track and was sitting wedged between the earth and the frame at a disquieting angle.

Quickly I walked over to inspect the situation. As I drew closer I could smell the sweet earthy scent that emanated from within. Peering into the darkness I could see my tools in disarray. For a moment I imagined some wild animal burrowing its way between the doors and disheveling the contents within, but as my eyes leveled on the vacant spot where my green wheelbarrow should have been I knew that I had been robbed.

My foot moved back, almost in impulse, as I hesitated. Was the thief still here? No, that is nonsense, the wheelbarrow is gone, and the thief has taken it and departed.

I turned and scanned the yard. This time, ignoring the vines and the flowers, looking instead for the telltale signs of intrusion. A wheelbarrow full of dirt is not an easy item to simply scamper over the fence with. There must be some other signs of entry. I hastened to the gate, and found it closed, but by narrowing my eyes I could see a slight scrape in the paint indicating that the thief had passed this way. I opened the door and looked beyond. There was nothing. Only the still of the morning, the slight rushing of the breeze against my face, my wheelbarrow was gone. “Gone” I croaked with utter despair “Gone.”

As I walked back to the house my mind was filled with conflicting images. On the one was the thief, executing with midnight bravado the daring theft. On the other me, patiently explaining to the patrolman the value of my precious mulch.

“Dirt?” he asked questioningly.
“A special blend of organic fertilizer” I replied. “It is the secret of my garden’s success. Everyone knows this. It was highly prized.”
“This” he said, searching for the term “dirt?”
“Yes” I said patiently.
“An when you say ‘Everyone’ whom do you mean exactly?”
“Oh, well, the neighborhood, I suppose, and my church group. Don’t be fooled there is more than one or two grandmothers that would like to have gotten their hands on my mulch.”
“A grandmother” he said, then paused and continued “wheeled a truck load of dirt across the garden, unlatched the gate and then sauntered down the alley with cargo in hand without so much as breaking a sweat?”
“Of course not” I said indignantly “there could have been accomplices. Look isn’t there supposed to be a detective or some such person here to take this information down.”
“Oh I’ll be making a report,” he said “don’t you worry. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up. These things aren’t usually resolved as quickly as you might hope.”

He looked me in the eye and I knew at once what he meant. No one was going to investigate a stolen wheelbarrow. There would be no crime dogs, no team of forensic investigators to document tire tracks and fingerprints. Mine was not a high priority case and would, in all likelihood be brushed aside and forgotten, dismissed as a teenage prank or as a simple case of vandalism.

Weary and broken, by this imagined conversation I turned and trudged back into the yard and stared down at the latch on the gate. How can so small a thing make the difference between serenity and insanity? Why had I not given locking the gate the same precious care that I had given concocting my fertilizer? Leaning against the fence post I rubbed my fingers deep into the corners of my eyes.

I stand there motionless, like some caricature of myself. I want to weep, but feel to tired, too emotionally drained. I want to shout, to rage against the injustice of the smirking police officer, against the thief, against the world, but none of it seems to matter enough to muster even the most inaudible groan. I feel lost. The mechanisms I had grown to trust, friends, neighbors, even civic law enforcement, had let me down. The paths that I had trusted would not be the ones that would lead me away from this place.

From this paralyzed pose I suddenly had a lucid, singularly inspired thought that had not occurred to me before. What if I track down the thief? My hand clenched and unclenched spasmodically. Could I do it? Would there be any danger? What would be the cost? This thought made me pause for a moment before I settled on the cost of getting my wheelbarrow back, I decided. But would it be intact. Would my mulch still be there? It seemed impossible to know. Night was departing and dawn was rushing forward. “I must do this,” I said, standing. “I must.” I launched myself forward towards the gate and the drive beyond. “If only to put an end to the unknowing.”

plumbing is a messy business

2009-09-29T11:07:00.001-05:00

I’m not really much of a plumber. I guess you could say I know enough to be dangerous. I’ve soldered a few copper pipes together, installed a disposal in the kitchen sink, and repaired or replaced a few leaky faucets. So when the guest bedroom toilet backed up and sewage came up out of the shower drain I thought, “I guess I’d better snake it.”

Standing in Home Depot, surveying the different brands of drain augers, a sales employee approached me and said “you need any help?” I described the problem and he said “You are looking at the wrong tool. You need to rent a bigger auger.”

I decided not to listen and took my chances with the fifteen dollar solution, but when that didn’t seem to get my anywhere I headed back to home depot armed with the knowledge that I needed something bigger.

My experience with the clerk behind the rental desk was an entirely different exchange. He took one look at me and my auger and said plainly “You need a plumber.” Taken back I asked him what he was talking about and with annoying alliteration he said “You need a plumber.”

Chagrined, I asked him why Home Depot would rent the equipment if there wasn’t an outside chance that the average layperson couldn’t accomplish what the seasoned plumber could do? His response was pretty much “YOU need a plumber.”

It’s funny but I knew, at that point that he was probably right. I listened to his advice with good cheer when he spoke of my choices between going through the toilet or an outside vent and when I left I muttered “thanks for the vote of confidence.” At home I took one look at the toilet and knew that it was an all day if not all week job and felt totally deflated. I paused for a moment and wondered how I would even begin finding the outside vent, fought back a sea of emotions ranging from helplessness to despair and humiliation. Then tucked my tail between my legs and went to J. and said “we need a plumber.”

The next morning I overheard J. and the plumber talking. I could barely look at him. I heard him say in a clear voice “I am going to need to go through the outside vent. That will be an extra two hundred dollars.” My heart sank. J. left for the store and I sat on the couch numbly watching a show on ancient Egypt. What did Egyptians know about plumbing? They just peed in the sand. Afterwards I went outside to survey the plumber’s work. He was climbing down a ladder with the exact same model auger I had rented the previous morning. “I could have done this” I thought. I gave up too easily.

When I was fourteen I was challenged to an arm wrestling contest by a larger boy. We sat arm in arm struggling for what felt like an eternity. I remember to this day the conscious decision I made to give up. Not because it was momentous, but because of what the other boy said right after “Man I am glad that is over, I couldn’t have gone another second.” I remember it now because in my memory it sounds a lot like “You need a plumber.”

I was sending some Rumi passages to a friend the other night when I came upon one that feels a lot like how I feel right now.

No intellect denies that you are,
But no one give in completely to that.
This is not a place where you are not,
yet not a place where you are seen.

I know neither the boy nor the Home Depot clerk defeated me. Instead of focusing on them and my feelings, I remind myself that none of this really matters. No one will remember this day, except for possibly me. True, I don’t like feeling like I can’t do something, and I like it a lot less when it is me that tells myself “I can’t do this.”

It helps even more to remember that this isn’t a zen thing, nor is it an exercise in humility or grace, well maybe it is, but for me it is more a recognition of my own imperfection. I want to think that my problems come from without, or that if they come from within, spiritual guidance will solve these problems. But really it is just me being human, and trying later to be kind to myself that sometimes I make a call that isn’t right or isn’t perfect, and that it doesn’t matter, and I can go on with my day, and what is more important, that I can use the toilet again.

secrets in the dark

2009-09-26T22:48:00.001-05:00

I was hanging out with a few friends the other night when one of them said “Now I know your tongue gets a little loose when you’ve been drinking, but I don’t want you to repeat this.”

I think my first reaction was to feel a little hurt, followed by the realization that yes I liked to “share” but that this was only done in moderation and then only when I was certain I was safe, followed only later but the self introspective thought of “what is ok to share and what isn’t?”

I’m going to tell you another story.

D. reminded me, however casually as we were driving down the road, that she knew that I was prone to semi-suicidal thoughts and that this was no time for such self indulgent thinking.

As you absorb that one I have to tell you I cannot for the life of me (no pun intended) remember what we were talking about or why she would have said this. But I was so stricken by the fact that my eleven-year-old daughter knew this very intimate and powerful detail about my psyche that I nearly drove into the curb.

You know, I don’t think I keep secrets very well.

I used to like to “play” at revealing secrets; that is I would pretend to be ignorant of the fact that I was revealing something about Christmas or a Birthday and then take a secret glee in the reaction. “Oh Patrick! Can’t you keep a secret?” For some reason Unknown to me, I used to think this was terribly humorous. And while I do not think it is funny anymore, it lead me to think that people thought I couldn’t keep a secret because I had conditioned them to believe it so.

But the more I think about this. I begin to wonder.

Let me ask myself this question and see what happens: Do I keep secrets.

Yes.

How do I know? Ask another question.

Are there things I would never tell anyone? You bet’cha.

But then if this is the case, why do I raise the question at all? Is the question rather can I be trusted?

I don’t think it is because I know that I can. Loyalty is very important to me and I am very loyal and would take your secret to the proverbial grave if need be.

I don’t, however, feel particularly secretive about things in my own life. And maybe that is where the incongruity begins to seep in. Because I will freely tell you about MYSELF things that I would never repeat if they were about you.

I am not an exhibitionist. I don’t know what I gain from this, but I don’t mind being vulnerable if I think it will strengthen the relationship or if I think someone can be aided by my own experience strength and hope, especially when it comes to being human and making human mistakes. I am an expert here. That and, if you know me at all you will know that I love to laugh, and laughing at my own mistakes is joyous!

That makes me think too that I am a bit lousy at keeping secrets that are themselves joyous hence the Christmas, birthday, expectant baby kind of secret breaking.

I asked J. if she thought I was a good secret keeper and she said politely “I think it is an area that you struggle with” and then went on to say that when it were spelled out in no uncertain terms “Do not share this” that she knew me to be the kind of person that wouldn’t say a word.

The thing for me, that I struggle with, as my wife so adroitly puts it is that I like to process my experiences and have a hard time setting boundaries with others, so when other people have expectations about their own boundaries that are different than mine, I find difficulty.

(I find myself holding my head between my hands in shame thinking “I am a terrible secret keeper” as if to say “I am a terrible friend” or “I am a leper”)

I keep thinking about this when the solution is right there. I need to clearly define what needs to be “secretive” with others when those situations occur. Because the real shame is not that I might be a poor secret keeper. The real shame is that I might break a friend’s trust. And that is something I do not ever want to do.

Still the notion that I am a flibbertigibbet nags on my conscience and is unsettling to me, and I suspect it will for sometime. I think the question I need to resolve for myself is: Is this a character defect? And right now I don’t think I have the answer to that question. SO I resolve to wait and see, to be a better friend and… as a dear friend recently told me “never miss an opportunity to shut the hell up” even though he was talking about his own excessive know-it-all-ism and not secrets, the similarities are striking.

Crazy

2009-09-24T22:43:00.003-05:00

Editor's note: Crazy, written by Willie Nelson and sung by Patsy Cline, is the song I used to rock my children to sleep with

What do you do with your spare time? Anymore “spare time” is time driving from point A to point B, and so my quality time is time spent in the car. Still, I shouldn’t complain, because my drive time isn’t loaded with kids as I am mostly driving to work or driving to school, whereas my darling wife is driving to the kid’s school or is working on the kid’s problems.

I should be honest. I can really enjoy my drive to school. But most of that is my Ipod, and most of that is remembering to plug it in, charge it and getting the latest podcasts. Otherwise I am stuck with two and a half hours of yours truly, and that is, well, tedious. (At this point I should probably do an Oscar-like thank you to those of you who have spent serious time in the car with me) It can be an emotional experience. I don’t passenger well. Usually I get car-sick. I am prone to flights of fancy, or flights of fantasy. I can be joyful, bitter, soulful and annoying. I am highly critical of your driving, and I hate talk radio.

Let us pause here.

Talk radio is, well, horrible.

I hate it.

I hate Diane Rehm, though I listen to her constantly.
I listen.
I listen until the callers call in.
I can’t listen to the callers.
I can’t listen to the vitriol.
Can you?

The Republican Party is so…
(I like this)
(I hate this)
I turn off the radio.
I drive
I turn on the radio
I listen
The Democratic representative believes…
(I like this)
(I hate this)
The show continues…

I cannot stand the vitriol.
It makes me angry.
I do not want to be angry.
(I blame the radio.)

At this point if you were to stick your fingers in your ears and whimper “Na Na, Na Na Na Na” you would get the idea.

I hate vitriol.
I hate conservative god fearing republicanism.
I hate my slavish dogmatic loyalty to the other side.
I hate this.
I hate this.

I hate this.

How did I end up here?

Isn’t that the question I ask myself most often?

How did I end up here?

Is it the radio? The kids? The faculty? The insane look I get from people I think understand me?

Am I crazy? Or is “crazy” a word I made up to make sense of my misunderstanding of the world?

That’s crazy.

I read somewhere that acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today.

O.K. I accept that I cannot change the what people on talk radio believe. I can only change the way I react to it.

O.K. While I am waiting for that to happen, I turn off the radio.

The Birds of Appetite

2009-09-23T10:30:00.001-05:00

Notes from Merton’s Zen and the Birds of Appetite

We imagine two systems: Christianity and Zen. The first is language, the other anti-language; a radical reversal of philosophical logic. While diametrically opposed, these systems can interact with one another, to prepare the way for one another, and can be defined as the relation of objective doctrine to subjective metaphysical experience.

Because Language is rational, ordered, and logical, the nature of objective doctrine must be reducible to some form that can be shared, and is therefore easily recordable in a set of symbols that are easily accessible to others. Anti-language, or the metaphysical experience, on the other hand, resolutely resists any temptation to be easily communicable or conform easily to comforting symbols, and is acceptable on the basis of its absolute singularity. That it is un-communicable is only resolved in an awareness that it is potentially already there but is not conscious of itself, an awareness of being in the here and now in the midst of the world.

End of Notes

I woke up this morning or at least re-awoke this morning with the idea of writing a book in which the characters were resolved in creating two different systems which, while opposed to one another, could be used to define both past and future events, something akin to Asimov’s “psychohistory”. One of the systems I decided would be based on Dante’s Inferno, while the other would be what? I thought about this for a moment and then spied Zen and the Birds of Appetite lying on the counter. I flipped it open and found the description of my “world” lying right there on the page in front of me. Merton was describing the difference between the Christian and Zen Experience. Reading these pages I began to form the idea that my so called “world” already existed, and that rather than independent of one another, Zen and Christianity might be thought of as opposites that came into being because of one another, trying to balance one another out.

It occurs to me that I should 1)not have gone back to bed and 2)Not have done any heavy thinking before my pot of morning coffee.

what we must

2009-09-21T19:11:00.011-05:00

Here’s the thing. What if nobody read my blog? Would I blog? The answer to that seems fairly self contained as I am relatively sure that there are only a handful of faithful readers, and only a few of those who can cut through the preponderance of B.S. that lurks in every writing to find themselves reading on a regular basis. but then:

I am not a writer.

I can’t even tell you why I blog or what my blog is about even though this fact in itself may be why only a devoted few will ever keep coming to the blog in the first place, but then, while I have felt the desire to attract readers and occasionally will yield to the temptation to publish something heartwarming or gritty, most of the time, my blog is just about all of the crazy s**t that is floating around in my brain, and a somewhat half hearted attempt to occasionally be analytical about my own self analysis.

Not that you can trust any of this. I am not an analyst. But I do believe that we need to listen to ourselves, to our thoughts and to our dreams. Especially to our dreams as dreams are just parts of our own self talking with one another. That being said:

I don’t dream about dating my sister (which she will be glad to read because I know she is one of the half dozen or so that does keep reading) but I did dream about smoking a cigar last night, or at least SUCKING on one like some G.I. gung-ho sergeant from any of a dozen war movies. In fact the dreams have been powerful lately and when my sister was here the other day I recounted a dream to her early in the morning in which I was arrested tried and nearly convicted for rape, theft, and drunk driving. The dream really got out of control when the jury of my peers ended up being my siblings who materialized out of the columns and absolved me of my sins just before the dream wrapped itself up like a day time soap opera when the whole thing became a dream within a dream.

Blogging isn’t always all it is cracked up to be. Neither is dreaming or painting or any of a myriad of other activities, but then, really, nothing ever is. It just is what it is. Our job is to get used to this fact while occasionally adding rhetoric or poetry or something. That I can do. But usually it is at the expense of common sense.

A close friend recently told me that he was probably going to stop blogging soon, if he hasn’t already because he felt his readership was compromised. I felt perfectly at home in this conversation because he was quoting me when he made the decision to turn the machine off. So many friends these days have dropped off the blogging bandwagon, either because of personal problems, time constraints, or that blogging just isn’t what I thought it was going to be.

Gradually anyone who puts him or herself out there begins to realize that the things that we say have a way of coming home to us. But this is true whether we are blogging or walking through the halls at work or in the grocery store. There is an inverse relationship between the closeness of the people we make idle comments to and how quickly those comments find their way back.

The choice here isn’t what do I say or not say on facebook or in my blog or in twitter or in any of a dozen other outlets. The choice is of choice. How much do I risk. We start out thinking we can risk it all and gradually pare down the list until we think “this is all I have” and “this is not enough” and rather than admit the futility of the whole thing we just walk away. But really the fault isn’t in how we risk ourselves it is in the what. I see this choice as a flower. Choose this. Choose some aspect of yourself. Start small and let it grow. Risk this and watch it bloom. Watch it develop. See where this thought can lead and everything else is, well, personal or sacred, then the choice isn’t about what needs to be cut away, but what else can be added. Otherwise, nothing is risked and nothing is ventured, and so, as they say, nothing is gained.

So I persist, even though I am sure to get a phone call from my sister, and my analyst (if I had one) I wander through the ah ha-halls of my imagination, tugging on the strings of arrant thoughts that seems to sometimes blossom, other times whither and mostly come up from the soil so easily because they were never really as fully developed as I had imagined them to be. They never bloomed. But that this, as my friend Chauncey Gardener might have said, is how the garden is tended. This is how stronger roots are made. We clear out the old growth, the over growth, the neighbors competing for resources and the weeds that were never meant to be there in the first place. We keep writing because adding poetry and meaning to life’s little biscuits is what we do.

“Dude. What is up with your Blog?”
“Why.”
“You, um, had a hard week.”

And another said “well, you seem to have had better days.”

To which I say “Yes, but when I stop blogging, painting, or otherwise creating, that is when you really need to start worrying.”

work and play

2009-09-21T08:45:00.003-05:00

There is nothing wrong with guilty pleasures.
There is nothing wrong with guilty pleasures.
There is nothing wrong with guilty pleasures.

The coffee gurgles as I log in to facebook, update my pithy morning comments on the status line, make a quick check that the baby isn’t choking on a piece of cardboard, and dash off to the restroom for a the morning “constitutional.” Some things feel like habit. Other things feel like guilty pleasures. When the boundary of understanding between the two begins to dissolve, then I am spiraling into excess.

Back at the computer I sip on the coffee and peruse a Times article on Jung’s “Red Book” and find myself half fantasizing half imagining Jung as alternately mad man and Buddha, the Red Book a blend of the “Celestine Prophecies” and the Holy Grail. Is this fantasizing just me being self-indulgent? I scan my thoughts and decide “No” instead the author of the article has done his work. I am a believer. I have been swayed.

Why am I so concerned with the self-indulgent/over-indulgence? The answer rises from the gut. Everything seems so crazy right now: School, Work, New Home, Old Home, Life. I am fearful of self medicating. Of letting my guilty pleasures become full on distractions that keep me from feeling the reality of the moment. There is nothing wrong with a face book status line that makes me chuckle. Nothing wrong with a sliver of chocolate or even the whole damn bar washed down with a beer. It is when I do these things at the expense of everything else that I know I have disappeared down the rabbit hole. I am in la-la land.

I want to play.

G. and S. have taken to locking themselves in their room for long hours playing Polly pockets and Barbie’s. Play for children is essential. It is the rehearsal for adulthood. Play for adults is good too. The micro-vacation of the mind that allows us to get back on that horse where “horse” is a cubicle or a factory job or long hours pent up at home with small children, or the frustration of no job and no home. I want to play, I just don’t want to play all of the time.

Sometimes work feels like play, especially as I am struggling to turn my passion into my job. How to make money and surviving doing something you love? That is the question, isn’t it? But even then, work can feel work. I mean, its work, isn’t it. It isn’t play. Its just that, when you make play work, the temptation is to make play into everything, and that just doesn’t work.

Libertine Buzzkill

2009-09-14T08:16:00.003-05:00

“Be careful Anais, abnormal pleasures kill the taste for normal ones.” -Henry and June (1990)

I like to think that embody the idea of "moderation even in moderation" but truthfully this is not how my personality works. Given a taste of excess, I find myself becoming overindulgent, an ever widening sphere of excesses, till excess is normal and normal is a distant memory.

Or do I?

Because I know that I can easily become exhausted by excess and yearn for greater and greater degrees of moderation and temperance.

It is as if the body has an internal clock of sorts that says "party's over." We know the internal clock that wakes us at 6:45, but is there one that says "your too heavy" or "your eating too much crap or drinking too much wine or your staying up too late."

Except that my clock is no Big Ben and I do not run on GMT. Normal can be all over the place for me and there is no one standard that I "return to."

The body has an internal roller coaster might be a better metaphor.

Perhaps the problem is that I don't live by a schedule.

The moderate need schedules. Not too much of this, just enough of that. Everything measured and in its measure.

I don't live that way, so do the rules of moderate or immoderate apply?

What would I do with moderation? Or is moderate just another way of saying "standard operating procedure." In which case one man's excess in another man's moderation. Is it all subjective or can these disparate lifestyles be reconciled?

this moment, now... no, now...

2009-09-13T08:14:00.002-05:00

So my new mantra is “getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

No small task.

I am so familiar with processing feelings in my head that it is almost impossible to put them anywhere else. The other day I was able to at least recognize that I needed a time-out, but whether or not I really got comfortable with my feelings is another subject all together. By nighttime I had fallen into my old patterns of “dialoging” my problems: feelings become personified by familiar faces and I begin to talk to them, often time reenacting the moments that lead up to the painful experience. Frustration becomes Professor no.1, anger become professor no.2. I have done this numerous times, and I have become very efficient at it.

I tried to find the link to the post where I first discovered that my brain isn’t trying to kill me and that this dialoging is actually just different parts of me trying to work through tough experiences, but to no avail. It was a really important lesson for me because it helped me to view people more compassionately. (I am not arguing with professor no. 1. Professor no. 1 is not here. I am arguing with myself.) However, this did not cause the behavior to subside, rather it merely rechanneled this thinking in a new direction.

D. and I had one of our blow-out explosive confrontations the other night. Later as J. and I were processing the episode she said “I think you were really angry.”
“When? With D.?”
“No before that. When you were unpacking in the kitchen. I heard you muttering to yourself. I think you were talking with your professors, and you were really angry.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“I think you were so zoned out that you didn’t even realize how angry you were.”
I thought about this for a minute. I knew I was there, talking to them in the kitchen. Having one of my delightful instant replays. Was I angry? Damn right I was. Oh my God, I thought, I took that right into my talk with D. I felt like such an idiot. That little girl never stood a chance with me,

Walking through the grocery store yesterday I could feel the impatience. “Idiot” I thought of the man who was blocking the aisle with his cart. “Moron,” came my thoughts of the woman walking slowly in front of me. “Give me a break” came from staring at the old couple that was meandering about, not really buying as much as looking. When I think about how judgmental I was I feel dirty and I want to go and take a shower. Judgment is the greatest of all sins in my book. Perhaps second is indulging in it, relishing the sense of superiority it brings, and worse, pretending that those feelings of frustration are “being in the moment.”

I am making headway here. I am beginning to see again how my moments are manufactured. How the “now” I am living is not really the “now” that I am in. Another way of saying this is. I’m not living in the moment, because I am too busy judging it, or analyzing it, or processing it. Do you see what I mean by this? Regardless, I am not going to be too hard on myself about this. It may not be who I want to be, but today it is who I am. Acceptance is the first step to change.

Doorways

2009-09-11T11:28:00.002-05:00

Often my life seems to mirror the lament penned by T. S. Eliot “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.”

Sometimes we are given the opportunity to say exactly what we mean. (only to have it fall on deaf ears)

I wonder. (who is deaf)

Today I was given the chance to present work that I done in the last six months.

“Amaturish”

“Formulaic”

“Unrefined”

It was a hard, grueling experience, which, to my credit, I weathered pretty well. I fought down the urge to “defend” and tried to keep the tone “conversational.” But the end, I felt sick. I felt like crying. I felt angry and mostly I felt misunderstood. “I’m not going to drive home right away” I later told J. on the phone. “I think I am going to give myself some time. I think I am going to let it be a hard, grueling experience, and not try to chase that away. Getting in my car right now would be like locking me up in a sensory deprevation chamber and watching my sanity slowly melt away.”

Some moments are hard. Wisdom can teach us to stear clear of them. Experience can teach us to prepare for them. But nothing makes the hard go away. Nothing takes the sting out of the of the hornet. Acceptance tells me that. Accepting how I am right now makes being who I am right now palletable. Not that it is enjoyable. I am going to get real comfortable with this 'being uncomfortable.' I am going to allow myself to feel this.

I tend to think that if something is wrong I can fix it and it will be right. This is god-like thinking, and I am not God. Some situations cannot be fixed. Some deaths cannot be avoided. Some expereinces just have to be felt, and in feeling them I am myself. Truly. Wholly. Honestly.

This is a doorway. I am going to walk through. There may be another side, or there may be nothing. I do not concern myself with these choices. Today I am going to work on just walking through.

three quotes

2009-09-04T18:11:00.001-05:00

I. In Zen Enlightenment, the discovery of the “original face before you were born” is the discovery not that one sees Buddha but that one is Buddha and that Buddha is not what the images in the temple had led one to expect: for there is no longer an image and consequently nothing to see no one to see it and a void in which no image is even conceivable. “The true seeing” said Shen Hui, “is when there is no seeing.” -Thomas Merton

II. The immortals know no care, yet the lot they spin for man is full of sorrow; on the floor of Zeus' palace there stand two urns, the one filled with evil gifts, and the other with good ones. He for whom Zeus the lord of thunder mixes the gifts he sends, will meet now with good and now with evil fortune; but he to whom Zeus sends none but evil gifts will be pointed at by the finger of scorn, the hand of famine will pursue him to the ends of the world, and he will go up and down the face of the earth, respected neither by gods nor men. –Homer

III. When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,
it easily forgets her
and starts eating solid food.

Seeds feed awhile on ground,
then lift up into the sun.

So you should taste the filtered light
and work your way toward wisdom
with no personal covering.

That's how you came here, like a star
without a name. Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights. –Rumi

cloudy with a chance of muse

2009-09-01T00:05:00.006-05:00

Dear reader, I know that so many of my blog post don’t make any sense but then again, they really aren’t supposed to make any sense to anyone but myself and even I have a hard time rereading a few of them. One upset someone close to me the other day and my first thought was, "this is my life, my thoughts, what do I have to be sorry about?" Except that this kind of thinking feels so conceited and selfish that it is hard to hold on to, and I end up feeling like I ought to make a better apology... Incidentally the one I made was something like “I’m not sorry I said it, I’m just sorry you got hurt” and right away I knew that this apology was way crappy and that I needed to go back to the drawing board, but then so much of what I say and do is like this that the drawing board is full most of the time and I think "forget it, I’ll get back to it later."

J. sometimes says, half jokingly, that I lack in internal auditor, and maybe this is true, but most of the time I feel that the auditor is so busy dealing with yesterdays business that today’s doesn’t stand a chance. It's like one of those horrible New York Times articles that has some poor beleaguered S.O.B. sitting behind a desk with his out box empty and his in box full and the caption reads “I’ll get to that tomorrow” except that I don’t want to get to it tomorrow, not when it is important, and, after all, isn’t right now important? Isn’t why my inbox is so full and my outbox so empty because I have been neglecting this moment for so long. What is happening to me right now?

(Crickets chirping)

What is my emotional-self saying right now? I mean, other than, “I’m tired” and “why won’t you just let me go to sleep?”

“Pipe down!” I say.

J. and I got into an argument today. Apparently neither one of us was listening to the other. Or, at least, I was so busy trying to find an emotional center that I found it almost impossible to concentrate on anything else, and the things that I was able to concentrate on didn’t sound like anything that I was talking about. In retrospect I think we were both working really hard on a solution and were impatient with the other. I know when I get impatient people tell me I look angry. It is hard to look composed when you are disagreeing. It takes skill. I haven’t got that skill. I feel all befuddled. Nothing makes sense. Part of me wants to run, the other part wants to dig in his heels. Nothing is accomplished here.

Someone recently told me that their blog was compromised by it readership. OMG! Yes! Yes! Yes! I know exactly what you mean. I mean, we want readers, but then when we have invited our friends, family, co-workers, the occasional student, and an internet full of strangers into our house that is our brain, how it is not compromised? It is all compromised. Still, can I say “Dude. I know where you are coming from but you are driving me crazy.” Or do I just let it lie?

(Pause)

So here is the thing. I know where my emotional-self is and most of the time it lives in the question, “Am I a failure?” Now before you rush to judgment or rush to type the heart warming comments to the contrary, you should know that a fear of failure is a huge motivator for me. It gets me out of bed, it usually pays the bills, it forces those half baked apologies from me, and usually allows for more heart felt ones, it makes me paint, it helps me teach, it drives me to read and to the grocery store and most of the time it keeps me alive.

Not that this is any way to live. It is not a philosophy I recommend.

“No shit” says the casual reader. But I tell you, it is a thought as addictive as any drug, as powerful as any emotion, it will not let you sleep, not let you settle, not let you doubt, though doubt you will, and all the time until you find some type of closure.

Some might think I am being sorry for myself, but I don't feel that way at all. In fact, I am really rather amused at the way in which my mind (which as it turns out isn't trying to kill me at all) has somehow managed to turn this blaring character defect into an asset. As sort of internal "try, try again." You might even say I am channeling my inner Holden Caulfield.

I stand before the canvas, the canvas yawns back at me. It’s bored. It wants amusement. It waggers a stiletto knife at me and taunts “is that all you have? Why don’t you give me your wallet and we’ll call it even. “ I recoil. My palms are sweaty. I don’t fear death. I fear ignobility. The hand wavers. The knife slackens. I reach out making a furtive gesture to wave him off but my hand makes contact with the blade and it snaps in two. I am terrified. My assailant doesn’t know what to do. On the one hand I should die, on the other I have to upper hand. The knife is broken. He sees into my eyes, and knows my terror. “I’ll let you off this time, but just until we meet again. Then you are mine!” As he leaves I bend down and pick up the broken blade and push it into the palm till it draws blood. I wonder, what was I afraid of, and in the same moment, know, with a dread certainty, that I will be afraid again.

four

2009-08-29T21:40:00.006-05:00

Little Elle can climb. Little S. can tumble. G. can run and scream and put the fear of god in you and D. swims like a shark.

(sigh)

It drives me crazy when I tell people I have four daughters and they look at me like I am some poor dumb guy who doesn't stand a chance.

They repeat after me: “Four?”

I hate it when they say “four.”

Four.

Foooooouuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Seriously, it makes me crazy and I wish they would stop the parroting. "Yes, I have four daughters. Why? Is it written somewhere that having four girls is bad?"

Seriously. I want to punch them. I mean what are they saying anyway?

I also hear this one a lot: “Four daughter is a lot of work.”

?????????????

My favorite responce to this is a line a friend of mine gave me: "You go from man to man to a zone defense."

It is better than the cynical, derisive comments that I want to say:

“You poor stupid bastards, you don’t have daughters, do you?”

Daughters are awesome. I wish I had twenty and I am so, so, so glad I had four.

They make me laugh, they make me cry, and most of all, they make me glad.

There was a time when I loved three… but four is the magic number.

reverence for

2009-08-23T23:14:00.006-05:00

Listen! Listen! The king is in the counting house, counting out, counting out. The king is in the counting house, counting all the money. One. Two. Three. Four. All ready?
Looks like we made it
Or I thought so, till today
Until you were there,
Everywhere, and all I could taste was love the way we made it.
Well, you're a fishmonger! You're my everything, you are my sunshine, you're old and grey and full of sleep. You're my pickle-faced, consumptive Mary Jane!

Boredom, sleep and full of pain, “you don’t sleep well, do you.”
“No, I never do.”

You have to read this.

[rant]
There are things that we take for granted, things that we celebrate because we are so proud of who we have become. We allow ourselves a certain pride because there isn’t anytime in human civilization when so many have lived so well, knew so much, had the opportunity to live so well… what complete bullshit.

Where is the authenticity? Ok I am completely saturated in Television and Internet and media and I know so much more than my father, or my mother or more than anyone else in history (except that this is hubris and there are so many people who know so much more than I do)

“Today's amature knows more than the experts of one hundred years ago. “ Absolute nonsense.
[end rant]

One. Three. Five. Seven. Eleven. Thirteen. Seventeen. Nineteen. Twenty-three.

Eyelids flutter. The mind achieves a kind of focus. “I know this. This is so familiar.” Mindfulness is replaced by awareness. I am, and I am, and I am. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So incredibly bored with ourselves that we seek to be entertained all the time. “O.K. world, Wow me!”

Monday. Tuesday. (so predictable) Wednesday (profound insight) Thursday, Thursday, Thursday, Thursday. Thursday. Thursday, FriSatSunday.

Those of us who know are scored by our elders as knowing only what is vapid and banal; what I did what clever, but clever by regurgitating what I have heard over and over and over until everything I know is merely a convenient truth and everything I say is (yes clever) not what I mean.

It is impossible to say exactly what I mean.
We who are tired of the sarcasm, of the arrogance of the ingenuous criticisn of life that has become so ubiquitous.

O.K., O.K. I get it. The world is bad. Life is evil, consumerist or greedy or self absorbed. But there is also something very simple at the root of this. There is a voice within the voice. There is a point at which criticism stops cutting and start sounding like a pained, helpless moment of endurance for those who treat plan old human troubles and emotions and with reverence and conviction.

There is no longer a why.. nor is there a how. Modern. Post mOdern. These definitions no longer seem to fit. We find outselves levitating in the moment wondering if anyone is noticing and wondering how this moment could be possible. (The levitation, after all, seems natural)

I am not an arrant god, nor was meant to be.

Profound truth.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Mirror games

2009-08-21T18:26:00.002-05:00

So, if you are a patient, faithful reader, you will know that one of my big “discoveries” of the past year has been that my brain is not trying to kill me. Rather, my brain is working extra hard to try and figure things out for me, look at the really hard, painful stuff of my life and try to make sense of it. It’s hard. It’s uncomfortable. Most of the time I don’t want to see it. So I blame my brain for my… well for my shortcomings. My brain, it turns out, is not trying to kill me. Who Knew?

If you are a patient, faithful reader, you are still reading.

Favorite movie quotes.

One. “A spear” and two “it helps, it really helps.” One is from “Apocalypse Now”, and the second is from “Harry Potter: Prisoner from Azkaban”. Why bring them up here?

Imagine if you will the shock I experienced when my life long companion, no, not my wife, but the voice inside my head, turned out not to be my enemy but my friend.

“A spear” Chief Phillips looks at his mortal enemy and realizes that it was not his perceived foe, but a random act of savage violence, that would end his life.

“It helps, it really helps” Professor Lupin offers Harry a piece of chocolate after his first dementor attack. Sometimes the simple creature comforts are cures for those things that ail us.

You know. I spend a lot of time thinking about the things that are wrong in my life. I think about fame and fortune and everything thing that goes with it. I want them all.

One night in college I had a lot to drink. I stumbled back to my dorm room and slipped into my bathrobe. I was about to turn out the light when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was dirty. My hair, unkept. But the more I looked, that more I became engaged with the image of myself. I stared until all I could see where my own eye looking back at me and still I continued to stare. My vision blurred, my eyes waters and still I continued to stare, I could see the faint red lines of the veins in my pupils. I could see them pulsing. I could see the pock marks on my skin, the hairs in my lashes. I have later discovered that this kind of intense focus is not hard to arrive at, but at the time, perhaps because of excessive drink, I thought it was amazing.

“This is who I am” I thought to myself. “This is me.”

I have to tell you, I am pretty sure I went through the same kind of experience when I was thinking about the way I thought about myself. “My brain is not trying to kill me!”

Neither is a vision of who I am.
Remarkable.

Recently I rekindled a relationship with a friend of twenty years. I won’t go into the details here but at the end of a recent conversation, my friend pointed out the similarities that existed between us then and now. “Some things have changed and some things are still the same.” Eerie. It is funny but, in a moment I realized I am so much more than these parts.

Damn it! Now I have to go back and reevaluate the whole thing all over!

Sarama

2009-08-05T23:48:00.003-05:00

Someone has stolen the sacred cows
and hidden them among the mountain caves.
They dwell on the far side of the river
that separates the world of gods and men
from the world of demons.

Prophets have told of the decline.
We either live in an age of poverty,
Or one of great abundance.
There is hardly a distinction
In the World as Will and Idea.

The Panis have stolen something of ours.
“These are the cows which you desire,
lovely lady, having flown beyond the ends of the skies,
who would give them up to you without a fight?”

It is hard to imagine a people
who have no language of their own.
Harder still to imagine the vanquished
Who have never known battle, only prayer.
Does modern life have a place for poets?
For Homer? For Goerthe?

“Your words are no armies.
Your evil bodies may be proof against our arrows.
But where you go we will follow,
Where you hide you will not be spared.”

There is little reflection. Oh Muse!
You are as fickle as the night,
As constant as the dawn!
What we admire we lavish only in its decline.
To do else-wise would impede your progress.
We criticize what we cannot hope to understand.

what if's

2009-07-28T18:51:00.002-05:00

I like the “what if’s” of life. I used to have a teacher, actually she was the principal of my grade school that would say “uh-uh, no what if’s.”

How sad.

What if the sky was pink and the oceans were lemonade.

What if I had a better job, and why don’t I go get it right now.

What if people treated each other better, or if government had a better mandate for the people or if religion taught individual salvation, what if sandwiches were the reward for the well lived life, what if, what if, what if.

What if I added olives to my marinade?

What if I drank another beer?

What if I told that S.O.B. off, like s/he so desperately deserves.

What if I tried to be less angry, more hopeful, less sullen, more joyous, less proud, more proud.

I think what if’s get the lawn mown. Get the trash taken out. Get dinner made and get us out of bed in the morning.

If I had a chance to go back in time and finish that particular conversation (there are so many) I would tell her, what if’s are the things of dreams, the imagination of children, the aspirations of adults, they are the reason we live, the reason we die, why we try and fail, and why we try and succeed.

Dog Daze

2009-07-14T14:00:00.002-05:00

I can’t help but sit here and think about all those novels set in the deep south that begin with a description of the long wearisome heat of summer that bears down on the mind and the senses. Something about women bathing before noon and gentlemen wiping the damp from their foreheads with a yellowing handkerchief. Every one of my pores breaks out in an absolute panic each time I set foot outside. I am like a deep-sea diver descending into a foreign land, my sweat like a layer of armor against the elements.

Yesterday S. and I were the pool where I fished a dead cicada out of the water. “What is that?” she asked.
“A cicada., the trees are full of them.”
“Why” she asks, not so much to further the conversation but really more to say “I have nothing at all to say to that.”
“Listen” I say “you can hear them all around us.” The trees are full to the aching whine that is the distinctive sound to the insect.
“I don’t hear anything.”
Incredulous I point to first one group of trees and then the next. “There” I say “and there. No?” Nothing. Like a pungent aroma that seemingly vanishes within minutes of first detecting it, she has managed to pushed the sound out of mind and memory till it has become completely undetectable. “Nothing at all?”

Cicadas aside there is a kind of meditative stillness to the long, hot, dog days of summer. Total immersion creates a kind of restfulness that monks achieve after years of contemplations. Standing in my make shift studio in the garage, the banter of my mind is silenced by the drone of the fan blowing against me. Paint stiffens in the heat and the wet bristles of the brush begin to wilt. The eye darts from canvas to canvas making spontaneous decisions in an effort to out pace the heat.

PINK

2009-07-09T20:50:00.003-05:00

Moments

2009-07-06T22:22:00.000-05:00

Is it selfish to suddenly realize that the moment you are experiencing is yours and yours alone and that when you die that moment will be gone, lost forever and will pass away into oblivion. What if you have this realization? Do you ask yourself, how great is that moment? I mean, come on, sitting on the toilet is a moment I may have had but I am not about to share it with the universe. Ask yourself, how important is it.

Standing there in the sunlight, my children playing in the pool, I had what you might call a moment of clarity. Million of lives, billions, life after life sharing moments of awareness then passing into the dark, moments that may have been similar to this, or more likely vastly different, all of them lost, all of them un-… un what? Unrecorded? Unremembered?

Every moment is precious, whether we appreciate them or not. I am often annoyed by the fact that moments of seemingly no importance seem to stand out in my memory more than those that I might have so dearly hung on to.

I was a party shortly after high school graduation talking to this girl. Making small talk I asked her “Where did you go to school?”
“Um” she replied, “we went to school together.”
“Really?” I said feeling awkward.
“We walked down the aisle together at graduation and you gave me a big hug”
Now I feel like dying.

Some are poets, some are architects, others are bankers and maids and journeymen and accountants. This moment will pass and this and this and this. I imagine that the world is gone, absorbed into the vastness of space, only to be replaced by another and anther and another.

“There is a book” said the man, “that records the lives of all men.”
“Where can I find this book?” asked the student.
“The book is hidden in the most obvious of places, and is written in the most common ink of all.”
“I what is it’s name?”
“It is the name that each man calls himself. It is your name.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

O Lord of the universe, I see in your universal body many, many forms--bellies, mouths, eyes--expanded without limit. There is no end, there is no beginning, and there is no middle to all this.

So I begin to wonder, how different are we after all? Some are angry, some are happy, others open mouthed and ignorant or wise and mute. I read somewhere in particle physics that the path of the electron is not determined until the scientist had recorded the observation. The universe is made in our beholding and grows as we grow, expands as we expand and diminished as we diminish.

“Papa” she asked “where do we go when we die?”
“Heaven” I said.
“Where is that?”
“Its right here” I said confidently.
“Yeah right” she said dismissively, taking another bite of her ice cream cone. “You always say that.”

precious little things

2009-06-27T17:56:00.005-05:00

I was going to write a whole post on things I learned on Facebook, but I started to go over the content in my head while I was cutting the bushes and realized there probably wasn’t all that much there.

One of the most interesting things to me is that Facebook is a clear record of those times when I was more gregarious and those times when I was, well, introverted. High School, college and, now seem to be the three big times in my life when I formed lasting friendships, and the friendships that I formed seem to be pretty good.

I was pretty insecure growing up, who isn’t, and was pleasantly surprised to find people were just as happy to reconnect with me as I was with them. Moreover, old friends actually made a point of telling me that they had thought about me from time to time over the intervening years and that on a few occasions, I had actually made some impact on a few individuals lives. Spooky.

I was painting the other day and decided that the painting looked, well rainbowish. I recalled a proof by Descartes that discussed the optics of the Rainbow and superimposed the image onto the painting. Later, playing with S. in the yard I watched as she darted to and fro through a sprinkler. As one point she stopped and retraced her steps and stared at the stream of water. “A rainbow” she exclaimed. I couldn’t see one but realized almost instantly that she had purposefully retraced her steps because the rainbow was only visible from one particular point of view. It was Descartes theorem. I think I am going to paint a gigantic image of a push-up frozen ice cream treat in the middle of that painting reminding me of the outside fun and games of my own youth, as well as my time spent with S.

Both the image of the proof and the push-pop came unbidden and at completely different times. I am not even sure how they fit together, even after telling you about it here, but the thing is, they do and I I feel it, as much as know it.

Some things seem to matter so much and other things just fall off the radar. Worse I am a terrible judge of what those moments will be. I have a crystal clear memory of putting ketchup on some french fries at the pool when I was about six. Just the ketchup. Nothing else. But I remember that moment with such pristine clarity that I can actually summon the scent and the taste of the gleaming red liquid. I would tell you more but the baby is crying and least this be one of those moments for her, I am off to rescue her from what is undoubtedly only a minor inconvenience

Siesta

2009-06-22T14:53:00.002-05:00

There is a kind of drowsy that is born of a lack of breakfast, triple digets before eleven and the feeding of a gnawing hunger that consisted of a handful of cashews, a dozen or so chips that served as the vehicle for green mountain gringo hot salsa, a cheese sandwich and few olives.

The oppression of heat and a full belly cause a myriad of phantom sensations: restlessness and lethargy, a kind of soulful emptiness and a bloated belly, an unquenchable thirst for water and its disdain. The desire is to work, and to sleep, to dream and to make tangible the stretch of the second hand.

Here there is longing and pity, the rising feeling of inadequacy. Nothing seems possible when it is hot. “Give your appliances the afternoon off” quips J. She looks at my unresponsive features and says “don’t you remember those commercials?” My mind turns to images of women fanning themselves on the front porch with weathered copies of Life magazine. “Bring Mama another martini” I joke. “That paper mache isn’t going to make itself” she responds.

The one who floods the private sanctuary
I've built, who takes away sleep,
who drags and throws me under,
that presence is the joy I speak. -Rumi

I think about drinking another glass of water. A dull ache appears in my belly in protest. “It is going to be hot and dry,” said the weatherman. All I can think about is the clammy moister that relentlessly clings. “Why can’t we go home” whine the students. “Because you paid me to be here. It wouldn’t be right me asking you to leave now.” “But we don’t mind.”

A tinny blues recording whines from the stereo. The fan hums on the living room floor. The cats, stretched out on the carpet, remain motionless as the three year-old screams “but I don’t want to nap!” “Yeah?” I think. “And that paper mache isn’t going to make itself.”

puzzle pieces

2009-06-19T08:52:00.002-05:00

Coddleston, coddleston, coddleston pie. A fish can’t whistle and neither can I. Ask me a riddle and I’ll reply coddleston, coddleston, coddleston pie.

I was sitting in a hotel in San Blas with Adam. Adam had come along on the trip at the request of his girlfriend Amara, only Adam and Amara broke up two weeks before and now she was seeing Brad. Adam didn’t have the decency to bow out or sell his ticket and came along anyway. Brad and Amara had the sense to get a room in a hotel on the other side of the plaza and, in a cost saving move, I had offered to share a room with Adam, which meant I got to watch his slow mental deterioration over the course of the two week holiday as he watched his ex-girlfriend frolic in the hot Mexican sand with another man. It was something straight out of a Somerset Maugham novel.

“Two monks were traveling together,” Adam continued. “Devout and holy men, they had been together for twenty years sharing life together though neither had ever spoken a word. One day they came to an impassible river. With neither boat nor bridge in sight the first monk turned to walk back they way they came when the second held out his had. Without a word he gingerly stepped into the water. Miraculously the water bore his weight and first one foot and then the other he proceeded to walk across the river. When he had reached the far side he turned and beckoned his friend to follow. The first monk stared incredulously at the second and then shouted “If I had known you were such a charlatan I would never have walked with you” turned and walked back up the dusty road.”

Adam smiled smugly at me.
“What?” I asked.
“You don’t get it do you?”
“No” I said, “I don’t”
“It’s about the abuse of power.”
I looked at him for a minute trying to decide whether to say something or not. Adam was enjoying one of the few confident moments he had enjoyed all week. I looked at his haughty smile. It was tiresome. Finally I shrugged and said “Oh that part I got.” I paused as he looked up at me with disbelief “but if the second monk was so much better why did he break his vow of silence?”

Coddleston, coddleston, coddleston pie. A fly can’t bird but a bird can fly. Ask me a riddle and I’ll reply coddleston, coddleston, coddleston pie.

Standing in my makeshift studio in the garage I am surrounded by canvas that refuses to cooperate. My eye lands on a piece I was working on yesterday “That is a dark purple” I think to myself, “I wonder what it would look like with white?” I reach down and grab the corners and lift it towards the easel. I feel something prickling on my hand as I lower the canvas the prickling moves. It is a roach. I drop the canvas and shake my hand. The bug drops to the floor and I stomp on it. “Very un-Buddha-like” I think as I kick the bug and send it skidding only to come to a rest up side down beside the trashcan. I gather brush and paint and turn towards the canvas, casting one long sideways glance back to the dead roach. It is missing. “A people should know when they are defeated” I think.

Coddleston, coddleston, coddleston pie. Why does chicken? I dont know why. Ask me a riddle and I’ll reply coddleston, coddleston, coddleston pie.

G’s shrieks emanates from the bathroom. Moments later she emerges and calmly asks “Today is the last day of swim lessons?”
“Yes.”
“And afterwards we go to Braum’s” she asks, again, calmly
“Yes”
“Why did you scream in the bathroom?” asks her sister.
G. stares at her sister with disbelief.

phone greetings

2009-06-14T15:33:00.004-05:00

The air is incredibly humid. Going for a walk is like taking a long swim. “Is that a gas station?” I ask myself. I walk over the long field. The remnants of an old road are buried under the long grass. The debris of broken glass, discarded bottles and shreds of paper remain. “I wonder if they sell beer.”

My name is winsome. “I simply love your dimples.”
“Thank you” I say.
“Do all your children have them?”
(Internal sigh) “Yes” I say pleasantly.

The secret jambalaya? Use the grill. Grill sausage, chicken, bell peppers and onions slowly over an open grill. Only later do you throw them in a pot with a bunch of celery and tomato. Add Stock, bring to boil, add rice and slow cook to perfection.

I know I have talked about this before. I don’t eat meat. Well I do eat seafood. But really, how important is it? Some say “you haven’t eaten meat in TWENTY years?” It’s as if they were saying “You haven’t taken a breath in Twenty years?” For some people raw hamburger is the equivalent of a good deep breath of air or a drink of clear water. Forget trying to figure out why I am a vegetarian-ish person, and try to figure this out.

What you put in your mouth will not defile you, rather it is what comes out of your mouth that will defile you.

My name is corn silk. “When are you going back to South Dakota?”
“Never.” I say this matter-of-factly for greater emphasis.
“Why not?”
“There is nothing there for me.”

I used to know exactly how much money I had. I would keep a running total in my mind. Checking account minus this month’s charges on the credit card plus tips equals how much we have to go till rent. Not to lay blame, seriously, no blame, but this equation stopped to matter after I got into my relationship with J. Tension in our relationship has often been about money. Typical, I think. Not to be too much of a stereotype, but men fight about sex, and women fight about money. Men fight about something else, and women fight about chores… (I would keep this going but I am still thinking about sex)

Ninth grade. English class. Mr. Harnes. “A survey was taken of a college sociology class. The students were asked to write down what they were thinking about when they walked into the class room. 72% of the men said sex. 84% of the women said sex.” Mr. Harnes leered at the women in the class knowingly. I looked at him and thought, “but how many enjoyed it?”

“You changed your haircut.”
“I am surprised you said anything at all” chimed in another student.
“Why?” I said
“Comments about personal appearance can be misconstrued as sexual harassment.”
I felt the air in the room thin. “Really?” I said. “It’s come to that?”
“Apparently.”

My name is hot iron. “I never give it a moments thought.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, I guess I am just impulsive.”

The phone rings, "a hoy hoy?" I say. What does one say when answering the phone? "Who the hell is this?" or "What do you want?" Kleburg county Texas became the first county in America to mandate that civil workers answer the phone "heaven-o."
I wonder, can they put a question mark on the end? "Heaven-o?" as if to say, "Who is this?" or will it be misconstrued as an article of faith, in which case answering the phone becomes "where are we going with this?"

Eternal Return

2009-06-12T08:26:00.006-05:00

Everything seems to slow. You can feel the rivulet of sweat as it trickles its way down the back of your neck.

Looking at D. packing up for a sleep over, I feel a moment of relief. She has been kind of cranky lately and it takes its toll, seconds later my mind has done an imperceptible shift. I am going to miss her. I look at her. Her features are so like my own. Is this how people perceive me, happy one minute that I am there, and thankful the next that I am gone? My mind boggles at the possibility that I have learned something about myself in so sudden a moment.

The child has grown, the dream has gone…

Walking tonight with S. the twilight took on that strange stillness that one experiences like the calm that overshadows everything just before a storm. The light made the world glow with and eerie incandescence. I feel as though I could reach out and shatter the moment with the touch of my fingertips.

Rain has clotted the sidewalks with runoff. Mud is everywhere. It sticks to the tires of S.’s big wheel and the soles of my shoes. I try to wipe it off in the grass, only to get a thick coat of grass stuck onto the remaining layer of mud. I try to wash it off in a puddle only to feel the dampness invade my socks. The mud remains. I look behind as we walk on. Black footprints and tire marks follow. I smile. I imagine a tracker in a forest coming upon these marks and thinking, “there were two of them, one by foot and another by cart.” What would anyone want with this information?

A message pops into the inbox. “To see the comment thread, follow the link below:”

I try not to think about work. Well, not the work itself, but the endgames the personal agendas, and the closed door gossip. They are lies. Like treasures that beckon to lead me off of the path. If I but touch one, I will turn to stone. I fix my gaze on the present. I like what I do and I continue to keep my focus on that fact alone.

Long, narrow lines of blue shimmer on the surface of the canvas. In between the various stripes are ochre, olive green, magenta, and umber. Color spring across the surface, ethereal and corporeal bow to one another on the dance floor “"Queen of diamonds, Jack of spades, meet your partner, now let’s promenade."

In my dream I am sitting in an auditorium listening to a motivational speaker, someone walks in, he looks like Michael Douglas, though I think he was meant to represent my father. He beckons to the stage, where there are a half dozen tables each with a pair of chairs. Reluctantly I stand up to join him in one of the opposing seats. I look at the audience and quip “too bad it isn’t Texas hold’em” the audience laughs. The speaker continues: “affirmative reinforcement ensures a positive outcome of the events. The subject, by addressing his own needs, has predetermined the eventual outcome of all possible results.” The poker game begins. I look up. My brother is sitting in the chair opposite, diligently studying his cards. In front of him is a huge pot of chips. Without ever seeing the cards I know that I have won the hand.

All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.

One night I was reading a childrens story to D. “More than anything a woman longs for children. Desperate she receives a magic seed from a witch. Once planted, a tiny girl emerges from its flower. The woman names the child Thumbelina. One night, Thumbelina is asleep in her walnut-shell cradle and is carried off by a toad who wants her as a bride for her son. Thumbelina escapes the toad and her son, and drifts on a lily pad. Winter comes and Thumbelina is given shelter by a field mouse in exchange for some house cleaning. The mouse suggests Thumbelina marry her neighbor, a mole. Thumbelina finds the prospect of being married to a mole unattractive, but the field mouse will not listen to her protests. Thumbelina escapes by fleeing to a far land with a swallow she nursed back to health during the winter. In a field of flowers, Thumbelina meets a fairy prince just her size, and eventually they wed. Thumbelina receives a pair of wings to accompany her husband on his travels from flower to flower, and a new name: Maia.”

She looks up at me and said “was that bird dead?”
“No, it was just sick.”
“Will you die someday?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want you to die.”
At which point, for no explainable reason, I launched into a description of the eternal return. “the universe contains a finite amount of matter, while time is viewed as being infinite. The universe has no starting or ending state, and everything in it is constantly changing. The number of possible changes is finite, and so sooner or later everything will line up just exactly as it has happened before. Someday all of this, you and me, will happen again and we will be sitting here having this exact same conversation.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”

What keeps me up at midnight

2009-06-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

When I was six I sat in a rocking chair in my grandmothers bedroom, as I was sitting there my great aunt came into the room and started to undress, she looked at me and laughed and I ran from the room, terrified.

All of my daughters were nursed in a rocking chair. Their sweet faces quiet and still. I am on the outside looking in. How can both of these objects be called rocking chair?

Every day I wake up and go outside to get the newspaper off the driveway. I see my neighbors tree in the front yard, its waxen leaves raised to the dawn. Later I jog past the tree on my morning run. It is there to greet the mailman. It is there when I leave for work, and again when I return.

Stroller?

Deck?

Car would be hard.

Fence… does fence go with deck?

Brick wall… does brick wall go with deck, no asparagus makes it something new…

10 things I see every day.

I used to wonder if it is we who perceive the universe, or if it is the things of the universe that are watching us. I would imagine the light of the sun reflecting off of a tree, a bush, a car, passing through the lens of my eye and back out again, returning to the place what sent it.

I am pretty sure there isn’t much difference between me and these things. I am pretty sure we are the same.

A Cool hand...

2009-06-04T21:29:00.001-05:00

J. and I watched Cool Hand Luke Saturday. (Sorry about the long quote)

“Anybody here? Hey, Old Man. You home tonight? Can you spare a minute? It's about time we had a little talk. I know I'm a pretty evil fellow... killed people in the war and got drunk... and chewed up municipal property and the like. I know I got no call to ask for much... but even so, You've got to admit You ain't dealt me no cards in a long time. It's beginning to look like you got things fixed so I can't never win out. Inside, outside, all of them... rules and regulations and bosses. You made me like I am. Now just where am I supposed to fit in? Old Man, I gotta tell You. I started out pretty strong and fast. But it's beginning to get to me. When does it end? What do You got in mind for me? What do I do now? Right. All right. [Gets on knees, closes eyes and begins to pray] On my knees, asking. [Peeks up with one eye, waits. Then opens eyes and crosses arms] Yeah, that's what I thought. I guess I'm pretty tough to deal with, huh? A hard case. [Clicks tongue] Yeah. I guess I gotta find my own way.”

I love this movie. I enjoyed the irony of showing up the church the next morning only to discuss Job in church class. Luke is a kind of modern day Job.

I vacillate between feeling disappointed and feeling like none of it matters. I find solace in making art and have been on a tear, painting large canvas and small alike with passionate abandon.

I think the message is we don’t get to know why we suffer.

Someone once told me that suffering is a symptom of our spiritual separation from god.

I focus on the four noble truths
1. Life is suffering and 2. Suffering is caused by desire or attachment but that 3. It is possible to stop suffering 4. There is a path to get you there. And that suffering will decrease the further along the path you go (though it may take many life times)

I tend to blame others for my pain. It is easier that way

“Smite me oh mighty smiter”

Freud talks about his patients as people who are unable to see that part of their life that is causing them pain. The long and short of this is, we dwell in ignorance of ourselves.

The further from pain and suffering I feel, the less I blame others.

It is in these moments of clarity that the truth reveals itself. Suffering is not something to be endured. The realization hits me like a ton of bricks.

Rumi of the day

2009-05-29T07:10:00.001-05:00

Walk barefooted on the ground and make it giddy,
pregnant with joking and buds.
A Spring uproar rises into the stars.
The moon begins to wonder what is going on

turning lemons... to paint

2009-05-28T15:39:00.004-05:00

So, I didn’t get the job I wanted. J. pointed out that this experience was a good way of lining up our lives with God’s will for us. I definitely had the “I want’s” when it came to having steady, full time employment with benefits, and as the Buddha says “Suffering is caused by desire.” Sigh. There are so many spiritual platitudes to get me through my trials. Still, I get to keep my adjunct status which means I am teaching so there is some money coming in, and it gives me more time to focus on what I want which is to paint, to get into shows, galleries, juried exhibitions and, in short, to be an artist, not a teacher. So today I pulled myself up by the proverbial bootstraps (which incidentally is where we get the idiom “to boot up a computer”) and made a painting. It was fun, it was gloriously messy, and it was mine. So I put it up here for y’all to enjoy, and please, no sad “I’m so sorrys” we are well past that now… But if you want to shamelessly heap praises on the art it is much appreciated :)

These works are a continuation of themes executed in paint over the past few years. In these works, the layering of images and painted swatches adds both a physical depth and a sense of romantic mystery. The painted swatches of canvas come from my own recycled paintings what have been cut and reassembled here to form a new body of work while collaged images come from prints scanned from a series of books handed down to my by my grandmother. These images are transferred directly onto the canvas along with the adhered swatches of painted canvas creating works which effectively acquire layers of meaning and age represented both by the history of my own work and the family history associated with my grandmother’s book collection. These images are, paradoxically, depersonalized and isolated, yet also universal, demanding quiet contemplation by the viewer.

Simpsons Intro

2009-05-27T12:36:00.001-05:00

Meditation

2009-05-26T09:48:00.003-05:00

“Within my body, Arjuna, see today the whole universe, including everything movable and immovable, all in one, and whatever else you wish to see.”

“ O god! I see within your body the gods, as also all the groups of various beings; and the lord Brahman seated on his lotus seat, and all the sages and celestial snakes.
I see you, who are of countless forms, possessed of many arms, stomachs, mouths, and eyes on all sides. And, O lord of the universe, O you of all forms, I do not see your end or middle or beginning.”

Sitting in the sauna I began to think about these lines. I thought about how one goes about meditating on the infinite. I thought about the Christian God being as vast as the East is to the West. I wondered, am I meditating? Am I clearing my mind of conscious thought? No, there is always that one persistant voicve, the overlord of voices that keeps saying “O.K. now we are going to do X and Y. I thought about this for a while.

it reminds me of the mantra "Ohm Mani Padme Hum" for which there are a million translations. I had a book that did a fairly good job of explaining it, but I can't find it, anyway I didn't have it in the sauna with me. I'm not one to meditate, unless there is beer involved of course but these thought in my held swirled and overwhelmed me.

Centering

took a breath, "Ohm" I whispered, then I said it again, i delighted in the way my lips and teeth vibrated, the way the breath sank back into the depth of my throat, "Ohm" I said, filling myself with ohm.

Self

I know I am supposed to be clearing my mind of thought, but I can't help but visualize, I am very visual. I thought about the soul, the spark that was breathed into Adam, that part of us that is also part of God, a little piece of the infinite. I thought about how looking through this lens I was looking at the infinite. I wondered about how tiny I was, in comparison to all things, like a cosmic Where's Waldo.

Unfolding

There is this great Simpsons episode where the camera pans up over the family sitting on the couch up over the house, above the earth, through the solar system, galaxies and into the infinite blackness only to emerge in the pupil of homers eye. “Holy Crap!” I imagine myself containing the infinite, only to emerge as myself again. Another visualization came to me as Elle sat on my lap, one full of potential, the other the seat of creative power, ready to have a new family, the child emerges as the adult that returns to the child.

Jesus said, "The person old in days won't hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and that person will live. –Gospel of Thomas

Hum- The arrival

I feel this amazing sense of calm and satisfaction, I sit peacefully within myself, the universe both unfolding and contained, hum is the ohm, we have arrived full circle, the process begins again…

(All in all a great day for taking a little steam)

applying for a job

2009-05-07T23:52:00.002-05:00

waiting to find out if I got the job, a job I have been doing for a year now mind you, is a tedious, painful affair, a lot of, looking at the faces of your co-workers, wondering if they know something you don't. Figuring it is a shu-in... other times feeling the abyss opening in front of you... I can't remember feeling this way before and yet I am certain this is how I have felt every time I have ever applied for a job. it is a little like this:

Homer: Uhh, I’d like to buy this doll.
Shopkeeper: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: Ooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free frogurt!
Homer: That's good.
Shopkeeper: The frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of toppings.
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain potassium benzoate.
[Homer looks puzzled]
Shopkeeper: ...That's bad.
Homer: Can I go now?

New Sculptures

2009-05-06T22:48:00.003-05:00

I am often asked why do I make art? The answer is simple, and hard. Art is my chosen language of expression. It is the lens though which I view the world, the sum total of my experiences.

It is a fragmented language, one in which many of the terms seem difficult to define or appear contradictory. I work in the language of contemporary abstraction trying to make sense of the seeming randomness of my myriad experiences. A difficult task as the bulk of painting in abstraction is largely seen to have split into two branches, formalist and conceptual approaches.

Conceptual artists stress the fact that their art works are abstract, in the manner of language, rather than representational or figurative. At the same time, formalist painting utilizes abstraction by emphasizing compositional elements such as color or line, rather than realistic depiction of figures and appeals to the viewer through gesture, scale and the physicality of paint.

Why should we care? Who would even recognize this split? And what does it have to do with art making? The answer is not simple, but art is often seen as a struggle to synthesize opposites, and in so doing helps me not only to better understand art, but better understand the world around me. As Kandinsky once said, Art is the child of its age and the mother of our emotions.

My own work seeks to build on the explorations of both conceptual and formalist abstraction, borrowing the framework of conceptual art, the stripe and the grid, while incorporating the formalist imagery, using reference to earlier art, found images, clip art and text. This juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated figures, texture, and pattern creates a kind of ambiguity of imagery comparable to the conceptual underpinnings of minimalist and post minimalist art, bridging the gap between the two interpretations of abstraction.

In a similar way my sculptural works appear as eccentrically shaped, modestly scaled abstract sculptures with crusty surfaces. They are made of plaster, papier-mâché, wire, fabric and other ordinary materials. But their surfaces reflect the evocative brushwork of the American Abstract Expressionist with their loaded brushwork, the whiplash line, poured paint, and the palette knife. To the Abstract Expressionist distinctive gestures mattered. The mark of the artist was as distinguishing as the artist’s signature, thus the mark becomes a kind of figure. In this way the sculptures reflect the anti-form movement of the post minimalist artist like Eva Hesse joined to the formalist trends of Abstract Expressionism.

Nocturne

2009-05-05T21:34:00.002-05:00

There is a Bill Cosbey routine somewhere that goes: “Na na na na na na NA... Na na na na na na NA (imitating the dramatic music from some horror movie), No (he says, reassuring the audience) I always have my music with me, I have to have my music with me, it keeps the monsters away...”

Have I been keeping my music with me?

My belly feels swollen, and I blame the lack of exercise because it is easier than blaming my bad diet. Somehow knowing this doesn’t help, and I am rather ruthless with myself. “Slim down!” my mind commands, as if thinking the very thought will somehow spontaneously create the action.

I pensively await the outcome of my job interview. “So and So didn’t look me in the eye while they were talking with me, so clearly that means that they know I am not going to get the job.” My mind is f**kin* with me. Gorramit! I need my mind to settle down and be quiet! “You are supposed to be on my side!” I yell at it. I think I hear my mind chuckling a reply.

Sometimes in the the dead of night I will wake up and think “Why is J. sleeping WAY over there?” It is an unfair thought to be sure and I am ashamed for having it as soon as it pops into my mind… and yet, somehow, I cannot shake it. I am left wide awake at four o’clock in the morning yelling at myself “Gorramit, Gorramit, Gorramit! Will you please stop?” I think I hear my mind laughing again.

I turn on the TV. Nothing is on. PBS is airing a special on the evolution of late night television. I savor the irony and learn the origins of Jack Parr, Johnny Carson, Regis Philburn and many more. The outtakes are hilariously funny.

Johhny Carson reading from a newspaper “wanted: woman with a flooded rumpus room seekin man with a sump pump.”

It is dirty. Funny. It feels wrong. I laugh and yet, I hate this man. I want to go to sleep. I feel so conflicted. I turn off the TV and sigh. I am laying there not five minute when S. comes wandering into the room. She tries to lay down beside me but I don’t budge. She examines the couch for a moment and then decides to crawl over me. Reluctantly I slide over. “Good night honey.” I whisper. I lay there maybe another five minutes and get up and begin prowling the house like an old Tom cat.

“Na na na na na na NA” goes the soundtrack in my head. I need to keep the monsters at bay…