Could it be the more you discover, the less you know?
Even about me?
~*~
Of course, you can exclaim, What an asshole!
Tag: Musing
Thinking of change
What can I possibly do and still be me?
Even at my age?
Don’t watch TV!
Just get lost in a book! Any book!
Call and response
Q: Why are there so many churches?
A: Why are there so many kinds of birds? Each variety, with its own song? All flying through the same air?
From a list of books read
Lawrence Durrell’s “Justine.” Henry Miller’s “Nexus”; Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ “In Evil Hour”; Jack Kerouac’s “Desolation Angels”; Kurt Vonnegut’s “Deadeye Dick” and “Galapagos”; Richard Brautigan’s “So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away”; Carol Rakoski’s “Ere-Voice”; Anne Tyler’s “Accidental Traveler” and “Earthly Possessions”; Hugh Nissenson’s “The Tree of Life” (interesting use of pioneer Ohio historical materials); Grace Paley’s “Later the Same Day” short stories; Italo Calvino’s “If on a Winter Night a Traveler” (this time, rather fascinating seems I’m finally able to read styles quite unlike my own part of that cleaning out I’m in); William Kennedy’s “Ironweed”; Laurence Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy”; Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine”; Hugh Prather’s “Notes to Myself” (late Sixties classic that seems so superficial these days); Marilyn French’s “The Women’s Room” (blames men for every problem, including mothers); Nena and George O’Neill’s “Open Marriage” (my wife had wanted me to be influenced by this what I see is that we HAD an open marriage, which is why it failed); Merle Shain’s “Some Men Are More Perfect Than Others” (more blame, this time from an upscale pre-Yuppie bubblehead); Paul Wellman’s “The Indian Wars of the West” (one of my ex’s left-behinds); “The Solution as Part of the Problem” (superficial Sixties Leftist education propaganda); Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” what else?
As I squinted at the digital clock
1@1
In the morning
In the flow of the inland waters
While my Quaker lines eschewed all forms of ritual, their movement nevertheless also expressed an awareness of the mystery of water as they moved inland, as the naming of some of their Friends Meetings conveys: Black Creek, Pagan Creek, Goose Creek, Cedar Creek, Herring Run, Gunpowder (for Gunpowder Falls, with its series of rapids), Indian Spring, Sandy Spring, Patapsco, Little Falls, West River, South River, Bush River, Deer Creek, Pipe Creek, Monocacy, Dunnings Creek, West Branch, Crooked Run, Cane Creek, Deep River, Back Springs, Short Creek, Stillwater, Miami, Caesars Creek, Whitewater, Clear Creek, Blue River – the litany goes on, and with it, an image of water (Living Water, in New Testament terms) expressing the motion and working of Holy Spirit.
One may turn, too, to the angel in Revelation 22:1-2, as well: “And he showed me a pure river … On either side of the river, was there the tree of life.”
And, as the chorus of Robert Lowry’s 1864 hymn rings, drawing on that text, “Gather with the saints at the river, That flows by the throne of God.”
That’s why I named one collection of essays Stillwater.
One big criticism of Buddha
Said the writer: Implicit in the Four Noble Truths is the lack of a self or a soul. There is only this process. … The wheel of the Dharma is like a benevolent monarch’s chariot that can go anywhere …
Where would science be without this?
A revolutionary ideal
one God, one Truth
rather than this or that, by whim or willy-nilly
~*~
The mystery of the big bang, something out of nothing, a scientific paradox, all leading to human consciousness. A honeybee cannot be an accident, nor can a human.
Only a divinity could create such a mishap!
An ongoing internal tension
Trying to strike a satisfying balance:
Between my local Meeting and serving the wider world of Friends.
With my writing, finding a wider audience for my existing work.
With the rest of my life – householding, exercise, reading, etc.
It just never seems to come together neatly!
So just what, exactly, holds it all together?
Jnana's Red Barn 