illness manifest

"As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in its all-encompassing egoism,
       mad in its drive to make that egoism into reality,
         to devour everything and
         to define everything by itself,
    as long as that foundation is visible, 
    as long as this truly original sin exists within us,
        we have no business here
   and there is no logical answer to our existence.
Imagine a group of people
    who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented
      and suddenly someone in the crowd asks,
"What are we to do?"...
The only possible answer is
"Look for a cure".
Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do.
And since you don't believe you are sick,
      there can be no cure."

     - Vladimir Solovyov     ( + 1900 )

where did this come from

“Acquire a peaceful spirit,
 and then thousands of others
around you
will be saved.”

















--St Seraphim




















,

Let's hear it for modern social management

"What would an apology do for me?
You don't know what my kids were going to be.
You don't know what kids God was going to give me."

 
    NIAL RAMIREZ (sterilized at 18 in N. Carolina eugenics program in 1960)

Ursa proclaims

"Russians, we are like bears,
       we are so patient.
    But when our patience ends,
then we begin to growl!"

     Galine Pokpova

Invitation to communion 2012

Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,
but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.



  - from the revised catholic missal


























..

gift horse

Schizophrenia is the best thing
      that ever happened to me.
I know a lot of people with the diagnosis
        don't feel that way,
but the experience changed me,
         for the better.
I was so arrogant, so narcissistic,
        so self-involved, and it humbled me.

     -milt greek

political crystalization

"This is the real revolution."

     -spoken in Cairo by MOHAMMED AITMEN november 2011

reason does the cosmic reel with faith

it is not my job
to fix christianity
or to prop it up

it is enough
to sit in the presence
of God

   - i think i know who wrote this
       but i'm not saying

at least someone has looked at the problem or the cogs are wearing down

The fundamental issue is
that
 law schools
are producing people who
 are not capable
 of being counselors.
 They are lawyers
in the sense that
they have law degrees,
but they aren't ready
to
 be
 a
 provider
of
services."

-jeffrey carr

reminiscence

i began this blog innocently enough
it has become a place of larger ideas
 larger quotes
but still much the same
in the beginning i had no intention of attracting
responses
it was more my desire to merely string thoughts from
various sources
together in a random way
and insert at times some of my own
minimal reflections
i also made room for variation
detractions from any norm
in that way i thought even a short story might be a quote
on de gustibus
or a long poem

as it stands it is a forum for checking in
for some people
but i intend to keep at this
as a means of addressing thoughts i have
and insights from other writers and thinkers
and poets

i remain open to suggestions

as each post is merely a suggestion

jh

prayer of st. gertrude

Eternal Father, I offer Thee
 the most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus Christ,
in union with the Masses said throughout the world today,
for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory,
 for sinners everywhere,
 for sinners in the Universal Church,
for those in my own home and within my family.  Amen.

how is it that this splendid woman
was never formally canonized how
how is it that she was ignored
untill 1677 when pope clement XII decided
to include her in a list of saints
which was her form of being canonized
she didn't even have to go through scrutiny
a pope said it it was never argued
so it must be thus and so

i  suspect there was considerable trepidation
surrounding the writings and legends of this woman
perhaps it wasn't known what to do
she defied everything
and stood out as a disturbing witness
naked in faith
one willing to express love of Christ
in the most unsettling terms
the rest of us blush


yeah
it's like that

try this on

the illusion of something referred to as
an economy has held people spellbound for much too long
who came up with the idea that if you stuff enough
inane information in someone's face they will
identify with it sooner or later
and live with the impression that they are part of something

the reason economics continues as a discipline
refers to the principle that humans are inclined to
bedazzlement...they love being wowed
they love spectacle they love hyped-up pretensions of the real thing

the only salvation for the american economy is a return to complete barterdom
screw the pretense of money
for the next ten years let us merely barter

a farmer strolls down the urban boulevard

The historical precondition for the theatre of indifference is that everyone is consciously and helplessly dependent in most areas of their life on the opinions and decisions of others.  To put it symbolically:  the theatre is built upon the ruins of the forum.  Its precondition is the failure of democracy.  The indifference is the result of the inevitable divergence of personal fantasies when isolated from any effective social action.  The indifference is born of the equation between excessive mobility of private fantasy and social political stasis.

-  John Berger (Selected essays)  -  The Theatre of Indifference

accidentals and art

“It is my conviction
that we cannot lead our action by intuition alone.
Creativity means shaping, means molding, and it requires all the potential –
 intuitive and rational. 
Especially in times of massive misunderstandings,
of enormous and contradictory information,
 one has to employ all the faculties. 
It is the formulation of a proper question which may lead to an answer;
and aesthetics lie somewhere between the formulation and the answer.
I believe that one has to engage in a constant search;
for only this search will give one a chance to find quality –
which is synonymous with fullness and beauty.
 Paintings, sculpture, graphics are all accidentals –
good painting, good sculpture, and good graphic is art.”


-  Bronislaw M. Bak   (+1981)
       ~designer and creator of st john's abbey church window

tracking the downturn

“The moral decline of a religion
 begins when it creates a hell,
  a place of punishment
and torment
where those who are different must go.”

philip gulley - quaker brother

back to where you once belonged

as a clearing house for my mental activity
this blog serves to crystallize my perceptions and thoughts
it began as a series of observations and aphorisms
and has since descended into
a series of randomly acquired quotations

yet i intend to forge on
and express here a willingness
to publish anyone's quote

on this stream of posts

like a fenceline
on the prairie

holding wire
letting wire go
to dangle in the wind
and the sky

sooner or later we arrive at the portals
of incomprehensible cognitive insight

that men would lady chivalry once again entertain

 “I think they ( YOUNG IGNORANT WOULD-BE LOVERS) 
have to found marriage on friendship as well as on love,
 and they have to regard it not as ‘playing it safe’
but as one of life’s greatest adventures.
 Flying wing to wing, they can soar toward life’s lofty prospects;
 rowing oar to oar, they can sustain each other against life’s
stream of troubles.”

Amy Kass

Amy and her husband Leon actually believe that
the art of courtship should be taught again

Is this just another idealistic distraction
in a post post modern hopelessly fractured world

italics are mine

ok dostoyevsky

"BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD"

we interrupt our charles taylor series for a brief note
from the inimitable fyodor D

toward a new enchantment

 “To the extent that we can succeed in being authentic,
as people and as cultures—succeed in creating
 political forms or governments that allow people
and groups to flourish that way—we will have
 a greater fullness than what people had
in the old age of enchantment.”

      - charles taylor

metaphysical juggling act

The paradox of Christianity,
 in relation to early religion,
is that on one hand, it seems to assert
the unconditional benevolence of God
towards humans;
there is none of the ambivalence
of early Divinity in this respect;
and yet it redefines our ends
so as to take us beyond flourishing.

    -charles taylor  (canadian catholic philosopher)

natural tendencies

Each of our voices
 has something unique to say.
Not only
 should I not
 mold my life
 to the demands
of external conformity;
 I can't even find
  the model by which
  to live outside myself.
I can only find it within.

-Charles Taylor  (canadian philosopher)   

thought for the day

 "We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny.
 But what we put into it is ours.
He who wills adventure will experience it —
 according to the measure of his courage.
 He who wills sacrifice will be sacrificed —
 according to the measure of his purity of heart."

          ^{- dag hammarskjold  (+1961)}

why bother

If you copy, it means

           you're working

   without any real feeling.

No two people on earth are alike,

           and it's got to be that way in music

          or it isn't music.

- billie holiday

solid like a rock

prayer is nothing
but friendly intercourse
and frequent solitary converse
with Him
 Who we know loves us

   - theresa of avila  (doctor of the church )






















..

another way of knowing

It's when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do,
and shudder to know the taint in our own selves,
that awe cracks the mind's shell
 and enters the heart.

    -denise levertov

human perception properly placed

"  [    ]..., there are real things out there
 whose characters are independent
of our opinion of them."

  -Charles Sanders Peirce

Dree-ee-ee-ee-eam dream dream dream

Manifesto of Surrealism: The mere word "freedom" is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism. It doubtless satisfies my only legitimate aspiration. Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought. It is up to us not to misue it. To reduce the imagination to a state of slavery- even though it would mean the elimination of what is commonly called happiness- is to betray all sense of absolute justice within oneself. Imagination alone offers me some intimation of what can be, and this is enough to remove to some slight degree the terrible injunction...

Andre Breton

ya win some you lose some

"I'm fighting
so I can die a martyr
 and go to heaven
to meet God.
 Our fight
now
  is against the Americans."

 - Osama bin Laden

bottom line

I have been all things unholy.
If God can work through me,
he can work through anyone.

Francis of Assisi

where fools tread

“Have confidence
in the Providence
that
 so far has never
 failed us.
The way
is not yet clear.
Grope along slowly.
Do not press matters;
be patient,
be trustful.”

   -st. mother theodora guerin  (+1856)

i do declare

without philosophical bearings
science is like a drunken enraged blindman
like a child with no family
like a poet with no recourse to speak or write

yet another way

When some portion of the biosphere
 is rather unpopular with the human race–
a crocodile, a dandelion, a stony valley, a snowstorm,
 an odd-shaped flint–
there are three sorts of human being
who are particularly likely still
to see point in it
and befriend it.
They are poets, scientists and children.
Inside each of us, I suggest,
 representatives of all these groups can be found.

-mary midgely

a profound melody within

“I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed,
never be nominated for a Grammy,
 never have a hit song,
 and that he hoped I’d fail.
I said to him,
(‘)Someday, when we’re not together,
you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee
at the fucking deli without hearing or seeing me.(')”   

-lady gaga

perspective in the mind of the beholder

for all galileo's effort
we still refer to
sunrise
and
sunset

it behooves us to get it right

Principles that are mistakenly high and strict are a trap; they may easily lead in the end directly or indirectly to the justification of monstrous things. Thus if the evangelical counsel about poverty were turned into a precept forbidding property owning, people would pay lip service to it as the ideal, while in practice they went in for swindling. “Absolute honesty!” it would be said: “I can respect that – but of course that means having no property; and while I respect those who follow that course, I have to compromise with the sordid world myself.” If then one must “compromise with evil” by owning property and engaging in trade then the amount of swindling one does will depend on convenience. This imaginary case is paralleled by what is so commonly said: absolute pacifism is an ideal; unable to follow that, and committed to “compromise with evil,” one must go whole hog and wage war a outrance….

[P]acifism teaches people to make no distinction between the shedding of innocent blood and the shedding of any human blood. And in this way pacifism has corrupted enormous numbers of people who will not act according to its tenets. They become convinced that a number of things are wicked which are not; hence, seeing no way of avoiding “wickedness,” they set no limits to it. How endlessly pacifists argue that all war must be a outrance! that those who wage war must go as far as technological advance permits in the destruction of the enemy’s people. As if the Napoleonic wars were perforce fuller of massacres than the French war of Henry V of England. It is not true: the reverse took place… Pacifism and the respect for pacifism is not the only thing that has led to a universal forgetfulness of the law against killing the innocent; but it has had a great share in it.

-G.E.M. Anscombe, War and Murder.

nothing better to do

"I urge you
 to remain steadfast
in faith,
so that at last
we will all reach heaven
and there rejoice together."

st. andrew kim taegon (martyr)   +1846

la pan por el pelegrino

What Christ gives us
 is quite explicit
 if his own words
are interpreted
according
 to their Aramaic
 meaning.

The expression
'This is my Body'
  means
this is myself.

- karl rahner

ecstacy in the gut

Moses has experienced pure, wild, cosmic joy, he has known the love that is in everything and the fear and death that is in everything.

 -pinchas sadeh   +1994

to know oneself in boredom

Ennui is the echo in us of time tearing itself apart.

 - e.m. cioran

we all need something

In Europe art has to a large degree taken the place of religion.
In America it seems rather to be science.

   -johan huizinga    +1945

question the theory

The most dangerous tendency of the modern world
is the way in which bogus theories
 are given the force of dogma.

 - jean cardinal danielou  (jesuit, theologian, prelate)

hope for the wayward

“We, today, have a language to celebrate waywardness, but we do not have a cultural language to bring people back home.”

– Makoto Fujimura –

the food that does not quit

“Poetry is spiritual nourishment.
But it does not satiate,
 it only makes man more hungry,
and that is its grandeur."

- Jacques Maritain

when the pressure's on

"But who do you say that I am?"

 -  Jesus of Nazareth to
     his apostles  (gospel of matthew  CH. 16)

to wit

"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference which is an elegant name for ignorance."   

GK Chesterton

found poem

I don't think of it as stealing.


These things were planted
by a person
who was going to harvest them.


That person
no longer has the ability
to.    It's not
like the bank people
who sit in their offices
 are going to come out here
 and pick


figs.



 - kelly callahan ( atlanta)

chivalry and the pursuit of love on wall street

"it's as close as you can get to an unconditional commitment from a central banker.":

--vincent reinhart

on the promise to hold interest rates on short -term loans to  near zero through 2013-
or at least half way through

cognitive corruption suggests

"We no longer dare to believe in beauty
 and we make of it a mere appearance
in order the more easily to dispose of it.

Our situation today shows that beauty
demands for itself at least as much courage
 and decision
 as do truth and goodness,
 and she will not allow herself to be separated
and banned from her two sisters
without taking them along with herself
in an act of mysterious vengeance.

We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name
 as if she were the ornament
 of a bourgeois past -- whether he admits it or not --
can no longer pray
 and soon will no longer be able to love."

-hans urs von balthasar

facundo therapy

You are not depressed... just distracted,
 distracted by this life
 that overwhelms  you.
Distracted from the life
 that surrounds you,
 dolphins, forests, seas, mountains, rivers.

- facundo cabral  + july 2011

chased by monsters at dead ends

I didn't go out looking to be famous.
I'm just a musician.

+ amy winehouse (july 2011)

by way of digress

[Modigliani's] colour is sensuously, mysteriously (how did he achieve that glow and bloom?) articulated to the present, to the tangible and to what extends in space, and it is also emblematic. The radiance of the body becomes an emblematic field of intimacy. It is at one and the same time body, and the aura of that body as lovingly perceived by another.

John Berger
Modigliani's Alphabet of Love

blip

Rain-drops. Each
makes a point
of silence.

- Cid Corman +2004

enlightenment

"The person who finds his homeland sweet is a tender beginner.
He to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong.
But he is perfect to whom the entire world is a foreign place."

- A 12th century monk.

the economy of detachment

Having put your hope in Christ
who provides for all creation
and nurtures it,
keep away from all unjust gains,
and do not be too attached even to honest income.
Put it to good use
and let the poor share in it as much as possible.

- St. Gregory Palamas

this sounds a little like barack obama's idea
of spreading the wealth...how can we presume to be a
christian country without doing that?

like a lyre players' bad habits

"True poetry ought to be secret and clandestine, concealed like a prohibited voice of dissent, while at the same time it should speak to everyone."

-Claudio Magris

on my way to read the book BLINDLY

i galloped and galloped only to find
that when i arrived
i was still late

- translation from
-hectoro roberto chavero aramburo
(troubadores argentines) + 1992

romance and chivalry for the new age

having a naked picture ( )

of your significant other ( )

on your cellphone is an advertisement ( )

that you're sexually active ( )

to a degree that gives you status ( )

it's an electronic hickey

--Rick Peters - a washigton state lawyer discussing sextexting among teenagers

rethinking existentialism

whoever does not live in poetry
cannot survive on this earth.

-halldor kiljan laxness + 1998

did he have to blow up so many amplifiers

when the love of power
yields to the power of love
then there will be peace

- jimi hendrix

i caught this on a bumper

parting epiphany

the bishop had the audacity
to quote tagore
at the end of the funeral
yesterday
(sheila sullivan - butte-irish montana superwoman-{may she rest in his eternal peace})-

death is not so much
an extinguishing of the flame
rather
it is a turning out the light
for the dawn has arrived

-Rabinandrath Tagore +1949

cognitive dissonance

the first day of the year
loads of weight to carry
already levity is a joke
only a choice to be
lovingly overwhelmed
to be graceful
learning to bow again
learning to bow deeper
madness is
a demanding queen indeed