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