from a c.s. lewis perspective...

.






When Catholicism goes wrong it becomes the world-old,
world-wide religion of amulets
 and holy places and priestcraft;
Protestantism in its corresponding decay,
becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes.






               - i just hate it when they start attacking our jewelry

anonymous observations

there should be placed
a teacher or two
in every gun store








!

a little way

"Part of understanding the notion of Justice
 is to recognize the disproportions among which we live...
it takes an awful lot of living with the powerless
 to really understand what it is like to be powerless,
to have your voice, thoughts, ideas and concerns
count for very little.
We, who have been given much,
whose voices can be heard,
have a great duty and responsibility
to make our voices heard
with absolute integrity for those who are powerless."

        -John  O'Donohue     (+2008)




.

poised as we are

The rarity of clear exchange
       is due to the rarity of what can cross
                      intact
     the frontier between timelessness
                                                    and time.


                      - John Berger   Hold Everything Dear







.

sursum corda !

https://rosemarywashington.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/img_8051.jpg
























that goddamn vance morgan thinks he's so clever

matter of fact

     It will be winter outside and winter inside.

We already wake up early because it is so cold.

           -Mohamed Khair Al-Oraiby




.

study in cultural anthropology

storks' nests on facades
homes of babes
brought in spring
nests big enough for young spaniards
who spend in the villages
their first few months
in these large nests atop the church towers
los torres de igles
finding ease with the faint windswept ringing
      of the occasional bell

the storks wrap the babes of spain
      in their white blankets
and drop them in a good mother's arms
somewhere in spain before they leave
      to go back to africa for another batch

it was good to discover
that a certain part of the population
actually does arrive by storks
people thought it was a fairy tale thing but no
actually the storks of spain do bring children
and these children first become aware
of wind and the sound of bells and wind blown
        air from distant seas

some information is essential

at least now we all know
that celtic spaniards spend the first 8 months or so of life
atop churches in northern spain
before they are placed in homes for the rearing years
actually these nests are large enough to nestle comfortably
a large number of sucklings at once
so for certain weeks in the early summer
you can actually see baby spaniards
all nestled in the storks nest
of their first sociological impression
the world as it is given to them
along sticks and feathers
and odd bits of string rope old shoes
but mostly just nicely arranged sticks
the storks have somethng architectural to say
and the spanish people let them say it
they have to
most of them arrive in spain
by way of storks' nests atop catholic churches

even i was confused
 because i thought for sure the stork story
was imaginative fancy
 probably some
opium addict
in london
in 1850
but no
actually it is based on the true experience
   of people in northern spain
most of them
 i won't say all of them
 but most of them
 are flown in from parts of africa
and they spend their first few months in nests
atop the arched bellbanners of catholic churches





.

big brother the peeping cybertom

"If the C.I.A. director can get caught,
it's pretty much open season on everyone else."

        -marc rotenberg





.

veritatis splendor

A truth that's told with bad intent
 beats all the lies you can invent.

           .- - William Blake





.

you don't say

elections give the illusion of freedom
but are in fact a game
among the powers that be.

this is why we talk of  "formal democracy":
instead of drawing forth the best energies of the people,
this legal institution hands actual control
to very different forces,
turning democracy into a form of oligarchy
and
dictatorship.


          - Karl Jaspers
                            (1883-1969)

song of the pilgrim

(  POEMA DE LA SIGLO XIII  )


La puerta se abre a todos,
Enfermo y sanos-
No solo Catolicos,
Sino a paganos, a judios,
Herejes,  ocjosos y vanos;
Y mas brevemente,
A buenos y profanos..

my translation

the door is open for everyone
the sick and the healthy
not only for the Catholic
but also for the pagan, the jew
the heretic,  the comedian
and the idiot...
and time is very brief-
for the good folks
and the profane

cognitive limitation

"I can choose to observe one experimental set-up,  A,
and ruin B,
or choose to observe B and ruin A.
I cannot choose not to ruin one of them."

      - Von Pauli

most difficult to be more precise

 


" There's always going to be something out there.
 And in today's world, anything's possible. "

     -Lucenay












.

acute awareness

We met,
I cut him down,
and his shade as it passes on the wind
shuns my walk.



  - Little Turtle   circa.  1808

something to shoot for

O God, who, among the many marvels
of Your Grace in the New World,
 did cause to blossom on the banks of the Mohawk
 and of the St. Lawrence,
 the pure and tender Lily,
 Kateri Tekakwitha,
 we thank You, the favor we begged
through her intercession,
that this Young Lover of Jesus
 and of His Cross
will now be counted
among the Saints of Holy Mother Church,
and that our hearts may be enkindled
 with a stronger desire
to imitate her innocence and faith.
Through the same Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Canonized officially on October 21, 2012

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, pray for us.

goading the reflective

The machines have taken over,  right?




       poem by patrick healy who commented on the mayhem created by a computer glitch on wall street....i don't care what any one says-  these are romantic times

found on a stick-em with prescription logo offering D Seldane-D (terfenedine 6 0 mg. and pseudoephedrine HCl 120 mg) that fell from a book

Tend your sick ones,  O Lord Jesus Christ;
rest your weary ones,
bless your dying ones,
soothe your suffering ones,
pity your afflicted ones,
shield your joyous ones...
And all for your love's sake.

     St. Augustine of Hippo

saith Tabriz

Both ecstasy and sobrie­ty in love!                                                         






             

The oblivion is of two kinds;

one is forget­fulness of the world

which makes us forget first about the memory

then about the future world;

 the other way of oblivion is preoccupation

with thoughts of the future world,

so that one forgets oneself as well,

 and one plays with the world

 as a cat plays with a mouse.

Through association with a man of God,

he has obtained a position - that of Shaykh, 

what after thir­ty years of prayer could never obtain.

 The third way of forgetfulness is love for God,

so that man forgets both this world

and the future world;

 this is the meaning of the saying:

"This world is forbidden to men of the future world,

and the future world is forbidden to men of this world;

and both, this world and the future world,

are forbidden to men of God (A saying of the Prophet);

 that is, that he should forget everything but God;

Mawlana (Rumi) enjoys ecstacy in love;

for him there is no sobriety in love,

but for me there is both ecstasy and sobrie­ty in love.

For me there is no such oblivion in drunken­ness;

how does the world dare to conceal me with a veil

 or to be concealed from me with a veil?






















.

lisa karpova seems to think...

By creating sex symbols, who are sponsored and obedient to the American government, the world population has been controlled for decades and is still being controlled. Kim Khardashian is an example of a sex symbol, she became a big success, so-called star after her sex tape was supposedly leaked to the world. It was all pre-planned, there were no leaks. She was been moulded into a sex symbol to serve the imperialistic aims of the US. I use the term 'so-called' because I never knew about her until a couple months back.

from PRAVDA.RU

strange challenge

Write books only
if you are going to say in them
the things you would never dare
 to confide with anyone.









       Emile M. Cioran




























/

something slimey forward slithers

The I.R.S. is doing what they can to prevent this,
but this is like a tsunami of fraud.
Everywhere I go, every dinner, every function I attend,
someone will come up to me and tell me they are a victim.







     Wifredo A. Ferer   - speaking of identity theft tax fraud
























,

the "A" word chronicle

six weeks into alleluias
six weeks into attesting incessantly
to the ancient truth of eternal newness
and alleluias still ring forth
while most the world is deaf to it
still the voices insist
alleluia

yet another thing to fight about

“If you want to get into a fistfight in Montana,
go into a bar
and share your opinion
about bison or wolves.”







     ( former )  Governor Brian Schweitzer - ---  Montana
















,,,,,

cognitive happenstance

translating all the information
is a most complicated negotiation

like swimming in a world of seaweed
and scum

the judgement is one of
utter disbelief

truth or consequences

Yesterday I attended the theatre.  I seated myself,
thinking I must be early.   Perhaps I fell asleep,  I
do not know:  I assert only that when I lifted my head
the columns had fallen,  weeds withered among
dusty marble tiers,   and glaucous lizards rhythmically
were breathing the somnolent noon;   and it seemed
I was in Tunis.  What meanings might obtain from this?
There could be several.










    -Evan S. Connell 
Notes from a Bottle found on a Beach at Carmel




















,,,










...

still, the effort to distinguish....

"We are halfway between the lunatic
 and the terrorist.
There is often a thin line
between petty crime
and
Al Qaeda."

    Eric Denece  - french intelligence

what's my line

But if some mind
 very different from ours
were to look upon some property of some curved line
as we do on the evenness of a straight line,
 he would not recognize as such the evenness of a straight line;
 nor would he arrange the elements of his geometry
according to that very different system,
and would investigate quite other relationships
as I have suggested in my notes.
We fashion our geometry on the properties
 of a straight line because
that seems to us
to be the simplest of all.
 But really all lines that are continuous
and of a uniform nature
are just as simple as one another.
Another kind of mind
which might form an equally clear mental perception
 of some property of any one of these curves,
 as we do of the congruence of a straight line,
might believe these curves to be the simplest of all,
and from that property of these curves
build up the elements of a very different geometry,
 referring all other curves to that one,
 just as we compare them to a straight line.
 Indeed, these minds,
 if they noticed and formed an extremely clear perception
 of some property of, say, the parabola,
would not seek, as our geometers do,
to rectify the parabola,
 they would endeavor,
if one may coin the expression,
to parabolify the straight line.

roger joseph boscovich sj

Ah!

the awareness of God
when it comes
so often strikes me as a sense
of finding myself returned
to a place that i had forgotten about
a sense of suddenly finding myself
in the presence of a great love
that i had forgotten was available to me
i find myself saying
"i missed you"
even though i had not been aware
until that very moment
that i was missing anything





   -larceny at it's finest

21st century mandate

strange warriors chanting


We strongly condemn
the use
of any violence
in connection
with protest
against abortion.

  -found on a trailer to a disturbing movie

what was the substitute?

Where an exclusive humanism was undoubtedly available was in Epicureanism.
And it is no surprise that Lucretius
was one of the inspirations for explorations
in the direction of naturalism,
e.g., with Hume.

But Epicureanism just as it was
couldn’t really do the trick.
 It could teach us to achieve ataraxia
by overcoming our illusions about the Gods.
But this wasn’t what was needed for a humanism
which could flourish in the modern context.
For this was becoming one
 in which the power to create moral order in one’s life
 had a rather different shape.
It had to include the active capacity to shape and fashion our world,
natural and social; and it had to be actuated by some drive to human beneficence.
To put this second requirement
in a way which refers back to the religious tradition,
modern humanism, in addition to being activist and interventionist,
had to produce some substituted for....

 agape' .

  - Charles Taylor   (canadian thinker)

condensed morning of snow

comes a day that is useless
snow heaps in schools close
a day february 29th
a day that should not have been
a day loosely added on

nothing of importance happens
all is relativized by happenstance
we prepare for days like this
we know it's all a sham
what we do is loaded with superfluity
we know somehow deeply
that we are expendable

our life is mysterious
because chances are we need not be here
but we are

in an effort to make the best of it
we make something we call a life
we do what we must do to  make it real

yet we never quite rid ourselves
of the truth of our negligibility

how surprised then
when someone shows
a naked eye
and speaks of love

for my vietnamese readers

Khi cầm trên tay một tập thơ hay, là được ôm vào lòng món quà tinh thần quý giá.
 Khi nhà thơ Trần Quang Quý tặng mình các tập thơ của anh, mình đi đâu cũng mang theo,
 đọc và suy ngẫm. Thơ Trần Quang Quý đang nói lên những tiếng nói của thế hệ,
thật nhân bản.

Vì thế mình đã tuyển và dịch 1 tập thơ Trần Quang Quý.
Sau 5 tháng làm việc miệt mài với công trình này,
 chưa thể vừa ý.
Và số phận đã cho mình gặp nhà thơ Jennifer Fossenbell để cùng hòan thành công trình.

Trong những tuần làm việc cùng nhau, mình đã học về ngôn ngữ tiếng
Anh như 1 năm học đại học.
Những ngôn ngữ thơ cao đẹp, lấp lánh,
trí tuệ và giàu cảm xúc.
Jen là người bạn mới, nhưng dường như số phận đã cho mình biết cô ấy từ trước.
Và mình biết rằng chặng đường văn chương của mình luôn có Jen ở bên...
Một tạp chí Mỹ sẽ giới thiệu tập thơ
 Cánh đồng người - thơ Trần Quang Quý mà mình và Jen vừa dịch xong.
Nhà xuất bản hội nhà văn vừa in xong và hôm nay mình cầm
 nó trên tay với 1 cảm xúc dào dạt chân thành.
Bài viết của Jen dưới đây nói hộ bao cảm xúc mà mình,
Jen và nhà thơ Trần Quang Quý đã trải qua khi cùng hợp tác cho công trình.

 - Nguyen Phan Que Mai      living vietnamese poet

vexations

pour se jouer 840 fois de suite ce motif,  il sera bon de se preparer au prealable
                               et dans le plus grand silence,  par des immobilites serieuses









erik satie




these are performance instructions
concerning the piece with the above title










....

sunday morning comin' down

we must never underestimate the human propensity for insanity
look closely it is everywhere
despite all human efforts to create a rational world
the utterly human response appears to be psychosis

slowly it dawns

"We now begin to realize
what we do is only temporary and indefinable.
  Incomplete gestures must be made,
because reality beckons us to respond.
 Beauty, however peripheral,
insists that we remain faithful to who we are,
as we are."

—Makoto Fujimura, "Gravity and Grace"

Prayer during Depression or Anxiety

.

Dear Jesus, I walk in the valley of darkness
for I suffer from depression.
I feel unloved. rejected,
 useless to myself and useless to others.
I feel lost in a world I no longer understand.
At times, I want to sleep and never wake up again.

Lord, I believe that Your love is a transforming love.
Jesus, Son of David have pity on me.
Out of the depths, I cry to you.
Lord, even though I feel nothing,

I still praise you for the wonder of my being.
You have formed me in my mother's womb

and watched over me to this moment.
I am precious in Your eyes
and You love me.
On the Cross, you shed your blood for me.
You have carved me in the palm of Your hand.

For all this I give you thanks and praise.
May your Precious Blood give new life to me

 and to all those who suffer as I do.
Take each one of us
and hug us to your sacred and loving heart.
Through your glorious wounds may we be healed.
Dear Jesus, when you fed the crowd in the desert,

you wished to gather up the fragments,
lest anything be lost.
As I wander through a desert and darkness of my own,

 I ask you to gather up the fragments of this shattered being,

 lest anything be lost.
Through the prophet, Joel,

You promise to restore the years
 that the locusts have eaten.
I ask you, lay Your hands gently on my weary head
 and restore me.
Let your face shine upon me

and give me back the peace
 and the joy that has been lost.
Amen

toward a more cognitive reflection

...It is precisely the first steps of evil that we must be aware of;  once embarked on the path,  whichever path it may be,  it is hard to turn back - as hard as for the drunkard who deludes himself that when he has emptied the bottle in front of him,  the last one for sure,  he'll be able to stop.   I don't doubt the Lord hears deathbed conversions,  but I believe that if by some miracle the dying man is cured,  the conversion won't count for much in his subsequent existence against his entire previous life.  It is difficult for the lyric incandescence of a moment to overcome the epic continuity of a story...

   - from: Inferences from a Sabre -by- Claudio Magris
                        trans. -  Mark Thompson

slicingly

“...only faith gives us access to theological truths.
The ways of God are not open to reason,
for God has freely chosen to create a world
and establish a way of salvation
within it apart from any necessary laws
that human logic or rationality can uncover"

William of Occam  (1285-1349)

he is said to be the source of "nominalism"
the instinct to name everything

just thinking

if we acknowledge that some people will travel
at 600 mph for a period of time
each day
then
does that make us more susceptible
to moving fast in general?

what would happen if everyone all of a sudden
had to move no faster than 3 mph
walking pace?

would life change?

like deer eyes in the headlights

“What is frightening
is the conjunction of massive technical power
and the spiritual surrender to nihilism.
A panic-stricken refusal to glance,
even furtively,
in the only direction where meaning could still be found
dominates our intellectual life.”

 – René Girard

when we think of anger

A calm sea is a delightful sight,
but there is nothing more delightful than a peaceful soul.


Dolphins swim in a calm sea,
but thoughts worthy of God swim in a soul at peace.

     -Evagrius of Pontus