Breathe

Breathe out, breathe in, out with the old, in with the new, breathe out, breathe in, out with the old, in with the new, breathe out the death, breathe in the life, breathe out, breathe in...out with the past, in with the future, breathe out, breathe in, slowly, surely, slowly, surely, breathe out, breathe in, out with the old, in with the new, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out the death, breathe in the life, breathe out, breathe in...slowly, surely, slowly, surely...

(Referred via Jason Evan's blog)

The struggle for independance of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt has inspired many contemporary leaders. Today, confronted with those who wish to separate religion and politic, we must ask : who are today's slaves ? Where are today's Pharaohs ? And, where are today's Moses ?

--from here

On that note:

Now it's time for suffering
To shed the skin to which you cling
A relic of my everything
Is all you've left to hold...

---from Skin Shed by Argyle Park on the album Misguided

(From Jason Evan's blog)

Let me say, with the risk of appearing ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love. It is impossible to think of an authentic revolutionary without this quality... One must have a large dose of humanity, a large dose of a sense of justice and truth, to avoid falling into extremes, into cold intellectualism, into isolation from the masses. Every day we must struggle so that this love of living humanity is transformed into concrete facts, into acts that will serve as an example...
- Che Guevara

The temptation to disassociate the divine from material reality marks the beginnings of kitsch. For, once unhitched from the divine, the complexity of the world can be too easily by-passed and ignored.

(from here)

From the fake Santa Claus to the real one!

The Burden of Gifts

It may look as though “identity” only justifies its continued existence by underwriting commerical exchanges. Plenty of people came back from their “identity-finding” expeditions in Tibet to devote sustained attention to the question of just which bottled tap water best fits their lifestyles. But that appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, “identities” attract such deep and persistent attention in public discussion partly because the debaters sense that the outcome of this debate will shape who we may be in the future. Once the notion of “identity” takes a single, transmittable, reliable pattern online, we’ll begin to think of ourselves as instantiations of that pattern, in the same way we think of ourselves as our job descriptions (“I’m a freelance consultant,” “I’m a writer,” “I’m a software engineer”).

(From AKMA Random Thoughts )

(Originally by "Norm" in The Door Magazine Chat Closet)

Imagine the planet below you is not the Earth, but some planet you are given to govern in the new Kingdom. Imagine what people live there. Are they humans like us? Will they be able to see you, or will you be at an accelerated speed like that episode of Star Trek so that you are invisible to them. What will you do for them? Will you impart to them laws to live by? Will you take part in their redemption? Will you be a prophet like Elijah or John the Baptist pointing the way to God? Will the planet you rule be something from your imagination - like an idyllic scene from your most beautiful dream? Will you whisper in the ears of the philosophers on your planet; tidbits of the secrets of the universe like perhaps an Augustine or Luther?

(Referred by Alan Creech)

The problem of the individual and the community cannot be solved at all if the height is not achieved where the sovereign source and end of both individual and communal existence are discerned; and where the limits are set against the idolatrous selfworship of both individuals and communities.

--Richard Niebuhr

"Silence is frightening because it strips us as nothing else does, throwing us upon the stark realities of our life."

-Dallas Willard

(Originally found here via John Campea)

Another (attempt at) Haiku (Inspired by a Haiku post yesterday at The Door Magazine Chat Closet)

Gift so hard to buy
Giving tangible result
Only poverty

(Original Haiku by me on December 19, 2002)

(Inspired by a Haiku post at The Door Magazine Chat Closet)

Consumer orgy
Dematerialize it
So life can come down

(Original Haiku by me on December 18, 2002)

(Originally referred by John Campea)

When you buy gifts:

1) We need to distinguish between necessities and luxuries, and normally we need to reject both our desire for the latter and our inclination to blur the distinction.
2) Expenditures for the purpose of status, pride, staying in fashion, and "keeping up with the Joneses" are wrong.
3) We need to distinguish between expenditures to develop our particular creative gifts and legitimate hobbies and a general demand for all the cultural items, recreational equipment, and current hobbies that the "successful" of our class or nation enjoy.
4) We need to distinguish between occasional celebration and normal day-to-day routine. A turkey feast with all the trimmings at Thanksgiving to celebrate the good gift of creation is Biblical (Deut. 14:22-27). Unfortunately, many of us overeat every day.
5) There is no necessary connection between what we earn and what we spend on ourselves. We should not try to buy things just because we can afford them.

from Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ronald J. Sider

(Originally referred by Jordon and Wendy Cooper)

I used to be a learned professor. Now I'm a learner.
When I was learned, life was a quiz show. Now that I'm a learner, life is a discovery channel.
When I was learned, it was a question of how much I knew. Now that I'm a learner, it's a question of how much I'm being stretched.
When I was learned, knowledge was everything. Now that I'm a learner, kindness is everything.
When I was learned, knowledge went to my head. Now that I'm a learner, knowledge travels the longest foot in the universe–-the foot that separates my head from my heart.
When I was learned, I used to point my finger and pontificate. Now that I'm a learner, I slap my forehead all the time
When I was learned, I used to think I was the best. Now that I'm a learner, I do the best I can.
When I was learned, I was frightened of new ideas. Now that I'm a learner, I'm just as frightened of old ideas.
When I was learned, I looked to the past: to have confirmed the set of beliefs I already had. Now that I'm a learner, I look to the future: to grow, be stretched, and remain open to what I don't know.
When I was learned, I knew where I was going. Now that I'm a learner, I don't know where I'm going----but I know whom I've going with.
When I was learned, I loved to talk. Now that I'm a learner, I'd prefer to listen, because that's when I'm learning.
When I was learned, I had something to teach everybody. Now that I'm a learner, everybody has something to teach me.
When I was learned, I was impatient with dumb people. Now that I'm a learner, I'm grateful when people are patient enough to dumb down to me and care enough to smarten me up.
When I was learned, I thought that all knowledge was a form of power. Now that I'm a learner, I suspect much knowledge is a form of weakness.

(To see the full article by Leonard Sweet, go here! )

(From What's Holy About War?, The Door Magazine, issue #184):

The other night I saw a minister of the gospel on MSNBC who was asked whether she thought Osama bin Laden believed in God, and her answer was, "It's not the God I know. It's not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

Well, uh, no it's definitely NOT the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It's the God of Abraham, Ishmael and Muhammad. But at least this woman had the good sense to identify that particular dividing point in our spiritual heritage. If she'd stopped at Abraham - the one we ALL agree on - then maybe she would have been making a point about bin Laden's heresy. Saddling him with two spiritual forebears he never claimed in the first place is the equivalent of a Satanist condemning a Presbyterian in the name of Madalyn Murray O'Hair's ghost. She seemed to be making HIS point, not hers.

(one of my poems, dated December 11, 1993)

Once Oppressed By Thorns

Thorn in flesh-- remnant of briar patch; it lingers
Like an albatross, piercing the heel.
The swift discouraged in race.
Descent into thorns; the beyond oasis shocked
Yet pondering the fate of this Achilles.
Piercing-- thorn obliquely throttling the seed of the soul.
Blue to read and clear-- Broken sensuality cries. Fire split!
See the dripping from a shattered heart exposed!
Wedge bluntly enters logic's domain usurping the ruler.
Thoughts scatter in flight. Ruins of nest remain!
Fantasy flirts; Addiction seduces; Death delights.
Perfume envelopes playfully.
Comanion with Adam's mask shares wounds.
Perfume's stench evaporates.
Thorns trampled by Vengeance.
Friend guides this Achilles onwards by walking.

Storytelling brings us home to our hearts. It requires no props, no money, nothing but revealing history, our experience, and our inner world. It doesn't matter if you're gifted at weaving a yarn or simply speak from your heart. What matters is that you tap into the wonder of your own life and share it with others. Telling the stories of our lives to each other brings a richness of spirit and validates our specialness. Storytelling ignites our imagination as we create pictures and scenes from words. It is also a wonderful way to build community.

(Charlotte Sophia Kasl, A Home for the Heart, 167)

Immortality

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it by not dying."

--Woody Allen

"The response of faith drops the demand that we keep living history and accepts the fact that, in the final analysis, we are born to die...It means that we have to face the loss of our historical potency. After we die, we cannot make history. True, a few important people will still have lingering influence through their works, or their memory may be used as a symbol for some cause or ideology, but they cannot make anything."

(James R. Wilkes, To Wrestle and To Dance, 130)

Soul development

An individual soul can be likened to our universe. Just as the universe is thought to have had its beginning at the moment of the Big Bang, so an individual soul might be understood to have a definite birth at the moment of conception. Just as our universe has been expanding, the inner universe of a soul is constantly growing. The inner cosmos, like the outer one, goes through many phases in its evolution. Connections in the mind rapidly multiply in early infancy, just as the most important developments in the physical universe occurred in the first few minutes. Gradually, in both cases, a unique identity emerges. Both are immortal but also have a definite beginning: the 'birth' of the universe involves bringing together and reorganizing pre-existing fundamental particles, while the creation of the soul involves imprinting eternal spirit with a unique identity and character.

(from Anjam Khursheed, The Universe Within, 160)

Understand that you have within yourself, upon a small scale, a second universe: within you there is a sun, there is a moon, and there are also stars.

--Origen (cited in The Orthodox Way, Kallistos Ware, 43)

Inspiration

Take your breathing...It isn't particularly pleasant, and it certainly isn't unpleasant. So your animal brain judges it irrelevant. Talk about ignorance-- it only happens to be the mystery that sustains your life and connects you to every other living thing!

-- A Return to Innocence: Philosophical Guidance in an Age of Cynicism, Jeffrey M. Schwartz, 190)

If we only knew that we are powerless all the time and these artificial worlds of comfort are just an illusion.

(From The Weakest Link by Derek Darby)

(From The Inner Limits of Mankind,E. Lazlo, pp.25-26)

The blame is tacitly and shifted to the nature and finitude of the environment, and engineers are scurrying to their drawing boards to redesign it here and there so that we can remain as and what we are.
It is forgotten that not our world, but we human beings are the cause of our problems, and that only be redesigning our thinking and acting, not the world around us, can we solve them.

(From The Way of the (Modern) World by Craig M. Gay, 295-96; 299-300)

Of course, one of the deepest splits that has opened up within our modern civilization has been between our need for genuinely personal relatedness and the dreary impersonality of so much of modern institutional life, a split that has been helpfully characterized as a kind of "overgrowth of objective culture" at the expense of truly human subjectivity. This overgrowth of objectivity is evident in the "managed" quality of modern political life; in modern science's "objectification" of the world and in the utilitarian spirit of modern technology; and in the modern economy's "leveling" of all quality by means of merely quantitative monetary abstraction. Indeed, the overgrowth of objective culture is even evident in the so-called private sphere of subjective autonomy, for it appears that self-constructing individuals quite often envision and treat even themselves largely as manipulable objects....It is, of course, not terribly surprising to find that the overgrowth of objectivity in modern society and culture has yielded the fruit of loneliness. Unable to truly apprehend others, the self that is possessed by the spirit of objectification is itself reduced to an object incapable of truly personal existence. The cost of establishing control over the world by means of technical-rational objectification, in other words, has been nothing short of personal existence, and we have established a measure of control over our world only to discover that the self-understanding responsible for initiating the process-- which seemed at first to be so confident in its position in the universe --has by now vanished into "postmodern" nothingness. This is perhaps the supreme irony of the modern intellectual condition. The immensely painful and nature of this condition, furthermore, which might otherwise be such as to call the whole project of objectification into question, is assuaged by the distractions and diversions of consumer culture...

Liquid Gift by Mortal from Pura
(Jyro)

your wounds
your eyes
your strength
your lies
i want more
want it all
everything
everything
reveal yourself to me!
show your face
show your veins
scratch your scales
lift your wings
spill your blood
bare your soul
sacrifice
this is gold
reveal yourself!
until your self is revealed
and if i never touch your scars
I'll know who you are
only if you tell me
and what if i will never know
how you're hurting so
only you can say
life is loss
death is gain
if love is truth
say your name
i want more
want it all
everything
everything
reveal yourself to me!
until your soul is revealed
i see your self in me!

Quiver by Jeff Johnson from The Isle of Dreams

The cycle continues,
As the waves keep on crashing in,
While the ground that I'm walking on
quivers with each blow.

And a voice from within longing to be free cries:
"I can't take this anymore..."

Still the voice from within longing to be free cries:
"I can't take this anymore..."

But the cycle continues,
And the waves keep on crashing in,
And this dream that I'm living in...
...it quivers.

However hard I try, I find it impossible to construct anything greater than these three words, "Love one another"--- only to the end, and without exceptions: then all is justified and life is illumined, whereas otherwise it is an abomination and a burden.

---Mother Maria of Paris (cited in The Orthodox Way, Kallistos Ware, 40)

On that note:

From This Beautiful Mess, Sixpence None the Richer...

love, salvation, the fear of death (slocum/arhelger)

well i'm staring straight into the face of hell
you're so close and you can't even tell
i'm so wrapped up inside
because i don't have much to love

horrified i reel from pits unseen
falling off my pedestal of plentiful deeds
as it crumbles down on top of me
i contemplate my lack of love

come and save my soul
before it's not too late
i'm not afraid to admit
how much i hate myself

all these gongs and cymbals ring inside my head
surrendered body to the flames has singed the skin
can't speak in tongues and even if i could it's nothing
because i cannot love

come and save my soul
before it's not too late
i'm not afraid to admit
how much i hate myself

well i'm staring into the face of hell
i'm so close and i can't even tell
i'm so afraid i'll amount to nothing
because i cannot love

"I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me."

--Thomas Merton

Originally referred by Wendy Cooper's blog:

reality is interpretation. the stories we tell help establish the boundaries for our actions. our actions are partner in enacting destiny.

interpretation is all that we have.
engage it authentically.
hold it sacred.

(From here)

"Redemption is a tragicomedy leading from suffering incarceration to liberating resurrection. Creation is a fantasy leading from mysterious freedom to the formed structure of existence, comprehensible though not comprehended. Redemption is the story that moves from the binding necessity of existence to the freedom of a new creation. Creation is the tale that begins with freedom and ends with loss."

--Robert Paul Roth, The Theater of God: Story in Christian Doctrines, p. 49

(one of my poems, dated Feb. 19/96)

Tertiary

I am my own Antichrist
Subhuman and Demigod at once
Huddled together like lovers
French kissing
They fall into a ditch

I am my own Antichrist
Perfectly incomplete
Like a cannibal with an identity crisis
Who considers it absurd
To be expendable
Or like a co-dependent playing solitaire
Being the last person on earth
After the love bomb
I am my own Antichrist
Completely imperfect
Like a week with no Sabbath
And I feebly see no end
Or like a year without an autumn
And I always fall out of season...

Dreamy thoughts...

Dancing to the Sound of Light (Lyrics and music: Ketil Sounces copyright 1991 Broken songs [ASCAP])

Do never let die
Steal a color from the sky
And paint everything down under

Live love and let cry
Make a poem, tell you why
Go wherever your mind may wonder

Through human eyes it's always hard to see
Still there's a chance that someday we'll be

Dancing to the sound of light
Moving to a rhythm, shining bright
Dancing in the borderland
There's something here for us to understand

Wise piece of advice
Take religion by surprise
Love feeds on truth and beauty

Start passing the word
Tell them everything you've heard
Right now is where heaven might be

Across the river lies our destiny
I've got thiis feeling that someday we'll be

Dancing to the sound of light
Moving to a rhythm, shining bright
Dancing in the borderland
There's something here for us to understand

----------------------------------------------------------------
From Darn Floor - Big Bite by DA

The Earth Household (Lyrics by Terry Taylor Music by Terry Taylor, Greg Flesch, Tim Chandler copyright 1987 Broken Songs)

Sleeping by the hearth of the earth household
Content and relaxed before the fire of life
It's becoming like a castle all woven of mist
Disintegrating when i want to grab a hold

Struggle to go somewhere beyond
The earth household, the earth household
Go to the other unknowable side
Of the earth household, the earth household

We chase with the hounds for the meaning of the world
The unattainable meaning of the world
Now I'm gonna run to the other side
Beyond the borderland of death I ride

Slip through a tear in the fabric of the world
The earth household, the earth household
Speak the foreign language of a place beyond
The earth household, the earth household

I drink you endlessly toward my hollow heart
And wake at night repeating, "How strange, how strange!"
All is touch and vision in a passionate kiss
And life's a drab curtain ready to be raised

Struggle to go somewhere beyond
The earth household, the earth household
Go to the other unknowable side
Of the earth household, the earth household

The earth household, the earth household

We chase with the hounds for the meaning of the world...

(Yet another test that I originally saw on Darren Friesen's weblog)


A different quiz, what strange type of person are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Originally seen on Darren Friesen's weblog)


Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

--Ellen Parr

Boredom vs. being doomed!: Go here

Figuring out quotes of others: Go here

Kyriosity: Go here

Curious about my own thoughts? Here's a poem of mine:

The Truth That Contradicts Itself [originally composed in 1994]

irony
one idea rubbing against it's opposite
the friction grating.
at it's zenith is a paradox
that is eternal
passionate irony, blushing!

Creationary thoughts...

"We are determined to do no wrong, but without the breadth of energy that is simultaneously iconoclastic and respectful of the triumphs of the past, we are unable to produce great works of art that will inspire our children's children. The truly heroic does not accord well with our age. And the result can be a form of paralysis and a drying up of our creative springs."

--F. David Peat, The Blackwinged Night, 20

"I then found out that, in this great act of creation, the First Creator/First Cause manifested itself as an explosion, not an implosion. It was a burst of 'out-giving' that kept on giving and apparently kept nothing back for itself. It makes sense because true creation seeks no return."

--Syd Kessler, The Perfect System, 22-23

Heretics have always been easier to find than God, either because they speak in a louder voice or because dogmatists are more interested in finding them.

(From the column Crackpots and Earthen Vessels, in The Door Magazine, issue #184)

Santa Claus is a LOSER!

Find out why HERE!

If you didn't know that a human being was allowing this blog to be created, how would you know it was a creationary product?

Travelogue

The territory: World of experience

The journey: Exile or Explorer?

The method: Art...

The Dangers of Uniting for a Tower

Consider this.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down...

Sometimes when idols come crashing down, we need to consider why we created those gods at all!

Conceptions

Form and content intertwine when something is conceived. It makes itself cozy in preconceptions, nurtured and sustained. Staying domesticated by it's comfort, it can seem like it's heritage is constricting, instead of being considered a launching-pad for reaching the upper-limit of it's potential!

Death can appear like the ultimate limit for concepts, but that's only an interpretation about realigning it's potential. When concepts reach their end, it can be a new beginning or an ultimate end!

One way or another, being born again can be like abortion, or like birth.

The gravity of words...

Keyboards can easily be used to produce words, phrases and sentences. All the letters are in front of you, calling out to be used. Processing letters can easily be shaped and formed into whatever your imagination and vocabulary can allow. Where your travels will go is at the speed of your typing.

It can be very pedestrian in comparison to graphics! Like "see[ing] the light by braille", it can make one long for nonverbal ways to supplement the piecing together of letters. Somehow, the indirect seems more direct, and letters, words and sentences don't contain the complexity of the ideas that long to emerge.

Words can act like a tower of Babel, but can also act like a leaky vessel. This gravity of words can stoke a desire to fly, but it can be the foundation toward another level of reality.

When travelling by words, jump for joy!

The travails of creation...

This is the first post after my sister-in-law produced a new nephew. I just wish I could produce something.

That's the difficult thing about posting. It can be like the enchantment of birth, but it can be like the exhaustion of busywork. Moreover, the anticipation or hiddenness of ideas as they emerge in my real world (as opposed to the virtual world) can short-circuit any motivation.

So it seems easier to seek than find!

Intermission

Whew! While I continue to incubate something else that's abstract, confusing and potentially stimulating, take a break.

I'm currently waiting to see what my sister-in-law will bring into the world next. Whether it will be a new nephew or niece remains to be seen. The e-mail awaits...

While churning out stuff to write, I read The [Wittenberg] Door Magazine and drink Coke. I also have another website. Feel free to drop by...

As for personality, I'm an INTP (Myers-Briggs) and type 5 (Enneagram). So when I sound confusing, complex, complicated or abstract, I probably am.

Anyways, hope this holds you until my next post. I'm still learning...

The end of nonexistence...

Somehow, some type of grief happens when nonexistence ends. The time before existence begins seems to be safe and secure, protected from the vulnerability and corruptibility that's possible when something exists. When something starts, it's possible for it to end; when that's impossible, it's perceived as eternal. Nonexistence can seem to have an eternal quality, for it is possible that it may not end at all. That's just an illusion, however. What seems like eternity is only a temporary suspension, vulnerable to end at any moment.

So why does it seem like eternity? The first time we encounter nonexistence, it lacks a beginning; it has only a possible end. After that, nonexistence seems to develop a beginning when the existence of something ultimately ends! Does nonexistence develop a beginning independently or siphons one from existence? Consider that existence may need nonexistence to end as a condition to begin, but it does not depend on nonexistence to begin as a condition to end. Nonexistence is only the result of existence ending!

The crux of the matter is this:

Existence can begin or end always. Nonexistence can always end, but can not always begin. Can nonexistence acquire a beginning?

Here's one answer:

Before existence begins, nonexistence exists. When existence begins, nonexistence nonexists. After existence ends, nonexistence exists. So nonexistence can not end, it just nonexists (or temporarily suspends itself)! In actuality, nonexistence can not begin!

Therefore, nonexistence is permanently temporarily suspended!


So have no fear today!!!

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