Category Archives: 2020 election

President Joe Biden Is Offering Us A “Profile In Courage.”

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When Joe Biden was sworn in as our President last January, I felt such a sense of relief.  Hope had returned.  In his inauguration address, he voiced hope and optimism and avoided  denigrating his predecessor.  He demonstrated that he could see beyond the end of his nose, that “this is not about me” but about this wonderful nation that had given him this honor.  In his speech, he demonstrated a faint tic here and there in speech, reflecting the speech impediment that he struggled with as a child.  I think that this impediment was, and is, an essential part of his character as he had to struggle with it and learn to “rein in” that passion that led to this stuttering problem. (See afterthought, on the neurological dimension of this problem.)J

Joe, and I think he would appreciate that I call him “Joe,” is a good man and part of that goodness is that he is aware of his “not-so-good” qualities; and I think his Catholic faith is an essential dimension of this goodness.  His faith has instilled in him the value of life, not only his own but that of the entire nation and world. This helps him endure the “slings and arrows” that those who hate him toss his way daily.

The stuttering issue of his puts on my table the childhood fear of being “different”; in our early childhood, the fear of this “difference” is terrifying and we go to great effort to fit in and be allowed to “play in the reindeer games” that Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer felt excluded from.  But this need to “fit in” can be crippling and shred any potential for individuality, thereby selling one’s own soul.  But young Joe knew that he had a problem and deliberately addressed it, learning adaptations that would allow him to not stutter any more… more or less.  This courage allowed him to accept that he still, and always will, have a verbal slip here and there and he is ok nevertheless.  The core issue for him on that matter was accepting human frailty.  If someone in the Oval Office can not be humble enough to accept that, woe is country!

Here I must clarify my early insinuation that stuttering is not neurological.  It is neurological, as is everything about us, including this moment in my life when I am sitting here by an early-morning crackling fire, sipping coffee, Petey at my side, and delighted with this moment of Grace that I have been afforded. This Grace comforts me as I “gird up my loins” for another Autumn day in the beautiful High Desert of New Mexico.  Synapses are firing away “up there” up there in my head.  But this marvelous neurological dimension of human experience lends itself to poetry, giving us the poetry of Edgar Simmons who likened stuttering to the childhood predicament of having more to say than words can contain.  (Remember Cordelia’s response to her father, King Lear, who posed the question, ‘How much do you love me?’” His lovely young daughter responded, “More than words can wield the matter.”)  Biden has tremendous passion which has led verbally slip here and there and to stumble with words also.  Here is this compelling poem by Simmons:

BOW DOWN TO STUTTERERS

By Edgar Simmons

The stutter’s hesitation

Is a procrastination crackle,

Redress to hot force,

Flight from ancient flame.

The bow, the handclasp, the sign of the cross

Say, “Sh-sh-sheathe the savage sword.”

If there is greatness in sacrifice

Lay on me the blue stigmata of saints;

Let me not fly to kill in unthought.

Prufrock has been maligned

And Hamlet should have waived revenge,

Walked with Ophelia domestic corridors

Absorbing the tick, the bothersome twitch.

Let me stutter with the non-objective painters

Let my stars cool to bare lighted civilities.

A Caveat About Judgmentalism

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The excerpt from Paul Tillich’s book, “On Boundaries” I shared recently is a prophetic word for us.  And in pointing out what “ails us” a prophet is “doom preaching” in some manner and one of my readers definitely took it that way.  I appreciate his “like” of the post and his “bothering” to share with me his take on the Tillich shared there, though I disagreed with its tenor.

Tillich lived and spoke with hope as did many Germans of his day, Dietrich Bonnhoeffer and Hannah Arendt for example. Tillich, Bonhoeffer, and Arendt were seers, prophets in a very real sense as they were keenly “aware of the present moment,” this “awareness” a gift to one with a prophetic voice.The gifted historian William Irwin Thompson noted that a prophet, “is not so much having the ability to foretell the future but the ability to be aware of the implications of the present.”  We have them in our world today in the art and literary fields as well as with spiritually astute individuals like Richard Rohr, Marriane Williamson, and the Reverend William Barber, to name but a few.

But the reader’s response made me aware of the “tenor” of what I think, say, do, and “write” in this venue.  Even the very profound excerpt from the Tillich book, “Boundaries” makes a statement about the one who was writing and is sharing.  Someone once said, “Give a kid a hammer and everything is a nail.” Yes, the post of yesterday is another example of a “kid with a hammer” in a very real sense.  Yes, “in a sense,”  I am a very judgemental person and occasionally realize that in the formative years of my life, I would even say early moments, I “felt” judged and thus became a “judge” in a sense.  But mercifully I see this on occasion and “tone it down” a bit, look around for a moment and see the beauty of the world that surrounds me.  

For example, let me share with you a visit from Beauty which I was blessed with on Sunday morning last.  Shortly after awakening, I walked into the living room and noticed the bird-storm outside my windows, the flurry of birds delighting in the feeders I have out to win their favor.  This alone always quietens the din of heavy-handed, ponderous, pontificating that is always so ready to lure me from the Grace of simply “being here.”  There was a warm fire crackling in the wood stove to my left, a cup of hot coffee before me, and my beautiful little dachshund, Petey, curled up beside me.  Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” was playing on the Dish-satellite music channel. In a few moments my lovely wife began to rehearse on her Grand Piano for the music program at a nearby little Methodist church a bit later, via Zoom.  The old hymns from my youth stirred my soul as she played them and sang along, Petey joined occasionally when he deemed the key in tune with his musically sensitive ears.  (Admittedly, Petey’s “singing” would be dismissed by less refined listeners as a lot of barking and whining!)  In an hour or so, Petey and l shifted venues in our house to the sunroom as my wife joined her church service.  Petey and I call the lovely sunroom on this occasion, “the penalty box” as it keeps his highly-skilled and sophisticated voice from interfering with the church service. There Petey and I are delighted with the view of a sun-filled desert behind our house, the back-splash of which is the stunning Taos Mountain Range, snow-covered from recent snow-fall.  According to local lore, these mountains are sacred and their “call” leads some people to move here and take root which we did seven years ago.  We are honored because these mountains did not “kick us out” as, per local lore, will happen to some who move here but who don’t last long.  We passed the ancient test of these mountains and are honored.

Whatever out thoughts, whatever their tenor, they will pass.  As someone said, “We are not our thoughts. are the ones having them.”  Therefore, “Don’t believe everything you think!!!”

Does Professional Baseball Now Have More Moral Courage Than Hordes of Religious People?

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Is professional baseball more of a moral arbiter of our country than religion, at least with many of our religious people?  Yesterday, the Major League’s Baseball Writers Association of America voted to not allow Curt Schilling into the Hall of Fame and later explained that one of its criteria for admission moral turpitude  Schilling has demonstrated the absence of this “moral turpitude” in more than one occasion, just recently when he defended the 1/6/21 insurrection at the White House and in a 2016 tweet when he called for the lynching of journalists.  His past also includes a strident display of racism, sexism, an “general human ugliness.” He was fired from ESPN telecasting for similar offenses.

The Baseball Writers Association of America apparently does believe words…and actions…matter.  Oh yes, they have some ‘splaining to do about past blatant racism and other offenses…and they will now face pressure on the matter; but in our nation’s moment of grievous peril, “moral arbiters” need to step up.  And many religious leaders (i.e. Robert Jefferess, Franklin Graham, Paula White, et cetera ) will not offer a voice of disapproval to the dark “savior” they have adopted.  Nor will most of the Republican Congress who demonstrated yesterday when they voted on a matter which reveals how they will likely vote soon on conviction of Trump in the upcoming impeachment trial.

Yes, my “panties are in a wad” again.  And hopefully they will continue to be as I have much to say about how intelligent, college educated, “born again believers” can harbor gross attitudes, speak great evil, and behave badly all “in the name of Jesus.”  I “been there, done that.” The situation devouring my country now is not one of reason, or intelligence, or even politics.  It is “out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks” and our collective heart is now speaking, in words and deeds great evil, and nothing but a spiritual reckoning beyond the pale of anything that Jeffress, Graham, White, et al have ever faced will suffice.

Trapped Inside,”A Life Safer Than We Can Bear”

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This cartoon made me think of the W. H. Auden wisdom, “We have made for ourselves a life safer than we can bear.” Auden knew that it is mentally healthy to take care of oneself, to maintain diligence about his own safety and welfare but that this precaution could easily go beyond the pale and create a dungeon, or a cage for oneself. There is a certain amount of risk in being human; after all we are physically and emotionally vulnerable and we are daily exposed to circumstances, socially and even physically where others wish us harm. Yes, growing a “thick skin” with firm ego boundaries is important but even this evolutionary tendency can go beyond the pale when beneath the surface we have not resolved the need for establishing a certain autonomy in life. Finding this autonomy, and its concomitant authenticity, will equip us to withstand even the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” making the cage unnecessary.

It is common also for a group to become trapped in a self-imposed prison, or “cage.” There they “hunker down” inside the cocoon of their belief system and wallow in the squalor of, “Why do they hate us so much?” when only a blip of self-awareness would answer the question. But the fear-base of a cultic group of this sort can only intensify their resolve to fight on, knowing that “right” or even “God” is on their side. The tighter the coil of their mindset becomes, the greater the likelihood of violence, on self and/or others.

This process, individually or collectively, is just “another day at the ranch” for an ego. We all have one and it is an incredible accomplishment to gain a degree of awareness to the point that we can daily watch it ply its trade in our heart…or at least try to. There is, in a sense, nothing “wrong” with this; it is just part of the “human-ness” that each of us is blessed/cursed with. This awareness is related to humility but only if this “humility” can achieve what I call “humility-ization” which makes this otherwise “accomplishment” a simple experience in the warp and woof of our daily life, and never a “fait accompli.”

Political Wisdom From Ancient China Gives Us Political Instruction Today

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A truly good man is not aware of his goodness,
And is therefore good.
A foolish man tries to be good,
And is therefore not good.

A truly good man does nothing,
Yet nothing is left undone.
A foolish man is always doing,
Yet much remains to be done

When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone.
When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done.
When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds,
He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order

Therefore when Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is kindness.
When kindness is lost, there is justice.
When justice is lost, there is ritual.
Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion.
Knowledge of the future is only a flowery trapping of the Tao.
It is the beginning of folly.

Therefore the truly great man dwells on what is real
 and not what is on the surface,
On the fruit and not the flower,
Therefore accept the one and reject the other.

Tao te Ching–(translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)

Voting, Jonathan Haidt, and e e cummings

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A couple days ago I blogged about the research of Jonathan Haidt which suggested that we vote more in accordance with our feelings than with reason.  Given my poetry-flooded mind and heart, I recalled a quip from e e cummings, “he who pays attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you.” I “felt” this was relevant but did not see how so I did note quote it in that post.  Now I understand. 

First, I should explain that cummings was such a recalcitrant that he would not comply with the simple rules of grammar like capitalization, punctuation, the spacialization of the page, and even “proper” use of words and images.  YET, in so doing his poetry conveyed profound wisdom and beauty to those whose mind/heart is “squishy” enough to be open to poetry.  But “wholly kissing” someone really pinged me, understanding that to kiss someone whole heartedly entails an ability to throw oneself into the intense passion of the moment so that he…in some sense…”forgets”… restraint, or concern for “syntax” or structure.  In other words, in that moment of passionate embrace, everything else is put aside. 

The feeling dimension of voting is important because it is very human.  But those who “wholly kiss” their candidate can easily lose respect for the “syntax” or structure and will be willing to overrule any and all other considerations in the election process.  The feeling function in their heart is so intense that they too closely identify with the candidate; in some sense they have melded with him so that he embodies the hidden desires and wishes of their heart.  They have pledged their heart to him, “lock, stock, and barrel” so that he knows he could tell them, “I could shoot someone in the middle of the street in Manhattan and my poll numbers would not fall.” 

This “feeling function,” (see Carl Jung) is a very important dimension of the human heart but can lead to catastrophe if it is not balanced by the “thinking function.”  But it is very easy to find oneself encumbered with tyrannical thinking patterns and motifs that are not subject to the internal dialogue that comes from employment of the feeling function. Thinking and feeling are not allowed to work in tandem, a cooperation which makes us a human and keeps us from becoming a mere ideologue. 

A “Too Much Wine” Discourse Here….

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I must admit it, I’ve had a glass of wine or two.  Maybe even three, given that the deputy sheriff just approached me from my perch in a lawn chair on the road in front of my house, telling me that reading my blog on a loudspeaker in this quiet neighborhood, clad only in a thong and fake arrow through my head suggested I should, “Take it inside.”  Ok, I will admit there was a 4th glass of wine! 

But with this disinhibition upon me, let me report I am furious with the Republican Party for their gross disrespect of their base in which I grew up in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s in the South.  They are totally out of control and are appealing to a base which is so readily amenable to their manipulation.  I grew up there, in a population which was susceptible to such manipulation, and I resent the disrespect to my people who are not stupid, nor ignorant, and can “understand” the political reality that is present if it is presented fairly and without manipulation. 

I am very angry, particularly at fundamentalist/evangelical Christians such as Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress who prostitute themselves before the Trump Demon.  I still have a very strong spiritual dimension to my life, and it will never leave me, but what passes as “spiritual” in my culture is something that is profoundly “unspiritual” and abysmally evil.  This situation is best conveyed by Shakespeare who saw clearly through the religious hypocrisy of his day, noting,  

“Thou hast described 

A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucillius, 

When love begins to sicken and decay, 

It useth an enforcèd ceremony. 

There are no tricks in plain and simple faith. 

But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, 

Make gallant show and promise of their mettle. 

“Hollow men” which T.S. Eliot described as straw men, “head piece filled with straw”, always must flaunt their piety.  That is because they lack it so sorely in their heart.  Yes, again, I admit I  have “been there and done that.”  The more guilt-ridden one is, the more he must prove how un-guilty he is, though Jesus taught that we are forgiven for being “guilty”…if we can only acknowledge it.  Jesus knew that we were all guilty. 

Let me confess as a former Christian, who is now more “Christian” than he has ever been…though don’t tell anybody about it, the label is so ignominious in our current time…and the label is totally unimportant to me now.  If anything, I have read the Sermon on the Mount and I am a “follower of the teachings of Jesus.” 

Let me publish this before I sober up!  And the bit about the street side reading of the blog and such was totally facetious!!! 

We Have A “Splinter in Our Brain” but Won’t Admit it.

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As individuals, things occasionally go awry. Our life tosses us a lemon and the making of lemonade out of it does not seem possible. We encounter loss, or a career setback, marital conflict, “acting out” children, or an illness and it seems like impending doom is near. Something akin to this was underway with Emily Dickinson when she coined that expression, “a splinter in our brain” which I use so often. In my clinical background I worked with clients who could be described as having one of those “splinters” wreaking havoc, or at least some distress in their life. They, or their parents, or the school, or the legal system noted something awry and referred them to me for counseling. But what would often stand in the way of any resolution was an unwillingness to acknowledge, “Houston, we have a problem here.” For, blaming someone else for our woes is a common human response; in some sense our culture teaches our children to resort to this avoidance mechanism.

“Houston,” my country “has a problem.” I could then immediately blame Trump and his disciples but I recognize he is but a symptom. Here I will not focus on the Republican Party, for which he is the mouthpiece of all they refuse to acknowledge; but, this can also be said about our entire country. Our country has allowed a “cancer to grow in the White House” just as in the Nixon era but we are stymied from a simple extirpation of the cancer. In the Nixon Watergate drama, it was Nixon’s own Republican Party who had the courage and patriotism to go to Nixon and tell him, “You gotta go.” There is no one in the GOP that has the courage to confront this tyrant though, and the GOP acts as a deterrent for any Democratic intervention. Consequently Trump is doing as his niece recently said he would do after losing the election, spending his time “breaking things.” That is a common response for any two-year old who is being denied any of his baubles, especially the comfort of thinking, “the world is my oyster.”

This tragedy has helped me to realize that my country’s narcissism and arrogance is being put on display for the entire world. This is not to trash my beloved country, but simply to recognize the very human-ness of our history and the present-moment we are living out. We humans have a tendency to think “it is all about me” even if this arrogance might be camouflaged in religious piety, aka “hypocrisy.” It is very challenging to allow this truth to sink into one’s heart, especially if piety has been his modus operandi most of his life–“c’est moi,” I confess! I am currently reading Barak Obama’s marvelous new book, “The Promised Land” and he is very open in sharing about the dark side of his ascendency to the world stage. This is because he has the humility to permit “internal dialogue” with himself, that quality which Hannah Arendt in “Life of the Mind” explains was egregiously absent in people like Adolph Eichmann. This “internal dialogue” with oneself makes it possible to engage in dialogue with other people, even those with a different perspective on life, and seek common ground. A brickbat is thereby thrown at the tyranny of certainty. And those of us who have to confront one of those “splinters” in our brain will often live through the experience of “brickbatting.”