A Hand Reaching Across the Abyss

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I’ve invited some blog-o-sphere friends over this morning to play and you too are welcome! I asked momma last night, “Can I have some new friends over Saturday morning” and she said “Yes, as long as you are nice to them this time.” So, ya’ll come on over and we’ll play in the back yard, making mud pies, playing house, playing church, playing tag, wrestling, and such. AND, this time, I’m gonna try to talk one of you cute little girls into a private moment of, “I’ll show you mine, if you’ll show me yours!” (No, I actually never played that game but kind of wish I had’ve!)

This little reverie is a thought I have already shared with a couple of my readers and reflects what a delight it is to meet kindred spirits from around the world. Discovering you makes me feel connected even more to the world, appreciating the power of words and imagination to reach across the abyss that separates us all. And this power is useful with all relationships, cyber as well as real-time.

And, as I start each day now I often think of it as “another day on the playground.” I start it with my favorite friend (my dear, lovely wife Claire) and the second runners-up for that honor, Ludwig and Elsa, the two most beautiful dachshunds that ever lived. But then I go to work, or go to “Wal-marts”, or visit with friends, and still it is “another day on the playground”, this lovely world that God has given us.

And, according to Shakespeare, with mere thought, we can escape the bounds of space and time and commune with each other. For, “If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, injurious distance” would not separate us! The Bard had in mind something relevant to an Archibald MacLeish observation, “Winds of thought blow magniloquent meanings betwixt me and thee.”

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time’s leisure with my moan,
Receiving nought by elements so slow
But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.

 

Perils of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Misogynists.

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There is a story in today’s New York Times about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and its concerns about women’s rights. I will share just one tidbit to illustrate the absurdity of their efforts. “A woman needs to be confined within a framework that is controlled by the man of the house,” said a Brotherhood “family expert.” He further explained, “ Even if a wife were beaten by her husband,” she must be shown, “ how she had a role in what happened to her.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/world/middleeast/muslim-brotherhoods-words-on-women-stir-liberal-fears.html?_r=0)

The empowerment of women in my country, the United States, is one of the most significant developments I have watched unfold in my lifetime. The importance of this development is very much related to having been born into a very traditional, patriarchal, and impoverished southern family in the United States in 1952. Of course, I knew nothing of family politics in those early years as “power structures” was a notion that I didn’t learn about until much later. But once I had completed college, began reading the social sciences, philosophy, and literature voraciously, I became aware of their presence and began to interpret my own personal life from the perspective I gained.

My Dad was the “head of the household” and he had the Bible to affirm this status. He and the local church emphasized his supremacy and the duty of his wife and six children to dutifully obey his authority. And for years we complied though early in our lives we began to see the inconsistencies in his teachings and in his day to day life and our loyalty was increasingly with mother.

A key feature of dad’s power was control of the purse strings and on that note he made a politically disastrous move in the late 1950’s when he coerced mother into taking a job at a nursing home. She later would recall how she hated doing taking this job, she hated leaving her children alone in the evening hours, and hated not being able to provide the “mother-hen” love that she showered upon us her brood But she, of course, had to cave in at some point and relent because our financial needs were pronounced and dad was the “head of the household.” She worked a bit more than a year before he changed his mind and wanted her to quit though at that point she liked working, her sense of accomplishment was rewarding, and the increased disposable income was a welcome relief from the tedium of abject poverty. But, still dutiful, she acquiesced and quit her position. But, within the year she returned to work, probably because of economic need but also I’m sure because of her wish to return to the life that she was discovering in her job.

This return to work sealed dad’s fate, setting in motion forces which would allow my family to modernize and, more or less, join the world. For, mother thrived in this job as a nurses aide, gained the confidence of her boss, even enrolled in nursing school (LPN school) and completed her licensure requirements. All this time, she was bringing in steady income and this income actually superseded that which dad made in his work as a laborer in the community. Meanwhile, we kids were growing up and becoming more and more aware of dad’s short comings and, admittedly, were always being enticed by mother’s love and not-too-subtle frustrations and anger at her husband.

And, to make a long story short…and perhaps I will try to develop the story more in the future…mom finally succeeded with her quest for independence and left dad, along with her brood, in 1969. This was necessary as dad had become increasingly depressed, hostile, and had even threatened aggression on one occasion. Within two months of this separation, dad had died of an heart attack.

The point of this personal anecdote is that when women gain employment, they gain empowerment, they have the opportunity to find an identity, and to engage in the world. But when they make progress of this sort, it does pose threats to the family dynamic and, in sociological terms, to the social fabric. For one of the bedrocks of traditional, conservative cultures is the subservience of women. If women gain liberties…if I might misapply the wisdom of Todd Akin and making, admittedly, a contorted statement…the gods might just “shut this whole thing down.” Men want control.

The Muslim Brotherhood stance is very telling and I can imagine how it has the Saudi political/religious establishment “shakin’ in their booties.” If they allow these “uppity” women to make any further inroads into their political fiefdom, it will place profound stresses on the social and cultural fabric. But, reality is that a dynamic culture must allow stresses to occur and to find that as they address these stresses they can benefit immensely. But, of course, Egypt is not a dynamic society. And the “gods” always fight change, “tooth and toenail.” (And this same dynamic can currently be seen in my country particularly with the far-right extreme of the Republican party.)

Keep the Categories Pure, Keep the Categories Pure!!!!

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Not long after I married in 1989, my wife and I were taking a road trip out west. I had already discovered that she was not as anal-retentive as I was…how could I expect otherwise as she was a musician and artist…but this difference became more apparent on this trip.

To make a long story short, we could not keep track of our road maps and related travel information. I had an easy solution to this—keep maps and such in a side-pocket on our respective car doors. But Claire, lacking this god-given (and mandated) anal retentiveness, would use that door pocket for all sorts of stuff—gum, food wrappers, reading material, sun-glasses, newspapers, etc, etc. and pretty soon it was overflowing with all sorts of stuff, so much so that often the road maps and other “pocket material” would end up elsewhere. Thus, when needed a map it could not be found. I was frustrated for, clearly, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, God had instructed us to “Keep the categories pure” and side-door pockets were meant only for specified material, “specified material” which I was clearly more qualified to define than was she.

After this trip, I was sharing re the trip with a good friend and sharing re frustrations which had arisen, as is always the case when newlyweds travel for the first time. And, I remember emphatically making the point to him…albeit facetiously and self-consciously…that I wanted to scream at her from time to time, “Keep the categories pure! Keep the categories pure, dammit.” Fortunately, and wisely, I knew that sharing my frustration at that point on this matter with her would not have been prudent!

But this anecdote is admittedly so revealing about how my mind works and how alienated I am, how detached I am, how “clinical” I am in my approach to life. Sure, she needed to honor the Old Testament Levitical instruction more closely but my emphasis on this categorization was also very problematic. For, in reality none of us can “keep the categories pure” as I was implying and, as I admit, my first nature dictates. For, reality is not clearly defined and in fact is, ultimately, not defined at all….it is a flux…and our “definitions” are very arbitrary and limiting.

This “categorization” is a verbal or cognitive enterprise and reflects the human penchant for subjecting the whole of reality into cognitive structures, i.e. “thought”, so that he/she can manage and manipulate them and feel that he/she is in control. And, without this ability, we would not be human and we would not have human culture; for culture is an invention, the result of our ability to carve up reality and make it subservient to some purpose even something as simple, and necessary, as the well-being of the group.

But, this carving up can become problematic and I think most observers of the human predicament….particularly the Western expression of this predicament…will agree has become problematic. For, we have come to see the world as our oyster, something to be exploited and used. We have come to see ourselves as separate and distinct from the world and done so to such a degree that could ultimately lead to our demise as a species.

Yes, we must always “categorize” and “think” but we do have a forebrain and with that God-given contrivance we can find the capacity to get outside of ourselves, to “think outside of the box”, and think in less categorical terms, in terms that are more inclusive of others and of the world as a whole. We can come to the point where we no longer see the world as our oyster and see ourselves as part of the world, an expression of the world even, and that the world includes all of us….even those who are different than ourselves! Even more so, it even includes those people who we do not like…cursed be the thought!

To sum it up, we can have our “categories” but the goal is to not worry so much about keeping them “pure” as I have been wont to do. For anybody who actually succeeds in “keeping the categories pure” is certifiably nuts! Fortunately, I never literally went to that extreme! Yes, we can have our “words” and “thoughts” and must have them. But we can realize that they are not to be taken literally, that they are a means to an end, that the astute Buddhist wisdom is very appropriate, “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.”

 

 

Musings About an Identity Crisis

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I wish you first a sense of theater.

Only those who know illusion

And love it will go far.

Otherwise, we spend our lives in confusion

About what to say and do about who we really are.

This poem by W. H. Auden presents an essential quandary in our quest for identity. If you find yourself wondering about “who I really am” then you have already opened a can of worms and have an identity crisis in the offing. And please note that an “identity crisis” is often a luxury, one that millions of people cannot afford, being the urgency of the day-to-day grind of trying to make a living to provide for themselves and their family But for those of you who have this luxury, I’m going to share some thoughts about the nature of identity.

The notion that “I am” assumes a whole lot. When I think about who “I am”, I am practicing selective attention as the question brings to mind only memories that are consistent with presuppositions about myself that I have been permitted and find myself comfortable with. Everything else has been excluded. But the “everything else” is still there and always beckons in the unconscious, coming to us in fears, anxieties, projections, and dreams, good and bad. Addressing an identity crisis is to realize that we have drawn the boundaries of our existence too narrowly and that the “crisis” we are now feeling merely is an opportunity to broaden these boundaries. It is to realize that our identity….the one that I’m presenting here as a false self, even as a charade in some sense…is very necessary and is not to be totally discarded. It is to realize merely that it is only part of the picture, only the surface of our real identity and for that identity to have meaning we must allow some of its excluded context to surface and be integrated into our sense of self. That “false self”, or “ego”, is very important. The problem lies only in our insistence that it be the whole of ourselves.  Failure  to recognize this is to find o living a very shallow life.

Let me illustrate with a snippet from another Auden poem in which he notes how that most of us “drive through life in the closed cab of occupation.” By this he meant that a person often, if not usually, sees the world through a template which is often best characterized by his occupation. Thus, a physician sees people through a medical model, an educator sees people as children needing to learn, a clinician (such as myself) sees people with the cold detachment of a diagnostic manual. But, Auden’s point was not merely about “occupations” but about a template, an ego structure through which all of us see the world, be it “occupational” or otherwise. This ego structure is our identity, our “false self” or persona, which always needs to be enlarged. And when this “enlargement” takes place, it does not invalidate the template…usually. The template usually serves a useful purpose. But we need to see the world through broader terms than we are wont to do when totally subservient to the template that with which we are so familiar and comfortable  that we can’t even see it and are actually averse to seeing.  (Emily Dickinson noted, “The mind too near itself to see itself distinctly.)

Let me illustrate with Mitt Romney. I think Romney was, and is, an intelligent, good human being. He had many qualities which could have made him a good President. But his worldview, his “template”, got in his way and posed some real problems in his campaign, best illustrated in the surreptitiously taped 47 percent speech to wealthy donors. His template demonstrated an extreme rigidity which often left him appearing very awkward and socially maladroit so that he often missed the nuances of personal and public interactions. For, Romney is a “corporate” person, a “corporate” mogul and persons of this cut do have a place in our culture, be that good or bad. He sees the world through the eyes of a corporate mogul and was not able to give this viewpoint pause on occasion and approach the public in more personal terms. It is not that he was “bad”. It is just that he was Mitt Romney and that “Mitt Romney” was, and is, a “corporate mogul.”

(An equally valid point is the “literarylew” is merely “literarylew” and sees the world through the template that comes across through his blog. Those who know me personally also see how clearly that “literarylew” is part and parcel of who I am, it is my identity, and yes, it really gets tiresome on occasion, or at least as annoying as hell!)

 

“The Giant Sucking Sound” of Words

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You ever lost a job? You ever been “let go”, or “not needed any longer” or “fired” or “down-sized.” It is not fun. I’d like to recommend you read a blog from (http://architectofthejungle.wordpress.com/) which describes the writer’s emotional turmoil to her husband having been “down-sized.” And in her description, she demonstrates her skillful artistry with words which is my real focus here. She uses imagery that evokes experience. Words can readily “denote” in which they merely convey information but only in a prosaic fashion. And prose certainly has its place in language. But when you run across someone who can write with artistry, he/she plies wizardry and can evoke from the depths of your heart an experience which is an essential part of words being, “fitly spoken.”

When she heard the words “down-sized” fall from her husband’s lips, she reported she felt, “as if I’ve been plunged into a dream state, sucked in through the lips of a horrible word. I’ve never thought of words as capable of gobbling me up, but some of them are just that gruesome, just that hungry.” She then writes of the fear of disappearing, “entirely into the belly of this most hideous modern verb.” And she describes how this emotional experience resonated with the whole of her life and she realized that in some fashion she had been living only on the periphery of life, noting “to this day, I hadn’t known (a truth) that only lived in my head. How could I have known it (this truth) yet to make its (truth’s) heroic descent into the whole me? I couldn’t have known….I feel the truth had entered an undiscovered region.” (Note: I have deliberately edited selectively here to make my point about words and truth. Please read her blog to get the context.)

Now part of me wanted to ask, “Now how in the hell can a mere world like ‘down-size” create such a tumult in someone’s heart?” Sure, it is a scary notion as no one likes losing his/her job or having one’s spouse suffer the misfortune. But, to be “sucked in through the lips of the word “down-size”???? And, how in the hell could you even come up with the notion of disappearing “into the belly” of any damn word???? And, how could this anguish lead to a descent into “the whole of me” and “what in the hell is ‘the whole of me’”? The “whole of me” why, shit, I am just me, there is no “whole of me” other than just me. Why not just say, “This really rattled my cage!” Or, “Gosh, this upset me.”

But, she was being a gifted writer and she used words and images which conveyed nuances which just grabbed me, much like she had been grabbed by her husband’s experience. Her words “evoked” an experience with me which is what good writing will do. A simple narrative merely narrates and gives report but a “word fitly spoken,” a dynamic, vital, breathing word will always evoke and penetrate the heart. (I heard someone quote Kafka last night in a movie, “Literature is the axe that cracks the frozen sea inside.)
And we all need to be “sucked through the lips” of a word or words every now and then. If we listen, and if we read and read carefully, we will learn things which that “giant sucking sound” has to offer.
Let me share a little bit about T. S. Eliot and his awareness of this compelling, chaotic beauty of language:
Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them.
(From Burnt Norton in The Four Quartets)

 

“The Chiefest of Sinners” Ruse

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When I was growing up, there were various “themes” we could adopt in our religious/spiritual/church life. From time to time someone would get dramatically converted…perhaps even tearfully trekking down a sawdust trail to accomplish this…and then he would repent of his heinous crimes and misdemeanors, the horrible offenses against god and mankind, and then be gloriously saved. And for sometime thereafter he was feted in the community, holding an honored position as someone who had come in from the “miry pits of sin” and found grace. He was a champion of sorts, an illustration of how the grace of God could intervene and save anyone from the horrors of sin.

But sometimes this man would have a hard time giving up this lofty position. He would make it a regular refrain in his testimony, not letting anyone forget that he had been “the chiefest of sinners” before he found God. So we heard endlessly of his sinful excesses, often with profuse tears and lamentations, and this was usually very rewarding to the crowd. It was even cathartic. But then I suspect that I was not the only one who began to get a bit tired of it after a few years and privately wished we could merely “change the channel.” But this person would not let it go as it had become an essential part of his identity, a suit of clothes that he now proudly wore daily. “I was the chiefest of sinners,” could have been the name of his book. Actually, this well-intentioned, though spiritually immature man, had merely let his ego co-opt his new-found faith and had turned that faith into a plat form for the display of what the Apostle Paul called “the flesh.” Yes, even our attestation of our sinfulness can be a subtle form of egotism under the guise of humility.

This man at some point merely needed to let it go. Yes, he had been a sinner…and was still so, as is the case with us all…but “that was then, this is now.” And all of us have been, and are, “the chiefest of sinners” in some sense even if we have never given full expression to our dark side. Yes, we need to be present of this dark side, acknowledge it, but do not need to make the mistake of obsessing with it; for when we obsess with it, we merely give it life. The Pauline “flesh” will go to great ends to perpetuate itself and “spiritual” culture affords it ample opportunity.

 

Neurophysiology and The Question of Meaning

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Politico has an interesting article today about the role that neurophysiology plays in shaping our political viewpoint. (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/left-right-the-brain-science-of-politics-88653.html?hp=l11)

I have been curious about this research for the past year and recently ran across another blogger (Neuroresearchproject.com) with a similar curiosity. I also strongly recommend that you google the name “Jonathan Haidt” to listen to a psychologist discourse re a similar vein of thought.

This research would have given me pause at one point in my life, causing me to doubt myself, my faith, and basically everything. This research suggests that our life is largely determined by circumstances far beyond the grasp of our mind. But, now my response is, “So…..????” For, I have now feel that my grasp of reality is so very finite and is so shaped by circumstances that I can never wrap my brain around. And at times I ask, “How could I have ever thought otherwise?”

I used to be a lot more arrogant than I am now. (And, yes, I still have the taint of arrogance in my heart!) Life is just an incredible mystery and I’ve learned to find glory in that experience.

Sure, we need to study and study and study. We need to speculate as we have always been wont to do. And we will learn more and more as we go. But ultimately we will always come down to….nothing…or, as I like to put it, “No-Thing.” It is when we allow that primordial Emptiness to give us pause that we can be disrupted from the humdrum routine of the dog-and-pony show that we call our life and allow a Mystery to visit us and experience somewhat the Mystery that we are. It is there that we find our Source and then that we experience the temptation of turning that new Friend of ours into still another contrivance for our ego.

I’d like to share a poem by Edgar Simmons about detachment and its role in helping us to discover the Glory in this mystery of No-thingness.

THE MAGNETIC FIELD

Distance…which by definition
Indicates a separation from self
Is the healing poultice of metaphor,
Is the night-lighting of poetry.
As we allot to elements their weights
So to metaphor we need assign the
Weight of the ghost of distance.
Stars are stars to us
Because of distance: it is in the
Nothingness which clings us them
That we glory, tremble, and bow.
O what weight and glory lie abalance
In the stretch of vacant fields:
Metaphor: the hymn and hum of separation.

“Post Hypnotic Trance of Early Infancy”

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R. D. Laing once said that most of us life our lives in a “post hypnotic trance of early infancy.” Laing recognized that most of us live life unconsciously, driven by fears and anxieties that we acquired in our very early life before we had acquired reason. Most people do not realize that this earliest period of time was one of intense “conscious” awareness as we were soaking up the world in a way that would not be possible once the dawn of reason came at about age one and a half. (Aldous Huxley once posited the notion that our brain is basically a filter that selects what part of experience we will be open to.)

This core experience stays with us and will shape everything we do the rest of our lives. This core is inherently emotional, a “feeling state” that provides the basic orientation we have to the world and even to our own view of our self and that world. It will reflect our perception of our very place in the world and the perception of how much power we have to shape that world.

Asking someone to recognize this part of his/her existence is challenging and often impossible. I often use the following notion—it is like asking a fish to see water. A blog-o-sphere friend recently shared another image which I love—it is like asking someone who has fallen into a jar of marmalade and lived there all his/her life to see anything but marmalade. And this perceptual field is mutli-faceted, if not infinitely-faceted. But one facet will be the answer to this question, “Is this world an hospitable place?” Those raised in abject poverty are more inclined to answer “no” and adopt a stance of disappointment and hopelessness, a life confined to one poor choice after another. One that is born into a world that is stable is more likely to adopt a world view that sees potential, that sees the beauty…and the ugliness…in the world and says to himself/herself, “Hey, I can do this!”

A key task in life is the gain a perspective on our perspective and as one philosopher has said that to do so is to “somehow escape it.” I would qualify his observation with the notion that this meta-cognition is at least a step in the direction of escaping it. The next step will require courage, the courage to take the step beyond from time to time, to step into the beyond. And someone has noted, “When taking a far journey, you can’t see the destination until you have lost sight of the shore from which you departed.”  It makes me think of the Call of Abraham who was asked to forsake everything and “go unto a land that I will show thee.”

Paean to the East from a Southern Cracker

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The Eastern thinkers really speak to me. Those of ancient eons but those of today, including a handful of you I have met recently in the blog-o-sphere. You just don’t “think the right way.” You deign to look at the world differently. You look different. You sound different. How could that be? How could that have happened?

This world is just not as it was presented to me. It is not static but always intrinsically dynamic, always a “process in a process in a field that never closes.” ( W. H. Auden) It has taken me 61 years to get to this place where humility is teasing me, inviting me into its solace, and I’m absolutely loving it! Sure, I’m still kicking and screaming a bit but I’m gonna get there. And I think of the observation of W. B. Yeats when he “got there,”—Throughout all the lying days of my youth/I waved my leaves and flowers in the air./Now may I wither into the Truth.

Here is a wonderful poem by Bei Dao, a contemporary Chinese poet, with favorite stanza highlighted:
ANSWERS

Cruelty is the ID pass of the cruel,
honesty the grave stone of the honest.
Look, in the sky plated gold,
crooked reflections of all the dead float around.

The glacial epoch is over,
so why is there ice everywhere?
Good Hope was rounded a long time ago,
so where are these thousands of boats racing on the Dead Sea?

I came into this world
with only blank pages, rope and my fingers;
therefore, before final judgements are given,
I need to speak in all the voices of the defendants.

Just let me say, world,
I–don’t–believe!
If a thousand challengers are under your feet
count me as challenger one-thousand-and-one.

I don’t believe the sky is always blue;
I don’t believe it was thunder echoing;
I don’t believe all dreaming is false;
I don’t believe the dead cannot bring judgement.

If the sea is doomed someday to break its levees
my heart must flood with all the bitter waters.
If the land is destined to form the hills again,
let real human beings learn to choose the higher ground.

The latest, favorable turnings, the twinkling stars
studding the naked sky,
are pictographs five-thousand years old.
They are the eyes of the future staring at us now.

 

Beauty Always Abounds!

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In the desert of my heart,
Let the healing fountain start.
In the prison of my days,
Teach this free man how to praise.

 

I love that poetry snippet by W. H. Auden and it is part of my daily devotional. But, I can occasionally look at it differently and be taken aback with the grim notion of a “prison of my days!” “Wow! Somebody needs to get a life,” someone might say. “Prison. Aw, come on…”

And he/she would have a point. A good poet is a pain mongerer on some level as, just as “mad Ireland…hurt” W. B. Yeats into poetry (per a W. H. Auden poem), a mad somewhere-or-another hurt most poets into their private, though beautiful, torment. And, yes, “mad Arkansas” hurt me into “other people’s poetry” as my wife once quipped!

But, anyone who sees only the pain probably needs to pause every now and then and see the beauty that abounds around him/her. Yes, I do see humankind confined to “the prison of his/her days” in that the time-space continuum does not provide us any exit. We are trapped! But, just when the prison seems most confining and unbearable, most of us can take that pause and see the luxurious beauty that surrounds us—the simple breath of life, the gift of children, the love of friends and family, the loveliness of plants and flowers, and the stunning beauty of the animal kingdom. This focus can help us escape ourselves for a moment and that is one of the basic tasks of life