Tag Archives: oblivion

Why I “Bother” to Blog

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I’m sharing a blog that I greatly admire today.  This gentleman blogs, like myself, basically for self-expression.  He notes that he really does not care if anyone reads it; he writes merely to get it out.  I really can’t say I’m unconcerned with my “stats” report but I’ve not been deterred by poor response to something I toss “out there.”  In fact, the “poor response” that comes too often is really good for me as it provides me an opportunity to deal with disappointment that was once so great that I would not have attempted anything as “foolishly” blathering on like this.  T.S. Eliot encouraged us to “offer our deeds to oblivion” and cyber space is as much “oblivion” as I can deal with currently.  The “mother lode” of that stuff will come soon enough and I take comfort in the teachings of Jesus who told us…to paraphrase…”Chill out.  I gotcha covered.”

One of the primary motivations with this enterprise…and with Face Book…is simple human connection.  Yes, I am “connected” with community and friends and family but there is a richness that can be found when kindred spirits are met through this means also.  I have told several of my social media friends, “Winds of thought blow magniloquent meanings betwixt me and thee,” quoting Archibald MacLeish.

This gentleman I’m sharing with you today is definitely one of these kindred spirits.  He has wisdom at very early age when I was only beginning to discover the depth of language…and resisting it fiercely.  Here he so eloquently conveys the mystery of life, part of which is its incomprehensible ephemerality.

Enjoy:

https://knowthesphere.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/eppur-si-muove/

Russian Sect lacks “Moderation in all Things”

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I love sectarianism, especially when it has a religious flair! How could I not as I grew up in a very conservative religious sect in the American South; and, though I have assiduously attempted to throw that damn baby out with the bath water, I must admit that it will always be present in my heart. Of course, now this “sectarianism” is carefully ensconced in liberal thought! (http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2013/08/leo_tolstoy_s_doukhobors_the_culture_of_this_remote_pacifist_sect_in_georgia.html)

The on-line publication, Slate, today has a fascinating story of a Russian pacifist movement which is now facing extinction as that monster modernity is about to devour it. That monster is the same one that beset my childhood sect, a monster which received much opprobrium from our pulpits best summarized with the Old Testament admonishment, “Remove not the ancient landmarks…”

This Russian sect became a “pet” of no less a luminary than Tolstoy back in 1890’s who attempted to defend it from the wiles of the encroaching state. These “Doukhobors” are centered in the Republic of Georgia and now have dwindled to a mere 500 after three hundred years of tenaciously clinging to their version of “ancient landmarks.” Their name means “spirit wrestlers” which was given them in derision but was wryly appreciated by the group, taking it as a virtue to be known as a group who “wrestled” with spirit.

Every culture has its conservatives and its “hyper-conservatives”, the latter seeing any change as tantamount to surrender to oblivion. This reminds me of something a mentally ill man once told a well-meaning but misguided friend, “You argue to make a point but I argue to stay alive.” These hyper-conservatives are entrenched in their belief system, and will relentlessly dig themselves further into it, because they perceive the only alternative as fragmentation and ultimately the threat of annihilation or death.  And, this should give all of us pause, even those of us with our “noble” and liberal ideas–anything carried to its extreme becomes problematic. As they Greeks said centuries ago, “Moderation in all things.”