Month: June 2007
Measures of Love
Posted on June 10, 2007 in Partnership
Do you avoid talking about it lest you become as a pharisee standing in the temple letting all the world know that he is a great lover of God or do you pull away the bushel basket? In this and in similar matters, it is hard to decide.
Our society wants to package everything. Divide it up, measure it, put it in a package for consumption by other people. Everything must be tested, checked, put on the block to be oggled by others to verify its veracity, purity, and common sense. Emotion’s just a product and you must submit it to a secret bureaucracy that emits public results. It’s not just “tell us how you feel”, it’s “tell us how much you feel”. And we end up shivering in the cold sunlight, worrying about claim to humanity.
The title of James’ answer to this week’s Philosophical Friday question and the question itself goaded me into this tirade. One thing about the blogging world that I have come to dislike is this use of it as a proving ground for emotion. You don’t describe your happiness, you defend it. Love — that ineffable blossom falling from a cherry tree — means nothing if it does not go clang on the scale of obviousness. You have to show it to others these days like a bad porno flick run over and over again. Or so the writers of such questions would have us believe.
In my nineteenth year of marriage and fidelity, I satisfy myself and my wife with a single fact: I am here, day after day, as surely as the atmosphere. You do not need great acts to prove your love because for most of us these are not asked of us. “What if” replaces “what is”. And What Is is a matter between only my wife and me as it should be.
Sometimes I brag about my many years, but then I realize that those many years are their own fact and do not need my embellishment. That Lynn and I see is enough. Keep it succinct, mind our business as something more than the kitsch of a diamond ring in every nuptial. It’s not the symbols or the wild acts, but the living together in patience and respect — and living together when the patience wears thin and the respect becomes tarnished in the hope that they will rebalance themselves if you just stop worrying and return to the friendship.
People can love at great distances or skin to skin. Love is not a pile of sugar cubes or a heap of meringues. Just live it. Just love.
[tags]love, partnership[/tags]
And shut up about it. (Especially you, Joel.)
Ogres and Monsters
Posted on June 7, 2007 in Myths & Mysticism Reflections Uncertainty
So Maggs wants to know how I am….
The hero’s journey, we are told by [[Joseph Campbell]] and others, involves a place where one encounters monsters. By monsters, I mean creatures which do not eat the person. I’d love to meet some monsters in my life, but all I run into on this line are ogres. Ogres grind your bones for their bread. They pose no special challenges other than dodging their clubs. They are boring in the extreme if sometimes histrionic. You win no special prizes for meeting up with ogres because they are banal and all around us.
A few months past my life was filled with ogres who told me that I shouldn’t use my blog for exploring my feelings. I was put on trial, told that I was insane. The strange part is that my therapist seems to feel that I am in better command of my feelings than many. (If she only knew?) My writing, she feels, is a way out of the box canyon where the ogres reside. Ogres don’t want to know about feelings other than drunkenness and control.
I wish I had a [[Scylla]] or a [[Sphinx]] to challenge me instead of mediocre spirit bruisers.
[tags]uncertainty,frustration,myth,mythic creatures,self-knowledge,identity[/tags]
You can always check here.
Panorama Trail, Kodachrome Basin SP
Posted on June 6, 2007 in Hikes and Trails
Click here to read my first published hike report since my 2005 lockup.
Dream
Posted on June 4, 2007 in Dreams
I possess a small, seamless, clear cube which contains a tiny fish that looks like a hummingbird.
For Lovers of My Photos
Posted on June 3, 2007 in Photos
Here are my latest uploads.
Here are the highest rated photos on the site. You can rate any photo without registering. Look for the bar of stars beneath the photo and its descriptive information.
Here is where you register. When you register, you can comment. I love comments and even talk back.
Here is the top rated photo as of this posting:
I am getting close to being able to afford the camera I want. So close. Prepare for an explosion when it arrives. In the meantime, engage me with your comments/observations.
Living for a Purpose
Posted on June 3, 2007 in Reflections
You hear this one a lot when someone is recounting an incident in which their life was saved. “God is saving me for a purpose.” Well, suppose Judas had nearly fallen off a cliff or drowned in the Lake of Galilee, only to be rescued by a hand clutching at his robe? Can you not hear him saying “God saved me for a purpose”? (If so, why does [[Dante]] plant him in the Ninth Circle of Hell? Since he accomplished God’s purpose, shouldn’t he be in Heaven?)
We give ourselves purpose and those purposes can keep us alive, but they are not divinely bestowed. To declare otherwise, is to succumb to egotism or religiosity.
Friday Xenartha Blogging – Armadillo Hunt
Posted on June 1, 2007 in Xenartha
Some people just deserve to get leprosy:
