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8.07.2004
Saturday, August 7, 2004
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt
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8.05.2004
Friday, August 6, 2004
Saw a cool bumper sticker today: "Just because you wander doesn't mean you're lost."
Other favs:
"God bless the freaks."
" 'You cannot simultaneously prepare for and prevent nuclear war.' - Albert Einstein"
"Visualize whirled peas."
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Thursday, August 5, 2004
"Here is a test to find out if your mission in life is complete: If you're alive, it isn't."
Richard Bach, "Illusions"
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8.03.2004
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
Now Howard Zinn's book, "A People's Histroy of the United States," is a project to read. It's like taking a graduate course. It is the history of America as told by the slaves, by the migrant workers, by the immigrants. It re-shuffles the heros and villains in the story as it has been told to us over the years.
Here are the first two paragraphs of the first chapter, entitled, "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress":
"Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log: 'They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned...They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features...They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, and they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane...They would make fine servants...With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
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Tuesday, August 3, 2004
How I love Emerson, and poetry. We live in an age that has no time for poetry, for beauty.
Concord Hymn
Sung at the completion of the Battle Monument, April 19, 1886, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those spirits dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
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8.02.2004
Monday, August 2, 2004
Do not let yourself be seduced by the system. The system is cunning and baffling. It is a master at making limitation seem like optimism. It is a master at ensuring its own survival. The system is the collective ego at work, and the ego fears change. Fearing that the people want change, the system paints the continuation of the status quo as "change," "turning a corner," "progress," "the new American promise," when in fact, there is no change, no promise, no corner being turned at all. Whether you are on the Right or on the Left in you politics, do not eat of the apple that says what Geroge Bush proposes or what John Kerry proposes is the best you can hope for. Because in a completely different universe of imagination - the imagination of God - ordered by the laws of infinity - exists a possibility for inconceivable joy, accomplishment, serenity, and understanding. This universe cannot be manifested within the existing system. It requires a different context, one much larger than the existing system, and one in which we can see the puny imagination and the laughable limitations of the existing one. It requires that we get outised the existing system. It cannot be fixed from within. In fact, that's the great fallacy. The current system of fear and paranoia is not broken. There is nothing to fix. This is how a system of fear and paranoia works. So these well-meaning people who promise great fixes to the system are not only limiting the infinite possibilities inherent in the human person, they are not only blinding themselve to a different system altogether, they are engaged in a great exercise in futility. This they call hope.
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8.01.2004
Sunday, August 1, 2004
Don't set yourt sights on trying to be liked. Open yourself to the possibility that some people will not like you or what you stand for. When you try to get everyone to like you all the time, you avoid conflict. When you avoid conflict, you put it off until another day, when its expression will be far less healthy. Don't be trying to find ways to address the conflict in such a way that people will still end up liking you when it's all over. Just tell the truth. If they end up liking you after the conflict is addressed, there's a good chance you didn't really address it.
Authenticity is to be valued above popularity.
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Saturday, July 31, 2004
"Life is not to be regarded as an uninterrupted flow of words which is finally silenced by death. Its rhythm develops in silence, comes to the surface in moments of necessary expression, returns to deeper silence, culminates in a final declaration, then ascends quietly into the silence of Heaven which resounds with unending praise.
Those who do not know there is another life after this one, or who cannot bring themselves to live in time as if they were meant to spend their eternity in God, resist the fruitful silence of their own being by continual noise. Even when their own tongues are still, their minds chatter without end and without meaning, or they plunge themselves into the protective noise of machines, traffic, or radios. When their own noise is momentarily exhausted, they rest in the noise of others.
How tragic it is that they who have nothing to express are continually expressing themselves, like nervous gunners, firing burst after burst of ammunition into the dark, where there is no enemy. The reason for their talk is: death. Death is the enemy who seems to confront them at every moment in the deep darkness and silence of their own being. So they keep shouting at death. They confound their lives with noise. They stun their own ears with meaningless words, never discovering that their hearts are rooted in a silence that is not death but life. They chatter themselves to death, fearing life as if it were death."
Father Thomas Merton
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Friday, July 30, 2004
New book out by Eckhart Tolle - author of "The Power of Now," called, "Stillness Speaks." I recommend it. Here's a little excerpt:
"The ego needs to be in conflict with something or someone. That explains why you are looking for peace and joy and love but cannot tolerate them for very long. You say you want happiness but are addicated to your unhappiness."
Ever notice how when you are happy for a little too long you go back and search the file cabinet of your worries? You say, "Well, this isn't normal. Let's see, what am I supposed to be worrying about? Oh yeah, that." And then you pick out a file and start worrying about it.
I do anyway.
It's an addicition.
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