Friday, November 26, 2004

Books...

So it's getting close to Christmas.. and I want to fill my 7 year old daughter's book list for a couple of days, LOL. So far she's enjoyed Naria, Tolkein, Brothers Grimm, Stevenson, Nancy Drew.. looking for (LONG) enjoyable books that will cultivate, any ideas? I say long because she tends to read a couple of hundred pages an hour.

I'm looking at maybe:
The Railway Children, E. Nesbit
A Child's Christmas in Wales, Dylan Thomas

Any ideas here? I read science journals for fun.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Speed Nihilists

Absolutely more blabbering for You, oh dearest of readers.


Reading more of the late Ivan Illich today. My Grandmother and Uncle both introduced him to his work.

Apparently the fixation with speed is apparently quite modern. I have had countless arguments with people over time, and the history of timeliness. That's for the next blog though... ( Thank you Bishop of Carthage )

Back to Falcons, Cranes, and Parmesians... and ohh yeah, belly dancers Here's the link. [PDF]

SPEEEEED!

What intrigues me is that people knew that speed was not a successful tactic. The advent of the machine changed that. Now, modern culture desires to imitate the machine! Just look at the movies of late.. The Matrix (In the machine), AI (Kuberik) (Perfected Machine), Bourne Supremacy(Perfected Mankind), and the list goes on. It's like humanity is falling on a sword for a "highly styled and engineered" lump of metal and silicone.

My favorite quote:
"The suggestion of speed meant up-to-date, and high speed seemed as alluring as the latest body fashions. What you now propose goes much furthur: you can assume that everything is drenched in speed, the speed you want to control. This cannot but confirm the omnipresence and omnipotence of an addictive fix."


Admit it.. we are not immune either. I buy speed.. or perhaps speedy enough. Who wouldn't want to "save time!" Heavens, we must add that between the horned freckly frog and whales. So it goes...



Just a last note.. biologically, our brains are not speedy. They're actually very slow. What makes us seem fast is the specialization and parallelization of the brain. One would think ( speaking of fractals ) that humans would be more productive in parallel, rather than through individual speed. Just a thought.

Convivial Dingo

Monday, November 08, 2004

Dark night of the Soul

These souls whom God is beginning to lead through these solitary places of the wilderness are like to the children of Israel, to whom in the wilderness God began to give food from Heaven, containing within itself all sweetness, and, as is there said, it turned to the savour which each one of them desired. But withal the children of Israel felt the lack of the pleasures and delights of the flesh and the onions which they had eaten aforetime in Egypt, the more so because their palate was accustomed to these and took delight in them, rather than in the delicate sweetness of the angelic manna; and they wept and sighed for the fleshpots even in the midst of the food of Heaven. To such depths does the vileness of our desires descend that it makes us to long for our own wretched food and to be nauseated by the indescribable blessings of Heaven.

[...] God is now taking this soul from its swaddling clothes, setting it down from His arms, making it to walk upon its feet, and likewise taking from it the milk of the breast and the soft and sweet food proper to children, and making it to eat bread with crust, and to begin to enjoy the food of robust persons.

-Saint John of the Cross

Please take some time and read his work. Lacking and unprepared. Pathetic and abysmal. Don't be like me!


Sunday, November 07, 2004

What about.. Schism?

I've been reading much about schism. The big schism of after the Counsil of Chalcedon, to be exact.

Funny thing about this schism was it all centered on one man, Eutyches. Eutyches had said the Jesus was of "one nature", but only after the Incarnation (If I'm reading this correctly). Of course, this contradicted Cyril and all heck broke loose.

Pope Leo wrote to Flavian, then Bishop of Constantinople:

When you cross-examined Eutyches and he replied, "I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union, but I confess one nature after the union", I am amazed that such an absurd and corrupt declaration of faith was not very severely censured by the judges; and that an extremely foolish statement was disregarded, as if nothing whatever offensive had been heard. It is just as wicked to say that the only-begotten Son of God was of two natures before the incarnation as it is abominable to claim that there was a single nature in him after the Word was made flesh. Eutyches must not suppose that what he said was either correct or tolerable just because no clear statement of yours refuted it. So we remind you, dearest brother, of your charity's responsibility to see to it that if through God's merciful inspiration the case is ever settled, the rash and ignorant fellow is also purged of what is blighting his mind.

I'm actually startled at the amount of charity given to this one guy. The pope sounds genuinely angry. The proceedings of the council, seemed to only expand the Eutyches stupidity which ultimately led to the schism of the current oriental orthodox churches.

Wow is all I can say.

One really great thing to come out of this, however, is the preservation of Tradition (yes, THE tradition) of these churches. Wheras the Latin church seems to have evolved/progressed (not in a bad way) the Oriental churches have largely remained true to their traditions and rites. The Liturgy (called Badarak in Armenian) is very beautiful. The most startling difference, especially for us Roman Catholics, is the complete lack of the Rosary. Check out Catechism 2678 for the reason.

The Armenian church in particular is of interest, as they were the first country to convert to Christianity (before the Romans) in the year 301.

More recently, an interesting event happened at the Vatican in 1996, something along the lines of
"Ohh jeez, you mean it was the dictionary he was using?"


Anyway, it would be interesting to visit.

Monday, November 01, 2004

What about.. Gay Marriage?

And now for something completely different... (bad spelling aside)

We, Americans, are given in to a delima. Suddenly, with little warning(in terms of history), the nation is asked.. What about Gay Marriage?

From a conservative vantige, the first reaction is...why? What about "marriage" would a gay couple desire? Most gays I have known have not expressed a desire for children. Relationships, yes. Long term, some of them. But marriage, children, rent, debt... I don't know.

I have known many gay people, who are friends, school pals, etc. I grew up around some famous Ballet Dancers and beatniks.. maybe I just never asked? Most I knew were not so different you or me. Some where looking to buck the system, others simply had affections for someone they couldn't live without.

I admit, I can understand the desire to have gay marriage. Many gays I have known have suffered, both in society and in their personal lives. But such is life and love, really. Is marriage going to be a magic bullet for change? Will acceptance of gay marriage mean that suddenly life is without challenge?

I may be an odd duck, but I have never understood the disdain people hold for gays. Yes, I believe it is a sin. So are many things. But, in all things, I believe we are to at the very least try to live without sin. Even in the act of failure, God still loves us. All of us. So it goes for drinking, gossiping, bad sex, hatred of the good, and all sorts of sins. I won't get on the high horse, but God seems to have demanded goodness from us all. Not all can be saints, though.

What really concerns me, though, is not whether gay marriage is good. But, whether it is engineered, not to bring justice or equality, but to divide people. Simply put, is humanity working towards a harmony or discord. Why, in the last century has humanity spiraled toward division?

I believe it is the division of humanity, infuriated to hatred, which is the greatest sin of them all. Forget about your petty sins, because once the world is full of hatred, you can bet Cain and Able that it will be nasty.

A formula

It's an old Roman formula.. divide and conquer. Once people realize how little they have in common with each other, they will fight. All that is required is:
  1. Ignorance of Good
  2. Some form of -ism (commun, femin, rational, conservat, liberal, national, etc). We all seek to identify and belong to something
  3. Injustice
Add money, tanks, planes, and guns and you've got a sweet war. But what does this have to do with Gay Marriage? Nothing. Nevertheless, it will divide people eventually.

No matter what your opinion on something, if you have a strong opinion then there are ten others waiting to sublime you with rhetoric. A human, natural instinct is all it is.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident
that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Our nation was created on the premise of unalienable Rights.

"The concept of Man's rights being unalienable is based solely upon the belief in their Divine origin. Lacking this belief, there is no moral basis for any claim that they are unalienable or for any claim to the great benefits flowing from this concept." (The American Ideal of 1776)

Back to the Truths again
We, as Americans, are in for a rough ride. We stray ever further from the roots of our Nation, our Creator, and our true identities. We are manipulated and swindled of our Rights, by our own ignorance.

We are educated in trivialities, philosphers of television imagery. True discourse is supplanted with division and one line rhetoric.

We have lost the most important battle of our lives, which is our own Liberty. Like the lotus eaters, we forgot everything we inherited for a dropping of fruit. Mere intellectual arguments will not sway those who have eaten of the fruit.

In short...

I'm not equivicating gay marriage to our loss of liberty, but merely trying to open your eyes to the engineered division of humanity as a precursor to a new form of feudalism. This continued path of division will end in suffering, pain, and serfdom.