Feb 25
BE A WOLF. This quote makes me howl.
“Be a wolf in the sheepfold of silence.”
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Feb 24
PARENTING IS A MENSA GAME SANS RULES. When the firstborn peers out the birth canal the game is on. You have read the parenting books, your confidence rides high, you step up to play. You draw a deck of cards, but you are not quite sure it is full. Turns out the instruction manual you received was in Sanskrit. And you don’t read Sanskrit. Doesn’t seem like you are going to make the cut, but at least you are getting a kick out of your new teammate. The first round lasts all night. You find the game resets in the pitch of night when your eyes are forced open by weak cries. For the waverly of perfectionists, it takes a bully in the form of a baby to realize you are not playing to win, but to play attentively. Playing with attention scrubs the armpits of your personality. Playing with attention peels off the sticky layers of selfishness that accumulated over the years. If not done intentionally, your newest teammate will offer their assistance. They will skin that worn selfishness through bodily projectiles, shrieks, and gigglefits. The game goes on.
Feb 23
I ONCE WROTE FERLINGHETTI A LETTER. Over a decade a go I wrote Lawrence Ferlinghetti a post. I had heard him on the radio retelling his days in the City Lights, the Beats, the power of poetry, and his love affair with curiosity. He was in his 90s at the time. I do not recall the exact words, but I am sure I was fawning over his appetite for life. I never got a response, nor needed one. Ferlinghetti passed away at 101. Read his obituary here.
Feb 22
LIA PURPURA. The art of the essay is lost among the millions of bloggers out there. A blogger does not claim to be an essayist, but they have aided in watering down of the essay. The careful crafting of a perspective in a short form essays appears simple, but it ain’t. The marvelous essayist and poet Lia Purpura is reminder of that. Her work breathes easy and causes me to pant with envy. I am reading All The Fierce Tethers right now. Commanding and playful, wise and contrarian. Purpura is a gifted essayist and each turn of the page widens my frame and fills my belly.
Feb 18
IMPEDED STREAM. I love this poem by Wendell Berry, titled “Our Real Work“. Gives me peace that my mind is constantly baffled.
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Feb 16
HOWARD THURMAN GOT THERE FIRST. There are some people who seem to have the capacity to read the tea leaves of the times and transcend that into deep universal seeing. These folks are the mystics, prophets, and poets. Howard Thurman is a person who embodied all three. In the 1940s, Howard Thurman saw that “the United States had to choose between democracy and fascism, and for Thurman the outcome was uncertain. But he was sure that American fascism would hide behind a homegrown vocabulary drawn from a toxic and intolerant Christianity and ultra-Americanism, disguising their real beliefs and intents. This was the fascist masquerade.”
This article applies Thurman’s wisdom perspective onto the insurrection that occurred last month. Read the full article here. (h/t Lee).
Feb 15
RUNNING WITH EPICTETUS. When I was in conversation with Andrew Krivak he mentioned Epictetus as a formative influence. Epictetus and the Stoics had an oversized impact on me in high school. A school of philosophy that spoke aloud in the private and public square. After talking with Krivak I went back to Epictetus who pounded in the idea that an individual person holds very little control in their circumstances, but can enact a powerful leverage over their responses to circumstances. This humble turn of thought serves me well. Epictetus gets there early in The Enchiridion and repeats it throughout. See Epictetus’ words below.
“An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.”
– Epictetus
Feb 12
OFF TO THE SIDE. The hubbub of popular action is in the center. The city center. Center stage. Center of the universe. Epcot Center. Well, maybe not Epcot anymore. There is an energy in being in the center that inflates your confidences and overestimates your competencies. To be in the middle of things is to imagine the center as the greatest point of inflection. I don’t find that to be true. At least not from the soul’s standpoint. Jim Harrison writes about the place of the poet as being “off to the side.” This rings true for a contemplative as well. I see it in the mystics whose landscapes I explore. So I entangle myself with the word ‘ecotone’. It is where I rest my bones. Ecotones speak to the locations of the greatest exchange of life…between field and forest, desert and forest, saltwater and freshwater. One must be careful at the center of anything. A place where life is not freely exchanged, but bought and sold to the highest bidder.
Feb 10
I WANT TO THINK ABOUT TREES. I find that folks who think, relate, ponder and dance with trees are the company I want to keep. Annie Dillard is one such tree dancer.
“I want to think about trees. Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can’t think about them. I live with trees. There are creatures under our feet, creatures that live over our heads, but trees live quite convincingly in the same filament of air we inhabit, and, in addition, they extend impressively in both directions, up and down, shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach. A blind man’s idea of hugeness is a tree. They have their sturdy bodies and special skills; they garner fresh water; they abide. This sycamore above me, below me, by Tinker Creek, is a case in point; the sight of it crowds my brain with an assortment of diverting thoughts, all as present to me as these slivers of pressure from grass on my elbow’s skin. I want to come at the subject of the present by showing how consciousness dashes and ambles around the labyrinthine tracks of the mind, returning again and again, however briefly, to the senses: “If I were but one erect and solid standing tree in the woods, all creatures would go to rub against it and make sure of their footing.” But so long as I stay in my thoughts, my foot slides under trees; I fall, or I dance.” (p.88, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard).
Feb 9
HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER. In my conversation with Andrew Krivak he mentions a poem by Wendell Berry, “Song in a Year of Catastrophe“. A poem worth ruminating on, a reminder of the edges of life and what lies beyond fear. Turns out phenom songwriter and melodious heartbreaker, Hiss Golden Messenger, draws from this poem for his song ‘Drum’. Turn this song over to rub its soft belly below.
Feb 7
ANDREW KRIVAK & THE BEAR. I had the good fortune of talking with Andrew Krivak, author of The Bear. You can listen to our conversation wherever you get your podcasts or below. Krivak is a top shelf conversationalist; witty, imaginative, humble, and wise. The kind of man you want to go on a hike with or steal away for a back porch drink. And he is one helluva a writer. The Bear is a novel that slipped into my hands and I keep giving it away and recommending it to every reader I know. Enjoy this conversation with the winsome Andrew Krivak.
Feb 6
TALKING TO MOUNTAINS. Scott Ballew writes tunes that set my quarantined body afloat into the landscapes of my passport. If wanderlust is giving you itchy feet, listen to this punchy roughshod song. It is a beaut.
Feb 4
FREEDOM & WILDNESS. As a young man stepping out into freedom I recall the freezing wind meeting my face and attempting to push me back indoors. Now I have an app that tells me the weather. Is it responsibility that has its palms on my face? Or is wildness a young man’s game? The answer is in the rattle of a rattlesnake. Jim Harrison offers some perceptive in his memoir, Off to the Side,
“We can easily love the idea of freedom and wildness but few us have the power of our children who might occasionally skip school for a movie, a ball game, or to go swimming. It is strange indeed how the most wild-eyed artists I have known can trip themselves and be lost within themselves. The basic romantic notion that we can always “liberate” ourselves is corruptly optimistic.” (p. 195)
Feb 3
POVERTY OF SPIRIT. Meister Eckhart has a playfulness with words that enriches his theological bullseyes. Though quite different in styles and times, Beverly Lanzetta expands my heart in the same way. Emptying to be filled, dropping to pick up, knowing nothing to become unknown. What feels like wordplay are a fullness of the kenotic power of self-emptying. Dr. Lanzetta is offering a day of contemplation this Saturday (info below) and you can hear my recent conversation with Dr. Lanzetta here.
Sanctifying the Day: The Gift of Contemplation
Saturday, February 6, 2021
USA: 9am PST, 10am MST, 11am CST, Noon EST. Ireland/UK: UTC+0 17:00. Berlin: UTC+1 18:00
Dr. Lanzetta will offer an intimate look into the gift of contemplation, share how to devote yourself to life’s deepest meaning, and map a path of joyful reconciliation with each other and the Earth. This is a virtual 90-minute session of teaching, prayer, meditation, and questions, presented via Zoom. REGISTRATION AVAILABLE HERE.
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