I’d like to wrap up these last few posts with a movie recommendation. The theme has been along the lines of hero’s journey, and this movie is one of the best I’ve seen with that theme. This one did not make the big theatres, but I was lucky enough to have a friend recommend it. It is based on a true story, so who knows just how much is true. The main character is a real person and has also written books which are available in print or audio. He is still around, so you can even get on his Twitter list, if you are into that. He is not a military type warrior, he is an athlete, a gymnast. He had accident early in his life, but through some very special mentoring, went on to be a world champion athlete.
You can find all of this at his web site.
What I really like about his story is that he includes the hard work and setbacks when he tells it. It has the usual magic and its spectacular scenes of soaring to new heights that any good story needs to make it interesting, but it keeps its feet pretty well planted on the ground. When the young apprentice warrior applies his new found ability to visualize his routine, he nails it. He returns to the master, excited to tell him the story of what a good boy is. The master shakes his head because the young man is not getting that you don’t learn to excel, just so you can show off.
I won’t do any more teasing, the web site has movie trailers and plenty of goodies for that. Hollywood rarely does a good job with a movie that has any spiritual element to it, but this one, I like.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull this week. I know, I’m about 30 years behind on that one. I did read Illusions, another Richard Bach short, back then, so I didn’t completely miss the boat. Both are along the lines of the ascetic tradition. That is, forsake the mundane simple pleasures and rise above the rest, go on journey of self discovery, find a mentor or one finds you, then return and pass it on.
Bach uses the symbolism of death. In both books, people or birds don’t die, they move on to a higher consciousness. I like to believe that is what will happen when I actually die, but Bach is not talking about actual death. It is symbolic of moving on. Garrison Keillor often tells stories on the News from Lake Wobegon about people who excel in their little home town, then move on to bigger arenas. It might be a high school kid who does well in athletics then graduates and finds college level competition more difficult, or someone who grows a 200 pound pumpkin then finds out that last year’s State Fair champion was over 1,000 pounds.
In Seagull, Jonathan is outcast from his flock because he concentrates on improving his ability to fly instead of simply using flight as a means to get out by the fishing boats, find a little food and get back. He wants to do more than just survive, and others see this as a threat to their well ordered system. He lives happily but alone, practicing his flight skills, then dies and is led to a small group of highly evolved gulls who are doing the same. He finds out he is not the only one who has made these discoveries about flight. He achieves even more and finds others with whom he can practice and learn.
Robert Bly once said, to some up and coming writers, that they need to be careful when telling these types of stories. Not Jonathan Livingston in particular, but stories of reaching for your dreams. He used the analogy of an old grain silo that is full of birds. The birds can get in through a broken door at the bottom and find some left over grain on the ground. Once inside they see some shafts of light coming in through holes in the ceiling. They fly up to that light thinking it is the way out, but the holes are too small. They flap around up there, confused. Sometimes the way out is through the darker door at the bottom.
But then Bly is a darker guy. I don’t want to be the one who says that you should not think positively. Hard work, concentration on a skill, practice, setting your sites on a higher purpose, those are all good things. Believing that desiring something is all that is needed to make it happen, not so good. A degree of commitment and perseverance is important, but not a guarantee. When I get to the end of my life, I want to say I gave it my best shot, and Richard Bach encourages that. Sometimes he also makes statements that are too absolute for me.
Having not read the book when it was written, I have the advantage of only seeing its affect on the culture. I see that most people are stuck in the first chapter, when Jonathan is figuring out how to fly many times faster than any Seagull can imagine. After a failure, he almost gives in to the words of his father to go back to lead a normal life with the flock, then he gets an inspiration and increases his speed again. The lesson of following your heart is one we all want to get. If only it was so simple.
The lessons of humility, kindness and seeing greatness in the faces of those around you who are just squawking and complaining are not as easy. These lessons come later, starting with his mentor, but we don’t hear much from the mentor about them. At some point in a mentor relationship, the student must find his own path. The rest of the book is Jonathan Livingston on that path. He sees the value of joining the flock and having the patience to explain his vision and guide others to find what he found.
Unfortunately, much of that is easily passed over in the text and lost in long passages about spectacular flights at high speed. Only once does a bird pay the ultimate consequence of such acrobatics, and he is immediately saved from death and returned to earth by our hero. If only we had such a hero.
Bach uses the symbolism of death. In both books, people or birds don’t die, they move on to a higher consciousness. I like to believe that is what will happen when I actually die, but Bach is not talking about actual death. It is symbolic of moving on. Garrison Keillor often tells stories on the News from Lake Wobegon about people who excel in their little home town, then move on to bigger arenas. It might be a high school kid who does well in athletics then graduates and finds college level competition more difficult, or someone who grows a 200 pound pumpkin then finds out that last year’s State Fair champion was over 1,000 pounds.
In Seagull, Jonathan is outcast from his flock because he concentrates on improving his ability to fly instead of simply using flight as a means to get out by the fishing boats, find a little food and get back. He wants to do more than just survive, and others see this as a threat to their well ordered system. He lives happily but alone, practicing his flight skills, then dies and is led to a small group of highly evolved gulls who are doing the same. He finds out he is not the only one who has made these discoveries about flight. He achieves even more and finds others with whom he can practice and learn.
Robert Bly once said, to some up and coming writers, that they need to be careful when telling these types of stories. Not Jonathan Livingston in particular, but stories of reaching for your dreams. He used the analogy of an old grain silo that is full of birds. The birds can get in through a broken door at the bottom and find some left over grain on the ground. Once inside they see some shafts of light coming in through holes in the ceiling. They fly up to that light thinking it is the way out, but the holes are too small. They flap around up there, confused. Sometimes the way out is through the darker door at the bottom.
But then Bly is a darker guy. I don’t want to be the one who says that you should not think positively. Hard work, concentration on a skill, practice, setting your sites on a higher purpose, those are all good things. Believing that desiring something is all that is needed to make it happen, not so good. A degree of commitment and perseverance is important, but not a guarantee. When I get to the end of my life, I want to say I gave it my best shot, and Richard Bach encourages that. Sometimes he also makes statements that are too absolute for me.
Having not read the book when it was written, I have the advantage of only seeing its affect on the culture. I see that most people are stuck in the first chapter, when Jonathan is figuring out how to fly many times faster than any Seagull can imagine. After a failure, he almost gives in to the words of his father to go back to lead a normal life with the flock, then he gets an inspiration and increases his speed again. The lesson of following your heart is one we all want to get. If only it was so simple.
The lessons of humility, kindness and seeing greatness in the faces of those around you who are just squawking and complaining are not as easy. These lessons come later, starting with his mentor, but we don’t hear much from the mentor about them. At some point in a mentor relationship, the student must find his own path. The rest of the book is Jonathan Livingston on that path. He sees the value of joining the flock and having the patience to explain his vision and guide others to find what he found.
Unfortunately, much of that is easily passed over in the text and lost in long passages about spectacular flights at high speed. Only once does a bird pay the ultimate consequence of such acrobatics, and he is immediately saved from death and returned to earth by our hero. If only we had such a hero.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Truth - Consciousness - Bliss
Okay, it’s still summertime, and I’ve been doing too much of either watching You Tube, or enjoying the last of the warm weather. I did listen to an interview by Bill Moyers of Joseph Campbell. If you were around in the 80’s, there is a good chance you have heard of Campbell. He saw a totem pole when he was young and it sparked a lifelong fascination for the study of myths. That passion culminated in a six part PBS series. Or, if you saw the movie Star Wars, his influence on George Lucas helped make that movie what it was.
There is a lot I could go in to here, but one of his central tenets answered a question for me that I have been working on for a long, long time. The question is, how do I know if something that I feel is right, is coming from my heart or from somewhere more base? Put another way, is it just a physical desire, or something my subconscious senses as a valuable course of action. In religious terms, is it God or the Devil speaking to me?
I can remember discussing it in my college dormitory. I felt I knew how to discern my inner voices, until a guy, who happened to be a raging alcoholic, someone who was very good at following his baser instincts, asked me to describe how I would know. It was more of a challenge really than a question. I couldn’t answer him. Now I could.
Joseph Campbell calls it following your bliss. He came to his understanding while studying Sanskrit. Sanskrit is an ancient language with some of the greatest spiritual writing the world has known. It has been absorbed in to Hinduism and other Eastern practices. When you hear of someone with the title of Sri or Yogi, that is someone who studies and teaches these ancient writings.
A central god of this tradition is Brahman. He has no characteristics, no form. One way to describe him is sachchidananda (I have seen more than one spelling of this). This word has three parts:
1) Sat – Truth or Being
2) Chid – Ultimate Consciousness
3) Ananda – Bliss, delight
As Campbell puts it, how do you know if you know the full truth or have reached the full potential of your being, you don’t. How do you know if you are fully conscious, you don’t. How do you know what excites you, what drives you, well that you do know, and it will lead you to the other two.
This still does leave some questions open as to what is just for pleasure, but in the interview, this came up within the context of laws. One of the functions of myth is to codify what a culture believes is right and how its people should act. This almost always causes trouble because laws need to change with the new challenges that each generation faces. But I don’t want to get too far off on that tangent.
The importance of grouping these three is that you can know if you are making good choices in one area, because you will see progress in the other two. Let’s say you like baseball. If you sit on the couch and watch baseball all day, you probably will not find any insight to higher truth or feel that your consciousness is expanding. If however you dedicate yourself to improving your baseball skills or competing at a high level, you might.
It may take a little time, but I think this will work. I think you can look around and see who is following their bliss and who is going for the short term gain. Those going for the short term pretty quickly develop empty spaces in their lives. They can keep seeking the thrill, but it gets increasingly difficult to get satisfaction. I admire those who found their bliss early and followed it.
There is a lot I could go in to here, but one of his central tenets answered a question for me that I have been working on for a long, long time. The question is, how do I know if something that I feel is right, is coming from my heart or from somewhere more base? Put another way, is it just a physical desire, or something my subconscious senses as a valuable course of action. In religious terms, is it God or the Devil speaking to me?
I can remember discussing it in my college dormitory. I felt I knew how to discern my inner voices, until a guy, who happened to be a raging alcoholic, someone who was very good at following his baser instincts, asked me to describe how I would know. It was more of a challenge really than a question. I couldn’t answer him. Now I could.
Joseph Campbell calls it following your bliss. He came to his understanding while studying Sanskrit. Sanskrit is an ancient language with some of the greatest spiritual writing the world has known. It has been absorbed in to Hinduism and other Eastern practices. When you hear of someone with the title of Sri or Yogi, that is someone who studies and teaches these ancient writings.
A central god of this tradition is Brahman. He has no characteristics, no form. One way to describe him is sachchidananda (I have seen more than one spelling of this). This word has three parts:
1) Sat – Truth or Being
2) Chid – Ultimate Consciousness
3) Ananda – Bliss, delight
As Campbell puts it, how do you know if you know the full truth or have reached the full potential of your being, you don’t. How do you know if you are fully conscious, you don’t. How do you know what excites you, what drives you, well that you do know, and it will lead you to the other two.
This still does leave some questions open as to what is just for pleasure, but in the interview, this came up within the context of laws. One of the functions of myth is to codify what a culture believes is right and how its people should act. This almost always causes trouble because laws need to change with the new challenges that each generation faces. But I don’t want to get too far off on that tangent.
The importance of grouping these three is that you can know if you are making good choices in one area, because you will see progress in the other two. Let’s say you like baseball. If you sit on the couch and watch baseball all day, you probably will not find any insight to higher truth or feel that your consciousness is expanding. If however you dedicate yourself to improving your baseball skills or competing at a high level, you might.
It may take a little time, but I think this will work. I think you can look around and see who is following their bliss and who is going for the short term gain. Those going for the short term pretty quickly develop empty spaces in their lives. They can keep seeking the thrill, but it gets increasingly difficult to get satisfaction. I admire those who found their bliss early and followed it.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The Gospel according to Hawkeye
This is a sermon I gave to my little congregation in Moose Lake, MN.
The first thing I’m going to have to do is another one of my little history lessons. I was thinking about that as I prepared and it occurred to me that maybe not everybody was looking forward to me being up here again and giving another history lesson. So, I’m working on being more entertaining, a little more engaging. But something was pointed out to me about this story that really brought it to life. To see what that is, I need to go over the book of Matthew, to the story that comes just before today’s reading. The book of John is very different from the other three, and in this case leaves out some details.
We get up here each week and read these stories as if they are complete within themselves, but of course they are not. In this case we have Jesus and a few thousand followers sitting out in the middle of nowhere with no food. Is this just some setup to tell a story about a miracle? What are they doing out here? Looking just before this story, we have the story of Herod imprisoning John the Baptist. John was Jesus’ cousin, and he did a lot of the work early in this ministry. For people who study Biblical times, not from a religious perspective, John is seen as the early leader of the movement and Jesus only stepped up after John died. And even though we know how it turns out, the people who were following this movement at the time do not. This is the story of how they dealt with this transition.
Herod has John in prison, but here in Matthew 14 it says, “he wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet.” So he doesn’t really want to kill him because of his fear of a backlash from the people. This may not sound like the same Herod from stories of Jesus’ birth who had all of the first born killed, and it’s not, that was his father, Herod the Great. Herod the Great was a conqueror and a controversial figure. He had converted to Judaism, but his loyalty was questioned, he definitely made deals with the Romans, but if he hadn’t, the Jews may have suffered even more. When he died, which would have been early in Jesus’ childhood, he passed his throne on to his son, also named Herod.
This Herod Jr. did not have the strength of authority that his father had, but he had a kingdom, and he could throw parties. Continuing in Matthew, he has his niece dancing at his birthday party and he likes that, so he offers her whatever she wants. She asks for John the Baptist’s head. Again from Matthew, “The King was distressed”. He was distressed because he now has to keep the promise he has made or he looks weak to his royal relatives, but he has to do something that will anger the people he is ruling, and weaken his already tenuous authority. And he does it.
In just a few more lines, we move in to today’s story, now knowing that the reason they have all gone out in to the wilderness is to mourn, and not just for anybody, for Jesus this is family, and this is someone who sees the world in the same way he does. Together they had this vision of healing and ministering and building a grass roots movement against these Romans and this sniffling little puppet ruler, Herod Jr, who had come and taken over their homeland. They just wanted to let people know that they are accepted and loved. They no doubt knew there would be trouble. They may have expected to get arrested, but they probably were not ready for this.
So here we are. We have Jesus sitting on a rock somewhere out across the Sea of Galilee surrounded by 5,000 men, all of them in shock and wondering what to do now. And a couple of the leaders, Philip and Andrew come up to him and say, “umm Jesus, we don’t have enough bread, and only two fish.” This is one of the times when I know how I would react. And sometimes I wish the Bible would let us in a little more on Jesus’ thoughts. He did after all come down to be human, and as a human, I would think he would be a bit annoyed at this question.
I recalled a scene from the TV MASH while I was thinking about this. If you remember Colonel Sherman Potter, he was the stronger military Colonel, not the bumbling funny one from when the show started. He would often yell his orders at Hawkeye Pierce and Hunnicutt. In one of the shows he told them to do something and they questioned his orders, Potter shook the stars on his epaulets and said, “you see these, when they give you these, they remove the bone in your head that makes you explain your orders, now just do it.” I can imagine Jesus feeling the same way, thinking, “why are you bothering me with the menu, I’m the Christ.” But of course he wouldn’t say that, because well, he was Christ.
What he does do is show some true leadership. He doesn’t explain, he also doesn’t get angry or scold his disciples for not having faith. There are other times in the gospels when he does that, but this is a funeral. He simply and gently says, have everyone sit down, he gives thanks for the meal, and of course everyone is fed.
I’ll say more about the miracle in a moment, but I want to wrap up what I get from the story, looking at in this light. I think what is being shown here is a contrast. These stories were not written down until a few decades after Jesus died, so the intended audience of them would have needed a little of the history lesson, although they would have been more familiar with Rome and the politics of the time, but as a story, the idea is still the same, find yourself in it, which character can you relate to? Here we have two parties. In one of them there is good food, nice wine, it’s a happy occasion, and you’re hanging out with the people in charge, you can do whatever you want, you want the head of John of the Baptist, you can have it. In the other party, you’re sitting on a rock, it’s getting dark and you’re wondering, where’s the justice and you’re hungry? But then what you do is you share your meager morsels, and all are fed.
Today we are really neither of those. We are neither royalty nor slave. We have an election process. We don’t have fathers passing on their throne to their sons. But we still have to make choices every day about what is right and what is just. We may be several steps removed from the people who make our clothes or grow our food, but our choices at the cash register affect the lives of many people. We can choose to share what we have with others and support each other in time of need, or we can just party.
Now the reading goes on to say that the saw this miracle and saw it as proof of Jesus being a prophet. That may have been what a 1st century writer wanted to get across, but as a 21st century man, I have trouble with it, I have trouble with all the miracles, and I’d like to address it in case there are others out there feeling the same way. A previous pastor of mine told of how it was common in these days that people would all carry with them a little pouch with some dried fish and probably. Jesus no doubt knew this and instead of organizing a big gathering of everything, he knew he could count on the generosity of the people there and if he just started passing a basket around, those who had extra would throw it in, and those who did not would take no more than they needed.
Rick has introduced the idea of “non-overlapping Magisteria” before on evolution Sunday. Magisteria being areas of study. Stephen Jay Gould, an evolutionary biologist put forth this idea that there does not need to be an argument between science and religion. Science can cover what can be empirically demonstrated and religion can stick to matters of meaning and value. At times like this parable, they may seem to overlap, but only if you want to pick that fight. I am satisfied that in 110 A.D. or whenever the Book of John was written, miracles were an important and accepted part of writings such as these. These are not newspaper accounts, this is not a history book and it is not the inerrant word of God. As a United Methodist, we are not called to hold these stories to that level of scrutiny and doing so causes more trouble than it solves.
For this story, whether you claim a miracle occurred, or you call it a miracle of community the value of the telling of it remains the same.
The first thing I’m going to have to do is another one of my little history lessons. I was thinking about that as I prepared and it occurred to me that maybe not everybody was looking forward to me being up here again and giving another history lesson. So, I’m working on being more entertaining, a little more engaging. But something was pointed out to me about this story that really brought it to life. To see what that is, I need to go over the book of Matthew, to the story that comes just before today’s reading. The book of John is very different from the other three, and in this case leaves out some details.
We get up here each week and read these stories as if they are complete within themselves, but of course they are not. In this case we have Jesus and a few thousand followers sitting out in the middle of nowhere with no food. Is this just some setup to tell a story about a miracle? What are they doing out here? Looking just before this story, we have the story of Herod imprisoning John the Baptist. John was Jesus’ cousin, and he did a lot of the work early in this ministry. For people who study Biblical times, not from a religious perspective, John is seen as the early leader of the movement and Jesus only stepped up after John died. And even though we know how it turns out, the people who were following this movement at the time do not. This is the story of how they dealt with this transition.
Herod has John in prison, but here in Matthew 14 it says, “he wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet.” So he doesn’t really want to kill him because of his fear of a backlash from the people. This may not sound like the same Herod from stories of Jesus’ birth who had all of the first born killed, and it’s not, that was his father, Herod the Great. Herod the Great was a conqueror and a controversial figure. He had converted to Judaism, but his loyalty was questioned, he definitely made deals with the Romans, but if he hadn’t, the Jews may have suffered even more. When he died, which would have been early in Jesus’ childhood, he passed his throne on to his son, also named Herod.
This Herod Jr. did not have the strength of authority that his father had, but he had a kingdom, and he could throw parties. Continuing in Matthew, he has his niece dancing at his birthday party and he likes that, so he offers her whatever she wants. She asks for John the Baptist’s head. Again from Matthew, “The King was distressed”. He was distressed because he now has to keep the promise he has made or he looks weak to his royal relatives, but he has to do something that will anger the people he is ruling, and weaken his already tenuous authority. And he does it.
In just a few more lines, we move in to today’s story, now knowing that the reason they have all gone out in to the wilderness is to mourn, and not just for anybody, for Jesus this is family, and this is someone who sees the world in the same way he does. Together they had this vision of healing and ministering and building a grass roots movement against these Romans and this sniffling little puppet ruler, Herod Jr, who had come and taken over their homeland. They just wanted to let people know that they are accepted and loved. They no doubt knew there would be trouble. They may have expected to get arrested, but they probably were not ready for this.
So here we are. We have Jesus sitting on a rock somewhere out across the Sea of Galilee surrounded by 5,000 men, all of them in shock and wondering what to do now. And a couple of the leaders, Philip and Andrew come up to him and say, “umm Jesus, we don’t have enough bread, and only two fish.” This is one of the times when I know how I would react. And sometimes I wish the Bible would let us in a little more on Jesus’ thoughts. He did after all come down to be human, and as a human, I would think he would be a bit annoyed at this question.
I recalled a scene from the TV MASH while I was thinking about this. If you remember Colonel Sherman Potter, he was the stronger military Colonel, not the bumbling funny one from when the show started. He would often yell his orders at Hawkeye Pierce and Hunnicutt. In one of the shows he told them to do something and they questioned his orders, Potter shook the stars on his epaulets and said, “you see these, when they give you these, they remove the bone in your head that makes you explain your orders, now just do it.” I can imagine Jesus feeling the same way, thinking, “why are you bothering me with the menu, I’m the Christ.” But of course he wouldn’t say that, because well, he was Christ.
What he does do is show some true leadership. He doesn’t explain, he also doesn’t get angry or scold his disciples for not having faith. There are other times in the gospels when he does that, but this is a funeral. He simply and gently says, have everyone sit down, he gives thanks for the meal, and of course everyone is fed.
I’ll say more about the miracle in a moment, but I want to wrap up what I get from the story, looking at in this light. I think what is being shown here is a contrast. These stories were not written down until a few decades after Jesus died, so the intended audience of them would have needed a little of the history lesson, although they would have been more familiar with Rome and the politics of the time, but as a story, the idea is still the same, find yourself in it, which character can you relate to? Here we have two parties. In one of them there is good food, nice wine, it’s a happy occasion, and you’re hanging out with the people in charge, you can do whatever you want, you want the head of John of the Baptist, you can have it. In the other party, you’re sitting on a rock, it’s getting dark and you’re wondering, where’s the justice and you’re hungry? But then what you do is you share your meager morsels, and all are fed.
Today we are really neither of those. We are neither royalty nor slave. We have an election process. We don’t have fathers passing on their throne to their sons. But we still have to make choices every day about what is right and what is just. We may be several steps removed from the people who make our clothes or grow our food, but our choices at the cash register affect the lives of many people. We can choose to share what we have with others and support each other in time of need, or we can just party.
Now the reading goes on to say that the saw this miracle and saw it as proof of Jesus being a prophet. That may have been what a 1st century writer wanted to get across, but as a 21st century man, I have trouble with it, I have trouble with all the miracles, and I’d like to address it in case there are others out there feeling the same way. A previous pastor of mine told of how it was common in these days that people would all carry with them a little pouch with some dried fish and probably. Jesus no doubt knew this and instead of organizing a big gathering of everything, he knew he could count on the generosity of the people there and if he just started passing a basket around, those who had extra would throw it in, and those who did not would take no more than they needed.
Rick has introduced the idea of “non-overlapping Magisteria” before on evolution Sunday. Magisteria being areas of study. Stephen Jay Gould, an evolutionary biologist put forth this idea that there does not need to be an argument between science and religion. Science can cover what can be empirically demonstrated and religion can stick to matters of meaning and value. At times like this parable, they may seem to overlap, but only if you want to pick that fight. I am satisfied that in 110 A.D. or whenever the Book of John was written, miracles were an important and accepted part of writings such as these. These are not newspaper accounts, this is not a history book and it is not the inerrant word of God. As a United Methodist, we are not called to hold these stories to that level of scrutiny and doing so causes more trouble than it solves.
For this story, whether you claim a miracle occurred, or you call it a miracle of community the value of the telling of it remains the same.
Monday, July 20, 2009
History ain't what it used to be
When I was in 5th grade, our teacher decided to have an afternoon in the library. This would be a time when we could pick anything off the shelf and we didn’t have to report on it. I don’t remember why, but I picked up a book on Columbus. It didn’t sound anything like what I had learned up until then.
I had been told, by teachers, that Columbus was turned away by the King of Portugal because he believed the world was flat and of course Columbus was smarter than that. This book said that Columbus had asked for future royalties from all land he might discover and that he be named “Great Admiral of the Ocean” and appointed governor of whatever he found and all of his descendants would inherit that title. He made a similar proposal to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain and was again rejected twice before being accepted. The extravagance of those offers and the advice of experts on navigation were why he was rejected. He really didn’t know where he was going, or where he was once he got there.
The details of the negotiations that ended with the voyage of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria were always glossed over, or completely ignored in primary school. Business negotiations may seem like pretty dry stuff, but in this case, they make the history more interesting, and changing them into a story of Kings and Queens not believing in our hero makes matters worse, not to mention obscuring other history of Greek science and earlier maritime navigation.
Standing there at 11 years old, I didn’t know what to do. I can clearly remember looking up at my teacher from the book as this seemingly terrible truth was revealed to me and she was smiling. I wasn’t sure if she was aware of what I was reading and was happy for my discovery, or if she didn’t have any idea and her look was one of blissful ignorance. I assumed the latter, since she had taught me something very different. I had no one to turn to for answers because it seemed everyone I had trusted up until then was in on the conspiracy. It was difficult to trust any authority from then on.
Never did I hear the story of Columbus being stripped of his governorship when he did not deliver riches that he promised, or of the story of him tricking the natives by saying he would “take away the moon” when he knew that a lunar eclipse was coming. Over the next couple decades more of this story was revealed through the efforts of the descendants of the people who were negatively affected by the arrival of Europeans here in the Americas. Until I read Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen, I didn’t have the full story. That book adds a lot to the history presented in public schools, and does it in a much more entertaining way. It also analyzes why our history text books are so watered down and so out of balance with actual events. I wish it were as simple as a good conspiracy theory, but the dynamics of it involve all of us.
Recently I was looking through the books in my church’s library. It’s actually just two bookcases in the basement, but it’s our library. I came across a book titled The Bible as History, written in 1981. I thumbed through it and found that it did not have the location of Eden. It started out talking about something called the “Fertile Crescent” and how a tribe from the West invaded this area. It said there may have been a man named Abraham who came from that tribe, or the biblical Abraham may be a composite character. I had seen a movie in the 70’s that showed how parts of Noah’s Ark had been found, but this book did not seem to take those accounts seriously. It talked about another book, Gilgamesh, that had been written earlier than the Bible and compared its flood story to the Noah story. They are remarkably similar.
This time I was not confused. I have the context to understand this history book. I know I can talk to my pastor about it. It is not being taught in every child’s Sunday School class, but I know it is in mine, because I’m the teacher. We may never know how all the stories in the Bible developed. Just absorbing all of the historical information that exists today would be impossible for one person. The further back in time you go, history pretty quickly becomes a matter of probability.
In "The Bible as History" book, it tells the story of the discovery of the city of Ur, where the Gilgamesh story was found on stone tablets. It was a pile of rocks in the desert, then around 1850 somebody decided to try to figure out what it was. In the process, they hacked a lot of it away. Archeology has improved since then, but who knows what story they will be telling about us 150 years from now, about how we brushed away a critical layer of history thinking it was just dirt. Let’s hope we do a better job than when I was in grade school.
I had been told, by teachers, that Columbus was turned away by the King of Portugal because he believed the world was flat and of course Columbus was smarter than that. This book said that Columbus had asked for future royalties from all land he might discover and that he be named “Great Admiral of the Ocean” and appointed governor of whatever he found and all of his descendants would inherit that title. He made a similar proposal to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain and was again rejected twice before being accepted. The extravagance of those offers and the advice of experts on navigation were why he was rejected. He really didn’t know where he was going, or where he was once he got there.
The details of the negotiations that ended with the voyage of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria were always glossed over, or completely ignored in primary school. Business negotiations may seem like pretty dry stuff, but in this case, they make the history more interesting, and changing them into a story of Kings and Queens not believing in our hero makes matters worse, not to mention obscuring other history of Greek science and earlier maritime navigation.
Standing there at 11 years old, I didn’t know what to do. I can clearly remember looking up at my teacher from the book as this seemingly terrible truth was revealed to me and she was smiling. I wasn’t sure if she was aware of what I was reading and was happy for my discovery, or if she didn’t have any idea and her look was one of blissful ignorance. I assumed the latter, since she had taught me something very different. I had no one to turn to for answers because it seemed everyone I had trusted up until then was in on the conspiracy. It was difficult to trust any authority from then on.
Never did I hear the story of Columbus being stripped of his governorship when he did not deliver riches that he promised, or of the story of him tricking the natives by saying he would “take away the moon” when he knew that a lunar eclipse was coming. Over the next couple decades more of this story was revealed through the efforts of the descendants of the people who were negatively affected by the arrival of Europeans here in the Americas. Until I read Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen, I didn’t have the full story. That book adds a lot to the history presented in public schools, and does it in a much more entertaining way. It also analyzes why our history text books are so watered down and so out of balance with actual events. I wish it were as simple as a good conspiracy theory, but the dynamics of it involve all of us.
Recently I was looking through the books in my church’s library. It’s actually just two bookcases in the basement, but it’s our library. I came across a book titled The Bible as History, written in 1981. I thumbed through it and found that it did not have the location of Eden. It started out talking about something called the “Fertile Crescent” and how a tribe from the West invaded this area. It said there may have been a man named Abraham who came from that tribe, or the biblical Abraham may be a composite character. I had seen a movie in the 70’s that showed how parts of Noah’s Ark had been found, but this book did not seem to take those accounts seriously. It talked about another book, Gilgamesh, that had been written earlier than the Bible and compared its flood story to the Noah story. They are remarkably similar.
This time I was not confused. I have the context to understand this history book. I know I can talk to my pastor about it. It is not being taught in every child’s Sunday School class, but I know it is in mine, because I’m the teacher. We may never know how all the stories in the Bible developed. Just absorbing all of the historical information that exists today would be impossible for one person. The further back in time you go, history pretty quickly becomes a matter of probability.
In "The Bible as History" book, it tells the story of the discovery of the city of Ur, where the Gilgamesh story was found on stone tablets. It was a pile of rocks in the desert, then around 1850 somebody decided to try to figure out what it was. In the process, they hacked a lot of it away. Archeology has improved since then, but who knows what story they will be telling about us 150 years from now, about how we brushed away a critical layer of history thinking it was just dirt. Let’s hope we do a better job than when I was in grade school.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The world we want
I saw Arlo Guthrie on stage the other day. He was just as good as he was 20 years ago. He stopped in the middle of songs and told stories, just like always. At one point he said, "Ya know, I know it would be great if the world was at peace, all peaced out and love and everything, but have you ever thought if that were how it was, just how far out of your way you would have to go to make a difference? We may live in a time when we have to do less than ever to make a difference in so many other lives."
Here is Arlo's granddaughter. He performed the middle song, "Take Me to Show and Tell" (for the first time ever) at the festival.
A festival like this brings many people together, including a few yet unborn and a few in wheel chairs. It becomes a place not just for enjoying music but for exploring. I overheard a small group of college kids discussing their futures, it brought back great memories. That is so far in my past, it’s hard to even recall being in that state of mind. Now it just seems cute.
It is pretty rare that I see or do something anymore that affects me in any profound way. But as soon as I start thinking that I have reached some sort of completion, some sort of conclusion, something comes along to remind me that there is no end. At one of the first small stages, where several bands take turns performing, there was one song, it was so good, it made me want to go sit in a cheap motel somewhere and just think about life for a while.
I knew I would want to find the lyrics and memorize them and recommend people who play guitar learn it, and tell poets and poetry lovers just to hear it and tell the next generation about it. I knew I would spend a lot of time searching for the lyrics and hoping to find a recording of that live performance. What would have taken a decade a few years ago, now can be done in a month. Here’s the YouTube,
You can see my comments on a song from the same stage asking the guy with the camera to post this one. That song is “Star of Bethlehem”, a Neil Young cover. The above was performed as the second song for the "Song Remains the Same" workshop by C. R. Avery. I can't find any other reference to it, so I'm trying to transcribe it. I'm sure I'm way off in many places.
The wind is a speed reader
It is violently flipping through the pages of a glossy pages
of the magazine's ripped manuscript,
Absorbing its wet words like a dry-humored sponge.
Seattle grunge is face down in the toilet bowl
Rock and Roll in a bird feeder,
But before it rained the wind was a speed reader
In this cherry blossom graveyard the microphones don’t work
One has a cool distorted tone like a faded bed cover
Other times it is a cordless
In an English plain it would never see the ocean crash against the rock.
Unanchored and unorthodox it cannot handle the beat box
These microphones watch too much television
That’s why I need to stand and sing against the library of the wind
To carry my voice over the drums and a loud crowd
Like a Hummingbird that hums aloud to pay his rent
Against my better judgment, I have let money drive my car
Left with the scar of a fatal accident, bent out of shape bad, scraped bad
Bent and smoking on the side of the highway while I vent
In a town where they use your name to fill a bar room
Music usually means less than beer
But it was a musician, who first said,
Let’s just play it by ear
If I die today, bury me on Highway 15
In between the symphony of Many Season's Church and Rob’s garage
If the sun could flash through the clouds like a cop's badge
Along with the cold, which is the weather to bury the dead
And sing This land is your land, this land is my land
but rewrite the words to say what needs to be said
And if you can’t make it to my final highway rest stop
Stick a harmonica out the window of a vehicle moving at high speed,
This go slow read is when you hear the wind
2:14 Harmonica until 3:04
The sweaty palm answers are subtle
Just like the sadness and disappointment in the waitress and patron's eyes
That came that night into the bar to be inspired
If I stand perspiring it means they leave empty handed
To be candid this is an apology in the form of an unsung telegram
I’m sorry sometimes I watch too much TV, I get lazy and let the screen door slam
But one day the world is going to turn all fast food chains into second hand book stores
And the world will be well read
But in the valley of the dead, you can’t hold your breath before death
I’m going to be a literary obscene green lizard with my tail curled up like a garden hose
Between my teeth a wild rose,
A gray dawn, I drop a crayon and I draw it back
And I let water colors run and I smear it with beads of sweat
(Behind a cigarette in the garden of good and evil, this is hobo erotic hip-hop
Here is Arlo's granddaughter. He performed the middle song, "Take Me to Show and Tell" (for the first time ever) at the festival.
A festival like this brings many people together, including a few yet unborn and a few in wheel chairs. It becomes a place not just for enjoying music but for exploring. I overheard a small group of college kids discussing their futures, it brought back great memories. That is so far in my past, it’s hard to even recall being in that state of mind. Now it just seems cute.
It is pretty rare that I see or do something anymore that affects me in any profound way. But as soon as I start thinking that I have reached some sort of completion, some sort of conclusion, something comes along to remind me that there is no end. At one of the first small stages, where several bands take turns performing, there was one song, it was so good, it made me want to go sit in a cheap motel somewhere and just think about life for a while.
I knew I would want to find the lyrics and memorize them and recommend people who play guitar learn it, and tell poets and poetry lovers just to hear it and tell the next generation about it. I knew I would spend a lot of time searching for the lyrics and hoping to find a recording of that live performance. What would have taken a decade a few years ago, now can be done in a month. Here’s the YouTube,
You can see my comments on a song from the same stage asking the guy with the camera to post this one. That song is “Star of Bethlehem”, a Neil Young cover. The above was performed as the second song for the "Song Remains the Same" workshop by C. R. Avery. I can't find any other reference to it, so I'm trying to transcribe it. I'm sure I'm way off in many places.
The wind is a speed reader
It is violently flipping through the pages of a glossy pages
of the magazine's ripped manuscript,
Absorbing its wet words like a dry-humored sponge.
Seattle grunge is face down in the toilet bowl
Rock and Roll in a bird feeder,
But before it rained the wind was a speed reader
In this cherry blossom graveyard the microphones don’t work
One has a cool distorted tone like a faded bed cover
Other times it is a cordless
In an English plain it would never see the ocean crash against the rock.
Unanchored and unorthodox it cannot handle the beat box
These microphones watch too much television
That’s why I need to stand and sing against the library of the wind
To carry my voice over the drums and a loud crowd
Like a Hummingbird that hums aloud to pay his rent
Against my better judgment, I have let money drive my car
Left with the scar of a fatal accident, bent out of shape bad, scraped bad
Bent and smoking on the side of the highway while I vent
In a town where they use your name to fill a bar room
Music usually means less than beer
But it was a musician, who first said,
Let’s just play it by ear
If I die today, bury me on Highway 15
In between the symphony of Many Season's Church and Rob’s garage
If the sun could flash through the clouds like a cop's badge
Along with the cold, which is the weather to bury the dead
And sing This land is your land, this land is my land
but rewrite the words to say what needs to be said
And if you can’t make it to my final highway rest stop
Stick a harmonica out the window of a vehicle moving at high speed,
This go slow read is when you hear the wind
2:14 Harmonica until 3:04
The sweaty palm answers are subtle
Just like the sadness and disappointment in the waitress and patron's eyes
That came that night into the bar to be inspired
If I stand perspiring it means they leave empty handed
To be candid this is an apology in the form of an unsung telegram
I’m sorry sometimes I watch too much TV, I get lazy and let the screen door slam
But one day the world is going to turn all fast food chains into second hand book stores
And the world will be well read
But in the valley of the dead, you can’t hold your breath before death
I’m going to be a literary obscene green lizard with my tail curled up like a garden hose
Between my teeth a wild rose,
A gray dawn, I drop a crayon and I draw it back
And I let water colors run and I smear it with beads of sweat
(Behind a cigarette in the garden of good and evil, this is hobo erotic hip-hop
I don't want you to put your hands in the air, I want to hear a pin drop)
Let our bodies work be more diverse than the vinyl in a new and used record shop
Every once in a while, into the barroom floats a mischievous breeze and I’m flipping through a
Flipping through an old Bukowsky novel
Leaning against the jukebox
That reads "Like the fox I run with the hunted
And if I'm not the happiest man on earth
I’m surely the luckiest man alive"
In this cherry blossom graveyard, renewing my vows
Following a northern star in a sandstorm while it snows
Let our bodies work be more diverse than the vinyl in a new and used record shop
Every once in a while, into the barroom floats a mischievous breeze and I’m flipping through a
Flipping through an old Bukowsky novel
Leaning against the jukebox
That reads "Like the fox I run with the hunted
And if I'm not the happiest man on earth
I’m surely the luckiest man alive"
In this cherry blossom graveyard, renewing my vows
Following a northern star in a sandstorm while it snows
(In this cold highway town, letting sleeping dogs rest, and scripture suggest, when headstones are gray)
The wind is a speed reader
Before the rain came
But regardless, the song remains the same
The wind is a speed reader
Before the rain came
But regardless, the song remains the same
https://sonichits.com/video/Tons_Of_Fun_University/Broken_Eyes
Monday, July 6, 2009
How to Read
I know my titles sound remedial, but check out this link and see what goes in to studying religion. I guess that's why I enjoy it, I know I'll never be done. Or I'm a glutton for punishment.
Critics of the Bible
I had been thinking about writing something like this, but then I came across this article and he says it better than I could have. I would left out the harsher criticism, so you can skip past that to the bullet list. He does have a point, many people do a basic reading and don't consider that the translation they have might be incorrect, or at least their meaning has changed since they were written, and certainly the context.
I'm sort of on summer vacation, I'll be back with my own original works soon.
Critics of the Bible
I had been thinking about writing something like this, but then I came across this article and he says it better than I could have. I would left out the harsher criticism, so you can skip past that to the bullet list. He does have a point, many people do a basic reading and don't consider that the translation they have might be incorrect, or at least their meaning has changed since they were written, and certainly the context.
I'm sort of on summer vacation, I'll be back with my own original works soon.
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