Category Archives: Humanities

Grab Your Highlighter

Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake — not merely conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The person who say he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. Third, writing your reactions down helps you to remember the thoughts of an author.

–from How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren

Note: Do this only to books you own, never library books! Be considerate of the next reader.

‘Tis A Quandary

This is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I followed a link from Siona’s blog and am glad I did.

I can’t seem to figure out what to do with my head. It is too small to carry the right sort of luggage and dangerously prone to spills and injuries. I was thinking I might rent it out for microidea transmission, but I’m not sure how well I’d like sitting on top of a metal tower during thunderstorms. Then there’s the whole issue of bird droppings. Perhaps I could put it in a breadbox to keep it fresh. But lately it has this alarming tendency to weep, which could promote spoilage.

It is a jealous head with only a vestigial sense of humor at best. But it has eyes only for me. I rap on it with the knuckles of my right hand, never my left. I take it on road trips as well as for short walks around the farm. It never went to obedience school, but in its middle age I find it has developed very regular habits. Loyalty is the only coin it trades in.

My head has led a tragic existence – kind of like the Ugly Duckling in reverse, I sometimes say. Imagine growing up expecting to turn into a swan, only to discover that – alas – you’re really just another puddle duck.

I do keep it fairly well groomed now. Just the other day, it occurred to me that some of the people I used to be friends with back when I let my head grow dreadlocks probably wouldn’t want to hang out with me now. Some people I hang out with now definitely wouldn’t want to be seen with me if my head still wore dreads. Then I started thinking: all my friends are really my head’s friends. Could that be where this loneliness comes from?

I never went to a shrink, because I figured s/he would try to convince me it’s all in my head. I refuse to stoop to that kind of sophistry: it’s not just wrong, it’s idolatrous. For the Freudians, especially, one wonders if a head can ever be anything more than a misdirected phallus, the body’s grotesque bolete.

Right now my head is tired and a little overwhelmed. I am feeding it a rare, late-morning beer as I write. It has been short on sleep in recent days and rather short-tempered as a result. I’m thinking that a little alcohol might short a few, over-sensitive circuits. And though my forehead remains an open book for those with the proper training, a slight flush always helps to hide the marks of abuse from that beast, my body.

–Dave, author of Via Negativa

Rowing Through Eternity

The Dead

The dead are always looking down on us, they say,
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.

They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,

which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

–Billy Collins, 1991, from
Questions About Angels

The Way Of Poetry

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to water-ski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They began beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

–Billy Collins, 1988, from
The Apple That Astonished Paris

Cut the Deck

Something I’ve recently begun to do is a little bit of yoga. Not classes, not in a big-time way. I’ve got the The Yoga Deck: 50 Poses & Meditations, which I have found easy to use. I’ve got a few favorites that are easy to do and relieve a lot of tension. There are also breath and meditation cards.

Another deck I use very frequently (all of it nearly every night) is The Stretch Deck. I’ve noticed a significant increase in my coordination and flexibility as a result.

Here is an article that explains the benefits of stretching and various methods. Stretching:

  • reduces the risk of joint sprain or muscle strain
  • can reduce back pain
  • can reduce general muscle soreness from exercise
  • can reduce muscle tension (This makes you feel better both at work and at rest.)
  • can enhance mental and physical relaxation
  • may even improve athletic performance

Remember, never force a stretch to the point of pain, and don’t bounce. Move in a slow, controlled manner. Be gentle with yourself, and your body will respond favorably.

Faith & Emotional Mediocrity

Awhile back on NOW with Bill Moyers I saw an interview with William Sloane Coffin. I’d not heard of him before, but I was taken by the passion and candor with which he spoke. There were three statements that particularly stayed with me. I made a note of them and have just come across it again.

Faith is being seized by love.

Faith is not belief without proof, but is trust without reservation.

But no, chirping optimism is terrible. But if you and a lot of people think, “I’ll never feel too good about anything so I won’t have to feel too bad about anything either.” And they think that emotional mediocrity is the good life. No. We should be able to plumb the depths of sadness and rise to the heights of joy, even ecstasy, though at my age, it’s not too easy.

–William Sloane Coffin

Wooing Wonder

If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.

–Rachel Carson

Being Happy In The Mystery

I once heard a reading from Ray Lynch’s Truth Is The Only Profound; the piece, What to Remember to Be Happy, written by Avatar Adi Da Samraj, was read by a child. It pierced me, brought me to tears during my morning commute. The innocence of the child’s voice, combined with the wisdom of the message, made me very aware of the Mystery. What I pasted below are excerpts from it, slightly rearranged according to how I remember it sounding.

Nobody, not Mom, or Dad, or Grandmother, or Grandfather, or big Sister or big Brother, or teachers, or doctors, or soldiers, or athletes, or lawyers, or TV stars, or any people who are working, or any people who are playing, not even a President, not even a King or Queen, not even people who love each other know what even a single thing Is. And it seems to me that no matter what we name it we still do not know what things Are. Truly, you and I don’t know what even a single thing Is. Do you know what I Am? See. And I don’t know what you Are either. It is a Mystery. Doesn’t it make you feel good to feel It?

Did you ever ask somebody where this came to be? Some say, “I don’t know”, and saying this makes them feel they are being very honest and truthful. Others say something such as “God made it” or “It comes from God.” And such people are also being very honest and truthful when they say this. How can they both be telling the truth? It is a great and more than wonderful Mystery to all of us that anything is, or that we are. And whether somebody says “I don’t know how anything came to be” or “God made everything”, they are simply pointing to the feeling of the Mystery, of how everything is but nobody knows what it really Is or how it came to be. As long as we go on feeling this Mystery, we feel free and full and happy to others. This is the secret of being happy from the time you are small until the time you are old.

You are the Mystery! Yes. And you don’t know what you Are either! Yes. There Is Only the Mystery! And you yourself in your Heart and up and down and in and out Are the Mystery. It Is All One Feeling.

If you will remember every day to feel and breathe the Mystery, and if you will remember to feel that you are more than what you look like, and if you will remember to Be the Mystery Itself, then you will be happy every day. And all kinds of more than wonderful happenings will come up for you. You will feel happy and you will always help and love others, even those who are having trouble feeling happy and are even trying to make you forget the Mystery.

It is good to spend a lot of your time talking about the Mystery with others, instead of talking about unhappiness and things that happen when we forget to love. People who also feel the Mystery and love It are the best friends to have.

Just remember this, or remember God, which is the same thing. Keep on remembering God, or the Mystery, and you will feel happy and act happy to others, and so you will keep on loving and helping others so the world won’t get all afraid and stupid and unable to sleep or play or work.

If you do this all the time, you will have lots of amazing and more than wonderful experiences until you go back to sleep. And if you remember the Mystery even when you are going to sleep, then you will go to sleep all happy in the Mystery too. And all your dreams will be about the Mystery until you wake up again. Remembering the Mystery is a way of being everything you always already are. When you sleep you are something different than when you wake up. And when you dream you are different too. The way you seem to be when you wake up is only one of the ways you are. Someday you may meet someone who has felt the Mystery really strong for a long time, so that person feels the Mystery all the time and is always happy. Such a person is the best person to learn from about happiness and life and love.

I hope you will remember to feel the Mystery every day, as long as you are awake, forever. The best thing to tell anybody is to remember to feel this. I have been doing this for a long time, and it is the best and most important feeling of all.

I am very happy I could tell you this. Maybe someday we will meet face to face. Maybe. Anyway, at least you and I will always know that at least one other person somewhere is remembering and feeling and breathing and loving and Being the Mystery right now.

Does Happiness Reduce Empathy?

Sad people are nice. Angry people are nasty. And, oddly enough, happy people tend to be nasty, too.

Such (allowing for a little journalistic caricature) were the findings reported in last month’s issue of Psychological Science. Researchers found that angry people are more likely to make negative evaluations when judging members of other social groups. That, perhaps, will not come as a great surprise. But the same seems to be true of happy people, the researchers noted. The happier your mood, the more liable you are to make bigoted judgments — like deciding that someone is guilty of a crime simply because he’s a member of a minority group. Why? Nobody’s sure. One interesting hypothesis, though, is that happy people have an ”everything is fine” attitude that reduces the motivation for analytical thought. So they fall back on stereotypes — including malicious ones.

Read the rest of The Way We Live Now: Against Happiness.

Ah, Inspiration!

So that’s where it is! I should spend more time in mine, perhaps?

Honestly I have no idea how that slug got into my toilet and frankly I don’t care. He’s since been returned to his natural environment where he’s probably blogging about his porcelein adventure. My point is that Dad was right. All I have to do is step into the bathroom and the damn blog practically writes itself.

Read the entire post. It’s really funny.

Uninspired

I think I’m suffering from information overload. I’m on seven spirituality or poetry mailing lists (the source of numerous postings here), and I noticed last night that I’ve been hardly reading them — in the sense that I’m letting them sit unread and when I do, my brain doesn’t register much.

I feel bloated with words and ideas. Almost sick on them. I read blogs and feel my eyes glaze, my brain disconnect. Same with the news and all the other websites I read. This is why, in part, I’ve only posted brief quotes as entries in recent days.

For this reason, I’m going to take a rest from this blog until my appetite returns. It will probably be only for a few days, because whenever I give myself time off I shortly begin to come up with things to say. Meanwhile, there is a healthy helping of great blogging in the sidebar.

The Walk

We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen.

–Thomas Merton