Only occasionally and at different times

My mother gave all of her children a puzzle two years ago called One Tough Puzzle. It's tough all right. It only has 9 squares with two possible interlocking pieces on two of the sides of each square that fit only one adjacent piece corectly. The toughness comes because it has over 300,000 combinations. I have probably spent about 3 hours trying to get one of my combinations to make the pieces all fit. No luck yet.




I suppose the same fascination with trying to figure out the puzzle parts with so many combinations is the one I have for language and the way it is generated in the first place and then used by people in the second place. It fascinates me. My best friend's wife has a different theory on my fascination with language, but that's material for a different blog. I know how much of language is structured, but I haven't been able to fit all the pieces together for the perfect theory. No luck yet.

Although I have not figured out the combination of all of life yet (no luck there either), I have on occasion been able to find the combinations for some beautiful friendships and mentors that have helped along the journey through life. My Greek professor in college was a person of unsurpassable patience with a passion for passing on the secrets of an ancient tongue. I got what he was about. He passed that on to me. I had two college roommates with whom I still keep in contact that for some reason hit on all cylinders with me then and now. I have a friend in a town nearby who used to live where I do. We are fast friends and take annual trips together, the two of us. We "get each other." I also have family. We grew up together. We share DNA. We know each other, resemble each other (and like each for that matter). And recenly I made a tremendous friend who epitomizes grace. I so very much enjoyed his way of working with people and making them know that they were important. He is in ill health now with not much longer to live. But we hit it off from the very beginning.

Philosophers and literary writers alike have written about friendships from time immemorial. It's all about the times when that one in 300,000 chance comes together that makes for a single strand made of two cords. Even though the phenomenon is as old as humans are, it's still a very beautiful thing to see and experience.

My Greek professor died many years ago. I still share his mission, his passion. My roommates and I talk on occasion by phone and visit about every third year. We still enjoy every second of each other's available time for those visits. My close friend and I look forward to our annual trips of sharing again in each other's life. My family and I get together 3 times a year, but it is so easy to pick up where we left off. And my recent friend is not healthy enough to speak for very long at a time by phone, but in a few words we share our bond.

There is a particular beauty in coming across the one in a 300,000 chance, no matter when that happens on our journeys.

Semantics of superlatives

In the realms of math and language there are two terms that point to the same idea, that of something being reiterated to take meaning to a higher level than before. In math that is the idea of exponents; in language it is the idea of superlative degree.

Good-Better-Best is maybe the most common example of a superlative. Good is the plain word. Better is the comparative degree between two items, and best is the superlative degree, meaning that it is the highest form from many parts of whatever is being compared. Bad-Worse-Worst is another common example. However, in many words, the comparative form of an adjective takes an -er on the end of it, the superlative an -est, such as large-larger-largest. For most multisyllabic words, more is the comparative marker, most is the superlative, as in beautiful-more beautiful-most beautiful.

Not all words are adjectives, so not all words can have a comparative or superlative degree. Only words that describe action or nouns can show superlatives. In some cases, there are stand-alone words that show superlative degree without having a comparaive degree or a regular word to derive itself from, such as the word favorite. Supposedly, a person can have only one favorite of the same object even though Americans many times use favorite in common usage to refer to more than one item.

I only bring this up because I was thinking about the use of the word love today. (I know love as a verb doesn't have a superlative, but I'm developing a new concept here). I hear it often from my mother and frequently from my daughter. And hopefully, that will stay intact. I hear the word love a lot in other contexts too, like "I love peanut butter and chocolate," and I love driving on the back roads of rural areas." So, since love is such a regular or generic term, perhaps there is a superlative form of love. So, looking around the language environment, I notice a word used for deities and very young children that just might serve the purpose. Women look at babies or young children and say how adorable they are, or they use the verb form and say that they adore those babies. The same word is used for deities to show a heightened form of respect (and love possibly).

I think if I were to ever hear the word adore used for me as an adult, I would notice its special and superlative character as if it is saying "special" to the third power in some particular way. I would, of course, want to respond in kind if I had used the more generic term previously with that person because of the high honor that is embedded in the word.

Flatlining

Tonight I have very strong thoughts of a cloudy, cloudy night and of a paradise lost. On one hand, someone very special offers me a song of peace from one of my favorite groups on a night overspread by thunderous clouds of rain (metaphorically speaking). On the other hand, someone so very special, with a paucity of words, leaves me standing amidst the inextinguishable flames of the abyss.

I would love to have peace tonight. Instead, I am "somewhere in the middle... somehwere between the wrong and the right, somewhere between the darkness and light... somewhere between the safety of the boat and the crashing of the waves, somehwere between a whisper and a roar."

I would love to look forward to joy-filled moments. Instead, I muster contentment in all things, quoting from someone else who mustered contentment in the middle of pain. In Milton's opening scene of Paradise Lost, having been cast from heaven and waking up in the fiery abyss, Satan explains his happiness at such an abject moment, "The mind is its own place. And in itself/ Can make a Heaven of Hell a Hell of Heaven./ What matter where, if I still be the same."

But, I should be seeing the reality of my current state. The Casting Crowns song should offer peace just as that someone special said: "Lord I feel you in this place and I know You're by my side/Loving me even on these nights when I'm caught in the middle."

And I should look beyond my fallen condition to not just happiness amidst pain, but to happiness from having heavenly qualities, as my special friend has pointed out. Milton offers happiness in his last book of Paradise Lost:" To whom (Adam) the angel last replied.../ Add virtue, patience, temperance: Add love/... Then wilt thou not be loathe/To leave this Paradise (earth), but shalt possess/ a Paradise within thee, happier far."

So, I take the peace that this very special person has offered and mix it with the contentment that comes even without the anticipation of truly joy-filled moments but of paradise within. Then, and only then, can I lay down my head and allow sleep to stop my heart from painful arrest.

Clear is better

Glasses can be necessary items if one wants to see clearly. But they are optional. A person can choose to wear them or not wear them. Even if the initial choice for glasses is made, the pair will need updating. If the same pair is kept, they eventually will do no good since vision changes. The ever-present aging process requires that adjustment be made on a regular basis. Otherwise, 20/20 begins to blur.

I know people who defy this principle when it is applied metaphorically to human nature. They feel that they are truer to human nature if they don't change because the divine nature never changes in their view. The divine nature doesn't have the same kind of aging problem, so that needs to be left out of the equation.

Simply put glasses help us see without leaves on trees being blurred, without details at a distance being lost, print up close being out of focus, color distortions being present, or shapes having irregular outlines. Likewise, there are checkpoints or junctures for reconsideration scattered throughout life. Every 7 years is one such juncture (the "seven-year itch" is even an idiom in English). Every decade is another. Ask anyone turning 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60, and (s)he will say how hard it is to turn that age beginning the next 10 years of her or his life. After trauma is another marker. Following a milestone accomplishment is also a time of measuring what came before, what is coming after. There are other checkpoints. Adjustments after checkpoints are optional, of course; it just depends on how well a person wants to enjoy the vision of life after a checkpoint. Some opt to enjoy, some don't. I've done it both ways and definitely prefer clear vision to poor.

Shifts, but with reason

Deer in Old English used to mean any animal, not a specific animal. Wench in Old English used to mean merely a serving girl and had no adverse connotation. A Jack of any suit in a deck of cards used to be called the Knave of that suit. Dice were nicknamed Bones since they were at one time carved from bone. Some English words have come and gone in their meanings or existence because the users of English have changed their preferences for words over time.

In language the phrase "over time" brings out new perspective about the words being used. 100 years ago, the word computer was not even coined. 100 years before that the word airplane had not been coined. 100 years before that revolver did not exist. We could go on.

Over time people change their preferences in life as well. They adjust by seeing a bigger picture based on accumulated knowledge or by narrowing to a finer adjustment of detail. Sometimes their values change from being preferred to dropping out altogether or from not having a value to developing one. Sometimes insights or objects of affection are not encountered earlier in life but appear for us later in life.

I wish that people could more easily adapt their circumstances in life. People have more roots than most words do, more expectations placed on them by society. But, as people change over time, there should be the flexibility that words have in language. Keep the words that still fit, drop the ones that don't, coin new ones as the need arises, or adjust the connotation when the environment changes.

Reliance on rhythms

Edgar Allen Poe is one of America's best loved poets for a reason. His poetry contains allusions to Greek mythology and are just chock full of melody, rhythm, and alliteration - all the ingredients that make poetry loveable.

That's a point I would like to make about life. It's full of rhythms, melodies, and reiterations (which is the same thing as alliteration but under a different non-literary name). The saying in our language that captures this idea is "the ebb and flow of life." My ebbs and flows are always worth looking back on. I always learn something new when I do that, either about how an event played out or how/what friends around me said or did. Sometimes I look back long range, sometimes very short range, but always I learn something.

One rhythm I have learned about by looking back is the rhythm of discerning shadows from reality. It's just one of the rhythms that beats loudly over the years. I have made mistakes in trusting shadows before. That's why reflection on those moving, illusive happenings yields better judgment. These days, I am surer of reality, knowing when to let shadows just float on by. I know a carpe diem moment when I see one.

I want to end with the musical, rhythmical, alliterative last two verses of Annabel Lee by Poe. It's got that perfect flavor to it. The portion in red has a particular literary satisfaction to me. And even though it is sad in content (Poe is grieving a lover taken from him), its fascinating and melodic literary ingredients leave you with a smile on your face, hope in your heart, spring in your step, and a thirst for more Poe(try). And those are the same rhythms in life people learn from and live for — the sad events (sometimes) that leave us with hope, smiles, and springs of life.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we —

Of many far wiser than we —

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

For the ones who fill my life with contentment

Wealthy people pay millions for a view that I see from my backyard. In a 180 degree panorama, I can see 100 miles in the distance over 3 ridges of mountains. The vantage point is from one of the highest hillsides in the whole area, so it overlooks a valley with a lake snaking through it. In the mornings, fog often shrouds the valley. At dusk the ridges on the far side of the lake are blue with a haze hiding their distant details. At night, lights twinkle showing where houses dot the shore. Part of the lake in my view snakes a course where small grass peninsulas jet out into the lake. The other part of the lake splashes against sheer cliff walls of 50 feet or more. All of this in my 180 degree view from my backyard.

The average house on the far side of lake on top of the cliffs, nestled among the thick cedar woods, cost 1.5 million dollars, the houses above the grass bars about 500,000. Every house is beautiful and ostentatious. In the summer, those people often walk down their cliff steps to their boats sitting in the wet locks and dock below their houses.

I am reminded that even though I do not have the millions of dollars of my southlake friends, I have the million-dollar view that their money can't buy. My backyard is overlooking theirs. Very few views in the area rival the one I have day in and day out. Even the name of the road running to the side of my backyard bears my last name.

I am struck and awe-struck that my investment for such a view is minimal. If I spent everyday for the rest of my life mulling over life as it happens while taking in the view from my backyard, I would certainly be more grateful, happier, and less focused on what comes to me as a result of the work of my own hands. When the sun sets and turns the lake the same color as the orange skies above and the blue peaks of the far ridges begin fading to black with the ensuing darkness, when the green cedar woods waft their sweet bark aroma across the entire valley and up the hillsides, then I know that the Maker of this truly ostentatious beauty has given me the gift of contentment.

When I leave my backyard this time perhaps this happier, more content, more grateful state can stay with me a little longer and be passed to those who fill my life and cross my path.

Flickering desire

As I stare at the lights flickering along the shoreline of the distant cliffs, I find myself thinking how uncomplicated life really is. It's a matter of camping your life where your desires are and fitting the rest of the world into the camp. There the soul has passion, the heart is content, and happy, and the head thinks clearly, knowing that all is well.

My camp has been far away from my desires for almost 3 decades. But, there will be a new rodeo to come to town, and that will certainly lead to setting up camp where soul, heart, and head will flicker in rhythm like the lights along the shoreline of the distant cliffs.

Snoozing, losing, and practicing

Growing up playing basketball in a 5A high school (4A was the highest designation at the time) made me a little edgy. Someone was always pushing to get my spot. I started every game from elementary up until my senior year in high school when after the first few games someone actually pushed me from my position. During the rest of the senior year it was a game-by-game decision on whether I would start or be 6th man for the game. If the coach needed my skill set, I started. If the coach needed the other person's skill set, he started. I always got playing time, no problem, but starting was prestigious.

That idea of pushing oneself carried over into my adult endeavors. I always knew that others were pushing to take my place, so I tried to always do well whatever the endeavor. Even in blog writing, I try to convey ideas in a manner that is polished. There are millions of other blogs on blogger.com to read. The second mine is boring or incomprehensible, oops, I just lost a reader.

I guess the point of this being edgy idea because someone else is always pushing, is that I have to practice, practice, practice to be any good at something. In basketball, every weeknight excluding game nights, I went through 3-hour practices. In my adult endeavors, I have gone to some pretty great lengths to be at the top of the "game" I'm playing at the time. And even when I teach others to write, they have to learn the cardinal principle of writing: you never write it right first. Revision is necessary - always, for even the smallest of thoughts. The first thought out is the rawest thought out. Wit may be a little different, but people will let you know if you're witty or not. For all others, revise until you are blue in the face.

It seems as I look back on life, that much of it takes practice, that is, repetitions beyond the normal activity to be good at discerning the nuances that are happening. When my kids grew up, it was sometimes hard to catch the exact moment of their moving from one stage to the next. Sometimes I caught it, sometimes I didn't. When the job markets changed, sometimes I was just in time for a good job, at other times I missed even if just slightly. When friends would move away, sometimes I would be able to follow them to their new destination and life in spirit and in continued communication, sometimes not.

One of the principles I have found to be true with every venture in life is "If you snooze, you lose." And I have lost some big ones. And I am very sorry for that. But, for some of us, life is long enough for the next rodeo to come to town. Preparation is key. The Master Teacher even corroborated this idea in his telling a story of bride and groom getting married later than expected. The bride's maids that were still ready, awake, and watching for the ceremony to happen got to attend the wedding. Those who had fallen asleep and let their torches burn out got dismissed from the wedding. They weren't allowed to ride the coat tails of the others into the wedding.

Whenever the next rodeo comes to town, and who really knows when life will bring that to a person, I hope to be on top of my game. I've practiced discerning those nuances of life a little more than I used to.

Life, rock, and sand

The Gladiator was a good show for a number of reasons, one of them being that it shows that life will take you in directions totally unexpected and for which you have not been prepared. The show opened in Northern Italy or Gaul. The general of all the northern Roman troops, Maximus, woke up that frigid morning completely in charge of his own life and that of every Roman soldier under him, several legions. All he had to do was give a command and his minions would carry out the order.

The general didn't know and was not prepared for what would happen by day's end. That same night, the emperor's son, who detested the Roman General, murdered his father, ordered the general killed, and sent the Praetorian Guard to slay every member of the general's family. Survival for himself was the general's first move; rushing to check on his family was his second. He survived, but his family did not. He was totally undone. He experienced unrequited anger and disorientation for a while, but then did what it took to stay alive in this world.

He ended up being a gladiator as the movie title suggests. He was already very skilled in warfare. He would never have had the title "general" bestowed on him if he had not have been. So, the former general made an outstanding gladiator. This made his trail lead back to Rome, from which he had been banished, but no one knew that Maximus was other than a good gladiator.

Finally, he was to fight for sport in front of the most bloodthirsty of all crowds, the people of Rome, in the Colliseum. What an honor, if there was honor to be had in Rome. And, the irony of ironies happened. The emperor who had ordered his general of all the north to die would be watching the match. The general/gladiator did not know and was not prepared for what happened by day's end. At the end of the major fight of the day, the emperor asked the champion gladiator for his name. The general mocked the emperor by proudly shouting his full Roman name, Maximus... and his title, General of All the Armies of the North.

This mockery, of course, led to a challenge with the emperor himself. The fight ended in both their deaths encircled symbolically by the Praetorian Guard. Just that morning the general of all the armies of the north turned champion gladiator never dreamed he would avenge his family's death, restore his own good name and honor, and die in the line of duty, all in one fell swoop.

Many a life has mirrored the general's in this show. One moment you have success, the next you experience the doldrums. One minute you have temporary control of your life, the next that control is stripped, and you are sent to the depths of the sea. One day you firmly grasp your destiny, the next everything near and dear no longer can be your reality, and your heart is ripped from your chest. Even if there is an avenging moment, it is not sweet because you lose in the deal too.

There are certain rhythms in life. But the overall course you chart is not according to a rhythm. One of the sayings in English is, "Don't become adrift in the sea." Well, I'm not sure that's possible. If you're on the sea, you will hit uncharted waters at some point or several points. It's just a matter of whether your survival skillls see you through to the end. Every friend I have has hit uncharted waters. I have watched to see how (s)he has survived. They all have the scars to prove their survival. And they all take new directions in life soon afterward.

I suppose that is why the Good Teacher gave the illustration about the person who builds a foundation on sand or rock. I have certainly built structures on sand before. They lie in ruins from collapse. I have also built on rock. Those values are still in place. My path may have new direction, but the foundational values are intact. So, here's to the adventures of life, rock, and sand.

Moveable spots

It's always fascinating to watch the science, history, and Nat Geo channels. Besides the interesting information that passes before one's eyes, it is full of surprises. Many times, a person will hear lines such as, "This presses the knowledge we now have," or "We used to think that x happened, but new evidence suggests...." I love living in the world in which new boundaries are found, old information is revised, new theories are being discovered and applied.

It's a little bit like the freeing experience of knowing an ancient language and being trained in the science of language. One does not feel so bound by translations because the fluidity of language is one of the key components to understanding any language. Although language does follow a certain set of rules at its core, there's a beauty to the aesthetic side of language such as semantics, idioms, and the colorful, regional use of a language.

The other day I was flipping channels on the radio and came across a program where the speaker was defining two Greek words (one usually translated slave, the other usually meaning servant). It's hard to know the limits of synonyms. Even in English it's a rather enlightening exercise to distinguish the meanings of "glad," "happy," "ecstatic," and "merry." We say "Happy Birthday," "Merry Christmas," "glad reaction," and "ecstatic victory." Are the words interchangeable in those expressions? They all mean about the same thing. But there are nuances, of course. In working with translation, it's just liberating to me to know that not every word is slotted into the same place always and forever.

And really, that observation is a good philosophy for life. There are certain rules to be maintained for order's sake, but not everything is slotted in at the same spot always and forever. There's a fluidity to life like there is to language. That realization helps me to be a more caring, sensitive, accepting individual. It helps me live in the moment of today. Since I'm not guaranteed tomorrow, I like being caring when the day presents it, or accepting if the circumstance requires. It's a good thing to know "people were not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for people."

Between the lines - sometimes

Pragmatics is an area of linguistics that deals with the semantics of words when people speak them. People come to a conversation with different backgrounds or value systems, so the listener doesn't always make the same interpretation of a statement as the speaker. Of course, people can have more than one meaning in mind when they speak. That's the stuff puns are made of, and comedians love the pun. Great irony can be created when more than one meaning is derived from a statement. Beyond humor, though, people can be confused or have different ends in mind based on the interpretation of a word or phrase. For instance, one friend can tell another friend that his uncle is coming to town. Visiting relatives can be good or bad. If the friend doesn't know the uncle, then he might say, "Oh you're in for a great weekend." But, if the friend knows that the uncle is always sarcastic when he talks, then he might say, "Oh, you're in for a long weekend." "My uncle is visiting" is neutral. It's the background brought to the conversation that makes for meaning.

Mafia movies also capitalize on pragmatics. Ordinary words are used to mean something different from the normal meaning of the word. For example, "The package has been delivered" might mean a bundle of money or explosives or a person of interest. Something was delivered, but not a package in the usual sense of the word. The military is famous for this as well because it is important to communicate in code. Anything people want to be vague or clandestine about, they derive words for with special or out-of-the-ordinary meanings.

Another way for pragmatics to work is for a person to quote one line of a work of poetry or a sentence from a book or a line from a song and mean the whole poem. The rabbis of the Jewish faith do this with the Psalms all the time. They will quote one line and really mean the rest of the stanza or the rest of the psalm in the case of short ones. I've heard comics do this with lines from songs as well. Sometimes song lines or song titles capsulize what is going on in a situation so well. So, around quitting time, the secretary I work with will get in a mood to leave early and one of us will quip, "It's five o'clock somewhere." She gets off before 5, but the song title fits the mood. At times I grow nostalgic and hear the chorus to a Zucchero Fornaciari song repeating itself in my mind, "I wanna take a trip back in time, I wanna take a trip back in time." If I share that feeling using that line, others are clueless unless they know the song. If others don't know the song, they just smile and say,"He'll be back in the present momentarily." Ditties are catchy and become representative of situations for us. If everyone understands the situation, life is beautiful. If everyone doesn't, confusion and misunderstanding reign.

Many times communication is a chess game. What does the other person mean by moving his/her piece to that square? What move should I counter with? Is (s)he trying to take as many pieces as possible before striking at the king? Or is (s)he trying to strike straight for the king? Somehow the game gets played as the two reveal their strategies. Perhaps, one difference in communication is that there's not a winner and loser usually. One person wants to understand the other one. It's just that the negotiation of meaning gets bogged down on occasion. There's no sure-fire way to communicate with clarity. Knowing how, when, and where to ask for clarification is the key to clearing the air.

I just wonder

I often wonder about matters of the ancient world. They fascinate me, I guess, because they allow my imagination to think of what could have been true. For example, around 70,000 years ago, a volcanoe erupted in the Indonesian area of the world. Eruptions aren't always a big deal. We see them on TV in modern times. But this one was different.

This eruption was so large, powerful, and long-lasting that what happened with the human-made bomb at Hiroshima looked like child's play. The blast sent plumes of sulfur and other elements into the atmosphere for so long and so high that a 10-year darkness was estimated to have hovered over the earth. That's a long time for no photosynthesis for plants, so most of them died. All you have to do is follow the progression from there. Light is required for plant life in the ocean as well, for the most part. The bottom line was that there was no food for humans after a while, at least not for the number of humans on the earth at the time.

But, not all humans died. Scientists are not sure where the humans that survived lived, but the humans that survived were but a small portion of those that existed before the eruption. In addition, geneticists say that humans were much more diverse than they are now. I would loved to have lived at that time to see a more diverse population. Were there more hair colors, skin tones, eye colors, height delimitations, shapes of bodies, etc. than today? If it is generally true that races gets taller over (lengthy) time, I wonder if it was an age of the little people. Or was it an age of giants whose race had lived 50,000 years before that, but they just couldn't make it because they required too much food? Was there a yellowish or yellow-green skin tone besides the standard ones we see today? Did humans have as much variety in hair color as fish in the sea have stripes and colors in their scales and skin? Some humans today have a whole lot of trouble growing facial hair (in males). Were some of the humans before the eruption with more or less hair on their faces?

I don't know the answer to any of those questions. But it's an exercise in wonder. It doesn't take much to look around the world and find areas full of wonder. Mountains do that for me. Pre-history does it. Space allows for wondrous thoughts of imagination. And it is when I see something full of wonder that I become grateful for the day and age that I live in. And when I am more grateful, I become less dissastisfied. That releases me to live more fully. Of course, there's always one area of dissatisfaction or another, it seems, that crops up. But, that always keeps me from living in such a wonder-filled world that I miss the reality of the present. But, tonight I am wondering about the world of 70,000 years ago and all that it held. And, I am grateful.

What a little trip to the past will do

Today I was rereading some portions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Don't ask me why. It's just a mood that comes over me once in a long while, usually while I am waiting for the next big event to happen in my life. I forget how intelligent those people were and how life for them was both glorious and mundane at the same time (exactly like ours today).



I was reading the portion of the commentary on the hieroglyphs used for the translation of God and whether the word really applied at all to a supreme being. The commentator for this section of the book wrote his remarks in 1895, but his arguments are still germane today. As he quoted the hieroglyphic texts (in heirogplyphic script - fascinating!) he followed his argument that the Egyptians, from the very beginning, believed in a single supreme being. His argument showed other words used for a plurality of gods, and how they might have not been gods at all, but some idea of mighty spirits (almost the idea expressed in Genesis 6.3-4).

I think the popular modern belief is that the Egyptians believed in a multiplicity of gods, and truly, even in the Egyptian Book of the Dead some of the passages lend themselves to that interpretation. We weren't there, and since there is some room for interpretation as to the Egyptian's beliefs and values, we might not want to speak so definitely about what those ancient people did or did not believe.

I guess the lesson I learn every time I deal with an ancient text of some sort is that they had a view of the world that was different from mine. While I can appreciate the view they held, I don't try to take something that worked for people thousands of years ago and just plug it into my modern view. So many times, I have heard that we are the end result of the decades and centuries that have preceded us. In some regards, a study of western civilization does help us understand that very generally speaking we have connections to how the world developed in Europe from the Roman empire forward.

The notion of God, the after-life, the human pursuit of finding both helps me to center myself. But, it also liberates me to know that civilizations progress, people move forward in their philosophies. A look back is a good starting place. A look at the present is the genuine reality check. A look ahead helps us to know whether to proceed or not based on where we started and where we are. My real trouble has always been that when I connect those three dots of past, present, and future, I don't see the straight line. The line curves and meanders. I hope that means I am smelling roses rather than being off-track.

The wrong will fail, the right prevail

The TV show Numbers represented life so well tonight. It was about a mobster who was going to be executed for committing a crime. The show centered on the mobster's determination to die even though at the last minute evidence surfaced that showed that the mobster did not commit the crime, that his son did. The mobster was dying to protect his son, and willingly doing so. As this was going on, a sub-plot was being developed where the star of the show had made calculations for a basketball team who had lost every game for a number years straight. He was trying out his method in a real game. But the team was losing miserably.

The ending scene switched back and forth between the main plot and sub-plot. The basketball team began winning when the coach put pro players into the college game, but no one knew that the players were professional. The main plot showed the mobster being strapped in for lethal injection for a crime he didn't commit and nothing could be done to stop the execution.

Cheating the system worked in the basketball game, which isn't real life, but cheating the system cost an innocent man his life, which he willingly gave, in the real world. A number of conclusions can be drawn. The one obvious to me at first was that what doesn't count turns out all right and what really counts doesn't turn out right at all.

Life is topsy-turvy like that.

(The title is a line from the Casting Crowns song, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" which addresses this dilemma of good and evil in light of the gift of Christmas.)

Voices that soothe

What's the deal?

My stomach has a gnawing in it. My dissatisfaction has grown so that my mask doesn't hide it anymore. My mind seems to have lost the ability to track the environment accurately. I see things that my affective side says exists and my cognitive side says is an illusion. My energy is scattered. My wishes and my reality are too far apart. My ballasts are not equally pressured.

I need to retreat to become centered again. At this point I usually am able to bury myself in translating New Testament passages. That's many times a centering experience for me. Sometimes it's in immersing myself in a particular interest such as an avocation. Occasionally it's to resubmerge into the scholarly world. But I'm not willing to spend the time for any of these pursuits right now.

If I quiet down, I'm sure to hear a calming voice and receive laser-focused energy. So here's to hearing voices through the soothing strains of music from Casting Crowns and Lincoln Brewster.

Through choices not oracles

The oldest form of writing has been found on the backs of turtle shells. They come from China. No one can really read the markings, but the hypothesis is that the ancient people wrote their incantations on the shells for divining purposes. Since that time, people have been writing their ideas on how to forecast their own paths throughout the written record of humans.

I don't think we have come very far in that regard. We are still tyring very hard to divine our futures. It doesn't really entail appeasing the gods or trying to read the portents of the sky or the hidden meanings of natural calamities anymore. But it does mean that we are curious about what lies ahead of us in life's path. In history, the famous oracles like the one at Delphi and famous priestesses like Cassandra stand out because they succesfully informed people of events in their lives.

No one today believes in incantations, and few seek modern Cassandras or psychics. We're much more content to live our lives in relative comfort from one day to the next. We even have an adage in our language advising us to live "one day at a time." But, end of time theories abound, science fiction movies and stories of major world catastrophes flourish, and scientists try to construct a future factoring in global warming.

Perhaps the secret of living is in finding meaning for our lives. Since we learn about ourselves throughout our lives, we have the opportunity to create and recreate meaningful days, years, decades, and quarter-centuries for ourselves. It's easier said than done, but we do have the ability to surround ourselves with activities and people that help to make us better and our lives meaningful. We just need to follow some good old Roman advice - carpe diem (take advantage of the day at hand). So today, I think I'll position myself around those who help me to be better and around those activities that help to build meaning into my life.

A moment in nothingness

I thought I had experienced the entire range of feelings in life, but it was not so.

Several nights ago I was watching a special on the concepts of space and time. In one segment of the documentary, a demonstration was performed with a water balloon hanging from a pole. Someone from a distance shot the balloon with a pellet gun, bursting the balloon. At this point the film was shown one frame at a time. One could actually see the balloon dropping to the floor while the water was intact, still in the shape of the balloon. The water was in place without being held by anything for a couple of frames. In real time it was a matter of a micro-second that the water was suspended in the balloon shape even though the balloon skin had dropped from around the water. The photography was splendid.

The scene was fortuitous. A couple of days later, I was in normal conversation with a good friend. The words spoken were normal and definitely logical for the flow of the conversation. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an epiphany struck in lightning quick fashion. I have had epiphanies before. Sometimes they have come while trying to solve problems; at other times, they have appeared after a period of time mulling an idea. But this day, the epiphany happened without warning and struck so quickly that it was as if the balloon skin had dropped and for a moment in suspended time I glimpsed the raw vision of the logic of the conversation . I didn't at all want to hear the logic because I fiercely, maniacally desired a different conclusion, yet it hung suspended for my eyes to see. I doubt that I was breathing for that suspended moment. It became momentarily dark, my feelings numbed, my soul had been pierced. I'm sure it was a split second, but it seemed like several minutes. Time had stopped. Darkness had set in. My limbs were paralyzed. My psyche had been cut clean to the core, excised of any but one thought. The normal stream of thought had been disrupted, suspended in a vacuum. After my sensations returned, I had the very bleakest, direst of feelings, so much so that I took a couple of minutes after my good friend left to check to see if I was in reality.




My thinking process tried to sort that moment in nothingness on the drive home, but to no avail. My mind refused to rationally analyze what had been presented to me in a flash of a moment. I sat in silence, once home, for a long time. I finally turned on the TV, but turned it off after eating because it was much too cheery. The night was fitful. I could not rest. Finally, I just got up at 2:30 AM and tried to think through why my mood had been so altered. I knew that I was headed for a morning that was all out of kelter. My mood turned to something really foul. By morning, I perfectly understood the reason why I had had the moment in time the day before when the world turned dark,breathless, and vacuous. I had earnestly, intensely wanted an outcome counter to the agonizing epiphany shown to me. I had no plan on how to work myself out of the realization from the day before. Every fiber of my being rejected the outcome of the epiphany.

By noon the next day and after some human interaction to take me away from my darkened thoughts, I was back on track to living life normally. But, that small moment in which I came face to face with an idea that I had hoped against hope would not happen has taught me that I haven't experienced the full range of emotions and that I am not fully in control of my life like I had thought. Not even close. Life has hit me with lightning strikes before, but not like this one. I had to once again put one foot in front of another and slowly emerge from night and silence into a world that had changed for me once again.

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I don't know what is happening. Life has radically changed. Ideas from my youth on the way the world was supposed to be forever and ever, immovable forever and ever amen, have been taken from me and flung 100 galaxies away. It seems like echoes from another lifetime to hear words like "my yoke is easy and my burden is light." I cannot take another sharpshooter epiphany, but I don't control that.

2nd Lamentations

I realize that the first book of Lamentations is written in beautiful poetry and is about the destruction of Jerusalem as a symbol for the loss of an era. So, I know that this second little lamentation is not comparable in most of the significant regards. But, I still feel compelled to write a small lamentation.

3000 years ago, in the mideast, families really did ban together. In fact, brothers felt strongly enough about familial care that if one of the brothers died, the brother left took his brother's wife to care for. Even in the book of Ruth, great care is taken to reflect the idea of familial care. Some of the Old Testament's most famous words are between Naomi and Ruth. Naomi loses her husband and sons, so wants to make sure that Ruth is taken care of. But Ruth pleads, "Don't ask me to leave or not to follow you home... your people are my people, your God is my God..." Also, once back in Judea, Cousin Boaz takes care of Ruth. In Nigeria, just 300 years ago, there were more women than men, so men made sure that the women were all cared for by marrying them and building compounds for them to live in. If something happened, the wife's family took the daughter back and then gave a dowry to someone else who would marry her for his compound.

Examples abound through history, but these two illustrate an age-old tradition. Now for the modern tradition. Brothers and sisters grow up, marry, move to far off places, call each other, 3 times a year, enjoy a holiday together in the fall, visit each other once every five years at best, take the grand kids for an annual visit to grand parents, and call it a close-knit family.

Independence is good. Women's roles have certainly changed. Mobility has lent itself to more opportunity for work. Transportation has made it easy to close distances between spread out family members. Phones and laptops make connecting easy and fast. Life is good, but families are split. The nuclear family, though good in concept, has no advantage over the non-nuclear family at this stage of a family's development.

Brothers and sisters in far-flung places replace their roots out of necessity with the "friend that sticks closer than a brother." As sad as it is, the direction won't change in the forseeable future. There's no advantage to the nuclear family. That bothered me at first. But why? It's reality. So, I just need to blog about it. Paradigms shift. End of story.

Quick check on dissatisfaction

One of my friends is a businessman and very in tune with the financial happenings of the day. Right now he's a little down not because he's doing badly in his business, but because all his financials principles are being crossed by the current administration. I saw him just last night and noticed it has affected his otherwise cheerful attitude.

It happens to me sometimes. I have clothing, shelter, and income, yet I let some outside influence drag on me. I guess I could say that is part of being human. But, what I need to say is learn a lesson from a friend. Be grateful. Whenever I have stopped to see what is good in my life versus what is a challenge or what is outright evil, it is the good that has the longer side of the list.

Inventories of one's life are always revealing. It's probably time for me to take another one. The road below me doesn't feel so straight and narrow.

How do you spell that mental cleansing word again?

Katharsis is a word derived from Greek, so it doesn't look much like other English words derived from Anglo-Saxon or Latin. It's a word that represents how one continues having good behavior. We macho Americans don't like the idea of a catalyst for good behavior because we think we are much too strong for cleansing our corrupted behaviors. Sometimes we think that we live on a higher plane than to have the need for reflection which is required by katharsis.

Let's make a comparison here. As we go through life eating what we want without regard for calorie intake, cholesterol level, sodium amounts, sugar amounts, family history, ad infinitum (ad nauseum), we began to show the ravages of these in our bodies. If we make no adjustments, then we end up looking rather sloven from overeating or appear shaky, dizzy, or faint from glucose shock, or become irate from hypertension, or show ourselves to be haggard and lethargic from living the sedentary life. And what if we go through life reacting to life without regard to what happens to our value system, our spouse's actions, our children's behavior, our friends' snubs, etc. (ad nauseum)? If we make no adjustments, then we end up killing ourselves, "going off on someone," opting to withdraw, changing values, raging against the machine in general (becoming negative, irritable, complaining).

In both our body's case and our reactions to life we need cleansings every so often. This cleansing is referred to as katharsis in the case of our reactions to life. We all need someone to speak to about the "stuff" in our lives that build up. Just that conversation to another person does wonders for our minds. It frees us after it's over to build plans, to dream again, to get past an obstacle, to love again, and many other wondrous activities. Cleansing is as necessary to longevity of the mental state as it is to the body or physical state.

We would do well to pay attention to an age-old idea captured by an ancient word. It would help with melt-downs. It would keep us fresher and healthier. It would prevent us from being jaded and bitter. It would help us forgive and love. It would allow us to give a cup of water to a traveler, to say an encouraging word to an orphan, to hold our tongues when we would rather shout "Fool" to someone else. In the accumulation of vocabulary words for our conscious mind to use, we should make sure that our mechanism for cleansing is there: k-a-t-h-a-r-s-i-s.