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Saturday, July 22, 2017

E(A)RNEST SQUIRREL AGAIN

I had not seen my little furry friend for quite some time and was glad to run across him in the woody end of our yard.


"Hello!" I said, "What have you been up to?"

"Hello yourself! I have been getting my education but am making poor progress."

"But you're such a bright, chipper thing. Surely you're not in earnest!"

"Careful how you spell that, human."

"Of course, Ernest. What seems to be the problem?"

"It's this heat, Geo., this "summer" thing. It gets to my brain and I can't remember where I buried my nuts."

"Understandable, Ernest, hot weather affects us all. It sends my blood circulation to all sorts of irrelevant places." 

"Yes, but you're over 100 times my age. I'm a young adult squirrel and you're a bag of mad old bones."

"Now, now, settle down. You've left the wisdom of your elders out of your calculations."

"I'm trying to remember where I buried my nuts, Geo. What does your vast experience have to offer?"

"Beyond a particularly disgusting old sea shanty, nothing. However, age brings contemplation of enigmas --important and difficult questions like..."

"Like what, Geo.? What's going through your heat-and-age-addled mind now?"

"Well, Ernest, I was just wondering how spiritual life might change if all the different religions of the world succeeded in converting each other at once." 

"Hmmm."


"Ernest? Ernest, where are you skulking off to?"

"Geo., I believe I just recalled where my nuts are."

Well! Everybody's got to believe something but I suspect he's just avoiding me until autumn.

Friday, July 14, 2017

Would You Like 8 Billion Visits To Your Blog Every Day?


Neither would I, but it seems our numbers are declining. It's been about a year, in fact, since I learned the world's human population reached (only?) 7 billion so admittedly some exaggeration is involved here. However, we must consider the future of mass communications, its laggardness, its abbreviation into 140 characters and, most horrific, its obsolescence.  In our hearts, we bloggers know we are writing a chronicle of our time in disappearing ink.  All insurrectionists need do is find out where the internet is plugged in and disconnect it --unfortunately severing their own influence too.

So what? Is our influence as parents and elders in any way impeded? I think not. We will still be here, from one generation  or another. Our message is simple: As Anna Lappe wrote, "Every time you spend money, you cast a vote for what kind of world you want."  You can buy cheaply at the expense of outsourcing American jobs,  union-busting or shop wisely and keep hardship away. It is a time of reflection.

If we assume to see ourselves in the mirror, and believe we are really there, we must also assume the mirror is really there. I look into it and try to imagine my eyes shining with good mental hygiene --and say, " Stop making faces, you're too old to start turning any of life's great corners." But I ignore myself and reply, "Time is not a physical constant and can only be measured by the individual, so there." 

To which, my reflection sticks its tongue out. This makes me think the world's gone a bit funny on me, and I withdraw. I look at other mirrors --the president on tv. Alas, the camera does not love him. I saw him smile once, like a crack in perdition --smelled sulfur and withdrew. So here I am, at laptop, encouraging everyone to remain on Blogger and other media receptive to complete thoughts. Even though, despite a possible contradiction in terms, as a boy of 67, my old age is in its infancy. Everyone, keep writing!


Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Rocket Racer, A Toybox Adventure

Rocket Racer was speeding through outer space. He was on a mission.  

I was retrieving illegal bottle-rocket (also known as roofburners) remains from my property. They were on my house, barn, pumphouse --all over my property.  We hicks are sensitive to such things because we are surrounded by hundreds of acres of dry fields and stand guard at our farmgates until 2 or 3 a.m July 5th.  But across the road, 900 acres were sold 15 years ago to developers --who still flap overhead on their leathery wings in the depths of night. Who moved in there? A lot of nice people, definitely, but also a lot of incautious 20-somethings in shorts and t-shirts --to show off their beer-guts-- whose July 4th directive seems to consist of validating the Red States' opinion that California is populated by idiots.

Norma Normaphotoed me this afternoon after I raked the final spent roofburner off the pumphouse. Note temperature (100F) on door sill thermometer . 
At that moment, Rocket Racer landed in my left hand. Little pilot popped the hatch and asked if we could talk. I said "Sure" and brought him indoors to the kitchen sideboard.
"My name is 6." He said,  " I have been entrusted with a message from the planet Kaboom."

Geo.: I'm familiar with Kaboom.

(But it occurs to me that some readers are not, without having read 2 previous essays clickable here, anywhere among these blue words )

6: My message is, the people of Planet Kaboom --on behalf of all sentient explosionoids and gunpowder-based life-forms-- wish emphatically that you not blame them for recent explosions in the state of California or any other regions of the continent that are composed mainly of kindling. 

Geo.: Oh, there's no danger of misunderstanding, 6 . The detonations in question are only eruptions of those who feel passion for God and Country and can express themselves in no other way. Incidentally, is 6 your real name?

6: Let's not bring up old issues.  As to identity, you're welcome to click here and learn about #6  but that's another issue. As to Country, it will proceed if informed by reason and discussion. As to God,  it's not a question of humans believing in Him or not, but the severe reservations He's demonstrated about humans.

Geo.: I think it's time I took you outside and let you return to your interplanetry duties.

6: Please, you seem to have changed into your pajamas --that's a universal sign that a guest should say goodnight.

Geo.: Goodnight, 6, and give my best to the Kaboomians --shall we step outside?

6: Yes, let's.

 


Sunday, July 2, 2017

Homo Religiosus Revisited

As your substitute pastor, I know this congregation did not expect to see me here again this Sunday --neither did I-- but your regular pastor has not yet returned. I will give further details at the close of my sermon, a sermon I had to come up with on short notice --reworked from 8 years ago.
                                            [Doodle added 1/2 hour ago] 

Homoreligiosus = Mankind the religious[from 50 year-old lecture notes]

The tendency to be religious is fundamentally panpsychic, a personification of the universe. I can't dismiss the idea that the universe itself is intelligent. It exists in time between parenthetical boundaries of being and nothingness, concept-totality and concept-zero, which also frame the human mind.

We receive the emergent reward, Life, but find it unsafe and we'd very much like to speak to someone about it. Between the maths of all and nothing we are left two conclusions, both unsatisfactory: life, as a product, is defective and, because it malfunctions at some very crucial moments, gives us the jumps.

Church offers, among other psychological and social comforts --such as venue for a generation of women who liked to sing in crazy vibrato voices-- a complaints window. One takes questions there. The window is round and located on the bottom.

If we turn a church over, answers float up to the glass --"yes", "no",  "ask again later"-- seemingly at random. This suggests the sphere of living worship and the ink-filled 8-Ball are novelties of similar construction. We are left to search beyond. When the starting point of one's search includes the whole universe, beyond is a tough proposition.  A study of languages  is helpful.

Beyond, unlike universal personification, is a concept imagined outside parenthesis. Parenthesis a word given by Greeks to the Romans, who in turn bequeathed it to us along with two related expressions: homosapiens* and ora pro nobis**. This keeps my theory of human religion in a flexible state. As today it is bendier than yesterday so shall it be more bendy tomorrow --and, if not intellectually safe, at least no less safe. In fact, you are welcome to try this at home with your complimentary 8-balls (which you will receive upon signature of the document at the exit).

Your regular pastor, Reverend Blackstool, will return as soon as you all sign a promissory  agreement to stop teasing him about his name. Go in peace.

*man the wise
**pray for us