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Advent Calendar 5
Category Archives: beliefs
Advent Calendar 4
Advent Calendar 3
Advent Calendar 2
Advent Calendar : 1
Quote : Discrimination
It’s just as racist to vote for someone on the basis of his ethnic heritage as it is to vote against him.
Quotes of the Week
The usual eclectic and eccentric mix this week …
If you can’t see the bright side of life … then polish the dull side.
Wear short sleeves … Support your right to bare arms!
Thoughts of Angel
The very concept of “average” necessarily implies variability.
Emily Nakoski, On monkeys, bullshit, and scale
I hold this truth to be self-evident, that a debt crisis cannot be resolved with more debt.
Hellasious on Quantum Economics
It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others.
MFK Fisher quoted in Why Do People Eat Too Much?
Ponder less on what you yourself perhaps think than on what will be the thoughts of the majority of others who, carried away by your authority or your reasons, become persuaded that the terrestrial globe moves among the planets. They will conclude at first that, if the earth is doubtless one of the planets and also has inhabitants, then it is well to believe that inhabitants exist on other planets and are not lacking in the fixed stars, that they are even of a superior nature and in proportion as the other stars surpass the earth in size and perfection. This will raise doubts about Genesis, which says that the earth was made before the stars and that they were created on the fourth day to illuminate the earth … then in turn the entire economy of the Word incarnate and of scriptural truth will be rendered suspect.
17th-century Rector of the College of Dijon writing to the priest-scientist Pierre Gassendi. With thanks to Barnaby Page.
Listography – Random
Yet again I’ve not done Kate’s Listography for a few weeks, in part because she has used several weeks of Listography space running a Top 5 Toys for Christmas survey for which I wasn’t eligible (‘cos her rule said “parents only”).
But this week we’re back to normal and I’ll let Kate herself introduce this week’s exam:
This week’s Listography is simple but with a very wide scope — Top 5 Random Things I Like.
Just one word of warning though – random is not ‘I like chocolate’ — that’s just not going to cut it round here. However ‘I like chocolate sauce with my chips’ is getting a bit warmer.
So, in the hope that my choices are whacky enough, here we go …
- Wasps. They generally get a bad rap, and I would agree can be annoying. But they are superb creatures and wonderful predators. Without them we’d be knee deep in creepy crawlies.
- Plane Crashes. Not because I like seeing people hurt or killed. Of course I don’t and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. No, my interest is forensic and analytical: I like to try to see if I can
work outguess what happened and why. Think of it as a giant puzzle game. - Curry with Avocado, Banana and Mayonnaise on the Side. Yep it works really well. Chopped avocado and chopped banana. Mayonnaise instead of yoghurt dressing (although I like that too). It’s a nice combination of flavours and contrasts of hot and cooling.
- Latin Liturgy. Despite not being at all religious — indeed I’m anti-religious — I do find that proper Tridentine Latin Mass does something to me. Well it is a spell, isn’t it?!
- Deep-fried Haggis. Yep again this works wonderfully well. I first met it 40 years ago when a student: the chip shop nearest the university in York used to sell it. Sausage-sized haggis, thickly battered and deep fried. And bloody good it was too especially on a cold winter’s night after a few pints. Sadly I don’t recall seeing anyone doing it since. And anyone want to try deep fried black pudding — I reckon that would be good too.
So there you are. I’m sure I have more interesting “random likes” than this but they escape me for now. Anyone care to add to the list?
Poppy Off
So FIFA have decreed that the England football team may not wear poppies on their shirts during their friendly match against Spain this coming Saturday. This is on the grounds that:
Fifa decrees that shirts should not carry political, religious or commercial messages. “Such initiatives would open the door to similar initiatives from all over the world, jeopardising the neutrality of football,” [FIFA] said.
I’m with FIFA. For once they’re absolutely right. If an exception is made in this instance it’ll be made for every other instance. The words “wedge”, “thin” and “end” come to mind.
Moreover someone has to stand up to this sycophantic poppy nonsense. As I wrote last year, I’m not saying we should forget all about the wars for the liberation of Europe, the bravery, the fallen, etc. But the whole thing is so totally out of hand one dare not do anything but go along with it. It’s dictatorial; it’s sycophantic; and it’s backward looking. We need to turn round and be going forward in happiness, thanks and peace; not looking backward in a sugar-coated, maudlin, pseudo-Christian, glorification of war. Yeuch!
I don’t expect other people to agree with me — although I can hope that some will. But it is only if dissident voices are heard that opinions (on anything) will ever change and progress will be made.
Joseph Campbell
From time to time I dip into all manner of curious authors, often returning to them at protracted intervals. One such is the late Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) the American mythologist and author who is best known for his work in comparative mythology and religion. He was one of those early/mid-20th century polymaths who managed to see deeply into everything and extract paradigm shifting ideas and ways of explaining things. His words invariably make one think long, hard and deep — even when they at the same time contain a certain throwaway humour.
So I thought I’d share with you a few I picked, some while ago, from an anthology of his work compiled posthumously. In no particular order …
Our Purpose
When we talk about settling the world’s problems, we’re barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It’s a mess. It has always been a mess. We are not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
Marriage
If you go into marriage with a program, you will find that it won’t work. Successful marriage is leading innovative lives together, being open, non-programmed. It’s a free fall: how you handle each new thing as it comes along. As a drop of oil on the sea, you must float, using intellect and compassion to ride the waves.
Spiritual Need
If what you are following, however, is your own true adventure, if it is something appropriate to your deep spiritual need or readiness, then magical guides will appear to help you.
Rituals
People ask me, “What can we have for rituals?” Well, what do you want to have a ritual for? You should have a ritual for your life. All a ritual does is concentrate your mind on the implications of what you are doing. For instance, the marriage ritual is a meditation on the step you are taking in learning to become a member of a duad, instead of one individual all alone. The ritual enables you to make the transit.
Ritual introduces you to the meaning of what’s going on. Saying grace before meals lets you know that you’re about to eat something that once was alive. When eating a meal, realize what you are doing. Hunting peoples thank the animal for having given itself. They feel real gratitude.
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism is the first turning away from life, because life lives on lives. Vegetarians are just eating something that can’t run away.
Truth
When we talk about scientific truth — just as when we talk about God — we are in trouble, because truth has different meanings. William James said, and it’s valid, “Truth is what works”.
The idea of Truth with a capital “T” — that there is something called Truth that’s beyond the range of the relativity of the human mind trying to think — is what I call “the error of the found truth”. The trouble with all of these damned preachers is the error of the found truth. When they get that tremolo in the voice and tell you what God has said, you know you’ve got a faker. When people think that they, or their guru, have The Truth — “This is It!” — they are what Nietzsche calls “epileptics of the concept”: people who have gotten an idea that’s driven them crazy.
Burqas
Those women were going around in tents! Even their eyes were covered with cheesecloth, so you did not know if it was an old hag or a glorious goddess walking around. And you can’t respond to a tent.
Awareness
“Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods”. That is James Joyce. The statement is quoted in Ulysses by Buck Mulligan. The situation is that Leopold Bloom, thinking of his home problem, is looking intently at a red triangle on the label of a bottle of Bass ale. When someone starts to disturb Bloom, Mulligan stops him, saying “preserve a druid silence. His soul is far away. It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born. Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access” and so on.
Religion
There is a wonderful line in the Portrait [of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce], where Stephen’s friend, who’s been hearing all this heretical stuff, asks if he intends to become a Protestant. “I said that I had lost the faith,” Stephen replies, “but not that I had lost my self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?”
Life
The obvious lesson … is that the first step to the knowledge of the highest divine symbol of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of life and its glory in that character: the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think — and their name is legion — that they know how the universe could have been better than it is, how it would have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without life, are unfit for illumination. Or those who think — as do many — “Let me first correct society, then get around to myself” are barred from even the outer gate of the mansion of God’s peace. All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is.
Advice
A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation: “As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think”.
I’m currently dipping into The Power of Myth, so expect some more of the above in due course.