Tag Archives: philosophy

Unknown's avatar

Imagine

by

While investigating a new follower, GYA today, I watched this YouTube clip from his May 17 post.  Again, I had to ask myself about the source of my tears.  (see my post Why These Tears? from 2 days ago)  Watch it and see if you don’t have the same questions.

Okay, I’ll wait while you go get a tissue.  Or watch it again.  (I did both.)

I love his choice of song.  It really puts the focus on the force of consciousness.  What does your brain spend time on?  Did you catch the comment by the one judge who said that it made her think that the things she worries about are “pathetic”?  Pathetic.  Sad.  Sorrowful.  Tearful.  That we get stuck in negative and depressive patterns of thought surrounding circumstance is very sad to me.  That there are other options, that we do have the capability to change our focus and probably our futures is the great joy.  The tears are a double whammy.  I am sad that seeing physical deformity and hearing the story of a child’s abandonment brings me to focus on depression by default.  I am overjoyed to see that assumption shattered by the reality of a young man who enjoys love, the gift of a beautiful voice, and the opportunity to create a life that is satisfying to himself and an inspiration to others. 

I hope that anyone reading this can take the time to IMAGINE today.  Imagine the things you worry about dissolving in a broader perspective.  Imagine your limitations transformed by the transcendence of judgment.  “Handicaps” aren’t handicaps.  Reality is neutral.  You can make a positive or a negative judgment about them, and that will effect your experience of them.   I really believe this is what we do with our enormous brains, but most of our culture thinks that’s metaphysical hocus-pocus and that quality of life is found in the nature of circumstances.   “IF” conditions are right, you can be happy.  Why not just be happy and never mind “conditions”?  This is not my own idea, of course.  It stems from centuries of Buddhist thought about suffering.  I have only recently begun to see it illustrated in my Western life.   So here’s the million dollar question: what is happiness and how can you discover it?  My mother used to quote, “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.”  If so, joy is everywhere.  Happiness is everywhere.  It’s already here, then.  It doesn’t need to be discovered; it may simply need to be uncovered.  “Cleaning the windshield” is what Steve sometimes calls it.  Get rid of the crud that keeps you from seeing the happiness that is all around.  Imagine!

Living for today…

Unknown's avatar

Why These Tears?

by

So I didn’t get a post in yesterday.  It was a hot, humid day at work; thunderstorms arrived just as we were leaving.  I got home at 6pm, put my feet up for a bit, made dinner, and then prepared packages for mailing for the book business.  By the time we were done, it was 9:30, and my eyes were stinging.  I closed them and fell asleep.  I’ve been musing on an issue for two days, though, and since I don’t work today (except for a voice lesson), I’m ready to give it some time and work it out in writing. 

It happened on Saturday.  I burst into tears at work. 

It was late afternoon, toward the end of my shift.  Families had been coming through in dribbles to look at the church.  Since it was hot, I put a chair out on the landing in front of the door so that I could catch the breeze.  Sitting there in my bustle, I suppose I made a good picture of a prim and proper church lady.  A father and his two-year old daughter wandered down the road, leaving Mom and older siblings at the General Store.  I invited them in and showed the little curly redhead the pump organ.  She liked the sound of her voice in the echoing chamber of the empty church, so I played “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” (a good Mozart tune) and let her sing along.  She took a look at my pin cushion balls, too, and held one until her father gently took it and handed it back.  She never left the safety of her father’s arms during the whole visit.  I walked them out of the church and settled in my chair to watch them walk back down the road, hand in hand.  She stumbled at one point, but Dad righted her gently.  That’s when I lost it.  That sudden, rising swell of heat in my nose and the burning tears tumbling down were totally unpredicted.  Why these tears?  Why now?

Driving home with Steve, I began to talk it out and answer his compassionate questions.  Where were my thoughts?  What were my emotions?  I remembered that I had been bored, hot, and feeling a bit lost and alone:  all dressed up in an empty museum, wondering how I got there.  Kind of disconnected and surreal.  That father and daughter reminded me of my late husband and our curly-haired youngest.  Seeing them walk away together triggered a sense of devastating loss.  I will never see Jim again; Emily, now 21, will never be that young again.  That manifestation of life is gone forever.  

But I knew that.  Why the tears?  Why judge that as something sad?  Obviously, I am still very attached to that particular arrangement, and perhaps not so attached to my current one.  “Attachment causes suffering.”  Somehow, I came to believe that my life as a wife and mother was very meaningful, very important, and it became a “secure” identity for me.  Not hard to imagine how that happened.  The thing is, it isn’t the Truth, wasn’t the Truth, either.  It was a temporary condition.  I enjoyed that condition, but Change is the nature of life.  Conditions always change.  One condition isn’t more meaningful or important than another.  To be able to think about every moment of life as a valuable moment is a mindset that can set me free to live happily.  I think of Hafiz, the Sufi poet, and his exuberant joy in living, not dependent on circumstances.  I get sentimental about family life, but I don’t want to be the mother of a two year old, now.  Somehow, though, that sentiment suggests that there is greater value in that particular model of life than in others, and that I am “missing out”.  It’s just not true.  It’s a kind of cultural propaganda.  Hallmark and Focus on the Family and organizations like that profit from supporting that way of thinking.  I love my children, but our life isn’t Hallmark any more.  It was, once.  It was nice, but it wasn’t the only and most important manifestation of living.  Conditions arise, conditions change.  Judging that one is “better” than the other can get me stuck and cause suffering.  That’s not to say that I can’t think critically about my life and make changes.  But I also want to be able to be happy in any situation. 

I like my tears, too.  They help me learn about myself. 

photo credit: Susan

Unknown's avatar

And It’s Still a Mystery!

by

Yesterday’s post featured some views of Aztalan State Park in Wisconsin.  You can read about it in the Wikipedia article here.  The pillars formed a stockade that enclosed an open area that contains a few pyramid-shaped, flat-topped mounds.  Excavations have produced some burial remains, but re-constructing the way of life of these Mississippian people is still largely guesswork.  It didn’t help that the area was sold for farming and plowed in 1838 after its initial discovery and survey.  In 1941, the stockade was re-constructed from post holes that were excavated, but there were gaps…were there always gaps?  No one knows, for sure.  So all of you who guessed that the area may have been used for keeping animals in or animals out or for fortification or for rituals or for farming…you may all be absolutely correct!  And you may all be incorrect.  Pre-history is great for people who like open-ended answers.  It’s humbling to those of us who tend toward perfectionism.  We can’t ever really know The Truth, but we can observe and imagine and learn about ourselves by the stories we tell about the world.  Change is all around us.  Our experience seems to be the truest thing…until the next experience comes along.   Maybe a good way to look at all of life is with a wink and a smile!

  

Unknown's avatar

How Old is Old?

by

I am trying to wrap my brain around history.  As an interpreter at Old World Wisconsin, I talk about St. Peter’s Church, the first Catholic chapel & cathedral in Milwaukee, which was built in 1839.  The liquid glass in the windows is rippled with age.  Kids who come by can’t believe that the pump organ isn’t hooked up to speakers and that the stops don’t produce drum patterns or other synthetic sound loops when I pull the knobs.  My blog friend, Stuart, is posting amazing photos of Gloucester Cathedral (you must pay a visit…click here to see his shots) built in 1350 or so.  Stone masonry and stained glass and soaring vaults predating the little immigrant church by 500 years – shows you that history isn’t about straight-line ‘progress’, it’s a complicated story with twists and turns and explosions and annihilation thrown in.   Then compare this photo of Mesa Verde in Colorado, a cliff dwelling inhabited somewhere between 600 and 1300 AD, most likely closer to 1200 AD. 

What we do with the raw materials at hand, the technology available and our cultural values is totally up to us.  So much is possible.  So much has always been possible.  What are we doing today?  How will our imprint appear in 500 years?   It’s a lot to think about.

Unknown's avatar

A Day is a Miracle

by

Because today was our day off from working at Old World Wisconsin, Steve & I decided to take a walk at Vernon State Wildlife Refuge.  This marshy wetland is a favorite place to visit in all the seasons to see the changes in flora and fauna.  I think the last time I posted pictures, it was November.  Today, it was sunny, 78 degrees and very breezy.   The Canada geese had goslings following them everywhere.  The Sandhill cranes were nesting.  We saw a group of 3 flying in formation.  Why three?  No idea.  We saw lots of red-winged blackbirds pairing up, swallows, American gold finches, a snowy egret and two new ones to me that I had to look up: the yellow-headed blackbird and the rose-breasted grosbeak.

Sitting on the bank of the river looking at the puffy cumulus clouds streaming sunlight through their crisp edges brought me to tears.  It seems to me that the world is an absolute miracle, every day, every moment, but usually, the miracle that strikes us is that we finally slowed down long enough to see it.  I wonder about how to arrange my life to put more of this experience in.  Perhaps the trick is simply to arrange it so that I’m not shutting most of it out. 

Scumscape

Enjoy the miracle of life!

Unknown's avatar

Living Mystery

by

I am reading a book called After the Fire: The Destruction of the Lancaster County Amish by Randy-Michael Testa.  Kirkus’ Review sums up the basics thus: “As a Harvard graduate student, former third-grade teacher at a Denver private school, and serious ethical thinker of Catholic persuasion and “morally tired” condition, Testa spent the summer of 1988 living with an Amish family in Lancaster County, where he conducted fieldwork for a Ph.D. thesis exploring a “community of faith”.”

Here is an excerpt that echoes all the discussions Steve & I have about living a life that embodies our values, a grounded life, a life of depth.

“…Dorothy Day once quoted from the Archbishop of Paris: ‘To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda or even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery; it means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.’

   “I stand barefooted thinking of Elam.  Earlier in the week, he and I trooped across the Franklin and Marshall College campus to the library to look for some maps of the county.  In lieu of classes, campus had been taken over for the summer.  Everywhere there were boys in soccer gear and coaches in black shorts and white and black striped shirts blowing whistles and clapping their hands and yelling, ‘Atta boy!  Good work!  Good WORK!’

   “Elam and I had just driven in from the farm.  I had been up since five working in the sweltering barn, where I am regularly stung in the eyes by sweat rolling off my head.  My white shirts are permanently stained yellow.  I have gained ten pounds and back muscles.  I sleep so soundly in the Stoltzfus house I sometimes awaken myself with my own snoring.  So for all that, hearing the word ‘work’ in teh context of a soccer camp seemed like complete insanity.

   “Elam turned to me and asked, ‘What is this?’

   ‘It’s a soccer camp,’ I said.  I felt my soul tense.

   ‘What is ‘soccer’? Elam asked blank-faced.

   ‘It’s a sport.  Like baseball.’ (I knew some Amish played baseball at family outings.) ‘These boys are here to learn how to play it better,’ I replied quickly.

   ‘But why?  It’s a game,’ Elam said, puzzled.

   ‘These boys have paid money to come here to learn how to play a sport better,’ I repeated tersely.

   ‘But why would they go to school to learn a sport?’ he persisted.

   ‘Because the outside world doesn’t have or value productive, meaningful work for its young men, so it teaches them that it’s important to know how to play a sport well.  This keeps them occupied until they go to college and THEN THEY PAY A LOT OF MONEY TO COME HERE AND ASK WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE!!!’

   “I practically turned on him- and my own world.  I shocked Elam with my vehemence.  I shocked myself as well.  I wondered what was happening to my view of the world.

   “Now, standing in Levi’s meadow in the middle of the night, suddenly I understand what has happened.  At this hour, in this stillness, among these people, life makes perfect sense.  The outside world does not.  I have become a witness.

   “I return to the upstairs bedroom as the blue mantel clock in Elam and Rachel’s room chimes three, and fall asleep to a cow lowing in the moonlight.”

To live in a way that embodies your deepest values, despite persecution, propaganda, and perspiration.  That seems like an honest life to me.  I hope I have the courage to live like that.

(photos taken at Old World Wisconsin, the living history museum where I work as a costumed interpreter)

Unknown's avatar

Opening Day

by

May Day!  The first day of the season for Old World Wisconsin.  We were open to the public as well as conducting school tours.  In the German area, there was only one school of 68 students that came through.  In the Crossroads Village, they had 3 tours with students from 4 schools, one of which was a group of 8th graders from France.  I also had a single adult visitor, an adult couple, and a family with 3 children from Arizona come by.   In other words….PEOPLE.   Real, live people with stories and questions and backgrounds making connections.  This is living history, after all.  And I love it!  I had so much fun with the 3 kids from Arizona who shaped dough and pounded the froe to chop kindling, and smiled and talked the whole time.  They were enjoying themselves, and their parents were snapping pictures and asking questions.  They were learning and engaging in a very comfortable way…they were homeschooling.  I really like the small group interaction involved:  3 adults, 3 kids.  Very nice.  Somehow, when it’s a group of 21 kids and 3 chaperones, there’s almost more crowd control going on than learning.   Or so it appears.  I hope they learned something; I hope they were listening and paying attention to more than just their classmates and the instructions the chaperones were giving. 

So all of that went on in about an hour…and I had several more to kill.  The great thing is that I don’t feel any pressure to be super productive the whole time.  I chopped wood and carried water and washed dishes and tended the fire and sewed on my pin cushion and all of that good stuff, but then I sat down on the porch and watched a thirteen-striped ground squirrel scurry around the yard near the woodpile snarfing up dandelion seeds.  Just quietly, listening to the birds.  Minutes went by.  I felt the land around me and thought about the sense of time and energy that a tree feels when it’s “busy” growing.  The woods, the fields, the garden…they are living under the sky at a pace that is so different from us movers and shakers.  They feel the air, the light changes, rain falls, things happen and they respond, but they don’t “react”.  I want to learn more about that way of life.  How long can you “not react”?  It’s like practicing meditation.  Breathe and be.  Light changes, form changes.  Breathe and be.  Everything changes.  Breathe and be.  I think that’s what I’m learning from nature.  I am very happy to be spending more time outdoors.   

 

Unknown's avatar

Cultural Awareness

by

I am about to venture out into the retail world in search of shoes that might pass as reminiscent of the 1870s.  Having come up empty yesterday at two Goodwill shops, I’m not sure if I will be successful.  It’s interesting taking stock of what’s out there in the resale stores.  This is the stuff that people give away…and other people buy.  It’s not marketed; it’s not about status or brand.  It’s about filling a need with something serviceable.  I would do all my shopping at a resale place if I could.  That’s probably why my kids call me “cheap”.  I don’t get the whole “status and style” idea.  I just want to get the job done.  I’m not trying to fit into a competitive culture of consumerism.  My “work outfit” for my new job will be a reproduction of 19th century pioneer clothing.  My “work outfit” for my last job was jeans and a T-shirt with the latest musical production logo on it.  I guess I have a different idea of dressing for success. 

One of Steve’s favorite fables is The Emperor’s New Clothes.  He often sees himself as the little boy at the side of the parade who looks on in bafflement at what everyone else is celebrating and asks, “Why are we doing this?”  He sometimes talks about it as being the one who points out the elephant in the room, that glaring awkwardness that no one wants to mention.  He’s not judgmental about it, he just wants to discuss it, bring it out into the open, make everyone aware of it.  He’s not cynical or sarcastic, he’s genuinely curious.  We don’t have a TV, but we do watch basketball games online that often include commercials.  Those ads bring up a lot of questions.  Why do we sell what we sell the way that we do?  Why is sex and violence so prevalent?  And stereotypes?  Why do we think having a good time is so important?  What do we really think is important?  And why?  Why?  What is the Big Idea?  Everything comes down to that level, that three year old inside who stands watching and asks, “Why?” 

It’s a really good question, I think, and one that I have been trained not to ask.  “Theirs not to reason why/ theirs but to do and die.” The military motto, President Bush’s command to go out and spend money rather than debate economic policy, my father’s and the Church’s instructions on being obedient…there are so many examples of hushing up that 3-year-old.  I admit that there are times when it’s useful to forgo the philosophical and act decisively and immediately, but shouldn’t we return to the subject eventually and periodically to keep our motivation clear?  There are members of society who are watchdogs to our conscience, in a way, and I very much respect them for their courage and thank them for the questions that I forget to ask.  I am more characteristically concerned with “How?”  I want to do things lovingly, primarily; efficiently, much of the time; and as correctly as possible.   That may say a lot about how effective my indoctrination into Judeo-Christian thought was.  

Intentionally asking both questions and fashioning a life around the answers we find deep in our experience is the focus of our Saturday Summit (what we call our “relationship discussions”).    The poetry prompt I found today on NaPoWriMo’s site challenged me to write a hay(na)ku, which is a recent poetic invention.  It’s simply 6 words in three lines of ascending (or descending) measure.   One word, two words, three words (any number of syllables) or vice versa.  We can link several together as well, we’re told.  So, here is my hay(na)ku series and a few photos. 

Why?

Keeps asking,

“What is important?”

 

How –

“Am I

A good person?”

 

Questions

Are for

Shaping my character.

How now, brown cow?

Why?  Just…why?

Unknown's avatar

Opposites and Equivocations

by

Just when you’re ready to declare that you have had a defining experience, another experience comes along to blur that definition.  How do you know what you think you know?  Epistemology is enough to explode my brain, I fear.  I have to be very careful venturing into that discipline.  Taking an open, artistic approach spares me from the pressure to get off the fence.  The poetry prompt from today’s NaPoWriMo post helpfully supports that position.  They invited me to take a poem that already exists and re-write it so that each line is the opposite from the original.  I assume that the fruit of this labor is to see that both are valid in some way. 

Does this drive you crazy?  Are some of us driven to be dogmatic, the ones who enjoy boxing things up and nailing them down and painting them in black and white?  Is this a fear-based activity, presided over by the threat that there is a right and a wrong and you could be Wrong? Is life written in either/or, both/and, neither/nor or without the slash mark altogether?  How many school teachers asked you to “compare and contrast” and then told you that you did it incorrectly?  

Life is diverse.  You could say it is “un-like”.  It just is.  “Are you, like, for real?”  No.  I am real.  Real isn’t “like”, it is.

Original poem by Emily Dickinson, “Wild Nights — Wild Nights!”.   Opposite poem by me:

Dull Morns – Dull Morns!

While I miss Thee

Dull Morns have come

Familiarly.

 

Priceless – the Calm

to a Soul at sea –

Tossed by my longing –

Thrown to the lee!

 

Exiled from Heaven –

Oh! with thee

Might I but soar – today –

Full free!

 

Juxtaposition: somewhere near Lancaster, Wisconsin

 

Unknown's avatar

Happy Day

by

Hallelujahs all around!  An all-inclusive Glory Be!  Mendelssohn and Rimsky-Korsikov  festival music with timpani and brass at breakfast.  It feels great to be alive, any day!  My Easter-oriented upbringing is always in the background, even though I’m facing Eastern lately.  May JOY be universal, however you find it.

Today’s poetry prompt for NaPoWriMo was simply to go outside with a notebook and perhaps a camera and write a poem.  So I did.  I didn’t go any further than 4 steps beyond my porch stairs, sat down beneath the maple tree, and opened up.  Miracles are all around.

Glorious ordinary wholly happy day

Treasure-hunting among the obvious

I shall not be in want

Fresh dandelions, wind-blown chimes

Bacon, my kitchen incense

Strawberries’ radiant red miracle

Greenery below, above; and vaulted space

A sanctuary innocent, unstained by shame

I call it Life.