On Road Again

Didn't get to church on time. Preoccupied. Bad time management.
Fortunately, the service is live-streamed, but I'd rather be there.

Was invited to a Bible Study that commenced last Wednesday. Genesis. Thought to go to that too. Same story. I'm an atrocious steward. Yet, wary of tussles . . . the literal . . . the transcendent. Can't seem to find fellowship on same wavelength. Read some scripture a while ago (will have to look it up later) that spoke to the issue of taking instruction which went to the heart of the matter. Yes, will have to find that.

I did go to synagogue. Drove by one of my favorite autumn sites.

Not quite there yet.

Nothing and Beingness

Yeow! Quite the election. To say nothing of the distraction. Having given it some thought I must aver, as a free-thinking independent citizen, I can't begin to say how liberated I feel. I've not an iota of loyalty to Barak Obama and my freedom of action is uninhibited. I certainly felt this way toward the President, and remain so. I think he's done a superlative job in the face of contstant kvetching. One thing I don't want to do is to lapse into infirming patterned thinking. I once had a pastor say to me, upon my sputtering about the misadventures of another POTUS, that nothing should impede our walk with Jesus Christ. It's all irrelevant insofar as all one can manage is oneself and what's immediately at hand. So it is.

And distracted too, lately, refreshing of Marxism, and then Sartre. I cannot exactly recall reading Being and Nothingness, but know I've glanced at it. Good thing an extract and synopsis is available online, for all I needed to remember was the notion of "authenticity." In one reduction made, a fellow made the illustration of how we assign ourselves an identity according to what we do or associate ourselves with. I do nothing, but do associate myself with phenomena outside myself, and I'm afraid to say I'm not substantially authentic in that regard. Often enough, my patterned, wishful thoughts are concocted in a desire to do something I really can't do a thing about. I'm not "Navy," but wish I could have helped John McCain. I can't, of course, and one of the reasons is that I didn't go to the Naval Academy (where youthful contemplation and imagination was projected), and one of the other reasons (if it were at all feasible) was the impact of Marxist thought when that choice had to be made during the height of the hostilities in South-east Asia in the late 1960's. It is the proverbial long story, but conditional as well of a Christian perspective (perhaps pacifist) that I could not kill for a living - and that's not, I feel, a cynically convenient demurral posing moral superiority against that which is selectively disdained, but a difficult circumstance stripped to its essentials.

I later saw how on the one hand I had romanced imagining myself in such a career (or to have decided it reprehensible in the thrall of another romantic parameter), but on the other, realistically, a Christian can necessarily kill without qualm. Sometimes I do regret not having sorted this out as a youth. Right now, I'm at peace. Too old to entertain that line of thought, I'd say of turning the cheek: it may well lead to one's demise; assured of eternal peace, how can that matter? Protecting others who've not that assurance is of moment here, I reckon.

Full circle in the consideration of a Marxist presidential candidate! I was reading yesterday Jose Saramago's Journey to Portugal, a pedantically materialist sort of travelogue. Appraising the urbanity of Lisbon before and after the earthquake of 1759 he lectured, "There is no point in arguing with earthquakes, or trying to discover the colour of the cow whose milk was spilt..." Ah, yes, exactly! What color is Obama's cow? This calls for a tune.



Splendid. Thanks - I needed that. The best of all possible worlds!

Yet I need to get to church.
Where's my socks?

There, there, now . . .

Just happened to come across on of my favorite tunes . . .



. . . and I'm glad I've got the embedding procedure down.

Chin Up

I've done not much else but read news sites and other people's blogs these past couple of weeks. I haven't gone out at all. I think I've read ten books in the past month. I've read about the Russian Revolution, Byzantium, and global warming. A Willie Nelson biography and a cross-country trip on a Harley in 1939. I need to shake things up.

I titled the blog Averting Disaster for personal reasons, some circumstances presenting of foreboding prospectus. Perhaps not the best attitude. Decided to change that.

When that inveterate imperialist Winston Churchill recieved memos during WWII, he anotated them, making comment and assigning priority. Upon that which he deemed imperative, he scrawled Action Today. Until I find somenting better, that's what I'll call the blog.

Naturally, my Internet activity has been dominated by the election. I don't want to politicize this blog, nor do I want to project any "magical thinking" into the cybersphere; my opinion is as good as anyone else's. In the matter of this election, I believe I'm much taken of a sense of institutional memory, seeing through the rhetoric and sloganeering. I'm not competant to do anything more that assess my own thoughts and feelings, and do not see myself (as many political blogs do) with an attendent sense of mission. (This is all laughable insofar as I've one confirmed follower!) Suffice it to say that, though the MSM would have us feel despondent, though we've taken a lot of hits, I'm still Navy.

Resilience

Was the previous post indulgent? I pledged to avoid banality!

If blogging is done in the exact sense, I'd think that means logging encounters, endeavors and experiences objectively and in an economy of expression. Like a ship's log, exactly; not necessarily autobiographical, let alone a vehicle for one's thoughts and feelings. (I think they call such vehicles books.) Nor even a diary. In the last couple of weeks I've left my house only to revictual. That certainly diminishes le joie de vivre.

Frankly, though, I've no desire to leave the house. It doesn't matter much one way or the other. There's no one out there. Almost thirty years in Phoenix and it's still a town full of strangers. Not only that, but it's a place where people you've got passing acquaintances with are much deficient in mannered solicitude. Very strange. And it's still too hot.

"So why do you live there?"

Presently, I suppose the answer to that question is simply inertia.

Plenty of time to read life's reading list.

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,
"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Now gird up your loins like a man and I will ask you, and you instruct Me?
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding,
who set its measurements, since you know?"

"Or who stretched the line on it?
On what were its bases sunk?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
When all the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?"

Job 38:1-7

Impasse

The immunological challenges resolved, the initial enthusiasm exhibited "blogging" has much dissipated. I sure was feeling low and I've put on ten pounds. I certainly do prefer reading to writing.

One of the aspects, I surmise, of doing something like this, when you live alone and have no involvements of any significance, is a sort of self-validation in the optimism that, even though no one cares about you or is the least bit interested in you, you still need to come up with reasons for living. When again, as experienced here where there is no interaction (How ever much the Internet is touted as a means of thriving socially, I've not experienced it.) whatsoever with others, you could feel despondent. I'm quite adapted to this on account of a family that never had any interest in me. This instance on point... it is I who initiate sociability and bring forth topics; I've siblings who've never (I mean never in all my life.) initiated any society with me - not even a conversation. So, in a sense, I'm used to a lack of responsiveness, and refuse to feel defeated. Yet there is the cliche of "setting yourself up for disappointment."

Obviously, it is fatal to expect an actual social experience in a virtual circumstance. All one can do is indeed validate one's vitality. This is a learning experience in more ways than one. In addition to the technical publishing skills slowly being acquired, I suppose I must explore other blogs for comrades, as it were, and invite reciprocal participation.

Comfort Food, cont'd

The sniffles persist. Further intervention indicated . . .

Unlimited Coffee also offers luscious gelato. What is gelato? I'm not a connoisseur, but I think you could say it's ice cream without the air. The chocolate is like a frozen Ghiradelli bar, the papaya a smooth tropical tang at the back of the tongue. Ah, the simple pleasures.

All the teams I may have been inclined to root for having been eliminated, I've not seen a baseball game all week. I do think I'll try and catch the Dodgers trying to stay alive tomorrow.

Instead of watching those games, I've read all week, and am presently engrossed by Crazy '08 by Cait Murphy. A profound point made is that, aside from adjustments such as banning the spitter, lowering the pitcher's mound, and the designated hitter, baseball is the same now as it was then. Comforting?