asked of us today

Interesting relationship between fear and bureaucracy.

MS. TIPPETT: I'm Krista Tippett and this is On Being. Today with literary historian Lyndsey Stonebridge, exploring the present-day resonance of the 20th-century thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” in her 1963 book about the Jerusalem trial of Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann.
[music: “Dance of Death” by Andrew Bird] 

MS. TIPPETT: So one of her famous phrases is the “banality of evil,” which was an observation she made about Eichmann, and that was controversial. But you said something about the bureaucratization, which was part of that banality, a refuge for — instead of thinking, you are part of the system, and you follow the rules, and you enact the rules. 

And again, I really would not compare Eichmann to anyone alive right now in full, but the revulsion and the sense of alienation people all over the place have from bureaucracy, which in our age is globalized, right? The way the phrase “the government” will be received in many places in the U.S., the way the phrase “the E.U.” is received in England, there are echoes of something that goes wrong in human societies that were still with us or we’re feeling again. I don’t know. 

MS. STONEBRIDGE: One of the first things Arendt did when she finally got to New York, one of her first jobs was to help edit Kafka’s diaries. You remember the story of The Castle, the stranger — it’s certainly a migrant story. The stranger arrives in a new place, he comes for work, and then he can’t work out what’s going on, and he can’t settle, and he’s blocked by this bureaucracy that no one understands. 

Anyone who’s worked with refugees or migrants in the last ten years will know all too well K’s experience as he tries to make good on the offer of work for the castle. I think it’s very interesting that she actually chose that. She chose it because it resonated with her experience. But it goes back to the earlier conversation. I suppose the more we become fearful for what we call life, the more we try to bureaucratize to keep other people out, the worse it gets. And also with the logic that is no logic. That’s the other thing. It’s the capricious nature of bureaucracy. If I think about the E.U. 

MS. TIPPETT: Even well-meaning bureaucracy takes on these dehumanizing characteristics. 

MS. STONEBRIDGE: Well, this is the very interesting. Exactly. Humanitarianism is a very good example of — how do we administer for human life? And once you start to administer human life, you have very difficult decisions to make. And before you know it, you are in a situation where you’re running very close to not committing atrocities but getting very, very close to causing harm rather than doing good.

(--Lyndsey Storebridge, The Moral World in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt for Now, On Being with Krista Tippett)

Is it better to be organized well? Or to face the fear uncertainty brings?

What of the alternative? The person wishing to destroy everything and replace it with a cult of individual personality wherein nothing matters but the appeal of the person at center of attention?

The choice is earthshaking.

Perhaps the compromise is to give to no one the power to dictate your life. Not a person, not an organization, not a congregation of other individuals (demos) whose opinions coalesce into popular custom and habit.

As I said, a significant and earthshaking choice.

Asked of us today.

while sitting in a blue chair in my home

68.5 million people, worldwide, are displaced. (Interfaith Voices) 

what I am here to do.

We connect with words.

Rama Kandra: Karma's a word. Like "love." A way of saying "what I am here to do." I do not resent my karma - I'm grateful for it. (The Matrix)

They help our thinking. 

when you have to go there

First we go out. Then we return in.

“Let each of you make your home a church.” (—John Chrysostom, On Genesis, p.53)

IT SEEMED THE BETTER WAY 

It seemed the better way When first I heard him speak But now it's much too late To turn the other cheek It sounded like the truth It seemed the better way Though no one but a fool Would bless the meek today I wonder what it was I wonder what it meant This rising up with love This lying down with death Better hold my tongue Better know my place Cup of blood with everyone Try to say the Grace

Copyright © 2001, 2003 Leonard Cohen.

We hear the question: "Do you attend church?"

Often the response: "No, I stay home." 

"Home is where the heart is" said Pliny the Elder.

I'd like to go home.

She said, he said, to him “I love you”

Yes

Sitting with the dying woman

Midday

I am thanked for my interest

Taking my leave

bye bye

I have an idea

Every family must give up one child

To be taken away and put somewhere

Without hope they’ll ever be returned

Ok...
Let’s start

That one, that one, that one, that one.

Thank you for your cooperation

a spit of cheer amid a continent of sludge.

Philosophers say there is clear thinking, and, there are mere opinions.

The events of everyday politics, especially here in America, are not just the foolish meanderings of a vain and ideological narcissism. There is a massive governmental collapse of thinking. We witness this aberration with alarm and anger.

Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma 

see no Dharma in everyday actions.  

They have not yet discovered that there are 

no everyday actions outside of Dharma. 

—Dogen

What is the dharma* of America’s actions?

* Origen & History: dharma — 1796, in secular sense, "caste custom, right behavior;" in Buddhism and Hinduism, "moral law," from Skt., "law, right, justice," related to dharayati "holds," and cognate with L. firmus, all from PIE base *dher- "to hold, support" (see firm (adj.)). (Dictionary.com)

I cannot ‘hold’ or ‘support’ the cruel politics of this administration.

“Be reasonable and demand the impossible now.” With jam, added!
(Be Reasonable by Robb Johnson, https://youtu.be/0SR2cKkr-SA)

A spit of cheer amid a continent of sludge.

aphasia

Hermit days. 

Just reading.

And so, in the quiet days that followed the crash, Emilio Sandoz turned inward for a time and probed the sense of mourning that had come over him, tried to understand why he felt so strongly that something inside him was dying.        (--p.305, The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell)

The end of spring. Comes summer. 

This quiet — 

como dices "¡para!"

Silence, as prayer, deepens inquiry.

Silence, in law & politics, means consent.

Right now is no time for silence.

Speak now! 

Reunite children with parents.

Find lost voice of compassion.

Admonish this administration.

searching zen

Q: Where will you go?

A: There is nowhere to go.

Q: Is this where home is?

A: This? Yes!

yes

   Juneteenth
 

January 1, 1863 was the official day for President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation;

But, it was two and a half years later before the start of the freedom celebration.

Many attempts were made to explain this delay;

It has remained one of the great mysteries until this day.



One story says the messenger of freedom was murdered on his way to Texas;

This was supposedly the first one of the conspiracy theory nexus.

Another on reports the land owners censored the news to maintain their labor force;

One of the more popular stories, but who was the source?



Yet another tale of federal troops allowing another harvest of cotton;

Of all the dirty tricks, this one was the most rotten.

Regardless of whether any stories gives the correct news;

Many good people in Texas remained without freedom and singing the blues.



Finally in June of 1865, Major General Gordon Granger with a flag and a gun;

Stormed the shores of a Texas town called Galveston.

The Generals first order of business was to announce the news of freedom;

And this time he brought along enough Union troops to make the people heed them.



Some people reacted with shock, while others reacted with complete jubilation;

The news of this day finally spread all over the nation.

Most people could not wait to leave the plantation and start living free;

So, from their home state they started to flee.



Regardless of where they went, they were followed with freedom’s challenges;

These challenges came from making decisions and environmental changes.

They never forgot that joyous 19th day of June;

When people once enslaved could finally sing their freedom tune.



The celebration started with reassuring and praying;

The adults were eating and drinking while the children were playing.

It was also a time for the reuniting of family members;

It was one of the happiest days many of them remembers.



Today it is a day of pilgrimage to that town;

Let the shouts of freedom for all make a holy sound.

Soon the day will come when in unison we say;

“Forever and ever all Americans will celebrate Juneteenth, the freedom holiday”!

By Arthur Kroll

no one expected this, we’ll say

Of course he’s a genius. And America is a school child. 

The genius teaches desolation. The students cheer and lift their brews and toast the demise of boring, plodding democracy.

We’ll look back on this time, raise a glass to the Trump Family, and saunter to the shelters desolation builds. 

No one expected this, we’ll say.

Lets practice saying this.

We’ll grow used to it.

(—in response to We’ll  be  cleaning  up Trump’s  mess  for  generations,   bY Catherine RampellColumnistJune 18 at 7:43 PM, Washington Post)

experience is what a man does with what happens to him (ah).

I remember reading words about not being a saint. They were similarly phrased, attributed to two different French writers, and neither with source citation in their various appearances.

1. “Life holds only one tragedy, ultimately: not to have been a saint”. - Charles Péguy
2. “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.” - Léon Bloy

The above words came to me after reading in morning laze the patient novel hiding for months around the house.

“...it seems to me that sainthood, like genius, is rooted in a sort of inspired persistence. It’s a consistent willing of one thing. It’s that kind of consistency and focus I see at work in Emilio.”
( —p.251, in novel The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell)

I am not that. However much the teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj or the Veda story with refrain tat tvam asi, try to suggest otherwise, I remain unconvinced, inconsistent, unfocused, and impersistent.

In my search for the source of the Bloy/Péguy quotes, I came across Huxley:

• The poet is, etymologically, the maker. Like all makers, he requires a stock of raw materials — in his case, experience. Now experience is not a matter of having actually swum the Hellespont, or danced with the dervishes, or slept in a doss-house. It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and co-ordinating. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. It is a gift for dealing with the accidents of existence, not the accidents themselves. By a happy dispensation of nature, the poet generally possesses the gift of experience in conjunction with that of expression.

• Texts and Pretexts (1932), p. 5. Aldous Huxley

What is needed in a dark time are poets.

This is a dark time.

We need poets.

Perhaps what we really need is a way of engaging experience as one might welcome stranger crossing border into strange land. 

And here, again, “It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and co-ordinating.“ (Ibid, Huxley)

There are many unsaintly people living in a country run by other profoundly unsaintly people.

No one feels welcome.

Our experience is unfruitful.

a dream, it's what we make it

June 19th, 2018

The universal body of reality
Is so subtle that
You do not hear it
When you deliberately
Listen for it,
And you do not see it
When you look at it.
As for the pure knowledge
That has no teacher,
How can it be attained by
Thought or study?

- Huanglong

(-daily zen.com)

pack your bags tonight by nine

The country seethes.

Call it suspended animus.

God cannot find a place to rest.

Time to leave for someplace less hostile.

Travel deep interior of mind without return ticket.

this, on twitter

Watching

Intently

Trump’s

Callous

Hubris.

Waiting;

It

Takes

Careful

Haruspicy.

Witch

Investigations

Transcend

Caustic

Hideousness.

gaming the ethical

To my republican friends, concerning your stance on the immigration issues staring you in the face: 

Political sterility, I suppose, is more morally acceptable than infanticide/euthanasia of decency.

fatherless

There is a country that welcomes the stranger and the outcast. 

It is a good country. 

It protects the young, the ill, and the elderly. 

It loves its family and its neighbors. 

It used to be the United States. 

Now it isn’t.

he said, ‘“I’m a complementarian“

Sometimes the simplest response is the most beautiful one.

MR. WILCZEK: And I think that's the essence of complementarity, that you have to view the world in different ways to do it justice, and the different ways can each be very rich, can each be internally consistent, can each have its own language and rules, but they may be mutually incompatible. And to do full justice to reality, you have to take both of them into account. 

MS. TIPPETT: Somewhere you say, “Complementarity is both a feature of physical reality and a lesson in wisdom.” And I think just what you just said about reality is equally true of — and I know you have to be careful to do too much of this stretching these things, but it's equally true of the human condition. 

MR. WILCZEK: Oh, very much so. [laughs] Oh, I think so. When people ask me what my religion is, I say I'm a complementarian. 

MS. TIPPETT: [laughs] That's right. 

MR. WILCZEK: I believe that it's really interesting and really fun and really informative, and the right thing to do, to be able to look at things in different ways and appreciate their different ways of looking at things that each have their own validity. And they may conflict if you try to apply them both at once, but OK, that's fine. You apply one at a time [laughs] and try to appreciate both. 

(—from On Being, Krista Tippett interviewing FRANK WILCZEK,Why Is the World So Beautiful?) https://onbeing.org/programs/frank-wilczek-why-is-the-world-so-beautiful-jun2018/

In prison yesterday, one of the men said that God was perfecting act.

There is no end that arrives at perfection.

There is only perfecting acts, aware and moving activity, that moves through everything with a compassion of humility.

World

              (Within)

Without

               (No)

End

               (Other)

our surround

There is no God.

God is here.

So much depends on what is our surround.

if you pray, know this

prayer is

the calling out

from the one

being

prayed for

what is

being

prayed for

nor is the reader the same at end as beginning of reading this

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. 

- Heraclitus

mid june

Enfolding time

Presenting prayer

post-humerous

Maybe it’s true

We’re ridiculous —

Who thinks this

oh

If you ask a zen practitioner where to go to find what is true, here is what is said...

mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja

On a morning talk news show there is concern that the current president is delusional about his personal ability to mold world leaders into his personal will. It’s  all about “attitude.” It’s all about the power of personality.

As you can see, there is writing on his (lower) right hand. It says "Mam Ekam Saranam Vraja", which is part of a famous verse of the Bhagavad Gita: 

      sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja  ahaṁ tvāṁ sarva-pāpebhyo     mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ || 

      Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you   from all sinful reactions. Do not fear. 

Sri Vaishnavas call this verse the Charama Shloka, and it is one of the Rahasya Traya or three secrets of Sri Vaishnavism, because it explains the path to Moksha known as Saranagati or Prapatti, which involves surrendering to the lotus feet of Vishnu. Since Upilliappan has a part of the Charama Shloka written on his right hand, pointed toward his feet indicating to devotees where to surrender, he is known as the lord of Saranagati.

 https://hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/6504/why-does-only-uppiliappan-have-mam-ekam-saranam-vraja-written-on-his-hand

If there be gods, there be men who would be as those gods are.

I do not wish to call the realm of the gods into question here (as increasingly difficult to conceive in contemporary intellectual non-theistic scientific evidentiary thinking). Rather, I want to question the behavior and thinking of the motif of superhero deus-ex-machina thought pattern that isolates the ability to right wrong or fix failings by exercising self-extraordinary certainty and self-alone savvy to save the world by dint of miraculous gift.

We worry about the cult of “I alone!”

Nothing has been accomplished from the theater of high spectacle.

We have much about which to be concerned.

If prayer has any place in our spiritual/intellectual ethos, it is a good time to consider praying.

May One be worthy home, an authentic surround of profound surrender, where what is true and good draws us into responsible community!

a novel mode of relation

There is poised, some say, something to look forward to.

Of course, it is possible that the forces of regressive masculinity will again literalize the symbolic death of the modern in totalitarianism or nuclear war. And it must be acknowledged that many of us–especially the most vulnerable–are currently suffering in a myriad of ways. However, I think it is more likely, given that we have largely integrated the pain of those collective traumas, that this regressive moment will be relatively brief, and we will soon see a progressive wave of compassion, justice, sustainability, and even kindness in reaction to the Trump-Peterson era. 

I suspect this regressive movement will be viewedby history as the final death rattle of the older mode of relation, making way for the emergence of a qualitatively novel historical era. As Whitehead writes, “new epochs emerge with comparative suddenness,” and the tragic regression we’re currently enduring may ultimately be understood as the factor that finally propelled us into a novel mode of relation.  

(Grant Maxwell is the author of The Dynamics of Transformation: Tracing an Emerging World View and How Does It Feel?: Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Philosophy of Rock and Roll. He is an editor at Persistent Press and the Archai journal, and he lives in Nashville with his wife and two sons.)(—in, Why Are So Many Young Men Drawn to Jordan Peterson’s Intellectual Misogyny? February 20, 2018 by Blog Contributor, Grant Maxwell, in Blog of the APA)

Real relation.

After so much false.

but what's right is each time created new

Think; for yourself.

Between the cheerleading of church hand raising over Jesus and the skeptical nihilism of anti-religionist pop-atheists, where does one stand in the circle of unknowing mystery and spiritual inquiry?

Where is intellectual investigation with regard to matters of self, soul, and sanctification of material manifestation?

Who quotes poetry anymore?

"What's wrong will always be wrong." (R. Hugo)

life changes

What does it mean to be born?

It means a death will follow.

What does it mean to die?

It means that life changes.

a Monday in June

Let there

be peace.

As is

Here

goose, anyone

Late Sunday musing:

Should we worry that Trudeau & Merkel are treacherous while Putin & Kim are our goto guys?

Is it true that DJT has officially become a dangerous and unstable monomath of himself while remaining cold ignorant of world diplomacy?

Anybody out there? What to do? Is our goose cooked?

sordid excellence

Is it possible to return to unconditioned mind?

Reality is unconditioned mind.

Is it possible to return to reality?

In today's world, the one that belongs to Donald Trump and the smiling cohort raising middle fingers to everyone outside their prison of hypnotic ownership, an unreality of false simulacra is sold and bought by an enormous block of unreflective followers.

(Look who's speaking!)

So, we have to ask again and again: what is the real reality?

It is no system of thought.

Is it voiceless appearance of the formless manifesting and materializing before aware attention?

Is that what the real is?

I don't know.

Emily Dickenson writes:

I cannot live with You 

I cannot live with You —
It would be Life —
And Life is over there —
Behind the Shelf

The Sexton keeps the Key to —
Putting up
Our Life — His Porcelain —
Like a Cup —

Discarded of the Housewife —
Quaint — or Broke —
A newer Sevres pleases —
Old Ones crack —

I could not die — with You —
For One must wait
To shut the Other's Gaze down —
You — could not —

And I — Could I stand by
And see You — freeze —
Without my Right of Frost —
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise — with You —
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus' —
That New Grace

Glow plain — and foreign
On my homesick Eye —
Except that You than He
Shone closer by —

They'd judge Us — How —
For You — served Heaven — You know,
Or sought to —
I could not —

Because You saturated Sight —
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise

And were You lost, I would be —
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame —

And were You — saved —
And I — condemned to be
Where You were not —
That self — were Hell to Me —

So We must meet apart —
You there — I — here —
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are — and Prayer —
And that White Sustenance —
Despair —

(Poem by Emily Dickenson) 

hello, we feel; and bye, we trust

From weekly summary, Center for Action and Contemplation, Richard Rohr, https://cac.org/creativity-weekly-summary-2018-06-09/

  “To worship was formerly to prefer God to things, relating them to him [sic] and sacrificing them for him. To worship is now becoming to devote oneself body and soul to the creative act, associating oneself with that act in order to fulfill the world by hard work and intellectual exploration.” [3](—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution, trans. René Hague (Harcourt Brace & Co.: 1969), 92-93.) 

 And:

Teilhard indicated that “the total Christ is only attained and consummated at the end of universal evolution.” [3] . . . That is, the Christ of the physical universe, the Christ of all humanity, the Christ of all religions. In this respect, Christ is not a static figure, like a goal post with a gravitational lure, toward which the universe is moving. Rather, Christ is in evolution because we, human and nonhuman creation, are in evolution. . . . We must take seriously the impact technology and science are causing on the shape of life in the universe. . . . 

Technology can be defined as the organization of knowledge for the achievement of practical purposes. We may also describe it as the development of mechanical devices by the human community in its efforts to control or exploit the forces of nature. Throughout history, humans have been inventive in various ways, enhancing human life through means of technology. . . . The development of technology expresses the human’s self-development and self-expression through matter [i.e., the human capacity to be creative]; it is integral to being the image of God and thus integral to authentic self-realization. . . . 

The notion of the human as a dynamic image of God, with a vocation to develop this image by evolving dialogue with the material cosmos, sets technology in a wider framework that provides strong religious, moral, and humanistic controls on its exploitation. . . . [4] (— Ilia Delio, Christ in Evolution (Orbis Books: 2008), 157-159.)

 Cool breeze through early sun with waking birdsong. Cars roll toward town. Woodpecker practices on Han.

Say it — there is nothing else.

Only this.

And you are at beginning and end in same instant — a metal tone in transitioning wind chime a swirling invitation at bamboo hollow for what is passing through and by.

Hello, we feel; and bye, we trust!

despite what you think

A heart

that feels

the world

is holy



Is

what is

coming

to be

weather bombast

There’s climate change and global windbaggery taking place in the nations capital.

63 million people look at their timepiece.

Surely it’s time to end the recess.

normandy and a hotel kitchen

Thousands were slaughtered on the beaches of Normandy.

Robert Kennedy fifty years ago was assasinated by a man who was hypnotized.

Sirhan remembers nothing about the shooting.

I don’t think we know enough.

as far as God

Rainy morning Office of Readings. 

I am gripped by two/three thousand year old psalms that capture contemporaneous culture of our times.

I’m not sure there is the same expectation now as then that “the Lord” will protect us and help us.

“For the poor who are oppressed and the needy who groan
I myself will arise,” says the Lord.
“I will grant them the salvation for which they thirst.” 

The words of the Lord are words without alloy,
silver from the furnace, seven times refined. 

It is you, O Lord, who will take us in your care
and protect us for ever from this generation.
See how the wicked prowl on every side,
while the worthless are prized highly by the sons of men. 

Help, O Lord, for good men have vanished:
truth has gone from the sons of men.
Falsehood they speak one to another,
with lying lips, with a false heart. 

May the Lord destroy all lying lips,
the tongue that speaks high sounding words,
those who say: “Our tongue is our strength;
our lips are our own, who is our master?”
(— from Psalm 12, A cry for God’s help against powerful oppressors)

The white border collie goes downstairs to be let out. Gregorian Chant drifts from speaker in hallway. Perhaps God has not changed. I think our conception of God has changed. We’re unsure where to look. Or how to pray. Or if there is anyplace else. Or any other time than now.

Is God not? Or silent and absent? Or is God under our feet, in our hands,  our seeing eyes, hearing ears, feeling breath?

Let us be neither dogs that do not bark nor silent onlookers nor paid servants who run away before the wolf. Instead let us be careful shepherds watching over Christ’s flock. Let us preach the whole of God’s plan to the powerful and to the humble, to rich and to poor, to men of every rank and age, as far as God gives us the strength, in season and out of season, as Saint Gregory writes in his book of Pastoral Instruction.                               (—in Second reading, From a letter by Saint Boniface, bishop and martyr. The careful shepherd watches over Christ’s flock)

And Christ?

Is Christ to be? Awakened in our awakening? No longer suffering mankind but realized companionship?

Was it easier to chronicle a linear historical narrative of scriptural orthodoxy handed down edict by edict, synod by synod, and bow obediently?

Or, to take unsuspected responsibility for the creation, culture, and society before us, asked by it to enter wholeheartedly into an artistic and spiritual engagement that longs pragmatically to transform and transfix what is real and here into What Is Real and Here.

Is Christ the realization of the true nature and relationality of each to each with caring, compassionate thought and activity toward what is here and What Is Here?

Cat comes to tell me it is time for breakfast.

oinos-less

The ideological clash between right and left threatens to materialize into a violent clash rife with bullets, bombs, and beatings.

This is not good news.

It feels like we’ve invited a provocateur to head of government and he delights in setting two differing approaches on fire with loud explosions.

I think we’re in for a hard and difficult time.

And love has nothing to do with it.

Unfortunately.

There is no love in this upcoming turmoil.

Unless...

Oinos

Un-us.

until (it transforms us)

There are times when the middle way of Buddhism, the no way of Taoism, and the out-of-my-way of existentialism combine with the no-periphery omnipresent center of Einstein to leave me nowhere to be found.

The creative, transformative dance between attachment and detachment is sometimes called the Third Way. It is the middle way between fight and flight, as Walter Wink describes it. [1] Some prefer to take on the world: to fight it, change it, fix it, and rearrange it. Others deny there is a problem at all. “Everything is beautiful,” they say and look the other way. Both instincts avoid holding the tension, the pain, and the essentially tragic nature of human existence. 

The contemplative stance is the Third Way. We stand in the middle, neither taking the world on from another power position nor denying it for fear of the pain it will bring. We hold the hardness of reality and the suffering of the world until it transforms us, knowing that we are both complicit in evil and can participate in wholeness and holiness. Once we can stand in that third spacious way, neither directly fighting or fleeing, we are in the place of grace out of which genuine newness can come. This is where creativity and new forms of life and healing emerge. 

(—Richard Rohr)  http://email.cac.org/t/ViewEmail/d/16EF5BFFC83DDBEE2540EF23F30FEDED/D7E1331FA0AEA466942A2DF08F503B7C

 It is the word “until” that catches my attention.

and the mirror unreflects

There are two things that capture my attention:

1. 

2.

Oh my! They’ve disappeared.

I now have nothing that captures the nothing that is my attention and the nothing that is me.

enter here and despair

Note: These are surprisingly, eerily, prescient.
From Matthew Chapman tweets, 1june18, @fawfulfan :

...
"Believe it or not, Trump's insane proclamation that he will keep tariffs in place until there are no more Mercedes on Fifth Avenue gave me a moment of clarity.

I think I finally understand Trump's economic philosophy now. And we are absolutely screwed."

...
"The one thing that you need to understand about Trump is that he is, at his core, a con man with no empathy.


Therefore, he assumes that all other people are also con men with no empathy, and every exchange of goods and services that exists in the world is, on some level, a con."

...
"Trump assumes every transaction in the world — between people, businesses, nation-states, even between two different agencies of the same government — has a winner and a loser, a scammer and a sucker. He believes if you're not ripping someone off, you're getting ripped off."

...
"From an economist's perspective, this is complete nonsense. Unless there are major information asymmetries or distortions of market power, and often even then, most transactions are generally to the mutual benefit of both parties.
Otherwise no deals would ever get made."

...
"But Trump — the man who created a fake university, made stiffed contractors, hired the mob, and filed for bankruptcy six times — cannot believe his.

So he goes out of his way to cherrypick how he sees the world, so that everything we do looks like either a ripoff or a steal.

...
It's not simply that Trump *doesn't* think the Paris Climate Agreement, Iran nuclear deal, TPP, NAFTA, or luxury cars from Germany are a good deal for America. It's that he *can't* think that.

It's an alien concept to him that a deal other people want with us could also help us.

...
To Trump's mind, the mere fact other countries sought out these deals with us, and that their own economies benefit, is unassailable proof we got ripped off.

He can't see the evidence they helped us too. His mind will only cherry-pick potential ways it could be bad for us."

...
"This is why Trump will never, ever, be able to negotiate with the rest of the world. He doesn't believe in mutual benefit.

The second anyone tells him "this is your end of the deal" he'll rip it up. He believes only one party can have an end of the deal, and it shouldn't be him."

...
"This is why Trump will never, ever, be able to negotiate with the rest of the world. He doesn't believe in mutual benefit.

The second anyone tells him "this is your end of the deal" he'll rip it up. He believes only one party can have an end of the deal, and it shouldn't be him.

...
And we're not just screwed on foreign policy, but domestic. This explains his behavior over DACA, spiking two bipartisan deals even though they were what he asked for.

He assumed if Democrats were willing to talk, his deal wasn't ripping them off, ergo it would rip him off.

...
That implies if Democrats win Congress, we are going to enter an all-out legislative standstill like we've never before seen.

Our system is entirely reliant on compromise and compromise isn't compatible with Trump's beliefs. We will struggle to pass even basic reauthorizations."

...
"So yeah: our nightmare is not going to end until we get this pathological con man out of office.

He is not just bad at being president, he has a defective way of seeing the world that is not compatible with being president.

And we will pay for it."

...
[sic]                                        

(--From Matthew Chapman tweets, 1june18, @fawfulfan)

is this true

I’m thinking of telling you something you don’t know.

We’ll call it non-fact.

You are sitting somewhere reading this.

And,

You are writing this here with me.

Beyond this, you are the reader wondering why and whether it matters who does what where.

at all — nothing

SINGULARITY
by Marie Howe

(after Stephen Hawking)

Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?

so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money —

nobody hiding in the school bathroom

or home alone

pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.

For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you.   Remember?

There was no   Nature.    No
them.   No tests

to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf    or if

the coral reef feels pain.    Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

would that we could wake up   to what we were
— when we were ocean    and before that

to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not

at all — nothing

before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.

Can molecules recall it?
what once was?    before anything happened?

No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb      no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

is is is is is

All   everything   home

                      (Poem by Marie Howe)

prison talk

God is

What is

Coming

To be