in dialogue with a student

Student:

Changes

After watching all the videos, especially the PBS documentary, my perspective of certain things has changed. I am surprised to learn about things that have simply passed by the radar of some of us.

            In “The age of genetic wonder”, I was disappointed by how largely a field of genetic modification has taken root. It doesn’t really matter where it has started and where it has taken place but the fact that we are unsatisfied with letting nature run its own course is one of the saddest aspects. I believe that at least in the health sector it may be valuable to mass produce vaccines.  If we can do that then why are we not helping third world countries? We could do it. Are we (The US) that selfish?

            Then again why are we doing genetic modification in the first place? The truth with genetic mutation and genetic modification is what happen to the original species of plants, animals etc. I have watched another film on the effect of GMO seeds and the fact that they mix items like human DNA with seed DNA then plant, grow it and then sell it… It is REVOLTING!  You could be unknowingly committing cannibalism.  Finding non-GMO seeds is becoming more difficult as well. Yet the whole modification of the code of organisms, no matter where they fall on the classification system and food chain, is more common now than ever and it is still gaining power. 

The TEDx talk “Ethics in the age of technology” was a very interesting clip. I was not overly surprised by how much technology has changed the way our standards have changed as the world has industrialized. However, is it sad that some of the old-fashioned morals have disappeared as the world advances with technology? One fact is we no longer seem to hold ourselves to the standards that we would have even a generation ago. 

            Have we with technology really changed the world that much? I believe that we have. Looking at the way the world was even just at the time my grandparents were born it is amazing how much has happened. The way that the world has changed for technology. My parents have said that when they went to college, they still had rotary phones in the dorms and wireless (land line) phones were not as popular as they are today.  Many homes today do not even have “land lines” but are completely overrun with cell phones. 

            Computers are another example. They have and always seem to be shrinking in size. I know that many can find it difficult to believe that computers used to be a whole room in size. 

A third example is as Juan Enriquez mentioned, is to look at biology, or even how some are redefining sex. The world has changed and is still changing. This is an unavoidable fact. 

            The last film “In the Age of AI”, was probably my favorite out of the three we had to watch. I myself am not a huge fan of AI replacing many of the jobs that we do. I do understand that AI can make jobs be completed more efficiently but then you lose the human touch. Of course, there are businesses such as Amazon that never had the human touch to begin with. Yet, if all the bigger companies that don’t have the human touch buy out the smaller ones, we’ve lost the human touch. 

After if/when the larger company switches to AI you’ve laid off more people then when you just bought out the smaller company. Furthermore, with large companies switching to AI you have just raised the unemployment rate. Computers and AI are always improving and with that more jobs become viable to be taken over by AI and “outsourcing” humans all together. Do we all become couch potatoes except for a few unlucky ones that hold a job? If we are mostly laid off people how can we continue to afford the bare necessities? 

I know that there are a few companies who do not believe that this is a concern. Mainly this is the companies creating the AI and the robots and the like that are programed with AI. Anyways, AI is artificial after all, why should we be concerned? It reminds me of what I learned in CIS class called the “Axe Maker’s Gift”. This concept is very similar to Newton’s 3^rd Law “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”, meaning that a tool meant for good can also be used for bad or evil.  My opinion in all this is that this is also true with AI and could end badly for the human race as a whole.

(--nc)

...   ...   ...

Response:

RE: Changes

1. " the fact that we are unsatisfied with letting nature run its own course is one of the saddest aspects."

2. "Yet, if all the bigger companies that don’t have the human touch buy out the smaller ones, we’ve lost the human touch."

3. "AI is artificial after all, why should we be concerned?" (nc)

...

I like your post.

1. Some make the point that nature running its course does not exclude human beings with their tools -- first sticks to reach things further away that their arm-length, the wheel to move things without having to carry them, the telephone for when shouting can go only so far. Their argument is that our tools, or technology, are extensions of our creativity and imagination, and hence part of us. Even Rene Descartes (1596-1650)") divided things into res cogitans and res extensa.* He was dualistic. He did not think that physicality had any connection with mind or thought. 

2. Yes, the human touch could seem to be vanishing. Surveillance and categorization of people as types and potential antagonists of either profit capital or state control does seem to abstract the mere human being living day today with concerns and dreams. The more we quantify people and classify them the less we are inclined to care for individuals as they are in themselves. The qualities of compassion and caring are (annoyingly) necessary for the cultivation of any kind of loving community.

3. "Artificial" is a word we should keep tabs on. Dictionary has it as "made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural." We consider intelligence natural -- it develops and emerges from lived experience with its bumps and bruises, curiosity and hard work of feeling/thinking. The word "artifice" is defined "clever or cunning devices or expedients, especially as used to trick or deceive others." This might be the task we have before us -- to try to ensure that the copying of something natural does not fall prey to trickery or deception. 

Our technology -- if closely aligned with a proper human spirit of assistance and well-being for the planet, the various species, and our human participation in the emergence of what is coming next -- should be a companioning extension of our good heart and clear mind going forward. If hearts and minds become jaded and clouded, our technology will be used in unwholesome and nefarious ways (as indeed already experienced -- bombs, guns, tyrannical control) -- and we will be in deep trouble.

It seems to me we are thrown back to the individual human being** cultivating qualities that are, if you will, spiritually and morally wholesome, embracing wide inclusion, and seeking only the best for all (not some) sharing this existence at this time in this place -- going forward.

(thanks for the prompt)

--bh

* Descartes introduced res cogitans and res extensa which is generally translated as 'thinking substance' and 'extended substance'; but it's in the notion of 'substance' by which dependence is not an possibility - thus from here, directly we have mind/body dualism; in the sense of being entirely distinct and without effect on each other." (Stack Exchange)

** "Better worlds (I suggest) are born, not made; and their birthdays are the birthdays of individuals. Let us pray always for individuals; never for worlds." (e.e.cummings, NONLECTURE TWO, in six non-lectures  via LiveJournal)

what matters

No opinion, just facts —

Two witnesses tell what they heard, saw, know

So refreshing—

Of course, truth matters

Of a wednesday afternoon

Walking Ellsworth train track path

Three miles, new sticks

One man passes — 25° sun shining

Impeachment hearing through earpods

now you may dismiss your servant

At end of day, at compline:

READING, 1 Thessalonians 5:23
May the God of peace make you perfect in holiness. May he preserve you whole and entire, spirit, soul, and body, irreproachable at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is a good time to have such a prayer/reading.

divine being with enlightened sword in hand

Justice is a sword in the hand of enlightened being.

Not of vengeance. Not of punishment.

Justice is a sword that slices the narrow seam between evil and the doer.

Separating one from the other.

Not damning the doer, but severing that which burdens him, call it evil, from the person.

It's why vengeance is mine, says the Lord.

Humans do not understand justice.

Only the Lord -- the wise gaze -- knows what to do with justice.

Humans only want retaliation, only can think of revenge.

Justice is a being that sees what is truly there and severs that which is illusory, misguided, and hateful.

Pray for justice. It is a divine being with enlightened sword in hand.

As for human solutions, cry for the sorrow they effect, cry over the tragedy they cause.

A day will come.

A day will come when we tire of stupid verdicts, despair over foolish punishing outcomes.

Pray for that day.

Sail away into that deep horizon.

Let go.

Be gone.

veterans

That you went to war — condolences.

That you made it back — congratulations.

War is a thing that brings sorrow and confusion — during, and long after.

what returns

Broken, yes, things and people easily break.

But that is one side.

On the other side, things and people find continuance, reclamation.

Two sides?

No.

One reality, two stages, a circle of continuity.

To break is to reclaim.

To see is to be blind.

Hello is goodbye.

As birth is death.

Do you desire something?

Let it go.

Do you reject someone?

Draw them to you.

Let it come; let it go.

When you learn to do so, you've met what used to be known as God.

Let God go.

What returns is your silent joy.

no hospitality this morning

Saskia on medical caring duty somewhere south of Thomaston.

Enjoy "the green freedom of a cockatoo" from your favorite tea-drinking window seat.  

Sunday Morning

       BY WALLACE STEVENS

      I 

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late 

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, 

And the green freedom of a cockatoo 

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate 

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. 

She dreams a little, and she feels the dark 

Encroachment of that old catastrophe, 

As a calm darkens among water-lights. 

The pungent oranges and bright, green wings 

Seem things in some procession of the dead, 

Winding across wide water, without sound. 

The day is like wide water, without sound, 

Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet 

Over the seas, to silent Palestine, 

Dominion of the blood and sepulchre. 

       II 

Why should she give her bounty to the dead? 

What is divinity if it can come 

Only in silent shadows and in dreams? 

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, 

In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else 

In any balm or beauty of the earth, 

Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? 

Divinity must live within herself: 

Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; 

Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued 

Elations when the forest blooms; gusty 

Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; 

All pleasures and all pains, remembering 

The bough of summer and the winter branch. 

These are the measures destined for her soul. 

       III 

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. 

No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave 

Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind. 

He moved among us, as a muttering king, 

Magnificent, would move among his hinds, 

Until our blood, commingling, virginal, 

With heaven, brought such requital to desire 

The very hinds discerned it, in a star. 

Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be 

The blood of paradise? And shall the earth 

Seem all of paradise that we shall know? 

The sky will be much friendlier then than now, 

A part of labor and a part of pain, 

And next in glory to enduring love, 

Not this dividing and indifferent blue. 

       IV 

She says, “I am content when wakened birds, 

Before they fly, test the reality 

Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; 

But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields 

Return no more, where, then, is paradise?” 

There is not any haunt of prophecy, 

Nor any old chimera of the grave, 

Neither the golden underground, nor isle 

Melodious, where spirits gat them home, 

Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm 

Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured 

As April’s green endures; or will endure 

Like her remembrance of awakened birds, 

Or her desire for June and evening, tipped 

By the consummation of the swallow’s wings. 

       V 

She says, “But in contentment I still feel 

The need of some imperishable bliss.” 

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, 

Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams 

And our desires. Although she strews the leaves 

Of sure obliteration on our paths, 

The path sick sorrow took, the many paths 

Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love 

Whispered a little out of tenderness, 

She makes the willow shiver in the sun 

For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze 

Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. 

She causes boys to pile new plums and pears 

On disregarded plate. The maidens taste 

And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. 

       VI 

Is there no change of death in paradise? 

Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs 

Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, 

Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, 

With rivers like our own that seek for seas 

They never find, the same receding shores 

That never touch with inarticulate pang? 

Why set the pear upon those river-banks 

Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? 

Alas, that they should wear our colors there, 

The silken weavings of our afternoons, 

And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! 

Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, 

Within whose burning bosom we devise 

Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly. 

       VII 

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men 

Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn 

Their boisterous devotion to the sun, 

Not as a god, but as a god might be, 

Naked among them, like a savage source. 

Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, 

Out of their blood, returning to the sky; 

And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, 

The windy lake wherein their lord delights, 

The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, 

That choir among themselves long afterward. 

They shall know well the heavenly fellowship 

Of men that perish and of summer morn. 

And whence they came and whither they shall go 

The dew upon their feet shall manifest. 

       VIII 

She hears, upon that water without sound, 

A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine 

Is not the porch of spirits lingering. 

It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.” 

We live in an old chaos of the sun, 

Or old dependency of day and night, 

Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, 

Of that wide water, inescapable. 

Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail 

Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; 

Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; 

And, in the isolation of the sky, 

At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make 

Ambiguous undulations as they sink, 

Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

This is the later and more definitive version of “Sunday Morning.” To read the first published version of this poem, which appeared in Poetry magazine, click here. In 1915, editor Harriet Monroe asked Stevens to cut several stanzas for Poetry, and Stevens would later restore these cut stanzas when he published the poem in book form in 1923.

this also can be...love

Wanna talk?

What about?

Anything.

Just a conversation.

I don't know what to say.

That's ok. I don't know what I'll hear.

(Nescience abounds!)

How lucky

Are we?

room 2

Listening

Man with brain tumor

To one

Another

many arrivals

God is origin of expression.

When what is seen is not yet apparent.

What is being conceived is not yet revealed.

This is what God will be when light and sound initiate and instantiate what is realizing itself as itself moving toward what is coming to be.

Step into this

Reality

holons within holon

Self dissolution

Where what is not

Solves itself

with singular

un-self

ish-ness

...   ...   ...

“ISH” AND “ISHSHÁH”
Ish, together with its plural form anashím (which at times also serves as the plural of enósh), has primarily the thought of “man,” or a person, an individual. It has no such overtones as human, mortal or able-bodied, although inherent in it is the thought of strength as of a male. The word ish does not appear in the Scriptures until after the word for woman, ishsháh—a man with a womb—appears, for in the strictest sense of the word only then did an ish become apparent; before that he was called the human, adám.
Ish, with its emphasis on the person, the individual, is the choice of Bible writers when writing about a “man of God,” and a “man of discernment.” When Nathan confronted King David with his sin, Nathan used this word. Did he say, “You yourself are the”—mortal? human? able-bodied man? No, but, “You yourself are [the one] the man!”—Josh. 14:6; Prov. 10:23; 2 Sam. 12:7.(--The word 'Man' in Hebrew - An Examination of the Hebrew Words 'Ish', 'Adám', 'Enósh' and 'Geber'

hmmm...so much to be reminded of

Could be I needed a reminder of my first name.

Or that I lived in DC as an undergraduate at the Catholic University of America.

But that was long ago.

Perhaps I wish to be reminded of Shaddai. Of the Shema.

Hebrew Shin / SinEdit

Orthographic variants

Various print fonts			CursiveHebrew	Rashiscript
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
ש	ש	ש

Hebrew spelling: שִׁיןThe Hebrew /s/ version according to the reconstruction shown above is descended from Proto-Semitic *ś, a phoneme thought to correspond to a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative  /ɬ/, similar to Welsh Ll in "Llandudno".

In JudaismEdit

Shin also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan hand salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek.^[7][8]The letter Shin is often inscribed on the case containing a mezuzah, a scroll of parchment with Biblical text written on it. The text contained in the mezuzah is the Shema Yisraelprayer, which calls the Israelites to love their God with all their heart, soul and strength. The mezuzah is situated upon all the doorframes in a home or establishment. Sometimes the whole word Shaddai will be written.
The Shema Yisrael prayer also commands the Israelites to write God's commandments on their hearts (Deut. 6:6); the shape of the letter Shin mimics the structure of the human heart: the lower, larger left ventricle (which supplies the full body) and the smaller right ventricle (which supplies the lungs) are positioned like the lines of the letter Shin.
A religious significance has been applied to the fact that there are three valleys that comprise the city of Jerusalem's geography: the Valley of Ben Hinnom, Tyropoeon Valley, and Kidron Valley, and that these valleys converge to also form the shape of the letter shin, and that the Temple in Jerusalem is located where the dagesh (horizontal line) is. This is seen as a fulfillment of passages such as Deuteronomy 16:2 that instructs Jews to celebrate the Pasach at "the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name" (NIV).
In the Sefer Yetzirah the letter Shin is King over Fire, Formed Heaven in the Universe, Hot in the Year, and the Head in the Soul.
The 13th-century Kabbalistic text Sefer HaTemunah, holds that a single letter of unknown pronunciation, held by some to be the four-pronged shin on one side of the teffilin box, is missing from the current alphabet. The world's flaws, the book teaches, are related to the absence of this letter, the eventual revelation of which will repair the universe.

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_(letter)

cf. Vulcan Salute, “live long and prosper”  

Let us repair

(to)

An inner / outer

W
   holeness

poem, september 27, 1971, by daniel berrigan

September 27, 1971

.

A Chinese ideogram

shows someone

standing

by his word.

Fidelity. Freedom

consequent

on the accepted

necessity of

walking where

one’s word

leads.

Wherever.

Hebrew prophets and

singers also

struck the theme;

bodies belong

where words

lead

though the com-

mon run of exper-

ience be

that stature

shrinks as

the word

inflates.

The synthesis;

no matter what (or

better) never                                                                                    

the less.  

    (--Daniel Berrigan in, And the Risen Bread: Selected Poems, 1957-1997)

madre mía

Are the Tibetans right? Has every sentient being been my mother in one of millions of prior incarnations? How do I begin to think of such a thing?

There’s a saying in Tibetan Buddhism that while we might start off with a personal teacher, at some point the entire phenomenal world becomes our guru. 

This adage expresses the idea that all internal and external phenomena can be a catalyst for awakening. But it’s also true that nature, in particular, is a great teacher. The natural world continually arises as a vivid and ephemeral display. By tuning in to it through our sense perceptions—by hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling the natural world fully—we discover a connection with a deeper and more awake dimension of our being, one that is free from the usual overlay of our conceptual thoughts. As guru, the natural world reveals that being present with things as they are can be a transformative experience.
(—In Lion’s Rohr, The Natural World as a Powerful Teacher, BY ELIZABETH MONSON| OCTOBER 29, 2019)

Thank you mom, and mom, and mom! 

standing by one’s word, fidelity

All in all, I have nothing to say.

God is the origin of expression.

Let it be so...

what you are

We think — the mind cannot grasp such enormity.

There are 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, each containing billions of stars. (Phys.org)

More likely, the mind is that enormity.

There is nothing to grasp.

That which is looking is that which is being looked through by that which is, itself, that which sees no-other.

Pray for one another.

Look alive!

One of the most fundamental questions in astronomy is that of just how many galaxies the Universe contains. The Hubble Deep Field images, captured in the mid 1990s, gave the first real insight into this. Myriad faint galaxies were revealed, and it was estimated that the observable Universe contains about 100 billion galaxies. Now, an international team, led by Christopher Conselice from the University of Nottingham, UK, have shown that this figure is at least ten times too low.  
https://phys.org/news/2016-10-universe-ten-galaxies-previously-thought.html

Take the next step.

See the surround.

Love what you are.

nothing else seems to make sense

Prayer today.

Prayer tomorrow.

For one another.

a poem is being written

The rest of the article will wait upon Cardinal’s line.

“Creation is a poem.” (—Ernesto Cardinal, Cosmic Canticle)

Lead quote in Richard  Kearney’s God making, An essay in theopoetic imagination

ich kann dich hören

Watched "American Son" in solitude of a Friday Evening while, downstairs, conversation goes on in Wohnküche.

Dem ist nichts mehr hinzuzufügen.

one human sadness

Thank you to all who are, or have been, saints!

“To be a saint is to will the one thing.” Soren Kierkegaard

“Ultimately there is only one human sadness: that of not being a saint.” Leon Bloy (French philosopher who helped bring Jacques and Raissa Maritain to the faith)

“The saints are the only really happy people on earth.” Fr. John Hardon, S.J.

“My key to heaven is that I loved Jesus in the night." Mother Teresa

“The great saint may be said to mix all his thoughts with thanks. All goods look better when they look like gifts.” St. Francis of Assisi

meditation beads

On street of Camden Maine, between Congo church and Walgreens, I stop Tibetan monk, ask him to bless string of green 108 beads just acquired from sales table where sand mandala is near completion.

He takes them in his hands and chants over them for four minutes. Gives them back. I thank him. We walk on.

The Geshe tells Saskia to pray for her recently departed dog after talk on impermanence at shambhala center in Rockland.

I think president trump is angling for deep violent divisions in the country.

I’ll need the beads.

disclosure

‎I know the name of the whistleblower. I  encourage Republicans  to out him. His name is Emeth (אֶמֶת) Alétheia (ἀλήθεια), aka, truth truth. It will be for them a risky and dangerous precedent bringing him to light.

sprechen sie wohl

We are what we say.

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.
(--Martin Heidegger)

What are you being said?

that's it

Washington Nationals

win

World Series...

(time to sleep)

sit down, take a load off

And on the eighth day, after all the preliminary creations were in place and considered very good, God created the pièce de résistance — game day of game 7 of the World Series!

O holy preparations!

someone I loved to listen facilitate the law

Quote:

What they have now is different, and some would say poorer, but to Pam it is in some ways purer. Everything superfluous has gone away — all posturing and ego; the petty resentments common to all marriages, leaving a connection deeper and truer than language.

“It feels like I love him more now,” she said one day this fall.

In the park, the wind was rising, the silvery sun no longer burning through the clouds. Sirens passed, above the chirp of crickets, as Pam asked Charles if it was time to go and find the car. No, came his unspoken answer, as he kept on walking; he was not ready yet to stop.

They turned back into the park together. She put her arm in his as they headed uphill.

As his Alzheimer’s looms, Charles and Pam Ogletree take one last walk in love, By Jenna Russell Boston Globe Staff,Updated October 27, 2019, 2:01 a.m.

this poem by robert creeley

A Full Cup

  Age knows little other than its own complaints.

Times past are not to be recovered ever.

The old man and woman are left to themselves.

  When I was young, there seemed little time.

I hurried from day to day as if pursued.

Each thing I discovered, another came to possess me.

  Love I could ask no questions of, it was nothing

I ever anticipated, ever thought would be mine.

Even now I wonder if it will escape me.

  What I did, I did finally because I had to,

whether from need of my own or that of others.

It is finally impossible to live and work only for pay.

  I do not know where I’ve come from or where I am going.

Life is like a river, a river without beginning or end.

It’s been my company all my life, its wetness, its insistent movement.

The only wisdom I have is what someone must have told me,

neither to take nor to give more than can be simply managed.

A full cup carried from the well.



(—from: "The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1975–2005" by Robert Creeley. Scribd)