Pain is only pain
Rain only rain
God is only God
truth only truth
If you and I were wise
We’d live and love the only
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Monday, September 28, 2026
this from hugh curran today
Dear Friend,
I thought this article might be of interest to you. Please feel free to email a response.
Hugh
On the Implications of Truth and Untruth by Hugh J. Curran (pub in "Informed Comment"; "Countercurrents" 9/27/26
In classical Greek, opinion is referred to as “doxa” with a clear distinction between doxa and truth (Alethia). We have a President in the U.S. who gives daily information by way of a news program called “Truth Social”. “Truth”, to him, seems to be transactional, expressed in his assertions that Canada become the 51st state, with additional threats against Greenland, But his “truth” is, in reality, opinion (Doxa), in which his assertions are all too often misleading.
Being misled is the essence of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave which tells a story of people shackled in a cave facing a wall, watching images projected in front of them. Their reality is based on these flickering images, and their comprehension based on opinions(doxa) shared with each other. When one of the shackled decides to free himself he emerges into the light of the sun and realizes that he had been seeing only images, not reality itself. In this allegory, the Sun is a metaphor for Truth and Knowledge.
Mark Twain’s humorous phrase: “Lies, damned lies, and statistics” illustrates how we are easily deceived, even by numbers, which can give a false appearance of objective information. Twain also notes that “Truth is the most valuable thing we have.” The Irish philosopher Edmund Burke used the phrase: “economy of truth”, meaning “prudent management”, while others shifted the phrase to: “being economical with the truth”, implying deliberate untruthfulness.
A Hebrew proverb states “the Truth is a heavy burden that few are willing to carry”. Mahatma Gandhi defined Truth (Satya) as awakening to a deeper reality. To Gandhi “God is Truth and Truth is God”, meaning Truth is the foundational reality behind existence while relative truth is dependent upon conventional views and opinions.
Relative truths are expressed in the story of the “River Lethe” in Greek mythology which portrays souls drinking its waters to forget memories of their mortal life. Yet when the letter “A” “is added “Lethe” becomes “Alethe”, an active process of awakening to truth.
Christian theology defines Truth as a dependable reality and Christ as the ultimate embodiment of Truth, contrasted with self-deception, and spiritual blindness.
Other religions are equally devoted to awakening to Truth. In Buddhism it centers on the practical realities of human existence and liberation, by way of the Four Noble Truths and the Path out of suffering, as well as the doctrine of the Two Truths (absolute Truth (paramartha satya) and relative truth (samvriti satya)
In Islam Muhammad was known as Al-Sadiq (The Truthful) and Al-Amin (The Trustworthy). The Quran urges believers to align themselves with the truthful and stand firmly for justice, even if it goes against personal interests. Hadiths (traditions of the Prophet) teach that truthfulness guides a person toward righteousness, whereas lying leads to moral decay and hypocrisy.
How do these definitions of Truth relate to wars in Iran, Israel and the Ukraine? The oft-repeated phrase that “the first casualty of war is truth” is reflected in the conflicts that are currently afflicting us. Like many conflicts they are emotionally driven with rationalized justifications, and a compulsive need to demonize and dehumanize adversaries.
There is a medieval Welsh legend illustrating truth-telling. It involves Lludd and Llefelys, brothers ruling Wales and France. Three plagues by malicious forces menaced their kingdoms, which were guided by demons capable of overhearing conversations taking place anywhere. The brothers agreed to meet in the middle of the channel to discuss how to handle the plagues, so they constructed a long brass horn so as to communicate without being overheard. But the demons infiltrated the horn and distorted their words so that only hateful, hostile insults could be heard. Llefelys then poured a medicinal wine into the brass horn to cleanse it so that the virtue of the wine flushed out the demons. At that point the brothers were able to communicate without deceptive speech and made plans to save their kingdoms from the plagues.
Miscommunication often results in bitter conflicts, especially those taking place in the Middle East as misunderstandings continue to be fomented. The U.S. has deliberately aligned itself with the government of Israel’s policies, which is intent on expanding a Jewish homeland to be carved out of traditional Palestinian territory. Although both sides accuse each other of bad faith and malign intent, a few Israeli scholars have taken the side of Palestinians, Ilan Pappe, a well-known example who has written a widely read book: “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
As Pappe notes, political bias obscures Truth-telling, making it difficult to discern deeper realities from falsehood. The demons of misunderstanding proliferate, especially since ownership of the land is the most central concern with both sides resorting to historical narratives to prove their claims. Palestinians state that for many centuries they have had continuous habitation and ancestral presence in the region. The Israeli side looks to biblical narratives to support their claims, although it must be said that, although scholars acknowledge the spiritual and inspirational value of biblical scripture, they do not consider biblical history to be a true measure of accurate history.
There is a similar misunderstanding in the Ukrainian-Russian debacle. Ukrainians insist they have been in possession of the land for over a millennium and have a distinctly different history than Russia. Professor Timothy Snyder, an historian, has taught courses concerning the “Makings of Modern Ukraine” and supports the Ukrainian interpretation of history. In this account, Swedish Vikings (known as Varangians or Rus) arrived in Kiev by river routes in 800 CE for the purpose of trading. Oleg of Novgorod, also a Swedish Varangian, in 882 CE captured Kiev and established Kievan Rus. Ukrainians consider this to be the origin of Ukraine, but in the Ukrainian view it maintained its independence of Russia and sustained itself as separate from Russia by its more than two hundred year connection to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the same time a Ukrainian culture and language evolved while the Orthodox churches of Moscow and Kiev developed separately.
According to the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, Ukrainians were a former province of Russia and their lineage is traced to Kiev, the “mother of all Russian cities”. He uses the Kievan Rus’ origin story to insist that Ukrainian sovereignty is fictitious, and that modern Ukraine was carved out by Soviet leaders, although Ukrainian historians, such as Dr Björn Alexander Düben, insist that Ukraine has been through most of its history, independent of Russia.
Truthfulness about the origins of a nation are often obscured by a need to create a narrative to justify possession. When Doxa (relative truth/opinion) is insisted upon, it looks for a coherent theory to correspond to whatever fits into one particular group’s narrative. Yet Truth, on a deeper level, is a search for fairness, clarity and freedom from obscurities.
In Israel, scholars and archaeologists consider the biblical narrative to be an allegorical and spiritual text and not an historical document. Yet the leaders of Israel interpret the biblical narrative to justify expropriating land from Palestinians who have lived there for at least1500 years. Western powers have been supplying weapons used to devastate Gaza, resulting in the slaughter of at least 20,000 children and 55,000 adults by bombing Gaza’s residences, schools and hospitals into rubble. The complicity has been unconscionable, even to the point of allowing the extremist Israeli leadership to label indigenous Palestinians as terrorists, especially when they resort to protecting themselves against massacres.
Eventually, the horrific nature of the mass killings being perpetrated in Gaza will need to be confronted by Western nations. Israeli historians, including Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe, the Canadian scholar, Yakov Rabkin, as well as holocaust and Genocide scholars such as Omer Bartov are making their research available to a wider audience. In this way the enormity of what has taken place will have to be faced by those who were complicit, including the governments of the U.S, UK, and the EU which have helped provide the weapons of destruction. Their studied indifference to the moral wrongs perpetrated upon the indigenous people of Gaza and Palestine will eventually necessitate a powerful reckoning.
Omer Bartov has noted that the moral burden that conscientious Germans have carried for 80 years as a result of the Holocaust, will also have to be shouldered by western powers, due to their complicity in the slaughter of innocents in Gaza, many still buried under the rubble.
Hugh Curran has been teaching courses on Peace & Reconciliation at the University Maine for 25 years.
Sunday, September 27, 2026
yes I hear the rain
Heat on back
Old electric pad
This rainy night
It is a time
Of tightness and
discomfort
Two nitro pills
from ten years ago
Do nothing
Saturday, September 26, 2026
ne personne
No
I am not
Chronicaling
My death
There are
No words
For
That
sitting across
from dusky
mountain
one bird
comes out
from cedar
pecks ground
flies off as
light rain
begins
if I am having
a heart attack
I will have walked
up and down
driveway
four times
άγιος
(For Robert Lax)
Dying twenty six
Years ago today
You probably
Forgot to
Leave milk
For the cat
By your
Unlocked door
On
Patmos
My saint
Friend
combing
sleep
at times
elides night
passes through
into
wakeful watch
schooner
offshore
beating
down to east
dawn breaking
thin greyblue
sky-sea
mid watch
that hoary
horizon
where sea-burial
ghosts
take a moment
to look around
catching your eye
a swell returning
to itself out
beyond buoy
renaissance
reminiscing
what never
could be grasped
starboard tack
what happens
between launch
and beaching
the dry withered
timbers
one’s life
eight bells
Friday, September 25, 2026
correction unneeded
lobby officer
said it was
10:52 as I took
pen to sign-out page
and it was, I
suspect, I wrote
10:52 in last column,
I didn’t check, just
said thanks
that was it
just breathing through
it’s just pain
nothing else
there it is
just pain
it comes it goes
just pain
nothing else
do you understand
prolambanein (προλαμβάνω)
Talked about sleep paralysis and dreams in prison today. And what, if anything, comes of life after death without our familiar physicality.
Corrections commissioner, in his last week, gives big wave and smile walking by windows to our room.
There’s a proleptic quality of dreams.
Prolepsis
[pro-LEP-sis]
Part of speech: noun
Origin: Ancient Greek, 15th century
1.
The anticipation and answering of possible objections in rhetorical speech.
2.
The representation of a thing as existing before it actually does or did so, as in, “He was a dead man when he entered.”
Examples of prolepsis in a sentence
"Tyrell expected objections, so he tried to include answers to possible questions in a prolepsis of his proposal to the HOA."
"The new biography of Charlie Chaplin begins with his birth, then in a prolepsis, jumps to the height of his fame."
About Prolepsis
This word entered Late Middle English via Latin, from the Greek "prolēpsis," which comes from the word "prolambanein," meaning "anticipate."
“He’s dying!” the Christian Science big guy said to the Catholic big guy stepping in to say hello. The medium size Greek Orthodox shook his head at the unexpected proclamation, and the Muslim big guy, getting ready to head out, stood.
We’d been talking about Yom Kippur, vows, and the reconstructing of reality.
After the tiring walk out, after one of the men trying to extract a promise I wouldn’t die this week and would be back next week, we got some curly fries, peach yogurt and ginger ale, drove to Rockport harbor, and watched the comings and goings there.
And it hits me -- it’s all comings and goings.
Now I sit facing Bald Mountain as contrails and thin clouds ready for the rainy weekend.
God is
not only
good
God is
what good
could be
if God were
capable of
existing here
It’s clear now -- one of my former lives was no doubt lived a prisoner in the Bastille Saint-Antoine fortress, another was lived in Carthusian Grande Chartreuse monastery -- where I dreamt of living in the 21st century, in a sleep paralysis while a desperately disturbed man seeks to rule the world with his comic arrogance and peculiar pomposity.
the hour of our death
Praying through Mary
The bead-fingering old man
Has no idea no comprehension
What prayer is what prayer does
Thursday, September 24, 2026
nevi’im (נביאים אחרונים, nəviʾim aḥaronim)
Go ahead
Tell on me
Gaza is Israel’s
Disgrace
Call me antisemitic
Was Isaiah wrong
Was Jeremiah
No, they saw
Betrayal of Yahweh
Long before
Netanyahu was mis-knit
In mother’s womb
unrecognizable number
wristband says patient is 82
needle in spine
fluid and bone taken
nurse doesn’t return pen
doctor walks out with it
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
final chore
I will go down to the sea
Step into peapod
Row to lighthouse island
Lay up oars
Bobbing and bounce
Depositing my ashes
Out beyond land
Lobster boats steady
Engines one by one
Turning to, heading in
rubber-banded, waving
Gulls measuring luck
looking over wondering
what old man is emptying
Over side into outgoing
Tide until only oars on gunnels
Floppy hat on thwart
Baffin boots on their sides
Painter line loosely hanging
No need to hurry back
Someone will scrape barnacles
Scraps of bone slowly sinking
Depthing quiet unknown
No need of breath
Nor life jacket
Snailing under
Sturdy keel
sun-slant
to port
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
unloquient, uneloquient
Speaking at UN today
Donald Trump unspoke
and nobody heard anything
Worth hearing
simple safety
autumn looks
both ways
before crossing
equinox --
better safe
than run over
by exiting
prior season
χωρίς φαντασία
its just a game
scrimmage, same team
different jerseys
the stadium is full
beer and hotdogs
political merch
do you actually
know what you stand for
the values true
no, I don’t think so
it is a tv game show
full of commercials
before we abandoned God
we wondered -- now we
have no wonder left
we’ve learned to live
χωρίς φαντασία
without imagination
angelus cum una compana
Matins, French Benedictine nuns chant
Lovely immigration of the necessary
Gregorian lift and loft resonance
I have never not resided there
https://app.neumz.com/listen/matutinum-jubilemus-deo-salutari-t-irreg-88190/22-09-2026
Monday, September 21, 2026
as sundown nears
no more vows
no more attempts to manipulate
and control reality
one inmate said
everything happens
for a reason
the attempt to
buttonhook reality
is human folly
let what happens happen
face it, transform it, redeem it --
don’t try to oath or vow it away
ours is to reconstruct reality
to burrow into its depth
to become different people
all vows
attempt to freeze and ossify
we should remain warm and sinewy
majórem caritátem nemo habet,
light
earth continues
to turn
is all
I know
this morning
Matutinum
1. Ætérna Christi múnera,
1. The eternal gifts of Christ the King,
Apostolórum glóriam,
the Apostles' glory, let us sing;
Laudes canéntes débitas,
and all with hearts of gladness raise
Lætis canámus méntibus.
. . .
Atonement
כָּל נִדְרֵי וֶאֱסָרַי וּשְׁבוּעֵי וַחֲרָמֵי וְקוֹנָמֵי וְקִנּוּסֵי וְכִנּוּיֵי, דְּאִנְדַרְנָא וּדְאִשְׁתַּבַּעְנָא, וּדְאַחֲרִימְנָא וּדְאָסַרְנָא עַל נַפְשָׁתָנָא. מִיּוֹם כִּפּוּרִים זֶה עַד יוֹם כִּפּוּרִים הַבָּא עָלֵינוּ לְטוֹבָה. בְּכֻלְּהוֹן אִיחֲרַטְנָא בְהוֹן, כֻּלְּהוֹן יְהוֹן שָׁרָן, שְׁבִיקִין שְׁבִיתִין בְּטֵלִין וּמְבֻטָּלִין, לָא שְׁרִירִין וְלָא קַיָּמִין. נִדְרָנָא לָא נִדְרֵי וֶאֱסָרָנָא לָא אֱסָרֵי וּשְׁבוּעָתָנָא לָא שְׁבוּעוֹת.
The Kol Nidrei in English
All vows, [self-imposed] prohibitions, oaths, consecrations, restrictions, interdictions, or [any other] equivalent expressions of vows, which I may vow, swear, dedicate [for sacred use], or which I may proscribe for myself or for others, from this Yom Kippur until the next Yom Kippur which comes to us for good, [from now] we regret them all; all shall be hereby absolved, remitted, cancelled, declared null and void, not in force or in effect. Let our vows not be considered vows; let our [self-imposed] prohibitions not be considered prohibitions; and let our oaths not be considered oaths.
And may the entire congregation of the children of Israel, as well as the proselyte who dwells among them, be forgiven, for all the people acted unwittingly.
Pardon, I beseech You, the wrongdoing of this people, in keeping with the greatness of Your kindness and as You have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. And there it is stated:
And the Lord said: I have pardoned in accordance with your words.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has granted us life, sustained us and enabled us to reach this occasion. [Cong.] Amen.
. . .
Laudes -- Antiphona
Majórem caritátem nemo habet,
No one has a greater love than this:
ut ánimam suam ponat quis pro amícis suis.
that he lay down his life for his friends.
all I know is
light
earth continues
to turn
Bruch: Kol Nidrei ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙
Mischa Maisky ∙ Paavo Järvi
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)