end of set

 Martin made it 

out of the house

where the fire raged

falling to ground

a pebble kick from 

front door

inside, two old guitars

he'd played for years

burned

The firemen found him

in the dirt where no song

could be heard

worth a read

“It’s Not Trump. It’s America”

Like a lot of other Americans, I’ve oscillated in these dark times between two emotional poles. At points, I tell myself that Donald Trump is a uniquely malevolent figure who has seized levers of power that no previous president had ever dared to grasp. The story doesn’t stop state violence in the streets or illegal military operations abroad. Yet it has its comforts. Once Trump passes from the scene — as the laws of nature, if not politics, require — some kind of restoration of the American democratic and constitutional project can take place.

On darker days, I find myself turning to a more thoroughgoing narrative: that Trump is the fulfillment of what America has always been — a self-satisfied nation, granted license by its myths about providence and exceptionalism to do whatever it wants. Trump didn’t come from nowhere, after all. His two victories were forged by choices made by Americans and the leaders they elected. If he had not existed, history would have invented someone like him. This explanation offers its own consolation. At least it is something a rational mind can grasp.

— excerpt, 26March2026, NYTimes, Opinion, by Lydia POLGREEN

 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/opinion/trump-america-iran-war.html

who dares bring truth into existence

 Thanks

For saying

Yes, Mary 

fesso

Sometimes I'll look at one of the articles sent by Academia.edu. They are all worth the time and effort. Today a question of God and the question whether 'care' is a felt attribute. 

Why do so many suffer? And why do so many not suffer? Is there some theological algorithm? Is there a karmic scale pointing to degrees of weight tilting one way or the other? Is it all just the luck of the draw? Good genes? Wealthy grandparents? A cosmic lottery spun and dropped into a sequence of numbers?

I have no idea. But I sent a small donation to St Judes last week. Kids with cancer is a tough one. Not all cases are sweet, happy, and successful. How is that? Why is that? 

Evaluating Schellenberg’s Presuppositions in the Problem of Divine Hiddenness from an 

Islamic Perspective 

--by Hamidreza Ayatollahy 

Abstract:  

 

At the end of the twentieth century, Schellenberg attempted to construct an argument for the non- existence of God. He emphasizes the necessity of the manifestation of divine love among people and argues that since many human beings find no trace of this love—despite having made great efforts and being willing to accept it sincerely if they were to find evidence—the existence of such non-resistant nonbelievers is itself evidence that such a God does not exist. Many have attempted either to challenge the structure of his argument or to provide justifications for why God has concealed Himself. However, in this paper, in order to evaluate Schellenberg’s claim, the presuppositions underlying his argument are identified, and an effort is made to examine these presuppositions within the framework of Islamic thought. Four presuppositions are discussed, and it is then shown that none of these four religious presuppositions has a place in Islamic thought such that Schellenberg could base his argument upon them. Consequently, these presuppositions cannot serve as premises for Schellenberg’s arguments, and thus the structure of his argument collapses when viewed from an Islamic perspective. 

Introduction:  

 

Atheistic currents have adopted a new approach since the beginning of the twentieth century. Until the early twentieth century, these currents either tried to provide reasons to show the inefficacy of various arguments that had been offered for the existence of God, or they questioned the reality of believers’ faith in God through psychological or sociological explanations (Ayatollahy, 2025). However, all these efforts resulted merely in agnosticism and skepticism regarding the existence of God. From the early twentieth century onward, instead of rejecting the arguments for God’s existence, these movements attempted to put forward arguments aimed at proving that God cannot exist or that no meaningful concept of God can be obtained at all. Their most important effort was made through the problem of evil (Mackie, 1955.)

They sought to show that the existence of evil in the world demonstrates an intrinsic contradiction in the concept of God as understood in theistic worldviews. Some also tried to draw such a conclusion from the apparent conflict between divine foreknowledge and human free will. However, philosophers such as Plantinga showed that the existence of evil is not logically incompatible with the attributes of God, and even demonstrated that the existence of evil may be a necessary condition for God’s creation of free human beings (Plantinga, 1974). Subsequently, the logical problem of evil gave way to the evidential problem of gratuitous evils, which was formulated by William Rowe (Rowe, 1979). This objection, too, was subjected to numerous critiques by theists. With the emergence of analytic philosophy of language, another type of objection was raised by opponents of theism, questioning the meaningfulness of religious propositions. This argument was formulated by Antony Flew in his famous parable of the two explorers and the invisible gardener. 

Two explorers, during their journey, encounter a group of trees, and one of them claims that the grove is arranged and cared for by a wise gardener (just as God is explained in the world). The second explorer takes the absence of any observable gardener as evidence of his non-existence. He then shows that there is in practice no viable way to reveal such a gardener. Consequently, neither evidence for the existence of such a gardener nor evidence for his non-existence can be provided, and thus the claim of the gardener’s existence is meaningless. Basil Mitchell, Richard Hare, John Hick, and Crombie, in response, attempted to demonstrate the meaningfulness of belief in God in various ways. This objection has been presented in two forms (Flew et al., 1971). In the parable of the two explorers, Flew questions the existence of God, while in another parable he renders the attributes of the God of theists meaningless. He gives the example of a child suffering from cancer of the larynx, burning with fever, while his earthly father desperately tries all night long to save him. Yet no sign of the heavenly Father, who is said to be a God of love for His servants, is seen, and eventually the child dies (Flew in Hick, 1990, p. 368). Through this parable, he shows that the theistic claim that the heavenly God loves human beings is neither verifiable nor falsifiable, and concludes that this belief is fundamentally meaningless. After Flew, this example has been discussed less frequently (Ayatollahy, 2025). 

The challenge of the alleged meaninglessness of God’s existence and of divine attributes was reformulated in a new structure by Schellenberg at the end of the twentieth century in order to present an argument against the existence of God. He analyzed the Christian doctrine of a loving God whose most important attribute is love for His servants. He argued that such a loving God necessarily seeks to be in relationship with His servants in such a way that they can understand this loving relationship. Yet under circumstances in which some human beings (at least) are in dire need of benefiting from the fruits of this love, they see no tangible sign of God’s love in their lives. He describes this issue as “divine hiddenness” (Schellenberg, 1993). 

(An excerpt. --cf https://www.academia.edu/s/3808a7aa4f#comment_1495553 for whole article)

I played 'hide and seek' as a kid. After a while in a good hiding place I'd want to be found. I didn't want dusk to come and be forgotten. "Divine hiddenness" feels a familiar scenario. I'm not fond of the thought that God doesn't care. (If there is "a God" or "God-as-Reality.")

So many arguments seem an artifice of apologetics. The driver in a smashed automobile in the seconds following a sudden crash calls out to God to protect her children in the back seat. Of course she does. The desperate man with gun in hand sitting in living room at edge of inner debate whether now is the time to pull the trigger and erase (he thinks) his life, his pain, his tortured psyche.

It seems both facile and foolish to question whether there is a God who sees us, cares for us, and wishes to assist us in our difficult and critical moments.

These days I'm just as pleased to imagine there is a God who cares as I am to accept the possibility there is no God and, thus, no superseding being in control of existence and sentient life. I pray to a loving living God and, at the same time, I accept the raw fact we are on our own with no protection or home.

In days gone by we would kill the atheist. Or we would kill those who believed in a version of God different from the one "we" believed in. And then, curiously, we would quietly inch toward our self-generation as a version of God more to our ideological aspirations. Which is more dangerous is fodder for Talmudic or Tibetan or Inquisition debate.

Whether God's existence is meaningful or meaningless is, I suppose, something to think about.

I don't know.

Last night we talked about the word "stupid."

Certainly applies to me.

I look at myself in the world.

And the word "fool" comes to mind..

sandlot idle

I won't be throwing out the first pitch

baseball season opens tonight

instead I’ll eat a hotdog, loaded,

sip a diet tonic water, pretending 

i'm playing third base, that I really

can make the throw to first, able

to lift pitch out of infield, trudge

to first without falling in the dirt

my baseball career is spotty, I know

I must have gotten a few hits, made

a few throws, ran from first to third 

at least once, caught a few grounders

so long ago, so long ago, nobody

thinks of me and says ‘he could play!’

but my son gave me an Ohtani jersey

it hangs on sun porch. I’ll wear it tonight

outer world exists for the purposes of the soul

 You would think, with the myriad of product advertisements flashing across every media, devise, magazine, email, radio, and newspaper, that shopping and purchasing is the purpose of human life on this planet.

Is Pantanjali saying anything different?

18. Things seen have as their property manifestation, action, inertia. They form the basis of the elements and the sense-powers. They make for experience and for liberation.

Here is a whole philosophy of life. Things seen, the total of the phenomena, possess as their property, manifestation, action, inertia: the qualities of force and matter in combination. These, in their grosser form, make the material world; in their finer, more subjective form, they make the psychical world, the world of sense-impressions and mind-images. And through this totality of the phenomenal, the soul gains experience, and is prepared for liberation. In other words, the whole outer world exists for the purposes of the soul, and finds in this its true reason for being.

(-- from,THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI,“The Book of the Spiritual Man” An Interpretation By Charles Johnston, Bengal Civil Service, Retired;, Indian Civil Service, Sanskrit Prizeman;, Dublin University, Sanskrit Prizeman, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2526/2526-h/2526-h.htm#:~:text=In%20other%20words%2C%20the%20whole,mark%2C%20that%20without%20distinctive%20mark.  

Investing and trading.

Betting and gambling.

Get me more. 

Find me loopholes.

19. The grades or layers of the Three Potencies are the defined, the undefined, that with distinctive mark, that without distinctive mark.

Or, as we might say, there are two strata of the physical, and two strata of the psychical realms. In each, there is the side of form, and the side of force. The form side of the physical is here called the defined. The force side of the physical is the undefined, that which has no boundaries. So in the psychical; there is the form side; that with distinctive marks, such as the characteristic features of mind-images; and there is the force side, without distinctive marks, such as the forces of desire or fear, which may flow now to this mind-image, now to that.

20. The Seer is pure vision. Though pure, he looks out through the vesture of the mind.

The Seer, as always, is the spiritual man whose deepest consciousness is pure vision, the pure life of the eternal. But the spiritual man, as yet unseeing in his proper person, looks out on the world through the eyes of the psychical man, by whom he is enfolded and enmeshed. The task is, to set this prisoner free, to clear the dust of ages from this buried temple.

(ibid, bk 2: 18, 19, 20, Pantanjali) 

I remember studying Pantanjali at The New School For Social Research in Manhattan in the early 1970s. I included him in my syllabus on Comparative Religions in university courses. I’m not sure I had (have) the foggiest idea about that which he writes. That might be age -- once too young, now too old.

Let’s try this: we look out through a field of distracting obstacles attempting to see through into an open empty field called the clarity of things as they are. 

That which is the so-called origin of the looking, that out of which the longing to see, actually, what is there, has, of and in itself, a “no-place source.” 

This “no-place source” is also (extensively) a no-place destination.

The seer (if you will) is traveling from no-place to no-place. Between origin and destination is the field of buying and selling crowding our every thought, desire, and action. It is a debris field likely to destabilize and reroute any traveler venturing into the circling band surrounding all human action in the so-called world.

So many of us get lost in this travel (travail?) 

What’s not to like luxuriating in gadgets and groceries, pharmacy aides and insurance guarantees offered us for our protection, pleasure, and privilege?

Of course, this is probably not what Pantanjali is talking about. 

But as I look back, I realize how off-course I went trying and failing to navigate that space between no-space and no-space.

No-space and no-place intruded upon by space and place obscuring no-space and no-place.

But as my (so-called) life rides the subway train from Coney Island Brooklyn to 57th street Manhattan I am flummoxed as to the complexity of life and its goings-on station to station, ingress to egress, strap-hangers and rush-hour crowds, bumping and rattling my knapsack on the rocking transit cars passing through the boroughs tunnels, and announced stops.

Ah the "pure vision, the pure life of the eternal” -- even unto now, warming sun melting snow from porch roof, white snow ground, pure blue sky, clear enough mind, in chair, by window, riding the corpus-capsule through the day, one day at a time, decades and decades trailing rumination of someone’s life, my life, gone by, going by, covered by all -- all I have fallen to, all that has fallen on me.

"The task is, to set this prisoner free, to clear the dust of ages from this buried temple.”  (op cit)

antitheticals unrecognizable together*

                    *Gegensätze, gemeinsam unerkennbar

 Kindness

And

Cruelty

Truth

And 

Trump

noch nicht

 Are you a christian?

       Not yet

Have you seen god?

       Not yet

What do you believe in?

       Not yet

out of wholeness, intersection

front window altar

Sunday Evening Practice

at dusk spring snowfall

photo by s.huising

monday morning

 Ah, snow

Spring snow

Stay home snow

a familiar haunting passing lyric pleading to be experienced

“See me. Feel me. Touch me. Heal me.” (from “Tommy”, by The Who)

Maybe what we call “the divine” or "the ineffable” is a familiar haunting passing lyric pleading to be experienced.

Furthermore, the scriptural model better represents “God’s all-embracing immanence in all of creation”—and, he argues, Centering Prayer happens to fit squarely within the scriptural model. More advanced Catholics, Frey suggests, gradually transcend and integrate the Western model; thus, critics of Centering Prayer must simply be stuck in the Western model.25 

 

If nothing else, this is advanced rhetoric. But, depending on exactly how one fleshes out the notion of the-self-in-God and God-in-the-self, Frey may also be describing the fuzzy syncretic edge where Catholicism meets Buddhism. Compare, for example, the scriptural model of the-self-in-God and God-in-the-self with this Soto Zen priest’s description of “the Zen version of God”: 

 

[E]ven though Zen does not conceive of the Ineffable as being personified, we still believe there is something incredibly intimate and personal about it. Dogen writes, “We ourselves are tools which [the Ineffable] possesses within this Universe in ten directions.” We are not part of the Ineffable in spite of being our personal self, or in addition to being our personal self. There is no Ineffable apart from the myriad manifestations of the universe, including our personal self. Just as the Ineffable shines through a beautiful piece of music, it shines through us.26

        How do we Zen Buddhists direct ourselves toward this “Zen version of God”? By the practice of shikantaza, or “just sitting”—a form of meditation that is strikingly similar to Centering Prayer. 

 (--in "On Centering Prayer and Shikantaza", by Jill R. Gaulding, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, 2020)

The word “anoësis” comes to mind. 

• anoësis

Etymology

From a- (“lacking”) +‎ noesis (“cognition”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ănōēʹsĭs, IPA^(key): /ænəʊˈiːsɪs/

Noun

anoesis (uncountable)

1. (psychology) The reception of impressions or sensations (by the brain) without any intellectual understanding.      

 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anoesis#English

Something there is that cannot be successively thought. Not rationalized, not conceptualized, not cognitive, not understood.

Experienced?

Maybe.

Felt?

Maybe.

Become our practice?

(Hmmm...!) 

I’ll sit with that.

we have in him nothing honorable

 Sometimes

An ignorant man

Is only

An ignorant man

starting off on the wrong foot

 Hey, you

    Me?

Yeah you

     What?

Come here

     Why?

…   …   …

[If this had been a real interlocution you would have been directed to mind your own business. We appreciate your compliance with this advisory.]

then, silence

 Car passes

Truck passes

Bird sings

This is 

What Saturday

Morning sounds like

If you

Want to know god

Know this

voici où j'en suis, pour l'instant

 Here 

(is where)

 I am, 

for now

Here

(My love)

Is

Here

There

(Is no)

There

There

How

(Difficult is it)

To be

Here

One

(Minute ago)

It was

4:44

Now

(It is)

Not, not

Anymore

I admit 

(my love) 

it is

Good

 To 

(See you)

As you are

Here

this clear no-awaring

 Something about anesthesia

room full of medical folks

being told "have a good nap"

wondering if you will go under

then . . .

opening eyes in different room

having been gone, gone, gone

now back from no-where

doctor from India patting shoulder

saying I'm ok, saying, if I want,

I could get heart surgery I could

get pancreatic surgery, or, if I didn't,

live well until time says, "hey, you

want to go back to that deep no-where?"

and I wonder what it will be like

this new un-timing, this clear no-awaring

cœur et étreinte

We hold these

Family members and

Ancestors fondly in heart

Everyone, everyone

Is family and ancestor —

It is large heart, wide embrace

joseph

 I've liked Joseph 

since I was a kid.

I also like the phrase 

"On earth, (as it is), in heaven"

in the prayer his kid spoke.

There's something Buddhist 

in the narratives about Joseph --

caring, protective, mostly silent. 

( I suppose he was a pre-christian 

Christian as well).

He disappeared silently

he lived mostly silently

He seems under-celebrated,

matter of fact, as it should be,

 as it is in heaven, as it is on earth

if that is so, this is no

 This

Is my last

Will and

Testament.

Really?

What is

This?

Do you think you

Want to know?

“Yes” [then] “No “

无心 (pinyin: wúxīn)

 If I had anything to say

I might try to say it

As it is

Nothing comes to mind

sip, beathaigh an madra, siúl

tea with no milk 

lemon poppy muffin

French monks chant

their obscure mystery

Ensō stretches on Tibetan rug

there is no reason to live

just sip tea, finish muffin

watch temperature on sunporch

rise, with gratitude to capable

cranky Irishman’s labor now lost

so much goes bye whether

you are looking or not

if only for comparison

I heard Leo XIV use phrase "Step toward Christ."

And I wondered -- is this stepping arising toward what is

already there, or, stepping closer to what is not yet here?

Wisława Szymborska's poem

We’re extremely fortunate 

 

We’re extremely fortunate

not to know precisely

the kind of world we live in.

One would have

to live a long, long time,

unquestionably longer

than the world itself.

Get to know other worlds,

if only for comparison.

Rise above the flesh,

which only really knows

how to obstruct

and make trouble.

For the sake of research,

the big picture

and definitive conclusions,

one would have to transcend time,

in which everything scurries and whirls.

From that perspective,

one might as well bid farewell

to incidents and details.

The counting of weekdays

would inevitably seem to be

a senseless activity;

dropping letters in the mailbox

a whim of foolish youth;

the sign “No Walking on the Grass”

a symptom of lunacy.

  

 --Poem by Wisława Szymborska

 --Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh in (The End and the Beginning, 1993)

Perhaps it is fortunate not to know why what is happening is, in fact, happening. Perhaps it would scare me. Or, lead me to some depressive action incommensurate with my wellbeing.

In a sane time the rules of clear communication and reasonable expectation would provide a modicum of sanity and a sensible following of events.

Szymborska sounds a little Buddhist with her lines:

Rise above the flesh,

which only really knows

how to obstruct

and make trouble.

 And the nod, perhaps, to form and emptiness:

From that perspective,

one might as well bid farewell

to incidents and details.

I suspect not everything has to be reflected in Buddhism just because I'm a Buddhist. Nor should everything be reflected in Christianity because I'm a cradle Catholic, (catholique né d'une famille catholique).

Nor need every thought-provoking phrase be washed through my interest in Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Native American, Pagan, Agnosticism, and Atheism, much less the foreign languages that call to my attention. But that seems to be a choice I make.

 I am interested to:

Get to know other worlds,

if only for comparison.

(Thank you, Wisława -- poetry is the other great spiritual/religious touchstone while here.)

Papa Leo seems like the kind of guy, thoughtful and full of imagination, Wisława and I would like to take tea with. We could look to her empty chair at cafe table, her gentle smile and intriguing whereabouts part of her poetic soucier. 

We could "step toward" what is longing to be out there ahead of us, respectfully beckoning with quiet compassion our words, our bodies, and the extremely fortunate choices we might happily make to narrow the gap between there and here.

jhāna

 Waking up

Realizing

It is still

Only Tuesday 

buíochas le sinsir

 Happy

To be

Irish

Thanks Ma,

Da, all

Ancestors

la maladie mentale le paralyse

 Forget the pretend 

Adversarial 

Red vs blue

I’m afraid

Truth is

The man is insane

I’ll say it

You don have to

Keep up the pretense

Soon, he will

Be removed

His terrible derangement

let’s listen to the story, carefully

all we 

have is 

hearsay

so many 

stories

to sift

christianity

rehearses

raw narrative

no sé nada.

 ha!

finally

the truth

nothing to hear

 bell

everything sits

shikantaza

slaper wakker

From The Atlantic, Feb 2026, The Commons:

This summer, while visiting

Washington, D.C., with my

son, we went inside the Jefferson

Memorial and read the inscrip-

tions on the walls out loud. One

quote struck me deeply: “I am

not an advocate for frequent

changes in laws and constitu-

tions, but laws and institutions

must go hand in hand with the

progress of the human mind.

As that becomes more devel-

oped, more enlightened, as

new discoveries are made, new

truths discovered and manners

and opinions change, with the

change of circumstances, institu-

tions must advance also to keep

pace with the times. We might

as well require a man to wear

still the coat which fi tted him

when a boy as civilized society to

remain ever under the regimen

of their barbarous ancestors.”

This excerpt from a letter by

Thomas Jefferson resonated with

me immediately. Jefferson— the

original originalist— would have

been appalled at some of our

recent Supreme Court decisions. 

 

Brad Erickson

Iowa City, Iowa

 

Jill Lepore replies:

In high school I had a won-

derfully pudgy and eccentric

tenth-grade history teacher. He

taught in a second-story room

with a wide plate-glass window

that looked out at a mountain

in the distance, whose silhouette

resembled a sleeping giant. In the

middle of an especially boring

lesson—the accidental presidency

of John Tyler, say—he’d lumber

across the room and haul himself

up onto the radiator beneath

the window and lie down on it,

exactly lining up his belly with

the mountain’s summit, his head

and feet with its smaller peaks:

he, the giant. He’d sigh, settling

in, and then he’d appear to nod

off . We’d wait, a little nervously.

And then suddenly and in a

whirl of motion you could not

imagine as within the capacity

of so large and old and ungainly

a man, he’d roll off the radiator,

leap to his feet, and cry, “The

giant wakes!” And it would be

very thrilling, and we’d all snap

to attention, and he’d move on

and—somehow, somehow—he’d

make the fall of the Whig Party

gripping. In short, I heartily

agree with these readers, and I

hereby offer my assurance that

the whole point of my sleeping-

giant analogy with reference to

Article V of the Constitution,

aside from being a nod to a

beloved teacher, is that somehow,

somehow, and I suspect one day 

soon, “the giant will wake” ! 

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/magazine/pdfs/202602.pdf 

These recent months have been like being slapped in the face by some arrogant bully. For the immediate present it feels disorienting and shocking. But after taking some breaths, and maybe a refreshing nap, it becomes time for the sleeper to awake.