the writing on the wall

It’s been a ruse. 

The images, the glossy explanations.

The burying of the lede in a spreadsheet of numbers, deposit slips, panygeric, deflective briefings, the artificial lighting and coloring filters.

Still, garbage stinks, rot proceeds apace, rust never sleeps, and the souls of the morally crippled putrefy in place.

Kodachrome

https://youtu.be/Np_66D-KrK8?si=-EGwYEIPA3yStEwU 

 

Lyrics 

When I think back

On all the crap I learned in high school

It’s a wonder

I can think at all

And though my lack of education

Hasn’t hurt me none

I can read the writing on the wall

 

Kodachrome

They give us those nice bright colors

They give us the greens of summers

Makes you think all the world’s

A sunny day, oh yeah

I got a Nikon camera

I love to take a photograph

So mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away

 

If you took all the girls I knew

When I was single

And brought them all together

For one night

I know they’d never match

My sweet imagination

Everything looks worse

In black and white

 

Kodachrome

They give us those nice bright colors

They give us the greens of summers

Makes you think all the world’s

A sunny day, oh yeah

I got a Nikon camera

I love to take a photograph

So mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away

© 1973 Words and Music by Paul Simon 

cf. https://americansongwriter.com/the-meaning-behind-paul-simons-picture-perfect-kodachrome/

Simon, in concert, would often change the word(s) " Everything looks worse / In black and white” to "Everything looks better / In black and white”.

Time does that. The imagination gives way to keen-eyed perspectivity.

Proportion and practical wisdom substitutes in for desire and wishful thinking.

The agreements we articulate take precedence over the fantasies we conjure.

 I lament the failings of my country. 

I sorrow the failings I’ve perpetrated in my life.

I have sinned. I submit, I confess, 

I welcome penance.

I think everything does look better in black and white. 

getting rid of

 At the dump

efficient townsfolk

sort recycling

toss yellow bags

in garbage hauler

their best imitation

of refuse, criminals

and felon fraud

in nation’s capital

knowledge-delving

I seem not to be teaching college classes for the university anymore. Like so many things in my life, I stopped. No good reason why. Just, stopped.

Not so, learning. Didn’t stop that. Still want to know, even if the deepest knowing is not-knowing, I still investigate, read, converse, write, mull and muse.

Glad, however, I don’t have to encounter AI in the education setting.  

When teachers rage against AI-enabled cheating, they're identifying a symptom while missing the disease. The fundamental problem isn't that students can now use artificial intelligence to generate essays or solve equations; it's that our educational system has been redesigned to prioritize sorting and ranking over authentic learning, making cheating more alluring even without AI. Students aren't cheating because AI made it easier—they're cheating because, for generations, we've taught them that the grade matters more than the knowledge.

(--from The Hidden Curriculum Exposed, by TERRY UNDERWOOD MAY 12, 2025,  substack )

Many students chased the grade; some were chaste in their learning, non-promiscuous in their knowledge-delving.

delve(v.)

Middle English delven, from Old English delfan "to dig, turn up with a spade or other tool, excavate" (class III strong verb; past tense dealf, past participle dolfen), common West Germanic (cognates: Old Saxon delban, Dutch delven, Middle High German telben "to dig"). This is perhaps from a PIE root *dhelbh- (source also of Lithuanian delba "crowbar," Russian dolbit', Czech dlabati, Polish dłubać "to chisel;" Russian dolotó, Czech dlato, Polish dłuto "chisel").

Weak inflections emerged 14c.-16c. Figurative sense of "carry on laborious or continued research" is from mid-15c. Related: Delved; delving; delver. https://www.etymonline.com/word/delve

Ya dig? 

our koan, our motto

Embodying the dwelling-place of the

Alone,

Stepping aside to make room for 

Another

 

Meetingbrook Hermitage

  בס”ד   (With the help of heaven)  bəsiyyaʿtāʾ dišmayyāʾ

  إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ    (God willing) 'iin sha' ٱllah

never taught how not to

 In prison this morning, poems by Jim Harrison.

Like this one:

Where Is Jim Harrison?

 

He fell off the cliff of a seven-inch zafu.

He couldn’t get up because of his surgery.

He believes in the Resurrection mostly

because he was never taught how not to.  

 

(--from the book, Dead Man's Float by Jim Harrison)

How do we learn not to see things whole?

How do we learn to cultivate separation and division? 

I fall off zafu also.

I, too, believe in the Resurrection -- not because I was never taught not to -- but because Muslims pray during Eid al-Adha in next room, then thirty-plus guys attend a Spanish language class, and I am able to walk out of prison, again, without anyone stopping me and saying, “Where do you think you’re going?”

Once I taught college courses in prison. I walked in and out today with the current director of the college program. For the past thirty-odd years meetingbrook has participated in weekly Friday conversations there and in old prison.

Now I wave to Black Jewish friend passing by in hallway outside our room and we know how to recite the Shema -- ("Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”) -- and, without getting to speak to one another, nod, sensing what both convey.

hmmm, a sounding code in executive branch

 Code white! Code white!

(Look it up, hospital code.)

Help needed in mental health 

Use care — two unstable patients

a single childless hippy

 “How did we get to the point where loving your enemy is weak and loving your neighbor is woke?”

 --James Talarico, Texas State Representative, former middle school teacher, proud progressive, and eighth generation Texan.

between heavenly concerns and earthly concerns

David French quotes Wendell Berry: 

To understand what I mean, let’s turn to a much darker time in American history, when Christianity and slavery existed side-by-side in the American South. In 1970, Wendell Berry published “The Hidden Wound,” a book-length essay about the profound damage that racism had inflicted on us all.

Reflecting on the Christianity of the slave-owning South, Berry wrote this passage, which is worth quoting at some length: 

 

First, consider the moral predicament of the master who sat in church with his slaves, thus attesting his belief in the immortality of the souls of people whose bodies he owned and used. He thus placed his body, if not his mind, at the very crux of the deepest contradiction of his life. How could he presume to own the body of a man whose soul he considered as worthy of salvation as his own? To keep this question from articulating itself in his thoughts and demanding an answer, he had to perfect an empty space in his mind, a silence, between heavenly concerns and earthly concerns, between body and spirit. If there had ever opened a conscious connection between the two claims, if the two sides of his mind had ever touched, it would have been like building a fire in a house full of gunpowder.  

 

(--Selfishness Is Not a Virtue, Opinion,  June 5, 2025, 5:05 a.m. ET, by David French, NYTimes) 

 

The bare electrical fuse hovering between our classical duality consciousness and authentic communion is about to bump up against the illusory belief system of convenient separation held by so many, including posturing Christians. The devastating ignition will destroy the minds of many, many, believers who toy with the explosively dangerous self-serving errors of their illusory understanding about God, God’s ways and God’s will for our fragile nascent creation.  

 

 No one misunderstands the Christian charism more than Christians. It is not power and control. It is service and compassion. Christ is the lowly and the empty, a way of being that allows empathy, love, and community to ascend over sinfully false unfeeling domination, cynical cosplay, and divide-and-conquer solipsism. 

 

A deep plunge into silence and solitude helps clarify our poor sight. 

 

Excuse me while I disappear. 

 

God help me as “I” disappears!

in that moment

Q: Do you have something on your mind?

A:  No, nothing.

Yesh and Ayin 

There is no more fundamental binarism than yesh and ayin, something and nothing. Yesh means, simply, everything that there is. Ayin is Nothing. God is both.

To approach the Divine in yesh, we yearn for God’s love. Like the Sufis, we pine for the Friend; like the Hindus, we envision God in manifold mythologies and forms. To approach the Divine in ayin, we learn to allow thought to cease, and simply open ourselves to the great emptiness which is the true nature of every thing.

Here is Rabbi Arthur Green, in one of his earlier writings, on ayin:

In all change and growth, say the masters, the mysterious ayin is present. There is an ungraspable instant in the midst of all transformation when that which is about to be transformed is no longer that which it had been until that moment, but has not yet emerged as its transformed self; that moment belongs to the ayin within God. Since change and transformation are constant, however, in fact all moments are moments of contact with the ayin, a contact that man is usually too blind to acknowledge. The height of contemplative prayer is seen as such a transforming moment, but one that is marked by awareness. The worshiper is no longer himself, for he is fully absorbed, in that moment, in the Nothingness of divinity. In that moment of absorption the worshiper is transformed: as he continues his verbal prayer, it is no longer he who speaks, but rather the Presence who speaks through him. In that prayerful return to the source, the human being has reached his highest state, becoming nought but the passive instrument for the ever self-proclaiming praise of God. Through his lips the divine word is spoken.

(--Arthur Green, in Your Word is Fire)

The great emptiness. The true nature of every thing.

What if that is true, is so?

Would anyone be willing to change their life for something that true?

Or nothing like it?

it was a lovely ceremony

 Hard to find humor 

in the devastation 

taking place 

in Washington DC

it isn’t funny 

nor is it right 

that ideologues 

trash the people

so I sit 

and stare at 

dead red squirrel 

by statue of buddha

I asked it 

what happened 

got no answer 

put it over fence

soon dead

in Washington

 they are turning 

on each other

no need for outside 

rebellion their 

wickedness

 poisons them

everything they 

touch is noxious 

choking and shutting 

down throats

calls go out 

for chaplains

 to minister to 

their fallen hearts

no use, no prayer 

reaches their dwindling 

souls suffocating

in bilious venom taken

the whole hill 

the whole White House 

the whole administration

falls in place to ground

we are shocked, 

we never thought

 there would be an end 

to the madness

no one had to do 

anything, the weight 

of their own ugly 

consumption did them in

we must now sit shiva

attend wakes, do 49 day

bardo watch, ready biers

for burning, dig graves

set tables for after-burial 

back at house stand around

nodding, no, they weren’t 

all bad, yes, they’ll be missed

looking at watches, shuffling shoes

eyeing door, saying goodbyes

knocked down but getting back up

ready to start all over again

the elsewhere

 “He wasn’t of this world. He wanted the elsewhere.” (--Zanelle Ombassa to Anthony Fennell about John Conway in Colum McCann’s novel “Twist” 2025, Epilogue)

There, well cited, well enjoyed.

The ongoing theater, who we are, who we were.

Mizraim (Hebrew: מִצְרַיִם / מִצְרָיִם, Modern Mīṣrayīm [mitsˈʁajim] Tiberian Mīṣrāyīm / Mīṣráyīm [misˤˈrɔjim] \ [misˤˈrajim]; cf. Arabic: مصر, romanized: Miṣr) is the Hebrew and Aramaic name for the land of Egypt and its people.^[1]. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizraim#:~:text=Mizraim%20(Hebrew%3A%20%D7%9E%D6%B4%D7%A6%D6%B0%D7%A8%D6%B7%D7%99%D6%B4%D7%9D%20%2F%20%D7%9E%D6%B4%D7%A6%D6%B0%D7%A8%D6%B8%D7%99%D6%B4%D7%9D,of%20Egypt%20and%20its%20people.

"All there is is the trying. Mine has been a lifetime of dropped connections.” (--McCann, in Twist, words of Fennell at end of novel) 

morning, all around

 the minaret 

the muezzin

the adhan

               . . .        

God is the greatest (Allahu akbar); intoned four times.
I testify that there is no God but Allah (Ashhadu anna la ila ill Allah); intoned twice.
I testify that Mohammed is God’s Prophet (Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul Allah); intoned twice.
Come to prayer (Hayya alas salah); intoned twice.
Come to security/salvation (Hayya alal falah); intoned twice.
God is the greatest (Allahu akbar); intoned twice.
There is no God but Allah (La ilah ill Allah); intoned once.

Another line is sometimes added to the first prayer of the day (first light fajr):

Prayer is better than sleep (Assalatu khayrum minan naum); intoned twice.

https://approachguides.com/blog/guide-to-the-islamic-call-to-prayer-adhan/

go and feed my flock

 I do care

Whether I live

Or die

I do care 

whether I 

die or live

Still, I don’t 

know which 

came first

Chicken or egg

Occurrence or

Narrative

Cats growl

And hiss

In hallway

Announcing

Time to be fed

Yes yes

I will feed you

It is a skill

I have cultivated

if wishes were horses

 I wish 

we had 

a president 

of the 

United States.

poignancies of moment

 Listening to novel Twist written and read by Irish author Colum McCann.

It leads me to Richard Drew’s photograph of “The Falling Man” from 9/11. 

Then to Drew's photo of Robert Kennedy comforted by busboy Juan Romeo after the shooting in 1968.

Poignancies of moment.

These moments.

Stop me.

Suspending.

so I will disappear

What Merton didn’t tell him was that only the solitary individual would remain -- inside or outside the monastery -- in living rooms or weed-patches, walks with hiking sticks, sailing into home harbor on inaugural shakedown with five women crew smilingly aboard, their hearts ready for Healing Respite Sails with the greater community acquainted with cancer, addiction, incarceration, or any other concern needing fresh air, sea, sunshine and starboard breeze. 

 along the highway messages from gas stations drive-ins motels

        a car graveyard melancholy in the twilight

some hippies have camped in the Gethsemani monastery, he says

guys with girls too, the abbot allowed it

in the United States monasteries are getting emptier and emptier

young people prefer small communes. I tell him

that Merton used to tell me those orders would disappear 

and only small communes woulds be left

(--in poem. “Trip to New York”, from Ernesto Cardinal, New and Selected Poems, 2009)

The religious life has moved into small modules of solitude. Being alone with others in quiet joy and inconspicuous nurturing attentive gaze and assisting touch is the new unbricked and unmortared imaginative monastery of nescience encouraging whatever kindness, compassion, courage, and community possible in the moment.

Some weed their garden and pick rhubarb. Some watch birds find newly placed feeder. Some look out over pond/lake as Loons bob by. Some open door to balcony over city street with rising smells of fresh baked goods. Some listen in from prison cell while posting quotes onto chat. Some can feel the island shore patting rocks and rowboats into gentle assurance. Some look out window onto church garden where, inside, morning meeting listens with care to what is said within the circle.

Merton, himself, sought a more fluid solitude. At end of life (which came suddenly with curiously unsatisfactory explanation in Bankok at 53) he was speculating and mulling various options to address his actively contemplative eremitic engagement with the world. Something (or someone) killed him just minutes after delivering a talk to monastics on Marxism and Monasticism. That was 57 years ago.

Religious life now belongs to all beings waking up into true and authentic community, true and realized individuality. It is not defined nor constrained by charters or constitutions, a rule or some pontifical or hierarchical permission. It doesn’t matter what religious affiliation you have or might have had -- not Hindu, Jewish Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Muslim, or all the varieties of protesting or splintered expression of any of them. Not pagan, agnostic, atheist, or currently devoid of any identifiable faith or belief.

Religious life now consists of awareness, attention, and approximation. What you are near, aware of, and alert to is the body of life/wholeness to which all belong, and all prayer/sacredness embodies.

Communion is affirmative acknowledgment of our necessary community.

When we experience individuals, organizations, political groups, or ideologies that deny or militate against care and concern for all life, all living beings, all creation -- we know we are experiencing a distorted view and ossified belief in something unhelpful and destructive of the holy wholeness that is our foundational existence.

Is there a name for this new communing?

I don’t think so.

Still, I don’t know.

It might be nameless.

Merely seeds of contemplation.

Where I disappear -- and we ascend.

As we are, at this time, with kindness, love, and compassion.

décence

 Decency, 

Is our

Humanity

Accept

No substitute

For human

Decency —

Nothing 

Other

siediti, mangia, sii uno di noi *

Jesus

Found wholeness

To be

A difficult revelation

For thick-headed

Believers

Instead he

Emptied himself

Of all belief

Choosing 

Love itself

Taking our stupidity

With him

To death

When it was time

Wholeness let

Death be death

And broke through it

Have some meatballs

And spaghetti, 

We’re all family here

Bread and olives

*Sit down, eat

Be one of us *

We eat first

Then we argue

co mm union

 Eucharist is 

exemplification 

and 

actualization of 

no-other

apologia pro vita meum

 Christ says: I lived

And I died, simply to

Show one is one