extra-diction

Face to face.

12  For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

1 Corinthians 13:12 King James Version (KJV) 

I am known. 

no I but we

In prison today, we talk about the Shema, about the binary disease of judge/victim, about selfishness/altruism, about empire and secluding/excluding, and about Andy Weir's story The Egg

In final circle the suggestion that one summary of the conversation could be:

"No I, but we."

At evening conversation, the realization that mystics merely see -- no subject, no object.

Seeing.

With nothing to be seen. 

by which we see

Is it possible that night approaches? Not just the lee side of the 24 hour clock, but the more expansive night, when good and light are overshadowed by the not-good and pervasive dark?

What work is impossible to do in the 'night'? Jesus stated that
night is coming, when no one can work. (John 9:4, ESV) 

The immediate context is that Jesus is healing a blind person. The first clause of the sentence is:

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day

The person who sent Jesus was God the Father. In John 6:29 it records Jesus saying:

“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (ESV)

Which suggests that believing in God is ruled out, once the 'night' comes. However, in Luke 18:8 Jesus asks if the he will find faith on the earth when he comes. Which at least leaves the possibility of belief even when it is 'night'. 

What type of work is impossible in the 'night'? Does such impossibility preclude God's own action, such as in the impossible case of reconciling a sinner (Mark 10:27).

(--from Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange)

"Sin" is not the proprietary preoccupation and possession of religions and their spokesmen. "Sin" is the dissembling and deterioration of decency and decorum with the overt or mindless intent of harm and ill upon another or others. 

Once we emphasized offense against God.

Then we began to realize who God is, where God resides, and what is part of God.

Let's concede there is darkness within each of us.

Then let's turn attention to the light which shines through darkness.

By which we see. 

calvary, white house version

forgive us
Father

we know

what he
is

doing

indications

snow tracks, deer on deck

chewing yew tree --

as missing cat, banging door

holds out hope

flame cools making ash

Ash does not touch forehead

Icicles hang from roof

Time for repetition, hence

No ash but in wood stove

No flame sleeps dreams

Remembrance 

vivre dans la solitude ensemble

The Benedictine Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux, for those so inclined, offers online office Gregorian chants that can be retrieved at leisure. In Latin, recorded live, tower bells, with footsteps entering and leaving, coughs and nose-blowing, bumps against wooden stalls, and a practice of markedly reverently slowing the ending Gloria Patri of each psalm.

As though there.

Throughout day and night.

Écoutez nos offices en direct  

« Il n’y a qu'un problème, un seul de par le monde : rendre aux hommes une signification spirituelle. Faire pleuvoir sur eux quelque chose qui ressemble à un chant grégorien. »  -- Saint-Exupéry.                     

For a hermitage 

at foot of Maine mountain,

a wonderful sound --

vivre dans la solitude ensemble 

streets

Finish David Frum's Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic, (2018). It's where democracy has gone. It has turned down a shadowy alley. 

And Pete Hamill's Downtown: My Manhattan (2004). A poetic descriptive of places I've walked and watched. Hamill charms with his prose and memory. 

Reading transports.

the simplicity of the method.

If there is anything to say,

say it --

otherwise,

be silent:

When mortals are alive, they worry about death. 

When they're full, they worry about hunger. 

Theirs is the Great Uncertainty. 

But sages don't consider the past. 

And they don't worry about the future. 

Nor do they cling to the present. 

And from moment to moment they follow the Way.

--Bodhidharma

There are thousands upon thousands of students 

who have practised meditation and obtained its fruits. 

Do not doubt its possibilities because of the simplicity of the method. 

If you can not find the truth right where you are, 

where else do you expect to find it? 

--Dogen

If there is anything

at all --

what

a miracle!

we long to become, human-kind.

As a (m.o.n.o.) = (monastic of no other) I also acknowledge my Franciscan roots.

Perhaps I could add a  (f.o.n.a.)  = (Franciscan of no affiliation) to the alphabet soup following my nominal anonymous hiding (n.a.h).

Or, maybe, after the Italian academic distinction I humbly wear, (D. NeN) (dottore nulla e niente) = doctor of nothing and nil),

I might add (MU) = mostly unhere. Further descriptives of MU are found in wikipedia::

Some English translation equivalents of wú or mu 無 are:

• "no", "not", "nothing", or "without"^[2]

• nothing, not, nothingness, un-, is not, has not, not any^[3]

• [1] Nonexistence; nonbeing; not having; a lack of, without. [2] A negative. [3] Caused to be nonexistent. [4] Impossible; lacking reason or cause. [5] Pure human awareness, prior to experience or knowledge. This meaning is used especially by the Chan school. [6] The 'original nonbeing' from which being is produced in the Daode jing.^[4]

 Words are both fascinating and frivolous. Acronyms are growing like metaphors in a field of corroding jargon, withering facts, and incommunicable utterance. We are left with mere letters, like vanity license plates on passing cars, a puzzling exercise decrypting semaphore and smoke signal during a time of diminishing communication and nonsense babbling.

Word that drops from language like petals from flower -- kotoba 言葉 -- word itself.

Or, extrapolated into our Western iconography, Itself emerging through breath as word into matter becoming what we long to become, human-kind.

glimpse

Morning arrives

Waking soon light through darkness --

After skim snow covers night

contemplative moves

Can we say that nothing is fixed or final? That what is required is we flow through what is right there surrounding us?

The problem remains within the process. It never goes away.

We move through the problem in a process of resolution that recognizes the again and again encounter necessary going forward with the presenting problem and the resolving process.

Contemplation asks for courageous looking at the reality that is obvious and the reality that hides within and around us.

not to me but for me

Worthwhile to hear again the final remarks of Elijah Cummings at end of televised hearing featuring  Michael Cohen in front of the Congressional Oversight Committee on Wednesday 27Feb19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72gy-LZ4UN0

I think we'll be listening to Rep. Cummings replayed for many years as we look back over the disastrous time and person at center as focus of this investigation.

parsing

there
is

no-
w-
here

truth
can go

where can truth go

It is not easy
remembering
oneself a fool

Just like cramming
for a test you’ve
failed in school

We’re never that far
from where we’ve been
and who we were while there

Such facts are facts
never to change —
always there at 4AM

I confess these things
to silent ears, aware —
that wrong is wrong

Breathing in, I will not lie
I’ve no defense, no excuse —
I sip from cold green juice

It’s minus 5° with bitter wind
this top of maine deep snow —
There’s nowhere truth can go

dyadic and introverted

Just before sleep:

What Florensky calls ‘‘a substantial relationship,’’ we call the prosopon. To understand the prosopon as only the person (and, thus, the other human being) is a misunderstanding. Prosopon defines a tropos (a way, a ‘‘how’’) as well as a topos (a place, a ‘‘who’’). Person indeed becomes prosopon’s primary meaning, insofar as a person fulfills the description that prosopon signifies (‘‘towards-the-face-of-the-Other’’). A prosopon, therefore, is to be understood as a dyad of topos and tropos—these two meanings stand in a dialectical relationship with one another as ‘‘obverse’’ and ‘‘reverse.’’ ‘‘All being is, by its very nature as being, dyadic, with an ‘introverted,’ or in-itself dimension, as substance, and an ‘extroverted,’ or toward-others dimension, as relational though action.’’6

 (—from, After God, Richard Kearney and the Religious Turn in Continental Philosophy, Edited by JOHN PANTELEIMON MANOUSSAKIS, p.26)

Enough to induce sleep

from ‘none’ afternoon prayer

Psalm 127 (128) Peaceful life in the Lord

O blessed are those who fear the Lord.

Blessed are all who fear the Lord

  and walk in his ways.

The food you have worked for, you will eat:

  God’s blessing will bring you good things.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine

  on the side of your house.

Your children will be like olive shoots,

  seated round your table.

See, this is how the man is blessed

  who fears the Lord.

May the Lord bless you from Zion:

  may you see the wealth of Jerusalem

  all the days of your life.

May you see your children’s children.

  Peace be on Israel.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son

  and to the Holy Spirit,

as it was in the beginning,

  is now, and ever shall be,

  world without end.

Amen.

O blessed are those who fear the Lord.

CONCLUSION

Short Reading
Proverbs 22:22-23 ©

Because a man is poor, do not therefore cheat him, nor, at the city gate, oppress anybody in affliction; for the Lord takes up their cause, and extorts the life of their extortioners.

---

℣. The Lord will save the needy, who are helpless.

℟. He will save the lives of the poor.

---

Let us pray.

Almighty God,

  we recall how you sent your angel to the centurion Cornelius

  to show him the way of salvation.

Open our hearts to work more zealously for the salvation of the world,

  so that your Church may bring us and all men into your presence.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

---

Let us praise the Lord.

– Thanks be to God.

...   ...   ...

(—from Universalis)

the unknown mystery of it

Black suspenders on door handle reflected in wall mirror
white dog adjusting himself on tan rug

the county, across from Canada, winds 40-50 mph wind chill 
minus 15 to minus 20, coffee and donuts after yoghurt; 

remembering Saturday

night, note about hospice visit:  "Spent whole time with
little tyke -- walking hall, feeding bottle, playing with 

monkey doll, holding in rocking chair, watching 
his brief nap, playing lullabies on phone. Contemplating

the unknown mystery of it. 
Kissing him as I left him in nurse's arms." 

monday night

driving through blizzard
conditions arriving
at Fort Kent
flake by
flake

an athlete

Watching Chris Paul of Houston Rockets play against Golden State Warriors is a treat. His team wins. The astounding skill!