The Feast feeds the Soul

The company makes the feast.

- Anonymous

The feast is a very ancient concept, almost certainly pre-historic.  Man is a social beast, and the social grouping requires regular glue to bond its members.  Nothing like an unusually large meal to bring family and friends closer together.

But this utilitarian, cultural anthropological view risks missing the most profound aspect of the feast.  It's not the feeding of the bodies that's important; it's the feeding of the soul.  That's where the glue is found, not in the extra calories.

And in pre-industrial societies, those extra calories were important, as most people lived only a harvest or two from starvation.  And the spiritual aspects were still more important.

The picture is from Peter Bruegel the elder, The Wedding Feast.  Whether because someone was getting married or buried, feasts were for a reason.  Every feast had an event to justify the expense. 

It's not the calories, it's the psychological meaning that bonds us.  Many parts of America, born of the puritan tradition, have a problem with the excess.  Groaning tables seem to rebuke us: do you really need all this?

Yes, you really do.  This has been known since the ancient days; the Greeks had a saying: Moderation in all things, including moderation.  A feast short circuits the usual rules of restraint.  It has to.

Because it's not about the extra calories, which many of us perhaps could stand to avoid.  Don't.  The feast is about stepping outside of the normal flow.  A feast isn't about eating, it's about the glue that bonds us together.  See the glue, not the food - unless your gravy is a little too thick and sticky.  But even that is a meditation on the whole point of the thing.  Calorie guilt misses that point, which is spiritual, the feeding of the soul.

Today I'm thankful for many things, not least of which is all of you who stop by.  I hope that your feast today is a feast of the soul as well as of the body.

The liturgy, like the feast, exists not to educate but to seduce people into participating in common activity of the highest order, where one is freed to learn things which cannot be taught.

- Father Aidan Kavanagh

 

In lieu of politics and snark ...

This is your read of the day.  I can't imagine a more perfect message for this Eve of the Feast of the Redeemer. 

Poetry in prose

Of course, that would be Brigid, my Sister-from-another-mister.  She paints not with oils on canvas, but with words.  It's quite an unusual talent to combine both the technical with the deeply psychological, and she's the only one I know who can do it:

The sea is a broad expanse that neither eye nor voice can span, and when it's calm it lulls you into a false sense of comfort as the engines hum and you gaze out the window with clear, unconscious eye. You are not pondering thoughts that come to you poignant and silent, the order of your conscious, the conduct of life if there really is a proper way to die. You are not thinking of the operational capacities of a Vickers Pump or your own limitations. No, you are thinking about the really cold beer you will have at the end of a day, and the laughter of companionship. That is when you hear it, or think you hear it. That sound.

An aircraft engine has as many variances of sound as a human. There are satisfied hums, deep throated snarls, and the incessant whine of someone who is never satisfied no matter what you do for them. Then, there is that sound, in and of itself, the sound of an aircraft engine over the ocean at night, when there is not enough fuel to turn back, only to go forward to a far away shore.

Get you hence and read.

Thirty years after the Berlin Wall

The Usual Suspects® are ignoring the anniversary, but that's to be expected.  After all, pas d'enemies a gauche, n'est-ce pas?  But the cold reality of that monster regime is ever green, with explicitly socialist presidential candidates and large numbers of this Republic's youth thinking that socialism - and even communism - is the bee's knees.

I wrote this ten years ago on the 20th anniversary of the fall, hard on the heels of the Newsweek Cover story "We're all socialists now".  The Useful Idiots® are still idiots today.  They're also useful, to some.

Originally posted November 10, 2019.

The Line

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

- Cicero

I used to be a leftist, proudly "progressive."  No more. I no longer have the stomach to sleep with evil, even evil in the name of the greater good. In all of the retrospectives about the fall of the Berlin Wall this score of years ago, something is missing. Recognition of tyranny is there (mostly). Recognition of how (mostly) the once unfree populations have embraced freedom is there, too (mostly).

What's missing is any description of the depth of evil that was our enemy. Col. Jeff Cooper saw it, and wrote of it in To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak The Truth:

Starting at its western edge, The Line is composed of several strata. First comes the actual linear boundary, surveyed and marked to the centimeter. There is no fence here. Free people can walk right up to it - but they do not step across it. Death looms. Some ten paces beyond the marked boundary, to the eastward, is the outside fence. It is a single barrier some ten feet high, electrified and sown with directional mines set to fire along its inside surface. Beyond the outside fence is a band of dead ground some 100 meters in width, cleared of life and planted at random with pressure-release anti-personnel fragmentation mines. When the snow melts in winter thaws these go off erratically in the sunshine - "Lenin's serenade."

At the inner edge of the dead ground are the dogs - German shepherds chained to an overhead trolley that allows them to run parallel to the inner fence but not back into it (electrocution) nor forward away from it (explosion). ...

At intervals watchtowers loom fifty feet into the air, manned and equipped with enhanced-vision devices, cameras, weapons, and release controls for packs of killer dogs which can be set free at command behind the inner fence. ...

Behind the inner fence lies a belt of Zombie-land five kilometers deep. No one moves here except those whose duties demand it. The fields produce. Roads and roofs are mended. There is an occasional dilapidated vehicle in motion. At first glance it seems a viable countryside. On closer inspection, however, it is death-in-life. There are perhaps two lighted windows where there should be scores. Such villages in which there are lights are inside electric fences. The sickening effect grows as the sun sets. ...

With exquisite cruelty the very existence of The Line is concealed from those it contains. The east border of the 5 km Zombie zone is marked - from the east - simply as the border. Good slaves do not cross it, not because it is fearful to behold, but because they are good slaves. Bad slaves sometimes do cross it, but because they do not know what they face they usually die.

My staff sergeant guide on this occasion told me of a case he witnessed. A young woman, apparently driven to desperation, dared to cross the eastern 5 km line and lead her small child west towards liberty. As she approached the inner fence, the orcs in the watchtower loosed the dogs.

"I stood there with a rifle in my hands, but I was not allowed to shoot." He said, "I hear those screams every day. The mother's were louder than the child's. They were long and very high. They drowned out the growling of the dogs.

"For a while."

The worker's paradise was not above selling its slaves to the west:

Between 1964 and 1989, 33,755 political prisoners were ransomed. A further 2,087 prisoners were released to the West under an amnesty in 1972. Another 215,000 people, including 2,000 children cut off from their parents, were allowed to leave East Germany to rejoin their families. In exchange, West Germany paid over 3.4 billion DM – nearly $2.3 billion at 1990 prices – in goods and hard currency.^[117] Those ransomed were valued on a sliding scale, ranging from around 1,875 DM for a worker to around 11,250 DM for a doctor. The justification, according to East Germany, was that this was compensation for the money invested by the state in the prisoner's training. For a while, payments were made in kind using goods that were in short supply in East Germany, such as oranges, bananas, coffee and medical drugs. The average prisoner was worth around 4,000 DM worth of goods.^[118] The scheme was highly controversial in the West. Freikauf was denounced by many as human trafficking but was defended by others as an "act of pure humanitarianism";^[119] the West German government budgeted money for Freikauf under the euphemistic heading of "support of special aid measures of an all-German character.

I'm thankfully not the only one to notice this strange amnesia, and judge. And to find today's leftist intellectuals to be wanting:

The first person shot dead at the Berlin Wall was 24 year old Gunter Litfin, as he tried to swim across the Spree River on August 24, 1961. A year later, East German guards shot 17 year old Peter Fechter as he tried to scale the wall, and left him to bleed to death in that barren and desolate area of open land east of the Wall.
The last person known to be killed at the Wall was 20 year old bartender Chris Gueffroy, shot ten times for good measure on February 5, 1989. 
...
I find it obscene that [New Zealand] National Radio broadcasters Geoff Robinson and Lloyd Scott this morning recalled the Berlin Wall, its twenty-eight years of bloodshed and the 1200 slaughtered East Germans, with wistful nostalgia. They even appeared to excuse the East German secret police, the Stasi, as people just doing their jobs.

Not just judged to be morally void, but intellectually as well:

In 1922 Ludwig Von Mises explained that socialism would eat itself and the people whom it enslaved – that it couldn’t plan, it couldn’t produce, that it couldn’t calculate -- that it was and always would be both morally depraved and economically unsustainable. Sixty-seven years later he was proven emphatically correct when the illusion that was socialist Eastern Europe collapsed, and the symbol of its totalitarian state was torn down.

The barest minimum qualification for an intellectual is to examine and test your first premises. To reject them, if they do not model the world effectively. Philosophers all the way back to Plato would hold today's left in contempt, with their hope that some how, this time it will be different.


Here's a different way of saying the same thing:



Such a strange forgetfulness by the Moral Titans of the left: chattel slavery, Schießbefehl ("Order to fire" - shoot to kill), thousands of dead, the souls of millions crushed. For their own good, of course. The People must be protected from the people.

So strange that the left cannot take this moment to reflect on actual evil, and to condemn it without mistakes were made and for a noble cause excuses, without clinging to that most slippery word "but". They believe - and I generally concur - that they are good people, motivated to do good. But they flinch from examining the actual truth. They are behind their own mental Iron Curtain, trapped by an unexamined world view. Behind their own, intellectually-imposed Line. 

The east border of the 5 km Zombie zone is marked - from the east - simply as the border. Good slaves do not cross it, not because it is fearful to behold, but because they are good slaves.

Tear it down.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Happy Solstice!

I've been re-posting items from ten years back, and since the Solstice is almost always on June 21, this is a twofer.

Cycles of Time

The mystery of life - birth, growth, death, is almost certainly behind the ancient efforts to precisely know the seasons. They knew when to plant, and when to harvest - they didn't need any help there, and only a professor who never spent a day on a farm could think that.

And so the "ancient observatories" like Stonehenge aren't observatories at all. They're Cathedrals.

Happy Solstice. Grill something with your dad to celebrate. Photo from the always amazing NASA Astronomy Picture Of The Day.

Eric Church - Like Jesus Does

Out of the crooked timber that is Man, nothing straight was ever built.

- Immanuel Kant

Bless me, Father, for I have been a Dumb Ass.  It's happened over and over again, throughout all my years on Planet Earth.  I fear that this will continue throughout the rest of my days.

But I'm lucky that I have The Queen Of The World.  No matter what the next Dumbassery, she is there as this world's manifestation of the gift of Grace for me.  She is the Lighthouse that always provides me a beacon in the dark.  It's quite amazing, really.

But she carries me, when my sins make me heavy,
And she loves me like Jesus does.

Easter is an old, old holy day.  It dates back to when christianity was just a tiny group of believers in a vast and unfriendly Roman Empire.  And yet it took over that empire despite the long odds.  I think that the reason is that from the very beginning, the story told by the christian church was about Grace.

None of us is as strong as we would like; all of us need that Grace to keep us from sinking, at least from time to time.  That gift of Grace took the Roman Empire by storm, and is one that I see here today.  The Queen Of The World shows it to me.  It's the gift she gives not when I deserve it, but when I don't deserve it.  And therein lies its power.

Yeah, she knows the man I ain't,
She forgives me when I can't

That's a precious gift to me.  It is in those moments that the spirit of Easter surrounds me.  It may even be that I'm a Dumb Ass as much as I am because I like that moment of Grace from her.  In a sense, it's always Easter here at Castle Borepatch, thanks to The Queen Of The World.

Always thought she'd give up on me one day,
Wash her hands of me, leave me staring down some runway,
Yeah, I thank God each night, and twice on Sunday,
That she loves me like Jesus does.

This Easter weekend you are as lucky as I am.  Well you don't have The Queen Of The World so you're not quite as lucky as I am, but you have that gift of Grace.  That gift doesn't give up on you some day because you've been a Dumb Ass once too many times.  That gift carries you when you when your sins make you heavy.  That gift forgives you when you can't.  We're surrounded by Grace, if we'll just open our eyes. Songs like this tell us some of the places to look, if we dare.

Dare.

She Loves Me Like Jesus Does (Songwriters: Casey Beathard, Monty Criswell)

I'm a long gone Waylon song on vinyl, 
I'm a backroad sinner at a tent revival, 
She believes in me like she believes her bible, 
And loves me like Jesus does.

I'm a lead foot leaning on a suped up Chevy, 
I'm a good ol' boy, drinking whiskey and rye on the levee, 
But she carries me, when my sins make me heavy, 
And she loves me like Jesus does.

All the crazy in my dreams, 
Both my broken wings, 
Every single piece of everything I am, 
Yeah, she knows the man I ain't, 
She forgives me when I can't, 
That devil man, he don't stand a chance, 
Cause she loves me like Jesus does.

Always thought she'd give up on me one day, 
Wash her hands of me, leave me staring down some runway, 
But, I thank God each night, and twice on Sunday, 
That she loves me like Jesus does.

All the crazy in my dreams, 
And both my broken wings, 
Every single piece of who I am, 
Yeah, she knows the man I ain't, 
She forgives me when I can't, 
And the devil man, no, he don't have a prayer. 
Cause she loves me like Jesus does

Yeah, she knows the man I ain't, 
She forgives me when I can't, 
That devil man, he don't stand a chance, 
Cause she loves me like Jesus does.

I'm a long gone Waylon song on vinyl

I'm a lucky man.  The Queen Of The World is there to give me that gift of Grace when I need it.  Even when I don't deserve it - especially when I don't deserve it.  She reminds me of what this weekend is all about.  That's a neat trick, right there.

Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.  

... 

A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. 

... 

There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can only be yours if you'll reach out and take it.

- Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith

Grace

I am Jacob Marley.

We all are. We forge our own psychological chains. Each time we let down those who love us, each act of Foolish Pride, another link gets forged. The longer we live, the longer the chain becomes. Our nature is perfectly imperfect: Out of the crooked timber that is man, no straight thing straight was ever made.

When I was a younger man, this wasn't tangible. I took Scrooge's attitude: nothing for serious reflection - probably indigestion. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!

As Mom could tell you, I was a slow child. 

Even children know that these chains are only broken by grace. You can't earn it, it's given freely, a gift:

When I was in the third grade, my teacher planned activities for our class to celebrate spring: For weeks I looked forward to making treats and dying eggs. I remember telling my mom how much fun it was going to be and I imagined what colors and designs I would choose. Before the big day, my teacher told us to come to class on Friday with a hollowed out egg. We were also told to bring our spelling test signed by a parent, and if we didn't, we would have to sit out from the activities.

At nine-years old, I was the perfect student. I was studious, I was obedient and I was responsible. So when I forgot to bring my spelling test that Friday, I was devastated. I knew what the consequence would be. When my class jumped from their chairs to collect art supplies, I sat still in my desk examining my perfect, hollowed out egg, overcome with disappointment as I fought the inevitable tears.

It wasn't long before my teacher pulled me aside. She knelt down, descending below my sad self and said I should join the rest of the class. With tears in her eyes she told me I could bring my spelling test on Monday. And then she gave me a hug. I couldn't believe it. My disappointment disappeared with this unexpected gift.

Twenty years later, I remember this moment.

That teacher turned a link of chain into a lesson on grace, one that's been carried down through decades.

You can never break your own chains. You need grace. We're surrounded by it, but there's a trick that many people seem not to learn.  Frederick Buechner describes the maddening simplicity of the situation:

A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you have to do.
...

There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it. 

This Easter Sunday, I hope you see the grace that surrounds us. Unexpected, unlooked for, that takes your breath away, that shatters chains.  

Take it.  Give it:

If you were going to die soon
and had only one phone call you could make,
who would you call and what would you say? 

And why are you waiting?

Originally posted on Easter 2009.

Brad Paisley - Welcome To The Future

New Year's is an occasion to think on what the new year will bring.  It's also an occasion to think on where we've been and what's changed.  Life is change, whether we like it or not, and we exist in a time machine heading into the future at a speed of one second per second.



Welcome to the future.

Wounded, Not Broken

But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for

--Paulo Coelho .

It's said that the longest journey that a man will ever take is the eighteen inches between his head and his heart.  Some don't survive that trip. Those left behind pick up the pieces as best they can, but things are never fully complete.  Pieces are lost.  We see the picture, and the gap, all at the same time.  Forever incomplete.

This road has a fork, a choice of two paths.  One leads to the dead end, the washed out bridge, the sudden crash that leaves you broken.  The other leads on, to whichever rendezvous with destiny is in our stars. This is the hard path. It is a path that we will travel scarred and wounded.

We are wounded because we loved that which is lost to us. We get up and continue the journey because we love that which remains.

The Deity has given us free will.  We always stand at that fork in the road, and He steps back to let us choose.  He forgives us when we turn away, looking at that hard road, after all, his Son did, too.

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me ...

The story of the Cross is not the story of Jesus alone. When the suffering on Good Friday happened, there were others that took their own hard path and stayed. Mary his mother, Mary of Magdala, and John the Beloved. They stood and gave witness. They accepted the suffering when they could do nothing more, and as that most horrible slow death by torture happened, they grieved because they loved.

And the story of the Resurrection is not the story of Jesus alone. The first witnesses are Mary his mother, Mary of Magdala, and Joanna, women coming to the tomb in their grief with spices to properly anoint the body. They find the tomb empty.

Why do you look for the living among the dead?
 

It was unbelievable. A man returned from crucifixion. Resurrected. It is still unbelievable. Do we dare believe?

So, this Easter, I am wounded, not broken. We have all been given the gift of life and life is for the living. The story of Jesus is story of a life lived with courage and joy. It is not just Good Friday and the Cross. Life is new births, laughter, moments of joy, a lover's kiss. Life is resurrection. Life calls me to bind my wounds and live on with that same courage. To remember what was with nostalgia and to look forward to what is yet to come with hope.

This Easter day, may the Spirit fill you to overflowing, even to that part of you which may never again be whole.

He is risen. 

Alleluia.

Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
--Martin Luther

 

**Cowritten by Borepatch and ASM826

Same song, different voices

The Grammy winning singer/songwriter Delbert McClinton:



The poet  Edna St. Vincent Millay (one of Mom's favorite poets):

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

My co-blogger ASM826:

We mark the beginnings of things, but very often there is no way to mark the last times. 

When was the last time:...I read one of them a bedtime story...We all went to the beach together...One of them sat in my lap...One of them held my hand to cross the street...I helped one of them with his homework...and so on... I dunno. Those kinds of things fade away and you don't even notice.

The music of these three voices is ancient.  It is, in fact, the voice of every person who has ever lived.

Merry Christmas to all

Life is chaos, with the Queen Of The World and I both scrambling to get everything packed my Monday when the movers show up.  But there is something about this day that gives one pause, to ponder something bigger than oneself.

Even in the Trenches, 101 years ago on the Western Front.



Yeah, chaos could be much worse.  May the spirit of the season be with you and yours.

Dreams

I've been having a recurring dream where I'm taking a Real Estate Agent through my house so I can get it listed.  But there are a whole series of rooms that I didn't know about.  In my dream I keep saying "I've never been in this room before" - and the realtor typically says "And it needs a good cleaning".

I'm not sure if the dream means that my subconscious thinks I'll sell the house for more than I thought, or if cleaning will be harder than I thought.  Or both.

Or maybe it's just the fumes from Formula 409 ...

Frankie Ballard – Helluva Life

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life. 

- Omar Khayyam

My blogging has been off for a while, I know.  I've been distracted.  Yes, there's a girl involved.  She took the picture here, riding behind me on the motorcycle trip to Florida that ended so abruptly.  She's pretty damn good in an emergency.

The last months have been a challenge, as all y'all know from my whining.  But spring is here, and it feels like I've turned the corner on the recovery.  And did I mention there's a girl involved?

It's a good feeling.  Makes me want to sing along, to happy, upbeat songs.

Songs like this.  There's no deep message, not even any particular noteworthy music - just happiness captured to banjo accompaniment.  You can do a lot worse, pretty easily.

Frankie Ballard is a young Country artist from Michigan (who said all Country singers are from the South?) who caught the eye of Kenny Chesney.  This led to an album deal which led to his what was actually his second album, Sunshine and Whiskey which has had two number one singles.  This is one.  It's not Deep Thinking, it doesn't Explain The Universe, it's just happy.

Actually, that might just explain the Universe pretty well.  Oh, yeah - it has a motorcycle.  That may explain the Universe, too, if you're doing the Universe right.  Just get a helmet for her, dude.



Helluva Life (Songwriters: Rodney Clawson, Chris Tomkins, Josh Kear)

Saturday night and a six pack, girl,
Big star shining on a small town world,
It's a helluva life, it's a helluva life.

KC lights on a dirt road dance,
You take that kiss just as far as you can,
It's a helluva life, it's a Helluva life.

And pennies make dimes and dimes make dollars,
Dollars buy gas and longneck bottles,
Beer gets a barefoot country girl swayin,
To a song that's playin on the radio station.
Bad times make the good times better,
Look in her eyes and you're gone forever,
On its a helluva ride.... Yeah, It's a helluva life.

Well we all have faith, and we all have hope,
But we're all a little lost in the same damn boat.
It's a helluva life, it's a helluva life.
Something bout the night girl,
when you got the right girl,
Sittin right beside you,
Lookin at the sky, girl
Thinkin bout why we're here,
And where we're goin,
baby, here we are,
And all I know is...

Pennies make dimes and dimes make dollars,
Dollars buy gas and longneck bottles,
Beer gets a barefoot country girl swayin,
To a song that's playin and the world starts fadin'.
Bad times make the good times better,
Look in her eyes and you're gone forever,
On a helluva ride.... Yeah, It's a helluva life.

Something bout the night girl,
when you got the right girl,
Sittin right beside you,
Lookin at the sky, girl
Thinkin bout why we're here,
And where we're goin,
baby, here we are,
And all I know is...

Pennies make dimes and dimes make dollars,
Dollars buy gas and longneck bottles,
Beer gets a barefoot country girl swayin,
To a song that's playin, it's the perfect combination.
Bad times make the good times better,
Look in her eyes and you're gone forever,
On a helluva ride.... Yeah, It's a helluva life, it's a helluva life.

Bad times make the good times better.

Aw one helluva life.

Look in her eyes and you're gone forever.

It's a helluva life.

Yeah it's a helluva life.

It's a helluva life.

Springtime is my favorite season.  This one is better than most.  Happiness is a gift, but it's also a choice.  This is life.  It sometimes is a helluva life.

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.

- Groucho Marx

Quote of the Day, Paris Terrorism Edition

How do you defeat terrorism?  Don't be terrorized.

- Salman Rushdie

I'd think he'd know something of this.  Think on this when you look on the works of Leviathan, and wont to despair.

Ghosts of Thanksgivings past

Summoned from the depths of memory.

Me, I remember when I was in High School.  I was on the winter track team, and was thin as a rail despite going back for fourths.

I remember when we lived in England, and took the day off.  Everyone at the office knew what this was about, but only intellectually.  They had never really been to one of these celebrations.  I thought that was quite a loss - it would go quite a long way to counter the myth of the "Ugly American"* if they really thought on how this day is all about gratitude from sea to shining sea.

I remember Thanksgiving dinner with the family of #1 Son's best friend.  They were from China, but lived next door.  The idea of going around the table saying what they were thankful for was new to them, but was a wonderful experience.

Me, I'm grateful that my view today isn't this:

I hope that this day gives you something to be thankful for.  Gratitude is good for the soul after all, and the Feast is not just to nourish the body.

* My experience is that Americans are much nicer tourists than anyone from Europe, and that the "Ugly American" trope hasn't been true for 30 years, if it ever was.

Postscript to reader Renee: Your email made my day, and is something else that I am thankful for.  Thank you for sending it.

Vacation is a'coming

I have this sticker on my helmet.

The rock and the wave

... every man is an island. It is a truth that often the tolling of a silence reveals even more vividly than the tolling of a bell. We sit in silence with one another, each of us more or less reluctant to speak, for fear that if he does, he may sound like a fool. And beneath that there is of course the deeper fear, which is really a fear of the self rather than of the other, that maybe truth of it is that indeed he is a fool. The fear that the self that he reveals by speaking may be a self that the others will reject just as in a way he has himself rejected it. So either we do not speak, or we speak not to reveal who we are but to conceal who we are, because words can be used either way of course. Instead of showing ourselves as we truly are, we show ourselves as we believe others want us to be. We wear masks, and with practice we do it better and better, and they serve us well –except that it gets very lonely inside the mask, because inside the mask that each of us wears there is a person who both longs to be known and fears to be known. In this sense every man is an island separated from every other man by fathoms of distrust and duplicity.

- Frederick Breuchner, The Hungering Dark

The rock wears no masks.  It does not resist the wave because it thinks that it should be seen resisting the wave.  It does so because that is its true nature.  The storm howls and the wave crests, and the rock stands immovable.  Because that is what it does.

Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, 
I fear not wave nor wind

Lord Byron, Adieu My Native Shore

The rock is no fool. We can learn a lot from the rock.

The secret to happiness

Me, I recommend getting a motorcycle.  Your mileage may vary.

New film on J.R.R. Tolkien's and C.S. Lewis' friendship

I many have to go see this:

British fantasy literature has two towering figures: J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia. The two were longtime friends, and now their relationship will be the subject of a new movie: Tolkien & Lewis, an $18 million drama, will be produced by UK-based production outfit Attractive Films and directed by Simon West, known for The Expendables 2, Con Air, and a certain Rick Astley music video.

Attractive describes the movie as “a drama fantasy set in war torn Britain in 1941 revealing the faith, friendship, and rivalry between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.”

The two writers had a lot in common: Both taught at Oxford, both fought in World War I, and both preferred not to spell out their names. Their relationship was friendly for years, but turned famously fraught. Through late-night conversations, Tolkien, a religious Catholic, convinced Lewis to return to the faith; Lewis’ writing took off afterward, and he’s now best known for his books that are instilled with Christian themes, like the Narnia series and The Screwtape Letters. But Lewis then became a much-criticized unofficial spokesman for Christianity, which strained his relationship with Tolkien and Oxford. And while Tolkien struggled over the Lord of the Rings manuscripts for years, Lewis’ Narnia books were bestsellers.

The story of their friendship is bittersweet, and neither author would have achieved what he did without the other's influence.  Tolkien described that to his daughter Priscilla, in a letter written shortly after Lewis' death*:

So far I have felt the normal feelings of a man my age - like an old tree that is losing all its leaves one by one: this feels like an axe blow near the roots.  Very sad that we should have been so separated in the last years; but our time of close communion endured in memory for both of us.

No offense to Lewis, but I think that the Lord Of The Rings is the greatest (meaning psychologically deepest) novel of the entire 20th century.  Much of that I suspect is due to Lewis' repeated and generous encouragement to Tolkien.

Hat tip: Patriactionary, a blog with a totally awesome name (and dare I say, on that Tolkien might have liked?)

* Transcribed from The Letters Of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Your moment of Zen

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

- Baruch Spinoza, a totally badass philosopher