It’s the world
you create
for yourselves.
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Monday, I lived my life the whole day the way I’ve always said one should, consistent with The Way of Peace. This was an accomplishment, and has been a long time coming. At bedtime, I was so proud of myself, I fully expected to be rewarded with a pleasant dream.
That didn’t happen.
The dream I did have was all about concepts, and wasn’t pleasant. It said, “Conservatism is tight; liberalism is loose.” It said I am currently being tight. I didn’t like being told that, and I didn’t like the fact that it was so.
Not because I have anything against conservatism. Though I tend in a more liberal direction, conservatism and liberalism are both largely immaterial to me.
But I would wind up pondering a lot, Tuesday, about how I would rather be.
It came to me that liberalism is like an open palm — one is ready to give someone something, or to accept something — whereas conservatism is like a closed fist. The conservative wants to keep what she or he has, and isn’t interested in accepting any handouts.
Now, it’s not that one is right and the other wrong. In life, both are necessary. And that insight opened up a different point of view.
That explains much more than I supposed.
The Qabala says there are ten sephirot, or dimensions, through which the Life Force may express itself. Two that are normally juxtaposed are Chesed, or Loving-kindness, and Gevurah, or Severity. These correspond well to the open palm, on the one hand, and the closed fist, on the other, respectively. The question is not choosing one over the other, but holding the two in balance; for in life, we need both.
One is not right and the other wrong; instead, each one has its own “good” or light and “evil” or dark potentialities. A “dark” potentiality of Loving-kindness is permissiveness, which can lead to a complete loss of order in society. Some people keep their hands out all the time, and that’s not good. A “dark” potentiality of Severity is that one may use the closed fist to beat up on oneself or others, to engage in tyranny or extortion.
Severity pertains less to the imposition of order than to the restoration of order (Hebrew: Tikkun) after disruption occurs. Chesed will express itself in making and serving a meal — but also in making a mess. Gevurah expresses itself in washing the dishes.
And taking out trash.
And picking up litter.
It pertains to the establishment of social norms, and to encouraging people to conform to those norms. For example, pee and poop belong in the toilet bowl, not on the toilet seat or on the floor. But when I worked at City Hall, it was clear that many men haven’t learned this.
Some social norms express themselves as laws. Thus all police activity expresses Gervurah — both its use and its abuse.(*)
But a complete lack of Gervurah is equally devastating.
It is telling that the concept of accountability is controversial among black Americans. Dez Bryant’s April 2017 remarks got scant attention in the mainstream press, but lots of pushback from the only black voices America is allowed to hear. D. L. Hughley said, “There’s no such thing as black-on-black crime.” Stephen A. Smith questioned Bryant’s blackness. The ideal of a black world without norms manifests in the murders of Carter Scott , Chanetta Powell and Charmaine Wilson.
Chesed and Gervurah in balance would be like a parent who corrects her or his child with love. We don’t have many good models for this. The current American correctional system is not, in fact, about correction, but retaliation. Likewise, the God portrayed in the Book of Numbers in the Bible does not correct, but retaliates. But putting the toys back in the toybox does not require scolding. Putting an errant object back in its right place does not require anger. Love can be constant.
That’s how I want to be.
==========
(*)(The auric color of Gevurah is blue, which is why police wear blue uniforms. The color of compassion is green, so the Green Party is so named. But green is also the color of envy.)
… with race and with aggrandizing his own celebrity.
May I never emulate either feature.
(Originally posted 05/01/12 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 12/18/13.)
(Originally published 09/06/13 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 12/16/13.)
I keep telling them not to let guys sit on the bench in the shower buck naked.
They don’t listen.
So again, Friday night 08/30/13, when I went to put my stuff on the bench, here was this heavy brown smudge. I carefully avoided it, but I told the peacekeeper, Philip, since he has access to gloves, rags and bleach, and I don’t. He was texting.
When I came out of the shower to dry off and dress, the smudge was still there. Philip was still texting.
This is a perfect example of why I think the New Age is just so much hooey. 
There is work to do here and now. That it may not all be pleasant doesn’t change the fact: there is work to do here and now.
The ecliptic is a great circle in the sky along which the Sun, moon and planets all move. All eclipses occur along this line; thus the name. The constellations of the Zodiac are lined up along this circle as well.
Although the Sun is on the ecliptic at all times, every day it moves a bit westward along the ecliptic, almost but not quite completing a full circle once every year. The degree as a unit of measure for angles, came to be as ancient astronomers sought to plot this motion — 360 degrees makes a full circle, just as 365¼ days make a full year. The Sun moves about one degree westward along the ecliptic each day.
The Sun’s position on the first day of spring is called the “equinoctial point.” Because the Sun does not quite complete a full circle along the ecliptic in a year, the equinoctial point moves very gradually eastward along the ecliptic, completing a full circle every 25,800 years. The equinoctial point passes through each constellation of the Zodiac in an average of 2,150 years.
Right now, the equinoctial point, where the Sun is on the first day of spring, is in Aquarius. Thus we are said to currently be in “the Age of Aquarius.” Since this began only a few years ago, it is being called the “New Age.” Immediately previous to this was the Age of Pisces (the Fishes), which began circa 30 CE; previous to that was the Age of Aries (the Ram), which began circa 1400 BCE. It is notable that at the dawn of the Age of Pisces, the New Testament focused on twelve fishermen (Matthew 14:19); and that at the dawn of the Age of Aries, the Bible focused on twelve shepherds (Genesis 46:32).
The most familiar expression of the promises that have been made concerning this “New Age,” is in the lyrics of the opening song of the 1967 musical Hair:
When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the starsThis is the dawning of the age of Aquarius …
Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation
I have what I feel are good reasons to believe in something like astrology. But as to all this “New Age” stuff, I have my doubts.
On the one hand, I see no evidence that it’s going to happen.
The Age of Aquarius so far seems to me no different from the Age of Pisces before it, nor from the Age of Aries before that. Human behavior hasn’t changed in the last 10 years, or 50, or 100, or 500, nor 1000.
From the Bible: ca. 1000 BCE, David “defeated the Moabites and, making them lie down on the ground, measured them off with a cord; he measured two lengths of cord for those who were to be put to death, and one length for those who were to be spared. *** [H]e killed eighteen thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt.” (2 Samuel 8:2,13)
Was that age more brutal than our own?
Pol Pot’s “killing fields,” the genocide in Rwanda, “ethnic cleansing” of Darfur, activities of Charles Taylor, massacre at Srebrenica, and 9/11 were all New Age events.
On the other hand, to lose oneself in dreams of an inevitable wonderful future is the antithesis of presence. It does not empower one to do the work that must be done here and now; not to deal with an abusive boss, a cold spouse, a rebellious child, a terminal illness. It will not lift me out of homelessness or joblessness.
The task I face most consistently right now is to see God’s image in my neighbor, who in my current context is disproportionately likely to be ugly, filthy, addicted, deranged, dependent or criminal. I cannot wait for a time when my neighbors will all be beautiful; I must do it now. This is my task, without any reference to any New Age.
Don’t get me wrong. The future has my permission to be just as glorious as it may choose. Right now, however, someone needs to clean the shower bench.
on air talent, talk show host, talk radio, the homeless blogger
(Originally posted 04/18/12 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reposted 12/11/13.)
From a flyer announcing a presentation tonight at 7:00 p.m. at Enoch Pratt Free Library:
Record unemployment and rampant corporate greed, empty houses but homeless families, dwindling opportunitites in a paralyzed nation — these are the realities of America, land of the free and home of the new middle-class poor.
In The Rich and the Rest of Us, award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West, one of the nation’s leading public intellectuals, take on the “p” word — poverty. They challenge all Americans to re-examine their assumptions about poverty in America — what it is and how to eradicate it.
I cannot attend that presentation, even if I wanted to, since as of 3:00 p.m. I must head back to the shelter to stay in for the night.
I know little about Cornel West and nothing about Tavis Smiley, but I do know something about poverty. I do not believe it can be eradicated. Thus any analysis that supposes that it can, is mistaken at its core.
ABC and meat producer settle $1.9-billion lawsuit over ‘pink slime’
The taco beef they gave us the other night was ground extremely fine, which led me to recall this case and wonder whatever had become of it.
This boils down to the power of a pejorative term — or slur.
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Scientists Finally Know How One Common Pesticide Is Harming Our Bees
Well, I hope you enjoy the video and find it informative. I can’t watch it. I’ll have to find a text story somewhere to find out what it says.
The Homeless Blogger 