Sitting Alone

A wondrous combination of lines and then the artificial color contrast of the bench jumped out at me.

From the Bon Secour preserve near Gulf Shores, AL.

You Can't Do This With an eBook

eBooks are quite an invention. I really enjoy my Nook Color. You don't have to make a decision before traveling which one of 20 books you want to take. Nor do we have to do what we used to do- pack a whole box of books to take on that two-week vacation. The only extra weight with an eBook reader is the electrons (or whatever they are) that go on the chip in the reader. One book or my whole collection.

But there is one thing that I miss. I read this on someone's Facebook post and I had to agree. (Sorry, I don't remember when or who. If you read this, let me know.)

When you come to the end of one of those great books that you hate to see end, I remember the wonder of closing the book, holding it in my hand, turning it over as I get that feel of the book in my hands. I would ponder the ability to put that kind of story into words while holding the book, sensing a connection. It was a fine way to bring closure that hitting a screen button just doesn't cut.

A computer tablet just doesn't do that. I wonder if it is because a computer is a machine, even one that can do amazing things and, with the words on the screen, take me to amazing places. No, I will not give up my Nook Color, but nostalgia does have its place.

Good Beginnings and Good Endings

Last November Listverse posted the Top 15 opening lines of novels. Here are four of them that I knew and agreed are great lines.

1. “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

5. “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” — 1984 – George Orwell

6. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” — A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

14. “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.” — Inferno – Dante

Intrigued, I went looking for some others. Some of these are just as famous and well-known.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. - Moby Dick- Hermann Melville

Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing. - Don Quixote- Cervantes

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. Old Man and the Sea- Ernest Hemingway

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

Read more: Best First Lines of Novels — Infoplease.com

But three closing lines stand out as great in my memory....

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

"The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the utmost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky — seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness."
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

My all time favorite, because it speaks to me in more ways than can be expressed:

"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters."
A River Runs Through It, Norman MacLean

The power of words to express reality!

For No Reason I Can Think Of

Comedian Phyllis Diller said it:

"If it weren't for baseball, many kids wouldn't know what a millionaire looked like."

Just A Personal Post

Nothing new

Nothing old

Just another day.

Slow days are as nice as busy days.

When you walk among the trees,

You realize how much can happen

When you take the time

To move slowly.

This huge tree (a Sweetbay  Magnolia) is 

10 feet in circumference,

88 feet tall,

with an average crown spread of 36 feet.

-Link to Pelican Post of Weeks Bay Reserve in Albama.

In Memoriam:Joe Paterno

It all happened so quickly this fall and winter. He was still riding high, the greatest, winningest, high-quality college football coach. Then it all fell apart.

Jerry Sandusky and the sex-abuse scandal.

JoePa fired.

Now he's gone.

Hopefully, in looking back from the point of football history, he will be remembered for what he did...

And as a cautionary tale, for what he didn't do. May we never forget that to take the extra step when protecting others is essential. Power, ethical and moral as well as all other kinds, demands our vigilance and self-awareness.

Over the many years Joe Paterno had that. He lost it and paid the price.

May he now rest in peace.

The Old Poli-Sci Major

Yes, a lot has happened in the political world since I graduated as a poli-sci major 42 years ago. Watergate was just a place no one ever heard of. Nixon was The One. I really enjoyed politics. It was interesting and supposedly made some sense. I am sure that wasn't true, even then. I have a hunch that the insanity we see having run rampant in the past 18 years was just as real- but not reported on. The silent agreement between the press and the politicians not to talk about certain things hadn't fallen apart yet.

But this past week was just amazing as a way of seeing how insane it really is.

And his name is Stephen Colbert. He has skewered politics as it is now being run in the country. He has taken the legalities of unlimited corporate and Super-PAC funding to it's logical conclusion and torn it apart. His fake character on his Colbert Report, acting as egocentric as the best 2012 GOP candidates, has repeatedly given us an inside satirical look at what is happening in reality right before our very eyes.

It might be possible for an old poli-sci major to be upset at all this. But I am not. I am far more aware today of the brokenness of the American political system and the deep divisions that exist. How Colbert and his partner in politics, Jon Stewart, have been able to meet the legal requirements while poking Swiss Cheese holes in it is both funny- and scary. It may be why we are having so many difficulties.

Then, as if Colbert and his crew weren't enough, the GOP candidates and SC primary outdid them. Newt is back  (as egocentric as the best 2012 candidate?). His entitlement to anger, his inability to understand (or at least express) compassion and how people are so upset at him, is amazing to watch. It is almost as if he is a satire on the political system like Colbert. He was right to be upset about the leading question at the debate which I have a hunch won him the final thrust of the primary yesterday.

And Romney, in attempting to be "Just Your Average Mitt" fails regularly. Another satire of the 1% not understanding the middle-class.

So, the Old Pol-Sci major shakes his head and hopes that something good will come out of this whole mess, especially since we haven't even gotten to the main event for the fall. Meanwhile I will watch and shake my head in sadness at how crazy we have become.

Half-Way Through

Today I am half-way through my medical leave for my surgery back on December 29. That "anterior cervical corpectomy with fusion" that I have talked about. Four weeks from tomorrow I will be back at work. How time flies when you are having fun.

But I have learned a lot and am aware of how far I still need to go. While I feel like I am back to my old self (not necessarily a good thing), I find out in small ways that I am not yet. Since the major reason for such a long recuperation is the need to keep my cervical spine from too much stress and strain, that means that the rest of my body and soul seems to be doing just fine, thank you. But in full awareness of "holistic" views of health, and the bio-psycho-social aspect of life, I also know that to say I am fine is to be fooled by the surface.

[Start of whine.] There are, for example, the little things that still aren't "healed." I am still having problems swallowing and things can get stuck on the way down causing embarrassing coughing to keep it clear. I still have to do a "clearing the throat action" anytime I swallow any regular liquids. (Thick stuff like yogurt goes easier.) That makes eating a meal somewhat of a chore. Even taking a shower- switching to the waterproof collar, being cautious when I shave (electric razor) to keep my head steady, seeming to take longer than usual- is work.

I can get tired enough for a nap at a moment's notice, depending on how well I was able to sleep (and ignore) the hard collar I am still wearing. I am able, easily, to get out and walk, although I hit a wall more quickly than I used to. I need to work on that stamina issue.

Then there is the psycho-social of being obviously "handicapped" with the collar. People look at me with a sympathy that sometimes says, "I know your pain" and sometimes "Poor old guy." It helps in some situations, like at the airport, but generally puts an unwanted spotlight on me. Yes, people are nice and I like that, but it sure is not what I want for this reason.

So here I am, in recuperation. [End of whine.] That means I have to be willing to let other people support and help me. I have to be humble enough to admit that my timeline for healing is not my body's timeline or need. I need to learn to be a passenger at times, and not just when accepting the fact that my wife can drive quite well, thank you, without my passenger seat supervision. I am as much a passenger in recovery. What my body needs to bring about the healing of body, mind and soul after surgery is often beyond my ability to do anything but go along for the ride.

Why is it I have to keep learning this lesson? Why can't I do this more naturally?

Oh, yeah. I forgot.

I'm human.

Absolutely Uncertain

For lots of reasons I have spent time recently thinking about "absolutes" in faith and religion. Some, of course, is the ongoing insanity I see in the conservative -vs- liberal views of things. Some has to do with people I meet, see, or read about who are so fanatically certain that their way is THE WAY. I have to admit that I have trouble with that and don't completely understand these absolute positions.

Especially the smaller the group size and the more rigid they become in absolute stands. Pick your group, but when a single church in a single town believes it has the only right answer that everyone else everywhere is missing out on, I cringe. It makes no sense. Absolutely. When they begin to think that "No one, NO ONE EVER in all of history, has ever had the correct insight that I have now been uniquely given," I want to run the other way.

That is not as extreme as it sounds. Listen to some of the preachers of all different religious persuasions. Listen to religious-based politicians (and others). Listen to any ideologue. It is a natural extreme of their position.

What happens is they pick and choose a particular set of interpretations of belief and then they place all eternal and universal authority on that opinion. Is it that we have this human nature that has to believe that MY WAY is the ONLY WAY and if we are not 100% right on all aspects of what we say and believe then everything falls apart? We have an inability, I am afraid, to accept paradox. We have an inability to be open to the possibility that we may have only a part of the picture. We have a need to universalize our experiences and cultural norms.

I just needed to get that out of the way this early in the 2012 election cycle. I know I don't have all the answers. I know my interpretations are not the final word. All I do know is that this has been my experience. Maybe if we can continue to work on opening ourselves to greater experiences, things might begin to go better for more in our world.

And if you don't agree with me, you are obviously wrong.

In Memoriam: Etta James (1938-2012)

(It's not the recorded version, it's live. What a singer.)

Sunset

Here's the third and last of the music videos I made from our time in Alabama in February 2011. Simply Sunset in Gulf Shores.

Enjoy.

A Picture for Today: Surprise!

I had walked to the beach for sunset- the wonder of a day at the shore. I had been looking to the east and then turned to head west into the sun- and there he was.

Surprise.

I got to about 15 yards and took some pictures.

What a great added wonder.

I also managed to get him just as he began to fly away. He looks upset at me.

A Different Take on Aging

Jane Fonda (yes, THAT Jane Fonda) has a talk to TED about the later years- Life's Third Act. In it she challenges a previous paradigm that had aging as "pathology." Again was what happened to us when we got "past our prime" and were unable to continue to do what we used to do. Life was an "arch" with childhood the upward arc toward the heights of middle-age and then the declining arc of later adulthood.

But, Fonda points out, we have added as much as 30 years to life expectancy over the past 60 - 75 years. That is a whole additional adult life.

Think about that.

One additional adult lifespan.

She sees aging as a

staircase. An upward ascension of the human spirit, bringing us into wisdom, wholeness, and authenticity. Age as potential. It is not just for the lucky few. People over 50 tend to be less stressed, ... even happier...

The human spirit can continue to ascend and does not fall prey to the otherwise hard and fast rule of entropy, the downward side of the arch.

Personally, as I am well past the age of my own parents early deaths, closer to 65 than 60, I find that she is right on target.

Here then are Jane Fonda's insights. Catch them.

Little of Significant Value...

...But What a Lot of Fun

Video music mashup by MadMixMustang (a Dutch mashup artist).

Bringing together Queen and The Beatles.

Wow!

If you like rock and roll..

this does both!!!

HT to The Awesomer

Remarkable and Entrancing

The Tree of Life (Tomatometer: 84% ; IMDb,) the incredibly profound movie by Terrence Malick captured me from the word go and never let me go. Beautiful cinematography, acting with just enough dialogue to keep the story going in a non-linear fashion, an undercurrent of life being celebrated even when it doesn't seem possible. Impressionistic, surrealistic, and finally down to earth.

In short, quite an achievement.

Brad Pitt did another outstanding job, this time with body, posture, and facial expressions. The complexity of life is what is portrayed as we (all of us) sit here- between creation and destruction. Our lives mimic that same story arc in little as well as personal ways.

Answers? Nope. None in this movie. Not that I saw, anyway. But plenty to think about.

Do I understand it? Not in the least. Which is just fine because I was there emotionally and spiritually. Kind of like any great spiritual literature or art it will take more than one visit to this sublime land given us by writer/director Malick.

From Both Sides

I noticed earlier last week that a You Tube video had gone viral and was getting linked by people on both the liberal and conservative side of the faith. It is this rap poetry smackdown of the church titled, Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus:



Well, there must be something right about it, I thought, if both sides are linking to it.Or something wrong. So I did some thinking and digging.

When I was done watching it I first sat there and scratched my head. I sort of agreed, and I sort of disagreed- and then I wondered what all the fuss was about. In one way or another I have been hearing these same thoughts for most of the nearly 50 years I have been a Christian.

(I also realized that these same words, perhaps in a different eloquence, were also posted on the church door by Luther, and preached by Hus, and, well, you get the point.)

Usually when these words are spoken it is to clearly aim the criticism at THEM. You know who THEY are. THEY are the ones who put Church ahead of Jesus. THEM. Not US. Usually, in my awareness of these past 50 years , this critique came from the evangelicals aimed at Roman Catholics and Episcopalians and the historic mainline Protestants. You know- THEM. The ones who value the church and tradition above Jesus.

Unlike US.

I did some more surfing and found some expected push back on the Internet from different positions but basically taking issue with
1) The smackdown of the church and
2) The ending with the same old, same old evangelical line.

In other words, perhaps, there is nothing new under the sun, even if it is found on You Tube.

My reaction went back to where I started- in spite of its seeming newness it is nothing but a reinvention of the wheel. It is a re-channeling of the old criticism against the "establishment"-type churches ending with the "party line" that in the end what counts is not the Church but me and Jesus.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that we in the church have far too often spent far too much time and money and energy on The Institution. We have defined ministry as what is done BY US, FOR US. We have, as the rant points out wanted to be a hospital for the sick. But all we have done is foster dependence on the hospital which has turned into a hospice or, at best, a nursing home. We never seem to get better- until we leave the hospital.

Thirty years ago some of us were involved in a valuable and deeply spiritual successful renewal movement. Like most renewal movements, however, it became an institution and lost the sharpness, the excitement. One of my friends who was involved in our initial founding of our local group, developed some exciting spirituality and ministry. He began to get interested and involved in some distant (i.e. non-local) work. The more my friend gave in time and energy, the more excited became his faith. The more excited about his faith, the more ministry became important. Happiness increased. A sense of fulfillment grew. And the less involvement there was with the activities of the local movement. You know, things like Bible study, worship, fellowship activities. Things were too exciting.

Which is exactly what we all saw as the purpose of the renewal movement: to GO and BE disciples.

But many in the local movement group began to make snide remarks about my friend's decreased participation in the local activities. When someone, like me, would try to justify my friend's ministry involvement, others would smile and agree with a gentle, "Yes, but they are needed here to keep the movement strong."

So I do see the point of the beginning of the You Tube video. But the simplistic approach seen in the whole video, the way too easy US vs THEM attitude hurts more than it helps. It takes the faith to a place it cannot survive. Alone. Just me and Jesus together forever. While I am not sure that The Church is doing such a great job of its task, I also know that the individualism approach won't get very far either.

Which in the end is what disappointed me most about the video. It only brought us back to our human failing and that, I am convinced, will never get us anywhere either.

A Shortened Season

And so it goes.

The inverse of last year's surprising run to the Super Bowl. This year we were the favorites but couldn't hold it together in the end. What's a 15-1 season if you can't win in the post-season?

Just a shortened season.

Thanks Aaron and all for a great year.

And while it is three weeks earlier than I wanted to think about it....

Go Twins!

In The Tanks

Here's another video for you. When I showed this one to my wife, she commented, "Have you been hoarding these gems for a whole year?"

I guess I have. This one is from the tanks at the Dauphin Island, Alabama, Estuarium. It has really neat fish and jellyfish. In fact I hope to get back there this year and take a bunch of video of those jellyfish at the end and put together 3-5 minutes of them alone with some special effects, etc.



This recuperation time has sure given me an opportunity to put together some of the videos I have been thinking about for a while. It is low-impact, low-energy, low-activity creativity that keeps me occupied.

And I like it.

Enjoy. More to come.

Baseball and Life (2)

The day before yesterday I reviewed the remarkable baseball novel, The Art of Fielding. Of course, as I saw in one review, to say that The Art of Fielding is a baseball novel is about the same as saying Moby Dick is a whaling novel. (An appropriate comparison, by the way, since The Art of Fielding takes place near Lake Michigan and a campus statue of H. Melville. Don't ask. Read it.)

In any case it made me stop and think about the great baseball-based novels. No, there aren't a lot. But the ones I have read are nothing short of sensational (in alphabetical author order):

• Darryl Brock: If I Never Get Back
• Mark Harris: Bang The Drum Slowly
• W. P. Kinsella: Shoeless Joe
• Bernard Malamud: The Natural
• George Plimpton: The Curious Case of Sidd Finch

And, yes, The Art of Fielding takes its place among those with absolutely no shame or being a lesser novel. It is a classic!

I know there are many cliches about baseball and life. Philosophers, theologians, political pundits, historians and documentary filmmakers have made that point ad infinitum. Ken Burns' 10 episodes remains the gold standard. But to read a novel about baseball- or with baseball at its heart- takes us to those levels of insight that cannot be touched with facts or even essays. Stories, good stories, are the soul of reality, simmered into the essence of what is important.

No other sport has done this as well as baseball. I am not one of those pundits to be able to explain why. I am an intuitive. I am convinced that is why baseball continues to survive in spite of its institutional (i.e. professional) shortcomings; why we want the Ryan Brauns and Pete Roses and Shoeless Joe Jacksons to tell us that the reality "Ain't so!"

But in the books the winners win, the losers lose, and the fans are satisfied. Or not. Which is when the novel moves from a baseball novel to one that has baseball in its heart.

(I did come across two novels I want to read, by the way. First is, surprisingly, Philip Roth: The Great American Novel. I am surprised I haven't read that, though I have never been a big Roth fan.  The other is The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg. Add that to my Nook, please? Oops, but no. Neither is available for the Nook. Darn.)

Fugue for Friday

... based on the theme from Dragnet.

For the musical and visual.

Actually it has the right feel for a Friday the 13th.

Baseball and Life

Baseball and life- that's about the scope of the remarkable debut novel by Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding. Like a few greats before it, Fielding manages to bring together more than words and descriptions to make this all fit together.

Take a near-perfect shortstop phenom at a small Midwestern college; add a student coach who brings him along into greater perfection; then the college president and his daughter and the phenom's gay roommate and you are in rare territory.

Like baseball itself, (trite insight coming) the novel moves at its own pace. Energy here; slowing down there; a little zest here; a lot of wonderful descriptions there. It is subtle and never hidden. You know Harbach is swinging for the fence and you know he will not miss.

He doesn't. It is a book to savor, yet easy to read. I kept trying to put words to the metaphors of the story, but they kept slipping away in Harbach's prose. I tried to make the connections between one scene and the next but all I could do was keep reading.

It is an all-together satisfying read and an all-together fulfilling book. It isn't very often we come across such a wonderful American novel.

Alabama Birds

In my taking-it-easy recuperation time the other day I managed to finally get a video from last years trip to Alabama - Gulf Shores, to be exact. I put together some of the bird videos and then added the music. Just for fun with no goal in mind other than to remind me of the Gulf of Mexico and the wonderful flow of the tides.

The Power of Memory

Memory is amazing. After 42 years of probably not even being aware that a song used to- or even still exists- there it is.

I was listening to Folk Alley this evening (HIGHLY recommended) and I hear a strumming followed by some more strumming. Then the drums start and a chorus singing.

I know that song.

Peace in the end.

I glanced at the screen and a multicolored medieval-hippie dressed group appeared.

Fotheringay.

Hope in the end

I know them. A one-album, no-real-hit wonder of British folk-rock in 1970. A break-ff from Fairport Convention. Kind of a 70s cult favorite.

I couldn't pull back all the words, just that title line. But it was as real and familiar as if I had just heard it yesterday.

What makes this all the more amazing is that recent science has shown that there is really no where in my brain that this song memory is stored. Not a single location. It is all over the place and my brain had to put it back together from these scattered bits and pieces. 

THEN, in even more miraculous ways, feelings and other memories come along. A smile of an unremembered memory of some night I might have played that song on my radio show. An internal feeling of being 22 again as if I never left that time behind.

I don't know what part all this plays in the evolutionary development of humanity and human consciousness. I don't know why it's so important. It may be human hubris to believe it is even important at all. Yet it exists. I am not the only one who it happens to. Each of us has more than a few of these things in our memory bank. The awe I feel at the ability to experience today is probably more than the awe of the first memory.

And it wants to spur me to continue to make these kind of memories and not live in the one from the past. God forbid if all I have to look forward to is a glorious past.

Anyway- with the help of You Tube, here's my rolling bits and pieces put back into a song. Enjoy, even if you have never heard it before.

Make a memory.

Over a Week

As I write this it is just a little bit more than a week since I have come home from the hospital following my surgery. I talked yesterday about the (lack of) patience I have been practicing and the other day about the labor-intensiveness of life post-op. I guess what is most interesting is how this is so different today from the way these same surgeries were handled even just a few decades ago.

Bed rest! Don't get in a car for a month. Lie down, don't just sit down. Full disability for 6 weeks- i.e. DO NOTHING!

That was the way it was explained to my wife and myself when SHE had a similar surgery back in the early part of 1980. Just about 32 years ago shouldn't sound like the dark ages of modern medical care, but it does. From the length of stay in the hospital (my 4 nights was that long only because of some extra time under anesthesia) to get up and move ASAP and just about all in-between, things are different today.

Of course what hasn't changed is the fact that the body does take time to heal. That's why I find myself needing to take a nap even several times a day. I find myself getting up after a full night's sleep and then.... zap.... back to sleep in the chair two hours or so later. That's why after an hour out of the apartment doing some walking and sure enough.... zap.... back to the chair for some zombie-land time.

But I can't (and shouldn't) complain. It has been smooth with frustration only the result of the normal, everyday fact that in spite of my opinions, I am only human (and a 63-year old human at that.