One Lonely Boy - A Poem

One lonely boy,
Staring beneath the blinded sun
Daring not to look to stars
Never seeing the horizon round

The sky is not his
Tho he’d prefer to grasp the whole
And run down through the milky way
And run up through Andromeda

Someone told the boy
Don’t look to the beyond
For yours is beneath your dirty feet
‘You can have the dirt and grime…’

So his feet grew roots
And sped deep into ground
And in dreams he ran slow
While the monsters ran round

‘Mine is not star, nor deep galaxies’
But the earth, the plain, the deepest valleys
But ‘my, it’s so lonely down here
Beneath the dance of the stars’

One lonely boy
Was he whose roots reached to briny depths
Whose arms shot out to unending skies
One lonely boy left beneath the dance of stars…

Deep Down, I Hated God

When I was a boy, I had a baby sister named Lisa Gayle. I remember holding her one time. Lisa passed away from coxsackie virus as an infant. My parents inscribed her tombstone with the words 'our rosebud for God's garden'.
It wasn't until I was an adult that I finally came to terms I hated God for taking our rosebud and planting her in His garden. Maybe hate is too strong a word, but I certainly realized I had a lot of ambivalence toward this God who would allow such a tragedy to happen to a God fearing family.
Since, I have witnessed more tragedy in my own life as well as others, and I still don't have the answers I crave. There are cute books I have not read with titles like 'Why bad things happen to good people' and so forth, but I know the answers are not there either.
Mystery. Suffering is a mystery we all have to live with that the religious can only offer tentative answers for, where we must bear the blows of Fate.
The aggravation.
I must have the 'God' gene, because from the time I can remember and before, I have believed in God. I have believed the Universe, just our world alone, to be far too beautiful, far too complex and wonderful to be an accident. I know how irrational things really are, and believe in an organizing principle (the Logos) that turns chaos into order, and we have a small share in doing the same.
At bottom, I am still a Christian, though I think there is more to Christianity besides just what we are taught in churches and even the Bible.
But when I crack open a New Testament, and encounter stories of Christ dying and ressurecting, Apostles feeding 5000 with five loaves of fish, I know I am encountering Divinity which to me is cast in a most sublime form.
So yeah, I was angry with God deep down. And I still have answers I crave that go unanswered, for myself and others, but for better or worse, I cannot abandon the God of my youth.

The Scout Visit To The Forest

This week our boyscout troop traveled to Old Ben Scout Reservation for five days of camping out in the forest in largely primitive conditions. This was Dylan's second year to attend, and going from last year to this was like going from night to day. Dylan, on his way to becoming a literal first class Scout, tied half-hitch knots in order to secure tents, fished at 4 in the morning, earned three merit badges (two of which apply to Eagle Scout), and his camp patrol was one point away from being third place. I attended three of the five days and two of the four nights. My responsibilities included setting up camp after dark, keeping the camp neat and orderly, and guiding the kids while in camp and assisting two of them in earning an environmental science merit badge. Obviously Scouting, and being in the great outdoors has not only been good for Dylan, but has been good for me and Mary as well. There is something that builds character, however cliche' but real that may sound, in leaving the trappings of home life and the city, wandering out to a forest, setting up camp, and situating onesself in Nature. The Scout way is not one of pitting oneseself against the elements, but rather to arrange onesself in an outdoor environment, where a harmony is struck between man and Nature. Scouts are taught they have the freedom to believe in a Deity, and that that Deity perhaps inhabits the Nature the Scout experiences. Consequently, Scouts learn to 'leave no trace' when in the outdoors, to take only pictures and leave only footprints, and to make a clean, efficient footprint when setting up a camp. There is a real Reverance that develops between the Scout and his environment.
Besides Reverance, a Scout is taught to be cheerful as much as possible, through trying times as well as times spent at ease. I saw this particular Scout virtue practiced by the entire troop throughout the entire week. Through rain, wind, mud and groundwater, mosquitos and ticks, the threat of coyotes and bobcats, our troop maintained a verve, a spirit of cheerfulness that I felt was exemplary.
As a young man who has passed the point of naivete' and entered the realm of a healthy scepticism, I know the boys in my troop are going to encounter many trials in life that will at times become overwhelming. Through the Scout way, I am priveleged to be able to share some good sound advice both verbal and nonverbal with these boys concerning how to soften the blows of Fate and Fortune. A cheerful heart is certainly going to go a long way in warming the soul when it goes through it's trials and tribulations.
But at bottom, I do not inspire these Scouts. Boy Scouts is afterall, a boy led organization. They are the real inspiration, the real lifeblood of what goes into making a successful foray into the forest. It is their enthusiasm, their ability to leave the world of the city behind with all of it's problems, in order to face the world of Nature and adapt Nature's 'new' problems.
And if this isn't Courage, another Scout virtue, I don't know what is...

Torn From Today's Headlines

'Undiscovered Indian Tribe in Amazon Spotted'
Spotted? Great. By what, a helicopter? A plane? We flew threw virgin airspace over virgin jungle and disturbed a virgin tribe of people. Again. And you bet your bippy we disturbed them. What made these folks of flying machines with gods spying them from the air? You can bet there was some serious rewriting of tribal myths that night, folks
Messianic, somebody will decide these pure people will need to be shown the way and will invade this people, you just watch. Some wellmeaning missionary, priest or politician or real estate speculator or quester searching for Indian gold will make their way into this territory and hopefully get killed and eaten before they can kill and eat the tribe. Not necessarily literally, but metaphorically, mind you. Well, perhaps literally as well.
It makes me think of modern day pictures of missionaries showing third world countries how to live. Come out of your homes, your tribes, and leave your millenia-old myths behind and take up the cross! It's so much better! Leave the teachings of your forefathers so we can strap you in a seat in our institutions. We will give you public schools. Just come tour ours and see what a success they are! You to can find your end in anxiety, isolation and finally a drug induced hallucination! Our way is best! Onward and upward!
Is it our right to invade?

Today's Philosophical Moment - Henri Bergson's Definition of Life and the Individual and More!!

Life is unceasing creation.
The indiividual is a person composed of diverse parts which complete each other, though they perform different functions.
Further, without change, there would be no duration.
The past, in it's entirety, and not just what transpired a moment ago, is what comprises the present.
Bergson denies Kant's scepticism in Kant's stating we can never know 'things in themselves' as we cannot transcend time and space, but rather says through intuition we can perceive what a thing is in itself...the Absolute.
Finally, for now, Intuition is the faculty we use to perceive the Absolute, while Analysis only can describe the Relative.