The Ideal Place.

This is really the ideal place to keep up with what I am up to, thinking, doing, seeing, processing, et al.

Nashville.

I was in Nashville the weekend before I left the East Coast. A burling looking, tattooed, and bearded fellow approached me during the closing worship songs of a church service I had joined my friend in attending. This fellow was Irish; his hair, skin, and freckles betrayed him and his eyes twinkles merrily above his cracked, toothy smile. “You have something big coming up don’t you? What is it, I am supposed to listen to you and pray for you as you head into this thing,” he explained. I was quite taken aback at this verbiage, naturally. How could he have such boldness in approaching a perfect stranger? What compelled him to climb over chairs and rustle through a crowd to find me, only to put such a strange set of words before me? What if I had responded, “Get away from me, you lunatic!”? This fellow had noticed me enter the building, and from that point had determined that I required a hearing and prayer. Nothing would frustrate his plans to reach me. Nothing would deter him from obedience.

Retroactive post.

Apprehensive:

I’ve come back to the word over and over these past few weeks. Perhaps it is simply a nice word choice for “anxious”; I hope not. There is no concern regarding the choice, or the decision to go. It is the unknown, the fear of failure, the desire to be genuine in the face of hypocrisy that causes said apprehension.

djmase

11.05.27

Halfsies.

“The mind of man plans his way…”
---
Robert Burn’s 1786 poem, To a Mouse, only handled half of the thought correctly, and in that half it is arguable if “correctly” is even the proper word. His “…best laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry]” sentiment, while true, is not fully true. The issue is within “awry”, and who is the determinant of its proper qualitative position. If Robert deems himself the authority on what is “awry” and what is the actualization of “best laid” then truth is no larger than a dead mean.
Yet, another option is available. Perhaps the best laid plans of men are merely that; the plans of men. These same men live seventy years, die, and then rot into dust. Yet, in my estimation, not all of them dies; for they are not dead, dead…but this thought is moving off topic.
The point is this, the plans of men are continually frustrated, and “… lea'e us nought but grief an' pain.” Yet, such a pessimistic view leaves one longing for a gun and but one bullet, thus in finishing the above started Proverb is a welcome predicate.
---
“…but the LORD directs his steps.”

The Alleged Literalist.

It’s a very nebulous word; transition.
It’s much like when one explains a date as being, “interesting…”.

Now, that is not to say that every “interesting” is a horrifically egregious experience, yet one would not be remiss in the generalization that “interesting” is a benevolent surrogate for words of a less than delightful nature, which have yet to be formulated.
On the other hand, there are those who are generally at a loss for words who use “interesting” to mean something akin to, “I’d like to see him again, perhaps…”. [As an aside everyone one would benefit from stating said sentiment, plainly.]

“Transition”, is a similar such word, one that receives substantially more mental mileage than the ten keystrokes it affords. For example, were one to note, “We are in, sort of…a…“transition” right now…” the comment could be interpreted about thirteen different ways depending upon, but not limited to, body language, facial expression, tone, former sentiment, latter sentiment, et al. The word, and its variants, is simply too broad a noun, verb, and participle; used in a way that is often overly abusive of the finite definition.

Granted, I am loquacious by nature and often accused of being far too much of a literalist, but come now, if the race is ever to approach commonality in communication, this ever-growing exhibition of postmodernity within linguistics must be curbed. How is one to communicate effectively within a society that so liberally reinvents the usage of words on a whim? This orthopraxy is a direct function of and is in turn revelatory of the standard operating procedure of postmodernism, as well as its error.

All of that being said, this author finds himself in something of an interesting transition.

Vapor.

A good friend of mine and I continually return to one simple sentiment, “We need more lives….”

We dream and consider the future, we understand that life is before us, and is open and ready for cultivating, yet the simple multitude of options presented us is so daunting that we become paralyzed. Literally, we could become doctors, we could be come lawyers, we could become carpenters, painters, or yoga instructors…there is no end.
Yet, there is an end. Every heart does stop beating, every lung does stop breathing, and the end will have come; generally before it is invited.

In our paralysis we slowly grind forward --- for there is little else to do --- looking toward that next carrot dangled before us: a job, a raise, two weeks in Cabo, an Aston Martin, a spouse, Junior, retirement, et al. But, as Solomon mutter time and again, “It is all Vanity and chasing after wind.”

Since Blogger is Ghetto-fabulous...

...See here for some goodies.
Feed-back and propagation would be a delight.

djmase

Vulnerability.

Position:
The very utterance of the word elicits a desire to cover up vital organs, brace for impact, and protect oneself from certain impending affliction. The series of letters slices through the eardrum wearing a loathsome sneer, “I know your heart, I know your hurt, and I know exactly where to strike.” It wears a face; every person knows the face of vulnerability.
Yet, there remains a desire to redeem this fierce vermin of a term. Perhaps it is a theological disposition? After all, what has vulnerability done to desire such a bad rap; what culpability has he?

Consideration: (Second person intentional)
Has vulnerability left you holding a bucket full of holes?
Has vulnerability made promises it didn’t fulfill?
Has vulnerability whispered sweet, false nothings in your ear?
Has vulnerability harvested you then left you for dead?

Verdict:
Given the data, perhaps there is something in the nature of vulnerability that warrants skepticism. Perhaps it maintains a disposition that is slightly less than loveable and slightly more than horrible…one’s phenomenological response would suggest so. Erickson contends, “Credibility, once compromised, is not easily regained or preserved in other matters,” a position that is nigh impossible to refute.

The “But,” and there’s always a but:
Vulnerability is something like air. The commonality of its essence is pervasive, within both sacred and profane worldviews. In The Four Loves, Jack Lewis poignantly explained that there were two paths a being may take, the path of love (vulnerability) or the path that seeks to protect from loving anything in an effort to protect the heart; in the case of the latter the tale ends sadly, ironically. Some years later Emmylou Harris penned a song in which she states, “God knows how I love you, like a user needs a drug,” this sentiment follows the path of the typical user…down the rabbit hole, but once again provides a paradoxical insight into the psyche.
Yet, there is a theme strung through the profane. Although it hurts and the going is very difficult, there is a need, a want, a desire for this thing; this one dangerous, elusive thing. And the only extant bridge is named Vulnerability. (I do not know the Elvish word for “vulnerability” nor was the English to Elvish online dictionary of any assistance, yet if I did know it, this is where I would use it.)

So:
The human condition exists, in its unaided state, as one of brokenness with an innate desire for complete fulfillment (Here the position is theologically inform). Through this longing for restoration and ultimate communion one finds symptomatic tangential desires, such as said desire for vulnerability, permeating everyday life. Fear not, this urge, though frightening, is proper. It is an exhibition of how life was truly designed to be, yet due to the broken status of the world, vulnerability has yielded searing fruit resulting in a misconception of the entire entity. Vulnerability, at its root design level, seeks to be and provide fruitful relationships; storge, phileo, eros and agape.

Commission:
While the desire to protect oneself requires one, selfishly, to withdraw into their cave of protection, this place of “respite” will ultimately wield the most damage; sin is a brilliant paradox. Redemption of vulnerability exists as one verb of God’s overarching redemptive outworking.

Go.

Do.

The measure of a blog (post).

I've been told my posts are too long.

I am in complete agreement.

Yet, it is very unlikely that I will shift my writing style, specifically regarding length and the surplus of it---after all, if it is a story worth telling, it is worth telling thoroughly.

I’ve also been told that as terseness replaces loquaciousness, regularity should beset my current infrequency.

I am in complete agreement.

Yet, stories only come every so often, whereas research of a substantially more boring nature than my long stories maintains a position of primacy in my day to day.

I’ve this token to offer.

I am writing (hopefully) for fun again (hopefully).

---

Also, I have finished a year of Seminary only to realize the more I know, the more I don’t.

Chapter Two: Fear & Gripping Grendel. (In part, 3)

-When an aircraft is stalling, flying too slow to create a low-pressure zone above the wing, two things are required immediately in order to avoid a fatal crash. The pilot must apply full power and push the stick forward, directing the nose of the aircraft at the ground. Now, this sound moronic, “We are ‘crashing’ by stalling, and you want to add power and fly straight at the ground?” “Yes, that is exactly what I want to do; it is our only way to survive. We need to gain speed in order for the wing to respond as it is designed to. Once we speed up, we will pull up and pull out, theoretically.” An awkward conversation one hopes to never find them self in, yet does on a daily basis in choices that are a bit lower stakes.
-I was not willing to obey to my doctor’s orders, not fearful of the stall-warning, willfully disobedient to the instructor’s directions to add power and nose over. My life was stalling out, with all my efforts I was trying to nurse it along, but I was unwilling to take the measures necessary to recover from an impending doom. I was too afraid to nose over at full throttle, “What if I can’t pull up in time? I will die!” I knew the stall-warning would not lie, buzzing and blinking away on the dashboard, but I also knew I did not have to obey it; after all, “I was the master of my own destiny. I was in control.” I had proven that over and over.
-There was a pendulum in my spirit that cyclically swung through anger, sadness, peace and questions; rinse and repeat. There was one underlying, pervasive monster in the early season of grief, Fear. Fear is a living, breathing, personal Grendel.
-“The joyless creature…The fiend’s temper was aroused; from his eyes came an unlovely light, like a hellish flame…The horrible monster intended to tear the life from the body of every one of them before day came. He hoped for his fill of feasting.” –Beowulf, Chapter 13.
-My fear was paralyzing. It is nearly humorous, in a sick British humor sort of way; the fearful paralytic is really in a tight spot for he is a self-defeating person, bent on doing nothing detrimental, therefore doing nothing at all. The fear grows so great that all of his life grinds to a halt. I saw it in minor ways within myself; the fear of make bad decisions on very basic levels, “Should I go home now or later?” to which I could rationalize myself is circles with justifiable reasons to do both or neither.
-The rationalizing created a bigger tear in the fabric of ability; after all, rationalizing had in part landed me in this jam in the first place. The powers, my powers, of rationalization allowed and facilitated me in compromising much of my supposed ‘belief system’ with ‘perfectly legitimate’ reasons for nearly everything. What could not be rationalized away was out right disobeyed resulting in the aforementioned stall-warning condition.
-As with any insatiable monster, fear was not satisfied to devour only the appetizers, it wanted the meal, he “Hoped for his fill of feasting.” Fear had a taste for my ability to create and write as well as my ability to engage in normal human relationships, particularly with women. The “What if I mess-up?” monster is far more dangerous than any multi-armed, well-fanged and smelly creature under one’s bed.
-My journal provides another telling and substantially humiliating truth about a person subscribing to this fear. It was a long time in the making, many quite hours of reading and thinking before I lifted a pen. “I am so afraid of having nothing profound to say. That I will read this in years to come and feel foolish about myself…at least feeling foolish is something, to ignore the present will erase it as I go forward. So, what will I have then? Nothing because pride kept me from it now.” To learn from the lessons granted us is one of the brilliantly defining elements mankind possesses over beast; that and the eternal soul. At this point I believe Grendel started to realize that my grip was strong. I hadn’t need of a blade to take his arm off.
-“Now the ghoul found that never in the world, anywhere on earth, had he met a man with a mightier handgrip. He became afraid in his heart, but he could not get away any the sooner. He was eager to be off; he wanted to flee to his hiding place and seek out the company of devils,” -Beowulf
-It must have proved a terrific blow to the façade, and the man behind the curtain with the PA who we are to “Pay no attention!” Realizing that my pride was blinding me started to allow some amount of melt, I began the slow process of trading my inky blackness, for the whisper of a brownish-burgundy smudge.
-Fear, or the Devil as I see it, has no interest in letting one’s mind out of itself. Freedom is the enemy of fear, for all freedom is bound in fear if allowed, and the Devil is the enemy of Freedom therefore by the transitive property of 9th grade geometry, the Devil is Fear incarnate. Hey, look at that, a formula! A mind inside of itself is the safest place for disintegration; living death to take place.
-Fear had explained to me, “Look, what ability have you in sorting through any of this? You put your best foot forward, so to speak, and look at the shape of things! Just give up, give in, and enjoy the read for the sake of it, that is the best we can offer you!” While bogged down in the trenches of Grendel, I found only one place where I was safe, or reasonably safe; or so I thought.