The Hummingbird Tolls For Me, Part 4

See what I have to endure...being a Saint?
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Two last factors...the group and the book.

There was a group I was supposed to be a part of. But I got in another group and did class with them. It was good fun, but when the other group came out they introduced themselves to me and an old woman ploped down on the coach next to me and with bright red lipstick, gave me a grandma kiss.

It was sweet and kind.

Groups mean:

To see a group in your dream, refers to the merging of various aspects of your character and personality.

Well by now you can see that is certainly not the case. Okay, how about books and the Book in particular?

To see children's books in your dream, memories and a collection of personal memories from your own childhood. It may also suggest your desire to escape from reality and retreat into some fantasy world.

Well if I did not before, I certainly do now. Can I go back to my room now? No, not that one...the other one!
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Simon Templar has left the building and will be back on Sunday.

Intermissions, Part 1

The first movie I remember was Bambi. In feeted jammies we waited in line for the Drive-In. Winged Fords and Chevys slung through the gate and parked, hooked up and let out kids to a playground in front of the screen.

There was almost a sense of community where you got the intimacy of your own car, food, drink and a movie or three. A slight party atmosphere prevailed and the usual inflated snack shack prices.

Warm summer nights in California. We kids did not have an inkling of the new avenues for sex that the drive-in brought. We were just little examples of the potential, and often the actuality, running around banging into cars which had their own internal bangings and laughing.

Years later It was just nice to hit a double feature in your car. Alone. Sometimes, as a young male I could actually see a movie that featured some sense of sex, because, well my dad's idea of sex education was "well son, have you ever touched yourself?"

"Sure dad," I said at age 12, "I combed my hair yesterday."

"Well I am glad we had this talk."

It wasn't till a year or so later that I figured out what he may have been talking about.
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next ...drive-in church...sheesh

Intermissions, Part 2

Okay, nobody has a car like this anymore, but then there are almost no Drive-ins anymore either.

I guess there are in Canada. My friend Mitzee actually posed this as a question to help me simply write. They still have Drive-ins in Canada.

Sometimes I really wished I lived in Canada. They have their own problems, but they do not do what we routinely do...and they are the world's richest resource for comedians.

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What is so fun about Drive-ins?

Well, you get your own space, and get some anonymity. And that is exactly what a preacher figured out in the 70s.

That preacher's name? You'll know it right away, I think.

Robert Schuller, and he built that Drive-in church into something as large as any movie studio.

I'm not kidding...take a look!
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next..oh just look...

Intelligent Design Part 1

TK incinerating one of Mac's ideas. Kinda pretty.
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Two days ago there were a minimum of 17,000 posts on the Internet about "Intelligent Design" (ID) and no small controversy after some recent statements by George Bush Jr.

Two days I ago I was up at the Mac-Family cabin as a guest with a host of others, including a pack of at least 35 children, a fire-breather, an 8 foot tall woman, a dog that looks like a medium-sized multi-colored bear, a head of a Russian seminary, and an engineer who likes to write books about gay football players.

Mac's father (FM) was perturbed because a long article in the S.F. Chronicle never took the time to define what ID was.

Bad journalism to be sure.

One thing you have to say about this group is that they charge in where angels fear to tread. They eat well, drink plenty and then weigh in on any taboo topic they can find. If they get bored they get on stilts or spit fire.

Religion, politics, relationships...what-have-you...there is nowhere they will not go. But I noted also a deep undercurrent of respect that seems to allow for a wide array of views. In a very real sense I would say they are a living example of the "depth pluralism" I have written about elsewhere.

Anyway, it is not that bad ideas or theories are not decimated. It's just usually done in good humor. The above picture, in fact, is an actual picture of TMK incinerating one of Mac's ideas to the "oohs and ahhs" to some of the 37 children.

So FM had started it off in the morning by grumbling about the S.F. Chronicle article. Mac wanted no part of it because he knew nothing at all about the concept (or so he thought). In almost "Larry David" form though FM just could not quite let it go. It came up here and there throughout the day.

At one point I looked over at Mac and said, "He's not gonna let it go."

"I know," he said, "I like that about him, but I'm not jumping in. Better JK or TDK. Besides I'm at the part in the Bond book where he murders Drax at Bridge. Talk about ID! Er, can you pass the brie?"

The day was filled with all the beauty of the place. I watched the way that Mac swam with his sister, her kids and his own daughter. It didn't seem accidental or random at all, nor the beauty of the brown trout and the crayfish below my outstretched feet as I sat on the quiet dock watching with two eyes which are miracles all on their own.

A poem started in my head, then I thought of Pascal and all the design he saw, but also the false overlays of human experience...the "diversions".

Was this a diversion? Mac's daughter wanted him to watch her jump from the platform. When she emerged her face was laughing and aglow. He laughed.

Diversion?

Not buying it.

Later they played Scrabble and I thought of Walker Percy's views on language and semiotics. A "triadic view" that makes Scrabble and other things possible (like this article).

As usual, DM won at Scrabble. Her ID is to never stay at the table. As others sit and play she busies herself joyfully with grandkids, small chores, whatever...anything to detach from the game in almost Zen-like fashion until she comes to her turn very fresh.

It's definite ID.

Mac's a professional writer with an amazing vocabulary. I asked him later. He says he has never even come close to beating her at Scrabble.
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After dinner!

Intelligent Design Part 2

When I got back to San Francsico I picked up my mail. There it was again. On the cover of Time magazine: Evolution Wars. But I want to take this slow for a variety of reasons, so I am going to go back to a narrative version and then finish more as a journalist.
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One thing was clear after that dinner, they were gonna talk about it. Mac saw that so clearly that he immediately left to take a nap.

But he later confessed to me he was still ruminating about it, although he said he was sure that just thinking about it would cause trouble for him down the way...perhaps something not escapable by either fire of stilt-walking.

He complained that he had many doubts about the theory of evolution as he did the cacophony of creation myths and theories. He confessed he thought there was severe category mixing going on...oh and it was all far too politically charged.

The latter I understood because while I am utterly appalled and daily dismayed by George Bush's actions and words, I couldn't yet find a way to tag him on this one.

And I wanted to...real bad.

But what real harm could come from students being exposed to a whole pluralistic view of the Earth? It could lead to open debate and actually make them engage their brains. Of course, a scientific view would prevail because it is, er, science.

Later TMK would make the serious point of deliniating science from theology and that science is about observation and demonstrating through replication.

But who was there to observe first life, or first consciousness? Can we replicate the core issues involved here?

Because science can only guess at what may have happened 1.5 billion years ago, doesn't that leave open the door for discussion given that Darwinism is a theory and only 150 years old at that?

And why are the scientists so rabidly afraid of such discussion? We will return to this later because as sketchy as some Creationists are, some Evolutionists are just as doctrinaire and that makes little sense in a random universe of pure chance.

That and ID apparently does NOT require you be theistic or a Creationist. That surprised me a great deal until I remembered that I once wrote that Atheists should be employed at the Vatican. But that is another story altogether.
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After a glorious dinner of gourmet pizza by MM, caesar salad and three very nice Bordeaux's (er, for the whole table) the campfire was lighted, dishes done (Mac had somehow dodged dish duty because of some nasty deep-fried fingers from the night before), and the kids settled in for the night.

We sat around the campfire when I saw FM settle back and say "I just don't get it! What is up with this 'Intelligent design' nonsense?"

I watched Mac closely. His eyes rolled back in his head, then he took a sip of wine (or was it a gulp?), smiled and was silent.

Possessing no commitment to any view can be terribly helpful. One can always try out one small lifeboat and see how it feels, but skip over a few if it starts taking on water. It's an enviable position.

I was just an observer, a guest, so I kept my yapper shut.

I did however, an hour later, decide to do this blog and open it up your reflective thought and arguments. While this group of passionate people were able to argue for their views and actually listen, my gut told me that was not gonna be the norm around America and we have...sigh...one more thing to divide us (two wars, class struggle, a culture war and a huge political divide are apparentlty not enough).

I chalked up their ability to hang with each other in deep disagreement to two things. They seem to really love and respect each other, and they are...all of them...Democrats.

Which is an irony all in itself..but I am commenting too much. Let's get back Loretta!
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They sat around the campfire at the conversation grew. JK had already given some good background information to FM. Mac had finished his Bond book where the evil Drax had used his own ID to try and destroy London, but instead had been demised by his own foul plan.

Others weighed in as they could, most notably RML, DM, HK and HM

"What do you think Mac?" I asked at one point. "I don't think they have enough Bond books around here" he said.

"You are truly the shallowest man I know," I said. "But nice party."

But then his sister, MM came around and joined the discussion. A passionate young woman, she directly engaged TMK in discussion and off to the races they went.

It's hard to describe wht happened for the next three hours, but it was kinda like watching the Olympics where there are many events all going on at once, some very similar, others not. So at the end all I can give you are some highlights and then I shall invite the others who were there to add their own highlights because, well it was late, I was not taking notes, and there was a lot of beer involved.
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Highlights! next...

Intelligent Design Part 3 was lost

Yes. part three was lost utterly in a Blog downtime.

So in it's place a poem by Mac
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Gregory Bateson Died
From Intelligent Design

The scramble and political fray
Agendas on the Earth pounding
Temporary wells of darkness
We all hollow out here
And there.

Bateson called and left a message
We do not take his calls
So caught in our own webs
We cannot see his beauty.
We see the exampled child
In a schoolchair in Texas,
Not the sea horse or the
Soft-shelled crab or
The ribbed back of the armadillo.

No.

We invite and like chance
And that alone like some
Death-invited lottery
Lest we have to deal
With You.

I woke up this morning
And before I could argue
You placed your thumbprint on
My reddened pinky finger
As it oozed from some
Quick yellow fire.
You cooed in my ear
A song of love
Then quickly
Retreated.

Gone. Alone.
I hate it when you do that.

Gregory Bateson is your ace
But you turn away from his cards
And decide, on a whim
For some other game
Leaving us to our current hand
Now lost
Just ink on papered cards
I heard the droplet
Hit the bottom of
A cold hard bucket
As those cards were fanned open

You have already moved on.

Okay, okay
Just give me a moment
To catch my breath

I still think Bateson
Is the ace.
But You do not care.
Nice tell.

Here is my ace…
You are weird.
Deeply so.
And Gregory Bateson’s hand
Is much better than mine.

Intelligent Design 4

The current Time magazine cover.
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One thing I did notice and that was how politicized the whole issue immediately became.

Some see introducing ID into schools as just a cover for teaching Creationism and God in those schools. That is probably on someone's agenda docket, but it not necessary as I understand it. A God-less universe could still exhibit ID, just not one from a personal God.

Which is why scientists like Bateson are so important. They simply describing what IS. The problem is most people would find reading Bateson taxing. They want it simpler...so it's easier to just make it a quick political issue.

I myself really do not care about the God agenda. My reasons for believing in God come from experience not whether we have common ancestors who were apes. You cannot "prove" God, nor is there any reason to do so.

But I am interested, scientifically, in the complexities of eco-systems, systems theory, and the deeply complex and inter-related-ness of the universe at large. I am also intersted in how and through what lenses we use to explore these relationships, yes, and their inherent design.

Let the theologians and philosophers argue over the source of that design, but don't ignore the plain fact that such intricate design exists all around you. That is just ignorant.
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Here is a good place to go and see some mindful and respectful debate. I learned a lot here and was very impressed by arguments from both "sides".

I may do one more in this series on the "eye", but probably not as I'm rapidly becoming bored with the whole thing.

Intelligence, Eyes and Epilogue

Okay okay...one last volley.

A key element for me, as stated is simple observation of incredible order. My own body knows how to repair itself with systems I have no conscious knowledge of; I interact with other living systems all of which have incredible complexity and beauty. Maybe this is why it is so much easier to see God in nature than it is on a paved city street.

I read once that the human eye made Darwin "shudder". And I think I know why. But here is a quote:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. [Darwin, 1872]

The point is fairly simple...no benefit could be gained by the slow mutated development of what several millions years later might begin to register some input (not the word) on the first live optic nerve.

Once the doggone things exists, in some form, sure, then natural selection would have something to work with.

But you don't just "blammo" have a fully function eye tied into a cerebral cortex.

The same goes for many other organs in the human or animal body that needed each other all at once to function independently at all.

It's pretty common sense, though I have recently heard some pretty great arguments from Evolutionists, which I will share here.

And I once again remind you dear readers that I really do not give a Galapagos Finch's ass about either camp or politics. I just wanna explore what is right in front of us.

Their politics be damned. Look at what is, not what others want us to see.

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First, Darwin's quote above is one isolated quote and not in it's overall context (I suspect). Later he may have had more information, or we may have more today. If so, please post it here respectfully and we'd all like to hear it.

All I am suggesting is it is easier sometimes to attack the man rather supply new science.

I don't wanna be guilty of that. So I am gonna print the above with an asterisk and ask for responses.
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Time magazine rightly points out in a sidebar that the issue of the "eye" brings both sides into sharp focus. Personally, I did not know the editorial board there had any sense of irony, but apparently they do.

They work of of Michael Behe's work, and I have read him before (he is one who weighed in at the link in the last article...we will return to that).

In the Time article, he asks the simple question, "where did the first eye come from? How could a process of gradual improvements produce a complex organ that needs all its parts-pinhole, lens, light-sensitive surface-in order to work?"

To this we might also add, protective coverings, an aperture, saline from formed ducts to wash the eye, etc...

For those of you interested, I'd like to see a timeline explaining the coming together of such a marvelous apparatus...and then that it was across special lines and therefore independent?

The response in Time magazine is ascribed to no one, but is a general overview of evolutionary thought where a random mutation might have produced a patch of light-sensitive cells that helped a primitive creature tell day from night. From there they extrapolate.

A similar argument is used, and I think quite effectively in a rebuttal to Behe's assertions about needing "all the pieces" by Dr. Kenneth Miller who simply suggests that the various pieces of the puzzle can exist for other purposes before being combined.

I think it a good argument myself.

You can read it here.

But Miller intriguing answer aside, what follows at the end of Time magazine's synopsis is pretty crucial.

"The fact that there is no fossil evidence of the interim steps cannot be taken as proof that a designer-intelligent or otherwise-deliberately skipped them."

This statement not only utterly misses the scientific evaluation, it borders on a religious statement itself.

Science is about observation and evaluation based upon that. Philosophy and theology may play and dance about meaning and motive.

But in this we have the reverse.

The fact that there is no fossil evidence...NONE...ZIPPO...NADA for any intermediary stages of the formation of ANY eye that has ever existed (not to mention the task of species to species evolution) is where this folks turn an ironic blind eye.

That fact that there is no fossil record leaves us solely with conjecture and the begging question "where are the artifacts?" That's a scientific question.

The statement that the absence of any scientific data cannot be used to infer a designer exists is purely religious in nature.

We do not need one people. Take the holes in your fossil record and deal. And note that especially when you push your glasses up on your nose, because no one has yet been able to explain your beautiful eyes, why you dream what you dream, or the organic mystery of simply being alive.

Intelligence, Irony and Social Darwinism

"Don't make me come in there!"
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It is yet another irony that those who would use ID beyond its own scope (no pun intended) and would fight to disprove Darwinism, or at least undermine it, are at the same time model Social Darwinists themselves.

But before we continue we must delineate between Darwin's theories about physical evolution and those who then worked off those theories and applied them sociologically.

Thus the following quote:

It seems clear that Darwin felt that 'social instincts' such as 'sympathy' and 'moral sentiments' evolved through natural selection, and that these resulted in the strengthening of societies in which they occurred, so much so that "at some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world." (Descent of Man, ch. 6). Thus Darwin did believe that social phenomena were shaped by natural selection, although exactly how evolutionary pressure on individuals led to collective benefits is something that Darwin never clearly explicated. At the same time, Darwin did not hold the political views that many of those inspired by him would eventually affect.

(Wikipedia..hehe)

So let's be fair. Darwin had a rather optimistic view given the biological severity of natural selection.

Be that as it may "survival of the fittest" has become the modus operandi of those in power, and particularly our own government and its policies.

My own guess, and it is only that, is that Darwin would have hoped we had evolved, socially, to the point where "morality" and "sympathy" would lead to peace and not the bloodiest century on record.

It seems it backfired for him and even the current administration (like the American Puritans and others before them) are willing to ride any modified philosophy that will gain them superiority and power...even if it is modified Darwinism.

Go figure.

Now go read The Beatitudes of Jesus and weep...(Matthew the fifth chapter).

Solitude & The Laughing Buddha Part 1

I love the light, sea air and the feel of water wherever I can get it. I am a natural hedonist.

So when circumstances turned, I choose to visit a secret place, a haven few know about that is about as "other" from anything in Northern California as you can imagine. It is like taking a trip to Bali, a sort of NorCal Bali, but I love it.

I made the trip, and trudged in well equipped with packs and clipped gortex pouches, even a blue "Mac" expandible chair...like I actually know what the hell I am doing.

No one was there...well no one human but myself except the occasional one flying hundreds of feet overhead in a twin-engine Cessna.

So for blocks of time it was silent, or so I thought in the beginning.

___________________

I brought with me Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude and Thomas Merton's Love and Living. Merton, a Trappist Monk, was a solitary.

I am, for now, a solitary of sorts.

Of the perhaps nine to eleven "cells" or bamboo caves, I found mine at the far West end.

I set camp within and under. Settled, I immediately heard the wind moving over the high layered roofs of bamboo like rain. It created that intimacy that one feels cacooned within a warm space while it coldly showers outside.

But there was no real rain. Just cool with warm sand five feet ahead and the beckoning cool waters just beyond that.

Rain would have been nice, on another day, but it was warm, almost hot on the beach, but cool and dark in the caves.

To the far right, by the waters edge, someone had built a tall sand totem to mark their visitation. Probably children.

I duly noted it as I passed , but did not bow (though tempted).

Funny how humans create art everywhere to mark their being. Andre Malraux said "Art is humanity's last defense against death." I like Malraux...In fact, I know his nephew several times removed. But in the end, art is no deterrent, or deferment for death. It is merely a signpost or protest that we actually matter, even in death.

Sooner, rather than later for some...but always soon enough.

But in the meantime, you matter. I matter. Art will not save us...maybe God will save us, maybe God does not exist.

I do think that if God can be found anymore it will be in the most unusual places. God has been driven out of most of the other truly human haunts..most notably the churches.

Want to find God? Go where no one else goes. Find a ridiculous place filled with irony...or a desolate place...just anyplace where the paving and branding of humanity has not squeezed out every last indicator, not broken every last true mirror, has not dried up every last small river or sliver of hope.

Find that place and wait.

God'll show...probably.

If not, you made the effort. Good for you.
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Part Two coming...

Solitude & The Laughing Buddha Part 2

I waded out, still in my swimsuit. The water is not hardly deep enough here...just wide. It is hard for me to get wet enough...but I manage to find a place where I can be in the midde. and stand with only my upper chest in the cool sweet air.

SILENCE.

It moves in on me

the opposite way

noise does

like little invitations

to come out!

It is so quiet.

Everything stories down to almost nothing.

Quiet.

Has it been that long

I have not heard human voices?

Yes.

It has been that long

very long

too long.

It stories down

deeper further and farther

deeper still.

I feel suddenly

ENRAPTURED

How could I EVER

hate being solitary!?

I am simply in delirium as the water washes by, lazy and lovingly. The sun sparkes off the waters...the canyons sing. My head is feeling hot so I dip into the coolness like a kind of unearthly waterery invisible chocolate...and spray the mane back with my big hands and laugh!

In this moment I am not a christian, I am a buddhist, then in the next I am not a buddhist, but in love with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Both are true. I laugh and splash about...alone but not at all so.

In silence it all storied down, then, after a time, it came back alive within new ears. I heard the slight woodpecker determined like a winged Sisyphus, and the finch dancing and darting in sweetness, the flap of dragonflies and the pheasants in their skiddish spray.

But always the water.

Then God took my head in his hands and kissed me on the forehead like a the father I never had, and I looked over and saw the Buddha winking at me from the shoreline.

And I was grateful...deeply grateful.

Solitude & The Laughing Buddha Part 3

After several hours of being alone I wanted to write...but had no pen.

My heart and mind were flooded with perception and I wanted to capture it all, but I have learned from years of experience that it is often this way. Sometimes it is best to just sit down and BE...and not write or chronicle.

The Buddha, sitting by the old rock swing watched me search for a pen, then let out a belly laugh, deep and full..

I stopped looking for it, but 30 minutes later he was distraced by a Grey Heron and I put on my diving shoes and headed for the truck to get my pen.

I am obviously not a very good buddhist. I am also not a good chrirstian. But I'm honest.

Solitude & The Laughing Buddha Part 4

I had been alone and blissful for many hours. You can tell. People travel thousands of miles form here to find themselves on a beach just so, with just so water. And this is all a true story, except I cannot prove that either God the Father or the Buddha actually showed. You can take that as hyperbole if you like, I have a certain well-deserved reputation for that anyway...so feel free.

I started for the truck and was shocked to see two humans approaching...walking down the beach.

It was a man and woman...and he held up his hand just as I did...at just the right distance...to make peace..to come to an understanding out here where no one else was. So funny how aboriginal we truly are, if you are still alive in that way.

He was. So am I.

Few words, the expression, the posturing...It was an immediate understanding.

So in our passing by I noticed his beautiful long brown hair braided back and her long lanky figure within a dark summer dress and straw hat. I could tell from his brief words and accent that he was Eastern European and assumed she might be as well.

When I came back he was in the water naked and unashamed. I saw her up the beach laying on her stomach, long dark and lean, wearing only the straw hat.

It was vaguely Edenic and I liked that they were both there.

Solitude & The Laughing Buddha Part 5

I went back to Marquez under the cool of the bamboo, and poured a glass of wine and set to laying out crackers on this old purple plate I love with cream cheese followed by plump bright orange popping salmon roe.

A christian existentially, a buddhist in practice, blatant hedonist in the moment.

Give me the pop of those delicious ripe eggs spurting their rich salty juice into my mouth.

Without any gawking I had watched them, here and there, dive into the water and then walk back up the beach. They were , and are, simply beautiful...gorgeous. And I wanted to meet them for holy and pure reasons. Kindred spirits...I could see that...would they though?

So I kept reading Marquez. I set out my plate of caviar and poured another glass of wine and drank it down like a fiend and walked out into the shallows and dived in.

He looked like a young Depardeau...thickly European but gorgeous in just that way, he was natural in his own skin...and after a long cold swim I once saw him roll in the hot sand and later just dry out in the air. It took no imagination to see why most any woman would be drawn to him.

With her I felt more self-conscious. Most men objectify women as objects for sex. I do not, or maybe in a rare hormonal moment...I just thought her beautiful and long and her straw hat made it more so...more whimsical. It made me happy to think of them making love, possibly still in love. I hoped this was so for someone, for them, laying next to each other naked in the hot sun.

We all come back so quickly, too quickly, to ourselves and ourselves alone. This may be the disease of this age, but I suspect it is truly the disease of the species.

It seems as constant as inevitable death.

Maybe the way out of both dilemmas is related. Either way, we need out.

Love and death...it comes to this.

Solitude & The Laughing Buddha Part 6

Nude Sunbathers, by Nigel Van Weick. Oil on Panel. Amazing work. See it HERE.
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I had had my time. I had read more Marques and a bit of Merton.

It will be six months before I can return here, as it closes next weekend for Winter.

I slipped the printed poem out of my leather journal. It is called "Silence"..a gift. As shy as I can be, it was the only way I knew to meet my sweet naked nieghbors. I felt it criminal if we did not make some contact.

I think it was because we had been communicating all along, and I wanted to affrim that. It is certainly true that if I had known them before I would have felt no shame in laying naked next to them, or talking about any such thing, any more than I did when I finally approached them on departure. If I see them next Spring I will probably do just that.

They welcomed me openly and we sat in the sand and talked awhile. They were enjoying it, and me too. I gave them my poem and we exchanged emails and handshakes. And they were just as beautiful up close as from afar...even more so because they became more real and less distant.. It was a nice human moment, three naked people with one clothed.

It was a good day.

The glory of God sang around the canyon's rim and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob belched up air bubbles sheepishly in the shallows around the tadpoles like clues...and His multi-layerd love bounced and radiated off the top of those waters, and She patted the woodpecker on the head and stroked the beaver under it's chin, and gave the complicated soulful man sitting out in the water up to his chest a few hours rest from himself. And She kissed the woman with the straw hat on the forehead and told the braided man he was beautiful as he made his way down the beach to the water, with hot sand on his shoulders seeking release.

And it was good. Very good.

Pre-text for The Haunt of Jackals

"Much is your reading, but not the Word of God,
Much is your building, but not the house of God.
Will you build me a house of plaster, with corrugated roofing,
To be filled with the litter of Sunday newspapers."

T.S. Eliot
Choruses from "the Rock"

The Haunt of Jackals Part 1

Imagine a society where, instead of baking bread for hungry people, they produced mass quantities of pictures of bread and posted ads for them at every corner, and handbills were given out with pictures of different types of bread, hundreds of different types of bread. Pictures of wheat bread, pumpernickel, Jewish rye, banana bread, croissants, sheepherders bread, bread sticks, garlic bread...heck, even melba toast.

Now imagine that these images of bread not only became the dominant mode of exchange (some hoarding these pictures, others spending them as fast as they could get them), but were actually consumed on a daily basis despite the fact that they had no nutritional value whatsoever.

Imagine that, besides the handbills, posters and billboards which depicted the pictures of bread, the evening television news consisted of discussions and international debates over which of these pictures of bread were worth the most, and which were declining in value or had become disreputable as a true picture of bread. Imagine witnessing special interest groups arguing and protesting the advantages and disadvantages of consuming their particular type of bread-pictures. And, of course, in such a world, litigation would be intense over who had the actual rights to each type of bread picture, and there would often be disputes over counterfeit pictures or poor foreign copies had infiltrated the market.

And the entire time that men and women were viewing these billboards, wheat was growing up around the posts. And wherever they stapled posters, streams gurgled by with yeast cultures forming in the shallows and the sun.

What would you make of such a society?

The Haunt of Jackals Part 2

Well if you were an alien and you saw this what would you think?
_____________________________________

Hold that thought while we look at another hypothetical situation.

Suppose you are a disguised alien sent to study Earth culture. Shortly before landing your cloaked ship you notice that mass numbers of vehicles are moving toward a few long large structures situated throughout the greater Sacramento area. You deduce this is either a place of societal worship, or perhaps the seat of regional governments. You decide to investigate. You land in an open field near the corner of Heritage and Challenge Ways, and walk a few blocks to the huge structure along Arden Way. Vehicles are continually swarming past you into the areas around the building stacked up high in racks. You wonder what you will find. You also wonder if your will be allowed in without any credentials. No one pays you any mind as you enter.

Making your way down the center walkway you note that there are large cubicles dividing various goods. Each cubicle has a gigantic word at the front, and the same word posted in smaller forms many other places. You also note that in most of these compartments clothing hangs in the windows bearing the same word in large and colorful letters. One shop says B.U.M., and every item in it says B.U.M. in large letters on the front. But what does B.U.M. signify, you wonder? Many of the people who are passing by are wearing clothing with these bold words. What does it mean?

You want to ask people questions. A small group of women are standing in the walkway occasionally stopping people and asking them a series of questions. They all hold clipboards. You do not have a clipboard. Suddenly, one of the women puts her clipboard down and walks off citing the need for something called a "nacho bellgrande and coke." You wait a few moments, and when no one is looking, borrow the clipboard and leave to another area of the building. As you walk you notice cubicles with the words "GAP," "NIKE," "Guess," "Levi," and "Esprit". People leaving these stores are wearing clothing with these words written boldly over a variety of patterns.

You sit down and write, "I am at the center of either their religion, or commerce, or government. They identify themselves with very important words. Some are devoted to "GAP," others identify in some way with "NIKE" or other significant names. I am going to approach some of them and ask them to explain the meaning of their large words.

Having only a limited knowledge of Earth English, you decide to be direct and hope for a good response.

You stop a young female and ask, "Can I ask questions?"

"Sure, it's a free country," she replies.

You point at her chest and say, "If you were... describing these words to a foreign person, what would you tell them?"

"What words? What are you talking about?"

"Those words: 'GAP' 'BUM' 'NIKE' 'GUESS.' What do they signify?"

"A brand name, a logo," she says.

You search your memory of human languages. "'Brand'... a hot mark on a cow. Not much help. 'Name' ... signifier of identity. Not much help there. What about 'Logo' it means a .... a word!" you think triumphantly. But then think, "these are words that mean word?" The girl looks impatient.

"What is the meaning of these logos?" you ask (hoping it is a sensible question).

"They don't mean anything!" says she. "What kind of question is that?" she asks, cautiously moving away, and then is gone.

You approach several other people, and each time the results are similar. On one occasion you ask an elderly male, "How much does the clothing cost; is there any difference in cost?"
"Yes, the Guess shirt is $10 more than the Levi," he says.

"Then the Guess is a better shirt?" you ask.

"No. Same shirt; it's the name!" he says.

You sit down and write in your logbook, "These large words mean "nothing," yet people wear them on their bodies and display them proudly on their cubicles. This phenomenon needs much more study."

The Haunt of Jackals Part 3

"For the customs of the peoples are a delusion;
Because it is wood cut from the forest,
The work of the hands of a craftsman
with a cutting tool.
They decorate it with silver and gold;
they fasten it... so that it will not totter.
Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they,
And they cannot speak;
They must be carried,
because they cannot walk!
Do not fear them, for they can do no harm,
Nor can they do any good"

Jeremiah 10:4-5

Context is everything. Jeremiah makes the above statement in reference to the wooden idols of his time which were crowned with silver and gold. They were objects of great fascination and pretended power and meaning.

The "woods cut from the forest" were, and still are, the materials of creation refashioned into objects of adoration and worship. The decorations of "silver and gold" were the special effects of the day used to adorn these basic objects. Together they formed the idolatrous image upon which the culture was based. Though obviously made by men, that fact was quickly forgotten or repressed in order to bestow the highest possible meaning upon the object, which in turn would tell people who they were.

But what has Jeremiah to do with the story of the bread-picture people and the alien's visit to the mall? And what of our curious title, The Haunt of Jackals?

Imagine that you actually live in just the sort of world our two stories have described: the type of world which feeds upon image and likeness over substance and life; the sort of culture which has devalued the currency of communication to the uttermost degree. Imagine that you live in a society where truth is dominated and informed by the immediate images of that culture, and where the great gift of language and communication...of words...has become the strip-mined ground of advertising, meaningless rhetoric, and titillating slogans.

Now don't imagine it, because you already live there.

Over the last 100 years something unprecedented has taken place. We have moved from a society based on the spoken and written word, to a society based upon visual images. Television, movies and digital media have replaced words as the dominant means of perceiving reality and meaning in this culture.

Where a personal and detailed written description of historic events once provided information, our optic nerves are now bombarded with images of world events from every conceivable angle. Who would have thought, one hundred years ago, that people could routinely view our entire planet from the depths of space, or watch the tiny movements of a human being in its mother's womb?

This shift from words to images as a means of perceiving reality has staggering implications for our culture. Whatever is viewed begins to take on a life of its own. It begins to produce and shape new contexts at a dizzying rate. And these visual contexts, which are being created and embraced by so many, are nothing more than idealized and abstracted pictures of various "lives" which no ever lives. They are the valueless bread pictures eaten by a nation ravenous for the true Bread of Life; they are the meaningless logos imprinted on the clothes of all who need the true Logos to cloth them with His own Self.

George Orwell, in his novel 1984, had already begun to imagine a world where new technologies could be used to control people. But Orwell got the order mixed up. Orwell saw a world where the people were controlled because "Big Brother" was watching them. In our culture it is just the opposite. We are controlled because we are watching Big Brother. Orwell saw millions of lenses and a few viewscreens. Our world is moving toward millions of viewscreens, and fewer and fewer lenses.

And its ironic because it is not only a more effective means of mass control than what Orwell envisioned, the masses also end up paying the bill! There may even come a day where the whole world watches events through one single lens (Don't laugh. How many people were watching a single murder suspect trying to flee in his white Bronco a few years back? Just push it up a few more notches and we are there.)

But for our present purposes, let us just note that the words which people still use are no longer trusted and valued the way they once were. We watch and watch and watch while the ad-men steal and use every word which still has some resonance left to sell us more stuff.

INTERMISSION & QUOTES

"They followed the light and the shadow,
and the light led them toward light
and the shadow led them to darkness,
Worshipping snakes or trees,
worshipping devils rather than nothing;
crying for life beyond life,
for ecstasy not of the flesh.
Waste and void, Waste and void.
and darkness on the face of the deep."

T.S. Eliot
Choruses from "the Rock"

"I like to watch Eve."

Peter Sellers
as "Chance the Gardener" in
Being There

"The sound of a report!
Behold it comes! A great commotion
out of the land of the north
To make the cities of Judah
A desolation, a haunt of Jackals"

Jeremiah 10:22

"Men have left God
not for other gods, they say,
but for no god;
and this has never happened before

That men both deny gods and worship gods,
professing first Reason,
And then Money,
and Power,
and what they call Life,
or Race,
or Dialectic.

The Church disowned,
the tower overthrown,
the bells upturned,
what have we to do
But stand with empty hands
and palms turned upwards
In an age which advances
progressively backwards."

T.S. Eliot
Choruses from "the Rock"