The Essential Sincerity of Falsehood

TRUE ~ FALSE
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

As heaven and earth are not afraid,
and never suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, be not afraid. . . .

As truth and falsehood have no fear,
nor ever suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

~ paintings by Leonard Orr ~
~ poetry from the Atharva Veda * ~


"For there is no lie that contains no part of truth."
Tennessee Williams 1911 – 1983
from "The Summer Belvedere" **

Over the past few years, I have attempted to define modernism (In A Handful of Dust) to sketch a profile of the Heroine of Sensibility, and to trace the concept of human emotion as a constant quantity, perpetually Advancing & Receding -- all by analyzing the primary texts of modern literature. In this post I apply the same strategy to a related theme: the endless tension between truth and falsehood, virtue and vice. Does one advance as the other recedes, or do they always co-exist, two sides of the same moon or the same medal? The following passages -- from fiction, poetry, and prose -- reveal the views of several modern authors:

“I was made to look at the convention that lurks in all truth and on the essential sincerity of falsehood. He appealed to all sides at once — to the side turned perpetually to the light of day, and to that side of us which, like the other hemisphere of the moon, exists stealthily in perpetual darkness, with only a fearful ashy light falling at times on the edge.”Joseph Conrad (1857 – 1924)
from Lord Jim (emphasis added)

"No themes are so human as those that reflect for us, out of the confusion of life, the close connection of bliss and bale, of the things that help with the things that hurt, so dangling before us forever that bright hard medal, of so strange an alloy, one face of which is somebody's right and ease and the other somebody's pain and wrong."Henry James (1843 – 1916)
from the "Preface" to What Maisie Knew

"The speaking subject is not, however, identical with the subjectivity of the author as an actual historical person; it corresponds, rather, to a very limited and special aspect of the author's total subjectivity; it is, so to speak, that 'part' of the author which specifies or determines verbal meaning. This distinction is quite apparent in the case of a lie. When I wish to deceive, my secret awareness that I am lying is irrelevant to the verbal meaning of my utterance. The only correct construction of my lie is, paradoxically, to view it as being a true statement, since this is the only correct construction of my 'verbal intention.' Indeed, it is only when my listener has understood my meaning (presented as true) that he can judge it to be a lie. Since I adopted a truth - telling stance, the verbal meaning of my utterance would be precisely the same, whether I was deliberately lying or suffering from the erroneous conviction that my statement was true."E. D. Hirsh, Jr. (b 1928)
from his essay "Objective Interpretation" (1114 - 1115)

"Nothing is simple.
Every wrong done has a certain justice in it,
and every good deed has dregs of evil."
H. G. Wells (1866 – 1946)
from Tono - Bungay, 226


"There is so much truth in all different sides of things."
Ivy Compton - Burnett (1884 – 1969)
from Manservant and Maidservant (133)


"To Sir Edgar it confirmed his view that in the Divine Order
every vice - even Clun's arrogance - had its virtuous purpose."
Angus Wilson (1913 – 1991)
from Anglo - Saxon Attitudes (324)


"The negative trait that you might dislike in a loved one is
quite probably the flip - side of a positive trait that you admire."
Summarized from the work of Harriet Lerner (b 1944)
see Dance of Anger & Dance of Intimacy

The Essential Stupidity of Courage?

Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, June 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

As truth and falsehood have no fear

*A Charm Against Fear

As heaven and earth are not afraid,
and never suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

As day and night are not afraid,
nor ever suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

As sun and moon are not afraid,
nor ever suffer loss or harm,
Even so my spirit, be not afraid.

As truth and falsehood have no fear,
nor ever suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

As what has been and what shall be fear not,
nor ever suffer loss or harm,
Even so, my spirit, be not afraid.

Book 2, Hymn XV, from the Atharva Veda
composed 1200 BC ~ 1000 BC

For there is no lie that contains no part of truth.

**The Summer Belvedere
I
Such icy wounds the city people bear
beneath brown coats enveloping withered members!
I don't want to know of mutilations

nor witness the long-drawn evening debarkation
of warm and liquid cargoes in torn wrappings
the ships of mercy carry back from war.

We live on cliffs above such moaning waters!

Our eyeballs are starred by the vision of burning cities,
our eardrums shattered by cannon.
A blast of the dying,
a thunder of people who cannot catch their breath

is caught in the mortar and molded into the walls.

And I, obsessed with a dread of things corroded,
of rasping faucets, of channels that labor to flow
have no desire to know of morbid tissues,
of cells that begin prodigiously to flower.

There is an hour in which disease will be known
as more than occasion for some dim relative's sorrow.
But still the watcher within my soundless country
assures the pendulum duties of the heart
and asks no reason but keeps a faithful watch

as I keep mine from the height of the belvedere!

And though no eyrie is sacred to wind entirely,
a wall of twigs can build a kind of summer.

II
I asked my kindest friend to guard my sleep.

I said to him, Give me the motionless thicket of summer,
the velvety cul-de-sac, and quiet the drummer.

I said to him, Brush my forehead with a feather,
not with an eagle's feather, nor with a sparrow's,
but with the shadowy feather of an owl.

I said to him, Come to me dressed in a cloak and a cowl,
and bearing a candle whose flame is very still.

Our belvedere looks over a bramble hill.

I said to him, Give me the cool white kernel of summer,
the windless terminal of it, and calm the drummer!

I said to him, Tell the drummer
the rebels have crossed the river and no one is here
but John with the broken drumstick and half-wit Peg
who shot spitballs at the moon from the belvedere.

Tell the feverish drummer no man is here.
But what if he doesn't believe me?
Give him proof!
For there is no lie that contains no part of truth.

And then, with the sort of courage that comes with fever,
the body becoming sticks that blossom with flame,
the flame for a while obscuring what it consumes,
I twisted and craned to peer in the loftier room--

I saw the visitor there, and him I knew
as my waiting ghost.

The belvedere was blue.

III
I said to my kindest friend, The time has come
to hold what is agitated and make it still.

I said to him, Fold your hands upon the drum.

Permit no kind of sudden or sharp disturbance
but move about you constantly, keeping the guard
with fingers whose touch is narcotic, brushing the walls
to quiet the shuddering in them,
drawing your sleeves across the hostile mirrors
and cupping your palms to breathe upon the glass.

After a while anxiety will pass.

The time has come, I said, for purification.

Rub out the lewd inscriptions on the walls,
remove the prisoners' names and maledictions,
for lack of faith has left impurities here,

and whisper faith to the summer belvedere.

Draw back the kites of hysteria from the sky,
those struggling fish draw back from their breathless pool,
and whisper assurances cool
to the watchful corners, and whisper sleep and sleep
along the treads of the stairs, and up the stairwell,

clear to the belvedere, yes, clear up there, where giggling John
stood up in his onionskin of adolescence
to shoot spitballs at the moon from the captain's walk.

And then, at the last, he said, What shall I do?
The sweetest of treasons, I told him. Lean toward my listening ear
and whisper the long word to me,
the longest of all words to me,
the word that divides the sky from the belvedere.

by Tennessee Williams (1911 - 1983)
American Playwright
Twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Twice awarded the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award

Window With a Mother's Face

A FEW DAYS EARLY THIS WEEK
IN HONOR OF MOTHER'S DAY
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Above: Sorting through reams of musty old family papers and keepsakes, I came across this lovely collection of vintage Mother's Day cards, most of which were given to my grandmother from my mom, during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.

*********************
Below: I also came across pages 4 - 7 of a brittle typed manuscript for a Mother's Day Pantomime, featuring Some Mothers of Today, complete with stage directions for the coming and going of various mothers and a supporting cast for acting out each poem:

"Window with a mother's face.
Have a lattice window where the mother can
leave and come forth to greet her children."
The whereabouts of pages 1 - 3 remain a mystery, but on the back of page 7, my mother has written: "Found in Mama's cherished papers." My best guess is that my mom added this notation in 1966, when my grandmother died. However, it is unclear whether or not my mom knew why my grandmother cherished this manuscript. Was it perhaps part of a school play, church program, or community entertainment in which she participated?

Amidst all the unknowns, one thing seems certain: Mother's Day was indeed a well observed event in my grandmother's day. After admiring her treasure trove of cards, I was able to track down most of the poems and lyrics referred to in the text of her presentation:

On page 4:
The Old Arm - Chair
by Eliza Cook - 1818-1889
"Would ye learn the spell? a mother sat there,
And a sacred thing is that old arm-chair.
In childhood’s hour I linger’d near
The hallow’d seat with list’ning ear . . . "

and:
A Thread of Hair
by Christopher Bannister

"I knew her when her locks were golden.
And here, night afternight,
Over this ol dwork basket,
I saw them change to white . . . "

On page 5:
Revery: An Old Picture
Oliver Marble

"The change and strife of later life,
The years that leave me gray.
Have taken, too, that pictured view;
But cannot take away
The memory so dear to me . . . "

On page 6:
A Mother's Song
by Mary Frances Butts

"Mother, crooning soft and low,
Let not all thy fancies go,
Like swift birds, to the blue skies
Of thy darling's happy eyes . . . "

and:
A Mother’s Love
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah (Sheridan) Norton (1808–1877)

"The mother looketh from her latticed pane—
Her Children’s voices echoing sweet and clear:
With merry leap and bound her side they gain,
Offering their wild field-flow’rets: all are dear . . ."

On page 7:
The Goodest Mother
Anonymous

"But here was a comfort. Children dear,
Think what a comfort you might give
To the very best friend you have here,
The Lady fair in whose house you live . . . "
and:
Old Mothers
Charles S. Ross

"A knowledge in their deep unfaltering eyes
That far out reaches all philosophy,
Time, with caressing touch,about them weaves . . . "

Plus, recommended songs:
When You and I Were Young, Maggie
sung by John McDermott

Silver Threads Among the Gold
sung by Foster & Allen

*********************
I wish I knew more about my grandmother's role in this "Five Mothers Pantomime." Was she coaching the local drama students? Was she the Stage Manager, narrating the production in manner of Our Town? Or was she perhaps the editor, paging through the sentimental favorites of the day? I like to think of her making the connections, choosing each poem with care, and weaving them together into an effective sequence -- for me to read on Mother's Day, a hundred or so years later.

Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, May 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST ~ "The Story of a Book"
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Mayday Mayday

A BRIEF DELAY THIS WEEK
IN ORDER TO OBSERVE MAY DAY
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

In times of international distress . . .

"Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
All things break, and all things can be mended.
Not with time, as they say, but with intention.
So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you."

~ L.R. Knost ~

Smack dab in the tentative middle of a pandemic, May Day falls this year on a Friday, not a Sunday. However, the sun is shining for the first time in three days, and the following lines from Yury Olesha's novel Envy seem perfect for the occasion:

". . . on a Sunday in May, on one of those Sunday's
of which no more than ten are enumerated
in the monuments of meteorological science,
on a Sunday, when the breeze was so nice and caressing
that one felt like tying a blue ribbon around it . . . " (61)

***************

With it's focus on life and work in a Moscow sausage factory,
perhaps this poetic, satiric novel is even more fitting if you
are one to observe a traditional Soviet May Day.

See Envy (1927)
By Yuri Olesha (1899 - 1960)
Translated ~ T. S. Berczynski
Olesha's lovely description of a perfect day in May reminds me of that uplifting yet bittersweet song from the musical Oliver. In both the novel and the song, the day is oh so rare -- Olesha says "no more than ten" and Oliver says "it could not happen twice" -- and tied up with a ribbon, as a priceless gift or perhaps for safekeeping:

Who Will Buy?

Rose Seller & Strawberry Vendor & Milkmaid:
Who will buy my sweet red roses?
Two blooms for a penny.
Who will buy my sweet red roses?
Two blooms for a penny.

Will you buy any milk today, mistress?
Any milk today, mistress?

Who will buy my sweet red roses?

Any milk today, mistress?

Two blooms for a penny.

Ripe strawberries, ripe!
Ripe strawberries, ripe!

Ripe strawberries, ripe!

Any milk today, mistress?

Who will buy my sweet red roses?

Knife Grinder:
Knives, knives to grind!
Any knives to grind?
Knives, knives to grind!
Any knives to grind?
Who will buy?

Who will buy?
Who will buy?
Who will buy?

Oliver:
Who will buy this wonderful morning?
Such a sky you never did see
Who will tie it up with a ribbon?
And put it in a box for me

So I could see it at my leisure
Whenever things go wrong
And keep it as a treasure
To last my whole life long

Who will buy this wonderful feeling?
I'm so high I swear I could fly
Me oh my, I don't want to lose it
So what am I to do to keep this sky so blue?
There must be someone who will buy.

Oliver & Chorus
Who will buy this wonderful morning?
Such a sky you never did see!
Who will tie it up with a ribbon?
And put it in a box for me

There'll never be a day so sunny
It could not happen twice
Where is the man with all the money?
It's cheap at half the price

Who will buy this wonderful feeling?
I'm so high I swear I could fly
Me oh my, I don't want to lose it
So what am I to do to keep the sky so blue?
There must be someone who will buy

Lyrics & Music by Lionel Bart (1930 - 1999)

***************

And of course no May Day is complete
without memories of running up
to a kindly neighbor's front door . . .

. . . and leaving a surprise delivery
of freshly picked lilacs from the yard!

Previous May Day Posts
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
**************
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, May 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Mayday Mayday
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

May "He" Rest In Peace

PERSONAL PRONOUNS
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

www.hesheittheyi.com
As a public service, I'm devoting this fortnight's blog to typing up an excellent essay -- not otherwise locatable on the internet -- and passing it on to you. Many thanks to Professor Kathleen Stevens for describing the pronoun dilemma so sensibly. This essay somehow came into my hands during the few semesters that I taught at the Community College of Philadelphia (1995 - 1998), yet two decades later, the need for awareness remains just as pertinent.

"Burying the hypothetical 'he'
changes expectations for women"
by Kathleen Stevens

Here is a passage in a recent Newsweek: "The more stimulation a baby receives, the better off he will bee . . . A toddler's vocabulary reflects how much her mother talked to her."

"Baby . . . he. Toddler . . . her." Twenty - five years ago, that gender alternation wouldn't have occurred. English grammar require masculine pronouns after every noun naming a hypothetical human being. every generic baby, toddler, teenager, adult or old person was "he" -- every astronaut, brain surgeon, carpenter, dentist, engineer, foreign correspondent, straight through the alphabet.

Then feminists objected. In a 1972 New York Times essay, feminist writers Casey Miller [1919 - 1927] and Kate Swift [1923 – 2011] called the practice "a semantic mechanism that operates to keep women invisible" [Words and Women, 178]. Opponents retorted indignantly that generic nouns referring to human beings had always included both sexes.

The argument was fierce, but feminists prevailed. Today, grammar books recommend strategies to avoild pairing generic nouns with "he" and "him." Writers employ such strategies and editors red - pencil manuscripts when they don't. The hypothetical "he" has almost vanished from contemporary print.

In most cases, the change has been easy. The most obvious option -- using "he or she" -- is too clumsy for careful writers. Sometimes they pluralize the generic noun. When "people" replaces "person," "he" becomes "they," and both sexes are included. Direct address offers a second option ("the student . . . you" in place of "the student . . . he"), involving the audience while eliminating the masculine pronoun.

When both writer and reader belong to the group discussed, the editorial "we" makes sense. In place of "man . . . he," a writer may choose "human beings . . . we." Occasionally writers simply avoid "he" after a noun by repeating the noun or using a synonym, And when the text calls for a series of examples, many choose the strategy used n the Newsweek article above -- alternating male and female examples.

Has this grammatical change improved English, or is it political correctness run amok? Clearly, the change is an improvement.

The old usage was confusing. Encountering male pronouns following a generic noun, the reader had to decide repeatedly whether "he" meant "he" or "he and she" -- an unnecessary obstacle in the decoding process. Then there's courtesy. Why consign half the human race to linguistic limbo when the language offers options?

Finally -- and most important -- the old usage was a fraud. Who could seriously believe that readers see women as well as men when a text pairs "the person" ("citizen," "mayor," "bus driver," etc.) with "he"? Ask a child to draw one of these hypothetical individuals. How many would create a female image? Words reflect reality. They also influence cultural expectations. For hundreds of years, every hypothetical person mentioned in print in English was "he." This grammatical pattern reflected social reality and encouraged certain gender - specific expectations.

The subconscious tilt toward maleness in the use of "he" sometimes surfaces in texts that purportedly include both genders. In a 1969 children's book on semantics and communication, author Stuart Chase* refers to human beings with many generic words: reader, person, child, baby, homo sapiens, individual. Each time, the noun is followed by "he." Also generic, right?

But when repeated references to "a typical 6-year old" grew clumsy, Chase christened the hypothetical child "Jerry" -- and the generic child became a boy. Chase called teachers "schoolmasters" and stated that language transmitted knowledge "from father to son." Arguing that patterns of language usage shape patters of thought, Chase had failed to notice the linguistically influenced male bias in his own thinking.**

Eliminating the hypothetical "he" didn't produce the female biologists, basketball players and investment bankers we see today. But it helped. Shannon Lucid's chances of becoming an astronaut improved when science texts began to speak of "scientists .. they" in place of "the scientist . . . he." And Madeleine Albright's confirmation [on January 23, 1997] as secretary of state surely came more easily to senators no longer accustomed to seeing every reference to a hypothetical government employee matched with "he."

The widespread use of the masculine pronoun with generic nouns has ended. May "he" rest in peace.

* Just a guess: Danger -- Men Talking!: A Background Book on Semantics and Communication, not that it's a children's book, but it was published in 1969 by Parents' Magazine Press.

** But at least Chase gave it a try. I've never gotten over Bruno Bettelheim's introduction to A Good Enough Parent (1988), in which he goes to great lenghts to justify why he is not even going to bother with inclusive pronouns, the other half -- or more! -- of the human race be damned! With a straight - face, he writes:

Throughout this book, I have referred to a parent as "he" or "him," unless an example clearly refers to a mother, although I had mostly mothers in mind when I was writing and assume that mostly women will read it. Moreover, since slightly more than half of all children are female, it will also be difficult to decide how to refer to them. I am convinced that while both parents contribute significantly to a child's being raised well (or not so well), it is the mother, particularly during the early years, who is apt to play the considerably more important role in the process. One way to handle this semantic awkwardness would be to refer to parents always as "she" and "her," while referring to children throughout as "he" or "him," in this way making it easy for the reader to know whether I am speaking about a parent or about a child. But I found it as difficult to think of all parents as female as it was to think of all children as male. Another solution would be to refer to parents and children as "he / she" unless I specifically had a male or a female in mind, but this is not at all in mind with my old - fashioned way of thinking or writing.

But my main reason for shunning these ways of writing was that in writing this book, I felt I was speaking to my readers the way I have been talking all these many years to mothers, to staff members of children's institutions, or to mixed audiences of professionals interested in child - rearing. In speaking to such groups I could never make myself say "she / he" or circumvent the problem by speaking only about "persons." These expressions did not permit the kind of direct personal contact I value, so I have found it wiser to stick to the old - fashioned generic "he," whether I am referring to female or male, child or adult. The generic seems more natural to me, at least so far as children are concerned, because I was raised and spent nearly half of my life in Vienna, where in line with German custom, all children were spoken of in the neuter gender. I wish this were possible also in English, not only for children but also for adults, to make it obvious that one is not just referring to one sex only. But since this isn't possible, I feel it best to use the traditional language, with which I am most comfortable.

How shameful -- or should I say shameless -- to admit that you prefer the old exclusive ways because they suit you! Of course they do if you are part of the included group. Bettelheim could have broken some ground outside of his comfort zone and helped advance the language and the position of women, but instead he actively chose to be part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

And don't forget that Bettelheim was writing sixteen (16!) years after the great strides taken by Miller and Swift:

"The stated goal of . . . mutual respect and equality between boys and girls . . . was being undermined by the English language. . . . it hit us like a bombshell . . . It was the pronouns! They were overwhelmingly masculine gendered.”

As they wrote in the preface of Words and Women: “ . . . everything we read, heard on the radio and television, or worked on professionally confirmed our new awareness that the way English is used to make the simplest points can either acknowledge women’s full humanity or relegate the female half of the species to secondary status.”

In 1997, building on the foundation of Miller and Swift, Professor Stevens recommended eliminating the hypothetical, singular "he" by consistently using plural nouns along with the gender neutral plural pronoun "they." Contemporary options go further, allowing the more flexible use of plural pronouns with singular nouns -- a useful shortcut, though I still strive for pronoun agreement whenever possible. However, as my son Ben and friend Rebecca continue to enlighten me, inclusive pronouns are more important than the occasional plural / singular inconsistency. Best not to be "on the wrong side of history and "on the wrong side of English"! If only Bruno Bettelheim's editor had advised him in 1988:

"It takes time to adjust to new ways of speaking and thinking. Personally, I would much rather my friends and family mess up than give up entirely" (see Desmond Meagley).

Welcome, Singular “They”

In closing,
my quest in progress to connect with Professor Stevens:
December 17, 2019
Dear Moorestown Library,

RE: Finding Pleasure in Poetry with Kathleen Stevens

I realize that this event is past, but it is the only reference I could find online to Professor Kathleen Stevens, and I was hoping to contact her about one of her previous, admirable essays that I occasionally use for teaching purposes: "Burying the hypothetical 'he' changes expectations for women."

Do you have a professional address for her? Or could you kindly pass my email on to her so that she might possibly contact me concerning her work?

Thank you so much for your kind attention,

Kitti Carriker, Ph.D.

**************
Hello Dr. Carriker,

Professor Stevens retired a number of years ago, so there wouldn't be a professional address for her. However, she is one of our library patrons, so I can forward your email to her.

Sincerely,
Joanne Parra
Head of Reference and Adult Services

**************
Dear Joanne Parra,

I greatly appreciate your note and thank you so much for helping me get in touch with Professor Stevens.

Sincerely,

Kitti Carriker

**************
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, April 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Re - Ligio, Re - Connect

A TREE OF LIFE
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"Creation itself, the natural world, already believes the Gospel, and lives the pattern of death and resurrection, even if unknowingly. The natural world believes in necessary suffering as the very cycle of life: just observe the daily dying of the sun so all things on this planet can live, the total change of the seasons, the plants and trees along with it, the violent world of animal predators and prey....Only the human species absents itself from the agreed - on pattern and the general dance of life and death." (77)

***************
"For me, that is what makes something inherently religious: whatever reconnects (re - ligio) our parts to the Whole is an experience of God, whether we will call it that or not. . . . also reconnecting [our] outer journey to the "inland" or [our] interior world, which is much of the task of the second half of life." (xxxiv - xxxv)from Falling Upward:
A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
by Richard Rohr, OFM
Author, Spiritual Writer, Franciscan Friar

***************
Ordinarily, I record current reading and favorite passages on my book blog; however, upon reading the first few pages of Falling Upward, I knew right away that I needed to share Rohr's intriguing definition of religion and his emphasis on connection here on my Fortnightly blog of connection and coincidence!

Looking at the etymology that Rohr gives of the word religious, I realized for the first time that the first two letters are a prefix -- re; and the root is ligio -- as in ligament or ligature, as in to bind.

Pastor and spiritual director Matt Mirabile
makes a similar connection on his blog, Medium:

"Ligament also shares its root with religion and as such binds muscle to bone. I always get a kick out of the whole 'spiritual but not religious' thing. While one can be religious without being spiritual one cannot really be spiritual without being religious. Spirituality hangs on religious discipline as muscles hang on bone. This comes as much from a modern misunderstanding of spirituality as a misunderstanding of religion. Of course, we Christians have created this misunderstanding. We have failed to convey what genuine spirituality looks like and therefore have misrepresented the value of religion. If we would see religion as that which vitally connects us to God through the power of the Holy Spirit, a deifying discipline, as blessed John Keble called it, then we would value it as the great treasure that it is, for we would be made more divine by it." [emphasis added]

I have puzzled long over the distinction that Mirabile makes here: spirituality requires religion, but religion does not require spirituality. Yet religion goes beyond mere rules and dress codes (that always exclude) creating a tie that binds and includes, making a crucial connection between humanity and divinity. My thoughts return once more to Rohr's insistence on inclusion:

"If your notion of heaven is based on exclusion of anybody else, then it is by definition not heaven. The more you exclude, the more hellish and lonely your existence always is" (101).

At the end of the day, everything meshes together into one connected (re - ligious!) conversation. Connect, only connect!

Backyard Sunset ~ March 24, 2020
First time for a week that we’ve seen the sun!

Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, April 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Pi Day

A PIECE OF PIE, SADLY DISCORDANT
WHEN WILL IT BE ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS?

Maybe one day that big blue part of the pie
will be used to confront the REAL enemies
such as bacteria and coronaviruses.
**************

A timely thought from Richard Rohr -- and just a bit
uncanny when you remember that he wrote these words in 2011:

“ . . . mature societies were meant to be led by elders, seniors, saints, and ‘the initiated.’ They alone are in a position to be true leaders in a society, or certainly in any spiritual organization. Without them 'the blind lead the blind,' . . . Those who are not true leaders or elders will just affirm people at their own immature level, and of course immature people will love them and elect them for being equally immature. You can fill in the names here with your own political disaster story. But just remember, there is a symbiosis between immature groups and immature leaders, I am afraid, which is why both Plato and Jefferson said democracy was not really the best form of government" (9).

from Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
by Richard Rohr, OFM
Author, Spiritual Writer, Franciscan Friar

**************

March 14th is the day for both pie charts and pi charts.
Whether numerical or edible,
political, poetical, or pie in the sky,
we have pie of all kinds!

Lets start with a Pi Pie.

Pillsbury Pi Day Pie

A poem for Pi Day (3 / 14 / 20):

Pi (3.14)

No one gives pi much thought.
Even after it has been dutifully taught.
The numerical pi goes on forever,
Like the swish of a baseball,
Flying through outer space.

Three point one four,
For some it's a bore,
But NOT to me.
The transcendental number is the code,
To unlocking the perfect memory.

Math it involves,
Area and circumference of circles, it solves.
Pi never repeats itself,
Pi is smarter than that,
That is a fact.

Twenty-two over seven is the equivalent fraction.
But to me that fraction is a distraction.
I prefer the original,
The decimal version.
Three point one four.

Rachel Mac

And now for that other less abstract kind of pie:

1. Artfully described but lamentably executed is the fiasco of blueberry pie baking recounted by Bich Minh Nguyen in Stealing Buddha's Dinner:

I used to wish Rosa would make lattice-top pies and cool them on a windowsill, as I had seen in comic strips. I loved the construction of a pie, the swell of pastry cradling fruit. It was easy to bake a cake from a Duncan Hines mix, but no one in our household had ever attempted an actual pie. So it was bizarre to see Rosa hovering over the pot of blueberries, mixing in cornstarch and a stream of sugar . . . she scooped the whole mess into the pie shells . . .

Later, all four pies sat cooling on the kitchen counter. They were heavy and purpled around the edges, and a tough skin had formed over the tops. . . . I overturned a gloppy portion onto my paper plate and took a bite. . . . I could not get past two bites and neither could anyone else . . . (216 - 17).

2. Poet Grace Paley (1922 - 2007) has better luck in her luscious pie poem:

The Poet's Occasional Alternative

I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time . . .

everybody will like this pie
it will have apples and cranberries
dried apricots in it . . .

. . . I decided to
settle this morning for a re-
sponsive eatership I do not
want to wait a week a year a
generation for the right
consumer to come along

3. Paley may charm the reader into thinking that it's more gratifying to craft a pie than a poem, but contemporary poet and scholar Punya Mishra offers a clever rebuttal:

Poem or Pie:

I just read this poem
about a poet who chose to
bake a pie,
than write a poem!

It was weird, since in my hands
was a poem, not a slice of pie!

Was this the poem
That was not written?

. . . Because in my heart I knew
that poets will do anything . . .

To . . . make the reader smile . . .

But the truth is
I know it, and you do too,
that some days, a poem beats a pie . . .

4. And some nights the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie:

A Few Nights Ago:
The Full Worm Moon

Previous Pies
Kiss Pie & Safe Pie & Flag Pie
Peach & More
Mince & More
Pumpkin & More
Raspberry & Chocolate Pecan
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, March 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com