Managing personal thoughts in a communications era

Dignity and Grace are, for me, the signs of a healthy environment for individuals and society at large.

There are times when I need to say to myself, "No! I am not going to think or speak in terms that deny Dignity and Grace.."  Only then do I take charge of my sacred gift of human existence.  

Self generated Dignity sets you and I apart from other creatures. Grace is the value given to our way of dealing with fellow humans and is well to be extended to other creatures as well. 

 Join me in the task of being persons of dignity and grace. 

Are we as individulals more intelligent than a hunter/gatherer?

I read people like Yuval Harari who express the viewpoint that we are probably no smarter than hunter/gatherers. As a matter fact, the person having to hunt for a living has to be really smart and physically able or he/she will shortly be dead.

Our human technology has advanced greatly making us even more dependent on machines of one kind or another. Some feel that machines may take the place of humans and then rule the world for the good of machines. 

My present viewpoint is that we as humans have the opportunity to get our act together. Learning history is my way of knowing what my tribe is up to. That is my task as long as I live. 

Simply writing this piece and putting it on line is one way to fulfill a life of dignity and grace. Telling stories helps strangers to cooperate.  We invent fictions to provide ways to deal with things we cannot escape.  Now that is one challenging concept.  This has been written as flow of consciousness.  

DK

 

 

Sinclair Lewis and Tom Friedman

Book Ends for early 2017          by Delton

My writing shelf for 2017 begins with writings by Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) and is closed in by the writings of Tom Friedman (1953-).

Sinclair Lewis started his life in Sauk Center which is about half way between St. Cloud and Alexandria on Freeway 94. Tom Friedman began his life in St. Louis Park which is just across town from us.

Lewis wrote about the emblems of American progress – business and city growth. His main characters are business people. He explores the relativity of business morals as well as private rules of conduct. His business men consider it God’s will that man should work, increase income and enjoy modern improvements. Competition was to be the basic moral foundation. His books show what goes wrong along the way to success. Family break up. Overspending on homes. Alchoholism. Murder of spouses. Loneliness. Confusion of everything in society.  He was the first American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize

Tom Friedman writes about foreign affairs, the middle east and American politics. His writings are filled with real characters from all over the world. In his work as a columnist for the New York Times he has been in villages, home, cities and in the halls of government. Globalization is a central theme. So is terrorism and its roots. Wars and environment have also been matters of interest. China is another focus of interest. 

Both Lewis and Friedman have had wide influence and support matched by pointed criticism from well-known people.   Considering their subject matters how could they avoid having enemies. 

 

My reading includes books by both Lewis and Friedman.  Right now I am reading Dodsworth by Lewis – just as boring as the business world he describes.  A book by Friedman entitled Thank you for being late: An Optimists Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations – fascinating in its future focus. 

Lewis was a prophet of what would take place in America right up to present moment. Friedman is a prophet of what the future may look like in the light of present events and developments.  To best understand both of them I see them as bookends to start 2017.

Lewis wrote It Can’t Happen Here in 1935. The novel describes the rise of Berzilius Windrip who gets elected president by fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms while promoting a return to patriotism and traditional values. After election Windrip takes complete control of the government with the help of a paramilitary force.  A journalist Doremus Jessup raises up opposition to the new regime. 

Friedman in Thank You for Being Late presents the urgency of recognizing Mother Nature as Political Mentor. Mother Nature is always trying new experiments as well as doing away with whatever does not work out. Ecological balance is maintained by allowing bankrupt species to disappear and new forms of life to appear. Mother Nature is slow and patient. Change is constant. 

We are blessed to have such creative minds in American and World culture.

Del

Rituals for the End of a Life

From the earliest human times there have been rituals and ceremonies for the end of a life. How do I know that? From glyph s etched into hardest of rock. I have seen the Thunder Bird and the Turtle. All are beyond human control. The etchings are attempts to enter into the experience of the ancestors who have gone beyond.

The creation of the glyphs took time, many hours beneath the open sky. By more than one person.  A community experience. Root sites of what we now call religion. 

We put ourselves at risk if we neglect the ritual ceremonies of the ancients. The translation into contemporary life is a cultural eddy in the stream of time. This is our task - this translation into the fluid language and cultural practices of the 21st century. 

Specific religions come and go. Religion goes on. Perhaps until the end of cosmic time. 

We shall not see that day - you and I. Unless.....

Delton

 

Opaque as a world view

The word Opaque brings to mind seeing through a glass or a mirror dimly. Just what are we seeing over there or in here?

Most religious Holy Days are both transparent and opaque.  On the one hand such days call attention to central features of a religion. On the other hand the more one looks into the details of the Holy Day the more uncertain one becomes over just where this all going.

Since I am a Christian let me use the Sacred Time of Christmas as an illustration.

Songs, paintings, poems, and decorations focus on the Baby Jesus and the birth in the midst of a troubled world. At first it is all so charming and lovely to behold. Cultures adopt the innocence of a new born child as a safe place to be. In America the commercial world has done its best to turn the season into a time of spending money and time. 

Persons who contemplate life issues often find themselves baffled by what gradually dawns. This innocent figure of a child grow up into a person who challenges any and all cultures, governments and educational systems. The stories surrounding the season seem fine emotionally but confusing to analysis by the rational mind. 

The horizon becomes opaque. Are we coming or going in this moment of time. What was so lovely fades into a place of discomfort when inner images are invaded by doubts and relationship questions.

It is as if this is a time when troubling matters can be surfaced. It is also a time when generosity can be shown with little question of motive. 

The opaque times allow space for exploration. Join me in befriending this opaque season.

Delton

 

Every Person a Library of Experiences

Have you run across signs of a certain disease in yourself or others?   Here is one sign. "My opinions don't count for anything.  Nobody listens to me so I must be a bother."  

Another sign is when hearing younger people say, "I'm a kid so who cares about me except the people who want to take advantage of me. The want my money or my body so who can I trust".

Another sign is watching older people withdraw from human contact and conversation. "They treat me like I don't know anything just because I don't have a fancy telephone or computer. I can't do the things that were such fun in younger years. What is there to live for when I feel like being part of the trash."

This disease of mind and body is hard to name. "Bad self image" just does not do it.  Depression comes to mind but defining depression is impossible. Does it mean "clinical depression", whatever that is. Or feeling the "blues".  I simply don't know an adequate word but I am willing to make a proposal for one way of looking at things.

What if I think of myself as a "Library of experiences".  What feeling arises in a person by just saying or writing those words?  Curiosity seems to arise in me. What does it mean to see myself as a library?  I surely have had experiences since childhood. So what is in me as a library? Consider looking at a  recent or long time ago experience. 

I try to put into words that positive or negative experience and soon discover that a filter wants to screen out some things as too over the top good or too terrible to look at right now. So I find one event that is interesting and soon a magnet like power draws in other ideas and feelings. A person learns which event to take off of the shelf of the library of your life. It takes practice. The brain as the central storage machine in each of us has already organized memories and events.

You may find yourself wanting to take notes on what has appeared. Do it. More notes will follow.

 

Religion and the Morals of a Candidate for Office

“How can a religious person support a candidate who has no morals?”

In the light of uncertainty over the role of religions in the presidential campaign now underway, approaching the subject via morals can be productive and challenging. Value judgments are necessary along the way. The plot soon thickens.

In the midst of all the noise I look for some metaphor that may be a bridge between public images and a manageable way of talking about the situation. I start with being out in the woods in a tent at night. There comes a sound that could be a bear or even a large frog. Hesitant to open the tent door for fear of being invaded a person listens to make sense of the experience itself. Some will hunker down and try to sleep; some will prayer to whatever higher power they can imagine; others will pick up a hatchet and flashlight and burst out of the tent. 

Just what is a religious person? It all depends on the definition of “religion”. This includes persons in awe of the universe and life itself. Others can be fundamentalist true believers who “know” they are right and gather with others who agree with this “rightness.” They are ready for combat against all enemies of “the faith”. Yet others attempt to take the best from the rational world and combine this with “common sense spirituality.” There are the negotiators and the warriors. Most religious persons are in a middle ground depending on the situation.

A candidate is a person who sees opportunity for influence and even power if he/she can gather enough support from persons to create one kind or another of crowd mentality. With the multitudes of elections that go on every year in the US the citizenry is fairly well schooled in winnowing out the good grain from the mere husks. Pardon such verbiage but this precisely describes the more controversial election contests.  One person’s husks is of necessity the other person’s good grain.

In this 21^st century the power of digitized information and instantaneous sharing on a global basis makes for a welter of presentations based on analysis the minds of the audience. Making decisions about candidates seems to revert to a tribal mentality. One tribe shares certain information while another tribe makes up a radically different approach. The appeal is mostly to the emotional realm and is created to touch elemental fears and desires – the stuff of dreams. The increasing ability to use big data to tap into the primitive person hidden deep in the human person is a warning to civil societies. 

Morals are agreed upon values and standards.  Trigger words can ignite deeply cherished feelings. Suddenly intellectual safe guards are overwhelmed by emotional feelings. Tribal life looms.  
Delton