revmerrill's notebook

I don't know Latin so I had to track down what it meant. The second part of the quotation is part of Wilfred Own's poem by this name.. I could figure out Dulce means sweet and mori had to do with death. Decorum surprised me. I think of decorum as behaving properly, but it means honor. The whole quotation is Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. I was thinking father with patria, but it means country. Ah! Patriotic. And the Spanish word for country is pais. So the translation is: It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country.

Wilfred Own's poem is from World War I and recounts a gas atttack. I read it as part of librivox.org's http://www.librivox.org/ weekly poetry project. I haven't been reading of late but it is a small way I can contribute to reading. I am such a big consumer of the spoken word. The weekly poems are short enough to Braille and I feel competent to read. I'm hoping in my new environment to have better recording quality. This is a very noisy environment. Part of it is the clocks, fountain, refrigerator but the large windows which I enjoy so much don't help. Nor does the computer fan. Anyway, when I read the poem to myself I had to work through it as a reader. I had some problems recording, so I read it over and over again aloud. The Old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori. How do you read an old lie? I spat out the words. Poetry has that affect on me--collapsing words to sharp points of emotion. I read some Scripture this way. I read Plath this way. I am writing this post all run together because of how the poem is written and what it says. If you had been there, you would not speak of glory.

World War I produced poetry like this. It was the first modern war. The gas, the mechanization, the devastation of whole regiments getting wiped out and the introduction of airplanes changed war from being very individualized to something very impersonal and depersonalizing.

Not that any war was ever sweet.

Some have said we don't write poems about war any more. We send emails, snap cell phone pictures and videos, and blog. How will that change things?

I can certainly blog from my phone, but I also thought I'd try blogging from facebook. yes, you can send me a friend request. I'm still getting the hang of all this and how I can use it. For those of you who have noticed I haven't posted regularly here, I've been working on my creativity at http://soxbus837.blogspot.com/ I am also thinking about committing to posting here daily on spiritual stuff. I'm not quite ready to make the plunge but I'm getting there.

Wasting Time

I'm really good at wasting time. I can find an internet site that has to be visited, a feed that needs to be checked for updates, a Craigslist that needs to be viewed. There's always email, the weather, another cup of coffee or, yes, going back to the beginning of this list and looking to see which books have been added to the library site. Spyware removal, podcast listening--it all takes time and what have I accomplished? I've wasted time and then I say, Oh, I was busy. I didn't have time to ----

This is true of the podcasting and it is true of my writing. I need to stop wasting time and get on with doing. The way to get rid of a bad habit is substitute a good one.

So I didn't check the feeds or the email. I sat down to write a post since I'm a blogger, after all, and I haven't been blogging. Now that I feel good about myself, I can have another cup of coffee and -- oh yes, listen to that file I need to prepare for podcasting.

Finally! I updated the firmware on my phone. It's taken a while to get everything squared away. I lost the info on my data line and couldn't connect to the internet. When I got that squared away, I had to get this keyboard working and install vox. I still can't get the headset to pair. I'll keep trying on that.

I'm getting caught up with church podcasting. There's still way too much to do there. With Elwood being out of sorts, I couldn't focus and then there was the book packing spree. I have to contact the pastor in Syracuse to say the books are ready. Apparently he's not getting back to me. I hate that. I have something he wants.

I broke the coffee grinder by shrinking the lid in the convection oven. I didn't realize it had fallen into my pan. I decided to buy the cheap grinder. I'm thinking that was a mistake as it really is a lesser grinder, but given my track record with appliances these days, it may not last and then I can get something different. For another $6 I could have gotten a quisinard, but I really don't think I should be spending all this money on a coffee grinder. It would have been nice though.

Elwood and I are getting out to walk. That is helping us both.

I'm really posting tonight to make sure everything is working and t get back into the habbit. The keyboard feels a little strange which means I haven't been using it enough.

Holy Week

This has been the weirdest HOly Week ever. I had this idea ... I would read the narrative from Matthew very diligently. I would attend Mandy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter services. I would be very, very diligent.

Instead, I have packed books to be given away. I've emptied 3 bookcases and will give them away, too. I'd like to get a 4th empty. I've tried reading and fallen asleep, largely because I was drinking decaf instead of regular coffee. I've been headachy, from the same cause. I have to decide about my addiction to cafine later.

I'm cleaning up my hard drive slowly. I've gotten most of Norton off the laptop. I'm trying to run lean there, too.

ANd the most weird thing is, I went looking for music yesterday, to at least mark the day. "Jesus Keep Me NEar the Cross" is what I played because, after all, that's the point. I played the end of Godspel, too. What is left? It isn't worshiping a dead hero, as my NT teacher would say. It's about the living God. Keep me close, Jesus because you hold us all in your heart.

It is such a relief to not to think I have to be profound, only to report, respond and ruminate.

I got an emnail yesterday from a pastor in the reigion talking about the sin of spending on books--so many books they clutter the shelves and most go unread or, having been read, hang about. I think it has to do with wanting to impress and a form of conspicuous consumption. Anyway, he packed up about half his library and the books are going to a church in Africa. Who wants to join him?

The email came late in the afternoon. While I had dinner in the convection oven, 20 minutes, I had one shelf examined and a box of books. It is a liberating experience. Thousands of pages either read or never to be read as well as pages read for class. My rule has been been: don't get rid of anything you really want. Let me tell you, there isn't a whole lot I want to hang onto when it comes down to it. I'd rather someone else use it.

Now we're trying to figure out how to get the books from Jamestown to Syracuse. Perhaps the Episcopalians can get them as far as Buffalo.

I don't live in an Irish area so ST. Patrick's Day is a non-event. Given my diet, I'm not eating corned beef either. Soda bread is a possibility, but I probably could't eat it fast enough. So much for celebrating.

Curiously, ST. Patrick's Day falls in Holy Week. This Lenten/Easter season of early dates won't happen again until the 2300's I think.

I bought the Daily Message. It was only one credit at audible for 76 hours of audio. It doesn't fit on my 2gb card for the Victor Reader Stream. I found part 3 has the gospel of Matthew and I'm reading Jesus in Jerusalem this week. Peterson's paraphrase alwlays sheds new light on old texts. It usually prompts me to reread the passage in a standard translation.

Today's surprise was this: I didn't know the image of Jesus as mother hen was also in Matthew. It's in Luke 13, not in Jerusalem. But in Matthew's gospel, Jesus says it in conjunction with his denunciation of the scribes and pharisees. "I will send you prophets," the text says. Jesus speaks for himself or for God here in Chapter 23? I had always read right past this part or rarely read it at all. Curious.

Well, Lent has been ashambles. All my high hopes of intense study evaporated. The public journal would have been better served on this blog than as a polished podcast. Live and learn.

It's been a while since I've posted. I guess I've been busy and busy in a way that has not prompted me to blog. I've been working with system access, synching a lot of things to my Creative Zen Stone and Victor Reader Stream and listening to them. As a result, more has gone into me than come out of me. All of my resolutions to journal and blog and even podcast have seemed to disappear this Lent. perhaps that is what the wilderness is all about. You disappear for a while and then re-emerge into civilation. More later. 

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February 22, 2008

Pure in Heart

When I was growing up, today was Washington's birthday. With President's Day, this has all changed. Of course, George Washington wasn't born on February 22 anyway. He was born on February 11. He was born before the Gregorian calendar was introduced and everything got moved 11 days later. This accounts for some of the confusion surrounding the October revolution in Russia in the early part of the 20th century. They were still on the Julian calendar which loses time badly.
This has nothing to do with my spiritual journal for Lent. It does tell you a little about how my mind works. I get to thinking about this and find myself looking up dates and conversion factors and such and it is lunchtime before I finish. People say I'm knowledgeable about things. Yes, I am, but it comes at a cost.

I've been thinking also how compartmentalized I am. I separate God out from the rest of my life. Jesus has his sphere, but connecting him to the rest of my life is extremely difficult.
For example: I went for my last treatment on Wednesday. The muscle is better than it was when I started the first of the year, but it is, according to the nurse, a work in progress. I can come back in six months to be re-evaluated. Keep doing the exercises. Since I won't be monitored, I won't know if the muscle is in spasm and if I should cut back or increase my exercise. Of course, I won't be able to truly ascertain the benefit of doing all this until I can take long walks.
All of this is in the medical realm of doctors and nurses, computer printouts and probes. There doesn't seem much room for God here.

I know that God is everywhere. That's not my point. Jesus becomes a given in my universe, not personal in any way.

I distinctly remember a professor of mine raving against feeling God's presence. It wasn't what we could feel that mattered. It is what Christ does for us that matters.
Over time, I have come to disagree with this professor. I think it is important for knowledge to exist, to count on such knowledge in times of despair, melancholy and stress. However, such knowledge is not relationship-based and I have come to think that I am called into a personal relationship with Jesus. I'm not particularly good at relationships. So I can go about doing what I'm doing and leave Jesus out of it.

Yet I sat at the healing service Thursday morning and the phrase "Create in me a clean heart," came into my mind and with it, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." This has become my favorite of all the Beatitudes. I still hunger and thirst for righteousness, but I long to be pure in heart in order to see God. 'm still wondering what needs to be scrubbed clean in my heart in order for it to be pure.