IT'S THAT SORT OF DAY...

"The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day.”
― Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

Rain, rain, rain; and yet more rain, and...
I am in the third day of a head (becoming chest) cold.

In other words, a good day to do a post to the Blog.

Actually, I have been out and about somewhat, including a visit to a local coffee shop to meet up with interesting people, and some minor shopping.

There is no longer any drama to report on the house project.  All the interesting work has been done (you recall, knocking down walls, building a sun-room and  extending the deck, agonizing choices about colors, painting, and the like).  As I have remarked elsewhere, lately it has been clean up, fix up, and repair.  To do myself justice, I have just about finished painting the deck and put up an outdoor clothes line  (something you can hang out the washing to dry on, saving lots of energy).  Hardly anything sufficiently of note to post in another place.

Furniture has begun to arrive and I am very pleased with the overall effect; at left a picture of the living area.  It is all starting to feel like "home".  No doubt I will eventually be overcome with a desire to post to the House blog.

Meanwhile, this is a update on "the state of Me".

Which, apart from this cold (mercifully tending to be brief or at least not too inconveniencing), is not so bad at all.

In fact, I have been greatly enjoying some learning on several fronts.  Driven by personal need and also the need to do another posting to the Belief Blog, I have been reading in cosmology, particularly books by Brian Greene (The Fabric of the Cosmos, and The Hidden Reality, and would really like to get to reading his The Elegant Universe)  Although these have been best sellers, I will admit that it takes some fortitude to read them all the way through.  If you live in the US, these books have their video counterparts in the Public Broadcasting Service's Nova series.  Since PBS has the copy-rite, these may be accessible via the Internet elsewhere.  I get them by streaming video from Amazon.com.

While I decline to have TV (one of the more pernicious components of current life), I do have a TV set and special router to access a wealth of information via broadband Internet and streaming video.  And no interminable and constant interruptions by commercial advertisements!

Getting back to cosmology...these readings provide an excellent review of the progress astronomy, physics, and mathematics have made over the last two hundred years in describing the world around us and, indeed, our own very selves.

A remark by Einstein (that he believed in Spinoza's God) has taken me back to review the work of this amazing Seventeenth Century philosopher and then, sideways as it were, into that century when scientific empiricism was beginning to stir, and intellectual life was beginning to set itself loose from the bondage of religious authority and the 'armchair' thinking of traditional philosophical analysis.  Despite that I had four years study of Philosophy in my first degree, I had paid little regard to Spinoza.  Par for the course, really, as until recent times, he has been greatly overlooked.  A book I have enjoyed and found extremely useful is by Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic, which delightfully tells the tale of Leibniz and  Spinoza, and their parallel ideas.

Spinoza laid the foundation  for the argument for separation of church and state and, as importantly, for the separation of scientific inquiry from subservience to theological dicta.  Actually, he was the 'bad boy' of theology as well as philosophy, in an age when most thinkers still felt the need to doff their caps to religious authority.  He pushed on into areas of thought and analysis too daunting for others, sometimes at great risk to himself. Spinoza forswore wealth to pursue philosophy, lived a life humble in all respects, making his living as a lens-maker.  His excellence as an artisan put him in contact with leading figures in microscopy and astronomy.  He had a wide correspondence that included Isaac Newton.

Nowadays, he has been rediscovered by cosmologists and also by neurologists (for his ideas on free will and emotions).  Just in case you might want to follow up the latter,  I recommend Antonio Damasio's book; Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain.

I have also gained a new respect for Jewish thinking in the matter of God.  Especially Amy-Jill Levine's 'The Misunderstood Jew' and the most readable 'The Gifts of the Jews", by Thomas Cahill (a fast and informative read from Sumerian times, through the story of Abraham,  to the return of the Jews to Canaan, with penetrating commentary on the lasting contributions of Jewish thought to our times).

If you want to get a better understanding of the Bible, I suggest you try:  Whose Bible Is It; A Short History of the Scriptures, by Jaroslav Pelikan.  If you can access the PBS Nova series, The Hidden Treasures of the Bible is an unbeatable modern summary of the history of the Hebrew Scriptures and a good match to The Gifts of the Jews, mentioned above.

None of this may interest you all that much but it will let you into what has been interesting me these last several weeks.

It is just over 50 years since my graduation from theological seminary and subsequent ordination to the Christian Ministry.  It turns out that the mid-seventies onward (when I was more interested in clinical and neuro-psychology) was quite an exciting time for biblical scholarship, biblical archaeology, and serious inquiry into how theology might better serve modern thinking.  It has been fun catching up. 

RECOVERING MY LIFE

JUST A QUICK POST...
I report myself to be in a time of transition somewhat difficult to explain.

Remember all those posts in my companion blog, TheHouseAccordingToRoberto?  From June last year to just last month, I seemed initially to be spending a good bit of every day knocking something down or working with Daniel, the contractor, to put up something new.  A large hole was dug in the ground, the potting room began to take form, doorways appeared where once were windows, the deck grew to extend the width of the house.

Then off I went to Australia where I repaired and painted more of my sister's house for a month or two.

In the New Year, back here in Corning once more, the real work began. Dry-walling, finishing off, painting, laying floors, re-grassing the area destroyed by the earth-moving machines, planting trees and bushes, and the like became my story of the 'live long day'.  The weary quotidium mill went round and round, steadily grinding me down.

Then, suddenly with the last lick of paint and the last plank laid, it was all done.

What to do with myself now? became the question.  Well, lots still to do of course: to clean-up, fix-up, tidy-up...but not a lot of energy for it.  The last month of finishing off, with the summer heat and humidity, seemed to have run me down.

I decided to take off the pressure to get things done...not to worry about it and just do things as I felt inclined.  Fortuitously the problem of all the weeds appearing in the lawn opened a  way through this, thanks to the abundance of crabgrass. 

As I remarked last posting, this is the year of the crabgrass.  The initial dry conditions of this Summer seemed to favor this species which has outdone even the dandelions (that intrepid and persistent race of plants that ever seem to be taking over the world).  And with nothing of the virtues of the dandelion, such as pretty flowers that make excellent wine, leaves that go into salads, and roots that make health-giving tea.  I am sure you have never tried , and most likely never will try, crabgrass salad or crabgrass tea.

Instantly, overnight it seemed, crabgrass appeared everywhere, in what appeared threatening thousands.  On my evening walks, I observed the successive stages of un-let crabgrass.  Over my dead body, not in my lawn, said I.

Surrounded by this horde, the question was, How to combat the pest?  Was I to spend hours each day weeding this stuff?  Allow another quotidium to take over?  In the face of the impossibility of it all, I gave up.  A still small voice told me, Just pull up the stuff you don't like the look of as you go about, as much as pleases you to do, and then go off to something else.

Taking the advice of my daemon, I adopted this course.  Magically, the burden has lifted, the crab grass is almost defeated.  I found I could transfer this same approach to all the other things clamoring for attention.  What is more, I am finding time for the library, meeting with my friends over coffee, and putting miles under the tires of my road bike.

Still lots of work to be done on rediscovering me, rather like a diver emerging at last from the depths, I am looking around and noticing how life abounds.

FIRST, A SMALL ADDENDUM that properly belongs, I suppose, in the HouseAccording blog.  A close friend gave me a TV stand in poor repair and painted an exciting black.  Having taken it apart prior to rebuilding it, it occurred to me that it could do with a more suitable paint job.  So here it is, in the colors of the living room area.  Of course, I could not stand it being about idle and unused.

So off I went to the local big electronics store (no free advertisements here) and acquired a nice 42 inch latest LED TV monitor, a special router for streaming video, and a sound system.

Plus a very effective wireless headphone set, not seen in this picture.  It is truly amazing how sharp are the pictures I now can see, and I love the headphones with their noise cancelling capacity.  In defense of this expenditure, I can only say that, were I to run the set five hours per day every day of the year, the cost would be about $14.  I reckon my cost will not exceed more than a third of that amount.

I love to watch movies and documentaries off the Internet on my computer.

The chair is ex-Wendy's restaurant, picked up for me for nix, along with three others by a good friend who is a celebrated scrounge artist.
 
This is the prelude to populating my home with necessary furniture.  I went off to Ithaca (home to Cornell University) to buy some Swedish style pieces, three for this room and two for my bedroom and these will turn up in a couple of weeks or so.  I have a list of stuff to buy and stuff to build, so this TV stand is the first of things that I will either build or rejuvenate.  Another dramatic step in the 'turn this house into my home' evolution is my outdoor clothes line so now, on a fine day with even the slightest breeze, my washing dries in a jiffy.

A significant event for me at the end of July was the 50th anniversary of the beginning of my first career, my ordination into the pastoral ministry of Baptist Churches in Australia; a status I still  possess.  A bit odd, you might think, if you are a reader of my latest blog.

In the garden, one might remark that this is the best season ever for crabgrass.  On the other hand, my tomatoes are going great guns.  I have a continual running war with crabgrass and appear to be winning as a result of random pulling up of the wretched stuff as I wander about the re-grassed areas in the back yard.

ON TURNING 75

YES...THE ROBERTO ANNOMETER turned past the 75 years mark just a week back.  Note: the term "annometer" seemed an appropriate word invention.  A bit like the odometer, which tells one how far one has ridden, walked, or driven; or the knots in the rope that used to be paid out behind old sailing ships, each a nautical mile from the next, from which distance covered could be determined and speed calculated (hence "knots", or nautical miles per hour).  So the annometer tells how far we have travelled down the road of life.

I find myself at this mark in excellent health, apparently possessed of a good ladle of longevity genes.  My two half brothers (one from my mother and the other from my father) have passed the mid-80s mark on their annometers while my mother made her way past the century mark by more than a year or two.  So I suppose I should take seriously the probability the I have entered the final quarter century or so of my own passage.  Actually, I do and seek to eat carefully, exercise each day and do most of the things that gerontology has uncovered that appear to support healthy ageing.

I admit to some horror as I notice the new wrinkles, some signs of 'bags under the eyes', and the loss of elasticity of skin in various places.  Unseen are the incipient cataracts that will need attention somewhere down the track, and some other internal defects that it would be boorish to recount.

As I remarked in a much earlier post, ageing is like have to beat back the forest that threatens to gather in a farm.  The worst trees in the encroaching wood are the morning aches and pains, the stiffness that would tempt one to move or stand in some 'old person' manner, and loss of flexibility.

I manage these by three cups of strong black coffee as soon as I rise, then a half hour or so of floor exercises based on Yoga and Pilates,  two or three visits each week to the gym for aerobic workouts, and one session of 'slow burn' strengthening exercises; when weather favors, a good bike ride, or a good walk.  Especially beneficial is physical work around the house.  Sometimes I feel a sense of dread, 'What would life be like if I could not do these things?'.

In the meantime, I count myself greatly blessed to be in good health, to have good friends, the love of family, to have interesting pursuits, and to feel part of a vibrant community.

Too bad I cannot offer you, my readers, the secret of ageing but, if by 55 or so you have good health, and good genes, make the most of it and keep in mind that you have to do the enjoy the journey ahead.

This has been a very good year for me.  On my last birthday I settled on the house and moved in on June 1.  So the house and I have been one for just over a year.  I have torn down partitions, gotten rid of doors, made additions, improved the fit of the house to its environment, repaired and painted, and really achieved quite a bit.  Through various avenues (like the local Episcopal Church, the Garden Club, the gang of chaps I meet with at a downtown coffee house) I have come to meet and befriend quite a bunch of acquaintances and friends.  All these things make for busyness and contentment.

While it may appear that I have really settled down it is also the case that I have been fashioning a base from which to explore.  Many adventures  lie ahead...watch this space.

ANZAC DAY

A BIG DAY IN AUSTRALIA is April 25th.
I have written once before about this event in the life of Australians and New Zealanders, so forgive me if I am repeating myself.  You most likely will not recall the earlier posting, so I am pretty safe.

ANZAC Day is hard to explain.  I could say that it is like America's Memorial Day and Veterans' Day combined but this would be misleading, other than it is about honoring the sacrifice of soldiers who served in wars, especially those who died.  My Uncle Norton was one such.  Three years older than my father, he enlisted and went off to fight in France after the beginning of the First World War.  He wrote his brother from England just before he embarked for 'The Front' and was killed two weeks later.  My father also enlisted, when of age, and saw service in France just before the end of hostilities.  Two brothers and two very different war experiences.

The word, 'ANZAC', stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.  Together the two nations went off to fight Europe's war.  Never having started a war it may seem odd that Aussies and Kiwis should be so enthusiastic about going off to war.  But those were the days of the British Empire and we all wanted to help out the Mother Country.  Australian Army soldiers got to be called 'Diggers', and still are.  Maybe because of all the trenches that had to be dug and maybe because of the work of sappers who dug tunnels under the opposing trenches, filled them up with high explosive, and then blew up the enemy positions.  Nowadays, 'Digger' also refers to a hard working type who battles against adversity.

Well, it is a big day beginning with dawn memorial services from the smallest hamlet to the big cities, with lots of marching through the streets (not just soldiers, but the children and grandchildren can also march in their parents' or grandparents' units).  Then there are the unit reunion dinners at the end of the day, tending to be an occasion for intoxication.  I used to drive my father to his reunion dinner so he could take a taxi home, likely as not a bit 'blotto' (Aussie term for 'drunk').  At these dinners, men and women who served can recall experiences and relive moments they are loth to share with those who did not go to war. One cannot explain the experience of war and it cannot be understood by those who have not know that experience.  They are careful to remember their dead companions in the words:
"They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old,
"Age will not weary them, nor the years condemn,
"At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,
"We will remember them.

The experience of war forged the culture of 'looking after your mates' that is the basis of what others might consider socialism and forms an important core element of the Aussie and Kiwi view of life.  This remains true even following the massive immigrations following the Second World War. No longer do we look to Mother England with almost half of Australians having come from other countries, though we still do have the Queen and her representatives (chosen by the Government of the day at the Federal and State levels), her Governors.

Although Australian and New Zealand service men and women have fought in many theatres of war, the signal experience was on April 25 1915 when the ANZAC Expeditionary Force attempted to seize the Gallipoli Peninsula, overlooking the Dardanelles Strait and blocking access to the Black Sea.  Conceived by Winston Churchill this was to be a secret operation.  Unfortunately the Turks got wind of it and gave our troops a fair pasting when they arrived.   After difficult weeks of fighting and heavy losses, the force withdrew overnight, quite a military masterpiece, and the Turks awoke to find their enemy gone.

As can often be so, war breeds respect.  ANZAC day is also a special day in Turkey.  It is also celebrated in French towns in memory of Australian and New Zealand troops who fought in their environs.  My uncle is buried in one of the vast cemeteries in France.

Then there are Anzac biscuits (cookies, if you will).  Cooked up at home and sent to the troops as part of food parcels, they have become another benefit of ANZAC.  Many thanks to Gail, at the local (excellent) coffee house, who cooked me up a perfect dozen or so for ANZAC Day.

EASTER SUNDAY 2012, DAY'S END
ASTONISHING THAT my last posting was Fourth Advent Sunday!!!
How fitting that, this Easter Day, I report myself alive and well.  The Winter is past, no skiing to speak of, so 'Boo Hoo'.  On the other hand, a warm and pleasant Winter with Spring straining at the leash all of March.  I managed to get to prune some bushes early in March, just managing to get at them before the sap began to run.  My first time at these and I literally took seven years growth out of them.  Now they are responding well, all freed up for new and better growth.

Down Under, we do not really have much of a Winter other than up in the snow country, the High Plains of Victoria and New South Wales.  Of course, it is a bit out of whack even then, being six months the other way around (like Winter when it is Summer here in the Northern Hemisphere and so on).  Therefore, it is impossible to understand the Resurrection Story without the perspective of Winter becoming Spring, when all those things that seemed to have given up living all come back to live.  We too, who have drudged out way through the cold days, the Sun (when it made its appearance, getting up later and later and disappearing sooner and sooner, up to the Winter Solstice in December).  Then the days begin to get longer until the blessed Equinox and we are at the crossing point.  Our blood begins to flow once more, strength and vigor return.  Suddenly we have energy and purpose!

My day began routinely, awaking around six and relishing a 'sleep in' until seven, when the rising sun began to lighten my room.  Then two cups of excellent coffee (from my favorite coffee house, Heavenly Cup), the first with a little sugar, a shave accomplished while the coffee was steeping.  Coffee done, I fell to cutting up banana and apple to add to the raisins in the measured water for my oatmeal (plus the turmeric cinnamon) and  oatmeal,  wheat germ and ground flax-seed, to the water once boiling and the gas turned off once back to the boil.  This done, down to the lower level (where I am now, writing this post) for my morning exercise routine.  Back in the kitchen, I treat myself to oatmeal, done just as I desire.  Now just enough time to get ready to walk to Church on this beautiful, sunny morning, along the quiet streets, across the old bridge, into downtown Corning.

The church is full, the music wonderful...after the gospel, Father Charlie preaches the best Easter message I have ever heard.  And what fun, passing the Peace; up and down the aisle greeting all my friends!

I walk home, stopping by the local supermarket for hot chocolate and a chocolate doughnut.  Once home, I sit out on the deck, soaking up the sun while drinking a cool beer and then a nap.  Mid-afternoon, I get out my new/old road bike (recently purchased from a friend who was loth to let it go).  Dressed in my resplendent road gear, I manage twelve or so easy miles, getting used to the new saddle (a racy, Italian job but very comfortable).   Head wind out...tail wind back; what bliss!

My life seems to have been work, work, work on the house.  I am moved into my fancy bedroom, have almost finished work on the potting room, and am starting on the garden work (getting ready to sow down lawn where the earth moving wiped out the grass) and have almost completed my new compost frames.  My work shop is functional and made it possible to do the work on the frames in amazingly quick time.  I love my new toys!

More detail of the house coming up in the other Blog.  I plan to start the new blog (BeliefAccordingToRobero) this week.  You will be able to untangle how it is that I, an agnostic, have come so to love life at Church.

That's it for now.  Here is a pic of my new bedroom.  Still lots of work to be done, finishing trim and whatnot.  Lots of projects all going on at once.

FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

AS EVER, WENT TO CHURCH last Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Advent. Being in Colorado, this was the United Methodist Church just down the hill from my daughter's home in Holland Hills. Mainly, this was a Christmas Pageant, which was disappointing for me as I love to hear the readings from the Jewish part of the Bible (what Christians call the 'Old Testament'), also from the Epistles, and finally the Gospels.

Call me a traditionalist when I comes to 'order of worship'. Apart from the merest scrap of so of the scripture, there was no sermon or even a short homily. As you will all know from my last posting, I consider the best evidence suggests that the story of the magical birth of Jesus was a later addition to the gospel story, made long after the death of Jesus. The earliest writings in the Christian Bible (the New Testament') are the epistles of Paul. Despite his conferring with those who had known Jesus, he makes not mention of the elements we celebrate during the Advent season. Nor do the earliest and latest gospels in our possession (Mark and John), nor either can these stories be found in the other gospels that have come to light in recent times.

Despite the flimsy warrant for the Christmas story, I do enjoy this time. The exchange of gifts and the celebration of the possibility that the divine is part of human being, if we will only let it so. In the view of many serious Christian thinkers and in mine also, this is the fundamental message of the doctrine of the Incarnation. I love the stories from the first World War telling us that, at this time, opposing troops in the trenches of France, took a 'holy day' to join in the sharing of Christmas rations. It is a story of great power and beauty.

Many Christian pastors, through their original theological training and later reading, have become aware of the new understanding we have of the Bible and its fundamental message.This has come as a result of the study of these writings using the same methods as have been applied to other ancient writings. These scholars have wrestled with the issue of what is the core message that these writings have for us today. Beginning with the Jewish philosopher and scholar, Spinoza, they also have valiantly and rigorously sought to define a new meaning of 'god' in relation to the world.

I am sure that Jesus, as with other sages who have worked had at living in harmony with divine humanity, has a message for our times. What a good thing it might be were those who portray themselves as his publicists and evangelists were to get serious about discovering this and telling us in plain terms how to experience the breaking out of the kingdom of god in these troubled times.

In an interesting article in New York Times, Eric Weiner has something to say about the need for a better approach to becoming 'religious' (remember that to be religious is to find values that actually order our mode of being in the world). Weiner concluded,

"We need a Steve Jobs of religion. Someone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious."