Love

 Love is a slow-acting drug. But stick with it, and it’s guaranteed to heal. Dosages vary with the individual.

Applause

 A scantily clad entertainer backed by dancers sings and twerks across the stage. The audience claps wildly. But who claps wildly for the sanitation worker who’s collected all your garbage reliably for decades?

A movie star gets made up, dressed up, given lines to say, and at the end of the movie, the audience applauds. But who applauds for the nurse who worked extra shifts and gave good care to your relatives and those of many others?

A tight end makes a touchdown catch and dances in the endzone. 60,000 fans cheer like crazy. But who cheers like crazy for the police officer who’s spent 30 years, often in personal danger, keeping the peace.

We have to be clear that we are the ones who create celebrities and make their wealth and comfort possible. And we are the ones who quibble and resist the taxes that support these public servants.  

 While Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus were on their way to Egypt, Americans were returning $120 billion of Christmas merchandise. All the gold was kept, but frankinsense and myrrh were not deemed particularly desirable gifts.  In fact, Walmart and Target are having real problems with myrrh storage.

Some people just kept the unwanted presents to regift since they knew the Circumcision was coming up.

Direction and love

 Children want play, but require direction and love.

Teenagers want freedom, but need direction and love.

Young people want adventure, that brings direction and love.

Middle agers want answers, that make direction and love authentic.

Seniors want good health, to enjoy the direction and love they’ve earned.

Redeems

 We know that the consequence of broad, deep and authentic love is some form of crucifixion. But we also know that crucifixion brings new life and redemption for those who are served.

Strangely, this is true of art. For art that is authentic and made with love, to be ignored is a crucifixion. But in its authenticity, it still redeems.

Invade

 Art isn’t supposed to look a certain way. It’s just supposed to invade you.

Noah's Ark

 Answers in Genesis Sunday Bible Quiz: Noah’s Ark

1. What was the best selling item in the gift shop on Noah’s Ark?

2. How was Tyrannosaurus Rex prevented from eating Mrs. Noah?

3. Did Noah ever help with cooking and cleaning on the ark?

4. How soon after the rains ended did Noah start to build his theme park?

5. How did the hippopotami find their way to the ark?

Christ-mas

 Ho. Ho. Ho. We’ve kicked the Baby Jesus out of the house. We’ve turned the stable into a game room. The Three Kings are quarantined somewhere by covid. We don’t even try to hear the angels singing. Luckily, we still have Rudolph, chestnuts, jingle bells and Amazon.

Still, we must remember that from the beginning of our human self-awareness, we have needed to create stories that tell of a new birth of hope and possibility. That never goes away.

Have a blessed Christ-mas.

Pledge

 Try this. Recite the Pledge of Allegiance aloud attentively. Then do what you are capable of to affirm what it says. That ought to take care of a lot.

Heads up

 Heads up, America. Yes, we are in hard times, covid times, inflation times, partisan times, dishonest times, angry times, violent times. But we are not in Afghanistan or Syria. We are not in Venezuela or Honduras. We are not in a raft on the Mediterranean. We don’t live by scavenging the garbage dump. We aren’t in a refugee camp or marching through the jungle with two kids. We don’t struggle to live on $2 a day. We aren’t repressed under autocrats. We are lucky enough to live in one of the best countries on earth.

So quit whining. Count your blessings and give some of them to others. Read something. Make something. Help someone. Do something.

AIG

 The recent discovery of a dinosaur egg in China has affirmed the connection between birds and dinosaurs. Research by Answers in Genesis has shown, in fact, that on the ark, Noah and his family celebrated Christmas with a dinner of stuffed dinosaur with all the trimmings. Noah himself was lucky enough to get the wishbone. A souvenir plastic dinosaur wishbone can be found in the gift shop of the AIG ark.

1857

 1857, and I’m standing in line at the Tombstone General Store. Bored, I check the headlines on the Frontier Enquirer:

“Sales of firewater skyrocket in Colorado.”

“Bordello madam says Billy the Kid is no kid.”

“Gucci proposes new ways to accessorize guns and saddles.”

“Texas legislature rejects bill that would make drunk horseback riding a felony.”

Gun and penis

 What would the world be like if, starting today, all crimes, atrocities and harmful behaviors that are the consequence of a gun or a penis, were never to happen again?

Face Yourself

 Today is National Face Yourself Day

When I was a young person, I read a quote from Lord Chesterfield to his son: essentially, whatever you do, do it well. Having low self-esteem and at the same time experiencing external high expectations, I was often struggling within myself. This lasted through my life until I figured out that the solution could only come from turning those external forces into internal measures of personhood. I determined the yardstick, and I had to measure myself by it.

We humans

 We humans invented gods and goddesses because we needed to. How else to make sense of mystery and to find a home for our spiritual yearnings. We can never be certain of the existence of the deities out there, but when they live in us, we know.

Spirit seed

 It begins with a spirit seed. If you don’t ever discover it, or are never encouraged to find it, you become a creature of the material world. The material world is external, seductive and, in the end, unreliable.

If you acknowledge that spirit seed, it will grow into something that will nurture you to inner strength and a surer sense of your humanity. But this journey is not easy, and it’s not supposed to be easy. Work, suffering, forgiveness and compassion finally bring you to that wise center of the soul.

Purchase

 I want to purchase your personal integrity. How much should I write the check for?

I want to reward you for the love you’ve spread. How much should I write the check for?

Mind

 To the attentive and curious mind, everything is a teacher.

825 AD

 825 AD, and I’m standing in line at the Quetzal Stop-and-Go. Bored, I’m reading the headlines of the Indigenous Enquirer:

“Finalists for the name of the Inca mountain retreat in Peru are Macchu Picchu and Macho Groucho. Citizens vote Tuesday.”

“Inca priests reject wheel concept. Say things will fall through hole in it.”

“Aztec leaders reject request for a Sacrificial Virgins Union.”

Panacea

 The best panacea for life’s misery and madness is a sense of humor. An extra advantage is that a sense of humor is a good soil to grow creativity.

Genius is propelled by talent, doggedness and fearlessness in the face of mysterious unknown. A genius explodes reality but still lives in the mundane reality we all share. Each of us has the potential for at least a bit of genius, which is only revealed when it is set free.

If you’re looking for a person of wisdom, look for someone who has experienced pain, failure and rejection but still is still fully alive in life.

Snappy Tee's

 

Webinars

 New Webinars for Senior Men

Advancements in Prostate Transplants (50 minutes)

Senior Strip Tease: Exercise, Flexerise and Sexercise (60 minutes)

Dangers of Senior Porn (35 minutes)

Romance and Bromance: Senior Living-It-Up (60 minutes)

Sex after 90 (2 minutes)

This guy Jesus

 This guy Jesus, you know the one Christmas was named after. Is it true he was born on Black Friday? That’s what I heard. I’m confused. One person told me he came to save mankind, and another person told he came to save the retail sector. I also heard that the 3 wise men arrived in a sleigh and that Santa was Jesus’ great-grandfather.

I also heard that to escape danger, Jesus and his family escaped either to Egypt or Disneyworld.  I know if Jesus was born again, I would visit him, bring my dog and bring him something fun and electronic. He’s probably gonna be born in a Motel 6.

Stupidity in America

 Stupidity in America is not just a big thick wall. It’s a reinforced concrete bunker in the desert stocked with Doritos and Mountain Dew.

Ancestors

 

1487

 1487, and I’m standing in line at the San Marco supermarket. Bored, I glance at the headlines of the Firenzi Enquirer:

“Dante Aligheri predicts most of us will go to hell.”

“Giant statue of nude male with little penis appears in government square.”

“Pope declares painting studios must be all male, except for nude female models.”

Try love

 We are attempting to confront and solve our major social problems—poverty, discrimination, racism, gun violence, abortion and more—with ideologies, laws, critical race theory, wokeness, court trials, books, social media, news media.

Who’s asking why we can’t love one another? And what can we do about that? It may seem naïve and simplistic, but it seems that these problems come out of an absence of love, a failure to be loved.

Sex

 Whose job is it to explain to adolescents that sex can be: reproduction, love, infatuation, pleasure, responsibility, communication, casual, intimacy, something for two fully consenting individuals, stress-relieving, not without consequences, life-changing, not porn, not what is portrayed in entertainment, more than libido, rape, not gender-specific, not free of cultural norms, non-consensual, not what determines manhood or womanhood, a sign of commitment, a decision of the heart not the hormones, perfectly natural, and all the other things human beings attach to it?

They shouldn’t have to learn the hard way.

True beauty

 Without discipline, attention and hard work, our understanding exists only of the surface of things. Their beauty is superficial. Without discipline, attention and hard work, we never discover the complexity, pattern, underlying structure and interconnectedness that are the hallmarks of true beauty. 

Balance

 For the past week, the local news has been saturated with news of football accomplishments. Coach and player interviews, excited fans, news anchors claiming everyone is hyped about this, and editorials explaining that “for three hours, sports brings us together.” There were also special reports on the mental health of young athletes.

All this may be relevant, but I have real problems with this narrow focus. Cincinnati has museums, a ballet, an opera, a symphony and artists all of international stature. Right now, there is an exhibition at the CAM of the work of an internationally known artist, Kara Walker. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra never fumbles. Young artists struggle with mental health problems. Does any of this make the local news?

Sports entertains, but the arts transform.

Authentic

Think about this. At birth, we are simply creatures. As children, we rely on the adults within our sphere to respect us, love us and guide us toward an emerging understanding of what it means to be a human being. As adolescents, we build on this guidance together with our educational lives to stumble our way to our first understanding of our human responsibilities. As adults, our task becomes to make our best efforts to become decent and authentic human beings. Some people fully reach this goal (Martin Luther King, Jr.). Some get close (a dedicated teacher). For some there is no chance (Donald Trump).

Reaching authentic humanity has nothing to do with wealth or fame. It’s a matter of the heart, and making the commitment to the work it demands.

Another shooting

 Another shooting, another dissection. The shooter was responsible. Were the parents responsible? Was law enforcement responsible? Were teachers responsible? Was the school responsible? Were bullies responsible? Was social media responsible? Will mental health care be responsible?

All these questions will be asked. But in every situation, there was a gun that shouldn’t have been in the hands of the perpetrator. And, in the end, it got there because of cowardly legislators, mostly Republican, who hide behind the Second Amendment with some outdated macho creed while gun money gets stuffed in their pockets.

Call them out. Make them accountable.

If only

 

Stop

 STOP:  Your whining and act.

LOOK:  For the beauty beneath the surface.

LISTEN:  To the wise voices not the marketers.

easythink

 In America we are now in the age of easythink. Easythink assumes that thinking is not hard work. Easythink is not concerned with truth. Easythink believes that the answer one wants to hear is always the correct answer. Easythink believes that the brain is a rigid structure trained to select only affirming information. Easythink opens up more time for leisurethink.

Doubt

 Doubt and faith are siblings, and they both take courage. Faith that hides from doubt is weak faith. Doubt nudges faith to look outside itself, to test itself. Faith affirms the fundamental need for doubt. From this arises healthy faith, always constant yet able to adjust to a world in flux.

Shooting

 Another. Then another. Then one more. Then one more after that. The next one? What? School shootings, a category in which America is clearly #1. Of course, the anxiety, the fear for the staff and children, the news coverage, the shooter, the victims, the police chief. Absent: the lawmakers, action on gun control, information on how the gun wound up in the hands of a teen, consequences for responsible adults.

I’ve worked on gun control issues, supported gun control organizations and written legislators—whose responses are usually flabby and lame. But still, this is the least we all can do.

Guns

 Kyle Rittenhouse, the Arbery trial, a kid killed in an accidental weapon discharge, drive by shootings of children, suicides, children with easy access to guns, school shootings, gang killings. How many tragedies are the consequence simply of the presence of a gun? 

Yet news reporting almost never asks about the source of the gun or just how it was acquired. Hands are thrown up, parents weep, the police chief gives a press conference. Nothing happens in legislatures, and gun manufacturers breathe another sigh of relief.

This is how it works in America, where even the Supreme Court is terrified of the Second Amendment.

Unknown

 People fear the unknown. But that’s where creativity thrives, whether in the arts or the sciences. The unknown is the edge of a new world and a relentless challenge to creativity.

Origin story

 

A mythological origin story emerges from its time and place, created from the symbols and metaphors at hand. The story gives sense and meaning to the world. Through time, assimilation, trade and war, origin stories collide with another and change to adapt to the worlds. Humans wrestle with the decision to hold to an old story or find a life in a new one.

In the contemporary world science has offered an explosion of facts and theories, more than can be reasonably absorbed or understood. How do we comprehend the millions of species, viruses, black holes, gut bacteria, DNA, brain research and the mysteries of the oceans? What story do we share to guide us through our experience in this world?

We haven’t found a replacement for Mother Earth or the Garden of Eden. Consequently, we allow ourselves to pollute the earth, poison the air and water, cut down the lungs of the earth and spread our garbage through the land, water and skies, living our lives selfishly and mindlessly.

Where’s the story we need?

Hello

 Hello. Right now I’m in my comfy suburban box. Pretty pictures on the wall and flocked wallpaper to make things warm and cozy. The boys play football for their school, but they don’t read dangerous books. In my secure gated community, the lawns are perfect green and the people are perfectly lovely. Isn’t life like this everywhere?

Justice

 In my former life as a working family man, I had little time to engage the working processes of justice. I learned what I learned from the news. Now, as a retired person, I have the time to watch long segments of the Rittenhouse and Arbery trials. An eye opener for me even though I felt I was an informed citizen.

A legislature passes a law relative to the context of the time. It’s on the books, though some legislators approved it and others didn’t. The law is words. Words are interpreted and reinterpreted. An offense results in a trial. What does the law say? How do the defense and prosecution interpret the law? How does the jury interpret these interpretations of the law?

This is how justice works. This is the hard work of justice. This is how justice depends on the conscientiousness and honesty of the participants. And all of us.

Body Hair

 

Orgasms

 

Road signs

 The truth is that the great thinkers, saints, heroes and creators of human history are really road signs. They tell us: yield, stop, slow down, children at play, exit, no outlet. Some follow the signs. Others are driving drunk on power or are distracted by the trivia on their cell phones.

We all know the human rules of the road. Paying attention to them prevents small tragedies.

Freedom

 Freedom is not something that automatically comes to us. Freedom is something we give to one another and defend for one another. We expect responsibility from one another in order to preserve the freedom all of us desire.

Freedom is not a flabby concept we can throw around as we please. Some among us risk their lives and their social standing to defend it. Some among us work tirelessly to maintain the structures that preserve it.

Freedom is not an individual prerogative. It is a cherished gift made and maintained by us all.

Justice

 The jury judged Kyle Rittenhouse innocent under the law. But in my mind, he is not innocent in a larger moral sense. Yes, he was a teenager, and teens often make bad decisions. The decisions to illegally carry a weapon, to often brandish that weapon in a charged situation, to often make only lame efforts to remove himself from danger or engage the police all helped create the situations in which others lost their lives.

There were many unarmed individuals, but he seemed to attract ones who were armed. That rifle of Kyle’s triggered those deaths, that trial and who knows what other consequences.

The other culprit is the law itself. We know laws are not always written out of a moral imperative that seeks fairness for all.

Then there is the judge who prays about the sentence he will give to a rich, white young man who has harassed and raped four young women. His decision, prison would be “inappropriate.” But of course, we know prison would likely be very appropriate for a young man of color.

We still have a long way to go on the road to justice.

Morality and law

 We follow the law to avoid the chaos of not doing so. But the law is not a moral agent. In fact, sometimes the law defies morality and needs to be defied to be righted. The law and moral codes are both made by human beings, but for different purposes. We see these purposes in conflict in the way legislators behave and legislate. We see these in conflict in the lives of those who protest the laws they believe morally wrong.

We see the same dance of law and morality in the search for justice in the Rittenhouse and Arbery trials. We’ll never know what really happened in these instances. That reality is trapped in the heads of those involved in the incidents. So two stories built from the skills of the lawyers and the management of the judge are offered to the jury for consideration and judgment.

What happened in moments is played out in days, months, even years; and in these two cases, depended on unnecessary guns. These are American stories.

Wealth

 Wealth was made on backs of slaves. Wealth was made on the exploitation of child labor. Wealth was made holding down the working poor. Now we understand that wealth was made at the expense of pollution and climate disaster.

The difference in the last is that all of us in the developed world have been accomplices in the consumption of excess. We create the dirty air that others breathe, and others create the dirty air that we breathe.

The lifestyle of wealthy countries has impacted life in poor countries, and the wealthy countries are slow to admit to this.

Who’s willing to say, “No thank you, I don’t really need more.” Or, “I can scale down my lifestyle so others can live better.” Or even, “It’s past time for me to confront my complacency.”

Sex

 Sex is only one question on the love exam.

4 haikus

 Children wear backpacks

Filled with the rocks we put there

Adults confront their shame

Love the little one

Nurture its special spirit

This, a gift you give

When the children play

Adults remember a time

When life could flower

Let what’s possible

Live in the dreams of a child

Always close at hand

 

If

 If I had unbounded optimism. If I had endless hope. If I thoroughly believed in the goodness of human beings. What would I do with the world I see in front of me? Are all the good deeds in the world not enough? Are we too distracted by spectacle to see what’s happening? Is the world now and forever a battlefield of dark and light? Are there not enough intrinsic rewards for love and compassion? Are we just victims of our delusions of who we are? Are we just a bunch of screw ups?

What can?

 What can poets do? The world has outpaced all the metaphors for it.

What can a thinking person do? The world is too big for any one brain.

What can a compassionate person do? Love rarely escapes its lustful, sappy memes.

What can a spiritual person do? Trapped in a hopelessly material and angry world.

What can a human being do? Dig deep, find humanity, give it back to the world with ferocity.

Now in America

 We are now in a time in America where fear is a greater motivator than compassion. Where parents don’t trust teachers, but don’t educate themselves. Where the stale and toxic presence of Donald Trump still has impact. Where profit and consumerism must be protected while the planet dies. Where “me” too often comes before “we.” 

There’s lots of good in the world, but is it enough to give us real hope?

The news gives us weeks on Gaby Petito and seconds on the frontline workers on covid. We get the trial drama of Kyle Rittenhouse but little on the groups trying to prevent violence in the cities. We get the freedom story of Brittney Spears but little about the integration of Afghan families into American life.

The world will never be our narrow perception of the world. We have to go out and meet it.

God

 God doesn’t have anything to do with evolution. God is all about us. Our problem is we don’t, as human beings, know what God really wants from us. Is God love? Does God want us to kill one another? Does God want us to perform for big rewards? Would God be happy if we were just decent people? Does God want us to just keep guessing?

If we knew what God wanted, we probably wouldn’t all pay attention anyway. We’d just continue to make the world a beautiful mess. In the end, human beings are as stubbornly evil as they are stubbornly good.

Kyle and Travis

 Kyle Rittenhouse and Travis Scott. Two young men, brains not fully developed, putting themselves in situations they are not capable of handling. Kyle, believing he is prepared to defend and give aid, illegal weapon in hand, putting himself and others in danger. Travis, wrapped in the adulation of an unruly and excessively large crowd, not mature enough to manage the circumstance his very show created.

In both cases, the lives of others are lost. Where were the adults? When will we really confront the America of senseless violence?

Art school

 Any young person planning to go to art school should ask the school this question: How will your school educate my hand, eye, body, mind and spirit?

What?

 What is power without compassion?

What is wealth without generosity?

What is friendship without empathy?

What is wisdom without tolerance?

What is love without patience?

What is intelligence without humility?

What is creativity without purpose?

What is honesty without trust?

What is judgment without mercy?

What is courage without modesty?

What is faith without doubt?

Climate warrior

 This is my new action plan as a climate change warrior:

1. Because of high atmospheric methane levels, will no longer fart.

2. I will forage my backyard for nutritious foods.

3. I will drink water only from a goat’s bladder.

4. In the dark of night, I will come plant a tree on your lawn.

5. I will weave my old underwear into placemats, potholders, coasters and doilies.

6. I will only drink beer that has no carbon footprint.

7. I will coast down all hills while driving.

8. I will shower just once a week.

9. I will burn all my junk mail for warmth.

Four simple solutions

 Four simple solutions to complex problems:

1. Replace every gun law with one that says: “In order to own a gun, you must show proof that you belong to a militia as meant by the Second Amendment when it was written.”

2. No parent can criticize the content of a school’s curriculum unless they have first passed the 9th grade proficiency test.

3. Everywhere the word “sex” appears, replace it with “love.” So sex trade becomes love trade and sex appeal becomes love appeal. Thus we get love harassment, love worker, etc.

4. To deal with racism, just take the tern “race” off the table. With ancestry/DNA, intermingling and intermarriage, race is an outmoded concept anyway. That will put it all down to morality and equality.

Son

 I didn’t get the son I wanted. I got a son 1000 times better. No parent can imagine the complexity of a being that grows out of DNA, all kinds of relationships and unpredictable life experiences. A parent can only nurture the mind, body and spirit of the child, giving careful attention to the emerging gifts that will make the child thrive in life.

Body and soul

 Many athletes work for years toward a goal they never reach because of injuries, financial difficulties, lack of support or other life issues. They put body and soul into their efforts and are changed body and soul.

Many entrepreneurs put time and money into businesses they believe in only to have them fail. They put in body and soul and are changed body and soul.

Many scientists work their whole lives on problems that seem elusive. They give body and soul and are changed body and soul.

Artists are no different. They pursue their visual voices with passion and persistence, often with little recognition. They invest body and soul and are changed body and soul.

Life doesn’t guarantee external reward for hard work, but hard work guarantees the rewards of character and personal growth. Body and soul.

Climate

 World leaders will and must make pacts and treaties, give speeches and support legislation to address climate change. But they will continue to drive their limos, jet internationally and live in climate controlled comfort in their multiple residences. They will not likely become examples of how all of us must live in this world of climate disruption.

Still, it is also their job to remind us that there are difficult and demanding times ahead, that we are all going to have to make the hard choices that the poor and disenfranchised all over the globe are already making. We have created a global web of mobility, consumption, excess and inequity that is not sustainable. The earth was not made for this many people behaving in this way. The little comforting efforts like recycling are not going to suffice. We all have to become canaries in the coal mine.

So now, with my little speech, how likely is it that I will continue to be just one more bad actor in this climate drama?

Doomed

 We’re doomed. Climate change won’t end the world. Evolution will ensure that. But it could end the human world. For all the talk, we are still driving our cars, climate controlling our homes, running our various gadgets and generally living a good life in America. The fact that we are 5% of the world’s population using 20% of the world resources or that we ship our garbage to other countries doesn’t seem to bother us. The fact that we discourage people across the world from consuming like us doesn’t seem to bother us.

We have floods of immigrants and refugees fleeing their own countries because of war, persecution and famine. We are 7.5 billion people, soon to be 9 billion, all wanting to live, raise families, just survive. Religion has failed to feed our spiritual lives. Across the globe, dictatorships represent themselves and not their people. People starve while weapons of war get more and more expensive and sophisticated.

Maybe other times in history have been like this, but no other times have seen such global connectedness, such fearful power and so many people. We have not been able to overcome war or hate or unprincipled power. We will never be without the good, the courageous, the compassionate or the loving. But we can never underestimate our own human darkness, both the big and the small.

Family

 We try to approach social problems with strategies and legislation that address the problems as they come to a head. But the major problems we face in America, I believe, begin in the family. This is no new idea or great insight, but it seems more than ever true as families have to deal with divorce, absent parents, grandparents raising their grandchildren, poverty, all kinds of blended families, abuse, mental illness and addiction. America is not particularly kind to its children.

Some problems emerge from within the family. Some problems result from external forces on the family. How to attempt to fix this problem is a difficult problem. But clearly a country that experiences so much violence, so much addiction, such an obscene inequity in wealth and material goods and faltering legislation to help families, is a country failing.

7 deadly sins

 

TV

 Today is National Talk Back to Your TV Day. Tell the news what you think the news should be. Tell your TV you like car insurance company you have. Tell the TV you don’t want laugh tracks because you are smart enough to know when to laugh. Tell your TV you won’t be seduced by marching bands or celebrity influencers. Tell the TV you don’t want Kelly Clarkson in your living room, and you don’t need to ask your doctor about another medication. Be firm, be assertive, get it all out.

Sanitation workers

 Enough with love and beauty

Sanitation workers need a poem

Or even a statue in the park

Honoring them for lifting the endless 

Cans and poorly bundled sticks

That annoy the hell out of them

The stench too as they hop on

And off the truck, dancing to the music 

Of brakes and noisy lifts 

Anyone thank them or slip them

A crisp twenty dollar bill

So how many cans make a career

Or rainy days or tons of garbage

That disappears like they do

From our consciousness 

Normal

 Think about this. “Normal” is a brutal word. It spawns words like abnormal, subnormal and supernormal. It takes the complexity and mystery of a human being and turns it into a statistic. It becomes a boundary that classifies forms of mental illness, sexuality and social and creative behavior in destructive ways. Who in their right mind would want to be normal anyway?

Toxic masculinity

 Toxic masculinity has been a part of human civilization from the beginning—sometimes in the nature of men, sometimes institutionalized. Think: the pleasure of the powerful, primogeniture, slavery of women, physical dominance, John Wayne, motorcycle gangs, the lecherous boss, all that stuff.

Does this come from power, libido, evolution, opportunity, culture? What? Maybe all of these. Will toxic masculinity ever completely disappear? Unlikely. But more and more in recent years it is being called out and punished.

Like most behaviors, it must be addressed first in the family then in the larger social and educational processes. Name it for what it is. Provide alternatives, and live them.

Thomas Jefferson

 So, down comes a statue of Thomas Jefferson. Should we now take down the statues of all the presidents who were philanders, who sent young men falsely to war, who made their wealth off the backs of poorly paid workers or companies which invested in South African apartheid or the exploitation of African workers? Should we remove the names of philanthropists like Andrew Carnegie who grew great wealth off the misery of his workers? We put up statues to honor human beings not gods.

History’s truth must be understood in a fair and honest context. We fear climate change but continue to drive our vehicles and climate control our spaces. We seek equity but want cheap goods made in sweat shops. We talk about compassion but vote down tax levies for better schools and services for the poor. So would the statues of us stand the test of time?

Jesus

 Put aside the question of the divinity of Jesus. Put aside the miracles. What’s left is Jesus’ teachings, actions and courage in the face of suffering and his vision of the power of love and faith. Isn’t that enough?

Jesus didn’t create a religion. He preached a way of living in the world. The more an institutional religion moves away from this, the more it moves away from Jesus. He didn’t desire to be worshipped, but to be imitated.

Art piling up

 

Sheep

 Much has been written about the unhealthy diets of Americans—fast food, snack food, convenience food. That same thing is true, not just about what we put in our bodies, but what we put in our minds. Snippets of speeches, cliched interviews with sports figures, sound bites, political commercials, marketing slogans, news snapshots. This is our diet of information, the diet which generates flabby and uninformed thinking.

We live on the surface of complex problems, believing that’s enough to be able to make the life decisions that face us. We don’t ask to hear the poets or the serious thinkers. The seducers and the demagogues are enough. We don’t ask our leaders what their qualifications are or why they want to lead or how we can assess their integrity. We listen to them tell us what we want to hear.

If we don’t become informed, critical thinkers, we become sheep.

Celebrities

 Celebrities

We give attention to the life dramas of celebrities even when our own life dramas need it.

We buy what celebrities are paid to sell us even when they don’t use the stuff.

We listen to celebrity chit chat on TV when wisdom is all around us.

We seek celebrity advice even when they have less education than we do.

We support celebrities’ excessive salaries because they entertain us when we don’t pay fair salaries to policemen and firemen, who risk their lives for us.

In the end we are the ones who guarantee their salaries, put them on pedestals and make them celebrities.

Q's

 Miscellaneous questions

1. What percentage of American children are damaged before they reach kindergarten?

2. What does the magazine rack at the grocery checkout line tell us about ourselves?

3. Will the backlog of shipping containers in American ports teach us the difference between wants and needs?

Visual artists

 Think about this. Visual artists, of all the artists, are the most expansive and flexible in their practice. They study the body and act out of their bodies—mind, spirit, psychology, emotion and physicality. They can be carpenters, stonemasons, metal workers, draughtsmen, painters, quilters, knitters, some of those, all of those and more. They are after beauty and something true and enduring. What they say is personal, political, conceptual, mysterious and true to their voices. They are generally after money only to survive and make more art.

As a result, the public is suspicious of them and parents cautious about art as a career. 

DT

 By any measure, Donald Trump was a failed president and is a failed human being. He can only see the world around him in relation to his own ambitions and his own need to fill his vast emptiness as a person. And yet Republicans in Congress sit sheepishly at his feet. Chuck Grassley, currently the longest serving senator, kisses up to him at a recent rally. The holy trinity of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are worshipped by their party. Voters choose to blind themselves with the “big lie” and the “Make American Great Again” mantra, hoping these delusions will bring them the white, homogeneous America that never existed.

But how can educated Republican legislators think this way? First, because big money is more important to their re-election than voter concerns. Second, because voters don’t bother to educate themselves. They don’t demand truth, integrity and competence from their representatives. They don’t stay vigilant. A diet of empty campaign promises, negative ads and slick promotions is enough.

If every voter took the time they spend watching a football game or a couple of movies to research candidates, write letters or volunteer for a campaign, this would be a different country. As long as Donald Trump is believable to Republican legislators and to any American voter, we have to be vigilant.

Artistic moments of truth

 Artistic moments of truth

The cost to frame your work is more than its selling price.

Someone told you your work was very pretty and would look nice above their couch.

First, second and third place came with cash prizes and you came in fourth.

You were offered a one-person show, but you had to hang it, do the signage, pay for the postcard, the gallery rent and the booze.

There were lots of people enjoying the eats and drink at your opening, but none went in to see the show.

You got a write-up in the newspaper, but they misspelled your name.

Your gallery told you they are now taking 70%.

Manhood

In our legal system, we grant particular freedoms to young men at ages 16, 18 and 21, even knowing their brains have not yet fully developed. We are edging them to manhood without really defining what manhood means. On hitting the magic number 21, young men imagine manhood opens the door to all the vices.

With many professions—nursing, plumbing, electrician, teaching, cosmetology, real estate and more—there are exams which must be passed to qualify for a license to practice that profession.

I propose we should have a manhood exam--to be thoughtfully developed—that would qualify those who passed to exercise the privileges of manhood. (This would force us to really think about what manhood means.) Any man who passed would be given his manhood card, complete with discounts and benefits. Women would surely benefit from knowing a man was a manhood card carrier.

Personally, I think I would be grandfathered in. What about you?

3 Rs

 My three R’s

RITUAL   The way we affirm the significance of the important events in our lives

REVERENCE   The way we show respect for those who have earned our respect

RESPONSIBILITY    The way we show that we truly understand freedom

jbf-index

 After extensive research, statisticians have devised a numerical measure of the intelligence of individual opinions. It’s called the jbf-index. 

The jbf-index is the number of Justin Bieber fan opinions that are required to add up to the intelligence of your one opinion.

My jbf-index is calculated at 12,578,600. 

What’s yours?

Miscellaneous

 Miscellaneous things you usually don’t think about.

1. How a seed is turning into a flowering plant while you’re not paying attention.

2. You’re using geometry without realizing it.

3. All men are sex addicts for about 15 minutes a week, usually on weekends.

4. Once you see the pattern, you’ve solved the problem.

5. There are lots of good dramas but not so many good comedies.

6. It takes lots of stuff to make you pretty, but only character to make you beautiful.

7. Celebrities get lots of money to try to turn you into a sheep.

8. A lot of life is basically absurd.

9. Civilizing a child is not easy.

10. You could write a graphic novel by collecting images on T-shirts.

Monty Python

 I woke up one morning and suddenly realized that all I really wanted was to live the rest of my life as if I were inside a Monty Python movie.

Visions of God

 In this secular and materialistic world, we don’t think deeply about God. When we do, it’s too often about a God who sanctions violence or retribution. Or a God who chooses one people over another. Or a God of fundamentalism who is the God of another age. Or a God of convenience. All these are false Gods, but we revel in them.

God is unknowable. Still, God wants to be known through love that is transformative. A rigid vision of God dismisses the varied and complex nature of humanity. God can be discovered in all the visions of God flowing from all the people of God. When we narrow our vision of God, we insult God in the ways God is made present to us.

Ordinary people

 It’s a fallacy that ordinary people live conventional lives. Life throws monkey wrenches at them, which they use to fix things and loosen the nuts and bolts of others’ lives. They tinker, build and invent. They come to people’s rescue with ability and energy. They come up with the novel solutions— from cupcakes to food drives to elderly care. They’re watching kids’ brains pop in the classroom and putting out fires—the combustible ones and the human ones. They’re putting hair into crowns and spirals and stocking the shelves and taking your crap in the bar. They’re the ones who make the ideas of leaders into something real.

Freedom

 What happens in a society when freedom comes with no responsibility?

People who endanger others while they drive drunk or texting get light sentences.

A young white college student gets a slap on the wrist for a rape.

Fatal hazing incidents continue to happen.

Covid deaths soar while people refuse to mask or get vaccinated.

The number of single parent households keeps climbing.

The January 6 assault on the Capitol was just a lovefest.

The list goes on. 

A striking story on the PBS Newshour described a small town in Mexico which resorted arming and training children as protection against drug dealers. We must help the drug addicted, but they are not all victims. Their choices feed the business that results in this small army of children.

We all make mistakes, big and small, and we must accept the consequences, big and small.In any society freedom is an empty notion without a clear understanding of responsibility.

Wisdom

 Only the few seek wisdom

Some, unprepared, stumble on it

Some are led by suffering

Children speak it out of innocence

Wisdom doesn’t need a white beard

But attending to the accumulation of experience

Helps wisdom test itself

It can be found in books and art and music

But it must be dug out and mulled over

It’s always easy to ignore

Because it demands that life

Be lived with the reverence it deserves

The gifting and getting of wisdom

Are never without rewards

Even the uncomfortable ones

Work of art

 A work of art is more than just itself:

(a) It’s a lesson in the artist’s chosen language.

(b) It’s a cultural artifact.

(c) It’s a measure of the artist.

(d) It’s a message about being human.

(e) It’s a cultural record.

(f) It’s an offer to talk.

(g) It’s a creative act.

(h) It’s the answer to a question.

(i) It’s an itch that needed to be scratched.

(j) ???

art

 So you went to art school to train for a career in art. Maybe you reached your goal or maybe you are a cabinet maker, electrician, chef, bartender, nurse or computer engineer. But, whether you realized it or not, you were in art school to explore who you are as a unique, creative human being. You think you made art, but art made you.

So keep at it, even in small spurts. Keep making art, and it will keep making you.

Map

 Make a map of your life. 

Where did it start? Where was the road smooth? Rough? How many forks in the road? Did you run a stop sign? Where did you get lost in the forest? Where did you break down and who came to your rescue? Did you go full speed ahead? Or stop to linger? Did you make it to the mountaintop? Who went along for the journey? How many detours when the road was closed?

Make a map of your life.

classifications

 We’ve got to get past unfair and unproductive classifications by race and ethnicity, and start using useful classifications: saint, hero, decent person, asshole, thug and villain. Unlike race and ethnicity, these categories allow people to change and to be measured by their actions.

And then, of course, we would have to initiate Assholes Anonymous, Thugs Anonymous and Villains Anonymous.

Thinking

 Thinking is the way we penetrate things and expand understanding. It’s the way we keep ourselves from existing only on the surface of things. Thinking turns information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom.

Thinking is communicated through language. This is why education should be seen primarily as the teaching of languages: mathematical, spoken, written, visual, musical and the language of the body. Learning to think critically is essential. Since we have access to such extensive knowledge, it’s not so much the information given but how well we learn to digest and use that information.

The world moves forward when free and critical thinkers exchange their ideas freely and critically.

Suggestion

 School districts differ from one another in size, location, administration, curricula and financial resources. But it does seem a trend that sports—extracurricular activities-- are getting increased funding, booster support, larger stadiums and corporate sponsorships while the arts—part of the curriculum--are getting funding cuts.

So here’s my suggestions for addressing the problem. Require that classical music be played on all school buses (kids have easy access to pop music all the time). Require that in each grade from second on each student must do a self-portrait (take a look at how they see themselves). Require that every athlete must take a dance class (to learn alternate ways to discover the language of their bodies).

You decide

 Since you live in a time when anything is art, then you get to decide what art is for you. The critics don’t agree with another. Nor do the gallery dealers, the art writers, the museums, the auction houses, the collectors or the artists themselves.

So you can decide what you want from art: comfort, color, tradition, challenge, memorability, pleasantness, something to fill the wall, the sublime, a political or social statement, figurative, abstract, something you’ll soon forget about, something you’ll never forget about.

It’s all up to you. And it’s never a problem to ask a lot from art.

God Stories

 Little God Story #1

He kept God in his coat pocket

Ready to show to others

Whenever the circumstance required it

Cramping the Omnipotence like that

Seemed of little concern

Oddly, he never took God out

At home

Little God Story #2

God never appeared to him when he was walking

Or swimming or bending down to pick a flower

Or even when a child was on his lap

But when he knelt beside the bed

There was lively conversation

God had a lot to say

Though God didn’t seem to respond a lot

To begging

Little God Story #3

The church doors were always kept closed

To keep an eye on God 

So God could appreciate 

All the gold and silver and painted statuary

It was dangerous out in the streets

The seven deadly sins were everywhere

Little God Story #4

How could an infinite God fit inside 

Such an ordinary person

And when he left church

Did God follow him out

Does God still do miracles

And, if so, could he have one

Little God Story #5

By 10:30 am on Sunday morning

All the ministers, pastors and priests 

Had preached out the word of God

To many pairs of ears

And some hearts as well

Would the pulpit messages

Last a week they wondered

Human

 We’re all human, though we struggle to know what that really means. That’s because being human is a moving target. Our arts and sciences constantly reveal new aspects of our bodies, brains, emotions, behaviors and yearnings. Our understanding of our relationship to the natural and living world changes. In our humanness we push the boundaries of the glorious and the brutal, still hopeful that there is something binding us all together.

Who gets

 Who gets more media attention…

The missing white girl or the missing black girl?

Britney Spears or the Pope?

The celebrity divorce or the couple married for 70 years?

The cost of a war or the cost of not feeding the hungry?

The bad cop or the good cop?

The conductor of the symphony or the pro quarterback?

The celebrity who misspoke or the author who spoke wisely?

The high school athlete who died on the field or the young kid who died in the street?

The wealthy entrepreneur who played the system or the official who cleaned up the system?

The Nobel Prize winner or the Oscar winner?

Mystery

 The universe goes about its business as it has for billions of years, unfurling under the laws given to it at the Big Bang. Making and colliding galaxies, forming worlds, popping out stars and black holes and letting life appear as it may, creating and destroying itself as it moves along in time.

Mystery, though, is the domain of humans. Any person serious about creativity knows that solutions to the problems that plague us are only transitional. The end of any deep search is always mystery. Life is a mystery. God is a mystery. Each of us is even a mystery to ourselves.

Mystery is a gift but not a place for the faint-hearted.

Romance

 Romance: When you tell her she is the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, but you don’t have a clue as to what that really means.

Love: When you tell her she is the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, and you know exactly what that means. 

Be a man

 Your dad says: Be a man.

Your buddies say: Be a man.

Your girlfriend says: Be a man.

Your wife says: Be a man.

The new baby girl says: Be a man.

Your kids say: Be a man.

The coach says: Be a man.

The teacher says: Be a man.

The sergeant says: Be a man.

The pastor says: Be a man.

Your hormones say: Be a man.

The NRA says: Be a man.

The society says: Be a man.

The magazine says: Be a man.

The movies say: Be a man.

The marketers say: Be a man.

The tears you hold back say: Be a man.

The beach body says: Be a man.

The stylish wardrobe says: Be a man.

The aging body says: Be a man.

So…Be a man.

Pornography

 

Our bodies

 We think of ourselves as owning our own bodies, and fundamentally we do. When exactly did we take full ownership of our bodies? Who taught us about our bodies, educating us about the complex physical, emotional, intellectual, sexual and spiritual elements that inhabit them?

This is an important question because while our bodies are ours to use, maintain and share, society has many expectations for our bodies. Our bodies are sexual, which has personal and social consequences. Our physical and emotional bodies can impinge on others. Unhealthy bodies can spread disease, as HIV and covid have taught us. Religious and moral directives seek to tell us how to use our bodies. Our brains try to make sense of our bodies and those of others. Society tries to tell us what it means to be beautiful, sexy, moral, masculine and feminine. Business tries to tell us what body norms we must achieve in order to fulfill their needs for us to consume.

So the bodies we own are not really the bodies we own. They are the bodies we use to navigate our way through life. How we negotiate the pleasure, pain, human engagement and health of our bodies will result from how smart and informed we are.

Citizenship

 There are serious cracks in the wall of American democracy. The litany of problems comes down to the failure of citizens to be vigilant. Do you vote? Do you give attention to the credentials of candidates? Do you research the issues? Do you write your representatives? Do you discuss issues with your friends to get perspective? Do you pay your taxes? Do you expect all kinds of government services which you are not willing to pay for? Do you understand the destructive nature of campaign financing on government?

American citizenship isn’t a privilege without obligations.  

NIL

 The quarterback for the Miami Hurricanes recently argued that it is only fair for college athletes to earn money on their NIL use since any college student can earn money with no restrictions. This is reasonable. What he didn’t acknowledge is that the typical college student does this on his/her own, often with little support from the college, with no extensive publicity and generally small financial rewards they have to generate themselves.

This quarterback, however, will get a stadium to play in, travel, extensive publicity, meals, medical care, full-time coaches, uniforms, dormitory and scholarships and often a carefully crafted academic schedule. He also gets a team to support him, a team of players who will not get the chance he has at money. Financial offers will just come to him.

Students in the arts, who practice long hours and perform for the public in the name of the college, will have few of the same rewards this quarterback has. Less exposure, but they have NILs too. And the arts, unlike football, are part of the college curriculum.

Your brain

 Your brain has a mind of its own. It thinks what it wants to think. It dreams what it wants to dream. It remembers what it wants to remember. It goes haywire when it wants to go haywire. Its consciousness is its own consciousness. 

Its neurons message and its chemicals slosh around beyond your control. It takes on the nutrients and the drugs you give it and does what it wants with them. You are both its victim and its beneficiary.

Wonder Pill

 Hello. I’m wearing a white lab coat so you think I’m a real doctor. But I want to tell you about a new medical breakthrough. It’s called Wonder Pill, and it has been clinically proven to ease the symptoms of TD, ED, VD, MS, LS, PS, PTSD, RSVP, MLNOP, restless leg syndrome, restless eye syndrome, toenail fungus, hemorrhoids, depression, regression and male pattern baldness.

Side effects include male pattern baldness, exploding lungs, swelling in the knees, hips, buttocks and shoulders, nausea, vomiting, uncontrolled anger, kicking your dog, fuzzy math and fainting.

Ask your doctor about Wonder Pill today.

Couples

 When you watch couples who have been successfully married for a long time and listen to them, you realize that love is grounded in the other. The husband and wife have penetrated the vain and selfish boundary of “me”and have become the other. In this way, they are one, which is no small accomplishment.

Couples

 Couples conversing in bed

Should be saying what needs to be said

About kids and the ex

About money and sex

But they’re talking trivia instead

“I love you,” is what they should hear

Before all the lights disappear

A peck on the lips

A pat on the hips

A warm loving body so near

Snuggling before falling asleep

Makes dreams come softly and deep

In the morning you wake

With a memory to take

That’s so sweet that you just want to weep

Her body lies withered and old

It’s a body you still want to hold

For beauty may fade

But the love time has made

Is a thing more precious than gold

The poor

 We need a grand, glorious, soaring monument—maybe many of them--to the working poor. All of world’s slaves, serfs, tenant farmers, indentured servants, starving immigrants, railroad builders, sweatshop workers, ditch diggers, coal miners and all of them I’ve forgotten or never knew about. From the pyramids on, they built the great monuments, made agriculture profitable, made manufacturing work, carried the economy on their broken backs, created great fortunes for the few.

The sublime beauty of these accomplishments is not complete without recognizing the sweat, pain, sacrifice and death that went into them. Build the monument(s).

Afghanistan

 The war in Afghanistan, like all wars and terrorist attacks, is covered with diligence and professionalism by the media. These conflicts are presented to us in helpful, but often predictable ways. We learn about casualties, ideologies, government responses and key players.

We rarely get coverage of how these groups acquire their weapons and how they are trained to use them. We are rarely given insight into the sources of the weapons, the wealth that comes from their sales and the connection to the drug trade. None of these small countries or terrorist groups make their own weapons. And no war can be waged without them.

To do?

 In the contemporary first world, wealth, social media and technology have given us amazing personal possibilities. Instagram is small-time media celebrity. Tiktok is small-time spectacle. Sexting is small-time pornography. We can become small-time Rothschilds, create our own rides into space or even raise a small army. We have our estates and castles and hire people to take care of them. We can even live out, in our own lives, the comedy and drama of the British Royal Family.

Is there something we should do about this?

Let them

 Let them live under the overpass.

We have a stadium to build.

Let their stomachs groan with hunger.

My filet mignon is getting cold.

Let them be targets of AK-47’s.

Doesn’t everybody need an assault weapon?

Let them live on minimum wage.

The profit margin is the bottom line.

Let them write Congress.

It’s the campaign donations that make the difference.

Let’s feed them lies.

They want to believe what they want to believe.

Sell them vanity.

Distractions are always helpful.

Let them pray to Jesus.

As long as they don’t act like Jesus expected.

Sex

 Sex, in any of its physical forms, is a gift of evolution. Sexuality, in all of its human manifestations, is a result of culture. Vices are rooted in urges which humans act on with all kinds of consequences, some of which show them not to be vices at all. Humans attempt to control their vices for the sake of society. But sometimes the controls themselves are not reasonable or workable.

Over time, for example, societies have tried to curb the sexual expression of women and homosexuals. Prostitution is prosecuted for women but rarely for men. LGBTQ sexuality has only recently been given attention. Yet we live in a society where advertising, marketing, TV and movies spin out all forms of distorted and destructive messages about sexuality.

What we are not good at is talking openly and honestly about sexuality, healthy sexual behavior, sexual responsibility and sexual choice. Honest dialogue scares us while unhealthy messages swamp us. In the end, it’s not sex, but the ability to be informed and attuned to our partner’s needs and to be willing to take the consequences of our choices. Sex can be emotional, intimate, pleasurable and loving, but it should never be an act of anger, violence, will or force.

Some men

 Some men live a conventional life

Two kids, a dog and a wife

A two-story house

Some sex with the spouse

And never on the edge of the knife

Some men live a life full of chance

No love, but lots of romance

Their living is brisk 

With adventure and risk

And they never stop doing their dance

Some men seem like regular guys

But that is just a disguise

They intensely create

Make the new is their fate

They give birth to our cultural highs

Little Blips

 Most of us artists are lesser blips of light in the art heaven. We know that the big stars can produce repetitive works of art to acclaim while we little blips can crank out a masterpiece once in a while to little notice. As a little blip myself, I know I have. The mundane works by the “masters” too often push aside the masterpieces of the little blips. Therefore, I propose ongoing exhibitions: Masterpieces of the Little Blips.

I’ve said before and I’ll say again that every serious artist who’s put in their time in the trenches deserves a retrospective before they die. Therefore, I propose the Museum of Retrospectives.

Limerick

 Performance art will provoke

Giving the audience a poke

It lives on the edge

On the cliff or the ledge

And its message is never a joke

Though confusion it may often evoke

If you are a conservative bloke

Limerick

 A sculptor was chiseling away

At 4 or 5 square feet a day

The result was a nude

In a pose that was rude

So the buyer was happy to pay

Limerick

 I started to photograph noses

In all kinds of glamourous poses

The critics wrote lots

In praise of my shots

Suggesting I move on to toeses

Growing up Catholic

 Growing up Catholic in the 1950’s taught me how important it is to go into places of worship to hear the beliefs of other religions and how important it is to value mature love wherever I find it. I’ve realized that the Pope and I can disagree. I’ve realized I need to catch up on all the cursing and masturbation I missed. I’ve realized that the Baltimore Catechism was not written for adults. I’ve realized that love was a more effective motivator than fear. I’ve realized that fundamental human truths were embedded in Catholic rituals, images and artifacts. I’ve realized that what I was taught could be lived in many unexpected ways.

Obligations

 Ignore the Hollywood stereotypes of military men and women in combat. Get to know the ones around you. Pay attention to the profiles of the ones who gave their lives. Support organizations that support their needs. Volunteer.

Ignore the excess media attention on the rogue policemen. Get to know the ones who serve you. Attend the Citizens Police Academy. Walk as Citizens on Patrol. Recognize the danger they may encounter daily.

We’ve lost our understanding of the obligations we have as citizens.

Weapons

 The United States is the biggest seller of weapons through official channels and through the dark web. The amount of money made by manufacturers and sellers is staggering.

Terrorists get their weapons, one way or another, from US, Russian and Chinese sources. 

Think of all the terrorist groups throughout the world. They don’t make their own weapons.

Weapons sales are often tied to drug sales.

So US weapons sales can result in drug deals which bring drugs back to US users.

The money to be made is irresistible, and the likelihood of any reasonable control is tiny. 

Stopping the flow of weapons would mean stopping their production. 

Now go back to the first sentence.

Big love

 Just look around. It’s easy to find the God of power. Or the God of lust. Or the God of greed. Or the God of vanity. Or the God of hate. 

The God of little love can be seen. But the God of big love is hard to find.

God

 We live in a universe of underlying structure and pattern driven by the randomness of evolution. As in every age, a new understanding of the universe demands we search for a new understanding of God, a process that is never easy or satisfactory. We come to realize that holding on to unworkable notions of God gets us nowhere. Still, one aspect of God that endures is the demand that we put love and justice into the world. At this, we’ve made great strides and at the same time failed miserably. This is the human condition.

Why draw

 Why draw?

(5) Ask a child.

Why draw

 Why draw?

(4) Drawing is a record—of observation, of learning, of experience, of feelings, of thoughts, of ideas. Drawing locks them in time.

Why draw?

 Why draw?

(3) Drawing can be a very pleasurable act. It can be meditative and rewarding. It can initiate an inward dialogue with yourself.

Why draw?

 Why draw?

(2) We glance. We look. But we don’t see. Seeing requires time and attention. This is what drawing provides. Drawing creates an intimacy with the thing observed resulting in an understanding and appreciation not achieved before. What counts most is this act of drawing more than the drawing itself. Drawing makes seeing a disciplined act.

Why draw?

 Why draw?

(1) The hand naturally touches, caresses, measures, grasps, speaks and more. Drawing is a primary means to use these actions to educate the hand. Drawing helps the hand record, imagine, remember, explore, express and replicate. In this way, the hand becomes a repository and a valuable tool, a partner to the brain and the mind.

And God said

 And God said:

Here’s your body, complete with an individualized set of chromosomes. The rest is up to you.

And God said:

Here’s your piece of the cosmic brain. The rest is up to you.

And God said:

Here’s a natural world for you to explore and enjoy. The rest is up to you.

And God said:

Here’s a universe that should keep you busy for a while. The rest is up to you.

And God said:

I’ll give you the freedom to choose between good and evil. The rest is up to you.

And God said:

I’ve sent a bunch of teachers to explain love. The rest is up to you.

Beings

 We get lots of messages that we are economic beings, social beings, sexual beings, psychological beings and political beings. We get many fewer messages that we are spiritual beings. Yet recognizing that we are spiritual beings would greatly help us face the problems that come with being economic, social, sexual, psychological and political beings. 

Republican agenda

 The new Republican legislative agenda:

The White People’s Voting Rights Act

The Americans with Stupidity Act

The Freedom without Responsibility Act

The Let the Rich Keep Their Money Act

The Men in Charge of Women’s Bodies Act

The Oil and Gas Are Nice Act

The Guns for Everybody Act

The Lock the Gates before People of Color Get in Act

Luxury