Category Archives: Culture

Musing on Spengler Unmasked and Interesting

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Spengler unmasks and allows a peek at the inner workings that he wrapped in the pseudonym.  It’s all very interesting and I’m just beginning to digest it.  At first read, I respond to the klunk on my musing surface to a piece of Spengler’s journey to open identity.

Spengler writes of his time in a cult, “The question, of course, is what were a group of young Jews doing in the company of a cult leader with a paranoid view of the world and a thinly disguised anti-Semitic streak.” In part, he answers, “There existed a science of mind, LaRouche claimed, that would enable the adept to reach the right conclusion.” and more, Larouche claimed to trace a tradition of secret knowledge across the ages, from Plato and Plotinus, through the Renaissance, and down to the German scientists and philosophers of the nineteenth century. Of course, that raises a question: If there exists this kind of knowledge, then why isn’t it universally shared? The reverse side of the gnostic page is paranoia: There must be a cabal of evil people who prevent the dissemination of the truth.”

It reads like gripping fiction, reminding me, with my fully accepted Judeo-Christian underpinnings of Gen 3: 4-5, “You certainly will not die!  No  God knows well that the  moment you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.”

I would tend to run afraid for my soul.  The scenario would rouse a voice that speaks to me, that I know would say, “At first blush, you will blush and then you will no longer blush, as headlong you pursue a dream or call it temptation.  With heady glee, forbidden pleasure will be recast for the ‘good’ it promises. Soon you will become like gods in your private reveries or privy little worlds; not only knowing what is good and what is bad, but you will have known good and bad in that intimate way of knowing that spoils the good like food gone bad.  Throwing your whole self into pursuit of what might be tasty and alluring, knowledge itself will be your cavorting and you ravenous.  You will run after experience so as to judge by your own proclivities what delights, what titillates and what requires more of your self than you can give or share.  What a god, indeed!

Have I gone too far? I tend to jump to conclusions and without input, I get stuck there.  I’m still listening and will dive in again. “Confessions of a Coward” by Davis P. Goldman is a must read.

It touches me because for three years I trained at Mt. Sinai Hospital School of Nursing and it was formation ground for me.  My friends during those years were all Jewish.  Their Jewishness was different from my Catholicism.  An encounter with Thomas Merton’s “the Seven Storey Mountain,” began me on the life long practice of daily Mass and prayer.  That set me in a direction in which I continue still today.

The Jewishness of my friends was expressed with more subtlety. There identity as Jews was perceptible, solid and unwavering.  It raised a sense of admiration in me. I, however, can’t recall a single religious conversation.

Even today, in my prayers for them, I don’t know how to pray.  Their faith is precious to me.  I want to see it lived to the full.  I guess I know they are a peculiar people whom God, not only cherishes, but for whom He plans providentially a future full of hope and abundant blessing. There seems to be in me a sense that God planted this seed, continues to water it and will bring it to marvelous fruition in His time. I pray for them wordlessly.

As for Spengler, my favorite part is:

Around 1985, the ugly awareness that I had spent almost a decade in a gnostic cult coincided with a dark time in my personal life. Deeply depressed, I sat at the piano one night, playing through the score of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and came to the chorale that reads: “Commend your ways and what ails your heart to the faithful care of Him who directs the heavens, who gives course and aim to the clouds, air and wind. He will also find a path that your foot can tread.” For the first time in my life, I prayed, and in that moment, I knew that my prayer was heard. That was a first step of teshuva—of return.

The truth is that I did not think my way into praying. I prayed my way into thinking.


Civil Rights At the Heart Of Abortion

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A question of truth, a question of conversion; the Anchoress asks can Obama be converted on abortion?  I ask, and I think posterity will ask, how can this black man, who knows the Black Man’s pain of Slavery, the history of popular resistance to change, who knows the history of  a Stephen Douglas ignoring an Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln who finally pricked Douglas into debate by clubbing him verbally, until, as Edward T. Oakes, S.J. says, “Douglas finally had to take notice of Lincoln’s ceaseless hammering away at Douglas’ ‘pro-choice’ platform (which said, in effect, ‘I’m personally opposed to slavery but can’t impose my choice on other states, including other Norther states.’),” not only ignore but side against so utterly defenseless a part of American humanity? ” How can such a man, now President of a country, founded on the principal that all men are created equal, now consent in his heart of hearts to  discriminate against the obviously created human person growing from day to day, as all men grow, just because he/she is still under the protection of a mother’s womb.

How can this President, the citizen of the greatest free nation, ever, be content while people conspire to deprive the weakest most dependent members of their civil rights; when to steal or negate life, black,white, red,yellow, male, female,old or young, is intrinsically evil and morally wrong?  How can this be-gifted man standby, a blind, deaf, and mute creature, while this glaring, screaming, appealing and appalling issue of Civil Rights is left to cry in the arms of Lady Justice?

The questions continue, nagging and still unanswered.  How can a professor, a teacher, a sworn defender of the Constitution, forget the cries of these similarly beleaguered, disenfranchised, these who endure discrimination, these forgotten and forbidden human beings? Is it simply that they have no power, but the power to be, while Obama,  himself, who knows the benefits of life, and the gifts of God and has sworn an oath in the Creator’s Name, forsake his power refusing just consideration? Could he not use his powers of rhetoric to acknowledge our posterity and his power of intellect to comprehend their potential? How can such a man claim his “pay grade” justifies the “choice” not to chose life or engage his own reason and heart and soul?

The buck Mr. President not only stops here but demands you at least use the means you possess; ears, eyes and brain to watch a simple, state of the art and science, video of life in the womb. The thumb-sucking, kicking, jumping, hiccupping creature you see before you may well declare the reality; “I am here, now.  I am alive, unless you allow my life to come to naught.”

What price freedom; what price honesty? History begs you not to hide behind polls and politics.  Don’t ask people with vested interests in the abortion industry, or who purchase human parts for research, who like slave owners count it lose if right prevails. Ask Martin Luther King, Jr. when you should stand for the civil right SIMPLY TO BE!

In the Guise of Human Rights

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H/T Anchoress,  who hopes for conversion of President Obama on issues of life.  I’ll pray for that!  I’m sure Obama now knows who Mary Ann Glendon is and may give ear to what she has to say he only out of curiousity, due to a well publicized run in with this woman of integrity.

From the text of the address of Mary Ann Glendon, president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, to Pope Benedict XVI and reported by Zenit:

“We have also been mindful of the fact that in today’s world, ironically, many threats to the dignity of the person have appeared in the guise of human rights. As you pointed out in your memorable speech to the United Nations last year, there are mounting pressures to ‘move away from the protection of human dignity towards the satisfaction of simple interests, often particular interests.’ “……………

“We have paid special attention to rights that are currently under assault such as the right to life, the right to found a family, freedom of conscience and religion, and to rights that have too long awaited fulfillment such as the right to decent subsistence.”

From Pope Benedict’s response: (Full text here)

“The Church’s action in promoting human rights is therefore supported by rational reflection, in such a way that these rights can be presented to all people of good will, independently of any religious affiliation they may have”. At the same time, “insofar as human rights need to be re-appropriated by every generation and by each individual, and insofar as human freedom … is always fragile, the human person needs the unconditional hope and love that can only be found in God and that lead to participation in the justice and generosity of God towards others”.

Research Confirms Rhythmic Cockatoo

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LA times says  research confirms cockatoo  has rhythm.  Something  over 2 1/2 million people had already guessed, but it’s nice to know it’s official:

Wonder if they care about a dog with inflection and good diction?

Inner Life vs Distraction

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“Cell phones, Blackberries, e-mail, laptops allowing people to bring their work anywhere, news arriving in perfectly condensed and filtered snippets via the Internet and TV, never before has communication been so instantaneous and information distributed so quickly. Never before have people been so connected.”

“One would assume that this preponderance of advanced communication technology would promote a well-informed and close-knit society. While this is true to some extent and there are many benefits to be gained from these technologies, award-winning author and journalist Maggie Jackson surprisingly has found that compared to past generations, we are in fact less capable of quality analytical thinking, more ignorant about many issues, and more fragmented as a community. Never before have we been so disconnected.”  Source:Medical News Today

The subject caught my attention, so I guess I still am capable of attention.  However,  it caught my attention simply because it seems something is always vying for my attention.  There’s that nagging feeling, I’m forgetting something; worse still, that I’m forgetting Someone.

I can’t complain because things are rather simple around here. Kids are off being mature adults.  Only a husband and dog – neither demanding – have a real claim on my time.  I’m not even as plugged in as the rest of society seems to be.  I don’t walk around talking into space with a thing in my ear.  Why, I’ve even got the computer under control.  (Husband might seriously ???) So, I ask myself, “Why self?  What’s our problem?”

Enter Maggie Jackson, who wrote, DISTRACTED: THE EROSION OF ATTENTION AND THE COMING DARK AGE (Prometheus Books).  Medical News today writes:

Jackson’s definition of “attention” stems from studies in neuroscience that have identified a cognitive system comprised of three networks – awareness, focus, and executive attention (planning and decision making) – that work together to act as the “brain’s conductor, leading the orchestration of our minds.” The awareness and focus networks are systems responsible for gathering information about the environment, and the executive attention network is responsible for making decisions based on that information. Sustained attention is necessary for learning, deep thinking, emotional development, building relationships, and many other essential tasks. Attention is the building block of intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress. Without it, it would be impossible to function in any meaningful way. In today’s world, this altered perspective has been greatly accelerated. Cell phones, e-mails, and numerous other devices compete for our attention. Because of this constant nagging, it becomes nearly impossible to utilize our capacity for sustained attention, and the implications are felt in business, the home, and society at large.

Jackson notes that the average worker switches tasks every three minutes and once interrupted takes nearly half an hour to go back to the original task. Families and friends find it increasingly difficult to meet face-to-face and even more difficult to do so without interruption or willful multitasking. News segments bombard us with superficially simple pieces of information. We have essentially been ushered into a world of constant distraction in which reflective thinking and undivided attention (single-tasking) has become exceedingly rare.

Jackson further laments: “The erosion of attention is largely equivalent to the erosion of our society.”

Not to worry, forewarned is forearmed.  Awareness is half the battle. Bewareness is the other half.  The  world is a little ditsy in its quest for self-awareness and I think, goes off the deep end into navel-gazing and self-absorption.  Inner strength, on the other hand, stems from an inner joy.  That’s what I don’t want to lose.  The acronym JOY still works for me.  When you’re frazzled, check your priorities: Jesus, Others, Yourself.

Don’t Go There – I’ve Been There

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Quoting Charlie Brown:

“This is my depressed stance. When you’re depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you’ll start to feel better. If you’re going to get any joy out of being depressed, you’ve got to stand like this.” Charles Schultz