I won’t bury the lede: I’m a pagan Jew. In addition to other topics, I’ll be using my blog to explain that in more detail. Here I’ll just begin by saying that I’m a Jew whose identity includes and celebrates Canaanite origins, and broader historical and ongoing interactions from the ancient through the mediaeval to tomorrow. I’m a Jew outside the walls, but who nevertheless recognizes and cherishes the essential interdependence of walls and doors and roads. Continue reading Going Public
The Voice of the Riot
Property is an agreement.
Security is an agreement.
We bear the burden of your
prosperity, your impunity
out of fear, out of habit,
out of misdirected hope.
But we are many and we are
your sisters and your brothers
and there are always other
agreements to be reached.
The Lesson
Life, if selfhood, if identity, is a primary loss: the loss of unity with all other. Love is the dance between confirmation and dissolution of that primary loss. Love is the condition of all secondary losses.
Loss and love are life’s long lessons, however long a life. If life is loss, is love, is loss… then living well is loving well and losing well. And this is as true at life’s end as at any other time, if not more true. The last loss, after all, undoes the first.
Ain’t that a Great Saying
In my town of Prairie Village, where Cherokee Lane completes its winding climb up from Tomahawk Creek to 75th Street, there stands in a median an unintended shrine. Two unnamed goddesses, though I think of them as Demeter and Persephone, flank a large plaque naming the neighborhood behind them (Prairie Hills) all surrounded by a bit of garden. Until yesterday, behind the plaque stood an enormous conical evergreen, which some years someone arranged to have lit for Christmas. Seeing the tree gone, I thought how outliving anything is a mark of longevity but also a notice. The bell tolls for all yall. Continue reading Ain’t that a Great Saying
The Far Shores of the Day
This is the season for weddings. I have been to one this year and will, gods also willing, be to another a month from now: a fit cap to the month named for Juno Pronuba. I have word of others going on around me, and that is well. I also have word of others of the United States (though not yet mine) being told by judges that states may not grant civil marriage recognition to some couples and not others. That too is well. I stand with you, who uniquely yearn, in Love’s House. Continue reading The Far Shores of the Day
Never Again
…what, exactly?
Intensively? Extensively?
Gradually? Abruptly?
Publicly? Privately?
Overtly? Covertly?
Legally? Militarily?
Economically? Agriculturally?
Maliciously? Foolishly?
Preventively? Vengefully?
Coldly? Hotly?
Carefully? Wildly?
Exploitatively? Wastefully?
Forcefully? Weakly?
Greedily? Fearfully?
Expulsively? Expansively?
Yours? Mine?
Herbsttag | Harvestday
By my calendar, summer is already a month and more gone. But we approach the peak of autumn and the weather is catching up to the sun. This is a favorite poem of mine. I have been lonely and alone and neither need be terrible. But I am glad now, daily, not to be.
This is a Tolkienesque translation, though I did not construct any cognates.
Original German by Rainer Maria Rilke, 21 September 1902, in Paris.
| Herr, es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß. | Lord, it ist tide. The summer was very great. |
| Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren, | Lay thine shadow on the sunclocks, |
| und auf den Fluren lass die Winde los. | and on the floors let the winds loose. |
| Befiehl den letzten Früchten, voll zu sein; | Command the last fruits, full to be; |
| gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage, | give them yet two southerly days, |
| dränge sie zur Vollendung hin, und jage | thring them to wholeness thither, and chase |
| die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein. | the last sweetness in the sweer wine. |
| Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr. | Who yet no house hath, buildeth him no more. |
| Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben, | Who yet alone ist, will it long belive, |
| wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben | will wake, read, long briefs script |
| und wird in den Alleen hin und her | and will in the alleys here and there |
| unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben. | unroolie wander, when the blades drift. |
I Get It Now
Nothing in isolation. In the five seasons since I last spoke here, I became engaged to be married, built a new home with my love in my previously empty house, became a husband again, became a father. And about a month and a half ago our daughter Milena Isidora died, hours before she was born.
Try your patience? Don’t mind if I do. You must try mine sometime.
[This began as an intended post to the “Religious Tolerance” Facebook group and ran long.]
I’ve been thinking some about this, somewhat due to any of the times that someone tries to claim that limited tolerance isn’t tolerant at all. If the ideal being pursued is a sufficient tolerance, that’s something which we not only expect from others but require ourselves to extend to them. And I say that not because I imagine anyone here doesn’t understand that, but because it’s something that can easily be lost to sight if one has or acquires a relatively high level of comfort with — even preference for — diversity. That comfort or preference can itself become an inflexibility, an intolerance that provides an excuse for friction where it’s not necessary.
Continue reading Try your patience? Don’t mind if I do. You must try mine sometime.
Afterglow
For all the glory of the thunderous blooms,
I love the lingering glitter of the leaves
on half-lit weeping willows of smoke.