The day no one could die

 To celebrate my birthday, I spent an hour among the Ancient Greek vases at the San Antonio Museum of Art. I sometimes feel as if the collection were meant for me. When you write a story — or create a work or art — it’s hard to say who will enjoy it and who won’t. Personality has a decisive role in aesthetics, I’m afraid.

The museum has a wonderful collection of Ancient Greek art. I imagine that most people who see it trudge through the gallery, looking dutifully, hoping to absorb some culture. I look with joy.

All human beings come to some kind of understanding about the standing of mankind in relation to the cosmos. Einstein talked about it. All great thinkers do. We look at the enormous size of the cosmos and consider the near infinite number of things that make it up. We wonder where we stand in relation to it — where we fit in.

I admire the way the Greeks looked at this mystery. In some cultures, the stories handed down can’t be changed. Failing to dot an i or cross a t of the received text is a deadly offense.

But to the Greeks, the stories were a challenge for each new generation of artists. A god or hero who was a cad to Aeschylus might be a sympathetic figure to Euripides. Each artist interpreted the common stories differently. And so you have to pay attention.

All this made me think of Sisyphus, the Greek character who was, as my grandmother would say, a bit too smart for his britches. He got into all kinds of trouble, and the Judges of the Dead eventually sentenced him to rolling an enormous rock up a hill. The rock is so big it always rolls back down, and to this day poor Sisyphus is hard at it. Most of us know Sisyphus as the symbol of an endless task.

I like the lesser-known tale of the havoc Sisyphus created when he went to the Underworld. He met the god of death, Hades. But Sisyphus was such an engaging fellow that Hades fell for the old “show me how the handcuffs work” trick.

And so for a day we had a cosmos in which no one could die.

Hades couldn’t take anyone in. The Underworld was effectively out of business.

You’d think that would be a delightful state of affairs for us mortals. But it was a disaster. Men who’d been beheaded couldn’t die and were having to make their way around as best they could. It was awkward.

Of course, this really crimped the style of Ares, the god of war. He eventually went to the Underworld, got Hades out of the cuffs and restored order.

As I was looking at the pottery, I kept trying to imagine what that scene might have looked like to one of those wonderful artists who lived 2,500 years ago. Imagine it: the god of death, with that air of awful somberness, trying to explain to Ares how he’d come to be trussed up.

I'm still grinning, days after I left the museum.

Are you spiritual?

 Once, when someone asked what my religion was, I replied: Equanimity.

I was popping off, and I should have had the decency to apologize to Antoninus for stealing his material.

But when the questions are serious, I don’t know what to say.

Are you a “spiritual” person? A “religious” person? Am I?

I don’t know what to say because I don’t know what the terms mean.

I’ve been searching for light on this puzzle for years. Recently, I came across the Fetzer Institute’s “Study of Spirituality in the United States” (September 2020).

Here’s what I took home:

• First, “spiritual” and “religious” don’t have any concrete meaning. We tend to use “religion” in referring to institutions now. “Spirituality” is more personal, more private. And “spirituality” is all over the map, a suitcase term big enough to include astrology, Alcoholics Anonymous and remarks by scientists — Albert Einstein and E.O. Wilson are favorites —about the connectedness of all things.

• Although the meanings of these basic terms are mushy, they are highly predictive. People who identify themselves as “spiritual” or “religious” are more likely to vote, donate to worthy causes, join social protests, etc. (There are also patterns that would interest advertisers. If you self-identify as “spiritual,” you’re more likely to buy certain kinds of cars, although this study just mentioned other research on that point.)

• One of the striking features of the talk about spirituality was the idea of connectedness. You’d expect some talk of a connection with a “higher power.” But being connected with nature or with mankind also seemed to count in many people’s minds as being “spiritual.”

The report suggests that this sense of connectedness seems to activate this social activism. Where people feel a connection, they also feel a responsibility.

However, Dr. Ruth Braunstein, a sociologist at the University of Connecticut, suggested that we assume that this sense of connectedness causes the action, that my sense of connectedness with all people causes me to join a protest in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement. She points out that the cause could be the reverse: I could feel a sense of connection with people as a result of joining a protest — of rubbing shoulders with so many who had suffered injustice.

I’m not belittling “spirituality” because it’s hard to define. To me, some of the most interesting words, some of the most interesting concepts, are difficult to define. I’d have a hard time telling you what “philosophy” means. Difficult terms are sometimes profoundly interesting.

After reading the study, I was struck by similarities between the concepts of “spirituality” and of “education.” The overwhelming majority of Americans consider themselves to be spiritual. The more spiritual a person considers himself to be, the more spirituality he wants to have. Almost unanimously, those who say they are spiritual report they are more spiritual today than they were.

I’d love to see a similar study on American views on education.

As for me, I still don’t know what to say.

If you’re interested, the report is at https://spiritualitystudy.fetzer.org.

A long poem that captures Texas

 Every list of Texas books should include a work of poetry as a sample of the kind of language the land can inspire. Christian Wiman’s long poem The Long Home contains the most beautiful, haunting language written on Texas.

Long poems are relative things — this one is about 40 pages. It’s the story of Josie, the poet’s grandmother, who came to Texas from Carolina when she was 10. The family followed her father’s dream of owning his own farm.

West Texas is inhospitable to farming, and this is the story of how the women in the family endured one hardship after another. 

Here are a couple of samples of the language. The first is about the letters saved by the matriarch of the family:

She’d keep a letter from Carolina

A week or more, before she’d bring it out

One night when everyone was on the porch

And read into the evening’s scattered sounds,

Her voice at times so soft it seemed to change

Into a killdeer’s cry, carrying far

Across the fields and coming back as words

Again: details and conversations which,

Later, when I would read the letters myself,

Weren’t there. 

One of Josie’s sisters-in-law was a beautiful soul for whom Texas was just too much. Josie noticed her beautiful, but haunted, eyes.

Opal’s eyes

Were all horizon. Looking in, you knew

That what you saw was your own vision’s limit,

And not the end of what was there.

One of the proverbs of the frontier was that Texas was a paradise for men and dogs and hell on women and horses. Here is a record of days in Texas — working a farm, sitting on porches as the sky darkens, seeing deer in the pasture, grieving lost children and husbands.

It’s a sad, beautiful poem that will give you much that can said about Texas in a single evening of reading.

Looking at a poem as scripture

 I recently discovered Christian Wiman’s wonderful poem “All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs” on the wonderful podcast “Poetry Unbound.”

The program begins with the host, Pádraig Ó Tuama, making this remark: “… poetry, for me, has become a scripture that is in partnership with my life. I trust that somebody around the world has written a poem that is going to be sufficient for the moments of my life where I need something that hasn’t been said to me before. And if I can’t find it, I try to write it.”

I find it remarkable because I’ve come to the same place. It’s as if I’d wandered off into some really good wilderness, looking for solitude, and there I find Pádraig.

I grew up with one sense of scripture, a profound reverence for the Bible, and have come to a sense of something else — of scripture as the voice of an inspired poet.

I’m posting this because I think Christian Wiman is a wonderful poet who wrote the great poem about Texas, The Long Home. 

If you’re interested, here’s the link:

https://onbeing.org/programs/christian-wiman-all-my-friends-are-finding-new-beliefs/

 

Consider the source

Sometimes, really significant news lands softly —almost like a dud. But a significant story is like a pebble tossed into a pond. Little waves roll out, gradually covering more and more of the pond. That’s the way significant news spreads. It’s the people — especially good readers — who do the spreading.

And so it’s been with Karen Hoa’s report in MIT Technology Review, which was based on leaked Facebook documents.

Before the 2020 election, troll farms reached 140 million Americans a month on Facebook.

The troll farms in Eastern Europe are professional propagandists. They were targeting the same demographic groups that the Internet Research Agency, which is supported by the Russian government, was hitting in the 2016 election: Christians, African Americans, Native Americans.

The story of how the troll farms used Facebook was published Sept. 16, and now publications aimed at the groups targeted by propagandists are trying to bring the news home to ordinary readers. The Christian magazine Relevant pointed out that 19 of the top 20 pages for American Christians were run by Eastern European troll farms.

I spent my working life as a newspaper editor. I often told our readers that I’d tried for decades to put out one really good edition — completely fair and completely accurate — and had always failed. A small town editor is always running into someone in the grocery store whose grandchild’s named was misspelled in the elementary school’s honor roll.

The failures — small and great — occurred despite efforts to be fair, accurate and objective. Some of the most common tasks in life turn out to be extraordinarily difficult. Educating and nurturing a child is harder than it looks. So is conveying information in a democracy.

Most of the newspaper folk I knew took the responsibility seriously, a trust. They knew that inaccuracy and unfairness could undermine trust. They also knew that trust is the foundation of democracies — and of all human relationships, for that matter.

We now live in an age where people who don’t even speak English can cut and paste propaganda into social media platforms. They can influence elections. They can discourage people from taking vaccinations that might save their lives.

The sources of the fundamental things in life turn out to be really important. That’s true of your sources of information. And that’s especially true in democracies.

Let’s hope the consumers choose wisely.

Hoa’s article is here: 

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/

Unknowns everywhere, living with uncertainty

The Talmud says: “Accustom your tongue to say, I do not know.” (Maimonides said something similar: “Teach your tongue to say, I do not know.”)

That's the theory. On the creek:

• A hawk, unlike the red-tails, flies over the campus, over a roofline. But I can see only the shadow of a flying raptor.

• Something — I think a large turtle — slips off a log. I see only the splash.

• A raptor — it looked twice the size of a kestrel, but with a light chest and blue back — was flying up the creek.

• A strike a calm lake — bass, carp or gar?

I looked. I saw. I do not know what I saw. If that drives you crazy, better not walk.

What were those two birds doing?

 This morning, I watched a great egret lumber over the lake and then begin his slow glide down to the shoreline. At the last second, his wings bowed and his descent became ascent. He was rising, just slightly as he let the air out of his sails and thrust his long legs forward, grabbing a hold of the muck. It was elegant and it was mesmerizing. I had to watch.

I would like to understand these birds, but I do not.

One morning I looked up to see a red-tail hawk chasing a great egret across the lake. The big bird, slow as a tractor being chased by a racecar, gave one great squawk. The hawk, flying as slowly as it could, was 5 feet behind when the chase started and 5 feet behind as the two disappeared down the lake. The hawk never closed the gap.

What then did I witness? Into what great pattern can I put this fact and have it make sense? What were those two doing? I have no idea.

I take William Harvey’s maxim as the First Law of the Cosmos: “All we know is still infinitely less than all that remains unknown.”

The writer Thomas Pynchon had a similar idea: “Life’s single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane.”

We have a deep need to understand. But in most cases, we simply don’t.

I have a deep need to understand what I see along the creek. But in most cases, I simply don't.