|
|
May 13, 2008A & Q: Connected in the Muck & MagmaQ: First off, I have to ask, what is it with the Sarah Jessica Parker worship? What is it that fascinates? A: You’re asking the wrong girl. I don’t get it. She’s moderately attractive, sometimes wears interesting things…I don’t know why week after week after week she is everywhere I look, and has been for several years, now. But then, I’ve never seen that show, Sex and the City. I don’t know who any of those women are. And I’m sure they’re all broken up about it, too. Q: Yesterday we wondered if all the bad news, earthquakes, natural disasters (now there is a threat to wheat) volcanos going swoosh and boom were reminding anyone of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Now this idiot is threatening Israel again…doesn’t it all seem like scary end-times stuff, to you? A: No, but I can understand why it is rattling some of us. Obviously something is going on below us that has plates shifting and magma moving (at least it can’t be blamed on “manmade global warming” or “climate change” although all that ash shooting skyward may help make it a milder summer) but as I said yesterday, none of this means that the “end times” are upon us. Those days will be signaled, I’m sure, by Al Gore getting back into the White House. Yes, I’m joking, but we should be praying everyday, anyway, because it’s good for us! The rest of it, the rumbling from China to Minnesota, the volcanos, while certainly frightening and tragic…it’s all actually a humbling reminder to us about everything we don’t know, and how at our very depths all things are so mysteriously connected, even humanity. A: Well, we are; our synapses fire, our consciousness awakes and we blip along with each other almost the way information blips along on the internets. Fer instance, below I linked to this great find by Rick at Brutally Honest. In the comments section, someone discoursed on internal and external knowledge and then reinforced his point by linking to a prime example via another blogger. Which reminded me that once upon a time, I had actually offered to mother the inarticulato being roasted. A: No, I’m saying there is a whole subterranean world of thoughts, arguments, theses, expositions and manifestos that we never begin to glean, because the internets are so vast, our time is limited and - most importantly - we spend a lot of time online just clicking away and admiring genius. Or at least I do. But we connect in small ways, all day long. Q: So blogging is about finding genius elsewhere? A: Well, not always, but in my case, yes. I’m always awestruck by what others can do, and how their minds trip from one issue to another. Here is Sissy Willis, jumping off of one of my pieces but then adding her own twist to it, and - in doing so - throwing into all of our paths this piece by Maggie’s Farm in which they discuss John Leo’s exposition of Robert D. Putnam’s fascinating study on immigration and ethnic diversity, and how Putnam moved to suppress his own study, rather than deal with it’s un-PC results. Fascinating. And the links just keep on coming. A: Like I said, we’re all connected. And so is the whole world. Below us the plates are shifting, hot magma is flowing, moving, looking for release. Within humanity, things are shifting, politically things are shifting, spiritually things are shifting. Maybe it is as random as it seems, but maybe it’s not. It’s like I always say; nothing is static, things turn on a dime, and everything we think we know today can be wiped off the table tomorrow and there is a new reality and we’re all in it. Q: Oh, brother, that’s reassuring. A: Yes, in a way it is. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” The internets are wonderous, but they’re also full of fuss and botheration and it is easy to get all caught up in things. That’s where prayer is handy. Prayer helps you to take the long view of things and not get caught up in a moment - it reminds us that the moments are fleeting - but that there is One Eternity. Nothing teaches us that like the psalms, btw, which in prayer reveals the entire human condition and also the way of the Christ. Q: So, you’re so holy and you pray everyday? A: I’m not so holy, but yes I do pray everyday; if I did not, I would barely manage to be human - I would be some sort of feral creature rolling about in the teeming muck. All I can tell you is that prayer is a force; it has real power to transform, beginning with oneself, and then externally. Whether praying liturgically or devotionally, scripturally or privately, it moves and shifts our own psychological and spiritual plate tectonics. Deep below our consciousness, it turns our muck into magma and drives us toward constant change, constant growth and even renewal, even if things don’t always look hopeful or promising as it does so. So, don’t fear the earthquakes or the volcanos, either external or internal. Yes, they’re destructive, yes, they’re alarmingly powerful and they change everything in their path. But they are mere moments in eternity, and after they rattle and scorch, things get quiet, and then life begins again - new growth, new structure, new maps. Without the great, seemingly catastrophic events, the earth would stagnate, and so would we. And then we’d have nothing but Sarah Jessica Parker movies in our lives. http://theanchoressonline.com/2008/05/13/a-q-muck-magma/trackback/ 11 Responses to “A & Q: Connected in the Muck & Magma” |
May 13th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
“……successful immigrant societies “dampen the negative effects of diversity” by constructing new identities.”
This seems to be the classic American melting pot process. You start out, for example, Irish, end up as American but maybe self-identify as Irish-American, but don’t see yourself any different from your neighbor who is of Italian descent. I wonder how much this process will be delayed now that we are so much into non-assimilation, celebrating our differences, etc. etc. and what does that mean for the community at large. Very troubling and I can see why Putnam would want to withhold his findings.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
You touch on something very important in that last comment about the usefulness of “living in interesting times,” as the old curse goes.
As well, I should mention that Q’s 2 and 3 can really only come from a near-total ignorance of history. “Humanity has never seemed more at odds” - hey, what? We’re actually doing better than average about now. And as for world-ending potential of wars and disasters, these aren’t new, and only seem to be happening more than before because we weren’t around before. We’ve got this horrible, hubristic tendency to think that nothing much happened before we were born, and that we are the Chosen Generation Of The Last Days (TM, pat. pending, etc.). Whole denominations have been built on that self-inflated notion, and few have been exempt.
Same goes for the people who think that noticing a phenomenon or recording something means that whatever it was hadn’t happened before or was totally stable (*coughClimateChangecough*). Bah. Self-important humanity.
Several years ago, a woman I knew, named Alma, had a web site called “Almageddon: It’s the end of the world as we know it (again)” which hilariously chronicled predictions of impending apocalypse over the course of about 3500 years.
In any case, Jesus warned us about this sort of nonsense by saying essentially, “Look, there’s going to be a lot of turmoil, disasters, wars, and all… but the plan is to come back without warning, like a thief.” Considering how consistently the brou-ha-ha has been since then, I think that any calming of things would be considered a possible sign of things concluding soon.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Better SJP than Pastor John Hagee and his stupidities!
May 13th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
This horse walks into a bar.
The barman glances up and says,
“Sarah Jessica Parker?”
May 13th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Gayle, Hagee has apologized to Catholics.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Peregrine, my mother was fascinated unto-obsession with end-times prophecies, unusual in a Catholic, I think. But someone loaned her an Edgar Cayce book once and she was off and running. You wouldn’t believe how many times I heard “the world is going to end in the year 2000″ before I was five.
I learned to tune it all out pretty early.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
My parents were told during WWII that they should never have children because the world would end before I could grow up. I’ll be 63 years old in a month.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
I’m especially fascinated by the fanaticism of end time prophecy by the “Left Behind” crowd. Scripture is very clear that only God knows the time or date, so wouldn’t pretending that we “have it figured out” be blasphemous in and of itself?
Furthermore, any of us would be lucky to live a measly 100 year life span; even 80 years would be a big deal. Consequently, I’m even more fascinated by anyone who doesn’t get the proven reality that regardless of when the world ends, WE are certainly not far from “ending.” The irony is it doesn’t matter when the end is, because whenever it is, it will be God’s will.
All that said, God’s mercy is greater than all the sins of the world combined. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if God in his great mercy gave America a “merciful get back on track wake up call”, one on one or perhaps as a nation. As C S Lewis used to say, pain is the megaphone of God.
On the other hand, with enough prayer and grace, the world can be restored to love and peace. FYI, today is the anniversary of Fatima, the church approved apparition calling for penance and reparation for sin; indeed a prophecy of hope far more than a pending “chastisement” IF we pray and repent as asked. It’s also consistent with Scripture.
I only add that as far as abortion in America, I’ve heard many Holy people/priests from Mother Angelica, Father Corapi, Peter Kreef, Mother Teresa, the list goes on, warn of “the consequences” to America if we don’t end abortion; all teaching that it will be our demise as a nation, unless of course, we change and repent. But that could also be argued even from a secular standpoint.
In any case, IMO, the “thief in the night” is far more of a concern, which astounding greater odds, than the “end times.”
May 14th, 2008 at 6:17 am
In response to the comment about natural disasters, Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News turned to a weatherman regarding the mid-west tornadoes and he said that he had talked to a couple of friends and they all wondered what WE are doing to “our earth”! The weather man looked at him like he was crazy and said it wasn’t global warming, but El (or La? I forget) Nina. So I guess the Brian Williams of the world aren’t thinking biblical disasters anymore, but human fault for everything.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:18 am
deedledee: Well, dang. Maybe it’s obvious to everyone else, but what you said just put together a few stray thoughts wondering about in my brain into something coherent.
Natural disasters used to be (and still are in places, I guess) referred to as “acts of God.” When humans are the gods, the blame/credit naturally shifts.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Why I pray
The Anchoress asks herself:Q: So, you’re so holy and you pray everyday?A: I’m not so holy, but yes I do pray everyday; if I did not, I would barely manage to be human - I would be some sort of feral creature rolling about in the teeming muck. All I…