FIPS GEBURTSTAG

Logos in Sensu

Some years back, I apostated.  I rejected Christianity and all its nefarious works. I could not raze cathedrals but I could root its works out from my mind.   Henceforth, nihil in mente nisi prius in sensu.  And not just in general but in sensu meo.   No more games.  I stood here; God knew where to find me.  He could ring me up anytime.  If not, well not, but no more convoluted conundra.  Fuck that shit.

And if God, then a fortiori no one else.  In all of history there were perhaps 20 geniuses, no more than 100 at most really worth reading.  I had read them; they had  solved nothing.  No more chasing after a babble of opinions.  I packed away my books.  Henceforth, I would listen to no one.   I scoured my mind and became a Fundamentalist Positivist.

There was only one problem. I loved Bach. I hadn’t grown up in a Lutheran tradition.  The little Bach I knew was secular and fell into the category of nice but nothing  special.  Certainly not Beethoven.  But at college I was forced to parse the St. Mathew Passion.  Dragged through it I should say, measure by measure, until one day something cracked in the roof of Aristotle’s cave and I heard, as if for the first time, an indescribable beauty.  To this day, I can recall walking through the quad and hearing with deep assurance and delight the strains of Bach emanating from a window.  If I came away from college with anything, it was with an appreciation of Bach.

What to do?  I pondered.  I convinced myself that had Constantine chosen Mithras over Christ; had Zoroastrianism conquered the West, Bach would still be Bach with minor adjustments in the text.  The obnoxious theology could be ignored.  It doesn’t work.  For Bach, every composition was an act of christian prayer and when you listen to him you join him in prayer.  He would not say otherwise.  The story of Christ is not the story of Mithras; but if it were it would still be the story of Christ and Bach’s prayer would be the same.  In short, try as I might, Bach’s music was an echoing tether that kept me ever within earshot of Christianity, in sensu.

Cabin Comforts

Fine Music in Febreuwary

Doggish

It is interesting how dogs learn English.   Nicki-the-Lab has always associated "wan' go out?" with what the question suggests and the phrase invariably provokes a ferocious,  affirmative happy-dance.  I don't even have to say, "out" -- the word "u'wann'?" suffices.

But it has been grim and rainy of late.  This evening Nicki came alongside as I lying on the bed and resting my eyes.   Tonight, as last night and the day before I sighed, "Ohh, you're such a pain in the butt" and this phrase immediately provoked his happy dance.  So we went out.

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Doing Mindless Chewbal

As in... "Uh huh... and you expect me to lie on the soggy ground ... ?"  Not

New Year's Ponderings

The other week during a slow day at the gym we noticed a father-son duo come in to work out.  Dad was a heavy set burly dude in his mid forties, probably a high school footballer, now out-of-shape but still strong.  Son was a wimpy, scrawny thing who evidently was like totally not into this at all, if he could help it, which he couldn’t.

I didn’t pay it more attention, apart from noticing that the only thing the duo seemed to share was a certainly joylessness.

Alas, the other day, the joyless duo were back at the gym, in the locker room as I was changing shirts.  As dad walked away toward the wash basins he told his kid to fetch something from the locker. Do it! Now!  He snapped in a low-tone commanding whisper.

Wimpy, sultry son obliged, spiritlessly.

Back at the basins dad handed the kid the shaving cream and told him to put it on with his hands.  I noticed that the kid was about 13, and this was his evidently his first shave.

You’re getting it more on your fingers than on your face Burly Dad said, again in a disparaging mutter.

Everything the father said was calculated to be a critical, contemptuous put down in some subtle but no less degrading manner.  Above all, threatening, a welling storm of breaking force behind the muttered commands and contempt.


As I sponged my face, I wondered what kind of funny quip I could make about my first shave.  But nothing came to mind and I headed out for the gym floor.

When I came back they were still there.  Dad was off by the basins, the kid was sitting on a locker-bench with his head in his hands and quite evidently close to tears.

I was about to give him a wink and a thumbs up when I heard the beast heading over.  I went to my own locker and watched them head out.  The human race is nothing to cry over but abuse of the helpless is an outrage all the same. 

I know one never knows what family dynamics are at play.  It is impossible to say that the kid isn’t an impossible brat or a lazy slob.  It is impossible to say that dad isn’t trying to do his best.  What can be said is that his best sucks.

We feel tenderness, happiness, hatred and anger not because we imagine them but because they are sensible, as much as warmth or stinging cold are felt because they actually are.  

Glancing at that kid with his head in his hands, trying to escape his helplessness in his iPod, I could not but think of Nicki, hopeless in his cage at the pound after having the joy of life disciplined out of him by what i know was another heavy set asshole who had determined that “the dog” was “incorrigible”.

Only fools rush in where angels fear to tread and I won't.  But i am pondering  safe, sensible, official options all the same. 

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