I Am Not Hamlet

"Science and technology are not sufficient to locate their own significance." --Allen Verhy, Nature and Altering It

From Robert Nisbet's The Quest for Community : We may regard totalitarianism as a process of the annihilation of individuality, but, in more fundamental terms, it is the annihilation, first, of those social relationships within which individuality develops. It is not the extermination of individuals that is ultimately desired by totalitarian rulers, for individuals in the largest number are needed by the new order. What is desired is the extermination of those social relationships which, by their autonomous existence, must always constitute a barrier to the achievement of the absolute political community. The individual alone is powerless. Individual will and memory, apart from the reinforcement of associative tradition, are weak and ephemeral. How well totalitarian rulers know this. Even constitutional guarantees and organic laws dim to popular vision when the social and cultural identities of persons become atomized, when the reality of freedom and order in the small areas of...

And so this is Lent and what have you done? No Happy Easter, not yet, the war has just begun. Aside from some fasting/abstinence I'm reading Dante's Inferno , considered by many to be the greatest poem of the West, greater even than Homer's duo. I'm three cantos in and loving it. I came across this today from Canto Two (Anthony Esolen translation): "What is it, then? Why stand here, why delay?      Why let such cowardice come take your heart?      Why are you not afire and bold and free, Seeing that three such ladies blessed in Heaven       care for your healing from their court above,       and what I tell you holds forth so much good?" The character Dante is hesitating before he begins his journey out of the dark wood with the Pagan poet Virgil. Virgil is urging him on, testifying that the Virgin, Beatrice (a woman that the real Dante fell in love with when very young) and St. Lucy are praying for Dante....

If you haven't celebrated Christmas by now, you're not likely to start. Conversely, you don't have to quite let it go yet. Fight the ahistoricity! It's a feast of twelve days and depending on how you count, this is eleven or Epiphany Eve. In the Christian East, tonight is the vigil of Theophany. Theophany/Epiphany are two different sides of the same coin. East vs. West The West honors the Magi--who represent all of us goyim--and the miracle at the wedding at Cana (water for wine, anyone?) The East honors Jesus' baptism, and in more minor ways his circumcision and the Magi, too. It's all about a manifestation, a revealing, a shining forth. The Trinity is revealed (at the baptism), salvation is revealed to all the world (the Magi), the start of Jesus' public ministry (Cana). Just as the Incarnation honors all bodies, as the Son suddenly was born with one, so Theophany honors all the Earth's waters. Paralleling the Jewish Festival ...

I have yet to complete my multi-year meditations on the twelve days of Christmas (I didn't write any last year--one of the worst years of my life) but here I am with number TEN! Courtesy Creative Commons The Christmas decorations may be put away now--at work they are definitely down. There is only the leftover and marked down Christmas branded merchandise at stores. Corpses of Christmas trees are laid at curbs like rejected sacrifices. And yet...Christmas isn't done with you yet. If you'll allow it, you can savor it for two more nights. Forget the artificial deadlines of the culture. Christmas is stronger and more joyous than the Wal-Marts of the world--though at times, admit it, you've thought Christmas has been swallowed by economics. Think of teachers, especially the good ones, and ask St. Elizabeth Ann Seton to pray for them. Think of the ranks of your friends and then ruminate on the 70 Apostles--the next concentric ring outside the non-anonymous 12...

My mother died this past August.  If any of my extended family reads this they'll instantly accuse me of trying to score pity points for myself. I'm not. If you have no sympathy for me over the passing of my mother...so be it.  I'm not going to plead for it.  I'm just stating the fact, that she like Jacob Marley, is as dead as a doornail. It happens to the best of us. Anyway, in the course of my mother's rapid decline and passing, I was disowned by two members of my family. Were we fighting over who gets Mom's treasures?  No.  Were we vicious because we each thought we deserved the lion's share of the inheritance?  Hardly. No, my family went batshit crazy over the way I processed her death. Courtesy of Creative Commons That's it.  No revelations of family secrets.  No bickering over cash, cars, or mansions. Nope.  It was because of my less-than- polished  bourgeois way of expression. I was cursed (literally!) a...

Again, this link is a month old.  Yet, I have to say I'm quite proud of this piece and feel the faint rumblings (or is that simply gas?) of a book.  Time will tattle, I suppose.  Anyway, tell me what you think of this piece.  Subscribe to Stand Magazine while you're at it. Love Is Action from the Stand Magazine blog.