the problem with religions/cults

Yesterday in a stupor of boredom sprinkled wth slight interest, I did some web-based research on Rosecrucianism and Anthroposophism. Now, I know these may sound like made-up names, but I assure you, they are real sects which are alive and well today. I was set onto this little hunt because of two writers whose work I adore, namely Charles Williams and Owen Barfield, both of whom belonged to these fun little religious sects.

It turns out that Rosecrucianism is a mystery sect (you could place it in the general category of Gnosticism) which is derivitive from Christianity, as well as having ties to the Freemasons (who are, incidently, derivitive from Judaism). On the whole, I found my research to be unfruitful. Apparently the Rosecrucians' name is based on the word "Rose" and the word "cross"(crux in latin). So they like crosses with roses on them. I decided to dig a bit deeper. Apparently, the sect began in the 15th crentury with a monk who taught his ways to others, but then was killed, his teachings lost, and his short lived religious order demolished. But in the 17th century, it sprang back up again in Europe, and had many famous and devoted followers. including Leonardo Da Vinci (how unsurprising is this?) What did it teach? I found the information sparse and unfulfilling. The main tenants of teaching were something like this: a member of the Rosecrucian order has special knowledge, light and power to heal and help mankind. And that's about all. What is this knowledge? I'm not really sure they even knew. And so ended my search for Rosecrucianism.

On to Anthroposophism (anthropos: man; sophos: wisdom) I went, finding even less information there. Appearently A. was invented in the late 19th/early 20th centruty as a branch of theosophy. Its main tenants were something like this: an Anthroposophist has special knowledge, light and power to heal and help mankind. Futher, it develops out of theosophy, which encourages its followers to find and embrace the divine within them. How disappointing is this? Here, in the disappointement, I made a discovery:

All secret sects, cults, and religions may dabbl ein proclaimation of mysteries, unspeakable names and words, secret powers and illuminations, but in the end, they all proclaim this: that man is not only material, that there is something within him that bespeaks of divine things. Can we even say that at the bottom of all these mystery shrouded -isms we find one truth and one truth alone? Man has a soul. This, perhaps is what the hooded eliteare still stunned with, still conjure up alchemical fomulas and magic incantations to proclaim.

But I find that this fact is elementary to Christianity. In some strange leap in time and history,the first 2 chapters of genesis have overstepped, have outpaced, the lagging findings of all other religious orders for thousands of years. What one may learn only through criptic ceremony and dark declaration in the masonic lodge or the Kabbalan gathering, one may find plainly on the first few pages of the Bible, and even more deeply and really on the first page of the Gospel of John.

Oh that we may cease to conform to the elementary things of the world, the prinicples which long have reigned and goverened mens minds. For in one fell swoop a deeper mystery that even the inner divine light is proclaimed in genesis three: the great mystery of the fall. It is a dark thing too deep for most men to see, yet it is also bare and plain. And beyond it still, there is a Man whose glory once was revealed, and though they killed him, he proclaimed the greatest mystery of them all. Just read Collossians.

late at night...

...the question, held since morning, is posed: Where is conflict in conversation? We find in that back and forth dance of discussion that only the foolish, the boyish, compete for pride, for winning the field, for the small, shiny prize of the victorious proposition. Instead, all competition is found to be an image of that piece of the conversational puzzle, that dialectic mystery which is living and learning together, that grand classroom where we war against our own ignorance, our sisters and brothers and selves being caught in the trap of bowing to false gods. damn the discussion that leads to pride. damn the pride that leads to closed ears. Oh God, may we actively listen, be productively waiting for the coming of meaning, that spirit never our own and never far from our ears.

What is meaning?

America’s man’s got blood on his hands
And more bleedin’ inside his heart.
Injustice and pain keep callin’ his name
And soon now they’ll tear him apart.

poetry

If anyone is at all interested in contemporary poetry, POETRY magazine is a good place to become familiar with the territory. The latest issue is quite enjoyable. There are two new poems by Billy "I'm the only poet anyone reads these days" Collins, which restore my faith in american poetry. There is also a poem by Louise Gluck (am I the only one out there who thinks she's great?) where she makes fun of Robert Pinsky, a must for all you Pinsky fans out there.

In other poetry news, Gluck has joined Pinsky on the faculty at Boston U. As if I needed another reason to drool over their MFA program. Then again, UCI is only 20 minutes away from my house. What's a west-coast boy to do?

In other, much smaller poetry news, the poem I've been working on for months is finally finished, revised, and the new batch of copies from the Duplication Center will be in my hands later this afternoon.

genesis

How cool is the first book of the Bible? Very cool, I say. It seems to introduce every big story and idea that will play out for the rest of time. kinda makes you think God knew what he was doing.

Hope and L.A.

Saying goodbye is the rising onramp to the 91 East
At Manchester where the high and lifted lights
Cast a parking lot glow on the ramps ascending
And descending the concrete ladder of Los Angeles.
Heaven is just over the grey railing there,
Yes, we are on the edge of heaven. See the moon?
She's dolled up in gold just across from us;
She's our sister like never before--we sit
Side by side and watch those fireworks as they burst
Above the peaks of Disneyland. You could almost grab
The strawberry sparks and hold them in your soft hands,
Perhaps roll their prickles around on your palms,
Perhaps throw them back with a laugh, and then turn,
Like the world, like our sister the moon,
And snuff with a puff into shadow.

The region of summer stars will remain the same
Throughout the year, mapped on molten, seething black
But whirling around the globe like a bundle of firebrands
Waved by a Medicine man around the tar-thatched sick-hut
On the outskirts of the village.

I only hope that we may live to see the dawn,
For the world's dawn is a pacific dawn, when the fire smolders
And tendrils of red surface on the waters, adavance and slowly
Take the rocky shore, scaling the cliffs, warming the redwood bark
And pooling into space, filling that primal void, that dancefloor,
With a waltz of light and shadow

"Surely it's all connected," she said. "Surely the fantasy stories my parents told me as a child, the long reminiscence of my grandparents about the 20th century, the lessons of felt and feeling in the sunday school room, the grand and complex explainations of science I learned at those small and compact desks in high school, that historic train of philosophical thoughts as long as their thinkers beards, even the clothes I wear, the coffee I drink, the words on the billboard––they must be all connected, all on some strange and savy stage where they play, perhaps even unknowingly, their parts."

"I'm afriad you may have missed the point, Ms. Thissland," Peter dryly replied.

"And what point may that be," asked Laura, head tilted, thinking, "unless...unless it is the point of life itself?"

Christmas

So I have a beef with all those santa claus movies, mostly because I think I actually take them seriously. I dont know how many Christmas stories have told me to keep the Christmas spirit alive in my heart for the whole year. Well, christmas movie, here I am, in August, and I'm feelin' it: that's right, the Christmas spirit! But you never told me what to do with it! Today as I sat under my beloved roof under an overcast sky and sipped my coffee from my favorite mug, surrounded by good friends just starting to stir at the dawn of the day, I felt the slow seeping in of Christmas warmth, Christmas cheer, Christmas rest, Christmas security: in a word, Christmas SPIRIT. I wanted to turn off the lights and light up the red and green bulbs, put on James Taylor's crooning voice and walk in my mind with the wise-men. But no, I didn't. Because it's not Christmas time! Either the movies are wrong or I am. Either the christmas spirit is supposed to be for any time of year, or it isnt. please tell me, Santa claus, wherever you are, the answer! Oh, sorry, I forgot. You only exist in my heart. I think that the problem with those movies is epistemological. If the Christmas spirit may only be found in my spirit, I reject it. If Santa Claus only lives in my heart, I reject him. But I have the sneaking suspicion that if the real saint Nicholas came along, it would be coal for us all.

V is for...

I just finished reading Alan Moore's famous graphic novel, "V for Vendetta". (mild spoilers follow, for those who care) Story content aside, the book brought me to an interesting question: how human should your hero turn out to be? In "V", Moore never reveals the identity of his hero. He wears a mask throughout the entire story, and even when his time to fight evil is at an end and he passes on the tourch to another, he still does not reveal his identity, but instead tells his replacement, "you must discover who is behind the mask, but you must never know who it is". It ends up being a tricky way of saying that he wants his sucessor to find out on her own that she is to wear the mask after him.

So the question remains and plagues: why doesn't Moore reveal the identity of his hero? After all, the character is extremely interesting, one of the most interesting heroes in all of comics (Morpheus aside, for all you Sandman fans). So why not tell us about the man behind the mask? I'll wager a guess that I think most would come up with: whenever a secret identity is revealed, it's usually disappointing. The only time it's interesting is when you find out that a regular joe is actually a superhero: that peter parker is Spider-Man, that the effeminite Percey is the dashing Scarlett Pimpernell, that elwin ransom is the Pendragon of Logres, and that Jeshua the carpenter is Jehova the Almighty. But a revelation of the opposite sort is always somewhat of a let-down. You see this in many Mystery novels, where the situation is indeed mysterious, even magical, but then you find out why so and so was murdered, who did it, what their political motivations were, etc. It's always a let down, like the first time you heard exactly how a baby is made: no more elusive intrigue, no more rumors of storks from the east. Its a simple matter of zygote, chomosome, embryo, mitosis and time, and it sucks the every joy out of life. The elusive killer or the elusive hero, it makes no difference, always seem lose their charms in the end.

And perhaps this is why Moore has not told us who his hero was, because we would all breathe a sigh of discontented relief: we would know, but never discover. To reduce a man to his name, his birthplace, and his experiences is to miss the hero. Yet it is not the name that is the problem: a name is the most powerful kind of word in the universe. It is not the place that is the problem: locations are as foils to the monstrous mouth of eternity, and to swear alegiance is to tie name to place and heart to homeland. Finally, it is not experience that is the problem: experience, though it is, I believe, the most scarred of sacred words, is that story shaping force that moves our lives: it gives specificity to the eternal soul in a third and time-kept way beyond the name and place. No, the problem is our unmagical, surgical minds, that disect to know, and so nether know nor discover, the problem is our unreasoning minds that cannot see their selves for the brain-folds, and the problem is with our hands, which would rather grow more and more slack over time, who would destroy to know, debunk to discover, and tear down tradition and weep for their loss of all dance.

Let us create, let us think, let us love, and let the Hero, the God-Man himself (for that is what a hero truly is) show us that strange way: not all affirmation, not all negation, but that strange and gracious stumbling of a light encircled cross.

I'm having trouble...

...freedom and I are at odds. I face her, lady freedom, and I fear her. I fear what she might mean for my country. What are you, Freedom, and what will you do to my love? Will you love her? Will you let her die? I wonder whether America will long endure.

mmm....

long islad iced tea is good.

pro-crastination

So I've been working on this poem on and off for about 9 months now. I've been working on the final revisions for the last few weeks, and today have decided to type our once again all of the newly revised poem. It's 10 sections long (a little over 20 pages) and I just finished the third section and have been, for the last 2.5 hours, done everything but finish typing it out. Writing is such hard work!

This brings me to an interesting thought. I was just reading Dr. Reynolds' blog where he answers some questions about Intelligent design. Some person had made the claim that scientific endeavor is unique in that only it performs research, and provides results that furhter our ability to manipulate the world around us to our own purposes. (On a side note, doesnt that explaination make science sound like alchemy? magic? witchcraft? but I digress). I have foudn that writing a poem takes alot of reserch time. I probably spent between 20 and 40 hours researching the subject of my poem before I really even wrote any of it. As for poetry making us able to manipulate the physical world to our purposes, I sort of doubt it. I think there is a poetry pendulum in my brain that swings back and forth between thinking poetry is useless drivel, and thinking it is the "unacknowledged legislator of mankind". (Shelly, for anyone who wonders)

What I think poetry can do, perhaps, is discover and reveal things about the world that may persuade us to change our purposes for it. It seems that scientific inquiry cannot do this: it can tell us how to manipulate, but never to what end we ought to manipulate. I realize the introduction of the word "ought" here would bring up the question: what, then, has ethics to do with poetry?" Let's sit with this question. Actually, you sit with it––I have a poem to finish.

I am still wooed by simple songs
By several notes over and over.

Being young my dreams are large,
And my elders tell me they shall shrink,
Shrink like new shirts in the dryer,
Shrink like shiny new shoes in the rain, shrink

She said the word was not "pretty"
"Pretty is for flowers and clouds,
Not freeways". I noted the complexity,
The long, feminine curves, the pillars
Which call to consciousness parthenon, pantheon,

"Pretty," she said, "is still not the word,"
"Beauty," she again, "beauty may be the word."

I am still wooed by simple lines,
By concrete over and over.

some wisdom from...

...jason Mraz:

Do you ever wonder what happens to the words that we send?
Do they bend? Do they break from the flight that they take?
And come back together again
With a whole new meaning and a brand new sense
Completely unrelated to the one I sent?

love

So I just watched the movie hitch, which I very much enjoyed. it made the thrill of the chase so interesting, so irresisable, so magic, and, dare I say, epic? I do realize I'm saying these things aboout a movie whose soundtrack consists motsly of Hip-hop, but there you have it: the chase, the catch, the game-that-is-not-game was reenlivened onscreen tonight.

In other news, I miss disneyland. I started singing the "Yo Ho" song from Pirates of the carribean, and all of a sudden foudn myself longing for New orleans square, the tip of the haunted mansion jutting out above the trees, the music of the street performers, and that wonderful seafood pasta that they serve at the French market. mmm.

Also, Big Sur. I've been going there every summer for 17 years, and having just gone for a day, I can say that it was as amazing as ever. God made the Big Sur Coastline for people who want to be tormented with visions of heaven.

Winter's Tale

I just saw A Winter's Tale, and excellent, semi-unknown play by the bard himself. It's half greek-tragedy, half raucous comedy: in short, a great time for all. On a side note, blogging has been scarce because I'm in San Diego. more to come soon.