poetry submission plan

I've drawn up plans to start submitting my poems to poetry contests and lit magazines. I've got a list of targets from my copy of American Poetry Review, as well as other sources. I probably won't be able to do much until next Friday, but it's a start.

chabad.org: how to do good

"Go ahead...

...give away all your worldly possessions to charity and live in a monastery in the Himalayas--maybe you’ll achieve higher consciousness and eternal bliss.

But before you do that, consider the alternative: Keep your home, your marriage, your kids, your career--keep your life the way it is, but do it higher.

Ten “first step” mitzvahs suggested by the Rebbe
That’s the idea behind what we call mitzvahs. A mitzvah is a connection between your world and a Higher Force. Through a mitzvah, you take some part of your mundane little world and make it higher.

The goal? To get out of life everything that life was meant to give. And to make the world into everything the world was meant to be. Because life is meant to be beautiful and the world is meant to be divine.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well, we’ve made it even simpler. We’ve taken ten “first step” mitzvahs suggested by a great luminary of our time, the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, and we've wrapped them together in this section. All come with lifetime warranties from the Higher Force Himself. Browse through them. Pick up a mitzvah. Or two. Or three. Pick up your life. Together, we’ll pick up the whole big world."

advice from chabad.org on good deeds

The Aluminum Can

Simplest thing you could imagine:

Get an aluminum can with a slit on top. Okay, a small cardboard box could also work.
Put it on your desk at work, where no one can ignore it.
Drop in a few coins.
Wait.
First subject enters, asks, “So what’s the deal with the tin can?”
You answer, “It’s called a pushka. Just drop in some loose change.”
Subject asks, “So where does the money go?”
You answer, “I dunno. Got any ideas?”
Collect the ideas.
When the can is full, send it off to the charity of your choice and replace immediately.
Congratulations, your place of work is now officially elevated into higher living status. Repeat with car, kitchen, bedroom, studio, production set, spaceship...wherever you hang out. Elevate them all.

People see a business as a place where one guy rips off the other. My pushka has a message. It’s saying that life is not about what you get, it’s about what you give. The money that I make, it’s there so I can give.

Better to give one penny a day for a hundred days than to give a dollar once in a hundred days. Why? Because every time your hand does an action of giving, it becomes more and more a giving hand.

why I like chabad.org

The Chassidic masters teach that the purpose of creation is to make this world into a dwelling place for G‑d. Not the worlds of the angels, not some heavenly realm of souls and spiritual beings—but this earthy, palpable, mundane physical world. In order to bring Moshiach, this is what we need to work on—we've got to bring G‑d down to earth.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/818084/jewish/Who-am-I-to-bring-Moshiach.htm

doesn't this make sense for a religion? Focus on this world, not some dreamy afterlife where wrongs are righted, etc etc. If it's not about this world of real people and real life, then what's the point? The rest is just imagination and wishful thinking.

as good as it gets

that movie with what's his name.... jack nicholson. And the lady from the comedy show. The title sums it up. Usually, this is as good as it gets for everyone. Life is in the living of it. The answer is in the questioning. There are no answers for many of us. The questions, the search -- that is it. The process is the purpose; there are no answers. When we die, then we'll know.

So process is the purpose.

We won't get to a time when we feel that "yes, I figured it out. Now I know." It just won't happen. It's a life of doubt and searching. That's it. Then you die.

That's not so bad, really. What else is there?

Inauguration Day

Jan. 20, 2009, 11 am Chicago time.

Poly, Skye, and I watched the inauguration on TV, on CBS. I filmed us watching it and will post it on youtube. History was made today. Mad King George is gone, and the wheelchaired Dr. Evil is back in his underworld realm, lording over a legion of demons. America is back.

Back to Poetry

Yes, I'm returning to poetry. I'm moving from the abstract text-blocks I developed in the last year or so, to a more conventional form. Loosely linked words and phrases, with some repetition, focused more outward and less inward in subject. But it's the mix of outward subject with inward context that I hope will capture something that others will find worth reading.

This is a way to find meaning through creative work. I am reminded from one of the Hasidic blogs that I read that Joy is an important part of life. God wants us to be happy, to be joyful, and to live fully and creatively. God or not, we all seek happiness in life. It can be found, but the process may be longer and more difficult than we were expecting.

the moment has passed...

I probably won't go to church. I tried to incorporate spirituality without belief, but it seems forced. Whatever my neurons are firing on about, I can't pretend to believe, or to ignore the fact that I need some coherence to a belief system. Wouldn't church seem like a lot of noise about something that I don't accept? The trinity, Jesus as man-god, Mary, the whole thing. I just don't buy it. And my interest in Judaism has its limits. I"m not Jewish, and and I'm not gonna become one. So at the end it's a way of life that others have, and that I don't have. I can study Judaism as another mythology system in the world. I teach non-western mythology in the fall semesters and I'm pretty happy to study world religions from an academic point of view. Judaism is in there with Hinduism, Shinto, Buddhism, etc. But it's an academic interest.

So the issues of success and happiness still need to be faced. And now spirituality doesn't seem like a possible solution.

Just Do It!

Forget "belief." Just do it!

Read it, go there, study it, whatever! Belief is not required to read, study, or attend. If you want to do it, then do it, and worry about belief later!

god is a concept

God is a concept. It can be useful to some people, and not to others. It is a tool that can be used or not used.

Apophatic theology

Apophatic theology -- from wiki

is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation, to speak of God only in terms of what may not be said about God.

In brief, the attempt is to gain and express knowledge of God by describing what God is not (apophasis), rather than by describing what God is. The apophatic tradition is often, though not always, allied with the approach of mysticism, which focuses on a spontaneous or cultivated individual experience of the divine reality beyond the realm of ordinary perception, an experience often unmediated by the structures of traditional organized religion or learned thought and behavior.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology

from wiki article on Maimonides:

One of the central tenets of Maimonides's philosophy is that it is impossible for the truths arrived at by human intellect to contradict those revealed by God. Maimonides held to a strictly apophatic theology in which only negative statements toward a description of God may be considered correct. Thus, one does not say "God is One", but rather, "God is not multiple".

"Belief" again!

To believe in god is a belief.
To not believe in god is a belief.
Neither is provable or unprovable.
Both are unobservable mental states. Even a brain scan of any type only shows brain activity; particular neurons in particular regions. the specific qualia cannot be "observed" by an outside observer. So...

What's the difference?

from Mystical Paths; forgiveness

Here's a quote from mystical paths (http://mysticalpaths.blogspot.com/) that makes me feel good:

Reb Nosson was totally attached to Hashem until the very end. His whole mission was to show that a man can always return to Hashem, regardless of anything he may have done, no matter how much he may have sinned. This was the mission Rebbe Nachman held out to him a few days after their frist meeting: to become the lower point of the aleph, to bring life, vitality and faith to all the lower levels. Even as he left this world, Reb Nosson was mindful of his mission, repeating again and again, "Chanun Hamarbeh lislo'ach" There is hope for all; Hashem will forgive! always!

There is great comfort in those words of Reb Nosson. Thanks for posting this, Reb Nati

god and free will 2

god created us with free will. otherwise the universe would simply be a clockwork mechanism running on the laws of physics. it would be dead, a machine. the only way there can be "life" is for free will to exist as a pre-condition. god had to grant this to us, otherwise he is alone in his creation. he gave us freedom. He needed to. god needs us.

oh, and is there a god?

god and free will

"We are all experiments in free will."

why I like Judaism

1. straightforward One God. No sons, moms, saints, mangods, etc.
2. family focused. monastic life not encouraged.
3. here-and-now focused. not so pre-occupied with heavens and hells, afterlifes and rewards and punishments.
4. Complex book (Bible). Beware of simple answers! Life is rich and varied.
5. Long Tradition. Beware of flash-in-the-pan cults. Judaism stands the test of time. Survived heavy persecutions and the Holocaust.

the Trinity - good thinking or not?

Even if the trinity is an intellectual hack, I want to know how it was devised and what arguments are used to justify it. My friend Quixote is working on this issue too. I don't want to dismiss it lightly -- I want to dismiss it after careful thought! Not that I've pre-judged the situation, but it's well known that the Trinity concept depends on the sense of a "mystery beyond understanding" to work. In other words, it doesn't make sense, but we're supposed to ignore that, and to in fact embrace that as evidence to justify the concept. Not likely!

Still, when looking at religion as a social activity, the details of theology are not so important. What's more important are the organized meetings (masses, services, etc.) and the activities therein, and how they affect people. Kind of the "if it feels good, do it!" approach.

religion as social activity

I'm starting to think more about the sociological side of religion. Maybe issues of belief can be set aside and religion can be viewed as a social activity. In that case something like going to church is a social activity equivalent to other activities, in the sense that "belief" as a mental state is unobservable.

Paper Rock Scissor

Today I taught Skye how to play Paper Rock Scissors. We were in the parking lot of Mitsua, waiting for Judy. It's a great game for a 5 year old! So much fun. I'm glad she's at the level that we can play simple games together. Paper Rock Scissors!!!!

any good catholic blogs out there?

oh, i lost the entry with an errant keystroke!!! arrrghh!!!

OK, here's the basics: I'm having trouble finding a catholic blog to read that satisfies my desire to think more about G-d. Instead, I find more insight and wisdom in Jewish blogs. Blogs from orthodox Jews, Chabad blogs, and Rabbi Ginsburg's blogs and youtube channel.

I'm looking for insights on G-d, not Jesus or Mary or the Pope. Remember, Unity: the Divine is One.

What kind of lapsed Catholic am I? A unitarian.