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To the New Year

12/31/2013

A very good New years poem that I came across:

To the New Year
W.S. Merwin

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible

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Must Be Santa - Bob Dylan

12/23/2013

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On a lighter note and in the spirit of Christmas, here is a video from Bob Dylan's Christmas cd released last year. It is a zany, rollicking version of the song and it is evident that Bob Dylan is having fun in it. Cool to see the lighter side of Bob. Catch the names of the reindeer. Too funny. In addition to the others, he adds: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton!

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The Prelude - Wordsworth

12/23/2013

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I first came upon this poem when I read Disgraced by J.M. Coetzee. Disgraced was made into a movie starring John Malkovich. Distinct from the overall theme of the novel, which is about post-colonialism among other things, there is a scene in the opening chapters where the main character is explaining, or trying to discuss, a segment of the Wordsworth's poem, The Prelude.

I thought of this scene as I was reflecting on online connections where communication is disembodied. Or, when we have in our minds eye an idea but when it is met in "reality" there is a mismatch. Here is the segment from Wordsworth:

That very day,
From a bare ridge we also first beheld
Unveiled the summit of Mont Blanc, and grieved
To have a soulless image on the eye
That had usurped upon a living thought
That never more could be.

As Coetzee, through his character, explains:

"So. The majestic white mountain, Mont Blanc, turns out to be a disappointment. Why? Let us start with the unusual verb form usurp upon...usurp upon means to intrude or encroach upon. Usurp, to take over entirely, is the perfective of usurp upon; usurping completes the act of usurping upon...Why grieve? Because he says, a soulless image, a mere image on the retina, has encroached upon what has hitherto been a living thought...The same word usurp recurs a few lines later. Usurpation is one of the great themes of the Alps sequence. The great archetypes of the mind, pure ideas, find themselves usurped by mere sense images."

I have read portions of this poem and am going to read carefully the whole poem because it is very rich in these kinds of themes, and I think that, in the main, Coetzee, has interpreted Wordsworth accurately. Particularly when he says:

"Yet we cannot live our daily lives in the realm of pure ideas, cocooned from sense-experience. The question is not, How can we keep the imagination pure, protected from the onslaughts of reality? The question has to be, Can we find a way for the two to coexist"

In the digital age, the notion of Platonic forms (alluded to in an earlier part of Wordsworth's poem), that is ideas and images separated from the tangible realities of sense, take on greater and greater resonance. Young people coming of age in the digital age are now "digital natives" and are susceptible to this form of cognitive dissonance when they go out an encounter the world.

And so in this age, even moreso than Wordsworth this is a challenge for us as we teach our children to live in the "world" however that is defined and navigated. These two realms, the realm of ideas and the realms of the real, need to be integrated.

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Ohio study: heavy online use can mean anxiousness

12/20/2013

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I came across this study that I found interesting. I spend far too much time online and although I am not overly anxious (just don't ask my daughter!), I think that there is some wisdom and caution to this story; good for me to think of for New Years resolution.

Many younger people are using social forms of media. The digital universe is more and more part of the fabric of social, cultural, and political life. So, some fluency in digital media is important. Still, moderation in all things, as Aristotle said, is as important today as it was then. That particular saying, a paraphrase from Aristotle, actually came from his book on ethics. Ethical use of the internet does not only mean not engaging in cyberbullying or other forms of online violence, it also entails moderate use.

The study itself found:

"What we found was a strong relationship that high cellphone use anxiety measured significantly higher than low cellphone use," Lepp said.

"In class, students look you right in the eye while texting under the table," he said. "I have been informally tracking those students for a couple of years, and they do not do as well as those that put the phone in the backpack."

The study also recommended that:

You need time to be alone with your thoughts, recover from the daily stressors in a way that doesn't involve electronic media.

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Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus

12/19/2013

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This story is among my favourite Christmas stories as well as journalism stories.

Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the response was printed as an editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

The text is printed below and I found an original clip of the story and have embedded it after this post.

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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The end of the universe

12/17/2013

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The clip below is a hilarious segment from Lewis Black. He discusses how he found a city where there was a Starbucks across the street from another Starbucks. He realizes that this must be the end of the universe.

I was reminded of this when I was shopping last night and stopped for coffee at a Starbucks in the mall. As I sat in the Starbucks in Intercity Mall and looked out the window, directly across the street is another Starbucks! Too funny!

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My Stroke of Insight

12/12/2013

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This clip from Jill Bolte Taylor has had many hits from TED and deservedly so. She is a neuro-scientist with an interest in mental health; specifically mental illness. Her brother had schizophrenia. She experienced a stroke and discusses it in this lecture. The talk is quite illuminating as she explores the classic distinction between the left and right hemisphere and the functions of each.

My graduate work in theology and mental health focussed in one of the chapters specifically on the "mystical mind". Much of what she is discussing is an emerging area of research in both neuropscychiatry and theology. Specific and classical forms of meditation in the Christian tradition have been able to access and heighten each area to produce differing states of consciousness and descriptions of the divine in the world. Right brained emphasis, known classically as apophatic mysticism, and exemplified in mystics such as Meister Eckhart create quiescent states of consciousness. Left brained emphasis, known classically as kataphatic mysticism, and exemplified in mystics such as Ignatious of Loyola produce active states of consciousness.

Further each personality type benefits from specific methods. More introverted people may benefit from Ignatian styled meditation while more active, gut centered people might benefit from Eckhartian sytled meditation.

Meister Eckhart, in the medieval period, ran afould of Church authorities due to his identification of the "ground" of consciousness being identical with the "ground" of God. And this was at least 800 years before advances in brain neurology that is scientifically validating his intuitions and supporting his theological development.

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Canadian denied entry to the US after agent cites private medical records

12/2/2013

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A troubling story in RT concerning a woman who was denied entry to the USA because she had been hospitalized for clinical depression. It is concerning because medical records are intended to be confidential. Secondly, why would her records be handed over to the US government, or for that matter, the federal government when she has not committed any crime. As RT writes:

According to Richardson, the border agent told her that the US Immigration and Nationality Act allows the government to deny entry to anyone with a physical or mental disorder that may pose a“threat to the property, safety or welfare,” and that her “mental illness episode’’ from last year warranted extra attention.

“The incident in 2012 was hospitalization for depression. Police were not involved,’’ her attorney, David McGhee, told the Star, adding that he approached Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews as well “to tell me if she’s aware of any provincial or federal authority to allow US authorities to have access to our medical records.”

The slow erosion of our civil liberties and privacy is a cause for social and political concern. Naomi Wolf gave a very good talk on this very theme at the University of Missouri which is worth the time it takes to view it.

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My Pensées

The title of this blog is an allusion to the famous work of Blaise Pascal. This blog represents the variety of my interests and thoughts on any given day and are strung together, like Pascal's Pensees, in no particular order. I work in the field of mental health, education, and human rights. I write and am a human rights advocate. I enjoy poetry, jazz, spirituality, politics and a potpourri of other interests that you will see reflected in this blog.