Fragile Industries

Good Charlotte

"Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.  These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is — I repeat it — a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.

"The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth — to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose — to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it — to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him."

-- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, Preface, 2nd edition (21 December 1847).

Recently finished my second reading of Jane Eyre.  It is not the book I read as a teenager, looking for a slurpy Gothic.  I didn't realize its seminal place in fiction, seeing only the hackneyed trope of governess-falls-in-love-with-master-with-dark-secrets.  I didn't appreciate the rich splendor of the language, seeing only a lot of very small print taking a lot of space to do what could have been done with fewer and shorter words.  I didn't, most importantly, admire or even perceive the bravery of the author and her heroine and the choices they both made, as I was seeing with a 1970's teenager's eyes with no idea of the suffocatingly stilted life of a middle-class, isolated Englishwoman in the mid-19th Century.  I thought Jane "sappy" and wished Rochester were better looking.  I wanted them to stop the endless verbal fencing and tear off a piece.  I had probably just finished reading Valley of the Dolls.

This time, of course it was completely different.  The most heart-stopping passage for me is not in the text, but the Preface, quoted above.  Bronte was responding to her contemporary critics who found the work "coarse," especially if, as was rumored, the pseudononymous author "Currer Bell" was a woman.  If I thought that Bush, the folks at Fixed Noise, and all the fundamentalist Right could understand the big words, I'd send it out as a big spam mailing, because it says so perfectly what needs to be said, and said often.

Right on, sistah.

She Lives! She Lives!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7149569.stm

Life imitates Art imitates Truth, etc., ad nauseum.  Thanks to Adrianne for finding evidence of divine rodentia in our dull existence.  Were I not engaged in the exercize of filial duty, I would be off to New Guinea as we speak.

Angels in America(n E-Mail)

(apologies for copyright violation to the left -- I hope this falls within "fair use" parameters) 

Yesterday I received one of those egregious e-mail chain letters, this one promising an angelically-inspired message and/or blessing at a (computer generated) appointed time, so long as the message was passed on to 7 or more people.  The skeptic in me was curious to see what happened at my appointed time, 9:21 am today.  I selected 10 people from my address book -- those who either dislike me already or like me enough to forgive me for sending them that kind of crap.  I promised the recipients to let them know and asked them to return the favor if they played along, and apologized in the name of applied science.

I had the time written out on a Post-it next to my computer terminal so I wouldn't forget it. At about 9 am, I started checking my e-mail, sort of to keep all sources of communication open.  This takes a little background to explain, but bear with me.

I have an ongoing dialog with my Uncle John through e-mail.  He frequently sends just the kind of e-mail spam I love to ignore.  I had included him in the mailing list of the angelic message thing as payback.  He is 83 or so, screamingly reactionary, bigoted, and fundamentalist Christian.  However, our communication makes him happy and he is unfailingly kind to his sister, my mother, and I appreciate it.  Also, he is very pleased that late in life I am rediscovering Christianity and have found it compatible with my VERY different perspective, so long as I stay away from organized religion and ponder the words and actions of Jesus in my heart, without cant.

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John forwarded a few days ago a hateful "blame the victim" e-mail tract about Louisiana and the Katrina disaster.  It never said the word "black" but argued that the lack of recovery in Louisiana is the fault of the corrupt Democratic state government repeatedly re-elected by "ignorant voters" and other code words, and the message went on to say this proves Bush is blameless.  It was a classic piece of illogical pseudo-racism of the kind that, like those "pass it on" e-mails, I usually ignore, but this was so full of BS and struck on a topic I feel so strongly about that I wrote back, lovingly but clearly saying that we must agree to disagree on the subject and please don't send me anything similar about Katrina or the people of the Gulf Coast.  (I spent 3 weeks in the area immediately post-Katrina with the Red Cross, for those who don't know, and it changed my life, including bringing me, eventually, to accept Christianity as a viable faith.)  Also, I froth at the mouth at the thought of excusing Bush for anything, much less the Katrina recovery debacle.  The corruption of Bush's government dwarfs anything in Louisiana a hundred fold.

 

Uncle John wrote back immediately, surprising me by agreeing with me for the most part, and astonishingly announcing he will support Clinton because the Republican party is so flawed (actually, he believes it's demonic possession, he said, along with a lot of crap about Obama being a black Muslim who will bring us down in flames, etc., but I'll ignore that easily.  It's not how well the bear dances, it's that it dances at all!)  Anyway, this morning at about 9:15 I got caught up with my reply, which closed with the following, then I looked at the clock:

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I love you, Uncle John, and I hope you don't take offense when I speak my mind.  I do believe in tolerance and avoiding judgments (and this from a woman who worked with judges for almost 20 years!) with all my heart, and I do not judge you at all.  Sometimes, though, I stand on my hind legs when stuff touches a nerve and sound off.  Must be the lawyer in me.  Not exactly Christ-like, even if he did get tee'd off at the moneychangers in the temple.  That's the kind of corruption of power that causes direct suffering of those Christ would protect that gets my goat, and that's what I see in Washington today.

Wishing you all the best.

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Love, Me

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PS -- Ooooh, it's 9:23, and I realized that at 9:21, the time of my supposed "angelic message" or blessing, I wrote the last paragraph about Christ.  Maybe that's a sign?  It wasn't the lottery people calling me to tell me I'm rich, the message I was hoping for, but perhaps keeping Christ in my thoughts will make me spiritually rich down the road ... it has already ...

The phone didn't ring, no voice from the heavens, my cats did not speak in tongues at 9:21.  If there was any message, it came from me, or the Christ in me, the Holy Ghost if I want to get all trinitarian about it. 

An interesting experiment -- in the larger scale, I think the timed "blessing" idea is one of those tautologies that always produce results, but probably without divine cause.  It will always work because any moment in our lives, examined closely enough through a lens of "here's a message" will produce a message.  Humans are reason-seeking creatures, pattern-recognition hardwired, which explains seeing the Virgin Mary in tortillas and the like.  That's the cynical scientific side of the coin.

The other side of the coin says, who cares about the science, if you find a helpful kernel of truth or comfort.  The unexamined life, and all that.  If you like, call it the work of angels, the Holy Ghost, the whisperings of the Giant Rat of Sumatra, may she enfold me in her holy whiskers ... we can use all the help we can get in this life, regardless of how we find it.

Smoky (cough cough), but fine

Yup.  Nothing is burning in My Little Town, or in the county of My Little Town.  Fire crews seem to be getting a handle on the various conflagrations in the absence of the Santa Ana winds.  Now the air seems to be moving in its normal pattern from water inland, good news for those of us near the water, not so good for those in one of those impacted inland areas near the foothills.  Mom woke up this morning with a horrendous cough, even for her, and so did I.  Last week's fire smoke is a culprit, but Mom's 50 years of cigarettes and current pulmonary fibrosis, may play a role, as might my own renewed enthusiasm (suicidal and foolhardy) for the inhalation of burning tobacco.

Boy, how dumb can you get?

I have to blame Katrina.  Were it not for that hurricane, I would not have come in nearly 24/7 contact with my dear friend and fellow Red Cross veteran Steve.  I've blogged about him before.  I adore Steve.  We've stayed in touch these two years and it seems mutual.  When we had adjacent cots (NOT adjoining, mind you) to minister to the dispossessed in Alabama, he'd crow to me morning and evening, "Ah wanna adop tchew!" in his Kentucky accent, then tell me the latest nefarious scheme on the part of the Powers That Be to screw the people we were trying to help.  He was and is an ordained, seminary trained Baptist minister who worked 30+ years on the Ford assembly line and diehard supporter of underdogs to the point that Ford, in the last years of his career, kicked him upstairs to being a diversity and tolerance educator for the other employers.  He was and is also a complete tobacco addict, regularly taking 5-minute breaks between "clients" (the folks we wrote checks/vouchers for) to "check the tires," i.e., sucking down another Marlboro in the parking lot.  Not that he shirked.  He managed to give out more money than I did, with perfect paperwork and completly charming everyone within a 50 yard radius, usually by asking female clients Of A Certain Age for their birthdate (required by paperwork) then erupting in a frenzy of disbelief.  It works.  It worked on me, every day for two weeks.

I was immune to the lure of his tobacco.  I hadn't smoked in over 12 years.  By my mid-thirties, I had tried every method of quitting and failed until late 1993, with a combination of nicotine patches and being head-over-heels in love with a righteously devoted non-smoker.  Between tobacco and my future ex-husband, I chose my future ex and never regretted that choice.  (Even if it didn't work out, he was still better for me than cigarettes.)  Then after Katrina, I was thrust into a situation when it seemed the world was ending, and we should all play, "Ashes, ashes, all fall down," along with those enduring the 13th and 17th century eruptions of the Black Plague.  I still would not have smoked except for one client, name forgotten but not particulars.

An elderly woman of regal bearing, fragile but with PERFECT hair, was escorted by a nice young man into the relief center.  She reminded me of my mother's mother -- a gracious, perfect gentlewoman, soft-spoken and very bright.  I greeted her and we got down to business.  Before Katrina, she had owned her own home outside of Biloxi, and ran it efficiently, even caring for her (younger) sister who was incapacitated with Alzheimer's.  Just the day before Katrina hit, she placed her sister in an inland nursing home just in case the hurricane came ashore.  When it was hours away, the nursing home sent a car for her and insisted she evacuate, so she packed an overnight bag, locked up, and weathered the storm with her sister.  A few days later, she learned that She Had Lost Everything.  Her house and everything in it, her car, everything, was simply GONE.  She was sharp, competent, and had all her paperwork, but her hands trembled slightly as she handed over her driver's license.  I filled in the info, and came to a dead halt when I saw that she was born on my birthday, July 5 ...

... in 1915.

This lovely woman was 90 years old.  Suddenly I was doing an imitation of Steve's flattery, but for real.  "This CAN'T be right!" I exclaimed.  With some pride, she affirmed that she was indeed 90 years old.  With a current, valid driver's license yet.  For some reason, after 10 days of hearing terrifying stories, tragic stories, inspiring stories, THIS story tore out my heart completely.  Neither she nor her sister had children.  There was no one to take her in.  Everyone else that had appeared before me had a determined gleam to rebuild in their eyes, even if their eyes were haunted with tragedy.  This fine lady, who could be my grandma, how could she start over at NINETY?  How could someone build her life for ninety years, survive two world wars, the Depression, care for an ailing sister and then at the hard-earned sunset of her days have all her security ripped away?  The WRONGNESS of it all.

I fudged the Red Cross form and gave her AND her sister full allowances, even though her sister's paperwork was not before me, and handed her the pittance.  I could tell she had NEVER asked for this kind of help from anyone.  She mentioned several times that it had been the idea of the the nice young man (he worked at the nursing home and seemed to take very good care of her).  I looked her dead in the eye at the end and told her that it had been an honor to talk with her and that I would pray for her and her sister.  Her eyes and mine misted over for a second, then she shook my hand briskly, and left.

I had 15 minutes until my next scheduled client, and I raced to the bathroom and sobbed for 5 minutes.  All the stories cascaded in my mind, but I kept coming back to this fine woman, who reminded me so much of my Nanny, my grandmother.  I splashed water on my face and stepped out back, where Steve was "checking the tires."  "Hand me one of those," I said, Steve took one look at my swollen eyes, and without a word, lit me up.  Don't let the do-gooders lie to you.  It tasted WONDERFUL.

But enough is enough, already.  A dumb way to grieve, and after two years, it's not even a barely understandable excuse any more.  I will quit.  I will, I promise.  I say that every time I sneak outside for another one.  "Just checking the tires," I call to my mother as she sucks down her oxygen.  She gives me a gimlet eye and says, "I really enjoyed all my cigarettes too, look where it got me."  Yeah.

Not Just a Natural D-Cup, But a Philosopher As Well

I have had various aspirations along the way, but if you asked me (few have, BTW) what I'd want to end up with, bottom line, I would have said "wisdom."  The fundamental hard-wired human wish and motivation is the seeking of love, but I think in my heart of hearts I want wisdom just a smidge more.  If you asked me (again, few have) what wisdom I've come up with, it's that I have to un-learn more than I have to learn.  Every time I say, "I'll NEVER _______ (fill in the blank)" or have a hard and fast pronouncement that somehow is a promise about the future or the reality of things, it turns around and bites me on the ass eventually.  I could set out examples, but you have your own and can identify.  My list is too long for me to set out even for my own amusement, musing though I may be.  "Never say never" sums up the conundrum.  Each and every time another assumption, predicition, promise, prejudice, judgment falls in ruins about my ears, I feel betrayed.  I feel I've been let down by God, Shiva, Inana, the Higher Power, Aslan, or The Giant Rat of Sumatra, may she enfold me in her holy whiskers.  And yet, as the pain fades, I've learned yet again not to put my faith in MY OWN absolutes.  Maybe that's the essense of wisdom.

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Hardly an original realization.  Nor does it prevent me (yet) from still further disappointments.  Still, it somehow is pertinent to your quote above.  I'm hardly wise enough to figure out how and maybe the wisdom I hope for will elude me even at the end.  Still, these musings bring a rich calm where there was bitterness, a comfort.

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Sorry if this all sounds like twaddle, new-agey BS.  I can discuss this at a certain level with my mother, and at 76 she agrees that every youthful pronouncement has been shattered for her as well, and it's not the end of the world.  I don't know, though, that as she stares confidently at her own death that she has my drive for wisdom or understanding or explanation, I think she's made peace with her questions.  My wisdom, thus far, is very middle-aged.  If I manage to have a few brain cells on speaking terms with one another when/if I reach Old Crone status, maybe there's a third level: Youthful Certainty>Mid-Life Disappointment>Aged _________ ?  Maybe there's something to be said for releasing the wish for wisdom itself?  "Oh, It Can't Be That!" I exclaim, another certainty.  Is that my ultimate enlightenment, that there's none to be had?  That just seems too cynical for me to accept.  (Yet.)

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Really, it's all hysterically funny, this feeble human search for meaning.  I just don't know what the punchline is, none of us do.

Current Reading, C.S. Lewis-Flavored

My earlier reading was all about Mormon History, and my post drew some interesting comments.  I'm done with that list.  I've bogged down in the middle of the last in the collection, the second exhaustively-researched tome about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, a frontier tragedy associated with LDS 19th century history, and have given up finishing it.  I feel like I may not know as much as can be learned from the wildly inconsistent original sources, yet I  know as much as I want to.  If I read more on the general topic, I'd look for a non-hagiographic biography of Brigham Young (the Joseph Smith book, No Man Knows My Name by Fawn Brodie was a brilliant exploration of a complex man, with much psychological insight).  I'd also like to read some first person diaries, or collections of same, from women on the trek to Utah and early settlement.  But for the moment, I'm Mormon'ed out.

I didn't intend to get into a religious reading marathon, but I'm now reading C.S. Lewis.  For relief from tales of Golden Plates and magic spectacles, I grabbed one of several of Lewis's books I picked up several months ago at Barnes and Noble.  In the wake of the success of the Narnia film, much of his non-fiction writing has been republished, and at B&N there was a huge table of inexpensive paperbacks.  I started with Mere Christianity.  I also have The Weight of Glory (previously read, see blog motto in upper right hand sidebar) Miracles, Surprised by Joy (previously read), among others, and, of course, My Favorite Books In The World, The Narnia Chronicles.  I'm not new to Lewis, I read a biography some years ago, and saw both the play and film Shadowlands, about his late-life marriage to an American woman. 

Lewis is the most brilliant, or at least the most enjoyable, writer I've ever read.  As noted, I had read some of his non-fiction, adult books years ago, and  came away with a great respect for the author, but little spiritual insight.  I have been for years so conflicted about Christianity that I was afraid reading more about his beliefs would make me think him a fool, and I liked him too much for that disillusionment.

It's a very different experience now. These are the most accessible and evocative works about spirituality, not witten with a scholar's distance, but written from within a faith, in print, to my mind.  While I don't know that I'll ever be able to make the leap of faith to a belief that Christ was The Only Son of God and the only road to salvation, I agree with everything else he has to say about a spiritual life.  It's about Love.  It's about decency and self-accountability, yet it is very much about Joy.  It is about that universal longing for Connection -- a yearning not satisfied by worldly pursuits.  The closest I came to satisfying that unspoken desire (Lewis calls it the "inconsolable secret") was when I was in Alabama with the Red Cross last fall.  It was that combination of a positive loss of ego (Bill Wilson calls it "freedom from the bondage of self"), and service to others.  Not in that deadly way of superiority that standard charity doles out.   This was daily, nearly constantly, treating every person I came in contact with, as special and deserving and my equal.  Lewis says that the central message of his religion (and mine too) is that every person you meet is immortal, every person you love, work with, delight in, snub, abuse, ignore -- they are all immortal beings and as much a part of (ok, I'm going to say the Word) God as you are.  There are wonderful immortals and asshole immortals, but that's not my job to know why. 

Reading his work is  a revelation, but not with new ideas, more like the expression of every inchoate belief I harbored in a straightforward, rational framework.  It puts things in context for me.  I'd now call myself a "small-c" christian.  My Higher Power was not so stingy with his physical incarnations -- the Buddha, Mohammad, perhaps even The Giant Rat of Sumatra, may she enfold me in her holy whiskers, I cannot and will not judge.  Jesus is the physical part of the trinity easiest for me to digest and understand given my upbringing, so I'm jake with believing him to be divine.  I cannot forbid entrance to a blessed life (and perhaps afterlife, I'm still shaky on that too) to sincere seekers along other paths, the paths accessible to their era and culture.

I'm more comfortable saying "I don't know" in response to the Big Questions than any organized religion I know of.  So I'm keeping to my own path.  Now, it is not such a dark and overgrown trail, thanks to Lewis.  I'm still open to a church of Aslan.  Lacking that, I'll stumble along, but I feel a very real Presence alongside me.

Highly recommended:  Surprised by Joy, Mere Christianity, and the lecture "The Weight of Glory" from the book of the same title.  Also, for background, the play or film Shadowlands.

Current Reading, Mormon-Flavored

After I finished Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer, discussed here, I decided Mormon history would be my next reading project.  I do this from time to time when a subject grabs my attention. I try to find the top books on the topic and read them all (obsessive? moi?)  Past projects which still pique my interest when I see something new are infectious diseases and U.S. frontier history.  Mormon history is tied with the latter, and some may argue that it is indeed infectious.  Also, I was 3 units shy of a minor in comparative religious studies when I graduated college with a history degree.  I didn't complete the minor as I was already accepted in law school and could not delay graduation, but the area still fascinates me.

Despite the vast array of books on Mormons, the faith, and its history, once you eliminate the potentially biased sources (official Mormon publications, anything issuing from Brigham Young University, non-Mormon Christian polemics against the faith or seeking to convert Mormons to the True Church) the pickings are indeed slim. And I usually only buy used books online, so my selection was further limited.   I went with books referenced by Krakauer, and one more recent best seller, and I'll see where I go from here.

While on these projects, I frequently run into the problem best expressed in the book report by a little girl on a book titled "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Penguins."  It read, "This was more than I wanted to know about penguins."  I try to get just past the dilettante level of knowledge (as someone said to me recently) and then decide if it will be an ongoing study.  We'll see what happens with this one.

Here's my list, with comments on what I've read so far:

Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith by Martha Beck

- This is the recent bestseller.  Even more controversial than Krakauer's book, and a wonderful read.  I believe everything this woman says -- what she went through is horrible, but she writes beautifully about both her emotional journey and Mormon history, with a healthy dash of humor.  Her father is Hugh Nibley, a scholar and Mormon apologist. She had a unique inside view of the politics behind the legendary Mormon politeness.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre by Juanita Brooks

- Not yet read

No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (Vintage) by Fawn M. Brodie

- Just started -- so far, it is excellently researched and unbiased.  The author is/was Mormon, but above that, an excellent scholar.  Her devotion to accuracy caused her great discord with the church.  Originally published in the '40's, it was recently revised and annotated with subsequent historical discoveries.

Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?: The Spalding Enigma by Wayne L. Cowdrey, Howard A. Davis, and Arthur Vanick

- Halfway read, then gave it up, due to the Penguin Problem.  The authors (non-Mormon) explore a dispute as old as the book of Mormon itself -- that Joseph Smith had access to an unpublished manuscript of a novel written 20 years before and presented it, with his own religious lectures inserted, as translated text from fictitious golden plates.  There's a good argument for it, and it's fascinating stuff.   Unfortunately, this book is exhaustively researched and written with every possible reference included and spends most of its time defending the theory against all the Mormon detractors, leaving it unreadable by any but the most devoted scholar.  I'd love to read a 150-page version of this 400+ page book, with all argument deleted and the facts presented simply. 

The Mormon Murders by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

- I read this true crime book years ago about a contemporary forger of historical Mormon letters, manuscripts etc. who eventually turned to murder to cover his forgery.  Oddly, the murderer became the cell mate of one of the murderers in Krakauer's book.  I remember it as very interesting and unbiased, written by two New York Times journalists.  To explain the nature of the forgery and why the Mormon Church itself was the criminal's biggest client required a clearly presented summary of Mormon history and doctrines, which this book does very well.  I intend to read it again after I complete the rest of this list.

                 Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
                 by Will Bagley

- Not yet read.  Krakauer refers to both this and the Brooks work above in "Under the Banner of Heaven."  I couldn't decide, so I got both.  Like the "Spaulding Enigma" and the Penguin Problem, I may have bitten off more than I can chew about this single historical incident.

So far, there's little danger of my running off to Utah.  My personal beliefs remain intact.

No new info on Hermes.  I'm not holding my breath.  It probably would be better for all concerned for him to find a loving home in NYC.  But if no one else turns up soon, I feel that happiness delayed is happiness denied.  Whether that's Hermes's happiness or my own is open to question.

"Faith Is The Evidence of Things Not Seen" Hebrews 11:1:1

   I've just read one of The Best Books Ever: Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air.  It's probably commonly regarded as a sensationalist expose of the Mormon religion, but as he takes pains to explain, and as is clear from a close reading, it is an exploration of the nature of faith itself.  Mormonism is the easiest and clearest example because (as he says) it is so new and recent (less than 200 years) in its genesis that its history has a clear written record.  Despite the efforts of the LDS church to suppress all evidence of anything that is not, in their words, "faith promoting."  In other words, the good old historical whitewash.  The book is also an examination of the nature of fundamentalism, whether Islamic, Gentile, Jew, Mormon, whatever.  Very very thought provoking.  There is a universal need that prompts fundamentalism -- for a simpler, purer time.  There isn't one.  Never was.

I come away with the same conclusion as one of the writers he quotes, as far as Mormons are concerned:  "If opponents of Mormonism have often asked, 'Can't we stop the Mormons from being Mormon?', ostensible admirers of Mormons as people [italics mine] have often asked, at least by implication, 'Can't we have Mormons -- but without Mormonism?'" (LA Times article, 1999)

I've known more than a few Mormons, but this is the first detailed description of the faith and its history Ive read.  Love the people, by and large, but the institutionalized religion itself is, well, loony.  Bigoted.  Conservative in the extreme.  Which can be said about the vast majority (I want to say all, but I'll keep an open mind) of institutionalized religions.

Which is why I worship The Giant Rat of Sumatra, may she enfold me in her holy whiskers.

No, seriously, I'm deeply spiritual, faith has become the cornerstone of my reality.  Faith to me is a journey, not the pre-set destination fossilized by institutional religion.  As this book makes clear, there are advantages and disadvantages to such a singular quest.  One advantage is being in the middle of something alive, growing, intensely direct and personal.  One disadvantage is that it leaves you with endless questions, whereas a prescribed set of beliefs is comforting and safe.  Another disadvantage, to which adherents of the tenets of LDS are particularly prone, because of the belief in a direct line of revelation from God, is the development of schismatic sects (mostly fundamentalist in nature) that spring up around self-described prophets.  Warren Jeffs, recently placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list, is just the tip of the iceberg.  The book explores many of the splinter Mormon groups, and I am staggered by the array and incestuousness (both literally and figuratively -- the plural wives thing is frequently a cover for pederasty, and also the various groups tend to have multiple connections with one another in terms of family members and theory).

Again, I'm not singling out Mormons.  I don't believe in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and I don't believe that sort of paranoid conspiracy theory about any faith, creed, or group (with the exception of the current Administration).  It is just an example of fundamentalism gone berserk.  We live in a country with a born-again President with a staff chock-full of fundamentalists, many at the extreme fringes.  Just this side of snake handlers.  Reading this book made me even more frightened by that reality.

Krakauer quotes the following:

THE SECOND COMING

William Butler Yeats

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The Power of Prayer

A little boy was overheard praying: "Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it.  I'm having a real good time like I am."
Me too.

If only we could all be so blessed, and as grateful for our blessings . . .

Have you ever heard the songs of the whales?  They are eerie and haunting and lovely.  According to marine scientists, the songs are just as rich in communication as human speech.  If only Dr. Doolitle could really talk to the animals, imagine what we could learn.  Apparently, we could learn a little about gratitude:

If you read the front page story in the SF Chronicle,you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.  She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help.   Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her ...

a very dangerous proposition.

One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.  When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles.  She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. 

 

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.

May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you.

And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.

(Thanks to Uncle Doug for this story, and a loving, grateful nudge to my pal Patti for untangling me.)