3/27/2016
#178 HE IS RISEN
GOAFS II: #178
HE IS RISEN
March 27, 2016
he is risen…he is risen indeed!
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD
AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus
Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
3/20/2016
#177 REALITY
GOAFS II: #177
REALITY
March 20, 2016
Culture, Henry Van Til said, “is religion
externalized.” It is the outward form taken by our beliefs – what we believe
expresses itself in what we do, what we create, and how we live. We live in
culture as fish live in water, constantly gulping it… all the books published
and read carry little pieces of the culture. And we consume the culture, piece
by piece, seldom, or never, thinking that what we are doing by this is
educating ourselves. We are teaching ourselves to believe in certain things and
to act in certain ways…We are teaching ourselves how to view reality.
Lee Duigon, Reviewing GRAVEYARD, in Faith for all of Life,
Jan/Feb 2016
Cornelius Van
Til died in 1987. Had he lived to see the flowering of the smart phone, I
wonder what he might have said about it. I suspect he might have asked what
view of reality is being pumped through this little friend “that sticks closer
than a brother.” What world view are we teaching ourselves through our
obsession with the ever-present, ever active cell phone?
My answer to
this question would be both speculative and tentative. I am an outsider to the
world of social media. The closest I get to the conversations of the cellphone
generation is my desk-top computer. I neither twitter nor tweet nor any of the
other rapidly growing options for quick, brief communications through
electronic devices. But I have enough of this world forwarded to me to have a
pretty good idea.
I suspect
that the essential elements of Reality taught by the ubiquitous cell phone look
something like this:
The Content
This Reality
consists almost exclusively of feelings. The basic worldview taught believes
that (1) Feelings are knowledge, (2) that opinions are truth, and all (3)sincerely
held opinions are equal. Therefore all truth is personal and relative.
The Time Horizon
Time in the
realm of this Realty is not reckoned in years or months or days or hours but
minutes. This Reality has to be checked minute by minute to be sure it is still
there.
The Locus and the Focus
The
beginning, the center and the end of this reality is the autonomous self. It is
a me, myself and I reality that neither
knows nor cares about anything outside the circle of the individual person. The
most real thing about this is that it really has no past and no future—it lives
almost exclusively in the present moment and seems to be as frail as a puff of
smoke in a tornado.
The implications
The logical
result of the self-teaching of this world view of Reality would be a generation
of people who only know “truth” if it is mediated by an electronic device.
Do you
remember the early days when the Brownie camera was the first thing packed when
the family went on vacation? When they got home and were asked if they had a
good time, the answer was often, “We won’t know until we get the pictures back
from the drugstore.”
It wasn’t too
long ago that weddings became major productions that had to be photographed and
video-taped, and I have heard brides say they wouldn’t know if they had a good
wedding until all the results of all the picture-making were done and released
(Like new blockbuster movie).
Today, it is
not at all unusual to see two children, friends, or brother and sister, sitting
side by side on the couch, hunched over their smart phones, busily texting. If
you have the temerity to check, you will often find they are talking to each
other.
This may be
humorous but it may also well be a harbinger of a future when nothing is real
unless it is mediated by an electronic device. The most popular demonstrations
at the latest Tech Exposition are the virtual reality headsets. Might it be
that people will someday arrive at the point where they are unable to
communicate except through a technical mediator?
Perhaps I am
just an obsolete old man in a dither about something I don’t really understand.
I do not wish to imply that the cell phone has no positive uses--I have
recognized at least two, but I believe the thing discussed here is worthy of
thoughtful attention and, in the case of parents with young children, some
focused application. In any case, I am not asking anyone to take sides—Just offering
a little food for thought, you will have to do the thinking.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD
AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus
Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
3/13/2016
GOAFS II #176 GRAMPA BOB'S OBSERVATION
GOAFS II: #176
GRAMPA BOB’S LATEST
OBSERVATION
March 13, 2016
You know you are getting old
when everything you hear
reminds you of something else.
There are at
least two ways of interpreting this small bit of wisdom from a very old friend
of mine.
The glass half empty view; “I have crossed the line into the
country of dementia, and I am beginning to have difficulty concentrating and
focusing my mind… People are always telling me to ‘Get on with it!’ or ‘Get to
the point.’”
The glass half full view; “My short-term memory is not so hot anymore
but I am amazed and thankful for how much I do remember… have I told you about back
in the days when…?”
You might be
asking me, “what brought this on?” I will tell you – it was coming across Terry
Gross on NPR doing one of her seemingly endless interviews on her long-running
program “Fresh Air.” I first heard Terry when I was in the car daily for a
California commute of an hour one way and started listening to the radio for a
break from my taped music and inspirational tapes. NPR was the only place I
found adult conversation not loaded with commercials.
When I first
I heard Terry she was a perky young woman on a mission to open the windows of
the world and let all kinds of wonderful ideas and people into the public
square of radio. I was never a regular listener but my recollection is that, in
spite of NPR’s distinct tilt to the left, she did a reasonable job of being
“fair and balanced” in those early days.
NPR went off my
radar when we moved from California to Kentucky twenty-two years ago and only
returned recently when I found myself a widower and listening to the radio
occasionally for a little company. Terry Gross was still there, five days a
week. But what a difference in the air – it was a long way from fresh. It had
morphed over the years into a fetid cloud of smothering fog rising from the
dismal swamps of over-ripe self-regard, gender confusion and political
correctness.
She still has
an occasional interesting and informative hour but she seems now to be living in
a very deep rut worn into the dismal soil of the contemporary culture. From
time to time she ventures into the light of goodness and truth, but she seems
most comfortable in the rut and returns quickly to the same dreary place that
dominates her programing.
The easiest
way to visualize the magnitude of this jump would be to note that when I first
heard Terry Gross, there were only two boxes to check for “sex” on all the
forms we filled out – male or female. The artificial distinctions between the
sexes and within the sexes have multiplied exponentially since until the recent
number of possibilities, I have heard, is somewhere between 52 and 82. So far
the most they are actually using on ultra-PC forms is said to be 8.
It is here
that you may politely tell me to get to the point – so I will. These things
reminded me of Betty Friedan and the late 60’s when her pioneering leadership
of feminism was beginning to turn from “fresh air” to “noxious vapors.” I wrote
a poem, and here it is.
A
PRAYER FOR MS.
I
suppose that what really made me go see Simone de Beauvoir was the feeling that
someone must know the right answer, someone must know for sure that all the
women who have thrown away those old misleading maps are heading in the right
direction, someone must see more clearly than I where the new road ends… I found… there are no gods, no goddesses. Betty Friedan
Lord,
regard not lightly
Those
who, scorning the stale air of this snug harbor,
Put
out upon an unknown sea
Lacking
chart, compass, knowledge of the stars…
Hoping
chance may reveal
Some
better place.
Lord,
regard not lightly
Those
blind souls who, burning all their bridges, depart
For
reasons strongly felt
To
places only dimly seen…
Hoping
for a cloud of fire
Or
some other sign to meet them
In
the way.
Lord,
regard not lightly
Those
who face the shrieking gale
Or
grope within the blinding fog
Or
wait in vain for some small breeze…
Hoping
still for time and chance
To
bear them to
More
friendly seas.
Lord,
illuminate their way
Or,
lacking that, comfort them at least,
In
their great dismay as they approach the void
And
see, too late, the going was the best of it
For
those who travel unknown seas
Lacking
chart, compass, knowledge of the stars.
6/68
js
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD
AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
3/06/2016
#175 JUDGE THOMAS SPEAKS
GOAFS II: #175
JUDGE THOMAS SPEAKS
March 6, 2016
Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas made the news this week when he asked several questions during
oral arguments. The chattering classes, particularly those on the political
left, were astonished since Thomas hadn’t asked a question during oral
arguments since Feb. 22, 2006.
Thomas has been criticized in
the past for failing to engage during oral arguments. The New York Times has written:
"Justice
Thomas's explanations for his disengagement from this aspect of the court's
work have varied, but he seems to have settled on one in recent years. It is
simply discourteous, he says, to pepper lawyers with questions.
"
'I think it's unnecessary in deciding cases to ask that many questions, and I
don't think it's helpful,' he said at Harvard Law School in 2013. 'I think we
should listen to lawyers who are arguing their cases, and I think we should
allow the advocates to advocate.'
Thomas's
10 years of silence from the bench does come with an asterisk. In 2013, he cracked a joke — four words —
which was interpreted as a self-deprecating jab at his alma mater, Yale.”
Thomas assumed office as
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States October 23, 1991. He
was preceded by Thurgood Marshall and appointed by George H. W. Bush. The left
mounted a furious campaign of opposition, that that ultimately failed. Judge
Thomas has diligently and competently ridden herd on the Courts’ leftwing
judicial activists and assisted them relentlessly in remembering the
Constitution they are prone to forget.
At the time he was appointed,
I celebrated the victory with a poem.
A
BALLAD OF NITA AND CLARENCE
There
once was a black man named Clarence
Who
dreamed he might sit the High Court…
But
the Daughters of Moloch rose up with a wail,
“This
fellow we’ll surely abort.”
They
tried it in trimester one, and failed,
Which
really surprised them, we’re told.
They
blew it as well in trimester two,
Though
their lawyers were brilliant and bold.
When
Clarence was well into trimester three,
They
returned to the fray with a will—
“We’ll
get him this time,” they muttered one night,
“With
a coat-hanger named Nita Hill.”
Once
more they failed, young Clarence was seated,
Vowing,
but under his breath,
To
confound the deceptions and slippery devices
Of
the merchants of misery and death.
11/91
js
Joel Pett’s cartoon, as usual ,betrays the progressive liberal blindness to what is really going
on. The empty chair provides a hint – totally ignored but obvious to objective
observers of the Court. In the past, Judge Alito has asked all the necessary
aquestions of the lawyers pleading before the Court. Judge Thomas believed
additional questions would just reduce the opportunity for the advocates to
advocate. Judge Alito has moved on, I am guessing Judge Thomas is going to pick
up Alito’s mantle and wear it with honor from now on.
I could be wrong, I often am
– we will see as time goes on.
Jerry Sweers
GROWING OLD
AIN’T FOR SISSIES
Sailing directions for Pilgrims of the Heart.
Remembrances, reflections and rants
of an endangered species;
Curmudgensis Americanus
Bibliophilius
site: crmudgeon.blogspot.com
