Wordplay: Sometimes you just need a word for it….
ENC: How does it profit a man….
In the Emperor’s New Clothes part of this blog, we offer discourses and stories about the connections that matter, but are often left out (or distorted) in the storytelling of the day. Our purpose: To get you to think, and get you to feel.
It’s hard to change your ways when a) you make a living off something and b) it’s not your kids that are getting blown up. The pope addresses this in a straightforward address…to children. Thanks to the Huffington Post for this article:
Pope Francis Explains To Children How War Profiteers Never Want Peace
The Huffington Post | By Antonia Blumberg
Pope Francis did not mince words when he told a group of children gathered at the Vatican that some people will never want peace because they profit off of war.
“Some powerful people earn their living off making weapons,” the pope said, in a translation provided by Rome Reports. “For this reason, many people do not want peace.”
He also called the weapons business an “industry of death,” according to Catholic Herald.
The pontiff spoke in front of roughly 7,000 children at the Vatican on Monday, in a visit sponsored by the Fabbrica della pace (“Peace Factory”), a non-governmental organization that operates educational programming in primary schools with the purpose of promoting cross-cultural understanding.
Pope Francis ended the session by imploring those present to make a small change in attitude or behavior, Vatican Radio reports.
“Whenever we do something together, something good, something beautiful, everyone changes,” he said. “All of us change in some way, and this does us good.”
The pope’s strong words against the weapons industry echo the pontiff’s earlier anti-war statements. On December 7, 2014 Pope Francis sent a letter to the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, stating, “Nuclear weapons are a global problem, affecting all nations, and impacting future generations and the planet that is our home.”
“Spending on nuclear weapons squanders the wealth of nations,” he continued. “To prioritize such spending is a mistake and a misallocation of resources which would be far better invested in the areas of integral human development, education, health and the fight against extreme poverty.”
TIME Magazine reports that many expect the pope to address the topic of nuclear weapons in his United Nations speech in September, as the event coincides with the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s famous U.N. speech calling for “never again war, never again war.”
Poetry of music: My Sweet Lord, with George
You’ve heard it, so many times…when George first came up with what became his most famous song as a solo performer (rivalling “Something,” with the Beatles), he was reluctant to record such an overt religious message-song: “I was sticking my neck out on the chopping block because now I would have to live up to something,” Harrison explained in I Me Mine.
“But at the same time I thought, ‘Nobody’s saying it; I wish somebody else was doing it.'”
So…he said it.
Mixing Hare Krishna chanting with a joyous Hallelujah, he confounded conventional music at the time by popping out a #1 hit for his first post-Beatles release. Reflecting George’s oft-stated hope for a closer and direct connection with God, this all made sense.
As John Lennon famously told a reporter around this time, “Every time I put the radio on, it’s ‘Oh my Lord’ – I’m beginning to think there must be a God!”
Thanks, George.
Poetry of music: Circle ’round…both sides, now
Back to when it all started…here’s Joni on the CBC in ’68 with Both Sides Now & The Circle Game in the days when her star was rising, and people began to see & feel the way she gave voice to a generation.
When she write it in 1967, she noted where it began:
I was reading Saul Bellow’s “Henderson the Rain King” on a plane and early in the book Henderson the Rain King is also up in a plane. He’s on his way to Africa and he looks down and sees these clouds. I put down the book, looked out the window and saw clouds too, and I immediately started writing the song. I had no idea that the song would become as popular as it did.
Pete Seeger wrote an extra verse for the song, which he added with Joni’s permission in a 1970 duet (here it here) :
Daughter, daughter, don’t you know,
you’re not the first to feel just so?
But let me say before I go,
it’s worth it anyway.
Someday we may all be surprised.
We’ll wake and open up our eyes
and then we will realize
the whole world feels this way.
We’ve all been living upside down
and turned around with love unfound
until we turn and face the sun.
Yes, all of us, everyone.
Meanwhile, The Circle Game is a reminder that young people want to be old, and older people come to a place where they wish they were younger, and either way, it just a circle….
Thanks, Joni!
The music of poetry: from “The Uses of the Body,” with Deborah Landau
There’s a lot to like in this wonderful verse from Deborah Landau’s The Uses of the Body. I think the line that got me, on my first read – was “See how caught up we are/in our habitual flying pattern,” which reminded me of Pema Chödrön’s note: “No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear…the advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it over, take a pill, or distract ourselves, but by all means make it go away.” That “advice” helps cement the patterns, so we can dodge that confrontation with fear.
But the body, besides helping define the “flying patterns” that we hold so desperately onto, also gives us the chance to find the real sweetness of life, to give us the chance (as Landau says) to explore both the chance to wake up & illusion. And you just have to like someone who mentions that one of the basic pleasures is Keats.
You’re in for a treat. Thanks for your words & your art, Dr. Landau!
Brother Ian
++++++++++++++++
from The Uses of the Body
Deborah Landau
The uses of the body are manifold.
Lips, fingers, the back of the neck.
One should make as full a use as possible
before time’s up. In Paradise,
you should appreciate. Don’t squander.
Take a deep juicy bite then swallow.
Peaches are meant for tasting.
A lapping up. In Paradise
we lay and many afternoons
brought pleasure and relief.
*
Men look at you like you have the thing they want.
That somber hungry forcefield smack on.
It lies there. Is he aware?
I cannot see where this will end.
I can see where I need to go
but never get there. It’s operatic.
When I lie in bed my limbs go numb.
When the sky darkens.
The urge is there
but also the mandate
to damp it down.
Always the urge.
Always the mandate.
You’re still young, he says,
but youth will burst all at once
and be gone forever.
*
The uses of the body are wake up.
The uses of the body, illusion.
The uses of the body. Rinse repeat.
To make another body.
September. Draw the blanket up.
Lace your shoes.
The major and minor passions.
Sunlight. Hair.
The basic pleasures. Tomatoes, Keats,
meeting a smart man for a drink.
The uses of the body.
It is only a small house. It gets older.
Its upper and lower.
Its red and white trim.
It’s tempting to gloss over this part,
so you won’t really see me.
*
The uses of the body are heavy and light.
Raspberries, cradles, houses in Maine.
Biopsies, second opinions, MRIs.
I am cozy, I am full of want until chest pain,
until a heavy cramp. The pain of form.
See how caught up we are
in our habitual flying patterns
until we have to look the unfair doctor in the eye.
The genitals are irrelevant then.
Dr. Rutkowski, what was it you said?
++++++++++++++
Deborah Landau is the author of three books of poems, includingThe Uses of the Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2015).
She teaches in and directs the Creative Writing Program at New York University and lives in Brooklyn.
“Landau’s killer wit evokes Dorothy Parker crossed with Sylvia Plath — leaping spark after spark, growing to deadly dark fire. ‘The Uses of the Body’ is her best book, its acerbic tone (‘The uses of the body, illusion’) interspersed with lines of grave and startling beauty.” Los Angeles Times
Here’s more about Deborah: http://www.deborahlandau.net/
ENC: The new world order….
In this part of the blog (the Emperor’s New Clothes), we offer a moment of telling the stories of people who resist the mainstream view of things.
This past week, the people who started and pushed the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 are universally saying….it was a mistake. Here’s the story about that, from the Canadian Press (note that this is, for some reason, not a big story in the States.)
Meanwhile, with Memorial Day this week, and everyone talking about sacrifice, remember what was gained by that sacrifice. Here’s a moment with Doonesbury, by GB Trudeau:
Thoughts: Brené Brown on Why Your Critics Aren’t The Ones Who Count
You already know that we here at the monkastary really admire Brene Brown, and we really like her talks, so we thought we’d share this with you today (this is one of her newer ones….)…from the intro:
There is nothing more frightening than the moment we expose our ideas to the world. Author and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown shows us how to deal with the critics and our own self-doubt by refusing to “armor up” and shut ourselves off. “Not caring what people think,” she says, “is its own kind of hustle.”
Instead we must “reserve a seat” for the critics and our own self-doubt. “Tell them, I see you, I hear you, but I’m going to do this anyway.”
About Brené Brown
Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past twelve years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. Her groundbreaking research has been featured on PBS, NPR, CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
Brené is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Gotham, 2012). In Daring Greatly Brené dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.
Fast Company Magazine named Daring Greatly one of the best business books of 2012. Brené’s 2010 TEDx Houston talk, The Power of Vulnerability, is one of the top ten most viewed TED talks on TED.com, with over 20 million viewers (you can watch it here!).
Brené is also the author of The Gifts of Imperfection (2010), I Thought It Was Just Me (2007), and Connections (2009).
She lives in Houston with her husband, Steve, and their two children, Ellen and Charlie.
Writings: Where we come from…
This is a story that my friend Amanda told me about, from Mother Earth News:
In a mother’s womb were two babies.
One asked the other:
“Do you believe in life after delivery?”
The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”
“Nonsense,” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”
The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”
The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted, “Well, I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”
The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover, if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”
The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”
The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”
Said the first: “Well, I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”
To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”
– Útmutató a Léleknek
About Brother Ian
Over the centuries, Brother Ian has been collecting stories & information & discourses for the purpose of elevating the human condition as needed, dissecting it when necessary, and building the case for hope.
In the spirit of noting that organized crime, organized baseball, organized labour, and organized religion tend to engender controversy & occasional discord, I promise to be neither organized or critical of those who are.