tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62220772251198612522024-02-07T14:34:36.254-06:00seeker for truthThis blog was a tool for capturing and developing my evolving perspective on life, the universe, and everything... (2006-2015)
thanks for reading,
eric hepburneric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-47824384901797051982015-09-14T11:11:00.003-05:002015-09-14T11:11:21.849-05:00Last Post“Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.”<div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
- Seng-ts’an</div>
<br /><br /><br /></div>
eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-8574566815804243972012-04-29T15:18:00.000-05:002012-11-27T15:20:17.015-06:00Humility: struggles with the two selves.
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 18px;">Sermon delivered at First UU Church of Austin on </span><span style="color: #111111; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">April 29, 2012.</span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<i><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Children’s story: green
eggs and ham by Dr. Seuss<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<i><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Reading: Every Riven
Thing by Christian Wiman<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;">Every Riven Thing</span></b><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God goes, belonging
to every riven thing he's made<br />
sing his being simply by being<br />
the thing it is:<br />
stone and tree and sky,<br />
man who sees and sings and wonders why<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God goes.
Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,<br />
means a storm of peace.<br />
Think of the atoms inside the stone.<br />
Think of the man who sits alone<br />
trying to will himself into the stillness where<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God goes belonging.
To every riven thing he's made<br />
there is given one shade<br />
shaped exactly to the thing itself:<br />
under the tree a darker tree;<br />
under the man the only man to see<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God goes belonging
to every riven thing. He's made<br />
the things that bring him near,<br />
made the mind that makes him go.<br />
A part of what man knows,<br />
apart from what man knows,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God goes belonging
to every riven thing he's made.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br clear="all" style="page-break-before: always;" />
</span></b>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sermon - Humility:
struggles with the two selves.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the words of Christian Wiman, “Riven is kind of an old
testament word that means broken, sundered, torn-apart.” Riven is a weird place for me to begin a
sermon, but the poem from Christian Wiman that we shared earlier resonated
deeply with me as I was writing this sermon and I kept going back and listening
to it over and over. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God goes, belonging
to every riven thing he's made<br />
sing his being simply by being<br />
the thing it is:<br />
stone and tree and sky,<br />
man who sees and sings and wonders why<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I find it paradoxical that I, who have railed from this very
pulpit against the idea that we are born broken, would be so taken, so
transfixed, so transformed by this poem.
But one of the things that seems to become more and more clear to me is
the deep relationship between paradox and wisdom. So this morning, in search of
a deeper relationship with humility, one of my most vexing challenges, I am
going to embrace this paradox and talk about some of the ways in which I, and
from what I gather, the vast majority of my human brothers and sisters feel
broken. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I couldn’t settle on a single approach to humility, so I will
use several: first, the perspective of Green Eggs and Ham, second as a manager
trying to practice what I preach, and third as an aspiring leader and public
speaker. I will break between these
perspectives with parts of <i>Every Riven
Thing</i> and the serenity prayer. At
each recitation of the serenity prayer, I would like us to treat it as a unison
reading, I will signal each recitation with folded hands, for this first
recitation I ask that you repeat after me.</span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the courage to change the things I
can, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and the wisdom to know the
difference.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss is what is on my son Simon’s
nightstand right now, it is not the only thing on his nightstand, but it is
seminal. Green Eggs and Ham has become a
method by which my wife and I can get Simon to try something new, sometimes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The protagonist of Green Eggs and Ham has no name, which is
bad for storytelling unless you are as talented as Dr. Seuss, which I am not,
so I’ll call him I am Not Sam.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now I am Not Sam does not like Sam I Am. Now perhaps this
dislike comes from some experience. Or
perhaps it is because I am Not Sam dislikes introduction by signboard. Or perhaps I am Not Sam doesn’t care for
creatures who ride other creatures while carrying signboards. Or perhaps I am Not Sam just doesn’t like
being interrupted while he’s reading the newspaper. Whatever the case we are unsurprised when I
am Not Sam declines Sam I Am’s offer of Green Eggs and Ham. Not only because of our own skepticism about
green animal-based food products, but because we know, from our own experience,
that we are disinclined to accept anything from people we don’t like. As a matter of fact, the less we know about
what is offered the more likely we are to substitute our opinion of the person
making the offer for our evaluation of what is being offered. What’s more, when we perform this cognitive
trick we are generally unaware of what we have done.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is what’s on my
nightstand right now. One of the lessons
from the book is that we are amazing at inferring the general from the specific
and lousy at deriving the specific from the general. So here is a story:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
am Not Sam doesn’t like Sam I am.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sam
I Am offers Green Eggs and Ham.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
am Not Sam likes not Green Eggs and Ham.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Enter
psychologist Kahneman.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kahneman
asks of I am Not Sam.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Where
comes your opinion of Green Eggs and Ham?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Reasons
abound from I am Not Sam,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For
example, his mother’s allergic to ham,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And
his brother’s misfortune while hunting wild Spam,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Plus,
deviled eggs sicken poor I am Not Sam.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But
among these reasons Not Sam has Given,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">His
dislike of Sam, he does fail to mention.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And
this, my dear friends, is what makes him Riven.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #00b050; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God goes.
Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,<br />
means a storm of peace.<br />
Think of the atoms inside the stone.<br />
Think of the man who sits alone<br />
trying to will himself into the stillness where <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #00b0f0; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">God grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the courage to change the things I
can, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and the wisdom to know the
difference.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, I had my team at work take the VIA Strengths Index
Survey, which is a positive psychology assessment that tells you what your
strongest virtues are. Now, since it is
all framed positively and your strengths are just ranked from top to bottom, it
isn’t supposed to be a criticism and the default results only show you your top
5 strengths. But, I’m human so I had to
click on the link that showed the full listing of all the possible strengths so
that I could see my weakest strengths.
Not weaknesses, just my strengths that are less strong than my other
strengths. I’m going to give you about
0.1 seconds to guess what my least strong strength was… (humility). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, I’m in the staff meeting with my team, a few full time
people and a dozen graduate students, and we are sharing our top 5 strengths
and graphing on a chart where the team is strongest and where we aren’t, and we
are talking about how to leverage the strengths we have against the kinds of
challenges we face… you get the idea. So
after this team exercise, I just can’t keep my mouth shut and I say, “We aren’t
going to talk about this today, it isn’t for public discourse, but I want each
of you to take a look at your bottom 5.
What I want you to think about is how you can use your top strengths to
offset whatever your weakest areas are.”
In and of itself, this was not a big deal. It is the kind of pedantic shenanigans that
we all have to tolerate from our bosses from time to time. Here’s the problem: I have a rule for myself
as a manager. The rule is that I have to
be willing to do whatever I ask them to do, or else I can’t hold them to
it. So, that was three years ago and
here I am still working on the problem of how to use my strengths to develop
more humility. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the courage to change the things I
can, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and the wisdom to know the
difference.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God goes belonging.
To every riven thing he's made<br />
there is given one shade<br />
shaped exactly to the thing itself:<br />
under the tree a darker tree;<br />
under the man the only man to see <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Manic-depression makes sense to me… it is so easy for me to
see <i>how little</i> a change in the mind
it would take for the tension between feelings of empowerment and feelings of powerlessness
to just SNAP! To live one’s life
actively holding these two forces, these two facts of the human condition at
bay, to keep them in tension with one another, to exist in that tension without
surrendering to either force… To do this seems so much more profound and more
amazing than wildly vacillating between the two polls or simply surrendering to
either despair or </span><span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 115%;">megalomania</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">. Yet this is what most of us do. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">In my struggle to find this balance, I have not found
answers, but I continue to find value in the struggle. I have tended to frame my
struggle as a search for a life course by which I can maximize the amount of
change I can make. I have found this
approach mostly frustrating and recent revelations have caused me to suspect
that this one-dimensional way of defining the problem might, itself, be
problematic.</span><span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 115%;">Several months ago my book club read ‘The
Denial of Death’ by Ernest Becker, a celebrated psychoanalyst who completed
this seminal work on the fear of death during the course of his own terminal
struggle with cancer. </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">The
fear of death is a widely cited ‘root cause’ of many aspects of the human
experience, both positive and negative.
But it was Becker’s concept of the immortality project that really
struck me. An immortality project is a
thing that a person latches onto that mollifies or neutralizes their fear of
death. To give you an idea, here are
some stereotypical immortality projects:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When parents try to live the life that they wanted through
their children, they are making their children into their immortality project.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When architects sacrifice every human relationship to get a
building or monument constructed, it is their immortality project.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When a poet places his life and his being on the altar of
words, those words, those poems are his or her immortality project. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">There is a poem by Robert Bringhurst called “These Poems, She
Said” that captures the spirit of pathology that I think immortality projects
necessarily imbue on their objects:</span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><br clear="all" style="page-break-before: always;" />
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These poems, these poems,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">these poems, she said, are poems<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">with no love in them. These are the poems of a
man <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">who would leave his wife and child
because <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">they made noise in his study. These are the
poems <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">of a man who would murder his mother to
claim <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the inheritance. These are the poems of a
man <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">like Plato, she said, meaning something I did
not <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">comprehend but which nevertheless<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">offended me. These are the poems of a man<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">who would rather sleep with himself than with
women, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">she said. These are the poems of a man<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">with eyes like a drawknife, with hands like a
pickpocket’s <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">hands, woven of water and logic<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and hunger, with no strand of love in them.
These <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">poems are as heartless as birdsong, as
unmeant <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">as elm leaves, which if they love love
only <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the wide blue sky and the air and the idea<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">of elm leaves. Self-love is an ending, she
said, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and not a beginning. Love means love<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">of the thing sung, not of the song or the
singing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These poems, she said....<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> You
are, he said,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #674ea7;">
That is not love, she said rightly.</span><span style="color: #0070c0;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have come to recognize that the pathological intensity with
which I frequently desire to change the world is my immortality project and a
source of much of my hubris.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Another piece of the puzzle came through my experience at the
Dwight Brown Leadership Experience. One of the themes of the curriculum is
family systems theory. Through my
exposure, I found out how normal it is for a first-born child of overly-young
parents to develop a need to fix-the-world.
This got me thinking about how my desire to fix the world isn’t actually
because the world is so broken, but it is because MY relationship with the
world is so broken. This is a
perspective that I learned during my most formative years, and that I am still
struggling to unlearn.</span><span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A third aspect of this puzzle came to my attention through my
experience in the Leadership Austin Essential program. A neighbor and classmate shared with me her
sense of how I present myself as smarter and better than others and how
condescending this often felt to her and others with whom she had spoken. While I had come to recognize that how I am
is a ‘turn off’ for a significant portion of any given group or audience, I had
learned to rationalize away that problem so that it was about others and not
about me. This friend’s willingness, as
a member of this group, to openly and honestly share her feelings, thoughts and
impressions with me was invaluable. What
I have come to realize is that this sense of condescension that comes through
in my personality is not about what I believe when I am thinking, praying or
meditating. It is about how I AM in the
world, it is about my attitude about fixing the world. An attitude which holds that I am THE ONE who
should and CAN fix the world, an attitude which holds that the REST OF YOU are
part of that world, and that I WILL FIX YOU in the process, whether you like it
or not! I may not believe it, but I have
to learn to stop pretending that I don’t ACT like I do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God goes belonging
to every riven thing. He's made<br />
the things that bring him near,<br />
made the mind that makes him go.<br />
A part of what man knows,<br />
apart from what man knows,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the courage to change the things I
can, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and the wisdom to know the
difference.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I value humility.
Through my struggles and my reflection I have come to honestly and
sincerely believe in the value of what each of us has to offer, to believe that
regardless of the way we write history books, we all make up the human story
every single day. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But that is just about what I think, when I am thinking. It is what I believe when I am focused on
believing. It says nothing of whether or
not I am humble in my being, in my way of being. Just as I am sure that there are tremendously
humble beings out there in the world who have never spent much time thinking of
humility, I am sure that despite all of my thinking about humility, I am not
yet humble. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This, to me, is the crux of the two selves. I come from a culture of orthodoxy and have
too often and too easily believed that once I had come to believe the right
thing I had accomplished my aim. But the
self that thinks and reflects and conjures the story of my identity, this self
is only one part of me. It is the
conscious and reflective part, it is not the automated subconscious part of myself
which sets the tone and acts based on the preconceptions formed by my own
experience. It is my remembering self
and not my being. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My other self, my acting self, my in-the-moment self, my
being, can be retrained, is, hopefully, being retrained. This retraining
requires me to be mindful, to be evaluative of who and how I am and skeptical
of how I would prefer to think of myself. This retraining shifts my emphasis
from orthodoxy to orthopraxy: increasing my emphasis on right behavior. My spiritual practice, of which standing here
before you today is a large part, is about finding these balances between what I
think and what I do, between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, between empowerment and
powerlessness, but not between hubris and humility!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hubris is to live ignorant of my Riven-ness, to live blind to
my blindness and callous to my callousness.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hubris is to live in a state of perpetual self-righteousness.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hubris is a childish thing that I struggle to put away.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Humility is to live like I am not the center of the universe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Humility is to live like we are all in this together.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Humility is an aspiration that I struggle to live up to.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the courage to change the things I
can, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">and the wisdom to know the
difference.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #00b0f0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God goes belonging
to every riven thing he's made.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="color: #0070c0; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Amen<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt;">
<b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Benediction<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We
Riven Things go, belonging to God and to Each Other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">May
we go in serenity and with courage<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And,
with a little humility, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">may
we be fortunate enough to pick up some wisdom on the way.</span><span style="color: #00b050; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>video or audio version available at: </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><i><a href="http://austinuu.org/wp2011/humility-struggle-with-the-two-selves/">http://austinuu.org/wp2011/humility-struggle-with-the-two-selves/</a></i></span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-39044025115238780222012-02-23T14:21:00.000-06:002012-02-23T14:22:52.504-06:00the experiment in naturalism endsA ten month experiment in naturalism - specifically in exploring my genetic hair growth patterns unimpeded by social convention or personal intervention - ended today...<br />
<br />
before the end of the experiment:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6edj_XZA0DCoB2KIZWPR3K_RRGTU_HuV1xUUzipTqMoitBw-n0zlY82Fz8V0ySQ5KAjlJrRtxUHa3CYisHUfVAas_gdb2ncVSBqXep66MNAhZnMV8n09KCB21ZILeFm0s0t-0IhMKv0V1/s1600/the+experiment+ends+-+before.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6edj_XZA0DCoB2KIZWPR3K_RRGTU_HuV1xUUzipTqMoitBw-n0zlY82Fz8V0ySQ5KAjlJrRtxUHa3CYisHUfVAas_gdb2ncVSBqXep66MNAhZnMV8n09KCB21ZILeFm0s0t-0IhMKv0V1/s320/the+experiment+ends+-+before.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
after the end of the experiment:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsEQDicstqw1hkzgCtQg0kKriexGrtWyFqec2WOWBlbl3xvndI0P3Ul9qccXPCI2hexk4ctq9mSUzXtGViTMxMCbVECyOj-v_pb-rlNvO_ZMZ1EEh9P5So2SFIDSEbJ4P6r_uyrHY1ImW1/s1600/the+experiment+ends+-+after.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsEQDicstqw1hkzgCtQg0kKriexGrtWyFqec2WOWBlbl3xvndI0P3Ul9qccXPCI2hexk4ctq9mSUzXtGViTMxMCbVECyOj-v_pb-rlNvO_ZMZ1EEh9P5So2SFIDSEbJ4P6r_uyrHY1ImW1/s320/the+experiment+ends+-+after.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I have opted for reasons of time and resource consumption to return to my practice of periodic self-intervention with a pair of clippers. The experiment was interesting and resulted in a practical appreciation for the potential value (never tested) of mustache wax for keeping one's mustache out of one's food and mouth... The use of baking soda solution and apple cider vinegar for hair care worked very well, but with my natural oil levels and the daily run-commute the treatments needed to become more frequent as the mass of hair continued to increase. The experiment did not culminate in the 'growth plateau' that I had aspired to when I began the experiment, but I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what I would like if I were genetically me, but born tens of thousands of years ago before we made a cultural habit of interventionist hair styling. From earlier periods in my life, the late undergraduate epoch to be precise, I can share that the head-hair plateau happens at about shoulder length... the beard remains a mystery... would it have grown to the nipples or the belly button or beyond.... we may never know, and I suspect we will never find out.<br />
<br />
Now it's time to go deal with the psychological repercussions of feeling like I no longer have a chin.<br />
<br />
Ericeric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-1210025360186709642011-09-20T22:37:00.000-05:002011-12-31T10:50:41.792-06:00Sermon: So Let It Be Written...<br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(delivered to First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin on Sunday July 31, 2011)</span></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Prayer:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Somewhere out there <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">On a dusty shelf<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Or a spinning disk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">On parchment aged<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Or in pixels bright<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt;">There are words waiting for you<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">These words were written for you<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">And when you find them<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt;">They will touch your heart<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">And change your life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Somewhere in there<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Between the synapses<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Of your frontal lobe<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Or floating around<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">In the recesses of you consciousness<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Are words destined for another<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Words that will touch their heart<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">And change their life<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">It is your duty to record them<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">So that they may be found.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Somewhere out there<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Is a better world <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt;">waiting to be described<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">We spend our days and our nights<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Imagining this world<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">When we are wise,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">We record these imaginings<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">For each other<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">To bring this dream one step<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Closer to reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">When we are unwise,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">We think that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">all of these imaginings <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">are just stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-size: 13pt;">We pray this in the name of everything that is holy, and that is, precisely, everything.</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Sermon: “So let it be written…”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">“So let it be written, so let it be done.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">I have to start this morning with an amusing admission, I chose the title of today’s sermon off the cuff after being approached by Vicki and Dwayne who hoped that I would tie the sermon into the end of our Hogwarts Summer Camp and our Bookspring summer social action project. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">I thought it was from the bible. I thought it was from Moses or one of the other Old Testament prophets… But, as I was doing research for the sermon I found out that the quote was actually from Cecil B. DeMille’s epic film <i>The Ten Commandments</i>. Furthermore, it was not one of God’s noble representatives, but the Pharaoh who utters this famous line. Here is the quote in context:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">The Egyptian Master Builder Baka asks Pharaoh, ”</span><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Will you lose a throne because Moses builds a city?” Pharaoh Rameses answers, ”The city that he builds shall bear my name, the woman that he loves shall bear my child. So let it be written, so let it be done.” </span><span style="font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Well, you can thank Vicki and Dwayne for saving you from the torturous sermon on self-righteousness that I was planning. And you can thank me for drawing the title of a sermon on the sacredness of all texts from a movie line that exemplifies the petty vengefulness of tyrants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Being unfortunately trained in the contemporary American academic tradition, my first thought when I decided to write a sermon about the sacredness of all texts was to be critical of its weakest point, which, to my mind is more or less, the Harlequin Romance Novel. Can I make the case that even the schmaltz-iest novel is a sacred text? Now I want to clarify that I don’t believe that the success or failure of the proposition that all texts are sacred rests on whether or not I prove the holiness of the romance novel. However, I would like to challenge you to think about whatever genre or type of writing that you find most banal and least likely to be sacred. Must not the author of this dubious work, by necessity, confront the human condition? Does not this topic, this domain of inquiry speak to some pertinent aspect of our shared reality and thus derive its readership? What else is there? We are all at different points in our journey, and so it ought not be too surprising that we find a wide variety of different material insightful in different ways and at different times in our lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">I think that the more important differentiation, in terms of sacredness, or to echo our prayer closing from Jack Harris-Bonham, holiness, is not <i>what</i> we read but <i>how</i> we read it. It is not which book we select, but why. It is not the level of enlightenment or spiritual power of the author, but how well the book resonates with our own spiritual journey that matters. Ultimately, the sacredness of any particular text to us is about whether or not, and to what extent, we allow the text to change us…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">From this perspective, we can come to recognize the transformative potential of essentially all human writings. To be sure, some texts will have objectively greater transformative breadth and depth, but this describes a continuum of sacredness, not an either-or proposition. For the sexually repressed, salvation might just come in the form of a Harlequin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">In the spirit of this revelation, I would like to share with you some of the writings that have changed me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">I want to frame these writings using Ursula Le Guin’s introduction to her novel <i>The Left Hand of Darkness</i>. I started reading science fiction and fantasy when I was twelve, but it wasn’t until I read this introduction in my thirties that I understood why it had always had such a hold on me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">(quoting) “<i>Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative… This book is not extrapolative. If you like you can read it, and a lot of other science fiction, as a thought-experiment. Let’s say (says Mary Shelley) that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory; let’s say (says Philip K. Dick) that the Allies lost the second world war; let’s say this or that is such and so, and see what happens… In a story so conceived, the moral complexity proper to the modern novel need not be sacrificed, nor is there a built-in dead end; thought and intuition can move freely within bounds set only by the terms of the experiment, which may be very large indeed.” </i>(end quote)<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">I remember concretely the moment when I first read this paragraph. I was lying in bed reading, excited to start a new book by an author I was just discovering. I remember feeling a bit breathless, I remember laying the book down on my stomach. I remember closing my eyes and flashing through twenty years of my favorite books. I remember realizing that my favorites were the ones where this counterfactual universe, this imagined world, produced in me a type or degree of moral complexity, sometimes even moral clarity, beyond what I had ever experienced in reading traditional literary fiction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">For example, in his series that begins with Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card takes on the themes of xenophobia and just war theory in a fictional war with aliens. Ultimately, the reader finds a way to identify with and find compassion for the aliens, while becoming self-critical of the might-makes-right and win-at-all-costs mentality of humanity. I can think of no finer gift for a loved one preparing to enlist in the military than a box-set of <i>Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind.</i> Not that these books would dissuade their service, Card’s work is steeped in the value of civil service and self-sacrifice. What these books would do is encourage them to struggle with questions that are particularly relevant to anyone preparing him or herself to enter a profession with regular access to weapons of mass destruction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">To continue from Le Guin; “<i>The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrodinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future – indeed Schrodinger’s most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the “future,” on the quantum level, <b>cannot</b> be predicted – but to describe reality, the present world… Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.” (end-quote)</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">J.R.R. Tolkien’s <i>Lord of the Rings</i> famously describes the struggle between those who wish to live in harmony with nature and those who seek to control it. Philip Pullman’s <i>His Dark Materials</i> describes the struggle between free inquiry and powerfully institutionalized dogma. While Robert Heinlein’s <i>Stranger in a Strange Land</i> describes the perverse oddity of culture, any culture, when viewed critically by an outsider.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">(quoting again from Le Guin) “<i>Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist’s business is lying. …Certainly. Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing this pack of lies, the say, There! That’s the Truth! <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">…In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane – bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren’t there, we hear their voices, we watch the battle of Borodino with them, we may even become Napoleon. Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.</span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt;"> (end quote)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">What has struck me about some of my favorite works of alternative histories and futures, many by Kim Stanley Robinson, such as his <i>Mars</i> and <i>California</i> trilogies and his compelling <i>The Years of Rice and Salt</i>, is that these thoughtfully constructed alternative worlds have often felt far more sane than the world we live in. Not a Pollyanna-ish sanity that denies our darker angels, but a cooler-heads-have-prevailed sanity where our social energy is focused on living good lives together and not at each other’s expense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Returning to Le Guin’s words: “<i>…I do not say that artists cannot be seers, inspired: that the <b>awen</b> cannot come upon them. Who would be an artist if they did not believe that that happens? if they did not <b>know</b> it happens, because they have felt the god within them use their tongue, their hands? Maybe only once, once in their lives. But once is enough.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">The only truth I can understand or express is, logically defined, a lie. Psychologically defined, a symbol. Aesthetically defined, a metaphor.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find – if it’s a good novel – that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little… But it’s very hard to <b>say</b> just what we learned, how we were changed.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">The artist deals with what cannot be said in words.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">The artist whose medium is fiction does this <b>in words</b>. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">Words can thus be used paradoxically because they have, along with a semiotic usage, a symbolic or metaphoric usage…” </span></i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">(end quote)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Ah, paradox; such fodder for reflection; such a treasure trove of possibility for the mystically inclined. My first serious introduction to the power of paradox probably came through the robot novels of Isaac Asimov, most famously <i>I Robot</i>. In these books Asimov deconstructs the power of both logic and rules by forcing his sentient robotic protagonists through sequence after sequence of moral crisis brought on by situational conflicts with and between the immutable laws of robotics. Asimov deals similarly with the paradoxes of time and prediction in his famous foundation series. If I can claim today to have the insight that logic, in and of itself, is inadequate to solve the problems of humanity or to answer our biggest questions, the seed of that insight was planted by Asimov in my thirteen year old brain many years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">And now, Ursula Le Guin’s finale, “<i>All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is a metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors, drawn from certain great dominants of our contemporary life – science, …and technology, and the relativistic and the historical outlook, among them. Space travel is one of these metaphors; so is an alternative society, an alternative biology; the future is another. The future, in fiction, is a metaphor.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">A metaphor for what?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 13pt;">If I could have said it non-metaphorically, I would not have written all these words, this novel; and Genly Ai would never have sat down at my desk and used up my ink and typewriter ribbon in informing me, and you, rather solemnly, that the truth is a matter of the imagination.” (end quote)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">That is how the six page introduction to <i>The Left Hand of Darkness</i> ends. I have tried to pull out the most succulent language and ideas from those six pages… my wife insisted that reading all six pages aloud to you was a bad idea, one that would end in, at best, a half-glazed congregation. After reflecting, I couldn’t disagree. When I read this introduction the first time, which was followed immediately by rereading it a second time, and then a third time, I put the book on my nightstand, turned out the light, and spent the next few hours in quiet contemplation until sleep finally overtook me. On subsequent nights, I went on to finish the book, diving deeply into the world of Gethen, where the native intelligent species is much like mankind, except for its being without gender. I’m not exactly sure what a planet full of androgynous hermaphrodites is a metaphor for, but I can tell you that it is a great book. I can tell you that it challenges you to think, and to feel, beyond gender to what lies at the heart of our shared humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">I have stood in this pulpit many times. I have shared with this community my reflections on growing up as an evangelical Christian, I have laid out for you my obsession with barefoot running, I have pondered with you the concepts of karma and natural law, and I have read to you the words of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and Tenzin Gyatso the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, and Mohandas K. Gandhi, these ones who seem to me the prophets of our modern age. But what I have not told you, not until today, is where my faith comes from. I have not told you… why. Why I stand up here, why I care so much about trying. I have not told you WHY I believe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">My faith comes from science fiction. I do not have to guess whether or not we can imagine a better world. I do not suffer from doubt on this count. We can, and we have, and we do… We actually know EXACTLY what kind of world we want, and we need, and we deserve. I see this knowledge reflected back to me from every single person I meet… in their desire for justice, for compassion, for community, for truth and for beauty, for goodness and for peace. But nowhere do I see these desires mirrored more faithfully and more clearly, than in the thousands of worlds and cultures and peoples that we, ourselves, have projected out there, onto the great metaphorical unknowns of space and time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">And so, we have already <b><i>let it be written</i></b>…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">What remains, is to <b><i>let it be done</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-41623200415544782502011-08-29T09:14:00.000-05:002011-08-29T09:14:32.743-05:00the beardI used to shave off my mane.<br />
Because I was in denial of being a lion.<br />
Hear me roar!eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-72316449795552873052011-07-21T08:58:00.001-05:002011-07-21T08:59:21.914-05:00google plus, bing, new cloud apps and the achievement of balanceI think that this is my first blog post that has any significant intersection with my professional life, but after listening to a couple of Podcasts on Google Plus and hearing the incessant plugging for Bing on the Slate Gabfests (it is, IMHO, a little over the top... just let them run their ads, don't become their mouthpiece) I felt compelled to throw in my two cents about balance in the cloud-o-sphere out there...<br />
<br />
As a human being out there in the technosphere, it is in your best interest to preclude the emergence of a Goliath from the fields of competitors. In no market since the discovery of fossil fuel has this been easier than it is with the internet in this age. In the evolution of modern computing, anti-trust regulation against Microsoft and ongoing similar actions (mostly in and by the EU) works to thwart some of the most abusive practices that are trending toward monopoly. But, the most important thing is user behavior, where you click and for what is the main determinant of the balance of power between the players. So my advice is simple: spread the wealth. If you are intentional about spreading the wealth of your clicks, you will become the most powerful force against web hegemony.<br />
<br />
If you use Google for search, use someone else for social networking. If you use Microsoft for your operating system, use someone else for your web browser. This sounds easy, but keep in mind that every one of the large companies in this fray is constantly attempting to leverage the one or two services that you use with them to entice you into using them for all of your online services.<br />
<br />
In case you don't know this:<br />
THE LAST THING THAT YOU WANT IS FOR THERE TO BE A SINGLE CORPORATE PROVIDER FOR EMAIL, SEARCH, SOCIAL NETWORKING, CLOUD APPLICATIONS, ETC.<br />
(& This is exactly the opposite of what Microsoft, Google, Facebook, et. al. want.)eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-49876756926786232652011-05-18T18:27:00.001-05:002011-05-18T18:28:00.491-05:00the best disinfectant<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">if you seek healing</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">radical transparency</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">is the only path</span>eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-31299354672340311172011-05-16T17:04:00.001-05:002011-05-16T17:05:03.907-05:00a farewell for kent butler<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">i am sad that we</span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">miss the opportunity</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">of being colleagues</span></div>eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-75899923929094289812011-05-15T23:21:00.001-05:002011-05-15T23:23:08.748-05:00$church$<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">'you cannot serve both</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">God and money' said Jesus</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">so we choose money?</span></div>eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-35588723224385613632011-05-14T23:48:00.000-05:002011-05-14T23:48:20.052-05:00monkey businessthe obligations<br />
of our primate behavior<br />
chain better angelseric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-76475625495022067502011-05-13T23:58:00.000-05:002011-05-13T23:58:34.670-05:00wage slavery<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">i'm feeling friday</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">after a week when my time</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">belongs not to me</span>eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-3290458305875974792011-05-12T23:55:00.000-05:002011-05-14T00:00:18.163-05:00On Wiesenfeld on Palestinians (see Kuchner-CUNY)There is nothing but<br />
moral equivalency<br />
twixt Jew and Muslim.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-74245707564754584822011-05-10T23:39:00.000-05:002011-05-10T23:39:48.730-05:00embedded<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am part of a</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">larger organism which is</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">far beyond my ken.</span></div>eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-27794747516146935732011-05-09T13:38:00.000-05:002011-05-09T13:38:04.725-05:00why haiku?Haiku not for you.<br />
Verse is way to retrain me,<br />
in economy.eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-85044712344699145042011-05-08T22:42:00.001-05:002011-05-08T22:42:23.875-05:00To my mom"Happy Mothers Day"<br>Reason cannot stop my hope<br>That the dead can hearAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-394187229387329312011-05-06T23:47:00.000-05:002011-05-06T23:47:16.683-05:00displacementargue the pictures<br />
argue the sea burial<br />
ignore the killingeric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-91449988019375730472011-05-05T01:44:00.001-05:002011-05-05T01:44:08.876-05:00American Leadership?Killing, like torture,<br>Surrenders moral high ground.<br>Is that leadership?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-69103444418116217342011-05-04T00:03:00.002-05:002011-05-04T00:03:25.165-05:00the aftermath of assassinationJoy on the TV<br />
Obama, Stewart, Colbert<br />
I feel so aloneeric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-81290057399277857732011-05-03T09:55:00.001-05:002011-05-03T09:55:36.173-05:00War on terror done?War on terror done?<br>Not unless we have courage,<br>And stop the practice.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-7392316854007041362011-05-02T18:03:00.000-05:002011-05-02T18:03:05.783-05:00the death of osama bin ladenwe teach friends evil<br />
wring hands when they turn on us<br />
cheer when they are deaderic hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-76834158393494600582011-05-01T01:53:00.000-05:002011-05-01T01:53:25.076-05:00when has war achieved its aim?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">In what historical cases has a war purported as a 'just war' achieved its stated purpose without producing horrific, long-term unintended consequences?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">If you have examples, please include your take on what made the war just, what its purpose/goals were, and how any unintended consequences did or did not effect the realization of the goals.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">thanks for playing along,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">eric</span>eric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-76052170821502245752011-04-29T15:50:00.000-05:002011-04-29T15:50:11.607-05:00the difference between Egypt and Libya is not GaddafiThere is no amount of 'no fly zone' or no cache of weapons that will change Libya into another Egypt.<br />
The UN's belief that military power could be used to 'tip the scales', simply shows how fundamentally they misunderstand what has caused the successful revolutions to become so: nonviolence.<br />
<br />
If Gaddafi can be credited with preventing a successful revolution, it must be most closely linked with his having kept Gene Sharp's <i>From Dictatorship to Democracy</i> or its derivatives out of the hands of his people. Because what is clear, is that they were not ready, and despite Western hubris, there is nothing that can be done at the last minute to make them so.<br />
<br />
If the UN wants to support the ending of oppressive regimes its money would be better spent translating and disseminating literature on effective nonviolent resistance to oppressed people around the world. The spread of weapons and violence will never bring peace, for they are antithetical.<br />
<br />
It is not that I abhor violent action (although I do), it is simply that it is fundamentally and inescapably ineffective at achieving its stated goals and unparalleled at creating catastrophic unintended consequences.<br />
<br />
eric hepburneric hepburnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10092781776565237320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-15701252776153905772011-04-02T09:38:00.001-05:002011-04-02T09:38:20.485-05:00The bus mantraAfter Simon and I rode the bus the other day he couldn't stop thinking about buses and he couldn't stop saying, "bus" over and over. So I came up with this bus mantra to help him get to sleep that night. After repeating it a couple hundred times I realized that it deals with the journey of life as well as any.<p>The bus stops.<br>The doors open.<br>People get off.<br>People get on.<br>The doors close.<br>The bus goes.<p>It also happens to be a practical guide to bus etiquette..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-11025900385882394222010-10-19T17:02:00.003-05:002010-10-24T23:36:55.452-05:00Tying Rocks to Clouds<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">by way of recommending this book, here are my answers to some of the author's questions...</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">if you want to read answers from the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Steven Levine and others... get the book!</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">On what main beliefs do you base your life?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">The unity of truth, a progressivist understanding of life, and the value of compassion, humor, and joy.</span></span><br /><span style="background- font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:transparent;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> </span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">Do you believe in a God or Ultimate Reality? What is it like?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">I have had many diverse relationships with the word and concept of God. I am at a point now where I am quite comfortable with much God language, however, I am still quite skeptical of any God language that seems to be a projection of human qualities onto God. I think our biggest mistake in thinking about God is that we forget the unknowability and begin to imagine God as one of us, as a person, or a being, or finite, or conceptualizable. Our second most powerful error when dealing with divinity is our confusion between metaphorical and literal truth. Before science, human language was rarely concerned with literal truth, but now it has become the most common kind and we have forgotten how to use metaphorical truth to grapple with issues beyond the binary nature of human cognition and language.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">In my current approach, I would say that God IS, but the concept of God is nearly irrelevant, since it is within ourselves where the struggle must take place.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">What is the purpose of life?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">The purpose of life appears to be propagation and growth, not growth in a confining sense of only increasing in size, it can also mean increasing in complexity or health or strength, it should be understood as the opposite of decay. When we observe living systems, from the small virus or single cell up to large ecosystems, this seems to be the underlying and unifying purpose behind their action. This is why I subscribe to the belief in a progressivist arc of the story of life in our universe.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">However, what is usually meant by this question is more personal. For me, I want to contribute to this arc that I perceive. I would like to work to make sure that humanity can continue to participate in this evolution, although at times it seems like we are acting in ways that are certain to result in an early exit from the process.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">What is the highest ideal that a human can reach?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">In short, I would say that the highest ideal is complete integration. To have a personality, a personhood, which is untroubled by cognitive, emotional, or spiritual dissonance. To attain this I believe that one must cultivate compassion, joy, honesty, transparency, and understanding (I suspect, in that order). One’s actions in this state become a clear expression of one’s values operationalized in the world.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">I believe that ‘in the world, but not of the world’ is a higher ideal than the monastic ideal, despite the fact that many of the sages whom I revere live(d) monastically.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">I believe that the Bodhisattva ideal is very high. I like the idea that one will not rest until every living thing realizes its Buddha nature.</span></span><br /><span style="background- font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:transparent;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">Why is there suffering? Evil?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">Suffering is one reaction to pain, it is not, however, the only possible reaction. Pain can be an excellent teacher. This is not to embrace the cult of ‘no pain, no gain’ or to subscribe to a strong version of the adversity hypothesis (the theory that human excellence can only arise from great pain/suffering/adversity), it is to say that when we encounter any kind of pain in life, it is a communication. If we receive this communication and are able to learn from it and also able to avoid serious deleterious effects, then we can actually be grateful for both the pain and the growth that has resulted, this is the opposite of suffering. As some amazing amputees and paraplegics demonstrate, it is possible to be grateful even if there are serious deleterious effects.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">This gets down to one of the key insights of Buddhism, in my opinion, the idea that suffering is very much in the mind of the person. The person chooses, usually not consciously, but chooses nonetheless, how to respond to any given situation. If this response is not in harmony with situation, then suffering will arise. For example, if a painful scenario results in growth because of the response, then suffering has been avoided, if however, as in the case of PTSD, the painful scenario retards the health of the person, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually, then that person will suffer. For me, this is the definition of suffering.</span></span><br /><span style="background- font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:transparent;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">Evil is another question altogether. Life forms propagate. In the case of human beings, we not only propagate new people, we propagate objects and language and culture etc. If we are in harmony, then we are all the time getting stronger and healthier and happier (not that we don’t have setbacks, but as a general trend), if we are on this path then we will propagate health in our social and material relationships, we can call this propagation of healthiness and happiness good. Evil is the converse. It is when we are stuck in suffering, when we are out of harmony, when we are all the time getting more and more insecure, weaker, and more unstable. When we are in this condition we propagate disease: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I think one good example of this was the cultural reaction after September 11. Those who had the best access to the media were, by and large, swept up in a negative fear reaction that created tremendous suffering. As a result, this fear propagated and infected almost the whole country. Even now, years later, we are so damaged by our own reaction to this event that we continue to spill fear-based bile into our public discourse and policy. This is very sad because it prevents people from healing and growing, it keeps them stuck in fear and disease. And if we take a step back for one moment we can see that it is not the magnitude of the killing or any other aspect of the attack that is at fault, it is our collective reaction that has created our suffering. </span></span><br /><span style="background- font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:transparent;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">What is important to you?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">My son, my wife. Being a good father and a good husband. Being a good boss and a good coworker. Being a good citizen and a good person. Living in such a way that my life is an expression of my values. Making things, not just stuff, but using my mind and my hands to solve my own problems instead of shopping for someone else’s answers. Getting happier and healthier and more wise as I get older. Being ready for a graceful and grateful exit when my time comes.</span></span><br /><span style="background- font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:transparent;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">What is the most important thing you've learned in life?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">So far? That you can’t do it all with your head. There are limits, serious limits, to cognition and language and knowledge, limits that our species will likely never overcome (certainly not in the foreseeable future). To me, this is the role of humility and the reason for religion, to get us to recognize that we can’t think our way to answers to the big questions. The closer we get the more language begins to fail us, the more we impoverish our aspirations by chaining them to concepts not befitting of their nature.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:#444444;"></span></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;">This is still a huge struggle for me, I have come to where I am mostly through intellectual pursuit, so it is easy for me to say ‘you can’t do it with your head’, but it is very hard for me to live it.</span></span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6222077225119861252.post-29275086838082145662010-10-16T18:07:00.000-05:002010-10-19T17:39:10.245-05:00I saw a gecko on the bathroom wall...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">My first thought was to kill it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">My second thought was to catch it without hurting it and put it out of the house.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">My third thought was to reflect on the way that 'uninvited guests' (insects, geckos, etc.) increase the speed with which man made objects (like houses) decay.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">My fourth thought was about the impermanance of all things and the silliness of being worried about how fast one thinks one's house might be decaying.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">My fifth thought was that when my first reaction to seeing a gecko on the wall in the bathroom is to feel grateful and joyful that such a beautiful little creature is sharing my home... then, I will be where I want to be.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">I wonder what the gecko thought?</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1