Advice to my Son

by J. Peter Meinke

The trick is, to live your days
as if each one may be your last
(for they go fast, and young men lose their lives
in strange and unimaginable ways)
but at the same time, plan long range
(for they go slow; if you survive
the shattered windshield and the bursting shell
you will arrive
at our approximation here below
of heaven or hell).

To be specific, between the peony and the rose
plant squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes;
beauty is nectar
and nectar, in the desert, saves –
but the stomach craves stronger sustenance
than the honied vine.
Therefore, marry a pretty girl
after seeing her mother;
show your soul to one man,
work with another;
and always serve bread with your wine.
But, son,
Always serve wine.

Via TheArtOfManliness

As the ruin falls

Written by C.S. Lewis

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you
I've never had a selfless thought since I was born
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through
I want God, you, all friends merely to serve my turn

Peace, reassurance, pleasure are the goals I seek
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin
I talk of love, a scholar's parrot may talk greek
but, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin

Only that now you have taught me, but how late my lack,
I see the chasm and everything you are was making my heart into a bridge,
by which I might get back from exile and grow man...
and now the bridge is breaking

For this I bless you as the ruin falls
the pains you give me are more precious than all other gains.

Check this blog out.

http://burnsidewriterscollective.blogspot.com/2009/07/spirit-in-material-world-which-way-is.html

I found this post by accident, but thought it provoked a good question and left a good challenge.

is Vegetarianism moral enough?

Being vegan is about as close as you can come to being sympathetic to animals save Jainism, which is ridiculous. My Uncle Rick has been a Vegan for over 20 years. I was working my granddads garden when he decided to come chat.

Now, uncle Rick doesn’t just chat. He is a 50-something granola, tie dye wearing, white (yellow?) bearded man with a braid of hair three quarters down his back. Once he talks to you, he gets right in your face and immediately delves into politics or some deep subject. The only time he lets up is a quick lean backwards before he launches towards you again. It seems almost like he’s reloading his thoughts.

After talking to him, I came to the conclusion that being a person who eats meat , but not animal by products, is more of a humanitarian than the one who just refuses meat. He grew up on a cattle farm. Here’s his line of thinking:

BEEF: On his farm, the beef cows lived a healthy normal life. One day they were killed by being tapped in the head with a machine. Didn’t feel a thing. Then their bodies are carved into meat for you and I to eat. But the life of the cows is almost better than the wild in that they're protected from wild animals, and from having jealous bulls and such.

DAIRY: Dairy cows are given hormones to increase their milk. The goal is to get the udders as close to the ground as you can without them touching. If they touch, they kill the cow immediately. In order for cows to have milk, they have to have a calf. The calf is taken away from the mother immediately after birth. But, in order for the mom to produce more milk, the calf is kept alive in a crate where the mother can hear it’s crying in order to keep the mother producing. After two months, the calf is sold for meat (veil) because it’s too weak to grow into anything else.

The dairy cows, because of hormones and such, are in a constant need to be milked and feel immense pain. The only thing more painful, however, is the milking process when done by machines. Their life is one of constant induced labor, cramps from having too much milk in their system, sores on the udders, and hearing their calves until they stop producing; then they are killed (Usually younger than the beef cows). Dairy cows live a shorter, more pain filled unnatural life than any beef cow ever would.

Howabout we come up with a new term. A Diadairian or something.

Now, with that being said, my uncle said he'd make an exception for drinking milk and eating cheese. If he knew the owners of the animals and knew how he treated them. For an example, he would drink the milk of a cow that someone took care of like their dog. But, if they were the type of people that would get rid of the cow as soon as it stopped producing, my uncle wouldn't drink the milk no matter how nice he was during it's life. He's not a blood uncle so I definitely didn't get my stubbornness from him (though he has some to spare).

As long as you eat it afterwards, are the actions permissable? Should we eat no meat, no dairy. Or, no meat with dairy. Should we eat only from farms which treat their animals well? should we, in our current state, eat less meat? How do we justify killing a breathing thing for food when it's unneccessary?Should we eat no meat, no dairy. Or, no meat with dairy. Should we eat only from farms which treat their animals well? should we, in our current state, eat less meat? How do we justify killing a breathing thing for food when it's unneccessary?

Side note: Though I've been a vegetarian for the two past years, I am currently not one right now. I am eating meat.

Political Correctness.

Front Page magazine quoted this from Theodore Dalrymple:

Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

David Berlinski once mentioned that great writers of the past--H.L. Mencken was the example used--wouldn't be great writers today because nearly everything they wrote wasn't Politically correct.

What is the real point of not offending people in the marketplace of ideas?

Is the [a]merican life worth living?

Then everything began to reel before my eyes, the fiery gust came from the sea, while the sky cracked in two, from end to end, and a great sheet of flame poured down through the rift. Every nerve in my body was a steel spring, and my grip closed on the revolver. The trigger gave, and the smooth underbelly of the butt jogged my palm. And so, with that crisp, whipcrack sound, it all began. I shook off my sweat and the clinging veil of light. I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I had been happy. But I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace. And each successive shot was another loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing.

-Meursault “The Stranger”

Just because you do what you want doesn't mean you're free. You can be a slave to your own will. (Italics mine)

-Michael Bauman

Albert Camus and other ‘Existential’ thinkers were incarnate oxymoron's. How could such serious thinkers propound a worldview which was driven by individual whims and not serious thinking? Most people live their lives as if ultimate meaning is defined simply by their actions. They do this without careful reflections; unlike Camus and other existentialist’—they’re consistent.

But what does this have to do with our culture? We [a]mericans would think it absurd of a criminal to admit to a murder in which he could give no real reason for doing it. A mere “I did it because I felt angry” or “I did it because I preferred to not do otherwise” doesn’t quite justify an action like murder. There must be a motive.

How could a murderer just kill someone out of a disconnected feeling? Could a person, imitating Meursault in Camus’ The Stranger, kill someone because he had a migraine caused by heat? Even if someone claimed to do so we'd suspect some ulterior motive; one must have reasons for actions. Whether they are subconscious or not, the reasons are there.

We live an unexamined life. We do things separate from rational. People will watch a movie, go to a party, or spend a large amount of money on some material thing. Yet, most people could not give a rational reason for any of those actions. Or, in choosing to start a serious relationship, if you ask what real attraction is (could it be more than mere feelings?)most cannot give a logical answer. But so what?

If it is absurd for a murderer to not have reasons for his actions, perhaps we need to reflect before we act. Albeit daily decisions aren’t as intrinsically negative as killing someone, we must also keep in mind a murder is the succession of innumerable choices made before it. In the same way, the unreflective things we do make us like children moving our hands toward a hot stove ignorant of the consequences.

I’m not supposing rationale take the place of emotions. In a lot of ways emotions distinguish humans from animals. Instinct is trumped as a firefighter goes into a burning building—which could be his crematorium—in order to save a complete stranger. However, these emotions could become the very animal instinct inside us if they are the main controllers. It must be balanced out with reason. Though reason alone would make us machines--reducing everything to a mere equation-- without it we are slaves to our appetite.

The purpose and the first post.

I do not know who will see this, or if anyone will ever see it. I am doing it to simply have a place to put thoughts that I can refer people to if ever need be. I do not think people will find anything here one hundred percent original, or even interesting. Perhaps I will use it merely to refer to when talking to someone and they ask me my thoughts on a particular issue.

I titled the Blog Hypocrisy vs. Consistency because I believe that is all of what life is. We have beliefs, and we are either living opposed to them or in accordance with them. If we lead hypocritical lives, then what we are saying is that our beliefs aren’t worth believing. If I write a thought that I do not live out myself, then it should not be taken seriously. Well, maybe it can be taken on its own, but I do not add to the credibility of it.

I also believe Life is about innovation. In his lecture about the urgency of reading the Bible as one story in the 21^st century, Michael W. Goheen talks about our lives being like Shakespearean actors using innovation the last act of a grand play. He says God has written the script for the first four acts, and has told us the end, and we are supposed to innovate to bring about that ending the best we can.

Innovation and consistency: this captures what it means to live in act five. Consistency means that our lives will be shaped by the substance and trajectory of the story of Israel, Jesus, and the early church. We pore over and immerse ourselves in those earlier acts to understand them well so we may live in consistency with its essential narrative impetus. Yet with innovation: faithfulness means living creatively and imaginatively in a new redemptive-historical era and in new cultural and historical situations into which God leads us.

Goheen goes on to later note that our lives are like a movie preview for our life hereafter:

A movie trailer gives actual footage of the movie that is coming in the future so that people will want to watch it. The people of God are a kingdom preview. We embody the salvation of the kingdom which is coming in the future so that people will see it and want it. That is what the witness is all about. Our lives, deeds, and words witness to the kingdom’s presence and its future consummation. A biblical witness is a witness to God’s rule over all of human life.

Is Goheen correct?