Getting Outside To Get Outside Of My Head

 

There remain days where I quietly despair of anything like a "normal" life, or at least normality as I remember it.

There is a certain underground current that is affecting everything - yes, one could say it is the recent elections (a subject I never touch on here) or the economy (something I occasionally touch on here) or just the general mood of society.  It is not quite the "Age of Rage" that I think on so often, but something that seems much more low key than that.

Everyone - and everything - seems on edge.

I feel it at work, where there is always a sense of being on the edge of the next thing we have to deal with - and from that, I feel it when I go into so many conversations now, almost with the expectation that people will combative over things that matter not at all in the grand scope of things. Add to that the pressure of sensing that things are not all "right" with the corporate world, and it becomes something of a pressure cooker.  And people's tempers are fraying.

I feel it in other places as well, where there is the most fragile of peaces which seems to permeate every element of dealing with anyone.

I find that - at least socially - I am definitely shutting down.

I engage less and less on line.  I continue to slowly scrub my online presence to the extent I can; I doubt I go to more than 10 different sites anymore and most of those are blogs.  So much of what is out there now is less information and more opinion of various shades, meant to do anything but convey data.

I engage less and less in person.  Part of that is I am pretty busy at the moment with iai, school, physical training, study, curling and (sadly) work.  But even then, there is less and less engagement in general in person; a series of short memes or texts seems to be the equivalent of conversations.

In so many ways, I seem to be pulling into a shell or bubble with clearly defined points of contact, which continue to dwindle.

All of this presses on me now, almost from the time I get up until the time I go to bed.

And yet...

And yet, the sun still rises every morning (although in New Home 2.0, maybe I do not always see it).  The leaves have almost finished their course of Autumn color, but they will back again in Spring, along with the bursting forth of flowers wild and domestic.  The world - the real world, not the world I can get caught up in - is out there.

Sometimes it takes me getting outside to get out of my head.

A Year Of Haiku (XLII): Carpet

 

Dying Autumn Leaves

lie waiting under streetlights

for the morning dawn.

Armistice Day 2026

  In Flanders Fields

 In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks still bravely singing fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved: and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe

To you, from failing hands, we throw

The torch: be yours to hold it high

If ye break faith with us who die,

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Lt. Colonel John McCrae 03 May 1915

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Coconut Island Lunch And Mekong River (II)

Our visit to Coconut Island ended with a lunch.

Fish, anyone? 

I have no idea what the actual fish was, other than delicious.

Some very, very large shrimp:

Durien fruit, considered one of the least delightful smelling fruits.  It was not quite as terrible as advertised, but not something I would actively seek out again.

Cutting through the outer skin:

Cruising back:

A Buddhist temple:

As a child, I remember the story of the duckling that lived on the ship with eyes.  Turns out they still exist!

Reading The Word Out Loud

 About a month ago I started doing my morning Bible readings audibly.

I have read the Bible daily for most of my adult life; some years ago - maybe 20, maybe more - I found a version of "Read through the Bible in a year" programs (in my case, in the MacArthur Bible).  The schedule has been very helpful in that it ensures that I read every part of the Bible, just not the ones that I like or prefer (if we are truly honest as Christians, books like Leviticus and Numbers can be tough sledding).  And it has ensured that, like it or not, I get "the full Word of God" for over 20 years.

What it does not guarantee, however is that I really pay attention to it.

Part of that is simply a problem with the the way I read: as I quick reader, I tend to scan portions of text rather than fully read them, especially with text that I have read before in the past.  It means I can get through things pretty quickly but it also means that I do not always "get" what I am reading.

  ---

Reading the Holy Scriptures is, for some reason that I recall, something of a modern invention.  I have no idea why I recall this, but I have a strong memory of reading that at one time Scripture was almost always read out loud and slowly.  Part of this, I would suspect, was due to the fact that not everyone read and thus a reader was not just reading for themselves, but for others.  Another aspect may have been the language itself:  there is a suggestion that texts in Old English, for example, almost had to be read slowly given the structure of the language itself.

It was so unusual that Augustine of Hippo commented that Ambrose of Milan, his teacher and mentor, read the Scriptures silently.

---

I am not sure why I decided to try this particular exercise.  Maybe it was created by the readings I have done over the previous months on the Orthodox church by Kallistos Ware and Frederica Mathewes-Green. Maybe it was thinking of the monasteries we visited in Greece, where the reading of Scripture at meal times can be a practice.

Maybe I was just bored.  No matter how it started, I started reading out loud.  

By "out loud" I do not necessarily mean declaiming at the top of my lungs; that is both noisy in the early morning and can be distracting if anyone is about.  It can be in an audible voice or even a whisper.  But it is at some level audible, and it reading every word.

What a difference it has made.

It might not have been the best place in Scripture to start of course:  I was in the latter half of Isiah and am now in Jeremiah and have now spent weeks re-reading about the judgement of God on Israel and Jerusalem.  I guess one could say the "palate cleanser" are the epistles of Paul, but even in those there exist warnings that might escape the eye that reads more quickly.

What do I find?  The words sink in more deeply.  It becomes more of a narrative, rather than something I breeze through in short order.  And gives me something to think about after I am finished.

Does it take a little longer in the morning? Certainly - and I have had to make cuts in other morning activities to make it work.  But are the results worth it.  Absolutely.

Once again, the ancients knew something that we have forgotten:  reading out loud makes a world of difference.

An Year Of Kindness (XLII): Kindness As Filter

(Source)

One thing I find myself challenged by more and more every year is simply how the world is.

I have written at a little length on the concept that we are living in The Age Of Rage, where so many seem so angry so often.  More astute writers than I have noted the fact that we have moved beyond the world of living together in disagreement into the world of purity of belief (or else).  This infects almost every corner of our society now, on every side.

Those who are hurt, hurt others - by words (hopefully) or by other means (hopefully much less often) because this is the only way they know to react.

All of us are a recipient of this: We have all been hurt. For me at least, I can both confidently and shamefully say I have hurt in turn.  I would like to believe me doing so is unconscious or by accident, but I have to be just as honest to say that it is sometimes by choice.

The challenge - for me, more and more - is to react in the same way that I have been acted on.

Have I faced significant issues like physical abuse or other worse things?  No.  Have I suffered the words of anger and slights of presence and even passive aggression of those who have no thought about such things?  I have.

The concepts of "Break the Chain" or "Break the Cycle" are what some use here, and maybe those words work for some.  Not quite for me: like a lot of things, those concepts are used to for specific items which serve other purposes and not on a more general level:  We can and should "Break the Cycle" of any number of things.  Suggesting someone "Break the Cycle" of unkindness would likely leave some sputtering and suggesting we do not take serious things seriously.

But all such things are serious.

At least for me, I simply need to stop allowing myself to treat others the way I have been treated at times by others (saying "The World" removes responsibility:  people treat us wrongly or poorly, not animals, plants, or the elements).

Perhaps, if I think about it,  it is not so much "Breaking the Cycle" as it is diffusing it, allowing it to pass through us and cleansed like sand and charcoal filtering water, removing impurities and only allowing clean water to pass through.

When I choose to practice kindness - when I choose the give other than what I have gotten - I demonstrate that there is a better way, that we are not solely driven by how others treat us.  It may not change them of course, but perhaps it is not fully about them.   In the end we stand by ourselves before God, not with others.

Filter the water of human indifference, rage, and ignorance.  Practice kindness.

"Peak Fall Season"

Last week was billed as "Peak Fall Season" for our local Japanese garden - and it did not disappoint.

Bonsai.  I have never seen them shed leaves - or grow berries!

The garden was simply marvelous.  I have not had a bad season of viewing here.  It speaks to the power of a well put together, properly designed Japanese garden that there is something of beauty every season of the year.