True, Necessary, Kind

 
"Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates:

At the first gate ask yourself, 'Is it true?'

At the second gate ask, 'Is it necessary?'

At the third gate ask, 'Is it kind?'"

- Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi

One of the rather unworthy and un-Christian habits that I struggle with and have struggled with over the years is the smart comment.

This is probably an outcome of a number of factors in my life. One is the fact that I am, by all accounts (including my own), a pleaser of people; I desperately, desperately want people to like me (even now, in my late 50's.  Go figure.).  The second, tied to the first, is that I find my ability to please largely based in humor:  I can turn a phrase or make a joke out of almost anything like nobody's business.  

This becomes problematic, of course, when one engages one's mouth without engaging one's brain.  I used to be awful at this; now I am tolerantly bad at it.  It is an improvement, but not much of one.

Most of the time - most of it mind you - I can manage to think about what I am going to say before I say it.  That said, sometimes my nature to turn a phrase and get the immediate laugh overpowers my need to shut my mouth and let the moment pass.

I should know better, of course.  I severely damaged one friendship with such behavior in 2014, almost to the point of breaking it.  And the number of times that comments have rung hollow in my ears after I made them is too numerous to count.   In my case, less is probably more.

I have heard the above phrase before (but never knew it was from the Poet Rumi, whose tomb in Konya we will visit in a few weeks).  But it was certainly enough to see them in their full quote.

It strikes me that this sort of metric - true, necessary, kind - is precisely the sort of thing we have lost in our modern society.  Truth has become a matter of debate; necessary is "necessary to me to be able to speak my mind"; kindness is something for which people like quotes on Instapic and The Book of Face but too often seldom put into practice.

If I "struggle" with the three items, it is most often with necessary.  Truth I can (generally) get right (I am often accurate, if not precise), and I am enough of my mother's son to know how to be kind.  But necessary?  In writing "necessary to me to be able to speak my mind" I condemn myself:  so much of what I say, especially the parts that get laughs and in theory make me more likeable, are hardly "necessary" to most discussions.

It makes me wonder:  What would it be like if I tried to apply these principles for a day?  For a week?  Could I last as long as week?

What if everything I said - if everything everyone said - was true, necessary, and king?  What kind of world would that be?  

Probably a lot quieter, I would guess. And hopefully, a lot nicer.

A Staged Relocation

 As we continue to march towards a date both of semi-separation for The Ravishing Mrs. TB and her job as well as the plan to get things up here, one forgets how much one gets bogged down in the details.

She was undecided whether to transport her car or to drive.  She has made the decision to drive, as there are some things that could not fly (and you cannot transport a car with anything in it).  It will easily be a four to five day drive, although hopefully she will not have to rush to get here.

That still leaves a number of things in the house and garage, most of which will have to be moved into a storage facility or donated away on local buy nothing groups (amazing how much one can accumulate in 30 plus years of marriage).  I will likely give things a once-over for one last time when I visit for Christmas.  Hopefully a lot of it will go, but some of it will stay.  Which will then, most likely require the services of a storage locker.

That is one of the unanticipated outcomes of this method of moving that we have arrived at, stretched out across multiple locations and multiples states. We have stuff at The Ranch, stuff in New Home, and stuff in New Home 2.0.

I am beginning to feel a bit like a multi-national corporation with locations.

What all of this means, of course, is that even after she has relocated, we have not really "relocated".  On one hand that is okay - after all, we live in a space much smaller than what we used to live in and thus we cannot have everything here.  At the same time, it does mean that at some point, there will be at least one long trip from New Home to bring things up (I say one; any furniture is likely beyond ability or willingness to move at this point, let alone in a truck half way across the U.S.).

Relocation in stages is not something I had specifically planned for.  I am of course grateful that the lion's share was taken care of for us.  It does not mean I enjoy the remaining hyena's share one bit.

The Collapse CLXIX: Branches

26 September 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Today I took a walk up the road that leads to the North.

I have not been up this road in at least three months, not since I rode in a truck over the hill towards McAdams. For walking up the road it has been even longer.

It is a funny thing, heading out now. Beyond just the things that I would have always brought – my wallet, perhaps a pocket knife – I now sport other things: a much larger knife on my belt on one side and a holster on the other, a backpack that has the makings of fire and bandages and a small snack, and a foldable saw, a water bottle stuffed into the side. I recently I have taken to carrying a small coil of rope around to make a bundle of any and all wood that I can find.

The road itself looks as it always had; one could scarcely tell that the civilization went on pause a year ago, except for the fact that the weeds which would normally have been cut down have reached full grown now. Brown and dry, they chatter in the Autumn wind. 

 We were fortunate not to have any fire this year. The fact that we could haunts me, one of the things I cannot truly prevent except to work to cut down the weeds in a defensible space all around The Cabin. It seems like senseless work at times, this cutting of vegetation that is neither for food nor fuel. Still, senseless work is not always the same thing as useless work.

I pass one of the outlying houses as I am on my way. A small herd of cattle is in one of the fields nearby so the house has to be inhabited, but I am far enough away that I cannot make out any sign that it is. I presume, given the presence of cattle, that someone is watching me even if I cannot see them; I raise my hand in greeting to my unknown watcher. If they see me, there is no sign back.

The seasonal campgrounds where I did my laundry for years on on my left. Beyond our flow of refugees last year, there has been no-one that used the space: without electricity there is no heating things like trailers or RVs or tents, and without heat no-one stays here in Winter. The paint is a little faded – it was in a decline even in the last few years as our town became a place to drive through, not to stay – but surprisingly to me, the windows appear to all be intact. To my mind I cannot recall whether there is anything left inside the office/store, or even if the last owners that were there had simply left last year and not come back. I make a note in my mind to ask Young Xerxes about it upon my return; the supplies would be welcome and to be frank, I eye the wood of picnic tables and benches that are weathered but likely would burn right fairly.

Past the campground I pick up at the local creek with the eponymous trees lining its banks. The creeks, rivers, streams, and rills always seem to run here – a handy thing in that for all that we have endured in the last year and a bit, the loss of water has not been one of those issues (to be fair, it was one reason I chose this location). Trees have more or less lined the way here periodically, but these trees are far enough away that later in Winter they will not be as readily accessible; better to get the wood now.

Carefully picking my way through a sagging fence of rusty-red wire, I start my search. Within in a few minutes, I find two or three branches I can cut and carry back with me; pulling out my saw, I get to work.

Ideally I would have an ax to do this, as sharpening saw teeth is a bit beyond my skill level – but given that I have no transportation other than my legs, anything that cannot be bundled and carried on a back or shoulder simply becomes unachievable. I can shoulder a small bundle of branches; I can only carry a very few logs.

The branches make a raspy cutting sound as I saw them, a combination of wood and sawdust and metal that I remember from when I had to trim tree branches back in the days when I had a very different life and was perched up on a ladder. It is odd to me that it seems like a different life entirely.

As I cut and remember, it brings to mind my children. I wonder where they are in all of this. Are they safe? Are they somewhere they are protected? It is all beyond my ability to change at this point; those choices were made long before this day. Still, I worry.

I speak to Pompeia Paulina about them sometimes. She always listens attentively and says the kindest and most positive things. Part of me wishes that they could meet her and vice versa. Part of me wonders about the wisdom of that: the last conversations we had were what could only be called contentious, although I wonder that given the world that we all now seem to live in, if those things would even be worthy to consider being talked about.

The stillness between finishing with each branch is almost breathtaking. One of the greatest differences I find in our changed world is how much silence there truly is. Man-made noise – the roar of autos or the drone of mowers and weed eaters and the sounds of music – are discordant in this world; it immediately draws attention to itself in a way that is both intrusive and dangerous. One begins to understand while natural world is so often filled with silence: noise is deadly and potentially life ending.

Finishing my cuts, I carefully wipe down the saw with a rag in the bag to remove all the sawdust, then fold it gently and replace it in my backpack. Like so many things now it is effectively irreplaceable – or even if it could be replaced, what would I offer for it? Laying the cut branches into a stack, I tie my cord around them, making a bundle I can sling over my shoulder. Repacking my pack, I hoist it and the branches up and make my way back to the road.

The dead grasses crunch as I make my way back to the road, where they transition to a short crunch of gravel before they hit the less yielding ground of pavement. Overhead I hear the chanting of flocks of birds, heading to their Winter quarters. I wonder if they realize that for the first time in almost 200 years, likely they can fly most or all of the way there without seeing a single human or hearing the below of a single rifle or shotgun.

The trip back is as silent as the trip out. As I pass the cattle, I see a figure now standing by the tree. They wave at me; I wave back. People waved here before any of this started on the roads as one would drive by; the fact that they still do it is a bit heartening.

Hitting the gravel road that leads home, my feet start crunching again. The creek in front of the house burbles as it runs by, an occasional “plop” suggesting a fish that is after the encroaching insect population. I have tried to manage my fishing here, reserving it for when things are truly desperate and I need a food source outdoor.

A thin trail of smoke leaks from the chimney, dissipating into the breeze as I turn into the lot The Cabin sits on. This remains the one thing I worry about in terms of the appearance of habitation and for which I do not have a good solution yet; perhaps I can bank the fire lower and still generate some heat.

I am hopeful that something exciting is on the menu, but in my heart I know it likely be the same selection of things that we have had for the last few months. I am grateful for it of course, even as I am grateful for the company that will serve it and eat it with me.

It is the small things that we must look to, Lucilius, for joy in these times.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca 

2024 Turkey: Hierapolis (IV)

 Like many of the other ruins we visited, Hierapolis had a museum with various stonework and statues recovered during the excavations.

Leaving the museum, we walked as travelers would have along the main road towards the exit of the city.

Stoa, those markets and stalls we have come see in numerous other places.

Another Latrine:

The Frontinus Gate, dating from the 1st Century A.D.

The Roman Baths:

Unlike modern graveyards, ancient graveyards were put at the entrances to cities.  Partially, of course, this helped reserve living space for living space.  It also gave rise to the fact that one could advertise the glories of one's life in one's tomb as visitors entered the city, as well as to give those in the afterlife visibility to the physical world.  The Necropolis of Hierapolis has over 15,000 tombs.

2024 Turkey: Hierapolis (III), The Martyrion of Phililp

 Church history associates the Apostle Philip with Hierapolis.

You might not remember Philip so much; he is one of the "not in the inner circle" apostles.  He does come up from time to time though, mostly in the Gospel of John.  He is the one that asks Christ how they will feed the 5,000.  He is the one that the Greek speakers came to in order to meet Christ (along with his name, likely suggesting he spoke Greek as well as Aramaic).  He is the one at the last Supper that asks Christ to show them the Father.

Church tradition holds that he preached in Galilee, Greece, Parthia, and finally in the Roman province of Asia in Phyrigia, where he last settled in Hierapolis. He was martyred - traditionally by being crucified upside down, but beheading is also not out of the question - on or about A.D. 80.

Around A.D. 2011, a site that had been long associated with him was determined to be the original resting place of his relics (which were transported long ago to Rome).

The church, a martyrion (or martyrium), is simply a church built over the tomb of the martyr.  It is located outside the city walls - not surprising, as few citizens were buried within the city walls.

The hike itself from Hierapolis proper was pleasant enough, a gentle rise that gets one a view over the whole valley.

The church itself was only excavated in A.D. 2011.  It had three naves and two pools for healing purposes.

Looking back down over the valley.  The bridge marks where the city walls would have run to.

The pillars mark the area where the altar was.

The tomb of Philip the Apostle.

Inside the tomb.

Originally the church was part of a temple complex dedicated to Philip.  During the excavations in 2011, they found a carving of a man (Philip) holding bread, a reminder of his question to Christ.