The Collapse XX: Last Shopping Day

01 August 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

My pardon for the lateness of this missive – you will find by the time stamp of this e-mail is late. But today was a day worth speaking to you about now, in the event that there is anything else that you need do as well.

I left early for my monthly shopping trip a little earlier in the month than I typical do, based on last month's experience – my standard Big Box store opens at 0830 and I endeavor to be there as close to the opening time as possible. The only compensation as I leave this early is that the sky goes through all the transitions of the morning as I am on my way. I arrived on time – early enough, in fact, to start with my fuel purchases – only to find men and women with guns there.

The parking lot was already almost full – not just with the cars of shoppers but with the trucks and vehicles of what I assume was the National Guard, escorting traffic, directing people.

I pulled into a line where I waited until I pulled up to a young man, who requested my “Government Issued ID” and my card, both of which he ran through scanner, then returned them with a perfunctory “Thanks” and motioned me on, where I was directed into a parking place and then again directed to what a growing line along the side of the building, pegged out by cones and the occasional soldier – with a gun.

The mood of the line as I got into it was frightened, more than anything else. The conversations were hushed, falling away as the men and women in uniform walked up and down the line. We stood there for twenty minutes or more, watching the parking lot slowly fill up and the line increase.

Finally, the doors on the main entrance rolled up. The crowd started to surge – only to be pushed back by the soldiers. The line then very slowly started moving – by the time I got up to the front I could see why: again, present your ID and your card to a Big Box employee who ran it through the computer while soldiers paced up and down the back. Card and ID handed back, I was informed that I had thirty minutes to shop, starting now. My spending limit was $150, based on the fact that (according to the database) I was a single older man.

Go.

As before, the signs were in place on virtually every item for quantities of purchase– although to my mind, they were even more restrictive than the last time I was here. Most things were only an “each” purchase, which in my case made it a little more difficult than usual to reach my “quota.”

The shopping crowd was frenzied – and quiet. Employees stood quietly to the side while more soldiers stood at almost every other intersection, scanning the crowd. There was no conversation except for muttered voices and the occasional apology when carts collided.

What did I buy? Vitamins and Fish Oil A 25 lb bag of rice. A 10 lb box of Oatmeal. A bag of craisins. Toothpaste. Dental Floss. Toilet paper (definitely one each there). And perhaps against my better judgment, a bag of coffee beans – because even if this was the end, I intended to go out with coffee in hand.

The food court, my last usual stop, was closed – I suppose to help enforce the thirty minute time frame. Oddly enough, this is what saddened me the most and perhaps more than anything else, brought the entire alarming nature of the situation to reality – not only because of the tradition, but because of the fact that I had many happy family memories, once upon a time, of going out for hot dogs and pizza as a “big deal” dinner. Those, like so many other things, were suddenly gone.

The line in front of the store was even longer when I left.

Securing fuel was a similar exercise which I will not bore you with: Long lines, ID checks, limited purchase amounts (I managed to fill up my truck but again, no fuel cans).

And suddenly it hit me: This might be the last time ever I came to a city of this size for a very long time.

I found an ATM for my banking consortium. Posed in a handmade sign above the ATM and next to the entrance was sign that withdrawals were limited that day. $200. I was early enough for not a long line, but I still had to wait.

With cash in hand, I went through the thought exercise I had often done many times: What would I buy if I only had one more trip into town? Now, I had to work that exercise out.

The first grocery store I was able to locate, I bought fruit: apples, strawberries, blueberries, anything I could dehydrate. More toothpaste and more dental floss, more vitamins and fish oil. More toilet paper. Dried beans. And two gallons of milk – this might very well be my last cheese making activity.

Down under my driver's seat is my emergency cash for trips. I dug into that and kept going.

Next stop, a feed store. Two bags of pellets for the rabbits, poultry feed for the quail, wood pellets for litter, and whatever hay I could buy. You could tell that there was something up by those that were sensitive to such things (and shopped at these types of stores): seeds, animal feed, tools – all were in short supply.

At this point you may wonder that I have not mentioned anyone else around me. In part that is simply because at this point in the program I was very focused on making sure that I accomplished everything I needed to. But yes, there were many people out in force. The first grocery store I stopped in was not bad, but the second one was a whirlwind of people and purchases and empty shelves. I walked out.

The sporting goods store was a sea of flashing law enforcement lights and people out in front – I debated going in but it simply looked too complex to try to do so – and frankly, with a truck cab full of items I was beginning to become a bit nervous about leaving it for too long. A note to myself to try a store in a smaller town in the next few days.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the oil change I stopped for took no time at all – the lines were virtually non-extant. And at 5,000 miles between changes, it might be a very long time before I needed another one.

My last stop – you will mock me – was the used book store. They were only accepting cash at this point, so my options were limited. They had all the works of Dostoevsky in those cheap paperback Penguin versions. I bought them all.

One more stop at a second fuel station farther out of town that was still accepting cards (with limits on amounts spent) to fill up the truck again and the other fuel can. And in a splurge to myself – perhaps the last one – I stopped at my favorite Chicken restaurant and ordered my favorite chicken sandwich, with the fries and the sweet tea.

The drive home was surreal. Listening to the radio as I drove into the sunset – it had literally taken all day to accomplish this – the voices droned on about some kind of economic crisis, fuel shortage, a possible “banking holiday” based on economic disruptions and national debt. The very sorts of things I gave up thinking about and listening to years ago because I believed I knew where we were headed.

History does not always repeat, but it can rhyme.

The one major town I pass through on my way home was already largely closed when I drove through, although the parking on the main little street was a full as it ever was. The night was still warm when I opened the window. You would hardly have known the day was unlike any other I have seen in all my years.

Arriving home, I did something which was atypical for me in all my years: almost to dark, I knocked on my neighbors door and let them know my experiences. Thankfully I had met them not a month before so they at least remembered me; they thanked me and said they would themselves make a trip tomorrow and spread the word.

And then to home. Everything was unpacked and placed into its storage. Rabbits and quail were looked after (the rabbits received an extra treat for their patience for the day). The dehydrator came out and I sliced all the fruit I had purchased. The milk for the cheese would have to wait for tomorrow.

But I was not yet done.

On to the InterWeb. I checked the balance of my bank account, then went on line and did another round of ordering: Seeds, a few more books, ammunition. On the one hand it drove my thrifty heart mad to spend the funds; on the other, I would rather try now and fail than lose the money without even making the attempt.

And finally, my letter to you.

As I write this, the refrigerator hums on and off. The rabbits quietly eat or lie down, a little confused by this late night light but not unduly disturbed by it. The cup of tea to my right steams and curls, smelling of far off fragrances that I am suddenly questioning if I will ever taste - or even hear of – again.

For all appearances, it is another ordinary (although rather late) night.

But for me, Lucilius, my world has changed. The new range of my travels has become 25 miles or so, which will easily get me to the two next largest towns. That is a 50 mile round trip. I can do the math and figure out how much fuel that will mean and how many trips that is. Before long, that will change to 20 miles round trip – about as far as the Roman legions considered a good march in a day.

My personal horizons collapsed years ago, Lucilius. Now I find that the world's horizons are collapsing as well.

Do what you can now, friend. I will write as long as power and InterWeb exists.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

Prisoners and Architects

Truly Preaching About Sin

The current vogue of the American church, if you follow such things as social media, are such things as "Social Justice", which is now becoming a pillar of something called "New Christian Politics".  I have certainly commented on such things before - as have others, far more eloquently than myself.  The great - and very self-satisfying thing - to most people is the fact that the such things are confined sins, impacting only a portion of the populations.  Those who are not impacted by such things can sit smugly in their chairs or pews, feeling the message is always for others, never themselves.  Add it off with a dollop of worship and prayer, and they go off on their way happy with the fact they attended church and God "spoke" through the preacher to the worldly situations around them.

If Christ came only to save us from social injustice or bad politics, He is merely another human teacher mired in the human experience.  But if in fact Christ came to save us from our individual sin, it is perhaps worthwhile to examine the sins which He actually came to save us from.

If I really look inside at myself (always the most accessible of sinners I am acquainted with), what I find undergirding my every sin is selfishness.  I am selfish in the truest sense of the word: I seek to make the world about myself, to put myself in the throne of my life.  This does not just impact how I view people different from myself or of a different economic class than myself but even the parts of things I do for myself: how I eat, what I watch, how I act in everyday situations, how I treat my body and my mind.   Every moment of every day, I have a choice in every situation:  choose myself, or choose God's word about the situation.

I have written about it before, but I would pay good money to see the reaction of a congregation to a sermon on gluttony, for example (the idea of our bodies being the temple of the Holy Spirit extends not only to sexual desires but to all aspects of the physical experience).  Or a sermon on the feeding of our minds with wholesome things ("Do you watch current media, brothers and sisters?  When there is uncalled for language or sexual overtones, do you turn away or just regard it as a reflection of the culture around you - no big deal?")?    And any sermon on lust which challenges just not our thoughts (which is, typically, directed at men) but everything we do as a people to enable and support that culture ("What movies are you watching?  What books are you reading?  Why are you supporting this?")? 

More and more churches will not do this, I suspect, because they have become so intertwined with the culture that rather than become lights shining out to the culture they have merely become mirrors reflecting it.  And it will challenge all the congregation in all manners of sin, not just in the ones that they feel comfortable applies "to other people."  And most importantly - and thus perhaps, most dangerously - it will constantly remind people not that they are good or justified but rather that they are all sinners in need of a Savior, without which there is only one outcome.

That, friends, is the good news of the Gospel - not that Jesus came to fix our social and political systems (although that is an outcome) but rather than Jesus came to save us from our sins, from Hell and eternal separation from God.  That is the good news that really changes lives - but it only comes when the Church is willing to treat the totality of sin for what it truly is, not for what we think it should be.

Artifacthood

Last week on the comments for Reality Breaks Into Fantasy, Glen had one of those remarks that the longer you pondered it, the more profound it became:

"Perhaps we are much the same to the pozzed, the woke and the enlightenment...we are dangerous artifacts being pushed to act in dangerous ways by matters of conscience?"

It got me to thinking about the nature of being an artifact.

The phrase "Things were different back in my day" is probably the most overused phrase in the history of mankind, followed only by various versions of "Publius, hold my wine cup...".  The older generation has been commenting on the seemingly different lifestyle of the younger generation for at least 3,000 years, maybe longer. 

But occasionally changes happen to a society, changes so dramatic that the before and after are breathtaking in their scope and breadth.  They literally create a new society, leaving those that exist and refuse to change artifacts of another way of living, coelecanths swimming in a new ocean.

In the reign of Tiberius, there were still a few men whose memory went back to the Roman Republic, to a time when men voted for those that ruled over them rather than serving under the Principate.  Or Scottish Highlanders of the 1780s and 1790s who still remembered the time of the clans. Or samurai after 1877 who lived on into the twentieth century, warrior relics of a different era.

These men and women undoubtedly seemed out of step with the "modern" times in which they were thrust, especially if they failed in some form or fashion to adjust.  For the most part they were never considered as serious threats, at least in modern times (In Rome, of course, the Principate was always looking for the slightest reason to remove potential threats), but rather as oddities - perhaps undesirable or weird, certainly no-one to be considered in the modern era as a "model" of the new society.

But an odd thing happened in every one of the examples I have given:  over the course of history it is those who were superceded - the Roman Republicans, the Highlanders, the Samurai - who are seen as models or admirable while the societies around them - the Roman Empire, the British Empire, the Meiji Democracy - eventually fall from interest or regard.

Why is this?  I do not fully know, of course, but I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that those who persevered in the ways they were taught as youth were ultimately seen as standing for something while those who adapted were seen as simply one long line of "yes" men, the sorts that line history in greys and blurs and fall away into obscurity.

Dennis Hempson (1695-1807) was the last of the great Irish Harpers.  Blind and playing a metal strung harp with his fingernails in the old Irish style, he was a relic in a modern age of gut strung harps and continental music.  At the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792 he was by far the oldest harpist in attendance and played in a style unlike any of the others.  When asked about why he played certain songs in certain ways, he simply responded "This is the way that I learned it" or "I cannot play it in any other way." 

Like Hempson, may we persist in our artifacthood, if for no other reason to give witness to a different time in hopes that in the future, some of what we believed and stood for maybe remembered as worthy of emulation instead of fading to grey.

Let Us Adore

"Let us adore the Lord,

Maker of marvelous works,

Bright heaven with its angels,

And on earth the white-waved sea."

- Ninth Century Irish, Celtic Devotions, Calvin Miller

A Few Words From...Oe Masamichi

"When Uno Mataji asked his teacher Oe Masamichi (17th Headmaster, Muso Jikiden Eishin-Ryu) about the reason why he only taught  iaijutsu and not kendo to Yamauchi Toyotake (18th Headmaster, Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu, first branch head of Yamauchi-ha), he answered by saying it is not proper to strike a lord with a bamboo stick." - Muso Jikiden Eishin-Ryu:  The Iai Forms and Oral Traditions of the Yamauchi Branch, Yamakoshi Masaki

Far Greater

The Collapse XIX: Family

29 July 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

I did not expect a response from you so soon.

The Postal Service has been cut down in your area as well? I recall you had a post office box, the same one you have had for well over 50 years. I am sure it is a pain at this point at all to go down there, perhaps much less of a pain now that your cause to go there is not as frequent.

We are, if you can believe it, almost at the end of July. I have about two months left of growing season – well, it could be as short as one (it has been, years past). I have started the process of cleaning out and freshening up the greenhouse for the inevitable return of winter.

Canning and drying continues apace. My canning skills are meager and I limit myself to what I know I can safely do: peppers, okra, tomatoes. I have had acquaintances that canned everything under the sun they grew in the garden. My skills – and my risk tolerance – are much less. I dehydrate far more than I will ever try to can.

My monthly trip to the Big Box store will be in three days. I worry that the constraints that were in place for purchasing last time will be there this time as well; I intend to fill the truck up with as much as I can on my way home.

You had asked me about my family.

It is overall a sad tale, one that I had not fully anticipated some 30 years ago.

My children are different than I. I cannot fully tell you why – yes, they are “good” in the sense that they are productive members of society, passionate about doing good, intelligent. But we hold very very different positions about a great number of things political and religious and economic. I sometimes look back and ask myself where the difference occurred. We raised them as we ourselves were raised: involved in school, involved in church, involved in some level of community activity.

Somewhere around high school for each of them, we stopped discussing things like politics and religion. You can argue that I was stubborn and should have learned to manage my temper better – which may in fact be true (I can get rather passionate about something that matters to me) – but I could not merely sit back and listen to proposals and arguments being made from a position of a lack of practical experience. And so, to preserve the peace, we simply removed all such things from the table for discussion by unspoken fiat and reserved our conversations to polite topics about generic things – I growing farther and farther apart from current events and modern culture and they growing farther and farther apart from my interests.

My wife somehow managed to keep communications and events together, at least for holidays and special occasions. Even as they moved away – and seldom returned home – she still bravely informed them about us and me and about them.

This all changed, of course, with my wife's passing.

The period right after the funeral was at the same time the hardest and the easiest it had been for years for us to communicate, lost in a common grief and the inevitable reviews of all things that she had owned or created. Perhaps preemptively and unconsciously they took items which had personal significance to them: scrapbooks, old pictures, bits and pieces that had belonged to my wife or sentimental items which had no intrinsic value to me.

After that, things essentially drifted apart. Perhaps you could argue by common agreement, perhaps by a decided choice that it was better to preserve what memories we had rather than to risk spoiling them with comments we could not erase in our minds. And my decision to relocate, while not directly contributing to the state of affairs, certainly did nothing to improve them. And once I had moved, even coming to see me became much less convenient – and in turn, I was never really “invited” out to visit them.

And then, Christmas two years gone, no follow up at all.  Whatever truce had been in effect was over. I had passed beyond the realm of knowledge.

I had little enough other family at that point: my parents and in-laws had passed away long ago, my one and only sister and her family lost in the twice annual visits to our family home which became single visits and then none, my aunts and uncles disappeared and my cousins scattered and not communicative (we were never writers). And although I thought I had prepared myself for it, the final cut off of communication was much more painful than I had anticipated. I was, effectively, alone.

I have compensated as I could, of course: initially a great deal of tears and thinking, then a great deal of journaling, a brief period of convincing myself that I should just “drive out there and show up”, and then finally the very quiet acceptance of the fact that those relationships were severed through no actions of my own doing.

You will perhaps think me mad, writing on like this. On the one hand I still find it painful to recount all of these memories. There were good times growing up – maybe not great times as some had them, but good times. There were happy memories there as well – memories that I hope will go on and in some way influence their own lives and relationships with their own children (it is a sad and lonely thing, Lucilius, to wonder if you have grandchildren and to realize that most likely you will never know).

The Cabin is where it always was of course, and they know the way well enough (who would not, in this current age of technology?). And I still find myself starting up from time to time when I working outside in the garden or reading a book at the sound of a car in hopes that it will pull down my lane and old familiar faces – and new ones will spill out of the doors. But they never do, of course: the car drives by on the road and I am left again with silence of my thoughts and feel of the soil or pages in my grasp.

Of all the things I hate about modern society and culture, I hate the fact that it has destroyed my family the most.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

Sometimes You Forget

"Tell me" said the interviewer, "What have you found to be the most difficult challenge in trying to write seven days a week?

The author thought for a moment. "Well", he said, "The most difficult thing is that moment when you think have written a week's worth of material but find that in fact you only have done six days so you scramble to find something, only to realize literally at the last moment that you needed the thing for tomorrow, not today. And then you freaked out for nothing."

The interview smiled.  "Happen a lot?"

The author shook his head.  "Oh, not really.  Just once in a heartstopping while....."

Storm Front

Advancing lightning

reflects off my sword; night moth

gleams just as brightly

Reality Breaks Into Fantasy

Last Friday evening, to break the monotony of our dinners, The Ravishing Mrs. TB suggested that we watch a movie.  We grabbed one - one of the many Marvel hero movies - and started watching.  It had been a while since I seen it and thought that it would be an enjoyable break.

Instead, as I watched it I found that I could not enjoy this story as I had once done.  This person would come on the screen and suddenly I would remember the opinion they had expressed; that person would come on screen and the same thing happened.  Suddenly, I found myself far less lost in the story and far more seeing the actors and actresses for who they portrayed themselves to be outside of the narrow parts that they were playing.

It effectively destroyed the movie for me.

This is the danger that those that entertain - that the real life world personalities eclipse their on-screen personalities and people no longer desire to support them based on who they are, not on their skill.

There is one more movie for Marvel heroes, which I will go see because The Ravishing Mrs. TB likes the movie series and wants to do it as a date.  But quite likely after that - and after that for almost any movies - I am effectively done.

I desired escape.  You have given me the real world instead - if I must be in the real world all the time, it will be the reality of my choice, not yours.

On Control Of The Heart

"CHRIST:  My son, you have still many things to learn.

THE DISCIPLE:  What are these, Lord?

CHRIST:  How you must frame your desires in accordance with My good pleasure, and not be a lover of self, but an earnest follower of My will.  Desires often inflame you and drive you violently onward; but consider whether it be My honour or self-interest that moves you most.  If I Myself be the cause, you will be content with whatever I determine; but if self-interest is your hidden motive, this will be a hindrance and burden to you."

The Imitation of Christ, Thomas `A Kempis

A Few Words From...Yamakoshi Masaki

"The events of the present will eventually become the past, and to live in the present is to live in the future.  So let us continue to live as best as we can, now, in the present, together in harmony with our family, our job, and our surroundings.  The martial art of iai is the art of living a plentiful life."

- Muso Jikiden Eishin-Ryu:  The Iai Forms and the Oral Traditions of the Yamauchi Branch

Beware Of An Old Man

The Collapse XVIII: Postal Service

27 July 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

So an unusual thing happened today: The mail announced that it was slowing down.

Our post office, as you may remember, is a two room affair on the main road in and out of town which also serves as our local mini-mart and gas station (yes, I concur that the prices are higher but every now and again one does not wish to make the 20 to 40 mile round trip up the road and back for a single item). It largely serves the local community here and is in fact the only delivery in town. It has perhaps a hundred mail boxes or so.

My mail load, as you can imagine, has gone down over the years. Most bills are now done on-line (is not almost everything these days) and I seldom get mail of a personal sort: those that might send it are either dead, moved on, or correspond via some other method. Therefore my visits to the post office are once a week affairs at most, involving me walking the half mile or so, pulling things out of my post office box, and then meandering back home where I can safely sort the mail into my “save” or “burn later” later piles.

This morning, when I walked over, there was an official looking sort of letter taped on the front door announcing that staring at the end of this month (July), mail delivery was reduced at our location to once a week. Stating that decreasing the amount of deliveries would increase the economical nature of the mail (and save valuable fuel and emissions), the letter ended with a rousing statement about how the postal service would continue to be there to service the community in the future.

Now, I am not impacted a great deal of course – I do receive a few things once in a while via the mail which are mostly seeds or occasionally books – but these have just as often come via one of the major delivery services (which, I predict, will immediately raise their rates as well – supply and demand, of course). But with this cut off as a timely sort of thing, my choices – and I suspect many of those like me – will be changing our spending habits even a little bit more, as well as our expectations.

When I returned home, I re-sorted more of the items into my “burn later” pile. I suspect with a decrease in mail, my fire-starter materials will become more precious.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

Blossoms

I had thought that time

would fade the past; yet I find

the trees blooming yet.

2019 Garden Update

Thought I would show you a quick update on the progress of the Spring Garden:

My Lime trees survived the Winter!  And are supporting new growth!

Two volunteer leeks that showed up - and will be in leek pie soon:

Beans, Black Eyed Peas, and others doing well:

Onions starting to do their thing:

Overwintered Garlic:

 Volunteer lettuce:

 Asparagus popped up in a hurry:

All the grains are doing nicely even after the late start:

Overall, I am very pleased with how planting a month earlier than I have done in the past has worked out.

Random Economic Thoughts I

Some random economic thoughts:

1)  Retail, on the whole, is dying.  If you have a bit of interest, I might recommend you check out dailyjobcuts.com.  It keeps a running tab on closures, layoffs, and bankruptcies. 

Beyond just this basic observational basis - name a single mainline or Big Box store that has not had some level of layoffs or closures - I have the most interesting note from The Ravishing Mrs. TB on local malls:  "They are 50% empty of stores, and what is left is mostly junk). 

Realistically of course, blame the InterWeb - but not really.  Blame stores that have made it a pain to shop there or return there versus Amazon, which is effectively creating an ecosystem where one almost never need shop outside of its confines:  Clothes?  Check.  Food?  Check.  Gadgets?  Check.  Entertainment via books or streaming?  Check.  Fresh fruit and vegetables?  If you live within delivery distance of a Whole Foods, Check.

Who wants to deal with crowds when you can practically do it all from your home?

2)  As a result of 1) and in conjunction with it, the minimum wage job is dying as well.

Why?  Retail is one of the highest users of the minimum wage, and those jobs are going away.  Food service?  Believe me, the move to kiosks in places like McDonald's or Wendy's are here to stay.  As the cost of labor increases, the push to automation will grow - as will the continued growth of services that deliver food (via things like Ubereats). 

The decline in minimum wage affects two groups:  the unskilled and the just starting out (via graduations).  Where before these jobs were available to reflex to, they will begin to vanish.

3)  Autonomous, electric vehicles and the push for them is not going away.  Never mind they are not economical and environmentally destructive, they will keep coming up until they get close to being right and then the press will be on for us to adopt them - first cities, of course (you just need to make "driven" cars illegal downtown), then out to the suburbs.

Who does this impact?  The list is rather long.  Auto industries, of course - with autonomous vehicles the need to "buy" a new car becomes less, combined with ridesharing (e.g. Uber, Lyft).  Any service which involves a driver - taxis, limousines, even the aforementioned Uber and Lyft.  Any industry touching an automobile - auto dealerships, oil change shops, even service shops.  And delivery services, eventually.

4)  Who is not impacted in all of this?  The trades, for now - yes, automation continues to march forward but much like the assembly line, things have to be standardized before they can be impacted by automation (for example, plumbing and electric wiring are run per builder, but there are many builders and many older homes).  Science and tech workers, for now - but give Artificial Intelligence time and between automation and AI, many basic science and tech jobs will vanish as well. 

There will always be the outliers of course - small botique shops, those catering to the wealthy or well off, and the underlayer that people like myself frequent - used book stores, discount and thrift shops, etc.  But I suspect the next twenty years will find millions of unskilled and skilled laborers out of work and with little or no opportunity to re-enter the workforce.

And then ask the logical question:  What happens next?

God Makes A Way

A Few Words From...Calvin Miller

"Decision is the key to destiny.

'God, can you be merciful and send me off to hell and lock me in forever?'

'No Pilgrim, I will not send you there, but if you chose to to there, I could never lock you out.'"

- The Singer

Experience

The Collapse XVII: Vacation

25 July 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

My apologies for the delay in writing. For the first time in years, I took a vacation.

Yes yes, I understand – you have often commented that my whole life at this point seems to be one long vacation of doing what I want to do – fair enough, I have often said the same thing myself. But I made the decision – right after the refugees I informed you of in the last letter – to make a trip to some of the places I love here that are farther away.

Yellowstone – You remember Yellowstone of course, we went there on your last visit. I had a longing to go there again – not so much for the natural wonders (as amazing as they are, of course) as for the buffalo. And I found both – and the park strangely deserted. Where before there were literally thousands of cars there were merely tens of them. I had no problem or issue getting anywhere or seeing anything I desired. The buffalo were there, placidly moving in their herds the way they did long before Westerners ever arrived.

The other place I needed to go, of course, was the Little Bighorn.

The monument was even more deserted than I had expected – it was myself and two other people, wandering among the headstones of the US Calvary and Sioux Warriors. The grass was brown and dry and blew in the wind, perhaps like it did almost 150 years ago. The wind whispered the voices of warriors of both sides, long dead, watching.

In a very meaningful way, these sorts of trips were walks into a past that was rapidly approaching into our future.

These were day trips for me of course, and I am sure that you will wonder at the wanton waste of fuel for each of them. I somewhat wonder at it myself – but comfort myself with the thought that I do not know when, if ever, I will be able to go again. At least they can now always live in my memory.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

Done With Entertainment

So last night I was watching one of my Animes on Netflix that I have come to watch.  At this point it had become a little bit tiresome and was dragging on, but I was sticking with it to the bitter end.  And then, just like that, it ended - on an radically modern correct note.

And I was done.

This absence from media has been a great boon to me, although a struggle as well.  But as I think about it, this has become the next logical step.

Entertainment, it seems, is always reflective of the age in which is was created.  And media for last 10 years at least has definitely come to reflect society as a whole.

I cannot, in good conscious, support it any more.

And so, I am done.

Two aspects of this, really. The first is that I am done - really done - with Netflix and Hulu.  If I do not own it, I will not watch it.  Which means I will be watching a lot less.

The second is that my timespan of watching just shrank a great deal.  Pretty much anything prior to 1985, I suppose.  Maybe occasional exceptions - one of my favorites The Thirteenth Warrior was made in the 1990's - but on the whole, I stop there.

The good news is, I just got a great deal of my time back.

Yes, I know.  This will not really stop the advance of anything.  Society will continue on with its business and ignore me by my lack of support.

Strangely enough, I find myself more and more okay with this.  It may be a bubble, but I find it to be one that I can function in and focus on what really matters.

A Funny Thing Happened To Me On The Way To Work....

...more specifically, A Funny Thing Happened To Me At Work.

My boss sits down.  "Good job, keep up the good work."  Hands me a piece of paper.

Turns out I have been promoted.  To Vice President, Quality.

Wow.

I have been at this just over 21 years.  I started as a Research Associate 1, scraping labels off of bottles in a research lab. 

Of course, nothing is free.  All the responsibility is on me - but in reality, it always was.  And I have a great deal to do and be responsible for - but then again, I always did.

Vice President.  This is a high as I pretty much every figured I was going to reach.

Go me.

Your New Life Is Going To Cost You

Hat Tip:  Aware Wolf

This wandered across my consciousness this weekend.  I looked at it, thought it was rather useful, and sent it along to others,

And then, I actually started to think about it. What a devastatingly profound statement.

Christians, of course, are familiar with the concept of this:  "We are buried with Christ in His death, we are raised with Him into newness of life" we say in some form or fashion every Sunday.  But we make the rather painful mistake of not realizing it applies to every aspect of our life.

It works this way in Nature, of course:  the tadpole surrenders it life to the frog, the caterpillar surrenders its life to the butterfly.  The change in nature - indeed, the change in form - is something that we have actually embraced and use as a symbol of the newness of life, of the ability to change.
We forget that, much like Cortes and his ships, they have burned everything and have no choice but to move forward.

It is true of us as well.

The simple - and rather painful - reality is that when we make a life change, be it by choice or forced, it eventually costs us our old one.

Oh, we may not think so at first:  we continue to maintain the relationships, do the activities, and believe that somehow we are continuing to bridge the gap between the two. But time, that revelator of all things, eventually points out a very simple fact:  Just as we cannot be in two places at once, neither can we have two lives at once.  It is either the old or the new.

It is true of me, of course.  10 years ago this year, we moved from Old Home to New Home.  The move did change our lives - in many good ways of course, but along with the good came the bad.  Our old lives - old church, old friends, old activities, old contacts - faded into the mirror as we continued to move forward into the new. 

Even now, I continue to change - as I have come to embrace Iai more and more, it means that other things, such as Highland Games, matter less and less.  It is a number of factors of course - I find that throwing in the wet is not nearly as entertaining as it once was and driving more than two hours to and back is more than I want to do - but it is also because, simply, I have X amount of time and energy and must allocate them appropriately.

Some things stick with us of course - in a sense we are nomads of our lives, carrying some things from place to place to place (I fell in love with Japan at age 10; it took me 30 years to find a direct connection and 40 years to have a mechanism - training - to return there annually).  But by choosing a new life, we by default choose to lose on the old.

I wonder: if we really grasped that by choosing a new life we cost the old one, would we always be so eager to do so?  Or would we simply become more melancholy about the change, more thoughtful about the choice - and do it anyway?

God Of The Elements

O God of the elements

O God of the mysteries

O God of the fountains

O King of Kings!

O King of Kings!

- Carmina Gadelica (Alexander Carmichael) from Celtic Devotions (Calvin Miller)

A Few (More) Words from...Miyamoto Musashi

"To Release Four Hands

'To release four hands' is used when you and the enemy are contending with the same spirit, and the issue cannot be decided.  Abandon this spirit and win through an alternative method.

In large-scale strategy, when there is a 'four hands' spirit, do not give up - it is man's existence.  Immediately throw away this spirit and win with a technique the enemy does not expect.

In single combat also, when we think we have fallen into the 'four hands' situation, we must defeat the enemy by changing our mind and applying a suitable technique according to his condition.  You must be able to judge them."


- The Fire Book, A Book of Five Rings

Sit Back And Observe

The Collapse XVI: Refugees

20 July 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

Yesterday we say our first band of refugees.

The first hint I had of it was a Recreational Vehicle coming through town past my home, and then another. And another. And then a truck pulling a trailer – until a whole parade of vehicles drove by my house and on the park down the road, where I do my laundry. As I had planned to do laundry that day anyway, I gathered my things and walked the mile or so to the park.

The park was virtually full – the first time in years I can remember it being so since my youth of coming here. Adults and children milled around the main area of the park, the children running around as if trapped inside all day (which most likely they were) the adults in small knots clustered together.

As for me, I was there to do laundry, so I started up my loads, pulled out my book and commenced reading. I sat quietly until about 15 minutes latter when a number of younger women came in to apparently start doing theirs as well. We nodded pleasantly to each other, then I returned to my book and they to their conversation – which was loud enough to hear over the edge of my cover.

They were, apparently, from somewhere south of where we are had been on the road “for a few days” - not enough regional accent to detect from where. Wherever they were coming from, it sounded as if life had not become too awful yet but they were worried about something that was about to come. They did not sound as if they had a clear plan on where they were going yet - “West” is what I heard, but I did not get a sense of how far “west” really meant.

During the conversation, children flitted in and out of the laundry room, laughing and crying and shouting at the top of their lungs. It has been a rather long time since I have had that level of...”activity” in my life. It was a source of both joy and confusion to me as my life has become so much more quiet now. I can scarcely remember when such loud days were the norm.

I finished and folded my laundry, nodded to the ladies women finishing theirs, and then packed up everything in my basket and headed out. The park was as full and busy as the laundry room had been, with children tearing around the spots and men and women in small clusters, grilling over charcoal or cooking over camp stoves.

They were gone the next morning to points “West”, as the owner told me, almost gleeful at the amount of money he had turned in one day and trying to figure out how to restock before the next wave came through.

It is a concerning thing, Lucilius, these populations on the move. In point of fact there is probably no better thing “west” of here than there is “east” of here, or north or south. I am coming to fear the time of decision has already passed and one will need to make do with where one is and what one has.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

Spring Evening

Translucent moonlight

breaks through holes in the cloud bank:

outlines of shadows.

Of Old Cars and Passing Memories

We are no longer building cars that stand out.

Once upon a time, cars were built that were distinctive and unique.  No-one ever mistook a 1956 Thunderbird or 1966 Mustang or a Datsun 280Z for any other kind of car.  Even today, these cars remain recognizable - and valuable.

However, a great deal of cars are built today will not have the same lasting power.  Most of them merge into one another, a flow of curves and body types to reduce drag, increase gas mileage, and go farther.  And to a great extent, they all look almost exactly the same.

In other words, we have exchanged the unique for the utilitarian.

As I pondered this, I realized that in the age of intellectual achievement, this seems to be true more and more.  Our houses or apartments look them same.  Our appliances all look almost the same, with only features differentiating one from the other.  Any computer looks like any other and smartphones compete only in how big their screen can be.

And more and more, what we produce is ephemeral.  The appliances and cars with planned obsolescence.  The computer programs and TV shows that are replaced in popularity on an almost annual basis.  The things we buy, use, dispose of, and promptly forgot that we owned.

Maybe this is the natural progression of technology, that as we move through what we can do and achiever it becomes more and more amazing, yet more and more passing.  We moved from stone and wood to metal and leather and steel and concrete and computers.  At every step something more amazing, yet each thing seeming to pass more quickly into the ether.  We view ruins that were built 2000 years ago; cities from the gold and silver rushes of 200 years ago weather away and vanish.

As the homogenization of the uniqueness of items continues to dwindle and the inevitable move to own and use less and less continues, we will find ourselves in an age where the original, the lasting, the hand made and hand built and distinctive will find more and more value - not just because it has aesthetic or historical value but because it remains distinctive and memorable in a world which no longer generates its memories in things it built but in something far less lasting - the feelings and memories of an individual, which will never outlive them.  We are exchanging the record for our being in the physical world for a mental record which we can only record in things that, all too often, pass away in the blink of an eye.

Slow Driving, No Media

I am a slow driver.

I drive at or below the speed limit on a daily basis - so much so, The Ravishing Mrs. TB reminds me quite a bit to at least "go the speed limit".  I at least try to get out of the far left lane, but generally - yes, I am that guy.

Why?  Not really sure how it started - that I can recall now, I have never had a speeding ticket.  I think it originated somewhere from my seeming irrational fear of always being pulled over - if I am going the speed limit, there is never any danger of that happening.   I am perfectly happy to let others speed by me on their way to somewhere as I slowly make my way down the Interstate.

It occurred to me yesterday as I drove that this is what giving up current events and media has been like.

If (like me) you are driving at the speed limit, you inevitably find yourself passed by people going quickly (or much more quickly) on their way to somewhere else.  They either whip right by or slowly edge past you, but in the end they leave you behind as they speed over the horizon. 

Oddly enough however, I still end up arriving at the same destination they do, if only a little bit later.

That is what being without the media has been like.  Yes, I eventually hear of the "goings on" out there in the real world (because of course people talk about it) but I end up waking up at the same time as everyone else.  I can perhaps opine on the current event (I am trying not to during Lent, of course!) even as I grasp that I can no more influence or change most of them than I can the weather or the sunset. 

The pace of my life - or at least my stress, I guess, has changed as well.  I am no longer always in an almost hyper-induced sense of waiting for the next thing to occur (I wish I could make this true for work as well!).  I just move forward into my day, knowing that somehow events and commentary are going on all around me and knowing that I will end the day like everyone else around me.

I have to admit this has turned out to be a rather delightful change of pace.

Keep Me

Keep me in good means,

Keep me in good intent.

Keep me in good estate,

Better than I know to ask,

Better that I know to ask.

Shepherd me this day,

Relieve my distress...

Guard for me my speech,

Strengthen for me my love,

Illumine for me the stream.

- Carmina Gadelica (Alexander Carmichael) from Celtic Devotions (Calvin Miller)

A Few Words From..A.W. Tozer

"Religion today is not transforming the people - it is being transformed by the people.  It is not raising the moral level society - it is descending to society's own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smiling accepting its surrender."

A Happy Life

Tech Support In House

On Not Preaching Holiness

The Western Church (by and large) has lost sight of the Holiness of God.

One of the great favors you can do yourself, if you are a Christian, is to work your way through Jaroslav Pelikan's 5 book study of the The Christian Tradition:  A History of the Development of Doctrine (I have only made it through Volume 4 but am re-reading the series this year).  In reading the books you find that the develop of the doctrine of the church was a bit longer drawn out that we like to believe ( the best known case of this of course, the Trinity, was not formally worked out until the 4th century).  You will also find that the Church, like any other human institution, goes through trends based on the society around it.

The trend in the Western Church - or at least the American Western Church - is justice.

Justice has become the defining nature of God.  Everything - society, history, current social mores, economy - is viewed through the lens of "The Justice of God" (and by justice, what is meant is equality and righting wrongs).  Thus, preaching of God's word becomes an exercise in 1) showing how the people of the Bible were unjust; 2)  showing how we currently are unjust; and 3) how we need to make fighting injustice our number one goal.

Now, there is a balance to be kept here.  The Bible is rather full of justice - and indeed, it talks about social justice as is suggested (Rights for the sojourner, widow and orphans, caring for the poor - check it, it's all there).  At the same time, the Bible is not ONLY about this thing.

We have lost the Holiness of God in this rush to justice.

God is holy - holy meaning not just as we think of it (really religious), but utterly pure and set apart from anything else.  He is the ultimate holder of gravitas, the one who is so beyond us in our sin in nature and in being that we wither away in His presence. 

God is also very, very explicit about the fact that He is holy - and that He expects us to be as well (Leviticus 11:44 is a fine example:  "Be ye holy, for I am Holy says the LORD").  It is as explicitly discussed as any other attribute of God (such as His love or justice, for example).  Yet holiness is something that you will scarcely hear preached on these days.

Why?  Two reasons, I think.  The first is a somewhat crass one:  The holiness of God allows us to rail against no-one.  We cannot use the word of God as a weapon of God to bring the change we think needs to be in the world, because in that sense holiness has very little to do with this world or our agendas.

The second reason is that the Holiness of God imparts guilt and requires action. 

By demonstrating and saying that God is holy, we are saying that we are sinners.  And sinning makes us feel bad (as it should, by the way).  But feeling bad is not something that a great many churches want to do these days:  it drives away people and convinces them that Christianity is "as seen on TV".  Better to engage them with words and feelings and movements of the society around them. 

And it requires action. It requires us to repent of our sin - even more, it requires us to agree with God on the issues as He sees them and change our view to match His, something which is not popular is a society that sees so much of the Bible as anachronistic and a tool of oppressive morality and domination.

The catch?  Without holiness, no-one can see the Lord.  Ultimately our ability to see God is predicated upon us accepting the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf for our sin - our unholiness, as it were.  And without acknowledging that sin, that unholiness, we cannot be saved from it.

Be careful, Church of the West.  Do not exchange your calling to be a holy people of a holy God to be a socially relevant people of a socially relevant God.  If we do not right this ship, we will end up becoming a chapter in someone else's book of Christian History, while the church that practices holiness somewhere else takes up the torch and moves forward.

Sow True Seeds Fan for Life

So when I was planting on Sunday I opened one seed packet and found this:

$10 off?  And a thing called an action Golden Ticket?  I am a fan for life.

Garden 2019 I

Today I planted.

I went nuts.  I planted two kinds of onions, four kinds of beans, 2 kinds of peppers, and wheat, barley, and rye.  I have no idea if any of them will grow.

That is okay, of course.  There is nothing wrong with trying.

The soil was remarkably friable.  The rabbit droppings and composed wood pellets are working out well.  I just need more of them (if necessary, I can "borrow" some from the rabbit shelter).

That is it.  We are going full bore this year.  NewMantra:  Garden or Die.

This Night And Every Night

"God shield the house, the fire, the kine,

Every one who dwells herein to-night.

Shield myself and my beloved group,

Preserve us from foes this night,

For the sake of the Son of the Mary Mother,

In this place, and in every place wherein they dwell to-night,

On this night and on every night, 

This night and every night."

- Carmina Gadelica (Alexander Carmichael) from Celtic Devotions (Calvin Miller)

A Few Word From...Masanobu Fukuoka

"I tell the young people up in my orchard again and again not to try to imitate me, and it really angers me if there is someone who does not try to take this advice to heart.  I ask, instead, that they simply live in nature and apply themselves to their daily work.  No, there is nothing special about me, but what I have glimpsed is vastly important."

"An object seen in isolation from the whole is not the real thing."

"I probably know more about what can go wrong growing agricultural crops than anyone else in Japan."

"You might say that, rather than growing citrus and vegetables  up here, I have been helping to restore the fertility of the soil."

"Before researchers become researchers they should become philosophers.  They should consider what the human goal is, what it is that humanity should create."

"When a decision is made to cope with the symptoms of a problem, it is generally assumed that the corrective measures will solve the problem itself.  They seldom do."

"If natural food is to become widely popular, it must available locally at a reasonable price."

"The world used to be simple.  You merely notice in passing that you got wet by brushing against the drops of dew while meandering through the meadow.  But from the time  people undertook to explain this one drop of dew scientifically, they trapped themselves in the endless hell of the intellect."

"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation of human beings."

- The One-Straw Revolution

People Who Challenge And Inspire

I post this because I had this in high school, lost in it college, and then spent a great deal of time trying to re-find such people - but when I found them again, everything changed for the better.

Lent 2019

The season of Lent is upon us.

In past years I have "given up" such things as sugar or alcohol.  They make for an excellent initial step of self discipline but I have come to understand (at least for myself) that physical deprivation of things is not what I need to be working on in the season.  It has varied over the years since I discovered this fact, ranging from behaviors I needed to give up to behaviors that I needed to adopt.

This Lent?

1)  Media - I am completely shutting myself off from current events and really media of any kind.  My interest - or angst - about current world events in no wise actually changes them.  Instead, I need to fill the time with mediation or God's Word.

2)  Social Media - I have already been experimenting with this more and more.   For now, my goal is to cut down my FaceTome time to twice a week (yes, there are still some reasons to get on there - some of my social groups and activities only post on there at this point).  Outside of a brief check of Instagram to see if Na Clann have posted anything, I will effectively be InterWeb silent.

I can always read or go practice more Iai.

3)  Music - This one is kind o the most interesting of all to me- for Lent, I will abstain from anything other than Classical Music or Instrumental.  Nothing particularly driving this other than just to see what, if any, impact it has on my moods and my life.

So, as I look at this, I see a theme of inner and outer silence.  Surely there is a theme here somewhere.

Do you practice Lent?  And if so, what do you do?

Serenity

One of the feelings I have noticed over the month or so since I have returned from Japan is, occasionally, a sense of serenity.

It is hard to grasp, this serenity.  If I think too much about it, it escapes my grasp.  If I try to make it come to me when I think I need it most it eludes my flailing about.  But if I am patient - if I simply wait for it to come - it comes.

I am not really sure where it is coming from - if it "The Peace of God which passes all understanding"  (which it very well could be) it seems, well, less supernatural than I would have expected (Not sure what I anticipated, really.  Just something more, you know, Thunder and Lightning and Wheels with Eyes).  If it is the result of making a decision and being comfortable with a path, that could be true - except that I am not sure what path I have chosen ( I would be very surprised to find that settling my mind that Iai is the path forward is as life changing a decision as this seems to indicate). 

But even to question where or why this serenity has come seems to undermine the whole concept of it.  In life, at least most modern life, people seem very eager to run hither and yon seeking "peace" by being incredibly active and frenetic and perhaps mistaking serenity for exhaustion.  Or if they have it for a moment, trying to discover what caused it so they can go back to that same well again and again.

It does not really seem to work that way, however.

So for now, I take simple comfort in the fact that it is there. If it is of God, then it will grow all the more. If it is a decision that I have made (perhaps unaware), then it will manifest itself in time.  In either event, the true point of it is to be serene, not necessarily to question how it has come.

Waiting For A Big Change

Ever get the feeling that there is a big change ahead?

You can never really point to it.  There is nothing in your life at the time that makes you say "Hey, sharp 90 degree turn up ahead" - nor is there any signs whereby you can point out the same to the others in your life. 

But the feeling is there. You go to sleep with it.  You wake up with it.  It haunts the fringes of your day as you go about it. 

Oddly enough, you begin to find yourself actively looking for signs of the change - which can be difficult, of course, when you do not know what kind of thing the change is supposed to be.  But you keep looking for hints, signs - good heavens, flocks of birds flying overhead or your lunch mysteriously forming itself into a symbol in its container.

It would be great to know what the change is, of course - after all, it helps with planning - but for now I am simply trying to live in the moment of anticipating the change, something I have not always done as well as I should have.

But change is coming.  I need only wait and watching.

Sow True: A Review

Regrettably, my previous seed supplier went out of business (rather mysteriously and all of a sudden).  Leigh at Five Acres and a Dream suggested a couple of sites.  I went to one of her suggestion, Sow True Seed, and made a purchase.

Happily not too long later, I received a package:

Inside, a treasure trove of spring excitement:

Some high class glossy advertisements:  one for an upcoming book on Okra (which, strangely, I am now interested in) and one for sweet potato slips (who knows?):

Three of the seed packets had quality looking hand drawings on them:

And two were just plain (mostly likely seasonal seeds):

They also sent along two packets for collecting seeds.  Yes, I know that I can just as well use plastic bags or envelopes (I often do), but it was still a nice touch:

I have still have yet to plant, of course - but my initial impressions are very good.  A well thought presentation and marketing of the product.

Each Thing

Each thing I have received, from Thee it came.

Each thing for which I hope, from Thy love it will come.

Each thing I enjoy, it is of Thy bounty.

Each Thing I ask, comes of Thy disposing.

- - Carmina Gadelica (Alexander Carmichael) from Celtic Devotions (Calvin Miller)

Budapest

Today's posting - for no other reason than I like and it strikes me as delightful - is George Ezra's song Budapest.  Click and enjoy.

Doing Today