Happy New MacBook Day to me!
Happy Halloween!
Blessed All Saint’s Eve, Samhaim, and whatever else it may be! For me, it’s New MacBook Day!
Happy New MacBook Day!
5
Author Archives: Jon
Unwanted Gift
Buddy just killed a squirrel for me and left it by my back door.
Well, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture… Thank you.
And yuck!
RockOm, Part Deux
This is another shameless plug for RockOm.net, a site that my partners and I are continuing to develop. I’m writing this, because if you like what you read at frimmin.com, I’m certain that you’ll love what you can read (and listen to!) at RockOm.net. RockOm is not a mere blog, but a developing social network, focused on exploring the whole realm where spirituality and music intersect, with all musics and all spiritualities, questings and questionings included.
If that sounds like big territory, it is. Our premier issue included interviews with musical personalities as diverse as Grammy-winning Christian bluegrass artist Ricky Skaggs, to Hindu kirtan performer Krishna Das.
Trevor Harden and Tommy Crenshaw recently finished a coast-to-coast trip to gather more interviews with amazing performers with penetrating insights into the human condition. But, course, we don’t let national borders stop us either. We’ve Skyped across the ocean to interview Joseph Rowe, translator of dozens of books (including The Gospel of Thomas) and an exceptional musician with an emphasis on Sufi music, and we’ll do more to bring together musicians from around the world.
Some of RO’s features current features:
- RockOm blog: Near-daily new content ranging from music and artists, to questions and musings
- RockOm podcast: a weekly in-depth interview with some of the most interesting and insightful musicians alive
- Featured Track of the Week: An exciting new track every week available to listen to from one of our guest artists
- Featured Articles: Transcriptions and photographs from our interviews,
- RockOm Forum: The heart of the RockOm community, where we discuss anything and everything.
Following RockOm is easy. Subscribe to our RSS feed to have our blog posts come right into your feed reader. And it’s easy to add the RO podcast feed to your iTunes or any other MP3 player, by following the links on RockOm’s home page. You can also follow RockOm on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Very soon we’ll be adding the RockOm store, offering compilation disks of music from our guest artists, and later on, group pages and other features that will further develop the social network aspects of RockOm.
Now another reason I’m writing: We need your help to continue to grow RockOm and realize our vision. Not money, but support. If you like RO, please help us get the word out.
Do you have friends who are interested in music with a message? Tell them about RockOm. Do you have a blog or site of your own? Please consider adding a link to http://rockom.net. Also, we’d love for you to submit a post for the RockOm blog.
Do any of the songs, podcasts or posts strike a chord? Or not? Agree? Disagree? Tell us about it in the RockOm forums.
Finally, we appreciate your prayers, intentions and wishes for our continued growth and success. Thanks, and RockOm!
Do we value life too much?
My cat Buddy, always an indoor cat, recently discovered the wonder of his own feline power: He can break through window screens and escape to enjoy the great outdoors. He did it twice this week. My response (thus far) has been to make sure any window is open just a crack. His response in turn, has been to let me know he regards me as a jailer, or at the very least, as a bad parent, meowing and clawing at the window panes intermittently throughout the day.
Not that I’d ever anthropomorphize, but our conversation the last few days has been something like this:
Buddy: Hey Dad, I want to go out, OK?
Me: No, it’s not okay. You’re an indoor cat. You’re staying here with me.
Buddy: C’mon, Dad! I’ve already shown you I’m responsible. I don’t go too far away, and I always come back home.
Me: I understand and appreciate that. But it’s because I love you. You’re my little Buddy-cat, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.
Buddy: You should talk! You leave home every day! Sometimes several times!
Me: That’s different. I’m a human being. I have to go to work to make the money to pay for things like our apartment and your cat food. But you’re a cat. Outdoor cats generally die much younger than indoor cats. And they’re more likely to get hurt in fights with dogs and other cats, and to have problems with fleas, parasites, and illnesses.
Buddy: But I can take care of myself! Remember when I ate the cockroach? I didn’t get sick at all! And I practice martial arts every day with Talbot. Sometimes I even beat him and he’s almost twice my size!
Me: Are your claws going to save you from the 18-wheelers on Hampton Blvd.?
Buddy: Do you think I’m stupid? There’s nothing on the other side of Hampton worth checking out anyway.
Me: So you’re not missing much if you stay here with Talbot and me.
Buddy: Yes I am! Freedom! Walking in the grass, on the sidewalk! Chasing birds, and hearing their songs so much clearer! Scratching trees instead of your mattress! Breathing fresh air! Sunbathing on the lawn! It feels so good! And I don’t have to worry about missing the stupid tiny litterbox that you always forget to clean!
Me: No.
Buddy: But the cat next door goes out!
Me: If the cat next door jumped off a cliff, would you?
Buddy: I’m not stupid! Why don’t you trust me?
Me: It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that it’s a mean world out there.
Buddy: Look, I can take care of myself. I know what streets to cross and how to avoid traffic. I can win or escape any fight. And that birth-control talk you gave me when you took me to the vet that time…
Me: I remember.
Buddy: Yeah, I remember, too, thanks for nothing! Let’s just say the effects are still with me, and I won’t be getting any she-cats in trouble. I’m old enough, I’ve got my shots, and my tags are RIGHT here! C’mon, let me go out! Please!
Me: Buddy, I love you, but my answer’s still “no.” C’mon, who wants a belly rub?
Buddy: I want to go out! I hate you! You never care about what’s important to ME!
Actually that was the translation … we usually talk in Esperanto. But seriously, the reason I’m posting this is I’m beginning to see his POV. I was raised by over-protective parents, and I’m fully aware that over-parenting can be just as destructive as under-parenting. Is it better for a cat to live 15 -18 years pampered, fat and cramped, or maybe a few years less, but fully enjoying everything the world has to offer in the few blocks of his territory?
I wonder how this relates to other aspects of my life, and the world in general… I haven’t been skydiving yet. Maybe it’s time. And maybe when I’m old and doctors are pressuring me for an iffy operation that might give me a “few more years” of a lesser quality, maybe I should say, “F-k you! I think I’d rather die in my own bed.” Everywhere, understandably humans try to extend life, and increase “security” as much as possible. But nothing in the world guarantees or can guarantee long life or security. Does our drive for them stem partly, maybe even largely, from our insecurity?
I’m almost at the point of opening the door and telling him the feline Esperanto equivalent of “Okay, son, here are the keys… Don’t stay out too late.” What are your thoughts?
How low can you go?
I rarely discuss politics in my blog. But Sarah Palin’s desperate and deceitful attack on Barack Obama Saturday, attempting to paint him as an associate of terrorists, is a new low in campaign politics.
Read the full story at CNN. And shame on you, Ms. Palin.
A note to a friend
This, too, will pass.
Markets go up and down, emotions go up and down.
But in the center, all is still.
It’s like the eye of a hurricane.
All that power and energy, emanates from stillness.
You have that center… and that is your true being and the source of your strength.
the (dis)appearance of God
It’s been more than two years since I had the experience that I call “the suck” or “the empty holodeck.” Although the experience really lasted just a moment, in some ways its consequences have been far lasting. Because of my own attachments, I’ve probably resisted describing it as honestly as I could have.
What really changed most is that I no longer experience God as a felt Presence. This was jarring and unsettling to me, because for well over thirty years, I did. After a brief agnostic period in my youth, I had a born-again experience that left me incapable of doubt. I knew God was there, because I felt that Presence with me. I was never alone, and I knew it. It was like I had an invisible Companion who was always there.
I took me a long time to realize (in fact, it still amazes me) that most people, including most Christians and other religious people, don’t have a continuous experience of Presence. As a consequence, for most, religious conviction is based on belief rather than a knowing based on lasting experience.
It would be an exaggeration to say that “God left.” However, for a short while, I felt utterly alone, and although it was jarring, it wasn’t entirely bad. For example, for the first time in my life, I felt like I had privacy! And in addition, I was able to understand other people’s groping in the dark for a belief to give them a sense of the Ultimate, and I was even able to really understand the skeptics who dismissed it all out of hand.
I don’t want to go back, and earIier this year I even rejected the idea of returning to a previous view. Now I’m beginning to realize what really happened was that I was blessed with a spiritual experience that lasted so long, I couldn’t even recognize it as an experience. Now it’s over, and I’m having a different spiritual experience. Everything changes, even experiences of the Changeless.
Keeps it interesting, nicht wahr?
The most beautiful blog on the Web
…is back! Mark Walter’s original blog, Eternal Awareness, is back after a very long hiatus, at a new URL: http://eternalawareness.com.
When I say that his is the most beautiful blog on the Web, I don’t say it lightly. I mean his IS, and at all levels. It’s illustrated like no other, with photographic and graphic art often blending the real and the surreal, mirroring the interpenetration of the spiritual and physical worlds often sensed by those on the Path.
But its beauty isn’t pixel-deep. Mark’s blog is beautiful in its communication as well. Mark writes both sensitively and sensibly about the most inexpressible things, and transcends the language and conceptual problems that have been snaring people embarking into these realms for thousands or years. Whether you’re theistic, non-theistic, panentheistic, or don’t know or care about theological positions, Eternal Awareness can communicate to you. I’m not talking about a watered-down, “something for everyone” offering. I mean everything/no-thing from the One, for the One in all.
The third way in which his blog’s beauty shines, is by the fact that it’s Mark’s blog. And it’s his soul that will be meeting yours through his writing and insights. And that, my friends, is a very, very beautiful thing.
The Boy from Lebanon
The Boy from Lebanon is a thought-provoking and intense depiction of a true story, a plot by Hezbollah to assassinate then-president François Mitterand by using a child. It’s one of the most striking foreign films I’ve seen in the last few years, and it far surpasses “Syriana” in showing how rather ordinary young people become terrorists. But The Boy from Lebanon is a more than a mere consciousness-raiser about the plight of children in war-torn areas—it’s a shocking drama, and an wonderful portrayal of the power of friendship.
Djilali (Teufik Jallab) is a scant eleven years old when he’s sold—literally—into terrorism. Djilali is emotionally shattered, detached, and empty. Even his hatred of “the Jews and the infidels” is something he holds out of duty, and his lack of emotion and whole-hearted dedication to his mission makes him ideal for Hezollah’s purpose.
To get close to the French president, though, he must not only go to France, but meet and prepare to take the place of Karim (Younesse Boudache), a Lebanese-French kid who will meet the president at a Christmas party. Karim, who knows nothing of the plot, is practically Djilali’s direct opposite, an ebullient Huckleberry Finn of Paris’ Arab slums, who hates no one.
To play his role, Djilali must live with Karim for a few days, and the interaction between them is the heart of the film. Djilali regards Karim as despicably frivolous, while Karim sees Djilali as hopelessly out-of-it. The few days they spend together will shatter both of their worlds completely.
Sometimes it gets a bit confusing; shifts between Karim’s French slum and Djilali’s flashbacks are difficult to catch at first, and in my case I had to watch it a second time to understand everything. In addition, the adult actors are sometimes less-than-convincing, but The Boy from Lebanon isn’t about them. The main characters are memorable and masterfully portrayed by these child actors. The director, Gilles de Maistre, is an award-winning French journalist, who presents the characters compassionately, along with a side of Paris that most movies assiduously avoid.
My teacher commented on the Virginia Tech massacre with the observation that Seung-Hui Cho had had no friends, and wondered would he have done what he did if he had. A similar question is brilliantly posed by “The Boy from Lebanon.”
Watch it. You’ll be glad you did.
This is big
So big, in fact, that I put off posting this for days. I can’t quite process it. Perhaps you my friends, can help me to do so. Since childhood, I’ve been a science-fiction fan, and as someone who grew up with the privilege of being able to look into fairly clear desert night skies, I’ve never been able to believe we’re the only sentient life form in the universe.
But I’ve always shied away from UFO-ology. I’ve been better able to accept aliens “out there” than “right here,” especially after thousands of reports of abductions supplanted the image of ET with something much more sinister. And there always was the possibility that psychological displacement, optical illusions, astronomical phenomena, or secret R&D was behind it all. In a nutshell, I was comfortable filing the UFO phenomenon under “interesting,” and letting it go at that.
I can’t stop at that point anymore. The cover is being blown from a number of sources simultaneously: astronauts Edgar Mitchell and Buzz Aldrin are talking about their knowledge of UFOs, and in Mitchell’s case, his knowledge of the cover-ups as well. The governments of Brazil, France, and the UK have all declassified their documents on UFOs within the last four months. Possibly in response, the Vatican published an article entitled “The Extraterrestrial Is My Brother” (!) in L’Osservatore Romano in May.
So, although I’ve never had a UFO experience myself, here’s the evidence that’s made me a believer in the last few days:
Dr. Edgar Mitchell on Kerrang! Radio:
CNN reporting on the above interview:
Buzz Aldrin discussing a UFO encounter on Apollo 11:
Dr. Edgar Mitchell discussing the Roswell incident:
UK National Archives: newly declassified files available for download:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos/
Washington Post article on the French declassification:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR2007032202132.html
Brazilian government comes clean:
http://www.rense.com/general65/braz.htm
Vatican Diplomacy: English summary of the L’Osservatore Romano article “The Extraterrestrial Is My Brother:”
http://vaticandiplomacy.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/vatican-astronomer-says-believing-in-aliens-does-not-contradict-faith-in-god/
Complete original text of the May 13 article in Italian:
http://vaticandiplomacy.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/vaticano-per-padre-funes-lipotesi-sullesistenza-di-extraterrestri-non-contrasta-con-la-fede/
Some governments still value the secrecy of their UFO knowledge, however.
Wired magazine interview with Gary McKinnon:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2006/06/71182
So. A lot is changing, and very fast. I’m more than a bit curious as to why so much, and so suddenly? Are we on the verge of an announcement from the UN? What do you think is going on?