Japanese: WA

Usually translated, or rather, usually used as a tattoo or a wall decoration as “peace”, so a lot of people equate it with like the peace sign. But the “peace” it means, in Japanese is “in harmony with all surroundings, and with others, and with yourself.” Not just one word.

Japan: a sense of wa … … … …

… think of a zen garden, sand and stone and water, calm,

America: a sense of awe … … … …

… think Grand Canyon, life lived large, John Wayne

Blocks the breeze at night, but keeps out them dang pesky mortars.

Matt’s bed in FOB Ramadi.

Wylie Newt**** was a ruddy-faced, beefy-handed, roly-poly, smiley nice guy, one whom you would like instantly, who livened up a room by walking into it, exuding optimism and cheerfulness. Seriously, always smiling. He was pudgy, but watch out—it was a kind of like bubblewrap around a concrete pillar. Musta been forties, but seriously, seriously now, he looked late twenties, until you got up close to his eyes, twinkling, bright eyes surrounded by little lines of age. Or maybe all that smiling added to age wrinkles. After he left, one of the other guys says to me, “He’s a legend in the 5^th SF Group.”

—Yeah, I says back??in a way that asks for more, not that smart-alecky way that seems to mock or deny.

—Yeah, he says. He and his spotter would go out for five or six days, dropped off by chopper out in the boonies, and picked up by chopper, and he would have to—they would have to give their report. He’s probably killed more enemy troops than any other guy in the Group. He was a sniper over there, and the best. But he’ll never say anything about it.

It took a while to find out why he would never say anything about it. What’s going through your mind right now? He’s messed up in the head? Hates to think about it? Can’t deal with the memories of killing? After observing, listening, after a while, I found out. He would never talk about it because he was so good, and that would mean that to say anything about it would be boasting. And Wylie, if anything, was humble, and deferential, and would always give credit to others, even when they barely deserved it, whilst deflecting any praise away from him. Just a humble guy.

He came into the little teeny town with only two churches: The First Baptist Church for the old establishment stodgies and snooties, and the Memorial Baptist Church for the modernists, the liberals, the new people. (Oh yeah, the Methodist church was just on the outskirts of town, only an old house converted to a church.) So Wylie, not a particularly churchy guy, walks into the pastor’s office and says, “D’you need anybody to work with Scouts?” The Memorial B-Church, of course. “Well, actually, we just lost our Scoutmaster, he moved.”

—I’m your man”, says Wylie. And volunteered. Do you think he told killing stories around the campfire? The Scout boys never knew. But he sure could teach them woodsy skills.

What? It’s past midnight? I can’t believe it. I’ve still got so much to do! And writing on this blogpage is not helping me get done what really needs to get done. So much to do. So little time. I am running out of time. Soon the clock will tick its last tock and my time will be up. I will no longer be caught in the time bubble. But not being in the time bubble, you can’t get anything done, because out there, all is past, all is present, and all is future, and therefore you can’t work in just one, since all three are there all at once. So this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God. And not to procrastinate. Especially not to procrastinate the day of your repentance until it is everlastingly too late. Do what you can, right now. Which means go do something else right now. OK. I quit.

Crossing The Bar

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

How appropriate, now, Stevie has crossed the bar, gone on to the next life. There is one little thing, though, not quite right with old Lord Al here, and that is, "and after that the dark!" He didn't know. How could he know? After that, the light, that paradise where the righteous are received into a state of happiness, in paradise until the time of their resurrection. All light. Well, of course, unless you didn't qualify for paradise, and end up going to spirit prison, and heaven forbid, outer darkness. But for Stevie, he has assured his place, and now he's there, over there, right over there, at peace, and free from the burden of his mortal coil, and what a burden that was.

Wanna see something cool? Click on one of those pictures up there! But then don't click on the x to close that window, cuz you close the whole dang site. back arrow I guess.

A letter to my son going to war:

There will be bitter fighting in pitched battles wherever you go. If you end up in the Middle East and bullets and bombs are destroying flesh, it may be hell. But no matter where you are deployed, the battle between good and evil will be intense. It may be an even fiercer battle between the Cause of Christians and the forces of evil than fighting on the battlefield. How many casualties will there be that you, 99 Bravo, will never see, can’t treat? Those who fall to the sword of evil will be hurt worse than those who are wounded by bullets or shrapnel. Those who lose their virtue in the battle of each individual against wickedness will hurt worse than those who lose their sight or limbs in explosions.

James E. Faust, who served in the Marines in WWII, said, “Many countries now face the dangers of terrorism. War exposes people to bodily harm, but there is also exposure to moral harm. Those of us who have served in the military in wartime have experienced the disruption in life that comes from being uprooted from home and family, wholesome associations, and the influence of the organized Church. I warn those who are now serving in the military, or who may do so, against the pitfalls of these disruptions. They can take us into the very jaws of the Devil's Throat.

“Many of the activities you will be engaged in are group situations where you cannot always choose your own company. But you can choose your standards. In the military you belong to an outfit where part of its strength comes from the unity of its members. You need to be loyal to the members of your unit because the fellow who is next to you may save your life tomorrow! But that doesn't mean you have to lower your moral standards. In any association there needs to be one or more who stand up and say, ‘What we are doing is not right.’ It takes moral courage to do this!” (2003)

I have fought the good fight... that's the Apostle Paul. He saw life as a battle between good and evil. There are evil forces today in our world who are in uniform; there are evil forces who hide in civilian clothing amongst civilians, but who are enemy combatants; there are evil forces, also who are civilians, who are doing the work of the evil one. Yeah, the evil one. You know. That evil one. They're the people who love the lusts of the flesh more than God; who love money more than any person; who love themselves more than any other person.

So are we soldiers, or not?

No posting for Thanksgiving Day—in respect for the day, I could have said; but in reality, I couldn’t get to the ordinateur. But if there is something I am, it is grateful. I am thankful. I thank people for what they have done for me. I thank God for what He has done for me, which includes sending people my way to do things for Him that have helped me.

But now, Thanksgiving is over. Here comes Christmas. Oh how I execrate the holiday season, and everything to do with Christmas except the strictly religious aspect. Is the Christmas spirit a friendlier attitude as you go through the throngs? Or is it the mind-numbing background music over every sound system of every store, inside and out?

Oramus

O God, our help in ages past,

Our hope for times to come,

Protect us by thy righteous hand,

Defend us by Thy might.

Lead us in the ways of Truth

Guide us in the Right.

Guard us in our Promised Land,

Keep us in Thy holy sight.

Let our thoughts now turn to Thee,

Protect us in our Liberty.

What has become of us? Remember when there were bumperstickers on every other car that said UNITED WE STAND? So how united are we? What are we now? Oh, if only every single soul in these United States of America were intelligent, righteous, committed, dedicated, selfless, and humble. And pretty. Or handsome.

My most recent scientific discovery: We really have been hoodwinked by those evo kinds. Dogs have always been dogs. Adam and Eve walked out of the Garden of Eden, and by nightfall, a nice little dog was following them, and when they woke up the next morning, the dog was there, wagging its tail. Then from then on, there were dogs around. They didn’t evolve from wolves. Wolves have always been wolves. Dogs have always been dogs. What about prehistoric? Well, duh, if Adam and Eve were the first of the human race, and they began writing their history right away (that part is fact, not part of the question), then what’s pre-history??? Not. Doesn’t exist.

If death should come and find me here,

How could I protest?

I’ve often said I have no fear.

So if it puts me to the test

I may choke and roll my eyes

And clutch at one last breath;

But when it’s done I’ll realize:

I have no fear of death.

What awaits us on that far shore? Actually, that’s a beautiful metaphor, serving both Christian and pagan ideas of Death. The Christians waiting for the golden shore where the Civitas Dei comes down to the water’s edge; the pagans riding over on Charon’s boat. The one shore is on the other side of Jordan, the other on the other side of Styx.

But really, Death is not a river, not a far shore. Death is a curtain. A heavy, velvet curtain, thick and red, lined, with deep vermillion tassels, and we simply pass through it, and then we are on the other side. Then we are in that next life, where Hamlet was afraid he would wake up if he went to sleep in that sleep brought on by the bare bodkin. I wonder if you even care when you get there about everybody you left behind. Apparently not, because those who go through the curtain never think to part if from the other side and whisper to us what it’s like through that slit. Like your brother promising to write or call as soon as he gets to Paris, but when he gets there he’s so engrossed, having such an overwhelming experience, he forgets to call or write. Or does somebody go through the curtain, Mors, and then when they make a gesture to turn around and part the veil to whisper something to us, somebody touches his shoulder and shakes his head, “no.” And that person, somewhat embarrassed, moves along, and soon is so engrossed and overwhelmed with the beauty of the next estate that he really gives us no other thought. But really, what’s it like over there? Soon I’ll turn around, part the veil, and whisper to you. Warte, nur balde ruhe ich auch.

So Thanksgiving is coming up in two days, so Thanks. I mean it.

Ne pas crisper

Ne pas crisper les paupières

Ne pas se révéler

Faire semblant de ne pas vouloir

La voir passer dans le couloir

L’avoir assez dans la mémoire

Ne pas vouloir vouloir

Somebody bought a T-shirt that I liked, but would never wear, because I would never wear a T-shirt. It said,

"NI SAINTE NI TOUCHE"

Clever, very clever. I have lit a hundred candles in dark corners of cathedrals to Sainte Nitouche, my patron Saint. I see her everywhere. I hear her voice in the voice of mothers in stores with little children. But in the end we must bow to her. She is and always is right. Who would best have painted her image? Rubens? Boucher? Ingres? Sargent?

Amabam amare--St Augustine.

水 蛙 古

の 飛 池

音 び

込

む

Gotta love haiku.
Old pond, frog jumps in, sound of water.

It helps to speak and read Japanese to really appreciate it. Poetry is not just the words, it the sounds the words make. People forgot that after Ezra Pound dumped his crap on the literary world, and effete dupes that they were, they loved him for it. Rolled around in it.

We need Poe and Baudelaire and Byron and Wordsworth. Use Whitman for bumwad. George Garrett, and people who have the wits to mean while they sound. Who can make a sonnet anymore?

Even Robert Service, who carried a rhyming dictionary with him everywhere, sounds good and tells a great story, and it sticks with you because he means and he sounds. I wonder how he carried the dictionary around after the War since his arm was blown off by German artillery as he was driving wounded French soldiers away from the front as an American volunteer? (don't think I was serious in asking that question... pour qui me prends tu? )

Have you read Rilke in translation? No. You read the translator's efforts. You can only read Rilke in German. Have you read Pushkin in translation? No. You can't translate poetry.

PS
How do you get things to go where they're supposed to go on this page? Like getting the pictures or ideographs (kanjis) to line up proper?

Les jours de pluie je devais décider entre le petit parc à sculptures ou bien passer des heures à l’Âne Comblé, un petit bistrot non loin du parc, et plus près du Métro. On me reconnaissait là, et j’avais l’habitude de me planquer près de la vitrine, derrière les lettres givrées, avec mon bouquin, et de prendre une tasse après l’autre, enfoncé dans mon imper comme un franciscain, à bouquiner tranquillement sauf pour examiner chacun ou chacune qui entrait pour sortir de la pluie, prendre un verre, discuter, bavarder. J’avais toujours avec moi mon journal pour y inscrire une description vive des gens qui inspiraient des couleurs d’imagination. Ça servirait un jour pour décorer mon roman. Tout ce qu’il me fallait c’était l’intrigue. Et des personnages, mes sei personaggi en cerca d’autore. J’avais déjà mes adjectifs (on se montre puérile par ses adjectifs), mes descriptions, mes exclamations ; il fallait seulement quelque raison.

Salva me, ars…

I have noticed something lately. Things have been stressful—I think that’s a fair use of the word—and I have drawn great solace from the pages of the Book of Mormon. (I have been reading it in French.) But also, and in no way comparably, I have noticed that I have drawn great comfort and pleasure from art. My experience with art is limited to listening to CDs of music and turning the pages of art books. But that’s enough. I have been inspired by my new Vivaldi CD that Steve got for me, listening to the scordatura of the cellos, and by Patrick Casaday’s Famine: Remembrance, and other beautiful things. But in a very parallel way I have loved turning the pages of my art books, picture after picture of great paintings. And I have loved reading my new Paul Johnson book, Art: a New History. It’s a reflection as much as a history, and I like how he sees it. I recently purchased Painters of the Wasatch Mountains, collected and edited by three people, but mainly Robert Olpin, who was on late nights on the Utah Education Channel that nobody watches. He was a prof at the UofU, and Utah born, probably a back-slid Mormon, but knew Utah arts and artists from Dan to Beersheba, or Snowville to St George. It has some pretty good paintings, some really great paintings, and some paintings that are incredible. And many of the paintings are of mountains I recognize… which means I’ve seen that mountain, and the artist did it up well enough that I recognize it. Like one called “Lazy Afternoon,” or something, but I could drive you up to the Midway turnoff right before Heber and stop by the river, by Kohler’s dairy farm, and you would see that exact view of Timp. And then to go through a cheap art book called Masters of Modern Painting, or something like that, that I got at TJMaxx when Marlyn was shopping for clothes, and they pick up these odd lot books and sell them for $6.99. And then, for my Humanities class I have been presenting the greats, and talking about them: Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Fragonard, Gainsborough, then on to the Luminists, the Romantics, the Impressionists, etc. That Modern Painting book has many artists and pictures that I have not seen before, some from famous artists—Caneletto, Caravaggio—but canvases I have not seen before. There has been something soothing and uplifting about searching one corner of a painting to the other, taking it all in for minutes, not seconds, before turning the page, and then going back to it a day later and savoring it again. It has not just been entertaining (“Entertainment is the happiness of those who cannot think”—Alexander Pope), it has been exhilarating, uplifting, and even spiritual. Now that word is so misused today that it begs defining in context, so I mean spiritual in the sense of the New-Age ommm-groaner, but more so spiritual in the sense of uplifting the spirit, giving joy to the soul. As Elder Maxwell said, “After all, brothers and sisters, when we rejoice in beautiful scenery, great art, and great music, it is but the flexing of instincts acquired in another place and another time.” Ars longa, vita brevis, said Goethe, after he read it in Montaigne, who got it from Cicero. There is a rock foundation in art that endures. It may not endure beyond the time of the telestial phase of the world, especially those paintings that are actually untoward, and even those that are perfectly moral, but nevertheless portray the nude, or scenes of a telestial world. But for as long as this level of our existence endures, art will provide exhilaration and elevation. Proust said friendships, love, even family, may fade—only art endures. I’m not of that opinion, or don’t see that what he saw is necessarily so, but in fact many human relations can turn, where art is always there, always what it is.

HIGH FLIGHT

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

"Die, you cursed soccerball, die!!" --'at's me boy. A bad day in Iraq. A nice day in Iraq.


The future isn't what it used to be. But I'll take more of it. Please.

You go out with what you have been. You come back with what you are. It's your choice.
How many days do I have left? The Psalmist said three score and ten was normal; he said four score was pushing it, and the extra ten were all hard anyway. Ps 81 I think.
So far so good.

The Lilly and the Rose
For beauty's sake.
Consider the lily. She doesn't put make-up on or get Botox shots, and in fact, doesn't even worry about wearing anything at all. Or maybe we see the raiment, not the naked lily. So which is the purer? The lily, or the rose?
And which is more beautiful...
That's the real question. Or rather, the real question is, what is beauty? And then, what is beautiful?

Un jour que je me trouvais au musée, assis sur un banc au milieu de la salle, devant un tableau que je ne nomme pas, pendant plus d’une heure, à examiner le tableau et écrire dans mon cahier, à regarder la belle figure création du peintre que je ne nomme pas, et tout ce qui était dans ce tableau, étoffes, livres, chaises, arbres, tout dominé par la beauté du total de la figure et les détails, je me suis rendu compte que c’est ça la beauté, de quoi que ce soit, mais surtout d’une femme : qu’on ne se lasse pas de la regarder fixement pendant une heure, pendant des heures, à boire l’essence vitale de sa mine, ses yeux, sa peau, ses lèvres, ses doigts, sa bouche, sa chevelure, ses sourcils, tout, avaler la scène, le parfum des yeux, des sens—elle est belle, celle-là.

Hummm. Must think on this I.

"The price of peace is victory over Satan."
--Marion G. Romney

Si vis pacem, para bellum.
--Latin (it means, if you want peace, prepare for war)(that means, if you want peace, be so overwhelmingly scary that nobody dares bother you)

Peace:
--And if you are crowned Miss Universe, what will be the one thing you will try to do as the holder of the crown?
--I will work to bring about world peace!!

What if every human being just lived by Jesus' Golden Rule???

Did you know that Kung Fu Tse was a Chinese philosopher, not just a kick'em martial art? Yeah, it's true. The Portuguese gave Kung a latinized name, kind of sounding out Kung Fu Tse, with the latin masculin nominative ending --us--, and it came out Con-fu-cius. But he's not the Chinese philosopher who said a moral man prefers landscapes. That was Lao Tse.

So which do you prefer? Mme de Pompadour by Boucher, or the Pond by Levitan?

November 11th. Veterans' Day. I made a little sign that showed:

11:11/11/11/1918

Nobody got it. Today used to be called Armistice Day. The Parties, as they were called, arranged for the official documents to be signed that ended World War I in an elegant railroad car outside Versailles, at eleven minutes past 11:00 on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. The War to End All Wars was ended. But war has been poured out on all nations.
"Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:
"Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong." (Joel 3:9-10)

Honor veterans. If even they were rear echelon. But most especially those who were in it. Honor them. We used to see people selling little red poppies made of paper--the money went to veterans injured in the war. That was a WWI leftover.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

Go to France. Go in early summer, when the wheat is green out in the fields out of the towns, and like weeds amongst the wheat you'll see poppies--red, blood red, the perfect complementary color for the green of the wheat. (See Monet's most famous painting, Les Coquelicots, the Poppies.) Go to France, where after you drive past the fields of wheat with poppies you come to an American Military Cemetery. Look at the thousands of white crosses, where our boys have been lain until the Resurrection, our soldiers who died over there for "so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom."

Some years ago, at the outset of the War--the war we are in now, the war declared on us, against us, US, on 9/11, Secretary of State Colin Powell was at an international conference in Switzerland. This is the transcript:

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary of State, I'm George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm now happily retired and here at the World Economic Forum. And I thank you very much indeed for your address and for all that you are personally doing to improve the state of the world.

Mr. Secretary of State, at this conference, among the language that has been used has been a phrase, the difference between hard power and soft power: hard power and military power, and perhaps expressed in America as the only superpower with a grave responsibility to create and help to forward the cause of peace in the world; and then soft power, soft power which binds us all, which has something to do with values, human values and all the things that you and I passionately believe in.

Here at WEF, we are thinking of creating a Council of 100 which includes business leaders, politicians, religious leaders -- trying to cross all of the boundaries of media and so on. That may be something that you may wish to give your support to in the days ahead.

But I've got two questions, if I may. The first one: Do you feel that in the present situation, and I'm following on my colleague who just spoke, and regarding Iraq but also Palestine as well, that we are doing enough in drawing upon the common values expressed by soft power in uniting what is called West and the Middle East in Islam and Christianity, in Judaism and other religions?

And would you not agree, as a very significant political figure in the United States, Colin, that America, at the present time, is in danger of relying too much upon the hard power and not enough upon building the trust from which the soft values, which of course all of our family life that actually at the bottom, when the bottom line is reached, is what makes human life valuable?

(Applause.)

SECRETARY POWELL: The United States believes strongly in what you call soft power, the value of democracy, the value of the free economic system, the value of making sure that each citizen is free and free to pursue their own God-given ambitions and to use the talents that they were given by God. And that is what we say to the rest of the world. That is why we participated in establishing a community of democracy within the Western Hemisphere. It's why we participate in all of these great international organizations.

There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power -- and here I think you're referring to military power -- then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can't deal with.

I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world.

(Applause.)

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

We have seen these sorts of evil leaders before. We have seen them throughout history. And they are still alive today. There are still leaders around who will say, "You do not have the will to prevail over my evil." And I think we are facing one of those times now.


Let us honor those who have fought for our freedoms, even the freedoms so vilely misused, in the current conflict.

That is all.

Sunday, rainy Sunday. Good Sunday. Reading, drifting off, church, food, clouds, shuffle Air/Chopin/Celtic Spirit/Morellenbaum Brazilian on the CD player. Dripping rain. Writing. GBH: "Communication is largely conversation."

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty, said Edgar Allan Poe.
He also said there's no such thing as a long poem. Sorry, Milton.

So let's be on the lookout for some real poetry.

Quoi de 9?