A Meandering Muse

Arendt's Blurb on Israeli Marriage Laws

2008-02-17T23:06:00.003-06:00

Rabbis Decide Some Israelis Cannot Marry

Subsequent Letter to the Editor:
Marriage Laws Protect Israel's Jewish Identity

My brother Dan would shake his head in dismay to see me reading, let alone quoting or referring others to the New York Times. But I was intrigued today by a passage I came across in Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil".
Arendt's book on Adolf Eichmann's trial was one of first books that I began to read and then set aside as I became too impatient to finish before moving on to something else. Since that time, about three years ago, this tendency has grown endemic in my life. I am currently reading about nine books, give or take three or four. The problem with this unfortunate trend is that not only do I complete but a scant few of the books I begin, but I retain very little of the contents even of the ones I do finish.
"Eichmann in Jerusalem" isn't my book - it was lent to me long ago, and it is past time to return it. Somehow I feel that I need to go back and finish those books which I dropped before moving on to new ones. I feel it is unfair to the books, their authors, and myself to leave them with pages earmarked, notes in the margins, but only half read. Plus - I'm tired of saying: "I started that book, but never finished it . . ." So today I picked up Arendt's documentary - and started it over. The passage that led me to the article linked above follows:

. . . Hence the strange boast: "We make no ethnic distinctions [concerning the charges brought against Eichmann]," which sounded less strange in Israel, where rabbinical law rules the personal status of Jewish citizens, with the result that no Jew can marry a non-Jew; marriages concluded abroad are recognized, but the children of mixed marriages are legally bastards (children of Jewish parentage born out of wedlock are legitimate), and if one happens to have a non-Jewish mother he can be neither married nor buried. The outrage in this state of affairs has become more acute since 1953, when a sizable portion of jurisdiction in matters of family law was handed over to the secular courts. Women can now inherit property and in general enjoy equal status with men. Hence it is hardly respect for the faith of the power of the fanatically religious minority that prevents the government of Israel from substituting secular jurisdiction for rabbinical law in matters of marriage and divorce. Israeli citizens, religious and nonreligious, seems agreed upon the desirability of having a law in which prohibits intermarriage, and it is chiefly for this reason - as Israeli officials outside the courtroom were willing to admit - that they are also agreed upon the undesirability of a written constitution in which such a law would embarrassingly have to be spelled out . . . Whatever the reasons, there certainly was something breathtaking in the naiveté with which the prosecution denounced the infamous Nuremburg Laws of 1935, which had prohibited intermarriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and Germans. The better informed among the correspondents were well aware of the irony, but they did not mention it in their reports.

Am going to bed now.

2008-02-10T16:45:00.001-06:00

"A wrong attitude toward nature implies, somewhere, a wrong attitude toward God, and the consequence is an inevitable doom."
T.S. Eliot

Pray Without Ceasing

2008-02-04T22:15:00.000-06:00

While scouring the world-wide web tonight, I came across this excerpt - Merton is on my list of authors to read.

From Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation:

The requirements of a work to be done can be understood as the will of God. If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God’s will in my work. In this way I become His instrument. He works through me. When I act as His instrument, my labour cannot become an obstacle to contemplation, even though it may temporarily so occupy my mind that I cannot engage in it while I am actually doing my job. Yet my work itself will purify and pacify my mind and dispose me for contemplation.
Unnatural, frantic, anxious work, work done under pressure of greed or fear or any other inordinate passion, cannot properly speaking be dedicated to God, because God never wills such work directly. He may permit that through no fault of our own we may have to work madly and distractedly, due to our sins, and to the sins of the society in which we live. In that case we must tolerate it and make the best of what we cannot avoid. But let us not be blind to the distinction betwen sound, healthy work and unnatural toil.

I began to understand this truth several months back - but I think it's the kind of thing that one goes on learning to understand forever. I remember asking myself what the heck I was doing here in Winnipeg, pouring coffee and carrying burgers, not learning, not really changing anything, not moving on to the next task in my life, just existing. At some point, though, I realized that there are things that must be done in life: I have to work, so that I can pay my rent and buy groceries; at home I must wash my dishes and laundry, and sweep the floor. And God is not, cannot be excluded from these most mundane and intimate parts of our lives. He provides me with employment, with a home, and must therefore, be assigning me the responsibilties and duties that accompany such privileges. In a way, He has entrusted these tasks to me, and by fulfiling them, I am obeying him no less than if I were to spend an hour on my knees in prayer or serving the homeless at His command.

I was once asked at time of day I set time aside to pray in the Spirit. My answer? While I am occupied with the most commonplace things. Walking to work, walking home, organizing, cleaning, scrubbing, sorting, cooking . . . I want God to be involved in every aspect of my life - not merely the time I set aside and devote to pursuing my relationship with Him and growing stronger in the knowledge of God. Even our Saviour learned a trade - how many times must He have lifted His heart to His Father while painstakingly shaving wood from a table leg. God has created us as beings who must travail to survive - Let us do everything as unto the Lord.

A Thought-Provoking Article

2008-02-03T00:51:00.000-06:00

In Praise of Melancholy, by Eric G. Wilson.
This is a tremendously interesting article.
I've been thinking quite a bit during the last few months about happiness vs. joy and contentement, and I've come to the conclusion that happiness is really nothing more than a mood - in a journal entry this week I referred to it as a 'hounding demon'.

Descent of the Muse

2008-02-02T23:51:00.000-06:00

The muse has once again descended - and I feel the urge to write, to spill my soul onto paper, or rather onto the screen of my laptop.
Watch for the possibility of posts in the next week. I welcome your suggestions of topics to write on - sometimes the words are there, waiting, but need something to draw them out - need a reason to be birthed.

Day 6 - Squashed Cherries

2007-11-15T15:35:00.000-06:00

I just like looking at the colours in this photo. In fact, I'd like to blow it up to about two feet across, and mount it on my wall in a dark wooden frame. This is one of my photo walk pictures from Monday. I was becoming discouraged, because except for the brilliant blue sky, the whole landscape was painted in multiple shades of brown and several dark and grimy hues of green. But then I walked down Main Street in Emo, and lo! there was the Rainy River in all its splendour, glistening and dancing, chiaroscuro daubed on the winding course of water. And lo! (I like that word) a lone tree, burdened with red berries, the remnants of an earlier bounty. The grass at its base strewn with fallen, bruised fruit – a panoply of autumnal magnificence. Possessing beauty even in their demise.

A sense of obligation, to my readers and even to myself, compels me to admit that I have been lazy these last two days. I have utterly neglected this blog - and I'm not even repentant. This admittance is less an apology, and more an unashamed proclamation of my recent lethargic state. Having said all that, well, truth be told, there hasn't been much to write about. (Except hands dyed henna-red, and I didn't want to go there, for reasons some of you may understand.)

I spent several hours yesterday in the offices of various health practitioners, was examined, and queried, and queried again. The diagnosis?

Now! Let my readers note - and I know there are a few of you by this time (I even know your names!) - note well, that, well, well. I'm not certain what it is you're supposed to be noting.

I don’t really feel like announcing my illness in cyberspace. So I won’t. Let it suffice to say that there is much hope for a complete recovery, and that my Scottish doctor is wonderful, and her accent rocks!

I have two days left till I’m back in the city – approximately 47 hours, at least 20 of which I will spend sleeping, leaving me with 27 hours of waking bliss. I think tonight I may go milk a goat!

Day Five - The Aftermath of Henna

2007-11-14T21:37:00.000-06:00

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm????????????

Pondering

2007-11-13T23:22:00.001-06:00

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Milking Goats - Day 3

2007-11-12T17:02:00.000-06:00

Mom has a variety of very interesting friends. Today I walked along Main Street in Emo and dropped in at Carol Inkster's craft store. Her shelves are filled with handcrafted projects by artisans in the Rainy River District: pottery, jewellery, knitting, sewing, canned jellies, jams, and preserves.

Carol herself runs a hobby farm just two miles from my home. Her menagerie includes llamas, goats, miniature horses, rabbits, potbellied pigs, ducks, chickens, sheep, turkeys, and I'm sure others I'm not aware of. While running an almost entirely self-sustaining farm, Carol shears her llamas, goats, sheep and rabbits, washes, dyes, cards, spins, weaves and knits their wool, and sells the articles of clothing she creates. She also milks her goats, churns butter and cures cheese. Goats' milk is also a key ingredient in her unique line of skin care products and soaps. Today I purchased three bars of Willowtree soaps: Goat Milk 'N Cinnamon, Goat Milk 'N Flax, and Goat Milk 'N Oatmeal. At $3.00/bar, this soap is a bargain, as on average, one bar will last me for 6 months. (And I do wash!)

Goal for this week? Take Carol up on her offer to learn to milk a goat.

Day 2

2007-11-11T17:08:00.000-06:00

When I brought myself downstairs this morning at 11:30, Mom and Dad were standing over the stovetop making breakfast together. Typical of my parents, Mom prepared the eggs (basted) and fried tomatoes, while Dad dealt with the pig.

Pork is an object of much contention within this household. Dad and my four brothers are ardent advocates of consuming the animal, while Mom and I hold that it is unhealthy and even harmful. To quote my mother: "As long as he cooks it himself, it's fine. I don't want to be party to his death - that's what I tell him."

I learned a while ago that pigs have only non-functional eccrine sweat glands. This explains why they roll in the mud - they have no other way to cool themselves. As omnivores, pigs eat nearly anything they set eyes on. Ever wonder why being called a pig is a terrible insult? Well, aside from the obvious connotation of greed, pigs will consume even their own excretions, rotting carcasses, and their offspring. Humans and other mammals sweat and exude toxins through eccrine sweat glands constantly. But pigs make use only of apocrine sweat glands – so although they smell, all the toxins from the trash they eat remains under their skin – in that fatty layer that we know as bacon and bacon rind, or cracklings.

In addition to the attractive picture painted above, pigs are hosts to a multitude of parasites and diseases to which humans are susceptible, including trichinosis and cysticercosis (roundworms and tapeworms). Yum, yum, yum!

While I don’t look at the first five books of the Old Testament as a code of law to be followed verbatim, I do think that God had reasons for many of the rules He gave. He said don’t eat pork – I think maybe He had a reason.

Sunday Afternoon

2007-11-11T14:19:00.000-06:00

Our Scrabble Game

Pretty good I think, considering the diverse age and education range of the players! We used all the letters. Dan and I spent a good ten minutes pouring over the board after everyone else had left, searching for a home for his one left-over 'E'. Do you know what an 'en' is?
According to the New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, an 'en' is defined as follows:

en (en) n. (printing) a unit of measurement of type width, half an em

I thought that was funny: an en is half an em. Anyways . . .

At Home

2007-11-10T23:46:00.000-06:00

I have a week to spend in the serenity and serendipity of nowhere - at least nowhere that you've heard of. I grew up in Emo, Ontario; population 1200 people, thousands of cows. Tradition has it that Emo was named . . . I think the story has something about a cow in it. I'll have to ask the town librarian to boost my memory sometime this week.

The word 'serendipity' was coined in 1754 by Horace Walpole. Thank-you, Mr. Walpole. I'm feeling very serendipitous at present.

I have a whole week to spend relaxing in Emo. Today I spent hours typing away on my laptop and reading online - granted, dial-up Internet is a cross to bear. But, we endure our persecutions and they make us stronger??? I visited for three and a half hours with a friend who lives two miles away, in Emo itself, while attempting to reproduce my former success with pita bread. A miserable failure, the dough ended up as rather tasty, crusty dinner rolls instead. I'll have to try for pita bread again later this week. Later in the evening I listened to an entertaining philosophy lecture, and mused over some Pascal, then telephoned a friend and chatted for another 2 hours.

There are times when a sentence I read seems to resonate strangely within me, as if responding to an innate awareness of truth, and evokes a passionate concurrence. I think Pascal has explained this phenomenon aptly in the following:

"When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours. And thus this benefit renders him pleasing to us, besides that such community of intellect as we have with him necessarily inclines the heart to love."

To sum up: if Day 1 was any sort of prophetic precursor – I’m more then ready for this coming week.

A Curious Quote

2007-11-02T23:42:00.000-05:00

"If somebody knows quite a lot about things, it takes you quite a while to find out whether they’re really stupid or not."
- JD Salinger
I came across this purely accidentally - I am not a fan of JD Salinger, although I've only read "The Catcher in the Rye" which I didn't like and can't believe they make students read in high school - but you know, I think it's very true.

The Return of the Native

2007-11-02T23:04:00.000-05:00

I won't write about anarchy, or anarchism, anarchists, or anything anarchal, even though I had Moroccan Mint Tea at the Mondragon Bookstore & Coffee House tonight. I could also write about enlightening conversation, although since at the present the only person who reads this blog is the person I was conversing with, such a description is unnecessary.

However, I will state, reserving the right to rescind said statement, that I plan to write some sort of review, or critique, or analysis of 'The Return of the Native' by Thomas Hardy and post it here in the near future.

I finished this book last night, reading far too late into the night / early into the morning to be healthful. And found it intriguing.

And, as it's late tonight, and I work in the morning, that is all for now!

Flaming June

2007-11-02T09:36:00.000-05:00

Just for you Andy!
I'd actually never heard of this painting before, but thank-you for drawing it to my attention. It's wonderful.
If anyone was wondering - yes, I do like orange.

Picture of the Day

2007-11-01T23:09:00.000-05:00

Couldn't resist - I've wanted to post this since day one, a whole five days ago.

Character Analysis

2007-11-01T22:23:00.000-05:00

I debated whether to post tonight - and decided I should. I fall victim to the slippery slope phenomenon (there you go Mr. K. - I used that term outside of the classroom!) far to easily; if I didn't post tonight, then tomorrow I probably wouldn't either, and the next day I would procrastinate and end up putting it off till Sunday, and before I knew it, I would have ended my blog with only four posts. Isn't it wonderful to know yourself, or at least to know about yourself? I suppose, yes, if knowing actually makes you take a different path than the one you would detrimentally and weakly default to.

Speaking of character – my brother Dan, next in age to me at 17, is in grade 12 this year, and currently enjoying ‘The Scarlet Letter’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne. If you knew Dan, you would understand why ‘enjoying’ is italicized above. His latest assignment was to write an essay documenting the character evolution of Roger Chillingworth. Of course his first recourse (that’s fatigue speaking, ‘course’, ‘recourse’) was his big sister, who comes in handy when English is the issue at hand.

So, having procrastinated a full six hours, I sat down at 9:30 and proceeded to come out with a rough outline for above mentioned character growth summary. I actually think this is a good assignment, although I probably would have hated it two years ago, when I was digesting Hawthorne’s masterpiece.

I read ‘The Scarlet Letter’ for my own entertainment when I was 14 or 15 (I’ll come back to this topic some other time), so when we got to it in Grade 12 English I was ahead of the game. But still, even after two or three readings, recalling it after a couple years of virtual brain sabbatical was tricky.

But I think I came up with some reasonable suggestions – and thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process – because after all, not only was I getting back to literary criticism and analysis, but I was telling my little brother what to do!

Now, before I get too transparent, and start revealing the true degree of my controlling nature or ranting on why Dan had to come to me to figure out this English assignment and why hasn’t the twelve years of the public school system he’s already withstood prepared him to write a character evaluation – to quote C.S. Lewis in ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, “Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?” – I think I’d better sign off.

Hamlet even on Halloween!

2007-10-31T23:05:00.000-05:00

To quote Shakespeare, ‘Like Niobe, all tears’ I gazed out my window this last morning of October. Flurrying more than drifting, a host of (oh, here's a good one!) Santa's dandruff? wafted to the muddy pavement. Inwardly cringing at the so apt reminder of encroaching winter, I headed off to the café to face Tony’s good natured gibing.

Despite myself, I couldn’t help but notice the air of serenity that the frosty flakes : ) lent to my otherwise edgy Central Park vista. Note: freshly fallen snow obscures beer bottles, yellowed plastic and broken glass – at least until it melts! And the rebellious glimmer of excitement that sprang up unbidden was hard to suppress. (Don’t tell Tony!) I tell myself that the first snowfall only excites me because it means one less snowfall until the May long weekend . . .

Radical digression from the current topic supervenes:

I have this wonderful friend who is old enough to be my mother. Now that I think of it, a whole darn lot of my friends here in Winnipeg have taken on quasi parental roles, and not least of all because of their age! This one woman in particular has played a large role in my life recently; I will grant her anonymity because I can’t foresee which of my acquaintances may stumble across this blog, and name her Ruth.

Ruth spent many years living homeless on the streets of Winnipeg before the Lord reached out and touched her heart. Today she runs a ministry in the North End; seeking to give back to God what he has given to her. This evening I accompanied her to Wal-Mart, after which she drove me home by way of her old haunts, through the slums of the North End, pointing out boarded-up crack houses, child prostitutes, and other ministries like her own – flickering but persistent lights in a gloomy, oppressive haven for the enemy.

It was the women I saw that grabbed and yanked, not pulled, at my heartstrings. Ruth says the girls can be as young as ten. At ten I was writing poetry and building dams in our creek with my brothers. I tend to filter everything I see through my own experiences, to hold up hard realities alongside my sheltered life. I’m sure this is natural, and not solely my experience, although I wonder at its efficacy. Does comparing another’s life to mine distance that individual from me? Or does the stark contrast bring the painful truths that much closer to home?

Of one thing I’m certain. It will take much to erase the haunted eyes of the black-haired teen selling herself on Halloween from my memory.

. . . winter . . .

2007-10-30T23:05:00.000-05:00

Winter is beginning to howl through the streets here in the wind scoured metropolis of Winnipeg, Manitoba. I walked to work today under a slate gray sky and skeletal branches reaching up toward the heavy, snow-laden (God forbid!) clouds. The remains of summer's happy foliage lie sodden and decomposing in the gutters - scattered with rejected cigarette butts and candy bar wrappers. The grass is crisping, losing its green health and taking on the sickly hue of light-starved vegetation, the hapless victim of nighttime's frost.

I work at a unique café in Winnipeg's West End. Founded by the Christian activist Harry Lehotsky, the Ellice Café is a non-profit community development initiative run by New Life Ministries. Most of us staff live downtown Winnipeg or in the West End, and though we come from staggeringly diverse backgrounds, we have a lot in common.

Winter though, is an issue that divides us into two camps. I don't hate winter; really, I don't. I just don't see the point of it. Why? Why, when one could be bathing in the sun, hiking through the Whiteshell, slapping mosquitoes, slathering on sunscreen while canoeing some winding river, rollerblading or biking down a leafy, oak-canopied street . . . why snow?

Scarcely a day passes without Tony, burger boy extraordinaire (I don't get that nickname - why burger boy?) and me debating the pros and cons of the snow-blanketed season that is winter. He taunts me with foreboding forecasts, and eagerly glances out the tall windows at the low hanging, heavy clouds. Winter is marching relentlessly down from the arctic wastes - and I wait for it despondently, sinking further under my feather tick and sipping my piping hot chicken soup and crackers - Wheat Thins of course!

June, I'm waiting!

Fluting

2007-10-29T23:05:00.000-05:00

I pulled my flute out today - the second time in months. It's funny how an instrument sticks with one; dexterity and nimbleness fades away - but the head knowledge is all there. If only I could transmit that 'know how' to my fingers, but skill is something that only practice will increase. Interesting, isn't it: if the smartest individual existing doesn't exercise his mind, then he may as well not have one. Skills, abilities, talents - they are only as profitable is the time and energy we put into them. Indeed, they don't revert to dormancy with under use, but degenerate. Like my writing . . .

merely scratching

2007-10-28T18:29:00.001-05:00

This is my first blog of what I hope will be a long series of postings. As I am utterly unfamiliar with the confusing world of bloggging, I will be scratching away at these posts for quite awhile until I get the concept cleared up in my head.

I like the anonymity of blogging; anyone can read what I write, but they can't criticize my day-to- day existence. I suppose that's not the best reason for blogging, but at present it's mine - freedom of expression on my part, and feedback from readers, but not condemnation, at least none that can reach through my browser window and shake my world.

So long for now.