Stay In Touch -Have I not proven to you that I Am in the saving sinners business? -Jesus
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Anecdotal Evidence: `The Fascinating Subject of Wood'
Anecdotal Evidence: `The Fascinating Subject of Wood'
Excerpt:
“Scraps accumulate and can add up to an education.”
Excerpt:
“Scraps accumulate and can add up to an education.”
So writes a reader commenting on a recent post. He goes on to cite Kierkegaard, whose thinking baffles me, but adds: “Chesterton, the extraordinary writer of the ordinary, titled an essay collection Tremendous Trifles.” Now he has my attention. The volume is a gathering of columns Chesterton wrote for the Daily News between 1902 and 1909. Just days before I had reread one of its essays, “What I Found in My Pocket,” in which Chesterton describes being confined “in a third-class carriage for a rather long journey.” Our twenty-first-century equivalent is a lengthy, crowded but solitary cross-country flight in an airliner. Chesterton writes:
“Now I deny most energetically that anything is, or can be, uninteresting. So I stared at the joints of the walls and seats, and began thinking hard on the fascinating subject of wood.”
Marks in the Margin: Sophie Scholl
Marks in the Margin: Sophie Scholl
Excerpt:
An optimistic, life-loving student with a boyfriend and a rich future ahead of her, she is the kind of decent, principled person we would all like to be. Stephen Holden
The film, “Sophie Scholl—The Final Days,” begins in February 1943 at the University of Munich. Sophie and her brother, Hans, both students there (Sophie in biology and philosophy, Hans in medicine) enter the main building while classes are meeting, walk rapidly up the stairs, and hurriedly begin leaving stacks of leaflets outside the classroom doors. As they are about to leave, Sophie notices a few are left in her suitcase and lets them fly over the balustrade.
The leaflets protest Hitler’s regime, its acts of oppression, denial of free expression...
Excerpt:
An optimistic, life-loving student with a boyfriend and a rich future ahead of her, she is the kind of decent, principled person we would all like to be. Stephen Holden
The film, “Sophie Scholl—The Final Days,” begins in February 1943 at the University of Munich. Sophie and her brother, Hans, both students there (Sophie in biology and philosophy, Hans in medicine) enter the main building while classes are meeting, walk rapidly up the stairs, and hurriedly begin leaving stacks of leaflets outside the classroom doors. As they are about to leave, Sophie notices a few are left in her suitcase and lets them fly over the balustrade.
The leaflets protest Hitler’s regime, its acts of oppression, denial of free expression...
Socialist-Run France “Totally Bankrupt” According To Labor Minister… | Weasel Zippers
Socialist-Run France “Totally Bankrupt” According To Labor Minister… | Weasel Zippers
[So, if all these socialist countries are bankrupt WHO has the money?....]
[So, if all these socialist countries are bankrupt WHO has the money?....]
Monday, January 28, 2013
First Known When Lost: How To Live, ['Flying Crooked'] Part Fifteen: "A Just Sense Of How Not To Fly"
First Known When Lost: How To Live, Part Fifteen: "A Just Sense Of How Not To Fly"
Excerpt:
Today, while out for a walk, I nearly collided with a creamy white-yellow one that was being blown about in the wind. Was it perhaps a cabbage-white? I wouldn't know. But I like to think it was.
Flying Crooked
The butterfly, a cabbage-white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight,
Yet has -- who knows so well as I? --
A just sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and here by guess
And God and hope and hopelessness.
Even the aerobatic swift
Has not his flying-crooked gift.
Robert Graves, Poems 1926-1930 (1931).
Excerpt:
Today, while out for a walk, I nearly collided with a creamy white-yellow one that was being blown about in the wind. Was it perhaps a cabbage-white? I wouldn't know. But I like to think it was.
Flying Crooked
The butterfly, a cabbage-white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight,
Yet has -- who knows so well as I? --
A just sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and here by guess
And God and hope and hopelessness.
Even the aerobatic swift
Has not his flying-crooked gift.
Robert Graves, Poems 1926-1930 (1931).
Pentimento: czeslaw milosz
Pentimento: czeslaw milosz
Excerpt:
Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.
For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
Excerpt:
Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.
For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
'You have not worked the silences..."
I've never understood why this 'gift of remembrance' came to me.
Recently I read that silence and solitude cannot heal all things, all memories. There are queries of the soul and heart too deep to bury; 'the very stones will cry out.' His Sword has two sides: Justice||Mercy. Both are gifts of grace and love.
Yesterday I ran across an admonition: "You have not worked the silences..." Some of us are tapped on the soul to 'hold and carry' the wounded. A few years ago I watched a retired psychiatric nurse who was grieving especially for her brother paint a picture. The picture was full of the shadows of people...Those whose 'sight' includes those surrounding us with unmet needs can find themselves in battles few understand especially in a world that despises the spiritual, the soul, and holds contemplation in contempt.
This past year has been extraordinarily difficult and at times very painful so even though almost everything I post has some correlation to my promise 'to remember' I have not posted my annual story of Margaret of Hungary. This promise has profoundly rewoven the fabric of my being. In so many ways she also remembers me.
Across the interstices of Eternity two women's lives have intertwined to such an extent that I would never believe it if I were not one them. When I met Margaret she was an old woman dying. I was a young student studying chemistry and Latin. I already had a history degree with a major in modern European history with a specialty in Holocaust studies. However, as I was soon to learn, I knew absolutely 'nothing' about it.
Where we met was just as astonishing to me. I was finishing up my studies at a university in West Texas. She had come from Budapest, Hungary. I was Roman Catholic. She was Jewish. That which has always stood out in my memory of her: her beautiful eyes, her dark, raven hair, her rolling accent and the 'tattoo'.
When one studies science and has lecture in the morning with long Chemistry labs in the afternoon, time for work and study are at a premium. Through the medical school I was hired to care for patients returning home from the hospital who still needed care. It was called 'crisis care' and at that time there were no such programs. Her son was a doctor and professor of physiology. Margaret had suffered a massive stroke and needed constant care. I was assigned the graveyard shift. While caring for most of my previous patients who eventually went to sleep, I could study which kept me awake. This was not so with Margaret. She was in distress and unable to communicate her needs.
That first night it was frustrating for both of us. I finally realized she wanted to use the bedside commode.
She was dead weight but I was able to lift her onto the seat. She still was crying. I spoke softly to her trying to listen for her words when it struck me that one of the reasons I was having difficulty understanding her speech was that she had a very thick accent. For chemistry I had studied German, French and Russian to read the journals so I said to her: "You're eastern European!" All of a sudden this dying, lifeless woman raised herself up, threw back her head and with eyes flashing retorted, "I am Hungarian!" We both smiled.
We were only assigned each patient for three weeks until the funding ran out. Each evening I looked forward to being with her. She pulled out her family album and showed me her pictures. This small woman had been a concert violinist in Budapest. She had married a university professor of physiology who was also a physician. They had three beautiful children. In 1944 they were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz. After a time she was moved to Ravensbruck. By some miracle they all survived. Her children went to the United States. She and her husband remained in Hungary. In the Hungarian Uprising soviet tanks killed many, including her husband. She had to flee Hungary. Terrified she remained for months in Tunisia until her son finally was able to bring her to live with him in West Texas.
The night she revealed these dark things to me is tattooed on my soul.
She knew she would not live very long. It was important this story. I know it. She had not been in West Texas long when her family was encouraged to get her out of the house and meet others. None of them were that active socially. The shades were kept down and there was a reticence to interact. She finally allowed her son to take her to the senior center. It was a warm, sunny spring day. She sat alone at one of the round tables waiting for the noon luncheon when an older man entered the room. He came and sat across from her. She felt uncomfortable. With a smile he stared at her and said, pointing to her 'tattoo', "and you just thought you could get away from us." For what seemed like eternity she froze, stunned. Then she rose and went to the office where she came unglued. They called her son to come get her. The man had left. She never left the house alone again.
I taught chemistry classes for years across from this center and would sometimes go to the window and stare at those who went in and out the front door.
The last day of my time with Margaret her doctor son came into the room. He thanked me and said she seemed more alert and happy. I told him that she had shared her life with me. Tears filled his eyes. "She has never spoken of it to any of us." He was with her as I was leaving but I returned to her bedside and with tears in my eyes I hugged her and whispered, "I promise I will remember." Unworthily I have kept my promise. Each year for decades chemistry and physics students heard her story. Now, as I am retired, I share it with those who will read it.
Thank you, Margaret. May you rest in peace.
===============
What brought it to mind today was this clip on Youtube:
1939 Last Days of Peace...
Recently I read that silence and solitude cannot heal all things, all memories. There are queries of the soul and heart too deep to bury; 'the very stones will cry out.' His Sword has two sides: Justice||Mercy. Both are gifts of grace and love.
Yesterday I ran across an admonition: "You have not worked the silences..." Some of us are tapped on the soul to 'hold and carry' the wounded. A few years ago I watched a retired psychiatric nurse who was grieving especially for her brother paint a picture. The picture was full of the shadows of people...Those whose 'sight' includes those surrounding us with unmet needs can find themselves in battles few understand especially in a world that despises the spiritual, the soul, and holds contemplation in contempt.
This past year has been extraordinarily difficult and at times very painful so even though almost everything I post has some correlation to my promise 'to remember' I have not posted my annual story of Margaret of Hungary. This promise has profoundly rewoven the fabric of my being. In so many ways she also remembers me.
Across the interstices of Eternity two women's lives have intertwined to such an extent that I would never believe it if I were not one them. When I met Margaret she was an old woman dying. I was a young student studying chemistry and Latin. I already had a history degree with a major in modern European history with a specialty in Holocaust studies. However, as I was soon to learn, I knew absolutely 'nothing' about it.
Where we met was just as astonishing to me. I was finishing up my studies at a university in West Texas. She had come from Budapest, Hungary. I was Roman Catholic. She was Jewish. That which has always stood out in my memory of her: her beautiful eyes, her dark, raven hair, her rolling accent and the 'tattoo'.
When one studies science and has lecture in the morning with long Chemistry labs in the afternoon, time for work and study are at a premium. Through the medical school I was hired to care for patients returning home from the hospital who still needed care. It was called 'crisis care' and at that time there were no such programs. Her son was a doctor and professor of physiology. Margaret had suffered a massive stroke and needed constant care. I was assigned the graveyard shift. While caring for most of my previous patients who eventually went to sleep, I could study which kept me awake. This was not so with Margaret. She was in distress and unable to communicate her needs.
That first night it was frustrating for both of us. I finally realized she wanted to use the bedside commode.
She was dead weight but I was able to lift her onto the seat. She still was crying. I spoke softly to her trying to listen for her words when it struck me that one of the reasons I was having difficulty understanding her speech was that she had a very thick accent. For chemistry I had studied German, French and Russian to read the journals so I said to her: "You're eastern European!" All of a sudden this dying, lifeless woman raised herself up, threw back her head and with eyes flashing retorted, "I am Hungarian!" We both smiled.
We were only assigned each patient for three weeks until the funding ran out. Each evening I looked forward to being with her. She pulled out her family album and showed me her pictures. This small woman had been a concert violinist in Budapest. She had married a university professor of physiology who was also a physician. They had three beautiful children. In 1944 they were rounded up and sent to Auschwitz. After a time she was moved to Ravensbruck. By some miracle they all survived. Her children went to the United States. She and her husband remained in Hungary. In the Hungarian Uprising soviet tanks killed many, including her husband. She had to flee Hungary. Terrified she remained for months in Tunisia until her son finally was able to bring her to live with him in West Texas.
The night she revealed these dark things to me is tattooed on my soul.
She knew she would not live very long. It was important this story. I know it. She had not been in West Texas long when her family was encouraged to get her out of the house and meet others. None of them were that active socially. The shades were kept down and there was a reticence to interact. She finally allowed her son to take her to the senior center. It was a warm, sunny spring day. She sat alone at one of the round tables waiting for the noon luncheon when an older man entered the room. He came and sat across from her. She felt uncomfortable. With a smile he stared at her and said, pointing to her 'tattoo', "and you just thought you could get away from us." For what seemed like eternity she froze, stunned. Then she rose and went to the office where she came unglued. They called her son to come get her. The man had left. She never left the house alone again.
I taught chemistry classes for years across from this center and would sometimes go to the window and stare at those who went in and out the front door.
The last day of my time with Margaret her doctor son came into the room. He thanked me and said she seemed more alert and happy. I told him that she had shared her life with me. Tears filled his eyes. "She has never spoken of it to any of us." He was with her as I was leaving but I returned to her bedside and with tears in my eyes I hugged her and whispered, "I promise I will remember." Unworthily I have kept my promise. Each year for decades chemistry and physics students heard her story. Now, as I am retired, I share it with those who will read it.
Thank you, Margaret. May you rest in peace.
===============
What brought it to mind today was this clip on Youtube:
1939 Last Days of Peace...
An Interrupted Life: Etty's Flow...
"The sky is full of birds, the purple lupins stand up so regally and
peacefully, two little old women have sat down for a chat, the sun is
shining on my face, and right before our eyes, mass murder." Readers
won't fail to marvel at her fortitude, her refusal to bow to hatred or
despair and her capacity for selfless humaneness: "Against every new
outrage and every fresh horror, we shall put up one more piece of love
and goodness," and, written on a postcard she threw from the train that
took her to Auschwitz, "We left the camp singing."
=========
A translator who does not understand the message is unable to translate the message. Etty's message is subtle. Her message is about spiritual growth. If the translator is not at the same level of understanding, the translation will be distorted by numerous tiny slightly wrong word choices and word order. If you liked the book in this translation, well, one can only hope that someone will translate it correctly some day.
...
=========
A translator who does not understand the message is unable to translate the message. Etty's message is subtle. Her message is about spiritual growth. If the translator is not at the same level of understanding, the translation will be distorted by numerous tiny slightly wrong word choices and word order. If you liked the book in this translation, well, one can only hope that someone will translate it correctly some day.
...
Etty herself felt very deeply, vehemently, passionately;
reading her can be like drinking water from a fire hose. One might feel like
giving up the battle, but it will be well worth your while to push on. More and
more one begins to see astonishing signs of spiritual growth and maturity and
then of extraordinary achievement and grace. Emotionalism passes into selfless
and self-sacrificing love. She moves speedily from her first ability to say the
word God to constant prayer and even to a mystical union, all the more
significant for being so unrelated to any conventional religion. In the midst
of ever increasing certitude about coming annihilation, and eventually amid the
horrors of the transit camp of Westerbork, this young woman not only manages to
preserve her sanity and keep herself from hating her persecutors, but somehow
even comes to rejoice in the beauty and meaning of life. It is truly a wonder
how anyone could manage to grow to such transcendent greatness of spirit in so
short a time. How fortunate for us that it happened to a woman who felt so
deeply, knew herself so clearly, and wrote so aptly, and whose writings from
the midst of the Holocaust has survived to our time...
After the publication of Hillesum's diaries, An
Interrupted Life (in 1981, almost 40 years after her death in 1943 at the age
of 29), a number of letters written to friends during her last year came to
light. This life-affirming correspondence concerns her internment at
Westerbork, a transit camp that the Hillesum family and more than 100,000 other
Dutch Jews passed through en route to Auschwitz. Hillesum keenly details the diversity of the
inmates, the camp's squalor, the hellish transports and the incomprehensibility
of their situation...
"Against every new outrage and every fresh
horror, we shall put up one more piece of love and goodness," ......Peter F., Amzon Review
"Punch the 'yess' button..."
Thursday, January 24, 2013
A Place for Hope
Planet: K-Pax
The Kevin Spacey movie was intriguing. ‘His handling of
the other mental patients showed a depth of understanding and common sense no
doctor could begin to understand.’ - Catherine
Wienckowski
Prot: Unlike you
humans the reproductive process is very unpleasant.
Psychiatrist: If it’s
so unpleasant how do you reproduce?
Prot: As carefully as
possible.
House:
...Hope had feathers on... ~Emily Dickinson
Alfie: I didn’t know
there was a place in the brain for ‘hope’!
House: Yes. It’s very
small.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Mantilla
Mantilla
Black lace, a cascade—
if you could wear your grief
like the Spanish ladies
of those generations—
put loss on like a wardrobe
and then you wouldn’t have to explain,
mourning more simply
without questions flocking,
beating you with midnight
wings.
You’ve forgotten the sun-flavor
of oranges, the olive’s sharp bite.
All your taste blends bland,
a pablulum. No wonder
you can’t find an appetite.
Remember Rule #2: You must eat.
What does now taste like?
An old woman said an apple
should never be eaten alone.
Could this be biblical?
It’s just one question:
Can you come over?
Share a Gravenstein?
Later you can set out the Manzanillas.
~Joannie Kervran Stangeland, Poetry and Medicine, JAMA, Seattle, WA
Anecdotal Evidence: `Not the Same as What's Important'
Anecdotal Evidence: `Not the Same as What's Important'
Excerpt:
“Soul clap its hands and sing”...
Excerpt:
“An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress.”
“Soul clap its hands and sing”...
Pentimento: My Friends
Pentimento: My Friends
Excerpt:
...just like you.
My friends here in northern Appalachia are unlike me in my own forms of obscurity and obtuseness. While my New York friends were artists and intellectuals, my friends here include a heavily-made up Greek housewife whose American husband abandoned her for what we would call, back where I come from, a puttan; a hairdresser who's taught me everything I know about how to help my autistic son; and a Rwandan refugee I met at church, who works the night shift as an aide in a home for developmentally-disabled adults. There's the doctor's wife who taught me to drive and, when she found out my mother was dying, offered to, and did in fact, drive me and my children three hours to my mother's bedside, since I'm not a confident enough driver to make such a trip and my husband couldn't leave work until the following day. There's also an unemployed Iraq War vet whose biracial son is in my son's first-grade class, and who always treats little Jude with great warmth and respect. I'm the room mother in the classroom...
Excerpt:
...just like you.
My friends here in northern Appalachia are unlike me in my own forms of obscurity and obtuseness. While my New York friends were artists and intellectuals, my friends here include a heavily-made up Greek housewife whose American husband abandoned her for what we would call, back where I come from, a puttan; a hairdresser who's taught me everything I know about how to help my autistic son; and a Rwandan refugee I met at church, who works the night shift as an aide in a home for developmentally-disabled adults. There's the doctor's wife who taught me to drive and, when she found out my mother was dying, offered to, and did in fact, drive me and my children three hours to my mother's bedside, since I'm not a confident enough driver to make such a trip and my husband couldn't leave work until the following day. There's also an unemployed Iraq War vet whose biracial son is in my son's first-grade class, and who always treats little Jude with great warmth and respect. I'm the room mother in the classroom...
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
:) - Just saying...
You have to watch this...It's worth trying to "understand" him...True 'genius' comes around so little these days...The gifts, my friend, the gifts...you gave me this day!
Te amo.
"Chastity is the most powerful symbol of modern times..." [The state of 'Parliament' was a 'hoot'...]
Friday, January 11, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
What not to say to someone who has suffered spiritual abuse | Elizabeth Esther
What not to say to someone who has suffered spiritual abuse | Elizabeth Esther
[h/t Steven at Momentary Taste of Being]
Jan 8, 2013
Excerpt: [Notice: 'Get real spiritual help. Get real professional help. You didn't get this way by yourself and you aren't going to find the way out alone or by staying in the same abusive maze. Denial is very real and occurs in those who have 1) not dealt with their own spiritual sin issues and 2) are so wounded themselves they can't see the real and are very threatened by it. 3) Never discount the power of the silent assent of most people to 'keeping up appearances'--no matter what... 4) It's NEVER too late to get help. 5)You have a right to get help.]
...
4. Have you forgiven the people who hurt you? People who have suffered spiritual abuse are repeatedly reminded that Jesus commands them to forgive. We get it. Really. Also, we forgive you for being so unhelpful. [My note: You know the story of Job's friends...]
5. You know, you can wallow in self-pity or choose to move on. The subtext, here, is that people who talk about their abusive experiences are indulging in self-pity. Believe me, we want to move on. This is why we talk about it. Talking about the truth is actually a sign of healing. [Jesus did say: "And the TRUTH shall set you free." The truth is what really happened not what the societal purveyors of the socialite prestige syndrome want.] When we’re really hurting? We stay very quiet.
6. Well, what were YOU doing that was wrong? Were you behaving rebelliously? Dressing immodestly? This is classic victim-blaming. This line of questioning seeks to cast doubt upon the victim’s credibility and motives. It also casts the perpetrator as the noble character who was “seduced” against their will or understandably “provoked” to violence. [The statement I've always heard is" "He must have had a reason..." which moves the victim back into the brutality of the the environment of craziness and lies. Right away you should realize anyone who has such an attitude does not have your best interests in their heart.]
7. Are you allowing a root of bitterness to grow in your heart? No, actually. I only allow root vegetables to grow in my heart. Ahem. Look, this is a loaded question. It presumes that people like myself have an axe to grind and that we’re allowing our pasts to define our future. We’re not bitter. We’re bursting full of sweet, sweet healthy boundaries.
2. Be careful about offering solutions...
3. Encourage independence...
.....
[h/t Steven at Momentary Taste of Being]
"•The real significance of crime is in its being a
breach of faith with the
community of mankind •” (Lord Jim,
121)
Jan 8, 2013
Excerpt: [Notice: 'Get real spiritual help. Get real professional help. You didn't get this way by yourself and you aren't going to find the way out alone or by staying in the same abusive maze. Denial is very real and occurs in those who have 1) not dealt with their own spiritual sin issues and 2) are so wounded themselves they can't see the real and are very threatened by it. 3) Never discount the power of the silent assent of most people to 'keeping up appearances'--no matter what... 4) It's NEVER too late to get help. 5)You have a right to get help.]
...
4. Have you forgiven the people who hurt you? People who have suffered spiritual abuse are repeatedly reminded that Jesus commands them to forgive. We get it. Really. Also, we forgive you for being so unhelpful. [My note: You know the story of Job's friends...]
5. You know, you can wallow in self-pity or choose to move on. The subtext, here, is that people who talk about their abusive experiences are indulging in self-pity. Believe me, we want to move on. This is why we talk about it. Talking about the truth is actually a sign of healing. [Jesus did say: "And the TRUTH shall set you free." The truth is what really happened not what the societal purveyors of the socialite prestige syndrome want.] When we’re really hurting? We stay very quiet.
6. Well, what were YOU doing that was wrong? Were you behaving rebelliously? Dressing immodestly? This is classic victim-blaming. This line of questioning seeks to cast doubt upon the victim’s credibility and motives. It also casts the perpetrator as the noble character who was “seduced” against their will or understandably “provoked” to violence. [The statement I've always heard is" "He must have had a reason..." which moves the victim back into the brutality of the the environment of craziness and lies. Right away you should realize anyone who has such an attitude does not have your best interests in their heart.]
7. Are you allowing a root of bitterness to grow in your heart? No, actually. I only allow root vegetables to grow in my heart. Ahem. Look, this is a loaded question. It presumes that people like myself have an axe to grind and that we’re allowing our pasts to define our future. We’re not bitter. We’re bursting full of sweet, sweet healthy boundaries.
How to help victims of spiritual abuse
January 9, 2013
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about what NOT to say to someone who has suffered spiritual abuse, I’d like to list a few ways you CAN help. Helping someone in pain is, essentially, the work of compassion. I like how Henri Nouwen describes compassion:Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates distance, the distinction which prevents us from really being with the other.1. Educate yourself. Research, read books, listen to the stories of other survivors. The more you read about these stories, the more similarities you will find. The puzzle will start to piece itself together. You will begin to recognize and understand the group dynamics that lend themselves to spiritually abusive environments. You will gain an awareness of the personality types and life situations that render people vulnerable to these groups.
2. Be careful about offering solutions...
3. Encourage independence...
.....
"I've met enough people,
seldom a human being. … I must not lose faith. I must not lose hope."
~from the poem of a young child who perished in the Holocaust- from a collection edited by Hana Volavkova
Sunday, January 6, 2013
ADELIA PRADO – BRAZILIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH - www.antoniomiranda.com.br
ADELIA PRADO – BRAZILIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH - www.antoniomiranda.com.br
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
Adélia Prado is a Catholic intimist poet who writes about the instantaneous
apprehension of reality and the transformation of this reality through a critical,
and yet sensual Christian experience of the world...
A Sick Man Says a Morning Prayer
By the sign of the Holy Cross,
may my swollen belly come unto You
and my sickness without cure move You, Lord.
I begin my day, I who in my favour
explain that I passed the dark night in wakefulness.
I heard - and this is when at times I rest -
voices from more than thirty years ago.
I saw bright wedges of sunlight in the middle of the night.
My mother spoke to me,
I shooed away cats that licked
the bowl of my childhood.
Deliver me from hurling against You
my body's sorrow,
its zealous decay.
I must say, to relieve my feelings:
what wrathful love You have.
Take pity on me,
have mercy on me
through this sign of the Holy Cross
which 1 make over forehead, heart, mouth,
from toe tip to head,
from palm to palm.
...from Poesias Reunidas (Collected Poems)
Friday, January 4, 2013
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Trauma and Recovery - Judith Herman's Landmark Book on Child Abuse & Other Traumas
Trauma and Recovery - Judith Herman's Landmark Book on Child Abuse & Other Traumas
Excerpt:
Review: P.J. Rowan @ Amazon
Just read ch. 5 and you will be sold. As a person who has worked as a therapist with a variety of people and a variety of problems, I was stunned by the way that this book explains the impact of trauma. You need to read the concept of "complex ptsd," presented in ch. 6. Chs 5 and 6 elegantly present a framework for understanding people who have grown up in the fear of a terroristic household, whether with sexual abuse or not, whether with notable physical abuse or not. This framework acounts for the various problems suffered that are often described by clinicians as "borderline personality disorder," "somatization disorder," and other difficult/lets-ignore-them diagnoses. My feeling is that if you grew up in a scary, terroristic home, if you read chapter five you will believe this author was observing the whole time, and you may gain some insight into your own adult life and personality.
Excerpt:
THE ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.
Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Murder will out. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.
The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner that undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom.
The psychological distress symptoms of traumatized people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. The dialectic of trauma gives rise to complicated...Review: P.J. Rowan @ Amazon
Just read ch. 5 and you will be sold. As a person who has worked as a therapist with a variety of people and a variety of problems, I was stunned by the way that this book explains the impact of trauma. You need to read the concept of "complex ptsd," presented in ch. 6. Chs 5 and 6 elegantly present a framework for understanding people who have grown up in the fear of a terroristic household, whether with sexual abuse or not, whether with notable physical abuse or not. This framework acounts for the various problems suffered that are often described by clinicians as "borderline personality disorder," "somatization disorder," and other difficult/lets-ignore-them diagnoses. My feeling is that if you grew up in a scary, terroristic home, if you read chapter five you will believe this author was observing the whole time, and you may gain some insight into your own adult life and personality.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
billy collins: The Lanyard - Billy Collins
billy collins: The Lanyard - Billy Collins
Excerpt:
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even...
Excerpt:
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even...
First Known When Lost: "I Clutch The Memory Still, And I Have Measured Everything With It Since"
First Known When Lost: "I Clutch The Memory Still, And I Have Measured Everything With It Since"
Excerpt:
"The Peninsula," which ends with the following stanza:
And drive back home, still with nothing to say
Except that now you will uncode all landscapes
By this: things founded clean on their own shapes,
Water and ground in their extremity.
Seamus Heaney, Door into the Dark (1969).
...
Conceived beyond such innocence,
I clutch the memory still, and I
Have measured everything with it since.
Derek Mahon
Excerpt:
"The Peninsula," which ends with the following stanza:
And drive back home, still with nothing to say
Except that now you will uncode all landscapes
By this: things founded clean on their own shapes,
Water and ground in their extremity.
Seamus Heaney, Door into the Dark (1969).
...
Conceived beyond such innocence,
I clutch the memory still, and I
Have measured everything with it since.
Derek Mahon
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