“The times, they are a-changing” or “You say you want a resolution”

It’s New Year’s Eve, 2008. It would be difficult, I suppose, to approach the advent of a new year without two things: some reflection on the passing year and speculation on what the new one holds.  For many, the process involves making resolutions — the past was insufficient/disappointing/difficult/? so I will make these _____ changes in an effort to amend.

Good luck with that!

I don’t make resolutions, but what I find myself considering is a noncomprehensive series of thoughts listed below. I get these ideas when I read too much philosophy, especially essays on post-modernism.

Here is a good piece from Philosophy Today, Winter, 1991, written by Gary Madison from a conference on post-modernism. I was shocked to find the article to be eighteen years old! It feels so contemporary.  I guess that’s my point.

in lieu of resolutions

1. People are more interested in coping than understanding.
2. The Biblical command not to steal only applies to individuals, not institutions such as governments, who do it routinely. You may have to pay for a service that my child or mother needs minus your consent.
3. It’s all personal.
4. It’s all personnel.
5. I have been disappointed with nearly everything I’ve bought on Ebay.
6. The U.S. Constitution is a slow read, but the audio isn’t bad. Entire Constitution of the United States [72 MB] the first web-based audio file from The University of Chicago School of Law.
7. Maybe it wasn’t so smart to pay off the mortgage early. How many other pieces of “wisdom” we followed were erroneous?
8. Flipping through the channels is no longer safe for children. Or most adults. Supervision or a V-chip is required.
9. The Coen Brothers show but do not direct toward the good.
10. In a Christmas emergency, I was scammed for $40.00 by a website. (I reasearched the site AFTER I hit Place My Order.  See #2.)
11. Live large on a small budget.
12. Many people live small on a large budget.
13. I am already tired of articles about economic doom and how I can make my money go farther. This usually involves a sponsor.
14. If times get harder (everyone I know has a cell phone, HDTV, a car, a home, a job, a computer, cable or similar,) what will be the last to go — excluding items of real significance such as people and faith? Transportation.
15. If times get harder economically, what thing will be first to go?  Cable TV. Not to include hi-speed Internet. I think. (It is instructive to list all the “nonessential” things we enjoy.)
16. I can’t think of anything of significance I learned this year! Gads. I’m sure it will come to me.
17. Lyotard insists that metanarratives are out and mininarratives are in. Too bad.
18. (from Madison’s essay) It’s now “not Socrates’ “Don’t tell a lie,” but Johnny Carson’s “Don’t be boring. ”  One tries.
19. As Kurt Vonnegut allegedly said once, we should not waste time worrying about the future. What we are worrying about probably won’t happen. Crises will come out of nowhere blindsiding us.
20. Just because it’s true doesn’t mean it has to be said.

21. And since to look at things in bloom,
       Fifty springs are little room,
       About the woodlands I will go,
       To see the cherry hung with snow.   A.E. Housman

Carpe diem and Happy New Year!

It’s not exactly morbid, but . . .

“Famous last words.” We say it idiomatically when someone says something profound, but not necessarily reliable or likely to happen. I guess we like to think we’ll have the presence of mind, when the time comes, to say something witty, profound, or memorable. Maybe we should only hope for intelligible.

What runs through the mind when the end is certain? I’ve been reading the famous last words of well-known people.   In some of the examples, the dying person realizes that an accident is imminent. Some are dying of a disease. Many think of family. Others, God. There’s fear, arrogance, and anger. Relief. Maybe our last words represent who we were in life. 

The suicides are the hardest to read. Or maybe the final utterance of those about to be executed. How helpless and human we are when facing death, the most democritizing agent we have.  See for yourself.

• Please don’t let me fall.
  Who: Mary Surratt, before being hanged for her part in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. She was the first woman executed by the United States federal government.
• All right then, I’ll say it: Dante makes me sick.
  Who: Lope de Vega, famous playwright, on being assured that the end was very near.
• I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.
  Who: Leonardo da Vinci
• My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.
  Who: Oscar Wilde
• One more time.
  Who: Wolfman Jack (pseudonym of Robert Weston Smith), Veteran radio DJ. Spoken to his wife, with open arms, after completing a tour promoting his autobiography. During a loving hug, he collapsed and died in her arms.
• Draw your sword and kill me, so they can’t say, ‘A woman killed him.’
  Who: Abimelech. Judge of Israel.
• Am I dying, or is this my birthday?
  Who: Lady Nancy Astor (lots of family around the bed)
• Let’s roll.
  Who: Todd Beamer, passenger on United Flight 93, September 11, 2001.
• KHAQQ calling Itasca. We must be on you but cannot see you. Gas is running low.
  Who: Amelia Earhart
• A dying man can do nothing easily.
  Who: Benjamin Franklin  Note: As he lay dying, his daughter suggested that if he lay on his side, he could breathe easier.
• Das ist absurd! Das ist absurd! Translation: This is absurd! This is absurd!
  Who: Sigmund Freud
• I’m tired of fighting! I guess this thing is going to get me.
  Who: Harry Houdini  One of Harry Houdini’s tricks was to tighten his stomach muscles and invite strong men to punch him in the stomach, and he would withstand the blow. He was asked by a young man one day if he would be able to withstand such a blow. Houdini replied yes and was promptly punched in the gut. As Houdini had not had time to brace himself he received the full force of the punch and his gut ruptured, wounding him fatally
• Oh, do not cry – be good children and we will all meet in heaven.
  Who: Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States
• No, you certainly can’t.
  Who: John F. Kennedy  context: This was said in reply to Nellie Connally, wife of Governor John Connelly, commenting “You certainly can’t say that the people of Dallas haven’t given you a nice welcome, Mr. President.”
• I am just going outside. I may be some time.
  Who: Captain Lawrence Oates, on Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition, while suffering from frostbite and sheltering from a blizzard, Oates felt he was decreasing his companions’ chances of survival. Oates voluntarily left the tent; it was his 32nd birthday. He was never seen again.
• I have not told half of what I saw.
  Marco Polo, Venetian traveller and writer

These quotations were casually researched, a nice read, and came from wikiquotes, so, as you know, do serious tracking if you wish to cite.

Happy Reformation Day!

Wednesday night at Casa Blanca we talked about Martin Luther and the Reformation over enchiladas and chili rellenos. They were mopping up as we dispersed into the rainy, deep-October night. It was church.

Bob knew about Luther, the man and the monk. I did’t know that he (Luther, not Bob) translated the Bible into German while on the lamb under a death notice. It reminded me of Bunyan. And come to think of it, Paul (the Apostle, not the logger.) Not to mention John out on Patmos, probably not a resort town at the time. Something about incarceration. Maybe if more preachers . . . no, alas, not enough jails.

 Who are the reformers today? It still has to be writers, most writing in plush offices with deluxe software suites. Whole churches change how they do business based on their books and tape series.  Maybe some were divinely inspired. Lifeway and CBD have stacks and stacks on how to make our churches and ourselves more purposeful.  Reform, after all, is betterment. Remember reform school? Sure you don’t.

One website on Luther, which contains the 95 Theses condemning the selling of indulgences, features commercial ads for Luther products! Love the irony.