ken wilson online

I gotta say that this parking every morning with a psalm in the soaking sort of way is so very delightful. Having angsted over the communication part, it must be said, holy moley, why haven’t I spent my life doing this? It’s one of the curiosities of getting older. I stumble into something like this–a way of praying especially that connects especially and I feel this regret for mucking about for years with other kinds of praying that seem more like pious worry or introspection or something that required enormous amounts of will power to come back to next time. I must be a slow learner.This morning, it was the second part of psalm 3.
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Day 2 of psalm 3 for lectio. Still on the first few verses, Robert Alter translation: [arggh, difficult to write it in Word Press the with the poetic stanzas--alas!]

More awarenss of the ubiquity of foes; it’s not me, it’s just part of being human. We were wired, our brains that is, to react to foes of all kinds, so the “fight and flight” response, alarm, and all that is a major part of our inner life. Read in the NYTimes today an article about terrorism. The chances of being killed by a terrorist are equivalent to one’s chances of drowning in the toilet. But the fear of terrorism has a discernible, measurable efffect on increased heart disease risk. Even with major terrorist events, more people are likely to die of the effects of the increased fear, which wears out the body faster. So alarm, fear, and things like cortisol released in the body when fear is happening are a big deal. All generated by our inward response to the presence of “foes.”
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So it’s been a couple of weeks blogging. A few impressions. I’m more hopeful that this is valuable (to me) than I first thought. It does have the effect of keeping a journal, though I can’t say that it’s nearly as candid as a journal. But it does help me to be a little more attentive or mindful of my own life, and it has the effect helping me to focus on things I want to focus on. The categories feature, for example: I have to really think twice before committing to a category and ask whether it’s a passing enthusiasm or something I want to pay attention to over the next year, say.
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Experiment to blog on prayer continues, Monday morning. Meditating on Psalm 3. Lectio is different than studying a text or attempting to figure it out. It feels more like stupid thinking. That is a pondering the words, attentive to images or feelings that emerge from simply holding the word in one’s mind, if that makes sense. I think it requires learning first to be still and silent and ignoring most thoughts as distraction, which allows the brain to function at a different level, or one chooses to focus on a different level than the ordinary analytic thoughts one has when engaging a text. See, this is difficult to describe.

This morning, Psalm 3, vs. 1: Lord, many are my foes…..leads to an awareness of the raw or basic fact of foes. All of our ancestors were to some extent able to survive their foes long enough to mate successfully, at least. So there is something in me that is designed to guard, protect against, foes. This morning feeling the fact of that. In the polite company of civilization that basic human reality is submerged behind many layers, but it’s the raw human material. So, just being aware of that, like a band of early homosapiens surrounded by wolves, or other predators, including other humans. This brought an awareness that foes are simply a common experience of being human: my father fought in WW2, was surrounded by foes, as was his father in WW1, I just missed being drafted at the height of the Vietnam War.
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Went to Cincinnati with Nancy on Vineyard business and checked into a local hotel. In the lobby I ran across a sign posted above the coffee pot; used my new iphone to take a picture of the sign because it contained a little mangled English. When I came down to the lobby a little later, the manager, from India, asked why I took a picture of the sign. (Didn’t realize he was looking on when I snapped the photo.) Because I’m a louse, I should have said. Instead, I pointed out the fractured English on the sign and he took it down. Ouch. Here’s this immigrant from India, probably knows two or three languages to my one, dissed by a smart alec iphoner taking a picture of his mangled sign. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Right! [Sorry about the photo quality; you are not dealing with an adept blogger here, by any means--reader (is that what a blog visitor is called even?) beware.]

Erin Zindle gave me a CD or a song she wrote and performed with her group, the Ragbirds, the week after Christmas.  I finally got a chance to listen to it in the car tonight after dropping Grace off at Donnell and Maria Wyche’s for her youth group.  It was a one track CD so it repeated and I listened to the song all the way home.  About the sixth time through just started to cry, and did all the way home.  Not in the habit, either.  The song was so beautiful.  A simple song about being home for Christmas and the miracle of family and closeness.  By the time I got home, had to sit in the driveway and cry it off.  Just looking at my house from the driveway, knowing Nancy was inside. Grace had stayed for a couple of night’s at Donnell and Maria’s so I had her suitcase and what not in the car to bring back into the house.  That got me going again, just carrying in my daughter’s things.  What is it about gratitude?    

Article in the NYT caught my eye, A Clutter Too Deep for Mere Bins and Shelves. Apparently there’s a run on organization bin systems in the new year. No wonder, with all the stuff that accumulates over the holidays.  But it’s got me thinking about the sheer volume of stuff that finds its way into the house.  I swear it’s more now than ever.  I’m purchasing more online than before, which saves gas for shopping, but the boxes proliferate from shipping.  I’ve got more cardboard from amazon than I can recycle right now.  Each box with extra inserts, plastic bubble wrap.  And then everyday from the mailbox, I’m bringing in a handful of stuff that I’m not interested in, but dutifully, I bring it in to the  house.  Maybe I should get a recycle bin for the front hallway and just put it in there, instead of laying it on the counter “to be sorted…”  This is getting out of hand. That’s the thing about the environment: it’s the little things, and it’s difficult to picture the impact.  But it’s real and the impact is devastating. Read recently that if everyone in china started using toilet paper, it would decimate the world’s forests.  

It’s a beautiful thing when the same old same old doesn’t repeat itself. Like the rest of the planet I’m so distressed by what’s happened in Iraq. And the lack of any national leadership to face the fact of our dependence on fossils fuels. But tucked into all this disappointment is the plain fact that George Bush has led the charge to dedicate more money to AIDS relief in Africa than any other president. Article in the NYT quotes Kerry praising Bush as a matter of fact.

For all of Clinton’s rhetoric on Africa, the money didn’t come. I’m sure the Congress he was working with didn’t make it any easier at the time. Then Bono took the treasury secretary to Africa, and eyes started to open. Too bad ideologues have hamstrung the use of the money. The official teaching of the world’s largest Christian organization forbids the use of condoms, the cheapest and most widely effective means to slow the spread of the AIDS epidemic. I talked with a leader in World Vision, the evangelical relief agency, who said one of the most powerful evangelical lobby groups also pressed them not to distribute condoms.

All this hurts, but the money released under the leadership of the president helps, and credit should be given where it’s due. And Kerry praising Bush is something no one expected. If there’s no rejoicing in the good, the bad is left to make all the noise.

Latest Ann Arbor bumper sticker sighting on the back of a red Honda Insight-Hybrid: My car sips gas; your car sucks. Great! I thought. Just what we need to convince more people to buy cars that get better fuel economy. Nothing motivates the unmoved like a little self-righteousness from the newly moved. I couldn’t help myself, and drove next to the bumper sticker displayer. Doing a little profiling, expecting to see a middle age white guy, thin, with glasses and a beard. Sure enough, stereotype held. Middle age white guy, thin, with glasses and a beard. Sigh. We’re literally in this hurting environment together. We’re hurting it together and we’ll only be able to be kinder to it together. Could we please drop the self-righteousness? Unseemly in matters religious and environmental. And worse, ineffective, which we can’t afford to be right now.

I love Ann Arbor, my hometown. I keep telling myself to make a list of the most out there bumper stickers. Like the one that said simply F*** Bush, only without the euphemism symbols. Just like that. I drove up close to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me, but no, there it was: live and in livid color. Being a boomer, I remember the visceral hatred that many felt for the President during the Vietnam war. LBJ, remember, decided not to run for a second term. And Nixon was not a beloved figure. But never the likes of that bumper sticker with the two four letter words stacked on top of each other. Whoah.