Prodigal

Considering the irregularity of my postings, I wonder that anyone still reads this blog. I’ve been far away from it; too busy, too distracted, too fatigued, too… okay, I’ve been playing WoW. Sue me.

But I’ve missed writing. I know it’s not very good, but I don’t write for the audience. I write for me. After some encouragement, I let you all into my musings. I hope they haven’t been too disappointing. I hope they are not too dull; but if they are…again, sue me. You don’t have to read them. But I am going to try to get back to regular posting, so I apologize in advance for the quality of my writing, or for the lack thereof. I just have to write again.

It’s Alistair Cooke’s fault. I happened to catch the documentary on Cooke this evening on PBS. The show spoke of his “Letters from America”, the radio series he did for the BBC, and told of how they were commentaries by an observer with cinematic vision, a man who saw things as unflinchingly as a movie camera, and yet worked very hard to keep his own opinions out of his simple statement of what he saw, and let that simple statement, over many years, tell the story of a changing nation through what may have been mankind’s most tumultuous century.

I can’t do that as well as Cooke, I’m sure. I spend much of my time trying to be objective. I am distrustful, not of the values of my upbringing, but of the assumptions attendant therein. I contend with this every day, to see as much as I can as clearly as i can. I will try to do that here. It may not say anything of our nation’s passage through this new century, nor represent our times to electronic readers to come; but it might help me discern what is true from what is not; to distinguish what is true from what I only think is true.

In my youth a friend of mine once advised me to be wary of “Truth with a capital T”. He said that one should look for small everyday truths. It was sound advice, and though in time my friend would stumble when the little truths escaped him for a while, the little truth of that advice is unassailable. I have kept it as a guiding principle.

Thanks, ol’ buddy. Glad you found your feet again.

From those little truths, one can build, over the years, a vision of what is true. And that is much more important than “the Truth”. The former is enlightening. The latter is advertising. This is a truth I have discovered.

We have moved into a new kind of religion, or at least of Christianity, with new ways of looking at Christ’s message. It is an attempt to move past the marketing of two millenia to the real message, like taking the bag of corn flakes out of the oversized, brightly-colored box and pouring them into a sturdy, solid bowl. I like the idea, if it can truly be done. It’s an old idea; it motivated Constantine’s council of bishops and scholars in Nicaea; it motivated Benedict; it motivated Francis; it motivated Martin Luther. But it has to be more than throwing poop at the cathedral door, and having a social consciousness. It has to be a spiritual, and it has to be an intellectual reformation. It has to become a freedom of vision. It has to be willing to cast aside comfort, cast aside complacency, and at the moment of any revelation it must cast aside anger, undisciplined passion, self-congratulatory salvation. It must be a change of soul, and heart, and mind. And it requires a willingness to see the small true things…and to accept that some of the Truth, as packaged by state or religion or media, is so much brightly colored packaging. Whether or not this new form of religion will be successful is not yet certain. I can almost assure you it won’t last in perfection past it’s first generation. But it’s a noble attempt. I do wish it didn’t so often involve trading in J. S. Bach for Bill Gaither, or Rembrandt for nifty logoes; I think we’re selling ourselves a little short. But that’s just me. And it’s kind of a distraction.

I will rather look and listen and feel for the small true things. I will ask questions, and and seek answers, and not be afraid of the truths I find, even if they are unsettling. I need not attempt to match the Infinite. It’s too exhausting. And if I can, I will try to share the truths I find, and a few laughs, and a few tears…though I will try not to make the tears to self-indulgent. Try. Not promise. I am me, after all. Don’t expect perfection.

Nor any strict adherence to a publishing schedule….