October 2006 Archives

continued from the previous entry...

After my hike on Friday afternoon, the rest of the weekend was filled with pretty much the same stuff.  I did some reading, worked on a couple poems and reflected in silence.  All the while keeping the monastic hours.

The monastic day officially starts at 4:15am with Vigils and ends at approximately 8pm with Compline.  It was surprisingly easy to adjust to this schedule with the relaxed nature of the weekend.  Despite getting up at 4am each day, I woke up refreshed.

I didn't really come out of the weekend with any answers (though I didn't really expect to either).  I'm fairly certain that the trappist ideal is not a possible vocation for me.  While I am perfectly comfortable in the silence, I think part of me needs to have a connection to the community at large.  I identified one of the major reasons that it would be difficult for me to ever consider converting to the Roman Catholic church.  It is my belief that mass should be shared with everyone, whether they of a different denomination or even if they aren't Christians.  If someone wants to come to the table, they should be able to participate fully.

I'll definitely do something like this again, it was a great way to recharge.

grey skies hide this
reflection of myself
overshadowing

---

painted trees fall
in silent acknowledgment
of passionate love

---

empty union
too often mingles with
no one (thing)

---

to love: follow
blindly. give everything.
discover grace.

more unseen deep breaths at one deep breath.

...or close to it.

Friday morning, October 20th, my friend and I left the apartment building at 5:15 am.  She had graciously agreed to drive me out to Lafayette for my weekend retreat.  The goal was to get there before the beginning of the Lauds at 6:30am.

I was to spending the weekend at Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey.  I had set up the retreat initially to talk to one of the brothers about participating in the Monastic Life Retreat the abbey offers.  However, by the time the weekend rolled around, I knew that this would not be the focus of my weekend after all.

At home I left most of the trappings of my day to day life.  I brought with me only a change of clothes, some books for reading and reflection and my moleskine notebook in which to write (I even left my watch at home).

The abbey itself is located on approximately 1400 acres of land on the west side of the Dundee hills.  This is an area now famous for its numerous world famous vineyards (in fact Sokel Blosser's vineyards border the east side of the abbey's land).  The abbey's land is however largely forested with the exception of some farm land at the base of the hill.  The monks use this land to grow vegetables they use for food.

Back to my story...

After Laud's (which is actually the second service of the monastic hours), I had to wait until my room was available.  During this time I sat out on the deck of the reception area and read a bit from the collection of poetry by Rumi I had brought with me. Shortly before noon, I was told my room was ready.  The room I would be staying in over the weekend was simple.  A twin bed, a desk and a rocking chair.  Perfect simplicity.

12:30 brought the Sext service.  After which came a silent dinner with other retreatants.  We would be eating a vegetarian diet for the weekend (as the monks themselves do).  After supper I decided to head off to the trails above the abbey's buildings.  Near the top of the hill there is a shrine to the Lady Guadalupe that made a good goal.   While there were defined trails, they were still not the heavily used trails I was used to.  At times the trail even had a blanket of growth covering it completely. 

One of the best things about this short hike, was that I didn't run into anyone else on the hike.  It was just me and the trees.

More to come later... 

I'm really going to try to finish a few posts about the time at the abbey in the next day or so.

New Jersey's Supreme court has ruled that the NJ constitution requires the state to provide the same set of rights and privileges to same sex couples as it does to "married"(straight) couples.  More details on Crooks and Liars: NJ Supreme Court: Gay couples entitled to equal spousal rights

Another Special Comment from Keith Olbermann:

Advertising Terrorism

An excerpt:

But to forgive you for terrorizing us, we would have to believe you somehow competent in keeping others from doing so.

Yet, last week, construction workers repairing a subway line in New York City, were cleaning out an abandoned manhole on the edge of the World Trade Center site, when they stumbled on to the impossible:  human remains from 9/11.

Bones and fragments.

Eighty of them.

Some as much as a foot long.

The victims had been lying, literally in the gutter, for five years and five weeks.

The families and friends of each of the 2,749 dead--who had been grimly told in May of 2002 that there were no more remains to be found--were struck anew as if the terrorism of that day had just happened again.

And over the weekend they've found still more remains.

And now this week will be spent looking in places that should have already been looked at a thousand times five years ago.

For all the victims in New York, Mr. Bush--the living and the dead--it's a touch of 9/11 all over again.

And the mayor of this city, who called off the search four-and-a-half years ago is a Republican.

The governor of this state with whom he conferred is a Republican.

The House of Representatives, Republican.

The Senate, Republican.

The President, Republican.

And yet you can actually claim that you and you alone can protect us from terrorism?

You can't even recover our dead from the battlefield--the battlefield in an American city--when we've given you five years and unlimited funds to do so!

 

Early tomorrow morning (as in 5.15am) I am heading out to Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey for a weekend retreat.  I'm leaving the cell phone, the laptop and the bustle of the city behind.  What I'll be taking with me, a couple books, my moleskine and an open mind and spirit.  It'll be a weekend of silence and discernment.

The books I'll have with me:

• The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
• Jesus the Son of Man by Kahlil Gibran
• The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks

I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about the weekend when I get back on Sunday!

The President finally signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006.  This is a scary bill, that hopefully will get wiped off the books, either by the Supreme Court or by the next Congressional session.  A lot of the stuff going on at the governmental level reminds me of the Antibalas' song "Who is this America?"  Honestly I don't know.

A Special Comment by Keith Olbermann.  See below the cut for the text of Olbermann's comment.  (He says this much more eloquently than I could)

Glenn Greenwald's take. 

from Crooks and Liars (via MyDD)

Paul Evans is the real deal. City Councilman in Monmouth, Oregon at age 18, Evans has been twice elected as the city's mayor, served in the Air Force and the Air National Guard and been a teacher at Western Oregon University and Oregon State University. Evans is currently running as a Democrat for the State Senate in Oregon, his campaign representing one of the party's best pick-up opportunities in the chamber this year. And now he has been informed that he will be shipping out for duty in Afghanistan on November 5, as Peter Wong reports for the Salem Statesman Journal.

When Election Day rolls around three weeks from today, Oregon Senate candidate Paul Evans will learn his fate from afar: Afghanistan.

Evans, a veteran of the Air Force and Oregon Air National Guard, will be en route to the nation with the 116th Air Control Squadron.

He is scheduled to leave Nov. 5, 10 days ahead of his original deployment date. His mission will last 60 days -- which means he would be back for the opening of the legislative session on Jan. 8 if he is elected Nov. 7 to the Senate District 10 seat.

[...] In a written statement, he said, "When my commander said I was needed, there was no question of whether or not I would go. Duty calls."

[...]He likely is the nation's only candidate who will be on active duty in the Middle East on Election Day.  (Read More from the Statesman Journal)

It's interesting reading Murakami's short stories.  They are like individual dreams that you wake up with before you want to.  At least that's how I often feel.  But then even his longer works tend to finish before I want them to.

This collection is interesting, because it has some of his earliest stories as well as his latest stories.  Most of the time it is easy to figure out which is which.  His later work is much more polished than the earlier work.

My favorite works in this collection are "Tony Takitani," "Chance Traveler," "The Kidney Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day" and "A Shinagawa Monkey."

I've read through all of Murakami's fiction that have been translated into English.  My favorite novels were Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore.

Now to figure out something new to read. 

falling asleep
your head on my shoulder
rainy day movie

another simple pleasure 

more simple pleasures at one deep breath 

a rainy sunday
hiking to water falling
wet happy dogs

another simple pleasure

more simple pleasures at one deep breath 

Pork Stuffed Pork, originally uploaded by rhinoblues.

For Nicole:

My infamous pork stuffed pork, served with seasoned potatoes.

1 Thick Rib Cut Pork Chop
1/4 lb Country Sage Pork Sausage
Fresh ground Pepper (to taste)
Seasoning Salt (to taste)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut a slit in the middle of the pork chop. Stuff pork sausage into slit on pork chop. Season the top and bottom of stuffed pork chop to taste. Place in oven. Bake for 1.5 hrs (or until correct temperature is reached in middle of stuffed pork chop).

I boarded the number 8 bus downtown on my usual route to work this morning.  As I'm walking towards an open seat, there is a boy around 6-8 years old, sitting on the steps just past the back door.  His mom is sitting up in the seat next to him.  The boy has obviously been crying.  After taking a seat it quickly becomes apparent that the boy is "throwing a fit."  The mother is doing her best to calm the boy down.  The boy of course has none of it, demanding his mother to get off the bus.  He wants to take the next bus.

This bus travels up to OHSU as well as the VA hospital.  So needless to say, the bus fills up fairly quickly as it travels the bus mall downtown.  By the second stop after I get on the bus enough people have boarded that it is necessary for the mother to pick up the boy from the middle of the aisle and make him sit in the seat next to her.  The boy of course, wants none of this.  As his mother is holding him he begins to bite her and punch her.  The boy is not big yet, but its all the mother can do to hold on.  He still wants to get off and take the next bus.  The mother at this point is on the verge of tears and finally has had enough.  She tells the boy, "fine, well get off as soon as you settle down a little bit.  Then we'll go home."  The boy doesn't want to go home either.  But he does begin to settle down.

By this time we are passing the stops serving PSU.  Enough people have deboarded that the seat across the aisle is free, and the boy decides he wants to sit by himself over there.  He calmly goes and sits down, his "fit" apparently over.

The mother is still sitting on the verge of tears.  As another woman is getting off the bus, she gently touches the mother on the knee and compliments her on her handling of her child.  This is the trigger that opens the gate to her tears.  Another woman, who was sitting up in the front of the bus, comes over to the mother and lets her cry on a shoulder.  This woman then sits next to the boy and talks to him for a little bit.  His storm has passed at this point.

Finally we get to their stop and they deboard.  A guy also deboarding tells the woman (who let the mother cry on her shoulder), "simply magic."

And it was...simply magic...

A crowded bus with a screaming kid, yet I didn't hear anyone say anything in poor taste about the mother.  Just a few people showing love to a stranger. 

It is through this kind of love that our world will find salvation. 

As somewhat expected, Orhan Pamuk has won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.  I've only read one of his books, Snow, but I did like it quite a bit.  (My Review)  I'm curious to read more of his works and will probably be picking more up soon at Powell's.

In other literature prize news, Kiran Desai won the 2006 Man Booker Prize for her second novel The Inheritance of Loss, winning a prize her mother has been shortlisted for 3 times.

I finished the "sequel" to The Wild Sheep Chase last Thursday (yup, two Murakami novels in one week).  Dance Dance Dance takes place four and a half years after the conclusion of The Wild Sheep Chase.  There is definitely more "meat" to this novel than the earlier one.  It also helped fulfill that desire I had after the earlier novel for more story.

Reading Murakami is like reading a dream.  Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it feels like reality and sometimes its so bizarre that it surprises even the wildest imaginations.  Time often disappears leaving only shadows of memory.  

So far this year all the Nobel Prizes have been awarded to Americans.  The Medicine, Chemistry, Physics and Economics Prizes have all been announced.  This is likely to change as of Thursday, when the Literature Prize is announced.  Why?  Well for starters, three of the last four prizes have gone to people writing in English.  It is highly speculated that this years prize will go to someone writing in another language.

English betting site Ladbrokes.com has the current odds as shown below the cut: 

This is the world the Bush administration has helped create.  A world where nuclear weapons are spreading.  Eventually something very, very bad is going to happen.

See Glenn Greenwald's blog for his take on the situation. (There's no need for me to recreate the wheel)

More from Gleen Greenwald: Iraq vs. North Korea 

I wonder what we can do to change this course we seem to be on. 

Perhaps the harshest mainstream critic of the Bush Administration is Keith Olbermann of MSNBC.  In resent weeks he has used the "Special Comments" section of his show Countdown to intelligently attack the stupidity of the administration.  Finally more of the media is beginning to wake up and acknowledge the uniqueness of his work. (from the Washington Post)

Last night's Special Comment

It amazes me (and Olbermann) the stuff that comes out of the Bush Administration.  The seem to try to bend everything to perpetuate a culture of fear.  Trying to make us blind to the principles from our constitution that they are infringing on every day.  Make no mistake, if we continue down the road set out by this administration, we will be attacked again.  The actions of this administration do not protect us.  We are heading towards some sort of theocracy.  That is not a country I want to be a part of.

This was a quick easy read.  Murakami's first book published in English, it is not near as complex as his current stuff.  However, there is still much to be had from this novel.  The style of this book foreshadows where his style will go in his later works.

All and all, I don't have much to say about the novel itself.  While I still enjoyed it a lot, it is probably my least favorite of his novels (and the only one I have left to read, is the "sequel" to this one).  This would make a great traveling book. 

In this post (Love and Sin) i briefly talk about the idea of sin being a rejection of love.  I was recently asked how something relatively common, such as a lie, how that would be a rejection of love.  It's an interesting question, that I'm not really sure has a right answer.

In my quote by Merton, he states that the rejection of love is "the pattern and prototype of all sin."  Before diving to far into my thoughts, I want to define some terms:

dreaming and loving
through ink sacrificed to page
worlds created

more sweet serenity (books) from one deep breath 

The scandal developing around former US House Rep. Mark Foley just blows my mind.  First of all, the breach of trust by the congressman is staggering.  But perhaps even more unsettling to me is the spin being put on this by the Republican leadership.  I've seen spin at first trying to down play the seriousness of the emails to even claiming that Foley was a "victim" of the 16 yr old boy. WTF? are you kidding me.  What is even more surreal about this whole thing, is that Foley helped craft the legislation that more than likely will should land him in jail.

Here is an excellent post on some of the aspects of the Foley scandal from Glenn Greenwald's blog Unclaimed Territory: Various Foley Scandal Items 

What should be even more troubling to the administration and Republican leadership, is that it increasingly looks like this scandal could consume the upper echelons of the Republican House leadership.  The current Speaker of the House and House Majority leader have both been suspected of trying to cover up the Foley matter.  For details read this post from Greenwald's blog: John Boehner = Denny Hastert plus Key Questions for Tom Reynolds.  Even the conservative Washington Times is calling for Hastert to resign.

So three high ranking Republicans were at least at some level involved in a cover up.  At least until the evidence was to great to overcome.  Then it was on to spin city.

I really don't know what it means to be an American right now.  I'm really not sure it is something to be proud of.   I wonder if it is possible to restore what we've lost as a country in the past six years.

Update: This is ridiculous! According to Mr. Foley's attorney, Mr. Foley was abused by clergy as a child and is gay.

So now the spin is trying to make this a "gay" issue.  As I read on another blog earlier, they are right, in one way it is a gay issue.  The fact that this man had hide who he was, be ashamed of who he was, because our so called "Christian" nation looked down on him is deplorable.  However, whatever may have happened to him as a child is still no justification for his actions.  His actions would have been just as disgusting if they were directed to a female congressional page.

Seen at lunch today sitting outside the med school cafeteria:

You can buy it here

*Sad it looks like the graphic (and t-shirt) are no longer available - 20 Aug 08

I really enjoy novels that deal with the conflict between east and west.  One of my favorite contemporary novelists is Salman Rushdie, whose novels all deal with this conflict in one way or another.  Up to this point, the majority of my experience with this conflict has been from India/Pakistan/Afghanistan and the West. So when my boss let me borrow this book I was definitely intrigued.

The book is set in Northeast Turkey in essentially a border town.  This town has been part of Armenia, Russia and Turkey.  What for me was one of the most interesting things about this novel is the conflict with secular Turkey and those wanting a religious Turkey.  It was another layer to the East/West concept that isn't touched to the same level of detail as Rushdie's novels.

The novel is narrated by the eponymous novelist friend of the poet Ka.  Orhan (the narrator) is visiting both Kars and Frankfurt trying to make sense of Ka's murder in Germany and find a lost collection of poetry written while Ka was in Kars.  In the early parts of the novel however, the narrator is only identified as a friend of Ka's.  The story is told from Ka's point of view with the narrator occasionally foreshadowing events before Ka would know them.  It isn't until the later chapters of the book that the narrator really steps out as his own character in the book.

I really enjoyed this book.  While none of the poems actually are actually in the book, the inspiration for Ka's poems is evident.  Pamuk's description of Kars and the effect of the snow is beautiful (despite describing poverty and depression often).  I also think that looking at Turkey and its culture and society is a good place for westerners to begin to understand the conflict between Islam and the west.

On another note, Orhan Pamuk is often mentioned as a leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in the near future.  British oddsmakers Ladbrokes has Pamuk as its favorite for the prize this year.  It was also speculated that he was under serious consideration for the Prize in 2005 (eventually awarded to British playwright Harold Pinter).