Today

Prev: The End of All That - 1999 - 2024 

Today

→ 2024

Recently, I have awoken at 6 am each morning, said a rosary with the appropriate meditations, and listened to various broadcasters, theologians, clergy-talk, and readings for the day, on a local station, Spirit Catholic Radio out of Omaha. I am not recommending them, as they are an EWTN station with a distasteful conservative bent (just not as bad as Lincoln's); but the Rosary itself is good, the readings are good, and sometimes the discussions lead me, in my awakening theta state, to various insights that are worth having as concerns various things. Sometimes I disagree (I seem to think critically, even in my theta states); sometimes things become more clear. 

As a result I have begun to record my dreams, write more poetry & essays, record “my theology,” and write various letters.

And, of course, to work on my memoirs and autobiography, in the hope that someday my children and grandchildren might benefit from reading them. I probably do not have much to teach them, but, if they try, much wisdom can be, I think, garnered from them!

I am also working on grooming, and finding poets to read for, at The Lion, at St. Mark's on the Campus.

→ 2025

→ [Political Leanings]

Something very ominous has happened to this world, beginning in 2024 (. . .  well, arguably for aeons before that), and now being manifest in the Trumpian world of 2025. "We" – and I deplore the necessity of associating myself with that term on a political, large-scale level, at least here in the United States – have become Trumpian, as a nation. We have become WASPish, Republican, and capitalist to a grotesque and deforming degree. 

Or at least, so it seems.

There is, however, more at work here. None of those things are, in and of themselves, inherently evil. Yet, when combined at a metaphorically genetic level, so to speak, with greed and selfishness they each can (and in fact have) become virtually satanic. 

Being White or Anglo-Saxon or Protestant are not inherently bad, until they become Nationalistic, as they have become in Christian Nationalism. 

Being represented by another person, who has the power to make decisions for you, is not inherently bad, until that other person insists on representing him (or her) self to the exclusion of others, as has become the case in the contemporary Republican Party – the supposed GOP (which for the younger among you stands for the Grand [or Gallant] Old Party) -- ironically, the party of Abraham Lincoln, which preserved the Union and freed the slaves in the U. S. Civil war often principles which today's Republican party find onerous.

Finally, "capitalist" refers to someone who adheres to an economic practice of reserving a portion of an enterprise's earnings to fund upgrades to the mechanisms that generate those earnings, for expanded production, i.e. growth (capitalism). Again, not inherently bad, until that enterprise is equated with one person, and the income from it as being the sole result of that person's private, individual effort.

We are at, and might have already passed, a crossroads where our most admirable traits as a country have led us to become what, once, was our worst enemy. We have become Christians without compassion or concern for our neighbors; a representative government that does not identify with, much less care for, the people it represents; and misers who care little for where their wealth comes from or whom it ultimately serves.

What is worse, we have allowed our society's cultural and spiritual decline to impact our international neighbors. And we all will suffer for it, and many will die because of it . . .  are already dying because of it.

My reaction to all this is to attempt to affect only what I can hope to impact, as constrained by physical, emotional, and economic ability, to impact it. This, for me, means Poetry at The Lion, Why? Because, in the end, this is not just a social, political, or economic crisis we are facing; it is a metaphysical crisis. Something that exists in the realm of values, not ideas or protocol, and must be explored in the realm of values – of the metaphysical, artistic, philosophical, and theological. 

I feel a profound sadness for my children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. We are leaving them a world that they, and only they, must try to repair. I only hope it is possible for them to do so. They must learn how to pray, which so few people really know how to do, in a way that brings God's healing to the world.

→ [at The Lion]

I have also been coordinating poetry readings at The Lion since 2024, with the actual readings beginning in January of 2025.

This means a lot to me, as it characterizes the world that Sarah and I shared so intimately. It somehow keeps her alive. And I love it too. For me, poetry and art are essential to life -- human life, to spiritual life. It is, in fact, the very act of world-building, of co-creating with God, and defining my very raison d'être. See my various general Essays and notes in  Spirituality - Thoughts.

 - MF March 28, 2025

Next: Appendices