Love During Wartime

Pleased to report I have a fully functioning fur-bearing alarm clock.
Unfortunately, she does not recognize the difference between Friday and
Saturday.

Satan wears satin
while he stands at
his subOlympian heights
watching twilight
melt into morning

He's been walking
up and down suburban asphalt
He's been drinking
Starbucks espresso
He's a Walmart
secret shopper

He's been walking
up the valleys
down the mountains
past the prayer flags
of russett and gold

He's been going
to and fro in the earth
byways and causeways
boardwalks and boulevards
the inland coast
and the outer Hebrides

He prowls like a lion
and purrs like a dragon
He builds sky scraper banners

Satan wears his light
like a reflection
He wears his head high
He comforts the dog in the manger

Labels: poetry

A documentary on Dalton Trumbo was on PBS last night. 90 minutes, and fantastic. Man, he could write! And apparently couldn't stop writing, no matter what. I hope you got a chance to see it; if not, definitely put it on your Netflix cue. I had put it on mine when I first heard the film was coming out; I plan to see it a 2nd time. If there's a book of selected letters by Trumbo, I want it.

The program put me in mind of an-going meditation on the abuses of power.

Some weeks back the radio program This American Life had an episode about how mildly slimy Egyptian business man was caught in the post-9/11 web anti-terror hysteria. He has been arrested for conspiring to sell arms to an undercover agent. The arms came from the govt, as had the money. According to the program, the Egyptian had not previously sold arms to anyone, and had no known connection to any terrorist groups. He was bested by his economic need and his vainglory; not by any desire to overthrow the govt. Now he sits in a Federal Prison in Jersey.

The program acted like this was something new. But I couldn't help but think of the stories Abbie Hoffman told about guys agitating for violence who turned out to be undercover agents. I vaguely remember a riff in Revolution for the Hell of It in which Abbie explained how easy it was to spot these guys.

The use of agent provocateurs is older than the term. Neither incident is unique in the annals of world govt.

I think it was Jefferson,or one of his heros, who said something like, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Another truism about power is that those who have it will typically strive to get more, and to hold on to that power for as long as possible.

I consider this a typical human flaw. I can be as easily tempted by power as Barack Obama or Dick Cheney.

The Founding Fathers sought to create checks and balances that would hold the temptation of power in check. Those checks and balances have been tested, sometimes to survive sometimes to be eroded. Their ideals, I think, were tempered by the fact that only landowners had the right to vote - so our Republic began as a sort of oligarchy. Perhaps not as bad as old King George, but still far from De Tocqueville's classless ideal.

---

Trumbo

This American Life: Arms Trader

Labels: politics

O guitar, I sold you,
first guitar I ever had.
I sold your string set too high,
higher than the valleys
in my left fingertips.
I sold the missing bridge knob,
and the broken strap peg.
I sold the mahogany.
I sold your faint sunburst.

You were the first guitar I ever had,
purchased by my dad
in the famous dreams of my youth
when my heart was an alternating bass
when I was an apostrophe
curled around your feminine curve.

I sold your f-holes and the bridge
warmed and patinaed by
my long slender fingers
and my young anxious hand.
I sold the dark blue felt gig bag
with "Harptone" scrolled in yellow
crackling at a 45° angle.

But o, guitar, I could not sell highschool nights
balancing you on my knee
with the song book spread on my bed.
I could not sell the hours practicing,
the songs played for friends,
the folk operas written,
the march of my right hand fingers
as I learned my first L Cohen song.

O, guitar, I could not sell
playing my first song for my father.
I could not sell
performing a talking blues
at senior year assembly.
I could not sell
your ancestors
and the poetry they sang.

O my well-mannered lover
o mistress of 3-fret by 6 string boxes
o mystery of F & B7 &
other wickedness
O mother of each guitar
yet to come.
I could not sell you,
I could only pass you on
to minister to a new troubadour.

Labels: music, photography, poetry

Psalm 119:77
I am very willful. I expect things to go my way, and pout when they don't. I suppose myself to be "smarter than the average bear", and expect to learn new things easily. If I don't pick it up in one sitting, I'm likely to drop it rather than persevere.

For example, I play the guitar, and would like to expand the picking patterns I use. Problem is, learning new patterns requires practice and patience.

I am more likely to question a rule than not. "Because" is not a sufficient reason. If it seems that I am surprisingly law-abiding, it's only because I dislike confrontation more than I dislike unreasonable rules. I obey, resentfully.

It's hard for me to imagine delighting in any law. So many people today strive so much for "self fulfillment", I don't suppose that I'm alone. Don't most people obey the law out of fear of punishment?

This verse comes from the longest poem in the Book of Psalms. It is a veritable love song to Torah Law. Not only the Big Ten, but over 600 more (collected in Leviticus and Deuteronomy). Another line in the same psalm exclaims, "Oh, how I love your law."

Jesus said, "I have come to fulfill the Law." When asked to summarize the Law, Jesus quoted two passages from Deuteronomy - to love God with your full being, and to love your neighbor as yourself. When you think about it, this can be more challenging than obeying hundreds of written laws.

After all, if you have a written law, you know exactly what's expected of you. But how, exactly do you love your neighbor as yourself? What does loving God with your full being look like?

However, in addition to this challenge, Jesus led by example. When it came time be obedient unto death, we can hardly say that Jesus' obedience was motivated by fear. What punishment could be worse than suffocating on a cross under the mideastern sun?

Jesus' obedience was motivated by love - love of God and love of humanity.

What would it look like if we were obedient as a loving response rather than from fear of punishment?

Can the love of the Law become the Law of Love?

Labels: religion, spirituality

This poem was originally posted in this very space; now you can hear a performance with appropriately bluesy guitar. You may read the text at my poetry site.

Labels: poetry, video

Grant that the lip-sticked pig is gone for good. Nice of her to have SNL write her resignation speech, though.

Labels: politics