Clem Gerdelmann's Blog – 8th mo. 2013 Archive (7)

Amazed At The Lab

Vastly enjoying Rebecca Solnit's "The Faraway Nearby" and her descriptions of a maze and a labyrinth. She writes, "...a maze, which has not one convoluted way but many ways and often no center, so that wandering has no cease or at least no definitive conclusion." With a labyrinth, however, "You may wander, may learn that in order to get to your destination you must turn away from it, become lost, spin about, and then only after the way has become overwhelming and absorbing, arrive - having…

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Added by Clem Gerdelmann on 8th mo. 26, 2013 at 6:30pm — No Comments

Honey in the Wood

As a survivor of literary, not televised, fame, I know to look to Honeywood, not Hollywood. For there is a good-natured guy who finds his benevolence in everything and everyone he meets. With a Goldsmith's touch, not that of a King Midas, he shapes people and things to his own likeness. His motto of "universal benevolence" is the pen highlighting everything as important or placing confident assurance in the responsibility of everyone.

There but for the teacher who argued that…

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Added by Clem Gerdelmann on 8th mo. 21, 2013 at 3:41pm — No Comments

The Case of Hindsight vs. Hicksite

Hindsight: If it please the Court of Quaker Opinion, we draw from the past in order to guard for the future. After all, hindsight is 20-20 vision.

Hicksite: Truth be told, the picture of the future is only bright if we can somehow distance ourselves from the British-reserve of the past. It is all too clear that demure-conservation is too little too late.

Hindsight: Disownment is still the proper discipline for those who can not honor the past as a guard for the…

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Added by Clem Gerdelmann on 8th mo. 16, 2013 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Swollen Glands: "That Hideous Strength"

I'm mesmerized by the condition of the Quaker Meeting. The magnetic attraction to a royal touch that can cure corrupted humanity is scrofulous. Our animal natures worshipping the "King's Evil" (rather than the Prince of Peace) with swollen glands as proof.

Sticking our necks out, in hopeful blessing, only to experience pressure points of obstruction. Spiritual sickness and disease that floods holy friendship into hormonal episodes of concern. Pulses throbbing with secretions better…

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Added by Clem Gerdelmann on 8th mo. 12, 2013 at 12:00pm — No Comments

The Magnetic Meeting

Dare I claim, with prophets far and nigh, that I have been to the mountain top?

Drawn there by magnetic force, as the medieval legend and Mandeville's "Travels" relate; but having been stripped in the process, as nails from boards, of all my internal supports. My privileged status in the community, my 20+ years of education, my exalted vocation, my indomitable confidence in my decisions, and ultimately my prideful hope for the future - all unwittingly removed from me as I drew closer…

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Added by Clem Gerdelmann on 8th mo. 8, 2013 at 10:30am — 1 Comment

Hurting Days

A status-defiant hero of mine, M.L. Mencken, went from "Happy Days, 1880-1892" to "Heathen Days, 1890-1936" with a two-year overlap of uncertain transition. In imitation, I would say that Quakers have gone from Helping Days to Hurting Days with the only uncertainty being the mode of expression.

For some of us, the hurt of disillusionment has been turned inward in depression or neurosis. Others of us have developed outward signs of affliction on the body or, more likely, in the body's…

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Added by Clem Gerdelmann on 8th mo. 5, 2013 at 10:30am — 2 Comments

The Case of Ineffable vs. Mot Juste

Ineffable: If it please the Court of Quaker opinion, as with the scriptural people of Ja(h)we(h), we find the experience, if not the Name, of God beyond human expression.

Mot Juste: If time would tell, dear Friends, as with the equally-scriptural children of God, we relate to an immanent parent as our Father/Mother in heaven.

Ineffable: There is no way that the individual person can hold, let alone express, the immensity of religious experience. That is why we worship in…

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Added by Clem Gerdelmann on 8th mo. 1, 2013 at 8:30am — 2 Comments

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