Egregious Reader

I have just begun reading this book and it is far more technical psychology than I am able to follow entirely, but I find some of his ideas very interesting and more meaningful than popular Freud (I say it that way because I have never read Freud, but all of us are familiar with many of his ideas). One of his first ideas is that the theories of infants and children as being like primitive animals is entirely wrong. Suttie says: "the child mind is less  like that of primitive animals than is the adult mind ... vastly different from that of free-living, self-supporting animals. Instead of an armament of instincts ... it is born with a simple attachment-to-mother who is the sole source of food and protection." Then he builds from that to argue (mind you I am only in chapter one) that from this primal attachment-to-mother which is stronger in humans than any other animal comes play, cooperation, competition and ultimately culture. This is why "man has become virtually ...

Man's search for meaning and logotherapy (meaning-therapy). I did not realize this was an entire school of psychology. My copy ends with a 34 page bibliography of "english language books on logotherapy." A short form of what Frankl argues is that A) Man (human beings) are self-deteriming, can choose what their existence will be, despite any conditions (background here is that Frankl survived four different concentration camps during the holocaust). B) Human's find meaning in three areas: work, love and suffering with dignity. The book begins with a hundred page description of his experience in the camps. There it is his desire to complete his book (jotting notes when he can and keeping in his pocket); his love of and thoughts of his wife; and in his (and others) human ability to rise above in the most horrible "unavoidable" suffering. (attitude toward unavoidable suffering remains our choice). I am a believer of the view that man is ultimately self-d...

"Having no tradition myself, I used to have a romantic view of tradition. I thought that time really does sift men's acts, that the good they do lives after them and gradually improves their descendants, and that the ill they do eventually writhes in pain and dies among its worshipers. That was real innocence. Everything  we do lives after us." Wallace Stegner The Spectator Bird

This is one I wrote a few years ago ... it was inspired by this 20 minute radiolab (one of my favorite): http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2010/mar/23/the-bus-stop/ Bus Stop by Jason Campbell The colors of the day were brighter than my memory of daylight. Maybe I would go out and find a game of pick-up ball. I wonder if Louvenski would want to help me get up a game. I jump up, slowly, and look for my ball glove. Itʼs got to be around her somewhere. Where is it? I will have to go bare-handed. I must be out. I must go out and find some friends. I canʼt miss this beautiful day. So out of my room I go and down the wide hall toward the sunshine motes floating through glass doors. Its then that someone stops me. Its a nurse or something. A man asking me questions. Why is he doing this? Doesnʼt he know that I want to play ball. My friends are waiting for me. Then suddenly, he letʼs me go. A dim light seemed to register in his head and his l...

from the book Prayers by Michel Quoist: Its from a section called "All life would become a sign" saying "The father has put us into the world, not to walk through it with lowered eyes, but to search for him through all things, events, people ... Long prayers are not needed in order to smile at Christ in the smallest details of daily life." THE BABY The mother left the carriage for a minute, and I went over to meet the Holy Trinity living in the baby's pure soul. It was asleep, its arms carelessly laid on the embroidered sheet. Its closed eyes looked inward and its chest gently rose and fell As if to murmur: This dwelling is inhabited. Lord, you are there. I adore you in this little one who has not yet disfigured you. Help me to become like him once more, To recapture your likeness and your life now so deeply buried in my heart. ******** I think it is that last verse that I like so much. It reminds me of a poem by Matthew Arnold called t...

First, a little refresher on what is going on in the church. The Nazi State moved to greater control of the state church toward everyone implementing the Aryan paragraph which would exclude all non-Aryan's from becoming pastors. This came to a head in April 1933 and through movements within the state church there arose documents, confessions that essentially broke from the state church. So there was a schism with the two groups being the German Christians and the Confessing Church (those who had signed the Barmen Confession). Now all of this could have been very confusing for a regular church attender. To really try and live in their shoes you have to review your history after WWI and the harsh Versailles treaty, the horrible economic situation in Germany, etc. However, that acknowledged, it appears that many of the leaders in the Germany Christian church (the Nazified one) were power hungry. Initially there was a War vet who took over, almost by force: Bishop Mueller. He was n...

The day began and ended with two long services .... The services did not take place in church but around the ordinary dinner table. They began with a choral psalm and a hymn selected for that day. This was followed by a lesson from the Hebrew Bible, a set verse from a hymn (sung daily for several weeks), a New Testament lesson, a period of extempore prayer, and the recital of the Lord's Prayer. Each service concluded with another set verse from a hymn. Only on Saturday did he include a sermon, which was usually very direct. To avoid interpersonal dangers, Bonhoeffer asked the ordinands to observe only one rule--never to speak about another ordinand in the person's absence or to tell that person about it afterward when such a thing did happen. On Sunday's he didn't permit any class work to be done, but organized all kinds of games. When he discovered the inadequacy of his students' literary background he gave them novels. Amid protest that it was a "monkis...

Bonhoeffer grew to be, and in some ways, always was a very open-minded and wide thinker. For all the talk of his fanaticism and dogmatic writings, he kept breaking molds, and having his own molds broken. I feel I can see this happening at 18 when he visited Barcelona and Italy and had strong experiences and dialogues with Catholic believers. You can see it in his visit to America where at first he was turned off by their lack of theological education, but he was ultimately challenged by their social and political actions. You can see it in his involvement in the ecumenical movements. You can see it in his interest in protestant and catholic monastic communities. And another area is his great interest in visiting India and even studying with Gandhi. This was something that was in his plans all along with his stay in London. He saved money and even had letters written on his behalf. Here is one comment from a letter to his brother: "...since I am becoming more convinced each...

Something different this morning. My brother (my wife's brother) mailed us some records for my wife's birthday and this morning I put on Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan. I just love this music. Its been a while since I have listened to jazz, but I really enjoy it. Here is a sample -  Stardust

Berry's new book ends with the title story A Place In Time. It takes us right into the present (2008). It mostly tells the story of Mary and Elton Penn who married for love even thought it made for hard beginnings as Mary's family shunned them for their entire lives. At the very end of the story, after Mary and Elton have died, Andy Catlett is talking with their daughter Martha and he hears that once Mrs. Mountjoy (Mary's mother) reached out to Martha ... this was too late and was not reciprocated but it left Andy pondering. "Andy had often proposed to himself that joy, the joy of love or beauty or of work, could so abound in this world that it would overflow all of this world's mortal vessels. But that night he was thinking of sorrow, filled suddenly with the apprehension of such hurt and sorrow as might overflow the capacity of the world, let alone that a mere life. ...      ...He thought, as we all have been taught to think, of our half-lit world, a speck ha...