Comments

A few weeks ago I wrote a comment on another person’s blog and, when I proof read it—which is, for me, generally a waste of time because I still miss all sort of errors—I thought, Damn, that’s some neat words I need to put in my blog. Of course, if I blogged about every comment that I thought was neat and want to share on Nick’s Bytes, I’d probably end up no longer reading the 150 or so blogs and sites I try to regularly read or, at the minimum, stop writing comments.

So what I have done, when I have remembered to do so, is to copy those neat words and place them in a file entitled Comments. Now, my completely egoistical self is going to share a few of those with you. I’ll not identify the blog to which the comment was addressed nor will I identify the subject. I am just sharing my words.

Author Robert Fulgham (All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten) that, at the end of workshops and the like, if the presenter asked “Are there any other questions?” he would ask this: “What is the purpose of life?”

I suppose we could say that Sisyphus had his purpose in life, but that purpose was probably not his dream. Camus suggested that Sisyphus’ dream was that eventually the damned boulder would remain on the mountain and he’d not have to retrieve it again. If that dream were ever realized, then Sisyphus would undoubtedly not have remained on the mountain but moved on to a new dream.

I believe that wherever we are at any given moment of our lives is exactly where we’re supposed to be. Bewailing circumstances or karma that brought us to this moment is useless. The only real question can be: “Where do we go from here.”

Alex begins sitting on the floor registers (and bugging me when the furnace blower stops) as soon as the outside temp goes below 40.

It’s your interpretation that the compliment (act) is “dirty?” That’s a cultural thing bequeathed on us by the intolerant “desert religions” of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Remove the myth of the Garden of Eden and the act and compliment are no longer “dirty.”

That’s my theological comment of the day.

The authors of the New Testament saw (that) relationship of Jesus to Isaac. Jesus, too, had the same choice as Abraham: to obey God or not obey God. Of course, Isaac really didn’t have the choice; but the story isn’t really about Isaac. It’s about Abraham’s willingness to do the unthinkable.

As for Jesus being God, that’s a post-crucifixion/resurrection expression of the church. The rabbi from Nazareth had a choice exactly because he was human: he could piss off the powers that be and risk the consequences; or, he could keep his mouth shut and disobey the will of God as he interpreted it. His divinity had nothing to do with his choice.

As the oldest known Christian hymn says:

and being found in human form, ⁸

he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

Sorry about all the words; your post that awakened my mind.

Alex was taken from his mom by the pet store and sold to me before he was even weaned. Illegal and quite expensive since the little fellow almost died from hypothermia and hypoglycemia within a week of coming home with me. My point is that his mom never had the opportunity to teach him the fine points of hunting so Alex is learning as he goes along. I believe that one of his out door friends has been tutoring him, but he’s still an awkward hunter. At the moment he’s cat napping in front of the stove; since there is a pie baking in the oven, he’s there either because it’s warm or maybe because he believes the heat will force the mouse living behind it out into the room. I think it’s the former.

I am sorry for your loss. As Oscar Wilde wrote: Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.

By the four balls of Mary, Joseph, and the Christ Child, that is a horrendous thing to happen to anyone!

There is an ancient Buddhist story:

A man came to the master and said, “I wish to find enlightment. How long will it take me?”

The master replied, “Ten years.”

“And if I apply myself more than any of your other students, how long?”

“Twenty years.”

And if I sit zazen and meditate every hour of the day, how long?”

“Thirty years.”

Enough said?