1:00 Meetings

July 30th, 2010

Hello members,

look at your schedules, now back at this e-mail, now back at your schedules, now back to this e-mail.  Sadly, the upcoming meeting isn't on your schedule.  But if you stopped using your free-time for fun-seeking at 1:00pm on Sundays and switched over to expanded ward council meetings, your schedules could include this e-mail's meeting.  Look at your inbox, now back to this e-mail: your on the interweb.  Look at your friend's list, now back to this e-mail; what is it?  A link to the video this e-mail is parodying.  Look again, the link is now crazy piano playing.  Anything is possible when you fulfill your Church responsibilities and sacrifice your time for the greater good.  I'm on a mountain.

July 23rd, 2010

We are on a hypothetical star ship that is orbiting a black-hole somewhere deep in space.  There's been a miscalculation and we begin to descend inwards, pulled by the massive gravity of the object and unable to escape.  One of the first things we notice is that the black hole is not black at all, but instead emitting a high amount of radiation, called Hawking Radiation that results from a balance of entropy necessity and the quantum physics loophole of virtual particle creation.  We'll be more likely to notice the increase in temperature and high concentration of potentially lethal gamma rays.

Luckily we don't have enough time to be killed by radiation, we're too busy descending into a black-hole!  As we approach the event horizon, the point at which light itself can no longer escape, we'll find that the rest of the universe is curiously slowing down.  Seconds pass normally for us, but the TV broadcast we are somehow still receiving seems to playing more like a Benny Hill tribute than an episode of The WestWing.  In fact as we approach our final destination (ha!) the effect increases until centuries spin by every second, whole worlds are created and destroyed in the blink of an eye.  That massive gravitational well we're trapped in has also trapped time with us, and bent it to the point of infinite duration: we will witness the destruction of the universe if our black-hole makes it that far.  Finally, infinitely far into the future (literally) we collide with the event horizon and find there all the light that has ever struck this entity.  In other words the entire history of the universe is recorded on the surface of the event horizon, frozen in time and in that instance we will see the entire future and past in just one moment: having all creation from beginning to end layed out before us in one last spark of understanding before the gravitational differential pulls us apart at a molecular level.

In this scenario there will really be no need for a ward council both because we'll all already know everything that has and will happen and because we'll be dead.  However, out top hypothetical scientists have not found  a ship that will do that for us, or even a black-hole to do it to so we should probably still show up for ward council this Sunday at 1:00pm

July 13th, 2010

This coming Sunday I predict that you will spend approximately 40 minutes of your waking day (with your eyes wide open) completely blind and wont know it.  In fact, due to saccadic masking that's a good guess for any given day assuming  eight hours of sleep to sixteen hours of wake fullness.  Your brain will intentionally blind you for a large portion of that waking time, over 4% in fact: more time than the average American spends in the bathroom and about one third to one fourth of the time that is typically spent with the family (for a married couple with children).  Unfortunately we can't choose the time in which we're blind (in which case an overlap between bathroom time and blind time might be considered prudent), it comes in millisecond bursts through-out the day.  This phenomena goes hand-in-hand with so called 'change blindness', another results of saccadic shifts.  Quick, was that fly on your monitor always black, or was it navy blue before?  No matter how good your memory is there's really no way to be sure, as you brain probably didn't notice, and even if it did: it just replaced the old memory with the new one (note: the so called 'photgraphic memory' representing someone who literally memorizes every image or other input they've received is a myth so that's not going to work here either).  This isn't a good thing for our credibility considering this method of tom-foolery your brain's pulling on you is entirely separate from memory suggestion in which our brain just makes up swaths of memories out of whole cloth.  Luckily we do have some things that remain constant, that can be counted on to stay the same from moment to moment.  One of those things is expanded ward council on the first and third Sundays of the month at 1:00pm.  Like this Sunday: enjoy!

July 9th, 2010

One hour out of every week represents approximately one half of one percent.  If your week were summarized in a two and a half hour long movie (which is more time than it took Lewis Milestone to summarize all of World War One) one hour would be shown in under one minute: about as much time as it takes to explain to the audience that the film was written by five different people through the clever use of opening credits.  This being said, one hour represents only a snap-shot of human life: significant changes can only be foreshadowed and anticipated in that time.  It is a lower limit to the delta-t against which life is measured: a kind of Planck's constant of human interaction.  Meaningful interaction occurs on a broader scale and thus any one hour meeting capable of reaching meaningful conclusions or taking actions is thus able to fully realize those solutions without the complication of major changes in the original parameters.  The only question remaining is one of preparation: are we capable when we arrive of accurately summarizing the relevant data and using it to reach appropriate conclusions?  If not our delta-t expands and we are forced into non-linear realms with a constantly changing dynamic that now makes the task exponentially harder.  With this in mind, let us prepare for and then, the great key, show-up to our ward council meeting this Sunday at 1:00pm Central Savings Time. 

July 2nd, 2010

Hurry, there's no time to waste!  With summer half-way over and fall just around the corner we must act fast!!!  Who knows what will face us tomorrow?  We must band together now: think of the children!

At one o'clock on Sunday ideally.

May 28th, 2010

Long absent the heart of heart

think not sorrow that we pass,

drift off that maudlin chart

and leave the world to harass

For we find this is our part

and find words of parting crass

for us to be introuvable an art

and in absence: love amass

To put it plainly: no meeting prior to Church this Sunday, as it is the fifth Sunday, and no meeting next Sunday (first of June) since that will be Stake Conference.

May 21st, 2010

It's been replaced in its most common application by varying types of harmonic oscillators: everything from the everyday quartz crystal to the top-of-the-line cyclic energy changes in a caesium gas.  It is a method for turning energy (often stored as potential energy in a battery or mechanical device like a spring) into finally tuned mechanical motion.  The use of a series of intricate gears is invariable applied and the results have been dramatic.  It has brought us the ability to navigate the seas, record and play music, and it even served as the basis for the earliest versions of computers as created by Babbage.  A compound word, the first part derived from the Celtic for 'bell', can you guess what it is?

That's right, clockwork!  Just like this meeting of the Ward Council: every 2nd and 4th Sunday, and that's this Sunday at 1:00pm.  See you there.

May 13th, 2010

Angels moving in the firmament about us, a part of the fabric of reality.  Do we see the gold leaf that adorns the underside of our own reality?  Creatures of another realm with whom our vision melds; do we see truth together or is our hemi-ocularity bind us only into confusion?  Can we be joined to comprehension or will the world always be missing in depth: seeing only from one point of view?  Melded together somewheree in the drapework, ordinary trumps the remarkable and the images fold together as one.  Prayer is for the divine but calls from the debased: open now our hearts to seek within the doldrums of existence and we shall find that eternal spark and be at one with all.

Or at one with all of you, this Sunday at one.  Expanded Ward Council, see you there.

April 30th, 2010

Hello all!

I hope you're planning on joining us this Sunday at 1:00pm to discuss the affairs of the ward.  If you're having trouble fitting it into day though I do have a suggestion.  If you want to present some information but wish to do so early so as to ensure sufficient time to get things done before Church, no problem!  Just travel to Jupiter, and begin about 35 minutes before you want us to see you, and then, assuming we're looking at you through a telescope of amazing focus, we'll be able to see you right on time.  Or perhaps that's insufficient, you want to drive to San Antonio and back in between.  Why that's as easy as traveling to Neptune and speaking just over four hours early.  We wont even be able to tell the difference!  Or if you're late, instead of coming in, why not just go to Mars and watch us from there!  That'll buy you an extra 12 minutes, so no need to worry when traffic slows you down.

Of course the windows in our Bishop's office are pretty opaque so this may be a little difficult... but there are always options.

April 23rd, 2010

Hello all,

We will be meeting this Sunday to council as a ward.  The schedule for the day is based on the Mayan calender so that we can all adequately prepare for the upcoming collapse of civilization as we know it.  So on 12.19.17.5.9.541666666511446, Haab: 2.5416666665114462 Uo, Tzolkin: 8.541666666511446 I expect to see all of you.  Come prepared with notes, input, a positive attitude, and your best impersonation of K'inich Tatb'u Skull I, preferably in Farsi.

Or for those ethnocentric among you: 1:00pm this Sunday: Ward Council.

April 9th, 2010

Hello all,

It has been a turbulent last few weeks: ward conference, general conference, and the death of Eddie Carroll.  Yet in the midst of the storm we may gain strength this coming Sunday by inviting in the Spirit, opening our hearts and minds to the needs of those whom we serve, and reaching important decisions as to how best to rescue those around us.  We'll also go to expanded ward council: see you there at 1:00pm!

February 27th, 2010

Sorry for the late notice everyone, but like always we will be meeting
tomorrow at 1:00pm to discuss the finer points of life.  Please bring:
pencil, paper, and a copy of Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49"
as read by Glenn Gould.

February 19th, 2010

A meeting of Expanded Ward Council and possible, tautology club!

A few fun facts about tautology club:

If everyone is at the meeting, then everyone will be at the meeting

The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club

There are no notional constructs that violate tautology club and which satisfy all physical laws of existence

Hope to see you all there!

February 12th, 2010

Once more with joy O my home I may meet
Once more ye fair, flowr'y meadows I greet
My Pilgrim's staff henceforth may rest
Since Heaven's sweet peace is within my breast.
The sinner's 'plaint on high was heard
On high was heard and answered by the Lord
The tears I laid before His throne
Are turned to hope and joy divine.
O Lord eternal praise be Thine!
The blessed source of Thy mercy overflowing
On souls repetant seek Ye, all-knowing
Of hell and death, I have no fear
For thou my Lord are ever near
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Alleluia! For evermore

February 5th, 2010

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

1:00pm Sunday, as per usual.

January 21st, 2010

I know what you're thinking friend, you're thinking did they have six
meetings or only five?  To tell you the truth I kind a' lost track
myself in all this off-time, but being this is an expanded ward
council meeting, the most powerful meeting in the ward and could build
a Saint's testimony right up you gotta ask yourself a question: "will
I be there Sunday?"  Well will ya, friend?

As a note, next Sunday will be the 5th Sunday of the month and there
will be no ward council expanded or otherwise; the Sunday following
that we will be back on our regular schedule of expanded ward council
1st and 3rd Sundays.

January 1st, 2010

Despite our best intentions, a year has passed us by and left us with
no recourse but to endure another month of Janus.  Yet in the bitter
winter, dark and brooding though she is, shall we not find solace
amongst our fellows entrenched likewise against the perils of the
night?  Bring us in no candles of the dirge but play the music of the
light, that all may take their fill of merriment that the fire in the
hearth shines brighter for the fire in our eyes.  A siesta though we
take, the solstice means no break, for friendship is no funeral song.
Though of meetings shall we not partake, our spirits are renewed by
dip in charity's sweet lake.

December 19th, 2009

On December 20th, 1989 United States forces succeeded in capturing and
removing General Noriega from his role as dictator of Panama.  Some 16
years earlier the Prime Minister of Spain, Luis Carrero Blanco, was
killed on his way to a trial against a collection of Franco resistance
fighters.  One of the most violent attacks on a nation's leader in the
20th century.  18 years before that, Yugoslavia won admittance into
the United Nations.

A most auspicious day for meeting, yes?

December 4th, 2009

"To reach Tel-el-Amarna, drive eight miles south of Mallawi to the point where you cross the Nile. On the east side of the Nile the distance is less than a mile and can be covered on foot or on donkey.

Behind the present village, at the ancient site of Tel-el-Amarna, the ruins known as the palace of Nefertiti are among the very few remnants of the Akhnaten period. Tablets in cuneiform writing, which contain correspondence between Egypt and Syria, were found here and are now the the Cairo Museum. (To see any sights on the Eastern bank of the river you must cross by ferry which carries cars along with the usual donkey carts and local traffic. The ferry docking station is located at the southern end of the town. You should arrive there at least one-half hour before the 6:00 AM crossing. The ferry does a brisk business and you will need every available second for sight seeing.)

There is nothing left of this glorious city of temples and palaces. The mud brick buildings have long since crumbled and little remains of the immense stone temples but the outlines of their floor plans."

The remnants of henothesim, Egypt's first break with the polytheistic worship.  His attempt to bring light to his people slowly faded as generation grew old and passed on.  The antiquities of barbarism returned, and his name was lost to history for many millenia.  Yet now his deeds are dug up and his courage celebrated.  What is a person's legacy?  What will reach into the eternities, or is any creation doomed to fail of permanence?  How shall we be known, and what is it we will do this Sunday to ensure the world has changed to reflect our deepest desires, and to assuage our darkest fears?

November 27th, 2009

Though many, of this city freed

Gone oft beyond the gaze of Texas hills

Yet our meetings must precede

In dusty rooms where silence now distills

We find our gatherings still fulfills

All who will be here, welcome in at one!

November 21st, 2009

The following things will happen in the fifteen minutes between our normal meeting time this Sunday and our actual meeting time:

• 4 billion tons of matter in the sun will be converted into energy
• A particle of light (in our equivalent gravitational field, and a vacuum of course) will travel 170 million miles
• 4 thousand people will be born
• The Earth will revolve 3 degrees and 45 seconds about its axis
• 6 million cans of soda will be drunk here in the States
• 3 million stars will be both born and die (different stars that is)
• 90 books will be published around the world
• You will arrive excited about the prospect of participating in ward council!

November 6th, 2009

A Haiku for you

The Bishop's office
For Mount Bonnell Ward Council
To begin at one

October 30th, 2009

Dreams about Llandudno flood the nights, sweeping out the darkness and the light whose act they follow.  Roiled over in controversy, did Carroll write the book there, or did he even visit?  The real Alice was there and perhaps that's enough.  Conversations with that little white rabbit are becoming more frequent but harder to follow.  Serious and crucial talks, but where is that bunny off to, and should we jump in the hole after him?  There's no question he's right about the time, however; this is a jump into the future and so we dislodge ourselves from the mirery past and dive head first after the creature: watching as Wales rolls by over our heads.  Where are we now, and when?  Ah hah!  It is the Bishop's office and the time is 1:00pm, November the first, just in time for our meeting: how convienent.

October 24th, 2009

NIST has long been the world's leader in time keeping.  Since the year 2000 a new mechanism has been employed to ensure accuracy to within one tenth of one nano second per day.  The vibration of Caesium at 9,192,631,770 cycles per second measured now not in our chaotic room temperature environments but near absolute zero in a microwave emitting chamber, cooled by 6 infra-red lasers and pulsing through the mechanism at about one full revolution a second.  The inevitability is striking, is it not?  As we spend a second in ambivalence or in action the  tiny number of atoms revolving around a chamber in NIST's labs have oscillated almost ten billion times.  Sleep, adrenaline, emotional highs and lows that dramatically alter our perception of true time will have no impact on the certain march through time these atoms trod, forcing the world with them into the future.  For us that future arrives 5,559,703,694,496,000 Cesium cycles ahead of our last meeting, or at one hour past the meridian on this coming Sunday.  Let the tides of time wash us all to shore that we find commonality in our journey, if only this once in five and a half quadrillion vibrations.

October 17th, 2009

This e-mail serves as a reminder to all invited guests that we will be having expanded ward council at one o'clock in the p.m. on the marrow.  We hope to see everyone there, or we will be forced to go to the highways and by-ways and bring out the poor and the meek to attend.

October 8th, 2009

Who has put thee in their heart, o' Ahman?  For he has surpassed all that was done previously, having gathered every august, costly stone without limit to any good thing.  Health has built her box of cedar upon the terraces and made the river shine!  Encompassed a nation and plucked glistening tears from the faithful sufferers.  Who has put thee in their heart, o' Ahman?  Brought low the gods that knew thee not, o' Ahman.  Made war with the victors and come of victorious.  Beaten low the lofty places, and brought up the valleys to greet thee.  Who has put thee in their heart, o' Ahman?

Which is to say, expanded ward council will be meeting this Sunday and next to make up for our missed chances of the past.  And so I ask, who has put thee in their heart, o' Ahman?

September 26th, 2009

And so it begins, the start of another round of inspiration and council to be held at home quarters on the 'morrow.  When the clock chimes once we shall assemble from across the boundaries of our understanding, together to create a masterpiece of function which transcends the material and breaks into the personal.  That's right, one o'clock tomorrow shall be the inception of another ward council, welcome to all!

Night and Day

Ahh, the glory of night.  Actions hidden in darkened anonymity, the world being whatever is created by your light, and your actions.  So much to be accomplished, so much potential.  What do we desire?  What do we seek after?  It's all available, it can all be had: complete stillness is out there, or continuous motion if you so desire.

But what's that?  Our periphery catches some glancing blow of light!  Morning shining off the sky and back-again.  But just a sliver now, there's still time, there's still time.  Cards and movies, dinners and dancing we can have it all!  No need to panic, no need to rush.

Now it seems the windows allow a fain glow, some tricky apparatus funneling in that dreadful substance.  Photons pounding off the corridor and into our own private world!  Vague objects in the blackness begin to take shape, forms of the formless.  Still we persist, and our night carries on.  What last adventure do we desire, what last story to reveal in before the morning takes us?

Light is pouring in, obfuscating our generated opaqueness.  Reality forcing itself upon us, coming out of hiding and running full sprint at our consciousness.  Still we cling to those last shadows before dawn, the last moments of fantastical imagination.  But now it is too late, it is over.  The sun opening its screens against the night, the windows pulsing with new found energy.  No longer are even the corners shrouded in that gentle darkness that so endured them to our wild imaginings.  Soon life will start anew around us, and we are left at the mercy of other's realities.  The day has begun, and our hope waits in slumber for the night.

Stand-Up Comendy Ideas

Love can't conquer different levels of politness
You should always be able to run in your shoes
What age do you get to when you start wearing your watch facing the other way?
Why do we still have the 'fax' option?
Hacking into the CIA.
Chosing a religion to raise a child in
Not judging fat people in the grocery store
How come actors bring awareness but I'm supposed to provide money?
Why are kids always taught animal noises?

Truth and lies, death and life

An abstraction must delete information from reality or it serves no purpose.  There can be no complete description save the thing itself.  Any representation is, by necessity, lacking.  There can be no true re-telling, no accurate report, all become lies in the face of vivid truth.  The present and the past, meeting at a razor's edge of now, they are cut apart and can not be brought together despite the trick of memory or record.  Thus only actions of fidelity as only they can occur in the present, all else attempts to span the past and the future and becomes lies.  All words are, by their nature, lies.  In speaking honestly one must besmirch the truth and commit sin in telling.  No conversation is forthright and no person who reaches out to those around may consider themselves clean of error.  There is no escape nor release from this trap save in action.

Thus is beauty found in action, in the creation.  Creation is art, dissection is death and the end of beauty.  But beauty may only exist in the moment, in the elusive now.  It is bordered and framed and shelved neatly between beginning and ending.  That is why true beauty ends in death, the desire for action is the desire to end action, just as the desire to move is the desire to be still.  Movement may only be understood in the context of beginning and ending.  'Where is he going?', 'where did she start?', the movement itself relegated to meaningless by the dominant bookends of inaction.  Birth and death serve as the foundation and the capstone of live and overshadow any action in it.  What is life?  It is to be born, and it is to die, the rest of triviality.  There is no other surety, no other constant to define life and so the borders must define it.

The truth of action understood only through the lies of words.  The joy of life known only in the pain of death.  To find beauty we seek destruction, to find joy we look for sorrow.  The end of joy is sorrow, it is the constant that befriends joy, the end of life is death and the two made from the same beginning.  We are tied to death as truth is tied to falsehood.  They come from the same lips, they fall from the same stream.  We battle uphill, against the current: what do we see?

Heat

You can feel it pressing in, pushing from every corner.  It's a subcutaneous pressure, a motionless wind: there is no escape nor protection.  Energy pulsating through every nerve, an oppressive heat surrounds you.  There can be no respite, no succor to combat it.   Outside it is more intense, more vivid; inside it is a gray undertone to form dissonance to every note.  Heat has no counter, allows no recourse.  It is the antidote to drive and vigor allowing a torpid soul to continue in apathy.  Every move invites a worsening of the exterior condition: pumping out further heat and discomfort.

The cold forces motion: it is a barren field in which one with drive may plow and plant.  A vast, empty expanse to be filled with motion, combat is purpose and purpose is success.  A desire for cold is a desire to live, desire for heat is a wish for unending stillness, a cry for the ending of the race.  It is ambition that will meet the cold, and timidity that calls for heat.  The soul of progress will be North, and death only can be found in the tropics: waiting in the lushness of the plenty.

Father's Lessons

They thought I could not understand, and so they did not shield me.  Or perhaps the moment overcame reason; I am not sure but I do remember.  I remember the passion in Mother's eyes, the hunger there where, for weeks, there had only been hardness.  I remember the gentleness in Father: the strong reed yielding softly to the winter wind. That is how I first learned from Father that even in the midst of great emotion it was calmness that ruled.  He was the wall against which the wild energy of Mother broke until she was satisfied and the calm came to her too.  But not the hardness of before, only peace: returned like spring's rains come from afar to wet the broken brow of the earth; Father was back and all was right.  This was my first memory and my first lesson and I learned it well.  That is why even the men admired me in battle and feared me in the court, I had learned to be calm when all around me had given themselves over to confusion.

Sitting in council I often told that story and the elders would always nod with me.  True, true, true, they'd say, and you are truth's ambassador.  I told that story the year the winter winds brought unrelenting snow from the East.  When the villagers came from out of the plains and begged for food, and the council feared for their own lives and forsook charity in search of salvation.  I told the story and the elders murmured "true" and the villagers went away with sacks of flour and a supply of smoked meat that would bring them through to see the sun finally clear the sky of clouds and their fidelity ours.  I told the story when our cousins to the North thought that their greed gave them power over us and brought their armies to our doorstep demanding our surrender.  Many wished to lay down before them in fear but I told them that the reed bends in the wind and lives through the mightiest gale, but any man that breaks his back will never stand again to face the slightest breeze.  We held out three long weeks, and on the fourth found the army gone, the cousins calling back all that they had sent out that they could now destroy each other in war.

It was then that they asked me to stand with the council: Mother was proud and urged me accept.  "Such honor" she said, "all will admire you."  But Father smiled and said "Honor will come from your wisdom, but you must have the strength to refuse the honor of the people or you should not stand."  Mother chided him endlessly for his warning but I listened to Father and did not stand in council.  When the elders asked me why, I told my second story of Father.

I was still very little, but Father had taken me hunting for boar in the woods to the West of us.  It was not the first time we had gone together, though some considered it dangerous and unwise with me so young.  Others thought it wrong headed with me being a daughter and an only child at that as Mother had not yet brought forth Charlie to be my companion in childhood.  They thought it unwise but Father had thought it wise and we went out West.  This time farther than I had ever traveled away from our little house: deep, deep into the woods.

On the third day we found tracks of a beast not long since passed by.  Father had me prepare my bow and he unsheathed his knife ready to slit the throat of the bore I would pierce.  It was an honor to be given the trust of being the only archer and so I remembered the moment, and relished the thought of taking the beast and of the praise Father would give me when it fell.  It was in this spirit of indulgence that I heard the cry, a man not 200 paces away, lying against the trunk of a great tree, bleeding.  Forgetting the boar we rushed to his side only to discover it was Father's great friend Micilio of the council.  He was wandering in the forest and had tripped and fell on a branch that pierced him through the chest.  Just out looking for a rare flower to cure his wife's illness he said.  Father saw the lie immediately and knew the truth behind it.  Micilio was against our war with the Lathians and had sided with Father in attempt to stop us from marching.  But their voices were not heard and our warriors had set out only a week before to catch the enemy unaware on their return from victories out beyond our borders.

Micilio had gone to warn them, and sell his knowledge of our plans.  Father saw all this and reached gently into Micilio's breast pocket and retrieved the small pouch of gold that lay within.  Having no strength left, Micilio could not stop him and seeing the pouch, ceased trying.  He pleaded that this was for the good of all, that Father was with him surely!  Did not Father remember the countless times they'd stood together in war and in peace?  Father remembered indeed, and so when Micilio had finally ceased his pleas for forgiveness Father placed the knife, still in his hand, gently against his friends throat.  I remember the way the blood came to the surface, drawn up by the edge of that pitiless metal, forming a perfect, red line across soft skin and falling down to the ground, to be drunk up by the tree with the next day's rain and the dew of the morning.  Turning to me Father's face lost it's calm and I saw great tears form at the corners of his eyes.  "All good friends deserve to be mourned at their passing" he told me.  We went home that day and warned the council who sent our rider to alert our troops that their plan was known and to return.

It was then I learned that strength was to love the people more than yourself and so I did not stand, for I feared that I could not find strength enough to sacrifice all when called upon.  It was not until later, after Charlie died in the heat of a terrible illness that claimed the the lives of a fifth of us in one summer that I finally decided to stand.  I was still young, not the youngest to ever stand surely but the youngest woman and so I was honored.  But I was Father's daughter and so I did not preen at their words nor take the proffered gifts but continued quietly to live with Mother and Father in our home across the river from the city.

That fall, a young man had been found climbing out the window of his lover whose parents had forbidden marriage for he had no property and rightly, no ambition.  When taken to us in council they first denied having done anything but soon, weeping, confessed to everything.  The law was clear and there was alternate paths available, so we stood as one and set the punishment proscribed generations ago when first our people settled here.  I stood too, and joined my voice to the elders so that the in the morning the man and woman were killed quietly behind the great sycamore that stands outside the Northern most gates and buried there that afternoon.  I saw the execution, refusing to hide from my decision by taking refuge in the daily labors that would keep from having to watch as the young man tried to remain stoic to the end but broke down crying, pleading for his life before the axe removed his head deftly from his body.  Nor did I miss the scream the young woman uttered when she turned back too quickly and saw what had happened, or the second scream just before the blade came down on her own neck.  I watched it all and knew that it was right, and that though sometimes bloody, it was the law that held our community from tumbling over the edge into dissolution and death of the whole.

The night afterwards I found myself on the hill overlooking the Sycamore tree, staring down at the tree, and the gates, and the distant city on the crown of the horizon.  I watched as Father slowly walked through the gates and up, directly to where I sat: knowing somehow that I would be there on that night, knowing that I was alone and in that moment could not be alone.  He said nothing, but held me tightly and I cast my arms around him and remembered as a child how it had felt, and that though we were both older I was reassured that in all the storms that had beset us, and all that would come some things were solid and would not change.  That is how I learned the lesson of compassion from my Father, that it was given not to those who deserved it, but rather to those who needed it.

Years passed by and Father grew older.  When he was thirty-five years of age he stepped down from the council and I was chosen to lead.  He returned home to be with Mother and to care for her, as she had lain ill for two years, unable to leave our house save to sit in her beloved garden, now encroached upon by weeds without her tender vigilance, for an hour a day.  Over time, I became accustomed to my new role and soon wore it like my own clothes; but I did not forget my Father's lessons.

It was two years later in the midst of the summer heat, that the messenger came to us.  I had come back from a battle to the East, a minor skirmish with a duke who though himself a king and thus owner of our lands and of our people.  The people were jubilant from our victory but I knew that their feelings would not overpower their worry.  There had been a drought that was eating up our crops at an ever increasing rate.  It had begun when little snow fell that Winter, and the spring melt had brought only a trickle where before we had seen a torrent.  All Spring we waited for the rains to come and bring life to the seeds that meant life for us all but they didn't come.  Summer arrived and with it great clouds that promised to drench the land and replenish our supplies, but the storms never came and the clouds finally disappeared: their promises unfulfilled.  Concern turned to worry turned to fear and so the council decided to go send out troops to our borders; resolving conflicts that had long festered the people and would bring confidence back.  But though our victories were celebrated and perhaps the drought forgotten for a time, the fear would always return, always a little greater than before.And so the messenger came out of the South and when he spoke, the fear of the people confirmed his message in their hearts.


He spoke of gods of which we had never heard, but which we all knew intimately.  Gods of anger and vengeance who sent the drought to punish us for our indolence.  We must make a sacrifice, he said, we must placate the Gods, then the rain will come.  One man must die that all may live, this was his message.  The people heard and the people believed, but the council was wiser and cast the messenger out.  The weeks went by and news came from the great cities to the West and the North and the East.  They had also received a messenger and having no council, had each killed their greatest man and burned his body in ritual obedience.  Yet still no rain came and now they wondered and they questioned, and the messengers told them: your sacrifice is great but there remains one city who will not bow to the will of the Gods, they must likewise join you in your humility as they will share with you in the rain that comes from our Gods.  So the cities began to send their ambassadors but still the council stood together as one and refused.  The people on the borders of our city began to demand we give in, yet still the council stood.  The cities sent threats of violence and retribution for our disobedience, but still the council stood.  And then one day we awoke to find the armies of countless kingdoms and fiefdoms and cities and villages gathered at our doorstep.

We were told that we would deliver the body of our greatest man to them that night to be burned in sacrifice or we would all go up in a great flame that could be seen from ocean to mountain top.   We met in council all that morning, many wished still to remain apart from the madness that had spread across the land and refuse give in, and others felt their honor offended that any enemy would dictate to us.  So I told them the story of strength and because they knew me they listened, and they agreed and we had strength together as a council.  It was I that went to my Father to tell him, I would let no other take that burden from me.

When my Father heard the decision of the council I had no need to explain, he understood the task that had been given him.  Mother though, would not understand and on her bed, cried for hours until she was spent while Father and I held her and comforted her.  Together we took the pain of her suffering, together we had calm in the face of the storm.  And when her tears were spent my Father kissed her, took his hunting knife along with his bow and we left, off into the woods.

Through the remainder of the afternoon we hunted and as the night came, we found a boar rutting in the bushes fifty paces off.  Quietly we prepared, and when we were both ready I set loose an arrow that found the great heart of the animal.  It let out a cry and tried to run, but in after only a few steps it had fallen and Father was on top of it, his blade finding the arteries that took the beast's blood to its brain.  We stood over it together and saw death bring calm to the boar's raging body.  A minute passed, then two, and finally Father looked at me and said "Perhaps now is the time.  Wait for me on the hill and watch that you may know when to summon the people."

And so I retreated to the hill above the bushes were we had found the board and watched.  I saw as Father cleaned off the knife, not wishing to mingle his blood with that of a beast.  I saw as he stood, staring silently at the blade gathering strength for his last act.  I saw him prepare his body to receive the telling blow; and though it was dark I saw the moment in which the courage went out of him, and I knew then that this is why he had taught me compassion.  For in this moment he did not deserve it, but he needed it and so it was then that my arrow flew through the air and lodged itself deep in his chest before he had a chance to run, or even think of running.  I went down and replaced my arrow with his knife, for I was my Father's daughter and I had compassion.

His body was burned that night in a great ceremony out in the plains and the next day the armies returned to their homelands.  As the weeks went by and no rain fell the people across the land began to turn on the men from the South and those that did not escape quickly enough were killed and their bodies cast without ceremony out where the fowl could devour them and the rodents pick them clean.  It wasn't until Fall, when many had died from drought and from mobbing and from needless wars with neighbors who had once been friends that the rain finally came to replenish the wells and bring hope to the hearts of the people once more.  There were celebrations through-out the city and grievances that just the previous day had justified murder were forgotten now in the excess of plenty.  The council was overcome with joy and joined with the people in their merry making; but I went to my Mother who was now buried behind her garden, and wept.

Beauty

Some moments are built into our lives with exquisite beauty, they're just scripted that way.  The presentation of majestic amidst the most colloquial backdrop may still inspire awe in all classes of imagination.  How often do they come?  It's hard to say, we may not even remember them afterwards; but the moment exists independent of our recognition as a jewel in the midst of a fire.  Though we may see the flames consume it, perfection may only be masked, it can not be destroyed.  The ravaging of age leave untouched the gems of youth, and though the mists roll over the visages of our greatest triumphs yet they remain in darkness: their power untouched by the black of the night waiting always for the return of tender hearts to return the light.  Be not fearful, but always in the arms of beauty and you shall never fade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0O6Fnyz1Y0

Pain

It brings clarity to the moment: isolating it against a static background of somber tones of listless monotony.  Pain sharpens the senses, increases the memory and open a pathway of reality unknown to those who hide behind their fortifications against life.  The edge of a knife, it slices through deception and camouflage to reveal the truth beneath the masquerade.  We seek it in all endeavours, encounter it at the climax of every accomplishment.  It is the harmony of success, and the partner of fulfilment.  A search for death in life: the desire for beauty is manifested in a desire for death. To see clearly we leave behind the residue of impurity, like a trail of muck that marks the path of a slug.  Those who journey to greatness may be found by walking amongst the refuge of filth and unkempt dreams of darker or lesser glories.  All our voyages will end the same: in death.  All life born with the seeds of destruction built into them.  Nothing will last, we speed towards endings of splendour, or of cowardice as we attempt to dodge inevitability.  No man that seeks to avoid fate will find his lot cast amongst the heroes of the past.

Pain will bring light into dark places, and bring the power to conquer what lays before us.  It will bring up that well-spring of emotion instantly to its aid.  What must we feel now?  Is it anger, is it sadness?  What brought us to this point of intensity in a world of torpor?  All the must be will come when called by the dark gods of humanity.  They must be wakened, they must be satiated: it is pain that will rouse the sleeping giants within us.  Pain will call the legions and light the signal fires; we shall never overcome adversity, but rather shall be raised above all by adversity.  Pain is our father, and we seek none greater.  This is the prelude to life.

Questions

• What is a meaningful contribution?
• Are our lives chaotic, and thus capable of being changed in a significant manner through minor input?  If not then what benefit can we bring to others in the short time we are with them?  If so, does that make our interactions powerful but ultimatly meaningless morally?
• If information density implies inability to compress, doesn't that lead to the conclusion that only true randomness contains information.  If adding order to a system reduces randomness which reduces information, what are the moral and intellectual ramifications of that?
• If a person is caught in an addiction, when do they lose moral responsibility for their actions, or can all actions be placed at the feet of the choices they made that led to addiction?
• What does it mean to make a difference?
• How does spiritual matter travel across physical space?  Is it continious as we assume with physical matter, or is it disjointed into finite jumps?
• When we saw two or more things are connected, what do we mean, and what does that actually imply about the items in question?  How close must these things be in the given category (physical space, attributes, etc...)?
• Is there such a thing as a continuim?
• Are the phenomena of entanglement and chaos robust enough such as to together impact macro events?
• How redundant must a statement be in order to be considered tautalogical?
• When we speak of the sense of touch, what is it that we are feeling?  Electrostatic forces only?

Once more into the breach, dear friends

It was his watch that finally drew his attention to the issue. It was losing time; first seconds on the day, measures within the realm of mediocrity that was the prevalent notion of the day. His irritability turned into confusion as the seconds became minutes, and then hours. He could never bring the problem to focus, never shackle it down and force it into his own reality. He brought stop-watches by the cartoon, wholesale from Swiss vendors circulating the new, crystal variety.

Each one timed against his watch showed fidelity to an unreasonable degree. Milliseconds remaning constant over meticulously recorded minutes and hours. Yet every day he found himself farther and farther back. Whole mornings having escaped the notice of his watch; afternoons dissipating into some unseen aether. Each second marking its passage on the glass face but lost to the spectrum of his life.


Braulio began to understand the source when, after another fruitless but detailed study of one second piling upon another, he found that the issue had so progressed that he was no longer merely losing time: his watch had actually traveled backwards; even as he stared unceasingly at the dials proceeding in the forward direction, several minutes had returned to him, leaving him behind his starting point. In that moment he perceived that is was him and not some physical contrivance that was at the source. A flesh and blood temporal displacement in the midst of a river of inevitability. Some sort of dimensional warping forcing his path into reverse amidst his fellows.


This was not unheard of among mining scholars. Cases of cause-effect reversals having been reported for centuries beneath the surface. Most attributed this to depth inversion, finding height measured downwards the other aspects of life simply followed the simple reversal. Braulio was entirely unaware of this tradition of time altercations amongst his spiritual forefathers, but as with the rest of them he could have immediately ruled out this foolish depth-time relation for such as held that view. The two dimensions were unconnected: it was light. Light has always been the source, always been the arbiter of space.

Darkness ruling in the man-made caverns, blackness permeating into the realities of the mine. It was Braulio's sacrifices to that ruling power which joined him with the opposing directions. As black became his light, so forward was replaced with its opposite: that old 'bait and switch' practical joke that was a favorite of so many that had gone before.

He became a walking doorway into a realm of possibility. The reversal not so of time itself, but more directly of inevitability. Sure things, known outcomes, quaking in his presence. Questions of entropy increase and thermal chemistry reaming unknowns in that pocket of space he occupied. Was this the method God had ordained to return structure to His creation? Some sort of embrace of darkness, a rejection of the gift of sight? Perhaps the blind were to be leading the sighted, bringing them down past the nexus of surface into the subterranean kingdoms.


The questions flamed up in the mind of Braulio, but were swiftly stamped out, dosed by the inundating routine of down-world survival. The day-today trivialities easily crowding out the meaning of true discovery. He became accustomed to merely asking around in order to determine time (no longer able to trust the clocks he had worked by) and the matter began to fade into the ever-present blackness.