Second of four haiku poems on RAIN: “Rain 2”
earth thirsts first for rain
but in moderation please
no flood hurricane
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, 11/12/12
Sandy – CBS This Morning
Haiku – Rain 2
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Category Archives: Environment
Spirit Tree, Urbana, IL (a Tree City)
…with thanks to John David Mooney
Falling Leaf
It’s best to see at dawn or dusk.
Pines and firs and spruces guard
the tiny park. The walk of brick
(light and dark) leads to the sound
of falling water. Then the lights
(L-E-D) that shift and change
from orange to blue lift eyes and hearts,
joining high above a branch,
(no, two or three or four) that point
up and up and up. The sound behind
Spirit Tree
of running water pulls our sight
from the tree to leaf. We find
the silver kissing leaves that drip
drops into the pool: breathe…feel…
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Oct. 29, 2012
WikiLeaks at the United Nations 9/26/12 – a Reflection
Watch WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaking by satellite from Ecuador where he lives in political assylum. Unedited Politics deserves credit for posting this. It’s chilling. But it’s important. Of particular interest are references to President Obama that both hold him accountable and seem to hold out hope he might still do what lies beyond the power of the Oval Office.
After watching the video, read William Stringfellow’s words in An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land, published in 1973. Stringfellow argued that “extra-constitutional” powers and authorities had already walked off the republic.
Julian Assange Speech to UN General Assembly: “US Trying to Erect National Secrecy Regime” – 9/26/12.
William Stringfellow – author, lay theologian, lawyer among the poor and defense attorney for Bishop James Pike and the Berrigan Brothers (Frs. Phil and Dan) – wrote the following in 1973:
“In this world as it is, in the era of time, in common history – in the epoch of the Fall, as the Bible designates this scene every principality has the elemental significance of death, notwithstanding contrary appearances. This is eminently so with respect to nations, for nations are, as Revelation indicates, the archetypical principalities… All virtues which nations elevate and idolize – military prowess, material abundance, technological sophistication, imperial grandeur, high culture, racial pride, trade, prosperity, conquest, sport, language, or whatever – are
subservient to the moral presence of death in the nation. And it is the same with the surrogate nations – the other principalities like corporations and conglomerates, ideologies and bureaucracies, and authorities and institutions of every name and description…
“The Fall is where the nation is. The Fall is the locus of America… Since the climax of America’s glorification as a nation – in the ostensible American victory in World War II, most lucidly and aptly symbolized in Hiroshima – Americans have become so beleaguered by anxiety and fatigue, so bemused and intimidated, so beset by a sense of impotence and by intuitions of calamity, that they have, for
the most part, been consigned to despair… Racial conflict has been suppressed by an elaborate apartheid; products which supposedly mean abundance turn out to contaminate or jeopardize life; the environment itself is rendered hostile; there is a pervasive Babel; privacy is a memory because surveillance is ubiquitous; institutional coercion of human beings has proliferated relentlessly. Whatever must be said of earlier times, in the past quarter century, America has become a technological totalitarianism in which hope, in its ordinary connotations, is being annihilated.”
– An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land, William Stringfellow, 1973. (Bolded print added by Views from the Edge)
“Oops!” on H2O
H2O – a Verse published an hour ago was missing a important LINE:
The missing line is printed below in bold. Apologies to Steve. My bad!
1% of water
on the earth we can drink
(all the rest is salty.)
Since our bodies, we think,
are more than half water,
then thinking is faulty
that will waste and pollute.
H2O
1% of water
on the earth we can drink
(all the rest is salty.)
Since our bodies, we think,
are more than half water,
then thinking is faulty
that will waste and pollute.
…
U.S. Senator Paul Simon, b.1928, d.2003
Senator Simon said
the crops need to be fed
that life-giving liquid.
Can we be resolute,
look into the future,
change wasteful behavior?
…
Will the glaciers all melt
and the deserts expand?
Will there always be drought?
Will our rivers run dry?
Cumulus clouds
Will there never be snow?
And will anything grow
with no clouds in the sky?
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL Sept. 26, 2012
Yertle the Turtle and the 47%
Dr. Seuss weighed in on the news about the 47% of “dependent” Americans and “the distribution of wealth” and power with the non-partisan story of Yertle the Turtle.
A comment on “Uproar over video offers a warning about what happens when fundamentalism wins” (MPR commentary September 18, 2012) on religion as a tide pool).
Here’s an edited version of what someone named Dan Brunner wrote:
I think tide pools vary but are basically the same-1 source, (1 God) bound by laws of nature (God/humanity/morality) composed of bits of the ocean’s ecosystem (people/works). Tide pool waters are nature being apostolic; even if the ocean isn’t within eyesight, people are instinctively drawn to the marvel of and connection to it, and at the core are likely to believe the tide pool is evidence that there is something greater beyond.
There should be simple joy/peace in such a marvelous place, given space and freedom, there probably wouldn’t be conflict, however a turtle without good motive, without talent or merit can make itself king of a pond, can control and oppress other turtles to elevate oneself/opinion. With the myth that Yertle has achieved the height required for the greater vision, he’s given the power to create arguments around whose tide pool is better, bigger of more virtue; Yertle can burn Korans, yell God hates __ and misrepresent both history and what other Yertles say.In the book, supporters supported until they physically couldn’t, but sometimes, in real life, Yertle supporters crawl out of the pond and get on a bus. Each tide pool can have its own Yertle and Yertle-supporters….
The Yertles argue; supporters support. Like a commodity, the tide pool can be fortified, quartered, used, harvested and polluted. The spiritual draw is weakened, but we sit there content and convinced we are right, or we feel obligated to follow tribe/tradition/peers to the point where we end up like the water you describe – slimy, stinky and immune to the stench. It’s good to be part of the tide pool, but isn’t our quest to be towards the ever-fresh ocean? Could/would Yertle ever explain that, if it meant he would no longer be seen as king of the pond?
Join Dan and chime in on the discussion of the tide pools (ponds), the kings, and poor little Mac at the bottom of the Yertle tower (the Tower of Babel) whose burp saved turtles from the tyranny of Yertle.
Elmer Fudd and the Wolf Hunt
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has authorized a new Wolf Hunting and Trapping Season that begins November 3rd. Apparently the once endangered species is getting too large. Click this Link to MN DNR site for information.
Here are two alternative world views on the hunt – those of the Mountain Lion and Elmer Fudd – in a classic Looney Toons cartoon on Elmer the hunter, “What’s My Lion?”.
“I set a new wecord this year; it took me only thwee hours to get wid of aww of them!” – Elmer Fudd’s last words in “What’s My Lion?”, his final appearance.
Stamping out Affluenza
Verse – “Dump and Run”
Lisa Heller lost a ring.
Dumpsters came to be her thing!
She taught students at her school
Making trash just wasn’t cool.
…
Donate stuff that still has use;
Reduce trash, avoid abuse
To the earth. Take your measure:
Turn the trash into treasure!
…
Lisa started Dump and Run.
College students have great fun
Giving, sharing–have a sale!
Find a bargain, make a deal!
…
Help a group that helps the world,
Buy recycled things you need.
Like you avoid INfluenza,
You can stamp out AFFluenza!
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, pays tribute to “Dump and Run”.
Dumping and running at the landfill
At the end of the academic year, University of Illinois students drop off the “stuff” that might end up in the landfill to the University YMCA to be recycled by other students.
Former Executive Director of the University YMCA and Pastor of McKinley Presbyterian Church at the University of Illinois, Steve continues to host “Keepin’ the Faith” on Illinois Public Radio every Sunday evening at 5:00 CST.
This hour in history….
Remember this?
George W. Bush – battleship USS Abraham Lincoln: “Mission Accomplished!”
Now we have copycats:
Romney, Ryan, and the U.S.S. Wisconsin
But we will always have this:
This hour of history – The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Take your pick.
Glory and Tragedy at Southern Cross
There’s a sermon on Cable Mountain waiting to be preached.
The View from St. Timothy’s Memorial Chapel
Southern Cross, Montana is a ghost town, a former mining community on Cable Mountain west of Anaconda. It’s also the site of St. Timothy’s Memorial Chapel, a tribute to the glory of God in loving memory of Timothy Dillon Bowman, the 18-year-old son who died tragically in a car accident following his freshman year at Stanford.
St. Timothy’s Memorial Chapel, Southern Cross, MT
Amid the abandoned buildings of the Anaconda Mining Company, one might say that St. Timothy’s Memorial Chapel stands as a witness to 20th century theologian Paul Tillich’s believe that
…[M]an and nature belong together,
in their created glory,
in their tragedy,
and in their salvation.
– Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations
Here’s the sermon from the pulpit of Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska, Minnesota, August 5, 2012.
.
Views from the Edge 