Kev's Musings and Shared Journal

The Flesh and the Spirit

The two kingdoms. One of Flesh, one of Spirit. I live in both.

When I was young, I was taught in Sunday School and Church that sin is of the Flesh, while Faith is of the Spirit. I was taught that the ultimate way to live was to live as much in the Spirit as possible, and as little in the Flesh as possible.

And so I did. I attended Church and Sunday School on a regular basis on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, and Thursday evenings. I attended Youth Group on Friday evenings.

I was surrounded by people who wanted to live in Spirit at least four times a week. This not counting when we had revivals, when the services would be held each evening of the revival week.

I tasted the Kingdom. The world of Spirit made manifest; the underlying world of Faith, Hope and Charity.

And then I grew into a young adult and my priorities changed. I no longer felt comfortable attending Youth Group, even though at the time I was in my early twenties. Sunday School was too early in the morning on Sundays, and Thursday and Sunday nights the services ran too late for week nights when I had to be at work the next morning.

Slowly, the temptations of the Flesh set in. I could go out drinking with the guys. I was twenty one! I could skip Church and stay at home to watch MTV or a movie rental. I could go to a nice restaraunt and satisfy my palate with a fine steak.

In short, the animal nature took hold and the pleasure of the senses beckoned.

At first, it was highly fulfilling to dive into such secular enjoyments. Afterall, what was better than a fine slice of prime rib and a great salad bar, followed by a night of drinking out on the town?

But my appetite, instead of being sated, only enlarged itself until my stomach might as well have preceded me as I walked through the door. During those years, I had a metabolism that allowed me to stay thin, even though I was one of the biggest gluttons you could imagine. I overate, I overdrank, I oversmoked.

But I did not realize my gluttony or the enlargement of my appetite at the time. Like a vicious whirlpool that sucked me in, the life of the senses, the Flesh, had me in it's clutches and I didn't even know it!

With all my senses, the Flesh, being overbloated to the point of being pornographic, my Spirit not coincidentally began to wane. When I did attend Church, it was the norm for me to listen to the Pastor's message and then get on with the rest of the day without any reflection over what the Minister had said that Sunday morning. I began to lose interest in reading the Bible, and rarely prayed before meals, never praying before falling asleep.

While my Flesh was getting 'fatter' and 'fatter', my Spirit was getting 'skinnier' and 'skinnier'. And most importantly, I did not realize at the time that this was even happening!

So went my Spirit.

Had there been no trajedies occur, I would have went on in this manner indefinitely. But God sends His rain to fall on the Just and the Unjust, and I began to experience some 'thunderstorms'. I lost a good paying job. People in my family fell ill. I myself went through some psychic traumas due to the 'storms' blowing through my life and found my resiliancy, my ability to bounce back were greatly diminished.

There was no underlying Rationality, nothing made sense, and stress became completely overwhelming at times.

I would find myself at home in bed, with all the covers wrapped around me at 3:00 in the afternoon, presumably hoping to keep the world at bay.

Sometimes when there is a thunderstorm, the clouds part slightly, and in the midst of the strongest rain and lightning, the sunlight pours through to let you know it's still there.

Fortunately, this was how my Fleshly thunderstorms went. In the midst of hearing the worst news, people from my past would pop up and deliver a kind or reassuring message. There would be days when Heaven would seem to open up and all the 'stuff' would become crystal clear and I would know exactly what needed to be done.

There were times when I'd be driving down a highway in my car, and the Spirit would break through my Fleshly troubles, and I would find myself sobbing, in complete awe of the Saviour.

Temperance. Sweet Temperance.

Now that I'm older, I realize that lack of temperance was causing much of my troubles. My Flesh is not designed to be overindulged, and my Spirit is not designed to be a mouse timidly running around in my house of Flesh.

I had to strike a balance.

Spirit and Flesh, Flesh and Spiri. The two I realize now are opposing partners sitting on the same seesaw. The balancing act I undergo each day is to try to keep that seesaw as level to the ground as possible.

If I live too much in Spirit, the practical ends of life for myself and my family are not met. I can't opt to pray for hours on end, locked away in a room in silent meditation concealed from my family. For one, I would not be a good Father or Husband, for two, the house would eventually cave in and the grass would never get mowed.

Likewise though, pandering to the flesh in an of itself leads to an early grave. The great Philosophers, the Biblical Scriptures, and the Saviour say so. If I spent all my time satisfying the needs of the Flesh, my Spirit would ultimately become corrrupted to perhaps the point of no return.

There are still days when I know I don't have it right yet. There are days still when I feel completely overwhelmed by Life and Strife, and feel there is no escaping my troubles.

But as I've paid more attention to the Spirit, I've found the underlying foundation of Faith, Hope and Charity is still intact, and that these ultimate resources are still there for me to fall back on.

My prayer: God help me strike the Balance!

P O E M

Bring me bay leaves and barley cakes,
My Lover's laid me low,
Bring me coltsfoot and mixing wine,
Some thread for me to sew,
'Neath waning moon and black ink sky
I'll strike the circle full,
With owl-marked leaf I'll cast my spell
by moonbeams bended pull,
My Lover's heart is pounded through
With coarser blood than mine,
His mouth breathes deep another's dew,
He's left me here to pine
Sweet Mother, hear your daughter's cry
Your lost Persephone,
On bended knee 'neath black ink sky,
Round 'bout encircle me
Across the sea my lover sails,
Tho' feet are on the ground,
I'll turn his feet to creeping snails,
His head to haggard hound
A love so sweet my Lover gave,
But now, I curse his name,
From Lover's arms into the grave,
A death to match his shame
Bring me bay leaves and barley cakes,
My Lover's laid me low,
Bring me coltsfoot and mixing wine,
Some thread for me to sew
My Lover's heart is pounded through
With coarser blood than mine,
His mouth breathes deep another's dew,
He's left me here to pine

My reading of Plato's Republic

I read this classic around a year ago, and it made a huge impact on my thinking. I had read the 'Republic' when I was younger and in college. But at that time, the book had little effect on me.

Harold Bloom, in 'Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?' puts forth the notion that wisdom comes in two genres. One is of the 'prudential' variety, while the other is of the 'skeptical' variety. Bloom further elaborates in his book that prudential wisdom is arrived at by reading books, while the skeptical wisdom is arrived at by experience.

From my college days, I would say my skeptical wisdom had grown, while my prudential wisdom had waned, as I had done comparatively little reading, but a lot of living during those years. Perhaps this imbalance of skeptical as opposed to prudential wisdom was the perfect mode of being to occupy in order for the 'Republic' to suddenly become so meaningful to me. Perhaps the utter desert of ignorance I was living in prudentially was suddenly watered by the intellectual discourse and dialogue of Socrates.

The 'Republic', from talking to more learned friends than myself, is currently thought of as out of vogue due to it's politics. The criticism is that Plato sought after a mass of servile people enslaved to an aristocratic class of dogooders. One friend even went so far as to recommend I read 'Das Kapital', saying I would learn that the 'Republic' was realized as a political system under Marxian socialism; the argument being that Marxian socialism was an utter failure, and that therefore the 'Republic' was dangerous if not irrelevant reading.

But my reading of the 'Republic' was different. For one, Plato states that the original problem is 'what is virtue'? More specifically, what is virtue on a personal level. How should a person think, and what are the modes of consciousness? It is only to answer these problems for an individual that Plato 'scales the problem up' by deciding how an entire society could live in virtue, with the intention being to apply what is learned from the big picture of civilization to the small picture of the individual person.

So Plato, through the dialogue of Socrates, arrives at the 'perfect' society, the ultimate irony being that said society could not be reached in his current political environment. It is here that I make the argument that Plato didn't mean for the 'Republic' to neccessarily be viewed as a political diatribe, but rather to have solutions to problems in society encoded into a personal ethos.

What does Plato find? First of all that there are four virtues that should be present in a person for that person to be whole and healthy.

The first virtue is Wisdom, and is associated with the mind.
The second virtue is Courage, and is associated with the heart.
The third virtue is Temperance and is associated with the stomach.
The last virtue is Justice, which according to Plato amounts to an individual sticking to what he does best.

During the great dialogue of the 'Republic', the reader also gets the benefit of learning Plato's theory of the mind. The mind operates in four ways as listed below, ranging from lesser to greater as follows:

Imagination = Eikasia
Belief = Pistis
Knowledge = Dianoia
Intelligence = Gnosis

Imagination is found in the realm of dream, musings and flights of fancy. Belief is associated with material objects. Knowledge is geometrical reasoning, while Intelligence is union with the 'Forms'.

The Forms, or Ideas, work as follows. I can say 'the door is open' whether the door is physically open or not, and the Idea will remain unchanging. The material fact of the door being opened or closed cannot change the Idea of 'the door is open'. In other words, 'the door is open' still means 'the door is open', whether the door is open or not.

So, according to Plato, there is a world of unchange and a world of change. The world of unchange is characterized by Idea, while the world of change is characterized by substance. The soul then aspires to the unchanging world of Idea, while the body is trapped in a Heraclitian world of constant change where you can never step into the same river twice.

Obviously, Plato's 'Republic' got me questioning how to think and how to approach life. Had I paid or given much attention or credence to Imaginaion? In other words, had I ever wondered over my dreams or flights of fancy? Did I perceive objects as they really were? Did I know the properties of a right triangle? Could I conceive of a notion of a world of unchanging forms from my vantage point of physical change?

The answer to all four questions was a resounding yes.

Did I think that life may be better if I was Wiser both prudentially and skeptically, followed by exhibiting Courage, Temperance and Justice?

Yes, I thought...yes it might be.

Then I began to think about how many people had read the 'Republic' down through the ages who would have thought and felt exactly the same way as me, and for the first time, I felt like I had received a Universal message from the secular realm.

In short, I felt better for having read the 'Republic', and still think and write about the ideas Plato put forth through the dialogue of Socrates.

Last night, I had the good pleasure of attending a Keith Urban concert at the Indianapolis state fair with my wife.
Keith Urban is a fairly famous country singer/songwriter who tours the country a good part of the year.
The weather was nice, being around 85 degrees in the afternoon, and then getting down to around 80 once the sun went down.
We sat on the tenth row, 'in the dirt' at stage left, so we had a good view of the band and of Keith.
My wife has been a pretty rabid fan of Mr. Urban for at least three years now, so this was my first time of 'seeing what all the fuss was about'.
I was pleasantly surprised.
Under a near-full moon with the stars out, we listened to 'Days Gone By' and other songs by Keith that I had heard in the car or at home when the family was at leisure.
The band was tight and seemed to enjoy playing with each other. There was a visible, good rapport between the 'mates' (Keith hails from Australia) and they really seemed to enjoy the songs they were playing.
I am of the mind, that the greatest seventies rock acts have been translated into the modern country acts such as Keith.
Time was, you could see Bad Company or 10cc play an outdoor festival, and be treated to long guitar solos, lots of jumping around and guitar changes along with excellent artist interaction with the crowd (i.e. jumping into the melee of the fans while singing and playing guitar).
Keith did this to great effect. While playing guitar solos he would jump from the stage and make his way to the crowd, playing amidst the fans who had payed a decent amount to see him.
Also he would have the crowd sing along to his songs, stopping singing so just the fans could be heard. The fans did not disappoint, as I could clearly make out the correct lyrics as they sang in the Singer's stead.
There was plenty of guitar noodling and even the occassional break into modern rock.
At one point, I was treated to Keith and the band breaking into U2's 'It's a Beautiful Day', which they played with as much fervor as the rest of their 'country' set.
For an encore, Mr. Urban played 'Free Fallin' by Tom Petty. The beat was if anything slowed up a bit, and the band once again allowed the crowd, this time in sections, sing their part.
On the drive home, noticing the near-full moon and stars once again, I felt I had experienced something special with my wife.

What more can you ask for from a 'country' concert?

The City and Nature

The City is synthetic.
Once or twice removed from the suburb, which in turn is once or twice removed from the country, which finally is once or twice removed from Nature.
So the City is removed from Nature a potential of six degrees.
Numbers reside in the City. But show me 'one' and show me 'two'. The numbers are just signs of exchange for consumption.
Goods are bought and sold, the commerce of one stranger to another.
Transit is made by cars, in which sit individuals who only recognize others in the fact said individuals have been cut off in traffic.
Conversation in the workplace is often sterile and devoid of meaning.

The Country is Genteel.
The Forest, Natural.
Six degrees removed from the city. One cannot begin to count the manifestations of beauty. I can count the leaves on a branch, the branches on the limbs of deciduous trees.
The View, the Fields, the Panoramas, the evergreen needles crunched underfoot are completely and utterly Free.
You are not a stranger in the woods, acknowledged by a squirrel, spyed by an owl, enveloped by trees.
As you traverse a trail, you recognize a sycamore you remember from five years ago and are amazed at it's growth.
In the woods, when you pray, you feel God is as close to you as the trunks of the trees hugging the paths you take.
No topic is off limits, any sin can be confessed and forgiven, as you silently whisper your prayer into the forest breeze.

And so it was, on the first Thursday of the month, when the moon was new and at apogee, beneath a star-filled sky, that Kurt found himself stranded on an island in the midst of the south Pacific.
The moon appeared to be riding low and straight above, and Kurt knew it was riding the equator, so, he figured, he too must be at the equator.
With no sun to warm the beach, Kurt found himself shivering, huddling away from the water and at first hugging close to the thick of the trees on the island.
But what could be in those trees. Kurt's mind dreamt up many creatures he had seen emerge from the beech trees of upper Michigan, from which he came.
Although those creatures were indigenous to the inland forests and lakes and ponds, Kurt felt sure the Tropics would have their fair share of nocturnal animals he'd rather not encounter.
So Kurt thought of the time he had been in Florida, walking along the beach at night, when a loud splash he had heard brought his attention to the incoming tides. He could hear something moving. Something big that seemed to thud and plod along. And then he heard splashing and splaying of saltwater, as if something were trying to fight the tides and get back out to sea.
It was a sea turtle, huge and oily-backed and beautiful, and not at all scary. Just then, two other people were walking by and the three looked at the sea turtle, trying to get ocean going, and talked of what to do.
'We need to get him back out' one said.
Kurt replied, 'the tides are high and the sharks could be in close to the shore. I'm not going in there'.
'Well we need to push the turtle out and at least give him a fighting chance'.
The two new nebulous beachcombers made their way to the sea turtle and began pushing the thing away from shore, following it out behind it's awkward wake.
Kurt could see that they were never going to get the sea turtle out, so he made his way to them and the sea turtle and triangulated behind them.
Not being able to see what his hands were doing, he reached down and felt the slick, smooth oil of the sea turtles back and began to shove in tandem with the other two.
Soon, the rhythm of the waves became apparent and the three were pushing when need be, and relaxing when not.
The three of them and the sea turtle started slowly making it past the breakers into chest deep saltwater.
Gradually, the waves pulled them up off the sea floor, then back down and slightly outward with each passing second.
Finally, the sea turtle slipped from their grip and was gone. Gone as if it had never been with them.

But that was a long time ago.

All Kurt knew was he was ready to take on sea creatures, but not tropical forest creatures.

And so, beneath the ink-blotted canvas of a star filled sky, Kurt decided to build a campfire for warmth.

He combed the beach, which he could see beneath the apogeed moon quite well, and picked up driftwood that had not yet been reached by the incoming waves.
Soon enough, Kurt had a roaring fire going midway between the water mark and the line of trees.
Kurt huddled in front of the fire, feeling safe in the wide open of the beach, away from the blacked out opaque of the trees.
Within an hour, Kurt dozed off, falling into a dream.
He was a little boy. He was climbing a mountain, not tall, arriving at the top and making his way down the backside. Before him another mountain appeared. This one taller, and as he climbed, he could feel it was steeper through his legs. Soon though, he made it to the top and made his way back down again. A third mountain appeared. And so the trip went. Climbing ever steeper mountains in his sleep, when Kurt was awakened by a noise from the brush.
Stopping for a moment, though he had gone nowhere, Kurt listened above the incoming waves of the sea and his own deep breaths.
At first he thought it was nothing, but then he definitely heard a branch break, as if broken underfoot.
Soon, his eyes were sharp enough to make out the figure of a man coming hind quarters out, out of the trees. Kurt could tell nothing else from the shape.
Within seconds, the man had backed his way out of the thicket and continued walking backward toward Kurt and his fire.
Did the man even know he was there?
Gradually, Kurt could make him out.
He was an old man, stooped over wearing what Kurt presumed to be a loincloth.
The man had long, gray hair that fell over his shoulders and back as he walked.
Soon the man straightened up completely and showed himself to be much taller than Kurt had imagined.
Six foot 2"? Kurt thought.
The man now turned completely around to face Kurt and walk toward him with the normal gait most would expect of a man.
His hair obscured his visage, having fallen over his face when he had been stooped over not long ago.
Then the man was standing on the opposite side of the fire from Kurt and motioned to the ground beneath his feet.
Could he sit.
Yes. Kurt motioned, sit.
The man sat down and crossed his legs in front of him, proving quite quick and limber for one his age.
'Hi'.
'Hai' said the old man.
'Who are you'?
The old man held up a balled fist that proved to be quite large and pointed his index finger straight up to the star filled sky, where the moon was riding the equator.
'You are....sky'?
'I am One'.
'Okay....one'.
'How did I get here...on this beach'?
'This is a beach? Oh yes, yes the beach. Yes you are on the beach because I brought you here'.
A thousand thoughts raced through Kurt's mind. He wanted to be at home in his two bedroom house with his wife and son, Kaitlin and Camron. He wanted to be driving to work in his Subaru four cylinder that got good city miles. He wanted to be....awake.
'You better wake up'.
'But I am awake'.
'So' the old man said. 'Who are you?'
'Oh, I am Kurt, I live in Fort City, Michigan with my wife...'
'But you are' and the man held up two fingers.
'I am.... peace...no wait I remember, I am two. Wait, I am Two. You are One and I am Two'.
'You are a fairly quick learner'.
'Well I try'.
'So why did you bring me here'?
'Well, there are many lessons in life to learn, and you're not learning the important ones, young man'.
'Well, as I was saying, I am Kurt, Kurt from Fort City and I am married and I have a son'.
'But' the old man said, 'You have no wife and you have no son. That is the cruelest Illusion for one your age'.
As soon as the words left the old man's lips, Kurt felt a complete emptiness in his soul. He felt completely and utterly alone and knew that Kaitlin and Camron were gone. His family was wiped clean, and there was just him left with the old man.
A single tear made it's way from Kurt's eye and rolled down his left cheek.
'Where did they go'?
'They could have gone anywhere. They could be nineteenth century Quakers or twenthieth century Amish. They could be two doors down from you, but they are completely and utterly apart from you, as you feel already'.
Kurt's mind began racing again. He was in Sunday school and his teacher was teaching him to pray. For the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
'But that's a problem' the old man said.
'You need to be Quiet'.
'But how can I be quiet? You've just told me my wife and son are gone, and I feel it, and I'm not going to be quiet'.
'But if you're Quiet, they may come back'.
Quiet.
Kurt sat still.
'There you go now you're learning something...that you have to be Still'.
'First be quiet, then be still. I feel like I'm back in third grade'!
'So you've been in this place before? You learned to be Still and Quiet before'?
'Well I wasn't here. I was in a classroom. With Mrs Framingham....'
'What was her name'?
'Wait, yes, her name was One. One taught me to be still and quiet'.
'You know, you're not the only one who's been separated from your family'.
The old man pulled his still crossed legs up to his chest and wrapped his lean but muscular arms around them and stared into the fire, and Kurt knew the old man was seeing things well beyond the flames.
It had never occurred to Kurt that the loss of a family caused so much physical pain, emptiness and alonness. He reflected on friends who had been divorced or lost a spouse to cancer and suddenly realized how they had truly felt. He knew the emptiness he had felt in losing his own family was the emptiness felt by those friends and now even still by the old man.
'Yes that's a great secret they never tell you. What truly unites you to your fellow man is suffering. More specifically, suffering for loss, whatever that loss may be'.
Kurt had to get up now and walk.
'Where are you going'?
'I need to walk. I need to wake up. I need Kai...'
'But Kaitlin is gone'.
Yes Kaitlin was gone.
Kurt sat back down, crossing his legs the best he could in front of the old man.
'So do you see that you are looking in a mirror'? asked the old man.
'What do you mean? There're no mirrors on this island'.
The old man raised his arms till they were horizontal to the beach, stretching them as wide as he seemingly could. Then he swept them forward until his palms clapped and hesitated just for one moment. Then he drew his palms into his chest, forcing his elbows out until his fingertips were pointing to the moon riding the equator at apogee and then with the palms still together, raised both hands to the sky, straightening out his arms in smooth lines. Slowly, he brought his hands back down until they rested once again at his side. He looked relaxed, but seemed to be sitting even straighter than before.
'When you look in a mirror, is the reflection embedded in the glass, or is the reflection reflected back to your eyes'?
'Well of course the reflection reaches the eyes'.
'And where does it go from there'?
'Well to my optic nerve I suppose'.
'And from the optic nerve'?
'Yes the reflection winds up in my brain'.
'So you see you are seeing a reflection that is transmitted from your optic nerve to your brain'?
'Yes yes, I suppose in some way I am looking at myself when I see the reflection'.
'So what do you see when you look at me'? Asked the old man.
'I see myself'.

'Shhh...be Quiet now'
'Be Still'.
'See yourself in others' said the old man.
'I think you're waking up now'.

Later that day at the office, Kurt didn't remember the alarm going off on his nightstand. He just remembered the hectic morning with Kaitlin getting Camron ready for school, the three of them taking turns in the shower and then the bathroom, racing to get on with the day.

He didn't even remember the dream within a dream he had experienced.

But for some reason, he took off work early and watched Camron in his music program, which he had not planned on attending, and enjoyed a Quiet evening at home with his wife and son.

Thought

Some days it's better to sleep and see what the dreams have to offer.