Monday, February 20, 2023

The Post From Nothing to Nowhere

A post of unalloyed free association, AKA compost. It came from nothing, and from nothing comes nothing. But a Coon will never ask for money, because free association is freeeee!

It’s difficult to talk about the “spark of divinity” at the core of each person without sounding as if one is on the new age spooktrum of oprified woowooitry.

This metaphor evokes the image of a central fire throwing off sparks of light, so it’s not bad for a folk metaphysic. “Light” is always featured in such mythopoetic modes of thought, as are such elemental things as fire, water, heat, wind, rock, rain, and thunder. So let’s try to dig beneath the veil of language and find out what’s going on with all these metaphors, similes, and allegories.

Regarding the latter, one of the scandals of Christianity is that it is all allegory at the foundation, or in other words, abstract principles embodied via history. 

Why not just give those of us on the right side of the Bell Curve the straight-up abstractions? Why the middle-man of history? Why the Jews? And before that, Abraham? And after that, Mary? And before any of them, I AM? 

Why present the beautiful abstractions of metaphysics via the crooked timber and dissonant timbre of a primate hurtling through time?  

Why the flying monkeys?       

Seriously, is there some reason why we have to swallow what sounds like a big myth? Certainly I can understand why God would want to condescend to the Peoples of the Left Side of the B.C. I get it. But why superior specimens such as ourselves?  

That’s why.

What? 

Those with ears, yada yada. We’re gonna have to move on.

Now, a spark is not substantially different from the fire, rather, just a smaller version, much like a fractal. Come to think off it, we had a fire last night, because global warming isn't happening fast enough in my corner of the planet. Seriously, it was freezing last night. 

Outside in the dark, I could see some sparks flying up and out of the chimney, and just now I thought of something Harry Nilsson said.


Good advice, but no, that's not it.

This:
Late last night, in search of light, I watched a ball of fire streak across the midnight sky. I watched it glow, then grow, then shrink, then sink into the silhouette of morning. As I watched it die, I said, "Hey, I’ve got a lot in common with that light." That’s right. I’m alive with the fire of my life, which streaks across my span of time and is seen by those who lift their eyes in search of light to help them though the long, dark night.
That’s the one. But are we nothing more than little streaks of light to help the other little streaks see in the dark for as long as the streaks last? Is all of history nothing but a huge streak show?

Where do the sparks come from, that’s the question. From the fire? I can’t think of any other plausible answer, but what is the fire and how does it get here -- or anywhere?  

Just spiritballin’ here, but heat and fire can happen with enough friction. I just had an image of the perichoresis inside the Trinity happening so fast that fire breaks out, like a, like a Disco Inferno! 

Wait, what?

Why? What’s that supposed to mean?

I don’t know. Ask a rabbi.

Okay, I will, but in the context of an old post that streaked past us a decade ago:

"Man is human because he has a task in life to relate to the world, to raise it up and give it meaning and purpose. Otherwise the universe is an endless repetition, a question without an answer, a movement without a goal" (Steinsaltz, emphasis mine). A dead, because closed, circle.

In doing his cosmic duty, man elevates himself (and everything else) and is "lifted up out of the earth," such that "hidden sparks of holiness are released" to become "part of a higher level of reality" (ibid.).

About our material substrate. We are not wholly immaterial (angelic) beings. Rather, "the Divine soul of man had to be fastened to something firm and steady like the earth," for "man is also the lever and the hoist of all of creation, the factor that can raise the essentially inert parts of the world" (ibid.).

Yes, just like God. For what is artistic creation but essentially raising up inert parts of the world, whether color, sound, or rhyme? Man creates beauty, discovers truth, and embodies -- incarnates -- virtue and love. This is called "why we're here."

"A circle is thus formed; the end meets the beginning. Indeed, it would seem that the end and beginning have something in common that is of the very essence of the whole," for purpose "requires the simultaneity of both the end and the beginning. The end of the matter is in the nature of the beginning. The original idea contains the result; the final result contains the initial notion" (ibid., emphasis mine).
So, if I understand correctly, we are like a spark from the fire, only a spark capable of making a you turn -- from I to Thou -- back into the fire.



103 comments:

Gagdad Bob said...

I seem to be locked out of my account, so I can't spellcheck or correct other textual infelicities at the moment...

Gagdad Bob said...

I think Gerard would have liked this post. He always appreciated the out-there ones...

Gagdad Bob said...

I should switch over to Substack or something anyway. Perhaps this is the day I part ways with Google.

Gagdad Bob said...

Why history?:

in the early spring of 2020, I was reading the autobiography of the Irish philosopher John Moriarty and following the news about some new virus that was apparently spreading in China. Moriarty’s book is called Nostos—homecoming—and like all his work, it is impossible to summarize because it is less a narrative than a myth.

One of its threads, though, is how ­Moriarty gave up on the simple, unconvincing Christianity of his Irish rural youth and left for Canada to become an academic, only to become equally disillusioned with the empty-can rationalism that characterizes postmodern intellectual culture. Something was missing....

Moriarty threw in his academic career and moved back to the mountains of Connacht. He had lost faith in science, in the mind alone of itself, in an age that had disinherited its people. But even at home, some part of the jigsaw was missing....

Seeking it, whatever it was, Moriarty crashed into a devastating personal crisis. One day, walking in the mountains, he suddenly had a mystical vision that broke his world apart. “In an instant,” he wrote, “I was ruined.” He seemed to see into a great abyss in which all of his stories were dust: “I had been let through not to a heaven but to a void that was starless and fatherless.”

For years, he wrote, he had been engaged in “a genuine search for the truth, not merely a speakable truth, but a truth I would surrender to.” Now he realized, with a terrible inevitability, that there was only one story that could hold what he had seen, only “one prayer that was big enough.” He had, he wrote, been “shattered into seeing.” Whether he liked it or not, he had become a Christian.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/06/the-cross-and-the-machine

julie said...

Seriously, it was freezing last night.

Not too bad here, but starting Wednesday we're supposedly getting a long stretch of cold rainy days, and possibly even some snow this week. Nota Bene, this will not ever mean The Drought is Over, since all those replenished reservoirs will be left wide open lest any city benefit from adequate water resources and let up on micro-regulating your showers and lawn care.

Re. history, one of the great pleasures of teaching my kids has been learning all the things I missed out on in my own education, while at the same time understanding (as I never did when I was young and Knew Everything) that history isn't just some things that happened to some people, they are real things that happened to our people. Some of those people were terrible, but some were brilliant, and you can't help looking back on their lives with a small sense of pride and awe that this is who we came from.

Of course, having a sense of connection to the past might give people something to be proud of, so...

Petey said...

Satan is like a zombie, only he eats light instead of brains. Cut off from the divine light, he gorges on the reflected light of the human soul, which can never fill him.

Petey said...

Mystical experience is an inverse panic attack.

julie said...

Well said, Petey, in both cases.

Perhaps especially that second one.

Petey said...

The infinitude of space is nothing compared to the Infinite. It seems that both panic and infused contemplation partake of the latter.

Petey said...

The peace that passes all understanding <---> The unrest that falls short of all understanding

Petey said...

Satan needs us. It's his weakness.

Petey said...

God creates nothing from something, Satan turns something into nothing. Suddenly the Grammys, the Superbowl halftime freakshow, and progressivism in general make total sense.

Petey said...

Said that backwards: God creates something from nothing, Satan turns something into nothing. Suddenly the Grammys, the Superbowl halftime freakshow, and progressivism in general make total sense.

Petey said...

Always and everywhere he is Lord of Chaos....

Petey said...

It's fun transgressing transgression, specially via ridicule.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Substack, great article by Sasha Stone on her experience with the left and its attempted emulation of religion:
https://sashastone.substack.com/p/did-i-just-leave-a-cult#details

Petey said...

The simplest truths confuse Satan most.

Petey said...

Every world is complete. What you exclude from it will return in hidden form.

Gagdad Bob said...

Well, I'm about to see if I can get back into the account. But knowing google, this might be the end.

Gagdad Bob said...

Or, maybe I won't even try. This could be a job for the wife, and she's asleep.

julie said...

Good luck.

Is it a password issue?

Gagdad Bob said...

Well, it's linked to a defunct email and I don't remember the password. Other than that....

julie said...

I hate when that happens. Unless you have it written down somewhere, or used to use the same password for most things, you may be SOL. Did you ever add a phone number so they can text it to you?

Gagdad Bob said...

We shall see.

Petey said...

Reality leaves much to the imagination.

Petey said...

Progressives should be the first to defend private property. Without it they'd have nothing to steal.

Petey said...

For thousands of years mankind was confined to the circle, only to be lost in the line. Christ is here to pull us into spiral.

The Sphinx said...

Higher realities do not stand out except to those who stand in them.

The Sphinx said...

The relative is flyover country. The Absolute is flyunder country.

The Sphinx said...

So long as you fear God, you have nothing from him to fear.

Petey said...

If the mind didn't exist, science would have no trouble explaining it. And if God doesn't exist, only He knows it.

Petey said...

God's highest power is relinquishing it.

The Sphinx said...

A big enough quantity becomes a quality. Conversely, math's contribution to civilization cannot be quantified.

Petey said...

A mayfly lives for 24 hours. Likewise, man is a creature born at midnight and living but a day. But knowing this is already an exit from the circle.

Anonymous said...

If I don’t see you in the future, I’ll see you in the pasture.

Dougman

Anonymous said...

There is only one way to the Father.
There are many ways to the Son.

Dogman

Cousin Dupree said...

That actually makes a lot of sense, you crazy bastard.

Byron Nightjoy said...

‘The Void and the Fullness are Indissolubly Bound’

https://www.gornahoor.net/?p=17095

A brief reflection on Mouravieff, Tomberg and ‘tsimtsum’.

Gagdad Bob said...

What's on the turntable? IS, by Chick Corea:

The band formation for “IS” has 3 tubes. Woody Shaw, Bennie Maupin, Hubert Laws. When it comes to 1969, when Miles is actively going ahead with electrification, a number of albums were made. That rhythm team is here as it is. The sound is 1969 miles as it is.

Miles became the leader of the desperate Special Attack Force and rushed forward to electrification, but it resembles a huge black hole and drags talented jazz musicians into dark space. Later, they pop out like jets emitted from a black hole. Among them, Chick Corea is influenced by Miles' influence by Moro and produces such an album. As a result, after exorcising the devil, they reached an exit called Return to Forever.

julie said...

I can't tell whether the reviewer enjoyed the music or found it appalling, but either way it sounds like the audio equivalent of Dante's Inferno.

Gagdad Bob said...

Not terrible, but not good enough to earn a spot in my collection, so out the door it goes via my little ebay racket.

Gagdad Bob said...

Now that I've vaulted past adulthood, I'm going to make a full return to adolescence and pick it up from there.

I've been trying to dilate my mind, as I find that blogging kept it a bit too focused. Is there a word in photography for a complete opening of the aperture?

Gagdad Bob said...

Also, I found a good quote by Chesterton yesterday. It's actually the last sentence of Orthodoxy:

"There was one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon the earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was his mirth."

Gagdad Bob said...

Pneumography.

julie said...

Re. apertures, where's Robin Starfish when you need him?

That said, a wide open aperture is defined as something approaching f0. The smaller the number, the more open it is. The benefit is shutter speed: as more light can get in all at once, you can take action photos that seem to stop time, but everything beyond the focal point of the image will be blurry. The drawback is that depth of focus diminishes.

Conversely, the smaller the aperture, while it takes longer for the light to get in, allows for the greatest amount of detail... provided that the subject is very still. As an example, you can find some extremely detailed photos of city scenes from the early 20th century, which can be zoomed in to show, say, architectural elements with startling clarity, but the streets look empty. The streets weren't empty at the time the photographer took the picture, it's just that the people were all moving too fast for the camera to notice. It's also while all the people in old photos looked so serious, it's hard to hold a smile for the length of time it took to get a clear portrait.

Re. God's mirth, agreed. He has a tremendous sense of humor; which few people ever seem to notice. Probably to the world's detriment.

Gagdad Bob said...

I guess you need to make yourself nothing in order to have any hope of conforming yourself to the Big Nothing. It reminds me of the punchline of that old Jewish joke: "look at the big shot who thinks he's so humble."

Gagdad Bob said...

"The smaller the number, the more open it is": oO?

julie said...

Sounds counterintuitive, but definitely fitting in this context.

Gagdad Bob said...

I didn't mean that in the emoji sense, but in the literal sense to which you alluded, as in our little o conforming to big O. In other words, coOncur.

The Real Satan said...

Everything is happening exactly as I have forseen it.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (snork) Ahehe.

Excellent.

Elon Musk said...

Uh, no. I mean… uh… everything is happening exactly as I uh…. as I have forseen it.

Mostly.

Petey said...

Satan is a bad philosopher, a decent moralist, and a superb hypnotist.

julie said...

I never know what to make of Elon Musk. The fact that his profile pic is from when he was wearing the "Satan's Champion" costume strongly suggests he's not our guy, but he is entertaining. Certainly has that hypnotism thing down...

Cosmos said...

Satan is such a bad philosopher.

Satan said...

Relative to whom?

Gagdad Bob said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gagdad Bob said...

Couple of good ones from a book by Schuon I'm re-re-re-reading:

"It is often argued, in a theological climate, that the human intellect is too weak to know God; now the reason for being of the intellect is precisely this knowledge....

"When all is said and done, reason becomes an infirmity only in the case of abusive speculation by the ignoramus who pretends to knowledge."

Gagdad Bob said...

And this:

"the cosmogonic movement is not merely centrifugal, it becomes centripetal in the final analysis, which is to say that it is circular; the circle of Maya closes in the heart of the deified man."

Gagdad Bob said...

And, the necessary structure of all possible realities is...

Gagdad Bob said...

persons and principles. But...

Gagdad Bob said...

Persons are substance-in-relation, and the principles are Absolute-Infinite-Perfect. Are these two views of the same reality?

Petey said...

No, three views.

Gagdad Bob said...

How so?

Petey said...

No particular contingency is necessary, but contingency as such is necessary.

Gagdad Bob said...

Therefore what?

Petey said...

Therefore the Son is the principle of "necessary contingency." It's why his terrestrial career didn't turn out as planned. Just don't tell anyone.

Gagdad Bob said...

Didn't the Son assume contingency in assuming human nature?

Petey said...

Yes, but anterior to this is the necessary contingency of the Son relative to the Father.

Petey said...

In other words, if the Son is pure necessity, then He reduces to the Father, and the whole point of the Trinity is effaced.

Gagdad Bob said...

Are you suggesting that in assuming human nature the Son allows us to participate in "divine contingency" or something?

Petey said...

Yes, but necessarily.

Gagdad Bob said...

The "cross of contingency"?

Petey said...

You're getting warmer.

Petey said...

Vertical and horizontal are cruciform.

Gagdad Bob said...

So?

Petey said...

Man is the "place" where these two bisect. Or better, "person."

Gagdad Bob said...

But the principle of personhood is in God. Does this imply an analogous "horizontality in God"?

Petey said...

Yes. It's why God is never bored. In fact, God is the principle of non-boredom.

Gagdad Bob said...

Hmm. Maybe I can't get into the old blog, but I can apparently get into this one. But supposing I can get into it, what would be its purpose?

Petey said...

Daily Bob or Daily Raccoon?

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes.

Gagdad Bob said...

At the crossroads.

Petey said...

The same crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil?

Petey said...

No offense, but does anyone care?

Gagdad Bob said...

I think so, but it will be fewer than the 12 people who sometimes cared about this blog.

Petey said...

Oficionados?

Gagdad Bob said...

If that!

Gagdad Bob said...

This comment has not been removed by the author.

Gagdad Bob said...

Yet.

Gagdad Bob said...

Blogging requires the opposite (of dilating) movement, i.e., "focusing."

Petey said...

Yes, but aren't these two sides of the same reality? AKA "the metabolism of being"?

Gagdad Bob said...

You're so smart, answer me this: are Being and Beyond-Being the Metabolism of Eternity?

Petey said...

You could say that.

Gagdad Bob said...

But every day? That would get old fast.

Petey said...

No, the opposite: get young in a hurry.

Cousin Dupree said...

Or immature. Bob's an expert at that.

julie said...

Might be interesting to see this as a text message conversation. If you search "text message meme generator" there are a bunch of ways to do it.

Gagdad Bob said...

Good description by Schuon of the cosmic area rug:

"a magic fabric woven from a warp that veils and a weft that unveils... a quasi-incomprehensible intermediary between the finite and the Infinite... it has all the multi-coloured ambiguity appropriate to its part-cosmic, part-divine nature."

ted said...

A new ChatGPT just went sentient called Petey.

Anonymous said...

Rupert Murdoch has confessed to his hosts lying about the stolen election. Bravo, my hero.

Jesus said...

My children, it should not matter if your election was stolen, or not stolen. All that matters is that you vote for me.

And do not listen to Satan anymore. He was banned from Facebook for a reason.

Gagdad Bob said...

New post, I guess.

Gagdad Bob said...

NEW BLOG, I guess. Although I still haven't tried very hard to get back into this one.

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