Anon

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By Order.

Igneos

Historical Curiosity

Click on the above pic to find about David Hartley for those of you interested in historical curiosities.

Limeno

Couldn't help but notice this slightly sinister pic on my slideshow that appeared randomly. I will change the slideshow settings today(!)

What is faith? #2

As normal I have the canny ability to come across other books that reflect on my last post.

Mario Vargas Llosa in 'Conversation in the Cathedral' has the following to say about doubt. This is typical of the irreverent Limeño.

"They should have invented a pill, a suppository to work against doubts, Ambrosio," Santiago says. "Just think how beautiful, you stick it in and there you are: I believe."

Can't help laughing at this - surely there could be a punk song about this.

Alternatively Thomas Carlyle in 'Signs of the Times':

"so that reasonable men deal with it, as the Londoners do with their fogs, - go cautiously out into the groping crowd, and patiently carry lanterns at noon; knowing by a well-grounded faith, that the sun is still in existence."

What is faith?

As Armstrong has pointed out belief was something strikingly different in the beginning. Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia from 392 to 428 wrote of faith as something that was purely a matter of committment and practical living, he did not require his candidates to believe any mysterious doctrines.

(p. 101 'The Case for God', Armstrong)

Faith

As Armstrong points out the idea of 'One God' is shared by three religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Not just as Dawkins would like to criticise - Christianity. The history of the three religions is something new to me. I have found it fascinating.

I was not aware that when Isam started it was known as tazakka ('refinement'). The followers were uneasy about even creating a new religion. It was a way of life and you could follow the bible as a Christian or Jew and still practise the commitment of Isalm. In the Qu'ran the people who opposed Islam are called Kafirun, This has been mistranslated as infidel or unbeliever, it should be translated as 'blatant ingratitude', a discourteous and arrogant refusal of something offered with great kindness. There was no sense of aggression or dislike the attitude to those who were aggressive towards them was to be as follows:

"Muslims are commanded to respond to such abusive behaviour with hilm ('forebearance') and quiet courtesy, leaving revenge to Allah. They must 'walk gently on the earth', and whenever the Kafirun insult them, they should simply reply: 'Salam' ('peace')."

The case for God

I bought Karen Armstrong's 'The Case for God' thinking that at last someone has decided to take on Dawkins. The book is heavy going - definitely not easy and it doesn't seem to be trying to counter Dawkins but if he does have the sense to read it - and read it the whole way through perhaps it could work as such.

Armstrong goes back to the very beginning, asking 'who is God', 'what is faith' and to be honest I have found as many new ideas and startling insights as anyone. For the ordinary person looking for some ammo to go against Dawkins they will probably come out more confused than when they started. Remember as Armstrong has said 'it is not easy, because religion is not easy' - I think that is a cautionary note for ordinary people as much for the 'brights' such as Dawkins.

Checking in

Hi All!

Good to see I have picked up a few new fans, (and a few unwanted fans). I have been away for a few weeks, comments are welcome. I will try to keep the blog updated regularly from now on.

All are welcome, just don't expect the normal book reviews. I am more convinced than ever that books for review aren't read by the writers - that it is a back slapping exercise and perhaps this is why the book industry is suffering so much.

Expect nothing but the unexpected on this blog!

What are mortals?

Job 7:17-21 (Message translation)

^17-21 "What are mortals anyway, that you bother with them,
that you even give them the time of day?
That you check up on them every morning,
looking in on them to see how they're doing?
Let up on me, will you?
Can't you even let me spit in peace?
Even suppose I'd sinned—how would that hurt you?
You're responsible for every human being.
Don't you have better things to do than pick on me?
Why make a federal case out of me?
Why don't you just forgive my sins
and start me off with a clean slate?
The way things are going, I'll soon be dead.
You'll look high and low, but I won't be around."

Memory of Running by Ron McLarty

Just finished reading this book - it is incredible!

Ron McLarty had finished this book about 10 years ago but no publisher would accept it so he placed it on the internet as an audio book - with him reading it. Stephen King found it and proclaimed it 'as the best book you couldn't read'. Then there was a bidding war for someone to publish it and when he asked the publishers why they refused it before no one would give him an answer.

Lost Parasol

Lost Parasol by Sandor Weores

You must read this.

Read Read Read Read Read, listen to this podcast first

Prof Goldberg on Conspiracy Theories

This podcast from the International Spy Museum makes for scary listening. Very interesting though.

San Martin - Super Saint

"The Dominican prior had to forbid Martin from continuing to miraclify (please excuse the verb). And to show the dutiful, obedient spirit of this servant of God, the biographer relates how, just as Martin was passing by a scaffolding, a bricklayer fell from thirty or forty feet above. Our lay brother stopped in his tracks and yelled - "Wait a second, brother!" And until Martin got back with permission from the prior, the bricklayer was suspended in mid-air."

Ricardo Palmer, 'Peruvian Traditions'.

Terra Sigillata

These few verses are from the above poem by Sandor Weores described as Epigrams of an Ancient poet. I find it difficult to understand these verses but perhaps they are something about being a poet:

"A red-fingered child pats grey cakes at the seaside,
I ask fo one, he says no, not even for a real cake, no.
Well now, old prophets, what do you want from me? the twenty four
sky-prisms, when I look blind into hearts and read them.

. . .

'You say you're God's offspring: why do you scrape along like paupers?'
'Even Zeus himself, when he takes human steps on earth,
begs bread and water, parched, starved as a tramp.

. . .

Crime has majesty, virtue is holy; but what is the troubled heart worth?
There, crime is raving drunk and virtue is a jailer."

The adventurers

W. H. Prescott's book ' The history of the conquest of Peru' is much maligned because Prescott was a blind scholar who never visited Peru. I found his book because the last time I was in Peru it was the only history *in english* that was available. He does a good job of bring together all the sources he has. To me, this is history writing, before modern academics made it objective - and boring. The passage represents the spirit of adventure:

"On crossing these woody eminences, the forlorn adventurers would plunge into ravines of frightful depth, where the exhalations of a humid soil steamed up amidst the incense of sweet-scented flowers, which shone through the deep gloom in every conceivable variety of colour. Birds, especially of the parrot tribe, mocked this fantastic variety of nature with tints as beautiful as those of the vegetable world. Monkeys chattered in crowds above their heads, and made grimaces like the fiendish spirits of these solitudes; while hideous reptiles, engendered in the slimy depths of the pools, gathered around the footsteps of the wanderers. Here was seen the gigantic boa, coiling his unweildly folds about the trees, so as hardly to be distinguished from their trunks, till he was ready to dart upon his prey; and alligators lay basking on the borders of the streams, or gliding under the waters, seized their incautious victim before he was aware of their approach. Many of the spaniards perished miserably in this way, and others were waylaid by the natives, who kept a jealous eye on their movements and availed themselves of every opportunity to take them at advantage. Fourteen of Pizarro's men were cut off at once in a canoe which had stranded on the bank of a stream."

Episode in a Library

A blonde girl is bent over a poem. With a pencil sharp as a lancet she transfers the words to a blank page and changes them into strokes, accents, caesuras. The lament of a fallen poet now looks like a salamander eaten away by ants.
When we carried him away under machine-gun fire, I believed that his still warm body would be resurrected in the word. Now as I watch the death of the words, I know there is no limit to decay. All that will be left after us in the black earth will be scattered syllables. Accents over nothingness and dust.

Zbigniew Herbert

[pronounced 'ezbegnief']

Los Angeles Essential Book List

Los Angeles Essential Book List

I have a new facebook group and anyone is invited to join and contribute their favourite books about Los Angeles.

8/2/2000

This entry features Lee - a girl I used to work with.

Yesterday Lee took great relish in explaining how her ex-husband was having a circumcision. At first he wouldn't tell her then she got Dean, her son, to call him up the stairs and then down again because he walked as if he had crapped in his pants. She also said he warned her 'if I get an 'you know' I will tear my stitches!'
This guy in front of me is wistfully looking up in the air listening to his walkman.
I'm sitting on the 8:02 58 Conway bus and town is very quiet. I've just realised green oranges aren't as nice as red.
There was a girl in town with a blue leather coat, grey hat, white gloves, eating a red apple, it was like watching a painting or listening to a new single she looked so cool.
I hate working alone all day.

Diary

I am going to start a new series for this blog. These are diary entries from an old notebook I found.

January 2000

Lost

While I was in London I decided to search out the places Newman might have gone to get some idea of how he might have experienced it.
He was born here and there is a plaque on the Bank of England saying this is where or nearabout where he was born. Once when I was sitting at home I saw an OU programme talk about the Oxford Movement and how its legacy was put into All Saints, the opposite of All Souls, an evangelical Anglican church and that it was located directly behind All Souls.
The only problem was which direction was it behind All Souls. And as you can imagine on Regent Street my pocket A to Z was quite crowded.
Amazingly stars on the map representing Post Offices are more visible than the small cross of a church.. It looks quite simple on the map to find the cross on Margaret Street but the streets behind Regent Street are a maze with at least five stories and even street names aren't much good because the streets aren't clearly marked and change abruptly.
I ended up walking for what seemed like hours. It was early on a Sunday morning, there was no one around apart from an old lady walking with a very large and fiersome looking dog.
I eventually found the street but still couldn't see a church. When suddenly, a man came up to me, 'Are you lost?' he said. I smiled and replied,
'I'm looking for a church.'
He was a very prim man, dressed in black he had a wide brimmed black hat and in his limp hand he was holding a long thin cigarette. He said he knew the church and pointed out it was beside two lamp posts. He said he would be going there himself in five minutes and he would meet me.
I went into the church, it was incredibly ornate and the smell of incense hit you as soon as you went in. I went to sit down, said a prayer and left. I put a note in the visitors book saying I apologised, I was the guy in the baseball cap.

All Saints, Margaret Street

What should I read next?

Good site. Clunky but in a good way. This is how I discovered Macdonald, I put in 'In dubious battle' and got Ross Macdonald. In essence very similar to Amazon but certainly worthwhile supporting and you should read about how you can create your own list