Category: Religion
The Parables Of Our Savior
logics & Axioms
Route to Infinity
A History Of Private Life
All right. Let’s look at some Medieval pictures. This is the A History Of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World. First, let’s try to see what we’ve got here, what are they talking about. So, we got the introduction, private power, public power. That’s already interesting. The use of private space. The emergence of the individual. Imagining the self. I like the whole private and public power that’s in the beginning of the book. So, let’s look in the back and see what we see. Okay. What are they doing here?
All right. So, I guess this is how they bathe back in the olden times, the Medieval. Not very sanitary at all. So, let me explain them to you. [foreign language 00:01:32] 1586. Different ways of bathing in a large tub with several other people over supper and the famous baths of Baden near Zurich where young and old men and women, sick and healthy, all swim together in the public pool as spectators look on and in swimming hole in the country, the natural form of basically swimming. Yeah, that’s gross, whatever. This is a lot about bathing, I guess.
Oh, this is the emergence of the individual. Oh, wow, they got a whole bunch of… I’ll just let you look at the pictures. Some type of medicine or something. Not really quite sure I’m all for this. What is going on here? What is this? Miniature decorating . So, I mean, I guess this is, because I’m seeing a lot of… This got to be me in a commune or something. What is this? I don’t get it. I’m going to let you all see. I’ll show you what I’m talking about. So, I guess a lot of people in their deathbeds. I have to read more. Their sleeping arrangements don’t make very much sense to me. And then, it just says France translation, [foreign language 00:03:30] bedroom library. I mean, it doesn’t… Well, thank you for the description, right? That didn’t say anything.
So, this is a 13th century knight. It doesn’t look anything like when I think of a knight, that’s nothing… That’s not what I’m imagining. It’s always good to see reality over Hollywood. So, here’s a kind of blueprints here. I’ll let you… There. You can pause right there and look for yourself. So, this is the blueprints of the palace of the Pope. What else we got in here? That’s a map. We can’t see what that is. What is… Imagining the self, all right. Space and imagination. No, let’s see. What do we see here? Okay, here. Let’s just… I’m going to read you a quick little excerpt.
The solitary man, all right? In the Middle Ages, the solitary man was considered dangerous. Baroque Tristan Mark, having learned that the adulterous couple is in the forest of Morrois summons his entourage to announce that he wishes to go out alone. “Go out alone,” they say. “Was ever a king so imprudent?” To which Mark responds, “I shall, therefore go without escort and leave my horse.” Excuse me. “I shall take with me neither companion nor squire for once I reject your company similarly.” Erex’s father responds to an unusual and dangerous situation by begging him to take along at least some of his knights. “A King’s son must not go alone.” 13th century narratives occasionally give quite a realistic account of the dangers to be expected in such circumstances. In left field [foreign language 00:06:11] the count of the someone’s daughter, right, on Theo’s daughter. A husband makes up his mind to reinforce his wife’s escort, but takes the wrong trail through the forest and was rewarded with the sight of his wife being raped by five men. Goodness gracious.
Didn’t see that one coming that kind of hit. In [foreign language 00:06:39] something, a young woman is able to join her lover and marry him only because the escort conducting her to her intended spouse does its job badly. A woman who traveled alone so upset the hero of Wanley that he married her to his great misfortune. Sometimes, though, solitude was deliberately sought and prolonged for extended periods. Hermits lived in cells, some with crude openings providing minimal contact with the outside world. These men performed a definite function for the community. They had abandoned and variably located some distance away. Ogrins hermits located in the forest of Morrois where for banished then exiles. Well, there you go. No wonder they were so crazy out there. They banished you out to the forest, of course, you were savage, all right? [foreign language 00:07:32] is not described, instead the narrative stresses its remoteness from civilization and a long journey through the bocage hedge fields which required to reach it.
All right. Solitude and meaning. I like that. That didn’t say anything early. All right, I mean, I got… I was looking at the solitary man. Next thing you know, we’re getting raped in a forest by five guys. Where did that even come from? Saw it to the meeting. All the landmarks in [inaudible 00:08:01] in that territory traversed by the knights of the round table and their various quests are basically symbols of the subordination of the earthly to the celestial. These zones of voluntary seclusion are pregnant with meeting, but it’s no accident that the meeting is secret and almost inaccessible and must be fettered out. Late 14th century literature highlighted the [inaudible 00:08:25] still further.
And so, it was a very special relation in the house of the King that he hears it. You have in the hermit surface between the wild and so… So, this solitary man, right? So, besides the wow story, it’s kind of throughout history, I’m guessing through the medieval times that we… It’s talking about like, [inaudible 00:09:14] and Yaren. The hermit serves as a link between wild and civilization and Christian origin who speak the language of good and evil is able to help. I said, [foreign language 00:09:27] or [foreign language 00:09:30] rejoin society here. You can look. You can pronounce it for yourself.
Here’s a quote to Lancelot. The hermit says, “No, but this vision is far richer and meaning than many may think. And now listen to me if you wish and I will tell you the origin of your race.” Okay. Not as interesting as I might’ve liked, but it’s still very interesting in its own regard. I mean, more the hermit was… I mean, if you all… Because even the shamans and all of them, they’re all living by themselves and they’re all kind of, even the Hollywood kind of depicts them as being Looney Toonies a little bit, but nice and man, whatever. I mean, that was kind of interesting. Like I said, I’m going to go over more of private power and public power. I just wanted to search through the book and see what else was in here. But, yeah, that’s pretty interesting.
A Scientific Man And The Bible
All right, A Scientific Man and the Bible, Howard Atwood Kelly. Let’s see. Howard Atwood Kelly was called at the age of 31 from Kensington Hospital in Pennsylvania and an academic appointment at University of Pennsylvania to become the first professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the new Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimere… Baltimore, excuse me. So he was a doctor. Well, what is it? So he was a doctor. Let’s see what else is this. Well is this what… The forward and biographical introduction is half the book, right? That’s the introduction. So I mean, I’ll read the introduction to you. I mean, I’m going to read it to myself because again… I’m sorry, what?
All right so the forward and biographical introduction with Scripture as Transforming Science Medicine, Howard Kelly, yeah, that’s him, then Scripture Ellipsed by Science Medicine by William Halston, Scripture Against Science Medicine, William Welch, Scripture and Science Medicine Compartmentalized, William Osler. What is this? The Academy in the Service of Christ and His People, Reformed Academic Press. Okay so this is who wrote the book, over here.
I mean, it’s going to be very interesting on their perspective on things. Yeah. They got the how I came to my present faith, the whole Bible, the word of God, the deity of Christ, the Virgin birth, the blood atonement, the resurrection of the body and the Lord’s return because what’s very interesting about this is with books you really have to be open-minded. I mean, you really do because you have no idea what you’re going to see. It’s like I said, I keep saying life is like a box of chocolates. Well, books, these boxes are like a box of chocolates, right? You never know what you’re going to get.
What is this book? And like I said, everything, take it with a grain of salt, you might learn something, might not. Well, that one, hold on, let’s see. Six to 15, so 15. So the first one, where does it start? It starts on six. Scripture as Transforming Science Medicine, Howard Kelly. All right. Oh yeah, that’s exactly where I started reading it. Kelly concentrated on gynecological surgery at Hopkins leaving the field of obstetrics mainly to.. Oh man, there’s too many big words. I apologize. You know what I’m saying? I’ll practice them later.
Let’s see. Okay, so yeah, this is an introduction. I mean, I’m still trying to figure this book out a little bit without reading the whole entire thing, right? Because my job is just to kind of get you interested and kind of understand, try to find a little piece of gold in there. How richly he speaks to his own generation today, the simple strategy of reading and applying the scriptures himself revealed self-evident truths of God’s word to Dr. Kelly, who avidly defended these truths his entire life. Kelly expressed desire with the exert energy or every energy to arouse Christians to their need of a wider and deeper knowledge of the word of God, and so to draw them to a closer daily walk with Christ, who is one with that word. When confronted with the claims of evolutionary theory, Kelly took a cautious approach, not retreating into anti-scientific biblical literalism, nor adopting a theory where it was unsupported by evidence.
So see, this is what made it interesting. So he is a devout Christian, but then see a scientific man and the Bible, right? Because science and the Bible don’t make sense. So that’s part of the reason why it was interesting to kind of see his partake on it back in the olden days. In a letter he wrote to William Jennings Bryan at the time of the scopes trial… So there was a trial that went on, wow. All right. Kelly stated his brief and his continuous sequence in life history and believed in evolution of organic life and in this world yet he also rejected naturalistic and mechanics underpinnings of natural selection and warned against the errors of philosophical and sociological Darwinism. Life originated by divine fiat and Adam and Eve were historic individuals created by a special act of God. The Genesis account was not at odds with the current scientific thinking, but rather transformed the ramifications of the evidence like others before him, including the great Princeton theologian, BB Warfield. Kelly did not view a literary reading of the Genesis account as a threat to a high view of scripture in Rancey.
Okay. I miss the excitement and revolution in American medicine taking place at Hopkins at the turn of the century, Dr. Kelly saw his calling to Christ as watershed of commitment. He is an example of a Christian citizen most criticized and at times an embarrassment to the professional community at John Hopkins University. He is a great legacy to all those struggling with these same challenges of living in the present age. His defense rests on the uncompromisable foundations of the Christian beliefs as the contents of these books of Lord.
And that’s the rest of this book, it’s the chapters. So I’m starting to get the scope of this book, what it is. So let’s go a little bit more. How often these are very issues those claiming the title of Christians was explained away for fear of being labeled unscientific or irrational. But here, we have an able defense from one of those leading scientists of American medicine who draws are no more than the clear testimony of scripture apply to the life of God’s call. Wow, I get it now.
So what this book is… I mean, I don’t know if you guys got it. So what this book is, what it does, what it’s doing is it took those four people, they’re very biblical men, they’re very Christian people. Well, Christian or religion and science don’t make sense together. Well, what this book is doing is it’s bridging that gap, right? So through Dr. Kelly’s book, which I’ll read a little bit more in my article, because this is kind of interesting the more that I’m reading about it… Wow. Hold on. Expressions of Dr. Kelly’s Christian faith were regularly sought after during his lifetime. A Scientific Man and the Bible was actually a compilation of a series of articles written to the weekly Sunday School Times, Dr. Charles G Trumball, then editor of the Sunday School Times noted that upon the announcement of the impending series subscriptions to his paper increase at a rate of 1200 per day until well over 30,000 new subscriptions were entered. Dr. Kelly also wrote articles for the Moody Monthly, as well as several short articles written in leaflet forum and widely distributed by a Christian organizations. As well, Kelly never tired of sharing the joys of his Christian life through his correspondence with those who sought to win over Christ. So I can’t remember… There it is, Joel Olsteen if you guys have ever heard of Joel Olsteen’s, he’s kind of like the old Joel Olsteen of the day, writing a whole bunch of different publications, but he did it from a scientific outlet. That’s very interesting. I mean, 30,000, just think about that, 30,000 subscriptions went from 1200 subscriptions a day, right, the second that the Christian community learned that he was writing his scientific Christian bridged the gap. That’s interesting. I mean, just think about that in today’s numbers, if he was selling that subscription for like $10 that just brought in $300,000 a year, just by adding his thing, all right? 30,000 subscribers, $10, 300,000. Boom, that’s how I got the math, right? And that’s per month. Well, it was $3 million a year, excuse me. Yeah. That’s a lot of money that he brought to the table. I don’t know how much they were charging a subscription, I’m just using $10 as an example but even a dollar that’s $30,000 a month. That’s a lot.
Now I am interested about, what was he saying? All right? Yeah. I bet you… Oh, I’m out of time. Sorry.
Gods Revolution
All right. God’s Revolution. Ba-bow. Justice, Community and the Coming Kingdom. You see. Justice, Community and the Coming Kingdom. All right. Let’s see what we got over here. Some more books by this guy, by Eberhard Arnold. Inner Land: A Guide Into the Heart and Soul of the Bible, Why we live in Community, the Early Christians: In Their Own Words, Salt and Light: Living the Sermon on the Mount, the Individual and the World Need, Against the Wind.
Okay. All right. Look at this, “Crumbling World and the God’s Coming Order.” Let’s… Wait a minute. So what is this God’s Coming? Or how old is this? ’97. (silence). Hold on a second.
I’ll make this video short because I heard something outside. The first printing was 1984. The new order fleshed out. The individual and the community, peace and a rule of God. Let’s go to non-violence and the refusal to bear arms. No, no, no, no. World poverty and suffering. See what he gots to say there, 176. World and poverty. There we go, boom.
“Am I guilty? When we speak of a radical social revolution of turning everything upside down, of bringing in the reign of God’s justice, we can only do so if we are deeply convinced that such an upheaval will affect us all quite personally. You and me, every single one of us, as part of humankind. We ourselves have to be thrown over and then put back on our feet. We are all responsible for the social injustice, the human degradation, the wrongs people inflict on each other, both public and private. Each of us bears guilt toward all humankind because we are deaf and blind to their degradation and humiliation.”
I wonder where… They have these dates on the bottom of it. All right. I don’t know what the dates mean. That’s interesting. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I guess this is when he wrote all this stuff, because it’s all around the same time. This book isn’t from… Yeah, all this is all from 1920s, 1915. So, I’m guessing that this old guy, he’s old. Yeah. Eberhard Arnold, they just didn’t publish this book until later.
“Lay down your own life.” Am I guilty? He was basically saying that we’re all guilty for each and every one of our sufferings. Right. If you weren’t suffering. Like what Michael Jackson said, “If you want change in the world, look in the mirror and make a change.” All right. Okay.
“Lay down your own life. We live in poverty and without personal possessions, we do this for love of Christ and for the sake of those who are poorer than we are, the very poorest. There is such an endless amount of misery that wealth and influence are unbearable to anyone living in the love of Christ.” Yeah. Okay.
“Injustice rule in the world today. As long as this continues there will always be poor people.” See, I disagree with that a little bit. There’s many reasons why there’s poor people. Not just because they don’t believe in God or whatever.
“It is idle to ask what we would do if there were no more poor. Even a rigidly enforced social system has not managed to do away with poverty. Therefore, Jesus says, ‘The poor you have with you always. And the Old Testament has it, the poor will always be with you in the land. Yet this love for the poor cannot be the final thing. It must be surpassed by love to God,’ Christ says. You will not always have me with you.’ Matt, 26, 11.
On the other hand, we must not let our love for God cause us to neglect love to the poor. Out of love to God we should love our neighbor. If we see your brother or sister in need and say, ‘God will help you,’ and give nothing, though you have this world’s goods, where is your love to God? James 2:15 and 16.”
I like that. I really do like that. I’m not really with the religious part of everything. Right. Because that can be interpreted way too many different ways, but let’s cut through the meat right there. And what he says is… I mean, that’s cool. I liked that way of thinking. I really liked that because he’s like, if you got all the money in the world and you see somebody in need and you’re like, “Well, God’s going to help you,” but you, yourself do nothing, then you’re not a godly person. Because God gives you the gift to be able to help others.
So maybe you are that messenger of God that you’re telling this other person, “God will help you.” I don’t know if that made sense. Right. In that split second of time, you have the power of God because you can help that person. So by you saying, “God will help you,” and you doing nothing, then you are refusing the faith of God or the luxuries of God or whatever you want to say. That was pretty interesting. I liked that.
So, we’ll get back to the God’s Revolution. And was it, pain and suffering or something like that? Poverty and suffering. I get this, but it’s not bad, not bad. You know what I’m saying? I would never really thought about reading it in the beginning, but yeah. This is part of the reason why we’re doing this.
So, when you get a box, right, of random books, you just look through it. You never know what you’re going to find. It’s like life is like a box of chocolates. Right. You never know what you going to get.
The Broadman Bible Commentary
Excuse me. All right, time for another box. We are on box number six. Don’t worry, we have not even closely made a dent in all the books, or in the boxes that I have to go through. I think there’s like a hundred of them, so don’t worry. Box number six, we still got a lot. Texas hold them. You know what? That’s great, let’s learn a little bit about poker. Who is this? A scientific man and the Bible. Oh no. We’re going to put this to the side. Let’s see what else is in this box. Tom Clancy, that’d be fun, but that’s… No. The African Queen, the world famous novel of a man and a woman alone in a permeable African jungle. No, because it’s probably really racist without them even knowing it.
When was this book first printed? It doesn’t say, but we know that… Oh, wait here a minute. The African Queen, it’s an African queen, copyright 1935. So yeah, you already know, there is nothing about this book that is going to be a lovely to the Africans. So just because there you can go, the African… see? So I’m guessing she’s the African queen, yeah right. All right. My bad, back to the books. What do we got here? The anthology of British literature. That’s a maybe. I’m not really… British literature is kind of… We already did a little bit of that.
What is this? The broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in the Time of Trial. All right, that sparked my interest. Ogden Nash bed. What is this? Nope, this would not. No, no, and it’s falling apart. What do we got over here? So we got, Why Does Popcorn Pop? Why is there seaweed in… Wait, what? Okay, yeah. Got me sold. Got me sold, right? I don’t think I’ll ever read where I just was, but…
All right, I’m sorry. I’m over here reading. This is pretty interesting. This is just going to, boom. There’s so many different things, yeah. Well, there’s 201 different fascinating things for us to learn out of that book. We’re not going to learn all 201. We’re going to go through maybe one. Okay, mommy’s guide to breastfeeding. I would say yes. I would go through it, but I just think it’d be a little weird for me talking about okay, the baby’s nipple, or the baby and doing this and no, it’s not going to do it. It’d make me feel uncomfortable. All right. The way we’re working isn’t working. Okay, okay. Let’s see what you’re talking about, tony Schwartz. Let’s see.
What is this? A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval world. Yeah, this is yep. This one’s going for us to talk about. And then these things, it’s just, no. Tennessee Code, nope. Not going for it. The Next Hundred Years. The next hundred years of what? Okay, yeah. We got the Dawn of American Age. Two, earthquake the US jihadist war. Population, computers and culture wars and the new fault lines. Okay. Yeah. This is the next 100 years, we’ll see what he’s talking about.
What is this? The Cold War. We have pictures. Yeah, we’ve got a couple of pictures. So the Cold War ended when I was little. So, I mean, it’s at least… I’m going to go through it, just for the simple fact. Well, I was too little to really care. However, bring me back to the eighties and what is the Cold War, right? Because it’s just something we learned in history books, but at the time it was huge. Americans were… People were building bomb shelters and everything.
The Broadman Bible Commentary. What is, what? This is violent. All right. Well, yeah, we’re going through it. I’m already kind of reading it. We’re going to start right here. Where am I? There you go. We’re in Kings Two, yeah. Because there was King’s one. So we’re in the Kings two, right? So this, it got my attention. I was like, “What?” Blood vengeance, right? Come on, man. That’s going to get anyone’s attention. I think it’s right here. Blood vengeance on Joab. And then you have, what else do we have on here? We have marriage and alliance with Pharaoh, wisdom of Solomon, judgment of the harlots. What is this, dude? I mean, we got Kings all the way to eight. What is it? What is this? Okay, this is chapter one, Kings 13. So we’re going to go through a couple of these.
Here we go. Blood vengeance on Joab, blood vengeance. T 2:28-35, whatever that means. Okay. When the news came to Joab, for Joab had supported Adonijah, although he had not supported Absalom, Joab fled the tent of the Lord and caught hold of the horns of the altar. And when it was told King Solomon, Joab has fled the tent of the Lord and behold, he is beside the altar. Solomon sent Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, saying, “Go strike him down,” so Benaiah came to the tent of the Lord and said to him, “The king commands come forth,” but he said, “No, I will die here.” Then Benaiah brought the King word again, saying, “Thus said Joab, and thus, he answered me.”
The King replied to him, “Do as he has said, strike him down and bury him, and thus take away from me and from my father’s house, the guilt for the blood which Joab shed without cause. The Lord will bring back his body deeds upon his own head, because without the knowledge of my father, David, he attacked and slew with the sword two men more righteous and better than himself.” Okay.
Abner. The son of Ner, commander of the army of Israel, and Amasa, the son of Jether, commander of the army of Judaiah. So shall their blood come back upon the head of Jihad and upon the head of his descendants forever. But to David and to his descendants and to his house and to his throne, there shall be peace from the Lord for everyone. What? Then, Behir, here the son of Jihad went up and struck him down and killed him. And he was buried in his own house in the wilderness that King put Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada over the army in place at Jihad. And the king put Zadok the priest in the place of Abiathar.
Yeah, I’m going to have to understand a little bit more than this, because that was just an excerpt I’m guessing, but woah, like any wonder why we’re so vicious and bloody, that’s half the whole… It was only a paragraph and all he talks about was blood and killing and slaughter and armies and goodness. And then the set a sense you want us to say he’s in the house of the Lord and we’re supposed to be peaceful? What part of that did you hear peace at all? My goodness, violence. It’s the whole thing. I’m going to read some more, because I mean, my goodness, it’s going to change my whole perspective on life. Maybe God wants us to be violent. All right, got done with one.
So just because of that, we know we’re not going over Tennessee Code. That’s not happening. Nope, don’t want to do that one. Breastfeeding, like I said, I feel kind of awkward. Scientific man and the Bible. Let’s see. I got a decent reception of these Bible books where every other box there’s at least one Bible book in there. Anyways, so this box, look with this box yields us. This box yields us quite a few. We already discussed a little bit of the violence Bible, right? There you go, the Broadman Bible commentary. We got the Cold War that we’re going to discuss. We got Why Does Popcorn Pop: 201 Fascinating Ideas About Food.
We got The Broken Covenant, American Civil Religion in the Time of Trial. Like I said, all these Jesus book. The Scientific Man and the Bible. All right, that’s going to be interesting. The Next Hundred Years, talking about Americas in his perspective. Let’s see, The History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World. That should be pretty interesting, look at some pictures and things. Let’s Break the Casino. Let’s make some money, right? You know what I’m saying? Texas Hold ’em. And The Way We’re Working, Isn’t Working. So how many out of that box? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
So that’s not that bad, nine out of that box. So we’re averaging… Well, we had two threes, a seven, a 13, one, two, three, four, five, six, a six. And we’re in box number six and this is nine. So add those up together. We got 10, 13 plus 13, 26 plus nine, 26 plus nine, four 35 plus one, two, three, four, five, six, 35, 41 divided by six. What, we’re almost at seven books, because you know, at 42 would be seven. So we’re almost at averaging seven books a box, that’s not bad at all. That’s really not bad. That’s a lot of books for a box. Just think about that, if you were going to pay $10 on my Amazon account, my bookstore, the average price of the book the average I was selling thousands, is $14.
So 14 times seven, let’s say you carry the seven, so that’s seventy. Then what’s four times seven, we’re looking at what, 28? So 70 plus 28, $98. So each book, each box right now has guesstimated roundabout average of $98.
I don’t know if you followed me on the math, right. That could be completely wrong, right? I just bounced the numbers off of my head right there, but yeah, that’s not bad. So maybe I should charge $98 per box. Ah, no, we’ll get into that later on.
The Broken Covenant
This one’s already sparked my interest. I was trying to glance through it. Sometimes it’s easier for me to kind of glance through some things before I start just randomly talking. Hopefully it’s better for you guys, but here we are, The Broken Covenant, American Civil Religion in a Time of Trial. So we got America’s Myth of Origin, America as a Chosen People, Salvation and Success in America, Nativism and Cultural Pluralism in America, the American Taboo on Socialism, the Birth of New American myths.
Should be pretty interesting. I want to read America as a Chosen People. 36, let’s see what he’s talking about. America as a Chosen People. This is chapter two. Somebody’s had this book before, look at this. Let’s see what they’ve underlined. You see what I’m saying, right here. For what we need to consider the ambiguities of chosenness. No, I didn’t get anything out of it. Sorry. Maybe they thought that was important. I don’t know. I didn’t get anything out of it.
Okay. America has chosen people, like Canaan was not inhabited when God’s new Israel arrived on those on these shores, yet in the last chapter, we described America’s myth origin without ever mentioning the fact that American Indians were rich in origin myths, and that many Indian peoples had elaborate ritual cycles deriving from those origin myths, cycles such as are still being performed by the Navajo and the Pueblo Indians today.
The great dream in which the early settlers lived had entirely Middle Eastern and European roots and had nothing whatever to do with the Native American culture, except insofar as man’s mythic life everywhere shares certain general themes. For a long time, indeed for centuries, the new settlers failed to appreciate the fact that the people they found here lived in a different dream. Whoa. Okay. All right. Whether the Indian was seen as noble or as a horrid savage, he was treated as if he were a character in the Europeans dream, as if he had no dream of his own. Only recently has the vast, archaic symbolism of Indian mythology begun to be appreciated and lately even perceived as a source of spiritual life for all Americans. This is okay. Okay. I don’t know about you guys, it’s getting a little interesting.
This failure to see the Indians in their own terms was only the cultural side of denial of humanity that was also expressing economic and even biological terms. The Indians were deprived by the new settlers, not only of the inherent human right to have one’s culture understood and respected, but they were ruthlessly deprived of land and livelihood. And all often of life itself. This was the criminal crime on which American society is based. In the first decades of settlements, the primal crime was compounded with another enormity. Still other peoples living outside their own European dream, Africans with their own immense cosmological symbolism, were forced to become actors in a European dream under the most tragic circumstances possible. To the expropriation and extermination of the Indian was added to the forcible transportation of the African Negro out of his own land and enslavement in America.
Thus at the beginning of the American society was a double crime the incurable consequences of which still stalk the land. We must ask what in the dream of white America kept so many for so long, so many even at this day, from seeing any crime at all for what … Wait a minute. Let me read that little part one more time. We must ask what in the dream of white America kept so many for so long, so many, even at this day, from seeing any crime at all, for that we need to consider the ambiguities of chosenness.
Robert and Bella, who are you? 1920. Yeah, because when we read this, I have a feeling that it might get a little intense. 1927, he was born in 1927. This was first published in … Nobody Knows My Name by James … No, what is this? This is the second edition, so this was a copyright 1975 and ’92. Yeah, Published under University of Chicago Press in ’92. Yeah, this is going to be very interesting. I can already sense, I don’t know if you guys got that kind of that in there, but …
All right. We’ll go right here. It is in Lincoln’s second inaugural address that we find perhaps a greatest expression of the theme of covenant and judgment in the entire course of American history. It is his final statement on slavery as sin. If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him?
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war might speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondsman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3000 years ago. So it still must be said. The judgment of the Lord are true and righteous together.
So yeah, this is going to get in there, right? And even more significant in Lincoln’s insistence in the Gettysburg Address that out of all the blood and the suffering, there must come a new birth of freedom. The Civil War, like the revolution, moved from liberation, in this case emancipation of slaves, to the institution of liberty in the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment. The most important provisions are contained in the 14th amendment, where section one guaranteeing the natural rights of men equal protection of law and section five authorized Congress to enforce these acts, even though the radical meaning of these clauses were undermined for many decades by narrow court interpretations and regressive political situations.
Their meaning can be hardly exaggerated at a time, when America as a chosen people, like we got … That’s 37, this is basically a good 20 pages I’m going to read and break it down for you. But this is very interesting. Then the very next one, I was even more … I wanted to read it in, but I know if I started it, then I wouldn’t finish it. So we’re already at the 10-minute mark so I really have to shut this down, but this was … Yeah, I’m excited to read this. This is interesting. Very interesting.
Pegan Meditations
Bow-chicka-bow-wow. All right. Let’s see what we’ve got today…
The Powerhouse CAA. That should be fun. Creative Arts Agency. Art, or basically, an agency for all your most popular, famous people.
Oh, look at this. Look at this. This caught my eye. Pagan Meditation. Aphrodite, Hestia, and Artemis. Okay. Let’s see what we’ve got. Oops. All right. The Aphrodite. The Birth and… Yeah. Yeah. Boring. Who is Sappho? What? Pagan Meditations, what is this? Aphrodite or Tantra. What is this book, man? Ugliness and depression. I mean, yeah, I know. I want to do the… if it says sex, it’s probably more interesting, and they have a lot of sexuality, sex, Aphrodite. What is Sappho? Tantra versus Aphrodite. The Prostitute, the Wife, Infidelity and Lying. Man, what is this book?
Hey, let’s check out… What is this? Hold on. I don’t even know what this book is about. Someone else, fucking, or highlighted that. I did not. What else we got going on in here? Let’s just go. Yeah, let’s figure something quick, yeah. All right, chapter two, got a whole bunch of stuff in there. Chapter three. Yeah, let’s, I’m interested… Who is Sappho, right? Who’s this guy? Who’s this guy?
First, let’s read this poem. “The sun, hearth of tenderness and life, pours burning love over the delighted earth. And when one lies down in the valley, one smells how the earth is nubile and rich in blood. How its huge breast, raised by a soul, is made of love, like God, and of flesh, like woman. And how it contains, big with sap and rays of light, the vast warming of all embryos. And everything grows and everything rises. O Venus, O Goddess.” Boo.
What is this? Wait a minute. “The so-called sexual revolution of our days has endeavored to remove the stain of guilt and sin with which Christianity has traditionally associated sex. It has accomplished this by removing sexuality from the domain of religion. Sexuality, being thus secularized, permits contraception, erotic adventure, and pleasure for the sake of pleasure. So far, so good.”
Well, wow. “Sexuality as an initiation into the realm of sacred.” Wow. So, where was I? This is the book. What is this? This is Pagan Meditations. Where do you get meditate… Like again, I’m sitting there thinking it’s about meditating. I want to learn new little tactics on how to meditate from the olden times, but this is more of a book on sex.
Ugliness and depression. “We have seen how the feeling of ugliness is, if not transformed into a motivation to excel, as in the case of,” whatever his name is, “casts a shadow over the sexual experience.” Wow. “But what is the effect of the absence of beauty, and the ignorance of Aphrodite, in domains other than sexuality, for those who see a link between pleasure, beauty, and spirituality. I believe it is also,” blah, blah, blah.
Wow. Where is it? I mean, this must be more written by a girl for a girl. Ginette Paris, I guess. Because this little saying right here. I mean, maybe it’s cool. Maybe it’s for guys too, but maybe, I don’t think so much. Where was it?
“I have often seen how certain depressive states could be interpreted as a trauma of a sudden loss of beauty. When depression follows a loss of places, objects or persons who have been loved for their beauty, one may see the return of vital energy when the afflicted person’s encouraged to reconstruct the harmony and charm of his or her environment. Obviously, the degree of this sensitivity is not the same for everyone. Not everyone reacts to an environment perceived as ugly, and even the perception of something or someone or something as ugly comprises interplay of subjectivities.
“People adapt to the city, one can invoke a thousand reasons, all of them valid: stress, social isolation, insecurity of employment, the anguish of a new mode of life, and so on. But must we not add to the list the fact the city is only beautiful for those who have the means of replacing the harmony of nature, which is lost in most cities, by a certain luxury of space and comfort, which money can buy? Poverty only becomes sordid when accompanied by ugliness. Although it is true that in the country the sun shines for everyone equally, it is not so in the city, where in crowded districts, ill-conceived buildings, sun, light, and beauty seem inaccessible.
“For those who love the beautiful land and flowers, it is traumatic to lose the sight of the mountain, or sea. Or…” Okay, okay.
Wait a minute. “When depression takes root, only those gestures independent to survival persist. The depressed person no longer devotes any of her time to Aphrodite. The attractiveness of the home, in the personal appearance deteriorate, the baby is no longer dressed up, the table is no longer set, and no effort is made to be charming. Activities become strictly functional. And the person is no longer interested in…”
Wow. That’s a little bit deeper than I originally thought. So, in order to really… I got me thinking. In order to give you guys a… I got to do a little bit more research. I got to probably read the pre-chapter. I mean, Aphrodite, I got to read what that means. Don’t forget we’re supposed to know who Sappho, Sappho, whatever his name is. I didn’t quite get that far. I got distracted and I apologize for that.
But through the essay, I’ll be able to explain a lot more because I’m going to do more research and spend more time on it, but it’s pretty interesting. Because what they’re basically saying is, without the feeling of being sexy or attractiveness, then you kind of transform and you start taking less care of your outward appearance. That’s just weird.
I guess part of it, because a lot of that hit, whatever it was saying. Not kind of like whatever it was saying, because I know what it was saying. It was just kind of, I’m internalizing everything right now. Kind of looking at it because it’s kind of happened to me over time. I mean, if you kind of look at my hair and my face and everything like that, but then if I kind of clean up or if people kind of change their opinion towards me, then I look cleaner, I look nicer, and I guess less depressed. Or I don’t really look at myself as being depressed. I look at myself as being focused, but maybe from the outside looking in, focused and depression could be one and the same. So, again, I’m very, very curious and want to read more.