Striving for Clarity
8.18.2003
Computers to donate.
I could scour monied neighborhoods on trash nights, scrounging used computers for parts and rebuild. From this stock, I could re/build complete systems and give them away to the needy.
I wonder if this kind * of donation is deductible?
* one in which you find the parts for free, assemble a thing, then give it all away.
If this is deductible, there would be the added benefit of helping those in need and claiming a nice yearly deductible for my family.
Two Dreams
During the night of May 17, 2003, I had the following two dreams:
Dream 1. I am on my way to work, driving the Turnpike, when I feel like exploring so I continue north and the hiway takes me somehow to upstate PA or NY where, along the way, the road branches many times until at places it's one lane - too narrow for the Subaru. Plus I have to share the road with trains full of commuters. After getting wedged between train and guardrail several times, I finally get off the pike and onto local roads where I come across a beautiful church in the middle of a house-crowded working-class town, like old Manayunk, Coatesville, or Mechanicsville.
I enter and mass has already started. The church has countless stairs leading to niches, half-floors, sub-floors, all piled with ornate statuary, devotional niches for the BVM and Jesus, quiet hidden halls off which small rooms with pews appear. There's a lot of gold leaf and wrought iron. Small TVs hung from the ceiling beam the mass to all the parts of the church that can't see the alter.
Dream 2. To another church - St John's in Manayunk - I return after my decades-long absence to help fix and maintain the church. Years before, I took down, yanked down, the huge crucifix above the altar with the promise to restore and return it. Well I never seemed to get around to it. When I return, I see the crucifix has been stored in the upper floor - above the transept - with old pews and pipe organ parts.
A priest comes up and discovers the crucifix, as if it's been lost for years. He joyfully carries it and puts it back in its place above the altar - the church has been without a crucifix for many years.
When the priest finishes, a miraculous transformation of the old icon takes place. A bright light enters the ceiling - a white and gold light - and bathes the crucifix slowly from top to bottom. A soothing, beautiful sound of what might be angels singing is heard for the duration of the time the light takes to travel the length of the crucifix.
Finally, when the light reaches the feet of Christ, it dissipates and the dusty light of the church returns. I watch the crucifix as motes trickle along its now sun-drenched surface.
Before my eyes, as if slowly coming into focus, the renewed crucifix, it seems, has been restored beyond what I, or anyone, could have done.
Jesus is glorious in thick shining silver with gold accent. He is easily 12 feet high - as big as God but in the form of man. The cross itself seems to be the one He actually died on - the wood is unfamiliar to me - very dark, thick, rough hewn - like ancient ship timbers found in a cranberry bog. Strong timbers, fit to carry the Son of God during his final moments as a man.
I am awed at the size and weight and mass of Christ and His cross.
How could anyone have lifted let alone carried such a thing? We are all so overjoyed at the miraculous restoration of our crucifix, by Divine Providence after being lost for so long. I awake thinking, "With God, anything is possible."
+PAX
Children, the physically malformed, & coolness.
Children are drawn to the physically malformed among us. The curious - the differences - draw children. Unlike adults, however, young children are perhaps more likely to have compassion for and to more easily accept someone who looks and acts differently. On the other hand, children could be more likely to be cruel to anyone who is different(ly abled).
But the real cruelty comes later, doesn't it, when children become "cool"? What is cool and when does it start? How does it start? To be cool is to be cut-off from the natural world, cut off from ourselves and other people. Coolness was the most synthetic state we've yet invented - only recently overtaken by VR.
Purpose :
The purpose of this blog is to record my observations, comments, questions, reasoning, conclusions, and anything else that may help clarify my perceptions of the world around me.
Granted, being a homesteader within the farmlands of southern New Jersey, my perceptions may skew wildly from the cultural norms and mores, if any, of television talk shows, celebrity book lists, and other non-content providers.
This does not imply that content can be found here, but here's as good a place as any.
