Comments on: Walking with whatever

By: Via Negativa » Blog Archive » Some good news, ending in cat vomit

Via Negativa » Blog Archive » Some good news, ending in cat vomit — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:20:14 +0000

[...] That new anthology of poet-bloggers I mentioned two weeks ago is out, from the new, Montreal-based Phoenicia Publishing. Writers and artists have always formed groups for mutual support, commentary, and encouragement, sometimes collaborating on public projects from group shows to hand-printed literary magazines. But while one tends to think of local writers hanging out in Paris cafÃ©s in the 1930s, or on the lower East side of New York in the 1950s, how does that desire for communication and creative inspiration translate into today’s online world? [...]

By: Natalie d'Arbeloff

Natalie d'Arbeloff — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 11:34:08 +0000

Dave, I’m late, I’m late, but absolutely glowing with joy to read the way you’ve woven together in truly wild-God fashion these different strands, including my “interviews”. This is the kind of thing I always hope will happen when setting out on a “walk” in the God-wilderness, the uncharted territory which lies beyond the neat streets lined with well-defined churches and mosques and synagogues and temples of all kinds. In that outback, all the signposts point to Uncertainty and all that happens is coincidence and all you need to survive is a mind full of questions, the more imaginative the better, and a stick to draw the answers in the sand, which are immediately swept away to be replaced by others.
Thank you.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:38:03 +0000

Well, if I lived in your town, I’d go hear you and/or your wife preach, and might even make a habit of it. Gosh, though, I haven’t thought about suchness in years! I went through a Zen period in my teens and early twenties. But Buber’s I and Thou brought me – like so many other poet- and artist-types – back to the West. I agree with the phenomenologists that Western metaphysics is a dead-end based on an inappropriate reification (there’s your word!) of the gerund form of the copulative. But to me, that just makes the Tanakh more interesting: to realize (as Robert Alter said on NPR a couple weeks ago) that ruah really does simply mean “breath,” not “soul” or “spirit”! Very liberating. As for suchness: the Zen didn’t stick, but the philosophical Daoism did, and so I find myself thinking that if we have to have a word for it, man, we’re really fucked.

By: Brett

Brett — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:47:58 +0000

Hey Dave, thanks so much for the thoughtful reply. I can say as a clergyperson that I am often enriched by your thinking and writing, and I suspect that I am not alone among my companions when I wish we had more people like you in our congregations! I read a great little essay today by Richard Rodriguez; he said, “Atheism is wasted on the non-believer.” Exactly–atheism is for us strugglers.

Also, in a few posts you talk about your experience with the grackles. I’ve also been reading about Buddhism this week–I wonder if a Buddhist would recognize your experience as tathata, which I gather means something like “thatness” or “suchness.” Wondrous thing.

By: Via Negativa » Blog Archive » Flock

Via Negativa » Blog Archive » Flock — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:00:47 +0000

[...] About three-quarters of the way up the ridge, a flock of grackles suddenly came flying low over the treetops from the northeast. As I was focusing on that, a larger flock swept in from the other direction and the two of them met almost directly overhead. They wheeled about in one great spiral, doing exactly what I had tried to provoke the flock on Sunday into doing without success, their wings making a sound like the crashing of surf, or perhaps an angelic applause. Then they flew off toward the south and I didn’t see or hear another grackle the rest of the morning. [...]

By: Lucy

Lucy — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 05:52:17 +0000

That is a big wow. Articulate, generous, wide-ranging, and too many other places to jump to for me to cope with. The kind of thing that fills the good angel in me with wonder and gratitude, and makes the bad one smart with a sense of smallness and defeat! I’ll follow just one link for now…

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:18:19 +0000

At the very least, I expect the local Sufis to take a hit out on you. "They often describe their discipline as the quest to know the one-hundredth name of Allah and thus to merge their consciousness with the divine reality," according to this website.

By: Lorianne

Lorianne — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:32:57 +0000

I think “whatever” is the 100th name of God, but only when intoned in the disinterested style of an exasperated teen: “What…Ever.”

(Or as they’d say in Boston, “What…Evah.”)

I’m expecting lightning to strike at any moment, or a tough guy in a GOD t-shirt to arrive at my door…

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:18:21 +0000

Rachel – Nice coincidence. As it happens – and I say this with no intention to flatter – “Rachel” has always been one of my favorite women’s names, an impression probably influenced not only by the sound of it but also by the vivid personality of its original bearer. But I always felt sorry for her sister with the funny eyes.

Angie – Hey, welcome back! I do keep up with your blog via RSS, though that’s not saying much since you haven’t been posting too often. Hope to see more of you soon.

Zhoen – enjoying the unknowable in a thick jacket of curiosity
Interesting image! I tend to think of curiosity as a willingness to be naked, to be vulnerable, so thanks for challenging that.

Brett – Yeah, that’s why I love the Bible – because it isn’t unified, and gives support to a number of different, often opposing viewpoints. Also because, except for some of the Christian parts, it doesn’t have any theology in it!

Not reification, just an ordinary, broad generalization doing violence to particulars.

wild ass – Psalm 104 is my favorite!

Our thinking about wilderness is so influenced by the Bible, as I guess I’ve written here more than once, that I wonder whether doing away with the notion of top-down order doesn’t in fact render the whole wild-domestic dichotomy untenable. Except that with animal and plant domestication, the difference from their wild relatives is way more than semantic, and I do think there’s a really useful (i.e. thought-provoking) analogy to be made between selective breeding and the increasing cultural simplification and standardization that societies seem to go through as they become more centralized. It’s not just religion, it’s everything connected with the life of the mind. I think you’ve read enough ethnography to know what I’m talking about.

But you’re right: this isn’t really a comment on religion per se, which changes as peoples’ needs for healing change. In other words, I vote for the 2nd of your suggested alternatives.

Thanks for being a good sport, by the way. I’m inordinantly pleased that actual ministers and rabbis sometimes find my blog worth reading.

Lorianne – Glad you liked the title, because I really struggled to come up with that. In fact, the first instar of this post had a different and altogether more pretentious title, “Walking with/out.” Then I remembered my favorite nickname for divinity, which I’m guessing is not included among the 99 beautiful names of God invoked by the Prophet.

By: Lorianne

Lorianne — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:44:09 +0000

So I read this post, clicked through to say “wow,” then scrolled up to the title: “Walking with whatever.” And I laughed out loud. What a delightful dip into the ridiculous from the sublime.

And yes, this post is wonderfully syncretic: well done.