momentary

Sunny Day Real Estate, in perhaps the best album I've ever heard _The Rising Tide_, has a song call "One."
The music is incredible, and the lyrics move mountains ...
I'd play the song for you, but in this setting, I can only give you the lyrics. Trust me, you still don't deserve this gift.

And it's strange
How we're wasting our lives
Novacaine
When the pain helps us rise
Here we stay

Though it's only a clever game
Running from our lives
And we linger on...
But if we try
To lift up our eyes
Replacing the lies
We own this moment

Everything and everyone and in the end we all are one
The truth will not be denied
Everything and everyone and in the end we all are one
The truth will not be denied

And it's strange
How we're selling our time
And we wait

We are lost in a clever game
Running from our lives
And they lead us on...
But if we try
To lift up our eyes
Replacing the lies
We own this moment

own it.

-s.o

awake to the wrong thing

Okay, so this thing is called "awakening" ... pretty cheesy, I know.
but i have a question: (in the great sense in which i mean it - "i've never met a man who was fully awake; how could i look him in the face?") - can one be awake to the wrong thing?
i mean, can you have all the sensations of being awake and out of slumber and active and participatory and filled with momentum, but actually still be wrong? i don't know. maybe deep down i know i'm still not awake in some areas and so this whole question becomes scrutinized and objectable.

it's just that ... sometimes you push so hard, go so hard, try so hard - you feel awake. but again, there is failure and rejection and emptiness and utter confusion too. how can that be "awake"?
or then again, maybe you feel that way because there are sleepers all around who are snoring and speaking and even sleep-walking - they scare you and confuse you. you wish they would just sleep quietly or maybe, wake up.

but then again, again: are you even awake?

i'm gonna sleep on it...

s.o

what are words worth at 12:31am?

Let me record it for you:

"O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in everything."

-w. wordsworth

here i go a thinking ... and to go silent would be the best way.
remember, "be still and know ..."

STILL = knowing,

-s.o

the definition

"He thought he saw the Great Dance ... and that part of him which could reason and remember was dropped farther and farther behind that part of him which saw. Even then, at the very zenith of complexity, complexity was eaten up and faded, as a thin white cloud fades into the hard blue burning of the sky, and a simplicity beyond all comprehension, ancient and young as spring, illimitable, pellucid, drew him with cords of infinite desire into its own stillness. He went up into such a quietness, a privacy, and a freshness that at the very moment when he stood farthest from our ordinary mode of being he had the sense of stripping off emcumbrances and awaking from a trance, and coming to himself..."
C.S. Lewis - _Perelandra_

should we trust Aristotle?

i know i've friends who might say i should. i'd like to. he once said, "philosophy begins in wonder." i WANT to trust that! i do trust that.
i love that phrase because i know that any "philosophy" (however silly or simple or unclear) i have - it was born of wonder. right now, i'm diggin thoreau. that dig began & con10ues in wonder. it's remarkable that it was birthed by a surprised and inspired reading of a few passages ... and now ... well, i'm changing my diet (that's my life).
so, why change? why make any change, big or small?
it's not legalism, it's not to impress, it's not inforced or really even recommended by someone close...

i have philosophy & change & worship - because of wonder.
and it's only the beginning.

-s.o

is this the beginning?

i wonder if we have new beginnings, really. can't we really just call this the next step. can't we just realize that that might in fact be a wonderful thing. we aren't simply beginning NOW - it has come to this. and i like that phrase, "so, it's come to this." it is a phrase that feels like it might be followed by something big. and that's the power of this nonbeginning.

SO - this is not a beginning. it has come to this. there are many things to do, and maybe a few things should be said too. we'll see about that.

shall we begin?