I hear the bells

My favorite poet in the world, living or dead, is John Donne (1572-1631).  One of his most famous works is this:

No man is an island, entire of itself; 

every man is a piece of the continent, 

a part of the main. 

If a clod be washed away by the sea, 

Europe is the less, 

as well as if a promontory were, 

as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: 

any man's death diminishes me, 

because I am involved in mankind, 

and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 

it tolls for thee. 

Well known phrases here -  but what's not as well known is that this is a very small section in a larger meditation (Meditation 17) in which Donne explores how trouble can serve to draw us closer to God, whether the trouble is ours directly or that of someone else we know: it can make us meditate on the brevity of life and the increasing nearness of eternity.  Here is the rest of the meditation, for your contemplation and meditation.  :)

-o-o-o-

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

Relational Ethics (and theology, too)

Currently I'm teaching as an adjunct instructor at a local university campus.  It's not for the money, nor because I'm bored, but rather trying to keep in practice and add to my teaching resume', so that in retirement I can point back to classes I've taught and hopefully get some adjunct work to bring in a little extra cash when my full-time job days are behind me.

I only teach one class per academic year, which in the last couple of years had been a World Religions course.  This year its an Ethics course, so there's a good measure of philosophy built into it.  We're studying anything from Aristotle to modern day feminists, from Virtue Ethics, to Deontology (Duty Ethics) to Utilitarianism (the greatest good) to Natural Law Ethics.  As I've been working my way through these systems with the students I noticed that in one way or another all of these major systems are dependent in one way or another on reason for their basis.  Even those ethical systems which may have a religious foundation rely on reason.  Both Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant were religious scholars, believing in a Creator God, but both argued that ethics can be derived absent a particular Theology, simply by reasoning from what distinguishes humanity as a species from the rest of the "created order".

And yet, as human beings, relationality precedes both reason and faith; we learn to feel before we learn to think, before we learn to pray.  We have a warm and meaningful relationship with our parents and siblings before we can distinguish between right and wrong, and well before the age of accountability.  Should not, then, an ethical system first consider relationships prior to reason and religion?

It seems to me that there is an element missing in ethical discussions thus far and that is the emotion involved in moral decisions, which grows in importance the closer you are to the moral quandary (family member, loved one, self).  Because we are relational beings, close relationships affect us more than do distant ones.  An ethical system like Utilitarianism, which is used so much in public policy debates, is relatively distant and cold in the way it "calculates", in an economic sense, what is the greatest good that can be achieved in an ethical dilemma.  What is needed as a counterbalance is an ethical system that recognizes the emotional component to decision making.  The "rational man" argument used so much in economics and law is flawed because it assumes detachment.  But in real life we are not detached; rather, we are emotionally invested in moral choices, and no less so than when those choices involve us and those we love.  We need an "emotional man" argument in addition to a "rational man" one in order to fully account for how people choose a course of action or react to another person's choice.

What I am calling for here is a system of ethics I'll refer to as Relational Ethics.  In a subsequent post I'll point out some of the features of this system (which I may in fact be inventing, because I can't find anything like it out there in the literature.  Maybe there's a book, or at least a thesis, in this for me!)   I think there is also a system of Theology that parallels this, Relational Theology, which I'll also try to articulate in posts to come.

A year in the life of a tree

Nearly every day, I park underneath the same tree in the parking lot at my office.  I love this tree.  She is the prettiest one in the whole parking lot, and when she's looking especially gorgeous, I always tell her so.  :)  You are just the cutest thing, I say, just stunning.  And I particularly like it when she begins frosting her leaves in early Fall... she knows I do, of course, and so she does that for me every year.  She's sweet that way.

So I thought I would try to take a picture of her from the same spot once or twice a month for an entire year (maybe more often in Autumn when her appearance changes daily).  My labor of love is now complete, and here is the result (now that I've figured out how to create a .gif from stills).

Presenting....  my beautiful parking lot companion, in all her lush and stark glory.

http://giphy.com/gifs/3rgXBDFrwNnSMndNde

Isn't she lovely?

I knew you'd think so.  :)

November Is Also Travel Month

Last year I had some significant travel in October and November, but this year it seemed quite a bit more.  What follows are photos of trips to 1) Bermuda, 2) NYC, 3) Soldier Field, and 4) TCF Bank Stadium.  And yes... all were business trips.  Sort of.  Vendors at times are ... generous.  :)

1) Bermuda

 2) New York City

3) Soldier Field (Packers vs Bears)

4) TCF Bank Stadium (Packers vs Vikings)

Out of the woods it comes

Just back home from another year's personal retreat to a wooded, rural place where there's not much to do except read, sing, pray, think & evaluate where I am in life.

Such a dull subject, that last...  ;)

This year for the first time in I don't know how long, I repeated a location.  Normally I find someplace new, but a combination of lack of new places within a decent driving distance, and good memories of one I visited 4 years ago made the decision easy.

As to the accommodations, they were Spartan.  I rented a "hermitage", which was a straw-bale hut with propane powered stove & water heater, and solar power only for everything else (no normal AC outlets for radios, cell-phone chargers, etc.).  There was running water, at least, and a real bathroom.  It was essentially a teeny little studio apartment, which would have cost $1350/mo. in Berkeley, CA (based on my daughter's actual experience there), but parking was free, and linens provided.

A couple of views of things next.  First, looking from the main lodge toward the "hermitage".

Next, a zoom on the hermitage building I was in.

A view from my hermitage doorway.

The kitchen.  Such as it was.

Turn around, and ... there's the bed.  Not much to the place, but it did the job.

So as to the "read, sing, pray, think" part... that all went off without a hitch.

And the evaluation:  the trend is up!  :)

October is Travel Month - Again

This is that stretch of the year where I spend 6 weeks straight either going, or preparing to go, to London, Germany, Bermuda, and NYC on business, as well as off into the woods for a few days on retreat.  I enjoy the travel, even though at my age I am not as resilient as I used to be, and take a while to recover.  Right now I'm home, with the first two destinations behind me (see below), and the into-the-woods part coming up.

You've heard the expression:  "Getting there is half the fun"?  Not this time.  Just got back from 10 days in Europe pitching my company's story to reinsurance markets.  The meetings went great, but the traveling... was brutal.  Explaining to people that you are doing some foreign travel for business is often greeted by "oh, how marvelous for you!", as if it's a paid vacation to exotic lands or something.  Ha!  Yes, there are sightseeing opportunities, which are great, but when the planes, trains, and automobiles part fail you... it is far from glamorous.

Suffice to say that spending the night sleeping on the floor of O'Hare airport trying to get to London, and having your train to Augsburg from Munich cancelled altogether due to a suicide on the tracks, makes you really glad for a few hours sitting at an open-air table enjoying a beer on the square.  Simple pleasures grow larger when they follow after personal disruption.  :)

But the third time was the charm, and heading home was comparatively easy.  All you have to do is click your heels together three times, and say:   (oh, you know the rest, right?)

On to the travel photos.  I don't think I got more than a mile from my hotel on any leg of the trip, so all of these scenes are close by.  First of the City of London:

Well, that was 6 days in London (meeting rooms and business dinners excluded).  Someday, when we meet face-to-face, dear reader, I'll narrate them for you.  Most, though, are self-explanatory as you've no doubt already found.

On to Germany, then, my second stop.  I begin with the hotel, and what non-business sights there were to see over the course of 4 days.  I found that my German came back respectably, so that I was able to converse with waitstaff and shopkeepers fairly well, not to mention reading menus and street signs decently.  :)   Augsburg is over 2,000 years old (1,000 years older than Munich), and was founded by its namesake, the Emperor Augustus, a statue of whom is prominent atop a fountain in the Rathausplatz.  Technically speaking, it's in Swabia, considered by most to be part of Bavaria, although the alt-schule locals respectfully dispute that.

So there you have it, mate.  Cheers!  Und Auf Wiedersehen,!