EMPTY CHAIRS

  My personal journal, Chert Journal is its own thing and this blog has another. Chert is a common type of stone, a kissing cousin with limestone and flint, colorful with sharp edges, commonly associated with stream beds and gravel bars in southern Missouri. I thought it a good metaphor for myself. In some ways I can be interesting but then who  isn’t? What could be more Common than a retired teacher with a lesson in hand and a room of full of empty chairs? Chert Journal is about me and my story. Stones In The Road is a collection of stories to share, many are drawn from the Chert Journal. Again a metaphor, Stones In The Road can be considered hazards to avoid or be seen as pilgrims in their own right. Stones in the road need be turned over in search of a surprise discovery waiting there.
Last week I posted a piece about the Pro Life - Pro Choice controversy. I don’t usually take on controversy as I am neither buying nor selling. But it was not babies that came to the surface. It took nearly 900 words for me to hammer out that narrative. In retrospect, I am struck with my own flash of insight that only required one or two sentences. I wrote, “It’s not about babies. What legalized abortion does is, it robs men of their authority.” The argument is so easy to make. All one has to do is think about how (God) religion has subordinated women to the procreative service of man’s divine instrument. God’s purpose: it would seem that He is more committed to planting seeds than to growing plants. 
If it sounds like conspiracy theory that’s the risk of introducing stories that bigots don’t want to hear. Looking at microbes under a microscope both magnify and clarify the structure and function of tiny things up close. Looking at the world through a straw limits you to whatever a fertile imagination can fabricate from a great distance and a tiny sample. The confusion comes when wanna-believers with an unproven story argue that their straw is a microscope. Granted, most of of the (robbing men of authority) evidence is circumstantial or point of view, but there is so much of it. Add to that, common sense tradition is no better than the horse it rode in on, committed to what we (people) want to believe in the first place and how that sustains status quo. lIf you want scientific certainty you need some discipline and process to validate the premiss.
Today I wish I could sum up the story of mankind’s (Moral Construct) in two sentences. Greek and Roman scholars from Epictetus to Marcus Aurelius nailed it down pretty well. They observed, the truth is whatever we say it is. If we can agree, who would challenge us? Believing is its own truth and it can be manipulated as the need requires. The application of accurate measurement and mathematical analysis has significantly narrowed that funnel but still, it doesn’t change the way culture relies on common sense (uncorroborated prejudices we acquire in our youth). That’s how it works. Man’s authority over women has been a common sense principle since before written language, and it has been a righteous pillar of moral imperative ever since. So the view through a straw will do little to discriminate between Right (as in Righteous) and Wrong (as in Wicked). But then Right & Wrong can flip-flop anytime we agree (Roe vs. Wade); whatever we say it is.
Oh my, I haven’t even touched on where morals come from or how they work and I’m way-over my word limit. But don’t trust a common sense approach to morals and morality. It would prove woefully inadequate. I could take another swing at Morals and Morality another day but I don’t want to fuel speculation that I’m just another old teacher who would rather die with a piece of chalk in hand than live in the vacuum of empty chairs. 

RUN THE NUMBERS

  In this blog I seldom wander off into politics or religion, not much there. But several days ago I found myself weighing in on the abortion fiasco. I don’t have to be told that my compass is not calibrated like everybody else’s. Not that I’m a nut case but a few points off of magnetic north makes a difference. Being out of sync with the rest of my culture is not empowering, not enlightening, doesn’t fix anything. It just leaves me out of the loop, on the fringe. I am open enough to question my own judgment. Am I doing something wrong? I run the numbers several times and realize, no, I’m good. Kermit the frog was right, it isn’t easy being green. I’m doing what I can with what I’ve got.
The Pro Life vs Pro Choice debacle is not what it seems to be. When I run the numbers it has nothing to do with babies. Unborn babies are like tennis balls. You need them or you can’t play the game and it’s the game that counts. You don’t remember the balls that fo over the fence, only if you won or lost. I am much more sympathetic to women with a dangerous or unwanted pregnancy than with a culture that has god-like technology but is stuck both socially and emotionally in the middle ages. 
If you can, imagine back fifteen thousand years. Imagination plus language equals Story. Primitive humans needed Stories, especially when they lived in small, family clans. They took complicated, mysterious experiences, changed the context to create a simple, understandable story with the same moral message. We would call that a (myth). That was a challenging task when life was short, there were no books, no internet or microscopes, no civilized way to acquire new knowledge. Technology was fire, a pointed stick and sharp edged rocks. From that dangerous and fearful beginning, stories that featured god-like supernatural beings unfolded as religion. Sacrifice a virgin and pray for rain. Then civilization took root, agriculture and cities put lots of people in close proximity. That crowded house needed rules for the sake of order and to please the warrior-king. So together, joined at the hip, religion and government were born of the same purpose. Obviously I do not pitch my tent with the agents of omniscient, omnipotent, invisible, supernatural characters who can override nature’s rules. I have my own sacred Trinity that features Gravity, Photosynthesis and the Speed of Light. That covers it.  
Before civilization required rules, hunter-gather culture was more or less egalitarian. Men did the heavy lifting and women tended children but otherwise they cooperated of necessity and not by demand. They couldn’t ignore how interdependent they were. A family clan had to cooperate to meet their collective need. Anything that diminished one’s importance threatened the whole family. Leapfrog ahead and note that civilized culture tends to layer people into a vertical, class hierarchy, warrior-king at the top and peasants at the bottom. Equal treatment lost its way as skills and pedigrees made those well positioned people more important (powerful). Women came out on the short end of that action. Mothers were subordinated to nurturing man’s offspring and servitude. 
Connecting the dots I come up with butterflies while most of my male counterparts get guns. I suppose that is me being green again, running the numbers. Even though civilization can evolve noticeably in a human lifetime, humans themselves do not. It takes a really long time for the brain to come up with new circuits and we still need myths to appreciate what we don’t understand. 
I think it safe to say over history’s long Story, women universally have been subordinated to satisfy the whims and convenience of men and we are still honoring that primitive tradition. Back when men seized on new authority, the magic of making babies was woman’s magic, something men couldn’t do. But it was something they wanted to control; seems they still do. Abortion is robbing men of their authority; that is the grave injustice in the Roe vs. Wade decision fifty years ago. I think that is the kernel of truth in this whole issue. Abortion is robbing men of their authority. You don’t need imagination or a myth to balance those numbers. When they say, “Oh come on, that ain’t so.” oh yes, it is so. We’re still making up stories that feel righteous but with due diligence, they won’t float. Do the numbers. Things change, even soften a bit but misogyny simply will not die and stay dead. That would make God the misogynist. The issue has never been about saving babies.
In general, men don’t need to think about it. It just is. Women either accept being subordinated and concede their fate or they push back. Many women turn the other cheek and do as their culture demands. They could be either addicted to a righteous, Man created, God centered religion or have been either coerced or seduced by a testosterone paradigm where authority/control takes precedent over reciprocity and fairness. I know men personally, some in my family who would read this and stare wide eyed in disbelief; “WTF is wrong with you?” They haven’t yet but I read body language very well and I know the look. If they did I could say something like, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, maybe something, maybe nothing at all but I’m still doing the numbers and I’ll let you know if something changes.”

NOTHING TO SAY

  It has been over a week since my last blog post. Over so many years my reasons for keeping at it shift around. If it’s not one thing it’s another and they all seem to get lost for a while then find their way home again. If nothing else I write to give me something to do. A few friends and family do visit the site and they wouldn’t if they didn’t care or the writing was really bad. I feel like maybe I owe them. There is a selfish part too. There is nothing like framing language around an idea to nurture the process and I love that part. Until it has been crafted with language, like a potter at his wheel turning clay into pots, you can have experience, even a vicarious, make believe experience but you don’t have a story without words. Creating Story is to my mind what physical exercise is to muscle and bone. Without it you go soft. The more I write the more, the better I understand what I write about but it  also opens the door to relevant, peripheral stuff that slips in without an invitation. It has been over a week.
Still, I have been working on a larger project. Just how long it will be (word count) is anybody’s guess but it is already pushing 4000 words (editing as I go). Slow going waiting on the Muse, I don’t want to overreach the moment. Normal for me is; if I can’t say it in a thousand words I don’t bother. An amalgam of memoir-critique-stream of consciousness-what if-so what and it-is-what-it-is; even with a running edit it will need a major overhaul before it sees daylight. As is often the case it will serve my understanding more than someone other’s reading. Mark Twain said, “If you have noting to say, say nothing.” and I feel right now like he was speaking to me. 

I CAN'T BELIEVE I SAID THAT

  Two days ago I emptied and closed down my bird feeders, dumped upside down the birdbath. Birds on my patio have been few and far between this spring and my suspicions are confirmed. When people understand there is a deadly virus on the loose we act accordingly, at least some of us do. But birds don’t have a clue. They score high among other animals on intelligence tests but when it comes to disease, they don’t have a clue. There is a strain of Avian Flu (Bird Flu) that is laying waste to bird populations across North America just as they are about to fledge a new generation. 
The NY Times just ran an article that recommends shutting down feeders and bird baths. Avian flu is highly contagious, nearly always fatal. So in their own best interests they need help keeping to themselves and less hanging out at the birdbath. Bird feeders and baths certainly do attract them with easy access to free food, all they can eat. Feeding the birds this time of year has never been about needy birds. They have been feeding themselves for Ages without any outside help. I am guilty like other bird lovers. I love their activity, the colors, the singing, just the proximity, want them to nest in my birdhouses and they can fly; OMG they can fly. But they get along very well without our sunflower and thistle seed. Spring is a season of plenty and they don’t need us now. In January & February it gets sparse but this is the end of April. 
When asked about ‘Life’ people default straight to civilized culture and ignore the process; metabolism, replication, etc. Life is not unique to human beings. If there is anything sacred about life it would be in the process, not the vehicle. Birds may not identify with the process but they process the process perfectly. Every breath should remind us that life is both precious and fragile. It is not the ‘Yellow Brick Road’, more like swinging from vine to vine to vine (breath to breath). I you can’t make it to the next one then Fate has its way. As far as we know, you only get one go’round and it can be cut short regardless of species. 
Birds have no idea where they come from or understand that mortality is their fate. A Fight-or-Flght stress response is their only failsafe. They feed & drink, mate, reproduce and if they’re lucky their DNA gets passed on to succeeding generations. Too bad there are many millions of unlucky birds this year. I am sorry for that and  will miss the ones that no longer show up, whatever the reason. 
I can’t help making the bird-human analogy. We know where we come from and even though we work diligently at shunning our fate, fate is more persistent than we are diligent. I really like this rational, self-aware experience, don’t want to be stuck with Fight-or-Flight as an only option. I like the imagination-story connection both coming and going. I like waking up knowing my DNA is at work in generations that supersede me. I like knowing why this moment is so precious, it’s all there is. Everything happens in the present, in the moment. One needn’t be a guru to figure it out; ‘Here & Now’ subordinates both past and future. Birds don’t think at all but what is more common that people overthinking yesterday or sometime soon. 
I could beat up on the human species but I’ve done that and it doesn’t change anything. I can be both happy and informed in the present. Happy and sad can share the same space. I have lots of options and the window of possibility stays open. Good luck birds. You are in harm’s way and nothing I can do to help except shut down my feeder. Avoid strangers. Social distancing will literally be, for the birds; I can’t believe I said that.

WITH ONLY TWO EYES

  Imagine approaching a house, stepping up three steps to the porch and going to the door. You rattle the door knocker to announce yourself. After a short wait the door opens and a lady looks at you through the screen. With a short exchange you make your purpose known and step back slightly as she pushes open the screen door, an implied invitation to come in. She holds her door back and you navigate the rise of the threshold, reaching back to ease the screen door’s closing. 
The lady apologizes for the messy house as she leads you from the foyer through a lived-in dining room and into the kitchen. A girl child in a high chair is busy with a too-small spoon and a bowl of jello. She tells you the man you are looking for is in the back yard planting tulip bulbs. Outside the window you can see him on all fours, working the soil between the sidewalk and the house. With a universal nod and tilt of the head, Ann, her mane is Ann, she motions you let yourself out through the kitchen door. You step around and down, approaching the gardener. Without looking up he says, “Come on down and get your hands dirty.” 

When I sit down to write, whatever it is that I want to speak to, be it fiction or reality, instruction or persuasion it all falls into a category we call ‘Story’. It follows, by definition and by nature, that every story requires a Beginning, a Middle and an End. In the first two paragraphs I have put together a Beginning; creating a space in time with familiar imagery and plausible action. With each new bit of information the Beginning knits itself into an expanding backstory. Once enough puzzle pieces are in place the reader can grasp what is going on and follow the story track wherever it goes. The breach between the Beginning & the Middle is where the story takes off. Right here and now I am in that breach. 
When the story is straight forward with familiar elements, getting into the Middle (plot) is easy. But sometimes (often) my story moves on a tangent that is neither easy to follow nor well received in my 21st century culture. So a suitable Beginning might call for a boring lecture on the shortfalls of common sense and the folly of of faith in long held myths. I struggle with it. Sometimes I identify with Chicken Little, not with her story but with the response she gets from her peers.
Without merit certainly but I put myself in league with Astronomer & Astrophysicist Carl Sagan. In 1990 when NASA’s Voyager-1 sent back first photographs of the earth from nearly four billion miles in space he coined the phrase, “The Pale Blue Dot”. Until then the very best satellite image of earth was of a massive sphere, too great to appreciate with only two eyes. Sagan went on to describe Earth as “. . . a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” Not that I belong in the same category with Sagan but we share that same sense of fragile awe and of feeling insignificant. Paraphrasing Sagan; ‘We are the residue from long ago exploded stars; breathing, sensing, replicating arrays of stardust.’ 
If, in my sample Beginning, I had addressed the lady at the door by name, asking where her famous astronomer husband was, and she replied, “Carl is out back planting tulips.” the brach between Beginning and Middle would have narrowed. I feel the need to shortcut the gap and hope the reader comes with me. My story speaks to Human hubris and how much we are like Stone Age people. Any paleolithic newborn magically transported (beamed up) to the 21st century with good parents and opportunity would prosper as well as any other modern child; same brain, same intellect (able to learn). That means we are no different intellectually than prehistoric hunter-gatherers. I’m afraid the glory of intelligence has been overrated. Our shared, dominant ‘Flight/Fight’ instinct has not been updated or demoted since they first started beating copper nuggets into spearpoints. Whatever gives rise to the notion of superiority comes not by way of divine intervention or ongoing evolution but by virtue of technology, accumulated knowledge and dietary advances over the last ten thousand years. 
I don’t know why I am hung up on the ‘Righteous Human’ myth but I keep coming back to chew on it like a dog digging up a buried bone. People are compelled (we can’t help ourselves) to believe in some kind of a moral standard. Religion, Politics & Nationalism all meet that need pretty well. That must be it; I can’t help myself. Sagan among other heroes have known that and still find their safe fit in a human niche. When I roll out my story it rings of conspiracy theory and Chicken Little and I really don’t want to do that. I spend far too much time wrestling with ideas that only I care about. What I believe really doesn’t matter beyond me. Human hubris; Carl Sagan knew that riddle was probably insoluble but he took the high road; kindness, optimism and a gentle touch. If I make it a priority I could do that too. I don’t have to prove that I’m ‘right’. I don’t have to be ‘right’. Even if I am, what difference does it make! If I am remembered at all, by anybody, it won't be for a theory. Be kind, do what you can and trust things to work out, maybe not on the first try but keep trying, and gentle is not a weakness. Just the opposite.

CASH 2 NELSON

  Johnny Cash wrote the song, Ragged Old Flag in 1974, a testament to his faith in the Country and the goodness of the American People. The year was marked with scandal (Watergate) and civic unrest (Viet Nam). There wasn’t much to feel good about, not unlike 2020. Cash portrayed the country in a heroic context, that of a tattered, battle weary American flag with its 200 year legacy of (justifiable) violence and (noble) war. Cash’s poetry waxes pious affection with the lines; “. . . and she’s getting threadbare and wearing thin, but she’s in good shape for the shape she’s in.” 
I am reminded of the song today probably because I saw my doctor yesterday for our annual wellness checkup. She spent a lot of time with me probing and taking notes. In the same way Cash progressed from battle to battle and war to war, she moved from system to system. It seems the wear & tear on my eyes and ears cannot be restored but I have the means to cope and so get by. Broken bones have healed but all bones lose their density and mass with time. I need exercise and a good diet just to minimize that loss. Blood work all falls within desired ranges but I am not more powerful than a locomotive or able to leap tall buildings with a single bound; Superman doesn’t live here anymore.  
I offered up the Johnny Cash line; I’m in good shape for the shape I’m in. She agreed, “Yes you are!” The difference here is that Cash’s flag is a metaphor and I am flesh and blood. The (Flag) metaphor is to justify if not exalt American hubris, all under the cloak of righteous self indulgence. That is a human failing with otherwise good people. What good is being #1 if you can’t indulge in some self worship and don’t exercise your power over #2 & #3? It’s not about one person or another, but about group dynamics. I aspire only to embrace the change I cannot avoid. Still I struggle with a self inflicted separation that comes with being uncomfortably, disrespectfully different. I think I understand why people, all people, why we dwell in the myth (mirror, mirror on the wall. . .) rather than upset status quo. 
I like Johnny Cash even now, almost 20 years after his passing. His music is compelling, voice like thunder and courage to take on controversy. On his best day he was every common man’s champion, speaking ‘Truth to Power’. Still on other days he could be unforgiving, cruel and selfish. But he is still a national hero and we don’t insult our heroes with the truth. 
There have been times, not so long ago, that I would speak to issues that begged for a voice. The terms, Right & Wrong carried a moral consequence that Correct & Incorrect did not. A mistake can be corrected but being ‘Wrong’ is a moral failure. Johnny Cash and other like him believed profoundly in the Rights & Wrongs of this life. I think it a hold-over illusion from the Middle Ages, serving only the powers that be. I didn’t make the rules but I can say, “I don’t thing so”; I can say, “Hell No.” 
Epictetus (Greek philosopher) an early Stoic wrote, “There is neither good nor evil except in the thinking.” In other words, the truth is whatever we agree on, whatever we say it is. Without human consensus there is neither good nor bad. Stoicism’s popularity and following have ebbed and flowed over time. It gets serious pushback from Christian religion as it negates universal truths. With no obligation to Christian dogma I find the Stoic’s focus on logic, reason and random chance more digestible than updated mythology. 
If required to employ a current philosopher-song writer to pick up where Cash left off, demonstrating how times and ideas change, I would default to Willie Nelson. He circumvents battle flags and a prideful culture writing, “Regret is just a memory, written on my brow; I’ve forgiven everything that forgiveness will allow, and there’s nothing I can do ab out it now.” 

TRUE LORDS & LADIES

  After wakeup and half an hour of predictable, patterned behavior my morning usually kicks off with random acts that can surprise even me. I know well enough when it’s time to reset my kahooten gear and grease a Van Allen belt. I do that by conducting the morning’s first bird census. I consider it a good omen when, out the kitchen window with my first cup of coffee, I see birds on my patio feeder. House Finches and Chickadees lend grace to the moment and Titmice even more. Gold Finches bump it up a notch and promise (Happy) for the rest of the day. But a woodpecker’s arrival is akin to God’s approval. Appearance can be deceiving. The Red-belly is big and gorgeous while the Flicker is big, more mottled with bright yellow shafts on the underside of their flight feathers. They are awesome. Even at that, the true Lords & Ladies of the woodpecker world are the smaller Hairy and Downies who slip in without fanfare. They seal the deal. 
Haven’t seen a Nuthatch since before the last big snow. Don’t know what that’s all about; they rank equal or above Titmice. Next one I see I’ll consult the local shaman or voodo wizard for an interpretation. The Kahooten thing is family (my kids) jargon, a nonsense word. At first it dealt with things that go vroom but expanded to mean anything with parts. It applies when you want to sound smart but fall short with the vocabulary; or, to trick an ignorant onlooker (someone who simply doesn’t know) into thinking you know something they don’t, or it passes as a subtle, secret code-word that doesn’t mean anything, just word play.
With my 2nd cup of coffee I must choose between continuing what I have begun (writing) or move on to something new. Right now, moving on sounds better than recalibrating a discombobulated kahooten. Housework isn’t very appealing but it is necessary and I feel it sneaking up on me.