the lonely life. . . .

It was a very great insight to me to consider that prophets were generally not terribly well-received by the people around them. It makes me feel a bit better about my own writings and insights not generally having been enthusiastically received. . . . And for a while, there, it tended to shut me up a bit. Truth be told, I pretty much stopped writing for a while.

One reason was the lack of a kindly reception, the second, the king's general dislike of self-disclosure. You remember the king? My beloved spouse. And I do try and honor his preferences. But it's hard to write without self-disclosure. In fact, I think I'll say that good writing is impossible without it. My own writing was becoming more and more of an ordeal. So I've taken a break.

Am I back? I don't know. I rather hope so. I did want to check back in, though, and at least drop a line here. I've missed the prophet and the friends. Some prophet friends I keep in touch with in other ways, but some are only here. I write differently here than I write anywhere. I miss it. Over the last few days, I've enjoyed reading old entries, re-thinking old thoughts.

The country is at a cross-roads. If ever there was the need for clear vision, now is that time. But speaking of time, it's the wee small hours of the morning and propheting is probably best done on a good night's sleep. We'll see how this goes. Did anyone miss me when I was gone? I wonder. And I wonder if anyone will notice that I'm back! Ah - again - we'll see how this goes. Signing off again,

another day. . . .

Wow. Coming back to life again. Slowly.

I took the weekend 'off'.

Emancipated Son #2 was in from London (arriving the day before D-Day but not dreadfully underfoot until D-day, but after I'd finished printing, which was a good thing). So that meant that Emancipated Son #1 and wife were here Saturday and Sunday - and they're all heading out with the king and my dad for a round of golf this morning.

Meanwhile, construction in the woods kicks off today: the bulldozers arrive. I had to go to the woods on Sunday to discuss if there were any trees in the LOD ("limits of disturbance") that could be spared. . . . I felt like an executioner. I did manage to save like 4, but my favorite beech grove took a big hit. It will be painful to see.

Funny how that works though. That you have to raze what was there, before you can build anew. Not that I'd want to talk too much about Foucault and 'deconstruction' - because that guy just drives me crazy - but even Hannah Arendt notes that human creativity is done in violence. Namely, the violent 'fashioning' of something into something else. Consider the 'making' of a table, for example. It includes within it the chopping down of trees and planing of wood and cutting to size, etc., etc. (redundant 'etc.', I know. But it doesn't sound as good, otherwise).

So, too, to build a house, you have first to score the earth to make a solid - uncluttered - foundation.

I don't have to like it, though. Even though I know it is necessary and will work out for 'good' in the end. . . .

Still trying to figure out what life looks like now, post-dissertation. I'm not completely out of the woods, insofar as I have to get ready for the viva voce. . . . and have to stay sharp. Actually, there's some more reading I need to do on Ricoeur. Magda, bless her heart, told me to take a few days off and enjoy, but then to stay sharp and keep reading. The really cool thing was that she also said that she could really see how the paper came together, at the end. It feels good to think that I may have won her over . . . and if I've won her over, maybe that means all will be well also with the examiners! I hope.

Anyway, I'm not borrowing trouble here. I'll keep reading, and re-read the dissertation several times before the viva, and then go in and pretend it's like an appellate hearing. This, I know how to do.

I also get to read some non-philosophy - what a treat! My friend Nonessential Equipment posted a list of her favorite 10 books here, which got some of her buddies to post 10 of theirs, and there's so many books I've never read that sound so wonderful! Today, I think I'm going to sit down and figure out my favorite 10, but also start a book pile for regular reading again.

What a concept.

In the meantime, there's laundry, ironing (so that's where my 3 favorite shirts are!!!) and thinking about starting to pack for Florida. Wedding. sigh. and I have to hem a gown.

And before I do anything - send email to my Dublin runner to sort out final details of binding & turn-in instructions. It may be off my plate, but it's actually not across the goal yet! That happens tomorrow. Lord willing. . . .

and a bit of music. . . .

a little Sarah. . . . Who says it so well. And yet, there is redemption.

chapter 4

in which our hero finishes the chapter and sends it off to the other side of the ocean and now has to decide how to END THIS THING she started. . .

Which, of course, brings me back to the beginning. . . . well, of course! In that paradoxical way that seems to impress itself on me from so many directions. Ends are beginnings; beginnings, ends. Judgment finds myself condemned, and love lets me see the hate. sigh.

I started out on this particular journey some 5 years ago now. I woke up - pre-dawn - in the tiny dark bedroom that was mine at the time. That was three moves ago, and a summer stay, away. I had a symbol in my mind: a circle, with two bent lines - one on either side.

And words: A new way of thinking, that goes beyond Francis Schaeffer.

I wrote it down on a little card. I still have it. Somewhere!

Francis Schaeffer?

He's a guy who wrote about how philosophy has ruined our lives - sort of. He was upset about Hegel adding 'synthesis' to thesis and antithesis. He thought things should be either one way or another - so, either thesis OR antithesis. (Make up your mind, will ya?!! It's gotta be one or the other. None of this messin' around, gray area stuff. That's just sloppy logic.)

Hegel thought that thesis and antithesis battle it out, and come up with synthesis - which in turn, turns into its OWN thesis, and the cycle starts again.

It sounds innocuous. In fact, it probably describes how just about everyone we know thinks. Now, anyway. It's not how people used to think, and that's an amazing thought. Anyway, the reason Schaeffer was upset about this was because it messes around with 'absolute truth' and that was problematic for Schaeffer as a Christian. If there actually was no absolute truth, what happens to faith in God? Does it become the magic leap 'in the dark' so many ascribe to Kierkegaard? Is it a blind, irrational, force-of-will choice? Or can it be more than that?

Schaeffer describes this philosophical divide as the "line of despair".

So - how have I "gone beyond" his thought?

I would agree with him that Hegel's one-, two-, three-step process of ordering the world is not a promising one for blanket application. But not for the reason Schaeffer would. I object to it because so often the really big questions are a 'none of the above' situation, or a 'both/and". Paradox, in other words. This requires - somehow, sometimes - that we be able to incorporate two apparently opposed values into our lives as "truth". Freedom and obedience; happiness and suffering; love and hate; ends, and means!

I wouldn't agree with Schaeffer's attempt to 'go back' to black/white thinking, however. I don't know that it's possible, for one. I think we're capable of moving forward, nonetheless. Where logical notions of TRUTH fail, personal experience and RELATIONSHIP holds. That's not to say I'm giving up on truth. I might just as well say I'm giving up on air! Nope. . . . we're truth-seeking missiles, that's for sure. It's just the way we are. Facticity - as the philosophers and theologians call it. The "what is" - without necessarily going into how it got there (i.e., creation, cosmic boom, or flying spaghetti monsters. . . .)

I guess I see a transcendent that breaks out - and through - the line of despair. It might look very much like the symbol I dreamed of: the circle coming upward and through the line (I could never figure out what the bent lines were on either side. . . .) breaking the line and floating upwards.

And yet. . . . still IN the line - at the moment - as we are caught in finite existence. Facticity again! Geworfenheit - as we are 'thrown' into this world and find ourselves landed here. . . .

The circle is moving up, though.

And the line gives way.

what's a prophet to do?

There's a whole dialogue going on out there in the blogosphere and I'm tired of having to come up with a name if and when I want to have a say. I never did trust 'anonymous' postings so I finally hit on 'prophet' - which is a great word until you look at it too long or type it too often and then it becomes like the word 'school' or 'artichoke' and it morphs into a meaningless set of apparently unpronounceable letters, whose order is suddenly random and possibly wrong. . . . My advice: don't put ANY word under that kind of scrutiny. They all start wriggling around.

So 'prophet' I became. And it was good.

And then I thought: "Why not start my own blog?"

Another splendid idea! I started to set up the 'prophet' blog only to discover that some guy named Josh set one up under that name back in 2001 to chronicle the adventures of a "normal guy livin [sic] it up in the Great White North. Alaska!" (with his little dog, Chi Chi, too. . .) He calls it: "Burning Ring of Fire".

I fear for his life, as he has not posted anything since 2001.

Since that first posting, in fact. The 'burning ring of fire' must have done him in. Or maybe it was the dog. . . .

I'll have to watch out on my account not to fall prey to the same danger - even though I live many miles south of Alaska, where it is comfortingly green. Raining now, in fact. I think I'm safe for another day. (and I don't have a dog. Not yet.)

. . . . 'and the prophet said "Let there be a PROPER prophet blog, then!" and it was so. And the prophet saw that it was good, whatever that means these days, and that now at least we could talk about it. . . . And it was evening, and there was morning - the first day. . . ."